Humour is not always appropriate for awful events, try telling a joke about September 11 and see how long you last here.
When The Onion returned about three weeks after the attacks, their first issue was dedicated entirely to September 11. Sometimes humour helps one to deal with events of such a complex and painful nature.
I hold a US passport and have crossed into Israel a few times from both Taba border (Egypt) and the Yitzak Rabin crossing (Jordan). Each time I experienced lengthy questioning, but ultimately I was let through in spite of my Syrian visa stamps and backpack full of Tatar textbooks because the guards understood I was just a normal traveler and student. As soon as I saw the headline, I knew that if this girl had problems, it's likely because she was seen as another potential Rachel Corrie, which neither Israel nor the Palestinians need.
For those talking about "freedom of speech" etc., those niceties don't exist at passport control checkpoints, neither in Israel nor in the US or EU.
Your repetitions of "Great Tin God" are ridiculous. I said that a Singularity would solve technological and environmental problems, and that's pretty believable. I said nothing about the many other problems (moral, philosophical, existential) that humanity faces.
A greater understanding of physics may well be worth the excessive use of energy, as it may lead to better sources of energy tomorrow.
Lately I've been wondering how worthwhile attempts to e.g. stop climate change are when, if Kurzweil is right, we'll hit the Singularity in only a couple of decades and then all of humanity's environmental and technological problems may well be solved.
I want you to think about how expensive a drug to extend life would end up being. You think world and economic leaders want to see the lifespan of all humans suddenly extended?
Recently I went back and reread Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy beginning with Red Mars. One of the plot points is how a gene therapy is developed that essentially prolongs lifespan indefinitely. Robinson spends much time exploring the demographic and political ramifications of this. A decade ago, this was all very relevant reading.
However, in the years since this kind of science fiction enjoyed its heyday, there's been so much talk about the possible coming Singularity by futurists like Kurzweil. If the integration of the biological and the machine is right around the corner, then that would seem to overturn the Mathusian vision of the future evoked by the presence so many normal humans.
The integration of technology with biology is usually discussed as being so gradual that your suspicion that this immortality wouldn't be available to all people is not necessarily the case. Look around the developing world, and you'll see more and more people having access to all kinds of gadgetry.
I'd love to know how much of that was stuff like Britney Spears.
Last.fm is definitely a way to feel awkward with friends. Some of my acquaintances are well-read, well-dressed, well-spoken people, the sort who really seem to have it all together, but then you can never really manage the same level of respect for them after you've seen their Last.fm profile is nothing but Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga.
Quantum computers with Optronic pathways are now possible, I wonder how much longer it will be before Asimov's fiction becomes reality... When the day comes (and it's not to far away) that we can no longer claim to be the most intelligent thing we are aware of will we chose to be slave, master or form a symbiosis?
Your musings sound not so much like Asimov's fiction, but futurist Ray Kurzweil's predictions in books like The Singularity is Near. One of Kurzweil's observations is that as soon as we can create a machine equivalent to a human brain, we can create a machine more powerful than a human brain.
They also note that it's impossible to tell whether someone has left and will never return, as their account still remains there.
I stopped editing Wikipedia in 2004, IIRC. There were plenty of cases who people left and you could tell they weren't likely to return, as their User or Talk page had some spectacular meltdown where they cursed the entire project and -- in the cases of the more qualified editors -- they vowed never to write anything about their field outside of academic rounds ever again.
Or even pay a visit to Russia or any ex-soviet country. It's culturally a totally different world and it can be seen that US has and has had a little effect to them. Even McDonald's only landed in the largest cities 2000+.
McDonalds has been present in Moscow since the 1980s. Several locations in Kyiv appeared in the mid-1990s.
You think he's American? He sounds to me like the Indian dissidents I know, who whoever they fall on the spectrum believe that the highly touted "democracy" of their nation is a farce.
While not an especially great book, I got something of a picture of Eastern Congo from reading Tim Butcher's Blood River earlier this year. Though strangely little talked about, the entire region seems truly hell on earth, beyond any of the war zone or famished village you see on television. What I found interesting was that the materials from this region are transported in the backs of trucks to South Africa and only then processes, and the people mining these substances and transporting the excavated material get paid almost nothing for what is in later stages a treasure (and are frequently robbed on the way with it.)
Where would you rather go to college? These united States, or Finland?
For me, Finland. Indeed, I came to Finland to do my graduate education and couldn't be happier. For the branch of linguistics I'm interested in (Altaic languages, spoken mainly in the former Soviet Union), the world center of such studies used to be Indiana University in Bloomington, which gained extensive funding from the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force, but with the end of the Cold War all that dried up and the institution was gutted. There are tons of examples of insufficiently "sexy" departments across the US being disposed of, where fields in the humanities are forced into some kind of competition with the hard sciences and business and are deemed losers.
Meanwhile, over at the University of Helsinki, itself a famed institution for Altaic studies, things continue the same. The department is well supported by the university, there is plenty of funding and positions for researchers, and if you work here you are well respected by your peers internationally. Furthermore, in Finland the university provides a better library and computing center than anything I had at the two American schools I did my undergrad work at, provides free textbooks and all kinds of discounts for a much lower cost of living than the US (even with high taxes, I still have a lot more spending money than the average US grad student).
I travel most of the year and don't like to lug too many books around. But I always have my laptop (yes, the screen is not ideal, but still...). A surprisingly large amount of what I want to read -- even obscure academic monographs -- are already available as scanned or OCRed PDFs on websites based in the former Soviet Union. It is in fact quite rare for me not to find what I'm looking for, and just as with music from file-sharing services, I've already downloaded more books than I'll ever be able to get through.
At least with Amazon.com, one of the best-known websites with user reviews, I can attest that they welcome negative reviews. I've been reviewing there for the last nine years, more to focus my own thoughts on what I read, listen to or use than to guide others in purchases. Still, sometimes I've been scathing about a product and encouraged all and sundry not to buy it, and my review continues to be visible as the years go by. Rare situations where a review was not posted usually occurred because I tripped some keyword meant to discourage profanity, and a simple rewrite of the sentence in question was all it took to get the review up.
Oh and BTW, Muslims think it is absolutely unacceptable that American women go to school
Some Muslims. Visit a university in Morocco or Iran and you'll see that they are full of female students, and they and their families remain in good standing with their mosque and community.
If I understand correctly, the plague wasn't transmitted from human to human, but rather from lice to humans. Since lice are nowhere near as prevalent as they used to be, you don't normally have to fear an outbreak.
I'd like to see the article providing proof of that level of monitoring by the NSA (or any other government agency for that matter).
Not only is there an article, there was a major governmental investigation. The European Parliament's ECHELON report provoked an enormous scandal in nerd circles when it appear. Bamford's Body of Secrets provided fuller details, many based on inside contacts.
Sadly, things like PGP and interest in ECHELON reports seem to have become less popular among geeks. I wonder why. Sure, one might trust PGP less when there are ways to get around it or compel you personally to give up the key, but it's odd that people suddenly have zero passion for the technology.
You mean "Way to go, Congress that has no closed the pursestrings so tight that even developing nations look like they have better prospects for manned spaceflight."
A friend of mine went to italy and he says it was NOT worth it. There is so much crime, and even the "honest" shopkeeps constantly overcharge you
Usually overcharging says more about the tourist than about the shopkeeper. Some people invite getting fleeced by being douchebags. I travel most of the year and have covered about half the globe already, and I'm never overcharged. That's probably because I learn some of the local language, stick to local norms of courtesy, and do some basic research instead of just being a blatant, obnoxious and naïve foreigner.
I learnt much about electronics and radio growing up by getting involved in ham radio. You had to learn some theory to pass the exam for the license, and every month ham magazines had some new do-it-yourself radio project that even a 12 year-old like me could put together. The DIY aspect made it fun. Nowadays, however, amateur radio has mainly lost its appeal against the internet, and what novel things are going on within the ham community often require super-specialized electronics matched to complicated software that a young person just can't grasp entirely.
Obviously I'm talking about perception of parenthood by those not yet parents. When the government provides everything and there is no question of huge financial losses due to children, it seems easier to do it.
The example of certain welfare states shows that this is true only for a time. Eventually, once the government makes it effortless to raise children, birthrates start going back up. There was an article in Helsingin Sanomat, Finland's biggest newspaper, a week or so ago about this. Finland provides clothes, meals, books and even a cradle for every child, and maternity leave is generous. Parents don't have to make many sacrifices at all to rear children here.
Are janitors in Europe also well educated people from universities?
Quite often. I take it you've never been to the former Soviet Union? People with doctorates in philology or arts now support themselves by driving taxis, smuggling cigarettes over borders, or yes, even mopping floors.
all i say is, you should have paid more attention in class and avoided having to do shit house jobs like drive trucks because your a dumbass.
Is the situation in the US really like that? I travel most of the year and have become a great fan of hitchhiking. A lot of my lifts in Europe and Central Asia come from truck drivers, and a lot of them are quite well-educated people, often with university degrees, who began driving trucks because of uncertain economic times. It's not like there's much other work to do in certain places, especially the former Soviet Union.
I wouldn't call the job shit house work either. While it is monotonous, the money is a lot better than you'd expect, and the amount of time drivers have to actually work is continually reduced by new legislation.
Slashdot Mirror
When The Onion returned about three weeks after the attacks, their first issue was dedicated entirely to September 11. Sometimes humour helps one to deal with events of such a complex and painful nature.
I hold a US passport and have crossed into Israel a few times from both Taba border (Egypt) and the Yitzak Rabin crossing (Jordan). Each time I experienced lengthy questioning, but ultimately I was let through in spite of my Syrian visa stamps and backpack full of Tatar textbooks because the guards understood I was just a normal traveler and student. As soon as I saw the headline, I knew that if this girl had problems, it's likely because she was seen as another potential Rachel Corrie, which neither Israel nor the Palestinians need.
For those talking about "freedom of speech" etc., those niceties don't exist at passport control checkpoints, neither in Israel nor in the US or EU.
Your repetitions of "Great Tin God" are ridiculous. I said that a Singularity would solve technological and environmental problems, and that's pretty believable. I said nothing about the many other problems (moral, philosophical, existential) that humanity faces.
A greater understanding of physics may well be worth the excessive use of energy, as it may lead to better sources of energy tomorrow.
Lately I've been wondering how worthwhile attempts to e.g. stop climate change are when, if Kurzweil is right, we'll hit the Singularity in only a couple of decades and then all of humanity's environmental and technological problems may well be solved.
Recently I went back and reread Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy beginning with Red Mars . One of the plot points is how a gene therapy is developed that essentially prolongs lifespan indefinitely. Robinson spends much time exploring the demographic and political ramifications of this. A decade ago, this was all very relevant reading.
However, in the years since this kind of science fiction enjoyed its heyday, there's been so much talk about the possible coming Singularity by futurists like Kurzweil. If the integration of the biological and the machine is right around the corner, then that would seem to overturn the Mathusian vision of the future evoked by the presence so many normal humans.
The integration of technology with biology is usually discussed as being so gradual that your suspicion that this immortality wouldn't be available to all people is not necessarily the case. Look around the developing world, and you'll see more and more people having access to all kinds of gadgetry.
Last.fm is definitely a way to feel awkward with friends. Some of my acquaintances are well-read, well-dressed, well-spoken people, the sort who really seem to have it all together, but then you can never really manage the same level of respect for them after you've seen their Last.fm profile is nothing but Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga.
Your musings sound not so much like Asimov's fiction, but futurist Ray Kurzweil's predictions in books like The Singularity is Near . One of Kurzweil's observations is that as soon as we can create a machine equivalent to a human brain, we can create a machine more powerful than a human brain.
I stopped editing Wikipedia in 2004, IIRC. There were plenty of cases who people left and you could tell they weren't likely to return, as their User or Talk page had some spectacular meltdown where they cursed the entire project and -- in the cases of the more qualified editors -- they vowed never to write anything about their field outside of academic rounds ever again.
McDonalds has been present in Moscow since the 1980s. Several locations in Kyiv appeared in the mid-1990s.
You think he's American? He sounds to me like the Indian dissidents I know, who whoever they fall on the spectrum believe that the highly touted "democracy" of their nation is a farce.
While not an especially great book, I got something of a picture of Eastern Congo from reading Tim Butcher's Blood River earlier this year. Though strangely little talked about, the entire region seems truly hell on earth, beyond any of the war zone or famished village you see on television. What I found interesting was that the materials from this region are transported in the backs of trucks to South Africa and only then processes, and the people mining these substances and transporting the excavated material get paid almost nothing for what is in later stages a treasure (and are frequently robbed on the way with it.)
Only males are eligible for conscription, and you're free to choose working in local social center instead of serving in the army.
For me, Finland. Indeed, I came to Finland to do my graduate education and couldn't be happier. For the branch of linguistics I'm interested in (Altaic languages, spoken mainly in the former Soviet Union), the world center of such studies used to be Indiana University in Bloomington, which gained extensive funding from the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force, but with the end of the Cold War all that dried up and the institution was gutted. There are tons of examples of insufficiently "sexy" departments across the US being disposed of, where fields in the humanities are forced into some kind of competition with the hard sciences and business and are deemed losers.
Meanwhile, over at the University of Helsinki, itself a famed institution for Altaic studies, things continue the same. The department is well supported by the university, there is plenty of funding and positions for researchers, and if you work here you are well respected by your peers internationally. Furthermore, in Finland the university provides a better library and computing center than anything I had at the two American schools I did my undergrad work at, provides free textbooks and all kinds of discounts for a much lower cost of living than the US (even with high taxes, I still have a lot more spending money than the average US grad student).
I travel most of the year and don't like to lug too many books around. But I always have my laptop (yes, the screen is not ideal, but still...). A surprisingly large amount of what I want to read -- even obscure academic monographs -- are already available as scanned or OCRed PDFs on websites based in the former Soviet Union. It is in fact quite rare for me not to find what I'm looking for, and just as with music from file-sharing services, I've already downloaded more books than I'll ever be able to get through.
At least with Amazon.com, one of the best-known websites with user reviews, I can attest that they welcome negative reviews. I've been reviewing there for the last nine years, more to focus my own thoughts on what I read, listen to or use than to guide others in purchases. Still, sometimes I've been scathing about a product and encouraged all and sundry not to buy it, and my review continues to be visible as the years go by. Rare situations where a review was not posted usually occurred because I tripped some keyword meant to discourage profanity, and a simple rewrite of the sentence in question was all it took to get the review up.
Some Muslims. Visit a university in Morocco or Iran and you'll see that they are full of female students, and they and their families remain in good standing with their mosque and community.
If I understand correctly, the plague wasn't transmitted from human to human, but rather from lice to humans. Since lice are nowhere near as prevalent as they used to be, you don't normally have to fear an outbreak.
Not only is there an article, there was a major governmental investigation. The European Parliament's ECHELON report provoked an enormous scandal in nerd circles when it appear. Bamford's Body of Secrets provided fuller details, many based on inside contacts.
Sadly, things like PGP and interest in ECHELON reports seem to have become less popular among geeks. I wonder why. Sure, one might trust PGP less when there are ways to get around it or compel you personally to give up the key, but it's odd that people suddenly have zero passion for the technology.
You mean "Way to go, Congress that has no closed the pursestrings so tight that even developing nations look like they have better prospects for manned spaceflight."
Usually overcharging says more about the tourist than about the shopkeeper. Some people invite getting fleeced by being douchebags. I travel most of the year and have covered about half the globe already, and I'm never overcharged. That's probably because I learn some of the local language, stick to local norms of courtesy, and do some basic research instead of just being a blatant, obnoxious and naïve foreigner.
I learnt much about electronics and radio growing up by getting involved in ham radio. You had to learn some theory to pass the exam for the license, and every month ham magazines had some new do-it-yourself radio project that even a 12 year-old like me could put together. The DIY aspect made it fun. Nowadays, however, amateur radio has mainly lost its appeal against the internet, and what novel things are going on within the ham community often require super-specialized electronics matched to complicated software that a young person just can't grasp entirely.
Obviously I'm talking about perception of parenthood by those not yet parents. When the government provides everything and there is no question of huge financial losses due to children, it seems easier to do it.
The example of certain welfare states shows that this is true only for a time. Eventually, once the government makes it effortless to raise children, birthrates start going back up. There was an article in Helsingin Sanomat, Finland's biggest newspaper, a week or so ago about this. Finland provides clothes, meals, books and even a cradle for every child, and maternity leave is generous. Parents don't have to make many sacrifices at all to rear children here.
Quite often. I take it you've never been to the former Soviet Union? People with doctorates in philology or arts now support themselves by driving taxis, smuggling cigarettes over borders, or yes, even mopping floors.
Is the situation in the US really like that? I travel most of the year and have become a great fan of hitchhiking. A lot of my lifts in Europe and Central Asia come from truck drivers, and a lot of them are quite well-educated people, often with university degrees, who began driving trucks because of uncertain economic times. It's not like there's much other work to do in certain places, especially the former Soviet Union.
I wouldn't call the job shit house work either. While it is monotonous, the money is a lot better than you'd expect, and the amount of time drivers have to actually work is continually reduced by new legislation.