"What happens when you get to another country that isn't perfect? Why not stay here and fight?" I wonder if that's what some Germans/Jews said to the first round of Jews who left Germany.
That's what I feel like as an American permanent resident of Canada - like the first round of Jews fleeing Germany must have felt. I didn't leave *solely* because the US seemed headed toward Fascism, but it was one reason. How do you fight it when (at that time anyway) fully half the country was in favour of Bush's Orwellian vision of the state? Sorry, but I didn't want to wait around for Dick Cheney's concentration camps in Virginia. I've lived here in Ontario for nearly three years now and the healthcare setup *alone* will keep me here forever. Things aren't perfect here but I'm under less stress than I was in the US. In a few more years, no one's going to give a crap about their loss of civil liberties there because they'll be too busy living hand-to-mouth in their neighbourhood Tent City. I felt the squeeze on the middle class before I left, and I live better now in Toronto - more money (even before the dollar fell), I don't have to own a car anymore, and I am about to sign a lease for a bigger apartment than I had in CT.
I admit...I gave up. The Fascists and inbred Jesusland rednecks won. I'm just waiting to see how long it will take before I refuse to cross the border because I'm not sure the US will let me go back to Canada again.
One thing I will state about the CAnadians. Too many of them live with a bit of a rose-coloured view of life here, thinking what happened in the US can never happen here. However, I see two huge problems here that I saw twenty years ago in the US: Apathy and ignorance. Retarded 9/11 conspiracy theories are the Creationism of Canadians, so never let one ask you why Americans are stupid enough to believe in Creationism. And they are apathetic - voter turnout is dropping and Canadians are whining the way Americans did before they realized that not voting gives you a President with the brain of a garden weed and a Congress with the morals of the Mafia..."My vote doesn't matter. What's the use, it won't change anything anyway. I don't have time. I have to pick up the kids on voting day. Waaaaah waaahh waaahh."
No one seems to grasp that Stephen Harper and the Tories are just as dangerous as the Republicans - it's just that they don't have the power or the popular support (yet) of the people. Of course, if Canada ever suffers a real terrorist attack here, I wonder if that could change on a dime.
Those of us who might have been subjected to your daughter's behaviour thank you. There's nothing wrong with taking a kid outside for a timeout when they need it. And you're right that parents are under attack for trying to discipline their kids at all, but maybe they should stop listening to psychologists and pay more attention to how they were raised themselves, and what's just plain good common sense.
Too many parents hide behind the parenting-fad-du-jour explanation for why they can't discipline their kids, when in fact it's just plain laziness. Kids aren't going to learn proper behaviour unless it's taught to them, and a good way to do it is to take away rewards and privileges. My parents were fond of withholding dessert and putting us to bed right after supper; today's parents might want to restrict Internet or Playstation privileges.
You just know damn well that if Little Bratley is running around the restaurant and plows into a waitress and she spills hot soup on him, BreederMom and BreederDad are going to sue the restaurant for not providing a safe environment for Little Bratley to play in. Since we have no-smoking rules in effect for restaurants, it's just too bad some of them can't be made no-children zones.
I would be willing to settle for a party that's "soft on terrorism", if only we could get rid of the party that actively encourages it with Al Qaeda's star recruitment poster boy, George Bush. Don't you know they must have pics of him in an Uncle Sam outfit all over the Middle East saying, "I want YOU to to join Islam's most popular terrorist front!"
I think his point is that he's not getting laid, ergo women should expect discrimination from male geeks like him. Essentially, women should shag male geeks more if they want to get rid of sexism in the workplace.
Which demonstrates the pervasive and largely well-deserved reputation male geeks have for chronic cluelessness.
I've been a chickie-boo in IT now for, um, 14 years or so, more or less (a couple of brief breaks for telecom). I am usually the only woman in my department and I've never had much of a problem associating with the boys. I suspect it helps that I'm not overly sensitive, meaning I don't get freaked out by dirty jokes, comments about my appearance, and flirting. I know all those things are supposed to be verboten at the office, but let's be real, kids, it's *not* - geeks are a pretty wild and crazy bunch with a weird sense of humour, and it's all fun and games as long as no one's getting hurt. Everyone has a pretty good sense of how *not* to act, and where everyone's line is...it's not a question of putting up with s**t to be "one of the boys", it's simply about not stressing over the stupid stuff. I have only been sexually harassed twice in my life, both by bosses, and both of whom were clearly aware that they were going WAY over the line. And guess what, I dealt with it without dragging the Supreme Court into it.
In all fairness, I've never worked with a bunch of guys who seemed to be anti-female or anything. Usually, when I start a new job they're kind of cautious around me until they get to know me, then when they realize I have as twisted a sense of humour as they do and that you have to push me *far* to piss me off, they relax a lot and we do all the silly bonding stuff that makes a good team work. I am watching it happen right now at work where someone who seemed to have been a drag on the department has left...now all of a sudden everyone's talking more, joking more, playing harmless pranks more...and contributing to a 'team spirit' that was a bit lacking before.
I moved to Toronto in late April from Connecticut. I was serious when I said I'd do it.
Got in under the skilled worker program. When people ask why I either answer "Better beer," if I'm tired of answering the question, or "Midlife crisis - had to get out of CT, and besides, I didn't like what was happening politically in the U.S." And it's true - when the Pod People (brainwashed Bush voters) gave the whole Abu Ghraib/torture scandal thing a free pass, I knew it was over for the US. The country's in decline and I want to get off the train wreck before it inevitably crashes.
I love it here, in case anyone's interested. It's not perfect, and the taxes are higher, but not as bad as the Pod People would have you believe. And at least my tax money's paying for my social safety net, rather than someone else's f**king illegal war.
And yes, I got a job fairly quickly - I was working again in less than three months. However, I will state it's easier for Americans than other immigrants. And I did get lucky - Canadians have a bias towards "Canadian experience" which means you might have to do volunteer work for awhile (yes, that means for free) before anyone will take you seriously. I was fortunate in that the company that pulled my resume off Workopolis needed someone with American experience as well.
I'm happy I made the move. I ditched my car, BTW, and now go to work by bus and travel around Toronto on the subway. It's a bit more inconvenient but I have a LOT more money at the end of the month and that compensates very well for the inconvience, thankyouverymuch.
How unbelievably stupid. Sounds just as pseudo-scientific as eHarmony. It's all about the f**kability, kids: If the chick's not hot-looking (by the viewer's standards) nothing is going to convince him to email her.
IME, most men don't understand what "chemistry" is all about. It really IS about shared values, ways of thinking, personal interests, etc. But IME men look no farther than a woman's weight and attractiveness score. This site strikes me as a serious waste of time if you're really interested in meeting someone "special." Then again, I regard most on-line dating sites as a complete waste of time, because they're really just beauty contests. I prefer to meet people the old-fashioned way, in the real world. Makes much more sense, because then guys are forced to get to know women better, before letting their dicks get in the way of their better judgement. Then REAL "chemistry" has an avenue for happening.
I don't know what guys' experiences with these sorts of things are like, but I would be interested in finding out.
In a truly just world, only the Pod People (brainwashed non-rich morons who voted against their own and their childrens' interests by voting for Bush) will be the only ones losing their homes.
Unfortunately, the rest of America will likely be affected as well.
I'm reading Dr. Rosalind Picard's "Affective Computing" regarding the research she's done at MIT on the role emotions can play in robotics. Geeky stuff, but good for the feminist geek in your list who will admire a chickie-boo scientist who went against the grain of male-dominated uber-right-brained computer scientists and did the research anyway.
We have just started installing the corporate edition of Pest Patrol on our customers' computers at work, and it's too early yet to tell how effective it is, although our system tech installed the 30-day eval copy on our network and scanned peoples' systems, picking up bots that Spybot and Adaware weren't catching (including mine, and I ran both programs at least twice a month, and they weren't picking up much). So far, Pest Patrol has created a few minor glitches on the network, generally on Windows 95 & 98 machines, but nothing really horrendous (for our customers, anyway, we're all XP at work, and I work for a Microsoft house systems integrator in the Hartford CT area).
We have gotten really proactive with this because customers with spyware-ridden computers were beginning to blame us this summer for their problems - so we sent out a proposal to everyone, whether they wanted it or not, and then followed up to see if they wanted to go for it. Some did, some put us off til next year, most didn't. Several were already using Adaware & Spybot so we told them if they ever stopped doing the trick to let us know. But I recorded everyone's answers in the database so they couldn't come back later and claim we never warned them about spyware.
AFAIK it's the only corporate edition version of an anti-spyware product so far, and we hope that it performs as well as advertised (after a month, so far so good anyway!) We figure the ones that haven't taken us up on the offer will buy it sooner or later - maybe not from us, but they will buy it, because they will have no choice, just like you really don't have a choice anymore regarding whether to run antivirus software or not. Do you want to surf the Net without having to clean out your system every two days or so? Then you will run anti-spyware software.
I belly danced for several years, but I fell out of it a few years ago. Thinking about going back into it as I need to sock away some moolah next year. Mostly I did "bellygrams" for various agencies for peoples' parties, mostly embarrassed 40-year-old men and the occasionally more fun senior citizen.
Naw, they get that every couple of weeks when I come over for dinner. Actually, I suspect the only reason I am invited over for dinner is to provide ongoing tech support.;)
If I ever went into something useless, like brain surgery or rocket science, they wouldn't have me over at ALL!!!
My mother, when she was younger, said she hated it when old people did nothing but give you an organ recital when you asked how they were. She always swore she would never get like that when she's older, and she hasn't. My note to self is this: If something new comes along, and little kids are doing it, I'm not going to tell myself I can't do it just because I didn't grow up with it. If some illiterate five-year-old can operate the Modern New Supertechnical Widget, then dadgum it, so will I.
B'sides, teaching one's parents to use the computer results in some splendidly marvelous payback when the roles are reversed:
"Daughter, I can't learn this damn computer," Mom says sobbingly.
"Yes you will, Mom. You are certainly smart enough. There is nothing wrong with your brain."
"But it's too HAAAARD! Your father is so much better at it."
"Funny, that's what I said about algebra, Mom..."
And of course today, Mom can use the computer, and I can factor equations.
I hope when you are in your 70s that you will remember that things are not as hard to learn as you think they are.
I am patient with my father as well, I have to be since he was so all-fired patient while dragging me kicking and screaming through math class (while secretly wondering if such idiotic genes could possibly be the fruit of his loins) but I have told him I will KILL him if he ever goes Linux.
At least until it's newbie-proofed. How that would work I'm not entirely certain.;)
Are you entirely certain this is a good idea? Aging parents + new technology = unending tech support calls and the increasing likelihood of parricide...
Holy crap, those things are huge. Much bigger than the first ones I saw when I was visiting my cousin in California. But they look awfully alien - are we entirely certain they're not actually being used to contact hostile intergalactic forces?!?!?
Well *wait* a minute. The Senate Intelligence Committee *did* interrogate Condoleeza Rice very thoroughly in which it was established that she DID in fact see a CIA report entitled, "Earth's Magnetic Field Determined To Flip The U.S. Upside Down," but her boss was too busy obsessing about WMD (Weapons of Marital Destruction) clearly at work with the whole growing gay-marriage movement to do anything about it...
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmmm...I wonder if more than one husband can extend life for a woman?
"What happens when you get to another country that isn't perfect? Why not stay here and fight?" I wonder if that's what some Germans/Jews said to the first round of Jews who left Germany.
That's what I feel like as an American permanent resident of Canada - like the first round of Jews fleeing Germany must have felt. I didn't leave *solely* because the US seemed headed toward Fascism, but it was one reason. How do you fight it when (at that time anyway) fully half the country was in favour of Bush's Orwellian vision of the state? Sorry, but I didn't want to wait around for Dick Cheney's concentration camps in Virginia. I've lived here in Ontario for nearly three years now and the healthcare setup *alone* will keep me here forever. Things aren't perfect here but I'm under less stress than I was in the US. In a few more years, no one's going to give a crap about their loss of civil liberties there because they'll be too busy living hand-to-mouth in their neighbourhood Tent City. I felt the squeeze on the middle class before I left, and I live better now in Toronto - more money (even before the dollar fell), I don't have to own a car anymore, and I am about to sign a lease for a bigger apartment than I had in CT.
I admit...I gave up. The Fascists and inbred Jesusland rednecks won. I'm just waiting to see how long it will take before I refuse to cross the border because I'm not sure the US will let me go back to Canada again.
One thing I will state about the CAnadians. Too many of them live with a bit of a rose-coloured view of life here, thinking what happened in the US can never happen here. However, I see two huge problems here that I saw twenty years ago in the US: Apathy and ignorance. Retarded 9/11 conspiracy theories are the Creationism of Canadians, so never let one ask you why Americans are stupid enough to believe in Creationism. And they are apathetic - voter turnout is dropping and Canadians are whining the way Americans did before they realized that not voting gives you a President with the brain of a garden weed and a Congress with the morals of the Mafia..."My vote doesn't matter. What's the use, it won't change anything anyway. I don't have time. I have to pick up the kids on voting day. Waaaaah waaahh waaahh."
No one seems to grasp that Stephen Harper and the Tories are just as dangerous as the Republicans - it's just that they don't have the power or the popular support (yet) of the people. Of course, if Canada ever suffers a real terrorist attack here, I wonder if that could change on a dime.
Too many parents hide behind the parenting-fad-du-jour explanation for why they can't discipline their kids, when in fact it's just plain laziness. Kids aren't going to learn proper behaviour unless it's taught to them, and a good way to do it is to take away rewards and privileges. My parents were fond of withholding dessert and putting us to bed right after supper; today's parents might want to restrict Internet or Playstation privileges.
You just know damn well that if Little Bratley is running around the restaurant and plows into a waitress and she spills hot soup on him, BreederMom and BreederDad are going to sue the restaurant for not providing a safe environment for Little Bratley to play in. Since we have no-smoking rules in effect for restaurants, it's just too bad some of them can't be made no-children zones.
So when will we have a "spoiled rampaging kids" jammer?
I would be willing to settle for a party that's "soft on terrorism", if only we could get rid of the party that actively encourages it with Al Qaeda's star recruitment poster boy, George Bush. Don't you know they must have pics of him in an Uncle Sam outfit all over the Middle East saying, "I want YOU to to join Islam's most popular terrorist front!"
I think his point is that he's not getting laid, ergo women should expect discrimination from male geeks like him. Essentially, women should shag male geeks more if they want to get rid of sexism in the workplace.
Which demonstrates the pervasive and largely well-deserved reputation male geeks have for chronic cluelessness.
If they do, and the First Nation tribes start doing it in Ontario, us white folks are gonna protest by blockading their cell phone signals!!!
Then we'll burn a bunch of tires at the base of their cell towers.
If exercise builds intelligence, why is there such a surplus of brainless muscleman doofs in the world?
In all fairness, I've never worked with a bunch of guys who seemed to be anti-female or anything. Usually, when I start a new job they're kind of cautious around me until they get to know me, then when they realize I have as twisted a sense of humour as they do and that you have to push me *far* to piss me off, they relax a lot and we do all the silly bonding stuff that makes a good team work. I am watching it happen right now at work where someone who seemed to have been a drag on the department has left...now all of a sudden everyone's talking more, joking more, playing harmless pranks more...and contributing to a 'team spirit' that was a bit lacking before.
My cousin told me the same story...about fifteen years ago!
I moved to Toronto in late April from Connecticut. I was serious when I said I'd do it.
Got in under the skilled worker program. When people ask why I either answer "Better beer," if I'm tired of answering the question, or "Midlife crisis - had to get out of CT, and besides, I didn't like what was happening politically in the U.S." And it's true - when the Pod People (brainwashed Bush voters) gave the whole Abu Ghraib/torture scandal thing a free pass, I knew it was over for the US. The country's in decline and I want to get off the train wreck before it inevitably crashes.
I love it here, in case anyone's interested. It's not perfect, and the taxes are higher, but not as bad as the Pod People would have you believe. And at least my tax money's paying for my social safety net, rather than someone else's f**king illegal war.
And yes, I got a job fairly quickly - I was working again in less than three months. However, I will state it's easier for Americans than other immigrants. And I did get lucky - Canadians have a bias towards "Canadian experience" which means you might have to do volunteer work for awhile (yes, that means for free) before anyone will take you seriously. I was fortunate in that the company that pulled my resume off Workopolis needed someone with American experience as well.
I'm happy I made the move. I ditched my car, BTW, and now go to work by bus and travel around Toronto on the subway. It's a bit more inconvenient but I have a LOT more money at the end of the month and that compensates very well for the inconvience, thankyouverymuch.
Canada ROCKS, mes amis!!!
How unbelievably stupid. Sounds just as pseudo-scientific as eHarmony. It's all about the f**kability, kids: If the chick's not hot-looking (by the viewer's standards) nothing is going to convince him to email her.
IME, most men don't understand what "chemistry" is all about. It really IS about shared values, ways of thinking, personal interests, etc. But IME men look no farther than a woman's weight and attractiveness score. This site strikes me as a serious waste of time if you're really interested in meeting someone "special." Then again, I regard most on-line dating sites as a complete waste of time, because they're really just beauty contests. I prefer to meet people the old-fashioned way, in the real world. Makes much more sense, because then guys are forced to get to know women better, before letting their dicks get in the way of their better judgement. Then REAL "chemistry" has an avenue for happening.
I don't know what guys' experiences with these sorts of things are like, but I would be interested in finding out.
Unfortunately, the rest of America will likely be affected as well.
Oh screw the kids. Let's send George Bush up in the next one!!!
Chix r00l!!!
We have gotten really proactive with this because customers with spyware-ridden computers were beginning to blame us this summer for their problems - so we sent out a proposal to everyone, whether they wanted it or not, and then followed up to see if they wanted to go for it. Some did, some put us off til next year, most didn't. Several were already using Adaware & Spybot so we told them if they ever stopped doing the trick to let us know. But I recorded everyone's answers in the database so they couldn't come back later and claim we never warned them about spyware.
AFAIK it's the only corporate edition version of an anti-spyware product so far, and we hope that it performs as well as advertised (after a month, so far so good anyway!) We figure the ones that haven't taken us up on the offer will buy it sooner or later - maybe not from us, but they will buy it, because they will have no choice, just like you really don't have a choice anymore regarding whether to run antivirus software or not. Do you want to surf the Net without having to clean out your system every two days or so? Then you will run anti-spyware software.
If I ever went into something useless, like brain surgery or rocket science, they wouldn't have me over at ALL!!!
B'sides, teaching one's parents to use the computer results in some splendidly marvelous payback when the roles are reversed:
"Daughter, I can't learn this damn computer," Mom says sobbingly. "Yes you will, Mom. You are certainly smart enough. There is nothing wrong with your brain." "But it's too HAAAARD! Your father is so much better at it." "Funny, that's what I said about algebra, Mom..."
And of course today, Mom can use the computer, and I can factor equations.
I am patient with my father as well, I have to be since he was so all-fired patient while dragging me kicking and screaming through math class (while secretly wondering if such idiotic genes could possibly be the fruit of his loins) but I have told him I will KILL him if he ever goes Linux.
At least until it's newbie-proofed. How that would work I'm not entirely certain. ;)
Are you entirely certain this is a good idea? Aging parents + new technology = unending tech support calls and the increasing likelihood of parricide...