Get out from in front of your TV
I don't sit in front of a fscking TV other than to watch the occassional DVD. I don't know what kind of humanitarian you consider yourself to be if you don't find homelessness an atrocity. How dare you compare the suffering of one human to another, you pretentious b@st@rd. You don't know a thing about where I've been or what I've been through. So please, spare me your advice. While you're at it learn to some reading comprehension, you missed the point of my article.
Just because technology is there doesn't mean its progress. Oh boy! We can document atrocities. When I see people jumping on the bandwagon to stop them then I'll be impressed.
You're the one who needs to wake up and pull all that harsh reality you call "unfortunate" and stuff to the back of your brain so you can sleep better at night back up front and start taking a good look at whats going on around you. I think you're the one living in a superficial world.
Have you personally done anything about the atrocities you could see before the technology? If so, then bravo for you. Otherwise, get off my back, because at least I'm out there trying to make a difference.
I'm done playing who can be the bigger karma whore and start the biggest flame war here. Modding my OP as a Troll was assinine, even for/. Bullocks...
...there are all kinds of atrocities going on internationally and domestically (for you/.'ers here in the US) that you don't need more than a pair of eyes to see. How many times a day do people just blow off the homeless and starving people of their own country.
Yes there are problems like Gitmo, Darfar and Sudan. Hell there is most of a continent that is what I consider an international atrocity because of starvation, disease, and corruption.
What about all the homeless people here in the US, the overrun VA hospitals with deplorable conditions and the Katrina victims still waiting for FEMA--things we can see without Satellite Imagery?
Maybe we should handle those problems first before we spend the big bucks on the technology to look for more problems we can't afford? And for fscks sake, no, I'm not saying that any atrocities found with this tech are of any less importance than the ones found without it. Human suffering is human suffering--it all sucks. But that money AI used for the satellite images could have been feeding people in Africa and the US and elsewhere... ~sigh~
I guess I'm just not as excited about technology as I am about humanitarianism. I feel like this is getting ahead of ourselves.
This implies that only "Major Schools" whatever the fsck that means have books worth putting online and/or the technology to do so.
I happen to disagree. Some of the PEW awards for Excellence in Technology went to schools not on that list, that have just as much technology and pending lawsuit results, could offer more diverse titles to put online.
For starters, my alma mattar (sp?) contains the Jack Williamson Sci-Fi Library also an incredible array of documented artifacts in an anthro department that uses cutting edge technology to study a local National Historic Landmark--Blackwater Draw Museum which is a draw for institutions and foundations across the US. I don't think its just because I attended this small state university that I believe it has educational publications of it's own to offer the world through Google--as the folks that fly in for the Williamson lectureship series and the researchers at The Carnegie Institute.
I agree, the legal red tape is a huge bottleneck. Perhaps I'm too naive and romantic, but I'm hoping that common sense will come into play and the greater good of making education easier to get to will cause cooler heads to prevail, working out a deal where no one gets ripped off or insanely rich. (who am i kidding?)
Wanna blow your mind?...{snip}...There most certainly is a "Vast RightWing Conspiracy". Just because Hillary's paranoid doesn't mean she doesn't have enemies. And it doesn't mean she isn't in on it.
Okay wow, I'm not doubting you at all, but to answer your first question. I'm not sure I want to keep following this trail at the time. I'm still in treatment for PTSD because someone wanted to "erase" me "from the gene pool" and sent me a map from their house to mine. It included a picture of a gun collection too. All that just because I am an advocate for breaking down negative stereotypes of mental illness and I blogged on a website that I'm in treatment for unipolar depression. I never threatened anyone, nor have I ever been diagnosed by the 12 psychiatrists that have studied me a threat to myself or anyone else. Still, someone's fear was enough to get me more than one death threat.
In other words I believe in far some people will take their agendas based on greed, power, fear etc...
This lawsuit, the Paris debaucle and the MS anti-trust suits years back are much bigger than the result of the single suit in the article posted, or even the amount of money generated by the companies involved. The precidents they set, the way they end up making the US justice system look to Americans and the world are the real value. That along with corruption, the Abramoff's and "I cannot recall's" of the country's administrative branch is the real point, isn't it? Its not just some ridiculous sum of cash in some billionaire's pocket? Bloody hell I hope not.
I regretted after submitting my comment not linking my assertion to the presumably well-read Jack Abramoff Wikipedia article's "Lobbying" section.
And I'm disgusted that the corporate mass media isn't all over such a juicy story. That willful ignorance tends to confirm "conspiracy theory", rather than some preposterous "coincidence theory".
Well, I didn't go with the wiki link because so many people are, ironically, convinced wiki is full of consipiracy itself. ~smirk~
I do wonder the number of congresspeople (not under investigation) and supreme court members that know that bit of information about Abramoff... I think the count would scare me. I know that the number of Americans that don't know it scares me. This kind of case is just the tip of an iceberg in bringing to light those kind of "conflict of interest" incidents.
For the record, I don't believe in coincidence...more like "connection".
Yeah! And how about people who have committed suicide in charge of suicide prevention hotlines...oh wait!
Shame on the OP and whoever modded that up as funny. It was OT and suicide is never funny.
from NIMH's Suicide in the US Statistics Page Suicide is a major, preventable public health problem. In 2004, it was the eleventh leading cause of death in the U.S., accounting for 32,439 deaths. The overall rate was 10.9 suicide deaths per 100,000 people. An estimated eight to 25 attempted suicides occur per every suicide death.
Mod me down for pointing this out. Screw/. karma. I'd be more worried about other karma. I lost a friend to suicide recently and I didn't find that remark On Topic or remotely funny. ~WBGG
What you might not have heard is that Jack Abramoff, the crooked lobbyist who helped build Bush's crooked Republican Congress, got his start lobbying out of Bill Gates' father's law firm, Preston Gates. It would seem strange if Microsoft weren't getting the benefit of the crooked system it's helped train and build.
Wow, thats gotta be the most useful post and bit of information in the entire mess of about this article. I was hoping someone would get past the google vs. microsoft pissing contests.
I could be wrong, but I don't think it was intended to be funny. Surely he was jesting, he's never even invited me to hold hands and hack kernels on Cowboy Neal's chair?
This is at least as interesting to me, a nerd...
It appeals to me because, like many nerds out there, I've been shut down when discussing something I found neat because non-nerds don't seem to enjoy conversations that involve thinking too hard.
Hey, I never challenged the nerdiness of this article, just the newsiness of it. No one is a bigger nerd than I am, check out the profile if you doubt me.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. When I posted what I posted the general feel was: why has this made the cut? Perhaps things have changed now. But I can still agree to disagree with you about its newsworthiness. To each their own?
I don't necessarily agree that:
Anything that's really super-duper relevant is gonna hit the front page eventually, even if there are fluff pieces like this one up there.
So I guess I just don't see that it would even be worth posting a comment asking why it was put up in the first place - on several levels it has at least as much, if not more, merit than much of the other content on/. based on the fact that not all/.'er agree on what is "super-duper relevant".
You said you didn't see any point in posting the comment based on your opinion. Well you do not/. make. But thanks for you opinion, I do respect it. ~WBGG
~blows you a kiss~ you just made me smile and laugh IRL. You don't know how much thats worth these days. ~still smiling~ mod that man up 4 for humor! ~WBGG
Latin's not that dead...
Me siento muy bien. Pienso que iré para una caminata. (Ok its not latin, its Spanish, my sister is the one who speaks latin and I can't wake her at this hour because she's a lawyer who will do evil things to me. Spanish is latin based though...)
I think this is still OT since its about latin. But its late and use Google to translate the spanish if you don't get the MP reference...
if (could_moderate())
Timesprout.article(19456271).insight(2);// something tells me i fscked this up
forgive my code, its been 5 years and 29 shock therapies since I last coded more than a perl script to alphabetize my DVD collection, and at least then I had a linux machine running with man.
feel free to improve and explain my OO memory failures ~cry~
to be fair, this is getting old...I'm a huge SW fan, a fan of anyone who can lecture in latin, and I can't find anything about this submission remotely interesting, insightful, or of news value to nerds.
In fact a lot of stuff on Firehose that gets shot down just due to too much input and a filtering system that is possibly becoming obsolete could have replaced this article. apologies for the redundant, I meant to post non-AC but clicked the damn PA checkbox in advertantly when aiming for Submit. I think my name should be on this so you can do to my karma whattever you wish to.
The goofiest thing I've ever experienced was when the previous voice mail system (s'been replaced since) somehow decided to prank call my house and put a recording of the ensuing hilarity into my voice mail box.
We had a similar problem with our phone system at work about 9 years ago. Except it would automagicically call unknown (to us) numbers and record the dialing, ringing and then the other party's answer/voicemail on our voicemail. So we'd get to work and have creepy messages timestamped 2:16am with angry people answering "hello. hello?!? do you know what @#$ time it is?? ~click~" etc. Sometimes it'd be other computers/fax machines. We had approximately 900 onsite employees each with their own number/voicemail and flowdown from management reported a third of them were having this problem. It went on for a year or so before they changed providers. But yeah, that was disturbing. And at that time all outgoing calls showed up as just some number that didn't ring anywhere without the Co. name so none of those people really had tracability to complain with assuming they had CID.
Congrats, this has got to be the most successful troll I've seen.
No, this is the most successful troll you'll see. My OP wasn't a troll. I don't lie, deceipt is evil. I don't care about my karma on this one because you're the one defaming me.
Blow goats for calling me a liar. Then blow them again for doing it in a topic about defamation on the internet.
Now that I've gotten a good nights sleep I really wish I had never posted my story about the traffic incident, the firefighter's widow, my insurance card being out of my reach and having to pay the court fee's of the person who broke the law and caused the accident and injury to me.
I'll admit it was a poor example, and I didn't make my point well. Perhaps I didn't raise a bunch of h*ll over a crummy court fee. I don't think that justifies calling me a liar which someone did in some thread. I was young, sick, a bit scared and naive when that accident happened, I've grown and learned a bit since. I still wouldn't go back and make a big deal over that stupid court fee.
I do choose my battles when it comes to attempting to fix the system.
I am disabled so I can't go out and build houses for people but there are things I can do. I am a registered voter that votes. I keep up with public policy and let my local, state and national representatives know my opinions. I am involved in advocacy for many groups that advocate breaking negative mental health stigmas. Many websites online contain writing about tolerance toward other human beings. I spend a great deal of my personal time volunteering to listen to youth with mental health problems that no one else wants to listen to. I've stayed online with them while they have the gun to their head, the pills lined up in front of them spelling out "I WANT TO DIE" and had them go offline and had to live with wondering if they made it or not.
As for me fabricating the accident, shame on you. That data is public record in Arapaho County, CO. I didn't give out my name and the date because I'm sick of the death threats I already get for advocating not beating up people with mental illness.
So to all those people whining at me about not pursuing a lousy court fee and some minor corruption in the system driven by the loyalty of people that stick together because they put themselves in danger when they go to work every day I say "screw you."
So, you get screwed by the local cops, a local (elected) DA, and an idiot judge (probably also elected) and somehow it's because of the "Administration"?
In the Aurora, CO area we are having some problems with corruption in the judicial system. It ironically echos the US Attorney General's sudden memory loss, so I put it in the subject. I should have never posted in the first place because I forget that politics is flamebait and I'm poor at making a point.
The prosecutor bluffing. You should have fought it instead of agreeing. Also your story is not applicable to the present situation because, the judge never even got involved. You were just arguing with the prosecutor, if you had stuck with it the judge/ jury would have sided with you.
File a complaint against the prosecutor, in the state bar or with the state attorney general, if you feel you were treated wrongfully. They are not as willing to bend to local politics.
Why did you need to use FOIA to get a copy of the police report? You can't defend yourself if you do not know the charges, therefore you have to be given all the evidence against you by the police. If you were not given a police report, that is grounds for immediate dismissal of the case against you. My friends have used this point to get out of stupid tickets numerous times.
Mr. Crooke's case is a civil case. In a civil case there is the plaintiff and the defendant. In a criminal case there is a prosecutor (the state) and a defendant. In a civil case if the defendant wins, and proves some additional facts (like that the suit was BS) then the plaintiff has to pay the defendant's costs. May I state for the record that I am a very naive, unassertive person. I have unnatural fear of males that are taller than I am or males with guns. I am incredibly respectful of my elders (the lady in the caddy). When she said she was a widow I probably got emotional. I am severely depressed and when this happened I was young, brand new to a big city and lets face it, no expert in the law. I'm probably the dream-idiot of anyone who takes advantage of a person in that situation. My knowledge of law was limited to a few episodes of LA Law vaguely remembered from my past.
You have all made very good points about various ways and reasons I should have stood up for myself or the system. I now feel like a complete idiot for posting my encounter with the judicial system and getting legal fees paid.
I apologize for using a poor example. At least it brought out all of your excellent points.
Isn't that called a countersuit when you are the defense, and you want the other side to pay the costs if and when you win?
If you don't mind me saying so, and chances are you're probably going to be offended, but here it goes. It was stupid to sign that, agreeing you will pay. You should have fought the case. It would have been honorable to fight the system. By signing it, weren't you admitting you were in the wrong, not them?
If no one bothers fighting a corrupt system, they are essentially justifying what they are doing. With numbers, the system will change. If everyone who is wronged stands up for what is right, instead of doing what is easy, things will have to change because it is too big to ignore.
I'm not sure if its called a countersuit, I'll ask my sister who is a DA and reply.
And I agree, It was stupid to sign it, because yes, it basically admitted I was less financially burdened than she was. I didn't sign anything saying I was at fault for the accident though or that I wasn't insured. Who knows, maybe the car she was driving was some rich friend's car. Maybe she is burdened and her firefighter husband didn't get his pension because of some other factors I don't know of. I made my point to the DA in very loud voice in front of a court room full of people that were bored and several of them were paying attention. No thats not an excuse for fighting the system, but in truth, I was working half time because I suffer from severe treatment resistent depression. That makes it hard enough for me to stand up for what I believe in.
I chose the easy path because most of the time its all I can do to make it through the day and get my job done before falling apart and going to bed. I spend so much time fighting my disease I didn't have enough fight left to do what I would have done before the disease changed me.
Your points are important none-the-less. Even though I couldn't make the difference, I don't think everyone takes the attitude that "why bother, I'm only one person". My sister certainly didn't, she went and got a law degree. She became part of the system in the hopes to change it that way. And I admire the hell out of her for that. She's darn good at what she does.
When I finally get well enough from this disease to start functioning better, I will stop putting up with crap like that, because I agree full-heartedly with your final statement. If I happen to get chosen to moderate in the next 12 hours I'll mod your post up as insightful too.
Thanks for the info and insight and reading my dang long post. I'd send you a cyber Guinness or drink of your choice if I could.
I thought it was the same way in American Courts as well?
I seem to remember it used to be.
But then again, I was stopped at a stoplight in broad daylight and got hit by a lady in a very nice new cadillac. She not only didn't see me and just failed to stop in time, she never had the brakes and hit me so hard I slid forward as she bounced off my Jeep's rear spare and managed to hit me again. All of this was of course in front of a hospital. So the ambulance arrived and they insisted my neck was tender enough I need to get it x-rayed. So as the police arrive late, I leave my license, registration and insurance on the seat while the EMTs take me away on the board. The cop stops us at the ambulance and says my insurance isn't there. The EMTs push me back over and the wind blew it over onto the passenger seat, where I can't reach because I'm taped down. Plus the EMTs are pushing me to get to the hospital ASAP because I have a history of pain complications making me barf. So I point at it and he says "sorry lady, you have to hand it to me, i'm citing you for failure to prove insurance". He tickets me and sticks it under my neckbrace. I'm like wtf silently? In the ambulance the guys explain to me that the lady who hit me is the widow of a fireman. They tell me that its a loyalty thing, cops and fireman stick together so he has to give me attitude.
Three weeks later in court with my letter to prove I had insurance. I'm sitting up front waiting for my turn, its the time I was given to show up. The DA calls a familiar name. Its the lady that hit me. (She never bothered to get out of her car to see if I was alright, btw.) I'm in a freaking neck brace because she herniated a disc. So she goes up to the DA and starts crying about her former husband, and tells him she didn't see me at the stop light because the sun was too bright. BS she coming at me from under an overpass. She is only 4 feet tall though. She might not be able to see over her caddy's dashboard. The DA hugs her and says he won't charge her because of her husbands loyal duty to the city of Aurora. He then asks her if she can afford her court costs of $60. She starts crying and tells him no, that since her husband has been gone, she can't make ends meet. (except for that fancy loaded Caddy out there) and firemen get a pretty good pension in CO too, so I think she was just greedy. The DA says ok, don't worry, we'll work it out, you go home and rest up. Then he calls my name.
His demeanor changes. He tells me that I was driving without proof of insurance and will have two points removed from my license for a year unless i have a letter to prove otherwise. I show him the letter and he begrudingly accepts it. He lectures me that leaving a license, registration or insurance card on a seat for a police officer to pick up is not allowed. I must hand them to the officer. I interrupted to explain the situation with my injury, and he said that doesn't matter--you are still obligated to hand all three to the officer. So I asked the DA, if I'm unconscious and bleeding to death shall I have someone staple them to my hand? He got pissed but so was I at this point.
I said, I read the police report, I went and got a copy of it under the freedom of information act. The lady that hit me has a record of several reckless driving warnings recently and she failed to prove any insurance at the scene of the accident. The police officer not only didn't ticket her for that, but he let her off for reckless driving because she's a widow of a firefighter. Now, I respect what her husband did for Aurora, but I don't think she should get treated differently than I do. Especially if she is endangering other's health with her careless driving, and has no insurance to help pay for damages she causes. She has no insurance. He agreed to that. But then he said. She is on a fixed income, whereas Ms. XXXXX you are making a generous income and so I am going to require you to pay both parties court costs
In 2005 I was referred to an ECT (ElectroConvulsive Therapy sometimes called the old term Electroshock) program for treatment of treatment resistent unipolar depression I've had for 13 years. The doctors only told me the legal minimum of possible side effects. I had 30 grand mal seizures, the minimum considered therapeutic. They couldn't do anymore because I was maxxed out on caffeine and my heart was going into irregular rhythms when they'd try to prolong the seizure with more electricity. (Just short of an amp) In other words, the brain doesn't like seizures. ECT has its origins as a form of torture and relies on the use of a side-effect that has an entire disease, epilepsy, that we try to make go away, as its "therapy". They may paint it as less barbaric because they added general anesthesia and muscle relaxant, but its still the same idea. Break the brain to fix it? Add along to that how many anesthesiologists mess up the general and muscle relaxant leaving the patient conscious but paralyzed as the seizure starts, so they feel like they're choking, but can't move or scream. Its hardly humane. I'm not going to link the support sites, because that would seem to give me more of an agenda here then I meant to come off with.
I went into ECT with a very open mind (no pun intended) because frankly I wanted my life back and 5 psych consults were telling me this was my last hope, save the VNS pacemaker that is held up in FDA red-tape and not covered by major insurance providers for TRD yet. I knew I risked some memory damage during the treatment, my life (as with any general anesthesia procedure) and that its terrifying. Well TRD that keeps you bed-ridden is pretty lousy too. Depression kills most of its victims with their own hands. I was living in constant fear of taking my own life. There are things worse than death. I had never had small scale memory loss, or repetative surgery. So I tried ECT.
What I learned was that I wasn't given all the facts, most ECT patients aren't. Almost everyone that finds out I've had ECT thinks I'm kidding. They can't believe such an inhumane procedure is still used. They ask me if its like it was "in that movie with Jack Nicholson movie?" Most of those people that find out are doctors that read my medical history. I carry it in my purse because I have no memory of the majority of the two and a half years before 2005.
I don't understand the jargon in that article. I do understand that physical and emotional suffering of disease will put a patient at risk to fall prey to unethical procedures. I cannot say if some of those will be in the name of research leading to better treatments. I just know that when you have a death sentence, a limited time and the pain is untreatable, ethical treatment of a patient is huge. I'm going to be very careful about letting doctors put electricity into my brain again. I sacrificed memory and vocabulary and now have 2 day long migraines twice a week because someone messed up. Hindsite isn't 20/20 for me, my memory is gone except for the journaling I did. I don't even know if I'd do it again. Thats what I guess I'm thinking people should consider when it comes to letting doctors play god with your mind.
I know this thread is getting a little old, but, could you define what you mean by sacrificing integrity for a job? Sure. Just to clarify though I wasn't the one who suggested that males are possibly more willing to sacrifice integrity--if you can look back up the messy nest of replies. I think I generated some animosity because I replied to that post asking for a male POV because I'm female if its not clear yet.
What I meant by "sacrificing integrity for a job" in the OP that its taken from was that when I was back in my dinky home town my father was a public official and his generous salary was published in the town paper. As soon as I turned XX age, my parents expected me to go out and get a job to start saving for college and for my personal spending money.
I could not get a job anywhere in town literally. Everywhere I applied they told me that I was a rich kid and didn't need money or some version of that. Finally, a guy at the church I went to that managed a grocery store gave me a job at min wage cleaning the bathrooms and mopping the floors. I had to take it because I needed a job.
This meant that I saw some really lousy stuff, like stealing from the registers by employees, the produce guys doing things to your produce you don't want to know about, etc... My ethics all told me to turn these folks in. I knew if I did, I'd be out the only job I was able to get. Literally, people would stop in and watch me mop because they didn't believe a university president's kid would scrub a bathroom for $3.05/hour. Small towns are cruel. Living in the public eye is cruel. I'd come home from work and strangers that were being entertained at my dad's house would have snuck into my bedroom and would be going through my underwear drawer or looking at my toothbrush in the part of the university residence that's off limits to the public. No, I'm not wanting a "poor you".
I'm explaining my point. I had to sacrifice my integrity to work there and watch that crap go on in highschool and the first few years of my college vacations until I got a better job. I have to live with knowing I never turned in those people that regularly sold alcohol to minors that would go in the back and give "favors". I was in a unique, probably extreme position. It taught me I'll never put up with that in a work environment again.
Probably a little of the stereotype that still floats around at work when a female gets promoted and a few bitter males whine "I wonder who's *#@$ she's s*cking." helped contribute to my mindset. I bet my therapist would tell you that some of it is even baggage guilt from me considering my dad had to sacrifice integrity by letting his highschool kids be exposed to the public weirdos to keep an institution of higher education in such excellent condition.
Did that clear things up? I hope so. I can see how that probably isn't the first assumption that comes to mind. The clubbing baby seals is a good example too as I'm an animal lover and non-violent type.
Perhaps it's really just because men in general have less trouble leaving their integrity at the door?
Hmmmm. I hesitate to agree simply out of ignorance. I don't know what its like to be male. In truth, I haven't paid enough attention to them to know whether they are forced to leave their integrity at the door for IT jobs or any jobs.
I'm too romantic and idealistic. I can't imagine anyone in the US still being forced to do that, even if they didn't have the choice to go to college or high school for financial reasons. I can see not being able to start out with a job you truly enjoy, but realizing that temporary sacrifice will lead to a career you will. I suppose I'm naive, but surely anyone in our nation can find a job that doesn't require them to sacrifice any of their integrity, unless of course thats not a big deal to them.
What about it guys? Do you have little problem sacrificing your integrity to work in IT?
It could also be that they start into IT/math/whatever and get tired of people being shocked when they tell them what they do.
Or am I the only one with that problem? It's really annoying to be frequently reminded that people need to be convinced that you can do what you spend your life doing. No one is surprised when I make good cookies or get a small child to stop crying! Why must they be shocked when I do good math?
The closely related phenomena is that people feel the need to tell me I'm good at this stuff. It's as if they expect me not to realize I'm good at it, since it was such a shock to them. I swear it's as if they caught their pet gerbil building a rocket, completely unthinkable but kind of cool.
I think I understand what you're getting at. The women are sick of the "trying to react non-stereotypically" when they break stale stigmas that are sadly still present.
If so, thats a good point. In highschool, I was the only person in my graduating class that took more math classes than were offered at the school. (No, I did not graduate valedictorian or fit in any stereotype from The Breakfast Club.) We just had no Calculus, in fact, we had no AP classes. My senior year I didn't feel like taking "Baking Deserts III" (don't laugh, it was a real class) and fought the "football is all that matters" public school system to let me take my two empty slots to go off-campus to the local university and take a Calc I course, instead of being an office aide and learning to bake pie.
When I did this, a women from the university used me as a research subject in her psychology thesis entitled "Women Can Conquer Math Phobia". She interviewed me for hours asking me how I got over my fear of math and science, etc... Then she showed me a bunch of data about how women are born with brains that are physically different and have to overcome hurdles to understand math. My mom is an ardent feminist, both parents are liberal, open-minded archeaologists that told me I could do whatever I wanted to do with education despite gender. Before I met this woman who told me about "math phobia" I guess I never even thought about gender applying to how I studied. I blew her off because one of the best teachers I ever had was my high school math teacher who was an older lady that didn't take any crap from anyone and taught math like no one's business.
In college, to help buy groceries, I tutored math. I don't recall having a significant number of guys who hated math and whined about Calculus anymore than did females.
Yet I was sick of the "Oh wow, its a chick that can code in C and she compiles her own Linux kernels too!" in the senior/grad Math/CS classes. The first time it was kinda flattering, then it got condescending fast. It was like I was performing for an audience at a circus.
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I don't sit in front of a fscking TV other than to watch the occassional DVD. I don't know what kind of humanitarian you consider yourself to be if you don't find homelessness an atrocity. How dare you compare the suffering of one human to another, you pretentious b@st@rd. You don't know a thing about where I've been or what I've been through. So please, spare me your advice. While you're at it learn to some reading comprehension, you missed the point of my article.
Just because technology is there doesn't mean its progress. Oh boy! We can document atrocities. When I see people jumping on the bandwagon to stop them then I'll be impressed.
You're the one who needs to wake up and pull all that harsh reality you call "unfortunate" and stuff to the back of your brain so you can sleep better at night back up front and start taking a good look at whats going on around you. I think you're the one living in a superficial world.
Have you personally done anything about the atrocities you could see before the technology? If so, then bravo for you. Otherwise, get off my back, because at least I'm out there trying to make a difference.
I'm done playing who can be the bigger karma whore and start the biggest flame war here. Modding my OP as a Troll was assinine, even for
...there are all kinds of atrocities going on internationally and domestically (for you /.'ers here in the US) that you don't need more than a pair of eyes to see. How many times a day do people just blow off the homeless and starving people of their own country.
Yes there are problems like Gitmo, Darfar and Sudan. Hell there is most of a continent that is what I consider an international atrocity because of starvation, disease, and corruption.
What about all the homeless people here in the US, the overrun VA hospitals with deplorable conditions and the Katrina victims still waiting for FEMA--things we can see without Satellite Imagery?
Maybe we should handle those problems first before we spend the big bucks on the technology to look for more problems we can't afford? And for fscks sake, no, I'm not saying that any atrocities found with this tech are of any less importance than the ones found without it. Human suffering is human suffering--it all sucks. But that money AI used for the satellite images could have been feeding people in Africa and the US and elsewhere... ~sigh~
I guess I'm just not as excited about technology as I am about humanitarianism. I feel like this is getting ahead of ourselves.
This implies that only "Major Schools" whatever the fsck that means have books worth putting online and/or the technology to do so.
I happen to disagree. Some of the PEW awards for Excellence in Technology went to schools not on that list, that have just as much technology and pending lawsuit results, could offer more diverse titles to put online. For starters, my alma mattar (sp?) contains the Jack Williamson Sci-Fi Library also an incredible array of documented artifacts in an anthro department that uses cutting edge technology to study a local National Historic Landmark--Blackwater Draw Museum which is a draw for institutions and foundations across the US. I don't think its just because I attended this small state university that I believe it has educational publications of it's own to offer the world through Google--as the folks that fly in for the Williamson lectureship series and the researchers at The Carnegie Institute.
I agree, the legal red tape is a huge bottleneck. Perhaps I'm too naive and romantic, but I'm hoping that common sense will come into play and the greater good of making education easier to get to will cause cooler heads to prevail, working out a deal where no one gets ripped off or insanely rich. (who am i kidding?)
Okay wow, I'm not doubting you at all, but to answer your first question. I'm not sure I want to keep following this trail at the time. I'm still in treatment for PTSD because someone wanted to "erase" me "from the gene pool" and sent me a map from their house to mine. It included a picture of a gun collection too. All that just because I am an advocate for breaking down negative stereotypes of mental illness and I blogged on a website that I'm in treatment for unipolar depression. I never threatened anyone, nor have I ever been diagnosed by the 12 psychiatrists that have studied me a threat to myself or anyone else. Still, someone's fear was enough to get me more than one death threat.
In other words I believe in far some people will take their agendas based on greed, power, fear etc...
This lawsuit, the Paris debaucle and the MS anti-trust suits years back are much bigger than the result of the single suit in the article posted, or even the amount of money generated by the companies involved. The precidents they set, the way they end up making the US justice system look to Americans and the world are the real value. That along with corruption, the Abramoff's and "I cannot recall's" of the country's administrative branch is the real point, isn't it? Its not just some ridiculous sum of cash in some billionaire's pocket? Bloody hell I hope not.
And I'm disgusted that the corporate mass media isn't all over such a juicy story. That willful ignorance tends to confirm "conspiracy theory", rather than some preposterous "coincidence theory".
Well, I didn't go with the wiki link because so many people are, ironically, convinced wiki is full of consipiracy itself. ~smirk~
I do wonder the number of congresspeople (not under investigation) and supreme court members that know that bit of information about Abramoff... I think the count would scare me. I know that the number of Americans that don't know it scares me. This kind of case is just the tip of an iceberg in bringing to light those kind of "conflict of interest" incidents.
For the record, I don't believe in coincidence...more like "connection".
Shame on the OP and whoever modded that up as funny. It was OT and suicide is never funny.
from NIMH's Suicide in the US Statistics Page
Suicide is a major, preventable public health problem. In 2004, it was the eleventh leading cause of death in the U.S., accounting for 32,439 deaths. The overall rate was 10.9 suicide deaths per 100,000 people. An estimated eight to 25 attempted suicides occur per every suicide death.
Mod me down for pointing this out. Screw
Wow, thats gotta be the most useful post and bit of information in the entire mess of about this article. I was hoping someone would get past the google vs. microsoft pissing contests.
Just a little article backing up your assertion about the Abramoff/Preston Gates law firm connection. Not that anyone seems to doubt you, but I couldn't resist the zinger.
It appeals to me because, like many nerds out there, I've been shut down when discussing something I found neat because non-nerds don't seem to enjoy conversations that involve thinking too hard.
Hey, I never challenged the nerdiness of this article, just the newsiness of it. No one is a bigger nerd than I am, check out the profile if you doubt me.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. When I posted what I posted the general feel was: why has this made the cut? Perhaps things have changed now. But I can still agree to disagree with you about its newsworthiness. To each their own?
I don't necessarily agree that: Anything that's really super-duper relevant is gonna hit the front page eventually, even if there are fluff pieces like this one up there.
So I guess I just don't see that it would even be worth posting a comment asking why it was put up in the first place - on several levels it has at least as much, if not more, merit than much of the other content on
You said you didn't see any point in posting the comment based on your opinion. Well you do not
~blows you a kiss~ you just made me smile and laugh IRL. You don't know how much thats worth these days. ~still smiling~ mod that man up 4 for humor! ~WBGG
Me siento muy bien. Pienso que iré para una caminata. (Ok its not latin, its Spanish, my sister is the one who speaks latin and I can't wake her at this hour because she's a lawyer who will do evil things to me. Spanish is latin based though...)
I think this is still OT since its about latin. But its late and use Google to translate the spanish if you don't get the MP reference...
if (could_moderate()) // something tells me i fscked this up
Timesprout.article(19456271).insight(2);
forgive my code, its been 5 years and 29 shock therapies since I last coded more than a perl script to alphabetize my DVD collection, and at least then I had a linux machine running with man.
feel free to improve and explain my OO memory failures ~cry~
In fact a lot of stuff on Firehose that gets shot down just due to too much input and a filtering system that is possibly becoming obsolete could have replaced this article. apologies for the redundant, I meant to post non-AC but clicked the damn PA checkbox in advertantly when aiming for Submit. I think my name should be on this so you can do to my karma whattever you wish to.
We had a similar problem with our phone system at work about 9 years ago. Except it would automagicically call unknown (to us) numbers and record the dialing, ringing and then the other party's answer/voicemail on our voicemail. So we'd get to work and have creepy messages timestamped 2:16am with angry people answering "hello. hello?!? do you know what @#$ time it is?? ~click~" etc. Sometimes it'd be other computers/fax machines. We had approximately 900 onsite employees each with their own number/voicemail and flowdown from management reported a third of them were having this problem. It went on for a year or so before they changed providers. But yeah, that was disturbing. And at that time all outgoing calls showed up as just some number that didn't ring anywhere without the Co. name so none of those people really had tracability to complain with assuming they had CID.
No, this is the most successful troll you'll see. My OP wasn't a troll. I don't lie, deceipt is evil. I don't care about my karma on this one because you're the one defaming me.
Blow goats for calling me a liar. Then blow them again for doing it in a topic about defamation on the internet.
Did you miss the point?
Now that I've gotten a good nights sleep I really wish I had never posted my story about the traffic incident, the firefighter's widow, my insurance card being out of my reach and having to pay the court fee's of the person who broke the law and caused the accident and injury to me.
I'll admit it was a poor example, and I didn't make my point well. Perhaps I didn't raise a bunch of h*ll over a crummy court fee. I don't think that justifies calling me a liar which someone did in some thread. I was young, sick, a bit scared and naive when that accident happened, I've grown and learned a bit since. I still wouldn't go back and make a big deal over that stupid court fee.
I do choose my battles when it comes to attempting to fix the system.
I am disabled so I can't go out and build houses for people but there are things I can do. I am a registered voter that votes. I keep up with public policy and let my local, state and national representatives know my opinions. I am involved in advocacy for many groups that advocate breaking negative mental health stigmas. Many websites online contain writing about tolerance toward other human beings. I spend a great deal of my personal time volunteering to listen to youth with mental health problems that no one else wants to listen to. I've stayed online with them while they have the gun to their head, the pills lined up in front of them spelling out "I WANT TO DIE" and had them go offline and had to live with wondering if they made it or not.
As for me fabricating the accident, shame on you. That data is public record in Arapaho County, CO. I didn't give out my name and the date because I'm sick of the death threats I already get for advocating not beating up people with mental illness.
So to all those people whining at me about not pursuing a lousy court fee and some minor corruption in the system driven by the loyalty of people that stick together because they put themselves in danger when they go to work every day I say "screw you."
What are you doing to make our world better?
In the Aurora, CO area we are having some problems with corruption in the judicial system. It ironically echos the US Attorney General's sudden memory loss, so I put it in the subject. I should have never posted in the first place because I forget that politics is flamebait and I'm poor at making a point.
If you don't mind me saying so, and chances are you're probably going to be offended, but here it goes. It was stupid to sign that, agreeing you will pay. You should have fought the case. It would have been honorable to fight the system. By signing it, weren't you admitting you were in the wrong, not them?
If no one bothers fighting a corrupt system, they are essentially justifying what they are doing. With numbers, the system will change. If everyone who is wronged stands up for what is right, instead of doing what is easy, things will have to change because it is too big to ignore.
I'm not sure if its called a countersuit, I'll ask my sister who is a DA and reply.
And I agree, It was stupid to sign it, because yes, it basically admitted I was less financially burdened than she was. I didn't sign anything saying I was at fault for the accident though or that I wasn't insured. Who knows, maybe the car she was driving was some rich friend's car. Maybe she is burdened and her firefighter husband didn't get his pension because of some other factors I don't know of. I made my point to the DA in very loud voice in front of a court room full of people that were bored and several of them were paying attention. No thats not an excuse for fighting the system, but in truth, I was working half time because I suffer from severe treatment resistent depression. That makes it hard enough for me to stand up for what I believe in.
I chose the easy path because most of the time its all I can do to make it through the day and get my job done before falling apart and going to bed. I spend so much time fighting my disease I didn't have enough fight left to do what I would have done before the disease changed me.
Your points are important none-the-less. Even though I couldn't make the difference, I don't think everyone takes the attitude that "why bother, I'm only one person". My sister certainly didn't, she went and got a law degree. She became part of the system in the hopes to change it that way. And I admire the hell out of her for that. She's darn good at what she does.
When I finally get well enough from this disease to start functioning better, I will stop putting up with crap like that, because I agree full-heartedly with your final statement. If I happen to get chosen to moderate in the next 12 hours I'll mod your post up as insightful too.
Thanks for the info and insight and reading my dang long post. I'd send you a cyber Guinness or drink of your choice if I could.
didn't he invent the internets?
he better lawyer up....and all that speculation about him waiting to announce a surprise run for 2008--this could be its undoing!!
~tsk tsk tsk~ ~smirk~
I thought it was the same way in American Courts as well?
I seem to remember it used to be.
But then again, I was stopped at a stoplight in broad daylight and got hit by a lady in a very nice new cadillac. She not only didn't see me and just failed to stop in time, she never had the brakes and hit me so hard I slid forward as she bounced off my Jeep's rear spare and managed to hit me again. All of this was of course in front of a hospital. So the ambulance arrived and they insisted my neck was tender enough I need to get it x-rayed. So as the police arrive late, I leave my license, registration and insurance on the seat while the EMTs take me away on the board. The cop stops us at the ambulance and says my insurance isn't there. The EMTs push me back over and the wind blew it over onto the passenger seat, where I can't reach because I'm taped down. Plus the EMTs are pushing me to get to the hospital ASAP because I have a history of pain complications making me barf. So I point at it and he says "sorry lady, you have to hand it to me, i'm citing you for failure to prove insurance". He tickets me and sticks it under my neckbrace. I'm like wtf silently? In the ambulance the guys explain to me that the lady who hit me is the widow of a fireman. They tell me that its a loyalty thing, cops and fireman stick together so he has to give me attitude.
Three weeks later in court with my letter to prove I had insurance. I'm sitting up front waiting for my turn, its the time I was given to show up. The DA calls a familiar name. Its the lady that hit me. (She never bothered to get out of her car to see if I was alright, btw.) I'm in a freaking neck brace because she herniated a disc. So she goes up to the DA and starts crying about her former husband, and tells him she didn't see me at the stop light because the sun was too bright. BS she coming at me from under an overpass. She is only 4 feet tall though. She might not be able to see over her caddy's dashboard. The DA hugs her and says he won't charge her because of her husbands loyal duty to the city of Aurora. He then asks her if she can afford her court costs of $60. She starts crying and tells him no, that since her husband has been gone, she can't make ends meet. (except for that fancy loaded Caddy out there) and firemen get a pretty good pension in CO too, so I think she was just greedy. The DA says ok, don't worry, we'll work it out, you go home and rest up. Then he calls my name.
His demeanor changes. He tells me that I was driving without proof of insurance and will have two points removed from my license for a year unless i have a letter to prove otherwise. I show him the letter and he begrudingly accepts it. He lectures me that leaving a license, registration or insurance card on a seat for a police officer to pick up is not allowed. I must hand them to the officer. I interrupted to explain the situation with my injury, and he said that doesn't matter--you are still obligated to hand all three to the officer. So I asked the DA, if I'm unconscious and bleeding to death shall I have someone staple them to my hand? He got pissed but so was I at this point.
I said, I read the police report, I went and got a copy of it under the freedom of information act. The lady that hit me has a record of several reckless driving warnings recently and she failed to prove any insurance at the scene of the accident. The police officer not only didn't ticket her for that, but he let her off for reckless driving because she's a widow of a firefighter. Now, I respect what her husband did for Aurora, but I don't think she should get treated differently than I do. Especially if she is endangering other's health with her careless driving, and has no insurance to help pay for damages she causes. She has no insurance. He agreed to that. But then he said. She is on a fixed income, whereas Ms. XXXXX you are making a generous income and so I am going to require you to pay both parties court costs
Is what concerns me most.
In 2005 I was referred to an ECT (ElectroConvulsive Therapy sometimes called the old term Electroshock) program for treatment of treatment resistent unipolar depression I've had for 13 years. The doctors only told me the legal minimum of possible side effects. I had 30 grand mal seizures, the minimum considered therapeutic. They couldn't do anymore because I was maxxed out on caffeine and my heart was going into irregular rhythms when they'd try to prolong the seizure with more electricity. (Just short of an amp) In other words, the brain doesn't like seizures. ECT has its origins as a form of torture and relies on the use of a side-effect that has an entire disease, epilepsy, that we try to make go away, as its "therapy". They may paint it as less barbaric because they added general anesthesia and muscle relaxant, but its still the same idea. Break the brain to fix it? Add along to that how many anesthesiologists mess up the general and muscle relaxant leaving the patient conscious but paralyzed as the seizure starts, so they feel like they're choking, but can't move or scream. Its hardly humane. I'm not going to link the support sites, because that would seem to give me more of an agenda here then I meant to come off with.
I went into ECT with a very open mind (no pun intended) because frankly I wanted my life back and 5 psych consults were telling me this was my last hope, save the VNS pacemaker that is held up in FDA red-tape and not covered by major insurance providers for TRD yet. I knew I risked some memory damage during the treatment, my life (as with any general anesthesia procedure) and that its terrifying. Well TRD that keeps you bed-ridden is pretty lousy too. Depression kills most of its victims with their own hands. I was living in constant fear of taking my own life. There are things worse than death. I had never had small scale memory loss, or repetative surgery. So I tried ECT.
What I learned was that I wasn't given all the facts, most ECT patients aren't. Almost everyone that finds out I've had ECT thinks I'm kidding. They can't believe such an inhumane procedure is still used. They ask me if its like it was "in that movie with Jack Nicholson movie?" Most of those people that find out are doctors that read my medical history. I carry it in my purse because I have no memory of the majority of the two and a half years before 2005.
I don't understand the jargon in that article. I do understand that physical and emotional suffering of disease will put a patient at risk to fall prey to unethical procedures. I cannot say if some of those will be in the name of research leading to better treatments. I just know that when you have a death sentence, a limited time and the pain is untreatable, ethical treatment of a patient is huge. I'm going to be very careful about letting doctors put electricity into my brain again. I sacrificed memory and vocabulary and now have 2 day long migraines twice a week because someone messed up. Hindsite isn't 20/20 for me, my memory is gone except for the journaling I did. I don't even know if I'd do it again. Thats what I guess I'm thinking people should consider when it comes to letting doctors play god with your mind.
What I meant by "sacrificing integrity for a job" in the OP that its taken from was that when I was back in my dinky home town my father was a public official and his generous salary was published in the town paper. As soon as I turned XX age, my parents expected me to go out and get a job to start saving for college and for my personal spending money.
I could not get a job anywhere in town literally. Everywhere I applied they told me that I was a rich kid and didn't need money or some version of that. Finally, a guy at the church I went to that managed a grocery store gave me a job at min wage cleaning the bathrooms and mopping the floors. I had to take it because I needed a job.
This meant that I saw some really lousy stuff, like stealing from the registers by employees, the produce guys doing things to your produce you don't want to know about, etc... My ethics all told me to turn these folks in. I knew if I did, I'd be out the only job I was able to get. Literally, people would stop in and watch me mop because they didn't believe a university president's kid would scrub a bathroom for $3.05/hour. Small towns are cruel. Living in the public eye is cruel. I'd come home from work and strangers that were being entertained at my dad's house would have snuck into my bedroom and would be going through my underwear drawer or looking at my toothbrush in the part of the university residence that's off limits to the public. No, I'm not wanting a "poor you".
I'm explaining my point. I had to sacrifice my integrity to work there and watch that crap go on in highschool and the first few years of my college vacations until I got a better job. I have to live with knowing I never turned in those people that regularly sold alcohol to minors that would go in the back and give "favors". I was in a unique, probably extreme position. It taught me I'll never put up with that in a work environment again.
Probably a little of the stereotype that still floats around at work when a female gets promoted and a few bitter males whine "I wonder who's *#@$ she's s*cking." helped contribute to my mindset. I bet my therapist would tell you that some of it is even baggage guilt from me considering my dad had to sacrifice integrity by letting his highschool kids be exposed to the public weirdos to keep an institution of higher education in such excellent condition.
Did that clear things up? I hope so. I can see how that probably isn't the first assumption that comes to mind. The clubbing baby seals is a good example too as I'm an animal lover and non-violent type.
Hmmmm. I hesitate to agree simply out of ignorance. I don't know what its like to be male. In truth, I haven't paid enough attention to them to know whether they are forced to leave their integrity at the door for IT jobs or any jobs.
I'm too romantic and idealistic. I can't imagine anyone in the US still being forced to do that, even if they didn't have the choice to go to college or high school for financial reasons. I can see not being able to start out with a job you truly enjoy, but realizing that temporary sacrifice will lead to a career you will. I suppose I'm naive, but surely anyone in our nation can find a job that doesn't require them to sacrifice any of their integrity, unless of course thats not a big deal to them.
What about it guys? Do you have little problem sacrificing your integrity to work in IT?
Or am I the only one with that problem? It's really annoying to be frequently reminded that people need to be convinced that you can do what you spend your life doing. No one is surprised when I make good cookies or get a small child to stop crying! Why must they be shocked when I do good math?
The closely related phenomena is that people feel the need to tell me I'm good at this stuff. It's as if they expect me not to realize I'm good at it, since it was such a shock to them. I swear it's as if they caught their pet gerbil building a rocket, completely unthinkable but kind of cool.
I think I understand what you're getting at. The women are sick of the "trying to react non-stereotypically" when they break stale stigmas that are sadly still present.
If so, thats a good point. In highschool, I was the only person in my graduating class that took more math classes than were offered at the school. (No, I did not graduate valedictorian or fit in any stereotype from The Breakfast Club.) We just had no Calculus, in fact, we had no AP classes. My senior year I didn't feel like taking "Baking Deserts III" (don't laugh, it was a real class) and fought the "football is all that matters" public school system to let me take my two empty slots to go off-campus to the local university and take a Calc I course, instead of being an office aide and learning to bake pie.
When I did this, a women from the university used me as a research subject in her psychology thesis entitled "Women Can Conquer Math Phobia". She interviewed me for hours asking me how I got over my fear of math and science, etc... Then she showed me a bunch of data about how women are born with brains that are physically different and have to overcome hurdles to understand math. My mom is an ardent feminist, both parents are liberal, open-minded archeaologists that told me I could do whatever I wanted to do with education despite gender. Before I met this woman who told me about "math phobia" I guess I never even thought about gender applying to how I studied. I blew her off because one of the best teachers I ever had was my high school math teacher who was an older lady that didn't take any crap from anyone and taught math like no one's business.
In college, to help buy groceries, I tutored math. I don't recall having a significant number of guys who hated math and whined about Calculus anymore than did females.
Yet I was sick of the "Oh wow, its a chick that can code in C and she compiles her own Linux kernels too!" in the senior/grad Math/CS classes. The first time it was kinda flattering, then it got condescending fast. It was like I was performing for an audience at a circus.