First, and most important, the only way to learn to speak a foreign language is by speaking it with a speaker who is more proficient than you are. So really if a Sims game were used in this fashion, it is teaching reading and nothing else; that's a good goal in itself, but don't pretend it's the same as "learning a foreign language." The authors themselves discuss using the game primarily as vocabulary acquisition. It's really just a tool in language learning. They mention speech recognition but in the end that will be no more effective than repeating cassette tapes. It's language use in a conversation setting that teaches you how to speak.
Second, and related to reading, have you ever noticed in games like the Sims that you really don't read the whole thing...you skim over it to find out what you are supposed to do. If the game itself were good, you're not going to be paying enough attention to the language; and if the game were bad, well, you're not going to play it.
Dude, even some of the governments involved have noted that they had an hour. And you could easily clear a beach of 30,000 people in 30 minutes...they probably had a mile to higher ground. It's got NOTHING to do with people on Mt. St. Helens. Why don't you stop trolling? These people had no idea there was an earthquake. The ocean just was acting a bit weird. Give me a break...you can't be serious.
You're confusing things here. There was no storm surge because there was no storm. It wasn't like the goobers in Florida etc who go to the beach during a hurricane. People had no indication that there was anything going on, so when some heavier wave activity was reported, word spread and people went to see. Waves are fascinating to watch. You're inferring that these people were tempting fate, and they weren't. They didn't know a devastating earthquake had occured underwater.
Furthermore, you have no right to suggest that an early warning system wouldn't have helped. In many cases people didn't have far to go inland to reach safe ground. And at very least swimmers could have gotten out of the water. Sure, there would have been the usual percentage of dumb people who ignore warnings. But many deaths could have been avoided.
Wolfgang Puck has lost any kind of credibility as a real chef. Real chefs don't have a line of frozen food and a chain restaurant bearing their names. He isn't even credible as a restauranteur anymore. What is he? Just another money-grubber who has bankrolled his name.
Next time you are at your local grocer's, check out his frozen food for sodium content. If I recall, one of his ravioli packages had like 1200mg per serving. That is HALF your recommended allowance per day, all in one meal. And that package might even be more than one serving, I can't remember. The first thing that is done to food to make up for flavorlessness is to throw in the salt.
You really have to ask, how much money does this guy need? Wasn't his award-winning celebrity hangout enough? What's next, Wolfgang Puck toilet paper? ("After a Wolfgang Puck meal, there's only one paper worthy for you.") It's the same with the celebrity chef-endorsed cooksets sold on the shopping channels. Total BS.
The bottom line is that it is really easy to make great coffee without a lot of fuss. Furthermore, there are now thousands of coffee shops selling good brew, right around the corner for most people. This product is unnecessary and gimmicky.
Was there any other software involved? Was this a pattern of defying university policy? Did the employee try to lie about his actions? Was this just one more reason to fire an already poor or incompetent worker?
If not, you're telling me that a perfectly competent worker broke one rule in the interests of science and he was instantly fired? Why wouldn't you discipline him? Put him on super-double-secret probation? Explain to him that while the aims of programs like Folding@Home are laudable, there can be NO violations of university security policies? Wasn't there any training involved in this person's job, and wouldn't firing him at the drop of a dime be counter-productive to the organization as a whole?
As long as the muskrat was legally killed and it didn't violate animal cruelty guidelines, yes it counts as art. Whether or not it is legal to be naked in public doesn't disqualify it as art.
Personally, I think the fact that someone would talk about masturbating to Aunt Jemima is revelatory. Plain truth of the matter is that teenage boys are so worked up hormone-wise that they'll do some pretty weird things. Talking about them is, like it or not, talking about part of the human experience.
Stern's racial comments are by and large provocative; I personally think he does it to mock people who would think such racist thoughts. I can't say the same about the way his show features porn stars and women doing degrading things like smelling High Pitch Eric's dirty underwear, and I personally turn off the radio and turn on a CD when the show is about that.
Do you think any of the speech you noted above hurts anyone? Do you think it is so dangerous that it shouldn't be allowed?
That's the same kind of thinking that had marshes around the entire nation backfilled for roads, malls, housing etc. A marsh was seen as a valueless wasteland. Now many realize that marshes are relief valves during flooding, create vast areas for wildlife, etc.
For a lot of customers, it's not novelty. For example, I don't necessarily want the lastest $2/night DVD's--I like older movies and like an incredible selection. In CT I had it at Best Video, the "best" video store I have ever been in, but here in Ohio I am stuck with the chains.
For me, finding the videos i wanted was a pain, and inevitably I would get busy, not be able to watch them as planned and then either return one of the two or three i rented unwatched or end up with late fees.
Even renting 4 videos a month is worth the $21/month that Nexflix charges me. At least I'm getting the titles i want WHEN i want and I can watch them at my leisure.
People make fun of Eskimos and their many words for snow.
1. Noting that Eskimos have a lot of words for snow was never, in the main, a cause for ridiculing them. This was something that was offered up in support of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in linguistics.
2. The number of terms these people have for types of snow has been grossly exaggerated over the years. English has a good number of terms for different types of snow, too. Naturally, people who spend most of their lives surrounded by snow have a few more specialized terms.
Not showing up in Software Update
on
Apple Updates iPhoto
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I get the feeling they may have yanked this update. 8/3/04 9:37PM EST and Software Update does not show the update (I have 4.0.1). Also, the link on the iPhoto support page is bad.
Well, you probably didn't read the reasons why the Pumpkins did what they did. It wasn't coz they didn't care about the money, it was because it was the last straw in their frustrating relationship with their label.
Kind of, um, completely different from the U2 situation.
I didn't realize these two sites existed. I visited them and read some of the commentary on problems they saw in the Moore films. For the most part, they REALLY miss the point in Moore's films, and their attacks on his films are misguided and clueless.
For example, in Bowling for Columbine, Moore wasn't including the scenes about the bank that awards shotguns to its depositers as an indication of how easy it is to get a gun. He was making a point about the absurd prevalence of gun ownership in the USA. Yet at the bowlingfortruth website, their point is that he misrepresented the amount of paperwork and legal checks necessary to obtain the actual firearm.
Sorry, but that just WASN'T the point. And NRA fanatics are probably not able to grasp the point of the film because their judgement is clouded by their unwillingness for any restrictions on gun ownership. I'm not saying NRA members, mind you; I'm referring to the fanatical portion of their membership, a minority I'm sure.
So don't be afraid that your opinion of Moore will drop after visiting these sites. If you liked Moore before, you will still like him; if you hated him as a commie liberal, you'll just have some cookie cutter arguments neatly packaged for you next time someone mentions him at work.
Chinese farmers have used pig manure to produce methane for cooking gas for a long time. Not a universal practice, but it has been done. Of course, when you are living from hand to mouth, you get innovative in order to survive, hence the widespread use of human feces as "nightsoil" for fertilization, too.
And of course on the plains "buffalo chips" have served as fuel for fires for hundreds of years.
Well, maybe I read it too quickly, or fell asleep somewhere in the middle, but I can't really find where he talks about his Mac to Microsoft conversion, so it's a little misleading to suggest that in the summary.
He does manage to mention how he speaks French, Japanese etc. but I find it hard to believe that someone who did Asian text processing and was a Mac aficionado fails to mention how Word 5.1 for Mac, Word 6.0 etc TOTALLY failed the needs of academics who needed to use Japanese and Chinese in text documents. I shudder to recall the amount of time I wasted trying to deal with the problem, before finally switching to Nisus.
Also, for someone who speaks Japanese (and has a Japanese wife, as he says--how about a Japanese car? drive one of those? japanese TV? Does eating Japanese food help you speak the language too?), seems funny for him to write "...devices called "Wa-Puro" (for "wa-do purosessa-", the Japanese pronunciation of word processor)". Makes the Japanese seem pretty dumb, huh? They can't figure out how to pronounce word processor, so they change it into something more Japanese? Doh, the Japanese adopt foreign words into their language and transform our spelling into something that works in their syllabary. It's not how they pronounce word processing, it's how they say it.
When Nielsen mentioned informed consent, I suddenly realized how much things have changed regarding this issue, not in the scientific community but in the media.
This issue came to the forefront with Stanley Milgram's "shocking" experiment on authority, where he was trying to find out why people followed unethical orders, vis-a-viz WWII and the Holocaust. You may recall from Psych 101 that Milgram set up an experiment in which an unsuspecting victim thought he or she was shocking someone for incorrectly answering questions. I know a bit about this because I worked on Milgram's archived papers. (Some people forget that in the actual experiment, the shocks were a hoax).
Anyway, what occured to me is that reality/prank shows like Scare Tactics etc. go way beyond Milgram's experiment. I assume the only way these episodes get broadcast is that the victim, after the prank is revealed, ends up signing releases, probably in exchange for payment. But the initial trauma/annoyances the victim experiences are not consented to until afterwards. It seems like the media doesn't operate under the same ethical assumptions that science is burdened by. Offtopic, but something that occured to me reading this.
I'm surprised that a geek listing info about running doesn't mention the value of a heart rate monitor. One of the reasons I used to have problems sticking to a running/jogging program is that, unbeknowst to me, I was running way too fast!
I tried to exercise at what I thought was a reasonable speed, but I would inevitably get winded, give up and lose initiative. But then my girlfriend got me a monitor for my birthday and after using it I realized that my heart rate was WAY too high. Use of the monitor validated that even at slow speeds I was getting heart-healthy exercise. It also allows me to see my progress as my cardiovascular system improves and I am able to exercise harder and longer and still stay in my ideal zone. It's a great tool.
This is off-topic, but so are ninety percent of the other comments.
Take a look at them. The conclusion I come to is that this story should not have been accepted. It's science-related, space-related, but what can the average Slashdot reader say about it? The funny-rated comments aren't funny, IMHO, and most anything else is so speculative to be irrelevant.
In this case, people shouldn't have been given the chance to comment. Including me.
Now that we have the bike, all we need is a post-apocalyptic landscape in which to ride it. Considering the way things are going, I won't have to wait long.
Of course, I could always pair up with the Chernobyl gal...
If I understand correctly, phishing comes into play when users are sent an e-mail with a bogus link. Probably something like "we've detected fraudulent use of your account, please follow this link to verify your information" etc. etc.
There is no reason to follow links in e-mail to get to a site that you regularly use. If you doubt the authenticity of an e-mail from, say, American Express, just visit the site as you usually do, through a bookmark. After logging in you should be able to access the necessary info.
The phone for which I paid extra money to AT&T has now been shown to have substandard reception due to the way they have built their network. This rather extraordinary step of offering a free phone pretty much acknowledges that they screwed up by selling me a 68i since it is now obsolete viz-a-vis their network.
The only reason I chose AT&T as a provider was because at the time I got my phone and plan they were the only company in my area offering a bluetooth-capable phone.
In fact, when I was dropping my old provider (Verizon) a rep called me to entice me to stay with them, offering a number of new phones with all the bells and whistles. "Do any of them have Bluetooth?" I asked. The rep didn't even know what Bluetooth was.
AT&T could easily check their records and know who bought "premium" phones with their plans. It is idiotic to offer someone a new phone that lacks key features of their old phone. It's a great strategy, however, to alienate customers.
I have a diesel VW. I have lived in four different places with this car. Half of them had non-dealer mechanics who specialized in VWs and knew their way around diesels. They were further away than the VW dealers but I trusted them and admired their trade skills and dedication.
At the other two places I regularly took my car to the VW dealer. No way I would take a sophisticated turbo diesel to some hack, even if he were one block away. I live in a condo and there is no place for me to do my own oil changes here, so I even have the dealer do those for me. At least I'm confident that the dealer understands that my car must have a synthetic oil.
When I was a teenager, I used to take cars apart with my friends, but the technology has changed a lot. I prefer to take my car to someone who has the greatest chance of having the most extensive knowledge about my particular make and model. And these days, dealers are starting to realize that they have to compete with the local garage, the quik change oil guy and sears automotive. Prices have gotten more reasonable.
I know the way you feel--I lived in China for a while and it didn't take long for me to develop similar feelings.
Then my enchantment with China quickly wore off. I realized that just because our history is filled with mistakes and injustices, it didn't justify the Chinese doing the same fucking thing.
A lot of Chinese leaders and even intellectuals take the position that, to pick just one possible example, because Western countries raped their environment during most of the twentieth century, it is okay for China to do that in order to reach the same economic level as the Western industrialized countries.
Bullshit meter on HIGH!
How about learning some lessons? How about finding new ways to do things? And what the hell is wrong with the West saying, erm, maybe that's not a good idea, because we've been there and it went really badly? Sure, I'd be the first person in line to say that the US government operates on a system of HUGE double standards. But just because we wiped out OUR indigenous peoples doesn't mean we should stand by while OTHER countries attempt to do the same thing NOW.
And, no, I wasn't necessarily talking about Tibet. Just an example.
Oh, and by the way, speaking about racism: I assume you can speak Chinese. Why don't you start up casual conversations with taxi drivers and people on the street, in parks etc and find out their ideas about Africans, hell, you can ask a good number of Chinese their opinions about the Japanese and they'll tell you they HATE the evil demons. Perhaps it has changed in the ten years since I lived in China, but at that time many, many Chinese thought that Africans living in Beijing were lusty animals who couldn't control themselves and would have sex with Chinese women the minute they had an opportunity. I care a lot about China and had many friends there, but I have to say they were the most racist people I had ever met in my life. Should we smile and excuse them because we used to have slaves? We can understand the reasons why they might have certain opinions, but that doesn't mean we can't say WHOA, that's not acceptable in international discourse in 2004.
Point about the beard well taken. However, did he usually wear a beard? Not that I know. So the importance of the beard in this case was that (a) he wasn't able to shave down in a hole, and (b) it probably worked somewhat as a disguise.
How do you know, for example, he didn't ask to be shaved himself?
Slashdot Mirror
Second, and related to reading, have you ever noticed in games like the Sims that you really don't read the whole thing...you skim over it to find out what you are supposed to do. If the game itself were good, you're not going to be paying enough attention to the language; and if the game were bad, well, you're not going to play it.
Dude, even some of the governments involved have noted that they had an hour. And you could easily clear a beach of 30,000 people in 30 minutes...they probably had a mile to higher ground. It's got NOTHING to do with people on Mt. St. Helens. Why don't you stop trolling? These people had no idea there was an earthquake. The ocean just was acting a bit weird. Give me a break...you can't be serious.
Furthermore, you have no right to suggest that an early warning system wouldn't have helped. In many cases people didn't have far to go inland to reach safe ground. And at very least swimmers could have gotten out of the water. Sure, there would have been the usual percentage of dumb people who ignore warnings. But many deaths could have been avoided.
Next time you are at your local grocer's, check out his frozen food for sodium content. If I recall, one of his ravioli packages had like 1200mg per serving. That is HALF your recommended allowance per day, all in one meal. And that package might even be more than one serving, I can't remember. The first thing that is done to food to make up for flavorlessness is to throw in the salt.
You really have to ask, how much money does this guy need? Wasn't his award-winning celebrity hangout enough? What's next, Wolfgang Puck toilet paper? ("After a Wolfgang Puck meal, there's only one paper worthy for you.") It's the same with the celebrity chef-endorsed cooksets sold on the shopping channels. Total BS.
The bottom line is that it is really easy to make great coffee without a lot of fuss. Furthermore, there are now thousands of coffee shops selling good brew, right around the corner for most people. This product is unnecessary and gimmicky.
If not, you're telling me that a perfectly competent worker broke one rule in the interests of science and he was instantly fired? Why wouldn't you discipline him? Put him on super-double-secret probation? Explain to him that while the aims of programs like Folding@Home are laudable, there can be NO violations of university security policies? Wasn't there any training involved in this person's job, and wouldn't firing him at the drop of a dime be counter-productive to the organization as a whole?
As long as the muskrat was legally killed and it didn't violate animal cruelty guidelines, yes it counts as art. Whether or not it is legal to be naked in public doesn't disqualify it as art. Personally, I think the fact that someone would talk about masturbating to Aunt Jemima is revelatory. Plain truth of the matter is that teenage boys are so worked up hormone-wise that they'll do some pretty weird things. Talking about them is, like it or not, talking about part of the human experience. Stern's racial comments are by and large provocative; I personally think he does it to mock people who would think such racist thoughts. I can't say the same about the way his show features porn stars and women doing degrading things like smelling High Pitch Eric's dirty underwear, and I personally turn off the radio and turn on a CD when the show is about that. Do you think any of the speech you noted above hurts anyone? Do you think it is so dangerous that it shouldn't be allowed?
That's the same kind of thinking that had marshes around the entire nation backfilled for roads, malls, housing etc. A marsh was seen as a valueless wasteland. Now many realize that marshes are relief valves during flooding, create vast areas for wildlife, etc.
For a lot of customers, it's not novelty. For example, I don't necessarily want the lastest $2/night DVD's--I like older movies and like an incredible selection. In CT I had it at Best Video, the "best" video store I have ever been in, but here in Ohio I am stuck with the chains. For me, finding the videos i wanted was a pain, and inevitably I would get busy, not be able to watch them as planned and then either return one of the two or three i rented unwatched or end up with late fees. Even renting 4 videos a month is worth the $21/month that Nexflix charges me. At least I'm getting the titles i want WHEN i want and I can watch them at my leisure.
1. Noting that Eskimos have a lot of words for snow was never, in the main, a cause for ridiculing them. This was something that was offered up in support of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in linguistics.
2. The number of terms these people have for types of snow has been grossly exaggerated over the years. English has a good number of terms for different types of snow, too. Naturally, people who spend most of their lives surrounded by snow have a few more specialized terms.
I get the feeling they may have yanked this update. 8/3/04 9:37PM EST and Software Update does not show the update (I have 4.0.1). Also, the link on the iPhoto support page is bad.
Well, you probably didn't read the reasons why the Pumpkins did what they did. It wasn't coz they didn't care about the money, it was because it was the last straw in their frustrating relationship with their label. Kind of, um, completely different from the U2 situation.
For the first time since it opened, I CANNOT access the iTunes Store. Anyone else experiencing this? Can European access be causing congestion?
For example, in Bowling for Columbine, Moore wasn't including the scenes about the bank that awards shotguns to its depositers as an indication of how easy it is to get a gun. He was making a point about the absurd prevalence of gun ownership in the USA. Yet at the bowlingfortruth website, their point is that he misrepresented the amount of paperwork and legal checks necessary to obtain the actual firearm.
Sorry, but that just WASN'T the point. And NRA fanatics are probably not able to grasp the point of the film because their judgement is clouded by their unwillingness for any restrictions on gun ownership. I'm not saying NRA members, mind you; I'm referring to the fanatical portion of their membership, a minority I'm sure.
So don't be afraid that your opinion of Moore will drop after visiting these sites. If you liked Moore before, you will still like him; if you hated him as a commie liberal, you'll just have some cookie cutter arguments neatly packaged for you next time someone mentions him at work.
Chinese farmers have used pig manure to produce methane for cooking gas for a long time. Not a universal practice, but it has been done. Of course, when you are living from hand to mouth, you get innovative in order to survive, hence the widespread use of human feces as "nightsoil" for fertilization, too. And of course on the plains "buffalo chips" have served as fuel for fires for hundreds of years.
He does manage to mention how he speaks French, Japanese etc. but I find it hard to believe that someone who did Asian text processing and was a Mac aficionado fails to mention how Word 5.1 for Mac, Word 6.0 etc TOTALLY failed the needs of academics who needed to use Japanese and Chinese in text documents. I shudder to recall the amount of time I wasted trying to deal with the problem, before finally switching to Nisus.
Also, for someone who speaks Japanese (and has a Japanese wife, as he says--how about a Japanese car? drive one of those? japanese TV? Does eating Japanese food help you speak the language too?), seems funny for him to write "...devices called "Wa-Puro" (for "wa-do purosessa-", the Japanese pronunciation of word processor)". Makes the Japanese seem pretty dumb, huh? They can't figure out how to pronounce word processor, so they change it into something more Japanese? Doh, the Japanese adopt foreign words into their language and transform our spelling into something that works in their syllabary. It's not how they pronounce word processing, it's how they say it.
This issue came to the forefront with Stanley Milgram's "shocking" experiment on authority, where he was trying to find out why people followed unethical orders, vis-a-viz WWII and the Holocaust. You may recall from Psych 101 that Milgram set up an experiment in which an unsuspecting victim thought he or she was shocking someone for incorrectly answering questions. I know a bit about this because I worked on Milgram's archived papers. (Some people forget that in the actual experiment, the shocks were a hoax).
Anyway, what occured to me is that reality/prank shows like Scare Tactics etc. go way beyond Milgram's experiment. I assume the only way these episodes get broadcast is that the victim, after the prank is revealed, ends up signing releases, probably in exchange for payment. But the initial trauma/annoyances the victim experiences are not consented to until afterwards. It seems like the media doesn't operate under the same ethical assumptions that science is burdened by. Offtopic, but something that occured to me reading this.
I tried to exercise at what I thought was a reasonable speed, but I would inevitably get winded, give up and lose initiative. But then my girlfriend got me a monitor for my birthday and after using it I realized that my heart rate was WAY too high. Use of the monitor validated that even at slow speeds I was getting heart-healthy exercise. It also allows me to see my progress as my cardiovascular system improves and I am able to exercise harder and longer and still stay in my ideal zone. It's a great tool.
Take a look at them. The conclusion I come to is that this story should not have been accepted. It's science-related, space-related, but what can the average Slashdot reader say about it? The funny-rated comments aren't funny, IMHO, and most anything else is so speculative to be irrelevant.
In this case, people shouldn't have been given the chance to comment. Including me.
Of course, I could always pair up with the Chernobyl gal...
If I understand correctly, phishing comes into play when users are sent an e-mail with a bogus link. Probably something like "we've detected fraudulent use of your account, please follow this link to verify your information" etc. etc.
There is no reason to follow links in e-mail to get to a site that you regularly use. If you doubt the authenticity of an e-mail from, say, American Express, just visit the site as you usually do, through a bookmark. After logging in you should be able to access the necessary info.
The phone for which I paid extra money to AT&T has now been shown to have substandard reception due to the way they have built their network. This rather extraordinary step of offering a free phone pretty much acknowledges that they screwed up by selling me a 68i since it is now obsolete viz-a-vis their network.
The only reason I chose AT&T as a provider was because at the time I got my phone and plan they were the only company in my area offering a bluetooth-capable phone.
In fact, when I was dropping my old provider (Verizon) a rep called me to entice me to stay with them, offering a number of new phones with all the bells and whistles. "Do any of them have Bluetooth?" I asked. The rep didn't even know what Bluetooth was.
AT&T could easily check their records and know who bought "premium" phones with their plans. It is idiotic to offer someone a new phone that lacks key features of their old phone. It's a great strategy, however, to alienate customers.
At the other two places I regularly took my car to the VW dealer. No way I would take a sophisticated turbo diesel to some hack, even if he were one block away. I live in a condo and there is no place for me to do my own oil changes here, so I even have the dealer do those for me. At least I'm confident that the dealer understands that my car must have a synthetic oil.
When I was a teenager, I used to take cars apart with my friends, but the technology has changed a lot. I prefer to take my car to someone who has the greatest chance of having the most extensive knowledge about my particular make and model. And these days, dealers are starting to realize that they have to compete with the local garage, the quik change oil guy and sears automotive. Prices have gotten more reasonable.
Sometimes I wonder if the funny rating should just be eliminated, with interesting being the sole positive judge of a comment.
Then my enchantment with China quickly wore off. I realized that just because our history is filled with mistakes and injustices, it didn't justify the Chinese doing the same fucking thing.
A lot of Chinese leaders and even intellectuals take the position that, to pick just one possible example, because Western countries raped their environment during most of the twentieth century, it is okay for China to do that in order to reach the same economic level as the Western industrialized countries.
Bullshit meter on HIGH!
How about learning some lessons? How about finding new ways to do things? And what the hell is wrong with the West saying, erm, maybe that's not a good idea, because we've been there and it went really badly? Sure, I'd be the first person in line to say that the US government operates on a system of HUGE double standards. But just because we wiped out OUR indigenous peoples doesn't mean we should stand by while OTHER countries attempt to do the same thing NOW.
And, no, I wasn't necessarily talking about Tibet. Just an example.
Oh, and by the way, speaking about racism: I assume you can speak Chinese. Why don't you start up casual conversations with taxi drivers and people on the street, in parks etc and find out their ideas about Africans, hell, you can ask a good number of Chinese their opinions about the Japanese and they'll tell you they HATE the evil demons. Perhaps it has changed in the ten years since I lived in China, but at that time many, many Chinese thought that Africans living in Beijing were lusty animals who couldn't control themselves and would have sex with Chinese women the minute they had an opportunity. I care a lot about China and had many friends there, but I have to say they were the most racist people I had ever met in my life. Should we smile and excuse them because we used to have slaves? We can understand the reasons why they might have certain opinions, but that doesn't mean we can't say WHOA, that's not acceptable in international discourse in 2004.
Point about the beard well taken. However, did he usually wear a beard? Not that I know. So the importance of the beard in this case was that (a) he wasn't able to shave down in a hole, and (b) it probably worked somewhat as a disguise. How do you know, for example, he didn't ask to be shaved himself?