Why must people bring God into EVERYTHING. The big bang is sort of dubious in my eyes too, but more plausable than god. There are SEVERAL decent arguements theorizing the big bang, and only one decent argument prooving God, that being the dubious ontological one postulated by Anselm.
Answers do not have to prevent your head from "going into meltdown", the universe is a big place, time is huge, and even the smallest building blocks of matter are more complex than a person can wrap their heads around. Why should the begining-of-it-all be a simple answer, like a man with a beard who got bored and created us all. Which is not probable in the slightest. The only probable Christian creation myth is that of St. Augestine, which is not a very happy picture, but is the only one that answers the question of "before god". God becomes mindless in this, the universe was created, existed, and ceased to exist in a single blink of the creators eye, meaning that there is no free will, leading to other problems. (Evil, for one)
This is not the proper place for theology and philosophy though. This is an article on finding life on a foreign body. If said life is found, or traces of it, it may just start the long process of answering the all-important, and eternal, WHY.
I think you are confusing scales. In the short term finding Osama MAY be more important than finding life, or traces of, somewhere else in the cosmos. But in the long term Osama doesn't matter in the least, neither does 9/11, America, You, I, or much else. Finding life would answer a COSMIC question, killing Osama with some little Geneva convention violating bug would answer a wholly secular, and temporal question.
Finding traces of life on Mars would further the work of Galaleo[sp], Darwin, Einstein, and all the other great minds who pushed the boundries of knowledge, who led to BIGGER questions. Finding Osama would make George Bush look like he already did not waste BILLIONS (not just millions) of dollars, and MIGHT increase Americas sense of security by a minute modicum.
Finding life would challenge theology, and put some serious stress on the creationists, which in my opinion is a good thing. It also would expand the Earthly feilds of science, answering some time-old questions. Finding Osama and killing him would only answer the question "Where is Osama?", which is of little importance to the world-as-a-whole, and the greater reach of intellectual history streaching before us.
Finding life would be comforting to us, now and generations hence. We would for once know that we are not alone, and that the odds of alien life, albeit simple, are greater than some nay-sayers say. Finding Osama, well, would be comforting to the US, at least until the next "evil doer" comes along to rain on our parade.
You must look at the bigger picture. Killing Osama is a sign of hatred, dark emotions, revenge, war. Finding life, a sign of hope, progress (in a good way), knowledge, and a greater respect for life itself. What is wrong with embracing both goals, vengence and death, and hope and respect?
Yep, though I still agree with unions in concept, they can be just as icky as the corporations that they set out to protect the workers from. Perhaps weakening unions, and corporate crap would be a nice thing.
You missed the point. I said BOTH are at fault. Sure the CEOs should take one for the team from time to time, when the company is in a bad way, hell I think that the upper eschelons should be the first place to streamline when bad financial things happen. But, when a company is doing bad, I think it plain idiocy that the employees should ever demand more. Especially when your working for a small company. Say you work in siad small business, you know that the company has a quite a possibility of doing bad in the future, it is counter productive to drive UP their costs by wanting to MORE, in the short term you're gonna be better off, but in the long, if the company folds, or out sources, your screwing yourself.
Now extend that to a place with thousands of employess. Even if they want a little more, it adds up. If your company is doing bad, EVERYONE should take a cut.
I see your point, and agree with you, for the most part. But to some point employee expectations does play a role. Several of my IT freinds will not even think of taking a job that pays under $15/h, then sit around wondering why no-one hires them, how terrible the companies are, and why their job is now handled by some guy in a country he can't pronounce.
The boom built false expectations that still exist in this day and age. I know plenty of people who are going to Devry and other tech schools, with full expectations of immediatly getting a Lexus upon graduation.
Hopefully this is a minority, and the rest of the people going to school, or searching for IT jobs, have realistic expectations.
Nice to know that their still is one bastion of social Darwinism left in the world.
I'm so sick of hard-nosed capitalists. I wish every person who ever went to school for economics, or buisness would loose their jobs, and be forced to go on welfare. People should try being poor.
Remember that your dealing with PEOPLE not economies, or product. Screw the numbers involved for a second.
I'd say we put as many trade restrictions and caps on as it takes. Anything to keep mine and my neighbors lively hood, and to keep them off of unemployment, wellfare, blah blah blah.
You got it half right. If people would agree to take a dent out of their salary, then they would be able to keep their jobs. But, you must realize, that it really is impossible to live in the US at minimum wage, especially if you have student loans to pay off.
Also, your missing the ethical side of this. Where do most of the products get bought, and where do the CEO's live? In the same country that they're screwing for jobs. Don't they have some ethical/moral obligation to take care of their own as well? Roll back some services, keep the employees that want to live a little bit more modestly. That might not be as profitable, but you would have a more loyal base, and usually a loyal base equals stability.
I know, I know, ethics and dead. Especially in the buisness world. But it isn't something that people should accept, not ever.
Nice that the woman is honest, at least. And I really can't put more blaim on her than anyother large American companies upper eschelons. The blue collar folks have been putting up with this sort of crap since the 70's, though, so it is hardly a new trend.
When you buy an American made car, it is made in Mexico, most of the time. I think that Nissan is one of the few cars assembled in America, nice irony. American Express, has even asked a freind of mine, who does billing, if she wanted a "free" trip to india, to train nice young Indians to work on the phones. The poised this as a bonus for her productivity, but actually is them trying to con her into training her replacement.
Such is the way America goes. I'm all for trade restrictions, no matter how unPC that is to say in our ubercapitalist/globalist society. If some random developing country offers a good education, and cheaper service, let them develop their own companies, then let them compete in the global market.
BUT... Same as with GM leaving Michigan, it is partly the employees fault. If you keep on demanding more and more, wages benefits, whatnot, then you might as well excpect that they eventually will give up, and give the job to someone more humble in needs. If you expect, after leaving college, to receive a huge wage, huge benefits, options, and all the other perks, then then you are truly deluded as to our economy. You should be happier, in the long-run, to accept a job of modest wage and benefit, knowing that the market sucks, and their is a cheap pool of more grateful employees elsewhere.
Now here lies a real problem for these companies, as well. Right now they are alienating their consumers, and American support people, but more than make up for it in increased profitability. BUT... What happens when these new foreign, and cheap, employees also realize their worth? In a foreign studies class I took, we studied Malaysia. In said country, Intel is a LARGE employer, dependant on the cheap labor pool there. But as the Economy grows, the people start to expect more. They unionize, they demand benefits, they demand more rights, wages, a higher standard of living. They become more American, for the purposes of the company.
So either the companies leave, and crush the local economy they built, further alienating more people, or they are forced to bend to the will of their employees, making the whole point of moving pointless. But in the short term it is a great idea for making a shitload of money.
No answer here, except a no-brainer, 'greed sucks'. Sorry for the rant, I'm of rather harsh opinions on out-sourcing.
Using the term hacker is not vague to the general public. The word has a very concrete meaning, to most people it means someone who does bad things with computers, i.e. use them to steal data, crack systems, mess up corporate and governmental websites, and such.
Sure, geeks and/.ers use the term to mean ubergeeks with a more egalitarian ethical system, but joe public does not understand this. They we either not around when the word hacker was used as a benevelant tag, nor are they as deep in the geek community and mystique.
So the use of the word geek does not make the article loose validity.
My kingdom for mod-points. This is by far the most insightful post here, so far.
While I generally eschew MMOs of all sorts, I know that back in the days of MUDing when I was indeed 16ish, I only played guys, mostly because I WAS too insecure to play a female character, I thought that their must be some signifigance to my gender role in a game.
Then... I realized that I play ROLE PLAYING GAMES, where the main part of the premise to to... PLAY A ROLE. At that point I realized that being a in-game female was no more signifigant than picking a nonhuman race, or a class whose skills I don't have IRL.
When picking a female character I am challenged with RPing something I am not, and I think that that challenge is greater than trying to play a big stupid Orc, or someother cliche fantasy race, bacause that which I am trying to emulate is real.
Never did this have me wanting to dress up as a girl IRL though, no more than it made me want to dress up like an elven theif, or a bulky green orc.
When I used to play paper and pen RPGS, my best freind almost always played a female character, but was very not-gay. He always did it because it matched the concept of the character he wanted more than being a guy. Sometime he played very stereo-typical female character, sometimes he played empowered ones, and sometime demure ones. And never once have I seen him wear a dress, or anyhting like that.
I think that people breath too much into this. Remember that it is a role playing game, and that you are there to play a non-self role. I am sure, though, that to a minority this "gender bending" takes some signifigance, just like that mentally defunct portion that thinks Doom is real, wresteling is something to be tried, and that they really are vampires or mages because some silly RPG became to real to them. But they are literally the lunatic fringe, and cannot be taken as a real sample of any population...
I forgot the address, but it was the man v. machine v. vampire one. With Brigade being a clan.
I think Puppykill was involved in it too, as a coder.
A couple of my freinds ripped the code, which probably was the best ROM codebase ever modified, and started a new MUD called neoGeno. Which eventually died do to server problems.
There are too many of us now. If we lived a mear 30 years longer, the resource drain would cripple our children. We die when we do to avoid competition with our children.
Also semi-immortality would stagnate the power structure, new ideas come from new (i.e. young) people, but when we have a generation that refuses to die or leave power our children will never have power. The young will be second class citizens.
The stubornly old will also gather great amounts of wealth, forcing those who are young, or those who refuse to be immortal to be slaves/paupers/underclass.
If I had a choice, I'd live to 2070 as an aware being, then die. I don't get what immortality would do that is good for SOCIETY. I'm sick of advancments in technology that are good for the individual.
Now while I personally don't read many blogs anymore, I think that they are a good thing. Whats wrong with self expression, whats wrong with allowing yourself a peek into other peoples lives, even if at times they seem petty. I personally find them facinating, both as a trend, and in themselves.
By following your reasoning, isn't any act of human expression just some form of narcisim? You post this because you think that YOUR opinion actually matters, ditto for my own post. You write a book because you think that tyou are worth reading, you write a scholarly article because you think that you are smart enough to imput something into the 5,000 years of human knowledge. I guess to avoid your charge of narcisism we should all live quite humble lives in some form of a monastary, keeping our meager thoughts to ourselves.
The blog I used to use on my personal site was about philosophical and political events, from many persectives, and I thought that most of it was worthy enough to publish online, I guess I too am narcisistic, either that or my opinions/writing ARE indeed worth reading. Either that or it was just another normal form of self-expression.
Everything is self-absorbed, being that we are trapped in the shell of self until we die.
There is a very basic flaw in this car theft = file trading. I don't see MILLIONS of car theives sitting around trading cars with out each other. I don't see these, generally lower income, car theives being potential cusotmers. I also don't see these car theives showing what the actual public demand for any particular automobile.
I'm betting that filer-sharers are mirroring the ACTUAL demand, since the ratio between honest and dishonest is smaller, or nonexistant. Maybe if cars were easier to steal there would be a simular ratio. Cars happen to be physical though, so I doubt thats going to happen.
If your going to make an analogy and stick with it, please find one that FITS. Or better yet, discuss the actual issue, since all analogies are flawed.
The guy I share a bathroom with at NAU got the blaster worm before coming here, then called on me, the resident geek to fix it. It took roughly five hours to talk him through using a virus scanner, and then talking him through the fix. I finally gave up and refered him to the IT people.
I know for Lovsan our school links you, before network registration, to a page with the fix. Then if you get infected they kill your access. Then send up a tech. Sad thing is the average user can't even figure out how to get to the patch even with a page linking to it.
Now before all the/.'rs get on the "install Linux on everyones box" rant, I'm going to highlight the main problem, the end users ignorance about computers. The average college student thinks of his/her computer as an applience. And thinks that Windows update as that pesky taskbar icon that keeps on screaming at them.
Also in a small office network administrating 20-100 people is an easy task, or EASIER, than handeling 5,000 students with no computer skills. In an office network you can set up the computers to use whatever software you want, like not allowing Outlook on work machines, or whatnot, but in a college network you have 5,000+ different configurations.
As for solutions, I have no clue, though. I guess the only way is to just blcok access of the infected, which kinda sucks since it HAS to be after the fact. Perhaps you could force people joining the netword to take a small online class, download your supported virus-scanner, and whatever fixes exist before registering their machine. Then as new threats come out, make new required online lessons needed to keep network access.
If it come down to human survival I really would have no qualms about colonizing Mars, even at the cost of extraterrestial single cellular life, as long as it was done intelligently.
But I misread your original post as colonize for the sake of commercial exploitation. You know, like paving mars so we can open a Ramada and a Wallmart there for rich space tourists.
As for over-population I'm sure We'll hit up the Moon first, closer, need less technology.
Though some silly news guy told me that if I loaded up my Ford Expedition and started driving, I could get there in 55 years. Though I'd prefer something a bit more economical with fuel, since I doubt that exxon/shell/mobil has expanded past the moon yet. Maybe a Geo Metro will get me there.
Science fiction as a genre decideded that mars had life because of early science. The whole E.R. Burroughs thing got started because of the astronomer Lowell pointing out the 'canals'. While the popular obsession came from sci-fi, the general idea is older. Most of this speculation exists because mars has obvious geological features caused by some form of liquid erosion.
Finding out that Mars has life is more important than than some silly historical obsession, or utilitarian colonization scheme. Finding that there is life there would increase our understanding of how WE got HERE, especially if said life has genetic matches to that on earth, meaning that there is a possible common ancestor. There also is a psychological effect of discovering life, we are then no longer alone on our cosmic dirt ball, even if we KNOW that we share the universe with single-celled mars bacteria.
Also we might have to revise our view on how unique we are in the scheme of thing, esecially if this hypothetical life is genetically unique from us, life must be more common than some say. This could also lead to some interesting theological issues.
And if we find life, your colonization idea would start to have some serious ethical issues. Is it right to destroy/exploit another planet, like we destroy/exploit our own? Even if we are only displacing so archeon bacteria thingies, do we have the right to do that? Also on the more utilitarian side of colonization, would said life be harmful to human life?
So the question of maritan life is a little more important than some silly bunch of sci-fi nerds thinking it is a neat idea. It actually would be one of the most important things that humanity has ever discovered, if not THE most important.
Woo... go to wallmart quick, buy a sense of humor.
I personally wish another blackout would happen too, though not in New York, I'm sick of hearing about 'em. Perhaps somewhere in the southwest, like here.
Please don't whine about the loss of electricity, I really have a hard time feeling sorry for people having their artificial security blanket pulled from beneath their feet. Wished it would teach people how odd their lives are, how stu[idly comfortable. Moving into flamebait territory, time to jump tracks.
Right now I'm in Flagstaff, so once I get off of the brighter-than-the-sun campus I can see things, barring trees. But in Phoenix you can't see jack within 50 miles of the city because of the large orange-brown glow coming off of phoenix, and its plethera of cancerous suburbs. So a nice power-outage would be great there. I would have loved to actually seen the stars while living there.
And don't give me the 'drive out of town thing', I don't own car, and its a pretty far bike-ride.
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Why must people bring God into EVERYTHING. The big bang is sort of dubious in my eyes too, but more plausable than god. There are SEVERAL decent arguements theorizing the big bang, and only one decent argument prooving God, that being the dubious ontological one postulated by Anselm.
Answers do not have to prevent your head from "going into meltdown", the universe is a big place, time is huge, and even the smallest building blocks of matter are more complex than a person can wrap their heads around. Why should the begining-of-it-all be a simple answer, like a man with a beard who got bored and created us all. Which is not probable in the slightest. The only probable Christian creation myth is that of St. Augestine, which is not a very happy picture, but is the only one that answers the question of "before god". God becomes mindless in this, the universe was created, existed, and ceased to exist in a single blink of the creators eye, meaning that there is no free will, leading to other problems. (Evil, for one)
This is not the proper place for theology and philosophy though. This is an article on finding life on a foreign body. If said life is found, or traces of it, it may just start the long process of answering the all-important, and eternal, WHY.
I think you are confusing scales. In the short term finding Osama MAY be more important than finding life, or traces of, somewhere else in the cosmos. But in the long term Osama doesn't matter in the least, neither does 9/11, America, You, I, or much else. Finding life would answer a COSMIC question, killing Osama with some little Geneva convention violating bug would answer a wholly secular, and temporal question.
Finding traces of life on Mars would further the work of Galaleo[sp], Darwin, Einstein, and all the other great minds who pushed the boundries of knowledge, who led to BIGGER questions. Finding Osama would make George Bush look like he already did not waste BILLIONS (not just millions) of dollars, and MIGHT increase Americas sense of security by a minute modicum.
Finding life would challenge theology, and put some serious stress on the creationists, which in my opinion is a good thing. It also would expand the Earthly feilds of science, answering some time-old questions. Finding Osama and killing him would only answer the question "Where is Osama?", which is of little importance to the world-as-a-whole, and the greater reach of intellectual history streaching before us.
Finding life would be comforting to us, now and generations hence. We would for once know that we are not alone, and that the odds of alien life, albeit simple, are greater than some nay-sayers say. Finding Osama, well, would be comforting to the US, at least until the next "evil doer" comes along to rain on our parade.
You must look at the bigger picture. Killing Osama is a sign of hatred, dark emotions, revenge, war. Finding life, a sign of hope, progress (in a good way), knowledge, and a greater respect for life itself. What is wrong with embracing both goals, vengence and death, and hope and respect?
Yep, though I still agree with unions in concept, they can be just as icky as the corporations that they set out to protect the workers from. Perhaps weakening unions, and corporate crap would be a nice thing.
You missed the point. I said BOTH are at fault. Sure the CEOs should take one for the team from time to time, when the company is in a bad way, hell I think that the upper eschelons should be the first place to streamline when bad financial things happen. But, when a company is doing bad, I think it plain idiocy that the employees should ever demand more. Especially when your working for a small company. Say you work in siad small business, you know that the company has a quite a possibility of doing bad in the future, it is counter productive to drive UP their costs by wanting to MORE, in the short term you're gonna be better off, but in the long, if the company folds, or out sources, your screwing yourself.
Now extend that to a place with thousands of employess. Even if they want a little more, it adds up. If your company is doing bad, EVERYONE should take a cut.
How much software is developed by overseas companies?
I see your point, and agree with you, for the most part. But to some point employee expectations does play a role. Several of my IT freinds will not even think of taking a job that pays under $15/h, then sit around wondering why no-one hires them, how terrible the companies are, and why their job is now handled by some guy in a country he can't pronounce.
The boom built false expectations that still exist in this day and age. I know plenty of people who are going to Devry and other tech schools, with full expectations of immediatly getting a Lexus upon graduation.
Hopefully this is a minority, and the rest of the people going to school, or searching for IT jobs, have realistic expectations.
Nice to know that their still is one bastion of social Darwinism left in the world.
I'm so sick of hard-nosed capitalists. I wish every person who ever went to school for economics, or buisness would loose their jobs, and be forced to go on welfare. People should try being poor.
Remember that your dealing with PEOPLE not economies, or product. Screw the numbers involved for a second.
I'd say we put as many trade restrictions and caps on as it takes. Anything to keep mine and my neighbors lively hood, and to keep them off of unemployment, wellfare, blah blah blah.
And hence I opt out of the race all together. I changed my major to philosophy, knowing that their is no jobs awaiting me.
You got it half right. If people would agree to take a dent out of their salary, then they would be able to keep their jobs. But, you must realize, that it really is impossible to live in the US at minimum wage, especially if you have student loans to pay off.
Also, your missing the ethical side of this. Where do most of the products get bought, and where do the CEO's live? In the same country that they're screwing for jobs. Don't they have some ethical/moral obligation to take care of their own as well? Roll back some services, keep the employees that want to live a little bit more modestly. That might not be as profitable, but you would have a more loyal base, and usually a loyal base equals stability.
I know, I know, ethics and dead. Especially in the buisness world. But it isn't something that people should accept, not ever.
Nice that the woman is honest, at least. And I really can't put more blaim on her than anyother large American companies upper eschelons. The blue collar folks have been putting up with this sort of crap since the 70's, though, so it is hardly a new trend.
When you buy an American made car, it is made in Mexico, most of the time. I think that Nissan is one of the few cars assembled in America, nice irony. American Express, has even asked a freind of mine, who does billing, if she wanted a "free" trip to india, to train nice young Indians to work on the phones. The poised this as a bonus for her productivity, but actually is them trying to con her into training her replacement.
Such is the way America goes. I'm all for trade restrictions, no matter how unPC that is to say in our ubercapitalist/globalist society. If some random developing country offers a good education, and cheaper service, let them develop their own companies, then let them compete in the global market.
BUT... Same as with GM leaving Michigan, it is partly the employees fault. If you keep on demanding more and more, wages benefits, whatnot, then you might as well excpect that they eventually will give up, and give the job to someone more humble in needs. If you expect, after leaving college, to receive a huge wage, huge benefits, options, and all the other perks, then then you are truly deluded as to our economy. You should be happier, in the long-run, to accept a job of modest wage and benefit, knowing that the market sucks, and their is a cheap pool of more grateful employees elsewhere.
Now here lies a real problem for these companies, as well. Right now they are alienating their consumers, and American support people, but more than make up for it in increased profitability. BUT... What happens when these new foreign, and cheap, employees also realize their worth? In a foreign studies class I took, we studied Malaysia. In said country, Intel is a LARGE employer, dependant on the cheap labor pool there. But as the Economy grows, the people start to expect more. They unionize, they demand benefits, they demand more rights, wages, a higher standard of living. They become more American, for the purposes of the company.
So either the companies leave, and crush the local economy they built, further alienating more people, or they are forced to bend to the will of their employees, making the whole point of moving pointless. But in the short term it is a great idea for making a shitload of money.
No answer here, except a no-brainer, 'greed sucks'. Sorry for the rant, I'm of rather harsh opinions on out-sourcing.
Using the term hacker is not vague to the general public. The word has a very concrete meaning, to most people it means someone who does bad things with computers, i.e. use them to steal data, crack systems, mess up corporate and governmental websites, and such.
/.ers use the term to mean ubergeeks with a more egalitarian ethical system, but joe public does not understand this. They we either not around when the word hacker was used as a benevelant tag, nor are they as deep in the geek community and mystique.
Sure, geeks and
So the use of the word geek does not make the article loose validity.
My kingdom for mod-points. This is by far the most insightful post here, so far.
While I generally eschew MMOs of all sorts, I know that back in the days of MUDing when I was indeed 16ish, I only played guys, mostly because I WAS too insecure to play a female character, I thought that their must be some signifigance to my gender role in a game.
Then... I realized that I play ROLE PLAYING GAMES, where the main part of the premise to to... PLAY A ROLE. At that point I realized that being a in-game female was no more signifigant than picking a nonhuman race, or a class whose skills I don't have IRL.
When picking a female character I am challenged with RPing something I am not, and I think that that challenge is greater than trying to play a big stupid Orc, or someother cliche fantasy race, bacause that which I am trying to emulate is real.
Never did this have me wanting to dress up as a girl IRL though, no more than it made me want to dress up like an elven theif, or a bulky green orc.
When I used to play paper and pen RPGS, my best freind almost always played a female character, but was very not-gay. He always did it because it matched the concept of the character he wanted more than being a guy. Sometime he played very stereo-typical female character, sometimes he played empowered ones, and sometime demure ones. And never once have I seen him wear a dress, or anyhting like that.
I think that people breath too much into this. Remember that it is a role playing game, and that you are there to play a non-self role. I am sure, though, that to a minority this "gender bending" takes some signifigance, just like that mentally defunct portion that thinks Doom is real, wresteling is something to be tried, and that they really are vampires or mages because some silly RPG became to real to them. But they are literally the lunatic fringe, and cannot be taken as a real sample of any population...
the geek is now on you!
I thought I was bad...
I forgot the address, but it was the man v. machine v. vampire one. With Brigade being a clan.
I think Puppykill was involved in it too, as a coder.
A couple of my freinds ripped the code, which probably was the best ROM codebase ever modified, and started a new MUD called neoGeno. Which eventually died do to server problems.
Bleh, for a second I thought it was the original Genocide you were talking about. Gave me a huge fit of nostalgia.
Probably more realistic though, since bad guys are... well... guys too.
No, Kefka was the character you actual loved to hate, him and his bloody laugh.
Sephiroth was the best all-around villian, aethetically pleasing, undeniably evil, coolest attitude.
But then again I have a special leaning towards xdeath from FFV.
There are too many of us now. If we lived a mear 30 years longer, the resource drain would cripple our children. We die when we do to avoid competition with our children.
Also semi-immortality would stagnate the power structure, new ideas come from new (i.e. young) people, but when we have a generation that refuses to die or leave power our children will never have power. The young will be second class citizens.
The stubornly old will also gather great amounts of wealth, forcing those who are young, or those who refuse to be immortal to be slaves/paupers/underclass.
If I had a choice, I'd live to 2070 as an aware being, then die. I don't get what immortality would do that is good for SOCIETY. I'm sick of advancments in technology that are good for the individual.
Now while I personally don't read many blogs anymore, I think that they are a good thing. Whats wrong with self expression, whats wrong with allowing yourself a peek into other peoples lives, even if at times they seem petty. I personally find them facinating, both as a trend, and in themselves.
By following your reasoning, isn't any act of human expression just some form of narcisim? You post this because you think that YOUR opinion actually matters, ditto for my own post. You write a book because you think that tyou are worth reading, you write a scholarly article because you think that you are smart enough to imput something into the 5,000 years of human knowledge. I guess to avoid your charge of narcisism we should all live quite humble lives in some form of a monastary, keeping our meager thoughts to ourselves.
The blog I used to use on my personal site was about philosophical and political events, from many persectives, and I thought that most of it was worthy enough to publish online, I guess I too am narcisistic, either that or my opinions/writing ARE indeed worth reading. Either that or it was just another normal form of self-expression.
Everything is self-absorbed, being that we are trapped in the shell of self until we die.
There is a very basic flaw in this car theft = file trading. I don't see MILLIONS of car theives sitting around trading cars with out each other. I don't see these, generally lower income, car theives being potential cusotmers. I also don't see these car theives showing what the actual public demand for any particular automobile.
I'm betting that filer-sharers are mirroring the ACTUAL demand, since the ratio between honest and dishonest is smaller, or nonexistant. Maybe if cars were easier to steal there would be a simular ratio. Cars happen to be physical though, so I doubt thats going to happen.
If your going to make an analogy and stick with it, please find one that FITS. Or better yet, discuss the actual issue, since all analogies are flawed.
The guy I share a bathroom with at NAU got the blaster worm before coming here, then called on me, the resident geek to fix it. It took roughly five hours to talk him through using a virus scanner, and then talking him through the fix. I finally gave up and refered him to the IT people.
/.'rs get on the "install Linux on everyones box" rant, I'm going to highlight the main problem, the end users ignorance about computers. The average college student thinks of his/her computer as an applience. And thinks that Windows update as that pesky taskbar icon that keeps on screaming at them.
I know for Lovsan our school links you, before network registration, to a page with the fix. Then if you get infected they kill your access. Then send up a tech. Sad thing is the average user can't even figure out how to get to the patch even with a page linking to it.
Now before all the
Also in a small office network administrating 20-100 people is an easy task, or EASIER, than handeling 5,000 students with no computer skills. In an office network you can set up the computers to use whatever software you want, like not allowing Outlook on work machines, or whatnot, but in a college network you have 5,000+ different configurations.
As for solutions, I have no clue, though. I guess the only way is to just blcok access of the infected, which kinda sucks since it HAS to be after the fact. Perhaps you could force people joining the netword to take a small online class, download your supported virus-scanner, and whatever fixes exist before registering their machine. Then as new threats come out, make new required online lessons needed to keep network access.
If it come down to human survival I really would have no qualms about colonizing Mars, even at the cost of extraterrestial single cellular life, as long as it was done intelligently.
But I misread your original post as colonize for the sake of commercial exploitation. You know, like paving mars so we can open a Ramada and a Wallmart there for rich space tourists.
As for over-population I'm sure We'll hit up the Moon first, closer, need less technology.
Though some silly news guy told me that if I loaded up my Ford Expedition and started driving, I could get there in 55 years. Though I'd prefer something a bit more economical with fuel, since I doubt that exxon/shell/mobil has expanded past the moon yet. Maybe a Geo Metro will get me there.
Science fiction as a genre decideded that mars had life because of early science. The whole E.R. Burroughs thing got started because of the astronomer Lowell pointing out the 'canals'. While the popular obsession came from sci-fi, the general idea is older. Most of this speculation exists because mars has obvious geological features caused by some form of liquid erosion.
Finding out that Mars has life is more important than than some silly historical obsession, or utilitarian colonization scheme. Finding that there is life there would increase our understanding of how WE got HERE, especially if said life has genetic matches to that on earth, meaning that there is a possible common ancestor. There also is a psychological effect of discovering life, we are then no longer alone on our cosmic dirt ball, even if we KNOW that we share the universe with single-celled mars bacteria.
Also we might have to revise our view on how unique we are in the scheme of thing, esecially if this hypothetical life is genetically unique from us, life must be more common than some say. This could also lead to some interesting theological issues.
And if we find life, your colonization idea would start to have some serious ethical issues. Is it right to destroy/exploit another planet, like we destroy/exploit our own? Even if we are only displacing so archeon bacteria thingies, do we have the right to do that? Also on the more utilitarian side of colonization, would said life be harmful to human life?
So the question of maritan life is a little more important than some silly bunch of sci-fi nerds thinking it is a neat idea. It actually would be one of the most important things that humanity has ever discovered, if not THE most important.
Woo... go to wallmart quick, buy a sense of humor.
I personally wish another blackout would happen too, though not in New York, I'm sick of hearing about 'em. Perhaps somewhere in the southwest, like here.
Please don't whine about the loss of electricity, I really have a hard time feeling sorry for people having their artificial security blanket pulled from beneath their feet. Wished it would teach people how odd their lives are, how stu[idly comfortable. Moving into flamebait territory, time to jump tracks.
Right now I'm in Flagstaff, so once I get off of the brighter-than-the-sun campus I can see things, barring trees. But in Phoenix you can't see jack within 50 miles of the city because of the large orange-brown glow coming off of phoenix, and its plethera of cancerous suburbs. So a nice power-outage would be great there. I would have loved to actually seen the stars while living there.
And don't give me the 'drive out of town thing', I don't own car, and its a pretty far bike-ride.