Each and every one of us should ask ourselves the question: has something portrayed on TV ever made us so sick we had to turn it off?
has anything ever violated our sense of ethics to such a strong degree that we were compelled to turn it off?
has anything ever pandered to such a degree that we were forced to turn it off?
...and did we turn it off, or stare slack-jawed and wide-eyed?
Why is the "Faces of Death" series so popular?
A friend was relating a scene in FoD wherein a skyjumper accidentally drifted into an alligator farm (heh). And then when we asked him why he watched the video he said "I learned to be careful skyjumping."
I don't think that we are very honest with ourselves, and I am sure that the TV fosters this level of irresponsibility. Witness how Phil Donahue (IMO the first of the Springer series of shows) portrayed his show as an honest look into issues of importance in America today. "Next, cross-dressing. Stay tuned." It started mildly, and like the frog in the soup pot, became gradually warmer and warmer. Jerry Says his show is a total goof, but he doesn't act like it to the yay-hoos he suckers in. It's a big inside joke that everyone gets.
Personally, I can't watch commercial TV at all anymore. I tape baseball games, but even baseball is showing the erosion of values in the face of greed. Okay, Bill Maher and Charlie Rose... but that's it, man. I have reached my personal limit.
It's just that they used a sensationalistic approach that invalidates whatever message they were going to send. They are as guilty as the people they portray. I agree with you that it shouldn't be put down as preaching.
It should be put down as hypocrisy.
Go ahead, enjoy the movie, but don't pretend you are going to leave the movie and more enlightened or less depressed about the sorry state of attention-grabbing weasels on TV who successfully pander to the basest instincts of a gullible public. Just know that you are no different than people who watch Jerry Springer.
'Traffic' is a good example of a failed attempt at a message movie. The message is skewed and dishonest, trading fact for emotional impact. Hollywood has a blurred sense of perception, so they really should not be our eyes, ears, or conscience.
I would much prefer a documentary that tries to be unbiased and journalistically honest than a completely sensationalized rip-off of an already anxiety-provoking situation.
No, I won't plunk down any money on this one. Don't need to see it as I already saw the trailer a few times. My point: as long as ratings are the producer's bottom line and his primary reason for making a movie(this will be forever), you will never get an enlightened viewpoint. Not from "15 Minutes", not from "Traffic", but maybe "13 Days", maybe "Gattaca", maybe "2001". These movies, IMO, have at least a germ of independent artistic vision. The other two are ratings-grabbers in the guise of 'important message movies'.
I don't think that turning off the TV and reading a lot is bad, though you may be right, it is a somewhat deliberate turning away from um, TV. It's funny, but I feel so much that I am wasting my time with TV, I can't hardly watch it any more. I watch videos, but, c'mon, Friends???
As a parent, I feel the angst, sure! "Sugar is bad!" 'yeah, right...'
There is a sense of 'Edward Scissorhands', or, Pleasant Valley Sunday', if you will... that I tend to disdain.
Maybe you'll find out if your wife leaves
you because you're making her a 50ies-style housewife.
okay, next...
think of the V-chip as a right for you as a parent.
I understand that the 'v-chip' and 'Net Nanny' are institutionalized and (for some) hopefully socially accepted and practiced forms of 'parental rights' but I suggest that there are many rights that parents aren't availing themselves of.
Are you seriously agruing that not turning on the TV - or appearing too drunk, or doing whatever you shouldn't - is somehow isolationist and that is somehow bad? I'm not saying 'don't have friends'.
I'm saying: "Don't have 'Friends'."
I'm saying 'kill your TV'. It's okay if I play Parasite Eve, but kids, don't watch me, go in the other room and play with, um, blocks or something...
I'm going to tell you how to parent, because I think I do a pretty good job. And also because I deplore the situation in which parents are so confused and bewildred that they feel they need Net Nannies and censorship on TV and yes, v-chips.
I wonder what kind of parents these congressmen are...
Ok, when a kid is 0-5 there is nothing in their environment but what you have created and placed there. You don't listen to NIN in their presence, you don't watch TV with them. You don't leave it on while you get the dishes done and they sit there, numb and brainwashed. You never turn it on, ideally, and its not part of their day.
You expose them to classical music. You roll on the floor with them, you fingerpaint, you color with them. You devote more time than you ever thought you could spare to them because between 0-5 they have and should have no one else in their world but Mommy, Daddy, and close family.
Which is to say that you don't Ever send them to Day Care. You make necessary sacrifices, which in this day and age means you must often choose between having a family and having a career if you are the Wife, or having a house if you are a Husband. But once you chose kids, the mother (or father) should stay at home all day and have the child(ren) by her side at all times.
You read to them constantly, sitting on the couch, close and warm, taking time for the child to ask questions. Often the child will prefer only one book to be read over and over again. That's okay, and never to be questioned. You can marvel at how the little brain is imprinting itself through repetition of the same (frikkin') story over and over again. You read to them every night.
After 5 years old, you guide them in their development, giving them signals that it is time to start growing up a little. This means - beyond potty training - exposing them to new experiences.
Ideally, at this point, they don't know what a TV even is. And they certainly have never seen gore, violence, or rage, except as played out within the safe circle of the family. Roughhousing is a wonderful exercise!
But also, their stories become richer in texture as elements of violence enter into the nightly readings. I prefer Finn McCollough (pronounced "Finn McCool"), of Irish Myths and Legends. It is amazing how gory and grim (pun intended) and frightening some of these stories are, but they serve a good purpose: mankind is not without its Dark Side, and it is better to acknowledge it and 'take it out for a walk' than to bury it. Start with them young, let them know that it is okay to entertain some negative thoughts. Frighten them, sure, but with a strong degree of comfort and security.
Then they come to rely on your judgement heavily so that only your influence matters in their lives. Others, including the TV and video game mfrs and rock stars, are powerless to influence the child, and their access is limited and always under controlled circumstances.
Then, as they grow beyond the age where you can control their access, you try to instill them with all the wisdom you can and teach them to discern between right and wrong, good and bad.
When they hit about twelve years old, they will begin to experiment with violent games and images. Here is where all those scary stories pay off (I don't recommend you read exclusively scary stories, but they will tell you which they like and which are boring, or too scary). You have taught them that their 'dark side' (the side that is scared, in reality) is okay, and they recognize the feelings. They also turn to you to validate them. At this point they know what is and what is not good for them. This is not to say that they won't disobey your wishes! There is a tacit acceptance that they will experiment, but you have done all you can at this point.
The one thing that I keep going back to, the one thing that continually puzzles me about all of this is that - given Australia is a Democracy with elected officials - how people can stand for this, how this never seems to be an issue that the general populace takes to heart, and how an ostensibly large number of people support such laws. When an item like this is presented in Slashdot, be it foolish patents, draconian copyright protections, or outrageous MS practices, it is presented as though the subject is stupefyingly logic-defying. The tone of these topics are always "well, DUH!", and yet ordinary people really don't get it.
I mean 'don't get it' in the literal sense, I assume. They are actually uninformed as to the essence of the laws that get passed. It was like the time I learned that if I get stopped without proof of vehicle insurance in California, there is a $1000 fine, even if you have proof but are a little disorganized and left it at home.
The unmitigated arrogance of a government beholden to greedy corporations! In this case, a corrupt official, a 'wolf watching the hen-house' allowed the laws to be passed. Chuck Quackenbush, the wolf, has since been railroaded out of office, but did the law revert back to what it was? In no sense of the word.
Essentially, the problem boils down to Campaign Finance Reform. We have been talking about that for ten years now, but Congressmen maintain that there are Freedom of Speech issues that would be violated. How arrogant of them!
I'm sorry, we were talking about Australia, weren't we?:)
Well, it seems that politicians are even more brazen in that country. They therefore hold the light to the map to show us where we are headed if we cannot find some way for the People to keep their government in check. And they are not that far ahead of any other of the governments, they are just a little more brazen.
It took a few hundred years, but they have finally 'loopholed' and 'lawyerized' the Constitution into irrelevance. God help us all.
That is the real problem. There was a time, not so long ago (er, ca 1992 or 3) when information was rapidly being freed and it could not be stopped so it roamed the world unfettered and unencumbered. Of course, that was when only the technologically savvy could access this information and the great unwashed masses couldn't. So there wasn't a problem because it was obscure to those in power: they didn't get it.
Now, ten years later, when they Do understand the intrinsic power of information, they feel they must control the flow and broker each and every transaction between all people on the net (that is, in fact, MS's plan -.NET - to act as broker between each digital transaction).
This is an informational war between the people of the world and basically corporations of the world (governments playing puppet to the corporate whim). The instrument of control is the Law. The legislators and lawyers are going to find it extremely difficult to control informational flow, but we are seeing - real time! every day something new! - the fruits of their labors: horrible and unenforcable laws that basically make each and every citizen a criminal. Once everyone is a criminal, then all of their liberties are endangered, and they must skulk around, fearful of being caught.
The only difference that I can see between Winston Smith's sad little grey world and this one is that people don't seem to have the zeal to rat out their neighbors, no one is wearing a red sash. Wait, correct that, I forgot about the model for the (forget what Orwell called them) guys who turn in their neighbors: the Religious Right and Christian Conservatives here in America. Already drug laws have turned half a nation into criminals.
Now another large chunk will be criminalized - sorry, has been criminalized. Napster-users, anyone who ever burned a disk containing MS Office and gave it to a friend. Basically, an entire nation of criminals, at risk and fearful of exposure. This serves the regime well.
The reason there will not be reform is that legislators are no longer servants of the people, if they ever were. No, the people are not vested in their country. Not in England where by some strange brainwashing technique (a la 1984) they Act like the Parliament is their friend, not in America where we know the story but admit powerlessness and the inability to organize except to continue to oppress Ourselves (MADD, African_American Rights Moevments, et al), and apparently not in Australia, which probably follows a British model.
The only power a people are left with is the power to revolt. And at least in America, those in power are preparing for that eventuality, when they get to crush (a la the WTO riot in Seattle) the small Goldstein (Stallman?) rebellion once and for all. The maser would be a really good weapon for that, wouldn't it? SWAT teams with masers and stun guns and tear gas... oh my!
But, my God! So many criminals, criminalized by such an oppressive regime!
Believe me, you don't want to see a Bastille Day, where the streets ran red with the blood of the aristocracy. And so ordinary people who have not girded their loins and prepared for the moment will lose their nerve at the critical hour.
But those who have been planning this moment know what to do. They are seizing the day right now, and will continue to do it forever. Recall that 1984 wasn't about crushing a rebellion forever. It was about warring with people day after day.
thanks, man, I bet we would agree more than disagree if we were sitting over a pitcher of beer. It's an important question, and one should not blindly go 'in the pursuit of science' nor should one 'prudently do nothing'.
the answers lie somewhere in between the extremes, condescension notwithstanding... neither one of us have it exactly right... and that's
I have titled this "The Birth of a Monster" because Frankenstein can be read as a tale of what happens when a man tries to create a child without a woman. It can, however, also be read as an account of a woman's anxieties and insecurities about her own creative and reproductive capabilities. The story of Frankenstein is the first articulation of a woman's experience of pregnancy and related fears. Mary Shelley, in the development and education of the monster, discusses child development and education and how the nurturing of a loving parent is extremely important in the moral development of an individual. Thus, in Frankenstein, Mary Shelley examines her own fears and thoughts about pregnancy, childbirth, and child development.
I think your interpretation is fairly subjective, as is mine. Anyway, I recommend the website as you may need to consider another opinion beside your own.
A couple more things, and then I am done:
1) I am not trying to troll, just typing an opinion... try not to throw those accusations into your argument, however tempting. That's called an ad hominem attack, and I shouldn't let it slide by too many times without calling it.
2) Do you know how many 'failures' there were before Dolly the sheep was produced? I believe there were hundreds. And not all of the failures are going to be hideous mutated creatures, although some might. Some might have slight and undetectable genetic defects that won't reveal themselves for years. Question: should we allow such creatures to breed? I'm not so sure, myself.
3) Many people, in their zeal to progress scientifically, are willing to change reality so that it suits their aims. Try not to fall into that trap. It's the same one Dr. Frankenstein fell in to.
But thanks for a illuminating viewpoint. Please don't condescend to me again, however.
Yes, in fact the cover of Wired ("You Again", February 2001) predicts that a human will be cloned this year. My core beliefs about this subject tend toward Shelley's Frankenstein. It is so prescient. In it the monster articulates the horrors attendant to what the doctor has wrought: a creature without family, without hope of love, a hideous demon without a soul. To say that the power is difficult to wield is an understatement!
I think that we will inevitably be faced with questions of God-scale proportions, as already our legal system is posed with questions it can't find justifiable or moral support for. In the field of genetics, questions such as 'who owns a gene' and 'what can the insurance company rightfully know about me?' are causing all sorts of trouble.
How do we avoid the spectre of the monster who wants retribution for the horrors we inflicted on it while in the pursuit of our God-like powers?
...and who among us will take that mantle and shape it and claim it for all humankind? He is the one who will face the consequences, and there should be consequences, if what he wreaks should be terrible.
That is a very good point. It appears that genes will 'activate their junk DNA' in response to environmental stresses to allow for more rapid mutation and therefore enhance adaptation. Also, the human body used to turn off the gene that made the 'milk digesting' enzyme (lactase?) as part of the normal weaning process. Thirty-five percent of normal adults are lactose-intolerant for that very reason; they might be considered more normal than those who began drinking milk under environmental stress (hunger) and thereby needed to retain the lactase enzyme through their lifetime.
Now, this brings us to an interesting point. Perhaps in a different world, long-living cartilage people would survive better and be able to chase women into their forties/fifties once their lifespans increased, in fact All such longer-lasting genes would enhance survival.
But that is in a different world. In Our world, we supplant the role of genes by actively providing that which the gene lacks. There are therefore no longer any ordinary environmental pressures placed on the organism, so there is very little reason for a gene to change, within bounds. Medical Science is weakening the gene pool by eliminating a large part of the mechanism of natural selection.
What does this mean? We get lazy genes, and will never improve as a species except by direct manipulation of the body. It's kind of like how corn needs a human in the fertilization process because after years of hybridization it can no longer pollinate itself. That gene has lost its function due to man's intervention.
No one here should be surprised that the Cat has died, inasmuch as we hacked it and got sued, and then set about trashing their business plan conceptually.
It's got potentially great synergy if it were combined with... something... its just that magazines aren't it. What if you installed barcodes in, say, lampposts. Then when you get drunk and don't know where you are, you can just scan the nearest lamppost and... wait, maybe GPS enemas would solve that problem better...
The interesting thing about CC that was different was that they had enough backing to give the devices away, and so a million people have them. So if someone ever did find a niche for the device, he could wait until the company goes bankrupt (I give it six months) and then advertise: "Remember that Cue Cat you have in your closet collecting dust? Well, pull it out, baby, 'cuz internet luvvin' just got interesting..."
This is a good sign, to my wondering, child-like eyes. Stallman is fighting MS bluster with facts and information; he remains self-consistent and logical, unperturbed and reasonable. He puts forth his philosophy, which, I've been here, what, almost a year? - and finally it all begins to make sense to me, because it is logical. MS by contrast Does appear shrill and emotional. This confirms my opinion that Truth will out.
And most of the posters - most of you folks - really get it! Much more than I... it's just plain frikkin' gratifying to see a consensus on the side of logic.
Stallman Needs to continue preaching. He needs to continue preaching until the average American - yes, you there sitting in the Barcalounger with the can of Spud beer - starts to 'get it'. I would love to be a CNN reporter asking people in the street "What do you think about GNU/Linux, the FSF, and the GPL?" And yet, these things are so vitally important to the tides of change in the world that We the People have a great need to understand the importance of all this.
So I would implore all of us to discuss and post until we are conversant in these matters. Not one of us can understand all of the implications of FSF philosophy and MS crapification tactics, but together we can gain a comprehensive understanding. For instance, I get the feeling that MS, through there well-known (here in/.) tactics and strategies, might very well be strengthening the case for GPL and OSS because they are cornering the market.
...and the market, like a dog, does not like to be cornered...
You're right. As the object falls into the atmosphere (300 kft is above the sensible atmosphere, and right on 'the edge'), the dynamic pressure increases and drag goes with it, slowing the vehicle down until it 1) reaches terminal velocity, or 2) slams into the ground. What I am flying slammed into the ground at 20000 fps. I looked at the picture of the hyshot on the webpage and it reaches apogee at just over a million feet. This means it might have a max v of about 18000 fps or so. Then it starts slowing down. When it hits the desired speed (I am sure it isn't as low-drag, or high-beta to be pedantic), it flicks on the jets and uses that to basically overcome the effects of drag.
They are claiming a sustainable velocity of Mach 7.6 or so, so you are correct. It would be prohibitive to expect Mach 20, but the fact is, it may pass through that velocity. The higher they go, the harder they fall, and velocity in a vacuum is only a function of potential, that is v= const* sqrt(h), h being height at apogee.
Depending on how high up the rocket sends it, it could easily, with an apogee of, oh, say, 1.6 million feet, attain a speed at reentry (300000 feet, or about 100 km) of 24,400 feet/second, well over mach 20-something (I just ran my code for those numbers for something completely different, how coincidental!).
Then, of course, it will heat up very rapidly and ablate. The point is, speed is not a problem, but materials may be.
Please don't cling to the beliefs foisted on you by your ancestors. You are missing out on what are some of God's greatest miracles, those discovered by the scientist.
The fact that the genome contains the exact same genes in humans as in bacteria is statistically impossible (please don't bandy about what is statistically impossible 1*e-12, 13, or 18 should be good enough).
Why do you Christians prefer to believe that God created Adam with a navel to 'test our faith' rather than he created it just as we are finding it? Scientists are not arbitrarily atheistic.
I like it. A little much with the sheeps and wolves, but great thoughts, man.
So you would opt for a Bastille Day. I personally would go the Boston Tea Party route. And there are plenty of Gandhi's out there.
Is this why we can't get organized? Because we don't know whether to storm the gates, meet on the dock, or lie in the street together?
Tell me, now. What keeps us from organizing and informing the world? It's funny, I had no inkling of the WTO riot in Seattle until the day it happened, but I'll tell you, I would Never have known about the WTO if not for the riot.
I'll tell you why we are still talking about this. Because once we shut-up they will seize and win the day. Keep practicing your Right to Free Speech, apparently it's the only thing the masses have going for them.
Anyway, as I have said before (see what I mean?), there is Zero Moral Implications in using Napster, in copying someone's book, and in making a movie of someone's novel the day after it is finished. It's just an economic model that was created 'in the day', a time when printing presses were still of the Gutenburg type.
It is my considered opinion (and many of you as well, as we practice our arguments, I notice they get more coherent and concise, good work all) that the advent of the Internet has brought about definite stresses in the way we do business. We are only just discovering that!
I would personally study the phenomena for a while and try to anticipate the implications of a number of possible policies before deciding on a single one. But the RIAA doesn't want that for obvious reasons. Money.
However, the dipwad lawyer cannot afford the luxury of not being a pit-bull for the landed, moneyed interests, so he has to be a jerk. He chose that profession and deserves all the enmity we can throw at him. He gets paid well.
Me, being more interested in the free association of people and the protected interests of individuals, care less about one man's personal fortune than the crapifying of what could still be a boon to humankind in general and me in particular.
But TV could have been a boon, too. But it's not for many of the same reasons; the greedy among us have sought to turn it solely into a revenue-generating box. For some reason that function excludes the possibility of all other functions. And don't talk to me about Public TV, it's gone the way of corporate interests.
In like fashion, we will see all the useful functions of this, our Internet become marginalized as people get harrassed off the internet until there are only providers and consumers left.
There may be a time when I am afraid to log on. Because of lawyer weenies like this joy-killer.
It is possibly correct to anthropomorphize genes, since it is they who are the driving force in life, and not indiviual humans (an individual of the species, apparently in response to an underlying stimulus, will sacrifice themselves for the good of the group... sometimes... we currently ascribe this behavior to genes), but to attribute a value judgement on a specific number of genes in relation to an 'inferior species' like the roundworm is anthropocentric, but with a twist, don't ya think?
One might just as well conclude that evolving in the particular strain that we did required development of just the specific 30000 active genes that we 'kept'.
The roundworm had to build slime genes and earth-digesting proteins and all that. We were smarter and ate the roundworms instead....
...thereby saving genes!
But, seriously, folks, remember that all that junk DNA is theorized to come alive with mutations when the organism is under environmental stress.
Imagine if there were no patents granted for genes. Do you really think that research would stop? Way to get my goat this morning! That and the fact that I submitted a very similar story more than a week ago, before the public announcement, even.
Well, lemme paraphrase what I submitted (*sigh*): it is even deeper than 'combinations' of genes. The word 'proteomics' may become bigger than the word 'genomics' as scientists discover that the array of proteins and the enzymes they create are more responsible for the differences in our make-up than the genes that merely create them. One might say that it's the products of the software, and not the hardware that constitutes the individual. I don't know much more about this subject, but would love to hear from someone who does understand this. If any of you seven or eight individuals are reading this, can you please elaborate for us? That would be great!
Oh, there is an interesting, if a little technical, link on Proteomics here. Check out the tour.
That's the thing: when a majority of people do something that is not inherently harmful (think about it, using Napster has Zero moral implications) the laws need to be changed to reflect the change in the will of the people.
But it's not like we work that way anymore. It has to do with the way our legislators operate.
Funny, this is as good an argument as any for my pet peeve: the need for campaign finance reform.
It reminds me of what I was told about alcohol regulations for College football games. The regulations are there, but they are not routinely enforced. It's only when some jerk gets too drunk and has to be thrown out that they use the booze law as an excuse to get him out of there. Likewise, copyrights are violated every day and the industries allow this behavior routinely. But when they feel threatened they rally up the lawyers and make a big stink out of it. Gnutella hasn't hit the threshhold yet, but the thing is, if they succeed in getting the govt to prosecute the copyright law as it was written, and so many of us are subject to fines, jail time, police harrassment, then the people must revolt, for they are not being represented by their legislators.
So the laws as written are wrong, and although fundamentally the internet isn't different from Steve Gutenberg's printing press, it has brought the copyright law to a logical end through its efficiency and mass distribution capabilities. We have to re-think our laws, here.
I personally don't think that many laws should be on the books: 55 mph speed limit comes to mind. Can you think of any others?
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Each and every one of us should ask ourselves the question: has something portrayed on TV ever made us so sick we had to turn it off?
has anything ever violated our sense of ethics to such a strong degree that we were compelled to turn it off?
has anything ever pandered to such a degree that we were forced to turn it off?
...and did we turn it off, or stare slack-jawed and wide-eyed?
Why is the "Faces of Death" series so popular?
A friend was relating a scene in FoD wherein a skyjumper accidentally drifted into an alligator farm (heh). And then when we asked him why he watched the video he said "I learned to be careful skyjumping."
I don't think that we are very honest with ourselves, and I am sure that the TV fosters this level of irresponsibility. Witness how Phil Donahue (IMO the first of the Springer series of shows) portrayed his show as an honest look into issues of importance in America today. "Next, cross-dressing. Stay tuned." It started mildly, and like the frog in the soup pot, became gradually warmer and warmer. Jerry Says his show is a total goof, but he doesn't act like it to the yay-hoos he suckers in. It's a big inside joke that everyone gets.
Personally, I can't watch commercial TV at all anymore. I tape baseball games, but even baseball is showing the erosion of values in the face of greed. Okay, Bill Maher and Charlie Rose... but that's it, man. I have reached my personal limit.
It's just that they used a sensationalistic approach that invalidates whatever message they were going to send. They are as guilty as the people they portray. I agree with you that it shouldn't be put down as preaching.
It should be put down as hypocrisy.
Go ahead, enjoy the movie, but don't pretend you are going to leave the movie and more enlightened or less depressed about the sorry state of attention-grabbing weasels on TV who successfully pander to the basest instincts of a gullible public. Just know that you are no different than people who watch Jerry Springer.
'Traffic' is a good example of a failed attempt at a message movie. The message is skewed and dishonest, trading fact for emotional impact. Hollywood has a blurred sense of perception, so they really should not be our eyes, ears, or conscience.
I would much prefer a documentary that tries to be unbiased and journalistically honest than a completely sensationalized rip-off of an already anxiety-provoking situation.
No, I won't plunk down any money on this one. Don't need to see it as I already saw the trailer a few times. My point: as long as ratings are the producer's bottom line and his primary reason for making a movie(this will be forever), you will never get an enlightened viewpoint. Not from "15 Minutes", not from "Traffic", but maybe "13 Days", maybe "Gattaca", maybe "2001". These movies, IMO, have at least a germ of independent artistic vision. The other two are ratings-grabbers in the guise of 'important message movies'.
...wow, I didn't think anyone else knew about this!
:)
I recall calling all my office co-workers in and showing them. They were utterly amazed!
Don't have the time to check it out this morning as I got a plane to catch, but can someone tell me...
...how many banner ads does it have?
I don't think that turning off the TV and reading a lot is bad, though you may be right, it is a somewhat deliberate turning away from um, TV. It's funny, but I feel so much that I am wasting my time with TV, I can't hardly watch it any more. I watch videos, but, c'mon, Friends???
As a parent, I feel the angst, sure! "Sugar is bad!" 'yeah, right...'
There is a sense of 'Edward Scissorhands', or, Pleasant Valley Sunday', if you will... that I tend to disdain.
Maybe you'll find out if your wife leaves
you because you're making her a 50ies-style housewife.
okay, next...
think of the V-chip as a right for you as a parent.
I understand that the 'v-chip' and 'Net Nanny' are institutionalized and (for some) hopefully socially accepted and practiced forms of 'parental rights' but I suggest that there are many rights that parents aren't availing themselves of.
Are you seriously agruing that not turning on the TV - or appearing too drunk, or doing whatever you shouldn't - is somehow isolationist and that is somehow bad? I'm not saying 'don't have friends'.
I'm saying: "Don't have 'Friends'."
I'm saying 'kill your TV'. It's okay if I play Parasite Eve, but kids, don't watch me, go in the other room and play with, um, blocks or something...
I'm going to tell you how to parent, because I think I do a pretty good job. And also because I deplore the situation in which parents are so confused and bewildred that they feel they need Net Nannies and censorship on TV and yes, v-chips.
I wonder what kind of parents these congressmen are...
Ok, when a kid is 0-5 there is nothing in their environment but what you have created and placed there. You don't listen to NIN in their presence, you don't watch TV with them. You don't leave it on while you get the dishes done and they sit there, numb and brainwashed. You never turn it on, ideally, and its not part of their day.
You expose them to classical music. You roll on the floor with them, you fingerpaint, you color with them. You devote more time than you ever thought you could spare to them because between 0-5 they have and should have no one else in their world but Mommy, Daddy, and close family.
Which is to say that you don't Ever send them to Day Care. You make necessary sacrifices, which in this day and age means you must often choose between having a family and having a career if you are the Wife, or having a house if you are a Husband. But once you chose kids, the mother (or father) should stay at home all day and have the child(ren) by her side at all times.
You read to them constantly, sitting on the couch, close and warm, taking time for the child to ask questions. Often the child will prefer only one book to be read over and over again. That's okay, and never to be questioned. You can marvel at how the little brain is imprinting itself through repetition of the same (frikkin') story over and over again. You read to them every night.
After 5 years old, you guide them in their development, giving them signals that it is time to start growing up a little. This means - beyond potty training - exposing them to new experiences.
Ideally, at this point, they don't know what a TV even is. And they certainly have never seen gore, violence, or rage, except as played out within the safe circle of the family. Roughhousing is a wonderful exercise!
But also, their stories become richer in texture as elements of violence enter into the nightly readings. I prefer Finn McCollough (pronounced "Finn McCool"), of Irish Myths and Legends. It is amazing how gory and grim (pun intended) and frightening some of these stories are, but they serve a good purpose: mankind is not without its Dark Side, and it is better to acknowledge it and 'take it out for a walk' than to bury it. Start with them young, let them know that it is okay to entertain some negative thoughts. Frighten them, sure, but with a strong degree of comfort and security.
Then they come to rely on your judgement heavily so that only your influence matters in their lives. Others, including the TV and video game mfrs and rock stars, are powerless to influence the child, and their access is limited and always under controlled circumstances.
Then, as they grow beyond the age where you can control their access, you try to instill them with all the wisdom you can and teach them to discern between right and wrong, good and bad.
When they hit about twelve years old, they will begin to experiment with violent games and images. Here is where all those scary stories pay off (I don't recommend you read exclusively scary stories, but they will tell you which they like and which are boring, or too scary). You have taught them that their 'dark side' (the side that is scared, in reality) is okay, and they recognize the feelings. They also turn to you to validate them. At this point they know what is and what is not good for them. This is not to say that they won't disobey your wishes! There is a tacit acceptance that they will experiment, but you have done all you can at this point.
Oh, thanks! You reminded me of what would be a wonderful sig if I wasn't limited to 120 chars...
"Describe the difference between the Democratic and Republican Party in four words or less." - Dick Gregory's Political Primer
The one thing that I keep going back to, the one thing that continually puzzles me about all of this is that - given Australia is a Democracy with elected officials - how people can stand for this, how this never seems to be an issue that the general populace takes to heart, and how an ostensibly large number of people support such laws. When an item like this is presented in Slashdot, be it foolish patents, draconian copyright protections, or outrageous MS practices, it is presented as though the subject is stupefyingly logic-defying. The tone of these topics are always "well, DUH!", and yet ordinary people really don't get it.
:)
I mean 'don't get it' in the literal sense, I assume. They are actually uninformed as to the essence of the laws that get passed. It was like the time I learned that if I get stopped without proof of vehicle insurance in California, there is a $1000 fine, even if you have proof but are a little disorganized and left it at home.
The unmitigated arrogance of a government beholden to greedy corporations! In this case, a corrupt official, a 'wolf watching the hen-house' allowed the laws to be passed. Chuck Quackenbush, the wolf, has since been railroaded out of office, but did the law revert back to what it was? In no sense of the word.
Essentially, the problem boils down to Campaign Finance Reform. We have been talking about that for ten years now, but Congressmen maintain that there are Freedom of Speech issues that would be violated. How arrogant of them!
I'm sorry, we were talking about Australia, weren't we?
Well, it seems that politicians are even more brazen in that country. They therefore hold the light to the map to show us where we are headed if we cannot find some way for the People to keep their government in check. And they are not that far ahead of any other of the governments, they are just a little more brazen.
It took a few hundred years, but they have finally 'loopholed' and 'lawyerized' the Constitution into irrelevance. God help us all.
Man, when rules and laws are passed that are this rediculous and draconian, DON'T EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE THEM!!!
Now the lawyers have us writing fscking disclaimers for them! Jesus Christ Almighty!
...I'm not done. Ok, I'm done for the moment...
That is the real problem. There was a time, not so long ago (er, ca 1992 or 3) when information was rapidly being freed and it could not be stopped so it roamed the world unfettered and unencumbered. Of course, that was when only the technologically savvy could access this information and the great unwashed masses couldn't. So there wasn't a problem because it was obscure to those in power: they didn't get it.
.NET - to act as broker between each digital transaction).
Now, ten years later, when they Do understand the intrinsic power of information, they feel they must control the flow and broker each and every transaction between all people on the net (that is, in fact, MS's plan -
This is an informational war between the people of the world and basically corporations of the world (governments playing puppet to the corporate whim). The instrument of control is the Law. The legislators and lawyers are going to find it extremely difficult to control informational flow, but we are seeing - real time! every day something new! - the fruits of their labors: horrible and unenforcable laws that basically make each and every citizen a criminal. Once everyone is a criminal, then all of their liberties are endangered, and they must skulk around, fearful of being caught.
The only difference that I can see between Winston Smith's sad little grey world and this one is that people don't seem to have the zeal to rat out their neighbors, no one is wearing a red sash. Wait, correct that, I forgot about the model for the (forget what Orwell called them) guys who turn in their neighbors: the Religious Right and Christian Conservatives here in America. Already drug laws have turned half a nation into criminals.
Now another large chunk will be criminalized - sorry, has been criminalized. Napster-users, anyone who ever burned a disk containing MS Office and gave it to a friend. Basically, an entire nation of criminals, at risk and fearful of exposure. This serves the regime well.
The reason there will not be reform is that legislators are no longer servants of the people, if they ever were. No, the people are not vested in their country. Not in England where by some strange brainwashing technique (a la 1984) they Act like the Parliament is their friend, not in America where we know the story but admit powerlessness and the inability to organize except to continue to oppress Ourselves (MADD, African_American Rights Moevments, et al), and apparently not in Australia, which probably follows a British model.
The only power a people are left with is the power to revolt. And at least in America, those in power are preparing for that eventuality, when they get to crush (a la the WTO riot in Seattle) the small Goldstein (Stallman?) rebellion once and for all. The maser would be a really good weapon for that, wouldn't it? SWAT teams with masers and stun guns and tear gas... oh my!
But, my God! So many criminals, criminalized by such an oppressive regime!
Believe me, you don't want to see a Bastille Day, where the streets ran red with the blood of the aristocracy. And so ordinary people who have not girded their loins and prepared for the moment will lose their nerve at the critical hour.
But those who have been planning this moment know what to do. They are seizing the day right now, and will continue to do it forever. Recall that 1984 wasn't about crushing a rebellion forever. It was about warring with people day after day.
er, sorry so long, but that's how I feel.
thanks, man, I bet we would agree more than disagree if we were sitting over a pitcher of beer. It's an important question, and one should not blindly go 'in the pursuit of science' nor should one 'prudently do nothing'.
the answers lie somewhere in between the extremes, condescension notwithstanding... neither one of us have it exactly right... and that's
...ok...
bon mot!
From this page:
I have titled this "The Birth of a Monster" because Frankenstein can be read as a tale of what happens when a man tries to create a child without a woman. It can, however, also be read as an account of a woman's anxieties and insecurities about her own creative and reproductive capabilities. The story of Frankenstein is the first articulation of a woman's experience of pregnancy and related fears. Mary Shelley, in the development and education of the monster, discusses child development and education and how the nurturing of a loving parent is extremely important in the moral development of an individual. Thus, in Frankenstein, Mary Shelley examines her own fears and thoughts about pregnancy, childbirth, and child development.
I think your interpretation is fairly subjective, as is mine. Anyway, I recommend the website as you may need to consider another opinion beside your own.
A couple more things, and then I am done:
1) I am not trying to troll, just typing an opinion... try not to throw those accusations into your argument, however tempting. That's called an ad hominem attack, and I shouldn't let it slide by too many times without calling it.
2) Do you know how many 'failures' there were before Dolly the sheep was produced? I believe there were hundreds. And not all of the failures are going to be hideous mutated creatures, although some might. Some might have slight and undetectable genetic defects that won't reveal themselves for years. Question: should we allow such creatures to breed? I'm not so sure, myself.
3) Many people, in their zeal to progress scientifically, are willing to change reality so that it suits their aims. Try not to fall into that trap. It's the same one Dr. Frankenstein fell in to.
But thanks for a illuminating viewpoint. Please don't condescend to me again, however.
Yes, in fact the cover of Wired ("You Again", February 2001) predicts that a human will be cloned this year. My core beliefs about this subject tend toward Shelley's Frankenstein. It is so prescient. In it the monster articulates the horrors attendant to what the doctor has wrought: a creature without family, without hope of love, a hideous demon without a soul. To say that the power is difficult to wield is an understatement!
I think that we will inevitably be faced with questions of God-scale proportions, as already our legal system is posed with questions it can't find justifiable or moral support for. In the field of genetics, questions such as 'who owns a gene' and 'what can the insurance company rightfully know about me?' are causing all sorts of trouble.
How do we avoid the spectre of the monster who wants retribution for the horrors we inflicted on it while in the pursuit of our God-like powers?
...and who among us will take that mantle and shape it and claim it for all humankind? He is the one who will face the consequences, and there should be consequences, if what he wreaks should be terrible.
That is a very good point. It appears that genes will 'activate their junk DNA' in response to environmental stresses to allow for more rapid mutation and therefore enhance adaptation. Also, the human body used to turn off the gene that made the 'milk digesting' enzyme (lactase?) as part of the normal weaning process. Thirty-five percent of normal adults are lactose-intolerant for that very reason; they might be considered more normal than those who began drinking milk under environmental stress (hunger) and thereby needed to retain the lactase enzyme through their lifetime.
Now, this brings us to an interesting point. Perhaps in a different world, long-living cartilage people would survive better and be able to chase women into their forties/fifties once their lifespans increased, in fact All such longer-lasting genes would enhance survival.
But that is in a different world. In Our world, we supplant the role of genes by actively providing that which the gene lacks. There are therefore no longer any ordinary environmental pressures placed on the organism, so there is very little reason for a gene to change, within bounds. Medical Science is weakening the gene pool by eliminating a large part of the mechanism of natural selection.
What does this mean? We get lazy genes, and will never improve as a species except by direct manipulation of the body. It's kind of like how corn needs a human in the fertilization process because after years of hybridization it can no longer pollinate itself. That gene has lost its function due to man's intervention.
Could this happen to us?
This could be a troll, but tell me, how can opening a cuecat and looking inside of it "tear the business model to pieces"? This, to me, defies logic.
"Tonight on ABC News: Well-Meaning Hackers Destroy Yet Another Business Model! with Peter Jennings. Right after 'Friends'"
heh
No one here should be surprised that the Cat has died, inasmuch as we hacked it and got sued, and then set about trashing their business plan conceptually.
It's got potentially great synergy if it were combined with... something... its just that magazines aren't it. What if you installed barcodes in, say, lampposts. Then when you get drunk and don't know where you are, you can just scan the nearest lamppost and... wait, maybe GPS enemas would solve that problem better...
The interesting thing about CC that was different was that they had enough backing to give the devices away, and so a million people have them. So if someone ever did find a niche for the device, he could wait until the company goes bankrupt (I give it six months) and then advertise: "Remember that Cue Cat you have in your closet collecting dust? Well, pull it out, baby, 'cuz internet luvvin' just got interesting..."
...or something, I dunno...
This is a good sign, to my wondering, child-like eyes. Stallman is fighting MS bluster with facts and information; he remains self-consistent and logical, unperturbed and reasonable. He puts forth his philosophy, which, I've been here, what, almost a year? - and finally it all begins to make sense to me, because it is logical. MS by contrast Does appear shrill and emotional. This confirms my opinion that Truth will out.
/.) tactics and strategies, might very well be strengthening the case for GPL and OSS because they are cornering the market.
And most of the posters - most of you folks - really get it! Much more than I... it's just plain frikkin' gratifying to see a consensus on the side of logic.
Stallman Needs to continue preaching. He needs to continue preaching until the average American - yes, you there sitting in the Barcalounger with the can of Spud beer - starts to 'get it'. I would love to be a CNN reporter asking people in the street "What do you think about GNU/Linux, the FSF, and the GPL?" And yet, these things are so vitally important to the tides of change in the world that We the People have a great need to understand the importance of all this.
So I would implore all of us to discuss and post until we are conversant in these matters. Not one of us can understand all of the implications of FSF philosophy and MS crapification tactics, but together we can gain a comprehensive understanding. For instance, I get the feeling that MS, through there well-known (here in
...and the market, like a dog, does not like to be cornered...
You're right. As the object falls into the atmosphere (300 kft is above the sensible atmosphere, and right on 'the edge'), the dynamic pressure increases and drag goes with it, slowing the vehicle down until it 1) reaches terminal velocity, or 2) slams into the ground. What I am flying slammed into the ground at 20000 fps. I looked at the picture of the hyshot on the webpage and it reaches apogee at just over a million feet. This means it might have a max v of about 18000 fps or so. Then it starts slowing down. When it hits the desired speed (I am sure it isn't as low-drag, or high-beta to be pedantic), it flicks on the jets and uses that to basically overcome the effects of drag.
They are claiming a sustainable velocity of Mach 7.6 or so, so you are correct. It would be prohibitive to expect Mach 20, but the fact is, it may pass through that velocity. The higher they go, the harder they fall, and velocity in a vacuum is only a function of potential, that is v= const* sqrt(h), h being height at apogee.
Depending on how high up the rocket sends it, it could easily, with an apogee of, oh, say, 1.6 million feet, attain a speed at reentry (300000 feet, or about 100 km) of 24,400 feet/second, well over mach 20-something (I just ran my code for those numbers for something completely different, how coincidental!).
Then, of course, it will heat up very rapidly and ablate. The point is, speed is not a problem, but materials may be.
Please don't cling to the beliefs foisted on you by your ancestors. You are missing out on what are some of God's greatest miracles, those discovered by the scientist.
The fact that the genome contains the exact same genes in humans as in bacteria is statistically impossible (please don't bandy about what is statistically impossible 1*e-12, 13, or 18 should be good enough).
Why do you Christians prefer to believe that God created Adam with a navel to 'test our faith' rather than he created it just as we are finding it? Scientists are not arbitrarily atheistic.
I like it. A little much with the sheeps and wolves, but great thoughts, man.
So you would opt for a Bastille Day. I personally would go the Boston Tea Party route. And there are plenty of Gandhi's out there.
Is this why we can't get organized? Because we don't know whether to storm the gates, meet on the dock, or lie in the street together?
Tell me, now. What keeps us from organizing and informing the world? It's funny, I had no inkling of the WTO riot in Seattle until the day it happened, but I'll tell you, I would Never have known about the WTO if not for the riot.
I'll tell you why we are still talking about this. Because once we shut-up they will seize and win the day. Keep practicing your Right to Free Speech, apparently it's the only thing the masses have going for them.
Anyway, as I have said before (see what I mean?), there is Zero Moral Implications in using Napster, in copying someone's book, and in making a movie of someone's novel the day after it is finished. It's just an economic model that was created 'in the day', a time when printing presses were still of the Gutenburg type.
It is my considered opinion (and many of you as well, as we practice our arguments, I notice they get more coherent and concise, good work all) that the advent of the Internet has brought about definite stresses in the way we do business. We are only just discovering that!
I would personally study the phenomena for a while and try to anticipate the implications of a number of possible policies before deciding on a single one. But the RIAA doesn't want that for obvious reasons. Money.
However, the dipwad lawyer cannot afford the luxury of not being a pit-bull for the landed, moneyed interests, so he has to be a jerk. He chose that profession and deserves all the enmity we can throw at him. He gets paid well.
Me, being more interested in the free association of people and the protected interests of individuals, care less about one man's personal fortune than the crapifying of what could still be a boon to humankind in general and me in particular.
But TV could have been a boon, too. But it's not for many of the same reasons; the greedy among us have sought to turn it solely into a revenue-generating box. For some reason that function excludes the possibility of all other functions. And don't talk to me about Public TV, it's gone the way of corporate interests.
In like fashion, we will see all the useful functions of this, our Internet become marginalized as people get harrassed off the internet until there are only providers and consumers left.
There may be a time when I am afraid to log on. Because of lawyer weenies like this joy-killer.
It is possibly correct to anthropomorphize genes, since it is they who are the driving force in life, and not indiviual humans (an individual of the species, apparently in response to an underlying stimulus, will sacrifice themselves for the good of the group... sometimes... we currently ascribe this behavior to genes), but to attribute a value judgement on a specific number of genes in relation to an 'inferior species' like the roundworm is anthropocentric, but with a twist, don't ya think?
One might just as well conclude that evolving in the particular strain that we did required development of just the specific 30000 active genes that we 'kept'.
The roundworm had to build slime genes and earth-digesting proteins and all that. We were smarter and ate the roundworms instead....
...thereby saving genes!
But, seriously, folks, remember that all that junk DNA is theorized to come alive with mutations when the organism is under environmental stress.
Imagine if there were no patents granted for genes. Do you really think that research would stop? Way to get my goat this morning! That and the fact that I submitted a very similar story more than a week ago, before the public announcement, even.
Well, lemme paraphrase what I submitted (*sigh*): it is even deeper than 'combinations' of genes. The word 'proteomics' may become bigger than the word 'genomics' as scientists discover that the array of proteins and the enzymes they create are more responsible for the differences in our make-up than the genes that merely create them. One might say that it's the products of the software, and not the hardware that constitutes the individual. I don't know much more about this subject, but would love to hear from someone who does understand this. If any of you seven or eight individuals are reading this, can you please elaborate for us? That would be great!
Oh, there is an interesting, if a little technical, link on Proteomics here. Check out the tour.
That's the thing: when a majority of people do something that is not inherently harmful (think about it, using Napster has Zero moral implications) the laws need to be changed to reflect the change in the will of the people.
But it's not like we work that way anymore. It has to do with the way our legislators operate.
Funny, this is as good an argument as any for my pet peeve: the need for campaign finance reform.
Yes! Very much on the money...
It reminds me of what I was told about alcohol regulations for College football games. The regulations are there, but they are not routinely enforced. It's only when some jerk gets too drunk and has to be thrown out that they use the booze law as an excuse to get him out of there. Likewise, copyrights are violated every day and the industries allow this behavior routinely. But when they feel threatened they rally up the lawyers and make a big stink out of it. Gnutella hasn't hit the threshhold yet, but the thing is, if they succeed in getting the govt to prosecute the copyright law as it was written, and so many of us are subject to fines, jail time, police harrassment, then the people must revolt, for they are not being represented by their legislators.
So the laws as written are wrong, and although fundamentally the internet isn't different from Steve Gutenberg's printing press, it has brought the copyright law to a logical end through its efficiency and mass distribution capabilities. We have to re-think our laws, here.
I personally don't think that many laws should be on the books: 55 mph speed limit comes to mind. Can you think of any others?
Don't make half the country into outlaws!