Well, for the 40 years of my life, the U.S. has been the safest, most secure, most prosperous place to live, and it could not have been that way without the US Government.
I recently returned to Canada after having lived for four months in the US (Washington, DC), and I can say that my impressions were dramatically different from yours.
Safety and security, in my mind, don't equate to seeing cops standing on major intersections with assault rifles because of possible terrorism threats. In light of the PATRIOT act, I certainly didn't feel safe and secure while having telephone conversations about possibly controversial issues with my Canadian friends.
Prosperity, in my mind, doesn't equate with the vast level of absolute poverty that I witnessed during my time in DC. I consider myself to be poor, being a graduate student with a modest scholarship. However, living on the edge of the projects, I saw that I was quite well off compared to many of the people that I passed and talked with on a daily basis. I couldn't believe how little money some of these people were trying to raise a family on. It was shocking and I have no clue how they managed to make ends meet.
Freedom isn't represented by a government who is there to support corporations instead of the people. It's quite clear that the people have spoken: they will download mp3s and they will consume drugs (was it 25% of people who had done drugs? - it's ludicrous to believe that 25% of people belong in prison). The government is here to represent us, and it's time for organizations rife with corruption like the MPAA, the RIAA, and the pharmaceutical industry to take a hit and change their policies or be rendered obsolete.
Incidentally, the US still has the HIGHEST incidence of drug consumption in the world. Other countries don't have nearly the war on drugs that the US has. What are you guys doing wrong? And while there might be a current trend away from hard drugs, there are definitely movements towards softer drugs like the phenethylamines, tryptamines, and marijuana. It's all a matter of what's in vogue these days. The focus will shift again eventually.
While I agree that alcoholics are typically people that demonstrate an inability to drink in moderation, I don't think that it's necessarily an all-or-nothing thing with them (or addicts of other natures) for the rest of their lives.
I was an alcoholic and addicted to nicotine; I would go out to the bar with friends and typically drink between 16 and 22 drinks a night for several nights a week and smoke a pack of cigarettes while drunk. I would usually drink until I blacked out and passed out. It didn't interfere particularly with my ability to hold a job or maintain social relations, but damn, was it unhealthy behaviour.
However, when I quit drinking and smoking cigarettes six years ago, I realized that my alcoholism was caused by an anxiety disorder (and my smoking by depression and social anxiety); I was drinking as a form of self-medication. Many addicts indulge to excess because of depression, anxiety, or other mental / emotional problems.
Now that my anxiety has largely been cured through cognitive behavioural therapy, for the last year and a half I've been able to resume drinking and occasionally smoking cigarettes without indulging to excess in either. Occasionally, I may have six to eight drinks in an evening, but a typical night of drinking would consist of likely having four beers and one cigarette.
I agree that PCP has tendencies to drive people towards violent and unpredictable behaviour, but I've never heard that of the other common dissociatives like DXM, Ketamine, or nitrous oxide.
Measure all ingredients exactly -- close is not "good enough".
That's bullshit, though. I've made hundreds of recipes with my home bread maker, and there's definitely an acceptable level of variance within each recipe with regards to ingredients, despite the fact that baking more closely resembles chemistry than cooking.
For instance, shortening: you can substitute oil or butter for shortening, and double or halve the amount in any recipe without a significant reduction in the quality of the finished product.
Water and flour: a 10% variance in either will make little difference, which makes sense. Who's to say that precisely 3.5 cups of flour will react optimally with exactly 1 cup of water? These measurements are initially rough since the measures are so large (in 125 mL increments) that small alterations are perfectly acceptable. I've never had an issue with not leveling off cups with a knife, or accurately determining the exact amount of requested water.
Salt: This one should be handled more precisely, because salt does affect the growth of yeast and serves as a very mild flavour enhancer. Again, a 10% variance will make little or no difference.
Sugar: Again, highly variable. You need enough sugar to serve as food for the yeast. However, more sugar probably won't harm the final product. I enjoy generous amounts of sugar in my white bread. It's already unhealthy... why not make it more deliciously so?
Yeast: I like to increase my yeast by 25-50%. The worst effect I've seen from doing so is a loaf of bread that rises slightly higher than is optimal. Increasing yeast also allows for use of yeast that has been damaged by exposure to heat and light or is beyond its best before date.
Cooking and baking should never be taken so seriously as to seem like a chore. Getting your hands dirty and experimenting is what being in the kitchen is all about. We're here to have fun, enjoy our successes, and laugh at our mistakes.
The article itself admits the photos are false...
on
New iMac Pictures Leaked?
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· Score: 3, Informative
Nous avons acquis depuis la certitude qu'elles sont fausses
Roughly translated (my French is far from perfect): We have discovered with certainty that they're fake.
Feels just like they're walking on broken glass
on
Sims 2 Goes Gold
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· Score: 4, Insightful
My biggest hope for Sims 2 is that it won't take my Sim 15 in-game minutes to walk from the bedroom through the living room to the bathroom. I mean, I have my sluggish days, and my house is big, but...
The body does not produce morphine. It produces endorphins (aka "endogenous morphine"), a family of pain regulation molecules with similar action and euphoria to morphine but that are distinctly structurally different.
There are two theories, as far as I understand it, to the notions of addiction to the degree that opioids, nicotine, etc... cause: 1. The body begins producing less of the neurotransmitter which is active at the sites where the foreign chemical binds. 2. The brain compensates for the elevated levels of neurotransmitter agonists / antagonists by increasing the number of receptors, so when the foreign substance is discontinued, the brain doesn't perceive that it is receiving adequate stimulation at the increased number of receptors (it is quite sure that this is how nicotine works).
Disagreed. I would say that being human is about doing one's best to make the RIGHT choices, regardless of whether or not one is Christian. The unfortunate thing for Christianity is that it has mass appeal to the unedjumacated, who believe whatever they are spoon fed. This, unfortunately, includes tenets about things such as the existence of a universal code of morality (and furthermore, a Christian universal code of morality), and many of these unedjumacated Christians take this as their excuse to do the Ultimate Good (copyright 1999-2004 Microsoft Corp), i.e. go out and teach the masses to live by this universal code of morality.
The really fascinating thing, I find, is that so many Christians can agree upon the existence of a universal morality, but they can't seem to get their morals to coincide; this is in part much of the reason behind different denominations and beliefs.
Fortunately, there are some intelligent Christians out there. It's just depressing that the major religion of North America was one that opened itself up to such wild interpretations.
Are derivatives to morphine all based off of Heroin, cocaine, or nicotine?
Your statement is partially correct and partially incorrect. The opioid family of drugs consists largely of the painkillers in current use today (with a few others that don't fit in and have a different mechanism of action). It's not that morphine is based off of heroin, as you say, but rather that opium poppies give us three principal opiates: morphine, codeine, and thebaine (which behaves slightly differently than typical opiates in that it has somewhat of a stimulant effect as opposed to a sedative effect). The other major opioids are either synthetic (e.g. Demerol aka meperidine) or derivates of the aforementioned three (e.g. heroin, and IIRC, oxycodone and hydrocodone).
Cocaine and nicotine are completely different. Cocaine has some anaesthetic properties, but is largely not regarded as a general painkiller. It's great for dental surgery.
And with regards to the article, the euphoria / sedative properties of opiates can be a *very* good thing. I had to have a very intrusive procedure performed on me (colonoscopy - ick) and before the examination, I was injected with 50 mg of Demerol and 10 mg of Valium (a benzodiazepine also known as diazepam). The combined sedative / euphoria effect of the two allowed me to go in much more relaxed and at ease. If the euphoria of the meperidine had been blocked, I suspect they would have had to have given me a larger dose of benzodiazepines to compensate, which would increase chances of dangerous CNS depression inherent in these drugs in the first place.
I agree completely. I recently moved to the DC area from Ottawa to be with my partner for a year. This is my first time living in the US, and I have to say that I've been quite surprised by the differences in customer service.
The best example I can think of is in shopping experiences at Home Depot. I know two managers of two Home Depot stores up in Ottawa, and they have a strict employee policy that if a customer asks you where an item is, you have to immediately stop what you're doing and take the customer to that item (or find a customer service representative who knows, and have them take the customer to the item). I was expecting that this was probably a policy for the entire chain, but I was definitely shown to be wrong - twice I had to ask for the location of an item here at a DC store, and both times, the salesperson, who barely spoke English (and then, instead of speaking slowly so I could understand him, just barked at me when I asked him kindly to repeat himself) shoved me off: the first time, the salesperson shouted, "Aisle 5" (which I couldn't understand the first two times he said it), and the second time, appallingly, I was told, "I don't know" and the representative proceeded to run off without even looking back.
I know, from my manager friends, that you'd get fired in a second for such behaviour up in Canada, and the reason that Home Depot is doing so well up in Ottawa is because it's customer service is far superior to the old Canadian chains.
Another prime example is fast food. About eight years ago, back when I was a teenager, I used to work at McDonald's. As a cashier, we had an obligation to be friendly and would receive negative documentation in our employee file if we didn't greet customers with a smile and a welcoming phrase. Admittedly, these days, the service in Canada has gone down, but the majority of cashiers still seem personable. I've been to both Chipotle and McDonald's here in DC, and at both locations, the cashiers looked very unhappy to see me, like I was more of an annoyance than their responsibility.
It just makes me wonder if I've had bad luck or if this is a trend, and if it is commonplace, why you Americans don't demand better treatment and service from businesses. You're paying good money and certainly deserve it.
Perhaps it was a joke, but underestimating the lack of knowledge regarding technology of the average person is no laughing matter. I don't think it's hard to predict how such a "joke" could get out of hand fairly quickly.
Besides, I'm not lobbying people to write to him. I just thought I'd present them with the opportunity if they choose to do so.
On his website, he even discusses his real estate involvement with something akin to a pyramid scheme, if you check it out.
If any of you feel compelled to do write this guy and thank him for his funny little hoax (or sign him up for complementary hot free gay pr0n in his inbox daily, or any other such favour you can think of to show him how much we love him), his address is bryan@fleetmack.com (linked from his webpage, http://www.fleetmack.com).
I just want the best desktop environment available today and that's KDE.
Absolute nonsense. I've played around with KDE extensively over the years, from the early version 1.0 branch to the present, and I have to say that in terms of usability, it's gotten appallingly worse as time has progressed. I mean, whoever organized the KDE control panel should be ashamed of themselves! It's a convoluted mess of far too many options that makes it damn near impossible to get done whatever you want to get done unless you know exactly how to do it. Upon my last few installs of KDE, after hearing that god-awful sound scheme, I scampered off to the control panel to turn it off. This sort of task should theoretically be easy, right? It wasn't. It took me a significant amount of time to locate the appropriate settings and disable.
KDE certainly has many strong points and it has a lot of potential. However, it seriously needs a heavy dose of usability. Now Mac OS X... there's a desktop environment I can worship for its elegance and functionality.
I'd love to know what television ads *you're* watching, because the whole reason I stopped spending time in front of the TV was because the ads were so unbearably stupid and insulting to my intelligence 95% of the time.
By implying that watching television is an activity that people should strive to avoid
*nods*... I can appreciate that. I'm of the opinion that television watching in moderation is perfectly fine and probably even healthy if it helps you to relax, but for a lot of people, television watching can probably be unhealthy. I look at people like my grandparents, who watch eight hours of TV a day or so and sit around complaining about how miserable their lives are. I'm of the opinion that if they had some sense of accomplishment, they wouldn't be feeling nearly so pessimistic.
I agree that the website takes a decidedly negative anti-TV slant. I find some of their claims questionable and think that using these kinds of tactics to promote their goal isn't particularly encouraging. However, I still find their cause to be noble; for people like my roommates who work jobs they dislike, plop their asses down, and watch TV for seven hours a night until bedtime, I think that having the added motivation to experience something new for a week would broaden their horizons and let them see if alternative activities are worth pursuing.
Then about 8 months ago I moved in with my girl and now we have a Tivo-like cable box, now I still watch very little TV but I watch what I want, when I want
Completely agreed - although I just download the TV shows that I enjoy off of BitTorrent... it's so nice to be able to watch exactly what episodes of what show I want whenever I want to, commercial-free.
they are going to take it upon themselves to determine what my value structure should be and make those decisions for me?
Could you have missed the point any further than you did?
The point of National TV Turnoff Week is to provide people (most of who are largely unmotivated) with support through an organized event to reduce TV consumption. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would like to cut back on the number of hours they spend in front of the TV but lack determination to do so.
No one's pressuring you into participating. It's there as an aid if you feel that it would be useful. If not, by all means, disregard it.
I think that a lot of people feel that they waste far too much time on TV, only they're not motivated to actually get up off their asses and do something about it. National TV Turn Off Week gives these people some additional support to accomplish this.
No one's trying to force you or even remotely pressure you into participating.
Personally, I don't think I'm special for not watching TV (well, I lie - I watch maybe two shows a week, but those I download off BitTorrent so that I can watch what I want when I want to, sans commercials and for free). However, I pity people who come home from work, plop their asses on the couch, and spend the entire evening doing nothing but watching television. It just seems to me that these people are accomplishing nothing and just sitting around waiting to die, really.
I largely cut television out of my life three years ago after feeling like it was a tremendously dissatisfying experience. Reruns, commercials, and poor programming left me feeling far less relaxed than if I hadn't watched TV at all. Since then, my stress levels have decreased (I no longer feel controlled by television, and I don't require nearly as much stimulation to be happy) and my productivity and sense of accomplishment has skyrocketed.
I agree with you, though. I think that being more discerning in what you watch is probably the best trade-off for most people.
My TV watching consists of downloading last week's Simpsons and Malcolm in the Middle episode using BitTorrent. Apart from that, I have a television, which hasn't been on in weeks because I don't have cable (by choice, not circumstance - my roommates have cable and even spliced it for me, but I'm just not interested in hooking up). I have a VCR and DVD player for when I feel inclined to go out and rent something, but I don't do your general plop-down-and-watch-TV.
Personally, I can't stand it. There are far too many reruns, and the commercials are so insulting to the intelligence that watching them is a painful experience. After a couple of years where I wasted a few hours every day watching TV, I realized what a tremendously dissatisfying experience it really was and decided to cut about 95% of my television viewing out. I can tell you that my stress levels dropped (because I'd just sit quietly and focus on doing one thing instead of trying to accomplish in front of the TV) and my happiness and productivity skyrocketed.
I like the BitTorrent compromise - I get to select the shows I want to watch when I want to watch them (instead of it being up to the discretion of the media), I don't have to suffer commercials, and I pay nothing.
They're not strong-arming you into participating. I think that a lot of people would probably like to reduce the amount of television that they watch, only they're not motivated enough to do so without the support that something like National TV Turn-Off Week provides.
It's very noble to suggest that many people will miss out on news and informative programming, but the truth of the matter is that the majority of people don't look at these kinds of shows; they plop their asses down on the couch and watch Survivor, sit-coms, or reruns.
Personally, I used to be a TV junkie, spending around three to four hours a day watching television. I found that the experience left me largely dissatisfied. I never stood up from watching TV feeling energized or accomplished - I always felt like I'd just wasted an incredible amount of my time. I'm a motivated bastard, unlike the majority of humans, and one day I just decided to quit, so I did. Not only did I find that my productivity and creativity skyrocketed from watching no or extremely minimal television, but I generally felt a lot happier.
No one's trying to bust your chops to participate in this event. You're invited to, if you'd find it useful. If not, by all means, don't.
Microsoft can choose to sell their product at whatever price they want to whomever they want.
Let's just see how well it would sit, legally, if I had a store and decided to sell my products to atheists for $20 and Christians (because, say, I don't like the way they do things and they don't follow my rules) for $100. Oh, and let's just say I have a real chip on my shoulder regarding people of the Jewish faith, so I refuse to sell to them at all unless they agree to act in the manner that I want them to, namely atheistic.
Now, how well do you think this would bode in the eyes of the law, and how long do you think I'd be able to get away with this behaviour until legally, someone put a stop to it?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, for the 40 years of my life, the U.S. has been the safest, most secure, most prosperous place to live, and it could not have been that way without the US Government.
I recently returned to Canada after having lived for four months in the US (Washington, DC), and I can say that my impressions were dramatically different from yours.
Safety and security, in my mind, don't equate to seeing cops standing on major intersections with assault rifles because of possible terrorism threats. In light of the PATRIOT act, I certainly didn't feel safe and secure while having telephone conversations about possibly controversial issues with my Canadian friends.
Prosperity, in my mind, doesn't equate with the vast level of absolute poverty that I witnessed during my time in DC. I consider myself to be poor, being a graduate student with a modest scholarship. However, living on the edge of the projects, I saw that I was quite well off compared to many of the people that I passed and talked with on a daily basis. I couldn't believe how little money some of these people were trying to raise a family on. It was shocking and I have no clue how they managed to make ends meet.
Freedom isn't represented by a government who is there to support corporations instead of the people. It's quite clear that the people have spoken: they will download mp3s and they will consume drugs (was it 25% of people who had done drugs? - it's ludicrous to believe that 25% of people belong in prison). The government is here to represent us, and it's time for organizations rife with corruption like the MPAA, the RIAA, and the pharmaceutical industry to take a hit and change their policies or be rendered obsolete.
Incidentally, the US still has the HIGHEST incidence of drug consumption in the world. Other countries don't have nearly the war on drugs that the US has. What are you guys doing wrong? And while there might be a current trend away from hard drugs, there are definitely movements towards softer drugs like the phenethylamines, tryptamines, and marijuana. It's all a matter of what's in vogue these days. The focus will shift again eventually.
ng silly acronyms where there are no need for any
I thought that that was a possible side effect of studying computer science...
While I agree that alcoholics are typically people that demonstrate an inability to drink in moderation, I don't think that it's necessarily an all-or-nothing thing with them (or addicts of other natures) for the rest of their lives.
I was an alcoholic and addicted to nicotine; I would go out to the bar with friends and typically drink between 16 and 22 drinks a night for several nights a week and smoke a pack of cigarettes while drunk. I would usually drink until I blacked out and passed out. It didn't interfere particularly with my ability to hold a job or maintain social relations, but damn, was it unhealthy behaviour.
However, when I quit drinking and smoking cigarettes six years ago, I realized that my alcoholism was caused by an anxiety disorder (and my smoking by depression and social anxiety); I was drinking as a form of self-medication. Many addicts indulge to excess because of depression, anxiety, or other mental / emotional problems.
Now that my anxiety has largely been cured through cognitive behavioural therapy, for the last year and a half I've been able to resume drinking and occasionally smoking cigarettes without indulging to excess in either. Occasionally, I may have six to eight drinks in an evening, but a typical night of drinking would consist of likely having four beers and one cigarette.
I agree that PCP has tendencies to drive people towards violent and unpredictable behaviour, but I've never heard that of the other common dissociatives like DXM, Ketamine, or nitrous oxide.
As an idle curiosity, what type of bread requires 18 hours of preparation? I've never encountered a bread that needed more than six.
Measure all ingredients exactly -- close is not "good enough".
That's bullshit, though. I've made hundreds of recipes with my home bread maker, and there's definitely an acceptable level of variance within each recipe with regards to ingredients, despite the fact that baking more closely resembles chemistry than cooking.
For instance, shortening: you can substitute oil or butter for shortening, and double or halve the amount in any recipe without a significant reduction in the quality of the finished product.
Water and flour: a 10% variance in either will make little difference, which makes sense. Who's to say that precisely 3.5 cups of flour will react optimally with exactly 1 cup of water? These measurements are initially rough since the measures are so large (in 125 mL increments) that small alterations are perfectly acceptable. I've never had an issue with not leveling off cups with a knife, or accurately determining the exact amount of requested water.
Salt: This one should be handled more precisely, because salt does affect the growth of yeast and serves as a very mild flavour enhancer. Again, a 10% variance will make little or no difference.
Sugar: Again, highly variable. You need enough sugar to serve as food for the yeast. However, more sugar probably won't harm the final product. I enjoy generous amounts of sugar in my white bread. It's already unhealthy... why not make it more deliciously so?
Yeast: I like to increase my yeast by 25-50%. The worst effect I've seen from doing so is a loaf of bread that rises slightly higher than is optimal. Increasing yeast also allows for use of yeast that has been damaged by exposure to heat and light or is beyond its best before date.
Cooking and baking should never be taken so seriously as to seem like a chore. Getting your hands dirty and experimenting is what being in the kitchen is all about. We're here to have fun, enjoy our successes, and laugh at our mistakes.
Nous avons acquis depuis la certitude qu'elles sont fausses
Roughly translated (my French is far from perfect): We have discovered with certainty that they're fake.
My biggest hope for Sims 2 is that it won't take my Sim 15 in-game minutes to walk from the bedroom through the living room to the bathroom. I mean, I have my sluggish days, and my house is big, but...
The body does not produce morphine. It produces endorphins (aka "endogenous morphine"), a family of pain regulation molecules with similar action and euphoria to morphine but that are distinctly structurally different.
There are two theories, as far as I understand it, to the notions of addiction to the degree that opioids, nicotine, etc... cause:
1. The body begins producing less of the neurotransmitter which is active at the sites where the foreign chemical binds.
2. The brain compensates for the elevated levels of neurotransmitter agonists / antagonists by increasing the number of receptors, so when the foreign substance is discontinued, the brain doesn't perceive that it is receiving adequate stimulation at the increased number of receptors (it is quite sure that this is how nicotine works).
Disagreed. I would say that being human is about doing one's best to make the RIGHT choices, regardless of whether or not one is Christian. The unfortunate thing for Christianity is that it has mass appeal to the unedjumacated, who believe whatever they are spoon fed. This, unfortunately, includes tenets about things such as the existence of a universal code of morality (and furthermore, a Christian universal code of morality), and many of these unedjumacated Christians take this as their excuse to do the Ultimate Good (copyright 1999-2004 Microsoft Corp), i.e. go out and teach the masses to live by this universal code of morality.
The really fascinating thing, I find, is that so many Christians can agree upon the existence of a universal morality, but they can't seem to get their morals to coincide; this is in part much of the reason behind different denominations and beliefs.
Fortunately, there are some intelligent Christians out there. It's just depressing that the major religion of North America was one that opened itself up to such wild interpretations.
Are derivatives to morphine all based off of Heroin, cocaine, or nicotine?
Your statement is partially correct and partially incorrect. The opioid family of drugs consists largely of the painkillers in current use today (with a few others that don't fit in and have a different mechanism of action). It's not that morphine is based off of heroin, as you say, but rather that opium poppies give us three principal opiates: morphine, codeine, and thebaine (which behaves slightly differently than typical opiates in that it has somewhat of a stimulant effect as opposed to a sedative effect). The other major opioids are either synthetic (e.g. Demerol aka meperidine) or derivates of the aforementioned three (e.g. heroin, and IIRC, oxycodone and hydrocodone).
Cocaine and nicotine are completely different. Cocaine has some anaesthetic properties, but is largely not regarded as a general painkiller. It's great for dental surgery.
And with regards to the article, the euphoria / sedative properties of opiates can be a *very* good thing. I had to have a very intrusive procedure performed on me (colonoscopy - ick) and before the examination, I was injected with 50 mg of Demerol and 10 mg of Valium (a benzodiazepine also known as diazepam). The combined sedative / euphoria effect of the two allowed me to go in much more relaxed and at ease. If the euphoria of the meperidine had been blocked, I suspect they would have had to have given me a larger dose of benzodiazepines to compensate, which would increase chances of dangerous CNS depression inherent in these drugs in the first place.
I agree completely. I recently moved to the DC area from Ottawa to be with my partner for a year. This is my first time living in the US, and I have to say that I've been quite surprised by the differences in customer service.
The best example I can think of is in shopping experiences at Home Depot. I know two managers of two Home Depot stores up in Ottawa, and they have a strict employee policy that if a customer asks you where an item is, you have to immediately stop what you're doing and take the customer to that item (or find a customer service representative who knows, and have them take the customer to the item). I was expecting that this was probably a policy for the entire chain, but I was definitely shown to be wrong - twice I had to ask for the location of an item here at a DC store, and both times, the salesperson, who barely spoke English (and then, instead of speaking slowly so I could understand him, just barked at me when I asked him kindly to repeat himself) shoved me off: the first time, the salesperson shouted, "Aisle 5" (which I couldn't understand the first two times he said it), and the second time, appallingly, I was told, "I don't know" and the representative proceeded to run off without even looking back.
I know, from my manager friends, that you'd get fired in a second for such behaviour up in Canada, and the reason that Home Depot is doing so well up in Ottawa is because it's customer service is far superior to the old Canadian chains.
Another prime example is fast food. About eight years ago, back when I was a teenager, I used to work at McDonald's. As a cashier, we had an obligation to be friendly and would receive negative documentation in our employee file if we didn't greet customers with a smile and a welcoming phrase. Admittedly, these days, the service in Canada has gone down, but the majority of cashiers still seem personable. I've been to both Chipotle and McDonald's here in DC, and at both locations, the cashiers looked very unhappy to see me, like I was more of an annoyance than their responsibility.
It just makes me wonder if I've had bad luck or if this is a trend, and if it is commonplace, why you Americans don't demand better treatment and service from businesses. You're paying good money and certainly deserve it.
It has a web browser built in? Wasn't Real already bloated enough? Does everything these days need to have a built-in web browser?
Perhaps it was a joke, but underestimating the lack of knowledge regarding technology of the average person is no laughing matter. I don't think it's hard to predict how such a "joke" could get out of hand fairly quickly.
Besides, I'm not lobbying people to write to him. I just thought I'd present them with the opportunity if they choose to do so.
On his website, he even discusses his real estate involvement with something akin to a pyramid scheme, if you check it out.
If any of you feel compelled to do write this guy and thank him for his funny little hoax (or sign him up for complementary hot free gay pr0n in his inbox daily, or any other such favour you can think of to show him how much we love him), his address is bryan@fleetmack.com (linked from his webpage, http://www.fleetmack.com).
I just want the best desktop environment available today and that's KDE.
Absolute nonsense. I've played around with KDE extensively over the years, from the early version 1.0 branch to the present, and I have to say that in terms of usability, it's gotten appallingly worse as time has progressed. I mean, whoever organized the KDE control panel should be ashamed of themselves! It's a convoluted mess of far too many options that makes it damn near impossible to get done whatever you want to get done unless you know exactly how to do it. Upon my last few installs of KDE, after hearing that god-awful sound scheme, I scampered off to the control panel to turn it off. This sort of task should theoretically be easy, right? It wasn't. It took me a significant amount of time to locate the appropriate settings and disable.
KDE certainly has many strong points and it has a lot of potential. However, it seriously needs a heavy dose of usability. Now Mac OS X... there's a desktop environment I can worship for its elegance and functionality.
And many of them are very good.
I'd love to know what television ads *you're* watching, because the whole reason I stopped spending time in front of the TV was because the ads were so unbearably stupid and insulting to my intelligence 95% of the time.
By implying that watching television is an activity that people should strive to avoid
*nods*... I can appreciate that. I'm of the opinion that television watching in moderation is perfectly fine and probably even healthy if it helps you to relax, but for a lot of people, television watching can probably be unhealthy. I look at people like my grandparents, who watch eight hours of TV a day or so and sit around complaining about how miserable their lives are. I'm of the opinion that if they had some sense of accomplishment, they wouldn't be feeling nearly so pessimistic.
I agree that the website takes a decidedly negative anti-TV slant. I find some of their claims questionable and think that using these kinds of tactics to promote their goal isn't particularly encouraging. However, I still find their cause to be noble; for people like my roommates who work jobs they dislike, plop their asses down, and watch TV for seven hours a night until bedtime, I think that having the added motivation to experience something new for a week would broaden their horizons and let them see if alternative activities are worth pursuing.
Then about 8 months ago I moved in with my girl and now we have a Tivo-like cable box, now I still watch very little TV but I watch what I want, when I want
Completely agreed - although I just download the TV shows that I enjoy off of BitTorrent... it's so nice to be able to watch exactly what episodes of what show I want whenever I want to, commercial-free.
they are going to take it upon themselves to determine what my value structure should be and make those decisions for me?
Could you have missed the point any further than you did?
The point of National TV Turnoff Week is to provide people (most of who are largely unmotivated) with support through an organized event to reduce TV consumption. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would like to cut back on the number of hours they spend in front of the TV but lack determination to do so.
No one's pressuring you into participating. It's there as an aid if you feel that it would be useful. If not, by all means, disregard it.
Hardly.
I think that a lot of people feel that they waste far too much time on TV, only they're not motivated to actually get up off their asses and do something about it. National TV Turn Off Week gives these people some additional support to accomplish this.
No one's trying to force you or even remotely pressure you into participating.
Personally, I don't think I'm special for not watching TV (well, I lie - I watch maybe two shows a week, but those I download off BitTorrent so that I can watch what I want when I want to, sans commercials and for free). However, I pity people who come home from work, plop their asses on the couch, and spend the entire evening doing nothing but watching television. It just seems to me that these people are accomplishing nothing and just sitting around waiting to die, really.
I largely cut television out of my life three years ago after feeling like it was a tremendously dissatisfying experience. Reruns, commercials, and poor programming left me feeling far less relaxed than if I hadn't watched TV at all. Since then, my stress levels have decreased (I no longer feel controlled by television, and I don't require nearly as much stimulation to be happy) and my productivity and sense of accomplishment has skyrocketed.
I agree with you, though. I think that being more discerning in what you watch is probably the best trade-off for most people.
My TV watching consists of downloading last week's Simpsons and Malcolm in the Middle episode using BitTorrent. Apart from that, I have a television, which hasn't been on in weeks because I don't have cable (by choice, not circumstance - my roommates have cable and even spliced it for me, but I'm just not interested in hooking up). I have a VCR and DVD player for when I feel inclined to go out and rent something, but I don't do your general plop-down-and-watch-TV.
Personally, I can't stand it. There are far too many reruns, and the commercials are so insulting to the intelligence that watching them is a painful experience. After a couple of years where I wasted a few hours every day watching TV, I realized what a tremendously dissatisfying experience it really was and decided to cut about 95% of my television viewing out. I can tell you that my stress levels dropped (because I'd just sit quietly and focus on doing one thing instead of trying to accomplish in front of the TV) and my happiness and productivity skyrocketed.
I like the BitTorrent compromise - I get to select the shows I want to watch when I want to watch them (instead of it being up to the discretion of the media), I don't have to suffer commercials, and I pay nothing.
They're not strong-arming you into participating. I think that a lot of people would probably like to reduce the amount of television that they watch, only they're not motivated enough to do so without the support that something like National TV Turn-Off Week provides.
It's very noble to suggest that many people will miss out on news and informative programming, but the truth of the matter is that the majority of people don't look at these kinds of shows; they plop their asses down on the couch and watch Survivor, sit-coms, or reruns.
Personally, I used to be a TV junkie, spending around three to four hours a day watching television. I found that the experience left me largely dissatisfied. I never stood up from watching TV feeling energized or accomplished - I always felt like I'd just wasted an incredible amount of my time. I'm a motivated bastard, unlike the majority of humans, and one day I just decided to quit, so I did. Not only did I find that my productivity and creativity skyrocketed from watching no or extremely minimal television, but I generally felt a lot happier.
No one's trying to bust your chops to participate in this event. You're invited to, if you'd find it useful. If not, by all means, don't.
Microsoft can choose to sell their product at whatever price they want to whomever they want.
Let's just see how well it would sit, legally, if I had a store and decided to sell my products to atheists for $20 and Christians (because, say, I don't like the way they do things and they don't follow my rules) for $100. Oh, and let's just say I have a real chip on my shoulder regarding people of the Jewish faith, so I refuse to sell to them at all unless they agree to act in the manner that I want them to, namely atheistic.
Now, how well do you think this would bode in the eyes of the law, and how long do you think I'd be able to get away with this behaviour until legally, someone put a stop to it?
Don't the good folks at Salon know that no one at Slashdot ever bothers to read the article?