Yes, they just don't believe they will. They are wrong, of course.
See most of the people who support these policies, who call themselves Middle Class, are actually Working Class. By supporting a new form of feudalism, they guarantee that eventually they'll be on the wrong side of something. This is simply because the fact that they worship their blood soaked version of Jesus and hate the right people isn't going to impress their rulers if their trailer park happens to be near where their rulers want to put their pollution factory. Or if they are in massive debt and need to be laid off. Or if their is need for another draft.
Really, how well did the silent majority Nazi supporters do in Germany? Herman Goering said it best, "Of course people dont want war. Why should a poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best thing he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?"
More than that, these silent majority Nazi's got the Dresden firestorm due to their leader's incompetance, mendacity and malice. Half of them ended up in East Germany with a wall to keep them in, which doesn't sound like a good result to me.
Yeah, my Dad was a cop in New Jersey. He hates Godfather-type movies with a white hot passion. He was grudgingly amused by The Sopranoes after a while, though he was against it when it first came on. He decided that while it took some liberties, it actually showed a lot of what these thugs were really like and wasn't glorifying them.
Oh, and my Dad explained to me about the speed traps thing, and why cops seemed to come down harder on basically honest citizens than gangster-types. How did he put it? Oh yes, "Judges can be intimidated." No point in arresting someone if you know they are going to walk. It bothered him sometimes.
I think you mean East Indian. My girlfriend is West Indian. It means "she's from da' islands, mon.." I know it can be confusing, I blame Christopher Columbus.
You are confusing "job" with "hobby." Programming is fun. People will write thousands of lines of code, for free, because it is fun. Not just in open source projects, but in things that no one will ever see. It's a fun hobby.
Programming as a job? Is fun... part of the time. Oh, there are probably even rare jobs where it is fun most of the time. If you have such a job, cling to it like a life raft, because you will understand how lucky you are when you change to your next job. (The last time I had a job like that? Well, let's just say a sock puppet had a Superbowl commercial. Those were great times to be in IT.)
At most IT jobs, the fun will be less than 40% of the job, sometimes considerably less. The parts that aren't fun? Those parts still need to get done, even though they aren't fun. This is the reason why programming and related IT work are compensated better than actual fun jobs. It's hard work to get the credentials you need to do IT work, and then the actual job is hard work. Oh, and if it isn't hard work, if it is really just fun and diversion as many of my colleagues have asserted on Slashdot over the years? Well, then the fact that you are putting in all those hours is no credit to you. Give up what I like to call "IT machismo." Since doing IT is like having an orgasm for you every minute of the day, why should we be impressed by the hours you are putting in? That's the paradox of these kinds of assertions.
Really, what we are supposed to gather from these kinds of assertions is this, "My faith in the IT gods is far greater than yours. I'm willing to take vows of silence, poverty, hardship and chastity (especially chastity!) because my love for the IT gods is so great. However, despite my love of my devotions, you should also understand that they are a hardship. My disgust with you is because of the fact that your faith is so small, that you are unwilling to take up the IT cross joyfully."
Believe it or not, other professional jobs are just as much fun as IT. For example, there's a reason why there are TV shows and video games about lawyers. It's because we all know that there are fun aspects of being a lawyer. Ever hired a lawyer? They expect to be compensated for the hours they work, and they don't work for the hours they aren't compensated for. Oh they may be dedicated, and they may live for the job, but for most of them that doesn't extend to uncompensated work.
Now, to be realistic, in the modern IT workplace, a certain amount of your time is expected to be uncompensated, mandatory unpaid overtime. This is simple reality. Also, if you grumble about this mandatory unpaid overtime, you are branded a "9 to 5er." (Which is some sort of evil beast to management and the parent, sort of like a basilisk.) The best way to look at it is that an unknown amount of mandatory unpaid overtime is part of what you are expected to do in order to get the compensation package when you get hired for an IT job. Hopefully, you have an idea of what that's going to be before you take the job. In other words, hopefully you don't sign on thinking the unpaid overtime is only going to be during crunch time, only to find out that crunch time is "every day, including weekends and holidays."
I know going into any IT job that if I don't put in some unpaid overtime, I'll probably be made to feel uncomfortable. So, I try to remember that when I have to, like this evening when I'm doing my mandatory unpaid overtime, and not grumble. I'll do the job, but what I'm doing isn't "fun." It's work... and that's why we call it work and not fun.
This is an economic problem that extends to large parts of the economy, not just IT. Ask a Wal-Mart worker. At least we are currently still making more than them, poor bastards.
..electronics didn't come to mind at all. Good old strategic wargames, those are educational!
Children should be forced, forced I say, to participate in miniature restagings of the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Fredricksburg! Also, simulations of Warsaw Pact versus NATO during the height of the Cold War. (I just ran into a young lady who didn't know what the Warsaw Pact was! The outrage!)
Oh, and what about the bleak future when there is only war! Children should be forced to learn about this as well. How will they prepare their distant descendants for Imperial service otherwise?
Indeed, but remember what happened to Spider-Man's friend, Dr. Curt Connors (Incidentally, does that represent prior art on the whole alligator antibodies thing?)
I bet those conservatives aren't Scotsmen, either.
However, the problem really is that conservatism is hard to define. I can say, "People who vote Republican are conservatives," but I've made the point that if you are black, voting Democratic is the conservative (in the non-political sense of the word) choice for you. (Not that voting Republican would then become the liberal choice... there's no dichotomy between that sense of conservative and liberal.)
If I had to define it, I'd say that what people call conservatism are a group of red meat issues that convince the working class to vote against its best economic interests and for rapacious yahoos like Bush (either) or Reagan. Stuff like nationalism, racism, religionism, puritanism all fall into this category.
Then you get the problem that there is a conventional meaning to the word conservative that has nothing to do with politics. In this sense, the conservative thing to do is to not rock the boat, whereas Bush has loved rocking the boat (in fact, I think he's really been trying to tip it over).
For example, politically, the conservative thing to do is overturn the Posse Comitatus Act so that our dear leader can have more power to do whatever he wants. But the "conservative" Merriam-Webster (i.e. tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions : traditional b: marked by moderation or caution c: marked by or relating to traditional norms of taste, elegance, style, or manners) thing to do would not be to rush into sneakily overturning a law that has been in effect since 1878. In fact, a conservative person, in that sense, would probably say, "It's been in effect since 1848? Better not mess with it."
In fact, George W. Bush, is the opposite of a Merriam-Webster conservative, he's a radical. Of course, the problem is that the form of radicalism he supports is fascism, which attempts to appeal to traditionalists and cautious people even though it's actually a radical overthrow of the entire system..
You know, I'll believe almost any horrible thing you'd say about Bush, but if you are going to make such provocative statements you should source them. Here, I'll start:
"Please don't kill me." said in a mock begging tone by George Bush, Jr. when pretending to be Karla Faye Tucker, a death row inmate in Texas when he was government.
Maybe this will lead to a return of the concept album. In other words and album where all the songs are actually related and designed to tell a single story. Well, maybe not.
I compare it to TV, where I think maybe the reason why serials are more popular nowadays is because there is so little time left for the story after the commercial that shows that are just one big long story (like Lost or Heroes) make more sense than trying to do a simple hour long drama.
If I were in the music industry, I'd be doing research on the buying patterns of people who like to buy songs from musicals. Do they buy just one song, or the whole soundtrack?
Look, whenever a conservative says he wants to minimize government, but not as much as a libertarian, what he means is that he only wants to minimize the good stuff that government does and maximize the bad stuff.
Police tasing you for not wearing your seatbelt? Conservative says, "Aok! I'm for that. In fact, I'm in favor of police tazing anyone, at any time, for any reason!"
Government demolishing your business to make way for a Walmart using eminent domain? "That's the free market at work!"
Government mandating that if there's a merger, the company must give people 30 days notice of layoffs so they can find employment elsewhere? "Pure socialism."
Government eliminating subsidies to companies that outsource to the third world? "What, are we living in Soviet Russia?"
JACK OK. OK. Let's not fence around... This is the situation. Some idiot somewhere in the building, some insect, confused two of our clients, B58/732 and T47/215.
SAM B58/732, that's A. Buttle isn't it?
JACK Christ! You do know it all!
SAM No, no, I don't. I'm just beginning Honestly. Sorry, carry on.
JACK Well, your A. Buttle has been confused with T47/215, an A. Tuttle. I mean, it's a joke! Somebody should be shot for that. So B58/732 was pulled in by mistake.
SAM You got the wrong man.
JACK (a little heated) I did not get the wrong man. I got the right man. The wrong man was delivered to me as the right man! I accepted him, on trust, as the right man. Was I wrong? Anyway, to add to the confusion, he died on us. Which, had he been the right man, he wouldn't have done.
SAM You killed him?
JACK (annoyed) Sam, there are very rigid parameters laid down to avoid that event but Buttle's heart condition did not appear on Tuttle's file. Don't think I'm dismissing this business, Sam. I've lost a week's sleep over it already.
By the way, someone might read that and think "He's saying Apple is worse than Microsoft, get the torches." I don't think that, Microsoft is much, much worse than Apple. (For a company that's worse than Microsoft, think of some of the companies that are primarily involved in malware.)
The problem with this kind of statement is that Microsoft is a unique sort of evil among tech companies. I'm not saying another tech company can't be evil, or even equally as evil as Microsoft. Heck, I'll even say a company can be much worse than Microsoft, Microsoft has done a lot of good for the computer industry. I mean, they made an OS that ran on generic commodity hardware while Apple was (and still is) wedded to vendor lock in, "our OS is only sold to run on our hardware." I personally have always been impressed by Direct X, and the fact that I can usually figure out a way to get old... I mean really old... games or other programs to work on recent copies of Microsoft's OS.
However, Microsoft has always come across as a two-dimensional, mustache twirling villain if you are in the tech industry and aware of them as more than background noise. (Background noise is what they are to most non-tech inclined users, although this might be changing.) It's not that they are involved in anti-competitive practices, its that they openly revel in this. They are the guys who will tie you to the railroad tracks cackling maniacally, who'll say, "Even if they pay me the money, I'm still going to flood every city on earth with molten hot magma."
If another company is flooding your city with magma or tieing you to the railroad tracks, they just won't be as openly gleeful about it.
I was driving an older than ten year old car until late last year, when she sadly passed away. I only hope my new car will serve me as well.
40+ is the older generation now, I guess I should be worried at 38 then. I'd make a Logan's Run reference here, but I wonder how many people would get it?
I remember my Mom learning the computer, because she worked in a library. She started out not even being able to use a mouse, now she's fairly proficient.
On the other hand, I'm still baffled by her entertainment system with it's 27 remotes. Ok, so I just want to watch the TV. This one turns it on, this one turns on the sound, and this one changes the channel? Is that right? Oh, brave new world, I remember when I had just 1 remote (Nowadays I have two, one for my TV and one for my DVD player.). I usually just ask her to do it when I'm over her house. The worst is when she has Bill O'Reilly blaring and I turn off the TV, and I can still hear him because turning off the TV does nothing with the sound...
Michael: Do you want some coffee? Creed: No, no. I had some, thanks. Michael: [slurping] Oh, wow. How long have you worked here? How many years, Creed? Creed: Fifteen years, I think. Michael: Yeah, that's right. Fifteen years and three months. Wow, you were hired before I was. Must be thinking about retirement. Creed: Oh, no. I need the money. Michael: Why? Creed: What do you mean, "Why?" Michael: It's just that you never got married and you live in an apartment. Creed: I don't know. I got nephews. Michael: Yeah. Creed: Yeah. Yeah. And I buy them stuff, you know. Oh, made some bad investments. Why are you asking me this? Michael: Just trying to be your friend. Creed: Well, you never asked me about my life before, is all. Michael: Of course, I did. I always... Yes, I do. Creed: Do you have something specific you wanted to talk to me about? Michael: Are you pulling my leg or... Creed: No. Michael: You have no clue why I've asked you in here? Creed: I do not. Michael: Oh, here we go. This... um, here's the deal.
I remember when one magazine revealed the forbidden secrets of how to program Player Missile graphics (Atari's term for sprites). It was actually pretty easy once you knew how it worked. I had grand dreams, but I ended up just making a few sprites and making them move about with my joystick. (After all, playing with my Atari wasn't going to get my homework done, as my Mom might say...)
Re:It's a serious art form
on
Reading Comics
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Just remember, comics didn't fall into that little room...
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See most of the people who support these policies, who call themselves Middle Class, are actually Working Class. By supporting a new form of feudalism, they guarantee that eventually they'll be on the wrong side of something. This is simply because the fact that they worship their blood soaked version of Jesus and hate the right people isn't going to impress their rulers if their trailer park happens to be near where their rulers want to put their pollution factory. Or if they are in massive debt and need to be laid off. Or if their is need for another draft.
Really, how well did the silent majority Nazi supporters do in Germany? Herman Goering said it best, "Of course people dont want war. Why should a poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best thing he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?"
More than that, these silent majority Nazi's got the Dresden firestorm due to their leader's incompetance, mendacity and malice. Half of them ended up in East Germany with a wall to keep them in, which doesn't sound like a good result to me.
Oh, and my Dad explained to me about the speed traps thing, and why cops seemed to come down harder on basically honest citizens than gangster-types. How did he put it? Oh yes, "Judges can be intimidated." No point in arresting someone if you know they are going to walk. It bothered him sometimes.
I think you mean East Indian. My girlfriend is West Indian. It means "she's from da' islands, mon.." I know it can be confusing, I blame Christopher Columbus.
Programming as a job? Is fun... part of the time. Oh, there are probably even rare jobs where it is fun most of the time. If you have such a job, cling to it like a life raft, because you will understand how lucky you are when you change to your next job. (The last time I had a job like that? Well, let's just say a sock puppet had a Superbowl commercial. Those were great times to be in IT.)
At most IT jobs, the fun will be less than 40% of the job, sometimes considerably less. The parts that aren't fun? Those parts still need to get done, even though they aren't fun. This is the reason why programming and related IT work are compensated better than actual fun jobs. It's hard work to get the credentials you need to do IT work, and then the actual job is hard work. Oh, and if it isn't hard work, if it is really just fun and diversion as many of my colleagues have asserted on Slashdot over the years? Well, then the fact that you are putting in all those hours is no credit to you. Give up what I like to call "IT machismo." Since doing IT is like having an orgasm for you every minute of the day, why should we be impressed by the hours you are putting in? That's the paradox of these kinds of assertions.
Really, what we are supposed to gather from these kinds of assertions is this, "My faith in the IT gods is far greater than yours. I'm willing to take vows of silence, poverty, hardship and chastity (especially chastity!) because my love for the IT gods is so great. However, despite my love of my devotions, you should also understand that they are a hardship. My disgust with you is because of the fact that your faith is so small, that you are unwilling to take up the IT cross joyfully."
Believe it or not, other professional jobs are just as much fun as IT. For example, there's a reason why there are TV shows and video games about lawyers. It's because we all know that there are fun aspects of being a lawyer. Ever hired a lawyer? They expect to be compensated for the hours they work, and they don't work for the hours they aren't compensated for. Oh they may be dedicated, and they may live for the job, but for most of them that doesn't extend to uncompensated work.
Now, to be realistic, in the modern IT workplace, a certain amount of your time is expected to be uncompensated, mandatory unpaid overtime. This is simple reality. Also, if you grumble about this mandatory unpaid overtime, you are branded a "9 to 5er." (Which is some sort of evil beast to management and the parent, sort of like a basilisk.) The best way to look at it is that an unknown amount of mandatory unpaid overtime is part of what you are expected to do in order to get the compensation package when you get hired for an IT job. Hopefully, you have an idea of what that's going to be before you take the job. In other words, hopefully you don't sign on thinking the unpaid overtime is only going to be during crunch time, only to find out that crunch time is "every day, including weekends and holidays."
I know going into any IT job that if I don't put in some unpaid overtime, I'll probably be made to feel uncomfortable. So, I try to remember that when I have to, like this evening when I'm doing my mandatory unpaid overtime, and not grumble. I'll do the job, but what I'm doing isn't "fun." It's work... and that's why we call it work and not fun.
This is an economic problem that extends to large parts of the economy, not just IT. Ask a Wal-Mart worker. At least we are currently still making more than them, poor bastards.
Children should be forced, forced I say, to participate in miniature restagings of the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Fredricksburg! Also, simulations of Warsaw Pact versus NATO during the height of the Cold War. (I just ran into a young lady who didn't know what the Warsaw Pact was! The outrage!)
Oh, and what about the bleak future when there is only war! Children should be forced to learn about this as well. How will they prepare their distant descendants for Imperial service otherwise?
Indeed, but remember what happened to Spider-Man's friend, Dr. Curt Connors (Incidentally, does that represent prior art on the whole alligator antibodies thing?)
However, the problem really is that conservatism is hard to define. I can say, "People who vote Republican are conservatives," but I've made the point that if you are black, voting Democratic is the conservative (in the non-political sense of the word) choice for you. (Not that voting Republican would then become the liberal choice... there's no dichotomy between that sense of conservative and liberal.)
If I had to define it, I'd say that what people call conservatism are a group of red meat issues that convince the working class to vote against its best economic interests and for rapacious yahoos like Bush (either) or Reagan. Stuff like nationalism, racism, religionism, puritanism all fall into this category.
Then you get the problem that there is a conventional meaning to the word conservative that has nothing to do with politics. In this sense, the conservative thing to do is to not rock the boat, whereas Bush has loved rocking the boat (in fact, I think he's really been trying to tip it over).
For example, politically, the conservative thing to do is overturn the Posse Comitatus Act so that our dear leader can have more power to do whatever he wants. But the "conservative" Merriam-Webster (i.e. tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions : traditional b: marked by moderation or caution c: marked by or relating to traditional norms of taste, elegance, style, or manners) thing to do would not be to rush into sneakily overturning a law that has been in effect since 1878. In fact, a conservative person, in that sense, would probably say, "It's been in effect since 1848? Better not mess with it."
In fact, George W. Bush, is the opposite of a Merriam-Webster conservative, he's a radical. Of course, the problem is that the form of radicalism he supports is fascism, which attempts to appeal to traditionalists and cautious people even though it's actually a radical overthrow of the entire system..
"Please don't kill me." said in a mock begging tone by George Bush, Jr. when pretending to be Karla Faye Tucker, a death row inmate in Texas when he was government.
"This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores," quipped the GOP standard-bearer. "Some people call you the elites; I call you my base." George Bush, Jr. at an $800 a plate dinner.
I guess Muqtada Al'Sadr didn't get the memo....
I compare it to TV, where I think maybe the reason why serials are more popular nowadays is because there is so little time left for the story after the commercial that shows that are just one big long story (like Lost or Heroes) make more sense than trying to do a simple hour long drama.
If I were in the music industry, I'd be doing research on the buying patterns of people who like to buy songs from musicals. Do they buy just one song, or the whole soundtrack?
Police tasing you for not wearing your seatbelt? Conservative says, "Aok! I'm for that. In fact, I'm in favor of police tazing anyone, at any time, for any reason!"
Government demolishing your business to make way for a Walmart using eminent domain? "That's the free market at work!"
Government mandating that if there's a merger, the company must give people 30 days notice of layoffs so they can find employment elsewhere? "Pure socialism."
Government eliminating subsidies to companies that outsource to the third world? "What, are we living in Soviet Russia?"
SAM B58/732, that's A. Buttle isn't it?
JACK Christ! You do know it all!
SAM No, no, I don't. I'm just beginning Honestly. Sorry, carry on.
JACK Well, your A. Buttle has been confused with T47/215, an A. Tuttle. I mean, it's a joke! Somebody should be shot for that. So B58/732 was pulled in by mistake.
SAM You got the wrong man.
JACK (a little heated) I did not get the wrong man. I got the right man. The wrong man was delivered to me as the right man! I accepted him, on trust, as the right man. Was I wrong? Anyway, to add to the confusion, he died on us. Which, had he been the right man, he wouldn't have done.
SAM You killed him?
JACK (annoyed) Sam, there are very rigid parameters laid down to avoid that event but Buttle's heart condition did not appear on Tuttle's file. Don't think I'm dismissing this business, Sam. I've lost a week's sleep over it already.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
You haven't lived until you've launched a lego structure from a System 7 gun's catapult!
(Ah! The System 7, 7 guns in one!!!)
By the way, someone might read that and think "He's saying Apple is worse than Microsoft, get the torches." I don't think that, Microsoft is much, much worse than Apple. (For a company that's worse than Microsoft, think of some of the companies that are primarily involved in malware.)
However, Microsoft has always come across as a two-dimensional, mustache twirling villain if you are in the tech industry and aware of them as more than background noise. (Background noise is what they are to most non-tech inclined users, although this might be changing.) It's not that they are involved in anti-competitive practices, its that they openly revel in this. They are the guys who will tie you to the railroad tracks cackling maniacally, who'll say, "Even if they pay me the money, I'm still going to flood every city on earth with molten hot magma."
If another company is flooding your city with magma or tieing you to the railroad tracks, they just won't be as openly gleeful about it.
Kasa-obake from the monster type, Tsukumogami, based on the principal that certain inanimate objects turn into monsters when they reach 100 years old.
So, Bioshock exists because the studio that created System Shock left EA but couldn't take their IP with them. So what happens when EA buys Take2?
Will there be a need for a "spiritual successor" to Bioshock?
Cut Yourself
What's going on indeed...
40+ is the older generation now, I guess I should be worried at 38 then. I'd make a Logan's Run reference here, but I wonder how many people would get it?
I remember my Mom learning the computer, because she worked in a library. She started out not even being able to use a mouse, now she's fairly proficient.
On the other hand, I'm still baffled by her entertainment system with it's 27 remotes. Ok, so I just want to watch the TV. This one turns it on, this one turns on the sound, and this one changes the channel? Is that right? Oh, brave new world, I remember when I had just 1 remote (Nowadays I have two, one for my TV and one for my DVD player.). I usually just ask her to do it when I'm over her house. The worst is when she has Bill O'Reilly blaring and I turn off the TV, and I can still hear him because turning off the TV does nothing with the sound...
Michael: Do you want some coffee?
Creed: No, no. I had some, thanks.
Michael: [slurping] Oh, wow. How long have you worked here? How many years, Creed?
Creed: Fifteen years, I think.
Michael: Yeah, that's right. Fifteen years and three months. Wow, you were hired before I was. Must be thinking about retirement.
Creed: Oh, no. I need the money.
Michael: Why?
Creed: What do you mean, "Why?"
Michael: It's just that you never got married and you live in an apartment.
Creed: I don't know. I got nephews.
Michael: Yeah.
Creed: Yeah. Yeah. And I buy them stuff, you know. Oh, made some bad investments. Why are you asking me this?
Michael: Just trying to be your friend.
Creed: Well, you never asked me about my life before, is all.
Michael: Of course, I did. I always... Yes, I do.
Creed: Do you have something specific you wanted to talk to me about?
Michael: Are you pulling my leg or...
Creed: No.
Michael: You have no clue why I've asked you in here?
Creed: I do not.
Michael: Oh, here we go. This... um, here's the deal.
I remember when one magazine revealed the forbidden secrets of how to program Player Missile graphics (Atari's term for sprites). It was actually pretty easy once you knew how it worked. I had grand dreams, but I ended up just making a few sprites and making them move about with my joystick. (After all, playing with my Atari wasn't going to get my homework done, as my Mom might say...)
They were pushed...
Well, so was Judge Dredd and he's as American as apple pie! (Or the Justice Department's reprocessed food equivalent.)