What an idiot. Please stop voting. And driving, and handling anything sharp around other people for that matter.
Well, Saddam is in custody. And over a year ago, Chimp Boy landed on a big ship and smirked over a job well done. Oh, aye... sure.
Someone is killing all those Iraqi civilians. It isn't me who is killing them, and neither is Saddam anymore. No, you people, with a wee bit of help from the insurgents, have taken over killing them now.
I'm a structural engineer. If we did as poor a job of putting up the Twin Towers as your so-called 'Intelligence' agencies did by not paying attention to all the reports that came in to their agencies about terrorist threats, those buildings would have collapsed without anyone having to fly planes into them. In other words, if I did my job as incompetently as Condi Rice did hers, I'd be unemployed, or possibly in jail. Yet, Chimp Boy promoted her. So who's the idiot? You lot re-elected him. What you fools call 'the blame game', we call 'accountability'. Oh. And I have a perfect driving record.
Every building my group ever designed is still standing. It's not that we're brilliant -- it's that we know how to do our jobs.
(Usual disclaimer: This is no slur on the soldiers, but on the neocon fools who planned -- and I use that word loosely -- this tragedy.)
As the widow of an Anglican rector, I have loads of background. I did the studies too. The 'subconcious' bit still is a bit over-the-top to my thinking.
Muslims are monotheists, by the way. But you know that, I suspect.
You make the point that scientific inquiry does not belong at the church door. I agree. The role of science is to discover how things work.
I agree.
The role of religion is to understand God's purpose for mankind (assuming the Christian faith, for instance). And while completely accurate in matters of scientific detail, the Bible is not a science text book.
Accurate? Adam's rib? Silly. You seem to be using the Bible as a textbook. But... believe as you like. That's your right, of course.
Anyone who has read it and endeavored to understand it knows that.
You sound like the Wee Free.
So your implication that I am using it in that way are false.
Then why did you bring in religion into in first place, quoting chapter and verse?
Of course I believe I have the correct religion.
Doesn't everyone? My religion is a personal way for me to worshop God. It has nothing to do with 'correctness'. It's correct for me, just as I imagine being a Roman Catholic is 'correct' for a Roman Catholic. I can't believe that God is that petty that He (or She) cares whether we cross ourselves from right to left, or the other way round... or at all, for that matter.
To the translations you have quoted, they're all generally accurate, and while they do not all read identically they do all express the point I am making. (Some translations quoted use middle english, others a mix of middle and modern. I prefer interlinears and strictly literal translations myself -- see The Role of Bias and Theology in Bible Translations by Rolf Furuli for a discussion of literal vs paraphrased translations).
Here's one translation I'll bet you don't have. It's beautiful, as well as a sound translation. It's well worth having. You'll need to learn Scots though:
"For God sae luved the warld at he gied his ae an ane Son, at ilkane at believes in him mayna perish but hae eternal life."
John 3:16
Lorimer's translation of the New Testment, from the original Greek, intil Scots, published in 1983
I arrived at creationism using the Sherlock Holmes method: Eliminate the impossible, and whatever's left, however improbable, is the truth. Since evolution is mathematically so remote so as to be impossible I gave up on it. After years of objective and deep academic research that had nothing to do with Bible research. I initially set out to disprove the Bible, but could not unless I abandoned objectivity.
As for the final outcome, whether you are correct that the world will continue and man will evolve into some higher species through blind chance, or I am correct in believing the Bible's predictions, only time will tell.
The Bible. Why the Bible? What about the Navajo belief about creation? What about the sacred creation beliefs of other religions? Why do you believe that after your deciding that evolution is impossible, there can be only one other true explanation for the origin of life, and that is the creation story written in your Bible? That's not at all objective of you.
Have you considered that there may be some scientific explanation, one that has yet to be discovered, that is neither evolution, nor in the Bible? You seem to want to jump to the Biblical conclusion.
And the Bible clearly says that the subconscience is very treacherous and must be carefully monitored and curbed by the conscious mind (James 1:14,15).
What translation of the Bible do you have that would refer to 'the subconscience' and 'the conscious mind'? James 1:14-15 says:
"But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death." (NAS)
"...but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." (NIV)
"But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death." (NKJ)
"But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." (KJV)
Wise counsel, to be sure. However, I see nothing in that passage that advises parking scientific inquiry at the church door.
Science isn't temptation. It's damned hard work, and it takes time. No one is claiming that at this point evolution can present all the answers. They're working on it though. In time, they'll get it sorted out.
The Bible isn't a scientific manual, and it's just silly for people to use it as one. The Bible has far greater value than that, or it would, if people would stop using it as a tool to prove their own prideful ends. I suspect that's why the authors put in those passages about sin, hubris, and 'false prophets'.
But it's OK for me to be one of the jack-booted thugs oppressing and taking advantage of the faithful who are resisting, because Jesus died specifically to forgive me for those sins.
"Once something's been approved by the Government, it's no longer immoral." -- Rev. Lovejoy
What may be happening is that you are being probed to gauge the extent of exaggeration in the travel brochures. Most Americans are savvy enough to know that the brochures are exaggerated, but it is hard to know how much. And of course many Scots (through tourism promotion are complicit in the distortion; those $5000 travel packages are a tough sell if Scotland seems just like the local neighborhood.
Gotcha! The 'Heather-on-the-Moor-Factor'.:) But Scotland is like the local... erm... 'neignborhood'. The last time I was in Fraser's in Glasgow, it looked like Macy's. They sold the same stuff. Even the store furnishings looked depressingly the same.
Better to go to Italy, where everyone wears designer clothing all the time, or Ireland, where all the houses have thatched rooves.
Right. Fraser's, and Macy's, but with linguini or soda bread. Oh wait! Both Fraser's and Macy's already have linguini and soda bread. I may as well save myself the trip. I can go to Philadelphia and eat cheesesteak. Philly used to have Wanamakers, but if its still there, that fine store prolly looks like Fraser's.
You're right about tourism. People think Scotland's all thistle and heather. Someone gave me Scotland Magazine for Christmas, and it certainly isn't the Scotland I know. They have yet to do a wee spread on Maryhill or Castlemilk.:) They made the midges, that scourge of Scotland, seem charming. They even cleaned up Glasgow. Now where's the fun in that?
Combine that with American-style ethnic identity, where intermarriage allows one to choose ethnicity from a whole menu of ancestry, and wearing plaid makes you Scottish.
Real Scots seldom wear tartan. Not the young ones. Men and boys will wear a kilt for a special occasion, but tartan trousers and, plaid socks, such are the mark of an American tourist.
(And changing your name from the German Kohn to the Irish Kerry makes you....more electable, apparently.)
He didn't change his name. His father, or grandfather changed the name. But think of the baggage that carries. He has relatives who were killed in the Holocaust.
Imagine living with one identity, and discovering late in life that one is really something else. A person finds that 'Them' has suddenly become 'Us'. That has to feel very strange. Yet, the person is still American. Just not Irish-American. I don't know how strongly Kerry identified with the Irish.
People who deal with touristy stereotypes will have a problem figuring out what is Scottish. Many parts of Scotland were invaded, and then settled by Scandinavians and Icelanders, as well as the English and the French. Recently we've had immigration by Italians, Jews, Greeks, Asians, Irish, and Blacks. The result is that Glasgow has some great curry restaurants and divine Italian ice cream, though the immigrants have contributed much more than that. Though last time I checked there were no Jewish delis. As far as I'm concerned, they're all Scots.
It wasn't sarcasm. People are friendly and curious. I suspect it goes back to their 2nd grade classes when they studied nationalities. Mexicans wore serapes and big hats, Scots wore'plaids', and such.
You can see a lot of light around the "M8 corridor", about half-way up running east-west, and then light where there are large ports up the east coast and along the south side of the Moray Firth. The black bit in the middle is all mountains and moorland. It looks very, very isolated like that...
It is very, very isolated. Nobody lives there anymore.:) Reminds me of the old toast: "Here's tae us. Wha's like us. Damn few, and they're a' deid!"
I looked at the photo, and, tracing the same pattern of lights, thought, as you did, that Scotland looks pretty cool.
Don't these people have any confidence in the superiority of their skills, equipment and planning? How sorry can they get?
If I'm interested in a sport, I will want to see the full quality version. Sure, I'd love to read a blog or two, but what I'm really interested in is the event itself and I'll figure a way around M$NBC's stupid internet black out to get it.
If I were an athlete, I'd tell the IOC to shove it just as soon as my event was over and post whatever I wanted my family and friends to see.
You don't understand. Why would any athlete risk getting sued? That's what would happen. The resulting scandal would end that athlete's opportunity to get lucrative corporate contracts, doing ads for Nike and all that. Now before you dismiss this as greed, keep in mind that these athletes and their families have made huge sacrifices, most of them going deeply into debt to pay for training and equipment, costumes and travel, so these athletes could rise to the top of their sport. Ads, interviews, speaking engagements, and corporate contracts may be the only opportunity an athlete has to give the folks even a marginally comfortable retirement and pay off debts he has incurred.
Then there is the matter of the athlete's future. By going against the establishment, an athlete would risk being blackballed from judging and coaching, which is the next professional step for many athletes.
Furthermore, rebelling against the IOC and the media whores might harm other people besides the athlete. The athlete who takes on the the establishment is risking that by breaking the rules, he will the cast suspicion on his coaches and fellow teammates when the media raises the question of whether they were in on it, and how much they may have known. There is the possibly that if a high-profile athlete takes on the powers that be, the rest of the team will suffer guilt by association as a result. Individual teammates might discover that their opportunities are being curtailed as a result of their teammate's act, because of all the 'unpleasantness' associated with that particular sport that year.
Olympic sports are a business, one where perfection, beauty and and everybody 'making nice' is what sells. Athletes know what they're getting into when they take up serious competitive sport. Individual athletes may not like the situation. But after sacrificing their lives and their families' money to get to the top, they're not about to toss it all away for something as naff as blogging and putting some piccies on the Web. What the athletes need is a union.:}
Just another in a long list of reasons for me to not waste my time watching the Olympics on TV. I remember when just being at the Olympics was enough to justify a lifelong pursuit of perfection. Nowadays, it's just a ticket to a lucrative advertising career, and you'd better get the gold, because 2nd place won't get you on a Wheaties box.
That's not enough anymore. The athletes have to look gorgeous too. Now they need to be photogenic. A great athlete with a funny nose isn't going to make it.
I've been to the States and seen some of the news and current affairs programs and seriously, it's like they're aimed at 12 year olds or something. This story doesn't suprise me at all!
An amazing number of average Americans ask me questions questions like, 'Do you have cell phones in Scotland?' 'If you're a Scot, why aren't you wearing plaid?'
Maybe he said sine? Shorthand for, what's your favorite sine-computing continuous fraction that can be parallelized on a beowolf cluster of slashbot brains in a vat--and also be redundantly, steganographically stored in said distributed 16-year old brains in vats--and before I come on to you anymore, would you like to soviet rush me?
Erm... I don't think so. He was dressed like Disco Stu.
I'm white collar and costly to replace, therefore these blue collar issues are beneath me.
Oh aye, sure. In Scotland we have a saying:'Self-praise comes aye stinkin ben.'
You are of course referring to blue-collar workers, like stone masons, and the sort of highly-skilled tradesmen who have been on the job for yonks and have seen it all. They have an eye for material that even with my experience and education I will never achieve. I'm a structural engineer, and the old fellows know that they can come up to me and point out anomalies in material that only the most practised eye can spot. I am always aware that despite my lofty status and advanced degrees, my buildings are no better than the crews who work on them. The structures are no stronger than my design, and the materials that go into them.
You sir are one arrogant bastard.
Have you considered that you too can be replaced, and probably will be replaced someday. It will most likely occur when you become too costly, and they find someone younger who can do your job for less pay. Even with your replacement's training factored in, at some point it will be more economical for them to sack you and hire some younger person to take your place.
Human machines? You are the kind of trash that unions protect against.
We are all doing the same job over again, to some degree. Steelwork differs between projects, but it isn't programming, or cardiac surgery. Corporate executives see you no differently than you see some poor soul collecting rubbish by the side of the highway.
Only the greatest artists are irreplaceable, though even then other great artists come to fill the void they leave. The rest of us are simply competent, or merely brilliant. If you are deluded enough to think that your skills elevate you in management's eyes, and that those skills are sufficient to insure you job security for life, you're living in Cloud Coo-Coo Land. Unless you own the company, you have no control at all, and like the poor soul who picks up rubbish along the roads, your fate is at the mercy of other people. The reason for unions -- call it 'professional representation', if you require fawncy terms to prop up your snobbish façade -- is that there is strength in numbers, and protection for the individual when people stand together.
I'm a British CE, working in the US, and I have experienced what your friend has described to you. The building codes in the US, even as they vary between municipalities, make American high-rise buildings amongst the least safe in the world. Consider the World Trade Centre: the towers were brilliantly designed, though there are changes I would have made. I won't bore everyone by going into the details of the steel design. I'll mention instead the other major problem: The only exits from those towers, the stairwells, were not sufficiently fireproof to allow the people on the top floors to escape. The walls of the stairwells were made of double sheetrock. Sheetrock isn't fireproof. One doesn't have to be an engineer to figure out that this design is daft. I would like to know what design the engineers originally submitted, or, would have preferred to submit.
They say that the WTC were designed to take a hit from the largest jet aircraft at the time the towers were being designed, a Boeing 707. Indeed. Well, fuel-soaked sheetrock burns. Sheetrock burns even when it isn't soaked with fuel. Any child who has ever seen a bog-common house fire knows that. Americans have to stop being so gullible.
Whether in space, on the highways, or in buildings, when politicians, bottom-liners, and bean counters have the final word, people will eventually die. They didn't listen to the engineers who advised against the launch of the Challenger, due to weather conditions. We all remember what happened that time. It wasn't like there were no warnings. The O-rings on the Challenger were working below their cold tolerance, and the engineers were trying to warn of possible failure.
So why wasn't NASA doing something about the known problem with the heat shield?
Women should be fulfilled and valued, as should men. Many women find tremendous fulfilment in giving birth to children, and where possible, staying with them at home during their first few formative years. (So long as they haven't been too pressured into making big career money, as though that was the most important thing in a fulfilling life.) My wife sometimes thanks me for working so she can be home with the kids. Ahhhh. Kinda nice, huh.
What a pretty picture.
The day we have the sense to again encourage women to focus on raising children, and men to focus on their responsibility toward their families will be the beginning of repair to our slightly broken society.
And what would happen to the pretty family should, as happened to me, the husband die? Who would support them all? Degrees aren't enough. The happy housewife would need both degrees and recent job experience in a well-paying field if she ever had to go out there and earn enough to support her young family.
How safe is anybody if their security, and the security of their children, is totally dependent on one other person's survival, not to mention that person's sense of decency and goodwill? How do you know that you may not desperately want to be quit of your wife in eight years? How valued would she be then? How secure?
You and your wife's choice would never be mine. I would choose a good job, and a good mate, someone who would share the responsibilities and burdens. For me, a woman taking on a mature adult role in the family and community is what feminism is all about. I always worked. My son, is now nineteen, and a student at one the top universities. He has turned out to be a decent, moral compassionate person, and he became this person without a mummy-type hovering over him every minute of every day.
There is nothing 'traditional' about what is sold as 'traditional roles' in families. This is a modern construct, Victorian, I believe. Traditionally, women worked along side their men, in the shops and fields. (They still do, in many countries.) As soon as they were old enough, the children joined the parents at work. Or they worked for neighbours and relatives. But while they were very young, females other than the mothers cared for them. Very young children were cared for by older siblings. Many families hired young girls to care for their children, or they gave them into the care of older relatives. American colonial women were often too busy to care for their own children. Those who could afford to do so hired wet-nurses, or even sent newborns away to wet-nurse. It was common for families to bring in neighbours to look after the children. Neither was it unusual for a family to send some of their children off to live with neighbours or relatives. These women had fabric to weave, and large gardens to tend. Maintaining a household was difficult in those days. The popular notion that there existed a long Golden Past where women's role was that of stay at home mums with the time free to nurture and care for their children is a myth. Few of those who did have the leisure and the resources, upper-class women, had the interest. They conformed to the style of their day and turned their children over to nurses and tutors. Read up on the history the family, and not just the American family either.
I never took a courses on family history. I just came across it in the library. It's fascinating what the fabric of family life was, and has been like. It's nothing at all like the 'Family Values' people would have us believe.
If, as you say, society is 'broken'-- and I tend to agree that it is -- I wonder whether it is the result of excesses of the Baby Boomer generation, that most narcissistic generation. Incidentally, the Baby Boomers were the first generation of Americans raised almost entirely by doting stay at home mothers, equipt with labour-saving devices, and lots of time on their hands, so they could lavish all their attention on the wee darlings. Th
I only ring tech support as an absolute last resort. I consider it a matter of pride. If I can't fix it, they can't either.
Several weeks ago, I padded off in the gloamin to get myself some tea. When I returned, the screen on my ThinkPad had gone dark. I fiddled with it for a few minutes, as I fought down that sick sense that came with knowing the acreen was banjaxed. (And the wee computer was 7-months out-of warranty.)
IBM Tech support confirmed that was the problem. The screen required replacing and it wasn't worth it. Sae th' auld puter is nae mair. It's an A21p, from December 2000, IBM's best at the time. However, I have had it on ever since it arrived, as I work on it, and use it for other non-work related things as well. Music editing on-the-fly, when I'm on the road. I only switch it off when I'm travelling, and then it travels with me. I do treat it well though.
Since the rest of the old unit works just fine, I'll put a flat screen on it, as the lads pipe Braigh Loch Eil.
I had to buy a new ThinkPad, which, like the old one, is never switched off. The old one was getting a bit slow for a portable CAD workstation, which is the ThinkPad's main use. This time, I took the precaution of getting a 5-year warranty. I can always find good use for an old computer.
1.) They're (usually) patient. They don't try to rush you through the help.
2.) They speak your language.
3.) They're local and know you're idosynchricies (sp?)
Not to mention the threat to cut off your allowance and ground you for the weekend if you don't stop whatever you're doing and get on to fixing the computer at once.
For a specific example he was talking about how he once gave a lecture in Paris about black holes, and after about 30 minutes realized that they didn't understand a thing he was talking about. It turned out that they thought he was talking about something obscene. He played off this for quite a while, ending with his dismissal of the black hole modled after string theory (fuzzball black holes) in which he claimed "A black hole has no hair... but this just confused the French even more"
Gravitationally collapsing objects of sufficient mass are doomed to form black holes, defined by an event horizon within which resides the singularity of the general relativistic equations. All information about the initial state of the object is radiated away during the collapse, and the general stationary solution depends on only three externally observable parameters: mass M, angular momentum J, and charge Q of the Black Hole (BH). It was the physicist John Wheeler who came up with the now famous descriptive phrase that "A black hole has no hair." (In his lecture, Hawking should have attributed it to Wheeler, but that is a minor point.)
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Yahbut, what do you expect? You knew God was a neocon... right?
Well, Saddam is in custody. And over a year ago, Chimp Boy landed on a big ship and smirked over a job well done. Oh, aye... sure.
Someone is killing all those Iraqi civilians. It isn't me who is killing them, and neither is Saddam anymore. No, you people, with a wee bit of help from the insurgents, have taken over killing them now.
I'm a structural engineer. If we did as poor a job of putting up the Twin Towers as your so-called 'Intelligence' agencies did by not paying attention to all the reports that came in to their agencies about terrorist threats, those buildings would have collapsed without anyone having to fly planes into them. In other words, if I did my job as incompetently as Condi Rice did hers, I'd be unemployed, or possibly in jail. Yet, Chimp Boy promoted her. So who's the idiot? You lot re-elected him. What you fools call 'the blame game', we call 'accountability'. Oh. And I have a perfect driving record.
Every building my group ever designed is still standing. It's not that we're brilliant -- it's that we know how to do our jobs.
(Usual disclaimer: This is no slur on the soldiers, but on the neocon fools who planned -- and I use that word loosely -- this tragedy.)
Erm... no. That's our job now.
Muslims are monotheists, by the way. But you know that, I suspect.
I agree.
Accurate? Adam's rib? Silly. You seem to be using the Bible as a textbook. But... believe as you like. That's your right, of course.
You sound like the Wee Free.
Then why did you bring in religion into in first place, quoting chapter and verse?
Doesn't everyone? My religion is a personal way for me to worshop God. It has nothing to do with 'correctness'. It's correct for me, just as I imagine being a Roman Catholic is 'correct' for a Roman Catholic. I can't believe that God is that petty that He (or She) cares whether we cross ourselves from right to left, or the other way round... or at all, for that matter.
Here's one translation I'll bet you don't have. It's beautiful, as well as a sound translation. It's well worth having. You'll need to learn Scots though:
Your denomination, sounds lovely, by the way.
The Bible. Why the Bible? What about the Navajo belief about creation? What about the sacred creation beliefs of other religions? Why do you believe that after your deciding that evolution is impossible, there can be only one other true explanation for the origin of life, and that is the creation story written in your Bible? That's not at all objective of you.
Have you considered that there may be some scientific explanation, one that has yet to be discovered, that is neither evolution, nor in the Bible? You seem to want to jump to the Biblical conclusion.
What translation of the Bible do you have that would refer to 'the subconscience' and 'the conscious mind'? James 1:14-15 says:
Wise counsel, to be sure. However, I see nothing in that passage that advises parking scientific inquiry at the church door.
Science isn't temptation. It's damned hard work, and it takes time. No one is claiming that at this point evolution can present all the answers. They're working on it though. In time, they'll get it sorted out.
The Bible isn't a scientific manual, and it's just silly for people to use it as one. The Bible has far greater value than that, or it would, if people would stop using it as a tool to prove their own prideful ends. I suspect that's why the authors put in those passages about sin, hubris, and 'false prophets'.
The Qur'an is well worth a read, too.
"Once something's been approved by the Government, it's no longer immoral." -- Rev. Lovejoy
Gotcha! The 'Heather-on-the-Moor-Factor'. :) But Scotland is like the local... erm... 'neignborhood'. The last time I was in Fraser's in Glasgow, it looked like Macy's. They sold the same stuff. Even the store furnishings looked depressingly the same.
Right. Fraser's, and Macy's, but with linguini or soda bread. Oh wait! Both Fraser's and Macy's already have linguini and soda bread. I may as well save myself the trip. I can go to Philadelphia and eat cheesesteak. Philly used to have Wanamakers, but if its still there, that fine store prolly looks like Fraser's.
You're right about tourism. People think Scotland's all thistle and heather. Someone gave me Scotland Magazine for Christmas, and it certainly isn't the Scotland I know. They have yet to do a wee spread on Maryhill or Castlemilk. :) They made the midges, that scourge of Scotland, seem charming. They even cleaned up Glasgow. Now where's the fun in that?
Real Scots seldom wear tartan. Not the young ones. Men and boys will wear a kilt for a special occasion, but tartan trousers and, plaid socks, such are the mark of an American tourist.
He didn't change his name. His father, or grandfather changed the name. But think of the baggage that carries. He has relatives who were killed in the Holocaust. Imagine living with one identity, and discovering late in life that one is really something else. A person finds that 'Them' has suddenly become 'Us'. That has to feel very strange. Yet, the person is still American. Just not Irish-American. I don't know how strongly Kerry identified with the Irish.
People who deal with touristy stereotypes will have a problem figuring out what is Scottish. Many parts of Scotland were invaded, and then settled by Scandinavians and Icelanders, as well as the English and the French. Recently we've had immigration by Italians, Jews, Greeks, Asians, Irish, and Blacks. The result is that Glasgow has some great curry restaurants and divine Italian ice cream, though the immigrants have contributed much more than that. Though last time I checked there were no Jewish delis. As far as I'm concerned, they're all Scots.
It wasn't sarcasm. People are friendly and curious. I suspect it goes back to their 2nd grade classes when they studied nationalities. Mexicans wore serapes and big hats, Scots wore'plaids', and such.
It is very, very isolated. Nobody lives there anymore. :) Reminds me of the old toast: "Here's tae us. Wha's like us. Damn few, and they're a' deid!"
I looked at the photo, and, tracing the same pattern of lights, thought, as you did, that Scotland looks pretty cool.
If I'm interested in a sport, I will want to see the full quality version. Sure, I'd love to read a blog or two, but what I'm really interested in is the event itself and I'll figure a way around M$NBC's stupid internet black out to get it.
If I were an athlete, I'd tell the IOC to shove it just as soon as my event was over and post whatever I wanted my family and friends to see.
You don't understand. Why would any athlete risk getting sued? That's what would happen. The resulting scandal would end that athlete's opportunity to get lucrative corporate contracts, doing ads for Nike and all that. Now before you dismiss this as greed, keep in mind that these athletes and their families have made huge sacrifices, most of them going deeply into debt to pay for training and equipment, costumes and travel, so these athletes could rise to the top of their sport. Ads, interviews, speaking engagements, and corporate contracts may be the only opportunity an athlete has to give the folks even a marginally comfortable retirement and pay off debts he has incurred.
Then there is the matter of the athlete's future. By going against the establishment, an athlete would risk being blackballed from judging and coaching, which is the next professional step for many athletes.
Furthermore, rebelling against the IOC and the media whores might harm other people besides the athlete. The athlete who takes on the the establishment is risking that by breaking the rules, he will the cast suspicion on his coaches and fellow teammates when the media raises the question of whether they were in on it, and how much they may have known. There is the possibly that if a high-profile athlete takes on the powers that be, the rest of the team will suffer guilt by association as a result. Individual teammates might discover that their opportunities are being curtailed as a result of their teammate's act, because of all the 'unpleasantness' associated with that particular sport that year.
Olympic sports are a business, one where perfection, beauty and and everybody 'making nice' is what sells. Athletes know what they're getting into when they take up serious competitive sport. Individual athletes may not like the situation. But after sacrificing their lives and their families' money to get to the top, they're not about to toss it all away for something as naff as blogging and putting some piccies on the Web. What the athletes need is a union.:}
That's not enough anymore. The athletes have to look gorgeous too. Now they need to be photogenic. A great athlete with a funny nose isn't going to make it.
An amazing number of average Americans ask me questions questions like, 'Do you have cell phones in Scotland?' 'If you're a Scot, why aren't you wearing plaid?'
These are an ignorant people
Erm... I don't think so. He was dressed like Disco Stu.
Just wondering.
Two outta three ain't Baaad!
You got that right.
At a boring party a while back this older guy approached me.
Me...being my usual geeky self: "Linux."
I'm white collar and costly to replace, therefore these blue collar issues are beneath me.
Oh aye, sure. In Scotland we have a saying:'Self-praise comes aye stinkin ben.'
You are of course referring to blue-collar workers, like stone masons, and the sort of highly-skilled tradesmen who have been on the job for yonks and have seen it all. They have an eye for material that even with my experience and education I will never achieve. I'm a structural engineer, and the old fellows know that they can come up to me and point out anomalies in material that only the most practised eye can spot. I am always aware that despite my lofty status and advanced degrees, my buildings are no better than the crews who work on them. The structures are no stronger than my design, and the materials that go into them.
Have you considered that you too can be replaced, and probably will be replaced someday. It will most likely occur when you become too costly, and they find someone younger who can do your job for less pay. Even with your replacement's training factored in, at some point it will be more economical for them to sack you and hire some younger person to take your place.
We are all doing the same job over again, to some degree. Steelwork differs between projects, but it isn't programming, or cardiac surgery. Corporate executives see you no differently than you see some poor soul collecting rubbish by the side of the highway.
Only the greatest artists are irreplaceable, though even then other great artists come to fill the void they leave. The rest of us are simply competent, or merely brilliant. If you are deluded enough to think that your skills elevate you in management's eyes, and that those skills are sufficient to insure you job security for life, you're living in Cloud Coo-Coo Land. Unless you own the company, you have no control at all, and like the poor soul who picks up rubbish along the roads, your fate is at the mercy of other people. The reason for unions -- call it 'professional representation', if you require fawncy terms to prop up your snobbish façade -- is that there is strength in numbers, and protection for the individual when people stand together.
They say that the WTC were designed to take a hit from the largest jet aircraft at the time the towers were being designed, a Boeing 707. Indeed. Well, fuel-soaked sheetrock burns. Sheetrock burns even when it isn't soaked with fuel. Any child who has ever seen a bog-common house fire knows that. Americans have to stop being so gullible.
Whether in space, on the highways, or in buildings, when politicians, bottom-liners, and bean counters have the final word, people will eventually die. They didn't listen to the engineers who advised against the launch of the Challenger, due to weather conditions. We all remember what happened that time. It wasn't like there were no warnings. The O-rings on the Challenger were working below their cold tolerance, and the engineers were trying to warn of possible failure.
So why wasn't NASA doing something about the known problem with the heat shield?
Don't use IMAP or webmail services. Have your POP client poll servers frequently, and delete messages after they've been retrieved..
Most small to medium-sized ISPs don't archive email messages, due to the costs involved. (Particularly because of SPAM.)
So Spam really is good for something. Amazing.
What a pretty picture.
And what would happen to the pretty family should, as happened to me, the husband die? Who would support them all? Degrees aren't enough. The happy housewife would need both degrees and recent job experience in a well-paying field if she ever had to go out there and earn enough to support her young family.
How safe is anybody if their security, and the security of their children, is totally dependent on one other person's survival, not to mention that person's sense of decency and goodwill? How do you know that you may not desperately want to be quit of your wife in eight years? How valued would she be then? How secure?
You and your wife's choice would never be mine. I would choose a good job, and a good mate, someone who would share the responsibilities and burdens. For me, a woman taking on a mature adult role in the family and community is what feminism is all about. I always worked. My son, is now nineteen, and a student at one the top universities. He has turned out to be a decent, moral compassionate person, and he became this person without a mummy-type hovering over him every minute of every day.
There is nothing 'traditional' about what is sold as 'traditional roles' in families. This is a modern construct, Victorian, I believe. Traditionally, women worked along side their men, in the shops and fields. (They still do, in many countries.) As soon as they were old enough, the children joined the parents at work. Or they worked for neighbours and relatives. But while they were very young, females other than the mothers cared for them. Very young children were cared for by older siblings. Many families hired young girls to care for their children, or they gave them into the care of older relatives. American colonial women were often too busy to care for their own children. Those who could afford to do so hired wet-nurses, or even sent newborns away to wet-nurse. It was common for families to bring in neighbours to look after the children. Neither was it unusual for a family to send some of their children off to live with neighbours or relatives. These women had fabric to weave, and large gardens to tend. Maintaining a household was difficult in those days. The popular notion that there existed a long Golden Past where women's role was that of stay at home mums with the time free to nurture and care for their children is a myth. Few of those who did have the leisure and the resources, upper-class women, had the interest. They conformed to the style of their day and turned their children over to nurses and tutors. Read up on the history the family, and not just the American family either.
I never took a courses on family history. I just came across it in the library. It's fascinating what the fabric of family life was, and has been like. It's nothing at all like the 'Family Values' people would have us believe. If, as you say, society is 'broken'-- and I tend to agree that it is -- I wonder whether it is the result of excesses of the Baby Boomer generation, that most narcissistic generation. Incidentally, the Baby Boomers were the first generation of Americans raised almost entirely by doting stay at home mothers, equipt with labour-saving devices, and lots of time on their hands, so they could lavish all their attention on the wee darlings. Th
Fear.
So Dubya is going to remain president forever and forever.
Several weeks ago, I padded off in the gloamin to get myself some tea. When I returned, the screen on my ThinkPad had gone dark. I fiddled with it for a few minutes, as I fought down that sick sense that came with knowing the acreen was banjaxed. (And the wee computer was 7-months out-of warranty.)
IBM Tech support confirmed that was the problem. The screen required replacing and it wasn't worth it. Sae th' auld puter is nae mair. It's an A21p, from December 2000, IBM's best at the time. However, I have had it on ever since it arrived, as I work on it, and use it for other non-work related things as well. Music editing on-the-fly, when I'm on the road. I only switch it off when I'm travelling, and then it travels with me. I do treat it well though.
Since the rest of the old unit works just fine, I'll put a flat screen on it, as the lads pipe Braigh Loch Eil.
I had to buy a new ThinkPad, which, like the old one, is never switched off. The old one was getting a bit slow for a portable CAD workstation, which is the ThinkPad's main use. This time, I took the precaution of getting a 5-year warranty. I can always find good use for an old computer.
2.) They speak your language.
3.) They're local and know you're idosynchricies (sp?)
Not to mention the threat to cut off your allowance and ground you for the weekend if you don't stop whatever you're doing and get on to fixing the computer at once.
Gravitationally collapsing objects of sufficient mass are doomed to form black holes, defined by an event horizon within which resides the singularity of the general relativistic equations. All information about the initial state of the object is radiated away during the collapse, and the general stationary solution depends on only three externally observable parameters: mass M, angular momentum J, and charge Q of the Black Hole (BH). It was the physicist John Wheeler who came up with the now famous descriptive phrase that "A black hole has no hair." (In his lecture, Hawking should have attributed it to Wheeler, but that is a minor point.)