This is pretty par for the course in New York state.
This year, I had the fun experience of doing my taxes as a part-time New York resident, and half of my income was foreign-earned and tax-exempt for that time. In order to not pay New York state income tax on the part that was foreign-earned and federally-exempt because I was physically not in the country, I had to demonstrate that I had only been a part-time tax resident of New York.
The thing about tax residency is that it's separate from voting residency, and one of the criteria for being a "New York tax resident" is "income is derived from a New York source." I forget the exact wording on the tax forms, but basically, if I had lived in Pennsylvania full-time but my work was at a New York company, I'd have to pay New York tax on it.
I also got screwed once when I moved away to Pennsylvania for college and didn't realize all of this crap about tax residency, and the fact that New York will continue to try to collect taxes on all your income until you are cold in your grave if you've ever been a resident. I'd worked part of the year in New York, moved to PA, and worked there in college, and ended up having to pay New York income taxes on my Pennsylvania income. Why? Because I didn't know to file my taxes as a "part of the year" resident. In the following years I remembered to file my forms as a "Pennsylvania tax resident" despite still having my pernament residency in New York.
This worked because 1) I was not physically present in New York *AND* 2) my income wasn't derived from New York sources.
The thing is, this doens't surprise me at all because the working of "derived from NY sources" is certainly vague enough to include "telecommuting to a New York company." I don't think it includes, as one other poster was raving about, "if you work in another state at the office of a company that ALSO has an office in New York you will get hit with New York taxes."
In short my state goverment is a bunch of thieving bastards. (can i also be bitter that they take this income tax and then spend it all on new york city? bastards. *shakes fist at gaping pot holes in road*)
I wouldn't describe American music as a "niche market" here. While Japanese groups are of course very popular, most younger people I've run into love Eminem, 50 Cent, Outkast, Avril Lavigne, various alternative rock bands, etc. This is what gets played in the clubs alongside popular Japanese music. Pop punk/rock and hip hop/r&b are two very popular genres and they're filled in a large proportion with American groups. On top of that, current popular Japanese groups like Chemistry or Exile are definitely not "idol singers", and Ayumi and the other female solo singers are more in line with a Britney Spears/Christina Aquilera image. I think describing the current popular music scene as "dominated" by idol singers is a little outdated.
With movies, too - by far, the new release section in my local rental place is stocked with American movies, a few European, Korean, and Chinese ones, and very few Japanese movies. With music, you can argue that Japanese groups still greatly outnumber popular American ones, but in movies the market seems to be dominated by foreign movies lately. Japan definitely has its own entertainment industry and I would say it's hardly threatened by foreign products, but I wouldn't call American entertainment "niche" here either.
I think a job during one's teenage years can do a lot for social and real-world skills in general, and just from my experience with other nerds (like the rest of my AD&D group) the parents will often allow the kid to coast by without a driver's license or a job for their entire high school career; "they need time to study!" because they are a smart kid with good grades. They don't want to push their shy, awkward kid into the real world yet.
My mom was more along the lines of "you want something, you get a job and buy it", so I was stuck learning my social skills the hard and painful way. I was in the gifted program when my school still had one, I played AD&D, spent too much time at my Amiga and on Compuserve, and had a crippling shyness. I hated talking to people I didn't know, making small talk, negotiating. Yet, in a real-world job, these are things you just have to force yourself to do.
For a gifted kid, though, I don't think that just any job will necessarily be the best thing. Try to find an environment for him where he can meet nerds in disguise. For example, I first volunteered and then worked at a library, followed by an art store for a few years. Anyone in a library is by default geeky in some capacity, and certainly any teenager that wants to work there is going to be a closet nerd. The art store too harbored big nerds, but they're not tech nerds. They're art nerds, framing nerds, book nerds. When I worked at the public housing authority as a receptionist later in life I met maintenance and housing code nerds.
If you work at K-Mart or a grocery store, you're just going to have painful run-ins with the dregs of society and be working with the kids that pick on you at school. If you want to protect your young friend's eccentric and unique nature, yet still want to help him develop a few of those skills he will certainly need later in life, it would be to his advantage to go somewhere that he won't be completely ridiculed for his nerdiness. He needs peers he can be inspired by - nerds who also know how to work the system, or at least take a shower - and who will encourage him to learn social skills simply by example.
If he is a younger geek, by no means is a job the only way to get this kind of environment. As I said, I did volunteer work at the local library which led me to also get involved in helping to run the library youth group. If he's younger, he could join a youth group. There are myriad volunteer opportunities out there, and if nothing else, the work he finds could give him a sense of fulfillment and will give him exposure to people whose lives and perspectives are different from his own. This is a valuable experience for anyone.
Another option is an extracurricular group or class. I used to take summer classes before I was old enough to have a job; the ones I took were mostly along art lines, but he might be interested in that (a comic art class I took was FULL of geeks...surprise), or music, public speaking/debate, or language classes. These all force you to make mistakes in front of others and offer helpful criticism - this goes a long way in reducing your shyness about looking stupid (because you ALL look stupid) and helps you to feel more confident about speaking your mind to others. You also end up meeting different kinds of people that you're forced to interact with, who you might not end up talking to otherwise.
I see a lot of comments criticizing you for not "letting him be himself" and "what do you know, you're just a biotech undergrad." At the same time, you are another human being who can empathize with your friend's situation and has learned the hard way that you DO need social skills to get by in this world - to make friends, to get a job, to persuade people to do what you want. This is all about daily life, and I think he would benefit from your help in finding a situation where he can learn these things more comfortably than he would otherwise. (it has to beat being made fun of?)
just my 2 cents, but I learned the hard way how to acquire those social skills and cure myself of a large part of my shyness. if being put into these kinds of situations worked for someone as geeky and oblivious as I am, it might be worth a shot for your young friend.
I hate this kind of reasoning. That profits should come before people's rights is not what this country was built on, but it seems that more and more people think it's so and go on screaming "capitalism" as the de facto answer to everything.
Anyway, my point is - isn't this the same argument used by Southern slave owners pre-1865? It wasn't the moral argument so much as the economic one that prompted the South to cedede. They argued that there was no way they could sustain their way of making a living without free slave labor.
Is this an argument that justifies slavery? I think most of us would now say "no." I'm not equating slavery to telemarketing, but it irritates me when "it'll kill our business" is used as an argument of why something should or shouldn't be illegal. It may be a part of the whole story, yes, but I don't think it justifies much. As many others are pointing out, there's no constitutional right to profit from a certain business model. Along the same lines as the issue of the RIAA/MPAA and their heavy-handed tactics, I think it's time for this industry to come up with a new business model. If a DNC list that most people welcome is going to kill their business as it exists right now, I think that's a sign of something bigger..
by Paul Sipiera, a professor of geology and astronomy at Harper College in Palatine, Ill.
"For me, it's a dream come true," he said. "I always tell my wife that when I die, I hope I get hit in the head by a meteorite flying through the roof and it came pretty close," he said.
Classic.
(link)
If you want to pay less for school books partition for the professors to make more consious desisions on the books they require and ask them to take cost into conser.
I'm not sure how helpful or informative this is, but here is my experience so far.
I've been using Win98 (I know, painful, but I have this really old scanner that I can't part with.. ^_^) and Linux on my desktop computer for about 4 years now. While I love Linux because of its stability, the CLI, and the variety of software I find for it, it's also been a relentless pain in my ass for the 4 years I've been using. I won't go into it now.
But when I looked at getting a laptop when my school got a few wireless access points (this being my last year I figured I should get the most out of my "computing fee" that I can and abuse the wireless ^_-) my first thought was all of the praise I've heard for OSX. I'd used it a number of times in school computer labs and had a very good impression of it. So with my main train of thought being "I already have a PC and I don't want another one to cause me undue amounts of frustration" and also "I already have a PC and it's no fun to play with anymore" I sprang for an iBook.
I've only had the thing for a week today now, but as someone who's never used a Mac before I was surprised at how fast I got used to the interface and the way the system works. The first day or two found me playing with it for hours on end and getting irritated because the interface didn't work in the windows/linux way (which i have to say is pretty similar in my experience) that I was so used to. It took me 2 days to figure out that to uninstall a program you just drag it into the trash. Look at that!
The thing should seriously come with a better manual. Do a search on "OS X tutorials" ASAP when/if you get a Mac and have never used it before, because Apple's help files came up with 0 results when I searched on "Uninstall program"!
In any case, I have come to love my iBook very quickly and rarely use my desktop computer now because I just love the way OS X works. How can you say no to that beautiful interface and the ability to just click on Terminal and get a UNIX prompt? I can't say enough good things about it. (Except, of course, Apple's help system which I mentioned above.)
All in all, I'd highly recommend it for someone who, like me, is geeky enough to drool over Apple's interface, nerdy enough to want that UNIX prompt at my fingertips and will actually use it, but also someone with little time and even less to spend screwing around with Linux, much as I'd like to. I'm sure that some people will find OS X to be a huge annoyance but I doubt it's for everyone. My suggestion would be to get thee to a friend's house or Apple store and play with it for a few hours total before deciding because it does function in ways that are very different from Windows and your typical Linux setup, IMO.
I think Japan's being a successful capitalist nation has less to do with post-WWII American support than it does with Japanese culture. While the American occupation did help greatly to subsidize Japan's efforts to get back on its feet after the war, Japan's modernization began well before the 1950s. Do some reading on Japanese economics from the Tokugawa era on and you will see that Japan has a strong tradition of capitalism. Furthermore, though its rapid modernization after WWII was more extreme than that of the period following the Meiji Restoration, Japan was no stranger to the international economy and industrialization.
While American economic support post-WWII did do a lot for Japan in terms of helping it rebuild, the concepts of a modernized, capitalist Japan had been there for a while and, in my opinion, had nothing to do with the American occupation. When you make statements like "Why do you think they are far and away the most capitalistic [sic] of the Eastern countries?" I think you should back it up with a little more of an argument. Maybe a definition of "Eastern countries" would make your point more clear as well, because it seems like an ill-informed generalization to me.
This is completely ridiculous. I'm not against more industrial-style designs in computers (something besides the beige box, please) but how is this masculine vs. feminine? So the iMac doesn't have to be covered in pink fluffy bunnies to be considered "too girly?" Please. It's a computer. It's asexual. (I've never understood people addressing their company's tech. project as "sexy" unless it's porn.)
I guess this is coming from a woman who doesn't need any more testosterone in her life, as she gets more than her daily dose from fellow CS students alone. (but does not feel insecure in the face of either the iMac or this theoretical industrial-influenced computer design.) By the way, everyone I know who owns a VW is a guy.
I skimmed over the guidelines for selection in this document and they interestingly look VERY similar to the guidelines for a fed security clearance. (including those about drinking and moral misconduct, which I think are there to prevent blackmail being used to get classified information out of you) ie, if you are working at a military contractor, etc. I wonder if there's any correlation?
I don't know if I trust this guy's opinion on how good or successful this game will be.
For one, he declares FFVIII "the best game ever made." This is a matter of opinion, but I know that I was so bored and unimpressed with this game that I lost interest after about 20 minutes of playing. Out of the FF games that I've played, VIII was definitely the worst by far.
FFXI will, contrary to this article's line of thought, not be the first MMORPG on a console. PS Online for the dreamcast, anyone?
I for one would like to see some more info on FFXI before passing judgement. From the tone and questionable facts in this article, I think I would take it with a grain of salt.
I went to a physical therapist a few years ago for hip and back pain when I was still in high school. His take on it was that I spent so much time, at school and home, sitting and leaning over (doing homework, being on the computer, sitting on the couch, driving, etc) that the gel in between the vertebrae (there are little packets of it that cushion between the bones) was all getting squished to the back and causing lower back pain due to bones having less padding in the front.
His suggestion was to lay on my stomach and try to keep my torso raised, like a push up for just the top half of the body - this squishes the gel back to the front and gives the bones more even padding. I started trying to do this while reading, doing homework, watching TV, etc., and it usually helps alleviate some of the pain. I've also found that - probably related to the gel squishing thing - having better posture and strengthening my lower back muscles so maintaining good posture is easier and more comfortable.
Before I went to the therapist, however, I had a short list of lower back exercises that I knew how to do but was lazy about and probably should have done more. These were mostly stretching the lower back muscles and made my back feel great. I would suggest searching for some back health sites (there have to be some out there..) or going to a chiropractor/physical therapist to find out what you can do to strengthen your back instead of having to make a doctor or medication a regular thing.
At my school, DARE went on through part of 4th grade and all of 5th. When we were going through it, it was very effective - the sergeant from the local police force was a great guy and seemed to truly care about the kids. After we went to middle school the next year, I remember him coming in during lunch periods to say hi to kids he had in DARE and see how they were doing. It was a great show of support and caring. (The school was awful, however, and actually had him banned from the building because the principal didn't want him in "his school." Jesus.)
I'm still of the opinion though, as I said in the subject, that it was stopped too early. Starting to educate kids at an early age is not bad, but this was stopped after 5th grade. Then in 6th and 7th grade, most of the people I knew started smoking (cigarettes), and quickly moved on to drinking, pot, etc., etc. I think most people in charge of these programs don't realize how early kids are exposed to drugs, sex, etc.
I wonder sometimes how many less people would be smoking, from my graduating class, if they'd kept DARE going until the end of middle school or even into high school and kept up the education on drugs. Same with sex education - so many of my friends got pregnant within a year of our graduation, and I doubt they wanted to become mothers at 18 or 19. A lot of them have really skewed ideas of what dangers there are in unprotected sex and how pregnancy really happens. And our school stopped sex ed at 7th grade. Hmm.
Lain was on TV in Japan well before the Matrix came out. It's frustrating to hear people complaining that Lain ripped off the Matrix (although I'm not sure if you're implying that, or vis versa).
Slashdot Mirror
This is pretty par for the course in New York state.
This year, I had the fun experience of doing my taxes as a part-time New York resident, and half of my income was foreign-earned and tax-exempt for that time. In order to not pay New York state income tax on the part that was foreign-earned and federally-exempt because I was physically not in the country, I had to demonstrate that I had only been a part-time tax resident of New York.
The thing about tax residency is that it's separate from voting residency, and one of the criteria for being a "New York tax resident" is "income is derived from a New York source." I forget the exact wording on the tax forms, but basically, if I had lived in Pennsylvania full-time but my work was at a New York company, I'd have to pay New York tax on it.
I also got screwed once when I moved away to Pennsylvania for college and didn't realize all of this crap about tax residency, and the fact that New York will continue to try to collect taxes on all your income until you are cold in your grave if you've ever been a resident. I'd worked part of the year in New York, moved to PA, and worked there in college, and ended up having to pay New York income taxes on my Pennsylvania income. Why? Because I didn't know to file my taxes as a "part of the year" resident. In the following years I remembered to file my forms as a "Pennsylvania tax resident" despite still having my pernament residency in New York.
This worked because 1) I was not physically present in New York *AND* 2) my income wasn't derived from New York sources.
The thing is, this doens't surprise me at all because the working of "derived from NY sources" is certainly vague enough to include "telecommuting to a New York company." I don't think it includes, as one other poster was raving about, "if you work in another state at the office of a company that ALSO has an office in New York you will get hit with New York taxes."
In short my state goverment is a bunch of thieving bastards. (can i also be bitter that they take this income tax and then spend it all on new york city? bastards. *shakes fist at gaping pot holes in road*)
I have this CD; I'd be happy to help you out in getting a copy. Actually found it for $2 in a used CD store in Japan, how lucky is that?
mdesjardinNYAR@gmailBLARGH.com remove sound effects if you're interested.
Which Japan are we talking about?
I wouldn't describe American music as a "niche market" here. While Japanese groups are of course very popular, most younger people I've run into love Eminem, 50 Cent, Outkast, Avril Lavigne, various alternative rock bands, etc. This is what gets played in the clubs alongside popular Japanese music. Pop punk/rock and hip hop/r&b are two very popular genres and they're filled in a large proportion with American groups. On top of that, current popular Japanese groups like Chemistry or Exile are definitely not "idol singers", and Ayumi and the other female solo singers are more in line with a Britney Spears/Christina Aquilera image. I think describing the current popular music scene as "dominated" by idol singers is a little outdated.
With movies, too - by far, the new release section in my local rental place is stocked with American movies, a few European, Korean, and Chinese ones, and very few Japanese movies. With music, you can argue that Japanese groups still greatly outnumber popular American ones, but in movies the market seems to be dominated by foreign movies lately. Japan definitely has its own entertainment industry and I would say it's hardly threatened by foreign products, but I wouldn't call American entertainment "niche" here either.
I think a job during one's teenage years can do a lot for social and real-world skills in general, and just from my experience with other nerds (like the rest of my AD&D group) the parents will often allow the kid to coast by without a driver's license or a job for their entire high school career; "they need time to study!" because they are a smart kid with good grades. They don't want to push their shy, awkward kid into the real world yet.
My mom was more along the lines of "you want something, you get a job and buy it", so I was stuck learning my social skills the hard and painful way. I was in the gifted program when my school still had one, I played AD&D, spent too much time at my Amiga and on Compuserve, and had a crippling shyness. I hated talking to people I didn't know, making small talk, negotiating. Yet, in a real-world job, these are things you just have to force yourself to do.
For a gifted kid, though, I don't think that just any job will necessarily be the best thing. Try to find an environment for him where he can meet nerds in disguise. For example, I first volunteered and then worked at a library, followed by an art store for a few years. Anyone in a library is by default geeky in some capacity, and certainly any teenager that wants to work there is going to be a closet nerd. The art store too harbored big nerds, but they're not tech nerds. They're art nerds, framing nerds, book nerds. When I worked at the public housing authority as a receptionist later in life I met maintenance and housing code nerds.
If you work at K-Mart or a grocery store, you're just going to have painful run-ins with the dregs of society and be working with the kids that pick on you at school. If you want to protect your young friend's eccentric and unique nature, yet still want to help him develop a few of those skills he will certainly need later in life, it would be to his advantage to go somewhere that he won't be completely ridiculed for his nerdiness. He needs peers he can be inspired by - nerds who also know how to work the system, or at least take a shower - and who will encourage him to learn social skills simply by example.
If he is a younger geek, by no means is a job the only way to get this kind of environment. As I said, I did volunteer work at the local library which led me to also get involved in helping to run the library youth group. If he's younger, he could join a youth group. There are myriad volunteer opportunities out there, and if nothing else, the work he finds could give him a sense of fulfillment and will give him exposure to people whose lives and perspectives are different from his own. This is a valuable experience for anyone.
Another option is an extracurricular group or class. I used to take summer classes before I was old enough to have a job; the ones I took were mostly along art lines, but he might be interested in that (a comic art class I took was FULL of geeks...surprise), or music, public speaking/debate, or language classes. These all force you to make mistakes in front of others and offer helpful criticism - this goes a long way in reducing your shyness about looking stupid (because you ALL look stupid) and helps you to feel more confident about speaking your mind to others. You also end up meeting different kinds of people that you're forced to interact with, who you might not end up talking to otherwise.
I see a lot of comments criticizing you for not "letting him be himself" and "what do you know, you're just a biotech undergrad." At the same time, you are another human being who can empathize with your friend's situation and has learned the hard way that you DO need social skills to get by in this world - to make friends, to get a job, to persuade people to do what you want. This is all about daily life, and I think he would benefit from your help in finding a situation where he can learn these things more comfortably than he would otherwise. (it has to beat being made fun of?)
just my 2 cents, but I learned the hard way how to acquire those social skills and cure myself of a large part of my shyness. if being put into these kinds of situations worked for someone as geeky and oblivious as I am, it might be worth a shot for your young friend.
-molly
I hate this kind of reasoning. That profits should come before people's rights is not what this country was built on, but it seems that more and more people think it's so and go on screaming "capitalism" as the de facto answer to everything.
Anyway, my point is - isn't this the same argument used by Southern slave owners pre-1865? It wasn't the moral argument so much as the economic one that prompted the South to cedede. They argued that there was no way they could sustain their way of making a living without free slave labor.
Is this an argument that justifies slavery? I think most of us would now say "no." I'm not equating slavery to telemarketing, but it irritates me when "it'll kill our business" is used as an argument of why something should or shouldn't be illegal. It may be a part of the whole story, yes, but I don't think it justifies much. As many others are pointing out, there's no constitutional right to profit from a certain business model. Along the same lines as the issue of the RIAA/MPAA and their heavy-handed tactics, I think it's time for this industry to come up with a new business model. If a DNC list that most people welcome is going to kill their business as it exists right now, I think that's a sign of something bigger..
Well anyway, back to lurking.
by Paul Sipiera, a professor of geology and astronomy at Harper College in Palatine, Ill. "For me, it's a dream come true," he said. "I always tell my wife that when I die, I hope I get hit in the head by a meteorite flying through the roof and it came pretty close," he said. Classic. (link)
If you want to pay less for school books partition for the professors to make more consious desisions on the books they require and ask them to take cost into conser.
....only on slashdot. :)
I'm not sure how helpful or informative this is, but here is my experience so far.
I've been using Win98 (I know, painful, but I have this really old scanner that I can't part with.. ^_^) and Linux on my desktop computer for about 4 years now. While I love Linux because of its stability, the CLI, and the variety of software I find for it, it's also been a relentless pain in my ass for the 4 years I've been using. I won't go into it now.
But when I looked at getting a laptop when my school got a few wireless access points (this being my last year I figured I should get the most out of my "computing fee" that I can and abuse the wireless ^_-) my first thought was all of the praise I've heard for OSX. I'd used it a number of times in school computer labs and had a very good impression of it. So with my main train of thought being "I already have a PC and I don't want another one to cause me undue amounts of frustration" and also "I already have a PC and it's no fun to play with anymore" I sprang for an iBook.
I've only had the thing for a week today now, but as someone who's never used a Mac before I was surprised at how fast I got used to the interface and the way the system works. The first day or two found me playing with it for hours on end and getting irritated because the interface didn't work in the windows/linux way (which i have to say is pretty similar in my experience) that I was so used to. It took me 2 days to figure out that to uninstall a program you just drag it into the trash. Look at that!
The thing should seriously come with a better manual. Do a search on "OS X tutorials" ASAP when/if you get a Mac and have never used it before, because Apple's help files came up with 0 results when I searched on "Uninstall program"!
In any case, I have come to love my iBook very quickly and rarely use my desktop computer now because I just love the way OS X works. How can you say no to that beautiful interface and the ability to just click on Terminal and get a UNIX prompt? I can't say enough good things about it. (Except, of course, Apple's help system which I mentioned above.)
All in all, I'd highly recommend it for someone who, like me, is geeky enough to drool over Apple's interface, nerdy enough to want that UNIX prompt at my fingertips and will actually use it, but also someone with little time and even less to spend screwing around with Linux, much as I'd like to. I'm sure that some people will find OS X to be a huge annoyance but I doubt it's for everyone. My suggestion would be to get thee to a friend's house or Apple store and play with it for a few hours total before deciding because it does function in ways that are very different from Windows and your typical Linux setup, IMO.
I think Japan's being a successful capitalist nation has less to do with post-WWII American support than it does with Japanese culture. While the American occupation did help greatly to subsidize Japan's efforts to get back on its feet after the war, Japan's modernization began well before the 1950s. Do some reading on Japanese economics from the Tokugawa era on and you will see that Japan has a strong tradition of capitalism. Furthermore, though its rapid modernization after WWII was more extreme than that of the period following the Meiji Restoration, Japan was no stranger to the international economy and industrialization.
While American economic support post-WWII did do a lot for Japan in terms of helping it rebuild, the concepts of a modernized, capitalist Japan had been there for a while and, in my opinion, had nothing to do with the American occupation. When you make statements like "Why do you think they are far and away the most capitalistic [sic] of the Eastern countries?" I think you should back it up with a little more of an argument. Maybe a definition of "Eastern countries" would make your point more clear as well, because it seems like an ill-informed generalization to me.
This is completely ridiculous. I'm not against more industrial-style designs in computers (something besides the beige box, please) but how is this masculine vs. feminine? So the iMac doesn't have to be covered in pink fluffy bunnies to be considered "too girly?" Please. It's a computer. It's asexual. (I've never understood people addressing their company's tech. project as "sexy" unless it's porn.)
I guess this is coming from a woman who doesn't need any more testosterone in her life, as she gets more than her daily dose from fellow CS students alone. (but does not feel insecure in the face of either the iMac or this theoretical industrial-influenced computer design.) By the way, everyone I know who owns a VW is a guy.
I skimmed over the guidelines for selection in this document and they interestingly look VERY similar to the guidelines for a fed security clearance. (including those about drinking and moral misconduct, which I think are there to prevent blackmail being used to get classified information out of you) ie, if you are working at a military contractor, etc. I wonder if there's any correlation?
I don't know if I trust this guy's opinion on how good or successful this game will be.
For one, he declares FFVIII "the best game ever made." This is a matter of opinion, but I know that I was so bored and unimpressed with this game that I lost interest after about 20 minutes of playing. Out of the FF games that I've played, VIII was definitely the worst by far.
FFXI will, contrary to this article's line of thought, not be the first MMORPG on a console. PS Online for the dreamcast, anyone?
I for one would like to see some more info on FFXI before passing judgement. From the tone and questionable facts in this article, I think I would take it with a grain of salt.
I went to a physical therapist a few years ago for hip and back pain when I was still in high school. His take on it was that I spent so much time, at school and home, sitting and leaning over (doing homework, being on the computer, sitting on the couch, driving, etc) that the gel in between the vertebrae (there are little packets of it that cushion between the bones) was all getting squished to the back and causing lower back pain due to bones having less padding in the front.
His suggestion was to lay on my stomach and try to keep my torso raised, like a push up for just the top half of the body - this squishes the gel back to the front and gives the bones more even padding. I started trying to do this while reading, doing homework, watching TV, etc., and it usually helps alleviate some of the pain. I've also found that - probably related to the gel squishing thing - having better posture and strengthening my lower back muscles so maintaining good posture is easier and more comfortable.
Before I went to the therapist, however, I had a short list of lower back exercises that I knew how to do but was lazy about and probably should have done more. These were mostly stretching the lower back muscles and made my back feel great. I would suggest searching for some back health sites (there have to be some out there..) or going to a chiropractor/physical therapist to find out what you can do to strengthen your back instead of having to make a doctor or medication a regular thing.
At my school, DARE went on through part of 4th grade and all of 5th. When we were going through it, it was very effective - the sergeant from the local police force was a great guy and seemed to truly care about the kids. After we went to middle school the next year, I remember him coming in during lunch periods to say hi to kids he had in DARE and see how they were doing. It was a great show of support and caring. (The school was awful, however, and actually had him banned from the building because the principal didn't want him in "his school." Jesus.)
I'm still of the opinion though, as I said in the subject, that it was stopped too early. Starting to educate kids at an early age is not bad, but this was stopped after 5th grade. Then in 6th and 7th grade, most of the people I knew started smoking (cigarettes), and quickly moved on to drinking, pot, etc., etc. I think most people in charge of these programs don't realize how early kids are exposed to drugs, sex, etc.
I wonder sometimes how many less people would be smoking, from my graduating class, if they'd kept DARE going until the end of middle school or even into high school and kept up the education on drugs. Same with sex education - so many of my friends got pregnant within a year of our graduation, and I doubt they wanted to become mothers at 18 or 19. A lot of them have really skewed ideas of what dangers there are in unprotected sex and how pregnancy really happens. And our school stopped sex ed at 7th grade. Hmm.
"if you were a radix sort, you'd be in queue t."
Lain was on TV in Japan well before the Matrix came out. It's frustrating to hear people complaining that Lain ripped off the Matrix (although I'm not sure if you're implying that, or vis versa).
"if you were a radix sort, you'd be in queue t."