Aside from the fact that your post was absolutely idiotic in it's formation, you are wrong.
If you had 1 million sites that all did a high degree of cross linking (Say every 5th site links to the site 5 back) all containing randomly generated text to cover most major topics than they would get boosted very high on Google. That is what they are talking about.
Be able to make peer to peer calls. If amongst friends you can setup trusted relay access through a network of phones, I'd be one happy camper.
That's the cellular peer 2 peer I'm waiting for. I don't give a rats ass about p2p sharing of files over my cell phone. I have GSM with full internet access and bluetooth on my phone. I'll use that, thanks.
I dated a greek girl, whose dad was actually rasied in Greece. Maybe it's an american-greek thing, dunno. Also dated a girl whose Godmother was greek, didn't see anything close to what was in the movie.
They try to keep up on the new releases fairly well on transcontinental flights. That and MBFGW has been in theaters forever. I also got to watch Panic Room and Murder by Numbers. All in all, I got dicked on the movie selection.
Just my quick two cents: I totally agree. MBFGW was a thousand times better than that cereal-pushing, merchandise-spawning, whiny-Canadian-Ptretty-Boy-Starring multi-million dollar fiasco.
I think I missed something in MBFGW. I saw that on a plane flight and thought it was the most mind-numbingly dull and tedious movie so devoid of humor and anything related to funny I thought my brain was going to erupt from my ears with such violence the plane would experience turbulence.
But I agree it was better than AotC, short of the combat scenes.
Well, he actually had to delete most of it. Well, not have to. Here's the full story: He smokes, and came up a bit short on a birthday present for his sister. So, he tells his sister for her birthday he'll quit smoking and if he fails, she gets his CDR. She doesn't own a computer, so in the end she gets the CDR but in turn gets rights to use it whenever she wants. So he deleted most the pr0n from his computer, because there wasn't much free space on the hard disk.
It's still very much a niche use, and Joe Consumer wouldn't be interested in doing this, but it wasn't too long ago that nobody could imagine using 10 MB of storage.
Back in the late 80s, I had a 286 with a 20GB hard drive. I always worried about space constraints. It was running DOS, and Borland C took up like 6MB. After that, and the OS I only had a few megs free. It was really easy to fill up the disk. When I upgraded to a 486 it had a 250MB hard drive. I stopped to think, "Wow, I don't think I could use that." and within a month was surprised when you had the space what you go through. I never thought that again, until they breached 100GB. Mostly because I've never filled up any workstation over 20GB outside of work (aggregate data collection and correlation takes a lot of storage)
When I started getting interested in KDE I thought I had lots and lots of space, with my 10G partition, I could mirror the KDE source tree (which, in 1.x times, took about a hundred MB). Now the sources are close to half a GB, if you take them all. And if you compile, you need at least 5GB of space for temporary stuff and binaries.
This is all perfectly rational and normal. We're talking 5-10GB. This is what fits in my head as space for a workstation. Not this 320GB. I mean, we're talking 30 times the amount needed in my head for a workstation. 30.
And there you have it. Movies take up space fast. My personal quest is to get all of Babylon 5 (never seen it before, so I'm hardly willing to pay $80 a season for these new DVDs just to see what all the fuss is about), but I'm sure everyone has their own little pet project, be it anime, action movies, whatever. Sure, I burn to CD on a fairly regular basis, but especially for a tv series, I want the cds to be sequential, so if there's a particular episode I'm having trouble downloading, I start building up a pretty big backlog.
Is this the normal thing to do now? Have I really been so clueless as the shift of consumer grade PCs to PVRs?
To date I haven't reached the halfway mark on either drive, months later. The linux one is at about 19G used, the windows one around 10.
I must say this really makes me feel better. I was starting to feel that I was just doing something absolutely wrong with my computer and I actually should be consuming this much disk space.
It's funny when I think how big my install with all apps is, then the difference between that and how big my harddrive is means that's how much source code will go in there. I remember back in the 20MB days I always felt real good running up 14MB of code:) Granted, half was auto-generated, and the other half sucked.. but I was young:)
Bigger drives mean bigger video libraries on PVRs, more home movies, etc.
Yeah, I'm definitely just too boring. I don't watch TV and would rather just buy the DVD. I like special features and having something I can take with me easily.
I keep reading all these announcements, and I know that I should upgrade.
In the meantime, I have a 10GB. I remember when I got it, it was huge. I'm talking, can't fill this up huge. I still don't have it even close to full. Why? I have a 6GB archos player for my mp3s and source code doesn't take up that much space.
What do people actually put on 320GB hard drives? I just can't fathom that much data. 6GB of mp3s was insane for me. One of my friends had 30GB of porn, but those were mostly divx rips. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people use this much, but they must or it wouldn't be commodity hardware. *sigh*
I picked up his books years back, and they are all great. Most are very easy going reads, if you are into reading about physics. He uses a lot of good analogies that get your mind working.
Some people block out reality, but they're the minority, not the majority. The issue isn't the video game. The issue is an addictive personality. If it weren't for Dark Age or Everquest, they would probably be parked in front of their TV, or off somewhere drinking, or locked in some unhealthy co-dependent relationship (which some sadly think is "more" healthy than a video game somehow), or compulsively checking slashdot posts all day, every day. It's like saying that TV causes violence. It's a false cause and effect chain. A very valid point, I just see that it gets worse and worse with the accessibility of EQ/DaoC. Back in the D&D days, it took much more imagination to get a game going. Now, the story is laid out and you play through for no reason. I never got into playing D&D, but would help a friend who DM'd write stories out and got rather good at it. That was fun for me, writing the stories and then hearing how the characters played out. I wasn't interested in playing it myself.
It carries on to real life no more and no less than picking up a novel and reading about imaginary people. Yet, people say reading stimulates your mind. There are many choices involved in playing these games - who to group with, how to develop your character, where to travel, whether to power level, PVP, explore, and so on. If you have something against video games that's fine, but you can't think it any worse than people who spend 6 or more hours a day watching TV, can you? I would definitely say that reading most novels out there is not that stimulating:) People that watch 6 hours of TV a day are also wasting away their mind, in my opinion, but TV usually has real world situations where as these games seem to detach people from reality. I have actually known someone who got in a fight and tried to cast a spell. I'm not joking. Too much D&D for that kid. He got his ass beat down, too. That's the type of stuff I'm worried about happening. Granted, he was a little wigged out to begin with but the game pushed him over the edge.
We play them because we have overactive imaginations, because we want to do things that we can't do in normal life. We want to cast spells. We want to fight dragons. We want to raid keeps and steal relics. We can't do this in real life, no matter how many friends we have, how many sports we play, and how hot our girlfriend is. So instead, people block out reality in order to play these games? Letting themselves get sucked into a world that will never exist so they can satisfy the delusions of grandeur instead of finding real life activities that are more fun?
Good recreation stimulates the mind, the body, or both. I think people find that playing these big RPGs, developing alter-egos, suspending their disbelief, and interacting with other like-minded people does stimulate their minds. It seems to me that the biggest reason we all become such curmudgeons when we get older is that we lose that sense of imagination, adventure, and wonder.
When you get to high levels in EQ, people spend 4 hours waiting for a monster and spend the time chatting. How is that stimulating the mind much past finding creative ways to misspell "your"?
Also, if you choose to work more than 40 hours a week, that's your choice. There are some people who choose to work 40 hours a week, or less, so they can have some time for recreation and sanity (the things *I* equate to "having a life"). Not to mention alone time. If working over 40 hours a week equates to having a life, I'm happy not to have one, thanks.
Funny you should mention that. I usually work about 80 hours a week. I still find a few hours a day to have a social life. I don't sleep much, it suits me just fine. I don't need more sleep than what I get. The difference is I love my job. My job is 30% social, 10% walking around talking to myself about some problem, and 60% in front of a computer. I love it. When I'm in front of a computer coding, I'm learning and my brain is applying real world skills to learn more real world problem solving skills. I fail to see how finding good ways to kill an imaginary creature carries on into real life. Most people that play those games suffer from losing real life skills.
If your argument didn't suck so bad, you wouldn't have to be so defensive like this. Your opinion of me is of no consequence. I don't see how you claim that my debate articles are not clear when yours are riddled with unanswered questions, unsupported claims, and unnecessary personal attacks. My argument doesn't "suck so bad." It's merely that you are taking argument in something so fundamentally simple as, "people are to weak to break some habits." So, yes, I do stand by one of the two. Although I'm leaning towards both at this moment because of gems like this:
First, you ignored my original case statements.
There was nothing to ignore. You wrote, "Go read case studies books, and come talk to me." Well, which ones was I supposed to read? Furthermore, I asked you why your reccomendation should carry any weight with me.
I disagree. Neurology and psychology are quite related.
You disagree? Astounding. Yes, they are, but not in this case. Peoples inability to break habits has nothing to do with neurology.
What I was saying is that your opinion didn't impress me because I had no reason to think that you weren't the college punk that I described. I've seen plenty of college kids get on an intellectual high horse after taking a single psychology class (as if college kids weren't already the smartest and coolest people on the planet).
Well, for starts, I'm actually literate and can understand what people are writing. Such sentences like, "case statement", are lost on you. I suppose asking for you to actually comprehend what is written is too much, so I'll merely stop attempting to expect logical understanding of what I wrote. Do you even know what a case statement is? Do you know it has nothing to do with Case Study literature? Why the hell did you even say that? I could recommend a few, but I think they would be lost because you'd probably argue something else.
Yay! I *finally* get an answer out of you! Next time, skip all the personal attacks and just provide the evidence for your claims.
There was no answer that I hadn't already given. Go back, it's there. Not my fault you choose not to read it, instead furthering an argument that has no point.
And why is this? According to you, it is because obese people are "weak in some areas." I think the causes are more complex than that, and weakness is a grossly inadequate term to try and describe them. What is the difference between emotional strength and emotional intelligence? I see no reason to treat them as separate or different things.
Take off the stupid-vision for just one second, please. Understand I am not calling this people weak. In no way. For the 5th time. They are not weak. They are too weak to break a habit. That does not mean they are weak. Damn, man, how hard is it for you to understand that? Second, it is obviously more complex. The harder the habit, the more underlying issues to deal with. It's as simple as that. I thought I made that point discussing comfort habits and self destructive cycles, but again, it seems to have been lost.
If this is true (and I've seen no evidence that it is), then it works against, not for, your argument.
You have never heard of the obesity gene? And you are even talking to me on this subject? Go read a newspaper. And it does work for my argument, I'm saying "Those that are not plagued with the obesity gene, and are obese are too weak [in the single area of breaking the habit of overeating] to break the [complex and traumatic] habit of overeating."
I can't lay it out to you any more verbose than that. If you choose to find argument in that, then go to your local university with the sentence above (The one starting with "Those that..." and ending with "...habit of overeating.") and go converse with a psychology teacher. They will tell you that the word "weak" in that sentence has nothing to do with that person other than the fact they do not have sufficient self-power to break the habit at hand.
If you do not understand after this point, I will actually start personally attacking you. At this point, I'm merely speaking my frustrations with your abundant stupidity to misread half of what is written.
Yet another ad hominem. Perhaps you should have focused on your crappy argument rather than on me. You certainly would have had a better chance of swaying me to your point of view had you done that.
No, I don't care about swaying you to my point of view. In all honesty, I think you are either an idiot, or someone who has great difficulty in authoring clear debate articles. I'm still going to answer your concise question, mostly because that question is something I have some fascination in.
Keep in mind that I have never pretended to be a professional in any of these arenas. I have posited skepticism, not belief. I'm sorry that "I don't believe it; what is the evidence?" was not consise enough for you to follow. It has made debating with you a chore
First, you ignored my original case statements. Second, you challenged my authority to have an opinion on the subject. Third, you brought neurology into it, which even with my brain-related paragraph, has nothing to do with it really. Fourth, you did not say, "I don't believe it; what is the evidence?" -- instead you rambled on about this and that, and salted in challenges proclaiming if I'm not a degreed psychologist, what possible reason do I have to say such an opinion which boils down to one sentence which you seem to have personal issues with.
You were attempting to belittle my knowledge by showing that you had attended more classes in psychology and read more case studies books than I had done. I was showing you that, since you were not a degreed professional, you really had no more right to speak on this topic than a 19-year-old punk in the middle of a liberal arts education who has just happened to have mostly-slept-through two psychology classes and scanned two case studies books that were required reading for those two classes. Who knows, maybe this description fits you perfectly. Since I don't know you, I have no way of knowing otherwise.
No, I wasn't attempting to belittle your knowledge. I was telling you that saying such things as, "So you admit you have no degree..." and "...you are neither a degreed expert or professional" is stupid, when talking about knowledege. I don't have a P.h.D. but I've met tons I know more about CS than, does that mean since they have a higher degree they win an argument even when their wrong?
Let's see if I can make it any more consise and easy-to-follow than this: What are the discrete qualifications for the alleged "areas" that you speak of and are central to your argument? Fine, since you actually managed to post a related question instead of going into the neurology of it, which has absolutely nothing to do with it I'll provide some backing.
If you are familiar with Greek philosophy, you will learn that the basic pursuit of understanding the mind and human behavior was taken by the great philosophers. Aristotle, Socrates, and many others. Perhaps one of the greatest quotes about human behavior came about through this time:
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefor, is not an act but a habit.
This has held true through many, many years of devoted research. Even the esteemed but controversial B. F. Skinner had proven that habit can overcome rational behavior. Granted, in his most famous experiments of classical conditioning the habits were forced upon the subjects.
As through the time, since the late 1800's when psychology was starting to become a real science, the main pursuit was to try to understand human memory, and also relate it to our behaviors. This is the reason as to why many obese people belong into the habitual over-eaters category. In most cases, this stems from a developmental disorder early on in life. Freudian psychology would trace this back to the oral developmental phase, but I believe rarely that is actually the case.
Many people suffer from this eating disorder. They find solace and comfort in eating, only to do it again when the self destructive cycle repeats itself. If you look at over-eater groups, you will see that they deal with finding the cause, and breaking the habit. They don't put people on strict calorie counting diets. It's a psychological help group. Unfortunately, more people need the outside assistance instead of isolating their own issues and helping themselves. As long as they get help, they are on the right step.
The weakness comes from the lack of insight and strength to look into their inner mind, and attempt to find why they overeat, and what they hope to accomplish. It's very hard to find out why a comfort habit exists, doubly so if it makes us miserable in turn. That is why they are too weak, not because they are weak individuals. Because they do not have the strength to break the cycle, and help themselves obtain a happier life.
This does not match all cases, there is the obseity gene which, unfortunately, means no matter how strong the person is, life dealt them a bad hand. However, a simple glance and at American Vs. Asian or European population will show that Americans are largely overweight in comparison.
In conclusion, purely judging a person on their weight is foolish. Judging a persons strength to accomplish and break problematic habits on their weight is not. However, if they are truly at comfort with their weight and themselves, it's not an issue. Unfortunately, the large majority of overweight people wish they weren't overweight, while eating more to comfort their sorrows.
"I didn't describe the person as weak....I said they were too weak to break the habit."
I think these two statements mean the same thing. This is what I was trying to imply. And yes, it was childish of me to do the "walks like a duck" thing. I'll try to be more direct in the future.
Good that you think that, but in reality you are wrong. Even a rudimentary understanding of English can yield the logic that proves it.
I didn't describe the stone as weak, only a diamond is tough enough to cut through it. Does it mean the stone is soft? Softer than the diamond, yes, but not soft. Same thing.
Nor does the snide and elitist attitude which has pervaded much of you've typed, including your "...just a side note" final jab. How can you expect me to be receptive to your message when you continue to condescend to me? You are going to have to become more humble and engaging if you want to convince me.
If I'm snide, it means that I'm discounting everything you say because it's largely irrelevant. If you perceived my side note as a jab, than you are obviously too sensitive because it was meant as a sincere request for you to attempt to keep the discussion on topic. Your entire comment thread has been completely and totally off-subject and largely pointless.
Feel free to think I'm an elitist, I just have my opinions and stick by them. Seldom to people understand the difference between confidence and elitism, but there is a huge difference. If you presented a valid argument that was concise, easy to follow, and made sense I would consider it. However, the responses you have formulated have been less than logical and are laced with stupid.
Prime example, you dismiss ones knowledge because they have not obtained a degree. That's just plain stupid. I have nothing more to say on that matter, or the discussion because it's not the discussion I entered, nor am I interested in carrying it on with you.
That's not to say that i have always been this confident, or have always neglected to shroud the reality of my life with some cloak of fiction. Nevertheless I am a happy individual and while your own experiences may have lead you to your conclusions, they aren't representative of the entirety of the mud crowd. There are exceptions. Honestly, how many people on your MUD seem like the people I've described. I'd say a definite majority percentage. I know one girl who only has sex with people she meets on EQ.. purely because thats all she does.
I'm in college now and it's hard to find the time to do such things. Reality is a bitch, isn't it? You think college is hard to find time? Try having a demanding job, girlfriend, and a real social life on top of playing these games. That's why they turn into people like I described. There is no way to spend 40+ hours at work, with at least an hour of commuting time, plus family time, plus friend time, and then enough time on a computer game to make "friends".
I quit paying EQ because I don't want to pay for it right now, I don't have the $$ to do so, if I did, I would still be playing, Mr. smarty pants. And you are supposed to be socially well rounded using "Mr. smarty pants" in college? New definition, I must be out of touch.
People like you think you know it all, it's pathetic. People like you who think you know about people like me are pathetic. You don't know me, don't pretend that you do. If you did, you would know that you just made a jack ass out of yourself. Come and talk to me when you get out of college and into the real world. You will grow up. You'll understand the difference between a real social life and sitting at home playing a computer game with other lonely people. It's different when you are a kid; this guy was 33, mind you. My guess is that if he spent enough time online to get that many people to be at his online funeral, he could have done a lot of other things to live a bit longer and probably healthier.
The only thing that you have proven is that you are poor at writing, debate, and resort to name-calling and false assumptions. You said you were socially well-rounded? Doesn't seem like it from your posts.
Re:With enough storage, Chess could be solved too.
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Awari Solved
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...and one could argue that chess has the same type of termination rule but as far as I know this only occurs if the moves go back and forth successively.
No, chess is only a draw if it's 3 successive checks. And you can still play it out unless you are in a tournament. It's a common tactic to force a draw to keep checking the upper player forcing him to either move away and lose his advantage or drawing the game (better than losing)
I guess this would be the point: The people I talked about were indeed participating in a MUD that had worldwide reach (mainly Australia and Finland, for some reason), and they were therefore available for everyone in the game to meet and interact with. There were plenty of folks that nobody knew in Real Life who figured prominently in their virtual lives.
They knew them because they were fun to play with, but the MUD was a common social token. Your group of friends played the MUD. I am more speaking of people who choose the online environment to make their friends. People who disappear for a weekend to get their fix of hunting orcs... or whatever the hell you do in those games. I played EQ for a grand total of about 15 hours over a month, and got rid of it because to me it was absolutely retarded. Closest thing to a MMORPG I played with Trade Wars 2002. But I was in high school and my social group (Programmers) played the same game.
I would respectfully say that this is your opinion of those people. You say that they are not well-rounded...could that be your prejudice against those that speak about games (EQ) or MUDs?
I'm just supplying evidence. I can also say that 90% of the D&D/Magic players I know dress poorly, and have social ineptness. Does it mean that everyone that plays D&D or Magic does too? Nope, but I'd reckon that about 90% matches that description. I wouldn't say that 100% of all EQ/MUDders are all like that, but 100% of those that I know have either social problems, or other lifestyle issues.
If one is not inclined to care about what they are saying, you'll find them tiresome and not well rounded. Of course, you can easily dismiss this as coming from a girl with the social charisma of a leper...but you'd be wrong. If they talk about something the other person has no desire to hear, they are not socially well-rounded. Conversations are designed to go two ways, not one person blathering on about leaving the other person appeased and having nails driving through their eyes.
I have quite a few friends who play EQ or DAoC(even to the point of disappearing for an entire weekend to play). Many of them are highly paid programmers, sales support engineers, application designers, etc. People who work in close-knit real-world teams all the time. Many of them also play ultimate frisbee, softball, soccer, etc. - team sports. And a fair few have webs of social contacts that boggle my mind, and I have so many friends I can't keep up with them all.
Disappearing for a solid weekend to play a video game is not healthy or normal. End of story.
The Internet has allowed me to meet people in Australia, Sweden, UK, Tasmania, NZ, Spain, Germany, etc. A lot of them have offered me a place to stay when travelling. I've purposefully travelled to the US to meet many of my on-line buddies (after knowing them for a few years on-line) and real-world friendships I expect to endure have formed. Some have even blossomed into annual pilgrimages. None of that could have happened before the Internet very easily. And these aren't unhappy, poorly socialized, unfit, or immature folks - quite the contrary.
As have I, but the difference is it's an open source project or something similar that brings us together. Not some game where we lie about who we are.
Then again, this may reflect the character of the populations of the lists I hang out on, the forums I frequent, etc. So maybe it is just a case of needing to expand your horizons?
I'm just picky about who I'm friends with. Expanding my horizons wont help that one bit.
Slashdot Mirror
Aside from the fact that your post was absolutely idiotic in it's formation, you are wrong.
If you had 1 million sites that all did a high degree of cross linking (Say every 5th site links to the site 5 back) all containing randomly generated text to cover most major topics than they would get boosted very high on Google. That is what they are talking about.
Be able to make peer to peer calls. If amongst friends you can setup trusted relay access through a network of phones, I'd be one happy camper.
That's the cellular peer 2 peer I'm waiting for. I don't give a rats ass about p2p sharing of files over my cell phone. I have GSM with full internet access and bluetooth on my phone. I'll use that, thanks.
I dated a greek girl, whose dad was actually rasied in Greece. Maybe it's an american-greek thing, dunno. Also dated a girl whose Godmother was greek, didn't see anything close to what was in the movie.
Maybe I just got lucky.
They try to keep up on the new releases fairly well on transcontinental flights. That and MBFGW has been in theaters forever. I also got to watch Panic Room and Murder by Numbers. All in all, I got dicked on the movie selection.
Just my quick two cents: I totally agree. MBFGW was a thousand times better than that cereal-pushing, merchandise-spawning, whiny-Canadian-Ptretty-Boy-Starring multi-million dollar fiasco.
I think I missed something in MBFGW. I saw that on a plane flight and thought it was the most mind-numbingly dull and tedious movie so devoid of humor and anything related to funny I thought my brain was going to erupt from my ears with such violence the plane would experience turbulence.
But I agree it was better than AotC, short of the combat scenes.
Well, he actually had to delete most of it. Well, not have to. Here's the full story:
He smokes, and came up a bit short on a birthday present for his sister. So, he tells his sister for her birthday he'll quit smoking and if he fails, she gets his CDR. She doesn't own a computer, so in the end she gets the CDR but in turn gets rights to use it whenever she wants. So he deleted most the pr0n from his computer, because there wasn't much free space on the hard disk.
Still residing at 6GB I think.
It's still very much a niche use, and Joe Consumer wouldn't be interested in doing this, but it wasn't too long ago that nobody could imagine using 10 MB of storage.
Back in the late 80s, I had a 286 with a 20GB hard drive. I always worried about space constraints. It was running DOS, and Borland C took up like 6MB. After that, and the OS I only had a few megs free. It was really easy to fill up the disk. When I upgraded to a 486 it had a 250MB hard drive. I stopped to think, "Wow, I don't think I could use that." and within a month was surprised when you had the space what you go through. I never thought that again, until they breached 100GB. Mostly because I've never filled up any workstation over 20GB outside of work (aggregate data collection and correlation takes a lot of storage)
When I started getting interested in KDE I thought I had lots and lots of space, with my 10G partition, I could mirror the KDE source tree (which, in 1.x times, took about a hundred MB). Now the sources are close to half a GB, if you take them all. And if you compile, you need at least 5GB of space for temporary stuff and binaries.
This is all perfectly rational and normal. We're talking 5-10GB. This is what fits in my head as space for a workstation. Not this 320GB. I mean, we're talking 30 times the amount needed in my head for a workstation. 30.
And there you have it. Movies take up space fast. My personal quest is to get all of Babylon 5 (never seen it before, so I'm hardly willing to pay $80 a season for these new DVDs just to see what all the fuss is about), but I'm sure everyone has their own little pet project, be it anime, action movies, whatever. Sure, I burn to CD on a fairly regular basis, but especially for a tv series, I want the cds to be sequential, so if there's a particular episode I'm having trouble downloading, I start building up a pretty big backlog.
Is this the normal thing to do now? Have I really been so clueless as the shift of consumer grade PCs to PVRs?
To date I haven't reached the halfway mark on either drive, months later. The linux one is at about 19G used, the windows one around 10.
:) Granted, half was auto-generated, and the other half sucked.. but I was young :)
I must say this really makes me feel better. I was starting to feel that I was just doing something absolutely wrong with my computer and I actually should be consuming this much disk space.
It's funny when I think how big my install with all apps is, then the difference between that and how big my harddrive is means that's how much source code will go in there. I remember back in the 20MB days I always felt real good running up 14MB of code
Bigger drives mean bigger video libraries on PVRs, more home movies, etc.
Yeah, I'm definitely just too boring. I don't watch TV and would rather just buy the DVD. I like special features and having something I can take with me easily.
For business use more space is always good. Databases chew up space like nothing else, particularly when you're talking about data warehouses.
True, I'm more thinking consumer use though. I can't fathom Joe Consumer using 10% of that. Makes me wonder if I'm just incredibly boring.
I keep reading all these announcements, and I know that I should upgrade.
In the meantime, I have a 10GB. I remember when I got it, it was huge. I'm talking, can't fill this up huge. I still don't have it even close to full. Why? I have a 6GB archos player for my mp3s and source code doesn't take up that much space.
What do people actually put on 320GB hard drives? I just can't fathom that much data. 6GB of mp3s was insane for me. One of my friends had 30GB of porn, but those were mostly divx rips. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people use this much, but they must or it wouldn't be commodity hardware. *sigh*
I picked up his books years back, and they are all great. Most are very easy going reads, if you are into reading about physics. He uses a lot of good analogies that get your mind working.
t s.asp?WRD=michio+kaku&userid=529XSYBO5D
Here's a BN.com link:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/resul
Some people block out reality, but they're the minority, not the majority. The issue isn't the video game. The issue is an addictive personality. If it weren't for Dark Age or Everquest, they would probably be parked in front of their TV, or off somewhere drinking, or locked in some unhealthy co-dependent relationship (which some sadly think is "more" healthy than a video game somehow), or compulsively checking slashdot posts all day, every day. It's like saying that TV causes violence. It's a false cause and effect chain.
:) People that watch 6 hours of TV a day are also wasting away their mind, in my opinion, but TV usually has real world situations where as these games seem to detach people from reality. I have actually known someone who got in a fight and tried to cast a spell. I'm not joking. Too much D&D for that kid. He got his ass beat down, too. That's the type of stuff I'm worried about happening. Granted, he was a little wigged out to begin with but the game pushed him over the edge.
A very valid point, I just see that it gets worse and worse with the accessibility of EQ/DaoC. Back in the D&D days, it took much more imagination to get a game going. Now, the story is laid out and you play through for no reason. I never got into playing D&D, but would help a friend who DM'd write stories out and got rather good at it. That was fun for me, writing the stories and then hearing how the characters played out. I wasn't interested in playing it myself.
It carries on to real life no more and no less than picking up a novel and reading about imaginary people. Yet, people say reading stimulates your mind. There are many choices involved in playing these games - who to group with, how to develop your character, where to travel, whether to power level, PVP, explore, and so on. If you have something against video games that's fine, but you can't think it any worse than people who spend 6 or more hours a day watching TV, can you?
I would definitely say that reading most novels out there is not that stimulating
We play them because we have overactive imaginations, because we want to do things that we can't do in normal life. We want to cast spells. We want to fight dragons. We want to raid keeps and steal relics. We can't do this in real life, no matter how many friends we have, how many sports we play, and how hot our girlfriend is.
So instead, people block out reality in order to play these games? Letting themselves get sucked into a world that will never exist so they can satisfy the delusions of grandeur instead of finding real life activities that are more fun?
Good recreation stimulates the mind, the body, or both. I think people find that playing these big RPGs, developing alter-egos, suspending their disbelief, and interacting with other like-minded people does stimulate their minds. It seems to me that the biggest reason we all become such curmudgeons when we get older is that we lose that sense of imagination, adventure, and wonder.
When you get to high levels in EQ, people spend 4 hours waiting for a monster and spend the time chatting. How is that stimulating the mind much past finding creative ways to misspell "your"?
Also, if you choose to work more than 40 hours a week, that's your choice. There are some people who choose to work 40 hours a week, or less, so they can have some time for recreation and sanity (the things *I* equate to "having a life"). Not to mention alone time. If working over 40 hours a week equates to having a life, I'm happy not to have one, thanks.
Funny you should mention that. I usually work about 80 hours a week. I still find a few hours a day to have a social life. I don't sleep much, it suits me just fine. I don't need more sleep than what I get. The difference is I love my job. My job is 30% social, 10% walking around talking to myself about some problem, and 60% in front of a computer. I love it. When I'm in front of a computer coding, I'm learning and my brain is applying real world skills to learn more real world problem solving skills. I fail to see how finding good ways to kill an imaginary creature carries on into real life. Most people that play those games suffer from losing real life skills.
My argument doesn't "suck so bad." It's merely that you are taking argument in something so fundamentally simple as, "people are to weak to break some habits." So, yes, I do stand by one of the two. Although I'm leaning towards both at this moment because of gems like this:
There was nothing to ignore. You wrote, "Go read case studies books, and come talk to me." Well, which ones was I supposed to read? Furthermore, I asked you why your reccomendation should carry any weight with me.
I disagree. Neurology and psychology are quite related.
You disagree? Astounding. Yes, they are, but not in this case. Peoples inability to break habits has nothing to do with neurology.
What I was saying is that your opinion didn't impress me because I had no reason to think that you weren't the college punk that I described. I've seen plenty of college kids get on an intellectual high horse after taking a single psychology class (as if college kids weren't already the smartest and coolest people on the planet).
Well, for starts, I'm actually literate and can understand what people are writing. Such sentences like, "case statement", are lost on you. I suppose asking for you to actually comprehend what is written is too much, so I'll merely stop attempting to expect logical understanding of what I wrote.
Do you even know what a case statement is? Do you know it has nothing to do with Case Study literature? Why the hell did you even say that? I could recommend a few, but I think they would be lost because you'd probably argue something else.
Yay! I *finally* get an answer out of you! Next time, skip all the personal attacks and just provide the evidence for your claims.
There was no answer that I hadn't already given. Go back, it's there. Not my fault you choose not to read it, instead furthering an argument that has no point.
And why is this? According to you, it is because obese people are "weak in some areas." I think the causes are more complex than that, and weakness is a grossly inadequate term to try and describe them. What is the difference between emotional strength and emotional intelligence? I see no reason to treat them as separate or different things.
Take off the stupid-vision for just one second, please. Understand I am not calling this people weak. In no way. For the 5th time. They are not weak. They are too weak to break a habit. That does not mean they are weak. Damn, man, how hard is it for you to understand that? Second, it is obviously more complex. The harder the habit, the more underlying issues to deal with. It's as simple as that. I thought I made that point discussing comfort habits and self destructive cycles, but again, it seems to have been lost.
If this is true (and I've seen no evidence that it is), then it works against, not for, your argument.
You have never heard of the obesity gene? And you are even talking to me on this subject? Go read a newspaper. And it does work for my argument, I'm saying "Those that are not plagued with the obesity gene, and are obese are too weak [in the single area of breaking the habit of overeating] to break the [complex and traumatic] habit of overeating."
I can't lay it out to you any more verbose than that. If you choose to find argument in that, then go to your local university with the sentence above (The one starting with "Those that..." and ending with "...habit of overeating.") and go converse with a psychology teacher. They will tell you that the word "weak" in that sentence has nothing to do with that person other than the fact they do not have sufficient self-power to break the habit at hand.
If you do not understand after this point, I will actually start personally attacking you. At this point, I'm merely speaking my frustrations with your abundant stupidity to misread half of what is written.
No, I don't care about swaying you to my point of view. In all honesty, I think you are either an idiot, or someone who has great difficulty in authoring clear debate articles. I'm still going to answer your concise question, mostly because that question is something I have some fascination in.
Keep in mind that I have never pretended to be a professional in any of these arenas. I have posited skepticism, not belief. I'm sorry that "I don't believe it; what is the evidence?" was not consise enough for you to follow. It has made debating with you a chore
First, you ignored my original case statements. Second, you challenged my authority to have an opinion on the subject. Third, you brought neurology into it, which even with my brain-related paragraph, has nothing to do with it really. Fourth, you did not say, "I don't believe it; what is the evidence?" -- instead you rambled on about this and that, and salted in challenges proclaiming if I'm not a degreed psychologist, what possible reason do I have to say such an opinion which boils down to one sentence which you seem to have personal issues with.
You were attempting to belittle my knowledge by showing that you had attended more classes in psychology and read more case studies books than I had done. I was showing you that, since you were not a degreed professional, you really had no more right to speak on this topic than a 19-year-old punk in the middle of a liberal arts education who has just happened to have mostly-slept-through two psychology classes and scanned two case studies books that were required reading for those two classes. Who knows, maybe this description fits you perfectly. Since I don't know you, I have no way of knowing otherwise.
No, I wasn't attempting to belittle your knowledge. I was telling you that saying such things as, "So you admit you have no degree..." and "...you are neither a degreed expert or professional" is stupid, when talking about knowledege. I don't have a P.h.D. but I've met tons I know more about CS than, does that mean since they have a higher degree they win an argument even when their wrong?
Let's see if I can make it any more consise and easy-to-follow than this: What are the discrete qualifications for the alleged "areas" that you speak of and are central to your argument?
Fine, since you actually managed to post a related question instead of going into the neurology of it, which has absolutely nothing to do with it I'll provide some backing.
If you are familiar with Greek philosophy, you will learn that the basic pursuit of understanding the mind and human behavior was taken by the great philosophers. Aristotle, Socrates, and many others. Perhaps one of the greatest quotes about human behavior came about through this time:
This has held true through many, many years of devoted research. Even the esteemed but controversial B. F. Skinner had proven that habit can overcome rational behavior. Granted, in his most famous experiments of classical conditioning the habits were forced upon the subjects.
As through the time, since the late 1800's when psychology was starting to become a real science, the main pursuit was to try to understand human memory, and also relate it to our behaviors. This is the reason as to why many obese people belong into the habitual over-eaters category. In most cases, this stems from a developmental disorder early on in life. Freudian psychology would trace this back to the oral developmental phase, but I believe rarely that is actually the case.
Many people suffer from this eating disorder. They find solace and comfort in eating, only to do it again when the self destructive cycle repeats itself. If you look at over-eater groups, you will see that they deal with finding the cause, and breaking the habit. They don't put people on strict calorie counting diets. It's a psychological help group. Unfortunately, more people need the outside assistance instead of isolating their own issues and helping themselves. As long as they get help, they are on the right step.
The weakness comes from the lack of insight and strength to look into their inner mind, and attempt to find why they overeat, and what they hope to accomplish. It's very hard to find out why a comfort habit exists, doubly so if it makes us miserable in turn. That is why they are too weak, not because they are weak individuals. Because they do not have the strength to break the cycle, and help themselves obtain a happier life.
This does not match all cases, there is the obseity gene which, unfortunately, means no matter how strong the person is, life dealt them a bad hand. However, a simple glance and at American Vs. Asian or European population will show that Americans are largely overweight in comparison.
In conclusion, purely judging a person on their weight is foolish. Judging a persons strength to accomplish and break problematic habits on their weight is not. However, if they are truly at comfort with their weight and themselves, it's not an issue. Unfortunately, the large majority of overweight people wish they weren't overweight, while eating more to comfort their sorrows.
"I didn't describe the person as weak....I said they were too weak to break the habit."
I think these two statements mean the same thing. This is what I was trying to imply. And yes, it was childish of me to do the "walks like a duck" thing. I'll try to be more direct in the future.
Good that you think that, but in reality you are wrong. Even a rudimentary understanding of English can yield the logic that proves it.
I didn't describe the stone as weak, only a diamond is tough enough to cut through it. Does it mean the stone is soft? Softer than the diamond, yes, but not soft. Same thing.
Nor does the snide and elitist attitude which has pervaded much of you've typed, including your "...just a side note" final jab. How can you expect me to be receptive to your message when you continue to condescend to me? You are going to have to become more humble and engaging if you want to convince me.
If I'm snide, it means that I'm discounting everything you say because it's largely irrelevant. If you perceived my side note as a jab, than you are obviously too sensitive because it was meant as a sincere request for you to attempt to keep the discussion on topic. Your entire comment thread has been completely and totally off-subject and largely pointless.
Feel free to think I'm an elitist, I just have my opinions and stick by them. Seldom to people understand the difference between confidence and elitism, but there is a huge difference. If you presented a valid argument that was concise, easy to follow, and made sense I would consider it. However, the responses you have formulated have been less than logical and are laced with stupid.
Prime example, you dismiss ones knowledge because they have not obtained a degree. That's just plain stupid. I have nothing more to say on that matter, or the discussion because it's not the discussion I entered, nor am I interested in carrying it on with you.
That's not to say that i have always been this confident, or have always neglected to shroud the reality of my life with some cloak of fiction. Nevertheless I am a happy individual and while your own experiences may have lead you to your conclusions, they aren't representative of the entirety of the mud crowd.
There are exceptions. Honestly, how many people on your MUD seem like the people I've described. I'd say a definite majority percentage.
I know one girl who only has sex with people she meets on EQ.. purely because thats all she does.
I'm in college now and it's hard to find the time to do such things.
Reality is a bitch, isn't it? You think college is hard to find time? Try having a demanding job, girlfriend, and a real social life on top of playing these games. That's why they turn into people like I described. There is no way to spend 40+ hours at work, with at least an hour of commuting time, plus family time, plus friend time, and then enough time on a computer game to make "friends".
I quit paying EQ because I don't want to pay for it right now, I don't have the $$ to do so, if I did, I would still be playing, Mr. smarty pants.
And you are supposed to be socially well rounded using "Mr. smarty pants" in college? New definition, I must be out of touch.
People like you think you know it all, it's pathetic.
People like you who think you know about people like me are pathetic. You don't know me, don't pretend that you do. If you did, you would know that you just made a jack ass out of yourself.
Come and talk to me when you get out of college and into the real world. You will grow up. You'll understand the difference between a real social life and sitting at home playing a computer game with other lonely people. It's different when you are a kid; this guy was 33, mind you. My guess is that if he spent enough time online to get that many people to be at his online funeral, he could have done a lot of other things to live a bit longer and probably healthier.
The only thing that you have proven is that you are poor at writing, debate, and resort to name-calling and false assumptions. You said you were socially well-rounded? Doesn't seem like it from your posts.
...and one could argue that chess has the same type of termination rule but as far as I know this only occurs if the moves go back and forth successively.
No, chess is only a draw if it's 3 successive checks. And you can still play it out unless you are in a tournament. It's a common tactic to force a draw to keep checking the upper player forcing him to either move away and lose his advantage or drawing the game (better than losing)
I guess this would be the point: The people I talked about were indeed participating in a MUD that had worldwide reach (mainly Australia and Finland, for some reason), and they were therefore available for everyone in the game to meet and interact with. There were plenty of folks that nobody knew in Real Life who figured prominently in their virtual lives.
They knew them because they were fun to play with, but the MUD was a common social token. Your group of friends played the MUD. I am more speaking of people who choose the online environment to make their friends. People who disappear for a weekend to get their fix of hunting orcs... or whatever the hell you do in those games. I played EQ for a grand total of about 15 hours over a month, and got rid of it because to me it was absolutely retarded. Closest thing to a MMORPG I played with Trade Wars 2002. But I was in high school and my social group (Programmers) played the same game.
I would respectfully say that this is your opinion of those people. You say that they are not well-rounded ...could that be your prejudice against those that speak about games (EQ) or MUDs?
I'm just supplying evidence. I can also say that 90% of the D&D/Magic players I know dress poorly, and have social ineptness. Does it mean that everyone that plays D&D or Magic does too? Nope, but I'd reckon that about 90% matches that description. I wouldn't say that 100% of all EQ/MUDders are all like that, but 100% of those that I know have either social problems, or other lifestyle issues.
If one is not inclined to care about what they are saying, you'll find them tiresome and not well rounded. Of course, you can easily dismiss this as coming from a girl with the social charisma of a leper...but you'd be wrong.
If they talk about something the other person has no desire to hear, they are not socially well-rounded. Conversations are designed to go two ways, not one person blathering on about leaving the other person appeased and having nails driving through their eyes.
I have quite a few friends who play EQ or DAoC(even to the point of disappearing for an entire weekend to play). Many of them are highly paid programmers, sales support engineers, application designers, etc. People who work in close-knit real-world teams all the time. Many of them also play ultimate frisbee, softball, soccer, etc. - team sports. And a fair few have webs of social contacts that boggle my mind, and I have so many friends I can't keep up with them all.
Disappearing for a solid weekend to play a video game is not healthy or normal. End of story.
The Internet has allowed me to meet people in Australia, Sweden, UK, Tasmania, NZ, Spain, Germany, etc. A lot of them have offered me a place to stay when travelling. I've purposefully travelled to the US to meet many of my on-line buddies (after knowing them for a few years on-line) and real-world friendships I expect to endure have formed. Some have even blossomed into annual pilgrimages. None of that could have happened before the Internet very easily. And these aren't unhappy, poorly socialized, unfit, or immature folks - quite the contrary.
As have I, but the difference is it's an open source project or something similar that brings us together. Not some game where we lie about who we are.
Then again, this may reflect the character of the populations of the lists I hang out on, the forums I frequent, etc. So maybe it is just a case of needing to expand your horizons?
I'm just picky about who I'm friends with. Expanding my horizons wont help that one bit.