I see your point -- but having the power and knowing what to do with it are very different I think. Actually, each of our brains already has more connections than atoms in the universe, yet we still don't understand how to teach people to be kind:)
And even if we had that computer and we knew what to do with it, we'd never be able to get a snapshot of the state of the universe anyways, if not for mundane practical reasons, then because of quantum uncertainty. I imagine the brain would be the same.
I agree with most of what you're saying here... given our incomplete understanding of chaotic systems, especially those with feedback, it seems like a jump to assume that just because the brain is a purely physical artifact that it can't have choice.
However, I don't agree that the brain is fully understandable. Well, it might be, but I don't think that's a foregone conclusion. I think it might be that we never fully understand how the low-level interactions of neurons result in higher thought. I mean, even with simple neural models that we have now, ones we've built ourselves, we sometimes can't understand how they work. Weird, no?
Yes, I think that choice is reducable to material mechanisms. Yet, I believe in choice. It does seem like a contradiction perhaps, but I think that there is magic (yes, I know I said there wasn't) in complex systems with feedback.
Let's take a simple solar system, with one star and one planet. They both have a gravitational pull, but the star's dominates. Still, the planet does have an effect on the star. And by having an effect on the star, the planet is likewise effecting itself. It works both ways, too: the star effects the planet, which in turn effects itself. And these effects cause further effects. The result is that even two bodies in orbit have a very complex interaction because of the feedback. Mathematically, it has been solved, and it can be predicted perfectly. But it's not simple.
Now, let's add a moon. Guess what? Mathimatically it hasn't been solved! That's right: we can't predict with certainty the interaction of only three objects with feedback. We can make predictions that are close enough for virtually any purpose, but we can't get it exactly right.
Now, imagine a whole solar system, a galaxy, or... a mind. The levels and types of interactions going on here are so complex and little understood, I have a very hard time believing anyone who claims that it's all deterministic. I mean, taking into account quantum mechanics you don't even have a good starting point. And even not taking that into account you can't really tell where things are going.
Taken together it is quite a leap of faith to say that just because the mind can be reduced to materical mechanisms that it deterministic. I'm not saying I know how choice works. But I'm sure as hell that nobody else does yet either.
We are certainly moving towards artificial intelligence. We actually have programs that can write themselves to a limited degree. And so we'll probably have artifical intelligence shortly.
Care to take a bet on that?:)
I don't believe there is anything magical about the brain, and I believe it can be reproduced in a man-made form. But I think it is far far more complex than we yet realize. Even the most advanced neural nets of today are nowheres near the level of complexity of even a rodent brain. And I'm not just talking about the number of neurons. I'm talking about the secondary effects -- the self-organizing nature of the brain, and how different parts, with slightly different layouts are used for vastly different processing tasks. We're still a long ways off. If I had to guess I'd say not within the next 50 years. Perhaps much longer.
And I don't believe that we'll achieve intelligence through direct programming, even through self modifying programs. If you can look at the low level and tell what's happening at the top level (like with a program) then it's far to simple to encode intelligence. Intelligence requires layers of meaning.
And thanks for yours. Your position makes sense. And I agree that TV and real life do feed each other.
It's funny, I'm personally a very peaceful person. Though there's not always a way to avoid it in the world at large, I think all violence is terrible. I do not like to see it glorified either. But for some reason, I am fine with violence in a creative context, because it's fake. In fact, I find it therapudic or something. I'm not talking about Faces of Death here, but rather things like Pulp Fiction. Or more meaningfully, something like Band of Brothers. I think there is, to some degree, a need to express violent ideas. And though some few are incited by such expression, I think the majority may benefit.
I guess it comes down to real vs. fake. For example, I take much greater exception to reality TV violence and degradation than I do to dramatizations.
As for sexual activities, I keep mine quite private. But again, I must admit that I am glad others don't:)
Metric? I don't know... the basics have a pretty good consensus: good supplies of food, water & shelter for the population. Fairly low crime. Residents report enjoying their lives for the most part. Of course, since there's also plenty to criticize, it's all meaningless without a point of comparison. So how about the rest of planet's cultures? Japanese culture seems to fall on the plus side of "functional".
And sure, if you want to sit in the corner and say that the color orange is wrong, then yes, it is wrong you. But then I would feel pretty comfortable calling you an ignoramus. And since it's all relative what does it matter? Except that outside this little theoretical discussion we both know that orange is not wrong, and all the playful debate in the world doesn't make it so.
A culture can have flaws, sure. If you thought I was saying "it's all good" then I must have misspoke. In fact, every culture has flaws. Just like every culture has benefits. That's unsurprising since a "culture" is a pretty complex thing. Like the universe or something. So calling something that complex and varied, with so many components "wrong" is just a foolish oversimplification. If you want to point out particular flaws in a particular culture, I'm all ears.
But back to the original topic: criticizing Japan's culture of violence and sex in TV seems a bit misdirected. The usual complaint of having violence and sex on TV is that it causes violence and sex in real life. But that would not be a valid criticism of Japan since in those metrics they are better off than most cultures with more restrictive television.
I know what you mean about a boring, homogenized world... but perhaps they just like our culture. Who am I to tell them they have to stick with something they don't like just because they were born to it. My great-grandparents immigrated and adapted here, why can't these people?
But it does suck, too. I was in Korea a few years back and though it was still an experience, it was weirdly disappointing to see Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's every few blocks.
As a proud American I have to say I'm often dismayed by most Americans' views of the outside world. Newsflash: most of the world is just as developed as we are, at least in pockets... just like us. For every ridiculous backwards thing you can point out about some part of some other culture, they can point one out for us. We're not that enlightened.
...is the one where the fudge truck collides with the bacon truck. Homer picks up some fudge covered bacon and proclaims: "Mmmm. Move over, eggs. Bacon just got a new best friend".
Cheers.
Re:Japan has lowest teen pregnancy ...
on
Homer Becomes Omar
·
· Score: 1
>>> "... you intolerant ignoramus!"
Presumably you mean you can't tolerate him?
Not tolerating an individual is very different from not tolerating a group. The former is perfectly reasonable.
Your comment on causality isn't relavent. The poster never said that sexual television prevented teen pregnancy. He was giving examples of various metrics that Japan has over us, particularly the ones those fighting sexual television are most likely to gripe about. The real problem that the people griping about sexual television think there is a causal relationship. Japan is simply evidence that there is not, and that's worth pointing out.
The original poster was an ignoramus. How can anyone seriously call an entire culture, especially one of the most sucessful on earth, "wrong"?
Man, I wish my uncle had put up his journals about bringing computers to Africa. He and his partner Donna have spent the past several years collecting unwanted machines (exclusively Macs, since that's what he knows) to bring to South Africa and distribute to schools. He spends a great deal of his time and money collecting and fixing machines, configuring them, shipping them, and then teaching the educators there how to use them. He has written regular emails to freinds and family about his adventures that are riviting, inspiring and sad.
It is a noble effort, but it is a terrifically uphill battle that often ends in disappointment. In this case the cost of the computers is completely free -- but the social structures there just don't make things work. The government is so restrictive it's difficult to get them into the country in the first place. Transporting them results in unofficial payoffs to alleged "inspectors" who will stop transports on quiet roads and threaten to sieze the goods. Once in the schools, few peole know how to make the most of them, and allegedly trustworthy people (teachers and administrators) have been known to steal computers -- not to use them (since they often don't know how) but simply as a status symbol to keep on their desk.
I can't do the adventures justice, but suffice it to say that the cost of software is the least of the problems in Africa, even if we're limiting ourselves just to the discussion of computer usage.
That said, I think it's great work that does touch many people there, opening to them possibilities they would not otherwise be aware of. It is a rough environment for those rare gems, but worth it.
What de facto source of information would you prefer? In a perfect world I would read many articles from many sources and make up my own mind. Unfortunately I don't have the time for that, excepting for the topics which I personally find to be most important. Wikipedia seems to me an excellent source of information to suplement my areas of actual expertise.
Whenever someone says "X sucks" I always wonder "compared to what"?
Wikipedia sucks. Compared to an ideal unbiased, accurate, professional source of information. However, I don't see any alternative that is notably better. So graded on a curve, I think Wikipedia is well above average.
Remember that idiot music executive guy a few weeks ago who thought Apple should kick back some of it's iPod hardware earnings to the recording companies for providing content, even though they already make their money when they sell the content itself? I thought that was a dumb ass thought. Well, sounds like Apples pulling the same crap here. Lame lame lame.
I guess it's just not accepted that a rising tide carries all boats. Gotta try to milk every goddamn thing, take credit for every related achievment. Why don't the ISP's charge the computer makers for providing the driving force behind all the computer sales over the past decade? And heck, why don't the computer makers charge the ISP's right back for providing the machines that have pushed all this broadband adoption. And why don't the farmers get kickbacks from everyone in the world for providing the food so that people don't have to hunt/gather and thus have the spare time to use any of this frivolous technology?
Apple should be happy that they've done well, and allow others to do the same without getting their sticky fingers into it. I don't think they get credit for the whole iPod economy, even if they made the iPod. Heck, I wouldn't have bought one if Dennison hadn't made an iPod -> Prius CD changer hookup. Dennison should charge Apple.
I'm not sure what your distinction is. All creatures evolve so that *enough* of them live to reproduce. And they all do it in an environment full of bacteria, viruses, and fungi. If the creatures can't handle that it won't get far. That is child's play for the immune system.
The idea that our brains protect us from pathogens doesn't wash. Our intelligence had virtually no effect on our contact with pathogens until the last hundred years or so, and even then only in the most developed countries. That's not long enough for any meaningful evolution to take place.
I keep my living place "clean", but I don't disinfect everything regularly. Because, as you point out the body needs contact with pathogens to build immunity. If you disinfect your environment and yourself, you are making sure that when you do come in contact with pathogens outside your control (say, a nearby sneeze at a bus stop) your body will be less likely to have built up an immunity already in a friendlier environment, and you'll be more likely to be overpowered and to get the full blown disease.
That's the strange part -- I'm not saying it works for everyone, but I found I smell better since I stopped all the soap/deoderant stuff. I used to wash my underarms with the strongest stuff I could find and then layer on the deodorant. And then be pissed when I smelled bad 6 hours later.
These days I just wash well with warm water in the shower, then afterwards I spray a light body spray around my underarms and chest. Most of the time (not all) I don't get notably stinky even by the end of the day. Occasionally I will, and I do keep a deodorant bar in my bag for emergency touch-ups.
Deodeorant kills germs that cause odor, allegedly. And just because I don't use it doesn't mean I smell. I've found that using deodorant causes me to smell nice for a short while, and then smell much worse a few hours later. My only guess at why this is is that it is killing a natural flora on my skin and causing the inevitable return of bacteria to be unbalanced somehow. Perhaps my skin's normal flora keeps odor causing bacteria in check for a longer period of time than the deodorant can? It's just a theory.
Instead, I use a splash of cologne or body spray. It adds a nice scent but doesn't interfere with whatever is going on normally. I wash my underarms thoroughly with just warm water in the shower, and I find that at the end of the day I smell better. I've had various women comment on the fact that I smell good.
Occasionally, I'll have a bad day (don't know why) so I keep a stick around for an emergency touch up.
Funny how deeply seated these ideas are that if you don't use industrial chemicals on yourself every day that you're a stinky bearded hippy. It's just not so.
Denial isn't going to help, my friend. You've got at least as many as I do.
Did you ever think that the immune system is doing an amazing job? Like, as soon as it shuts down, when you die I mean, it's only a matter of hours before the little creatures take over and foul things up royally. The only thing keeping that from happening to you right now is your amazing immune system. It's a constant war.
Remember that next time you get a cold and curse your immune system. It's amazing how well it does.
You know, we are evolved (or designed, heh) to live in a world with bacteria, viruses, and fungus. How did we get to the point where we fear our natural environment so much? I grew up with a mother who constantly disinfected everything including me. I had alergies and I had regular sickness. My immune system never got to develop immunity.
I'm still a clean person and people (women even!) tell me so. But I shower without soap and rarely use deodorant... I've found my skin works better. I don't disinfect everything around me. I don't get sick often anymore, and when I do it is mild and brief. I've been doing this more than five years now.
Anyways, I don't really care what's in my pillow. I'm sure it's full of fungus, dust mites, electrons and protons even. Who cares? There's also billions of bacteria multiplying in my colon. It's the way the world works.
I get the sense most people here know this already, but I just get surprised when I hear these kinds of stories -- like the one where they said there are more bacteria on a keyboard than on a toilet. And your mouth has more bacteria than your genitals. But it seems to work out okay.
Doing our own prints makes sense for me and my wife. She takes a ton of pictures and only prints a tiny fraction. The rest are just enjoyed on the computer or online. Plus, with home printing you can print retouched pictures. She usually does some tweaks to at least the color and exposure, and oftentimes does more than that. And then we print 8X10's. For our usage pattern, digital and home printing works out far cheaper.
Of course, if you just want a whole roll of 3x5's, then sure, standard printing is cheaper. But I bet a lot of those people look at them once and then enlarge one out of 100.
The advantage of home printing is not raw price, it's control and selection.
Violent crime in America is at a 30 year low. And that's how long they've been keeping track of it. In other words, there is reason to believe this is the least violent our country has ever been. Now, I know all about correlation and causation and all that... but doesn't that lean very heavily as evidence that violent entertainment does not increase violent behavior? Because violent entertainment has certainly been increasing in the past 30 years, and has reached fever pitch in the last 10. Heck, one could go further and argue that reduces it, but then you'd be overreaching a bit.
But unless one is arguing that violent crime would have fallen off even more dramatically (based on what?!?) then I would say we can safely assume violent entertainment is not causing the problems that it's opponents think it's causing. They've got no evidence in favor of their stance and there's the 30 year low to explain. Why can they keep successfully harping on this?
Oh yeah... I forgot... nobody in the mainstream understands even the most basic tenets of logic or science any more. Hell, let's throw away our cell phones and automobiles and go back to burning witches and bleeding people for health.
Java is fast enough for most tasks, and the GC is a wonderful convenience.
But let's not go overboard. I started writing a 2D vector game in Java a couple years back that included rudimentary physics. I tried the Windows, Linux, and Apple JVM's at the time, and as things got more complicated I ran into a lot of performance problems, namely, a notable split second lag every couple seconds where the GC would kick in and lock everything. After trying every trick I could find, I converted to C++ and got an immediate huge performance boost -- well over 10x -- without any further optimization.
I'm sure JVM's have come a long way, but I just fired it up under the latest Apple JVM (I'm sure folks will tell me that's the worst one...) and the performance was still notably less than the C++ version.
I'm not trying to put Java down, here, but let's not make pretend it's super fast. It's not. Neither is perl, my day-to-day language of choice. But that's okay because different languages have their place. C++ is fast. And frankly, when I did the Java to C++ conversion, the code didn't even look much different.
There was that theme that people are inherently of a disobedient and troublesome nature, and that any well-intended effort to "clean things up" results in greater trouble. I found that to be a 1) timely 2) accurate and 3) underrepresented idea.
Blade Runner rocks too, and I don't really want to compare them. It's pointless. But Serenity had some guts to it. You are right that some of the episodes were more cerebral, but this was still up there.
Slashdot Mirror
I see your point -- but having the power and knowing what to do with it are very different I think. Actually, each of our brains already has more connections than atoms in the universe, yet we still don't understand how to teach people to be kind :)
And even if we had that computer and we knew what to do with it, we'd never be able to get a snapshot of the state of the universe anyways, if not for mundane practical reasons, then because of quantum uncertainty. I imagine the brain would be the same.
Cheers.
I agree with most of what you're saying here... given our incomplete understanding of chaotic systems, especially those with feedback, it seems like a jump to assume that just because the brain is a purely physical artifact that it can't have choice.
However, I don't agree that the brain is fully understandable. Well, it might be, but I don't think that's a foregone conclusion. I think it might be that we never fully understand how the low-level interactions of neurons result in higher thought. I mean, even with simple neural models that we have now, ones we've built ourselves, we sometimes can't understand how they work. Weird, no?
Cheers.
Yes, I think that choice is reducable to material mechanisms. Yet, I believe in choice. It does seem like a contradiction perhaps, but I think that there is magic (yes, I know I said there wasn't) in complex systems with feedback.
Let's take a simple solar system, with one star and one planet. They both have a gravitational pull, but the star's dominates. Still, the planet does have an effect on the star. And by having an effect on the star, the planet is likewise effecting itself. It works both ways, too: the star effects the planet, which in turn effects itself. And these effects cause further effects. The result is that even two bodies in orbit have a very complex interaction because of the feedback. Mathematically, it has been solved, and it can be predicted perfectly. But it's not simple.
Now, let's add a moon. Guess what? Mathimatically it hasn't been solved! That's right: we can't predict with certainty the interaction of only three objects with feedback. We can make predictions that are close enough for virtually any purpose, but we can't get it exactly right.
Now, imagine a whole solar system, a galaxy, or... a mind. The levels and types of interactions going on here are so complex and little understood, I have a very hard time believing anyone who claims that it's all deterministic. I mean, taking into account quantum mechanics you don't even have a good starting point. And even not taking that into account you can't really tell where things are going.
Taken together it is quite a leap of faith to say that just because the mind can be reduced to materical mechanisms that it deterministic. I'm not saying I know how choice works. But I'm sure as hell that nobody else does yet either.
Cheers.
We are certainly moving towards artificial intelligence. We actually have programs that can write themselves to a limited degree. And so we'll probably have artifical intelligence shortly.
:)
Care to take a bet on that?
I don't believe there is anything magical about the brain, and I believe it can be reproduced in a man-made form. But I think it is far far more complex than we yet realize. Even the most advanced neural nets of today are nowheres near the level of complexity of even a rodent brain. And I'm not just talking about the number of neurons. I'm talking about the secondary effects -- the self-organizing nature of the brain, and how different parts, with slightly different layouts are used for vastly different processing tasks. We're still a long ways off. If I had to guess I'd say not within the next 50 years. Perhaps much longer.
And I don't believe that we'll achieve intelligence through direct programming, even through self modifying programs. If you can look at the low level and tell what's happening at the top level (like with a program) then it's far to simple to encode intelligence. Intelligence requires layers of meaning.
Nonetheless, an interesting topic.
Cheers.
And thanks for yours. Your position makes sense. And I agree that TV and real life do feed each other.
:)
It's funny, I'm personally a very peaceful person. Though there's not always a way to avoid it in the world at large, I think all violence is terrible. I do not like to see it glorified either. But for some reason, I am fine with violence in a creative context, because it's fake. In fact, I find it therapudic or something. I'm not talking about Faces of Death here, but rather things like Pulp Fiction. Or more meaningfully, something like Band of Brothers. I think there is, to some degree, a need to express violent ideas. And though some few are incited by such expression, I think the majority may benefit.
I guess it comes down to real vs. fake. For example, I take much greater exception to reality TV violence and degradation than I do to dramatizations.
As for sexual activities, I keep mine quite private. But again, I must admit that I am glad others don't
Cheers.
Metric? I don't know... the basics have a pretty good consensus: good supplies of food, water & shelter for the population. Fairly low crime. Residents report enjoying their lives for the most part. Of course, since there's also plenty to criticize, it's all meaningless without a point of comparison. So how about the rest of planet's cultures? Japanese culture seems to fall on the plus side of "functional".
And sure, if you want to sit in the corner and say that the color orange is wrong, then yes, it is wrong you. But then I would feel pretty comfortable calling you an ignoramus. And since it's all relative what does it matter? Except that outside this little theoretical discussion we both know that orange is not wrong, and all the playful debate in the world doesn't make it so.
A culture can have flaws, sure. If you thought I was saying "it's all good" then I must have misspoke. In fact, every culture has flaws. Just like every culture has benefits. That's unsurprising since a "culture" is a pretty complex thing. Like the universe or something. So calling something that complex and varied, with so many components "wrong" is just a foolish oversimplification. If you want to point out particular flaws in a particular culture, I'm all ears.
But back to the original topic: criticizing Japan's culture of violence and sex in TV seems a bit misdirected. The usual complaint of having violence and sex on TV is that it causes violence and sex in real life. But that would not be a valid criticism of Japan since in those metrics they are better off than most cultures with more restrictive television.
Cheers.
I know what you mean about a boring, homogenized world... but perhaps they just like our culture. Who am I to tell them they have to stick with something they don't like just because they were born to it. My great-grandparents immigrated and adapted here, why can't these people?
But it does suck, too. I was in Korea a few years back and though it was still an experience, it was weirdly disappointing to see Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's every few blocks.
Cheers.
As a proud American I have to say I'm often dismayed by most Americans' views of the outside world. Newsflash: most of the world is just as developed as we are, at least in pockets... just like us. For every ridiculous backwards thing you can point out about some part of some other culture, they can point one out for us. We're not that enlightened.
Cheers.
...is the one where the fudge truck collides with the bacon truck. Homer picks up some fudge covered bacon and proclaims: "Mmmm. Move over, eggs. Bacon just got a new best friend".
Cheers.
>>> "... you intolerant ignoramus!"
Presumably you mean you can't tolerate him?
Not tolerating an individual is very different from not tolerating a group. The former is perfectly reasonable.
Your comment on causality isn't relavent. The poster never said that sexual television prevented teen pregnancy. He was giving examples of various metrics that Japan has over us, particularly the ones those fighting sexual television are most likely to gripe about. The real problem that the people griping about sexual television think there is a causal relationship. Japan is simply evidence that there is not, and that's worth pointing out.
The original poster was an ignoramus. How can anyone seriously call an entire culture, especially one of the most sucessful on earth, "wrong"?
Cheers.
Man, I wish my uncle had put up his journals about bringing computers to Africa. He and his partner Donna have spent the past several years collecting unwanted machines (exclusively Macs, since that's what he knows) to bring to South Africa and distribute to schools. He spends a great deal of his time and money collecting and fixing machines, configuring them, shipping them, and then teaching the educators there how to use them. He has written regular emails to freinds and family about his adventures that are riviting, inspiring and sad.
It is a noble effort, but it is a terrifically uphill battle that often ends in disappointment. In this case the cost of the computers is completely free -- but the social structures there just don't make things work. The government is so restrictive it's difficult to get them into the country in the first place. Transporting them results in unofficial payoffs to alleged "inspectors" who will stop transports on quiet roads and threaten to sieze the goods. Once in the schools, few peole know how to make the most of them, and allegedly trustworthy people (teachers and administrators) have been known to steal computers -- not to use them (since they often don't know how) but simply as a status symbol to keep on their desk.
I can't do the adventures justice, but suffice it to say that the cost of software is the least of the problems in Africa, even if we're limiting ourselves just to the discussion of computer usage.
That said, I think it's great work that does touch many people there, opening to them possibilities they would not otherwise be aware of. It is a rough environment for those rare gems, but worth it.
Cheers.
It's easy and fun to improve wikipedia, you know :)
What de facto source of information would you prefer? In a perfect world I would read many articles from many sources and make up my own mind. Unfortunately I don't have the time for that, excepting for the topics which I personally find to be most important. Wikipedia seems to me an excellent source of information to suplement my areas of actual expertise.
Whenever someone says "X sucks" I always wonder "compared to what"?
Wikipedia sucks. Compared to an ideal unbiased, accurate, professional source of information. However, I don't see any alternative that is notably better. So graded on a curve, I think Wikipedia is well above average.
Cheers.
Remember that idiot music executive guy a few weeks ago who thought Apple should kick back some of it's iPod hardware earnings to the recording companies for providing content, even though they already make their money when they sell the content itself? I thought that was a dumb ass thought. Well, sounds like Apples pulling the same crap here. Lame lame lame.
I guess it's just not accepted that a rising tide carries all boats. Gotta try to milk every goddamn thing, take credit for every related achievment. Why don't the ISP's charge the computer makers for providing the driving force behind all the computer sales over the past decade? And heck, why don't the computer makers charge the ISP's right back for providing the machines that have pushed all this broadband adoption. And why don't the farmers get kickbacks from everyone in the world for providing the food so that people don't have to hunt/gather and thus have the spare time to use any of this frivolous technology?
Apple should be happy that they've done well, and allow others to do the same without getting their sticky fingers into it. I don't think they get credit for the whole iPod economy, even if they made the iPod. Heck, I wouldn't have bought one if Dennison hadn't made an iPod -> Prius CD changer hookup. Dennison should charge Apple.
Whatever. Cheers.
I'm not sure what your distinction is. All creatures evolve so that *enough* of them live to reproduce. And they all do it in an environment full of bacteria, viruses, and fungi. If the creatures can't handle that it won't get far. That is child's play for the immune system.
The idea that our brains protect us from pathogens doesn't wash. Our intelligence had virtually no effect on our contact with pathogens until the last hundred years or so, and even then only in the most developed countries. That's not long enough for any meaningful evolution to take place.
I keep my living place "clean", but I don't disinfect everything regularly. Because, as you point out the body needs contact with pathogens to build immunity. If you disinfect your environment and yourself, you are making sure that when you do come in contact with pathogens outside your control (say, a nearby sneeze at a bus stop) your body will be less likely to have built up an immunity already in a friendlier environment, and you'll be more likely to be overpowered and to get the full blown disease.
Cheers.
Don't worry about swallowing, your digestive system has more bacteria than your mouth :)
That's the strange part -- I'm not saying it works for everyone, but I found I smell better since I stopped all the soap/deoderant stuff. I used to wash my underarms with the strongest stuff I could find and then layer on the deodorant. And then be pissed when I smelled bad 6 hours later.
These days I just wash well with warm water in the shower, then afterwards I spray a light body spray around my underarms and chest. Most of the time (not all) I don't get notably stinky even by the end of the day. Occasionally I will, and I do keep a deodorant bar in my bag for emergency touch-ups.
Anyways, just sharing my experience.
Deodeorant kills germs that cause odor, allegedly. And just because I don't use it doesn't mean I smell. I've found that using deodorant causes me to smell nice for a short while, and then smell much worse a few hours later. My only guess at why this is is that it is killing a natural flora on my skin and causing the inevitable return of bacteria to be unbalanced somehow. Perhaps my skin's normal flora keeps odor causing bacteria in check for a longer period of time than the deodorant can? It's just a theory.
Instead, I use a splash of cologne or body spray. It adds a nice scent but doesn't interfere with whatever is going on normally. I wash my underarms thoroughly with just warm water in the shower, and I find that at the end of the day I smell better. I've had various women comment on the fact that I smell good.
Occasionally, I'll have a bad day (don't know why) so I keep a stick around for an emergency touch up.
Funny how deeply seated these ideas are that if you don't use industrial chemicals on yourself every day that you're a stinky bearded hippy. It's just not so.
Cheers.
I thought you might, so it didn't totally fail. I tried to make my response light enough to work either way, but apparenly I failed ;)
Denial isn't going to help, my friend. You've got at least as many as I do.
Did you ever think that the immune system is doing an amazing job? Like, as soon as it shuts down, when you die I mean, it's only a matter of hours before the little creatures take over and foul things up royally. The only thing keeping that from happening to you right now is your amazing immune system. It's a constant war.
Remember that next time you get a cold and curse your immune system. It's amazing how well it does.
You know, we are evolved (or designed, heh) to live in a world with bacteria, viruses, and fungus. How did we get to the point where we fear our natural environment so much? I grew up with a mother who constantly disinfected everything including me. I had alergies and I had regular sickness. My immune system never got to develop immunity.
I'm still a clean person and people (women even!) tell me so. But I shower without soap and rarely use deodorant... I've found my skin works better. I don't disinfect everything around me. I don't get sick often anymore, and when I do it is mild and brief. I've been doing this more than five years now.
Anyways, I don't really care what's in my pillow. I'm sure it's full of fungus, dust mites, electrons and protons even. Who cares? There's also billions of bacteria multiplying in my colon. It's the way the world works.
I get the sense most people here know this already, but I just get surprised when I hear these kinds of stories -- like the one where they said there are more bacteria on a keyboard than on a toilet. And your mouth has more bacteria than your genitals. But it seems to work out okay.
Cheers.
Doing our own prints makes sense for me and my wife. She takes a ton of pictures and only prints a tiny fraction. The rest are just enjoyed on the computer or online. Plus, with home printing you can print retouched pictures. She usually does some tweaks to at least the color and exposure, and oftentimes does more than that. And then we print 8X10's. For our usage pattern, digital and home printing works out far cheaper.
Of course, if you just want a whole roll of 3x5's, then sure, standard printing is cheaper. But I bet a lot of those people look at them once and then enlarge one out of 100.
The advantage of home printing is not raw price, it's control and selection.
Cheers.
Violent crime in America is at a 30 year low. And that's how long they've been keeping track of it. In other words, there is reason to believe this is the least violent our country has ever been. Now, I know all about correlation and causation and all that... but doesn't that lean very heavily as evidence that violent entertainment does not increase violent behavior? Because violent entertainment has certainly been increasing in the past 30 years, and has reached fever pitch in the last 10. Heck, one could go further and argue that reduces it, but then you'd be overreaching a bit.
But unless one is arguing that violent crime would have fallen off even more dramatically (based on what?!?) then I would say we can safely assume violent entertainment is not causing the problems that it's opponents think it's causing. They've got no evidence in favor of their stance and there's the 30 year low to explain. Why can they keep successfully harping on this?
Oh yeah... I forgot... nobody in the mainstream understands even the most basic tenets of logic or science any more. Hell, let's throw away our cell phones and automobiles and go back to burning witches and bleeding people for health.
Cheers.
Java is fast enough for most tasks, and the GC is a wonderful convenience.
But let's not go overboard. I started writing a 2D vector game in Java a couple years back that included rudimentary physics. I tried the Windows, Linux, and Apple JVM's at the time, and as things got more complicated I ran into a lot of performance problems, namely, a notable split second lag every couple seconds where the GC would kick in and lock everything. After trying every trick I could find, I converted to C++ and got an immediate huge performance boost -- well over 10x -- without any further optimization.
I'm sure JVM's have come a long way, but I just fired it up under the latest Apple JVM (I'm sure folks will tell me that's the worst one...) and the performance was still notably less than the C++ version.
I'm not trying to put Java down, here, but let's not make pretend it's super fast. It's not. Neither is perl, my day-to-day language of choice. But that's okay because different languages have their place. C++ is fast. And frankly, when I did the Java to C++ conversion, the code didn't even look much different.
Enjoy whatever you use...
There was that theme that people are inherently of a disobedient and troublesome nature, and that any well-intended effort to "clean things up" results in greater trouble. I found that to be a 1) timely 2) accurate and 3) underrepresented idea.
Blade Runner rocks too, and I don't really want to compare them. It's pointless. But Serenity had some guts to it. You are right that some of the episodes were more cerebral, but this was still up there.
Cheers.