I'd just like you to think about your statement.
It WAS called prohibition?
And just what the HELL do you think we are in right now? Alcohol is legal for people over a certain age, but the model of prohibition is still QUITE in effect with all other substances. Prohibition never ended, it just got dirtier.
-RofGilead
On the track daylight, I think some of the vocals are mixed up to much. The aahaa- sound gets a little annoying, kinda stands out like a sore thumb. I'd lower it's volume in the mix, or have it start loud and go softer with repetition. Another thought is that you should fill this track up more, add more instruments behind the vocal samples. I appreciated the music. Using jazz-styled drums with samples is always a good thing. (Atleast until everyone starts doing it:) )
I've thought about that before too. I mean, the economy was on the decline, and things were getting too progressive. Let a terrorist attack through, start a war, help the economy - and furthur the current administrations goals (mainly John Ashcroft's Department of Injustice).
But that's just me..:) Also, they are trying to tie it into the War on Drugs, which was starting to get strong support for reform (harm reduction policies). All the support for most of these causes went up in flames the day the towers fell.
Who knows? Remember, our governments first priority is the government, not the people.
- RofGilead
(On the otherhand, maybe our government isn't that bad. Its really hard to know, as we lack this information, but it's probably more intelligent to assume our government isn't that bad.)
I had a dream today. I dreamed that all our social problems are caused by a simple idea: that we should seperate into groups determined by shared differences, and hate/fear some other group or group(s). I see this idea in EVERYTHING. The government and older generations hate and fear drug users. Drug users hate cops and the people who make laws against their harmless activity. Employees hate/fear employers and work to get more and more from their employers, and their employers hate/fear employees. Middle easterners hate/fear Americans and capitalism and we hate/fear them. We seperate into our groups (AND) we hate/fear some other group. I know I've been talking really simplistically, but I'm tired, and you can play with it as a thought game on any place in our society, its the foundation of it.
I think we need to give it all up. Imagine if each of us was working together. Doesn't matter really specifically what we all decided to work together for, just that we all chose to have one common goal. Our goal could be anything, and we'd be able to acheive it. There wouldn't be silly power structures. It'd be like the open source movement. No single person can say what we are all working for as a goal. It still feels like every programmer is working together somehow in OSS. We aren't exclusive. We don't tell some people that they CAN'T also release oss software, even if they are some big company. We don't prohibit anyone from using our software, they just have to follow the laws of our society(GPL, and other open source licenses). Are there conflicts in our soceity? Sure.. like there once was with KDE and GNOME. Did people kill each other over it, or hate each other. No. We are an example of a big group of people with differences. We share some similarities, but our differences are what make us all important. We all have ideas, and no ones idea imprisons another nor conveys harm to another. Why is this group polarized in the same direction, and why isn't the rest of the world like this? Ask yourselves why that silly idea about hating/fearing different groups is the way things are.
The problem isn't that rioting people need to be controlled. The problem is how to not give people a reason to riot. If you simply prevent people from rioting, won't the social issues these people are upset over be expressed in other means?
You stop people from rioting and they will simply turn to blowing up buildings, and killing leaders. Our government spending our money to find ways to control citizens helps neither the government (which is made up of citizens) nor the populace itself.
People rioted in the past (and still in the present) over situations where race and class have held down a group of people to the point where members of the group could only express themselves in rage. By denying these people a voice, or more importantly, our ears towards their concerns, there is no way for them to express themselves other than destruction.
Today race and class are still issues, and always will be. But now we are also dealing with the fact that corporations are being treated as citizens, citizens with voices that are louder than the rest of us. That corporations (which, if you look at them like citizens) are a minority compared to the rest of us, and that they are deciding the way the whole will be treated will turn upon them. Oppressing the whole of the country with their copyright laws, ownership of ideas, and control over our media will create waves of anger among the populace that will one day be expressed if not in riots, them some other form of violent destruction.
Why can't our law makers ever listen to the people themselves? This seems like the sad fate of our democracy.
There was a candidate last election named Ralph Nader. I think he might have been going around the country or something, and he might have been kinda saying something like what you are saying. Oh, I think he might have been a big consumer advocate too, or something like that. Hmm... maybe you SHOULD HAVE VOTED FOR HIM.
GOD DAMN! For all the bitching people do in this country about this being wrong, and that being wrong, half the country STILL DOESN'T VOTE. Unless you vote, you have no right to bitch. If you vote for the "lesser of two evils" you are still screwing yourself over, and selling out the country. I'm sick of people looking for political representatives, or voices of the people, and actually having one of them right in front of them, and saying - "Yeah, I like his views, but he won't win in the election, some I'm going to vote for some other guy."
Even if the candidate doesn't win, his scoring a large percentage of votes WILL turn heads, and cause the politicians to adjust for what the VOTING population wants in the next election.
A CS student will probably be able to learn Java, and then easily pick up (alot) of C++'s format, and structure. He might miss some little details, as he has never really had to worry about pointers, etc, and will pick up these concepts much later.
But, if the Java student tries to say, program in lisp, he might have a much harder time. This is because these languages are so different abstractly. You have to think differently when you are in the planning stage of writing your program, and this abstract thinking can be quite hard to master.
What is my point? In the course of computer science history, some languages have been written that are completely different in their abstract basis. A computer science student truly needed to have worked with a language that is of the same abstraction as the language he is trying to learn, or it can be VERY difficult to pick up.
I know that I was personally very grateful for taking a course that taught many languages in one semester, where many of the languages are very different from each other. Though I may never want to program in a completely recursive language, for instance, it was still very good for me to have some experience with.
Many of those powerful tranquilizers that have been made schedule I also have medicinal value to them. GHB (Gamma-hydroxy-butanol), which was a victim of the US governments drug deamonizing, and drug user deamonizing campaign of the late 90's has show to be valuable for treating sleep disorders (where the patient falls asleep uncontrollably - at irregular periods). I believe it was actually shown to be the most effective of all of them. This drug also benefits the user in that it is a safe way to treat social anxiety disorder, and the user has to take a VERY high dose inorder to overdose. When this drug is abused, it produces sociability, a relaxed state, and the abuser suffers no hangover effects. For abuse harm levels, it is far less harmful than alcohol is. The majority of the users/abusers of this substance were NOT date rapistist, they took it for their own reasons, and harmed relatively no one. Most/all of the deaths attributed to this substance included combinations of other depressants including alcohol. It is also naturally produced, found in the human body, and also found in many meats that are sold. We don't see the human body or the meat market being made illegal.
So, yes, I question the outlawing of "date-rape" drugs, which were primarily invented to serve some politicians political career. I see people on this site often question legislation related to technology, but few people look into legislation (and public propaganda) not related to technology that also affects people.
Yours truly,
Rofgile
Bioinformatics as a student
on
Biohackathon
·
· Score: 2
I'm pursuing a CS and Biochemistry double undergrad degree right now. I might not actually be able to graduate with both degrees acknowledge by my university, but I will have taken all their courses.
In two years I will graduate, and move on to the next thing. I am still unsure as to whether I should go on to graduate school, or try to find employment in the bioinformatics field after undergrad.
I have two questions for people who have been working in this field. Should I go to graduate school? Where? And is there anything that I can play around with software-wise, etc, that will give me some practical experience in this area.// I just looked over at bioperl today, haven't installed it yet.
You say, "Increasing levels of depression among westerners seems to tip us off to the fact that while we may have more of what we want, when we want, it may not be what's best for us."
America DOES have significantly higher levels of depression, due to multiple factors: The first (probably most important) is that we have a society where there is a large system for psychological treatment. More people who suffer from depression, social anxiety disorder, chronic stress disorder, etc seek treatment in our country than any other country. This also means that more people get REGISTERED as suffering from mental illness per capita than other countries, simply because they speak up, and because we have research groups that go out and collect data on whether or not people have depression, or other. Do you think that many non-western countries do this? Probably not.
Second, things like malls and mass media promote depression, not people doing what they want to do, when they want to do- and not being told that "this" is what you want to do. Mass media advertising sells products by making people think they are unhappy. "Oh no! I have a zit! What will people in school think of me! ". When people turn away from modern day non-interactive media, and don't have advertising forced upon them, you will have alot more happy people!
My thoughts,
Rofgile
Slashdot Mirror
I'd just like you to think about your statement.
It WAS called prohibition?
And just what the HELL do you think we are in right now? Alcohol is legal for people over a certain age, but the model of prohibition is still QUITE in effect with all other substances. Prohibition never ended, it just got dirtier.
-RofGilead
Some comments / critiques of the work.
:) )
On the track daylight, I think some of the vocals
are mixed up to much. The aahaa- sound gets a little annoying, kinda stands out like a sore thumb. I'd lower it's volume in the mix, or have it start loud and go softer with repetition. Another thought is that you should fill this track up more, add more instruments behind the vocal samples.
I appreciated the music. Using jazz-styled drums with samples is always a good thing. (Atleast until everyone starts doing it
-Rofgile
I've thought about that before too. I mean, the economy was on the decline, and things were getting too progressive. Let a terrorist attack through, start a war, help the economy - and furthur the current administrations goals (mainly John Ashcroft's Department of Injustice).
But that's just me.. :) Also, they are trying to tie it into the War on Drugs, which was starting to get strong support for reform (harm reduction policies). All the support for most of these causes went up in flames the day the towers fell.
Who knows? Remember, our governments first priority is the government, not the people.
- RofGilead
(On the otherhand, maybe our government isn't that bad. Its really hard to know, as we lack this information, but it's probably more intelligent to assume our government isn't that bad.)
I had a dream today. I dreamed that all our social problems are caused by a simple idea: that we should seperate into groups determined by shared differences, and hate/fear some other group or group(s). I see this idea in EVERYTHING. The government and older generations hate and fear drug users. Drug users hate cops and the people who make laws against their harmless activity. Employees hate/fear employers and work to get more and more from their employers, and their employers hate/fear employees. Middle easterners hate/fear Americans and capitalism and we hate/fear them. We seperate into our groups (AND) we hate/fear some other group. I know I've been talking really simplistically, but I'm tired, and you can play with it as a thought game on any place in our society, its the foundation of it.
I think we need to give it all up. Imagine if each of us was working together. Doesn't matter really specifically what we all decided to work together for, just that we all chose to have one common goal. Our goal could be anything, and we'd be able to acheive it. There wouldn't be silly power structures. It'd be like the open source movement. No single person can say what we are all working for as a goal. It still feels like every programmer is working together somehow in OSS. We aren't exclusive. We don't tell some people that they CAN'T also release oss software, even if they are some big company. We don't prohibit anyone from using our software, they just have to follow the laws of our society(GPL, and other open source licenses). Are there conflicts in our soceity? Sure.. like there once was with KDE and GNOME. Did people kill each other over it, or hate each other. No. We are an example of a big group of people with differences. We share some similarities, but our differences are what make us all important. We all have ideas, and no ones idea imprisons another nor conveys harm to another. Why is this group polarized in the same direction, and why isn't the rest of the world like this? Ask yourselves why that silly idea about hating/fearing different groups is the way things are.
rofgile
"Best comment EVER."
The problem isn't that rioting people need to be controlled. The problem is how to not give people a reason to riot. If you simply prevent people from rioting, won't the social issues these people are upset over be expressed in other means?
You stop people from rioting and they will simply turn to blowing up buildings, and killing leaders. Our government spending our money to find ways to control citizens helps neither the government (which is made up of citizens) nor the populace itself.
People rioted in the past (and still in the present) over situations where race and class have held down a group of people to the point where members of the group could only express themselves in rage. By denying these people a voice, or more importantly, our ears towards their concerns, there is no way for them to express themselves other than destruction.
Today race and class are still issues, and always will be. But now we are also dealing with the fact that corporations are being treated as citizens, citizens with voices that are louder than the rest of us. That corporations (which, if you look at them like citizens) are a minority compared to the rest of us, and that they are deciding the way the whole will be treated will turn upon them. Oppressing the whole of the country with their copyright laws, ownership of ideas, and control over our media will create waves of anger among the populace that will one day be expressed if not in riots, them some other form of violent destruction.
Why can't our law makers ever listen to the people themselves? This seems like the sad fate of our democracy.
Rofgile
There was a candidate last election named Ralph Nader. I think he might have been going around the country or something, and he might have been kinda saying something like what you are saying. Oh, I think he might have been a big consumer advocate too, or something like that. Hmm... maybe you SHOULD HAVE VOTED FOR HIM.
GOD DAMN! For all the bitching people do in this country about this being wrong, and that being wrong, half the country STILL DOESN'T VOTE. Unless you vote, you have no right to bitch. If you vote for the "lesser of two evils" you are still screwing yourself over, and selling out the country. I'm sick of people looking for political representatives, or voices of the people, and actually having one of them right in front of them, and saying - "Yeah, I like his views, but he won't win in the election, some I'm going to vote for some other guy."
Even if the candidate doesn't win, his scoring a large percentage of votes WILL turn heads, and cause the politicians to adjust for what the VOTING population wants in the next election.
Rofgile.
A CS student will probably be able to learn Java, and then easily pick up (alot) of C++'s format, and structure. He might miss some little details, as he has never really had to worry about pointers, etc, and will pick up these concepts much later.
But, if the Java student tries to say, program in lisp, he might have a much harder time. This is because these languages are so different abstractly. You have to think differently when you are in the planning stage of writing your program, and this abstract thinking can be quite hard to master.
What is my point? In the course of computer science history, some languages have been written that are completely different in their abstract basis. A computer science student truly needed to have worked with a language that is of the same abstraction as the language he is trying to learn, or it can be VERY difficult to pick up.
I know that I was personally very grateful for taking a course that taught many languages in one semester, where many of the languages are very different from each other. Though I may never want to program in a completely recursive language, for instance, it was still very good for me to have some experience with.
Just my thoughts,
Rofgile
Many of those powerful tranquilizers that have been made schedule I also have medicinal value to them. GHB (Gamma-hydroxy-butanol), which was a victim of the US governments drug deamonizing, and drug user deamonizing campaign of the late 90's has show to be valuable for treating sleep disorders (where the patient falls asleep uncontrollably - at irregular periods). I believe it was actually shown to be the most effective of all of them. This drug also benefits the user in that it is a safe way to treat social anxiety disorder, and the user has to take a VERY high dose inorder to overdose. When this drug is abused, it produces sociability, a relaxed state, and the abuser suffers no hangover effects. For abuse harm levels, it is far less harmful than alcohol is. The majority of the users/abusers of this substance were NOT date rapistist, they took it for their own reasons, and harmed relatively no one. Most/all of the deaths attributed to this substance included combinations of other depressants including alcohol. It is also naturally produced, found in the human body, and also found in many meats that are sold. We don't see the human body or the meat market being made illegal.
So, yes, I question the outlawing of "date-rape" drugs, which were primarily invented to serve some politicians political career. I see people on this site often question legislation related to technology, but few people look into legislation (and public propaganda) not related to technology that also affects people. Yours truly, Rofgile
I'm pursuing a CS and Biochemistry double undergrad degree right now. I might not actually be able to graduate with both degrees acknowledge by my university, but I will have taken all their courses.
In two years I will graduate, and move on to the next thing. I am still unsure as to whether I should go on to graduate school, or try to find employment in the bioinformatics field after undergrad.
I have two questions for people who have been working in this field. Should I go to graduate school? Where? And is there anything that I can play around with software-wise, etc, that will give me some practical experience in this area. // I just looked over at bioperl today, haven't installed it yet.
Thanks, rofgile
You say, "Increasing levels of depression among westerners seems to tip us off to the fact that while we may have more of what we want, when we want, it may not be what's best for us." America DOES have significantly higher levels of depression, due to multiple factors: The first (probably most important) is that we have a society where there is a large system for psychological treatment. More people who suffer from depression, social anxiety disorder, chronic stress disorder, etc seek treatment in our country than any other country. This also means that more people get REGISTERED as suffering from mental illness per capita than other countries, simply because they speak up, and because we have research groups that go out and collect data on whether or not people have depression, or other. Do you think that many non-western countries do this? Probably not. Second, things like malls and mass media promote depression, not people doing what they want to do, when they want to do- and not being told that "this" is what you want to do. Mass media advertising sells products by making people think they are unhappy. "Oh no! I have a zit! What will people in school think of me! ". When people turn away from modern day non-interactive media, and don't have advertising forced upon them, you will have alot more happy people! My thoughts, Rofgile