<quote> Having a stupid accent is a conscious decision. </quote>
No, no it really isn't. I notice that if I spend more than one week with a particular group of people on and off, I start using their speech patterns, including pronunciation, tonality, etc. Every now and again, I cringe over something that I've unconsciously mimicked. Getting rid of a stupid accent is the conscious decision, and not an easy one.
There's a reason people suggest full immersion language learning.
This. I have a couple of relatives that grew up in the exact same area with the exact same accents, but 10-20 years later their accents now reflect where they moved to (Kansas, Georgia, South Carolina). Though their accents aren't as heavy as the average joe from the area, it still clearly isn't what it used to be.
At the same time, I moved someone only a few hours or so away from where I grew up. My coworkers occasionally make fun of my accent, while I didn't notice a difference. I finally visited home again after a year, and I immediately knew what my coworkers were making fun of.
On a similar topic, is that some kind of phenomenon? Where you don't notice your own accent?
if there is ONE case where it is true and your sample size is (nearly) infinitely large, the chance to find another case is 1.
Perhaps "nearly 1", but not 1. Case in point: There are infinite counting numbers, but only 1 even prime number (2). Surely with an infinite sample size, by your logic, you would expect multiple examples even primes?
You're mixing constants with statistical probabilities.
The Crusades, Inquisition, the Thirty Years' War, the Jihad, 9/11 are just a few examples of what God-fearing people can do. Religion is one of, if not the biggest causes of war and violence. People were fucking burned alive for thought-crime - belonging, or merely being accused, to another religion or to none.
Religion prevents violence? Ha!
Those people had something wrong with them to begin with. They just needed an excuse to act. Religion in itself isn't the cause. Just like guns and bombs aren't the cause. They just aide the people who want to abuse it for their own means, even though it might go against what it was originally designed for. I don't know of too many religions that explicitly state "go out and murder a bunch of people because they disagree with this religion". Twisted interpretations should not represent the source material, or anybody else who uses it to help improve their own and others' lives.
It certainly doesn't help to demonize such large groups of people because of a few extremists. While whining about religious people not being tolerant, blaming these same people for the majority of wars is showing a similar style of intolerance. The people who started those particular wars may be citing their religion as the reason, but the real reason is they're just insane assholes.
How about "Prevent Seasonal Affective Disorder Induced Suicide By Putting Up Lots Of Lights And Reminders That Things Will Get Better In The Spring While Getting Drunk And Exchanging GIfts Day"
It served a much more important and practical purpose before pervasive electric lighting came along. It kept you alive.
Interesting that it kept you alive back then, because now it almost kills me. Family is crazy.
Apple doesn't understand that Microsoft won because they were very responsive to what customers wanted. They bent over backwards to give what (the biggest segment of) customers wanted.
And that's why the Windows 7 UI is an abortion gone wrong.
Curious, because all the reviews I read about Windows 7 praise it. Which UI elements are we even talking about here? Note that I've only used it maybe a few days total time, but when I did it seemed fine.
Apple has always been about proprietary and high-priced consumer items. I don't know where you're getting this, "Google is the new Apple," schtick from.
Apple used to include schematics for the computers they sold. So no, they didn't always used to be about proprietary, and they weren't always complete dicks.
It's broken because last year I was spending over $90/month for all of a few channels... and then only a few programs on those channels. Why on earth would I do that? It's like paying for a whole cupcake when all you do is eat the sprinkles. And an overpriced cupcake at that!
I don't give a shit who said "TV is a passive experience", because that's not the way many of us want it to be 100% of the time. I want content I pay for. I want to be able to look for it in an engaging way without channel surfing. And, the technology has come to a point where we are able to get the content on the spot without futzing around with crappy DVRs. It opens up new worlds and possibilities. Suddenly, content publishers don't need (or they shouldn't anyway) extensive contracts and agreements with broadcasters just to get their stuff on the air. Suddenly, publishers can be in more control and get a bigger cut... and probably with less ads. Everybody wins. Maybe this way we'll get something worth watching instead of Ghost Hunters 47, season 15 of survivor, or the next "reality" TV show following the latest waste of space that calls themselves a celebrity.
My question is: what the hell isn't wrong with TV as it is now?
They've been trying to add romantic interest since the 2005 reboot. Look at Rose. And Amy. And River. And...
Bah. Rose was the only one with a continual and clear vibe of that. Amy only gave that vibe at the beginning of her reign. Amy and Rory together as Doctor companions I thought was refreshing, and it took away most of what some would call sexual tension between Amy and the Doctor (could you blame him anyway? Ow!). You also had Martha, who I didn't get much of that vibe from (she seemed more interested in the discovery and adventure), and then you have Donna, who gave him constant servings of his own shit. That and the total lack of interest between Donna and the Doctor is why the Doctor liked her so much as a companion.
Guessing he's a vegan with an agenda. Probably make a good study case for a paper on meatless diets increasing bad decision making.
I mean really, they already made the huge mistake of giving up tasty animal flesh, someone should study what other bad decisions vegans make.
Well, eating too much meat can constipate you. Then you go off to the john and spend a lot of time in there, which makes people think you don't want to spend time with them.
Similarly, eating too much fiber (aka - fruit) can give you a bad case of the runs, and the end result is the same.
That's the most politely-worded and voluminous "Fuck you, you're on your own" I've ever read.
Yes, it doesn't take long reading through their "responses" to learn it's nothing but a giant PR stunt set out to make it look like they're in touch with the people.
The fact that so many people are excusing this confirms to me my suspicion that this sort of behaviour is widespread in the Linux "community". And it makes me glad I'm not part of it.
Funnily enough when people pay for software they have more respect for it and the developers.
Listen, just because it's free doesn't mean we can't voice an opinion. That argument is just as bad as saying "If you have nothing to hide, then surely you won't mind the cops rummaging through your stuff for no reason." There's nothing wrong with saying we don't like it.
No, but there's everything wrong with abusing the people who are giving you the free stuff. It's the not so fine line between giving constructive criticism and being an ungrateful asshole.
If I was you I'd ask for my money back. Oh that's right, you didn't pay for it. The sense of entitlement and the ungratefulness of Linux users never ceases to amaze me.
Listen, just because it's free doesn't mean we can't voice an opinion. That argument is just as bad as saying "If you have nothing to hide, then surely you won't mind the cops rummaging through your stuff for no reason." There's nothing wrong with saying we don't like it. Unless you're a developer, the only way to improve it is to voice how it can improve.
You are exactly right. Why the hell would I want to use Unity which often requires me to move my hands between my keyboard and mouse, click extra times to do the same action, or look for another one of those hidden features that were implemented in order to save 10px of space on my 1980x1200 resolution screen.
I like seeing exactly what windows I have open and ungrouped. I like using my horizontal space to display these things. I like not having my file menu potentially hundreds of pixels away when I could normally access it a very short distance away. I liked dedicating launcher menus on a separate bar from my task bar. I like visible scroll bars and I most definitely like having dedicated buttons visible at all times just one click away from me minimizing and maximizing my windows. In my opinion, Beryl/Compiz/Fusion alone offered enough eye-candy mixed with the right options to enhance my productivity while making the experience pretty.
There are very good reasons why I preferred the old Gnome 2.x desktop UI over OSX, KDE, Windows, or anything like that.
Here's a tip Shuttleworth: Don't be a Jobs. Don't think that just because we don't agree with you 100% that we're enemies or a bunch of whiners who are whining for no good reason. You have many users who know what they want, who know what they like, and who know the reasons why. Don't insult us by acting like The King of Hipster Club.
Shuttleworth is talking shit. Unity is a GUI designed from the START for tablets.
Or maybe it is just a GUI mostly copying OS X. There are very few things in it that are particularly tablet-centric.
Oh God. Really? Can we get into any GUI without claiming it somehow copied something Apple? And did you even use Unity? For one, like it or not, it really is radically different than anything else I've ever used. It is also very tablet-centric with it's crazy large icons and more mobile looking interface (as compared to traditional desktop UI).
I also didn't use present tense. So I didn't say they'e selling shit on a cracker, I said they could have.
Geez, people read too much into that. I've never been up-down moderated so much for 1 phrase that was fairly accurate and a compliment to Apple's great marketing department. Goes to show how emotional people get about brands.
That statement said nothing about the quality of their products. Yes, marketing is only a factor, but the product is also only a factor. Without good marketing it's just a toy. With good marketing it becomes gold. If Apple didn't market their products they way they do now, I doubt it would have achieved the same cult status it has now, and it especially wouldn't be the same kind of social status symbol they somehow inserted into millions of peoples' brains.
Anything else people have inferred from my statement kind of proves my point.
Whether you liked it a lot or didn't, Apple made products that "work". They don't crash, they don't lock up, they don't keep their user puzzled how to use them. They made "computer stuff" usable by common folks.
See? I told you they had a great marketing department.
Slashdot Mirror
<quote> Having a stupid accent is a conscious decision. </quote> No, no it really isn't. I notice that if I spend more than one week with a particular group of people on and off, I start using their speech patterns, including pronunciation, tonality, etc. Every now and again, I cringe over something that I've unconsciously mimicked. Getting rid of a stupid accent is the conscious decision, and not an easy one. There's a reason people suggest full immersion language learning.
This. I have a couple of relatives that grew up in the exact same area with the exact same accents, but 10-20 years later their accents now reflect where they moved to (Kansas, Georgia, South Carolina). Though their accents aren't as heavy as the average joe from the area, it still clearly isn't what it used to be.
At the same time, I moved someone only a few hours or so away from where I grew up. My coworkers occasionally make fun of my accent, while I didn't notice a difference. I finally visited home again after a year, and I immediately knew what my coworkers were making fun of.
On a similar topic, is that some kind of phenomenon? Where you don't notice your own accent?
if there is ONE case where it is true and your sample size is (nearly) infinitely large, the chance to find another case is 1.
Perhaps "nearly 1", but not 1. Case in point: There are infinite counting numbers, but only 1 even prime number (2). Surely with an infinite sample size, by your logic, you would expect multiple examples even primes?
You're mixing constants with statistical probabilities.
The Crusades, Inquisition, the Thirty Years' War, the Jihad, 9/11 are just a few examples of what God-fearing people can do. Religion is one of, if not the biggest causes of war and violence. People were fucking burned alive for thought-crime - belonging, or merely being accused, to another religion or to none.
Religion prevents violence? Ha!
Those people had something wrong with them to begin with. They just needed an excuse to act. Religion in itself isn't the cause. Just like guns and bombs aren't the cause. They just aide the people who want to abuse it for their own means, even though it might go against what it was originally designed for. I don't know of too many religions that explicitly state "go out and murder a bunch of people because they disagree with this religion". Twisted interpretations should not represent the source material, or anybody else who uses it to help improve their own and others' lives.
It certainly doesn't help to demonize such large groups of people because of a few extremists. While whining about religious people not being tolerant, blaming these same people for the majority of wars is showing a similar style of intolerance. The people who started those particular wars may be citing their religion as the reason, but the real reason is they're just insane assholes.
How about "Prevent Seasonal Affective Disorder Induced Suicide By Putting Up Lots Of Lights And Reminders That Things Will Get Better In The Spring While Getting Drunk And Exchanging GIfts Day"
It served a much more important and practical purpose before pervasive electric lighting came along. It kept you alive.
Interesting that it kept you alive back then, because now it almost kills me. Family is crazy.
Not really. During the Apple II days, when Wozniak still made maor contributions to policy, they were not that way.
That's because Woz is all about cool tech. Woz kicks ass.
Apple doesn't understand that Microsoft won because they were very responsive to what customers wanted. They bent over backwards to give what (the biggest segment of) customers wanted.
And that's why the Windows 7 UI is an abortion gone wrong.
Curious, because all the reviews I read about Windows 7 praise it. Which UI elements are we even talking about here? Note that I've only used it maybe a few days total time, but when I did it seemed fine.
Apple has always been about proprietary and high-priced consumer items. I don't know where you're getting this, "Google is the new Apple," schtick from.
Apple used to include schematics for the computers they sold. So no, they didn't always used to be about proprietary, and they weren't always complete dicks.
Life just adapts to exploit all possible resources.
It's not the correct use for that particular sentence, and that's what I had a problem with. But I could just be splitting hairs, here.
Survival based on traits that were randomly mutated is adaptation.
No it's not.
Thats what happens when you're got ~3 billion years of evolution (or 6000 years of creation, if you're moderately retarded)
Pfffft. It was 6 days of creation, you ignorant clod!
Life just adapts to exploit all possible resources.
Wrong. Nothing adapts. What you see is what survived based on traits that were randomly mutated.
We the ppl control the government. We get to elect our representatives, or use direct methods such as referendums.
That's what they'd like you to think. Dictators love elections.
It doesn't matter who's in control. If they get too powerful, it's time to think twice about the situation. And guess where we're at now?
Flaps down or not, this has gotta be one of the coolest things I've ever seen, period. My dreams of being a superhero are reborn!!!
It's broken because last year I was spending over $90/month for all of a few channels... and then only a few programs on those channels. Why on earth would I do that? It's like paying for a whole cupcake when all you do is eat the sprinkles. And an overpriced cupcake at that!
I don't give a shit who said "TV is a passive experience", because that's not the way many of us want it to be 100% of the time. I want content I pay for. I want to be able to look for it in an engaging way without channel surfing. And, the technology has come to a point where we are able to get the content on the spot without futzing around with crappy DVRs. It opens up new worlds and possibilities. Suddenly, content publishers don't need (or they shouldn't anyway) extensive contracts and agreements with broadcasters just to get their stuff on the air. Suddenly, publishers can be in more control and get a bigger cut... and probably with less ads. Everybody wins. Maybe this way we'll get something worth watching instead of Ghost Hunters 47, season 15 of survivor, or the next "reality" TV show following the latest waste of space that calls themselves a celebrity.
My question is: what the hell isn't wrong with TV as it is now?
They've been trying to add romantic interest since the 2005 reboot. Look at Rose. And Amy. And River. And...
Bah. Rose was the only one with a continual and clear vibe of that. Amy only gave that vibe at the beginning of her reign. Amy and Rory together as Doctor companions I thought was refreshing, and it took away most of what some would call sexual tension between Amy and the Doctor (could you blame him anyway? Ow!). You also had Martha, who I didn't get much of that vibe from (she seemed more interested in the discovery and adventure), and then you have Donna, who gave him constant servings of his own shit. That and the total lack of interest between Donna and the Doctor is why the Doctor liked her so much as a companion.
Guessing he's a vegan with an agenda. Probably make a good study case for a paper on meatless diets increasing bad decision making.
I mean really, they already made the huge mistake of giving up tasty animal flesh, someone should study what other bad decisions vegans make.
Well, eating too much meat can constipate you. Then you go off to the john and spend a lot of time in there, which makes people think you don't want to spend time with them.
Similarly, eating too much fiber (aka - fruit) can give you a bad case of the runs, and the end result is the same.
That's the most politely-worded and voluminous "Fuck you, you're on your own" I've ever read.
Yes, it doesn't take long reading through their "responses" to learn it's nothing but a giant PR stunt set out to make it look like they're in touch with the people.
The fact that so many people are excusing this confirms to me my suspicion that this sort of behaviour is widespread in the Linux "community". And it makes me glad I'm not part of it.
Funnily enough when people pay for software they have more respect for it and the developers.
Based on what evidence exactly?
Listen, just because it's free doesn't mean we can't voice an opinion. That argument is just as bad as saying "If you have nothing to hide, then surely you won't mind the cops rummaging through your stuff for no reason." There's nothing wrong with saying we don't like it.
No, but there's everything wrong with abusing the people who are giving you the free stuff. It's the not so fine line between giving constructive criticism and being an ungrateful asshole.
Touche.
Piss off, Shuttleworth
If I was you I'd ask for my money back. Oh that's right, you didn't pay for it. The sense of entitlement and the ungratefulness of Linux users never ceases to amaze me.
Listen, just because it's free doesn't mean we can't voice an opinion. That argument is just as bad as saying "If you have nothing to hide, then surely you won't mind the cops rummaging through your stuff for no reason." There's nothing wrong with saying we don't like it. Unless you're a developer, the only way to improve it is to voice how it can improve.
You are exactly right. Why the hell would I want to use Unity which often requires me to move my hands between my keyboard and mouse, click extra times to do the same action, or look for another one of those hidden features that were implemented in order to save 10px of space on my 1980x1200 resolution screen.
I like seeing exactly what windows I have open and ungrouped. I like using my horizontal space to display these things. I like not having my file menu potentially hundreds of pixels away when I could normally access it a very short distance away. I liked dedicating launcher menus on a separate bar from my task bar. I like visible scroll bars and I most definitely like having dedicated buttons visible at all times just one click away from me minimizing and maximizing my windows. In my opinion, Beryl/Compiz/Fusion alone offered enough eye-candy mixed with the right options to enhance my productivity while making the experience pretty.
There are very good reasons why I preferred the old Gnome 2.x desktop UI over OSX, KDE, Windows, or anything like that.
Here's a tip Shuttleworth: Don't be a Jobs. Don't think that just because we don't agree with you 100% that we're enemies or a bunch of whiners who are whining for no good reason. You have many users who know what they want, who know what they like, and who know the reasons why. Don't insult us by acting like The King of Hipster Club.
Shuttleworth is talking shit. Unity is a GUI designed from the START for tablets.
Or maybe it is just a GUI mostly copying OS X. There are very few things in it that are particularly tablet-centric.
Oh God. Really? Can we get into any GUI without claiming it somehow copied something Apple? And did you even use Unity? For one, like it or not, it really is radically different than anything else I've ever used. It is also very tablet-centric with it's crazy large icons and more mobile looking interface (as compared to traditional desktop UI).
PS - I can't stand Unity.
I also didn't use present tense. So I didn't say they'e selling shit on a cracker, I said they could have.
Geez, people read too much into that. I've never been up-down moderated so much for 1 phrase that was fairly accurate and a compliment to Apple's great marketing department. Goes to show how emotional people get about brands.
That statement said nothing about the quality of their products. Yes, marketing is only a factor, but the product is also only a factor. Without good marketing it's just a toy. With good marketing it becomes gold. If Apple didn't market their products they way they do now, I doubt it would have achieved the same cult status it has now, and it especially wouldn't be the same kind of social status symbol they somehow inserted into millions of peoples' brains.
Anything else people have inferred from my statement kind of proves my point.
Whether you liked it a lot or didn't, Apple made products that "work". They don't crash, they don't lock up, they don't keep their user puzzled how to use them. They made "computer stuff" usable by common folks.
See? I told you they had a great marketing department.