I can't speak for anyone else, of course... but I've found that every time I've become engrossed in something like that to the exclusion of all else, it was escapism. I was trying to avoid fixing something broken in my life.
Likewise, and well put.
This gets to be a particular problem for me sometimes because of two additional factors - I have a daughter who is not allowed to watch me play (she's 4), and when tired I have a tendency to feel depressed. So I wait for her to go to bed, then start playing, which is a distraction from the fact that I'm tired and therefore feeling down, which causes me to stay up until I really can't anymore. The next day I'm exhausted, and the pattern repeats itself. Additional sources of stress (usually job related) make the problem worse.
I'm definitely better than I used to be, and I'm not anywhere near the numbers that those guys are talking about (it's rare that I'll hit 10 hours of gameplay in a week, for example). But I still have some of the same stupid behaviors that I did as a kid and in college.
Were you beat up a lot in school and that bully ended up becoming a cop?
Not that I'm endorsing his statement, but: the one guy I went to high school with who ended up in law enforcement constantly threatened me, and once came within a hair's breath of hitting my eye with the point of a thrown pencil. He was a putz, and it embarrasses me to this day that I both feared and respected him at the time.
Anyway, random anecdote. I've met and worked with a few folks in law enforcement since then, and they've never been anything but good guys trying to do a good job.
I never understood the "reality has a liberal bias" line. What is that supposed to mean? That reality thinks that universal health care is good? That taxing is generally the best solution instead of cutting programs? Can someone explain this to me?
I don't have a source, but I always assumed the line "reality has a liberal bias" was a satirical reference to the phrase "reality-based community", which entered the popular lexicon via a Ron Suskind article entitled Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush. The relevant grafs:
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
Whenever someone tells me that they think the phrase "reality-based community" is an example of the smug and snide attitude of liberals, I direct them to that article.
You know, I saw it once during the entire movie, when he reassemled himself it was pretty obvious but for the entire rest of the movie I never noticed it. Makes me wonder why everyone else apparently spent the whole movie staring at some blue guy's crotch.
Are you kidding me? In the scene where Rorschach goes to visit Manhattan in his lab, one of our first views of him is towering over Rorschach and Silk Spectre, fifty feet tall.
I'm not suggesting that US (and other) audiences don't get worked up over silly things, but it takes a certain kind of determination to not notice a fifty foot tall guy's blue, luminescent unit on the big screen.
Everyone probably remembers Jars of Clay, they had some good stuff, especially in their second album.
All I remember of Jars of Clay was how great I thought the song Flood was. I bought the album based on the strength of that track, only to find out that it was the only one on the album produced by Adrian Belew and that I hated the rest of it.
The thing that bothers me about most of the CCM I've heard is that it's mainstream pablum geared to a Clearchannel selected audience, as mentioned upthread. It's not borne out of some weird hatred of Christians - I happen to be a Jew, I really like gospel music, I just don't see the point in trying to find out the rare jewels in what seems to be a fairly artificially designated genre of music.
Years ago, I worked at a garden supply and patio furniture shop. A couple of guys I worked with were carrying a glass tabletop out of a truck. When they nearly dropped it, they turned white as a sheet, than heaved a sigh of relief when they realized they'd caught it in time.
The lady who ran the patio furniture section was there, and she laughed as they set the table top atop its frame. "Don't worry," she said. "It's shatterproof. I could jump up and down on this and it wouldn't break."
A buddy of mine was there, and immediately said, "Do it." So without missing a beat, she climbed up on top of the table and jumped up and down on it, really slamming her feet down forcefully with every descent. No damage.
She then climbed down, and as she was walking away, she grinned and said, "You didn't think I'd do it, did you?"
We're not giving permission to Anton LaVey to tear the fetuses of misbegotten children from the rancid wombs of unwed women of color while Marilyn Manson and 50 Cent plays over the back alley abortion clinic's P.A. system, you stupid fucking hicks.
We're not?
*hangs head*
Hey guys? Remember that party I had planned for this weekend? Yeah, we may need to cancel that.
I have to admit - that affected me in a way I totally didn't expect, especially considering it only takes place.. what, three missions in? The sense of scale in that game was amazing.
Yeah, but that cuts both ways. If I'm, say, some code monkey working at the NSA and cranking out custom patches to Zimbra, I'm not required to share the source with the world at large unless I want to redistribute the patches to the world at large.
(Note: I do not work for the NSA, and I have zero experience with Zimbra. I do, however, look like a monkey. More like a balding Monchichi, actually.)
I guess when he starts shooting people or blowing stuff up.
But to be clear, I'm not suggesting that everyone wiretapped in the US was a terrorist. I was speaking specifically about the example of the Mumbai gunmen.
Considering none of the attackers were American citizens or were on US soil, I think it's fair to say you're right: nobody infringed on their Constitutional rights. They had none.
But assuming for a minute that the attacks had taken place in the US, that the attackers had been American citizens, and that they were communicating with parties outside the country. Under FISA, their communications could still have been tapped just so long as the someone filed the paperwork for authorization sometime in the 72 hours following the tap.
In other words, if this had happened here, the wiretap could have happened then, authorization could be issued now, and it all would have been above board.
Anyway, sorry. Discussions that revolve upon spurious "wanh wanh cry me a river for terrorists' rights" arguments get me all het up.
Is this woman a horrible person, yes, is she responsible for *murder*!?!?! HELL NO.
Your post would make sense if she were being charged with murder. However:
Ms Drew is being charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act - usually used against computer hackers, as prosecutors were unable to find any existing laws within the state of Missouri under which she could be tried.
IANAL. But the relevant bits here are that the defendant appears to have lied regarding her identity to multiple parties, for the express purpose of inflicting emotional harm on someone. As it turns out, the mere act of her lying is prosecutable, because it led to damages (emotional harm contributing to the victim's suicide).
"She's not guilty of murder" is a straw man - if the DA thought there was a murder charge worth prosecuting there, they likely would have pursued it. This isn't a murder charge.
You may not be ducking the issue but until you can point at that cluster of cells you haven't proven the issue either.
Oh, for the love of... once more, slowly.
There is no cluster of cells. Consciousness is not a thing which can be contained. It is a quality which emerges from a process. It's like I asked you "which of these trees is the forest," and you said "It doesn't really work like that," and I said "stop ducking the question!"
Kurzweil answers that question himself, and for what it's worth, I think he's right. The consciousness (which I'll use synonymously with soul, like he does) is an emergent property. Nobody would say that your hippocampus is intelligent, or your Broca's area, or your cerebral cortex, let alone your heart, lungs, and spleen. But somehow the parts of your body work together to produce consciousness. Accepting that consciousness exists doesn't require you to admit that it's a physical thing like your blood (or, for that matter, an imbalance of humours, or ether).
Phrased slightly differently, "Dammit, how am I supposed to see the forest when all these trees are in the way?"
You're free not to like the premise that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. Plenty of people don't - John Searle comes to mind. But don't pretend that scientists (even atheists) are ducking the issue just because we can't point to a cluster of cells and say, "See that? That's your soul." We can't point at a specific thing and say "look! Democracy!" either, but most of us would like to think it exists.
The soul is a synonym for consciousness... and if we were to consider where consciousness comes from we would have to consider it an emerging property.
Slashdot Mirror
Likewise, and well put.
This gets to be a particular problem for me sometimes because of two additional factors - I have a daughter who is not allowed to watch me play (she's 4), and when tired I have a tendency to feel depressed. So I wait for her to go to bed, then start playing, which is a distraction from the fact that I'm tired and therefore feeling down, which causes me to stay up until I really can't anymore. The next day I'm exhausted, and the pattern repeats itself. Additional sources of stress (usually job related) make the problem worse.
I'm definitely better than I used to be, and I'm not anywhere near the numbers that those guys are talking about (it's rare that I'll hit 10 hours of gameplay in a week, for example). But I still have some of the same stupid behaviors that I did as a kid and in college.
Son of Bionic Commando.
Bride of Bionic Commando.
I Was a Teenage Bionic Commando.
(You can do it too, kids!)
Not that I'm endorsing his statement, but: the one guy I went to high school with who ended up in law enforcement constantly threatened me, and once came within a hair's breath of hitting my eye with the point of a thrown pencil. He was a putz, and it embarrasses me to this day that I both feared and respected him at the time.
Anyway, random anecdote. I've met and worked with a few folks in law enforcement since then, and they've never been anything but good guys trying to do a good job.
Bastard. Now I'm going to have to try it again.
Pfft. Dilettante.
What you really want is Microsoft Bob for Workgroups 3.1.
Did you skip the part of the story about the actual US Marines?
I don't have a source, but I always assumed the line "reality has a liberal bias" was a satirical reference to the phrase "reality-based community", which entered the popular lexicon via a Ron Suskind article entitled Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush. The relevant grafs:
Whenever someone tells me that they think the phrase "reality-based community" is an example of the smug and snide attitude of liberals, I direct them to that article.
Are you kidding me? In the scene where Rorschach goes to visit Manhattan in his lab, one of our first views of him is towering over Rorschach and Silk Spectre, fifty feet tall.
I'm not suggesting that US (and other) audiences don't get worked up over silly things, but it takes a certain kind of determination to not notice a fifty foot tall guy's blue, luminescent unit on the big screen.
All I remember of Jars of Clay was how great I thought the song Flood was. I bought the album based on the strength of that track, only to find out that it was the only one on the album produced by Adrian Belew and that I hated the rest of it.
The thing that bothers me about most of the CCM I've heard is that it's mainstream pablum geared to a Clearchannel selected audience, as mentioned upthread. It's not borne out of some weird hatred of Christians - I happen to be a Jew, I really like gospel music, I just don't see the point in trying to find out the rare jewels in what seems to be a fairly artificially designated genre of music.
It means you're gonna be out of a job.
Years ago, I worked at a garden supply and patio furniture shop. A couple of guys I worked with were carrying a glass tabletop out of a truck. When they nearly dropped it, they turned white as a sheet, than heaved a sigh of relief when they realized they'd caught it in time.
The lady who ran the patio furniture section was there, and she laughed as they set the table top atop its frame. "Don't worry," she said. "It's shatterproof. I could jump up and down on this and it wouldn't break."
A buddy of mine was there, and immediately said, "Do it." So without missing a beat, she climbed up on top of the table and jumped up and down on it, really slamming her feet down forcefully with every descent. No damage.
She then climbed down, and as she was walking away, she grinned and said, "You didn't think I'd do it, did you?"
"Nope." But he was suitably impressed.
We're not?
*hangs head*
Hey guys? Remember that party I had planned for this weekend? Yeah, we may need to cancel that.
I have to admit - that affected me in a way I totally didn't expect, especially considering it only takes place.. what, three missions in? The sense of scale in that game was amazing.
Shh. Obama Derangement Syndrome does strange things to a person. Best not to antagonize them.
I knew that this sounded familiar! I used to play this on my old Visor! Good times.
Yeah, but that cuts both ways. If I'm, say, some code monkey working at the NSA and cranking out custom patches to Zimbra, I'm not required to share the source with the world at large unless I want to redistribute the patches to the world at large.
(Note: I do not work for the NSA, and I have zero experience with Zimbra. I do, however, look like a monkey. More like a balding Monchichi, actually.)
Not only that, but Sambo (using the word that is actually spelled like the slur) is also legitimately the name of a Russian martial art originally developed for the Red Army.
You're kidding, right?
Please tell me you're kidding.
I guess when he starts shooting people or blowing stuff up.
But to be clear, I'm not suggesting that everyone wiretapped in the US was a terrorist. I was speaking specifically about the example of the Mumbai gunmen.
Considering none of the attackers were American citizens or were on US soil, I think it's fair to say you're right: nobody infringed on their Constitutional rights. They had none.
But assuming for a minute that the attacks had taken place in the US, that the attackers had been American citizens, and that they were communicating with parties outside the country. Under FISA, their communications could still have been tapped just so long as the someone filed the paperwork for authorization sometime in the 72 hours following the tap.
In other words, if this had happened here, the wiretap could have happened then, authorization could be issued now, and it all would have been above board.
Anyway, sorry. Discussions that revolve upon spurious "wanh wanh cry me a river for terrorists' rights" arguments get me all het up.
I HAVEN'T SEEN IT, YOU INSENSITIVE oh who am I kidding. I wasn't going to watch it anyway.
Your post would make sense if she were being charged with murder. However:
IANAL. But the relevant bits here are that the defendant appears to have lied regarding her identity to multiple parties, for the express purpose of inflicting emotional harm on someone. As it turns out, the mere act of her lying is prosecutable, because it led to damages (emotional harm contributing to the victim's suicide).
"She's not guilty of murder" is a straw man - if the DA thought there was a murder charge worth prosecuting there, they likely would have pursued it. This isn't a murder charge.
You may not be ducking the issue but until you can point at that cluster of cells you haven't proven the issue either.
Oh, for the love of... once more, slowly.
There is no cluster of cells. Consciousness is not a thing which can be contained. It is a quality which emerges from a process. It's like I asked you "which of these trees is the forest," and you said "It doesn't really work like that," and I said "stop ducking the question!"
Kurzweil answers that question himself, and for what it's worth, I think he's right. The consciousness (which I'll use synonymously with soul, like he does) is an emergent property. Nobody would say that your hippocampus is intelligent, or your Broca's area, or your cerebral cortex, let alone your heart, lungs, and spleen. But somehow the parts of your body work together to produce consciousness. Accepting that consciousness exists doesn't require you to admit that it's a physical thing like your blood (or, for that matter, an imbalance of humours, or ether).
Phrased slightly differently, "Dammit, how am I supposed to see the forest when all these trees are in the way?"
You're free not to like the premise that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. Plenty of people don't - John Searle comes to mind. But don't pretend that scientists (even atheists) are ducking the issue just because we can't point to a cluster of cells and say, "See that? That's your soul." We can't point at a specific thing and say "look! Democracy!" either, but most of us would like to think it exists.
See writeup.