What a callous statement, not to mention childish, ungrammatical, poorly spelled and punctuated. My advice: if you don't want everyone here to assume you are twelve and ignore you, try phrasing your criticism more contructively and start paying more attention to the little details that act as a kind of shibboleth for the intelligent and well educated.
This is, I think, the motivation for some people to make global climate change seem worse than it is. Knowing that people won't react until it is too late, of course someone who knows where we are headed and wants to change it is going to want to make it seem as if it is already too late. Given that humans are generally lazy, pig-headed and unwilling to change, can you blame them?
What about disease related deaths? I've read that global climate change will increase the range of tropical diseases such as West Nile virus and malaria. This is predicted to cause 500,000 or more additional deaths every year, swamping the miniscule reduction in heat/cold related deaths.
Yes, you can now by flat, disc shaped RealDolls for your Roomba, which will no doubt thank you profusely. It also keeps the little bastards from hopping the fence into the neighbors yard in order to hook up with other Roombas or harassing the toaster when no Roomba companionship can be found. No one like to come home and find their vacuum cleaner humping the kitchen appliances.
That is the beauty of the system. You can easily make new variations by changing the start position. I myself use three patterns (work, personal, and one for sites like online banking) and four start positions. And no, none of them are related to the pattern I gave as an example.;) It does become quite automatic, and you never have to remember forgotten passwords, you just try all your variations.
I wonder what happens when the tumor is gone and a tiny little lump of clustered nanoparticles is free to float around on its own.
We send in even tinier, deadlier non-particles to destroy the clumps. I can imagine some of you wondering, "Isn't that a bit short sighted?" Well, then we just release wave after wave of chinese needle nanoparticles. Some negative nellies will no doubt complain, "Isn't that even worse?" But we're prepared for that! We've lined up a fabulous new 'gorilla' nanoparticle that thrives on needles. "But then we're stuck with gorillas?" I can hear you asking. That's the beautiful part, when winter rolls around the gorillas just freeze to death.
When asked for comment on the story, the Governor of California said, "It's not a toomah!" Later, he issued a retraction, adding, "If it bleeds, we can kill it!"
But if they were only going to do it half-assed (0.196850394-assed for metric folks),
I've always heard people talking about "a metric buttload" or "a metric assload" of this, that or the other thing. I never knew how much they were talking about, and I've been too embarassed to ask. Thank you for clearing up the conversion factor between a metric and imperial ass load!
The difference is that the internal complexities of other professions rarely bite the common man in the ass the way the internal complexities of law do. The language of law should be open and accessible to all but the most mentally deficient. That is not as important with even the medical, electrical, plumbing or mechanic's professions.
There's an easy way to deal with complex password requirements. One place I worked required 8 characters with at least one capital letter, one lower case letter, one number, and one punctuation mark. Plus, they required a new one every month. To top it off, they kept track of the last three passwords and you couldn't reuse them. I just memorized a pattern on the keyboard (like e4r5t6y7) and hit the shift key a couple times. Then when I changed the password, I just shifted the pattern over one letter (r5t6y7u8) Never had to write it down and I didn't forget.
Two steps ahead of you, bucky. Sherwood's basic premise is that, since something other than changes in CO2 brought on the little ice age, CO2 is not the only explanation for global warming. So far, no problem. However, his book is published by the Cato Institute, a notorious Libertarian "think" tank, and his institute, the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, is funded by the fossil fuel industry. I'm sure he didn't mention that when you met him, eh?
I seriously can not believe you just quoted Ann Coulter in that context. She is the worst of the lot in that regards. She never bothers with well informed debate. She always resorts to metaphorical pie throwing. She is one of the most childish commentators I've ever had the misfortune of reading. She says that all liberals are traitors. She claims all liberals have bad sex lives, fer chrissake!
Her purpose is to say the ridiculous and the unthinkable in order to make it less ridiculous and more thinkable, all the while maintining deniability for the right wing. "Oh, that crazy Coulter, who knows what she'll say? Hah hah. Why the thin skin, lib? She was only joking when she said someone should string you up and light you on fire," seems to be the standard conservative response to accusations that Ann is acting like a petulant child.
Out of curiousity, where are you from, and what are your political leanings?
Chef: You see, chidren, sometimes a man needs to be with a woman. But sometimes, when the lovin' is over, the woman just wants to talk and talk and talk and talk.
[song] But a prostitute is someone who would love you No matter who you are, or what you look like. Yes, it's true, children. That's not why you pay a prostitute, No, you don't pay her to stay, you pay her to leave afterwards. That's why I pays a lot for prostitutes! Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. James Taylor.
James Taylor: A prostitute is like any other woman They all trade somethin' for sex and they do it well. Chef: And that's why I say- Chef and James Taylor: Prostitutes! Prostitutes! They- Chef: Oohhhh [sees principal] James Taylor, what the hell are you doin' in here?! Singing' about prostitutes to the children! Get out of here!
Okay, you are probably right, this is more than likely paid for by Landor and used to lure in new clients. I also looked around networkworld.com and there doesn't appear to be much advertising at all, let alone Sony advertising. Still, it's always good to maintain a healthy skepticism these days, what with the viral marketing and astroturfing, don't you agree? Or should we never look behind the curtain and never question motives?
I'd be interested in knowing what questions were asked. I'd also be interested in knowing who paid for the survey. Perhaps Landor did and this is just research, as you say. In any case, they are a PR firm, which means they are professional liars, manipulators and brainwashing experts. They admit to specializing in managing perceptions. I really don't want anyone "managing" my perceptions, do you? Personally, I'd like the simple truth about aproduct or service, not some con-man's spin.
Are you implying that Landor is not a PR firm? Have you looked at their web site? Why would they do this survey? Anecdotally, I'd agree with you about the average joe. He doesn't care about batteries and rootkits. But we do, and we influence some fair amount of purchasing, through our recommendations to less tech savvy family and friends, and our purchases or recommendations at work. And this PR campaign is aimed squarely at us. If they can convince us that this bad press doesn't matter to the average person, we will probably stop talking about it and go back to loving Sony. You can take my opinion or leave it, but it appears that my skepticism has been embraced by the slashdot community.
I'm not saying that for sure there is a campaign, but if there is, well, I'm just happy to have played a small part in screwing it up. People in advertising, marketing and PR are worse than spammers or ambulance chasing lawyers and they deserve to have all their plans ruined, their hopes squashed and their names dragged through the mud.
Well, you are the submitter, also the editor of networkworld where the article was published. So it's possible you have a financial motive. And what you describe is EXACTLY the way in which modern PR campaigns are orchestrated, correct? In any case, as you are well informed on the issue, I have a question which may help put my suspicions to rest.
Landor doesn't do surveys unless someone is paying them. They aren't a research firm. They are a PR firm specializing in perception management. So, who paid for this survey and what was the point of the initial press release?
Hey cool, they give mod points to astroturfers now! That's SURE to up the quality of dialogue here on/. Hey PR flaks, take Bill Hicks' advice and go kill yourself.
If I'm gonna get marked flamebait, you ARE gonna see some flames...
As much as I love Penn & Teller, and their show Bullshit, they have been shown to be completely wrong about several issues addressed on the show. They aren't doing the show to be accurate, fair and balanced; they are doing it to stir shit and get ratings. So they found the nuttiest environmental wack-job out there. So what? They could as easily found a wack job from the other side and spun it to make big oil and the deniers look bad. But they love to play devil's advocate so on any issue you can be pretty sure they aren't going to side with the status quo.
Didn't I predict there would be flames? I knew that there would be because I knew I would be posting them. I thought my little pseudo ad-hominem was very clever, I basically implied that anyone who questions global warming is only doing so for selfish reasons, which is exactly what you implied that everyone does. No one likes being hoist by their own petard, do they? But you are absolutely correct to tell me to go fornicate myself, I was being unnecessarily cruel. Chalk it up to a morning spent wrestling with a recalcitrant IBM Blade/Linux/Sybase install, not that you care why I attacked you, just noteing for the record...
Everyone has a viewpoint to push, but in objective reality, only one of those views will be correct. There is almost no dissent in the scientific community as to whether global warming is man made, and even less that it exists. This is even counting the million spent by big oil to fuel the debate. Would there be any debate if not for that money? Of course their would. Would it be miniscule, even in comparison to the miniscule amount of debate that exists to day? Of course it would.
Face it, there is very little to be gained by believing in global warming. No money, no fame, no honors, no women. In fact, there is much to be lost. There are billions to be gained by opposing belief in it. Even if one cannot make money off of opposing belief in global warming, at the very least, one doesn't actually have to do anything. Those who really believes in global warming will feel compelled to alter their behavior.
Skepticism is the lazy person's default position. I think for most global warming skeptics, the desire not to do anything different came first, and the skepticism was reached through a chain leading from "I don't want to have to do anything" back to "this is why I don't have to do anything."
Nothing any moderators could do to you could possibly make what you have to say any less valid.
Slashdot Mirror
What a callous statement, not to mention childish, ungrammatical, poorly spelled and punctuated. My advice: if you don't want everyone here to assume you are twelve and ignore you, try phrasing your criticism more contructively and start paying more attention to the little details that act as a kind of shibboleth for the intelligent and well educated.
This is, I think, the motivation for some people to make global climate change seem worse than it is. Knowing that people won't react until it is too late, of course someone who knows where we are headed and wants to change it is going to want to make it seem as if it is already too late. Given that humans are generally lazy, pig-headed and unwilling to change, can you blame them?
What about disease related deaths? I've read that global climate change will increase the range of tropical diseases such as West Nile virus and malaria. This is predicted to cause 500,000 or more additional deaths every year, swamping the miniscule reduction in heat/cold related deaths.
Yes, you can now by flat, disc shaped RealDolls for your Roomba, which will no doubt thank you profusely. It also keeps the little bastards from hopping the fence into the neighbors yard in order to hook up with other Roombas or harassing the toaster when no Roomba companionship can be found. No one like to come home and find their vacuum cleaner humping the kitchen appliances.
That is the beauty of the system. You can easily make new variations by changing the start position. I myself use three patterns (work, personal, and one for sites like online banking) and four start positions. And no, none of them are related to the pattern I gave as an example. ;) It does become quite automatic, and you never have to remember forgotten passwords, you just try all your variations.
I wonder what happens when the tumor is gone and a tiny little lump of clustered nanoparticles is free to float around on its own.
We send in even tinier, deadlier non-particles to destroy the clumps. I can imagine some of you wondering, "Isn't that a bit short sighted?" Well, then we just release wave after wave of chinese needle nanoparticles. Some negative nellies will no doubt complain, "Isn't that even worse?" But we're prepared for that! We've lined up a fabulous new 'gorilla' nanoparticle that thrives on needles. "But then we're stuck with gorillas?" I can hear you asking. That's the beautiful part, when winter rolls around the gorillas just freeze to death.
When asked for comment on the story, the Governor of California said, "It's not a toomah!" Later, he issued a retraction, adding, "If it bleeds, we can kill it!"
But if they were only going to do it half-assed (0.196850394-assed for metric folks),
I've always heard people talking about "a metric buttload" or "a metric assload" of this, that or the other thing. I never knew how much they were talking about, and I've been too embarassed to ask. Thank you for clearing up the conversion factor between a metric and imperial ass load!
Why. Must. YouDenigrate. The. WilliamShatner. School. OfActing?
KHHHhhhhaaaaaannnnnn!
Hey, I'm not cutting off anyth... wait, are those NIKE tennis shoes? And I get a purple armband? All right! Where's the scissors?
The difference is that the internal complexities of other professions rarely bite the common man in the ass the way the internal complexities of law do. The language of law should be open and accessible to all but the most mentally deficient. That is not as important with even the medical, electrical, plumbing or mechanic's professions.
There's an easy way to deal with complex password requirements. One place I worked required 8 characters with at least one capital letter, one lower case letter, one number, and one punctuation mark. Plus, they required a new one every month. To top it off, they kept track of the last three passwords and you couldn't reuse them. I just memorized a pattern on the keyboard (like e4r5t6y7) and hit the shift key a couple times. Then when I changed the password, I just shifted the pattern over one letter (r5t6y7u8) Never had to write it down and I didn't forget.
If by success you mean longevity, Netrek has been around since the early 70s.
Two steps ahead of you, bucky. Sherwood's basic premise is that, since something other than changes in CO2 brought on the little ice age, CO2 is not the only explanation for global warming. So far, no problem. However, his book is published by the Cato Institute, a notorious Libertarian "think" tank, and his institute, the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, is funded by the fossil fuel industry. I'm sure he didn't mention that when you met him, eh?
If a brazillion women want to continue their slutty ways, I'm all for it. Wait, how many is a brazillion, again?
I seriously can not believe you just quoted Ann Coulter in that context. She is the worst of the lot in that regards. She never bothers with well informed debate. She always resorts to metaphorical pie throwing. She is one of the most childish commentators I've ever had the misfortune of reading. She says that all liberals are traitors. She claims all liberals have bad sex lives, fer chrissake!
Her purpose is to say the ridiculous and the unthinkable in order to make it less ridiculous and more thinkable, all the while maintining deniability for the right wing. "Oh, that crazy Coulter, who knows what she'll say? Hah hah. Why the thin skin, lib? She was only joking when she said someone should string you up and light you on fire," seems to be the standard conservative response to accusations that Ann is acting like a petulant child.
Out of curiousity, where are you from, and what are your political leanings?
Chef: You see, chidren, sometimes a man needs to be with a woman.
But sometimes, when the lovin' is over, the woman just wants to talk and talk
and talk and talk.
[song]
But a prostitute is someone who would love you
No matter who you are, or what you look like.
Yes, it's true, children.
That's not why you pay a prostitute,
No, you don't pay her to stay, you pay her to leave afterwards.
That's why I pays a lot for prostitutes! Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. James Taylor.
James Taylor: A prostitute is like any other woman
They all trade somethin' for sex and they do it well.
Chef: And that's why I say-
Chef and James Taylor: Prostitutes! Prostitutes! They-
Chef: Oohhhh [sees principal]
James Taylor, what the hell are you doin' in here?!
Singing' about prostitutes to the children! Get out of here!
Okay, you are probably right, this is more than likely paid for by Landor and used to lure in new clients. I also looked around networkworld.com and there doesn't appear to be much advertising at all, let alone Sony advertising. Still, it's always good to maintain a healthy skepticism these days, what with the viral marketing and astroturfing, don't you agree? Or should we never look behind the curtain and never question motives?
I'd be interested in knowing what questions were asked. I'd also be interested in knowing who paid for the survey. Perhaps Landor did and this is just research, as you say. In any case, they are a PR firm, which means they are professional liars, manipulators and brainwashing experts. They admit to specializing in managing perceptions. I really don't want anyone "managing" my perceptions, do you? Personally, I'd like the simple truth about aproduct or service, not some con-man's spin.
Are you implying that Landor is not a PR firm? Have you looked at their web site? Why would they do this survey? Anecdotally, I'd agree with you about the average joe. He doesn't care about batteries and rootkits. But we do, and we influence some fair amount of purchasing, through our recommendations to less tech savvy family and friends, and our purchases or recommendations at work. And this PR campaign is aimed squarely at us. If they can convince us that this bad press doesn't matter to the average person, we will probably stop talking about it and go back to loving Sony. You can take my opinion or leave it, but it appears that my skepticism has been embraced by the slashdot community.
I'm not saying that for sure there is a campaign, but if there is, well, I'm just happy to have played a small part in screwing it up. People in advertising, marketing and PR are worse than spammers or ambulance chasing lawyers and they deserve to have all their plans ruined, their hopes squashed and their names dragged through the mud.
Well, you are the submitter, also the editor of networkworld where the article was published. So it's possible you have a financial motive. And what you describe is EXACTLY the way in which modern PR campaigns are orchestrated, correct? In any case, as you are well informed on the issue, I have a question which may help put my suspicions to rest.
Landor doesn't do surveys unless someone is paying them. They aren't a research firm. They are a PR firm specializing in perception management. So, who paid for this survey and what was the point of the initial press release?
Hey cool, they give mod points to astroturfers now! That's SURE to up the quality of dialogue here on /. Hey PR flaks, take Bill Hicks' advice and go kill yourself.
If I'm gonna get marked flamebait, you ARE gonna see some flames...
As much as I love Penn & Teller, and their show Bullshit, they have been shown to be completely wrong about several issues addressed on the show. They aren't doing the show to be accurate, fair and balanced; they are doing it to stir shit and get ratings. So they found the nuttiest environmental wack-job out there. So what? They could as easily found a wack job from the other side and spun it to make big oil and the deniers look bad. But they love to play devil's advocate so on any issue you can be pretty sure they aren't going to side with the status quo.
Didn't I predict there would be flames? I knew that there would be because I knew I would be posting them. I thought my little pseudo ad-hominem was very clever, I basically implied that anyone who questions global warming is only doing so for selfish reasons, which is exactly what you implied that everyone does. No one likes being hoist by their own petard, do they? But you are absolutely correct to tell me to go fornicate myself, I was being unnecessarily cruel. Chalk it up to a morning spent wrestling with a recalcitrant IBM Blade/Linux/Sybase install, not that you care why I attacked you, just noteing for the record...
Everyone has a viewpoint to push, but in objective reality, only one of those views will be correct. There is almost no dissent in the scientific community as to whether global warming is man made, and even less that it exists. This is even counting the million spent by big oil to fuel the debate. Would there be any debate if not for that money? Of course their would. Would it be miniscule, even in comparison to the miniscule amount of debate that exists to day? Of course it would.
Face it, there is very little to be gained by believing in global warming. No money, no fame, no honors, no women. In fact, there is much to be lost. There are billions to be gained by opposing belief in it. Even if one cannot make money off of opposing belief in global warming, at the very least, one doesn't actually have to do anything. Those who really believes in global warming will feel compelled to alter their behavior.
Skepticism is the lazy person's default position. I think for most global warming skeptics, the desire not to do anything different came first, and the skepticism was reached through a chain leading from "I don't want to have to do anything" back to "this is why I don't have to do anything."
Nothing any moderators could do to you could possibly make what you have to say any less valid.