you can't argue that religion hasn't often been a reactionary force opposing cultural change. church leaders try their best to resist changes society but society inevitably wins. it took the catholic church a very long time to accept evolution, and i imagine it will take even longer for most christians to accept that sodomy is not a sin. except for the few iconoclasts in religious history(martin luther, for example) few people are comfortable challenging the time-honored traditions and views held by the church.
a quick glance at all of the comments posted shows a clear contradiction to your insulting incrimination! are you suggesting that slashdot readers don't read the articles they comment on?!
I see your point. Also, I wasn't trying to suggest that there was only two social divisions within our society, I was just trying to use that as an example of mainstream & margins. Yes, self-segregation is bad, but I see this as more of a forced self-segregation--if that makes any sense. Like large gay communities or ethnic enclaves, it's a way of empowering marginalized social groups. Only after the geeks heal from the emotional scars caused by a culture which denigrates their eccentrity can they begin to integrate into the greater community. However, if that integration requires them sacrificing their eccentricity rather than developing mutual respect and acceptance then it's really not worth being assimilated into mainstream society.
Now, I haven't been to Akihabara either so I can't say that the culture there doesn't encourage unhealthy social behavior, but I think every culture has its own issues but non-mainstream cultures are just easier to pick on for their quirks.
but you have to understand that some level of "anti-social" behavior may not be detrimental. what's wrong with a person who prefers to build code on his computer or paint, or make music in his free time rather than go out and get drunk at a frat party? different people prefer different levels of social interaction so where do you draw the line between what's healthy and what's not? there are the extreme cases of "shut-ins" but these types of people exist outside of the geek community too. it's just easier to single out geeks and eccentrics as being anti-social because they may have more problems interacting with mainstream society(due to cultural prejudices against eccentrics) even though they may not have the same problems itneracting with their geek peers. think about the many geniuses and artists in history who likely spent most of their time isolated from other human beings because they were too caught up in their work. this doesn't make them socially inept, nor is it necessarily unhealthy. maybe geeks just find it a waste of time to hang out with jocks and cheerleaders with whom they have little in common, just as jocks and cheerleaders may feel the same towards geeks. certain types of social avoidance isn't necessarily unhealthy. it's just that geeks are a minority and jocks & cheerleaders are the majority.
eh, what exactly do you mean by societies should not be encouraging this sort of behavior? is that meant in the same way as societies should not encourage homosexuality? typically when people talk about something that should not be encourage by society, they are suggesting that such people ought to be marginalized, denigrated, or ostracized. perhaps if you have friends or family members that you see being a bit too reclusive, you could try to encourage them to go out more or if it's really extreme and prohibits normal daily functions(social phobia) then you could recommend therapy to them. but as a society, there's no way to encourage or discourage certain behaviors other than persecuting individuals who exhibit these sort of behavior or making such behavior illegal. i don't think being introverted or anti-social really warrants criminal prosecution, and people shouldn't be persecuted for being eccentric.
as you said, your lack of social skills was no one's fault but your own. there was nothing society could have done to force you to go out more. perhaps if society were more tolerant of eccentrics or geeks, and didn't look down on those who lack social skills it would have been easier for you to integrate with society earlier in life. but once again, this is a personal choice. who are you to judge others who prefer less social contact than you do?
lastly, how can this not be a good thing if it's a place where geeks can escape persecution. don't you think a lot of geeks avoid social encounters mostly out of fear of being being picked on for being eccentric? don't you think a place where geek-traits are tolerated and even valued would encourage geeks to socialize more freely? perhaps you've forgotten what it's like to be a social outcast and now want to identify yourself with "normal" people by demonstrating the same prejudices against geeks that you used to be the target of?
i'm waiting for a choose-your-own-adventure educational series on Physics:
... At the edge of the cliff you see an atwood's machine with a frictionless pulley. Next to it are two weights; one appears to be exactly 100 lbs., the other 50 lbs. There is just enough rope on the pulley to reach the bottom of the cliff. Perhaps if you attach one of the weights to one end of the atwood's machine, you could grab onto the other end of the rope and safely lower yourself to the bottom of the cliff. The cliff is 100 m. high, and you weigh 135lbs. What do you do?
Attach the 50 lbs. weight to the atwood's machine and then try to lower yourself to the bottom. (pg. 205)
Attach the 100 lbs. weight to the atwood's machine and then try to lower yourself to the bottom. (pg. 112)
Attach both weights to the atwood's machine and hang yourself with the rope because you can't stand to draw another free body diagram. (pg. 42)
i understand that there are production costs to these works and musicians and people in the film industry deserve to be paid for their work to produce the art. my point is just that the packaging and actual printing of CDs/DVDs doesn't cost much. i don't know how the film industry works, but i know that most musicians make most of their money when they go on tour. they get paid by the venues as well as make money off of the merchandise they sell at a venue. selling CDs to the consumer at a lower price, say $6-7 for a CD would still cover the cost of the production and generate plenty of additional profit for the artists themselves.
and your statement about the market value of a CD is irrelevant. $20 for a DVD/CD is what people are forced to pay now if they want to actually purchase a CD. that's the price which is ideal for retailers not for the consumer. just because people are willing to spend $100 on a pair of nikes doesn't make them worth $100, nor does it mean that nike would start losing money if they sold the same pair of shoes for less than $100. all it means is that the product is being marketted very well.
movies and music aren't expensive because of the cost of packaging. they're expensive because businesses are greedy. printing a single DVD and having it packaged only costs about $1-1.50 if you're manufacturing it in quantities of a few hundred at a time. hollywood and the major record labels can get this done at half of that cost i'm sure. getting rid of that process isn't going to save anyone much money. the music and film industries are just used to making a killing off of the consumers. and besides, you can't just cut out the distributors and retailers. a record label or film studio isn't going to just have movies/music for download on their websites and not push their product to other outlets. distributors and retailers are used in these industries because record labels or studios can sell them bulk quantities of their products instead of dealing with individual sales which are in the domain of retailers.
that's really not the point. the fact that people have to be exposed like that in front of strangers(the airport personnel/federal employees) is wrong in itself. those machines put the innocent citizens in a very compromising position whether the screeners are professional about it or not, and whether they enjoy what they see or not. maybe if they used image processing software to identify possible threats it wouldn't be a problem, but otherwise this can be a very harrowing ordeal for a lot of people--people who are self-concious about their body image, people who have experienced traumatizing sexual experiences in the past such as rape, people who have very conservative cultural/religious beliefs, and others who just don't feel like the private regions of their body should be subject to such intrusive examinations in order for them to travel.
would you be ok with mandatory strip searches at the airport as long as the person performing the strip search was of the same sex as you? would you want your spouse or children to live in a society where they regularly have to be subjected to these kinds of violations of privacy on a regular basis? there are much better ways of deterring terrorists than shifting the state of our society towards that of a fascist/totalitarian state.
they've discovered a way to create old technology! groundbreaking!
seriously though, there have always been cheap generic cellphones that don't have cameras or color screens. what's the big deal?
next we'll see an article on the frontpage announcing that kia is going to make cars without powerlock, powerwindow, or a CD player--because sometimes all you need is a car!
That makes sense. But it's really sad when I get a better viewing experience watching a movie DVD on my friend's digital projector than when i watch an analog version at a theater with a much better sound setup and bigger screen.
why do movie theaters still use film when digital mediums don't wear out at all? are digital projectors inferior somehow or is it because there aren't any digital formats with high enough resolutions for cinema sized screens?
Actually, the agricultural advances achieved under Castro are quite impressive. The wide-spread adoption of communally run urban gardens concomitant with the government's dissemintation of technical information to garderners and other forms of government assistance through the Urban Agriculture Department have made Cuba an international leader in organic foods as well as allowed them to create an autonomous self-sustaining domestic agricultural food supply in spite of the trade enbargos and sanctions. Cuba's agricultural model under Castro is a shining example of how efficient and beneficial self-sustaining agriculture can be compared to corporate farming or the single-crop mass export economies of the many banana republics in central America.
exactly. the best kind of marketing is no marketing. instead of wasting money on marketing and advertising, they spend money on R&D to come up with better products and services.
While I agree that almost all writing can be considered persuasive to some extent, some do it much more surreptitiously than others. I haven't read The Foutainhead, but Atlas Shrugged in my opinion was very propaganda-like. While Ayn Rand is an excellent storyteller, and seeing as she had escaped from Communist Russia it's understandable that she might be very anti-communist and pro-capitalism, but the way she sets-out to build a universe to demonize socialists and glamorize her enterprising entrepeneurs really makes you question the ethics behind her writing, and indeed behind objectivism itself.
In regards to The Chronicles of Narnia, the fact that CS Lewis wrote these stories for Children, and then embedded religious symbolism in the magical/fantastic allure of the series makes me question his personal ethics as well. As a Christian, he may have thought that promoting these positive values by any means was justifiable, but that doesn't change the fact that he was essentially baiting kids with his stories, and secretly inculcating their minds with a set of ideological beliefs.
I'm sure a lot of Christians would disagree with me, but just as they see church revivals, and retreats as harmless worship, I see many characteristics of indoctrination in these practices.
no, what they really need are some titty bars you can do into with strippers who show you their booby-tassles when you throw cash at them, and pigcops, and jetpacks, and flying lizards, and octopuses, and holo-duke!
Yea man, I haven't seen any FPSs with really good co-op gameplay since Duke Nukem 3D. I'm still waiting on Duke Nukem Forever, but it's taking a really long time...
what about using infared, or sonar to detect the distance between the spacecraft and the ground? i'm sure there are much more accurate ways of detecting ground contact than measuring the force exerted on the landing leg.
I hadn't thought of that before. I guess it's cuz I've never owned a PDA. But other than that, the PSP's hardware seems a lot more impressive. Wouldn't the keyboard attatchment(which seems fairly light-weight though I don't know how functional it is) get rid of the need for a stylus or touch screen?
i'd rather see use the PSP as a pocket PC since its processor speed(333MHz underclocked @ 222MHz) is actually on par with most new palms/pocket pcs. plus, the PSP already has a keyboard attachment and way sweet graphics/audio processors.
linux on DS still seems like primarily a novelty project. i'm sure it performs great for its designed purposes(playing DS games), but its hardware isn't appropriate for competing against today's pocket PCs.
Slashdot Mirror
you can't argue that religion hasn't often been a reactionary force opposing cultural change. church leaders try their best to resist changes society but society inevitably wins. it took the catholic church a very long time to accept evolution, and i imagine it will take even longer for most christians to accept that sodomy is not a sin. except for the few iconoclasts in religious history(martin luther, for example) few people are comfortable challenging the time-honored traditions and views held by the church.
a quick glance at all of the comments posted shows a clear contradiction to your insulting incrimination! are you suggesting that slashdot readers don't read the articles they comment on?!
I see your point. Also, I wasn't trying to suggest that there was only two social divisions within our society, I was just trying to use that as an example of mainstream & margins. Yes, self-segregation is bad, but I see this as more of a forced self-segregation--if that makes any sense. Like large gay communities or ethnic enclaves, it's a way of empowering marginalized social groups. Only after the geeks heal from the emotional scars caused by a culture which denigrates their eccentrity can they begin to integrate into the greater community. However, if that integration requires them sacrificing their eccentricity rather than developing mutual respect and acceptance then it's really not worth being assimilated into mainstream society.
Now, I haven't been to Akihabara either so I can't say that the culture there doesn't encourage unhealthy social behavior, but I think every culture has its own issues but non-mainstream cultures are just easier to pick on for their quirks.but you have to understand that some level of "anti-social" behavior may not be detrimental. what's wrong with a person who prefers to build code on his computer or paint, or make music in his free time rather than go out and get drunk at a frat party? different people prefer different levels of social interaction so where do you draw the line between what's healthy and what's not? there are the extreme cases of "shut-ins" but these types of people exist outside of the geek community too. it's just easier to single out geeks and eccentrics as being anti-social because they may have more problems interacting with mainstream society(due to cultural prejudices against eccentrics) even though they may not have the same problems itneracting with their geek peers. think about the many geniuses and artists in history who likely spent most of their time isolated from other human beings because they were too caught up in their work. this doesn't make them socially inept, nor is it necessarily unhealthy. maybe geeks just find it a waste of time to hang out with jocks and cheerleaders with whom they have little in common, just as jocks and cheerleaders may feel the same towards geeks. certain types of social avoidance isn't necessarily unhealthy. it's just that geeks are a minority and jocks & cheerleaders are the majority.
eh, what exactly do you mean by societies should not be encouraging this sort of behavior? is that meant in the same way as societies should not encourage homosexuality? typically when people talk about something that should not be encourage by society, they are suggesting that such people ought to be marginalized, denigrated, or ostracized. perhaps if you have friends or family members that you see being a bit too reclusive, you could try to encourage them to go out more or if it's really extreme and prohibits normal daily functions(social phobia) then you could recommend therapy to them. but as a society, there's no way to encourage or discourage certain behaviors other than persecuting individuals who exhibit these sort of behavior or making such behavior illegal. i don't think being introverted or anti-social really warrants criminal prosecution, and people shouldn't be persecuted for being eccentric.
as you said, your lack of social skills was no one's fault but your own. there was nothing society could have done to force you to go out more. perhaps if society were more tolerant of eccentrics or geeks, and didn't look down on those who lack social skills it would have been easier for you to integrate with society earlier in life. but once again, this is a personal choice. who are you to judge others who prefer less social contact than you do?
lastly, how can this not be a good thing if it's a place where geeks can escape persecution. don't you think a lot of geeks avoid social encounters mostly out of fear of being being picked on for being eccentric? don't you think a place where geek-traits are tolerated and even valued would encourage geeks to socialize more freely? perhaps you've forgotten what it's like to be a social outcast and now want to identify yourself with "normal" people by demonstrating the same prejudices against geeks that you used to be the target of?
i think they meant to write University of California at Los Angeles.
i'm waiting for a choose-your-own-adventure educational series on Physics:
... At the edge of the cliff you see an atwood's machine with a frictionless pulley. Next to it are two weights; one appears to be exactly 100 lbs., the other 50 lbs. There is just enough rope on the pulley to reach the bottom of the cliff. Perhaps if you attach one of the weights to one end of the atwood's machine, you could grab onto the other end of the rope and safely lower yourself to the bottom of the cliff. The cliff is 100 m. high, and you weigh 135lbs. What do you do?
Attach the 50 lbs. weight to the atwood's machine and then try to lower yourself to the bottom. (pg. 205)
Attach the 100 lbs. weight to the atwood's machine and then try to lower yourself to the bottom. (pg. 112)
Attach both weights to the atwood's machine and hang yourself with the rope because you can't stand to draw another free body diagram. (pg. 42)
i understand that there are production costs to these works and musicians and people in the film industry deserve to be paid for their work to produce the art. my point is just that the packaging and actual printing of CDs/DVDs doesn't cost much. i don't know how the film industry works, but i know that most musicians make most of their money when they go on tour. they get paid by the venues as well as make money off of the merchandise they sell at a venue. selling CDs to the consumer at a lower price, say $6-7 for a CD would still cover the cost of the production and generate plenty of additional profit for the artists themselves.
and your statement about the market value of a CD is irrelevant. $20 for a DVD/CD is what people are forced to pay now if they want to actually purchase a CD. that's the price which is ideal for retailers not for the consumer. just because people are willing to spend $100 on a pair of nikes doesn't make them worth $100, nor does it mean that nike would start losing money if they sold the same pair of shoes for less than $100. all it means is that the product is being marketted very well.
movies and music aren't expensive because of the cost of packaging. they're expensive because businesses are greedy. printing a single DVD and having it packaged only costs about $1-1.50 if you're manufacturing it in quantities of a few hundred at a time. hollywood and the major record labels can get this done at half of that cost i'm sure. getting rid of that process isn't going to save anyone much money. the music and film industries are just used to making a killing off of the consumers. and besides, you can't just cut out the distributors and retailers. a record label or film studio isn't going to just have movies/music for download on their websites and not push their product to other outlets. distributors and retailers are used in these industries because record labels or studios can sell them bulk quantities of their products instead of dealing with individual sales which are in the domain of retailers.
i was being facetious. if you'll notice, the article is talking about "oxytocin" not "oxycontin."
getting your investors addicted to oxycontin may have very detrimental effects on future business transactions.
that's really not the point. the fact that people have to be exposed like that in front of strangers(the airport personnel/federal employees) is wrong in itself. those machines put the innocent citizens in a very compromising position whether the screeners are professional about it or not, and whether they enjoy what they see or not. maybe if they used image processing software to identify possible threats it wouldn't be a problem, but otherwise this can be a very harrowing ordeal for a lot of people--people who are self-concious about their body image, people who have experienced traumatizing sexual experiences in the past such as rape, people who have very conservative cultural/religious beliefs, and others who just don't feel like the private regions of their body should be subject to such intrusive examinations in order for them to travel.
would you be ok with mandatory strip searches at the airport as long as the person performing the strip search was of the same sex as you? would you want your spouse or children to live in a society where they regularly have to be subjected to these kinds of violations of privacy on a regular basis? there are much better ways of deterring terrorists than shifting the state of our society towards that of a fascist/totalitarian state.
they've discovered a way to create old technology! groundbreaking!
seriously though, there have always been cheap generic cellphones that don't have cameras or color screens. what's the big deal?
next we'll see an article on the frontpage announcing that kia is going to make cars without powerlock, powerwindow, or a CD player--because sometimes all you need is a car!
lance will finally fulfill his dream of being a space cowboy.
That makes sense. But it's really sad when I get a better viewing experience watching a movie DVD on my friend's digital projector than when i watch an analog version at a theater with a much better sound setup and bigger screen.
why do movie theaters still use film when digital mediums don't wear out at all? are digital projectors inferior somehow or is it because there aren't any digital formats with high enough resolutions for cinema sized screens?
Actually, the agricultural advances achieved under Castro are quite impressive. The wide-spread adoption of communally run urban gardens concomitant with the government's dissemintation of technical information to garderners and other forms of government assistance through the Urban Agriculture Department have made Cuba an international leader in organic foods as well as allowed them to create an autonomous self-sustaining domestic agricultural food supply in spite of the trade enbargos and sanctions. Cuba's agricultural model under Castro is a shining example of how efficient and beneficial self-sustaining agriculture can be compared to corporate farming or the single-crop mass export economies of the many banana republics in central America.
exactly. the best kind of marketing is no marketing. instead of wasting money on marketing and advertising, they spend money on R&D to come up with better products and services.
While I agree that almost all writing can be considered persuasive to some extent, some do it much more surreptitiously than others. I haven't read The Foutainhead, but Atlas Shrugged in my opinion was very propaganda-like. While Ayn Rand is an excellent storyteller, and seeing as she had escaped from Communist Russia it's understandable that she might be very anti-communist and pro-capitalism, but the way she sets-out to build a universe to demonize socialists and glamorize her enterprising entrepeneurs really makes you question the ethics behind her writing, and indeed behind objectivism itself.
In regards to The Chronicles of Narnia, the fact that CS Lewis wrote these stories for Children, and then embedded religious symbolism in the magical/fantastic allure of the series makes me question his personal ethics as well. As a Christian, he may have thought that promoting these positive values by any means was justifiable, but that doesn't change the fact that he was essentially baiting kids with his stories, and secretly inculcating their minds with a set of ideological beliefs.
I'm sure a lot of Christians would disagree with me, but just as they see church revivals, and retreats as harmless worship, I see many characteristics of indoctrination in these practices.
no, what they really need are some titty bars you can do into with strippers who show you their booby-tassles when you throw cash at them, and pigcops, and jetpacks, and flying lizards, and octopuses, and holo-duke!
Yea man, I haven't seen any FPSs with really good co-op gameplay since Duke Nukem 3D. I'm still waiting on Duke Nukem Forever, but it's taking a really long time...
what about using infared, or sonar to detect the distance between the spacecraft and the ground? i'm sure there are much more accurate ways of detecting ground contact than measuring the force exerted on the landing leg.
I hadn't thought of that before. I guess it's cuz I've never owned a PDA. But other than that, the PSP's hardware seems a lot more impressive. Wouldn't the keyboard attatchment(which seems fairly light-weight though I don't know how functional it is) get rid of the need for a stylus or touch screen?
i'd rather see use the PSP as a pocket PC since its processor speed(333MHz underclocked @ 222MHz) is actually on par with most new palms/pocket pcs. plus, the PSP already has a keyboard attachment and way sweet graphics/audio processors.
linux on DS still seems like primarily a novelty project. i'm sure it performs great for its designed purposes(playing DS games), but its hardware isn't appropriate for competing against today's pocket PCs.
Is that the combo for Bestiality in Mortal Kombat, or am i thinking of a different game?