I've seen more graphic novels and manga in Borders and Barnes and Noble than I can list. Jimmy Corrigan, Boy Genius is everywhere.
What's happened is that the old, serialized superhero comics are down in the dumps and mostly thriving as fodder for big-screen semi-nostalgic blockbusters, but comics as an art form are doing very well lately. Yes, there's stigma behind Spider-Man - and rightly so, it's silly (even when it's fun, it's silly.) But Marvel and DC are to what is happening with comics nowadays what "Perils of Pauline" was to Italian realism and the French New-Wave. I'd much rather be a film viewer in the 50's through the 70's than in the 20's and 30's.
There are "safer countries" with regards to viruses, too: Os X, Linux, BSD, Plan 9, etc. Microsoft is to viruses what the US is to crime (the "less civilized" bit is wrong, unless it's being tautological; crime is worse in the US than in many less developed countries.)
By the reasoning of the article, Microsoft operating systems are enjoying the benefits of a challenging environment in which to evolve, while the others are not.
I think the original viruses-as-Darwinian-pressure analogy is far less apt than the viruses-as-crime one is. Are computer systems better because we now have a thriving market in antivirus software? Is a crime wave a good thing because it encourages businesses to hire armed guards (passing the costs on to the consumer), thus making the business "stronger?"
Sometimes it's not a matter of "that which doesn't kills you, makes you stronger." Sometimes it's "that which doesn't kill you, almost killed you."
As a technical person who communicates well with non-technical people, I have to say that the failure of communication is almost always with the technical person.
Being more concerned with being seen as smart and informed than actually providing coherent information, spending too much time on irrelevant details instead of providing step-by-step instructions on what has to be done, geek inferiority complexes leading to arch, grating deliveries, a failure to listen and understand the end-users needs - I've seen it all. And I've almost never met an end-user type whose technical behaviour I wasn't able to amend for the better.
A movie can have many layers of "meaning," and still be a bad movie. Matrix Reloaded is, at best, a mediocre movie, whatever little philosophical widgets they tossed into it.
Because the cost of living is higher in California (and the northeast), the tax rate is effectively less progressive. The correct policy would be to lower the tax rate up to a certain rate, and then sharply increase the curve. This is a better adjustment towards a correct utility curve for income in more expensive regions. As it is, a lower-middle-class Californian pays more taxes as a percentage of his income than an upper-middle-class Nebraskan. This needs to be corrected.
During the 50's, the income tax scale was significantly more progressive than it is now.
Re:once again... its the economy, stupid.
on
Blackout Week Continues
·
· Score: 3, Informative
One amendment to your description: the price cap in California was meant to be a temporary price *floor*, and was enacted at the request of the energy industry lobby, not at the request of consumer groups. Energy producers asked that a fixed price be secured for a limited time in order to pay for the costs of deregulation. It was, in a sense, a contract with the state of California to provide energy at a certain rate.
It should be noted that Georgy does not approve of the recall - like me and other who aren't particularly fond of Davis but understand what motivated the recall, she think its irresponsible, a waste of effort and money, and spiteful. However, as she points out, it does create a unique opportunity with a very low barrier for entry into the subsequent race, and that opportunity shouldn't be ignored.
There's a difference between fiscal conservatives who just want a sensible fiscal policy, and those who are adamantly opposed to virtually every aspect of the public sector. The libertarians are hyper-ideological, oftern resentful, and all too willing to throw out huge amounts of baby with the bathwater.
How completely shocking, that $7-an-hour floor sales staff at a discount warehouse store aren't very savvy about technology! One would think they'd hire 20-year industry veterans and experienced Unix sysadmins to tell people on what aisle the mouse pads are, right?
Take a look at everything else you own. The clothes on your back, the shoes on your feet, a considerable fraction of the household goods, were probably constructed in Indonesia, Thailand, or China under worse conditions and for considerably less pay than the Chinese high-tech labor sector works under. And if it weren't so, your own standard of living would suffer. The different market values for first-world vs. third-world labor - even equivalent labor at equivalent productivity - are much of the source of the material advantages and comforts enjoyed by the 1st world. If you multiplied the costs of those manufactured goods and clothing and such by 10, what do you think your life would be like now? How many PS/2 games do you think you'd be able to afford?
Think from a business perspective: why *wouldn't* IT become commoditized? It's a cost center, ultimately. Your "shit" being twice as cool will almost certainly not return double the investment. For most IT functions, good enough is good enough, and the less businesses have to pay for it (in toto, not just up front) the less they will.
It's still a world of stuff, not bits. The economy of bits is pretty quickly worn out. Housing, clothing, transportation, health - these are the needs that people will constantly spend on. A system that simply makes processes a wee bit faster, or cuts production costs a wee bit, is attractive, but not proportionally to the veritable horde of people who entered that service market.
So, at the end of the day, did you stop and ask yourself for whom, and for what value, your cool shit would be for?
Figures from popular culture are part of our subconscious, both collectively and as individuals.
I've had dreams with Mickey Mouse in it. I've had dreams in which I was at the helm of the Enterprise.
If I tried to film an enactment of that dream, I'd be in violation of intellectual property laws. I think the idea that something trumps the free expression of the imagery of my own subconscious is a pretty big crimp on my creativity, or at least my expression of it.
Pastiche, collage, and montage are vital creative techniques.
That may be so, but I'm in the 25+ group (and then some), and I *am* self-conscious and sensitive enough about my professional image to be reluctant to pull out a GameBoy Advanced - it's too toylike. But I have no such qualms about pulling out a GBA SP. And I'd rather have my game accessory be physically distinct from my PDA, because I'm usually playing the GBA in slow moments, when I may need to grab my PDA quickly for something work-related. The advantages of having 2 discrete devices far outweights the benefits of convergence in this case.
I don't see much of a future for either this or the N-Gage, to be honest. I think Nintendo has more to worry about from Sony. But the truth is, too, I see handheld gaming as hitting a plateau: there's only so many compelling titles for those games, and I predict we're going to see consumer behaviour focus on larger screens again in the near to middle term.
There's one skill you can teach to get people ready for the opportunities in the booming computer industry: "Hindi for beginners" and "Basic business Russian."
Like I said, the series seems to be doing well. I know a neuroscientist who has a couple "for Dummies" books for computers (I think it's a Windows 2000 Server for dummies and something else). She's secure enough in her intelligence that she's willing to "reserve" it for what matters, and doesn't mind a bit of hand-holding for things that don't matter if it means she can get going more quickly.
There are thousands of possible situations where this is likely. Want me to list a few?
Software localizers. Graphical artists. Technical writers/documenters. Editors and layout specialists. Architects working in large firms. Chemical engineers.
There are sooooooo many more job titles in the world than "programmer" and "manager," despite the incredible, mind-boggling myopia you see on Slashdot. All these people probably know a couple applications with incredible fluency, but may well not know how to get around a UNIX environment.
That book isn't aimed at us. It's aimed at a non-computer-oriented user in a Solaris environment.
Everyone is a "Dummy" (in a light, humorously self-deprecating sense of the term) in some field or other. People who recognize that are often more successful than people who can't admit their own limitations. Few things are as irritating as "male answer syndrome," as they describe it on Car Talk.
I think the "... for Dummies" book series success speaks for itself.
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen more graphic novels and manga in Borders and Barnes and Noble than I can list. Jimmy Corrigan, Boy Genius is everywhere.
What's happened is that the old, serialized superhero comics are down in the dumps and mostly thriving as fodder for big-screen semi-nostalgic blockbusters, but comics as an art form are doing very well lately. Yes, there's stigma behind Spider-Man - and rightly so, it's silly (even when it's fun, it's silly.) But Marvel and DC are to what is happening with comics nowadays what "Perils of Pauline" was to Italian realism and the French New-Wave. I'd much rather be a film viewer in the 50's through the 70's than in the 20's and 30's.
There are "safer countries" with regards to viruses, too: Os X, Linux, BSD, Plan 9, etc. Microsoft is to viruses what the US is to crime (the "less civilized" bit is wrong, unless it's being tautological; crime is worse in the US than in many less developed countries.)
By the reasoning of the article, Microsoft operating systems are enjoying the benefits of a challenging environment in which to evolve, while the others are not.
I think the original viruses-as-Darwinian-pressure analogy is far less apt than the viruses-as-crime one is. Are computer systems better because we now have a thriving market in antivirus software? Is a crime wave a good thing because it encourages businesses to hire armed guards (passing the costs on to the consumer), thus making the business "stronger?"
Sometimes it's not a matter of "that which doesn't kills you, makes you stronger." Sometimes it's "that which doesn't kill you, almost killed you."
Of course, I would be a good help desk. Also, I'd be a decent cook, an OK guitar teacher, a pretty good tour guide, and a fairly acceptable gardener.
Fortunately, none of these skills are my most well-renumerated, so they tend to go in the back burner.
As a technical person who communicates well with non-technical people, I have to say that the failure of communication is almost always with the technical person.
Being more concerned with being seen as smart and informed than actually providing coherent information, spending too much time on irrelevant details instead of providing step-by-step instructions on what has to be done, geek inferiority complexes leading to arch, grating deliveries, a failure to listen and understand the end-users needs - I've seen it all. And I've almost never met an end-user type whose technical behaviour I wasn't able to amend for the better.
Seriously, greatest movie ending ever...
."
Oh, Elvis J. Christ, no. Try these on for size:
"rosebud . .
"This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
A movie can have many layers of "meaning," and still be a bad movie. Matrix Reloaded is, at best, a mediocre movie, whatever little philosophical widgets they tossed into it.
Because the cost of living is higher in California (and the northeast), the tax rate is effectively less progressive. The correct policy would be to lower the tax rate up to a certain rate, and then sharply increase the curve. This is a better adjustment towards a correct utility curve for income in more expensive regions. As it is, a lower-middle-class Californian pays more taxes as a percentage of his income than an upper-middle-class Nebraskan. This needs to be corrected.
During the 50's, the income tax scale was significantly more progressive than it is now.
One amendment to your description: the price cap in California was meant to be a temporary price *floor*, and was enacted at the request of the energy industry lobby, not at the request of consumer groups. Energy producers asked that a fixed price be secured for a limited time in order to pay for the costs of deregulation. It was, in a sense, a contract with the state of California to provide energy at a certain rate.
Because there's nothing to do in Dayton after 6 pm?
Because the alternative was Bill "A Little to the Right of Darth Vader" Simon.
Frankly, I think Cruz Bustamante would make a fine governor. Unfortunately, I think it's "hasta la vista, California."
Well, if it were your monkey, likewise.
It should be noted that Georgy does not approve of the recall - like me and other who aren't particularly fond of Davis but understand what motivated the recall, she think its irresponsible, a waste of effort and money, and spiteful. However, as she points out, it does create a unique opportunity with a very low barrier for entry into the subsequent race, and that opportunity shouldn't be ignored.
There's a difference between fiscal conservatives who just want a sensible fiscal policy, and those who are adamantly opposed to virtually every aspect of the public sector. The libertarians are hyper-ideological, oftern resentful, and all too willing to throw out huge amounts of baby with the bathwater.
Also, they often don't understand utility value.
How completely shocking, that $7-an-hour floor sales staff at a discount warehouse store aren't very savvy about technology! One would think they'd hire 20-year industry veterans and experienced Unix sysadmins to tell people on what aisle the mouse pads are, right?
Take a look at everything else you own. The clothes on your back, the shoes on your feet, a considerable fraction of the household goods, were probably constructed in Indonesia, Thailand, or China under worse conditions and for considerably less pay than the Chinese high-tech labor sector works under. And if it weren't so, your own standard of living would suffer. The different market values for first-world vs. third-world labor - even equivalent labor at equivalent productivity - are much of the source of the material advantages and comforts enjoyed by the 1st world. If you multiplied the costs of those manufactured goods and clothing and such by 10, what do you think your life would be like now? How many PS/2 games do you think you'd be able to afford?
Think from a business perspective: why *wouldn't* IT become commoditized? It's a cost center, ultimately. Your "shit" being twice as cool will almost certainly not return double the investment. For most IT functions, good enough is good enough, and the less businesses have to pay for it (in toto, not just up front) the less they will.
It's still a world of stuff, not bits. The economy of bits is pretty quickly worn out. Housing, clothing, transportation, health - these are the needs that people will constantly spend on. A system that simply makes processes a wee bit faster, or cuts production costs a wee bit, is attractive, but not proportionally to the veritable horde of people who entered that service market.
So, at the end of the day, did you stop and ask yourself for whom, and for what value, your cool shit would be for?
But spam-catching should be less like fishing and more like, erm, Pokemon.
This Negativland piece is a pretty sound refutation of your claim. Check out the rest of the Illegal Art site, too.
Not so.
Figures from popular culture are part of our subconscious, both collectively and as individuals.
I've had dreams with Mickey Mouse in it. I've had dreams in which I was at the helm of the Enterprise.
If I tried to film an enactment of that dream, I'd be in violation of intellectual property laws. I think the idea that something trumps the free expression of the imagery of my own subconscious is a pretty big crimp on my creativity, or at least my expression of it.
Pastiche, collage, and montage are vital creative techniques.
True dat, but that's what briefcases and bags are for.
That may be so, but I'm in the 25+ group (and then some), and I *am* self-conscious and sensitive enough about my professional image to be reluctant to pull out a GameBoy Advanced - it's too toylike. But I have no such qualms about pulling out a GBA SP. And I'd rather have my game accessory be physically distinct from my PDA, because I'm usually playing the GBA in slow moments, when I may need to grab my PDA quickly for something work-related. The advantages of having 2 discrete devices far outweights the benefits of convergence in this case.
I don't see much of a future for either this or the N-Gage, to be honest. I think Nintendo has more to worry about from Sony. But the truth is, too, I see handheld gaming as hitting a plateau: there's only so many compelling titles for those games, and I predict we're going to see consumer behaviour focus on larger screens again in the near to middle term.
There's one skill you can teach to get people ready for the opportunities in the booming computer industry: "Hindi for beginners" and "Basic business Russian."
Like I said, the series seems to be doing well. I know a neuroscientist who has a couple "for Dummies" books for computers (I think it's a Windows 2000 Server for dummies and something else). She's secure enough in her intelligence that she's willing to "reserve" it for what matters, and doesn't mind a bit of hand-holding for things that don't matter if it means she can get going more quickly.
There are thousands of possible situations where this is likely. Want me to list a few?
Software localizers. Graphical artists. Technical writers/documenters. Editors and layout specialists. Architects working in large firms. Chemical engineers.
There are sooooooo many more job titles in the world than "programmer" and "manager," despite the incredible, mind-boggling myopia you see on Slashdot. All these people probably know a couple applications with incredible fluency, but may well not know how to get around a UNIX environment.
That book isn't aimed at us. It's aimed at a non-computer-oriented user in a Solaris environment.
Everyone is a "Dummy" (in a light, humorously self-deprecating sense of the term) in some field or other. People who recognize that are often more successful than people who can't admit their own limitations. Few things are as irritating as "male answer syndrome," as they describe it on Car Talk.
I think the "... for Dummies" book series success speaks for itself.