I still think this person needs counseling rather than prison time (or more than), but he wasnt just clicking around and happened upon some kiddie porn. He went _looking_ for it. He looked at it for _4 hours_.
You're letting the 4 hours thing confuse you, or you're just conveniently ignoring another crucial piece of information: they found a total of 450 pornographic photos in his Temporary Internet Files, of which only 156 were child porn. So roughly 34% of them were child porn, but that leaves 66% that weren't illegal. For the bulk of those four hours he was apparently viewing _LEGAL PORN_.
The article leaves out info on the webpages associated with those photos, if such info was even retrievable (I'm guessing yes, but it's not mentioned). What it sounds like to me is he was browsing some free pr0n site that had a mix of stuff, some of it was illegal and in loading pages he got both the legal and illegal stuff. So, did he actually seek out the child porn or was it an unfortunate accident from the site he picked? And speaking of that, why aren't they doing something about the fucking website that had the stuff? Seems to me they're far worse than this guy even assuming he sought the stuff out.
There's another crucial point, he looked at porn for four hours on one day. There was no indication he'd looked at porn in mass on other dates. If he was truly a pedophile I doubt he would have stopped at one viewing.
Sorry, I went into the article thinking it was a crock but the info doesn't add up. It sounds like they're trying to bust this guy just so they can point to the case and say "see, we're fighting child porn!" not because he's really a criminal. That doesn't do anything to help any of us, and it most certainly doesn't help stop the problem of children being harmed.
Now, if those logs were actually searched or data mined, then perhaps it would fall foul of the "unlawful search" clause, but failing that, I don't see that it does violate that particular Amendment.
What other purpose is there for forcing logs to be kept for years if not to search and data mine it? Maybe they're not stipulating that -- yet -- but look at what else the DOJ wants to either keep or have added on: the ability to see what books you check out from libraries without a warrant; the ability to see what books you buy without a warrant; the ability to search your house without telling you under a secret warrant issued by a court that doesn't officially exist and has no oversight; etc. Do you really think they'll be satisified with just having that data stored "just in case" or in a few years they'll manage to get congress to give them the authoritity to dig into it at will. The bill will of course be attached to some super-secret spending bill and passed by voice vote only so none of us knows who voted for or against it and will be lucky to even know it passed. How do we know they aren't already trying to get something similar passed?
The bottom line is there's no good reason to want this data stored for years unless they plan to search it. You have to look at where this is going. Even Hitler didn't implement all his stuff right away, it was a slow process, and each step people didn't protest until it was too late. As someone famous said once, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
For some reason, journalists keep calling blackmail lists "vigilantes". But there's something they don't understand: nobody forces email system administrators to use those lists.
No, but the non-spamming sites that end up on it would certainly disagree with you, they didn't do anything to merit the block.
You seem to be confused about what a vigilante is, dictionary.com gives me this: "One who takes or advocates the taking of law enforcement into one's own hands." Note it doesn't say anything about them forcing others to agree with their views or take part in them. If you decide to take legal actions in your own hands, then you are, by definition, a vigilante. So it does apply here, just because they don't force anyone to use their lists doesn't change that.
These lists are provided by people for free. They decide to list bad email servers, but they may as well include any server they want. After all, who's to force them to provide quality of service?
TFA's point was that these lists start out listing just IPs/hosts/sites they know are sending spam, then later the power corrupts ("power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely") them and they start using the power they've gained by their blacklist being used by many people to start trying to force ISPs to comply with them by blocking bunches of innocents at the same ISP. That indeed has happened, although I'm really not sure if it's happened here or not. The risk of it occuring is pretty high, humans are, after all, only human and it's hard to resist that temptation, especially when you're a strong enough anti-spam advocate to run a blacklist.
The real problem, of course, is that blacklists are needed in the first place. If ISPs did their jobs a little better (aol, hotmail and the likes), the amount of spam would already decrease significantly. And don't speak to me about chinese ISPs, since most spam comes from the US.
The real problem is human nature in all of this. In spam existing in the first place (greed), in ISPs not blocking things they should (laziness, lack of knowledge or time), in people actually buying from spam (greed (getting something cheaper than legal means would allow), sexual desire (gotta have a longer penis!) or just simply a criminal desire to purchase illegal goods (prescription drugs for example)) as well as humans becoming corrupted by power when their blacklists get to be popular.
So basically if we can solve how to get people to stop being, well, people and giving in to baser instincts we can stop spam. Of course we'd also stop crimes of all sorts as well and we've not managed that in hundreds of years so I'm not holding my breath for it to happen.
First, if they're sticking adware on an illegal file and uploading it, don't the same laws apply to them uploading the illegal file? Is the **AA suing these companies along with 12-year-old kids? After all, it's adware-infested, but it's still an illegal file, right?
Better yet, if a 12yo or younger downloads one of these and gets greeted with the installer are they making sure they conform to COPPA? COPPA's a pain in the ass, you have to provide a physical address, phone number, fax number, full disclosure of all personal information collected, how it's used, etc. and provide for forms that the parents of the 12yo and younger folks have to send in before they can use your site. Since they're pushing ads _and_ they're likely collecting statistics to "target" said ads, then I'm betting that COPPA applies to them. Looking at the screenshots of the install it doesn't ask what age you are. Ooops, big mistake there. Maybe someone should tell Spitzer about this, I'm sure he'd love to nail some companies for COPPA violations too.
Second, if they are modifying warez software, not only does the previous apply, but doesn't it fall under the protection of software that outlaws modifying binary code and distributing it without the publisher's consent? I mean think about it, this kind of thing not only supposedly denies companies revenue, but it can give them a serious black eye. What if people get the incorrect impression that an adware-infested version of a respectable piece of software is the real thing? All of a sudden, you have a really bad--and undeserved--reputation for distributing spyware on everyone's computers.
Wait, it gets better. The screenshots show that he downloaded an episode of The Family Guy and this install popped up with it. Anyone want to take any bets on whether or not they had permission to distribute The Family Guy? What do you think the MPAA's going to do to them when they find out they're "monetizing" illegal downloads of their member's products? Bet it makes the lawsuits we've seen against fileshares look tame, and bet the owners of Direct Revenue will be able to put up their own goats.cx photos once it's over with.
Which Iraqis? The ones Saddam killed on a regular basis? Funny how they seem to be forgotten in all of the vitriolic grandstanding from the far left.
You missed some, don't forget all the Iraqi civilians being killed daily by "insurgent" attacks and suicide bombings. While I know the news is biased on what it reports, it seems that the number of civilian casualities caused by insurgents may equal, or even surpass, that inflicted by US forces now.
Pretty sad when your own people are killing you in the name of fighting off the invaders. Of course I don't think most of the insurgents are really Iraqis, but simply Al Qaida members there just to cause problems. If that's who it is, it shows that Al Qaida really has no regard for human life, not just American, but even fellow Muslims. Jihad is never to be waged against other Muslims, but I guess Al Qaida missed that part of the Koran ehh?
There are two very good museums in Japan you'd learn a lot at. One is in Hiroshima, and has many, many historical U.S. documents that show very clearly why the bombs were dropped. (Here's a hint: It's not the reason you think it is.) The other is at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which gives a pretty good insight into the history of WW2 that most Americans (evidently including you) don't know.
I'm open to learning things I don't know about, but am highly suspicious of remarks likes yours above that say "you don't know the whole story" but doesn't bother to offer to explain any what we're supposedly missing. That generally means the info doesn't exist. So, put up or shut up. Right now you look like a troll. Feel free to prove me wrong, I'd like the opportunity to learn what I'm missing, if indeed there is any info I'm missing.
Even accepting your argument as true, there's a rather disturbing calculus of the value of human life (foreign civilian v. domestic military) you're employing. We're seeing it in the popular American perception of Iraq, where Americans basically don't give a damn about how many Iraqi civilians are killed. I can at least understand that. The whole reason a war with Iraq was politically possible in the first place without any kind of provocation is that Americans basically don't like "those kinds of people" very much.
You know what they say about assuming things don't you? Well you're proving it. I'm an American, born here, lived here all my life. I haven't supported the war on Iraq at all, ever. I'm profoundly disturbed by the civilian deaths. I'm even more disturbed that the "insurgents" are seemingly causing more civilians deaths that the US military is. It's pretty sad when your own people are killing you in the name of fighting off the "invaders". At least get your targets straight guys. As for not liking "those kinds of people", well I'm sure some people don't, but did you happen to pay attention when all the stink arose about Abu Gharib? The majority of American citizens were outraged we were doing that to "those kinds of people", or any people. You conveniently have left this out of your calculations.
But given that WW2 happened 60 years ago, America was equally at war with Germany and Japan. amd Japan is one of America's closest economic and strategic allies today, the fact that you would still consider killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians to be negligible compared to "saving" hundreds of thousands of American military suggests you have deep prejudicial issues. I'm not going to call you racist, but it sure seems that you are.
Question for you, where do you think replacements for all those thousands of military deaths would have come from? Don't know? Well I'll tell you -- drafted civilians. So being concerned about losses of military was the same as being concerned about civilian losses. As it was entire communities were decimated in the US because of the huge military casualties during WWII. (Russia fared much worse to be fair, but it's the same for every country, civilians have to replace the dead military or you lose the war.)
So I'll actually call you what you are -- a troll. You haven't thought anything through, you've provided no facts and you've assumed the worst for no apparent reason.
I'm about to move from California to Oak Ridge, TN. Just accepted a job with ORNL. I have two small children, and we're hoping to buy a house in Oak Ridge directly. Should be interesting...
Good choice buying a house in Oak Ridge, they have the best school system in the area. You'll be pleased to hear they just broke ground on a massive addition & remodel of the high school that'll take about three years to complete, plenty of time for it to be finished for your kids to use.:) BTW, the community strongly supports the school system, the addition/remodel's being paid for by a combination of a half cent sales tax increase (voted in with over 70% of voters approving it) and donations -- in the millions. Not only ORNL/Y12/K25 employees and their families live in Oak Ridge, many of UTK's professors choose to move there so their kids can go to the Oak Ridge school system. Oh yes, you won't be calling it ORNL for too long, it's X10. That was it's original name, and most of the employes call it that, you'll get in the habit fast, it's also quicker to say.
Also, last I heard ORNL is still run by a combo of The University of Tennessee and Battel (sp?) so your kids will likely qualify for reduced tuition at UT when they get to college age. UT's an excellent school.:) Oh yeah, on that vein, hope you like Orange, you'll see a lot of it, everywhere. The UT fans here are quite, ahh, intense.:)
I'm glad to hear your vote of confidence about the city! Though I'm a bit leery of living that close to Y-12. They haven't always been the best environmental neighbors.
While we like to joke about people from Oak Ridge glowing in the dark it's really not a problem. I grew up (and still live) in a town 30 minutes away. I've got friend in Oak Ridge, some who work for ORNL & Y12. There's really no danger. I even did a summer fellowship at ORNL, while I had to wear a radiation monitor I was never exposed to any. Some things you'll have to watch out for (you'll learn this from your coworkers) are the animals on the ORNL reserve. They can get into contaminated areas, so make sure you don't hit them. That could contaminate your car, but is unlikely to harm you, just cause some hassle.:)
Where he of course met Guinan and Data and was almost killed by time shifting aliens that were attempting to steal our souls. Wouldn't that be anyones worst season?
No, I think there was another season of the show that was much worse.;)
I would check out TV Tome to see where that one fell in the run of the show but seeing as they're now TV.com (and suck) I'll stick to this instead of telling you what season I think was worse.:)
I get really irritated when people talk about how valuable college is, because: I'm here, and I'm not seeing it. I guess you could say that "College is what you make of it," but I know that I could be making a lot more of my education if it wasn't for those pesky classes sapping my energy and desire to learn.
It took me two tries to get my degree, mainly because I switched majors twice and ran out of money. Neither of which is very unusual unfortunately. I can tell you that I see the value of the degree now, and I could more so the second time around than the first. When you're there and getting it, it's hard to understand why you have to take so many classes that seem to have nothing to do with what you're planning to go into. The funny thing is later on they _might_ be useful and you'll be glad you took them.
For instance, I never intended to go into programming, but I did have to take (among others) a course on programming languages. The course didn't require any hands-on programming but covered programming languages from the inception through modern day. In it I learned how different languages are structured, why they're structured that way, etc. I thought it was the biggest waste of 3 credit hours I'd ever taken. 5 months later I did a paid research fellowship at ORNL (Oak Ridge National Labs, happens to be close to me). There I spent most of my summer working on Expect scripts for automated router control. I'd never used Expect before but I recognized it's syntax pretty quickly -- it's quite reminiscent of Lisp. I'd learned about Lisp and how it worked in that class, within a few weeks I was scripting up a storm, combining multiple statements into single lines and got more done than I was even expected to on the project. Basically I finished all my original assignments in a few weeks and got more. I realized then that the class I had despised so much was going to be invaluable. I still can pick up a new programming language extremely quickly thanks to that single class. If my CS dept. hadn't forced me to take it I'd have lost the chance to have that skill.
Another group of classes that proved useful were history (particularly the 300 level history class I had to take as part of my capstone experience) along with Technical and Professional Writing. People are amazed that I know how to write well, whether it be project reports, research reports, memos, etc. and it really has helped open quite a few doors. Part of that was getting lucky and having a history professor who was exceedingly tough on grading (10 points off for every run-on sentence, sentence fragment or subject-verb disagreement. You learn to write well fast, or you fail.), but it's served me well.
Yeah, there are still some courses that were a waste of time, but there always will be. Overall it was well worth it.:)
Also, what you don't use, you forget... and 4 years gives you plenty of time to forget.
You'd be surprised how much you'll remember of it. Maybe not all the details, but you will generallly remember enough to know where to look to refresh your memory. You can get to the answers quicker when you know where to start.
There are so many people that disagree with me about my views that it's hard not to think that I may be mistaken somewhere... but I really haven't heard any good reasons for why college is worth the cost, other than the fact that employers assume that a degree is a prerequisite to a position in their company (And that also may just be a rumor... I think studies have shown experience is more important than education for increasing your chance of getting hired).
The main importance of the degree is that you have it. That's it. For many jobs it doesn't even matter what degree you have, just that you have one. (The percentage of people who work in different fields than their degree is astoundingly large. Sorry I don't have time right now to dig up the exact percentages though.) Hav
Just out of curiosity, have you seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame recently?
Nope, although I own it I've never found time to watch it all. I do know the events in it roughly, but I don't recall anyone's mother being killed in such dramatic fashion. I do recall Quasimodo being horribly abused and used by the evil guy (whatever his name is). It's not struck me as a particularly great show though, the musical numbers seem a bit out of place.
Personally, I'd like to see a law that makes it illegal for adult context to appear on a URL unless is has a special extension, something like ".xxx". Then it'd be easy for concerned parents (and wives!) to configure the browser to block anything from that extension.
Great idea, but let me know when you can get 100% of the countries of the world to enforce that law. Until you do, that solution will fail.
I don't have a problem with parents wanting to filter what their kids see but the ISP shoudn't have to shoulder this burden for free. This would be a nice way for an ISP to differentiate itself, sell a bundled filtering service for extra money. Mandating that the ISPs set this up for anyone that wants it without compensating them is nuts. Even the telcos get to charges fees to recoup their costs to implement various government mandates.
Yet the law is 100 percent ineffective. First of all, there is no way they can ever block every single source of smut on the internet. Seconmd of all, its an opt in system. You choose to have these sites blocked, the ISP isnt blocking them for you. parents can do this already with a number of 'childware' packages already out there.
So really, what is the law good for? Nothing, except appealing to the base.
It'll be effective at something, just not it's stated intentions. It'll cause repercussions that aren't thought of.
I just found out first hand how these laws can cause trouble. I set up a forum, one mostly about anime and manga. Now there is quite a vast age range of anime and manga fans, so it's not unlikely I'll end up with users under 13 as well as those above 13. 13's the magic age in COPPA, an act designed to protect children from having information gathered on them. I used PhpBB which has built-in COPPA handling, and went to research what I had to do on my end to allow those under 13 to use the site and be COPPA compliant.
Well that didn't last long, I'd have to provide a physical address, phone number, fax number, etc. for parents to send in COPPA documents for their children. All this and all the info I'd be gathering is their E-mail address (used for registration confirmation). I don't even require a real name, just the nickname they want to use.
So what was the result of this law to protect children in my case? They're banned. If they chose the link "I'm under 13 and want to register" they get a polite message telling them they can't sign up and are redirected to disney.com. I guess you could argue they're protected, after all they can't participate in the forum, but all it's really going to do is cause the kids to try again later and lie about their age. That's assuming they tell the truth in the first place.
Maybe it appeals to their base, but all it's really good for is causing problems for others, and rarely if ever actually helps the problem it's supposedly solving.
Interesting point, my wife and I really enjoyed The Incredibles because of this fact. The interaction between the husband and wife was quite humorous and somewhat realistic.
I actually haven't watched it yet, although I bought the DVD (doh!). I need to get around to that.:)
I liked the Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain for the same types of reasons, especially Pinky and the Brain, some of the things that Pinky said were most definitely adult but the kids never notice.:)
)
People stared at _ME_ the whole time. I'd never seen anything like it. Apparently they couldn't believe a white guy was hanging out with non-whites. My friends both said they were used to it and just ignored it, but it was an eye-opener to me. Racism is alive and well in the US"
How is any of that "racism"? Sounds like curiosity to me.
Everything is fucking racism these days...
Asians, African-Americans and Whites are all quite common in the area, they're not novelties. It's not normal to stare at someone, espeically not the looks they were giving me. It wasn't a curiosity stare, it ranged from disgust, hatred, to a quizzical expression like they couldn't believe what they saw.
Not everything is racism, but this most decidely was. It was not normal curiosity. Perhaps you'd have had to been there. I felt exceedingly uncomfortable, even frightened by it. I've been stared at many times before but never made to feel uncomfortable or frightened by it. These people had problems.
Frankly it'd be good for you to experience it, then you'd be a bit more sensitive to the reality of the situation. Racism is quite alive and well in the US. Shrugging it off as "Everything is fucking racism these days..." only allows it to continue. So are you part of the problem or the solution?
I'm not sure that originality is Disney's biggest problem. After all, some of Disney's biggest 2D hits were based on fairy tales and fables (Beauty & The Beast, The Little Mermaid, and yes, Aladdin and The Lion King [based on Hamlet] ).
Also note that Howl's Moving Castle, Miyazaki's latest movie, isn't an original (it's based off an obscure British Children's Book). Yet it's done insanely well and Japan and is already doing quite well in the US. Still the title is partially original, it's not exactly the same as the source book, but it's incredibly rich and detailed. I recall reading something about this recently, Miyazaki starts with a small part of a scene and builds that, then moves on to another, and so on until the whole scene is done but is filled with so many small details that it's impossible to grasp them all at once. That gives the animation a life of its own.
It's fascinating to see the Ghibli Museum in Japan, as Miyazaki designed, or helped design, pretty much all of it. Nothiing about it is "standard" or "normal". Even the tickets are fascinating (and keepsakes), they contain a frame of film in them (from one of Ghibli's films.) There are nooks and crannies and crawlways all over the place, kids really have a blast exploring. Even the bathroom was amazing, with some incredible stuff displayed in them. (Yep I said the bathroom.) We had a female friend with us on the trip and from talking to her we learned that not only was the women's bathroom the same way, it contained different stuff!
Currently anime has a fairly large following, but if Disney were to go that route and give up on conventional cartoons or CGI, what happens if anime is just a fad.
It probably is a moot point, one of the things that gives anime (and manga) its popularity is the willingness to have mature themes and stories. Mature in this case doesn't mean pornographic, but stories that deal with real issues, emotions, struggles, etc. It's not uncommon to see titles targeted at young kids that deal with very serious issues (rape, bullying, love (and not puppy love either), even "alternate" relationships show up fairly frequently, especially if it's a CLAMP work.) Can you see Disney _ever_ being willing to explore a mature theme in a "cartoon" they make? They've walled themselves off into the G rating only corner and seem to like it there. That's not to say a G rated animation has to suck, just that Disney seems to think it can't have any mature themes period. Slapstick and musical numbers will save the day! (Or at least that seems to be what they think.)
Think about it, Pixar's films are great, they're extremely kid friendly but they _DO_ explore mature themes as well. The characters evolve, they learn new lessons, they're _NOT_ perfect. Some of the things in them will completely go over kids heads, but give the adults a good chuckle. Animation doesn't have to be watered down crap to be a good kid's movie. Disney used to know this (hell look at Bambi alone, can you imagine Disney of today doing a show where the main character's mother is killed shortly into it?) but they seem to have forgotten it completely. It's not just Disney doing away with their animation studio, it seems Disney has lost it's heart and soul.
It may help Disney pull through in the short term, but will it be a long term solution for the lack of good cartoons from Disney? I wonder how many years anime has left?
In general or the stuff that gets yanked up to target (and market) directly to kids? (e.g. Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc.) In general I'd say the anime market will continue to grow, although it may slow some. There's a couple of generations of kids growing up now that know that the shows they love so much come from Japan and they'll be getting into anime and manga more heavily as they get older. The diversity of titles in anime alone can compete with Hollywood's offerings, so there's something for every taste.
While some in the business (*cough*AVD*cough*) like to proclaim doom and gloom at every chance they get (in particular about fansubbers), the market isn't showing any signs of falling apart. The main issues now are ones of success. Retailers are less willing to stock titles that don't start selling well right away. I personally wonder how big an issues that is though because more of the places that actually stock a decent amount of anime are more speciality stores, and they're going to understand that some titles pick up sales slowly.
Manga in particular is growing amazingly. Viz's Shonen Jump has done so well that they're launching a sister magazine called Shojo Beat targeted at girls. Shonen Jump graphic novels sell amazingly well (the $7.95 price point can't hurt). Even Del Ray has gotten into the business, starting out with some very high profile titles (Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHolic, both by CLAMP) and slowly expanding out. Their titles cost more than the industry standard $9.99 (at $10.99), but they also come with all the extras from the Japanese release (translated to boot), translation notes and tend to be a bit thicker in my experience.
Anime in and of itself is not just a fad, it's been growing for many years. Early fans used to watch whatever they could get, even if it was some Nth generation VHS copy of a show Raw (no subs) that you could barely watch. Thanks to fans, especially ones dedicated enough to do fansubs, and those who distributed them, the market continued to grow. In the last 5-6 years it's grown dramatically
Both this story and the last one (the quad core one) were nice technical stuff, perfect for nerds.
And lets take a look here. at the time of that posting , only 2 or 3 comments are even remotely touching the subject. The rest is stupid jokes and dumb ranting.
The quad core article is even worse, were the only non-joke posters are to stupid to tell apart SMT and dualcore.
You're aware it's Saturday right? A weekend day in the US, most people are off work. Even geeks and nerds tend to go do something fun on weekends if they can, so the traffic on/. drops. I'd say the lack of intelligent comments is more due to the lack of people checking/. today than the community in general.
I do have to point out that you're not exactly helping the signal to noise ratio by posting a complaint about it either.
Hacking was never about malicious behaviour, it was about learning and understanding. Granted, much of what one learned could be applied in malicious ways, but that wasn't the goal. Coding contests whether they be geared towards obfuscation or speed are still learning endeavors.
And what exactly about this isn't a learning endeavor? If people can pull off hiding fingerprinting code in an image processing programming that survives visible code inspection then I'd say we've all learned a VERY valuable lesson. We can study what they did, and how they hid it and we'll be able to look for that type of behaivor in the future. Who's to say that something like this isn't hidden in some project somewhere right this minute? It's possible (although unlikely) but knowing _WHAT_ to look for will make it even less likely and put us a lot further along to making it impossible.
In a day of professional computer hackers, this is not a contest to have.
You know this sounds an awful lot like the arguments against disclosing vulnerabilities. "If we report them then the Evil Hackers (tm) will be able to use them!" The problem there, and here, is that the Evil Hackers (tm) aren't going to just sit around idly and wait till white-hats find the problems. They'll look for them themselves, and being Evil Hackers (tm) they're not going to tell the white-hats about them. We've got to find the problems ourselves and be prepared to defend against them. Here we have a chance to find out if this type of code hiding is possible, and to see ways it can be done. Then we can watch to make sure the Evil Hackers (tm) don't manage to sneak something similar past us.
There is none of the neon in Akihabara that the authour attributed it with his description of the rest of Tokyo - only around the central station. There is where you'll find, granted, electric stuff, but only "home appliance" wares such as (mostly "last-year's technology") microwaves, televisions, radiators, fans, etc, as well as the stands of those who have "home factories" (really) that make light-bulbs and power cords and other small electric accessories. It's behind the station where the 'geek spot' starts - but it is limited to around ten streets criss-crossing two main 500-metre long arteries. There you can find old computer stuff, granted, but what's different than here is that only "hobbyists" buy it because it's almost as expensive as the off-the-shelf new wares you'd buy, say, at Yodobashi Camera.
Hmm, so when were you last there? I visited there in 2001 and what you describe does not match what I saw. I saw new, cutting edge computer parts, stereos, cell phones, you name it, on sale within sight distance of the JR station. I remember visiting a book store, also within sight of the JR station, that sold doujinshi. It had an entire section of them in fact. You also need to realize that even if it's a 10 street area (and I'm pretty sure it was bigger than that) that you're leaving out the _vertical_ height of the buildings. The Gamers store in Akhibara had at _least_ 8 floors. Animate was the same. Most buildings had different stores on different levels. And don't forget the basement level, you'll find businesses there too if the building has one.
Lastly, the geeks of which the authour speeks do not live in Akihabara, they only go there. As the author proves himself with his...
"Most people think we're weird," said Yamagata, the college student. "That's why we come here."
...closing quote.
So? His saying "we come here" could mean both we come to visit here, and we come to stay here. The statement is ambiguous you can't draw any real conclusion from it beyond otakus like him feel comfortable there.
Some geeks are persecuted. But they are the geeks like in that SNL skit about the computer guy. You know the type the ones that feel al high and mighty because they know computers and think everyone else is stupid because they don't. Then people ostracise them and they think they are being persecuted.
Wow are you ever clueless. I was highly persecuted in high school and junior high. I was never high and mighty, I kept to myself and was a good student. I certainly didn't lord my knowledge over people, but that didn't stop people from attacking me cause I was the least popular kid in school.
You were lucky, and I suspect you're younger than I am. Being geeky/nerdy/smart is not seen as big a negative as it used to be. Now it is cool to know about computers and the Internet. Back when I was in school most of the kids didn't really know or care what a computer was. All they cared about was I was different and my parents weren't rich. That made me the target-dejour.
You should think about what you said though, do you realize just how "high and mighty" you've come across in your post? You sound just like the people you're saying deserve to be persecuted.
And for the record _NO ONE_ ever deserves to be persecuted. If you don't like them, ignore them and avoid them, but don't treat them poorly. How you treat others speaks more about you than it does them. I never persecute people, I've been through enough of it myself and know how dehumanizing that experience is. If I think they're an idiot or don't like them I just ignore them and get away from them as soon as I can. But I _DO_ treat them with respect and courtesy, even if they're jerks to me. I'm not going to become an asshole because of someone else's attitude. If you want to, fine, but I'm not lowering myself to that level.
Re:Call it a Troll if You Like, But
on
Tokyo's Geek Ghetto
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· Score: 3, Interesting
So most of the 10% females left in this area have resorted to saying "welcome home master"?
Umm, no, not even close. Did you RTFA or skim it? That's just what the waitresses at one cafe say. You know, Waitresses, those women who get _paid_ to serve food and drinks at cafes and resteraunts? It might be a bit degrading but hardly unique. Hooters waitresses get degraded more than that here in the US.
And do note, they're employed there, they don't have to work there. They may not live anywhere near Akhibara (this wouldn't be at all unusual, lots of people commute to work in Japan, some have multi-hour trips). They took the job knowing what it entailed. You never know, they might actually like the job and what they do. That'd hardly be degrading.
I feel kinda awkward saying this, but any self-respecting (woman-loving?) geek should be trying to get the hell OUT of there as soon as possible, not try to rush into this place.
Actually there are shops that cater to female otaku too, just fewer of them since there's fewer female otaku. And your above point just proves that you wouldn't work at that particular cafe mentioned, not that there's anything wrong with it per-se.
You've also assumed that all the otaku like that kind of thing, but that's not correct either. Not every cafe is like that, they cater to different tastes. Someone else pointed out an article on Japan Today that's more accurate and less biased. One of the cafes it talks about the waitresses all wear long full skirts and elegant maid-style uniforms. That's not very degrading.
You should also note that wearing a uniform for work is a common practice in Japan. In fact at most places the employees change at work. Fancy/cute uniforms are quite common for females in many job areas. And we can't forget the extremely common school uniforms females have to wear from middle school up. Some elementary schools have uniforms too but it's less common.
Re:YT geeks will still stand out
on
Tokyo's Geek Ghetto
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· Score: 3, Informative
However, if you are non-Asian you will still be regarded as a bit of a monkey on display at the zoo.
Not in my experience, I spent two weeks there in 2001, mostly in Tokyo, a few days in Osaka and stayed with a friend (non-Japanese) living in Tsukuba and working at Kek Labs. (I got to go to Kek Labs too, call me an uber geek but that was a kick too.) I never noticed anyone staring at us at all. It's quite rude to stare and Japanese are quite good at at least keeping up the appearance of not being rude. They might give you little sideways looks out of curiosity but unless they're little kids they won't just stare at you.:)
You don't have to leave to the US to get that whole monkey in the zoo effect though. I was visiting a friend in Nashville, TN and we went to the mall. Now I'm white, he was from Taiwan and we went another friend of his who was African-America (very dark-skinned as well). People stared at _ME_ the whole time. I'd never seen anything like it. Apparently they couldn't believe a white guy was hanging out with non-whites. My friends both said they were used to it and just ignored it, but it was an eye-opener to me. Racism is alive and well in the US.
People may avoid sitting next to you on trains unless it is totally packed
See now that's one of your Gaijin Powers (tm)! Even during rush hour there'll be more space around you than anyone who isn't foreign.:) It's actually kinda funny, but it's not unexpected, people are instinctively afraid of the unknown and foreigners are certainly unknown to many of them. At the same time though they're more than willing to try and help you if you need help, even if they don't speak English. I managed to get my ticket on the Shinkansen back from Osaka and the guy helping me didn't speak any English. I knew just a few words of Japanese (hello, thank you, excuse me basically) but we didn't have any trouble.
I think part of the problem is they expect Americans to be rude (sadly we have this reputation just about world-wide). If you're polite and friendly they won't have any problems with you. I don't know why you'd be rude and hateful to someone when you're in a foreign country but apparently a lot of people are.
Oh yes, it's funny that in only two weeks I got used to doing the little bow while thanking people. It felt strange to not have people do that when I got back to the US for a while.:)
Hikikomori is more than just a shut-in. It'd be more accurate to say shut-in, shut-off from everyone and unable to cope with life. Just preferring to stay indoors and not talk to others is very different from not being _able_ to talk to others or go outside. Also a lot of these people are driven to their state from societal pressures. Suicide isn't uncommon at all among them.
The article doesn't explain this very well, actually it doesn't explain much of anything very well, but on this point it was vastly off.
Doubtful, there was an article not too long ago (might have been posted on/., I forget where) about the experience of a woman married to an otaku. One of the most interesting things that came out of the article is that Japanese women have started going after Otakus because there's almost no _normal_ guys left. The girl the article about said herself that if you want to get married now you have to look to the otakus.
So the spread of otakuism has apparently already passed the threshold of self-sustenance. There's so damn many of them now that the women have to go after them. Strange ehh?
So what am I supposed to do? I have student loans through Citibank, and my only choice to sever my ties with them is to pay off my loan in full, which I can't do at this time.
Just exactly how am I supposed to 'take a stand'? Believe me I'd love to, but I feel there's nothing I can do. I'd like to get a loan through another company, however I don't know of any credit union or smaller banks that do anything like that.
I'm surprised you don't already know the answers, I've been inundated for years with mailings about consolidating my student loans (even though I've already done so).
You can consolidate all your student loans (Stafford & Perkins) into a new loan with a fixed interest rate. Last year was the best time to do it since the interest rate was the lowest it had ever been, but it shouldn't be much higher now (it's set each July and only changed yearly). Pick a bank you trust and ask them about a consolidation, or sometimes called a reconsolidation, of your student loans. Even if you only have one you can still do it. It'll extend the repayment period and lock in the interest rate so it's still worthwhile. All the normal rules apply so there's no penalty for prepayment or paying more than the normal payment. You can benefit from the lower rate and still pay it off as soon as you would have normally.
Slashdot Mirror
The article leaves out info on the webpages associated with those photos, if such info was even retrievable (I'm guessing yes, but it's not mentioned). What it sounds like to me is he was browsing some free pr0n site that had a mix of stuff, some of it was illegal and in loading pages he got both the legal and illegal stuff. So, did he actually seek out the child porn or was it an unfortunate accident from the site he picked? And speaking of that, why aren't they doing something about the fucking website that had the stuff? Seems to me they're far worse than this guy even assuming he sought the stuff out.
There's another crucial point, he looked at porn for four hours on one day. There was no indication he'd looked at porn in mass on other dates. If he was truly a pedophile I doubt he would have stopped at one viewing.
Sorry, I went into the article thinking it was a crock but the info doesn't add up. It sounds like they're trying to bust this guy just so they can point to the case and say "see, we're fighting child porn!" not because he's really a criminal. That doesn't do anything to help any of us, and it most certainly doesn't help stop the problem of children being harmed.
The bottom line is there's no good reason to want this data stored for years unless they plan to search it. You have to look at where this is going. Even Hitler didn't implement all his stuff right away, it was a slow process, and each step people didn't protest until it was too late. As someone famous said once, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
You seem to be confused about what a vigilante is, dictionary.com gives me this: "One who takes or advocates the taking of law enforcement into one's own hands." Note it doesn't say anything about them forcing others to agree with their views or take part in them. If you decide to take legal actions in your own hands, then you are, by definition, a vigilante. So it does apply here, just because they don't force anyone to use their lists doesn't change that.
These lists are provided by people for free. They decide to list bad email servers, but they may as well include any server they want. After all, who's to force them to provide quality of service? TFA's point was that these lists start out listing just IPs/hosts/sites they know are sending spam, then later the power corrupts ("power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely") them and they start using the power they've gained by their blacklist being used by many people to start trying to force ISPs to comply with them by blocking bunches of innocents at the same ISP. That indeed has happened, although I'm really not sure if it's happened here or not. The risk of it occuring is pretty high, humans are, after all, only human and it's hard to resist that temptation, especially when you're a strong enough anti-spam advocate to run a blacklist. The real problem, of course, is that blacklists are needed in the first place. If ISPs did their jobs a little better (aol, hotmail and the likes), the amount of spam would already decrease significantly. And don't speak to me about chinese ISPs, since most spam comes from the US. The real problem is human nature in all of this. In spam existing in the first place (greed), in ISPs not blocking things they should (laziness, lack of knowledge or time), in people actually buying from spam (greed (getting something cheaper than legal means would allow), sexual desire (gotta have a longer penis!) or just simply a criminal desire to purchase illegal goods (prescription drugs for example)) as well as humans becoming corrupted by power when their blacklists get to be popular.So basically if we can solve how to get people to stop being, well, people and giving in to baser instincts we can stop spam. Of course we'd also stop crimes of all sorts as well and we've not managed that in hundreds of years so I'm not holding my breath for it to happen.
First, if they're sticking adware on an illegal file and uploading it, don't the same laws apply to them uploading the illegal file? Is the **AA suing these companies along with 12-year-old kids? After all, it's adware-infested, but it's still an illegal file, right? Better yet, if a 12yo or younger downloads one of these and gets greeted with the installer are they making sure they conform to COPPA? COPPA's a pain in the ass, you have to provide a physical address, phone number, fax number, full disclosure of all personal information collected, how it's used, etc. and provide for forms that the parents of the 12yo and younger folks have to send in before they can use your site. Since they're pushing ads _and_ they're likely collecting statistics to "target" said ads, then I'm betting that COPPA applies to them. Looking at the screenshots of the install it doesn't ask what age you are. Ooops, big mistake there. Maybe someone should tell Spitzer about this, I'm sure he'd love to nail some companies for COPPA violations too. Second, if they are modifying warez software, not only does the previous apply, but doesn't it fall under the protection of software that outlaws modifying binary code and distributing it without the publisher's consent? I mean think about it, this kind of thing not only supposedly denies companies revenue, but it can give them a serious black eye. What if people get the incorrect impression that an adware-infested version of a respectable piece of software is the real thing? All of a sudden, you have a really bad--and undeserved--reputation for distributing spyware on everyone's computers. Wait, it gets better. The screenshots show that he downloaded an episode of The Family Guy and this install popped up with it. Anyone want to take any bets on whether or not they had permission to distribute The Family Guy? What do you think the MPAA's going to do to them when they find out they're "monetizing" illegal downloads of their member's products? Bet it makes the lawsuits we've seen against fileshares look tame, and bet the owners of Direct Revenue will be able to put up their own goats.cx photos once it's over with.
Pretty sad when your own people are killing you in the name of fighting off the invaders. Of course I don't think most of the insurgents are really Iraqis, but simply Al Qaida members there just to cause problems. If that's who it is, it shows that Al Qaida really has no regard for human life, not just American, but even fellow Muslims. Jihad is never to be waged against other Muslims, but I guess Al Qaida missed that part of the Koran ehh?
So I'll actually call you what you are -- a troll. You haven't thought anything through, you've provided no facts and you've assumed the worst for no apparent reason.
Also, last I heard ORNL is still run by a combo of The University of Tennessee and Battel (sp?) so your kids will likely qualify for reduced tuition at UT when they get to college age. UT's an excellent school. :) Oh yeah, on that vein, hope you like Orange, you'll see a lot of it, everywhere. The UT fans here are quite, ahh, intense. :)
I'm glad to hear your vote of confidence about the city! Though I'm a bit leery of living that close to Y-12. They haven't always been the best environmental neighbors. While we like to joke about people from Oak Ridge glowing in the dark it's really not a problem. I grew up (and still live) in a town 30 minutes away. I've got friend in Oak Ridge, some who work for ORNL & Y12. There's really no danger. I even did a summer fellowship at ORNL, while I had to wear a radiation monitor I was never exposed to any. Some things you'll have to watch out for (you'll learn this from your coworkers) are the animals on the ORNL reserve. They can get into contaminated areas, so make sure you don't hit them. That could contaminate your car, but is unlikely to harm you, just cause some hassle.I would check out TV Tome to see where that one fell in the run of the show but seeing as they're now TV.com (and suck) I'll stick to this instead of telling you what season I think was worse. :)
For instance, I never intended to go into programming, but I did have to take (among others) a course on programming languages. The course didn't require any hands-on programming but covered programming languages from the inception through modern day. In it I learned how different languages are structured, why they're structured that way, etc. I thought it was the biggest waste of 3 credit hours I'd ever taken. 5 months later I did a paid research fellowship at ORNL (Oak Ridge National Labs, happens to be close to me). There I spent most of my summer working on Expect scripts for automated router control. I'd never used Expect before but I recognized it's syntax pretty quickly -- it's quite reminiscent of Lisp. I'd learned about Lisp and how it worked in that class, within a few weeks I was scripting up a storm, combining multiple statements into single lines and got more done than I was even expected to on the project. Basically I finished all my original assignments in a few weeks and got more. I realized then that the class I had despised so much was going to be invaluable. I still can pick up a new programming language extremely quickly thanks to that single class. If my CS dept. hadn't forced me to take it I'd have lost the chance to have that skill.
Another group of classes that proved useful were history (particularly the 300 level history class I had to take as part of my capstone experience) along with Technical and Professional Writing. People are amazed that I know how to write well, whether it be project reports, research reports, memos, etc. and it really has helped open quite a few doors. Part of that was getting lucky and having a history professor who was exceedingly tough on grading (10 points off for every run-on sentence, sentence fragment or subject-verb disagreement. You learn to write well fast, or you fail.), but it's served me well.
Yeah, there are still some courses that were a waste of time, but there always will be. Overall it was well worth it. :)
Also, what you don't use, you forget... and 4 years gives you plenty of time to forget.
You'd be surprised how much you'll remember of it. Maybe not all the details, but you will generallly remember enough to know where to look to refresh your memory. You can get to the answers quicker when you know where to start.There are so many people that disagree with me about my views that it's hard not to think that I may be mistaken somewhere... but I really haven't heard any good reasons for why college is worth the cost, other than the fact that employers assume that a degree is a prerequisite to a position in their company (And that also may just be a rumor... I think studies have shown experience is more important than education for increasing your chance of getting hired).
The main importance of the degree is that you have it. That's it. For many jobs it doesn't even matter what degree you have, just that you have one. (The percentage of people who work in different fields than their degree is astoundingly large. Sorry I don't have time right now to dig up the exact percentages though.) HavJust out of curiosity, have you seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame recently? Nope, although I own it I've never found time to watch it all. I do know the events in it roughly, but I don't recall anyone's mother being killed in such dramatic fashion. I do recall Quasimodo being horribly abused and used by the evil guy (whatever his name is). It's not struck me as a particularly great show though, the musical numbers seem a bit out of place.
I don't have a problem with parents wanting to filter what their kids see but the ISP shoudn't have to shoulder this burden for free. This would be a nice way for an ISP to differentiate itself, sell a bundled filtering service for extra money. Mandating that the ISPs set this up for anyone that wants it without compensating them is nuts. Even the telcos get to charges fees to recoup their costs to implement various government mandates.
So really, what is the law good for? Nothing, except appealing to the base.
It'll be effective at something, just not it's stated intentions. It'll cause repercussions that aren't thought of.I just found out first hand how these laws can cause trouble. I set up a forum, one mostly about anime and manga. Now there is quite a vast age range of anime and manga fans, so it's not unlikely I'll end up with users under 13 as well as those above 13. 13's the magic age in COPPA, an act designed to protect children from having information gathered on them. I used PhpBB which has built-in COPPA handling, and went to research what I had to do on my end to allow those under 13 to use the site and be COPPA compliant.
Well that didn't last long, I'd have to provide a physical address, phone number, fax number, etc. for parents to send in COPPA documents for their children. All this and all the info I'd be gathering is their E-mail address (used for registration confirmation). I don't even require a real name, just the nickname they want to use.
So what was the result of this law to protect children in my case? They're banned. If they chose the link "I'm under 13 and want to register" they get a polite message telling them they can't sign up and are redirected to disney.com. I guess you could argue they're protected, after all they can't participate in the forum, but all it's really going to do is cause the kids to try again later and lie about their age. That's assuming they tell the truth in the first place.
Maybe it appeals to their base, but all it's really good for is causing problems for others, and rarely if ever actually helps the problem it's supposedly solving.
I liked the Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain for the same types of reasons, especially Pinky and the Brain, some of the things that Pinky said were most definitely adult but the kids never notice. :)
How is any of that "racism"? Sounds like curiosity to me.
Everything is fucking racism these days...
Asians, African-Americans and Whites are all quite common in the area, they're not novelties. It's not normal to stare at someone, espeically not the looks they were giving me. It wasn't a curiosity stare, it ranged from disgust, hatred, to a quizzical expression like they couldn't believe what they saw.Not everything is racism, but this most decidely was. It was not normal curiosity. Perhaps you'd have had to been there. I felt exceedingly uncomfortable, even frightened by it. I've been stared at many times before but never made to feel uncomfortable or frightened by it. These people had problems.
Frankly it'd be good for you to experience it, then you'd be a bit more sensitive to the reality of the situation. Racism is quite alive and well in the US. Shrugging it off as "Everything is fucking racism these days..." only allows it to continue. So are you part of the problem or the solution?
It's fascinating to see the Ghibli Museum in Japan, as Miyazaki designed, or helped design, pretty much all of it. Nothiing about it is "standard" or "normal". Even the tickets are fascinating (and keepsakes), they contain a frame of film in them (from one of Ghibli's films.) There are nooks and crannies and crawlways all over the place, kids really have a blast exploring. Even the bathroom was amazing, with some incredible stuff displayed in them. (Yep I said the bathroom.) We had a female friend with us on the trip and from talking to her we learned that not only was the women's bathroom the same way, it contained different stuff!
Think about it, Pixar's films are great, they're extremely kid friendly but they _DO_ explore mature themes as well. The characters evolve, they learn new lessons, they're _NOT_ perfect. Some of the things in them will completely go over kids heads, but give the adults a good chuckle. Animation doesn't have to be watered down crap to be a good kid's movie. Disney used to know this (hell look at Bambi alone, can you imagine Disney of today doing a show where the main character's mother is killed shortly into it?) but they seem to have forgotten it completely. It's not just Disney doing away with their animation studio, it seems Disney has lost it's heart and soul.
It may help Disney pull through in the short term, but will it be a long term solution for the lack of good cartoons from Disney? I wonder how many years anime has left?
In general or the stuff that gets yanked up to target (and market) directly to kids? (e.g. Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc.) In general I'd say the anime market will continue to grow, although it may slow some. There's a couple of generations of kids growing up now that know that the shows they love so much come from Japan and they'll be getting into anime and manga more heavily as they get older. The diversity of titles in anime alone can compete with Hollywood's offerings, so there's something for every taste.While some in the business (*cough*AVD*cough*) like to proclaim doom and gloom at every chance they get (in particular about fansubbers), the market isn't showing any signs of falling apart. The main issues now are ones of success. Retailers are less willing to stock titles that don't start selling well right away. I personally wonder how big an issues that is though because more of the places that actually stock a decent amount of anime are more speciality stores, and they're going to understand that some titles pick up sales slowly.
Manga in particular is growing amazingly. Viz's Shonen Jump has done so well that they're launching a sister magazine called Shojo Beat targeted at girls. Shonen Jump graphic novels sell amazingly well (the $7.95 price point can't hurt). Even Del Ray has gotten into the business, starting out with some very high profile titles (Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHolic, both by CLAMP) and slowly expanding out. Their titles cost more than the industry standard $9.99 (at $10.99), but they also come with all the extras from the Japanese release (translated to boot), translation notes and tend to be a bit thicker in my experience.
Anime in and of itself is not just a fad, it's been growing for many years. Early fans used to watch whatever they could get, even if it was some Nth generation VHS copy of a show Raw (no subs) that you could barely watch. Thanks to fans, especially ones dedicated enough to do fansubs, and those who distributed them, the market continued to grow. In the last 5-6 years it's grown dramatically
I do have to point out that you're not exactly helping the signal to noise ratio by posting a complaint about it either.
Hacking was never about malicious behaviour, it was about learning and understanding. Granted, much of what one learned could be applied in malicious ways, but that wasn't the goal. Coding contests whether they be geared towards obfuscation or speed are still learning endeavors. And what exactly about this isn't a learning endeavor? If people can pull off hiding fingerprinting code in an image processing programming that survives visible code inspection then I'd say we've all learned a VERY valuable lesson. We can study what they did, and how they hid it and we'll be able to look for that type of behaivor in the future. Who's to say that something like this isn't hidden in some project somewhere right this minute? It's possible (although unlikely) but knowing _WHAT_ to look for will make it even less likely and put us a lot further along to making it impossible. In a day of professional computer hackers, this is not a contest to have. You know this sounds an awful lot like the arguments against disclosing vulnerabilities. "If we report them then the Evil Hackers (tm) will be able to use them!" The problem there, and here, is that the Evil Hackers (tm) aren't going to just sit around idly and wait till white-hats find the problems. They'll look for them themselves, and being Evil Hackers (tm) they're not going to tell the white-hats about them. We've got to find the problems ourselves and be prepared to defend against them. Here we have a chance to find out if this type of code hiding is possible, and to see ways it can be done. Then we can watch to make sure the Evil Hackers (tm) don't manage to sneak something similar past us.
"Most people think we're weird," said Yamagata, the college student. "That's why we come here."
...closing quote.
So? His saying "we come here" could mean both we come to visit here, and we come to stay here. The statement is ambiguous you can't draw any real conclusion from it beyond otakus like him feel comfortable there.You were lucky, and I suspect you're younger than I am. Being geeky/nerdy/smart is not seen as big a negative as it used to be. Now it is cool to know about computers and the Internet. Back when I was in school most of the kids didn't really know or care what a computer was. All they cared about was I was different and my parents weren't rich. That made me the target-dejour.
You should think about what you said though, do you realize just how "high and mighty" you've come across in your post? You sound just like the people you're saying deserve to be persecuted.
And for the record _NO ONE_ ever deserves to be persecuted. If you don't like them, ignore them and avoid them, but don't treat them poorly. How you treat others speaks more about you than it does them. I never persecute people, I've been through enough of it myself and know how dehumanizing that experience is. If I think they're an idiot or don't like them I just ignore them and get away from them as soon as I can. But I _DO_ treat them with respect and courtesy, even if they're jerks to me. I'm not going to become an asshole because of someone else's attitude. If you want to, fine, but I'm not lowering myself to that level.
And do note, they're employed there, they don't have to work there. They may not live anywhere near Akhibara (this wouldn't be at all unusual, lots of people commute to work in Japan, some have multi-hour trips). They took the job knowing what it entailed. You never know, they might actually like the job and what they do. That'd hardly be degrading.
I feel kinda awkward saying this, but any self-respecting (woman-loving?) geek should be trying to get the hell OUT of there as soon as possible, not try to rush into this place. Actually there are shops that cater to female otaku too, just fewer of them since there's fewer female otaku. And your above point just proves that you wouldn't work at that particular cafe mentioned, not that there's anything wrong with it per-se.You've also assumed that all the otaku like that kind of thing, but that's not correct either. Not every cafe is like that, they cater to different tastes. Someone else pointed out an article on Japan Today that's more accurate and less biased. One of the cafes it talks about the waitresses all wear long full skirts and elegant maid-style uniforms. That's not very degrading.
You should also note that wearing a uniform for work is a common practice in Japan. In fact at most places the employees change at work. Fancy/cute uniforms are quite common for females in many job areas. And we can't forget the extremely common school uniforms females have to wear from middle school up. Some elementary schools have uniforms too but it's less common.
You don't have to leave to the US to get that whole monkey in the zoo effect though. I was visiting a friend in Nashville, TN and we went to the mall. Now I'm white, he was from Taiwan and we went another friend of his who was African-America (very dark-skinned as well). People stared at _ME_ the whole time. I'd never seen anything like it. Apparently they couldn't believe a white guy was hanging out with non-whites. My friends both said they were used to it and just ignored it, but it was an eye-opener to me. Racism is alive and well in the US.
People may avoid sitting next to you on trains unless it is totally packed See now that's one of your Gaijin Powers (tm)! Even during rush hour there'll be more space around you than anyone who isn't foreign.I think part of the problem is they expect Americans to be rude (sadly we have this reputation just about world-wide). If you're polite and friendly they won't have any problems with you. I don't know why you'd be rude and hateful to someone when you're in a foreign country but apparently a lot of people are.
Oh yes, it's funny that in only two weeks I got used to doing the little bow while thanking people. It felt strange to not have people do that when I got back to the US for a while. :)
The article doesn't explain this very well, actually it doesn't explain much of anything very well, but on this point it was vastly off.
So the spread of otakuism has apparently already passed the threshold of self-sustenance. There's so damn many of them now that the women have to go after them. Strange ehh?
Just exactly how am I supposed to 'take a stand'? Believe me I'd love to, but I feel there's nothing I can do. I'd like to get a loan through another company, however I don't know of any credit union or smaller banks that do anything like that.
I'm surprised you don't already know the answers, I've been inundated for years with mailings about consolidating my student loans (even though I've already done so).You can consolidate all your student loans (Stafford & Perkins) into a new loan with a fixed interest rate. Last year was the best time to do it since the interest rate was the lowest it had ever been, but it shouldn't be much higher now (it's set each July and only changed yearly). Pick a bank you trust and ask them about a consolidation, or sometimes called a reconsolidation, of your student loans. Even if you only have one you can still do it. It'll extend the repayment period and lock in the interest rate so it's still worthwhile. All the normal rules apply so there's no penalty for prepayment or paying more than the normal payment. You can benefit from the lower rate and still pay it off as soon as you would have normally.