Yeah, but all that theory can't be put to any practical use without at least one general-purpose programming language under your belt. I've heard about programs that are all about theory, and don't even have a single practical course. That's a shortcut to irrelevancy if ever I've heard one.
I'm not saying the courses should be vocational, but students should at least have one practical programming course per semester so that by the time they graduate, they have three years or so of continuous programming experience.
Not so they can get a job -- they won't anyway.
So they will actually be able to DO something with all that theory.
I agree. I have a CS degree and I've been programming professionally for over seven years. Occasionally I find myself having to learn a new language or tool. I've done it enough times that I've even got an algorithm for it. I basically read up on, in order:
1. all the major constructs of the language, e.g. working with variables, functions, flow control, etc.
2. handling exceptions (if such exists!).
3. Interacting with a database, including how to work with transactions
4. Interacting with the network
5. GUI design (if such exists)
6. Any gotchas the other programmers know about
Once I've figured out these items, which takes a week or two really, I do writeups of all of them and stick 'em in a folder (and on a PDA) for future reference.
Someone without a CS degree (or any production experience) tends to think about learning a language in terms of reading a 2,000 page book, memorizing it, and so on -- rubbish, of course.
If they knew better, they could focus their efforts much more effectively. It's all about knowing what to look for, and that comes with education and age.
Heh heh, being an older programmer myself (35 this month) I deal with a lot of arrogant little shits at work. They think they know everything at 22, then they turn around and build a huge, bloated system all the users complain about bitterly. And I laugh.:)
I agree with your post. Even among manga, the stuff I like is maybe 10% of what's out there, and some of the other stuff is way out of my area of interest. I saw something really strange today: a police story involving people who were half cat and half human, with cat ears and tails and so on. This caused me to have a flashback to the whole "cracky-chan" thing, which reminded me of "furries" and I almost whoofed my cookies right there in the bookstore. Ugh.
I self-medicated with a browse through a Masamune Shirow art book. Boy, he sure likes pinup girls. And motorcycles. And guns.
Step 1: Select an asteroid. For example, that giant slab of solid iron over there, the one that's like a mile wide.
Step 2: Put rocket engines on one side, and a little house on the other. Move into the little house with a porno babe.
Step 3: Use the house's pilot station to fire the engines up and set a course for earth.
Step 4: Fuck the porno chick for several months, eating pop tarts and drinking Jolt cola.
Step 5: While in Earth Orbit, aim the asteroid at the parcel of land you bought out in the middle of New Jersey. You might think New Jerseyans would get miffed about this, but they're used to environmental destruction. Nobody will mind.
Step 6: While the asteroid enters the atmosphere, jump in your escape vehicle (it's in the little house's garage) and get out of there! Try and come down someplace nice, like Hawaii. Bone the porno chick some more. Ahhhh... Porno chicks RULE.
Step 7: Rent a full-size pickup truck and drive out to your New Jersey property with the porno chick and some tools, and gather up your meteorite for sale and distribution! It shouldn't be TOO hard to break it up and sell it... Wait, it's several megatons, you might need a box van.
Well, there are different types of manga with different styles and different traditions. In fact, they're laid out fairly specifically. There's Shonen, Yaoi (don't get me started on THAT weirdness, or why girls seem to be stuck on it), bishonen, etc. You generally pick one or two genres you're interested in and concentrate on what you like.
Me, I get more into the adult sci-fi stuff, the more serious-minded the better. Blame, Ghost in the Shell, Planetes, stuff like that. I also like Genshiken and Comic Party when I'm in the mood for something funny and light.
European graphic novels are pretty good too.
And I'm sure there are SOME American graphic novels that aren't bad, but it's hard to find them if you aren't into haunting a comic shop.
The ancient Greek gods dressed in the standard clothing of their time (e.g. togas and tunics, etc).
The Roman gods dressed like Roman citizens.
The Norse gods dressed like Norse warriors.
All of this was dignified and majestic.
So, why do American comic artists paint their "gods" in leotards? With funny little boots and capes? It's like a gay musical number for cryin' out loud.
Not dignified.
Not majestic.
Why? If it's about "mythic creation" that is...
And, why isn't a cybernetically enhanced special forces chick with mad hacking skills mythic? Because it's realistic? The ancient greeks and romans felt their gods were perfectly realistic.
Well, BUCKO, that makes them look even WORSE. It means they're sticking with the "men in tights" thing because they can't see past the end of their own noses.
At least I gave them credit for fighting over a specific market. Looks like they're not even fighting; they're just being lazy.
Ok; I'll grant you Vertigo looks interesting. Perhaps one day the big American companies will gradually shift their mix to favor more interesting subject matter. But the movies they're choosing to make lead me to believe they aren't ready to do that just yet.
Well, I really like the independents. I think their work is just as interesting as anything coming in from the rest of the world. I was just complaining about the big corporate entities, which I think have totally missed the boat.
Take online manga and graphic novels for instance. There are tons of really interesting, cool ones out there. I discover new ones all the time and stash the link in my bookmarks. Some of them are really amazing. And they self-publish every time they make it to a N*100th strip or so. Look at Megatokyo; they're up to volume 3 already. I got all three books for thirty bucks, which together were something like three years worth of material.
I love the independents, so don't get the wrong idea. I was talking about the American comics *industry*, as in big, corporate concerns, which I think are dead meat. I just don't think they can compete on value or story anymore. Even if it weren't for Japan and Europe, our own independents would wipe them out in a few years.
It's not unlike small independent labels kicking the RIAA in the balls (that's coming too). Decentralization always wins. Guerillas always have the advantage over a large, unwieldy army.
By the way... I'm one of those "independents". I'm going live in a month or two.:)
EXCEPT, the reason you have several copies is that they SELL. And the more popular ones regularly sell out.
Look, I'm not trying to attack you or anything. I'm just pointing out that Marvel and D.C. are aiming themselves in the wrong direction (and have been doing so for some time).
They'll either figure it out, or they'll be doomed.
Your best bet is to find a county or state level civil service organization on one of the two coasts. In most of the red states, the governors are working pretty hard to bust the unions, which makes life hard for them.
A number of states have hiring freezes in effect, like California; this is a function of their having republican governors. However, in the next gubernatorial campaigns, several of those governors are going away, probably replaced by democrats. If experience is any indicator, this means the hiring freezes will end, outsourcing will decrease and new hiring will start. You'll have a several-year window in which you'll be able to find a nice spot.
I think your best bet right now would be New England, New York, and maybe New Jersey, but in New Jersey you'll have to have a year of residency under your belt before you sign on (it's residents only). This sounds harsh but it protects you down the road. You could get a contracting job at a private company (temp work) for the year, and once you're a resident, you could apply for civil service.
Here in New York, the hiring freeze is already letting up. Two new people have been hired in my office, for instance. Go to www.state.ny.us and look for the civil service examination page; you can get started on applying for a GS-18 position there. You supply a resume, they check you out and score you based on your skills. Then individual agencies get custom scores on you based on how well your skills line up with what they want.
Ever since McCarthyism, they've been focused on ridiculous Superhero/Men In Tights nonsense while the rest of the world has moved on to much more interesting subject matter.
On top of that, while Japanese Manga have been giving people 150 - 200 pages of black and white comics on cheap paper for ten bucks, DC and Marvel think they can make their comics into "collectibles" and sell 15 readable pages (if you take out the ads) for over four bucks.
Hmm... Let me see... Top-notch science fiction, 200 pages for ten bucks, with NO ADS, or crappy kiddie "superman" stories at fifteen pages for four bucks... Let me think...
DC and Marvel just don't get it. They think they're competing with each other, but REALLY, they're competing with Japanese and European companies. And somebody's gonna eat their lunch. Like Masamune Shirow, Mamaru Ooshi, Enki Bilal, Giraud, or Frezzato. People who write INTERESTING, ADULT-LEVEL STORIES that don't involve thinly-disguised magical thinking and wish-fulfillment.
The American comics industry currently appeals only to little kids and adults who obsess over the current value of (I don't know) Batman #6. The collectibles market is SMALL. The entertainment market, on the other hand, is HUGE.
Just look at how much bigger Border's manga section is than their superhero section. That'll open your eyes...
To break into civil service, I took a pay cut from 60K (as a senior Java/Perl guy) to 43K (and had to start doing VB6 -- UGH). However, a few years later, I'm up to 52K with amazing benefits AND a pension, and I've passed a promotion test. So shortly I'm going to get boosted up over 55K, with the potential to hit 70K within five or six years. And the jobs I'm trying for are all Java jobs, so I'll escape all this VB silliness.
If you guys try for a government job, you have to start at the bottom (the 40's) but you work your way up fast, you've got great job security, and one day, you'll have a pension.
Get some other job offers in the 60K range. Then tell your boss that you're being courted and they've offered 60K. Tell him you'd love to stay, but you can't turn down that salary level.
He'll either boost your salary to 60K or tell you "good luck with your new job". Either way, you get the 60K.
Well, I don't believe it's an addiction per se, but I do think that there is a percentage of people who get tied up in some sort of obsessive/compulsive thing and get way too carried away for their own good. And I do think that people who get obsessed like this could screw things up for themselves.
But, I don't think that videogames are addictive.
With an actual addictive thing (like heroin, or cigarettes, or alcohol) it doesn't matter WHO you are, if you do the same set of things you'll probably end up with the same result. Start smoking and it'll be hard to quit. Drink too much and you'll get hooked. Do any hard drugs at ALL and you're probably screwed for life. Go off the addictive material, and you suffer some sort of terrible withdrawl -- if you ever touch it again, you're going to get sucked right back into it. It's pretty serious, and life threatening.
With videogames, though, it's purely behavioral and psychological. Stop playing, and you're not going to go through a chemical withdrawl process, you're not going to die, you're just going to be annoyed and unhappy.
I think that rather than approach the topic as an addiction, and assume people need to never touch a given game again, etc, I think time management skills are what should be applied. Teaching the person how to limit his gameplay and have some kind of balance in his life would be far better than stripping him of a remarkably entertaining facet of modern culture.
People love "all or nothing" solutions. I think something more subtle would be much better for these people.
Although nobody gnashes their teeth or pulls their hair out because JoeBob the Human Blob spends six hours a night in front of his television watching Nascar and idiotic sitcoms, every now and then, everyone freaks out over "computer addiction". Let's put this in perspective:
Older people are frequently terrified of computers. When they were growing up, their science fiction usually involved some giant mainframe somewhere taking over the world, so for them, computers were big, scary, alien things to be feared and left to the clean-cut, nice government scientists. NORMAL people were supposed to get married, have kids, spend all their time in front of their televisions, and in general, not make waves for the Establishment.
Along come younger people.
Younger people get into all sorts of things older people can't understand or participate in. They seem to have their own language, their own way of relating to each other, and their own entirely separate culture that the older people can't penetrate. With each generation, the gulf between the young and the old has widened so that the activities the kids have been into have seemed more and more alien to their parents.
People from my generation onward (born in the early '70s) grew up with video games and computers. They're simply part of our world, just another artifact. OUR science fiction listed the hacker as a powerful figure who gained power and influence FROM the computer (thus the computer was not something to be feared, but rather used). OUR generation sees computer use and video gaming as simply another side of our culture, just another set of activities that are fun and worthwhile.
So, while JoeBob the Human Blob sits passively in front of his screen for six hours, Jimmy the hacker spends three hours ownzing his friends in Halo 2, two hours working on his website, and one hour blogging about an upcoming hacker conference.
Jimmy's parents are like JoeBob, but not like Jimmy. Thus, they don't understand what's going on and they panic. Many harsh words about "computer addiction" will be thrown around. Jimmy might try to bring up JoeBob's widening ass and the ironic similarities and differences between the two activities, but it won't get him anywhere. And poor Jimmy won't be TRULY free until he gets his own apartment (with a cable modem, naturally).
All this is about generational conflict. Give it a few years, it'll all settle down as the computer becomes more ubiquitous and people start relaxing.
Before I comment, let me say that I completely accept that there are people who get WAAAAAAY too involved with their online activities (the "EverCrack" phenomenon for instance). I don't believe they're truly addicted to it, but I do believe they've got some kind of obsessive/compulsive thing going on that's not healthy for them.
BUT,
I find that the people talking about "computer addiction", particularly psychiatrists and psychologists, cast their net far too wide (and do so ON PURPOSE to drum up business). The symptoms they describe are too common to be useful in considering an individual's behavior.
For example, one of the symptoms they list is someone who gets involved with a game at night, and suddenly is surprised by dawn. This has happened to many people, not just gamers. People doing movie marathons, having sex with their girlfriends, dancing, bar hopping, etc, all have had this experience. When you're having fun, it's easy to lose track of time. This doesn't imply ANYTHING except that you were having fun, and listing it as a symptom is sneaky at best. It's designed to make you think "Oh, MY! Maybe I need to see a psychiatrist too!"
Psychiatry is a business, remember -- sites like these are often commercials designed to drum up business, in particular roping in naive parents who don't know what to do about little Junior's online activities and who tend to jump to conclusions.
This entire area of "study" should be taken with a grain of salt, I think.
I liked my history teachers, too. Here's a delicious irony:
One of the more sociologically interesting things I learned in college was that almost all sociology profs were utterly full of shit. If only I could go back in time and inspire myself, I'd tell myself to write a paper statistically proving this amazing fact, and submit it to my most annoying sociology prof. It's really too bad I can't.;)
I learned far more about human nature and society from the history profs, who seemed to be much more interested in facts and details (i.e. "getting it right"). They seemed to enjoy their subject matter more, too.
Are you saying that your professors didn't push any propaganda your way? You never got the "western civilization is evil" speech?
I find that hard to believe. Where I went to school, some of the teachers (not all, mind you) were practically overflowing with self-loathing. And they tested you on it.
Mostly it was the sociology crowd; our history professors were pretty good, and tended to relate the facts without trying to put an unpleasant spin on them. I really liked my Western Civilization prof.
On the other hand, we had some real nutbags.
Here's one example: I actually had a sociology teacher that tried to tell me that "no culture ever engaged in widespread murder of civilians until Europe during the second world war". I offered her many examples of ancient people "putting cities to the sword", genghis khan, etc, but she blithely dismissed this with "Well, I've seen statistics that say that stuff was really exaggerated and didn't happen."
She was from India, and was doing this whole "white people are evil" thing. I used to argue bitterly with her, needless to say. I studied hard and aced all her tests just to piss her off; she gave me a B anyway, on the basis that she subjectively didn't like my essays on the final.
I found my liberal arts courses to be a real mixed bag. Didn't you?
The problem with those two ideas is, there's no evidence that either took place. Nobody knows WHAT happened. You can't draw such sweeping conclusions from a few old bones.
What modern humans are revealing when they come up with theories like this is that they have self-loathing issues and always imagine/assume the worst about their own species.
This is very common among liberal arts majors these days, who are practically told in class that human beings are the Face of Evil(tm).
Cheer up! We're not so bad. The Neanderthals probably just couldn't adapt as well as modern humans and died out quietly on their own. Like every OTHER human-like species that has come and gone on this planet.
The story of the Garden of Eden (as told by a New Yorker):
God: "Hmm... Kinda bored; Greenwich Village won't exist for 6,000 years... Maybe I'll make some people, see what they get up to."
POOF!
God: "Hey, YOU! Nature-boy! Your name is Adam. See all these animals over here? They're for you. Have fun, but, um..." (thinks for a second) "I know! Ok, see those two trees over there? The ones with the juicy apples and so on? Those are the trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and of Life. Yeah... So... You don't need any of that stuff, so don't eat them. Everything else is fair game, though."
God (to Gabriel): "Hey, what odds will you give me that he'll pick the tree of knowledge?"
Gabriel: "My Lord, I believe he will pick the tree of Life. Knowledge is overrated, it sayeth this on Slashdot."
God: "Gimme fifty bucks on Knowledge."
(They wait a week. Nothing happens.)
God: "What IS it with this guy? All he does is pet that damn cat."
Gabriel: "Perhaps he needs someone to egg him on."
God: "Hmm... Hey! Let's get him laid!"
POOF!
God (to Adam): "Hey, Nature-boy! I made you a babe. Check her out: 36-26-36! Be fruitful and multiply! But don't eat from those two trees!"
Adam: "W00T!"
Eve: "Don't get any ideas, buster..."
(Another week goes by).
God (to Gabriel): "They're STILL not eating the damn fruit. What the hell is WRONG with these people? They're beautiful apples, huge and red, how can they MISS them???"
Gabriel: "My lord, they've been fornicating day and night. Perhaps you shouldn't have created them as adults..."
God: "Yeah, yeah... We've got to speed this process up. Fetch me that consultant."
Consultant: "Yessssssss, my Loooooorrdd?" (flicks tongue, hisses).
God: "Ok, I need you to trick that dame down there into eating some apples from that tree over there. Normal consulting rates apply, be mindful of the do not exceed rate, keep an eye on expenses or I'll really do a number on you."
And the rest, as they say... Is history!
(Epilogue):
God: "Ha! Fork 'em over, Gabe, that's two to one, too!"
Gabriel: "Man, what a disappointment. I was sure she was going to go for the Tree of Life for a minute there."
God: "Ha! By me, I knew that kid wouldn't disappoint me! Hey! I have an idea! Gimme some odds on that Kain vs. Abel bout we've got coming up... I'm feeling lucky..."
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but all that theory can't be put to any practical use without at least one general-purpose programming language under your belt. I've heard about programs that are all about theory, and don't even have a single practical course. That's a shortcut to irrelevancy if ever I've heard one.
I'm not saying the courses should be vocational, but students should at least have one practical programming course per semester so that by the time they graduate, they have three years or so of continuous programming experience.
Not so they can get a job -- they won't anyway.
So they will actually be able to DO something with all that theory.
Programming is where the rubber meets the road.
I agree. I have a CS degree and I've been programming professionally for over seven years. Occasionally I find myself having to learn a new language or tool. I've done it enough times that I've even got an algorithm for it. I basically read up on, in order:
:)
1. all the major constructs of the language, e.g. working with variables, functions, flow control, etc.
2. handling exceptions (if such exists!).
3. Interacting with a database, including how to work with transactions
4. Interacting with the network
5. GUI design (if such exists)
6. Any gotchas the other programmers know about
Once I've figured out these items, which takes a week or two really, I do writeups of all of them and stick 'em in a folder (and on a PDA) for future reference.
Someone without a CS degree (or any production experience) tends to think about learning a language in terms of reading a 2,000 page book, memorizing it, and so on -- rubbish, of course.
If they knew better, they could focus their efforts much more effectively. It's all about knowing what to look for, and that comes with education and age.
Heh heh, being an older programmer myself (35 this month) I deal with a lot of arrogant little shits at work. They think they know everything at 22, then they turn around and build a huge, bloated system all the users complain about bitterly. And I laugh.
I agree with your post. Even among manga, the stuff I like is maybe 10% of what's out there, and some of the other stuff is way out of my area of interest. I saw something really strange today: a police story involving people who were half cat and half human, with cat ears and tails and so on. This caused me to have a flashback to the whole "cracky-chan" thing, which reminded me of "furries" and I almost whoofed my cookies right there in the bookstore. Ugh.
I self-medicated with a browse through a Masamune Shirow art book. Boy, he sure likes pinup girls. And motorcycles. And guns.
Some combination!
The CrazyPhilman Asteroid Mining Method:
Step 1: Select an asteroid. For example, that giant slab of solid iron over there, the one that's like a mile wide.
Step 2: Put rocket engines on one side, and a little house on the other. Move into the little house with a porno babe.
Step 3: Use the house's pilot station to fire the engines up and set a course for earth.
Step 4: Fuck the porno chick for several months, eating pop tarts and drinking Jolt cola.
Step 5: While in Earth Orbit, aim the asteroid at the parcel of land you bought out in the middle of New Jersey. You might think New Jerseyans would get miffed about this, but they're used to environmental destruction. Nobody will mind.
Step 6: While the asteroid enters the atmosphere, jump in your escape vehicle (it's in the little house's garage) and get out of there! Try and come down someplace nice, like Hawaii. Bone the porno chick some more. Ahhhh... Porno chicks RULE.
Step 7: Rent a full-size pickup truck and drive out to your New Jersey property with the porno chick and some tools, and gather up your meteorite for sale and distribution! It shouldn't be TOO hard to break it up and sell it... Wait, it's several megatons, you might need a box van.
Step 8: Repeat annually! Profit!
What will they think of next? ;)
Well, there are different types of manga with different styles and different traditions. In fact, they're laid out fairly specifically. There's Shonen, Yaoi (don't get me started on THAT weirdness, or why girls seem to be stuck on it), bishonen, etc. You generally pick one or two genres you're interested in and concentrate on what you like.
Me, I get more into the adult sci-fi stuff, the more serious-minded the better. Blame, Ghost in the Shell, Planetes, stuff like that. I also like Genshiken and Comic Party when I'm in the mood for something funny and light.
European graphic novels are pretty good too.
And I'm sure there are SOME American graphic novels that aren't bad, but it's hard to find them if you aren't into haunting a comic shop.
The ancient Greek gods dressed in the standard clothing of their time (e.g. togas and tunics, etc).
The Roman gods dressed like Roman citizens.
The Norse gods dressed like Norse warriors.
All of this was dignified and majestic.
So, why do American comic artists paint their "gods" in leotards? With funny little boots and capes? It's like a gay musical number for cryin' out loud.
Not dignified.
Not majestic.
Why? If it's about "mythic creation" that is...
And, why isn't a cybernetically enhanced special forces chick with mad hacking skills mythic? Because it's realistic? The ancient greeks and romans felt their gods were perfectly realistic.
I sense a hole in your argument...
Well, BUCKO, that makes them look even WORSE. It means they're sticking with the "men in tights" thing because they can't see past the end of their own noses.
At least I gave them credit for fighting over a specific market. Looks like they're not even fighting; they're just being lazy.
Dark Horse isn't that bad.
Ok; I'll grant you Vertigo looks interesting. Perhaps one day the big American companies will gradually shift their mix to favor more interesting subject matter. But the movies they're choosing to make lead me to believe they aren't ready to do that just yet.
Well, I really like the independents. I think their work is just as interesting as anything coming in from the rest of the world. I was just complaining about the big corporate entities, which I think have totally missed the boat.
:)
Take online manga and graphic novels for instance. There are tons of really interesting, cool ones out there. I discover new ones all the time and stash the link in my bookmarks. Some of them are really amazing. And they self-publish every time they make it to a N*100th strip or so. Look at Megatokyo; they're up to volume 3 already. I got all three books for thirty bucks, which together were something like three years worth of material.
I love the independents, so don't get the wrong idea. I was talking about the American comics *industry*, as in big, corporate concerns, which I think are dead meat. I just don't think they can compete on value or story anymore. Even if it weren't for Japan and Europe, our own independents would wipe them out in a few years.
It's not unlike small independent labels kicking the RIAA in the balls (that's coming too). Decentralization always wins. Guerillas always have the advantage over a large, unwieldy army.
By the way... I'm one of those "independents". I'm going live in a month or two.
EXCEPT, the reason you have several copies is that they SELL. And the more popular ones regularly sell out.
Look, I'm not trying to attack you or anything. I'm just pointing out that Marvel and D.C. are aiming themselves in the wrong direction (and have been doing so for some time).
They'll either figure it out, or they'll be doomed.
We'll agree to disagree then.
Your best bet is to find a county or state level civil service organization on one of the two coasts. In most of the red states, the governors are working pretty hard to bust the unions, which makes life hard for them.
A number of states have hiring freezes in effect, like California; this is a function of their having republican governors. However, in the next gubernatorial campaigns, several of those governors are going away, probably replaced by democrats. If experience is any indicator, this means the hiring freezes will end, outsourcing will decrease and new hiring will start. You'll have a several-year window in which you'll be able to find a nice spot.
I think your best bet right now would be New England, New York, and maybe New Jersey, but in New Jersey you'll have to have a year of residency under your belt before you sign on (it's residents only). This sounds harsh but it protects you down the road. You could get a contracting job at a private company (temp work) for the year, and once you're a resident, you could apply for civil service.
Here in New York, the hiring freeze is already letting up. Two new people have been hired in my office, for instance. Go to www.state.ny.us and look for the civil service examination page; you can get started on applying for a GS-18 position there. You supply a resume, they check you out and score you based on your skills. Then individual agencies get custom scores on you based on how well your skills line up with what they want.
Good luck!
Ever since McCarthyism, they've been focused on ridiculous Superhero/Men In Tights nonsense while the rest of the world has moved on to much more interesting subject matter.
On top of that, while Japanese Manga have been giving people 150 - 200 pages of black and white comics on cheap paper for ten bucks, DC and Marvel think they can make their comics into "collectibles" and sell 15 readable pages (if you take out the ads) for over four bucks.
Hmm... Let me see... Top-notch science fiction, 200 pages for ten bucks, with NO ADS, or crappy kiddie "superman" stories at fifteen pages for four bucks... Let me think...
DC and Marvel just don't get it. They think they're competing with each other, but REALLY, they're competing with Japanese and European companies. And somebody's gonna eat their lunch. Like Masamune Shirow, Mamaru Ooshi, Enki Bilal, Giraud, or Frezzato. People who write INTERESTING, ADULT-LEVEL STORIES that don't involve thinly-disguised magical thinking and wish-fulfillment.
The American comics industry currently appeals only to little kids and adults who obsess over the current value of (I don't know) Batman #6. The collectibles market is SMALL. The entertainment market, on the other hand, is HUGE.
Just look at how much bigger Border's manga section is than their superhero section. That'll open your eyes...
To break into civil service, I took a pay cut from 60K (as a senior Java/Perl guy) to 43K (and had to start doing VB6 -- UGH). However, a few years later, I'm up to 52K with amazing benefits AND a pension, and I've passed a promotion test. So shortly I'm going to get boosted up over 55K, with the potential to hit 70K within five or six years. And the jobs I'm trying for are all Java jobs, so I'll escape all this VB silliness.
If you guys try for a government job, you have to start at the bottom (the 40's) but you work your way up fast, you've got great job security, and one day, you'll have a pension.
It's worth a little sacrifice, don't you think?
Get some other job offers in the 60K range. Then tell your boss that you're being courted and they've offered 60K. Tell him you'd love to stay, but you can't turn down that salary level.
He'll either boost your salary to 60K or tell you "good luck with your new job". Either way, you get the 60K.
Well, I don't believe it's an addiction per se, but I do think that there is a percentage of people who get tied up in some sort of obsessive/compulsive thing and get way too carried away for their own good. And I do think that people who get obsessed like this could screw things up for themselves.
But, I don't think that videogames are addictive.
With an actual addictive thing (like heroin, or cigarettes, or alcohol) it doesn't matter WHO you are, if you do the same set of things you'll probably end up with the same result. Start smoking and it'll be hard to quit. Drink too much and you'll get hooked. Do any hard drugs at ALL and you're probably screwed for life. Go off the addictive material, and you suffer some sort of terrible withdrawl -- if you ever touch it again, you're going to get sucked right back into it. It's pretty serious, and life threatening.
With videogames, though, it's purely behavioral and psychological. Stop playing, and you're not going to go through a chemical withdrawl process, you're not going to die, you're just going to be annoyed and unhappy.
I think that rather than approach the topic as an addiction, and assume people need to never touch a given game again, etc, I think time management skills are what should be applied. Teaching the person how to limit his gameplay and have some kind of balance in his life would be far better than stripping him of a remarkably entertaining facet of modern culture.
People love "all or nothing" solutions. I think something more subtle would be much better for these people.
Although nobody gnashes their teeth or pulls their hair out because JoeBob the Human Blob spends six hours a night in front of his television watching Nascar and idiotic sitcoms, every now and then, everyone freaks out over "computer addiction". Let's put this in perspective:
Older people are frequently terrified of computers. When they were growing up, their science fiction usually involved some giant mainframe somewhere taking over the world, so for them, computers were big, scary, alien things to be feared and left to the clean-cut, nice government scientists. NORMAL people were supposed to get married, have kids, spend all their time in front of their televisions, and in general, not make waves for the Establishment.
Along come younger people.
Younger people get into all sorts of things older people can't understand or participate in. They seem to have their own language, their own way of relating to each other, and their own entirely separate culture that the older people can't penetrate. With each generation, the gulf between the young and the old has widened so that the activities the kids have been into have seemed more and more alien to their parents.
People from my generation onward (born in the early '70s) grew up with video games and computers. They're simply part of our world, just another artifact. OUR science fiction listed the hacker as a powerful figure who gained power and influence FROM the computer (thus the computer was not something to be feared, but rather used). OUR generation sees computer use and video gaming as simply another side of our culture, just another set of activities that are fun and worthwhile.
So, while JoeBob the Human Blob sits passively in front of his screen for six hours, Jimmy the hacker spends three hours ownzing his friends in Halo 2, two hours working on his website, and one hour blogging about an upcoming hacker conference.
Jimmy's parents are like JoeBob, but not like Jimmy. Thus, they don't understand what's going on and they panic. Many harsh words about "computer addiction" will be thrown around. Jimmy might try to bring up JoeBob's widening ass and the ironic similarities and differences between the two activities, but it won't get him anywhere. And poor Jimmy won't be TRULY free until he gets his own apartment (with a cable modem, naturally).
All this is about generational conflict. Give it a few years, it'll all settle down as the computer becomes more ubiquitous and people start relaxing.
Before I comment, let me say that I completely accept that there are people who get WAAAAAAY too involved with their online activities (the "EverCrack" phenomenon for instance). I don't believe they're truly addicted to it, but I do believe they've got some kind of obsessive/compulsive thing going on that's not healthy for them.
BUT,
I find that the people talking about "computer addiction", particularly psychiatrists and psychologists, cast their net far too wide (and do so ON PURPOSE to drum up business). The symptoms they describe are too common to be useful in considering an individual's behavior.
For example, one of the symptoms they list is someone who gets involved with a game at night, and suddenly is surprised by dawn. This has happened to many people, not just gamers. People doing movie marathons, having sex with their girlfriends, dancing, bar hopping, etc, all have had this experience. When you're having fun, it's easy to lose track of time. This doesn't imply ANYTHING except that you were having fun, and listing it as a symptom is sneaky at best. It's designed to make you think "Oh, MY! Maybe I need to see a psychiatrist too!"
Psychiatry is a business, remember -- sites like these are often commercials designed to drum up business, in particular roping in naive parents who don't know what to do about little Junior's online activities and who tend to jump to conclusions.
This entire area of "study" should be taken with a grain of salt, I think.
Wow... Now, THAT is a cool assignment.
;)
I liked my history teachers, too. Here's a delicious irony:
One of the more sociologically interesting things I learned in college was that almost all sociology profs were utterly full of shit. If only I could go back in time and inspire myself, I'd tell myself to write a paper statistically proving this amazing fact, and submit it to my most annoying sociology prof. It's really too bad I can't.
I learned far more about human nature and society from the history profs, who seemed to be much more interested in facts and details (i.e. "getting it right"). They seemed to enjoy their subject matter more, too.
...So, liberal arts major...
Are you saying that your professors didn't push any propaganda your way? You never got the "western civilization is evil" speech?
I find that hard to believe. Where I went to school, some of the teachers (not all, mind you) were practically overflowing with self-loathing. And they tested you on it.
Mostly it was the sociology crowd; our history professors were pretty good, and tended to relate the facts without trying to put an unpleasant spin on them. I really liked my Western Civilization prof.
On the other hand, we had some real nutbags.
Here's one example: I actually had a sociology teacher that tried to tell me that "no culture ever engaged in widespread murder of civilians until Europe during the second world war". I offered her many examples of ancient people "putting cities to the sword", genghis khan, etc, but she blithely dismissed this with "Well, I've seen statistics that say that stuff was really exaggerated and didn't happen."
She was from India, and was doing this whole "white people are evil" thing. I used to argue bitterly with her, needless to say. I studied hard and aced all her tests just to piss her off; she gave me a B anyway, on the basis that she subjectively didn't like my essays on the final.
I found my liberal arts courses to be a real mixed bag. Didn't you?
You've personally done all those things?
Wow.
Ah... Broad smile, friendly countenance, backing away slowly, backing away...
People love an underdog... ;)
The problem with those two ideas is, there's no evidence that either took place. Nobody knows WHAT happened. You can't draw such sweeping conclusions from a few old bones.
What modern humans are revealing when they come up with theories like this is that they have self-loathing issues and always imagine/assume the worst about their own species.
This is very common among liberal arts majors these days, who are practically told in class that human beings are the Face of Evil(tm).
Cheer up! We're not so bad. The Neanderthals probably just couldn't adapt as well as modern humans and died out quietly on their own. Like every OTHER human-like species that has come and gone on this planet.
The story of the Garden of Eden (as told by a New Yorker):
God: "Hmm... Kinda bored; Greenwich Village won't exist for 6,000 years... Maybe I'll make some people, see what they get up to."
POOF!
God: "Hey, YOU! Nature-boy! Your name is Adam. See all these animals over here? They're for you. Have fun, but, um..." (thinks for a second) "I know! Ok, see those two trees over there? The ones with the juicy apples and so on? Those are the trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and of Life. Yeah... So... You don't need any of that stuff, so don't eat them. Everything else is fair game, though."
God (to Gabriel): "Hey, what odds will you give me that he'll pick the tree of knowledge?"
Gabriel: "My Lord, I believe he will pick the tree of Life. Knowledge is overrated, it sayeth this on Slashdot."
God: "Gimme fifty bucks on Knowledge."
(They wait a week. Nothing happens.)
God: "What IS it with this guy? All he does is pet that damn cat."
Gabriel: "Perhaps he needs someone to egg him on."
God: "Hmm... Hey! Let's get him laid!"
POOF!
God (to Adam): "Hey, Nature-boy! I made you a babe. Check her out: 36-26-36! Be fruitful and multiply! But don't eat from those two trees!"
Adam: "W00T!"
Eve: "Don't get any ideas, buster..."
(Another week goes by).
God (to Gabriel): "They're STILL not eating the damn fruit. What the hell is WRONG with these people? They're beautiful apples, huge and red, how can they MISS them???"
Gabriel: "My lord, they've been fornicating day and night. Perhaps you shouldn't have created them as adults..."
God: "Yeah, yeah... We've got to speed this process up. Fetch me that consultant."
Consultant: "Yessssssss, my Loooooorrdd?" (flicks tongue, hisses).
God: "Ok, I need you to trick that dame down there into eating some apples from that tree over there. Normal consulting rates apply, be mindful of the do not exceed rate, keep an eye on expenses or I'll really do a number on you."
And the rest, as they say... Is history!
(Epilogue):
God: "Ha! Fork 'em over, Gabe, that's two to one, too!"
Gabriel: "Man, what a disappointment. I was sure she was going to go for the Tree of Life for a minute there."
God: "Ha! By me, I knew that kid wouldn't disappoint me! Hey! I have an idea! Gimme some odds on that Kain vs. Abel bout we've got coming up... I'm feeling lucky..."