You make a very valid point. The marginalization is more a result of lack of social skills (either not knowing them, or thinking they are too stupid to worry about and ignoring socialization). But it is also true that intelligence, by itself, can marginalize. In grade school I remember being shocked when someone called me "Mr. Encyclopedia". I had good social skills, was extremely popular, and yet because I had above average intellgence I stood out, and in this one kid's mind I stood out in a bad way. It was a way of cutting me down to size, something that never occurred to me having always viewed intelligence as an unalloyed good thing.
I still do. What that kid said threw me, but I reconciled it and learned that some people will be like that. And I repeat, I had good social skills. I hung around with the geeks in high school, and was into computers, but was never truly one of them. Mostly because I was mainstreamed socially. I could hang out with anyone, but found the geeks the most fun to be with because they were smart like me. So my point is that what you say is true, but it is also true that even if you are socially adept, you can still find yourself set apart simply because you are smart.
We all hate advertising, yadda, yadda, yadda. Ignore that. Think of the big picture here:
"Paul Myers, chief executive of Wippit - a peer to peer service which provides paid-for music downloads - believes it is time advertisers stopped providing 'oxygen' for companies that support illegal downloading.
"You may be surprised to know that current advertisers on the most popular peer to peer service eDonkey who now steadfastly support copyright theft with real cash money include Nat West, Vodafone, O2, First Direct, NTL, and Renault," he said in an open letter to the British Phonographic Industry last month.
He urged people to follow his lead and 'dump' brands associated with companies such as eDonkey.
'Networks like eDonkey, Kazaa and Grokster facilitate illegal filesharing. The BPI strongly believes that any reputable company should look carefully at the support they are giving these networks through their advertising revenue," it said in a statement. "
Self-serving words aside, he's got a point. If advertisers want to place themselves on P2P networks, doesn't that legitimize them? The next time Congress tries to declare P2P an outlaw technology, just say, "But it's got mainstream advertising! It must be legitimate. Money makes the world go round, right Congressman? You wouldn't want to outlaw an outlet for advertising dollars, would you?"
Relax, nothing to see here. This is just a test to show they can move things forward another inch toward their 1000-mile goal. By moving that inch, they get to apply for more money, which is the real point of this.
""It showed they work," Kenneth Englade, an agency spokesman, said of the laser's six identical, pickup-truck-sized, modules linked to fire as a single unit. "The rest is fine-tuning."
For "fine-tuning" read: "everything the system is supposed to ultimately do." It's like writing the first 10 lines of code in a large project and saying "the rest is fine-tuning."
"Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester under former President Clinton and a critic of early missile defense deployment plans, described the test on Wednesday as very important to people working on the program.
"They deserve a lot of credit for having gotten this far," he said in a telephone interview. "But they've still got a long way to go" to demonstrate shoot-down capability."
That's all this is, something important to the people working on the program. They want more funding. But as far as actually shooting anything down, well that's an entirely different matter:
"Among other technical challenges, Coyle said, engineers must figure out ways to fire the laser for the longer time needed to zap a missile without damaging the optics through which the beam passes -- a kind of technical Catch-22."
Details, details. But give us money and we'll happily explore the Catch-22 for a lot longer!
I don't understand. Why ask people to keep a diary? Isn't the whole idea of a DVR that your viewing habits are being digitally tracked automatically? A diary is weak since it depends on people keeping up with it, filling it out accurately, and so on. So why use that here? Just get the cable companies to release the data that they must be collecting in the aggregate (if not in the specific, for all I know).
Or are there rules against doing that with digital subscribers? I've assumed from the moment I got a DVR from Time Warner that if they wanted to they could track my viewing habits on a second-by-second basis, which beats the pants off any diary method.
And yes, Time Warner has by now caught on to how I like old movies and Star Trek...
Not only are Legos an ideal gift for kids, but dad will still enjoy them as well, at least Slashdot dads. I have fond memories of the monstrosities I created with Legos as a kid, mostly of the How-Baroque-a-Car-Can-I-Make-And-Still-Have-It-Gli de? variety. Lots of odds and ends sticking every which way, yet always coming down to the same level as the rest and with a wheel underneath. Both those things were ugly -- I loved 'em!
Put me in a room with Legos to this day and you know what? I'm gonna play.
Very well replied, this being slashdot and all. But to be honest, I wasn't thinking of your episode. I was thinking of Marta in Whom Gods Destroy, even though Kirk didn't actually sleep with her. But given half a chance...
Hmm...my fault. The header to my comment was supposed to read: "Balanced" is not equal to Accurate, but I guess it stripped the symbols I used instead of the words "is not equal to."
Here's a typical mainstream news organization's version of a balanced story in today's world:
"Senator A called upon the nation to do X. Said the Senator, "Lie 1, lie 2, lie 3." In response, Senator B said this was all wrong. As he put it, "Lie 4, lie 5, lie 6."
That's balanced, all right, but hardly accurate. All the journalist did was repeat lies from both sides. How is that supposed to help the reader, other than to let them know the latest "talking points" (that is, lies) from both sides of the aisle? But as soon as you suggest that the journalist point out the lies, you get drowned in cries of "partisanship!" Uh, yeah, right. That's exactly what we DO want: Someone partisan for truth and accuracy, and against lies and spin.
Oh sure, truth is subjective at times, so you can go in circles arguing whose truth to espouse. That's OK, you can get various takes on the truth of a situation from various rags. Read them all and you'll get a much clearer picture than we get in today's world where the mainstream media has been cowed into not pushing anything other than the lies from both sides.
"Fun With Prime Numbers"?! Hey! That infringes upon Fun With Headlines my intellectual property! I'll sue!
Naaaah. I'll let them get away with it by leaving this blatant advertising instead.
(Hint to the clue-challenged: I'm joking. I am not in favor of IP as a concept, which is why I give my feeble jokes away for free, which is about twice what they're worth)
Ah, got you at last, ZiakII! You finally show up on our radar screens, and our agents will be at your door within minutes. Please cooperate fully. Thank you.
Makes sense from the company's perspective
on
Employee Stock Options?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
In the dot-com boom, stock options were thrown around like crazy. I had 3000 of them myself, once upon a career, and on that job I was just a peon. Didn't wind up being worth anything because they kept delaying and delaying until the bust took over and made it a moot point. Then the company went under, making the point even mooter. (Mootest?)
Just as companies had to give in on a lot of employee demands back when you could flip jobs as easily as a hamburger, once the boom was over they had control again. And if there's one thing you can count on in life, a company with control will use it:
"Many of these companies, looking for ways to reward service or pay executives their just perks, are favoring restricted stock, according to a study released last month. Restricted stock comes in a number of forms and with different names, but all versions require continued service by the employee. Stocks or cash tied to business performance are gaining prominence."
Yup, it's the old 'performance' game. "Sorry, Smithers, you did good work, but the market hit us hard this year so your bonus will consist of this Burger King coupon and a pack of Doritos. Good job, son." When companies can tie things to performance, it's good for the company. No random stock giveways so that even the slackers cash out while the company isn't making a dime. Now if the company does well, you can do well, unless you're poor Smithers.
"A U.S. accounting standard that requires companies to book stock options as an expense is expected to be made final before the end of the year by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). "
Aha! The other reason! Yeppers, one other immutable law of nature: A company will never do anything that costs them money. Everything they do, even the seemingly nice things, is designed to make them money. So stock options are costing them more? Buh-bye stock options.
" This review on the blog Backwards City has an interesting take on the Nietzchien implications of the movie."
Very interesting. So in the theaters we have The Incredibles preaching the Nietzchien idea that the superior among us will have noble motives, and on TV we have Enterprise with the Brent Spiner trilogy of stories dealing with survivors of the Eugenics Wars, where the idea is that the superior will try to dominate the weak. One show says the superiors will help us, and another show says the superiors will try to destroy us.
"The fact that sad little fucks like you are foaming at the mouth and pissing your pink little panties over Apple's astounding success in the digitial music is simply wonderful."
I provide some discussion, and I get this back. Love it. Ever heard of projection? Cuz you just demonstrated a textbook example of it.
"And to top it off: Ipod is to music what MS is to software."
Whoa, that's some anti-Apple prejudice you got going on there. Let's see, for your statement to be based on facts instead of emotions, Apple would have to be threatening "to cut off the oxygen supply" of companies who sell competing mp3 players, charging companies more money unless they put "works best with iPod" logos on their web sites and catalogs, and actively trying to kill off competing firms.
Don't confuse market share with predatory practices. You can achieve 90% market share the right way (Apple), or the wrong way (MS).
Completely wrong. Try going to a Kerry rally. Now try going to a Bush rally. Take notes how you are treated when you ask for tickets while wearing a button for the other guy at the time. Then you'll see that what the Bush crew is doing is totally unprecedented and scary.
This from the same campaign that applies loyalty tests to people who want to hear the President speak in person. Not a Bush supporter? Go away. This is a brilliant way to keep the President in an echo chamber of his own cheering. He never gets to be challenged, and when it finally happens after years of Yes Men behavior, we see what happened in the debates. He was not prepared to be challenged.
So this web site nonsense is probably more of the same. "Non Americans? Who needs 'em!"
I've read that about her in the past, and I suppose it's true. That illustrates the problem with corporate spokespersons: What they say is essentially meaningless, a mere echo chamber of whatever will make their stockholders the most money. Does the spokesperson believe what he or she is saying? Not necessarily. Is what the spokesperson saying true? Maybe, maybe not. So of what value is it? Not much. Just a way to peer into the soul-dead eyes of the corporate persona.
I'm happy for her that she is free of that deadening job. May she have a happier life now that she doesn't have to shill for the most clueless and mean-spirited bunch of idiotic CEOs ever to have the privilege of watching their businesses eventually go up in flames while the world dances in delight around the edges of the flaming embers.
I personally hate Microsoft in every way possible, and refuse to use their products. 100% refusal.
"a cunning plan to distract 19-year-old Blake from his Firefox duties, involving free tickets to a tropical island with Natalie Portman"
As I was saying--pffft....Huh? Wha..? Tropical island? Uh, Natalie Portman there? Um.....
Microsoft makes the finest software I have ever seen. The quality that goes into their development process is self-evident. Anyone who says otherwise clearly has a chip on their shoulder and cannot be taken seriously -- one sec, Natalie, I'm just writing my daily Microsoft love note on/. as per the contract. I'll be with you in the hammock in just a sec -- Yes, Microsoft is clearly in the right, and a great innovator to boot!
"Slashdot, since they made what I consider the unfortunate editorial decision to give the story more widespread readership than it otherwise would have received."
Here is what I think Slashdot did wrong yesterday when it first reported the O'Gara story. Remember,/. has great control over how a story is reported. It is NOT just putting up a link and that's it. A headline is created by/., and the editor posting the story has the ability to add editorial comments to what the submitter added. Finally, they usually get many simultaneous submissions, which means the one submission they picked is the one they think has the most interesting wording or the best links or something they feel makes it most post-worthy. With that in mind, let's see how/. handled this story yesterday:
The submission came from Ghostx13, and here is what he or she wrote that caught/.'s eye: "A story over at Linuxworld states that IBM has been less than forthcoming with its bits and pieces of source code SCO is demanding. SCO is alleging in its 3rd Amended Complaint that 'IBM put SCO-owned SVR4 code in System 3-based AIX for its proprietary Power chip architecture.' The problem? IBM 'can't find' that source code. Does IBM have something to hide?"
OK, is this slanted? Yes. The loaded question at the end, the complete acceptance of the underlying Linuxworld story facts, all leads an air of acceptance of these facts. 'Does IBM have something to hide?" That's a laughable question given what the facts turned out to be, but it's a question that, left unchallenged, serves the wishes of SCO very well. That is precisely the sort of uneasy feeling they want us to have about IBM.
Did CowboyNeal add any editorial comments to this? No, he did not. On the one hand, that's good because he didn't choose to add any slanted thoughts to the already slanted submission. On the other hand, he didn't issue any caution about the submission as/. sometimes does. That, in itself, is an editorial decision that amounts to him implying that the submission stands on its own. Because they chose that submission over any of the others, it implies they were satisfied with it as it was.
Now here is the title that/. added to the story: "IBM Tells SCO Court It Can't Find AIX-on-Power Code." Well, that is no longer true, is it, even if you read the O'Gara story at face value. So the headline refers to past circumstances that the actual submission contradicts. Again, an editorial slant that makes IBM look worse than the facts show.
Finally, go back and look at the comments to that story and see how many people contradict the idea of the story, point out the true facts, etc. So yeah, I do think/. made an "unfortunate editorial decision" to the story. They didn't just give a link, but they made a series of editorial decisions that gave extra weight to that link, weight it did not deserve. Did CowboyNeal do this out of ignorance of the facts? Probably. He may not have had the time to research this. Was it deliberate, to stir up the readership and get lots of angry comments? I have no idea. But it wasn't a good editorial decision, IMO.
Slashdot Mirror
I still do. What that kid said threw me, but I reconciled it and learned that some people will be like that. And I repeat, I had good social skills. I hung around with the geeks in high school, and was into computers, but was never truly one of them. Mostly because I was mainstreamed socially. I could hang out with anyone, but found the geeks the most fun to be with because they were smart like me. So my point is that what you say is true, but it is also true that even if you are socially adept, you can still find yourself set apart simply because you are smart.
No. This is not that generalized. This is specific to science fiction. And it's true.
I would say it's the opposite, actually: Being intelligent makes you more likely to find science fiction interesting.
"the fanatical fans are probably just as stupid as the cheesehead,"
Just as fanatical, perhaps, but probably not as stupid.
"and guess what, the fans in general have the same intellegence level as anyone else."
Unlikely. Geeks tend to be smarter than average. It's part of what marginalizes them in the first place.
"Paul Myers, chief executive of Wippit - a peer to peer service which provides paid-for music downloads - believes it is time advertisers stopped providing 'oxygen' for companies that support illegal downloading.
"You may be surprised to know that current advertisers on the most popular peer to peer service eDonkey who now steadfastly support copyright theft with real cash money include Nat West, Vodafone, O2, First Direct, NTL, and Renault," he said in an open letter to the British Phonographic Industry last month.
He urged people to follow his lead and 'dump' brands associated with companies such as eDonkey.
'Networks like eDonkey, Kazaa and Grokster facilitate illegal filesharing. The BPI strongly believes that any reputable company should look carefully at the support they are giving these networks through their advertising revenue," it said in a statement. "
Self-serving words aside, he's got a point. If advertisers want to place themselves on P2P networks, doesn't that legitimize them? The next time Congress tries to declare P2P an outlaw technology, just say, "But it's got mainstream advertising! It must be legitimate. Money makes the world go round, right Congressman? You wouldn't want to outlaw an outlet for advertising dollars, would you?"
Absolutely, and then you get to wade through the popcorn while "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" drifts through the air. Top that, Boeing!
""It showed they work," Kenneth Englade, an agency spokesman, said of the laser's six identical, pickup-truck-sized, modules linked to fire as a single unit. "The rest is fine-tuning."
For "fine-tuning" read: "everything the system is supposed to ultimately do." It's like writing the first 10 lines of code in a large project and saying "the rest is fine-tuning."
"Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester under former President Clinton and a critic of early missile defense deployment plans, described the test on Wednesday as very important to people working on the program.
"They deserve a lot of credit for having gotten this far," he said in a telephone interview. "But they've still got a long way to go" to demonstrate shoot-down capability."
That's all this is, something important to the people working on the program. They want more funding. But as far as actually shooting anything down, well that's an entirely different matter:
"Among other technical challenges, Coyle said, engineers must figure out ways to fire the laser for the longer time needed to zap a missile without damaging the optics through which the beam passes -- a kind of technical Catch-22."
Details, details. But give us money and we'll happily explore the Catch-22 for a lot longer!
Or are there rules against doing that with digital subscribers? I've assumed from the moment I got a DVR from Time Warner that if they wanted to they could track my viewing habits on a second-by-second basis, which beats the pants off any diary method.
And yes, Time Warner has by now caught on to how I like old movies and Star Trek...
Put me in a room with Legos to this day and you know what? I'm gonna play.
Very well replied, this being slashdot and all. But to be honest, I wasn't thinking of your episode. I was thinking of Marta in Whom Gods Destroy, even though Kirk didn't actually sleep with her. But given half a chance...
William Shatner can then swoop...in, crack... some skulls, and save the... day.
(Followed by sleeping with the green-skinned alien slave girl)
Hmm...my fault. The header to my comment was supposed to read: "Balanced" is not equal to Accurate, but I guess it stripped the symbols I used instead of the words "is not equal to."
"Senator A called upon the nation to do X. Said the Senator, "Lie 1, lie 2, lie 3." In response, Senator B said this was all wrong. As he put it, "Lie 4, lie 5, lie 6."
That's balanced, all right, but hardly accurate. All the journalist did was repeat lies from both sides. How is that supposed to help the reader, other than to let them know the latest "talking points" (that is, lies) from both sides of the aisle? But as soon as you suggest that the journalist point out the lies, you get drowned in cries of "partisanship!" Uh, yeah, right. That's exactly what we DO want: Someone partisan for truth and accuracy, and against lies and spin.
Oh sure, truth is subjective at times, so you can go in circles arguing whose truth to espouse. That's OK, you can get various takes on the truth of a situation from various rags. Read them all and you'll get a much clearer picture than we get in today's world where the mainstream media has been cowed into not pushing anything other than the lies from both sides.
You and me, we'll form a class action suit. Profit, baby!
Naaaah. I'll let them get away with it by leaving this blatant advertising instead.
(Hint to the clue-challenged: I'm joking. I am not in favor of IP as a concept, which is why I give my feeble jokes away for free, which is about twice what they're worth)
Ah, got you at last, ZiakII! You finally show up on our radar screens, and our agents will be at your door within minutes. Please cooperate fully. Thank you.
Just as companies had to give in on a lot of employee demands back when you could flip jobs as easily as a hamburger, once the boom was over they had control again. And if there's one thing you can count on in life, a company with control will use it:
"Many of these companies, looking for ways to reward service or pay executives their just perks, are favoring restricted stock, according to a study released last month. Restricted stock comes in a number of forms and with different names, but all versions require continued service by the employee. Stocks or cash tied to business performance are gaining prominence."
Yup, it's the old 'performance' game. "Sorry, Smithers, you did good work, but the market hit us hard this year so your bonus will consist of this Burger King coupon and a pack of Doritos. Good job, son." When companies can tie things to performance, it's good for the company. No random stock giveways so that even the slackers cash out while the company isn't making a dime. Now if the company does well, you can do well, unless you're poor Smithers.
"A U.S. accounting standard that requires companies to book stock options as an expense is expected to be made final before the end of the year by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). "
Aha! The other reason! Yeppers, one other immutable law of nature: A company will never do anything that costs them money. Everything they do, even the seemingly nice things, is designed to make them money. So stock options are costing them more? Buh-bye stock options.
Very interesting. So in the theaters we have The Incredibles preaching the Nietzchien idea that the superior among us will have noble motives, and on TV we have Enterprise with the Brent Spiner trilogy of stories dealing with survivors of the Eugenics Wars, where the idea is that the superior will try to dominate the weak. One show says the superiors will help us, and another show says the superiors will try to destroy us.
Heh, fun times for geeks and philosophy majors.
I provide some discussion, and I get this back. Love it. Ever heard of projection? Cuz you just demonstrated a textbook example of it.
Whoa, that's some anti-Apple prejudice you got going on there. Let's see, for your statement to be based on facts instead of emotions, Apple would have to be threatening "to cut off the oxygen supply" of companies who sell competing mp3 players, charging companies more money unless they put "works best with iPod" logos on their web sites and catalogs, and actively trying to kill off competing firms.
Don't confuse market share with predatory practices. You can achieve 90% market share the right way (Apple), or the wrong way (MS).
Well, now we know why you have so many ex's.
Completely wrong. Try going to a Kerry rally. Now try going to a Bush rally. Take notes how you are treated when you ask for tickets while wearing a button for the other guy at the time. Then you'll see that what the Bush crew is doing is totally unprecedented and scary.
So this web site nonsense is probably more of the same. "Non Americans? Who needs 'em!"
I'm happy for her that she is free of that deadening job. May she have a happier life now that she doesn't have to shill for the most clueless and mean-spirited bunch of idiotic CEOs ever to have the privilege of watching their businesses eventually go up in flames while the world dances in delight around the edges of the flaming embers.
"a cunning plan to distract 19-year-old Blake from his Firefox duties, involving free tickets to a tropical island with Natalie Portman"
As I was saying--pffft....Huh? Wha..? Tropical island? Uh, Natalie Portman there? Um.....
Microsoft makes the finest software I have ever seen. The quality that goes into their development process is self-evident. Anyone who says otherwise clearly has a chip on their shoulder and cannot be taken seriously -- one sec, Natalie, I'm just writing my daily Microsoft love note on /. as per the contract. I'll be with you in the hammock in just a sec -- Yes, Microsoft is clearly in the right, and a great innovator to boot!
Here is what I think Slashdot did wrong yesterday when it first reported the O'Gara story. Remember, /. has great control over how a story is reported. It is NOT just putting up a link and that's it. A headline is created by /., and the editor posting the story has the ability to add editorial comments to what the submitter added. Finally, they usually get many simultaneous submissions, which means the one submission they picked is the one they think has the most interesting wording or the best links or something they feel makes it most post-worthy. With that in mind, let's see how /. handled this story yesterday:
The submission came from Ghostx13, and here is what he or she wrote that caught /.'s eye: "A story over at Linuxworld states that IBM has been less than forthcoming with its bits and pieces of source code SCO is demanding. SCO is alleging in its 3rd Amended Complaint that 'IBM put SCO-owned SVR4 code in System 3-based AIX for its proprietary Power chip architecture.' The problem? IBM 'can't find' that source code. Does IBM have something to hide?"
OK, is this slanted? Yes. The loaded question at the end, the complete acceptance of the underlying Linuxworld story facts, all leads an air of acceptance of these facts. 'Does IBM have something to hide?" That's a laughable question given what the facts turned out to be, but it's a question that, left unchallenged, serves the wishes of SCO very well. That is precisely the sort of uneasy feeling they want us to have about IBM.
Did CowboyNeal add any editorial comments to this? No, he did not. On the one hand, that's good because he didn't choose to add any slanted thoughts to the already slanted submission. On the other hand, he didn't issue any caution about the submission as /. sometimes does. That, in itself, is an editorial decision that amounts to him implying that the submission stands on its own. Because they chose that submission over any of the others, it implies they were satisfied with it as it was.
Now here is the title that /. added to the story: "IBM Tells SCO Court It Can't Find AIX-on-Power Code." Well, that is no longer true, is it, even if you read the O'Gara story at face value. So the headline refers to past circumstances that the actual submission contradicts. Again, an editorial slant that makes IBM look worse than the facts show.
Finally, go back and look at the comments to that story and see how many people contradict the idea of the story, point out the true facts, etc. So yeah, I do think /. made an "unfortunate editorial decision" to the story. They didn't just give a link, but they made a series of editorial decisions that gave extra weight to that link, weight it did not deserve. Did CowboyNeal do this out of ignorance of the facts? Probably. He may not have had the time to research this. Was it deliberate, to stir up the readership and get lots of angry comments? I have no idea. But it wasn't a good editorial decision, IMO.