I disagree with you on the narcisissm bit - but I do agree that the "self esteem movement" - as a whole, has completely missed the mark, on how to deal with the problem. The problem is: In our culture, it's not okay to have "bad feelings". And so the previous generations would deny them, or generally come up with various psychotic coping mechanisms like blame shifting and such, to avoid them.
This generation, has an entire commercial apparatus of philosophy, religion, pharmaceuticals, entertainment, and what-have-you, designed to help people AVOID having bad feelings. As if that's the cure for poor self esteem. Yes, the problem for most of these neuroses is low self esteem. And the common cause is often people being trained that having feelings, and expressing them is bad, and wrong. So what did we end up with? pee-wee basketball leagues where they don't keep score, so the losers don't "feel bad". Tell you what. These kids feel bad. They KNOW they're getting their asses kicked. They're clumsy (perhaps), not stupid. What did they learn? That we gotta sweep all the bad stuff under the rug. These are the folks who grow up to hide liquor bottles under the sofa cushions. Not a whole lot different than when our parents told us "shut up! I'll give you something to cry about!".
What I don't get, is how this isn't completely obvious to everyone. I guess that must be how denial works, on a mass-scale.
I think it's really mostly just a matter of opinion, or point-of-view.
The most toxic attitude I see most people having, is this horrid irrational fear that they're a selfish person, or too self-centered or not good enough, not likeable enough, don't pay enough attention to other people's "moods" or "signals", don't fulfill our partner's "wants" and "needs" - - - and then they madly scramble around trying to make other people happy, because they believe that is the key to their own happiness. And every religion - on the SURFACE, preaches this crap too. And it's complete bullshit.
Do what they tell you in the pre-flight safety briefing. In case of sudden loss of cabin pressure, put your own damn oxygen mask on FIRST. THEN help the person next to you (if they need it). Because if you try to help the other person, and fail, then you both fucking DIE.
I mean, there's this email thing. If we don't check our email enough, we're terrified we're going to miss someone's important email, and offend someone, miss an important opportunity. TV? If we miss that one episode of Glee, then tomorrow at work, when everyone's talking about it, you're going to be standing there like a dork. Excluded. Ostracized. Like those nerds in glee club back in high school. Money? Hey, let's all talk about the car we bought last year. And of course - it LOOKS like selfishness, but it's not. It's people - in sheer terror of that inner-critic, telling them they're not a good-enough person. The disease is anti-selfishness. It's overcompensation for a perceived weakness, that for most people, just isn't there.
And our culture reinforces it, it's a closed feedback loop. Because it sells stuff. And keeps people employed. And keeps us prosperous. So we can maybe get that Lexus with the leather seats next year, instead of cloth. So our peers will like us. Because that's what the commercial implies.
Depression?
It has nothing to do with drugs, or bicycle helmets, or being selfish, or not trusting God, or not contemplating one's navel, or not thinking positively, or having parents who were narcissistic (except in the capacity that they're too damn ashamed to face their own imaginary demons to be authentic with their kids, and modeling that emotional authenticity for them). Is it neurotransmitters? Or is overactive neurotransmitter reuptake another symptom?
What's the solution?
There is no solution. We, as a culture, self-destruct. (hopefully). That's the path most of us are on, as individuals.
bicycle helmets didn't EXIST in the 1970's. I think maybe olympic cyclists wore them to help with aerodynamics on the track. It wasn't until the mid 1980's that they started to become mandatory. Seat belts? In the 1970's we stood up in the back seat and leaned over the back of the front seat so we could hassle mom or dad and see where we were going.
Or "Sir" Allen "Stanford" is trying to convince prosecutors that he didn't REALLY run a huge ponzi scheme, and it was all these evul ruzzkie haX0rz who broke into his system, stole his money, and set up his records to make him look like a fraud.
This guy is the accountant for the Texas Mafia.
You know.
The criminal organization that just got through pulling off the biggest crime in human history by planting a patsy in office as US President for the past 8 years, giving them access to the US Treasury, warrantless wiretapping, (ie. limitless blackmail material), and the largest and most powerful military on the planet.
The extent of their crimes will never really be known outside of circles of the most extremely paranoid (and thus most well-informed) conspiracy theorists. The reason they act like amateurs, is because it amuses them when they do so, and still get away with their crimes.
(You think Ken Lay really had a heart attack and died before he went to trial?)
Wow. Give a crooked politician access to this database, and the power to set the pricing model, and block the annoying voters from seeing how that's set, and you'd have. . . one very rich, crooked politician. I only mention this as a theoretical possibility, because nothing like this has ever happened in a free and open democracy like ours before.
I always figured one could probably blast high-frequency IR through several layers of skin, to solve the "wire/socket" problem. Skin is reasonably transparent to a fairly wide range of IR, and UV too (for the melanin-deficient among us).
Those with socioeconomic backgrounds that allowed them to be educated to that level (engineering degrees), also have the intellectual means to understand the "rhetoric of revolution". The logical arguments (right or wrong) of freedom, rights, oppression, etc.
A "typical" illiterate, though religiously-devout follower of (insert_toxic_fundamentalist_cult_here) can have a xenophobic mindset. I think that's probably a very natural, human element. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the different. But ignorant.
To embrace a complex philosophy that includes a 1000-year history of perceived oppression and mutual war of extermination, and a sophisticated conspiracy-theory involving some un-obvious interpretations of extra-scriptural prophecies, satan, the UN, imperialistic European "pagans" (Christians and what I've heard referred to as "Sephardic" Jews - Jews of European descent - whom they claim have no birthright to Palestine, and are therefore just European invaders under the pretense of a false claim to "divine-right") . . . I think you don't just take a starving orphan off the street and indoctrinate them to that.
All they've ever known is poverty and misery. They just don't have the perspective and breadth of experience to grasp an idea of a "global jihad" - or that "revolution" means something other than swapping oppressive dictators.
If someone's known at least a little bit of middle-class lifestyle, maybe studied at a university in a wealthier country, and then gets exposed to the massive suffering that they've allowed themselves to be blind to - and opens up to the empathy, it's a powerful driver to reinforce that rhetoric.
There was also the theory that bin Laden got the idea to specifically recruit from more educated middle-upper-class people, because he wants to use the decadent west's own products against them. As a sort of a political statement. A cocky move. But that would only apply to Al Qaeda terrorists.
I don't know if the competence argument washes, because although the Khobar Towers and 911 operations - technically, were spectacularly successful, (if you look at it purely from an analytical planning-and-execution standpoint) the "shoe-bomber" and the "jockstrap bomber" were both embarrassing failures. In fact - these spectacularly executed attacks used to be the hallmark and reputation of Al Qaeda. If nothing else, their "brand" has obviously been diluted by very low-quality product now. Likely, they've lost some irreplaceable expertise. I'd posit, also, that their operational secrecy forbids any kind of process improvement. So all the obvious arguments for recruiting "engineers" don't seem to have borne fruit.
Well? Maybe as "accidental" as evolution. Maybe as accidental as the evolution of the human brain's ability to create technology.
I'm not really sure I see a distinction when you boil it all down.
Did the Nav'i apologize to their food before killing it? Sure. Did the "sky people" apologize to their food (the Nav'i) before killing them? No.
I see this movie really not about whether technology is good or bad, or whether having a "primitive" culture is inferior or superior. From my perspective, I'd rather have our advanced medical technology, and a taboo against things like cannibalism. The vote's still out, I guess, on whether I'm happy with the capacity for waging nuclear war. Because in Nav'i terms, if I were one of those, Eowa screwed up, and created a defective Nav'i. I would have absolutely not survived childhood "in the wild". "Magic biological technology" or no. Better off that I get to upload my essence to the global nirvanna-net? That's really such an abstract concept, it's not worth discussing.
What this movie was actually about was mutual respect among intelligent beings. Jake's brother was killed over "pieces of paper in his pocket". Jake was crippled - and could have been "repaired", had he been a wealthy person. There was no mutual respect among the "sky people". There was no connection between any two of them.
The culture of the Nav'i had that mutual respect for each other. The story indicates they had the respect for the "sky people" at first. Until they learned the alien concept of disrespect - from the "sky people".
Global brain-networks, flying mountains, and a jungle full of vicious creatures that will eat you, or follow your telepathic commands (scratching my brain trying to figure out how any of that symbiosis would work. . . ) - are just plot devices, intended to deliver a story. The science is pretty slim here, even though they tried to explain it to the audience, in block letters, with crayon.
The story is really not much different than any other story James Cameron has told in his career. His disappointment in his fellow man's failure to live up to an ideal, of mutual respect. In reality - if you look at most of the "native" cultures that have been wiped out by white-man's imperialism and colonialism; (and don't fool yourselves. . . non-whites were hot on our trails, remember who reached the new world, and slaughtered the indigenous tribes of central and south America before the northern europeans got there - that's right, the Spanish) - these tribes may have had a culture that included an ideal of balance and harmony with nature. Most of them were also brutally patriarchal. Most of them practiced every old sort of violent warfare against their neighbor tribes. Some tribes, on their own, with no help from "whitey" - wreaked all kinds of havok on their environment, (including records of aborigines setting huge brushfires to flush-out game in massive hunts). After all - native people are still. . . people. We all do what we do. To survive. We like to think of ourselves as "noble savages". But we are, actually just savages. How else do you think we made it to the top of the food chain. And there we'll stay. Until either we deplete the resources we need to survive, or until something bigger and badder comes along and knocks us off the top of the hill.
The Democrats aren't interested in meeting in the middle.
I don't know what you've been smoking, but if you look at the original healthcare bill proposal, and the completely gutted one we have now, TO APPEASE A RIGHTWING MINORITY who LOST in 2008 because they had complete control for the last 8 years, illegally shut-down input from the minority party by breaking procedural rules, and drove this country off a cliff in the form of a major economic collapse, two wars, the worst domestic security failure in US History (9/11), complete erosion of privacy rights from a massive NSA domestic spying program, and a de-evolution to using NAZI-era "enhanced interrogation techniques" on detainees who have not even been formally charged with crimes, massive budget deficits driven primarily by tax-cuts for SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS, and a long string of massive fraud cases in the banking/investment sector, (not to mention the COMPLETE waste of time that was the Constellation Program - all to SAVE GOVERNMENT JOBS IN A REPUBLICAN'S STATE, rather than looking for a technically appropriate solution to the problem); and you say that the Democrats are unwilling to compromise?
You sir (and I use the term in its loosest possible sense), are living in your own little version of FauxNews-branded reality.
So, what, I need to pose a question to a micro-community that doesn't exist and wait around for approval from some mod? To make a one-line addition to an article about the Battle off Samar or whatever? Or face a scolding from some supercilious asshole who has been given mod powers by some other asshole? Yeah, I don't make edits anymore.
Yeah, sounds like that hurt your feelings a lot, and I can see how that would.
But when you think about the volume of edits and submissions these supercilious assholes have to manage, WITHOUT actually being Subject Matter Experts themselves, you can't begrudge them a few mindless process rules to keep things clean and fair, can you? Or would you prefer that these volunteers put on kid-gloves for all the fragile egos out there?
Sheesh. Really, it's a shame that you deprive the world of your expertise on these subjects because your feelings are hurt. But I guess that's how things go.
well - I guess it's likely that Malthus was wrong, and geometric population growth will hit limiting factors, and there will be some sort of depopulation event (or events). In all likelihood, given that human beings are VERY hearty creatures, we'll persist in some form, in greatly diminished numbers. The fact that we have not been able to self-regulate, does not mean that Nature won't do for us what Nature has done for every other population in the history of Life on this planet.
Reminds me of my Freshman biology experiment with yeast in a test tube. We grew yeast, we sampled populations over time. They grew at an exponential rate until they drowned in their own waste products (alcohol). Afterwards, you could still find the odd living cell here and there, if you looked really hard. Mostly isolated inside chunks of nutrient, out of contact with the alcohol. Easily 99.99% done up and died. Tragic. We were all crying and writing sympathy cards.
What would be great is; when Earth is depopulated, the remaining humans are the ones who do not retain the genetic trait of the tendency to believe in a mythology of divine commandments to reproduce, consume, and produce waste infinitely in a closed, finite system. (I don't think that all "divine mythology" is necessarily bad. Just the stuff that causes us to self-destruct like this).
Hell; I think that the insider-trading financial bandits who located their corporate office on the top floor of the WTC after 1993 pretty much had to know what they had coming. They were too egotistical to relocate to a more sensible location like a 2-story office in Cincinnati (and I'll bet you probably 1/100th the rent!).
I used to use Photoshop all the time. Stopped around teh 7.0 time-frame.
I'd been using GIMP for the past two years, mostly for really minor things; buttons and web graphics.
I went to a friends computer to use Photoshop C3 and I was completely baffled. For example, I couldn't figure out how do either emboss text, or create a drop shadow after two hours of tinkering. Photoshop USED to be more intutitive - but IMO, it no longer is. GIMP's got its warts, that's for sure. But if you take the time to get used to them, it's more than adequate for simple tasks.
(reason I had to use Photoshop CS3, is that's what he had installed, it was a Mac, and his XWindows were broken, so we had no way to quickly get GIMP up and running).
I can readily tell the difference between FLAC and MP3.
You double-click on a FLAC file, and your audio player goes; "what the fuck kind of file is this? Go play around on google and let me know when you find the right codec for THIS player, on THIS version of THIS OS, on THIS kind of CPU chip; then I'll tell you if I'm in the mood to let you drop it in my plugins folder. Then - if you're really lucky, I'll still recognize that codec and play your file the next time I download an update."
There is a reason for the success and ubiquity of the MP3 format - and it has little to do with the fidelity of audio reproduction. This magic usually happens between the time the file-extension is parsed, and the file is actually opened.
I tend to work in an environment where sometimes, we have to toss in a quick-n-dirty hack. I often feel compelled to record, for posterity, a lengthy explanation of why I did what I did - the way I did it. If for no other reason, than so the next coder who has to come in and "fix" what I wrote doesn't go - "WTF?". Sometimes, that next coder is me, maybe a year, and two or three projects later, having completely forgotten what I was thinking. My excessively verbose comments have saved my bacon many times over the years.
Yeah, I understand how "real" programmers and "professional" software engineers work in the world of "grown ups". Sometimes I wish I could work like that. Sometimes I'm glad I don't.
If this is the case - then why are university tuition costs skyrocketing at multiples of inflation for the past several decades? Where the fuck, exactly is all this money going? Football scholarships?
Actually, I kind of like to Disable this plugin, instead of uninstalling it.
If you uninstall it; Microsoft will just re-install it with a later "update". If you disable it, Microsoft can update it - it remains DISABLED, where it belongs.
On a higher level this kills entrepreneurial opportunities at the time in life you have the most desire, creativity and energy to launch a new business. Many of you are stuck in low-paying, dead end jobs because of student loans...one of the reasons some companies like to hire right out of college
Those companies happen to have a lot of influence on this policy, as it turns out. This situation is highly profitable for them. They can pay comparative peanuts to college grads, and get pretty much the same benefit, without having to COMPETE with those kids' new businesses for consumer dollars.
This is still one more way in which the competitive bar is raised impossibly high in this country, and the playing field is tilted sharply towards the already-established BIG ("too big to fail") players. It is also the reason for the ever-increasing income inequality in this country.
First off - I'm a government contractor - and hell no, none of us believe that the government is an unending source of money. I've worked in the private sector too; (spent my first 15 years there) - and I'd say they're similar in this regard; once a company gets its foot in the door, they've basically got it made. In the private sector, the key to this kind of "infinite teat" is OEM and reseller contracts. In the public sector though, large contractors do really have to jump through a LOT of hoops to gain that kind of reliable revenue stream.
Especially ask folks who work for Boeing or Lockheed. This industry has a very high rate of employee relocation. Workers may, in very rare cases, stay in one location for 5-10 years. Then that contract runs out, and they're either laid off or flushed to another location, where there's work. These companies bend over backwards to win those contracts, under intense scrutiny - meeting stringent requirements by both their customer, and public watchdogs. It's not uncommon for these companies to spend millions in proposals, and IR&D, just to win such contracts. (in some cases, like jet fighters, for example, it's tens of millions).
Second: when I was in the public sector, my employer bought another software company, who was selling a product for $199, and doing terribly. We did some minor rebranding on that product, some VERY minor integration with other products we produced (more token changes than actual integration; clever customers could have easily done it) - and we changed the price to $1999, on the EXACT SAME (internal) justification, that customers would perceive that a $1999 product would be a "serious enterprise solution" rather than a SB/HB product. And sales of this product tripled in the space of one quarter. Raising price to increase "perceived value" is an incredibly cynical tactic - one that goes against the basic tenets of Free Market Capitalism. Unfortunately, it works VERY well, in reality. This happens when the consumer is just plain fucking stupid, and won't do basic research on their product - or when the consumer values certain facets of a product besides cost-performance-ratio. This is absolutely the case with schools whose main appeal is a good football team. Of course, you go out into the job market, and in a lot of cases, even if you're a complete knob, if you can B.S. your interviewer with memories of their partying college years, rooting for your football team, chances are pretty good you'll get the job. So I suppose, in a business world where B.S. is more valued than actual job skills or knowledge, an arbitrarily high price-tag (exclusivity), and a good football team are probably better indicators of value for your tuition dollar than a good academic program. Sad to say so - but it's largely true. At least in the US.
If Freud were alive today, he'd have a field-day comparing launch vehicles (size, reliability, national ego, etc.) to penises. I reckon especially with the new flesh-colored Ares upper-stage.
oh- the Democrats did that (voted for PATRIOT) out of sheer calculating political cowardice.
The NAZI era Germans called it the "zeitgeist" - the mind of the times, everyone was caught up in the frenzy, Germany was so fucked up (economically) after WWI, and the people wanted so badly to believe it was everyone's fault but their own. (dudes, you lost a war. . . that you started). Mass-denial, and failure to take responsibility for their actions (and consequences for WWI were huge, because it was a huge fucking clusterfuck of a war) - and desire to blame it on everyone else: the Jews, the Commies, the French - is what put Hitler into power.
9/11 had the same exact effect on the US. (and I'm not buying into the terrorist notion that 9/11 was "the result of our mideast policies" - that's also childish blame-shifting. . . I'm just saying you don't blame and punish an entire culture for something that a few hundred whackjobs cooked up on their own). I think that the chickens of US imperialism and arrogance are coming home to roost, and the years following 9/11, Iraq, and all that crap, were part of it. Will the US suffer the devastation that Germany suffered after WWII? Look at photos of downtown Berlin after the Soviets got through with it. God, I hope not.
Those who do not learn the lessons of History, are doomed to repeat it. And even those who DO learn the lessons of History, are doomed to sit by and watch others repeat it.
So - to vote against USA PATRIOT would have been political suicide for the Dems. On the other hand, Obama's act of courage (voting against the Iraq war) is probably a big part of what got him elected. Some demographic of Americans still DO actually prefer political courage.
That's not saying I would not have wanted my representatives to grow a fucking spine, and stand up for my rights. . . and what is objectively Right. That would have been nice, but I think it's expecting too much of people who, as a profession (career politicians), are generally deeply flawed individuals, in a system that generally rewards mediocrity, cowardice, and corruption.
But this is what I mean when I say there is no FUNCTIONAL difference between Republicans and Democrats. Folks point out the obvious differences, and tell me, hey dude, that's not cool. Then I watch as a guy like Obama goes from "Yes we can!" to signing off on renewing the Patriot Act provisions, in the space of a couple of months. Dude; that's not cool.
And no - there's no third-party in particular that I think would be any better. I think it's the system that's hopelessly broken, and incapable of steering us back onto the right track.
I'm just stocking up on ammunition and canned food, and waiting for the inevitable, like everyone else.
Exactly: and to expand on what you said . . . the reason Newspapers are experiencing a decline in recent years is not necessarily because of the "internet", lack of micropayments, etc.
it's due to competition from online journalists, and the new power consumers have to easily find better sources of news. Before, you'd go out on the street, find the paper boy, and buy one, out of a choice of two, maybe (gasp!) three different papers. Now, everyone's got the choice from thousands of different sources online. The quality of the content may or may not actually be better. But readers can target content they're looking for. If it's a model of supply and demand, demand just got much more efficient with the internet. Of course; put up paywalls, and you're going to end up hurting yourself more than helping. The providers who don't use them, will continue to win. Paywalls are a failed experiment. So sad these people just don't learn from such recent and catastrophic failure.
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I disagree with you on the narcisissm bit - but I do agree that the "self esteem movement" - as a whole, has completely missed the mark, on how to deal with the problem. The problem is: In our culture, it's not okay to have "bad feelings". And so the previous generations would deny them, or generally come up with various psychotic coping mechanisms like blame shifting and such, to avoid them.
This generation, has an entire commercial apparatus of philosophy, religion, pharmaceuticals, entertainment, and what-have-you, designed to help people AVOID having bad feelings. As if that's the cure for poor self esteem. Yes, the problem for most of these neuroses is low self esteem. And the common cause is often people being trained that having feelings, and expressing them is bad, and wrong. So what did we end up with? pee-wee basketball leagues where they don't keep score, so the losers don't "feel bad". Tell you what. These kids feel bad. They KNOW they're getting their asses kicked. They're clumsy (perhaps), not stupid. What did they learn? That we gotta sweep all the bad stuff under the rug. These are the folks who grow up to hide liquor bottles under the sofa cushions. Not a whole lot different than when our parents told us "shut up! I'll give you something to cry about!".
What I don't get, is how this isn't completely obvious to everyone.
I guess that must be how denial works, on a mass-scale.
I think it's really mostly just a matter of opinion, or point-of-view.
The most toxic attitude I see most people having, is this horrid irrational fear that they're a selfish person, or too self-centered or not good enough, not likeable enough, don't pay enough attention to other people's "moods" or "signals", don't fulfill our partner's "wants" and "needs" - - - and then they madly scramble around trying to make other people happy, because they believe that is the key to their own happiness. And every religion - on the SURFACE, preaches this crap too. And it's complete bullshit.
Do what they tell you in the pre-flight safety briefing. In case of sudden loss of cabin pressure, put your own damn oxygen mask on FIRST. THEN help the person next to you (if they need it). Because if you try to help the other person, and fail, then you both fucking DIE.
I mean, there's this email thing. If we don't check our email enough, we're terrified we're going to miss someone's important email, and offend someone, miss an important opportunity. TV? If we miss that one episode of Glee, then tomorrow at work, when everyone's talking about it, you're going to be standing there like a dork. Excluded. Ostracized. Like those nerds in glee club back in high school. Money? Hey, let's all talk about the car we bought last year. And of course - it LOOKS like selfishness, but it's not. It's people - in sheer terror of that inner-critic, telling them they're not a good-enough person. The disease is anti-selfishness. It's overcompensation for a perceived weakness, that for most people, just isn't there.
And our culture reinforces it, it's a closed feedback loop. Because it sells stuff. And keeps people employed. And keeps us prosperous. So we can maybe get that Lexus with the leather seats next year, instead of cloth. So our peers will like us. Because that's what the commercial implies.
Depression?
It has nothing to do with drugs, or bicycle helmets, or being selfish, or not trusting God, or not contemplating one's navel, or not thinking positively, or having parents who were narcissistic (except in the capacity that they're too damn ashamed to face their own imaginary demons to be authentic with their kids, and modeling that emotional authenticity for them). Is it neurotransmitters? Or is overactive neurotransmitter reuptake another symptom?
What's the solution?
There is no solution. We, as a culture, self-destruct. (hopefully). That's the path most of us are on, as individuals.
bicycle helmets didn't EXIST in the 1970's. I think maybe olympic cyclists wore them to help with aerodynamics on the track. It wasn't until the mid 1980's that they started to become mandatory. Seat belts? In the 1970's we stood up in the back seat and leaned over the back of the front seat so we could hassle mom or dad and see where we were going.
It is a very different world today.
Or "Sir" Allen "Stanford" is trying to convince prosecutors that he didn't REALLY run a huge ponzi scheme, and it was all these evul ruzzkie haX0rz who broke into his system, stole his money, and set up his records to make him look like a fraud.
This guy is the accountant for the Texas Mafia.
You know.
The criminal organization that just got through pulling off the biggest crime in human history by planting a patsy in office as US President for the past 8 years, giving them access to the US Treasury, warrantless wiretapping, (ie. limitless blackmail material), and the largest and most powerful military on the planet.
The extent of their crimes will never really be known outside of circles of the most extremely paranoid (and thus most well-informed) conspiracy theorists. The reason they act like amateurs, is because it amuses them when they do so, and still get away with their crimes.
(You think Ken Lay really had a heart attack and died before he went to trial?)
Wow. Give a crooked politician access to this database, and the power to set the pricing model, and block the annoying voters from seeing how that's set, and you'd have. . . one very rich, crooked politician. I only mention this as a theoretical possibility, because nothing like this has ever happened in a free and open democracy like ours before.
I always figured one could probably blast high-frequency IR through several layers of skin, to solve the "wire/socket" problem. Skin is reasonably transparent to a fairly wide range of IR, and UV too (for the melanin-deficient among us).
Those with socioeconomic backgrounds that allowed them to be educated to that level (engineering degrees), also have the intellectual means to understand the "rhetoric of revolution". The logical arguments (right or wrong) of freedom, rights, oppression, etc.
A "typical" illiterate, though religiously-devout follower of (insert_toxic_fundamentalist_cult_here) can have a xenophobic mindset. I think that's probably a very natural, human element. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the different. But ignorant.
To embrace a complex philosophy that includes a 1000-year history of perceived oppression and mutual war of extermination, and a sophisticated conspiracy-theory involving some un-obvious interpretations of extra-scriptural prophecies, satan, the UN, imperialistic European "pagans" (Christians and what I've heard referred to as "Sephardic" Jews - Jews of European descent - whom they claim have no birthright to Palestine, and are therefore just European invaders under the pretense of a false claim to "divine-right") . . . I think you don't just take a starving orphan off the street and indoctrinate them to that.
All they've ever known is poverty and misery. They just don't have the perspective and breadth of experience to grasp an idea of a "global jihad" - or that "revolution" means something other than swapping oppressive dictators.
If someone's known at least a little bit of middle-class lifestyle, maybe studied at a university in a wealthier country, and then gets exposed to the massive suffering that they've allowed themselves to be blind to - and opens up to the empathy, it's a powerful driver to reinforce that rhetoric.
There was also the theory that bin Laden got the idea to specifically recruit from more educated middle-upper-class people, because he wants to use the decadent west's own products against them. As a sort of a political statement. A cocky move. But that would only apply to Al Qaeda terrorists.
I don't know if the competence argument washes, because although the Khobar Towers and 911 operations - technically, were spectacularly successful, (if you look at it purely from an analytical planning-and-execution standpoint) the "shoe-bomber" and the "jockstrap bomber" were both embarrassing failures. In fact - these spectacularly executed attacks used to be the hallmark and reputation of Al Qaeda. If nothing else, their "brand" has obviously been diluted by very low-quality product now. Likely, they've lost some irreplaceable expertise. I'd posit, also, that their operational secrecy forbids any kind of process improvement. So all the obvious arguments for recruiting "engineers" don't seem to have borne fruit.
'nuff said. eh?
If I wanted realism, I'd sign up for the corps and go get my ass shot off in over in the sandbox. Cool, huh?
Well? Maybe as "accidental" as evolution.
Maybe as accidental as the evolution of the human brain's ability to create technology.
I'm not really sure I see a distinction when you boil it all down.
Did the Nav'i apologize to their food before killing it? Sure. Did the "sky people" apologize to their food (the Nav'i) before killing them? No.
I see this movie really not about whether technology is good or bad, or whether having a "primitive" culture is inferior or superior. From my perspective, I'd rather have our advanced medical technology, and a taboo against things like cannibalism. The vote's still out, I guess, on whether I'm happy with the capacity for waging nuclear war. Because in Nav'i terms, if I were one of those, Eowa screwed up, and created a defective Nav'i. I would have absolutely not survived childhood "in the wild". "Magic biological technology" or no. Better off that I get to upload my essence to the global nirvanna-net? That's really such an abstract concept, it's not worth discussing.
What this movie was actually about was mutual respect among intelligent beings. Jake's brother was killed over "pieces of paper in his pocket". Jake was crippled - and could have been "repaired", had he been a wealthy person. There was no mutual respect among the "sky people". There was no connection between any two of them.
The culture of the Nav'i had that mutual respect for each other. The story indicates they had the respect for the "sky people" at first. Until they learned the alien concept of disrespect - from the "sky people".
Global brain-networks, flying mountains, and a jungle full of vicious creatures that will eat you, or follow your telepathic commands (scratching my brain trying to figure out how any of that symbiosis would work. . . ) - are just plot devices, intended to deliver a story. The science is pretty slim here, even though they tried to explain it to the audience, in block letters, with crayon.
The story is really not much different than any other story James Cameron has told in his career. His disappointment in his fellow man's failure to live up to an ideal, of mutual respect. In reality - if you look at most of the "native" cultures that have been wiped out by white-man's imperialism and colonialism; (and don't fool yourselves. . . non-whites were hot on our trails, remember who reached the new world, and slaughtered the indigenous tribes of central and south America before the northern europeans got there - that's right, the Spanish) - these tribes may have had a culture that included an ideal of balance and harmony with nature. Most of them were also brutally patriarchal. Most of them practiced every old sort of violent warfare against their neighbor tribes. Some tribes, on their own, with no help from "whitey" - wreaked all kinds of havok on their environment, (including records of aborigines setting huge brushfires to flush-out game in massive hunts). After all - native people are still. . . people. We all do what we do. To survive. We like to think of ourselves as "noble savages". But we are, actually just savages. How else do you think we made it to the top of the food chain. And there we'll stay. Until either we deplete the resources we need to survive, or until something bigger and badder comes along and knocks us off the top of the hill.
The Democrats aren't interested in meeting in the middle.
I don't know what you've been smoking, but if you look at the original healthcare bill proposal, and the completely gutted one we have now, TO APPEASE A RIGHTWING MINORITY who LOST in 2008 because they had complete control for the last 8 years, illegally shut-down input from the minority party by breaking procedural rules, and drove this country off a cliff in the form of a major economic collapse, two wars, the worst domestic security failure in US History (9/11), complete erosion of privacy rights from a massive NSA domestic spying program, and a de-evolution to using NAZI-era "enhanced interrogation techniques" on detainees who have not even been formally charged with crimes, massive budget deficits driven primarily by tax-cuts for SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS, and a long string of massive fraud cases in the banking/investment sector, (not to mention the COMPLETE waste of time that was the Constellation Program - all to SAVE GOVERNMENT JOBS IN A REPUBLICAN'S STATE, rather than looking for a technically appropriate solution to the problem); and you say that the Democrats are unwilling to compromise?
You sir (and I use the term in its loosest possible sense), are living in your own little version of FauxNews-branded reality.
So, what, I need to pose a question to a micro-community that doesn't exist and wait around for approval from some mod? To make a one-line addition to an article about the Battle off Samar or whatever? Or face a scolding from some supercilious asshole who has been given mod powers by some other asshole? Yeah, I don't make edits anymore.
Yeah, sounds like that hurt your feelings a lot, and I can see how that would.
But when you think about the volume of edits and submissions these supercilious assholes have to manage, WITHOUT actually being Subject Matter Experts themselves, you can't begrudge them a few mindless process rules to keep things clean and fair, can you? Or would you prefer that these volunteers put on kid-gloves for all the fragile egos out there?
Sheesh. Really, it's a shame that you deprive the world of your expertise on these subjects because your feelings are hurt. But I guess that's how things go.
well - I guess it's likely that Malthus was wrong, and geometric population growth will hit limiting factors, and there will be some sort of depopulation event (or events). In all likelihood, given that human beings are VERY hearty creatures, we'll persist in some form, in greatly diminished numbers. The fact that we have not been able to self-regulate, does not mean that Nature won't do for us what Nature has done for every other population in the history of Life on this planet.
Reminds me of my Freshman biology experiment with yeast in a test tube. We grew yeast, we sampled populations over time. They grew at an exponential rate until they drowned in their own waste products (alcohol). Afterwards, you could still find the odd living cell here and there, if you looked really hard. Mostly isolated inside chunks of nutrient, out of contact with the alcohol. Easily 99.99% done up and died. Tragic. We were all crying and writing sympathy cards.
What would be great is; when Earth is depopulated, the remaining humans are the ones who do not retain the genetic trait of the tendency to believe in a mythology of divine commandments to reproduce, consume, and produce waste infinitely in a closed, finite system. (I don't think that all "divine mythology" is necessarily bad. Just the stuff that causes us to self-destruct like this).
Hell; I think that the insider-trading financial bandits who located their corporate office on the top floor of the WTC after 1993 pretty much had to know what they had coming. They were too egotistical to relocate to a more sensible location like a 2-story office in Cincinnati (and I'll bet you probably 1/100th the rent!).
I used to use Photoshop all the time. Stopped around teh 7.0 time-frame.
I'd been using GIMP for the past two years, mostly for really minor things; buttons and web graphics.
I went to a friends computer to use Photoshop C3 and I was completely baffled. For example, I couldn't figure out how do either emboss text, or create a drop shadow after two hours of tinkering. Photoshop USED to be more intutitive - but IMO, it no longer is. GIMP's got its warts, that's for sure. But if you take the time to get used to them, it's more than adequate for simple tasks.
(reason I had to use Photoshop CS3, is that's what he had installed, it was a Mac, and his XWindows were broken, so we had no way to quickly get GIMP up and running).
I can readily tell the difference between FLAC and MP3.
You double-click on a FLAC file, and your audio player goes; "what the fuck kind of file is this? Go play around on google and let me know when you find the right codec for THIS player, on THIS version of THIS OS, on THIS kind of CPU chip; then I'll tell you if I'm in the mood to let you drop it in my plugins folder. Then - if you're really lucky, I'll still recognize that codec and play your file the next time I download an update."
There is a reason for the success and ubiquity of the MP3 format - and it has little to do with the fidelity of audio reproduction. This magic usually happens between the time the file-extension is parsed, and the file is actually opened.
I tend to work in an environment where sometimes, we have to toss in a quick-n-dirty hack. I often feel compelled to record, for posterity, a lengthy explanation of why I did what I did - the way I did it. If for no other reason, than so the next coder who has to come in and "fix" what I wrote doesn't go - "WTF?". Sometimes, that next coder is me, maybe a year, and two or three projects later, having completely forgotten what I was thinking. My excessively verbose comments have saved my bacon many times over the years.
Yeah, I understand how "real" programmers and "professional" software engineers work in the world of "grown ups". Sometimes I wish I could work like that. Sometimes I'm glad I don't.
If this is the case - then why are university tuition costs skyrocketing at multiples of inflation for the past several decades? Where the fuck, exactly is all this money going? Football scholarships?
yell?
Actually, I kind of like to Disable this plugin, instead of uninstalling it.
If you uninstall it; Microsoft will just re-install it with a later "update".
If you disable it, Microsoft can update it - it remains DISABLED, where it belongs.
On a higher level this kills entrepreneurial opportunities at the time in life you have the most desire, creativity and energy to launch a new business. Many of you are stuck in low-paying, dead end jobs because of student loans...one of the reasons some companies like to hire right out of college
Those companies happen to have a lot of influence on this policy, as it turns out. This situation is highly profitable for them. They can pay comparative peanuts to college grads, and get pretty much the same benefit, without having to COMPETE with those kids' new businesses for consumer dollars.
This is still one more way in which the competitive bar is raised impossibly high in this country, and the playing field is tilted sharply towards the already-established BIG ("too big to fail") players. It is also the reason for the ever-increasing income inequality in this country.
First off - I'm a government contractor - and hell no, none of us believe that the government is an unending source of money. I've worked in the private sector too; (spent my first 15 years there) - and I'd say they're similar in this regard; once a company gets its foot in the door, they've basically got it made. In the private sector, the key to this kind of "infinite teat" is OEM and reseller contracts. In the public sector though, large contractors do really have to jump through a LOT of hoops to gain that kind of reliable revenue stream.
Especially ask folks who work for Boeing or Lockheed. This industry has a very high rate of employee relocation. Workers may, in very rare cases, stay in one location for 5-10 years. Then that contract runs out, and they're either laid off or flushed to another location, where there's work. These companies bend over backwards to win those contracts, under intense scrutiny - meeting stringent requirements by both their customer, and public watchdogs. It's not uncommon for these companies to spend millions in proposals, and IR&D, just to win such contracts. (in some cases, like jet fighters, for example, it's tens of millions).
Second: when I was in the public sector, my employer bought another software company, who was selling a product for $199, and doing terribly. We did some minor rebranding on that product, some VERY minor integration with other products we produced (more token changes than actual integration; clever customers could have easily done it) - and we changed the price to $1999, on the EXACT SAME (internal) justification, that customers would perceive that a $1999 product would be a "serious enterprise solution" rather than a SB/HB product. And sales of this product tripled in the space of one quarter. Raising price to increase "perceived value" is an incredibly cynical tactic - one that goes against the basic tenets of Free Market Capitalism. Unfortunately, it works VERY well, in reality. This happens when the consumer is just plain fucking stupid, and won't do basic research on their product - or when the consumer values certain facets of a product besides cost-performance-ratio. This is absolutely the case with schools whose main appeal is a good football team. Of course, you go out into the job market, and in a lot of cases, even if you're a complete knob, if you can B.S. your interviewer with memories of their partying college years, rooting for your football team, chances are pretty good you'll get the job. So I suppose, in a business world where B.S. is more valued than actual job skills or knowledge, an arbitrarily high price-tag (exclusivity), and a good football team are probably better indicators of value for your tuition dollar than a good academic program. Sad to say so - but it's largely true. At least in the US.
I dunno.
If Freud were alive today, he'd have a field-day comparing launch vehicles (size, reliability, national ego, etc.) to penises. I reckon especially with the new flesh-colored Ares upper-stage.
I know I do.
oh- the Democrats did that (voted for PATRIOT) out of sheer calculating political cowardice.
The NAZI era Germans called it the "zeitgeist" - the mind of the times, everyone was caught up in the frenzy, Germany was so fucked up (economically) after WWI, and the people wanted so badly to believe it was everyone's fault but their own. (dudes, you lost a war. . . that you started). Mass-denial, and failure to take responsibility for their actions (and consequences for WWI were huge, because it was a huge fucking clusterfuck of a war) - and desire to blame it on everyone else: the Jews, the Commies, the French - is what put Hitler into power.
9/11 had the same exact effect on the US. (and I'm not buying into the terrorist notion that 9/11 was "the result of our mideast policies" - that's also childish blame-shifting. . . I'm just saying you don't blame and punish an entire culture for something that a few hundred whackjobs cooked up on their own). I think that the chickens of US imperialism and arrogance are coming home to roost, and the years following 9/11, Iraq, and all that crap, were part of it. Will the US suffer the devastation that Germany suffered after WWII? Look at photos of downtown Berlin after the Soviets got through with it. God, I hope not.
Those who do not learn the lessons of History, are doomed to repeat it. And even those who DO learn the lessons of History, are doomed to sit by and watch others repeat it.
So - to vote against USA PATRIOT would have been political suicide for the Dems. On the other hand, Obama's act of courage (voting against the Iraq war) is probably a big part of what got him elected. Some demographic of Americans still DO actually prefer political courage.
That's not saying I would not have wanted my representatives to grow a fucking spine, and stand up for my rights. . . and what is objectively Right. That would have been nice, but I think it's expecting too much of people who, as a profession (career politicians), are generally deeply flawed individuals, in a system that generally rewards mediocrity, cowardice, and corruption.
But this is what I mean when I say there is no FUNCTIONAL difference between Republicans and Democrats. Folks point out the obvious differences, and tell me, hey dude, that's not cool. Then I watch as a guy like Obama goes from "Yes we can!" to signing off on renewing the Patriot Act provisions, in the space of a couple of months. Dude; that's not cool.
And no - there's no third-party in particular that I think would be any better. I think it's the system that's hopelessly broken, and incapable of steering us back onto the right track.
I'm just stocking up on ammunition and canned food, and waiting for the inevitable, like everyone else.
Exactly: and to expand on what you said . . . the reason Newspapers are experiencing a decline in recent years is not necessarily because of the "internet", lack of micropayments, etc.
it's due to competition from online journalists, and the new power consumers have to easily find better sources of news. Before, you'd go out on the street, find the paper boy, and buy one, out of a choice of two, maybe (gasp!) three different papers. Now, everyone's got the choice from thousands of different sources online. The quality of the content may or may not actually be better. But readers can target content they're looking for. If it's a model of supply and demand, demand just got much more efficient with the internet. Of course; put up paywalls, and you're going to end up hurting yourself more than helping. The providers who don't use them, will continue to win. Paywalls are a failed experiment. So sad these people just don't learn from such recent and catastrophic failure.
what do you mean . . . "go mad"?
Can you elaborate on this?
Why would madness necessarily follow from acceptance of a truth?
Madness usually has more to do with denial of a truth.