That's interesting. Says a lot about a society where the word for unmarried is the same as the word for virgin. Glad you posted this actually, as I didn't know it. Suspect the dick in question is more of a Rod of Lordly Might, however.
The thing they often warned me about, however, was that the French in Paris were incredibly rude people.
Even the rest of the French think that Pariseans are rude, so that should tell you everything you need to know about Paris!:D
Anyway, no sooner had I posted about what a friendly and welcoming people the Americans are, than a bunch of idiots show up to be rude. Always the way. I'm not aware of any scientific research on national politeness so I fully concede that my experience is anecdotal. But for what that's worth, I'd say that there's a greater expectation of politeness and hospitality in the US than most other Western places I have been. Whether that always translates into sincere happiness, well sometimes it doesn't. The sight of forced cheerfulness by an employee assigned to greet me when I walk into a supermarket was almost enough to make me turn around and go back out again. But on the whole, Americans expect to be treated politely and treat you politely back. They have a higher standard of what 'politeness' is. And on the whole, they mean it too.
For reference, my native country is Britain and I've travelled around a fair few European countries. Compared to the outer-coldness of the British, the Americans are in-your-face-friendly. Compared to some of the Mediteranian countries, they are not as loud, but are certainly more polite. The French seem to have picked up the Spanish and Italian competitiveness and mild aggression, and blended it well with the English decadence to produce their own brand of vintage disdain. But it's charming in its way and no barrier to actual friendship. Note: I only refer to the actual French, not French-language speakers in general. I've only met one native-French speaker from Canada and he introduced himself as "I'm M______ and I'm Jewish", so I got the impression he wanted to be considered his own ethnic category. (I'm not sure if I should be offended or not that I think's I would care, but there you go).
Anyway, for what it's worth, that's my anecdotal and absurdly abstracted impression.
Does decency and politeness excuse ignorance, or complacency? Hell, doesn't the ignorance and complacency bring into question the aforementioned decency?
It doesn't excuse ignorance, just as presence of an engine, body and windows on a car doesn't excuse a lack of wheels - you need all components to complete the whole. But you can then say: "this is a fine car, but someone has stolen the wheels" rather than "this isn't a car". The OP was ranting about the despicability of the American people. In fact, what is more use, is to realise that they are, on the whole, decent people who are victims of a well-orchestrated media con-job.
I set a lot of value on being precise. Why make misleading and wide-sweeping statements when we can instead say: "your average American doesn't have a good grasp of International realities". In the more precise version we can (a) stop insulting a lot of people and (b) more precisely identify rememdies: I.e. maybe all the mainstream media in the US being owned by a handful of biased super-corporations is a bad idea.
The Co-operative Bank in the UK is a genuinely non-evil bank. Check their ethical policy (dating back to before it was trendy), and note their refusal to deal with 'evil' companies their owners don't want them to.
I've been considering moving to them. They seem to be about the best of the bunch in the UK.
The actions of Americans to hide what they have truthfully and secretly said to their kin disgusts me.
The whole insular and antagonistic country needs to go and d.i.a.f. and leave the rest of the world to live their lives in peace.
Americans espouse freedom of speech... until it gives them a red face, then they show their true colours. A country of warmongers.
Have you ever been to America? They're some of the politest and most welcoming people you'll ever meet. The dichotomy between the decency of the people there, and the corruption of the government is inexplicable. Until you turn on a TV in the USA and see what passes for news in that country. You want someone to blame? Blame the oligarchy that owns America's media.
It does need to be a lesson to every organization though. Wikileaks / Assange will turn on you any second that they think they have something that they can use to feed their ego. You're not safe doing business with this guy
In order:
1. It's not a lesson to every organization. It's only a warning to ones that have been engaged in wrong-doing.
2. "Wikileaks / Assange" is not good terminology: Wikileaks is not synonymous with Julian Assange and the constant identification of the two with each other is a symptom of our media which simplifies everything to Hollywood plot-lines. We shouldn't perpetuate this.
3. Wikileaks has not "turned on" anyone because this has strong connotations of betrayal. When were Wikileaks and Bank of America ever partners in anything?
4. Why this business of "feeding the ego"? It seems a cheap way to try and invalidate an action by alleging a base motive to the person doing the action. If someone wants to "feed their ego", they're better off trolling innocents on Slashdot or getting a job in Airport security where they can boss people around, than taking on the US government. As a member of the public, I have an interest in knowing about wrong-doings committed by world governments or large corporations.
On a side note, I'm going to go hide that childhood picture of me dressed as a girl for halloween... I'd hate to see it end up on Wikileaks after the cleaning lady steals it.
Wikileaks isn't for people's personal foibles - it's about malfeasance by those in power.
Having a hard drive of a B of A executive is hardly conclusive as to the banks safety. As far as we know, the contents might have been removed, etc - and it was sent in for repair.
Safety? Wikileaks isn't going to be releasing Bank of America's passwords or security information. If they release anything it's going to be about corruption, insider dealing, complicity in illegal activities etc. The concern isn't the bank's "safety" per se. It's that if shit falls on Bank of America, their share price will get hit, there might be legal investigations into wrong-doing... That sort of thing. And I don't know what sort of shape Bank of America is in - are they part of the general morass that US banking has sunk into over the last couple of years? If so, probably the last thing they need right now is investors getting out. A run on the bank by the public? That's not a first response to this. It's this hit on share price and investors that would be the immediate effect. Expect some emergency buying by non-neutral parties to keep share price up if Wikileaks comes out with anything juicy.
Oh, yes, nukes have tech in them. Let's just post the whole Reuters newswire because that is delivered with technology!
It's not an unreasonable point, because this is going to be all over non-tech news sites anyway, so can be discussed there - why add more noise to Slashdot and push down the actual tech news?
However, your comment reminds me of the famous remark from Bobby Fischer, the brilliant and mad chess player, who arrived at this chess club one morning to find everyone discussing Russia placing nuclear missiles in Cuba and the prospect of nuclear war. Apparently he stood this for about five minutes before erupting in anger: "Gentlemen, what has this got to do with chess?":D
I'm not objecting to your voicing annoyance - far from it, I can relate. I feel the same every time a Star Wars or Star Trek story appears as I don't understand why, as a C programmer, I am required to share a social overlap with a bunch of comic geeks. However, Slashdot is a community of sorts and discussion is one of the main attractions of this site (we all know it's not the editing). When something is big enough, it's interesting to know what a community you belong to feels about it.
True, it doesn't have much to do with chess, but I'm not Bobby Fischer.;)
I'm surprised Microsoft is developing things outside of it's own ecosystem. It's my understanding they don't generally do this.
MS want Windows to be chosen over Apple or Linux. Once, they tried the nasty trick of trying to corrupt standards so that a browser (IE) which only ran on Windows was the preference. But it's in line with those same aims (not to mention much fairer) to also take the strategy of making sure multiple browsers work better on Windows than on other platforms. In either case, the result is the same: an advantage to Windows. A temporary one, mind you. MS is merely leading the way with this. It'll all even out soon enough.
I can tell this story was posted in the early hours for the US because the Brits are making bestiality jokes about the Welsh, rather than the Americans making jokes about New Jersey.
Also because the Slashdot editors are using up their filler non-stories on us Europeans, but that's another issue.;)
True, when you have a point you want to make and you arrive ten minutes after the story has been posted, you're faced wtih the choice of either trying to sneak it in at the top or accepting that 95% of visitors wont skim down that far. It's not good to post-ride, but sometimes the temptation is too much for someone, Bad pitchpipe! On the other hand, it is pretty bizarre for TFS to refer to Chromium as 'incredibly secure' when it's designed to monitor everything you do.
Yeah, it's really not that confusing. The first number is the generation. So a 6xxx card is newer than a 5xxxx card. But a new low-end card is not necessarily better than last year's high-end card.
Thank you for the insightful reply. It's good to have a cordial discussion on Slashdot with someone who is willing to share their views rather than the usual drivel encountered here!
And likewise. Of course we always consider that which we agree with insightful, do we not?;)
Obama had a very slick image. I know next to nothing about his career in Chicago and he seemed to come out of nowhere to me, but Bloody Hell, did he tick all the right election campaign boxes! I actually recall Mike Huckabee as probably being my preferred candidate. There are many issues I disagreed with him on, but these are mainly issues that he had in common with other mainstream candidates and so mathematically could be cancelled out. What I liked was that he had a clear and positive position on campaign finance reform.
I'm British, btw. I view the country from the outside which has advantages of perspective, but costs me some depth of information.I think I would fare badly in US politics. I like socialism in several areas of society, and find the health care reforms from the Democrats to be nearly utter trash - the worst of both worlds. I'm not a Christian and am fine with gay marriage and other irrelevancies, but anti-abortion in almost all cases. I think anyone who forms their own opinions (not necessarily ones that are the same as mine, but merely individually arrived at whatever they may be), is hamstrung in US politics: you can't choose a faction without getting a whole lot you don't want with it, and you can't vote for an issue because the system works against that. A few sensible policies / stances that don't impact their backers, are shared out between the two main parties so that people will pick one or the other. And the issues that do concern the parties' backers are held in common by both parties and ignored by the media.
There's a popular interpretation of Science concluding that a theory must be falsifiable. The theory that the US is a democratic nation would be falsifiable only by the US people attempting to really change things. I would like to see that experiment tried. Reading the news usually makes me cynical about that nation. But talking to American friends always gives me hope. The dichotomy between the honesty and optimism of the US people and the dishonesty and selfishness of its government and media, are one of the great wonders of our time, to me.
Anyway, a long reply for a long reply. Good to have met someone interesting to talk to on Slashdot.
H.
Yep - Michael Moore's support is more damaging to Julian Assange than any of the stunts the US government has pulled so far.
My enemy is not some political faction, but the methods they use. And anyone who uses those same methods is just as guilty. The correct response to lies and distortion and fallacious arguments is accuracy, truth and reason. Not just more of the same in the other direction. Michael Moore - not much better than those he affects to despise, merely less adept at evil.
Safe as an absolute? No. Safe as in vastly safer and less dangerous than the reactor at Chernobyl? Yes - easily. And don't forget that even Chernobyl, rickety pile of bolts that it was, only failed because people deliberately overrode the safety mechanisms.
A good point, except that incidence of cancer or birth deformities did not sky-rocket.
You are aware that the most contaminated areas were all evacuated? Might as well make the argument that poisoning a river isn't harmful because people have to go and drink from a different river. Even so, there are estimates of around 4,000 people dying from cancers caused by the fallout.
And I love the traditional "more people die on the roads" variant. Really? Thousands die on the stretch of road outside your window each year? What - do you room mate with Godzilla or something?
Some people seem to think that if you don't instantly die, then everything's fine. Never mind if incidence of cancer or birth deformities sky-rocketed for people in areas of radioactive fall-out, if people's heads aren't exploding, it's "Green Hysteria."
I'd love to visit the place, mind you. I hear that their restaurants serve a lovely leg of fish.
So you're saying that they lack the ability to seriously interrupt the business of companies like Mastercard, Amazon or Paypal, that if they did it would be counter-productive due to inciting a response from the Government and that all they do, is generate publicity by attacking the public faces of the companies. Given the first two of your propositions, doesn't the third one actually make a great deal of sense?
Slashdot Mirror
That's interesting. Says a lot about a society where the word for unmarried is the same as the word for virgin. Glad you posted this actually, as I didn't know it. Suspect the dick in question is more of a Rod of Lordly Might, however.
I was in Europe all last summer (July - Sept.), & I saw the same in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia, England, Spain, & yes, France.
Um, there is no Czechoslovakia. It broke up in 1993 and there is now a Czech republic. Don't call it Czechoslovakia - they don't like that.
The thing they often warned me about, however, was that the French in Paris were incredibly rude people.
Even the rest of the French think that Pariseans are rude, so that should tell you everything you need to know about Paris! :D
Anyway, no sooner had I posted about what a friendly and welcoming people the Americans are, than a bunch of idiots show up to be rude. Always the way. I'm not aware of any scientific research on national politeness so I fully concede that my experience is anecdotal. But for what that's worth, I'd say that there's a greater expectation of politeness and hospitality in the US than most other Western places I have been. Whether that always translates into sincere happiness, well sometimes it doesn't. The sight of forced cheerfulness by an employee assigned to greet me when I walk into a supermarket was almost enough to make me turn around and go back out again. But on the whole, Americans expect to be treated politely and treat you politely back. They have a higher standard of what 'politeness' is. And on the whole, they mean it too.
For reference, my native country is Britain and I've travelled around a fair few European countries. Compared to the outer-coldness of the British, the Americans are in-your-face-friendly. Compared to some of the Mediteranian countries, they are not as loud, but are certainly more polite. The French seem to have picked up the Spanish and Italian competitiveness and mild aggression, and blended it well with the English decadence to produce their own brand of vintage disdain. But it's charming in its way and no barrier to actual friendship. Note: I only refer to the actual French, not French-language speakers in general. I've only met one native-French speaker from Canada and he introduced himself as "I'm M______ and I'm Jewish", so I got the impression he wanted to be considered his own ethnic category. (I'm not sure if I should be offended or not that I think's I would care, but there you go).
Anyway, for what it's worth, that's my anecdotal and absurdly abstracted impression.
Does decency and politeness excuse ignorance, or complacency? Hell, doesn't the ignorance and complacency bring into question the aforementioned decency?
It doesn't excuse ignorance, just as presence of an engine, body and windows on a car doesn't excuse a lack of wheels - you need all components to complete the whole. But you can then say: "this is a fine car, but someone has stolen the wheels" rather than "this isn't a car". The OP was ranting about the despicability of the American people. In fact, what is more use, is to realise that they are, on the whole, decent people who are victims of a well-orchestrated media con-job.
I set a lot of value on being precise. Why make misleading and wide-sweeping statements when we can instead say: "your average American doesn't have a good grasp of International realities". In the more precise version we can (a) stop insulting a lot of people and (b) more precisely identify rememdies: I.e. maybe all the mainstream media in the US being owned by a handful of biased super-corporations is a bad idea.
Good luck. Even where we can't bring down our enemy, there's merit in causing them grief.
I think you are mixing privacy and security...
To some extent, they're only separate things to those that don't care about privacy much.
The Co-operative Bank in the UK is a genuinely non-evil bank. Check their ethical policy (dating back to before it was trendy), and note their refusal to deal with 'evil' companies their owners don't want them to.
I've been considering moving to them. They seem to be about the best of the bunch in the UK.
The actions of Americans to hide what they have truthfully and secretly said to their kin disgusts me.
The whole insular and antagonistic country needs to go and d.i.a.f. and leave the rest of the world to live their lives in peace.
Americans espouse freedom of speech... until it gives them a red face, then they show their true colours. A country of warmongers.
Have you ever been to America? They're some of the politest and most welcoming people you'll ever meet. The dichotomy between the decency of the people there, and the corruption of the government is inexplicable. Until you turn on a TV in the USA and see what passes for news in that country. You want someone to blame? Blame the oligarchy that owns America's media.
The word is "Losing".
And yes, they are.
It does need to be a lesson to every organization though. Wikileaks / Assange will turn on you any second that they think they have something that they can use to feed their ego. You're not safe doing business with this guy
In order: 1. It's not a lesson to every organization. It's only a warning to ones that have been engaged in wrong-doing. 2. "Wikileaks / Assange" is not good terminology: Wikileaks is not synonymous with Julian Assange and the constant identification of the two with each other is a symptom of our media which simplifies everything to Hollywood plot-lines. We shouldn't perpetuate this. 3. Wikileaks has not "turned on" anyone because this has strong connotations of betrayal. When were Wikileaks and Bank of America ever partners in anything? 4. Why this business of "feeding the ego"? It seems a cheap way to try and invalidate an action by alleging a base motive to the person doing the action. If someone wants to "feed their ego", they're better off trolling innocents on Slashdot or getting a job in Airport security where they can boss people around, than taking on the US government. As a member of the public, I have an interest in knowing about wrong-doings committed by world governments or large corporations.
On a side note, I'm going to go hide that childhood picture of me dressed as a girl for halloween... I'd hate to see it end up on Wikileaks after the cleaning lady steals it.
Wikileaks isn't for people's personal foibles - it's about malfeasance by those in power.
Having a hard drive of a B of A executive is hardly conclusive as to the banks safety. As far as we know, the contents might have been removed, etc - and it was sent in for repair.
Safety? Wikileaks isn't going to be releasing Bank of America's passwords or security information. If they release anything it's going to be about corruption, insider dealing, complicity in illegal activities etc. The concern isn't the bank's "safety" per se. It's that if shit falls on Bank of America, their share price will get hit, there might be legal investigations into wrong-doing... That sort of thing. And I don't know what sort of shape Bank of America is in - are they part of the general morass that US banking has sunk into over the last couple of years? If so, probably the last thing they need right now is investors getting out. A run on the bank by the public? That's not a first response to this. It's this hit on share price and investors that would be the immediate effect. Expect some emergency buying by non-neutral parties to keep share price up if Wikileaks comes out with anything juicy.
Oh, yes, nukes have tech in them. Let's just post the whole Reuters newswire because that is delivered with technology!
It's not an unreasonable point, because this is going to be all over non-tech news sites anyway, so can be discussed there - why add more noise to Slashdot and push down the actual tech news?
:D
;)
However, your comment reminds me of the famous remark from Bobby Fischer, the brilliant and mad chess player, who arrived at this chess club one morning to find everyone discussing Russia placing nuclear missiles in Cuba and the prospect of nuclear war. Apparently he stood this for about five minutes before erupting in anger: "Gentlemen, what has this got to do with chess?"
I'm not objecting to your voicing annoyance - far from it, I can relate. I feel the same every time a Star Wars or Star Trek story appears as I don't understand why, as a C programmer, I am required to share a social overlap with a bunch of comic geeks. However, Slashdot is a community of sorts and discussion is one of the main attractions of this site (we all know it's not the editing). When something is big enough, it's interesting to know what a community you belong to feels about it.
True, it doesn't have much to do with chess, but I'm not Bobby Fischer.
I'm surprised Microsoft is developing things outside of it's own ecosystem. It's my understanding they don't generally do this.
MS want Windows to be chosen over Apple or Linux. Once, they tried the nasty trick of trying to corrupt standards so that a browser (IE) which only ran on Windows was the preference. But it's in line with those same aims (not to mention much fairer) to also take the strategy of making sure multiple browsers work better on Windows than on other platforms. In either case, the result is the same: an advantage to Windows. A temporary one, mind you. MS is merely leading the way with this. It'll all even out soon enough.
I can tell this story was posted in the early hours for the US because the Brits are making bestiality jokes about the Welsh, rather than the Americans making jokes about New Jersey.
;)
Also because the Slashdot editors are using up their filler non-stories on us Europeans, but that's another issue.
No, you misread it. It's an actual boot, for duelling.
The heels are very pointy.
True, when you have a point you want to make and you arrive ten minutes after the story has been posted, you're faced wtih the choice of either trying to sneak it in at the top or accepting that 95% of visitors wont skim down that far. It's not good to post-ride, but sometimes the temptation is too much for someone, Bad pitchpipe! On the other hand, it is pretty bizarre for TFS to refer to Chromium as 'incredibly secure' when it's designed to monitor everything you do.
Can I just be clear, here? Are you blaming Microsoft for not also writing support plugins for O/Ss they don't develop?
Speaking as a vegetarian, I'm pretty sure I could take down anyone who tries to live without Carbohydrates. :)
Yeah, it's really not that confusing. The first number is the generation. So a 6xxx card is newer than a 5xxxx card. But a new low-end card is not necessarily better than last year's high-end card.
Thank you for the insightful reply. It's good to have a cordial discussion on Slashdot with someone who is willing to share their views rather than the usual drivel encountered here!
And likewise. Of course we always consider that which we agree with insightful, do we not? ;)
Obama had a very slick image. I know next to nothing about his career in Chicago and he seemed to come out of nowhere to me, but Bloody Hell, did he tick all the right election campaign boxes! I actually recall Mike Huckabee as probably being my preferred candidate. There are many issues I disagreed with him on, but these are mainly issues that he had in common with other mainstream candidates and so mathematically could be cancelled out. What I liked was that he had a clear and positive position on campaign finance reform.
I'm British, btw. I view the country from the outside which has advantages of perspective, but costs me some depth of information.I think I would fare badly in US politics. I like socialism in several areas of society, and find the health care reforms from the Democrats to be nearly utter trash - the worst of both worlds. I'm not a Christian and am fine with gay marriage and other irrelevancies, but anti-abortion in almost all cases. I think anyone who forms their own opinions (not necessarily ones that are the same as mine, but merely individually arrived at whatever they may be), is hamstrung in US politics: you can't choose a faction without getting a whole lot you don't want with it, and you can't vote for an issue because the system works against that. A few sensible policies / stances that don't impact their backers, are shared out between the two main parties so that people will pick one or the other. And the issues that do concern the parties' backers are held in common by both parties and ignored by the media.
There's a popular interpretation of Science concluding that a theory must be falsifiable. The theory that the US is a democratic nation would be falsifiable only by the US people attempting to really change things. I would like to see that experiment tried. Reading the news usually makes me cynical about that nation. But talking to American friends always gives me hope. The dichotomy between the honesty and optimism of the US people and the dishonesty and selfishness of its government and media, are one of the great wonders of our time, to me.
Anyway, a long reply for a long reply. Good to have met someone interesting to talk to on Slashdot.
H.
Yep - Michael Moore's support is more damaging to Julian Assange than any of the stunts the US government has pulled so far.
My enemy is not some political faction, but the methods they use. And anyone who uses those same methods is just as guilty. The correct response to lies and distortion and fallacious arguments is accuracy, truth and reason. Not just more of the same in the other direction. Michael Moore - not much better than those he affects to despise, merely less adept at evil.
Safe as an absolute? No. Safe as in vastly safer and less dangerous than the reactor at Chernobyl? Yes - easily. And don't forget that even Chernobyl, rickety pile of bolts that it was, only failed because people deliberately overrode the safety mechanisms.
A good point, except that incidence of cancer or birth deformities did not sky-rocket.
You are aware that the most contaminated areas were all evacuated? Might as well make the argument that poisoning a river isn't harmful because people have to go and drink from a different river. Even so, there are estimates of around 4,000 people dying from cancers caused by the fallout.
And I love the traditional "more people die on the roads" variant. Really? Thousands die on the stretch of road outside your window each year? What - do you room mate with Godzilla or something?
Some people seem to think that if you don't instantly die, then everything's fine. Never mind if incidence of cancer or birth deformities sky-rocketed for people in areas of radioactive fall-out, if people's heads aren't exploding, it's "Green Hysteria."
I'd love to visit the place, mind you. I hear that their restaurants serve a lovely leg of fish.
So you're saying that they lack the ability to seriously interrupt the business of companies like Mastercard, Amazon or Paypal, that if they did it would be counter-productive due to inciting a response from the Government and that all they do, is generate publicity by attacking the public faces of the companies. Given the first two of your propositions, doesn't the third one actually make a great deal of sense?