Were it not for blogs, there are many song lyrics that I would have been unable to discover. People without the know-how to find webspace and design and create an entire website have sometimes painstakingly determined and written out lyrics to songs and then posted them to their blogs. These lyrics would have been otherwise unavailable, as the artists did not choose to release them. For example, a favourite group of mine, Metric, created an album "Grow Up and Blow Away" that was never released but is available for download in various locations. I spent an afternoon satisfying my own curiosity and determined the majority of the lyrics to the songs. After posting these to my LiveJournal, I've gotten tons of comments from people who either were able to contribute and help me fill in the gaps that I was not able to figure out myself, or messages of thanks from individuals who were interested in getting their hands on these.
That's but one example of the use of blogs: providing information that may have limited scope of appeal, and that may not be otherwise available.
Additionally, the idea of "community blogs" as offered by LiveJournal is tremendously useful. I don't know how many times asking a question on LiveJournal's mathematics community has saved me hours of googling and interpreting obscure definitions in order to answer a question.
Thirdly, I've met many fascinating people through my blog, both online and in person. In fact, that's how I met my life partner.
People will pirate no matter what. They're not pirating because of some moral stance against the RIAA, they're pirating because they're getting shit for free that they normally have to pay for.
Bullshit. I used to download CDs and, when I liked them, buy them; now, because the business practices of the RIAA are so despicably corrupt (price fixing, suing customers, etc.), I adamantly refuse to buy CDs in stores. In 2002, I bought probably 40 or 50 CDs. In 2003 and 2004? A whopping zero out of principle.
I now hold off on buying CDs until I can see the artists live at shows and concerts, where I can feel good in knowing that the artists are getting a much higher cut of the profits. I want my dollars to support the artists themselves, and not some greedy corporate middle men that have largely become obsolete.
I could boycot the RIAA, but I don't think that's a feasible solution. Music is such an integral part of our lives, and I don't feel remotely guilty for engaging in copyright infringement where those bastards are concerned. Treat me like a criminal and I'll behave like a criminal, thank you.
*shrugs*... In the past, I'd have liked to have believed that you were right. The idea of living after death just strikes me as a silly construct of the human ego which seems convinced that humans are vastly more important than we really are: "We can't possibly cease to exist! That's just silly! Look how intelligent and wonderful we are!"
Talk about cocky and completely unjustified pride.
Now that I've thought about it for several years, after feeling personally that Christianity was far too specific and complex a model (in some ways, and ridiculously simple in others) for the universe, I've rationalized the fact that I believe that we'll simply not exist one day. Honestly, I find that thought rather refreshing actually - the notion of living forever seems mighty tedious to me.
What about the CANDU reactors? While I'm not very familiar with them, I'm under the impression that they're touted as being amongst the best and the safest in the world.
Since when is BMO something to be proud of? As a Canadian, I have to say that my experiences with BMO rank it up there right next to a steaming heap of cow shit in terms of quality.
The elegance of Qt far surpasses that of WxWindows, and Qt offers many more powerful classes than WxWindows does (containers, database connection, etc.).
GTK+ may be a contender, but is there a native Mac OS X version? Additionally, last I checked, which was admittedly awhile back, the documentation was terrible and the support for the Windows port was sub-par. Additionally, since much of today's programming is OO, Qt is probably a more sensible choice for many programmers.
C# may offer some powerful functionality, but from my understanding, there is no cross-platform GUI toolkit. Windows Forms for windows, GTK# for *nix, etc...
Java, IMO, is the only one that matches (and surpasses) Qt, from that list. Personally, I like both Java and Qt, and pick whichever is more appropriate for the project I'm working on.
Shortcomings and psychological annoyances
on
New Calendar Proposal
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Two thoughts come to mind:
1. How would this affect people whose birthdays, anniversaries, etc. fall on the 31st of a month that no longer has a 31st? How about Halloween?
2. Personally, having my birthday occur on a Wednesday for the rest of time is tremendously unappealing to me. I enjoy having the occasional weekend birthday so that I can laze around all day, go out and get drunk, and just generally get spoiled by friends and family. The thought of having to work on my birthday for the rest of my life up until retirement isn't exactly heartwarming.
Oh, and of course, his model doesn't appear to be TimeCube compliant, and thus will be met with a lot of protest.
I thought that as we matured as a society that this type of conservative bullshit would cease. Perhaps we are regressing?
First, Blagojavic is a democrat. You should have some facts before posting.
You are hereby supposing that liberal = Democrat and conservative = Republican, which I largely disagree with.
Coming from Canada, I don't feel that the Democrats follow liberal principles at all; they can actually be very conservative on a number of issues. Having read a plethora of information about conservatism, neither do I believe that the GOP truly encompasses conservative thought and philosophy.
Here's an idea: maybe you should have planned well enough ahead to bring proof-of-age with you, knowing you were going to be buying a game?
When I was 20 (drinking age here in Ontario is 19), I didn't really expect to be able to walk into a liquor store and buy booze without expecting to be asked to present a driver's license or passport.
I've got news for you, bud. If not-so-little Johnny, who is now in college, doesn't live up to performance expectations, he'll be kicked out of the school after a semester. Then your problem will be solved - your tax dollars will no longer be sent to him.
You'll never have a complete say over where your tax dollars go, but this is one case where I think the inherent systems will succeed in assuring that the worthy receive your contributions. We don't need more restrictive measures put into place.
I agree completely! Dealing with that shrieking, ominous wraith while those spear-wielding skeletons dashed towards you was utterly terrifying. The thought of my character having to run as fast as he could from those horrible firebreathing dragons never failed to send shivers up my spine. And my heart still skips a beat when I think of that last horrible villian who approaches closer and closer and then suddenly descends upon you and slaughters you.
It was, by far, the most frightening game I think I've played. I just ate it up when I was a kid.
I really miss the days of C64. Because of the lack of system resources, there was a huge amount of thought put into the concept behind games (I'm thinking M.U.L.E., Forbidden Forest, Archon, Adventure Construction Set, Space Taxi, Jumpman Junior, Gateway to Apshai, etc...). At the risk of sounding like an old fuddy duddy *removes teeth and dunks them in a glass of water*, I just can't get into games these days: it's so hard to weed through the fluff and get to the ones that have decent storylines instead of just an orgy of audio and visual goodness.
Additionally, I always appreciated the old-school games because most of them, while challenging, were easy in terms of the controls. After a long day at school, the last thing I wanted to do was be challenged and have to use both a mouse and a keyboard to relax and unwind.
I can't see how EA "taking over the gaming industry" can be a good thing: many of the EA games I've played have been rushed out the door in a state that most gamers would consider deplorable or incomplete. Two notable examples that leap into my mind are Ultima VIII and Ultima IX, both which had glaring errors and plot holes in them.
IMO, if anything, EA is watering down the gaming industry. Personally, since playing a number of EA bombs, I've moved on and no longer play computer games anymore.
Datura is a group of plants in the Solanaceae family. This family includes such plants as chili peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, mandrake, nightshade, wolfsbane, etc...
The Daturas (which is a category that typically includes the flowering Datura plants and the woody Brugmansia bushes) are absolutely gorgeous plants with beautiful, large flowers. Datura contains high levels of several psychologically active alkaloids called tropanes, of which the most common are atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine.
Tropanes are perhaps one of the few true hallucinogenic drugs; a hallucinogen as an agent that reliably causes its users to be immersed into an alternate reality to the degree that they cannot recognize that the reality is a product of the drug. The traditional drugs referred to as hallucinogens (e.g. LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, etc...) do not typically cause hallucinations, but visual disturbances.
The mechanism behind the action of tropanes are that brain activity is focused at the region of the brain where it encounters the spine, if I understand it correctly. This is similar to what happens in humans while dreaming and is typically associated with primitive thought and urges. Users often experience vivid hallucinations, seeing and interacting with people and objects that do not exist, and generally not recognizing or understanding that they are intoxicated. Tropanes can last from several hours to several days and can raise body temperature dangerously. The active dose is not dramatically far from a deadly overdose.
Diphenhydramine and dimenhydrinate, the standard anticholinergics used for motion sickness and in sleeping pills, have similar action and can be used to produce similar effects.
Most drug users strongly recommend against the use of Datura, since it is not pleasant and often terrifying. It has an extensive history of use in shamanism (particularly in South America, where consumption of Datura was a necessary ritual amongst some to mark the passage from boyhood to manhood, and it was occasionally used in the psychoactive drink, ayahuasca) and also in Europe and Asia, where wines were made with some Datura in order to impart a mild effect from them. Additionally, other tropane containing plants are largely responsible for the "witchcraft" of the past; women would rub tropane-rich plants upon broom handles, and then rub the broom handles against their genitalia, where the tropanes readily passed into the body. This led them to believe that they were flying, which is probably why the whole witch / broomstick / flying image came into place.
In Carlos Castaneda's "The Teachings of Don Juan", Datura is one of the allies he ingests.
If you've ever heard of Jimson Weed (Datura stramonium), you're familiar with Datura. The term originated from Jamestown, where a cook that was unfamiliar with the new world plants used Datura in his cooking and fed it to some of the settlers, who became delirious for several days.
Daturas are commonly found in home gardens, and are intensely gorgeous.
I, personally, don't pirate because of my desire to save money. I pirate because I am viciously opposed to the tactics of the RIAA and MPAA: price fixing, suing their customer base, standing in the way of P2P technology, buying politicians, etc...
I cannot, in good faith, give money to their organizations, and I feel absolutely no shame in stealing from them, given how they're nothing but a bunch of management swine who price fix and steal from those that work for them.
I think a company that's largely honest breeds honest customers. I, for instance, would never pay for a piece of Microsoft software on purpose. In good faith, I could not do so, because their new licensing schemes, etc... make me feel sick, and I do not want to show my support for such things. You might tell me not to use MS products then, but the reality of the situation is that in many cases, you *need* Office to get by. OpenOffice might be decent, but at least on OS X, it's ugly as sin and I'm not convinced that it's fully interoperable with MS Office.
On the other hand, I feel compelled to pay for my Apple software, because I believe that it's reasonably cheap and that Apple cares about their customer base. I feel the same way about the independent artists I listen to, and usually buy their CDs. I'm all for supporting the little guy and very much want to do so; I just feel no qualms stealing from a filthy rich megacorporation who doesn't care about me in the slightest.
On the PowerMac G4 / G5s, I believe that you should be able to buy any supported video card, drop it in, and go. On the iMacs, eMacs, and portables, I don't think it is quite this easy.
I'm a Canadian citizen who recently lived in the US (Washington, DC) for three and a half months. I was planning on staying longer, but the Social Security Administration screwed up (read: lost) my application (I'm an American citizen also, having been born in Colorado, but I left for the sunny beaches of Canada when I was less than a year old).
I should have known that the SSA was going to botch my application when I had the following conversation with the woman processing my forms at the office: Woman: Where did you live most of your childhood, sir? Me: In Manitoba. Woman: Where is that, sir? Me: I think it's just north of North Dakota. Woman: I thought that Canada was up there. Me: It is. Woman: *obviously confused* Then where is Manitoba? Me: It's in Canada. Woman: What province is that in, sir?
When I did finally move back to Canada upon discovering (after waiting nine weeks) that my application had mysteriously vanished, I have to say that I was utterly relieved to be back home in the land of healthcare (I couldn't afford coverage in the US, and that made me very nervous) and sanity.
The truth of the matter is that we don't have nearly as many religious fundamentalists as you guys have: I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who believed one of our politicians was ordained by god to bring freedom to the rest of the world.
We don't exploit our national symbols like the maple leaf in order to press propaganda: in the US, I went to the Bank of America, where they had a sign saying, "Due to the 9/11 attacks, we must request that valid photo ID be presented with all transactions." This message was printed on a watermarked picture of the American flag. Why? I do not know, but perhaps for those with a lower level of education, somehow seeing this picture makes this annoying negative request (which I fail to see a connection between and the 9/11 attacks) somehow okay.
We don't throw around buzzwords like "independence", "liberty", and "freedom". Walking through the streets of DC and seeing security guards on nearly every intersection, and walking past police officers armed with semi-automatic weaponry certainly didn't make me feel particularly safe or free. Frankly, I felt observed and under suspicion, even though I had no reason to feel as such. A concert held in the park was an "Independence Concert". A show on the National Mall was a "Liberty Art Show". It was ridiculous. What does an art show have to do with liberty? I support patriotism, but tempered with common sense and sanity. These ideals of American life are losing meaning through their overuse and through the laws passed since 9/11.
I also suspect that our poverty levels are far lower here in Canada. Living in DC on the edge of the projects, where every poor person was black was incredibly depressing. Trying to see people raise a two children family on a $15k / year salary was heart-wrenching. There are poor families in Ottawa where I'm from, but those are largely the people who pull in a combined household income of $40k / year, take public transportation, and maybe have their two children sharing a bedroom.
Our politicians don't prance their families around on stage like some kind of ideal of American goodness. Frankly, the only reason I know that Jean Chretien is married is because his wife recently made the news in a rather entertaining way. I mean, seriously, why do Bush and Kerry's children speak at the national conventions? What do they have to do with politics? How is their opinion remotely valid in the context of the parties, any moreso than yours or mine?
Additionally, Canadians seem to be less divided on issues like politics and religion. I tire of hearing the atheist vs. christian debate about words like, "In God We Trust" written on your money, and "Under God" in your pledge of allegiance. While I'm atheist in the sense I reject the concept of god, up here in Canada, we have the words, "God keep our land glorious and free" in our national anthem, but i
Many of you seem very opposed to this idea for a number of reasons and seem put off with the idea of this challenge. I think what you fail to realize is that there is far more to NaNoWriMo than producing a published novel; certainly, that is the immediate goal, but there's something to be said for the process itself.
This will be my fourth year participating in NaNoWriMo. My first year was spent cranking out 78k for my autobiography. I can't tell you, from an emotional perspective, what a valuable experience that was... looking back over my life from beginning to end in its entirety put many things in perspective for me. My second and third years were focused on writing fiction instead, and even though some parts of the resultant novels are hideously crappy, being so intensively creative and imaginative every day was very rewarding and inspired me to keep writing after NaNoWriMo was over (it's difficult to go from such a high level of productivity in the evenings to none at all), at which point I produced more deliberate novels in a longer period of time and they turned out quite well, IMO.
One of the major points of NaNo is that so many people talk about writing a novel but never actually do it. NaNo provides a challenge and a supportive, active community to these people. Novel writing seems like a daunting task, but NaNo gives you the platform to do it.
I think my use of "shadow of a doubt" was a poor choice and I realized it after posting. What I more meant was that antibiotic use is CLEARLY very damaging to society. The use of other drugs *might* demonstrate some long term effects in future generations (although, with the older drugs, like opiates, coca, alcohol, marijuana, datura, psilocybin, mescaline, etc...) moderate use probably won't, and they certainly are unlikely to cause significant social damage in the present. You could argue that people taking time off work because of drug use constitutes social damage, but I'd wager my left nut that far more money is spent on the war on drugs than it would cost the US in terms of sick leave for stoner employees.
I agree that nothing is harmless, but it is ultimately up to the individual to determine what is "too dangerous". I can't speak for others (who constantly amaze me - for example the incidence of unprotected sex, which is quite dangerous, IMO), but I'm very judicious in my actions... I feel very safe using drugs like opiates and marijuana in moderation, since they've been around and have been used by humans for hundreds of years and are hence well understood. On the other hand, I eat organically, because I don't trust the myriad crap that the FDA and USDA allows to go in our food (largely chemicals with less than a 50 year history, in constantly increasing volumes - we have no clue what the long term consequences of these might be, but we're already seeing short term oens).
I think that education and admitting uncertainty is the key. We need to teach people about the dangers and acknowledge when we don't have a good understanding of them so that people can make their own informed decisions.
It was quite entertaining how you extrapolated so many things from my post that I never said, nor even believe.
I'm not saying that heroin is not addictive. Where did I make such a claim? Opiates can be quite addictive, and heroin is one of the most addictive drugs in this category. However, historically speaking, it is factual that in China, opium (raw opium being a mixture of opiates, primarily morphine but with significant quantities of codeine and thebaine) use paralleled the alcohol use of Great Britian. There was actually a British government study done way back that expected vastly different results, but came to this conclusion.
And *grins*... I assure you that I've never sold a single drug in my life. However, I can tell you that I've used both alcohol and opiates / opioids (morphine, meperidine, codeine, oxycodone) extensively in the past, and while I never got addicted to opiates / opioids and prefer them to alcohol, I have had problems with alcohol addiction.
I really don't understand where you get your figures in your "Let me put it plain and simple for you" paragraph. It strikes me that you made those up, but I may be wrong. I, personally, know no heroin users, but a friend of mine knows many, and the majority of them use very infrequently, and not intravenously (this would be akin to, say, funneling huge quantities of alcohol). Because of the illegality of heroin, you're unlikely to be aware of such responsible use - these people, because of the stigma attached to heroin use, are likely to keep a low profile and you'll likely never know it if you meet one of them.
Personally, I wouldn't touch the stuff, but I support everyone's right to make that decision for themselves. And I completely fail to see how I mentioned that it's okay to get addicted to heroin; I never said anything remotely resembling that. May I kindly suggest you read my posts more carefully in the future instead of blindly jumping to conclusions? I simply pointed out that many people in the past have lived their lives with roaring opiate / opioid addictions (largely laudanum, which, IIRC, is alcohol and opium or morphine) and functioned well. There are also alcoholics who function well; however, there are many more long term, dangerous, and irreversible consequences to alcohol abuse than there are to opiate abuse.
If you look historically at opiate use (heroin is an opioid, or synthetic opiate), you'll see that it very much mirrored alcohol use in our society: the majority of users were able to consume casually, and a small subset allowed themselves to become addicted.
Incidentally, opiate addiction is far less dangerous than alcohol addiction: there are few, if any long term negative consequences to an opiate addiction (as clearly evidenced by the rampant use of opiates amongst artists in the UK, many of who consumed astoundingly high levels of opiates daily and managed to live healthy, productive lives well into their 70s). Unlike alcohol, opiate withdrawal cannot kill. Unlike alcohol, opiates do not cause extreme liver and brain damage with possible dementia.
I won't speak on drugs like crack and methamphetamines, because I'm not remotely interested in them. I think that they're dangerous, but I support people's right to use them if they so choose. If education is given, people will understand the dangers associated with these drugs, and if they decide to consume them anyways, they're playing with fire. Many people partake in many dangerous and silly activities on a daily basis, but we support their right to do so (e.g. car racing?).
The only drugs that I support to be fully controlled are antibiotics, because antibiotic abuse is the only abuse where it's clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that the long-term damage caused by overconsumption will harm society as a whole instead of just the individual.
That's ridiculous. If you disagree with the current laws and government policy, you shouldn't leave; you should make an effort to change things for what you feel is the better.
Slashdot Mirror
I can think of all sorts of valid uses for blogs.
Were it not for blogs, there are many song lyrics that I would have been unable to discover. People without the know-how to find webspace and design and create an entire website have sometimes painstakingly determined and written out lyrics to songs and then posted them to their blogs. These lyrics would have been otherwise unavailable, as the artists did not choose to release them. For example, a favourite group of mine, Metric, created an album "Grow Up and Blow Away" that was never released but is available for download in various locations. I spent an afternoon satisfying my own curiosity and determined the majority of the lyrics to the songs. After posting these to my LiveJournal, I've gotten tons of comments from people who either were able to contribute and help me fill in the gaps that I was not able to figure out myself, or messages of thanks from individuals who were interested in getting their hands on these.
That's but one example of the use of blogs: providing information that may have limited scope of appeal, and that may not be otherwise available.
Additionally, the idea of "community blogs" as offered by LiveJournal is tremendously useful. I don't know how many times asking a question on LiveJournal's mathematics community has saved me hours of googling and interpreting obscure definitions in order to answer a question.
Thirdly, I've met many fascinating people through my blog, both online and in person. In fact, that's how I met my life partner.
People will pirate no matter what. They're not pirating because of some moral stance against the RIAA, they're pirating because they're getting shit for free that they normally have to pay for.
Bullshit. I used to download CDs and, when I liked them, buy them; now, because the business practices of the RIAA are so despicably corrupt (price fixing, suing customers, etc.), I adamantly refuse to buy CDs in stores. In 2002, I bought probably 40 or 50 CDs. In 2003 and 2004? A whopping zero out of principle.
I now hold off on buying CDs until I can see the artists live at shows and concerts, where I can feel good in knowing that the artists are getting a much higher cut of the profits. I want my dollars to support the artists themselves, and not some greedy corporate middle men that have largely become obsolete.
I could boycot the RIAA, but I don't think that's a feasible solution. Music is such an integral part of our lives, and I don't feel remotely guilty for engaging in copyright infringement where those bastards are concerned. Treat me like a criminal and I'll behave like a criminal, thank you.
*shrugs*... In the past, I'd have liked to have believed that you were right. The idea of living after death just strikes me as a silly construct of the human ego which seems convinced that humans are vastly more important than we really are: "We can't possibly cease to exist! That's just silly! Look how intelligent and wonderful we are!"
Talk about cocky and completely unjustified pride.
Now that I've thought about it for several years, after feeling personally that Christianity was far too specific and complex a model (in some ways, and ridiculously simple in others) for the universe, I've rationalized the fact that I believe that we'll simply not exist one day. Honestly, I find that thought rather refreshing actually - the notion of living forever seems mighty tedious to me.
Unlikely. We'll be dead. We won't have any cognitive abilities remaining to appreciate that fact.
What about the CANDU reactors? While I'm not very familiar with them, I'm under the impression that they're touted as being amongst the best and the safest in the world.
Since when is BMO something to be proud of? As a Canadian, I have to say that my experiences with BMO rank it up there right next to a steaming heap of cow shit in terms of quality.
Don't be ridiculous.
The elegance of Qt far surpasses that of WxWindows, and Qt offers many more powerful classes than WxWindows does (containers, database connection, etc.).
GTK+ may be a contender, but is there a native Mac OS X version? Additionally, last I checked, which was admittedly awhile back, the documentation was terrible and the support for the Windows port was sub-par. Additionally, since much of today's programming is OO, Qt is probably a more sensible choice for many programmers.
C# may offer some powerful functionality, but from my understanding, there is no cross-platform GUI toolkit. Windows Forms for windows, GTK# for *nix, etc...
Java, IMO, is the only one that matches (and surpasses) Qt, from that list. Personally, I like both Java and Qt, and pick whichever is more appropriate for the project I'm working on.
Two thoughts come to mind:
1. How would this affect people whose birthdays, anniversaries, etc. fall on the 31st of a month that no longer has a 31st? How about Halloween?
2. Personally, having my birthday occur on a Wednesday for the rest of time is tremendously unappealing to me. I enjoy having the occasional weekend birthday so that I can laze around all day, go out and get drunk, and just generally get spoiled by friends and family. The thought of having to work on my birthday for the rest of my life up until retirement isn't exactly heartwarming.
Oh, and of course, his model doesn't appear to be TimeCube compliant, and thus will be met with a lot of protest.
...why is it so important that we survive? How is it universally significant is humans cease to exist in the next 10, 100, 1000, etc. years?
I thought that as we matured as a society that this type of conservative bullshit would cease. Perhaps we are regressing?
First, Blagojavic is a democrat. You should have some facts before posting.
You are hereby supposing that liberal = Democrat and conservative = Republican, which I largely disagree with.
Coming from Canada, I don't feel that the Democrats follow liberal principles at all; they can actually be very conservative on a number of issues. Having read a plethora of information about conservatism, neither do I believe that the GOP truly encompasses conservative thought and philosophy.
Here's an idea: maybe you should have planned well enough ahead to bring proof-of-age with you, knowing you were going to be buying a game?
When I was 20 (drinking age here in Ontario is 19), I didn't really expect to be able to walk into a liquor store and buy booze without expecting to be asked to present a driver's license or passport.
Honestly, until output devices (e.g. monitors) become fully 3D, I fail to see a reason to create 3D user interfaces.
I've got news for you, bud. If not-so-little Johnny, who is now in college, doesn't live up to performance expectations, he'll be kicked out of the school after a semester. Then your problem will be solved - your tax dollars will no longer be sent to him.
You'll never have a complete say over where your tax dollars go, but this is one case where I think the inherent systems will succeed in assuring that the worthy receive your contributions. We don't need more restrictive measures put into place.
I agree completely! Dealing with that shrieking, ominous wraith while those spear-wielding skeletons dashed towards you was utterly terrifying. The thought of my character having to run as fast as he could from those horrible firebreathing dragons never failed to send shivers up my spine. And my heart still skips a beat when I think of that last horrible villian who approaches closer and closer and then suddenly descends upon you and slaughters you.
It was, by far, the most frightening game I think I've played. I just ate it up when I was a kid.
I really miss the days of C64. Because of the lack of system resources, there was a huge amount of thought put into the concept behind games (I'm thinking M.U.L.E., Forbidden Forest, Archon, Adventure Construction Set, Space Taxi, Jumpman Junior, Gateway to Apshai, etc...). At the risk of sounding like an old fuddy duddy *removes teeth and dunks them in a glass of water*, I just can't get into games these days: it's so hard to weed through the fluff and get to the ones that have decent storylines instead of just an orgy of audio and visual goodness.
Additionally, I always appreciated the old-school games because most of them, while challenging, were easy in terms of the controls. After a long day at school, the last thing I wanted to do was be challenged and have to use both a mouse and a keyboard to relax and unwind.
As soon as I read the headline of the article, the victory dance song from Forbidden Forest started running through my head :D.
I can't see how EA "taking over the gaming industry" can be a good thing: many of the EA games I've played have been rushed out the door in a state that most gamers would consider deplorable or incomplete. Two notable examples that leap into my mind are Ultima VIII and Ultima IX, both which had glaring errors and plot holes in them.
IMO, if anything, EA is watering down the gaming industry. Personally, since playing a number of EA bombs, I've moved on and no longer play computer games anymore.
Datura is a group of plants in the Solanaceae family. This family includes such plants as chili peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, mandrake, nightshade, wolfsbane, etc...
The Daturas (which is a category that typically includes the flowering Datura plants and the woody Brugmansia bushes) are absolutely gorgeous plants with beautiful, large flowers. Datura contains high levels of several psychologically active alkaloids called tropanes, of which the most common are atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine.
Tropanes are perhaps one of the few true hallucinogenic drugs; a hallucinogen as an agent that reliably causes its users to be immersed into an alternate reality to the degree that they cannot recognize that the reality is a product of the drug. The traditional drugs referred to as hallucinogens (e.g. LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, etc...) do not typically cause hallucinations, but visual disturbances.
The mechanism behind the action of tropanes are that brain activity is focused at the region of the brain where it encounters the spine, if I understand it correctly. This is similar to what happens in humans while dreaming and is typically associated with primitive thought and urges. Users often experience vivid hallucinations, seeing and interacting with people and objects that do not exist, and generally not recognizing or understanding that they are intoxicated. Tropanes can last from several hours to several days and can raise body temperature dangerously. The active dose is not dramatically far from a deadly overdose.
Diphenhydramine and dimenhydrinate, the standard anticholinergics used for motion sickness and in sleeping pills, have similar action and can be used to produce similar effects.
Most drug users strongly recommend against the use of Datura, since it is not pleasant and often terrifying. It has an extensive history of use in shamanism (particularly in South America, where consumption of Datura was a necessary ritual amongst some to mark the passage from boyhood to manhood, and it was occasionally used in the psychoactive drink, ayahuasca) and also in Europe and Asia, where wines were made with some Datura in order to impart a mild effect from them. Additionally, other tropane containing plants are largely responsible for the "witchcraft" of the past; women would rub tropane-rich plants upon broom handles, and then rub the broom handles against their genitalia, where the tropanes readily passed into the body. This led them to believe that they were flying, which is probably why the whole witch / broomstick / flying image came into place.
In Carlos Castaneda's "The Teachings of Don Juan", Datura is one of the allies he ingests.
If you've ever heard of Jimson Weed (Datura stramonium), you're familiar with Datura. The term originated from Jamestown, where a cook that was unfamiliar with the new world plants used Datura in his cooking and fed it to some of the settlers, who became delirious for several days.
Daturas are commonly found in home gardens, and are intensely gorgeous.
I, personally, don't pirate because of my desire to save money. I pirate because I am viciously opposed to the tactics of the RIAA and MPAA: price fixing, suing their customer base, standing in the way of P2P technology, buying politicians, etc...
I cannot, in good faith, give money to their organizations, and I feel absolutely no shame in stealing from them, given how they're nothing but a bunch of management swine who price fix and steal from those that work for them.
I think a company that's largely honest breeds honest customers. I, for instance, would never pay for a piece of Microsoft software on purpose. In good faith, I could not do so, because their new licensing schemes, etc... make me feel sick, and I do not want to show my support for such things. You might tell me not to use MS products then, but the reality of the situation is that in many cases, you *need* Office to get by. OpenOffice might be decent, but at least on OS X, it's ugly as sin and I'm not convinced that it's fully interoperable with MS Office.
On the other hand, I feel compelled to pay for my Apple software, because I believe that it's reasonably cheap and that Apple cares about their customer base. I feel the same way about the independent artists I listen to, and usually buy their CDs. I'm all for supporting the little guy and very much want to do so; I just feel no qualms stealing from a filthy rich megacorporation who doesn't care about me in the slightest.
On the PowerMac G4 / G5s, I believe that you should be able to buy any supported video card, drop it in, and go. On the iMacs, eMacs, and portables, I don't think it is quite this easy.
I'm a Canadian citizen who recently lived in the US (Washington, DC) for three and a half months. I was planning on staying longer, but the Social Security Administration screwed up (read: lost) my application (I'm an American citizen also, having been born in Colorado, but I left for the sunny beaches of Canada when I was less than a year old).
I should have known that the SSA was going to botch my application when I had the following conversation with the woman processing my forms at the office:
Woman: Where did you live most of your childhood, sir?
Me: In Manitoba.
Woman: Where is that, sir?
Me: I think it's just north of North Dakota.
Woman: I thought that Canada was up there.
Me: It is.
Woman: *obviously confused* Then where is Manitoba?
Me: It's in Canada.
Woman: What province is that in, sir?
When I did finally move back to Canada upon discovering (after waiting nine weeks) that my application had mysteriously vanished, I have to say that I was utterly relieved to be back home in the land of healthcare (I couldn't afford coverage in the US, and that made me very nervous) and sanity.
The truth of the matter is that we don't have nearly as many religious fundamentalists as you guys have: I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who believed one of our politicians was ordained by god to bring freedom to the rest of the world.
We don't exploit our national symbols like the maple leaf in order to press propaganda: in the US, I went to the Bank of America, where they had a sign saying, "Due to the 9/11 attacks, we must request that valid photo ID be presented with all transactions." This message was printed on a watermarked picture of the American flag. Why? I do not know, but perhaps for those with a lower level of education, somehow seeing this picture makes this annoying negative request (which I fail to see a connection between and the 9/11 attacks) somehow okay.
We don't throw around buzzwords like "independence", "liberty", and "freedom". Walking through the streets of DC and seeing security guards on nearly every intersection, and walking past police officers armed with semi-automatic weaponry certainly didn't make me feel particularly safe or free. Frankly, I felt observed and under suspicion, even though I had no reason to feel as such. A concert held in the park was an "Independence Concert". A show on the National Mall was a "Liberty Art Show". It was ridiculous. What does an art show have to do with liberty? I support patriotism, but tempered with common sense and sanity. These ideals of American life are losing meaning through their overuse and through the laws passed since 9/11.
I also suspect that our poverty levels are far lower here in Canada. Living in DC on the edge of the projects, where every poor person was black was incredibly depressing. Trying to see people raise a two children family on a $15k / year salary was heart-wrenching. There are poor families in Ottawa where I'm from, but those are largely the people who pull in a combined household income of $40k / year, take public transportation, and maybe have their two children sharing a bedroom.
Our politicians don't prance their families around on stage like some kind of ideal of American goodness. Frankly, the only reason I know that Jean Chretien is married is because his wife recently made the news in a rather entertaining way. I mean, seriously, why do Bush and Kerry's children speak at the national conventions? What do they have to do with politics? How is their opinion remotely valid in the context of the parties, any moreso than yours or mine?
Additionally, Canadians seem to be less divided on issues like politics and religion. I tire of hearing the atheist vs. christian debate about words like, "In God We Trust" written on your money, and "Under God" in your pledge of allegiance. While I'm atheist in the sense I reject the concept of god, up here in Canada, we have the words, "God keep our land glorious and free" in our national anthem, but i
Many of you seem very opposed to this idea for a number of reasons and seem put off with the idea of this challenge. I think what you fail to realize is that there is far more to NaNoWriMo than producing a published novel; certainly, that is the immediate goal, but there's something to be said for the process itself.
This will be my fourth year participating in NaNoWriMo. My first year was spent cranking out 78k for my autobiography. I can't tell you, from an emotional perspective, what a valuable experience that was... looking back over my life from beginning to end in its entirety put many things in perspective for me. My second and third years were focused on writing fiction instead, and even though some parts of the resultant novels are hideously crappy, being so intensively creative and imaginative every day was very rewarding and inspired me to keep writing after NaNoWriMo was over (it's difficult to go from such a high level of productivity in the evenings to none at all), at which point I produced more deliberate novels in a longer period of time and they turned out quite well, IMO.
One of the major points of NaNo is that so many people talk about writing a novel but never actually do it. NaNo provides a challenge and a supportive, active community to these people. Novel writing seems like a daunting task, but NaNo gives you the platform to do it.
I think my use of "shadow of a doubt" was a poor choice and I realized it after posting. What I more meant was that antibiotic use is CLEARLY very damaging to society. The use of other drugs *might* demonstrate some long term effects in future generations (although, with the older drugs, like opiates, coca, alcohol, marijuana, datura, psilocybin, mescaline, etc...) moderate use probably won't, and they certainly are unlikely to cause significant social damage in the present. You could argue that people taking time off work because of drug use constitutes social damage, but I'd wager my left nut that far more money is spent on the war on drugs than it would cost the US in terms of sick leave for stoner employees.
I agree that nothing is harmless, but it is ultimately up to the individual to determine what is "too dangerous". I can't speak for others (who constantly amaze me - for example the incidence of unprotected sex, which is quite dangerous, IMO), but I'm very judicious in my actions... I feel very safe using drugs like opiates and marijuana in moderation, since they've been around and have been used by humans for hundreds of years and are hence well understood. On the other hand, I eat organically, because I don't trust the myriad crap that the FDA and USDA allows to go in our food (largely chemicals with less than a 50 year history, in constantly increasing volumes - we have no clue what the long term consequences of these might be, but we're already seeing short term oens).
I think that education and admitting uncertainty is the key. We need to teach people about the dangers and acknowledge when we don't have a good understanding of them so that people can make their own informed decisions.
It was quite entertaining how you extrapolated so many things from my post that I never said, nor even believe.
I'm not saying that heroin is not addictive. Where did I make such a claim? Opiates can be quite addictive, and heroin is one of the most addictive drugs in this category. However, historically speaking, it is factual that in China, opium (raw opium being a mixture of opiates, primarily morphine but with significant quantities of codeine and thebaine) use paralleled the alcohol use of Great Britian. There was actually a British government study done way back that expected vastly different results, but came to this conclusion.
And *grins*... I assure you that I've never sold a single drug in my life. However, I can tell you that I've used both alcohol and opiates / opioids (morphine, meperidine, codeine, oxycodone) extensively in the past, and while I never got addicted to opiates / opioids and prefer them to alcohol, I have had problems with alcohol addiction.
I really don't understand where you get your figures in your "Let me put it plain and simple for you" paragraph. It strikes me that you made those up, but I may be wrong. I, personally, know no heroin users, but a friend of mine knows many, and the majority of them use very infrequently, and not intravenously (this would be akin to, say, funneling huge quantities of alcohol). Because of the illegality of heroin, you're unlikely to be aware of such responsible use - these people, because of the stigma attached to heroin use, are likely to keep a low profile and you'll likely never know it if you meet one of them.
Personally, I wouldn't touch the stuff, but I support everyone's right to make that decision for themselves. And I completely fail to see how I mentioned that it's okay to get addicted to heroin; I never said anything remotely resembling that. May I kindly suggest you read my posts more carefully in the future instead of blindly jumping to conclusions? I simply pointed out that many people in the past have lived their lives with roaring opiate / opioid addictions (largely laudanum, which, IIRC, is alcohol and opium or morphine) and functioned well. There are also alcoholics who function well; however, there are many more long term, dangerous, and irreversible consequences to alcohol abuse than there are to opiate abuse.
If you look historically at opiate use (heroin is an opioid, or synthetic opiate), you'll see that it very much mirrored alcohol use in our society: the majority of users were able to consume casually, and a small subset allowed themselves to become addicted.
Incidentally, opiate addiction is far less dangerous than alcohol addiction: there are few, if any long term negative consequences to an opiate addiction (as clearly evidenced by the rampant use of opiates amongst artists in the UK, many of who consumed astoundingly high levels of opiates daily and managed to live healthy, productive lives well into their 70s). Unlike alcohol, opiate withdrawal cannot kill. Unlike alcohol, opiates do not cause extreme liver and brain damage with possible dementia.
I won't speak on drugs like crack and methamphetamines, because I'm not remotely interested in them. I think that they're dangerous, but I support people's right to use them if they so choose. If education is given, people will understand the dangers associated with these drugs, and if they decide to consume them anyways, they're playing with fire. Many people partake in many dangerous and silly activities on a daily basis, but we support their right to do so (e.g. car racing?).
The only drugs that I support to be fully controlled are antibiotics, because antibiotic abuse is the only abuse where it's clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that the long-term damage caused by overconsumption will harm society as a whole instead of just the individual.
That's ridiculous. If you disagree with the current laws and government policy, you shouldn't leave; you should make an effort to change things for what you feel is the better.