Well, truth of the matter is that we can't. Humans are horrible at estimating their own abilities and limitations, most of us are either bad or employ tricks to keep schedules and stay on track with regular, boring things, and there are whole areas where our "intuition" goes so dramatically wrong it ain't funny.
You can call it "mom, cop" or other terms loaded with negativity in this context, but the fact is that we need support like this, and the more you laugh about it, the more likely it is that you need it most.
It should be noted that there's quite a bit of public outrage against this, most of the media wrote about it very critically, sometimes with front page headlines.
So every uro they get, they pay dearly for in reputation capital.
Training and experience, yes, but the real question is why do you have that desire?
Because we are social animals and have a built-in desire to be part of a group. That is by far not a unique human trait. I have gerbils as pets. These animals are so highly social that keeping one alone is pretty much a death sentence for it. They literally die from loneliness.
Mathematical ability is the same way, one needs training, experience, and desire to become good at math. As a matter of fact, one needs these three elements to become good at *anything*. So, what's the element that causes one to have desire to be good at one field rather than another?
Preference, rewards, experience in the good-or-bad sense. Basically, things you have learnt work well for you are usually the ones that you become good at. It's not a surprise that very few people greatly enjoy stuff they suck at. If you enjoy it, you usually become at least fairly good in it. And if you suck at it, you usually don't enjoy it.
Were only it that simple. Some of us, no matter how flexibly we apply ourself, no matter what group we insert ourselves into, no matter how much we apply and learn - we are roundly despised. And it removes the impetus to try more. Its a great relief to know why, even if that isn't the real reason why...
Been there. I was the loner, the geek, the one ridiculed and occasionally beaten up in school until about 10th grade. I'm still not the most open or sociable guy, but at least I know today that if I make the effort, I get results.
People absolutely are born (and/or raised) with different talents. Some people just have a naturally great physique, and will do better with little or no training in sports than some other people who are born with bodies that would've had no survival chance on the african plains. However, even if you are a natural fat ass, you can make a difference by working out and eating right. You'll never be a calendar model, but you can choose between being an average built or a fat swine needing three seats.
I don't despise anyone for having just an average body, or having just a few friends. But none at all, or being a fat ass is never explained by biology alone.
Oh, totally agreed, a differentiation between degrees of friendship is more needed than ever. I still despite Facebook et al for not providing one. And no, "groups" is not the same thing.
My personal experience indicates that like so many things, social life is a matter of training, experience and desire. The people who have one actually make the effort and put the time into it, and unsurprisingly, get results. I'm fairly certain that geeks simply consider other things more important. I know if I want to, I can have a party every week and build up a good amount of friends. I know because I've been there, done it, and forgot to get a T-Shirt. But most of the time I simply don't care enough.
A very good (female) friend said not too long ago that keeping her social life up and running is essentially her 2nd full-time job.
Certainly brain structures make it easier for some people. Some people are just naturals, they make friends with the same ease I write a simple web-app. Evolution is great that way, giving some of us these talents and others those. But I'm afraid there will be way too many cheap cop-outs in the comments. "Ah that is why I have no friends." - no, lazybag. It is not that simple.
He's not my hero, and that with me hating spam with a passion.
What is is doing is picking the low-hanging fruits. The ones you can easily identify and sue. He's suing dating sites and social networking sites for being too aggressive and misleading with their mailings. He's doing squat nothing against the real scourge, which is the the Viagra and penis enlargement and Nigeria scamming.
Yes, I don't like those mailing you get from every site you sign up to all the time, but at least on those the opt-out link usually actually works, and while their marketing department desperately needs a lession on how annoying customers isn't a great way to build a relationship, they're not even in the same league of scumbags as the main flood of spam.
To me, the first guy (or girl) who shoots ten spammers for being spammers is a true hero. And in the courtroom, the guys that take the Spamfords of this world to court. And not to small claims to get a few thousand bucks, but to a real court to shut them down for good.
Same here, and with many people I know. And we're not just talking about sightseeing. I turned down a lucrative speaker engagement for top oil execs a few years ago. Friends of mine in the security industry avoid the US. I even know about a yearly conference that has re-located outside the US.
But, the US is a huge country with huge amounts of international ties, in the big picture, these are just drops in a bucket.
Something like this has recently been discussed in Germany, where we are starting to get the same problem. Our supreme court is striking down law after law - that used to be a very, very rare event.
The discussion was short. The media and the politicians silenced it.
I'm 100% with you, except that I'd put the limits a lot lower. I'd say that at 3 unconstitutional laws, you deserve an investigation by the Verfassungsschutz (a police-like investigation unit specialized on anti-constitutional crime) where your immunity is automatically voided for this investigation, and at 5 you should lose your job and your pension.
Also, fuck dignity, it's in the name of security. If you can't stand a single ball grab then you don't deserve to ride in a plane.
You make that decision for yourself, I will make it for myself, thank you. You don't have a say about my dignity. That is what dignity is about, troll.
You assume that "evil" always has to mean a big master plan. Why should it? Just like corporate culture comes into being in the interactions of people within the company, so most real-world evil comes into being not inside one humans head, but between humans. It is rarely human beings that are evil, more often than not it is the systems they create that are evil. You can see this clearly in how most evil comes to pass when the humans involved can hide their personal responsibility behind "duty" or "honour", "faith", "patriotism", "needs" or "external pressures" or whatever the bullshit bingo word of the year is.
And fighting politicians and lobbyists via the democratic means is stupid at best. You are engaging the home team on their home turf in their favourite game. How many generations do you think it will take to take back our government that way?
If they had the tiniest bit of courage and honour left, they'd just come clean with whatever the nasty bits are. That would also leave them in control of the story. But no, they'll probably put their PR people into overdrive to spin it once it's out, and until than hang on to the hope that it might not happen.
I'll be waiting for it. I doubt our collective opinion of banks could get any worse than it is, but let's hope that one or two of them come crashing down - as they should've instead of being bailed out with our tax money.
If you really, really care you would just jailbreak the phone and then add the top level switch there.
Because everyone who cares about cars absolutely must build his own? You've had a bit too much of the Linux Kool-aid. I can care about things that I can't or don't want to do myself.
To claim it is binary is incorrect, because 99.9999999(% of people would never want to use it.
That's also true for the mute button, or at least that's the impression I get every time I ride the train.
I actually like this reaction a lot more than the others.
Seems someone in the agency has had the guts to realize that the horse has left the barn, and instead of yet another attempt at closing the door, is trying to figure out what the damage is and how to react to it.
That's a lot more sense than most politicians make these days.
You can turn off location services in settings, either generally or by app.
Yes, I know. I can also turn off sound the same way. Yet I use the mute button all the time. Does that tell you something about the incredible fun it is to hop through several screens to toggle a binary setting?
No, it isn't. What you name is by far not the same thing. I don't want to go into settings, bla, bla. I use the mute hardware switch all the time, even though I could also go into settings, bla - because I don't want to change "settings". I want the damn thing to be silent until I tell it otherwise.
An additional popup is a hack, not a solution. It gets in the way of me using stuff I want to use.
When the first iPhone was launched, one of the showcase apps was something where you could see where all your friends are. The first iPhone didn't have GPS, so it was WiFi and GSM triangulation and not very accurate, but my first thought was "do I want that?".
Shouldn't it have a toggle - a hardware one even, just like the mute one - where I can decide whether I want my location shared or not? It should be quick and easy to toggle between those states. I would be off most of the time, other people would be on most of the time, but everyone has reasons, times or places they don't want to be located.
If the IRA can run a war out of Boston, taking out a nuclear development program wouldn't be any harder.
Only an order or two of magnitude more expensive. It's like the space industry: Sure, today private companies can slowly work their way towards actually putting a man into orbit. Could they do it if nation states with their massive resources hadn't paved that way 50 years ago? I very much doubt it. How many companies invest in anything that has a break-even point 10, 15 years in the future?
Furthermore, is being uncomfortable around gays while naked really homophobic? Why don't men and women shower together in the military? The same reason most straight men would feel uncomfortable showering with another man they knew to be gay.
Men and women don't shower together because we live in a society literally built upon suppressed sexuality. I've showered in group showers with women on many occasions, from some I barely knew to some I wouldn't have minded taking to bed. If everyone is just a little bit relaxed out the naked human body, there are no issues whatsoever, even if two people who'd like to fuck are among the group, because there really is no objective difference compared to, say, standing around in clothes and having a drink.
Same reason for the gay situation. Sexual repression creates fear, uncertainty and doubt. Even though I'm not a nudist, I don't believe my dick will shrink if someone else gets a glimpse of it. And if it's a gay guy who likes what he sees - where's the damage to me? It's all in the repression and the stupid relationship we as a society have to our bodies and our sexuality.
Interesting point, but I can not agree. Nation states at least have the advantage that they concentrate the nukes into a few hands and you know who has them. Having them distributed around, or worse in the hands of religious, ideological or commercial entities would be worse.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, truth of the matter is that we can't. Humans are horrible at estimating their own abilities and limitations, most of us are either bad or employ tricks to keep schedules and stay on track with regular, boring things, and there are whole areas where our "intuition" goes so dramatically wrong it ain't funny.
You can call it "mom, cop" or other terms loaded with negativity in this context, but the fact is that we need support like this, and the more you laugh about it, the more likely it is that you need it most.
It should be noted that there's quite a bit of public outrage against this, most of the media wrote about it very critically, sometimes with front page headlines.
So every uro they get, they pay dearly for in reputation capital.
The difference is that you can very likely show logs of actual attacks being stopped by those countermeasures.
The TSA, on the other hand, to the best of my knowledge still has to capture their first actual terrorist.
If you're protective of your privacy,
...then what the hell are you doing on Facebook???
Training and experience, yes, but the real question is why do you have that desire?
Because we are social animals and have a built-in desire to be part of a group. That is by far not a unique human trait. I have gerbils as pets. These animals are so highly social that keeping one alone is pretty much a death sentence for it. They literally die from loneliness.
Mathematical ability is the same way, one needs training, experience, and desire to become good at math. As a matter of fact, one needs these three elements to become good at *anything*. So, what's the element that causes one to have desire to be good at one field rather than another?
Preference, rewards, experience in the good-or-bad sense. Basically, things you have learnt work well for you are usually the ones that you become good at. It's not a surprise that very few people greatly enjoy stuff they suck at. If you enjoy it, you usually become at least fairly good in it. And if you suck at it, you usually don't enjoy it.
Were only it that simple. Some of us, no matter how flexibly we apply ourself, no matter what group we insert ourselves into, no matter how much we apply and learn - we are roundly despised. And it removes the impetus to try more. Its a great relief to know why, even if that isn't the real reason why...
Been there. I was the loner, the geek, the one ridiculed and occasionally beaten up in school until about 10th grade. I'm still not the most open or sociable guy, but at least I know today that if I make the effort, I get results.
People absolutely are born (and/or raised) with different talents. Some people just have a naturally great physique, and will do better with little or no training in sports than some other people who are born with bodies that would've had no survival chance on the african plains. However, even if you are a natural fat ass, you can make a difference by working out and eating right. You'll never be a calendar model, but you can choose between being an average built or a fat swine needing three seats.
I don't despise anyone for having just an average body, or having just a few friends. But none at all, or being a fat ass is never explained by biology alone.
Oh, totally agreed, a differentiation between degrees of friendship is more needed than ever. I still despite Facebook et al for not providing one. And no, "groups" is not the same thing.
My personal experience indicates that like so many things, social life is a matter of training, experience and desire. The people who have one actually make the effort and put the time into it, and unsurprisingly, get results. I'm fairly certain that geeks simply consider other things more important. I know if I want to, I can have a party every week and build up a good amount of friends. I know because I've been there, done it, and forgot to get a T-Shirt. But most of the time I simply don't care enough.
A very good (female) friend said not too long ago that keeping her social life up and running is essentially her 2nd full-time job.
Certainly brain structures make it easier for some people. Some people are just naturals, they make friends with the same ease I write a simple web-app. Evolution is great that way, giving some of us these talents and others those. But I'm afraid there will be way too many cheap cop-outs in the comments. "Ah that is why I have no friends." - no, lazybag. It is not that simple.
He's not my hero, and that with me hating spam with a passion.
What is is doing is picking the low-hanging fruits. The ones you can easily identify and sue. He's suing dating sites and social networking sites for being too aggressive and misleading with their mailings. He's doing squat nothing against the real scourge, which is the the Viagra and penis enlargement and Nigeria scamming.
Yes, I don't like those mailing you get from every site you sign up to all the time, but at least on those the opt-out link usually actually works, and while their marketing department desperately needs a lession on how annoying customers isn't a great way to build a relationship, they're not even in the same league of scumbags as the main flood of spam.
To me, the first guy (or girl) who shoots ten spammers for being spammers is a true hero. And in the courtroom, the guys that take the Spamfords of this world to court. And not to small claims to get a few thousand bucks, but to a real court to shut them down for good.
Same here, and with many people I know. And we're not just talking about sightseeing. I turned down a lucrative speaker engagement for top oil execs a few years ago. Friends of mine in the security industry avoid the US. I even know about a yearly conference that has re-located outside the US.
But, the US is a huge country with huge amounts of international ties, in the big picture, these are just drops in a bucket.
Something like this has recently been discussed in Germany, where we are starting to get the same problem. Our supreme court is striking down law after law - that used to be a very, very rare event.
The discussion was short. The media and the politicians silenced it.
I'm 100% with you, except that I'd put the limits a lot lower. I'd say that at 3 unconstitutional laws, you deserve an investigation by the Verfassungsschutz (a police-like investigation unit specialized on anti-constitutional crime) where your immunity is automatically voided for this investigation, and at 5 you should lose your job and your pension.
Also, fuck dignity, it's in the name of security. If you can't stand a single ball grab then you don't deserve to ride in a plane.
You make that decision for yourself, I will make it for myself, thank you. You don't have a say about my dignity. That is what dignity is about, troll.
Nice argument, but your premises is wrong.
You assume that "evil" always has to mean a big master plan. Why should it? Just like corporate culture comes into being in the interactions of people within the company, so most real-world evil comes into being not inside one humans head, but between humans. It is rarely human beings that are evil, more often than not it is the systems they create that are evil. You can see this clearly in how most evil comes to pass when the humans involved can hide their personal responsibility behind "duty" or "honour", "faith", "patriotism", "needs" or "external pressures" or whatever the bullshit bingo word of the year is.
And fighting politicians and lobbyists via the democratic means is stupid at best. You are engaging the home team on their home turf in their favourite game. How many generations do you think it will take to take back our government that way?
If they had the tiniest bit of courage and honour left, they'd just come clean with whatever the nasty bits are. That would also leave them in control of the story. But no, they'll probably put their PR people into overdrive to spin it once it's out, and until than hang on to the hope that it might not happen.
I'll be waiting for it. I doubt our collective opinion of banks could get any worse than it is, but let's hope that one or two of them come crashing down - as they should've instead of being bailed out with our tax money.
If you really, really care you would just jailbreak the phone and then add the top level switch there.
Because everyone who cares about cars absolutely must build his own? You've had a bit too much of the Linux Kool-aid. I can care about things that I can't or don't want to do myself.
To claim it is binary is incorrect, because 99.9999999(% of people would never want to use it.
That's also true for the mute button, or at least that's the impression I get every time I ride the train.
I actually like this reaction a lot more than the others.
Seems someone in the agency has had the guts to realize that the horse has left the barn, and instead of yet another attempt at closing the door, is trying to figure out what the damage is and how to react to it.
That's a lot more sense than most politicians make these days.
You can turn off location services in settings, either generally or by app.
Yes, I know. I can also turn off sound the same way. Yet I use the mute button all the time. Does that tell you something about the incredible fun it is to hop through several screens to toggle a binary setting?
But it is.
No, it isn't. What you name is by far not the same thing. I don't want to go into settings, bla, bla. I use the mute hardware switch all the time, even though I could also go into settings, bla - because I don't want to change "settings". I want the damn thing to be silent until I tell it otherwise.
An additional popup is a hack, not a solution. It gets in the way of me using stuff I want to use.
It really is the same old story again.
When the first iPhone was launched, one of the showcase apps was something where you could see where all your friends are. The first iPhone didn't have GPS, so it was WiFi and GSM triangulation and not very accurate, but my first thought was "do I want that?".
Shouldn't it have a toggle - a hardware one even, just like the mute one - where I can decide whether I want my location shared or not? It should be quick and easy to toggle between those states. I would be off most of the time, other people would be on most of the time, but everyone has reasons, times or places they don't want to be located.
So, why don't they now?
They have been crowded out by the Nation States.
If the IRA can run a war out of Boston, taking out a nuclear development program wouldn't be any harder.
Only an order or two of magnitude more expensive. It's like the space industry: Sure, today private companies can slowly work their way towards actually putting a man into orbit. Could they do it if nation states with their massive resources hadn't paved that way 50 years ago? I very much doubt it. How many companies invest in anything that has a break-even point 10, 15 years in the future?
Furthermore, is being uncomfortable around gays while naked really homophobic? Why don't men and women shower together in the military? The same reason most straight men would feel uncomfortable showering with another man they knew to be gay.
Men and women don't shower together because we live in a society literally built upon suppressed sexuality. I've showered in group showers with women on many occasions, from some I barely knew to some I wouldn't have minded taking to bed. If everyone is just a little bit relaxed out the naked human body, there are no issues whatsoever, even if two people who'd like to fuck are among the group, because there really is no objective difference compared to, say, standing around in clothes and having a drink.
Same reason for the gay situation. Sexual repression creates fear, uncertainty and doubt. Even though I'm not a nudist, I don't believe my dick will shrink if someone else gets a glimpse of it. And if it's a gay guy who likes what he sees - where's the damage to me? It's all in the repression and the stupid relationship we as a society have to our bodies and our sexuality.
The status quo is what leads to North Korea and Iran, both ideologically insane, one religiously, with nukes.
Let's not forget the US under Bush.
Yes, I agree. Few other entities would have the resources. Unfortunately, exactly the wrong ones would, the most fanatic ones.
Oh, I totally agree on that, NK is a big liability for China these days.
That doesn't mean they wouldn't flip out at the thought of a bunch of nukes detonating in what is basically their backyard.
Would you think kindly of the chinese nuking, say, Mexico? Or would it seem a little close for comfort?
And whenever that happens, you should ask yourself one important question: Who could have an interest in that?
Interesting point, but I can not agree. Nation states at least have the advantage that they concentrate the nukes into a few hands and you know who has them. Having them distributed around, or worse in the hands of religious, ideological or commercial entities would be worse.