Too damn bad the 50 full time surfers weren't 435, and doubly too bad that they weren't congress.
Things might be better if they spent more time whacking to web sites instead of molesting pages and generally fscking up everything with their stupid bills.
I'm not sure 'wasteful' is the right word. At least, no moreso than many other countries. But what makes criticizing the US the 'low hanging fruit' for environmentalists is that the US is on the highest end of the developmental scale WITH a large population. Other, comparably large (population) states are nowhere near as developed - in fact, you have to drop to population #10 (Japan) to reach a comparable per Capita GDP.
More useful would be a comparison of resource consumption (resource intake) vs GDP(PPP) (produced output) as a ratio, compared to other countries. I couldn't get Nationmaster to go that far, but if someone could, then that would be suitable for analysis.
If one person eats half the food at the table, he's a pig; but is he a pig if he's put most of the food there in the first place? Probably still, if he doesn't NEED that energy to get (all the) food in the first place - which is a fair point and worth discussing.
But simply saying "OMGz0rS the US uses too many resources!!!!" is meaningless blather.
I used to upgrade systems about every 3 years when CPU speed typically tripled or more. So my first system was a 486-25. Second system was a P-90. Third was a 300MHz AMD. Fourth was 1.2 GHz AMD. Current system is a P4 2.7 GHz and it's at least 3 years old. And I don't feel any urgency to upgrade my basic system, perhaps a video card and some more RAM instead.
I simply don't see that CPU horsepower increasing in the steps like it used to. Yes, I understand multicore, more-cache, hyperthreaded CPUs are going to offer performance not indicated by something as simple as CPU speed, but is it THAT much?
First the FUD: New Scientist points out that if such a launch ring were built, it would instantly become "one of the most important targets on the planet. What a moronic comment.
You have a STATIC launcher. It can toss things into ballistic trajectories. One at a time. With a warm-up of TENS OF HOURS.
I don't know if New Scientist realized this, but we have launch technologies that are a) less vulnerable b) more accurate c) mobile and d) a little quicker to fire than that.
On another note, and not that this will mollify the crowd that fears a weapon in every technology, but in regards to the difficulty of punching something through the atmosphere at Mach 23, I seem to recall SDI experiments where a high-power laser was used to heat a 'track' through the atmosphere (in that case, to fire a particle beam weapon down the track with less atmospheric attenuation ). Couldn't a similar idea significantly reduce the air resistance for this sort of a projectile?
First, al-Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly in the United States itself. Black emphasized that this amounted to a strategic warning, meaning the problem was so serious that it required an overall plan and strategy. Second, this was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be addressed immediately. They needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden.
I have three responses to this postFUD. 1) non-specific information is almost worth than valueless. Let's say you are running a giant worldwide computer network, and I tell you that everything points to the strong conclusion that there "...is going to be a failure in your network. I can't tell you what, where, when, or how big it's going to be - but I'm nearly certain it IS going to happen." Then, months later, when there is a failure in your network, your boss calls you on the carpet to fire you, demanding why in hell you didn't prevent it "since you were warned months ahead of time". Think that's reasonable?
2) Part of this is playing into one of the oldest stock-cons in the book. Call 16 people, tell half that Stock X is going to go up, half that it's going to go down. The next week, call the half of them for whom you were right, and do the same thing (half up/half down). Repeat. After three weeks, you have 4 people that you can call and say "hey, I was 100% right 3 weeks in a row, invest with me!". Predicting something is one thing, but without knowing how many OTHER people were giving the same dire warnings about everything else, one has no reasonable idea of the 'static' surrounding the communication.
3) finally, let's assume that this was the only credible warning, and let's presuppose it was specific and certain. How would the bleeding-heart left have reacted if we'd sent an assassination team to kill Osama? Would a 'dire warning from the CIA director' been considered adequate? We invaded Iraq for a number of reasons, including (but not limited to) the consensus by a number of the world's intelligence services that Iraq had WMDs. We're still arguing about that, I believe.
One has to wonder if this Monday-morning quarterbacking will ever end.
It said the government should not support science education programs that 'include concepts that are derived from ideology,
So, does that mean that this group will SUPPORT politicians who are reasonably skeptical about Global Warming?
Or politicians that oppose giant programs of social engineering and redistribution of wealth, as the entire basis of welfare is an ideology that believes the government knows best who should be helped and by how much?
Oh wait, no, it's probably only CERTAIN ideologies that they oppose; that would make this 527 rather ironic, no?
The answer is in getting people who want to kill others indescriminantly out of power.
Considering we haven't had a world-ending nuclear war, isn't that begging a question? I'd say we have kept them out of power in nuclear capable states (at least since Stalin).
Looking at this, one might suspect that the idea of investing human efforts costing $trillion$ in order to effect (at best) a couple degrees of temperature is, well, ludicrous.
Personally, on an epochal scale, I find it credible that Humanity only exists because of a brief cooling and a fortunate spin of the every-so-often mass extinction roulette wheel. Let's be honest: crying about animal extinctions is stupid; several times in earth's history it's suffered a nearly-total die-off of extant species. Hell, our existence is almost assuredly predicated on it.
To get back to the point, I'm still not sure where global-warming (advocates? what would I call them? Cassandras?) get the idea that (human optimal climate) = (climate now) = (some sort of static point at which the Earth's climate should stick)?
Finally, like *any* creature on earth, Humans seem programmed to breed until the local carrying capacity is exceeded (through exhaustion of food resources for example, or in our case, eventual fouling of our living area), and then suffer a mass die-off.
You claim humans are somehow endowed with "intellect", and thus should be able to break the cycle? Unless you're willing to impose an enviro communism that determines breeding allowances per person, and rip resources by force from one person to give to another, I'd argue that you're simply being naive.
What I find so amusing/ironic/sad is that Linden Labs had built 2nd Life on a kind of cool idea - a pseudo-utopian experiment where they were going to build the world and, as I understood it, essentially keep their hands off, letting the social systems and communities grow organically.
Until something doesn't fit their PC-vision of what utopia should be, apparently.
Like utopian socialists whose Pollyanna ideals of "from each...to each..." don't quite survive their impact with the real world, they then turn to despotism to FORCE people to conform to (what they think) is best. The Lindens don't seem to hesitate to employ a mechanistic "hand of god" when it suits them.
Hint: Tyranny for a good reason is still tyranny. It's their world, their money (mostly), and they can ultimately do what they like, of course.
But what value is a 'virtual' version of Biosphere II, if the irresistable, implacable Hand of God can come in and magically set things right?
I was peripherally involved in the "Jesse War" so many ages ago, and I was saddened then as I'm saddened now. They have chosen once AGAIN to insinuate themselves directly in world-affairs and thus taint the entire experiment.
Wouldn't it have been MORE interesting to see how the community might have handled this WITHIN the bounds of the tools available to the avatars in-game? It might have provided a creative insight to our real-world issues of IP, patent, and copyright infringement.
Experiments are worthless if it's impossible for them to go wrong. If they can only travel down the pre-planned course, that's not an experiment, that's NARRATIVE. How do you study how the human animal behaves in the wild, if every misbehaving member of the study group is removed? What sort of valid result will that leave you?
But no, unless we have the magic Hand of God who can fix things in real life for us, too?
Fashion designers, having taken a clue from the digital world, have recently decided to use survey results from trial marketing data floated in a number of MMOGs, for example "Second Life".
2007 fashions, as a result, are predicted to consist entirely of micro bikinis, Robotech suits, and "Furry" costumes with gender-appropriate orifices/prostheses.
What I find so amusing/ironic/sad is that Linden Labs had built 2nd Life on a kind of cool idea - a pseudo-utopian experiment where they were going to build the world and, as I understood it, essentially keep their hands off, letting the social systems and communities grow organically.
Until something doesn't fit their PC-vision of what utopia should be, apparently.
Like utopian socialists whose Pollyanna ideals of "from each...to each..." don't quite survive their impact with the real world, they then turn to despotism to FORCE people to conform to (what they think) is best. The Lindens don't seem to hesitate to employ a mechanistic "hand of god" when it suits them.
Hint: Tyranny for a good reason is still tyranny. It's their world, their money (mostly), and they can ultimately do what they like, of course.
But what value is a 'virtual' version of Biosphere II, if the irresistable, implacable Hand of God can come in and magically set things right?
I was peripherally involved in the "Jesse War" so many ages ago, and I was saddened then as I'm saddened now. They have chosen once AGAIN to insinuate themselves directly in world-affairs and thus taint the entire experiment.
Wouldn't it have been MORE interesting to see how the community might have handled this WITHIN the bounds of the tools available to the avatars in-game? It might have provided a creative insight to our real-world issues of IP, patent, and copyright infringement.
Experiments are worthless if it's impossible for them to go wrong. If they can only travel down the pre-planned course, that's not an experiment, that's NARRATIVE. How do you study how the human animal behaves in the wild, if every misbehaving member of the study group is removed? What sort of valid result will that leave you?
But no, unless we have the magic Hand of God who can fix things in real life for us, too?
Well, the irony is that while a lot of people believe that internet anonymity allows people to be "assholes" (without ever really explaining WHY people's behavior heads south without supervision), I'd argue a more subtle point: with true anonymity, people have much more of a chance to behave AS THEY REALLY ARE.
In that sense, it reinforces theory of implied social contract; without the immediate coercive ability of the group (through the simple mechanism of individual recognition and following consequences), people may act in any way that they want. Without the 'smoothing' of one's egoist impulses by the compulsion (actual or implied) of the society around them, people feel free to shout "FAG" in circumstances where in real life they'd face at least ostracism if not outright punishment.
But the moment that the character begins to have some intrinsic value, that is, once the investment in the character and the character's relationship with the community has some value - you see less unjustifiably bad behavior. In WoW, this has proven itself out - by the time characters reach 60, you see much less dicking around. Who remains the main antisocialists at 60? Rogues, who as a particularly solo-capable class arguably LEAST need the goodwill of other players in endgame. Hunters, for the same reason but perhaps a lesser degree.
One might suspect that the main stream media is gullible and naive enough about the web, but one would hope that/. would be a little more skeptical about such a blatant effort to 'guerilla market' someone's crappy book.
I couldn't have said it better than a comment on the guy's own blog: "Presumably your book is being banned on the basis of its quality, which is average at best. "Hit with the force of a tsunami" - awful. And a protagonist who doesn't need to work for a living, rather conveniently. I saw The Constant Gardener at the cinema, and this smells like a cheap rip-off. And don't get me started on predictability...
You needn't live in fear of MI6 mate, it's the readers you should be afraid of."
Blaming the internet for cheating is like blaming guns for murder - idiotic.
Perhaps it makes cheating easier, and in any case it's far far simpler to point to a 'technology' and say "IT IS TEH EVIL".
More problematic and complex to point to: - over crowded classrooms, and overstretched teachers who are unable to catch what is usually rather obvious - social promotion and a complete lack of punishment of any kind ensures that what kids learn is that they are suckers if they DO the work; cheaters never get punished, downgraded, kicked out - cultural relativism has ensured that there is always an explanation, always an excuse, and never any shame. Heaven forbid we shame anyone or make them feel bad. - ultimately, a culture of opportunism and "me first" that's become endemic. Not that it isn't always present in the human animal, but as our culture atomizes (perhaps the real way the internet is making this worse...) there's logically a greater and greater emphasis on narcissism and self achievement at ANY cost.
No, no, it MUST be the internet that's doing it. Sigh.
I plan to vote this November. I am an American who (working for a foreign company) makes FREQUENT calls, faxes, and emails outside the US. Occasionally to people that might be in, or just returned from, companies the US isn't terribly happy with.
I will be voting FOR the people that are writing/passing this legislation, because I'm convinced that the "good guys" (and we ARE them, by & large) cannot win against an insidious, merciless, and determined enemy by being Dudley Do-Right and playing with one hand tied behind their back.
I couldn't care LESS if the government is reading my emails, listening to my telephone calls, or keeping me under direct surveillance, aside from being annoyed that they're wasting their time. Yawn.
No, I don't believe the sky is falling, EITHER.
This is like the FUD equivalent of Amway. Amway salespeople tell you about the thousands of people who have made million$, but they're still apparently pounding on your door to try to make a buck themselves. The Left tells you about how the Constitution is in tatters, how the US has become a fascist state (usually a CHRISTIAN FASCIST state, I guess that's "really" bad), and how we're all oppressed...yet they continue to preach their FUD without being picked up and shipped (without trial, of course) to one of those CIA facilities themselves. Damn, that might be too bad a use for all those unmarked black helicopters if they're not too busy. They need to get working, then.
Slashdot Mirror
Too damn bad the 50 full time surfers weren't 435, and doubly too bad that they weren't congress.
Things might be better if they spent more time whacking to web sites instead of molesting pages and generally fscking up everything with their stupid bills.
Lucas has singlehandedly solved the 'problem' of illegal pirating of movies, all by himself: Episode 3.
Make a movie that sucks badly enough, and nobody will pirate it, George.
I'm not sure 'wasteful' is the right word. At least, no moreso than many other countries. But what makes criticizing the US the 'low hanging fruit' for environmentalists is that the US is on the highest end of the developmental scale WITH a large population. Other, comparably large (population) states are nowhere near as developed - in fact, you have to drop to population #10 (Japan) to reach a comparable per Capita GDP.
More useful would be a comparison of resource consumption (resource intake) vs GDP(PPP) (produced output) as a ratio, compared to other countries. I couldn't get Nationmaster to go that far, but if someone could, then that would be suitable for analysis.
If one person eats half the food at the table, he's a pig; but is he a pig if he's put most of the food there in the first place? Probably still, if he doesn't NEED that energy to get (all the) food in the first place - which is a fair point and worth discussing.
But simply saying "OMGz0rS the US uses too many resources!!!!" is meaningless blather.
Is it solar input, or is Uranus generating its own heat internally?
I can't even type that with a straight face.
I used to upgrade systems about every 3 years when CPU speed typically tripled or more.
So my first system was a 486-25.
Second system was a P-90.
Third was a 300MHz AMD.
Fourth was 1.2 GHz AMD.
Current system is a P4 2.7 GHz and it's at least 3 years old. And I don't feel any urgency to upgrade my basic system, perhaps a video card and some more RAM instead.
I simply don't see that CPU horsepower increasing in the steps like it used to. Yes, I understand multicore, more-cache, hyperthreaded CPUs are going to offer performance not indicated by something as simple as CPU speed, but is it THAT much?
More importantly, considering that Earth is tech level ~9, does that mean that PGMP's really are more like tech level 10, not 12?
First the FUD:
New Scientist points out that if such a launch ring were built, it would instantly become "one of the most important targets on the planet.
What a moronic comment.
You have a STATIC launcher.
It can toss things into ballistic trajectories.
One at a time.
With a warm-up of TENS OF HOURS.
I don't know if New Scientist realized this, but we have launch technologies that are
a) less vulnerable
b) more accurate
c) mobile
and
d) a little quicker to fire than that.
On another note, and not that this will mollify the crowd that fears a weapon in every technology, but in regards to the difficulty of punching something through the atmosphere at Mach 23, I seem to recall SDI experiments where a high-power laser was used to heat a 'track' through the atmosphere (in that case, to fire a particle beam weapon down the track with less atmospheric attenuation ). Couldn't a similar idea significantly reduce the air resistance for this sort of a projectile?
Ironic that a Kennedy wrote this article.
He's just pissed because it's so much harder to get the dead to vote (cf. the 1960 election of JFK).
First, al-Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly in the United States itself. Black emphasized that this amounted to a strategic warning, meaning the problem was so serious that it required an overall plan and strategy. Second, this was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be addressed immediately. They needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden.
I have three responses to this postFUD.
1) non-specific information is almost worth than valueless. Let's say you are running a giant worldwide computer network, and I tell you that everything points to the strong conclusion that there "...is going to be a failure in your network. I can't tell you what, where, when, or how big it's going to be - but I'm nearly certain it IS going to happen." Then, months later, when there is a failure in your network, your boss calls you on the carpet to fire you, demanding why in hell you didn't prevent it "since you were warned months ahead of time". Think that's reasonable?
2) Part of this is playing into one of the oldest stock-cons in the book. Call 16 people, tell half that Stock X is going to go up, half that it's going to go down. The next week, call the half of them for whom you were right, and do the same thing (half up/half down). Repeat. After three weeks, you have 4 people that you can call and say "hey, I was 100% right 3 weeks in a row, invest with me!". Predicting something is one thing, but without knowing how many OTHER people were giving the same dire warnings about everything else, one has no reasonable idea of the 'static' surrounding the communication.
3) finally, let's assume that this was the only credible warning, and let's presuppose it was specific and certain. How would the bleeding-heart left have reacted if we'd sent an assassination team to kill Osama? Would a 'dire warning from the CIA director' been considered adequate? We invaded Iraq for a number of reasons, including (but not limited to) the consensus by a number of the world's intelligence services that Iraq had WMDs. We're still arguing about that, I believe.
One has to wonder if this Monday-morning quarterbacking will ever end.
Are they safe? Yes. Shutup. We're launching.
If you long haired hippy freaks don't like it, tough.
It said the government should not support science education programs that 'include concepts that are derived from ideology,
So, does that mean that this group will SUPPORT politicians who are reasonably skeptical about Global Warming?
Or politicians that oppose giant programs of social engineering and redistribution of wealth, as the entire basis of welfare is an ideology that believes the government knows best who should be helped and by how much?
Oh wait, no, it's probably only CERTAIN ideologies that they oppose; that would make this 527 rather ironic, no?
OK, I even RTFA'd and was it just that I missed it?
Cryptic - maker of City of Heroes/Villains - is helping Marvel make Marvel MMOG.
That's like Blizzard helping Hasbro make D&D Online.
WTF? How could you have a whole interview and not ask ONE QUESTION about that teeny little conflict-of-interest thing?
I can't see how they can do this and keep CoH/V alive.
The answer is in getting people who want to kill others indescriminantly out of power.
Considering we haven't had a world-ending nuclear war, isn't that begging a question?
I'd say we have kept them out of power in nuclear capable states (at least since Stalin).
Looking at this, one might suspect that the idea of investing human efforts costing $trillion$ in order to effect (at best) a couple degrees of temperature is, well, ludicrous.
M yr_Climate_Change.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/65_
Personally, on an epochal scale, I find it credible that Humanity only exists because of a brief cooling and a fortunate spin of the every-so-often mass extinction roulette wheel. Let's be honest: crying about animal extinctions is stupid; several times in earth's history it's suffered a nearly-total die-off of extant species. Hell, our existence is almost assuredly predicated on it.
To get back to the point, I'm still not sure where global-warming (advocates? what would I call them? Cassandras?) get the idea that (human optimal climate) = (climate now) = (some sort of static point at which the Earth's climate should stick)?
Finally, like *any* creature on earth, Humans seem programmed to breed until the local carrying capacity is exceeded (through exhaustion of food resources for example, or in our case, eventual fouling of our living area), and then suffer a mass die-off.
You claim humans are somehow endowed with "intellect", and thus should be able to break the cycle? Unless you're willing to impose an enviro communism that determines breeding allowances per person, and rip resources by force from one person to give to another, I'd argue that you're simply being naive.
(somehow /. stuck this in the PS3 article....)
What I find so amusing/ironic/sad is that Linden Labs had built 2nd Life on a kind of cool idea - a pseudo-utopian experiment where they were going to build the world and, as I understood it, essentially keep their hands off, letting the social systems and communities grow organically.
Until something doesn't fit their PC-vision of what utopia should be, apparently.
Like utopian socialists whose Pollyanna ideals of "from each...to each..." don't quite survive their impact with the real world, they then turn to despotism to FORCE people to conform to (what they think) is best. The Lindens don't seem to hesitate to employ a mechanistic "hand of god" when it suits them.
Hint: Tyranny for a good reason is still tyranny. It's their world, their money (mostly), and they can ultimately do what they like, of course.
But what value is a 'virtual' version of Biosphere II, if the irresistable, implacable Hand of God can come in and magically set things right?
I was peripherally involved in the "Jesse War" so many ages ago, and I was saddened then as I'm saddened now. They have chosen once AGAIN to insinuate themselves directly in world-affairs and thus taint the entire experiment.
Wouldn't it have been MORE interesting to see how the community might have handled this WITHIN the bounds of the tools available to the avatars in-game? It might have provided a creative insight to our real-world issues of IP, patent, and copyright infringement.
Experiments are worthless if it's impossible for them to go wrong. If they can only travel down the pre-planned course, that's not an experiment, that's NARRATIVE. How do you study how the human animal behaves in the wild, if every misbehaving member of the study group is removed? What sort of valid result will that leave you?
But no, unless we have the magic Hand of God who can fix things in real life for us, too?
Fashion designers, having taken a clue from the digital world, have recently decided to use survey results from trial marketing data floated in a number of MMOGs, for example "Second Life".
2007 fashions, as a result, are predicted to consist entirely of micro bikinis, Robotech suits, and "Furry" costumes with gender-appropriate orifices/prostheses.
What I find so amusing/ironic/sad is that Linden Labs had built 2nd Life on a kind of cool idea - a pseudo-utopian experiment where they were going to build the world and, as I understood it, essentially keep their hands off, letting the social systems and communities grow organically.
Until something doesn't fit their PC-vision of what utopia should be, apparently.
Like utopian socialists whose Pollyanna ideals of "from each...to each..." don't quite survive their impact with the real world, they then turn to despotism to FORCE people to conform to (what they think) is best. The Lindens don't seem to hesitate to employ a mechanistic "hand of god" when it suits them.
Hint: Tyranny for a good reason is still tyranny. It's their world, their money (mostly), and they can ultimately do what they like, of course.
But what value is a 'virtual' version of Biosphere II, if the irresistable, implacable Hand of God can come in and magically set things right?
I was peripherally involved in the "Jesse War" so many ages ago, and I was saddened then as I'm saddened now. They have chosen once AGAIN to insinuate themselves directly in world-affairs and thus taint the entire experiment.
Wouldn't it have been MORE interesting to see how the community might have handled this WITHIN the bounds of the tools available to the avatars in-game? It might have provided a creative insight to our real-world issues of IP, patent, and copyright infringement.
Experiments are worthless if it's impossible for them to go wrong. If they can only travel down the pre-planned course, that's not an experiment, that's NARRATIVE. How do you study how the human animal behaves in the wild, if every misbehaving member of the study group is removed? What sort of valid result will that leave you?
But no, unless we have the magic Hand of God who can fix things in real life for us, too?
For many younger viewers, it's the only news program they watch.
That's such a sad statement, on so many levels.
Beginning with the fact that it's a COMEDY program, not a news program.
Perhaps the distinction is narrowing, but I believe it's still significant.
Posting a direct link to a video on /.'s frontpage.
:)
Al, I think that's damn close to a world premiere right there, and a better class of audience than AOL.
Well, the irony is that while a lot of people believe that internet anonymity allows people to be "assholes" (without ever really explaining WHY people's behavior heads south without supervision), I'd argue a more subtle point: with true anonymity, people have much more of a chance to behave AS THEY REALLY ARE.
In that sense, it reinforces theory of implied social contract; without the immediate coercive ability of the group (through the simple mechanism of individual recognition and following consequences), people may act in any way that they want. Without the 'smoothing' of one's egoist impulses by the compulsion (actual or implied) of the society around them, people feel free to shout "FAG" in circumstances where in real life they'd face at least ostracism if not outright punishment.
But the moment that the character begins to have some intrinsic value, that is, once the investment in the character and the character's relationship with the community has some value - you see less unjustifiably bad behavior. In WoW, this has proven itself out - by the time characters reach 60, you see much less dicking around. Who remains the main antisocialists at 60? Rogues, who as a particularly solo-capable class arguably LEAST need the goodwill of other players in endgame. Hunters, for the same reason but perhaps a lesser degree.
I call BS.
/. would be a little more skeptical about such a blatant effort to 'guerilla market' someone's crappy book.
One might suspect that the main stream media is gullible and naive enough about the web, but one would hope that
I couldn't have said it better than a comment on the guy's own blog:
"Presumably your book is being banned on the basis of its quality, which is average at best. "Hit with the force of a tsunami" - awful. And a protagonist who doesn't need to work for a living, rather conveniently. I saw The Constant Gardener at the cinema, and this smells like a cheap rip-off. And don't get me started on predictability...
You needn't live in fear of MI6 mate, it's the readers you should be afraid of."
Blaming the internet for cheating is like blaming guns for murder - idiotic.
Perhaps it makes cheating easier, and in any case it's far far simpler to point to a 'technology' and say "IT IS TEH EVIL".
More problematic and complex to point to:
- over crowded classrooms, and overstretched teachers who are unable to catch what is usually rather obvious
- social promotion and a complete lack of punishment of any kind ensures that what kids learn is that they are suckers if they DO the work; cheaters never get punished, downgraded, kicked out - cultural relativism has ensured that there is always an explanation, always an excuse, and never any shame. Heaven forbid we shame anyone or make them feel bad.
- ultimately, a culture of opportunism and "me first" that's become endemic. Not that it isn't always present in the human animal, but as our culture atomizes (perhaps the real way the internet is making this worse...) there's logically a greater and greater emphasis on narcissism and self achievement at ANY cost.
No, no, it MUST be the internet that's doing it. Sigh.
Wait, is that the one where they shoot first? Or did the Jedi beat the terrorists because they were ABOUT to shoot?
My #1 favorite game is "hide the sausage". Wonder why they didn't list that one.
I think one of the requirements was that the reviewers had to have had experience playing the game.
I plan to vote this November.
I am an American who (working for a foreign company) makes FREQUENT calls, faxes, and emails outside the US. Occasionally to people that might be in, or just returned from, companies the US isn't terribly happy with.
I will be voting FOR the people that are writing/passing this legislation, because I'm convinced that the "good guys" (and we ARE them, by & large) cannot win against an insidious, merciless, and determined enemy by being Dudley Do-Right and playing with one hand tied behind their back.
I couldn't care LESS if the government is reading my emails, listening to my telephone calls, or keeping me under direct surveillance, aside from being annoyed that they're wasting their time. Yawn.
No, I don't believe the sky is falling, EITHER.
This is like the FUD equivalent of Amway. Amway salespeople tell you about the thousands of people who have made million$, but they're still apparently pounding on your door to try to make a buck themselves.
The Left tells you about how the Constitution is in tatters, how the US has become a fascist state (usually a CHRISTIAN FASCIST state, I guess that's "really" bad), and how we're all oppressed...yet they continue to preach their FUD without being picked up and shipped (without trial, of course) to one of those CIA facilities themselves. Damn, that might be too bad a use for all those unmarked black helicopters if they're not too busy. They need to get working, then.