Get real. Some of us actually know what is going on. You obviously are not a geek and have never been treated this way. Go away poser. Argue on some "normal" page.
A great number of people out there seem to think this is some great tragedy. Well I'm sorry to say that it has almost no importance to modern society and history, and the same goes for the ones who died. Let me point out some pressing issues. Hitler didnt play video games like Doom, DoomII or Quake 1,2,3 or Tribes. (All of which I play) Stalin had no knowledge of either violent TV or D&D and yet the two of these guys managed to massacre upwards of 35 million people. They also were brilliant politicians and leaders of their time (nutty, yes...but very smart). If anybody can possibly say that these media inpots caused this they are missing the whole point. I believe and know that the aggrandizing of the "poor victims" who were part of the group of people who harrassed and taunted the two "shooters" (as if they no longer have the right to names since they are now infamous "perps")is clearly wrong. These people at this high school created the environment that bred this incident. They must accept responsibility for causing this and try to change the way all of is nerds, geeks, and loosers are treated. Somone once said the the level of enlightenment of a society is judged by how the most fringe members are treated. This would mean that our society is heading toward a fascist police state. This incident is a wake up call (dialed collect. We should just be thankful that the really smart kids dont do this kind of thing on a regular basis because it would be Hitler and Stalin all over again. Also, I was one of these kids, and I'll be fucked if I'm going to shut my mouth and take one more second of this crap from society pinning all the problems on the fringe, MY finge. If they dont do something to start opening the door to all of us this will happen lots more than it has. I will also obligitorily refuse to hedge any of my statements with things like: "of course I dont condone violence", "what they did was wrong" and all other moralizing crap. I will speak my mind and not have to qualify it to please the school board, or the parents, or the media. I will say this once, I am the fringe, I live on the edges, I like it here, If you dont understand that, fine but dont harass me for being different. I will play games, I will dress how I like, I will listen to the music I like, and if you kick me enough I will defend myself. Peace to the parents of the two "shooters" and I hope that one day they can learn to go on after their losses. As for the rest of the hype, oppression, and harassment of our kind that will come of this: the harder you are on us the longer you will have to look over your shoulders for the few who are willing to commit violations like this. My sympathy is gone since I am the victim of brutal beatings, psychological and emotional rape, and marginalization at the hands of the "jocks", successful, good-looking, "NORMAL" members of society. They never gave me any sympathy after beating me, only a good spit in the face.
It is an excellent book... I read it just to look intelligent, and didn't understand a shitload (read it in 11th grade) but the stuff I DID get blew me away (I particularly liked the conversations between Achilles and the Tortoise... like the phonograph...)
I am really grateful that you posted this article today. Reading the emails from those school kids who are being persecuted on a daily basis made me almost cry as I have been in that same situation. I can tell you now, anyone who might be reading this, that those things never leave you. I have been out of school for over 10 years. And to this day I look back on the things that happened to me with a feeling of hatred, anger and helplessness. Something like this can change the way a person is forever. I will never feel like I fit in. I will always be paranoid. I will always feel persecuted. And no amount of counselling can change that.
The thing that really made me sick was how these poor people are now being treated now. As if what they've been through is not bad enough, they're being intimidated even more now.
The problem, as has been very well pointed out by a previous respondent, is the American media and social attitude. This is a country where values are based on selfishness, revenge and blame. It is very obvious that with values like these, no progress will ever be made until things change.
What needs to be changed is the attitude of parents of the "popular" kids, who are driving people like ourselves to the brink of insanity. If they knew what their children were doing to others and empathised with the other side, they wouldn't be happy about it. The problem is that most people here are incapable of seeing the other side of the arguement and incapable of putting themselves in someone else's place. This is why things like the death penalty still exist in this country. This is why this intimidation occurs ona daily basis.
I hope someone of importance knows of this article and takes the time to read it and the responses so that the correct word gets to people, not one of blame, revenge and scapegoating.
We're the ones who make the world happen. You are just along for the ride. You may make more money, but you are an accident of fate. If every jock died today, the world would keep going, technology would advance, and so on. But if every geek died, the world as you know it would end. You'd be living like a caveman in a few weeks.
good god man. The media, followed by the hapless mob that is America, has successfully framed all forms of nerd subculture for this incident. In the past two days I have lost two trenchcoats to the blinded fury of my parents. Plus, in a well-thought-out-maneuver they ripped up my acceptance letter to an ivy league school after I tried to wear a trenchcoat (as I have for 2 years) out of the house, "How do you expect to expect to succeed at all in life doing stupid things like this [wearing a coat]" Wow, good thing they did what they did too! Now all the murderous anger that coat put into my blood has been replaced by a serene feeling that can only come after the positive results of 18 years of hard work have been ripped up in front of your face. (note sarcasm)
Keep in mind that this thread is about intolerance and abuse of people who are or behave differently from the "norm". The two responses to "Sharkeys-Day"'s post that I've read so far both included just the sort of assumptions and attacks on religion that geeks are suffering on other topics.
Religion and science are not mutually exclusive.
Every healthy individual should have a dose of each. For many of us geeky types that typically means more science than religion but to each his own. One without the other is sheer folly. What good is technology without some sort of moral code that you use to evaluate it's worth with? Morals, often embodied by religion, are what make us different from every other species on the planet and we should cherish that, not ridicule or fear it.
As with all aspects of the media only the edges of any group are ever reported. They are the most "interesting". As a result religion often gets a bad name, especially with respect to it's relationship with science. Assuming that anyone who mentions religion or alternatives to "scientific" teachings is automatically discarding anything scientific and using holy water to short out computers in the local library is, well, stupid.
I'm agnostic, I don't know what to believe with respect to religion but I firmly believe that we have the right to believe what we want, right up until we start harming others with our beliefs.
like it or not, we eradicated the indian nations. we are now as close as it gets to natives. and anyway, I won't consider myself a second class citizen if my great granparents lived in europe.
Is it just me (and the girl I'm dating) that see the connection of the Colorado High School event and the late 80's movie "Heathers?" If you've seen it (its got Winona Ryder *drool* and Christian Slater), does the analogy make sense to you too? If not, go rent the movie and think about this satire on high school life.
In talking with todays teens, it seems that high school is a hot bed of hatred all of the way around. Everyone seems to have their own secret 'fetish' that excludes them from the main circles - the main circles that consist of other teens with their own fetishes in common. And, if you don't subscribe to their fetish then they make you an outcast, an outsider. I can fully understand the shooters being tired of being outcasts, but they chose the wrong way to deal with it. -= Jim =-
Locality. Yep, that's it in a nut shell. One of the bigest legal headaches on the internet today is jurisdiction.
Stop and think about it. We can't even get any kind of agreement from different nation states on the subject of sexually explicet material on the internet, and where supposed to believe that legal professionals from around the world are going to have any more luck on the subject of copyright?
No way. It's a nice idea on paper, but my inate sense og cynicism makes me doubt that this will ever get of the ground.
That's right this is the "Greatest Country in The World" if it were not for my country and the sacrifices made by my great grandfather's peers you'd be speaking German right now.
Once upon a time, I was the most powerful kid in my high school.
I went to something called a "magnet" school, which gathered up these "gifted" kids from the suburbs and bused them to an inner-city school to give them more "opportunities." Most of the base students didn't get those same opportunities, which caused a lot of racial conflict while I attended there.
When I first entered high school, I was pretty much a nobody. I didn't act like the other kids, so that made me an easy target for bullies. None of the teachers knew me very well, and few of them really wanted to. I got into trouble a little too easily, getting coerced into conflicts that always turned me into the bad guy. I had a lot of crying spells my freshman year. I came close to suicide at least twice.
My parents were worried about my lack of socialization with other kids in my classes, not to mention my sudden infatuation with rap music. Being spurned by my "peers," I hung out with the predominantly black base students quite a bit, and back in the late 1980s, Public Enemy was considered dangerous. So Mom & Dad decided to take a more active role in my schooling, not by cutting me off from the things I liked, but recognizing my talents and helping me use them.
For example, they knew I enjoyed spectator sports, something my grandfather instilled in me as an elementary schooler. Even though I clearly wasn't very athletic, I still read Sports Illustrated religiously. So they steered me toward the school paper. Occasionally, even the geeks ganged up on me there, but after a while, they accepted that I was a competent writer, and by my senior year, I had my own back-page column.
During my senior year, while covering the men's basketball team, I discovered something distressing -- at our home games, fans from the opposing school outnumbered our fans 5-to-1, and the few fans we had that actually cheered were often stifled by others. After seeing this over the course of several games, I wrote scathing column that lashed out at the school's clear lack of fan support. I called everyone out for assuming that because our teams never were very good, they never would be, so they never bothered. That column came out the day of our first conference game.
That night, the house was packed. Every group was represented that night -- the populars, the jocks, the nerds, the fashionables, all cutting across every race you could imagine. A lot of people I knew told me they came out because of my column. The grin remained plastered on my face the entire night. The next Monday, one of the players thanked me for writing that column.
And we lost the game, 98-53.
Of course, that wasn't the point. The point was that this little nobody lost in a sea of 3,000 managed to shake that entire school to its foundation with nothing more than a few hundred words. I made a difference, and for everyone like me who gets that sort of opportunity, there are MILLIONS of kids who don't. Because their parents don't care enough to find out their kids talents and steer them the right way. Because teachers and administrators can't be bothered to find out why these kids are different. Because most kids are cruel, and some LIKE being cruel, and nobody tells them how wrong this is.
These are the reasons that Littleton happened. It has nothing to do with gun control laws, black trenchcoats, the Internet, or Marilyn Manson. It's because everyone is afraid of something they don't take the time to understand, and what good is traditional media if it can't spread fear, justly or otherwise?
Yoda may be a goofy little moppet to some, but he has a point: "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." Fear, anger and hate were all prevalent at Columbine High, and it's probably prevalent at thousands of other high schools across the country -- perhaps even moreso now, as adults' knee-jerk reactions to media coverage of this tragedy is leading to an Orwellian shakedown of all things deemed "abnormal" in schools. Students that are already ridiculed their peers are now getting similar treatment from the adults that are supposed to be teaching them. What do they think these kids are learning from this?
If lawsuit-weary schools allow this shakedown to continue, what happened at Columbine High will happen again, and it will keep happening in greater numbers until everyone -- parents, teachers, jocks, nerds, etc. -- stops looking for scapegoats and starts looking in the mirror. Until we reach out to those kids we have ostracized for so long, we are all to blame.
I know this isn't really the place, *but* I get greatly annoyed by the "in your face" attitudes of straight edge'ers and vegans.
They often are outcasts by choice. Who wants to listen to "You're not going to eat that are you? Do you know what an industrial chicken farm smells like? WHAT DO YOU MEAN you're going to have some veal? I don't want your fscking cigarette, they're killing you."
Geeks, nerds, et al are on the outside because of the attitudes and prejudices of others.
If God didn't want me to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat.
First off, I am 19 and graduated and used to live in Southwest Louisiana. This area is known to have some of the worst schools in the US. I have always been fairly bright and was always labeled as a "geek" or "nerd" or "dork". What made this even worse was that SW Louisiana is a very low tech area and therefore I had absolutely no friends that shared the same interests as me. In fact I had no friends at all. At best people I didn't even know would laugh and snicker at me behind my back. At worst (and this is most people) they would physically and verbally abuse me. I contemplated suicide many times but my parents were quite caring and understanding and were really my only friends in life and this is the only reason that I am alive to tell about it. I went through elementary and middle school like this. Luckily my family moved to Austin Texas after 9th grade. I say luckily because the people here in Austin are much nicer and there are actually others like me here. Looking back at my elementary and middle school years I can't believe I actually survived even the physical abuse I recieved let alone the emotional abuse that caused me to contemplate suicide so many times. My parents are always telling me how level headed and mentally stable I am and I can definately see how anyone who has the slightest bit of mental unstability such as the kids in Colorado can go completely crazy and shoot anyone and everyone who has done anything against them.
Well anyway.... I'm graduated from High School now and live a much happier life although I still have emotional scars that probably will never disappear but don't we all;-) I still visit that area of Louisiana sometimes and I can still see the same mentality that was there when I left. I see it in the driving and the everyday goings on. There is a lot of gossip and backstabbing and stuff that goes on there and I thank God that I don't live there anymore.
I've been quietly listening to the thousands of posts over the past week or so, and have really begun to question where I fit into this. You might say that I'm the exception. Like anyone else who reads/. I spend most of my life in front of a computer. I get home from school between noon and two and then I either hack at some program or "surf" the internet until two or three in the morning. Yet when I get to school it all disappears. It is well known that I'm bright but when it comes to my very anti-social behavior people are surprised. In fact, at school I'm considered one of the popular ones (please note that I'm not vain I just want to use myself as an example). I'm even an acquaintance with the captain of the football team (acquaintance meaning we speak inside and outside of class). Yes, that's a jock. And jocks hate us, right? It appears as if there is no connection between my lifestyle inside and outside of school.
Also I'm the product of a broken home (actually it's more like a demolished home). I've moved eight times in my life seeing eight different schools and I've also had three fathers and on father-to-be. The one thing really positive that I can say about my upbringing is that my family was always very loving (I consider this the main reason why I'm the way I am).
So instead of patting myself of the back I wonder what happened. If my lifestyle was supposed to condemn me to an unhappy life and make me the target of endless ridicule, what went wrong? Or maybe this is not it. Maybe the true problems lie elsewhere. The media has targeted all these superficial attributes, not realizing that the problem is not that simple. Basically, the way one leads their life is merely a reflection of their experiences not the determining factor of their actions.
I admit that when I first tried to read it I didn't understand whole chapters. I did like the conversations though....and yes, I changed my major and wrote a college honors thesis based on his framework and his bibliography. His metamagical themas is less technical and for me...much more accessible as a non quant.
Don't bother with multi media...just seeek out all the sources yourself.
I wore a black trenchcoat from the time I was 15 until 2 years after I graduated. Even in the summer time. I liked the coat, and I didn't care about other peoples' fashion sense.
I took shit from people then, and I gave people shit. It was just the way things were. People stopped giving me shit when I was in jr. high. I'd take on guys twice my size, sometimes I'd lose, but sometimes I'd win. It was those victories that made the "cool" people leave me alone. After all how cool can you be if you get beaten up by one of the "nerds"?
My advice to any kid who is in the position that I was is this. Take crap from nobody. Walk away if you can, but running away will only make it worse.
Do what you must to make it through each day, but never let them win.
All of these new knee-jerk rules, regulations and mandatory therepy sessions are not about making schools or the country safer. They are about doing two things. The first of which is to passify the dimwitted unwashed masses. In the wake of this horrible event people are understandably upset. This sends the messages that our school adminitrators are "doing something" about the percieved problem. This will keep politicians comfortably getting a paycheck without doing and real work.
The other focus, the main focus in IMHO is that they take the "misfits" or non-traditional thinkers as I call them, and pound into them the idea that those who are in "authority" can do whateve rthey want to you, that they can make any rule that they want, regardless of if it makes sense or not, and there is NOTHING that you can do about it so you'd better accept it.
It was non-traditional thinkers who've changed our world. Columbus (even though wrong about where he landed) believed that the world was not flat like his peers did. Galileo was threatened with death if he didn't stop preaching that the Earth was NOT the center of God's Universe. Those of us who think differently have always had to face adversity. Now the answer is save us from that adversity by bait 'n tackling or betty crockering us into conformity. If we refuse to conform, we must be dangerous because all rational people want to "fit in".
Even though I know it will never happen, but we should stand up and make ourselves be noticed. The homosexual rights community made great advances because of groups like "act up" and "Queer Nation". For Black people groups like the Black Panther Party brought their problems to the front pages of the nations news papers.
What could we do? I guess we're not as intimidating to the masses as black leather jackets, afros, berets and shotguns.
Before you argue that these hapless PC manufacturers are just responding to market demand, think again (if, in fact, you think at all). With a stroke of a pen, Microsoft could crush Dell, or Compaq or Gateway. How? By raising the rate it charges each company for Windows. You wanna ship Linux? Fine, you lose your sweet deal on your volume Windows license. These companies have margins so tight that a few dollars difference in license fees could spell their death.
Compaq steps out of line and invests in RedHat and (surprise surprise) its profits drop like a rock. Wall Street conveniently blames Compaq's corporate acquisitions. Meanwhile, Dell is so deep in with Microsoft, you can't even order a Dell with Netscape on it, no matter how nicely you ask. Tip: buy Dell stock now. Sell it when Linux starts beating NT in corporate use surveys (notice I didn't say "if").
I guess you will have to sell your DELL stock quickly then:
http://linuxtoday.com/stories/5371.html
"Dell Computer Corporation, today announced it plans to factory-install the new Red Hat Linux 6.0 operating system on select, "Red-Hat Ready" certified configurations of its PowerEdge(R) servers, Dell Precision(tm) WorkStations and OptiPlex(R) business desktop computers."
If a man who had constantly abused and beaten his wife over a few years was killed by his wife who would you feel sympathy for?
Who is in the right when a whole school seems to turn against you? When teachers ignore each incident. How easy is it to ignore people hitting you? How else can one survive in such a situation except by becoming more introverted, and harbouring an ever building resentment? And if guns are available, is there not a temptation to 'teach these people a lesson'?
I doubt if you can legislate against unpopularity, but you can legislate against bullying and for much stricter gun-control. Unfortunately, more killings will occur, because people prefer to blame red herrings like Doom, Marylin Manson and the internet instead of confronting the real issues.
Slashdot Mirror
Posted by Pestlence:
Get real. Some of us actually know what is going on. You obviously are not a geek and have never been treated this way. Go away poser. Argue on some "normal" page.
Posted by Pestlence:
A great number of people out there seem to think this is some great tragedy. Well I'm sorry to say that it has almost no importance to modern society and history, and the same goes for the ones who died. Let me point out some pressing issues. Hitler didnt play video games like Doom, DoomII or Quake 1,2,3 or Tribes. (All of which I play) Stalin had no knowledge of either violent TV or D&D and yet the two of these guys managed to massacre upwards of 35 million people. They also were brilliant politicians and leaders of their time (nutty, yes...but very smart). If anybody can possibly say that these media inpots caused this they are missing the whole point. I believe and know that the aggrandizing of the "poor victims" who were part of the group of people who harrassed and taunted the two "shooters" (as if they no longer have the right to names since they are now infamous "perps")is clearly wrong. These people at this high school created the environment that bred this incident. They must accept responsibility for causing this and try to change the way all of is nerds, geeks, and loosers are treated. Somone once said the the level of enlightenment of a society is judged by how the most fringe members are treated. This would mean that our society is heading toward a fascist police state. This incident is a wake up call (dialed collect. We should just be thankful that the really smart kids dont do this kind of thing on a regular basis because it would be Hitler and Stalin all over again. Also, I was one of these kids, and I'll be fucked if I'm going to shut my mouth and take one more second of this crap from society pinning all the problems on the fringe, MY finge. If they dont do something to start opening the door to all of us this will happen lots more than it has. I will also obligitorily refuse to hedge any of my statements with things like: "of course I dont condone violence", "what they did was wrong" and all other moralizing crap. I will speak my mind and not have to qualify it to please the school board, or the parents, or the media. I will say this once, I am the fringe, I live on the edges, I like it here, If you dont understand that, fine but dont harass me for being different. I will play games, I will dress how I like, I will listen to the music I like, and if you kick me enough I will defend myself. Peace to the parents of the two "shooters" and I hope that one day they can learn to go on after their losses. As for the rest of the hype, oppression, and harassment of our kind that will come of this: the harder you are on us the longer you will have to look over your shoulders for the few who are willing to commit violations like this. My sympathy is gone since I am the victim of brutal beatings, psychological and emotional rape, and marginalization at the hands of the "jocks", successful, good-looking, "NORMAL" members of society. They never gave me any sympathy after beating me, only a good spit in the face.
rasa ipsa loquitor
Pestilence
Posted by Evil Nick:
It is an excellent book... I read it just to look intelligent, and didn't understand a shitload (read it in 11th grade) but the stuff I DID get blew me away (I particularly liked the conversations between Achilles and the Tortoise... like the phonograph...)
Posted by rozetta:
I am really grateful that you posted this article today. Reading the emails from those school kids who are being persecuted on a daily basis made me almost cry as I have been in that same situation. I can tell you now, anyone who might be reading this, that those things never leave you. I have been out of school for over 10 years. And to this day I look back on the things that happened to me with a feeling of hatred, anger and helplessness. Something like this can change the way a person is forever. I will never feel like I fit in. I will always be paranoid. I will always feel persecuted. And no amount of counselling can change that.
The thing that really made me sick was how these poor people are now being treated now. As if what they've been through is not bad enough, they're being intimidated even more now.
The problem, as has been very well pointed out by a previous respondent, is the American media and social attitude. This is a country where values are based on selfishness, revenge and blame. It is very obvious that with values like these, no progress will ever be made until things change.
What needs to be changed is the attitude of parents of the "popular" kids, who are driving people like ourselves to the brink of insanity. If they knew what their children were doing to others and empathised with the other side, they wouldn't be happy about it. The problem is that most people here are incapable of seeing the other side of the arguement and incapable of putting themselves in someone else's place. This is why things like the death penalty still exist in this country. This is why this intimidation occurs ona daily basis.
I hope someone of importance knows of this article and takes the time to read it and the responses so that the correct word gets to people, not one of blame, revenge and scapegoating.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
We're the ones who make the world happen. You are just along for the ride. You may make more money, but you are an accident of fate. If every jock died today, the world would keep going, technology would advance, and so on. But if every geek died, the world as you know it would end. You'd be living like a caveman in a few weeks.
Posted by Radjan Spirit:
good god man. The media, followed by the hapless mob that is America, has successfully framed all forms of nerd subculture for this incident. In the past two days I have lost two trenchcoats to the blinded fury of my parents. Plus, in a well-thought-out-maneuver they ripped up my acceptance letter to an ivy league school after I tried to wear a trenchcoat (as I have for 2 years) out of the house, "How do you expect to expect to succeed at all in life doing stupid things like this [wearing a coat]" Wow, good thing they did what they did too! Now all the murderous anger that coat put into my blood has been replaced by a serene feeling that can only come after the positive results of 18 years of hard work have been ripped up in front of your face. (note sarcasm)
Posted by Pete H.:
Religion != (bad || fanaticism)
Keep in mind that this thread is about intolerance and abuse of people who are or behave differently from the "norm". The two responses to "Sharkeys-Day"'s post that I've read so far both included just the sort of assumptions and attacks on religion that geeks are suffering on other topics.
Religion and science are not mutually exclusive.
Every healthy individual should have a dose of each. For many of us geeky types that typically means more science than religion but to each his own. One without the other is sheer folly. What good is technology without some sort of moral code that you use to evaluate it's worth with? Morals, often embodied by religion, are what make us different from every other species on the planet and we should cherish that, not ridicule or fear it.
As with all aspects of the media only the edges of any group are ever reported. They are the most "interesting". As a result religion often gets a bad name, especially with respect to it's relationship with science. Assuming that anyone who mentions religion or alternatives to "scientific" teachings is automatically discarding anything scientific and using holy water to short out computers in the local library is, well, stupid.
I'm agnostic, I don't know what to believe with respect to religion but I firmly believe that we have the right to believe what we want, right up until we start harming others with our beliefs.
Peter
Posted by gbritton:
iso image and i386 subtree are here:
ftp://light-brigade.mit.edu/pub/redhat- 6.0/
http://light-brigade.mit.edu/redhat-6.0/
Posted by MazMart:
It's nice to see that they finally included KDE. It's way better than Gnome, so thanx Red Hat!
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
like it or not, we eradicated the indian nations. we are now as close as it gets to natives. and anyway, I won't consider myself a second class citizen if my great granparents lived in europe.
Posted by jpfinger:
Is it just me (and the girl I'm dating) that see the connection of the Colorado High School event and the late 80's movie "Heathers?" If you've seen it (its got Winona Ryder *drool* and Christian Slater), does the analogy make sense to you too? If not, go rent the movie and think about this satire on high school life.
Posted by pierre kwyjibo:
6 0.html shows a brief overview of whats new.
http://www.redhat.com/corp/press/current_redhat
Posted by JimBalcom:
In talking with todays teens, it seems that high school is a hot bed of hatred all of the way around. Everyone seems to have their own secret 'fetish' that excludes them from the main circles - the main circles that consist of other teens with their own fetishes in common. And, if you don't subscribe to their fetish then they make you an outcast, an outsider. I can fully understand the shooters being tired of being outcasts, but they chose the wrong way to deal with it.
-= Jim =-
Posted by Guilt:
count down to the ninth picture on the page. Doesn't fermi sign and Linus hand position make for a rather suggestive picture.
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
Locality. Yep, that's it in a nut shell. One of the bigest legal headaches on the internet today is jurisdiction.
Stop and think about it. We can't even get any kind of agreement from different nation states on the subject of sexually explicet material on the internet, and where supposed to believe that legal professionals from around the world are going to have any more luck on the subject of copyright?
No way. It's a nice idea on paper, but my inate sense og cynicism makes me doubt that this will ever get of the ground.
Just my $0.02 worth.
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
That's right this is the "Greatest Country in The World" if it were not for my country and the sacrifices made by my great grandfather's peers you'd be speaking German right now.
LK
Posted by Perkolater:
Once upon a time, I was the most powerful kid in my high school.
I went to something called a "magnet" school, which gathered up these "gifted" kids from the suburbs and bused them to an inner-city school to give them more "opportunities." Most of the base students didn't get those same opportunities, which caused a lot of racial conflict while I attended there.
When I first entered high school, I was pretty much a nobody. I didn't act like the other kids, so that made me an easy target for bullies. None of the teachers knew me very well, and few of them really wanted to. I got into trouble a little too easily, getting coerced into conflicts that always turned me into the bad guy. I had a lot of crying spells my freshman year. I came close to suicide at least twice.
My parents were worried about my lack of socialization with other kids in my classes, not to mention my sudden infatuation with rap music. Being spurned by my "peers," I hung out with the predominantly black base students quite a bit, and back in the late 1980s, Public Enemy was considered dangerous. So Mom & Dad decided to take a more active role in my schooling, not by cutting me off from the things I liked, but recognizing my talents and helping me use them.
For example, they knew I enjoyed spectator sports, something my grandfather instilled in me as an elementary schooler. Even though I clearly wasn't very athletic, I still read Sports Illustrated religiously. So they steered me toward the school paper. Occasionally, even the geeks ganged up on me there, but after a while, they accepted that I was a competent writer, and by my senior year, I had my own back-page column.
During my senior year, while covering the men's basketball team, I discovered something distressing -- at our home games, fans from the opposing school outnumbered our fans 5-to-1, and the few fans we had that actually cheered were often stifled by others. After seeing this over the course of several games, I wrote scathing column that lashed out at the school's clear lack of fan support. I called everyone out for assuming that because our teams never were very good, they never would be, so they never bothered. That column came out the day of our first conference game.
That night, the house was packed. Every group was represented that night -- the populars, the jocks, the nerds, the fashionables, all cutting across every race you could imagine. A lot of people I knew told me they came out because of my column. The grin remained plastered on my face the entire night. The next Monday, one of the players thanked me for writing that column.
And we lost the game, 98-53.
Of course, that wasn't the point. The point was that this little nobody lost in a sea of 3,000 managed to shake that entire school to its foundation with nothing more than a few hundred words. I made a difference, and for everyone like me who gets that sort of opportunity, there are MILLIONS of kids who don't. Because their parents don't care enough to find out their kids talents and steer them the right way. Because teachers and administrators can't be bothered to find out why these kids are different. Because most kids are cruel, and some LIKE being cruel, and nobody tells them how wrong this is.
These are the reasons that Littleton happened. It has nothing to do with gun control laws, black trenchcoats, the Internet, or Marilyn Manson. It's because everyone is afraid of something they don't take the time to understand, and what good is traditional media if it can't spread fear, justly or otherwise?
Yoda may be a goofy little moppet to some, but he has a point: "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." Fear, anger and hate were all prevalent at Columbine High, and it's probably prevalent at thousands of other high schools across the country -- perhaps even moreso now, as adults' knee-jerk reactions to media coverage of this tragedy is leading to an Orwellian shakedown of all things deemed "abnormal" in schools. Students that are already ridiculed their peers are now getting similar treatment from the adults that are supposed to be teaching them. What do they think these kids are learning from this?
If lawsuit-weary schools allow this shakedown to continue, what happened at Columbine High will happen again, and it will keep happening in greater numbers until everyone -- parents, teachers, jocks, nerds, etc. -- stops looking for scapegoats and starts looking in the mirror. Until we reach out to those kids we have ostracized for so long, we are all to blame.
David J. Warner
Durham, NC
April 26, 1999
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
I know this isn't really the place, *but* I get greatly annoyed by the "in your face" attitudes of straight edge'ers and vegans.
They often are outcasts by choice. Who wants to listen to "You're not going to eat that are you? Do you know what an industrial chicken farm smells like? WHAT DO YOU MEAN you're going to have some veal? I don't want your fscking cigarette, they're killing you."
Geeks, nerds, et al are on the outside because of the attitudes and prejudices of others.
If God didn't want me to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat.
LK
Posted by Open Matrix:
;-) I still visit that area of Louisiana sometimes and I can still see the same mentality that was there when I left. I see it in the driving and the everyday goings on. There is a lot of gossip and backstabbing and stuff that goes on there and I thank God that I don't live there anymore.
First off, I am 19 and graduated and used to live in Southwest Louisiana. This area is known to have some of the worst schools in the US. I have always been fairly bright and was always labeled as a "geek" or "nerd" or "dork". What made this even worse was that SW Louisiana is a very low tech area and therefore I had absolutely no friends that shared the same interests as me. In fact I had no friends at all. At best people I didn't even know would laugh and snicker at me behind my back. At worst (and this is most people) they would physically and verbally abuse me. I contemplated suicide many times but my parents were quite caring and understanding and were really my only friends in life and this is the only reason that I am alive to tell about it. I went through elementary and middle school like this. Luckily my family moved to Austin Texas after 9th grade. I say luckily because the people here in Austin are much nicer and there are actually others like me here. Looking back at my elementary and middle school years I can't believe I actually survived even the physical abuse I recieved let alone the emotional abuse that caused me to contemplate suicide so many times. My parents are always telling me how level headed and mentally stable I am and I can definately see how anyone who has the slightest bit of mental unstability such as the kids in Colorado can go completely crazy and shoot anyone and everyone who has done anything against them.
Well anyway.... I'm graduated from High School now and live a much happier life although I still have emotional scars that probably will never disappear but don't we all
I've been quietly listening to the thousands of posts over the past week or so, and have really begun to question where I fit into this. You might say that I'm the exception. Like anyone else who reads
Also I'm the product of a broken home (actually it's more like a demolished home). I've moved eight times in my life seeing eight different schools and I've also had three fathers and on father-to-be. The one thing really positive that I can say about my upbringing is that my family was always very loving (I consider this the main reason why I'm the way I am).
So instead of patting myself of the back I wonder what happened. If my lifestyle was supposed to condemn me to an unhappy life and make me the target of endless ridicule, what went wrong? Or maybe this is not it. Maybe the true problems lie elsewhere. The media has targeted all these superficial attributes, not realizing that the problem is not that simple. Basically, the way one leads their life is merely a reflection of their experiences not the determining factor of their actions.
Posted by fatdragon:
I admit that when I first tried to read it I didn't understand whole chapters. I did like the conversations though....and yes, I changed my major and wrote a college honors thesis based on his framework and his bibliography. His metamagical themas is less technical and for me...much more accessible as a non quant.
Don't bother with multi media...just seeek out all the sources yourself.
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
I wore a black trenchcoat from the time I was 15 until 2 years after I graduated. Even in the summer time. I liked the coat, and I didn't care about other peoples' fashion sense.
I took shit from people then, and I gave people shit. It was just the way things were. People stopped giving me shit when I was in jr. high. I'd take on guys twice my size, sometimes I'd lose, but sometimes I'd win. It was those victories that made the "cool" people leave me alone. After all how cool can you be if you get beaten up by one of the "nerds"?
My advice to any kid who is in the position that I was is this. Take crap from nobody. Walk away if you can, but running away will only make it worse.
Do what you must to make it through each day, but never let them win.
LK
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
All of these new knee-jerk rules, regulations and mandatory therepy sessions are not about making schools or the country safer. They are about doing two things. The first of which is to passify the dimwitted unwashed masses. In the wake of this horrible event people are understandably upset. This sends the messages that our school adminitrators are "doing something" about the percieved problem. This will keep politicians comfortably getting a paycheck without doing and real work.
The other focus, the main focus in IMHO is that they take the "misfits" or non-traditional thinkers as I call them, and pound into them the idea that those who are in "authority" can do whateve rthey want to you, that they can make any rule that they want, regardless of if it makes sense or not, and there is NOTHING that you can do about it so you'd better accept it.
It was non-traditional thinkers who've changed our world. Columbus (even though wrong about where he landed) believed that the world was not flat like his peers did. Galileo was threatened with death if he didn't stop preaching that the Earth was NOT the center of God's Universe. Those of us who think differently have always had to face adversity. Now the answer is save us from that adversity by bait 'n tackling or betty crockering us into conformity. If we refuse to conform, we must be dangerous because all rational people want to "fit in".
Even though I know it will never happen, but we should stand up and make ourselves be noticed. The homosexual rights community made great advances because of groups like "act up" and "Queer Nation". For Black people groups like the Black Panther Party brought their problems to the front pages of the nations news papers.
What could we do? I guess we're not as intimidating to the masses as black leather jackets, afros, berets and shotguns.
LK
Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:
Before you argue that these hapless PC manufacturers are just responding to market demand, think again
(if, in fact, you think at all). With a stroke of a pen, Microsoft could crush Dell, or Compaq or Gateway.
How? By raising the rate it charges each company for Windows. You wanna ship Linux? Fine, you lose
your sweet deal on your volume Windows license. These companies have margins so tight that a few dollars
difference in license fees could spell their death.
Compaq steps out of line and invests in RedHat and (surprise surprise) its profits drop like a rock. Wall
Street conveniently blames Compaq's corporate acquisitions. Meanwhile, Dell is so deep in with Microsoft,
you can't even order a Dell with Netscape on it, no matter how nicely you ask. Tip: buy Dell stock now.
Sell it when Linux starts beating NT in corporate use surveys (notice I didn't say "if").
I guess you will have to sell your DELL stock quickly then:
http://linuxtoday.com/stories/5371.html
"Dell Computer Corporation, today announced it plans to factory-install the new Red
Hat Linux 6.0 operating system on select, "Red-Hat Ready" certified configurations of
its PowerEdge(R) servers, Dell Precision(tm) WorkStations and OptiPlex(R) business
desktop computers."
Posted by ChristianC:
If a man who had constantly abused and beaten his wife over a few years was killed by his wife who would you feel sympathy for?
Who is in the right when a whole school seems to turn against you? When teachers ignore each incident. How easy is it to ignore people hitting you? How else can one survive in such a situation except by becoming more introverted, and harbouring an ever building resentment? And if guns are available, is there not a temptation to 'teach these people a lesson'?
I doubt if you can legislate against unpopularity, but you can legislate against bullying and for much stricter gun-control. Unfortunately, more killings will occur, because people prefer to blame red herrings like Doom, Marylin Manson and the internet instead of confronting the real issues.