Sun and Microsoft burying the hatchet, Lindoze having to concede to the one world power, I'm dating seriously now, this is like 50th on the list... the end is near!
But if you could get that Beethoven conducted by a robot illegally downloaded onto your Beowulf cluster of Linux iPods and played it back through your sake-soaked wooden speakers as Cowboy Neal dances like an insensitive clod, I believe this site would somehow slashdot itself.
Unless you just wanted to make and ELP reference and in some hidden way it's funnier, I feel compelled to point out that it's an old Moody Blues song. As I said, if it's funnier the other way, and I just ruined a joke that I didn't get, I apologize.
I'm waiting for car audio applications so that the following conversation may be possible:
"Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"
"Well, I'm sure I wasn't speeding, officer."
"Sniff, sniff... Would you kindly step out of the vehicle, sir?"
"Oh, the smell! You see, my speakers are soaked with sake. You know, for the wood. Wooden speakers soaked in sake! I don't drink and drive. Seriously."
"Tell you what, sir, just step back here to my car..."
I will concede this point only if a direct quote from me can be found that supports any of this "Space at Any Cost" drivel that I appear to be broadcasting on SlashDot. Quite the opposite, I truly do wish that robotics and probe technology would advance to the point that any and all dangerous missions undertaken by space exploration would be automated. However, I am not in charge of these decisions (and I am sorely unqualified to be), so if the powers that be purport that manned missions are neccessary, and brave volunteers are willing, then do allow me the luxury of occasionally wishing them well.
You mistake aspiration for assumption, and you fail to note the patent hypocrisy in the parent post. How can you be embittered toward someone you testify no feelings at all for? No one told anyone to feel anything in the true parent thread. A moment of concern was expressed, and an empassioned denouncement for that feeling was made.
Also, if you read my posts, you will see that I admitted up front that my emotions were dimmed by distance and the lack of a tragic certainty. Not absent, just dimmed. My emotions were limited by circumstance, not an arbitrary decision to 'just not care' which was deemed of higher value than the decision to care.
A rock in my shoe hurts my foot. Five dead in Nigeria may affect thousands. While I am more likely to deal with the former first, it is not because I have ascertained that is was more important than the latter. Would I rather have a rock in my shoe than five dead in Nigeria? I would hope so, and I train myself to reinforce that valuation whenever possible.
As for something having merit by simply being "Human", that totally depends on whether you give any value to the desire to rise above that which is merely human, or if you will simply let others do what they do to others, not ever caring, unless, of course, they dare do it to you.
I understand your misgivings, since they are based on misapprehensions, but I will try to answer your points.
"...Here's a guy who said, "Wow, I'm so differnt from these people, maybe it's time for me to try an touch base for a little reality check." So he threw his experience out there to see how it would bounce off the "collective consciousness" so to speak. Clearly he got a partial answer. "You do not mimic well enough. You are evil."..."
Actually, there was a guy who said, "I am different from you because you feel that which I have convinced myself is fake. Maybe it's time I straightened you out and let you know that all of your feelings are hypocrisy and mine are the only genuine ones." Read the post. The collective consciousness wasn't weighed in, just me. The partial answer was, "How can you raise the concern to respond with an 'I don't care.' when by your own logic caring for something that isn't burning in your lap is false and ridiculous?"
As far as your father's death not wracking you with sobs of grief, I can understand that. You made your peace with what was a considerable loss. There's no void of emotion there, just a resolve to move on with productive life. That path wanders widely from someone who manages to be passionately apathetic. Did you skip your Father's funeral because it was Two for Tuesday at Subway and you wanted a sandwich? No, you knew your responsibilities, even though your day-to-day operations had to be rearranged. You set self aside and participated in a practiced manor to that which you had no visceral response. You tried to feel, instead of relishing in your unfeeling. Do not lump yourself (or anyone else) in with someone who determines that anything shy of blood-on-blood emotion is 'fakery'.
My self-admitted 'muted' sympathies for the 'nauts in question did not exclude the anonymous poster, but they took the form of reacting more strongly to the one I was now in relational contact with. If I felt that he was below esteem, I would have never responded to him (come to think of it, he might be a she). You have responded as well, providing a logical shield not just for someone whom you do not know, but who also would exclude you actively from their sphere of concern.
You, my friend, are VERY Cindy Lou Who, and I applaud you for it.
"It all comes back to the fact that I find it a disgusting habit to display signs of emotions one does not actually feel."
Where did you manage to dredge up all this disgust for people you "do not know" having feelings that you cannot seem to have? It seems from your statements that the only strong feeling you can manage to have is contempt for people with differing feelings, however strong they may be, since feelings that others have are obviously "fake". Let's face it, you're wallowing in your "superior" detachment because it facilitates your ability to tend only to yourself and your ever-fading list of people you care about. It's not that we don't understand your point, but you'll just have to forgive us if we never put you in charge of anything that matters to anyone besides yourself.
Too true. My car has an anti-roll bar with poorly designed bushings on it, and it makes a pronounced thump even on mild seams in the road. Luckily, I have a fairly powerful stereo, and it rarely bothers me. I actually think that Saturn puts robust stereos in their cars for this simple reason, since they know that re-engineering a quieter engine and body would cost thousands per car, they figure a good 200-buck stereo should suffice.
"Would it be better if I flat out lied and pretended to feel strongly?"
Would it kill you to try? What you're saying in essence is that if you saw a baby on a railroad track with the 5:30 from Pittsburg bearing down on it, and that baby wasn't a close friend or relative, you'd have a tough time working up the requisite concern to scoop said child off the track. They have a word for that in psychological circles: sociopath. Granted, requesting that you burst out in tears for a couple of complete strangers in a space station hundreds of miles above your head in non-iminent danger is a bit of a stretch, but nobody asked you to do that. Actually, no one asked you anything, but you felt it neccesary to enlighten us that you feel nothing for anyone that you "don't personally know". Somehow, you felt that this was a reaction with some exchangeable parity with sincere, if somewhat muffled, sympathy. Call us back, Mr. Grinch, when your heart isn't two sizes too small.
Because unless they can repeatedly demonstrate the noise, Maintenance Personnel would simply spray some WD-40 on it and go into hiding for three weeks!
Man, somebody's Mom was a monster... He probably got rolled for lunch money a lot too.
Okay, i'll make this brief, since it's wasted on an AC. The very fact that you can use a telecommunications device designed and built thousands of miles from a home you probably didn't construct with electricity you didn't generate to participate in a discussion you were previously ineligible to enter patently and completely negates your "why should anyone give a rip about anyone else" whining. Altruism (sprinkled with a bit of avarice) drives society, and if you had the guts to be a true societal seperatist, you'd be in a cave eating bat-meat and we wouldn't have to read your inane attempts at having a unique perspective.
You're right, a joist in my house settles and I wake up at 3 a.m. unable to get back to sleep. Just think how I'd fare with a gimpy airlock... I am such a sissy.
...and if they could make more stuff run on just methane, his grocery bill would pay his fuel bill.
"Dude! Was that you?"
"Nah, man, that's just my PDA..."
Seriously, though, you'd think they'd have applied this power source to cell-phones first, due to their overwhelming ubiquity and constant need for power (although they don't typically drain down as fast as a PDA with a fast processor). Ah, it's probably in the works as well, but it's more forgivable to make a PDA of the requisite size for fuel-cell technology, as opposed to making a cell-phone the size of a portable CD player.
I have played PC games before, although I am absolutely not a "power gamer" by any measure. The problems I saw were ones of investment, maintenance, and learning curve.
For instance, I remember loading a relatively simple game on what was once considered an OK laptop. I came to find out that in order to truly have the game running at anything near a fun speed, I had to add RAM, and quite a bit of it. Now the game no longer costed the original $25, but potentially hundreds more. I didn't like it that much. Plus, most PC games I have seen install scads of undesirable adware, spyware, etc. (I'm sure that things have improved on this front, however), and the unending act of cleaning up menus and doing uninstalls of old games I no longer enjoyed (if the uninstalls went smoothly, which often they did not), just got tiresome.
Another, much more minor gripe: keyboard/mouse/joystick setup. I admired some PC games for their flexibility with all the added buttons that a keyboard brings, but having a dozen keyboard overlays and remembering what alt-shift-A does from one game to another seems a bit much to me.
Once again, if you're a PC demigod with a passionately deep understanding for how to clear up these problems, you probably just think I'm dull-witted. However, I'd rather keep my PC as a productivity tool, and buy the occasional console instead of installing card upon card (among other bits that others could more effectively list here) to play similar (if superior) games. As consoles more successfully go online and increase their power and playability, the role of the PC as gaming machine seems more and more to be that of hard-core hobbyists, and not just people who want to play games.
I have a non-turbo 4cyl with a simple CAI, some suspension bits (struts, beefier links, bars, etc.), and some really good brakes. I never, EVER rev up against a Mustang or a Camaro, because I know my hat will hit my hand in less than 14 seconds. However, I have had no problems making similar cars tiny in the rearview whenever real roads were being used (the kinds with curves, bumps, etc.). The best drivers in the whole wide world are in the WRC, and they wouldn't take one of those fat behemoths anywhere near a rally course. Mere power is easy. Power and grace are rare.
Slashdot Mirror
Sun and Microsoft burying the hatchet, Lindoze having to concede to the one world power, I'm dating seriously now, this is like 50th on the list... the end is near!
But if you could get that Beethoven conducted by a robot illegally downloaded onto your Beowulf cluster of Linux iPods and played it back through your sake-soaked wooden speakers as Cowboy Neal dances like an insensitive clod, I believe this site would somehow slashdot itself.
Begun the "KDE looks better on iPod than Gnome" war has.
Unless you just wanted to make and ELP reference and in some hidden way it's funnier, I feel compelled to point out that it's an old Moody Blues song. As I said, if it's funnier the other way, and I just ruined a joke that I didn't get, I apologize.
Man, the Amish that read SlashDot are gonna land on you like a badly-lashed barnwall after that cheap shot. Kiss yo' Karma Gute Nacht, John Book.
I'm waiting for car audio applications so that the following conversation may be possible:
"Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"
"Well, I'm sure I wasn't speeding, officer."
"Sniff, sniff... Would you kindly step out of the vehicle, sir?"
"Oh, the smell! You see, my speakers are soaked with sake. You know, for the wood. Wooden speakers soaked in sake! I don't drink and drive. Seriously."
"Tell you what, sir, just step back here to my car..."
I will concede this point only if a direct quote from me can be found that supports any of this "Space at Any Cost" drivel that I appear to be broadcasting on SlashDot. Quite the opposite, I truly do wish that robotics and probe technology would advance to the point that any and all dangerous missions undertaken by space exploration would be automated. However, I am not in charge of these decisions (and I am sorely unqualified to be), so if the powers that be purport that manned missions are neccessary, and brave volunteers are willing, then do allow me the luxury of occasionally wishing them well.
You mistake aspiration for assumption, and you fail to note the patent hypocrisy in the parent post. How can you be embittered toward someone you testify no feelings at all for? No one told anyone to feel anything in the true parent thread. A moment of concern was expressed, and an empassioned denouncement for that feeling was made.
Also, if you read my posts, you will see that I admitted up front that my emotions were dimmed by distance and the lack of a tragic certainty. Not absent, just dimmed. My emotions were limited by circumstance, not an arbitrary decision to 'just not care' which was deemed of higher value than the decision to care.
A rock in my shoe hurts my foot. Five dead in Nigeria may affect thousands. While I am more likely to deal with the former first, it is not because I have ascertained that is was more important than the latter. Would I rather have a rock in my shoe than five dead in Nigeria? I would hope so, and I train myself to reinforce that valuation whenever possible.
As for something having merit by simply being "Human", that totally depends on whether you give any value to the desire to rise above that which is merely human, or if you will simply let others do what they do to others, not ever caring, unless, of course, they dare do it to you.
I understand your misgivings, since they are based on misapprehensions, but I will try to answer your points.
"...Here's a guy who said, "Wow, I'm so differnt from these people, maybe it's time for me to try an touch base for a little reality check." So he threw his experience out there to see how it would bounce off the "collective consciousness" so to speak. Clearly he got a partial answer. "You do not mimic well enough. You are evil."..."
Actually, there was a guy who said, "I am different from you because you feel that which I have convinced myself is fake. Maybe it's time I straightened you out and let you know that all of your feelings are hypocrisy and mine are the only genuine ones." Read the post. The collective consciousness wasn't weighed in, just me. The partial answer was, "How can you raise the concern to respond with an 'I don't care.' when by your own logic caring for something that isn't burning in your lap is false and ridiculous?"
As far as your father's death not wracking you with sobs of grief, I can understand that. You made your peace with what was a considerable loss. There's no void of emotion there, just a resolve to move on with productive life. That path wanders widely from someone who manages to be passionately apathetic. Did you skip your Father's funeral because it was Two for Tuesday at Subway and you wanted a sandwich? No, you knew your responsibilities, even though your day-to-day operations had to be rearranged. You set self aside and participated in a practiced manor to that which you had no visceral response. You tried to feel, instead of relishing in your unfeeling. Do not lump yourself (or anyone else) in with someone who determines that anything shy of blood-on-blood emotion is 'fakery'.
My self-admitted 'muted' sympathies for the 'nauts in question did not exclude the anonymous poster, but they took the form of reacting more strongly to the one I was now in relational contact with. If I felt that he was below esteem, I would have never responded to him (come to think of it, he might be a she). You have responded as well, providing a logical shield not just for someone whom you do not know, but who also would exclude you actively from their sphere of concern.
You, my friend, are VERY Cindy Lou Who, and I applaud you for it.
A lot. Why do you think we responded so heavily to a story with a built-in drum roll?
HEY!
(ba dum bum)
But seriously folks...
"It all comes back to the fact that I find it a disgusting habit to display signs of emotions one does not actually feel."
Where did you manage to dredge up all this disgust for people you "do not know" having feelings that you cannot seem to have? It seems from your statements that the only strong feeling you can manage to have is contempt for people with differing feelings, however strong they may be, since feelings that others have are obviously "fake". Let's face it, you're wallowing in your "superior" detachment because it facilitates your ability to tend only to yourself and your ever-fading list of people you care about. It's not that we don't understand your point, but you'll just have to forgive us if we never put you in charge of anything that matters to anyone besides yourself.
Too true. My car has an anti-roll bar with poorly designed bushings on it, and it makes a pronounced thump even on mild seams in the road. Luckily, I have a fairly powerful stereo, and it rarely bothers me. I actually think that Saturn puts robust stereos in their cars for this simple reason, since they know that re-engineering a quieter engine and body would cost thousands per car, they figure a good 200-buck stereo should suffice.
"Would it be better if I flat out lied and pretended to feel strongly?"
Would it kill you to try? What you're saying in essence is that if you saw a baby on a railroad track with the 5:30 from Pittsburg bearing down on it, and that baby wasn't a close friend or relative, you'd have a tough time working up the requisite concern to scoop said child off the track. They have a word for that in psychological circles: sociopath. Granted, requesting that you burst out in tears for a couple of complete strangers in a space station hundreds of miles above your head in non-iminent danger is a bit of a stretch, but nobody asked you to do that. Actually, no one asked you anything, but you felt it neccesary to enlighten us that you feel nothing for anyone that you "don't personally know". Somehow, you felt that this was a reaction with some exchangeable parity with sincere, if somewhat muffled, sympathy. Call us back, Mr. Grinch, when your heart isn't two sizes too small.
Because unless they can repeatedly demonstrate the noise, Maintenance Personnel would simply spray some WD-40 on it and go into hiding for three weeks!
Man, somebody's Mom was a monster... He probably got rolled for lunch money a lot too.
Okay, i'll make this brief, since it's wasted on an AC. The very fact that you can use a telecommunications device designed and built thousands of miles from a home you probably didn't construct with electricity you didn't generate to participate in a discussion you were previously ineligible to enter patently and completely negates your "why should anyone give a rip about anyone else" whining. Altruism (sprinkled with a bit of avarice) drives society, and if you had the guts to be a true societal seperatist, you'd be in a cave eating bat-meat and we wouldn't have to read your inane attempts at having a unique perspective.
You're right, a joist in my house settles and I wake up at 3 a.m. unable to get back to sleep. Just think how I'd fare with a gimpy airlock... I am such a sissy.
It's just those punks from X-prize knocking and running off... whippersnappers!
then there's:
Whatnauts = porcelain figurines
Havenhavenauts = rich and poor simultaneously
Doublenauts = James Bond and Co.
Squarenauts = tough lil' fellers to tie
Doenauts = cop fodder
Micronauts = "Long live Lord Karza!"
Forgetmenauts = Everyone except Neil Armstrong
Thoushaltnauts = God's Top Ten
I could go on, but you'd probably form a lynch mob.
Last POST!
...and if they could make more stuff run on just methane, his grocery bill would pay his fuel bill.
"Dude! Was that you?"
"Nah, man, that's just my PDA..."
Seriously, though, you'd think they'd have applied this power source to cell-phones first, due to their overwhelming ubiquity and constant need for power (although they don't typically drain down as fast as a PDA with a fast processor). Ah, it's probably in the works as well, but it's more forgivable to make a PDA of the requisite size for fuel-cell technology, as opposed to making a cell-phone the size of a portable CD player.
I used the word "costed". Never, EVER post before the coffee is done. I weep in shame.
I have played PC games before, although I am absolutely not a "power gamer" by any measure. The problems I saw were ones of investment, maintenance, and learning curve.
For instance, I remember loading a relatively simple game on what was once considered an OK laptop. I came to find out that in order to truly have the game running at anything near a fun speed, I had to add RAM, and quite a bit of it. Now the game no longer costed the original $25, but potentially hundreds more. I didn't like it that much. Plus, most PC games I have seen install scads of undesirable adware, spyware, etc. (I'm sure that things have improved on this front, however), and the unending act of cleaning up menus and doing uninstalls of old games I no longer enjoyed (if the uninstalls went smoothly, which often they did not), just got tiresome.
Another, much more minor gripe: keyboard/mouse/joystick setup. I admired some PC games for their flexibility with all the added buttons that a keyboard brings, but having a dozen keyboard overlays and remembering what alt-shift-A does from one game to another seems a bit much to me.
Once again, if you're a PC demigod with a passionately deep understanding for how to clear up these problems, you probably just think I'm dull-witted. However, I'd rather keep my PC as a productivity tool, and buy the occasional console instead of installing card upon card (among other bits that others could more effectively list here) to play similar (if superior) games. As consoles more successfully go online and increase their power and playability, the role of the PC as gaming machine seems more and more to be that of hard-core hobbyists, and not just people who want to play games.
I have had an atheist literally come running up to me and yell, "There is no God!". I have often wondered why he brought Him up then...
By the way, I'm perfect-single-woman agnostic, but I'm looking to be refuted.
People who want to abolish firmly held beliefs with dubious benefitsseem pretty committed to the concept, and I'm not sure what good it would do.
Now my lamps and appliances can get spammed too. Progress.
I have a non-turbo 4cyl with a simple CAI, some suspension bits (struts, beefier links, bars, etc.), and some really good brakes. I never, EVER rev up against a Mustang or a Camaro, because I know my hat will hit my hand in less than 14 seconds. However, I have had no problems making similar cars tiny in the rearview whenever real roads were being used (the kinds with curves, bumps, etc.). The best drivers in the whole wide world are in the WRC, and they wouldn't take one of those fat behemoths anywhere near a rally course. Mere power is easy. Power and grace are rare.