Thanks, that was more helpful than what a lot of people say. I think I see what some of the problem is:
a) I have poor vision and wear contacts, which don't always obey, which makes me less able to hold eye contact. Probably should see if lasik will work.
b) I have chronic back pain, which forces me to shift a lot to find a comfortable position. No, it's okay, I probably tried what you're about to suggest, several times: physical therapy (5), chiropractor (2), acupuncture, electrotherapy (2), every known painkiller or medicine except those requiring DEA approval or banned, steroidal injection (2) and some I can't remember. Doctors refuse to just give me high-grade painkillers, and most refuse to even believe I have pain, since it give any physical correlates that show on x-rays and MRIs (the latter of which I've had ~6 of by now).
The only diagnosis that fits is one by a maverick doctor (can't remember his name) who's gotten good results, who attributes pain to psychological pressure and various psychosomatic effects. I've read the books though and I can't figure out what protocol I'm supposed to follow. It fits too a 'T', though -- I can do Dance Dance Revolution at high difficulties (including doubles) without pain, but the pain pops up more often when I worry or am depressed (nothing like being kicked while you're down).
Because people are afraid you'll cling to them like dogshit once they start helping you. Don't get me wrong, I learnt this from your side of the fence. The surest way to be ostracized is to look needy.
Yeah, good point: you wouldn't want to help people out socially because that poses a risk they'll cling to you. In contrast to people you help out in math or with their computer, who never act that way...
Sarcasm aside, my point wasn't that there is no risk in offering someone help with their social skills, just that it's comparable to offering technical help in all ways except a) the subject matter, and b) the fact that people do one but not the other.
Thanks, that's more useful than any of the help I usually get. Just a few things though:
I just looked things up online. Sport and social groups. Events for things I like to do. I joined a gym. My workplace has a group that goes out to the bar every once in awhile. I just did/do all those (or at least what I'm interested in).
Well, so did I, but I live in a small town (metro area 200,000), and all of the groups are either a) very small if they even exist, or b) associated with a university I don't go to. Which is why I want to move, but can't find a job in a bigger city.
*** Aside: Now, I actually did make progress here -- back in early January '08, I found a group for a presidential candidate on meetup.com (not saying who). It started out great -- the group wasn't very well organized, so one day I posted, "Hey, for today's event (basically, setting up signs in various places but no place was listed), meet me at this place if you want, and we can go set stuff up."
Nobody showed up, but the organizer at the time was very absentee, since she ran that candidate's meetup groups in three far-apart cities, and she was impressed by me taking the initiative, so she turned over control to me. I set up the next event, where we'd be making signs. Again it looked dismal, since only one person other than me and the host showed up. But shortly thereafter, two college girls who had found the site showed up. I had brought a camera and made sure to take a ton of pics, and then put a bunch of crazy captions on them when I uploaded them to the site. Then at the next meeting, a lot more people showed up. But after a few more meetings I started getting creeped out by the people there and just became apathetic and gradually stopped going, handing over the responsibilities to others.
Also, while waiting for one of the meetings to start (they were held at a coffee place in a side room) I talked to some women who were knitting, and they invited me to their group. But like I talked about before, this is one of the groups where it shrunk after I started going. Once they stopped meeting in public, and there was just their dwindling two or three that showed up, I stopped going as well.)
Anyway, just to show you I have really been trying.***
Whenever there's an invite for the groups at work that go out to bars or have dinner, I go, but those are very rare... and I always manage to piss someone off at them, which is probably part of why they're rare.
I also joined a gym, but I don't understand what that's supposed to accomplish, other than physical fitness. It's not a very good environment for meeting people because everyone just minds their own business. I quit that too after the entire staff collectively mocked me the time I asked for a band-aid. (Not immediately, just didn't renew.)
I just went. I forced myself to go. Sounds crazy, right? Oh yeah...it was. Was I freaked out a bit doing it? You better believe it.
Well, I do out by myself -- I pretty much have do. And if I get smashed before going, I can be quite sociable, but otherwise, I have no idea what to do. People act like you're a freak if you go talk to them, as if you're never supposed to do that, you're supposed to have your own friends already.
When there was a new guy my age at work, and who was new to the town, I had a chance to take him out to places. I would start up conversations with groups of people, since he seemed to be too shy to, and what happened like three of those times was that the group or person ended up ditching me and hanging out with the new guy.
Forcing myself into situations I didn't feel comfortable helped me become more comfortable in the long run.
I've forced myself to do social things (going out, and to groups) but I never learn anything that helps me improve and it's not for lack of trying.
What makes you think that being shy *wasn't* my typical "strategy" when joining a club? That's my default state, and it's why none of them led to me meeting people who are today still my friend. If you don't introduce yourself, no one makes it any easier. Well, if you use DriedClexler as your internet handle anyway...
No...I didn't say it was easy. I apologize if I made it seem that way.
I didn't say you said it was easy, and that was the point -- even if you said it was hard, you'd be underestimating it.;-)
I had some tough days with certain groups that I eventually just gave up on because it wasn't worth it. However, I kept trying and definitely did not give up until I found groups and things I fit into.
Yes -- because while you experienced failures, you did not experience catastrophic failures that cascaded onto your attemps to join other groups, as I did.
They just don't seem to understand that you don't say certain things, or you don't touch people (typically), or you stay a certain distance from people when talking to them...very simple things that make sense to many people, but not to everybody.
Well, I can 100% guarantee you it's not the touching or the distance -- I long ago stopped touching new acqaintances at all except to handshake, and the distance rule actually does make sense to me. I don't know of any time when someone has backed up after I moved close to them, for instance.
I only have a partial solution for the Things You Don't Say rule, but it isn't very helpful. The rule is: if they've already decided they like you, it doesn't really matter; if they've already decided they don't, anything and everything forms a handy excuse. What to do before that point, I have a hard time with.
Please read my revised statement. There are still a ton of opportunities. They're just not presented quite as readily.
There are? How did you find your events? Did a friend take you? What if I don't have friends? Or if I live in a small town? Well, I guess I should move, right? So how do I find a job in a city I want to live in? Oh, yes, you need a network... which I don't have.:-/
Did you ever join a group or go to some social event, by yourself, where you didn't already know someone there?
And of course, I'm sorry if I'm coming off as rude or sarcastic, it's hard to soften over text:-P
Well, I was in the exact same position as you my freshman year and tried to improve my sophomore year. But... it didn't go well, and it's not as easy as you make it sound.
I tried to cure my problem (of being socially inept) by joining a club, several in fact. Because I rubbed some people the wrong way (figuratively!), one girl started telling the leadership that I did very horrible things (which were very untrue) and got a bunch of other girls to go along with her in complaining until I got expelled from it. Shortly thereafter, I noticed people in the other groups I tried joining, not wanting to interact with me, and then I found out about more (untrue) rumors against me.
Then, when I filed a formal complaint about this treatment, the administrator destroyed my complaint without telling me and didn't act on it. I appealed to another administrative organization, who then gave me similar treatment.
So, any time you tell one of these nerd types to "get over their fears" and "what do you have to lose?", well, *that* is what they have to fear, and it's possible to face *much* more than mere rejection.
I think that it is, in a sense, hard to teach these social skills. Most people don't realize, and so can't even articulate, what social skills they're learning as they're learning it. Even on this very discussion, virtually all the advice that's been posted wouldn't help: I *already* shower daily and I relgiously brush my teeth. While I may not have the best fashion sense, I do get complimented on outfits I pick out myself from time to time. And I don't wear star trek/wars themed stuff or bring up my MtG skills.
In my experience, it really all does boil down to me just not *knowing* the unspoken boundaries that other people somehow know. And I don't know any way you can teach this to someone -- whenever someone actually tells me I did something wrong (in the rare cases where I actually get to learn it!), it is something very hard to describe: "Yes, you should have done that, but the *way* you said it put people off".
In more recent groups that I've tried to join, I haven't gotten the treatment of the one listed above, but for some reason nobody ever wants to see me outside of it, and (it seems) participation quietly drops sharply once I join.
And just to give you an example of how hard it is to find relevant advice: in another slashdot discussion about this, someone suggested that when I join a group, I bring along a friend, preferably a hot female one. Well gee, when I dont *have* a friend in the first place, let alone a female one, let alone an attractive female one... . And when I found a girl I knew from high school and asked her what I should do, she could only think of things I've already done. Riddle me this: why is it that if someone has trouble in math or something, other people who can do it will offer to help, but if someone is socially inept, the immediate reaction is to ostracize the person rather than offering to give them social coaching? I have helped people all my life in technical areas where they needed it, but not one time has anyone made any such offer to me.
Okay, well this post is getting long. I don't know if I'm representative of socially inept people. But please, stop giving trite dismissals of us (I know you weren't specically doing this, but many in the discussion are). This loneliness is starting to really cripple me -- I never realized growing up how important it would be later in life to have friends. While there may be a few nerds that genuinely don't care what others think, I think you're mainly seeing people doing the best they can to cope with a bad situation.
For those of you in college, take advantage of everything that it provides. You don't necessarily get those type of opportunities once you leave.
Actually, now that you mention it, when I was on Second Life, I made a few items that could be useful in virtual warfare.
1) Virtual covert activities: I scripted listening bugs and planted them in people's virtual apartments so I could hear them in non-IM chats.
2) Virtual propaganda: I scripted objects named after people so that I could put words in people's mouths by having the objects say offensive stuff.[*]
3) Virtual charity laundering: I scripted a bank so that people could hide their money. On certain days, the game would notice you're low on money and fill you up back to some sufficient level. So, you would look poor to get the bonus, and then take your money back out, allowing you to instantiate more virtual rockets.
[*] "But wait!" you ask, "isn't that impossible since objects have green text and human players have white text?" Oh ye of little cunning. When you throw your voice through an object, FIRST you have to make a bunch of comments along the lines of, "Hey, check this out guys, you can made your text green! This is awesome! I'm only going to speak in green lol." For best results, wait until they "afk".
Re:"Furious stream of mini-debates on Twitter"?
on
Gaza Debate Goes Virtual
·
· Score: 4, Informative
In a submission I made that didn't get accepted, I linked the New York Times article on Israel's use of Twitter to give their side (israelconsulate page). Favorite response?
israelconsulate: we R pro nego[tiation]. crntly tlks r held w the PA + tlks on the 2 state soln. we talk only w/ ppl who accept R rt 2 live."
Yes, I understand they need to be visible, but you don't need to nearly blind every driver on the road to do that. How many people are killed from the distraction? I'm not just talking about lights on, but the kind that you can't ignore at all. Fortunately, they don't use those all the time.
Oh really now? Make sure to pass that policy onto the police, who always love to have their flashing red-and-blues on and as distracting as possible when they've pulled someone over or are responding to an accident.
I hear homeowners who get to be awakened by the flashing lights in the middle of the night, would be interested in such a change of policy too...
I'm having a hard time understanding what about that upsets you so much. Don't they have a right to present their case to the world? So what difference does it make if they, on terms available to anyone else, buy advertising for purposes of promoting that message? (and it sounds like that's not even Israel, just like-minded people)
What do you think about Israel getting its message out through Twitter on their page?
By the way, I submitted that as a story, and, because merit has nothing to do with the selection process here, it didn't make it. But you can smirk at this part anyway:
backlotops: 1 side has to stop. Why continue what hasn't worked (mass arial/grnd retaliation)? Arab Peace Initiative?
israelconsulate: we R pro nego. crntly tlks r held w the PA + tlks on the 2 state soln. we talk only w/ ppl who accept R rt 2 live.
This is a natural extension of war now-a-days. This is akin to saying, "Soldiers Now Using Bullets in War".
If the dominant hand-held projectile weapon were still the musket, or people just still believed that, then yes, it would be news!
Anyway you may be interested in knowing that not but 5 months before, in the Russia/Georgia war the previous August, exactly the same thing was going on and an intrepid Slate reporter got involved in downloading botnet software from pro-Russian hackers.
Even my human ears can tell the difference between some types of wall coverings based on ambient sound reflections.
Oh, there's a lot more potential for you than that. Humans actually be trained in echolocation. Blind people even pick it up, thinking they're using their face for it, and so it's been called "facial vision".
Actually it reminds me of the Orbital Power Transmitter in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire. (Speaking of which, anyone have a comprehensive list of Alpha Centauri-Civilization series equivalents? I mean, I can get formers/settlers, doctor/entertainer, talent/happy citizen and stuff like that, but I mean a list of all the technologies, weapons, secret projects, etc.)
Anyway, I guess the main challenge is beaming the power down to earth without frying someone's nuts off.
Heh, yeah, I know. I went to the site hoping to see what the new font looks like, and I clicked on the "view the font" button and all it showed was a few giant letters. And like you mentioned, it says, but don't worry, it looks okay at smaller sizes!... which it doesn't show.
I know that standards in general have kind of deteriorated lately, but is it really too much to ask that a site promoting a font... show you what that font looks like in its intended size? Sheesh!
China's response would be "Hey, how about the billions of dollars you owe us. When you planning on paying up?"
And the US government's response would be, "Okay, do you have one of your Treasury bonds with you?... Oh, you have them on computer now? Okay, pull one up.... Any, it doesn't matter, I'm going to show you something.... Alright, you've got it on your screen?... Okay, do you see the 'Matures in:' field?... Good, bcause that's when we'll be paying up.... No, no, it's okay, no problem, call us anytime, you're one of our best customers.... Yes, I'm sorry, I mean, our best customer."
Yeah, agreed. This is like those professors who were found with a bunch of issues of Playboy in their office and they claimed it was part of their research into the correlation of economic conditions with contemporary playmate body types, as a study of evolutionary psychology.
Yes, plus, your perceptions are also highly influence by your expectations, both conscious and unconscious. I think that applies here too: if you've come to expect someone being around, your brain will "fill in the missing gaps" (similar in concept to a running-average algorithm).
In another context, that's why you can't tickle yourself: because your brain "expects" the feeling of your fingers, since you're also the one generating that touch. In order to successfully tickle yourself, you have to introduce a time lag: set up some device such that when you operate it, a few seconds later it your motions get transformed into a tickling motion against your skin.
Slashdot Mirror
Then I suggest a new strategy: let the rookie win.
(Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.)
Thanks, that was more helpful than what a lot of people say. I think I see what some of the problem is:
a) I have poor vision and wear contacts, which don't always obey, which makes me less able to hold eye contact. Probably should see if lasik will work.
b) I have chronic back pain, which forces me to shift a lot to find a comfortable position. No, it's okay, I probably tried what you're about to suggest, several times: physical therapy (5), chiropractor (2), acupuncture, electrotherapy (2), every known painkiller or medicine except those requiring DEA approval or banned, steroidal injection (2) and some I can't remember. Doctors refuse to just give me high-grade painkillers, and most refuse to even believe I have pain, since it give any physical correlates that show on x-rays and MRIs (the latter of which I've had ~6 of by now).
The only diagnosis that fits is one by a maverick doctor (can't remember his name) who's gotten good results, who attributes pain to psychological pressure and various psychosomatic effects. I've read the books though and I can't figure out what protocol I'm supposed to follow. It fits too a 'T', though -- I can do Dance Dance Revolution at high difficulties (including doubles) without pain, but the pain pops up more often when I worry or am depressed (nothing like being kicked while you're down).
Anyway, thank you again.
Because people are afraid you'll cling to them like dogshit once they start helping you. Don't get me wrong, I learnt this from your side of the fence. The surest way to be ostracized is to look needy.
Yeah, good point: you wouldn't want to help people out socially because that poses a risk they'll cling to you. In contrast to people you help out in math or with their computer, who never act that way ...
Sarcasm aside, my point wasn't that there is no risk in offering someone help with their social skills, just that it's comparable to offering technical help in all ways except a) the subject matter, and b) the fact that people do one but not the other.
Thanks, that's more useful than any of the help I usually get. Just a few things though:
I just looked things up online. Sport and social groups. Events for things I like to do. I joined a gym. My workplace has a group that goes out to the bar every once in awhile. I just did/do all those (or at least what I'm interested in).
Well, so did I, but I live in a small town (metro area 200,000), and all of the groups are either a) very small if they even exist, or b) associated with a university I don't go to. Which is why I want to move, but can't find a job in a bigger city.
*** Aside: Now, I actually did make progress here -- back in early January '08, I found a group for a presidential candidate on meetup.com (not saying who). It started out great -- the group wasn't very well organized, so one day I posted, "Hey, for today's event (basically, setting up signs in various places but no place was listed), meet me at this place if you want, and we can go set stuff up."
Nobody showed up, but the organizer at the time was very absentee, since she ran that candidate's meetup groups in three far-apart cities, and she was impressed by me taking the initiative, so she turned over control to me. I set up the next event, where we'd be making signs. Again it looked dismal, since only one person other than me and the host showed up. But shortly thereafter, two college girls who had found the site showed up. I had brought a camera and made sure to take a ton of pics, and then put a bunch of crazy captions on them when I uploaded them to the site. Then at the next meeting, a lot more people showed up. But after a few more meetings I started getting creeped out by the people there and just became apathetic and gradually stopped going, handing over the responsibilities to others.
Also, while waiting for one of the meetings to start (they were held at a coffee place in a side room) I talked to some women who were knitting, and they invited me to their group. But like I talked about before, this is one of the groups where it shrunk after I started going. Once they stopped meeting in public, and there was just their dwindling two or three that showed up, I stopped going as well.)
Anyway, just to show you I have really been trying.***
Whenever there's an invite for the groups at work that go out to bars or have dinner, I go, but those are very rare ... and I always manage to piss someone off at them, which is probably part of why they're rare.
I also joined a gym, but I don't understand what that's supposed to accomplish, other than physical fitness. It's not a very good environment for meeting people because everyone just minds their own business. I quit that too after the entire staff collectively mocked me the time I asked for a band-aid. (Not immediately, just didn't renew.)
I just went. I forced myself to go. Sounds crazy, right? Oh yeah...it was. Was I freaked out a bit doing it? You better believe it.
Well, I do out by myself -- I pretty much have do. And if I get smashed before going, I can be quite sociable, but otherwise, I have no idea what to do. People act like you're a freak if you go talk to them, as if you're never supposed to do that, you're supposed to have your own friends already.
When there was a new guy my age at work, and who was new to the town, I had a chance to take him out to places. I would start up conversations with groups of people, since he seemed to be too shy to, and what happened like three of those times was that the group or person ended up ditching me and hanging out with the new guy.
Forcing myself into situations I didn't feel comfortable helped me become more comfortable in the long run.
I've forced myself to do social things (going out, and to groups) but I never learn anything that helps me improve and it's not for lack of trying.
(Guess that was longer than I expected ...)
What makes you think that being shy *wasn't* my typical "strategy" when joining a club? That's my default state, and it's why none of them led to me meeting people who are today still my friend. If you don't introduce yourself, no one makes it any easier. Well, if you use DriedClexler as your internet handle anyway...
No...I didn't say it was easy. I apologize if I made it seem that way.
I didn't say you said it was easy, and that was the point -- even if you said it was hard, you'd be underestimating it. ;-)
I had some tough days with certain groups that I eventually just gave up on because it wasn't worth it. However, I kept trying and definitely did not give up until I found groups and things I fit into.
Yes -- because while you experienced failures, you did not experience catastrophic failures that cascaded onto your attemps to join other groups, as I did.
They just don't seem to understand that you don't say certain things, or you don't touch people (typically), or you stay a certain distance from people when talking to them...very simple things that make sense to many people, but not to everybody.
Well, I can 100% guarantee you it's not the touching or the distance -- I long ago stopped touching new acqaintances at all except to handshake, and the distance rule actually does make sense to me. I don't know of any time when someone has backed up after I moved close to them, for instance.
I only have a partial solution for the Things You Don't Say rule, but it isn't very helpful. The rule is: if they've already decided they like you, it doesn't really matter; if they've already decided they don't, anything and everything forms a handy excuse. What to do before that point, I have a hard time with.
Please read my revised statement. There are still a ton of opportunities. They're just not presented quite as readily.
There are? How did you find your events? Did a friend take you? What if I don't have friends? Or if I live in a small town? Well, I guess I should move, right? So how do I find a job in a city I want to live in? Oh, yes, you need a network ... which I don't have. :-/
Did you ever join a group or go to some social event, by yourself, where you didn't already know someone there?
And of course, I'm sorry if I'm coming off as rude or sarcastic, it's hard to soften over text :-P
Yes I have. At school (two professionals plus group therapy), and then afterward, two more professionals and a different group.
None of it accomplished anything. It's not the cure-all, or even the cure-some, that it's made out to be.
Well, I was in the exact same position as you my freshman year and tried to improve my sophomore year. But ... it didn't go well, and it's not as easy as you make it sound.
I tried to cure my problem (of being socially inept) by joining a club, several in fact. Because I rubbed some people the wrong way (figuratively!), one girl started telling the leadership that I did very horrible things (which were very untrue) and got a bunch of other girls to go along with her in complaining until I got expelled from it. Shortly thereafter, I noticed people in the other groups I tried joining, not wanting to interact with me, and then I found out about more (untrue) rumors against me.
Then, when I filed a formal complaint about this treatment, the administrator destroyed my complaint without telling me and didn't act on it. I appealed to another administrative organization, who then gave me similar treatment.
So, any time you tell one of these nerd types to "get over their fears" and "what do you have to lose?", well, *that* is what they have to fear, and it's possible to face *much* more than mere rejection.
I think that it is, in a sense, hard to teach these social skills. Most people don't realize, and so can't even articulate, what social skills they're learning as they're learning it. Even on this very discussion, virtually all the advice that's been posted wouldn't help: I *already* shower daily and I relgiously brush my teeth. While I may not have the best fashion sense, I do get complimented on outfits I pick out myself from time to time. And I don't wear star trek/wars themed stuff or bring up my MtG skills.
In my experience, it really all does boil down to me just not *knowing* the unspoken boundaries that other people somehow know. And I don't know any way you can teach this to someone -- whenever someone actually tells me I did something wrong (in the rare cases where I actually get to learn it!), it is something very hard to describe: "Yes, you should have done that, but the *way* you said it put people off".
In more recent groups that I've tried to join, I haven't gotten the treatment of the one listed above, but for some reason nobody ever wants to see me outside of it, and (it seems) participation quietly drops sharply once I join.
And just to give you an example of how hard it is to find relevant advice: in another slashdot discussion about this, someone suggested that when I join a group, I bring along a friend, preferably a hot female one. Well gee, when I dont *have* a friend in the first place, let alone a female one, let alone an attractive female one... . And when I found a girl I knew from high school and asked her what I should do, she could only think of things I've already done.
Riddle me this: why is it that if someone has trouble in math or something, other people who can do it will offer to help, but if someone is socially inept, the immediate reaction is to ostracize the person rather than offering to give them social coaching? I have helped people all my life in technical areas where they needed it, but not one time has anyone made any such offer to me.
Okay, well this post is getting long. I don't know if I'm representative of socially inept people. But please, stop giving trite dismissals of us (I know you weren't specically doing this, but many in the discussion are). This loneliness is starting to really cripple me -- I never realized growing up how important it would be later in life to have friends. While there may be a few nerds that genuinely don't care what others think, I think you're mainly seeing people doing the best they can to cope with a bad situation.
For those of you in college, take advantage of everything that it provides. You don't necessarily get those type of opportunities once you leave.
And how painfully I learned this :-(
That's an internet search that gets you information you would otherwise have to travel 200 meters to find.
You're welcome. :-)
Actually, now that you mention it, when I was on Second Life, I made a few items that could be useful in virtual warfare.
1) Virtual covert activities: I scripted listening bugs and planted them in people's virtual apartments so I could hear them in non-IM chats.
2) Virtual propaganda: I scripted objects named after people so that I could put words in people's mouths by having the objects say offensive stuff.[*]
3) Virtual charity laundering: I scripted a bank so that people could hide their money. On certain days, the game would notice you're low on money and fill you up back to some sufficient level. So, you would look poor to get the bonus, and then take your money back out, allowing you to instantiate more virtual rockets.
[*] "But wait!" you ask, "isn't that impossible since objects have green text and human players have white text?" Oh ye of little cunning. When you throw your voice through an object, FIRST you have to make a bunch of comments along the lines of, "Hey, check this out guys, you can made your text green! This is awesome! I'm only going to speak in green lol." For best results, wait until they "afk".
In a submission I made that didn't get accepted, I linked the New York Times article on Israel's use of Twitter to give their side (israelconsulate page). Favorite response?
israelconsulate: we R pro nego[tiation]. crntly tlks r held w the PA + tlks on the 2 state soln. we talk only w/ ppl who accept R rt 2 live."
Yes, I understand they need to be visible, but you don't need to nearly blind every driver on the road to do that. How many people are killed from the distraction? I'm not just talking about lights on, but the kind that you can't ignore at all. Fortunately, they don't use those all the time.
Oh really now? Make sure to pass that policy onto the police, who always love to have their flashing red-and-blues on and as distracting as possible when they've pulled someone over or are responding to an accident.
I hear homeowners who get to be awakened by the flashing lights in the middle of the night, would be interested in such a change of policy too...
I'm having a hard time understanding what about that upsets you so much. Don't they have a right to present their case to the world? So what difference does it make if they, on terms available to anyone else, buy advertising for purposes of promoting that message? (and it sounds like that's not even Israel, just like-minded people)
What do you think about Israel getting its message out through Twitter on their page?
By the way, I submitted that as a story, and, because merit has nothing to do with the selection process here, it didn't make it. But you can smirk at this part anyway:
backlotops: 1 side has to stop. Why continue what hasn't worked (mass arial/grnd retaliation)? Arab Peace Initiative?
israelconsulate: we R pro nego. crntly tlks r held w the PA + tlks on the 2 state soln. we talk only w/ ppl who accept R rt 2 live.
This is a natural extension of war now-a-days. This is akin to saying, "Soldiers Now Using Bullets in War".
If the dominant hand-held projectile weapon were still the musket, or people just still believed that, then yes, it would be news!
Anyway you may be interested in knowing that not but 5 months before, in the Russia/Georgia war the previous August, exactly the same thing was going on and an intrepid Slate reporter got involved in downloading botnet software from pro-Russian hackers.
Or we could selectively breed humans for opposition to eugenics.
Even my human ears can tell the difference between some types of wall coverings based on ambient sound reflections.
Oh, there's a lot more potential for you than that. Humans actually be trained in echolocation. Blind people even pick it up, thinking they're using their face for it, and so it's been called "facial vision".
Actually it reminds me of the Orbital Power Transmitter in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire. (Speaking of which, anyone have a comprehensive list of Alpha Centauri-Civilization series equivalents? I mean, I can get formers/settlers, doctor/entertainer, talent/happy citizen and stuff like that, but I mean a list of all the technologies, weapons, secret projects, etc.)
Anyway, I guess the main challenge is beaming the power down to earth without frying someone's nuts off.
Heh, yeah, I know. I went to the site hoping to see what the new font looks like, and I clicked on the "view the font" button and all it showed was a few giant letters. And like you mentioned, it says, but don't worry, it looks okay at smaller sizes! ... which it doesn't show.
I know that standards in general have kind of deteriorated lately, but is it really too much to ask that a site promoting a font ... show you what that font looks like in its intended size? Sheesh!
Confirmation on that, chief. $60 is more than $4.
Under which axiom set, though?
China's response would be "Hey, how about the billions of dollars you owe us. When you planning on paying up?"
And the US government's response would be, "Okay, do you have one of your Treasury bonds with you? ... Oh, you have them on computer now? Okay, pull one up. ... Any, it doesn't matter, I'm going to show you something. ... Alright, you've got it on your screen? ... Okay, do you see the 'Matures in:' field? ... Good, bcause that's when we'll be paying up. ... No, no, it's okay, no problem, call us anytime, you're one of our best customers. ... Yes, I'm sorry, I mean, our best customer."
child porn was illegalised in the UK
Wow, you Brits get on our case for saying "burglarized" instead of "burgled" but then you go and say "illegalized".
We have a word for that: it's called "banned". ;-)
Oh ... my ... god. Apparently, I got it wrong. It wasn't some off-the-cuff excuse. They actually wrote up the paper!
More links.
Yeah, agreed. This is like those professors who were found with a bunch of issues of Playboy in their office and they claimed it was part of their research into the correlation of economic conditions with contemporary playmate body types, as a study of evolutionary psychology.
Yes, plus, your perceptions are also highly influence by your expectations, both conscious and unconscious. I think that applies here too: if you've come to expect someone being around, your brain will "fill in the missing gaps" (similar in concept to a running-average algorithm).
In another context, that's why you can't tickle yourself: because your brain "expects" the feeling of your fingers, since you're also the one generating that touch. In order to successfully tickle yourself, you have to introduce a time lag: set up some device such that when you operate it, a few seconds later it your motions get transformed into a tickling motion against your skin.