I'm not prudish; but neither am I ignorant of history. If you mention "battle of the bulge", my first thought isn't going to be that it's a reference to underwear. There are people out there that have no idea of what the Tea Party was, and what it symbolizes. They're stupid and ignorant, and covering for their stupidity by pretending they're 'cooler'.
I did some math. For the price of the stimulus package, we could have cut income tax in half, public and private, all brackets, for three years. The reduction in revenue would have been the same as the stimulus cost... except that cutting taxes would been FAR better for the economy and employment. The primary reason for the stimulus package was, I'm sure, did not have much to particularly do with stimulating the economy.
My suggestion would be to not allow any mention of political parties on election ballots. It's easy to implement, almost trivial, but would get rid of a LOT of ridiculous, party-line voting.
It's more that politics is an area which is frequently prone to devolving into tribalism. Just look elsewhere in this thread; there are all sorts of assumptions about "different = obviously wrong and clearly inferior" showing themselves. Politics doesn't have to be like that, just like sports don't have to be like that... but it seems the easiest way to control people and consolidate power is by convincing people that, by following you, they demonstrate their superiority over them (whoever 'them' is).
Insecurity drives much; as I've gotten older, I've come to realize that fragile egos, and the desire to feel superior, is one of the primary sources of bad decisions in life. It drives most political partisanship, racism, xenophobia, as well as more trivial stupidities like thinking your linux distribution is clearly superior to their linux distribution, or that they are obviously idiots because they didn't like THAT movie. It's a problem that affects the intelligent as frequently as the less intelligent, also.
it is valid to say that more participants are racist than you'd expect from an average organization.
Why do you think it's valid? Isn't it at least quite possible that you've bought into spin from your favored tribe (to bring this back around to on topic)?
I find it sad that there are some people that see certain symbology from the founding of our country (such as the teabags, or the 'don't tread on me' flag, etc.) and perceive it as a crass or extreme movement. If your first thought when you hear 'tea party' is the sexual act, moreso than the American revolution, you're either gutter-minded or abysmally ignorant.
Yes, there are modern perceptions, different than past perceptions; but that doesn't mean that all perceptions are equally reasonable or educated.
I think that being the type of scumbag that throws spurious and unsubstantiated charges of racism is just as bad being a racist scumbag in the first place.
In case that was too subtle, I'm saying you're a scumbag. Same as a person who accuses an honest person of lying, or an innocent man of rape.
The 'anonymous coward' posting was a smart move, I'll give you that. Now... try to think about the summary, and what Shuttleworth is saying. Apply it to a realm outside of open-source, and see if you can grow as a person.
For the idiotic mass public? That measurement (distance per dollar) is the most important, and is about the only way to correctly analyze the efficiency of hybrid cars (consuming both gallons of gas and KwH of electricity). If that's for the 'idiotic mass public', than they've got the right notion.
Right. The study has no weight. You would have to discount every factor that could cause a decrease in blind pedestrian fatalities that is more significant than the introduction of hybrids... and there's a LOT of more significant factors.
The study and conclusion is so meaningless, it got me wondering about what goes into this, behind the scenes. Is it an academic that has some desire to use ANY sort of data to push the idea that hybrids aren't dangerous? A study funded by somebody with financial interest? Is it somebody that actually thinks this was a relevant and meaningful conclusion? How many studies are really just as meaningless, if you dig into the details? Kind of scary.
Easier is not always more fun. I have a wacom tablet, and it makes some games much easier than a mouse; it's faster and more precise. That does not make the game more fun... just the opposite. I go back to a mouse with many of them, so that I don't get that extra edge.
Yep. It's not that PC gamers are inherently more skilled than console gamers. Take the best PC gamers and the best console gamers and put them on consoles and PCs respectively, and you'll still see the PC destroy the console.
God, that's the sort of thing juveniles believe. Hopefully you said that in sarcasm, but I doubt you did..
Ok, that's a little bit of flamebait, so let me explain further. As you mature, you'll learn to question any memes that fall into the general category of "pleasantly and unjustifiably self-aggrandizing". Those sorts of beliefs are particularly pernicious, because otherwise intelligent people fall prey to them. Intelligent people may actually be MORE susceptible to those sorts of errors.
Here's the truth: PC gamers are generally better at the PC games they play, console gamers are better at the console games they play, neither are particular more gifted at gaming in general. The more ridiculous members of BOTH groups like to believe they're better/smarter/sexier than the other, and they're wrong.
Easier isn't necessarily better. More accurate isn't necessarily better. What's better is simply whatever is MORE FUN. Generally, the most fun control scheme is whatever the game was designed for. If a FPS is designed from the ground up to be played with a gamepad, that's the better controller. If it's designed for the Mouse, or Wiimote or whatever, that's the best way to play it.
Designing a game that plays with several different control schemes probably results in one that doesn't handle any of them well; part of the reason many ports don't play well.
My favorite genre is strategic RPGs, or SRPGs. Think games that are a bit like the old X-Com. Currently, that genre includes games such as Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea, and (the best) Fire Emblem. They are COMPLETELY turn-based strategical exercises, needing no reaction speed or dexterity, and are pretty much exclusively console. The control scheme for such games is pretty much irrelevant, they would play the same on a controller or keyboard. For some reason, that genre has practically no representation on the PC, although you would think it would be just as popular there.
none, microsoft have expressly forbid mouse support in xbox games
And you know, that actually makes sense, at least for multiplayer games. If they allowed a mouse in most competitive games, it would be as disruptive as allowing cheat codes. Players shouldn't be allowed to get an advantage because they've bought an extra peripheral. Same reason PC vs Console doesn't work in competitive settings.
You're only talking about FPS. What about, for example, strategy games or serious simulators? I am sure PC players would pwn console gamers in those.
In fact, you can already put mouse and keyboards for 360, but they still don't seem to compare.
Nah, that's ridiculous. You're arguing that PC gamers are just gosh darn more skilled and intelligent than console gamers; more handsome, too, no doubt. Which group are you in? Let me guess... a PC gamer, coincidentally.
PC gamers obviously dominate console gamers in FPS and twitch RTS because of the the input method. That's it. The number of 360 owners that play with a mouse/keyboard is negligibly small. The mouse is a much faster and more precise controller than an analog stick. The wiimote, as an alternative, is in-between the two; I suspect if there was a multiplayer, cross-console FPS between Wii and 360 owners, the Wii owners would dominate the 360 owners. Not because they're better players; it's because of the edge their controller gives them.
In a way, if a 360 owner could hold their own against a PC owner in a FPS, I would argue the console 360 owner is probably a much better player. Winning because of a better hardware configuration isn't really a test of skill.
Your statement about PC gamers being better at strategy games or serious simulations is just silly, unless by 'strategy' you mean something like Starcraft, which is as much a twitch game as it is strategy.
Will you be able to completely turn off the ugly Awesomebar, including the resource-hogging constant db queries it generates?
There are legitimate reasons that new releases may be considered worse than older releases. I think Mozilla foundation has hit that point where, because of their past successes, they are trying to force Agendas on their users. I call it "pulling a sony", although they are nowhere near that bad yet.
I think freedom and capitalism are more intrinsically linked than freedom and democracy. In theory, there could be a constitutionally limited, human-rights respecting monarchy, under which subjects could live quite freely; but capitalism IS freedom, freedom of trade, and the right of property. China isn't capitalistic; they're socialistic. Their businesses are under the control of the state.
Yeah, I'm a strong supporter of legalizing marijuana (and most other drugs), but I think the 'medical marijuana' movement is a farce. The net result is a bunch of stoner rejects inventing various chronic conditions in order to prove to the officials that they need marijuana to make their life tolerable. How embarrassing... how degrading.
There are legitimate medical reasons to take marijuana; but I'd say at LEAST 90% of those signed up for it are lying through their teeth. Honestly, I think it's closer to 99%.
And as far as non-narcotic uses of hemp; it's a useful plant, but it's wonderful properties tend to be exaggerated by pro-pot boosters.
What are you talking about? It was the hosting company that shut down their entire server and its 75000 blogs without anything being said to the actual owner. Yeah, US so much better than China.
...right? This shows it? Somehow, you're not making the point you're trying to.
Terry Childs is a terrible poster child for IT professionals. He did all sorts of things professionally and ethically wrong, and probably legally wrong, as well. I certainly would have pressed charges if he had been my employee.
However, there are some legal traps that even a well-behaved IT pro can fall into. For instance, monitoring too much can be a privacy invasion, monitoring not enough can be negligence. Because the IT word scales up so much, sometimes a minor mistake can end up with millions of dollars of consequences.
I worry that this will be like Java apps; a way to make UIs and performance even worse. HTML is great, and HTML 5 is a clear improvement; but it certainly is nowhere near the performance, stability, and ease of use of an application designed a little closer to the hardware.
I've seen many decent programs ruined as companies tossed the client software they had written in C++ or even VB, and move to web-based UIs. Programming things in HTML 5 that would be best written in any of a dozen other languages will just stigmatize HTML 5, kind of the way you get a sinking feeling in your stomach when you fire up a new program and realize, while it's churning, that it's written in Java.
You're claiming Beck is uninformed, because he doesn't realize Paine was a socialist.
Paine, a socialist. If you want to continue railing against Beck in the future, you might find it more effective to not make that particular complaint again.
Dude, we won the war on drugs. You can totally grow plants now in California. You just need a doctor's note.
It's a new low, actually. You get to go to a doctor, pretend you're damaged and incompetent, so that you can be put into a pathetic underclass of those allowed to grow pot. I'm for legalization; but this farce of 'medical marijuana' that causes so many stoners in their 20's to pretend they're chronically sick is embarrassing.
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I'm not prudish; but neither am I ignorant of history. If you mention "battle of the bulge", my first thought isn't going to be that it's a reference to underwear. There are people out there that have no idea of what the Tea Party was, and what it symbolizes. They're stupid and ignorant, and covering for their stupidity by pretending they're 'cooler'.
I did some math. For the price of the stimulus package, we could have cut income tax in half, public and private, all brackets, for three years. The reduction in revenue would have been the same as the stimulus cost... except that cutting taxes would been FAR better for the economy and employment. The primary reason for the stimulus package was, I'm sure, did not have much to particularly do with stimulating the economy.
My suggestion would be to not allow any mention of political parties on election ballots. It's easy to implement, almost trivial, but would get rid of a LOT of ridiculous, party-line voting.
It's more that politics is an area which is frequently prone to devolving into tribalism. Just look elsewhere in this thread; there are all sorts of assumptions about "different = obviously wrong and clearly inferior" showing themselves. Politics doesn't have to be like that, just like sports don't have to be like that... but it seems the easiest way to control people and consolidate power is by convincing people that, by following you, they demonstrate their superiority over them (whoever 'them' is).
Insecurity drives much; as I've gotten older, I've come to realize that fragile egos, and the desire to feel superior, is one of the primary sources of bad decisions in life. It drives most political partisanship, racism, xenophobia, as well as more trivial stupidities like thinking your linux distribution is clearly superior to their linux distribution, or that they are obviously idiots because they didn't like THAT movie. It's a problem that affects the intelligent as frequently as the less intelligent, also.
it is valid to say that more participants are racist than you'd expect from an average organization.
Why do you think it's valid? Isn't it at least quite possible that you've bought into spin from your favored tribe (to bring this back around to on topic)?
I find it sad that there are some people that see certain symbology from the founding of our country (such as the teabags, or the 'don't tread on me' flag, etc.) and perceive it as a crass or extreme movement. If your first thought when you hear 'tea party' is the sexual act, moreso than the American revolution, you're either gutter-minded or abysmally ignorant.
Yes, there are modern perceptions, different than past perceptions; but that doesn't mean that all perceptions are equally reasonable or educated.
I think that being the type of scumbag that throws spurious and unsubstantiated charges of racism is just as bad being a racist scumbag in the first place.
In case that was too subtle, I'm saying you're a scumbag. Same as a person who accuses an honest person of lying, or an innocent man of rape.
The 'anonymous coward' posting was a smart move, I'll give you that. Now... try to think about the summary, and what Shuttleworth is saying. Apply it to a realm outside of open-source, and see if you can grow as a person.
You didn't listen, because of your tribalistic tendencies? You just assumed your opponents were wrong and hypocrites?
Good example of the Shuttleworth's point.
Or, for the idiotic mass public:
"Miles per buck"
For the idiotic mass public? That measurement (distance per dollar) is the most important, and is about the only way to correctly analyze the efficiency of hybrid cars (consuming both gallons of gas and KwH of electricity). If that's for the 'idiotic mass public', than they've got the right notion.
Right. The study has no weight. You would have to discount every factor that could cause a decrease in blind pedestrian fatalities that is more significant than the introduction of hybrids... and there's a LOT of more significant factors.
The study and conclusion is so meaningless, it got me wondering about what goes into this, behind the scenes. Is it an academic that has some desire to use ANY sort of data to push the idea that hybrids aren't dangerous? A study funded by somebody with financial interest? Is it somebody that actually thinks this was a relevant and meaningful conclusion? How many studies are really just as meaningless, if you dig into the details? Kind of scary.
Easier is not always more fun. I have a wacom tablet, and it makes some games much easier than a mouse; it's faster and more precise. That does not make the game more fun... just the opposite. I go back to a mouse with many of them, so that I don't get that extra edge.
Yep. It's not that PC gamers are inherently more skilled than console gamers. Take the best PC gamers and the best console gamers and put them on consoles and PCs respectively, and you'll still see the PC destroy the console.
God, that's the sort of thing juveniles believe. Hopefully you said that in sarcasm, but I doubt you did..
Ok, that's a little bit of flamebait, so let me explain further. As you mature, you'll learn to question any memes that fall into the general category of "pleasantly and unjustifiably self-aggrandizing". Those sorts of beliefs are particularly pernicious, because otherwise intelligent people fall prey to them. Intelligent people may actually be MORE susceptible to those sorts of errors.
Here's the truth: PC gamers are generally better at the PC games they play, console gamers are better at the console games they play, neither are particular more gifted at gaming in general. The more ridiculous members of BOTH groups like to believe they're better/smarter/sexier than the other, and they're wrong.
Easier isn't necessarily better. More accurate isn't necessarily better. What's better is simply whatever is MORE FUN. Generally, the most fun control scheme is whatever the game was designed for. If a FPS is designed from the ground up to be played with a gamepad, that's the better controller. If it's designed for the Mouse, or Wiimote or whatever, that's the best way to play it.
Designing a game that plays with several different control schemes probably results in one that doesn't handle any of them well; part of the reason many ports don't play well.
My favorite genre is strategic RPGs, or SRPGs. Think games that are a bit like the old X-Com. Currently, that genre includes games such as Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea, and (the best) Fire Emblem. They are COMPLETELY turn-based strategical exercises, needing no reaction speed or dexterity, and are pretty much exclusively console. The control scheme for such games is pretty much irrelevant, they would play the same on a controller or keyboard. For some reason, that genre has practically no representation on the PC, although you would think it would be just as popular there.
none, microsoft have expressly forbid mouse support in xbox games
And you know, that actually makes sense, at least for multiplayer games. If they allowed a mouse in most competitive games, it would be as disruptive as allowing cheat codes. Players shouldn't be allowed to get an advantage because they've bought an extra peripheral. Same reason PC vs Console doesn't work in competitive settings.
You're only talking about FPS. What about, for example, strategy games or serious simulators? I am sure PC players would pwn console gamers in those.
In fact, you can already put mouse and keyboards for 360, but they still don't seem to compare.
Nah, that's ridiculous. You're arguing that PC gamers are just gosh darn more skilled and intelligent than console gamers; more handsome, too, no doubt. Which group are you in? Let me guess... a PC gamer, coincidentally.
PC gamers obviously dominate console gamers in FPS and twitch RTS because of the the input method. That's it. The number of 360 owners that play with a mouse/keyboard is negligibly small. The mouse is a much faster and more precise controller than an analog stick. The wiimote, as an alternative, is in-between the two; I suspect if there was a multiplayer, cross-console FPS between Wii and 360 owners, the Wii owners would dominate the 360 owners. Not because they're better players; it's because of the edge their controller gives them.
In a way, if a 360 owner could hold their own against a PC owner in a FPS, I would argue the console 360 owner is probably a much better player. Winning because of a better hardware configuration isn't really a test of skill.
Your statement about PC gamers being better at strategy games or serious simulations is just silly, unless by 'strategy' you mean something like Starcraft, which is as much a twitch game as it is strategy.
Will you be able to completely turn off the ugly Awesomebar, including the resource-hogging constant db queries it generates?
There are legitimate reasons that new releases may be considered worse than older releases. I think Mozilla foundation has hit that point where, because of their past successes, they are trying to force Agendas on their users. I call it "pulling a sony", although they are nowhere near that bad yet.
I think freedom and capitalism are more intrinsically linked than freedom and democracy. In theory, there could be a constitutionally limited, human-rights respecting monarchy, under which subjects could live quite freely; but capitalism IS freedom, freedom of trade, and the right of property. China isn't capitalistic; they're socialistic. Their businesses are under the control of the state.
Yeah, I'm a strong supporter of legalizing marijuana (and most other drugs), but I think the 'medical marijuana' movement is a farce. The net result is a bunch of stoner rejects inventing various chronic conditions in order to prove to the officials that they need marijuana to make their life tolerable. How embarrassing... how degrading.
There are legitimate medical reasons to take marijuana; but I'd say at LEAST 90% of those signed up for it are lying through their teeth. Honestly, I think it's closer to 99%.
And as far as non-narcotic uses of hemp; it's a useful plant, but it's wonderful properties tend to be exaggerated by pro-pot boosters.
What are you talking about? It was the hosting company that shut down their entire server and its 75000 blogs without anything being said to the actual owner. Yeah, US so much better than China.
...right? This shows it? Somehow, you're not making the point you're trying to.
Terry Childs is a terrible poster child for IT professionals. He did all sorts of things professionally and ethically wrong, and probably legally wrong, as well. I certainly would have pressed charges if he had been my employee.
However, there are some legal traps that even a well-behaved IT pro can fall into. For instance, monitoring too much can be a privacy invasion, monitoring not enough can be negligence. Because the IT word scales up so much, sometimes a minor mistake can end up with millions of dollars of consequences.
I worry that this will be like Java apps; a way to make UIs and performance even worse. HTML is great, and HTML 5 is a clear improvement; but it certainly is nowhere near the performance, stability, and ease of use of an application designed a little closer to the hardware.
I've seen many decent programs ruined as companies tossed the client software they had written in C++ or even VB, and move to web-based UIs. Programming things in HTML 5 that would be best written in any of a dozen other languages will just stigmatize HTML 5, kind of the way you get a sinking feeling in your stomach when you fire up a new program and realize, while it's churning, that it's written in Java.
You're claiming Beck is uninformed, because he doesn't realize Paine was a socialist.
Paine, a socialist. If you want to continue railing against Beck in the future, you might find it more effective to not make that particular complaint again.
Dude, we won the war on drugs. You can totally grow plants now in California. You just need a doctor's note.
It's a new low, actually. You get to go to a doctor, pretend you're damaged and incompetent, so that you can be put into a pathetic underclass of those allowed to grow pot. I'm for legalization; but this farce of 'medical marijuana' that causes so many stoners in their 20's to pretend they're chronically sick is embarrassing.