Actually, I'm on the northside. I'm just a couple of blocks from the Lathrop(?) homes at Diversey/Clybourn. I've lived in the same couple of blocks (with one move) for the past 4 years.
I plan on moving this year when my lease is up; but i almost wish I didnt have too. There are other reasons for moving, but the increasing crime rate is, by far, the largest factor in my decision. The other big factor (I firmly believe the two are related) is the gentrification that is taking place in this area.
I really hate that crap. It's disgusting to watch these developers build their condos, Bed Bath and Beyonds, Ultas, Home Depots and golf stores right up to the front doors of the projects and then just wait. They know the city will shuffle the poor people around like cattle to make room for more condos and shopping. And the poor people aren't stupid- they know it's coming. Between that and the single family homeowners in the area who are being forced out because they can no longer afford the property taxes on the houses they live in, it's a wonder that the crime rate isn't triple what it is.
I don't really have a point- sorry for the rant. I just see a cycle of rich peoples money and police working hand in hand against poor people. It's tough to explain until you see it, but it exists.
For the most part I agree with what you are saying, but I feel the need to respond to one portion of your comment. I should also preface this by saying that I also live in Chicago and live in very close proximity to a housing project that is being 'redistributed'.
I disagree when you say that placing police in cars in problematic areas works. I live on a street where police come regularly. They sit in their cars, sometimes two or three at a time for several hours on end. It's a one way, off-the-main-drag sort of street and my personal opinion is that they come here to hide. Anyway, despite the fact that the police are present and in number almost nightly 100 feet from the front door of my apartment, the following has happened within the past 18 MONTHS:
(1) My girlfriends car was broken into. They punched a hole through her door with a screwdriver and cleaned out her vehicle.
(2) My vehicle has been broken into twice. Both times they smashed out the window and took everything inside.
(3) Both basement apartments in my building have been broken into and robbed.
(4) A girl in my building was attacked by someone hiding in the laundry room.
And these are just the stories from my building. A coworker of mine lives a block away, and about 2:00am one weekend, he hears a crunching noise. Looking out the front window, he sees someone driving over his motorcycle while trying to park their car. he calls the police and runs outside. it turns out that the driver is an unlicensed, uninsured underage drunk teenager who has no id. the cop shows up, and he and the girl start talking to each other in spanish; refusing to speak english for my friend. he asks repeatedly what is going on and is told to shut up by the cop. The cop turns around eventually and starts asking my friend for his drivers license, insurance, title and registration. when my friend asks about the girls id, the cop yells at him and threatens to arrest him. then tells him to shut up again. By the time it's over, my friend has given the cop every piece of ID he has and the cop has warned him not to 'push it'. the girl got off without even getting a ticket.
So, I agree with you when you say that police claim their job isn't crime prevention. I will go one further, though, and say that police (in chicago) seem to think that their job is revenue generation.
I was surprised when i first moved into this building to find that i was starting to get parking tickets on a regular basis- with a grand total of 7 by the time i resolved the problem. It turns out that I was getting parking tickets because i drove a pickup truck, and, in the city of chicago, it is illegal in most residential areas to park a pickup truck on the street overnight (Some wards have special permits you can use that will allow you to park, but mine doesnt). The insanity of that law is another discussion- especially when you take into account the fact that i drive a compact pickup and the guy up the block drives a cadillac escalade and has no problems.
This problem cost me over $500 to resolve; and I'm still bitter about it. If anyone is interested or having the same problem, the solution is to get non B-Truck license plates. I chose environmental plates, but if the back of your truck is covered, you can also get RV plates. anyway, i'm drifting off-topic.
I can't even begin to tell you how angry this stuff has made me. The chicago police system is wrong in every sense of the word and the best database in the world is not going to make up for that fact.
Just to play devils advocate, I don't think you can really use a 53 year old collegiate dictionary as an authoritative source for this word. Here is a link about that very subject. Here is a small snippet from the story:
'At one time, a "gazette" was a low value coin which could purchase a newspaper. Today, the meaning of "a certain coin" has disappeared.'
Things change. Perceptions change. Words, although seemingly immutable, change over time as a reflection of the people who use them. Some words fall into disfavor (fag) and others disappear completely. I'm willing to bet the dictionary of 50 years ago is probably quite different than a modern one.
As to which is more 'correct', I couldn't say. After all, we Americans can't even tell the difference between lose and loose anymore;)
It seems to be a term created by and for obsessive collectors. Would that make it more suitable for a slang dictionary?
I found this in my original search... I went through the same process as you, though, and discarded it for exactly the same reason: it didn't seem to be defined as a real word by any authoritative source. I think it's interesting that, despite this fact, I pretty much knew what the word meant just by its usage; and that it seems like it ought to be a word.
This new vehicle was obviously named after famed gay porn star Jeff Stryker.
It's sort of fitting, really. A large metal penis pointing out the front, looking to fire and deliver it's seed directly up the ass of every foreign male it sees.
Once again, the U.S. military has proven itself to be chock full of latent homosexuality.
The problem I have with all of this stuff is that it works the other way, too. First, doing most of the things you were excited about would require a GPS to be tracking your location 24/7. Why would anyone want implants that would allow someone to track every single time they stepped into their bathroom to take a crap?
another problem I have (with his view in particular) is that he seems to think that advertisers won't notice that people are not viewing their ads. If everyone is wandering around in wearable/implanted computers, how long until transmitters broadcast targeted advertising directly to your retinas or your inbox?
dumbass consumers are going to want to use this technology to do important things like 'chat' and 'IM' and stuff while they walk (or worse- drive) around (rude people on cell phones are bad enough- these would most likely cause me to snap and end up in jail).
Anyway, the odds are that people are going to be broadcasting all sorts of non-interesting things about themselves to everyone in their immediate vicinity in much the same way that people had to have their own personal web pages in the 90s- complete w/ blinking text, bad images and the MIDI version of 'Wind Beneath My Wings'.
What's to stop marketers from walking around and doing the same thing? Something like this is a wet dream to the wrong sorts of people. Imagine a completely captive audience that you can track in real time and build a scary smart database of information on.
I'm sure MS or some other MegaCorp will come along and integrate credit card information into it to make life 'better'. Now, they not only know exactly where you are, but they can tell exactly what you are doing and what your buying habits are.
No, thanks. I'll keep my meat sack they way it is.
For certain types of mental illness, electro-convulsive therapy is still considered an acceptable form of treatment by some physicians. I think the voltage has been lowered a bit and the duration, frequency and method of zapping is more tightly controlled, but it is still used quite regularly and has been since at least the 60s- maybe earlier.
One of the side effects of this treatment is a temporary loss of short-term memory. Suuposedly, it eventually returns, but patients lose short-term memory of events leading up to the treatment.
Having seen this sort of thing first-hand, i find it disturbing that anyone could support it. The brain, for the most part, is uncharted territory; and the fact that, without really knowing anything about it, we are willing to pump juice through someones brain because it 'seems to help' is insane to me.
To me, the concept is similar to patching a for loop that isnt working right by screwing with the counter in the test. It may get things working- but it also has the potential to break a lot of other things. It's the wrong way to go about doing things.
At O'Hare airport, I was waiting for a friends flight to arrive. Standing outside the secured area, I noticed that there were two metallic columns on either side of the exit where arriving passengers exited the gateways.
There was a lot of cross-traffic and, every time someone would walk close enough to the metallic columns, it would speak in a loud voice 'This is a secured area- please step away'. It seemed as though it was set a little too sensitive because it was more or less repeating itself constantly- despite the fact that no one was actually heading directly towards or even that close to the 'secured area'.
Suddenly, It said 'This is a sec-sec-sec-sec-sec-sec' and caught itself in a loop. This loop continued for probably 5 minutes and, finally, there was silence. After a couple minutes of complete silence, I suddenly heard, larger than life, the Windows startup sound emanating from the columns.
I had a T-Mobile sidekick that, for lack of a better word, sucked. Coverage was spotty, my calls would cut off sporadically and I was unable to make phone calls from my apratment unless I stood in a a certain corner of my dining room. I should add that these problems happened in Chicago- an area where population is no excuse for lack of coverage.
On top of that, the Danger Sidekick is a joke- a pda with no calculator?? come on. But i digress...
My guess is that they could compress the liquid terminator into a small 'skin box' or something. basically, a bag made of flesh that is sealed. on arrival, it could just sort of pop out and turn itself into something.
but that still doesn't answer the question of why it would choose to form itself into a naked person that stands out rather than a fully clothed human that could instantly blend in.
iirc, the liquid terminator from t2 had to touch a person before it could morph into them. maybe it's basically a 'blank slate' when it arrives and learns everything it needs to know about it's environment through the first person it meets. that would certainly make it more adaptable.
who knows... i obviously have waaaay to much time on my hands to be thinking about this.;)
Do we have lower accuracy expectations for TV news?
Do we simply *notice* version differences more easily on the Internet?
I think it's a combination of things. There are three thoughts in particular that jump out at me:
First, television news is delivered by a television personality. Sometimes, how people talk to you is more important that what they say.
Second, I think that age plays a factor in the reaction. People my age and older (31+) pretty much grew up pre-Internet and Desktop Publishing. We were taught that, with the exception of tabloids, you were safe assuming that if it was printed in the newspapers it was more-or-less true. I think that because of this, we attach a different importance and validity to the printed word (whether printed on screen or printed on paper) than most younger people do.
Finally, the web, by its very nature, is about storing and exchanging information. Television, on the other hand, is about entertainment. Because of this, I think that we should be thinking about web news in 'newspaper terms'. To not do so invites, among other things, the same skepticism and distrust that people associate with television to be applied to the web. From the start then, the presentation of news on the web as legitimate is being undermined by our continuing efforts to turn the web into television through Flash, Realplayer and popup advertisements.
In terms of the 'First rough draft of history', the web version of that seems prone to getting lost in the same way that breaking news stories are lost on television. They are forgotten or replaced by a full story that is broadcast at a later date. People do not have access to the old information, so there really doesn't seem to be any sort of record involved. If the television news personalities announce a retraction or an error and the viewer is not watching at that time, then there is no way for them to find out that what they know is incorrect. The end result is a sort of floating half-awareness as to what is going on in the world that is built from short news snippets with no continuity and notoriously unreliable human memory.
Slashdot has done a great job of addressing the most important of these issues through your Update policies. Clear and concise information is provided and readers are able to see exactly where the article is and where it comes from. That's the most important thing. Thanks for that.
I agree 100%. I forget who I was reading (interestingly enough- it may have actually been R.A. Wilson), but the general opinion of the author was that we are basically due for another dark ages. The middle ages were a time when knowledge was locked away for a very few and the masses were controlled through fear and ignorance- in a lot of ways it was several hundred years of stagnation. I think we're entering that cycle again. Information, ironically enough, is becoming concentrated into fewer and fewer hands as we're told it's more free than ever. I don't think there's a grand plot at hand- just greed and a fear of losing control coupled with a complete lack of foresight.
Sadly, no one is demanding that all changes and retractions on the web be disclosed.
One poster, replying to my post, put up a link to a story that he had written for Slashdot a while back. In this, a CNN/Money editor talks about how using a timestamp to disclose changes is sufficient. It seems that, although people may be asking for disclosure, it is not enough in and of itself. Slashdot seems to have a good policy of providing full information about any updates or changes and I wish more people would follow suit.
btw- Thanks for the link. It's very much appreciated.
One problem I have with obtaining all of my news online is that editorial changes to the article can be made after publication without being noted.
This means that facts and 'controversial' ideas can be edited, modified and even deleted without notifying the public. I have several friends who insist on copying the articles they read directly to their hard drive because they have experience with articles 'disappearing' or changing without being noted.
Posting online allows news sources to get the news out much faster than was ever possible in the past. It seems to me, however, that it also requires a much more stringent approach to journalistic 'integrity'. In the neverending fight for readers and stories, papers can publish articles containing misinformation simply to get the story out first and then change the content later to reflect a more accurate portrayal of events.
If the only source of news is the web, how is the public supposed to know that things were ever changed? Human memory is questionable at best. Think 1984 (i know i know i know) for a second and consider Winston's job of rewriting news and, therefore, history.
Most of drudge's stories are just links to articles in other publications, most of whom get their news through AP or Reuters (their validity is an entirely separate argument). What you're complaining about is the focus he chooses to use for compiling his articles.
sensationalistic? yes. but that doesnt mean he's wrong. the bigger problem is the same one that plagues/., no one bothers to read the articles. they glance at the headlines and then act like they've read the whole thing.
First, schools dont need more money from taxes to do a better job. Most private schools excel on less than half of the dollars per student that our Public schools do, and produce a better educated kid every time.
Can you provide some numbers to back this up? I'm not baiting- I'm sincerely curious.
I drive one (of 2) of those big ass SUV's, and I'll shoot anyone who wants to deny me my right to them.
I disagree. You don't have the 'right' to an SUV. In fact, you don't even have the 'right' to drive. It's a privilege.
I dont work for the government, I work for me. My money is MY money, not yours, not the governments, not the welfare momma you might have come from.
Who gets first dibs on your paycheck? the government.
After reading over your post, I can't really figure out what your point is- if there is one.
Is it that private schools are better than public schools? ok, i'll agree with that for the most part. Your attitude leads me to believe that you were privately schooled. If that's the case, then maybe you are disproving your own point because I count anywhere from 9-13 grammatical and spelling errors in your post. I would expect more from a private school. If you were publically schooled......well, you win.
Personally, I think that the decline in quality of public education is purposeful to some extent (call me paranoid). If we continue to slash education funding then we can redirect (read: pockets/wars) that money into other things. This has the advantage of not having to pay for a worthwhile education system thereby indirectly shifting the economic burden of schooling directly onto parents. This also creates a situation where money becomes (more than ever) a truly defining factor in determining both your career options and chances at success. It also- and here's the catch- allows the government to still look good on paper because they can honestly say they are providing free education to all children when, in fact, they are providing education that is mind-blowingly poor and an embarrasment to our country.
I don't know if i'm articulating my point very well, but i'm out of time and have to leave so i have to end it here.
Just because something is a desert doesn't mean that it was always a desert. If this story is supposed to take place in ancient Egypt, maybe Egypt wasn't as much of a desert then.
Of course, the name of the game _is_ A Tale in the DESERT.
i guess there's no telling unless you play.
The other poster had a good point, though, about wanting water in your camps. Maybe the guilds are irrigating.
Slashdot Mirror
And don't forget the buffered analgesic...
2 words...
Interplanetary Spy
Actually, I'm on the northside. I'm just a couple of blocks from the Lathrop(?) homes at Diversey/Clybourn. I've lived in the same couple of blocks (with one move) for the past 4 years.
I plan on moving this year when my lease is up; but i almost wish I didnt have too. There are other reasons for moving, but the increasing crime rate is, by far, the largest factor in my decision. The other big factor (I firmly believe the two are related) is the gentrification that is taking place in this area.
I really hate that crap. It's disgusting to watch these developers build their condos, Bed Bath and Beyonds, Ultas, Home Depots and golf stores right up to the front doors of the projects and then just wait. They know the city will shuffle the poor people around like cattle to make room for more condos and shopping. And the poor people aren't stupid- they know it's coming. Between that and the single family homeowners in the area who are being forced out because they can no longer afford the property taxes on the houses they live in, it's a wonder that the crime rate isn't triple what it is.
I don't really have a point- sorry for the rant. I just see a cycle of rich peoples money and police working hand in hand against poor people. It's tough to explain until you see it, but it exists.
For the most part I agree with what you are saying, but I feel the need to respond to one portion of your comment. I should also preface this by saying that I also live in Chicago and live in very close proximity to a housing project that is being 'redistributed'.
I disagree when you say that placing police in cars in problematic areas works. I live on a street where police come regularly. They sit in their cars, sometimes two or three at a time for several hours on end. It's a one way, off-the-main-drag sort of street and my personal opinion is that they come here to hide. Anyway, despite the fact that the police are present and in number almost nightly 100 feet from the front door of my apartment, the following has happened within the past 18 MONTHS:
(1) My girlfriends car was broken into. They punched a hole through her door with a screwdriver and cleaned out her vehicle.
(2) My vehicle has been broken into twice. Both times they smashed out the window and took everything inside.
(3) Both basement apartments in my building have been broken into and robbed.
(4) A girl in my building was attacked by someone hiding in the laundry room.
And these are just the stories from my building. A coworker of mine lives a block away, and about 2:00am one weekend, he hears a crunching noise. Looking out the front window, he sees someone driving over his motorcycle while trying to park their car. he calls the police and runs outside. it turns out that the driver is an unlicensed, uninsured underage drunk teenager who has no id. the cop shows up, and he and the girl start talking to each other in spanish; refusing to speak english for my friend. he asks repeatedly what is going on and is told to shut up by the cop. The cop turns around eventually and starts asking my friend for his drivers license, insurance, title and registration. when my friend asks about the girls id, the cop yells at him and threatens to arrest him. then tells him to shut up again. By the time it's over, my friend has given the cop every piece of ID he has and the cop has warned him not to 'push it'. the girl got off without even getting a ticket.
So, I agree with you when you say that police claim their job isn't crime prevention. I will go one further, though, and say that police (in chicago) seem to think that their job is revenue generation.
I was surprised when i first moved into this building to find that i was starting to get parking tickets on a regular basis- with a grand total of 7 by the time i resolved the problem. It turns out that I was getting parking tickets because i drove a pickup truck, and, in the city of chicago, it is illegal in most residential areas to park a pickup truck on the street overnight (Some wards have special permits you can use that will allow you to park, but mine doesnt). The insanity of that law is another discussion- especially when you take into account the fact that i drive a compact pickup and the guy up the block drives a cadillac escalade and has no problems.
This problem cost me over $500 to resolve; and I'm still bitter about it. If anyone is interested or having the same problem, the solution is to get non B-Truck license plates. I chose environmental plates, but if the back of your truck is covered, you can also get RV plates. anyway, i'm drifting off-topic.
I can't even begin to tell you how angry this stuff has made me. The chicago police system is wrong in every sense of the word and the best database in the world is not going to make up for that fact.
Just to play devils advocate, I don't think you can really use a 53 year old collegiate dictionary as an authoritative source for this word. Here is a link about that very subject. Here is a small snippet from the story:
;)
'At one time, a "gazette" was a low value coin which could purchase a newspaper. Today, the meaning of "a certain coin" has disappeared.'
Things change. Perceptions change. Words, although seemingly immutable, change over time as a reflection of the people who use them. Some words fall into disfavor (fag) and others disappear completely. I'm willing to bet the dictionary of 50 years ago is probably quite different than a modern one.
As to which is more 'correct', I couldn't say. After all, we Americans can't even tell the difference between lose and loose anymore
It seems to be a term created by and for obsessive collectors. Would that make it more suitable for a slang dictionary?
I found this in my original search... I went through the same process as you, though, and discarded it for exactly the same reason: it didn't seem to be defined as a real word by any authoritative source. I think it's interesting that, despite this fact, I pretty much knew what the word meant just by its usage; and that it seems like it ought to be a word.
I wasn't aware 'completist' was a word...
That is to say- I couldn't find a meaningition in my language-iser.
sorry to disappoint, but i'm straight.
I used to work in a smut shop. porn shops sell porn- straight, gay or whatever else tickles (or spanks) your fancy.
This new vehicle was obviously named after famed gay porn star Jeff Stryker.
It's sort of fitting, really. A large metal penis pointing out the front, looking to fire and deliver it's seed directly up the ass of every foreign male it sees.
Once again, the U.S. military has proven itself to be chock full of latent homosexuality.
I'm not so sure I agree.
The problem I have with all of this stuff is that it works the other way, too. First, doing most of the things you were excited about would require a GPS to be tracking your location 24/7. Why would anyone want implants that would allow someone to track every single time they stepped into their bathroom to take a crap?
another problem I have (with his view in particular) is that he seems to think that advertisers won't notice that people are not viewing their ads. If everyone is wandering around in wearable/implanted computers, how long until transmitters broadcast targeted advertising directly to your retinas or your inbox?
dumbass consumers are going to want to use this technology to do important things like 'chat' and 'IM' and stuff while they walk (or worse- drive) around (rude people on cell phones are bad enough- these would most likely cause me to snap and end up in jail).
Anyway, the odds are that people are going to be broadcasting all sorts of non-interesting things about themselves to everyone in their immediate vicinity in much the same way that people had to have their own personal web pages in the 90s- complete w/ blinking text, bad images and the MIDI version of 'Wind Beneath My Wings'.
What's to stop marketers from walking around and doing the same thing? Something like this is a wet dream to the wrong sorts of people. Imagine a completely captive audience that you can track in real time and build a scary smart database of information on.
I'm sure MS or some other MegaCorp will come along and integrate credit card information into it to make life 'better'. Now, they not only know exactly where you are, but they can tell exactly what you are doing and what your buying habits are.
No, thanks. I'll keep my meat sack they way it is.
... of an Onion headline from a couple of years ago:
"New corporate logo changes everything"
Sometimes knowing what to search for doesn't help you at all.
Recently, I was wrestling with a commercial application that involved an improperly functioning Help System.
Have you ever tried searching for help on Help? I found it impossible to get any sort of meaningful result.
In this particular case, a 'super intelligent search engine' would be useful.
There is a lot of controversy surrounding this.
For certain types of mental illness, electro-convulsive therapy is still considered an acceptable form of treatment by some physicians. I think the voltage has been lowered a bit and the duration, frequency and method of zapping is more tightly controlled, but it is still used quite regularly and has been since at least the 60s- maybe earlier.
One of the side effects of this treatment is a temporary loss of short-term memory. Suuposedly, it eventually returns, but patients lose short-term memory of events leading up to the treatment.
Having seen this sort of thing first-hand, i find it disturbing that anyone could support it. The brain, for the most part, is uncharted territory; and the fact that, without really knowing anything about it, we are willing to pump juice through someones brain because it 'seems to help' is insane to me.
To me, the concept is similar to patching a for loop that isnt working right by screwing with the counter in the test. It may get things working- but it also has the potential to break a lot of other things. It's the wrong way to go about doing things.
Relax- this isn't the Crying Game.
Premise != plot twist.
The premise of the movie is no secret... how else do you expect to get audiences to go see it?
Well, according to Dr. Peter Venkman, crossing the beams would actually undo the very fabric of the world we live in.
At O'Hare airport, I was waiting for a friends flight to arrive. Standing outside the secured area, I noticed that there were two metallic columns on either side of the exit where arriving passengers exited the gateways.
There was a lot of cross-traffic and, every time someone would walk close enough to the metallic columns, it would speak in a loud voice 'This is a secured area- please step away'. It seemed as though it was set a little too sensitive because it was more or less repeating itself constantly- despite the fact that no one was actually heading directly towards or even that close to the 'secured area'.
Suddenly, It said 'This is a sec-sec-sec-sec-sec-sec' and caught itself in a loop. This loop continued for probably 5 minutes and, finally, there was silence. After a couple minutes of complete silence, I suddenly heard, larger than life, the Windows startup sound emanating from the columns.
I agree 100%.
I had a T-Mobile sidekick that, for lack of a better word, sucked. Coverage was spotty, my calls would cut off sporadically and I was unable to make phone calls from my apratment unless I stood in a a certain corner of my dining room. I should add that these problems happened in Chicago- an area where population is no excuse for lack of coverage.
On top of that, the Danger Sidekick is a joke- a pda with no calculator?? come on. But i digress...
My guess is that they could compress the liquid terminator into a small 'skin box' or something. basically, a bag made of flesh that is sealed. on arrival, it could just sort of pop out and turn itself into something.
;)
but that still doesn't answer the question of why it would choose to form itself into a naked person that stands out rather than a fully clothed human that could instantly blend in.
iirc, the liquid terminator from t2 had to touch a person before it could morph into them. maybe it's basically a 'blank slate' when it arrives and learns everything it needs to know about it's environment through the first person it meets. that would certainly make it more adaptable.
who knows... i obviously have waaaay to much time on my hands to be thinking about this.
Do we have lower accuracy expectations for TV news?
Do we simply *notice* version differences more easily on the Internet?
I think it's a combination of things. There are three thoughts in particular that jump out at me:
First, television news is delivered by a television personality. Sometimes, how people talk to you is more important that what they say.
Second, I think that age plays a factor in the reaction. People my age and older (31+) pretty much grew up pre-Internet and Desktop Publishing. We were taught that, with the exception of tabloids, you were safe assuming that if it was printed in the newspapers it was more-or-less true. I think that because of this, we attach a different importance and validity to the printed word (whether printed on screen or printed on paper) than most younger people do.
Finally, the web, by its very nature, is about storing and exchanging information. Television, on the other hand, is about entertainment. Because of this, I think that we should be thinking about web news in 'newspaper terms'. To not do so invites, among other things, the same skepticism and distrust that people associate with television to be applied to the web. From the start then, the presentation of news on the web as legitimate is being undermined by our continuing efforts to turn the web into television through Flash, Realplayer and popup advertisements.
In terms of the 'First rough draft of history', the web version of that seems prone to getting lost in the same way that breaking news stories are lost on television. They are forgotten or replaced by a full story that is broadcast at a later date. People do not have access to the old information, so there really doesn't seem to be any sort of record involved. If the television news personalities announce a retraction or an error and the viewer is not watching at that time, then there is no way for them to find out that what they know is incorrect. The end result is a sort of floating half-awareness as to what is going on in the world that is built from short news snippets with no continuity and notoriously unreliable human memory.
Slashdot has done a great job of addressing the most important of these issues through your Update policies. Clear and concise information is provided and readers are able to see exactly where the article is and where it comes from. That's the most important thing. Thanks for that.
I agree 100%. I forget who I was reading (interestingly enough- it may have actually been R.A. Wilson), but the general opinion of the author was that we are basically due for another dark ages. The middle ages were a time when knowledge was locked away for a very few and the masses were controlled through fear and ignorance- in a lot of ways it was several hundred years of stagnation. I think we're entering that cycle again. Information, ironically enough, is becoming concentrated into fewer and fewer hands as we're told it's more free than ever. I don't think there's a grand plot at hand- just greed and a fear of losing control coupled with a complete lack of foresight.
Sadly, no one is demanding that all changes and retractions on the web be disclosed.
One poster, replying to my post, put up a link to a story that he had written for Slashdot a while back. In this, a CNN/Money editor talks about how using a timestamp to disclose changes is sufficient. It seems that, although people may be asking for disclosure, it is not enough in and of itself. Slashdot seems to have a good policy of providing full information about any updates or changes and I wish more people would follow suit.
btw- Thanks for the link. It's very much appreciated.
One problem I have with obtaining all of my news online is that editorial changes to the article can be made after publication without being noted.
This means that facts and 'controversial' ideas can be edited, modified and even deleted without notifying the public. I have several friends who insist on copying the articles they read directly to their hard drive because they have experience with articles 'disappearing' or changing without being noted.
Posting online allows news sources to get the news out much faster than was ever possible in the past. It seems to me, however, that it also requires a much more stringent approach to journalistic 'integrity'. In the neverending fight for readers and stories, papers can publish articles containing misinformation simply to get the story out first and then change the content later to reflect a more accurate portrayal of events.
If the only source of news is the web, how is the public supposed to know that things were ever changed? Human memory is questionable at best. Think 1984 (i know i know i know) for a second and consider Winston's job of rewriting news and, therefore, history.
Oops- forgot to remove my tinfoil hat...
don't be a fucktard.
/., no one bothers to read the articles. they glance at the headlines and then act like they've read the whole thing.
Most of drudge's stories are just links to articles in other publications, most of whom get their news through AP or Reuters (their validity is an entirely separate argument). What you're complaining about is the focus he chooses to use for compiling his articles.
sensationalistic? yes. but that doesnt mean he's wrong. the bigger problem is the same one that plagues
First, schools dont need more money from taxes to do a better job. Most private schools excel on less than half of the dollars per student that our Public schools do, and produce a better educated kid every time.
...well, you win.
Can you provide some numbers to back this up? I'm not baiting- I'm sincerely curious.
I drive one (of 2) of those big ass SUV's, and I'll shoot anyone who wants to deny me my right to them.
I disagree. You don't have the 'right' to an SUV. In fact, you don't even have the 'right' to drive. It's a privilege.
I dont work for the government, I work for me. My money is MY money, not yours, not the governments, not the welfare momma you might have come from.
Who gets first dibs on your paycheck? the government.
After reading over your post, I can't really figure out what your point is- if there is one.
Is it that private schools are better than public schools? ok, i'll agree with that for the most part. Your attitude leads me to believe that you were privately schooled. If that's the case, then maybe you are disproving your own point because I count anywhere from 9-13 grammatical and spelling errors in your post. I would expect more from a private school. If you were publically schooled...
Personally, I think that the decline in quality of public education is purposeful to some extent (call me paranoid). If we continue to slash education funding then we can redirect (read: pockets/wars) that money into other things. This has the advantage of not having to pay for a worthwhile education system thereby indirectly shifting the economic burden of schooling directly onto parents. This also creates a situation where money becomes (more than ever) a truly defining factor in determining both your career options and chances at success. It also- and here's the catch- allows the government to still look good on paper because they can honestly say they are providing free education to all children when, in fact, they are providing education that is mind-blowingly poor and an embarrasment to our country.
I don't know if i'm articulating my point very well, but i'm out of time and have to leave so i have to end it here.
Just because something is a desert doesn't mean that it was always a desert. If this story is supposed to take place in ancient Egypt, maybe Egypt wasn't as much of a desert then.
Of course, the name of the game _is_ A Tale in the DESERT.
i guess there's no telling unless you play.
The other poster had a good point, though, about wanting water in your camps. Maybe the guilds are irrigating.
In the future, when you post comments that are not your own work, you should give credit where credit is due.