This doesn't mean all ads are evil, but I've worked with girls who have serious body image issues due to a lifetime of being bombarded with unreal images of beauty.
No, you've worked with girls who have serious body image issues due to being raised by parents who were seemingly unable to give them an appreciation for the difference between fantasy and reality as well as encourage a level of self-confidence to be able to shrug off stuff like this.
Blaming advertising for people's fucked up self-image is like blaming video games for making people violent. It's just not the case.
Of course, I'm an overly tall, gangly lesbian with bad hair, pasty skin, small boobs and big feet. So I knew from about the age of 11 that I wouldn't be trading on my looks and thus not to take that shit seriously:p
Why wouldn't it just design a better machine and then move in? Humans don't have the ability to put their consciousness into another, better, body, but I imagine that an AI wouldn't be limited in such a way.
There's a difference between supporting the attacks and thinking that the reason for them is religious. But, I do agree that people *should* want to distance themselves from such statements.
What I'd be interested in seeing would be a similar poll amongst USian Christians asking whether or not they'd support nuking Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc. From the number of "glass parking lot" comments I see in various forums and the right-wing AM radio diatribes that I hear from time to time, I would guess that there would be at least 6% supporting such a statement. That doesn't mean that they think it's a tenet of Christianity to nuke people - it just means that they're in favor of using that particular tactic to address what they think is a big issue.
They're using bombs and stuff (we've done that), killing themselves to kill others (ok, we haven't usually done that one), but that's because they believe that this is a proper way to die, and their god approves. Odd then that the Koran makes no such claim.
I don't disagree with your general point, but I do disagree with your assessment of why they blow themselves up. The reason they do it and we don't isn't because of a strange read of the Koran, it's because of a massive disparity between the strength of relative forces. Suicide bombing is a *very* effective tool for waging psychological warfare and also has a disproportionate effect on the morale and productive ability of the target forces.
For the most part, suicide attacks are going to be limited to parties in an unfavorable position, and they will be used then as desperate, last ditch efforts. The religification of it is just to make it palatable to the people doing it. It's a cynical tool used to get pawns to sacrifice themselves. And, on the other side, people here use it as a way to rally up support for anti-islamic sentiment. "They will never stop! Their 'god' tells them to do this!" and similar nonsense.
And it works, somewhat. I mean, there's something horrifying about the notion that someone could just walk right up to you and blow themselves up - the "enemy" is THAT dedicated, THAT willing to sacrifice themselves, etc. It's a more gruesome and personal version of the Tet offensive - they show that they're willing to sacrifice staggering numbers or just do incredibly gruesome shit that we don't have the stomach for, and they hope we back down. It also fails in that regard because it gives the hyper-militant types an excuse to push for total war because they have a seemingly reasonable argument that there's no way to make peace with an enemy that'll blow themselves up to make a point.
Anyway, I'm just saying that I don't think anyone but the people blowing themselves up (and possibly, often, even not them) or people who desperately need to understand why someone did it and unable to accept the cynical but true answer (most probably the families of the suicide bombers) thinks it's actually religious really - it's just used as a tool.
Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp
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Correct. Never said or implied that, either.
Then why were you responding to a comment about gifted people with your own personal experience? If you are not gifted and don't believe you're gifted, then what possible relevance could your personal experience have to a discussion about gifted people getting the support they need? In the context of this discussion and topic it can be assumed that you were trying to make the case that you were saying you were somehow special but unsupported. Otherwise your comments were a non sequitur.
Frankly, your reply looks rather smug. I have no idea why though.
Of course you don't know why it seems smug. It's because I wasn't being smug. I had taken your response to be that you felt you were gifted (which I explained above was a reasonable interpretation of your comments) and was describing my own experience with make-work and "purposeless" academic experiences, demonstrating that it is possible to get a greater perspective without having it provided by an outside party. If you feel that is a statement that I feel I'm superior to you, you're certainly welcome to take it that way, but I'd say it says much more about your own workings than it does about my intent.
Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp
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I don't wish to be insulting, but frankly you don't sound like anything special in the brains department. You're basically saying that unless you are spoon fed a practical reason for doing something you are unable to figure out a purpose on your own, even if that purpose is just having fun with ideas. Regardless of what people might have told you, you're nothing special - the world is full of people just like you: clever enough to learn stuff when it can be presented in a palatable way, but not so special that they'll go out of their way to find things on their own.
When I was in high school we had French classes also. I loved it, not because I thought I'd ever go to France or "need" to speak French, but because my parents didn't speak French and so my friends and I could use our pidgin French around them and feel like we were getting away with something. Ditto when learning stuff like binary coded number systems in a math class. I'm hardly what I'd call gifted myself, but I do have quite a bit of desire to know stuff, to figure things out, and that desire is what motivates me. I am told, and I believe, that this kind of desire to "play" with ideas is an essential trait to have for anyone doing research, and I agree.
I will say this: If you're unable to come up with a reason why you should do the work you do vs. go on welfare, you seriously need to rethink what you're doing and figure out for yourself what it is that'll do it for you.
Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp
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I don't want to come off as insulting here, but you don't sound all that "gifted" to me. You had to take three years of the same math, and yet, rather than do something interesting with it, you chose instead to just sit there and take it. Why didn't you take that opportunity to write up some interesting observations about the material? Why not design a game or other kind of exercise around what you were being given in class? With the diorama, you got a less than great grade so you gave up.
There is a student I have had some classes with who I would say falls very much into the gifted category. In one course where we were examining various models for how human memory works, the idea of cognitive idea maps came up - concepts one remembers link up to other concepts by connections of various strengths, and thus when one concept is activated other, related ones may be activated, too. Anyway, at the end of the course, she gave me a CD and told me that she got a wild hair and decided to write some software that would let people create and display their own concept maps. Not a particularly difficult thing to create, but the fact is she did it without being assigned it, she did it because she felt like it and thought it would be a good way to learn not just more about concept maps, but also to develop other skills. She didn't hand it in to the professor until after grades had gone out - she didn't want him to think she was grade grubbing.
My point? You are content to say "Other people didn't make it challenging enough, and when I went above and beyond it wasn't appreciated, so I gave up." This person I know doesn't seem to give a shit if other people don't make it challenging enough - she'll make her own challenges. And she didn't seem to care about the grades - she was more into just doing something neat.
Anyway, I'm sure you're bright, but frankly you don't sound like you're all that gifted to me, regardless of what you might have been told in school. The world is full of people who used to be the smart kid in class but gave up - that's hardly special. Don't mean to be insulting, but I will be honest.
Truly gifted students don't need the extra support
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But people who are developmentally disabled do.
I'm back in school now and it seems readily apparent to me and many of the faculty I've spoken with that there are 2 kinds of "smart" students:
"Smart" students who will do the bare minimum to skate by and who will often complain that their classes aren't challenging but won't do anything but boast about it. Extra spending is irrelevant to this type because they won't take advantage of it.
- and -
"Smart" students who will go above and beyond in order to *make* the work more challenging, who take the assignments as a minimum, not the maximum. These students don't need extra support, either - they make their own support.
First, thank you for your reasonable tone and well thought out and presented arguments!
Second, yes, I think I could get behind the type of law you proposed. It still offers an incentive to not get behind the wheel when you've "only had one or two" but does allow for the "glass of wine at dinner and an hour wait." I can certainly imagine someone popping a.08 when they're really.06, but I think that if someone popped a.1 or higher then yes - they certainly had more than they should have and didn't wait long enough to get behind the wheel. And for people who are smashed - yes, they definitely should be subject to larger punishments.
Third, as I think you understand but I'll just make absolutely clear - I am not in favor of making it illegal to have consumed small amounts of alcohol and then drive. I think, practically speaking, it would be impossible to come up with a good guide for the circumstance you describe - 1 glass of vino with dinner, and so on. That said, if someone *does* have 1 glass of wine with dinner and then goes out and pops a.08 or higher on a breathalyzer - well, then maybe they should have waited longer before getting behind the wheel. Not all night, but at least more than 3-4 minutes. If people are worried about getting charged with a DUI/DWI because they're having a glass of wine with their dinner, then they should take responsibility and set it up so that they've got a long enough period of time between drinking and getting in the car so that they don't qualify as legally intoxicated.
Fourth, I, personally, can get a bit buzzed off of a single drink, though I'd have to do it on a mostly empty stomach and down it pretty quickly. Yeah, I'm a cheap date:p Would I be "drunk"? No, but I would definitely not have the same motor function as I would had I not had that drink. Would I need to sleep it off over the course of 8 hours? No, but I would definitely wait at least an hour, probably an hour and a half, before getting behind the wheel at that point. For me, drinking isn't some spontaneous thing - I mean, if I am going to go out to dinner or out with friends or something, I assume I'll have a drink and I plan accordingly. On "surprise" drinking occasions - like someone suggests having a drink in a situation I wouldn't normally associate with drinking, I have something non-alcoholic if I think I'll be driving soon or, if I can wait around for a bit, then I would have one.
Anyway - I'm not saying that people shouldn't have a drink and then not be able to drive for 24 hours or something absurd, but I do think that they should wait long enough that it would be quite unreasonable to expect that they'd blow above a.08.
People like you really piss me off. Oh lets ignore all the evidence and all the people smarter then us and continue to make some absurd statement about how we should take someone's freedom away or make it costs them so much more to keep it. I don't care because I already don't do X so I don't see why everyone else shouldn't be forbidden from doing X. It just creates a more civilized society. Blah blah blah. Well, quit preaching to me, I don't buy the pack of lie your selling. and definately quit forcing your religion one others. You might be convinced but other aren't. We have freedom right now and we want to keep it.
Wow, you just unleashed a whole can of crazy there, huh? Where the hell did I bring up religion? Where the hell was any kind of evidence brought up and then ignored by me? Where the hell did I ever say "I don't do X, so nobody else should either"?
Your arguments would be a lot more compelling if they weren't based on stuff you pulled out of your ass. I'm done with you - you might find it fun to make things up and pretend like I said them, but I find it pretty boring.
I don't know that I agree that we're ripping up the Constitution in the case of DUI/DWI. It isn't a presumption of guilt issue: The law says ".08 is the legal limit." The assumption behind the law is that below.08 a person won't be impaired and over.08 they will be, but the law doesn't actually say they *are* impaired. If you're over.08 - regardless of impairment - you've broken the law. Strict? Yes, but I don't think it is unconstitutional.
As to knowing the law in a particular state, it's been held that ignorance of the law is not a reasonable excuse and doesn't let a person off the hook if they violate it. If it were a reasonable excuse, then you'd have an awful lot of people getting exonerated due to the incredibly Byzantine nature of our laws.
My big nightmare if they moved it from ".08 is the legal limit" to "shows evidence of impairment" is the subjective way that would be assessed..08 is.08, even if.08 doesn't mean the same thing for everybody. But shows evidence of impairment? I don't know what that even means. Does it mean swerving once? Twice? Five times? Does it mean one lane-change without signalling? Rolling "stops"? Going too fast? Too slow? Let's say we can come up with a standard definition - this would require the officer to have been making detailed observations of the driver's behavior over a period of time sufficient to determine impairment. And what if the officer is biased for other reasons? Race/gender/whatever of the driver? And then what if the officer can't make the assessment? Like, there's already been an accident - how do you determine that someone is "too impaired" to drive at that point? What if the driver says "Oh, no, I was perfectly fine to drive, but I hit my head in the accident and now I'm a bit loopy?" Lastly, moving it to "shows evidence of impairment" vs. ".08 is the legal limit" would remove what preventative effect there is in people being worried to drive after drinking at all.
Mind you, most arrests for DWI/DUI are as a result of an officer seeing erratic behavior. While there are some random stops on busy roads during key times, for the most part someone being pulled over and given a breathalyzer has given the officer *some* reason to pull them over (or it's the end of the quarter and they're handing out tickets).
What we have now isn't perfect, not even close. But I haven't heard an alternative that isn't worse from a standpoint of prevention and fairness.
Anyway, for me it comes down to this: The best way to avoid getting a D/D charge is to not drink and drive, period. Not even a little bit, not even just one. I'll also say that if a person's life is such that they absolutely cannot see drinking as an optional thing, that they absolutely cannot handle the notion of choosing not to drink before they drive, then I'd say that person ought to take a real good look at their life and ask why that is.
Yes, yes - my statement was a bit over the top. Mea culpa maxima for having an emotional response to something, and I'm sure I deserve to be in the Hague and all that. I am *quite* aware that my proposed treatment of DUI/DWI people was extreme, and had just assumed that people would grok hyperbole.
Just to set the record straight: I'm not in favor of anyone who gets convicted of DUI/DWI being thrown in prison to be subject to rape and torture. My actual desire would be to see something that much more fits the crime: If they are convicted of DWI/DUI they lose the ability to drive. Sorry if that's inconvenient, but they've demonstrated that they aren't able to handle the responsibilities of driving an automobile. If they actually injure or kill someone, at that point I think they should be removed from society for a period of time equivalent to the intentional harming or killing of someone.
Anyway, back to your point: Yes, I get it, a person can have less than one drink and pop a.08 on a breathalyzer without actually being impaired. My response: So what? Nobody has yet offered any argument that says a person has a _need_ to get behind the wheel of a car after drinking alcohol, regardless of the amount. Further, people who have been drinking are notoriously bad judges of how impaired they actually are. So, leaving it up to a persons discretion strikes me as a particularly bad idea - I would *MUCH* rather have people be too afraid to drive after drinking alcohol due to the possible consequences than have people only get punished after they've demonstrated that they are not able to handle driving. Why? Because often times it is too late by the time they've demonstrated they are impaired.
Further, if someone knows that in order to blow a.08 and be considered impaired (despite their personal tolerance being much higher) they only need to have one drink 30 minutes before they drive, then how hard is it to *wait* another hour without drinking more before they drive somewhere? If you really can't wait another hour before going somewhere, then just don't drink before you need to head out there. Why is this so hard for people to get?
I totally don't have an issue with grabbing the source code/hardware info on a device that would be used to generate evidence in a DUI/DWI arrest. My initial response was not to the guy winning source code, but to the/. poster who was offering tips on how to handle yourself after being arrested for a DUI/DWI so as to minimize the chance of being busted on the D/D charge - and my entire point was the best way to minimize that chance is to not actually drink and then drive.
About the point of how much gets someone drunk: I know that in my case, yeah, actually, after 2/3 of a beer, on an empty stomach, I'm feeling it and I absolutely would not trust myself to drive. And I know that there are people out there who seem to be able to consume endless amounts of booze without it having any kind of noticeable effect on them. But how is the law supposed to make a distinction?
We could have a rule that says "If you're driving like an asshole, that's a violation. And if there is some kind of aggravating factor, like booze, then you're really in for it" and that sounds good. Except it isn't because people who drive while impaired are usually, I would think, under the impression that they'll be able to drive just fine and thus at no risk of trouble. I'd much rather have someone say "You know what? I might be a little tipsy, and even though I'm sure I'll be OK, I'd rather take a cab/go with a friend/grab a room/whatever to sleep this off instead of risking going to jail because some overzealous state trooper pulls me over because my car is too green/shiny/whatever for his liking and he smells booze."
I *want* people who drink and get behind the wheel to be terrified of getting pulled over, terrified of getting a D/D charge, terrified of how badly it can fuck over their life. Clearly many people don't seem to think "putting other people at risk" is a good enough reason to not drive drunk, so maybe "not having your entire life ruined because of a completely avoidable thing" will be.
Not driving after just one drink is impractical from any perspective? Huh. I guess I missed the part where you demonstrated that drinking alcohol is an absolute necessity and people don't have any choice as to when and where they will consume alcohol. Sarcasm aside, it's only impractical if one wishes to forgo the notion of personal responsibility.
As for your argument about the legal limit: Who cares how much you can drink without being (in your opinion) impaired? You would be punished because you chose to break the law. You chose to drink alcohol and then drive a car, and the amount you chose to drink before driving the car put you past the legal limit, regardless of what you believe your actual tolerance may be.
Let me ask you this - do you really consider not being legally able to operate a motor vehicle after drinking to be punishment? I don't. I consider it being an issue of personal responsibility. I am not willing to put other people at risk simply because I want to have a good time. I will do what I can to minimize the risk to others that comes about because I'm having fun, and if that means dealing with the inconvenience of not being able to drive after I've been drinking - well, then that's what it means and I'm willing to deal with that.
You're making a strawman there - I never said either A or B. But, despite my not ever saying them, I'll still address them.
A) If you don't have a realistic way of getting home after drinking, then don't drink. If it's -40F and you're 10 miles from home, don't drink. If it's a $200 taxi fee or a two hour waiting time for a train and you're not willing to spend the money or take the time, then don't drink. Not exactly rocket science, is it?
B) You choose where you live and you choose where you work. If you made the choice to live far from where you work, that's on you.
I won't disagree that tired or inexperienced drivers cause problems. But this isn't about them. It's about drunks. The person I was responding to initially was telling people how to reduce the chances of getting popped for a DUI/DWI by gaming the system, and I responded with the novel idea that the best way to reduce those chances is to not actually be DUI/DWI in the first place. This notion of being responsible for your actions seems to have upset quite a few people, though!
I think you're referring to me? (Not sure since I'd be she, not he - I may be kinda butch, but I'm still a chick:p)
You've got it exactly right. People should feel to drink whatever they want, but should be responsible about it and not put other people at risk. If someone wants to get hammered and drive in circles in their own cornfield, go for it. But the instant they increase the risk to other people, they've crossed the line.
I'm all for people having fun, and I have been known to drink wildly to excess myself. But I've always done so responsibly and been willing to deal with the after effects.
Okay, ignoring your armchair psychoanalysis, I do agree that emotion/anger isn't a good basis for laws. And it's a good thing that I'm not responsible for writing the laws for dealing with drunk drivers, as you say.
The fact is, drunk driving is an insanely selfish crime. Someone who drives drunk is essentially saying that their desire to drink alcohol and then drive a car is more important than the safety of other people they may encounter on the road. Someone who is that selfish - yes, they are very likely to re-offend.
If I'm being realistic, I think that drunk drivers who don't actually hurt anyone shouldn't be sentenced to jail, but they should be unable to drive afterwards. It's tough times for them if that requires major changes to their lifestyle, but screw 'em - they made the choice to drink and they made the choice to drive. They had choices at several points and chose putting other people at risk.
The ones who do hurt someone... Yes, they should go away for a long time.
You're completely right. We ought to leave it up to the driver to determine how impaired they are. After all, we all know that people make perfectly reasonable and correct assessments of things when they're drunk.
The fact of the matter is, drinking alcohol is voluntary. It's not a requirement for life (please spare the obvious jokes). People who drive after drinking are putting other people at risk because they are unwilling to deal with the consequences of their behavior - the inconvenience of not being able to drive.
How did that guy intend to get back to his hotel or whatever after that party? How could he be sure - among complete strangers - that he'd be able to find someone sober to drive or that he'd have a place to crash until he sobered up himself?
Personal responsibility requires than an individual ensure that they won't put other people at risk just so they can have a little fun. Drinking alcohol is not a necessary activity, it's a personal choice. I have no problem with someone making that choice, and in fact I myself make the choice to drink with regularity. However, when I do I make damn sure I won't be putting other people at risk. That means abstaining from alcohol if I'm going out with people I don't know well unless I know I can get home (cab or other transit).
You are right about absolutes, though. I can see a circumstance where a person must drive someone to a hospital or whatever - at that point it does make sense. But when someone puts themselves in a risky situation by meeting complete strangers and going to a party with them, that just seems to me to be stupidly putting oneself in a dangerous situation, something that could have been avoided if the person took reasonable precautions or exercised a little foresight.
I've got an idea... Why not just, like, not get behind the wheel of a car if you've been drinking? Strikes me as a better idea than trying to game the system after you've been pulled over.
I'd say dealing with the inconvenience of finding another way home is much better than being potentially responsible for crippling another human being. Then again, what do I know? I'm not a self-centered asshole who thinks she has a right to get behind the wheel of a 2 ton machine after doing Jell-O shots. There's no - ZERO - reason to get behind the wheel of a car after you've been drinking. Ever. If you have somewhere you urgently need to be and can't wait around or sleep it off, then maybe you shouldn't have been drinking in the first place.
My best friend on the planet has a non-functional right leg thanks to some guy who was convinced he was fine to drive. After helping her through getting her life back together over the course of years since her accident, I'd be just fine if they threw drunk drivers in jail and told their cellmates that they were child molesters.
"5 to low 6 figure range" can mean anything from 10,000 (5 figures) to whatever you want to call the "low" 6 figure range - above 100,000, but less than, let's say, 500,000.
20,000-30,000 would be 5 figures.
And there's a way to filter these stories out. It requires that you use the hardware you've got between your ears, though.
Well, actually, I left IT just because I felt like there wasn't a whole heck of a lot more that interested me about the field. I was well along the management track and decided that other fields were much more interesting to me.
Frankly, if you're on call 24/7 for janitor pay you're either a doormat, not very skilled or not very good at marketing yourself. Figure out which it is and try to fix it.
Actually... I have heard comments along the lines of "We had a woman here before, but she didn't work out..." when I've gone into interview at all-male shops. Some people do, in fact, assume that all people who share a particular trait (skin color, gender, religion, whatever) will be similar in other respects, foolish as that sounds. That kind of stupidity - and it *IS* stupidity since the trait in question has absolutely nothing to do with the ability to do a job - does exist and is much more common than most people think.
When I heard things like that I simply made the decision that the place was not for me, but then, I also had the luxury of being able to be a bit choosy about where I worked since I was never desperate for a job. Anyway, yes, it's a bit of a martyr idea, but the genesis of it is not entirely in a person's head - there is a real (albeit incredibly stupid) basis for it.
Slashdot Mirror
no fertilizer beyond the nutrient-rich seed cake left after oil is pressed from its nuts
This just makes me chortle.
This doesn't mean all ads are evil, but I've worked with girls who have serious body image issues due to a lifetime of being bombarded with unreal images of beauty.
:p
No, you've worked with girls who have serious body image issues due to being raised by parents who were seemingly unable to give them an appreciation for the difference between fantasy and reality as well as encourage a level of self-confidence to be able to shrug off stuff like this.
Blaming advertising for people's fucked up self-image is like blaming video games for making people violent. It's just not the case.
Of course, I'm an overly tall, gangly lesbian with bad hair, pasty skin, small boobs and big feet. So I knew from about the age of 11 that I wouldn't be trading on my looks and thus not to take that shit seriously
Why wouldn't it just design a better machine and then move in? Humans don't have the ability to put their consciousness into another, better, body, but I imagine that an AI wouldn't be limited in such a way.
There's a difference between supporting the attacks and thinking that the reason for them is religious. But, I do agree that people *should* want to distance themselves from such statements.
What I'd be interested in seeing would be a similar poll amongst USian Christians asking whether or not they'd support nuking Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc. From the number of "glass parking lot" comments I see in various forums and the right-wing AM radio diatribes that I hear from time to time, I would guess that there would be at least 6% supporting such a statement. That doesn't mean that they think it's a tenet of Christianity to nuke people - it just means that they're in favor of using that particular tactic to address what they think is a big issue.
They're using bombs and stuff (we've done that), killing themselves to kill others (ok, we haven't usually done that one), but that's because they believe that this is a proper way to die, and their god approves. Odd then that the Koran makes no such claim.
I don't disagree with your general point, but I do disagree with your assessment of why they blow themselves up. The reason they do it and we don't isn't because of a strange read of the Koran, it's because of a massive disparity between the strength of relative forces. Suicide bombing is a *very* effective tool for waging psychological warfare and also has a disproportionate effect on the morale and productive ability of the target forces.
For the most part, suicide attacks are going to be limited to parties in an unfavorable position, and they will be used then as desperate, last ditch efforts. The religification of it is just to make it palatable to the people doing it. It's a cynical tool used to get pawns to sacrifice themselves. And, on the other side, people here use it as a way to rally up support for anti-islamic sentiment. "They will never stop! Their 'god' tells them to do this!" and similar nonsense.
And it works, somewhat. I mean, there's something horrifying about the notion that someone could just walk right up to you and blow themselves up - the "enemy" is THAT dedicated, THAT willing to sacrifice themselves, etc. It's a more gruesome and personal version of the Tet offensive - they show that they're willing to sacrifice staggering numbers or just do incredibly gruesome shit that we don't have the stomach for, and they hope we back down. It also fails in that regard because it gives the hyper-militant types an excuse to push for total war because they have a seemingly reasonable argument that there's no way to make peace with an enemy that'll blow themselves up to make a point.
Anyway, I'm just saying that I don't think anyone but the people blowing themselves up (and possibly, often, even not them) or people who desperately need to understand why someone did it and unable to accept the cynical but true answer (most probably the families of the suicide bombers) thinks it's actually religious really - it's just used as a tool.
Correct. Never said or implied that, either.
Then why were you responding to a comment about gifted people with your own personal experience? If you are not gifted and don't believe you're gifted, then what possible relevance could your personal experience have to a discussion about gifted people getting the support they need? In the context of this discussion and topic it can be assumed that you were trying to make the case that you were saying you were somehow special but unsupported. Otherwise your comments were a non sequitur.
Frankly, your reply looks rather smug. I have no idea why though.
Of course you don't know why it seems smug. It's because I wasn't being smug. I had taken your response to be that you felt you were gifted (which I explained above was a reasonable interpretation of your comments) and was describing my own experience with make-work and "purposeless" academic experiences, demonstrating that it is possible to get a greater perspective without having it provided by an outside party. If you feel that is a statement that I feel I'm superior to you, you're certainly welcome to take it that way, but I'd say it says much more about your own workings than it does about my intent.
I don't wish to be insulting, but frankly you don't sound like anything special in the brains department. You're basically saying that unless you are spoon fed a practical reason for doing something you are unable to figure out a purpose on your own, even if that purpose is just having fun with ideas. Regardless of what people might have told you, you're nothing special - the world is full of people just like you: clever enough to learn stuff when it can be presented in a palatable way, but not so special that they'll go out of their way to find things on their own.
When I was in high school we had French classes also. I loved it, not because I thought I'd ever go to France or "need" to speak French, but because my parents didn't speak French and so my friends and I could use our pidgin French around them and feel like we were getting away with something. Ditto when learning stuff like binary coded number systems in a math class. I'm hardly what I'd call gifted myself, but I do have quite a bit of desire to know stuff, to figure things out, and that desire is what motivates me. I am told, and I believe, that this kind of desire to "play" with ideas is an essential trait to have for anyone doing research, and I agree.
I will say this: If you're unable to come up with a reason why you should do the work you do vs. go on welfare, you seriously need to rethink what you're doing and figure out for yourself what it is that'll do it for you.
I don't want to come off as insulting here, but you don't sound all that "gifted" to me. You had to take three years of the same math, and yet, rather than do something interesting with it, you chose instead to just sit there and take it. Why didn't you take that opportunity to write up some interesting observations about the material? Why not design a game or other kind of exercise around what you were being given in class? With the diorama, you got a less than great grade so you gave up.
There is a student I have had some classes with who I would say falls very much into the gifted category. In one course where we were examining various models for how human memory works, the idea of cognitive idea maps came up - concepts one remembers link up to other concepts by connections of various strengths, and thus when one concept is activated other, related ones may be activated, too. Anyway, at the end of the course, she gave me a CD and told me that she got a wild hair and decided to write some software that would let people create and display their own concept maps. Not a particularly difficult thing to create, but the fact is she did it without being assigned it, she did it because she felt like it and thought it would be a good way to learn not just more about concept maps, but also to develop other skills. She didn't hand it in to the professor until after grades had gone out - she didn't want him to think she was grade grubbing.
My point? You are content to say "Other people didn't make it challenging enough, and when I went above and beyond it wasn't appreciated, so I gave up." This person I know doesn't seem to give a shit if other people don't make it challenging enough - she'll make her own challenges. And she didn't seem to care about the grades - she was more into just doing something neat.
Anyway, I'm sure you're bright, but frankly you don't sound like you're all that gifted to me, regardless of what you might have been told in school. The world is full of people who used to be the smart kid in class but gave up - that's hardly special. Don't mean to be insulting, but I will be honest.
But people who are developmentally disabled do.
I'm back in school now and it seems readily apparent to me and many of the faculty I've spoken with that there are 2 kinds of "smart" students:
"Smart" students who will do the bare minimum to skate by and who will often complain that their classes aren't challenging but won't do anything but boast about it. Extra spending is irrelevant to this type because they won't take advantage of it.
- and -
"Smart" students who will go above and beyond in order to *make* the work more challenging, who take the assignments as a minimum, not the maximum. These students don't need extra support, either - they make their own support.
First, thank you for your reasonable tone and well thought out and presented arguments!
.08 when they're really .06, but I think that if someone popped a .1 or higher then yes - they certainly had more than they should have and didn't wait long enough to get behind the wheel. And for people who are smashed - yes, they definitely should be subject to larger punishments.
.08 or higher on a breathalyzer - well, then maybe they should have waited longer before getting behind the wheel. Not all night, but at least more than 3-4 minutes. If people are worried about getting charged with a DUI/DWI because they're having a glass of wine with their dinner, then they should take responsibility and set it up so that they've got a long enough period of time between drinking and getting in the car so that they don't qualify as legally intoxicated.
:p Would I be "drunk"? No, but I would definitely not have the same motor function as I would had I not had that drink. Would I need to sleep it off over the course of 8 hours? No, but I would definitely wait at least an hour, probably an hour and a half, before getting behind the wheel at that point. For me, drinking isn't some spontaneous thing - I mean, if I am going to go out to dinner or out with friends or something, I assume I'll have a drink and I plan accordingly. On "surprise" drinking occasions - like someone suggests having a drink in a situation I wouldn't normally associate with drinking, I have something non-alcoholic if I think I'll be driving soon or, if I can wait around for a bit, then I would have one.
.08.
Second, yes, I think I could get behind the type of law you proposed. It still offers an incentive to not get behind the wheel when you've "only had one or two" but does allow for the "glass of wine at dinner and an hour wait." I can certainly imagine someone popping a
Third, as I think you understand but I'll just make absolutely clear - I am not in favor of making it illegal to have consumed small amounts of alcohol and then drive. I think, practically speaking, it would be impossible to come up with a good guide for the circumstance you describe - 1 glass of vino with dinner, and so on. That said, if someone *does* have 1 glass of wine with dinner and then goes out and pops a
Fourth, I, personally, can get a bit buzzed off of a single drink, though I'd have to do it on a mostly empty stomach and down it pretty quickly. Yeah, I'm a cheap date
Anyway - I'm not saying that people shouldn't have a drink and then not be able to drive for 24 hours or something absurd, but I do think that they should wait long enough that it would be quite unreasonable to expect that they'd blow above a
You got it exactly right - I was being brief. Thanks for adding the clarification.
People like you really piss me off. Oh lets ignore all the evidence and all the people smarter then us and continue to make some absurd statement about how we should take someone's freedom away or make it costs them so much more to keep it. I don't care because I already don't do X so I don't see why everyone else shouldn't be forbidden from doing X. It just creates a more civilized society. Blah blah blah. Well, quit preaching to me, I don't buy the pack of lie your selling. and definately quit forcing your religion one others. You might be convinced but other aren't. We have freedom right now and we want to keep it.
Wow, you just unleashed a whole can of crazy there, huh? Where the hell did I bring up religion? Where the hell was any kind of evidence brought up and then ignored by me? Where the hell did I ever say "I don't do X, so nobody else should either"?
Your arguments would be a lot more compelling if they weren't based on stuff you pulled out of your ass. I'm done with you - you might find it fun to make things up and pretend like I said them, but I find it pretty boring.
I don't know that I agree that we're ripping up the Constitution in the case of DUI/DWI. It isn't a presumption of guilt issue: The law says ".08 is the legal limit." The assumption behind the law is that below .08 a person won't be impaired and over .08 they will be, but the law doesn't actually say they *are* impaired. If you're over .08 - regardless of impairment - you've broken the law. Strict? Yes, but I don't think it is unconstitutional.
.08 is .08, even if .08 doesn't mean the same thing for everybody. But shows evidence of impairment? I don't know what that even means. Does it mean swerving once? Twice? Five times? Does it mean one lane-change without signalling? Rolling "stops"? Going too fast? Too slow? Let's say we can come up with a standard definition - this would require the officer to have been making detailed observations of the driver's behavior over a period of time sufficient to determine impairment. And what if the officer is biased for other reasons? Race/gender/whatever of the driver? And then what if the officer can't make the assessment? Like, there's already been an accident - how do you determine that someone is "too impaired" to drive at that point? What if the driver says "Oh, no, I was perfectly fine to drive, but I hit my head in the accident and now I'm a bit loopy?" Lastly, moving it to "shows evidence of impairment" vs. ".08 is the legal limit" would remove what preventative effect there is in people being worried to drive after drinking at all.
As to knowing the law in a particular state, it's been held that ignorance of the law is not a reasonable excuse and doesn't let a person off the hook if they violate it. If it were a reasonable excuse, then you'd have an awful lot of people getting exonerated due to the incredibly Byzantine nature of our laws.
My big nightmare if they moved it from ".08 is the legal limit" to "shows evidence of impairment" is the subjective way that would be assessed.
Mind you, most arrests for DWI/DUI are as a result of an officer seeing erratic behavior. While there are some random stops on busy roads during key times, for the most part someone being pulled over and given a breathalyzer has given the officer *some* reason to pull them over (or it's the end of the quarter and they're handing out tickets).
What we have now isn't perfect, not even close. But I haven't heard an alternative that isn't worse from a standpoint of prevention and fairness.
Anyway, for me it comes down to this: The best way to avoid getting a D/D charge is to not drink and drive, period. Not even a little bit, not even just one. I'll also say that if a person's life is such that they absolutely cannot see drinking as an optional thing, that they absolutely cannot handle the notion of choosing not to drink before they drive, then I'd say that person ought to take a real good look at their life and ask why that is.
Yes, yes - my statement was a bit over the top. Mea culpa maxima for having an emotional response to something, and I'm sure I deserve to be in the Hague and all that. I am *quite* aware that my proposed treatment of DUI/DWI people was extreme, and had just assumed that people would grok hyperbole.
.08 on a breathalyzer without actually being impaired. My response: So what? Nobody has yet offered any argument that says a person has a _need_ to get behind the wheel of a car after drinking alcohol, regardless of the amount. Further, people who have been drinking are notoriously bad judges of how impaired they actually are. So, leaving it up to a persons discretion strikes me as a particularly bad idea - I would *MUCH* rather have people be too afraid to drive after drinking alcohol due to the possible consequences than have people only get punished after they've demonstrated that they are not able to handle driving. Why? Because often times it is too late by the time they've demonstrated they are impaired.
.08 and be considered impaired (despite their personal tolerance being much higher) they only need to have one drink 30 minutes before they drive, then how hard is it to *wait* another hour without drinking more before they drive somewhere? If you really can't wait another hour before going somewhere, then just don't drink before you need to head out there. Why is this so hard for people to get?
Just to set the record straight: I'm not in favor of anyone who gets convicted of DUI/DWI being thrown in prison to be subject to rape and torture. My actual desire would be to see something that much more fits the crime: If they are convicted of DWI/DUI they lose the ability to drive. Sorry if that's inconvenient, but they've demonstrated that they aren't able to handle the responsibilities of driving an automobile. If they actually injure or kill someone, at that point I think they should be removed from society for a period of time equivalent to the intentional harming or killing of someone.
Anyway, back to your point: Yes, I get it, a person can have less than one drink and pop a
Further, if someone knows that in order to blow a
I totally don't have an issue with grabbing the source code/hardware info on a device that would be used to generate evidence in a DUI/DWI arrest. My initial response was not to the guy winning source code, but to the /. poster who was offering tips on how to handle yourself after being arrested for a DUI/DWI so as to minimize the chance of being busted on the D/D charge - and my entire point was the best way to minimize that chance is to not actually drink and then drive.
About the point of how much gets someone drunk: I know that in my case, yeah, actually, after 2/3 of a beer, on an empty stomach, I'm feeling it and I absolutely would not trust myself to drive. And I know that there are people out there who seem to be able to consume endless amounts of booze without it having any kind of noticeable effect on them. But how is the law supposed to make a distinction?
We could have a rule that says "If you're driving like an asshole, that's a violation. And if there is some kind of aggravating factor, like booze, then you're really in for it" and that sounds good. Except it isn't because people who drive while impaired are usually, I would think, under the impression that they'll be able to drive just fine and thus at no risk of trouble. I'd much rather have someone say "You know what? I might be a little tipsy, and even though I'm sure I'll be OK, I'd rather take a cab/go with a friend/grab a room/whatever to sleep this off instead of risking going to jail because some overzealous state trooper pulls me over because my car is too green/shiny/whatever for his liking and he smells booze."
I *want* people who drink and get behind the wheel to be terrified of getting pulled over, terrified of getting a D/D charge, terrified of how badly it can fuck over their life. Clearly many people don't seem to think "putting other people at risk" is a good enough reason to not drive drunk, so maybe "not having your entire life ruined because of a completely avoidable thing" will be.
Not driving after just one drink is impractical from any perspective? Huh. I guess I missed the part where you demonstrated that drinking alcohol is an absolute necessity and people don't have any choice as to when and where they will consume alcohol. Sarcasm aside, it's only impractical if one wishes to forgo the notion of personal responsibility.
As for your argument about the legal limit: Who cares how much you can drink without being (in your opinion) impaired? You would be punished because you chose to break the law. You chose to drink alcohol and then drive a car, and the amount you chose to drink before driving the car put you past the legal limit, regardless of what you believe your actual tolerance may be.
Let me ask you this - do you really consider not being legally able to operate a motor vehicle after drinking to be punishment? I don't. I consider it being an issue of personal responsibility. I am not willing to put other people at risk simply because I want to have a good time. I will do what I can to minimize the risk to others that comes about because I'm having fun, and if that means dealing with the inconvenience of not being able to drive after I've been drinking - well, then that's what it means and I'm willing to deal with that.
You're making a strawman there - I never said either A or B. But, despite my not ever saying them, I'll still address them.
A) If you don't have a realistic way of getting home after drinking, then don't drink. If it's -40F and you're 10 miles from home, don't drink. If it's a $200 taxi fee or a two hour waiting time for a train and you're not willing to spend the money or take the time, then don't drink. Not exactly rocket science, is it?
B) You choose where you live and you choose where you work. If you made the choice to live far from where you work, that's on you.
I won't disagree that tired or inexperienced drivers cause problems. But this isn't about them. It's about drunks. The person I was responding to initially was telling people how to reduce the chances of getting popped for a DUI/DWI by gaming the system, and I responded with the novel idea that the best way to reduce those chances is to not actually be DUI/DWI in the first place. This notion of being responsible for your actions seems to have upset quite a few people, though!
I think you're referring to me? (Not sure since I'd be she, not he - I may be kinda butch, but I'm still a chick :p)
You've got it exactly right. People should feel to drink whatever they want, but should be responsible about it and not put other people at risk. If someone wants to get hammered and drive in circles in their own cornfield, go for it. But the instant they increase the risk to other people, they've crossed the line.
I'm all for people having fun, and I have been known to drink wildly to excess myself. But I've always done so responsibly and been willing to deal with the after effects.
Okay, ignoring your armchair psychoanalysis, I do agree that emotion/anger isn't a good basis for laws. And it's a good thing that I'm not responsible for writing the laws for dealing with drunk drivers, as you say.
The fact is, drunk driving is an insanely selfish crime. Someone who drives drunk is essentially saying that their desire to drink alcohol and then drive a car is more important than the safety of other people they may encounter on the road. Someone who is that selfish - yes, they are very likely to re-offend.
If I'm being realistic, I think that drunk drivers who don't actually hurt anyone shouldn't be sentenced to jail, but they should be unable to drive afterwards. It's tough times for them if that requires major changes to their lifestyle, but screw 'em - they made the choice to drink and they made the choice to drive. They had choices at several points and chose putting other people at risk.
The ones who do hurt someone... Yes, they should go away for a long time.
You're completely right. We ought to leave it up to the driver to determine how impaired they are. After all, we all know that people make perfectly reasonable and correct assessments of things when they're drunk.
The fact of the matter is, drinking alcohol is voluntary. It's not a requirement for life (please spare the obvious jokes). People who drive after drinking are putting other people at risk because they are unwilling to deal with the consequences of their behavior - the inconvenience of not being able to drive.
Sorry, but I disagree.
How did that guy intend to get back to his hotel or whatever after that party? How could he be sure - among complete strangers - that he'd be able to find someone sober to drive or that he'd have a place to crash until he sobered up himself?
Personal responsibility requires than an individual ensure that they won't put other people at risk just so they can have a little fun. Drinking alcohol is not a necessary activity, it's a personal choice. I have no problem with someone making that choice, and in fact I myself make the choice to drink with regularity. However, when I do I make damn sure I won't be putting other people at risk. That means abstaining from alcohol if I'm going out with people I don't know well unless I know I can get home (cab or other transit).
You are right about absolutes, though. I can see a circumstance where a person must drive someone to a hospital or whatever - at that point it does make sense. But when someone puts themselves in a risky situation by meeting complete strangers and going to a party with them, that just seems to me to be stupidly putting oneself in a dangerous situation, something that could have been avoided if the person took reasonable precautions or exercised a little foresight.
I've got an idea... Why not just, like, not get behind the wheel of a car if you've been drinking? Strikes me as a better idea than trying to game the system after you've been pulled over.
I'd say dealing with the inconvenience of finding another way home is much better than being potentially responsible for crippling another human being. Then again, what do I know? I'm not a self-centered asshole who thinks she has a right to get behind the wheel of a 2 ton machine after doing Jell-O shots. There's no - ZERO - reason to get behind the wheel of a car after you've been drinking. Ever. If you have somewhere you urgently need to be and can't wait around or sleep it off, then maybe you shouldn't have been drinking in the first place.
My best friend on the planet has a non-functional right leg thanks to some guy who was convinced he was fine to drive. After helping her through getting her life back together over the course of years since her accident, I'd be just fine if they threw drunk drivers in jail and told their cellmates that they were child molesters.
"5 to low 6 figure range" can mean anything from 10,000 (5 figures) to whatever you want to call the "low" 6 figure range - above 100,000, but less than, let's say, 500,000.
20,000-30,000 would be 5 figures.
And there's a way to filter these stories out. It requires that you use the hardware you've got between your ears, though.
Well, actually, I left IT just because I felt like there wasn't a whole heck of a lot more that interested me about the field. I was well along the management track and decided that other fields were much more interesting to me.
Frankly, if you're on call 24/7 for janitor pay you're either a doormat, not very skilled or not very good at marketing yourself. Figure out which it is and try to fix it.
Actually... I have heard comments along the lines of "We had a woman here before, but she didn't work out..." when I've gone into interview at all-male shops. Some people do, in fact, assume that all people who share a particular trait (skin color, gender, religion, whatever) will be similar in other respects, foolish as that sounds. That kind of stupidity - and it *IS* stupidity since the trait in question has absolutely nothing to do with the ability to do a job - does exist and is much more common than most people think.
When I heard things like that I simply made the decision that the place was not for me, but then, I also had the luxury of being able to be a bit choosy about where I worked since I was never desperate for a job. Anyway, yes, it's a bit of a martyr idea, but the genesis of it is not entirely in a person's head - there is a real (albeit incredibly stupid) basis for it.