The only straight razor I ever saw was in a great-uncle's barber shop. It was more decoration by the time I saw it. From what I heard they required a bit of care and maintenance when actually used.
When I used to live in an actual city, and not the soulless suburbs, there was a barber shop down the road my a couple Eastern European kids, who came over here during some nasty politics. Their ran their shop like their dad did back were-ever they came from (I think a -stan).
For $14 you could get a full haircut, and a full shave with a straight razor, including foam applied by a badger brush, and a decent earful of politics. It was a very nice experience, once you got past the fact that some guy was running a razor across your neck. Generally while talking about how he actually managed to kill a fair amount of someone during a war.
Not as good as a shop in a small mountain college town I used to live in, where $14 would get a haircut, a shave, and a massage (by a lady).
I'm not. Actually the whole bottom bit was to illustrate how stupid install base pissing contests are, especially in the mobile market. Notice how, on a discussion about phones, you expanded it to include non-phones, then I expanded it to include a whole real operating system, also notice that I extended this to two products (Windows and IE) which a majority of us here don't find very special, despite being insanely popular. I don't care is Linux, iOS, Android, Windows, or whatever else is "winning", I find it an absolutely moronic metric.
Back on topic, Apple has been hinting at moving away from Samsung for awhile now. So even if this ban doesn't happen (it won't), Samsung loses Apple. If, on the other hand, this ban does happen, Android (and Windows) devices will rise to fill the gap, and most of them are also using Samsung memory. As much as the fanboys would like to argue otherwise, iPhones (/pad/pod/touch) aren't in a separate class than other mobile platforms, they are completely replaceable, and completely analogous, with other devices. If the iPhone falls in the US, Samsung's market would remain roughly stable.
. If you just compare device numbers sold iOS wins again by a significant margin.
Does it? I don't see any evidence of this. It might be out there, but... And does said evidence take in account, again, EVERY device running Android? And, again, who (profanity here) care what OS the device runs? Win Mobile devices need flash, iOS devices need flash, Android devices need flash, homebrew Linux devices (like the Kindle) need flash, homebrew other OS devices need flash. Hardware has nothing whatsoever to do with whatever OS a platform is using. More to the point; do you really think that if all iwhatnots suddenly were banned, people wouldn't buy the alternatives in equal number (ignoring whinging fanboys, which are an extreme minority of any user base)?
Oh no! I can't buy an iPhone/pad/pod/touch! I guess I'll do without a smartphone (tablet/mp3 player)? Or... buy the exact same product (meaning does has parity of function) from a different manufactures, and running a different, equally capable, OS? The only market that would be hurt, really, is tablets, since most people with iPads own them for their Apple-ness, and the "hip factor" far outweighs the actual utility factor (unlike phones), and there are no competitive products out there yet. But removing tablets from Samsung's market isn't going to hurt much, since they are pretty uncommon (what percentage of Americans own an iPad? 2-3%?)
My favorite is from kids who were forced to write a book report on something and then posted it on Amazon (perhaps even as part of the assignment).
"I had to read Faulkner's xxxx for class, it was totally boring and long. It was stupid. The end.".... If Amazon considers that useful, then EVERYTHING is useful. I mostly use the reviews to try to find books that might be interesting to me to add to my "find" list. But they get more and more useless as you venture outside of literature. I was recently looking to buy a cheap, low powered, airsoft gun to teach some pigeons a lesson, and the reviews were around 99% of astroturf. It was actually somewhat shocking, with some guns had terrible reviews (it killed my dog, and ran away with my wife) had reference to the "far superior" gun sold by another vendor, except said superior gun was the exact same brand and model as the negatively reviewed one. I actually doubt that there was a single actual, legitimate, review on any of the products I looked at. It was academically interesting though, since most of the scammers actually put in decent negative bits, just to confuse some people into thinking the reviews were real.
Uh... wait... So Apple wins if you compare phones AND mp3 players AND tablets? Seems a bit of a stretch, especially when the story is about... well.. phones. This ignores the fact that Android has absolutely nothing to do with the story, nor does the respective market shares of devices, or, sillier still, mobile OSs.
We were talking about Samsung still being able to sell memory to devices makers if this ban happens. Last I checked flash memory didn't care if it was in an Apple branded device or anything else, much less what arbitrary flavor of OS said device is running. The reasoning goes; if Apple can't sell iPhones in the US, then people will still need devices, those devices will also have (probably) Samsung memory, regardless of what OS they run.
Further, who cares? Oh no, iOS has more installs! Should I care? Is that, magically, a measure of quality now? If so, then we all know Windows is the best OS, and IE is the best browser. Apple always has been that way, they control the hardware and software, so comparing them to the rest of the ecosystem isn't very useful.
Also, is there any proof to your claim that iOS "wins" when you take in account IPod Touch and iPads? Does this ignore the various flavors of Nook, and all of the various (albeit flawed) Android tablets, including the cheap Chinese ones? What happens if I expand "Android" into "mobile devices running modified Linux kernels, since it is pretty much nothing more than a modified kernel with some skinning and tweaks.
I can imagine good sex being beyond epic on LSD. Not that I would get any chance to sex in the first place, though.;)
It could be, at times. But often it required way to much engagement. When I used to take LSD (a long time ago) I was a "wanderer", the second it kicked in I had to take a walk. After that I was like some sort of very happy kid with ADD, the nearest shiny thing would completely take my attention until I saw something new and interesting (its LSD, so that would take around.0003 seconds). Sex required me to pay attention.
You also have the problem that people's faces do very, very, strange things on a decent dose. Sometimes those things are terribly flattering.
I had a friend who had a string of "hentai-esque" moments while trying to have sex on acid. Sex organs can be very scary things.
I tried it once on mescaline, but later I wasn't even sure if another person was present, or if it even happened at all. The person who I was possibly having sex with didn't remember either. It was another question mark shaped notch on my bed frame (ah... youth!).
What therapy did you use for migraines? Pretty much nothing worked for them when I used to have them commonly. I also had cluster headaches for a while, and pretty much NOTHING worked on them. For migraines I used to use ketoprofen (when it was sold as little over the counter headache pills, something they pretty much stopped doing), and it sometimes took the edge off, marijuana also worked a bit. As for the clusters... nothing. Clusters are much, much, worse than migraines. If a migraine was a movie directed by Stephen Speilburg, then a cluster headache would be directed by Rob Zombie.
What type of, non drug, therapy do you suggest?
On topic, as a person who suffered both migraines and clusters, I wonder how much of my drug use was self-medication. When I was young I didn't care one bit for for most recreational drugs, but I loved LSD. The period which I used the most LSD (trying to stay on it for weeks at a time) was also the period where I had the worst cluster headaches. As they started waning, so did my use of LSD.
I, on a personal level, and happy with the idea of medicating things with marijuana, not because I care if its terribly effective, but because it opens the door to eventual legalization, which would lead to a bit of a saner view on drugs. It might be therapeutic, but I think most people who advocate legal medical usage have the same ulterior motives. That actually was an issue here in AZ on our medicalization bill, with the "war on drugs" crowd attacking the medical crowd because they were somewhat honest that they were using it as a door to eventual decriminalization. Obviously the argument had no effect, since I don't care. If we legalize marijuana whats the worse that happens? Our daughters start dating jazz musicians? (during the debates over the bill, I got yelled at by older senior citizens for pointing out that much of the historical reason for making marijuana illegal was racial, with most of those terrible jazz musicians trying to steal our daughters being black, and in AZ, the fact that we might want to hang out with those damn Mexicans... gasp!).
I agree, to a point. We should, though, understand the views of history, and the social norms and mores of various cultures through history. In other words we should understand what the baseline, normal, views were. We risk dismissing every single person in history that did something brilliant, or had a brilliant idea, because they were "antisemetic", "sexist", "racist", "anti-communist", or a "papist".
As a person who invested extensive time and money in an education studying historical ideas, I've noticed that this is a huge problem; dismissing historical figures because they don't line up with our current transitory societal norms. Not liking Jews (or being dismissive of women, or blacks, or...) in a time when not liking Jews (or women, or blacks, or...) was common place isn't as important as not liking Jews (or...) now, when this view has mostly been exposed as bigoted lunacy.
This is especially common with Hitler (ontopic, so Godwin averted); anyone in Germany in the mid-30's who even mentioned the name Hitler, or had any sympathy whatsoever with his politics (even if they weren't in favor, or aware of the extent of the "final solution" bits) are magically discredited. This ignores a whole bunch of context in favor of moralizing newthink. Oddly while we dismiss certain people (like Martin Heidegger) we completely ignore the more odious bits of people closer to us (Woodrow Wilson's eugenics binge).
What on earth do alien invasions have to do with men or women? And would my GF have wanted to play HL2 more if it had been all about puppy dogs and fashion shows?
It isn't so much about the content, as the methods. A HL2 (and the rest of the HL games) are rather neutral. I never saw Gordon Freeman as an uber masculine Duke Nukem type. If you remade HL2 with Duke, your girlfriend would have probably liked it less.
I'm just using Duke because he's the most grievous, modern, offender. Insert basically any AAA action protagonist instead.
No mater what we define gamer as, I'm pretty sure that this marketing evaluation labels gamer as "One who buys games" and not caring in the least about how they play them.
You are correct on a basic level, but it would be insane for the industry not to divide games up into different classes and types, with detailed demographics for each. All "drivers" are people who drive cars, but the statistics for such would be completely worthless from an industry, and marketing, standpoint. the demographic who drive 100k+ luxury cars are different than the people who drive cheap economy cars, which is different from the crowd looking for hybrid/electric cars. Having these categories makes it useful, know who wants it, and what you need to do to expand your potential customer base, Grouping all "gamers" together is similarly worthless.
So i should buy all my music from Apple? No thanks, I'll shop around. I generally end up buying from Amazon though, since they are generally a bit cheaper, and their store isn't as obnoxious or slow. Often they have a better selection (at least for my tastes) as well.
Furthermore, I haven't seen anything saying that MP3 is obsolete, or upstaged by any other lossy encoder. AAC is a bit better, but an MP3 with a slightly higher bitrate, sounds almost the same, and is roughly the same size, and is supported by more devices. I like FLAC, but most things I own don't support it, and the sound difference isn't really worth wasting over twice as much space for (I am not an audiophile, I can't tell much difference between the disk and anything over a mid-200's bitrate, though I generally rip at 320ish VBR).
Oddly though, there is a ton of music not under the RIAA umbrella. I haven't actually bought any music from a label covered by the RIAA since college (roughly... 8 years?). I have, on the other hand, been spending more money on music than I've ever had. There are tons of very, very, good independent labels out there. This isn't a boycott, either, if I saw something brilliant on an RIAA label, I'd still probably buy it. I haven't though, since its generally all a bunch of very comfortable, committee designed and marketed, fluff, that sounds like pretty much everything else out there. Sometimes, though, I do think I'm keeping Tzadik and Ipecac, and Neurot in business.
I think this is the thing that REALLY scares the music establishment, not piracy, but the increased independent paths for musicians. You don't need the millions of dollar marketing budget that a label with thousands of artists can provide with the internet. You can discover 100s of good artists in a single afternoon, and buy tens of CDs without any of the dinosaurs ever getting a cent. The giant labels are becoming irrelevant. Piracy is a public dodge to try to deflect their real problems, and to squeeze every cent out of their over produced, over engineered, over marketed offerings.
Sorry for wandering off topic. Back on topic, a database of RIAA Md5 data would be pretty much worthless considering that over 50% of music these days aren't produced by RIAA labels. I'm sure, that with such a tool a majority of my legal music collection would be tagged as pirated. This is especially true since I've use torrents to get back up data for cassettes and records I own, even with some CDs since download a high quality MP3 album is much faster than ripping one. This might be illegal, but it is 100%, completely, ethical*.
* Further, so is downloading music from dead artists, or artists who never get any money from purchases, since the reason for copyright is to grant limited rights to artists, and try to coerce them into producing more works. If no producer of content ever benefits, there is no point to purchasing. It isn't about their poor families, or the poor mega-corporations, its only about me (the appreciative listener) and them (the artist). I have no moral qualms, either, about trying before you buy. Ditto for switching mediums, requiring me to buy and MP3 of a tape/record/8track/CD I own is extortion. I also have no problem with download music from living musicians, but tracks from before I was born (30 years ago), if you haven't managed to find another cash cow in that time, get a real goddamn job. I generally don't do these actions though (outside of trying before I buy) since there is plenty of current, living, artists to appreciate, and most of the older stuff I bought ten years ago, or more (or in the case of many older blues, jazz, and early rock musicians, I got on records from my parents, so I own them).
Perhaps toning down the misogamy in games a bit would help. The more "mature" a game is marketed, the more it is marketed solely to 13-14 year old boys (often with retarded social development). If I was a female I probably wouldn't want to play something that degrades me, objectifies me, and uses my gender as a joke or tool for masculine empowerment. Actually as a male gamer past a certain age, these features get very old as well. (i.e. in gaming: mature == adolescent boy)
Most "mature" games for "gamers" fall into this trap. Further, basically all of them have some sort of uber-macho, testosterone cartoon, protagonist, which also probably isn't something that most women can, or want to, connect to.
Duke Nukem is a good example of this. When the original came out I was within the "mature" demographic, and I found the humor awesome. With the new one I'm in the "just plain old" demographic, and I find the humor distasteful (not in the "edgy" sense), and just plain tiring. Further, it is just a distraction hoping to cover the fact that the actual game itself is about as shallow as the humor.
If more studios decided to excise or minimize these elements; gaming as a whole would benefit greatly. I've always found it odd that most gamers are in their 30's, but most games are made for 15 year old children.
I wonder what differences are contained in the term "gamer" when we're talking of gender differences. Are most women "gamers" in the same sense of how men use the term?
My girlfriend has picked up a bit of gaming from me, she even tried WoW* for a couple months. She mostly sticks to causal type games, though, like Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, and Peggle. She gets more use out of the Wii than me too, but mostly plays games like Trauma Center (though she did enjoy No More Heroes a bit more than me). For example her latest obsession is Kirby's Epic Yarn. If this was my obsession I wouldn't even call myself a gamer.
When, in a masculine sense, we say "gamer" we generally mean someone who plays the so-called "hardcore", action genre. With men, playing Farmville doesn't make you a "gamer". Is this term used the same way by women? If not, the comparison makes very little sense. Do most women WANT to play Halo XII, or DNF? (As a male, I sure as hell don't). If we made the action genre 100% "woman friendly", would women flock to it?
I'm not being sexist. With my girlfriend I've noticed that a large part of our gaming differences come from past experiences. She was raised to play with dolls, I was given a C64 and an Atari. She never picked up the knowledge of the various given schemes for gaming, nor the very specific dexterity needed. Thus she never gets to really play, since the difficulty curve is pretty high for her, whereas I've been doing it for 30 years.
*actually, and surprisingly, WoW has a rather large female audience. Some of my old guilds, when I used to play, were around 40-45% female. My friends list was almost representative of the actual gender makeup. Though often there was uncomfortable moments in instances and raids when pick-up members started lashing out with juvenile sexism, and the daily "omg yer a gurl" comments when people hopped on vent. Actually most of the MMOs I've played have had a rather high female component, it might be that the social aspects help.
What's the FBIs alternative? They have a warrant for the server containing a particular person's information. They can't realistically walk in and snip out the part of the hard drive that contains that, can they?
From what I've read about this instance, they could have taken the single server for the company they had a warrant for, instead they took the whole enclosure (several, non-related servers as well). From the sounds of it, the owner/maintainer of the data-center gave them the relevant information to grab just the single server, and the FBI disregarded it, either willfully or via ignorance.
That last bit is the most important. If its just ignorance, then its a mere mistake. No worries. If its willful, then it is a bona fide abuse, and we should get all uppity and indignant.
Not that I'm defending the FBI here, or our general data seizure policies. There's something a bit wonky about taking people's livelihoods (if you actually need computers for your job), and huge amounts of unrelated data. Sure the FBI can grab everything in my house that can be considered a computer (my phone, my gaming consoles, my laptop, my PC, all of my onsite backup CDs, DVDs, and HDDS, and probably my MP3 player and cameras), but this gets absurd when all they need to know is if offending file x is present or actually illegal. So they get my full finances, years of communications with my family, business, coworkers, and such. They get 30 years of photography, they get my full music collection, my browsing history, my choice of wallpaper, etc... Most of which would fall out of the domain of information that is actually pertinent to their case, and rational for the warrant. There isn't much of a bar to keep them from mining your data for other offences if the original charges aren't backed up by the seized evidence.
Worse, as far as I can tell, they don't have to return them in a timely manner, or even return them in the original, or even functional, condition. If you actually depend on your equipment for a living, this can be a very, very, bad thing. I find this a bit out of sync with how actual, physical, warrants function.
You sir, are a follower. I'd also be willing to bet you care about how many facebook friends you have, to show your social status as having a bunch of friends.
Yep, I must be concerned with how many Facebook "friends" I have because I don't want to add friends to Facebook.
Its not like I said "I suppose it doesn't matter, since I only actually check Facebook once a month or so (if even) when I have absolutely nothing better to do. Its not like my feed is full of any important information or communications to begin with, just minor burbles and desperate pleas for attention.", or anything.
Is it really hard to say 'I don't friend everyone and I'm not friending you because you're fucking annoying me about friending you'.
Notice I didn't say that the people I don't want to be friends with are harassing me. I suppose not. But lets say it again then; "the people who I don't want to friend aren't the ones harassing me". Its the generally well meaning people I'm actually real life friends with. Generally its because they really think I want to know so-and-so, and somehow missed them. With most people, in polite society, you can't insult their friends, so its hard to say "Nope, they are a moron who smokes meth in alleys", or even the milder "no, I don't consider so-and-so worth the extra six seconds it would take to click a button". I do have a very hard time just being a dick. But then again I wasn't raised in such a way as to glorify being a self-centered, antisocial, asshole.
If you have a problem with 'friending peer pressure' you really need to get some counselling. I'm dead serious, not trying to be an insulting ass like the rest of my post. If it bothers you that much, you need medication. You don't actually need other peoples approval to be happy in life, stop being so concerned with it and facebook will be far less of a problem for you.
Oh my God, you are so correct. I do! My largest problem is "friending peer pressure", there must be something terribly wrong with me! Actually if that's the worst of my problems I pretty damn happy. Did I ever say I lost sleep over it? Does it traumatize me? Does it cause me any pain outside of mild discomfort at social gatherings? Nope. That whole anecdote was more to illustrate a point than to show any deep concern over the issue.
I more posted that to point out social leverage. Thats how Facebook survives and strives. The more people you know on it, the more pressure there is to join it.
People such as yourself with low self esteem and the need to please others in order to feel value and self worth.
Your Psych101 wisdom astounds me. You must be a comptient psychologist, being able to glean my full personality from a quick, largely content-less, Slashdot post. I appreciate your concern though, but perhaps you should go aim your deep psychological insights at a more worthy subject.
You don't actually need other peoples approval to be happy in life, stop being so concerned with it and facebook will be far less of a problem for you.
I don't, and don't think I do. Thank you.
Let me give you a hint. No one, anywhere in the world has more than 10 friends (less than that really)
My grandfather used to say that too. And he's correct. Sadly I never really had pretenses of having many more, an observant individual, such as yourself, would have noticed how I used quotes around the term "friend" in the context of Facebook. Just to be clear, my friend's (lack of quotes) cat is my "friend" (quotes) on Facebook. Am I deeply invested in being real life, take-a-bullet-for, friends with my friend's cat?
Part of the problem, I suppose, is that these social networks use the word "friends", and not "acquainted" or "mildly amusing compatriot", or "coworker". Actually we need a better word to divide the friends from the
Yep, I don't like people in their mid-30's who smoke meth and hang out with 17 year olds... If your that type of person, well I'm probably a drag. You probably wouldn't enjoy my company! For your benefit, I would be you MyFaceSpaceBook "friend"!
Yet you let people do it to you all the time, that is in fact your exact complaint about these people are parties.
I do? Man, I never realized that people on Slashdot knew me so well! If your going to live under my sofa, you should come out from time to time for a beer.
You don't know what a friend is, these people are not your friends if they're bugging you about being friended.
The people I am friends with are "friends". The people I'm not friends with aren't. Its just the people I'm friends with are still very, very, close to the people who aren't. Most of the time their actually trying to be good friends "I notice your not friends with so-and-so, here is his name! Oh, and I gave him your cell phone number, he hasn't seen you in years, it will be neat!". Occasionally this is very nice, since are people out there I've lost touch with unwillingly. Occasionally I lost touch with people because I'm scared they'll steal my stereo, or smoke crack in my bathroom.
How do I say "I don't use Facebook" when half my friends are "friends" on Facebook?
And once again, I never blamed Facebook, though "social leverage" (which was, in part, my point) is its key to success. If everyone you know is on Facebook, it gets harder not to use Facebook. The same happened when I was in college with Microsoft's IM client, if I wanted to talk to anyone I met via IM, I had to have an MSN account, regardless of what protocol I used previously.
This is only true for "brothers", not "friends". Ask any Marine. They've got some hundred thousands of brothers. Ask if they everyone of them is their friend
You don't really have friends like mine then. I lived in a poor neighborhood, and many of us were homeless, addicts, criminals, or all of the above. It creates quite a bond, it seems.
Also its more like "A is friend of B, X, Y, and Z, A used to be friend of C, C is friend of B and X, Y, and Z; therefore A must still be friend of C."
Asses sometimes succeed. Spineless people never do.
Judging from your earlier tone, my must be very successful. I kid!
You stand there for an *hour* "getting chastised"?
You can't *understand* "hyperbole"?
I've tried some of your (oh so spineful) approaches, and generally its more trouble than its worth, since it always gets back to the person who you don't want to "friend", and then you get to listen to them whining, then you get to listen to everyone, next time you see them say "you made so and so upset".
(finally) "Just fuck off with this shit will you" (leaves room).
Oh yeah... alienating people over something as asinine as Facebook is so much better than the alternative.
Or just be spineless for the rest of your life. It's up to you.
I never blamed Facebook. It just makes it a bit harder to do what the previous poster said. Sometimes, if I had my druthers, I wouldn't even be on Facebook. Sadly I have a couple friends where pretty much the only way to communicate with them is with it. Its sad and amusing that there is a decent segment of the youngish (30 something) population who has completely failed to grasp email. I know many people who don't even have a personal email account, much less check it, and this MyFaceSpaceBook has become the de facto standard for quick communications (that and SMS).
Social networks exist because of the exploitation of social leverage. I, personally, miss Livejournal, since it allowed me to type pretty much open letters to my friends. It allowed content. But as social networking evolves the emphasis is much less on content and on mere superficial ass sniffing. There isn't much of interest that can be said in a mere 250 (or 140) characters.
You've never ran into the "friend of a friend guilt" trip, I see.
I have many friends on Facebook from back when I was a punk kid. A good portion of them grew up into decent adults, but a proportion of them are developmentally atrophied at 16-21. I have no problem being friends with the ones that grew up, but try to avoid the other group like the plague. Sadly many of the latter group have finally discovered computers and smart phones.
Now every time I go to a party or generally hang out with my old friends I get to spend an hour of people chastising me for not being friends with so-and-so (who happens to be in their mid-30s hanging out with 18 year old kids in back alleys doing drugs). I've had five people all gang up on me, trying to convince me of the merits of "friending" people who'd I rather never think of again. It gets worse when these people show up places, since then I have to listen to them guilt trip me as well.
If often comes to the point where I might as well "friend" them, since it saves me hassle and stress in the long run. I suppose it doesn't matter, since I only actually check Facebook once a month or so (if even) when I have absolutely nothing better to do. Its not like my feed is full of any important information or communications to begin with, just minor burbles and desperate pleas for attention.
My girlfriend is completing her masters in education. Her peers, almost all of which are actual teachers, are among the dumbest people I have ever met. Bad grammar, inability to cite or use reference material ("Zomg! Wikipedia is totally a source!"), endemic specious reasoning, mindful ignorance of science and relevant statistics (especially when it gets in the way of pet theories and popular dogma)... you name it.
My girlfriend got screamed at (and almost kicked from a class) for telling someone off who wanted to send mailers to parents telling them not to get their children vaccinated since it causes autism. Another time she got terrible marks for using relevant statistics. Another time for dismissing "critical methods" (using education as a method of social change) as indoctrination and propaganda. Attack the core idea of "self esteem" (over achievement) and you are instantly ostracized as an uncaring fascist.
When we finally squeeze out children, they will be home schooled.
My I'm in my early-30s, my girlfriend is in her late 20s, he have a pretty decent room full of books in our house. When I was under 20, I still had a decent collection of books, but not nearly as impressive since A) I didn't have my own space, and B) I shared a library with my parents (a 20x20 room with wall to ceiling shelves).
I always find it somewhat depressing, and amusing, when people come over and the first thing they say is "wow, thats a lot of books, did you read them all?". You can tell how the evening conversation will trend by the comments you get on your library. The people who seem confused by it will end up playing Rockband silently for hours, while trying desperately to deplete your liquor cabinet. The people who rush over and start pointing out books and talking about them will end up sitting on the patio having heated, interesting, discussions until the neighbors call the cops at 4:00am.
Though I have yet to see someone enter my personal library and not silently walk away shaking their heads. I suppose 20 square feet of philosophy books has that effect. I lie, I met one girl who also managed to go to school for it, and she was very happy to offer to burn half my books for me.
More on topic - I find it very odd that Slashdot has so many proud willful illiterates. I suppose its a matter of upbringing, my parents raised me to see reading as an end in itself, an act that is purely enjoyable; not as a means to pack "as much entertainment into my head in the most efficient way possible" (paraphrasing someone in this discussion). Reading increasing vocabulary, which increasing your ability to communicating ideas to others, and to conceive of more nuanced ideas yourself. Reading lets you drift off. Reading communicates ideas by seduction, where other, brasher, forms of media do so forcibly.
When we talk of cinema also having merits, we ignore the fact that most people watch movies with Adam Sandler or directed by Micheal Bay, and not Lars Von Trier, or Goddard, or other intelligent producers. I would say the trashiest book probably has more content than the average movie. When we slide our standards up a bit (and alienate a greater share of our audience) things start coming closer to parity.
Slashdot Mirror
The only straight razor I ever saw was in a great-uncle's barber shop. It was more decoration by the time I saw it. From what I heard they required a bit of care and maintenance when actually used.
When I used to live in an actual city, and not the soulless suburbs, there was a barber shop down the road my a couple Eastern European kids, who came over here during some nasty politics. Their ran their shop like their dad did back were-ever they came from (I think a -stan).
For $14 you could get a full haircut, and a full shave with a straight razor, including foam applied by a badger brush, and a decent earful of politics. It was a very nice experience, once you got past the fact that some guy was running a razor across your neck. Generally while talking about how he actually managed to kill a fair amount of someone during a war.
Not as good as a shop in a small mountain college town I used to live in, where $14 would get a haircut, a shave, and a massage (by a lady).
Dude, stop it with the linux fanboyism.
I'm not. Actually the whole bottom bit was to illustrate how stupid install base pissing contests are, especially in the mobile market. Notice how, on a discussion about phones, you expanded it to include non-phones, then I expanded it to include a whole real operating system, also notice that I extended this to two products (Windows and IE) which a majority of us here don't find very special, despite being insanely popular. I don't care is Linux, iOS, Android, Windows, or whatever else is "winning", I find it an absolutely moronic metric.
Back on topic, Apple has been hinting at moving away from Samsung for awhile now. So even if this ban doesn't happen (it won't), Samsung loses Apple. If, on the other hand, this ban does happen, Android (and Windows) devices will rise to fill the gap, and most of them are also using Samsung memory. As much as the fanboys would like to argue otherwise, iPhones (/pad/pod/touch) aren't in a separate class than other mobile platforms, they are completely replaceable, and completely analogous, with other devices. If the iPhone falls in the US, Samsung's market would remain roughly stable.
. If you just compare device numbers sold iOS wins again by a significant margin.
Does it? I don't see any evidence of this. It might be out there, but... And does said evidence take in account, again, EVERY device running Android? And, again, who (profanity here) care what OS the device runs? Win Mobile devices need flash, iOS devices need flash, Android devices need flash, homebrew Linux devices (like the Kindle) need flash, homebrew other OS devices need flash. Hardware has nothing whatsoever to do with whatever OS a platform is using. More to the point; do you really think that if all iwhatnots suddenly were banned, people wouldn't buy the alternatives in equal number (ignoring whinging fanboys, which are an extreme minority of any user base)?
Oh no! I can't buy an iPhone/pad/pod/touch! I guess I'll do without a smartphone (tablet/mp3 player)? Or... buy the exact same product (meaning does has parity of function) from a different manufactures, and running a different, equally capable, OS? The only market that would be hurt, really, is tablets, since most people with iPads own them for their Apple-ness, and the "hip factor" far outweighs the actual utility factor (unlike phones), and there are no competitive products out there yet. But removing tablets from Samsung's market isn't going to hurt much, since they are pretty uncommon (what percentage of Americans own an iPad? 2-3%?)
My favorite is from kids who were forced to write a book report on something and then posted it on Amazon (perhaps even as part of the assignment).
"I had to read Faulkner's xxxx for class, it was totally boring and long. It was stupid. The end.".... If Amazon considers that useful, then EVERYTHING is useful. I mostly use the reviews to try to find books that might be interesting to me to add to my "find" list. But they get more and more useless as you venture outside of literature. I was recently looking to buy a cheap, low powered, airsoft gun to teach some pigeons a lesson, and the reviews were around 99% of astroturf. It was actually somewhat shocking, with some guns had terrible reviews (it killed my dog, and ran away with my wife) had reference to the "far superior" gun sold by another vendor, except said superior gun was the exact same brand and model as the negatively reviewed one. I actually doubt that there was a single actual, legitimate, review on any of the products I looked at. It was academically interesting though, since most of the scammers actually put in decent negative bits, just to confuse some people into thinking the reviews were real.
Gah, I hate Amazon...
Uh... wait... So Apple wins if you compare phones AND mp3 players AND tablets? Seems a bit of a stretch, especially when the story is about... well.. phones. This ignores the fact that Android has absolutely nothing to do with the story, nor does the respective market shares of devices, or, sillier still, mobile OSs.
We were talking about Samsung still being able to sell memory to devices makers if this ban happens. Last I checked flash memory didn't care if it was in an Apple branded device or anything else, much less what arbitrary flavor of OS said device is running. The reasoning goes; if Apple can't sell iPhones in the US, then people will still need devices, those devices will also have (probably) Samsung memory, regardless of what OS they run.
Further, who cares? Oh no, iOS has more installs! Should I care? Is that, magically, a measure of quality now? If so, then we all know Windows is the best OS, and IE is the best browser. Apple always has been that way, they control the hardware and software, so comparing them to the rest of the ecosystem isn't very useful.
Also, is there any proof to your claim that iOS "wins" when you take in account IPod Touch and iPads? Does this ignore the various flavors of Nook, and all of the various (albeit flawed) Android tablets, including the cheap Chinese ones? What happens if I expand "Android" into "mobile devices running modified Linux kernels, since it is pretty much nothing more than a modified kernel with some skinning and tweaks.
I can imagine good sex being beyond epic on LSD. Not that I would get any chance to sex in the first place, though. ;)
It could be, at times. But often it required way to much engagement. When I used to take LSD (a long time ago) I was a "wanderer", the second it kicked in I had to take a walk. After that I was like some sort of very happy kid with ADD, the nearest shiny thing would completely take my attention until I saw something new and interesting (its LSD, so that would take around .0003 seconds). Sex required me to pay attention.
You also have the problem that people's faces do very, very, strange things on a decent dose. Sometimes those things are terribly flattering.
I had a friend who had a string of "hentai-esque" moments while trying to have sex on acid. Sex organs can be very scary things.
I tried it once on mescaline, but later I wasn't even sure if another person was present, or if it even happened at all. The person who I was possibly having sex with didn't remember either. It was another question mark shaped notch on my bed frame (ah... youth!).
What therapy did you use for migraines? Pretty much nothing worked for them when I used to have them commonly. I also had cluster headaches for a while, and pretty much NOTHING worked on them. For migraines I used to use ketoprofen (when it was sold as little over the counter headache pills, something they pretty much stopped doing), and it sometimes took the edge off, marijuana also worked a bit. As for the clusters... nothing. Clusters are much, much, worse than migraines. If a migraine was a movie directed by Stephen Speilburg, then a cluster headache would be directed by Rob Zombie.
What type of, non drug, therapy do you suggest?
On topic, as a person who suffered both migraines and clusters, I wonder how much of my drug use was self-medication. When I was young I didn't care one bit for for most recreational drugs, but I loved LSD. The period which I used the most LSD (trying to stay on it for weeks at a time) was also the period where I had the worst cluster headaches. As they started waning, so did my use of LSD.
I, on a personal level, and happy with the idea of medicating things with marijuana, not because I care if its terribly effective, but because it opens the door to eventual legalization, which would lead to a bit of a saner view on drugs. It might be therapeutic, but I think most people who advocate legal medical usage have the same ulterior motives. That actually was an issue here in AZ on our medicalization bill, with the "war on drugs" crowd attacking the medical crowd because they were somewhat honest that they were using it as a door to eventual decriminalization. Obviously the argument had no effect, since I don't care. If we legalize marijuana whats the worse that happens? Our daughters start dating jazz musicians? (during the debates over the bill, I got yelled at by older senior citizens for pointing out that much of the historical reason for making marijuana illegal was racial, with most of those terrible jazz musicians trying to steal our daughters being black, and in AZ, the fact that we might want to hang out with those damn Mexicans... gasp!).
I agree, to a point. We should, though, understand the views of history, and the social norms and mores of various cultures through history. In other words we should understand what the baseline, normal, views were. We risk dismissing every single person in history that did something brilliant, or had a brilliant idea, because they were "antisemetic", "sexist", "racist", "anti-communist", or a "papist".
As a person who invested extensive time and money in an education studying historical ideas, I've noticed that this is a huge problem; dismissing historical figures because they don't line up with our current transitory societal norms. Not liking Jews (or being dismissive of women, or blacks, or...) in a time when not liking Jews (or women, or blacks, or...) was common place isn't as important as not liking Jews (or...) now, when this view has mostly been exposed as bigoted lunacy.
This is especially common with Hitler (ontopic, so Godwin averted); anyone in Germany in the mid-30's who even mentioned the name Hitler, or had any sympathy whatsoever with his politics (even if they weren't in favor, or aware of the extent of the "final solution" bits) are magically discredited. This ignores a whole bunch of context in favor of moralizing newthink. Oddly while we dismiss certain people (like Martin Heidegger) we completely ignore the more odious bits of people closer to us (Woodrow Wilson's eugenics binge).
What on earth do alien invasions have to do with men or women? And would my GF have wanted to play HL2 more if it had been all about puppy dogs and fashion shows?
It isn't so much about the content, as the methods. A HL2 (and the rest of the HL games) are rather neutral. I never saw Gordon Freeman as an uber masculine Duke Nukem type. If you remade HL2 with Duke, your girlfriend would have probably liked it less.
I'm just using Duke because he's the most grievous, modern, offender. Insert basically any AAA action protagonist instead.
touche!
No mater what we define gamer as, I'm pretty sure that this marketing evaluation labels gamer as "One who buys games" and not caring in the least about how they play them.
You are correct on a basic level, but it would be insane for the industry not to divide games up into different classes and types, with detailed demographics for each. All "drivers" are people who drive cars, but the statistics for such would be completely worthless from an industry, and marketing, standpoint. the demographic who drive 100k+ luxury cars are different than the people who drive cheap economy cars, which is different from the crowd looking for hybrid/electric cars. Having these categories makes it useful, know who wants it, and what you need to do to expand your potential customer base, Grouping all "gamers" together is similarly worthless.
mean, who uses MP3 anymore, this isn't 1999.
Amazon.
If you use iTunes, it will come in AAC.
So i should buy all my music from Apple? No thanks, I'll shop around. I generally end up buying from Amazon though, since they are generally a bit cheaper, and their store isn't as obnoxious or slow. Often they have a better selection (at least for my tastes) as well.
Furthermore, I haven't seen anything saying that MP3 is obsolete, or upstaged by any other lossy encoder. AAC is a bit better, but an MP3 with a slightly higher bitrate, sounds almost the same, and is roughly the same size, and is supported by more devices. I like FLAC, but most things I own don't support it, and the sound difference isn't really worth wasting over twice as much space for (I am not an audiophile, I can't tell much difference between the disk and anything over a mid-200's bitrate, though I generally rip at 320ish VBR).
Oddly though, there is a ton of music not under the RIAA umbrella. I haven't actually bought any music from a label covered by the RIAA since college (roughly... 8 years?). I have, on the other hand, been spending more money on music than I've ever had. There are tons of very, very, good independent labels out there. This isn't a boycott, either, if I saw something brilliant on an RIAA label, I'd still probably buy it. I haven't though, since its generally all a bunch of very comfortable, committee designed and marketed, fluff, that sounds like pretty much everything else out there. Sometimes, though, I do think I'm keeping Tzadik and Ipecac, and Neurot in business.
I think this is the thing that REALLY scares the music establishment, not piracy, but the increased independent paths for musicians. You don't need the millions of dollar marketing budget that a label with thousands of artists can provide with the internet. You can discover 100s of good artists in a single afternoon, and buy tens of CDs without any of the dinosaurs ever getting a cent. The giant labels are becoming irrelevant. Piracy is a public dodge to try to deflect their real problems, and to squeeze every cent out of their over produced, over engineered, over marketed offerings.
Sorry for wandering off topic. Back on topic, a database of RIAA Md5 data would be pretty much worthless considering that over 50% of music these days aren't produced by RIAA labels. I'm sure, that with such a tool a majority of my legal music collection would be tagged as pirated. This is especially true since I've use torrents to get back up data for cassettes and records I own, even with some CDs since download a high quality MP3 album is much faster than ripping one. This might be illegal, but it is 100%, completely, ethical*.
* Further, so is downloading music from dead artists, or artists who never get any money from purchases, since the reason for copyright is to grant limited rights to artists, and try to coerce them into producing more works. If no producer of content ever benefits, there is no point to purchasing. It isn't about their poor families, or the poor mega-corporations, its only about me (the appreciative listener) and them (the artist). I have no moral qualms, either, about trying before you buy. Ditto for switching mediums, requiring me to buy and MP3 of a tape/record/8track/CD I own is extortion. I also have no problem with download music from living musicians, but tracks from before I was born (30 years ago), if you haven't managed to find another cash cow in that time, get a real goddamn job. I generally don't do these actions though (outside of trying before I buy) since there is plenty of current, living, artists to appreciate, and most of the older stuff I bought ten years ago, or more (or in the case of many older blues, jazz, and early rock musicians, I got on records from my parents, so I own them).
Perhaps toning down the misogamy in games a bit would help. The more "mature" a game is marketed, the more it is marketed solely to 13-14 year old boys (often with retarded social development). If I was a female I probably wouldn't want to play something that degrades me, objectifies me, and uses my gender as a joke or tool for masculine empowerment. Actually as a male gamer past a certain age, these features get very old as well. (i.e. in gaming: mature == adolescent boy)
Most "mature" games for "gamers" fall into this trap. Further, basically all of them have some sort of uber-macho, testosterone cartoon, protagonist, which also probably isn't something that most women can, or want to, connect to.
Duke Nukem is a good example of this. When the original came out I was within the "mature" demographic, and I found the humor awesome. With the new one I'm in the "just plain old" demographic, and I find the humor distasteful (not in the "edgy" sense), and just plain tiring. Further, it is just a distraction hoping to cover the fact that the actual game itself is about as shallow as the humor.
If more studios decided to excise or minimize these elements; gaming as a whole would benefit greatly. I've always found it odd that most gamers are in their 30's, but most games are made for 15 year old children.
I wonder what differences are contained in the term "gamer" when we're talking of gender differences. Are most women "gamers" in the same sense of how men use the term?
My girlfriend has picked up a bit of gaming from me, she even tried WoW* for a couple months. She mostly sticks to causal type games, though, like Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, and Peggle. She gets more use out of the Wii than me too, but mostly plays games like Trauma Center (though she did enjoy No More Heroes a bit more than me). For example her latest obsession is Kirby's Epic Yarn. If this was my obsession I wouldn't even call myself a gamer.
When, in a masculine sense, we say "gamer" we generally mean someone who plays the so-called "hardcore", action genre. With men, playing Farmville doesn't make you a "gamer". Is this term used the same way by women? If not, the comparison makes very little sense. Do most women WANT to play Halo XII, or DNF? (As a male, I sure as hell don't). If we made the action genre 100% "woman friendly", would women flock to it?
I'm not being sexist. With my girlfriend I've noticed that a large part of our gaming differences come from past experiences. She was raised to play with dolls, I was given a C64 and an Atari. She never picked up the knowledge of the various given schemes for gaming, nor the very specific dexterity needed. Thus she never gets to really play, since the difficulty curve is pretty high for her, whereas I've been doing it for 30 years.
*actually, and surprisingly, WoW has a rather large female audience. Some of my old guilds, when I used to play, were around 40-45% female. My friends list was almost representative of the actual gender makeup. Though often there was uncomfortable moments in instances and raids when pick-up members started lashing out with juvenile sexism, and the daily "omg yer a gurl" comments when people hopped on vent. Actually most of the MMOs I've played have had a rather high female component, it might be that the social aspects help.
What's the FBIs alternative? They have a warrant for the server containing a particular person's information. They can't realistically walk in and snip out the part of the hard drive that contains that, can they?
From what I've read about this instance, they could have taken the single server for the company they had a warrant for, instead they took the whole enclosure (several, non-related servers as well). From the sounds of it, the owner/maintainer of the data-center gave them the relevant information to grab just the single server, and the FBI disregarded it, either willfully or via ignorance.
That last bit is the most important. If its just ignorance, then its a mere mistake. No worries. If its willful, then it is a bona fide abuse, and we should get all uppity and indignant.
Not that I'm defending the FBI here, or our general data seizure policies. There's something a bit wonky about taking people's livelihoods (if you actually need computers for your job), and huge amounts of unrelated data. Sure the FBI can grab everything in my house that can be considered a computer (my phone, my gaming consoles, my laptop, my PC, all of my onsite backup CDs, DVDs, and HDDS, and probably my MP3 player and cameras), but this gets absurd when all they need to know is if offending file x is present or actually illegal. So they get my full finances, years of communications with my family, business, coworkers, and such. They get 30 years of photography, they get my full music collection, my browsing history, my choice of wallpaper, etc... Most of which would fall out of the domain of information that is actually pertinent to their case, and rational for the warrant. There isn't much of a bar to keep them from mining your data for other offences if the original charges aren't backed up by the seized evidence.
Worse, as far as I can tell, they don't have to return them in a timely manner, or even return them in the original, or even functional, condition. If you actually depend on your equipment for a living, this can be a very, very, bad thing. I find this a bit out of sync with how actual, physical, warrants function.
You sir, are a follower. I'd also be willing to bet you care about how many facebook friends you have, to show your social status as having a bunch of friends.
Yep, I must be concerned with how many Facebook "friends" I have because I don't want to add friends to Facebook.
Its not like I said "I suppose it doesn't matter, since I only actually check Facebook once a month or so (if even) when I have absolutely nothing better to do. Its not like my feed is full of any important information or communications to begin with, just minor burbles and desperate pleas for attention.", or anything.
Is it really hard to say 'I don't friend everyone and I'm not friending you because you're fucking annoying me about friending you'.
Notice I didn't say that the people I don't want to be friends with are harassing me. I suppose not. But lets say it again then; "the people who I don't want to friend aren't the ones harassing me". Its the generally well meaning people I'm actually real life friends with. Generally its because they really think I want to know so-and-so, and somehow missed them. With most people, in polite society, you can't insult their friends, so its hard to say "Nope, they are a moron who smokes meth in alleys", or even the milder "no, I don't consider so-and-so worth the extra six seconds it would take to click a button". I do have a very hard time just being a dick. But then again I wasn't raised in such a way as to glorify being a self-centered, antisocial, asshole.
If you have a problem with 'friending peer pressure' you really need to get some counselling. I'm dead serious, not trying to be an insulting ass like the rest of my post. If it bothers you that much, you need medication. You don't actually need other peoples approval to be happy in life, stop being so concerned with it and facebook will be far less of a problem for you.
Oh my God, you are so correct. I do! My largest problem is "friending peer pressure", there must be something terribly wrong with me! Actually if that's the worst of my problems I pretty damn happy. Did I ever say I lost sleep over it? Does it traumatize me? Does it cause me any pain outside of mild discomfort at social gatherings? Nope. That whole anecdote was more to illustrate a point than to show any deep concern over the issue.
I more posted that to point out social leverage. Thats how Facebook survives and strives. The more people you know on it, the more pressure there is to join it.
People such as yourself with low self esteem and the need to please others in order to feel value and self worth.
Your Psych101 wisdom astounds me. You must be a comptient psychologist, being able to glean my full personality from a quick, largely content-less, Slashdot post. I appreciate your concern though, but perhaps you should go aim your deep psychological insights at a more worthy subject.
You don't actually need other peoples approval to be happy in life, stop being so concerned with it and facebook will be far less of a problem for you.
I don't, and don't think I do. Thank you.
Let me give you a hint. No one, anywhere in the world has more than 10 friends (less than that really)
My grandfather used to say that too. And he's correct. Sadly I never really had pretenses of having many more, an observant individual, such as yourself, would have noticed how I used quotes around the term "friend" in the context of Facebook. Just to be clear, my friend's (lack of quotes) cat is my "friend" (quotes) on Facebook. Am I deeply invested in being real life, take-a-bullet-for, friends with my friend's cat?
Part of the problem, I suppose, is that these social networks use the word "friends", and not "acquainted" or "mildly amusing compatriot", or "coworker". Actually we need a better word to divide the friends from the
Yep, I don't like people in their mid-30's who smoke meth and hang out with 17 year olds... If your that type of person, well I'm probably a drag. You probably wouldn't enjoy my company! For your benefit, I would be you MyFaceSpaceBook "friend"!
You can thank me.
Yet you let people do it to you all the time, that is in fact your exact complaint about these people are parties.
I do? Man, I never realized that people on Slashdot knew me so well! If your going to live under my sofa, you should come out from time to time for a beer.
You don't know what a friend is, these people are not your friends if they're bugging you about being friended.
The people I am friends with are "friends". The people I'm not friends with aren't. Its just the people I'm friends with are still very, very, close to the people who aren't. Most of the time their actually trying to be good friends "I notice your not friends with so-and-so, here is his name! Oh, and I gave him your cell phone number, he hasn't seen you in years, it will be neat!". Occasionally this is very nice, since are people out there I've lost touch with unwillingly. Occasionally I lost touch with people because I'm scared they'll steal my stereo, or smoke crack in my bathroom.
How do I say "I don't use Facebook" when half my friends are "friends" on Facebook?
And once again, I never blamed Facebook, though "social leverage" (which was, in part, my point) is its key to success. If everyone you know is on Facebook, it gets harder not to use Facebook. The same happened when I was in college with Microsoft's IM client, if I wanted to talk to anyone I met via IM, I had to have an MSN account, regardless of what protocol I used previously.
This is only true for "brothers", not "friends". Ask any Marine. They've got some hundred thousands of brothers. Ask if they everyone of them is their friend
You don't really have friends like mine then. I lived in a poor neighborhood, and many of us were homeless, addicts, criminals, or all of the above. It creates quite a bond, it seems.
Also its more like "A is friend of B, X, Y, and Z, A used to be friend of C, C is friend of B and X, Y, and Z; therefore A must still be friend of C."
Asses sometimes succeed. Spineless people never do.
Judging from your earlier tone, my must be very successful. I kid!
You stand there for an *hour* "getting chastised"?
You can't *understand* "hyperbole"?
I've tried some of your (oh so spineful) approaches, and generally its more trouble than its worth, since it always gets back to the person who you don't want to "friend", and then you get to listen to them whining, then you get to listen to everyone, next time you see them say "you made so and so upset".
(finally) "Just fuck off with this shit will you" (leaves room).
Oh yeah... alienating people over something as asinine as Facebook is so much better than the alternative.
Or just be spineless for the rest of your life. It's up to you.
Better spineless than an ass.
I never blamed Facebook. It just makes it a bit harder to do what the previous poster said. Sometimes, if I had my druthers, I wouldn't even be on Facebook. Sadly I have a couple friends where pretty much the only way to communicate with them is with it. Its sad and amusing that there is a decent segment of the youngish (30 something) population who has completely failed to grasp email. I know many people who don't even have a personal email account, much less check it, and this MyFaceSpaceBook has become the de facto standard for quick communications (that and SMS).
Social networks exist because of the exploitation of social leverage. I, personally, miss Livejournal, since it allowed me to type pretty much open letters to my friends. It allowed content. But as social networking evolves the emphasis is much less on content and on mere superficial ass sniffing. There isn't much of interest that can be said in a mere 250 (or 140) characters.
Don’t friend them.
You've never ran into the "friend of a friend guilt" trip, I see.
I have many friends on Facebook from back when I was a punk kid. A good portion of them grew up into decent adults, but a proportion of them are developmentally atrophied at 16-21. I have no problem being friends with the ones that grew up, but try to avoid the other group like the plague. Sadly many of the latter group have finally discovered computers and smart phones.
Now every time I go to a party or generally hang out with my old friends I get to spend an hour of people chastising me for not being friends with so-and-so (who happens to be in their mid-30s hanging out with 18 year old kids in back alleys doing drugs). I've had five people all gang up on me, trying to convince me of the merits of "friending" people who'd I rather never think of again. It gets worse when these people show up places, since then I have to listen to them guilt trip me as well.
If often comes to the point where I might as well "friend" them, since it saves me hassle and stress in the long run. I suppose it doesn't matter, since I only actually check Facebook once a month or so (if even) when I have absolutely nothing better to do. Its not like my feed is full of any important information or communications to begin with, just minor burbles and desperate pleas for attention.
My girlfriend is completing her masters in education. Her peers, almost all of which are actual teachers, are among the dumbest people I have ever met. Bad grammar, inability to cite or use reference material ("Zomg! Wikipedia is totally a source!"), endemic specious reasoning, mindful ignorance of science and relevant statistics (especially when it gets in the way of pet theories and popular dogma)... you name it.
My girlfriend got screamed at (and almost kicked from a class) for telling someone off who wanted to send mailers to parents telling them not to get their children vaccinated since it causes autism. Another time she got terrible marks for using relevant statistics. Another time for dismissing "critical methods" (using education as a method of social change) as indoctrination and propaganda. Attack the core idea of "self esteem" (over achievement) and you are instantly ostracized as an uncaring fascist.
When we finally squeeze out children, they will be home schooled.
My I'm in my early-30s, my girlfriend is in her late 20s, he have a pretty decent room full of books in our house. When I was under 20, I still had a decent collection of books, but not nearly as impressive since A) I didn't have my own space, and B) I shared a library with my parents (a 20x20 room with wall to ceiling shelves).
I always find it somewhat depressing, and amusing, when people come over and the first thing they say is "wow, thats a lot of books, did you read them all?". You can tell how the evening conversation will trend by the comments you get on your library. The people who seem confused by it will end up playing Rockband silently for hours, while trying desperately to deplete your liquor cabinet. The people who rush over and start pointing out books and talking about them will end up sitting on the patio having heated, interesting, discussions until the neighbors call the cops at 4:00am.
Though I have yet to see someone enter my personal library and not silently walk away shaking their heads. I suppose 20 square feet of philosophy books has that effect. I lie, I met one girl who also managed to go to school for it, and she was very happy to offer to burn half my books for me.
More on topic - I find it very odd that Slashdot has so many proud willful illiterates. I suppose its a matter of upbringing, my parents raised me to see reading as an end in itself, an act that is purely enjoyable; not as a means to pack "as much entertainment into my head in the most efficient way possible" (paraphrasing someone in this discussion). Reading increasing vocabulary, which increasing your ability to communicating ideas to others, and to conceive of more nuanced ideas yourself. Reading lets you drift off. Reading communicates ideas by seduction, where other, brasher, forms of media do so forcibly.
When we talk of cinema also having merits, we ignore the fact that most people watch movies with Adam Sandler or directed by Micheal Bay, and not Lars Von Trier, or Goddard, or other intelligent producers. I would say the trashiest book probably has more content than the average movie. When we slide our standards up a bit (and alienate a greater share of our audience) things start coming closer to parity.