Using "quotation marks" in the "wrong places" makes everything you "say" seem "suspicious".. Like you're trying to "pull one over" on the "reader" by insinuating theres a double "meaning" to the "word" in "quotes"..
Hate to be a grammar Nazi, but, the the whole quotation mark thing is a pet peeve.:)
The machines that we use are not all that great, P4 1.7Ghz with 2 year old NVidia graphics cards, so Quake and the likes are out of the question."
Thanks for setting off my idiot detector, there, boy-genius..
It's probably been said here ad nauseum, but, a machine of this calibur is more than sufficient for even the most recently-released FPS games. My advice? Before you post, try not to come off as one of those jackass noobs who says "OMFG 1.7GHZZZ SOO SL00W". Sheesh.
Given how absolutely awful most movies are nowadays, can really blame the industry for wanting to prevent movie-goers from sharing the experience with others?:)
"Oh noes! We're PLAYING GOD! We're TOYING with the essence of LIFE! OH GOD NO WE omg LOOK at that PUPPY!! It's soooo CUTE! Look at the little puppy! Whats his name? Awwwwww!!" - Every hippy in this thread
Shut the fuck up, hippies! What the hell do you think we've been doing for the past 6000 years? You guessed it -- Genetically engineering animals to exhibit desirable traits, particularly those that amuse us, or suit a particular purpose. Everything from goldfish with big bubbly eyes to the little Maltese puppy dog in the store window. They're all genetically modified for our amusement. Every last one of em. Get over it, and shut up.
RH9, or more specifically, Red Hat et al, is the mother of all distros. It may not be the best distro out there, but, in terms of numbers, RH is king of the hill right now. Also, no other Linux distribution has anywhere near the same degree of name recognition and installed user base. It may not be the BEST distro out there, but, neither was VHS the best videotape format. Whether we like it or not, it's not what we prefer that matters. It's what the consumer prefers...and consumers prefer Red Hat.:(
1) Red Hat negated and obscured alot of people's work in the more recent versions of their distribution. For example, take KDE's developer pool. These guys were basing their career on a bet that KDE would eventually garner some large-scale name recognition---and that if it did, it would boost their career a little. By re-branding KDE, they effectively had that possibility taken off the table. Red Hat gains by their expense. Not exactly in keeping with the spirit of the GPL, eh?
2) By "cat-shit filled sandbox", i'm referring to The Fedora Project.. A big sandbox, filled with very potent fertilizer. This is a project owned by Red Hat, but not supported by Red Hat. In English, that means it's a "garden project". They let some suckers plant the garden, and when harvest time arrives, they take all the food and walk. The Fedora developer's community (if it even exists to any notable degree) is set up to continually screw and re-screw the developers into keeping Red Hat fresh, year round. Their food is on the table year-round, courtesy of the suckers doing the grunt work in the garden. As for the Fedora developer, all they're left with at the end of the day is a bag of fertilizer. Individual developers can no longer claim to contribute to/develop for "Red Hat Linux", even if they have done so in the past.
3) No one, to my knowledge, is sabotaging Fedora. I don't think anyone really cares enough to do that. Half the Linux developers I know still aren't able to even sit down following the royal ass-reaming that occured during the bubble. Half of them have sworn off open-source completely, and the ones that remain are very, very cautious about who they choose to do business with. Red Hat has very publically shown they don't give a fuck about Linux developers when the chips are down. They'll argue it eight ways till sunday, but in the end, what matters is the money. Thats something they chose to be when they decided to go public...that is, to answer to a board of directors, which is what they're doing now.
Thanks for a well-thought out question, btw. It's about time someone with discernable intelligence and forethought replied to this thread. I applaud you.:)
Believe me, Red Hat had _plenty_ of name recognition in '98. But judging from your user ID (657682), I'm inclined to think you're the type that didn't even know what Linux was until IBM started running ads for it, let alone Red Hat Linux.
It's not my resume' i'm worried about..I'm fine. I just used my own as example. I was talking about and referring to everyone else, who may not be as fortunate as me. Being able to claim you're a contributor/developer for Red Hat Linux may have been the only leg up for alot of people out there had.. and it's wrong for Red Hat to take that away from them, considering everyone worked for free. Thats all.
PS.. Being a "completely certified crackpot" actually pays pretty well. Look into it.;)
I don't know what FAQ you were reading at that time, but, I had no problem whatsoever having my work included in RH. They were always receptive to the idea, even to the point of working with me on adding the last-minute "shine and polish" prior to release.
Regardless..Why should developers be given that opportunity, only to have the game reset, and have to rebuild name recognition for our work again, from scratch?
The thing that pisses me off about Red Hat is not that they're trying to make money...Hell, God bless them, they're doing what alot of other companies can't...turn a profit.:) However...
My beef with Red Hat comes in the form of their moving the Red Hat name out of reach of the Red Hat developer.
I don't know about the rest of you, but the fact that i've been a contributor to Red Hat's distrib since May of 1998 was not only something I was personally proud of, it was something I put on my resume'. I have to remove that line now, because it's now impossible for me (or any of you) to directly contribute code to Red Hat Linux. The best I can hope to be is a 'Fedora developer', which not only carries less weight, it carries no weight whatsoever. Name recognition is what helped many of us to get hired, and helped us get where we are now, career-wise. Red Hat's decision to move Red Hat Linux out of reach of developers affects us in that it reduces our ability to remain competitive in the job market. Quite literally, it's one less selling point on my resume'.. And considering how tight the IT job market is right now, something like that could be a make-or-break factor.
And that, in a nutshell, is why Red Hat can lick 'n slurp it as far as i'm concerned. Watching someone yank the rug out from underneath you translates into a perfect excuse for finding somewhere else to plant your foot....You know, like square in Red Hat's crotch?:)
After insulting the intelligence of their entire developer base (not to mention openly scoffing at their hard work and commitment) did Red Hat honestly expect people to flock to Fedora in droves? You've got to be kidding me..We're penguins, not friggin' LEMMINGS.
The whole damn thing with Red Hat stinks like ass and catfish, to the point where I will intentionally avoid doing what Red Hat would like for me to do. I'd even go so far as to say that anyone who pursues contributing code to Fedora is performing the equivalent of dropping their pants, spreading their cheeks, and hanging a sign on their nutsack saying "FREE AS IN BEER" with an arrow pointing up. Anybody who comes along, particularly Red Hat, is gonna take advantage of your willingness to get porked.
By {participating in/contributing to} Red Hat's 'Cousin Oliver' pee-on project, you're effectively agreeing to be kicked out of a playground you helped build, and forced to make do with a cat-shit filled sandbox down the street. Red Hat is our work, not theirs.
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but, if someone comes along and says "Oh, hey, thanks for building our skyscraper, kids! It's really quite lovely. As a thank you, we've graciously provided you with a cat-shit-filled sandbox down the street so you can continue making us rich, giving us beautiful things while getting nothing in return, not even the right to say you contribute directly to the project you helped build. Have a nice day, security will escort you to the parking lot."
Remind yourself that without us, they wouldn't even have a product to sell in the first place.
My advice? Let Red Hat go stale. Literally. Don't make an effort to contribute to Red Hat's distrib, or any other distrib which Red Hat directly benefits from (i.e. Fedora)..Move your efforts into helping build a competing distribution, one who's popularity would ultimately detract from Red Hat's dick-play. Ultimately, you cant prevent them from taking your work, obviously, but you can sure as hell make life difficult for them.
I never thought i'd say this, but, fuck this sandbox bullshit. I'm going Debian.
Cheers,
A Simple Exercise In Self-Auditing
on
Real Security?
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Exercise: Make a drawing on paper of what your system looks like from the point of view of people on the outside. Draw it in a similar fashion to how one might draw a house, or a favorite car.
A) If your picture looks like or includes any of the following objects, proceed to step C:
. A block of swiss cheese . A large question mark . A fat mall-cop with powdered sugar around his mouth . A small child in a corner, crying, holding a security blanket . A Diebold voting terminal
B) If your picture looks like or includes any of the following objects, proceed to step C:
. Fort Knox . A medieval castle under siege with the invaders having boiling tar poured on them. . A resettable Viet-Cong boobytrap with dozens of pigs already skewered on it . The business end of a.357 Magnum . An illuminated Jesus standing atop an Sun E10K . A solid, faceless slab of hyperdense radioactive metal extracted from the heart of a neutron star
Then, the thing to do should have been "Here's our release date. Get your shit straight by this date, or we wont include your desktop, period."
This wouldn't have been an overly harsh stance to take. I would no sooner expect an entire plane full of people to wait an extra hour on the tarmac for some jackass to make it to the airport than I would expect Red Hat to wait for the GNOME dorks.
The Linux community has been long, long overdue for a _single_ desktop standard. Like 5 years overdue. If I were at the helm at Red Hat, I would have told both camps to make _serious_ attempts at building interoperability, or risk not having their work included at all.
I've taken alot of heat over the years for my opinion about this. The fact of the matter is, having multiple competing desktops HARMS Linux. Having numerous choices for a desktop introduces more confusion and frustration than the claim of having "freedom of choice" is worth.
Instead of sitting back and trying to find a way to fit too asses in the same chair (Bluecurve), Red Hat should have issued a very public ultimatum to both camps. Work together, or kiss your project's high-visibility goodbye.
Has anyone else noticed that Red Hat, recently, has been using the press to send Microsoft signals along the lines of "Oh we're friendly now. We pose no threat to you. We don't want to compete, we wan't to coexist with you on friendly terms."...........?
I mean, think about it....First, it was "Linux isn't ready for the desktop"...Now, it's "Oh, we're not taking market share away from Windows, we're talking it from Unix."...and about half a dozen little comments inbetween..
WTF?
My contempt for Red Hat, literally, is growing by the day. They've gone from a position of OS leadership into a feeble piss-ant of a company that gave up the reins to their competitors... Red Hat has gone from something we can be proud of, to a company that refuses to believe in the skills and the talents that gave them the fluffy paychecks stock options they're enjoying now. I, for one, want no part of the wholesale cheek-spreading that Red Hat is engadging in. My next distrib install will not be Red Hat.
The fact is, Red Hat _could have_ made a real play for the desktop. All it would have taken is time, and a developer incentive. The desktop/consumer-level (oh, pardon me.. "hobbyist") version WAS making them money, but they abandoned it. What kind of company abandons a _profitable_ product, other than a stupid one?
Considering our own George W. Bush, the man in control of the largest nuclear weapons stockpile in the world cant even pronounce the word "nuclear"...
Yes. I'd say developing weapons like these, even if it's only for the purpose of distracting Curious George away from the bright red buttons...i'd consider that a good idea.
My parents felt it was important for me to arrive at my own conclusions, as to how best to deal with different situations. Sure, they would help guide my decision making process, but they would hold off on making the decision for me. They didn't "cheer me on", as you suggested. Hell, if I remember correctly, they werent aware of any bullying at all, up until the incident. My point is, once they found out, and understood what was going on, they were supportive and completely understanding of what I did. At no point in my upbringing was I told that "resorting to violence is wrong", because it isn't wrong. Having to resort to violence as a means to stop something like that is more than justified; it's a logical choice, and one proven to fix the problem. The school wasn't going to do anything about it, and the bully sure as hell wasn't going to do anything about it, so, what choice is there?
Sure, having your parents put the heat on the school might be a good start, but it'll take weeks or even months for the school to get the message and actually do something about it---and meanwhile, the abuse continues.
That was the point I was trying to make. If my kid chose to put an end to the abuse he was recieving at school, i'd applaud him, and stand behind him 100%. On the flip side, i'd make sure he understood that resorting to violence, while it is an option, is the last option.
If you knew what this kid was doing to me in the moments prior to having my desk slammed ontop of him, you might feel differently...Not to mention what him and his friends had done in the months prior.
Considering this guy ended up having the full weight of a 35 pound metal desk-chair slammed on his throat...:) My guess is, yeah, he probably still sounds like Popeye.
His voice remained fucked up for the remainder of Junior High, and all the way through High School... (This happened in 1988) He sounded alot like the "Ned" character from South Park, but, we didn't have South Park back then.:)
I wasn't aiming for his throat or anything specifically.. I just picked up my desk and went to smash it straight down on him. He turned to deflect it when it came down, and caught the blunt edge of the desk right across the throat.
Just as I would imagine was the _alot_ of guys here, I too got picked on when I was in Junior High. For years..Got randomly spit on, punched, kicked, you name it..by a group of about 3 or 4 of em, all older than me. It was a real blast, lemmie tell ya.
Then one day, I decided I about had enough, picked up a desk, and sent it crashing straight down ontop of one of them. Crushed his larynx. He couldn't talk for months, and even when he regained his speech, he sounded like Popeye. Karma works in mysterious ways.
Anyway, back to the story. I got taken by no less than three teachers down to the Principal's office, where I was given a "5 day out-of-school suspension".. One notch below formal expulsion back in those days. Interestingly, my folks backed me up, and essentially told the school to fuck off, since I had no prior record of doing anything even remotely like that, the school knew this kid was a bully, and never bothered to do anything about him. Bottom line, I was back in school within a day...And even more interestingly, I never had a problem with any of the other bullies after that. Didn't hear a single peep.
Thats not to say I advocate violence. I don't. But if you're dealing with what amounts to a juvenille sociopath who's parents can't control him, and a school who won't protect your kid, then that's what you have to do.
I really, really don't understand how we, as a culture, arrived at the idea that we should expect our kids to "just ignore them", or "talk it out" with a bully. That has never, and will never solve anything. At the end of the day, you have a God-given right to defend yourself and your dignity. End of story.
I'm going to be a father myself, pretty soon..And if theres anything i'd want my kid to learn from my experience, it would be that if ever gets bullied, and decides to beat the snot out of some kid to reclaim a portion of his dignity, Mom & Dad will back him up on it. Ultimately, he has to learn how to handle confrontations in life. Somewhere along the line, they're going to have to learn what "nobody walks all over you without your permission" means.
It just seems my whole generation was brought up to think that "ball your fist up and teach the asshole a lesson" isn't an option.
Slashdot Mirror
90% of my car trips involve buying something. Doesn't mean I want a cash-register in my car.
Using "quotation marks" in the "wrong places" makes everything you "say" seem "suspicious".. Like you're trying to "pull one over" on the "reader" by insinuating theres a double "meaning" to the "word" in "quotes"..
Hate to be a grammar Nazi, but, the the whole quotation mark thing is a pet peeve.
Cheers,
Why not just call it "Vomit-Flavored Cereal"..? That's whats gonna end up in the bowl anyway.
The machines that we use are not all that great, P4 1.7Ghz with 2 year old NVidia graphics cards, so Quake and the likes are out of the question."
Thanks for setting off my idiot detector, there, boy-genius..
It's probably been said here ad nauseum, but, a machine of this calibur is more than sufficient for even the most recently-released FPS games. My advice? Before you post, try not to come off as one of those jackass noobs who says "OMFG 1.7GHZZZ SOO SL00W". Sheesh.
..Keep an eye on Freshmeat for the next day or so.
Given how absolutely awful most movies are nowadays, can really blame the industry for wanting to prevent movie-goers from sharing the experience with others? :)
"Oh noes! We're PLAYING GOD! We're TOYING with the essence of LIFE! OH GOD NO WE omg LOOK at that PUPPY!! It's soooo CUTE! Look at the little puppy! Whats his name? Awwwwww!!" - Every hippy in this thread
Shut the fuck up, hippies! What the hell do you think we've been doing for the past 6000 years? You guessed it -- Genetically engineering animals to exhibit desirable traits, particularly those that amuse us, or suit a particular purpose. Everything from goldfish with big bubbly eyes to the little Maltese puppy dog in the store window. They're all genetically modified for our amusement. Every last one of em. Get over it, and shut up.
Hi tre4lien,
RH9, or more specifically, Red Hat et al, is the mother of all distros. It may not be the best distro out there, but, in terms of numbers, RH is king of the hill right now. Also, no other Linux distribution has anywhere near the same degree of name recognition and installed user base. It may not be the BEST distro out there, but, neither was VHS the best videotape format. Whether we like it or not, it's not what we prefer that matters. It's what the consumer prefers...and consumers prefer Red Hat.
1) Red Hat negated and obscured alot of people's work in the more recent versions of their distribution. For example, take KDE's developer pool. These guys were basing their career on a bet that KDE would eventually garner some large-scale name recognition---and that if it did, it would boost their career a little. By re-branding KDE, they effectively had that possibility taken off the table. Red Hat gains by their expense. Not exactly in keeping with the spirit of the GPL, eh?
2) By "cat-shit filled sandbox", i'm referring to The Fedora Project.. A big sandbox, filled with very potent fertilizer. This is a project owned by Red Hat, but not supported by Red Hat. In English, that means it's a "garden project". They let some suckers plant the garden, and when harvest time arrives, they take all the food and walk. The Fedora developer's community (if it even exists to any notable degree) is set up to continually screw and re-screw the developers into keeping Red Hat fresh, year round. Their food is on the table year-round, courtesy of the suckers doing the grunt work in the garden. As for the Fedora developer, all they're left with at the end of the day is a bag of fertilizer. Individual developers can no longer claim to contribute to/develop for "Red Hat Linux", even if they have done so in the past.
3) No one, to my knowledge, is sabotaging Fedora. I don't think anyone really cares enough to do that. Half the Linux developers I know still aren't able to even sit down following the royal ass-reaming that occured during the bubble. Half of them have sworn off open-source completely, and the ones that remain are very, very cautious about who they choose to do business with. Red Hat has very publically shown they don't give a fuck about Linux developers when the chips are down. They'll argue it eight ways till sunday, but in the end, what matters is the money. Thats something they chose to be when they decided to go public...that is, to answer to a board of directors, which is what they're doing now.
Thanks for a well-thought out question, btw. It's about time someone with discernable intelligence and forethought replied to this thread. I applaud you.
Cheers,
Believe me, Red Hat had _plenty_ of name recognition in '98. But judging from your user ID (657682), I'm inclined to think you're the type that didn't even know what Linux was until IBM started running ads for it, let alone Red Hat Linux.
:)
Give shit, get shit, buddy.
Hi Thomas,
;)
It's not my resume' i'm worried about..I'm fine. I just used my own as example. I was talking about and referring to everyone else, who may not be as fortunate as me. Being able to claim you're a contributor/developer for Red Hat Linux may have been the only leg up for alot of people out there had.. and it's wrong for Red Hat to take that away from them, considering everyone worked for free. Thats all.
PS.. Being a "completely certified crackpot" actually pays pretty well. Look into it.
Cheers,
Hi Ben,
I don't know what FAQ you were reading at that time, but, I had no problem whatsoever having my work included in RH. They were always receptive to the idea, even to the point of working with me on adding the last-minute "shine and polish" prior to release.
Regardless..Why should developers be given that opportunity, only to have the game reset, and have to rebuild name recognition for our work again, from scratch?
Cheers,
Hi Ars,
The thing that pisses me off about Red Hat is not that they're trying to make money...Hell, God bless them, they're doing what alot of other companies can't...turn a profit.
My beef with Red Hat comes in the form of their moving the Red Hat name out of reach of the Red Hat developer
I don't know about the rest of you, but the fact that i've been a contributor to Red Hat's distrib since May of 1998 was not only something I was personally proud of, it was something I put on my resume'. I have to remove that line now, because it's now impossible for me (or any of you) to directly contribute code to Red Hat Linux. The best I can hope to be is a 'Fedora developer', which not only carries less weight, it carries no weight whatsoever. Name recognition is what helped many of us to get hired, and helped us get where we are now, career-wise. Red Hat's decision to move Red Hat Linux out of reach of developers affects us in that it reduces our ability to remain competitive in the job market. Quite literally, it's one less selling point on my resume'.. And considering how tight the IT job market is right now, something like that could be a make-or-break factor.
And that, in a nutshell, is why Red Hat can lick 'n slurp it as far as i'm concerned. Watching someone yank the rug out from underneath you translates into a perfect excuse for finding somewhere else to plant your foot....You know, like square in Red Hat's crotch?
Oh dear.
After insulting the intelligence of their entire developer base (not to mention openly scoffing at their hard work and commitment) did Red Hat honestly expect people to flock to Fedora in droves? You've got to be kidding me..We're penguins, not friggin' LEMMINGS.
The whole damn thing with Red Hat stinks like ass and catfish, to the point where I will intentionally avoid doing what Red Hat would like for me to do. I'd even go so far as to say that anyone who pursues contributing code to Fedora is performing the equivalent of dropping their pants, spreading their cheeks, and hanging a sign on their nutsack saying "FREE AS IN BEER" with an arrow pointing up. Anybody who comes along, particularly Red Hat, is gonna take advantage of your willingness to get porked.
By {participating in/contributing to} Red Hat's 'Cousin Oliver' pee-on project, you're effectively agreeing to be kicked out of a playground you helped build, and forced to make do with a cat-shit filled sandbox down the street. Red Hat is our work, not theirs.
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but, if someone comes along and says "Oh, hey, thanks for building our skyscraper, kids! It's really quite lovely. As a thank you, we've graciously provided you with a cat-shit-filled sandbox down the street so you can continue making us rich, giving us beautiful things while getting nothing in return, not even the right to say you contribute directly to the project you helped build. Have a nice day, security will escort you to the parking lot."
Remind yourself that without us, they wouldn't even have a product to sell in the first place.
My advice? Let Red Hat go stale. Literally. Don't make an effort to contribute to Red Hat's distrib, or any other distrib which Red Hat directly benefits from (i.e. Fedora)..Move your efforts into helping build a competing distribution, one who's popularity would ultimately detract from Red Hat's dick-play. Ultimately, you cant prevent them from taking your work, obviously, but you can sure as hell make life difficult for them.
I never thought i'd say this, but, fuck this sandbox bullshit. I'm going Debian.
Cheers,
Exercise: Make a drawing on paper of what your system looks like from the point of view of people on the outside. Draw it in a similar fashion to how one might draw a house, or a favorite car.
A) If your picture looks like or includes any of the following objects, proceed to step C:
. A block of swiss cheese
. A large question mark
. A fat mall-cop with powdered sugar around his mouth
. A small child in a corner, crying, holding a security blanket
. A Diebold voting terminal
B) If your picture looks like or includes any of the following objects, proceed to step C:
. Fort Knox
. A medieval castle under siege with the invaders having boiling tar poured on them.
. A resettable Viet-Cong boobytrap with dozens of pigs already skewered on it
. The business end of a
. An illuminated Jesus standing atop an Sun E10K
. A solid, faceless slab of hyperdense radioactive metal extracted from the heart of a neutron star
C) You need to increase your system's security.
Look, at the end of the day it's all the same anyway.. If you've got something they want, you can tell them what to do.
So don't be surprised they're making you and I fall in line. If you were smart, you'd be doing exactly the same.
Then, the thing to do should have been "Here's our release date. Get your shit straight by this date, or we wont include your desktop, period."
This wouldn't have been an overly harsh stance to take. I would no sooner expect an entire plane full of people to wait an extra hour on the tarmac for some jackass to make it to the airport than I would expect Red Hat to wait for the GNOME dorks.
The Linux community has been long, long overdue for a _single_ desktop standard. Like 5 years overdue. If I were at the helm at Red Hat, I would have told both camps to make _serious_ attempts at building interoperability, or risk not having their work included at all.
I've taken alot of heat over the years for my opinion about this. The fact of the matter is, having multiple competing desktops HARMS Linux. Having numerous choices for a desktop introduces more confusion and frustration than the claim of having "freedom of choice" is worth.
Instead of sitting back and trying to find a way to fit too asses in the same chair (Bluecurve), Red Hat should have issued a very public ultimatum to both camps. Work together, or kiss your project's high-visibility goodbye.
Not when all the sunshine is blocked by a redmond^H^H^H^Hwood.
Has anyone else noticed that Red Hat, recently, has been using the press to send Microsoft signals along the lines of "Oh we're friendly now. We pose no threat to you. We don't want to compete, we wan't to coexist with you on friendly terms."...........?
I mean, think about it....First, it was "Linux isn't ready for the desktop"...Now, it's "Oh, we're not taking market share away from Windows, we're talking it from Unix."...and about half a dozen little comments inbetween..
WTF?
My contempt for Red Hat, literally, is growing by the day. They've gone from a position of OS leadership into a feeble piss-ant of a company that gave up the reins to their competitors... Red Hat has gone from something we can be proud of, to a company that refuses to believe in the skills and the talents that gave them the fluffy paychecks stock options they're enjoying now. I, for one, want no part of the wholesale cheek-spreading that Red Hat is engadging in. My next distrib install will not be Red Hat.
The fact is, Red Hat _could have_ made a real play for the desktop. All it would have taken is time, and a developer incentive. The desktop/consumer-level (oh, pardon me.. "hobbyist") version WAS making them money, but they abandoned it. What kind of company abandons a _profitable_ product, other than a stupid one?
....And watch Google turn into AltaVista.
Considering our own George W. Bush, the man in control of the largest nuclear weapons stockpile in the world cant even pronounce the word "nuclear"...
Yes. I'd say developing weapons like these, even if it's only for the purpose of distracting Curious George away from the bright red buttons...i'd consider that a good idea.
Being strong, reliable, and slightly bloated myself, I feel my name would be a wonderful alternative to "Fedora".
Just thinking ahead.
(By the way, stop sucking, Red Hat. Seriously.)
My parents felt it was important for me to arrive at my own conclusions, as to how best to deal with different situations. Sure, they would help guide my decision making process, but they would hold off on making the decision for me. They didn't "cheer me on", as you suggested. Hell, if I remember correctly, they werent aware of any bullying at all, up until the incident. My point is, once they found out, and understood what was going on, they were supportive and completely understanding of what I did. At no point in my upbringing was I told that "resorting to violence is wrong", because it isn't wrong. Having to resort to violence as a means to stop something like that is more than justified; it's a logical choice, and one proven to fix the problem. The school wasn't going to do anything about it, and the bully sure as hell wasn't going to do anything about it, so, what choice is there?
Sure, having your parents put the heat on the school might be a good start, but it'll take weeks or even months for the school to get the message and actually do something about it---and meanwhile, the abuse continues.
That was the point I was trying to make. If my kid chose to put an end to the abuse he was recieving at school, i'd applaud him, and stand behind him 100%. On the flip side, i'd make sure he understood that resorting to violence, while it is an option, is the last option.
If you knew what this kid was doing to me in the moments prior to having my desk slammed ontop of him, you might feel differently...Not to mention what him and his friends had done in the months prior.
Considering this guy ended up having the full weight of a 35 pound metal desk-chair slammed on his throat...
His voice remained fucked up for the remainder of Junior High, and all the way through High School... (This happened in 1988) He sounded alot like the "Ned" character from South Park, but, we didn't have South Park back then.
I wasn't aiming for his throat or anything specifically.. I just picked up my desk and went to smash it straight down on him. He turned to deflect it when it came down, and caught the blunt edge of the desk right across the throat.
Cheers,
Just as I would imagine was the _alot_ of guys here, I too got picked on when I was in Junior High. For years..Got randomly spit on, punched, kicked, you name it..by a group of about 3 or 4 of em, all older than me. It was a real blast, lemmie tell ya.
Then one day, I decided I about had enough, picked up a desk, and sent it crashing straight down ontop of one of them. Crushed his larynx. He couldn't talk for months, and even when he regained his speech, he sounded like Popeye. Karma works in mysterious ways.
Anyway, back to the story. I got taken by no less than three teachers down to the Principal's office, where I was given a "5 day out-of-school suspension".. One notch below formal expulsion back in those days. Interestingly, my folks backed me up, and essentially told the school to fuck off, since I had no prior record of doing anything even remotely like that, the school knew this kid was a bully, and never bothered to do anything about him. Bottom line, I was back in school within a day...And even more interestingly, I never had a problem with any of the other bullies after that. Didn't hear a single peep.
Thats not to say I advocate violence. I don't. But if you're dealing with what amounts to a juvenille sociopath who's parents can't control him, and a school who won't protect your kid, then that's what you have to do.
I really, really don't understand how we, as a culture, arrived at the idea that we should expect our kids to "just ignore them", or "talk it out" with a bully. That has never, and will never solve anything. At the end of the day, you have a God-given right to defend yourself and your dignity. End of story.
I'm going to be a father myself, pretty soon..And if theres anything i'd want my kid to learn from my experience, it would be that if ever gets bullied, and decides to beat the snot out of some kid to reclaim a portion of his dignity, Mom & Dad will back him up on it. Ultimately, he has to learn how to handle confrontations in life. Somewhere along the line, they're going to have to learn what "nobody walks all over you without your permission" means.
It just seems my whole generation was brought up to think that "ball your fist up and teach the asshole a lesson" isn't an option.
Cheers,