Why sould the government get its hands dirty, when it can get the MegaCorps it subsidizes to do the dirty work for it. Many big businesses in this country get what amounts to corporate welfare. And all that has to happen is for the Congresscritter nearest the company's headquarters to say "hey, do me a favor and I'll make sure you get more funding," the corporations will be more than happy to comply.
Free speech is unfortunately not the only issue this applies to, either. Two words: toxic waste.
The problem is that in this country, one dollar equals one vote rather than one person equalling one vote. Those who can afford to make massive campaign contributions get laws passed for them, funding given to them, and in turn they help out the government by enforcing these silly little "policies."
Those who don't have this money (teenagers, college students, most young and idealistic folks) are screwed. It sucks.:(
If the end result is that a product is being taken off the market, or substantially altered, because someone was upset about its content, that's censorship. The "quacks like a duck" rule applies here.
If an NC-17 movie flops because the general public doesn't want to see NC-17 movies, that's not censorship. If said hypothetical movie is either cut before the fact to make it R-rated and thus "marketable," or if all of the major chains refuse to show the movie because it is NC-17, that *is* censorship. Just because it is being done on a corporate rather than a government level does not somehow make it magically "not-censorship."
I can, to a limited (*very* limited) point, understand restricting access to minors. I also believe that films that can't be made without breaking laws (ie against statutory rape) shouldn't be made, because an actual law is being broken there. But wasn't NC-17 created to avoid this problem? That's what bugs me about the whole mess.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to organize a boycott of McDonald's. Or Wal-Mart, or any one of a number of large corporations. Hell, I don't even care if something's being boycotted for a reason I consider to be BS -- all the more reason for me to support the company. Remember the Baptist boycott of Disney? 'nuff said.:)
Well, to clarify, I live in a 200K city, the center of about a 1-million-person metro area. (Rochester, NY, to be exact.) I work for the utility company here; I used to work for a local hospital and a bank. Everything I've seen so far indicates that we're in good shape and that MOST people aren't going to be playing paranoid. This is all good. The biggest problem I'm having is with friends of mine who all want to throw their own parties and want EVERYone to show up to them. Yet another reason why I'm going to the Barony party -- it's the most neutral decision I can make.:)
Then again, as I've posted before, the only marauding gang I've ever dealt with around here is the one that pushed my car out of a snowdrift for me. I've *seen* how this city pulls together in a crisis (very well), and I also know my way around here. So I'm going to "party like it's 999" with my SCA friends, though I *will* make sure I have a full tank of gas and that I take the same precautions that I do pre-expected-major-snowstorm.
Now, I am not a scientist, and perhaps it could be argued that every motor is powered at least indirectly by chemical reactions, but the specific type of chemical reaction at work here would tend to limit the applications of this little motor.
For instance, given the large number of chemicals that can be dissolved in water, you might not want to get it wet. Ever. At all. After all, if we're building on the less-than-100-atoms level, I'd say that every atom counts and losing even ONE to water (or whatever) would be devastating to the efficacy of the whole thing.
First of all, Katz has an excellent point about "shovelware." I've seen plenty of those sites, and they suck. Having a Web page only for the sake of having a Web page strikes me as useless.
However, there are a lot of sites (and yankees.com has this tendency as well) that go to the opposite extreme. The "gadgetware" sites sometimes have good content, yes. But only the fastest and newest machines with completely up-to-date software can truly take advantage of it.
My home machine right now is a 486 with a 14.4 modem, and I usually run Lynx. It's aggravating when someone with a flashy site makes it unreadable to anyone who doesn't have InternetGadget 9.9.9. It makes me LESS likely to do business with them, not more.
We shouldn't be encouraging "shovelware." Katz is absolutely right there. But "gadgetware" is every bit as bad.
Well, the utility company I work for picked today to have a "dress rehearsal" of their Y2K backup systems.
Various conspiracy theorists around here suggested that it was just in case 9/9/99 was a real problem and they could blame it on the drill, but given that we've had no problems with either 9/9/99 or the drill, I'm not overly worried.:)
Funny, that. This is exactly why I *want* to be in a big city on 01-01-00. Well, a moderately big city, ie the one I live in.:)
There are going to be stupid people, sure, but the ones I'm especially worried about are the ones who are doing the whole head-for-the-hills thing. The survivalist nutcases won't be in the cities, and the biggest problem I'm likely to encounter is a bunch of drunks who partied a little too hard. And given that I fully intend to be at my Barony's New Year's party, there will be plenty of candles around, camping gear if there's a REAL problem, and lots of live steel should THAT become necessary.
I'd much rather deal with the drunks than with the sober gun-nuts who will be lining every spare scrap of country on the big day.:P
10-16 years may be stretching it a bit, actually.:)
I remember being a very young'un and having all the neighborhood kids in the 4-9 age range going nuts over ROTJ. By 16, most kids I knew would have somewhat outgrown the obsession. That is, those who aren't in their 20s and still obsessed.
Of course, one of the things I find amusing-yet-scary is how nuts all the little kiddies are going over Darth Maul. Yeah, that's a wonderful role model...;)
Seriously, though. Star Wars ain't art, and it ain't religion, either.:P
Illegal immigrants and terrorists AGAIN? Can't they come up with something original??:)
"We're making a national database of driver's licenses to crack down on underage drinking!" Yeah, that's it!!
Unfortunately, that might actually get someone's attention. Most people aren't illegal immigrants or terrorists, but I'd say most of us had a beer or two hundred before reaching the magical 21st birthday. And unless DWI was involved, I somehow doubt most people would want to turn a 19-year-old trying to buy some alcohol into a federal criminal.
Is this the real reasoning behind the program? It might be a component. Who knows? It could be an easier way to track "subversive elements" (like I've posted on other threads, the FBI probably has a good-sized file on me, but it hasn't interfered with my life YET).
Or here's another interesting and somehow frightening thought: IIRC, strict followers of Islam do not believe in taking pictures of anyone or having any pictures taken of them. "You're not in our photo database, and you look Arabic... you're obviously a terrorist." NOT good.
At the risk of making a "me too" post, I had something similar happen. Supposedly I had 66 Karma points earlier today. I have posted NOTHING, and I now have 30. Did I meta-moderate so horribly that I lost half of my Karma, or is this just from looking at it on my home computer with lynx rather than my work computer with IE? Or what? I am very confused...
First of all, the "!@#$! off JonKatz!" flames all over this thread certainly do reinforce the point about lack of civility online. Kind of nifty how that works, the more you criticize him in those terms the better sense his overall argument ends up making. And believe me, I've seen my share of incivility on the net lately -- anyone else around here read the Rialto, aka rec.org.sca?:P
Secondly, one of the BIG problems with new technology as it is currently being applied is the de-humanizing of critical social service industries. My mother has worked for the state Department of Labor for most of my life. When she started, folks who needed to collect UI were known as "claimants," and they needed to show up to the local offices in person, have someone walk them through the benefit claims process, and generally were shown respect as people who happened to be in a difficult situation, unemployed.
Nowadays, they've decided that "claimant" is degrading and these people should be called "customers." But you know what else they've done? They've closed down about half of the local offices. There is nobody to sit down with these people and walk through the process -- everything's on one of those damnable "press 1, press 2" phone menus at some 1-800 number. They don't generally see a human being unless something has gone wrong, and the number of misunderstandings of the whole process (either by people used to the old system who are back several years later and faced with the new, or by people who have never done it before and find it confusing) has gone up. This is NOT good.
And re: the copying issue. Abuses are occuring on BOTH sides. Software developers are charging asinine amounts of money for their products (in some cases), and some people are just copying everything they can get their hands on, whether they could have afforded to buy it legitimately or not. The situation as it stands is lose-lose, and both sides get to claim moral high ground because of the extremes. What fun.
Furthermore, Katz is absolutely right that the real issues and concerns are being ignored thanks to a bunch of hysteria about dirty pictures and bomb recipies. And the inappropriate responses to this hysteria are not well known outside of certain net-savvy, left-wing circles. (Must I bring up CyberSitter's blatant censorship of anything that disagrees with the company, rude responses to questions, harassment of peacefire.org, and censoring of feminist and pagan sites without telling anyone, not to mention occasional tendency to break source code that goes through TCP streams, yet AGAIN? It appears that I must. *sigh*)
There ARE issues. They need to be discussed and dealt with one way or another, not swept under the rug or covered up by The Great Porn Debate.
However, there is an important distinction that the satire does not acknowledge:
Programming is more objective than writing. At a minimum, you can see if the end-result is functioning or not.:)
The great self-help fad notwithstanding, books don't usually have the same "this will work" characteristic implied in their use. The best you can really do is "Based on [insert data and/or personal ranting here], this is what should work for someone in your situation." But overall it's not going to be anywhere near as objective.
I'm not saying that this service should be shut down. Far from it. I'm not even saying that it's a bad idea, per se.
I'm just saying that most people are NOT going to look upon books "published" on a site like this as valid or reliable information, and that there are some very good reasons for it. In fact, personally, I would consider what I found there LESS valid for informational purposes than something I linked to by way of/. or WitchVox or another source of info I've come to trust.
I'm also saying that I don't expect the things that appear there to be taken seriously by most people who care about intellectual integrity. Then again, it'll probably do a good business -- Ralph Blum certainly does, and he's not exactly known for accurate scholarship or accurate ANYthing.:P
It would certainly be an interesting way to get sources for a research paper. Then again, the vast majority of professors won't take that seriously. You'd better have at least a few papers that were published in actual honest-to-Deities scholarly journals.:P
Or do you mean a verbatim reprint? Yeah, I can see that happening. Not that it's a good thing Then again, the same thing would apply. You'd damn well BETTER have some journal sources, preferably journals-available-at-your-university sources, or someone will smell a rat REAL fast. :)
Traditionally, in the literary world, self-publishing is VERY much frowned upon.
While I don't necessarily agree with some of the standards (or lack thereof) that certain publishers have, I do have to say that the theory behind having your book sold to a reputable publishing house or your paper printed in a reputable journal is a good one.
Case in point of what can happen when people *don't* pay attention to this: Time's "cyberporn" article. Remember that? The one based off of an incredibly shoddy undergraduate "research paper?"
Given that any fool with a buck to spare every month can upload whatever drivel said fool sees fit to... I don't really find this terribly encouraging.
Yes, it's good to have alternative sources of info. (That's why I read/. in the first place!) However, there really ought to be some sort of quality indicator in place, even if it's just abstracts and reviews of the books/papers posted up there.
And yes, I'm fully aware that some absolute crap gets published professionally (said Time article being an excellent example). But on some level that I haven't figured out yet, as a writer, this new form of publishing bothers the heck out of me even though I theoretically think it's a good idea. *shrug*
That's fine. Until, that is, the next time they implement some sort of new feature that does not play well with the existing aspects of the code, and something like this happens again.
There are trade-offs between security and convenience, and there are legitimate gray areas. For instance, I use cookies to stay logged in to/. -- on a machine that is password-protected that only I have any reason to be using. Trying to remember large quantities of passwords (and having to depend eventually on password remailers), or using the same password (or small handful of passwords) on all systems, might be less secure or creating a "false sense of security" for people.
All that said, however, there is NO excuse for the Hotmail situation.:P
Personally, I think this is one of those situations where what they SHOULD do, given that (as per another post on this thread) they need to keep the evidence "pristine," is give someone like you the cash to buy another computer.
Anyone else have the Politically Correct Dictionary?
"Carbo-centrism: the belief in the sole existence or superiority of carbon-based life forms, thereby unfairly discriminating against silicon-based life forms."
Now, whether that means extraterrestrial life or machines running on silicon chips, I don't know.
Well, for me, anyhow. It can't replace either one entirely.
Since my parents and most of my friends from college now have an e-mail address, I send e-mail when I need to get something responded to reasonably quickly but not THIS SECOND.
There are certain situations that I don't think call for e-mail or for telephone calls -- good old-fashioned snail mail is the only polite option. Wedding invitations and sympathy cards come immediately to mind.
Likewise, if there is an emergency and next of kin need to be notified, you better believe I'm using the telephone, at least as a first attempt. If that proves ineffective, THEN I might send an e-mail saying "please call" or something similar.
E-mail is the best option if you need to send out the same news to a lot of people that live in a wide geographic area. Individual phone calls are time-consuming and expensive, and for some reason form snail mail is much more irritating than multiple "TO" e-mail. That could just be a personal quirk, though.
For average, ordinary, mundane communication with friends and family, I tend to use e-mail because it's convenient and cheap and I don't have to remember where I put my stamps.:) However, any one of the three is an acceptable option.
And don't forget, the computer was supposed to bring us the "paperless office." Yeah right, like THAT will ever happen.:P
On the subject of Breadth vs. Depth:
on
Wired on Slashdot
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· Score: 4
IMHO, too much of either is bad. Rob is quoted as saying that now "we know a lot about a little," rather than vice-versa.
I've seen many posts here on/. complaining that the focus here should be narrower than it is -- Star Wars, the Hellmouth series, etc aren't really "news for nerds," in their view.
Needless to say, I disagree. As I've posted in the past, a purely Linux-focused or even computer-focused site only makes sense if "computer" is a necessary and therefore unstated modifier of "nerd." It is not. I am an English nerd (aka technical writer with a journalism degree), and I'm sure there are more of us here, as well as a good-sized handful of "science nerds," etc.
I think that/. strikes a relatively good balance between having a main focus and having a reasonable breadth and diversity of news. (In other words, I don't think/. is necessarily "a lot about a little" -- don't sell yourself short, Rob!)
And I think the not-strictly-computer threads are necessary in much the same way that in the SCA, you can't become a knight JUST because you're a good fighter, even though fighting is the main focus of the knighthood. At a minimum, you're also expected to teach fighters, and to know how to dance, play chess, and some other things I'm forgetting right now.;)
Super-hyper-overspecialization isn't a very good thing -- we still need common ground with the rest of the world. But having a major focus, and supplementing with bits and pieces slightly outside of that focus that are still interesting, is a good way to go. I like and appreciate it.:)
There's a lot that goes into this "problem," and unfortunately it's not going to be looked at in anything even approximating a sensible fashion by most people. Too easy to sound off on the position of the moment.
First and foremost, I see "race" is being used as a metaphor for "class" yet AGAIN because we Americans are so damn allergic to talking about "class" -- that's "communist." *rolls eyes* The end result of this, of course, is that upper-middle-class African-Americans who don't need the money get the scholarships etc. anyhow, because they're able to outperform their poorer counterparts. I've always found this rather asinine, myself.
Secondly (and I know that a lot of folks on/. disagree with this, so flame away if you must), computer-illiterate != stupid, just like illiterate in the traditional sense != stupid for thousands of years. It'll take a lot to convince me that we're any more intelligent now than we were a thousand years ago, let alone fifty. More educated perhaps, but more bottom-line, basically intelligent? Hell, no. Do YOU know how to feed yourself without use of the local grocery store or restaurants, how to turn the stuff on the back of a sheep into something warm and wearable, how to build a house, etc? For most of us, that answer is probably either a flat-out no or a "theoretically-but-not-practically." People who don't know how to use a computer are not stupid. Either they are uneducated or uncaring, but that doesn't equate with lack of intellectual capacity.
For that matter, when new technology shows up, we generally lose as much as we gain. It takes at least an associate's, probably a bachelor's degree to be considered as "educated" as someone with a lowly high school diploma was 50 years ago. And I'm not convinced that we have that much more knowledge or street-smarts. It's gotten too easy to get someone else to do the work for us, and too many of us make fun of the people who DO that work later and call them stupid. Well, can YOU fix your own pipes, or do you have to call a plumber?:P For that matter, how many of you can balance your checkbook without the use of a computer program or even a calculator? And how many actually do it?;)
In ancient times, bards were expected to memorize book-length epics. How many of us would be able to do that today? Probably not many. Admittedly, it's not the most useful skill in the world, but neither is being able to program a new version of Quake. Sorry, guys.;)
For that matter, different subcultures put an emphasis on different skills. The slaves in this country had a strong oral tradition (in part because they weren't allowed to learn to read) that for a long time wasn't seen as "artistic" because it wasn't written down. Doesn't make it any less valuable. And if I were part of a culture that depended heavily on oral traditions and interpersonal face-to-face contact, a Net connection would probably be about the LAST thing I'd want.
There's no push-button solution here, but realizing that people not chomping at the technological bit aren't necessarily morons beneath your notice would be a damn good start.
The problem I've got with this little test and with the rest of the site is that it focuses on netsex and chatting with strangers.
That's not MY problem, though I admit I seem addicted. I'm NOT a net-junkie as such though, I'm an info-junkie, and to a certain extent a debate-junkie who actually enjoys a good argument. (I'm beginning to suspect that I'm a Myers-Briggs ENTP after all, not ENFP...)
As I am unfortunately doing now, I will spend excessive time on the 'net or doing similar things other than focusing on my work when I'm stuck doing something boring and repetitive. If I'm doing something that requires brain cells, I'm fine, but if it's the copy-paste-reformat that I have to do right now I get bored silly. At one of my old, non-net-connected jobs, I used to spend a lot of time reading anything hanging out there that looked the least bit interesting.:)
Unfortunately, the test doesn't seem to have much in the way of useful advice for folks like me (and I know I'm not the only one). I don't care about porn sites, but cut me away from my Slashdot connection or the SCA web pages I frequent...;)
Probably not on the same sort of scale, but riots nonetheless. And if the area was reduced to a pile of absolute rubble, that's one thing -- I don't want to live in a pile of rubble either.
But the stupid thing I've noticed around here is this: If a plaza is slightly rundown looking and its main cilentele are senior citizens and white, everyone thinks "Oh, how sad," but they don't feel THREATENED by it. If the same slightly rundown plaza has a young minority clientele, people feel threatened and scared. And for gods' sake, everyone needs to do laundry.
There are certain neighborhoods that even I try to avoid, like the one where a firecracker was set off extremely close to my car eariler this summer.
What I am taking issue with is the assumption that the entire city is like that, and the assumption that "city" + "black families" = "crime-ridden ghetto." Yes, we've had a murder in my neighborhood. ONE murder in the two years I've lived there, and as my landlord told me when I moved in "If you don't deal drugs or live with someone who does, you won't have problems." We also had murders in the suburbs when I lived there. *shrug*
But a former co-worker of mine, who moved to the suburbs because he found the city threatening, had his car broken into, his roommate's car broken into, and his car stolen in the space of three months. And he was paying about double the rent I pay for the dubious privilege of living in a suburb that wasn't even safer than where I live.:P
You see, there's a hell of a lot of JUNK out there on the web. And eventually people with a given interest are going to get tired of hitting every site they can on a given topic. They don't want junk, they want actual information on whatever subject(s) they're interested in.
I no longer try to look at every SCA or Amber page going. I keep track of my own barony and kingdom pages, and sometimes things like the Rialto archives and Cariadoc's Miscellany, because I KNOW those are good sources of info that are going to be there tomorrow.
Likewise, sometimes I'll hit "random" on the Golden Circle, but not always. Some of those pages are really useless. I check those that are updated frequently.
And yes, I'm a slight bit of a hypocrite, but until I can get my stuff off of GeoCities, I'm not updating it.:P
Slashdot Mirror
Why sould the government get its hands dirty, when it can get the MegaCorps it subsidizes to do the dirty work for it. Many big businesses in this country get what amounts to corporate welfare. And all that has to happen is for the Congresscritter nearest the company's headquarters to say "hey, do me a favor and I'll make sure you get more funding," the corporations will be more than happy to comply.
:(
Free speech is unfortunately not the only issue this applies to, either. Two words: toxic waste.
The problem is that in this country, one dollar equals one vote rather than one person equalling one vote. Those who can afford to make massive campaign contributions get laws passed for them, funding given to them, and in turn they help out the government by enforcing these silly little "policies."
Those who don't have this money (teenagers, college students, most young and idealistic folks) are screwed. It sucks.
If the end result is that a product is being taken off the market, or substantially altered, because someone was upset about its content, that's censorship. The "quacks like a duck" rule applies here.
If an NC-17 movie flops because the general public doesn't want to see NC-17 movies, that's not censorship. If said hypothetical movie is either cut before the fact to make it R-rated and thus "marketable," or if all of the major chains refuse to show the movie because it is NC-17, that *is* censorship. Just because it is being done on a corporate rather than a government level does not somehow make it magically "not-censorship."
I can, to a limited (*very* limited) point, understand restricting access to minors. I also believe that films that can't be made without breaking laws (ie against statutory rape) shouldn't be made, because an actual law is being broken there. But wasn't NC-17 created to avoid this problem? That's what bugs me about the whole mess.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to organize a boycott of McDonald's. Or Wal-Mart, or any one of a number of large corporations. Hell, I don't even care if something's being boycotted for a reason I consider to be BS -- all the more reason for me to support the company. Remember the Baptist boycott of Disney? 'nuff said. :)
Well, to clarify, I live in a 200K city, the center of about a 1-million-person metro area. (Rochester, NY, to be exact.) I work for the utility company here; I used to work for a local hospital and a bank. Everything I've seen so far indicates that we're in good shape and that MOST people aren't going to be playing paranoid. This is all good. The biggest problem I'm having is with friends of mine who all want to throw their own parties and want EVERYone to show up to them. Yet another reason why I'm going to the Barony party -- it's the most neutral decision I can make. :)
Then again, as I've posted before, the only marauding gang I've ever dealt with around here is the one that pushed my car out of a snowdrift for me. I've *seen* how this city pulls together in a crisis (very well), and I also know my way around here. So I'm going to "party like it's 999" with my SCA friends, though I *will* make sure I have a full tank of gas and that I take the same precautions that I do pre-expected-major-snowstorm.
Now, I am not a scientist, and perhaps it could be argued that every motor is powered at least indirectly by chemical reactions, but the specific type of chemical reaction at work here would tend to limit the applications of this little motor.
For instance, given the large number of chemicals that can be dissolved in water, you might not want to get it wet. Ever. At all. After all, if we're building on the less-than-100-atoms level, I'd say that every atom counts and losing even ONE to water (or whatever) would be devastating to the efficacy of the whole thing.
First of all, Katz has an excellent point about "shovelware." I've seen plenty of those sites, and they suck. Having a Web page only for the sake of having a Web page strikes me as useless.
However, there are a lot of sites (and yankees.com has this tendency as well) that go to the opposite extreme. The "gadgetware" sites sometimes have good content, yes. But only the fastest and newest machines with completely up-to-date software can truly take advantage of it.
My home machine right now is a 486 with a 14.4 modem, and I usually run Lynx. It's aggravating when someone with a flashy site makes it unreadable to anyone who doesn't have InternetGadget 9.9.9. It makes me LESS likely to do business with them, not more.
We shouldn't be encouraging "shovelware." Katz is absolutely right there. But "gadgetware" is every bit as bad.
Well, the utility company I work for picked today to have a "dress rehearsal" of their Y2K backup systems.
:)
Various conspiracy theorists around here suggested that it was just in case 9/9/99 was a real problem and they could blame it on the drill, but given that we've had no problems with either 9/9/99 or the drill, I'm not overly worried.
Funny, that. This is exactly why I *want* to be in a big city on 01-01-00. Well, a moderately big city, ie the one I live in. :)
:P
There are going to be stupid people, sure, but the ones I'm especially worried about are the ones who are doing the whole head-for-the-hills thing. The survivalist nutcases won't be in the cities, and the biggest problem I'm likely to encounter is a bunch of drunks who partied a little too hard. And given that I fully intend to be at my Barony's New Year's party, there will be plenty of candles around, camping gear if there's a REAL problem, and lots of live steel should THAT become necessary.
I'd much rather deal with the drunks than with the sober gun-nuts who will be lining every spare scrap of country on the big day.
10-16 years may be stretching it a bit, actually.
I remember being a very young'un and having all the neighborhood kids in the 4-9 age range going nuts over ROTJ. By 16, most kids I knew would have somewhat outgrown the obsession. That is, those who aren't in their 20s and still obsessed.
Of course, one of the things I find amusing-yet-scary is how nuts all the little kiddies are going over Darth Maul. Yeah, that's a wonderful role model
Seriously, though. Star Wars ain't art, and it ain't religion, either.
Illegal immigrants and terrorists AGAIN? Can't they come up with something original??
"We're making a national database of driver's licenses to crack down on underage drinking!" Yeah, that's it!!
Unfortunately, that might actually get someone's attention. Most people aren't illegal immigrants or terrorists, but I'd say most of us had a beer or two hundred before reaching the magical 21st birthday. And unless DWI was involved, I somehow doubt most people would want to turn a 19-year-old trying to buy some alcohol into a federal criminal.
Is this the real reasoning behind the program? It might be a component. Who knows? It could be an easier way to track "subversive elements" (like I've posted on other threads, the FBI probably has a good-sized file on me, but it hasn't interfered with my life YET).
Or here's another interesting and somehow frightening thought: IIRC, strict followers of Islam do not believe in taking pictures of anyone or having any pictures taken of them. "You're not in our photo database, and you look Arabic
Anyone else got any to add to this?
At the risk of making a "me too" post, I had something similar happen. Supposedly I had 66 Karma points earlier today. I have posted NOTHING, and I now have 30. Did I meta-moderate so horribly that I lost half of my Karma, or is this just from looking at it on my home computer with lynx rather than my work computer with IE? Or what? I am very confused ...
First of all, the "!@#$! off JonKatz!" flames all over this thread certainly do reinforce the point about lack of civility online. Kind of nifty how that works, the more you criticize him in those terms the better sense his overall argument ends up making. And believe me, I've seen my share of incivility on the net lately -- anyone else around here read the Rialto, aka rec.org.sca?
Secondly, one of the BIG problems with new technology as it is currently being applied is the de-humanizing of critical social service industries. My mother has worked for the state Department of Labor for most of my life. When she started, folks who needed to collect UI were known as "claimants," and they needed to show up to the local offices in person, have someone walk them through the benefit claims process, and generally were shown respect as people who happened to be in a difficult situation, unemployed.
Nowadays, they've decided that "claimant" is degrading and these people should be called "customers." But you know what else they've done? They've closed down about half of the local offices. There is nobody to sit down with these people and walk through the process -- everything's on one of those damnable "press 1, press 2" phone menus at some 1-800 number. They don't generally see a human being unless something has gone wrong, and the number of misunderstandings of the whole process (either by people used to the old system who are back several years later and faced with the new, or by people who have never done it before and find it confusing) has gone up. This is NOT good.
And re: the copying issue. Abuses are occuring on BOTH sides. Software developers are charging asinine amounts of money for their products (in some cases), and some people are just copying everything they can get their hands on, whether they could have afforded to buy it legitimately or not. The situation as it stands is lose-lose, and both sides get to claim moral high ground because of the extremes. What fun.
Furthermore, Katz is absolutely right that the real issues and concerns are being ignored thanks to a bunch of hysteria about dirty pictures and bomb recipies. And the inappropriate responses to this hysteria are not well known outside of certain net-savvy, left-wing circles. (Must I bring up CyberSitter's blatant censorship of anything that disagrees with the company, rude responses to questions, harassment of peacefire.org, and censoring of feminist and pagan sites without telling anyone, not to mention occasional tendency to break source code that goes through TCP streams, yet AGAIN? It appears that I must. *sigh*)
There ARE issues. They need to be discussed and dealt with one way or another, not swept under the rug or covered up by The Great Porn Debate.
*chuckles*
Point taken.
However, there is an important distinction that the satire does not acknowledge:
Programming is more objective than writing. At a minimum, you can see if the end-result is functioning or not.
The great self-help fad notwithstanding, books don't usually have the same "this will work" characteristic implied in their use. The best you can really do is "Based on [insert data and/or personal ranting here], this is what should work for someone in your situation." But overall it's not going to be anywhere near as objective.
I'm not saying that this service should be shut down. Far from it. I'm not even saying that it's a bad idea, per se.
I'm just saying that most people are NOT going to look upon books "published" on a site like this as valid or reliable information, and that there are some very good reasons for it. In fact, personally, I would consider what I found there LESS valid for informational purposes than something I linked to by way of
I'm also saying that I don't expect the things that appear there to be taken seriously by most people who care about intellectual integrity. Then again, it'll probably do a good business -- Ralph Blum certainly does, and he's not exactly known for accurate scholarship or accurate ANYthing.
It would certainly be an interesting way to get sources for a research paper. Then again, the vast majority of professors won't take that seriously. You'd better have at least a few papers that were published in actual honest-to-Deities scholarly journals.
Or do you mean a verbatim reprint? Yeah, I can see that happening. Not that it's a good thing Then again, the same thing would apply. You'd damn well BETTER have some journal sources, preferably journals-available-at-your-university sources, or someone will smell a rat REAL fast.
:)
Traditionally, in the literary world, self-publishing is VERY much frowned upon.
While I don't necessarily agree with some of the standards (or lack thereof) that certain publishers have, I do have to say that the theory behind having your book sold to a reputable publishing house or your paper printed in a reputable journal is a good one.
Case in point of what can happen when people *don't* pay attention to this: Time's "cyberporn" article. Remember that? The one based off of an incredibly shoddy undergraduate "research paper?"
Given that any fool with a buck to spare every month can upload whatever drivel said fool sees fit to
Yes, it's good to have alternative sources of info. (That's why I read
And yes, I'm fully aware that some absolute crap gets published professionally (said Time article being an excellent example). But on some level that I haven't figured out yet, as a writer, this new form of publishing bothers the heck out of me even though I theoretically think it's a good idea. *shrug*
OK, so everything's all patched up now, right?
That's fine. Until, that is, the next time they implement some sort of new feature that does not play well with the existing aspects of the code, and something like this happens again.
There are trade-offs between security and convenience, and there are legitimate gray areas. For instance, I use cookies to stay logged in to
All that said, however, there is NO excuse for the Hotmail situation.
That really sucks.
Personally, I think this is one of those situations where what they SHOULD do, given that (as per another post on this thread) they need to keep the evidence "pristine," is give someone like you the cash to buy another computer.
Would that be an acceptable compromise?
Anyone else have the Politically Correct Dictionary?
"Carbo-centrism: the belief in the sole existence or superiority of carbon-based life forms, thereby unfairly discriminating against silicon-based life forms."
Now, whether that means extraterrestrial life or machines running on silicon chips, I don't know.
:)
Well, for me, anyhow. It can't replace either one entirely.
Since my parents and most of my friends from college now have an e-mail address, I send e-mail when I need to get something responded to reasonably quickly but not THIS SECOND.
There are certain situations that I don't think call for e-mail or for telephone calls -- good old-fashioned snail mail is the only polite option. Wedding invitations and sympathy cards come immediately to mind.
Likewise, if there is an emergency and next of kin need to be notified, you better believe I'm using the telephone, at least as a first attempt. If that proves ineffective, THEN I might send an e-mail saying "please call" or something similar.
E-mail is the best option if you need to send out the same news to a lot of people that live in a wide geographic area. Individual phone calls are time-consuming and expensive, and for some reason form snail mail is much more irritating than multiple "TO" e-mail. That could just be a personal quirk, though.
For average, ordinary, mundane communication with friends and family, I tend to use e-mail because it's convenient and cheap and I don't have to remember where I put my stamps.
And don't forget, the computer was supposed to bring us the "paperless office." Yeah right, like THAT will ever happen.
IMHO, too much of either is bad. Rob is quoted as saying that now "we know a lot about a little," rather than vice-versa.
I've seen many posts here on
Needless to say, I disagree. As I've posted in the past, a purely Linux-focused or even computer-focused site only makes sense if "computer" is a necessary and therefore unstated modifier of "nerd." It is not. I am an English nerd (aka technical writer with a journalism degree), and I'm sure there are more of us here, as well as a good-sized handful of "science nerds," etc.
I think that
And I think the not-strictly-computer threads are necessary in much the same way that in the SCA, you can't become a knight JUST because you're a good fighter, even though fighting is the main focus of the knighthood. At a minimum, you're also expected to teach fighters, and to know how to dance, play chess, and some other things I'm forgetting right now.
Super-hyper-overspecialization isn't a very good thing -- we still need common ground with the rest of the world. But having a major focus, and supplementing with bits and pieces slightly outside of that focus that are still interesting, is a good way to go. I like and appreciate it.
[WARNING: this post written in Rant Mode]
There's a lot that goes into this "problem," and unfortunately it's not going to be looked at in anything even approximating a sensible fashion by most people. Too easy to sound off on the position of the moment.
First and foremost, I see "race" is being used as a metaphor for "class" yet AGAIN because we Americans are so damn allergic to talking about "class" -- that's "communist." *rolls eyes* The end result of this, of course, is that upper-middle-class African-Americans who don't need the money get the scholarships etc. anyhow, because they're able to outperform their poorer counterparts. I've always found this rather asinine, myself.
Secondly (and I know that a lot of folks on
For that matter, when new technology shows up, we generally lose as much as we gain. It takes at least an associate's, probably a bachelor's degree to be considered as "educated" as someone with a lowly high school diploma was 50 years ago. And I'm not convinced that we have that much more knowledge or street-smarts. It's gotten too easy to get someone else to do the work for us, and too many of us make fun of the people who DO that work later and call them stupid. Well, can YOU fix your own pipes, or do you have to call a plumber?
In ancient times, bards were expected to memorize book-length epics. How many of us would be able to do that today? Probably not many. Admittedly, it's not the most useful skill in the world, but neither is being able to program a new version of Quake. Sorry, guys.
For that matter, different subcultures put an emphasis on different skills. The slaves in this country had a strong oral tradition (in part because they weren't allowed to learn to read) that for a long time wasn't seen as "artistic" because it wasn't written down. Doesn't make it any less valuable. And if I were part of a culture that depended heavily on oral traditions and interpersonal face-to-face contact, a Net connection would probably be about the LAST thing I'd want.
There's no push-button solution here, but realizing that people not chomping at the technological bit aren't necessarily morons beneath your notice would be a damn good start.
The problem I've got with this little test and with the rest of the site is that it focuses on netsex and chatting with strangers.
That's not MY problem, though I admit I seem addicted. I'm NOT a net-junkie as such though, I'm an info-junkie, and to a certain extent a debate-junkie who actually enjoys a good argument. (I'm beginning to suspect that I'm a Myers-Briggs ENTP after all, not ENFP
As I am unfortunately doing now, I will spend excessive time on the 'net or doing similar things other than focusing on my work when I'm stuck doing something boring and repetitive. If I'm doing something that requires brain cells, I'm fine, but if it's the copy-paste-reformat that I have to do right now I get bored silly. At one of my old, non-net-connected jobs, I used to spend a lot of time reading anything hanging out there that looked the least bit interesting.
Unfortunately, the test doesn't seem to have much in the way of useful advice for folks like me (and I know I'm not the only one). I don't care about porn sites, but cut me away from my Slashdot connection or the SCA web pages I frequent
*shrug* We had riots in the 1960s here, too.
Probably not on the same sort of scale, but riots nonetheless. And if the area was reduced to a pile of absolute rubble, that's one thing -- I don't want to live in a pile of rubble either.
But the stupid thing I've noticed around here is this: If a plaza is slightly rundown looking and its main cilentele are senior citizens and white, everyone thinks "Oh, how sad," but they don't feel THREATENED by it. If the same slightly rundown plaza has a young minority clientele, people feel threatened and scared. And for gods' sake, everyone needs to do laundry.
There are certain neighborhoods that even I try to avoid, like the one where a firecracker was set off extremely close to my car eariler this summer.
What I am taking issue with is the assumption that the entire city is like that, and the assumption that "city" + "black families" = "crime-ridden ghetto." Yes, we've had a murder in my neighborhood. ONE murder in the two years I've lived there, and as my landlord told me when I moved in "If you don't deal drugs or live with someone who does, you won't have problems." We also had murders in the suburbs when I lived there. *shrug*
But a former co-worker of mine, who moved to the suburbs because he found the city threatening, had his car broken into, his roommate's car broken into, and his car stolen in the space of three months. And he was paying about double the rent I pay for the dubious privilege of living in a suburb that wasn't even safer than where I live.
You see, there's a hell of a lot of JUNK out there on the web. And eventually people with a given interest are going to get tired of hitting every site they can on a given topic. They don't want junk, they want actual information on whatever subject(s) they're interested in.
I no longer try to look at every SCA or Amber page going. I keep track of my own barony and kingdom pages, and sometimes things like the Rialto archives and Cariadoc's Miscellany, because I KNOW those are good sources of info that are going to be there tomorrow.
Likewise, sometimes I'll hit "random" on the Golden Circle, but not always. Some of those pages are really useless. I check those that are updated frequently.
And yes, I'm a slight bit of a hypocrite, but until I can get my stuff off of GeoCities, I'm not updating it.