And we see how he endured the consequences of his actions. Civil Disobedience comes with a price Swartz was unwilling to pay. That is not strength of character
In fine Slashdot tradition, let's hear from 52 people telling us that correlation does not imply causation and that only people with brain trauma or predisposed to it play football.
I've got a different argument.
It's a dangerous sport and there are a multitude of ways the players can get seriously hurt. The players know that going in, and are willing to take on the risks for the rewards. What exactly is the problem?
consider the optimum viewing distance of 2.5 screen heights
I keep seeing that pop up, and I don't know who came up with it, but they're wrong. If you have to turn your head to see the the action going on the corners, you're too close. If you don't have to turn your head, you're not too close. That point is closer than 2.5 screen heights.
if Jobs were still here, he'd stop at 2k and call it "retina television".
Doubtful, considering the iPad 2048x1536 is only 10" screen.
even the jump from SD to HD was marginal
Holy shit, and this is how you know that you have no idea what you're talking about. The difference of SD to HD was more significant by far than the change from black and white to color. It's huge! Do you have a 10" tv that you're watching from 7 ft away when making this comparison or something?
so no... the market didn't adapt in 2005, it didn't adapt in 2010, it hasn't adapted now and it will be a long time before anything other than big budget movies or events like the olympics will get the 4k treatment.
It probably will be a long time before anything gets the 4k treatment, but the market did adapt to HD, to the point that I haven't watched anything that is not HD in years.
Kepler figured out he had it all wrong after a career spent trying to prove bad theories (Platonic model of the universe? Really?)... and arguably launched the age of the scientific enlightenment.
I'm anxious read Mr. Lynas' coming works.
I don't have mod points today, so I'm just going to add to your sentiment. I have a great amount of respect for anyone that can look at the evidence they were wrong about a particular belief, and admit to their mistake. And it only gets harder to do so the longer that belief has been held, and the greater the audience you're admitting that mistake to. This guy is to be commended for a true commitment to the truth, not to ideology.
Does it not surprise anyone else that one of their first thoughts was to drug test the milkshake?
I can not possibly imagine waking up groggy and at any point thinking 'Was I drugged?!?!?!'
If I randomly passed out and had problems waking up the next day, I'd be damn suspicious. If my wife randomly passed out at the same time and also had problems waking up the next day, I would know we were both drugged. The rest is just collecting the evidence.
What kind of consequences could the decisions of a child have? It's not like they have responsibilities.
Well, the decision of this particular kid could have had the consequence of killing her parents.
They were knocked out and only drank 1/4th of the shake, because they thought it tasted bad. If they drank the whole thing, it's possible the dosage would have killed them.
(3) Playing WoW is not productive. If the child has that much free time available that they are willing to be awake so long, then the greatest percentage of it must be used in a productive pursuit -- either pursuing educational activities, such as reading books, and specifically nonfiction, OR pursuing a productive activity that improves skills/abilities, or earns money.
Money is earned in order to keep you alive to do the thing that you enjoy. It is not the reason you're alive.
Maximize how much you enjoy life. That requires being responsible enough to do well in your studies and to get and hold a job that will pay enough for your necessities and to pay for your hobbies. That said, you do that as little as is necessary. If you enjoy playing WoW more than anything, then you should maximize the time in your life spent playing WoW. If you enjoy your work more than anything, maximize the time you spend there. Personally I think that if you're doing any one thing too much you're missing out on a whole lot of other really fun stuff to do. However, the reason behind not spending all your time in WoW is because you're missing out on fun, not because you're missing out on being productive. Screw being productive, life is too short for that.
Personally I have no trouble with closed source software be it running on linux or not. I also think Steam is great and would never sell games on to someone else after I finished with it even if I could so I think it is great that Steam is coming to linux.
You wrote a well thought-out post that urges people not to dismiss different points of view as the writing of a troll, so I'm not going to harp too much on that one sentence, other than to say that, in my point of view, your logic is misguided. What you're saying is that since you wouldn't be one of the people who exercise the right to resell the games, it's alright if that right is taken from those who would.
It's perfectly fine for you to choose not to resell games, and I understand how you don't feel like you're losing anything by being a Steam customer, but I still believe that Steam should be opposed on philosophical grounds. I will grant that it provides better DRM than most, but it's still DRM, and it's still infringing on my rights. As such, I am not a customer, and I am not glad to see it show up in Linux.
So, the hand genes were just sitting around, waiting to be 'activated' by specific DNA?
I think that means that either Intelligent Design is real or we don't have really good terminology to describe what actually happened.
According to the article, the fish embryos continued to grow for 4 days, developing autopods, a precursor to hands. Then they died.
Hilariously enough, this article which is headlined "Scientists Make Fish Grow 'Hands'", contains a quote from one of the scientists involved, "Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands." Basically, this isn't intelligent design, it's exactly how evolution is described to work: You have existing code for fins, a slight modification of which appears to cause differentiation into autopods. This particular change is only one piece of the puzzle, so it wasn't a viable modification.
University is a first step to independence for a lot of people. Not everyone gets that right first time.
Right. People need to learn about the consequences of fucking up so they can get it right the next time.
Students are absolutely paying for their education but they're also paying for someone to give a damn enough to make sure they get the most out of it.
Yes, they are. But they're not paying for babysitters. This is what I mean by my willingness to help out if they put in the effort, whether they've been showing to class or not.
Do you honestly think things are better when people are left entirely to fend for themselves? Shame you're parents didn't kick you out into the woods the day you were born. You would probably have made more of yourself.
I think there's a pretty big difference between people who are not capable of taking care of themselves and people who choose to do things that I may perceive as unwise. When you become an adult you get the freedom to start making those decisions for yourself. The university, your employer, or whoever else has no right to try to run your life and make those decisions in your stead.
Uh, how is that important? She was told not to return to the store, so she used online ordering to try to get around it. She ordered 2 because she thought she could get 2, but the store was convinced she was trying to resell because of Incident 1 and don't have to sell her ANY.
In civilized countries, once you decide to open a store to anyone, you must open it to everyone, and you're not allowed to refuse service to an individual.
Couldn't hear the video but it looks like she was thrashing around even when held on the floor. Very easy for her to slam her head against the floor when struggling or to twist around in a way that puts her arm at risk of dislocating or breaking.
That's a natural reaction to being thrown on the floor, held there, and tazered.
When you get thrown on the floor, your first instinct is to move in order to ensure your hands hit the floor first. If your arms are being held while you're being thrown to the floor, you're going to try to get them free.
After you're on the floor, if people are holding you in such a way that it hurts, your natural reaction is going to be to try to get into a position where it hurts less.
Once you're tazered, you're going to thrash about as a result of suffering an electrical shock.
There's something wrong with a procedure where not being perfectly still is an excuse to tazer you again. It's going to take a while for your brain to catch up to your natural instincts and override them in order to remain still when you are being forcefully restrained. The more they tazer you, the longer this is going to take.
If you're so stupid as to not understand what you are doing is wrong when the cops get louder you shouldn't be allowed in public on your own.
I speak English perfectly well, and I don't get that point. In my experience cops get loud when they want to establish their authority, which has nothing to do with whether what I'm doing is wrong or not.
Even dogs get that point.
I expect humans to be a bit less subservient to blind authority than dogs.
Back in the 1800s, scientists discovered the three macronutrients: carbs, protein, and fat. They said to themselves "We now understand food. If people get enough of all these three, they will be healthy."
Of course, that didn't work. People still got things like scurvy.
Then scientists discovered Vitamins. And they said "We now understand food. If people get enough of all of these, they'll be healthy."
Of course, that doesn't seem to be really working either. Even processed and refined food is often loaded with vitamins (100% Vitamin C!) because it's marketable.
Now recently scientists started to pay attention to these things called Polyphenols. There's thousands of different ones, found in food (well, natural foods); they're what "antioxidants" can be classified as. Not all that much is known about them so far (It doesn't pay much to do research in non-patentable stuff, like natural food). But I suspect they will eventually they'll become as common in dietery speak as the macro and micro nutrients are.
In short, food, and foods effects on the body are a very complex thing, and only fools believe we know all there is to be know about it.
Eh. You paint a bleak picture when you claim, "of course, that didn't work."
People are healthier today than they used to be, on average (if you discount the obesity problem that is, which has nothing to do with not understanding food: It has to do with eating too much of it and not getting enough exercise).
Let me put it this way. Athletes keep breaking records year after year. You'd figure we'd have plateaued by now. There are several reasons why we haven't, and a big part of it is that we understand nutrition well enough to control their nutrition to maximize the benefits they get from training. And yes, there's the doping, but honestly, clean athletes are still out there breaking records.
For those of you who are about to freak out on the US Government's rules realize this: When you do work in certain areas you agree to not seek out information that is covered by a "Need to Know."
I wasn't about to freak out about the US Government's rules, but I was about to freak out over your complaint on the summary.
Those rules apply to those of you who have agreed to them as a condition to the work you do. It does not apply to the rest of the population. Considering I would imagine the majority of people frequenting slashdot do not share those restrictions, it makes no sense to sensor the site as you propose.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the government requiring that people working in certain sensitive areas do not seek out information they don't have the clearance to read. However, if you have agreed to such a restriction, it is your responsibility to double-check the links you follow. It is not the responsibility of the rest of the world to make this easy for you.
But they insisted on going to GNOME 3 and won't allow MATE in the repos - just the same arrogant "get used to it" attitude as Ubuntu.
Have you actually followed the MATE thread in Debian? The objections were of a technical nature, concerning dependencies on obsoleted packages and unnecessary forks, it wasn't a philosophical one.
The MATE developer in the forum agreed with the suggestions from the Debian guys and implied they intended to move in that direction. In the end, you're going to get better code. In the meantime, you can download the.deb packages from unofficial repositories. What's the problem?
Granted, this shopping lens bullshit from Ubuntu is making me having severe moral problems with them as well, but that's definitely a reason to switch back to Debian, not Mint.
They likely won't fail completely. They will get some small victory, at least. Next time, they will get a little more. And the time after that. This is too important to governments to ever give up.
Sometimes I fear that I'll be telling my grand kids about how I remember when the internet was free. Actually, my biggest fear is that they'll be so indoctrinated they'll compare it to the wild west, and tout how all the regulation of the mature internet made it a safer place. I fear they'll just file my complaints about lack of freedom under "old man rambling" category.
It's an abomination of the highest order designed by programmers who have no clue of what they're doing and violating the first rule of IT that should never be broken: Never let programmers design your applications.
Actually, the abominations that are Windows 8, Lion and Mountain Lion, Unity, and Gnome 3 are the result of people buying into your line.
So called UI experts suck, and it's far preferable to let a programmer design the UI. At least it will be practical, even if it's not pretty.
Let me guess: You have no spine nor balls, and totally caved under the social pressure, even though it was actually nonsensical meaningless drivel from a bunch of drunk dumbasses that no sane person would even listen to.
Caving to social pressure is FUN. Obviously, don't do anything that you know you will truly regret. If you're being socially pressured into Russian Roulette, leave. Those people are not your friends. That said, if you've never ended up doing something that you would never have done had your friends not pressured you into doing it...you're missing out on life. Some of my best memories are a result of friends getting me to do something I initially didn't want to. There's a reason peer pressure is so effective: there are evolutionary advantages to it. Your friends can get you to grow as a person by doing things you'd be afraid or uncomfortable to do on your own.
The trick, as with everything, is moderation. Like with drinking alcohol, period. Don't drink so much you get cirrhosis of the liver, or let it dominate your life affecting your job and family. Also, don't decide that drinking is immoral and turn into a puritan moron. Similarly, don't be one of those guys that can be pushed into doing anything and everything. Also, don't be one of those guys that never "cave under social pressure, even though it was actually nonsensical meaningless drivel from a bunch of drunk dumbasses that no sane person would ever listen to." Doing nonsensical, meaningless shit can be fun, don't miss out on it.
That means that some people even buy TVs that are too big for their room.
Eh. Actually most guides for TV size overstate the distance to the TV based on TV size.
Start watching TV in the center seat. If you can see anything outside the TV without turning your head, your TV is too small for the room. There is such a thing as too big for a room, but that's only if you have to turn your head in order to follow what's going on at the edges of the screen.
As for expenses... There is never enough money and there is always enough money. You learn to live within your means. If you had two kids, you'd learn to live within your means, too.
Except that living within my means without kids to take care of is a whole lot sweeter.
Especially when you consider all the extra time I have on my hands, and all the worries I don't have.
I mean, I don't see anything wrong with people having kids, but I don't really see how any household that earns less than $150k / year would even consider it. You can make it with a lot less, my parents certainly did. I see what the stress did to them, though.
There several alternate methods to solving this problem: 1- Logic + map (most towns have amenities) 2- Pre-planning (Proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance) 3- Talking to people
Yes. And although I can certainly spend two hours walking to work every morning, I'd rather drive.
Technology has made the points in your list unnecessary, so you tell me why I should shun it.
According to most of the folks posting in another thread about computer-driven cars, programming errors rarely make it out in to the world.
Is there was an issue, it must be user error. Programmers aren't supposed to make mistakes!
<snark/>
Nobody ever said that. What we do say is that known programming errors get fixed, known human issues do not.
While coming back from lunch today I saw somebody go through a stop sign at 40 mph and t-boning another car. Luckily everyone walked away (go modern cars and their crumple zones), and while I'm sure that particular driver will be more careful in the future, other human drivers are going to be making the same mistake forever.
A programming error causes something like this and the fix for it will be on an update for every single other car out there. It will never happen again. Other mistakes will happen, sure, but that one is fixed forever.
Slashdot Mirror
And we see how he endured the consequences of his actions. Civil Disobedience comes with a price Swartz was unwilling to pay. That is not strength of character
Some would say he paid the ultimate price.
In fine Slashdot tradition, let's hear from 52 people telling us that correlation does not imply causation and that only people with brain trauma or predisposed to it play football.
I've got a different argument.
It's a dangerous sport and there are a multitude of ways the players can get seriously hurt. The players know that going in, and are willing to take on the risks for the rewards. What exactly is the problem?
consider the optimum viewing distance of 2.5 screen heights
I keep seeing that pop up, and I don't know who came up with it, but they're wrong. If you have to turn your head to see the the action going on the corners, you're too close. If you don't have to turn your head, you're not too close. That point is closer than 2.5 screen heights.
if Jobs were still here, he'd stop at 2k and call it "retina television".
Doubtful, considering the iPad 2048x1536 is only 10" screen.
even the jump from SD to HD was marginal
Holy shit, and this is how you know that you have no idea what you're talking about. The difference of SD to HD was more significant by far than the change from black and white to color. It's huge! Do you have a 10" tv that you're watching from 7 ft away when making this comparison or something?
so no... the market didn't adapt in 2005, it didn't adapt in 2010, it hasn't adapted now and it will be a long time before anything other than big budget movies or events like the olympics will get the 4k treatment.
It probably will be a long time before anything gets the 4k treatment, but the market did adapt to HD, to the point that I haven't watched anything that is not HD in years.
Kepler figured out he had it all wrong after a career spent trying to prove bad theories (Platonic model of the universe? Really?) ... and arguably launched the age of the scientific enlightenment.
I'm anxious read Mr. Lynas' coming works.
I don't have mod points today, so I'm just going to add to your sentiment. I have a great amount of respect for anyone that can look at the evidence they were wrong about a particular belief, and admit to their mistake. And it only gets harder to do so the longer that belief has been held, and the greater the audience you're admitting that mistake to. This guy is to be commended for a true commitment to the truth, not to ideology.
Does it not surprise anyone else that one of their first thoughts was to drug test the milkshake?
I can not possibly imagine waking up groggy and at any point thinking 'Was I drugged?!?!?!'
If I randomly passed out and had problems waking up the next day, I'd be damn suspicious. If my wife randomly passed out at the same time and also had problems waking up the next day, I would know we were both drugged. The rest is just collecting the evidence.
What kind of consequences could the decisions of a child have?
It's not like they have responsibilities.
Well, the decision of this particular kid could have had the consequence of killing her parents.
They were knocked out and only drank 1/4th of the shake, because they thought it tasted bad. If they drank the whole thing, it's possible the dosage would have killed them.
(3) Playing WoW is not productive. If the child has that much free time available that they are willing to be awake so long, then the greatest percentage of it must be used in a productive pursuit -- either pursuing educational activities, such as reading books, and specifically nonfiction, OR pursuing a productive activity that improves skills/abilities, or earns money.
Money is earned in order to keep you alive to do the thing that you enjoy. It is not the reason you're alive.
Maximize how much you enjoy life. That requires being responsible enough to do well in your studies and to get and hold a job that will pay enough for your necessities and to pay for your hobbies. That said, you do that as little as is necessary. If you enjoy playing WoW more than anything, then you should maximize the time in your life spent playing WoW. If you enjoy your work more than anything, maximize the time you spend there. Personally I think that if you're doing any one thing too much you're missing out on a whole lot of other really fun stuff to do. However, the reason behind not spending all your time in WoW is because you're missing out on fun, not because you're missing out on being productive. Screw being productive, life is too short for that.
Personally I have no trouble with closed source software be it running on linux or not. I also think Steam is great and would never sell games on to someone else after I finished with it even if I could so I think it is great that Steam is coming to linux.
You wrote a well thought-out post that urges people not to dismiss different points of view as the writing of a troll, so I'm not going to harp too much on that one sentence, other than to say that, in my point of view, your logic is misguided. What you're saying is that since you wouldn't be one of the people who exercise the right to resell the games, it's alright if that right is taken from those who would.
It's perfectly fine for you to choose not to resell games, and I understand how you don't feel like you're losing anything by being a Steam customer, but I still believe that Steam should be opposed on philosophical grounds. I will grant that it provides better DRM than most, but it's still DRM, and it's still infringing on my rights. As such, I am not a customer, and I am not glad to see it show up in Linux.
So, the hand genes were just sitting around, waiting to be 'activated' by specific DNA?
I think that means that either Intelligent Design is real or we don't have really good terminology to describe what actually happened.
According to the article, the fish embryos continued to grow for 4 days, developing autopods, a precursor to hands. Then they died.
Hilariously enough, this article which is headlined "Scientists Make Fish Grow 'Hands'", contains a quote from one of the scientists involved, "Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands." Basically, this isn't intelligent design, it's exactly how evolution is described to work: You have existing code for fins, a slight modification of which appears to cause differentiation into autopods. This particular change is only one piece of the puzzle, so it wasn't a viable modification.
University is a first step to independence for a lot of people. Not everyone gets that right first time.
Right. People need to learn about the consequences of fucking up so they can get it right the next time.
Students are absolutely paying for their education but they're also paying for someone to give a damn enough to make sure they get the most out of it.
Yes, they are. But they're not paying for babysitters. This is what I mean by my willingness to help out if they put in the effort, whether they've been showing to class or not.
Do you honestly think things are better when people are left entirely to fend for themselves? Shame you're parents didn't kick you out into the woods the day you were born. You would probably have made more of yourself.
I think there's a pretty big difference between people who are not capable of taking care of themselves and people who choose to do things that I may perceive as unwise. When you become an adult you get the freedom to start making those decisions for yourself. The university, your employer, or whoever else has no right to try to run your life and make those decisions in your stead.
Uh, how is that important? She was told not to return to the store, so she used online ordering to try to get around it. She ordered 2 because she thought she could get 2, but the store was convinced she was trying to resell because of Incident 1 and don't have to sell her ANY.
In civilized countries, once you decide to open a store to anyone, you must open it to everyone, and you're not allowed to refuse service to an individual.
Couldn't hear the video but it looks like she was thrashing around even when held on the floor. Very easy for her to slam her head against the floor when struggling or to twist around in a way that puts her arm at risk of dislocating or breaking.
That's a natural reaction to being thrown on the floor, held there, and tazered.
When you get thrown on the floor, your first instinct is to move in order to ensure your hands hit the floor first. If your arms are being held while you're being thrown to the floor, you're going to try to get them free.
After you're on the floor, if people are holding you in such a way that it hurts, your natural reaction is going to be to try to get into a position where it hurts less.
Once you're tazered, you're going to thrash about as a result of suffering an electrical shock.
There's something wrong with a procedure where not being perfectly still is an excuse to tazer you again. It's going to take a while for your brain to catch up to your natural instincts and override them in order to remain still when you are being forcefully restrained. The more they tazer you, the longer this is going to take.
If you're so stupid as to not understand what you are doing is wrong when the cops get louder you shouldn't be allowed in public on your own.
I speak English perfectly well, and I don't get that point. In my experience cops get loud when they want to establish their authority, which has nothing to do with whether what I'm doing is wrong or not.
Even dogs get that point.
I expect humans to be a bit less subservient to blind authority than dogs.
Back in the 1800s, scientists discovered the three macronutrients: carbs, protein, and fat. They said to themselves "We now understand food. If people get enough of all these three, they will be healthy."
Of course, that didn't work. People still got things like scurvy.
Then scientists discovered Vitamins. And they said "We now understand food. If people get enough of all of these, they'll be healthy."
Of course, that doesn't seem to be really working either. Even processed and refined food is often loaded with vitamins (100% Vitamin C!) because it's marketable.
Now recently scientists started to pay attention to these things called Polyphenols. There's thousands of different ones, found in food (well, natural foods); they're what "antioxidants" can be classified as. Not all that much is known about them so far (It doesn't pay much to do research in non-patentable stuff, like natural food). But I suspect they will eventually they'll become as common in dietery speak as the macro and micro nutrients are.
In short, food, and foods effects on the body are a very complex thing, and only fools believe we know all there is to be know about it.
Eh. You paint a bleak picture when you claim, "of course, that didn't work."
People are healthier today than they used to be, on average (if you discount the obesity problem that is, which has nothing to do with not understanding food: It has to do with eating too much of it and not getting enough exercise).
Let me put it this way. Athletes keep breaking records year after year. You'd figure we'd have plateaued by now. There are several reasons why we haven't, and a big part of it is that we understand nutrition well enough to control their nutrition to maximize the benefits they get from training. And yes, there's the doping, but honestly, clean athletes are still out there breaking records.
For those of you who are about to freak out on the US Government's rules realize this: When you do work in certain areas you agree to not seek out information that is covered by a "Need to Know."
I wasn't about to freak out about the US Government's rules, but I was about to freak out over your complaint on the summary.
Those rules apply to those of you who have agreed to them as a condition to the work you do. It does not apply to the rest of the population. Considering I would imagine the majority of people frequenting slashdot do not share those restrictions, it makes no sense to sensor the site as you propose.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the government requiring that people working in certain sensitive areas do not seek out information they don't have the clearance to read. However, if you have agreed to such a restriction, it is your responsibility to double-check the links you follow. It is not the responsibility of the rest of the world to make this easy for you.
But they insisted on going to GNOME 3 and won't allow MATE in the repos - just the same arrogant "get used to it" attitude as Ubuntu.
Have you actually followed the MATE thread in Debian? The objections were of a technical nature, concerning dependencies on obsoleted packages and unnecessary forks, it wasn't a philosophical one.
The MATE developer in the forum agreed with the suggestions from the Debian guys and implied they intended to move in that direction. In the end, you're going to get better code. In the meantime, you can download the .deb packages from unofficial repositories. What's the problem?
Actually, my discontent with recent Ubuntu releases has driven me not to Debian, but to Mint.
Eh. I have a serious moral problems with mint, starting with their stance that search engines should "share the revenue Linux Mint users generate for them" with Mint, and stunts like editing code to make them amazon affiliates in banshee's music store instead of the original developers or the ubuntu packagers, ie, the people who actually did all the hard work.
Granted, this shopping lens bullshit from Ubuntu is making me having severe moral problems with them as well, but that's definitely a reason to switch back to Debian, not Mint.
They likely won't fail completely. They will get some small victory, at least. Next time, they will get a little more. And the time after that. This is too important to governments to ever give up.
Sometimes I fear that I'll be telling my grand kids about how I remember when the internet was free. Actually, my biggest fear is that they'll be so indoctrinated they'll compare it to the wild west, and tout how all the regulation of the mature internet made it a safer place. I fear they'll just file my complaints about lack of freedom under "old man rambling" category.
It's an abomination of the highest order designed by programmers who have no clue of what they're doing and violating the first rule of IT that should never be broken: Never let programmers design your applications.
Actually, the abominations that are Windows 8, Lion and Mountain Lion, Unity, and Gnome 3 are the result of people buying into your line.
So called UI experts suck, and it's far preferable to let a programmer design the UI. At least it will be practical, even if it's not pretty.
Let me guess: You have no spine nor balls, and totally caved under the social pressure, even though it was actually nonsensical meaningless drivel from a bunch of drunk dumbasses that no sane person would even listen to.
Caving to social pressure is FUN. Obviously, don't do anything that you know you will truly regret. If you're being socially pressured into Russian Roulette, leave. Those people are not your friends. That said, if you've never ended up doing something that you would never have done had your friends not pressured you into doing it...you're missing out on life. Some of my best memories are a result of friends getting me to do something I initially didn't want to. There's a reason peer pressure is so effective: there are evolutionary advantages to it. Your friends can get you to grow as a person by doing things you'd be afraid or uncomfortable to do on your own.
The trick, as with everything, is moderation. Like with drinking alcohol, period. Don't drink so much you get cirrhosis of the liver, or let it dominate your life affecting your job and family. Also, don't decide that drinking is immoral and turn into a puritan moron. Similarly, don't be one of those guys that can be pushed into doing anything and everything. Also, don't be one of those guys that never "cave under social pressure, even though it was actually nonsensical meaningless drivel from a bunch of drunk dumbasses that no sane person would ever listen to." Doing nonsensical, meaningless shit can be fun, don't miss out on it.
That means that some people even buy TVs that are too big for their room.
Eh. Actually most guides for TV size overstate the distance to the TV based on TV size.
Start watching TV in the center seat. If you can see anything outside the TV without turning your head, your TV is too small for the room. There is such a thing as too big for a room, but that's only if you have to turn your head in order to follow what's going on at the edges of the screen.
As for expenses... There is never enough money and there is always enough money. You learn to live within your means. If you had two kids, you'd learn to live within your means, too.
Except that living within my means without kids to take care of is a whole lot sweeter.
Especially when you consider all the extra time I have on my hands, and all the worries I don't have.
I mean, I don't see anything wrong with people having kids, but I don't really see how any household that earns less than $150k / year would even consider it. You can make it with a lot less, my parents certainly did. I see what the stress did to them, though.
There several alternate methods to solving this problem:
1- Logic + map (most towns have amenities)
2- Pre-planning (Proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance)
3- Talking to people
Yes. And although I can certainly spend two hours walking to work every morning, I'd rather drive.
Technology has made the points in your list unnecessary, so you tell me why I should shun it.
According to most of the folks posting in another thread about computer-driven cars, programming errors rarely make it out in to the world.
Is there was an issue, it must be user error. Programmers aren't supposed to make mistakes!
<snark/>
Nobody ever said that. What we do say is that known programming errors get fixed, known human issues do not.
While coming back from lunch today I saw somebody go through a stop sign at 40 mph and t-boning another car. Luckily everyone walked away (go modern cars and their crumple zones), and while I'm sure that particular driver will be more careful in the future, other human drivers are going to be making the same mistake forever.
A programming error causes something like this and the fix for it will be on an update for every single other car out there. It will never happen again. Other mistakes will happen, sure, but that one is fixed forever.
Huh? Google maps was full of errors and omissions when it came out. It improved over the years.
Well, it wasn't released back then, it was Beta :)