Prior to Skype, it was Lync. And Lync was fairly crappy. Then MSoft picked up Skype and said the two programs would merge. And they did. The program is now skinned as "Skype", but the actual program running is still called Lync. Ha!
There are benefits to the program, of course. I can help people remotely by sharing my entire desktop or only a single window. It's integrated with Exchange, so if they're on our corporate network, I can chat with them quickly and easily. But it's all still very slow, the notification settings only work on certain workstations (leading to many missed messages), it chews up nearly 100MB of RAM while idle, and the actual look of the program is exceedingly wasteful in the amount of desktop real estate it takes up in non-functional white space. The main window is 400x600 pixels *at its smallest*. Less than half of that space has buttons, texts or links. The chat window can be made slightly smaller than that, but it's limited by HUGE buttons that should be part of a simple drop-down menu.
It's fairly stable for me and its functions are useful, but its speed, resource consumption, and the size is absolutely unjustifiable.
The first thing that has to be recognized by someone attempting facilitate gender/sex diversity in the tech industry is to recognize that tech is not a "male" industry... it's an "outcast" industry. Everyone assumes that males are specifically targeted and tracked into computer-related academic/research/career paths. That's not the case. By and large, it's social outcasts who take up computers as a hobby are tracked into computer-related academic/research/career paths and those social outcasts are more commonly male.
If people REALLY want to foster a better, more inclusive environment for all people in the computer industry:
1. Parents need to stop enforcing traditional femininity norms on their daughters so that their daughters are willing to go into technology-related fields of study and careers. This change is already happening, but it's not a generation-wide ideal, so expect the swell of girls being SOCIALLY supported in the field to come 30 years from now.
2. Adults need to ensure that those whose choose computers/tech as a hobby (and are thus more likely to choose tech as a career) get the social acclimation they're likely being deprived in other parts of life. I'm speaking mainly of males here. Again, young boys don't become reclusive computer nerds because they see a rewarding career in system administration. They fall into it because it helps them escape from the tortures that come with being social pariahs. If you repair the damage of their exclusion early, you can almost guarantee a better work environment for women seeking to enter the tech field later in life.
But, of course, that's only if you want to make real change happen over time and not just attempt to force new rules and standards without any consideration for the root causes of issues.
Adria overheard them making quiet "forking" and "dongle" jokes. She stood up, turned around, took a photo of them, and then tweeted the photo and her complaint to the conference organizers as well as her many followers. (https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313417655879102464?lang=en) The conference responded by pulling the two men out of the room and discussing the comments. They were mortified, admitted it was childish, and apologized. The outrage machine ground on unbeknownst to them. Then they were fired.
Each of the involved parties were interviewed for the book "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson. It's an amazingly insightful book. Get a taste of it here in Ronson's TED talk. (https://www.ted.com/talks/jon_ronson_what_happens_when_online_shaming_spirals_out_of_control?language=en)
College students and Mac Laptops. Seriously. They are by far the dominant laptop I see on my campus. In almost every study session and meeting, I see everyone reach into their bags and pull out what are seemingly the exact same Mac laptop.
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the x86-based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Notes, RealNetworks, Linux, and others.[15] Judgment was split in two parts. On April 3, 2000, he issued his conclusions of law, according to which Microsoft had committed monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Microsoft immediately appealed the decision.[16]
On June 7, 2000, the court ordered a breakup of Microsoft as its "remedy". According to that judgment, Microsoft would have to be broken into two separate units, one to produce the operating system, and one to produce other software components.[16][17]
No Trump supporter would associate Trumps campaign with a swastika. That would hurt Trump's campaign. The same goes for anyone attempting a false flag attack.
Instead, this was done by people satirizing Trump supporters as brash bullies and mocking Trump's rhetoric as Nazi-reminiscent.
It's not a hard distinction to understand, but apparently the article's author had some difficulty making the connection.
Wait... is it actually becoming cheaper to own/use a smartphone, laptop, tablet or other potential note-taking device? Because I'm fairly certain that cheapo laptops (chromebooks, netbooks) have been around $150-$200 and proper low-end laptops have been $300-$500 have been those prices for years. Smartphones and tablets (relative to brand) have been stagnant in their prices as well.
And smaller? Smartphones are only getting bigger. Laptops have bottomed out in their thinness at the cost of quite a bit of functionality.
Seriously, almost every Netflix subscriber will agree that the Netflix GUI has literally only gotten worse with every new iteration. From removing sort and filter options, to putting too much emphasis on movement and DVD box covers to the sheer amount of resources it takes up, it's been a non-stop cluster. It's as if they want to make it difficult for you to watch something you think you would like.
But still, it's 100 times better than Amazon Prime's interface.
What happened to the days of highly functional web interfaces?
That functions a lot less like a Back to the Future hoverboard (http://gph.is/14VEqAs) and more like the Green Goblin's glider (http://cdn.instructables.com/F36/11RQ/H994BU7B/F3611RQH994BU7B.LARGE.jpg)
I hate Trump as much as the next owner of his/her own brain, but Facebook should do nothing. It's a company. It's a system of contracts. It has no place getting involved in politics. None of them do.
Politics, campaign funding, and voting is for people.
"Sex Assigned at Birth: The assignment and classification of people as male, female, intersex, or another sex based on a combination of anatomy, hormones, chromosomes. It is important we don’t simply use “sex” because of the vagueness of the definition of sex and its place in transphobia. Chromosomes are frequently used to determine sex from prenatal karyotyping (although not as often as genitalia). Chromosomes do not determine genitalia."
Warning, you may be conversing with someone who has been confused by the bleeding edge of LGBTQ+ activism vocabulary. According to the latest *opinion*, "it's all gender". No scientist will accept that, but that's the line that's being pushed. Some assert that sex is "assigned" at birth just as gender is assigned by the people raising a child.
Ya, I know. Don't shoot the messenger.
There is no "stopping" abuse of any kind. Any time you try to fully eliminate bad things, innocent or nearly innocent people get caught up in the zero-tolerance policies and everyone loses. The offenders get caught, (Yay!), but when there are no more offenders, the harmful offense gets re-defined to create more offenders.
The prohibition of alcohol came from a good place. Homes and lives were ruined because of absolutely rampant alcoholism. But when the fight for absolute abolition took to banning every single alcoholic beverage, an illicit trade formed and with it came a different kind of harm.
Zero tolerance policies as they pertain to gang violence in schools was amazingly effective... until all the horrible things were appropriately reduced. After that, the books were thrown at minor offenders (https://goo.gl/4DQdKR).
The strong prosecution of hate crimes is a good thing. But what happens when a younger generation who has never actually experienced hate crimes (such as being physically assaulted for being a particular religion or race) seeks to re-define what is considered hate? Or racism. Or sexism? What happens when they lower the bar so that a previously welcoming phrase like "America is a melting pot" is redefined as offensive, potentially hateful, speech? We see that today when "microaggressions" are now 'a concern' and how the offended (not *harmed*) are asserting some sort of power for their being offended.
When you seek to "stop" any harm outright and completely, you inevitably come to the point where the harm is so rare, infrequent, or of immeasurably small effect that the ongoing effort begins to victimize people instead of protect them.
But what do you do instead? Actual harm is happening-- how do you stop that harm? The answer is simple, but not easy: hard work. When someone does something harmful, find that person and punish that person. Yes, that's a lot of work, but the punishment is targeted and the restrictions on non-harmful actions are non-existent. Target genuinely harmful actions with strong enforcement and leave the rest to personal control (facilitating visible blocking & ignoring with the option to report) and community moderation (like Slashdot). The aim should always be to reduce harm, but never to eliminate offense.
Lastly, as it is common with the current wave of activism, I will assume that someone will say, "But no one should have to see written abuse online to the point where someone then has to hit an ignore/block button!" to which I respond, "Yes, they should. For the same of protecting the free exchange of ideas (good, bad, and infuriating) and for the protection of people against prejudicial reactions. Without the risk for online abuse, there would be no disagreement and discussion online could only be the repetition of a single idea over and over again."
They trust that the airport is on the job-- just like they are when they purchase a ticket, check their luggage, go through screening, sleep in the terminal, and eventually board the plane. An airport is an extremely safe place.
So if the concern is that people are risking their digital health by connecting to bad Wi-Fi spots, there's an easy 4-step solution:
1) Provide free Wi-Fi. Most airports do this.
2) Require all Wi-Fi spots to follow a specific naming system. (LAX-Terminal17). Provide the warning throughout the airport that if you're connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot and you can't see the terminal or business from where you are, you may have connected to a hotspot attempting to exploit the demand for free Wi-Fi.
3) Forbid all non-airport-supported open Wi-Fi hotspots.
4) Download a wardriving app for Android and get to sniffing out bad Wi-Fi hotspots.
Then brag about it. Seriously. "We at Slashdot International Airport care about your personal safety and the safety of your private information. We implemented a system that finds malicious Wi-Fi hotspots and punishes their creators. We have found and stopped X hotspots already. We would like to remind you that Slashdot Airport provides multiple secure and reliable hotspots throughout the airport labeled per their areas. If you connect to a hotspot whose area you're not in, your data may be at risk."
Then apply for awards. Seriously. "And the winner of the Mobile Data Best Practices Award is... "
It's all still conjecture. It seems as though there's a new article every day trying to find additional reasons to stay hyped about self-driving automobiles. Self-driving autos will come, eventually, but we all need to accept that, when they do come, it's not going to happen en masse. And the critical mass for autonomous cars is still a decade out. At least.
No one's willing to fully insure a purely automated vehicle and remove any humans onboard of all liability yet. There are still massive legal restrictions against them. Why? Because they don't work yet. They kinda work. They work on all roads for very small values of "all".
So enough with the theoretical uses of a tech that is still really quite theoretical.
Pay what they want or don't get the land. If they don't want to sell the land, move on. So what if it's the best place to put the telescope. It's their land!
First, NASA was pandering when it said space travel was like NASCAR. Any relationship is thoroughly stretched... except maybe the emphasis on orbiting. But space stations don't need to worry about camber.
Second, what Bill said was an "All tigers are cats" issue. Yes, you will probably see a higher concentration of NASCAR fans in the anti-NASA group, but by no means is he saying that NASA supporters cannot be NASCAR fans or that all NASCAR fans are unintelligent. He wasn't insulting "(All) NASCAR fans", he was equating people who pay more attention to NASCAR than NASA to a lower intelligence.
Ex.
A: Your cousin is stupid.
B: How dare you insult my family name!?
A: No, not your family name-- YOUR COUSIN.
I know plenty of Republicans and Libertarians that despise the extremism of the Tea Party. The Tea Party makes them look like idiots.
The progressive/liberal side of the spectrum has their own "Tea Party" and they are frequently referred to as "SJWs" or "Social Justice Warriors". They need a better name, though, because there are genuine social justice "warriors" that do good-- you know, like fighting against gerrymandering and police brutality. The "SJWs" that mess it all up are those that attempt to change the meanings of words. Examples:
Violence: Violence used to mean action that caused physical harm. Today, SJWs (the bad ones) are trying to change the common vocabulary so that speech that makes someone uncomfortable can be described as "violence".
Triggering: Triggering is a medical term regarding the genuine overwhelming emotions and memories that come flooding to one's forethought after being reminded of an extremely traumatic experience. Today, SJWs (the bad ones) are attempting to make everything a potential "trigger" for someone because it reminds them of something bad. It's not the same.
Racism: This one's pretty bad. Racism has a very specific definition. It's the belief that one race is better than another. However, SJWs (the bad ones) are attributing racism to just about anything that touches the topic of race, ethnicity, culture, etc. People accuse things without the capability of having beliefs of racism ("Is science racist?").
The examples go on and on... these (bad) SJWs are the Tea Party of the left. They tear down anyone who isn't as extreme as they are. But here's the rub-- since they fight for things that are generally accepted as good (reducing harm, protecting people, etc.), you just can't come out as against them or their tactics. And THAT is why schools are bending over backwards to not fight them. Schools are horrifically liability averse and they will almost always give in to the extremists on their side(s) rather than fight them and risk being slandered as rape-cultured and racist organizations.
You sound very angry. I would personally love to respond to your post to discuss the topic further, but I get the sense that you are so entrenched in your own definition that discussion from my side would be civil and you would be on the attack.
I'm disappointed because it looks like you have a great deal of insight from which I could learn.
Another time maybe.
My personal view draws some relatively bold lines between something being art and being artistic.
The fine arts (music, dance, painting, sculpting, etc.) are obviously art. The value of the their existence is based squarely on their appraisal as art.
An automobile, a house (even a Frank Lloyd Wright home), and a video game can be artistic when judged for their artistic elements, but since they have primary functions beyond art, they cannot be wholly works of art. A video game, first and foremost, must be intentionally interactive with some sort of agenda for the player to fulfill. If an automobile does not have an engine, then it's not an automobile. And Frank Lloyd Wright himself continually professed that the form (artistic elements included) of an object should follow its function. He wasn't creating raw art, but integrating artistic sensibilities to functional pieces of everyday life.
Lastly, and I always piss some people off with this one, I don't think something can be art in the traditional sense if it is digital. Art must have the potential to be a failure. Painting, sculpting, even oration can all fail. Photography with traditional film can be an absolute waste if the appropriate lighting, focus, framing, etc. is not achieved. But in digital photography, you get the seemingly limitless opportunity to edit. Digital photography captures images and editing alters those images whereas film captures single, uneditable moments.
Video games can be written, re-written, launched, patched, upgraded, and have relative artistic value based on hardware. When all is said and done, it's more machine than man.
I also distinguish between sports, races, competitions, games and endeavors.
I do not expect many positive points for this post.
The organization asks that people default to "giving right-of-way" (yielding) to pedestrians. Pedestrians do not legally have permanent right-of-way. Right-of-way is determined by law, planning, and engineering.
The California Vehicle Code requires that all automobile drivers YIELD to pedestrians in the road, but as pedestrians do not have a permanent right-of-way, they can still be cited for jaywalking.
Slashdot Mirror
Prior to Skype, it was Lync. And Lync was fairly crappy. Then MSoft picked up Skype and said the two programs would merge. And they did. The program is now skinned as "Skype", but the actual program running is still called Lync. Ha!
There are benefits to the program, of course. I can help people remotely by sharing my entire desktop or only a single window. It's integrated with Exchange, so if they're on our corporate network, I can chat with them quickly and easily. But it's all still very slow, the notification settings only work on certain workstations (leading to many missed messages), it chews up nearly 100MB of RAM while idle, and the actual look of the program is exceedingly wasteful in the amount of desktop real estate it takes up in non-functional white space. The main window is 400x600 pixels *at its smallest*. Less than half of that space has buttons, texts or links. The chat window can be made slightly smaller than that, but it's limited by HUGE buttons that should be part of a simple drop-down menu.
It's fairly stable for me and its functions are useful, but its speed, resource consumption, and the size is absolutely unjustifiable.
The first thing that has to be recognized by someone attempting facilitate gender/sex diversity in the tech industry is to recognize that tech is not a "male" industry... it's an "outcast" industry. Everyone assumes that males are specifically targeted and tracked into computer-related academic/research/career paths. That's not the case. By and large, it's social outcasts who take up computers as a hobby are tracked into computer-related academic/research/career paths and those social outcasts are more commonly male.
If people REALLY want to foster a better, more inclusive environment for all people in the computer industry:
1. Parents need to stop enforcing traditional femininity norms on their daughters so that their daughters are willing to go into technology-related fields of study and careers. This change is already happening, but it's not a generation-wide ideal, so expect the swell of girls being SOCIALLY supported in the field to come 30 years from now.
2. Adults need to ensure that those whose choose computers/tech as a hobby (and are thus more likely to choose tech as a career) get the social acclimation they're likely being deprived in other parts of life. I'm speaking mainly of males here. Again, young boys don't become reclusive computer nerds because they see a rewarding career in system administration. They fall into it because it helps them escape from the tortures that come with being social pariahs. If you repair the damage of their exclusion early, you can almost guarantee a better work environment for women seeking to enter the tech field later in life.
But, of course, that's only if you want to make real change happen over time and not just attempt to force new rules and standards without any consideration for the root causes of issues.
Yes. And for very low values of "victim".
Adria overheard them making quiet "forking" and "dongle" jokes. She stood up, turned around, took a photo of them, and then tweeted the photo and her complaint to the conference organizers as well as her many followers. (https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313417655879102464?lang=en) The conference responded by pulling the two men out of the room and discussing the comments. They were mortified, admitted it was childish, and apologized. The outrage machine ground on unbeknownst to them. Then they were fired.
Each of the involved parties were interviewed for the book "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson. It's an amazingly insightful book. Get a taste of it here in Ronson's TED talk. (https://www.ted.com/talks/jon_ronson_what_happens_when_online_shaming_spirals_out_of_control?language=en)
College students and Mac Laptops. Seriously. They are by far the dominant laptop I see on my campus. In almost every study session and meeting, I see everyone reach into their bags and pull out what are seemingly the exact same Mac laptop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the x86-based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Notes, RealNetworks, Linux, and others.[15] Judgment was split in two parts. On April 3, 2000, he issued his conclusions of law, according to which Microsoft had committed monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Microsoft immediately appealed the decision.[16]
On June 7, 2000, the court ordered a breakup of Microsoft as its "remedy". According to that judgment, Microsoft would have to be broken into two separate units, one to produce the operating system, and one to produce other software components.[16][17]
No Trump supporter would associate Trumps campaign with a swastika. That would hurt Trump's campaign. The same goes for anyone attempting a false flag attack.
Instead, this was done by people satirizing Trump supporters as brash bullies and mocking Trump's rhetoric as Nazi-reminiscent.
It's not a hard distinction to understand, but apparently the article's author had some difficulty making the connection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... He did this with a couple Wii-motes and the tracking bar. Totally wearable.
"As technology becomes smaller, cheaper..."
Wait... is it actually becoming cheaper to own/use a smartphone, laptop, tablet or other potential note-taking device? Because I'm fairly certain that cheapo laptops (chromebooks, netbooks) have been around $150-$200 and proper low-end laptops have been $300-$500 have been those prices for years. Smartphones and tablets (relative to brand) have been stagnant in their prices as well.
And smaller? Smartphones are only getting bigger. Laptops have bottomed out in their thinness at the cost of quite a bit of functionality.
Seriously, almost every Netflix subscriber will agree that the Netflix GUI has literally only gotten worse with every new iteration. From removing sort and filter options, to putting too much emphasis on movement and DVD box covers to the sheer amount of resources it takes up, it's been a non-stop cluster. It's as if they want to make it difficult for you to watch something you think you would like.
But still, it's 100 times better than Amazon Prime's interface.
What happened to the days of highly functional web interfaces?
That functions a lot less like a Back to the Future hoverboard (http://gph.is/14VEqAs) and more like the Green Goblin's glider (http://cdn.instructables.com/F36/11RQ/H994BU7B/F3611RQH994BU7B.LARGE.jpg)
I hate Trump as much as the next owner of his/her own brain, but Facebook should do nothing. It's a company. It's a system of contracts. It has no place getting involved in politics. None of them do.
Politics, campaign funding, and voting is for people.
Here's one thing being pushed around my campus: http://www.transstudent.org/ge...
"Sex Assigned at Birth: The assignment and classification of people as male, female, intersex, or another sex based on a combination of anatomy, hormones, chromosomes. It is important we don’t simply use “sex” because of the vagueness of the definition of sex and its place in transphobia. Chromosomes are frequently used to determine sex from prenatal karyotyping (although not as often as genitalia). Chromosomes do not determine genitalia."
http://www.autostraddle.com/it...
Warning, you may be conversing with someone who has been confused by the bleeding edge of LGBTQ+ activism vocabulary. According to the latest *opinion*, "it's all gender". No scientist will accept that, but that's the line that's being pushed. Some assert that sex is "assigned" at birth just as gender is assigned by the people raising a child. Ya, I know. Don't shoot the messenger.
There is no "stopping" abuse of any kind. Any time you try to fully eliminate bad things, innocent or nearly innocent people get caught up in the zero-tolerance policies and everyone loses. The offenders get caught, (Yay!), but when there are no more offenders, the harmful offense gets re-defined to create more offenders.
The prohibition of alcohol came from a good place. Homes and lives were ruined because of absolutely rampant alcoholism. But when the fight for absolute abolition took to banning every single alcoholic beverage, an illicit trade formed and with it came a different kind of harm.
Zero tolerance policies as they pertain to gang violence in schools was amazingly effective... until all the horrible things were appropriately reduced. After that, the books were thrown at minor offenders (https://goo.gl/4DQdKR).
The strong prosecution of hate crimes is a good thing. But what happens when a younger generation who has never actually experienced hate crimes (such as being physically assaulted for being a particular religion or race) seeks to re-define what is considered hate? Or racism. Or sexism? What happens when they lower the bar so that a previously welcoming phrase like "America is a melting pot" is redefined as offensive, potentially hateful, speech? We see that today when "microaggressions" are now 'a concern' and how the offended (not *harmed*) are asserting some sort of power for their being offended.
When you seek to "stop" any harm outright and completely, you inevitably come to the point where the harm is so rare, infrequent, or of immeasurably small effect that the ongoing effort begins to victimize people instead of protect them.
But what do you do instead? Actual harm is happening-- how do you stop that harm? The answer is simple, but not easy: hard work. When someone does something harmful, find that person and punish that person. Yes, that's a lot of work, but the punishment is targeted and the restrictions on non-harmful actions are non-existent. Target genuinely harmful actions with strong enforcement and leave the rest to personal control (facilitating visible blocking & ignoring with the option to report) and community moderation (like Slashdot). The aim should always be to reduce harm, but never to eliminate offense.
Lastly, as it is common with the current wave of activism, I will assume that someone will say, "But no one should have to see written abuse online to the point where someone then has to hit an ignore/block button!" to which I respond, "Yes, they should. For the same of protecting the free exchange of ideas (good, bad, and infuriating) and for the protection of people against prejudicial reactions. Without the risk for online abuse, there would be no disagreement and discussion online could only be the repetition of a single idea over and over again."
From the Summary: "It just makes sense, that if you are able to sign-up for a service online, you should also be able to cancel it the same way."
That's just a great principle for most things. I think it would be great if getting divorced was just as easy as getting a marriage license.
Things that don't yet exist may make things that currently exist obsolete.
They trust that the airport is on the job-- just like they are when they purchase a ticket, check their luggage, go through screening, sleep in the terminal, and eventually board the plane. An airport is an extremely safe place.
So if the concern is that people are risking their digital health by connecting to bad Wi-Fi spots, there's an easy 4-step solution:
1) Provide free Wi-Fi. Most airports do this.
2) Require all Wi-Fi spots to follow a specific naming system. (LAX-Terminal17). Provide the warning throughout the airport that if you're connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot and you can't see the terminal or business from where you are, you may have connected to a hotspot attempting to exploit the demand for free Wi-Fi. 3) Forbid all non-airport-supported open Wi-Fi hotspots.
4) Download a wardriving app for Android and get to sniffing out bad Wi-Fi hotspots.
Then brag about it. Seriously. "We at Slashdot International Airport care about your personal safety and the safety of your private information. We implemented a system that finds malicious Wi-Fi hotspots and punishes their creators. We have found and stopped X hotspots already. We would like to remind you that Slashdot Airport provides multiple secure and reliable hotspots throughout the airport labeled per their areas. If you connect to a hotspot whose area you're not in, your data may be at risk."
Then apply for awards. Seriously. "And the winner of the Mobile Data Best Practices Award is... "
It's all still conjecture. It seems as though there's a new article every day trying to find additional reasons to stay hyped about self-driving automobiles. Self-driving autos will come, eventually, but we all need to accept that, when they do come, it's not going to happen en masse. And the critical mass for autonomous cars is still a decade out. At least.
No one's willing to fully insure a purely automated vehicle and remove any humans onboard of all liability yet. There are still massive legal restrictions against them. Why? Because they don't work yet. They kinda work. They work on all roads for very small values of "all".
So enough with the theoretical uses of a tech that is still really quite theoretical.
Pay what they want or don't get the land. If they don't want to sell the land, move on. So what if it's the best place to put the telescope. It's their land!
First, NASA was pandering when it said space travel was like NASCAR. Any relationship is thoroughly stretched... except maybe the emphasis on orbiting. But space stations don't need to worry about camber.
Second, what Bill said was an "All tigers are cats" issue. Yes, you will probably see a higher concentration of NASCAR fans in the anti-NASA group, but by no means is he saying that NASA supporters cannot be NASCAR fans or that all NASCAR fans are unintelligent. He wasn't insulting "(All) NASCAR fans", he was equating people who pay more attention to NASCAR than NASA to a lower intelligence.
Ex.
A: Your cousin is stupid.
B: How dare you insult my family name!?
A: No, not your family name-- YOUR COUSIN.
I know plenty of Republicans and Libertarians that despise the extremism of the Tea Party. The Tea Party makes them look like idiots.
The progressive/liberal side of the spectrum has their own "Tea Party" and they are frequently referred to as "SJWs" or "Social Justice Warriors". They need a better name, though, because there are genuine social justice "warriors" that do good-- you know, like fighting against gerrymandering and police brutality. The "SJWs" that mess it all up are those that attempt to change the meanings of words. Examples:
Violence: Violence used to mean action that caused physical harm. Today, SJWs (the bad ones) are trying to change the common vocabulary so that speech that makes someone uncomfortable can be described as "violence".
Triggering: Triggering is a medical term regarding the genuine overwhelming emotions and memories that come flooding to one's forethought after being reminded of an extremely traumatic experience. Today, SJWs (the bad ones) are attempting to make everything a potential "trigger" for someone because it reminds them of something bad. It's not the same.
Racism: This one's pretty bad. Racism has a very specific definition. It's the belief that one race is better than another. However, SJWs (the bad ones) are attributing racism to just about anything that touches the topic of race, ethnicity, culture, etc. People accuse things without the capability of having beliefs of racism ("Is science racist?").
The examples go on and on... these (bad) SJWs are the Tea Party of the left. They tear down anyone who isn't as extreme as they are. But here's the rub-- since they fight for things that are generally accepted as good (reducing harm, protecting people, etc.), you just can't come out as against them or their tactics. And THAT is why schools are bending over backwards to not fight them. Schools are horrifically liability averse and they will almost always give in to the extremists on their side(s) rather than fight them and risk being slandered as rape-cultured and racist organizations.
You sound very angry. I would personally love to respond to your post to discuss the topic further, but I get the sense that you are so entrenched in your own definition that discussion from my side would be civil and you would be on the attack. I'm disappointed because it looks like you have a great deal of insight from which I could learn. Another time maybe.
My personal view draws some relatively bold lines between something being art and being artistic.
The fine arts (music, dance, painting, sculpting, etc.) are obviously art. The value of the their existence is based squarely on their appraisal as art.
An automobile, a house (even a Frank Lloyd Wright home), and a video game can be artistic when judged for their artistic elements, but since they have primary functions beyond art, they cannot be wholly works of art. A video game, first and foremost, must be intentionally interactive with some sort of agenda for the player to fulfill. If an automobile does not have an engine, then it's not an automobile. And Frank Lloyd Wright himself continually professed that the form (artistic elements included) of an object should follow its function. He wasn't creating raw art, but integrating artistic sensibilities to functional pieces of everyday life.
Lastly, and I always piss some people off with this one, I don't think something can be art in the traditional sense if it is digital. Art must have the potential to be a failure. Painting, sculpting, even oration can all fail. Photography with traditional film can be an absolute waste if the appropriate lighting, focus, framing, etc. is not achieved. But in digital photography, you get the seemingly limitless opportunity to edit. Digital photography captures images and editing alters those images whereas film captures single, uneditable moments.
Video games can be written, re-written, launched, patched, upgraded, and have relative artistic value based on hardware. When all is said and done, it's more machine than man.
I also distinguish between sports, races, competitions, games and endeavors.
I do not expect many positive points for this post.
The organization asks that people default to "giving right-of-way" (yielding) to pedestrians. Pedestrians do not legally have permanent right-of-way. Right-of-way is determined by law, planning, and engineering.
The California Vehicle Code requires that all automobile drivers YIELD to pedestrians in the road, but as pedestrians do not have a permanent right-of-way, they can still be cited for jaywalking.