The video for Marilyn Manson's "Fight Song" makes the same point as TFA.
The imagery in the video (which, incidentally is included on the "Bowling for Columbine" DVD) is all from a high school football match. It's brilliant-- it illustrates how we condemn MM for "encouraging violence" with one side of our mouths, while the other side cheers on the hundreds of thousands of boys who spend hours every day after school practicing the best ways to knock each other down.
But one kind of violence is "good" (sport encourages conformity and alligiance, and distracts from spending energy on real problems) while the other is bad (refusal to conform or obey or be diverted).
Not that all MM listeners are enlightened freedom fighters or anything. Most are just as brainless as the jocks they despise, they are just "differently conforming" out of the ubiquitous teenage desire to form a singular identity.
But when the PMRC asks "Why are our youth so violent?" they should be more honest and ask "why are they choosing random, existential violence over planned, state-sanctioned violence?"
This is quickly becoming my biggest pet peeve: knee-jerk reaction to a problem that already happened and is now unlikely to happen again.
Shoe-removing at U.S. airports is the most hateful example. Just because one guy tried to detonate his shoes four years ago, I will now have to remove my shoes everytime I board a plane for the rest of my life. Never mind that A) they don't even test the shoes for explosives, B) the next terrorist attack won't be on air-travel due to increased attention there, and C) even if it is, a shoe-bomb isn't going to be a successful strategy.
It's like were doing pennance out of guilt. "If only we'd done this before Richard Reid got on the plane!" Well, we didn't. And doing it now isn't going to help what happened then.
I mean, we learned better than this in high school football. When a guy burns you on the run, do you pack all your guys on the line for the next play so he doesn't do it again? No, because then they'll just burn you on a long pass. A good defense is balanced and proactive, not just reactive to the last thing that happened.
An Amorphophallus titanum named "Tabitha the Titan" bloomed last August at University of California, Davis. Two more, "Ted" & "Tammy," are expected to bloom again this summer. That's a whole lot of stink.
but during the browser wars wasn't it IE producing functionality that hadn't even been drafted by the W3C yet?
Yes, and that was the whole damn problem.
The point of HTML was universal interoperability (so Tim Berners-Lee's collegues could all read each other's stuff no matter what computer setup they had). But Microsoft sacrificed this in order to obtain control and market share. They encouraged web developers to use their proprietary markup, which forced people into using their browser if they wanted to access this content.
This was not a benevolent gesture from Microsoft- it was nothing but a power-grab. Open, agreed-upon standards are the foundation of interoperability, and Microsoft always stands against this when it thinks it can monopolize a technology.
could have evolved back? In 70 years? Hell, maybe it just happened over the weekend. Speaking of which, where's my third arm? I've been here over 30 years now, and I can't see what is taking evolution so long!
OK, granted a flower probably has at least one generation per year, while I do not. But still, "evolution" is generally thought to proceed in the span of millions of generations, not tens.
wait, you're not from Dover, Pensylvannia, are you?
I've been using the VerticalMouse 2 at work for almost a year, and it's great. No more arm numbness, and five programmable buttons for Firefox power surfing.
Plus, it looks so weird that no one dares use my computer anymore when I am gone! Actual quote from someone who came into my cubicle the other day: "What is that thing, a rudder?"
Symentec Ghost 2050: Dixie Flatline Edition®
on
Download Your Brain
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· Score: 1
I think this is exactly the form the technology would take--a bit-for-bit data snapshot. It would allow us to make a working mind-copy before we really understand what the hell is going on inside the brain.
When I restore my computer from a Ghost image, I have no idea what most of the system files are or do. I don't know what needs what to work together correctly. I just know that it *works* when I turn it back on. (Hmm, maybe Microsoft's new slogan should be telling us something about their R&D targets for 2050...)
What would be interesting is finding out where the "system" partitions are in the brain and where the "memories" partitions are, so you could selectively copy and restore (or maybe even upgrade or swap) your consciousness without losing your store of recollections. Plus you could share memories with a friend by just copying them onto on a 1TB thumbdrive or something.
are they of unusual size? I didn't think they existed...Aargh!
European viral humor lost on American nerds
on
Firefox Promo Videos
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· Score: 1
I didn't think they were that funny either, but that's because my humor gland is petrified after a lifetime of watching craptacular American sitcoms.
Have you ever seen a Mentos commercial? That's what people are used to and expect in Europe. If you tried to show some Friends-wannabe or Dodge-Ram-Tough-type Firefox commercial there they'd be regarding you with the same puzzlement and derision.
Plus, I think most are missing out on the stated "viral" nature of these adverts. Yes, they left out lots of product information; that's what qualifies as a "viral" ad campaign. It is solely about building buzz, interest and name recognition--not listing off product features and advantages.
Most news and commentary on this story seems to be willfully missing the point (well, if you believe that humans at base want to help each other rather than make tons of money...)
The stated application for this system is for disabled hunters, such as Dale Hagberg, a 38-year-old quadriplegic who "worked a computer mouse with his mouth and tongue on Saturday, April 9, to shoot at an antelope on a game reserve near Boeme, Texas, while lying in bed in Ligonier, a town in northeastern Indiana."
Everyone keeps heaping scorn and ridicule on "lazy hunters who can't drag their ass of the sofa to go hunting in the woods." But what about paralyzed people who couldn't drag their asses anywhere if they tried? As both this Washington Post article and the referenced L.A. Times article note, the hunt on April 9th did have the traditional elements of a "normal" hunt--Hagberg had to wait for the antelope to come into the clear, just as an "abled" hunter would do in a blind. He came away "empty-handed" as his computer wasn't fast enough to maneuver the rifle in time to get a good shot off (damn lag!)
"Lockwood, the site's creator, points to the failure of Hagberg's hunt as proof that it is truly a 'hunt,' complete with hours of idle waiting for prey and ample opportunity for it to escape. 'It's not about killing something,' he said. 'It's about experiencing the thrill of the hunt, the boredom, everything that goes with it.'"
Restricted to disabled hunters, I see nothing wrong with this website that is not also a problem with "traditional" hunting (PETA concerns, etc.) But to be solvent, I'm sure they would have to throw open the doors to Joe Lazy-Ass as well, which is less compelling.
But I would argue that, just like in Sony Betamax vs. Universal, the problem is not with the technology, but with the way the consumer utilizes it. Hagberg shows a "legitimate use" of this technology, and to ban it outright through special legistation reeks of misunderstanding and shortsightedness. I mean, Joe Lazy-Ass is also out in the woods flushing game with dynamite and using AK-47s to mow down yearlings, and we don't ban all hunting to stop him there. We should allow the proper hunting technology to the proper people, and not throw out baby with bathwater.
Re:The force is strong with this one.
on
The Darth Vader Blog
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· Score: 5, Funny
And the followup in later comments:
Duncan Ozzel said...
YOU BASTARD!
How DARE you kill our son. He has always been faithful to the Empire and always served you well...
Ok.. There was that incident in the Dining hall..
and the whole "misunderstanding" on Tatoee that caused some bad PR on the local Troops show..
and the incident about the midgets that we really don't want to go into right now...
Ok.. so he deserved to die. He was adopted anyway.
So... basically... all I'm trying to say is... Thanks for the Midget Porn.
Bush can call himself a Methodist all he wants, but he sure doesn't act like one to me. His beliefs on the subjects above are much closer to that of Southern Baptists.
Personally, in reading the books, I've always been left feeling quite indifferent to Trillian. Almost like she's a background character with little to no importance. So it sounds like they at least got that right.
Until you get to the fifth book of the increasingly mis-labelled trilogy.
A cute idea that, like most of these kinds of demonstrations, ultimately makes transparent that the people engaging in these kinds of stunts aren't that bright. I'm all in favor of privacy advocacy but this kind of stuff... well, at best it raises awareness, at worse it paints privacy advocates as misguided loonies.
But what if things have actually gotten so bad that the simple Truth now looks like insanity... It seems that all the most brilliant insights in science made the discoverers look like loonys (and often got them burned as loonys, for that matter).
I would say that public perception of sanity has never correlated well with Truth.
Slashdot Mirror
The imagery in the video (which, incidentally is included on the "Bowling for Columbine" DVD) is all from a high school football match. It's brilliant-- it illustrates how we condemn MM for "encouraging violence" with one side of our mouths, while the other side cheers on the hundreds of thousands of boys who spend hours every day after school practicing the best ways to knock each other down.
But one kind of violence is "good" (sport encourages conformity and alligiance, and distracts from spending energy on real problems) while the other is bad (refusal to conform or obey or be diverted).
Not that all MM listeners are enlightened freedom fighters or anything. Most are just as brainless as the jocks they despise, they are just "differently conforming" out of the ubiquitous teenage desire to form a singular identity.
But when the PMRC asks "Why are our youth so violent?" they should be more honest and ask "why are they choosing random, existential violence over planned, state-sanctioned violence?"
Boy, it didn't take long for this thread to be over! - Mike Godwin
Shouldn't that be "...the f***ing TFA article also does mention..."
Then they'll just kill themselves, achieving the same end without the government's morally questionable intervention. Yes, a very elegant solution!
This is quickly becoming my biggest pet peeve: knee-jerk reaction to a problem that already happened and is now unlikely to happen again.
Shoe-removing at U.S. airports is the most hateful example. Just because one guy tried to detonate his shoes four years ago, I will now have to remove my shoes everytime I board a plane for the rest of my life. Never mind that A) they don't even test the shoes for explosives, B) the next terrorist attack won't be on air-travel due to increased attention there, and C) even if it is, a shoe-bomb isn't going to be a successful strategy.
It's like were doing pennance out of guilt. "If only we'd done this before Richard Reid got on the plane!" Well, we didn't. And doing it now isn't going to help what happened then.
I mean, we learned better than this in high school football. When a guy burns you on the run, do you pack all your guys on the line for the next play so he doesn't do it again? No, because then they'll just burn you on a long pass. A good defense is balanced and proactive, not just reactive to the last thing that happened.
-Mayor Joe Quimby
An Amorphophallus titanum named "Tabitha the Titan" bloomed last August at University of California, Davis. Two more, "Ted" & "Tammy," are expected to bloom again this summer. That's a whole lot of stink.
But Mirrordot's got it...
Yes, and that was the whole damn problem.
The point of HTML was universal interoperability (so Tim Berners-Lee's collegues could all read each other's stuff no matter what computer setup they had). But Microsoft sacrificed this in order to obtain control and market share. They encouraged web developers to use their proprietary markup, which forced people into using their browser if they wanted to access this content.
This was not a benevolent gesture from Microsoft- it was nothing but a power-grab. Open, agreed-upon standards are the foundation of interoperability, and Microsoft always stands against this when it thinks it can monopolize a technology.
Note: Parent is not joking...
OK, granted a flower probably has at least one generation per year, while I do not. But still, "evolution" is generally thought to proceed in the span of millions of generations, not tens.
wait, you're not from Dover, Pensylvannia, are you?
Plus, it looks so weird that no one dares use my computer anymore when I am gone! Actual quote from someone who came into my cubicle the other day: "What is that thing, a rudder?"
When I restore my computer from a Ghost image, I have no idea what most of the system files are or do. I don't know what needs what to work together correctly. I just know that it *works* when I turn it back on. (Hmm, maybe Microsoft's new slogan should be telling us something about their R&D targets for 2050...)
What would be interesting is finding out where the "system" partitions are in the brain and where the "memories" partitions are, so you could selectively copy and restore (or maybe even upgrade or swap) your consciousness without losing your store of recollections. Plus you could share memories with a friend by just copying them onto on a 1TB thumbdrive or something.
- Dude, RSS feeds are pretty cool: $249 for 6 pages (and it's only the first in a series!)
- I think users should control their own browser settings: $99 for one page
- Netscape is on the way out (written 6/03): $99 for one page
Man, I'm in the wrong business. "This just in- blue LEDs look awesome when you turn off the lights! Give me $149 to hear more!"are they of unusual size? I didn't think they existed...Aargh!
Have you ever seen a Mentos commercial? That's what people are used to and expect in Europe. If you tried to show some Friends-wannabe or Dodge-Ram-Tough-type Firefox commercial there they'd be regarding you with the same puzzlement and derision.
Plus, I think most are missing out on the stated "viral" nature of these adverts. Yes, they left out lots of product information; that's what qualifies as a "viral" ad campaign. It is solely about building buzz, interest and name recognition--not listing off product features and advantages.
The stated application for this system is for disabled hunters, such as Dale Hagberg, a 38-year-old quadriplegic who "worked a computer mouse with his mouth and tongue on Saturday, April 9, to shoot at an antelope on a game reserve near Boeme, Texas, while lying in bed in Ligonier, a town in northeastern Indiana."
Everyone keeps heaping scorn and ridicule on "lazy hunters who can't drag their ass of the sofa to go hunting in the woods." But what about paralyzed people who couldn't drag their asses anywhere if they tried? As both this Washington Post article and the referenced L.A. Times article note, the hunt on April 9th did have the traditional elements of a "normal" hunt--Hagberg had to wait for the antelope to come into the clear, just as an "abled" hunter would do in a blind. He came away "empty-handed" as his computer wasn't fast enough to maneuver the rifle in time to get a good shot off (damn lag!)
"Lockwood, the site's creator, points to the failure of Hagberg's hunt as proof that it is truly a 'hunt,' complete with hours of idle waiting for prey and ample opportunity for it to escape. 'It's not about killing something,' he said. 'It's about experiencing the thrill of the hunt, the boredom, everything that goes with it.'"
Restricted to disabled hunters, I see nothing wrong with this website that is not also a problem with "traditional" hunting (PETA concerns, etc.) But to be solvent, I'm sure they would have to throw open the doors to Joe Lazy-Ass as well, which is less compelling.
But I would argue that, just like in Sony Betamax vs. Universal, the problem is not with the technology, but with the way the consumer utilizes it. Hagberg shows a "legitimate use" of this technology, and to ban it outright through special legistation reeks of misunderstanding and shortsightedness. I mean, Joe Lazy-Ass is also out in the woods flushing game with dynamite and using AK-47s to mow down yearlings, and we don't ban all hunting to stop him there. We should allow the proper hunting technology to the proper people, and not throw out baby with bathwater.
Duncan Ozzel said...
YOU BASTARD!
How DARE you kill our son. He has always been faithful to the Empire and always served you well...
Ok.. There was that incident in the Dining hall..
and the whole "misunderstanding" on Tatoee that caused some bad PR on the local Troops show..
and the incident about the midgets that we really don't want to go into right now...
Ok.. so he deserved to die. He was adopted anyway.
So... basically... all I'm trying to say is... Thanks for the Midget Porn.
Duncan Ozzel Head of House Ozzel.
28.4.05
Maybe he meant 'method actor.'
"I'm not a president, but I play one on T.V.!"
Until you get to the fifth book of the increasingly mis-labelled trilogy.
Like, say, Microsoft developing their own Flash-like product? Something such as Sparkle?
But what if things have actually gotten so bad that the simple Truth now looks like insanity... It seems that all the most brilliant insights in science made the discoverers look like loonys (and often got them burned as loonys, for that matter).
I would say that public perception of sanity has never correlated well with Truth.
Also Scotts Valley, CA. But my current residence in Davis, CA has quite low resolution. I wonder how they have cobbled together these satallite maps?
Imagine Natalie Portman covered in...nothing!