> I keep getting the feeling that "terrorists" are just the proverbial boogymen to > give the military-industrial complex something to do after the cold war.
Now see, I get the feeling that "terrorists" are to the military as "protecting the children" is to the special-interest groups who are looking to censor the internet -- a convenient excuse. The American public, no matter how dazed and hypnotized and not encouraged to think for themselves, still has a few lingering concepts of civil liberties -- if the public as a whole learned of some of the things Our Fine Government pulled off on a regular basis, they would be incensed. So the powers that be need a smokescreen to justify their actions, and what better way to justify those actions than to invent a mystical boogeyman that must be protected against?
Please note that I am *not* saying that terrorism is not a threat. It is. I just do not believe that the desired end justifies the stated means. The problem is that when rights are forfeited on an "emergency" or "temporary" basis, it is very difficult to get those rights back -- and very easy for the slippery slope to set in. I believe that there are a few lines that should not be crossed, and many civil liberties lie along those lines.
This is also why I object so much to the dearth of civil liberties in American public schools. We are raising a generation of children who believe that it is acceptable for someone to demand to see their identification, that it is acceptable to have their personal property searched (sometimes on a daily basis), that it is acceptable for those in authority to detain and question them whenever they appear to be doing something "suspicious". This is breeding a generation of people who will believe that it is acceptable for the NSA to monitor their communications, that it is acceptable for the police to detain and search them at any time, that it is acceptable for anyone in authority to walk into their houses at any time to search for drugs or guns or terrorist plans. That idea scares the crap out of me, and I don't even consider myself all that passionate a civil libertarian.
Insert Benjamin Franklin quote about liberties and temporary safety; I'm sure you all know it by now. But perhaps Bruce Cockburn fits better here: "'It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first' -- but the trouble with normal is that it always gets worse."
> No law protects day sleepers. I asked for my number > to be unlisted, private, don't share.
Actually, there are many laws regarding telemarketing. Depending on what state you live in, you may have a state do-not-call list that companies are required to scrub against before performing outbound calls -- and if they don't, they get fined, and *you* get the money. Most states also have hours that they cannot telemarket in. Plus, there are federal regulations that specify that if you ask to be added to the company's do not share list, they not only cannot call you, but cannot sell your number. It will take a while, but every time you get a solicitaion call, ask to be placed on the do-not-share list with written confirmation, and the calls drop off sharply. I used to work nights too, and it worked for me.
> And if you try to educate the audience, > you're just going to bore them to death.
In movies, perhaps, but in books it's necessary. Neal Stephenson pulled it off with great aplomb in _Cryptonomicon_ -- I sure as hell didn't know that much about math and crypto before reading it! I'm currently working on a novel that requires the audience to understand a great deal about network security and the hacker mentality, and I can only hope that I pull it off with the same amount of style and talent that Stephenson managed.
Obviously, that sort of thing wouldn't work in a movie, as there's less time to educate the audience, but it is entirely possible to write good technically-oriented material that's accessable by the non-geek -- it just takes more effort. And a very good, non-geek prereader, who can tell you when you've gweeped out again.
> Q: I read that Gates is worth $85 billion and that he's starting > to give some of it away. Do you think he'd give me a million or two?
*giggles* A few of my friends and I are thinking of applying to the Gates foundation for a grant to slack. "Mr. Gates, if you give us money, we promise that we won't do anything. Think of the publicity you'd get!"
Think it'd work? There's something great at the thought of taking Bill's money, isn't there? ^_~
> Truthfully, I think there are some genuinely pro-Microsoft > folks lurking here.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm moderating, I don't take personal opinion into account. It seems to me that modpoints are not for promoting a personal agenda, but for pointing out reasonable, well-constructed comments. I have in the past moderated up sentiments with which I did not necessarily agree, but which seemed to me to be important or well-reasoned. I've been reading/. long enough to recognize the most common group biases, and I'm almost tempted to moderate unpopular opinions first as long as they meet my criteria -- just because it's less likely that they would be moderated up by someone else, and I feel that both/all sides of the discussion should be heard. It's important to me to see well-rounded discussion, or we're just all sitting here AOL'ing "Me too!"s all evening.
> The Solow paradox says that computers don't seem to add anything to the productivity > statistics. That either means computers aren't as useful as we think, or the > statistics are wrong.
Or could it mean that the standards are rising? I haven't read the material in question, though it sounds interesting, but I know that a lot of times, when capacity to produce increases, demand for production increases at twice the rate.
Also, it could be due to improper use of the resources. In the $VBC I work for, we manage to get rid of any time-saving benefit of computers by a). layering the whole process around with procedures, rules, forms, etc, and b). NOT using the capability of the computing resources that we have at/all/. Were I allowed, I could automate a good 80% of my job with a few perl scripts, but quite frankly my bosses are frightened of technology... so I'm left doing data entry and manually counting things. I need a more technical job before I explode...
Fruvous rocks! One of the more recent times I've seen them, they even got into a huge audience sing-along about "we are hippies and geeks" that had me rolling. This was just after the "We boycott Starbucks because they are driving the independent coffeehouse out of business --" "That's not why we boycott Starbucks, Jian." "Why/do/ we boycott Starbucks, Mike?" "Because they have lousy fscking coffee!" discusson.
I've heard them described as "early Bare Naked Ladies on crack mixed with the Beatles and a bit of REM thrown in for good measure" but that doesn't begin to do them justice. Who can resist any band that does an ode to entropy?
>All major sessions have been accompanied by Enigma, KLF >and things in that sort of ambian/light dance theme.
Enigma used to be my favorite band -- if you like them, you might also like Delerium, especially their newest offering "Karma". Great background music and it gets my brain really going.
...in her Hugo-award winning novella _Beggars in Spain_. The main character in that story is genetically engineered to not need sleep, and she was one of the very first Sleepless. Imagine not having to lose 1/3rd of your life to unconsciousness... imagine not dreaming. The novella, and the novel that came from it, were both exceedingly well thought-out.
Personally, I would give a great deal to have this technology available, to correct some of the defects in my hypothetical children; any child I choose to have will have even odds of inheriting some things I wouldn't want to inflict upon someone else (as I almost wish no one had inflicted upon me). But this does, as other posters have commented, bring up the question of overpopulation. Perhaps we shouldn't persue this matter until we have the first colony on the moon...
Then again, the one thing that is certain is that once we let the genie out of the bag, it won't go back in. As soon as something like this can be done, there will be illegal 'black labs' doing it -- and charging an arm and a leg for it.
Re:No need to be out of print
on
The Big U
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· Score: 1
> There's no reason for paperbacks to be out of print anymore.
Actually, there is, and like everything else, it has to deal with money. Publishers are not encouraged to keep stock for very long at all; titles go out of print more quickly, and sell fewer copies. The reason for this is the tax situation that was created in a US. Supreme Court ruling, Thor Power Tool Company vs. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, having to do with the taxation implications of inventories.
As a note: this is also why companies physically destroy books that are sent back to them, rather than simply holding on to them to re-sell them.
For more information, see this article on the SFWA site.
> It's easy to decide you need surgery when you're feeling at your worst. > But the body DOES recover if you give it a chance -- what if you take a > month off, and you find that you've recovered enough that you don't need surgery anymore?
It's funny you said that, since I did take a month off (the max that workers' comp would agree to) with no typing, no video games, no driving,/nothing/ -- and I actually felt *worse* afterwards.
Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to respond to my question; there's some good information here. Rather than respond to each point individually, I'll recap:
-- Yes, of course, I have been seeing a doctor and changing the ergonomics of my workstation -- things are set up wonderfully at home, with one of those old Apple Adjustable keyboards propped up by a thin paperback to tilt it away from me, and a trackball rather than a mouse. The problem is my work environment. I'm not a programmer; I do customer service, which has turned into data entry while I wasn't looking, and it's for a stodgy old financial/insurance institution. I first submitted the paperwork for an ADA accomodation back in February, and have not gotten the equipment yet. Of course, they prevent you from purchasing computer equipment on your own and bringing it in, too.
-- I started showing symptoms a good five years ago, and treated it at that point with massage and physical therapy, and had very good luck with that sort of treatment. That was before I got this job, however, and about a year into the sort of demon typing I have to do here, the symptoms stopped responding to that sort of treatment.
Overall, really, I think I've exhausted my options. I've tried chiropracty, I've tried massage, I've tried the anti-inflamatory shots, I've even tried a prescription that my doctor gave me that was originally an anti-depressant and was being used for nerve damage. (Quipped I: "Well, even if it doesn't work, I won't be depressed about my hands hurting.")
As for the symptoms: Over the past year, I've lost all feeling in my thumb and middle/index fingers on both hands; I can't pick up anything more than about 2 lbs without it completely slipping through my fingers; I wake up with sharp, shooting pains through my palm and wrist; and when I tap the inside of my wrist, I can feel the numbness and tingling all throughout my palm. I've been to two doctors, and they both agree it's a pretty bad case. (The Nerve Conduction Study they do, when they hook you up to a machine and zap you to see if they can tell if there's any nerve damage, is one of the most bizarrely violating medical experiences I've ever had.)
Overall, I've pretty much decided that I've exhausted my options. I'm going to have the surgery done, to hopefully alleviate some of my symptoms, and then I'm going to find a different fscking job that won't give me a hard time about a $100 keyboard.
> For example: I have never fully understood the "need" for a cellphone for anyone > but a stockbroker, an elected official, and a drug dealer, but once the competition's > got it and makes herself available 24/7, you have to too or you fall behind.
I have finally given up and decided it's time to get a cellphone, but that's because I have a very unusual talent -- I kill cars just by touching them. In the five years I've been driving, I've been stranded roadside in the middle of the night with no pay phones around no fewer than ten times, and I'm awfully sick of being scared to death but having to trudge along a deserted road anyway.
The technology itself is not to blame. It's how people use said technology. If I was purchasing a cellphone just because 'everyone else has one', then I would worry, but I think I have a valid reason to do so (the last time I got stuck it was pouring rain, and I'm still recovering from the bronchitis). So, yes, in some way I am getting a cellphone to avoid "falling behind" -- but it's falling behind the wheels of a semi, next to my broken-down vehicle, that I'm trying to avoid!
Like many other posters, I think that Mr. Katz is missing the mark here. It's all about choice. Don't keep up with the Joneses -- drag them down to your level.
> How many of us would be able to create steel from iron ore? Given a > crisis so bad there's no electricity so you can't look it up on the Web!
Call your local chapter of the SCA. It reminds me of a Spider Robinson quote (from Telempath, where society has broken down and scattered, cities gone, technology completely unreliable: "Don't like hippies? Fine, next time you're hungry, call a cop."
> There are tons of things we depend on every day that suddenly become useless if we lose power.
I live in New Jersey, and I was staying at my parent's house during the time of the hurricane. They lost power on Thursday evening and didn't get power back until Wednesday of the next week. In those 6 days, the only thing that really got unbearable for me to live without was the hot water. Then again, I had just recently gotten back from Pennsic, where there's no power unless you bring it yourself.
My father, on the other hand, went out and bought an $800 generator just so he could watch the baseball game in the comfort of his own living room. I just don't/get/ it. Give me a candle and a good book and I'd be content for a very long time -- as long as I didn't think of how much email I'd have when the power came back on. ^_~
> I was fully behind the kids on this issue until I saw that they're not being > forced to display their SSN, and saw that many parties are upset with the > idea that the school would want you to wear a name tag.
That is not the point. What you describe is an "opt-out" system, where the student has to make the effort to avoid having their information illegally used.
Do you also support spam, as long as there's a valid "remove" address?
(Personally, I think the "point" is the forcible erosion of personal freedoms by a (government-mandated) institution of learning.)
> No - It's because the students and parents have no choice. The students legally must go to school, > and there's hardly any restrictions on what rules a school is allowed to have.
The students must legally go to school, yes, but is there any regulation that states they must go to/that/ school? As a poster has already pointed out, there's always home schooling, and I will add private schools to that thought. Of course, many people cannot afford private school, and home schooling is not an immediate easy option for those students whose parents both must work. But in this wired world, there is more information available every moment for someone who chooses to home-school.
Also, I think that people are overlooking the value of civil disobedience. The children at this school are on the right path. Just putting your foot down is a good start, and their efforts to get the rest of their schoolmates to join in their protests are admirable.
What scares me is the article's mention of children who are not signing the petition or joining the protest because they feel it would jeapordize their college acceptance. Having something like that to hold over people's heads is the first step to a tyrrany in which civil disobedience will not work -- because people are too scared to join in the protest.
> To this day the part that most galls me about elementary, junior, and high-schools in this > country is that the institutions where we try to teach kids about freedom and responsibility > is run like a miniature fascist state or prison. On the cusp of adulthood we treat > teenager like third class citizens.
Did anyone else check out the URL for the student handbook, given in the article? It amazes me that schools can get away with this sort of crap. And I think it's because people -- students and parents -- *let* them get away with it.
Bravo to the kids who are fighting this, and bravo to their parents who are supporting them 100%.
> If we then invest the money, we're taxed on it (but mainly the interest, that, at least is "new" income), then > when we leave it to someone, there is an estate tax levied.
Two minor nitpicks: first, estate taxes only apply for inheritances over $600,000 (sliding upwards due to the taxpayer reform act of 1997 over the next several years) and does not include the benefits from life insurance policies under certain circumstances, depending who is the owner, insured, and beneficiary of the policy.
Secondly, there are a great many investment vehicles that are created to minimize tax -- of course, they don't exactly maximize return, but you have to trade the one for the other. If money has been taxed once, it will not be taxed again, unless your financial planner or accountant is just Really Damn Dumb.
Disclaimer: I do work for a financial-services company and I am a licensed insurance representative (though currently non-selling), but I've forgotten a bunch of my training and don't pretend to be 100% accurate.
> When I was younger (Im only 24) the thought of killing someone was out > of the question. We would rather Crazy glue your locker closed, than shoot you in > the face. This is in Brooklyn, NY mind you. It seems most teens have very little respect > for each other and people in general. I can not begin to understand how this type of > attitude came about.
I'm not all that much younger than you are -- I'm 22 -- but my younger sister, who is attending the same high school that I (finally) graduated from, has been telling me stories that make my skin crawl. Now, some of the stories that have been coming out of Columbine in terms of the abuses that went on by the "golden crowd" ring far, far too true; I went to a school where, my sophomore year, the QB of the football team would regularly break numerous laws and/no one did anything because we were on the road to the state record for number of consecutive wins/. But even then, when I too was being beaten daily just for being "different" (until I wised up and started fighting back), no one would have even considered taking a gun or a bomb and blowing people away.
Now, just five short years later, not only is a good 5% of the senior class in some form of rehab or another, there have been three incidents of firearms being confiscated at school.
I'm/glad/ I'm out of there. High school scares me stupid, and if I ever have children, I'm never letting them set foot in a public school.
Side note: this is, like Columbine, a well-to-do suburban school, where "These Things Don't Happen" and therefore aren't talked about at all...
> But: if I flipped out and decided I really wanted someone dead; he'd be dead. > And I sure wouldn't have to use a gun to do it.
Quick question: does anyone know what the largest and most active armed civilian militia is?
Keep thinking.
Nope, none of the ones that are in the news all the time, and certainly none of the ones armed with guns. The largest and most active armed civilian militia in the US is the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medieval-recreation group that sponsors numerous wars throughout the year, including one two-week-long war in the middle of PA that this year drew over ten thousand people.
And not a single gun around.
(Note: I'm not saying that the SCA is gonna snap and take over the world -- I'm actually a member of the SCA, and in the aftermath of the recent Hurricane Floyd disaster I was very glad I had some experience in coping without modern 'conveniences'...)
> On the other hand, if you want to get lots of spam, just post regularly > to a Usenet newsgroup without munging your identity.:-P It always amuses > me when I get "Dear fellow X" (X being something that has zero commonality with > the relevant newsgroup) emails on accounts that I create for RPG characters. > That'll teach me to post to News with a valid return address.
I actually post to Usenet with a valid address, because I don't believe in munging; I think it defeats the purpose of the Internet. I mean, isn't this medium for *communication*? I'm not going to make it at all harder for people to communicate with me. I don't condemn others for munging, because not everyone has the same ideals, but I won't do it myself.
But yet, I don't get much spam at all; maybe once a month, tops. My server is using the RBL, and I've been having good luck with it.
> Seriously, while possibly indistinguishable from human writing, will > the stuff be good? That, I doubt.
As a writer, I'm terrified by this news. As a geek, I'm terribly thrilled by this news... I doubt that a computer could be good *now*, but we all know how quickly technology advances, hmm? I'd love to find out more about how the Brutus does it, so I know whether it's time to start expecting AI in my lifetime.
In the meantime, as someone who reads the fan fiction "slushpile" at a major fan site, I'm fully in support of anyone who knows how to actually *plot* a story, be it human or machine -- I spend far too much of my time re-proving Sturgeon's Law.
Slashdot Mirror
> I keep getting the feeling that "terrorists" are just the proverbial boogymen to
> give the military-industrial complex something to do after the cold war.
Now see, I get the feeling that "terrorists" are to the military as "protecting the children" is to the special-interest groups who are looking to censor the internet -- a convenient excuse. The American public, no matter how dazed and hypnotized and not encouraged to think for themselves, still has a few lingering concepts of civil liberties -- if the public as a whole learned of some of the things Our Fine Government pulled off on a regular basis, they would be incensed. So the powers that be need a smokescreen to justify their actions, and what better way to justify those actions than to invent a mystical boogeyman that must be protected against?
Please note that I am *not* saying that terrorism is not a threat. It is. I just do not believe that the desired end justifies the stated means. The problem is that when rights are forfeited on an "emergency" or "temporary" basis, it is very difficult to get those rights back -- and very easy for the slippery slope to set in. I believe that there are a few lines that should not be crossed, and many civil liberties lie along those lines.
This is also why I object so much to the dearth of civil liberties in American public schools. We are raising a generation of children who believe that it is acceptable for someone to demand to see their identification, that it is acceptable to have their personal property searched (sometimes on a daily basis), that it is acceptable for those in authority to detain and question them whenever they appear to be doing something "suspicious". This is breeding a generation of people who will believe that it is acceptable for the NSA to monitor their communications, that it is acceptable for the police to detain and search them at any time, that it is acceptable for anyone in authority to walk into their houses at any time to search for drugs or guns or terrorist plans. That idea scares the crap out of me, and I don't even consider myself all that passionate a civil libertarian.
Insert Benjamin Franklin quote about liberties and temporary safety; I'm sure you all know it by now. But perhaps Bruce Cockburn fits better here: "'It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first' -- but the trouble with normal is that it always gets worse."
Hmm. I think I need more coffee.
> No law protects day sleepers. I asked for my number
> to be unlisted, private, don't share.
Actually, there are many laws regarding telemarketing. Depending on what state you live in, you may have a state do-not-call list that companies are required to scrub against before performing outbound calls -- and if they don't, they get fined, and *you* get the money. Most states also have hours that they cannot telemarket in. Plus, there are federal regulations that specify that if you ask to be added to the company's do not share list, they not only cannot call you, but cannot sell your number. It will take a while, but every time you get a solicitaion call, ask to be placed on the do-not-share list with written confirmation, and the calls drop off sharply. I used to work nights too, and it worked for me.
> And if you try to educate the audience,
> you're just going to bore them to death.
In movies, perhaps, but in books it's necessary. Neal Stephenson pulled it off with great aplomb in _Cryptonomicon_ -- I sure as hell didn't know that much about math and crypto before reading it! I'm currently working on a novel that requires the audience to understand a great deal about network security and the hacker mentality, and I can only hope that I pull it off with the same amount of style and talent that Stephenson managed.
Obviously, that sort of thing wouldn't work in a movie, as there's less time to educate the audience, but it is entirely possible to write good technically-oriented material that's accessable by the non-geek -- it just takes more effort. And a very good, non-geek prereader, who can tell you when you've gweeped out again.
From the article:
> Q: I read that Gates is worth $85 billion and that he's starting
> to give some of it away. Do you think he'd give me a million or two?
*giggles* A few of my friends and I are thinking of applying to the Gates foundation for a grant to slack. "Mr. Gates, if you give us money, we promise that we won't do anything. Think of the publicity you'd get!"
Think it'd work? There's something great at the thought of taking Bill's money, isn't there? ^_~
> Truthfully, I think there are some genuinely pro-Microsoft
/. long enough to recognize the most common group biases, and I'm almost tempted to moderate unpopular opinions first as long as they meet my criteria -- just because it's less likely that they would be moderated up by someone else, and I feel that both/all sides of the discussion should be heard. It's important to me to see well-rounded discussion, or we're just all sitting here AOL'ing "Me too!"s all evening.
> folks lurking here.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm moderating, I don't take personal opinion into account. It seems to me that modpoints are not for promoting a personal agenda, but for pointing out reasonable, well-constructed comments. I have in the past moderated up sentiments with which I did not necessarily agree, but which seemed to me to be important or well-reasoned. I've been reading
> The Solow paradox says that computers don't seem to add anything to the productivity
/all/. Were I allowed, I could automate a good 80% of my job with a few perl scripts, but quite frankly my bosses are frightened of technology... so I'm left doing data entry and manually counting things. I need a more technical job before I explode...
> statistics. That either means computers aren't as useful as we think, or the
> statistics are wrong.
Or could it mean that the standards are rising? I haven't read the material in question, though it sounds interesting, but I know that a lot of times, when capacity to produce increases, demand for production increases at twice the rate.
Also, it could be due to improper use of the resources. In the $VBC I work for, we manage to get rid of any time-saving benefit of computers by a). layering the whole process around with procedures, rules, forms, etc, and b). NOT using the capability of the computing resources that we have at
> Moxy Fruvous
/do/ we boycott Starbucks, Mike?" "Because they have lousy fscking coffee!" discusson.
Fruvous rocks! One of the more recent times I've seen them, they even got into a huge audience sing-along about "we are hippies and geeks" that had me rolling. This was just after the "We boycott Starbucks because they are driving the independent coffeehouse out of business --" "That's not why we boycott Starbucks, Jian." "Why
I've heard them described as "early Bare Naked Ladies on crack mixed with the Beatles and a bit of REM thrown in for good measure" but that doesn't begin to do them justice. Who can resist any band that does an ode to entropy?
>All major sessions have been accompanied by Enigma, KLF
>and things in that sort of ambian/light dance theme.
Enigma used to be my favorite band -- if you like them, you might also like Delerium, especially their newest offering "Karma". Great background music and it gets my brain really going.
...in her Hugo-award winning novella _Beggars in Spain_. The main character in that story is genetically engineered to not need sleep, and she was one of the very first Sleepless. Imagine not having to lose 1/3rd of your life to unconsciousness... imagine not dreaming. The novella, and the novel that came from it, were both exceedingly well thought-out.
...
Personally, I would give a great deal to have this technology available, to correct some of the defects in my hypothetical children; any child I choose to have will have even odds of inheriting some things I wouldn't want to inflict upon someone else (as I almost wish no one had inflicted upon me). But this does, as other posters have commented, bring up the question of overpopulation. Perhaps we shouldn't persue this matter until we have the first colony on the moon
Then again, the one thing that is certain is that once we let the genie out of the bag, it won't go back in. As soon as something like this can be done, there will be illegal 'black labs' doing it -- and charging an arm and a leg for it.
> There's no reason for paperbacks to be out of print anymore.
Actually, there is, and like everything else, it has to deal with money. Publishers are not encouraged to keep stock for very long at all; titles go out of print more quickly, and sell fewer copies. The reason for this is the tax situation that was created in a US. Supreme Court ruling, Thor Power Tool Company vs. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, having to do with the taxation implications of inventories.
As a note: this is also why companies physically destroy books that are sent back to them, rather than simply holding on to them to re-sell them.
For more information, see this article on the SFWA site.
> It's easy to decide you need surgery when you're feeling at your worst.
/nothing/ -- and I actually felt *worse* afterwards.
> But the body DOES recover if you give it a chance -- what if you take a
> month off, and you find that you've recovered enough that you don't need surgery anymore?
It's funny you said that, since I did take a month off (the max that workers' comp would agree to) with no typing, no video games, no driving,
But thanks a great deal for the concern. ^_^
Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to respond to my question; there's some good information here. Rather than respond to each point individually, I'll recap:
-- Yes, of course, I have been seeing a doctor and changing the ergonomics of my workstation -- things are set up wonderfully at home, with one of those old Apple Adjustable keyboards propped up by a thin paperback to tilt it away from me, and a trackball rather than a mouse. The problem is my work environment. I'm not a programmer; I do customer service, which has turned into data entry while I wasn't looking, and it's for a stodgy old financial/insurance institution. I first submitted the paperwork for an ADA accomodation back in February, and have not gotten the equipment yet. Of course, they prevent you from purchasing computer equipment on your own and bringing it in, too.
-- I started showing symptoms a good five years ago, and treated it at that point with massage and physical therapy, and had very good luck with that sort of treatment. That was before I got this job, however, and about a year into the sort of demon typing I have to do here, the symptoms stopped responding to that sort of treatment.
Overall, really, I think I've exhausted my options. I've tried chiropracty, I've tried massage, I've tried the anti-inflamatory shots, I've even tried a prescription that my doctor gave me that was originally an anti-depressant and was being used for nerve damage. (Quipped I: "Well, even if it doesn't work, I won't be depressed about my hands hurting.")
As for the symptoms: Over the past year, I've lost all feeling in my thumb and middle/index fingers on both hands; I can't pick up anything more than about 2 lbs without it completely slipping through my fingers; I wake up with sharp, shooting pains through my palm and wrist; and when I tap the inside of my wrist, I can feel the numbness and tingling all throughout my palm. I've been to two doctors, and they both agree it's a pretty bad case. (The Nerve Conduction Study they do, when they hook you up to a machine and zap you to see if they can tell if there's any nerve damage, is one of the most bizarrely violating medical experiences I've ever had.)
Overall, I've pretty much decided that I've exhausted my options. I'm going to have the surgery done, to hopefully alleviate some of my symptoms, and then I'm going to find a different fscking job that won't give me a hard time about a $100 keyboard.
> For example: I have never fully understood the "need" for a cellphone for anyone
> but a stockbroker, an elected official, and a drug dealer, but once the competition's
> got it and makes herself available 24/7, you have to too or you fall behind.
I have finally given up and decided it's time to get a cellphone, but that's because I have a very unusual talent -- I kill cars just by touching them. In the five years I've been driving, I've been stranded roadside in the middle of the night with no pay phones around no fewer than ten times, and I'm awfully sick of being scared to death but having to trudge along a deserted road anyway.
The technology itself is not to blame. It's how people use said technology. If I was purchasing a cellphone just because 'everyone else has one', then I would worry, but I think I have a valid reason to do so (the last time I got stuck it was pouring rain, and I'm still recovering from the bronchitis). So, yes, in some way I am getting a cellphone to avoid "falling behind" -- but it's falling behind the wheels of a semi, next to my broken-down vehicle, that I'm trying to avoid!
Like many other posters, I think that Mr. Katz is missing the mark here. It's all about choice. Don't keep up with the Joneses -- drag them down to your level.
> How many of us would be able to create steel from iron ore? Given a
> crisis so bad there's no electricity so you can't look it up on the Web!
Call your local chapter of the SCA. It reminds me of a Spider Robinson quote (from Telempath, where society has broken down and scattered, cities gone, technology completely unreliable: "Don't like hippies? Fine, next time you're hungry, call a cop."
> There are tons of things we depend on every day that suddenly become useless if we lose power.
/get/ it. Give me a candle and a good book and I'd be content for a very long time -- as long as I didn't think of how much email I'd have when the power came back on. ^_~
I live in New Jersey, and I was staying at my parent's house during the time of the hurricane. They lost power on Thursday evening and didn't get power back until Wednesday of the next week. In those 6 days, the only thing that really got unbearable for me to live without was the hot water. Then again, I had just recently gotten back from Pennsic, where there's no power unless you bring it yourself.
My father, on the other hand, went out and bought an $800 generator just so he could watch the baseball game in the comfort of his own living room. I just don't
> I was fully behind the kids on this issue until I saw that they're not being
> forced to display their SSN, and saw that many parties are upset with the
> idea that the school would want you to wear a name tag.
That is not the point. What you describe is an "opt-out" system, where the student has to make the effort to avoid having their information illegally used.
Do you also support spam, as long as there's a valid "remove" address?
(Personally, I think the "point" is the forcible erosion of personal freedoms by a (government-mandated) institution of learning.)
> No - It's because the students and parents have no choice. The students legally must go to school,
/that/ school? As a poster has already pointed out, there's always home schooling, and I will add private schools to that thought. Of course, many people cannot afford private school, and home schooling is not an immediate easy option for those students whose parents both must work. But in this wired world, there is more information available every moment for someone who chooses to home-school.
> and there's hardly any restrictions on what rules a school is allowed to have.
The students must legally go to school, yes, but is there any regulation that states they must go to
Also, I think that people are overlooking the value of civil disobedience. The children at this school are on the right path. Just putting your foot down is a good start, and their efforts to get the rest of their schoolmates to join in their protests are admirable.
What scares me is the article's mention of children who are not signing the petition or joining the protest because they feel it would jeapordize their college acceptance. Having something like that to hold over people's heads is the first step to a tyrrany in which civil disobedience will not work -- because people are too scared to join in the protest.
> You mean federal estate taxes, a lot of states have estate taxes too, and can they start lower.
Oops, right, my bad. I assumed that we were discussing federal taxes.
> To this day the part that most galls me about elementary, junior, and high-schools in this
> country is that the institutions where we try to teach kids about freedom and responsibility
> is run like a miniature fascist state or prison. On the cusp of adulthood we treat
> teenager like third class citizens.
Did anyone else check out the URL for the student handbook, given in the article? It amazes me that schools can get away with this sort of crap. And I think it's because people -- students and parents -- *let* them get away with it.
Bravo to the kids who are fighting this, and bravo to their parents who are supporting them 100%.
> If we then invest the money, we're taxed on it (but mainly the interest, that, at least is "new" income), then
> when we leave it to someone, there is an estate tax levied.
Two minor nitpicks: first, estate taxes only apply for inheritances over $600,000 (sliding upwards due to the taxpayer reform act of 1997 over the next several years) and does not include the benefits from life insurance policies under certain circumstances, depending who is the owner, insured, and beneficiary of the policy.
Secondly, there are a great many investment vehicles that are created to minimize tax -- of course, they don't exactly maximize return, but you have to trade the one for the other. If money has been taxed once, it will not be taxed again, unless your financial planner or accountant is just Really Damn Dumb.
Disclaimer: I do work for a financial-services company and I am a licensed insurance representative (though currently non-selling), but I've forgotten a bunch of my training and don't pretend to be 100% accurate.
> Dude, the SCA's not a militia, it's an excuse to dress funny and maybe get laid. There's a difference!
;)
Tell that to the hundreds of people who were on the battlefield at Pennsic.
> When I was younger (Im only 24) the thought of killing someone was out
/no one did anything because we were on the road to the state record for number of consecutive wins/. But even then, when I too was being beaten daily just for being "different" (until I wised up and started fighting back), no one would have even considered taking a gun or a bomb and blowing people away.
/glad/ I'm out of there. High school scares me stupid, and if I ever have children, I'm never letting them set foot in a public school.
...
> of the question. We would rather Crazy glue your locker closed, than shoot you in
> the face. This is in Brooklyn, NY mind you. It seems most teens have very little respect
> for each other and people in general. I can not begin to understand how this type of
> attitude came about.
I'm not all that much younger than you are -- I'm 22 -- but my younger sister, who is attending the same high school that I (finally) graduated from, has been telling me stories that make my skin crawl. Now, some of the stories that have been coming out of Columbine in terms of the abuses that went on by the "golden crowd" ring far, far too true; I went to a school where, my sophomore year, the QB of the football team would regularly break numerous laws and
Now, just five short years later, not only is a good 5% of the senior class in some form of rehab or another, there have been three incidents of firearms being confiscated at school.
I'm
Side note: this is, like Columbine, a well-to-do suburban school, where "These Things Don't Happen" and therefore aren't talked about at all
> But: if I flipped out and decided I really wanted someone dead; he'd be dead.
> And I sure wouldn't have to use a gun to do it.
Quick question: does anyone know what the largest and most active armed civilian militia is?
Keep thinking.
Nope, none of the ones that are in the news all the time, and certainly none of the ones armed with guns. The largest and most active armed civilian militia in the US is the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medieval-recreation group that sponsors numerous wars throughout the year, including one two-week-long war in the middle of PA that this year drew over ten thousand people.
And not a single gun around.
(Note: I'm not saying that the SCA is gonna snap and take over the world -- I'm actually a member of the SCA, and in the aftermath of the recent Hurricane Floyd disaster I was very glad I had some experience in coping without modern 'conveniences'...)
> On the other hand, if you want to get lots of spam, just post regularly :-P It always amuses
> to a Usenet newsgroup without munging your identity.
> me when I get "Dear fellow X" (X being something that has zero commonality with
> the relevant newsgroup) emails on accounts that I create for RPG characters.
> That'll teach me to post to News with a valid return address.
I actually post to Usenet with a valid address, because I don't believe in munging; I think it defeats the purpose of the Internet. I mean, isn't this medium for *communication*? I'm not going to make it at all harder for people to communicate with me. I don't condemn others for munging, because not everyone has the same ideals, but I won't do it myself.
But yet, I don't get much spam at all; maybe once a month, tops. My server is using the RBL, and I've been having good luck with it.
> Seriously, while possibly indistinguishable from human writing, will
> the stuff be good? That, I doubt.
As a writer, I'm terrified by this news. As a geek, I'm terribly thrilled by this news... I doubt that a computer could be good *now*, but we all know how quickly technology advances, hmm? I'd love to find out more about how the Brutus does it, so I know whether it's time to start expecting AI in my lifetime.
In the meantime, as someone who reads the fan fiction "slushpile" at a major fan site, I'm fully in support of anyone who knows how to actually *plot* a story, be it human or machine -- I spend far too much of my time re-proving Sturgeon's Law.