The small ads are my favourite, everyone seemingly on the make with this scheme or that, amazing what seemed a viable business at the time, like chrome-plating baby shoes or plans for converting a push-mower into a ride-on.
Jeez, man, have a look at the ads in the current ones! Yeah, it's cute and funny when they are old and aren't actually targeted at you, but when you read the current PopMech and realize, THIS is how dumb the advertisers therein think that you are, well, it kind of takes a lot of the enjoyment out of reading them.
The stuff after 'The Reality Dysfunction' is much, much better. And even TRD is decent space opera. But yeah, he's the fricken ringer I had to throw in there because I wrote 'a half dozen' and then got lazy. He is more along the lines of Foster or Stross, or (in the fantasy realm) Robert Jordan.
You see, that is the problem: people expect privacy. Those who don't understand that sites like Facebook won't enforce any kind of privacy put up things they never expect other people to be able to see. But when that assumption is shown to be false, the people who suffer for it learn. They learn they actually want privacy. But there are always more newcomers who think the online world will behave like the real world.
In the end though, privacy will disappear. The question is only, will it disappear for everyone? Or, will it only exist for those who can pay for it? The first outcome is arguably value-neutral for most people, a wash when compared to privacy, but the second outcome is just plain harmful to the majority of people.
Yes, thank you Internet Porn. Thanks to you, I've become so desensitized to normal human sex that I have to watch midget-goose gang bangs to get hard. What an improvement.
See? The good Mr. Doctorow has you hornswaggled into believing that, despite the fact that he can't turn a phrase with a steam shovel, his plots make up for it. Bullshit. His plots are ripped straight from the minds of greater men. And his poor characterizations do not stem from poor dialogue alone. They are simply lifeless, cardboard, and unrealistic depictions of human beings. And that's just the men. What female characters you may find in his writing simply point out the fact that Doctorow has little, if any, experience with women.
Studies I have read correct for those factors. The current theory is that life is, in fact, too easy. True satisfaction seems to require difficult physical effort. Our brains are wired for hunting and gathering, not pressing keys. This theory is born our by the fact that groups that shy away from technology, like the Amish, have far lower rates of depression.
Anyway, you've seized on one minor point and attempted to refute it. Please don't think that, were your refutation to be successful (which it isn't) that would somehow refute my main point, which is that young people nowadays are NOT happier then their parents.
Do people have more opportunities than their parents did? I don't think so. They have more gadgets. Do more gadgets make people happier? I don't think so. Look at rates of depression, people nowadays are FAR more likely to suffer from depression than their parents or grandparents. Young people are the most likely to suffer from our current economic problems, unemployment is rampant amongst the under 25 crowd. People have less opportunity, less privacy, less control over their lives, fewer real life friends and more online acquaintances. So how, exactly, is life better?
Exactly. We need to get laws passed that will make software vendors as liable for damages caused by shoddy merchandise as any other vendor is. They don't care because they don't have to.
Zuckerberg is trying to cover his ass. His site can't or won't provide proper access controls. His customers, the advertisers, don't want you to have privacy from them. So Mr. Zuckerberg, calling himself a 'prophet,' no less, tells you that you don't want privacy. But of course, Mr. Zuckerberg still wants his own privacy, and this 'no more privacy' world does not include corporations or governments, only individuals. Is there some easy way to find out who is advertising on facebook? No, and you can't find out what deals have been made regarding your information. So, privacy still exists, for those who can afford it. But not for us. Thank you Prophet Zuckerberg.
There's nothing wrong with being a mediocre writer, like, say, Stross or Alan Dean Foster. In fact, mediocre sci-fi often makes for better movies than good sci-fi.
But there's no place in this world for the likes of Doctorow. It isn't just that his plots are derivative and unimaginative. It isn't just his reliance on stock phrases and cliches. It's his endless grandstanding and insufferable arrogance, and the fact that it works. He has so many people fooled into thinking he's brilliant, when he is merely loud.
Cory Doctorow? Really? Stross is a solid, workmanlike writer, but Doctorow? He's a hack. I could name a half dozen current Science Fiction writers better than Doctorow and Stross combined. Greg Bear. Stephen Baxter. John Barnes. Iain Banks. Peter Hamilton. Greg Egan. And that's just current authors, off the top of my head.
You don't remember the big hack into the system, a little prior to the accident? Okay, maybe it wasn't sabotage, and if it was, no one on either side would say. It's just that the timing was very coincidental.
As for the TVA project, flood control isn't about acreage protected versus acreage flooded. It is about the economic value of each, and the value of the electricity produced. And saying the project only provided 15% of the electricity generated back then is just silly, without a dollar value. It was such typical Reagan mumbo-jumbo it made me laugh.
Are you daft? There's a difference between flooding a mountain canyon and flooding towns, cities, and farmlands. How do you think hydroelectric projects work?
Yes, El Nino is worse because of climate change. And the supposed 'lack of preparation' is due to sabotage.
Do tell how that's supposed to work in practice. Families never fly business or first class? Business class is never close enough to families in first or coach to hear crying babies? They have sound proof doors on the airlines you fly?
It's a joke. A bad, cliched joke, sure. But a joke. In reality, I put on headphones and deal with it. Badump-cha. I'll be here all week, be sure to tip the veal and try your waitress.
It is what babies do, and honestly, that's just what I do when it happens. I was making a rather cliched joke. But it brings up an interesting ethical point.
We are genetically programmed to find the sound of a baby crying disturbing. Air travel is already quite stressful. I like to read while flying, and if I turn up the headphones enough to drown out the sound of a baby crying, I can't concentrate on what I'm reading. I don't really find loud music, TV, or movies relaxing. And I'm sure I'm not alone.
Travel is mostly a luxury, air travel especially. Keeping babies close to their parents is a positive externality for society, as it, to the best of my knowledge, creates happier, more well adjusted citizens. But a crying baby is a negative externality to everyone in hearing range. I mention these things in the hopes of creating a moral equation for the situation.
Does this equation balance out at 'babies cry, deal with it?' I don't honestly know. Perhaps there are technical solutions. Off the top of my head, perhaps airlines could provide a 'family class' section with kid-friendly accommodations and some soundproofing for the rest of us. They could advertise to families, but the rest of us travelers would get the message, too: no more crying babies. I'd pay a little more for that guarantee, but not the difference between coach and business. Business class isn't a hard and fast guarantee anyhow.
United flight 905 from London to LA, this past December 27th? Yeah, I remember you. While you we're snoozing I told your kid there's no Santa Claus, but it was a secret and if he told anyone that he knew, you'd get cancer and die.
In most airliners, business class is fairly small and positioned right next to coach. While it may do away with the seat-back kickers, it won't help protect from the crying babies.
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The small ads are my favourite, everyone seemingly on the make with this scheme or that, amazing what seemed a viable business at the time, like chrome-plating baby shoes or plans for converting a push-mower into a ride-on.
Jeez, man, have a look at the ads in the current ones! Yeah, it's cute and funny when they are old and aren't actually targeted at you, but when you read the current PopMech and realize, THIS is how dumb the advertisers therein think that you are, well, it kind of takes a lot of the enjoyment out of reading them.
The stuff after 'The Reality Dysfunction' is much, much better. And even TRD is decent space opera. But yeah, he's the fricken ringer I had to throw in there because I wrote 'a half dozen' and then got lazy. He is more along the lines of Foster or Stross, or (in the fantasy realm) Robert Jordan.
You see, that is the problem: people expect privacy. Those who don't understand that sites like Facebook won't enforce any kind of privacy put up things they never expect other people to be able to see. But when that assumption is shown to be false, the people who suffer for it learn. They learn they actually want privacy. But there are always more newcomers who think the online world will behave like the real world.
In the end though, privacy will disappear. The question is only, will it disappear for everyone? Or, will it only exist for those who can pay for it? The first outcome is arguably value-neutral for most people, a wash when compared to privacy, but the second outcome is just plain harmful to the majority of people.
So how, exactly, is life better?
Mostly free internet Pr0n
Yes, thank you Internet Porn. Thanks to you, I've become so desensitized to normal human sex that I have to watch midget-goose gang bangs to get hard. What an improvement.
See? The good Mr. Doctorow has you hornswaggled into believing that, despite the fact that he can't turn a phrase with a steam shovel, his plots make up for it. Bullshit. His plots are ripped straight from the minds of greater men. And his poor characterizations do not stem from poor dialogue alone. They are simply lifeless, cardboard, and unrealistic depictions of human beings. And that's just the men. What female characters you may find in his writing simply point out the fact that Doctorow has little, if any, experience with women.
Studies I have read correct for those factors. The current theory is that life is, in fact, too easy. True satisfaction seems to require difficult physical effort. Our brains are wired for hunting and gathering, not pressing keys. This theory is born our by the fact that groups that shy away from technology, like the Amish, have far lower rates of depression.
Anyway, you've seized on one minor point and attempted to refute it. Please don't think that, were your refutation to be successful (which it isn't) that would somehow refute my main point, which is that young people nowadays are NOT happier then their parents.
Do people have more opportunities than their parents did? I don't think so. They have more gadgets. Do more gadgets make people happier? I don't think so. Look at rates of depression, people nowadays are FAR more likely to suffer from depression than their parents or grandparents. Young people are the most likely to suffer from our current economic problems, unemployment is rampant amongst the under 25 crowd. People have less opportunity, less privacy, less control over their lives, fewer real life friends and more online acquaintances. So how, exactly, is life better?
Exactly. We need to get laws passed that will make software vendors as liable for damages caused by shoddy merchandise as any other vendor is. They don't care because they don't have to.
Zuckerberg is trying to cover his ass. His site can't or won't provide proper access controls. His customers, the advertisers, don't want you to have privacy from them. So Mr. Zuckerberg, calling himself a 'prophet,' no less, tells you that you don't want privacy. But of course, Mr. Zuckerberg still wants his own privacy, and this 'no more privacy' world does not include corporations or governments, only individuals. Is there some easy way to find out who is advertising on facebook? No, and you can't find out what deals have been made regarding your information. So, privacy still exists, for those who can afford it. But not for us. Thank you Prophet Zuckerberg.
There's nothing wrong with being a mediocre writer, like, say, Stross or Alan Dean Foster. In fact, mediocre sci-fi often makes for better movies than good sci-fi.
But there's no place in this world for the likes of Doctorow. It isn't just that his plots are derivative and unimaginative. It isn't just his reliance on stock phrases and cliches. It's his endless grandstanding and insufferable arrogance, and the fact that it works. He has so many people fooled into thinking he's brilliant, when he is merely loud.
Cory Doctorow? Really? Stross is a solid, workmanlike writer, but Doctorow? He's a hack. I could name a half dozen current Science Fiction writers better than Doctorow and Stross combined. Greg Bear. Stephen Baxter. John Barnes. Iain Banks. Peter Hamilton. Greg Egan. And that's just current authors, off the top of my head.
Apparently, some people like masturbation as well. That doesn't mean they shouldn't get a life
Apparently, some people like masturbation as well. That doesn't mean they shouldn't get a WIFE
There you go I fixed it for you. I know this is a geek site. But atleast you need to try getting a wife instead of just masturbating.
Spoken like a true bachelor, or a newlywed.
You don't remember the big hack into the system, a little prior to the accident? Okay, maybe it wasn't sabotage, and if it was, no one on either side would say. It's just that the timing was very coincidental.
As for the TVA project, flood control isn't about acreage protected versus acreage flooded. It is about the economic value of each, and the value of the electricity produced. And saying the project only provided 15% of the electricity generated back then is just silly, without a dollar value. It was such typical Reagan mumbo-jumbo it made me laugh.
Um, if no one elects them, it isn't publicly owned.
RTFA. These griefers were conservatives. I don't even know what you mean by 'calling people on their bullshit.'
Shouldn't you blame whoever elects the board?
Are you daft? There's a difference between flooding a mountain canyon and flooding towns, cities, and farmlands. How do you think hydroelectric projects work?
Yes, El Nino is worse because of climate change. And the supposed 'lack of preparation' is due to sabotage.
Do tell how that's supposed to work in practice. Families never fly business or first class? Business class is never close enough to families in first or coach to hear crying babies? They have sound proof doors on the airlines you fly?
It's a joke. A bad, cliched joke, sure. But a joke. In reality, I put on headphones and deal with it. Badump-cha. I'll be here all week, be sure to tip the veal and try your waitress.
I'd pay good money to be doped up on ketamine and laughing gas, stuffed into a box, and drop-shipped to my destination.
It is what babies do, and honestly, that's just what I do when it happens. I was making a rather cliched joke. But it brings up an interesting ethical point.
We are genetically programmed to find the sound of a baby crying disturbing. Air travel is already quite stressful. I like to read while flying, and if I turn up the headphones enough to drown out the sound of a baby crying, I can't concentrate on what I'm reading. I don't really find loud music, TV, or movies relaxing. And I'm sure I'm not alone.
Travel is mostly a luxury, air travel especially. Keeping babies close to their parents is a positive externality for society, as it, to the best of my knowledge, creates happier, more well adjusted citizens. But a crying baby is a negative externality to everyone in hearing range. I mention these things in the hopes of creating a moral equation for the situation.
Does this equation balance out at 'babies cry, deal with it?' I don't honestly know. Perhaps there are technical solutions. Off the top of my head, perhaps airlines could provide a 'family class' section with kid-friendly accommodations and some soundproofing for the rest of us. They could advertise to families, but the rest of us travelers would get the message, too: no more crying babies. I'd pay a little more for that guarantee, but not the difference between coach and business. Business class isn't a hard and fast guarantee anyhow.
United flight 905 from London to LA, this past December 27th? Yeah, I remember you. While you we're snoozing I told your kid there's no Santa Claus, but it was a secret and if he told anyone that he knew, you'd get cancer and die.
If it's publicly owned, it's publicly controlled. Who, then, do you blame for your problems?
In most airliners, business class is fairly small and positioned right next to coach. While it may do away with the seat-back kickers, it won't help protect from the crying babies.
I'm allergic to noisy babies and children who kick my seat-back. Where's my zone?