Agreed. I've watched more and more of my friends beg and pander women for a date/sex/relationship and, even when they are successful at achieving this, they get mistreated, abused, and disrespected until the relationship ends. Women have it easy these days in the realm of love. They get their pick of the litter and can get away with murder because, for some stupid reason, men are supposed to pine after and wait on them. What happened to our self respect as a gender?
By contrast, my roomate (male) has been in the most healthy and happy relationship I have ever seen for over a year and a half now (almost two). He acts like a man. He stands his ground. He doesn't beg or whiny. He only apologizes when he has actually done something stupid or wrong (which is very rare). He shows strength of character. His girlfriend treats him with respect and dignity. It's quite inspiring.
Interesting enough, though, I have noticed more women in their early twenties are starting to complain about not being able to find a 'real man' that 'lives his own life.' Maybe the social trends are starting to regulate themselves, albeit slowly...
Oh this should be fun. Why soldering is a dangerous career from an evolutionary perspective:
It is well known that soldering leads to burned fingertips.
Those who do not learn to overcome this, eventually develop permanent callouses on their fingers.
The callouses on the fingertips lead to less sensitive fingers.
Less sensitive fingers mean that the male cannot feel the nuances of a woman's reaction when he is...errr...stimulating her with his fingers.
The woman being 'pleasured' decides she does not want a crappy, insensitive lover for a lifelong mate.
Said solderer goes childless throughout his life.
It is harder for those that solder to reproduce.
Of course, the upside to this ridiculous notion is that only men that learn how to solder well, without burning themselves, go on to reproduce. Over a significantly long time period, therefore, a human population should get better at soldering. Take that football players! Ha!
Go back and read about the lead up to WWI and you'll get a sense of the mind set of many of the people in China, if not the majority. War (with Taiwan) would be glorious, an Empire is a right of China's and to some Everything (worldwide) is part of China and maps should show that.
You know I think that is the part of the Chinese mindset that worries me the most. I actually understand the talk about wanting peace and tranquility and valuing that over freedom. I am not saying I agree with said values, but I can understand them. However, as you mentioned, the current mindset that Chinese nationalists have has been seen in the world before, about 100 years ago in fact. Hopefully most of us remember what a glorious cluster fuck that turned out to be for the world. Everyone had their shiny new guns and thought they were the biggest and baddest on the block...millions died. The world was left in shambles...It's funny, I remember hearing a friend of mine in high school argue about how the world had grown out of that phase....
Oh, don't get me wrong, I am not saying it is the be all end all of a conflict. I am saying that naval forces and the types of forces involved in a conflict must be taken into account during a battle discussion. Numbers don't mean everything. The battle of Thermopylae taught us that thousands of years ago. Maybe our Aircraft carriers couldn't go toe to toe with the PLA Airforce, but you are making the assumption that China has the capability and infrastructure to deploy that entire air force to one area in a short span of time. That is no easy feat. Even if China could scramble its entire airforce and get them coastal to perform a coordinated attack on one part of a naval blockade, miles down the coast, a gunnery force could shell a good chunk of Chinese infrastructure to craters. Have you seen the rail gun mounts that the US Navy is trying to deploy on a large scale these days? Those suckers can nail a target over the horizon.
So sure, the U.S. Navy is not the end all be all, and to claim it is would be false. I agree. It's also true that China should not be taken as a grain of salt militarily. However, my point is, boasting the biggest armed forces on the planet means little unless you have the experience to use it.
China is second only to the US in military expenditures, and has nearly 1 million more active duty military personnel than the US (sobering considering that the US could not defeat China in any of the proxy wars it has fought in Asia).
You bring up some interesting statistics, but I would like to point out that military size hardly means shit if you have to square off against the most powerful damn Navy on the planet. That's not to say that the U.S. could necessarily take or occupy China. However, something that folk seem to forget is that the United States Navy has, effectively, a monopoly on the world's waterways. That's not to say it would go unchallenged. The Soviets gave us a good run for our money back during the Cold War. But it is important to remember just how much of a role a naval force plays in a conflict. Hell, most of the war against Japan in WWII was centered around naval conflicts. Let's not forget the total control over northern seas that the Germans were able to execute with their U boats before America stepped into the fray. During WWII, the United States war machine was capable of turning out (if I recall my numbers from high school correctly) over 500 destroyers a year. That doesn't even include the battleship and aircraft carrier and submarine production that went on. Naval superiority gives you access to your enemies. Unless China or someone else is able to muster a naval force capable of standing toe to toe with the United States, they don't stand a chance in a full on conventional conflict.
Also, before anyone brings up the fact that some colonists overthrew the worlds biggest Navy (British) 200+ years ago, it would be disingenuous to not mention the French. Had the French not helped break the blockade on the colonies, America as we know it today would have never existed. Naval dominance is a key to military strategy. Never forget that.
And just to underscore my point, from wikipedia:
The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest combined.[3] The U.S. Navy also has the world's largest carrier fleet, with 11 in service and one under construction.
If that doesn't deserve a 'Holy Shit' tag I don't know what does.
To be pedantic, any country with launch capability to GEO technically has 'anti satellite missiles.' At the velocities things travel in orbit, you don't really need any kind of explosive device to cause critical failure. Hell, if you can deliver a baseball to same orbital position of a spacecraft, you will destroy said spacecraft. They are incredibly delicate. That being said, yes, Russia certainly has the capability and know how to destroy any satellite up to GEO. The Japanese certainly could figure out a design within a couple of years (I honestly don't recall what their native launch capabilities are. The Indians, too, are starting to become better at space based systems (which, in turn, can be used as anti-satellite collision objects.) In fact, there are quite a few small countries attempting to get launch operations into gear. Brazil and South Korea come to mind. There is also the Arianne 5 vehicle which could be used as an anti GEO sat object. Really, if you can get a launch vehicle close to the orbit (meaning same altitude, close mean anomaly) that the target is sitting in, and then detonate or perturb your launch vehicle into breaking up (easy to do with the proper deflection burn, you can collapse the structures if you sheer the vehicle right), then you have created a pretty effective flak type device that will have a high probability of causing critical failure of the target.
So basically figure out which vehicles can make GEO orbit and those companies/countries all have 'anti satellite missiles.'
Interesting note about NIMBY, I live a few miles away from a nuclear reactor which is actually built right next to a fault line in California (this would be the Diablo Canyon Reactor). To this date, there have been no meltdowns or scares or unholy terrors related to Diablo Canyon. The two beaches closes to the power plant (Pismo and Avila) are actually two of the nicest beaches in California. Pismo is one of the most visited. The hills around the plant (within a certain allowed range) are one of the favored hiking places around these parts. The quality of life is actually pretty high in the surrounding towns and cities. So far as I can tell, most folk seem to like it around these parts that live here. I am not saying the power plant causes any of these things, I just find it funny that so many people worry about a nuclear plant ruining the quality of life in their respective areas. The one place I have lived that has a nuclear plant also, coincidentally, has one of the happiest most thriving communities I have ever been a part of.
So there is a personal anecdote regarding the irony of the NIMBY mindset. All the crazies can run in terror from nuclear plants. I, for one, will embrace one being built in any community I am part of. =)
and people want explosions instead of sensitive young men who write verse.
Really? Because it seems to me like people have been eating up the sensitive young man bit quite well these days. Let's see here, there was Spock in the new Star Trek, the entire character set of the Twilight series, the tubby kid from the new SGU series (maybe he's gotten better, but for the first have of the season I watched, he spent all his time pining over a girl rather than pursuing her), the supposedly hardcore marine from Avatar that was incapable of functioning with passion or purpose until he met an alien woman that stole his heart, A Christian Bale from the new terminator movie that was more concerned with what was right and wrong and what whether or not he was leading like he was supposed to rather than blowing the shit out of every single robot he saw, and everything else that go in his way (like Arnie from number 2), A Christian Bale in the Dark Night that wanted to whine and cry about a dead Katie Holmes rather than just punch the Joker in the face like we all know Val Kilmer would have done, and a Harry Potter that has taken 5 whole movies just to shoot a friggin' malicious spell at someone (maybe that's how the books went, I don't know, but people sure seem to love a confused and angsty teen boy these days). Oh, and don't even get me started on that God-foresaken tragedy that was the portrayal of Anakin Skywalker in the newest three movies.
So, while I agree that Hollywood should try some new material, I must say anything that has a sensitive male subject in it seems to make it perfect for mass consumption these days. I, for one, want Bruce Willis to punch some more aliens in the face while making out with a hot redhead chick.
Another useful teaching technology? Podcasts. One of my professors recorded every single lecture he gave and podcast it openly on his website (you didn't even need to be registered to download or tune into it. It made review and studying so much easier and relevant when test time rolled around. Sometimes technology really is good.
Sometimes the younger generations ARE wrong. I think the problem is these technologies are fad technologies and the people making them popular haven't outgrown them yet.
I think that you hit the nail on the head right there as to why this really isn't some kind of social crisis. These technologies, so far as I can tell, really are just fad technologies. I recall when Myspace was first introduced friggin' EVERYONE ran out, signed up, put a bunch of flashy hearts and mini hot rod icons on their page, and obsessed over that website for the next year and a half. Then facebook came along. Same general migration and adoption, less flashy hearts (those were eventually replaced with starving farm animals and who-bit-who updates regarding vampire games). I recall my first year of college how every student was on facebook. If you weren't then you missed out on a lot of party invites and what not. These days, facebook seems to be used more as a crap-gaming platform than an organizing event. For that, people seem more prone to text and/or twitter. So the moral of the story? These really are just fads I think. Fads that wear out after a year or two.
Hell, right now I am watching folk my age (just entering the workplace out of college) starting to place a lot more value on time together at a pub or Starbucks rather than chatting on facebook or MSN. The funniest part of this migration is that after ~4 years of socializing through proxy technologies, socializing real time tends to be incredibly awkward (honestly, watching folk try to strike up conversation is downright hilarious as it takes a question-answer form like an IM conversation...I am just itching to see someone say, "ASL" to someone in real like). Nonetheless, folk are learning. I think people my age are starting to revalue the face-face interaction, but, just like the migration from myspace to facebook, the migration from facebook to the pub might be a bit slow and awkward and some die-hards might get left behind. In the end, while the article is an interesting discussion, I really think that both generations, iGeneration and Net Generation, are going to turn out just fine. They are just going to take some interesting and rather amusing paths to get there.
You know, I recall that throughout my later high school and early college years (I'm part of the supposed 'Net' generation btw) that I was leaning closer and closer towards that instant gratification lifestyle myself (I blamed it on moving to a relatively 'large' city from a very small one). But I can distinctly recall that as college neared its end I came to value patience and perfecting a craft as an art. One of the biggest contributing factors to that shift in perspective came from reading Robert Pirsig's, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." As I understand it, that book also had quite the impact on the generation preceeding mine, one generation that seems particularly scornful of us angsty little 80's and 90's kids. I wonder if that book might help work that patience virtue into this particular generation if it were more widely taught in schools and such..../shrug
Interesting, I grew up in a small little town in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California and my technology adoption time-line follows both yours and the parent's almost exactly. I wonder if I can use this as evidence to my friends who have yet to leave my hometown that it really is an oppressive regime from whence escape should be the first priority....Either way, as an American that also didn't have a personal computer until the early 2000's, hadn't seen a PC before about 1994, and didn't even adopt a cell phone until 2004ish, I can at least say its good to know that there are some other 80's babies in the same tech boat that I was =)
Actually the article and Mozilla's spokesman address this concern as one of the primary threats to the openness of the web in the future. It is mentioned that this threat, amongst others, will hopefully be addressed by the projects pushed through drumbeat in an attempt to keep information from coalescing into a few central locations. Whether you are cynical or not, like Mozilla or not, or are new here or not, the article is, at the very least, an interesting discussion. I would recommend checking it out.
I'll bet the British made that comment a bit over 200 years ago: "Rifles and muskets against cavalry and the entire British Navy? Wake up Colonists..."
Having said all this, there are difficult philosophical issues with animal research. For example, what's our basis of saying that it's ok to do research on animals so that people can live better? Is it because we're smarter? If so, is it therefore ok for us to do similar research on stupid or mentally retarded people?
At the risk of sounding like a total asshole, I think I have a possible answer to that question of why it's okay we do research on animals. Frankly, it seems to me to be Darwinian in nature. The reason we, as humans, are where we are at in the world is because we evolved the natural mechanisms to out-compete a number of other species for dominance. Think about it, social habits allowed us to prevail over larger, faster, more aggressive predators. Mental developments allowed us to abstract into the realm of pattern recognition that has helped us survive everything from the weather to migrating food sources (herds), and so on.
Having made it where we are, today, by constant exposure to Darwinian competition (even amongst ourselves via the constant waging of war for resources and so on) seems to have given us an entitlement to the top of the hill complex. Hell, maybe the feeling that we are entitled to be on top is precisely what makes us so aggressive as a species and thus so successful. That being said, I think the reason we feel entitled or feel morally just in performing our science on animals or chimps (also animals) or whatever, might stem from the fact that doing our very crude science on those same animals and, for that matter, the rest of our surroundings, is precisely one of the factors that has allowed us to set apart from the rest of nature. In other words, mankind long ago used to observe patterns in nature to gain an advantage over competing species. Maybe we observed some animals that migrated during cold periods so we emulated them to survive cold times etc. Thus, observing those things around us is a part of what allowed us to 'dominate' the rest of the species of this world. Today, we have taken that to an extreme. Now we still observe our surroundings, but we first manipulate the situation to learn something very specific. In other words, our very learning abilities have evolved because those capable of separating controlled and uncontrolled observations tended to have better ideas that were more widely adopted and those that didn't.
So what makes us feel it is okay to work on lesser species? The very fact that they are a lesser species, precisely because we worked on them in the first place. It's cyclical, sure. And I have no idea if there is any kind of research whatsoever to back up my claim. So keep in mind that it is, indeed, just an idea. Nonetheless, it's an interesting one in my opinion.
.....Informative mod.....you actually managed to talk about your penis on the internet and have it modded informative. Wow. This kind of thing is going to be what makes up stories for our grandchildren when we get older.
Announcing the intent to distribute a new technology, TV or otherwise, is just fine and dandy. However, until I start seeing 3D TV's on my local craigslist listings, I can safely assume that the price is still a bit high and the quality is still in the, 'brand new but buggy' range. =)
I'm part of the entitlement generation thank you very much. I want a way to get alzheimers AND brain cancer from one source for half the standard price. In fact, I move that we find a process to do this, document it under an open license, and torrent it. Cancer and Alzheimers want to be free! It's time we stop letting the corporate overlords and power hungry government officials create a false scarcity on alzheimer and cancer products!
Hmmm, interesting, the little bit of wisdom at the bottom of this particular slashdot page for me was:
Many aligators will be slain, but the swamp will remain.
Coincidentally fitting for the nostalgia I would say, don't you all think? Space will remain. If you want to get there, go buy a book about orbital theory and help us get there =)
Slashdot Mirror
gather angry responses and its fair share of taunting.
That's half of what makes the internet fun =)
Agreed. I've watched more and more of my friends beg and pander women for a date/sex/relationship and, even when they are successful at achieving this, they get mistreated, abused, and disrespected until the relationship ends. Women have it easy these days in the realm of love. They get their pick of the litter and can get away with murder because, for some stupid reason, men are supposed to pine after and wait on them. What happened to our self respect as a gender?
By contrast, my roomate (male) has been in the most healthy and happy relationship I have ever seen for over a year and a half now (almost two). He acts like a man. He stands his ground. He doesn't beg or whiny. He only apologizes when he has actually done something stupid or wrong (which is very rare). He shows strength of character. His girlfriend treats him with respect and dignity. It's quite inspiring.
Interesting enough, though, I have noticed more women in their early twenties are starting to complain about not being able to find a 'real man' that 'lives his own life.' Maybe the social trends are starting to regulate themselves, albeit slowly...
Oh this should be fun. Why soldering is a dangerous career from an evolutionary perspective:
It is well known that soldering leads to burned fingertips.
Those who do not learn to overcome this, eventually develop permanent callouses on their fingers.
The callouses on the fingertips lead to less sensitive fingers.
Less sensitive fingers mean that the male cannot feel the nuances of a woman's reaction when he is...errr...stimulating her with his fingers.
The woman being 'pleasured' decides she does not want a crappy, insensitive lover for a lifelong mate.
Said solderer goes childless throughout his life.
It is harder for those that solder to reproduce.
Of course, the upside to this ridiculous notion is that only men that learn how to solder well, without burning themselves, go on to reproduce. Over a significantly long time period, therefore, a human population should get better at soldering. Take that football players! Ha!
Go back and read about the lead up to WWI and you'll get a sense of the mind set of many of the people in China, if not the majority. War (with Taiwan) would be glorious, an Empire is a right of China's and to some Everything (worldwide) is part of China and maps should show that.
You know I think that is the part of the Chinese mindset that worries me the most. I actually understand the talk about wanting peace and tranquility and valuing that over freedom. I am not saying I agree with said values, but I can understand them. However, as you mentioned, the current mindset that Chinese nationalists have has been seen in the world before, about 100 years ago in fact. Hopefully most of us remember what a glorious cluster fuck that turned out to be for the world. Everyone had their shiny new guns and thought they were the biggest and baddest on the block...millions died. The world was left in shambles...It's funny, I remember hearing a friend of mine in high school argue about how the world had grown out of that phase....
Oh, don't get me wrong, I am not saying it is the be all end all of a conflict. I am saying that naval forces and the types of forces involved in a conflict must be taken into account during a battle discussion. Numbers don't mean everything. The battle of Thermopylae taught us that thousands of years ago. Maybe our Aircraft carriers couldn't go toe to toe with the PLA Airforce, but you are making the assumption that China has the capability and infrastructure to deploy that entire air force to one area in a short span of time. That is no easy feat. Even if China could scramble its entire airforce and get them coastal to perform a coordinated attack on one part of a naval blockade, miles down the coast, a gunnery force could shell a good chunk of Chinese infrastructure to craters. Have you seen the rail gun mounts that the US Navy is trying to deploy on a large scale these days? Those suckers can nail a target over the horizon.
So sure, the U.S. Navy is not the end all be all, and to claim it is would be false. I agree. It's also true that China should not be taken as a grain of salt militarily. However, my point is, boasting the biggest armed forces on the planet means little unless you have the experience to use it.
Cheers.
China is second only to the US in military expenditures, and has nearly 1 million more active duty military personnel than the US (sobering considering that the US could not defeat China in any of the proxy wars it has fought in Asia).
You bring up some interesting statistics, but I would like to point out that military size hardly means shit if you have to square off against the most powerful damn Navy on the planet. That's not to say that the U.S. could necessarily take or occupy China. However, something that folk seem to forget is that the United States Navy has, effectively, a monopoly on the world's waterways. That's not to say it would go unchallenged. The Soviets gave us a good run for our money back during the Cold War. But it is important to remember just how much of a role a naval force plays in a conflict. Hell, most of the war against Japan in WWII was centered around naval conflicts. Let's not forget the total control over northern seas that the Germans were able to execute with their U boats before America stepped into the fray. During WWII, the United States war machine was capable of turning out (if I recall my numbers from high school correctly) over 500 destroyers a year. That doesn't even include the battleship and aircraft carrier and submarine production that went on. Naval superiority gives you access to your enemies. Unless China or someone else is able to muster a naval force capable of standing toe to toe with the United States, they don't stand a chance in a full on conventional conflict.
Also, before anyone brings up the fact that some colonists overthrew the worlds biggest Navy (British) 200+ years ago, it would be disingenuous to not mention the French. Had the French not helped break the blockade on the colonies, America as we know it today would have never existed. Naval dominance is a key to military strategy. Never forget that.
And just to underscore my point, from wikipedia:
The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest combined.[3] The U.S. Navy also has the world's largest carrier fleet, with 11 in service and one under construction.
If that doesn't deserve a 'Holy Shit' tag I don't know what does.
Knowing is the other half. Hey, did we just invent a way to fight a battle without guns? Sweet!
GI Jooooooe.....
To be pedantic, any country with launch capability to GEO technically has 'anti satellite missiles.' At the velocities things travel in orbit, you don't really need any kind of explosive device to cause critical failure. Hell, if you can deliver a baseball to same orbital position of a spacecraft, you will destroy said spacecraft. They are incredibly delicate. That being said, yes, Russia certainly has the capability and know how to destroy any satellite up to GEO. The Japanese certainly could figure out a design within a couple of years (I honestly don't recall what their native launch capabilities are. The Indians, too, are starting to become better at space based systems (which, in turn, can be used as anti-satellite collision objects.) In fact, there are quite a few small countries attempting to get launch operations into gear. Brazil and South Korea come to mind. There is also the Arianne 5 vehicle which could be used as an anti GEO sat object. Really, if you can get a launch vehicle close to the orbit (meaning same altitude, close mean anomaly) that the target is sitting in, and then detonate or perturb your launch vehicle into breaking up (easy to do with the proper deflection burn, you can collapse the structures if you sheer the vehicle right), then you have created a pretty effective flak type device that will have a high probability of causing critical failure of the target.
So basically figure out which vehicles can make GEO orbit and those companies/countries all have 'anti satellite missiles.'
Cheers.
Also Hollywood forgot that you can make a violent action movie, and keep it fun.
That's what I loved about Fifth Element so much. God bless you Bruce Willis.
Interesting note about NIMBY, I live a few miles away from a nuclear reactor which is actually built right next to a fault line in California (this would be the Diablo Canyon Reactor). To this date, there have been no meltdowns or scares or unholy terrors related to Diablo Canyon. The two beaches closes to the power plant (Pismo and Avila) are actually two of the nicest beaches in California. Pismo is one of the most visited. The hills around the plant (within a certain allowed range) are one of the favored hiking places around these parts. The quality of life is actually pretty high in the surrounding towns and cities. So far as I can tell, most folk seem to like it around these parts that live here. I am not saying the power plant causes any of these things, I just find it funny that so many people worry about a nuclear plant ruining the quality of life in their respective areas. The one place I have lived that has a nuclear plant also, coincidentally, has one of the happiest most thriving communities I have ever been a part of.
So there is a personal anecdote regarding the irony of the NIMBY mindset. All the crazies can run in terror from nuclear plants. I, for one, will embrace one being built in any community I am part of. =)
The whole "Evil Bill" thing got old too. Perhaps we could make a new enemy?
I nominate kdawson...the biggest advantage is that it has that whole, evil but insider to the good guys' organization twist going for it.
and people want explosions instead of sensitive young men who write verse.
Really? Because it seems to me like people have been eating up the sensitive young man bit quite well these days. Let's see here, there was Spock in the new Star Trek, the entire character set of the Twilight series, the tubby kid from the new SGU series (maybe he's gotten better, but for the first have of the season I watched, he spent all his time pining over a girl rather than pursuing her), the supposedly hardcore marine from Avatar that was incapable of functioning with passion or purpose until he met an alien woman that stole his heart, A Christian Bale from the new terminator movie that was more concerned with what was right and wrong and what whether or not he was leading like he was supposed to rather than blowing the shit out of every single robot he saw, and everything else that go in his way (like Arnie from number 2), A Christian Bale in the Dark Night that wanted to whine and cry about a dead Katie Holmes rather than just punch the Joker in the face like we all know Val Kilmer would have done, and a Harry Potter that has taken 5 whole movies just to shoot a friggin' malicious spell at someone (maybe that's how the books went, I don't know, but people sure seem to love a confused and angsty teen boy these days). Oh, and don't even get me started on that God-foresaken tragedy that was the portrayal of Anakin Skywalker in the newest three movies.
So, while I agree that Hollywood should try some new material, I must say anything that has a sensitive male subject in it seems to make it perfect for mass consumption these days. I, for one, want Bruce Willis to punch some more aliens in the face while making out with a hot redhead chick.
Another useful teaching technology? Podcasts. One of my professors recorded every single lecture he gave and podcast it openly on his website (you didn't even need to be registered to download or tune into it. It made review and studying so much easier and relevant when test time rolled around. Sometimes technology really is good.
Sometimes the younger generations ARE wrong. I think the problem is these technologies are fad technologies and the people making them popular haven't outgrown them yet.
I think that you hit the nail on the head right there as to why this really isn't some kind of social crisis. These technologies, so far as I can tell, really are just fad technologies. I recall when Myspace was first introduced friggin' EVERYONE ran out, signed up, put a bunch of flashy hearts and mini hot rod icons on their page, and obsessed over that website for the next year and a half. Then facebook came along. Same general migration and adoption, less flashy hearts (those were eventually replaced with starving farm animals and who-bit-who updates regarding vampire games). I recall my first year of college how every student was on facebook. If you weren't then you missed out on a lot of party invites and what not. These days, facebook seems to be used more as a crap-gaming platform than an organizing event. For that, people seem more prone to text and/or twitter. So the moral of the story? These really are just fads I think. Fads that wear out after a year or two.
Hell, right now I am watching folk my age (just entering the workplace out of college) starting to place a lot more value on time together at a pub or Starbucks rather than chatting on facebook or MSN. The funniest part of this migration is that after ~4 years of socializing through proxy technologies, socializing real time tends to be incredibly awkward (honestly, watching folk try to strike up conversation is downright hilarious as it takes a question-answer form like an IM conversation...I am just itching to see someone say, "ASL" to someone in real like). Nonetheless, folk are learning. I think people my age are starting to revalue the face-face interaction, but, just like the migration from myspace to facebook, the migration from facebook to the pub might be a bit slow and awkward and some die-hards might get left behind. In the end, while the article is an interesting discussion, I really think that both generations, iGeneration and Net Generation, are going to turn out just fine. They are just going to take some interesting and rather amusing paths to get there.
You know, I recall that throughout my later high school and early college years (I'm part of the supposed 'Net' generation btw) that I was leaning closer and closer towards that instant gratification lifestyle myself (I blamed it on moving to a relatively 'large' city from a very small one). But I can distinctly recall that as college neared its end I came to value patience and perfecting a craft as an art. One of the biggest contributing factors to that shift in perspective came from reading Robert Pirsig's, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." As I understand it, that book also had quite the impact on the generation preceeding mine, one generation that seems particularly scornful of us angsty little 80's and 90's kids. I wonder if that book might help work that patience virtue into this particular generation if it were more widely taught in schools and such..../shrug
Interesting, I grew up in a small little town in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California and my technology adoption time-line follows both yours and the parent's almost exactly. I wonder if I can use this as evidence to my friends who have yet to leave my hometown that it really is an oppressive regime from whence escape should be the first priority....Either way, as an American that also didn't have a personal computer until the early 2000's, hadn't seen a PC before about 1994, and didn't even adopt a cell phone until 2004ish, I can at least say its good to know that there are some other 80's babies in the same tech boat that I was =)
Actually the article and Mozilla's spokesman address this concern as one of the primary threats to the openness of the web in the future. It is mentioned that this threat, amongst others, will hopefully be addressed by the projects pushed through drumbeat in an attempt to keep information from coalescing into a few central locations. Whether you are cynical or not, like Mozilla or not, or are new here or not, the article is, at the very least, an interesting discussion. I would recommend checking it out.
I'll bet the British made that comment a bit over 200 years ago: "Rifles and muskets against cavalry and the entire British Navy? Wake up Colonists..."
Worked out alright in my book.
Tell that to Davy Crockett and John Paul Jones.
Having said all this, there are difficult philosophical issues with animal research. For example, what's our basis of saying that it's ok to do research on animals so that people can live better? Is it because we're smarter? If so, is it therefore ok for us to do similar research on stupid or mentally retarded people?
At the risk of sounding like a total asshole, I think I have a possible answer to that question of why it's okay we do research on animals. Frankly, it seems to me to be Darwinian in nature. The reason we, as humans, are where we are at in the world is because we evolved the natural mechanisms to out-compete a number of other species for dominance. Think about it, social habits allowed us to prevail over larger, faster, more aggressive predators. Mental developments allowed us to abstract into the realm of pattern recognition that has helped us survive everything from the weather to migrating food sources (herds), and so on.
Having made it where we are, today, by constant exposure to Darwinian competition (even amongst ourselves via the constant waging of war for resources and so on) seems to have given us an entitlement to the top of the hill complex. Hell, maybe the feeling that we are entitled to be on top is precisely what makes us so aggressive as a species and thus so successful. That being said, I think the reason we feel entitled or feel morally just in performing our science on animals or chimps (also animals) or whatever, might stem from the fact that doing our very crude science on those same animals and, for that matter, the rest of our surroundings, is precisely one of the factors that has allowed us to set apart from the rest of nature. In other words, mankind long ago used to observe patterns in nature to gain an advantage over competing species. Maybe we observed some animals that migrated during cold periods so we emulated them to survive cold times etc. Thus, observing those things around us is a part of what allowed us to 'dominate' the rest of the species of this world. Today, we have taken that to an extreme. Now we still observe our surroundings, but we first manipulate the situation to learn something very specific. In other words, our very learning abilities have evolved because those capable of separating controlled and uncontrolled observations tended to have better ideas that were more widely adopted and those that didn't.
So what makes us feel it is okay to work on lesser species? The very fact that they are a lesser species, precisely because we worked on them in the first place. It's cyclical, sure. And I have no idea if there is any kind of research whatsoever to back up my claim. So keep in mind that it is, indeed, just an idea. Nonetheless, it's an interesting one in my opinion.
.....Informative mod.....you actually managed to talk about your penis on the internet and have it modded informative. Wow. This kind of thing is going to be what makes up stories for our grandchildren when we get older.
Announcing the intent to distribute a new technology, TV or otherwise, is just fine and dandy. However, until I start seeing 3D TV's on my local craigslist listings, I can safely assume that the price is still a bit high and the quality is still in the, 'brand new but buggy' range. =)
I'm part of the entitlement generation thank you very much. I want a way to get alzheimers AND brain cancer from one source for half the standard price. In fact, I move that we find a process to do this, document it under an open license, and torrent it. Cancer and Alzheimers want to be free! It's time we stop letting the corporate overlords and power hungry government officials create a false scarcity on alzheimer and cancer products!
Many aligators will be slain, but the swamp will remain.
Coincidentally fitting for the nostalgia I would say, don't you all think? Space will remain. If you want to get there, go buy a book about orbital theory and help us get there =)
A real hacker would use chop(). =P