I hope someone sues the director and the library (and wins). Then they will think twice about pulling this sort of rubbish.
Name and shame the guy who did it -- Darrell Batson.
Disclaimer: I am a die-hard library-geek and I hate it when this sort of thing happens. As public servants we have an obligation and duty to protect the rights of our clients. There are privacy and freedom of information laws for a reason.
I would be very surprised if Darrell Batson didn't violate any privacy laws with his actions.
It's worth pointing out also that, increasingly, library directors are not even librarians but government officials with marketing/business management experience who run the library as a "corporate business" rather than a public service.
I think Greenpeace are a bunch of loonies, but I believe that with your definition of "terrorist" you definitely surpass them when it comes to sheer looniness.
I live in the suburbs in Sydney, Australia and my grandparents' home was recently burgled. The police forensics people came the next day to take fingerprints from various locations inside the house.
I know they are overworked, but I'm glad they can spare the time to do this. I subscribe to the broken window theory of law enforcement and crime prevention.
You're swinging from one extreme to the other. You're right that doing favours for her is no good, but being direct with her is just as bad and will turn most women off instantly, and throw him into the "Let's Just Be Friends" zone.
"Telling her how you feel" is like saying to her "I like you and I want to fuck you!". In most cases it won't get you the favourable reaction you're looking for, unless you have high social value and status. It's just low-class and instantly outs the man as the clueless neanderthal that he is.
Women just aren't blunt and direct creatures, and this is why most women won't ask a guy out. Most guys don't speak or understand the language of women, so they completely fail to communicate with them at an effective level.
So what to do? What he should do is work on himself. Turn himself into a renaissance man. Be cultured and knowledgeable, experienced and worldly. He should be a real gentleman, but not a "gentle man". He should have fun and playful with his female friend, but he should never suck up to her or put himself lower than her in any way.
He needs to be decisive and assured, so that when she looks to him for guidance, he's not some little lost puppy, or always asking her what she wants to do.
He should challenge her regularly, and not always give her what she wants.
And he should never ever beg to her or whine in any way. There is nothing more pathetic in the world than a man grovelling and begging for sex. In short, he shouldn't chase her -- he has to make himself attractive so that she ends up chasing him.
There is a tonne of proven material out there that can explain this much better than I can. David DeAngelo is a good start. Elliott Katz's "Being The Strong Man A Woman Wants" is another good, more traditional source.
That's a case of an automated gun system malfunctioning, like supermank17 said it was due to a mechanical rather than a computer/robotics problem.
And the gun didn't automatically reload, that's why it stopped firing after the 2x250 rounds.
I'm guessing the malfunction might have resulted in a "runaway" gun which is sometimes seen in some small arms such as the M249 SAW -- if you hold down the trigger long enough the gun will sometimes keep firing all on its own (even if you let go) until the magazine is exhausted.
It's not even that outrageous, I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be true.
Recently there was a political corruption scandal in Wollongong city council that came to light, and right outside all this time for months there had been a giant billboard car poster from Chrysler (I think it was?) with the catchline "Power that doesn't corrupt".
Introversion has nothing to do with loneliness or keeping to yourself. To put it simply, extraverts get thoroughly energised by social interaction, whereas introverts may like social interaction but they get very tired of it after a while, and need time alone to recuperate.
All human beings need occasional social interaction of some sort, else we'd go mad and become unhinged. It's just that some people can tolerate much more interaction than others.
Different surveys give different results, but most estimates say the general population at large is between 55-75% extraverted. In pop culture, extraversion is much more highly valued. A lot of people feel pressured to be "extraverted". But ultimately it is an innate thing.
If you're interested in this kind of stuff, look up the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and David Keirsey's Temperament model.
You can be brilliant and an extravert, there is no contradiction there. In fact, in some ways it's easier to be brilliant if you're constantly seeking out other people and exchanging ideas with them.
Your post seriously lacks insight. Why do you think intruders are breaking into the home when they know there are people at home?
There's no need to be a gung-ho idiot with firearms, but I would pack heat if the law allowed me to. It's when people cop out of their responsibilities to protect themselves and others that they let their families and their communities down.
The kind of gradient test you quote is commonly cited but it's not always effective. There are good quality 6-bit LCDs which can display most gradients flawlessly. And there are also lower quality 8-bit screens (such as my LG L2012P) which have problems with many gradients. I don't know whether the 20" iMac uses the good quality 6-bit panels or not.
I've seen many mid-range 8-bit screens fail the smooth gradient test. A typical high-end 8-bit LCD which hasn't failed is the EIZO L997, which I use at work.
As others have mentioned, the best way to tell 6-bit vs. 8-bit is to look at the viewing angles. Narrow viewing angles with significant colour distortion means 6-bit.
One would think so, but in fact the higher quality 6-bit screens actually display smooth gradients. This was the case with my Samsung 172X, which was one of the more expensive gamer LCDs back in its day.
It's a fallacy to think that the "smooth gradients test" is a reliable way to tell whether a panel is 8-bit or 6-bit. A better way to differentiate is to look at the viewing angles: TN film has much narrower viewing angles and the colours tend to distort a lot more when viewed at an angle.
These days when everything and anything is marketed as "16.7 million colours", looking at the viewing angles spec is probably the best way to tell. 170/170 degrees (vertical and horizontal) or better is almost always 8-bit.
This used to be true, but nowadays the vast majority of LCDs marked as "16.7 million colours" are actually 6-bit TN film panel screens. That's marketing for you. Many of them also happen to have 92% or 102% or whatever "enhanced gamut", but of course that doesn't change the fact that they're still 6-bit.
Typically, 99% of 22" or smaller LCD screens are 6-bit. The cheaper 24" screens are 6-bit, but anything better and more expensive is usually true 8-bit.
Don't be sorry. I hope I don't sound patronising or like I'm lecturing; I just wanted to share my view and thoughts on the situation.
I don't think wealth = attraction, although wealth is often associated with high social status/value. But you don't have to be wealthy to have high social value.
Maybe your ex really is a gold digger (and I don't mean that in a spiteful or hateful way) and wanted to be with the other guy because he lavished so much money and expenses on her. But I think it's important to realise that all that wealth means nothing... she doesn't really love him, she just loves being pampered and spoiled by him. And that definitely does not equal attraction, it only equals affection (big difference). Affection can get men sex, but only grudgingly, and in increasingly fewer spurts. It's a bit like the other guy is paying her for sex; that kind of arrangement won't stay happy or continue forever, so he's the big fool in all of this.
Once again, I want to emphasise: wealth does not automatically mean attraction. In fact, spending lots of money on a girl is typically the way that "beta males" get women to grudgingly have sex with them. (there are exceptions of course, you can spend lots of money on a girl and still be a complete stallion and ladies man, as long as you know how attraction works)
In any case, the one thing that is for certain is that your ex seems quite messed up emotionally and is definitely not a person you should stay in contact with. In fact, it's probably best to have no contact at all. Unless of course you want to be the guy on the side who she goes to for hot sex, but that's probably not the wisest or most ethical thing to go with.
I'm sorry it's turned out like this, but as you say, it's good that you at least found out before you married her. I agree with the other poster, there are plenty of other wonderful women out there, just waiting to be discovered. You thought you had your special girl, but it turns out she wasn't the right one. That's life, and that's OK; you just carry on and continue your journey.
You should read material by David DeAngelo. It sounds like you don't really understand attraction, or women in general. Wealth doesn't really have much to do with attraction, but power and excitement do.
And stay away from your ex; ideally you should break off all contact. She's already demonstrated once that she will cheat, there is absolutely nothing to stop her from doing it again.
I agree that you need to catch her early before she cheats -- but this cannot be achieved by preventing her from seeing other men or getting jealous and angry. If she's looking elsewhere, that means you're not exciting enough, i.e. boring. If her sexual and attraction needs are being met (and ideally exceeded) at home then there is no need for her to be looking elsewhere.
Also, men outwardly displaying signs of jealousy is not a good thing, it signifies that the man is of "low social value".
We're geeks, we're smart, we should empower ourselves by learning about this stuff rather than stumbling around in the dark.
That's why playing with realistic looking toy guns in public is incredibly stupid and irresponsible. Nothing wrong with the police response in this instance.
I'm an ethnic Chinese who grew up in Western countries, and I've noticed the same intense nationalism as well. It can be quite frightening sometimes -- mainland chinese will stalk you on message boards and harass you with threatening private messages if you criticise China in a thread.
Exactly right. I don't know why everyone is assuming he's afraid of his fellow co-workers being thieves, that's unlikely to be the security threat. The real threat is from casual visitors or even con-artists/thieves who weasel their way into the building.
Also, regardless of who steals the stuff, you're unlikely to ever find out who did it. So prevention is best.
Some of my co-workers have personal webcams attached to their PCs that record 24x7. I trust my co-workers completely, but stuff has been stolen in the past, and I think it's because we have such a large number of strangers and visitors constantly coming and going.
Nice troll post, considering it's Howard's Liberal government that started all of this, and they were the ones who brought in the porn blockers.
Hey, don't let truth get in the way of your little rant.
The Cinema Display is targeted at pro users. The consumer Macs, i.e. the iMacs, already have their own built in displays. Cinema Displays are highly-specced and good for imaging and photography work. If you don't need that kind of spec, then go and buy a cheap 6-bit TN film LCD.
The 20" Cinema Display is actually one of the few true 8-bit 20" screens still available. 90% of the screens out there are now the crappy TN film panels, which have lousy viewing angles and can't display 16.7 million colours properly, despite their marketing claims to the contrary. I was quite surprised a year ago when I did a lot of research for buying a new screen, and the Cinema Display was the most competitive and best value screen in its class. This is more true than ever now as the market for 8-bit screens keeps shrinking.
"User friendly Adobe culture"? Tell me you can't be serious!
It's the other way around. Now that Adobe has acquired Macromedia, you can expect Macromedia products to get infested with Adobe's bloatware crap. Not to mention the fact that Adobe products have always been much more user hostile than Macromedia's.
It just goes to show how easily people's emotions can be manipulated. The frigtards are out in force!
Love seeing all the pathetic strawman posts about how Apple is the new Microsoft, Apple is the new fascist incarnate Evil, Steve Jobs has devil's horns etc. Entertaining stuff!
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I hope someone sues the director and the library (and wins). Then they will think twice about pulling this sort of rubbish.
Name and shame the guy who did it -- Darrell Batson.
Disclaimer: I am a die-hard library-geek and I hate it when this sort of thing happens. As public servants we have an obligation and duty to protect the rights of our clients. There are privacy and freedom of information laws for a reason.
I would be very surprised if Darrell Batson didn't violate any privacy laws with his actions.
It's worth pointing out also that, increasingly, library directors are not even librarians but government officials with marketing/business management experience who run the library as a "corporate business" rather than a public service.
They are "CEOs" rather than chief librarians.
I'd love to find out what type this guy is.
I think Greenpeace are a bunch of loonies, but I believe that with your definition of "terrorist" you definitely surpass them when it comes to sheer looniness.
So you're bitter that you don't enjoy the kind of success that Rowling has?
Rowling might not be a literary genius, but she deserves every ounce of her success that she's worked so hard to achieve.
And read up on the lawsuit and the actual facts of the case rather than just making stuff up and running a twisted imaginary rant through your head.
I live in the suburbs in Sydney, Australia and my grandparents' home was recently burgled. The police forensics people came the next day to take fingerprints from various locations inside the house.
I know they are overworked, but I'm glad they can spare the time to do this. I subscribe to the broken window theory of law enforcement and crime prevention.
You're swinging from one extreme to the other. You're right that doing favours for her is no good, but being direct with her is just as bad and will turn most women off instantly, and throw him into the "Let's Just Be Friends" zone.
"Telling her how you feel" is like saying to her "I like you and I want to fuck you!". In most cases it won't get you the favourable reaction you're looking for, unless you have high social value and status. It's just low-class and instantly outs the man as the clueless neanderthal that he is.
Women just aren't blunt and direct creatures, and this is why most women won't ask a guy out. Most guys don't speak or understand the language of women, so they completely fail to communicate with them at an effective level.
So what to do? What he should do is work on himself. Turn himself into a renaissance man. Be cultured and knowledgeable, experienced and worldly. He should be a real gentleman, but not a "gentle man". He should have fun and playful with his female friend, but he should never suck up to her or put himself lower than her in any way.
He needs to be decisive and assured, so that when she looks to him for guidance, he's not some little lost puppy, or always asking her what she wants to do.
He should challenge her regularly, and not always give her what she wants.
And he should never ever beg to her or whine in any way. There is nothing more pathetic in the world than a man grovelling and begging for sex. In short, he shouldn't chase her -- he has to make himself attractive so that she ends up chasing him.
There is a tonne of proven material out there that can explain this much better than I can. David DeAngelo is a good start. Elliott Katz's "Being The Strong Man A Woman Wants" is another good, more traditional source.
That's a case of an automated gun system malfunctioning, like supermank17 said it was due to a mechanical rather than a computer/robotics problem.
And the gun didn't automatically reload, that's why it stopped firing after the 2x250 rounds.
I'm guessing the malfunction might have resulted in a "runaway" gun which is sometimes seen in some small arms such as the M249 SAW -- if you hold down the trigger long enough the gun will sometimes keep firing all on its own (even if you let go) until the magazine is exhausted.
The problem is usually caused by bad gun design.
It's not even that outrageous, I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be true.
Recently there was a political corruption scandal in Wollongong city council that came to light, and right outside all this time for months there had been a giant billboard car poster from Chrysler (I think it was?) with the catchline "Power that doesn't corrupt".
An absolute classic, and eerily appropriate.
I think people should be rating your post as Funny rather than Insightful.
Introversion has nothing to do with loneliness or keeping to yourself. To put it simply, extraverts get thoroughly energised by social interaction, whereas introverts may like social interaction but they get very tired of it after a while, and need time alone to recuperate.
All human beings need occasional social interaction of some sort, else we'd go mad and become unhinged. It's just that some people can tolerate much more interaction than others.
Different surveys give different results, but most estimates say the general population at large is between 55-75% extraverted. In pop culture, extraversion is much more highly valued. A lot of people feel pressured to be "extraverted". But ultimately it is an innate thing.
If you're interested in this kind of stuff, look up the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and David Keirsey's Temperament model.
He didn't contradict you in the slightest.
You can be brilliant and an extravert, there is no contradiction there. In fact, in some ways it's easier to be brilliant if you're constantly seeking out other people and exchanging ideas with them.
Your post seriously lacks insight. Why do you think intruders are breaking into the home when they know there are people at home?
There's no need to be a gung-ho idiot with firearms, but I would pack heat if the law allowed me to. It's when people cop out of their responsibilities to protect themselves and others that they let their families and their communities down.
The kind of gradient test you quote is commonly cited but it's not always effective. There are good quality 6-bit LCDs which can display most gradients flawlessly. And there are also lower quality 8-bit screens (such as my LG L2012P) which have problems with many gradients. I don't know whether the 20" iMac uses the good quality 6-bit panels or not.
I've seen many mid-range 8-bit screens fail the smooth gradient test. A typical high-end 8-bit LCD which hasn't failed is the EIZO L997, which I use at work.
As others have mentioned, the best way to tell 6-bit vs. 8-bit is to look at the viewing angles. Narrow viewing angles with significant colour distortion means 6-bit.
One would think so, but in fact the higher quality 6-bit screens actually display smooth gradients. This was the case with my Samsung 172X, which was one of the more expensive gamer LCDs back in its day.
It's a fallacy to think that the "smooth gradients test" is a reliable way to tell whether a panel is 8-bit or 6-bit. A better way to differentiate is to look at the viewing angles: TN film has much narrower viewing angles and the colours tend to distort a lot more when viewed at an angle.
These days when everything and anything is marketed as "16.7 million colours", looking at the viewing angles spec is probably the best way to tell. 170/170 degrees (vertical and horizontal) or better is almost always 8-bit.
This used to be true, but nowadays the vast majority of LCDs marked as "16.7 million colours" are actually 6-bit TN film panel screens. That's marketing for you. Many of them also happen to have 92% or 102% or whatever "enhanced gamut", but of course that doesn't change the fact that they're still 6-bit.
Typically, 99% of 22" or smaller LCD screens are 6-bit. The cheaper 24" screens are 6-bit, but anything better and more expensive is usually true 8-bit.
Don't be sorry. I hope I don't sound patronising or like I'm lecturing; I just wanted to share my view and thoughts on the situation.
I don't think wealth = attraction, although wealth is often associated with high social status/value. But you don't have to be wealthy to have high social value.
Maybe your ex really is a gold digger (and I don't mean that in a spiteful or hateful way) and wanted to be with the other guy because he lavished so much money and expenses on her. But I think it's important to realise that all that wealth means nothing... she doesn't really love him, she just loves being pampered and spoiled by him. And that definitely does not equal attraction, it only equals affection (big difference). Affection can get men sex, but only grudgingly, and in increasingly fewer spurts. It's a bit like the other guy is paying her for sex; that kind of arrangement won't stay happy or continue forever, so he's the big fool in all of this.
Once again, I want to emphasise: wealth does not automatically mean attraction. In fact, spending lots of money on a girl is typically the way that "beta males" get women to grudgingly have sex with them. (there are exceptions of course, you can spend lots of money on a girl and still be a complete stallion and ladies man, as long as you know how attraction works)
In any case, the one thing that is for certain is that your ex seems quite messed up emotionally and is definitely not a person you should stay in contact with. In fact, it's probably best to have no contact at all. Unless of course you want to be the guy on the side who she goes to for hot sex, but that's probably not the wisest or most ethical thing to go with.
I'm sorry it's turned out like this, but as you say, it's good that you at least found out before you married her. I agree with the other poster, there are plenty of other wonderful women out there, just waiting to be discovered. You thought you had your special girl, but it turns out she wasn't the right one. That's life, and that's OK; you just carry on and continue your journey.
You should read material by David DeAngelo. It sounds like you don't really understand attraction, or women in general. Wealth doesn't really have much to do with attraction, but power and excitement do.
And stay away from your ex; ideally you should break off all contact. She's already demonstrated once that she will cheat, there is absolutely nothing to stop her from doing it again.
I agree that you need to catch her early before she cheats -- but this cannot be achieved by preventing her from seeing other men or getting jealous and angry. If she's looking elsewhere, that means you're not exciting enough, i.e. boring. If her sexual and attraction needs are being met (and ideally exceeded) at home then there is no need for her to be looking elsewhere.
Also, men outwardly displaying signs of jealousy is not a good thing, it signifies that the man is of "low social value".
We're geeks, we're smart, we should empower ourselves by learning about this stuff rather than stumbling around in the dark.
That's why playing with realistic looking toy guns in public is incredibly stupid and irresponsible. Nothing wrong with the police response in this instance.
I'm an ethnic Chinese who grew up in Western countries, and I've noticed the same intense nationalism as well. It can be quite frightening sometimes -- mainland chinese will stalk you on message boards and harass you with threatening private messages if you criticise China in a thread.
Exactly right. I don't know why everyone is assuming he's afraid of his fellow co-workers being thieves, that's unlikely to be the security threat. The real threat is from casual visitors or even con-artists/thieves who weasel their way into the building.
Also, regardless of who steals the stuff, you're unlikely to ever find out who did it. So prevention is best.
Some of my co-workers have personal webcams attached to their PCs that record 24x7. I trust my co-workers completely, but stuff has been stolen in the past, and I think it's because we have such a large number of strangers and visitors constantly coming and going.
Nice troll post, considering it's Howard's Liberal government that started all of this, and they were the ones who brought in the porn blockers. Hey, don't let truth get in the way of your little rant.
The Cinema Display is targeted at pro users. The consumer Macs, i.e. the iMacs, already have their own built in displays. Cinema Displays are highly-specced and good for imaging and photography work. If you don't need that kind of spec, then go and buy a cheap 6-bit TN film LCD.
The 20" Cinema Display is actually one of the few true 8-bit 20" screens still available. 90% of the screens out there are now the crappy TN film panels, which have lousy viewing angles and can't display 16.7 million colours properly, despite their marketing claims to the contrary. I was quite surprised a year ago when I did a lot of research for buying a new screen, and the Cinema Display was the most competitive and best value screen in its class. This is more true than ever now as the market for 8-bit screens keeps shrinking.
"User friendly Adobe culture"? Tell me you can't be serious!
It's the other way around. Now that Adobe has acquired Macromedia, you can expect Macromedia products to get infested with Adobe's bloatware crap. Not to mention the fact that Adobe products have always been much more user hostile than Macromedia's.
It just goes to show how easily people's emotions can be manipulated. The frigtards are out in force!
Love seeing all the pathetic strawman posts about how Apple is the new Microsoft, Apple is the new fascist incarnate Evil, Steve Jobs has devil's horns etc. Entertaining stuff!
Your post was meant to be funny, right? There's a huge difference between watching a movie at 24 fps on a TV and playing Doom III at 24 fps on a computer screen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate#Frame_rates_in_video_games
And your LCD should be able to render more than 45 fps.