cmd+shift+3/4, or launch grab.app. Given that you can remap any keycombo on the Mac readily and officially...
Actually for a window specifically, you'd want cmd+shift+4, followed by space, then click on the window.
It works really nicely and I use it a lot; but if you're not used to it, it's hardly 'intuitive' (especially as after cmd+shift+4, you find yourself able to select an area to grab, so are unlikely to assume there's anything else to press to change the behaviour).
Yep - I've been to a lot of those places; but I don't live there. If they wanted to set up their own local internet replacements, they are more than welcome to. However as most of those countries have more pressing matters to deal with, I doubt they will.
It's a sad fact of our world that the kind of countries that have the luxury to consider doing this sort of thing are the ones least likely to want to (for the reasons I already mentioned).
Given that the national language of Brazil is portuguese I would be amazed if there is much US-based information available in that language.
Given that the majority of well educated people in Brazil also speak English reasonably well, I would not be surprised if they regularly access content in English from the United States.
I live in a non-English speaking country myself, but the majority of internet use I see around me is on English language websites.
You are assuming that people in other countries actually find USA content interesting. Most people don't. That is why there are different countries.
It really depends on what you use the internet for.
Personally (I live outside the US), local US politics, news and so on are of little to no interest to me. However most of the television and movies that I enjoy (downloaded) are from the US, with at most 25% produced elsewhere. Right now, we're using Slashdot - not only hosted in the US, but also with a very large number (majority?) of commenters from the US. Even if there were a 'slashdot for non-US' that covered the entire world excluding the US, I would miss out on a lot of interesting discussions and insights.
The US, whether we like it or not, is a major influence in the world and will likely continue to be for quite some time.
You say "That is why there are different countries", but to me at least, the world is becoming less 'country oriented' and more 'groups of people, potentially separated by space' oriented. I don't know you or where you live, but it's probably nowhere near me. Regardless, I'm communicating with you right now. Remove one country the size of the US and the pool of people just got noticeably smaller.
While it should be relatively simple for any country to set up its own DNS servers, interesting services and so on; the sheer amount of 'information' that is hosted in the US would make any 'internet' experience without it severely lacking.
Yttrium, you say in your sig that you wrote a book, but not what that book is about. Worse, your URLs are opaque (and aren't links). So there's no incentive for anyone to find out about your book.
Just an FYI, not meaning to harsh on you about this.
I know... the problem is that Slashdot allows no more than 120 characters (which includes HTML code for links apparently) and ALSO has a bug whereby more than one link in the sig causes it to mess up the HTML in strange ways.
But, you're right - it makes much more sense to have one link with a description than three shortened URLs that aren't links.
How's this new one? I had to keep the shortened link to make it fit though...
"Geek" and "popular" just don't mix, though one could be popular among fellow geeks, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't what the OP had is mind.
Actually, when I wrote that, I really just meant, "has an average or above-average sized circle of friends"; "is not considered 'someone to be abused' by a significant number of people"; and "is able to form new social connections with relative ease, given the normal factors of common interest and so on".
So, maybe 'popular' was the wrong choice of wording, but I was basically meaning it's possible to be a 'geek' and not be like I was...
The important thing about learning to code is keeping interest/motivation to do so.
You spoiled-rotten 21st century golden billion... Having to learn a trade has nothing to do with it, has it?
Honestly, no. The vast majority of things that someone learns in this modern day and age have nothing to do with their 'job'.
I'm a software developer (and will be trying to transition to full-time author once I get a few more books out (especially with more mainstream subjects than my current one)). Nevertheless, most of my daily 'learning' is focused on chemistry, physics, linguistics, pharmacology, medicine, and writing. Sure, I still learn a lot for my day job - if you're a software developer and you don't, you won't last long - but it doesn't make up even 20% of what I learn each day.
I know a lot of coders. Most of them do it as a day job as well, but not all. Even amongst those who do, it's the passion for it that keeps them doing it rather than just putting food on the table. Sure, that's extremely important and a definite bonus, but they'd probably still code at home if they had jobs as accountants, lawyers, doctors, or McDonalds counter staff.
You had better get involved and start steering her in the right direction, pronto.
People who grow up depending on recognition end up miserable. She's going to give it up when she's 13 to get approval from some boy she likes if you don't nip this in the bud.
To an extent, it's perfectly natural to depend on recognition. If she totally relies on it for value of herself, then yeh, that's bad. I'm not going to start worrying just yet though.
Regardless, I don't want her to be like me - socially retarded and awkward right until my early to mid twenties. A lot of 'geeks' like me think it's a prerequisite to be socially awkward if you're smart. It's not. You can be smart, geeky AND popular.
Sure, if she does end up being that way, I'll support her (I'll support her no matter how she ends up) but I'll do my best to steer her in the way that I feel is going to help her achieve the greatest amount of happiness in her life.
The important thing about learning to code is keeping interest/motivation to do so.
I agree with the general approach that the essay espouses - whimsy is a great way to keep interest; but it's certainly not the only way. Different things work for different people. My daughter is two and a half years old, and so far has totally rejected learning that involves traditional 'reward' such as the way gCompris shows 'happy' images on completing tasks vs 'sad' images when failing. However, what seems to do it for her is being able to 'show off'. When she can make her grandmother surprised by being able to point out letters of the alphabet on things, she is much more motivated to learn and get it right.
I'm sure my daughter's learning style will develop and change as she grows; I just wanted to use an example that demonstrates not everyone is motivated to learn in the same way. I don't think coding is any different.
If you can't show results to immediately shut management up, maybe they shouldn't be playing games. I once had the CEO complain to me about the same thing. After I showed my team's results, he went harass my boss why his other teams weren't as good as mine and I never heard from CEO about it again. Back to ping pong!
As I said:
my superiors can't fault us on quality of output
I'm in a pretty big company, so it's not just a case of show them once and then it's done with. There's always someone seeing or hearing about that kind of activity for the first time.
"Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are man-made chemicals that were widely used as chemical coolants and electrical insulators in electrical motors and transformers."
While I was aware of polychlorinated biphenyls, I'd never actually heard of them called "PCBs" before. To me, that acronym always means "Printed Circuit Board".
But, it does seem to just be my own ignorance. Wikipedia redirect "PCBs" to "Polychlorinated Biphenyl" and shows images of warning signs that also use that acronym. (note that "PCB" on Wikipedia however is a disambiguation page, with "Printed Circuit Board" as the top entry)
one of the smallest things in a microscope is the lens. most of the microscope is precision, vibration damped, gearing to manipulate the focal distance precisely. If you are going for high resolution its not yet clear to me how you avoid the expensive non-portable part of the microscope.
Don't forget, this isn't talking about a standard "microscope" but rather a "fluorescence microscope", which is actually a fairly different thing.
The linked article (and linked paper abstract) has images that give you an idea of what they're doing much better than TFA does.
Good point. But everyone, and everyday is different. I've had inspired days when I worked 12 hours. My blood was up and concentration was good. I've had bad days when I caught up on email, admin, documenting, etc. no point in trying to code, nothing productive would result.
As a manager of a small dev team (and 'developer' myself more than 'manager'), I recognise this in my team and specifically have different kinds of work available depending on the 'mood' that the guys are in. Someone's having a great head-down-and-churn-out-awesome-code day, I'll let them go at it until they're done. Someone's having a blergh-can't-seem-to-even-handle-basic-refactoring day, they can maybe double-check some documentation, or read up on some new technology that might be useful to us, or something else.
I also recognise that some days the hearts and minds simply aren't in it at all. For this reason, we don't have fixed work hours - come in when you want, leave when you want, do your 38.5 hours per week (and if you do more, you can take it off later as time in lieu).
Yes, this can lead to delays on projects, but that's my job as the team manager to sort out. When I tell marketing/whoever about schedules, it's my job to take in to account that people in my team have good days and bad days. I'll build that in to my estimate (and therefore occasionally finish a bit earlier than 'scheduled', giving us time for a bit of spit-and-polish on some non-core parts; or help out on other projects that aren't looking so good).
Occasionally, I've had some difficult conversations with my management about why they saw my employees engaged in a network game instead of working, but again - it's my responsibility to take care of that and my superiors can't fault us on quality of output. My team of course are generally pretty happy with the work environment and I take that as a matter of pride being the one providing it to them.
Maybe that's the process you used and maybe that's the process you hallucinated.
Yes, my book is about LSD... however it is called "Dropping Acid: A Beginner's Guide to the Responsible Use of LSD for Self-Discovery". Most of the book was not written while under the influence of psychedelics.
I completely agree. Having just published my first book (see my sig), I didn't spend any time considering the design/layout/etc until right near the end. The content is what was important to me, so I wrote that first. Once I was done with the content, THEN I laid it out, made it look "like I feel it should look", and produced a PDF which ultimately got printed to paper.
For the eBook version, I used RTF which was then converted to the appropriate format (mobi) by the publisher. But again, it was a 'last step' thing, as the content is what I spent my time on.
Did your parents encourage you to fondle a girl's breasts or encourage your sister to carry a condom?
Woah there... how are these two things in the slightest bit related?!
There's no way I'd encourage my son to fondle a girl's breasts (if the girl wants her breasts fondled, she'll do plenty of encouraging on her own); but absolutely I'll encourage my daughter to carry a condom once she's at the age where she's likely to be sexually active or even considering to start being sexually active. Not all guys will have one, and she may well do something dumb at some point and end up sleeping with a guy who she's "totally in love with" (after 2 hours of knowing him) as teenagers are wont to do, so having one on her is a hell of a lot better than not.
As a parent myself, I'm really glad you're not responsible for raising my children.
My kids are still too young to be aware of porn in any way shape or form (the oldest is 2). However something I've done from day one is to say that I will not shelter my kids from the world - I will teach them about it.
Do I want them looking at porn when they're older? No... but I don't really mind if they do either - as long as I've had a chance to talk to them about it and help them understand what it is. Once they start reaching sexual maturity, I'm quite certain they'll have an interest in it. But if I've managed to do my job as a father right, they'll take it with a healthy dose of disbelief just as they do any other fantasy... smart kids don't believe Harry Potter is real just because they saw it on a movie, so why should they think porn is any different if they're taught about it openly?
It's important to me that my kids also understand the importance - and responsibilities - of freedom. The only time I'll directly stop them doing anything is when it's going to cause serious harm to them or someone else (and then have a serious discussion about why I stopped them). Any other situation, I'll let them make their mistakes and then after it bites them in the arse, I'll talk to them about it and help them understand why their course of action was probably not the best.
Don't get me wrong - I'll also teach them the theory beforehand in the hope that they don't make so many dumbarse mistakes, but kids are kids (hell, people are people) and will do dumb stuff now and then. Let them learn from it, and they'll come out better in the end than if they were sheltered from it to begin with.
I recently quit smoking cigarettes and switched to an e-cigarette.
The first day was hell and felt exactly like quitting smoking cold turkey. The second day however, I was surprised to find I felt completely fine.
I use my e-cigarette with roughly the same frequency as I used to smoke cigarettes. I even go to the smoking room at work (I live in a country that still has "smoking rooms" at work) to use it, despite that I could use it at my desk. That way, I get the same feeling of having 'had a break' from sitting at my desk that I used to get with cigarettes.
There are some common misunderstandings about smoking/tobacco/nicotine, so I'd like to mention a few here.
1) Nicotine is the only addictive substance in tobacco: false. Nicotine itself is moderately addictive, but nowhere near as addictive as cigarette smoking when consumed without the rest of the tobacco product. The main reason for this is that tobacco also contains a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) - a type of drug that is commonly used as an antidepressant. This on its own is moderately addictive as well, but combined with nicotine becomes extremely addictive. One of the main withdrawal symptoms for smokers who have smoked a long time is depression, and it seems clear from the limited research so far that this is caused by the MAOI withdrawal more than the nicotine withdrawal (which is mostly things like the sore muscles and constipation).
2) Nicotine is highly poisonous: false. Tobacco is pretty poisonous. Nicotine itself is a drug that may have some negative effects in very high doses, but at the levels used by smokers (and e-cigarette smokers), the nicotine really doesn't cause much harm at all, if any. Research shows the negative effects of very high doses, but is fairly inconclusive on moderate doses, with most research pointing towards no harmful effect.
3) e-Cigarettes create smoke, so are just as bad as cigarettes: false. e-Cigarettes create a vapour - essentially steam - that contains ethylene glycol, flavour, and often (but not always) nicotine. It looks (and feels) This vapour does not coat the lungs in tar, which is one of the main dangerous effects of cigarette smoking. As a note, you can you e-cigarettes near a smoke detector and it won't go off, so on long flights, even if the cabin staff aren't okay with you using it, you can do so in the toilet and no-one will be any the wiser.
Overall, I'm very happy with my e-cigarette. I do plan on quitting it as well in around a year's time (because the e-cig is still quite antisocial, and still costs money), but as a "stepping stone", it's definitely been the best choice for me and I'm starting to feel the improved health effects already.
And they are teenagers, and whether science wants to admit to it or not, that age bracket, has always and will always rebel against everything they are not told to do. Unless they are complete nerds and geeks, in which case they never really seem to do anything in life that may be worth a little risk. (not to stereo type every geek or nerd to be that way)
I find it interesting you say this... in my experience, it's the geeks and nerds that ended up getting in the most 'trouble' in the long run, since we tend to buck against the rules a little more. All kids buck the rules, but it's the geeks and nerds that are more likely to develop an attitude of "examine the rules and discard those that aren't practically useful or interesting". This often leads to a cavalier attitude, whereby the geek believes him/herself to be better than these "pointless rules" that were "made up for managing the dumb masses".
I myself felt this way throughout my teens and most of my early 20s. I admit to still feeling a little this way at times, but I've matured enough now to realise my initial dismissal of the rules was based an incomplete understanding of society and people in general (it's certainly not 'complete' now, but at least I now KNOW my understanding is incomplete).
Out of my high-school peers from 15 to 20 years ago, the geeks and nerds are now the ones with the most drug convictions; the only ones with hacking convictions; at least one instance of white-collar crime that I know of; and at least one instance of grand theft that I know of. The only "risky" behaviour we're behind on are things like violent crime or drunk and disorderly.
The 'sportspeople' got married, settled down and had kids early. The 'cool kids' ended up being boring due to a lack of any real skills (and are now mostly in sales and marketing). But us geeks... we ended up revelling in our new found freedoms after school. We took drugs that we knew weren't as harmful as everyone said. We hacked systems and made money from it in the days when computer security wasn't a major consideration for most companies. We learned how shop security systems worked and then shoplifted (or stole through other means) our computer equipment without having to pay for it.
I'm not condoning what we did. I know that it was bad behaviour and I do honestly regret some of the things I did (not all though...). But my point is that these things are the domain of the geeks and the nerds. No-one else had the skills or knowledge (or more importantly, the inclination to learn) to be able to pull off the stuff we did back then.
I guess the biggest problem in reaching a number is at what point you start calling our ancestors "human" vs "pre-human".
For a great period of history, the human population likely numbered under 1 million, making a worry about these pre-historic populations somewhat trivial....
You do have a good point there... I was thinking the sheer number of generations making those small quantities add up though. If we say that one generation is 25 years on average, then in a hundred thousand years, you've got 4000 generations. If we're saying an average of only a half a million per generation, you've added 2000000000 to the mix already, which is definitely going to alter the percentage a bit having those hundred thousand years included or not.
I will admit though, that it may not alter it as drastically as I had first assumed... so the 93% figure given by the GP post may well be "around right".
Slashdot Mirror
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Sorry for being totally offtopic, but I love your sig. That is my daughter's favourite book :)
cmd+shift+3/4, or launch grab.app. Given that you can remap any keycombo on the Mac readily and officially...
Actually for a window specifically, you'd want cmd+shift+4, followed by space, then click on the window.
It works really nicely and I use it a lot; but if you're not used to it, it's hardly 'intuitive' (especially as after cmd+shift+4, you find yourself able to select an area to grab, so are unlikely to assume there's anything else to press to change the behaviour).
Yep - I've been to a lot of those places; but I don't live there. If they wanted to set up their own local internet replacements, they are more than welcome to. However as most of those countries have more pressing matters to deal with, I doubt they will.
It's a sad fact of our world that the kind of countries that have the luxury to consider doing this sort of thing are the ones least likely to want to (for the reasons I already mentioned).
Given that the national language of Brazil is portuguese I would be amazed if there is much US-based information available in that language.
Given that the majority of well educated people in Brazil also speak English reasonably well, I would not be surprised if they regularly access content in English from the United States.
I live in a non-English speaking country myself, but the majority of internet use I see around me is on English language websites.
You are assuming that people in other countries actually find USA content interesting. Most people don't. That is why there are different countries.
It really depends on what you use the internet for.
Personally (I live outside the US), local US politics, news and so on are of little to no interest to me. However most of the television and movies that I enjoy (downloaded) are from the US, with at most 25% produced elsewhere. Right now, we're using Slashdot - not only hosted in the US, but also with a very large number (majority?) of commenters from the US. Even if there were a 'slashdot for non-US' that covered the entire world excluding the US, I would miss out on a lot of interesting discussions and insights.
The US, whether we like it or not, is a major influence in the world and will likely continue to be for quite some time.
You say "That is why there are different countries", but to me at least, the world is becoming less 'country oriented' and more 'groups of people, potentially separated by space' oriented. I don't know you or where you live, but it's probably nowhere near me. Regardless, I'm communicating with you right now. Remove one country the size of the US and the pool of people just got noticeably smaller.
While it should be relatively simple for any country to set up its own DNS servers, interesting services and so on; the sheer amount of 'information' that is hosted in the US would make any 'internet' experience without it severely lacking.
Yttrium, you say in your sig that you wrote a book, but not what that book is about. Worse, your URLs are opaque (and aren't links). So there's no incentive for anyone to find out about your book.
Just an FYI, not meaning to harsh on you about this.
I know... the problem is that Slashdot allows no more than 120 characters (which includes HTML code for links apparently) and ALSO has a bug whereby more than one link in the sig causes it to mess up the HTML in strange ways.
But, you're right - it makes much more sense to have one link with a description than three shortened URLs that aren't links.
How's this new one? I had to keep the shortened link to make it fit though...
"Geek" and "popular" just don't mix, though one could be popular among fellow geeks, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't what the OP had is mind.
Actually, when I wrote that, I really just meant, "has an average or above-average sized circle of friends"; "is not considered 'someone to be abused' by a significant number of people"; and "is able to form new social connections with relative ease, given the normal factors of common interest and so on".
So, maybe 'popular' was the wrong choice of wording, but I was basically meaning it's possible to be a 'geek' and not be like I was...
You spoiled-rotten 21st century golden billion... Having to learn a trade has nothing to do with it, has it?
Honestly, no. The vast majority of things that someone learns in this modern day and age have nothing to do with their 'job'.
I'm a software developer (and will be trying to transition to full-time author once I get a few more books out (especially with more mainstream subjects than my current one)). Nevertheless, most of my daily 'learning' is focused on chemistry, physics, linguistics, pharmacology, medicine, and writing. Sure, I still learn a lot for my day job - if you're a software developer and you don't, you won't last long - but it doesn't make up even 20% of what I learn each day.
I know a lot of coders. Most of them do it as a day job as well, but not all. Even amongst those who do, it's the passion for it that keeps them doing it rather than just putting food on the table. Sure, that's extremely important and a definite bonus, but they'd probably still code at home if they had jobs as accountants, lawyers, doctors, or McDonalds counter staff.
You had better get involved and start steering her in the right direction, pronto.
People who grow up depending on recognition end up miserable. She's going to give it up when she's 13 to get approval from some boy she likes if you don't nip this in the bud.
To an extent, it's perfectly natural to depend on recognition. If she totally relies on it for value of herself, then yeh, that's bad. I'm not going to start worrying just yet though.
Regardless, I don't want her to be like me - socially retarded and awkward right until my early to mid twenties. A lot of 'geeks' like me think it's a prerequisite to be socially awkward if you're smart. It's not. You can be smart, geeky AND popular.
Sure, if she does end up being that way, I'll support her (I'll support her no matter how she ends up) but I'll do my best to steer her in the way that I feel is going to help her achieve the greatest amount of happiness in her life.
The important thing about learning to code is keeping interest/motivation to do so.
I agree with the general approach that the essay espouses - whimsy is a great way to keep interest; but it's certainly not the only way. Different things work for different people. My daughter is two and a half years old, and so far has totally rejected learning that involves traditional 'reward' such as the way gCompris shows 'happy' images on completing tasks vs 'sad' images when failing. However, what seems to do it for her is being able to 'show off'. When she can make her grandmother surprised by being able to point out letters of the alphabet on things, she is much more motivated to learn and get it right.
I'm sure my daughter's learning style will develop and change as she grows; I just wanted to use an example that demonstrates not everyone is motivated to learn in the same way. I don't think coding is any different.
Kids these days.
I was in high-school in the 90s... I'm 34 now. Not yet old, but hardly a kid!
Iceland? New Zealand? Do tell.
Got it on the 2nd guess - New Zealand.
If you can't show results to immediately shut management up, maybe they shouldn't be playing games. I once had the CEO complain to me about the same thing. After I showed my team's results, he went harass my boss why his other teams weren't as good as mine and I never heard from CEO about it again. Back to ping pong!
As I said:
my superiors can't fault us on quality of output
I'm in a pretty big company, so it's not just a case of show them once and then it's done with. There's always someone seeing or hearing about that kind of activity for the first time.
"Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are man-made chemicals that were widely used as chemical coolants and electrical insulators in electrical motors and transformers."
While I was aware of polychlorinated biphenyls, I'd never actually heard of them called "PCBs" before. To me, that acronym always means "Printed Circuit Board".
But, it does seem to just be my own ignorance. Wikipedia redirect "PCBs" to "Polychlorinated Biphenyl" and shows images of warning signs that also use that acronym. (note that "PCB" on Wikipedia however is a disambiguation page, with "Printed Circuit Board" as the top entry)
In my high-school days, we talked about a 747 full of CDs...
I think it may have something to do with growing up on an isolated island nation... there's not many useful places a station-wagon will go.
one of the smallest things in a microscope is the lens. most of the microscope is precision, vibration damped, gearing to manipulate the focal distance precisely. If you are going for high resolution its not yet clear to me how you avoid the expensive non-portable part of the microscope.
Don't forget, this isn't talking about a standard "microscope" but rather a "fluorescence microscope", which is actually a fairly different thing.
The linked article (and linked paper abstract) has images that give you an idea of what they're doing much better than TFA does.
Good point. But everyone, and everyday is different. I've had inspired days when I worked 12 hours. My blood was up and concentration was good. I've had bad days when I caught up on email, admin, documenting, etc. no point in trying to code, nothing productive would result.
As a manager of a small dev team (and 'developer' myself more than 'manager'), I recognise this in my team and specifically have different kinds of work available depending on the 'mood' that the guys are in. Someone's having a great head-down-and-churn-out-awesome-code day, I'll let them go at it until they're done. Someone's having a blergh-can't-seem-to-even-handle-basic-refactoring day, they can maybe double-check some documentation, or read up on some new technology that might be useful to us, or something else.
I also recognise that some days the hearts and minds simply aren't in it at all. For this reason, we don't have fixed work hours - come in when you want, leave when you want, do your 38.5 hours per week (and if you do more, you can take it off later as time in lieu).
Yes, this can lead to delays on projects, but that's my job as the team manager to sort out. When I tell marketing/whoever about schedules, it's my job to take in to account that people in my team have good days and bad days. I'll build that in to my estimate (and therefore occasionally finish a bit earlier than 'scheduled', giving us time for a bit of spit-and-polish on some non-core parts; or help out on other projects that aren't looking so good).
Occasionally, I've had some difficult conversations with my management about why they saw my employees engaged in a network game instead of working, but again - it's my responsibility to take care of that and my superiors can't fault us on quality of output. My team of course are generally pretty happy with the work environment and I take that as a matter of pride being the one providing it to them.
Maybe that's the process you used and maybe that's the process you hallucinated.
Yes, my book is about LSD... however it is called "Dropping Acid: A Beginner's Guide to the Responsible Use of LSD for Self-Discovery". Most of the book was not written while under the influence of psychedelics.
I completely agree. Having just published my first book (see my sig), I didn't spend any time considering the design/layout/etc until right near the end. The content is what was important to me, so I wrote that first. Once I was done with the content, THEN I laid it out, made it look "like I feel it should look", and produced a PDF which ultimately got printed to paper.
For the eBook version, I used RTF which was then converted to the appropriate format (mobi) by the publisher. But again, it was a 'last step' thing, as the content is what I spent my time on.
Did your parents encourage you to fondle a girl's breasts or encourage your sister to carry a condom?
Woah there... how are these two things in the slightest bit related?!
There's no way I'd encourage my son to fondle a girl's breasts (if the girl wants her breasts fondled, she'll do plenty of encouraging on her own); but absolutely I'll encourage my daughter to carry a condom once she's at the age where she's likely to be sexually active or even considering to start being sexually active. Not all guys will have one, and she may well do something dumb at some point and end up sleeping with a guy who she's "totally in love with" (after 2 hours of knowing him) as teenagers are wont to do, so having one on her is a hell of a lot better than not.
As a parent myself, I'm really glad you're not responsible for raising my children.
My kids are still too young to be aware of porn in any way shape or form (the oldest is 2). However something I've done from day one is to say that I will not shelter my kids from the world - I will teach them about it.
Do I want them looking at porn when they're older? No... but I don't really mind if they do either - as long as I've had a chance to talk to them about it and help them understand what it is. Once they start reaching sexual maturity, I'm quite certain they'll have an interest in it. But if I've managed to do my job as a father right, they'll take it with a healthy dose of disbelief just as they do any other fantasy... smart kids don't believe Harry Potter is real just because they saw it on a movie, so why should they think porn is any different if they're taught about it openly?
It's important to me that my kids also understand the importance - and responsibilities - of freedom. The only time I'll directly stop them doing anything is when it's going to cause serious harm to them or someone else (and then have a serious discussion about why I stopped them). Any other situation, I'll let them make their mistakes and then after it bites them in the arse, I'll talk to them about it and help them understand why their course of action was probably not the best.
Don't get me wrong - I'll also teach them the theory beforehand in the hope that they don't make so many dumbarse mistakes, but kids are kids (hell, people are people) and will do dumb stuff now and then. Let them learn from it, and they'll come out better in the end than if they were sheltered from it to begin with.
I recently quit smoking cigarettes and switched to an e-cigarette.
The first day was hell and felt exactly like quitting smoking cold turkey. The second day however, I was surprised to find I felt completely fine.
I use my e-cigarette with roughly the same frequency as I used to smoke cigarettes. I even go to the smoking room at work (I live in a country that still has "smoking rooms" at work) to use it, despite that I could use it at my desk. That way, I get the same feeling of having 'had a break' from sitting at my desk that I used to get with cigarettes.
There are some common misunderstandings about smoking/tobacco/nicotine, so I'd like to mention a few here.
1) Nicotine is the only addictive substance in tobacco: false. Nicotine itself is moderately addictive, but nowhere near as addictive as cigarette smoking when consumed without the rest of the tobacco product. The main reason for this is that tobacco also contains a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) - a type of drug that is commonly used as an antidepressant. This on its own is moderately addictive as well, but combined with nicotine becomes extremely addictive. One of the main withdrawal symptoms for smokers who have smoked a long time is depression, and it seems clear from the limited research so far that this is caused by the MAOI withdrawal more than the nicotine withdrawal (which is mostly things like the sore muscles and constipation).
2) Nicotine is highly poisonous: false. Tobacco is pretty poisonous. Nicotine itself is a drug that may have some negative effects in very high doses, but at the levels used by smokers (and e-cigarette smokers), the nicotine really doesn't cause much harm at all, if any. Research shows the negative effects of very high doses, but is fairly inconclusive on moderate doses, with most research pointing towards no harmful effect.
3) e-Cigarettes create smoke, so are just as bad as cigarettes: false. e-Cigarettes create a vapour - essentially steam - that contains ethylene glycol, flavour, and often (but not always) nicotine. It looks (and feels) This vapour does not coat the lungs in tar, which is one of the main dangerous effects of cigarette smoking. As a note, you can you e-cigarettes near a smoke detector and it won't go off, so on long flights, even if the cabin staff aren't okay with you using it, you can do so in the toilet and no-one will be any the wiser.
Overall, I'm very happy with my e-cigarette. I do plan on quitting it as well in around a year's time (because the e-cig is still quite antisocial, and still costs money), but as a "stepping stone", it's definitely been the best choice for me and I'm starting to feel the improved health effects already.
And they are teenagers, and whether science wants to admit to it or not, that age bracket, has always and will always rebel against everything they are not told to do. Unless they are complete nerds and geeks, in which case they never really seem to do anything in life that may be worth a little risk. (not to stereo type every geek or nerd to be that way)
I find it interesting you say this... in my experience, it's the geeks and nerds that ended up getting in the most 'trouble' in the long run, since we tend to buck against the rules a little more. All kids buck the rules, but it's the geeks and nerds that are more likely to develop an attitude of "examine the rules and discard those that aren't practically useful or interesting". This often leads to a cavalier attitude, whereby the geek believes him/herself to be better than these "pointless rules" that were "made up for managing the dumb masses".
I myself felt this way throughout my teens and most of my early 20s. I admit to still feeling a little this way at times, but I've matured enough now to realise my initial dismissal of the rules was based an incomplete understanding of society and people in general (it's certainly not 'complete' now, but at least I now KNOW my understanding is incomplete).
Out of my high-school peers from 15 to 20 years ago, the geeks and nerds are now the ones with the most drug convictions; the only ones with hacking convictions; at least one instance of white-collar crime that I know of; and at least one instance of grand theft that I know of. The only "risky" behaviour we're behind on are things like violent crime or drunk and disorderly.
The 'sportspeople' got married, settled down and had kids early. The 'cool kids' ended up being boring due to a lack of any real skills (and are now mostly in sales and marketing). But us geeks... we ended up revelling in our new found freedoms after school. We took drugs that we knew weren't as harmful as everyone said. We hacked systems and made money from it in the days when computer security wasn't a major consideration for most companies. We learned how shop security systems worked and then shoplifted (or stole through other means) our computer equipment without having to pay for it.
I'm not condoning what we did. I know that it was bad behaviour and I do honestly regret some of the things I did (not all though...). But my point is that these things are the domain of the geeks and the nerds. No-one else had the skills or knowledge (or more importantly, the inclination to learn) to be able to pull off the stuff we did back then.
I guess the biggest problem in reaching a number is at what point you start calling our ancestors "human" vs "pre-human".
For a great period of history, the human population likely numbered under 1 million, making a worry about these pre-historic populations somewhat trivial. ...
You do have a good point there... I was thinking the sheer number of generations making those small quantities add up though. If we say that one generation is 25 years on average, then in a hundred thousand years, you've got 4000 generations. If we're saying an average of only a half a million per generation, you've added 2000000000 to the mix already, which is definitely going to alter the percentage a bit having those hundred thousand years included or not.
I will admit though, that it may not alter it as drastically as I had first assumed... so the 93% figure given by the GP post may well be "around right".