Bullshit. Sure you can, if the dog doesn't take you by surprise. Assuming that you aren't a small woman or a child. There are just two things you have to remember:
a) you're going to get hurt. When the dog attacks, let the bugger clamp down on your arm, which it'll do if that's the target in front of it. While your arm is likely fucked (especially with a big dog) it's far better than having it get a hold of your balls, or abdomen, or worse - neck.
b) once the dog is attached to your arm, bear it down, grab its skull, and bash it into something hard and nasty - the ground if you have no other option. Never, ever let go! This one's for keeps, boys and girls; don't let the dog get another chance. Keep pounding that fucking canines head until it cracks like an eggshell and its brains ooze out all over the ground. Until that happens the contest ain't over.
After that, go call the hospital before you bleed out from your mangled arm. Better yet, go call the hospital, then get your shotgun and shoot the fucking dog in what's left of its head, just to make sure.
According to statistics, dogs very rarely manage to kill grown men. Most human kills are either surprise attacks (especially in the case of pit bulls and rotweilers), or attacks on children - or sometimes small women. In human-dog confrontations the dog loses almost every time.
Wolves are freaking huge (think great dane) and vicious as hell, especially when hungry.
And that is nothing more than a crock of Hollywood horseshit. Wolf predation on human beings is *extremely* rare; in fact, there is no record of *any* human deaths due to wolf attack in North America - EVER. Of the very few recorded cases in other parts of the world, the vast majority were conducted by lone wolves suffering from rabies.
Humans aren't wolf prey - never have been. At some point in the very distant past wolves came to the conclusion that tangling with humans was an extremely bad idea and have avoided doing it whenever possible. As far as we can tell, this has been true for at least 50,000 years or so, and probably far, far longer.
Stories of wolf attacks are 99% bullshit. Just Hollywood and game industry lies, nothing more, coupled with the hysteria of ignorant city folk afraid of their own shadows.
I don't know about the 42 million, but apparently only half of that (21 million, for the math-impaired) have been sold within the U.S. Again for the math impaired, that's 21 million of 285 million people - just in this country alone, or around 7% of the population.
People make the mistake of believing that just because their own tiny sample of friends and family behave in a certain way, their anecdotal subset is indicative of the population as a whole. Usually this isn't true - your behavior is rarely indicative of anything other than your behavior. That's especially true where geeks and technophiles are concerned.
The fact that only 7% of the American population has iPods despite the fact that they're cheap enough for just about anyone to buy means that, in fact, not that many people are interested in the iPod. Enough to make Apple a bundle, but that doesn't mean shit for the market trends beyond the folks who've already bought an iPod (the installed customer base). Like the Mac, the iPod appeals to single-digit samples of the population, but it doesn't look like it extends much beyond that. And like the Mac it seems to generate a nearly religious fervor amongst the customers, who're absolutely convinced that Apple with take over the world with Great Product X. History, of course, tells us that while Apple is a master at generating rabid fans, they aren't going to be taking over anything, anywhere, anytime in the forseeable future.
The iPod is a cool toy, but most people (about 93%, which I think qualifies as "most") just don't give a shit. They never gave a shit about the Mac, either, so this really shouldn't come as much of a surprise. While there's probably still some room for growth it appears that most of the people who want an iPod have already purchased one. I really doubt the iPod will ever reach more than 10-15% of the buying public, but will never come close to home computer numbers or cell phone numbers or even broadband numbers - not a snowballs chance in hell.
Apple will still be laughing all the way to the bank, of course.
I haven't specified an 'answer' therefore I have no right to identify a 'problem'?
You haven't even specified a problem. All you've said so far is that you don't like the fact that Wikipedia exists in its current form. Big deal.
There's a wide difference between scholarship and government-imposed information filtered to the masses.
Except that on the internet there is no way for you or anyone else to replace Wikipedia (or anything else) with your scholarly sources without the imposition of standards by force. The only thing you can do is offer your work *in addition to* the stuff that's already there. You don't get any other options.
That's one of beauties of the internet; you have to live with the things you don't like *because you don't get a vote in the matter*.
You've already said won't accept authoritative information that is critical to the functioning of some machinery that you rely on.
I've said no such thing, although apparently stooping to the level of a lying sack of shit isn't beyond you - and rather ironic, since you've made such a fuss over the presentation of inaccurate information. Pot, here's kettle.
What I've said so far is that wikipedia threatens nothing, other than, it appears, the egos of a certain few.
What use is freedom of speech if what you've been taught are lies?
If you can't handle freedom of speech, move to a country which doesn't allow it. And make sure you never use the internet again, because the one thing you can count on with the internet is that you'll ALWAYS run into speech you don't like just about anywhere you go. Or you could suck it up and deal with it, but that doesn't seem to be one of your strong suits.
I'm sure that you can dance around why you accept scholarship and expertise when you want it, yet think that Wikipedia is some sort of MMORPG with history, and it doesn't matter.
For a person who bemoans the fact that information on the internet isn't ordered according to his own tastes, you sure don't have a problem with flat-out lying when you think it'll further your argument. Just like every other asshole here, in fact. Like them, you are - common.
OK. Try teaching high school kids facts about the world from Wikipedia. Does scholarship and accuracy matter then? Because without a doubt, schoolkids do use Wikipedia to learn facts. All over the world.
And yet again you sidestep the question of what you'd do about this 'problem'. Because the only alternative is to have some dictatorial government body step into every crevasse of the internet and prosecute anyone and everyone who doesn't have the proper clearance for 'approved speech'. If there is another solution you haven't seen fit to share it here.
Thanks, but I'll take "free speech" for $200, Alex. Even if most of the speech is bullshit, it's still miles ahead of non-free speech.
History does tell us that careless information, like careless talk, costs lives.
What a fucking drama queen. And you still haven't answered the question: what do you propose to do about it, other than whining here on Slashdot? Propose that some government authority step in and attempt to rule the internet in a dictatorial fashion, only allowing 'approved' sources of information to post on relevent topics?
Now apply that principle to aerospace engineering.
Why the fuck should I do that? Anyone who actually builds planes for a living isn't going to use Wikipedia as a reference source when laying out building plans. This should be obvious to anyone with half a brain, and those who don't have even that won't be building planes for anyone but themselves any time in the future.
But then, you're the one who's insisting on talking about aerospace engineering instead of the actual topic at hand: Wikipedia. Perhaps when you're better able to distinguish between the two you'll have something of worth to say.
Or perhaps when you're able to distinguish between the reality of wikipedia and the fantasy of some Orwellian end to factual information world-wide.
You present what you perceive to be a problem without providing any sort of solution. The only thing I got from both of your long-winded posts was that you seem to think that either a) Wikipedia and anything like it should be shut down, or b) Wikipedia and anything like it should be run by some discrete group of elite intellects who happen to stand in agreement with you on whatever topic pushes your hot buttons.
I agree that Wikipedia should never be used as a source of actual facts; however, it's quite valuable in pointing the way to finding said facts. And anyone who takes wikipedia as a trusted source is just another bump on the road in internet darwinism anyway, so why does it matter? It's not like these people are going to educate themselves in the real world, so the fact that they take Wikipedia as The One True Font of Knowledge(TM) is hardly a loss, or even surprising.
In other words, why are you getting your panties in such a bunch over this?
And it's a very dangerous nonsense, because in an interconnected world, false information and twisted history leads to conflict.
Wikipedia is just the internet writ small. If you believe that it's dangerous then by your own definition you must also believe that the entire internet is dangerous. And if that's the case, what precisely do you propose to do? Give up the whole mess to some elite body to run?
A lot of contributors seem to be dead-set against ads on Wikipedia, despite the fact that 99% of them don't seem to think they need to contribute to the project themselves in order to keep it afloat. I'm also of the opinion that Google text ads are just fine and a perfectly acceptable way to keep Wikipedia running, but just try mentioning that in the hallowed halls themselves; the cry of "heathen!" will be taken up by the unwashed masses so fast it'll make your head spin.
Still, I do understand your point, I aim my charitable donations and volunteer work very carefully myself.
Same here. After seeing the appalling rates of return for most non-profits my wife and I usually donate locally, where we can investigate the use of the money first-hand (and are often invited to do so, since most small local non-profits don't have the labor or skills required to run a decent set of books). We still donate old goods to large charities (or semi-charities, like Goodwill) but money and labor - no way.
The problem is the "consume less" mentality is not very popular
For rather obvious reasons. Me personally, I'd rather have all the power I'd ever want or need, at my fingertips. So I'm not interested in reducing consumption but instead in increasing power output, and doing so in an efficient manner. Nuclear power plants, especially breeder reactors, would be satisfactory.
And it appears from consumer choices that most people agree with me rather whole-heartedly, whether they expressly state this or not.
None of them cost-effective or practical. Or are you arguing that there's some vast X-Files-ish conspiracy keeping the downtrodden from using cost-effective, practical renewable energy?
As for uranium look up "breeder reactor". It's an answer to fuel limitations, at least for the next thousand years or so. That should give even the "we'll have it in 20 years!" scientists the chance to build a working, scalable fusion reactor.
I'd given even odds now about a greatly expanded war in the mideast involving NATO and Israel vs Iran and possibly Syria, followed by katy-bar-the-door. And who knows, this might be the war that we see the re-introduction of nuclear weapons again.
Ah, new doom-and-gloom for the year 2006! Amazing, don't you think, how every year people predict the end of all good things, and yet every single time they've been wrong? Oh, they claim that THIS time they'll be right, but with a 100% failure rate you'd think that eventually they'd get a clue....
Chicken littles, start your engines! The new year is here!
U.S. citizens must also get out of the "grid" mentality.
Why? Being on the grid is convenient and cost-effective. The market favors grid over off-grid, as does the average citizen. I see no reason why anyone "must" get off the grid, especially when citizens clearly don't want to go that route.
My wife and I switched to cell phones for one very simple reason: it's illegal for spammers (telemarketers) to call us on those phones, at least in the state where we live (don't really know if that's a federal law). It got to the point where the number of advertising calls we received on the landline outnumbered personal calls nearly 10:1; apparently our various services (especially those bastards at AT&T) sold our information to anyone and everyone who had the money.
How many spam calls do we get nowadays? None: we don't have a landline anymore. Haven't had a single advertising call in years now. The convenience of being able to carry the phone with you wherever you go is secondary and wasn't even part of our initial rationale for getting cells, but we can't imagine not having that convenience now even though we don't actually use the phones that much. They also have other benefits, e.g., if I don't return a call right away I can claim I turned the phone off and 'forgot' about it. My wife's favorite (especially when conversing with relatives) is that her "battery is about to die".
You should blame the society which has now grown into short attention spanned pleasure seekers
That "society" you talk about happens to include you. Unless somehow you've been magically exempted from the ranks of short-attention-spanned pleasure seekers.
I see Zonk got his little panties in a wad and decided to use his 'editorial' powers (about as close as he gets to anything remotely editorial) to mod me down to -1. Hey Zonk! Here's laughing at you:
"My guess would be that it has something to do with blowjobs, a tried-and-true, traditional method of gaining favor throughout the world. Either that or Zonk and Roland are one and the same person."
Go ahead, shit another brick little boy. Provide us with some more entertainment.
My guess would be that it has something to do with blowjobs, a tried-and-true, traditional method of gaining favor throughout the world. Either that or Zonk and Roland are one and the same person.
The only difference between blogs 'Then' and blogs 'Now'...is that some self-important motherfucker slapped an incredibly stupid name on what used to be called "my homepage", because in typical geek fashion he thought the sound of "blog" was, like, cool, because it sounded like something you'd say in Klingon.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't fight dogs effectively
Bullshit. Sure you can, if the dog doesn't take you by surprise. Assuming that you aren't a small woman or a child. There are just two things you have to remember:
a) you're going to get hurt. When the dog attacks, let the bugger clamp down on your arm, which it'll do if that's the target in front of it. While your arm is likely fucked (especially with a big dog) it's far better than having it get a hold of your balls, or abdomen, or worse - neck.
b) once the dog is attached to your arm, bear it down, grab its skull, and bash it into something hard and nasty - the ground if you have no other option. Never, ever let go! This one's for keeps, boys and girls; don't let the dog get another chance. Keep pounding that fucking canines head until it cracks like an eggshell and its brains ooze out all over the ground. Until that happens the contest ain't over.
After that, go call the hospital before you bleed out from your mangled arm. Better yet, go call the hospital, then get your shotgun and shoot the fucking dog in what's left of its head, just to make sure.
According to statistics, dogs very rarely manage to kill grown men. Most human kills are either surprise attacks (especially in the case of pit bulls and rotweilers), or attacks on children - or sometimes small women. In human-dog confrontations the dog loses almost every time.
Max
Wolves are freaking huge (think great dane) and vicious as hell, especially when hungry.
And that is nothing more than a crock of Hollywood horseshit. Wolf predation on human beings is *extremely* rare; in fact, there is no record of *any* human deaths due to wolf attack in North America - EVER. Of the very few recorded cases in other parts of the world, the vast majority were conducted by lone wolves suffering from rabies.
Humans aren't wolf prey - never have been. At some point in the very distant past wolves came to the conclusion that tangling with humans was an extremely bad idea and have avoided doing it whenever possible. As far as we can tell, this has been true for at least 50,000 years or so, and probably far, far longer.
Stories of wolf attacks are 99% bullshit. Just Hollywood and game industry lies, nothing more, coupled with the hysteria of ignorant city folk afraid of their own shadows.
Max
I don't know about the 42 million, but apparently only half of that (21 million, for the math-impaired) have been sold within the U.S. Again for the math impaired, that's 21 million of 285 million people - just in this country alone, or around 7% of the population.
People make the mistake of believing that just because their own tiny sample of friends and family behave in a certain way, their anecdotal subset is indicative of the population as a whole. Usually this isn't true - your behavior is rarely indicative of anything other than your behavior. That's especially true where geeks and technophiles are concerned.
The fact that only 7% of the American population has iPods despite the fact that they're cheap enough for just about anyone to buy means that, in fact, not that many people are interested in the iPod. Enough to make Apple a bundle, but that doesn't mean shit for the market trends beyond the folks who've already bought an iPod (the installed customer base). Like the Mac, the iPod appeals to single-digit samples of the population, but it doesn't look like it extends much beyond that. And like the Mac it seems to generate a nearly religious fervor amongst the customers, who're absolutely convinced that Apple with take over the world with Great Product X. History, of course, tells us that while Apple is a master at generating rabid fans, they aren't going to be taking over anything, anywhere, anytime in the forseeable future.
The iPod is a cool toy, but most people (about 93%, which I think qualifies as "most") just don't give a shit. They never gave a shit about the Mac, either, so this really shouldn't come as much of a surprise. While there's probably still some room for growth it appears that most of the people who want an iPod have already purchased one. I really doubt the iPod will ever reach more than 10-15% of the buying public, but will never come close to home computer numbers or cell phone numbers or even broadband numbers - not a snowballs chance in hell.
Apple will still be laughing all the way to the bank, of course.
Max
I haven't specified an 'answer' therefore I have no right to identify a 'problem'?
You haven't even specified a problem. All you've said so far is that you don't like the fact that Wikipedia exists in its current form. Big deal.
There's a wide difference between scholarship and government-imposed information filtered to the masses.
Except that on the internet there is no way for you or anyone else to replace Wikipedia (or anything else) with your scholarly sources without the imposition of standards by force. The only thing you can do is offer your work *in addition to* the stuff that's already there. You don't get any other options.
That's one of beauties of the internet; you have to live with the things you don't like *because you don't get a vote in the matter*.
You've already said won't accept authoritative information that is critical to the functioning of some machinery that you rely on.
I've said no such thing, although apparently stooping to the level of a lying sack of shit isn't beyond you - and rather ironic, since you've made such a fuss over the presentation of inaccurate information. Pot, here's kettle.
What I've said so far is that wikipedia threatens nothing, other than, it appears, the egos of a certain few.
What use is freedom of speech if what you've been taught are lies?
If you can't handle freedom of speech, move to a country which doesn't allow it. And make sure you never use the internet again, because the one thing you can count on with the internet is that you'll ALWAYS run into speech you don't like just about anywhere you go. Or you could suck it up and deal with it, but that doesn't seem to be one of your strong suits.
I'm sure that you can dance around why you accept scholarship and expertise when you want it, yet think that Wikipedia is some sort of MMORPG with history, and it doesn't matter.
For a person who bemoans the fact that information on the internet isn't ordered according to his own tastes, you sure don't have a problem with flat-out lying when you think it'll further your argument. Just like every other asshole here, in fact. Like them, you are - common.
Max
OK. Try teaching high school kids facts about the world from Wikipedia. Does scholarship and accuracy matter then? Because without a doubt, schoolkids do use Wikipedia to learn facts. All over the world.
And yet again you sidestep the question of what you'd do about this 'problem'. Because the only alternative is to have some dictatorial government body step into every crevasse of the internet and prosecute anyone and everyone who doesn't have the proper clearance for 'approved speech'. If there is another solution you haven't seen fit to share it here.
Thanks, but I'll take "free speech" for $200, Alex. Even if most of the speech is bullshit, it's still miles ahead of non-free speech.
Max
The entire Internet IS dangerous.
So is life. Grow a spine and get over it.
History does tell us that careless information, like careless talk, costs lives.
What a fucking drama queen. And you still haven't answered the question: what do you propose to do about it, other than whining here on Slashdot? Propose that some government authority step in and attempt to rule the internet in a dictatorial fashion, only allowing 'approved' sources of information to post on relevent topics?
Talk about fucking Orwellian endings....
Max
Now apply that principle to aerospace engineering.
Why the fuck should I do that? Anyone who actually builds planes for a living isn't going to use Wikipedia as a reference source when laying out building plans. This should be obvious to anyone with half a brain, and those who don't have even that won't be building planes for anyone but themselves any time in the future.
But then, you're the one who's insisting on talking about aerospace engineering instead of the actual topic at hand: Wikipedia. Perhaps when you're better able to distinguish between the two you'll have something of worth to say.
Or perhaps when you're able to distinguish between the reality of wikipedia and the fantasy of some Orwellian end to factual information world-wide.
Max
You present what you perceive to be a problem without providing any sort of solution. The only thing I got from both of your long-winded posts was that you seem to think that either a) Wikipedia and anything like it should be shut down, or b) Wikipedia and anything like it should be run by some discrete group of elite intellects who happen to stand in agreement with you on whatever topic pushes your hot buttons.
I agree that Wikipedia should never be used as a source of actual facts; however, it's quite valuable in pointing the way to finding said facts. And anyone who takes wikipedia as a trusted source is just another bump on the road in internet darwinism anyway, so why does it matter? It's not like these people are going to educate themselves in the real world, so the fact that they take Wikipedia as The One True Font of Knowledge(TM) is hardly a loss, or even surprising.
In other words, why are you getting your panties in such a bunch over this?
Max
And it's a very dangerous nonsense, because in an interconnected world, false information and twisted history leads to conflict.
Wikipedia is just the internet writ small. If you believe that it's dangerous then by your own definition you must also believe that the entire internet is dangerous. And if that's the case, what precisely do you propose to do? Give up the whole mess to some elite body to run?
Max
A lot of contributors seem to be dead-set against ads on Wikipedia, despite the fact that 99% of them don't seem to think they need to contribute to the project themselves in order to keep it afloat. I'm also of the opinion that Google text ads are just fine and a perfectly acceptable way to keep Wikipedia running, but just try mentioning that in the hallowed halls themselves; the cry of "heathen!" will be taken up by the unwashed masses so fast it'll make your head spin.
Max
Still, I do understand your point, I aim my charitable donations and volunteer work very carefully myself.
Same here. After seeing the appalling rates of return for most non-profits my wife and I usually donate locally, where we can investigate the use of the money first-hand (and are often invited to do so, since most small local non-profits don't have the labor or skills required to run a decent set of books). We still donate old goods to large charities (or semi-charities, like Goodwill) but money and labor - no way.
Max
I know Google has offered support, but I feel they should be donating cash
Why *should* they be donating cash? Is there some moral imperative involved here, or are you just misusing the word?
Max
Nah, he'd start insisting that we call them "GNU/Free markets".
Max
The problem is the "consume less" mentality is not very popular
For rather obvious reasons. Me personally, I'd rather have all the power I'd ever want or need, at my fingertips. So I'm not interested in reducing consumption but instead in increasing power output, and doing so in an efficient manner. Nuclear power plants, especially breeder reactors, would be satisfactory.
And it appears from consumer choices that most people agree with me rather whole-heartedly, whether they expressly state this or not.
Max
plenty of practical renewable sources of power.
None of them cost-effective or practical. Or are you arguing that there's some vast X-Files-ish conspiracy keeping the downtrodden from using cost-effective, practical renewable energy?
As for uranium look up "breeder reactor". It's an answer to fuel limitations, at least for the next thousand years or so. That should give even the "we'll have it in 20 years!" scientists the chance to build a working, scalable fusion reactor.
Max
the World Wildlife Fund said
And as we all know, the WWF is known for publishing empirical studies in it's accredited, peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Max
I'd given even odds now about a greatly expanded war in the mideast involving NATO and Israel vs Iran and possibly Syria, followed by katy-bar-the-door. And who knows, this might be the war that we see the re-introduction of nuclear weapons again.
Ah, new doom-and-gloom for the year 2006! Amazing, don't you think, how every year people predict the end of all good things, and yet every single time they've been wrong? Oh, they claim that THIS time they'll be right, but with a 100% failure rate you'd think that eventually they'd get a clue....
Chicken littles, start your engines! The new year is here!
Max
U.S. citizens must also get out of the "grid" mentality.
Why? Being on the grid is convenient and cost-effective. The market favors grid over off-grid, as does the average citizen. I see no reason why anyone "must" get off the grid, especially when citizens clearly don't want to go that route.
Max
Because it would cause very large areas to be replaced with unnatural monocultures instead of natural ecosystems.
This is already the case in much of the world. They're called "crops".
it's a ghastly crime against nature.
There isn't any such thing as a "crime against nature". Nature isn't sentient. Nature doesn't give a damn one way or another.
Max
My wife and I switched to cell phones for one very simple reason: it's illegal for spammers (telemarketers) to call us on those phones, at least in the state where we live (don't really know if that's a federal law). It got to the point where the number of advertising calls we received on the landline outnumbered personal calls nearly 10:1; apparently our various services (especially those bastards at AT&T) sold our information to anyone and everyone who had the money.
How many spam calls do we get nowadays? None: we don't have a landline anymore. Haven't had a single advertising call in years now. The convenience of being able to carry the phone with you wherever you go is secondary and wasn't even part of our initial rationale for getting cells, but we can't imagine not having that convenience now even though we don't actually use the phones that much. They also have other benefits, e.g., if I don't return a call right away I can claim I turned the phone off and 'forgot' about it. My wife's favorite (especially when conversing with relatives) is that her "battery is about to die".
Max
You should blame the society which has now grown into short attention spanned pleasure seekers
That "society" you talk about happens to include you. Unless somehow you've been magically exempted from the ranks of short-attention-spanned pleasure seekers.
Max
I see Zonk got his little panties in a wad and decided to use his 'editorial' powers (about as close as he gets to anything remotely editorial) to mod me down to -1. Hey Zonk! Here's laughing at you:
"My guess would be that it has something to do with blowjobs, a tried-and-true, traditional method of gaining favor throughout the world. Either that or Zonk and Roland are one and the same person."
Go ahead, shit another brick little boy. Provide us with some more entertainment.
Max
My guess would be that it has something to do with blowjobs, a tried-and-true, traditional method of gaining favor throughout the world. Either that or Zonk and Roland are one and the same person.
Max
and a very disloyal community
While the rest of the post was interesting, what does this have to do with anything? Customers don't owe you any 'loyalty', nor or ever.
Max
The only difference between blogs 'Then' and blogs 'Now' ...is that some self-important motherfucker slapped an incredibly stupid name on what used to be called "my homepage", because in typical geek fashion he thought the sound of "blog" was, like, cool, because it sounded like something you'd say in Klingon.
Max