Re:Over 50 years ago
on
Review: U-571
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually American views on homosexuality weren't much better than European views back in Turing's time. If Turing was American back then, I doubt he would have faired much better.
Anyway, comparing modern European views on homosexuality to modern American views, well, yes, European views are much less "prudish", though of course this varies from country to country. After all only in Europe do you get openly gay extreme right wing politicians who say things like "to us homosexual relationships are the same as heterosexual relationships" as an excuse for keeping Muslims out of the country...
Re:bletchley park
on
Review: U-571
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I feel sorry for poor Turing. After all he did for his country and computing science in general, he was driven to commit suicide because of prosecution from the government and public over his homosexuality.
Insult to British
on
Review: U-571
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· Score: 5, Informative
Not only in this movie an insult to Americans who died during WWII, it is also an insult to the *British* who actually captured the Enigma machine and cracked the code:
From Roger Ebert's review:
"In case you're wondering, the German sub on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is U-505, and it was boarded and captured not by submariners, but by sailors from the USS Pillsbury, part of the escort group of the carrier USS Guadalcanal. No Enigma machine was involved. That was in 1944. An Enigma machine was obtained on May 9, 1941, when HMS Bulldog captured U-110. On Aug. 23, 1941, U-570 was captured by British planes and ships, without Enigma. This fictional movie about a fictional U.S. submarine mission is followed by a mention in the end credits of those actual British missions. Oh, the British deciphered the Enigma code, too. Come to think of it, they pretty much did everything in real life that the Americans do in this movie."
What about the responsibility of the parents? My younger brother would probably play CS all day if he could, but he doesn't mainly because my mother doesn't let him. This is for several reasons. Firstly to force him to do his homework. Secondly because she believes that staring at a computer screen all day ruins his eyes. And I come from a low income, non-English speaking family whose parents work extremely long hours. It also helps that we can only afford one computer and when you have several siblings all trying to get on that one computer...
One thing I think is that modern Western parents ie the Baby Boomer generation want to be "buddies" with their kids. And so refuse to do things like pull the cord on their kids internet connection if they've been on for 10 hours because they don't want their kids to "hate" them. They don't want to "interfere" with their kids. They really need to forget about this "I want to be your friend, not your mother" attitude and concentrate on being a *parent*. Be yes assured, my brother (and I) moan and groan when our internet connection gets pulled but kids *always* moan and groan when a toy gets taken away. Sometimes parents have to get in there and "interfere" with their precious baby's "development".
Still, if your kid hates your guts just for stopping their CS or Everquest game, your parent-kid relationship needs help that only a qualified counsellor can provide.
The last episodes of Evangelion make a lot more sense if you are familiar with Taoist philosophy (and no, not those stupid self-help books you find in bookstores or in "mystic" stores). Despite the Kaballah mythology throughout Evangelion, the ending is very Taoist in nature. In fact, the ending could very well be seen as the Taoist version of "enlightenment" or "heaven".
...it's the appropriateness of the article part of slashdot in posting toilet humour. As I said, I have no trouble with guys making such jokes in front of me, when we are out clubbing or having coffee ie. in social situations. However what is basically being done here is akin to the CEO of a company sending out ribald jokes in his monthly newsletter to his employees as opposed to ribald jokes from co-workers. The point is the article part of slashdot proports to be a news site "News for nerds". The community part comes from the comments that people respond to.
Still, I find it funny how people who respond to me keep on fixating on the sex part and totally ignore the "appropriateness of having it in the news part of slashdot part". I mean does anyone actually *read* posts here?
Which is the point I was trying to make in my original post. If you were a female trying to get into an industry where this sort of the behaviour even if it is not outright sexism is the norm, would you even want to? IT has a bad rep for being unfriendly to women, and now I can see why.
I am not talking about the comments here which the slashdot editors have no real control other, but the actual articles which have to be chosen ie. go through some sort of editorial process. Shouldn't the/. people be trying to encourage women to get into IT, rather than encouraging behaviour which scares them off?
That's why I put "kindof" respectable. However no matter what slashdot says or does not say, it *does* have a reputation for being a semi-reliable source of info in its articles (let's ignore the comments part altogether) and it is the most well-known geek news-source around.
I would put more weight in the fact that I'm the only one complaining, if all the people who are saying I shouldn't be complaining weren't guys.
The boasting about how well he shagged his wife isn't sexist? This kind of talk does offend girls. I mean would you feel uncomfortable if gay males started cracking jokes about how good a shag this guy was, or this guy wasn't at the watercooler at work? What if girls start talking about two hot guys they saw kissing and how sexy this was in front of all of their male coworkers? Or start talking about how this guy they went out with who you know has such a small penis and can't take it. The standard you have to apply is, if you turned the tables around, would you feel uncomfortable? This is basically the whole thing about the remark that if males could get pregnant, abortion would be a constitutional right. Males hardly ever have to bear the brunt of such behaviour and so have no idea about what is offensive and what is not offensive. I find it significant that all the people writing back saying it is "nothing" are all guys who have most likely *never* had to endure such remarks about their gender before.
It is *not* the sex I find offensive but rather the crass immature toilet humour way it is presented and the remarks about being a "stallion" and fucking his wife senseless (yes, I am aware it is a joke).
However I agree that one cannot be too fussy. So whilst such talk is not appropriate say around a water cooler at work, it may be say at a pub having a drink with the boys. Which is what I am saying here. The frontpage of the most widely read computer news site is not the appropriate place to put such "humour". The fact that the editors and most of the (male) audience seem to think so is a sign of how deeply entrenced the problems are in the IT industry.
I mean take for example, as soon as I complain, the boys here all assume it is the sex when I am not complaining about the fact that it is about sex but the appropriateness of this type of toilet humour in this forum. "Oh, she is a typical female bitch, who can't stand the talk of sex." That in itself is also sexist behaviour. I wonder what type of remark they make if a girl gets sexually harassed at work?
It's not really the sex part that's the problem. It is as you say the way they present is as crass immature teenage male toilet humour. I mean look at the original article, it's not even clever. They could have done something like word play or take lines in manuals out of context or something like that. That is basically clever humour which just happens to be about sex. Basically however the article is just "Sex - how funny. Let's all laugh." presented in a immature teenage male toilet humour fashion which *is* sexist. The former is comedy which just happens to be about sex, the later is just a bunch of highschool boys in the toilet snickering about something they can't get.
I disagree with your last line that the real lamenes would be refusing to post such an "oddball unexpected topic". This would be true if it was actually clever sexual humour. However refusing to post crass high school toilet jokes is known as good taste.
All I was pointing out was that this does not belong on the front page of the most famous (kindof) respectable news site. You wouldn't see this kind of April News Joke on say the front page of PC Magazine or PC News or even linuxjournal.com. Besides this kindof humour is basically immature teenage male "I'm a virgin and really want to find anyone remotely female to shag" humour. It should stay off a articles on a major computer news site.
Basically the question is, is Slashdot a remotely respectable computer news site or not? If it isn't, then sure this kind of toilet behaviour from the editors and owners is fine. If it is, then it isn't. The fact is if MS or Sun had this type of humour on their websites their standing amongst the "decision makers" would plummet like a stone. You can't have this kind of humour on a website and have people besides the people it is aimed at - immature teenage males desperate for a shag- take the site or company seriously.
Believe me, if this is the type of behaviour that exists in a typical IT geek gathering, no wonder no girls want to go to them.
And IT industry leaders, the media and politicians wonder why women often don't like to go into IT because of the "immature teenage male behaviour". What I can't believe is that this got past the editors (though I'm sure a lot of people will say "Hey this is Slashdot"). I grew up as a tomboy, most of my friends are male engineers, physicists, CS students and anime fans, I have teenage brothers. I *know* what guys talk about and usually I don't care. They often do it in front of me, but as I said, usually I don't care. but there is a time and place for everything and all this shows is a total lack of taste and crassness, especially since most PC magazines recommend Slashdot as *the* source for geek news, unless of course you are *trying* to offend females. It's one thing for "Anonymous Coward" to post something like this, but editors are supposed to have a measure of editorial responsibility ie. they are supposed to filter out the sexist, racist, immature crap. Heck I wouldn't even fault the editors if this was a non-famous website that the media never mentions, but slashdot is supposed to be kindof respectable and a source of news.
Then again, maybe we should expect the slashdot editors to have sex on the mind, since "slash" is the term used to describe m/m fanfiction written by females of shows like XFiles, Startrek etc. And "slash" was popular way before this site was conceived, which leads to some interesting questions...I wonder if someone is trying to tell us something with their choice of names for this site?
Not to mention that a lot of American anime fans don't realise the meanings of the word shounen and shoujo. "Shounen" means boy, not man, young boy. Someone in their twenties is not a shounen. "Shougjo" means young girl, not woman. Take for example Rurouni Kenshin. In Japan it was published in a shounen magazine ie. a magazine targeted at *young* boys. Also, there is this little excerpt from Nov Takahashi who was explaining the differences between Japanese and Western cosplaying:
These connections
> between fandom and criminal activities have led to the current restrictions
> on costuming in Japan. Many fans in Japan do not let their
> friends/family/coworkers know that they are fans. SF/Fantasy/Anime are
> seen as the pursuits of children and to admit that you engage in such
> activities is admitting that you are still a child.
There is kid's manga and then there are more adult manga.(and novels). And remember adult don't necessarily mean hentai. Anyway, often the manga which are classified as for "kids" tend to more violent and bloody than the anime version. Yes, even in Japan they tone done manga when they convert it to anime which is for kids.
Great. With the release of a movie, I can have even more people cry out, "Hey, they ripped that name off Dragonball Z" everytime I show one of the Japanese versions of Journey to the West (In Japanese this is Saiyuki).
Poor Wu Cheng-en. He must be turning over in his grave.
Oh for heaven's sake, anime in Japan is made for kids, even stuff like Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell. I think it is an indictment on American entertainment that stuff like that is considered "adult" here.
Don't trust me? Go on, ask any native born Japanese whether it is a good idea to say that you love anime in Japan if you are say above the age of 20. The answer is no, unless you want everyone in Japan to think you are really weird.
Just because something is considered too hard for anyone but adults to understand in America doesn't mean that it wasn't made for kids.
Manga is a different matter altogether. Manga is for all ages.
If anyone is interested, here is what the book "Thunder from the East" by two winners of the Pulitzer prize wrote about Zhang He's fleet:
"Between 1405 and 1433 Zheng He commanded seven major expeditions, involving the largest navel fleet that the world would see for the next five centuries. Not until World War I did the West mount anything comparable. Chinese records show that Zheng He's fleet included 28 000 sailors on 300 ships, the longest of which were 400 feet long. By comparison, Columbus in 1492 had 90 sailors on 3 ships, the biggest of which was 85 feet long. Zheng He's ships also had design elements such as balanced rudders and watertight bulwark compartments that would not be introduced in Europe for another 350 years.
The ships sailed as far as East Africa and could have gone around the globe. It is difficult to conceive of their magnificence, for each of the grandest ships-the "treasure ships"-had nine masts,huge red silk sails, 24 bronze cannon, carved wooden animal heads, and painted sides with large "eyes" in front to see the ocean ahead. The treasure ships had luxury cabins with balconies for the top officers and for foreign princes who would be brought home, and these ships were backed by specialized vessels including horse-carriers, troop transports, cargo ships, two kinds of warships, and water tankers carrying drinking water. The crews included 10 translatrors, 5 astronomers, 180 doctors and pharmacologists to treat the sick and gather foreign herbs, and even 2 protocol experts to ensure that the Chinese treated foreigners with just the proper degree of respect.
The sophistication of the fleet underscores how far the East used to be ahead of the West. In a broader sense, it indicates the stakes for the entire world as Asia struggles to get back to its feet. The present situation-with Asia making up a minor part of world's economy-is unusual in historical terms. For the great majority of the last few thousand years, Asia has been far wealthier and more advanced and cosmopolitan than any place in Europe. Several ancient Chinese cities had populations of more than one million at their peak, and by some accounts the Tang Dynasty capital of Changan had almost two million taxable residents in the later part of the first millenium. In contrast, as late as 1500 the largest city in Europe was probably Naples, with a total population of 150 000. So ancient Asia was the longtime champion of commerce and technology, and one of the central questions is whether it is now ready to recover a part of what it lost......
Chinese records show that Zheng He's fleet reached the Kenyan ports of Malindi and Mombasa. Zheng He knew about Europe from Arab traders, and he could have continued around the Cape of Good Hope and established direct trade with Europe. But Europe was a backwards region with nothing to offer, as the Chinese saw it. China wanted ivory, medicine, spices, exotic woods, even samples of African wildlife, but it had little interest in European products like wool, beads or wine. So China turned up their noses at Europe."
Of course it should be noted that Amnesty has repeatedly asked Philip Ruddock to take off his Amnesty badge because they feel that his actions are not appropriate for a member of Amnesty (he keeps on wearing it BTW).
Not to mention that the Liberal party has recently disendorsed a candidate in Tasmania because he criticises the Liberal's refugee policty.
On an added note, wasn't there that nasty incident during the election last year where the Defence Minister said that boat people were throwing their children overboard to blackmail Australia to accept them and swore that there was a tape to prove it. Now it turns out that this tape may not even exist and defense personnel at the scene swore it didn't happen the way the Australian Government said. In fact before he retired (but after the government was re-elected) the Defense Minister was starting to retract his statements, admitting that he never actually saw the tape or personally confirmed the incident.
Not to mention the recent mass suicide attempst, self-multilation attempts by desperate refugees in camps, reports of child abuse being ignored by a corporation attempting to make money, a refusal to allow media to talk to refugees even when invited by refugees, refusal to open the camps to the UN (though they changed their mind on that one). The latest bright spark is that even though many of the Afghans belong to minority groups long abused in Afghanistan by the majority even before the Taliban they are proposing to let the present Afghan government which include many leaders of the groups that abused these refugees to talk to them to "persuade" them to go back to Afghanistan thus sparking riots. Not to mention unaccompanied children in the camps for several years and the fact that many of the refugees believe that they are are being punished for September 11 and will be jailed forever.
I do think that the summary here is blatently wrong (because the government listened in once on a phone conversation between a non-Australian captain of a ship which was about to be boarded by the SAS, suddenly the government listens in on *all* civilian phone calls. Talk about conspiracy theories).
However I don't think it is wrong to say that the government definitely tries to demonise the refugees and treats them badly.
Not to mention that the vast majority of "illegal immigrants" are Britons and Americans who overstay their visas, sometimes for years on end, also taking jobs and resources from Australian taxpayers. Yet, I don't see John Howard calling for a mass round-up and incarceration.
otherwise they would know the comparisions between China and America are ludicrous. Whilst I know most of the people here have a liberal bias, the comparison between China and America are ludicrous. However what seems to be happening in America is that it is beginning the *slide* to where China is at now. It is no-where near China. Well I haven't heard of America raiding people's houses and seizing family photos from relatives in the West and putting you on *trial* for that as a traitor, or taking university students, the intelligentsia so to speak, jailing them and then executing them by firing squad. Or dragging high school students out of school (because school is bad) and forcing them to work in the fields. Oh, oh and the best one, where they have courts where you can get accused of something and with the presumption "guilty until proven innocent" you get beaten until you confess except if you are innocent (which is usually the case) you don't know what they are accusing you of (since they don't tell you what the crime is) so you *can't* even make a false confession and since they'll beat you until you confess, well you can see...
The best one is when an elderly man committed suicide because he was afraid of being beaten to death by the communists (he had no gold and back in those times, you pay gold to stop being beaten to death), he hanged himself (a common occurrence, there were a suicide each week. If you are going to die, you might as well take the easy way out rather than being placed in a sack and beaten to death. Not to mention a few old people killed themselves because there wasn't enough food so if they died there would be more food for their grandkids) The next day there was the usual "assembly" to trumpet how great the government was etc. and the widow was forced to sit there and my grandmother who was sitting opposite her (and was a good friend) said that she was too afraid of getting into trouble to even cry. Not surprisingly a couple of days later she also hanged herself. There was also the way they used to stop people in the street and make you read a passage in Mandarin to check whether you knew the official language (otherwise of course you get hauled off) which was a problem because back then a lot of rural Cantonese people didn't know Mandarin...
Compared to what has happened in China in the last few decades, monitoring email is nothing. The democracy people will find ways to get around it just like they got around the Mandrain thing (they learnt that the officials always asked you to read the same passage so they just memorised that passage phonetically) And of course there are always good old fashioned bribery.
Still, I find it funny that people are saying, "At least China is upfront about it rather than hiding it like the US". Um, NOW they are. When they first started out, they hid all their actions under the guise of "patriotism" and "ideals". It may have been an unofficial secret that everyone knew. The US is at the very beginnings of the slide downwards.
As a fairly newbie Linux user it is not doing rpm or make that is the problem. I mean telling someone that rpm is the Linux version of setup is not the problem. The problem is:
1. Dependecies.
2. When the make doesn't work.
My suggestion for (1) is to just include all the files you need in the one download. Sure it'll make the rpm much bigger (which is why you include alternative rpms for power users) but I'm telling you, confront a newbie Linux user (even one who isn't totally computer illiterate) with a list of 20 dependencies and you'll lose them. I mean just putting all the rpms in.tar.gz with a warning that you need certain minimum requirements eg. Red Hat 6.2 with a readme of which order to install the rpms would make life much easier. Give them all the files needed and step-by-step instructions (as in they can cut and paste the command line instructions) and they'll manage. I mean Windows install programs don't ask you to download 20 or so.dlls. And yes, sure Debian has a wonderful system around this but hey try to get newbie Linux users to actually work out how to install and run Debian in the first place...
It might be more to do with culture. Japanese work culture vs American work culture. There tends to be much less "egos" and "I want to do it THIS way" involved. So if you just add more people they'll just do extra work instead of going, "I think we need to change this important part of the game."
Slashdot Mirror
Actually American views on homosexuality weren't much better than European views back in Turing's time. If Turing was American back then, I doubt he would have faired much better.
Anyway, comparing modern European views on homosexuality to modern American views, well, yes, European views are much less "prudish", though of course this varies from country to country. After all only in Europe do you get openly gay extreme right wing politicians who say things like "to us homosexual relationships are the same as heterosexual relationships" as an excuse for keeping Muslims out of the country...
Well, Turing died over 50 years ago...
I feel sorry for poor Turing. After all he did for his country and computing science in general, he was driven to commit suicide because of prosecution from the government and public over his homosexuality.
Not only in this movie an insult to Americans who died during WWII, it is also an insult to the *British* who actually captured the Enigma machine and cracked the code:
From Roger Ebert's review:
"In case you're wondering, the German sub on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is U-505, and it was boarded and captured not by submariners, but by sailors from the USS Pillsbury, part of the escort group of the carrier USS Guadalcanal. No Enigma machine was involved. That was in 1944. An Enigma machine was obtained on May 9, 1941, when HMS Bulldog captured U-110. On Aug. 23, 1941, U-570 was captured by British planes and ships, without Enigma. This fictional movie about a fictional U.S. submarine mission is followed by a mention in the end credits of those actual British missions. Oh, the British deciphered the Enigma code, too. Come to think of it, they pretty much did everything in real life that the Americans do in this movie."
What about the responsibility of the parents? My younger brother would probably play CS all day if he could, but he doesn't mainly because my mother doesn't let him. This is for several reasons. Firstly to force him to do his homework. Secondly because she believes that staring at a computer screen all day ruins his eyes. And I come from a low income, non-English speaking family whose parents work extremely long hours. It also helps that we can only afford one computer and when you have several siblings all trying to get on that one computer...
One thing I think is that modern Western parents ie the Baby Boomer generation want to be "buddies" with their kids. And so refuse to do things like pull the cord on their kids internet connection if they've been on for 10 hours because they don't want their kids to "hate" them. They don't want to "interfere" with their kids. They really need to forget about this "I want to be your friend, not your mother" attitude and concentrate on being a *parent*. Be yes assured, my brother (and I) moan and groan when our internet connection gets pulled but kids *always* moan and groan when a toy gets taken away. Sometimes parents have to get in there and "interfere" with their precious baby's "development".
Still, if your kid hates your guts just for stopping their CS or Everquest game, your parent-kid relationship needs help that only a qualified counsellor can provide.
The last episodes of Evangelion make a lot more sense if you are familiar with Taoist philosophy (and no, not those stupid self-help books you find in bookstores or in "mystic" stores). Despite the Kaballah mythology throughout Evangelion, the ending is very Taoist in nature. In fact, the ending could very well be seen as the Taoist version of "enlightenment" or "heaven".
Which means in US dollars the price for the burn + CD is US$3.50.
...it's the appropriateness of the article part of slashdot in posting toilet humour. As I said, I have no trouble with guys making such jokes in front of me, when we are out clubbing or having coffee ie. in social situations. However what is basically being done here is akin to the CEO of a company sending out ribald jokes in his monthly newsletter to his employees as opposed to ribald jokes from co-workers. The point is the article part of slashdot proports to be a news site "News for nerds". The community part comes from the comments that people respond to. Still, I find it funny how people who respond to me keep on fixating on the sex part and totally ignore the "appropriateness of having it in the news part of slashdot part". I mean does anyone actually *read* posts here?
Which is the point I was trying to make in my original post. If you were a female trying to get into an industry where this sort of the behaviour even if it is not outright sexism is the norm, would you even want to? IT has a bad rep for being unfriendly to women, and now I can see why. I am not talking about the comments here which the slashdot editors have no real control other, but the actual articles which have to be chosen ie. go through some sort of editorial process. Shouldn't the /. people be trying to encourage women to get into IT, rather than encouraging behaviour which scares them off?
That's why I put "kindof" respectable. However no matter what slashdot says or does not say, it *does* have a reputation for being a semi-reliable source of info in its articles (let's ignore the comments part altogether) and it is the most well-known geek news-source around. I would put more weight in the fact that I'm the only one complaining, if all the people who are saying I shouldn't be complaining weren't guys.
They'd probably have more luck with the mares. Most of them are ugly anyway and probably never fucked a human girl before in their lives anyway.
The boasting about how well he shagged his wife isn't sexist? This kind of talk does offend girls. I mean would you feel uncomfortable if gay males started cracking jokes about how good a shag this guy was, or this guy wasn't at the watercooler at work? What if girls start talking about two hot guys they saw kissing and how sexy this was in front of all of their male coworkers? Or start talking about how this guy they went out with who you know has such a small penis and can't take it. The standard you have to apply is, if you turned the tables around, would you feel uncomfortable? This is basically the whole thing about the remark that if males could get pregnant, abortion would be a constitutional right. Males hardly ever have to bear the brunt of such behaviour and so have no idea about what is offensive and what is not offensive. I find it significant that all the people writing back saying it is "nothing" are all guys who have most likely *never* had to endure such remarks about their gender before. It is *not* the sex I find offensive but rather the crass immature toilet humour way it is presented and the remarks about being a "stallion" and fucking his wife senseless (yes, I am aware it is a joke). However I agree that one cannot be too fussy. So whilst such talk is not appropriate say around a water cooler at work, it may be say at a pub having a drink with the boys. Which is what I am saying here. The frontpage of the most widely read computer news site is not the appropriate place to put such "humour". The fact that the editors and most of the (male) audience seem to think so is a sign of how deeply entrenced the problems are in the IT industry. I mean take for example, as soon as I complain, the boys here all assume it is the sex when I am not complaining about the fact that it is about sex but the appropriateness of this type of toilet humour in this forum. "Oh, she is a typical female bitch, who can't stand the talk of sex." That in itself is also sexist behaviour. I wonder what type of remark they make if a girl gets sexually harassed at work?
It's not really the sex part that's the problem. It is as you say the way they present is as crass immature teenage male toilet humour. I mean look at the original article, it's not even clever. They could have done something like word play or take lines in manuals out of context or something like that. That is basically clever humour which just happens to be about sex. Basically however the article is just "Sex - how funny. Let's all laugh." presented in a immature teenage male toilet humour fashion which *is* sexist. The former is comedy which just happens to be about sex, the later is just a bunch of highschool boys in the toilet snickering about something they can't get. I disagree with your last line that the real lamenes would be refusing to post such an "oddball unexpected topic". This would be true if it was actually clever sexual humour. However refusing to post crass high school toilet jokes is known as good taste.
All I was pointing out was that this does not belong on the front page of the most famous (kindof) respectable news site. You wouldn't see this kind of April News Joke on say the front page of PC Magazine or PC News or even linuxjournal.com. Besides this kindof humour is basically immature teenage male "I'm a virgin and really want to find anyone remotely female to shag" humour. It should stay off a articles on a major computer news site. Basically the question is, is Slashdot a remotely respectable computer news site or not? If it isn't, then sure this kind of toilet behaviour from the editors and owners is fine. If it is, then it isn't. The fact is if MS or Sun had this type of humour on their websites their standing amongst the "decision makers" would plummet like a stone. You can't have this kind of humour on a website and have people besides the people it is aimed at - immature teenage males desperate for a shag- take the site or company seriously. Believe me, if this is the type of behaviour that exists in a typical IT geek gathering, no wonder no girls want to go to them.
And IT industry leaders, the media and politicians wonder why women often don't like to go into IT because of the "immature teenage male behaviour". What I can't believe is that this got past the editors (though I'm sure a lot of people will say "Hey this is Slashdot"). I grew up as a tomboy, most of my friends are male engineers, physicists, CS students and anime fans, I have teenage brothers. I *know* what guys talk about and usually I don't care. They often do it in front of me, but as I said, usually I don't care. but there is a time and place for everything and all this shows is a total lack of taste and crassness, especially since most PC magazines recommend Slashdot as *the* source for geek news, unless of course you are *trying* to offend females. It's one thing for "Anonymous Coward" to post something like this, but editors are supposed to have a measure of editorial responsibility ie. they are supposed to filter out the sexist, racist, immature crap. Heck I wouldn't even fault the editors if this was a non-famous website that the media never mentions, but slashdot is supposed to be kindof respectable and a source of news.
Then again, maybe we should expect the slashdot editors to have sex on the mind, since "slash" is the term used to describe m/m fanfiction written by females of shows like XFiles, Startrek etc. And "slash" was popular way before this site was conceived, which leads to some interesting questions...I wonder if someone is trying to tell us something with their choice of names for this site?
As far as I know, "mofo" stands for, excuse me for this bit of swearing, "motherfucker".
Not to mention that a lot of American anime fans don't realise the meanings of the word shounen and shoujo. "Shounen" means boy, not man, young boy. Someone in their twenties is not a shounen. "Shougjo" means young girl, not woman. Take for example Rurouni Kenshin. In Japan it was published in a shounen magazine ie. a magazine targeted at *young* boys. Also, there is this little excerpt from Nov Takahashi who was explaining the differences between Japanese and Western cosplaying:
These connections > between fandom and criminal activities have led to the current restrictions > on costuming in Japan. Many fans in Japan do not let their > friends/family/coworkers know that they are fans. SF/Fantasy/Anime are > seen as the pursuits of children and to admit that you engage in such > activities is admitting that you are still a child.
There is kid's manga and then there are more adult manga.(and novels). And remember adult don't necessarily mean hentai. Anyway, often the manga which are classified as for "kids" tend to more violent and bloody than the anime version. Yes, even in Japan they tone done manga when they convert it to anime which is for kids.
Great. With the release of a movie, I can have even more people cry out, "Hey, they ripped that name off Dragonball Z" everytime I show one of the Japanese versions of Journey to the West (In Japanese this is Saiyuki). Poor Wu Cheng-en. He must be turning over in his grave.
Oh for heaven's sake, anime in Japan is made for kids, even stuff like Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell. I think it is an indictment on American entertainment that stuff like that is considered "adult" here. Don't trust me? Go on, ask any native born Japanese whether it is a good idea to say that you love anime in Japan if you are say above the age of 20. The answer is no, unless you want everyone in Japan to think you are really weird. Just because something is considered too hard for anyone but adults to understand in America doesn't mean that it wasn't made for kids. Manga is a different matter altogether. Manga is for all ages.
If anyone is interested, here is what the book "Thunder from the East" by two winners of the Pulitzer prize wrote about Zhang He's fleet: "Between 1405 and 1433 Zheng He commanded seven major expeditions, involving the largest navel fleet that the world would see for the next five centuries. Not until World War I did the West mount anything comparable. Chinese records show that Zheng He's fleet included 28 000 sailors on 300 ships, the longest of which were 400 feet long. By comparison, Columbus in 1492 had 90 sailors on 3 ships, the biggest of which was 85 feet long. Zheng He's ships also had design elements such as balanced rudders and watertight bulwark compartments that would not be introduced in Europe for another 350 years. The ships sailed as far as East Africa and could have gone around the globe. It is difficult to conceive of their magnificence, for each of the grandest ships-the "treasure ships"-had nine masts,huge red silk sails, 24 bronze cannon, carved wooden animal heads, and painted sides with large "eyes" in front to see the ocean ahead. The treasure ships had luxury cabins with balconies for the top officers and for foreign princes who would be brought home, and these ships were backed by specialized vessels including horse-carriers, troop transports, cargo ships, two kinds of warships, and water tankers carrying drinking water. The crews included 10 translatrors, 5 astronomers, 180 doctors and pharmacologists to treat the sick and gather foreign herbs, and even 2 protocol experts to ensure that the Chinese treated foreigners with just the proper degree of respect. The sophistication of the fleet underscores how far the East used to be ahead of the West. In a broader sense, it indicates the stakes for the entire world as Asia struggles to get back to its feet. The present situation-with Asia making up a minor part of world's economy-is unusual in historical terms. For the great majority of the last few thousand years, Asia has been far wealthier and more advanced and cosmopolitan than any place in Europe. Several ancient Chinese cities had populations of more than one million at their peak, and by some accounts the Tang Dynasty capital of Changan had almost two million taxable residents in the later part of the first millenium. In contrast, as late as 1500 the largest city in Europe was probably Naples, with a total population of 150 000. So ancient Asia was the longtime champion of commerce and technology, and one of the central questions is whether it is now ready to recover a part of what it lost. .....
Chinese records show that Zheng He's fleet reached the Kenyan ports of Malindi and Mombasa. Zheng He knew about Europe from Arab traders, and he could have continued around the Cape of Good Hope and established direct trade with Europe. But Europe was a backwards region with nothing to offer, as the Chinese saw it. China wanted ivory, medicine, spices, exotic woods, even samples of African wildlife, but it had little interest in European products like wool, beads or wine. So China turned up their noses at Europe."
Of course it should be noted that Amnesty has repeatedly asked Philip Ruddock to take off his Amnesty badge because they feel that his actions are not appropriate for a member of Amnesty (he keeps on wearing it BTW). Not to mention that the Liberal party has recently disendorsed a candidate in Tasmania because he criticises the Liberal's refugee policty. On an added note, wasn't there that nasty incident during the election last year where the Defence Minister said that boat people were throwing their children overboard to blackmail Australia to accept them and swore that there was a tape to prove it. Now it turns out that this tape may not even exist and defense personnel at the scene swore it didn't happen the way the Australian Government said. In fact before he retired (but after the government was re-elected) the Defense Minister was starting to retract his statements, admitting that he never actually saw the tape or personally confirmed the incident. Not to mention the recent mass suicide attempst, self-multilation attempts by desperate refugees in camps, reports of child abuse being ignored by a corporation attempting to make money, a refusal to allow media to talk to refugees even when invited by refugees, refusal to open the camps to the UN (though they changed their mind on that one). The latest bright spark is that even though many of the Afghans belong to minority groups long abused in Afghanistan by the majority even before the Taliban they are proposing to let the present Afghan government which include many leaders of the groups that abused these refugees to talk to them to "persuade" them to go back to Afghanistan thus sparking riots. Not to mention unaccompanied children in the camps for several years and the fact that many of the refugees believe that they are are being punished for September 11 and will be jailed forever. I do think that the summary here is blatently wrong (because the government listened in once on a phone conversation between a non-Australian captain of a ship which was about to be boarded by the SAS, suddenly the government listens in on *all* civilian phone calls. Talk about conspiracy theories). However I don't think it is wrong to say that the government definitely tries to demonise the refugees and treats them badly. Not to mention that the vast majority of "illegal immigrants" are Britons and Americans who overstay their visas, sometimes for years on end, also taking jobs and resources from Australian taxpayers. Yet, I don't see John Howard calling for a mass round-up and incarceration.
otherwise they would know the comparisions between China and America are ludicrous. Whilst I know most of the people here have a liberal bias, the comparison between China and America are ludicrous. However what seems to be happening in America is that it is beginning the *slide* to where China is at now. It is no-where near China. Well I haven't heard of America raiding people's houses and seizing family photos from relatives in the West and putting you on *trial* for that as a traitor, or taking university students, the intelligentsia so to speak, jailing them and then executing them by firing squad. Or dragging high school students out of school (because school is bad) and forcing them to work in the fields. Oh, oh and the best one, where they have courts where you can get accused of something and with the presumption "guilty until proven innocent" you get beaten until you confess except if you are innocent (which is usually the case) you don't know what they are accusing you of (since they don't tell you what the crime is) so you *can't* even make a false confession and since they'll beat you until you confess, well you can see...
The best one is when an elderly man committed suicide because he was afraid of being beaten to death by the communists (he had no gold and back in those times, you pay gold to stop being beaten to death), he hanged himself (a common occurrence, there were a suicide each week. If you are going to die, you might as well take the easy way out rather than being placed in a sack and beaten to death. Not to mention a few old people killed themselves because there wasn't enough food so if they died there would be more food for their grandkids) The next day there was the usual "assembly" to trumpet how great the government was etc. and the widow was forced to sit there and my grandmother who was sitting opposite her (and was a good friend) said that she was too afraid of getting into trouble to even cry. Not surprisingly a couple of days later she also hanged herself. There was also the way they used to stop people in the street and make you read a passage in Mandarin to check whether you knew the official language (otherwise of course you get hauled off) which was a problem because back then a lot of rural Cantonese people didn't know Mandarin...
Compared to what has happened in China in the last few decades, monitoring email is nothing. The democracy people will find ways to get around it just like they got around the Mandrain thing (they learnt that the officials always asked you to read the same passage so they just memorised that passage phonetically) And of course there are always good old fashioned bribery.
Still, I find it funny that people are saying, "At least China is upfront about it rather than hiding it like the US". Um, NOW they are. When they first started out, they hid all their actions under the guise of "patriotism" and "ideals". It may have been an unofficial secret that everyone knew. The US is at the very beginnings of the slide downwards.
As a fairly newbie Linux user it is not doing rpm or make that is the problem. I mean telling someone that rpm is the Linux version of setup is not the problem. The problem is: 1. Dependecies. 2. When the make doesn't work. My suggestion for (1) is to just include all the files you need in the one download. Sure it'll make the rpm much bigger (which is why you include alternative rpms for power users) but I'm telling you, confront a newbie Linux user (even one who isn't totally computer illiterate) with a list of 20 dependencies and you'll lose them. I mean just putting all the rpms in .tar.gz with a warning that you need certain minimum requirements eg. Red Hat 6.2 with a readme of which order to install the rpms would make life much easier. Give them all the files needed and step-by-step instructions (as in they can cut and paste the command line instructions) and they'll manage. I mean Windows install programs don't ask you to download 20 or so .dlls. And yes, sure Debian has a wonderful system around this but hey try to get newbie Linux users to actually work out how to install and run Debian in the first place...
It might be more to do with culture. Japanese work culture vs American work culture. There tends to be much less "egos" and "I want to do it THIS way" involved. So if you just add more people they'll just do extra work instead of going, "I think we need to change this important part of the game."