I'm no "Microsoft fanboy" as you insinuate, and I too had my difficulties with the early versions of Vista. After time and Service Packs, it's really not any worse than the XP machine I had before (YMMV). Most consumers follow the herd when they are in a realm the don't particularly understand, even educated and informed ones like most of us on/. like to think we are. Given that you are a PC repairman, your clients aren't likely to be computer gurus and would thus be out of their realm of expertise.
Example: I don't know much about computers, but I heard Vista is bad. I have Vista and have problems... MUST BE VISTA!
Obligatory Car Example: I don't know much about cars but need a good one. Everyone says Toyota's are good... so I should buy one. (Which is now the opposite thanks to recalls and herd mentality working in the opposite direction.)
Windows 7 is just Vista cleaned up and patched, not even worthy of it's own version number. If you or your clients decide that's worth paying for the same operating system yet again, that's up to you and your respective pocketbooks.
There's a ton of truth in the parent's statement. Does anyone else remember those "Mojave Experiment" commercials? The premise was, if people didn't think that the OS was "Vista" they would love it. They called this experimental new OS "Mojave" and the unaware public loved it. Replace "Mojave" with "7" and all the sudden you have a new OS with a name that isn't tainted in the public's eye. Hell if you check the version number of "Windows 7" it is actually 6.1... Vista was 6.0, XP/2000 was 5.x.
I have a 14 month old little girl that I plan on teaching to shoot when she's around 5-6 or so. That's when I learned with a lever action.22... and after then guns weren't mysterious or anything forbidden that I just had to play with. If I wanted to shoot, Dad or Grandpa was more than happy to take me. I understood what the gun was, what it was for and what happened if I pointed it at something. I also did not have easy access to the guns (locked up in cases in the top of Dad's closet.)
Knowledge and responsibility is all that's required. I commend you for going about it the right way swb. The NRA saftey classes are a great start!
[sarcasm]The government NEVER would call the domestic automakers to the carpet for a public flogging! NEVER! SURELY Mr. Toyoda didn't take a private jet to Washington![/sarcasm]
This IS (at least at it's heart) about public saftey, and good will come of it. Cars will be safer after this as companies will be less likely to cover up problems. An electronic throttle override will likely be mandated in all cars... which is a good idea regardless of if it caused this issue or not.
However, the current overreaction is probably a ploy to distract from the many other failings of the US gov't.
This fact doesn't get enough mention in airline security talks. 9/11 really changed the fight or flight (pun not intended) responses of anyone aboard a hijacked airplane. It suddenly became "comply and don nothing? probably die." or the alternative "beat that guy/guys to a pulp with my laptop? maybe live."
I believe that my reaction to such circumstances has changed for good, and can't imagine that it didn't for anyone else in the western world. I'll choose maybe live over probably die any day of the week.
The crock pot story did have a happy ending though (after icing my nose that is)... I used the crock pot as wrapping paper for some nice earrings.
I guess the crock pot story is more of a cautionary tale regarding gag gifts hiding real gifts. The moral? Use something that won't cause blunt force trauma as the gag gift:)
I would say the crock pot I gave my wife for our first valentines day was the worst gift ever... as it's the only one that was immediately air-mailed back into my face:)
Yes the aggressor is to blame, but I truly believe that kids should be taught to stand up to bullies. The rule in my house was the good 'ole standard "Boy you never start a fight, but always finish it." Call it machismo BS if you will, but aggression is the only thing these thick-headed sociopaths will understand. Try to take my lunch money, I bloody your nose. Sure I get sent to the office right along with you, maybe I even spend a day or two at home... but you sure will think twice about taking MY lunch money again. Take the poor sap's whose parents tell him to never retaliate.
I watched this very thing happen as I grew up. My younger brother was very small for his age, my cousin was a giant and they were in the same grade. My cousin's parents were very strict with a "no fighting back, tell the teachers" policy, mainly because he was so big and strong. My dad gave my brother the same rule I had. My cousin was picked on and bullied constantly, pleading with the teachers who try to stop it, but they're not always around. My brother spent a few days at home, but didn't have near the trouble.
In a perfect world, telling the appropriate authorities would solve your problems. However, the world isn't perfect and sometimes you've got to solve your problems for yourself.
They didn't try to hide the problem, and the cruise control switch is a vendor part. This problem is Toyota's fault AND they're trying to cover it up (which in the process may KILL people).
In the auto industry, recalls happen. If there isn't an inordinate amount of recalls, what's important is how the company deals with them. See Honda's recent recall because they bought faulty window switches. They admit the problem, recall the cars and fix the problem. Just like the 4.5 million cars Ford did in your example.
I agree with you to a point. I'm all for less pollution, just for the sake of less pollution. The point of contention for me is the thought that the ONLY cost would be economic. The past 100 years we've seen our standard of living and life expectancy increase at a nearly exponential rate. The cause of much of this increase? Transportation and the ability for a single human being to more easily obtain and use energy... mostly in the form of fossil fuels.
ANY form of VIABLE transportation... fossil fueled. Batteries/biofuels etc aren't there yet, so should we go back to living/dieing within a 20 mile radius as our great grand-parents did? (Unless of course they came to America on a coal powered ship.) Throw our wildly efficient modern farming techniques in there as fossil fueled as well.
Electricity? Nuclear is nice, but the world isn't comfortable (for good reason) with unstable countries having these capabilities. Solar/wind/geo-thermal etc... also nice, but not economically viable in the poorer parts of the world. Could America go nuclear + solar + wind? Sure, it would hurt financially but could be done. Could Sub-Saharan Africa? Not without even more people starving.
I'll stop there, but hopefully my point is clearly stated. I would gladly trade a couple *C warming for the vast increases in quality of life we've enjoyed over the past century. Should we try and curb emissions if possible YES!! But we mustn't lock out the developing world from the very advantages we've enjoyed, economically or otherwise. Nor should we force ourselves to go backwards! If we did, we would essentially be trading people for polar bears... if that's the choice, fuck the polar bears.
To assert that the only cost to reducing emissions are economic in nature is to dismiss the fact that economies feed people. When these economies are unduly burdened, people starve... even here in the states.
But Russia is only a part of the world and even if the IEA were right it doesn't affect anything else enough to change the fundamental conclusions about global warming.
Russia is only 11.5% of the total landmass on Earth... and likely about 40% of the Northern Hemisphere. Surely that couldn't be significant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_by_area
The US and most Western forces fought very differently than the Soviets. Stalin was essentially just throwing his countries sons & fathers into the German meat grinder in hopes of slowing it down. The Soviets were not as well armed, nor were they as effectively led as the Germans they were fighting and thus they had a MUCH higher casualty rate.
The US and Western forces would prefer to "soften" an area before attacking. Literally years of bombardment from both air and sea took place before D-Day. The US Army Air Force and RAF effectively destroyed all German industry, leaving them unable to replace the Panzers and heavy trucks that were being lost to the Russians and eventually on the Western front.
This is not unlike our strategy today as evidenced in Iraq. Step 1, remove all command & control. Step 2, remove basic infrastructure to paralyze enemy. Step 3, move in with overwhelming force. Step 4 is the tricky one... figuring out how to leave.
The Russian strategy was to keep throwing men in front of the Germans until they ran out of supplies or froze to death.
Also, as far as WW2 is concerned. It was the Soviets, and primarily the Russians, who took down Nazi Germany. The US military did not play a significant role in Europe.
You're kidding me right?
1. The US kept the British alive as a sovereign nation via all the industrial support before Dec 1941. The Brits would have put up a great fight, much more so than the French or the rest of Europe, but would have likely succumbed to the overwhelming force of the German war machine.
2. Operation Overlord ring a bell? US, British & Canadian troops launch the single greatest invasion in history?
3. Battle of the Bulge - US troops (primarily) stop a massive German counter attack.
4. Without the US, it's entirely possible that the Soviets would have just re-conquered the rest of Europe once Hitler was out of the way. That's how we ended up with the 2 Berlins in teh first place...
I could go on, but those are 3 pretty big ways (and one plausible hypothetical) in which the US played a massive role in the war in Europe. By noting what the US did, it doesn't diminish what the other nations sacrificed & contributed to the war effort and the role of the Soviets cannot be denied. Without having Hitler's attention divided among two fronts, the Russian winter, and the Soviet's willingness to sacrifice everything to defend their home, ultimate victory in Europe would have been much more difficult and maybe impossible. Had the Russians folded like the French we all would have been in serious trouble.
It should also be noted that without the US fighting Japan, they likely would have joined up with the Germans at some point (I'd guess somewhere in the "x_stans"). The Russians helped with the Japanese as well, but their contributions weren't to the scale of the American effort in the Pacific.
Does it really hurt that much to accept that 60 years ago, a country that has seen better days, had a very large part in doing something great? That it's possible that these currently unpopular people may have quite literally saved the world as we know it?
Feel free to answer in German (maybe Russian), as that's what you'd be speaking anyways.
It's pretty rare in big cities, but in small towns there's no bigger draw than the Friday night football game. So I appreciate that all schools might not be in the same position.
High school sports were so big where I grew up that the news chopper would actually fly to the big games that week and land on the practice fields. All to interview players and coaches for the 10pm news. No joke.
My High School's sports budget was almost 100% funded by ticket sales from the Friday night football games. We could put on average about 2-3k people in the stands at $5 a pop, 8 times a year. Works out to over $100k and paid for girls volleyball, baseball, swimming, wrestling, cheerleading etc. Basketball also contributed a significant but smaller ammount, simply because the gym couldn't hold more than about 2000.
I was a 160lb running back & strong saftey, and went on to get a Master's and now excell at a job in software architecture for a very large company (who's having some hard times right now). I would say that my 8 years of football taught me more about myself, others and the world and life in general than any other expereince in my life. The grit, determination and self-confidence football instilled in me, has enabled me to achieve what I have thus far in my life. Without that expereince, I'm not sure where I'd be. (Actually I'd probably be dead or in jail... lots of drugs in my old hometown and lots of dead friends before our 10yr reunion. Extra curriculars are a "good thing" (tm). )
It's not all dumb jocks out there... and in my opinion, the benefits I've recieved through my participation in sports has far out weighed any future cost I may incur. We all have to die sometime, even if you never really lived.
Perhaps I am a bit bitter. I'm currently a Software Architect for a very large company and am surrounded by folks who, whenever sports/high school/etc are brought up immediately go into the tired "jocks are dumb" rant in one way or another. Very much like the/. demographic.
In order to maintain credibility, I don't generally discuss my or my wife's past as atheletes (head cheerleader... no joke, we're that make you sick 50s sitcom couple, but we don't fit our stereotypes in the slightest). She has similar issues with (generally fat girls) going on rants about how bitchy/dumb all (ex)cheerleaders are.
I also have one heck of a time hiding my southern accent, again to maintain credibility. Southern accent == hillbilly && hillbilly == dumb.
I guess having to hide a past that you're rightly proud of for years will make you a bit bitter. And I do apologize for ranting a bit there... it wasn't roid rage, honest:)
As for the business/money thing. In many small midwestern and southern towns, it very much works as I described it. HS sports are a big draw because there's nothing better to do on a Friday night. Heck there was even a big section on the local news every night called "Home Team Friday" where the local sports casters would fly the news chopper to area games and interview coaches players and get some game footage. It was fun watching the chopper come in and land on the practice field. My mother-in-law taped it everynight for 4 years and has a stack of VHS tapes that fill a closet. One of these days I need to go in and transer the parts the wife and I are in to DVD.
Can we at/. , who always claim to be a bit more enlightened than "Joe Six-Pack," please stop with the "atheletes are all dumb jocks and get too much _____" stereotyping and whining? Surely the/. demographic skews a bit to those who were likely picked on by a "jock" at some point (or someone who they precieved as a "jock"... most bullies in my school weren't into sports, they were just big and liked getting into fights).
I was a "jock" in school, and still enjoy athletic past-times (softball, jogging, baskteball, trackdays on the bike), but I was also in the top 5% in my class. Sure, there were plenty of people who were gifted physically, and not mentally, those who were gifted mentally and not physically, and those not gifted at all. Atheletes put in more time than other students by far, especially if they still get good grades. 2hrs of practice after school everyday, and depending on the sport, 1hr of lifting weights before school. I did all this and still got the same homework everyone else did, and took the same tests.
"Atheletes get more attention and that's not fair, they should spend it on the smart kids!" (obviously paraphrasing your intent) I'm sorry to inform you of something that is pretty obvious but school is a business, whether we like it or not. What's a business all about? Making money while staying within the law (i.e. making sure kids learn standards and pass tests). What exactly is the value proposition of you being extra smart for the school? There isn't one. If you're smart enough to pass and maybe get into ANY college, rent an aircraft carrier and get a giant "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner ready.
What was my "value proposition" over and above passing and getting into college? Money. I was a 3 year varsity running back and all-confrence two of those 3 years. When we were doing well or playing against a rival school, we would routinely get 5,000 people in the stands that Friday night... each one paying $5 to get in (I think that was the price, it's been a few years now) and then buying consessions. Figure 6 home games a year and we've made quit a bit of cash, even after equipment costs. Then there's basketball which makes close to the same (less people, more games).
The money the school got ON MY BACK went to pay for everything from the girls soccer team, to the new computer lab.
So why do atheletes get a little more attention? 2 reasons... we bring in money, and general visibility. Everyone knows the guy's name who rushed for 100yds last Friday. Some people may not even know that the quiet kid in class even exists (smart or not)... you've gotta do something to stand out in the crowd or you're just a part of it.
Is that fair? Maybe not, but neither is life. In real life only your mom thinks you're special and to everyone else, if you haven't done something that they can't/won't/wouldn't/couldn't then you're just another person, like everyone else.
What others won't/wouldn't can really lead to some bad things if you're NOT an athelete. "That guy's crazy, I wouldn't take so much acid" for example. Sports are an exceedingly healthy way to stand out from the crowd, especially given the alternatives!
Am I saying that acedemics should take a backseat? Not in the slightest! I just really resent the idea that many on/. espouse that beign SMART and being ATHELETIC are mutually exclusive. They are not and never have been. Get over the group inferiority complex! PLEASE!
If you belong in said group, feel free to mod me down. It might make you feel better to get back and one of those damned "jocks."
Another rider here. If you're going down try to scrub off speed and get away from the bike! Don't try and control it's slide, just let it go and stop youself if possible!
As the saying goes...
If you love it let it go,
if it comes back to you, you've high-sided!
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+5 interesting for an apropos "have we learned nothing from Tolkien?"
...
:)
News for nerds indeed!
/. Blasphemy Alert!!!
The kid can just turn the damned computer off.
I'm no "Microsoft fanboy" as you insinuate, and I too had my difficulties with the early versions of Vista. After time and Service Packs, it's really not any worse than the XP machine I had before (YMMV). Most consumers follow the herd when they are in a realm the don't particularly understand, even educated and informed ones like most of us on /. like to think we are. Given that you are a PC repairman, your clients aren't likely to be computer gurus and would thus be out of their realm of expertise.
... MUST BE VISTA!
... so I should buy one. (Which is now the opposite thanks to recalls and herd mentality working in the opposite direction.)
Example: I don't know much about computers, but I heard Vista is bad. I have Vista and have problems
Obligatory Car Example: I don't know much about cars but need a good one. Everyone says Toyota's are good
Windows 7 is just Vista cleaned up and patched, not even worthy of it's own version number. If you or your clients decide that's worth paying for the same operating system yet again, that's up to you and your respective pocketbooks.
There's a ton of truth in the parent's statement. Does anyone else remember those "Mojave Experiment" commercials? The premise was, if people didn't think that the OS was "Vista" they would love it. They called this experimental new OS "Mojave" and the unaware public loved it. Replace "Mojave" with "7" and all the sudden you have a new OS with a name that isn't tainted in the public's eye. Hell if you check the version number of "Windows 7" it is actually 6.1 ... Vista was 6.0, XP/2000 was 5.x.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mojave-experiment/
I have a 14 month old little girl that I plan on teaching to shoot when she's around 5-6 or so. That's when I learned with a lever action .22 ... and after then guns weren't mysterious or anything forbidden that I just had to play with. If I wanted to shoot, Dad or Grandpa was more than happy to take me. I understood what the gun was, what it was for and what happened if I pointed it at something. I also did not have easy access to the guns (locked up in cases in the top of Dad's closet.)
Knowledge and responsibility is all that's required. I commend you for going about it the right way swb. The NRA saftey classes are a great start!
[sarcasm]The government NEVER would call the domestic automakers to the carpet for a public flogging! NEVER! SURELY Mr. Toyoda didn't take a private jet to Washington![/sarcasm]
... which is a good idea regardless of if it caused this issue or not.
This IS (at least at it's heart) about public saftey, and good will come of it. Cars will be safer after this as companies will be less likely to cover up problems. An electronic throttle override will likely be mandated in all cars
However, the current overreaction is probably a ploy to distract from the many other failings of the US gov't.
This fact doesn't get enough mention in airline security talks. 9/11 really changed the fight or flight (pun not intended) responses of anyone aboard a hijacked airplane. It suddenly became "comply and don nothing? probably die." or the alternative "beat that guy/guys to a pulp with my laptop? maybe live."
I believe that my reaction to such circumstances has changed for good, and can't imagine that it didn't for anyone else in the western world. I'll choose maybe live over probably die any day of the week.
Raise the cost of shipping electronics? Sounds like quite a boon to Best Buy ...
The crock pot story did have a happy ending though (after icing my nose that is) ... I used the crock pot as wrapping paper for some nice earrings.
:)
I guess the crock pot story is more of a cautionary tale regarding gag gifts hiding real gifts. The moral? Use something that won't cause blunt force trauma as the gag gift
I would say the crock pot I gave my wife for our first valentines day was the worst gift ever ... as it's the only one that was immediately air-mailed back into my face :)
Yes the aggressor is to blame, but I truly believe that kids should be taught to stand up to bullies. The rule in my house was the good 'ole standard "Boy you never start a fight, but always finish it." Call it machismo BS if you will, but aggression is the only thing these thick-headed sociopaths will understand. Try to take my lunch money, I bloody your nose. Sure I get sent to the office right along with you, maybe I even spend a day or two at home ... but you sure will think twice about taking MY lunch money again. Take the poor sap's whose parents tell him to never retaliate.
I watched this very thing happen as I grew up. My younger brother was very small for his age, my cousin was a giant and they were in the same grade. My cousin's parents were very strict with a "no fighting back, tell the teachers" policy, mainly because he was so big and strong. My dad gave my brother the same rule I had. My cousin was picked on and bullied constantly, pleading with the teachers who try to stop it, but they're not always around. My brother spent a few days at home, but didn't have near the trouble.
In a perfect world, telling the appropriate authorities would solve your problems. However, the world isn't perfect and sometimes you've got to solve your problems for yourself.
They didn't try to hide the problem, and the cruise control switch is a vendor part. This problem is Toyota's fault AND they're trying to cover it up (which in the process may KILL people). In the auto industry, recalls happen. If there isn't an inordinate amount of recalls, what's important is how the company deals with them. See Honda's recent recall because they bought faulty window switches. They admit the problem, recall the cars and fix the problem. Just like the 4.5 million cars Ford did in your example.
I agree, save for the thinly-veiled Godwin attempt :)
...
That $50T could feed/clothe/vaccinate/educate millions
I agree with you to a point. I'm all for less pollution, just for the sake of less pollution. The point of contention for me is the thought that the ONLY cost would be economic. The past 100 years we've seen our standard of living and life expectancy increase at a nearly exponential rate. The cause of much of this increase? Transportation and the ability for a single human being to more easily obtain and use energy ... mostly in the form of fossil fuels.
... fossil fueled. Batteries/biofuels etc aren't there yet, so should we go back to living/dieing within a 20 mile radius as our great grand-parents did? (Unless of course they came to America on a coal powered ship.) Throw our wildly efficient modern farming techniques in there as fossil fueled as well.
... also nice, but not economically viable in the poorer parts of the world. Could America go nuclear + solar + wind? Sure, it would hurt financially but could be done. Could Sub-Saharan Africa? Not without even more people starving.
... if that's the choice, fuck the polar bears.
... even here in the states.
ANY form of VIABLE transportation
Electricity? Nuclear is nice, but the world isn't comfortable (for good reason) with unstable countries having these capabilities. Solar/wind/geo-thermal etc
I'll stop there, but hopefully my point is clearly stated. I would gladly trade a couple *C warming for the vast increases in quality of life we've enjoyed over the past century. Should we try and curb emissions if possible YES!! But we mustn't lock out the developing world from the very advantages we've enjoyed, economically or otherwise. Nor should we force ourselves to go backwards! If we did, we would essentially be trading people for polar bears
To assert that the only cost to reducing emissions are economic in nature is to dismiss the fact that economies feed people. When these economies are unduly burdened, people starve
But Russia is only a part of the world and even if the IEA were right it doesn't affect anything else enough to change the fundamental conclusions about global warming.
Russia is only 11.5% of the total landmass on Earth ... and likely about 40% of the Northern Hemisphere. Surely that couldn't be significant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_by_area
Posted by an AC ... delicious irony there :)
The US and most Western forces fought very differently than the Soviets. Stalin was essentially just throwing his countries sons & fathers into the German meat grinder in hopes of slowing it down. The Soviets were not as well armed, nor were they as effectively led as the Germans they were fighting and thus they had a MUCH higher casualty rate.
The US and Western forces would prefer to "soften" an area before attacking. Literally years of bombardment from both air and sea took place before D-Day. The US Army Air Force and RAF effectively destroyed all German industry, leaving them unable to replace the Panzers and heavy trucks that were being lost to the Russians and eventually on the Western front.
This is not unlike our strategy today as evidenced in Iraq. Step 1, remove all command & control. Step 2, remove basic infrastructure to paralyze enemy. Step 3, move in with overwhelming force. Step 4 is the tricky one ... figuring out how to leave.
The Russian strategy was to keep throwing men in front of the Germans until they ran out of supplies or froze to death.
You're kidding me right?
1. The US kept the British alive as a sovereign nation via all the industrial support before Dec 1941. The Brits would have put up a great fight, much more so than the French or the rest of Europe, but would have likely succumbed to the overwhelming force of the German war machine.
2. Operation Overlord ring a bell? US, British & Canadian troops launch the single greatest invasion in history?
3. Battle of the Bulge - US troops (primarily) stop a massive German counter attack.
4. Without the US, it's entirely possible that the Soviets would have just re-conquered the rest of Europe once Hitler was out of the way. That's how we ended up with the 2 Berlins in teh first place ...
I could go on, but those are 3 pretty big ways (and one plausible hypothetical) in which the US played a massive role in the war in Europe. By noting what the US did, it doesn't diminish what the other nations sacrificed & contributed to the war effort and the role of the Soviets cannot be denied. Without having Hitler's attention divided among two fronts, the Russian winter, and the Soviet's willingness to sacrifice everything to defend their home, ultimate victory in Europe would have been much more difficult and maybe impossible. Had the Russians folded like the French we all would have been in serious trouble.
It should also be noted that without the US fighting Japan, they likely would have joined up with the Germans at some point (I'd guess somewhere in the "x_stans"). The Russians helped with the Japanese as well, but their contributions weren't to the scale of the American effort in the Pacific.
Does it really hurt that much to accept that 60 years ago, a country that has seen better days, had a very large part in doing something great? That it's possible that these currently unpopular people may have quite literally saved the world as we know it?
Feel free to answer in German (maybe Russian), as that's what you'd be speaking anyways.
It's pretty rare in big cities, but in small towns there's no bigger draw than the Friday night football game. So I appreciate that all schools might not be in the same position.
High school sports were so big where I grew up that the news chopper would actually fly to the big games that week and land on the practice fields. All to interview players and coaches for the 10pm news. No joke.
My High School's sports budget was almost 100% funded by ticket sales from the Friday night football games. We could put on average about 2-3k people in the stands at $5 a pop, 8 times a year. Works out to over $100k and paid for girls volleyball, baseball, swimming, wrestling, cheerleading etc. Basketball also contributed a significant but smaller ammount, simply because the gym couldn't hold more than about 2000.
I was a 160lb running back & strong saftey, and went on to get a Master's and now excell at a job in software architecture for a very large company (who's having some hard times right now). I would say that my 8 years of football taught me more about myself, others and the world and life in general than any other expereince in my life. The grit, determination and self-confidence football instilled in me, has enabled me to achieve what I have thus far in my life. Without that expereince, I'm not sure where I'd be. (Actually I'd probably be dead or in jail ... lots of drugs in my old hometown and lots of dead friends before our 10yr reunion. Extra curriculars are a "good thing" (tm). )
It's not all dumb jocks out there ... and in my opinion, the benefits I've recieved through my participation in sports has far out weighed any future cost I may incur. We all have to die sometime, even if you never really lived.
Perhaps I am a bit bitter. I'm currently a Software Architect for a very large company and am surrounded by folks who, whenever sports/high school/etc are brought up immediately go into the tired "jocks are dumb" rant in one way or another. Very much like the /. demographic.
In order to maintain credibility, I don't generally discuss my or my wife's past as atheletes (head cheerleader ... no joke, we're that make you sick 50s sitcom couple, but we don't fit our stereotypes in the slightest). She has similar issues with (generally fat girls) going on rants about how bitchy/dumb all (ex)cheerleaders are.
I also have one heck of a time hiding my southern accent, again to maintain credibility. Southern accent == hillbilly && hillbilly == dumb.
I guess having to hide a past that you're rightly proud of for years will make you a bit bitter. And I do apologize for ranting a bit there ... it wasn't roid rage, honest :)
As for the business/money thing. In many small midwestern and southern towns, it very much works as I described it. HS sports are a big draw because there's nothing better to do on a Friday night. Heck there was even a big section on the local news every night called "Home Team Friday" where the local sports casters would fly the news chopper to area games and interview coaches players and get some game footage. It was fun watching the chopper come in and land on the practice field. My mother-in-law taped it everynight for 4 years and has a stack of VHS tapes that fill a closet. One of these days I need to go in and transer the parts the wife and I are in to DVD.
Can we at /. , who always claim to be a bit more enlightened than "Joe Six-Pack," please stop with the "atheletes are all dumb jocks and get too much _____" stereotyping and whining? Surely the /. demographic skews a bit to those who were likely picked on by a "jock" at some point (or someone who they precieved as a "jock" ... most bullies in my school weren't into sports, they were just big and liked getting into fights).
I was a "jock" in school, and still enjoy athletic past-times (softball, jogging, baskteball, trackdays on the bike), but I was also in the top 5% in my class. Sure, there were plenty of people who were gifted physically, and not mentally, those who were gifted mentally and not physically, and those not gifted at all. Atheletes put in more time than other students by far, especially if they still get good grades. 2hrs of practice after school everyday, and depending on the sport, 1hr of lifting weights before school. I did all this and still got the same homework everyone else did, and took the same tests.
"Atheletes get more attention and that's not fair, they should spend it on the smart kids!" (obviously paraphrasing your intent) I'm sorry to inform you of something that is pretty obvious but school is a business, whether we like it or not. What's a business all about? Making money while staying within the law (i.e. making sure kids learn standards and pass tests). What exactly is the value proposition of you being extra smart for the school? There isn't one. If you're smart enough to pass and maybe get into ANY college, rent an aircraft carrier and get a giant "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner ready.
What was my "value proposition" over and above passing and getting into college? Money. I was a 3 year varsity running back and all-confrence two of those 3 years. When we were doing well or playing against a rival school, we would routinely get 5,000 people in the stands that Friday night ... each one paying $5 to get in (I think that was the price, it's been a few years now) and then buying consessions. Figure 6 home games a year and we've made quit a bit of cash, even after equipment costs. Then there's basketball which makes close to the same (less people, more games).
The money the school got ON MY BACK went to pay for everything from the girls soccer team, to the new computer lab.
So why do atheletes get a little more attention? 2 reasons ... we bring in money, and general visibility. Everyone knows the guy's name who rushed for 100yds last Friday. Some people may not even know that the quiet kid in class even exists (smart or not) ... you've gotta do something to stand out in the crowd or you're just a part of it.
Is that fair? Maybe not, but neither is life. In real life only your mom thinks you're special and to everyone else, if you haven't done something that they can't/won't/wouldn't/couldn't then you're just another person, like everyone else.
What others won't/wouldn't can really lead to some bad things if you're NOT an athelete. "That guy's crazy, I wouldn't take so much acid" for example. Sports are an exceedingly healthy way to stand out from the crowd, especially given the alternatives!
Am I saying that acedemics should take a backseat? Not in the slightest! I just really resent the idea that many on /. espouse that beign SMART and being ATHELETIC are mutually exclusive. They are not and never have been. Get over the group inferiority complex! PLEASE!
If you belong in said group, feel free to mod me down. It might make you feel better to get back and one of those damned "jocks."
Another rider here. If you're going down try to scrub off speed and get away from the bike! Don't try and control it's slide, just let it go and stop youself if possible!
As the saying goes...
If you love it let it go,
if it comes back to you, you've high-sided!