First, the world traveler bit sort of exempts you. The vast majority of people can't afford to do that so using yourself as an example doesn't work. In a perfect world, everyone would be a world traveler and no one would need to watch tv (why would you want to watch something on tv that you can see for yourself?) but in the real world, most people can't afford to travel beyond maybe two or three states away on a yearly basis while growing up. As such, if they don't get culture on tv, they don't get any culture beyond their own.
As for understanding popular culture, in order to really interact with a culture you need to be part of that culture. They may have respected you but did you really make any difference? Did you really change them in anyway? They might remember you but how different would they be if they never met you? I have read Livy's history to get his unique perspective and ideas, but he hasn't really changed me as a person in the waya close friend would. You state you didn't have a circle of friends but treated everyone equally, which is often a nice way of saying that you didn't form any close relationships with anyone. To truly interact with a culture, you have to have a feel for it. You need to at least understand popular culture in order to relate with them. If you can't really relate with them, your not going to make any real difference. Life is about more than the pursuit of knowledge. Granted, knowing Michael Jackson's glove hand isn't really useful in itself, but is useful in helping you to truly understand the people of the culture you are dealing with. Basically, if you really want to make a difference in a culture, you have to be more than an outsider and that's all you will be if you never understand popular culture. Think of it this way: if you went back in time and found yourself in ancient rome, would you ever truly fit into that culture if you didn't understand the basic interests of the average roman (in other word, popular culture)? They had a twilights zone episode on this, i forget the name, but it was one of the fourth season ones where he goes back in time and realizes he cant change anything so he goes back again juts to live but realizes he will never fit in and cant make a difference so he finally realizes that the present in the only place he fits in. For most people, the culture they grow up is the same, you can travel to other ones but you probably will never fit in. Cultural identity I think they call it.
The non-tv children also know virtually nothing about other cultures, don't know jack when it comes to history, can't relate to popular culture except for their small clique of 'friends', and are as dissacossiated with the age they live in as someone who spent their life living in a cave. I got news for you dude, 'they are spending time with friends doing all sorts of stuff' = watching tv all day at their friends house cause you're too lame to go out and buy one. And tv is a waste of time while the interent is a better source of entertainment? Last time I checked, tv addiction didn't have its own psychological disorder! Unless the ads entertain you, there is almost no real entertainment on the net anyway (with the exception of vast mountians of shitty porn.) Now, tv is pretty shitty. But I think the corrupting influence of tv has less to do with 'rotting brains' and more to do with the information overload and the horrible philosphy that tv depicts. TV deluges us with crap and our brains simply can't handle the input, so they start shutting off outside influences leading to the behavior many mistakes as sloth: an apathetic couch potato. We simply can't handle the input. And if that weren't bad enough, the comercials with the constant deluge of 'buy, buy, buy' leads to the rather horrible materialistic philosphy that many have adopted. We are forcefed materialism and given no philosphy thus we become waht the ancient greeaks called an 'idiot' - an ethically hollow, unthinking, virtueless, brain-dead materialist - Someone who did not live their life but wasted it. The ancient greeks had no use for a person who sat around all day, hiding their house afraid to live.
Do you know what people did before they had teelvisions? They:
1) Slept (modern people are famous for not getting nearly enough)
2) Looked up at the fucking sky and thought how great the future would be when the could watch stuff like tv.
3) Just plain fucked.
I wouldn't mind linear programming...
on
TV's Tipping Point
·
· Score: 1
If it was like the cartoon network where all almost all the comercials are shoved into the last 8 minutes between shows, so you can just channel surf.
The list isn't even aligned right! What kind of geek are you! 1. Steve Jobs 26. Rod Aldridge 2. Bill Gates 27. Stelios Haji-Ioannou 3. Greg Dyke 28. Ian Foster 4. Hu Jintao 29. Dmitri Sklyarov 5. Linus Torvalds 30. David Blunkett 6. Roger Cole 31. Erich Gamma 7. Sam Palmisano 32. Jeff Bezos 8. Atal Behari Vajpayee 33. Donna Dubinsky 9. Peter Gershon 34. Donald E Knuth 10. Carly Fiorina 35. Masayoshi Son 11. Rupert Murdoch 36. Michael Gough 12. Michael Dell 37. Keiji Tachikawa 13. Arun Sarin 38. Marc Benioff 14. Richard Granger 39. Sir John Sulston 15. Fred von Lohmann 40. Larry Ellison 16. Eric Schmidt 41. Stephen Hill 17. David Levin 42. SoBig author 18. Stephen Carter 43. Naomi Klein 19. Steve Linford 44. Henning Kagermann 20. Christian Ude 45. Mario Monti 21. Greg Aharonian 46. Ulrich Schumacher 22. Scott McNealy 47. Tim Berners-Lee 23. Terry Semel 48. Steve Ballmer 24. Sergey Brin 49. John Malone 25. Ben Verwaayen 50. Michael Moritz
Read their 'how do you know we aren't working for the man' page? It basically says 'trust, we promise we aren't!' Also its a very condescending piece of work. I don't trust it. Perhaps their analyzing the hackers that do hack in so that when someone hacks into one of their systems a year or two down the road, they'll have a set of known hackers with what amounts to a behavioral study on each one. I can see it now: 'we just got hacked, run the characteristics of the attack through the database! hmm, it matches 's pattern of attack, Patriot act abuses here we come!'
If ya like em, send em a stripper with strategically placed/.'s and a redhat. If ya don't then get one of the unix administrators to dress up as a penguin. If you really don't like em, get em windows that break when you try to install them.
"Creating Something Out of Nothing"
I knew the day would come when business lost its grip on reality. The law of conversation of matter says you matter can neither be destroyed nor created. In other words the laws of physics say you cannot create something out of nothing. What's next? Refutting the law that the only constants int eh universe are death, taxes, and stupidity?
The days when business was stupid will return. I disagree though that all companies need tech, they need cheap forieng labor but that's about it. That is how business changed: all our jobs went to india.
What kind of damages could one ever hope to get from a pirating suit. Considering most of those games are no valued in the pennies range if at all I don't they woudl stand to win much. I can see it now: Nintendo won a suit against Johnny for pirating 'ice climber'. The were awarded 2-3 dollars in damages.
You obviously didn't spend your youth like I did running to flea markets and buying old atari carts. I can still find a good selection if I look hard enough. Been a long time since I've seen c64 carts and vectrex requires you to go to shows but you can still get most of em. Still looking for a virtual boy and a jaguar though...
Considering most atari games average a size of 6k (this webpage alone is probably somewhere around 20-30k), I don't think $2 is a reasonable price at all. They must be charging a dollar a k! They should sell them for the old arcade prices - 25cents a rom.
Slashdot Mirror
First, the world traveler bit sort of exempts you. The vast majority of people can't afford to do that so using yourself as an example doesn't work. In a perfect world, everyone would be a world traveler and no one would need to watch tv (why would you want to watch something on tv that you can see for yourself?) but in the real world, most people can't afford to travel beyond maybe two or three states away on a yearly basis while growing up. As such, if they don't get culture on tv, they don't get any culture beyond their own.
As for understanding popular culture, in order to really interact with a culture you need to be part of that culture. They may have respected you but did you really make any difference? Did you really change them in anyway? They might remember you but how different would they be if they never met you? I have read Livy's history to get his unique perspective and ideas, but he hasn't really changed me as a person in the waya close friend would. You state you didn't have a circle of friends but treated everyone equally, which is often a nice way of saying that you didn't form any close relationships with anyone. To truly interact with a culture, you have to have a feel for it. You need to at least understand popular culture in order to relate with them. If you can't really relate with them, your not going to make any real difference. Life is about more than the pursuit of knowledge. Granted, knowing Michael Jackson's glove hand isn't really useful in itself, but is useful in helping you to truly understand the people of the culture you are dealing with. Basically, if you really want to make a difference in a culture, you have to be more than an outsider and that's all you will be if you never understand popular culture. Think of it this way: if you went back in time and found yourself in ancient rome, would you ever truly fit into that culture if you didn't understand the basic interests of the average roman (in other word, popular culture)? They had a twilights zone episode on this, i forget the name, but it was one of the fourth season ones where he goes back in time and realizes he cant change anything so he goes back again juts to live but realizes he will never fit in and cant make a difference so he finally realizes that the present in the only place he fits in. For most people, the culture they grow up is the same, you can travel to other ones but you probably will never fit in. Cultural identity I think they call it.
The non-tv children also know virtually nothing about other cultures, don't know jack when it comes to history, can't relate to popular culture except for their small clique of 'friends', and are as dissacossiated with the age they live in as someone who spent their life living in a cave. I got news for you dude, 'they are spending time with friends doing all sorts of stuff' = watching tv all day at their friends house cause you're too lame to go out and buy one. And tv is a waste of time while the interent is a better source of entertainment? Last time I checked, tv addiction didn't have its own psychological disorder! Unless the ads entertain you, there is almost no real entertainment on the net anyway (with the exception of vast mountians of shitty porn.) Now, tv is pretty shitty. But I think the corrupting influence of tv has less to do with 'rotting brains' and more to do with the information overload and the horrible philosphy that tv depicts. TV deluges us with crap and our brains simply can't handle the input, so they start shutting off outside influences leading to the behavior many mistakes as sloth: an apathetic couch potato. We simply can't handle the input. And if that weren't bad enough, the comercials with the constant deluge of 'buy, buy, buy' leads to the rather horrible materialistic philosphy that many have adopted. We are forcefed materialism and given no philosphy thus we become waht the ancient greeaks called an 'idiot' - an ethically hollow, unthinking, virtueless, brain-dead materialist - Someone who did not live their life but wasted it. The ancient greeks had no use for a person who sat around all day, hiding their house afraid to live.
Do you know what people did before they had teelvisions? They:
1) Slept (modern people are famous for not getting nearly enough)
2) Looked up at the fucking sky and thought how great the future would be when the could watch stuff like tv.
3) Just plain fucked.
If it was like the cartoon network where all almost all the comercials are shoved into the last 8 minutes between shows, so you can just channel surf.
The list isn't even aligned right! What kind of geek are you!
1. Steve Jobs 26. Rod Aldridge
2. Bill Gates 27. Stelios Haji-Ioannou
3. Greg Dyke 28. Ian Foster
4. Hu Jintao 29. Dmitri Sklyarov
5. Linus Torvalds 30. David Blunkett
6. Roger Cole 31. Erich Gamma
7. Sam Palmisano 32. Jeff Bezos
8. Atal Behari Vajpayee 33. Donna Dubinsky
9. Peter Gershon 34. Donald E Knuth
10. Carly Fiorina 35. Masayoshi Son
11. Rupert Murdoch 36. Michael Gough
12. Michael Dell 37. Keiji Tachikawa
13. Arun Sarin 38. Marc Benioff
14. Richard Granger 39. Sir John Sulston
15. Fred von Lohmann 40. Larry Ellison
16. Eric Schmidt 41. Stephen Hill
17. David Levin 42. SoBig author
18. Stephen Carter 43. Naomi Klein
19. Steve Linford 44. Henning Kagermann
20. Christian Ude 45. Mario Monti
21. Greg Aharonian 46. Ulrich Schumacher
22. Scott McNealy 47. Tim Berners-Lee
23. Terry Semel 48. Steve Ballmer
24. Sergey Brin 49. John Malone
25. Ben Verwaayen 50. Michael Moritz
Oh, come on! Steve Jobs has him beat by a long shot - he hasn't coded anything since he worked for Atari!
Read their 'how do you know we aren't working for the man' page? It basically says 'trust, we promise we aren't!' Also its a very condescending piece of work. I don't trust it. Perhaps their analyzing the hackers that do hack in so that when someone hacks into one of their systems a year or two down the road, they'll have a set of known hackers with what amounts to a behavioral study on each one. I can see it now: 'we just got hacked, run the characteristics of the attack through the database! hmm, it matches 's pattern of attack, Patriot act abuses here we come!'
Only in disney's films...
If ya like em, send em a stripper with strategically placed /.'s and a redhat. If ya don't then get one of the unix administrators to dress up as a penguin. If you really don't like em, get em windows that break when you try to install them.
But I bet it will be on the Internet first.
It will try to sell you stuff whenever you try to replicate dinner...
3) Telemarketing and spam.
"Technology never faileth."
Obviously never used windows...
"Creating Something Out of Nothing"
I knew the day would come when business lost its grip on reality. The law of conversation of matter says you matter can neither be destroyed nor created. In other words the laws of physics say you cannot create something out of nothing. What's next? Refutting the law that the only constants int eh universe are death, taxes, and stupidity?
In soviet russia, tech needs you!
The days when business was stupid will return. I disagree though that all companies need tech, they need cheap forieng labor but that's about it. That is how business changed: all our jobs went to india.
Even if it had merit, the fact that McBride ranted about it renders that merit void.
I enjoy donuts too, but that doesn't mean I'm, going to pay $2 a piece for one.
What kind of damages could one ever hope to get from a pirating suit. Considering most of those games are no valued in the pennies range if at all I don't they woudl stand to win much. I can see it now: Nintendo won a suit against Johnny for pirating 'ice climber'. The were awarded 2-3 dollars in damages.
You obviously didn't spend your youth like I did running to flea markets and buying old atari carts. I can still find a good selection if I look hard enough. Been a long time since I've seen c64 carts and vectrex requires you to go to shows but you can still get most of em. Still looking for a virtual boy and a jaguar though...
What about games like aliens 3 which required a light gun? Ever try to play those with a controller?
I'm sorry but I always thought guantlet sucked. Give me Haunted House or Tutenkamen any day.
Well, I for one welcome our new single-pixel overlords.
Forget GBA. Why not just make a cd with the entire library of NES games on it for use with the computer? I wouldn't mind paying $20 bucks for that.
Considering most atari games average a size of 6k (this webpage alone is probably somewhere around 20-30k), I don't think $2 is a reasonable price at all. They must be charging a dollar a k! They should sell them for the old arcade prices - 25cents a rom.