Yeah, the only real currency to match bitcoins is one that has no value any longer because it was not backed by anything of value... You compare bitcoins to a failed and presently non-existent currency, and you call me a moron?
Are you failing to understand the referencing to fundamental economics here, or are you just willfully obtuse?
Are you failing to understand that a currency such as bitcoins or grains of beach sand have no actual value? The worth of any other currency is the value backed by the country of that currency. Hell, even grains of beach sand have some intrinsic value (you can do something with them) while bitcoins don't even have that. Dollars and Euros and Rands (and etc) have an actual value - namely you can give them to the country in question and get something of value back.
Thank god you aren't in charge of our economy, it would have failed even FASTER.
You're a good example of illogical and irrational thinking; almost a model of how not to make your point.
They can do what they want as long as I can get back what it says on my balance. Are you seriously this [redacted]ing stupid?
Hmmm, how to put this...let's say TechLA put 1000 BitCoin into the BitCoin bank on Friday. Then on Sunday he withdrew 1000 BitCoin from the BitCoin bank. In other words, the BitCoin bank payed out what it said on the balance. TechLA's complaint is that he could only buy about half the stuff with that 1000 BitCoins on Sunday as he could on Friday. A similar thing can happen with other currencies. Take the United States dollar as example. One of the highest recent inflations occurred in the late 70's and early-to-mid 80's. So, suppose you put 1000 USD into a checking account in 1977. Let's ignore the Negotiable Order of Withdrawal stuff for a bit, and any service charges. Then in 1987 you could withdraw 1000 USD. However, in 1987 you could only buy about half of the stuff (actually about 0.518) with 1000 USD as you could with 1000 USD in 1977. According to some theories of economics, that change was partially caused by the change in the amount of money; and, in the United States, the amount of money is controlled by the Federal Reserve System in coordination with the various banks in the country.
What the hell are the mods smoking? "+4 informative"? Really? In what world is a half-life of 2 days the same as a half-life of ten years? What sort of cognitive malfunction makes a person think that losing half your wealth over two days is comparable to losing half your value over ten years?
So I would have to say, no, MareLooke isn't quite as stupid as you might have thought.
~Loyal
Behold, fellow slashdotters - the Dunning-Kruger effect at work.
(ps, Actually, you both are probably as stupid as gp thought)
Never on an 8bit microcontroller, no. On an 8bit graphics processor, yes (the memory was on the processor, not on the microcontroller).
However, the vga mode 13h[1] was not necessarily frame-buffer backed[2]; I used a pointer to a framebuffer at memory 0xb4000000 (I think it was this particular address, not too sure) with the full knowledge that that memory was not on the microcontroller.
However, to keep some perspective, I was referring to the PIC's, the atmels and similar microcontrollers - none of them ever had a framebuffer-based video; fb-based video (if any) was always provided by an external graphics processor.
[1] Either "0x13" or "13h", not both (redundant, see?)
[2] Perhaps I'm remembering wrong and mode 13h was not a slow-as-molasses interrupt interface to the external graphics processor. In my memory, it was a (you guessed it) slow-as-molasses interrupt interface to the external graphics processor. The Borland BGI library used the SAMIITTEGP.
You're going on the rather unwarranted assumption that all displays are framebuffer-backed. While I'm pretty certain such 8-bit devices exist, I've never had the pleasure of using one.
Yes, to all of the above. Because the only value women have is to look good and be fuckable...
On a more serious note. What you just wrote was the the most misogynistic AND misandrist I've read in a great while. Yes really.. Fuck you! You porn addicted, socially inept moronic wanker!
It's actaully quite amusing to see people like you get their panties in a knot over someone stating the obvious. Of course, if I point out that women are getting a raw deal, then I must be a socially inept porn addicted moronic wanker... this is certainly going to be news to the various women I date (and, I posted with my real name, so you actually can look me up and count the number of women I've dated this year alone).
The only reason I can do as I please when it comes to dating is because females are willing to sleep around - great! I wasn't complaining, after all, just pointing out why I get what I want as a male, but females aren't getting what they want as a female. Continue the whole "explore your sexuality" (if you're female), because it's men in general who reap the benefits of that, not women in general.
Man its funny watching you squirm. Buh buh genetics. Here's how it is son, in a world where people like to get dressed up in nappies and paddled with a plastic representation of David Beckham for jollies, sex has less to do with genetics than you think.
What school did you go to where outliers represent the majority of the population? The majority of women have a certain need from the courtship rituals, the majority of men have a different need; both needs have been finely honed by evolution to be what they are and aren't going to go away just because you'd like the world to match some ideal in your head. The feminist movement has very effectively satisfied the males needs while denying the females needs.
All the outliers you bring in as "proof" (even though on closer examination your previous "proof" wasn't) don't prove anything - they are outliers!, you understand? They are not representations of what most people want. Can't you understand that? Even the most powerful women still dates upwards, can you understand that? They don't date down.
(ps: Me pointing out that your previous example was fabricated bullshit is not "squirming"; haven't you ever been to school? Evidence sometimes gets examined, even if you don't want it to be).
What does that have to do with the apparent dependency of women on men? Wake up, there have been many matriarchal societies throughout history, not least of whom include the Mosuo in China, who practise polyandry with ongoing aplomb. The op hadn't much of a clue about what he was trying to say, except that teh evul wimmin were finally losing the upper hand in his brain because he could stick his prick in a machine. Genetics, this is not. Culture, this is, which is profoundly judeo-christian, an abomination that should have been scourged from the earth ages since.
Just in case anyone thinks that parent knows what he is talking about, see this first - the example he gives is not even matriarchal, but matrilineal (of course, he may not know the difference), and the political power still lies with the men while the domestic power lies with the women (not much difference from the rest of us, is there?). And (to get back on track) the females who hold all the power *still* *only* settle with one man at a time (serial monogamy), compared to the free-love paradise being sold by the feminists and testicle-less men like parent, and the duties for men and the duties for women remain different , making this the worst example parent could have chosen to display of a society where men and women are equal.
Maybe there is a society that developed the same ideals that the feminists are selling - if so, I've yet to hear of it.
Remember when computers were sold with 500 page instruction manuals, and everyone was arguing over who had the better instruction manual, and then Apple comes along, and throws the instruction manual away, and everyone's like WTF?
No, actually, I don't remember PC's coming with 500 page instruction manuals for the simple reason that they never did. The C64, for example, came with a programmers reference (and I learned BASIC as a result). The Apple IIe came with a similar reference (which I still have - green cover, IIRC).
Well, it is possible because the median was so low compared to the high outliers. Hence, prostitutes were only for the very rich and powerful.
The average man just didn't visit them.
You don't see how this ends well for females? How about, we don't need you. We're already at the point where we can perform random chromosomal assortment on eggs and generate synthetic sperm in mice; the process is there, it just needs refinement.
And Darwinian sexual selection is still in play, you know - someone who's "putting out" on the third date is almost invariably going to be on birth control and will likely ditch you when your dickish behaviour is no longer compensated for by your dick, so your non-committal genes aren't getting passed on.
You're an outlier; good luck trying to convince the rest of the women that they don't need to settle down with a man. In fact, the only studies I've seen that has measured womens happiness shows lower levels of happiness for modern women (40+). Men pursue sex. Convincing women to do the same when they never have done so in the past just results in lots of unhappy women.
Who said that they're mutually exclusive? Anyway, I (and most people) can appreciate valuable companiship without sex, and sex without valuable companionship. However, when you are hooking up, *sex* is the reason why you do so - it's the biggest reason you are driven to pair up with someone, so if you value companionship and friendship more than you value sex, hook up with your mates instead.
You hook up with a women because she can give you sex, and you try to get the other things (companionship and friendship, etc) as well, but don't you ever forget that those things are secondary; if they weren't secondary you'd just pair up with some other guy (the probability of having shit in common is higher with a guy, after all)
so, yeah, to be PC it seems you also have to lie to yourself.
You were correct in posting anon - I should have done that too - apparently pointing out that feminism in it's current form is a raw deal for women will get you flamed by men who's sexual strategy is to grovel:-(
switch "man" and "woman" in your comment and it still works. You are starting from the (very sexist) notion that a woman sells her body in return for safety and (financial) stability. Well I have news for you: Most parts of the world, women are better educated. They no longer NEED a man. My father still can't fry an egg, my late mother would never have been able to provide for her children. These days are long gone now. In my generation, women have sex because they feel like it, not as a part of a commecial transaction. This explains the increase in divorces and single parent families. As Houllebecq said: the biggest mistake the feminists did was to teach men how to iron their own shirts.
Instincts don't work like that - you don't conciously think "I need a provider", you just find the provider more attractive to settle down with. All the politically correct ignorance in the world isn't going to change biology. We find certain types attractive because of biology, not because someone said so. You should read up on this stuff (human mating strategies).
I don't make the rules; the rules are that men pursue women for sex, women agree to stay with a man for security.
So that whole women entering the workplace thing has just breezed right by you eh? These are reprehensible sentiments - maybe you should learn to embrace and enjoy the pleasure women get from their own sexuality rather than being afraid of it and treating it as horse trading.
Listen, I really do not make the rules - men and women evolved to have certain instincts and mating strategies that were beneficial to humans as a whole. These instincts aren't going to go away simply because you passed a law, you know. I welcome the freedom of women to do as they please, to be financially independent, to gain high-profile jobs and to use a primarily male mating strategy, because it works in my favour! It means I get to have sex with more different women, without having to provide for them, and only sharing the financial burden of the offspring. The more women who "revel in their sexuality", the more sex I get offered.
I'm not complaining, merely pointing out that women themselves don't seem to understand this until they reach their late 30's to early 40's, and then they suddenly find that it's almost impossible to find a worthy mate at that point because the males at that point (outliers notwithstanding) will still rather have the beautiful young women who, unsurprisingly, have not yet acquired power and influence themselves and thus are impressed by males with power and influence who express interest in them.
It seems that these days it is reprehensible to point out that while men and women are equal, they have different instincts.
If I'm looking for a long-term relationship, I expect Mary to put out by the third date or so, and if she doesn't, I'll find my long-term relationship with Susan, who *will* put out.
Or, you know, I might realize that in any successful long-term relationship, there's a lot of factors that matter more than how quickly I can get my partner into bed. For instance, do I enjoy spending time with Mary? Do we have some common interests? Do we have good and meaningful conversations? Can we figure out a way of working when work needs to get done? If this relationship really does well, and we end up hitched for the rest of our lives, we're going to spend far more time dealing with that stuff than whether Mary put out on the third date.
While that is all true, you're making the assumption that there is a difference between Mary and Susan in Marys favour. That is an unwarranted assumption (why not make it in Susans favour?). I'm making the assumption that, all other things being equal, I'd be with Susan if Mary doesn't put out quickly enough, because there is no reason for me to wait.
Whether we like it or not, there is always mating competition (for both males and females); when a significant percentage of females are giving away what the others are not, then the others have no choice but to follow suit or else be left with those males that are so undesirable as partners that not even the promiscious women would sleep with.
Well the price of sex sinking is certainly a good thing, it means both men and women have more of it. Also while I find the "feminism = free sex" claim more than dubious (that's really not how it happened historically) - feminist would likely argue that women should not be valued as providers of sex, but for their skills and accomplishments. It's true though that this can be bad news for those women who have neither.
Women have more options today - they don't need to get married in order to have an income, they can pursue their own careers and their own goals in life. So while demand from men for marriage has dropped, the same applies for women, too.
Now neither men nor women are forced to have a relationship or enter marriage in order to have an income or to get sex. That changes many things and that's not necessarily easy. Overall it's good to have freedom to chose, though.
It's hard to undo the instincts honed over millions of years of evolution. The average females instinct, no matter how independent and successful she is, is still to "settle" with a provider (due to the large investment she makes in the offspring). That hasn't changed. The males instinct (to spread seed far and wide due to lesser investment in offspring) is to mate with as many females as possible. This also hasn't changed.
What has changed is that society is now trying to convince women that they can emulate male sexual strategy with no drawbacks; unfortunately this satisfies the males primary mating instinct, while resulting in the female not having her primary mating instinct satisfied.
Overall, the free-sex utopia is giving males what they always wanted (lots of sex) while at the same time denying females what they always wanted - stability and security for the offspring.
(And to all those other replies to my post - Men never had a dollar value to women!, their only value was in providing security and stability, so women never had to buy it. Women always had a material value to men, as evidenced by prostitution. So saying "the value of men will drop too" is kinda pointless - they never had that value.)
Thats a fairly stunning collection of pig ignorant misogynistic lunacies I have to say. Apparently the "value of women" is solely related to sex in your world. What, mamma didn't love you or something? To be honest anyone that would prefer to have sex with a machine rather than an attractive partner of the same species needs their heads examined, to say nothing of the universal availability of masturbation if you're that badly off.
I don't make the rules; the rules are that men pursue women for sex, women agree to stay with a man for security. This is how society is, and I cannot change that. The nash equilibrium for mating is already established and agreed upon by people far smarter than yourself or any of the oprah-ish magazines you subscribe to.
Your strategy of groveling before women probably works for you. Stick with it. However, the acknowledged superior strategies for men are simply to amass power and influence to attract a mate. While not *all* men and *all* women are the same, I'm not counting the outliers - they may not even reproduce at all!
The feminist activists convinced women that they can act just as men do, resulting in this free-sex utopia. I think it was Freakonomics that pointed out that the price of sex has dropped since the 30's. Prostitutes used to cost more than the median monthly wage, now they cost the price of a meal - so if you're single and horny, which would you rather do - go on a first date and *maybe* get laid by the second date or simply pay the price of that meal and get laid?
Of course, men pursue sex - that's how we are built - and in the past we needed to commit to a woman to get assured of sex on a regular basis. Now with feminists making the argument that society won't judge women who are promiscuous, some women believe them, lowering the value of women in general. If I'm looking for a long-term relationship, I expect Mary to put out by the third date or so, and if she doesn't, I'll find my long-term relationship with Susan, who *will* put out.
Just for sex, though, even porn causes a drop in the value of women; whats going to happen when VR means that you can have a virtual g/friend for sex? That's an even further drop.
Yes, of course there will be men who still want a real women, but you cannot escape the fact that demand is dropping.
Redo the math considering that people repurchase iphones every 18-24 months...
I am pretty sure my family is atypical; but until we got new phones this year (when we switched to pre-paid), we were still using the phones we'd gotten in 2004.
GP should have asked instead "Who keeps a fashionable item for 5 years, when a new model is out every year?". I use a nokia N76 to make/receive calls, so I'm probably the same as your family unit in that I won't buy a new phone to be fashionable (I do have a decent one to use as a modem, though, an HTC of some sort).
I for one did immediately. It was a movie that deserved to be much more popular.
If you really felt that way, why not name the movie? What in case I didn't know you were talking about "Demolition Man"? Huh? Then I'd never actually get around to watching it even though it got lots of good references on slashdot because no one bothered to name the movie.
Here in the developing world, I got a PAYG bundle for R150 ($18) per 3gig. On contract its R299 ($36.2) for 10gig per month. Since I tether my phone/laptop, the phone only ever gets used as a modem.
There's not going to be a way to disable a permission without the app that tries to get it noticing that it's disabled, when that app tries to exercise that permission and the function fails. But so what? We should be able to deny the permission in the OS, but still install the app that wants the permission. Then that function will fail. And the app will either not do what we want, in which case we'll either keep it or not, either give the permission or not, either contact the app distributor/author or not.
Well, if it doesn't work the first time, the user would probably just look for a new one, and the popularity of privacy-respecting apps to non-privacy-respecting apps will at least change. And many users, given a allow/cancel dialog like "this application is attempting to access the internet, should it?" everytime the app is started, would probably look for a new app. From my experience with phone users downloading my app, if it doesn't work they don't even bother telling you, they just move on.
Slashdot Mirror
You are a moron, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2483800&cid=37763016
Yeah, the only real currency to match bitcoins is one that has no value any longer because it was not backed by anything of value ... You compare bitcoins to a failed and presently non-existent currency, and you call me a moron?
Well Done!
Are you failing to understand the referencing to fundamental economics here, or are you just willfully obtuse?
Are you failing to understand that a currency such as bitcoins or grains of beach sand have no actual value? The worth of any other currency is the value backed by the country of that currency. Hell, even grains of beach sand have some intrinsic value (you can do something with them) while bitcoins don't even have that. Dollars and Euros and Rands (and etc) have an actual value - namely you can give them to the country in question and get something of value back.
Thank god you aren't in charge of our economy, it would have failed even FASTER.
You're a good example of illogical and irrational thinking; almost a model of how not to make your point.
They can do what they want as long as I can get back what it says on my balance. Are you seriously this [redacted]ing stupid?
Hmmm, how to put this...let's say TechLA put 1000 BitCoin into the BitCoin bank on Friday. Then on Sunday he withdrew 1000 BitCoin from the BitCoin bank. In other words, the BitCoin bank payed out what it said on the balance. TechLA's complaint is that he could only buy about half the stuff with that 1000 BitCoins on Sunday as he could on Friday. A similar thing can happen with other currencies. Take the United States dollar as example. One of the highest recent inflations occurred in the late 70's and early-to-mid 80's. So, suppose you put 1000 USD into a checking account in 1977. Let's ignore the Negotiable Order of Withdrawal stuff for a bit, and any service charges. Then in 1987 you could withdraw 1000 USD. However, in 1987 you could only buy about half of the stuff (actually about 0.518) with 1000 USD as you could with 1000 USD in 1977. According to some theories of economics, that change was partially caused by the change in the amount of money; and, in the United States, the amount of money is controlled by the Federal Reserve System in coordination with the various banks in the country.
What the hell are the mods smoking? "+4 informative"? Really? In what world is a half-life of 2 days the same as a half-life of ten years? What sort of cognitive malfunction makes a person think that losing half your wealth over two days is comparable to losing half your value over ten years?
So I would have to say, no, MareLooke isn't quite as stupid as you might have thought.
~Loyal
Behold, fellow slashdotters - the Dunning-Kruger effect at work.
(ps, Actually, you both are probably as stupid as gp thought)
Kids know the difference between real and make believe...
There are a few studies that disagree with you on that. Kids as old as 8 and even 10 have problems separating real and imagined events.
Adults sometimes have the very same problems, only their belief shifts from "Santa Claus" to some other imaginary friend as they get older
Never on an 8bit microcontroller, no. On an 8bit graphics processor, yes (the memory was on the processor, not on the microcontroller).
However, the vga mode 13h[1] was not necessarily frame-buffer backed[2]; I used a pointer to a framebuffer at memory 0xb4000000 (I think it was this particular address, not too sure) with the full knowledge that that memory was not on the microcontroller.
However, to keep some perspective, I was referring to the PIC's, the atmels and similar microcontrollers - none of them ever had a framebuffer-based video; fb-based video (if any) was always provided by an external graphics processor.
[1] Either "0x13" or "13h", not both (redundant, see?)
[2] Perhaps I'm remembering wrong and mode 13h was not a slow-as-molasses interrupt interface to the external graphics processor. In my memory, it was a (you guessed it) slow-as-molasses interrupt interface to the external graphics processor. The Borland BGI library used the SAMIITTEGP.
You're going on the rather unwarranted assumption that all displays are framebuffer-backed. While I'm pretty certain such 8-bit devices exist, I've never had the pleasure of using one.
Yes, to all of the above. Because the only value women have is to look good and be fuckable...
On a more serious note. What you just wrote was the the most misogynistic AND misandrist I've read in a great while. Yes really.. Fuck you! You porn addicted, socially inept moronic wanker!
It's actaully quite amusing to see people like you get their panties in a knot over someone stating the obvious. Of course, if I point out that women are getting a raw deal, then I must be a socially inept porn addicted moronic wanker ... this is certainly going to be news to the various women I date (and, I posted with my real name, so you actually can look me up and count the number of women I've dated this year alone).
The only reason I can do as I please when it comes to dating is because females are willing to sleep around - great! I wasn't complaining, after all, just pointing out why I get what I want as a male, but females aren't getting what they want as a female. Continue the whole "explore your sexuality" (if you're female), because it's men in general who reap the benefits of that, not women in general.
Man its funny watching you squirm. Buh buh genetics. Here's how it is son, in a world where people like to get dressed up in nappies and paddled with a plastic representation of David Beckham for jollies, sex has less to do with genetics than you think.
What school did you go to where outliers represent the majority of the population? The majority of women have a certain need from the courtship rituals, the majority of men have a different need; both needs have been finely honed by evolution to be what they are and aren't going to go away just because you'd like the world to match some ideal in your head. The feminist movement has very effectively satisfied the males needs while denying the females needs.
All the outliers you bring in as "proof" (even though on closer examination your previous "proof" wasn't) don't prove anything - they are outliers!, you understand? They are not representations of what most people want. Can't you understand that? Even the most powerful women still dates upwards, can you understand that? They don't date down.
(ps: Me pointing out that your previous example was fabricated bullshit is not "squirming"; haven't you ever been to school? Evidence sometimes gets examined, even if you don't want it to be).
What does that have to do with the apparent dependency of women on men? Wake up, there have been many matriarchal societies throughout history, not least of whom include the Mosuo in China, who practise polyandry with ongoing aplomb. The op hadn't much of a clue about what he was trying to say, except that teh evul wimmin were finally losing the upper hand in his brain because he could stick his prick in a machine. Genetics, this is not. Culture, this is, which is profoundly judeo-christian, an abomination that should have been scourged from the earth ages since.
Just in case anyone thinks that parent knows what he is talking about, see this first - the example he gives is not even matriarchal, but matrilineal (of course, he may not know the difference), and the political power still lies with the men while the domestic power lies with the women (not much difference from the rest of us, is there?). And (to get back on track) the females who hold all the power *still* *only* settle with one man at a time (serial monogamy), compared to the free-love paradise being sold by the feminists and testicle-less men like parent, and the duties for men and the duties for women remain different , making this the worst example parent could have chosen to display of a society where men and women are equal.
Maybe there is a society that developed the same ideals that the feminists are selling - if so, I've yet to hear of it.
Remember when computers were sold with 500 page instruction manuals, and everyone was arguing over who had the better instruction manual, and then Apple comes along, and throws the instruction manual away, and everyone's like WTF?
No, actually, I don't remember PC's coming with 500 page instruction manuals for the simple reason that they never did. The C64, for example, came with a programmers reference (and I learned BASIC as a result). The Apple IIe came with a similar reference (which I still have - green cover, IIRC).
Well, it is possible because the median was so low compared to the high outliers. Hence, prostitutes were only for the very rich and powerful. The average man just didn't visit them.
You don't see how this ends well for females? How about, we don't need you. We're already at the point where we can perform random chromosomal assortment on eggs and generate synthetic sperm in mice; the process is there, it just needs refinement.
And Darwinian sexual selection is still in play, you know - someone who's "putting out" on the third date is almost invariably going to be on birth control and will likely ditch you when your dickish behaviour is no longer compensated for by your dick, so your non-committal genes aren't getting passed on.
You're an outlier; good luck trying to convince the rest of the women that they don't need to settle down with a man. In fact, the only studies I've seen that has measured womens happiness shows lower levels of happiness for modern women (40+). Men pursue sex. Convincing women to do the same when they never have done so in the past just results in lots of unhappy women.
Who said that they're mutually exclusive? Anyway, I (and most people) can appreciate valuable companiship without sex, and sex without valuable companionship. However, when you are hooking up, *sex* is the reason why you do so - it's the biggest reason you are driven to pair up with someone, so if you value companionship and friendship more than you value sex, hook up with your mates instead.
You hook up with a women because she can give you sex, and you try to get the other things (companionship and friendship, etc) as well, but don't you ever forget that those things are secondary; if they weren't secondary you'd just pair up with some other guy (the probability of having shit in common is higher with a guy, after all)
so, yeah, to be PC it seems you also have to lie to yourself.
You were correct in posting anon - I should have done that too - apparently pointing out that feminism in it's current form is a raw deal for women will get you flamed by men who's sexual strategy is to grovel :-(
I wonder if I have the karma to burn ...
switch "man" and "woman" in your comment and it still works. You are starting from the (very sexist) notion that a woman sells her body in return for safety and (financial) stability. Well I have news for you: Most parts of the world, women are better educated. They no longer NEED a man. My father still can't fry an egg, my late mother would never have been able to provide for her children. These days are long gone now. In my generation, women have sex because they feel like it, not as a part of a commecial transaction. This explains the increase in divorces and single parent families. As Houllebecq said: the biggest mistake the feminists did was to teach men how to iron their own shirts.
Instincts don't work like that - you don't conciously think "I need a provider", you just find the provider more attractive to settle down with. All the politically correct ignorance in the world isn't going to change biology. We find certain types attractive because of biology, not because someone said so. You should read up on this stuff (human mating strategies).
I don't make the rules; the rules are that men pursue women for sex, women agree to stay with a man for security.
So that whole women entering the workplace thing has just breezed right by you eh? These are reprehensible sentiments - maybe you should learn to embrace and enjoy the pleasure women get from their own sexuality rather than being afraid of it and treating it as horse trading.
Listen, I really do not make the rules - men and women evolved to have certain instincts and mating strategies that were beneficial to humans as a whole. These instincts aren't going to go away simply because you passed a law, you know. I welcome the freedom of women to do as they please, to be financially independent, to gain high-profile jobs and to use a primarily male mating strategy, because it works in my favour! It means I get to have sex with more different women, without having to provide for them, and only sharing the financial burden of the offspring. The more women who "revel in their sexuality", the more sex I get offered.
I'm not complaining, merely pointing out that women themselves don't seem to understand this until they reach their late 30's to early 40's, and then they suddenly find that it's almost impossible to find a worthy mate at that point because the males at that point (outliers notwithstanding) will still rather have the beautiful young women who, unsurprisingly, have not yet acquired power and influence themselves and thus are impressed by males with power and influence who express interest in them.
It seems that these days it is reprehensible to point out that while men and women are equal, they have different instincts.
If I'm looking for a long-term relationship, I expect Mary to put out by the third date or so, and if she doesn't, I'll find my long-term relationship with Susan, who *will* put out.
Or, you know, I might realize that in any successful long-term relationship, there's a lot of factors that matter more than how quickly I can get my partner into bed. For instance, do I enjoy spending time with Mary? Do we have some common interests? Do we have good and meaningful conversations? Can we figure out a way of working when work needs to get done? If this relationship really does well, and we end up hitched for the rest of our lives, we're going to spend far more time dealing with that stuff than whether Mary put out on the third date.
While that is all true, you're making the assumption that there is a difference between Mary and Susan in Marys favour. That is an unwarranted assumption (why not make it in Susans favour?). I'm making the assumption that, all other things being equal, I'd be with Susan if Mary doesn't put out quickly enough, because there is no reason for me to wait.
Whether we like it or not, there is always mating competition (for both males and females); when a significant percentage of females are giving away what the others are not, then the others have no choice but to follow suit or else be left with those males that are so undesirable as partners that not even the promiscious women would sleep with.
I cannot see any way this ends ell for females.
Well the price of sex sinking is certainly a good thing, it means both men and women have more of it. Also while I find the "feminism = free sex" claim more than dubious (that's really not how it happened historically) - feminist would likely argue that women should not be valued as providers of sex, but for their skills and accomplishments. It's true though that this can be bad news for those women who have neither.
Women have more options today - they don't need to get married in order to have an income, they can pursue their own careers and their own goals in life. So while demand from men for marriage has dropped, the same applies for women, too.
Now neither men nor women are forced to have a relationship or enter marriage in order to have an income or to get sex. That changes many things and that's not necessarily easy. Overall it's good to have freedom to chose, though.
It's hard to undo the instincts honed over millions of years of evolution. The average females instinct, no matter how independent and successful she is, is still to "settle" with a provider (due to the large investment she makes in the offspring). That hasn't changed. The males instinct (to spread seed far and wide due to lesser investment in offspring) is to mate with as many females as possible. This also hasn't changed.
What has changed is that society is now trying to convince women that they can emulate male sexual strategy with no drawbacks; unfortunately this satisfies the males primary mating instinct, while resulting in the female not having her primary mating instinct satisfied.
Overall, the free-sex utopia is giving males what they always wanted (lots of sex) while at the same time denying females what they always wanted - stability and security for the offspring.
(And to all those other replies to my post - Men never had a dollar value to women!, their only value was in providing security and stability, so women never had to buy it. Women always had a material value to men, as evidenced by prostitution. So saying "the value of men will drop too" is kinda pointless - they never had that value.)
Thats a fairly stunning collection of pig ignorant misogynistic lunacies I have to say. Apparently the "value of women" is solely related to sex in your world. What, mamma didn't love you or something? To be honest anyone that would prefer to have sex with a machine rather than an attractive partner of the same species needs their heads examined, to say nothing of the universal availability of masturbation if you're that badly off.
I don't make the rules; the rules are that men pursue women for sex, women agree to stay with a man for security. This is how society is, and I cannot change that. The nash equilibrium for mating is already established and agreed upon by people far smarter than yourself or any of the oprah-ish magazines you subscribe to.
Your strategy of groveling before women probably works for you. Stick with it. However, the acknowledged superior strategies for men are simply to amass power and influence to attract a mate. While not *all* men and *all* women are the same, I'm not counting the outliers - they may not even reproduce at all!
Don't shoot the messenger.
Seriously, they do
The feminist activists convinced women that they can act just as men do, resulting in this free-sex utopia. I think it was Freakonomics that pointed out that the price of sex has dropped since the 30's. Prostitutes used to cost more than the median monthly wage, now they cost the price of a meal - so if you're single and horny, which would you rather do - go on a first date and *maybe* get laid by the second date or simply pay the price of that meal and get laid?
Of course, men pursue sex - that's how we are built - and in the past we needed to commit to a woman to get assured of sex on a regular basis. Now with feminists making the argument that society won't judge women who are promiscuous, some women believe them, lowering the value of women in general. If I'm looking for a long-term relationship, I expect Mary to put out by the third date or so, and if she doesn't, I'll find my long-term relationship with Susan, who *will* put out.
Just for sex, though, even porn causes a drop in the value of women; whats going to happen when VR means that you can have a virtual g/friend for sex? That's an even further drop.
Yes, of course there will be men who still want a real women, but you cannot escape the fact that demand is dropping.
Who keeps the same phone for five years?
Redo the math considering that people repurchase iphones every 18-24 months...
I am pretty sure my family is atypical; but until we got new phones this year (when we switched to pre-paid), we were still using the phones we'd gotten in 2004.
GP should have asked instead "Who keeps a fashionable item for 5 years, when a new model is out every year?". I use a nokia N76 to make/receive calls, so I'm probably the same as your family unit in that I won't buy a new phone to be fashionable (I do have a decent one to use as a modem, though, an HTC of some sort).
I for one did immediately. It was a movie that deserved to be much more popular.
If you really felt that way, why not name the movie? What in case I didn't know you were talking about "Demolition Man"? Huh? Then I'd never actually get around to watching it even though it got lots of good references on slashdot because no one bothered to name the movie.
Here in the developing world, I got a PAYG bundle for R150 ($18) per 3gig. On contract its R299 ($36.2) for 10gig per month. Since I tether my phone/laptop, the phone only ever gets used as a modem.
Why are you guys paying so much?
All users will happily allow something like "Angry Birds" to have internet access, even though it is obvious that it doesn't need it.
[snipped]
The few people who don't like those ads go to the Amazon Appstore for Android and get the pay version of Angry Birds - no more ads.
You just made my own point for me - the paid version of Angry Birds on the amazon app store needs internet access (I just checked!).
Why? It clearly isn't for ads, perhaps its for DLC???
There's not going to be a way to disable a permission without the app that tries to get it noticing that it's disabled, when that app tries to exercise that permission and the function fails. But so what? We should be able to deny the permission in the OS, but still install the app that wants the permission. Then that function will fail. And the app will either not do what we want, in which case we'll either keep it or not, either give the permission or not, either contact the app distributor/author or not.
Well, if it doesn't work the first time, the user would probably just look for a new one, and the popularity of privacy-respecting apps to non-privacy-respecting apps will at least change. And many users, given a allow/cancel dialog like "this application is attempting to access the internet, should it?" everytime the app is started, would probably look for a new app. From my experience with phone users downloading my app, if it doesn't work they don't even bother telling you, they just move on.
So, this scheme would at least work a little