I still roll my eyes every time I see a colleague write something like "lol" - usually people well beyond my mid thirties. Someone using SMS-speak wouldn't even get tolerance. That is a person I would do all I could to avoid communicating with.
According to journalists, fucking everyone under thirty. They like to claim that if you want to lure young people to work for your company and have them actually be valuable to your company, you need to cave into their demands, like not using the phone or email or instant messaging or IRC (that's all for old people). Instead, use SMS, twitter, and facebook messaging. Also, don't expect them to spend all their work time at work doing work. Today's work-force demands to be able to facebook and twitter and instagram and Angry Birds it at the office. If you don't "get that", then you're probably old and blah blah blah.
People saying that businesses need to "adapt" and that "society changes" need to get a fucking grip. Twerking is a popular thing among young people of the last few years. That's fine, I guess. But that doesn't justify doing it at work. So is netflix. I wouldn't tolerate people sitting around watching netflix at the office. When you're at work and in a professional environment, fucking be that. THAT doesn't drastically change from one generation to another.
As someone in their thirties, my advice to those in their twenties would be to put the fucking phone down, log out of facebook, and try doing some work. It goes a fuck of a long way toward, you know, staying fucking employed.
You're old enough to be my dad, but I agree - I hate using the phone. For several reasons. The first is that in a highly technical environment, it is easier to follow along in an email. It is more precise. Second, in the technical world, you may have to deal with people who have very strong accents more than half of your time. I know it is a personal failure, but I have a very difficult time with exceedingly heavy accents of all kinds. Not to mention, a long of the clients I work with are in departments overseas, so I am trying to decipher what is being said through both a very heavy accent *and* an awful phone connection.
As for the email stuff... "mimic the other person's behavior" has less to do with "how to deal with the elderly people at least 30 or years old" and more to do with "how to be a slick salesman snake type person" or "how to be a sociopath". People care more about the content and efficacy of your email than fucking salutations (though, for fuck's sake, can we get back to inline quoting and commenting?!).
Most importantly of all is that Gen x/y are not "digital natives". This is an idiotic parroted line of bullshit that needs to die. This is no different than idiots who talk about how technologically inclined children are, because they can use an iPad by the age of three. Simply watching netflix on ten different devices doesn't make you a technological-fucking-anything. This goes not just for five year olds today, but also millennials, gen x/y and baby boomers. There are highly technical people in all groups (the most used elements of today's technology was developed by the oldest among us -- many so old that they're not even alive any more!) and highly ignorant people in all of the groups. I mean, shit, I know far more gen x'ers and gen y'ers who don't know a lick of code, couldn't build their own computer, couldn't avoid a virus on their machine for the life of them . . . than I know who *can* do those things.
Of course, I guess I'm not part of this discussion, anyway, because I was born in 1977 -- so I am too old for GEN Y (1980+) and too young for GEN X (up to 1975).
The thing is, none of the advice offered really means anything. It's all common fucking sense. If you have made it through some formal education system and entered the professional world, you sure as fuck better comprehend and understand these basic common sense things or you're going to fail. I mean, this is not rocket science. Understanding to write and communicate like a professional and to work hard and to stop being self-absorbed whiny social-networking bitches and get down to doing actual work is not on par with, say, learning how to conduct business with Japanese companies or something else, where there is an actual cultural difference that stretches well-beyond the common sense of one society or another.
I know plenty of people in their 20s who understand this. I know people in their late teens that understand this. If you're in either of those age groups and you don't "get it", then the right thing for you to do is go flip burgers and let these other young people take the jobs you were just going to be a warm-body in.
Sorry, but the terrorists already have invaded every level of government in America:
Terrorist:a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims.
If that doesn't accurately account for nearly every bureaucrat in the government -- the NSA, CIA, DHS, TSA, military, Pentagon, congressman, senator, mayor, governor, DoD, DoE, police, RNC/DNC -- then what the fuck does?
I'll take awkward people and situations over people practiced to honed efficiency for maximal human interaction by a machine, any day. One is real. The other is fake. One is someone with a bit of oddness to them (or even just inefficiency, I suppose) and the other is a glossy car salesmen. One is honest human interaction and the other is a practiced manipulative sociopath.
I only see a couple places where this would actually be useful without being gross. One is where people have very severe communication problems that keep them from functioning. I'm not talking about people who don't constantly stare in your eyeballs or don't choose the right words to get the most maximum buy-in from the listener to their ideas. I'm talking everything from people who don't have the capability to distinguish emotion on another person's face or who are so shy that they can't step outside their house and maybe practicing on a machine will help them. The other is familiarizing yourself with another culture. For example, if you're going to be doing a lot of business with Japanese companies or are moving to Japan. A system like this could be potentially very useful in acclimating yourself to Japanese customs and expectations so that you can handle situations that are not awkward, but literally completely foreign to you.
I abhor the idea that we'd want to put everyone through a computerized system that essentially teaches every human how to glad-hand each other.
Now, instead of just communicating with each other -- sometimes awkwardly, I guess -- humans are going to be taught by a computer how to talk to other humans.
If try to get what's best for your kid, you're an evil person and won't be able to get what's best for your kid . . . ?
Uh . . .
Also, public school is rife with violence, teachers banging their students, ancient text books, teachers and systems that don't care and let intelligent students fall through the gaps of mundanity, teachers and administrators that allow violence to happen under their nose, because they don't want to be involved, teaching to tests instead of educating students...
If your local school stinks, by the time you quit your job and dedicate your life full-time to improving your local school district, your child will have graduated (or dropped out). Not to mention, working to improve your local school district is about as fantastical an idea as "instead of doing anything else to improve your life, focus all your time on voting, because you can totally change the system, brothers and sisters!".
Anyway, why are we even discussing some idiot's blog post on Slate of all fucking places?
America's leaders just got a massive secret erection at the idea of doing this, themselves.
The first step, they've been pushing for ages. Control who can become a "journalist". Then license them. Then punish anyone "practicing journalism without a license".
Maybe, but not his Miranda rights, since Miranda wasn't in America and while the UK does have sort of "rights" to be read upon arrest, they are not "Miranda Rights".:)
To be fair, EA doesn't really make that many games worth playing, unless you're into facebook, ios, or sports. I was thinking about what I would miss out on if I were to swear off EA, entirely... it turned out -- not very much.
For example, in all of 2012, the only games they put out that were not facebook/web/ios/f2p, super casual (stuff for your mom), or sports were Kingdoms of Amalur (basically a failure), NFS: Most Wanted (popular, online was dead shortly after release), Syndicate (decent shooter, unfaithful reboot), Medal of Honor: Warfighter (generic as fuck), and Mass Effect 3 (meh).
None of those (except maybe ME3 if you played ME1/2) are really "must haves/plays".
With the shitty changes they've made to BF3 to ruin the sense of community and individuality of servers and fragmenting the shit out of everything and turning the $50 game into a $60 game, then a $110+ game with all the "premium annual subscription" type of bullshit, even BF4 won't be something I feel is a "must buy/play".
EA is almost entirely, therefore, a casual/sports publisher... and since I care very little for either of those . . . I can just discount their works wholecloth.
Exactly. If you were dumb enough to still buy Sim City on MAC after you saw how awful the game was (inherently, within its design; having nothing to do with the platform it was launched on), then I do not feel any sympathy for you, whatsoever.
It doesn't really matter, because private sector is our only option. Adjusted for inflation, we spent more in each year of our last dozen years of military actions than on NASA in 55 years. Doubling NASA's budget seems trivial. Hell, tripling or quadrupling it (especially in consideration for the kinds of returns we get, technologically and economically across all of society) seems insignificant.
But it isn't going to happen.
If we wait for a government and a citizenry that is more compelled by blowing up brown people overseas and pushing authoritarian and corporate agendas, it is never going to happen.
If we wait for a government and a citizenry that doesn't want to spend the money to cure cancer, cure aids, feed starving people -- all things that are entirely reasonable with fractions of the funding we spend on some of the most controversial and possibly unnecessary expenses in this country -- then what fucking hope have we of ever finding the progressive spirit for human advancement within our collective selves for funding space efforts?
No, but they *did* convince people that they were "being rescued" by the end of an assault rifle barrel when being forced to stay in their homes and then forced at gunpoint to get out of their homes for mandatory searches.
Probably part of the elite cabal of sex trafficking that is so popular among European politicians and aristocrats. The top freaks in power in America want to get in on some of that.
Fool me once (Iraq, Afghanistan), shame on - shame on you. Fool me (Lybia, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon and so on down the road) -- you can't get fooled again.
So let's wait for a UN mandate and then act on that. And let's wait until there is verification that this is actually happening. John Kerry said something to the effect of "You can't deny that these horrible atrocities of chemical warfare on their own people are happening -- we have all seen the evidence first hand, on social media".
Sorry, but youtube is not "witnessing evidence first hand". I saw a video of a man flying with man-made wings, lifting off the ground and high into the air. That didn't mean it wasn't fake (it was fake).
Let's also not buy into this "it's for humanitarian purposes!' bullshit, so readily. Why does our government care about humanitarian military efforts over 300 dead people when it is in a high-energy resource center, but not when it is hundreds of thousands of people in Rwanda, Darfur, and many other places?
This isn't even a disguised agenda. When Obama hagiographer, Gwen Ifill, interviewed him recently, he stated the following. Notice that he throws absolutely fucking everything but the kitchen sink out there to compel America to throw in on Syria . . . but he very clearly states one of the reasons is to maintain the clear flow of energy through the region. You know, save people from chemical warfare, abuse of women and children, freedom, safety, opposition of authoritarian regimes (hah!) and... energy.
Obama: And so we don’t have good options, great options, for the region. But what I am clear about is that if the United States stands by its core values and its core interests; if we’re very clear about making sure that we’re stopping terrorist attacks against the United States; if we are very clear about our, you know, commitment to the safety and security of Israel; if we are clear about the free flow of energy throughout the region that affects the entire global economy; but also if we’re clear about our values and that we believe in inclusive governments, that we believe in the protection of minority rights, that we believe in women’s rights, that we believe that over time it’s better for governments to be representative of the will of their people, as opposed to being, you know, dictated to by authoritarian governments; if we are consistent in those principles, then eventually, I think, we’ll be better off. But it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to have some very difficult problems in — in the meantime.
When Bush did it, Obama (rightfully) stated "The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
And Biden stated "I teach separation of powers in Constitutional law. This is something I know. So I brought a group of Constitutional scholars together to write a piece that I'm going to deliver to the whole United States Senate pointing out that the president HAS NO CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY to take this country to war against a country of 70 million people unless we're attacked or unless there is proof that we are about to be attacked. And if he does, I would move to impeach him."
After the bullshit the government tried to stir up in/over North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and so on the last few years -- I wondered when these comments were finally going to catch up with them. Tonight, I saw them in The Atlantic, even -- which tells me they are not going to remain forgotten and ignored, except by the politicians, themselves.
Their statements and positions were right, when they stated them against Bush. They were right when they ran for office on these statements and promises to the American people. They are still the right positions to maintain.
We'd spend it bailing out corporations or fighting for corporate interests overseas, in another sandlot where we justify our actions with some manufactured humanitarian atrocity.
And you're still right, because at least with either of those things, the actions are not directly against the population and citizens of this government, itself.
Not a chance in hell. There have been incidents of people being held accountable for operating a Tor node. I believe they've also been held responsible for the data on/transferred through them. If not in the US, then certainly other countries, which means there's no reason it would not happen here.
Slashdot Mirror
I still roll my eyes every time I see a colleague write something like "lol" - usually people well beyond my mid thirties. Someone using SMS-speak wouldn't even get tolerance. That is a person I would do all I could to avoid communicating with.
According to journalists, fucking everyone under thirty. They like to claim that if you want to lure young people to work for your company and have them actually be valuable to your company, you need to cave into their demands, like not using the phone or email or instant messaging or IRC (that's all for old people). Instead, use SMS, twitter, and facebook messaging. Also, don't expect them to spend all their work time at work doing work. Today's work-force demands to be able to facebook and twitter and instagram and Angry Birds it at the office. If you don't "get that", then you're probably old and blah blah blah.
People saying that businesses need to "adapt" and that "society changes" need to get a fucking grip. Twerking is a popular thing among young people of the last few years. That's fine, I guess. But that doesn't justify doing it at work. So is netflix. I wouldn't tolerate people sitting around watching netflix at the office. When you're at work and in a professional environment, fucking be that. THAT doesn't drastically change from one generation to another.
But you realize that GEN Y is now just shy of being middle aged, at 33, right?
As someone in their thirties, my advice to those in their twenties would be to put the fucking phone down, log out of facebook, and try doing some work. It goes a fuck of a long way toward, you know, staying fucking employed.
You're old enough to be my dad, but I agree - I hate using the phone. For several reasons. The first is that in a highly technical environment, it is easier to follow along in an email. It is more precise. Second, in the technical world, you may have to deal with people who have very strong accents more than half of your time. I know it is a personal failure, but I have a very difficult time with exceedingly heavy accents of all kinds. Not to mention, a long of the clients I work with are in departments overseas, so I am trying to decipher what is being said through both a very heavy accent *and* an awful phone connection.
As for the email stuff... "mimic the other person's behavior" has less to do with "how to deal with the elderly people at least 30 or years old" and more to do with "how to be a slick salesman snake type person" or "how to be a sociopath". People care more about the content and efficacy of your email than fucking salutations (though, for fuck's sake, can we get back to inline quoting and commenting?!).
Most importantly of all is that Gen x/y are not "digital natives". This is an idiotic parroted line of bullshit that needs to die. This is no different than idiots who talk about how technologically inclined children are, because they can use an iPad by the age of three. Simply watching netflix on ten different devices doesn't make you a technological-fucking-anything. This goes not just for five year olds today, but also millennials, gen x/y and baby boomers. There are highly technical people in all groups (the most used elements of today's technology was developed by the oldest among us -- many so old that they're not even alive any more!) and highly ignorant people in all of the groups. I mean, shit, I know far more gen x'ers and gen y'ers who don't know a lick of code, couldn't build their own computer, couldn't avoid a virus on their machine for the life of them . . . than I know who *can* do those things.
Of course, I guess I'm not part of this discussion, anyway, because I was born in 1977 -- so I am too old for GEN Y (1980+) and too young for GEN X (up to 1975).
The thing is, none of the advice offered really means anything. It's all common fucking sense. If you have made it through some formal education system and entered the professional world, you sure as fuck better comprehend and understand these basic common sense things or you're going to fail. I mean, this is not rocket science. Understanding to write and communicate like a professional and to work hard and to stop being self-absorbed whiny social-networking bitches and get down to doing actual work is not on par with, say, learning how to conduct business with Japanese companies or something else, where there is an actual cultural difference that stretches well-beyond the common sense of one society or another.
I know plenty of people in their 20s who understand this. I know people in their late teens that understand this. If you're in either of those age groups and you don't "get it", then the right thing for you to do is go flip burgers and let these other young people take the jobs you were just going to be a warm-body in.
Sorry, but the terrorists already have invaded every level of government in America:
Terrorist: a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims.
If that doesn't accurately account for nearly every bureaucrat in the government -- the NSA, CIA, DHS, TSA, military, Pentagon, congressman, senator, mayor, governor, DoD, DoE, police, RNC/DNC -- then what the fuck does?
I'll take awkward people and situations over people practiced to honed efficiency for maximal human interaction by a machine, any day. One is real. The other is fake. One is someone with a bit of oddness to them (or even just inefficiency, I suppose) and the other is a glossy car salesmen. One is honest human interaction and the other is a practiced manipulative sociopath.
I only see a couple places where this would actually be useful without being gross. One is where people have very severe communication problems that keep them from functioning. I'm not talking about people who don't constantly stare in your eyeballs or don't choose the right words to get the most maximum buy-in from the listener to their ideas. I'm talking everything from people who don't have the capability to distinguish emotion on another person's face or who are so shy that they can't step outside their house and maybe practicing on a machine will help them. The other is familiarizing yourself with another culture. For example, if you're going to be doing a lot of business with Japanese companies or are moving to Japan. A system like this could be potentially very useful in acclimating yourself to Japanese customs and expectations so that you can handle situations that are not awkward, but literally completely foreign to you.
I abhor the idea that we'd want to put everyone through a computerized system that essentially teaches every human how to glad-hand each other.
Now, instead of just communicating with each other -- sometimes awkwardly, I guess -- humans are going to be taught by a computer how to talk to other humans.
If try to get what's best for your kid, you're an evil person and won't be able to get what's best for your kid . . . ?
Uh . . .
Also, public school is rife with violence, teachers banging their students, ancient text books, teachers and systems that don't care and let intelligent students fall through the gaps of mundanity, teachers and administrators that allow violence to happen under their nose, because they don't want to be involved, teaching to tests instead of educating students...
If your local school stinks, by the time you quit your job and dedicate your life full-time to improving your local school district, your child will have graduated (or dropped out). Not to mention, working to improve your local school district is about as fantastical an idea as "instead of doing anything else to improve your life, focus all your time on voting, because you can totally change the system, brothers and sisters!".
Anyway, why are we even discussing some idiot's blog post on Slate of all fucking places?
For fuck's sake, her husband works at Gawker. These are a couple brain-dead link-baiters (oh, by the way, here is a Gawker story her husband wrote about how private schools should be banned): http://gawker.com/5943005/theres-a-simple-solution-to-the-public-schools-crisis
I presume you're being sarcastic, but Vietnam's leading export is crude oil.
Exactly. Which is to say, you enjoy your fundamental freedoms online and offline at the whim and discretion of the government.
America's leaders just got a massive secret erection at the idea of doing this, themselves.
The first step, they've been pushing for ages. Control who can become a "journalist". Then license them. Then punish anyone "practicing journalism without a license".
Oooh gaaaawd! I think they just came!
I'm well-off, I guess, but I am both bad with (my own) money and totally dumb as a mother fucker.
Maybe, but not his Miranda rights, since Miranda wasn't in America and while the UK does have sort of "rights" to be read upon arrest, they are not "Miranda Rights". :)
To be fair, EA doesn't really make that many games worth playing, unless you're into facebook, ios, or sports. I was thinking about what I would miss out on if I were to swear off EA, entirely... it turned out -- not very much.
For example, in all of 2012, the only games they put out that were not facebook/web/ios/f2p, super casual (stuff for your mom), or sports were Kingdoms of Amalur (basically a failure), NFS: Most Wanted (popular, online was dead shortly after release), Syndicate (decent shooter, unfaithful reboot), Medal of Honor: Warfighter (generic as fuck), and Mass Effect 3 (meh).
None of those (except maybe ME3 if you played ME1/2) are really "must haves/plays".
With the shitty changes they've made to BF3 to ruin the sense of community and individuality of servers and fragmenting the shit out of everything and turning the $50 game into a $60 game, then a $110+ game with all the "premium annual subscription" type of bullshit, even BF4 won't be something I feel is a "must buy/play".
EA is almost entirely, therefore, a casual/sports publisher... and since I care very little for either of those . . . I can just discount their works wholecloth.
Exactly. If you were dumb enough to still buy Sim City on MAC after you saw how awful the game was (inherently, within its design; having nothing to do with the platform it was launched on), then I do not feel any sympathy for you, whatsoever.
It doesn't really matter, because private sector is our only option. Adjusted for inflation, we spent more in each year of our last dozen years of military actions than on NASA in 55 years. Doubling NASA's budget seems trivial. Hell, tripling or quadrupling it (especially in consideration for the kinds of returns we get, technologically and economically across all of society) seems insignificant.
But it isn't going to happen.
If we wait for a government and a citizenry that is more compelled by blowing up brown people overseas and pushing authoritarian and corporate agendas, it is never going to happen.
If we wait for a government and a citizenry that doesn't want to spend the money to cure cancer, cure aids, feed starving people -- all things that are entirely reasonable with fractions of the funding we spend on some of the most controversial and possibly unnecessary expenses in this country -- then what fucking hope have we of ever finding the progressive spirit for human advancement within our collective selves for funding space efforts?
No, but they *did* convince people that they were "being rescued" by the end of an assault rifle barrel when being forced to stay in their homes and then forced at gunpoint to get out of their homes for mandatory searches.
Probably part of the elite cabal of sex trafficking that is so popular among European politicians and aristocrats. The top freaks in power in America want to get in on some of that.
Fool me once (Iraq, Afghanistan), shame on - shame on you.
Fool me (Lybia, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon and so on down the road) -- you can't get fooled again.
Except that, clearly, we can.
So let's wait for a UN mandate and then act on that. And let's wait until there is verification that this is actually happening. John Kerry said something to the effect of "You can't deny that these horrible atrocities of chemical warfare on their own people are happening -- we have all seen the evidence first hand, on social media".
Sorry, but youtube is not "witnessing evidence first hand". I saw a video of a man flying with man-made wings, lifting off the ground and high into the air. That didn't mean it wasn't fake (it was fake).
Let's also not buy into this "it's for humanitarian purposes!' bullshit, so readily. Why does our government care about humanitarian military efforts over 300 dead people when it is in a high-energy resource center, but not when it is hundreds of thousands of people in Rwanda, Darfur, and many other places?
This isn't even a disguised agenda. When Obama hagiographer, Gwen Ifill, interviewed him recently, he stated the following. Notice that he throws absolutely fucking everything but the kitchen sink out there to compel America to throw in on Syria . . . but he very clearly states one of the reasons is to maintain the clear flow of energy through the region. You know, save people from chemical warfare, abuse of women and children, freedom, safety, opposition of authoritarian regimes (hah!) and... energy.
Obama: And so we don’t have good options, great options, for the region. But what I am clear about is that if the United States stands by its core values and its core interests; if we’re very clear about making sure that we’re stopping terrorist attacks against the United States; if we are very clear about our, you know, commitment to the safety and security of Israel; if we are clear about the free flow of energy throughout the region that affects the entire global economy; but also if we’re clear about our values and that we believe in inclusive governments, that we believe in the protection of minority rights, that we believe in women’s rights, that we believe that over time it’s better for governments to be representative of the will of their people, as opposed to being, you know, dictated to by authoritarian governments; if we are consistent in those principles, then eventually, I think, we’ll be better off. But it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to have some very difficult problems in — in the meantime.
Funny thing, that.
When Bush did it, Obama (rightfully) stated "The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
And Biden stated "I teach separation of powers in Constitutional law. This is something I know. So I brought a group of Constitutional scholars together to write a piece that I'm going to deliver to the whole United States Senate pointing out that the president HAS NO CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY to take this country to war against a country of 70 million people unless we're attacked or unless there is proof that we are about to be attacked. And if he does, I would move to impeach him."
After the bullshit the government tried to stir up in/over North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and so on the last few years -- I wondered when these comments were finally going to catch up with them. Tonight, I saw them in The Atlantic, even -- which tells me they are not going to remain forgotten and ignored, except by the politicians, themselves.
Their statements and positions were right, when they stated them against Bush. They were right when they ran for office on these statements and promises to the American people. They are still the right positions to maintain.
We'd spend it bailing out corporations or fighting for corporate interests overseas, in another sandlot where we justify our actions with some manufactured humanitarian atrocity.
And you're still right, because at least with either of those things, the actions are not directly against the population and citizens of this government, itself.
Not a chance in hell. There have been incidents of people being held accountable for operating a Tor node. I believe they've also been held responsible for the data on/transferred through them. If not in the US, then certainly other countries, which means there's no reason it would not happen here.