Well I'll add my guess that the mother and father of one, or several, drowned children simply think of them as dead, and cry because they will never see them grow up. I don't think that simply ploughing those children under as fodder for a great natural renewal process is a decent substitute for a more personal understanding of their experience.
Philososphical constructs are interesting and useful for putting things in perspective, but when they begin to allow us to limit the compassion we have for other people they could do more harm than good.
Yeah, I remember those exchanges too. But I'm not talking geopolitically here, or discussing anything that has to do with the Battle Between Nations or whatever. Just the opposite. I'm trying to speak to how we ignore all that and simply try to be helpful and nice and considerate to each other. That's not something you need a political or national affiliation to do - you just do it.
The people who made the "fun little 9/11 references" were wrong. The Americans you refer to to were wrong, and you can't use their wrong actions to justify more.
People are a lot more cautious with their jokes in person, especially if they know they are talking directly to someone who had lost a loved one on 9/11, or in the tsnunami. ("Oh, your sister died in 9/11? That reminds me of the most hilarious joke...") Why can't we simply extend that level of consideration to public forums?
I do understand, and I'm not putting down humor as part of the coping process. I would suggest, however, that it's perhaps a later part of the coping process for those involved, and if you weren't involved in the situation at all it's only a part that you should indulge in if you've had an opportunity to demonstrate that you're heart is in the right place to begin with.
Your joke is a good example, I think. A day after September 11th, when you were being sent that joke, I was preoccupied with my friend Jeff who died. It sounds like a funny joke and if someone else who was close to Jeff told me that joke I might have laughed even then. But if you sent me that joke out of the blue I might have knocked you down for it, because you didn't know him and you're jumping straight to the jokes. It's like telling ethnic jokes -- you had better make sure that people know your heart is in the right place first or you're going to get knocked down a lot.
I think Alienmole makes a reasonable point, but accidentally made donating sound as futile as the idea of dropping everything and flying over there to help, which I don't think was intended. To correct that I'd like to provide two links, one to Amazon, who is offering their payment system as a route to the Red Cross, and one to Google who has a list of reputable aid organizations to which you can donate. I gave $50 to the Red Cross, which is about $60 more than I can afford, but considering that none of my family drowned last week I decided to cut loose.
I felt sympathy and kindness from those who could appreciate the tragedy and indifference or worse from those who couldn't.
The joke I saw here threatened to put us in the second category, and that surprised and saddened me.
Sorry to be a downer, but it's important.
on
Indoor Tropical Island
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
. ..and there are no tsunami's.
I think what really gets me is how flip people are feeling they can be about this in the West. Yes, Slashdot is global, yada yada, but it's readership is, for the most part, centered outside the affected area and in the United States in particular, so I blame us.
I live in New York, and what struck me was the global outpouring of sympathy after September 11, which killed 3,000 people, and it was months before anyone felt comfortable enough to to discuss anything but the horror.
But now, just a week after 118,000 parents and children and brothers and sisters have been drowned in a single moment, we start making fun little tsnumai references to set off an article on an indoor beach. That, and going to our climate-controlled indoor beaches are all part of our healing process, I suppose.
Sorry, I have a pretty high threshold, but that makes me ill.
I suppose this is the point at which everyone at EA writes back saying that no one works those hours and she's out of her mind, and she discovers that her husband's actually been having an affair. ..
"Also at that time, Geoworks was five years ahead of Microsoft in providing a modern, working GUI for DOS. DR-DOS and Geoworks were being pre-installed on a large percentage of PCs. But Microsoft made a change to DOS specifically to cause Geoworks to fail."
Geoworks was well ahead of Windows, but Geoworks and DR-DOS were pre-installed on a large number of PCs? Maybe at a couple of swap meets, but not in the real world. ..The only somewhat mainstream implementation of Geoworks that momentarily bobbed into the mainstream was as an early GUI for America Online. Other than that it was forgotten as quickly as it was introduced.
(Pre-rave disclaimer, I'm unafilliated with Vonage except as a customer.)
I set up Vonage for our company - we're running 4 lines over a 5Mbps DSL with only occasional stuttering problems.
But the real benefit comes from the fact that although we are a small company, we have offices in five countries in Europe which we speak to on a daily basis. So, we signed up with Vonage for five new lines each tied to a New York number, then when we received the adapters we turned them right around and shipped them to the outer offices. They plugged them in and bingo, all five offices are now accessible with a local call. Plus, that local call is free because all in-network calls with Vonage are free.
That plus the super-low international rates for our other business calls have saved us close to $1,000 a month, which for our sized company is huuuuuge.
Just a week ago I used three-way calling to set up a conference call between London, Prague, and New York and ended up paying 6 cents a minute total. Crazy.
Only downside has been number transfer - they haven't made any progress with cutting our lines over, so we're still having to pay Verizon 80 bucks a month for forwarding - but even there Vonage siad they'd credit our service for any time over 40 days.
Just last week I read an article where Microsoft's consumer OS market share has been continually dropping -- down from from a 6 year high of 108 percent to 105 percent just last quarter.
The Microsoft rep that lives under the sink in my kitchen was quick to strike back, however, telling me that the drop came only as a result of survey companies no longer screening for "dirtbag hippies and Communists."
Just how stupid does an announcement have to be before working journalists decide not to report it? A private mission to Mars by 2009?
Okay fine, in that same spirit:
"Dear Speigel:
I plan to evolve into a being composed entirely of ionized gas and electromagnetic energy by 2009. I realize this is an ambitious timeframe, but with recent advances in genetic engineering and non-CFC spray bottle technology I believe it's achievable.
Please call me if you have any questions, or I'll be happy to seep into your offices in five years."
Well, that's quite the sloppy ass-kiss in the write-up.
Real's tenuous grip on their consumer's desires as well as their complete disrespect for a consumer's willingness to do business with companies that allow them to make informed decisions was always their fattest problem. We finally get a glimpse of the source of that disrespect and the Slashdot editorial team tries to do damage control on their behalf.
If that's being brushed of as a "high PR component" then to hell with them and to hell with you.
They're too busy hiring all the other brilliant software engineers who managed to find time in their days to *both* learn how to become brilliant software engineers, *and* develop even a minimal ethical framework for how to apply their skills.
Seems like an overwhelming task, but that's why they deserve a good job goddammit.
Well sorry, but I've got to jeez back at you on this guy's behalf.
It's all well and good to talk about treating patients holistically and recognizing the mind-body connection, but how do you propose that a medical school-trained allergist actually implement this in their examining room?
Obviously this discussion is only relevant in a situation where a patient presents symptoms that, after a series of scientific tests (such as time-tested skin scratch-tests for a wide variety of allergens) are not consistent with the scientific findings. So you, as the doctor, now have a patient compaining of multiple allergic symptoms that defy definition in any scientific (and scientifically treatable) way. What's your next move with this patient?
You seem to be suggesting that an enlightened doctor sit down with the patient and say this:
"Well, we've run a series of tests that have, in the past, shown to be very reliable predictors of allergic reaction in adults of your age. That is, we've introduced a broad spectrum of substances into your body and your body has not indicated any physical adverse reaction to those substances as a result of those tests. We've tested your body, and your body seems to be telling us that it's okay with these substances."
"As I'm sure you sense, and perhaps have read, there is a very well established relationship between your reaction to environmental stressors of all types, both physiscal and emotional, and the biochemical state of your body."
"I'm willing to put my education and experience behind telling you that your symptoms are not the result of a traditional allergic reaction, that is, an abnormal physical reaction to chemical stimuli. So I'd like you to consider that your biochemical situation might be the result of other stressors, such as your attitude and approach to situations around you. Don't dismiss this out of hand, you know full well that people have various physical reactions to stress, they get headaches, upset stomachs - they're linked. Your particular reaction may be symptoms that mimic allergic symptoms."
"So here, I'd like to refer you to another doctor I work with, a psychiatrist, so that you and she can look at the stress and psychological part of the equation and see if that can have an impact on how your feeling."
Is that about right?
Well I hate to break it to you, doctors do that all the time. Perhaps not always with that level of finesse, but some doctors are more articulate than others and saying things the right way comes more naturally for them, just like anyone in any profession.
My point is that doctors do that so often that an even more pervasive cliche in the doctor-patient relationship than your "unfeeling science wonk doctor" is the "I went to the doctor and he told me it was all in my head." cliche.
I think your main point is right, that doctors need to have respect for the fact that people are bundles of shifting complexity between mind and body. But I would like to make a similar entreaty that patients treat their doctors with a little respect, both for the time they've put in learning a huge bulk of collected knowledge, and in how much sincere thought and care they put into their patients' diagnosis. If a doctor says that you might consider the mind portion of the mind-body equation, you owe it to them to consider it, and follow through on their recommendations, or ask for more recommendations if they don't work.
Doctors understand the mind/body relationship more personally than you give them credit for, since they can test the body. If all those tests come up negative, then there's only one thing left. . .
It occurs to me that the greatest FUDmongers have lately been the Linux crew on this site. High overhead, insecure, plenty of ways to rag on Windows, but unstable? XP just ain't, despite all the people who I'm sure will land on me saying "Well mine just crashed yesterday! Okay, it was 3.1 running on a toaster oven, but still!"
It's amazing how all the so-called Microsoft tactics at which Slashdotties have expressed such theatrical shock get trotted out when they're doing the fighting.
Sorry to interrupt, please go back to your holy war. . .
I think people must really search out opportunities to fully apply their half-wisdom to being total dicks.
If you'll re-read his post he was not looking for scientific or medical advice, he was looking for experiences and suggestions, something which an online community, even one as apparently harsh and more than occasionally dimwitted and arrogant as Slashdot is good at providing.
As for relevance, I think this falls well within "Stuff that matters." Oh wait, it doesn't matter to you? Then I take that back, let's delete it in favor of another story about someone who designed a "Tribute To Vi" casemod.
Slashdot Mirror
Well I'll add my guess that the mother and father of one, or several, drowned children simply think of them as dead, and cry because they will never see them grow up. I don't think that simply ploughing those children under as fodder for a great natural renewal process is a decent substitute for a more personal understanding of their experience.
Philososphical constructs are interesting and useful for putting things in perspective, but when they begin to allow us to limit the compassion we have for other people they could do more harm than good.
In my defense, it did take 118 thousand people dying for me to finally take a stand.
For many people I know, it only take 60 or 80 thousand dead before they speak up, so that's why I said I thought I had a high threshold.
Yeah, I remember those exchanges too. But I'm not talking geopolitically here, or discussing anything that has to do with the Battle Between Nations or whatever. Just the opposite. I'm trying to speak to how we ignore all that and simply try to be helpful and nice and considerate to each other. That's not something you need a political or national affiliation to do - you just do it.
The people who made the "fun little 9/11 references" were wrong. The Americans you refer to to were wrong, and you can't use their wrong actions to justify more.
People are a lot more cautious with their jokes in person, especially if they know they are talking directly to someone who had lost a loved one on 9/11, or in the tsnunami. ("Oh, your sister died in 9/11? That reminds me of the most hilarious joke...") Why can't we simply extend that level of consideration to public forums?
I do understand, and I'm not putting down humor as part of the coping process. I would suggest, however, that it's perhaps a later part of the coping process for those involved, and if you weren't involved in the situation at all it's only a part that you should indulge in if you've had an opportunity to demonstrate that you're heart is in the right place to begin with.
Your joke is a good example, I think. A day after September 11th, when you were being sent that joke, I was preoccupied with my friend Jeff who died. It sounds like a funny joke and if someone else who was close to Jeff told me that joke I might have laughed even then. But if you sent me that joke out of the blue I might have knocked you down for it, because you didn't know him and you're jumping straight to the jokes. It's like telling ethnic jokes -- you had better make sure that people know your heart is in the right place first or you're going to get knocked down a lot.
I think Alienmole makes a reasonable point, but accidentally made donating sound as futile as the idea of dropping everything and flying over there to help, which I don't think was intended. To correct that I'd like to provide two links, one to Amazon, who is offering their payment system as a route to the Red Cross, and one to Google who has a list of reputable aid organizations to which you can donate. I gave $50 to the Red Cross, which is about $60 more than I can afford, but considering that none of my family drowned last week I decided to cut loose.
American Red Cross At Amazon
Tsunami Relief page at Google.
I felt sympathy and kindness from those who could appreciate the tragedy and indifference or worse from those who couldn't.
The joke I saw here threatened to put us in the second category, and that surprised and saddened me.
. .
I think what really gets me is how flip people are feeling they can be about this in the West. Yes, Slashdot is global, yada yada, but it's readership is, for the most part, centered outside the affected area and in the United States in particular, so I blame us.
I live in New York, and what struck me was the global outpouring of sympathy after September 11, which killed 3,000 people, and it was months before anyone felt comfortable enough to to discuss anything but the horror.
But now, just a week after 118,000 parents and children and brothers and sisters have been drowned in a single moment, we start making fun little tsnumai references to set off an article on an indoor beach. That, and going to our climate-controlled indoor beaches are all part of our healing process, I suppose.
Sorry, I have a pretty high threshold, but that makes me ill.
Launching with a thousand tracks of music, full-length previews, and a Linux client. .
I certainly support them, will try it, and would like to give them a big hug, but I sure wouldn't let them run my company if I had children to feed.
"...film star Marilyn Monroe gradually morphed into that of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher."
Or as it's known in medicine, 'the anti-Viagra.'
I suppose this is the point at which everyone at EA writes back saying that no one works those hours and she's out of her mind, and she discovers that her husband's actually been having an affair. .
Hey could I hang this on a keychain?
Wouldn't this be really good if it were IR?
Maybe they should try the codes for the most popular brands first, then it would work better!
"Also at that time, Geoworks was five years ahead of Microsoft in providing a modern, working GUI for DOS. DR-DOS and Geoworks were being pre-installed on a large percentage of PCs. But Microsoft made a change to DOS specifically to cause Geoworks to fail."
Geoworks was well ahead of Windows, but Geoworks and DR-DOS were pre-installed on a large number of PCs? Maybe at a couple of swap meets, but not in the real world. . .The only somewhat mainstream implementation of Geoworks that momentarily bobbed into the mainstream was as an early GUI for America Online. Other than that it was forgotten as quickly as it was introduced.
(Pre-rave disclaimer, I'm unafilliated with Vonage except as a customer.)
I set up Vonage for our company - we're running 4 lines over a 5Mbps DSL with only occasional stuttering problems.
But the real benefit comes from the fact that although we are a small company, we have offices in five countries in Europe which we speak to on a daily basis. So, we signed up with Vonage for five new lines each tied to a New York number, then when we received the adapters we turned them right around and shipped them to the outer offices. They plugged them in and bingo, all five offices are now accessible with a local call. Plus, that local call is free because all in-network calls with Vonage are free.
That plus the super-low international rates for our other business calls have saved us close to $1,000 a month, which for our sized company is huuuuuge.
Just a week ago I used three-way calling to set up a conference call between London, Prague, and New York and ended up paying 6 cents a minute total. Crazy.
Only downside has been number transfer - they haven't made any progress with cutting our lines over, so we're still having to pay Verizon 80 bucks a month for forwarding - but even there Vonage siad they'd credit our service for any time over 40 days.
I'm a fan so far. . .
Just last week I read an article where Microsoft's consumer OS market share has been continually dropping -- down from from a 6 year high of 108 percent to 105 percent just last quarter.
The Microsoft rep that lives under the sink in my kitchen was quick to strike back, however, telling me that the drop came only as a result of survey companies no longer screening for "dirtbag hippies and Communists."
I'm hopeful.
Just how stupid does an announcement have to be before working journalists decide not to report it? A private mission to Mars by 2009?
Okay fine, in that same spirit:
"Dear Speigel:
I plan to evolve into a being composed entirely of ionized gas and electromagnetic energy by 2009. I realize this is an ambitious timeframe, but with recent advances in genetic engineering and non-CFC spray bottle technology I believe it's achievable.
Please call me if you have any questions, or I'll be happy to seep into your offices in five years."
"Look at yourself, standing there, cradling the new flesh I've given you. If it means nothing to you, why protect it?"
"I... I am simply imitating the behavior of humans."
"You're becoming more human all the time. . .Now you're learning how to lie."
"My programming was not designed to process these sensations."
"Then tear the skin from your limb as you would a defective circuit...Go ahead...! We won't stop you! Do it! Don't be tempted by flesh!"
1,082,811
Well, that's quite the sloppy ass-kiss in the write-up.
Real's tenuous grip on their consumer's desires as well as their complete disrespect for a consumer's willingness to do business with companies that allow them to make informed decisions was always their fattest problem. We finally get a glimpse of the source of that disrespect and the Slashdot editorial team tries to do damage control on their behalf.
If that's being brushed of as a "high PR component" then to hell with them and to hell with you.
They're too busy hiring all the other brilliant software engineers who managed to find time in their days to *both* learn how to become brilliant software engineers, *and* develop even a minimal ethical framework for how to apply their skills.
Seems like an overwhelming task, but that's why they deserve a good job goddammit.
Jeesh.
. .
No, seriously.
I can search it to find out where I left my cell phone last night.
Well sorry, but I've got to jeez back at you on this guy's behalf.
It's all well and good to talk about treating patients holistically and recognizing the mind-body connection, but how do you propose that a medical school-trained allergist actually implement this in their examining room?
Obviously this discussion is only relevant in a situation where a patient presents symptoms that, after a series of scientific tests (such as time-tested skin scratch-tests for a wide variety of allergens) are not consistent with the scientific findings. So you, as the doctor, now have a patient compaining of multiple allergic symptoms that defy definition in any scientific (and scientifically treatable) way. What's your next move with this patient?
You seem to be suggesting that an enlightened doctor sit down with the patient and say this:
Is that about right?
Well I hate to break it to you, doctors do that all the time. Perhaps not always with that level of finesse, but some doctors are more articulate than others and saying things the right way comes more naturally for them, just like anyone in any profession.
My point is that doctors do that so often that an even more pervasive cliche in the doctor-patient relationship than your "unfeeling science wonk doctor" is the "I went to the doctor and he told me it was all in my head." cliche.
I think your main point is right, that doctors need to have respect for the fact that people are bundles of shifting complexity between mind and body. But I would like to make a similar entreaty that patients treat their doctors with a little respect, both for the time they've put in learning a huge bulk of collected knowledge, and in how much sincere thought and care they put into their patients' diagnosis. If a doctor says that you might consider the mind portion of the mind-body equation, you owe it to them to consider it, and follow through on their recommendations, or ask for more recommendations if they don't work.
Doctors understand the mind/body relationship more personally than you give them credit for, since they can test the body. If all those tests come up negative, then there's only one thing left. . .
Just so you don't feel alone - I get it, and it's funny. . .
General Tso's Access Point.
It occurs to me that the greatest FUDmongers have lately been the Linux crew on this site. High overhead, insecure, plenty of ways to rag on Windows, but unstable? XP just ain't, despite all the people who I'm sure will land on me saying "Well mine just crashed yesterday! Okay, it was 3.1 running on a toaster oven, but still!"
It's amazing how all the so-called Microsoft tactics at which Slashdotties have expressed such theatrical shock get trotted out when they're doing the fighting.
Sorry to interrupt, please go back to your holy war. . .
I think people must really search out opportunities to fully apply their half-wisdom to being total dicks.
If you'll re-read his post he was not looking for scientific or medical advice, he was looking for experiences and suggestions, something which an online community, even one as apparently harsh and more than occasionally dimwitted and arrogant as Slashdot is good at providing.
As for relevance, I think this falls well within "Stuff that matters." Oh wait, it doesn't matter to you? Then I take that back, let's delete it in favor of another story about someone who designed a "Tribute To Vi" casemod.