On main streets where lights are timed for a specific speed, accelerating too slowly may cause you to either be too late for the next green light or cause many drivers behind you to miss it, which is sometimes considered dangerously low speed.
Am I the only one who frequently notices inconsiderate assholes (probably compensating for something small of theirs) who seem to deliberately and unnecessarily hesitate at intersections, with the express goal of making anyone behind them miss the light? I mean when you can see a mile or two down the road and the intersection is obviously clear, this really makes no sense and cannot be excused by a notion of caution.
Studies show that while aggressive drivers can cause traffic jams with their late braking, and may be your main problem, in general it is the timid drivers that cause the majority of traffic jams.
Which is complicated by the idiot pacers who think my blind spot is the COOLEST hangout they've ever experienced. Generally people in this area seem to have difficulty understanding why "passing lane" and "acceleration lane" have their respective names.
If I didn't use the word "enlightened", it was not an accidental omission. Effectively putting words in my mouth by adding connotations I was careful to omit, and then complaining about the presence of the connotations you just added, well, that really doesn't benefit anyone. It does, however, represent the general decline of Slashdot because far too many people are either doing that, or disclaiming claims that were never made in an attempt to prevent someone else from doing that. Look deeply at the situation and you will find within yourself a subconscious (you see and understand that word "subconscious", right?) need to display your cleverness and to appear "right" in the eyes of others, i.e. what is commonly called insecurity. It leads to all sorts of absurd behavior like this.
The point (that you had to work to miss) was: in a supposedly representative republic that supposedly carries out the will of The People, extremely unpopular laws were impossible (and downright dangerous) to enforce. It's no coincidence the population at that time had far fewer opiates in the form of entertainment, sports, and becoming obese. Now contrast that with, for example, the modern ongoing prohibition of marijuana that most people do not support.
I find that most debunkers and detractors operate out of some kind of emotional offense.
I can't speak for other detractors, but I do so out of enlightened sarcasm.
Detractors who attack something while offering no alternatives or constructive solutions have zero credibility until proven otherwise, even if so many soft-minded people continue to believe them.
Stating that something is a faulty solution in search of a problem does not mean that it must be replaced by a better solution to continue searching for a problem.
"Stop searching for non-existant problems" would constitute an "alternative". It was for this very purpose that I said "alternatives or constructive solutions" and not merely "constructive solutions" alone.
Reading comprehension on this site continues to decline. I predict that eventually, follow-up posts made for the sole purpose of correcting faulty reading comprehension will reach 50%, and at that point Slashdot will become as useful as unmoderated Usenet discussion and Dice Holdings will tank.
One of the items they wanted us to sign stated that we waive the right to sue if our child was killed during a field trip. Only three parents refused to sign, and those students stayed at school while the rest of the class went on the field trip.
How typical. They like the extremely broad power that comes with operating in loco parentes but they don't want the responsibility.
Actually demanding someone's password for any reason is the big picture here. It doesn't matter if she did it at home or at school.
The school should focus on what it's supposed to do, teach students. It shouldn't be policing the facebook pages of it's students.
But if they focus on teaching and instilling knowledge, how will they brainwash and social-engineer the next generation into fearing everything and loving Big Brother?
Two: the people who made the policies aren't going to be changed, the groupthink that led them to that point hasn't changed, they still believe in the value of the policy and think that everyone else is just ignorant and misguided as to why the policy is so necessary.
You remember how we've heard for years and years that our schools need more money? Well, they got it and they continue to get it. Do you know where that money went? Not to hire teachers and buy textbooks and computers... no. For the most part, it went to hire more administrative staff.
Much of schooling is a jobs project as illustrated by Jon Taylor Gatto. You now have lots of administrators who feel a need to justify the existence of their jobs. So, of course idiotic policies (especially "zero tolerance") will be deemed necessary. Like most problems society has, It was a predictable outcome.
It disgusts me how school officials act like they are prison wardens and the children they care for treated as though they have no rights.
It potentially teaches one very important life lesson: those with power and authority are never to be trusted. But that requires a little thought and reflection that sadly only a few are likely to perform by this time this particular meat-grinder is through with them.
Between things like private information gathering on Facebook like this, to the webcam viewing scandal a few years ago, to the teacher forcing a student to strip, there seems to be a serious problem with the attitude being brought into schools by officials.
If you think about it, you realize that this problem is too widespread and too systematic, too uniform to be the result of a few isolated bad actors. It's intentional and it's planned. The goal is, if you teach (by repeated, reinforced example) children from a young age that they have no rights and authority is absolute, they will grow into adults who expect other authorities in government to be the same way.
Oh if you want a fascinating exercise, go look up precisely why schools use bells. It's a tactic that is called psychological warfare in any other context. At the time that it was set up, Dewey and others were quite open about its purpose. Who needs a smoky back-room conspiracy when you can have selling points?
Japanese police are used to certain types of crime. Crimes that are common on US shores (threats, bullying, creating fake profiles to defame someone) tend to not be common in Japan, just because it isn't part of the relatively conformist Japanese mindset to be a troll [1].
Now, if someone tried smuggling or fraud, the Japanese police know exactly what to do.
[1]: Wish part of that mindset would come to the US... Conforming isn't surrender... it is being able to give up something, no matter how small, so the community around one doesn't suck as much.
The Japanese have a great deal of conformity of behavior, expressed by lots of social protocols and expectations. More than one American has gone there and learned that small gestures that seemed insignificant at the time were major faux pas. Of course anyone who visits a culture without learning about it first is leaving themselves open to such mishaps...
The Americans have a great deal of conformity of ideas and philosophies, expressed by trends, political forces and a completely homogeneous media. These are mostly failed philosophies in which fundamental assumptions are not questioned. They are designed only to produce never-ending circular debate to give the appearance of legitimacy and public involvement in major decisions.
What most Americans call "individuality" still requires a large group, an audience, to which it can be conspicuously shown off. It seldom involves anything less superficial than mannerisms or styles of dress or tastes in music. It seldom involves concerns less mundane than "what is everybody else doing?"
I would say that the Japanese notion of conformity is much less dangerous but that particular meaning is far from universal. I'm not the typical insecure "you must be a moron" Slashdotter, so I will ask instead of assuming: is what you wrote intended to encourage conformity for its own sake, or do you simply believe that a bit more would be a social improvement (or some other possibility that did not occur to me)?
As a tangent, I believe this kind of emotional immaturity, lack of desire for real meaning and preoccupation with the opinions of others (i.e. widespread childishness) is why the US federal government is so out-of-control. The power-hungry see that and say "these are not people who will realize the implications of what I am doing, and certainly aren't going to put any effort into stopping it, not as long as they're fat and entertained". It's a green light. Read about the Whiskey Rebellion and ask yourself if you think the people involved were more concerned with singers and actors than with what their government was doing.
Besides, Bitcoin isn't untraceable. The blockchain means it's rather the opposite, and thus is much less suitable for crime or tax avoidance than its detractors say.
I find that most debunkers and detractors operate out of some kind of emotional offense. They seem to think having strong feelings about a thing excuses them from learning the facts about that thing. What you hear from them is not an accurate representation of reality, but a caricature that has been drawn from a process of demonization that occurs in their minds.
I make no exaggeration when I say: how so many people can do this while congratulating themselves for a job well done is one of the great unsolved problems of civilization. Detractors who attack something while offering no alternatives or constructive solutions have zero credibility until proven otherwise, even if so many soft-minded people continue to believe them.
As in the case of Yusuke Katayama, Japanese law enforcement proved to be quite ignorant about technology crimes. After getting death threats on messages boards they managed to "get" confessions from several people that later were proved to be just victims of malware in their computers. It is normal to have doubts about their capacity to deal with cybercrime.
That's not a problem with their capacity to deal with "cybercrime" (which is merely old-fashioned fraud, with a computer).
That's a much more fundamental problem with their ability to coerce confessions. If you let any police force do that, just so they can maintain an illusion of competency and effectiveness, you will have these problems. It has worked out that way every single time it has been tried. Japanese police in particular are known for worrying about their appearance first, and the facts second, though this hardly makes them unique among cops.
The US has its own version of this, but it's not implemented directly by the police. It's implemented by the prosecutors. Someone commits a crime, and you don't want to bother with all the time and effort of a proper trial. So you invent an excuse to charge them with something very much more serious, twisting legal language as much as necessary, to scare the hell out of them. Then from the "kindness" of your heart, you let them plead guilty to a far lesser charge that actually does represent the crime they committed. There it is -- you just coerced a confession. This takes much less time than fair trials do, allowing you to take on many more cases in a given timeframe, allowing you to look like a highly effective and desirable prosecutor to the masses of people who never look deeply into anything.
Anytime this kind of intimidation is used on people whose guilt has not (yet?) been established, it will be abused.
Different people respond better to different ways of working. Frankly, looking something up and then closing it drivers me utterly crazy - since I'm the kind of person that forgets about something once they can't see it. Doorway amnesia, out of sight, out of mind and all that. Please don't assume that because you find the "having lots of tabs" approach not your cup of tea that everyone is like that.
(Emphasis added). That's the basis of egotism, also known as childishness.
When it operates in politics, you wind up with imbecilic laws like Prohibition and the current War on Drugs. The basis is, "*I* don't want to do that, therefore no one else should ever be allowed to do that either!"
Does anyone else remember this site years ago, back when occurrences of it on Slashdot were relatively rare events?
In this thread: people who never have to work on more than one thing on any given day.
In this thread: Assmunch dipshits. No one works with 150 tabs at once, and no one believes anyone who claims to.
*I* don't personally use that many. In fact I have never needed anything close to 100.
I'm also not automatically hostile to someone who says they do. They have their reasons, and no number of tabs they use on their own equipment is going to infringe on the way I personally want to use my own browser.
So I just don't see a problem here. With a guy who says he uses so many tabs, that is. The flimsy excuse for hostility, on the other hand... it's a means by which you are shaming yourself. The prevalence of this attitude is destroying Slashdot much faster than the Beta redesign. When so many users engage in this, it tends to repel those who want to converse like adults. Remember that the userbase and the discussions are what actually bring you to this site. Anyone can get a copy of the Slashcode and get some cheap Web hosting.
Nothing personal against you, but anyone who you uses the term "Straw Man" is a big fag that needs to take a break from the Internet for awhile. Maybe take a shower.
That would be much more accurate if you said "No True Scotsman" and not "Straw Man".
Observation: about a year ago, Slashdot users finally discovered, in a collective groupthink style, that there was such a thing as the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Since then, they have tried to invoke it in every possible conversation, even where it does not apply. Conclusion: there are a lot of insecure nerds who are eager to show off their perceived superior intelligence. Since they are driven by insecurity, they do this not by creating or contributing anything of their own, but by trying to invent flaws in what others say. The other guy made a mistake if you just wish for it hard enough!
I'll give an example. A while back, I personally had some imbecile jump on this bandwagon in response to a post of mine. I mentioned that people who call themselves Christians but then commit acts of violence, for flimsy reasons and without provocation, are not in fact practicing Christianity. Some fool cried "hehe I guss there is No True Scotsman then huh?!" while patting himself on the back fiercely. Apparently this fool decided that knowing nothing about the teachings of Jesus Christ does not actually disqualify him from commenting on the subject. After all, he knew in his twisted little heart that I was wrong, and that only he was clever enough to invent the reason why.
This infantile fevered-ego shit is killing Slashdot much faster than a shitty Beta redesign ever could hope to do. It's just far less trendy to protest it.
In other news, most of Britain wants the UK Government to be removed and replaced by people who are not asshats. Unfortunately, it turns out that nobody who is not an asshat can be persuaded to want the job.
In yet other news... here's an idea! If you are concerned about propaganda causing your citizens to become "radicalized", why not take the most effective steps possible to prevent that? Create the most sane, free, reasonably run society in which civil rights are sacrosanct, all of the laws are sensible, and all of the laws are equally enforced.
You'll find that far fewer of the citizens would ever want to do anything to oppose that. It's more effective than playing whack-a-mole with an ever-growing list of terrorists.
Because the US only tracks people in their jurisdiction right? Remember you have no rights if your not american because american's are the new aryans. Sieg hiel!
I know this is difficult for one-track minds like this AC to understand, but many issues are in fact nuanced and complex. Shockingly, law appears to be one of those. Just to name a single example: data retention laws. They vary by jurisdiction.
If they start poisoning search with for-profit results Google will be quickly reminded that they are not the only search engine in town.
As long as the ads are marked somehow, a user script will be able to suppress them.
It's sad I need to mangle the web to make it usable, but not as sad as not having a mangling facility would be.
As someone who runs NoScript, Adblock Plus and various other user scripts, I think it's a good thing to be able to take control over your own experience. It's good not to be passive. It's good to see only what you want to see. The more people do this, the more these companies have to comprehend that this is the nature of the network in which they have chosen to participate. The Web would lose most of its appeal to me if it were entirely corporate controlled like television.
What's really sad is that other mediums like television, radio, and periodicals are one-to-many, heavily centralized, and don't include such great control over what you see. They're package deals that require you to accept the crap along with the content and are often not worthwhile.
That's as bullshitty a term as it is in your supermarket. There *are* no "organic" results when they're calculated based on your tracking history, ad clicks and social connections.
I use startpage.com myself. I like the idea of getting actual Google search results without any sort of Google tracking. They don't even log your IP address and they're outside of US jurisdiction.
By the way I hope our federal legislators appreciate that. I hope they are proud that now, "outside of US jurisdiction" has become a selling point.
BAD MOD: Not everyone will agree with this, but that doesn't mean it's flamebait.
Anyone who needed to have that explained to them is demonstrably resistant to facts and so-called "common sense" and is therefore a lost cause. Mass numbers of non-individuals agreeing with you bandwagon-style is the only thing they would find persuasive.
Your tastes and preferences define your notion of importance. This is empirically verifiable.
I don't dispute that. What I contend is that, while doing so, one should recognize that it amounts to viewing the world through the lens of one's own interests. Any decisions made are tempered by that knowledge.
It's a self-awareness beyond standard ego consciousness. It tends to make you truly ashamed of and prepared to abandon any sort of self-centered, exploitative motive.
It's one of those things that anyone is capable of doing, provided they really want to.
I've been saying all along that the schools should get the geeks laid instead of the jocks. Even with this study they still won't listen.
I don't know. There is something romantic about choosing to be a geek, against the grain, up the hill, against all odds and disincentives, doing it because you really want to and not because you were bribed into it. It shows great courage and spirit, which I believe is closer to what life is all about. The ones who "go with the flow" and do whatever is the path of least resistance are cowardly and hedonistic by comparison.
I believe that the "real world" is a fallacy. Everyone has their own perception of reality.
I would go so far as to say that you never truly reached adulthood until you can clearly and effortlessly distinguish objective, evidence-based reality from your own subjective feelings and opinions and wishes. Objectivity is when your own tastes and preferences do not influence your decision-making about anything important.
Until you can do that, life is a chaotic mess with no solutions except those that create more and more problems.
Aren't happier people better at pretty much everything? Isn't that sort of the problem with depression?
It's also the problem with alienation and dehumanization, not merely depression. Go out sometime and see for yourself, how rarely people talk to one another like fellow human beings. Usually they would rather talk at someone, listen poorly and keep interrupting (because they have no patience) even when they are listening to an answer to their own question, and generally can't relax and slow down and "take in" much of anything. The irony is, this rushed and hurried approach to life is so error-prone that they accomplish fewer of their goals than they would otherwise.
Compared to that, depression is just a particular special case, an instance of a much more widespread problem with the way we live.
Slashdot Mirror
On main streets where lights are timed for a specific speed, accelerating too slowly may cause you to either be too late for the next green light or cause many drivers behind you to miss it, which is sometimes considered dangerously low speed.
Am I the only one who frequently notices inconsiderate assholes (probably compensating for something small of theirs) who seem to deliberately and unnecessarily hesitate at intersections, with the express goal of making anyone behind them miss the light? I mean when you can see a mile or two down the road and the intersection is obviously clear, this really makes no sense and cannot be excused by a notion of caution.
Studies show that while aggressive drivers can cause traffic jams with their late braking, and may be your main problem, in general it is the timid drivers that cause the majority of traffic jams.
Which is complicated by the idiot pacers who think my blind spot is the COOLEST hangout they've ever experienced. Generally people in this area seem to have difficulty understanding why "passing lane" and "acceleration lane" have their respective names.
If I didn't use the word "enlightened", it was not an accidental omission. Effectively putting words in my mouth by adding connotations I was careful to omit, and then complaining about the presence of the connotations you just added, well, that really doesn't benefit anyone. It does, however, represent the general decline of Slashdot because far too many people are either doing that, or disclaiming claims that were never made in an attempt to prevent someone else from doing that. Look deeply at the situation and you will find within yourself a subconscious (you see and understand that word "subconscious", right?) need to display your cleverness and to appear "right" in the eyes of others, i.e. what is commonly called insecurity. It leads to all sorts of absurd behavior like this.
The point (that you had to work to miss) was: in a supposedly representative republic that supposedly carries out the will of The People, extremely unpopular laws were impossible (and downright dangerous) to enforce. It's no coincidence the population at that time had far fewer opiates in the form of entertainment, sports, and becoming obese. Now contrast that with, for example, the modern ongoing prohibition of marijuana that most people do not support.
I find that most debunkers and detractors operate out of some kind of emotional offense.
I can't speak for other detractors, but I do so out of enlightened sarcasm.
Detractors who attack something while offering no alternatives or constructive solutions have zero credibility until proven otherwise, even if so many soft-minded people continue to believe them.
Stating that something is a faulty solution in search of a problem does not mean that it must be replaced by a better solution to continue searching for a problem.
"Stop searching for non-existant problems" would constitute an "alternative". It was for this very purpose that I said "alternatives or constructive solutions" and not merely "constructive solutions" alone.
Reading comprehension on this site continues to decline. I predict that eventually, follow-up posts made for the sole purpose of correcting faulty reading comprehension will reach 50%, and at that point Slashdot will become as useful as unmoderated Usenet discussion and Dice Holdings will tank.
I appreciate sarcasm myself.
One of the items they wanted us to sign stated that we waive the right to sue if our child was killed during a field trip. Only three parents refused to sign, and those students stayed at school while the rest of the class went on the field trip.
How typical. They like the extremely broad power that comes with operating in loco parentes but they don't want the responsibility.
Actually demanding someone's password for any reason is the big picture here. It doesn't matter if she did it at home or at school. The school should focus on what it's supposed to do, teach students. It shouldn't be policing the facebook pages of it's students.
But if they focus on teaching and instilling knowledge, how will they brainwash and social-engineer the next generation into fearing everything and loving Big Brother?
They should have known better - time for hard time for that stupid retard.
Sadly there is no precedent in America of holding cops accountable.
If he shot and killed an unarmed man, he *might* receive two weeks of paid vacation. Err, I mean administrative leave.
Two: the people who made the policies aren't going to be changed, the groupthink that led them to that point hasn't changed, they still believe in the value of the policy and think that everyone else is just ignorant and misguided as to why the policy is so necessary.
You remember how we've heard for years and years that our schools need more money? Well, they got it and they continue to get it. Do you know where that money went? Not to hire teachers and buy textbooks and computers ... no. For the most part, it went to hire more administrative staff.
Much of schooling is a jobs project as illustrated by Jon Taylor Gatto. You now have lots of administrators who feel a need to justify the existence of their jobs. So, of course idiotic policies (especially "zero tolerance") will be deemed necessary. Like most problems society has, It was a predictable outcome.
It disgusts me how school officials act like they are prison wardens and the children they care for treated as though they have no rights.
It potentially teaches one very important life lesson: those with power and authority are never to be trusted. But that requires a little thought and reflection that sadly only a few are likely to perform by this time this particular meat-grinder is through with them.
Between things like private information gathering on Facebook like this, to the webcam viewing scandal a few years ago, to the teacher forcing a student to strip, there seems to be a serious problem with the attitude being brought into schools by officials.
If you think about it, you realize that this problem is too widespread and too systematic, too uniform to be the result of a few isolated bad actors. It's intentional and it's planned. The goal is, if you teach (by repeated, reinforced example) children from a young age that they have no rights and authority is absolute, they will grow into adults who expect other authorities in government to be the same way.
Oh if you want a fascinating exercise, go look up precisely why schools use bells. It's a tactic that is called psychological warfare in any other context. At the time that it was set up, Dewey and others were quite open about its purpose. Who needs a smoky back-room conspiracy when you can have selling points?
Japanese police are used to certain types of crime. Crimes that are common on US shores (threats, bullying, creating fake profiles to defame someone) tend to not be common in Japan, just because it isn't part of the relatively conformist Japanese mindset to be a troll [1].
Now, if someone tried smuggling or fraud, the Japanese police know exactly what to do.
[1]: Wish part of that mindset would come to the US... Conforming isn't surrender... it is being able to give up something, no matter how small, so the community around one doesn't suck as much.
The Japanese have a great deal of conformity of behavior, expressed by lots of social protocols and expectations. More than one American has gone there and learned that small gestures that seemed insignificant at the time were major faux pas. Of course anyone who visits a culture without learning about it first is leaving themselves open to such mishaps...
The Americans have a great deal of conformity of ideas and philosophies, expressed by trends, political forces and a completely homogeneous media. These are mostly failed philosophies in which fundamental assumptions are not questioned. They are designed only to produce never-ending circular debate to give the appearance of legitimacy and public involvement in major decisions.
What most Americans call "individuality" still requires a large group, an audience, to which it can be conspicuously shown off. It seldom involves anything less superficial than mannerisms or styles of dress or tastes in music. It seldom involves concerns less mundane than "what is everybody else doing?"
I would say that the Japanese notion of conformity is much less dangerous but that particular meaning is far from universal. I'm not the typical insecure "you must be a moron" Slashdotter, so I will ask instead of assuming: is what you wrote intended to encourage conformity for its own sake, or do you simply believe that a bit more would be a social improvement (or some other possibility that did not occur to me)?
As a tangent, I believe this kind of emotional immaturity, lack of desire for real meaning and preoccupation with the opinions of others (i.e. widespread childishness) is why the US federal government is so out-of-control. The power-hungry see that and say "these are not people who will realize the implications of what I am doing, and certainly aren't going to put any effort into stopping it, not as long as they're fat and entertained". It's a green light. Read about the Whiskey Rebellion and ask yourself if you think the people involved were more concerned with singers and actors than with what their government was doing.
Besides, Bitcoin isn't untraceable. The blockchain means it's rather the opposite, and thus is much less suitable for crime or tax avoidance than its detractors say.
I find that most debunkers and detractors operate out of some kind of emotional offense. They seem to think having strong feelings about a thing excuses them from learning the facts about that thing. What you hear from them is not an accurate representation of reality, but a caricature that has been drawn from a process of demonization that occurs in their minds.
I make no exaggeration when I say: how so many people can do this while congratulating themselves for a job well done is one of the great unsolved problems of civilization. Detractors who attack something while offering no alternatives or constructive solutions have zero credibility until proven otherwise, even if so many soft-minded people continue to believe them.
As in the case of Yusuke Katayama, Japanese law enforcement proved to be quite ignorant about technology crimes. After getting death threats on messages boards they managed to "get" confessions from several people that later were proved to be just victims of malware in their computers. It is normal to have doubts about their capacity to deal with cybercrime.
That's not a problem with their capacity to deal with "cybercrime" (which is merely old-fashioned fraud, with a computer).
That's a much more fundamental problem with their ability to coerce confessions. If you let any police force do that, just so they can maintain an illusion of competency and effectiveness, you will have these problems. It has worked out that way every single time it has been tried. Japanese police in particular are known for worrying about their appearance first, and the facts second, though this hardly makes them unique among cops.
The US has its own version of this, but it's not implemented directly by the police. It's implemented by the prosecutors. Someone commits a crime, and you don't want to bother with all the time and effort of a proper trial. So you invent an excuse to charge them with something very much more serious, twisting legal language as much as necessary, to scare the hell out of them. Then from the "kindness" of your heart, you let them plead guilty to a far lesser charge that actually does represent the crime they committed. There it is -- you just coerced a confession. This takes much less time than fair trials do, allowing you to take on many more cases in a given timeframe, allowing you to look like a highly effective and desirable prosecutor to the masses of people who never look deeply into anything.
Anytime this kind of intimidation is used on people whose guilt has not (yet?) been established, it will be abused.
Different people respond better to different ways of working. Frankly, looking something up and then closing it drivers me utterly crazy - since I'm the kind of person that forgets about something once they can't see it. Doorway amnesia, out of sight, out of mind and all that. Please don't assume that because you find the "having lots of tabs" approach not your cup of tea that everyone is like that.
(Emphasis added). That's the basis of egotism, also known as childishness.
When it operates in politics, you wind up with imbecilic laws like Prohibition and the current War on Drugs. The basis is, "*I* don't want to do that, therefore no one else should ever be allowed to do that either!"
Does anyone else remember this site years ago, back when occurrences of it on Slashdot were relatively rare events?
In this thread: people who never have to work on more than one thing on any given day.
In this thread: Assmunch dipshits. No one works with 150 tabs at once, and no one believes anyone who claims to.
*I* don't personally use that many. In fact I have never needed anything close to 100.
... it's a means by which you are shaming yourself. The prevalence of this attitude is destroying Slashdot much faster than the Beta redesign. When so many users engage in this, it tends to repel those who want to converse like adults. Remember that the userbase and the discussions are what actually bring you to this site. Anyone can get a copy of the Slashcode and get some cheap Web hosting.
I'm also not automatically hostile to someone who says they do. They have their reasons, and no number of tabs they use on their own equipment is going to infringe on the way I personally want to use my own browser.
So I just don't see a problem here. With a guy who says he uses so many tabs, that is. The flimsy excuse for hostility, on the other hand
Nothing personal against you, but anyone who you uses the term "Straw Man" is a big fag that needs to take a break from the Internet for awhile. Maybe take a shower.
That would be much more accurate if you said "No True Scotsman" and not "Straw Man".
Observation: about a year ago, Slashdot users finally discovered, in a collective groupthink style, that there was such a thing as the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Since then, they have tried to invoke it in every possible conversation, even where it does not apply. Conclusion: there are a lot of insecure nerds who are eager to show off their perceived superior intelligence. Since they are driven by insecurity, they do this not by creating or contributing anything of their own, but by trying to invent flaws in what others say. The other guy made a mistake if you just wish for it hard enough!
I'll give an example. A while back, I personally had some imbecile jump on this bandwagon in response to a post of mine. I mentioned that people who call themselves Christians but then commit acts of violence, for flimsy reasons and without provocation, are not in fact practicing Christianity. Some fool cried "hehe I guss there is No True Scotsman then huh?!" while patting himself on the back fiercely. Apparently this fool decided that knowing nothing about the teachings of Jesus Christ does not actually disqualify him from commenting on the subject. After all, he knew in his twisted little heart that I was wrong, and that only he was clever enough to invent the reason why.
This infantile fevered-ego shit is killing Slashdot much faster than a shitty Beta redesign ever could hope to do. It's just far less trendy to protest it.
Why would I want to do that? I'd sooner take a hammer to the thing and smash it to bits.
I know someone who actually did that ... with a sledgehammer.
I asked him if that was an expensive outburst. He said yes. I asked him if it was gratifying. He said "you have no idea".
In other news, most of Britain wants the UK Government to be removed and replaced by people who are not asshats. Unfortunately, it turns out that nobody who is not an asshat can be persuaded to want the job.
In yet other news ... here's an idea! If you are concerned about propaganda causing your citizens to become "radicalized", why not take the most effective steps possible to prevent that? Create the most sane, free, reasonably run society in which civil rights are sacrosanct, all of the laws are sensible, and all of the laws are equally enforced.
You'll find that far fewer of the citizens would ever want to do anything to oppose that. It's more effective than playing whack-a-mole with an ever-growing list of terrorists.
Because the US only tracks people in their jurisdiction right? Remember you have no rights if your not american because american's are the new aryans. Sieg hiel!
I know this is difficult for one-track minds like this AC to understand, but many issues are in fact nuanced and complex. Shockingly, law appears to be one of those. Just to name a single example: data retention laws. They vary by jurisdiction.
If they start poisoning search with for-profit results Google will be quickly reminded that they are not the only search engine in town.
As long as the ads are marked somehow, a user script will be able to suppress them.
It's sad I need to mangle the web to make it usable, but not as sad as not having a mangling facility would be.
As someone who runs NoScript, Adblock Plus and various other user scripts, I think it's a good thing to be able to take control over your own experience. It's good not to be passive. It's good to see only what you want to see. The more people do this, the more these companies have to comprehend that this is the nature of the network in which they have chosen to participate. The Web would lose most of its appeal to me if it were entirely corporate controlled like television.
What's really sad is that other mediums like television, radio, and periodicals are one-to-many, heavily centralized, and don't include such great control over what you see. They're package deals that require you to accept the crap along with the content and are often not worthwhile.
That's as bullshitty a term as it is in your supermarket. There *are* no "organic" results when they're calculated based on your tracking history, ad clicks and social connections.
Friends don't let friends get tracked. Use the quack that doesn't track!
I use startpage.com myself. I like the idea of getting actual Google search results without any sort of Google tracking. They don't even log your IP address and they're outside of US jurisdiction.
By the way I hope our federal legislators appreciate that. I hope they are proud that now, "outside of US jurisdiction" has become a selling point.
BAD MOD: Not everyone will agree with this, but that doesn't mean it's flamebait.
Anyone who needed to have that explained to them is demonstrably resistant to facts and so-called "common sense" and is therefore a lost cause. Mass numbers of non-individuals agreeing with you bandwagon-style is the only thing they would find persuasive.
Your tastes and preferences define your notion of importance. This is empirically verifiable.
I don't dispute that. What I contend is that, while doing so, one should recognize that it amounts to viewing the world through the lens of one's own interests. Any decisions made are tempered by that knowledge.
It's a self-awareness beyond standard ego consciousness. It tends to make you truly ashamed of and prepared to abandon any sort of self-centered, exploitative motive.
It's one of those things that anyone is capable of doing, provided they really want to.
I've been saying all along that the schools should get the geeks laid instead of the jocks. Even with this study they still won't listen.
I don't know. There is something romantic about choosing to be a geek, against the grain, up the hill, against all odds and disincentives, doing it because you really want to and not because you were bribed into it. It shows great courage and spirit, which I believe is closer to what life is all about. The ones who "go with the flow" and do whatever is the path of least resistance are cowardly and hedonistic by comparison.
I believe that the "real world" is a fallacy. Everyone has their own perception of reality.
I would go so far as to say that you never truly reached adulthood until you can clearly and effortlessly distinguish objective, evidence-based reality from your own subjective feelings and opinions and wishes. Objectivity is when your own tastes and preferences do not influence your decision-making about anything important.
Until you can do that, life is a chaotic mess with no solutions except those that create more and more problems.
Aren't happier people better at pretty much everything? Isn't that sort of the problem with depression?
It's also the problem with alienation and dehumanization, not merely depression. Go out sometime and see for yourself, how rarely people talk to one another like fellow human beings. Usually they would rather talk at someone, listen poorly and keep interrupting (because they have no patience) even when they are listening to an answer to their own question, and generally can't relax and slow down and "take in" much of anything. The irony is, this rushed and hurried approach to life is so error-prone that they accomplish fewer of their goals than they would otherwise.
Compared to that, depression is just a particular special case, an instance of a much more widespread problem with the way we live.