Are you talking about Speed Script? If so, I agree. I typed it in from the magazine listing and used that (mostly) until I bought my first cloned PC/AT (On which I used GeoWorks for word-processing as I'd been using GEOS back on the C64 when I needed to do text-with-graphics). I'm nostalgic for the noise my Commodore printer made. What a great 'REEEEEEEEEEE-raawwr-REEEEE-EE-EE-EEEEE-raawwr'. Remember how awesome Broderbund's Print Shop was at that point. I also had a Star printer that worked on both the C64, and with a big, weird adaptor on the AT as well.
I have an old server with dual-Pentium Pros (hot enough already, right?) that has 2 IDE drives and 4 of those 4 GB Seagates SCSIs in a RAID (imagine a day when 8 redundant GBs was a lot).
Anyhow, I can lend some credence to this story. The tower is like a chimney and I'm sure I could have cooked an egg on top of that case.:). In the winter I can heat my lab with it. I'd disconnect the RAID in the summer.
Because it's not Rhapsody's fault that Apple won't license their DRM technology.
If Real wanted you to be able to play Rhapsody music on iPods they would license Helix DRM to Apple, not the other way around (oh and does Rhapsody still use Listen.com's WMA format?). RealPlayer already uses the QuickTime libraries and is thus capable of playing FairPlay encrypted M4As/AACs. This is why "Harmony" was so ill-conceived and ill-recieved (legalities aside, Harmony benefits Real with nearly no benefit to Apple; letting iTunes users access Rhapsody on the other hand opens up Real's market to iPods, opens up Real's market to Mac users, both of which are "closed" to Rhapsody right now, and provides Apple with one more selling point for the iPod/iTunes combo -- subscription music). Real doesn't have to license/break/decieve FairPlay to get Rhapsody on the iPod, they just have to strike a deal with Apple (and get Helix DRM in iPod firmware or in iTunes). As far as I know, all the news has been Glaser begging/threatening Jobs in open and private email to 'open the iPod' ("or we'll go to our enemy Microsoft") not to support Helix and not to license FairPlay to them.
Let me take a little nibble on your flamebait too!
And a good percentage of those iPod purchases are probably Christmas gifts (or should I say Holiday gifts, is the word Christmas allowed anymore?)
I imagine one would only say "holiday gifts" if one bought presents for (for example) Jews and Christians because there would be a logical reason for the more ambiguous word. Verbosity is so passé, so why is anyone surprised that saying "happy holidays" has been en vogue for years now rather than "merry christmas and a happy new year?
Further, a fun fact for the "War on Christmas" crowd: Khristos (spelled with a chi, X, where we get the word Christ via the Latin Christus and Old English Crist) is the Greek word (well translated derivative) for the Hebrew Messiah (anointed and anoint respectively). The X in Xmas is a direct reference to Khristos and an abbreviation for Christ. So, the next time anyone tries to tell you that "xmas" is a conspiracy to "take the Christ out of Christmas" just remind them of this! The simple and more innocuous explanation is that store windows (and ad copy) just don't have enough space to mention all the Xmas specials without the abbreviation. Maybe the "War on Christmas" crowd should focus on the the real problem, the commercialization of Christmas (which lends itself to the ad copy and store windows and abbreviations). In that respect "happy holidays" is a victory, as it spreads the commercialism a little thinner to each of the exploitable gift-giving followers.
P.s. I'm not insinuating that the the parent is part of the "War on Christmas" crowd. His/her one quip isn't enough to make that judgement.
Since it seems you made an effort not to use any other informal spellings in your posting you might be interested in this.
From the New Oxford American:
adjective & adverb informal
regardless.
ORIGIN early 20th cent.: probably a blend of irrespective and regardless .
USAGE Irregardless, with its illogical negative prefix, is widely heard, perhaps arising under the influence of such perfectly correct forms as: irrespective. Irregardless is avoided by careful users of English. Use regardless to mean 'without regard or consideration for' or 'nevertheless': | I go walking every day regardless of season or weather.
If everyone stopped using the wasted 'ir' in front of regardless think of all the bandwidth we could save:-) I don't want to get in a prescriptive/descriptive argument. However, I present a google-fight as support: regardless and irregardless.
First, I can't believe I read that whole article. What a blow hard Card is.
This is what I take away from it: "It is essential in a decent society that divorce be possible, when it is truly needed." but in addition, we need some kind of scarlet letter for the divorcée and 'divorcer', maybe a fantastic D.
In the end, you totally missed my point. So I'll recap before I abruptly end this discussion (because I'm not going to argue about it). Making divorce illegal is fucking retarded even if it's wrapped in the flag, or "for the kids", or the cause du jour. But first, I'll recap some "for the kids" arguments that are tired:
Libraries have to be censored -- for the children. CDs have to be stickered and restricted by law -- for the children. TV, video-games, and movies need to be restricted (by law!) -- for the children. Boobies and especially sex have to be hidden -- for the children. More helmet laws -- for the children. More firearm licensing and regulation -- for the children. Less integration in schools -- for the children. LESS GAY MARRIAGE -- for the children. That's what this thread was about... if you even read it. Golias posited that gay marriage is bad for the children. Are any of these "for the children" no, you could probably replace just about every argument "for the children" with "because we don't trust parents" (and by extension "because we don't trust anyone to do what we think is right").
So -- if we can't have gay marriage, because "the children" will only have one gender role-model (false premise) then we can't have single parent families. Divorce leads to single parent familes. Ergo, if we can't have gay marriage we can't have divorce (false conclusion). Hence the sarcastic remark to outlaw divorce you know "for the kids".
Wow. I've already said more than I wanted to.
So to clarify even further, I originally said: "Adoptive parents are typically in mature, stable, committed relationships/marriages before they embark on the months- or years-long process of adoption (sadly for Golias' axiom #1 [All else being equal, a kid is better off being raised by both biological parents], there is no such requirement for beginning the months-long process of pregnancy). Full disclosure: my wife was adopted, I was raised by both biological parents, my mom's parents divorced."
My mother wouldn't have been better off if one of her parents killed themselves to escape their marriage. So yeah, I agree with Card to some extent, people do make mistakes.
Until there are (scary, scary, brave-new) laws to license and regulate who can become fertile, who can mate, and who can birth we are going to just have to deal the best with can with "bad" families.
I'm not an absolutist, so we can just agree to disagree right now. Sorry this turned out so rantish. It would be pretty ironic if this post makes google's first page results for "for the children". Man, I'm in a foul mood.
Take it for what you will... but the Pentagon (at least the pre-Rummy Pentagon) and the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. War College at Carlisle don't believe that Saddam gassed the Kurds -- as far as I can tell this is just oft-repeated propaganda.
The short version is... if anyone "gassed the Kurds" it was Iran (shelled Halabjah in 1988) prior to the end of the Iran-Iraq war and all claims that Saddam "gassed the Kurds" came later from Kurdish refugees in Turkey, i.e., the source is tainted and/or biased and as such hardly credible. Further, no evidence for these claims was ever found.
Don't take this excerpt to mean that you (or others) shouldn't take the time to explore the issue/meme completely:
Like all other Americans, in recent years I had assumed that what I read in the papers was true about Iraq gassing its own people. Once the war drums again began beating last November, I decided to read up on the history, and found Iraq denied having used gas against its own people. Furthermore, I heard that a Pentagon investigation at the time had also turned up no hard evidence of Saddam gassing his own people.
[...]
Now I have come across the 1990 Pentagon report, published just prior to the invasion of Kuwait. Its authors are Stephen C. Pelletiere, Douglas V. Johnson II, and Leif R. Rosenberger, of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The report is 93 pages, but I append here only the passages having to do with the aforementioned issue:
Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East
Excerpt, Chapter 5
U.S. SECURITY AND IRAQI POWER
Introduction. Throughout the war the United States practiced a fairly benign policy toward Iraq. Although initially disapproving of the invasion, Washington came slowly over to the side of Baghdad. Both wanted to restore the status quo ante to the Gulf and to reestablish the relative harmony that prevailed there before Khomeini began threatening the regional balance of power. Khomenini's revolutionary appeal was anathema to both Baghdad and Washington; hence they wanted to get rid of him.
United by a common interest, Iraq and the United States restored diplomatic relations in 1984, and the United States began to actively assist Iraq in ending the fighting. It mounted Operation Staunch, an attempt to stem the flow of arms to Iran. It also increased its purchases of Iraqi oil while cutting back on Iranian oil purchases, and it urged its allies to do likewise. All this had the effect of repairing relations between the two countries, which had been at a very low ebb.
In September 1988, however -- a month after the war had ended -- the State Department abruptly, and in what many viewed as a sensational manner, condemned Iraq for allegedly using chemicals against its Kurdish population. The incident cannot be understood without some background of Iraq's relations with the Kurds. It is beyond the scope of this study to go deeply into this matter; suffice it to say that throughout the war Iraq effectively faced two enemies -- Iran and the elements of its own Kurdish minority. Significant numbers of the Kurds had launched a revolt against Baghdad and in the process teamed up with Tehran. As soon as the war with Iran ended, Iraq announced its determination to crush the Kurdish insurrection. It sent Republican Guards to the Kurdish area, and in the course of this operation -- according to the U.S. State Department -- gas was used, with the result that numerous Kurdish civilians were killed. The Iraqi government denied that any such gassing had occurred. Nonetheless, Secretary of State Schultz stood by U.S. accusations, and the U.S. Congress, acting on its own, sought to impose economic sanctions on Baghdad as a violator of the Kurds' human rights.
I don't know if it's ever been "proved," in the sense of a large-scale study of the correlation between right-wing political beliefs and the belief in religion as the source of morality
I'm not saying that religion isn't a source of morality for some, but you said that right wingers insist you can't ave morality without religion. I have never seen anyone, right or left, proclaim that morality can not exist without religion. That's the proof I'm looking for.
I was having a discussion here where this guy basically posits that there is no morality anywhere that isn't God's; that other people's moralities are derivative of that God regardless of their religion or lack thereof.
I may be "misremembering" the conversation though, forgive me for not re-reading it (I'm at work:) Anyhow, he's not a religious nut or anyhting, a very reasonable and thoughful guy, that's just his belief. I enjoyed talking to him.
I didn't compare it to puzzle pirates, that was another poster... but anyhow. Puzzle Pirates doesn't have leveling either. There is no treadmill in Puzzle Pirates unless you count earning money (via pillaging or economy). You are rated in your skills against other players by how well you perform those skills.
Other than that they only resemble each other to the same degree that all MMOs do.
Well only if you mean to say "they only resemble each other to the same degree that all mmogs set in the Carribean golden age of piracy do" which currently is one game: Puzzle Pirates. With another now in beta: PotBS. Other mmogs don't feature sea-battling or pillaging or naval blockading at all.
I guess the similarity would only be obvious if you had actually spent any honest time playing Puzzle Pirates (i.e., participating in the navy, economy, politics, war, blockading islands, sea-battle with broadsides and sailing and gunning and repairing and bilging and grappling and melee, crafting, shipping, foraging, commanding a crew and vessel, building and owning a ship or ships, learning charts, customizing the appearance and dress of your pirate, injuries at sea for patches and pegs and hooks earned not chosen, furnishing your home(s) with player crafted goods, etc). You don't level though. You are bestowed a rank by other players and by the navy.
PotBS really does sound (from developer descriptions), as the other poster put it, like Y!PP but in 3D. Everything in their feature list is already in Y!PP except the DirectX requirement (Y!PP is multi-platform). When the beta is more open I'm sure plenty of posting will come out by players with extensive experience in both games.
I'll tell you what -- I've been playing Y!PP for like 2 years. Ask me about any feature that PotBS has and I'll explain how it works in Puzzle Pirates. That way we can determine what's revolutionary about PotBS.
I'll start off with one from the screenshots -- it seems that PotBS has day and night. In Puzzle Pirates it is always daylight on the high seas and it only night at an island when the undead walk. Night time lasts on the island until all of the skellies are defeated. The Developers of Puzzle Pirates axed day and night back in 2002 here and here from the feature list (it even sounds like if Puzzle Pirates was rendered in 3D and not pre-drawn sprites it would have day/night...). Pirates never sleep.:-D I'll expect that PotBS has accelerated time like in say, Zelda or GTA making the feature anything but revolutionary. Real-time day and night has already been featured in Animal Crossing (though that's probably not the first example).
We've been watching for the revolution for over a year now. The PotBS devs must have been reading the YPP forums, because nowadays they are touting their 'no level treadmill' just like puzzling pirates were saying a year and a half ago.
I didn't say otherwise. Your assertion, however, is that "pop culture" has to do with it. I think that's bollocks. "Pop culture" (the superficial ideas and beliefs of the society as a whole), has little to do with the behavior of any one person. What effects people are the beliefs of family and friends.
First off, because we don't even agree on what popular culture is. You think "pop culture" is what? Just Hollywood? Well, that's wrong.
Further: She does it because her mom never went to college and didn't pass along to her the value of mathematics and science. She does it because her friends tell her that she'll never get a guy that way.
Also wrong. More moms than ever have degrees (in America, percentage) yet the problem persists (how?). I contend, the problem is even when mom does go to college she doesn't pass the value of maths and science equally to Jenny and Johnny. Mom went to college to be a teacher lets say (because that was a common, first glass-cieling job) so she values education and literacy. Unfortunately, because pop culture got in the way Johnny gets Asimov, Jenny gets Nancy Drew. Johnny takes karate, Jenny takes ballet. Johnny plays trumpet, Jenny plays flute. All of these gender biases are reinforced by pop culture -- well, my anthropological definition of pop culture, not your superficial Hollywood-elite "pop culture" (elite and popular? a contradiction in terms!). Either way, these subtle biases predispose girls (the gender) against scientific curiosity which in turn influences their interest in sciences. By the time a young woman is choosing her major (I will continue to contend until shown otherwise) she is more "brain-washed" against the sciences than a young man in America. She doesn't even have to be "conditioned" against the sciences per se, she just has to be "normalized" into the belief that other goals are more important. Acculturation at work. (Again, on-topic for a second, video games are now part of acculturation, this is why it matters how women are depicted in video games).
Right. Yet, boys, whose toys have no more redeeming intellectual content than Barbie dolls, still manage to become engineers and physicists! Every time a little boy hears a talking X-men action figure, we've created a vigilante super-hero? The toys of children, are, well, for children.
Maybe. We just taught a boy that's it OK to solve conflicts with violence (Wolverine says, "We will defeat the evil-doers with force!"). It is parental choice though, and tacit parental approval. Violent toys make for violent boys. It's alright though, we need violent boys (especially the ones that don't like science) to fight our wars. The violent boys that do like science will grow up to design their guns. Of course there's also some parental choice in say, chemistry sets, microscopes, and robots -- still these aren't marketted towards girls (or bucking that marketting purchased anyway by parents en masse for girls).
So, I agree with you: parents are part of the problem (they are largely responsible for all early acculturation). Parents encourage their children's behavior by their toy-purchasing choices. It's unavoidable though that parents were children under the same (or progressively worse through time) pressures to conform to gender norms.
It's not complicated, and believe it or not, it works. As popular as it is to believe otherwise, children are the product of how their parents raise them.
Whew! That's a load off. Fortunately all the kids in America are being raised by parents and only parents are setting the meaningful expectations (and not TVs, latch-keys, or daycare-mobs). Less sarcastically... but aren't parents part of the problem? You've said they are. And I've agreed.
Every time a talking Barbie says into her cell-phone "Math is tough!"[...]
It may even be possible that it's important for children to have access to adult role models of both genders,
Fortunately, gender isn't biological so it is possible for two males (or two females) to express both common genders. I understand that the distinction between sex and gender isn't prevalent outside of anthropology, but I do think it's worth paying more attention to. Especially if we're all "nerds".
In addition to your comments, adoptive parents (anecdotally) have it harder-off than "normal" parents even when they are a male-female couple. Adoptions don't happen "by accident" -- well very rarely: baby on doorstep? basket in the reeds?-- and as such, adoptive parents may often do a better job raising children. Adoptive parents are typically in mature, stable, committed relationships/marriages before they embark on the months- or years-long process of adoption (sadly for Golias' axiom #1, there is no such requirment for beginning the months-long process of pregnancy). Full disclosure: my wife was adopted, I was raised by both biological parents, my mom's parents divorced.
If only divorce was still illegal! For the kids! HA!
[rant] Sigh. "Think of the children" arguments are so tired. Mostly because they are more often than not red-herrings. State involvement in marriage isn't for the children (well not any more than taxes or wars are for the children, i.e., so far removed as to be meaningless). Should the government be involved in who you can date, love, procreate with, child-rear with, etc.? I wish Uncle Sam could stay out of my relationship and out of my bedroom. Ironically, most people agree. Somehow the freedom haters keep influencing law (inflammatory language used sarcastically).
Well actaully, I wasn't making the case that male nerds are generally protrayed positively as I say here, "our culture will begrudingly accept a male nerd (hence the wide popularity of this site, and its over-whelmingly male readership and TV and movies that depict [often hunky] nerds saving the day, e.g., MacGuyver, Farscape [and much sci-fi a sample biased by its authors], etc.) but pretty much universally reviles a female nerd."
My argument in both posts is that pop-culture is generally anti-intellectual (I don't imagine I'd get any argument about that on this site) but that there is even less tolerance for the female nerds.
I agree with your point about scientists in general (and mention it in the other post, in reference to 24) and the Lone Gunmen in particular (although they conveniently fit 3 archetypes of male nerdiness at once! The square, the long-hair d&d geek, and the short four-eyed nerd). I think it's further proof that America thinks geeks suck because the Lone Gunmen's spin-off show was canceled almost immediately -- while the X-files suffered the geeky Mulder for years because he was... you got it right... hunky, er "good-looking" (as put in the show by the nerdy [shape-shifter] guy with the tail "[Fox Mulder,] You're a damn good-looking man."). Which brings us all back to body-image, shallowness, marketability, and hence why the only chicks in video-games are hot and naked.
Anyhow, if I must answer my own question, social and peer pressure pushed my sister away from computer science (though not computers per se) and any serious study of the other sciences. I only asked to see if you had the same point of reference that I did (in that my sister and I are so close in age [15 months], upbringing [even shared the same toys], and primary education [same schools, sometimes even the same teachers] as to be "twins" and yet gender obviously plays a huge role in the different choices in our later education/lives). I know this is all anecdotal and unscientific -- but you and I both experienced something different from my sister despite what sounds like similar circumstances. Given there physiological differences are minor I would think it's clear that society un-geeked my sister and not us. Somehow it was OK for us (or young boys/men are genetically predisposed to not be affected by bullying? I don't buy it). Well anyhow, that's my angle and I'm sticking to it.
However much nerdiness, geekiness is stigmatized in boys I believe (from my experiences) that the pressure on girls is worse.
(I think it was our home-life and not genetics that lead us both to be in gifted, attend the same schools, do basically the same in school in all the same subjects, etc.)
So yeah, nothing scientific here, just my own anecdotes:-p
Here's something to try, as I was already doing with Be-fan...
Name all of the TV shows or movies that contain positive depictions of male nerds (MacGuyver, John on Farscape or Trip on Enterprise, et al), now do the same for positive depictions of female nerds. Male chemists and scientists and the like have been positively depicted in TV since its inception, now dig up some female examples.
I'm not a pop and pulp expert, but just from my own experiences male nerds (like myself) are much more accepted (even encouraged!) than female nerds (possibly my wife, but don't let her know I said that). Did you grow up with a sister? Did she do well in school? Was she "in gifted"? Was she belittled and harassed for it? Mine was (not that girls won't harass other girls for just about anything). We didn't escape the bullying cycle until we both moved to the college prep school for jr. and sr. high-school.
Ironically, it must have worked on my sister, because she's left high school and became a bar-tender and is now back in school for a degree in foreign relations -- a far cry from doing the science she was capable of (but maybe she wasn't interested in it... why?). We grew up with the same programmer-dad, we had access to the same books and same early micros, and yet she didn't go on to get a degree in computer science. Pop-culture wasn't strong enough to un-geek me, how did it knock out my sister?
Why do girls get pink cribs and boys get blue? Why Barbies for girls and Lego for boys? (possibly offset by the new and improved glittering and pink Legos -- for girls!)
Well, I'm just rambling, but I'll be interested in seeing your examples of well-loved, positively-marketted female scientists!
You're right, I don't argue with the facts. That would be stupid.
Yet women, of their own free will, choose not to. You can argue that pop culture is brain-washing women into believing they cannot succeed in these fields, and shouldn't even try, or that their fathers are telling them that they'll shame their family if they become engineers, but what exactly does that prove?
Right, that's exactly what I was arguing. You said "why aren't they entering the hard fields" and answered it that "they aren't interested". I asked "why aren't they interested".
Every time a talking Barbie says into her cell-phone "Math is tough!" (and a thousand other examples) we just spoiled mathematics for another young girl. That's not pop-culture? That's not influencing the future? That's not perpetuating the cycle?
I see a lot of sound and motion, but I don't see any progress (either in my post, or your response). We both agree it's nurture -- and yet, I think pop culture influences children, and you don't. Well great. We've come to a real understanding. We've really pushed the debate forward.
I don't think it's a red-herring to apply your argument to another minority. It points to the obvious deficiency in your case that women are held back by themselves despite all the best intentions of whites, I mean men, and not by the institutions of society (and the culture that molds it). This would be telling to your stance, does "affirmative action" work or not? If yes, how, by affecting culture? If not then all the "bending over backward" of university administrators and the opportunities facilitated by others (i.e., men) mean nothing.
Get real, culture has everything to do with it. If you want to mock the argument (let's call it "brainwashing"), that's fine. The question still remains, why are "women not interested"?
I hope all fathers will one day be as enlightened as your grand-dad. Not only allowing their girls to pursue higher education, specifically in science, but encouraging them to do so even in the face of the 'brain-washing' (or should I say, the marketting of gender roles and preferable consumer behaviors).
Are we observing the same pop culture? I don't see anything that would predispose girls against science and math any more than it does boys. Pop culture, as far as I can se, predisposes boys and girls fairly equally against science and math. Yet, despite pop culture, boys make it into the hard sciences, and girls don't.
I guess we aren't observing the same pop-culture. But to an extent I'll further agree with you (and reiterate my belief that our culture is becoming increasingly anti-intellectual) that boys are also -- to a much lesser extent -- being disenchanted with mathematics, pretty much all students are. Anyhow, I didn't think it was that subtle that our culture will begrudingly accept a male nerd (hence the wide popularity of this site, and its over-whelmingly male readership and TV and movies that depict [often hunky] nerds saving the day, e.g., MacGuyver, Farscape [and much sci-fi a sample biased by its authors], etc.) but pretty much universally reviles a female nerd. Notable exceptions... possibly Penny from the 80s Inspector Gadget cartoon (she did have a computer book) and the chacter of Zoe on 24 (although she is portrayed as being socially dysfunctional, hardly a role model, but at least she helps save the day). I don't count Trinity from The Matrix because she is never depicted as a nerd, only as a hot kung-fu babe in skin tight clothing, while an allusion is made in the first movie that she was a super-hacker and thus believed to be a man. Our culture has pretty much accepted the role of woman as doctor so that medical school becomes the haven for "smart girls". I would say that pop-culture drives this, but you would argue pop-culture reflects this.
Well, I'm sad we've gotten no where. Thanks for your time though. Respectfully.
I can't see how you can call this "evolutionary, not revolutionary" simply because it has pirates and features other MMOs do. Almost every MMO (excluding CoH, The Matrix Online, and Second Life and stuff like that) has the features you're describing along with a setting that is similar to another MMO that is already out.
This comment is weirdly moderated. It's rated insightful when it doesn't display any insight at all (as usual for 'insightful' mods).
Shouldn't it be self-evident that if a game contains only features that other games already have (or have had) that it is evolutionary and not revolutionary? The second sentence of the quotation above makes the first meaningless by lending even more credence to this game's evolutionary nature.
I play YPP. I'm going to sign up for this beta. But, what's revolutionary about this game?
Damn. I wanted to stay out of the discussion on this. A majority of the posts are stupendously vapid or downright ignorant. There's even a +5 "insightful" containing the word fuckable. Some subsets of/. really disappoint me. Anyhow, on with the show:
The fallacy of hasty generalizations abounds!
Why? Simply put: because females aren't interested! Women, it appears, don't want to be engineers or scientists or mathematicians, or even philosophers, or historians, or economists, for that matter.
You stopped asking 'why?' just a little bit too soon. Why aren't females interested? Well there's two possibilities, right? It's either nature or nurture. That is, either something about the Y-chromosome predisposes us to "hard science" (as you put it) and it's therefor genetic (nature); or (and my position is that this is more likely) it is the way women -- more accurately girls -- are acculturated in our modern, western societies (nurture).
So, when you proclaim "women aren't interested" in being "engineers or scientists or mathemeticians" which of these do you believe to be the cause?
"[T]he bottleneck to womens' advancement today is in many cases women themselves." Wow, this statement must be taken to mean you believe it's genetics -- if they weren't made that way, they'd already be equals! It's just their own faults! Of course, any belief that tendancy to education, ambition, or intelligence is genetic leads us straight down the slippery slope.
All kidding aside, our culture --pop culture or not-- predisposes girls against science and especially math. Well, if we can agree that our American culture is patriarchal (and increasingly anti-intellectual) then we could agree that men are the arbiters of culture (and increasingly anti-intellectual men). Hence, men decide for the most part what little girls want to be when they grow up, whether overtly or subtley. This will [probably] change with time as America slowly conforms to its dream of equality, i.e., liberty and justice for all.
Sort of on-topic, this is why it matters what roles girls play/experience in their video games. Videogames, love it or not, will be a part of our children's acculturation going forward.
Need a barometer of this sorry state google for mathematician barbie. "The portrayal of people in popular culture is more or less irrelevent." You couldn't be more wrong. The portrayal of people in popular culture is what reinforces the status quo or leads to progress. Your own post gives examples of this for Jews, Muslims, and Indians. Look at how Jews were portrayed in the early parts of the 1900s, or Indians under colonial rule. Why did these stereotypes change? Because culture changed.
"If women don't enter these professions [...] how can they expect to be respected for their intellectual capabilities?" I feel sorry for your wife, daughter, or mother. For a fun thought experiment, replace women in your quotation there with "blacks" or "Indians". How biggotted does that sound:
If blacks are dissatisfied by their place in the world, only they can change it. Yes, there are still boundaries, and yes, those must be broken down, but the bottleneck to blacks' advancement today is in many cases blacks themselves. Consider, for example, higher education. There is an enormous dearth of blacks in the "hard sciences" and in engineering. Who can be blamed for this state of affairs? Whites? White students have little control over admissions, and white administrators are falling over themselves trying to increase black enrollment. The opportunities are there, yet a black is still a rare sight on an engineering campus. Why? Simply put: because blacks aren't interested! Blacks, it appears, don't want to be engineers or scientists or mathematicians, or even philosophers, or historians, or economists, for that matter. (nevermind all
The poster that thought a dockless iPod would be "teh awesome" would be more educated from your post than my snarky comment about how sucky dockless iPods would be:-D (it's likely that in replying to me he/she won't ever see your addition to the discussion). That's why I was saying that you should have replied directly (you know, just as a suggestion).
Your arguments against identity theft and man in the middle attacks are all well and good... but you would gain more security by compartmentalizing your risk. That is, getting one card and using it for the net, getting one card and using it for vacation. Using your debit card for everything is a pretty big target (because you have to trust everyone that touches it and by extension, every system they slide it through, and by extension every person that has physical access to each of those systems; e.g., is their [Windows] Point-of-Sale software secure; is the POS terminal hardened or tamper proofed?).
Take what Bruce says:
Chaos is hard to create, even on the Internet.
Here's an example. Go to Amazon.com. Buy a book without using SSL. Watch the total lack of chaos.
This is kind of a reply to you and to the GP. I'm also thinking I'm going to just start posting it whenever TiVo comes up... This is a post that was rejected at the inception of the TiVo blog.
This was written November 11, 2005, prior to the 'Tivo on iPod annoucement'. It remains to be seen if 'Tivo on iPod' will require Windows or not; I admit that I haven't checked to see if they actually commit to Tivo2go for iPod on Tiger. Anyway...
I wish TiVo wasn't so in bed with Microsoft and the Studios, i.e., I wish I could view video on: Mac, iPod, (ironically) other Linux based systems, etc. (Granted, I could get video on an iPod -- possibly illegally due to DMCA -- through unsupported methods. Despite TiVo's developers embracing/exploiting open technologies like Linux and Java, Tivo2Go remains tied to Windows.)
I wouldn't be surprised if the next series of TiVos gave up on Linux too and just used some form of subsidized Windows Embedded. (ed. note: with the Viiv article, this seems to be the case, haha, how prescient of me.)
Here's the irony, your early adopters, like me, generally loathe Microsoft... and yet... HMO is unsupported on Linux, Desktop is broken on Tiger (yeah, I'm not going to go without OS upgrades just to watch TV), no TiVo2Go, no video for the new iPods (AND THE LIST GOES ON). I thought you guys were promoting the TV revolution -- TV my way?
As long as "my way" is tethered to a couch or a Microsoft device.
It must suck that iPods are about to encompass every function that TiVos do (and Archos' players already do PVR). Here's how it will work in the not too distant future... maybe even before you get the cable-card and HD recorders out:
Cancel Tivo. Throw out box. Cancel cable. Throw out box. (That's the hard part, all that wiring and talking to customer reps.) Put iPod dock where TiVo used to be (that's the easy part, connect one cable to TV, one cable to PC/Mac/Airport/USB charger). Now, download shows from iTMS. Take iPod in living room, place it in dock. Enjoy commercial free television with elegant user interface right from the couch with comfortable remote.
There's a good chance that when I'm saving over $100 a month (cable plus TiVo subscription) that I'll maybe even come out ahead buying episodes at $2 a pop! You're killing me! You don't see this?
Don't even get me started on Front Row and what will happen if/when Apple's mythical PVR/mediacenter comes on scene. You still have the edge while MythTV and El Gato's EyeTV are the other non-Microsoft choices. TiVo is a great value in today's market. Here's hoping that HD and cable-card save you before online-distribution becomes the new model.
Don't get me wrong -- I love TiVo, I've been pimping it to friends for years now (4? more?). Each time I've upgraded, I've given my old one to someone else who's signed up (and that first series 1 is still dutifully serving a friend of mine). I'm just scared that 'being on the ropes' has made you too timid. This is the time to be pushing the envelope not bowing to the DRM crowd and frustrating your most loyal customers.
You could be running surveys right on all the TiVo boxes out there right now (maybe in Tivolution with a system mail saying where it is). You could start with this one: Do you have a computer? Do you use Windows? Do you dislike Microsoft? Should the MPAA control how you watch video you've recorded on your TiVo?
I'd imagine the majority of responses to EACH question will be 'yes'. Yes, most people with computers use Windows, despite that, I'd be surprised if most people love Microsoft for it. I'm sure that no one with a TiVo wants "The Man" telling them what they can do with video on their own devices in their own homes.
Please seize the day. All of your early adopters will thank you -- we believe in the vision. I don't want to see it compromised for expediency.
""Time based comparison" is a time comparison and a based comparison" is incorrect as well. When there exists no comma between two adjectives the first adjective describes the second. Therefore, "time based comparison" describes a based comparison (whatever that means) but not both a time and based compairson. A comparison based on both time and based would be "time, based comparison". When two adjectives are used to describe comparison the adjectives should be seperated with a comma. (Three or more adjectives describing comparison would vary based on style and author's implied diction -- e.g., "quick, concise, judgemental comparison"; "quick, concise, and judgemental comparison"; and "quick, concise and judgemental comparison".)
However, one might even argue that since time infact describes based that although the two phrases "time based" and "time-based" are structurally different (a chained pair of adjectives versus a compound adjective), their implication is the same semantically (as time describes the based of the comparison in the same fashion that time-based does)!
Anyway, I agree that hyphenation is often overlooked. Additionally, your example of proper use was nearly correct: it was only missing the particle a (although semantically unnecessary, I would mark it in a graded essay). Finally, it is common practice to capitalize the first letter in a sentence even when that letter doesn't appear so in the source quoted.
You might have noticed that I've used the logical encapsulation for quotations and not the standard American style (I find this British habit a bit more precise, even if I do retain my American double quotes).
Well, sorry for being pedantic! He started it! I just figured since we were all nitpicking nitpicks that I would get mine in.:-D
To me it seems that America is more religious than ever (well more religious than any point in the last 60 years for certain).
Wow. Really? I have entirely the opposite opinion. [...] Starbucks [...] Most people I know live their lives as if there's no God, or as if there's no such thing as absolute truth. [...] Seinfeld [...]
What facet of the 30s and 40s makes you think it was more religious?
But, further on, I think you've made a pretty good case for your opinion. I essentially agree. I'll even take your agrument that all the Christians in America that run everything aren't "real" Christians, or put better disciples of Christ (because you are correct, [generally] no one sacrifices for charity, even in time of "war" when traditionally such sacrifice was an 'American value'). But, taking your argument as a given, then all arguments of "America is a Christian Nation" become moot (not that you are making this assertion -- only people that want religious symbols sanctioned by government are). I don't think there's really any debate that Americans, on the whole (in descending order), are matierialistic, hedonistic, and maybe even greedy. I guess this rules them out as Christians in your sense of the word (you're right though, my definition is much looser, this distinction though makes your case that the ACLU is the foe of [your true, real] Christians even weaker -- e.g.).
So, I'd say we have similar goals... the Libertarian says the DOD doesn't give $8 million to Boy Scouts because it's big government pork, equal protection/discrimination, establishment/promotion of one religion, etc. The true Christian says the DOD doesn't give $8 million to Boy Scouts because regardless of their subtle 'Christian' message (in the loose American 'under God', Christian-by-default sense) they are still supporting the status quo, establishing one religion, promoting the culture of war, spending money that could be alms, etc. Once the lepers and the poor are comforted and fed then we can start sparing some time and cash on middle-class youth groups.
We have become a culture where it's not acceptable to express radical worldviews, because we fear offending anyone. This newspeak is detrimental to the freedom of all people.
Calling cultural awareness, diversity, and tolerance (more mythical 'American values') "newspeak" is rhetorically loaded (or at the very least, it's loaded to the literate and its use to defend absolutism is ironic at best). I'll spare you the diatribe about newspeak and 'real' examples (like scotus:) one I use all the time -- or maybe it doesn't count if I say 'supreme court of the united states' in my head when I type it...). I'm sorry that I'm so impatient about word choice. As an aside, maybe Jerry was guilty of doublethinking when began his "What's the deal with those [I assert that something is wrong]... not that there's anything wrong with that."
As far as absolute truth goes, we're just going to agree to disagree. Pardon me for treading near Godwin's Law, but the Western sphere isn't ready to accept, promote, and declare superiority of any absolute truth any time soon. I think we're all a little too gun-shy still. Enforcing a belief such as "[my] God's law is the one true law" is not compatible with a free society (but indvidual expression of that belief is a vital facet).
I think what we've come down to is that when push came to shove, I would choose freedom over faith, where as you would disagree? Right? I'm not sure because it kind of sounds like you are in both camps ("I could not agree with you more. The absolute last thing that I want to see here is for the government, be it city, county, state, or federal endorsement of religion. That would *not* be a goal for me." but at the same time insinuate that Constitutional removals of religious monuments from government buildings is
Slashdot Mirror
Are you talking about Speed Script? If so, I agree. I typed it in from the magazine listing and used that (mostly) until I bought my first cloned PC/AT (On which I used GeoWorks for word-processing as I'd been using GEOS back on the C64 when I needed to do text-with-graphics). I'm nostalgic for the noise my Commodore printer made. What a great 'REEEEEEEEEEE-raawwr-REEEEE-EE-EE-EEEEE-raawwr'. Remember how awesome Broderbund's Print Shop was at that point. I also had a Star printer that worked on both the C64, and with a big, weird adaptor on the AT as well.
God I loved the C64.
I have an old server with dual-Pentium Pros (hot enough already, right?) that has 2 IDE drives and 4 of those 4 GB Seagates SCSIs in a RAID (imagine a day when 8 redundant GBs was a lot).
:). In the winter I can heat my lab with it. I'd disconnect the RAID in the summer.
Anyhow, I can lend some credence to this story. The tower is like a chimney and I'm sure I could have cooked an egg on top of that case.
Because it's not Rhapsody's fault that Apple won't license their DRM technology.
p le%20to%20open%20iPod/2100-1025_3-5177914.html?tag =nlv ows_to_.html
If Real wanted you to be able to play Rhapsody music on iPods they would license Helix DRM to Apple, not the other way around (oh and does Rhapsody still use Listen.com's WMA format?). RealPlayer already uses the QuickTime libraries and is thus capable of playing FairPlay encrypted M4As/AACs. This is why "Harmony" was so ill-conceived and ill-recieved (legalities aside, Harmony benefits Real with nearly no benefit to Apple; letting iTunes users access Rhapsody on the other hand opens up Real's market to iPods, opens up Real's market to Mac users, both of which are "closed" to Rhapsody right now, and provides Apple with one more selling point for the iPod/iTunes combo -- subscription music). Real doesn't have to license/break/decieve FairPlay to get Rhapsody on the iPod, they just have to strike a deal with Apple (and get Helix DRM in iPod firmware or in iTunes). As far as I know, all the news has been Glaser begging/threatening Jobs in open and private email to 'open the iPod' ("or we'll go to our enemy Microsoft") not to support Helix and not to license FairPlay to them.
For more info:
http://www.realnetworks.com/products/drm/
http://news.com.com/Reals%20Glaser%20exhorts%20Ap
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/21/drm_company_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay
Let me take a little nibble on your flamebait too!
And a good percentage of those iPod purchases are probably Christmas gifts (or should I say Holiday gifts, is the word Christmas allowed anymore?)
I imagine one would only say "holiday gifts" if one bought presents for (for example) Jews and Christians because there would be a logical reason for the more ambiguous word. Verbosity is so passé, so why is anyone surprised that saying "happy holidays" has been en vogue for years now rather than "merry christmas and a happy new year?
Further, a fun fact for the "War on Christmas" crowd: Khristos (spelled with a chi, X, where we get the word Christ via the Latin Christus and Old English Crist) is the Greek word (well translated derivative) for the Hebrew Messiah (anointed and anoint respectively). The X in Xmas is a direct reference to Khristos and an abbreviation for Christ. So, the next time anyone tries to tell you that "xmas" is a conspiracy to "take the Christ out of Christmas" just remind them of this! The simple and more innocuous explanation is that store windows (and ad copy) just don't have enough space to mention all the Xmas specials without the abbreviation. Maybe the "War on Christmas" crowd should focus on the the real problem, the commercialization of Christmas (which lends itself to the ad copy and store windows and abbreviations). In that respect "happy holidays" is a victory, as it spreads the commercialism a little thinner to each of the exploitable gift-giving followers.
P.s. I'm not insinuating that the the parent is part of the "War on Christmas" crowd. His/her one quip isn't enough to make that judgement.
Since it seems you made an effort not to use any other informal spellings in your posting you might be interested in this.
From the New Oxford American:
If everyone stopped using the wasted 'ir' in front of regardless think of all the bandwidth we could save
First, I can't believe I read that whole article. What a blow hard Card is.
This is what I take away from it: "It is essential in a decent society that divorce be possible, when it is truly needed." but in addition, we need some kind of scarlet letter for the divorcée and 'divorcer', maybe a fantastic D.
In the end, you totally missed my point. So I'll recap before I abruptly end this discussion (because I'm not going to argue about it). Making divorce illegal is fucking retarded even if it's wrapped in the flag, or "for the kids", or the cause du jour. But first, I'll recap some "for the kids" arguments that are tired:
Libraries have to be censored -- for the children. CDs have to be stickered and restricted by law -- for the children. TV, video-games, and movies need to be restricted (by law!) -- for the children. Boobies and especially sex have to be hidden -- for the children. More helmet laws -- for the children. More firearm licensing and regulation -- for the children. Less integration in schools -- for the children. LESS GAY MARRIAGE -- for the children. That's what this thread was about... if you even read it. Golias posited that gay marriage is bad for the children. Are any of these "for the children" no, you could probably replace just about every argument "for the children" with "because we don't trust parents" (and by extension "because we don't trust anyone to do what we think is right").
So -- if we can't have gay marriage, because "the children" will only have one gender role-model (false premise) then we can't have single parent families. Divorce leads to single parent familes. Ergo, if we can't have gay marriage we can't have divorce (false conclusion). Hence the sarcastic remark to outlaw divorce you know "for the kids".
Wow. I've already said more than I wanted to.
So to clarify even further, I originally said: "Adoptive parents are typically in mature, stable, committed relationships/marriages before they embark on the months- or years-long process of adoption (sadly for Golias' axiom #1 [All else being equal, a kid is better off being raised by both biological parents], there is no such requirement for beginning the months-long process of pregnancy). Full disclosure: my wife was adopted, I was raised by both biological parents, my mom's parents divorced."
My mother wouldn't have been better off if one of her parents killed themselves to escape their marriage. So yeah, I agree with Card to some extent, people do make mistakes.
Until there are (scary, scary, brave-new) laws to license and regulate who can become fertile, who can mate, and who can birth we are going to just have to deal the best with can with "bad" families.
I'm not an absolutist, so we can just agree to disagree right now. Sorry this turned out so rantish. It would be pretty ironic if this post makes google's first page results for "for the children". Man, I'm in a foul mood.
The short version is
Don't take this excerpt to mean that you (or others) shouldn't take the time to explore the issue/meme completely:
(from http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/11-18-98.ht ml)
I don't know if it's ever been "proved," in the sense of a large-scale study of the correlation between right-wing political beliefs and the belief in religion as the source of morality
= 14096206 (maybe go up a few from here)
:) Anyhow, he's not a religious nut or anyhting, a very reasonable and thoughful guy, that's just his belief. I enjoyed talking to him.
I'm not saying that religion isn't a source of morality for some, but you said that right wingers insist you can't ave morality without religion. I have never seen anyone, right or left, proclaim that morality can not exist without religion. That's the proof I'm looking for.
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169079&cid
I was having a discussion here where this guy basically posits that there is no morality anywhere that isn't God's; that other people's moralities are derivative of that God regardless of their religion or lack thereof.
I may be "misremembering" the conversation though, forgive me for not re-reading it (I'm at work
I didn't compare it to puzzle pirates, that was another poster... but anyhow. Puzzle Pirates doesn't have leveling either. There is no treadmill in Puzzle Pirates unless you count earning money (via pillaging or economy). You are rated in your skills against other players by how well you perform those skills.
:-D I'll expect that PotBS has accelerated time like in say, Zelda or GTA making the feature anything but revolutionary. Real-time day and night has already been featured in Animal Crossing (though that's probably not the first example).
Other than that they only resemble each other to the same degree that all MMOs do.
Well only if you mean to say "they only resemble each other to the same degree that all mmogs set in the Carribean golden age of piracy do" which currently is one game: Puzzle Pirates. With another now in beta: PotBS. Other mmogs don't feature sea-battling or pillaging or naval blockading at all.
I guess the similarity would only be obvious if you had actually spent any honest time playing Puzzle Pirates (i.e., participating in the navy, economy, politics, war, blockading islands, sea-battle with broadsides and sailing and gunning and repairing and bilging and grappling and melee, crafting, shipping, foraging, commanding a crew and vessel, building and owning a ship or ships, learning charts, customizing the appearance and dress of your pirate, injuries at sea for patches and pegs and hooks earned not chosen, furnishing your home(s) with player crafted goods, etc). You don't level though. You are bestowed a rank by other players and by the navy.
PotBS really does sound (from developer descriptions), as the other poster put it, like Y!PP but in 3D. Everything in their feature list is already in Y!PP except the DirectX requirement (Y!PP is multi-platform). When the beta is more open I'm sure plenty of posting will come out by players with extensive experience in both games.
I'll tell you what -- I've been playing Y!PP for like 2 years. Ask me about any feature that PotBS has and I'll explain how it works in Puzzle Pirates. That way we can determine what's revolutionary about PotBS.
I'll start off with one from the screenshots -- it seems that PotBS has day and night. In Puzzle Pirates it is always daylight on the high seas and it only night at an island when the undead walk. Night time lasts on the island until all of the skellies are defeated. The Developers of Puzzle Pirates axed day and night back in 2002 here and here from the feature list (it even sounds like if Puzzle Pirates was rendered in 3D and not pre-drawn sprites it would have day/night...). Pirates never sleep.
We've been watching for the revolution for over a year now. The PotBS devs must have been reading the YPP forums, because nowadays they are touting their 'no level treadmill' just like puzzling pirates were saying a year and a half ago.
Meh. I guess we can't agree.
I didn't say otherwise. Your assertion, however, is that "pop culture" has to do with it. I think that's bollocks. "Pop culture" (the superficial ideas and beliefs of the society as a whole), has little to do with the behavior of any one person. What effects people are the beliefs of family and friends.
First off, because we don't even agree on what popular culture is. You think "pop culture" is what? Just Hollywood? Well, that's wrong.
Further: She does it because her mom never went to college and didn't pass along to her the value of mathematics and science. She does it because her friends tell her that she'll never get a guy that way.
Also wrong. More moms than ever have degrees (in America, percentage) yet the problem persists (how?). I contend, the problem is even when mom does go to college she doesn't pass the value of maths and science equally to Jenny and Johnny. Mom went to college to be a teacher lets say (because that was a common, first glass-cieling job) so she values education and literacy. Unfortunately, because pop culture got in the way Johnny gets Asimov, Jenny gets Nancy Drew. Johnny takes karate, Jenny takes ballet. Johnny plays trumpet, Jenny plays flute. All of these gender biases are reinforced by pop culture -- well, my anthropological definition of pop culture, not your superficial Hollywood-elite "pop culture" (elite and popular? a contradiction in terms!). Either way, these subtle biases predispose girls (the gender) against scientific curiosity which in turn influences their interest in sciences. By the time a young woman is choosing her major (I will continue to contend until shown otherwise) she is more "brain-washed" against the sciences than a young man in America. She doesn't even have to be "conditioned" against the sciences per se, she just has to be "normalized" into the belief that other goals are more important. Acculturation at work. (Again, on-topic for a second, video games are now part of acculturation, this is why it matters how women are depicted in video games).
Right. Yet, boys, whose toys have no more redeeming intellectual content than Barbie dolls, still manage to become engineers and physicists! Every time a little boy hears a talking X-men action figure, we've created a vigilante super-hero? The toys of children, are, well, for children.
Maybe. We just taught a boy that's it OK to solve conflicts with violence (Wolverine says, "We will defeat the evil-doers with force!"). It is parental choice though, and tacit parental approval. Violent toys make for violent boys. It's alright though, we need violent boys (especially the ones that don't like science) to fight our wars. The violent boys that do like science will grow up to design their guns. Of course there's also some parental choice in say, chemistry sets, microscopes, and robots -- still these aren't marketted towards girls (or bucking that marketting purchased anyway by parents en masse for girls).
So, I agree with you: parents are part of the problem (they are largely responsible for all early acculturation). Parents encourage their children's behavior by their toy-purchasing choices. It's unavoidable though that parents were children under the same (or progressively worse through time) pressures to conform to gender norms.
It's not complicated, and believe it or not, it works. As popular as it is to believe otherwise, children are the product of how their parents raise them.
Whew! That's a load off. Fortunately all the kids in America are being raised by parents and only parents are setting the meaningful expectations (and not TVs, latch-keys, or daycare-mobs). Less sarcastically... but aren't parents part of the problem? You've said they are. And I've agreed.
Every time a talking Barbie says into her cell-phone "Math is tough!"[...]
In what decade are you living? In my decade,
I agree with your sentiment. Just a nitpick:
It may even be possible that it's important for children to have access to adult role models of both genders,
Fortunately, gender isn't biological so it is possible for two males (or two females) to express both common genders. I understand that the distinction between sex and gender isn't prevalent outside of anthropology, but I do think it's worth paying more attention to. Especially if we're all "nerds".
In addition to your comments, adoptive parents (anecdotally) have it harder-off than "normal" parents even when they are a male-female couple. Adoptions don't happen "by accident" -- well very rarely: baby on doorstep? basket in the reeds?-- and as such, adoptive parents may often do a better job raising children. Adoptive parents are typically in mature, stable, committed relationships/marriages before they embark on the months- or years-long process of adoption (sadly for Golias' axiom #1, there is no such requirment for beginning the months-long process of pregnancy). Full disclosure: my wife was adopted, I was raised by both biological parents, my mom's parents divorced.
If only divorce was still illegal! For the kids! HA!
[rant] Sigh. "Think of the children" arguments are so tired. Mostly because they are more often than not red-herrings. State involvement in marriage isn't for the children (well not any more than taxes or wars are for the children, i.e., so far removed as to be meaningless). Should the government be involved in who you can date, love, procreate with, child-rear with, etc.? I wish Uncle Sam could stay out of my relationship and out of my bedroom. Ironically, most people agree. Somehow the freedom haters keep influencing law (inflammatory language used sarcastically).
Cheers.
Well actaully, I wasn't making the case that male nerds are generally protrayed positively as I say here, "our culture will begrudingly accept a male nerd (hence the wide popularity of this site, and its over-whelmingly male readership and TV and movies that depict [often hunky] nerds saving the day, e.g., MacGuyver, Farscape [and much sci-fi a sample biased by its authors], etc.) but pretty much universally reviles a female nerd."
... you got it right ... hunky, er "good-looking" (as put in the show by the nerdy [shape-shifter] guy with the tail "[Fox Mulder,] You're a damn good-looking man."). Which brings us all back to body-image, shallowness, marketability, and hence why the only chicks in video-games are hot and naked.
:-p
My argument in both posts is that pop-culture is generally anti-intellectual (I don't imagine I'd get any argument about that on this site) but that there is even less tolerance for the female nerds.
I agree with your point about scientists in general (and mention it in the other post, in reference to 24) and the Lone Gunmen in particular (although they conveniently fit 3 archetypes of male nerdiness at once! The square, the long-hair d&d geek, and the short four-eyed nerd). I think it's further proof that America thinks geeks suck because the Lone Gunmen's spin-off show was canceled almost immediately -- while the X-files suffered the geeky Mulder for years because he was
Anyhow, if I must answer my own question, social and peer pressure pushed my sister away from computer science (though not computers per se) and any serious study of the other sciences. I only asked to see if you had the same point of reference that I did (in that my sister and I are so close in age [15 months], upbringing [even shared the same toys], and primary education [same schools, sometimes even the same teachers] as to be "twins" and yet gender obviously plays a huge role in the different choices in our later education/lives). I know this is all anecdotal and unscientific -- but you and I both experienced something different from my sister despite what sounds like similar circumstances. Given there physiological differences are minor I would think it's clear that society un-geeked my sister and not us. Somehow it was OK for us (or young boys/men are genetically predisposed to not be affected by bullying? I don't buy it). Well anyhow, that's my angle and I'm sticking to it.
However much nerdiness, geekiness is stigmatized in boys I believe (from my experiences) that the pressure on girls is worse.
(I think it was our home-life and not genetics that lead us both to be in gifted, attend the same schools, do basically the same in school in all the same subjects, etc.)
So yeah, nothing scientific here, just my own anecdotes
Here's something to try, as I was already doing with Be-fan...
Name all of the TV shows or movies that contain positive depictions of male nerds (MacGuyver, John on Farscape or Trip on Enterprise, et al), now do the same for positive depictions of female nerds. Male chemists and scientists and the like have been positively depicted in TV since its inception, now dig up some female examples.
I'm not a pop and pulp expert, but just from my own experiences male nerds (like myself) are much more accepted (even encouraged!) than female nerds (possibly my wife, but don't let her know I said that). Did you grow up with a sister? Did she do well in school? Was she "in gifted"? Was she belittled and harassed for it? Mine was (not that girls won't harass other girls for just about anything). We didn't escape the bullying cycle until we both moved to the college prep school for jr. and sr. high-school.
Ironically, it must have worked on my sister, because she's left high school and became a bar-tender and is now back in school for a degree in foreign relations -- a far cry from doing the science she was capable of (but maybe she wasn't interested in it... why?). We grew up with the same programmer-dad, we had access to the same books and same early micros, and yet she didn't go on to get a degree in computer science. Pop-culture wasn't strong enough to un-geek me, how did it knock out my sister?
Why do girls get pink cribs and boys get blue? Why Barbies for girls and Lego for boys? (possibly offset by the new and improved glittering and pink Legos -- for girls!)
Well, I'm just rambling, but I'll be interested in seeing your examples of well-loved, positively-marketted female scientists!
You're right, I don't argue with the facts. That would be stupid.
Yet women, of their own free will, choose not to. You can argue that pop culture is brain-washing women into believing they cannot succeed in these fields, and shouldn't even try, or that their fathers are telling them that they'll shame their family if they become engineers, but what exactly does that prove?
Right, that's exactly what I was arguing. You said "why aren't they entering the hard fields" and answered it that "they aren't interested". I asked "why aren't they interested".
Every time a talking Barbie says into her cell-phone "Math is tough!" (and a thousand other examples) we just spoiled mathematics for another young girl. That's not pop-culture? That's not influencing the future? That's not perpetuating the cycle?
I see a lot of sound and motion, but I don't see any progress (either in my post, or your response). We both agree it's nurture -- and yet, I think pop culture influences children, and you don't. Well great. We've come to a real understanding. We've really pushed the debate forward.
I don't think it's a red-herring to apply your argument to another minority. It points to the obvious deficiency in your case that women are held back by themselves despite all the best intentions of whites, I mean men, and not by the institutions of society (and the culture that molds it). This would be telling to your stance, does "affirmative action" work or not? If yes, how, by affecting culture? If not then all the "bending over backward" of university administrators and the opportunities facilitated by others (i.e., men) mean nothing.
Get real, culture has everything to do with it. If you want to mock the argument (let's call it "brainwashing"), that's fine. The question still remains, why are "women not interested"?
I hope all fathers will one day be as enlightened as your grand-dad. Not only allowing their girls to pursue higher education, specifically in science, but encouraging them to do so even in the face of the 'brain-washing' (or should I say, the marketting of gender roles and preferable consumer behaviors).
Are we observing the same pop culture? I don't see anything that would predispose girls against science and math any more than it does boys. Pop culture, as far as I can se, predisposes boys and girls fairly equally against science and math. Yet, despite pop culture, boys make it into the hard sciences, and girls don't.
I guess we aren't observing the same pop-culture. But to an extent I'll further agree with you (and reiterate my belief that our culture is becoming increasingly anti-intellectual) that boys are also -- to a much lesser extent -- being disenchanted with mathematics, pretty much all students are. Anyhow, I didn't think it was that subtle that our culture will begrudingly accept a male nerd (hence the wide popularity of this site, and its over-whelmingly male readership and TV and movies that depict [often hunky] nerds saving the day, e.g., MacGuyver, Farscape [and much sci-fi a sample biased by its authors], etc.) but pretty much universally reviles a female nerd. Notable exceptions... possibly Penny from the 80s Inspector Gadget cartoon (she did have a computer book) and the chacter of Zoe on 24 (although she is portrayed as being socially dysfunctional, hardly a role model, but at least she helps save the day). I don't count Trinity from The Matrix because she is never depicted as a nerd, only as a hot kung-fu babe in skin tight clothing, while an allusion is made in the first movie that she was a super-hacker and thus believed to be a man. Our culture has pretty much accepted the role of woman as doctor so that medical school becomes the haven for "smart girls". I would say that pop-culture drives this, but you would argue pop-culture reflects this.
Well, I'm sad we've gotten no where. Thanks for your time though. Respectfully.
This comment is weirdly moderated. It's rated insightful when it doesn't display any insight at all (as usual for 'insightful' mods).
Shouldn't it be self-evident that if a game contains only features that other games already have (or have had) that it is evolutionary and not revolutionary? The second sentence of the quotation above makes the first meaningless by lending even more credence to this game's evolutionary nature.
I play YPP. I'm going to sign up for this beta. But, what's revolutionary about this game?
The fallacy of hasty generalizations abounds!
You stopped asking 'why?' just a little bit too soon. Why aren't females interested? Well there's two possibilities, right? It's either nature or nurture. That is, either something about the Y-chromosome predisposes us to "hard science" (as you put it) and it's therefor genetic (nature); or (and my position is that this is more likely) it is the way women -- more accurately girls -- are acculturated in our modern, western societies (nurture).
So, when you proclaim "women aren't interested" in being "engineers or scientists or mathemeticians" which of these do you believe to be the cause?
"[T]he bottleneck to womens' advancement today is in many cases women themselves." Wow, this statement must be taken to mean you believe it's genetics -- if they weren't made that way, they'd already be equals! It's just their own faults! Of course, any belief that tendancy to education, ambition, or intelligence is genetic leads us straight down the slippery slope.
All kidding aside, our culture --pop culture or not-- predisposes girls against science and especially math. Well, if we can agree that our American culture is patriarchal (and increasingly anti-intellectual) then we could agree that men are the arbiters of culture (and increasingly anti-intellectual men). Hence, men decide for the most part what little girls want to be when they grow up, whether overtly or subtley. This will [probably] change with time as America slowly conforms to its dream of equality, i.e., liberty and justice for all.
Sort of on-topic, this is why it matters what roles girls play/experience in their video games. Videogames, love it or not, will be a part of our children's acculturation going forward.
Need a barometer of this sorry state google for mathematician barbie. "The portrayal of people in popular culture is more or less irrelevent." You couldn't be more wrong. The portrayal of people in popular culture is what reinforces the status quo or leads to progress. Your own post gives examples of this for Jews, Muslims, and Indians. Look at how Jews were portrayed in the early parts of the 1900s, or Indians under colonial rule. Why did these stereotypes change? Because culture changed.
"If women don't enter these professions [...] how can they expect to be respected for their intellectual capabilities?" I feel sorry for your wife, daughter, or mother. For a fun thought experiment, replace women in your quotation there with "blacks" or "Indians". How biggotted does that sound:
It's no big deal, I'm just saying.
:-D (it's likely that in replying to me he/she won't ever see your addition to the discussion). That's why I was saying that you should have replied directly (you know, just as a suggestion).
The poster that thought a dockless iPod would be "teh awesome" would be more educated from your post than my snarky comment about how sucky dockless iPods would be
Well, that's my justification anyhow.
Exactly my point. You should have replied to this post instead. Insinuating that an iPod with bluetooth wouldn't need a dock is fucking insane.
Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to respond.
Take what Bruce says:
http://www.google.com/search?q=chaos+is+hard+to+c
Also of interest are Schneier's thoughts on identity theft and credit card fraud and their 'solutions'.
Sorry, I made a typo, the letter was originally sent November first, not the eleventh.
This was written November 11, 2005, prior to the 'Tivo on iPod annoucement'. It remains to be seen if 'Tivo on iPod' will require Windows or not; I admit that I haven't checked to see if they actually commit to Tivo2go for iPod on Tiger. Anyway...
Here's where it isn't: http://blog.tivo.com/tivo_blog/2005/11/team_tivor
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Wouldn't syncing gigs of music and video via bluetooth suck?
You've made a great argument here for why all television in the future will be purchased per episode over the net.
""Time based comparison" is a time comparison and a based comparison" is incorrect as well. When there exists no comma between two adjectives the first adjective describes the second. Therefore, "time based comparison" describes a based comparison (whatever that means) but not both a time and based compairson. A comparison based on both time and based would be "time, based comparison". When two adjectives are used to describe comparison the adjectives should be seperated with a comma. (Three or more adjectives describing comparison would vary based on style and author's implied diction -- e.g., "quick, concise, judgemental comparison"; "quick, concise, and judgemental comparison"; and "quick, concise and judgemental comparison".)
:-D
However, one might even argue that since time infact describes based that although the two phrases "time based" and "time-based" are structurally different (a chained pair of adjectives versus a compound adjective), their implication is the same semantically (as time describes the based of the comparison in the same fashion that time-based does)!
Anyway, I agree that hyphenation is often overlooked. Additionally, your example of proper use was nearly correct: it was only missing the particle a (although semantically unnecessary, I would mark it in a graded essay). Finally, it is common practice to capitalize the first letter in a sentence even when that letter doesn't appear so in the source quoted.
You might have noticed that I've used the logical encapsulation for quotations and not the standard American style (I find this British habit a bit more precise, even if I do retain my American double quotes).
Well, sorry for being pedantic! He started it! I just figured since we were all nitpicking nitpicks that I would get mine in.
To me it seems that America is more religious than ever (well more religious than any point in the last 60 years for certain).
:) one I use all the time -- or maybe it doesn't count if I say 'supreme court of the united states' in my head when I type it...). I'm sorry that I'm so impatient about word choice. As an aside, maybe Jerry was guilty of doublethinking when began his "What's the deal with those [I assert that something is wrong]... not that there's anything wrong with that."
Wow. Really? I have entirely the opposite opinion. [...] Starbucks [...] Most people I know live their lives as if there's no God, or as if there's no such thing as absolute truth. [...] Seinfeld [...]
What facet of the 30s and 40s makes you think it was more religious?
But, further on, I think you've made a pretty good case for your opinion. I essentially agree. I'll even take your agrument that all the Christians in America that run everything aren't "real" Christians, or put better disciples of Christ (because you are correct, [generally] no one sacrifices for charity, even in time of "war" when traditionally such sacrifice was an 'American value'). But, taking your argument as a given, then all arguments of "America is a Christian Nation" become moot (not that you are making this assertion -- only people that want religious symbols sanctioned by government are). I don't think there's really any debate that Americans, on the whole (in descending order), are matierialistic, hedonistic, and maybe even greedy. I guess this rules them out as Christians in your sense of the word (you're right though, my definition is much looser, this distinction though makes your case that the ACLU is the foe of [your true, real] Christians even weaker -- e.g.).
So, I'd say we have similar goals... the Libertarian says the DOD doesn't give $8 million to Boy Scouts because it's big government pork, equal protection/discrimination, establishment/promotion of one religion, etc. The true Christian says the DOD doesn't give $8 million to Boy Scouts because regardless of their subtle 'Christian' message (in the loose American 'under God', Christian-by-default sense) they are still supporting the status quo, establishing one religion, promoting the culture of war, spending money that could be alms, etc. Once the lepers and the poor are comforted and fed then we can start sparing some time and cash on middle-class youth groups.
We have become a culture where it's not acceptable to express radical worldviews, because we fear offending anyone. This newspeak is detrimental to the freedom of all people.
Calling cultural awareness, diversity, and tolerance (more mythical 'American values') "newspeak" is rhetorically loaded (or at the very least, it's loaded to the literate and its use to defend absolutism is ironic at best). I'll spare you the diatribe about newspeak and 'real' examples (like scotus
As far as absolute truth goes, we're just going to agree to disagree. Pardon me for treading near Godwin's Law, but the Western sphere isn't ready to accept, promote, and declare superiority of any absolute truth any time soon. I think we're all a little too gun-shy still. Enforcing a belief such as "[my] God's law is the one true law" is not compatible with a free society (but indvidual expression of that belief is a vital facet).
I think what we've come down to is that when push came to shove, I would choose freedom over faith, where as you would disagree? Right? I'm not sure because it kind of sounds like you are in both camps ("I could not agree with you more. The absolute last thing that I want to see here is for the government, be it city, county, state, or federal endorsement of religion. That would *not* be a goal for me." but at the same time insinuate that Constitutional removals of religious monuments from government buildings is