Deduction is absolutely useless in the real world, because all the premises that could be used in deductive argument are arrived at through empirical observation. Empirical observation is 100% inductive, so therefore the premises can't be suggested to have anything like a truth value, because, as you astutely pointed out, just because something is true today doesn't mean it will be true tomorrow. The sun could go out, gravity could stop working, black could be come white, anything.
So by deciding that induction is completely worthless, as you have, you seemed to have talked yourself into an ontological solipsim. I would like to know why you think this is a benefit to yourself or your argument?
It's the standard move of the creationist, to attack induction, because, of course, that is the weak point of science. All our knowledge is based on the observable world. If that should change, we'd be wrong. Whereas all of the creationists knowledge is based on God, and God is the arch-conservative....He never ever ever changes. You can construct all manner of deductive arguments using God as a premise.
Of course, if you're an athiest, all the same arguments can be constructed with purple unicorns.
I keep thinking of ditching the.sig, but creationists keep making it relevant again. Produce one tiny piece of positive evidence for creationism, and I'll listen. But beating on evolution just makes your theory look even worse.
When was the last time you touched a red hot stove on purpose?
Never? Why not?
Because it'll burn you? How do you know?
Because it always has before?
Induction works, Q.E.D. It is absolutely the most critical intellectual tool we have for getting through every single fricking day, and Hume can go suck it, Kant crushed him like the bug he was.
This is the question: Were weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq
This is the answer: No
What this means is, unlike all the other people who may have mistakenly believed that there were WMDs in Iraq, only the current administration was stupid enough to get us involved in goddamn middle eastern quagmire because they had a mistaken belief that there were WMDs in Iraq.
Well, I mean if you're arguing that we should be a feudal society, where the elite understand the issues, and the masses wallow around in ingnorance with no say in things, fine.
But if we're going to be a democracy, people need to have a basic understanding that the world is not about pixie dust and fairy tales. They need enough basic understanding to cast an intelligent vote, and to be able to recognize when someone's shoveling a pile of horseshit.
Basically, that's why democracy sucks: people can't be bothered to be anything other than ignorant.
There is no such thing as a "Scientific Truth". Science is a process in which ideas are constantly refined and challenged in pursuit of the absolute best possible explanation of observable events. These explanations are called "Theories" like the "Theory of Gravity" or the "Theory of Evolution". There is no point at which they will be come "The Truth of Gravity"...We leave that sort of hubris to the fundies.
The whole idea of "Scientific Truth" is a delusion the fundamentalists developed so they could couch the argument in terms of teams. You're on the evolution team, or the creation team, and they're jsut different points of view, right?
Wrong. Evolution is based on things that any observer can observe, and mountains of hard data. Creationism is based on what? A book of the bible compiled thousands of years after the (supposed) fact by the Deuteronomists, who also happen to be the ones who came up with the whole "God doesn't want you to eat bacon" bit.
Your team's riding the short bus, buddy. I'll stay over here with the people who don't have to be utterly certain about everything in order to sleep at night.
Ape? I assume you meant to say "Complex Protein" or "Primordial Soup" or something like that. Of course we didn't evolve from apes, though we probably did have a common ancestor who was neither human nor ape but possessing some qualities of both. It's not like apes aren't evolving as well.
Yea yea, we suck. Who were the last people to accept Coninental Drift? Americans. We don't believe in global warming, we don't believe in evolution, but 50% still believe we found WMDs in Iraq. If we couldn't brain drain scientists from other countries, we'd probably still be living in caves.
I just don't get it. What is the deal with people never changing their minds, or letting in new information? Most people aren't stupid...I'm sure the average person in Iceland isn't any smarter than the average american (Kansas excluded). It could just be the religious thing; a lot of european social democracies are much less religious than we are. I mean, I understand we're not a pro-intellectual country, but there is a huge difference between not rhapsodising about your elite scientific tradition, and being completely averse to new knowledge.
You can't even blame it on modern schools...We have a tradition of this type of mental blindness going back more than a century.
It's hard to imagine a product that's never been used in war, if only in a support/morale role. War is (unfortunately) a popular pastime for our species.
That being said, as long as I wasn't inventing something obscene (e.g. the Torture-o-matic), I would accept that it could be used for the purpose of violence. The guy who makes baseball bats has to accept that his toys are going to kill people. The guy who makes cars has to accept that his vehicles will kill people, they may even kill people because of design compromises he was forced to make. Scary stuff.
The ideal of making weapons is for defense, and for sport. Archery is an excellent sport, but the bow is lethal. Automatic weapons made for the soldiers who are (supposed to be) protecting our country end up in the hands of criminals. How about body armor? You're making armor to protect someone from getting killed so that he can shoot whoever shot him. So is it a good thing, or a bad thing? What if it's a good person wearing the body armor? What if it's a bad person?
In the end, I think everyone has to look after their own karma. If you're bloody-minded a great many things can be lethal weapons, but I don't see people banning candlesticks and handtools any time soon.
Oh really? You don't think choosing to ignore a whole class of high calorie food is a luxury? This is the typical problem with Veganism. It assumes you'll never be in a situation (like starvation) where you won't be able to come up with a nice big chunk of Tofu. It happens that, in some countrys, the society is rich enough to make this an option.
But don't for an instant, believe that, without that wealth, it would be an option.
I don't want to scream "WANKING!" but I find I can't help it. Pure pacifism pisses me off...It's like Veganism...Sounds good on paper, but is unworkable in reality.
Conflict is a fact of existence. Not even human existence. Just being alive, you're in competition for limited resources, whether it's two elephants fighting over a waterhole, or two countries fighting over an oil field. That's the way it's always been, and that's the way it'll always be, until we find a magic way of creating unlimited resources.
Being a Vegan is nice and sweet, but if it came down to starvation for you and your child vs eating Bambi, Bambi'd be on a stick. Same with pacifism. If you want to die, or be a slave, by all means, refuse to fight. That's Darwin at his finest. We're an agressive species. We evolved to where we are by being agressive. You think you're just going to decide it's time for everyone to be all nice and happy?
Fine. But don't act all surprised when someone disagrees.
Yea, as far as I know, there isn't much that can be done if a valid session cookie is stolen. I have some methods that I use when I do web code that do some double checky stuff...If you're not using GET-type pages, you can do some double checking to make sure nothings changed about the session, make sure they're coming from a page that they should be coming from, based off a stored value that checks the last page that session entered. That kind of thing adds a lot of overhead though, and doesn't work well with idempotence.
You could also try assigning client side cookies to double check against your server side cookies, but that will only work if the client isn't sending all their traffic through a compromised proxy. Forcing encryption might help (and frankly, should always be done for a login screen), but never underestimate the users ability to click-through a pop-up.
I don't know. Good web development revolves around distrust of all incoming data; if someone uploads code and runs it on your site, you did something stupid. But there comes a point where the user has some responsibility. Man-in-the-middle is much more detectable on the user end than on the server end, and if a user does two or three dumb things to allow a session hijack, there isn't much you can do about it, serverside.
I talk way too much as well. Do as I say, not as I do, eh? Some people find my babbling endearing.
The truth of it is, unless you are a truly foul human being, there are plenty of people out there who share your interests, personality quirks, etc. Even if you're really vile, there are others, equally vile, who you may get along with.
The big trick is getting your foot in the door. That is 100% appearance, and first impression. It's like hearing a song on the radio...If it's really annoying, you'll switch the channel instantly, but if it builds nicely you'll listen. By the same token, the next time you hear it, it'll seem better because it's familiar to you.
So your goal, socially, is to soothe peoples preconceptions enough that they're willing to get to know you. This is pretty much the reason for everyone's rabid conformity in high school. The big social dance is kicking into gear, and nobody knows the damn rules, so everyone is trying to be as much like 'cool' as they can imagine. This ends up with people conforming toward the socially accepted crowd, but then you're judged by how far you fall short of that standard.
As you get older your actual preferences solidify, and you start seeking out people based on how cool you think they are, instead of just following the groupthink. People start valuing you for your inherent qualities.
I think it was more about two guys feeding each others disaffection. When it's you against the world, it's hard to really gear up that sort of plan. It all seems hopeless and impossible.
But with a like-minded companion? Someone who is equally disaffected, and equally thirsty for action? Then you get a nice feedback loop, which, in this case, coincided with ability to carry the thing through. All those things together are pretty rare.
I don't agree the re-enforcement of emotional signals through games/music/movies. For me those things were always release valves, and I listened to absolutely the most violent and angry music I could find. I took to violent video games like fish to water. Violent movies bothered me a bit, on occasion...more because sometimes they "over-satisfied" my taste for violent media, than any sort of "making me more violent" thing.
Self esteem is a weird thing. People focus on the thing about themselves that they see as valuable. I focused on my brain, and on the fact that, even when I lost a fight, I made sure the other guy didn't enjoy winning.
In retrospect, being an intellectual snob and a tightly wound ball of unfocused aggression didn't do much for my social life in high school. I got over it though. I learned to lie about how I felt (I always felt bad, but when someone asks you how you feel, you can't say "My life is pain" and ever expect them to ask again), and I learned to pretend to be interested in things I felt to be beneath me, and I learned to project an emotional vibe other than hostility.
It sounds stupid and fake, I admit. The thing is, when I became more bearable to other people, other people stopped actively shunning me, which made it more natural not to be a bastard all the time. This appealed to people, and some of them (against all possible previous experience) started actively seeking me out, and including me in social things.
The great social secrets for the socially inept are as follows:
1) Listen, don't talk. If you're really inept, it'll show the instant you open your mouth. Watch how other people do it. Everyone loves to talk about themselves, so ask a couple of stupid social questions, but don't just barge up and ask 'em...You need an opening. THIS IS REALLY HARD TO RECOGNIZE WHEN YOU'RE SOCIALLY INEPT. Ask for directions, or for helpful information. "Hey baby, what's your sign?/You come here often?/Etc" are all far inferior to "Hey, I've got a peanut allergy, you think this stuff is safe?/Do you know how late (insert place) stays open?" People love to be helpful, and that sort of thing is socially non-threatening.
2) Be socially non-threatening. Keep up a minimum of personal grooming, try to achieve a socially acceptable wardrobe...I know it shouldn't matter, but it does...You don't have to be super well dressed, but be above the minimum, and stay away from aggressive themes and overly-starched stuff. Casual casual casual. Don't try to lock people in a conversation; let them move off if they want to...It's much more likely that they'll talk to you again if you don't latch on to them. Remember the listen thing. Don't get too personal to quick...You may think you're connecting with a person, but don't burden them with your whole life story within an hour of meeting them. It's too intense, and they'll avoid you after.
3) Don't be afraid to screw up. It's really hard not to get keyed up when you really are desperate to talk to anyone. If you find yourself shaky and babbling, move on, and come back when you've cooled off a bit. It gets easier, and, unless you do something freakish, they won't hold it against you (or if they do, fuck 'em). Check the fringes. There are plenty of people who are also inept, and if you're not scary/overbearing/stinky they'll be glad for someone to talk to. Understand that the average person isn't any more socially adept than you are...They just lucked out and ended up being bland. Bland fits in everywhere.
4) Try not to take yourself seriously. This is hard.
5) Empathy. Try to figure what the other person is feeling. This tends to be nearly impossible for hardcore left brainers; just not wired correctly for reading other peoples emotions. This is okay. But you still need to recognize (if only on a conscious level), basic body language. The only way to do this is to watch...Reading a guide on body language is like reading a guide on art.
Social skills are 100% conformity to a standard. They're a semi-open communication protocol. Once you figure it out, you can talk to most people. Understand that you need to talk about things that interest the people you're talking to...This is hard for geeks, especially because other people seldom talk about things we're interested in. DON'T EXPECT EVERYONE TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. You can't be the alpha geek if you're talking to non-geeks...You're just going to piss them off
But why did they do it? It wasn't sociopathy...They were out for revenge, and by that point it didn't matter to them whose blood was spilled.
The whole idea isn't that uncommon. It's been books, it's been movies (The Basketball Diaries, Heathers). And it's not the books and movies that are causing it, it's the sheer misery of high school. I definitely fantasized about getting even when I was in high school. Heh. I was on the school rifle team for years, and I'd think to myself, after some asswipes had picked on me, "I could take their heads off from a quarter mile away, and no one would ever catch me."
It was a comforting daydream, a way to vent some of that hatred, instead of stewing in it. That's pretty much why I play GTA...When I feel the need to kill someone, I have a nice outlet. I'll almost certainly pick up Bully. Sounds like a game I would have LOVED back in High School.
I'm sure however, that someone who plays that game obsessively because of his real life situation, will decide to beat one of his tormenters to death with a baseball bat. Not because of the game, or even to make Jack Thompson blow a load in his pants, but just because, when things get bad enough, you can't take refuge in fantasy.
That's all these damn cross-correlational studies mean. Promiscuous people have more sexually suggestive music on their iPods. Angry people listen to angry music, and play violent games. Nerds and geeks read Slashdot. It's because we're that kind of person, that we do that kind of thing. How the hell do you think the person got the thing in the first place? Did someone secretly put sexually suggestive music into the iPod to turn the listener into a slut?
The lengths people will go to to put the blame on anything but people.
You laugh, but that will work. Fight quick, fight dirty, don't stay down until you can't get up. People stop picking on you pretty quick; it's just not worth it.
I took a lot of crap in school from various people, and I worked my way through it eventually, but it was hard as hell.
Columbine didn't horrify me. I could see it, you know? I had recourse when I was in school. I'm not a little guy, and physically I was in pretty good shape. I could fight back. But what about people who couldn't? What do you do with all that hate and rage?
A bunch of people at that school dumped a lot of crap on those guys, because they knew that there was nothing they could do about it. What were they going to do? Come in and gun down random classmates?
It's a good lesson. Everything we do has consequences. Make sure, when you shit on someone, that they have something to lose. Because, if they have nothing to lose, they may decide to take you down with 'em.
Riight. And I know many stone-age conservative courts in the "Heartlands" who would have the offender and their whole family stoned to death in the public square.
What? Stereotypes are only funny when applied to liberals? Nevermind then.
People are so damn squeamish. They're YOUR fluids. Crap, you're even feeding them to your baby. It's like you've never sweated before, or something. Nobody's asking you to drink a big foamy glass of piss here.
You're organic. Deal with it, and don't try to pretend like you're not.
It relies on a fricking keylogger. If anything, this is a validation of two factor authentication...It'd be after one attempt with a regular password system.
You don't have to slurp on it, just whack the bottle on yer wrist, then lick the fluid off, or hell, just turn it over, or fricking squeeze it...Those bottles aren't exactly childproof.
Anyway, why bring a bottle on the plane if yer breastfeeding already (nothing would spoil formula)? Not like there is anything else to do. And if they try to taste milk "from the tap" as it were, no court in the world would convict you for beating the crap out of them.
Slashdot Mirror
....Okay....You're trolling, but I'll bite.
.sig, but creationists keep making it relevant again. Produce one tiny piece of positive evidence for creationism, and I'll listen. But beating on evolution just makes your theory look even worse.
Deduction is absolutely useless in the real world, because all the premises that could be used in deductive argument are arrived at through empirical observation. Empirical observation is 100% inductive, so therefore the premises can't be suggested to have anything like a truth value, because, as you astutely pointed out, just because something is true today doesn't mean it will be true tomorrow. The sun could go out, gravity could stop working, black could be come white, anything.
So by deciding that induction is completely worthless, as you have, you seemed to have talked yourself into an ontological solipsim. I would like to know why you think this is a benefit to yourself or your argument?
It's the standard move of the creationist, to attack induction, because, of course, that is the weak point of science. All our knowledge is based on the observable world. If that should change, we'd be wrong. Whereas all of the creationists knowledge is based on God, and God is the arch-conservative....He never ever ever changes. You can construct all manner of deductive arguments using God as a premise.
Of course, if you're an athiest, all the same arguments can be constructed with purple unicorns.
I keep thinking of ditching the
I must have missed the report part, that looks like a DoD press release to me. Do you have any other citations?
When the CIA, you know the people whose job it is to actually know these things, says "Huh, new findings, we were wrong" call me.
When was the last time you touched a red hot stove on purpose?
Never? Why not?
Because it'll burn you? How do you know?
Because it always has before?
Induction works, Q.E.D. It is absolutely the most critical intellectual tool we have for getting through every single fricking day, and Hume can go suck it, Kant crushed him like the bug he was.
The fricking CIA say no WMDs.
End of story.
Straw Man.
This is the question: Were weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq
This is the answer: No
What this means is, unlike all the other people who may have mistakenly believed that there were WMDs in Iraq, only the current administration was stupid enough to get us involved in goddamn middle eastern quagmire because they had a mistaken belief that there were WMDs in Iraq.
Understand?
Clearly it does. Some moron modded him informative. =P
This is the actual report saying no WMDs were found in Iraq.
Damn liberal CIA. Always twisting the truth. Gotta listen to Fox News, because, you know, they're Fair and Balanced.
Well, I mean if you're arguing that we should be a feudal society, where the elite understand the issues, and the masses wallow around in ingnorance with no say in things, fine.
But if we're going to be a democracy, people need to have a basic understanding that the world is not about pixie dust and fairy tales. They need enough basic understanding to cast an intelligent vote, and to be able to recognize when someone's shoveling a pile of horseshit.
Basically, that's why democracy sucks: people can't be bothered to be anything other than ignorant.
Moron.
There is no such thing as a "Scientific Truth". Science is a process in which ideas are constantly refined and challenged in pursuit of the absolute best possible explanation of observable events. These explanations are called "Theories" like the "Theory of Gravity" or the "Theory of Evolution". There is no point at which they will be come "The Truth of Gravity"...We leave that sort of hubris to the fundies.
The whole idea of "Scientific Truth" is a delusion the fundamentalists developed so they could couch the argument in terms of teams. You're on the evolution team, or the creation team, and they're jsut different points of view, right?
Wrong. Evolution is based on things that any observer can observe, and mountains of hard data. Creationism is based on what? A book of the bible compiled thousands of years after the (supposed) fact by the Deuteronomists, who also happen to be the ones who came up with the whole "God doesn't want you to eat bacon" bit.
Your team's riding the short bus, buddy. I'll stay over here with the people who don't have to be utterly certain about everything in order to sleep at night.
Ape? I assume you meant to say "Complex Protein" or "Primordial Soup" or something like that. Of course we didn't evolve from apes, though we probably did have a common ancestor who was neither human nor ape but possessing some qualities of both. It's not like apes aren't evolving as well.
Yea yea, we suck. Who were the last people to accept Coninental Drift? Americans. We don't believe in global warming, we don't believe in evolution, but 50% still believe we found WMDs in Iraq. If we couldn't brain drain scientists from other countries, we'd probably still be living in caves.
I just don't get it. What is the deal with people never changing their minds, or letting in new information? Most people aren't stupid...I'm sure the average person in Iceland isn't any smarter than the average american (Kansas excluded). It could just be the religious thing; a lot of european social democracies are much less religious than we are. I mean, I understand we're not a pro-intellectual country, but there is a huge difference between not rhapsodising about your elite scientific tradition, and being completely averse to new knowledge.
You can't even blame it on modern schools...We have a tradition of this type of mental blindness going back more than a century.
It's hard to imagine a product that's never been used in war, if only in a support/morale role. War is (unfortunately) a popular pastime for our species.
That being said, as long as I wasn't inventing something obscene (e.g. the Torture-o-matic), I would accept that it could be used for the purpose of violence. The guy who makes baseball bats has to accept that his toys are going to kill people. The guy who makes cars has to accept that his vehicles will kill people, they may even kill people because of design compromises he was forced to make. Scary stuff.
The ideal of making weapons is for defense, and for sport. Archery is an excellent sport, but the bow is lethal. Automatic weapons made for the soldiers who are (supposed to be) protecting our country end up in the hands of criminals. How about body armor? You're making armor to protect someone from getting killed so that he can shoot whoever shot him. So is it a good thing, or a bad thing? What if it's a good person wearing the body armor? What if it's a bad person?
In the end, I think everyone has to look after their own karma. If you're bloody-minded a great many things can be lethal weapons, but I don't see people banning candlesticks and handtools any time soon.
Oh really? You don't think choosing to ignore a whole class of high calorie food is a luxury? This is the typical problem with Veganism. It assumes you'll never be in a situation (like starvation) where you won't be able to come up with a nice big chunk of Tofu. It happens that, in some countrys, the society is rich enough to make this an option.
But don't for an instant, believe that, without that wealth, it would be an option.
I don't want to scream "WANKING!" but I find I can't help it. Pure pacifism pisses me off...It's like Veganism...Sounds good on paper, but is unworkable in reality.
Conflict is a fact of existence. Not even human existence. Just being alive, you're in competition for limited resources, whether it's two elephants fighting over a waterhole, or two countries fighting over an oil field. That's the way it's always been, and that's the way it'll always be, until we find a magic way of creating unlimited resources.
Being a Vegan is nice and sweet, but if it came down to starvation for you and your child vs eating Bambi, Bambi'd be on a stick. Same with pacifism. If you want to die, or be a slave, by all means, refuse to fight. That's Darwin at his finest. We're an agressive species. We evolved to where we are by being agressive. You think you're just going to decide it's time for everyone to be all nice and happy?
Fine. But don't act all surprised when someone disagrees.
Yea, as far as I know, there isn't much that can be done if a valid session cookie is stolen. I have some methods that I use when I do web code that do some double checky stuff...If you're not using GET-type pages, you can do some double checking to make sure nothings changed about the session, make sure they're coming from a page that they should be coming from, based off a stored value that checks the last page that session entered. That kind of thing adds a lot of overhead though, and doesn't work well with idempotence.
You could also try assigning client side cookies to double check against your server side cookies, but that will only work if the client isn't sending all their traffic through a compromised proxy. Forcing encryption might help (and frankly, should always be done for a login screen), but never underestimate the users ability to click-through a pop-up.
I don't know. Good web development revolves around distrust of all incoming data; if someone uploads code and runs it on your site, you did something stupid. But there comes a point where the user has some responsibility. Man-in-the-middle is much more detectable on the user end than on the server end, and if a user does two or three dumb things to allow a session hijack, there isn't much you can do about it, serverside.
I talk way too much as well. Do as I say, not as I do, eh? Some people find my babbling endearing.
The truth of it is, unless you are a truly foul human being, there are plenty of people out there who share your interests, personality quirks, etc. Even if you're really vile, there are others, equally vile, who you may get along with.
The big trick is getting your foot in the door. That is 100% appearance, and first impression. It's like hearing a song on the radio...If it's really annoying, you'll switch the channel instantly, but if it builds nicely you'll listen. By the same token, the next time you hear it, it'll seem better because it's familiar to you.
So your goal, socially, is to soothe peoples preconceptions enough that they're willing to get to know you. This is pretty much the reason for everyone's rabid conformity in high school. The big social dance is kicking into gear, and nobody knows the damn rules, so everyone is trying to be as much like 'cool' as they can imagine. This ends up with people conforming toward the socially accepted crowd, but then you're judged by how far you fall short of that standard.
As you get older your actual preferences solidify, and you start seeking out people based on how cool you think they are, instead of just following the groupthink. People start valuing you for your inherent qualities.
I think it was more about two guys feeding each others disaffection. When it's you against the world, it's hard to really gear up that sort of plan. It all seems hopeless and impossible.
But with a like-minded companion? Someone who is equally disaffected, and equally thirsty for action? Then you get a nice feedback loop, which, in this case, coincided with ability to carry the thing through. All those things together are pretty rare.
I don't agree the re-enforcement of emotional signals through games/music/movies. For me those things were always release valves, and I listened to absolutely the most violent and angry music I could find. I took to violent video games like fish to water. Violent movies bothered me a bit, on occasion...more because sometimes they "over-satisfied" my taste for violent media, than any sort of "making me more violent" thing.
I'm right there with ya; I agree completely.
Self esteem is a weird thing. People focus on the thing about themselves that they see as valuable. I focused on my brain, and on the fact that, even when I lost a fight, I made sure the other guy didn't enjoy winning.
In retrospect, being an intellectual snob and a tightly wound ball of unfocused aggression didn't do much for my social life in high school. I got over it though. I learned to lie about how I felt (I always felt bad, but when someone asks you how you feel, you can't say "My life is pain" and ever expect them to ask again), and I learned to pretend to be interested in things I felt to be beneath me, and I learned to project an emotional vibe other than hostility.
It sounds stupid and fake, I admit. The thing is, when I became more bearable to other people, other people stopped actively shunning me, which made it more natural not to be a bastard all the time. This appealed to people, and some of them (against all possible previous experience) started actively seeking me out, and including me in social things.
The great social secrets for the socially inept are as follows:
1) Listen, don't talk. If you're really inept, it'll show the instant you open your mouth. Watch how other people do it. Everyone loves to talk about themselves, so ask a couple of stupid social questions, but don't just barge up and ask 'em...You need an opening. THIS IS REALLY HARD TO RECOGNIZE WHEN YOU'RE SOCIALLY INEPT. Ask for directions, or for helpful information. "Hey baby, what's your sign?/You come here often?/Etc" are all far inferior to "Hey, I've got a peanut allergy, you think this stuff is safe?/Do you know how late (insert place) stays open?" People love to be helpful, and that sort of thing is socially non-threatening.
2) Be socially non-threatening. Keep up a minimum of personal grooming, try to achieve a socially acceptable wardrobe...I know it shouldn't matter, but it does...You don't have to be super well dressed, but be above the minimum, and stay away from aggressive themes and overly-starched stuff. Casual casual casual. Don't try to lock people in a conversation; let them move off if they want to...It's much more likely that they'll talk to you again if you don't latch on to them. Remember the listen thing. Don't get too personal to quick...You may think you're connecting with a person, but don't burden them with your whole life story within an hour of meeting them. It's too intense, and they'll avoid you after.
3) Don't be afraid to screw up. It's really hard not to get keyed up when you really are desperate to talk to anyone. If you find yourself shaky and babbling, move on, and come back when you've cooled off a bit. It gets easier, and, unless you do something freakish, they won't hold it against you (or if they do, fuck 'em). Check the fringes. There are plenty of people who are also inept, and if you're not scary/overbearing/stinky they'll be glad for someone to talk to. Understand that the average person isn't any more socially adept than you are...They just lucked out and ended up being bland. Bland fits in everywhere.
4) Try not to take yourself seriously. This is hard.
5) Empathy. Try to figure what the other person is feeling. This tends to be nearly impossible for hardcore left brainers; just not wired correctly for reading other peoples emotions. This is okay. But you still need to recognize (if only on a conscious level), basic body language. The only way to do this is to watch...Reading a guide on body language is like reading a guide on art.
Social skills are 100% conformity to a standard. They're a semi-open communication protocol. Once you figure it out, you can talk to most people. Understand that you need to talk about things that interest the people you're talking to...This is hard for geeks, especially because other people seldom talk about things we're interested in. DON'T EXPECT EVERYONE TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. You can't be the alpha geek if you're talking to non-geeks...You're just going to piss them off
No doubt about it.
But why did they do it? It wasn't sociopathy...They were out for revenge, and by that point it didn't matter to them whose blood was spilled.
The whole idea isn't that uncommon. It's been books, it's been movies (The Basketball Diaries, Heathers). And it's not the books and movies that are causing it, it's the sheer misery of high school. I definitely fantasized about getting even when I was in high school. Heh. I was on the school rifle team for years, and I'd think to myself, after some asswipes had picked on me, "I could take their heads off from a quarter mile away, and no one would ever catch me."
It was a comforting daydream, a way to vent some of that hatred, instead of stewing in it. That's pretty much why I play GTA...When I feel the need to kill someone, I have a nice outlet. I'll almost certainly pick up Bully. Sounds like a game I would have LOVED back in High School.
I'm sure however, that someone who plays that game obsessively because of his real life situation, will decide to beat one of his tormenters to death with a baseball bat. Not because of the game, or even to make Jack Thompson blow a load in his pants, but just because, when things get bad enough, you can't take refuge in fantasy.
That's all these damn cross-correlational studies mean. Promiscuous people have more sexually suggestive music on their iPods. Angry people listen to angry music, and play violent games. Nerds and geeks read Slashdot. It's because we're that kind of person, that we do that kind of thing. How the hell do you think the person got the thing in the first place? Did someone secretly put sexually suggestive music into the iPod to turn the listener into a slut?
The lengths people will go to to put the blame on anything but people.
You laugh, but that will work. Fight quick, fight dirty, don't stay down until you can't get up. People stop picking on you pretty quick; it's just not worth it.
I took a lot of crap in school from various people, and I worked my way through it eventually, but it was hard as hell.
Columbine didn't horrify me. I could see it, you know? I had recourse when I was in school. I'm not a little guy, and physically I was in pretty good shape. I could fight back. But what about people who couldn't? What do you do with all that hate and rage?
A bunch of people at that school dumped a lot of crap on those guys, because they knew that there was nothing they could do about it. What were they going to do? Come in and gun down random classmates?
It's a good lesson. Everything we do has consequences. Make sure, when you shit on someone, that they have something to lose. Because, if they have nothing to lose, they may decide to take you down with 'em.
This source about stack computing is better.
Sadly I actually still work on a stack computer, and I had to go look it up.
Riight. And I know many stone-age conservative courts in the "Heartlands" who would have the offender and their whole family stoned to death in the public square.
What? Stereotypes are only funny when applied to liberals? Nevermind then.
People are so damn squeamish. They're YOUR fluids. Crap, you're even feeding them to your baby. It's like you've never sweated before, or something. Nobody's asking you to drink a big foamy glass of piss here.
You're organic. Deal with it, and don't try to pretend like you're not.
It relies on a fricking keylogger. If anything, this is a validation of two factor authentication...It'd be after one attempt with a regular password system.
You don't have to slurp on it, just whack the bottle on yer wrist, then lick the fluid off, or hell, just turn it over, or fricking squeeze it...Those bottles aren't exactly childproof.
Anyway, why bring a bottle on the plane if yer breastfeeding already (nothing would spoil formula)? Not like there is anything else to do. And if they try to taste milk "from the tap" as it were, no court in the world would convict you for beating the crap out of them.