Re:Not for the more experienced reader
on
A Game of Thrones
·
· Score: 1
It's pretty clear you haven't read beyond the first book. (minor spoilers follow)
In later books the Stark family becomes all but extinct, and several of the first book's "villians" gradually awaken to the virtues you attribute solely to the Stark family. Conversely, by the end of the third book, one of the first books most innocent Starks has fallen into a state of cruelty and murderous depravity. This last character could easily become a major villian in future books, or conversely, find salvation. Personally, I'm rooting for salvation, but ultimately it's up to George. I think it suffices to say that this series definately does not boil down to "an evil world vs. the Starks".
Does anyone remember the waves of economic fear that ripped through American culture when faced with the Japanese Juggernaut of the 80's? If the fears of the day had come to pass we'd all be working for Shogun overlords, eating rice, and speaking a patois of several asian languages. Fortunately, the Japanese imported american work ethics and their economy went to pot.
China is a little different though. First of all, they have about 7 times the population that Japan did. Most of them have yet to join the world economy to any significant extent just yet. China has vast natural resources of its own instead of being forced to import everything. Finally, their government is not exactly friendly to the U.S..
Yes, it's time for a new wave of xenophobic fear! Time for diplomacy. Diplomacy being the fine art of saying "Nice doggy." until you can find a big enough stick.
First of all, what we define as civilization is largely a product of ego. We look for characteristics of ourselves when we're looking for "civilization". We are mostly sedentary(i.e. not nomadic) with a hierarchial power structure and specialization of labor. (e.g. we have doctors, butchers, farmers, etc.) Arguably, for the few nomadic groups we haven't dragged out of the jungles & deserts and sent to work in factories yet, civilization came a lot earlier and only know are we decending into barbarism. I, however, like my bed, my fridge, and my TV, so let's go with what we know.
Most traditional archaeologists tend to think of civilization as a sort of ladder, and the first few rungs were actually quite slippery. Here's one possible ladder: (there are several)
First, if you want to have a town with art, politics, beer, hookers, etc. the first thing you need is a food supply that is reliable and doesn't move around a lot.
Deer, elk, tapirs, camels, elephants, etc. all move around most vexingly. Turnips do not. Agriculture is the way to go! For agriculture, you need a crop. Something to grow.
We can grow beans, squash, wheat, turnips, you name it. Unfortunately, these are all highly domesticated plants that we've been selectively breeding for thousands of years. Take corn for example. Today a stalk of corn puts out great big honking cobs chock full of juicy kernals. 50,000 years ago the stuff looked a lot like grass. It is in fact, more than a little bit unlikely that you could have lived off the stuff back then. (more on that later) So if no suitable crops existed, we had to breed one.
Here we hit a major hang up. Breeding massive changes into plants isn't exactly a speedy process when you *know* what you're doing. How exactly our ancestors ever managed to develop a crop suitable for agriculture is actually quite a hot topic of debate! Still, somehow we managed, but it probably took a while. Even for relatively smart people, it is not inconceivable that this took tens of thousands of years.
-----
Now for an alternate take on things... Beer is the root of civilization. Yes, that most lovely of liquids: the Wobbly Pop.
Take the domestication of corn in the america's for example. At first we had a sorry grass-like plant that would have been a royal pain in the ass to try to live off of. However, as it was, collecting relatively small ammounts to ferment into chicha (BEER!) for those important social events (religion?) was a much more reasonable undertaking. Of course, excessive beer consumption does tend to make one lazy, so naturally our fastly-becoming-religious ancestors decided to start throwing a bunch of seeds together in one place so they didn't have to look all over the bloody planet to round up enough for a good er... mass. Gradually they tossed the crappier grass out and the better stuff got inbred, mutated all to hell, and gradually become more and more like the corn of today. Eventually, we got a crop good enough to actually become a dietary staple. Someone might then have said "Hey guys! We can eat this stuff too! F@$* this walking around all day BS. Let's just stay here all the time. There's BEER!"
So we have a nice town springing forth from the wilderness. Art, culture, and all the trappings of civilization are flowering forth... and people are shitting in the river. This is baaad. People are getting sick! Fortunately, achohol tends to be safer to drink than brownish water! While the high-proof Canadian beers of today would be a tad difficult to live on, the watered down chicha of the day was just the thing for daily consumption. To this day there are still countries where beer is cheaper than safe drinking water. As a beneficial side effect, people with beer tend to be easier to talk into paying taxes, running off to kill people they've never met before, building pyramids, etc...
Of course, archaeology itself would be nowhere without beer. Seriously, how many major archaeological digs ar
B&O have historically targetted a certain demographic, and done very well by doing so. Namely, the wealthy who want an obviously expensive and gorgeous sound system, but who don't really know or care much about the sound itself. B&O is one of the fashion trend setters for speakers. For example, Sony's chrome metal column home theatre systems were designed to look very similar to one of B&O's older systems.
B&O's spiel on audio lenses, etc. really is a bit of a smokescreen. There's no new technology here, and probably not a particularily good implementation of existing tech. However, it has great packaging, glossy magazine ads, and you can bet your arse those B&O store salespeople are smoooooooth!
Bose is sort of a low end version of B&O. Bose has the most effective and innovative marketing department of any speaker company out there. High margins for dealers, salesperson training, you name it. Watching a bose demo is as entertaining as watching a carnival sideshow. They'll play those little plywood boxes with paper cones through PVC tubing, inside other much larger "Speaker boxes", and a plethora of other gimmichs while gushing about how great they sound. You'd be surprised at what people will believe if they're told to. White Van speaker companies like Dogg Digital or Nuance are but pale imitators of the origional master, Dr.Bose. Truly a master.
While I respect them as highly profitable and effective companies, would I buy B&O or Bose myself? Probably not. When you want better sound for your dollar it is best to go elsewhere.
The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution was another book by Dougal Adams which provided a zoology of an alternate Earth where mammals never evolved past rodents. He painted a picture of Earth's ecology with all the modern niches filled by the decendants of dinosaurs. It even included a chapter which discusses the evolution of a sentient reptilian species.
Unfortunately, it is also out of print. I have a copy sitting on my shelf next to "After Man". I haven't dusted either off in years, but perhaps it's time.
We are going ever so slightly off topic here, but what the heck.
Cables are a *very* contentious topic for audiophiles. Some will pontificate endlessly about how brand X of cable made out of precious metal Y has done wonders for their system. Still others claim that expensive boutique cables are not perceptibly better than rat shack cables of sufficient gauge. Needless to say, there are some very entertaining threads on the topic when people of these two opposing schools meet.
Personally, I fall into the latter school with one important caveat. Namely, I am a firm believer in the psychoacoustic properties of cables. If you believe a set of cables should make your system sound better, they will. The converse is also unfortunately true.
For example, say your audiophile friend comes over to your house and you sit down to listen to some music. He finds the system not up to his own standards and, when he sees your rat shack cables, tells you to upgrade. Assume that you are swayed enough by his advice to actually lay down the cash for an expensive set of cables. You take them home, rip out your rat shack cables and lovingly install the new ones. If your old cables were not even thick enough to provide suffiently low resistance then you may actually hear a very real difference.
However, even if your old cables were perfectly adequate you are still *going* to hear a difference. It may or may not be entirely in your head, but you will hear it and swear by it to anyone who asks. Your friend will probably notice a marked improvement in your system the moment you point out the new cables too.
Am I telling you to brainwash yourself into believing in expensive cables? Hell no. However, if there is a shadow of a doubt in your mind over that rat shack cable then you may actually be unsatisfied by the sound! If you really want to believe, try building a set of DIY cables. Many "believers" claim such cables meet or exceed the performance of all but the most horrendously expensive boutique cables. If your audiophile friend notices the new cables, tell him they cost were imported from switzerland and cost $1000/foot. You may find he comes over to listen to your system a lot more after that.:P
Having that off my chest, I would also advise you that there is a difference between speaker wire which is meant to carry a strong amplified signal between an amp or receiver and your speakers, and interconnects which are meant to carry unamplified signals, for example, from your computer to your receiver. As a general rule of thumb, it is better to have longer speaker cables and short inteconnects than the converse. This is because a low power signal is more succeptable than an amplified signal is to the effects of resistance and interferance over a long run of even the finest cable. Were I you, I would be more concerned with having such a long interconnect than the quality of wire you are using. If you are really concerned with the quality of sound when it reaches your receiver, build a HTPC specifically for the purpose and put it right next to your receiver. Personally, I'll take a few inches of rat shack inteconnects over 50' of exotic boutique silver interconnects any day!
Slashdot Mirror
It's pretty clear you haven't read beyond the first book. (minor spoilers follow) In later books the Stark family becomes all but extinct, and several of the first book's "villians" gradually awaken to the virtues you attribute solely to the Stark family. Conversely, by the end of the third book, one of the first books most innocent Starks has fallen into a state of cruelty and murderous depravity. This last character could easily become a major villian in future books, or conversely, find salvation. Personally, I'm rooting for salvation, but ultimately it's up to George. I think it suffices to say that this series definately does not boil down to "an evil world vs. the Starks".
Does anyone remember the waves of economic fear that ripped through American culture when faced with the Japanese Juggernaut of the 80's? If the fears of the day had come to pass we'd all be working for Shogun overlords, eating rice, and speaking a patois of several asian languages. Fortunately, the Japanese imported american work ethics and their economy went to pot.
China is a little different though. First of all, they have about 7 times the population that Japan did. Most of them have yet to join the world economy to any significant extent just yet. China has vast natural resources of its own instead of being forced to import everything. Finally, their government is not exactly friendly to the U.S..
Yes, it's time for a new wave of xenophobic fear! Time for diplomacy. Diplomacy being the fine art of saying "Nice doggy." until you can find a big enough stick.
First of all, what we define as civilization is largely a product of ego. We look for characteristics of ourselves when we're looking for "civilization". We are mostly sedentary(i.e. not nomadic) with a hierarchial power structure and specialization of labor. (e.g. we have doctors, butchers, farmers, etc.) Arguably, for the few nomadic groups we haven't dragged out of the jungles & deserts and sent to work in factories yet, civilization came a lot earlier and only know are we decending into barbarism. I, however, like my bed, my fridge, and my TV, so let's go with what we know.
Most traditional archaeologists tend to think of civilization as a sort of ladder, and the first few rungs were actually quite slippery. Here's one possible ladder: (there are several)
First, if you want to have a town with art, politics, beer, hookers, etc. the first thing you need is a food supply that is reliable and doesn't move around a lot.
Deer, elk, tapirs, camels, elephants, etc. all move around most vexingly. Turnips do not. Agriculture is the way to go! For agriculture, you need a crop. Something to grow.
We can grow beans, squash, wheat, turnips, you name it. Unfortunately, these are all highly domesticated plants that we've been selectively breeding for thousands of years. Take corn for example. Today a stalk of corn puts out great big honking cobs chock full of juicy kernals. 50,000 years ago the stuff looked a lot like grass. It is in fact, more than a little bit unlikely that you could have lived off the stuff back then. (more on that later) So if no suitable crops existed, we had to breed one.
Here we hit a major hang up. Breeding massive changes into plants isn't exactly a speedy process when you *know* what you're doing. How exactly our ancestors ever managed to develop a crop suitable for agriculture is actually quite a hot topic of debate! Still, somehow we managed, but it probably took a while. Even for relatively smart people, it is not inconceivable that this took tens of thousands of years.
-----
Now for an alternate take on things... Beer is the root of civilization. Yes, that most lovely of liquids: the Wobbly Pop.
Take the domestication of corn in the america's for example. At first we had a sorry grass-like plant that would have been a royal pain in the ass to try to live off of. However, as it was, collecting relatively small ammounts to ferment into chicha (BEER!) for those important social events (religion?) was a much more reasonable undertaking. Of course, excessive beer consumption does tend to make one lazy, so naturally our fastly-becoming-religious ancestors decided to start throwing a bunch of seeds together in one place so they didn't have to look all over the bloody planet to round up enough for a good er... mass. Gradually they tossed the crappier grass out and the better stuff got inbred, mutated all to hell, and gradually become more and more like the corn of today. Eventually, we got a crop good enough to actually become a dietary staple. Someone might then have said "Hey guys! We can eat this stuff too! F@$* this walking around all day BS. Let's just stay here all the time. There's BEER!"
So we have a nice town springing forth from the wilderness. Art, culture, and all the trappings of civilization are flowering forth... and people are shitting in the river. This is baaad. People are getting sick! Fortunately, achohol tends to be safer to drink than brownish water! While the high-proof Canadian beers of today would be a tad difficult to live on, the watered down chicha of the day was just the thing for daily consumption. To this day there are still countries where beer is cheaper than safe drinking water. As a beneficial side effect, people with beer tend to be easier to talk into paying taxes, running off to kill people they've never met before, building pyramids, etc...
Of course, archaeology itself would be nowhere without beer. Seriously, how many major archaeological digs ar
B&O have historically targetted a certain demographic, and done very well by doing so. Namely, the wealthy who want an obviously expensive and gorgeous sound system, but who don't really know or care much about the sound itself. B&O is one of the fashion trend setters for speakers. For example, Sony's chrome metal column home theatre systems were designed to look very similar to one of B&O's older systems.
B&O's spiel on audio lenses, etc. really is a bit of a smokescreen. There's no new technology here, and probably not a particularily good implementation of existing tech. However, it has great packaging, glossy magazine ads, and you can bet your arse those B&O store salespeople are smoooooooth!
Bose is sort of a low end version of B&O. Bose has the most effective and innovative marketing department of any speaker company out there. High margins for dealers, salesperson training, you name it. Watching a bose demo is as entertaining as watching a carnival sideshow. They'll play those little plywood boxes with paper cones through PVC tubing, inside other much larger "Speaker boxes", and a plethora of other gimmichs while gushing about how great they sound. You'd be surprised at what people will believe if they're told to. White Van speaker companies like Dogg Digital or Nuance are but pale imitators of the origional master, Dr.Bose. Truly a master.
While I respect them as highly profitable and effective companies, would I buy B&O or Bose myself? Probably not. When you want better sound for your dollar it is best to go elsewhere.
The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution was another book by Dougal Adams which provided a zoology of an alternate Earth where mammals never evolved past rodents. He painted a picture of Earth's ecology with all the modern niches filled by the decendants of dinosaurs. It even included a chapter which discusses the evolution of a sentient reptilian species.
Unfortunately, it is also out of print. I have a copy sitting on my shelf next to "After Man". I haven't dusted either off in years, but perhaps it's time.
Cables are a *very* contentious topic for audiophiles. Some will pontificate endlessly about how brand X of cable made out of precious metal Y has done wonders for their system. Still others claim that expensive boutique cables are not perceptibly better than rat shack cables of sufficient gauge. Needless to say, there are some very entertaining threads on the topic when people of these two opposing schools meet.
Personally, I fall into the latter school with one important caveat. Namely, I am a firm believer in the psychoacoustic properties of cables. If you believe a set of cables should make your system sound better, they will. The converse is also unfortunately true.
For example, say your audiophile friend comes over to your house and you sit down to listen to some music. He finds the system not up to his own standards and, when he sees your rat shack cables, tells you to upgrade. Assume that you are swayed enough by his advice to actually lay down the cash for an expensive set of cables. You take them home, rip out your rat shack cables and lovingly install the new ones. If your old cables were not even thick enough to provide suffiently low resistance then you may actually hear a very real difference. However, even if your old cables were perfectly adequate you are still *going* to hear a difference. It may or may not be entirely in your head, but you will hear it and swear by it to anyone who asks. Your friend will probably notice a marked improvement in your system the moment you point out the new cables too.
Am I telling you to brainwash yourself into believing in expensive cables? Hell no. However, if there is a shadow of a doubt in your mind over that rat shack cable then you may actually be unsatisfied by the sound! If you really want to believe, try building a set of DIY cables. Many "believers" claim such cables meet or exceed the performance of all but the most horrendously expensive boutique cables. If your audiophile friend notices the new cables, tell him they cost were imported from switzerland and cost $1000/foot. You may find he comes over to listen to your system a lot more after that. :P
Having that off my chest, I would also advise you that there is a difference between speaker wire which is meant to carry a strong amplified signal between an amp or receiver and your speakers, and interconnects which are meant to carry unamplified signals, for example, from your computer to your receiver. As a general rule of thumb, it is better to have longer speaker cables and short inteconnects than the converse. This is because a low power signal is more succeptable than an amplified signal is to the effects of resistance and interferance over a long run of even the finest cable. Were I you, I would be more concerned with having such a long interconnect than the quality of wire you are using. If you are really concerned with the quality of sound when it reaches your receiver, build a HTPC specifically for the purpose and put it right next to your receiver. Personally, I'll take a few inches of rat shack inteconnects over 50' of exotic boutique silver interconnects any day!