There is always those who are disadvantaged. If someone's parents are useless slobs who become drug-addicted bums off the street to have kids, then the kids should be able to somehow equalize.
Capitalism would work if everyone started equal. Then it would all be based on talent and effort. If someone worked hard, was talented and had a bit of luck, then they could make it big. However, its not like that - everyone starts on different levels - you have your rich, and your poor. You can be brought up by good parents who give emphasis to working hard, or druggies, or child-abusers who pass those bad habits onto their kids.
This is why we need public health care, good public education, financial help to those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, etc etc.
In Melbourne there's many ways for instance, people from rural areas, low socio-economic backgrounds or can prove they've had difficult family circumstances, can attend expensive universities. There's many support programs, run both by uni's and government.
I think these kinda welfare things are good overall. Australia thus doesn't have nearly the same space between rich and poor as other countries - like America. It's still not perfect, and you'll always get those who abuse the system, but I think its a step in the right direction. National wealth for everyone can only help the country.
You could always argue its the trade agreements and friendships with USA that has made those countries better. As a socialist/communist country, they generally do not support/trade with you, and in many cases actively work against you (Cuba).
But hell, look at China...they started doing really well after trade became big between them and America. Granted, you could argue they are no longer socialist - they're very capitalist - but they still are a one party state.
Ninjas may have been turned into a myth, that's probably true. Facts like "Ninjas main weapon involved a kunai" (was popularized by manga/anime), "The ninja-to - ninja-sword - is a straight, shorter katana with a square tsuba (guard) worn on the back" (popularised by Hollywood and Japanese films) are usually quite fake and follow the myth. This goes all the way to the extremes of "Ninjas could go invisible" and "Ninjas could fly."
This was probably created both due to modern popular fiction as well as the mystery surrounding them. Just like the Australian SAS got the nickname of 'Ghosts' in Iraq, ninjas were probably said to be 'invisible', be able to fly, etc etc at the time. Whether or not it was meant literally, or metaphorically, it became apart of the legend. In fact, ninjas may have had their own hand in creating the legend.
In actual fact, you'll find Ninjas were little like you see in fiction. I bet most ninjas on missions did not dress up in black costumes - no, one of the main 'jutsu' of ninja was the art of disguise. They'd infiltrate and disguise, walking around in normal clothes.
I have practiced bujinkan ninjutsu for a short period of time (and plan to restart), and what our dojo focuses on is mainly taijutsu (body movement - unarmed and against weapons). One thing you realize is that ninjutsu incorporates juijutsu, kenjutsu, aikido and other Japanese martial arts forms in its style.
Even bo-shuriken (needle-like shuriken) was first used by samurai, not ninja. They were well versed in *other techniques*.
What made them unique was their ability to go above and beyond that, not restricted by the beliefs of bushido (and honor), or by any one martial art. Where the bo-shuriken had to be accurate, or useless, they created the star-shaped shuriken - the hira-shuriken/shakan - which could be thrown in groups and injure an enemy no matter how it hit.
Other unique things were focused on stealth (shinobi-aruki - stealth walking, disguise, etc etc). They learnt meteorology, how to adapt, how to use the enviroment to your advantage and explosives. Essentially, ninjutsu evolved into a method of adaptation, where no matter what the situation, you could carry out your mission effectively and ruthlessly, and get out.
Indeed, that was one of the main things of a ninja. Survival. Where bushido essentially said "once your draw your sword, you must kill, or be killed", with little emphasis on surviving, ninjas were taught that once they completed their mission, regardless of other enemy in the area, they were to escape. The "nin" in "ninjutsu" means endurance (not stealth like people think). It is the 'art/technique of endurance'.
Ninjas could be individuals working for bigger clans or organizations, or they could be a group or a whole organisation, in which other clans/organisations outsourced their missions to them.
But yes, there's lots of mystery surrounding it all - and that shows that they were successful.
I do believe that they did exist, and I do believe that a lot of it is myth. If you really stand back, ninja to samurai is the same as special forces are to normal soldiers - they learn adaptability, stealth, and think 'outside of the box' to get their work done. But really, they just utilize normal strategies and methods to a more advanced degree.
The pure amount of false information on the internet regarding martial arts is ridiculous.
"Shaolin monks knew the ancient art of flying" "Ninja's were from an ancient organisation of *Chinese* assaassins" etc etc
You hear that stuff all the time. People's ignorance on martial arts are not uncommon (too many movies). So why take so much offense to this? Because its claiming one art to be better than another? Or is it more related to the fact one is Japanese and the other is Chinese?
Yeah, I noticed this when I was in holiday in the US. We were at LAX heading back to Melbourne and god, did security take inefficiently long.
I remember before we checked in our bags, we needed to get them cleared by security.
They dumped all our bags on a big trolley with hundreds of other bags and took it behind a screened area (with other such trolleys). Then they had like two guys checking it all. Took 3 hours until we got our bag back...we had to sit around waiting because they didn't automatically check it in - we had to check it in after they had cleared it. -_-"
Keh, Indian airports could do with some of these...among other things.
I have Indian heritage, but live in Australia. First time I really got to see India when I wasn't a newborn was a couple of years ago when we went for holiday. We came into Chennai/Madras airport (which is considered a 'big' airport).
The big bottleneck there was the fact everyone from the flight I was on, and another flight, were lining up behind like...two counters for customs (I think). Took hours just to get out of the airport...and it wasn't like there were many security checks either.
Think with India's huge population, and increasing tourist popularity, they should look at these kinda things. It's not like they're a particularly poor country...
I go to a school that claims to be one of the top 'technology/IT integrated learning schools' in Melbourne. Recently, they've rolled out some great stuff for teaching - namely smart-boards in every room, tablets/slates for teachers which hook up to projectors, etc etc.
But one thing I've always been cynical of is the model that for the last 10 years or so, this school has had a compulsory laptop for each student (we're a private school...so yeah).
On one hand, it helps enormously for writing essays, doing research etc etc..
But one thing is that most students spend most of their time on their laptops, *not* doing work. Those who do work, are usually doing something else at the same time - typing down a couple of notes, alt tabbing to their email or something, alt tabbing back for more notes, etc etc.
In the younger high school years people are generally seen addicted to games and such. Sit at the back of the class room and see everyone playing the latest version of N, or Drag Racer, or ROMS of some sort. In later years, you start seeing guys sending emails to their friends and other people, browsing web sites, etc. Interestingly enough, back in the older year levels, its back to games again...hell, reading slashdot in my case. I was doing that even when I was in the middle of a piece of assessed coursework.
So the question is, do the positives of this model (faster typing = more notes, more work, research, ease of editing, access to various applications, less books to take around, computer literacy etc) outweigh the negatives (lack of productivity)?
Slightly off topic, but I still think it's mildly related.
I'm in Year 12 now, so studying like hell. My laptop recently died. Off insurance and warranty, I didn't bother getting a new one - I do all my work handwritten.
There certainly are disadvantages for a person in a school that's based around the student having a laptop...but I feel my productivity has increased a lot - without easy distractions, I'm getting a lot more work done.
He had an employee who was talented and competent...until he found out his son had cancer and would die soon. So his focus lessened, his time at work lessened and he just couldn't work.
So, being a father too, my Dad tried his best to keep him on the team, and keep him with a salary...don't actually know how that ended up, but yeah...must've been hard for both your cases.
My Dad is a senior manager, and just got promoted to an exec. When I'd ask him what he did as a manager, it sounded kinda easy...easier than 'doing' things.
But what I do know is that every time he has gone up in the ladder, he comes home more stressed, drained of energy, etc.
From what I understand, managers have the responsibility. They may not seem like they do much, but if a project fails, or a department failed, the shit comes to them. In fact, the reason Dad's in this position is because his old boss started a project that ended up going 500% over the budget - the result was all the blame being heaped onto his boss and that boss being fired.
Because of that responsibility, they have to make sure everyone is doing what they have to do. And I think all that creates the stress - because your employees don't care much...as long as they do their job and keep their job, they're happy. For a manager, you have to care not only about doing your job, but making sure whatever your managing, *works*.
That kinda stuff only seems to happen to managers. The project team stays.
~Jarik
We're learning about Chinese revolution from a really good History teacher at school at the moment (she wrote one of the text books for the course and is mentioned by Richard Pipes =P). Now we have only just finished the Great Leap Forward and started the Cultural Revolution, but from what I understand so far...
The cultural revolution was another one of Mao's 'mad' policies in which he felt his *own* commanders and party officials, intellectual advisors, etc etc were becoming corrupt and to stop this, he called once again for a new revolution. Kinda contradictory to the 100 Flowers campaign (When he was asking intellectuals for criticism).
Mao may have been an amazing revolutionary, but he failed as a leader...constantly trying to create a new radical revolution without any sort of knowledge on what he was on about. Like his "plant deep, plant close" policy in the GLF which even a child could say would not work...
I think he just loved revolution - his policy of the Mass Line implemented, with the peasants rising up to kill someone...if you read Chung and Halliday, they'll describe him as someone who got a bloodlust for revolution during his implementation of the Mass Line in Jingxi.
Our school is a private school, so students primarily use their own laptops (with desktops being more a secondary preference). The computers in the PC lab (which are actually quite powerful) are used generally for video editing and there's two additional 200GB HDDs for each computer for storage - with the C: drive still being wiped.
But yeah, I know that problem pretty personally...
For our Software Development class, we were doing a SAC (School Assessed Coursework - an assessed piece of work in your final year of school) for that subject.
I had a backup on my USB-stick from the start of the lesson, but when I accidentally pulled out the chord from the power, I lost all the data residing on the C drive (which was everything, since they were PHP files residing in the \www directory, which was on the C: drive). That was a bitch...
But I think the system mainly works because desktops are more used as a temporary/secondary thing for students who can't access or use their laptops for the task.
Oh, every student also has access to their own network shared folder for backups (a couple of GB I think - no real limit). So yeah, work can go there too. And by default when you login, it connects to your network drives.
Comparing a Linux/Solaris server to a Windows98 box is like comparing a car to a plane. Of course a server is going to be more secure. A better comparison would be a WindowsNT server box, which has competent administrators versus a Linux/Solaris box with competent administrators.
Or those who proudly state how they're so much 'smarter' than religious people due to the fact that they don't 'ignorantly' follow a God and think they're smarter because of it. >_>
Actually, our schools uses that kinda thing too, 'cept with Windows and a zero-card.
It works extremely well...
In my old school, all hard drives were writable and despite the admin's trying to limit privaledges, PCs had to constantly be nuked and reinstalled due to the crap people put on there. Here, every time a computer restarts, it wipes its HDD and installs from a zero-card.
The great thing about this is that it doesn't restrict what students can do while they're using the computers (installing applications required for work, etc) but it keeps each system perfectly clean.
But I still feel like it'd be a bit...strange...for parents to be openly supporting pornography.
I've always found it to be a bit wrong when some of the guys I know have fathers who take them to a bar, and encourage them to go and have sex with a girl, just for the fun of it.
It's not like I have anything against teenage sex with no relationship attachments or anything...It's just that when parents start encouraging it, or making it seem like a good thing, I think it can affect a guy in a negative way.
I think parents need to keep 'trying' to stop kids from watching porn, even if they believe it's 'alright' and they did it when they were younger.
How would you feel if your Dad or Mum came up to you and said "Heya sonny...here's 20GB of my best stuff. There's some crazy shit in there."
Being an 18 year old myself, I see nothing against porn. But I just feel, if I didn't feel the need to 'hide' it from my parents, it'd be morally unjust.
It's just like teenage sex - I find people who's parents are like "Yeah, it's alright, go for it!" tend to be the guys who just fuck every girl they find, with no relationships and no respect. The guys who go and do it secretly, while still feeling a bit of guilt due to the fact they're parents'd kill them, still maintain some moral ground on the situation. Even though they don't feel its wrong.
If kids start doing that kinda stuff with parental support, they may start to get into the mindset that they can do whatever the hell they want, and they'll still have parental support.
Of course, you can always argue if people get used to 'going behind their parents back is alright' it could become a bad thing too, but like, I tell my parents everything almost everything I do, even if it's against their wishes - EXCEPT stuff I do with my girlfriend (Yes, yes, I'm a slashdotter who has a girlfriend, ha ha. Actually, she reads/. too. o.O).
But I think it's a balance. Putting net-nanny software and filters is a bit much, but telling kids its okay to watch porn is something else. It needs to be in between - kids need to have two sides of the story - their friends telling them its alright, and their parents telling them its not.
But it's still great to look at mags - because they give a range of case studies of different people's cars, and what they've all done to their beloved pieces of machinery and such.
I've bought a couple of issues of computer magazines like APC, PCUser, etc, and found, as you said, it's a dying model. All the information can more easily be googled, and to more detail too. The ads for new software, games and hardware can obviously, easily be looked up anywhere. Online, you have access to more indepth benchmarks and comparisons - and from multiple sources. The tutorials they have you can quicker google.
But say, recently, being a teenage guy (and an anime fan who just finished watching Initial D), I've gotten into cars. I've found collecting car magazines (Hot4s, MOTOR and AutoSalon mainly), is a lot more enjoyable and useful than trying to google up information. Firstly, online information on cars is hard to find (mainly because 99% of the results tend to be used car ads of some sort) and other than forums, there doesn't seem to be one central area with lots of interesting stuff relating to the issue. The case studies on certain modded machines, reviews on cars and parts, has been immensely better in magazine form than in electronic, online form in my experience.
I dunno, I'm sure it applies to certain other topics too.
Hell, take the newspaper - I find it's easier to watch the News on TV, or read The Age newspaper than to sit on news.com.au or a similar site, browsing through everything. The layout of a newspaper - having everything visible at once - just seems to be an easier model.
Of course, this is just my own opinion...but yeah.
Up until this year, I was part of a band. Unfortunately, due to the pressures of Year 12, we decided to disband for the moment and focus on school.
But we used GuitarPro for writing all our songs. Our guitarist, is doing amazingly in his musical life - he writes music almost daily on GuitarPro. He comes up with some amazingly unique music, then he sends it to me over MSN and asks my opinion.
He has two projects - a Black Metal project called Dies Nefastus, and a Progressive Blackened Death Metal project called Carcaroth. Now, if he had to WAIT for us to get together in real life for us to record anything, he'd currently have nothing.
Instead, he has been recording his own vocals, guitars, keyboards and using a drum machine (for the moment, until I can fully play his impossibly fast drums and I can record it with my own drum mics). He has put these up on MySpace and has gotten huge popularity to the point some smaller record companies have been talking to him.
Now let's imagine the internet wasn't there. He wouldn't be able to ask me opinions for his GP tabs. He wouldn't have online exposure. He wouldn't be able to record everything himself and wouldn't have any thing besides some ideas in his head.
Without any offense internet, Elton John is just another old man who doesn't understand the internet and is working on some assumptions he probably came up with in his head.
A lot of people seem to be saying "It's because smart people know the risks of sex" etc etc. Somehow, I doubt that.
Now maybe it's something more related to say, the fact that smart people - people who are working towards something - will be serious about studying and such. Soon, they band with other people like them. These people so happen to be the people who don't go to parties and get chicks.
Take a jock - they seem to get a lot of chicks. I doubt it's the fact that they play sport that gets them the girls (though I'm sure it helps a bit) - I think its more related to the fact that they hang out with people who hang out with girls, etc.
I would also like to say, as a guy from a less discriminatory private school in Year 12, a lot of the big 'school' guys - debating captains, school captains, people with top marks etc - interestingly enough, also seem to be the guys girls for too.
So I don't think lack of IQ == sex, but rather, the smart people just seem to find themselves in groups away from the people who do get the chicks. I've never studied in an American school, so I don't know if the stereotypes are true or not...but if you're smart, do you really get discriminated for that? Cause in my school, generally being smart is something people really respect and look up to...at least in Year 12 (bit different in past years).
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There is always those who are disadvantaged. If someone's parents are useless slobs who become drug-addicted bums off the street to have kids, then the kids should be able to somehow equalize.
Capitalism would work if everyone started equal. Then it would all be based on talent and effort. If someone worked hard, was talented and had a bit of luck, then they could make it big. However, its not like that - everyone starts on different levels - you have your rich, and your poor. You can be brought up by good parents who give emphasis to working hard, or druggies, or child-abusers who pass those bad habits onto their kids.
This is why we need public health care, good public education, financial help to those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, etc etc.
In Melbourne there's many ways for instance, people from rural areas, low socio-economic backgrounds or can prove they've had difficult family circumstances, can attend expensive universities. There's many support programs, run both by uni's and government.
I think these kinda welfare things are good overall. Australia thus doesn't have nearly the same space between rich and poor as other countries - like America. It's still not perfect, and you'll always get those who abuse the system, but I think its a step in the right direction. National wealth for everyone can only help the country.
~Jarik
You could always argue its the trade agreements and friendships with USA that has made those countries better. As a socialist/communist country, they generally do not support/trade with you, and in many cases actively work against you (Cuba).
But hell, look at China...they started doing really well after trade became big between them and America. Granted, you could argue they are no longer socialist - they're very capitalist - but they still are a one party state.
~Jarik
Ninjas may have been turned into a myth, that's probably true. Facts like "Ninjas main weapon involved a kunai" (was popularized by manga/anime), "The ninja-to - ninja-sword - is a straight, shorter katana with a square tsuba (guard) worn on the back" (popularised by Hollywood and Japanese films) are usually quite fake and follow the myth. This goes all the way to the extremes of "Ninjas could go invisible" and "Ninjas could fly."
This was probably created both due to modern popular fiction as well as the mystery surrounding them. Just like the Australian SAS got the nickname of 'Ghosts' in Iraq, ninjas were probably said to be 'invisible', be able to fly, etc etc at the time. Whether or not it was meant literally, or metaphorically, it became apart of the legend. In fact, ninjas may have had their own hand in creating the legend.
In actual fact, you'll find Ninjas were little like you see in fiction. I bet most ninjas on missions did not dress up in black costumes - no, one of the main 'jutsu' of ninja was the art of disguise. They'd infiltrate and disguise, walking around in normal clothes.
I have practiced bujinkan ninjutsu for a short period of time (and plan to restart), and what our dojo focuses on is mainly taijutsu (body movement - unarmed and against weapons). One thing you realize is that ninjutsu incorporates juijutsu, kenjutsu, aikido and other Japanese martial arts forms in its style.
Even bo-shuriken (needle-like shuriken) was first used by samurai, not ninja. They were well versed in *other techniques*.
What made them unique was their ability to go above and beyond that, not restricted by the beliefs of bushido (and honor), or by any one martial art. Where the bo-shuriken had to be accurate, or useless, they created the star-shaped shuriken - the hira-shuriken/shakan - which could be thrown in groups and injure an enemy no matter how it hit.
Other unique things were focused on stealth (shinobi-aruki - stealth walking, disguise, etc etc). They learnt meteorology, how to adapt, how to use the enviroment to your advantage and explosives. Essentially, ninjutsu evolved into a method of adaptation, where no matter what the situation, you could carry out your mission effectively and ruthlessly, and get out.
Indeed, that was one of the main things of a ninja. Survival. Where bushido essentially said "once your draw your sword, you must kill, or be killed", with little emphasis on surviving, ninjas were taught that once they completed their mission, regardless of other enemy in the area, they were to escape. The "nin" in "ninjutsu" means endurance (not stealth like people think). It is the 'art/technique of endurance'.
Ninjas could be individuals working for bigger clans or organizations, or they could be a group or a whole organisation, in which other clans/organisations outsourced their missions to them.
But yes, there's lots of mystery surrounding it all - and that shows that they were successful.
I do believe that they did exist, and I do believe that a lot of it is myth. If you really stand back, ninja to samurai is the same as special forces are to normal soldiers - they learn adaptability, stealth, and think 'outside of the box' to get their work done. But really, they just utilize normal strategies and methods to a more advanced degree.
~Jarik
I can't honestly believe they're doing this...
The pure amount of false information on the internet regarding martial arts is ridiculous.
"Shaolin monks knew the ancient art of flying"
"Ninja's were from an ancient organisation of *Chinese* assaassins"
etc etc
You hear that stuff all the time. People's ignorance on martial arts are not uncommon (too many movies). So why take so much offense to this? Because its claiming one art to be better than another? Or is it more related to the fact one is Japanese and the other is Chinese?
~Jarik
Rofl.
http://www.realultimatepower.net/ for those who don't know where all that information is from.
Hilarious, as well as all the spin-off videos based on it.
~Jarik
I'm blind you insensitive clod!
Yeah, I noticed this when I was in holiday in the US. We were at LAX heading back to Melbourne and god, did security take inefficiently long.
I remember before we checked in our bags, we needed to get them cleared by security.
They dumped all our bags on a big trolley with hundreds of other bags and took it behind a screened area (with other such trolleys). Then they had like two guys checking it all. Took 3 hours until we got our bag back...we had to sit around waiting because they didn't automatically check it in - we had to check it in after they had cleared it. -_-"
~Jarik
(Slightly offtopic)
Keh, Indian airports could do with some of these...among other things.
I have Indian heritage, but live in Australia. First time I really got to see India when I wasn't a newborn was a couple of years ago when we went for holiday. We came into Chennai/Madras airport (which is considered a 'big' airport).
The big bottleneck there was the fact everyone from the flight I was on, and another flight, were lining up behind like...two counters for customs (I think). Took hours just to get out of the airport...and it wasn't like there were many security checks either.
Think with India's huge population, and increasing tourist popularity, they should look at these kinda things. It's not like they're a particularly poor country...
~Jarik
Though, XP SP1 was a positive change. I remember back when everyone was swearing by 2000 and wouldn't switch to XP...until SP1.
So we can always be optimistic and hope for the best...o.O
Maybe the increase in popularity will cause more drivers and more applications being written for it.
~Jarik
In my experience girls *do* surveys. Guys only do surveys if they're sent to them by girls.
~Jarik
I go to a school that claims to be one of the top 'technology/IT integrated learning schools' in Melbourne. Recently, they've rolled out some great stuff for teaching - namely smart-boards in every room, tablets/slates for teachers which hook up to projectors, etc etc.
But one thing I've always been cynical of is the model that for the last 10 years or so, this school has had a compulsory laptop for each student (we're a private school...so yeah).
On one hand, it helps enormously for writing essays, doing research etc etc..
But one thing is that most students spend most of their time on their laptops, *not* doing work. Those who do work, are usually doing something else at the same time - typing down a couple of notes, alt tabbing to their email or something, alt tabbing back for more notes, etc etc.
In the younger high school years people are generally seen addicted to games and such. Sit at the back of the class room and see everyone playing the latest version of N, or Drag Racer, or ROMS of some sort. In later years, you start seeing guys sending emails to their friends and other people, browsing web sites, etc. Interestingly enough, back in the older year levels, its back to games again...hell, reading slashdot in my case. I was doing that even when I was in the middle of a piece of assessed coursework.
So the question is, do the positives of this model (faster typing = more notes, more work, research, ease of editing, access to various applications, less books to take around, computer literacy etc) outweigh the negatives (lack of productivity)?
Slightly off topic, but I still think it's mildly related.
I'm in Year 12 now, so studying like hell. My laptop recently died. Off insurance and warranty, I didn't bother getting a new one - I do all my work handwritten.
There certainly are disadvantages for a person in a school that's based around the student having a laptop...but I feel my productivity has increased a lot - without easy distractions, I'm getting a lot more work done.
~Jarik
Reminds me of a position my Dad was in...
He had an employee who was talented and competent...until he found out his son had cancer and would die soon. So his focus lessened, his time at work lessened and he just couldn't work.
So, being a father too, my Dad tried his best to keep him on the team, and keep him with a salary...don't actually know how that ended up, but yeah...must've been hard for both your cases.
~Jarik
My Dad is a senior manager, and just got promoted to an exec. When I'd ask him what he did as a manager, it sounded kinda easy...easier than 'doing' things. But what I do know is that every time he has gone up in the ladder, he comes home more stressed, drained of energy, etc. From what I understand, managers have the responsibility. They may not seem like they do much, but if a project fails, or a department failed, the shit comes to them. In fact, the reason Dad's in this position is because his old boss started a project that ended up going 500% over the budget - the result was all the blame being heaped onto his boss and that boss being fired. Because of that responsibility, they have to make sure everyone is doing what they have to do. And I think all that creates the stress - because your employees don't care much...as long as they do their job and keep their job, they're happy. For a manager, you have to care not only about doing your job, but making sure whatever your managing, *works*. That kinda stuff only seems to happen to managers. The project team stays. ~Jarik
We're learning about Chinese revolution from a really good History teacher at school at the moment (she wrote one of the text books for the course and is mentioned by Richard Pipes =P). Now we have only just finished the Great Leap Forward and started the Cultural Revolution, but from what I understand so far...
The cultural revolution was another one of Mao's 'mad' policies in which he felt his *own* commanders and party officials, intellectual advisors, etc etc were becoming corrupt and to stop this, he called once again for a new revolution. Kinda contradictory to the 100 Flowers campaign (When he was asking intellectuals for criticism).
Mao may have been an amazing revolutionary, but he failed as a leader...constantly trying to create a new radical revolution without any sort of knowledge on what he was on about. Like his "plant deep, plant close" policy in the GLF which even a child could say would not work...
I think he just loved revolution - his policy of the Mass Line implemented, with the peasants rising up to kill someone...if you read Chung and Halliday, they'll describe him as someone who got a bloodlust for revolution during his implementation of the Mass Line in Jingxi.
~Jarik
Yes, that is a problem.
Our school is a private school, so students primarily use their own laptops (with desktops being more a secondary preference). The computers in the PC lab (which are actually quite powerful) are used generally for video editing and there's two additional 200GB HDDs for each computer for storage - with the C: drive still being wiped.
But yeah, I know that problem pretty personally...
For our Software Development class, we were doing a SAC (School Assessed Coursework - an assessed piece of work in your final year of school) for that subject.
I had a backup on my USB-stick from the start of the lesson, but when I accidentally pulled out the chord from the power, I lost all the data residing on the C drive (which was everything, since they were PHP files residing in the \www directory, which was on the C: drive). That was a bitch...
But I think the system mainly works because desktops are more used as a temporary/secondary thing for students who can't access or use their laptops for the task.
Oh, every student also has access to their own network shared folder for backups (a couple of GB I think - no real limit). So yeah, work can go there too. And by default when you login, it connects to your network drives.
~Jarik
Comparing a Linux/Solaris server to a Windows98 box is like comparing a car to a plane. Of course a server is going to be more secure. A better comparison would be a WindowsNT server box, which has competent administrators versus a Linux/Solaris box with competent administrators.
~Jarik
Or those who proudly state how they're so much 'smarter' than religious people due to the fact that they don't 'ignorantly' follow a God and think they're smarter because of it. >_>
~Jarik
Oooh, that'd suggest an MS employee is part of a Fight Club somewhere. Which one? I wanna join.
~Jarik
Actually, our schools uses that kinda thing too, 'cept with Windows and a zero-card.
It works extremely well...
In my old school, all hard drives were writable and despite the admin's trying to limit privaledges, PCs had to constantly be nuked and reinstalled due to the crap people put on there. Here, every time a computer restarts, it wipes its HDD and installs from a zero-card.
The great thing about this is that it doesn't restrict what students can do while they're using the computers (installing applications required for work, etc) but it keeps each system perfectly clean.
~Jarik
You make some good points...
But I still feel like it'd be a bit...strange...for parents to be openly supporting pornography.
I've always found it to be a bit wrong when some of the guys I know have fathers who take them to a bar, and encourage them to go and have sex with a girl, just for the fun of it.
It's not like I have anything against teenage sex with no relationship attachments or anything...It's just that when parents start encouraging it, or making it seem like a good thing, I think it can affect a guy in a negative way.
~Jarik
I think parents need to keep 'trying' to stop kids from watching porn, even if they believe it's 'alright' and they did it when they were younger.
/. too. o.O).
How would you feel if your Dad or Mum came up to you and said "Heya sonny...here's 20GB of my best stuff. There's some crazy shit in there."
Being an 18 year old myself, I see nothing against porn. But I just feel, if I didn't feel the need to 'hide' it from my parents, it'd be morally unjust.
It's just like teenage sex - I find people who's parents are like "Yeah, it's alright, go for it!" tend to be the guys who just fuck every girl they find, with no relationships and no respect. The guys who go and do it secretly, while still feeling a bit of guilt due to the fact they're parents'd kill them, still maintain some moral ground on the situation. Even though they don't feel its wrong.
If kids start doing that kinda stuff with parental support, they may start to get into the mindset that they can do whatever the hell they want, and they'll still have parental support.
Of course, you can always argue if people get used to 'going behind their parents back is alright' it could become a bad thing too, but like, I tell my parents everything almost everything I do, even if it's against their wishes - EXCEPT stuff I do with my girlfriend (Yes, yes, I'm a slashdotter who has a girlfriend, ha ha. Actually, she reads
But I think it's a balance. Putting net-nanny software and filters is a bit much, but telling kids its okay to watch porn is something else. It needs to be in between - kids need to have two sides of the story - their friends telling them its alright, and their parents telling them its not.
~Jarik
Thanks man!
But it's still great to look at mags - because they give a range of case studies of different people's cars, and what they've all done to their beloved pieces of machinery and such.
~Jarik
Mmm, it also depends on the topic.
I've bought a couple of issues of computer magazines like APC, PCUser, etc, and found, as you said, it's a dying model. All the information can more easily be googled, and to more detail too. The ads for new software, games and hardware can obviously, easily be looked up anywhere. Online, you have access to more indepth benchmarks and comparisons - and from multiple sources. The tutorials they have you can quicker google.
But say, recently, being a teenage guy (and an anime fan who just finished watching Initial D), I've gotten into cars. I've found collecting car magazines (Hot4s, MOTOR and AutoSalon mainly), is a lot more enjoyable and useful than trying to google up information. Firstly, online information on cars is hard to find (mainly because 99% of the results tend to be used car ads of some sort) and other than forums, there doesn't seem to be one central area with lots of interesting stuff relating to the issue. The case studies on certain modded machines, reviews on cars and parts, has been immensely better in magazine form than in electronic, online form in my experience.
I dunno, I'm sure it applies to certain other topics too.
Hell, take the newspaper - I find it's easier to watch the News on TV, or read The Age newspaper than to sit on news.com.au or a similar site, browsing through everything. The layout of a newspaper - having everything visible at once - just seems to be an easier model.
Of course, this is just my own opinion...but yeah.
~Jarik
Up until this year, I was part of a band. Unfortunately, due to the pressures of Year 12, we decided to disband for the moment and focus on school.
But we used GuitarPro for writing all our songs. Our guitarist, is doing amazingly in his musical life - he writes music almost daily on GuitarPro. He comes up with some amazingly unique music, then he sends it to me over MSN and asks my opinion.
He has two projects - a Black Metal project called Dies Nefastus, and a Progressive Blackened Death Metal project called Carcaroth. Now, if he had to WAIT for us to get together in real life for us to record anything, he'd currently have nothing.
Instead, he has been recording his own vocals, guitars, keyboards and using a drum machine (for the moment, until I can fully play his impossibly fast drums and I can record it with my own drum mics). He has put these up on MySpace and has gotten huge popularity to the point some smaller record companies have been talking to him.
Now let's imagine the internet wasn't there. He wouldn't be able to ask me opinions for his GP tabs. He wouldn't have online exposure. He wouldn't be able to record everything himself and wouldn't have any thing besides some ideas in his head.
Without any offense internet, Elton John is just another old man who doesn't understand the internet and is working on some assumptions he probably came up with in his head.
~Jarik
A lot of people seem to be saying "It's because smart people know the risks of sex" etc etc. Somehow, I doubt that.
Now maybe it's something more related to say, the fact that smart people - people who are working towards something - will be serious about studying and such. Soon, they band with other people like them. These people so happen to be the people who don't go to parties and get chicks.
Take a jock - they seem to get a lot of chicks. I doubt it's the fact that they play sport that gets them the girls (though I'm sure it helps a bit) - I think its more related to the fact that they hang out with people who hang out with girls, etc.
I would also like to say, as a guy from a less discriminatory private school in Year 12, a lot of the big 'school' guys - debating captains, school captains, people with top marks etc - interestingly enough, also seem to be the guys girls for too.
So I don't think lack of IQ == sex, but rather, the smart people just seem to find themselves in groups away from the people who do get the chicks. I've never studied in an American school, so I don't know if the stereotypes are true or not...but if you're smart, do you really get discriminated for that? Cause in my school, generally being smart is something people really respect and look up to...at least in Year 12 (bit different in past years).
~Jarik