everything HAS to be super bright, during filming, and during showing. it's lame because some movies work great with effective use of the dark negative space, which you can't do with 3D, because everything has to filmed/ shown all washed out
of course 3D is better, what's awful is current 3D technology. i'd rather watch 2D done well then 3D done badly, and all current 3D tech sucks
fix the current technology, and then 3D will be fully embraced
1. healthy reserved distrust based on positions of power and that potential to abuse them
2. paranoid schizophrenic broad spectrum distrust based on defects of character and psychology
i think you will find most vocal loud distrust of the police is the latter, since of the former, nothing is spoken, because everyone, including the police, expect it, and it is perfectly normal and not in any way in dispute or controversial
so when i attack the latter, don't defend the former. unless you like changing the subject matter of a conversation and think that that somehow makes you have anything fucking valid to say
and the guys making stuff with your IP use their profits to create the next wave of IP. so they don't need your IP anymore, they don't need your management, they don't need your technical knowhow. in fact, you have no factories or factory workers left, so you really don't have any more technical knowhow, you've outsourced absolutely everything
so instead, you, or your kids, are waiting tables at the cowboy theme restaurant for the asian tourists
and some people wonder what the problem with unregulated capitalism is, and why there is any need for pesky "socialist" government policies, like investing in education
or more exactly, the security system for THEIR network, which the password was the key to
terry childs is like the auto mechanic in that seinfeld episode from the nineties, who doesn't think jerry is treating his car well enough, that he slaved so many hours repairing, so he steals his car. funny on tv, not funny in real life
yes, terry childs and the auto mechanic put a lot of hours and love into their technical efforts. but this in absolutely no way gives them any right to assert any authority
why the hell can't some slashdotters understand this simple concept?
can't stand it. anyone with a supple enough mind doesn't mind it
therefore i drive away brittle minds, so i don't have to deal with them, and brittle minds don't read my words, and don't have to deal with me. win-win
its the same logic tattooed/ pierced people use: they cannot deal with shallow feeble nitwits. so they mark themselves in a way that the nitwits can't deal with. anyone with a relaxed open mind has no problem. so the nitwits win: no scary tattooed people to deal with, and the tattooed guy wins: no nitwits to deal with. again, win-win
consider modified writing on the web an online version of people with heavy body modifications: you radicalize your appearance in order to manipulate how people react to you. you purposefully introduce noise of a certain frequency into the signal that in some minds drives them nuts and drives them away, and in other minds is not a bother. and i do this out of necessity: small brittle minds and small brittle thoughts make me want to kill someone. so i do it so i don't go into a murderous rage at how petty and feeble some people can be
this is my character, and this is how i deal with my weakness: the desire to kill people who are petty feeble and small-minded is not healthy, so i purposefully attenuate my appearance to the world to protect myself from such people, and also protect them from me. i am a moral person, i realize the desire to kill flaky people is not healthy, nor right. so i must protect myself, and them, from my murderous rage at the shallow end of the mind pool
the city of san francisco could have decided to hand out the passwords to homeless people and plaster them on freeway billboards. and? who cares. the point is, the passwords were the property of the city of san francisco's, not terry child's. the story begins and ends there
that san franciso would poorly manage network security is almost a fact. i would wager good money on their network being compromised. again, who cares: completely besides the point. terry childs had no right to assert himself as an authority, regardless of how right or wrong he was. therefore, he deserves to be punished for believing he had authority that anyone with a normal ego would understand they do not
i wish people would stop defending this guy. we have enough egomaniacs in this world ruining it. why some slashdotters can't see that terry childs is the exact same kind of egomaniac is beyond me
but the majority are actually paid to serve you, and do the job well
why it is so important to you to see the people meant to protect you from crime as something to fear or distrust says more to me about deficits in your psychology and character than anything about reality
1. Due to police misconduct. Rare in western industrialized nations. So your default assumption should be trust
2. Due to poverty of character or defect of psychology. Some people tend to paranoid schizophrenia or have a bad family background. This is distrust not due to anything the police did, but just because someone is psychotic
And even if the police are distrusted, they still would tend to do a better job intervening them some random asshole who assumes authority, no?
you report on him, because you care. you can't do anything about it yourself, you can't talk to him, and you can't have a human conscience and say nothing. so you report him. anything else is logical failure and the road to a rotten hellhole of a society
either you are an empire or not. behave like one or don't. no one is giving out gold stars for being a "nice" empire, whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. it's not like the middle east is joyful we didn't kick out saddam hussein. no one on the arab street is going "the usa is a nice empire, they left saddam hussein stay alive". no, they are going "evil american empire left their anti-iranian puppet in place as a reward/ {pick your own consipriacy theory)"
there was absolutely nothing gained stopping at the gates of baghdad, whatever the hell our agreements with the saudi were, which reflected the insecurities of a few nitwits in the saudi ruling class, not the man on the streets of riyadh or baghdad
if bush i in iraq i had decided to push on to baghdad and topple saddam in the early 1990s after racing across the desert unimpeded, then the world would have seen that as justified
however, the political fear of americans coming home in bodybags was too much, so they turned around and left saddam in power. kuwait was liberated, saddam was cowed, end of story... not
of course, the shiites who revolted under the false impression or false covert promise of american support were massacred. and of course, the tragedy is saddam was removed when war hawks in the usa sensed the political will finally existed after 9/11 to finish the job. not that 9/11 had anything to do with saddam hussein, but it had everything to do with agendas and the willpower to get them done. the world sensed this massive disconnect and the seedy trumped up lies, and therefore did not support the americans at all the second time around
and it was done at the price of probably many more american, and iraqi, body bags, many years later, under bush ii in iraq ii
so colin powell and assorted numbnuts: you screwed up in 1991. you should have gone all the way. if you start a job, finish it completely. leaving it half done meant a problem that festered
yes, you had the highest and noblest of intentions in mind, but war is messy and has nothing to do with nobility and good intentions, and you need to take some ugly jobs to completion, or don't start the ugly job at all
elaine stops having sex with her boyfriend to motivate him to pass an exam (another commentary on sex and smarts) and george stops having sex because his girlfriend has mononucleosis. george gets progressively smarter (until he spontaneously learns portuguese and therefore seduces a portuguese woman, thus becoming a stupid again), and elaine gets progressively dumber. some humor from jerry's summary of what's going on in their heads:
to george:
George: What is Tungsten or Wolfram?
Alex Trebek: We were looking for 'What is Tungsten, or Wolfram'.
Jerry: Is this a repeat?
George: No, no, no. Just lately, I've been thinking a lot clearer. Like this afternoon, (To television) what is chicken Kiev, (Back to Jerry) I really enjoyed watching a documentary with Louise.
Jerry: Louise! That's what's doin' it. You're no longer pre-occupied with sex, so your mind is able to focus.
George: You think?
Jerry: Yeah. I mean, let's say this is your brain. (Holds lettuce head) Okay, from what I know about you, your brain consists of two parts: the intellect, represented here (Pulls off tiny piece of lettuce), and the part obsessed with sex. (Shows large piece) Now granted, you have extracted an astonishing amount from this little scrap. But with no-sex-Louise, this previously useless lump, is now functioning for the first time in its existence. (Eats tiny piece of lettuce)
George: Oh my God. I just remembered where I left my retainer in second grade. I'll see ya. (He throws finished Rubik's cube to Jerry and he exits. Kramer enters)
to elaine:
Elaine: How come he's gettin' so smart? I stopped having sex with Ben three days ago and I don't know no Portuguese?
Jerry: Are you all right?
Elaine: I don't know. It's just the last coupla days my mind has been, not good.
Jerry: Wait a second, I know what's happening. The no sex thing is having a reverse effect on you.
Elaine: What? What are you talking about?
Jerry: To a woman, sex is like the garbage man. You just take for granted the fact that any time you put some trash out on the street, a guy in a jumpsuit's gonna come along and pick it up. But now, it's like a garbage strike. The bags are piling up in your head. The sidewalk is blocked. Nothing's getting through. You're stupid.
it means people are invested in and care about their societies to make sure nobody violates it
you are thinking of east germany, where the state, not average citizens, maintained a network of neighborhood agents to exert control. this is top down control, not bottom up control
remember when rodney king's beating was videotaped in la in the early '90s? this is "little brother": citizens reporting on injustice, whether done by fellow citizens, or even by the state itself, to maintain their society. it's the ideal. no, it's not "mob rule". the state still exists, and mob justice is not tolerated
perhaps you would prefer the sort of "stop snitching" mentality that goes on in neighborhoods rife with crime. a combination of people not caring about their own communities (and therefore not fighting crime that goes on around them, becoming collaborators in their own misery, out of distrust of the police, deserved or not), and criminals ruling by intimidation and fear to bully witnesses of crimes, results in a hellhole that in my mind, is even worse than east german stasi
and you look at canada, uk, france, germany that are doing BETTER, but somehting moves your brain to not conclude the fucking obvious. namely, your fucking armchair philosophy professor bullshit
now write 10,000 more words to me, go ahead, send me 20x more links i "have to read before you take me seriously". fuck you you partisan. the facts are on the fucking table: other countries with socialist systems have better healthcare than the usa. there's your insurmountable wall of truth that your ivory tower words cannot defeat. this is where you give me links to faux news propaganda spinning problem socialist countries have with healthcare (that i would love to have rather our far worse problems: more analysis in a vacuum, more propaganda half-truths)
all i know is, i'd rather live in germany, uk, or france, when it comes to healthcare, rather than the usa
but being a proud american, i'd rather recreate the obviously financially and health outcomes superior system of uk/ germany/ france/ canada/ etc, here, in the country i love
to do that, i instead have to beat back asshole free market fundamentalists like yourself, and that i will do
you derive your opinions from talking heads rather than clearly and broadly established facts of how they do healthcare BETTER in socialist countries
YOU LOSE
ON POINT OF FACT
wake up from your propaganda and your castle in the sky wish fulfillment fantasies
in real life, socialist healthcare is superior on all the measures that matter: financially, health outcomes, etc
imagine that: not everything in this world can be solved by the profit principle. who knew that free market fundamentalism wasn't the answer to all the problems in the world? pfffffffffft
when the first automobiles came out, they were the toys of the very rich. it wasn't until the model t ford that the middle class started getting serious about cars. the first personal computers were the tools of the upper middle class. the first televisions, the first refrigerators, the frist radios, etc...
fact: the first electric cars will be bought by the upper middle class. why does anyone with a functioning brain think it will be otherwise?
that is, if you are purposefully going to watch live people do what is usually projected onto a screen, then you are already paying a premium for a quaint, thrilling pasttime
to then sully that quaint experience with the same intrusions of modern technology you are actively fleeing, you are negating the whole point of seeking out the quaint experience in the first place
so broadway should realize, and if they don't then they will find out, that people want a broadway experience. they pay a premium for a boradway experience. full stop. that means live people cranking on curtains, live people turning lights on and off, and live people blowing into wind instruments
so if you pollute the "purity" of that quaint experience, you also destroy that which makes the experience attractive in the first place
broadway, whatever money it is saving on not having an orchestra, is losing money by cheapening the experience and how much people are thrilled by and therefore will pay for the experience
synthesizers instead of live musicians simply means less money for broadway, not cost savings. someone must see that they are cheapening their product and reducing its appeal
the discussion about who is at fault for global warming, or even if it exists, is completely besides the point
in fact, make believe, for the sake of argument, that there is no global warming at all
ok: well, mankind's stewardship over this planet is still undeniable. correct? does anyone disagree with the idea that we are responsible for this planet?
therefore, simply for the sake of self-interest, mankind should be monitoring and maintaining the climate according to specifications that suit his purposes. and his purposes are to maintain the status quo. even if rising sea levels were completely natural, no one wants to turn all of our coastal cities into venice. or lose all our crop lands we have invested in to desert, even if, again, that were perfectly natural. therefore, we should do something to counteract whatever is causing difficulties for our status quo
what i am talking about is completely shortcircuiting pointless discussions about who is to blame and pointless discussions about whether or not the climate is changing
if we observe higher heat and smaller crops, we fix that problem. if we don't, we still maintain things as they are, as we are invested in the climate status quo
if we observe rising sea levels, we fix the problem. if we don't observe rising sea levels, we keep watching the sea level. beginning and end of discussion. everything else is pointless hot air, pun intended
in other words, shut the ideologues and politicians up, bring the scientists and engineers in the room:
1. observe 2. if any problems are seen, solve the problems 3. go to 1
every other discussion is methane-rich bullshit. only the problem solvers matter. is there a job to do? then get it done. any else to talk about? NO!
Slashdot Mirror
for the world. you can't carry your weight, and the weight of incompetents
understand your boundaries. speak your concerns to the people in charge, and let it go
you don't solve problems by assigning yourself authority you don't have
everything HAS to be super bright, during filming, and during showing. it's lame because some movies work great with effective use of the dark negative space, which you can't do with 3D, because everything has to filmed/ shown all washed out
of course 3D is better, what's awful is current 3D technology. i'd rather watch 2D done well then 3D done badly, and all current 3D tech sucks
fix the current technology, and then 3D will be fully embraced
1. healthy reserved distrust based on positions of power and that potential to abuse them
2. paranoid schizophrenic broad spectrum distrust based on defects of character and psychology
i think you will find most vocal loud distrust of the police is the latter, since of the former, nothing is spoken, because everyone, including the police, expect it, and it is perfectly normal and not in any way in dispute or controversial
so when i attack the latter, don't defend the former. unless you like changing the subject matter of a conversation and think that that somehow makes you have anything fucking valid to say
what happens to your community when there is no police?
i admit to every single criticism of police that you can list (or imagine in your paranoid schizophrenia)
and yet society without police is obviously much worse
welcome to reality, moron
and the guys making stuff with your IP use their profits to create the next wave of IP. so they don't need your IP anymore, they don't need your management, they don't need your technical knowhow. in fact, you have no factories or factory workers left, so you really don't have any more technical knowhow, you've outsourced absolutely everything
so instead, you, or your kids, are waiting tables at the cowboy theme restaurant for the asian tourists
and some people wonder what the problem with unregulated capitalism is, and why there is any need for pesky "socialist" government policies, like investing in education
or more exactly, the security system for THEIR network, which the password was the key to
terry childs is like the auto mechanic in that seinfeld episode from the nineties, who doesn't think jerry is treating his car well enough, that he slaved so many hours repairing, so he steals his car. funny on tv, not funny in real life
yes, terry childs and the auto mechanic put a lot of hours and love into their technical efforts. but this in absolutely no way gives them any right to assert any authority
why the hell can't some slashdotters understand this simple concept?
accord to terry childs
self-appointed dictator, following his self-appointed duty, of policing san francisco's network policy
he was an egomaniac who overstepped his bounds, and for that, he was jailed, and rightly so
why do people continue defending this asshole?
can't stand it. anyone with a supple enough mind doesn't mind it
therefore i drive away brittle minds, so i don't have to deal with them, and brittle minds don't read my words, and don't have to deal with me. win-win
its the same logic tattooed/ pierced people use: they cannot deal with shallow feeble nitwits. so they mark themselves in a way that the nitwits can't deal with. anyone with a relaxed open mind has no problem. so the nitwits win: no scary tattooed people to deal with, and the tattooed guy wins: no nitwits to deal with. again, win-win
consider modified writing on the web an online version of people with heavy body modifications: you radicalize your appearance in order to manipulate how people react to you. you purposefully introduce noise of a certain frequency into the signal that in some minds drives them nuts and drives them away, and in other minds is not a bother. and i do this out of necessity: small brittle minds and small brittle thoughts make me want to kill someone. so i do it so i don't go into a murderous rage at how petty and feeble some people can be
this is my character, and this is how i deal with my weakness: the desire to kill people who are petty feeble and small-minded is not healthy, so i purposefully attenuate my appearance to the world to protect myself from such people, and also protect them from me. i am a moral person, i realize the desire to kill flaky people is not healthy, nor right. so i must protect myself, and them, from my murderous rage at the shallow end of the mind pool
the city of san francisco could have decided to hand out the passwords to homeless people and plaster them on freeway billboards. and? who cares. the point is, the passwords were the property of the city of san francisco's, not terry child's. the story begins and ends there
that san franciso would poorly manage network security is almost a fact. i would wager good money on their network being compromised. again, who cares: completely besides the point. terry childs had no right to assert himself as an authority, regardless of how right or wrong he was. therefore, he deserves to be punished for believing he had authority that anyone with a normal ego would understand they do not
i wish people would stop defending this guy. we have enough egomaniacs in this world ruining it. why some slashdotters can't see that terry childs is the exact same kind of egomaniac is beyond me
and always will
but the majority are actually paid to serve you, and do the job well
why it is so important to you to see the people meant to protect you from crime as something to fear or distrust says more to me about deficits in your psychology and character than anything about reality
Yes, distrust of the police
A genuine problem
But there are two kinds of distrust:
1. Due to police misconduct. Rare in western industrialized nations. So your default assumption should be trust
2. Due to poverty of character or defect of psychology. Some people tend to paranoid schizophrenia or have a bad family background. This is distrust not due to anything the police did, but just because someone is psychotic
And even if the police are distrusted, they still would tend to do a better job intervening them some random asshole who assumes authority, no?
So is it 1 or 2 with you?
you report on him, because you care. you can't do anything about it yourself, you can't talk to him, and you can't have a human conscience and say nothing. so you report him. anything else is logical failure and the road to a rotten hellhole of a society
either you are an empire or not. behave like one or don't. no one is giving out gold stars for being a "nice" empire, whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. it's not like the middle east is joyful we didn't kick out saddam hussein. no one on the arab street is going "the usa is a nice empire, they left saddam hussein stay alive". no, they are going "evil american empire left their anti-iranian puppet in place as a reward/ {pick your own consipriacy theory)"
there was absolutely nothing gained stopping at the gates of baghdad, whatever the hell our agreements with the saudi were, which reflected the insecurities of a few nitwits in the saudi ruling class, not the man on the streets of riyadh or baghdad
if bush i in iraq i had decided to push on to baghdad and topple saddam in the early 1990s after racing across the desert unimpeded, then the world would have seen that as justified
however, the political fear of americans coming home in bodybags was too much, so they turned around and left saddam in power. kuwait was liberated, saddam was cowed, end of story... not
of course, the shiites who revolted under the false impression or false covert promise of american support were massacred. and of course, the tragedy is saddam was removed when war hawks in the usa sensed the political will finally existed after 9/11 to finish the job. not that 9/11 had anything to do with saddam hussein, but it had everything to do with agendas and the willpower to get them done. the world sensed this massive disconnect and the seedy trumped up lies, and therefore did not support the americans at all the second time around
and it was done at the price of probably many more american, and iraqi, body bags, many years later, under bush ii in iraq ii
so colin powell and assorted numbnuts: you screwed up in 1991. you should have gone all the way. if you start a job, finish it completely. leaving it half done meant a problem that festered
yes, you had the highest and noblest of intentions in mind, but war is messy and has nothing to do with nobility and good intentions, and you need to take some ugly jobs to completion, or don't start the ugly job at all
elaine stops having sex with her boyfriend to motivate him to pass an exam (another commentary on sex and smarts) and george stops having sex because his girlfriend has mononucleosis. george gets progressively smarter (until he spontaneously learns portuguese and therefore seduces a portuguese woman, thus becoming a stupid again), and elaine gets progressively dumber. some humor from jerry's summary of what's going on in their heads:
to george:
to elaine:
http://www.operaforthemasses.com/2010/06/seinfeld-review-7-abstinence.html
is how the ideal society works
it means people are invested in and care about their societies to make sure nobody violates it
you are thinking of east germany, where the state, not average citizens, maintained a network of neighborhood agents to exert control. this is top down control, not bottom up control
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Stasi_operations
remember when rodney king's beating was videotaped in la in the early '90s? this is "little brother": citizens reporting on injustice, whether done by fellow citizens, or even by the state itself, to maintain their society. it's the ideal. no, it's not "mob rule". the state still exists, and mob justice is not tolerated
perhaps you would prefer the sort of "stop snitching" mentality that goes on in neighborhoods rife with crime. a combination of people not caring about their own communities (and therefore not fighting crime that goes on around them, becoming collaborators in their own misery, out of distrust of the police, deserved or not), and criminals ruling by intimidation and fear to bully witnesses of crimes, results in a hellhole that in my mind, is even worse than east german stasi
but ninjas are
the usa system sucks. you agree to this
and you look at canada, uk, france, germany that are doing BETTER, but somehting moves your brain to not conclude the fucking obvious. namely, your fucking armchair philosophy professor bullshit
now write 10,000 more words to me, go ahead, send me 20x more links i "have to read before you take me seriously". fuck you you partisan. the facts are on the fucking table: other countries with socialist systems have better healthcare than the usa. there's your insurmountable wall of truth that your ivory tower words cannot defeat. this is where you give me links to faux news propaganda spinning problem socialist countries have with healthcare (that i would love to have rather our far worse problems: more analysis in a vacuum, more propaganda half-truths)
all i know is, i'd rather live in germany, uk, or france, when it comes to healthcare, rather than the usa
but being a proud american, i'd rather recreate the obviously financially and health outcomes superior system of uk/ germany/ france/ canada/ etc, here, in the country i love
to do that, i instead have to beat back asshole free market fundamentalists like yourself, and that i will do
you derive your opinions from talking heads rather than clearly and broadly established facts of how they do healthcare BETTER in socialist countries
YOU LOSE
ON POINT OF FACT
wake up from your propaganda and your castle in the sky wish fulfillment fantasies
in real life, socialist healthcare is superior on all the measures that matter: financially, health outcomes, etc
imagine that: not everything in this world can be solved by the profit principle. who knew that free market fundamentalism wasn't the answer to all the problems in the world? pfffffffffft
interesting idea
you could extend this to all sorts of research/ energy generation/ disposal issues that would normally send NIMBYs into hyperdrive
anthrax research? sure, no problem
radioactive medical waste? bring it on down!
write a business proposal dude
that the science behind the godzilla creation myth is not plausible?
don't mess with my religion man
when the first automobiles came out, they were the toys of the very rich. it wasn't until the model t ford that the middle class started getting serious about cars. the first personal computers were the tools of the upper middle class. the first televisions, the first refrigerators, the frist radios, etc...
fact: the first electric cars will be bought by the upper middle class. why does anyone with a functioning brain think it will be otherwise?
that is, if you are purposefully going to watch live people do what is usually projected onto a screen, then you are already paying a premium for a quaint, thrilling pasttime
to then sully that quaint experience with the same intrusions of modern technology you are actively fleeing, you are negating the whole point of seeking out the quaint experience in the first place
so broadway should realize, and if they don't then they will find out, that people want a broadway experience. they pay a premium for a boradway experience. full stop. that means live people cranking on curtains, live people turning lights on and off, and live people blowing into wind instruments
so if you pollute the "purity" of that quaint experience, you also destroy that which makes the experience attractive in the first place
broadway, whatever money it is saving on not having an orchestra, is losing money by cheapening the experience and how much people are thrilled by and therefore will pay for the experience
synthesizers instead of live musicians simply means less money for broadway, not cost savings. someone must see that they are cheapening their product and reducing its appeal
what is more likely to happen:
1. someone is going to get the government to revoke the corporate charters of bp or blackwater
2. bp or balckwater will create legislation suitable to their agenda and trampling on individual's rights
you tell me, #1 or #2
"you've got a causality problem there"
no sir, you have a causality problem
the puppet is our government, the puppeteer are corporations. i really don't udnerstand why you can't see that
the discussion about who is at fault for global warming, or even if it exists, is completely besides the point
in fact, make believe, for the sake of argument, that there is no global warming at all
ok: well, mankind's stewardship over this planet is still undeniable. correct? does anyone disagree with the idea that we are responsible for this planet?
therefore, simply for the sake of self-interest, mankind should be monitoring and maintaining the climate according to specifications that suit his purposes. and his purposes are to maintain the status quo. even if rising sea levels were completely natural, no one wants to turn all of our coastal cities into venice. or lose all our crop lands we have invested in to desert, even if, again, that were perfectly natural. therefore, we should do something to counteract whatever is causing difficulties for our status quo
what i am talking about is completely shortcircuiting pointless discussions about who is to blame and pointless discussions about whether or not the climate is changing
if we observe higher heat and smaller crops, we fix that problem. if we don't, we still maintain things as they are, as we are invested in the climate status quo
if we observe rising sea levels, we fix the problem. if we don't observe rising sea levels, we keep watching the sea level. beginning and end of discussion. everything else is pointless hot air, pun intended
in other words, shut the ideologues and politicians up, bring the scientists and engineers in the room:
1. observe
2. if any problems are seen, solve the problems
3. go to 1
every other discussion is methane-rich bullshit. only the problem solvers matter. is there a job to do? then get it done. any else to talk about? NO!
which is something that is very frightening
however, we're this close to becoming a corporatocracy, and miles away from mob rule
priorities, please: i'm not going to worry that much about being bitten by a snake when there's a herd of buffalo bearing down on me