No, I've never heard of Bloom County, Outland, or Oliver W. Jones and his Banana Computer.:)
Seriously, though, Breathed had some great strips that pinpointed what's wrong with corporate America. One of my favorites is when Steve Dallas gets his spine broken by after taking a picture of an enraged Sean Penn he decides to sue the camera manufacturer because he couldn't get serious money from any of the other people involved (Penn, Madonna, or Opus) without getting hurt more.
Now if we could only cut out the middleman and place a bounty on IP lawyers themselves...:)
-jdm
Personally I find it somewhat disturbing that you find SimCity to be more real than some of these events. Granted on some level I can understand what you're saying; we've actually interacted extensively with SimCity but history is just something in a book. But this isn't so much your fault (keep in mind I had -- and still have somewhere -- a copy of SimCity for Win3.x) as it is the media for turning so much reality into a glorified video game.
All the politicians (*cough*theShrub*cough*) try to blame the 'net and shoot-em-up games for turning violence into a game. Have they just not considered that it could be the other way around, with the media turning reality into nothing more than a video game. Personally I have a certain amount of empathy for the events of the mid-to-late 60s through another entertainment medium: the music I listen to. The acts that are commercial now -- The Stones, The Who (all apologies, Rob:)), etc -- actually were fighting for something tangible. Listen to Gimme Shelter: the pain, anger, and electrifying tension throws you straight into the events of the time.
But now those events are just something that can be adjusted to move at "Fast", "Medium" or "Slow" time. And thanks to our artist and you, Waldo, my point has been (in at least one case) proven.
-jdm
This is one area where I can safely say I'm rooting for Echelon. Let's look at the two scenarios here, and tell me which one you think is worse:
Echelon wins. This would most likely be due to "national security" concerns of various nations, or something similar to "protecting diplomatic relations" between the various countries. This is bad in that the (very likely) industrial espionage occurring because of Echelon will continue. However, with more widespread encryption both corporations and individuals will have the ability to foil such real-time monitoring technology. And, as has been proven, attempting to regulate encryption on the 'net is a losing cause.
Patent laws win. Very bad. This establishes the precedent that almost everything is subserviant to patent laws. Have a program on your computer that is infringing on Ridiculous Patent #89245743025? The police knocked down your door and took your computer and refused to admit they even took it? Fourth Amendment? Sorry, they're all superceded by Patent laws. And, as has been shown, patents are becoming more and more strict to the point where ridculous ones (*cough*UTICA*cough) are becoming law.
The bottom line is that if patent law is allowed to win here, basic concepts of national security and defense will be tossed out in the name of protecting corporate revenue stream. While this is nothing new, the extent to which it could potentially be taken is frightening.
That and I want to see the case NSA v. Amazon.com. *g*
-jdm
> So, please stop. Corporations are not people, the shareholders are and we already pay lots of taxes.
Except for the fact that the Supreme Court ruled in 1886 (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific RR Company) that corporations had the same legal status as people under the 14th amendment. "That's nice," you might say, "but that doesn't mean that the government should exert the same financial control over corporations as people."
Well then, why do corporations get welfare? Each year the federal government hands out more money to large companies than it does to individuals. Free market economy? It doesn't exist. No matter what fiscal libertarians may tell you (I consider myself a social libertarian, btw) it simply doesn't exist because there is no legal playing field.
So please, get your facts straight before attempting to act condescending towards your readers. Someone may know what they're talking about and make you look stupid.
Disclaimer: The above comment is not the be-all and end-all of US tax laws. If anyone has more info, feel free to correct me. Just don't spout coporate propaganda or catchphrases unless you have facts (laws, court cases, etc) to back it up.
I prefer to think of it as a testament to the stupidity of large corporations. Yes, they sell it because there's a large audience for it. Do you think they care what the message they're packaging and selling actually is? When popular demand flashes big bucks in front of a record company they'll sell anything. Same for any industry. You can buy Noam Chomsky and Karl Marx in any Barnes and Noble or Borders in the world. Just because a band is on a major label doesn't cancel out the fact they have participated in raids with Greenpeace or aided rebels in Mexico.
With any luck, people like you will go away once Slashdot becomes more mainstream. The "I can't like that... it's *gag* popular!!" crowd. Otherwise, get an account and show some intelligence.
1) When the message is "Go educate yourself. Find something worth taking a stand on and fix something bad", then yes, I listen to that message. The point wasn't whether or not I take advice from any group, the point was "Musicians can reach lots of people, especially the youth, and a popular group with a strong, intelligent message can affect the political and economic landscape." Would you rather I listened to pointless drivel such as Rush Limbaugh? Be a dittohead? Or would that make your comfortable life of ignorance that much easier? Too bad.
2)And the only laws the US Gov't can enforce are the ones given to them in the Constitution explicity. All others are reserved to the people and then the states. And if you believe that, there's a nice bridge near NYC I'm almost 100% positive you'd be interested in.
I think you left out a word or two in your last sentence. It should have been "... the BENEFITS they think they receive from trade." But, yes, the governments and businesses receive benefits. Too bad the people they step on and bury don't. Do you think it's coincidence that when Mexico needed help in kicking out naitives to get at oil reserves down south they came to the US? The US gov't has the money and experience in that field.
BOTTOM LINE FOR IGNORANT PEOPLE Yes, I listen to the political messages of a band.
I, for one, am very disturbed by the fact that most of the clothes I'm wearing were most likely made by underpriviledged workers, not only in third-world countries, but also here in the US. When the people have a very limited choice, when all they've been given are what they don't want, it's not necessarily their fault if they use it. It is their fault if they don't do anything about it.
I'm just afraid that the overly sensational US media is going to focus on the 20 or 30 idiots who made serious trouble, while the other 40-50K people there behaved themselves. The tension in this country has been growing at a very visible rate in the last few years and I think this is just one of the first (mostly) good outwards signs of it.
Being a (young) 20-something myself, most of the people I know (an interesting mix, seeing as I have both leftist or libertarian friends yet go to a very conservative school) are frustrated and angry about the state of politics in this country. The average person no longer has a voice, and large corporations and government institutions are working hard to make sure we have even less of a voice. Restrictions on encryption, anyone? More wiretapping capabilities built into our hardware and software? The "right" of the NSA and FBI to circumvent due process and keep people under surveillence without a warrant?
The WTO (good article here in pdf) has a track record of leveragaing their power to tromp the soverign laws of independent countries in order to make more money (article here). Powerful representatives from the US and large corporations convince small, developing nations that they need the latest whiz-bang-all-in-one products to even survive in the new world. These representatives then provide tasty soundbites wherein they ask for free trade and villify the protestors for not allowing their poor, starving country to get the best TVs out there (yes, bad example, but you get the point). It's for reasons like this that when I have kids they will never ever have Gerber baby food.
And for everyone who's been saying "Hippie, go home", RTFA (articles) before you make yourself look stupid. Thousands of people from all different walks of life are protesting this, not just a few "burnt-out acid-dropping hippies who crawled out of the woodwork", as much as you'd like to believe that. Middle-aged people who know this is a Bad Thing (TM) are right next to youth who feel they want to make a difference and are motivated to do so. Prominent figures have lent their voices to causes such as this, and the difference is starting to be felt. Previous generations had The Who, The Clash and U2 to send out the call for arms and action against the oppresive elements of their times. Today, groups like Rage Against The Machine are sending out the call to action and education to the youth of today. Do you think it's an accident their album debuted at #1 and is currently the #2 selling album in the world?? I don't think anything short of physical action on this scale (meaning large peaceful yet committed protest groups) are going to bring about the change we need.
Educate yourself. Let yourself get angry. And then do something constructive and meaningful to channel that anger. My 100% support to the protesters in Seattle. Not to mention somewhat reluctant thanks to the police out there for not allowing a re-creation of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago to occur.
The NT build isn't deliberately broken. It's just not our number one priority and the person working on it would much rather be doing other things. For example, the VA Linux party that's going on right now which I missed the bus for.:)
Seriously, though, Legion is pretty cool and everyone should take a look at it. It's really pulled itself together nicely in the last year or so. And to prevent any flamewars, Beowulf and Legion cater to slightly different markets and purposes, and each do their job well.
I'm one of the SysAdmins for the Centurion cluster at UVa, as well as a student in Andrew Grimshaw 's (professor who built Centurion) Operating Systems class. First of all, I'll play the part of Greg Lindahl briefly and say that Centurion is technically not a Beowulf cluster. AFAIK, part of what defines a Beowulf-class machine is one or more head nodes -- usually one -- which dispatch jobs to multiple client nodes. This is somewhat like Asymmetric Multiprocessing, in which there is a master processor which runs the OS and dispatches jobs to the slave processors. The head node(s) has more processing power, memory, etc, in order to be able to manage the other nodes. The nodes in the cluster itself are usually of homogenous composition running some freenix, usually Linux. Centurion itself consists of 128 DEC 21164 Alphas and 128 dual PII-400's, all running Linux. There are a few of us just itching to try and run LINPACK on it.:) There are also several assorted machines which serve as frontents, running anything from FreeBSD to Solaris to (ick) IRIX. There is no head node which dispatches jobs, and each node is independent of the other (no sub-clusters within the cluster). I know I'm currently stepping on a lot of toes and re-hashing a lot of info, so visit the Beowulf FAQ. Kragen's done a great job of gathering info, and it's a good read.
Secondly, Professor Grimshaw discussed the PetaFLOP project the other day, in which the LANL project is a stepping stone in. If you shell out enough money, you can have a GigaFLOP machine on your desk. If you shell out even more money, you can have a TeraFLOP machine in the raised-floor room with tons of A/C at your research center. The challenge now is to bump it up another 3 orders of magnitude. By combining SMP nodes with a message passing interface or some other form of managing distributed memory, LANL hopes to build this 30 TF machine.
However, SGI may not get the bid as C|NET reports. When the gov't spec'ed out the machines they want to have as nodes they requested 16-node processors. So let's look at the Big Boys of horsepower:
Sun: Has built large systems before, but where they have the strongest performance is 64-way SMP, not 16. This is impressive, but scaling down can be as difficult as scaling up at times.
DEC: Alphas rule. Period. The 21264 is an awesome machine, and its performance isn't just limited to great benchmarks. A dual-666^H7 is probably the most impressive piece of machinery you can get for your desktop (if you can spare the $10K+). However, DEC doesn't have a lot of experience building nodes any larger than 8. There are some 14-way machines available, but it still doesn't meet the spec.
SGI: Another great company, pros and cons discussed in the article. But will they be around 2 years from now when this machine needs to be built? SGI's taken a serious downhill slide recently, and although they have experience building great 16-processor machines, LANL may not want to risk funding a company in such a state. Which leaves...
IBM: Great hardware, is really on the upswing in the last few years, and has experience with 16-way boxes. A definite candidate for the contract.
Truman? Truman came to office just as the war was ending, just in time to make the decision to drop the bombs. FDR helped bring a bit of hope to the nation during the Depression and then WWII, so he definitely belongs on the list. Truman just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
As for Lennon, you're very sadly mistaken if you think he "just sang a song". He helped influence every single artist in Rock 'n' Roll from the very beginning. He helped other artists to see that music just wasn't music, but a way of making a statement and changing the world around you. Artists from The Who to Rage Against The Machine have their sociopolitical roots in songs like "Revolution" and "Working Class Hero". Lennon and the rest of the Beatles weren't pop culture because some record exec said they should, they were popular because they struck a chord with so many people with both their music and their lives.
Bottom line: FDR, Hitler, Stalin, Ford and Mother Teresa have all had major influence in this century and deserve to be recognized (not necessarily applauded, but recognized) for it. But let's not dismiss someone as a "pop-culture knee-jerk answer" just because they weren't a politician, religious leader or baron of industry. JFK wasn't a particularly good president (one has to look no further than the negotiations with the steel industry at the time) but he touched something inside of us. And that is why Lennon belongs on that list.
"My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all." - John Lennon
The second I saw this on TV (I was actually at my apartment watching the live broadcast as it happened) I knew that it wouldn't be long before the media would start its witchhunt. Even with this in mind, I was surprised as to how quickly all the wrong things were blamed. One by one, all the "tell-tale symptoms" were uncovered: KMFDM lyrics on one's webpage, copies of Doom and similar games, black trench coats, anti-social behavior.
I don't want to rant too long, since it would be a re-hash anyway, but I can't help but look on this from a few different angles. In HS 3 or 4 years ago, I was a form of the trenchcoat mafia, wandering the halls with nothing better to do. Then I could get away with it. Out in the real world I've already been harrassed three times by the police for wearing my coat (never mind that it was cold and raining... that's all circumstantial evidence to the obvious truth I was going to kill everyone in the Deli if my chicken salad sandwich wasn't perfect) and I don't want to think back and imagine what it would be like now.
But my younger brother doesn't have to: he's there, and mad as hell about what's going on. He's already asked if he can borrow my coat and an old pair of boots so he can hand out some "Doom" pariphinalia (sp?). I say more power to him, but what he sees as a little prank could end up suspending/expelling him.
My dad doesn't have to imagine, either. He teaches in a city middle school and has already gotten two or three death threats from students he's had to turn in for bringing loaded weapons to school. Not to say he's one of "those" admins. He's the dad of two geek guys and supports my brother's attempts to point out exactly how absurd some schools have gotten. But what if one of his former students says to themselves, "Hey, if those guys in Colorado did it and became famous, why can't I?" And then my dad would be another victim of a senseless killing?
Why doesn't the media see themselves as part of the problem instead of part of the solution?!?
So what is the solution? I can't say for sure, but it sure as hell isn't taking away from some kids their only avenue of escape (computers, music, etc) and making them pick up a football or a pom-pom. bull:red flag::geeks:repression (for those of you who still remember those horrid analogy things from the SATs). It's in creating organizations like MADD and in counselling students AND parents to be a family and not a loose collection of people wandering in and out of the same living area. Ever read Kurt Vonnegut? Ever hear about extended families and community support?
Almost thirty years ago, John Lennon wrote a song, something the complete opposite of "Imagine" in many ways. And it's all the more true today.
All I can say to those still in HS is stick in there. I agree with previous posters that life isn't a win/lose situation, but one where you just keep working (or hacking) away. If you really feel like trying to define success, try this out:
So find some other cause to crusade against which might have prevented this tragedy. Like a campaign against negligent parents. Or whoever and however this HS freshman managed to get a handgun. Not this b*llsh*t about video games.
To be slightly tactless, I think MTV should play Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" much more often in light of such events. Maybe these psychos would be more likely to blow their own brains out and we wouldn't have to hear about stupid lawsuits like this.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, though, Breathed had some great strips that pinpointed what's wrong with corporate America. One of my favorites is when Steve Dallas gets his spine broken by after taking a picture of an enraged Sean Penn he decides to sue the camera manufacturer because he couldn't get serious money from any of the other people involved (Penn, Madonna, or Opus) without getting hurt more.
Now if we could only cut out the middleman and place a bounty on IP lawyers themselves ... :)
-jdm
Personally I find it somewhat disturbing that you find SimCity to be more real than some of these events. Granted on some level I can understand what you're saying; we've actually interacted extensively with SimCity but history is just something in a book. But this isn't so much your fault (keep in mind I had -- and still have somewhere -- a copy of SimCity for Win3.x) as it is the media for turning so much reality into a glorified video game.
All the politicians (*cough*theShrub*cough*) try to blame the 'net and shoot-em-up games for turning violence into a game. Have they just not considered that it could be the other way around, with the media turning reality into nothing more than a video game. Personally I have a certain amount of empathy for the events of the mid-to-late 60s through another entertainment medium: the music I listen to. The acts that are commercial now -- The Stones, The Who (all apologies, Rob :)), etc -- actually were fighting for something tangible. Listen to Gimme Shelter: the pain, anger, and electrifying tension throws you straight into the events of the time.
But now those events are just something that can be adjusted to move at "Fast", "Medium" or "Slow" time. And thanks to our artist and you, Waldo, my point has been (in at least one case) proven.
-jdm
Echelon wins. This would most likely be due to "national security" concerns of various nations, or something similar to "protecting diplomatic relations" between the various countries. This is bad in that the (very likely) industrial espionage occurring because of Echelon will continue. However, with more widespread encryption both corporations and individuals will have the ability to foil such real-time monitoring technology. And, as has been proven, attempting to regulate encryption on the 'net is a losing cause.
Patent laws win. Very bad. This establishes the precedent that almost everything is subserviant to patent laws. Have a program on your computer that is infringing on Ridiculous Patent #89245743025? The police knocked down your door and took your computer and refused to admit they even took it? Fourth Amendment? Sorry, they're all superceded by Patent laws. And, as has been shown, patents are becoming more and more strict to the point where ridculous ones (*cough*UTICA*cough) are becoming law.
The bottom line is that if patent law is allowed to win here, basic concepts of national security and defense will be tossed out in the name of protecting corporate revenue stream. While this is nothing new, the extent to which it could potentially be taken is frightening.
That and I want to see the case NSA v. Amazon.com. *g*
-jdm
Except for the fact that the Supreme Court ruled in 1886 (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific RR Company) that corporations had the same legal status as people under the 14th amendment. "That's nice," you might say, "but that doesn't mean that the government should exert the same financial control over corporations as people."
Well then, why do corporations get welfare? Each year the federal government hands out more money to large companies than it does to individuals. Free market economy? It doesn't exist. No matter what fiscal libertarians may tell you (I consider myself a social libertarian, btw) it simply doesn't exist because there is no legal playing field.
So please, get your facts straight before attempting to act condescending towards your readers. Someone may know what they're talking about and make you look stupid.
Disclaimer: The above comment is not the be-all and end-all of US tax laws. If anyone has more info, feel free to correct me. Just don't spout coporate propaganda or catchphrases unless you have facts (laws, court cases, etc) to back it up.
-jdm
With any luck, people like you will go away once Slashdot becomes more mainstream. The "I can't like that ... it's *gag* popular!!" crowd. Otherwise, get an account and show some intelligence.
-jdm
1) When the message is "Go educate yourself. Find something worth taking a stand on and fix something bad", then yes, I listen to that message. The point wasn't whether or not I take advice from any group, the point was "Musicians can reach lots of people, especially the youth, and a popular group with a strong, intelligent message can affect the political and economic landscape." Would you rather I listened to pointless drivel such as Rush Limbaugh? Be a dittohead? Or would that make your comfortable life of ignorance that much easier?
Too bad.
2)And the only laws the US Gov't can enforce are the ones given to them in the Constitution explicity. All others are reserved to the people and then the states. And if you believe that, there's a nice bridge near NYC I'm almost 100% positive you'd be interested in.
I think you left out a word or two in your last sentence. It should have been "... the BENEFITS they think they receive from trade." But, yes, the governments and businesses receive benefits. Too bad the people they step on and bury don't. Do you think it's coincidence that when Mexico needed help in kicking out naitives to get at oil reserves down south they came to the US? The US gov't has the money and experience in that field.
BOTTOM LINE FOR IGNORANT PEOPLE
Yes, I listen to the political messages of a band.
Toodles.
-jdm
I, for one, am very disturbed by the fact that most of the clothes I'm wearing were most likely made by underpriviledged workers, not only in third-world countries, but also here in the US. When the people have a very limited choice, when all they've been given are what they don't want, it's not necessarily their fault if they use it. It is their fault if they don't do anything about it.
I'm just afraid that the overly sensational US media is going to focus on the 20 or 30 idiots who made serious trouble, while the other 40-50K people there behaved themselves. The tension in this country has been growing at a very visible rate in the last few years and I think this is just one of the first (mostly) good outwards signs of it.
Being a (young) 20-something myself, most of the people I know (an interesting mix, seeing as I have both leftist or libertarian friends yet go to a very conservative school) are frustrated and angry about the state of politics in this country. The average person no longer has a voice, and large corporations and government institutions are working hard to make sure we have even less of a voice. Restrictions on encryption, anyone? More wiretapping capabilities built into our hardware and software? The "right" of the NSA and FBI to circumvent due process and keep people under surveillence without a warrant?
The WTO (good article here in pdf) has a track record of leveragaing their power to tromp the soverign laws of independent countries in order to make more money (article here). Powerful representatives from the US and large corporations convince small, developing nations that they need the latest whiz-bang-all-in-one products to even survive in the new world. These representatives then provide tasty soundbites wherein they ask for free trade and villify the protestors for not allowing their poor, starving country to get the best TVs out there (yes, bad example, but you get the point). It's for reasons like this that when I have kids they will never ever have Gerber baby food.
And for everyone who's been saying "Hippie, go home", RTFA (articles) before you make yourself look stupid. Thousands of people from all different walks of life are protesting this, not just a few "burnt-out acid-dropping hippies who crawled out of the woodwork", as much as you'd like to believe that. Middle-aged people who know this is a Bad Thing (TM) are right next to youth who feel they want to make a difference and are motivated to do so. Prominent figures have lent their voices to causes such as this, and the difference is starting to be felt. Previous generations had The Who, The Clash and U2 to send out the call for arms and action against the oppresive elements of their times. Today, groups like Rage Against The Machine are sending out the call to action and education to the youth of today. Do you think it's an accident their album debuted at #1 and is currently the #2 selling album in the world?? I don't think anything short of physical action on this scale (meaning large peaceful yet committed protest groups) are going to bring about the change we need.
Educate yourself. Let yourself get angry. And then do something constructive and meaningful to channel that anger. My 100% support to the protesters in Seattle. Not to mention somewhat reluctant thanks to the police out there for not allowing a re-creation of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago to occur.
-jdm
The NT build isn't deliberately broken. It's just not our number one priority and the person working on it would much rather be doing other things. For example, the VA Linux party that's going on right now which I missed the bus for. :)
Seriously, though, Legion is pretty cool and everyone should take a look at it. It's really pulled itself together nicely in the last year or so. And to prevent any flamewars, Beowulf and Legion cater to slightly different markets and purposes, and each do their job well.
Cheers,
-jdm
I'm one of the SysAdmins for the Centurion cluster at UVa, as well as a student in Andrew Grimshaw 's (professor who built Centurion) Operating Systems class. First of all, I'll play the part of Greg Lindahl briefly and say that Centurion is technically not a Beowulf cluster. AFAIK, part of what defines a Beowulf-class machine is one or more head nodes -- usually one -- which dispatch jobs to multiple client nodes. This is somewhat like Asymmetric Multiprocessing, in which there is a master processor which runs the OS and dispatches jobs to the slave processors. The head node(s) has more processing power, memory, etc, in order to be able to manage the other nodes. The nodes in the cluster itself are usually of homogenous composition running some freenix, usually Linux. Centurion itself consists of 128 DEC 21164 Alphas and 128 dual PII-400's, all running Linux. There are a few of us just itching to try and run LINPACK on it. :) There are also several assorted machines which serve as frontents, running anything from FreeBSD to Solaris to (ick) IRIX. There is no head node which dispatches jobs, and each node is independent of the other (no sub-clusters within the cluster). I know I'm currently stepping on a lot of toes and re-hashing a lot of info, so visit the Beowulf FAQ. Kragen's done a great job of gathering info, and it's a good read.
Secondly, Professor Grimshaw discussed the PetaFLOP project the other day, in which the LANL project is a stepping stone in. If you shell out enough money, you can have a GigaFLOP machine on your desk. If you shell out even more money, you can have a TeraFLOP machine in the raised-floor room with tons of A/C at your research center. The challenge now is to bump it up another 3 orders of magnitude. By combining SMP nodes with a message passing interface or some other form of managing distributed memory, LANL hopes to build this 30 TF machine.
However, SGI may not get the bid as C|NET reports. When the gov't spec'ed out the machines they want to have as nodes they requested 16-node processors. So let's look at the Big Boys of horsepower:
Which leaves
Just my 2 drachmas
-OWJones
"Balkam also hopes to get the rating system integrated into Web authoring tools...."
Nobody's integrating anything like that into my 'ed'.
Truman? Truman came to office just as the war was ending, just in time to make the decision to drop the bombs. FDR helped bring a bit of hope to the nation during the Depression and then WWII, so he definitely belongs on the list. Truman just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
As for Lennon, you're very sadly mistaken if you think he "just sang a song". He helped influence every single artist in Rock 'n' Roll from the very beginning. He helped other artists to see that music just wasn't music, but a way of making a statement and changing the world around you. Artists from The Who to Rage Against The Machine have their sociopolitical roots in songs like "Revolution" and "Working Class Hero". Lennon and the rest of the Beatles weren't pop culture because some record exec said they should, they were popular because they struck a chord with so many people with both their music and their lives.
Bottom line: FDR, Hitler, Stalin, Ford and Mother Teresa have all had major influence in this century and deserve to be recognized (not necessarily applauded, but recognized) for it. But let's not dismiss someone as a "pop-culture knee-jerk answer" just because they weren't a politician, religious leader or baron of industry. JFK wasn't a particularly good president (one has to look no further than the negotiations with the steel industry at the time) but he touched something inside of us. And that is why Lennon belongs on that list.
"My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all."
- John Lennon
The Anti-Linux CGI
Yay for PERL and cut and paste. Enjoy.
The second I saw this on TV (I was actually at my apartment watching the live broadcast as it happened) I knew that it wouldn't be long before the media would start its witchhunt. Even with this in mind, I was surprised as to how quickly all the wrong things were blamed. One by one, all the "tell-tale symptoms" were uncovered: KMFDM lyrics on one's webpage, copies of Doom and similar games, black trench coats, anti-social behavior.
I don't want to rant too long, since it would be a re-hash anyway, but I can't help but look on this from a few different angles. In HS 3 or 4 years ago, I was a form of the trenchcoat mafia, wandering the halls with nothing better to do. Then I could get away with it. Out in the real world I've already been harrassed three times by the police for wearing my coat (never mind that it was cold and raining ... that's all circumstantial evidence to the obvious truth I was going to kill everyone in the Deli if my chicken salad sandwich wasn't perfect) and I don't want to think back and imagine what it would be like now.
But my younger brother doesn't have to: he's there, and mad as hell about what's going on. He's already asked if he can borrow my coat and an old pair of boots so he can hand out some "Doom" pariphinalia (sp?). I say more power to him, but what he sees as a little prank could end up suspending/expelling him.
My dad doesn't have to imagine, either. He teaches in a city middle school and has already gotten two or three death threats from students he's had to turn in for bringing loaded weapons to school. Not to say he's one of "those" admins. He's the dad of two geek guys and supports my brother's attempts to point out exactly how absurd some schools have gotten. But what if one of his former students says to themselves, "Hey, if those guys in Colorado did it and became famous, why can't I?" And then my dad would be another victim of a senseless killing?
Why doesn't the media see themselves as part of the problem instead of part of the solution?!?
So what is the solution? I can't say for sure, but it sure as hell isn't taking away from some kids their only avenue of escape (computers, music, etc) and making them pick up a football or a pom-pom. bull:red flag::geeks:repression (for those of you who still remember those horrid analogy things from the SATs). It's in creating organizations like MADD and in counselling students AND parents to be a family and not a loose collection of people wandering in and out of the same living area. Ever read Kurt Vonnegut? Ever hear about extended families and community support?
Almost thirty years ago, John Lennon wrote a song, something the complete opposite of "Imagine" in many ways. And it's all the more true today.
All I can say to those still in HS is stick in there. I agree with previous posters that life isn't a win/lose situation, but one where you just keep working (or hacking) away. If you really feel like trying to define success, try this out:
So find some other cause to crusade against which might have prevented this tragedy. Like a campaign against negligent parents. Or whoever and however this HS freshman managed to get a handgun. Not this b*llsh*t about video games.
To be slightly tactless, I think MTV should play Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" much more often in light of such events. Maybe these psychos would be more likely to blow their own brains out and we wouldn't have to hear about stupid lawsuits like this.