Wait... you mean we are the baddies?
That must explain the skulls on our hats.
For anyone not familiar with the paraphrased quote above, I *highly* recommend you watch the source of the quote, this short clip from That Mitchell and Webb Look, one of the funnier British comedy duos of recent years.
From French corvée, from Late Latin corvada, corrogata, from Latin corrogare (to entreat together).
Noun
unpaid labor (especially on roads) due to a feudal lord
labor, especially on roads, in lieu of taxes
Corvée could also be compulsory military service. Some have already argued that this is effectively what is happening in the US.
(And what's up with Slashdot's CSS for the main page? All ordered and unordered lists are missing their numbers and bullets, but just on the main page -- they show up properly when I look at my posting history on my user page.)
Using absurd generalizations when describing people that live in the US is an example of your ignorance. The US takes a heap load of shit when making generalizations about Arab countries but generalizing about the US population is always justified and proper according to your warped reasoning. I am glad you didn't get your permanent US citizenship but why did you apply in the first place? Do you consider yourself so smart that all your generalizations about the US would never apply to someone as exceptional as yourself? The US is the most diverse society on the planet in religion, race, and ethnicity. I don't know when the US was ever a "great nation" because it has always had it's problems and incompetent leaders just like every other country. US equality, justice, and democracy is just a goal that should be worked towards. This process has been ongoing since the birth of the nation and it has had mistakes and triumphs in trying to reach the goal. Thankfully the US public is slowly but surely reaching the point where they don't give a shit about foreign countries problems and desires. You think the US has been making unilateral decisions but you have not seen anything yet. And the US did over react to 9/11, especially with the Iraqi war and extended Afghanistan operations but at least the US did react while other countries just set around with their thumbs of their ass criticizing US decisions.
I live in the US. I grew up here. My family has been here for at least four generations, with some branches being here longer than the country has (one branch in particular, for millenia).
The GP is right. Things here are ugly, and getting uglier. Meanwhile, your post is confused and self-contradictory.
You think the US has been making unilateral decisions but you have not seen anything yet -- this is not apologia, this is "hey, we're only getting started being assholes!" -- which seems to fully back up the GP's points.
The US takes a heap load of shit when making generalizations -- and well we should, especially when those generalizations lead to bombs and massacres. We're the biggest bully on the block, and we're so odious that we don't even like ourselves, and a growing portion of us citizens are beyond fed-up with the situation, as amply demonstrated across the political spectrum by the Tea Party, the Occupy movement, and even by nutters going after members of congress.
US equality, justice, and democracy is just a goal that should be worked towards. This process has been ongoing since the birth of the nation and it has had mistakes and triumphs in trying to reach the goal. -- As numerous other threads and posters have pointed out, wealth distribution in this country is, or at least is approaching, the most unbalanced it's been in the whole of US history for which we have broad-based statistics. That's bass-ackwards from trying to reach that goal -- the powers that be here are going full-steam in the opposite direction.
Thankfully the US public is slowly but surely reaching the point where they don't give a shit about foreign countries problems and desires. -- The world is increasingly interconnected and interdependent, and you hold up this rise in US public apathy, self-isolation, and and self-absoption as a good thing??? (And if you didn't intend to suggest this is good, your writing could use some help.)
Ah, fuck it. "Rah, rah, USA!"
... now where were those Canadian immigration papers...
There are other studies to point to. Point is, it's not the distraction of the hands that's the really big problem, it's the distraction of the brain.
Maybe you mis-copied, but that second link is to a study from 1991. Hands-free cellphone devices hadn't really taken off yet, unless you count the classic image of someone with a phone duct-taped to their head. If you missed the 1991 date at the top of the study, one giveaway is right there in the second paragraph (emphasis mine):
What CB radios were to the '70s, cellular phones were to the '80s. From early 1984, when the first complete systems became operational, the number of cellular phone users has grown to over two million. By the mid-'90s, when cellular service will be available throughout most population centers in the United States, the number of subscribers is expected to grow to between ten and twenty million.
The first link is to a study from 2006. I got my first hands-free Bluetooth headset in 2007, and it was bit balky to use. My wife's new Fiat comes standard with a voice-activated cellphone interface, so there are no fiddly buttons to mess with. Technology has progressed a bit.
I'd really like to see a more recent study that looks at hands-free cellphone use and explicitly lays out variables such as 1) how much button-fiddling is required, 2) how much the driver has to look away from the road to operate the hands-free unit, 3) how much the driver has to look away from the road to operate the phone itself, and 4) a description of any instructions given to the driver during the test (to weed out the Mythbusters scenario described further up the page, where the drivers apparently prioritized conversing over driving).
So I check the Wikipedia source for that $1.41 per mile cost and look at http://commutesolutions.org/external/calc.html. (The site currently lists a cost of $1.36, but close enough.) They give only $0.01 per mile as the cost for State and Local Construction, Improvements and Repair, and only $0.006 for State and Local Highway Maintenance and Operations, for what looks like a total capital cost of $0.016 per mile. I tried looking at the source for the $5.66 per mile cost for light rail over at http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/data.htm, but frankly I don't have time to dig through all the links on that page. The Wikipedia article gives a capital cost figure of $1.78 per mile for light rail.
I have trouble reconciling this $0.016 per mile capital cost for roads against the $1.78 per mile capital cost for light rail as listed at the Wikipedia article.
This looks a lot like certain capital costs for roads are not being accounted for.
And then there's phonetics
on
Qt 4.8.0 Released
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Strictly speaking, there's also a schwa (that funny kind of default unstressed vowel sound in many [most?] dialects of English) between the/th/ and the/m/, though it isn't spelled. That gives us at least two vowels.
And in rhotic dialects of English, the/rhy/ could be analyzed as a diphthong (i.e. two vowels gliding from one to the other), potentially giving us three vowels for rhythms.
And then there are fun dialectical oddities like "bed", pronounced with two clear syllables in some parts of the US, more like/bay ed/.
Ah, the joys of English spelling and pronunciation!
They don't price and value their product on their own merits, but on the merits of who, how and where it is to be used. If McDonald's operated this way, the results would be interesting wouldn't they.
No, you are confused. Noboby in their right mind prices their products based on their own merits. You price your products based on what the market will bear and pocket the profit. Economics 101.
A little history for you first.
The Quakers in the 1800s developed a reputation for fair dealing. They did a couple things in their business transactions that were unusual, and widely regarded as equitable -- 1) they set a price and that was the price, no haggling or shystering; and 2) that price was based on a reasoned estimate of the value of the time and materials that went into the product or service being sold. They made a living in their fair dealings, and did well by themselves. This is a large part of the reason that "Quaker" became a favorable brand image in the US, such as Quaker State Oil, or Quaker Oats, complete with a smiling picture of a man in Quaker clothing as part of the label.
There's a difference between making a living, and making a killing. US-style business anymore seems much more about killing, and as we're discovering with the state of the economy these days, it's awful hard to make a living this way. Many others have described how mass greed ultimately destroys value, and consistent overpricing to ensure profit -- not just to cover costs and a bit extra for room to grow, but instead deliberate excess as part of the dream of getting something for nothing -- is sucking the value out of everything around us. It's wholly unsustainable.
But it seems that's taught in the higher-level classes, not at the 101 level. I'm guessing many of the movers and shakers in the US economy never got that far in their studies.
That's all you, and nothing to do with your career. It a reflection of YOUR personality.
Well, it's fair to point out that he didn't say that was a bad thing -- for all we know, he's an accountant, and a boring joyless life is actually just what he wants.
Looking at those two sites, all games will run under Windows, apparently, and a small handful on Mac, but neither site has any apparent support for Linux. "Boo hoo," some might say, but multi-platform support is one of the big draws for me with the Humble folks.
Seriously, have a look at ControllerMate over at http://www.orderedbytes.com/. This tool allows you to customize any input device that your Mac can read from. You could turn your built-in Qwerty keyboard into Dvorak, or use an NES Advantage plugged into your USB port to control iTunes -- almost anything is possible, from simple key mapping to full custom scripting. I used ControllerMate to customize button mappings for my wired USB Logitech gamepad for those games I've got that have the controls hard-coded. I don't have any wireless Logitech products, but so long as your Mac can read the signal coming from the device, you could use ControllerMate to make it do what you want.
FWIW, I'm not the dev, and I don't know him. I've just used the software in the past (and found myself wishing that something this versatile and easy to use also existed for Linux).
"Probably working on a smaller project with even younger developers. Or I might be interested in making something that I can make myself, by myself. Something really small."
This coupled with other statements regarding "retirement" to me structure a rather specific narrative. Perhaps "burnt out" is a rather strong statement but all the same he's clearly stating he wants to slow down and play the role of the sage elder/grandpa.
I took it more as evidence that managing huge multi-year projects is not as fun as building something with more immediate turnaround times. Skyward Sword, from what I've heard, is the culmination of a longstanding dream of Miyamoto's to build a Zelda game where you could actually control the sword and shield instead of just mashing thumbs. But it took years to complete, and I bet Miyamoto spent most of that time dealing with management-type work rather than getting into the nitty gritty of creating a game.
He's a gaming kind of guy, and he's been big on new ideas over the course of his career, so if he gets out of managing huge projects and gets back into designing and making smaller games, I predict an increase in the number of interesting ideas that Nintendo can implement. I heard that Nintendo's share price took a dip on this news, but I think that's only because analysts hadn't really digested this -- sure, if Miyamoto left Nintendo, that'd be bad; but if he's getting back into active game design, that can only be a big plus, in my eyes anyway.
...but it's gotten to the point where assholes-in-charge blatantly and flippantly do it right in front of us, and then stand back with a "yeah, what the hell are YOU gonna do about it" look on their face.
And the horrible reality with their attitude is they're absolutely right. Not a damn thing will be done against the 1%. Ever. Now that they know this, the game is pretty much over for the rest of us.
I wouldn't say "ever". I'm not advocating it, but France circa 1789 comes to mind as a clear rebuttal.
If the assholes-in-charge continue growing more blatant in their disregard for everyone else, eventually folks *will* get fed up. History abounds with examples.
Notably, in all of the examples that I can bring to mind, be they ancient or very recent and even ongoing, things had to get a lot worse than they are now for the common man in the US before the fires were lit and the barricades set up. I hope our assholes-in-charge are not quite so tone-deaf as to allow/cause things to get that bad.
... naked body scanners... gropings... bipartisan clusterfuck...
Well, just THANK YOU very much for putting the horrid image in my head of the 112th Congress of the United States getting all sweaty-snugglebunnies in front of one of these scanners.:-P
It's vigilante justice and makes you just as bad as the people you are railing against.
Um, no.
On the one hand, you have a powerful group saying "protect!" and instead engaging in wholesale personal violation. For fun and profit.
On the other, you have (potentially) a public group provoked into mob rage by the unjust actions of the above powers-that-be. And who would probably be happier just going about their business but for the bullying actions of these same powers-that-be.
I'm not saying that either is just, but equating them is intellectually dishonest at best.
Oo, rhabdomyolysis! What joy! Nothing quite like pissing your muscles away -- quite literally... Well, at least until the proteins block up your kidneys.:-P
The one time in my life that I've really hallucinated was due to caffeine. Had *waay* too many cups of witches brew (that pot (or collection of pots) of coffee that's been on the burner all day at a cheapo greasy-spoon diner and has thickened up in the process). Went out driving with a friend (me in the passenger seat). Every time we passed a Mobil gas station, I got sucked through the big red "O". And not in a fun way. Got violently ill later and took an hour on the side of the road pacing before I felt like being in a car wasn't going to make me vomit.
Having so much caffeine as to kill you would be much less enjoyable than this. Starcraft would be infinitely preferable.
... being a successful politician and a successful manipulator share many of the same traits.
No, really, I thought successful politician was a subset of successful manipulator. Really. I can't come up with any examples of successful politicians who aren't successful manipulators.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait... you mean we are the baddies? That must explain the skulls on our hats.
For anyone not familiar with the paraphrased quote above, I *highly* recommend you watch the source of the quote, this short clip from That Mitchell and Webb Look, one of the funnier British comedy duos of recent years.
Cheers,
There's already a Church of GNU Emacs. One of its tenets is that if you take the Church too seriously, seek professional help.
Why didn't all religions have that?
Oh, they do. It's just that the "professional help" in most cases means "the clergy". It's all about context.
Yet somehow they can identify antique furniture without playing it. It is more than just sound to prove provenance.
Ah, the fools! I always play the sofa and end cushions before making a purchase. Always, I tell you!
I just figured one bit of unfalsifiable twaddle deserved an equal and opposite bit of unfalsifiable twaddle.
Well stated. Sir Fig Newton's Third Law of Promotion.
Adapted from Wiktionary:
corvée, corvee
From French corvée, from Late Latin corvada, corrogata, from Latin corrogare (to entreat together).
Noun
Corvée could also be compulsory military service. Some have already argued that this is effectively what is happening in the US.
(And what's up with Slashdot's CSS for the main page? All ordered and unordered lists are missing their numbers and bullets, but just on the main page -- they show up properly when I look at my posting history on my user page.)
So if a parent sets up a PSN account for their minor, does that minor have legal authority to accept EULA updates?
Using absurd generalizations when describing people that live in the US is an example of your ignorance. The US takes a heap load of shit when making generalizations about Arab countries but generalizing about the US population is always justified and proper according to your warped reasoning. I am glad you didn't get your permanent US citizenship but why did you apply in the first place? Do you consider yourself so smart that all your generalizations about the US would never apply to someone as exceptional as yourself? The US is the most diverse society on the planet in religion, race, and ethnicity. I don't know when the US was ever a "great nation" because it has always had it's problems and incompetent leaders just like every other country. US equality, justice, and democracy is just a goal that should be worked towards. This process has been ongoing since the birth of the nation and it has had mistakes and triumphs in trying to reach the goal. Thankfully the US public is slowly but surely reaching the point where they don't give a shit about foreign countries problems and desires. You think the US has been making unilateral decisions but you have not seen anything yet. And the US did over react to 9/11, especially with the Iraqi war and extended Afghanistan operations but at least the US did react while other countries just set around with their thumbs of their ass criticizing US decisions.
I live in the US. I grew up here. My family has been here for at least four generations, with some branches being here longer than the country has (one branch in particular, for millenia).
The GP is right. Things here are ugly, and getting uglier. Meanwhile, your post is confused and self-contradictory.
Ah, fuck it. "Rah, rah, USA!"
... now where were those Canadian immigration papers...
Handsfree phones should be required; anything else should be prohibited.
Hands-free doesn't help: http://unews.utah.edu/old/p/062206-1.html http://www.aaafoundation.org/resources/index.cfm?button=cellphone
There are other studies to point to. Point is, it's not the distraction of the hands that's the really big problem, it's the distraction of the brain.
Maybe you mis-copied, but that second link is to a study from 1991. Hands-free cellphone devices hadn't really taken off yet, unless you count the classic image of someone with a phone duct-taped to their head. If you missed the 1991 date at the top of the study, one giveaway is right there in the second paragraph (emphasis mine):
What CB radios were to the '70s, cellular phones were to the '80s. From early 1984, when the first complete systems became operational, the number of cellular phone users has grown to over two million. By the mid-'90s, when cellular service will be available throughout most population centers in the United States, the number of subscribers is expected to grow to between ten and twenty million.
The first link is to a study from 2006. I got my first hands-free Bluetooth headset in 2007, and it was bit balky to use. My wife's new Fiat comes standard with a voice-activated cellphone interface, so there are no fiddly buttons to mess with. Technology has progressed a bit.
I'd really like to see a more recent study that looks at hands-free cellphone use and explicitly lays out variables such as 1) how much button-fiddling is required, 2) how much the driver has to look away from the road to operate the hands-free unit, 3) how much the driver has to look away from the road to operate the phone itself, and 4) a description of any instructions given to the driver during the test (to weed out the Mythbusters scenario described further up the page, where the drivers apparently prioritized conversing over driving).
According to the US National Transit Database (record of every public transit system in the US), the average light rail system costs $5.66 per passenger mile. This compares with $1.41 per mile for driving a car. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTran#Cost_comparison_with_other_public_transit_systems
So I check the Wikipedia source for that $1.41 per mile cost and look at http://commutesolutions.org/external/calc.html. (The site currently lists a cost of $1.36, but close enough.) They give only $0.01 per mile as the cost for State and Local Construction, Improvements and Repair, and only $0.006 for State and Local Highway Maintenance and Operations, for what looks like a total capital cost of $0.016 per mile. I tried looking at the source for the $5.66 per mile cost for light rail over at http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/data.htm, but frankly I don't have time to dig through all the links on that page. The Wikipedia article gives a capital cost figure of $1.78 per mile for light rail.
I have trouble reconciling this $0.016 per mile capital cost for roads against the $1.78 per mile capital cost for light rail as listed at the Wikipedia article.
This looks a lot like certain capital costs for roads are not being accounted for.
Strictly speaking, there's also a schwa (that funny kind of default unstressed vowel sound in many [most?] dialects of English) between the /th/ and the /m/, though it isn't spelled. That gives us at least two vowels.
And in rhotic dialects of English, the /rhy/ could be analyzed as a diphthong (i.e. two vowels gliding from one to the other), potentially giving us three vowels for rhythms.
And then there are fun dialectical oddities like "bed", pronounced with two clear syllables in some parts of the US, more like /bay ed/.
Ah, the joys of English spelling and pronunciation!
They don't price and value their product on their own merits, but on the merits of who, how and where it is to be used. If McDonald's operated this way, the results would be interesting wouldn't they.
No, you are confused. Noboby in their right mind prices their products based on their own merits. You price your products based on what the market will bear and pocket the profit. Economics 101.
A little history for you first.
The Quakers in the 1800s developed a reputation for fair dealing. They did a couple things in their business transactions that were unusual, and widely regarded as equitable -- 1) they set a price and that was the price, no haggling or shystering; and 2) that price was based on a reasoned estimate of the value of the time and materials that went into the product or service being sold. They made a living in their fair dealings, and did well by themselves. This is a large part of the reason that "Quaker" became a favorable brand image in the US, such as Quaker State Oil, or Quaker Oats, complete with a smiling picture of a man in Quaker clothing as part of the label.
There's a difference between making a living, and making a killing. US-style business anymore seems much more about killing, and as we're discovering with the state of the economy these days, it's awful hard to make a living this way. Many others have described how mass greed ultimately destroys value, and consistent overpricing to ensure profit -- not just to cover costs and a bit extra for room to grow, but instead deliberate excess as part of the dream of getting something for nothing -- is sucking the value out of everything around us. It's wholly unsustainable.
But it seems that's taught in the higher-level classes, not at the 101 level. I'm guessing many of the movers and shakers in the US economy never got that far in their studies.
".. a boring joyless life."
That's all you, and nothing to do with your career. It a reflection of YOUR personality.
Well, it's fair to point out that he didn't say that was a bad thing -- for all we know, he's an accountant, and a boring joyless life is actually just what he wants.
Cheers,
We need the "Caps Lock Annhilation Program" to stop loud posters.
Well, you're welcome to it, but *I* certainly don't need the CLAP.
Cheers,
Looking at those two sites, all games will run under Windows, apparently, and a small handful on Mac, but neither site has any apparent support for Linux. "Boo hoo," some might say, but multi-platform support is one of the big draws for me with the Humble folks.
Cheers,
Seriously, have a look at ControllerMate over at http://www.orderedbytes.com/. This tool allows you to customize any input device that your Mac can read from. You could turn your built-in Qwerty keyboard into Dvorak, or use an NES Advantage plugged into your USB port to control iTunes -- almost anything is possible, from simple key mapping to full custom scripting. I used ControllerMate to customize button mappings for my wired USB Logitech gamepad for those games I've got that have the controls hard-coded. I don't have any wireless Logitech products, but so long as your Mac can read the signal coming from the device, you could use ControllerMate to make it do what you want.
FWIW, I'm not the dev, and I don't know him. I've just used the software in the past (and found myself wishing that something this versatile and easy to use also existed for Linux).
Cheers,
"Probably working on a smaller project with even younger developers. Or I might be interested in making something that I can make myself, by myself. Something really small."
This coupled with other statements regarding "retirement" to me structure a rather specific narrative. Perhaps "burnt out" is a rather strong statement but all the same he's clearly stating he wants to slow down and play the role of the sage elder/grandpa.
I took it more as evidence that managing huge multi-year projects is not as fun as building something with more immediate turnaround times. Skyward Sword, from what I've heard, is the culmination of a longstanding dream of Miyamoto's to build a Zelda game where you could actually control the sword and shield instead of just mashing thumbs. But it took years to complete, and I bet Miyamoto spent most of that time dealing with management-type work rather than getting into the nitty gritty of creating a game.
He's a gaming kind of guy, and he's been big on new ideas over the course of his career, so if he gets out of managing huge projects and gets back into designing and making smaller games, I predict an increase in the number of interesting ideas that Nintendo can implement. I heard that Nintendo's share price took a dip on this news, but I think that's only because analysts hadn't really digested this -- sure, if Miyamoto left Nintendo, that'd be bad; but if he's getting back into active game design, that can only be a big plus, in my eyes anyway.
Cheers,
...but it's gotten to the point where assholes-in-charge blatantly and flippantly do it right in front of us, and then stand back with a "yeah, what the hell are YOU gonna do about it" look on their face.
And the horrible reality with their attitude is they're absolutely right. Not a damn thing will be done against the 1%. Ever. Now that they know this, the game is pretty much over for the rest of us.
I wouldn't say "ever". I'm not advocating it, but France circa 1789 comes to mind as a clear rebuttal.
If the assholes-in-charge continue growing more blatant in their disregard for everyone else, eventually folks *will* get fed up. History abounds with examples.
Notably, in all of the examples that I can bring to mind, be they ancient or very recent and even ongoing, things had to get a lot worse than they are now for the common man in the US before the fires were lit and the barricades set up. I hope our assholes-in-charge are not quite so tone-deaf as to allow/cause things to get that bad.
Cheers,
profits have to be made. Yet maximising profits, by high prices on monopoly drugs, resulting in preventable deaths, is evil
The difference between good and evil is what you decide is "enough" profit for them?
Isn't that essentially the same argument you're making?
I blame public education.
Only now with the gropings, it gets to be pubic education! BA dum...
... naked body scanners ... gropings ... bipartisan clusterfuck ...
Well, just THANK YOU very much for putting the horrid image in my head of the 112th Congress of the United States getting all sweaty-snugglebunnies in front of one of these scanners. :-P
Where's the brain bleach?
It's vigilante justice and makes you just as bad as the people you are railing against.
Um, no.
On the one hand, you have a powerful group saying "protect!" and instead engaging in wholesale personal violation. For fun and profit.
On the other, you have (potentially) a public group provoked into mob rage by the unjust actions of the above powers-that-be. And who would probably be happier just going about their business but for the bullying actions of these same powers-that-be.
I'm not saying that either is just, but equating them is intellectually dishonest at best.
Yea, no fun indeed: Caffeine Intoxication
Oo, rhabdomyolysis! What joy! Nothing quite like pissing your muscles away -- quite literally... Well, at least until the proteins block up your kidneys. :-P
Cheers,
The one time in my life that I've really hallucinated was due to caffeine. Had *waay* too many cups of witches brew (that pot (or collection of pots) of coffee that's been on the burner all day at a cheapo greasy-spoon diner and has thickened up in the process). Went out driving with a friend (me in the passenger seat). Every time we passed a Mobil gas station, I got sucked through the big red "O". And not in a fun way. Got violently ill later and took an hour on the side of the road pacing before I felt like being in a car wasn't going to make me vomit.
Having so much caffeine as to kill you would be much less enjoyable than this. Starcraft would be infinitely preferable.
... being a successful politician and a successful manipulator share many of the same traits.
No, really, I thought successful politician was a subset of successful manipulator. Really. I can't come up with any examples of successful politicians who aren't successful manipulators.
When your wife finds you knocking up that two-stroke in your lawnmower don't say I didn't warn you. But hey ... there's nothing wrong with that.
... so long as you've remembered to disengage the blade first, of course.