Once in a while, when we get together, we still joke about the mud. It was a strange and interesting thing that intrigued intelligent people, no more, no less.
Not exactly a refuting argument, because you knew each other in real life. I get together with friends I knew ahead of time and play computer games. I spend a lot of time playing Warcraft 3 and Starcraft, but 99% of the games I play are with friends. Sounds like you have a similar experience.
To tell you the truth, the close friends of mine that played Med. and EQ are all good-looking, smart, and atheletic, social people. I was the fastest runner in my school, I was in Leadership, I was the best wrestler in my weight class and I'm an excellent soccer player. Everyone in my school knew me (just about). I go on horse riding trips and I hike and run all the time. I am going to school and majoring in Multimedia and Web Design, I'm 20. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to brag about anything, I'm just stating the facts, and I thought your statement was so damn stupid. The only thing is I havne't met you, I'm sure. But come on, your statement is so silly I had to say something about it.
Out of every single person that I personally know that plays MUDs and MMORPGs or spends hours and hours on IRC is exactly as described. I just don't understand one thing, and maybe you can help me understand. If your life is so full, why do you need to invest so much time in an alternate reality? Why do you need that escape? Don't say it's just fun, because why did you stop playing if it was so much fun?
To summarise my rambling: My sister is an example of a well rounded, social individual who has developed strong relationships online. And relationships built within a games structure are more 'real' and strong on average than ones built within chat rooms.
Assuming she works 40 hours, and plays 20 hours a week. That doesn't leave much time for everything else. I mean, 20 hours a week is a lot of time. That's over 2 hours a day. Granted, most people watch TV that much.
There are exceptions, but the majority is, I believe, what I stated above.
After spending much of my time online in gaming/chat and other online venues I have found that all the online relationships that I ever had (and I am not talking about only romantic relationships/nor am I excluding them), no matter how much friendship/loyalty/love/etc was claimed by both sides, the relationship was really just one of convenience.
I agree with you, and think you are totally right. I know a lot of people who have the "in depth" relationships online and it really seems (not a flame/troll) that these people lack real social skills, or are at least uncomfortable with themselves.
I have never met someone who talks about EQ or Muds who is a well-rounded individual. Fit, eats right, talks right, and has any degree of charisma about them. They all seem to be either shy, ugly (sorry, but it's true), can't speak well, or has about as much charisma as a lepar.
I'm not saying a lot of the people online aren't nice. Many of them are really nice, and friendly. The problem is online they aren't who they are in real life. I know people from IRC, I used to IRC when I had more time for open source projects but that was why I was there and why they were there. Not because we needed a social interaction outside of reality.
I welcome any thought out rebuttals but please if you disagree with me, mod me down and move on, don't waste your time or mine with a mindless rant or string of insults. Don't worry, I think I'll get hit with it now..:)
Are you a degreed psychologist? Your description sounds like a layman's description.
Not degreed, no, but I have significant University-level psychology education under my belt. Thanks for asking. It is a laymans description, because not many people here are versed in psychology. Are you? Have you ever sat in on a University lecture? Much less taken classes from known researchers?
I'm glad you said "ideas." Maybe "vague notions" would be more accurate. Almost everything we know about neurology is based on doing studies on people who have brain damage.
That's absolutely wrong. Go read case studies books, and come talk to me.
As for the rest of your comment, it was completely and totally insubstantial. You raised no points, or counters to any arguments I made. You fail to understand what I was saying apparently, because your responses were completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Might I suggest going and picking up "The Mind's I" as well as some case study books to broaden your knowledge. As for "Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..." I'm really not even sure what the hell you were attempting to imply. Off the wall statements tend not to bode well in debate, just a side note.
Is a little bit of imagination too much to ask for? Why can't it have some 30 pics immediate storage (128megs?), and transfer the pictures in background. It's not that you're always near PC either, so the camera should be stand-alone anyways.
It's Sony, remember? MemorySticks are very cool litte items, that are pretty cost effective. I don't know of any recent Sony device that didn't use them.
Sane people never do Japan in August. I did it once. That was enough for me. From now on it's March or November!
Everything is air conditioned, it's not too bad. The real problem is the fact that everyone and their brother, dog, cat, and second cousin twice removed goes to Japan in August because thats the big holiday season. To get on a cheap fare ($700) you have to reserve 3 months in advance it seems. In September, you can go for about $550 round trip. November I think you can get a ticket for around $400 - $450.
I just got back from Japan, and someone asked me how the weather was and I said it was a pretty humid 32+ week. They got really confused and asked, "I thought it was over 90 there?" *sigh*
What exactly is a "comfort habit"? It sounds to me like a layman's description of why a person does a repetitive action. I think the reasons why a person overeats can be many, can be complex, can be different from person to person, and, almost always, come from years and years of psychological training. How "strong" does one have to be to be able to break that training? How does one measure the "strength" required to be able to do so? For some people, I think it may be a simple matter of willpower. For others, I don't think there is any amount of willpower which will allow them to overcome their "comfort habit," as you call it.
Simple, comfort habit is a non-productive and destruction (or at least detracting) habit that one gets into to provide temporary relief from psychological stress. Biting nails, over eating. Most noticed is that they tend to be oral fixations, which can go pretty far into Freudian psychology.
I think the problem boils down to this: we don't understand well why some people overeat, and we barely understand how to measure human intelligence at all. I think it's unkind and inaccurate to label these people as "weak." I think "stupid," or "crazy" would be more accurate (but no less kind).
I didn't describe the person as weak. Go back and read what I wrote. I said they were too weak to break the habit. I consider myself very strong, and everyone who knows me (with the exception of my mother, but then again they can always find a way to needle you) would agree. Yet I can't break certain habits. Granted, all my habits that are actually destructive I've relieved myself of. The ones that I am not free of are not of enough importance to me to break. That is why I am too weak to do it, not because I can't -- because I wont.
Weak is a relative term, it does not imply the person is weak, just too weak in that area to sacrifice the short term gain for the long term.
In the future, we will have discrete quantifiers for all kinds of human intelligence and behaviors. It's a shame that with our astounding knowledge of physics and technology that we really are so bone-headedly ignorant of neurology and psychology.
Many lessor known psychologists have excellent ideas regarding intelligence and basic smarts. The difference with brains and psychology is that no two brains are the same and finding common denominators between them is difficult, but they all exist. If you disassemble a brain, and put it back together is it still the same brain with the same connections and would it detect something different? Brains are funnier things, emotions are even more funny. Intelligence being altered by emotion is even more so.
Have you ever looked at the hard numbers collected by university researchers? No offense, but your experience (and any other single person's experiences) really don't mean squat since there's too many unknowns - are you successful because you're still in your 20s and have high hormone levels, or perhaps you and your friends eat at a local restaurant that uses products with an unusually high selenium level. (Not that selenium actually helps, but it's been named as a possible micronutrient that helps weight loss.)
No, actually I have an overactive metabolism. It wont go away no matter how old I am. Some of my friends have weight problems. Most people I hang out with for a significant period of time start eating more than they do normally because they are with me and gain weight. I warn people when they start getting close to me about this.
That's why I said that the macronutrient approach is bullshit. It might work for some people, but even a cursory glance at any public space will show you that it's missing something very important.
You didn't say macronutrient was bullshit. You said that my statement of people being too weak-willed to do what is right was bullshit. You raised an excellent point with smoking. It does take will power. If you are too weak to cut a habit out, it doesn't mean you are a "weak willed loser" as you said, it means you are too weak to cut that habit at that moment. Most people use cigarettes, alcohol, and food as a security blanket to cope with other issues. If they can't cut it out, they need to work out those issues.
Learning how to break a comfort-habit is hard, but it takes a lot of will power. Comfort habits are typically dangerous to your person as well.
So, if the best nutritionists in the country are admitting that they're having to revisit almost everything they think they knew, who the hell are you to pronounce everyone who's failed to lose weight on a diet a weak-willed loser?
First off, don't put words into my mouth or say I said things I didn't. It makes you stupid and wrong. I never said that they were weak-willed losers. I said if you want to lose weight, it's something that involves breaking the habits you got into. Excercising and eating the proper foods. There are plenty of diets that work. I'm not talking "I'm dieting" diets. I'm talking diets, as in what I eat and many others. Planned meals, or at least the way I do which is specify roughly the categories I will eat.
Bullshit. The reductionists want to reduce diets to simple matters of protein, carbs and fats, but the explosion in obesity during the past decade proves just how fallious their arguments are.
You say it's bullshit? Have you ever stayed on a diet plan for over a year? 3 years? 5 years? I've been on a diet plan watching carbs and most things I injest, and it's now habit. This is what I eat this many times a week. I did it to gain weight. I can also tell you that it's a lot harder for me to gain weight than it is for someone to lose weight, because I've been surrounded by friends who have changed their diet permanently and with excercise lose tons of weight. It's all about habit. It's like biting your nails. If you don't stop, you are too weak to. End of story. If you think it's bullshit, maybe you should look at your life and find out why you are defensive about it. Not saying there is anything wrong, but when most people respond to one line of a comment that says many of the same things you said it usually indicates problems in their life.
That's not really fair. Most diets fail because they're a basic aberration -- to get lasting results, you have to alter your lifestyle (and alter it to something you can *live with*), not just do something specific for a few months.
It's absolutely fair. If someone is too weak to alter their diet than they shouldn't complain. I have my own habit-based issued. If it is something that is important enough, I break the habit and don't go back. If I try and fail, it means I'm too weak to do it. Same thing with people who are overweight and want to be thin.
Actually, there's two major differences besides the collapsable stock. First of all, the barrel is redesigned. You can tell an M4 by the fact that it has a constriction midway down the length of the barrel. Second, the M16 is not fully automatic. It only has semi-auto and three-round burst settings. The M4, however, is full auto. Also, the handguard is only half-length, but any of the short-barreled AR-15 variants have that, so it's not as telling. You have point A, but you are wrong about the M16A1/2 being semi-automatic only. The M4 is part of the M16 family.
I think M16 = ( M16A1|M16A2|M4A1|M4A2|AR15 ) but that's just my opinion.
The rise of obesity in American society has many factors, and I think that laziness is a very small one. A much more important factor would be the insane number of carbohydrates that we consume now as opposed to one hundred years ago. Do you know how many millions of gallons of soft drinks (50 grams of carbs per can) people go through in a year? To put it in the proper perspective, consider that humans used to drink exactly zero gallons of soft drinks in a year. And add to that the fact that soft drink manufacturers continue to raise the portion size of their products. Notice that snack makers (carb factories) and restaurants (carb factories) are doing the same thing. It's merely pandering to the "get more for your money" desire which is almost inextricable from the American psyche. That's the problem. If you look at most other countries they don't have the soda that the US has. Not like it is in the US anyway. I just got back from Japan where most people drink water and tea. There are some sodas, but not many. How many fat japanese people do you see? Walk around the US and most people are overweight in the US. They sit there and consume more food than necessary and drink soda and wonder why they gain weight. I'm naturally underweight, and have to eat a lot ot maintain weight but it's easy enough to not drink soda. Most people don't even drink it because they like it after a few years, they drink it because it's part of their hobby.
Laziness and poor dieting causes many health problems. I challenge anyone to just cut out drinking soda. Period, end of story. Just don't drink it. You wont miss it after a few weeks. When you go to a restaurant drink iced tea or water. Your teeth with thank you, and your body will love you. You will feel better, and generally healthier. That's just one small thing to cut out. Then, if you feel you have escaped from the habit and want to enjoy a soda have one every so often. Drinking a glass of wine a day is better for you than a soda.
Also, 99% of diets will fail (read: make the dieter gain more weight, not less) if the dieter is already over 100 pounds overweight. Telling these people, "Get off your ass you fat fuck!" does not help. In fact, I think it exacerbates the problem that you deplore. People fail on diets because they are weak and don't follow the diet plans. It's because food is a security blanket in US culture. It's because it's a habit that's been formed since they were growing up. Excercise is not the end all answer, but you must excercise if you want to take your diet seriously. There is a good reason why I have 8% body fat. I watch what I eat and excercise right.
New balance sucks. Ecco rules the universe! Then again, I'm biased: I value my knees too much to be a runner.;) Amen, I bought my first pair of Ecco shoes about 2 years ago and will never go back for my daily shoes. I have surgically reconstructed ankles and a floating kneecap, so running isn't an option for me so I can't say anything about that..:)
M4A1 Carbine that is in Counter-Strike is an M16 with a collapsible stock. It shares 80% commonality with the M16, and is a direct variant. The M4A1 carbine is a shortened version of the M16A2, so technically it does have an M16. Just a variant of an M16. Considering there also isn't an "M16" either, but M16A1, M16A2, M4/M4A1 that are all part of the M16 family.
set them up as direct gateways - and you can call from your machine to her machine - and since they have DSPs built onand rather good software (even linux drivers) the quality will be pretty good.
The problem with this is that her computer is right next to the phone. Which, is right next to where her dad sleeps. She went over there 4 weeks ago, and promptly bought a cell phone so I can call her at any time. Pre-paid calling cards suck at this. One card will consistently route me to a rather polite, but disgrunted Japanese fellow. One gives me at least a 2 second latency, another refuses to make the connection 90% of the time.
The only calling cards that seem to work are those that are $0.05+ more a minute.
good luck.
Thanks, I leave to go over there (and get married) on Friday.:)
The big thing that I have a problem with is calling cell phones. My fiance has a cell, and that is pretty much the only way to get in touch with her. She's staying at her parents house right now, with one phone, located right next to where her dad sleeps so not convenient when he goes to sleep really early. I have one card that I get $.06/minute and there is one that has a $1.50 connection charge that is $0.01/minute. The problem is calling cell phones jumps it up well over $0.17/minute and that is usually promo cards that you can't get all the time. $0.24+ is the average. *grumble*
That and a lot of times when I call a cell phone using VoIP routed cards, there is a 2 second latency on the conversation which sucks horribly.
I have a POTS now, but its mostly for my DSL to run over. When I move I'll either get Cable or a DSL provider that doesn't require a landline. Here's hoping Pacbell goes bankrupt.
Same thing for me, but I always forget to pay the POTS phone bill. It's so completely non-important that I always put it in the Pay Later pile, which invariably turns into the Disconnection pile. I've spent almost $100 on calling cards to Japan in the last month. Do VoIP work international as well as they do domestic, and do most VoIP providors charge extra. I have no idea where to even look for reliable VoIP data. If my soon-to-be-wife has issues getting her greencard, I'm expecting many more phone cards to be purchased.
But... the bored lonely wanna-be-parents just can't resist the urge to meddle. -- If the village is full of idiots, I will raise my kid in the void. My point... stay out of parenting issue unless you are asked... trust me.. you won't be.
Good points, definitely. I really really don't want to be a parent though. In all honesty it's because they wouldn't compete with their peers. I'd never buy my kids a portable gaming system. Not because I can't afford to, because I think it's dumb. I suppose that was more of my point.. but you are right. I don't have kids, but it doesn't mean I can't say that his parents are fucking him up if they buy him everything.
They are doing this service at the 24 hour starbucks in Beaverton. I am not sure if it's the same thing, but I know that Compaq is also involved in the setup and right now they are having a power struggle for the different components, which is why the deployment of net access in Starbucks is taking so long.
Are the meetings at Lucky Lab still going on? Also, are there any other cafe environments that have good nodes. I haven't lived here very long, but Pioneer Square is not the ideal place for remote work.
Also, the proposed ice rink that they want to put in Pioneer Square may affect everything. Goodman put a huge grant up in order for it go through, so expect the square to change even more.
Right...and meanwhile, he was being polite and courteous.
I felt it was one of the best pro-windows posts I've seen on slashdot. Well written, non-inflammatory and for the most part a good post. Besides, what he said was mostly valid if you substitute Window Manager with Desktop Environment. An honest mistake amongst non-linux users. Even some I know, if you ask what WM they use will say, "Gnome."
And I'm not sure why you thought his post wasn't polite...
why doesn't everyone worry about parenting their own kids *OR* if you don't have any, shut the hell up? What if my kid holds the record for youngest ever to win a nobel peace prize, and also is married to a supermodel who has a law degree from Yale, and is a member of more social gatherings than you can count? Then am I qualified? This is hypothetical, I do not have children.
I don't think you have any room to tell us to shut the hell up, that makes you just like us, right? I have no kids, but I look at the way I was raised and in relation to others think my parents did a really good job. I worked for what I got, and I appreciated it.
Sounds like a pretty cool dad to me. My folks encouraged, and supported my gaming, and general futzing 'round with machines in my youth (Atari 2600, Trash-80s, AppleIIs, BleedingEdge 8008 boxen) and generally I think that's helped me be where I'm at in my career. Encouraging and supporting is one thing. My parents did too, and when I moved onto coding until 4am just drove them nuts with the keyboard. The difference is they made me buy pretty much everything. Our first box was a TRS80, my first computer was an 8088, at the same time my mom had a 486 at the time, and then upgraded to a P-133. Shortly after I earned enough to buy a pre-release PPro-200. It was over $1K for just the CPU+Mobo+RAM because I used some connections and got it a couple months before release. You know what? That was the best experience. I worked for months to afford that box, and up until the motherboard caught fire it was my pride and joy. I got more out of working for my equipment than I ever thought, looking back.
If my parents just bought me whatever computer systems I wanted, I don't think I would be nearly as high up as I am now. My logic was, "I worked for a long time for this box, I'm going to use it."
Some people have that ability naturally, but not many.
Gaming goggles in his car? Yes, gaming addiction is a mushrooming problem in our society... but so are car accidents!
He was also one of the few chauffeur driven kids. In an Acura Integra. Was really amusing knowing this guy. He was in a *cough* high paying field, and his parents were filthy rich.
Slashdot Mirror
Once in a while, when we get together, we still joke about the mud. It was a strange and interesting thing that intrigued intelligent people, no more, no less.
Not exactly a refuting argument, because you knew each other in real life. I get together with friends I knew ahead of time and play computer games. I spend a lot of time playing Warcraft 3 and Starcraft, but 99% of the games I play are with friends. Sounds like you have a similar experience.
To tell you the truth, the close friends of mine that played Med. and EQ are all good-looking, smart, and atheletic, social people. I was the fastest runner in my school, I was in Leadership, I was the best wrestler in my weight class and I'm an excellent soccer player. Everyone in my school knew me (just about). I go on horse riding trips and I hike and run all the time. I am going to school and majoring in Multimedia and Web Design, I'm 20. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to brag about anything, I'm just stating the facts, and I thought your statement was so damn stupid. The only thing is I havne't met you, I'm sure. But come on, your statement is so silly I had to say something about it.
Out of every single person that I personally know that plays MUDs and MMORPGs or spends hours and hours on IRC is exactly as described. I just don't understand one thing, and maybe you can help me understand. If your life is so full, why do you need to invest so much time in an alternate reality? Why do you need that escape? Don't say it's just fun, because why did you stop playing if it was so much fun?
To summarise my rambling: My sister is an example of a well rounded, social individual who has developed strong relationships online. And relationships built within a games structure are more 'real' and strong on average than ones built within chat rooms.
Assuming she works 40 hours, and plays 20 hours a week. That doesn't leave much time for everything else. I mean, 20 hours a week is a lot of time. That's over 2 hours a day. Granted, most people watch TV that much.
There are exceptions, but the majority is, I believe, what I stated above.
After spending much of my time online in gaming/chat and other online venues I have found that all the online relationships that I ever had (and I am not talking about only romantic relationships/nor am I excluding them), no matter how much friendship/loyalty/love/etc was claimed by both sides, the relationship was really just one of convenience.
:)
I agree with you, and think you are totally right. I know a lot of people who have the "in depth" relationships online and it really seems (not a flame/troll) that these people lack real social skills, or are at least uncomfortable with themselves.
I have never met someone who talks about EQ or Muds who is a well-rounded individual. Fit, eats right, talks right, and has any degree of charisma about them. They all seem to be either shy, ugly (sorry, but it's true), can't speak well, or has about as much charisma as a lepar.
I'm not saying a lot of the people online aren't nice. Many of them are really nice, and friendly. The problem is online they aren't who they are in real life. I know people from IRC, I used to IRC when I had more time for open source projects but that was why I was there and why they were there. Not because we needed a social interaction outside of reality.
I welcome any thought out rebuttals but please if you disagree with me, mod me down and move on, don't waste your time or mine with a mindless rant or string of insults.
Don't worry, I think I'll get hit with it now..
Are you a degreed psychologist? Your description sounds like a layman's description.
Not degreed, no, but I have significant University-level psychology education under my belt. Thanks for asking. It is a laymans description, because not many people here are versed in psychology. Are you? Have you ever sat in on a University lecture? Much less taken classes from known researchers?
I'm glad you said "ideas." Maybe "vague notions" would be more accurate. Almost everything we know about neurology is based on doing studies on people who have brain damage.
That's absolutely wrong. Go read case studies books, and come talk to me.
As for the rest of your comment, it was completely and totally insubstantial. You raised no points, or counters to any arguments I made. You fail to understand what I was saying apparently, because your responses were completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Might I suggest going and picking up "The Mind's I" as well as some case study books to broaden your knowledge. As for "Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..." I'm really not even sure what the hell you were attempting to imply. Off the wall statements tend not to bode well in debate, just a side note.
Is a little bit of imagination too much to ask for? Why can't it have some 30 pics immediate storage (128megs?), and transfer the pictures in background. It's not that you're always near PC either, so the camera should be stand-alone anyways.
It's Sony, remember? MemorySticks are very cool litte items, that are pretty cost effective. I don't know of any recent Sony device that didn't use them.
Sane people never do Japan in August. I did it once. That was enough for me. From now on it's March or November!
:)
Everything is air conditioned, it's not too bad. The real problem is the fact that everyone and their brother, dog, cat, and second cousin twice removed goes to Japan in August because thats the big holiday season. To get on a cheap fare ($700) you have to reserve 3 months in advance it seems. In September, you can go for about $550 round trip. November I think you can get a ticket for around $400 - $450.
Now comes the off-topic
I think your confusing celsus with farenhiet. 17 degs celsus is 17 degries beond freasing, which is 0 degs in celsus.
No, go re-read what he said: The air cools 15-20 degrees in the carbueretor as it rushes through the venturi tube.
17 degrees celsius - 20 = -3C == Freezing temperature.
I just got back from Japan, and someone asked me how the weather was and I said it was a pretty humid 32+ week. They got really confused and asked, "I thought it was over 90 there?" *sigh*
What exactly is a "comfort habit"? It sounds to me like a layman's description of why a person does a repetitive action. I think the reasons why a person overeats can be many, can be complex, can be different from person to person, and, almost always, come from years and years of psychological training. How "strong" does one have to be to be able to break that training? How does one measure the "strength" required to be able to do so? For some people, I think it may be a simple matter of willpower. For others, I don't think there is any amount of willpower which will allow them to overcome their "comfort habit," as you call it.
Simple, comfort habit is a non-productive and destruction (or at least detracting) habit that one gets into to provide temporary relief from psychological stress. Biting nails, over eating. Most noticed is that they tend to be oral fixations, which can go pretty far into Freudian psychology.
I think the problem boils down to this: we don't understand well why some people overeat, and we barely understand how to measure human intelligence at all. I think it's unkind and inaccurate to label these people as "weak." I think "stupid," or "crazy" would be more accurate (but no less kind).
I didn't describe the person as weak. Go back and read what I wrote. I said they were too weak to break the habit. I consider myself very strong, and everyone who knows me (with the exception of my mother, but then again they can always find a way to needle you) would agree. Yet I can't break certain habits. Granted, all my habits that are actually destructive I've relieved myself of. The ones that I am not free of are not of enough importance to me to break. That is why I am too weak to do it, not because I can't -- because I wont.
Weak is a relative term, it does not imply the person is weak, just too weak in that area to sacrifice the short term gain for the long term.
In the future, we will have discrete quantifiers for all kinds of human intelligence and behaviors. It's a shame that with our astounding knowledge of physics and technology that we really are so bone-headedly ignorant of neurology and psychology.
Many lessor known psychologists have excellent ideas regarding intelligence and basic smarts. The difference with brains and psychology is that no two brains are the same and finding common denominators between them is difficult, but they all exist. If you disassemble a brain, and put it back together is it still the same brain with the same connections and would it detect something different? Brains are funnier things, emotions are even more funny. Intelligence being altered by emotion is even more so.
Have you ever looked at the hard numbers collected by university researchers? No offense, but your experience (and any other single person's experiences) really don't mean squat since there's too many unknowns - are you successful because you're still in your 20s and have high hormone levels, or perhaps you and your friends eat at a local restaurant that uses products with an unusually high selenium level. (Not that selenium actually helps, but it's been named as a possible micronutrient that helps weight loss.)
No, actually I have an overactive metabolism. It wont go away no matter how old I am. Some of my friends have weight problems. Most people I hang out with for a significant period of time start eating more than they do normally because they are with me and gain weight. I warn people when they start getting close to me about this.
That's why I said that the macronutrient approach is bullshit. It might work for some people, but even a cursory glance at any public space will show you that it's missing something very important.
You didn't say macronutrient was bullshit. You said that my statement of people being too weak-willed to do what is right was bullshit. You raised an excellent point with smoking. It does take will power. If you are too weak to cut a habit out, it doesn't mean you are a "weak willed loser" as you said, it means you are too weak to cut that habit at that moment. Most people use cigarettes, alcohol, and food as a security blanket to cope with other issues. If they can't cut it out, they need to work out those issues.
Learning how to break a comfort-habit is hard, but it takes a lot of will power. Comfort habits are typically dangerous to your person as well.
My pleasure, and a quote you'll probably like:
-- Aristotle
So, if the best nutritionists in the country are admitting that they're having to revisit almost everything they think they knew, who the hell are you to pronounce everyone who's failed to lose weight on a diet a weak-willed loser?
First off, don't put words into my mouth or say I said things I didn't. It makes you stupid and wrong. I never said that they were weak-willed losers. I said if you want to lose weight, it's something that involves breaking the habits you got into. Excercising and eating the proper foods. There are plenty of diets that work. I'm not talking "I'm dieting" diets. I'm talking diets, as in what I eat and many others. Planned meals, or at least the way I do which is specify roughly the categories I will eat.
Bullshit. The reductionists want to reduce diets to simple matters of protein, carbs and fats, but the explosion in obesity during the past decade proves just how fallious their arguments are.
You say it's bullshit? Have you ever stayed on a diet plan for over a year? 3 years? 5 years? I've been on a diet plan watching carbs and most things I injest, and it's now habit. This is what I eat this many times a week. I did it to gain weight. I can also tell you that it's a lot harder for me to gain weight than it is for someone to lose weight, because I've been surrounded by friends who have changed their diet permanently and with excercise lose tons of weight. It's all about habit. It's like biting your nails. If you don't stop, you are too weak to. End of story. If you think it's bullshit, maybe you should look at your life and find out why you are defensive about it. Not saying there is anything wrong, but when most people respond to one line of a comment that says many of the same things you said it usually indicates problems in their life.
That's not really fair. Most diets fail because they're a basic aberration -- to get lasting results, you have to alter your lifestyle (and alter it to something you can *live with*), not just do something specific for a few months.
It's absolutely fair. If someone is too weak to alter their diet than they shouldn't complain. I have my own habit-based issued. If it is something that is important enough, I break the habit and don't go back. If I try and fail, it means I'm too weak to do it. Same thing with people who are overweight and want to be thin.
Actually, there's two major differences besides the collapsable stock. First of all, the barrel is redesigned. You can tell an M4 by the fact that it has a constriction midway down the length of the barrel. Second, the M16 is not fully automatic. It only has semi-auto and three-round burst settings. The M4, however, is full auto. Also, the handguard is only half-length, but any of the short-barreled AR-15 variants have that, so it's not as telling.
You have point A, but you are wrong about the M16A1/2 being semi-automatic only. The M4 is part of the M16 family.
I think M16 = ( M16A1|M16A2|M4A1|M4A2|AR15 ) but that's just my opinion.
The rise of obesity in American society has many factors, and I think that laziness is a very small one. A much more important factor would be the insane number of carbohydrates that we consume now as opposed to one hundred years ago. Do you know how many millions of gallons of soft drinks (50 grams of carbs per can) people go through in a year? To put it in the proper perspective, consider that humans used to drink exactly zero gallons of soft drinks in a year. And add to that the fact that soft drink manufacturers continue to raise the portion size of their products. Notice that snack makers (carb factories) and restaurants (carb factories) are doing the same thing. It's merely pandering to the "get more for your money" desire which is almost inextricable from the American psyche.
;) :)
That's the problem. If you look at most other countries they don't have the soda that the US has. Not like it is in the US anyway. I just got back from Japan where most people drink water and tea. There are some sodas, but not many. How many fat japanese people do you see? Walk around the US and most people are overweight in the US. They sit there and consume more food than necessary and drink soda and wonder why they gain weight. I'm naturally underweight, and have to eat a lot ot maintain weight but it's easy enough to not drink soda. Most people don't even drink it because they like it after a few years, they drink it because it's part of their hobby.
Laziness and poor dieting causes many health problems. I challenge anyone to just cut out drinking soda. Period, end of story. Just don't drink it. You wont miss it after a few weeks. When you go to a restaurant drink iced tea or water. Your teeth with thank you, and your body will love you. You will feel better, and generally healthier. That's just one small thing to cut out. Then, if you feel you have escaped from the habit and want to enjoy a soda have one every so often. Drinking a glass of wine a day is better for you than a soda.
Also, 99% of diets will fail (read: make the dieter gain more weight, not less) if the dieter is already over 100 pounds overweight. Telling these people, "Get off your ass you fat fuck!" does not help. In fact, I think it exacerbates the problem that you deplore.
People fail on diets because they are weak and don't follow the diet plans. It's because food is a security blanket in US culture. It's because it's a habit that's been formed since they were growing up. Excercise is not the end all answer, but you must excercise if you want to take your diet seriously. There is a good reason why I have 8% body fat. I watch what I eat and excercise right.
New balance sucks. Ecco rules the universe! Then again, I'm biased: I value my knees too much to be a runner.
Amen, I bought my first pair of Ecco shoes about 2 years ago and will never go back for my daily shoes. I have surgically reconstructed ankles and a floating kneecap, so running isn't an option for me so I can't say anything about that..
M4A1 Carbine that is in Counter-Strike is an M16 with a collapsible stock. It shares 80% commonality with the M16, and is a direct variant. The M4A1 carbine is a shortened version of the M16A2, so technically it does have an M16. Just a variant of an M16. Considering there also isn't an "M16" either, but M16A1, M16A2, M4/M4A1 that are all part of the M16 family.
set them up as direct gateways - and you can call from your machine to her machine - and since they have DSPs built onand rather good software (even linux drivers) the quality will be pretty good.
:)
The problem with this is that her computer is right next to the phone. Which, is right next to where her dad sleeps. She went over there 4 weeks ago, and promptly bought a cell phone so I can call her at any time. Pre-paid calling cards suck at this. One card will consistently route me to a rather polite, but disgrunted Japanese fellow. One gives me at least a 2 second latency, another refuses to make the connection 90% of the time.
The only calling cards that seem to work are those that are $0.05+ more a minute.
good luck.
Thanks, I leave to go over there (and get married) on Friday.
The big thing that I have a problem with is calling cell phones. My fiance has a cell, and that is pretty much the only way to get in touch with her. She's staying at her parents house right now, with one phone, located right next to where her dad sleeps so not convenient when he goes to sleep really early. I have one card that I get $.06/minute and there is one that has a $1.50 connection charge that is $0.01/minute. The problem is calling cell phones jumps it up well over $0.17/minute and that is usually promo cards that you can't get all the time. $0.24+ is the average. *grumble*
That and a lot of times when I call a cell phone using VoIP routed cards, there is a 2 second latency on the conversation which sucks horribly.
I have a POTS now, but its mostly for my DSL to run over. When I move I'll either get Cable or a DSL provider that doesn't require a landline. Here's hoping Pacbell goes bankrupt.
Same thing for me, but I always forget to pay the POTS phone bill. It's so completely non-important that I always put it in the Pay Later pile, which invariably turns into the Disconnection pile. I've spent almost $100 on calling cards to Japan in the last month. Do VoIP work international as well as they do domestic, and do most VoIP providors charge extra. I have no idea where to even look for reliable VoIP data. If my soon-to-be-wife has issues getting her greencard, I'm expecting many more phone cards to be purchased.
But ... the bored lonely wanna-be-parents just can't resist the urge to meddle. -- If the village is full of idiots, I will raise my kid in the void. My point ... stay out of parenting issue unless you are asked ... trust me .. you won't be.
Good points, definitely. I really really don't want to be a parent though. In all honesty it's because they wouldn't compete with their peers. I'd never buy my kids a portable gaming system. Not because I can't afford to, because I think it's dumb. I suppose that was more of my point.. but you are right. I don't have kids, but it doesn't mean I can't say that his parents are fucking him up if they buy him everything.
They are doing this service at the 24 hour starbucks in Beaverton. I am not sure if it's the same thing, but I know that Compaq is also involved in the setup and right now they are having a power struggle for the different components, which is why the deployment of net access in Starbucks is taking so long.
Are the meetings at Lucky Lab still going on? Also, are there any other cafe environments that have good nodes. I haven't lived here very long, but Pioneer Square is not the ideal place for remote work.
Also, the proposed ice rink that they want to put in Pioneer Square may affect everything. Goodman put a huge grant up in order for it go through, so expect the square to change even more.
Right...and meanwhile, he was being polite and courteous.
I felt it was one of the best pro-windows posts I've seen on slashdot. Well written, non-inflammatory and for the most part a good post. Besides, what he said was mostly valid if you substitute Window Manager with Desktop Environment. An honest mistake amongst non-linux users. Even some I know, if you ask what WM they use will say, "Gnome."
And I'm not sure why you thought his post wasn't polite...
why doesn't everyone worry about parenting their own kids *OR* if you don't have any, shut the hell up?
What if my kid holds the record for youngest ever to win a nobel peace prize, and also is married to a supermodel who has a law degree from Yale, and is a member of more social gatherings than you can count? Then am I qualified? This is hypothetical, I do not have children.
I don't think you have any room to tell us to shut the hell up, that makes you just like us, right? I have no kids, but I look at the way I was raised and in relation to others think my parents did a really good job. I worked for what I got, and I appreciated it.
Sounds like a pretty cool dad to me. My folks encouraged, and supported my gaming, and general futzing 'round with machines in my youth (Atari 2600, Trash-80s, AppleIIs, BleedingEdge 8008 boxen) and generally I think that's helped me be where I'm at in my career.
Encouraging and supporting is one thing. My parents did too, and when I moved onto coding until 4am just drove them nuts with the keyboard. The difference is they made me buy pretty much everything. Our first box was a TRS80, my first computer was an 8088, at the same time my mom had a 486 at the time, and then upgraded to a P-133. Shortly after I earned enough to buy a pre-release PPro-200. It was over $1K for just the CPU+Mobo+RAM because I used some connections and got it a couple months before release. You know what? That was the best experience. I worked for months to afford that box, and up until the motherboard caught fire it was my pride and joy. I got more out of working for my equipment than I ever thought, looking back.
If my parents just bought me whatever computer systems I wanted, I don't think I would be nearly as high up as I am now. My logic was, "I worked for a long time for this box, I'm going to use it."
Some people have that ability naturally, but not many.
I have an urge to sign up, send out an email saying, "Visit now for your free gift!" or what not.
I wonder if they would lose more than $99 off of that.. if so it's definitely worth it.
Gaming goggles in his car? Yes, gaming addiction is a mushrooming problem in our society... but so are car accidents!
He was also one of the few chauffeur driven kids. In an Acura Integra. Was really amusing knowing this guy. He was in a *cough* high paying field, and his parents were filthy rich.