Heh. That was the first thing that popped into my mind as well, but I couldn't come up with a way of saying it that didn't involve spittle flying from my mouth. Kudos to you sir.
55 and up? You think that ads targeted toward "Young, hip people" are more effective toward actual young hip people, or older people who are desperately craving to be young and hip?
Couple that with the fact that that demographic has a hell of a lot of disposable cash, and Apple looks fricking brilliant.
Heh. I'd love to see someone try and rip off the vault here. I mean, there's thousands of dollars in there at any point in time...Unfortunately it's almost all in coins. Not really a hit and run sort of situation.
Lol! You think all leaks are government sponsored? You think that there has never been a leak that didn't result from some journalist very carefully winning the trust of a source, who then passes them classified information for them to print?
The biggest part of being an investigative journalist is convincing people to give you information that they're not supposed to give out. That's where the leaks come from my friend.
All the information was out there. The UN inspectors said there were no WMDs. Half the people in Bush's cabinet had been saying "We need a friendly Muslim democracy in the Middle East to support our interests" for a decade, long before they'd been in a position to make policy.
Even if there had been WMDs, it would have been nothing more than a pretext. We see that with North Korea, and it is utterly foolish to invade a country based on what they might do. I mean, did Iraq support the 9/11 Hijackers, give 'em a supply of stealth box cutters? Anthrax? The CIA later admitted that a "gifted high school student" could have made that particular "WMD".
That regime (which we set up) sucked, but the lesson to be learned there is not to set up crazy dictators in the first place. The bulk of the genocide that we're blaming Saddam for happened after Gulf War I, and because we encouraged groups to rebel against Saddam, to make things easier for us, then abandoned them when we pulled out.
And are we safer now? Did anyone honestly think invading an Islamic country would make us safer? Apparently so.
So now we throw more money and lives at it because the people at the top cannot admit to mistakes, and if they keep it going long enough, it'll be someone elses legacy.
And why? Because the public bought it. They didn't bother to look at the damn facts.
The question to ask is, are you going to learn anything from this? If you do, you'll be in the minority.
It's all about freedom of the press. If someone leaks it to them, they can print it. If it turns out to be untrue, they're responsible for that.
Making it so that they are only allowed to print things that are released through official channels is pretty much the same thing as making them government controlled, which is the opposite of freedom of the press.
I don't consider "wanting" to do something other than work to be a sign of addiction...Now if I blew off work in order to play/drink/smoke, then hell yes, addiction.
Addictions aren't manageable, by definition. They take over all aspects of your life. Just because you blow off a social function so you can play a game, that means nothing. It's when you blow off something that actually matters, whose blowing off has stark consequences, that you need to think about addiction.
Sure, you played the hell out of it. I myself played the hell out of WoW, and may again at some point in the future, but my life got in the way.
If you stop, cold turkey, you're not addicted. I love games, I love MMO's...I've played a dozen. I stay up all hours, I play hardcore.
I went through a period between contracting jobs after WoW came out where I played 60+ hours a week, and that lasted all the way up to the day I started the next job, then dropped to maybe 8 hours a week. I kinda wished I could play more, but I had other things I had to do.
So what would this study say about me? That I was super addicted one day, and not the next? Addiction doesn't WORK that way. It's just stupid. These studies vary so wildly in their results, I can't help but think that they're completely full of it.
The thing that stands it so far apart is that it's not grinding hectic action, coupled with pieces of cutscenes interspersed with actual game action, all overlain with a pounding heavy metal beat.
It's linear, it's got well chosen music that stands WAY the hell out from the generalized advertising back chatter, looks pretty. Doesn't abuse your common sense with a bunch of half baked claims of superiority over everything that's ever come before.
I think, if nothing else, it's a sign that gamer marketing is moving toward a more mainstream audience, or that they're at least considering that we're capable of thought.
I hate Charmed so much there aren't even words. Every episode is exactly the same: Bimbo X, Y, or Z does something stupid solo, all seems lost but in the last second wonder triplet powers unite, and all is saved.
This same crap has happened to them over and over and over again for like fifty seasons. You think they'd eventually figure it out.
NO, I do not think that Democrats are all about free speech.
Every time you try to reduce this to an us and them philosophy (and I did it too, I apologize) they gleefully screw us while we're fighting each other.
And for the record, though I'm left leaning, Hillary makes me hurl. It's a given that 2008 is going to be a festival of bad choices.
Nah, it's the other way around. The government figures out that all people really want is bread and circuses, and provide them, while concentrating political power away from them.
Since all most people really do want is bread and circuses, it works.
It goes both ways. There are some good farmers out there, and some of the worst pollution comes out of factory farms. But, though I am not a "degreed biologist living amongst the rustics" I am married to a nationally recognized environmental journalist, and I do have more than a little environmental background as well. Farms use a hell of a lot of fertilizer and a hell of a lot of pesticides, and though both vary depending on the crop, neither one is remotely environmentally friendly, and there are always issues with estuaries and water table runoff. Don't believe me? Believe the American Chemical Society
And to blame fricking golf courses for the majority of pesticide pollution in this country is laughable. Fertilizer? Maybe. They're up there. But they cover such a small amount of space compared to the amount of land in this country that is under cultivation. Now, home users, with their nice green lawns, again, possible point, but that's not cities, that's the goddamn suburbs.
I've lived quite a lot of my life around farms and farmers...Mostly eastern, so Tobacco, Cattle, Chickens, Pigs, Tomatoes, Tree crops, and Cotton, so I'm not quite as ignorant as you seem to think. And, since I'm sure you have better sources for statistics than I do, I'd really like to see some numbers on "latest techniques" especially where water use and soil conservation come into play. My numbers basically say that water sources are drying up and becoming contaminated and that soil loss (in indiana in 1997) hit a 50 year low...with a mere 2.9 tons per acre.
Frankly, and I've seen it pretty often, I think you're suffering from some serious arrogance. You're completely right, and I'm completely wrong. My points have no merit (drawing down the aquifers? Hello? This is a no brainer.), and yours do, but not because you backed up your assertions (you didn't) and not because you didn't lay out some outlandish assertions (you did), but because you're all educated, and I'm just a dummy from Georgia who should just back off what'n all I don understand...Speaking of "redneck" stereotypes.
So get off it and prove me wrong, or shut the hell up.
Just because they are also crazy, doesn't mean you are right. Both the radical left and the radical right are equally idiotic; pointing out that there are idiots on the other side doesn't change that fact.
If you can't bring yourself to meet in the middle and agree that the other side's rational concerns have merit and ought to be taken into account, you're part of the problem.
Newt's not elected to anything, though he is talking about a 2008 presidential run.
The only possible reason to want to curtail freedom of speech is to maintain a tighter control on a domestic population, which falls right in line with the current Republican agenda, so it's no surprise that that's what he wants, but I'm surprised even he would come right out and say it.
Anyone who is incapable of understanding why Freedom of Speech is essential to a democracy has no business being anywhere near government. That people don't rise up and tear him apart explains, in a nutshell, why, historically, democracies don't last.
Their speech isn't the real problem. If they were saying something, that would be fine. But using their money to slant science education is pretty crappy. Ideally, the government and the people would give enough money that this sort of trick wouldn't work so well...In the real world, however, there will always be people who want to take the money.
Basically, this is what happens when education and politics collide. I don't see any way out of it...Even privatization wouldn't make the problem go away. Just a fricking mess.
I think the whole point of my little rant was A) people who live in rural areas are as bad, if not worse for the environment as city dwellers and B) animals like living where people aren't. I'm not making a value judgment on any of it.
So while killing off the entire human race would be pretty good for a lot of animals, as an actual member of the human race rather than a troll like you, I'm kinda partial to the whole humanity thing.
What would really be good for the environment is stopping the eternal suburban sprawl. I think there are better ways to do that than mass suicide, but if you really believe that's the way to go, I'm not going to talk you out of it. Try not to land on anyone cool.
Personal storage is something we do now, because networking isn't cool enough. In ten years, it's entirely possible that networking will have increased to the point where the idea of keeping a local copy of ANYTHING will seem weird.
As opposed to the god fearing midwestern farmer. That's a man of the land! He knows all about the environment, read about it in the good book! Practices non-sustainable farming, just like all them folks in the bible! He don't believe in no damn "no till" farming! Only a bunch of hippies'd come up with crap like that.
Fertilizer, pesticides, and drainin down the aquifers, that's how god meant man to live! Top soil blowin away? Hell, boy, you think we're gonna run outta dirt? Go back to yer city!
Face facts, jackass. There is no place in this country where people are really living "with the land". Cities are actually nice and efficient, because they cram all those people and services into a tiny area. Sure they produce pollution, sure they use a lot of energy, definitely a hell of a lot more than in the 20's, but don't pretend that everyone in this country doesn't use more power than people in the 20's, and cities don't produce more pollution than the same number of people living outside a city would produce...Quite the contrary.
And it's a widely proven fact that the worst thing for nature is too much contact with man. Wildlife in the area around Chernobyl has rebounded since the disaster, and is more healthy now than it was before the meltdown. The demilitarized zone between the Korea's has healthy game populations, despite being paved with fricking landmines.
So all those people crowded together in that city are far far better for the environment than the same number of people spread out equally around the country. It's not that they're isolated fron the environment...city folks just love to go out and spend time with nature! It's that the environment is isolated from them...And that's a good thing.
Sure, because all science education is beneficial to the oil companies.
All companies act in their own interests, and while oil companies need geologists, etc, they also stand to make a hell of a lot of money on increased consumption of their product. When oil prices spike, that's the oil companies making more for the exact same quantity sold. At the same time, if they can discredit this or that research that says they should be forced to implement this or that safeguard, that lowers their operating costs. Likewise research about atmospheric carbon; if people take that seriously and start putting an extra tax on gasoline to lower the consumption, that's the oil companies seeing a drop in sales.
In their ideal world, we'll stay addicted to their product until the last drop is sold. Any science that threatens that, they're going to work like hell to discredit.
This is always the counter argument..."As long as we hold true to our principles it doesn't matter where the money comes from."
This is fine as long as everyone does hold to their principles, as long as there is someone there to point out that, in fact, X, Y, or Z piece of propaganda is propaganda.
History is rife with examples of corporate special interests skewing research about their products through carefully chosen grants and commissioned studies. Lead, Tobacco, DDT, Oil; hell, you even get a lot of it in government sponsored hydro power, because if the people who make dams run out of places to put dams their jobs go away.
It's real easy to say, "We can keep our principles and take their money" but history shows that that's just not true. You take their money, you drink their kool-aid, you sacrifice your principles, and you produce biased research.
It's like a politician saying, "Just because this lobbyist gave me a million dollars, doesn't mean I'm going to vote the way he wants me to." Come on. You're only fooling yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh. That was the first thing that popped into my mind as well, but I couldn't come up with a way of saying it that didn't involve spittle flying from my mouth. Kudos to you sir.
55 and up? You think that ads targeted toward "Young, hip people" are more effective toward actual young hip people, or older people who are desperately craving to be young and hip?
Couple that with the fact that that demographic has a hell of a lot of disposable cash, and Apple looks fricking brilliant.
Heh. I'd love to see someone try and rip off the vault here. I mean, there's thousands of dollars in there at any point in time...Unfortunately it's almost all in coins. Not really a hit and run sort of situation.
Lol! You think all leaks are government sponsored? You think that there has never been a leak that didn't result from some journalist very carefully winning the trust of a source, who then passes them classified information for them to print?
The biggest part of being an investigative journalist is convincing people to give you information that they're not supposed to give out. That's where the leaks come from my friend.
Yay propaganda.
All the information was out there. The UN inspectors said there were no WMDs. Half the people in Bush's cabinet had been saying "We need a friendly Muslim democracy in the Middle East to support our interests" for a decade, long before they'd been in a position to make policy.
Even if there had been WMDs, it would have been nothing more than a pretext. We see that with North Korea, and it is utterly foolish to invade a country based on what they might do. I mean, did Iraq support the 9/11 Hijackers, give 'em a supply of stealth box cutters? Anthrax? The CIA later admitted that a "gifted high school student" could have made that particular "WMD".
That regime (which we set up) sucked, but the lesson to be learned there is not to set up crazy dictators in the first place. The bulk of the genocide that we're blaming Saddam for happened after Gulf War I, and because we encouraged groups to rebel against Saddam, to make things easier for us, then abandoned them when we pulled out.
And are we safer now? Did anyone honestly think invading an Islamic country would make us safer? Apparently so.
So now we throw more money and lives at it because the people at the top cannot admit to mistakes, and if they keep it going long enough, it'll be someone elses legacy.
And why? Because the public bought it. They didn't bother to look at the damn facts.
The question to ask is, are you going to learn anything from this? If you do, you'll be in the minority.
It's all about freedom of the press. If someone leaks it to them, they can print it. If it turns out to be untrue, they're responsible for that.
Making it so that they are only allowed to print things that are released through official channels is pretty much the same thing as making them government controlled, which is the opposite of freedom of the press.
I don't consider "wanting" to do something other than work to be a sign of addiction...Now if I blew off work in order to play/drink/smoke, then hell yes, addiction.
Addictions aren't manageable, by definition. They take over all aspects of your life. Just because you blow off a social function so you can play a game, that means nothing. It's when you blow off something that actually matters, whose blowing off has stark consequences, that you need to think about addiction.
Sure, you played the hell out of it. I myself played the hell out of WoW, and may again at some point in the future, but my life got in the way.
If you stop, cold turkey, you're not addicted. I love games, I love MMO's...I've played a dozen. I stay up all hours, I play hardcore.
I went through a period between contracting jobs after WoW came out where I played 60+ hours a week, and that lasted all the way up to the day I started the next job, then dropped to maybe 8 hours a week. I kinda wished I could play more, but I had other things I had to do.
So what would this study say about me? That I was super addicted one day, and not the next? Addiction doesn't WORK that way. It's just stupid. These studies vary so wildly in their results, I can't help but think that they're completely full of it.
Hey, clearly as an ad, that one kicked ass! Jesus, decades later you can still remember it? That's fricking genius.
The thing that stands it so far apart is that it's not grinding hectic action, coupled with pieces of cutscenes interspersed with actual game action, all overlain with a pounding heavy metal beat.
It's linear, it's got well chosen music that stands WAY the hell out from the generalized advertising back chatter, looks pretty. Doesn't abuse your common sense with a bunch of half baked claims of superiority over everything that's ever come before.
I think, if nothing else, it's a sign that gamer marketing is moving toward a more mainstream audience, or that they're at least considering that we're capable of thought.
Bewitched would have been better.
I hate Charmed so much there aren't even words. Every episode is exactly the same: Bimbo X, Y, or Z does something stupid solo, all seems lost but in the last second wonder triplet powers unite, and all is saved.
This same crap has happened to them over and over and over again for like fifty seasons. You think they'd eventually figure it out.
NO, I do not think that Democrats are all about free speech.
Every time you try to reduce this to an us and them philosophy (and I did it too, I apologize) they gleefully screw us while we're fighting each other.
And for the record, though I'm left leaning, Hillary makes me hurl. It's a given that 2008 is going to be a festival of bad choices.
Nah, it's the other way around. The government figures out that all people really want is bread and circuses, and provide them, while concentrating political power away from them.
Since all most people really do want is bread and circuses, it works.
It goes both ways. There are some good farmers out there, and some of the worst pollution comes out of factory farms. But, though I am not a "degreed biologist living amongst the rustics" I am married to a nationally recognized environmental journalist, and I do have more than a little environmental background as well. Farms use a hell of a lot of fertilizer and a hell of a lot of pesticides, and though both vary depending on the crop, neither one is remotely environmentally friendly, and there are always issues with estuaries and water table runoff. Don't believe me? Believe the American Chemical Society
And to blame fricking golf courses for the majority of pesticide pollution in this country is laughable. Fertilizer? Maybe. They're up there. But they cover such a small amount of space compared to the amount of land in this country that is under cultivation. Now, home users, with their nice green lawns, again, possible point, but that's not cities, that's the goddamn suburbs.
I've lived quite a lot of my life around farms and farmers...Mostly eastern, so Tobacco, Cattle, Chickens, Pigs, Tomatoes, Tree crops, and Cotton, so I'm not quite as ignorant as you seem to think. And, since I'm sure you have better sources for statistics than I do, I'd really like to see some numbers on "latest techniques" especially where water use and soil conservation come into play. My numbers basically say that water sources are drying up and becoming contaminated and that soil loss (in indiana in 1997) hit a 50 year low...with a mere 2.9 tons per acre.
Frankly, and I've seen it pretty often, I think you're suffering from some serious arrogance. You're completely right, and I'm completely wrong. My points have no merit (drawing down the aquifers? Hello? This is a no brainer.), and yours do, but not because you backed up your assertions (you didn't) and not because you didn't lay out some outlandish assertions (you did), but because you're all educated, and I'm just a dummy from Georgia who should just back off what'n all I don understand...Speaking of "redneck" stereotypes.
So get off it and prove me wrong, or shut the hell up.
To everyone who has ever criticized my working posture: IN YOUR FACE BITCHES!!!
I now return you to your regularly scheduled slouching.
Just because they are also crazy, doesn't mean you are right. Both the radical left and the radical right are equally idiotic; pointing out that there are idiots on the other side doesn't change that fact.
If you can't bring yourself to meet in the middle and agree that the other side's rational concerns have merit and ought to be taken into account, you're part of the problem.
Newt's not elected to anything, though he is talking about a 2008 presidential run.
The only possible reason to want to curtail freedom of speech is to maintain a tighter control on a domestic population, which falls right in line with the current Republican agenda, so it's no surprise that that's what he wants, but I'm surprised even he would come right out and say it.
Anyone who is incapable of understanding why Freedom of Speech is essential to a democracy has no business being anywhere near government. That people don't rise up and tear him apart explains, in a nutshell, why, historically, democracies don't last.
Their speech isn't the real problem. If they were saying something, that would be fine. But using their money to slant science education is pretty crappy. Ideally, the government and the people would give enough money that this sort of trick wouldn't work so well...In the real world, however, there will always be people who want to take the money.
Basically, this is what happens when education and politics collide. I don't see any way out of it...Even privatization wouldn't make the problem go away. Just a fricking mess.
Sure, because that's exactly what I said.
Jackass.
I think the whole point of my little rant was A) people who live in rural areas are as bad, if not worse for the environment as city dwellers and B) animals like living where people aren't. I'm not making a value judgment on any of it.
So while killing off the entire human race would be pretty good for a lot of animals, as an actual member of the human race rather than a troll like you, I'm kinda partial to the whole humanity thing.
What would really be good for the environment is stopping the eternal suburban sprawl. I think there are better ways to do that than mass suicide, but if you really believe that's the way to go, I'm not going to talk you out of it. Try not to land on anyone cool.
Put that right next to your local copy of the internets.
Personal storage is something we do now, because networking isn't cool enough. In ten years, it's entirely possible that networking will have increased to the point where the idea of keeping a local copy of ANYTHING will seem weird.
I suggest you take a visit to the Lair of the Semicolon.
As opposed to the god fearing midwestern farmer. That's a man of the land! He knows all about the environment, read about it in the good book! Practices non-sustainable farming, just like all them folks in the bible! He don't believe in no damn "no till" farming! Only a bunch of hippies'd come up with crap like that.
Fertilizer, pesticides, and drainin down the aquifers, that's how god meant man to live! Top soil blowin away? Hell, boy, you think we're gonna run outta dirt? Go back to yer city!
Face facts, jackass. There is no place in this country where people are really living "with the land". Cities are actually nice and efficient, because they cram all those people and services into a tiny area. Sure they produce pollution, sure they use a lot of energy, definitely a hell of a lot more than in the 20's, but don't pretend that everyone in this country doesn't use more power than people in the 20's, and cities don't produce more pollution than the same number of people living outside a city would produce...Quite the contrary.
And it's a widely proven fact that the worst thing for nature is too much contact with man. Wildlife in the area around Chernobyl has rebounded since the disaster, and is more healthy now than it was before the meltdown. The demilitarized zone between the Korea's has healthy game populations, despite being paved with fricking landmines.
So all those people crowded together in that city are far far better for the environment than the same number of people spread out equally around the country. It's not that they're isolated fron the environment...city folks just love to go out and spend time with nature! It's that the environment is isolated from them...And that's a good thing.
Sure, because all science education is beneficial to the oil companies.
All companies act in their own interests, and while oil companies need geologists, etc, they also stand to make a hell of a lot of money on increased consumption of their product. When oil prices spike, that's the oil companies making more for the exact same quantity sold. At the same time, if they can discredit this or that research that says they should be forced to implement this or that safeguard, that lowers their operating costs. Likewise research about atmospheric carbon; if people take that seriously and start putting an extra tax on gasoline to lower the consumption, that's the oil companies seeing a drop in sales.
In their ideal world, we'll stay addicted to their product until the last drop is sold. Any science that threatens that, they're going to work like hell to discredit.
This is always the counter argument..."As long as we hold true to our principles it doesn't matter where the money comes from."
This is fine as long as everyone does hold to their principles, as long as there is someone there to point out that, in fact, X, Y, or Z piece of propaganda is propaganda.
History is rife with examples of corporate special interests skewing research about their products through carefully chosen grants and commissioned studies. Lead, Tobacco, DDT, Oil; hell, you even get a lot of it in government sponsored hydro power, because if the people who make dams run out of places to put dams their jobs go away.
It's real easy to say, "We can keep our principles and take their money" but history shows that that's just not true. You take their money, you drink their kool-aid, you sacrifice your principles, and you produce biased research.
It's like a politician saying, "Just because this lobbyist gave me a million dollars, doesn't mean I'm going to vote the way he wants me to." Come on. You're only fooling yourself.