I'm one of those people who wishes I could throw all my personal information out there for people to look at and either admire or ignore. I could care less what people think of me, but the problem is that then people judge me and change how they treat me based on this information. People are constantly judging, and they are judging based off of thousands of criteria, most of which don't have a real impact on how one would deal with me. Be nice, be fair, don't bigoted against me, judge the issue at hand with the facts I have laid out, and we'll get along great.
I understand that to get through the world you have to play the politics game, learn how to schmooze people, and keep the private things private. I'm just sick and tired of it. Most of the people who post this information I think are similar in this regard. I want to tell the world about me, but I don't want to be judged, I just want to be seen for who I am.
But other people aren't that way, and most of us "blunt" type people have to learn the hard way that the rest of society judges us, and the judge us on all the wrong things. That's what happens, you post some personal information, describe yourself, and things go well when people you want to see you see you, but then when a bunch of people you don't know see you, and you find out these people are important to your job, that's when stupid shit starts to happen and you learn that it wasn't as smart as you thought.
Basically people treat the internet like a social club or a singles bar. They have to realize that it's the world... the entire world... who can see who you are. And that's the part that sucks, that not everyone thinks like you, and you have to get smart and take your page down or severely limit your posted information.
I also was wondering what the 3D applications would be like. Perhaps an R2D2 unit fitted with one of these would have a much sharper and sexier image of the princess asking for OB1's help.
Also, how about a laser weapon targeting system that can lase 100 targets at once for all the bomblets?
Great things are going on in my mind.
Okay dude, I was with you when you talked about a sexier picture of Leia, but the moment you talked about weapons, I could no longer support the idea that your mind was great.
Page 32 of the August 2006 issue of Popular Mechanics has a small story about comparing HD-DVD to standard DVD. Their three test subjects said that the picture from the standard (upconverting) DVD player was almost as good as the real HD-DVD player, but cost $420 less. If the picture's almost as good, why would they want to buy the HD-DVD player? Then I read it again and noticed that the test used a 42" plasma screen that was only 720p. Why even bother doing a comparison if you're not going to use a 1080i/p screen?
Because most americans don't give a flying fuck. This is a great example of an electronics company trying to shove shit down everyone's throats hoping they'll buy it at exhorbitant prices. Mainstream america isn't ready for this. Sure there are plenty of videophiles, but I have to buy a $2000 TV and an $800 to see this far superior quality, when my $250 TV and $50 DVD player work just fine. A TV used to be about how many inches you got. Not you worry about the resolution, plasma vs LCD, 720p, 1080i, ABCXYZ... The american public by and large is barely ready for hi def TV even years after it's being pushed, you really think they are ready for super hi def DVDs?
The great thing about DVDs is they last longer, look better, and the players have more conveniences than VCRs. Recorders are getting cheap to. Quality was important, but not that important.
I continue to maintain that if you want a good movie viewing experience, pay the $10 for you to go to the movies. Even at $10 a trip if you go once a week you are at $520 which is far less than the TV and high def DVD you paid for. And if you are worried about popcorn muck, move out of the hellhole you live in and move to a real part of the country. The large cineplexes I go to don't have that problem. If you are worried about people talking, grow a backbone and learn to tell them to shut up or suck it up.
Almost everyone plays games to a certain extent. Not everyone plays a game that can make significant money. The market isn't ignoring them, they just don't make money.
People like Blizzard are focused on the hardcore and casual gamers because they pay for new mega graphic video games at $50 a pop. That's a higher margin business.
Segments they call the "occasional gamer" and "social gamer" are fulfilled by places like pogo.com, yahoo games, and other places. I also feel the occasional games is mislabelled because there used to be times in my life I'd do nothing but crosswords or playing word whomp on Pogo and foregoing my Warcraft CDs. There is almost no money in crosswords, but people continue to do them and they will do so for a long time because they are a great mental challenge. It's better to call these "classic gamers." Games that make little money but have a long venerable tradition, like chess, spades, hearts, and poker (yes you can make money playing poker, but you don't make a lot of money selling poker cards and accessories).
These segments are served, they are just served by different companies. Blizzard isn't going to make any real money by starting a hearts server, and it's not what they are good at so there's no point in trying. The article didn't bother to actually think about what already serves those segments.
The first comment to the article on that page is awesome and must be shared:
some additional behaviors that I've seen while working at a 30+ person startup:
- certain people respond to all emails in person, by getting up to talk to them or yelling across cubicles
- certain people prefer to communicate by email even when the recipient is sitting right next to them
- there is another group of people who send very few work-related emails, but who send interesting and/or funny emails to the entire company now and then.
Okay, if Clinton did exactly this, Clinton would be bashed just as badly. However, Clinton would not have executed this shut down in the same way. Yes I am a Democrat and hell I liked Clinton as a president. Clinton would have had someone create a much more intelligent execution plan.
It's been discussed here that the article is inflamatory but it's also been discussed that there are problems with the over all plan. The materials will be boxed up, and available on interlibrary loan, and not all of the material have been scanned to be available on line. That means some material will only be available on inter-library loan, and that could cause massive delays as it takes someone to have to go through the boxes and find it.
What it amounts to is "Hi! Were shutting down the libraries. How do you get this stuff? Oh well eventually it will be online, someday, but you can get it via interlibrary loan, too... eventually."
Whether or not it's deliberate, it slows down the process these organizations use to file complaints with the EPA significantly. And because it's Bush, and because he's stonewalled people and organizations before, I have a strong feeling it's all deliberate.
Clinton would have had someone in place that made sure the materials were all properly scanned and online FIRST, then closed the library down.
I was listening to a story on this on NPR. Government oversight is gone in this decade. The NPR story had a few experts basically reporting on he last portion of this video, which is a laundry list of the government officials he talked to and how they all turned him away with nonsense reasons.
There is no one in government who cares right now. The signs of something very bad happening within my lifetime within my country are numerous, and they all evolve around a populace that doesn't vote, and small groups of people who do vote for people who don't really care about anyone but themselves and the businesses that give them tons of money.
It's so bad I don't even believe that this will cause enough outrage for anyone to do anything. The government is teflon-coated now, and the american voters made it so.
Ummmmmm Maybe I missed an article somewhere, but I thought Bill Gates personally owned a majority share of Microsoft. Am I wrong? I mean forget all the market analysis but how do you buy control of a company from a man who's (probably) not willing to sell?
The title has created some incredibly +5 funny comments, which is great for cheap entertainment, but the title is completely fucking wrong and now the flamethrowers must be unleashed.
From TFA: After suffering embarrassing security exploits over the past several years, Microsoft Corp. is trying a new tactic: inviting some of the world's best-known computer experts to try to poke holes in Vista, the next generation of its Windows operating system.
Black hats are the bad guys, the guys actually hacking the computers for the sake of getting money and identities. The security experts are the good guys!
Maybe I'm overreacting, but that little change in the title rather important. It turns the story from "Microsoft showing all the efforts it is making to improve security" to "Microsoft so desperate to improve security they invite convicted hackers/spammers/international mafia to come hack vista!"
Of course, without said change, we have no +5 funny comments, and thus no real story to make fun of, because there's not much material to make fun of here, and nothing to critize about Microsoft because what they are doing in the article is what they should be doing. Nice Job Slashdot.
If you go to the local community theater and pay $10 for a ticket, you get what you pay for. If someone flubs their lines, you shouldn't scream and shout in the theater that they suck. Acting on stage is democratic and has all levels of performance.
If you pay $300 for a broadway ticket and the actor on stage can't remember half their lines, storm out of the theater in the dark and demand a refund.
The film can't legally turn a profit, so therefore he can't charge much for this, if anything at all. You get what you pay for.
I, for one, appreciate fan films for what they are, fans who are enthusiastic about a topic who just want to express themselves. You can't hold them to the same standard... unless you were going for the "I'm a typically slashdot culture snob." In that case, way to go you nailed it.
Advertising evils, Microsoft evils, and Patent evils, all rolled into a business plan that has already proven to fail. I can't decide which to flame first!
The great thing about the internet is that it only does one thing, and it does it incredibly well. The internet moves little bits and bytes of information from point A to point B. That's it.
There is some guy who's name escapes me (and who is also I believe famous in geek circles) that said that if you take away features from a protocol, you'll increase innovation. I'm paraphrasing a bit as I don't know the quote or the man who said it, but look at the phone network.
Phone companies do phoen calls really well but in order to add new features the phone company has to redo major portions of their network. The phone network is for the most part one highly integrated network with highly integrated protocol. It's a pain to work with these days. How fast do they innovate?
Now look at the internet and all the layers it has. On the lowest level you have the physical medium to transport data, which could be swapped out from copper to fiber without affecting the IP protocol. IP4 can be swapped for IP6 without dramatically affecting your operating system. Your operating system can be swapped without affecting your email server or your web browsing. You can add a bittorrent client in two seconds as long as your OS supports communicating to your ISP. And all these layers can be shifted and moved without having to create one monolithic company and structure to run everything from the major internet hubs all the way down to the PC on your desk top. You get to select all the layers right for you, and businesses can pick the layers they can put themselves into. It's the ultimate form of expression of competition and innovation.
Fuck companies who are opposed to net neutrality. Companies that support a tiered internet are anti capitalism as Adam Smith envisioned it. They don't want competition or innovation, they want easy profit.
At this point and time, I'm only worried about three things in any transformers movie remake:
1) It has a good and entertaining plot 2) It has stunning artistic quality in the visual effects 3) That peter cullen is optimus prime
You can argue til your blue in the face as to what the characters look like and the technology bullshit of disappearing parts or even including the dinobots. The appeal of the Transformers has always been about the characters. They weren't just cute toys, or an afternoon cartoon. The brilliance has always been about the characters. Who they were, what they did, as well as what they transformed into. It was the total package.
The total package includes Peter's voice. It's unmistakable, unduplicatable, and undeniably the best!
Okay, the title "web hermit" brought forth images of a guy 80 lbs over (or under!) weight, hairy beard, and beer cans around his desk top computer doing nothing but surfing.
Pure FUD. Oohhhhh, feel fear/pity/shame for the weirdo who spends all day at the computer! It's a stigma, as the article says, and it's become more and more acceptable, as the article says. That's because using the web makes sense. Hell if you work from home all day, why not have your groceries delivered? Accepting a delivery takes 10 seconds while going to the store could take an hour. That's one more hour to make money working, or kill farm mephisto in Diablo 2 five more times and hope he drops that's unique you've been looking for, thus achieving a little more happiness than the fool next door who barely understands a computer.
The whole point of the web is more freedom, independence and opportunity. People are taking advantage of this. No one said everyone online is creating a bomb shelter with a fiber link or that once you surf the web for 4 hours you become Agoraphobic. The article doesn't even have any good facts or figures. Who says you aren't going out to meet people? Who says you aren't socializing with neighbors? Who says you aren't exercising 3 three times a week? The only fact the article states is that more and more people are using the web to get the things they need, and it suddenly jumps to the conclusion that everyone who does this is a "web hermit."
And most importantly, no one said you aren't bangin' your girlfriend every 4 hours because you work from home and have plenty of time for impromtu sex! Who cares if you found your gf in a bar or two states away playing the same online game as you. If you like her, and she likes you, and you have a healthy sexual compatibility (provided she moves in with you - this is important), then fuck the world. You are most definitely still in the gene pool.
A crisis is brewing in the middle east as lebanon and Israel renew hostilities. A crisis is what's happening in darfur. A crisis is the shit that's going on in our own federal government that's screwing over the common man and giving the wealth more and more money.
The computer gaming industry collapsing because of it's own inability to innovate? I hardly call that a crisis.
Any good programmer worth their salt would have programmed this to cut out their tongue, cut off their fingers one by one, slice off their eyelids and force them to watch "Biodome" 5 times in succession.
I want those fuckers to live painfully damnit, just like the rest of us do when we have too much spam.
The arguments for these patents, that they benefit the little guy, almost sound like a bad attempt at "social justice" rhetoric from my fellow capitalists. Capitalism is not about the little guy, it's about property rights. It has no concept of fairness except allowing people to keep their own property secure. Screw all of the aforementioned crap. Let's truly maximize property rights with a new legal idea of "the right to make new property."
Just to set things straight, I don't think this was the vision Adam Smith had for capitalism. I would call what you just said as "american capitalism" which blindly believes that 1) The free market solves everything and 2) that the american market is in fact free. Neither of these things is true, and if Adam were to see the situation we have in the US we have now, I would think he would agree with many of us who think the american market is not truly as free as it should be.
The human race is very resilient, and we are near the top in the list of most resilient species. In order to threaten the species, a very large, world wide, cataclismic event has to occur, such as the sun exploding, or asteroid slamming into us, or a large scale nuclear war.
Earthquakes,Tsunami, Hurricanes, terrorist attacks, and pandemics scare the shit out of people, because they are very dangerous to an individual person. As far as the species as a whole is concerned this is a nosebleed. We've always had to deal with them, it's just gotten better and easier to do so in the modern era.
So basically, in order to survive the next hundred years, as a species, I suggest we take all the nukes on the planet, put them into orbit, and design a guidance tracking system to shoot them at passing asteroids, all the while trying to enhance our ability to track asteroids coming close to us and improving our ability to live in space (or find another habitable world). That will take care of all the big things I can think of.
The only wild card in this is in global warming. The question becomes if the climate changes too rapidly, will we as a species be able to adapt? It's unclear if global warming will cause massive climate change and thus endanger the species so quickly. As such my last suggestion is to beat every world leader over the head until they accept the fact that drastic climate change is occuring, that it's danger is on the level of a nuclear winter, and that we need to dedicate lots of independent resources (I.E. leave the fucking oil companies out of it) to study it.
Having the ability to beat every world leader over the head, however, will solve all the other more managable disasters on this planet and we should be able to live in a utopia by the 22nd century.
Being the buff manly man I am, I took the option at one point to have some cavities drilled without drugs. The option was only presented to me, however, because the cavities were superficial and did not go beyond the enamel in my tooth. It did feel funny and a little uncomfortable, but not to the point of blinding pain or anything that scary. It was pretty short, and had it gone on for much longer I would have probably opted for drugs.
However, if I need a root canal, which I hope I never do, heavy doses of novicane will be requested. The nerve has a funny way of knowing it's being removed regardless of by drill or by plasma lance.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm one of those people who wishes I could throw all my personal information out there for people to look at and either admire or ignore. I could care less what people think of me, but the problem is that then people judge me and change how they treat me based on this information. People are constantly judging, and they are judging based off of thousands of criteria, most of which don't have a real impact on how one would deal with me. Be nice, be fair, don't bigoted against me, judge the issue at hand with the facts I have laid out, and we'll get along great.
I understand that to get through the world you have to play the politics game, learn how to schmooze people, and keep the private things private. I'm just sick and tired of it. Most of the people who post this information I think are similar in this regard. I want to tell the world about me, but I don't want to be judged, I just want to be seen for who I am.
But other people aren't that way, and most of us "blunt" type people have to learn the hard way that the rest of society judges us, and the judge us on all the wrong things. That's what happens, you post some personal information, describe yourself, and things go well when people you want to see you see you, but then when a bunch of people you don't know see you, and you find out these people are important to your job, that's when stupid shit starts to happen and you learn that it wasn't as smart as you thought.
Basically people treat the internet like a social club or a singles bar. They have to realize that it's the world... the entire world... who can see who you are. And that's the part that sucks, that not everyone thinks like you, and you have to get smart and take your page down or severely limit your posted information.
I'd like to be a judge on that panel. I'd love to give out awards for the best rack.
What? Wiring? What are you talking about? Oh...
I also was wondering what the 3D applications would be like. Perhaps an R2D2 unit fitted with one of these would have a much sharper and sexier image of the princess asking for OB1's help.
Also, how about a laser weapon targeting system that can lase 100 targets at once for all the bomblets?
Great things are going on in my mind.
Okay dude, I was with you when you talked about a sexier picture of Leia, but the moment you talked about weapons, I could no longer support the idea that your mind was great.
Page 32 of the August 2006 issue of Popular Mechanics has a small story about comparing HD-DVD to standard DVD. Their three test subjects said that the picture from the standard (upconverting) DVD player was almost as good as the real HD-DVD player, but cost $420 less. If the picture's almost as good, why would they want to buy the HD-DVD player? Then I read it again and noticed that the test used a 42" plasma screen that was only 720p. Why even bother doing a comparison if you're not going to use a 1080i/p screen?
Because most americans don't give a flying fuck. This is a great example of an electronics company trying to shove shit down everyone's throats hoping they'll buy it at exhorbitant prices. Mainstream america isn't ready for this. Sure there are plenty of videophiles, but I have to buy a $2000 TV and an $800 to see this far superior quality, when my $250 TV and $50 DVD player work just fine. A TV used to be about how many inches you got. Not you worry about the resolution, plasma vs LCD, 720p, 1080i, ABCXYZ... The american public by and large is barely ready for hi def TV even years after it's being pushed, you really think they are ready for super hi def DVDs?
The great thing about DVDs is they last longer, look better, and the players have more conveniences than VCRs. Recorders are getting cheap to. Quality was important, but not that important.
I continue to maintain that if you want a good movie viewing experience, pay the $10 for you to go to the movies. Even at $10 a trip if you go once a week you are at $520 which is far less than the TV and high def DVD you paid for. And if you are worried about popcorn muck, move out of the hellhole you live in and move to a real part of the country. The large cineplexes I go to don't have that problem. If you are worried about people talking, grow a backbone and learn to tell them to shut up or suck it up.
Almost everyone plays games to a certain extent. Not everyone plays a game that can make significant money. The market isn't ignoring them, they just don't make money.
People like Blizzard are focused on the hardcore and casual gamers because they pay for new mega graphic video games at $50 a pop. That's a higher margin business.
Segments they call the "occasional gamer" and "social gamer" are fulfilled by places like pogo.com, yahoo games, and other places. I also feel the occasional games is mislabelled because there used to be times in my life I'd do nothing but crosswords or playing word whomp on Pogo and foregoing my Warcraft CDs. There is almost no money in crosswords, but people continue to do them and they will do so for a long time because they are a great mental challenge. It's better to call these "classic gamers." Games that make little money but have a long venerable tradition, like chess, spades, hearts, and poker (yes you can make money playing poker, but you don't make a lot of money selling poker cards and accessories).
These segments are served, they are just served by different companies. Blizzard isn't going to make any real money by starting a hearts server, and it's not what they are good at so there's no point in trying. The article didn't bother to actually think about what already serves those segments.
The first comment to the article on that page is awesome and must be shared:
some additional behaviors that I've seen while working at a 30+ person startup:
- certain people respond to all emails in person, by getting up to talk to them or yelling across cubicles
- certain people prefer to communicate by email even when the recipient is sitting right next to them
- there is another group of people who send very few work-related emails, but who send interesting and/or funny emails to the entire company now and then.
Okay, if Clinton did exactly this, Clinton would be bashed just as badly. However, Clinton would not have executed this shut down in the same way. Yes I am a Democrat and hell I liked Clinton as a president. Clinton would have had someone create a much more intelligent execution plan.
It's been discussed here that the article is inflamatory but it's also been discussed that there are problems with the over all plan. The materials will be boxed up, and available on interlibrary loan, and not all of the material have been scanned to be available on line. That means some material will only be available on inter-library loan, and that could cause massive delays as it takes someone to have to go through the boxes and find it.
What it amounts to is "Hi! Were shutting down the libraries. How do you get this stuff? Oh well eventually it will be online, someday, but you can get it via interlibrary loan, too... eventually."
Whether or not it's deliberate, it slows down the process these organizations use to file complaints with the EPA significantly. And because it's Bush, and because he's stonewalled people and organizations before, I have a strong feeling it's all deliberate.
Clinton would have had someone in place that made sure the materials were all properly scanned and online FIRST, then closed the library down.
I was listening to a story on this on NPR. Government oversight is gone in this decade. The NPR story had a few experts basically reporting on he last portion of this video, which is a laundry list of the government officials he talked to and how they all turned him away with nonsense reasons.
There is no one in government who cares right now. The signs of something very bad happening within my lifetime within my country are numerous, and they all evolve around a populace that doesn't vote, and small groups of people who do vote for people who don't really care about anyone but themselves and the businesses that give them tons of money.
It's so bad I don't even believe that this will cause enough outrage for anyone to do anything. The government is teflon-coated now, and the american voters made it so.
Ummmmmm Maybe I missed an article somewhere, but I thought Bill Gates personally owned a majority share of Microsoft. Am I wrong? I mean forget all the market analysis but how do you buy control of a company from a man who's (probably) not willing to sell?
If your "vendor" won't fix the bug, the hackers will find a way to route around it.
Now if only the White House would stop introducing bugs into the political system we could start getting real work done.
The title has created some incredibly +5 funny comments, which is great for cheap entertainment, but the title is completely fucking wrong and now the flamethrowers must be unleashed.
From TFA:
After suffering embarrassing security exploits over the past several years, Microsoft Corp. is trying a new tactic: inviting some of the world's best-known computer experts to try to poke holes in Vista, the next generation of its Windows operating system.
Black hats are the bad guys, the guys actually hacking the computers for the sake of getting money and identities. The security experts are the good guys!
Maybe I'm overreacting, but that little change in the title rather important. It turns the story from "Microsoft showing all the efforts it is making to improve security" to "Microsoft so desperate to improve security they invite convicted hackers/spammers/international mafia to come hack vista!"
Of course, without said change, we have no +5 funny comments, and thus no real story to make fun of, because there's not much material to make fun of here, and nothing to critize about Microsoft because what they are doing in the article is what they should be doing. Nice Job Slashdot.
In the Dell Corprate HQ.... "Mike, we want you to make Dells look pretty so people won't notice Vista as much"
"Fuck off, Ballmer"
Steve: I am going to kill Dell!!!
If you go to the local community theater and pay $10 for a ticket, you get what you pay for. If someone flubs their lines, you shouldn't scream and shout in the theater that they suck. Acting on stage is democratic and has all levels of performance.
If you pay $300 for a broadway ticket and the actor on stage can't remember half their lines, storm out of the theater in the dark and demand a refund.
The film can't legally turn a profit, so therefore he can't charge much for this, if anything at all. You get what you pay for.
I, for one, appreciate fan films for what they are, fans who are enthusiastic about a topic who just want to express themselves. You can't hold them to the same standard... unless you were going for the "I'm a typically slashdot culture snob." In that case, way to go you nailed it.
"Making films ain't like dustin' crops boy!"
"It's as if a thousand Lucas lawyers suddenly cried out, and then were silent."
"That's no Lucas bomb, it's a fan flick!"
"He better get those Mt. Dew Bottles to editing by tomorrow morning, or there'll be hell to pay."
And finally, said the director of the fan film to Lucas: "Would someone get this walking carpet out of my way."
Advertising evils, Microsoft evils, and Patent evils, all rolled into a business plan that has already proven to fail. I can't decide which to flame first!
I've got a counter of how many times someone says the following:
"Geez, how could this guy fuck up a PR email? It isn't Rocket Science."
Maybe we can get to 50 by lunch.
The great thing about the internet is that it only does one thing, and it does it incredibly well. The internet moves little bits and bytes of information from point A to point B. That's it.
There is some guy who's name escapes me (and who is also I believe famous in geek circles) that said that if you take away features from a protocol, you'll increase innovation. I'm paraphrasing a bit as I don't know the quote or the man who said it, but look at the phone network.
Phone companies do phoen calls really well but in order to add new features the phone company has to redo major portions of their network. The phone network is for the most part one highly integrated network with highly integrated protocol. It's a pain to work with these days. How fast do they innovate?
Now look at the internet and all the layers it has. On the lowest level you have the physical medium to transport data, which could be swapped out from copper to fiber without affecting the IP protocol. IP4 can be swapped for IP6 without dramatically affecting your operating system. Your operating system can be swapped without affecting your email server or your web browsing. You can add a bittorrent client in two seconds as long as your OS supports communicating to your ISP. And all these layers can be shifted and moved without having to create one monolithic company and structure to run everything from the major internet hubs all the way down to the PC on your desk top. You get to select all the layers right for you, and businesses can pick the layers they can put themselves into. It's the ultimate form of expression of competition and innovation.
Fuck companies who are opposed to net neutrality. Companies that support a tiered internet are anti capitalism as Adam Smith envisioned it. They don't want competition or innovation, they want easy profit.
At this point and time, I'm only worried about three things in any transformers movie remake:
1) It has a good and entertaining plot
2) It has stunning artistic quality in the visual effects
3) That peter cullen is optimus prime
You can argue til your blue in the face as to what the characters look like and the technology bullshit of disappearing parts or even including the dinobots. The appeal of the Transformers has always been about the characters. They weren't just cute toys, or an afternoon cartoon. The brilliance has always been about the characters. Who they were, what they did, as well as what they transformed into. It was the total package.
The total package includes Peter's voice. It's unmistakable, unduplicatable, and undeniably the best!
Okay, the title "web hermit" brought forth images of a guy 80 lbs over (or under!) weight, hairy beard, and beer cans around his desk top computer doing nothing but surfing.
Pure FUD. Oohhhhh, feel fear/pity/shame for the weirdo who spends all day at the computer! It's a stigma, as the article says, and it's become more and more acceptable, as the article says. That's because using the web makes sense. Hell if you work from home all day, why not have your groceries delivered? Accepting a delivery takes 10 seconds while going to the store could take an hour. That's one more hour to make money working, or kill farm mephisto in Diablo 2 five more times and hope he drops that's unique you've been looking for, thus achieving a little more happiness than the fool next door who barely understands a computer.
The whole point of the web is more freedom, independence and opportunity. People are taking advantage of this. No one said everyone online is creating a bomb shelter with a fiber link or that once you surf the web for 4 hours you become Agoraphobic. The article doesn't even have any good facts or figures. Who says you aren't going out to meet people? Who says you aren't socializing with neighbors? Who says you aren't exercising 3 three times a week? The only fact the article states is that more and more people are using the web to get the things they need, and it suddenly jumps to the conclusion that everyone who does this is a "web hermit."
And most importantly, no one said you aren't bangin' your girlfriend every 4 hours because you work from home and have plenty of time for impromtu sex! Who cares if you found your gf in a bar or two states away playing the same online game as you. If you like her, and she likes you, and you have a healthy sexual compatibility (provided she moves in with you - this is important), then fuck the world. You are most definitely still in the gene pool.
A crisis is brewing in the middle east as lebanon and Israel renew hostilities. A crisis is what's happening in darfur. A crisis is the shit that's going on in our own federal government that's screwing over the common man and giving the wealth more and more money.
The computer gaming industry collapsing because of it's own inability to innovate? I hardly call that a crisis.
Any good programmer worth their salt would have programmed this to cut out their tongue, cut off their fingers one by one, slice off their eyelids and force them to watch "Biodome" 5 times in succession.
I want those fuckers to live painfully damnit, just like the rest of us do when we have too much spam.
The arguments for these patents, that they benefit the little guy, almost sound like a bad attempt at "social justice" rhetoric from my fellow capitalists. Capitalism is not about the little guy, it's about property rights. It has no concept of fairness except allowing people to keep their own property secure. Screw all of the aforementioned crap. Let's truly maximize property rights with a new legal idea of "the right to make new property."
Just to set things straight, I don't think this was the vision Adam Smith had for capitalism. I would call what you just said as "american capitalism" which blindly believes that 1) The free market solves everything and 2) that the american market is in fact free. Neither of these things is true, and if Adam were to see the situation we have in the US we have now, I would think he would agree with many of us who think the american market is not truly as free as it should be.
The human race is very resilient, and we are near the top in the list of most resilient species. In order to threaten the species, a very large, world wide, cataclismic event has to occur, such as the sun exploding, or asteroid slamming into us, or a large scale nuclear war.
Earthquakes,Tsunami, Hurricanes, terrorist attacks, and pandemics scare the shit out of people, because they are very dangerous to an individual person. As far as the species as a whole is concerned this is a nosebleed. We've always had to deal with them, it's just gotten better and easier to do so in the modern era.
So basically, in order to survive the next hundred years, as a species, I suggest we take all the nukes on the planet, put them into orbit, and design a guidance tracking system to shoot them at passing asteroids, all the while trying to enhance our ability to track asteroids coming close to us and improving our ability to live in space (or find another habitable world). That will take care of all the big things I can think of.
The only wild card in this is in global warming. The question becomes if the climate changes too rapidly, will we as a species be able to adapt? It's unclear if global warming will cause massive climate change and thus endanger the species so quickly. As such my last suggestion is to beat every world leader over the head until they accept the fact that drastic climate change is occuring, that it's danger is on the level of a nuclear winter, and that we need to dedicate lots of independent resources (I.E. leave the fucking oil companies out of it) to study it.
Having the ability to beat every world leader over the head, however, will solve all the other more managable disasters on this planet and we should be able to live in a utopia by the 22nd century.
As in, don't forget to add Web 2.0 as a new dictionary term.
Lame joke, but that's what it is.
Being the buff manly man I am, I took the option at one point to have some cavities drilled without drugs. The option was only presented to me, however, because the cavities were superficial and did not go beyond the enamel in my tooth. It did feel funny and a little uncomfortable, but not to the point of blinding pain or anything that scary. It was pretty short, and had it gone on for much longer I would have probably opted for drugs.
However, if I need a root canal, which I hope I never do, heavy doses of novicane will be requested. The nerve has a funny way of knowing it's being removed regardless of by drill or by plasma lance.