You're not a brick-layer with five kids and an ex wife, are you? You're not a coal miner, Iranian cab-driver, unemployed single mother or, god forbid, school teacher or nurse, are you? Because if you were, you'd not be so quick to say that you'll pay for your own vaccinations, condoms or pills and whatnot. Honestly, this is the typical knee jerk reaction of the relatively well-paid right winger that thinks no government is good government. But it's also a skewed reaction.
Furthermore, there are plenty of good alternatives. The Swiss, Swedes, Dutch and Israeli have a system where every citizen is insured per default for health-care. The thing is that in these countries, you can still choose which doctor/hospital/dentist you go to, and the medical industry is payed per-patient.
This means the government steps in and ensures everyone has the proper basic medi-care insurance (which includes abortions, birth control, vaccinations and a whole array of other preventive means) while the EXECUTION is left either to subsidized or private institutions. This mix may vary between the countries I've mentioned, but the basic gist is the same.
I don't see how such a program "limits" the "freedom" you think you have. Furthermore for once it's a system that doesn't screw over the Maroccan grand-mother, whose husband died after doing 30 years of low-wage work as an immigrant, and doesn't have 5 cents to scratch her ass with.
"the market" isn't holy. It doesn't automatically magically optimize itself to provide the best care for all. It's money-driven, and we can't have that in health-care.
I would argue you should take a long, hard look at the level of health-care in Cuba. Their system is innovative, does more with less, is totally free for everyone in the country and life-expectancy is up *in spite of* 40 years of economic sanctions by y'all in the US. I'm not for communism, but health-care is the one thing Cubans do better than the US administration, way I see it.
The values of a society are reflected in the way they treat their weakest links.
Indeed. In Sweden, where consumers are protected from A-Z and back again, the internet providers typically offer 26 or 100 Mbit DSL down with half the upload speed connections with 100GB+ downloads a month, and the Fibre-to-the-home people offer 5 IP addresses, 100 Mbit full duplex with no limits.
All of this for virtually no money whatsoever. I miss Sweden. In Israel I will never get cut off for Bandwidth consumption, because my line is (and this was marketed as a NEW and SPECTACULAR package, mind you) 5 Mbit down and (sit down for this) 256 Kbps up. 256 Kbps being the "red carpet" subscription... If I open torrents with an upload higher than 16 KB/sec, all other activity on my home network stalls.
Regarding the subject above... It's plain as day. If you sell a contract which doesn't give you a bandwidth limit and offers you 100 Mbps Down and 10 Mbps up, per month you should be allowed to move the following amount of traffic:
Up: Roughly 3,09 TB per month. (((10/8)*amount of seconds in a month)/1024)/1024 Down: Roughly 30,9 TB per month. 10*Up.
Anything short of 100% utilization of max speed is breach of contract on the ISP's part. If they don't specify limits and SLA's, they have to deal with the consequences.
> So are the people upset about this, that the state can just pro-long the sentence of a human for > as long as they can find a shrink to call him mentally ill?
Ter Beschikking Stelling (TBS) is, in my opinion, a good thing. It's not as gruesome as the death penalty, it's geared towards rehabilitation, and it keeps the incorrigables off the streets most of the time.
My dad, after being discharged from the Marine Corps (Korps Mariniers) on account of injury, worked as a prison guard in a TBS-institution. He wasn't exactly charmed with most of the inmates, and judging from his stories, it is not unwise to keep most of them off the street until further notice. This has little to do with the middle class. It has to do with the danger level represented by this fringe of society.
> Sweden is a country were, so far, the population clearly believes a strong social security > system is to the benefit of all AND therefore continue to support it.
Funnily enough I lived there for six years. What I saw there was nothing short of amazing. The leftist people tend to go for jobs in teaching and the omnipresent kindergardens or "Dagis", where small children get left from age one-and-a-half because both parents need to work to make the budget go round.
While there, they teach children from day one how sharing, politeness, correctness and the collective are more important than the individual. In this manner, the "middle class", or rather 80% of population is instructed. When the time comes for voting, around 50% will vote for the socialist block because they've never tried to think of any alternative.
It is also because "Jantelagen", the principle that states noone's better than anyone, is an integral part of Swedish culture. The netto effect is that the population, to a large degree, believes what it's told to believe.
I'm not saying it's wrong, the Swedish system. I'm not saying that most people believe what they're told to believe in some way or another. I'm just saying that "support" for the strong social system in Sweden is more rooted in a long-standing tradition than actual belief. This goes for many systems. I clearly see it in Israel, where I currently live.
It's all "Monkey see, Monkey do". Humans may have evolved, but not beyond the following:
Take several monkeys and put them in a cage. Hang a banana on top of the cage, not within immediate reach, but still possible to get. Now get ready and wait. Very soon, one smart monkey will start climbing the cage to get the banana. Before the monkey gets to the banana, hose every single one of them with really cold water.
After a little while, another monkey is bound to make the same attempt. Once again, before the monkey reaches the banana, hose down all of them with cold water. It won't take long until all the monkeys in the cage develop a conditioned response, and if any one of them still has any bright ideas about getting a banana, the rest will quickly put an end to it by beating the crap out of him before they all get hosed with water.
Once all the monkeys learned not to get close to the banana, you can put the hose away and never use it again. Now, take one of these "veteran", so called "educated and experienced" monkeys out of the cage and replace him with a "newbie" monkey. The newbie will quickly try to get the banana, but before he gets to it, he will receive a warm welcome beating from his new buddies.
Take out another "veteran" monkey and put in a second "newbie" monkey. As the newest one tries to get the banana, the rest of the veterans will beat the hell out of him, and the previously added "newbie" monkey, still shocked an unclear why he got beat up himself, will not hesitate to join in the stomping of the newest guy anyways. Monkey see, monkey do.
Continue taking out the "experienced educated veteran" monkeys and replacing them with "newbie" monkeys one by one until there are no more original "veteran" monkeys left.Now observe what we have: any new monkey trying to get the banana gets pummeled by the rest. But why? There are no monkeys left that were hosed with water before, "Cause that's the way things have always been done here".
> And while the Germans were only concerned with the jews in germany at first, It took three levels > of advancement before it was the final solutions. I just have to wonder if we are in one of these > stages.
Firstly, let me remark that as soon as you allow yourself a rhetoric "reductio ad hitlerium", you lost the argument. I'll indulge you, though.
Firstly, Hitler already phrased sentiments that the Jews were the arch-enemies of the Aryan race as far back as 1919. He didn't mention he didn't like the Jews government or their adminstration, he plainly stated that he thought they were inferior human beings and enemies to boot. This developed somewhat, but by the time WWII started it was well-entrenched that the Jews had to go.
Also, the Jews were not maltreating anyone at the time. In the present day middle east, the Arab world has been getting screwed over by the British and other colonial powers for well over a century, then saw Israel being formed at gunpoint, and now are the object of overt military aggression from one of the largest economies in the world. Meanwhile, Israel is a de facto apartheids-state that treats Arabs as second rate citizens. The Arab world (most vocally Iran and Syria) is somewhat pissed off by this, resulting in Iran's statements to the effect of erasing the Jerusalem administration from the pages of time.
I fail to see the connection between them and Hitler's Nazi Germany.
> MAD is one of the best anti-nuke war things we have going.
Which is quite sad, really. MAD is a dangerous equillibrium that can be broken by the first mad hatter that comes along. Bush is definately on my list of dangerous idiots, but there are plenty of others around. Then we have the non-proliferation treaties. And the de-armament treaties. Which means that the US and Russia dismantle the odd bomb for PR but don't clear their caches by any means.
> was discounted by two separate recounts of the entire state of florida by a couple different > sources
Granted, even if it wasn't true (which I still doubt, no matter what the PR machine churns out nowadays), then the US is still close to being a Theocracy. In theory it isn't, but in practice it is.
Pretty much all of the presidents have been White Anglo-Saxon Protestant men from well-to-do circles. They have been elected by voters who had only two parties to choose from, both of which are very much rooted in Christianity. I have yet to see a gay, black, female or even atheist/buddhist/hindu/sikh/muslim/jewish president.
The US effectively only has the Democrats and the Republicans who, with some minor socio-economic program differences, are very much about the same things. The Liberals don't swing more than 4% of the votes on a good day, which makes them a token party.
Compare this to the political systems of the Netherlands and Sweden, where you have a consensus system with at least 8-14 parties, coalitions of 3 parties or more that govern, and a tendency to start new parties every now and then, and you are still stuck with a Theocracy in all but theory.
Irritatingly enough, we still have yet to see female or non-caucasian prime ministers here, but at least we've had our fair share of non-religious ones. But then Iceland, Finland and the UK have had female leaders, Most countries in Europe have been governed by non-religious leaders at least for periods and all that. So although it's not perfect yet, we are further down the line than the US.
> And the answer is because it isn't good for the US. Not because they are doing what the US has > done.
And this is the core of my problem with the US. It's the 800-pound gorilla of military strength and economic power (for the time being, but it's cracking at the seams already), but it has the inherent social conscience of a brick wall. The US only truly cares about one thing, at the end of the day: The US. Now I'm not saying that many countries are not out after their own interests. But being the 800-pound gorilla of things does put you in an awkward position of power others don't share.
Who was it again that said "with great power comes great responsability"? Oh yeah... Uncle Ben in Spiderman. He's a fictional character. Damn.
It would appear we agree. Don't be mistaken, just because I notice a staunch will for survival and a steadfastness in the Israelis I can admire it doesn't mean I agree to the way the non-Jewish population of the greater Palestine-area is being treated. I'm not just talking of Palestinians with Palestinian or Jordan passports, I'm also talking about Arab-Israelis who get treated as second-rate citizens. Moreover, 48% of Israelis are proven not to agree with the methods of their administration, and this somehow echoes the view of the American people on what Dubya is doing overseas. This knowledge gladdens me, because it means there still is thinking life out there.
The thing that really bugs me is the way people here speak of Arabs. They sound a bit like a slave-owners from the hay-days of the American civil war... "Our Arabs still have it better than they would in Syria" and all that rot. The Arabs are truly seen as the "niggers" or "kaffirs" of modern Israel. This I cannot abide by. It is cause for huge discussions with my fiancee, because it makes me want to leave this place. Israel has much going for it, but its backwater politics and rhetorics I cannot stomach.
Again, I am Dutch, and liberal even by Dutch standards. The situation in the Middle-East is an abomination in the eye of the Spaghetti Monster, I tell you. Having said all that, I don't appreciate the murderous actions taken in the name of Jihad either. Anyone who walks onto a bus or into a restaurant with explosives around their waist to blow up innocent civilians has lost any credibility they could have had.
As Bill Cosby stated in a speech at an education fund-raiser for the black community in the US once: ""You've got to stop beating up your women because you can't find a job". The Arabs have to quit cussing and yelling about what the West and the Zionists are doing to them. They have to take some affirmative action and responsability on their own if they wish to be taken seriously. My mother would say "just because your friends jump into the mud, doesn't mean you have to", and she would be right.
> using their nationally flagged freighters for moving things like heroin around the Pacific rim
You mean like the Brits did in China and Japan (before the latter broke off diplomatic relations with them)? Nothing the colonial powers didn't teach them to do, in other words. I'm not saying I am a fan of North Korea. Absolutely not. I just objected to the original poster calling it an Islamic fundamentalist hotbed.
My other argument here would be that much of Iran and other nations' extremism is fuelled by the extreme situation the West has put them into. Do you see North Korea have much choice in the matter today? They're on the "restricted parties list" for any Western firm to do business with, so all that's left to them is selling bad things to bad people.
Cut a long story short: Much of the misery in the world is a direct result of Western nations and their expansionist, war-mongering, colonial and/or extortionist practices.
Try and sell that to the people of Israel. While I'm far from claiming Israel is a model-state (the political and religious climate being quite rotten here, actually), I must respect the "never-again" and "come-and-get-us-if-you-dare" attitude the Israelis display. We're now well into the third, sometimes fourth generation of people who have made it their home, irrigated it, built their cities and lives here in the face of tremendous adversity.
I double-dare you to walk into this country and try 'n' move 'm. Should you manage to duck for cover in time, you'll find yourself looking at smoking barrels in the hands of anyone between 16 and 96, females definately included. You can think about Israel what you will, but the population is not to be messed with. I find this a great treat, as a matter of fact.
> They did and do still speak in terms of wiping Israel off the map.
No they don't. They wish to see Jerusalem (meaning the rabinate, the religious right-wing that has held Israeli politics in a strangle-hold since 1948) erased from the pages of time. Frankly, given the inherent insanity of these bloody penguins in Israel (by whom I mean the orthodox jews who meddle in politics) I would like to see jerusalem erased from the pages of time too, so Israel can finally become a modern concensus democracy too.
I wanted to drive my car on Yom Kippur. Because it's my secular-ass-tax-payer's right to do so. I got warned that I might get *STONED to DEATH* if I would drive into the wrong neighbourhood. I took this warning seriously.
> Iran and North Korea definitely are at the top, especially in the context of extremist Islamic militancy.
Last time I checked (bout 2 minutes ago), North Korea was still a Socialist state. Originally Buddhist and Confucianist, now religion is frowned upon in good communist tradition, opium for the people and all that. At least they have the good grace to openly persecute Christians, which more countries ought to start doing.
- The US has publicly threatened allied countries (amongst which, the Netherlands) - The US has a mixxed bag on human rights. Not by law, but by execution - The US has (proven and successfully) attempted to make the bomb - The US has supported terrorist groups currently in conflict with the US (haha) - The US is a threat to many countries at the moment
As for the Bomb, it is indeed a bad thing to get it. The US is the only country that has used it on two occasions on civilian targets. We cannot be certain the US won't use it again.
America's interations that parallel Iran's are dismissed as being the necessary proverbial egg that needs to be broken to make the omelette. I have yet to find out however, how the Netherlands' interest have been furthered by the US' actions.
Iran has never called for a "final solution to the Jews". They have stated they are not happy with the regime in Israel, and want it out of the pages of time.
Lastly, the US is more of a theocracy than a democracy or dictatorship. The current administration is of the religious right, and got into office in spite of at least losing one election.
Many people have threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Maybe this has something to do with the totally immoral way in which the British, in the Empire hay-days, de-stabilized the entire middle east by letting Israel be brought about in the way that it was. Naturally, many people in the Middle East are at least somewhat upset about the whole affair.
Now I live in Israel. During the latest Lebanese conflict I visited Haifa, at the time under fire from the Hezbollah. Frankly, the Hezbollah are a bunch of under-educated guerillas who are flinging DIY rockets across the border that couldn't put a dent in a pack of butter on a hot day. I don't mean this as a derogatory statement, it's just an illustration of the "threat" we are talking about.
In the mean time, Israel is a racist state that treats non-jews as second-rate citizens. Arab Israelis are shunned from several parts of the military in spite of the fact that they bleed red and carry Israeli passports, just like the Jewish Israelis do. I, for one, cannot get married to my woman within Israel because there is no such thing as civil marriage. Gay marriage and other life-styles needn't even be mentioned. The Prime Minister is actively talking about the "demographic threat" the Arab citizens are to the Glorious civilization of Eretz Yisrael. I wonder if I, as a Dutch Goy, also form a demographic threat in his mind.
Meanwhile, Hamas and Fatah are still happily killing each other on the scrap of land they occupy. Due to Israeli bombings (bankrolled by the US) and international economic sanctions, they are now doing this with sticks and stones, because it's pretty much all that is left to them. With all of that in mind, the notion of Hamas and Hezbollah getting ICBM warheads at their disposal is rather silly for the moment. Even if they do, Israel can quite easily rid the Middle East of its human populace with their arsenal, so actually *using* the thing would be a dicey enterprise at best.
The US, in the mean time, doesn't threaten to wipe Israel off the map. That's because after Vietnam, de-stabilizing half of South-America, sponsoring wars back and forth in the middle-east and bombing stuff in Africa, they are actually engrossed in wiping Iraq and Afghanistan off the map under the guise of "bringing freedom and democracy". The US doesn't make statements. It's a country of action, with a can-do attitude.
I think this is the most informed comment in this thread. This is exactly how it could pan out. As a matter of fact, this was how the Iraq war was made palatable by the US administration as well. At the moment, I live in Israel. During the last Lebanon crisis, I have spoken to many people, civilian and military alike, who doubt that Israel would ever be the first to engage Iran. Israel does indeed however have a large nuclear strike force, so there is no immediate need either. The thought that the Middle East would be seriously threatening to Israel in the coming ten years is, indeed, laughable.
Frankly, in spite of the fact that I live in Israel and am engaged to a Jewish woman, I would applaud it if Iran did indeed get a nuclear arms program, nuclear power and a space-faring capability. It's the principal that matters to me.
Who in the world died and made the US king of us all? Frankly the arrogance of the US administrations boggles me, it hearkens to the Colonial days of Europe. I think the US, and any other nuclear power, ought to shut up about "non-proliferation treaties" as long as they don't get rid of their own stockpiles, and the same applies to the space-race. It is *not* the US or Europe's "God-Given Right" to be technologically and economically superior to the rest of the world.
At the same time Bush is spiking this hubbub about Iran, programs are in place in the US to make more "efficient" delivery of nuclear strikes possible, and the US is sitting on the means to destroy the world three times over. To me, there is no inherent justice in this situation. I say it's no more than fair that Iran gets the opportunity to play in the same league as a matter of principle.
Then some US denizens might argue "we are benign and fight evil" and all that rot, but then I should remind you that when the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Wim Kok, issued a statement after 9-11 that urged the US to excercise a degree of caution in the invasion of Afghanistan due to the lack of proof that there was a causal link between 9-11 and the regime in Afghanistan at the time, the US retorted in a frosty "if you're not with us, you're against us" manner.
Threatening one of the oldest and most progressive consensus-democracies on the planet is not benign in my book, so as a citizen of the sovereign nation of the Netherlands, I find the US' foreign policies objectionable at best.
I think you both missed something *and* misunderstood the sentence. Frankly, an organization can have sympathy for the plight of a demographic group without necessarily becoming a pawn of its fundamentalist movement. "Islamist sympathizer" and "pawn of Islamic fundamentalism" are, you see, two completely different concepts.
The popular definitions for a sympathizer in both Merriam-Webster's on-line dictionary and my Longman's dictionary of Contemporary English are:
1 : to be in keeping, accord, or harmony 2 : to react or respond in sympathy 3 : to share in suffering or grief : COMMISERATE ; also : to express such sympathy 4 : to be in sympathy intellectually
The only way to get to that point, having dimmers for these bulbs, having enough models for most fixtures and perhaps even having more kinds of colours/shades available, will be by creating a bigger market for them.
You can bet your bottom dollar that a dimmer-company is not interested in developing a product for these bulbs while 97% of the market is for either halogen or incandescent.
It hurts to be an early adopter, but for some reason on slashdot it's more common to find early adopters for PS3s, Wiis, Linux based PDAs and various other gadgets than something as mundane as a bulb.
"Can't do" is in the graveyard. It lies right next to "won't do".
Your arguments are crock. Most people that don't can't be bothered to because what they have kind of works. I'm sure that if you gave your grandmother a Mac, and you'd point to the big, shiny web-browser icon, she would find out she *can* click on it.
My sister was a complete technical no-no when it comes to computers. She used to call me when her boys got a computer. I was living abroad at the time. Usually when she called me, I asked her if she had already bought and read a Manual for windows XP.
Basically, I refused to help her on RTFM questions, and pointed to sources of information instead. Now, they have a switched network at home, with three PC's (one for each of the boys and one for the parents and central storage) which is kept relatively malware/virus-free by my sister. OS re-installs, software management... She learnt many of these things without me being there to show her.
The problems seem to be more in people's minds than in the market. Ultimately, not having a monopoly does not address the inherent stupidity and laziness of consumers. Consequently, DRM and GPL discussions are indeed hot air.
I'm a long standing microsoft user. By choice, because at home, the easiest, cheapest and most convenient thing is a MicroSoft machine. I do my games, and watch my content. I'm not even dissatisfied with it. Windows XP, when properly configured and maintained, is not at all bad.
I've not had any trouble ripping DVD's, MP3's, watching content and all of that stuff. I'm an avid music collector, but do it old skool. I go to a store, listen, and buy what I like. Then I digitize it.
For my MP3 player I selected the iAudio X5 30GB XL player, because it doesn't do DRM and serves as a USB host too. I don't *have* to run Windows, and I don't *have* to buy an iPod. I could live with not having tag-based management on my player, so I didn't get the iPod, but I like Call of Duty, so I did stick with Windows.
To cut a long story short, everything does what it needs to do, and with the right warez I am not restricted in my personal freedom at all. Don't like IE 7? Install Mozilla or FireFox. Don't like Media Player? Use other products.
This whole denouncing of the rock scene by wearing baggy cardigans and tossled, shoulder-length fatty hair while still producing second-grade rock with mumbled vocals? Hmm. It kind of reminds me of the lo-fi movement that we have right now. You know, these people that cry that the music industry sucks, and therefore make a point of doing badly recorded sessions in their bathroom with crappy instruments to make a "statement"?
All of these people would do better focusing on the music rather than the culture surrounding it. Nirvana is also one of those bands that suffer from the fact that the "concept" surpasses the actual product. At the end of the day, it shouldn't be a musician's goal to sound crappy for the sake of it. Sure, if you haven't landed a deal with a decent studio yet, and you need to scrape by on demos, you can still output terrific stuff. However, denouncing the rest of the world that does care about production values as posers and fakes goes a wee far.
Most rock acts, let's face it, are made up of middle-class suburban white kids that have got the time, money and their father's garage for rehearsing (The Strokes, anyone?). The notion that rock is about statements, angst and all that is still endorsed from a marketing perspective, but ultimately, it's just that. A gimmick to make a buck or get street cred.
In this regard I do indeed lump Nirvana in with the pretentious tossers crowd.
First of all, at the age of 15, it's perfectly normal to want to have the occasional quick wank over dirty magazines, the blue lagoon love scenes or anything your fantasy might label as erotic.
Secondly, if I had shown my nudie-mags to a mate at that age, the parents would probably give me a beer and a pat on the back. It is after all very healthy heterosexual behaviour, right?
Thirdly, the local bobby wouldn't give a flying toss if he was told about it. Most likely, he'd try to extort the nudie mag for his own private viewing from the "offender".
Hm. I am one of those weird Europeans. My current linguistical curriculum looks as follows:
Dutch/English/German/Swedish: fluent, do make the odd spelling boo-boo. Norwegian: Fluent reading/understanding, crap at pronouncing. Jolly good fun though. Danish: Can read it. Hebrew: Just learnt the alphabet, can swear in traffic quite well.
If you then look at an American friend of mine, gifted, intelligent chap in all manner but languages. He spent 5 years in the UK and still doesn't like the lingo. He's lived in Sweden for 12 years, understands some of it, speaks crappily and writes none.
This is a case in point that disproves that notion. There are Millions of people in all countries that speak horribly accented or maimed versions of the language they had to learn. A certain degree of eloquence and fluency must be one of the prerequisites needed for calling someone adept at languages. Really. Adept *does* still mean "highly skilled or well-trained", right?
Coming back to that, I am a *weird* European, because many people in Europe speak *their* language and rather crappy English. So even Europeans don't get *adept* at languages in a European environment.
Similarly you can bet your bottom dollar that not *everyone* in India is quadru-lingual or even bi-lingual with flair. Lord knows I have to speak to Indians sometimes that are in educated tech positions who couldn't communicate their way out of a paper bag in English. They really rape, mangle and slaughter that language and leave it bleeding on the ground. Merriam-Webster's definition of Bilingual is: "using or able to use two languages especially with equal fluency", and I think they are on the money there.
Surely exposure, practice and effort count. God knows I could have learnt better Hebrew if I hadn't spent my time playing with my bollocks instead. But in the end, talent is required. And not everyone has it. And of those that have it, not all use it. The result: There probably are not that bloody many truly bilingual people, let alone tri- or quadru-lingual.
Rock was briefly influential in the 60's and 70's, but then it died. Viciously. I'd argue that rock always has been about pretentious tossers, in the 80's this was no longer true because of people like Jon Bloody Bon Jovi and, ehm, Europe who clearly had no pretentions whatsoever. Then in the 90's, you got Generation X pretentious tossers again. The current breed of Nu-Metal bands are just a sadder expansion on the already deeply sad grunge movement of the 90's.
Way I see it, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers once made interesting Funk albums. Yes, there was spoken word in there, but that had more to do with the lead singer needing singing lessons than anything else. They even got produced by Clinton at some stage in time. I can honestly say that their latest escapades, although very consequent rockish albums, are far more boring than their earlier outings.
Hip-Hop basically takes its chops from R&B, Rare groove, Soul, Funk, Blues and Jazz. Ultimately they all boil down to Gospel, Blues and Jazz. To cut a long story short, the only real innovation in music has been in the "black" scene I mentioned above. Hip-Hop is now the victim of wannabe tossers rather than pretentious tossers.
Hip-Hop, in other words, has been influenced by true pioneers of black music. They made a buck out of it, and people that don't know anything about music can buy it by the boatload because of the "Cool" "Culture" surrounding the thing. But we all know that 99% of Hip-Hop artists are just as silly as Britney or N-Sync.
Personally, I can't sit down and listen to most Hip-Hop because they never manage to outshine the tracks they sample. OutKast is an exception to this rule, as are Arrested Development, Tribe Called Quest and Eminem. To find out what I'm talking about, just listen to the tune "Idlewild Blues (don'chu worry 'bout me)".
Cash is king and James Brown will *ALWAYS* be the hardest working man in Showbizz. And with a voice like Ella's ringing out, there's no way the band could lose. These are a few of my favourite things, if you will, and you won't find Nu-Metal, Hip-Hop or Rock among them.
Jeez. Writing this post reminded me of a play-by-the-notes Waters concert I saw. I could play my "Dark side of the Moon" CD right next to the TV and hear no difference in the audio stream. There's a valuable musical endeavour for you. Rock bands always end up being their own cover bands.
First of all, this post seems to be written by an American. Probably one of them bastards that were born in the late 70's, for that matter. But for those that admired this post and modded it Insightful or Interesting, here's my two cents on what is being said:
> We needed a good smack across the ass with the fanny paddle every now and then.
If teachers need the mandate to do this, parents have already miserably failed. As for me, I would go apeshit if a teacher touched my kids. Then again, I would go apeshit if the kids behaved so the teacher would need to discipline them physically.
> Many are nothing but scum
Also a normal reaction. As the elderly lose contact with reality such "it used to be better in the old days" drivel becomes commonplace.
> They dress like third-worlders.
Pray tell, sir, how do third-worlders dress? You've managed to insult "the third world", probably without knowing a damn thing about it. Frankly, this just makes you sound like a reactionary bigot.
> But we never shot each other in cold blood. We never raped each other. > We never slaughtered senior citizens
Hm. First of all: We did. Incest, rape, MDK, abuse and all of those things did indeed exist. It has existed as long as the world, and probably won't cease to exist. My mother can tell you stories that will raise your hair. And she's only 70 years old. Imagine a life in the early middle ages in, say, Europe.
Secondly, statistics in Holland and Sweden show that there is a rather steep decrease in senseless violence and violent crime. Simultaneously, the public is being whipped into a frenzy by people that make money on the sale of commercials in their newspapers or on their TV channels.
I'd argue that given the inequality across the world population, the amount of bigots and zealots on the planet, and lastly the dreadfully silly overpopulation on this world, we are still doing OK. I'd expect worse from us.
To cut a long story short: I've never seen such a silly post in my life. Although as far as flamebaits go, it's a good one.
I have seen the climate people have to teach in. It's a dog-eat-dog world, and the fact that there's a debate in schools in how far they have a duty to raise children as opposed to just teach them, the mandate you get from parents and deans and other factors don't make it an easy environment at all. I know this because I had was doing getting educated to become an English teacher once, and I have some experience in the field.
It's also true that I've had splendid teachers during my life. Teachers that to this day still influence me and my thinking. One of the best was a teacher I had in high school for History. His name was Schilder. I owe the man a debt of gratitude to this day. Funnily enough, he was not qualified to teach the upper levels of high school. The 25 year old who was qualified, was a total dimwit. She didn't have a flair for teaching, and didn't know too much about things as it is.
Which brings me to the next subject. There is a lot of truth to the post you replied to. Many teachers I've had during the course of my life did nothing that taught me anything. The kind of people that indeed remind me of the Mark Twain quote "Do not let your schooling interfere with your education". The kind of people that during tests would ask one for one's opinion, and then fail one because one failed to give *their* opinion on things. Reactionary, tired and bitter people. Unwise people. Downright ignorant people.
Specifically in the field of IT-related teaching, this can be true. I've seen many math/physics teachers that had an interest in computers that branched out into IT-related subjects at high schools while not knowing anything about the subject. Currently, my nephew is in an IT-focused high school. Not only do his teachers tell him stuff that is outright incorrect, they also fail to teach relevant topics, and manage to understimulate people.
In my corporate job at HP I've enjoyed some fiercely excellent "train-the-trainer" sessions on how to teach, how to stimulate people and how to create an environment that is conductive to learning, and from my school years I remember that none of these practices (which I've tested out there, and which work) are used in public schooling. Having had a "real job" for ten years taught me many things that these "teachers" undoubtedly have no clue about to this day.
Furthermore, while I don't think that teaching is easy-peasy, I object to your notion that having a "real job" would have you working a lot less. I guess it's human nature to think you're better than many, and it's human nature to think that you work more than others. It's also human nature to have rotten judgement about these matters. I'll leave it at that, and leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Lastly, I can say that the best teachers I've had did have considerable "life experience" outside the school. And they used that to their and our benefit.
Hmmmm. Isn't Canada a part of Her Majesty's Commonwealth?
From what I heard from Brits however, it stands to reason the teachers did indeed deserve it. All British people I've spoken that moved abroad (5) listed the education system as the number one reason to never want to return, specifically with their kids.
It's not apathy. For the record, it's called pragmatism.
Anyhoo... You wrote:
> No, but I strongly believe/. represents the IT or just plain geek community strongly.
To be honest, I work for one big, fat, blue IT and Hi-tech vendor. Known for Printers, a flavour of Unix, and an anonymous wooden shed in Palo Alto. I've done support, consulting, and technical Pre-Sales work.
Given all of that experience, in a number of countries in Europe and in the EMEA geography as a whole, I can tell you that you're wrong./. is an American-centred fringe site of geekdom. Most people in the "business" are not geeks. They are professionals to do a particular job, and when they go home they might enjoy their gadgets, but it's not said they are linked to this fringe movement.
Furthermore, I can tell you that I can count the people I know in high-tech who read/. on the fingers of one hand. Currently, I live in the Middle East. Let me tell you, most people here are the same as the ones in North-western Europe. They don't read/.
I'd argue that most people that purchase things from particularly Sony are not geeks per se. They are strong in very decent, easily operated and durable consumer electronics. Little bit more expensive than others sometimes, but according to many, well worth the extra buck. Do you think/. will sway these crowds into the loving arms of Philips, Apple, HP, IBM, MicroSoft, Samsung, Canon or Nintendo? I fear not.
Slashdot Mirror
You're not a brick-layer with five kids and an ex wife, are you? You're not a coal miner, Iranian cab-driver, unemployed single mother or, god forbid, school teacher or nurse, are you? Because if you were, you'd not be so quick to say that you'll pay for your own vaccinations, condoms or pills and whatnot. Honestly, this is the typical knee jerk reaction of the relatively well-paid right winger that thinks no government is good government. But it's also a skewed reaction.
Furthermore, there are plenty of good alternatives. The Swiss, Swedes, Dutch and Israeli have a system where every citizen is insured per default for health-care. The thing is that in these countries, you can still choose which doctor/hospital/dentist you go to, and the medical industry is payed per-patient.
This means the government steps in and ensures everyone has the proper basic medi-care insurance (which includes abortions, birth control, vaccinations and a whole array of other preventive means) while the EXECUTION is left either to subsidized or private institutions. This mix may vary between the countries I've mentioned, but the basic gist is the same.
I don't see how such a program "limits" the "freedom" you think you have. Furthermore for once it's a system that doesn't screw over the Maroccan grand-mother, whose husband died after doing 30 years of low-wage work as an immigrant, and doesn't have 5 cents to scratch her ass with.
"the market" isn't holy. It doesn't automatically magically optimize itself to provide the best care for all. It's money-driven, and we can't have that in health-care.
I would argue you should take a long, hard look at the level of health-care in Cuba. Their system is innovative, does more with less, is totally free for everyone in the country and life-expectancy is up *in spite of* 40 years of economic sanctions by y'all in the US. I'm not for communism, but health-care is the one thing Cubans do better than the US administration, way I see it.
The values of a society are reflected in the way they treat their weakest links.
Indeed. In Sweden, where consumers are protected from A-Z and back again, the internet providers typically offer 26 or 100 Mbit DSL down with half the upload speed connections with 100GB+ downloads a month, and the Fibre-to-the-home people offer 5 IP addresses, 100 Mbit full duplex with no limits.
All of this for virtually no money whatsoever. I miss Sweden. In Israel I will never get cut off for Bandwidth consumption, because my line is (and this was marketed as a NEW and SPECTACULAR package, mind you) 5 Mbit down and (sit down for this) 256 Kbps up. 256 Kbps being the "red carpet" subscription... If I open torrents with an upload higher than 16 KB/sec, all other activity on my home network stalls.
Regarding the subject above... It's plain as day. If you sell a contract which doesn't give you a bandwidth limit and offers you 100 Mbps Down and 10 Mbps up, per month you should be allowed to move the following amount of traffic:
Up: Roughly 3,09 TB per month. (((10/8)*amount of seconds in a month)/1024)/1024
Down: Roughly 30,9 TB per month. 10*Up.
Anything short of 100% utilization of max speed is breach of contract on the ISP's part. If they don't specify limits and SLA's, they have to deal with the consequences.
> So are the people upset about this, that the state can just pro-long the sentence of a human for
> as long as they can find a shrink to call him mentally ill?
Ter Beschikking Stelling (TBS) is, in my opinion, a good thing. It's not as gruesome as the death penalty, it's geared towards rehabilitation, and it keeps the incorrigables off the streets most of the time.
My dad, after being discharged from the Marine Corps (Korps Mariniers) on account of injury, worked as a prison guard in a TBS-institution. He wasn't exactly charmed with most of the inmates, and judging from his stories, it is not unwise to keep most of them off the street until further notice. This has little to do with the middle class. It has to do with the danger level represented by this fringe of society.
> Sweden is a country were, so far, the population clearly believes a strong social security
> system is to the benefit of all AND therefore continue to support it.
Funnily enough I lived there for six years. What I saw there was nothing short of amazing. The leftist people tend to go for jobs in teaching and the omnipresent kindergardens or "Dagis", where small children get left from age one-and-a-half because both parents need to work to make the budget go round.
While there, they teach children from day one how sharing, politeness, correctness and the collective are more important than the individual. In this manner, the "middle class", or rather 80% of population is instructed. When the time comes for voting, around 50% will vote for the socialist block because they've never tried to think of any alternative.
It is also because "Jantelagen", the principle that states noone's better than anyone, is an integral part of Swedish culture. The netto effect is that the population, to a large degree, believes what it's told to believe.
I'm not saying it's wrong, the Swedish system. I'm not saying that most people believe what they're told to believe in some way or another. I'm just saying that "support" for the strong social system in Sweden is more rooted in a long-standing tradition than actual belief. This goes for many systems. I clearly see it in Israel, where I currently live.
It's all "Monkey see, Monkey do". Humans may have evolved, but not beyond the following:
Take several monkeys and put them in a cage. Hang a banana on top of the cage, not within immediate reach, but still possible to get. Now get ready and wait. Very soon, one smart monkey will start climbing the cage to get the banana. Before the monkey gets to the banana, hose every single one of them with really cold water.
After a little while, another monkey is bound to make the same attempt. Once again, before the monkey reaches the banana, hose down all of them with cold water. It won't take long until all the monkeys in the cage develop a conditioned response, and if any one of them still has any bright ideas about getting a banana, the rest will quickly put an end to it by beating the crap out of him before they all get hosed with water.
Once all the monkeys learned not to get close to the banana, you can put the hose away and never use it again. Now, take one of these "veteran", so called "educated and experienced" monkeys out of the cage and replace him with a "newbie" monkey. The newbie will quickly try to get the banana, but before he gets to it, he will receive a warm welcome beating from his new buddies.
Take out another "veteran" monkey and put in a second "newbie" monkey. As the newest one tries to get the banana, the rest of the veterans will beat the hell out of him, and the previously added "newbie" monkey, still shocked an unclear why he got beat up himself, will not hesitate to join in the stomping of the newest guy anyways. Monkey see, monkey do.
Continue taking out the "experienced educated veteran" monkeys and replacing them with "newbie" monkeys one by one until there are no more original "veteran" monkeys left.Now observe what we have: any new monkey trying to get the banana gets pummeled by the rest. But why? There are no monkeys left that were hosed with water before, "Cause that's the way things have always been done here".
> And while the Germans were only concerned with the jews in germany at first, It took three levels
> of advancement before it was the final solutions. I just have to wonder if we are in one of these
> stages.
Firstly, let me remark that as soon as you allow yourself a rhetoric "reductio ad hitlerium", you lost the argument. I'll indulge you, though.
Firstly, Hitler already phrased sentiments that the Jews were the arch-enemies of the Aryan race as far back as 1919. He didn't mention he didn't like the Jews government or their adminstration, he plainly stated that he thought they were inferior human beings and enemies to boot. This developed somewhat, but by the time WWII started it was well-entrenched that the Jews had to go.
Also, the Jews were not maltreating anyone at the time. In the present day middle east, the Arab world has been getting screwed over by the British and other colonial powers for well over a century, then saw Israel being formed at gunpoint, and now are the object of overt military aggression from one of the largest economies in the world. Meanwhile, Israel is a de facto apartheids-state that treats Arabs as second rate citizens. The Arab world (most vocally Iran and Syria) is somewhat pissed off by this, resulting in Iran's statements to the effect of erasing the Jerusalem administration from the pages of time.
I fail to see the connection between them and Hitler's Nazi Germany.
> MAD is one of the best anti-nuke war things we have going.
Which is quite sad, really. MAD is a dangerous equillibrium that can be broken by the first mad hatter that comes along. Bush is definately on my list of dangerous idiots, but there are plenty of others around. Then we have the non-proliferation treaties. And the de-armament treaties. Which means that the US and Russia dismantle the odd bomb for PR but don't clear their caches by any means.
> was discounted by two separate recounts of the entire state of florida by a couple different
> sources
Granted, even if it wasn't true (which I still doubt, no matter what the PR machine churns out nowadays), then the US is still close to being a Theocracy. In theory it isn't, but in practice it is.
Pretty much all of the presidents have been White Anglo-Saxon Protestant men from well-to-do circles. They have been elected by voters who had only two parties to choose from, both of which are very much rooted in Christianity. I have yet to see a gay, black, female or even atheist/buddhist/hindu/sikh/muslim/jewish president.
The US effectively only has the Democrats and the Republicans who, with some minor socio-economic program differences, are very much about the same things. The Liberals don't swing more than 4% of the votes on a good day, which makes them a token party.
Compare this to the political systems of the Netherlands and Sweden, where you have a consensus system with at least 8-14 parties, coalitions of 3 parties or more that govern, and a tendency to start new parties every now and then, and you are still stuck with a Theocracy in all but theory.
Irritatingly enough, we still have yet to see female or non-caucasian prime ministers here, but at least we've had our fair share of non-religious ones. But then Iceland, Finland and the UK have had female leaders, Most countries in Europe have been governed by non-religious leaders at least for periods and all that. So although it's not perfect yet, we are further down the line than the US.
> And the answer is because it isn't good for the US. Not because they are doing what the US has
> done.
And this is the core of my problem with the US. It's the 800-pound gorilla of military strength and economic power (for the time being, but it's cracking at the seams already), but it has the inherent social conscience of a brick wall. The US only truly cares about one thing, at the end of the day: The US. Now I'm not saying that many countries are not out after their own interests. But being the 800-pound gorilla of things does put you in an awkward position of power others don't share.
Who was it again that said "with great power comes great responsability"? Oh yeah... Uncle Ben in Spiderman. He's a fictional character. Damn.
It would appear we agree. Don't be mistaken, just because I notice a staunch will for survival and a steadfastness in the Israelis I can admire it doesn't mean I agree to the way the non-Jewish population of the greater Palestine-area is being treated. I'm not just talking of Palestinians with Palestinian or Jordan passports, I'm also talking about Arab-Israelis who get treated as second-rate citizens. Moreover, 48% of Israelis are proven not to agree with the methods of their administration, and this somehow echoes the view of the American people on what Dubya is doing overseas. This knowledge gladdens me, because it means there still is thinking life out there.
The thing that really bugs me is the way people here speak of Arabs. They sound a bit like a slave-owners from the hay-days of the American civil war... "Our Arabs still have it better than they would in Syria" and all that rot. The Arabs are truly seen as the "niggers" or "kaffirs" of modern Israel. This I cannot abide by. It is cause for huge discussions with my fiancee, because it makes me want to leave this place. Israel has much going for it, but its backwater politics and rhetorics I cannot stomach.
Again, I am Dutch, and liberal even by Dutch standards. The situation in the Middle-East is an abomination in the eye of the Spaghetti Monster, I tell you. Having said all that, I don't appreciate the murderous actions taken in the name of Jihad either. Anyone who walks onto a bus or into a restaurant with explosives around their waist to blow up innocent civilians has lost any credibility they could have had.
As Bill Cosby stated in a speech at an education fund-raiser for the black community in the US once: ""You've got to stop beating up your women because you can't find a job". The Arabs have to quit cussing and yelling about what the West and the Zionists are doing to them. They have to take some affirmative action and responsability on their own if they wish to be taken seriously. My mother would say "just because your friends jump into the mud, doesn't mean you have to", and she would be right.
> using their nationally flagged freighters for moving things like heroin around the Pacific rim
You mean like the Brits did in China and Japan (before the latter broke off diplomatic relations with them)? Nothing the colonial powers didn't teach them to do, in other words. I'm not saying I am a fan of North Korea. Absolutely not. I just objected to the original poster calling it an Islamic fundamentalist hotbed.
My other argument here would be that much of Iran and other nations' extremism is fuelled by the extreme situation the West has put them into. Do you see North Korea have much choice in the matter today? They're on the "restricted parties list" for any Western firm to do business with, so all that's left to them is selling bad things to bad people.
Cut a long story short: Much of the misery in the world is a direct result of Western nations and their expansionist, war-mongering, colonial and/or extortionist practices.
Try and sell that to the people of Israel. While I'm far from claiming Israel is a model-state (the political and religious climate being quite rotten here, actually), I must respect the "never-again" and "come-and-get-us-if-you-dare" attitude the Israelis display. We're now well into the third, sometimes fourth generation of people who have made it their home, irrigated it, built their cities and lives here in the face of tremendous adversity.
I double-dare you to walk into this country and try 'n' move 'm. Should you manage to duck for cover in time, you'll find yourself looking at smoking barrels in the hands of anyone between 16 and 96, females definately included. You can think about Israel what you will, but the population is not to be messed with. I find this a great treat, as a matter of fact.
> They did and do still speak in terms of wiping Israel off the map.
No they don't. They wish to see Jerusalem (meaning the rabinate, the religious right-wing that has held Israeli politics in a strangle-hold since 1948) erased from the pages of time. Frankly, given the inherent insanity of these bloody penguins in Israel (by whom I mean the orthodox jews who meddle in politics) I would like to see jerusalem erased from the pages of time too, so Israel can finally become a modern concensus democracy too.
I wanted to drive my car on Yom Kippur. Because it's my secular-ass-tax-payer's right to do so. I got warned that I might get *STONED to DEATH* if I would drive into the wrong neighbourhood. I took this warning seriously.
> Iran and North Korea definitely are at the top, especially in the context of extremist Islamic militancy.
Last time I checked (bout 2 minutes ago), North Korea was still a Socialist state. Originally Buddhist and Confucianist, now religion is frowned upon in good communist tradition, opium for the people and all that. At least they have the good grace to openly persecute Christians, which more countries ought to start doing.
Let's see,
- The US has publicly threatened allied countries (amongst which, the Netherlands)
- The US has a mixxed bag on human rights. Not by law, but by execution
- The US has (proven and successfully) attempted to make the bomb
- The US has supported terrorist groups currently in conflict with the US (haha)
- The US is a threat to many countries at the moment
As for the Bomb, it is indeed a bad thing to get it. The US is the only country that has used it on two occasions on civilian targets. We cannot be certain the US won't use it again.
America's interations that parallel Iran's are dismissed as being the necessary proverbial egg that needs to be broken to make the omelette. I have yet to find out however, how the Netherlands' interest have been furthered by the US' actions.
Iran has never called for a "final solution to the Jews". They have stated they are not happy with the regime in Israel, and want it out of the pages of time.
Lastly, the US is more of a theocracy than a democracy or dictatorship. The current administration is of the religious right, and got into office in spite of at least losing one election.
Many people have threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Maybe this has something to do with the totally immoral way in which the British, in the Empire hay-days, de-stabilized the entire middle east by letting Israel be brought about in the way that it was. Naturally, many people in the Middle East are at least somewhat upset about the whole affair.
Now I live in Israel. During the latest Lebanese conflict I visited Haifa, at the time under fire from the Hezbollah. Frankly, the Hezbollah are a bunch of under-educated guerillas who are flinging DIY rockets across the border that couldn't put a dent in a pack of butter on a hot day. I don't mean this as a derogatory statement, it's just an illustration of the "threat" we are talking about.
In the mean time, Israel is a racist state that treats non-jews as second-rate citizens. Arab Israelis are shunned from several parts of the military in spite of the fact that they bleed red and carry Israeli passports, just like the Jewish Israelis do. I, for one, cannot get married to my woman within Israel because there is no such thing as civil marriage. Gay marriage and other life-styles needn't even be mentioned. The Prime Minister is actively talking about the "demographic threat" the Arab citizens are to the Glorious civilization of Eretz Yisrael. I wonder if I, as a Dutch Goy, also form a demographic threat in his mind.
Meanwhile, Hamas and Fatah are still happily killing each other on the scrap of land they occupy. Due to Israeli bombings (bankrolled by the US) and international economic sanctions, they are now doing this with sticks and stones, because it's pretty much all that is left to them. With all of that in mind, the notion of Hamas and Hezbollah getting ICBM warheads at their disposal is rather silly for the moment. Even if they do, Israel can quite easily rid the Middle East of its human populace with their arsenal, so actually *using* the thing would be a dicey enterprise at best.
The US, in the mean time, doesn't threaten to wipe Israel off the map. That's because after Vietnam, de-stabilizing half of South-America, sponsoring wars back and forth in the middle-east and bombing stuff in Africa, they are actually engrossed in wiping Iraq and Afghanistan off the map under the guise of "bringing freedom and democracy". The US doesn't make statements. It's a country of action, with a can-do attitude.
I think this is the most informed comment in this thread. This is exactly how it could pan out. As a matter of fact, this was how the Iraq war was made palatable by the US administration as well. At the moment, I live in Israel. During the last Lebanon crisis, I have spoken to many people, civilian and military alike, who doubt that Israel would ever be the first to engage Iran. Israel does indeed however have a large nuclear strike force, so there is no immediate need either. The thought that the Middle East would be seriously threatening to Israel in the coming ten years is, indeed, laughable.
Frankly, in spite of the fact that I live in Israel and am engaged to a Jewish woman, I would applaud it if Iran did indeed get a nuclear arms program, nuclear power and a space-faring capability. It's the principal that matters to me.
Who in the world died and made the US king of us all? Frankly the arrogance of the US administrations boggles me, it hearkens to the Colonial days of Europe. I think the US, and any other nuclear power, ought to shut up about "non-proliferation treaties" as long as they don't get rid of their own stockpiles, and the same applies to the space-race. It is *not* the US or Europe's "God-Given Right" to be technologically and economically superior to the rest of the world.
At the same time Bush is spiking this hubbub about Iran, programs are in place in the US to make more "efficient" delivery of nuclear strikes possible, and the US is sitting on the means to destroy the world three times over. To me, there is no inherent justice in this situation. I say it's no more than fair that Iran gets the opportunity to play in the same league as a matter of principle.
Then some US denizens might argue "we are benign and fight evil" and all that rot, but then I should remind you that when the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Wim Kok, issued a statement after 9-11 that urged the US to excercise a degree of caution in the invasion of Afghanistan due to the lack of proof that there was a causal link between 9-11 and the regime in Afghanistan at the time, the US retorted in a frosty "if you're not with us, you're against us" manner.
Threatening one of the oldest and most progressive consensus-democracies on the planet is not benign in my book, so as a citizen of the sovereign nation of the Netherlands, I find the US' foreign policies objectionable at best.
I think you both missed something *and* misunderstood the sentence. Frankly, an organization can have sympathy for the plight of a demographic group without necessarily becoming a pawn of its fundamentalist movement. "Islamist sympathizer" and "pawn of Islamic fundamentalism" are, you see, two completely different concepts.
The popular definitions for a sympathizer in both Merriam-Webster's on-line dictionary and my Longman's dictionary of Contemporary English are:
1 : to be in keeping, accord, or harmony
2 : to react or respond in sympathy
3 : to share in suffering or grief : COMMISERATE ; also : to express such sympathy
4 : to be in sympathy intellectually
In case it is (thanks for that link, btw), shouldn't one drink a lot of Djynnan Tonnik when one is in warm countries?
Malaria? Erm, wouldn't that be AIDS, hunger and violence?
The only way to get to that point, having dimmers for these bulbs, having enough models for most fixtures and perhaps even having more kinds of colours/shades available, will be by creating a bigger market for them.
You can bet your bottom dollar that a dimmer-company is not interested in developing a product for these bulbs while 97% of the market is for either halogen or incandescent.
It hurts to be an early adopter, but for some reason on slashdot it's more common to find early adopters for PS3s, Wiis, Linux based PDAs and various other gadgets than something as mundane as a bulb.
"Can't do" is in the graveyard. It lies right next to "won't do".
Your arguments are crock. Most people that don't can't be bothered to because what they have kind of works. I'm sure that if you gave your grandmother a Mac, and you'd point to the big, shiny web-browser icon, she would find out she *can* click on it.
My sister was a complete technical no-no when it comes to computers. She used to call me when her boys got a computer. I was living abroad at the time. Usually when she called me, I asked her if she had already bought and read a Manual for windows XP.
Basically, I refused to help her on RTFM questions, and pointed to sources of information instead. Now, they have a switched network at home, with three PC's (one for each of the boys and one for the parents and central storage) which is kept relatively malware/virus-free by my sister. OS re-installs, software management... She learnt many of these things without me being there to show her.
The problems seem to be more in people's minds than in the market. Ultimately, not having a monopoly does not address the inherent stupidity and laziness of consumers. Consequently, DRM and GPL discussions are indeed hot air.
Bollocks.
I'm a long standing microsoft user. By choice, because at home, the easiest, cheapest and most convenient thing is a MicroSoft machine. I do my games, and watch my content. I'm not even dissatisfied with it. Windows XP, when properly configured and maintained, is not at all bad.
I've not had any trouble ripping DVD's, MP3's, watching content and all of that stuff. I'm an avid music collector, but do it old skool. I go to a store, listen, and buy what I like. Then I digitize it.
For my MP3 player I selected the iAudio X5 30GB XL player, because it doesn't do DRM and serves as a USB host too. I don't *have* to run Windows, and I don't *have* to buy an iPod. I could live with not having tag-based management on my player, so I didn't get the iPod, but I like Call of Duty, so I did stick with Windows.
To cut a long story short, everything does what it needs to do, and with the right warez I am not restricted in my personal freedom at all. Don't like IE 7? Install Mozilla or FireFox. Don't like Media Player? Use other products.
What's the issue?
Linus is 100% right on this.
This whole denouncing of the rock scene by wearing baggy cardigans and tossled, shoulder-length fatty hair while still producing second-grade rock with mumbled vocals? Hmm. It kind of reminds me of the lo-fi movement that we have right now. You know, these people that cry that the music industry sucks, and therefore make a point of doing badly recorded sessions in their bathroom with crappy instruments to make a "statement"?
All of these people would do better focusing on the music rather than the culture surrounding it. Nirvana is also one of those bands that suffer from the fact that the "concept" surpasses the actual product. At the end of the day, it shouldn't be a musician's goal to sound crappy for the sake of it. Sure, if you haven't landed a deal with a decent studio yet, and you need to scrape by on demos, you can still output terrific stuff. However, denouncing the rest of the world that does care about production values as posers and fakes goes a wee far.
Most rock acts, let's face it, are made up of middle-class suburban white kids that have got the time, money and their father's garage for rehearsing (The Strokes, anyone?). The notion that rock is about statements, angst and all that is still endorsed from a marketing perspective, but ultimately, it's just that. A gimmick to make a buck or get street cred.
In this regard I do indeed lump Nirvana in with the pretentious tossers crowd.
Spot on, there!
First of all, at the age of 15, it's perfectly normal to want to have the occasional quick wank over dirty magazines, the blue lagoon love scenes or anything your fantasy might label as erotic.
Secondly, if I had shown my nudie-mags to a mate at that age, the parents would probably give me a beer and a pat on the back. It is after all very healthy heterosexual behaviour, right?
Thirdly, the local bobby wouldn't give a flying toss if he was told about it. Most likely, he'd try to extort the nudie mag for his own private viewing from the "offender".
Hm. I am one of those weird Europeans. My current linguistical curriculum looks as follows:
Dutch/English/German/Swedish: fluent, do make the odd spelling boo-boo.
Norwegian: Fluent reading/understanding, crap at pronouncing. Jolly good fun though.
Danish: Can read it.
Hebrew: Just learnt the alphabet, can swear in traffic quite well.
If you then look at an American friend of mine, gifted, intelligent chap in all manner but languages. He spent 5 years in the UK and still doesn't like the lingo. He's lived in Sweden for 12 years, understands some of it, speaks crappily and writes none.
This is a case in point that disproves that notion. There are Millions of people in all countries that speak horribly accented or maimed versions of the language they had to learn. A certain degree of eloquence and fluency must be one of the prerequisites needed for calling someone adept at languages. Really. Adept *does* still mean "highly skilled or well-trained", right?
Coming back to that, I am a *weird* European, because many people in Europe speak *their* language and rather crappy English. So even Europeans don't get *adept* at languages in a European environment.
Similarly you can bet your bottom dollar that not *everyone* in India is quadru-lingual or even bi-lingual with flair. Lord knows I have to speak to Indians sometimes that are in educated tech positions who couldn't communicate their way out of a paper bag in English. They really rape, mangle and slaughter that language and leave it bleeding on the ground. Merriam-Webster's definition of Bilingual is: "using or able to use two languages especially with equal fluency", and I think they are on the money there.
Surely exposure, practice and effort count. God knows I could have learnt better Hebrew if I hadn't spent my time playing with my bollocks instead. But in the end, talent is required. And not everyone has it. And of those that have it, not all use it. The result: There probably are not that bloody many truly bilingual people, let alone tri- or quadru-lingual.
Hm.
Rock was briefly influential in the 60's and 70's, but then it died. Viciously. I'd argue that rock always has been about pretentious tossers, in the 80's this was no longer true because of people like Jon Bloody Bon Jovi and, ehm, Europe who clearly had no pretentions whatsoever. Then in the 90's, you got Generation X pretentious tossers again. The current breed of Nu-Metal bands are just a sadder expansion on the already deeply sad grunge movement of the 90's.
Way I see it, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers once made interesting Funk albums. Yes, there was spoken word in there, but that had more to do with the lead singer needing singing lessons than anything else. They even got produced by Clinton at some stage in time. I can honestly say that their latest escapades, although very consequent rockish albums, are far more boring than their earlier outings.
Hip-Hop basically takes its chops from R&B, Rare groove, Soul, Funk, Blues and Jazz. Ultimately they all boil down to Gospel, Blues and Jazz. To cut a long story short, the only real innovation in music has been in the "black" scene I mentioned above. Hip-Hop is now the victim of wannabe tossers rather than pretentious tossers.
Hip-Hop, in other words, has been influenced by true pioneers of black music. They made a buck out of it, and people that don't know anything about music can buy it by the boatload because of the "Cool" "Culture" surrounding the thing. But we all know that 99% of Hip-Hop artists are just as silly as Britney or N-Sync.
Personally, I can't sit down and listen to most Hip-Hop because they never manage to outshine the tracks they sample. OutKast is an exception to this rule, as are Arrested Development, Tribe Called Quest and Eminem. To find out what I'm talking about, just listen to the tune "Idlewild Blues (don'chu worry 'bout me)".
Cash is king and James Brown will *ALWAYS* be the hardest working man in Showbizz. And with a voice like Ella's ringing out, there's no way the band could lose. These are a few of my favourite things, if you will, and you won't find Nu-Metal, Hip-Hop or Rock among them.
Jeez. Writing this post reminded me of a play-by-the-notes Waters concert I saw. I could play my "Dark side of the Moon" CD right next to the TV and hear no difference in the audio stream. There's a valuable musical endeavour for you. Rock bands always end up being their own cover bands.
First of all, this post seems to be written by an American. Probably one of them bastards that were born in the late 70's, for that matter. But for those that admired this post and modded it Insightful or Interesting, here's my two cents on what is being said:
> We needed a good smack across the ass with the fanny paddle every now and then.
If teachers need the mandate to do this, parents have already miserably failed. As for me, I would go apeshit if a teacher touched my kids. Then again, I would go apeshit if the kids behaved so the teacher would need to discipline them physically.
> Many are nothing but scum
Also a normal reaction. As the elderly lose contact with reality such "it used to be better in the old days" drivel becomes commonplace.
> They dress like third-worlders.
Pray tell, sir, how do third-worlders dress? You've managed to insult "the third world", probably without knowing a damn thing about it. Frankly, this just makes you sound like a reactionary bigot.
> But we never shot each other in cold blood. We never raped each other.
> We never slaughtered senior citizens
Hm. First of all: We did. Incest, rape, MDK, abuse and all of those things did indeed exist. It has existed as long as the world, and probably won't cease to exist. My mother can tell you stories that will raise your hair. And she's only 70 years old. Imagine a life in the early middle ages in, say, Europe.
Secondly, statistics in Holland and Sweden show that there is a rather steep decrease in senseless violence and violent crime. Simultaneously, the public is being whipped into a frenzy by people that make money on the sale of commercials in their newspapers or on their TV channels.
I'd argue that given the inequality across the world population, the amount of bigots and zealots on the planet, and lastly the dreadfully silly overpopulation on this world, we are still doing OK. I'd expect worse from us.
To cut a long story short: I've never seen such a silly post in my life. Although as far as flamebaits go, it's a good one.
I have seen the climate people have to teach in. It's a dog-eat-dog world, and the fact that there's a debate in schools in how far they have a duty to raise children as opposed to just teach them, the mandate you get from parents and deans and other factors don't make it an easy environment at all. I know this because I had was doing getting educated to become an English teacher once, and I have some experience in the field.
It's also true that I've had splendid teachers during my life. Teachers that to this day still influence me and my thinking. One of the best was a teacher I had in high school for History. His name was Schilder. I owe the man a debt of gratitude to this day. Funnily enough, he was not qualified to teach the upper levels of high school. The 25 year old who was qualified, was a total dimwit. She didn't have a flair for teaching, and didn't know too much about things as it is.
Which brings me to the next subject. There is a lot of truth to the post you replied to. Many teachers I've had during the course of my life did nothing that taught me anything. The kind of people that indeed remind me of the Mark Twain quote "Do not let your schooling interfere with your education". The kind of people that during tests would ask one for one's opinion, and then fail one because one failed to give *their* opinion on things. Reactionary, tired and bitter people. Unwise people. Downright ignorant people.
Specifically in the field of IT-related teaching, this can be true. I've seen many math/physics teachers that had an interest in computers that branched out into IT-related subjects at high schools while not knowing anything about the subject. Currently, my nephew is in an IT-focused high school. Not only do his teachers tell him stuff that is outright incorrect, they also fail to teach relevant topics, and manage to understimulate people.
In my corporate job at HP I've enjoyed some fiercely excellent "train-the-trainer" sessions on how to teach, how to stimulate people and how to create an environment that is conductive to learning, and from my school years I remember that none of these practices (which I've tested out there, and which work) are used in public schooling. Having had a "real job" for ten years taught me many things that these "teachers" undoubtedly have no clue about to this day.
Furthermore, while I don't think that teaching is easy-peasy, I object to your notion that having a "real job" would have you working a lot less. I guess it's human nature to think you're better than many, and it's human nature to think that you work more than others. It's also human nature to have rotten judgement about these matters. I'll leave it at that, and leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Lastly, I can say that the best teachers I've had did have considerable "life experience" outside the school. And they used that to their and our benefit.
>> Technically Immune.
Hmmmm. Isn't Canada a part of Her Majesty's Commonwealth?
From what I heard from Brits however, it stands to reason the teachers did indeed deserve it. All British people I've spoken that moved abroad (5) listed the education system as the number one reason to never want to return, specifically with their kids.
Anyone care to comment on that aspect?
It's not apathy. For the record, it's called pragmatism.
/. represents the IT or just plain geek community strongly.
/. is an American-centred fringe site of geekdom. Most people in the "business" are not geeks. They are professionals to do a particular job, and when they go home they might enjoy their gadgets, but it's not said they are linked to this fringe movement.
/. on the fingers of one hand. Currently, I live in the Middle East. Let me tell you, most people here are the same as the ones in North-western Europe. They don't read /.
/. will sway these crowds into the loving arms of Philips, Apple, HP, IBM, MicroSoft, Samsung, Canon or Nintendo? I fear not.
Anyhoo... You wrote:
> No, but I strongly believe
To be honest, I work for one big, fat, blue IT and Hi-tech vendor. Known for Printers, a flavour of Unix, and an anonymous wooden shed in Palo Alto. I've done support, consulting, and technical Pre-Sales work.
Given all of that experience, in a number of countries in Europe and in the EMEA geography as a whole, I can tell you that you're wrong.
Furthermore, I can tell you that I can count the people I know in high-tech who read
I'd argue that most people that purchase things from particularly Sony are not geeks per se. They are strong in very decent, easily operated and durable consumer electronics. Little bit more expensive than others sometimes, but according to many, well worth the extra buck. Do you think