I've also got a lot of respect for him because he reminds me of those funky middle aged guys you always see in amateur porn getting it on with astonishingly attractive ladies. Go Jay!
I understand your suggestion to make up one's mind in advance, but I think the answer is birth control, not abstinence. Sex is natural and healthy and people are going to do it. I think there's a much better chance of getting them to use birth control than to deny themselves one of the most pleasurable experiences we humans can have. Especially in a world that seems increasingly intent on denying us simple pleasures.
Huh, and I always thought the abortion issue was about the pro choicers trying to avoid birth control.
Let's not oversimplify it. The choices are not abstinence vs. abortion. There's a perfectly reasonable choice of birth control. I encourage masturbation and sex outside of marriage. But I can not comfortably sanction abortion because I don't know at one point in the pregnancy it isn't just like killing a baby.
That said, I actually vote pro choice because I think outlawing it doesn't actually prevent it and causes a host of other problems. But there's a distinction between what I think is right and what we think is practical. Abortion is a sad and degrading experience for most women and it is perfectly reasonable to encourage people to be more careful during sex.
And I hope you don't seriously think that a person can't respect life without being a vegan pacifict. I actually did just spend the past several months working to reduce poverty in developing countries, and I certainly wouldn't claim that anyone who didn't doesn't have a valid respect for life.
That's about the best analogy I've heard. They (domain names) should be handled more like trademarks: use them or lose them. Come to think of it, patents might benefit by being handled that way too.
Having just spent two months setting up old desktop computers for disadvantaged schools in South Africa, I am highly suspect that any tossed together plan like Intel's could ever succeed in the environments that OLPC is targeting. It is a very very different world over there, and OLPC has really looked into it and seems to have gotten a lot of things right. Intel obviously jumped into this just to beat on AMD: they weren't interested in the developing market before when it was bid. Though they've certainly the right, I think what Intel is doing is pretty shitty.
And so is your lame ad-hominem attack on Negroponte: give up the "everyone is only in it for themselves" conspiracy theories.
So true: I am balding at 34 yet I am regularly carded when buying alcohol, and people often guess I'm in my early 20s. Even taking into account the pressure to underguess age, I think that says something. And it's not just age, it doesn't seriously hinder overall attractiveness as far as i can tell: when my wife's not looking I can generally win the attention of other fine females;)
That said, I do wish I had more hair. I don't know why... it hasn't seemed to interefere with my life in any meaningful way. But if there was a reasonably safe and effective way to restore what I've lost, I'd probably go for it. I mean, why not?
Doesn't seem like the smartest thing to let potential enemies know of such plans in advance.
It's not for the enemies. Let's face it: reasonably smart people who want to cause destruction usually can, and there's not that much we'll ever be able to do about it. I doubt anyone involved in the cell phone jamming plan thinks it would seriously hinder an attack. My guess is that it's just marketing: keep showing outward signs that we're "smart and prepared". Most people will feel more secure reading this, so mission accomplished.
This morning I was reading a different Slashdot article and came across this comment, which led me to Wikipedia and in turn:
Robert Heinlein
Alfred Korzybski
General Semantics
Aristotlian Logic
Martin Gardner
Mathematical Games
Soma Cube
Pentomino
Solved Games
Endgame Tablebase
Computer Chess
Kasprov and this famous matchup
Then I come back here and find this article. I don't know what my point is but I just love the semi-random nature of brain feeding on the internet. For more information:
All that money for health care and pensions has to come from somewhere... so I'm guessing taxes are higher in Japan? Would GM, Ford, et al. prefer to pay that same money to the government? Maybe they would; I'm just saying that there's no free lunch.
You'll have to take my word that I don't like to think that we're the most important thing in the universe. And I don't like to take credit for things we're not doing. So let's drop the motive argument.
The earth is huge, the seas are large, and the atmosphere is, relatively speaking, not that big. It's nothing more than a coat of varnish on the ball. It's not at all silly to think that we could damage it. Who would have thought a fifty years ago that we could overfish the oceans? But the fact is we've had to learn to manage the problem. This will become true of all our natural resources eventually, unless you predict we'll stop breeding anytime soon. I undstand some of our resources are very big, but they are finite.
That said, I don't know for sure that we are to blame for the current global warming. There's a lot to be understood still. But if anything is silly, it is dismissing the concern out of hand.
These two technologies nicely dovetail, don't they? Especially since one of the concerns of the intelligent cars is premature brake pad wear, where a hybrid would instead just save up power.
It's true you need leadership, and it's true you need guts to succeed, and it's true you may have to step on a few toes along the way. But my limited insight into MS (which includes having worked there) leads me to believe that the parent post which you dismissed was dead on. I won't bother reiterating it, but you can read it again if you like, with the knowledge that an MS alumnus agrees completely.
Strange, I have no hatred of BG at all. I used to work at Microsoft, actually, and left on good terms. I still use Microsoft products. I also think he is doing some amazing humanitarian projects.
But I do have an admission: I didn't read the article. I wasn't referring to BG in my post, I was responding to the content of the thread. I just disagree with the philosophy that there is no commitment unless people can withstand the firing squad. Having experienced Microsoft culture first hand, I can tell you that there are some serious drawbacks to that philosophy, mainly a tendancy toward infighting.
Since then I've found there can be healthy questioning and just criticism that doesn't dip into abusive trashing. It lets people flourish instead of being defensive.
And please don't use the "but they're successful" excuse. Yes, many companies that employ that style are successful. Doesn't mean they couldn't be even more successful if their employees didn't have to stand up to a regular character assasination.
I know, I'm just trying to remind all the would be project managers out there that being a champion isn't going to mean much if your product sucks. I've seen a lot of project managers who took the mentality that success was wholly a matter of their salesmanship and management skills. But they forgot that you actually have to have something that doesn't suck. Maybe it's fixable, or maybe it's fundamentally flawed, like if you're the project manager for a DRM product. You can't solve all problems by being a high powered project manager.
This may seem obvious, but I still see this all the time.
Yeah, that's basically crap management. Not everyone who is smart and creative is also a hard headed warrior. I've seen a hundred great ideas come from people who were at least a little on the meek side. If you don't know how to benefit from that resource, then you're wasting it.
I agree with just about everything you're saying but...
maybe all that's keeping murder in check is the fear of consequences
I don't think that's the case at all. I think external consequences are important to stop a very small subset of people who are borderline, but the vast, vast majority of people don't kill anyone because they just don't want to: there is little motivation, and it would be a painful and haunting process for them with no lasting benfit. Then there are a tiny handful who will commit murder even with consequences.
In WWII some amazing number of soldiers refused to fire on the enemy even when their own life was in danger. The military later used dehumanization techniques to break through that tendancy, and as a side effect increased some of the sad abuses we've seen our soldiers commit in Vietnam and Iraq.
In the animal kingdom there are very rarely any consequences, but most species rarely kill their own. I don't think humans are that much worse than animals.
Anyways, just trying to defend the existence of what might be called common decency:)
Fair enough. I see your point, and I agree it's not a crime. I still find it odd how many people in the discussion are saying "too bad". However they're taking part in a moderated discussion that has mechanisms for dealing with such stuff. Second life just needs to come up with a policy for dealing with jerks, just like every other community has.
...that for some "pornography, cheating, and cracking" are actually educational. I learned a lot of my computer skills dabbling at such stuff. And I still turned out to be a upstanding citizen, eventually:)
Call me crazy, but shouldn't the virtual rapist be the one to log off? We've had abusive jerks roving the internet for years. Social convention seems to be to ban them. I'm comfortable with that.
I really don't understand your logic. If I pay to get into a club I expect just as much respect from my fellow patrons (if not more) than I do in the street. No, it's not the same as rape, and it's not a crime, but stop defending someone who is being a raving asshole. The virtual rapist should be banned from second life.
Yeah, it is always amusing to me how people can work themselves into a frenzy of logic that completely ignores reality. If we gave up every time someone said we couldn't make progress, then, we wouldn't make progress.
Because nearly all acquisitions turn out like crap for both companies. The big folks at the top and the analysts always promote this crap and they make a bunch of money in the stock frenzy, then the reality sets in and you've got a bigger, more bloated company with lots of duplication and tied fortunes. They almost always end up a net loss.
For now, Apple can avoid the crazy risks involved in CPU design and fabrication, and just buy whichever works better from Intel, AMD, or whoever else joins the fray. Why tie themselves to AMD's successes and failures if they don't have to?
Slashdot Mirror
I've also got a lot of respect for him because he reminds me of those funky middle aged guys you always see in amateur porn getting it on with astonishingly attractive ladies. Go Jay!
I understand your suggestion to make up one's mind in advance, but I think the answer is birth control, not abstinence. Sex is natural and healthy and people are going to do it. I think there's a much better chance of getting them to use birth control than to deny themselves one of the most pleasurable experiences we humans can have. Especially in a world that seems increasingly intent on denying us simple pleasures.
Cheers.
Huh, and I always thought the abortion issue was about the pro choicers trying to avoid birth control.
Let's not oversimplify it. The choices are not abstinence vs. abortion. There's a perfectly reasonable choice of birth control. I encourage masturbation and sex outside of marriage. But I can not comfortably sanction abortion because I don't know at one point in the pregnancy it isn't just like killing a baby.
That said, I actually vote pro choice because I think outlawing it doesn't actually prevent it and causes a host of other problems. But there's a distinction between what I think is right and what we think is practical. Abortion is a sad and degrading experience for most women and it is perfectly reasonable to encourage people to be more careful during sex.
And I hope you don't seriously think that a person can't respect life without being a vegan pacifict. I actually did just spend the past several months working to reduce poverty in developing countries, and I certainly wouldn't claim that anyone who didn't doesn't have a valid respect for life.
That's about the best analogy I've heard. They (domain names) should be handled more like trademarks: use them or lose them. Come to think of it, patents might benefit by being handled that way too.
Cheers.
Having just spent two months setting up old desktop computers for disadvantaged schools in South Africa, I am highly suspect that any tossed together plan like Intel's could ever succeed in the environments that OLPC is targeting. It is a very very different world over there, and OLPC has really looked into it and seems to have gotten a lot of things right. Intel obviously jumped into this just to beat on AMD: they weren't interested in the developing market before when it was bid. Though they've certainly the right, I think what Intel is doing is pretty shitty.
And so is your lame ad-hominem attack on Negroponte: give up the "everyone is only in it for themselves" conspiracy theories.
Cheers.
So true: I am balding at 34 yet I am regularly carded when buying alcohol, and people often guess I'm in my early 20s. Even taking into account the pressure to underguess age, I think that says something. And it's not just age, it doesn't seriously hinder overall attractiveness as far as i can tell: when my wife's not looking I can generally win the attention of other fine females ;)
That said, I do wish I had more hair. I don't know why... it hasn't seemed to interefere with my life in any meaningful way. But if there was a reasonably safe and effective way to restore what I've lost, I'd probably go for it. I mean, why not?
Cheers.
Doesn't seem like the smartest thing to let potential enemies know of such plans in advance.
It's not for the enemies. Let's face it: reasonably smart people who want to cause destruction usually can, and there's not that much we'll ever be able to do about it. I doubt anyone involved in the cell phone jamming plan thinks it would seriously hinder an attack. My guess is that it's just marketing: keep showing outward signs that we're "smart and prepared". Most people will feel more secure reading this, so mission accomplished.
Cheers.
Interesting... thanks for the link.
Then I come back here and find this article. I don't know what my point is but I just love the semi-random nature of brain feeding on the internet. For more information:
Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon
An xkcd comic.
Cheers.
All that money for health care and pensions has to come from somewhere... so I'm guessing taxes are higher in Japan? Would GM, Ford, et al. prefer to pay that same money to the government? Maybe they would; I'm just saying that there's no free lunch.
Cheers.
You'll have to take my word that I don't like to think that we're the most important thing in the universe. And I don't like to take credit for things we're not doing. So let's drop the motive argument.
The earth is huge, the seas are large, and the atmosphere is, relatively speaking, not that big. It's nothing more than a coat of varnish on the ball. It's not at all silly to think that we could damage it. Who would have thought a fifty years ago that we could overfish the oceans? But the fact is we've had to learn to manage the problem. This will become true of all our natural resources eventually, unless you predict we'll stop breeding anytime soon. I undstand some of our resources are very big, but they are finite.
That said, I don't know for sure that we are to blame for the current global warming. There's a lot to be understood still. But if anything is silly, it is dismissing the concern out of hand.
Cheers.
These two technologies nicely dovetail, don't they? Especially since one of the concerns of the intelligent cars is premature brake pad wear, where a hybrid would instead just save up power.
It's true you need leadership, and it's true you need guts to succeed, and it's true you may have to step on a few toes along the way. But my limited insight into MS (which includes having worked there) leads me to believe that the parent post which you dismissed was dead on. I won't bother reiterating it, but you can read it again if you like, with the knowledge that an MS alumnus agrees completely.
I do get a good deal on shoes. If you can figure out a way to get me your email address, I'll send you a 20% coupon :)
Strange, I have no hatred of BG at all. I used to work at Microsoft, actually, and left on good terms. I still use Microsoft products. I also think he is doing some amazing humanitarian projects.
:)
But I do have an admission: I didn't read the article. I wasn't referring to BG in my post, I was responding to the content of the thread. I just disagree with the philosophy that there is no commitment unless people can withstand the firing squad. Having experienced Microsoft culture first hand, I can tell you that there are some serious drawbacks to that philosophy, mainly a tendancy toward infighting.
Since then I've found there can be healthy questioning and just criticism that doesn't dip into abusive trashing. It lets people flourish instead of being defensive.
And please don't use the "but they're successful" excuse. Yes, many companies that employ that style are successful. Doesn't mean they couldn't be even more successful if their employees didn't have to stand up to a regular character assasination.
Of course, what would I know
I know, I'm just trying to remind all the would be project managers out there that being a champion isn't going to mean much if your product sucks. I've seen a lot of project managers who took the mentality that success was wholly a matter of their salesmanship and management skills. But they forgot that you actually have to have something that doesn't suck. Maybe it's fixable, or maybe it's fundamentally flawed, like if you're the project manager for a DRM product. You can't solve all problems by being a high powered project manager.
This may seem obvious, but I still see this all the time.
What if your product sucks?
Yeah, that's basically crap management. Not everyone who is smart and creative is also a hard headed warrior. I've seen a hundred great ideas come from people who were at least a little on the meek side. If you don't know how to benefit from that resource, then you're wasting it.
Cheers.
I agree with just about everything you're saying but...
:)
maybe all that's keeping murder in check is the fear of consequences
I don't think that's the case at all. I think external consequences are important to stop a very small subset of people who are borderline, but the vast, vast majority of people don't kill anyone because they just don't want to: there is little motivation, and it would be a painful and haunting process for them with no lasting benfit. Then there are a tiny handful who will commit murder even with consequences.
In WWII some amazing number of soldiers refused to fire on the enemy even when their own life was in danger. The military later used dehumanization techniques to break through that tendancy, and as a side effect increased some of the sad abuses we've seen our soldiers commit in Vietnam and Iraq.
In the animal kingdom there are very rarely any consequences, but most species rarely kill their own. I don't think humans are that much worse than animals.
Anyways, just trying to defend the existence of what might be called common decency
Fair enough. I see your point, and I agree it's not a crime. I still find it odd how many people in the discussion are saying "too bad". However they're taking part in a moderated discussion that has mechanisms for dealing with such stuff. Second life just needs to come up with a policy for dealing with jerks, just like every other community has.
Cheers
...that for some "pornography, cheating, and cracking" are actually educational. I learned a lot of my computer skills dabbling at such stuff. And I still turned out to be a upstanding citizen, eventually :)
Call me crazy, but shouldn't the virtual rapist be the one to log off? We've had abusive jerks roving the internet for years. Social convention seems to be to ban them. I'm comfortable with that.
Cheers.
I really don't understand your logic. If I pay to get into a club I expect just as much respect from my fellow patrons (if not more) than I do in the street. No, it's not the same as rape, and it's not a crime, but stop defending someone who is being a raving asshole. The virtual rapist should be banned from second life.
Cheers.
Yeah, it is always amusing to me how people can work themselves into a frenzy of logic that completely ignores reality. If we gave up every time someone said we couldn't make progress, then, we wouldn't make progress.
Cheers.
Because nearly all acquisitions turn out like crap for both companies. The big folks at the top and the analysts always promote this crap and they make a bunch of money in the stock frenzy, then the reality sets in and you've got a bigger, more bloated company with lots of duplication and tied fortunes. They almost always end up a net loss.
For now, Apple can avoid the crazy risks involved in CPU design and fabrication, and just buy whichever works better from Intel, AMD, or whoever else joins the fray. Why tie themselves to AMD's successes and failures if they don't have to?