"100+ Yen to the Dollar, yet the Japanese aren't considered particularly poor..."
Wow. That comment displays either willful or genuine ignorance. Either way - best you stop responding on posts dealing with international matters until you can demonstrate an understanding of such simple things as exchange rates.
"The ones, who are walking around in Paris, are still quite rich -- by the standards of a lowlife robber, anyway."
Hey, arrogant as well as ignorant! Well done! Some of the best attributes of an asshole in only a couple of sentences, with crap punctuation to add a bit of spice - not easy to do in such a concise post. Do you practice a lot?
Nobody keeps paying ME for the creative work I did a month ago in my job.
Aw, poor baby. Reality leave a bitter taste in your mouth?
this notion that I should be prevented from saying words because another person owns them is repugnant
On the other hand, seeing as that is neither the notion behind nor the effect of copyright, maybe it's not reality but your own warped perspective that leaves you bitter. Either way, if your post is indicative of your ability to think, it is not surprising that you do work for hire rather than generate content for personal copyright. I'm always curious at the way the deluded think their personal perspective is so much more important than democratic processes and suchlike. You should try becoming a politician - that instinct for disregarding the concerns of other people then becomes a useful attribute.
True, it's all opinion, but even art allows for some objectivity. "Abject disaster" sounds like the small minded bitchiness of someone whose opinion isn't worth listening to.
What a magnificant hospital administrator / legal counsel you would make!
"I'm sorry your wife died, Mr Thompson. According to our procedures, our surgeons should never make any mistakes, so the hospital has done everything we possibly could. The risk of someone dying simply doesn't justify the huge effort required to count sponges. Perhaps you can sue the surgeon himself for not being perfect".
Complete 100% assertions like that never hold up, but there are a couple of elements of real world practice to bear in mind. I'm speaking as an IT guy, not a surgeon, but some things stay fairly generic because it's just the way it is.
Most importantly, a procedure as documented normally extends beyond the core activity itself. The paperwork is often part of it, or at least the basic checks e.g. "have we left any sponges in the body?" If the surgeon had to leave immediately due to some other emergency, everyone else doesn't suddenly assume the procedure is over. There's still the anaesthetist, the nurses, etc. If everyone leaves before counting the sponges, and complications developed, then it would be fair to say at any subsequent inquest that the procedure was not completed, and the shit hits the fan.
Second, "accounted for" tends to get a bit loose as well. Often it doesn't mean physically verified, but simply noted e.g. "Sponge 4 - stolen by bizarre lunatic who came in, grabbed the sponge, and ran out shouting "I've got the flag!". Or simply "Sponge 4 - lost" could technically be accounted for. Clearly "lost" in the context of surgery is rather more important than that of a stock check of frozen fish in a supermarket, and therefore there may be all sorts of checks in place. But at the end of the day, life has to move on, and any bureaucratic system eventually gives someone the authority to sign something off, no matter how important. "Missing, presumed dead" is a classic example.
One of the reasons behind many scandals (insert your politically prejudiced example here) is that things get signed off without due authority, or done in secrecy, or there is no inquest to check exactly *how* things were accounted for, and so on. But the goal is generally: we have a procedure that we know works, everyone has to follow it, and relevant paperwork done. If it is followed and things go horribly wrong, you're much less open to blame if you've followed procedure, and if it is not followed you might find yourself in deep shit *even if* the core activity was performed as well as could be.
As an IT guy with many of the classic failings, I often forget this and assume that simply because I've done a good job, then my work is done. This has (and will no doubt again) come to bite me in the ass when e.g. a hard drive failure leads to making a site visit that could have been avoided if I'd all the paperwork handy to cover said ass.
In the case of surgery, which is a high risk activity conducted by highly trained and experience staff in a controlled environment, I would expect that the instances of the procedure not being completed are rare and the initial statement is damn near 100% true in the "physical" sense, not just the "bureaucratic" sense.
How you must love artists - "Physically get yourself somewhere convenient for me, or you don't deserve any of my money whatsoever no matter how much I might enjoy your music".
"The problem if you get rid of the ability of slandering while anonymous you also remove the ability to tell the truth while being anonymous."
If this premise is true, then the rest of the argument follows. Can you provide evidence that this is the case? Citing examples of outright oppression does not provide any support to your assumption, as there was an absolutely no intent to separate truth from fiction in those cases.
This is not about SaaS. This is about trusting sensitive information to a huge global corporation with an avowed intent to manage the world's information, no particular respect for other people's business, and already happy to forget about "don't be evil" when for instance there's a lot of money to be made in China. It's not been too many years they've been around - why shouldn't they get worse after 20 years as the founders' influence grows wanes?
Google's business model gives them incentives to disregard your privacy, so the solution is simple. If going down the SaaS route, either pick a local company, or if going for a multi-national, pick a provider whose revenue depends on providing *you* with a secure, reliable service, rather than finding ways of *using* your data to help *others* benefit.
Apple has promised to continuously update and improve upon the feature set of its inaugural mobile handset, making it more than likely that the feature will turn up once it emerges from the beta stage.
Oh, good, once a Google feature gets out of beta iPhone users can expect support. That'll only be a couple of years, then...
"Since when did the leader of a country threatening to wipe an ally of the United States off the map not constitute a real threat?"
Ever since men with balls learnt that just because someone makes a lot of noise, it doesn't mean they constitute a threat. Grow a pair yourself and learn the difference.
"I'm not saying we should go to war against Iran but the World at large really needs to grow some balls when it comes to dealing with Iran."
Thing is, "grow some balls mean" sounds suspiciously like you don't think the current diplomatic approach is correct, and so you are actually implying we should attack Iran. After all, I can't image you've come up with an innovative new form of diplomacy with all the impact of an attack but without the actual "attack" part.
Still, maybe the approach of the incompetent, draft-dodging, freedom-hating Cheney is right. It might even be worth sacrificing another few thousand Americans, just to show them the US means business.
Note that the punishment for counterfeiting is also very severe, more so than many violent crimes. The legal system has always, since before computers were invented, taken an extremely dim view of people messing around with systems at the heart of the economy. The internet has reached the "at the heart of the economy" status very quickly, and there's been a corresponding increase in the severity with which computer crimes can be punished.
I doubt many law makers have the slightest idea how a mint prints money, either. Are you saying that counterfeiting should therefore be legal?
If you read the article you'd know that the Slashdot editor got the summary wrong, because the nice big headline actually states "Fifty Million Facebook Users Don't Care About Google's OpenSocial APIs". Users, not developers.
He further points out that the number of developers "is less than one/one hundredth of one percent of Facebook users".
Nice sarcasm, by the way. Goes nicely with the whole "why bother to check the facts" ignorance thing.
"The simple fact is that the US will almost always come off looking bad when you compare what US citizens know about a country and what the people in that country know about the US."
Very true. But isn't doesn't the rather absurd comparison of Norwegian knowledge of Japanese history form a strawman argument? The US tends to come off looking bad without any comparison to other countries e.g. proportion of passport holders, percentage of people able to locate the countries they're currently invading on a world map. Such measures do not rely on a population's knowledge of randomly selected foreign countries.
"I thought it very funny that when I was in the UK that I shocked people because I knew what the battle of Trafalgar was."
Because you're smug about being an exception? Charming. Do you mean to imply disdain for your fellow Americans that haven't managed to impress people with their knowledge? Are all your impressions of other countries based on things where you can laugh at another's expense?
Americans are often surprised to find out I've spent time at Columbia University (I'm a Scot working in London), and why shouldn't they be? But I wouldn't so condescending as to say they were shocked. Nor do I find it funny that I have more knowledge of their country than they might expect of a Brit. That would mean looking down either on Americans for their assumptions about me, or on Brits for not knowing more about the US.
To contradict the article, you would have to come up with examples of people who had been fired for vulgar language where vulgarity was explicitly allowed under HR policy. Surely you only know people who got fired for vulgar language where no such policy exists?
And if you know people were fired despite having such a policy, did the individuals take the company to court for sacking them for something they'd been directly told they could do? If not, why not?
"Jesus.. I mean.. seriously.. do they even care about their perception with their customers anymore?"
Erm - are you aware that the PRS's "customers" are the artists which comprise its membership? That the PRS does not represent the music industry, that its job is to pay out royalties to its members? That the PRS never sues people, because it only collects money from businesses? That it is a completely different organisation to the RIAA's UK equivalent, which is the BPI (British Phonographic Industry)? That many artists quite like royalty payments because that's how they make a living?
What you've missed out on is that once you get past an RIAA member company's cut of marketing, kickbacks, payola, distribution etc, there's precious little left for royalties. Artists need organisations like the PRS to look after their money. There's a lot of other arguments about how well they do this job, but I think it's fair that they should ask a multi-million dollar corporation to pay £100 or so per garage for the music they are benefiting from.
Kwik-Fit's slogan is "You can't get quicker than a Kwik-Fit fitter". It is however known to me and many fellow Scots as "You can't get shitter than a Kwik-Fit fitter", and for good reason. They knew the law, hence the official policy of no radios. They also valued the benefit of the music, hence turning a blind eye (blind ear?) to the use of radios. Basically - they're too fucking cheap pay a fraction of a percent of the day's takings for an essential part of their workplace environment. And yet you support the corporation. That's kind of fucked up.
"All Tolkien fans wanted to like the movies, those of us who loved all three of the books, just didnt like PJ's production very much."
Bullshit. Where do you get off saying that if you loved the books, you didn't like the films? If that's the extent of your ability to think, can't say it gives much validity to your opinion.
"Isnt it terrible when the thing you like so much is hated by others who seem more invested in the thing than you are?"
Terrible? Of course not. Your "investment" does come across as kind of pathetic, though.
Such depth of insight! If AT&T did not give them extra money, they would need extra money directly from the customer to make the same profit. Genius! But moving from sarcasm to being direct - your comment shows no insight. Further, profit maximisation is a fundamentally different thing from subsidy. So you've gone from a comment lacking insight to a conclusion lacking logic.
I would guess you're not driven by stupidity, but simply trying to attach a word that can be used in a negative sense (subsidy) to criticise a behaviour you don't like (lock in). Which would be a shame, because there are interesting questions to be asked once you get past the predictable knee-jerk reactions.
For instance, criticism of lock-in was previously aimed at the service providers, not the phone manufacturers. Originally, the economics required a subsidy of manufacturing costs, recovered over the lifetime of the contract. This time it's the phone manufacturer that wants the lock-in, and there's a whole load of free competition amongst phone manufacturers. The economics are profit-maximisation, not subsidising up-front costs. What impact does this have?
Have the laws in EU countries against lock-in been written in such a way as not to apply to the iPhone situation? Can a service provider be held guilty of providing lock-in contracts when they also offer a range of unlocked phones? Can Apple claim that the creation of Visual Voicemail deserves a return in the marketplace? Can a manufacturer aiming at a whole 1% market share be accused of being anti-competitive? When online updates are provided free-of-charge to anywhere with an Internet connection, does the analogy of breaking up the car industry's model of service only through registered dealers apply? Is two years an unreasonable length of contract? Shouldn't the customer be able to decide whether they want Visual Voicemail? Etc.
"I like what I like, and thats all that matters. It's not like listening to music has some net societal effect that matters, its just something that makes you feel good when listening to it."
Absolutely. Everybody has the right to be an self-interested ignoranus. It's just a lot of us don't think it's something to be so proud of.
In the sense of whether you have the right to do so? Of course.
However, if you mean "can I criticize" in the sense of "are you capable of doing so in a competent manner", then the answer would appear to be no.
Is there a reason you think what you do for a living compensates for the b.s. in your original post? Having a lack of basic knowledge (as compared to spouting common misconceptions) about what people use macs for professionally is completely compatible with using one at work. I know plenty of people who don't understand their own line of work, let alone the multiple industries that a vendor might count as its basic customer base.
Seriously, why would you want to buy a Mac if you can have Ubuntu, apart from Adobe/Macromedia products?
You can stick the word at the front of your question, but that is in fact not a question that deserves to be taken seriously. Try developing even a basic understanding of something (such as what people use Macs for professionally) before criticising it.
I learnt about evolution in primary school. That doesn't mean it is an invalid subject for scientific investigations. Especially when the results directly contradict what you thought you knew:
The team's results demonstrated that both eyes lock on to the same letter 53% of the time
Maybe the fact the eyes do something differently to the higher brain functions is important, maybe not. I was aware of the same corny jokes as you, but had no idea they had such detail on what the eye was actually looking at. It's a poor scientist who ignores detail because they claim to already know the answer.
Slashdot Mirror
"100+ Yen to the Dollar, yet the Japanese aren't considered particularly poor..."
Wow. That comment displays either willful or genuine ignorance. Either way - best you stop responding on posts dealing with international matters until you can demonstrate an understanding of such simple things as exchange rates.
"The ones, who are walking around in Paris, are still quite rich -- by the standards of a lowlife robber, anyway."
Hey, arrogant as well as ignorant! Well done! Some of the best attributes of an asshole in only a couple of sentences, with crap punctuation to add a bit of spice - not easy to do in such a concise post. Do you practice a lot?
Aw, poor baby. Reality leave a bitter taste in your mouth?
On the other hand, seeing as that is neither the notion behind nor the effect of copyright, maybe it's not reality but your own warped perspective that leaves you bitter. Either way, if your post is indicative of your ability to think, it is not surprising that you do work for hire rather than generate content for personal copyright. I'm always curious at the way the deluded think their personal perspective is so much more important than democratic processes and suchlike. You should try becoming a politician - that instinct for disregarding the concerns of other people then becomes a useful attribute.
This is, of course, a matter of opinion
True, it's all opinion, but even art allows for some objectivity. "Abject disaster" sounds like the small minded bitchiness of someone whose opinion isn't worth listening to.
Yes, but what's the point you're trying to make?
What a magnificant hospital administrator / legal counsel you would make!
"I'm sorry your wife died, Mr Thompson. According to our procedures, our surgeons should never make any mistakes, so the hospital has done everything we possibly could. The risk of someone dying simply doesn't justify the huge effort required to count sponges. Perhaps you can sue the surgeon himself for not being perfect".
Complete 100% assertions like that never hold up, but there are a couple of elements of real world practice to bear in mind. I'm speaking as an IT guy, not a surgeon, but some things stay fairly generic because it's just the way it is.
Most importantly, a procedure as documented normally extends beyond the core activity itself. The paperwork is often part of it, or at least the basic checks e.g. "have we left any sponges in the body?" If the surgeon had to leave immediately due to some other emergency, everyone else doesn't suddenly assume the procedure is over. There's still the anaesthetist, the nurses, etc. If everyone leaves before counting the sponges, and complications developed, then it would be fair to say at any subsequent inquest that the procedure was not completed, and the shit hits the fan.
Second, "accounted for" tends to get a bit loose as well. Often it doesn't mean physically verified, but simply noted e.g. "Sponge 4 - stolen by bizarre lunatic who came in, grabbed the sponge, and ran out shouting "I've got the flag!". Or simply "Sponge 4 - lost" could technically be accounted for. Clearly "lost" in the context of surgery is rather more important than that of a stock check of frozen fish in a supermarket, and therefore there may be all sorts of checks in place. But at the end of the day, life has to move on, and any bureaucratic system eventually gives someone the authority to sign something off, no matter how important. "Missing, presumed dead" is a classic example.
One of the reasons behind many scandals (insert your politically prejudiced example here) is that things get signed off without due authority, or done in secrecy, or there is no inquest to check exactly *how* things were accounted for, and so on. But the goal is generally: we have a procedure that we know works, everyone has to follow it, and relevant paperwork done. If it is followed and things go horribly wrong, you're much less open to blame if you've followed procedure, and if it is not followed you might find yourself in deep shit *even if* the core activity was performed as well as could be.
As an IT guy with many of the classic failings, I often forget this and assume that simply because I've done a good job, then my work is done. This has (and will no doubt again) come to bite me in the ass when e.g. a hard drive failure leads to making a site visit that could have been avoided if I'd all the paperwork handy to cover said ass.
In the case of surgery, which is a high risk activity conducted by highly trained and experience staff in a controlled environment, I would expect that the instances of the procedure not being completed are rare and the initial statement is damn near 100% true in the "physical" sense, not just the "bureaucratic" sense.
How you must love artists - "Physically get yourself somewhere convenient for me, or you don't deserve any of my money whatsoever no matter how much I might enjoy your music".
Such generosity of spirit!
"The problem if you get rid of the ability of slandering while anonymous you also remove the ability to tell the truth while being anonymous."
If this premise is true, then the rest of the argument follows. Can you provide evidence that this is the case? Citing examples of outright oppression does not provide any support to your assumption, as there was an absolutely no intent to separate truth from fiction in those cases.
This is not about SaaS. This is about trusting sensitive information to a huge global corporation with an avowed intent to manage the world's information, no particular respect for other people's business, and already happy to forget about "don't be evil" when for instance there's a lot of money to be made in China. It's not been too many years they've been around - why shouldn't they get worse after 20 years as the founders' influence grows wanes?
Google's business model gives them incentives to disregard your privacy, so the solution is simple. If going down the SaaS route, either pick a local company, or if going for a multi-national, pick a provider whose revenue depends on providing *you* with a secure, reliable service, rather than finding ways of *using* your data to help *others* benefit.
Apple has promised to continuously update and improve upon the feature set of its inaugural mobile handset, making it more than likely that the feature will turn up once it emerges from the beta stage.
Oh, good, once a Google feature gets out of beta iPhone users can expect support. That'll only be a couple of years, then...
"Since when did the leader of a country threatening to wipe an ally of the United States off the map not constitute a real threat?"
Ever since men with balls learnt that just because someone makes a lot of noise, it doesn't mean they constitute a threat. Grow a pair yourself and learn the difference.
"I'm not saying we should go to war against Iran but the World at large really needs to grow some balls when it comes to dealing with Iran."
Thing is, "grow some balls mean" sounds suspiciously like you don't think the current diplomatic approach is correct, and so you are actually implying we should attack Iran. After all, I can't image you've come up with an innovative new form of diplomacy with all the impact of an attack but without the actual "attack" part.
Still, maybe the approach of the incompetent, draft-dodging, freedom-hating Cheney is right. It might even be worth sacrificing another few thousand Americans, just to show them the US means business.
Note that the punishment for counterfeiting is also very severe, more so than many violent crimes. The legal system has always, since before computers were invented, taken an extremely dim view of people messing around with systems at the heart of the economy. The internet has reached the "at the heart of the economy" status very quickly, and there's been a corresponding increase in the severity with which computer crimes can be punished.
I doubt many law makers have the slightest idea how a mint prints money, either. Are you saying that counterfeiting should therefore be legal?
If you read the article you'd know that the Slashdot editor got the summary wrong, because the nice big headline actually states "Fifty Million Facebook Users Don't Care About Google's OpenSocial APIs". Users, not developers.
He further points out that the number of developers "is less than one/one hundredth of one percent of Facebook users".
Nice sarcasm, by the way. Goes nicely with the whole "why bother to check the facts" ignorance thing.
"The simple fact is that the US will almost always come off looking bad when you compare what US citizens know about a country and what the people in that country know about the US."
Very true. But isn't doesn't the rather absurd comparison of Norwegian knowledge of Japanese history form a strawman argument? The US tends to come off looking bad without any comparison to other countries e.g. proportion of passport holders, percentage of people able to locate the countries they're currently invading on a world map. Such measures do not rely on a population's knowledge of randomly selected foreign countries.
"I thought it very funny that when I was in the UK that I shocked people because I knew what the battle of Trafalgar was."
Because you're smug about being an exception? Charming. Do you mean to imply disdain for your fellow Americans that haven't managed to impress people with their knowledge? Are all your impressions of other countries based on things where you can laugh at another's expense?
Americans are often surprised to find out I've spent time at Columbia University (I'm a Scot working in London), and why shouldn't they be? But I wouldn't so condescending as to say they were shocked. Nor do I find it funny that I have more knowledge of their country than they might expect of a Brit. That would mean looking down either on Americans for their assumptions about me, or on Brits for not knowing more about the US.
To contradict the article, you would have to come up with examples of people who had been fired for vulgar language where vulgarity was explicitly allowed under HR policy. Surely you only know people who got fired for vulgar language where no such policy exists?
And if you know people were fired despite having such a policy, did the individuals take the company to court for sacking them for something they'd been directly told they could do? If not, why not?
"Jesus.. I mean.. seriously.. do they even care about their perception with their customers anymore?"
Erm - are you aware that the PRS's "customers" are the artists which comprise its membership? That the PRS does not represent the music industry, that its job is to pay out royalties to its members? That the PRS never sues people, because it only collects money from businesses? That it is a completely different organisation to the RIAA's UK equivalent, which is the BPI (British Phonographic Industry)? That many artists quite like royalty payments because that's how they make a living?
What you've missed out on is that once you get past an RIAA member company's cut of marketing, kickbacks, payola, distribution etc, there's precious little left for royalties. Artists need organisations like the PRS to look after their money. There's a lot of other arguments about how well they do this job, but I think it's fair that they should ask a multi-million dollar corporation to pay £100 or so per garage for the music they are benefiting from.
Kwik-Fit's slogan is "You can't get quicker than a Kwik-Fit fitter". It is however known to me and many fellow Scots as "You can't get shitter than a Kwik-Fit fitter", and for good reason. They knew the law, hence the official policy of no radios. They also valued the benefit of the music, hence turning a blind eye (blind ear?) to the use of radios. Basically - they're too fucking cheap pay a fraction of a percent of the day's takings for an essential part of their workplace environment. And yet you support the corporation. That's kind of fucked up.
"Personally I think his rendition of the stories missed an awful lot of what I thought was important"
Until you get past the stumbling block of this attitude, you'll never understand any answer given to your question.
"All Tolkien fans wanted to like the movies, those of us who loved all three of the books, just didnt like PJ's production very much."
Bullshit. Where do you get off saying that if you loved the books, you didn't like the films? If that's the extent of your ability to think, can't say it gives much validity to your opinion.
"Isnt it terrible when the thing you like so much is hated by others who seem more invested in the thing than you are?"
Terrible? Of course not. Your "investment" does come across as kind of pathetic, though.
Such depth of insight! If AT&T did not give them extra money, they would need extra money directly from the customer to make the same profit. Genius! But moving from sarcasm to being direct - your comment shows no insight. Further, profit maximisation is a fundamentally different thing from subsidy. So you've gone from a comment lacking insight to a conclusion lacking logic.
I would guess you're not driven by stupidity, but simply trying to attach a word that can be used in a negative sense (subsidy) to criticise a behaviour you don't like (lock in). Which would be a shame, because there are interesting questions to be asked once you get past the predictable knee-jerk reactions.
For instance, criticism of lock-in was previously aimed at the service providers, not the phone manufacturers. Originally, the economics required a subsidy of manufacturing costs, recovered over the lifetime of the contract. This time it's the phone manufacturer that wants the lock-in, and there's a whole load of free competition amongst phone manufacturers. The economics are profit-maximisation, not subsidising up-front costs. What impact does this have?
Have the laws in EU countries against lock-in been written in such a way as not to apply to the iPhone situation? Can a service provider be held guilty of providing lock-in contracts when they also offer a range of unlocked phones? Can Apple claim that the creation of Visual Voicemail deserves a return in the marketplace? Can a manufacturer aiming at a whole 1% market share be accused of being anti-competitive? When online updates are provided free-of-charge to anywhere with an Internet connection, does the analogy of breaking up the car industry's model of service only through registered dealers apply? Is two years an unreasonable length of contract? Shouldn't the customer be able to decide whether they want Visual Voicemail? Etc.
"I like what I like, and thats all that matters. It's not like listening to music has some net societal effect that matters, its just something that makes you feel good when listening to it." Absolutely. Everybody has the right to be an self-interested ignoranus. It's just a lot of us don't think it's something to be so proud of.
In the sense of whether you have the right to do so? Of course.
However, if you mean "can I criticize" in the sense of "are you capable of doing so in a competent manner", then the answer would appear to be no.
Is there a reason you think what you do for a living compensates for the b.s. in your original post? Having a lack of basic knowledge (as compared to spouting common misconceptions) about what people use macs for professionally is completely compatible with using one at work. I know plenty of people who don't understand their own line of work, let alone the multiple industries that a vendor might count as its basic customer base.
Given a post both accusatory and pedantic, I feel you are neither "hippy-dippy", nor geniunely desire to "just get along"!
I learnt about evolution in primary school. That doesn't mean it is an invalid subject for scientific investigations. Especially when the results directly contradict what you thought you knew:
The team's results demonstrated that both eyes lock on to the same letter 53% of the time
Maybe the fact the eyes do something differently to the higher brain functions is important, maybe not. I was aware of the same corny jokes as you, but had no idea they had such detail on what the eye was actually looking at. It's a poor scientist who ignores detail because they claim to already know the answer.
"Number of servers: Google's mum."
The correct phrase is "keeping mum".
"Google's mum" is what you would say when implying intimate knowledge of Mrs Google, or perhaps her tendency to wear sturdy footwear.