If I gave them a task to do and they don't do it, why would I hire them?
Try hiring them first if you want them to do some kind of 'task' for you. You do realize that you are just one out of possibly hundreds of potential employers. You haven't shown them any special treatment. Why should they give any to you? Believe it or not their time is also worth something. All you probably succeeded in doing is narrowing down the applicants to the 10 most desperate.
Once again, you're saying that to be a grown up one has to accept working at a job they hate?
Except for the lucky few, that pretty much sums it up. I have never been able to get a job that I didn't hate. Everyone wants those jobs. So the competition is fierce. I would take a job like that for virtually no pay (i.e. $2.50/hr) if I could get one, but no dice. Right now I am mostly unemployed, surviving on $300-$400 a month from odd jobs. And I've never had anything even remotely resembling a 'wife'. BTW, that 'life' thing of which you speak. It's way overrated.
Who exactly is 'they' supposed to refer to? Many of the Japanese civilians killed in the allied bombings were not the same individuals responsible for the war atrocities you refer to. I don't see how indiscriminate killing can ever be justified even when it is seen as the only option. Even the fact that they would certainly have done the same to us without a moment's hesitation (given the chance) cannot justify it.
if i was a country in some of those US black lists I'd be developing WMD like mad
And just imagine how surprised you would be when you were invaded anyway. Nuclear weapons are really not very practical for many reasons, which is one reason why they have never been used except for that one time in WWII. As for chem/bio they are not much of a serious threat either. Show me an example in modern warfare where they have helped win a war and I may change my mind.
Note that, at the time the bombs were dropped, we (meaning everyone) did not know as much about the dangerous health effects of radiation, especially at smaller doses. Due to such ignorance, these bombs could have been seen more or less as oversized conventional bombs which cause a lot of physical destruction. Just something to keep in mind.
No. The parent poster is right. I am 35, and I still have virtually nothing in common with my father except physically. I always worried that I would become like him, but it just didn't happen. While there are some aspects of genetics that are a trap which you cannot escape, interests are not one of them. This shouldn't really be so surprising since even twins often have completely different interests. Of course true sheeple will be heavily influenced by whatever is in their environment.
It doesn't always work. Sometimes urban myths and other popular misconceptions can be found. Before believing anything you read there you had better be sure to get confirmation elsewhere. Not too surprising when you consider that 10 year olds can be the editors. I have seen 'book report' style entries that were clearly written by a preteen for what must have been a school project. Truth cannot be determined by popular opinion.
and a proper P2P algorithm will make sure that every piece is available uniformly.
Then BT is not a proper P2P algorithm. Unless you superseed it tends to not distribute the chunks evenly among clients. And even if you do superseed, eventually the torrent tends to settle back into a situation where everyone has the same chunks and is waiting for a seeder with a complete file to come and save the day. In my experience it is common to see 50 to 100 BT clients sitting and wating for the last 5% of a file for days or weeks. When properly set, Azureus will superseed whenever there are no other seeds. This does help reduce the problem.
Every torrent I've ever downloaded with over about 50 peers maxed out my broadband connection, up and down
Sounds like you should upgrade your 'broadband' connection then. I am currently downloading a mainstream torrent file from a mainstream tracker site. UL = 36 kbytes/sec. DL = 65 kbytes/sec. The only thing that is unusual about this is that the upload is kind of slow.
My download bandwidth is 10 mbit/sec theoretical and around 500-750 kbyte/sec in reality (maybe partly due to my modem). The fastest I have ever downloaded anything with bittorrent is around 120-150 kbytes/sec and that is often with thousands of peers and seeds. Typically I get speeds of around 50-75 kbytes/sec.
An important limitation to download speed in BT is your upload speed. I never get much more than a 1:2 UL/DL ratio. Usually if I can increase my UL I can increase my DL as well. This is the main reason IMO why BT is so much faster than Emule etc. It actively encourages people to devote as much UL bandwidth as possible to the torrent.
I have read the article and this tech sounds pretty cool to me. People have been talking for years about ways of incorporating error correction technologies into P2P clients. It works great for usenet releases. The biggest problem with BT IMO is not speed, but chunk availability. Torrents die off too quickly due to lack of seeds. Sounds like this tech could extend the life of a seedless torrent.
In my view, the biggest limitation on torrent speed is the archaic assymetrical limitations placed on most broadband users these days. I understand that ADSL is an inherently assymetrical technology, but cable modems are not. ISPs need to realize that people are not just browsing and downloading from websites anymore.
Proper release = bunch of identical-sized partfiles,.nfo, and.sfv files, all neatly in a properly named directory.
Sounds like you are talking about usenet releases. There is no need to package releases in 'a bunch of identical-sized partfiles' unless you plan to release on a newsgroup. Of course you can still include an sfv or md5 file if you want. Personally I try to avoid releases with multi-part rar files because it seems to take longer to extract and it cannot be seeded once it is converted to a useable format.
I would never blindly click on an exe I got from any file sharing program
What do you mean by 'blindly'? My SOP is just to scan the exe for viruses with Kaspersky AV before running the install program. In the past I always assumed that malware was confined to pseudo-freeware and some shareware programs. At least I had never heard of commercial software that was bundled with it.
Now that malware is starting to be bundled with something other than the pseudo-freeware that was its traditional vector, I am going to have to scan for malware in addition to viruses before opening a downloaded exe. Will Spybot, Adaware, etc. do this kind of pre-install scanning, finding malware even from within archives or embedded in an install program? I always associated these programs with finding malware that was already installed. I believe my version of Kaspersky AV (personal pro 5) does scan for some malware, but I have to wonder if their lists are as comprehensive as those of the traditional spyware removal tools.
Not only that, but the DLL does not EXIST in Safe Mode! It can ONLY be created and accessible during a normal boot
I didn't think that was even possible. How do they do that? I mean even if the app writes a new dll to memory and/or disk at every boot, can you not just delete the executable (in DOS etc.) that is creating the dll?
When you try to open it, you're faced with a licensing annoucement
And how long before they just do away with the licensing dialog box? At the very least I would expect the next version to execute whether you agree or disagree. After all they are already breaking the law by distributing the file itself.
So the real news here is the possibility that some kind of vulnerability has been found in Winrar to allow for automatic launching of executable files within the archive or of code embedded in the archive itself. Now that would be big news. But I didn't read anything about that in the article.
Can we please stop including WMV in the list of difficult to exploit media files. It has already been pointed out that a WMV file is completely unsafe. Once I foolishly downloaded one and it opened a website in my browser when I tried to open it. After that I deleted every single WMV file on my computer and will never download one again. They are quite scary.
But only the cracked versions will bypass the motherboard dongle and actually run on non-Apple hardware. Unless this increasingly hypothetical Mac user hacks his own hardware with underground chips or replaces parts with a soldering iron etc. After what happend this week, I guess anything is possible.
But after that, the emphasis on meritocracy and problem-solving really screws things up.
See that's the problems with geeks and self-confidence. I base confidence on facts, on past performance and not on some natural born certainty that I am REALLY GOOD. Why should I judge myself any differently from the way I would judge someone else? If an objective observer would look at me and say "Man that guy must get lots of hot chicks", then I am justified in believing it too. Confidence needs to be based on something more than optimism, wishful thinking, and delusions of grandeur. 'Self-confidence' the way women use it, is really a misnomer. What they really mean is just arrogance. You can only be confident about something when you have succeeded at it in the past. Eventually you start to expect success. That is genuine confidence.
All these euphemisms like 'love yourself' or 'accept yourself' are just ways of avoiding the central fact that women like big, alpha male, tough guy types. If you happen to be a 6'6" 250 lb geek who spends 3 hours a day in the gym lifting weights and the rest of the time drinking at the pub and just doing stuff without thinking too much about anything, you should be fine.
Ask yourself who is more justified in genuinely feeling confident of their abilities, the intelligent geek, a great problem solver, a fast learner, someone who can figure out almost anything and is good with technical stuff or the more typical guy that women go for who is physically fit, well rounded, but not too bright, not so good at problem solving or brain-intensive tasks? Who would you rather have with you on a desert island? Most of us are not hunting lions anymore. Being strong and a good fighter are not such important traits in our species anymore. Being smart is way more important than being strong and tough in the modern world. But the jock types are almost always more "self-confident" from a woman's perspective.
To give a personal example, I was always very confident about myself. I was smart and I knew it. I did well in school. It seemed like whenever I tried a new intellectually-oriented task I would succeed at it as long as I applied some persistence, determination and focus. I knew that lots of people were smarter than me, but that I was smart enough to accomplish most of the things I wanted. I was quite happy with who I was as.
Did this help me get girls? Hell no. They don't even see that. They don't notice that kind of confidence. And even if they did they wouldn't care about it. It wouldn't make them any more attracted to you. I knew a whole lot about many varying fields. Not just computer programming, but lots of scientific fields, and other stuff that interested me like philosophy and psychology. And rather than just memorizing lots of useless facts and being monkey-smart or book-smart, I tried to figure things out and really understand them at a deeper level. To me, being alive meant thinking, meant using my brain. It did not mean running around chasing a ball, as much as my dog liked to do that.
A few times, in response to women telling me that I seemed to lack confidence, I even told them women about this. That I liked myself just fine, thank you very much, despite what they or anyone else may think. I liked who I was, and what I had learned and accomplished so far in life. I didn't want to change. I even preferred other people who were like me. I don't see how I could like myself any more than that?
So why did women still believe I lacked 'self-confidence'? Because I had no confidence that women found me attractive due to the fact that they never had in the past. Starting as a child, the girls I liked never liked me back. And things never really improved. From a young age I realized that most women just didn't find me physically attractive. I was able to accept this about myself. To me, that is 'self-acceptance'. When it came to women I was confident. My confidence, my certainty that the majority of women found m
The article mentioned the dongle-on-motherboard idea, but it didn't mention the TCPA/Palladium issue. AFAIK, TCPA is not dead. And with Intel promising to deliver on this tech in the future, all it will take is for apple to produce their own version of Palladium for Leopard and their own custom motherboard to make it very difficult for crackers, at least in theory. Maybe Leopard will end up even more locked down and DRM enabled than Longhorn.
I'm not saying that it will be impossible to release a cracked version of Leopard that doesn't require a TCPA enabled system, but I don't think anyone can say for certain at this stage how easy it will be to get around. After all it is new tech, a whole new scheme. I realize that it will be considered the ultimate challenge to crack Leopard and there will be lots of people working on it, but it may not be as easy or as automatic as everyone seems to be assuming.
He has found a mate and has the opportunity to propagate his genes into another generation.
I don't want to propogate my DNA. I am not intelligent enough to make up for my lack of physical beauty. I do not believe my genes would produce a child with a happy life. I would not be adding positively to the human gene pool by reproducing.
If you do not reproduce, your genetic legacy will be lost.
Although I did have one (pretty) girlfriend in my late teens, in 15 years I have not found even one cute girl who wants to be with me. Are you sure you want my DNA in the gene pool of the human species? I can think of better life goals than polluting the human gene pool with my bad DNA. It would be like sneaking HIV infected blood into a hospital blood supply. Don't we have enough ugly people on the planet?
Re:Being good-looking isn't the only issue
on
Tokyo's Geek Ghetto
·
· Score: 1
So good looks aren't everything
They may not be everything, but they are enough to get you pretty much any cute girl not in the 'model' category. For models, you gotta have more than just looks. True enough. Being at least somewhat famous is a good start. Being rich helps a lot too. Usually you need something more than just a pretty face. They need to believe that you are truly a special prize in some way.
People of both sexes are willing to overlook a lot of imperfections and incompatibilities when just looking at the other's face is enough to give them pleasure. It's a simple thing, but it's a big deal.
BTW, girls won't usually admit to any of this. Nor will they really believe it themselves. To this I say judge them more by what they do than by what they say.
Also, being good looking gives you a certain non-fakable confidence about yourself that is hard to get any other way. You kind of just know that your physical person, the part plainly visible to the world, is a real value. That you really have something to offer there. Being smart or good at certain stuff just doesn't give you the same kind of confidence. I strongly believe that confidence is domain specific. It's sort of a reputation you have with yourself based on past performance. If you were attractive to women in the past you will be hopeful or even certain of the same. If not you are kind of screwed because this uncertainty, the lack of confidence makes you even less attractive.
Re:It's important to note...
on
Tokyo's Geek Ghetto
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
In America, geeks achieve because everybody who's popular is too busy with recreation to get anything done.
This is so true. I used to have this good looking friend. After knowing him for a while I realized he was really smart. Way more intelligent than me. He spent most of his free time socializing with friends and he either had a girlfriend or was kind of looking for one. So between that and school or work, that took up all of his time. To me, it seems like he wasted all that brain power of his. But he was living his life the way he wanted. From my perspective he has 'achieved' nothing in his life, (except maybe for an attractive wife).
It's not that American geeks are smarter than normal people. They just have more free time.
This is an aspect of the whole nature vs. nurture thing. Being a geek has absolutely nothing to do with being intelligent. That is, being born intelligent. Geeks will often know more than non-geeks in their fields of interest, but that's just knowledge not real intelligence.
With a fixed number of waking hours in our lives, the fewer number of hours spent on socializing whether with friends or MOTOS, the more hours there are for accomplishing 'things', finishing projects, whatever you want to call it. Life really is like a zero sum game. The more time you spend hanging out with friends at the pub or smooching with your girlfriend at the park the less time you have for writing programs or working on important 'stuff'.
This is really one of the biggest differences between us and other mammals. If we are lucky enough to be born with some intelligence, we can achieve something tangible in our lives, something more than just making more humans who will also achieve nothing. While it is not likely that any program that you write will be around after you die or that that OLED display you invent will still be used in 30 years or that that game art you worked so hard on will ever be seen in 20 years, you will still have contributed more, been more a part of history than guys with girlfriends and social lives. If that's any consolation. And those few with REALLY big brains can do stuff like invent calculus or the transistor, after which you will always be a significant part of history. (Or you could just crash a plane into a skyscraper...)
They make anime for every age group - from kids to adults
Anime for adults? Now that I have to see. Seriously, can you recommend some anime with all adult characters and no kids at least as main characters? All the ones I have seen have kids for the main characters. Like lots of young teens, a couple of preteens, and maybe one older teen or something like that.
To me they don't seem so different from the American cartoons that my 7 year old nephew likes to watch. Except perhaps a bit more violence. I am a huge fan of Japanese Drama and even worked on a fansubbing project for one. So I figure I might like some anime if it all didn't seem so aimed at teens and preteens.
and the girls are complaining that they can't get a decent date cos the guys are all social zeros.
But they are social zeros because they can't get a date:). Actually the real reason has little to do with social skills. Good looking geeks don't have too much trouble getting dates. But then they usually have pretty good social skills too.
Unfortunately, at least in the US, being a geek is kind of synonymous with being ugly. We are expected to be ugly. Some of us even became geeks mostly because we were ugly. A super good looking geek is kind of a brain twister for most girls. I have met a few in my life and, yes, they all had really hot girlfriends. I don't think those girls thought of them as geeks, although they actually were.
I just figure I wouldn't have as much time to pursue my geeky interests if I had a girlfriend. Haha! More time to work on my latest game or assembly app or Lightwave model of the perfect female face...
Uh Huh. And just where are these geek girls? Keeping them all chained in your basement? Of course it's only fair because, as we all know, geek guys are only interested in geek girls.
My own strategy is simply to never venture out of my slimy, dripping, basement lair. Then I don't have to be tortured by the sight of cute female entities.
Slashdot Mirror
If I gave them a task to do and they don't do it, why would I hire them?
Try hiring them first if you want them to do some kind of 'task' for you. You do realize that you are just one out of possibly hundreds of potential employers. You haven't shown them any special treatment. Why should they give any to you? Believe it or not their time is also worth something. All you probably succeeded in doing is narrowing down the applicants to the 10 most desperate.
Once again, you're saying that to be a grown up one has to accept working at a job they hate?
Except for the lucky few, that pretty much sums it up. I have never been able to get a job that I didn't hate. Everyone wants those jobs. So the competition is fierce. I would take a job like that for virtually no pay (i.e. $2.50/hr) if I could get one, but no dice. Right now I am mostly unemployed, surviving on $300-$400 a month from odd jobs. And I've never had anything even remotely resembling a 'wife'. BTW, that 'life' thing of which you speak. It's way overrated.
Who exactly is 'they' supposed to refer to? Many of the Japanese civilians killed in the allied bombings were not the same individuals responsible for the war atrocities you refer to. I don't see how indiscriminate killing can ever be justified even when it is seen as the only option. Even the fact that they would certainly have done the same to us without a moment's hesitation (given the chance) cannot justify it.
if i was a country in some of those US black lists I'd be developing WMD like mad
And just imagine how surprised you would be when you were invaded anyway. Nuclear weapons are really not very practical for many reasons, which is one reason why they have never been used except for that one time in WWII. As for chem/bio they are not much of a serious threat either. Show me an example in modern warfare where they have helped win a war and I may change my mind.
Note that, at the time the bombs were dropped, we (meaning everyone) did not know as much about the dangerous health effects of radiation, especially at smaller doses. Due to such ignorance, these bombs could have been seen more or less as oversized conventional bombs which cause a lot of physical destruction. Just something to keep in mind.
No. The parent poster is right. I am 35, and I still have virtually nothing in common with my father except physically. I always worried that I would become like him, but it just didn't happen. While there are some aspects of genetics that are a trap which you cannot escape, interests are not one of them. This shouldn't really be so surprising since even twins often have completely different interests. Of course true sheeple will be heavily influenced by whatever is in their environment.
The Wikipedia works because
It doesn't always work. Sometimes urban myths and other popular misconceptions can be found. Before believing anything you read there you had better be sure to get confirmation elsewhere. Not too surprising when you consider that 10 year olds can be the editors. I have seen 'book report' style entries that were clearly written by a preteen for what must have been a school project. Truth cannot be determined by popular opinion.
and a proper P2P algorithm will make sure that every piece is available uniformly.
Then BT is not a proper P2P algorithm. Unless you superseed it tends to not distribute the chunks evenly among clients. And even if you do superseed, eventually the torrent tends to settle back into a situation where everyone has the same chunks and is waiting for a seeder with a complete file to come and save the day. In my experience it is common to see 50 to 100 BT clients sitting and wating for the last 5% of a file for days or weeks. When properly set, Azureus will superseed whenever there are no other seeds. This does help reduce the problem.
Every torrent I've ever downloaded with over about 50 peers maxed out my broadband connection, up and down
Sounds like you should upgrade your 'broadband' connection then. I am currently downloading a mainstream torrent file from a mainstream tracker site. UL = 36 kbytes/sec. DL = 65 kbytes/sec. The only thing that is unusual about this is that the upload is kind of slow.
My download bandwidth is 10 mbit/sec theoretical and around 500-750 kbyte/sec in reality (maybe partly due to my modem). The fastest I have ever downloaded anything with bittorrent is around 120-150 kbytes/sec and that is often with thousands of peers and seeds. Typically I get speeds of around 50-75 kbytes/sec.
An important limitation to download speed in BT is your upload speed. I never get much more than a 1:2 UL/DL ratio. Usually if I can increase my UL I can increase my DL as well. This is the main reason IMO why BT is so much faster than Emule etc. It actively encourages people to devote as much UL bandwidth as possible to the torrent.
I have read the article and this tech sounds pretty cool to me. People have been talking for years about ways of incorporating error correction technologies into P2P clients. It works great for usenet releases. The biggest problem with BT IMO is not speed, but chunk availability. Torrents die off too quickly due to lack of seeds. Sounds like this tech could extend the life of a seedless torrent.
In my view, the biggest limitation on torrent speed is the archaic assymetrical limitations placed on most broadband users these days. I understand that ADSL is an inherently assymetrical technology, but cable modems are not. ISPs need to realize that people are not just browsing and downloading from websites anymore.
Proper release = bunch of identical-sized partfiles, .nfo, and .sfv files, all neatly in a properly named directory.
Sounds like you are talking about usenet releases. There is no need to package releases in 'a bunch of identical-sized partfiles' unless you plan to release on a newsgroup. Of course you can still include an sfv or md5 file if you want. Personally I try to avoid releases with multi-part rar files because it seems to take longer to extract and it cannot be seeded once it is converted to a useable format.
I would never blindly click on an exe I got from any file sharing program
What do you mean by 'blindly'? My SOP is just to scan the exe for viruses with Kaspersky AV before running the install program. In the past I always assumed that malware was confined to pseudo-freeware and some shareware programs. At least I had never heard of commercial software that was bundled with it.
Now that malware is starting to be bundled with something other than the pseudo-freeware that was its traditional vector, I am going to have to scan for malware in addition to viruses before opening a downloaded exe. Will Spybot, Adaware, etc. do this kind of pre-install scanning, finding malware even from within archives or embedded in an install program? I always associated these programs with finding malware that was already installed. I believe my version of Kaspersky AV (personal pro 5) does scan for some malware, but I have to wonder if their lists are as comprehensive as those of the traditional spyware removal tools.
Not only that, but the DLL does not EXIST in Safe Mode! It can ONLY be created and accessible during a normal boot
I didn't think that was even possible. How do they do that? I mean even if the app writes a new dll to memory and/or disk at every boot, can you not just delete the executable (in DOS etc.) that is creating the dll?
When you try to open it, you're faced with a licensing annoucement
And how long before they just do away with the licensing dialog box? At the very least I would expect the next version to execute whether you agree or disagree. After all they are already breaking the law by distributing the file itself.
So the real news here is the possibility that some kind of vulnerability has been found in Winrar to allow for automatic launching of executable files within the archive or of code embedded in the archive itself. Now that would be big news. But I didn't read anything about that in the article.
AVI/WMV/MPEG/MP3
Can we please stop including WMV in the list of difficult to exploit media files. It has already been pointed out that a WMV file is completely unsafe. Once I foolishly downloaded one and it opened a website in my browser when I tried to open it. After that I deleted every single WMV file on my computer and will never download one again. They are quite scary.
Plastic is stronger and lighter than aluminum
That is not really true. Composite materials are not the same as plastic. 'Plastic' is lighter (less dense) but not stronger than Aluminum.
But only the cracked versions will bypass the motherboard dongle and actually run on non-Apple hardware. Unless this increasingly hypothetical Mac user hacks his own hardware with underground chips or replaces parts with a soldering iron etc. After what happend this week, I guess anything is possible.
But after that, the emphasis on meritocracy and problem-solving really screws things up.
See that's the problems with geeks and self-confidence. I base confidence on facts, on past performance and not on some natural born certainty that I am REALLY GOOD. Why should I judge myself any differently from the way I would judge someone else? If an objective observer would look at me and say "Man that guy must get lots of hot chicks", then I am justified in believing it too. Confidence needs to be based on something more than optimism, wishful thinking, and delusions of grandeur. 'Self-confidence' the way women use it, is really a misnomer. What they really mean is just arrogance. You can only be confident about something when you have succeeded at it in the past. Eventually you start to expect success. That is genuine confidence.
All these euphemisms like 'love yourself' or 'accept yourself' are just ways of avoiding the central fact that women like big, alpha male, tough guy types. If you happen to be a 6'6" 250 lb geek who spends 3 hours a day in the gym lifting weights and the rest of the time drinking at the pub and just doing stuff without thinking too much about anything, you should be fine.
Ask yourself who is more justified in genuinely feeling confident of their abilities, the intelligent geek, a great problem solver, a fast learner, someone who can figure out almost anything and is good with technical stuff or the more typical guy that women go for who is physically fit, well rounded, but not too bright, not so good at problem solving or brain-intensive tasks? Who would you rather have with you on a desert island? Most of us are not hunting lions anymore. Being strong and a good fighter are not such important traits in our species anymore. Being smart is way more important than being strong and tough in the modern world. But the jock types are almost always more "self-confident" from a woman's perspective.
To give a personal example, I was always very confident about myself. I was smart and I knew it. I did well in school. It seemed like whenever I tried a new intellectually-oriented task I would succeed at it as long as I applied some persistence, determination and focus. I knew that lots of people were smarter than me, but that I was smart enough to accomplish most of the things I wanted. I was quite happy with who I was as.
Did this help me get girls? Hell no. They don't even see that. They don't notice that kind of confidence. And even if they did they wouldn't care about it. It wouldn't make them any more attracted to you. I knew a whole lot about many varying fields. Not just computer programming, but lots of scientific fields, and other stuff that interested me like philosophy and psychology. And rather than just memorizing lots of useless facts and being monkey-smart or book-smart, I tried to figure things out and really understand them at a deeper level. To me, being alive meant thinking, meant using my brain. It did not mean running around chasing a ball, as much as my dog liked to do that.
A few times, in response to women telling me that I seemed to lack confidence, I even told them women about this. That I liked myself just fine, thank you very much, despite what they or anyone else may think. I liked who I was, and what I had learned and accomplished so far in life. I didn't want to change. I even preferred other people who were like me. I don't see how I could like myself any more than that?
So why did women still believe I lacked 'self-confidence'? Because I had no confidence that women found me attractive due to the fact that they never had in the past. Starting as a child, the girls I liked never liked me back. And things never really improved. From a young age I realized that most women just didn't find me physically attractive. I was able to accept this about myself. To me, that is 'self-acceptance'. When it came to women I was confident. My confidence, my certainty that the majority of women found m
do
printf("No");
while(TRUE);
The article mentioned the dongle-on-motherboard idea, but it didn't mention the TCPA/Palladium issue. AFAIK, TCPA is not dead. And with Intel promising to deliver on this tech in the future, all it will take is for apple to produce their own version of Palladium for Leopard and their own custom motherboard to make it very difficult for crackers, at least in theory. Maybe Leopard will end up even more locked down and DRM enabled than Longhorn.
I'm not saying that it will be impossible to release a cracked version of Leopard that doesn't require a TCPA enabled system, but I don't think anyone can say for certain at this stage how easy it will be to get around. After all it is new tech, a whole new scheme. I realize that it will be considered the ultimate challenge to crack Leopard and there will be lots of people working on it, but it may not be as easy or as automatic as everyone seems to be assuming.
He has found a mate and has the opportunity to propagate his genes into another generation.
I don't want to propogate my DNA. I am not intelligent enough to make up for my lack of physical beauty. I do not believe my genes would produce a child with a happy life. I would not be adding positively to the human gene pool by reproducing.
If you do not reproduce, your genetic legacy will be lost.
Although I did have one (pretty) girlfriend in my late teens, in 15 years I have not found even one cute girl who wants to be with me. Are you sure you want my DNA in the gene pool of the human species? I can think of better life goals than polluting the human gene pool with my bad DNA. It would be like sneaking HIV infected blood into a hospital blood supply. Don't we have enough ugly people on the planet?
So good looks aren't everything
They may not be everything, but they are enough to get you pretty much any cute girl not in the 'model' category. For models, you gotta have more than just looks. True enough. Being at least somewhat famous is a good start. Being rich helps a lot too. Usually you need something more than just a pretty face. They need to believe that you are truly a special prize in some way.
People of both sexes are willing to overlook a lot of imperfections and incompatibilities when just looking at the other's face is enough to give them pleasure. It's a simple thing, but it's a big deal.
BTW, girls won't usually admit to any of this. Nor will they really believe it themselves. To this I say judge them more by what they do than by what they say.
Also, being good looking gives you a certain non-fakable confidence about yourself that is hard to get any other way. You kind of just know that your physical person, the part plainly visible to the world, is a real value. That you really have something to offer there. Being smart or good at certain stuff just doesn't give you the same kind of confidence. I strongly believe that confidence is domain specific. It's sort of a reputation you have with yourself based on past performance. If you were attractive to women in the past you will be hopeful or even certain of the same. If not you are kind of screwed because this uncertainty, the lack of confidence makes you even less attractive.
In America, geeks achieve because everybody who's popular is too busy with recreation to get anything done.
This is so true. I used to have this good looking friend. After knowing him for a while I realized he was really smart. Way more intelligent than me. He spent most of his free time socializing with friends and he either had a girlfriend or was kind of looking for one. So between that and school or work, that took up all of his time. To me, it seems like he wasted all that brain power of his. But he was living his life the way he wanted. From my perspective he has 'achieved' nothing in his life, (except maybe for an attractive wife).
It's not that American geeks are smarter than normal people. They just have more free time.
This is an aspect of the whole nature vs. nurture thing. Being a geek has absolutely nothing to do with being intelligent. That is, being born intelligent. Geeks will often know more than non-geeks in their fields of interest, but that's just knowledge not real intelligence.
With a fixed number of waking hours in our lives, the fewer number of hours spent on socializing whether with friends or MOTOS, the more hours there are for accomplishing 'things', finishing projects, whatever you want to call it. Life really is like a zero sum game. The more time you spend hanging out with friends at the pub or smooching with your girlfriend at the park the less time you have for writing programs or working on important 'stuff'.
This is really one of the biggest differences between us and other mammals. If we are lucky enough to be born with some intelligence, we can achieve something tangible in our lives, something more than just making more humans who will also achieve nothing. While it is not likely that any program that you write will be around after you die or that that OLED display you invent will still be used in 30 years or that that game art you worked so hard on will ever be seen in 20 years, you will still have contributed more, been more a part of history than guys with girlfriends and social lives. If that's any consolation. And those few with REALLY big brains can do stuff like invent calculus or the transistor, after which you will always be a significant part of history. (Or you could just crash a plane into a skyscraper...)
They make anime for every age group - from kids to adults
Anime for adults? Now that I have to see. Seriously, can you recommend some anime with all adult characters and no kids at least as main characters? All the ones I have seen have kids for the main characters. Like lots of young teens, a couple of preteens, and maybe one older teen or something like that.
To me they don't seem so different from the American cartoons that my 7 year old nephew likes to watch. Except perhaps a bit more violence. I am a huge fan of Japanese Drama and even worked on a fansubbing project for one. So I figure I might like some anime if it all didn't seem so aimed at teens and preteens.
and the girls are complaining that they can't get a decent date cos the guys are all social zeros.
:). Actually the real reason has little to do with social skills. Good looking geeks don't have too much trouble getting dates. But then they usually have pretty good social skills too.
But they are social zeros because they can't get a date
Unfortunately, at least in the US, being a geek is kind of synonymous with being ugly. We are expected to be ugly. Some of us even became geeks mostly because we were ugly. A super good looking geek is kind of a brain twister for most girls. I have met a few in my life and, yes, they all had really hot girlfriends. I don't think those girls thought of them as geeks, although they actually were.
I just figure I wouldn't have as much time to pursue my geeky interests if I had a girlfriend. Haha! More time to work on my latest game or assembly app or Lightwave model of the perfect female face...
geek girls are only interested in geek guys.
Uh Huh. And just where are these geek girls? Keeping them all chained in your basement? Of course it's only fair because, as we all know, geek guys are only interested in geek girls.
My own strategy is simply to never venture out of my slimy, dripping, basement lair. Then I don't have to be tortured by the sight of cute female entities.