I realize that ridiculing ordinary Americans with uninformed speculation never gets old, but these days the kitchen has replaced the living room as the center of the home. My Dad built his new house so that the kitchen was the centerpiece - the living room is only used for watching TV, really. It has a large central island with many seats so as to fit a lot of people. Sit around, read the newspaper (yes Dad still subscribes), drink coffee, play games, etc. Everyone who comes over raves about it and says they wish their home was the same way.
I live overseas, and a couple of times I tried to "sit in" on family gatherings (Thanksgiving & Christmas) by virtually "being there" via a webcam and wireless laptop. I literally had a seat in the living room with a laptop sitting there. It didn't work as well as I would have liked. Why? Well for one I couldn't move the webcam about, so as to look at people. Eye contact is very important, I discovered. It gets tiring staring at the same scene directly across from the laptop, and people can't be bothered to move you about. Sort of like being a head in a jar on Futurama - they all have Kabuki-style dedicated assistants to carry them (or robotic bodies). Second, as you're remotely in and your voice is tinny by being on a laptop speaker, it's kind of distracting for everyone else. It always seemed to sidetrack the discussion whenever I said anything. Maybe this was due to novelty, I'm not sure if your family would get used to it after time. Third, even though I was eating the closest thing I could get to a nice dinner (the fanciest bento box they had at the department store, like fifteen bucks which I would have never bought ordinarily), it still wasn't the same as having dinner with the family. Fourth, the time zones although if you go north-south this isn't an issue. I gave up after a few times and just telephoned in and the family handed the phone around until I had had a chat with everyone. Maybe if they fastened the laptop onto a Roomba or something that would have helped.
Funny how if it's the "wrong" sort of politician, his party affiliation is trumpeted far and wide, in the headline, in the summary, and six times in the article. If it's "one of our" politicians, then those scoundrels are all the same and it's irrelevant to even mention it. Just sayin'.
Both are bodily functions that involve the excretion of fluids. Do you really want to watch that? In some cultures you can't even pick your teeth with a toothpick without covering your mouth because it involves saliva. It's considered unsightly and a mark of low culture. But hey, we're always right and they're always wrong.
For the humor-challenged literal idiots like yourself, I was imitating the Centurion by pretending to mis-understand his Latin, thus leading in to the whole skit. Cool twist, eh? I thought so. So no, I "didn't understand it at all" which was the ENTIRE POINT OF MY COMMENT.
And to think, I actually used to wonder why people like Pauly Shore or Ali G were popular. No wonder, you people need the whole thing explained to you.
Why can't you take a shit in public? Some necessary bodily functions are best performed behind closed doors, according to our culture. Other cultures piss in public. Heck in China they don't use diapers, baby just shits whenever he feels the need, and most baby garments are of the wonderful "split-crotch" kind. Is it OK if our culture has some ideas about what is and isn't appropriate, and we all agree to respect the feelings of others even if we disagree with them? No, it must be the fault of ordinary Americans, who are always wrong about EVERYTHING. Drugs, prostitution, and gambling are all social ills with well-documented effects. Progressives campaigned tirelessly against them back in the 20s and 30s.
Sure, it's inefficient. But how about this radical idea: we leave it for the Chinese to decide what to do? I know, goes against the grain, but there we are. How about an even more extreme idea: clean up your own culture before you even BEGIN to THINK about criticizing other cultures for their "inefficiencies"? How would your Greek people react if other cultures told them that their glyphs are incomprehensible and they needed to "reform"? Pick any fifty Greeks and put them in a room, and one or two of them can't read and write. How's that feel, imperialist?
"It might help to beef up security around the W.O.P.R." Best movie line ever. I still laugh about it. WarGames was also notable as one of the vanishingly few positive portraits of a Southerner in a position of authority. I remember people being incredulous that General Beringer wasn't some "let's push the button now and nuke the Russkies" character that they expected when he first opened his mouth.
Show a Chinese person something in traditional Chinese, and they can't read it. Believe me, I've tried. I can't read traditional Chinese, either. I go to Hong Kong and it's like I'm illiterate all over again. Distressing when I go back to the States and someone asks me to read a menu or a street sign or something and I have to confess that I can't. I get strange looks like maybe I'm making it up.
Oh, that's rich. A suggestion from a Westerner on how Asians can improve their culture. I'm shocked at the audacity, well-done, sir. I note your education level as well, apparently you are totally unaware that they already thought of the idea and rejected it. I also note that you labor under the misinformation that German has 27 characters when it actually has umlaut-a, umlaut-o, and umlaut-o as characters that don't appear in English. Please stop talking about this subject, you have no idea what you're saying.
They already did it. China uses simplified characters instead of the old moldy traditional characters. Socialists enacted this reform to increase literacy among the peasantry. Unfortunately, language is culture and many old texts of wisdom, beauty, and learning are now unreadable. English speakers can, with help, read Shakespeare or "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in the original. For the post-90s generation in China, anything older than 1950 is simply unavailable.
I have been living in China for some years now and I hardly ever handwrite characters. I can recognize them and read (some) but it's a real relief to use input methods instead of handwriting. Despite what you may have heard, Asian input methods are quite good these days and the age of 5 words per minute for an experienced typist are long past. One one hand, it's a relief as writing is by far the most tedious and non-fun part of learning Chinese. I'm glad to skip it and concentrate on other fields. Typically adult learners of Chinese sit and fill pages upon pages of notebooks with characters written again and again. Listening, speaking, reading, and writing would be my ranking of the four skills. It's I know several people who can speak quite well but can't read, as well as some people who have quite nice penmanship but can barely speak. It's actually a pity as calligraphy is part of traditional Confucian culture. Every man of wealth and taste is supposed to sit in his garden and write with a paintbrush in his spare time, along with playing Go, writing poetry, and the other Four Olds that the government stamped out back in the days of culture-annihilating socialism.
For what it's worth, my English handwriting isn't that good either. How often do I even write English these days? Not much!
Well done with the logic there, Mr. Spock. Where did I say "all"? I suppose the fact that Blizzard is widely regarded as unique and Starcraft is more of a sport than an actual game has nothing to do with it. The plural of anecdote is not data. Funny how people can read a premise the wrong way and reject it because it doesn't suit their preconceived notions.
Gamers will not play a game with anything less than brilliant graphics. It will get savaged in the reviews and everyone will dump on it. A tiny minority will defend it as a great game but the company who made it won't make any money. You think gamers spend thousands of dollars on top-end graphics cards just to play games that don't stress their equipment? The answer is no. But make a game with great graphics and reviewers will sing, gamers will buy, and the company will rake in tons of money. As long as the gameplay is barely adequate, and in a pinch you can do without that, too. It's happened plenty of times.
This is what the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said on October 26 at that World Without Zionism conference.
He said, "Israel must be wiped off the map of the world, and God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionists."
Who are these "sane" people who want a democracy overthrown by a theocracy? Dude, you need to get out more and experience a diversity of opinion instead of the old echo chamber.
Well, the Iranian government is not going to respect an American court decision. So, they're just trying to get headlines by suing a merchant. Was that equipment under embargo? But wait, an American embargo on Iran is bad because it hurts the common people more than the government. But if there was no embargo then how was it illegal to sell the equipment? I suppose Siemens should have recognized the Iranian government as "evil" and refused to do any business with them on a purely voluntary basis. But then that's racism against Muslims! Can anyone help? I'm so confused.
An ex-competitor of mine made a big deal of his Alexa ranking, always talking about it. His was higher than mine, but of course when your site is small its rank can be heavily skewed by just 1 or 2 users with Alexa toolbar installed. I made a big advertisement with the theme "Alexa=SPYWARE" with quotes from authoritative internet sources and ended it with "don't trust Alexa!". I never heard him mention his ranking again. Funny postscript, Alexa still shows his site ranked higher than mine, even though he quit maintaining it actively two years ago.
There's no war (translation: huge artificial demand from government spending) to push Wave forward. Wave is what you get when you let engineers run things instead of staff who have social skills.
Personally I think the man is a gasbag, but he does represent a lot of people's viewpoints. Annulling someone's viewpoint because it doesn't agree with yours is repugnant. How about dissecting the ideas instead of just saying, "oh, that's communism, communism is always wrong, ergo the viewpoint is invalid." Think and show tolerance for a change.
Slashdot Mirror
I realize that ridiculing ordinary Americans with uninformed speculation never gets old, but these days the kitchen has replaced the living room as the center of the home. My Dad built his new house so that the kitchen was the centerpiece - the living room is only used for watching TV, really. It has a large central island with many seats so as to fit a lot of people. Sit around, read the newspaper (yes Dad still subscribes), drink coffee, play games, etc. Everyone who comes over raves about it and says they wish their home was the same way.
I live overseas, and a couple of times I tried to "sit in" on family gatherings (Thanksgiving & Christmas) by virtually "being there" via a webcam and wireless laptop. I literally had a seat in the living room with a laptop sitting there. It didn't work as well as I would have liked. Why? Well for one I couldn't move the webcam about, so as to look at people. Eye contact is very important, I discovered. It gets tiring staring at the same scene directly across from the laptop, and people can't be bothered to move you about. Sort of like being a head in a jar on Futurama - they all have Kabuki-style dedicated assistants to carry them (or robotic bodies). Second, as you're remotely in and your voice is tinny by being on a laptop speaker, it's kind of distracting for everyone else. It always seemed to sidetrack the discussion whenever I said anything. Maybe this was due to novelty, I'm not sure if your family would get used to it after time. Third, even though I was eating the closest thing I could get to a nice dinner (the fanciest bento box they had at the department store, like fifteen bucks which I would have never bought ordinarily), it still wasn't the same as having dinner with the family. Fourth, the time zones although if you go north-south this isn't an issue. I gave up after a few times and just telephoned in and the family handed the phone around until I had had a chat with everyone. Maybe if they fastened the laptop onto a Roomba or something that would have helped.
So...taking a shit does not sustain life? Try sewing your asshole shut and see how long you live. I give you a week, tops, before sepsis.
Here in China breast-feeding in public is considered distasteful. So all of them need to go away? Racist fuckwad.
Funny how if it's the "wrong" sort of politician, his party affiliation is trumpeted far and wide, in the headline, in the summary, and six times in the article. If it's "one of our" politicians, then those scoundrels are all the same and it's irrelevant to even mention it. Just sayin'.
Both are bodily functions that involve the excretion of fluids. Do you really want to watch that? In some cultures you can't even pick your teeth with a toothpick without covering your mouth because it involves saliva. It's considered unsightly and a mark of low culture. But hey, we're always right and they're always wrong.
For the humor-challenged literal idiots like yourself, I was imitating the Centurion by pretending to mis-understand his Latin, thus leading in to the whole skit. Cool twist, eh? I thought so. So no, I "didn't understand it at all" which was the ENTIRE POINT OF MY COMMENT.
And to think, I actually used to wonder why people like Pauly Shore or Ali G were popular. No wonder, you people need the whole thing explained to you.
Why can't you take a shit in public? Some necessary bodily functions are best performed behind closed doors, according to our culture. Other cultures piss in public. Heck in China they don't use diapers, baby just shits whenever he feels the need, and most baby garments are of the wonderful "split-crotch" kind. Is it OK if our culture has some ideas about what is and isn't appropriate, and we all agree to respect the feelings of others even if we disagree with them? No, it must be the fault of ordinary Americans, who are always wrong about EVERYTHING. Drugs, prostitution, and gambling are all social ills with well-documented effects. Progressives campaigned tirelessly against them back in the 20s and 30s.
Sure, it's inefficient. But how about this radical idea: we leave it for the Chinese to decide what to do? I know, goes against the grain, but there we are. How about an even more extreme idea: clean up your own culture before you even BEGIN to THINK about criticizing other cultures for their "inefficiencies"? How would your Greek people react if other cultures told them that their glyphs are incomprehensible and they needed to "reform"? Pick any fifty Greeks and put them in a room, and one or two of them can't read and write. How's that feel, imperialist?
What is this then? Romanes eunt domus, "People called Romanes they go the house"?
"It might help to beef up security around the W.O.P.R." Best movie line ever. I still laugh about it. WarGames was also notable as one of the vanishingly few positive portraits of a Southerner in a position of authority. I remember people being incredulous that General Beringer wasn't some "let's push the button now and nuke the Russkies" character that they expected when he first opened his mouth.
Show a Chinese person something in traditional Chinese, and they can't read it. Believe me, I've tried. I can't read traditional Chinese, either. I go to Hong Kong and it's like I'm illiterate all over again. Distressing when I go back to the States and someone asks me to read a menu or a street sign or something and I have to confess that I can't. I get strange looks like maybe I'm making it up.
Oh, that's rich. A suggestion from a Westerner on how Asians can improve their culture. I'm shocked at the audacity, well-done, sir. I note your education level as well, apparently you are totally unaware that they already thought of the idea and rejected it. I also note that you labor under the misinformation that German has 27 characters when it actually has umlaut-a, umlaut-o, and umlaut-o as characters that don't appear in English. Please stop talking about this subject, you have no idea what you're saying.
They already did it. China uses simplified characters instead of the old moldy traditional characters. Socialists enacted this reform to increase literacy among the peasantry. Unfortunately, language is culture and many old texts of wisdom, beauty, and learning are now unreadable. English speakers can, with help, read Shakespeare or "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in the original. For the post-90s generation in China, anything older than 1950 is simply unavailable.
I have been living in China for some years now and I hardly ever handwrite characters. I can recognize them and read (some) but it's a real relief to use input methods instead of handwriting. Despite what you may have heard, Asian input methods are quite good these days and the age of 5 words per minute for an experienced typist are long past. One one hand, it's a relief as writing is by far the most tedious and non-fun part of learning Chinese. I'm glad to skip it and concentrate on other fields. Typically adult learners of Chinese sit and fill pages upon pages of notebooks with characters written again and again. Listening, speaking, reading, and writing would be my ranking of the four skills. It's I know several people who can speak quite well but can't read, as well as some people who have quite nice penmanship but can barely speak. It's actually a pity as calligraphy is part of traditional Confucian culture. Every man of wealth and taste is supposed to sit in his garden and write with a paintbrush in his spare time, along with playing Go, writing poetry, and the other Four Olds that the government stamped out back in the days of culture-annihilating socialism.
For what it's worth, my English handwriting isn't that good either. How often do I even write English these days? Not much!
That is not what the pilots call themselves.
If you're going to be a spelling nazi then jeez louise get it right. Quote from above:
"CUMmerbun" (yes, that's the correct spelling)
Linked article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cummerbund
Well done with the logic there, Mr. Spock. Where did I say "all"? I suppose the fact that Blizzard is widely regarded as unique and Starcraft is more of a sport than an actual game has nothing to do with it. The plural of anecdote is not data. Funny how people can read a premise the wrong way and reject it because it doesn't suit their preconceived notions.
Never heard of either of those companies. How many top 10 hits have they produced?
Gamers will not play a game with anything less than brilliant graphics. It will get savaged in the reviews and everyone will dump on it. A tiny minority will defend it as a great game but the company who made it won't make any money. You think gamers spend thousands of dollars on top-end graphics cards just to play games that don't stress their equipment? The answer is no. But make a game with great graphics and reviewers will sing, gamers will buy, and the company will rake in tons of money. As long as the gameplay is barely adequate, and in a pinch you can do without that, too. It's happened plenty of times.
This is what the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said on October 26 at that World Without Zionism conference.
He said, "Israel must be wiped off the map of the world, and God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionists."
Who are these "sane" people who want a democracy overthrown by a theocracy? Dude, you need to get out more and experience a diversity of opinion instead of the old echo chamber.
Well, the Iranian government is not going to respect an American court decision. So, they're just trying to get headlines by suing a merchant. Was that equipment under embargo? But wait, an American embargo on Iran is bad because it hurts the common people more than the government. But if there was no embargo then how was it illegal to sell the equipment? I suppose Siemens should have recognized the Iranian government as "evil" and refused to do any business with them on a purely voluntary basis. But then that's racism against Muslims! Can anyone help? I'm so confused.
An ex-competitor of mine made a big deal of his Alexa ranking, always talking about it. His was higher than mine, but of course when your site is small its rank can be heavily skewed by just 1 or 2 users with Alexa toolbar installed. I made a big advertisement with the theme "Alexa=SPYWARE" with quotes from authoritative internet sources and ended it with "don't trust Alexa!". I never heard him mention his ranking again. Funny postscript, Alexa still shows his site ranked higher than mine, even though he quit maintaining it actively two years ago.
There's no war (translation: huge artificial demand from government spending) to push Wave forward. Wave is what you get when you let engineers run things instead of staff who have social skills.
Wasn't that in Fight Club? "I flipped through catalogs and wondered: What kind of dining set defines me as a person?"
Personally I think the man is a gasbag, but he does represent a lot of people's viewpoints. Annulling someone's viewpoint because it doesn't agree with yours is repugnant. How about dissecting the ideas instead of just saying, "oh, that's communism, communism is always wrong, ergo the viewpoint is invalid." Think and show tolerance for a change.