Hey, we've been reading/. for 10 years with grossly misspelled article descriptions, broken links and dupes-a-plenty, don't go telling us what we should be having.
Next thing you'll start complaining about not being able to edit your posts.
Oh, boy. You've set yourself up for the thrashing of a lifetime. You're going to be called racist, sexist, speciesist, planetist, dimensionist, and any other kind of -ist they can think of.
Of course, no one will be able to dispute most of your points. I would say that there is no lack of the Republicans deliberately campaigning in a way to attract ignorant voters as well, but it will never beat out the Democrats' long-term policy of campaigning (and legislating) based on bald-faced bribery of constituents and class envy.
The last laugh would be if the Democrats got their way and the immigrants were rioting in the streets because the economy was screwed because there was no incentive to invest or create, and of course everything was going to entitlements anyway. Of course, then we all lose.
Either way, though our country has been sold out from under us. Both parties want to turn it over to the illegals, albeit for different reasons, but regardless, some day China is going to call in their chit and then we will be the new Taiwan. They can buy and sell our ass. Oh, and then the expontentially-expanding entitlement programs will get to the sharp point of the curve. Neither party is willing to take a stand on any of these issues, and one day, they will make the War on Terrorism look like the Good Old Days.
I mean, I've never heard of soldiers being quartered in anyone's home, but barring that everything in the Bill of Rights is violated pretty regularly.
Well, OK, if you accept that the Federal power of regulating interstate commerce means Federal power to regulate anything related to anything that could possibly or even hypothetically be commerce that is not constrained to a single state or is potentially not constrained to a single state, then maybe, just maybe the 10th Amendment is intact.
The Constitution is a nice idea, but we gave that up years ago.
What's happening in my neurons is [directly... or is it indirectly? What is the difference? (There is none!)] related to what is happening on Venus, at this very "moment". Not to mention other planets, solar systems, star systems, galaxies.
My AI project failed because it was a Taurus, and Tauruses are stubborn and uncommunicative. Next time I'll start in winter.
There's a simple test for this. Take a book written from a hundred years ago. Most of the time you will see far more complex use of language, with extensive use of appositives and panrentheticals, that actually can take much effort to parse, leave alone comprehend. Now being hard to read doesn't necessarily make something better, and maybe we are just better at communicating clearly, but I have found the these older texts often are really that much better. Compare "The Wind in the Willows" or even "Winnie the Pooh" to anything written for kids in the last 50 years... I think our use of language is deteriorating significantly. Compare the speeches of Presidents Bush or Clinton to those of, say, Churchill or Lincoln. You will find that even when modern speeches are succinct and inspiring, as some of Bush's have been, or long and detailed, as most of Clinton's were, that the eloquence and beauty of orations from past generations simply do not exist any more.
The very existence of widespread grammar and spelling errors (e.g., loose/lose, would of/would have, pluralizing with apostrophes) demonstrates to me that most people don't read very much if at all. Now good spelling is not always correlated with being well-read (one of the smartest and most well-read people, more well-read than I, that I know is a horrible speller), but when I see people claiming that they get all the useful information they need from sites like Digg or/., I can only conclude that those kinds of people are doomed to communicate at a highly illiterate level in perpetuity. Even if you were to read extensively from common magazines and newspapers, you will not be exposed to anything more than a very fundamental (read: 6th grade) level of proficiency with the language.
I've been recently reading a book of lectures given by Max Planck in the early 1900's. While the scientific content the first couple lectures isn't above anything a typical high-schooler could (or should) be able to understand, I found the level of sophistication of his language to be surprisingly high, and yet I get the feeling that this was typical in that context for 100 years ago. Maybe we are just better at speaking succinctly... I think that is in some part true... but mostly I think we are simply losing our ability to express ourselves as well as our forefathers, that we lack much of their skill to communicate nuance and abstraction.
A good recent example is the Pope's speech that caused such a stir. Now plenty of folks use any excuse imaginable to attack the Pope, and I doubt few if any of the people reacting with anger or violence even read (or even _could_ read) His Holiness' speech in its context and entirety. However, I cannot imagine that anyone with the capacity and will to actually understand what was said would respond with any criticism the like of which we've heard over the past few weeks. I found myself wishing for a thorough grounding in philosophy because I knew I was missing many of the implications of the Holy Father's words. My degree in Computer Science has done almost nothing to prepare me to consider the significance of Hellenistic thought and its relation and importance to modern faith.
Does it matter? It should, but public perception, as ignorant as it may be, ends up having a much stronger effect regardless of whether it is based on fact or not, and those people, civic, religious leaders or anyone with an opinion, who have something nontrivial to say will suffer, as do we all, from a society that is indifferent, or even hostile, to in-depth communication or a use of language beyond that of a small child.
You may have noticed that His Holiness expressed his sorrow for how his speech was received, not what he said. Far from being the usual weaselly apology of a politician who is only sorry he was caught, Pope Benedict correctly expressed the fact that the people who were angry did not, in fact, understand what he was trying to say. Could he have prevented this misunderstanding? Probably, but
It also mentioned a bunch of stuff he did after 1982 that I don't remember
You don't remember when he joined his older brothers at the super BeeGee's reunion at Live Aid in '85?! I admit the Beatles' reunion kind of overshadowed it, but they were talking of making a record with all 4 Gibbs brothers (remember, Andy was actually never a member of the group) shortly before he passed away.
You don't remember him campaigning for Dukakis' second term, when he adopted his song title "I Just Want To Be Your Everything" for his successful re-election campaign in 1988. Gibb performed live at a lot of Dukakis' rallies. Of course, a lot of folks think VP Ted Kennedy choking to death on his own vomit in '87 clinched it for Dukakis, he brought the President's approval ratings way down when it was revealed that Natalie Wood had been riding with Kennedy in 1981, the night she drowned. You don't remember the "Duke/Puke" parody campaign signs? I still have one in the basement somewhere. What about Kennedy appearing on Saturday Night Live in 1986 with the "Vice" President sketch? You don't remember when NBC blacked out about 15 seconds of the show when Bernadette Peters had the _original_ wardrobe malfunction? They just released the entire uncut version on DVD last year.
Your term "bran power" does a pretty good job of explaining MS's output. They have a lot of "bran power" which is why they can squeeze out so much Office regularly.
Nor have they ever "planned" anything. More likely some VP will wake up one morning and decide it needs to happen and everyone goes into Deathmarch mode until something that works just enough to ket the marketing types spin creative 4-color glossies without the FTC getting involved.
Of course they are voluntary, but since the recording industry has colluded to create a situation where they control distribution, marketing and promotion, you can either accept bad terms or remain in obscurity forever. After all, independent artists don't have the wherewithal to buy placement on the radio (i.e., "payola"), which has been rampant for over 50 years (although from my understanding, it was much better in the 70's and 80's when radio tended towards a true meritocracy, letting popularlity drive programming and not the other way around). However, with the huge media consolidation of the past 20 years or so, the market has become controlled bby a very small number of firms wielding almost monopolistic power. Thus, until fairly recently you could either sell out or starve.
Fortunately, in the past several years it is becoming more and more possible to avoid the Big Record Companies and still get some recognition (i.e., sales) because there are so many avenues, largely ones facilitated by the Internet, to promote oneself and spread the word. In addition, the Internet also provides the means for distribution as well. Any artist can, for the price of a modest computer, an Internet connection and reasonably inexpensive recording equipment... and a little fire in the belly... can record, produce, distribute and promote his own music with no help from the big companies. While this won't get your song on Top 40 radio stations, it doesn't cost more than the average person can afford, and does not require the artist to relinquish his rights in any way.
Microsoft doesn't care about anyone buying Vista... how could they? They have nothing to offer. Their sole plan must simply be to count on the millions of PC's sold with Vista pre-installed. The masses get Vista and think it's good and Microsoft's monopoly is assured for another few years.
People like you and me, who would never buy Vista, never enter into the equation.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't work for the parties either, but so many people are willing to accept that argument because of the double standard they hold.
Come on, you know RFK, Jr. is on the up-and-up. How could you not trust a guy who always looks and sounds like he's about to cry?!
Hey, we've been reading /. for 10 years with grossly misspelled article descriptions, broken links and dupes-a-plenty, don't go telling us what we should be having.
Next thing you'll start complaining about not being able to edit your posts.
What if they called it Elf Grass?
Ooooooh Kaaaaay!
* steps slowly away from the table *
Oh, boy. You've set yourself up for the thrashing of a lifetime. You're going to be called racist, sexist, speciesist, planetist, dimensionist, and any other kind of -ist they can think of.
Of course, no one will be able to dispute most of your points. I would say that there is no lack of the Republicans deliberately campaigning in a way to attract ignorant voters as well, but it will never beat out the Democrats' long-term policy of campaigning (and legislating) based on bald-faced bribery of constituents and class envy.
The last laugh would be if the Democrats got their way and the immigrants were rioting in the streets because the economy was screwed because there was no incentive to invest or create, and of course everything was going to entitlements anyway. Of course, then we all lose.
Either way, though our country has been sold out from under us. Both parties want to turn it over to the illegals, albeit for different reasons, but regardless, some day China is going to call in their chit and then we will be the new Taiwan. They can buy and sell our ass. Oh, and then the expontentially-expanding entitlement programs will get to the sharp point of the curve. Neither party is willing to take a stand on any of these issues, and one day, they will make the War on Terrorism look like the Good Old Days.
Most importantly, it will hopefully lead to the invention of the holodeck. :-)
You are talking about the U.S., right?
I mean, I've never heard of soldiers being quartered in anyone's home, but barring that everything in the Bill of Rights is violated pretty regularly.
Well, OK, if you accept that the Federal power of regulating interstate commerce means Federal power to regulate anything related to anything that could possibly or even hypothetically be commerce that is not constrained to a single state or is potentially not constrained to a single state, then maybe, just maybe the 10th Amendment is intact.
The Constitution is a nice idea, but we gave that up years ago.
Yeah, but I'm also worried about those folks who worship Lopola, Noid, Bianus, and especially Sire.
Silly people, don't they know Cress Jutish is Lord?!
(Does that joke mean I need to go to "Nonce Of Sis"?)
OK, he would _want_ to punch you.
The idea is: My boss (or husband/wife/parent/child) might be a jerk, but you as an outsider shouldn't criticize him or her.
That's all I was trying to say.
This was akin to telling the average private in Iraq that "Donald Rumsfeld is an idiot".
You know what I'd expect? I would expect he'd agree with you, and still punch you in the face.
That's the way we are.
Power of suggestion?
/.? Or in my case, children?
The fact that it was a very minor event (for most people) that happened almost 20 years ago?
Brain rot caused by too much
Yeah, he regretted what he did, and confessed his sin to Dog.
What's happening in my neurons is [directly... or is it indirectly? What is the difference? (There is none!)] related to what is happening on Venus, at this very "moment". Not to mention other planets, solar systems, star systems, galaxies.
My AI project failed because it was a Taurus, and Tauruses are stubborn and uncommunicative. Next time I'll start in winter.
I tried to open it from the kata side and ended up an hour before I bought the yogurt.
That's it, I'm sticking with ice cream.
There's a simple test for this. Take a book written from a hundred years ago. Most of the time you will see far more complex use of language, with extensive use of appositives and panrentheticals, that actually can take much effort to parse, leave alone comprehend. Now being hard to read doesn't necessarily make something better, and maybe we are just better at communicating clearly, but I have found the these older texts often are really that much better. Compare "The Wind in the Willows" or even "Winnie the Pooh" to anything written for kids in the last 50 years... I think our use of language is deteriorating significantly. Compare the speeches of Presidents Bush or Clinton to those of, say, Churchill or Lincoln. You will find that even when modern speeches are succinct and inspiring, as some of Bush's have been, or long and detailed, as most of Clinton's were, that the eloquence and beauty of orations from past generations simply do not exist any more.
/., I can only conclude that those kinds of people are doomed to communicate at a highly illiterate level in perpetuity. Even if you were to read extensively from common magazines and newspapers, you will not be exposed to anything more than a very fundamental (read: 6th grade) level of proficiency with the language.
The very existence of widespread grammar and spelling errors (e.g., loose/lose, would of/would have, pluralizing with apostrophes) demonstrates to me that most people don't read very much if at all. Now good spelling is not always correlated with being well-read (one of the smartest and most well-read people, more well-read than I, that I know is a horrible speller), but when I see people claiming that they get all the useful information they need from sites like Digg or
I've been recently reading a book of lectures given by Max Planck in the early 1900's. While the scientific content the first couple lectures isn't above anything a typical high-schooler could (or should) be able to understand, I found the level of sophistication of his language to be surprisingly high, and yet I get the feeling that this was typical in that context for 100 years ago. Maybe we are just better at speaking succinctly... I think that is in some part true... but mostly I think we are simply losing our ability to express ourselves as well as our forefathers, that we lack much of their skill to communicate nuance and abstraction.
A good recent example is the Pope's speech that caused such a stir. Now plenty of folks use any excuse imaginable to attack the Pope, and I doubt few if any of the people reacting with anger or violence even read (or even _could_ read) His Holiness' speech in its context and entirety. However, I cannot imagine that anyone with the capacity and will to actually understand what was said would respond with any criticism the like of which we've heard over the past few weeks. I found myself wishing for a thorough grounding in philosophy because I knew I was missing many of the implications of the Holy Father's words. My degree in Computer Science has done almost nothing to prepare me to consider the significance of Hellenistic thought and its relation and importance to modern faith.
Does it matter? It should, but public perception, as ignorant as it may be, ends up having a much stronger effect regardless of whether it is based on fact or not, and those people, civic, religious leaders or anyone with an opinion, who have something nontrivial to say will suffer, as do we all, from a society that is indifferent, or even hostile, to in-depth communication or a use of language beyond that of a small child.
You may have noticed that His Holiness expressed his sorrow for how his speech was received, not what he said. Far from being the usual weaselly apology of a politician who is only sorry he was caught, Pope Benedict correctly expressed the fact that the people who were angry did not, in fact, understand what he was trying to say. Could he have prevented this misunderstanding? Probably, but
Are you sure you were typing into Excel?
Thank you, sir (madam?).
;-)
I have to admit, I cheated a bit and used Wikipedia to find out things like when Live Aid actually happened.
If I've impressed one person than all that time I wasted was put to good use.
It also mentioned a bunch of stuff he did after 1982 that I don't remember
You don't remember when he joined his older brothers at the super BeeGee's reunion at Live Aid in '85?! I admit the Beatles' reunion kind of overshadowed it, but they were talking of making a record with all 4 Gibbs brothers (remember, Andy was actually never a member of the group) shortly before he passed away.
You don't remember him campaigning for Dukakis' second term, when he adopted his song title "I Just Want To Be Your Everything" for his successful re-election campaign in 1988. Gibb performed live at a lot of Dukakis' rallies. Of course, a lot of folks think VP Ted Kennedy choking to death on his own vomit in '87 clinched it for Dukakis, he brought the President's approval ratings way down when it was revealed that Natalie Wood had been riding with Kennedy in 1981, the night she drowned. You don't remember the "Duke/Puke" parody campaign signs? I still have one in the basement somewhere. What about Kennedy appearing on Saturday Night Live in 1986 with the "Vice" President sketch? You don't remember when NBC blacked out about 15 seconds of the show when Bernadette Peters had the _original_ wardrobe malfunction? They just released the entire uncut version on DVD last year.
You don't remember any of this?
Wow.
No, that was just a typo. To get what everyone else has, you need to get to adulthood without ever reading a book.
Your term "bran power" does a pretty good job of explaining MS's output. They have a lot of "bran power" which is why they can squeeze out so much Office regularly.
Nor have they ever "planned" anything. More likely some VP will wake up one morning and decide it needs to happen and everyone goes into Deathmarch mode until something that works just enough to ket the marketing types spin creative 4-color glossies without the FTC getting involved.
Of course they are voluntary, but since the recording industry has colluded to create a situation where they control distribution, marketing and promotion, you can either accept bad terms or remain in obscurity forever. After all, independent artists don't have the wherewithal to buy placement on the radio (i.e., "payola"), which has been rampant for over 50 years (although from my understanding, it was much better in the 70's and 80's when radio tended towards a true meritocracy, letting popularlity drive programming and not the other way around). However, with the huge media consolidation of the past 20 years or so, the market has become controlled bby a very small number of firms wielding almost monopolistic power. Thus, until fairly recently you could either sell out or starve.
Fortunately, in the past several years it is becoming more and more possible to avoid the Big Record Companies and still get some recognition (i.e., sales) because there are so many avenues, largely ones facilitated by the Internet, to promote oneself and spread the word. In addition, the Internet also provides the means for distribution as well. Any artist can, for the price of a modest computer, an Internet connection and reasonably inexpensive recording equipment... and a little fire in the belly... can record, produce, distribute and promote his own music with no help from the big companies. While this won't get your song on Top 40 radio stations, it doesn't cost more than the average person can afford, and does not require the artist to relinquish his rights in any way.
Yeah, raping the rights of the artists is what the RIAA companies do.
Microsoft doesn't care about anyone buying Vista... how could they? They have nothing to offer. Their sole plan must simply be to count on the millions of PC's sold with Vista pre-installed. The masses get Vista and think it's good and Microsoft's monopoly is assured for another few years.
People like you and me, who would never buy Vista, never enter into the equation.