"roystgnr" shows the ignorance that a lot of people in technology have to this issue, instead of reading the Website I linked to, or better yet, even understanding the issue before trying to be cute, he chose to insinuate I'm sort of foreigner hating hillbilly, which did nothing but demonstrate his ignorance.
If he held a job in a major metro area, I'm sure he'd be more enlightened.
Without implying that either of you are wrong, in roystgnr's defense: He has worked in multiple metro areas (including Houston and Albuquerque) and is extremely intelligent and enlightened. Why don't you point out specifically what's wrong with his argument and why, instead of slinging ad hominem attacks? I'm sure the humor was not intended to be a personal slam, but rather a reminder that this issue is, in fact, easily stereotyped and polarized and requires careful, elaborated, and specific argument.
Easy.:) She's got an iron boobsack -- metal can, theoretically, withstand such stresses and strains, and any ligaments naturally supporting those (since she's cyborg) can be made of super-strong, non-ductile alloys -- no excessive sag.
The reason I'm not worried about the pessimistic survey results is because (and maybe I'm just a cynic) I think the vast majority of the American population doesn't know jack shit -- especially not enough to be able to predict China's future progress as a nation. Please. They probably can't locate China on a map.
The "average American" watches Buffy and Dawson's Creek and thinks it's QUALITY television, reads Stephen King or Danielle Steel, and believes "them Japs" are stealing our jobs and it's all their fault.
*snort* The survey is interesting as far as gauging the paranoias of Americans, but useless as an indicator of actual probability.
The problem is priority. If school committees really cared about science/math education, things would improve. But all too often they're seen as "extras" (as is art, music, etc.!) while support for things like phys ed, sports, etc. flows on because we're told that school "spirit" and pride is important. I'd rather be proud that my senior class scored exceptionally well on the SATs or MCAS tests than that our local football team went 11-0, but if you look at where the concentration of attention in placed in our high schools (for example, in terms of coverage in local newspapers or on TV), it's sports, sports, sports, with maybe one or two pieces a month buried inside on some education program that's doing well. Where's the outcry from the SCHOOLS on this mistreatment?
Two points:
1.) Corporate leadership can play a role. My school, despite being rural and underfunded (thanks to the @#)(*$(*&^ "Robin Hood" school funding bill), had a great science curriculum because the major part of that town's tax base and employment came from the Phillips 66 refinery 3 miles away. Phillips (and also Dow, which was 30 minutes away but also employed many people from my hometown) had programs going that stipulated extra graduation honors and potential future job offers for students who followed a curriculum which they specified. This involved something like 4 years of English, at LEAST 3 of science, 3 math, 2 social studies/history, as well as some others. I also think Computer Science or Literacy was required. Because in my town, engineers were the bread-earners (and the girls were told not to BE engineers but rather marry them), the students really went for this program.
2. The schools aren't raising an uproar about it because to their mind, sports = revenues. When I argued again and again with teachers/administration/principals about why the hell was the football team getting new jerseys every year when the band and drama departments were struggling for equipment, I was told, "Nobody in this town comes to see the plays, or the band play at halftime. They come to see the football team, and they pay money for it."
The fact of the matter is that at the current teacher salary, schools will not attract the highest-quality, most-motivated, most-intellectually-curious people. To my way of thinking, one has to be a martyr in order to put up with the current frustrations of teaching: no ability to discipline students, belligerent and uncooperative students and parents, stupid clueless school boards and administration, inhumane workload, AND low pay to boot.
If you want a better pool of teachers, ones who will inform themselves and pass that knowledge on to their students --
I think I would have been more happy weight had been devoted to these thing than trying to force me to read subjects like history and social studies which I never cared less about.
However, even though you never cared less about history and social studies, the point is that you *do*, to be an educated and well-rounded person, need to know a certain base level of knowledge about these things.
The point of education is to ensure a common base level of knowledge for all citizens in order to ensure productive workers and reasonably educated voters.
So even if you never cared less about those things, and even if learning them made you less happy, I think it's good that they still taught you those things.
WETA is Peter Jackson's special/vfx that he's using in the ubercool upcoming "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. The shooting location for those movies is in New Zealand, so that's where they're working right now, but I'm unsure of where their permanent base of operations are.
For the trilogy, at least, I've read that the special fx are not really Matrixish, but still damn cool. They have a software program called MASSIVE which will be largely responsible for creating and animating in a true-to-life manner armies of 400,000+ orcs in complex battle scenes. WETA is also creating a character for the movie -- Gollum -- and all reports say that Gollum is the most lifelike, unfake pure fx character yet. Furthermore, they're using CGI to shrink the actors playing hobbits to half their normal size or so. Finally, they're altering the filmed landscape in subtle ways to make it more magical.
I have no personal stake in either this argument or this topic in general, though from my understanding of events JP is more than likely a heartless bastard.
But of all the flaming and irrationality that have been going on in these comments, this one is absolutely the WORST I've seen.
2. I, and others, just might stop reading/.
"Waaah! Mommy! I'm going to take my ball and go home! I'm not gonna play with you people anymore!" Please. Shit or get off the pot. I certainly wouldn't miss you -- mainly because of bullshit like this:
"I do not need to 'prove' anything.... I don't need 'factual' arguments."
Excuse me? Is this a complete departure from reality and rationality? It's not for arbitrary reasons that in competitive debate circles, the burden of proof lies with the negative, that is, the person who dislikes the status quo must unequivocably prove his argument, otherwise, the status quo wins and remains the same.
If you refrain from attempting to "prove" anything, this is what you get: - an image of insecurity, since you seem to feel the world should act on your whims and not on logic. Seems rather dictatorial, if you ask me. - ignored. People here are generally intelligent enough to recognize a baseless argument when they see it.
You don't need 'factual' arguments? But yet, when JP doesn't use them, you get upset? Isn't that the definition of "hypocrite"?
You seem to posit it as "fact" (though I am not at all sure it is) that "significant portions of the mature readership here object to Katz's articles". Where's your data? What's your source? Are you a/. admin? If you're not, why should I believe you? Don't give me that bullshit about statistics lying. It's often true, but that doesn't excuse you from showing me (or anyone reading this thread) why you think that's true. I would be more willing to wager that the majority of/. readers might disagree with Katz, but wouldn't kick him off, which is what you're suggesting. I would think, instead, that there is a very screamingly vocal minority (you included) that throws a hissyfit every time he posts something, to the extent that the volume of the flaming exceeds the volume of geniune content generated by the article. Volume of posting does not equal number of unique/. users.
Not all action and argument must be made based on fact, but action and argument based solely on opinion is ineffective at persuading others to see your point of view.
You're no better than JP when you post baseless crap like this and then claim -- beyond all reason or accountability -- that you don't have to back it up.
... a reason why kids don't pursue what makes them happy.
First of all: Most of the people I know -- and I'm a junior in an excellent engineering-oriented university -- really don't know what they want to do. So when you're pressured to declare a major at the end of sophomore year, and you have no clue, and everyone tells you that you need to make money -- engineering seems like a surer bet than most anything else. Other safety-net fields are prelaw and premed.
But I'm not an engineer. I'm an English major. It's really my only love. But one can't really get paid to read books -- the life of a New York editor sucks -- and my peers in my creative writing classes don't seem to appreciate what I write very much. I've convinced myself to slog through a major in Managerial Studies so that I have some sort of marketable job skills after I graduate.
But more to the point -- I'm schmoozing with tech companies. Even as a liberal arts major, I figure since I have some computer skills and enjoy that okay, why not parlay that into better money? I may not like it as well as something purely literature-oriented, but when it means the difference between 20K a year and 50K a year, preference becomes pretty irrelevant -- at least, it does when you're my age (20).
I thought when I was a kid that I could have my dream job and be well compensated for it. But unfortunately, society does not believe that contemporary art and literature are worth money. It sucks, but maturity, I have found, involves accepting that life sucks, dreams usually don't come true, and The Man will win in the end.
These first two points may possibly be construed as nitpicky.
1.) I always thought the Fates were female. At the beginning of your article, you refer to them in the masculine, then abruptly switch gender referents near the end. Are you confused, did you not proofread, or am I missing something more significant?
2.) There is no Palm IV. There is III, IIIx, V, and VII.
These two simply make you look silly, Mr. Katz. The following is a more serious consideration:
3.) You use the word "Luddite" in a way that broadly categorizes Luddites in a negative manner. I thought Slashdot was supposed to be a place of tolerance? Actual Luddites may find your offhand dismissal and casual use of their sect name offensive. (I'm not usually the PC police, but I think this deserves serious consideration.) You are a writer, Mr. Katz. Words are your weapons. Don't toss them about so carelessly -- when you do, you're not doing your job.
I hope that "Luddite" does not become another easy buzzword pigeonhole that appears in 90% of your articles, along with: Geek AI God/Religion Cyber* ... etc.
Please think more carefully about your choice of words in the future. Also, I would suggest having other people proofread your work before you post it. It would save you embarrassment. Surely you don't let the editors at Brill's Content do all your revision for you?
Anyway, I'm sure that if such a woman as exhibited the ideal (so poetically described as a Linus-Natalie Portman half-breed) existed, most computer nerds (myself included) wouldn't stand a whit of chance anyway.
Not true. If she really did have the mind of Linus, she'd be smart enough to see how sweet a lot of geek guys can be.;) She would merely select the sweetest, least neurotic, most sensible geek guy and have many many Linus Mini-Me children.
"Mini Me, you complete me..."
BTW -- I'd like to claim the parent post to your reply as mine. I swear I was logged in and it put me down as an AC. Ack!
Lynnaea muse@rice.edu
This essay tells me nothing new
on
Lo-Tech Cinema
·
· Score: 1
I'm not a Katz-basher, I usually think he has something creative and insightful to say, but unfortunately, it seems this essay isn't a party to that pattern.
Jon, this essay didn't tell me ANYTHING I didn't already know! I know the movie was made for the "cost of a fully-loaded Taurus". I know that the movie is supposedly the revitalization of a genre. I know they used their website to extensively hype the film -- God knows I visited it about 5 times before seeing the film. I also know that the psychological and improvisational nature of the film are its major strengths. I also know this isn't the way Hollywood usually works.
And I swear to God if I hear/read the premise of the film one more time I'm going to go postal.
I could go on, but I think I'll stop here.
Jon, if your essay was a post, it'd be moderated down for "redundant." Next time, don't forget to add the content, please?
-What was tied up in the bundle of sticks? I had a hard time telling because the screen was so grainy. The guy I was with said, eyeballs and a finger, and someone else later told me it was like a tongue and jawbone, or something. Totally hard to tell. But what was so hard about that scene to watch was that the camera was SO CLOSE to it all -- there was nowhere else to look except AT THAT STUFF and it seemed like forever before the scene cut to something else.
- Why was Mike just standing there? I think it's a safe bet that at that point, starving, exhausted, terrified, no one would really be in their right mind. No sane person would have gone in that house. And I think that by the time Mike made it to the basement, total resignation to fate would have been possible. His character was pretty clueless from the start -- couldn't read a map (what a stupid prick to throw it away!), didn't really take the lead in anything...
- The stick figures could have represented all the victims the Blair Witch had taken over the centuries... maybe all the future ones as well, which is even more chilling to think about...
I definitely do NOT envy the three actors from the movie. I mean, that's as close as you can get to actually have something like that *happen* to you. Even their real names are the ones used in the movie... I wouldn't be surprised if they were haunted by the experience for the rest of their lives.
But what Jon is getting at (or perhaps not, but what I feel anyways) is that capitalism these days, while based on sound principles, has led to an unfortunate exploitation of the consumer that can only be checked when the entrepreneur/business in question has a sound set of ethics.
Examples of exploitation that would be at least partially cured by ethics that take precedence over or modulate profit concerns are: - spam - truth in advertising issues - perpetuating the use of anorexic models - destruction/degradation of the environment
These are not small issues. CEOs don't have to be saints, but they shouldn't be inhuman either.
Katz' articles regularly annoy and frustrate me, since he tends to espouse the outlook of "the Net will change the world completely, and it should follow my ethical outlook".
There was an article linked off of HNN a couple weeks ago talking about how the net was founded as a place of mutual trust, hence its inherent lack of security structures. I don't think Jon is wrong for fighting for it to stay a place of socioethical purity, at least to a greater extent than the physical world. Acceptance of the world in all its toolishness is part of what's wrong with the world today.
And yes, I do believe the Net will change the world someday. It possesses enormous potential and a way for one individual to reach thousands in ways that they were never before empowered to. And if it is destined to be that important, then it becomes especially vital to fight for its purity -- privacy issues, free speech, and ethics included. Don't give in to the cynical temptation to let it degrade itself to the level of our present everyday affairs. The Net is wasted as such a place.
OK, I'll say these things up front: - I used to work for Barnes and Noble (not in over a year, though) - I also used to work for Waldenbooks (incidentally, owned by the same company that owns Borders and K-Mart)
Publishing has never been an industry that it is easy to make money in. Books, because of the intelligence generally required to read them, reek of elitism, boredom, and effort to too many people. Publishing houses often struggle just to keep out of the red every year. Ever wonder why it's so hard for new writers to break in to the market? Well, if you were a publishing house thinking about investing scads of money in book design/production/marketing, wouldn't you want a sure bet too?
Amazon is no different. And neither is Barnes and Noble. The Waldenbooks I used to work for was small, shabby, neglected by the corporation because of its comparatively rural location. Barnes and Noble, on the other hand, was spacious, had the most comfortable chairs I have ever sat in (I used to spend my breaks in them), and has tons of variety.
I saw an article while working at B&N that summed up the reasons why I support B&N (unfortunately, I don't have it anymore): It allows for diversity. The one I worked in had entire subsections on linguistics, anthropology. That would have been undreamed of at Waldens. The point is, while Barnes and Noble may not support diversity of vendor (i.e., other bookstores), it does support diversity of supplier (i.e., publishers). It carries thousands of publishers, from small university or religious presses to your well-known East Coast publishers like Random House, etc. That's really not such a bad thing.
The other thing I like about Barnes and Noble is that it at least curries an air of intelligence and literacy. The decor is classical, the musical selections don't tend to be your typical top40, the offerings, once you get out of the bestsellers section, are eclectic and tolerant of many ideologies. In short: It doesn't dumb itself down to the customer. It makes the customer feel all that more literate and intelligent for being there.
Barnes and Noble is not the evil empire. It's trying to make money, just like Amazon. Quite frankly, if people go to Amazon to buy a pikachu, happen to wander in to the books section, and buy a paperback while they're at it, then Amazon's "sellout" has been justified. Of all the industries trying to make money in America today, the publishing and book industries are among the most severely handicapped by modernday illiteracy, apathy, and lack of interest in anything remotely intellectual. Don't begrudge Amazon or B&N of the steps they have to take to keep people supplied with what they need to keep their minds alive.
In the end, Barnes and Noble is a reading mecca for me. If my old Waldenbooks location closes down (which it is threatened with annually), then the only bookstore in that area will be the Christian bookstore. Don't knock it if you have a bookstore near you, regardless of what you think of its commercialism. Amazon and other online book retailers have the unique ability of being anywhere there is an Internet connection. And that, for the people that shop my old Waldenbooks store, may someday be the only place they can go for a diversity of books that are selected free of religious concerns.
then why do the bots even bother using humans? Don't you think it's a lot of trouble to build this hugely complex virtual world for human beings if ANY warm source would do? Why not cows? A big virtual field with lots of vitual grass seems to be a whole lot less trouble. I mean, humans have a history of being shitty slaves, we're always rebelling and whining and stuff. Now cows, cows would be perfect, they digest, create LOTS of heat, and never bother at all with philosophy or uprisings and such.
But here's what doesn't make sense: If you wait until the initial feeding frenzy dies down, you can buy a used copy of the movie pretty cheap.
If that's going to happen, then what's the point of not releasing originals for sale? They don't gain anything, but Blockbuster etc. sure does. Is it possible that they wouldn't allow previewed videos to be sold by the rental stores?
I feel very strongly AGAINST buying a DVD player right now. Yes, the quality is higher, blah blah blah but as a college student, VHS (at least I hope it's not) is not going ANYWHERE for awhile, not in my collection, and I certainly don't have the money to drop on even a cheaper DVD player. This is really reminiscent of the Cassette/CD conunudrum that I endured for years and it pisses me off that WB is yanking my chain like this.
I also deeply resent the tech business yanking my chain and forcing me to convert to new technologies, invalidating all the money I've previously spent on cassette and VHS collections. When will they get smart and realize this makes me not want to invest money??? Backwards-compatibility isn't a friggin' sin.
Oh, well. *sigh* Guess I'll just have to ah... lose my rental copy and then swipe the sleeve from the shelves or something. I wonder if mass rental theft will be a problem with this movie?
-- Lynnaea, who is not usually a criminal, but who will willingly piss off the establishment when they're being dumbasses
I saw that and found it completely disgusting and offensive. I was halfway interested in the drink (just for the marketing slant) but after seeing how the company views half of its potential market, I would never waste my money on such trash.
I did, however, drink 3-4 Jostas a day last summer. Great drink. When I suddenly quit them cold turkey last fall, though, I was sick and useless for about 3 weeks. Combination of sleep deprivation, school-related stress, and (of course) caffeine/guarana withdrawal.
Slashdot Mirror
"roystgnr" shows the ignorance that a lot of people in technology have to this issue, instead of reading the Website I linked to, or better yet, even understanding the issue before trying to be cute, he chose to insinuate I'm sort of foreigner hating hillbilly, which did nothing but demonstrate his ignorance.
If he held a job in a major metro area, I'm sure he'd be more enlightened.
Without implying that either of you are wrong, in roystgnr's defense:
He has worked in multiple metro areas (including Houston and Albuquerque) and is extremely intelligent and enlightened. Why don't you point out specifically what's wrong with his argument and why, instead of slinging ad hominem attacks? I'm sure the humor was not intended to be a personal slam, but rather a reminder that this issue is, in fact, easily stereotyped and polarized and requires careful, elaborated, and specific argument.
Lynnaea
I would have kept this as a private email except yours isn't listed in UserInfo... so...
;)
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for being so incredibly cluefull about feminism. So educated, so reasonable, informed, and nonbiased.
Of course, the fact that I agree with you helps... *laugh* But thank you. If it weren't for my boyfriend... I KISS YOU!
(Take notes, guys: Being up on feminism scores points with chicks.
A relieved and happy feminist (kiss my ass! I EARN my raises AND my grades!),
Lynnaea
I would do anything for a spell check button as an optional part of the Preview process.
But what about those of us who use poor spelling to judge others as careless or unintelligent?
Lynnaea
I have to agree, I was totally surprised by
CmdrTaco's review. The commercials make the movie
look awful, and I know my reaction was --
Sigourney, oh Sigourney! How far hast thou fallen? Oh, the humanity...
I'd rather you kept your head shaven than become a busty dumb blond.
How could a movie goddess become so desperate?
Lynn
How does the Lucy model _run_ with those??? :)
:) She's got an iron boobsack -- metal
;)
Easy.
can, theoretically, withstand such stresses and
strains, and any ligaments naturally supporting
those (since she's cyborg) can be made of
super-strong, non-ductile alloys -- no excessive sag.
Mechanical Engineers, help me out here.
Lynnaea
The reason I'm not worried about the pessimistic survey results is because (and maybe I'm just a cynic) I think the vast majority of the American population doesn't know jack shit -- especially not enough to be able to predict China's future progress as a nation. Please. They probably can't locate China on a map.
The "average American" watches Buffy and Dawson's Creek and thinks it's QUALITY television, reads Stephen King or Danielle Steel, and believes "them Japs" are stealing our jobs and it's all their fault.
*snort* The survey is interesting as far as gauging the paranoias of Americans, but useless as an indicator of actual probability.
Lynnaea
The problem is priority. If school committees really cared about science/math education, things would improve. But all too often they're seen as "extras" (as is art, music, etc.!) while support for things like phys ed, sports, etc. flows on because we're told that school "spirit" and pride is important. I'd rather be proud that my senior class scored exceptionally well on the SATs or MCAS tests than that our local football team went 11-0, but if you look at where the concentration of attention in placed in our high schools (for example, in terms of coverage in local newspapers or on TV), it's sports, sports, sports, with maybe one or two pieces a month buried inside on some education program that's doing well. Where's the outcry from the SCHOOLS on this mistreatment?
Two points:
1.) Corporate leadership can play a role. My school, despite being rural and underfunded (thanks to the @#)(*$(*&^ "Robin Hood" school funding bill), had a great science curriculum because the major part of that town's tax base and employment came from the Phillips 66 refinery 3 miles away. Phillips (and also Dow, which was 30 minutes away but also employed many people from my hometown) had programs going that stipulated extra graduation honors and potential future job offers for students who followed a curriculum which they specified. This involved something like 4 years of English, at LEAST 3 of science, 3 math, 2 social studies/history, as well as some others. I also think Computer Science or Literacy was required. Because in my town, engineers were the bread-earners (and the girls were told not to BE engineers but rather marry them), the students really went for this program.
2. The schools aren't raising an uproar about it because to their mind, sports = revenues. When I argued again and again with teachers/administration/principals about why the hell was the football team getting new jerseys every year when the band and drama departments were struggling for equipment, I was told, "Nobody in this town comes to see the plays, or the band play at halftime. They come to see the football team, and they pay money for it."
Depressing no? *sigh*
The fact of the matter is that at the current teacher salary, schools will not attract the highest-quality, most-motivated, most-intellectually-curious people. To my way of thinking, one has to be a martyr in order to put up with the current frustrations of teaching: no ability to discipline students, belligerent and uncooperative students and parents, stupid clueless school boards and administration, inhumane workload, AND low pay to boot.
If you want a better pool of teachers, ones who will inform themselves and pass that knowledge on to their students --
Pay them well.
I think I would have been more happy weight had been devoted to these thing than trying to force me to read subjects like history and social studies which I never cared less about.
However, even though you never cared less about history and social studies, the point is that you *do*, to be an educated and well-rounded person, need to know a certain base level of knowledge about these things.
The point of education is to ensure a common base level of knowledge for all citizens in order to ensure productive workers and reasonably educated voters.
So even if you never cared less about those things, and even if learning them made you less happy, I think it's good that they still taught you those things.
WETA is Peter Jackson's special/vfx that he's using in the ubercool upcoming "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. The shooting location for those movies is in New Zealand, so that's where they're working right now, but I'm unsure of where their permanent base of operations are.
For the trilogy, at least, I've read that the special fx are not really Matrixish, but still damn cool. They have a software program called MASSIVE which will be largely responsible for creating and animating in a true-to-life manner armies of 400,000+ orcs in complex battle scenes. WETA is also creating a character for the movie -- Gollum -- and all reports say that Gollum is the most lifelike, unfake pure fx character yet. Furthermore, they're using CGI to shrink the actors playing hobbits to half their normal size or so. Finally, they're altering the filmed landscape in subtle ways to make it more magical.
For more info, see:
Ringbearer.org
The Official Movie Site with preview stills
I have no personal stake in either this argument or this topic in general, though from my understanding of events JP is more than likely a heartless bastard.
/.
... I don't need 'factual' arguments."
/. admin? If you're not, why should I believe you? Don't give me that bullshit about statistics lying. It's often true, but that doesn't excuse you from showing me (or anyone reading this thread) why you think that's true. I would be more willing to wager that the majority of /. readers might disagree with Katz, but wouldn't kick him off, which is what you're suggesting. I would think, instead, that there is a very screamingly vocal minority (you included) that throws a hissyfit every time he posts something, to the extent that the volume of the flaming exceeds the volume of geniune content generated by the article. Volume of posting does not equal number of unique /. users.
But of all the flaming and irrationality that have been going on in these comments, this one is absolutely the WORST I've seen.
2. I, and others, just might stop reading
"Waaah! Mommy! I'm going to take my ball and go home! I'm not gonna play with you people anymore!" Please. Shit or get off the pot. I certainly wouldn't miss you -- mainly because of bullshit like this:
"I do not need to 'prove' anything.
Excuse me? Is this a complete departure from reality and rationality? It's not for arbitrary reasons that in competitive debate circles, the burden of proof lies with the negative, that is, the person who dislikes the status quo must unequivocably prove his argument, otherwise, the status quo wins and remains the same.
If you refrain from attempting to "prove" anything, this is what you get:
- an image of insecurity, since you seem to feel the world should act on your whims and not on logic. Seems rather dictatorial, if you ask me.
- ignored. People here are generally intelligent enough to recognize a baseless argument when they see it.
You don't need 'factual' arguments? But yet, when JP doesn't use them, you get upset? Isn't that the definition of "hypocrite"?
You seem to posit it as "fact" (though I am not at all sure it is) that "significant portions of the mature readership here object to Katz's articles". Where's your data? What's your source? Are you a
Not all action and argument must be made based on fact, but action and argument based solely on opinion is ineffective at persuading others to see your point of view.
You're no better than JP when you post baseless crap like this and then claim -- beyond all reason or accountability -- that you don't have to back it up.
---
... a reason why kids don't pursue what makes them happy.
First of all: Most of the people I know -- and I'm a junior in an excellent engineering-oriented university -- really don't know what they want to do. So when you're pressured to declare a major at the end of sophomore year, and you have no clue, and everyone tells you that you need to make money -- engineering seems like a surer bet than most anything else. Other safety-net fields are prelaw and premed.
But I'm not an engineer. I'm an English major. It's really my only love. But one can't really get paid to read books -- the life of a New York editor sucks -- and my peers in my creative writing classes don't seem to appreciate what I write very much. I've convinced myself to slog through a major in Managerial Studies so that I have some sort of marketable job skills after I graduate.
But more to the point -- I'm schmoozing with tech companies. Even as a liberal arts major, I figure since I have some computer skills and enjoy that okay, why not parlay that into better money? I may not like it as well as something purely literature-oriented, but when it means the difference between 20K a year and 50K a year, preference becomes pretty irrelevant -- at least, it does when you're my age (20).
I thought when I was a kid that I could have my dream job and be well compensated for it. But unfortunately, society does not believe that contemporary art and literature are worth money. It sucks, but maturity, I have found, involves accepting that life sucks, dreams usually don't come true, and The Man will win in the end.
*amused*
As roystgnr commented to me:
"Actually, I think I rather enjoy the irony of making fun of Luddites on the Internet."
*evil chuckle*
These first two points may possibly be construed as nitpicky.
... etc.
1.) I always thought the Fates were female. At the beginning of your article, you refer to them in the masculine, then abruptly switch gender referents near the end. Are you confused, did you not proofread, or am I missing something more significant?
2.) There is no Palm IV. There is III, IIIx, V, and VII.
These two simply make you look silly, Mr. Katz. The following is a more serious consideration:
3.) You use the word "Luddite" in a way that broadly categorizes Luddites in a negative manner. I thought Slashdot was supposed to be a place of tolerance? Actual Luddites may find your offhand dismissal and casual use of their sect name offensive. (I'm not usually the PC police, but I think this deserves serious consideration.) You are a writer, Mr. Katz. Words are your weapons. Don't toss them about so carelessly -- when you do, you're not doing your job.
I hope that "Luddite" does not become another easy buzzword pigeonhole that appears in 90% of your articles, along with:
Geek
AI
God/Religion
Cyber*
Please think more carefully about your choice of words in the future. Also, I would suggest having other people proofread your work before you post it. It would save you embarrassment. Surely you don't let the editors at Brill's Content do all your revision for you?
Anyway, I'm sure that if such a woman as exhibited the ideal (so poetically described as a Linus-Natalie Portman half-breed) existed, most computer nerds (myself included) wouldn't stand a whit of chance anyway.
;) She would merely select the sweetest, least neurotic, most sensible geek guy and have many many Linus Mini-Me children.
Not true. If she really did have the mind of Linus, she'd be smart enough to see how sweet a lot of geek guys can be.
"Mini Me, you complete me..."
BTW -- I'd like to claim the parent post to your reply as mine. I swear I was logged in and it put me down as an AC. Ack!
Lynnaea
muse@rice.edu
I'm not a Katz-basher, I usually think he has something creative and insightful to say, but unfortunately, it seems this essay isn't a party to that pattern.
Jon, this essay didn't tell me ANYTHING I didn't already know! I know the movie was made for the "cost of a fully-loaded Taurus". I know that the movie is supposedly the revitalization of a genre. I know they used their website to extensively hype the film -- God knows I visited it about 5 times before seeing the film. I also know that the psychological and improvisational nature of the film are its major strengths. I also know this isn't the way Hollywood usually works.
And I swear to God if I hear/read the premise of the film one more time I'm going to go postal.
I could go on, but I think I'll stop here.
Jon, if your essay was a post, it'd be moderated down for "redundant." Next time, don't forget to add the content, please?
-What was tied up in the bundle of sticks?
I had a hard time telling because the screen was so grainy. The guy I was with said, eyeballs and a finger, and someone else later told me it was like a tongue and jawbone, or something. Totally hard to tell. But what was so hard about that scene to watch was that the camera was SO CLOSE to it all -- there was nowhere else to look except AT THAT STUFF and it seemed like forever before the scene cut to something else.
- Why was Mike just standing there?
I think it's a safe bet that at that point, starving, exhausted, terrified, no one would really be in their right mind. No sane person would have gone in that house. And I think that by the time Mike made it to the basement, total resignation to fate would have been possible. His character was pretty clueless from the start -- couldn't read a map (what a stupid prick to throw it away!), didn't really take the lead in anything...
- The stick figures could have represented all the victims the Blair Witch had taken over the centuries... maybe all the future ones as well, which is even more chilling to think about...
I definitely do NOT envy the three actors from the movie. I mean, that's as close as you can get to actually have something like that *happen* to you. Even their real names are the ones used in the movie... I wouldn't be surprised if they were haunted by the experience for the rest of their lives.
The new Hollywood actor: Emotional guinea pig?
Nothing wrong with elitism as long as you're part of the 31337.
I personally don't truly mind anything that differentiates me from the mindless masses.
It's a tool, not a religion.
True.
But what Jon is getting at (or perhaps not, but what I feel anyways) is that capitalism these days, while based on sound principles, has led to an unfortunate exploitation of the consumer that can only be checked when the entrepreneur/business in question has a sound set of ethics.
Examples of exploitation that would be at least partially cured by ethics that take precedence over or modulate profit concerns are:
- spam
- truth in advertising issues
- perpetuating the use of anorexic models
- destruction/degradation of the environment
These are not small issues. CEOs don't have to be saints, but they shouldn't be inhuman either.
Katz' articles regularly annoy and frustrate me, since he tends to espouse the outlook of "the Net will change the world completely, and it should follow my ethical outlook".
There was an article linked off of HNN a couple weeks ago talking about how the net was founded as a place of mutual trust, hence its inherent lack of security structures. I don't think Jon is wrong for fighting for it to stay a place of socioethical purity, at least to a greater extent than the physical world. Acceptance of the world in all its toolishness is part of what's wrong with the world today.
And yes, I do believe the Net will change the world someday. It possesses enormous potential and a way for one individual to reach thousands in ways that they were never before empowered to. And if it is destined to be that important, then it becomes especially vital to fight for its purity -- privacy issues, free speech, and ethics included. Don't give in to the cynical temptation to let it degrade itself to the level of our present everyday affairs. The Net is wasted as such a place.
OK, I'll say these things up front:
- I used to work for Barnes and Noble (not in over a year, though)
- I also used to work for Waldenbooks (incidentally, owned by the same company that owns Borders and K-Mart)
Publishing has never been an industry that it is easy to make money in. Books, because of the intelligence generally required to read them, reek of elitism, boredom, and effort to too many people. Publishing houses often struggle just to keep out of the red every year. Ever wonder why it's so hard for new writers to break in to the market? Well, if you were a publishing house thinking about investing scads of money in book design/production/marketing, wouldn't you want a sure bet too?
Amazon is no different. And neither is Barnes and Noble. The Waldenbooks I used to work for was small, shabby, neglected by the corporation because of its comparatively rural location. Barnes and Noble, on the other hand, was spacious, had the most comfortable chairs I have ever sat in (I used to spend my breaks in them), and has tons of variety.
I saw an article while working at B&N that summed up the reasons why I support B&N (unfortunately, I don't have it anymore): It allows for diversity. The one I worked in had entire subsections on linguistics, anthropology. That would have been undreamed of at Waldens. The point is, while Barnes and Noble may not support diversity of vendor (i.e., other bookstores), it does support diversity of supplier (i.e., publishers). It carries thousands of publishers, from small university or religious presses to your well-known East Coast publishers like Random House, etc. That's really not such a bad thing.
The other thing I like about Barnes and Noble is that it at least curries an air of intelligence and literacy. The decor is classical, the musical selections don't tend to be your typical top40, the offerings, once you get out of the bestsellers section, are eclectic and tolerant of many ideologies. In short: It doesn't dumb itself down to the customer. It makes the customer feel all that more literate and intelligent for being there.
Barnes and Noble is not the evil empire. It's trying to make money, just like Amazon. Quite frankly, if people go to Amazon to buy a pikachu, happen to wander in to the books section, and buy a paperback while they're at it, then Amazon's "sellout" has been justified. Of all the industries trying to make money in America today, the publishing and book industries are among the most severely handicapped by modernday illiteracy, apathy, and lack of interest in anything remotely intellectual. Don't begrudge Amazon or B&N of the steps they have to take to keep people supplied with what they need to keep their minds alive.
In the end, Barnes and Noble is a reading mecca for me. If my old Waldenbooks location closes down (which it is threatened with annually), then the only bookstore in that area will be the Christian bookstore. Don't knock it if you have a bookstore near you, regardless of what you think of its commercialism. Amazon and other online book retailers have the unique ability of being anywhere there is an Internet connection. And that, for the people that shop my old Waldenbooks store, may someday be the only place they can go for a diversity of books that are selected free of religious concerns.
then why do the bots even bother using humans? Don't you think it's a lot of trouble to build this hugely complex virtual world for human beings if ANY warm source would do? Why not cows? A big virtual field with lots of vitual grass seems to be a whole lot less trouble. I mean, humans have a history of being shitty slaves, we're always rebelling and whining and stuff. Now cows, cows would be perfect, they digest, create LOTS of heat, and never bother at all with philosophy or uprisings and such.
;)
Don't watch much South Park, do you?
But here's what doesn't make sense:
If you wait until the initial feeding frenzy dies down, you can buy a used copy of the movie pretty cheap.
If that's going to happen, then what's the point of not releasing originals for sale? They don't gain anything, but Blockbuster etc. sure does. Is it possible that they wouldn't allow previewed videos to be sold by the rental stores?
I feel very strongly AGAINST buying a DVD player right now. Yes, the quality is higher, blah blah blah but as a college student, VHS (at least I hope it's not) is not going ANYWHERE for awhile, not in my collection, and I certainly don't have the money to drop on even a cheaper DVD player. This is really reminiscent of the Cassette/CD conunudrum that I endured for years and it pisses me off that WB is yanking my chain like this.
I also deeply resent the tech business yanking my chain and forcing me to convert to new technologies, invalidating all the money I've previously spent on cassette and VHS collections. When will they get smart and realize this makes me not want to invest money??? Backwards-compatibility isn't a friggin' sin.
Oh, well. *sigh* Guess I'll just have to ah... lose my rental copy and then swipe the sleeve from the shelves or something. I wonder if mass rental theft will be a problem with this movie?
-- Lynnaea, who is not usually a criminal, but who will willingly piss off the establishment when they're being dumbasses
I saw that and found it completely disgusting and offensive. I was halfway interested in the drink (just for the marketing slant) but after seeing how the company views half of its potential market, I would never waste my money on such trash.
I did, however, drink 3-4 Jostas a day last summer. Great drink. When I suddenly quit them cold turkey last fall, though, I was sick and useless for about 3 weeks. Combination of sleep deprivation, school-related stress, and (of course) caffeine/guarana withdrawal.