Gaming hasn't been a part of my life for a _very_ long time. (See also: Unreal Tournament and it's Linux counterpart...) but this E3 I managed to see on satellite TV.
I saw an enormous chunk of space and time [wiping away the commercials on all sides of] the Microsoft announcements, announcements I didn't see as Earth-shattering or mildly important. I saw a few stand-ins who were reading cue cards, and a few games I'd LOVE to know more about, but time constraints were a problem. (Thanks, Microsoft.)
Personally, I cut it off. I wouldn't attend and E3 if they PAID me to teleport to the scene and teleported me back. It just wasn't that interesting.
I'd rather see a "GameCon" (like the SciFi/Mystery/etc conventions, a'la ChattaCon), owned by no one, and held in several different towns like these other Cons. Having just one a year tends to break out the better-funded vendors while the lesser-funded, usually more creative vendors can get a shot, too.
Like I said, it's been a long, long time since I was involved; the last game console I had was a Sega Genesis [though it was part of my custom-built RV] but this sure looked like a big show about nothing, to me.
We're never going to agree... But it still is a fun discussion.
It sure is. I'm not trying to metaphorically 'clone' myself, but I'd like to shine light on paths you might have thought ill-considered.
I think many people in our culture are aware of it, and probably have tried religion, if they weren't raised into it. I, myself, was raised Catholic, but left around the age of reason (15-16), it didn't fit what I saw in the world. At the time I saw all this evil, that you speak of, and couldn't rectify a loving God with it, especially when paired with the idiotic Cold War rhetoric of "God is on our side". How can God be on anyones side when the goal is to nuke innocents if you have a chance? Read the same for any war, if God picked a side, He isn't worthy of worship.
Well this explains much; there are some serious differences between the Roman Catholic Church and reality/the_Bible. Remember this is the organization that maintained monks to translate the Bible, but almost always into Latin, the language of the scholars, as it wasn't meant for the man on the street. The organization that, though these monks once penned by hand every word in the Bible, they overlook some important passages like Christ saying "[When you pray to me] Don't recite." and "Confess only to me- no one else can help you. And don't pray for the dead for they cannot hear you.
It didn't hold the answers, and hopes that you, yourself, found. It left me with the proverbial "hole", since I knew there were answers to the questions that religion didn't answer for me. (there are full philosophy texts on these questions)
I've heard so many times the very argument from RC parishioners. Want the truth? Want answers? See http://equip.org./ Hank Hannegraff has set up the Christian Resource Institute to answer all questions, do research to get the answers and clearly explain the answers. He's ruffling some feathers...he reading of Revelation (for example) doesn't include room for action figures.:>
Dispensationalism came from a priest named Darby back in the 1800's if I remember correctly. Before then, everyone [Luther, for example] saw in the text only ONE rapture. Not one for Hebrews seven years after the gentiles were gone. Hank's pointed out the fallacy of these ideas, and gives good detail. He also has a radio show here-n-there called Bible Answer Man. Lots of good truths in there.
Are ya really gonna try to keep it under your hat, even if it doesn't fill your life with joy?
I'm truly conflicted here, and this almost made me not reply. I LIKE people being happy, for whatever (nondestructive) reason, and thus I don't want to tarnish that. And I do understand the religious drive to preaching by converts, it is a wholly humanitarian, and benign act. If I found a useful truth I would do the same. I'm conflicted, since I don't want to hear it anymore, though. I'm constantly preached at, I am aware of God, Jesus, etc... I won't convert, though, unless, as you probably know, there is some internal reason that makes this version of truth self-evident and useful. So far there isn't, and even points to the contrary.
I don't blame ya; preaching (like, the 'fire and brimstone, some thing's-wrong-with-YOU!' kinda thing is awful. I like to consider it sharing, instead. Know how I know you're a sinner? You're a human with a heartbeat; so what? The exact sin doesn't matter, it's the heartfelt desire to comply that's important.
Hollywood's not kind to Christians. Either they show a cult following rules that have been outdated for 2 millinia, or Roman Catholics who confess their sins but don't feel their lives are improved by going to mass. It's pretty sad, but there's lotsa room in the middle.
Yes, Sartre wasn't the glorious optimist I painted him as, but nor was he as bleak as you have. He realized that there is no meaning, and we just have to accept it, which, on close reading, is empowering. I don't
If you can fill your "hole" with Jesus, good for you. If it makes you happy, even better. But that is YOUR answer. Just because something fills a need, doesn't make it real. Just because something works for you, doesn't mean it works for everyone else.
Actually, it does...but not everyone's willing to even look into it, much less turn themselves over to it. There's no exclusions: slave or free, Greek or Roman, male or female- the invitation is open to all, but few actually investigate. It's sad, really.
And this is a voluntary acceptance: anyone pursuing an armed conversion doesn't understand. It's not about being 'perfect', it's about trying to be, while being humble, helpful, and friendly.
I'm always suspicious of people who need to broadcast their happiness and good fortune. If it can't exist in private, is it really happiness? Or you just inadvertently abusing the sociological mirror, you want US to see YOU as happy, so you can fool yourself into it? Its like these "green" morons, telling all of us how "eco-freindly" they are, if they really were fulfilled by this, would they need to preach it, and make us KNOW how good they are?
Yeah, I used to feel that way, too. I often wondered why 'holy rollers' seemed more possessed than anything else. But do the 'math' a second: you've just learned the most important, most helpful, most powerful secret in this reality. Bigger than transparent aluminum,:> bigger than the cure for AIDS. Are ya really gonna try to keep it under your hat, even if it doesn't fill your life with joy?
I don't need anyone's approval of my salvation to validate it, which is good- few people appreciate it. Most hate it. (As is the desire of every media outlet on this planet I've ever seen). I share because Slashdot is a window to the world. And the world is now so clearly unhappy, self-involved and lost.
I doubt the reality of this "hole"...
Give it time; you'll see it, too.
The world isn't horrible, we just see it that way. For every Hitler and Pinochet there is a Picasso and a Albert Schweitzer. For every meaningless war, there is a child who stares at a sunset, blinded by awe. Part of the problem is that we expect MEANING, when there is no reason that there should be. Accepting that things are as they are completely destroys any illusionary "hole". Accepting that there is no reason for meaning (in the religious sense) makes us (to paraphrase Sartre) the creators of our own meaning, and thus fulfillment is in our own hands.
Yeah, Sarte; now there was a happy, enlightened individual with his life in gear. He felt that there was nothing past this life, and no reason to think us different from cows. If that were so, it would deny every artist you've named here. It would deny the entire reason for science, much less its long-lived asking of the question "Why?". Sarte was popular at cocktail parties in the 60's for people living life poorly, letting them 'whistle past the graveyard', giving them a reason to not change.
Not a bad world? You must mean the planet.:) We lose 300,000 people every year in impoverished nations merely because of mosquitos. France makes the lion's share of mosquito nets, so they push the EU NOT to use DDT, which solved that problem here, and so these people keep dying. But let's look at closer, less-flashy problems.
How about all those 'missing wife' stories on the news? Keeping in mind that only the pretty get coverage, and even then, only when there's a good story, there's a hell of a lot of killing going on, and not just in the God-Free zones of gang-held LA. Notice how busy the police are? Seen the kinda things people do to infants lately? This is not a nice world.
And why not expect meaning? Do you have any idea how many "lucky circumstances" we'd have to have luckily cleared just to HAVE this conversation? Trillions of stars, sure. But 80-90% of the planets don't have land, much less the proper gravity. And even smalle
Greeks: The world's on Atlas' shoulders. Babylonians: The Earth's on some kinda boat, with the stars on a plexiglass overhead of some kind. Indians: The Earth floats on an elephant in an ocean of milk. Bible: The Earth is suspended from nothing.
Which was right, when space-pioneers started circling the globe?
For centuries geologists (and such) laughed at the Bible for claiming a 'new' tribe called the Hittites. Decades went by as people laughed, until someone turned over a shovel in the middle east and found their capital.
Scholars argued for decades (or more?) about the last king (singluar) of Babylon, while the Bible recorded two kings: one who stayed home, one who fought on the battle field. Another turn of the shovel, and the Bible was found to be right.
The point is, the Bible's been right a startling number of times. In in were the dimensions of a sucessful sea-going vessel, as told to Noah...a great deal of time before the world "knew" it.
It's not fairy tales. It's not a man-made set of stories. The Old Testament is made of something like 1,000,000 documents. The New Testament, about 5,000. People for centuries have been cross-checking them all this time. It's not a fad, it's not a fashion, and it's not a club to join (though some people treat it that way). It's real, it's the answer.
And I only wish you could permit yourself to SEE this truth, instead of fighting it.
Kinda like the scientists that found Wooly Mammoth DNA and thought about re-creating one a'la Jurassic Park, this wouldn't be a smart idea.
One of the things I always loved about Batman was that he was a _man_, not a god: no deep inhalation and sucking all the air off the planet. No flying against the rotation of the Earth to go back in time. If a bullet gets behind the suit, he's as dead as anyone else. And he's driven by the sadness of watching his parents die to a criminal.
It's *entirely* possible to dedicate your life to martial arts, chemistry, and about 100 other hard-skills to make yourself into Batman. But there is no Joker. There is no Gotham. There is just this silly little world so few people understand that we get the desire to LEAVE IT and escape into the movies.
I watched Hellboy 2 last night; it was a lot better than I expected. But even there mentioned a very real truth about mankind: each of us have a 'hole in our hearts' that gives us a greed to do (sometimes weird) things to fill it. Things like car racing, drugs, whoring, gambling...and things like wanting to be Batman. And until that 'hole' is filled, you'll run around aimlessly trying to fill it, but the fill is located in plain sight: Jesus Christ.
Oh, I know...more bad Karma- speaking out of experience, and being an experience this crowd doesn't want, but tough; it's truth. Since I filled the 'hole', I no longer fear death. I don't worry about ghosts because I know who and what they are. I see the world across the centuries for what it is, and have begun to play my own tiny part. I literally _cry_ for the lives of unhappiness that most people live.
I'm just saying: it's real. HE's real. All you have to do is go look for Him and you, too, can fill the hole and considering things like becoming Batman will look like the childish investment of time that it is. What would be so wrong with looking for Him?
Yeah, the world's pretty horrible. It stinks, it argues and it even kills. But this ain't heaven: this is neutral ground, and this is what we make it. Murder someone? Have an affair? Cheat a friend? That's what's making it so horrible: sin. The deviation from our intended role.
So forgive my loving outburst, with intent to give you peace.
Really? October's usually when Minnesota (southern Minnesota, where my grandparents lived) gets the first wallops. Must be a thermal thing- Great Britain's probably the best known of those; it should be even colder there than it is, but the warmer ocean flows keep it warmer.
I wonder if the name played any part of his choice. Professional thinkers can sometimes be kinda vain...:)
[no slowdowns, fewer reboots, etc] when I stop using Windows at all, and run Ubuntu Linux.
I'm sorry, guys- I'm not trolling here. It's a pretty simple issue. No more defrags. No more viruses. When something breaks, it's because it's *broken* not because I haven't paid enough to the right people. It has OpenOffice and Firefox. It runs on 10 year old hardware and 27 other platforms than x86.
It's all-gui. It's simple. It's even sexy. So other than no 'Halo 3' or Outlook, why on Earth would someone PAY for something that's being given away for free?
Republicans need to be learning new tricks. They don't have the media at their back.
For example, Dan Quayle once said, "I love California- I used to live in Phoenix." At least that's what was reported. What he DID say was more like "I love California, I live in Phoenix and have driven there many times, etc". But no: Republicans, the one-time home of Conservatism, doesn't get the benefit of the media. One channel on _cable_ or _satellite_, not wider coverage like CBS/NBC/ABC etc.
Young people everywhere hated John Ashcroft because it was reported that a soldier asked, "What happened to the armored HumVee's?" and he was quoted to have said, "You go to war with the Army you have, not the one you want." though his answer went on about three minutes. A member of the media posed the question of a soldier to make it look authentic. I've actually MET people who have hated Ashcroft for this reason- it's weird, and sad.
For having (almost) one, non-broadcast television channel and a handful of newspapers nationwide, I think they're doing pretty well. The Democrats have every Hollywood movie that comes out. Every show on Oxygen, Lifetime, Discovery, HUNDREDS of shows on HUNDREDS of channels to make their case and laugh at things like lower taxes and self-reliance. It's an uphill fight.
But it's our fault we're unhappy, now.
Democrats post "empty suit" candidates like "I voted for it, before I voted against it" Kerry, or "Soon the world will be on fire" Al Gore, or "I've been to all 57 states" Obama. Honestly: can you trust these people to park your CAR so you can find it again? These are puppets, clearly. From the people who used to bring you candidates like Truman and Roosevelt. Now, only mindless playboys seems to be in line.
The Republican side has problems, too: Semi-Conservatives. George Bush, Junior and Senior, are semi-Conservatives. Say they want smaller government, then sign-in prescription programs that no one really wants. Worse yet, McCain is a fighter pilot, chosen for our side by the media. He's gonna do whatever it takes to fulfill his goals, even if that means setting fire to the Republican party. Using "Global Warming(TM)" as a political tool, he's clearly a Liberal who wants to build government, not shrinking it.
What we all need are _Conservatives_. It's simple: smaller government for lower taxes and less intrusion.
This is Conservatism, and it wins because every time. Regan was a Conservative who followed an Liberal in the mold of AlGore/Kerry/Obama, taxing the rich so there are no jobs, taxing us 'cause there's no income to the government, and then wondering what's wrong. His election was a landslide, but that makes sense, life SUCKED economically, kinda like it does in the larger, Liberally-driven cities where people are now leaving in droves. But what's interesting is that his *re-election* was a landslide, too. That's unheard-of.
Why do you think Rush Limbaugh has an audience of 20 MILLION on (mostly) AM radio for the last two decades? Why do you think they could justify his $400M contract? It's so popular, the Left is trying to outlaw it, since their own message doesn't sell.
People _hunger_ for the life that we used to have. Now we have so much self-analysis and political correctness: a fascism of theoretical kindness. We don't need hate crimes tuned to ethnic groups- we need equal protection under the law. We don't need messing with our Freedom of Speech (Google: McCain Feingold) or Imminent Domain (see: http://www.ij.org/Private_property/connecticut) . Most people don't even know about these two incursions have taken place, thanks to the media.
Smaller government. Lower taxes. Enforce _existing_ laws. Stay _blind_ to color/race/ethnicity, protect a person's choice of religion, and all the other enumerated promises of the Constitution. No babysitting, no protecting speculators from losing money in various markets. If you rely on government instead of yourself, you'll be
Going to Canada in October. Oh, yeah...the rustle of big autumn leaves, rustling in the snow.
Sounds like someone only able to pose a $15M argument asking for $40M, so he's taking his toys and going home.
I'm reminded of the Baldwins (not Adam) who, every time a Republican is elected claiming they're moving to France. If only they'd follow through.
Isn't it Steve Hawking that's trying to suggest that all of reality came from *nothing* instead of coming from light/energy? Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could. But maybe the Canadians can be convinced.
Take your heavy clothes, Steven- appreciate the scenery, 'cause that's what they have the most of. (Can't wait to get there for a vacation, myself!)
As a newly-committed member of "TractorLand" where, while the house is provisioned with fiber optic, no broadband alternatives from Ameritech are invisioned, I've seen this too.
Only a few options are left for the out-of-town crowd: Satellite, Cellular, and Wifi. All are expensive if you're not near the higher-populated folks where you can get DSL. And guess what: 80% of dialup users are there. So it's $80/mo for satellite after all the rebates and such, 70$/mo for wireless (A kinda wifi that they use here in southern Indiana) and $100/mo for cellular as long as you can get the reception...and for people in TractorTown, that's usually bad.
All these alternatives use a telephone most of these people already have, plus a mere $10-$20/mo.
Not to mention, if they've never been ON broadband, they don't see the point in it.
2. This exact panic has been *repeatedly* revisited with copper- "We're running out of copper!" and someone works out a workaround. "The Earth's supply of copper is exhausted!" and someone finds a way to recycle it and at the same time opens a new, bigger vein of copper in some other country.
I'm not saying all these things are infinite...just that there are more than enough news stories telling us how we should panic about a bunch of things that aren't as bad as they're reported, and this is one of them. It's an election year- I just heard one of the gold merchants say "Experts say gold might hit $2,000 or even as high as $6,000!" (If it got to $6,000 it'd be because of an apocalypse where it didn't matter any more.)
Just relax; it's nowhere NEAR as bad as the news suggests. Keywords to listen for are "Experts say..." and "blah, blah, blah, surprising experts!" It's just another hoax.
They loved their handwriting recognition software more than themselves.
As I've been complaining, Palm took the best idea they had and locked it away, waiting for the big cash payoff. It never ocurred to them to license the process, keeping the rights from beginning to end, being a part of every launch in the industry, making a little money here and there if they never made another product.
No, not because it's been said before...I'm sure it has, somewhere. Instead, it's not news because a couple of "experts" (who are unable to predict properly a hurricane season, or next month's weather for my home) are making an assumption, and the media is running with it.
Remember all the flap about media bias? This is it. Most people (who don't pay a great deal of attention to the news, just headlines) think the housing market is so bad houses will no longer be for sale. They think gas is high, will only get higher, and that The Fed is the only one who can help.
(They've completely forgotten about the million stories of them paying $600 for a toilet seat, ruining health care with Medicade/Medicare, ruining the oil industry with over regulation, ruining higher education by allowing "the government" to pay higher tuitions each year, and pretty much everything but the military and post office. I haven't.)
The truth is that 1/2 of 1% of home mortgages are unpaid nationally. Not a big deal- we swung UP to a hot market, now we swing back to a cooler one. This is natural.
But no: the media must whine and complain (not merely *report* the news, as journalists used to do) but instead propagandize for their party, the liberals. This is a time of over-reporting and media push. The journalists have left the planet; Peabody Awards now go only to people who hate Bush, just like the Nobel Peace prize.
Why are polls news? They're snapshots, that's all, but they make news as if they were actual happenings- had meaning. They don't. But watch how much of the time "experts" are surprised by things they shouldn't be (currently like signs of a strong economy, like it is now) and how a couple of guys working at a dorm somewhere are taken seriously because they need to push GlobalWarming(TM).
Watch for yourselves: the broadcast media is now propaganda. Not hard news, not investigative reports of both parties, soft reports for their own, cheap shots for the other. Think critically the next time you hear a headline; it's time to notice the programming being passed out.
I knew a bunch of guys at a local apartment complex. Mentioning Ashcroft or Rove or anyone in the Bush admin would make their blood boil and their mouths foam...but they could never tell me *why* they hated them like someone who had killed a family member. The same thing goes on today.
There's not a nickle's difference between Bill Clinton, John Kerry, or Barak OBama: they're all poll-driven and sway with the wind. Barak is just the one on parade, today. How is that different? (Maybe the media is programming that in our heads, too?)
The Carlin I remember from the Vietnam war, possibly- it was vague. But the Carlin of late? It seems pretty unlikely he's 'strumming a harp'. He was a chronic drug user that sold himself over to them, and lost himself, as well as everything about him that I once enjoyed.
Carlin was one of the funniest guys on stage...in the 70's. Unlike Jonathan Winters and a whole raft of classical comedians who saved their 'blue' material for the 11:00 show (if they did it at all) Carlin was not only blue, but explicit for explicit's sake. Worse yet, preachy for all the topics known to harm man. Perhaps he was the original 'observer' comic, but something happened to him.
Carlin ended up a bitter, angry comedian. The hatred and the anger just ate him alive. He knew nothing about politics and merely parotted the Liberals (even in cases where he experienced something, he chose to believe the media instead, and then preach it.) I haven't been able to stand watching him for a few decades, now.
Very funny! And you're really close to the truth, actually.
One of their leaders, circa 1800-something went to Ejypt, and brought back a document he claimed would explain how Mormons were based in truth, the connection to [the current] Jesus Christ, etc to the new world, as soon as he was done translating it.
Trouble is, it was nothing. Some kind of funerary manifest or something- had nothing to do with Christ, or even religion. (And why did he go to Egypt for it?) It was hidden for a long time, but recently it not only surfaced, but was translated. It's just another example of how this religion, despite it's really good people, is founded on human vanity, not evidential nor historical.
It's sad, really, but they'll try to hide that document again, say it never happened, but it's one of dozens of re-thinks on the base of the religion that falls. Adding three words ("other" to be specific) to the Bible has turned it upside down- there's a current, living Christ, and a current, living Satan, but they're somehow spirit-brothers and live until they die. (Gods die?)
There's more wrong with it than fish soda, but the people are nice folk...and that's what makes it sad. :
CO2 isn't a gas that heats up the atmo. In fact, it cools it- about a million core samples show this. This "scam" is just another scam on top of a hoax. And, it's why we're in desperate need to wrest control of the government out of the hands of the fed.
It's not that they'd rather use that money sending poor people to college or feeding the hungry- they get their own endless supply of not-quite-enough to keep them from starting a revolt. It's that they take this money and quite literally shove it into the ground when there's no need...and when they need more, they'll tax more.
The $600 toilet seat, shoving CO2 under ground, and you *really* want these people chosing our cars for us, chosing our health care and such? Time to wake up: it's because they're in control that things suck so much. This notice of the stupidity should be a reason for all of us to wake up and call Washington, but I doubt anyone will. It's just so out of control...
So much of American scientists are religous- not about an expressed creator, but instead how faith in what the media parrots (as if it knows anything at all) has become "the truth". See also: 1937-or-so when Himmler and Hitler learned that "A lie, repeated often enough, becomes the truth."
Like how "CO2 causes man-made climate change", when, in fact, CO2, when the ocean...ya know...that 3/4 of the Earth's surface, spews CO2, it cools, not heats the surface air. It's an 'inconvenient truth', but is core to the problems with this, the world's biggest hoax.
It's no surprise; these are the people trying to tell us that killer bees would kill us all before 1980, and the only way to change that was to vote Democratic and send money to Washington. But those lucky enough to survive that barrage had to also clear the acid rain, who, media types were convinced, would prevent children from playing outside, as early as 1980.
And let's not forget that large, invisible barrier with a hole in it, by which sending money to Washington and voting Democratic was the only way to survive. The nearly world-class hoax of the ozone hole. Such a non-event.
I'm tired of this, folks.
Science is science. It doesn't come by consensus- F=MA is not subject to opinion: it's fact. That's science. And it doesn't matter what the political context is at the time.
Nowdays science is a harlot, all for being paid, and happens when people align their favorite project with "Global Warming". It's unseemly to be this way, believing on faith that something is true, despite large volumes of actual science that refutes it.
Doesn't anyone care about freedom anymore? Must we all join the fascists? Any problem that can be solved by sending money to Washington or voting Democrat isn't worth solving. Can we stop it, now?
Hey, it worked so well to unify and enlarge the public's love for handhelds (starting at the Palm Pilot)...why not lock-down such a great idea?/Sarcasm
These are the people who helped the "TIME/LIFE apes" come to pass through a combination of bad science and media's lack of concern for the truth. [The ape-to-man display that shows a monkey on one end, an accountant on the other, despite some of the 'apes' being out of place by millions of years, and despite deciding what one of them looked like based on a single tooth...]
These are the people who are constantly telling us about distant celestial collisions and saying "That's what'll happen to us in 54 billion years" even though the information is a) completely useless to anyone with a heartbeat and b) a guess, at best.
And isn't it these people...and the [theoretically] trying to convince us that a) change to the climate is going to kill us b) We're the cause and c) we have any control over it whatsoever and d) it can be solved by sending people money, despite the fact they can't forecast THE WEATHER more than a week ahead?
Now, am I to understand that these brilliant, bastions of faith who we should 'absolutely trust' with our immortal souls, since they're so much more accurate than the Bible....NOW TELL US THEY'VE MIS-MEASURED OUR GALAXY BY A FACTOR OF TWO??!?!?!?! OUR OWN GALAXY? ONE WE CAN ACTUALLY "SEE" FROM HERE? (Consensus isn't science.)
Almitra Wilcox, a woman who's trying to walk around the world, might be able to help with your travels. She had crossed Australia through the middle (the desert part, not around the outside edge) before I 'met' her online. She's *walked* through Cambodia, Vietnam, Tibet, India and dozens more...*WALKING BACK* through Pakistan and/or Afghanistan when she lost her hat that chronicled the stops along the way.
Just now, she's off the job- like me she has family to care for, but that should mean she's more available by email and such:
photogypsy.org is the website, she's Almitra@PhotoGypsy.org and a very nice lady- enjoy!
Well, as a total outsider to the Debian mindset, let me offer this.
I used Redhat with the RPMS and all, even maintaining software. It was the second foray into Linux; the first time was with Slackware 2.3 and about 30 floppies. I stayed with Redhat from 4.0 until FC4, but by that time I was sick of the business bias. For about a year OpenLdap on their repo was busted. It was nearly herculean to get it to work, and keep it working. Then they offered a replacement to it in the purchase of the Netscape Directory, and I felt the time was right to look around.
Ubuntu has done a fabulous job with Debian's beginnings. They had the resources and the passion to make releases and push the envelope....but they couldn't have done it without what I CLEARLY see as the better package manager: Debian.
Personally, I love Ubuntu. And I've grown to love it, not just for it's lack of business bias, but for it's product as well.
We really owe a lot to "Deb" and "Ian" for their brilliant, visionary start.
But see, that's part of the point: these things have gone away *because* we no longer have the promise of parental oversight; it's just another thing people want the government to do.
When children have children, no traditions are passed. Wisdom from grandparents and great grandparents is lost. And the bottom line is that people who are too immature to have children have had three before they get old enough to know better.
It's irony that creation of these children actually has had a harmful effect on mankind as a whole more than the loss of a few children. Now, thanks to acceptance of pregant teens in high school, we now have an ARMY of children without fathers. We have entire divisions of people who can't adequately keep a job, manage their money, or discipline children.
So to answer your flippant and let's face it, hateful response: are a few dead children worth it? You'd better believe it. Because abortions alone cost 40,000,000 dead children, born to children who couldn't handle it. Because a major fraction of our numbers live in poverty, and yet more feel lost and overwhelmed with daily life. And here I thought it was cruel to shun the accidentally-pregnant back in the day.
There are a lot of things that have changes. The Lawn Dart was the original version of the game college kids now use beanbags to throw into distant circles, usually holes in a wood box; I forget the name. Oh, no...it was a nearly foot-long object with about 1/2 of it metal, flung downrange to a yellow, tubular target. I'm sure someone, somewhere got hurt on them, but not if they were using them carefully. They weren't really sharp, outta the box.
And steel dashboards used to be the rage; I remember the one on our 1963 International Travellall was nothing but a flat plate, screwed to a rounded metal dash, and you could swap out gauges with your International tractor, if need be. It was very cool; huge, as fuel was cheap before the Carter Administration, came with a tailgate, an electric glass rear window, and plenty of room around the engine to work, under a hood that held itself up with springs. I'm amazed the danger of this rolling house-o-horrors didn't strike us on the salesfloor.:)
But things change; they have to. I can remember dozens of times hearing about a friend or relative mixing sodium and water because the effect was "cool". And probably the most popular effect was making stink bombs. But I suppose like the erector set before it, it's time had to come.
Now that GI Joe is becoming some watered-down blue-helmeted dweeb, when he was once a huge man-doll with a huge Jeep and weapons, I don't think the change in the toys seems to have followed the politically-correct crowd, too. And just for the record: No Conservative nor Republican was the source of this nonsense. Say what you will, "PC" is from the mouths of grown-up hippies.
Sorry, guys; you would have loved a childhood in the early 60's and 70's.
Cellphone companies suck in America- just ask anyone (especially anyone returning from Japan...)
I've never met anyone who actually recommended a carrier...sometimes a phone, never a carrier.
Now, it's not all their fault; America is a *huge* landmass compared to England and Japan where coolness dwells. I'm told that England and America have the same number of towers, but in America they're only in populated areas.
But maybe it's an America thing like women's breasts- is it only in America we HATE (and I mean, with passion) our computers, but it never crosses our collective mind to investigate an alternative?
Slashdot Mirror
Gaming hasn't been a part of my life for a _very_ long time. (See also: Unreal Tournament and it's Linux counterpart...) but this E3 I managed to see on satellite TV.
I saw an enormous chunk of space and time [wiping away the commercials on all sides of] the Microsoft announcements, announcements I didn't see as Earth-shattering or mildly important. I saw a few stand-ins who were reading cue cards, and a few games I'd LOVE to know more about, but time constraints were a problem. (Thanks, Microsoft.)
Personally, I cut it off. I wouldn't attend and E3 if they PAID me to teleport to the scene and teleported me back. It just wasn't that interesting.
I'd rather see a "GameCon" (like the SciFi/Mystery/etc conventions, a'la ChattaCon), owned by no one, and held in several different towns like these other Cons. Having just one a year tends to break out the better-funded vendors while the lesser-funded, usually more creative vendors can get a shot, too.
Like I said, it's been a long, long time since I was involved; the last game console I had was a Sega Genesis [though it was part of my custom-built RV] but this sure looked like a big show about nothing, to me.
We're never going to agree... But it still is a fun discussion.
It sure is. I'm not trying to metaphorically 'clone' myself, but I'd like to shine light on paths you might have thought ill-considered.
I think many people in our culture are aware of it, and probably have tried religion, if they weren't raised into it. I, myself, was raised Catholic, but left around the age of reason (15-16), it didn't fit what I saw in the world. At the time I saw all this evil, that you speak of, and couldn't rectify a loving God with it, especially when paired with the idiotic Cold War rhetoric of "God is on our side". How can God be on anyones side when the goal is to nuke innocents if you have a chance? Read the same for any war, if God picked a side, He isn't worthy of worship.
Well this explains much; there are some serious differences between the Roman Catholic Church and reality/the_Bible. Remember this is the organization that maintained monks to translate the Bible, but almost always into Latin, the language of the scholars, as it wasn't meant for the man on the street. The organization that, though these monks once penned by hand every word in the Bible, they overlook some important passages like Christ saying "[When you pray to me] Don't recite." and "Confess only to me- no one else can help you. And don't pray for the dead for they cannot hear you.
It didn't hold the answers, and hopes that you, yourself, found. It left me with the proverbial "hole", since I knew there were answers to the questions that religion didn't answer for me. (there are full philosophy texts on these questions)
I've heard so many times the very argument from RC parishioners. Want the truth? Want answers? See http://equip.org./ Hank Hannegraff has set up the Christian Resource Institute to answer all questions, do research to get the answers and clearly explain the answers. He's ruffling some feathers...he reading of Revelation (for example) doesn't include room for action figures. :>
Dispensationalism came from a priest named Darby back in the 1800's if I remember correctly. Before then, everyone [Luther, for example] saw in the text only ONE rapture. Not one for Hebrews seven years after the gentiles were gone. Hank's pointed out the fallacy of these ideas, and gives good detail. He also has a radio show here-n-there called Bible Answer Man. Lots of good truths in there.
Are ya really gonna try to keep it under your hat, even if it doesn't fill your life with joy?
I'm truly conflicted here, and this almost made me not reply. I LIKE people being happy, for whatever (nondestructive) reason, and thus I don't want to tarnish that. And I do understand the religious drive to preaching by converts, it is a wholly humanitarian, and benign act. If I found a useful truth I would do the same. I'm conflicted, since I don't want to hear it anymore, though. I'm constantly preached at, I am aware of God, Jesus, etc... I won't convert, though, unless, as you probably know, there is some internal reason that makes this version of truth self-evident and useful. So far there isn't, and even points to the contrary.
I don't blame ya; preaching (like, the 'fire and brimstone, some thing's-wrong-with-YOU!' kinda thing is awful. I like to consider it sharing, instead. Know how I know you're a sinner? You're a human with a heartbeat; so what? The exact sin doesn't matter, it's the heartfelt desire to comply that's important.
Hollywood's not kind to Christians. Either they show a cult following rules that have been outdated for 2 millinia, or Roman Catholics who confess their sins but don't feel their lives are improved by going to mass. It's pretty sad, but there's lotsa room in the middle.
Yes, Sartre wasn't the glorious optimist I painted him as, but nor was he as bleak as you have. He realized that there is no meaning, and we just have to accept it, which, on close reading, is empowering. I don't
Newsflash: You cannot read minds.
I knew you were gonna say that! :)
(It'd be kinda interesting to know what this refers to, but I'm about to go someplace. Maybe later.)
If you can fill your "hole" with Jesus, good for you. If it makes you happy, even better. But that is YOUR answer. Just because something fills a need, doesn't make it real. Just because something works for you, doesn't mean it works for everyone else.
Actually, it does...but not everyone's willing to even look into it, much less turn themselves over to it. There's no exclusions: slave or free, Greek or Roman, male or female- the invitation is open to all, but few actually investigate. It's sad, really.
And this is a voluntary acceptance: anyone pursuing an armed conversion doesn't understand. It's not about being 'perfect', it's about trying to be, while being humble, helpful, and friendly.
I'm always suspicious of people who need to broadcast their happiness and good fortune. If it can't exist in private, is it really happiness? Or you just inadvertently abusing the sociological mirror, you want US to see YOU as happy, so you can fool yourself into it? Its like these "green" morons, telling all of us how "eco-freindly" they are, if they really were fulfilled by this, would they need to preach it, and make us KNOW how good they are?
Yeah, I used to feel that way, too. I often wondered why 'holy rollers' seemed more possessed than anything else. But do the 'math' a second: you've just learned the most important, most helpful, most powerful secret in this reality. Bigger than transparent aluminum, :> bigger than the cure for AIDS. Are ya really gonna try to keep it under your hat, even if it doesn't fill your life with joy?
I don't need anyone's approval of my salvation to validate it, which is good- few people appreciate it. Most hate it. (As is the desire of every media outlet on this planet I've ever seen). I share because Slashdot is a window to the world. And the world is now so clearly unhappy, self-involved and lost.
I doubt the reality of this "hole"...
Give it time; you'll see it, too.
The world isn't horrible, we just see it that way. For every Hitler and Pinochet there is a Picasso and a Albert Schweitzer. For every meaningless war, there is a child who stares at a sunset, blinded by awe. Part of the problem is that we expect MEANING, when there is no reason that there should be. Accepting that things are as they are completely destroys any illusionary "hole". Accepting that there is no reason for meaning (in the religious sense) makes us (to paraphrase Sartre) the creators of our own meaning, and thus fulfillment is in our own hands.
Yeah, Sarte; now there was a happy, enlightened individual with his life in gear. He felt that there was nothing past this life, and no reason to think us different from cows. If that were so, it would deny every artist you've named here. It would deny the entire reason for science, much less its long-lived asking of the question "Why?". Sarte was popular at cocktail parties in the 60's for people living life poorly, letting them 'whistle past the graveyard', giving them a reason to not change.
Not a bad world? You must mean the planet. :) We lose 300,000 people every year in impoverished nations merely because of mosquitos. France makes the lion's share of mosquito nets, so they push the EU NOT to use DDT, which solved that problem here, and so these people keep dying. But let's look at closer, less-flashy problems.
How about all those 'missing wife' stories on the news? Keeping in mind that only the pretty get coverage, and even then, only when there's a good story, there's a hell of a lot of killing going on, and not just in the God-Free zones of gang-held LA. Notice how busy the police are? Seen the kinda things people do to infants lately? This is not a nice world.
And why not expect meaning? Do you have any idea how many "lucky circumstances" we'd have to have luckily cleared just to HAVE this conversation? Trillions of stars, sure. But 80-90% of the planets don't have land, much less the proper gravity. And even smalle
Well, let's take a snapshot.
Greeks: The world's on Atlas' shoulders.
Babylonians: The Earth's on some kinda boat, with the stars on a plexiglass overhead of some kind.
Indians: The Earth floats on an elephant in an ocean of milk.
Bible: The Earth is suspended from nothing.
Which was right, when space-pioneers started circling the globe?
For centuries geologists (and such) laughed at the Bible for claiming a 'new' tribe called the Hittites. Decades went by as people laughed, until someone turned over a shovel in the middle east and found their capital.
Scholars argued for decades (or more?) about the last king (singluar) of Babylon, while the Bible recorded two kings: one who stayed home, one who fought on the battle field. Another turn of the shovel, and the Bible was found to be right.
The point is, the Bible's been right a startling number of times. In in were the dimensions of a sucessful sea-going vessel, as told to Noah...a great deal of time before the world "knew" it.
It's not fairy tales. It's not a man-made set of stories. The Old Testament is made of something like 1,000,000 documents. The New Testament, about 5,000. People for centuries have been cross-checking them all this time. It's not a fad, it's not a fashion, and it's not a club to join (though some people treat it that way). It's real, it's the answer.
And I only wish you could permit yourself to SEE this truth, instead of fighting it.
Kinda like the scientists that found Wooly Mammoth DNA and thought about re-creating one a'la Jurassic Park, this wouldn't be a smart idea.
One of the things I always loved about Batman was that he was a _man_, not a god: no deep inhalation and sucking all the air off the planet. No flying against the rotation of the Earth to go back in time. If a bullet gets behind the suit, he's as dead as anyone else. And he's driven by the sadness of watching his parents die to a criminal.
It's *entirely* possible to dedicate your life to martial arts, chemistry, and about 100 other hard-skills to make yourself into Batman. But there is no Joker. There is no Gotham. There is just this silly little world so few people understand that we get the desire to LEAVE IT and escape into the movies.
I watched Hellboy 2 last night; it was a lot better than I expected. But even there mentioned a very real truth about mankind: each of us have a 'hole in our hearts' that gives us a greed to do (sometimes weird) things to fill it. Things like car racing, drugs, whoring, gambling...and things like wanting to be Batman. And until that 'hole' is filled, you'll run around aimlessly trying to fill it, but the fill is located in plain sight: Jesus Christ.
Oh, I know...more bad Karma- speaking out of experience, and being an experience this crowd doesn't want, but tough; it's truth. Since I filled the 'hole', I no longer fear death. I don't worry about ghosts because I know who and what they are. I see the world across the centuries for what it is, and have begun to play my own tiny part. I literally _cry_ for the lives of unhappiness that most people live.
I'm just saying: it's real. HE's real. All you have to do is go look for Him and you, too, can fill the hole and considering things like becoming Batman will look like the childish investment of time that it is. What would be so wrong with looking for Him?
Yeah, the world's pretty horrible. It stinks, it argues and it even kills. But this ain't heaven: this is neutral ground, and this is what we make it. Murder someone? Have an affair? Cheat a friend? That's what's making it so horrible: sin. The deviation from our intended role.
So forgive my loving outburst, with intent to give you peace.
Really? October's usually when Minnesota (southern Minnesota, where my grandparents lived) gets the first wallops. Must be a thermal thing- Great Britain's probably the best known of those; it should be even colder there than it is, but the warmer ocean flows keep it warmer.
I wonder if the name played any part of his choice. Professional thinkers can sometimes be kinda vain... :)
[no slowdowns, fewer reboots, etc] when I stop using Windows at all, and run Ubuntu Linux.
I'm sorry, guys- I'm not trolling here. It's a pretty simple issue. No more defrags. No more viruses. When something breaks, it's because it's *broken* not because I haven't paid enough to the right people. It has OpenOffice and Firefox. It runs on 10 year old hardware and 27 other platforms than x86.
It's all-gui. It's simple. It's even sexy. So other than no 'Halo 3' or Outlook, why on Earth would someone PAY for something that's being given away for free?
Republicans need to be learning new tricks. They don't have the media at their back.
For example, Dan Quayle once said, "I love California- I used to live in Phoenix." At least that's what was reported. What he DID say was more like "I love California, I live in Phoenix and have driven there many times, etc". But no: Republicans, the one-time home of Conservatism, doesn't get the benefit of the media. One channel on _cable_ or _satellite_, not wider coverage like CBS/NBC/ABC etc.
Young people everywhere hated John Ashcroft because it was reported that a soldier asked, "What happened to the armored HumVee's?" and he was quoted to have said, "You go to war with the Army you have, not the one you want." though his answer went on about three minutes. A member of the media posed the question of a soldier to make it look authentic. I've actually MET people who have hated Ashcroft for this reason- it's weird, and sad.
For having (almost) one, non-broadcast television channel and a handful of newspapers nationwide, I think they're doing pretty well. The Democrats have every Hollywood movie that comes out. Every show on Oxygen, Lifetime, Discovery, HUNDREDS of shows on HUNDREDS of channels to make their case and laugh at things like lower taxes and self-reliance. It's an uphill fight.
But it's our fault we're unhappy, now.
Democrats post "empty suit" candidates like "I voted for it, before I voted against it" Kerry, or "Soon the world will be on fire" Al Gore, or "I've been to all 57 states" Obama. Honestly: can you trust these people to park your CAR so you can find it again? These are puppets, clearly. From the people who used to bring you candidates like Truman and Roosevelt. Now, only mindless playboys seems to be in line.
The Republican side has problems, too: Semi-Conservatives. George Bush, Junior and Senior, are semi-Conservatives. Say they want smaller government, then sign-in prescription programs that no one really wants. Worse yet, McCain is a fighter pilot, chosen for our side by the media. He's gonna do whatever it takes to fulfill his goals, even if that means setting fire to the Republican party. Using "Global Warming(TM)" as a political tool, he's clearly a Liberal who wants to build government, not shrinking it.
What we all need are _Conservatives_. It's simple: smaller government for lower taxes and less intrusion.
This is Conservatism, and it wins because every time. Regan was a Conservative who followed an Liberal in the mold of AlGore/Kerry/Obama, taxing the rich so there are no jobs, taxing us 'cause there's no income to the government, and then wondering what's wrong. His election was a landslide, but that makes sense, life SUCKED economically, kinda like it does in the larger, Liberally-driven cities where people are now leaving in droves. But what's interesting is that his *re-election* was a landslide, too. That's unheard-of.
Why do you think Rush Limbaugh has an audience of 20 MILLION on (mostly) AM radio for the last two decades? Why do you think they could justify his $400M contract? It's so popular, the Left is trying to outlaw it, since their own message doesn't sell.
People _hunger_ for the life that we used to have. Now we have so much self-analysis and political correctness: a fascism of theoretical kindness. We don't need hate crimes tuned to ethnic groups- we need equal protection under the law. We don't need messing with our Freedom of Speech (Google: McCain Feingold) or Imminent Domain (see: http://www.ij.org/Private_property/connecticut) . Most people don't even know about these two incursions have taken place, thanks to the media.
Smaller government. Lower taxes. Enforce _existing_ laws. Stay _blind_ to color/race/ethnicity, protect a person's choice of religion, and all the other enumerated promises of the Constitution. No babysitting, no protecting speculators from losing money in various markets. If you rely on government instead of yourself, you'll be
Going to Canada in October. Oh, yeah...the rustle of big autumn leaves, rustling in the snow.
Sounds like someone only able to pose a $15M argument asking for $40M, so he's taking his toys and going home.
I'm reminded of the Baldwins (not Adam) who, every time a Republican is elected claiming they're moving to France. If only they'd follow through.
Isn't it Steve Hawking that's trying to suggest that all of reality came from *nothing* instead of coming from light/energy? Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could. But maybe the Canadians can be convinced.
Take your heavy clothes, Steven- appreciate the scenery, 'cause that's what they have the most of. (Can't wait to get there for a vacation, myself!)
As a newly-committed member of "TractorLand" where, while the house is provisioned with fiber optic, no broadband alternatives from Ameritech are invisioned, I've seen this too.
Only a few options are left for the out-of-town crowd: Satellite, Cellular, and Wifi. All are expensive if you're not near the higher-populated folks where you can get DSL. And guess what: 80% of dialup users are there. So it's $80/mo for satellite after all the rebates and such, 70$/mo for wireless (A kinda wifi that they use here in southern Indiana) and $100/mo for cellular as long as you can get the reception...and for people in TractorTown, that's usually bad.
All these alternatives use a telephone most of these people already have, plus a mere $10-$20/mo.
Not to mention, if they've never been ON broadband, they don't see the point in it.
1. Maybe this is what's meant by "Rare", aye?
2. This exact panic has been *repeatedly* revisited with copper- "We're running out of copper!" and someone works out a workaround. "The Earth's supply of copper is exhausted!" and someone finds a way to recycle it and at the same time opens a new, bigger vein of copper in some other country.
I'm not saying all these things are infinite...just that there are more than enough news stories telling us how we should panic about a bunch of things that aren't as bad as they're reported, and this is one of them. It's an election year- I just heard one of the gold merchants say "Experts say gold might hit $2,000 or even as high as $6,000!" (If it got to $6,000 it'd be because of an apocalypse where it didn't matter any more.)
Just relax; it's nowhere NEAR as bad as the news suggests. Keywords to listen for are "Experts say..." and "blah, blah, blah, surprising experts!" It's just another hoax.
They loved their handwriting recognition software more than themselves.
As I've been complaining, Palm took the best idea they had and locked it away, waiting for the big cash payoff. It never ocurred to them to license the process, keeping the rights from beginning to end, being a part of every launch in the industry, making a little money here and there if they never made another product.
But now...cash, now: much more important.
No, not because it's been said before...I'm sure it has, somewhere. Instead, it's not news because a couple of "experts" (who are unable to predict properly a hurricane season, or next month's weather for my home) are making an assumption, and the media is running with it.
Remember all the flap about media bias? This is it. Most people (who don't pay a great deal of attention to the news, just headlines) think the housing market is so bad houses will no longer be for sale. They think gas is high, will only get higher, and that The Fed is the only one who can help.
(They've completely forgotten about the million stories of them paying $600 for a toilet seat, ruining health care with Medicade/Medicare, ruining the oil industry with over regulation, ruining higher education by allowing "the government" to pay higher tuitions each year, and pretty much everything but the military and post office. I haven't.)
The truth is that 1/2 of 1% of home mortgages are unpaid nationally. Not a big deal- we swung UP to a hot market, now we swing back to a cooler one. This is natural.
But no: the media must whine and complain (not merely *report* the news, as journalists used to do) but instead propagandize for their party, the liberals. This is a time of over-reporting and media push. The journalists have left the planet; Peabody Awards now go only to people who hate Bush, just like the Nobel Peace prize.
Why are polls news? They're snapshots, that's all, but they make news as if they were actual happenings- had meaning. They don't. But watch how much of the time "experts" are surprised by things they shouldn't be (currently like signs of a strong economy, like it is now) and how a couple of guys working at a dorm somewhere are taken seriously because they need to push GlobalWarming(TM).
Watch for yourselves: the broadcast media is now propaganda. Not hard news, not investigative reports of both parties, soft reports for their own, cheap shots for the other. Think critically the next time you hear a headline; it's time to notice the programming being passed out.
I knew a bunch of guys at a local apartment complex. Mentioning Ashcroft or Rove or anyone in the Bush admin would make their blood boil and their mouths foam...but they could never tell me *why* they hated them like someone who had killed a family member. The same thing goes on today.
There's not a nickle's difference between Bill Clinton, John Kerry, or Barak OBama: they're all poll-driven and sway with the wind. Barak is just the one on parade, today. How is that different? (Maybe the media is programming that in our heads, too?)
Uh, yeah.
The Carlin I remember from the Vietnam war, possibly- it was vague. But the Carlin of late? It seems pretty unlikely he's 'strumming a harp'. He was a chronic drug user that sold himself over to them, and lost himself, as well as everything about him that I once enjoyed.
Carlin was one of the funniest guys on stage...in the 70's. Unlike Jonathan Winters and a whole raft of classical comedians who saved their 'blue' material for the 11:00 show (if they did it at all) Carlin was not only blue, but explicit for explicit's sake. Worse yet, preachy for all the topics known to harm man. Perhaps he was the original 'observer' comic, but something happened to him.
Carlin ended up a bitter, angry comedian. The hatred and the anger just ate him alive. He knew nothing about politics and merely parotted the Liberals (even in cases where he experienced something, he chose to believe the media instead, and then preach it.) I haven't been able to stand watching him for a few decades, now.
I'm not gonna miss him, sorry.
Very funny! And you're really close to the truth, actually.
One of their leaders, circa 1800-something went to Ejypt, and brought back a document he claimed would explain how Mormons were based in truth, the connection to [the current] Jesus Christ, etc to the new world, as soon as he was done translating it.
Trouble is, it was nothing. Some kind of funerary manifest or something- had nothing to do with Christ, or even religion. (And why did he go to Egypt for it?) It was hidden for a long time, but recently it not only surfaced, but was translated. It's just another example of how this religion, despite it's really good people, is founded on human vanity, not evidential nor historical.
It's sad, really, but they'll try to hide that document again, say it never happened, but it's one of dozens of re-thinks on the base of the religion that falls. Adding three words ("other" to be specific) to the Bible has turned it upside down- there's a current, living Christ, and a current, living Satan, but they're somehow spirit-brothers and live until they die. (Gods die?)
There's more wrong with it than fish soda, but the people are nice folk...and that's what makes it sad. :
CO2 isn't a gas that heats up the atmo. In fact, it cools it- about a million core samples show this. This "scam" is just another scam on top of a hoax. And, it's why we're in desperate need to wrest control of the government out of the hands of the fed.
It's not that they'd rather use that money sending poor people to college or feeding the hungry- they get their own endless supply of not-quite-enough to keep them from starting a revolt. It's that they take this money and quite literally shove it into the ground when there's no need...and when they need more, they'll tax more.
The $600 toilet seat, shoving CO2 under ground, and you *really* want these people chosing our cars for us, chosing our health care and such? Time to wake up: it's because they're in control that things suck so much. This notice of the stupidity should be a reason for all of us to wake up and call Washington, but I doubt anyone will. It's just so out of control...
So much of American scientists are religous- not about an expressed creator, but instead how faith in what the media parrots (as if it knows anything at all) has become "the truth". See also: 1937-or-so when Himmler and Hitler learned that "A lie, repeated often enough, becomes the truth."
Like how "CO2 causes man-made climate change", when, in fact, CO2, when the ocean...ya know...that 3/4 of the Earth's surface, spews CO2, it cools, not heats the surface air. It's an 'inconvenient truth', but is core to the problems with this, the world's biggest hoax.
It's no surprise; these are the people trying to tell us that killer bees would kill us all before 1980, and the only way to change that was to vote Democratic and send money to Washington. But those lucky enough to survive that barrage had to also clear the acid rain, who, media types were convinced, would prevent children from playing outside, as early as 1980.
And let's not forget that large, invisible barrier with a hole in it, by which sending money to Washington and voting Democratic was the only way to survive. The nearly world-class hoax of the ozone hole. Such a non-event.
I'm tired of this, folks.
Science is science. It doesn't come by consensus- F=MA is not subject to opinion: it's fact. That's science. And it doesn't matter what the political context is at the time.
Nowdays science is a harlot, all for being paid, and happens when people align their favorite project with "Global Warming". It's unseemly to be this way, believing on faith that something is true, despite large volumes of actual science that refutes it.
Doesn't anyone care about freedom anymore? Must we all join the fascists? Any problem that can be solved by sending money to Washington or voting Democrat isn't worth solving. Can we stop it, now?
Hey, it worked so well to unify and enlarge the public's love for handhelds (starting at the Palm Pilot)...why not lock-down such a great idea?
These are the people who helped the "TIME/LIFE apes" come to pass through a combination of bad science and media's lack of concern for the truth. [The ape-to-man display that shows a monkey on one end, an accountant on the other, despite some of the 'apes' being out of place by millions of years, and despite deciding what one of them looked like based on a single tooth...]
These are the people who are constantly telling us about distant celestial collisions and saying "That's what'll happen to us in 54 billion years" even though the information is a) completely useless to anyone with a heartbeat and b) a guess, at best.
And isn't it these people...and the [theoretically] trying to convince us that a) change to the climate is going to kill us b) We're the cause and c) we have any control over it whatsoever and d) it can be solved by sending people money, despite the fact they can't forecast THE WEATHER more than a week ahead?
Now, am I to understand that these brilliant, bastions of faith who we should 'absolutely trust' with our immortal souls, since they're so much more accurate than the Bible....NOW TELL US THEY'VE MIS-MEASURED OUR GALAXY BY A FACTOR OF TWO??!?!?!?! OUR OWN GALAXY? ONE WE CAN ACTUALLY "SEE" FROM HERE? (Consensus isn't science.)
We've been trusting science for far too long.
Almitra Wilcox, a woman who's trying to walk around the world, might be able to help with your travels. She had crossed Australia through the middle (the desert part, not around the outside edge) before I 'met' her online. She's *walked* through Cambodia, Vietnam, Tibet, India and dozens more...*WALKING BACK* through Pakistan and/or Afghanistan when she lost her hat that chronicled the stops along the way.
Just now, she's off the job- like me she has family to care for, but that should mean she's more available by email and such:
photogypsy.org is the website, she's Almitra@PhotoGypsy.org and a very nice lady- enjoy!
Well, as a total outsider to the Debian mindset, let me offer this.
I used Redhat with the RPMS and all, even maintaining software. It was the second foray into Linux; the first time was with Slackware 2.3 and about 30 floppies. I stayed with Redhat from 4.0 until FC4, but by that time I was sick of the business bias. For about a year OpenLdap on their repo was busted. It was nearly herculean to get it to work, and keep it working. Then they offered a replacement to it in the purchase of the Netscape Directory, and I felt the time was right to look around.
Ubuntu has done a fabulous job with Debian's beginnings. They had the resources and the passion to make releases and push the envelope....but they couldn't have done it without what I CLEARLY see as the better package manager: Debian.
Personally, I love Ubuntu. And I've grown to love it, not just for it's lack of business bias, but for it's product as well.
We really owe a lot to "Deb" and "Ian" for their brilliant, visionary start.
But see, that's part of the point: these things have gone away *because* we no longer have the promise of parental oversight; it's just another thing people want the government to do.
When children have children, no traditions are passed. Wisdom from grandparents and great grandparents is lost. And the bottom line is that people who are too immature to have children have had three before they get old enough to know better.
It's irony that creation of these children actually has had a harmful effect on mankind as a whole more than the loss of a few children. Now, thanks to acceptance of pregant teens in high school, we now have an ARMY of children without fathers. We have entire divisions of people who can't adequately keep a job, manage their money, or discipline children.
So to answer your flippant and let's face it, hateful response: are a few dead children worth it? You'd better believe it. Because abortions alone cost 40,000,000 dead children, born to children who couldn't handle it. Because a major fraction of our numbers live in poverty, and yet more feel lost and overwhelmed with daily life. And here I thought it was cruel to shun the accidentally-pregnant back in the day.
There are a lot of things that have changes. The Lawn Dart was the original version of the game college kids now use beanbags to throw into distant circles, usually holes in a wood box; I forget the name. Oh, no...it was a nearly foot-long object with about 1/2 of it metal, flung downrange to a yellow, tubular target. I'm sure someone, somewhere got hurt on them, but not if they were using them carefully. They weren't really sharp, outta the box.
:)
And steel dashboards used to be the rage; I remember the one on our 1963 International Travellall was nothing but a flat plate, screwed to a rounded metal dash, and you could swap out gauges with your International tractor, if need be. It was very cool; huge, as fuel was cheap before the Carter Administration, came with a tailgate, an electric glass rear window, and plenty of room around the engine to work, under a hood that held itself up with springs. I'm amazed the danger of this rolling house-o-horrors didn't strike us on the salesfloor.
But things change; they have to. I can remember dozens of times hearing about a friend or relative mixing sodium and water because the effect was "cool". And probably the most popular effect was making stink bombs. But I suppose like the erector set before it, it's time had to come.
Now that GI Joe is becoming some watered-down blue-helmeted dweeb, when he was once a huge man-doll with a huge Jeep and weapons, I don't think the change in the toys seems to have followed the politically-correct crowd, too. And just for the record: No Conservative nor Republican was the source of this nonsense. Say what you will, "PC" is from the mouths of grown-up hippies.
Sorry, guys; you would have loved a childhood in the early 60's and 70's.
Cellphone companies suck in America- just ask anyone (especially anyone returning from Japan...)
I've never met anyone who actually recommended a carrier...sometimes a phone, never a carrier.
Now, it's not all their fault; America is a *huge* landmass compared to England and Japan where coolness dwells. I'm told that England and America have the same number of towers, but in America they're only in populated areas.
But maybe it's an America thing like women's breasts- is it only in America we HATE (and I mean, with passion) our computers, but it never crosses our collective mind to investigate an alternative?