I erroneously assumed this was a patent concerning advertising ABOUT operating systems. Meaning that Microsoft could be restrained from referencing Apple's patented "I'm an X"--"And I'm a Y" ad pattern in their own ads.
This might work out better for Microsoft because in saying that their users "are PC's" (having them exclaim "I'm a PC" in their commercials) they are dehumanizing their own user base, reducing them to the status of objects rather than people. Clue time: Justin Long and John Hodgman aren't supposed to be USERS of Macs and PCs, they are human representations of a Mac and a PC, anthropomorphized metaphors. When Microsoft makes their users shout "I'm a PC" they objectify their customers and imply that they are mechanistic devices rather than people. I use a Mac--that doesn't mean I *am* a Mac. But apparently according to Microsoft using a PC makes you become one. Meaning that... you get "stuck" when trying to accomplish more than one task, "crash" regularly, and are subject to rabid infection from a wide variety of easy-to-avoid ailments.
Anyone proud to say "I'm a PC" is an idiot--who would want to represent themselves as a mere machine? (Apparently users of Windows... according to the very company which makes that product.) It just shows the lack of imagination in the minds of people who work at Microsoft in thinking that users should think of themselves AS the machines they use. Do they also scream "I'm a Buick!" or "I'm a Maytag!"???
So then what's the deal with that submarine, the Googlielmo, cruising around the deep blue seas snapping geolocated photos for something called "Google Maps - Ocean Floor View"?
I agree that some of the practical conclusions the book makes are pure fantasy
Only some?
above all the part at the end about not regulating commerce.
I would hope that even the most pigheaded freemarketer would have had that knowledge come to him in a flash of epiphany over the past few weeks.
Rather I was referring to parts about the wrong-headedness of not rewarding excellence. You say "it's the rest of us who do the actual work who are the foundation of society", and this is true, but with one very important caveat - 20% of the people do 80% of the work.
What's amazing is how the people who advocate the Randian dogma always seem to be the ones in that 20%!!! It's EVERYBODY ELSE who's the problem, not them!! What are the chances? "The OTHERS are lazy, but I'm not! Why are THEY all being REWARDED?" In my experience, the ones who complain the loudest about their "not being rewarded" aren't doing any more work than the supposedly undeserving souls they whine about. But they complain anyway, and form an ideology around their complaints, more often than not a prejudicial, lopsided one.
Messing with that can make the best workers, the best students, demotivated and unproductive;
This is the usual whiny complaint about the dreaded "socialism" - if everyone gets paid the same, no one will have the incentive to do better. I would rather be working with people who simply WANT to do the best job they can, rather than the ones who will only do so if there's money in it for them, because their greed ultimately gets in the way of such people really doing a genuinely good job.
I think you're just bellyaching because you didn't like the book:P
And I think your whining about those other less-hard-working-than-you folks being the ones who get rewarded is bellyaching, too. So there. But I didn't like the book because it was a boring piece of tedious trash filled with lies from a biased lopsided thinker who also whined that "others who don't work as hard as me are getting rewarded, why not ME???" and built an ideology around the fantasy plotline. We should always be wary of those who build their ideology from bad science fiction, and that's all Atlas Shrugged is. Objectively (if not objectivistically) speaking, it's a piece of garbage. And Mark Ruff in "Sewer, Gas and Electric" skewered it quite nicely.
Nice post. The prissy whiners here sound like grampa shouting "when I was your age, I didn't get any help, I learned things and if I didn't, I got my ass whooped, and I LIKED it!" The people who talk so loudly about other people's responsibilities have usually never had to face the kind of environment or situation you describe. Basically, their political and social philosophy is "I'M responsible for my good fortune, and YOU'RE responsible for your bad fortune." They're not looking to see problems solved for anyone, and since they clearly don't have any problems themselves (except perhaps for extreme social retardation which doesn't seem to be a problem in their world), everything is fine by them. Like when they say "the fundamentals of our economy are sound." Clueless. Thanks for speaking up here!
I have. I don't see how a fantasy/sci-fi book has anything to do with the situation being described here. Atlas Shrugged is about how it's the hard-working honest businessmen who are the foundation of society, that without them society would grind to a halt, when in reality the opposite is true - it's the rest of us who do the actual work who are the foundation of society. Hence, fantasy/sci-fi.
Science fiction like Ayn Rand has nothing to do with real world social politics, it is pure fantasy concocted by someone disillusioned with the notion of any cooperative social venture just because she lived in Russia. Whoop de doo.
Perhaps you can explain how Atlas Shrugged can inform or enlighten us about this particular story?
If a student gets a cumulative grade (not an individual assignment grade) early in the semester that would make it impossible for them to "catch up" so they could pass the class (other than getting 100%-110% as their grade for the remainder of the semester), then they should be pulled out of the class and either placed into another remedial class (or perhaps a back-level class if needed) or told to give up. There is certainly no point in keeping that student in that class and pulling all the other students down, is there? Would they even bother to attend if it was virtually impossible to pass? What would be the point? If the point of education is to educate, then educate. If someone is failing so radically that there is no hope, start again or just give up. The person is either in the wrong class (erroneously placed in a curriculum beyond their ability), is in desperate need of personalized tutorial attention (assuming they are serious about their education), or is some disruptive hooligan not serious about their education for whom other measures are appropriate.
But the "50" thing is just an example of broad sweeping "reform" that doesn't serve anyone in the end but sounds like it's helping. Still, all those complaining that "I never got that preferential treatment in school, I worked for my grades and I resent all the blah blah blah" are just whiners. The fact that their education system produced in them this pseudolibertarian arrogance and anticompassion towards others demonstrates that their edcuation system didn't really teach them that much about the world that was worth knowing.
In the US at least, we were set up to have this in fact, be the case!! You start off with all rights, they are NOT enumerated in the constitution. The right to beat your wife? The right to steal? The right to murder? Uh, I don't think so. But I would love to see a country founded on these faux libertarian ideals you describe! That would be fun to watch! Like an episode of Survivor, only no one would get kicked off the island (that would violate their rights to be on the island), so they would all wind up being shot.:-)
If things worked correctly, if a state wanted to allow pot smoking, you should be free to do so, the feds shouldn't have anything to do with it. Hell, yeah! Because (as you say in your next paragraph)...
If you do something you enjoy, and it doesn't hurt anyone else's rights, you should be able to and have the right to that behavior. This is not the same as "If I gain pleasure from it, I have the right to do it." Trying to equate one notion to the other is the classic absurd libertarian mistake. What you describe is more like that old canard, the (bring out the Tolkien fans!) "Wiccan rede." "An it harm none, do what thou wilt." But most libertarians define harm so vaguely (or so casually) that they genuinely do believe that "If I gain pleasure from it, I have the right to do it" and screw the lesser unfortunates who didn't properly stand up for themselves or read the fine print.
Spoken like a true hedonist. "If I derive pleasure out of it, then it can't be wrong." I'm sure there are plenty of sexual deviants (molesters, rapists, etc.) and hate-crime perpetrators who would agree with you on this one." Erroneous comparison. He was talking about sitting at home, and getting a bit stoned on pot. Nothing more 'dangerous' to you or society than anything else that is currently legal like alcohol. In fact, it could be argued that pot users are less dangerous that boozers...they rarely get violent which is often a problem with many with alcohol usage. Erroneous rebuttal. The original statement was an assertion that you'd be a fool to vote for someone who would make illegal something that you happen to enjoy. This accommodates the ridiculous libertarian sentiment stated above - "If I derive pleasure out of it, it can't be wrong." (And thus, I have the "right" (sic) to do it.)
you would have to be a damned fool would vote for someone who would condone laws that would put you in prison for something you enjoy. So if I enjoy deceiving, defrauding, embezzling, or otherwise taking advantage of other people for my personal gain and want to be able to do so without the awful government telling me I can't, I should vote for someone who doesn't give a damn whether people (or pseudo-people like corporations) can do such things, and advocates deregulation of laws against such things. And if I have enough money to push this idea, all the better! (And if I enjoy using my money to ensure that I'm allowed to deceive, defraud, and embezzle, more power to ME!)
That's why I'm a libertarian... not.
PS - Most people who have head colds go to meth labs to buy meth just for the ingredients they can decompose into pseudoephedrine.
Another salient FACT is the FACT that the next President will be Republican.
Capitalization doesn't change your opinion to fact. Obviously you haven't been paying attention over the last ten years. Conservatives, through a skillfully applied combination of FOX News and a succession of loud ignorant media pundits who can shout very loudly for prolonged periods of time, have successfully redefined FACT to mean "whatever they say is true whether it is or not", and have made it so CAPITALIZING a word makes it even truthier.
You need to watch the Colbert Report to get with the program!!!
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I erroneously assumed this was a patent concerning advertising ABOUT operating systems. Meaning that Microsoft could be restrained from referencing Apple's patented "I'm an X"--"And I'm a Y" ad pattern in their own ads. This might work out better for Microsoft because in saying that their users "are PC's" (having them exclaim "I'm a PC" in their commercials) they are dehumanizing their own user base, reducing them to the status of objects rather than people. Clue time: Justin Long and John Hodgman aren't supposed to be USERS of Macs and PCs, they are human representations of a Mac and a PC, anthropomorphized metaphors. When Microsoft makes their users shout "I'm a PC" they objectify their customers and imply that they are mechanistic devices rather than people. I use a Mac--that doesn't mean I *am* a Mac. But apparently according to Microsoft using a PC makes you become one. Meaning that... you get "stuck" when trying to accomplish more than one task, "crash" regularly, and are subject to rabid infection from a wide variety of easy-to-avoid ailments. Anyone proud to say "I'm a PC" is an idiot--who would want to represent themselves as a mere machine? (Apparently users of Windows... according to the very company which makes that product.) It just shows the lack of imagination in the minds of people who work at Microsoft in thinking that users should think of themselves AS the machines they use. Do they also scream "I'm a Buick!" or "I'm a Maytag!"???
So then what's the deal with that submarine, the Googlielmo, cruising around the deep blue seas snapping geolocated photos for something called "Google Maps - Ocean Floor View"?
If we spent 40 stadiums worth of money we could have it done in 5 years?
Clearly you have not read that critical technical project planning text, "The Mythical Stadium-Ocean"...
I agree that some of the practical conclusions the book makes are pure fantasy
Only some?
above all the part at the end about not regulating commerce.
I would hope that even the most pigheaded freemarketer would have had that knowledge come to him in a flash of epiphany over the past few weeks.
Rather I was referring to parts about the wrong-headedness of not rewarding excellence. You say "it's the rest of us who do the actual work who are the foundation of society", and this is true, but with one very important caveat - 20% of the people do 80% of the work.
What's amazing is how the people who advocate the Randian dogma always seem to be the ones in that 20%!!! It's EVERYBODY ELSE who's the problem, not them!! What are the chances? "The OTHERS are lazy, but I'm not! Why are THEY all being REWARDED?" In my experience, the ones who complain the loudest about their "not being rewarded" aren't doing any more work than the supposedly undeserving souls they whine about. But they complain anyway, and form an ideology around their complaints, more often than not a prejudicial, lopsided one.
Messing with that can make the best workers, the best students, demotivated and unproductive;
This is the usual whiny complaint about the dreaded "socialism" - if everyone gets paid the same, no one will have the incentive to do better. I would rather be working with people who simply WANT to do the best job they can, rather than the ones who will only do so if there's money in it for them, because their greed ultimately gets in the way of such people really doing a genuinely good job.
I think you're just bellyaching because you didn't like the book :P
And I think your whining about those other less-hard-working-than-you folks being the ones who get rewarded is bellyaching, too. So there. But I didn't like the book because it was a boring piece of tedious trash filled with lies from a biased lopsided thinker who also whined that "others who don't work as hard as me are getting rewarded, why not ME???" and built an ideology around the fantasy plotline. We should always be wary of those who build their ideology from bad science fiction, and that's all Atlas Shrugged is. Objectively (if not objectivistically) speaking, it's a piece of garbage. And Mark Ruff in "Sewer, Gas and Electric" skewered it quite nicely.
Nice post. The prissy whiners here sound like grampa shouting "when I was your age, I didn't get any help, I learned things and if I didn't, I got my ass whooped, and I LIKED it!" The people who talk so loudly about other people's responsibilities have usually never had to face the kind of environment or situation you describe. Basically, their political and social philosophy is "I'M responsible for my good fortune, and YOU'RE responsible for your bad fortune." They're not looking to see problems solved for anyone, and since they clearly don't have any problems themselves (except perhaps for extreme social retardation which doesn't seem to be a problem in their world), everything is fine by them. Like when they say "the fundamentals of our economy are sound." Clueless. Thanks for speaking up here!
I have. I don't see how a fantasy/sci-fi book has anything to do with the situation being described here. Atlas Shrugged is about how it's the hard-working honest businessmen who are the foundation of society, that without them society would grind to a halt, when in reality the opposite is true - it's the rest of us who do the actual work who are the foundation of society. Hence, fantasy/sci-fi. Science fiction like Ayn Rand has nothing to do with real world social politics, it is pure fantasy concocted by someone disillusioned with the notion of any cooperative social venture just because she lived in Russia. Whoop de doo. Perhaps you can explain how Atlas Shrugged can inform or enlighten us about this particular story?
If a student gets a cumulative grade (not an individual assignment grade) early in the semester that would make it impossible for them to "catch up" so they could pass the class (other than getting 100%-110% as their grade for the remainder of the semester), then they should be pulled out of the class and either placed into another remedial class (or perhaps a back-level class if needed) or told to give up. There is certainly no point in keeping that student in that class and pulling all the other students down, is there? Would they even bother to attend if it was virtually impossible to pass? What would be the point? If the point of education is to educate, then educate. If someone is failing so radically that there is no hope, start again or just give up. The person is either in the wrong class (erroneously placed in a curriculum beyond their ability), is in desperate need of personalized tutorial attention (assuming they are serious about their education), or is some disruptive hooligan not serious about their education for whom other measures are appropriate. But the "50" thing is just an example of broad sweeping "reform" that doesn't serve anyone in the end but sounds like it's helping. Still, all those complaining that "I never got that preferential treatment in school, I worked for my grades and I resent all the blah blah blah" are just whiners. The fact that their education system produced in them this pseudolibertarian arrogance and anticompassion towards others demonstrates that their edcuation system didn't really teach them that much about the world that was worth knowing.
That's why I'm a libertarian... not.
PS - Most people who have head colds go to meth labs to buy meth just for the ingredients they can decompose into pseudoephedrine.