You're concerned about Alan Alda getting older people to watch who wouldn't otherwise? Um, I think we could do with some younger people learning science who wouldn't otherwise!
Fortunately most of us don't really care about size & power, somewhat meaningless metrics, so much as, ahem, effectiveness. Whether effective government means economic justice or cowboyism, or imposing certain cultural ideals or not, etc. - the interpretation of effectiveness - is an exercise left to the voter.
I think your point about criminals is important, though. The best thing that could happen to turn this around would be to end the drug war, but I think we're still too close to the generation(s) of Americans who started it to turn that beast around. I do, however, believe it will happen as the American Empire continues to decline...
Seriously, does any of this matter? Borat is somewhat redeemed by shining a harsh light on American culture rather than simply making fun of mideast/asian stereotypes - but at essence it is basically 21st century blackface minstrel stuff.
I don't think you'll hear much about Apple's Movie Store plans until the iTV is released next year. That's where their strategy is headed. I'd bet dollars to donuts they'll have tons of movies and TV content available when this sucker comes out. If not, they will within a year after all the movie studios start drooling over its success with TV show downloads.
Alternatively, I could just look back on this comment in a year's time and be laughing at myself for being so wrong...
You may have a point, but I'm not sure homeowner's associations and local laws have much to do with it. The idea that you can't just do anything you damn well please to do with the land sitting right next to your neighbors' lands doesn't have much to do with Microsoft and this story.
Most people get Windows with a PC purchase at Best Buy or from Dell or whatever. And if they decide to upgrade 2-3 components, they have to call Microsoft for permission.
Whereas you can do what you want with any Mac and Apple doesn't care. Yeah, you can't go install OS X on your Dell, but hey...
...many Americans do not value wealth so much as they place much more value on socioeconomic freedom as opposed to socioeconomic safety...
Really? Or have they just been told repeatedly by self-appointed "experts" that the best way to get the socioeconomic safety that they desire is through socioeconomic freedom?
...if I so choose, I can exercise far greater control over my socioeconomic standing than someone from a more socialist country.
Perhaps. If you've been granted via education the proper tools to do so. Including an adequate understanding of the legal system, business structures, lending rules and how to initiate the ideas you may have. Without that, you do what most Americans do, collect a paycheck (a salaried one if you're lucky).
What you describe is the "American dream" which is more a myth than a reality. Someone (perhaps you) mentioned in this same thread that most American millionaires are first-generation. That sounds neat until you realize how few there are.
The thing about socioeconomic safety is that some people, like you, worry about how much lower the ceiling is in more economically-left countries. "Freedom is hindered," is what you observe, as you note the less-rich nature of the very rich over there.
But only one kind of freedom is being hindered - the freedom to have more money. The thing is, the ceiling may be lower, but the floor is much higher, and all of those people have more freedoms through their economic safety than the average American enjoys through their imagined opportunity to become one of the few millionaires.
The Netherlands and the the UK (the other place I spent considerable time) are great places, but it's not home.
Simple things like standing in a line to wait for services or having a quick meal do not exist here.
OK, you must be talking about The Netherlands here because I know you're not talking about the UK. Queues are practically a religion in the UK, and every dang drug store has quick packaged foods you can pick up (not to mention other "quick meal" options).
On that note, there are so many factors that go into how "at home" one would feel anywhere, it ends up being a very personal, very individual decision. This Slashdot story seems tailor-made for a bunch of people who all think the same (usually libertarian technophiles around here) to come up with "the one true solution" for them. Luckily it seems there's more diversity showing than usual.
For me, an American who's only been to the UK for three weeks over two years, but is a minor Anglophile and hodgepodge history buff, the UK feels more like home than the US or anywhere else I've been.
Interesting. I don't think I would mind living in any of those countries, save the U.S., Mexico, Korea, Turkey and the Slovak Republic. I guess it ain't taxes that has much of anything to do with anything regarding how nice or not nice it might be to live somewhere.
Um, a divided legislature is a "good one" because it's a powerless legislature, which is only "good" by certain criteria, under certain circumstances (like, say, when the rest of government is pretty much fine and you don't want a lot of changes - e.g., during the Clinton administration).
If you have a corrupt executive branch that has acquired more power than it should have and is doing things you don't like, then the one thing you do not want is a powerless legislature.
Having access to eduaction has nothing to do with the intelligence of the person or their parents.
There you are. You said it yourself. The thing is, choosing few-to-no children follows education not intelligence. Just because someone does or does not have access to education says little, if anything, about their intelligence. So well-schooled humans choosing not to reproduce is not going to lower (or raise) the overall intelligence capacity of the species.
1984 painted a terrible fiction that has influenced our culture as an example. The Illuminatus trilogy, invaded our culture and subtly rearranged some of the furniture. Sorry you did not like it, it is one of my favorites.
Surely there has to be some threshold number of people to have read something or to be aware of it before anyone can claim it's "invaded our culture." I only ever meet "freaks and geeks" (and I don't use those terms disparagingly; I consider myself one) who have even heard of it, let alone read it. Unless by "our" you mean "the Slashdot demographic." Then, yes, I would agree it's somewhat part of that culture, although even less so than, say, Douglas Adams. And he's not a big blip on the culture meter.
I'm sure for people who love in-joke upon in-joke and have spent enough time wading through plethora of conspiracy theories and old sci-fi and fantasy, they're probably a nice romp.
But for me they were just a waste of time, and poorly written even when I was "getting" some stuff.
So, yeah, my opinion was that they were crap, too, and I couldn't finish. I felt I had better things to spend my mind on.
Ah, but you were not replying to the article, you were instead quite clearly replying to Slashdotters. And I was replying to you. Just because it's called "free trade" doesn't mean it is. If it were, it might not be so bad.
Voting for anyone you don't believe is the best candidate is throwing your vote away.
How am I ever supposed to approve 100% of any candidate? Many, I voted for Nader in 2000 but boy would I have been sorry if he'd won. The man represented a party of ideals, ideals I am closer to though not 100%. But the man himself was not the same as his party, and he has quite a few faults. He would not have made a good President by any measure.
You're right, we need to vote for "the best candidate" - but evaluating "best" must include more considerations than simply the party platform, or simply whether we like the person, or simply whether we dislike the opponent.
One thing you might consider, if the current batch of politicians is really so horrible - get involved. Do more than just vote. Participate in your party and help shape its dialog. Help new candidates replace the old ones. Help shape the party's future.
Voting for a 3rd party candidate does none of that. It makes the voter feel good, but beyond that, it's worse than worthless.
You're right, iPod and Walkman don't make sense, per se, but they are at least pronouncable, and are somewhat related to their nature. Walkman implies walking, which was of course the point, you could take your music with you. iPod implies a small container, which was of course the point, you could have a whole lot of music in one little thing.
Zune doesn't seem to imply anything, and has ambiguous pronunciation on top of that, at least when seen for the first time in print. Is it "Zoon" or "Zoonay" or "Zunny" or what? Probably the first one, intended to rhyme with "tune," but for some reason Zune just doesn't roll off the tongue, it kinda blends into speech, having both a fluid start and a fluid end. It's a soft, flowy kind of word. It's begging for a hard consonant, or at least a second syllable to hang on.
The whole thing just feels conceptually vague and hazy, like the mind of a middle manager at its brightest moments. Maybe that's what it reflects...
The name should say something about what it does or what it is that makes it worth buying. iPod and Walkman do that. Zune doesn't. But I can't think of anything better.
In fact, as I've been thinking about this, I'm really starting to appreciate the name iPod. For a little box that stores all your music, and now movies, audiobooks, TV shows, notes, calendars, contacts, and other files you might want to carry around, it really is an "I" Pod - the pod that carrys your stuff around.
I'm kinda surprised the Microsoft version wasn't called "MeBox" or something.;)
Zune. I guess it really doesn't matter, everyone's gonna call them iPods anyway. I never call my Sharp portable cassette player a portable cassette player. It's a walkman.
I'm not interested in the Zune unless it can play all the stuff I have now, and connect to everything I have now. I have some MP3s and a whole bunch of M4As (ripped myself, not from iTMS). I also have a couple PCs and a couple Macs. I only got an iPod once it could connect to all the machines. Its usefulness as a removable drive is part of the deal. It's more than just a music player.
OK, I'm not the average person. The average person is going to say, "well, time to get one of those iPod things," go to Target or whatever and say, "where are your iPods?" A store person is going to point to the MP3 player section, the person's going to see this thing and say, "well, that's the cheap one, I'll get that," and go home and use it.
That's the kind of person I see buying this. For the chic people, or tech people, the Microsoft brand might be too damaged, plus the player doesn't offer much new beyond the neat photo/song-sharing thing. Sure, the interface is flashy, but from what I've seen that would just get in the way for me.
The Zune (got what a horrible name, not even sure how to pronounce it) may succeed in being the first real iPod competitor, by sheer force of Microsoft's juggernaut market power, but I don't think it's enough to knock the iPod off its throne.
Yay, more nuclear! Then we have depleted uranium and uranium mining tailings to worry about! And a mountain full of waste we'll figure out how to use someday. Thanks, but count me out.
Instead of funding more dirty power plants, we could fund conservation & clean power and do just as well. As California has recently proven, we can cut back our power usage quite easily if we just do it
Slashdot Mirror
You're concerned about Alan Alda getting older people to watch who wouldn't otherwise? Um, I think we could do with some younger people learning science who wouldn't otherwise!
Because you're posting from the future?
chimpanzees=98% "human"
define "human"
Fortunately most of us don't really care about size & power, somewhat meaningless metrics, so much as, ahem, effectiveness. Whether effective government means economic justice or cowboyism, or imposing certain cultural ideals or not, etc. - the interpretation of effectiveness - is an exercise left to the voter.
I think your point about criminals is important, though. The best thing that could happen to turn this around would be to end the drug war, but I think we're still too close to the generation(s) of Americans who started it to turn that beast around. I do, however, believe it will happen as the American Empire continues to decline...
Seriously, does any of this matter? Borat is somewhat redeemed by shining a harsh light on American culture rather than simply making fun of mideast/asian stereotypes - but at essence it is basically 21st century blackface minstrel stuff.
Has everyone forgotten this?
I don't think you'll hear much about Apple's Movie Store plans until the iTV is released next year. That's where their strategy is headed. I'd bet dollars to donuts they'll have tons of movies and TV content available when this sucker comes out. If not, they will within a year after all the movie studios start drooling over its success with TV show downloads.
Alternatively, I could just look back on this comment in a year's time and be laughing at myself for being so wrong...
You may have a point, but I'm not sure homeowner's associations and local laws have much to do with it. The idea that you can't just do anything you damn well please to do with the land sitting right next to your neighbors' lands doesn't have much to do with Microsoft and this story.
Most people get Windows with a PC purchase at Best Buy or from Dell or whatever. And if they decide to upgrade 2-3 components, they have to call Microsoft for permission.
Whereas you can do what you want with any Mac and Apple doesn't care. Yeah, you can't go install OS X on your Dell, but hey...
It's worth pointing out here that there is no such thing as common sense. Such sense is learned. Or else such sense would be more common.
Really? Or have they just been told repeatedly by self-appointed "experts" that the best way to get the socioeconomic safety that they desire is through socioeconomic freedom?
Perhaps. If you've been granted via education the proper tools to do so. Including an adequate understanding of the legal system, business structures, lending rules and how to initiate the ideas you may have. Without that, you do what most Americans do, collect a paycheck (a salaried one if you're lucky).
What you describe is the "American dream" which is more a myth than a reality. Someone (perhaps you) mentioned in this same thread that most American millionaires are first-generation. That sounds neat until you realize how few there are.
The thing about socioeconomic safety is that some people, like you, worry about how much lower the ceiling is in more economically-left countries. "Freedom is hindered," is what you observe, as you note the less-rich nature of the very rich over there.
But only one kind of freedom is being hindered - the freedom to have more money. The thing is, the ceiling may be lower, but the floor is much higher, and all of those people have more freedoms through their economic safety than the average American enjoys through their imagined opportunity to become one of the few millionaires.
OK, you must be talking about The Netherlands here because I know you're not talking about the UK. Queues are practically a religion in the UK, and every dang drug store has quick packaged foods you can pick up (not to mention other "quick meal" options).
On that note, there are so many factors that go into how "at home" one would feel anywhere, it ends up being a very personal, very individual decision. This Slashdot story seems tailor-made for a bunch of people who all think the same (usually libertarian technophiles around here) to come up with "the one true solution" for them. Luckily it seems there's more diversity showing than usual.
For me, an American who's only been to the UK for three weeks over two years, but is a minor Anglophile and hodgepodge history buff, the UK feels more like home than the US or anywhere else I've been.
Interesting. I don't think I would mind living in any of those countries, save the U.S., Mexico, Korea, Turkey and the Slovak Republic. I guess it ain't taxes that has much of anything to do with anything regarding how nice or not nice it might be to live somewhere.
Um, a divided legislature is a "good one" because it's a powerless legislature, which is only "good" by certain criteria, under certain circumstances (like, say, when the rest of government is pretty much fine and you don't want a lot of changes - e.g., during the Clinton administration).
If you have a corrupt executive branch that has acquired more power than it should have and is doing things you don't like, then the one thing you do not want is a powerless legislature.
Cloaking devices are nice and all, but wake me when they've started work on a Chameleon Circuit.
There you are. You said it yourself. The thing is, choosing few-to-no children follows education not intelligence. Just because someone does or does not have access to education says little, if anything, about their intelligence. So well-schooled humans choosing not to reproduce is not going to lower (or raise) the overall intelligence capacity of the species.
Surely there has to be some threshold number of people to have read something or to be aware of it before anyone can claim it's "invaded our culture." I only ever meet "freaks and geeks" (and I don't use those terms disparagingly; I consider myself one) who have even heard of it, let alone read it. Unless by "our" you mean "the Slashdot demographic." Then, yes, I would agree it's somewhat part of that culture, although even less so than, say, Douglas Adams. And he's not a big blip on the culture meter.
I'm sure for people who love in-joke upon in-joke and have spent enough time wading through plethora of conspiracy theories and old sci-fi and fantasy, they're probably a nice romp.
But for me they were just a waste of time, and poorly written even when I was "getting" some stuff.
So, yeah, my opinion was that they were crap, too, and I couldn't finish. I felt I had better things to spend my mind on.
Ah, but you were not replying to the article, you were instead quite clearly replying to Slashdotters. And I was replying to you. Just because it's called "free trade" doesn't mean it is. If it were, it might not be so bad.
Who hates free trade? Who said anything about that? Way to exercise those talking points.
Our current trade policies are anything but "free" - well, capital is free to move around, but people and values are not.
As for "suggest a better way" - people have. But, as you have done, they are tarred as "hating free trade" and then ignored. And we all lose.
It sounds nice and "centrist" and "independent" to say "both presidents are at fault" and "both failed."
But it's worth knowing that Clinton tried and failed a couple times, while Bush never even tried. I know, distinctions, distinctions...
How am I ever supposed to approve 100% of any candidate? Many, I voted for Nader in 2000 but boy would I have been sorry if he'd won. The man represented a party of ideals, ideals I am closer to though not 100%. But the man himself was not the same as his party, and he has quite a few faults. He would not have made a good President by any measure.
You're right, we need to vote for "the best candidate" - but evaluating "best" must include more considerations than simply the party platform, or simply whether we like the person, or simply whether we dislike the opponent.
One thing you might consider, if the current batch of politicians is really so horrible - get involved. Do more than just vote. Participate in your party and help shape its dialog. Help new candidates replace the old ones. Help shape the party's future.
Voting for a 3rd party candidate does none of that. It makes the voter feel good, but beyond that, it's worse than worthless.
Not really - nature abhors a vacuum - but gravity loves it.
You're right, iPod and Walkman don't make sense, per se, but they are at least pronouncable, and are somewhat related to their nature. Walkman implies walking, which was of course the point, you could take your music with you. iPod implies a small container, which was of course the point, you could have a whole lot of music in one little thing.
;)
Zune doesn't seem to imply anything, and has ambiguous pronunciation on top of that, at least when seen for the first time in print. Is it "Zoon" or "Zoonay" or "Zunny" or what? Probably the first one, intended to rhyme with "tune," but for some reason Zune just doesn't roll off the tongue, it kinda blends into speech, having both a fluid start and a fluid end. It's a soft, flowy kind of word. It's begging for a hard consonant, or at least a second syllable to hang on.
The whole thing just feels conceptually vague and hazy, like the mind of a middle manager at its brightest moments. Maybe that's what it reflects...
The name should say something about what it does or what it is that makes it worth buying. iPod and Walkman do that. Zune doesn't. But I can't think of anything better.
In fact, as I've been thinking about this, I'm really starting to appreciate the name iPod. For a little box that stores all your music, and now movies, audiobooks, TV shows, notes, calendars, contacts, and other files you might want to carry around, it really is an "I" Pod - the pod that carrys your stuff around.
I'm kinda surprised the Microsoft version wasn't called "MeBox" or something.
Zune. I guess it really doesn't matter, everyone's gonna call them iPods anyway. I never call my Sharp portable cassette player a portable cassette player. It's a walkman.
I'm not interested in the Zune unless it can play all the stuff I have now, and connect to everything I have now. I have some MP3s and a whole bunch of M4As (ripped myself, not from iTMS). I also have a couple PCs and a couple Macs. I only got an iPod once it could connect to all the machines. Its usefulness as a removable drive is part of the deal. It's more than just a music player.
OK, I'm not the average person. The average person is going to say, "well, time to get one of those iPod things," go to Target or whatever and say, "where are your iPods?" A store person is going to point to the MP3 player section, the person's going to see this thing and say, "well, that's the cheap one, I'll get that," and go home and use it.
That's the kind of person I see buying this. For the chic people, or tech people, the Microsoft brand might be too damaged, plus the player doesn't offer much new beyond the neat photo/song-sharing thing. Sure, the interface is flashy, but from what I've seen that would just get in the way for me.
The Zune (got what a horrible name, not even sure how to pronounce it) may succeed in being the first real iPod competitor, by sheer force of Microsoft's juggernaut market power, but I don't think it's enough to knock the iPod off its throne.
Yay, more nuclear! Then we have depleted uranium and uranium mining tailings to worry about! And a mountain full of waste we'll figure out how to use someday. Thanks, but count me out.
Instead of funding more dirty power plants, we could fund conservation & clean power and do just as well. As California has recently proven, we can cut back our power usage quite easily if we just do it