So rather than address what is, essentially, a major intellectual problem in our society, we should just run away from it and do something less controversial? See, it's this kind of piss-ant pandering to religious fundamentalists that makes them think they can get away with "fighting a battle with science." Stop teaching evolution, or biology, in schools and it will just make the smug religious assholes sit in their own pool of ignorance and proclaim, proudly, "See, God always wins!"
Nah, the answer isn't to stop teaching biology. The answer is for scientists and teachers to grow a back bone, tell stupid parents the STFU and get out of their classroom, and to simultaneously require a fundamental eduction in physics, engineering, mathematics, literature, music, chemistry, and so on (you know, those things that give you a well-grounded knowledge base from which to determine your best route through reality).
Honestly, if some outsider came into my cubicle and started ranting in my face, and telling me that I shouldn't be engineering the way that I do for my job, I would throw the dumb shit out on his ass and tell him to come back when he has a degree in aerospace engineering and some hardware and analysis tucked away in his portfolio. The fact that teachers pander to dumbass parents is ludicrous. By the definition of time, most parents' basic education will be outdated by at least a decade by the time their little Johnny or Susie gets to class. Why the fuck should teachers listen to the complaints of people who haven't been educated in a science classroom in the last 20 years?
Meh, it takes a special kind of crazy to say, seriously, "The universe was created when my imaginary friend waved his hand and said it would be so."
For fuck only knows what reason, however, we don't recognize this as crazy. Whereas, if someone went around saying, "My pet unicorn farted some pixie dust and the universe was made," and proceeded to base their perception of reality on that notion, we would lock them up without question as being a potential danger to themselves and others.
I don't think the parent's an extremist. I think he's just pissed off and tired of seeing what was once a great society work so hard on crashing itself back into the stone age. Fifty years ago we landed a man on the moon. Today we can't even keep the science in the science classes and the fiction in the fiction classes.
Today it's been 25 years since the Challenger explosion. Today, I turn 25 years old. Word has it that I clawed my way into this world at almost the exact same time as the accident. And here I am, working in the space industry as an analyst, to ensure the safe launch and function of the rockets the USA launches today. Sometimes you have to love irony.
Cheers, fellow slashdotters!
Or, maybe they would expend a large amount of energy just to talk. Last year I spent a couple thousand bucks, and two weeks hiking, to get to a stranger's house in New Zealand just to say hi and to talk. My primary motivation was that I knew the person existed, and I wanted to see what they were like. I had absolutely zero economic incentive, military incentive, or imperial incentive to visit them. Yet, I went anyways, just to talk (well, and to have a pint).
Anyways, the point is, when you live in a lifestyle where all your basic necessities are met, then sometimes, yes, you do things just to do them. It doesn't take a great stretch of the imagination to envision an alien society where their basic needs of sustenance and energy have been met (due to abundant technology) and, thus, when they see a curious pattern in the universe (like us), they say, "Hey, let's go see what that funny radio pattern is all about."
Or they could come to eat us. I really don't see any applicable evidence to suggest one outcome is any more likely than the other.
Oh, I wasn't offended. Besides, unless there's blood on the ground, there's no need to apologize. I don't mind the correction at all. When I post things like that above, it's entirely due to my boredom and amusement derived from people acting on the internet. Don't worry about it.
Yeah, the government and various companies have been working on patching that hole in the dike. Not a lot of people seem to be paying attention save those of us here on slashdot.
Well, you're free to make your own decisions, of course, but I would wager there actually are quite a few of us here on slashdot that take pride in our personal appearances. I mean, hell, look at the sheer number of Apple fanboys on this site and then tell me that all of them go unbathed and unkempt. Sorry, the Apple religion doesn't work like that.:P
But seriously, while all of us on this site are nerds, to some degree or another, some of use nerds really make this lifestyle look good. Maybe you should try it out.;)
I like how all you have to do is mention Fox News with regards to a post that displays an uncharacteristic slashdot opinion to get an insightful mod these days. I'm starting to think that slashdot might be the single biggest advertisement for Fox News on the internet, considering how often it is mentioned in any story involving any controversy whatsoever.
Oh no, you're completely, 100%, factually accurate. The intent of my comment was not to make a serious assertion, but, rather, to make a snarky joke aimed at lambasting the entertainment industry. Of course, as is typical on slashdot, I fully expected someone more pedantic than me to come along and put me in my place for using an old wives tale to make a wise-ass remark on what is supposed to be a serious website.
Congratulations, you win at being the first poster modded up for said correction. =P
I have ten bucks that says he developed the ulcer due to the stress of having to deal with modern copyright issuess and whatever big name Hollywood studios he's had to tolerate doing business with.
Guns don't kill people, the modern entertainment media industry kill people.:D
20-21st century generations become increasingly more rebellious as you attempt to repress them.
Oh yeah, we're getting sooooo rebellious. Hell, just the other day, when there were three sheriff's parked near my condo walking up and down our street checking registration tags on parked cars, my neighbors got so rebellious that, in a single act of defiance, they agreed to sit down to dinner with their families in front of the latest episode of America Idol. Amazing isn't it? We're really itching for a scrappin' as a society.
It's funny, growing up, I used to follow the third wave punk scene and then some of the later metal and hardcore scenes. There was always an abundance of idealistic, angsty young men and women that wanted to burn the man and overthrow the powers that be. It inspired me. It made me feel like I was part of something important. Then, as I got older, I watched those same idealistic young men and women drink themselves into stupidity, knock each other up and struggle with unplanned parenthood, spit on the wrong cop and get thrown in jail, and so on and so on and so on. So much for the revolution.
Look, I'll agree with you that people are pissed off. I'll even agree with you that there are some folk out there that want to do something to enact change. But I have to take a contrary stance to your idea that people are becoming increasingly more rebellious. We aren't. For fuck's sake, we have folks groping us in airports, three letter agencies spying on every packet of communication we make, our constitutional rights like habeus corpus being suspended, and, hell, fellow citizens being arrested and held indefinitely without trial and we aren't doing shit about it as a society.
When it comes right down to it we are a society that likes to talk shit but keep quiet when the risk of getting hit pops up. And I do realize the self-irony of this post being made to slashdot. But as someone who makes a point to hang out with folk in both high and low places, I can tell you that the mass majority of the population, at least here in the States, is too lazy, too scared, and too apologetic to rebel against shit in any meaningful way. Anonymous and the recent DDOS attacks are nothing more than a bunch of hormone fueled, pissed off pranksters that will pat themselves on the back for being activists and then go back home to flip on the tele and curl up in their Snuggies at night. We aren't going to rebel against shit when it matters. Few are willing to pick up arms. Fewer are willing to give up their clean water and food supplies. Nobody is going to overthrow our government and corporate overlords. The only way this whole system is going to crash is due to the sheer incompetency and stupidity of those already in power.
That may sound like a shitty, cynical attitude, but I am only 25 years old, and I have already lost any faith I had in my species to take a stance that requires a spine and a strong jaw when it comes to anything meaningful. We're living in a time of pacifists, cowards, and political correctness, not one of blood, anger, zeal, and revolution.
Well, to be fair, that one would actually be a pretty honorable position to hold, as well as being one with much responsibility. Think about it, nails and screws, quite literally, hold up our entire civilization. We wouldn't be anywhere if it weren't for those two simple machines. Being a chief adviser regarding all things involving nails and screws would, indeed, be one hell of a job.
I'll agree with this critique in particular. I always liked to see the score attached to nested comments. It aided in navigating through comment threads to filter what was worth reading and what wasn't, and it also made it easy to spot moderation abuse and unfairly low-modded comments. If there is one thing I would request, it would be to list the comment score next to the comment title in nested comments.
Actually, I have one more edit, when browsing with Firefox 3.6 on Windows XP, the pop up boxes from clicking on certain things (like score information, or the options button when replying to a comment) return you to the top of the page when you close them. That's a major hindrance. (And why the hell are the comment viewing options only accessible under an 'options' button that is only visible when you reply?)
I get that, now, back when you are a teenager the whole, assert your rights, thing only tends to become a focus after you've had to put up with X many instances of useless bullshit. I just wanted to illustrate that, while we live in a free society, the powers that be tend to do everything within their power to restrict your freedoms, even if that means lying to you about what your freedoms are. The funny thing is that every time I've gotten lippy with a cop, asserting my rights and such, the interaction tends to get dragged out, wastes more time, and ends up being a lot more of a hassle than if you just act like a good little subject. I realize freedom isn't free. I just wish I lived in a society where I could respect and trust the law, the lawmakers, and the law enforcers. The fact that I, and many that I know, can't anymore just goes to show how low we have let our society slide.
We were always taught in school that policeman are the good guys.
A significant portion of the space concentration aerospace engineers that I graduated with from Cal Poly specifically avoided the defense megacorps when hunting for jobs (Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup) precisely because they did not want to work for an organization that had that kind of access into their personal lives. Many of those folk saw JPL as one of the 'civil' workplaces where they could find a job without having to deal with all of the security clearance BS. After this ruling, I am pretty sure that even more talented upcoming engineers will specifically avoid working for JPL (opting, instead, for places like Loral and SpaceX).
I would wager that this ruling had to due with ITAR technology though. ITAR agreements tend to apply to just about any space technology in the U.S. (which, incidentally, is hampering progress to a degree). So exposure to many advanced technologies must be heavily regulated and monitored. Hell, I plan to take a tour of JPL Tuesday, and I will be required to show proof of citizenship just to enter the facility; a facility that is entirely and completely funded by our tax dollars.
Lucky Aussie bastards. Here on the Central Coast of California, during our recent flooding episodes, the best we got were ducks swimming past our front door.
No, they actually just sent all Iranian, government IP addresses a real picture of Cheney's actual backyard which is basically the political equivalent of goatse. After that, the Iranian government said they, "didn't want to play anymore." And we wonder why other countries see us Americans as savages and infidels...
and sitting a coffee shop and having an undercover cop come up to you for no discernible reason and demand your id and travel papers?
Funny, I've had this exact thing happen to me in California, except the cop wasn't undercover. I guess as long as they are advertising that they intend to oppress you that makes it okay, right? And before you think I am exaggerating, I am dead serious. My friends and I used to hang out at Denny's after we would go to the movies. We'd swap stories and tell jokes, but never got rowdy enough to cause a fuss in the place. Hell, the waitresses knew us by name and loved us. That never stopped the local police department from walking over to our table, asking us each for a form of I.D. (despite the fact that not all of us had our license at that point). The one time I asked one of the cops why he needed to see our I.D.'s, he responded it was because he was a cop and the law says you have to show your "identification papers" (I remember that part very well) if an officer of the law asks you to. I responded that I understood that, but what was it that we were doing that solicited such attention. His response was that we seemed suspicious, since we were teenagers out past dark (not late, it was only 10 PM).
So there yah go, land of the free. Papers please, you've got shifty looking eyes.
Let's just start making all our own content and distributing it by sneaker net and avian protocols. I'm tired of every single damn decision going towards funneling more funds and freedom (for abuse) to the megacorps. We'll hire Kenyans drinking powerthirst to be the runners for the sneakernet version of gmail.
Slashdot Mirror
So rather than address what is, essentially, a major intellectual problem in our society, we should just run away from it and do something less controversial? See, it's this kind of piss-ant pandering to religious fundamentalists that makes them think they can get away with "fighting a battle with science." Stop teaching evolution, or biology, in schools and it will just make the smug religious assholes sit in their own pool of ignorance and proclaim, proudly, "See, God always wins!"
Nah, the answer isn't to stop teaching biology. The answer is for scientists and teachers to grow a back bone, tell stupid parents the STFU and get out of their classroom, and to simultaneously require a fundamental eduction in physics, engineering, mathematics, literature, music, chemistry, and so on (you know, those things that give you a well-grounded knowledge base from which to determine your best route through reality).
Honestly, if some outsider came into my cubicle and started ranting in my face, and telling me that I shouldn't be engineering the way that I do for my job, I would throw the dumb shit out on his ass and tell him to come back when he has a degree in aerospace engineering and some hardware and analysis tucked away in his portfolio. The fact that teachers pander to dumbass parents is ludicrous. By the definition of time, most parents' basic education will be outdated by at least a decade by the time their little Johnny or Susie gets to class. Why the fuck should teachers listen to the complaints of people who haven't been educated in a science classroom in the last 20 years?
Meh, it takes a special kind of crazy to say, seriously, "The universe was created when my imaginary friend waved his hand and said it would be so."
For fuck only knows what reason, however, we don't recognize this as crazy. Whereas, if someone went around saying, "My pet unicorn farted some pixie dust and the universe was made," and proceeded to base their perception of reality on that notion, we would lock them up without question as being a potential danger to themselves and others.
I don't think the parent's an extremist. I think he's just pissed off and tired of seeing what was once a great society work so hard on crashing itself back into the stone age. Fifty years ago we landed a man on the moon. Today we can't even keep the science in the science classes and the fiction in the fiction classes.
Today it's been 25 years since the Challenger explosion. Today, I turn 25 years old. Word has it that I clawed my way into this world at almost the exact same time as the accident. And here I am, working in the space industry as an analyst, to ensure the safe launch and function of the rockets the USA launches today. Sometimes you have to love irony. Cheers, fellow slashdotters!
Or, maybe they would expend a large amount of energy just to talk. Last year I spent a couple thousand bucks, and two weeks hiking, to get to a stranger's house in New Zealand just to say hi and to talk. My primary motivation was that I knew the person existed, and I wanted to see what they were like. I had absolutely zero economic incentive, military incentive, or imperial incentive to visit them. Yet, I went anyways, just to talk (well, and to have a pint).
Anyways, the point is, when you live in a lifestyle where all your basic necessities are met, then sometimes, yes, you do things just to do them. It doesn't take a great stretch of the imagination to envision an alien society where their basic needs of sustenance and energy have been met (due to abundant technology) and, thus, when they see a curious pattern in the universe (like us), they say, "Hey, let's go see what that funny radio pattern is all about."
Or they could come to eat us. I really don't see any applicable evidence to suggest one outcome is any more likely than the other.
Indeed. Que sera sera.
Oh, I wasn't offended. Besides, unless there's blood on the ground, there's no need to apologize. I don't mind the correction at all. When I post things like that above, it's entirely due to my boredom and amusement derived from people acting on the internet. Don't worry about it.
Could be, or maybe you're working on a creative project to improve showers that you have to test often. =P
Could be some hot young group of crackers just wants to make a name for themselves.
Yeah, the government and various companies have been working on patching that hole in the dike. Not a lot of people seem to be paying attention save those of us here on slashdot.
Well, you're free to make your own decisions, of course, but I would wager there actually are quite a few of us here on slashdot that take pride in our personal appearances. I mean, hell, look at the sheer number of Apple fanboys on this site and then tell me that all of them go unbathed and unkempt. Sorry, the Apple religion doesn't work like that. :P
;)
But seriously, while all of us on this site are nerds, to some degree or another, some of use nerds really make this lifestyle look good. Maybe you should try it out.
I like how all you have to do is mention Fox News with regards to a post that displays an uncharacteristic slashdot opinion to get an insightful mod these days. I'm starting to think that slashdot might be the single biggest advertisement for Fox News on the internet, considering how often it is mentioned in any story involving any controversy whatsoever.
Oh no, you're completely, 100%, factually accurate. The intent of my comment was not to make a serious assertion, but, rather, to make a snarky joke aimed at lambasting the entertainment industry. Of course, as is typical on slashdot, I fully expected someone more pedantic than me to come along and put me in my place for using an old wives tale to make a wise-ass remark on what is supposed to be a serious website.
Congratulations, you win at being the first poster modded up for said correction. =P
I have ten bucks that says he developed the ulcer due to the stress of having to deal with modern copyright issuess and whatever big name Hollywood studios he's had to tolerate doing business with.
:D
Guns don't kill people, the modern entertainment media industry kill people.
20-21st century generations become increasingly more rebellious as you attempt to repress them.
Oh yeah, we're getting sooooo rebellious. Hell, just the other day, when there were three sheriff's parked near my condo walking up and down our street checking registration tags on parked cars, my neighbors got so rebellious that, in a single act of defiance, they agreed to sit down to dinner with their families in front of the latest episode of America Idol. Amazing isn't it? We're really itching for a scrappin' as a society.
It's funny, growing up, I used to follow the third wave punk scene and then some of the later metal and hardcore scenes. There was always an abundance of idealistic, angsty young men and women that wanted to burn the man and overthrow the powers that be. It inspired me. It made me feel like I was part of something important. Then, as I got older, I watched those same idealistic young men and women drink themselves into stupidity, knock each other up and struggle with unplanned parenthood, spit on the wrong cop and get thrown in jail, and so on and so on and so on. So much for the revolution.
Look, I'll agree with you that people are pissed off. I'll even agree with you that there are some folk out there that want to do something to enact change. But I have to take a contrary stance to your idea that people are becoming increasingly more rebellious. We aren't. For fuck's sake, we have folks groping us in airports, three letter agencies spying on every packet of communication we make, our constitutional rights like habeus corpus being suspended, and, hell, fellow citizens being arrested and held indefinitely without trial and we aren't doing shit about it as a society.
When it comes right down to it we are a society that likes to talk shit but keep quiet when the risk of getting hit pops up. And I do realize the self-irony of this post being made to slashdot. But as someone who makes a point to hang out with folk in both high and low places, I can tell you that the mass majority of the population, at least here in the States, is too lazy, too scared, and too apologetic to rebel against shit in any meaningful way. Anonymous and the recent DDOS attacks are nothing more than a bunch of hormone fueled, pissed off pranksters that will pat themselves on the back for being activists and then go back home to flip on the tele and curl up in their Snuggies at night. We aren't going to rebel against shit when it matters. Few are willing to pick up arms. Fewer are willing to give up their clean water and food supplies. Nobody is going to overthrow our government and corporate overlords. The only way this whole system is going to crash is due to the sheer incompetency and stupidity of those already in power.
That may sound like a shitty, cynical attitude, but I am only 25 years old, and I have already lost any faith I had in my species to take a stance that requires a spine and a strong jaw when it comes to anything meaningful. We're living in a time of pacifists, cowards, and political correctness, not one of blood, anger, zeal, and revolution.
Ah, I love a healthy dose of, "fuck your hippy bullshit" cynicism in the morning. Thanks! :)
Chief Technical Adviser to Nails and Screws!
Well, to be fair, that one would actually be a pretty honorable position to hold, as well as being one with much responsibility. Think about it, nails and screws, quite literally, hold up our entire civilization. We wouldn't be anywhere if it weren't for those two simple machines. Being a chief adviser regarding all things involving nails and screws would, indeed, be one hell of a job.
I'll agree with this critique in particular. I always liked to see the score attached to nested comments. It aided in navigating through comment threads to filter what was worth reading and what wasn't, and it also made it easy to spot moderation abuse and unfairly low-modded comments. If there is one thing I would request, it would be to list the comment score next to the comment title in nested comments.
Actually, I have one more edit, when browsing with Firefox 3.6 on Windows XP, the pop up boxes from clicking on certain things (like score information, or the options button when replying to a comment) return you to the top of the page when you close them. That's a major hindrance. (And why the hell are the comment viewing options only accessible under an 'options' button that is only visible when you reply?)
I get that, now, back when you are a teenager the whole, assert your rights, thing only tends to become a focus after you've had to put up with X many instances of useless bullshit. I just wanted to illustrate that, while we live in a free society, the powers that be tend to do everything within their power to restrict your freedoms, even if that means lying to you about what your freedoms are. The funny thing is that every time I've gotten lippy with a cop, asserting my rights and such, the interaction tends to get dragged out, wastes more time, and ends up being a lot more of a hassle than if you just act like a good little subject. I realize freedom isn't free. I just wish I lived in a society where I could respect and trust the law, the lawmakers, and the law enforcers. The fact that I, and many that I know, can't anymore just goes to show how low we have let our society slide.
We were always taught in school that policeman are the good guys.
A significant portion of the space concentration aerospace engineers that I graduated with from Cal Poly specifically avoided the defense megacorps when hunting for jobs (Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup) precisely because they did not want to work for an organization that had that kind of access into their personal lives. Many of those folk saw JPL as one of the 'civil' workplaces where they could find a job without having to deal with all of the security clearance BS. After this ruling, I am pretty sure that even more talented upcoming engineers will specifically avoid working for JPL (opting, instead, for places like Loral and SpaceX).
I would wager that this ruling had to due with ITAR technology though. ITAR agreements tend to apply to just about any space technology in the U.S. (which, incidentally, is hampering progress to a degree). So exposure to many advanced technologies must be heavily regulated and monitored. Hell, I plan to take a tour of JPL Tuesday, and I will be required to show proof of citizenship just to enter the facility; a facility that is entirely and completely funded by our tax dollars.
Lucky Aussie bastards. Here on the Central Coast of California, during our recent flooding episodes, the best we got were ducks swimming past our front door.
No, they actually just sent all Iranian, government IP addresses a real picture of Cheney's actual backyard which is basically the political equivalent of goatse. After that, the Iranian government said they, "didn't want to play anymore." And we wonder why other countries see us Americans as savages and infidels...
and sitting a coffee shop and having an undercover cop come up to you for no discernible reason and demand your id and travel papers?
Funny, I've had this exact thing happen to me in California, except the cop wasn't undercover. I guess as long as they are advertising that they intend to oppress you that makes it okay, right? And before you think I am exaggerating, I am dead serious. My friends and I used to hang out at Denny's after we would go to the movies. We'd swap stories and tell jokes, but never got rowdy enough to cause a fuss in the place. Hell, the waitresses knew us by name and loved us. That never stopped the local police department from walking over to our table, asking us each for a form of I.D. (despite the fact that not all of us had our license at that point). The one time I asked one of the cops why he needed to see our I.D.'s, he responded it was because he was a cop and the law says you have to show your "identification papers" (I remember that part very well) if an officer of the law asks you to. I responded that I understood that, but what was it that we were doing that solicited such attention. His response was that we seemed suspicious, since we were teenagers out past dark (not late, it was only 10 PM).
So there yah go, land of the free. Papers please, you've got shifty looking eyes.
Let's just start making all our own content and distributing it by sneaker net and avian protocols. I'm tired of every single damn decision going towards funneling more funds and freedom (for abuse) to the megacorps. We'll hire Kenyans drinking powerthirst to be the runners for the sneakernet version of gmail.
We call that lazy and smart.
Ah, I'm glad to see a fellow perl monk on /. :)
"In my opinion, the existence of life is a highly overrated phenomenon."