Not really - both were fairly tall, so that's one part of it. But there's also this societal thing where taller people are seen, rightly or wrongly, as being more serious, capable, charismatic, what-have-you.
As for the 8" shorter - I've actually dated a guy who was almost 7' tall, and it was fucking hilarious. We went as Frankenstein & Bride of for Halloween and rocked the look. I've also dated a guy who was 5'4" and that was likewise pretty funny - jokes about him needing mountain climbing gear etc. I prefer to date people around my height - less neck strain (just kidding) - but it's just a preference. I bet most people are similar - sure, they'd like someone taller/shorter than they are, but it's just a plus, not a requirement.
Except from what he said (or, rather, didn't say) he never even tried to intervene as an adult should have - his first resort, it seems, was to be violent.
Had I been there I'd damn well have called the police - adults hitting children is not OK unless it's a case of self-defense. Rather than being an adult and handling it right he simply beat up a child. Wow, what a stud. My hero.
Part of the pricing was, actually, exactly that - I am, genetically speaking, rather lucky, and my parents and grandparents were fairly accomplished. I filled out a rather detailed screener and had a physical as part of the process before I dropped out. I think my parents and grandparents were a big part:
- One case of cancer in my family, ever, in the case of my grandfather who used to work with radiation; he died at age 94. - No heart attacks or other coronary disease in my family. - Other grandfather died of a stroke in his late 90's. - Maternal grandmother lived to 102, paternal grandmother to 98, died after breaking her hip falling down a flight of stairs. - Both parents had advanced degrees (JD & PhD, both from UofC) - Both parents were in robust good health, despite in the case of my father having smoked for 20+ years (World War II got him hooked) - The only people in my family with any kind of health problems were my half siblings, all of whom have weight issues (their mom had weight issues too)
So yeah, if you want to buy genes, I guess mine are pretty good - pure luck, but it doesn't look like there are any likely bad surprises.
As for what got me to decline to "donate":
One was the need to go on a hormone cocktail that would have likely caused some pretty substantial moodswings and other issues while I was in the middle of an incredibly intense courseload, combined with the harvesting procedure and the possibility (fairly remote, but still possible) that it might render me infertile later.
Two was that I met one of the couples - I got pretty far along in the process and it was NOT an anonymous kind of thing with this group - and I think their incredible intensity (to an EXTREMELY creepy level) for the idea of having a baby coupled with speaking about me as if I weren't in the room (though I kind of understood that) just made me incredibly depressed at the notion. I understand the idea of being passionate about having a child, but it just felt as if they were TOO intense - helicopter parents before the kid was even born.
"Rather" implies a choice. I'm sure that if I didn't have a working kidney I'd "rather" live, but unfortunately I don't think I'd have much of a choice.
People can learn to live with disappointment, they can't learn to live without kidneys.
While I can't speak for the person you're responding to, I can say that when I was in college I considered donating eggs. Once I found out what the procedure was I decided not to do it, but I got over a dozen phone calls asking me to reconsider, and each time I was offered more money. The last offer I got was for $37.5K - which still wasn't worth it to me for the whole process I would have had to go through. This was back in 1991, and I imagine the prices have gone up since then.
I'm 5'11", was #150 at the time and in spectacular shape (running!), 1560 SATs, and had a 4.0 GPA. Each of those things was enough to boost the asking price substantially.
That might be an interesting argument if human eggs were necessary for the continued health and well-being of an individual, as kidneys are.
It may be disappointing for someone who is infertile to not be able to have a child, but it is by no means lethal; it certainly is lethal to not have a kidney. As a result, allowing market forces to determine which infertile people get to go to extreme lengths to have a child is much more reasonable and fair than allowing market forces to determine who gets to live or die.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but you're really not understanding the purpose that PUBLIC libraries serve: Repositories of culture that the PUBLIC can have access to, regardless of economic situation. Games, movies, music - all of these things are components of our culture, just like books, newspapers, magazines and other materials that libraries offer.
I can think of quite a few worse uses for tax money than providing equal access to humanity's cultural heritage - the good and bad of it - to any and all who wish to partake.
Further, public libraries *should* have collections of every kind of information - even the ones you call frivolous like games and movies - because if we start making judgment calls as to what should be included it can very quickly go downhill. I guarantee you that there is a sizable population in the US that believes *any* book other than the christian bible is frivolous - should we use their judgment? There are a lot of people in this country who would object to having the Communist Manifesto or Mein Kampf available to be read - should we let them be the judge? Or what about the people who object to Mark Twain, JD Salinger and company? What about people who object to their children being exposed to "black" culture, or to anything other than traditional white western thought?
Far better to have a policy of comprehensive inclusion - even for things like video games and porn and anything else one cares to name - than one of selective exclusion. I would much rather have a library where kids go to play gruesome shoot-em-ups, browse for porn on the web, or whatever else you might think of than one that has been set up to be an arbiter of what is and isn't important.
I think it's being done exactly to get funding by capitalizing on the "won't someone think of the children!!!" crowd.
And, actually, it really is trivial to set up systems that will modify the profiles of those kind of readings. I once wrote a few bits of automation software for games that would try to throw off bot detection software and just adding in things like a little randomness into the keystroke timing and having 4 or 5 different ways to do each task (slightly different sequence, "errors" inserted randomly maybe 3% of the time the bot would do something, etc.) was more than enough to fool not only the software but even players who would attempt to interact with the bots.
Yes, and those are the kinds of things that I'm talking about.
On Slashdot there is generally a "way" that I post that helps get my point across to the geekly sorts who are engaged in discussions of the things I am interested in here. That way is a bit more confrontational and acerbic than I would usually write and also a bit more concrete rather than relative. On Slashdot I'm talking about (usually) things or concepts relating to things, rather than interpersonal dynamics and other concepts that would be more likely to generate a "female" reading.
Messing around I took my post history on various other forums I frequent and it turns up the (not very) shocking discovery:
A pet forum I have posted in about my adoption & rehab of a pit bull: 86% female A games forum I have posted in, usually about technical issues like writing addons, scripts and mods: 68% male A work related forum where we talk about self-care & handling issues that come up when doing research with participants: 88% female (and, amusingly, every single one of my male co-workers comes up as in the high 80's female)
These things need to be taken in context. I've had people who've read essays and papers I've written be stunned when they met me in person - they envisioned a much older person, usually male, simply because of my tone. I've had people who I've worked with on collaborative projects at remote sites also assume - if I only go by my initials, which I often do in informal emails - that I was a guy, and much older - in my late 50's at least. Given that I'm a female under 40, this is usually pretty surprising when people had different expectations. A coworker of mine - straight, white, male and christian - recently wrote a piece about issues relating to gay marriage & the privilege of majority classes in the US and was accused by critics who said that the piece was self-serving, because the author, obviously a gay woman of color, was only seeing things from "her" point of view.
Amusingly it also goes the other way - I work on a university campus, dress very casually (a lot of my work is with pre-teens and teens), and also, I guess, look pretty youthful; people are often times stunned that I'm as old as I am, and that I'm in the position I am. When I teach I've often had students assume that I was another student until I step up to the lectern and kick off the first class. On a few instances I've had older students - people coming back to school in their 50's - get swarmed by students who have questions because they think that student must be the professor.
Anyway, it really is amazing that people would think they can have such a solid read (though I'm sure it's the "journalist" behind the article simplifying things to make it sensational) in just 10 keystrokes, regardless of context, when people who have vastly more information to go on can't actually make correct determinations when factors don't adhere rigidly to the stereotypes. Given that pedophiles are probably going to be "off the norm" in quite a few different areas (read: anyone who molests children is gonna have issues other than that they molest children), I'm not really seeing how it would be possible to get an accurate read on who they are and where they're from. My bet is that the people behind this are after some of that fat "think of the children!!!" money.
It doesn't have anything to do with who you want to fuck, but it sure seems to be getting in the way of you reading and understanding the article.:)
This is not to determine if someone types like a pedophile, it's to determine where they might be and other demographic information about people who are targeting children online, based on their typing.
Sounds like absolute bullshit to me - I've seen numerous other things that attempt to determine something about an individual based on input like typing, sentence construction and other info and they're usually off enough that they'd be worthless as any kind of forensic tool. Some of these combed through thousands of posts comprising millions of words for an individual and still only gave a 60% read on what gender the person was and a 70% read on their likely level of education based on word choice. The problem is that when you are taking part in a global community like the Internet, people pick up all kinds of habits.
For example, I know quite a few USians who use "Cheers!" "mate" and "no worries" because they happen to frequent forums that have people from England, Australia and other countries where such turns of phrase are much more common than in the US. I also know many people of middle-age or later who use phrases that make them sound like teenagers. And there are a staggering number of highly educated people I speak with daily who write email as if they were 12-year-old girls named Becky and they RILLY RILLY RILLY wanna go see the Jonas Bros.
I could see being able to get more info with LOTS of information - surely it would be possible to determine if someone was actually British or just a bit affected online if you could look at their spelling and other word use (or, at least, to see if they seem to be actual vs. faux British) - but this claim of in as few as 10 keystrokes and basing it on silly things like the force of the keystrokes etc. is just completely absurd.
Though it does lead to some fun scenarios...
"Hey, Joe - we got some sicko here trying to pick up 10-year-olds in Hello Kitty Online! Based on the typometric reading... It's either a left-handed, myopic 32 year-old male living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa or a mildly retarded 58 year-old intersex retired WalMart greeter who moved to Tuvalu sometime last spring."
"Tuvalu? Awesome - I've always wanted to go to Oceania! I'll submit the travel vouchers while you call the Iowa office to let them know who's door to kick in!"
Well, I can say that some of it comes from the fact that a group traditionally out of power (women) have been the ones who've been able to sell their bodies. But, speaking to your larger point, I agree - it's amazing to me that people will not even question (much) selling out their very selves, but cry "Ick! Unclean!" at something trivial like a sexualized encounter, in the US.
I don't get the idea that there is a lack of dignity for being paid (reasonably well) for doing something just because it's possibly sexual in nature.
Were I 20 years old again and nearly broke as I was back then, I don't think that stripping on a cam for 5x what I could make at any other job would be something I'd turn my nose up at. I think people who look at the "adult" entertainment industry and see something shameful need a reality check; there's absolutely nothing wrong with selling sex (or sexuality) in a world where we have people "whore" themselves out every day.
Who's worse? The guy who makes $25/hr working for a soulless corporation doing work he's bored by that ultimately provides no real benefit for anyone, or the girl who makes $100/hr shaking her tits on cam for horny net geeks who can't/don't date?
I'm a girl, I game, and if I needed the money, sure - why wouldn't I make a few bucks flirting with some random yahoo while playing an FPS?
No, I'm saying that the insurance organizations are obviously incompetent and/or corrupt if they can't manage to negotiate a better deal and provide better coverage when there's 2x as much money per participant in the system.
I negotiate with vendors for work all the time, and I'm one person representing a trivial fraction of a percentage of any of our vendors' business; in the last year I've kept our same services but reduced our costs over 50%. Surely a multi-billion dollar corporation representing potentially millions of people has *someone* on their staff who can work with healthcare providers in their network to get a deal?
After all, they're so very clever at finding ways to deny coverage to people who pay them - surely they can figure out some clever strategy for making their margins better? And if they can't, well, then I guess I don't have a problem with such an incompetent and non-competitive type of business going out of business.
So tell me - why has every other first world nation been able to implement universal coverage? Why have so many of those nations consistently beaten the US in virtually every measure of health care efficacy? Why have so many of those nations consistently beaten the US when it comes to quality of life, child mortality rates, and lifespan?
If reforming healthcare is such a bad, awful, wrong thing to do that will ultimately wind up in some kind of small-business apocalypse, why has virtually every other nation on Earth who's tried it wound up in a pretty enviable spot, health-care wise?
Or, put another way, why do you think Americans are incapable of doing something virtually every other major nation has managed to do?
I keep on hearing people say this will be bad, yet I keep on seeing examples in the real world of it working pretty well - so all I can figure is that you guys seem to think we're just not as good as everyone else since you think it'll cause such huge problems for us.
Given that virtually every other first world nation on Earth is capable of providing better coverage for roughly half the per-capita cost, I don't have a problem with the insurance companies going out of business if they are somehow so phenomenally incompetent that they cannot wring more than a 3.5% profit margin with 2x the money per person in the system is being spent.
Either they're incredibly poorly run or they're hiding the profits in some kind of clever accounting scheme - there's no possible sensible reason for healthcare half as good and comprehensive to cost twice as much in the US as in every other first world nation, so it has to be either inept management or outright fraud.
And personally, I don't care for "insurance" so losing those companies isn't a problem for me. I'd much rather have guaranteed coverage and pay for it with taxes than take a risk that the premiums I'm paying are going to buy me a policy that'll be canceled the instant I need to make use of it.
It's hardly cynical - it's plain truth. Unless an organization is actively seeking exceptional candidates they need to min/max reward vs. productivity to ensure profitability.
A company with a mature, stable product that doesn't innovate much - say, manufacturing boxes - has absolutely no need to attract anyone exceptional in any way, and thus is pulling from the largest labor pool possible.
A company with new, innovative products that wants to completely redefine (or, even better, create) a market space - say something like a Google - absolutely wants to attract the best and brightest because hopefully those people will give them the key insights they need to really become huge/change the world/create an entirely new market.
I'd never want truly creative people working for me if what I needed were drones - they'd be incredibly unhappy, and while they might refine my processes somewhat, it very likely wouldn't be enough to compensate for the difficulties of managing unhappy people, or the turn-over rate, or any number of other factors. Likewise, if I needed novel ideas, hiring drones would be relatively pointless.
Throughout the world, most companies are closer to the mature/stable businesses operating with an established process that they don't want to change - therefore, most businesses want cogs they can slot into an open spot. Hardly cynical to state what's pretty manifestly the truth.
I agree that it shouldn't be mandatory - in classes I teach I make it clear that attendance is optional, but woe betide anyone asking for help/an extra point because they're on the cusp/s mske-up exam if they didn't have decent attendance (extremely special circumstances excluded, of course). The extra credit potential for my courses comes in the form of quizzes, given out randomly throughout the term, and also in the form of 2-3 questions per exam that are based on class discussions and not from the text or any outside resource. It seems to be working - compared to my peers, I tend to have significantly higher attendance numbers.
One thing I have noticed over the years is that the students who make a habit of attending class regularly are the ones who tend to actually learn the material as opposed to just being able to puke it back for a test and then promptly forget it. I'm sure much of this is due to those students applying themselves more to their studies, but also I am sure there is a component of the regularity of the experience of class attendance forming stronger memories and associations. I know in my case I can still remember, vividly, graphs, charts and maps for a course on Islamic culture I took nearly 15 years ago, despite having never since paying much attention to it; I also know that there are entire sections of basic chem and biology that have flown right out of my mind, even though I aced those courses without attending any lectures.
I have these things now called "hard-back books" that weigh more than an iPad and get held in front of me for hours at an angle the same as an iPad would need to be held to show me on cam if it had a web cam. I'm sorry if you have some kind of degenerative disease that makes it difficult to hold a book in front of you, but not everyone is like that.
While I like multitouch, I really care more about a touchscreen that is responsive. What I love about my iPhone is that when I flick, the damn screen moves while I'm doing it, not after a perceptible delay. It drives me crazy when I'm working with something that is a "kinetic" device and yet it doesn't instantly respond - totally takes me out of the intuitive space. I got really excited over Android phones, then used a few different ones and blah - the hardware was shit.
Personally, my problem with the iPad isn't that it's locked (let's face it, it'll be jailbroken with alacrity, and anyone who is bothered by DRM is generally going to also be technically savvy enough to strip it off of anything they buy, or to be able to find things from DRM unencumbered sources), but that it doesn't have a webcam built in. Hopefully there will be a dockable addon webcam. Or, failing that, a clone with the same or better specs (almost certain), the same or better form-factor and styling (unlikely), and at least as good an interface that is appropriately responsive (REALLY unlikely).
For sure - I think it would have been really cool to have "types" of religions and then have them get an adjective.
For example, instead of "Christianity" and "Islam" and "Judaism" you could just have "(form of discovering civ's name) Monotheism" - so if the Romans discovered Theology, they would have "Romanesque Monotheism".
Further, make it so that there can be "major" religions - created when you discover a key technology, and this gives you a holy person and lets you build a special building - and "minor" religions - which you kind of just have, but they don't give you any of the benefits of a holy person or a special building. Maybe make temples cheaper for civs with a major religion as well, or possibly have a slight effect on corruption or whatever that minor religion temples don't get.
And, even better, you could then provide religion type bonuses that actually differentiate based on the type of religion you choose. For example, polytheistic civilizations could have a slight bonus to specialist production; monotheistic civs could have slightly less civil disorder. Philosophically based religions could have a bonus to tech; Animist religions could yield a bonus to farming or interacting with animal units or less pollution. This way there is actually a reason to have different religions or to care what religion you are in a game as opposed to it being politically convenient to be whatever everyone else is. And, because the religions aren't named, it should make it slightly less likely that whackadoos will get up in arms over any differences that religions cause in gameplay.
What you're proposing - attitudes towards sex etc. being selectable - sounds like adding a second set of civics to what we have in Civ IV, which might be pretty interesting. Maybe more complex than people want, but I dunno - it could be really neat. I don't know how much the religious element adds to the game - from a design standpoint is the game better with it or without it?
In Civ 1 and 2 I would beeline to Republic, then Gunpowder and then whatever tech gave me Armor - every game was pretty much the same strategy, the only difference was how I was able to go about implementing that strategy (do I found 50 cities as close as possible to each other, or do I just build 10 super cities? Do I trade for basic techs while going to Republic, or do I go it alone?) In either case, while there were other strategies that *could* work, this route through the tech tree was pretty much optimal - even on high difficulty level games I would often have an extremely substantial tech lead on my opponents, and the difference between tech levels was VERY pronounced.
What I like about Civ IV is that I can actually use different strategies, and different focuses depending on my starting situation. Rushing towards a high-tech producing civ isn't always the best move, early wars with nearby foes aren't necessarily bad, and it is entirely possible to fight really effectively despite being behind in the tech race as long as you aren't *too* far behind.
I like that Civ IV lets you do other strategies without feeling like you're intentionally hobbling yourself or playing sub-optimally if you try different techniques.
His other children - if he has any - should be given to people who aren't so fucking stupid that they would allow a situation where a 3-year-old could come into contact with a loaded gun. He should also be sterilized, as should any other adults responsible for the accident.
The adults in question should also have their wages garnished to pay for funding of gun safety programs, should never be allowed to own any kind of firearm again, and, ideally, have their rights reduced to whatever a convicted felon in their state would have. Probably also required to do PSA's where they say something along the lines of, "Hi, I'm a fucking moron. Because I am too stupid to be believed, this beautiful child died. Get some gun safety training if you own guns."
But no, prison wouldn't be helpful - make the punishment relate to the crime, make it fucking HARSH, but don't make society foot the bill to put these people in jail, because jail wouldn't serve any purpose.
Slashdot Mirror
Why Mr. Schrute! How's life on the beet farm?
Not really - both were fairly tall, so that's one part of it. But there's also this societal thing where taller people are seen, rightly or wrongly, as being more serious, capable, charismatic, what-have-you.
As for the 8" shorter - I've actually dated a guy who was almost 7' tall, and it was fucking hilarious. We went as Frankenstein & Bride of for Halloween and rocked the look. I've also dated a guy who was 5'4" and that was likewise pretty funny - jokes about him needing mountain climbing gear etc. I prefer to date people around my height - less neck strain (just kidding) - but it's just a preference. I bet most people are similar - sure, they'd like someone taller/shorter than they are, but it's just a plus, not a requirement.
Except from what he said (or, rather, didn't say) he never even tried to intervene as an adult should have - his first resort, it seems, was to be violent.
Had I been there I'd damn well have called the police - adults hitting children is not OK unless it's a case of self-defense. Rather than being an adult and handling it right he simply beat up a child. Wow, what a stud. My hero.
Part of the pricing was, actually, exactly that - I am, genetically speaking, rather lucky, and my parents and grandparents were fairly accomplished. I filled out a rather detailed screener and had a physical as part of the process before I dropped out. I think my parents and grandparents were a big part:
- One case of cancer in my family, ever, in the case of my grandfather who used to work with radiation; he died at age 94.
- No heart attacks or other coronary disease in my family.
- Other grandfather died of a stroke in his late 90's.
- Maternal grandmother lived to 102, paternal grandmother to 98, died after breaking her hip falling down a flight of stairs.
- Both parents had advanced degrees (JD & PhD, both from UofC)
- Both parents were in robust good health, despite in the case of my father having smoked for 20+ years (World War II got him hooked)
- The only people in my family with any kind of health problems were my half siblings, all of whom have weight issues (their mom had weight issues too)
So yeah, if you want to buy genes, I guess mine are pretty good - pure luck, but it doesn't look like there are any likely bad surprises.
As for what got me to decline to "donate":
One was the need to go on a hormone cocktail that would have likely caused some pretty substantial moodswings and other issues while I was in the middle of an incredibly intense courseload, combined with the harvesting procedure and the possibility (fairly remote, but still possible) that it might render me infertile later.
Two was that I met one of the couples - I got pretty far along in the process and it was NOT an anonymous kind of thing with this group - and I think their incredible intensity (to an EXTREMELY creepy level) for the idea of having a baby coupled with speaking about me as if I weren't in the room (though I kind of understood that) just made me incredibly depressed at the notion. I understand the idea of being passionate about having a child, but it just felt as if they were TOO intense - helicopter parents before the kid was even born.
"Rather" implies a choice. I'm sure that if I didn't have a working kidney I'd "rather" live, but unfortunately I don't think I'd have much of a choice.
People can learn to live with disappointment, they can't learn to live without kidneys.
While I can't speak for the person you're responding to, I can say that when I was in college I considered donating eggs. Once I found out what the procedure was I decided not to do it, but I got over a dozen phone calls asking me to reconsider, and each time I was offered more money. The last offer I got was for $37.5K - which still wasn't worth it to me for the whole process I would have had to go through. This was back in 1991, and I imagine the prices have gone up since then.
I'm 5'11", was #150 at the time and in spectacular shape (running!), 1560 SATs, and had a 4.0 GPA. Each of those things was enough to boost the asking price substantially.
That might be an interesting argument if human eggs were necessary for the continued health and well-being of an individual, as kidneys are.
It may be disappointing for someone who is infertile to not be able to have a child, but it is by no means lethal; it certainly is lethal to not have a kidney. As a result, allowing market forces to determine which infertile people get to go to extreme lengths to have a child is much more reasonable and fair than allowing market forces to determine who gets to live or die.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but you're really not understanding the purpose that PUBLIC libraries serve: Repositories of culture that the PUBLIC can have access to, regardless of economic situation. Games, movies, music - all of these things are components of our culture, just like books, newspapers, magazines and other materials that libraries offer.
I can think of quite a few worse uses for tax money than providing equal access to humanity's cultural heritage - the good and bad of it - to any and all who wish to partake.
Further, public libraries *should* have collections of every kind of information - even the ones you call frivolous like games and movies - because if we start making judgment calls as to what should be included it can very quickly go downhill. I guarantee you that there is a sizable population in the US that believes *any* book other than the christian bible is frivolous - should we use their judgment? There are a lot of people in this country who would object to having the Communist Manifesto or Mein Kampf available to be read - should we let them be the judge? Or what about the people who object to Mark Twain, JD Salinger and company? What about people who object to their children being exposed to "black" culture, or to anything other than traditional white western thought?
Far better to have a policy of comprehensive inclusion - even for things like video games and porn and anything else one cares to name - than one of selective exclusion. I would much rather have a library where kids go to play gruesome shoot-em-ups, browse for porn on the web, or whatever else you might think of than one that has been set up to be an arbiter of what is and isn't important.
I think it's being done exactly to get funding by capitalizing on the "won't someone think of the children!!!" crowd.
And, actually, it really is trivial to set up systems that will modify the profiles of those kind of readings. I once wrote a few bits of automation software for games that would try to throw off bot detection software and just adding in things like a little randomness into the keystroke timing and having 4 or 5 different ways to do each task (slightly different sequence, "errors" inserted randomly maybe 3% of the time the bot would do something, etc.) was more than enough to fool not only the software but even players who would attempt to interact with the bots.
Foiling stupid systems like this is trivial.
Yes, and those are the kinds of things that I'm talking about.
On Slashdot there is generally a "way" that I post that helps get my point across to the geekly sorts who are engaged in discussions of the things I am interested in here. That way is a bit more confrontational and acerbic than I would usually write and also a bit more concrete rather than relative. On Slashdot I'm talking about (usually) things or concepts relating to things, rather than interpersonal dynamics and other concepts that would be more likely to generate a "female" reading.
Messing around I took my post history on various other forums I frequent and it turns up the (not very) shocking discovery:
A pet forum I have posted in about my adoption & rehab of a pit bull: 86% female
A games forum I have posted in, usually about technical issues like writing addons, scripts and mods: 68% male
A work related forum where we talk about self-care & handling issues that come up when doing research with participants: 88% female (and, amusingly, every single one of my male co-workers comes up as in the high 80's female)
These things need to be taken in context. I've had people who've read essays and papers I've written be stunned when they met me in person - they envisioned a much older person, usually male, simply because of my tone. I've had people who I've worked with on collaborative projects at remote sites also assume - if I only go by my initials, which I often do in informal emails - that I was a guy, and much older - in my late 50's at least. Given that I'm a female under 40, this is usually pretty surprising when people had different expectations. A coworker of mine - straight, white, male and christian - recently wrote a piece about issues relating to gay marriage & the privilege of majority classes in the US and was accused by critics who said that the piece was self-serving, because the author, obviously a gay woman of color, was only seeing things from "her" point of view.
Amusingly it also goes the other way - I work on a university campus, dress very casually (a lot of my work is with pre-teens and teens), and also, I guess, look pretty youthful; people are often times stunned that I'm as old as I am, and that I'm in the position I am. When I teach I've often had students assume that I was another student until I step up to the lectern and kick off the first class. On a few instances I've had older students - people coming back to school in their 50's - get swarmed by students who have questions because they think that student must be the professor.
Anyway, it really is amazing that people would think they can have such a solid read (though I'm sure it's the "journalist" behind the article simplifying things to make it sensational) in just 10 keystrokes, regardless of context, when people who have vastly more information to go on can't actually make correct determinations when factors don't adhere rigidly to the stereotypes. Given that pedophiles are probably going to be "off the norm" in quite a few different areas (read: anyone who molests children is gonna have issues other than that they molest children), I'm not really seeing how it would be possible to get an accurate read on who they are and where they're from. My bet is that the people behind this are after some of that fat "think of the children!!!" money.
It doesn't have anything to do with who you want to fuck, but it sure seems to be getting in the way of you reading and understanding the article. :)
This is not to determine if someone types like a pedophile, it's to determine where they might be and other demographic information about people who are targeting children online, based on their typing.
Sounds like absolute bullshit to me - I've seen numerous other things that attempt to determine something about an individual based on input like typing, sentence construction and other info and they're usually off enough that they'd be worthless as any kind of forensic tool. Some of these combed through thousands of posts comprising millions of words for an individual and still only gave a 60% read on what gender the person was and a 70% read on their likely level of education based on word choice. The problem is that when you are taking part in a global community like the Internet, people pick up all kinds of habits.
For example, I know quite a few USians who use "Cheers!" "mate" and "no worries" because they happen to frequent forums that have people from England, Australia and other countries where such turns of phrase are much more common than in the US. I also know many people of middle-age or later who use phrases that make them sound like teenagers. And there are a staggering number of highly educated people I speak with daily who write email as if they were 12-year-old girls named Becky and they RILLY RILLY RILLY wanna go see the Jonas Bros.
I could see being able to get more info with LOTS of information - surely it would be possible to determine if someone was actually British or just a bit affected online if you could look at their spelling and other word use (or, at least, to see if they seem to be actual vs. faux British) - but this claim of in as few as 10 keystrokes and basing it on silly things like the force of the keystrokes etc. is just completely absurd.
Though it does lead to some fun scenarios...
"Hey, Joe - we got some sicko here trying to pick up 10-year-olds in Hello Kitty Online! Based on the typometric reading... It's either a left-handed, myopic 32 year-old male living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa or a mildly retarded 58 year-old intersex retired WalMart greeter who moved to Tuvalu sometime last spring."
"Tuvalu? Awesome - I've always wanted to go to Oceania! I'll submit the travel vouchers while you call the Iowa office to let them know who's door to kick in!"
Well, I can say that some of it comes from the fact that a group traditionally out of power (women) have been the ones who've been able to sell their bodies. But, speaking to your larger point, I agree - it's amazing to me that people will not even question (much) selling out their very selves, but cry "Ick! Unclean!" at something trivial like a sexualized encounter, in the US.
I don't get the idea that there is a lack of dignity for being paid (reasonably well) for doing something just because it's possibly sexual in nature.
Were I 20 years old again and nearly broke as I was back then, I don't think that stripping on a cam for 5x what I could make at any other job would be something I'd turn my nose up at. I think people who look at the "adult" entertainment industry and see something shameful need a reality check; there's absolutely nothing wrong with selling sex (or sexuality) in a world where we have people "whore" themselves out every day.
Who's worse? The guy who makes $25/hr working for a soulless corporation doing work he's bored by that ultimately provides no real benefit for anyone, or the girl who makes $100/hr shaking her tits on cam for horny net geeks who can't/don't date?
I'm a girl, I game, and if I needed the money, sure - why wouldn't I make a few bucks flirting with some random yahoo while playing an FPS?
No, I'm saying that the insurance organizations are obviously incompetent and/or corrupt if they can't manage to negotiate a better deal and provide better coverage when there's 2x as much money per participant in the system.
I negotiate with vendors for work all the time, and I'm one person representing a trivial fraction of a percentage of any of our vendors' business; in the last year I've kept our same services but reduced our costs over 50%. Surely a multi-billion dollar corporation representing potentially millions of people has *someone* on their staff who can work with healthcare providers in their network to get a deal?
After all, they're so very clever at finding ways to deny coverage to people who pay them - surely they can figure out some clever strategy for making their margins better? And if they can't, well, then I guess I don't have a problem with such an incompetent and non-competitive type of business going out of business.
Yeah, I have coworkers who make shit up to use as justification for their beliefs, too.
So tell me - why has every other first world nation been able to implement universal coverage? Why have so many of those nations consistently beaten the US in virtually every measure of health care efficacy? Why have so many of those nations consistently beaten the US when it comes to quality of life, child mortality rates, and lifespan?
If reforming healthcare is such a bad, awful, wrong thing to do that will ultimately wind up in some kind of small-business apocalypse, why has virtually every other nation on Earth who's tried it wound up in a pretty enviable spot, health-care wise?
Or, put another way, why do you think Americans are incapable of doing something virtually every other major nation has managed to do?
I keep on hearing people say this will be bad, yet I keep on seeing examples in the real world of it working pretty well - so all I can figure is that you guys seem to think we're just not as good as everyone else since you think it'll cause such huge problems for us.
Given that virtually every other first world nation on Earth is capable of providing better coverage for roughly half the per-capita cost, I don't have a problem with the insurance companies going out of business if they are somehow so phenomenally incompetent that they cannot wring more than a 3.5% profit margin with 2x the money per person in the system is being spent.
Either they're incredibly poorly run or they're hiding the profits in some kind of clever accounting scheme - there's no possible sensible reason for healthcare half as good and comprehensive to cost twice as much in the US as in every other first world nation, so it has to be either inept management or outright fraud.
And personally, I don't care for "insurance" so losing those companies isn't a problem for me. I'd much rather have guaranteed coverage and pay for it with taxes than take a risk that the premiums I'm paying are going to buy me a policy that'll be canceled the instant I need to make use of it.
It's hardly cynical - it's plain truth. Unless an organization is actively seeking exceptional candidates they need to min/max reward vs. productivity to ensure profitability.
A company with a mature, stable product that doesn't innovate much - say, manufacturing boxes - has absolutely no need to attract anyone exceptional in any way, and thus is pulling from the largest labor pool possible.
A company with new, innovative products that wants to completely redefine (or, even better, create) a market space - say something like a Google - absolutely wants to attract the best and brightest because hopefully those people will give them the key insights they need to really become huge/change the world/create an entirely new market.
I'd never want truly creative people working for me if what I needed were drones - they'd be incredibly unhappy, and while they might refine my processes somewhat, it very likely wouldn't be enough to compensate for the difficulties of managing unhappy people, or the turn-over rate, or any number of other factors. Likewise, if I needed novel ideas, hiring drones would be relatively pointless.
Throughout the world, most companies are closer to the mature/stable businesses operating with an established process that they don't want to change - therefore, most businesses want cogs they can slot into an open spot. Hardly cynical to state what's pretty manifestly the truth.
I agree that it shouldn't be mandatory - in classes I teach I make it clear that attendance is optional, but woe betide anyone asking for help/an extra point because they're on the cusp/s mske-up exam if they didn't have decent attendance (extremely special circumstances excluded, of course). The extra credit potential for my courses comes in the form of quizzes, given out randomly throughout the term, and also in the form of 2-3 questions per exam that are based on class discussions and not from the text or any outside resource. It seems to be working - compared to my peers, I tend to have significantly higher attendance numbers.
One thing I have noticed over the years is that the students who make a habit of attending class regularly are the ones who tend to actually learn the material as opposed to just being able to puke it back for a test and then promptly forget it. I'm sure much of this is due to those students applying themselves more to their studies, but also I am sure there is a component of the regularity of the experience of class attendance forming stronger memories and associations. I know in my case I can still remember, vividly, graphs, charts and maps for a course on Islamic culture I took nearly 15 years ago, despite having never since paying much attention to it; I also know that there are entire sections of basic chem and biology that have flown right out of my mind, even though I aced those courses without attending any lectures.
I have these things now called "hard-back books" that weigh more than an iPad and get held in front of me for hours at an angle the same as an iPad would need to be held to show me on cam if it had a web cam. I'm sorry if you have some kind of degenerative disease that makes it difficult to hold a book in front of you, but not everyone is like that.
Happy to help!
While I like multitouch, I really care more about a touchscreen that is responsive. What I love about my iPhone is that when I flick, the damn screen moves while I'm doing it, not after a perceptible delay. It drives me crazy when I'm working with something that is a "kinetic" device and yet it doesn't instantly respond - totally takes me out of the intuitive space. I got really excited over Android phones, then used a few different ones and blah - the hardware was shit.
Personally, my problem with the iPad isn't that it's locked (let's face it, it'll be jailbroken with alacrity, and anyone who is bothered by DRM is generally going to also be technically savvy enough to strip it off of anything they buy, or to be able to find things from DRM unencumbered sources), but that it doesn't have a webcam built in. Hopefully there will be a dockable addon webcam. Or, failing that, a clone with the same or better specs (almost certain), the same or better form-factor and styling (unlikely), and at least as good an interface that is appropriately responsive (REALLY unlikely).
I haven't looked into it in a long time, but is FreeCiv remotely the same as Civ IV, or is it more Civ 2 on steroids still?
Actually, I wonder - is Civ IV moddable enough to allow the addition of those features? I've seen some pretty extreme mods...
For sure - I think it would have been really cool to have "types" of religions and then have them get an adjective.
For example, instead of "Christianity" and "Islam" and "Judaism" you could just have "(form of discovering civ's name) Monotheism" - so if the Romans discovered Theology, they would have "Romanesque Monotheism".
Further, make it so that there can be "major" religions - created when you discover a key technology, and this gives you a holy person and lets you build a special building - and "minor" religions - which you kind of just have, but they don't give you any of the benefits of a holy person or a special building. Maybe make temples cheaper for civs with a major religion as well, or possibly have a slight effect on corruption or whatever that minor religion temples don't get.
And, even better, you could then provide religion type bonuses that actually differentiate based on the type of religion you choose. For example, polytheistic civilizations could have a slight bonus to specialist production; monotheistic civs could have slightly less civil disorder. Philosophically based religions could have a bonus to tech; Animist religions could yield a bonus to farming or interacting with animal units or less pollution. This way there is actually a reason to have different religions or to care what religion you are in a game as opposed to it being politically convenient to be whatever everyone else is. And, because the religions aren't named, it should make it slightly less likely that whackadoos will get up in arms over any differences that religions cause in gameplay.
What you're proposing - attitudes towards sex etc. being selectable - sounds like adding a second set of civics to what we have in Civ IV, which might be pretty interesting. Maybe more complex than people want, but I dunno - it could be really neat. I don't know how much the religious element adds to the game - from a design standpoint is the game better with it or without it?
In Civ 1 and 2 I would beeline to Republic, then Gunpowder and then whatever tech gave me Armor - every game was pretty much the same strategy, the only difference was how I was able to go about implementing that strategy (do I found 50 cities as close as possible to each other, or do I just build 10 super cities? Do I trade for basic techs while going to Republic, or do I go it alone?) In either case, while there were other strategies that *could* work, this route through the tech tree was pretty much optimal - even on high difficulty level games I would often have an extremely substantial tech lead on my opponents, and the difference between tech levels was VERY pronounced.
What I like about Civ IV is that I can actually use different strategies, and different focuses depending on my starting situation. Rushing towards a high-tech producing civ isn't always the best move, early wars with nearby foes aren't necessarily bad, and it is entirely possible to fight really effectively despite being behind in the tech race as long as you aren't *too* far behind.
I like that Civ IV lets you do other strategies without feeling like you're intentionally hobbling yourself or playing sub-optimally if you try different techniques.
His other children - if he has any - should be given to people who aren't so fucking stupid that they would allow a situation where a 3-year-old could come into contact with a loaded gun. He should also be sterilized, as should any other adults responsible for the accident.
The adults in question should also have their wages garnished to pay for funding of gun safety programs, should never be allowed to own any kind of firearm again, and, ideally, have their rights reduced to whatever a convicted felon in their state would have. Probably also required to do PSA's where they say something along the lines of, "Hi, I'm a fucking moron. Because I am too stupid to be believed, this beautiful child died. Get some gun safety training if you own guns."
But no, prison wouldn't be helpful - make the punishment relate to the crime, make it fucking HARSH, but don't make society foot the bill to put these people in jail, because jail wouldn't serve any purpose.