Yeah, and every time people see those tactics they're reminded of petty grade-school fingerpointing. Completely classless. Believe me, Apple will never resort to airing its dirty laundry in public, at least not while Jobs is in charge.
Instead, they'll rely on the rumor mill and their fanbase to do it for them. There's a reason we're reading this in the Times and not on apple.com.
Yeah! Fuck those little people! They're all so stupid for not caring about stuff that's completely irrelevant to their daily lives. Why, oh why, are we of the intelligentsia saddled with such deadweight? I propose a system of targeted eugenics. Let's start with women, children, and people with 20/20 vision.
It doesn't bother me, but properly it should be either "the Times' editing" or "the Times's editing," depending on what sounds better to you. An apostrophe indicating a possessive isn't supposed to split the newspaper's name--it's not called the Time, is it?
Good point. Sounds logical. But I have to tell you, the rowdy, misanthropic "acting out" I've seen in suburban America beats anything I've ever seen (in everyday life, anyway) here in NYC... or does it? Maybe it's just that the bounds of acceptable behavior are different. People screaming in the street at 4am is more annoying in Milwaukee than it is in New York. Then again, no, that can't be true--suburbanites are definitely less considerate at the cinema. That's been consistent everywhere I've been.
Living here, you do get used to strangers, but I don't think that fact makes you any likelier to behave like they're your pals. In fact, isn't it actually fear, not familiarity, that makes you louder and more aggressive? That's how it works in the animal kingdom. I doubt we're much different.
There was a study a few years back quantifying the "politeness" of various American cities. Basically, grad students went around pretending to be injured, and kept track of how often people would give up their seats in trains, buses, waiting rooms, places like that. I don't know where New York was ranked, but I remember for sure the rudest turned out to be Boston. Their explanation: more college students per capita than anywhere else. As recent transplants from the suburbs--an environment where you can go weeks interacting only with people you know--they haven't had time to learn the unspoken rules of etiquette among strangers.
I guess you could also point out that college students are kinda oblivious no matter where they grew up, but maybe the researchers broke "politeness" down by age group or something like that. I wish I could find a reference to the study--it would have been published in '98 or so--but Google's been giving me no joy. In fact, all it's giving me is anecdotes about how rude New Yorkers are supposed to be. Ah, well. I'll ask around. Maybe I made it up.
Can I ask you, just out of curiosity, where you're living now and where you were living in NYC? I'm asking because I, too, grew really sick of the city while I was living in the fratboy paradise of the UES, but after a few months I moved to a neighborhood that fits me a lot better. Thing is, I wouldn't even have known that greener pastures existed if I hadn't already been spending most of my time there. I had a friend who left NYC for California long ago, but when he came back to visit, he was surprised at how friendly my neighborhood is compared to his memories of the city. So he claims.
I know there's no city out there can accommodate every taste--a lot of people hate having to put up with the hassles, understandably--but I'm wondering if a lot of disenchantment doesn't arise simply because people here never find their niche.
OK, look. Behaving like an accountant is fine if you want to associate with people who were also raised that way. Managers at CSFB, for instance, probably won't hire you as a research analyst unless you fit into their culture, which is what you call "behaving like a human being." There's nothing wrong with it, and I'll admit it's what I'm most comfortable with, personally.
But you've also got to realize that other people, people in other industries (entertainment, art, truck driving, to name a few), are more likely to be put off by your attitude, and that's just as natural as you being put off by theirs. Hell, polite society in China demands you use your phone in the theater; going to the movies is a social experience in that culture. They'd probably say you're the one not behaving like a human being--you're being impolite and antisocial. And who's to say who's right? It's a postmodern world, a postmodern world.
Here's the point. I'm saying life in large cities, like New York, teaches accountants and rap artists to get along with each other. It's a learning experience that's hard to find in suburbs, exurbs, and farms. Is that really so illogical?
"...big cities, were people tend to be a bit more unruly and care a lot less about how their behaviour affects others..."
That's not been my experience. Residents of large cities like Tokyo or New York are much more considerate of others than are the residents of suburban "communities". Here's a theory: City kids grow up learning how to behave in public--how to be considerate, diplomatic, and all that--but the children of suburbanites don't necessarily have that upbringing. Moreover, people who move to the city from elsewhere either adapt or leave. This process fills cities with people who get along with other people, and suburbs with folks who do better in privacy, which makes sense from a certain viewpoint.
That's not to say the crowds at every theater share your idea of etiquette. Where I live (NYC), you have to learn which movie theaters it's OK to be rowdy in, and which ones attract a more uptight crowd. (Myself, I'm rather uptight.) Once you've learned which ones to avoid, you'll rarely, if ever, encounter any problems.
Where in NY? Which theaters? I live in Manhattan and I've never had a problem with noisy patrons. If you're going to a theater in Harlem, of course you'll find the atmosphere different from what you're accustomed to. If you want casual and chatty, go to the Magic Johnson; if you want silence but for the occasional laugh, stick to the ones below 96th. Everyone's happier that way.
I live in NYC too, and I suppose it's pricey. But how often have you been annoyed? In five years of going to the movies, about 100 shows, I've almost never had a problem with noisy or obnoxious patrons--pretty much only at the Magic Johnson on 125th, where you're out of place if you aren't yammering. It's because the uptown kids aren't quite so uptight. Different theaters, different neighborhoods, different expectations.
On the other hand, whenever I've been to suburban/podunk theaters (mostly Sacramento, Los Angeles, and Milwaukee), there's always been crying babies, tweens on cell phones, and gigantic adults farting, belching, and generally carrying on. Perhaps living in New York teaches you how to get along better with other people.
The Wrights weren't innovators, but Cayley was? Oh God, give me a break. You can find prior art for any invention if you try hard enough. "Cayley didn't invent the heavier-than-air flying machine--the Chinese had been flying kites for centuries!" "The Chinese? Robert Bacon designed the balloon and flying wing in the 13th century!" "China had hot air balloons in the 2nd century AD!" "Fuck you, they stole the whole idea of flight from birds and ladybugs!" Yeah, you could go on forever with this.
And who said Ford invented the car? Does anyone think that? Ford's innovations lay in the business processes that enabled mass production on a consumerist scale. Of course, he didn't really invent those, either--all his ideas were ripped off from other sources, particularly the assembly line, which he'd seen in Chicago slaughterhouses years before opening his first factory. So the fuck what?
You've still got to explain why all these brilliant scientists and engineers went to the United States, rather than Canada, Australia, or even Britain. I'd say it was because America, unique in its faith in progress and its embrace of modernity, was already renowned for a culture that accepted and rewarded innovation. Who are the famous innovators of the late 18th and early 19th centuries? You've got a bunch of Americans: Edison, Ford, Bell, the Wright brothers, all stateside born and bred. And the relative ease with which top thinkers could immigrate and find work didn't hurt either.
That's why it's such a fucking shame that America's become so hostile to outside talent.
"we'll just ignore the fact that it can't deal with a hugely popular (in the geek sector) format"
And you're asking us to ignore the fact that OGG can't deal with a hugely popular (everywhere) player. What's more important to you, the player and its design and interface, or the file format it happens to use?
Besides, OGG isn't even popular in the geek community. It's maybe popular in the geek loser community. Get over it.
Yeah, people would still invent stuff if patents didn't exist, but it's really the pace and direction of research that patents (and the concept of IP in general) influences. How much longer would we have had to wait for AZT if chemicals were unpatentable? How much longer would we have had to wait for blue lasers? Go ahead and condemn the patent system if you like, but it's done a lot more for us than you seem to realize.
Maybe you should stop listening to "something" and start listening to people who matter: "We plan to create future versions of Microsoft Office for the Mac that support both PowerPC and Intel processors," said Roz Ho, general manager of Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit.
OK, what if everyone on one side of the planet lay flat on their stomachs and farted really, really hard in tandem? Isn't that basically the foundation of rocket science?
Holy hell, that crater, and the fires up in the mountains all around... wow. Looks like the only reason no one was killed was that the rig was burning for a few minutes before it blew, giving everyone time to run. I'd have loved to have been the guy who first noticed the "danger: explosives" sign going up in flames.
But the most impressive thing to me is, did they really rebuild that entire stretch of highway, including the railroad tracks, in THIRTY-SIX HOURS?!!? What the fuck! You've gotta send UDOT to New York, there's potholes here on Broadway that haven't been filled for months. I'm almost inclined to believe it's a propaganda tool by that news channel to make Utah look like some, I don't know, freeway utopia.
"Sure as fuck seems that it DOES mean what most people think it does. What kind of crack are you guys smoking and is a creationist your dealer?" -- I applaud you!
And I think you're a pretentious twat. There are many forms of irony--dramatic, verbal, situational--and if don't recognize irony as such when you see it, ain't no shame in that, but you can at least refrain from pointing it out as if you're some kind of amateur Kafka, please.
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Yeah, and every time people see those tactics they're reminded of petty grade-school fingerpointing. Completely classless. Believe me, Apple will never resort to airing its dirty laundry in public, at least not while Jobs is in charge.
Instead, they'll rely on the rumor mill and their fanbase to do it for them. There's a reason we're reading this in the Times and not on apple.com.
Yeah! Fuck those little people! They're all so stupid for not caring about stuff that's completely irrelevant to their daily lives. Why, oh why, are we of the intelligentsia saddled with such deadweight? I propose a system of targeted eugenics. Let's start with women, children, and people with 20/20 vision.
It doesn't bother me, but properly it should be either "the Times' editing" or "the Times's editing," depending on what sounds better to you. An apostrophe indicating a possessive isn't supposed to split the newspaper's name--it's not called the Time, is it?
Ah, Wikipedia, bastion of truth and objectivity! This article is probably more accurate.
Good point. Sounds logical. But I have to tell you, the rowdy, misanthropic "acting out" I've seen in suburban America beats anything I've ever seen (in everyday life, anyway) here in NYC... or does it? Maybe it's just that the bounds of acceptable behavior are different. People screaming in the street at 4am is more annoying in Milwaukee than it is in New York. Then again, no, that can't be true--suburbanites are definitely less considerate at the cinema. That's been consistent everywhere I've been.
Living here, you do get used to strangers, but I don't think that fact makes you any likelier to behave like they're your pals. In fact, isn't it actually fear, not familiarity, that makes you louder and more aggressive? That's how it works in the animal kingdom. I doubt we're much different.
There was a study a few years back quantifying the "politeness" of various American cities. Basically, grad students went around pretending to be injured, and kept track of how often people would give up their seats in trains, buses, waiting rooms, places like that. I don't know where New York was ranked, but I remember for sure the rudest turned out to be Boston. Their explanation: more college students per capita than anywhere else. As recent transplants from the suburbs--an environment where you can go weeks interacting only with people you know--they haven't had time to learn the unspoken rules of etiquette among strangers.
I guess you could also point out that college students are kinda oblivious no matter where they grew up, but maybe the researchers broke "politeness" down by age group or something like that. I wish I could find a reference to the study--it would have been published in '98 or so--but Google's been giving me no joy. In fact, all it's giving me is anecdotes about how rude New Yorkers are supposed to be. Ah, well. I'll ask around. Maybe I made it up.
Can I ask you, just out of curiosity, where you're living now and where you were living in NYC? I'm asking because I, too, grew really sick of the city while I was living in the fratboy paradise of the UES, but after a few months I moved to a neighborhood that fits me a lot better. Thing is, I wouldn't even have known that greener pastures existed if I hadn't already been spending most of my time there. I had a friend who left NYC for California long ago, but when he came back to visit, he was surprised at how friendly my neighborhood is compared to his memories of the city. So he claims.
I know there's no city out there can accommodate every taste--a lot of people hate having to put up with the hassles, understandably--but I'm wondering if a lot of disenchantment doesn't arise simply because people here never find their niche.
OK, look. Behaving like an accountant is fine if you want to associate with people who were also raised that way. Managers at CSFB, for instance, probably won't hire you as a research analyst unless you fit into their culture, which is what you call "behaving like a human being." There's nothing wrong with it, and I'll admit it's what I'm most comfortable with, personally.
But you've also got to realize that other people, people in other industries (entertainment, art, truck driving, to name a few), are more likely to be put off by your attitude, and that's just as natural as you being put off by theirs. Hell, polite society in China demands you use your phone in the theater; going to the movies is a social experience in that culture. They'd probably say you're the one not behaving like a human being--you're being impolite and antisocial. And who's to say who's right? It's a postmodern world, a postmodern world.
Here's the point. I'm saying life in large cities, like New York, teaches accountants and rap artists to get along with each other. It's a learning experience that's hard to find in suburbs, exurbs, and farms. Is that really so illogical?
"...big cities, were people tend to be a bit more unruly and care a lot less about how their behaviour affects others..."
That's not been my experience. Residents of large cities like Tokyo or New York are much more considerate of others than are the residents of suburban "communities". Here's a theory: City kids grow up learning how to behave in public--how to be considerate, diplomatic, and all that--but the children of suburbanites don't necessarily have that upbringing. Moreover, people who move to the city from elsewhere either adapt or leave. This process fills cities with people who get along with other people, and suburbs with folks who do better in privacy, which makes sense from a certain viewpoint.
That's not to say the crowds at every theater share your idea of etiquette. Where I live (NYC), you have to learn which movie theaters it's OK to be rowdy in, and which ones attract a more uptight crowd. (Myself, I'm rather uptight.) Once you've learned which ones to avoid, you'll rarely, if ever, encounter any problems.
Where in NY? Which theaters? I live in Manhattan and I've never had a problem with noisy patrons. If you're going to a theater in Harlem, of course you'll find the atmosphere different from what you're accustomed to. If you want casual and chatty, go to the Magic Johnson; if you want silence but for the occasional laugh, stick to the ones below 96th. Everyone's happier that way.
I live in NYC too, and I suppose it's pricey. But how often have you been annoyed? In five years of going to the movies, about 100 shows, I've almost never had a problem with noisy or obnoxious patrons--pretty much only at the Magic Johnson on 125th, where you're out of place if you aren't yammering. It's because the uptown kids aren't quite so uptight. Different theaters, different neighborhoods, different expectations.
On the other hand, whenever I've been to suburban/podunk theaters (mostly Sacramento, Los Angeles, and Milwaukee), there's always been crying babies, tweens on cell phones, and gigantic adults farting, belching, and generally carrying on. Perhaps living in New York teaches you how to get along better with other people.
The Wrights weren't innovators, but Cayley was? Oh God, give me a break. You can find prior art for any invention if you try hard enough. "Cayley didn't invent the heavier-than-air flying machine--the Chinese had been flying kites for centuries!" "The Chinese? Robert Bacon designed the balloon and flying wing in the 13th century!" "China had hot air balloons in the 2nd century AD!" "Fuck you, they stole the whole idea of flight from birds and ladybugs!" Yeah, you could go on forever with this.
And who said Ford invented the car? Does anyone think that? Ford's innovations lay in the business processes that enabled mass production on a consumerist scale. Of course, he didn't really invent those, either--all his ideas were ripped off from other sources, particularly the assembly line, which he'd seen in Chicago slaughterhouses years before opening his first factory. So the fuck what?
I tire of this.
Oops, I don't know why I thought he was born in Chicago. Thanks for the correction.
You've still got to explain why all these brilliant scientists and engineers went to the United States, rather than Canada, Australia, or even Britain. I'd say it was because America, unique in its faith in progress and its embrace of modernity, was already renowned for a culture that accepted and rewarded innovation. Who are the famous innovators of the late 18th and early 19th centuries? You've got a bunch of Americans: Edison, Ford, Bell, the Wright brothers, all stateside born and bred. And the relative ease with which top thinkers could immigrate and find work didn't hurt either.
That's why it's such a fucking shame that America's become so hostile to outside talent.
You're either 90 years old or an arrogant prick. Which is it?
If that's your idea of DRM, it really sounds like you're going out of your way to find fault here.
You're kidding, right? How is killing wolves for our own purposes any less "natural" than killing mammoths for our own purposes?
See, the problem is that nobody can ever agree on what it means to be "natural," and whether "nature" is a desirable goal in itself.
Uh, you quite clearly are sexist. "We all know it's true"? What the hell?
"we'll just ignore the fact that it can't deal with a hugely popular (in the geek sector) format"
And you're asking us to ignore the fact that OGG can't deal with a hugely popular (everywhere) player. What's more important to you, the player and its design and interface, or the file format it happens to use?
Besides, OGG isn't even popular in the geek community. It's maybe popular in the geek loser community. Get over it.
Yeah, people would still invent stuff if patents didn't exist, but it's really the pace and direction of research that patents (and the concept of IP in general) influences. How much longer would we have had to wait for AZT if chemicals were unpatentable? How much longer would we have had to wait for blue lasers? Go ahead and condemn the patent system if you like, but it's done a lot more for us than you seem to realize.
Oooh, good one! Go fuck yourself.
Maybe you should stop listening to "something" and start listening to people who matter: "We plan to create future versions of Microsoft Office for the Mac that support both PowerPC and Intel processors," said Roz Ho, general manager of Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit.
OK, what if everyone on one side of the planet lay flat on their stomachs and farted really, really hard in tandem? Isn't that basically the foundation of rocket science?
Holy hell, that crater, and the fires up in the mountains all around... wow. Looks like the only reason no one was killed was that the rig was burning for a few minutes before it blew, giving everyone time to run. I'd have loved to have been the guy who first noticed the "danger: explosives" sign going up in flames.
But the most impressive thing to me is, did they really rebuild that entire stretch of highway, including the railroad tracks, in THIRTY-SIX HOURS?!!? What the fuck! You've gotta send UDOT to New York, there's potholes here on Broadway that haven't been filled for months. I'm almost inclined to believe it's a propaganda tool by that news channel to make Utah look like some, I don't know, freeway utopia.
"Sure as fuck seems that it DOES mean what most people think it does. What kind of crack are you guys smoking and is a creationist your dealer?" -- I applaud you!
And I think you're a pretentious twat. There are many forms of irony--dramatic, verbal, situational--and if don't recognize irony as such when you see it, ain't no shame in that, but you can at least refrain from pointing it out as if you're some kind of amateur Kafka, please.