No, it's a generic term for the enemy and civilians in Iraq (probably Afghanistan too though I'm not sure). It's very similar to the way soldiers called Viet Cong Charlie or Germans Gerries. I'm not sure how the word originally came into military slang, maybe Hadji from Johnny Quest?
Re:The cost of the OS is not the primary issue.
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Ubuntu on a Dime
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Jokes aside, who considers the price of the OS the primary issue?. Way to miss the point. The primary issue is "does this OS run the applications I want to run".
People without $1500+ dollars to drop on a brand new machine, which is pretty much everybody. And most people don't really use their computers for anything that FOSS can't accomplish fairly easily. Not everybody has a good job and plenty of disposable income.
Sitting next to each other watching something and not having anything in common but to be annoyed by the chattering teens behind us is not what I'd consider a social experience.
I'll give you a hint: those chattering teens behind you are having a social experience. Maybe if you unclenched your ass cheeks and cracked a couple jokes with your date you would also have a social experience.
Why are there so many people that are annoyed at talking during movies? I've *never* had someone else ruin my movie experience by talking too loudly. Just ignore it.
The University of Utah and BYU are light years apart. Utah is a normal public university. There's less partying than most schools because there are lots of Mormons (although they drink too when they're 18 and away from home for the first time) and most students work full time jobs. Salt Lake City is a normal, progressive city. Our liquor laws are strict but not more so than other states (Pennsylvania, Kansas, South Carolina IIRC have similarly restrictive laws).
BYU is in Provo, which is probably the most conservative city in the country. It's owned by the church so they have strict requirements for dress, behavior, cohabitation, etc. But it's a religious school. What would you expect? You don't have to go there. That's for people that have chosen that specific lifestyle and religion.
Life for an average, non-Mormon Utahn is pretty much the same as everywhere else. In California or Texas the government is still run by corporation-loving religious nutbags. Whether they're Catholic, Muslim, Baptist, Mormon, or any other religion makes little difference to me. And in Utah the predominant religion actually focuses on keeping families together and making sure everybody is working hard and staying honest. So we have little crime and people take care of each other.
I'm not originally from Utah, and I'm as un-Mormon as they come but GP poster is just whining. The type of control the LDS Church exerts on politics in Utah is almost always benign, sometimes beneficial, and in other cases they're pretty much exactly like any other large, powerful religion.
If he doesn't want to live in Utah County and be around those family-first freedom-spouting nutjobs, there's a perfectly nice, normal city 30 miles to the north. He can commute.
Second, a big problem is that if you pick up a rock, you own it. In the western US mining districts, those rocks are laden with natural concentrations of all sorts of low-value heavy minerals that are magically transformed into "toxic waste" the minute you touch it. This has arguably been the biggest killer of new mining. The obligation to scrub natural mineral formations of elements with no economical value very substantially increases the cost because you end up "mining" metals that have no value. This is particularly problematic for things like rare earth metals -- the mineral complexes are intrinsically "toxic waste" under standard regulatory regimes. It doesn't matter that they are natural, the mining company is obligated to treat nature as a superfund site.
Nobody is going to come after you for picking up natural rocks and placing them back down again. Mining companies dig up large amounts of minerals and use chemical and physical processes to refine them to very high concentrations. That's not natural, and if companies leave waste and/or tailings they need to be responsible for their safe disposal. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
FWIW I grew up in NE Nevada and 90% of my friends and family still work in the mining industry. They all think they're overregulated even though OSHA and the EPA barely enforce anything in Nevada. The reason new mines aren't added in the US is because the cost of labor is too high and safety/environmental regulations in other countries are barely existent. The idea that the EPA is some overbearing governmental agency that is always stepping into mining efforts is pure bullshit. They give hand slap fines and never force polluters to stop, even in cases where there are decades of willful disregard for federal regulations. For years the agency has been filled with people who have very high level connections to mining, energy, and manufacturing corporations. The idea that mining companies are somehow afraid of the EPA is nonsense.
Reminds me so much of 1984... back when the book was written, most of what went on was considered so absurd no one could possibly have tolerated it to let it get that far, but now look here at how governments can get away with it and even manage to make it grow.
Actually most of 1984 was a direct attack on the excesses of the socialist movement, particularly in Russia and of course the UK as Orwell was English. This type of mass manipulation had already been used very effectively in Europe in the early 20th century. Remember that it was Goebbels that said "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." It's still a very prescient novel, but you might be giving Orwell a little too much credit.
Don't forget that even those that claim European ancestry have always done so more from a cultural standpoint than genetic. And with Mexico's revolutions and social change since colonial times the aristocracy has been replaced more than a few times in most areas. If you compare most "white" Mexicans with Iberians you can see the differences pretty clearly.
I probably should've expanded on my point. Desegregation didn't cause a change in racial attitudes in the US, rather a change in racial attitudes in the US forced desegregation. As your point regarding slavery illustrates, changing the law is relatively simple but doesn't necessarily cause society to change. It's usually the other way around.
African Americans have voted overwhelmingly for Democratic presidential candidates in the last few decades (usually 90% or more) regardless of the color of their skin. The difference between historical numbers and the 2008 election is marginal.
You are being too nostalgic. Gimmicky games can be made for any control setup. There were crappy novelty games for the 8-bit generation and before as well.
Advances in technology open up new ways to interact, which can create the opportunity for new types of games and advance current genres. I can't speak for the quality of this particular system, but new ways to interact with video games is a good thing. Your complaint isn't really relevant.
That's not really as constant as you make it seem. In many countries that have cheap booze and very tolerant attitudes toward alcohol people get drunk like crazy (Spain, UK being examples) while others do not. I'm sure if alcohol prices dropped in Scandinavian countries there would be more drinking, but cultural factors are probably more important.
If Americans were REALLY interested in the welfare of Chinese people, they'd allow free trade with China. Oh wait, oops, this will cause American manufacturing to completely collapse. Can't do that then.
The US doesn't have free trade with China? What planet do you live on? We definitely have our trade disputes and protectionism, but that runs both ways and is in no way specific to China. We have had similar tariff and trade disputes with every other country that is a major trading partner (easy examples being Japanese auto manufacturing and Canadian lumber).
As for the US attempting to make China impoverished, I can't even imagine the version of reality where you think this is happening. The trade relationship the United States and China have built since the cultural revolution is the single largest reason for the growth of the Chinese economy and economic progress of Chinese citizens. (I am not claiming the Americans are responsible for China's progress, just that we have been their most important economic partner for most of the last 30 years.)
You have a completely misinformed view of the Sino-American relationship. I suggest you take a second look at the situation.
And all of this is completely irrelevant. China is not somehow excused from treating their citizens like animals because the US is protectionist or imperialist in its trade policies. They are separate issues. You are only aiding an oppressive government by shifting blame away to the "evil Americans." China's ongoing human rights violations are horrifying, and are rightfully reviled by the rest of the world.
A lot of us actually like literature classes. I think deconstructing a novel and trying to analyze the themes and imagery is pretty interesting, and in fact enhances the experience of reading a good book. I imagine most people that would sign up for a sci-fi/fantasy literature class would know what they're getting into.
Don't let your biases ruin the fun for everybody else!
But back to the original topic, I would stay away from big multi-part epics and stick to short novels and short stories. That way you can cover more ground and give the kids a sampling from a lot of different authors and styles. I would also give out a few handouts that are simply lists of "major" works by a lot of different authors, that way after the class is over anybody interested can dig deeper. One of my English teachers did that often in high school and it opened my eyes to a lot of stuff that I really enjoyed.
First I'll ignore your use of "Darwinism" as representative of some sort of dogmatic ethos, and assume you are talking about the modern scientific theory of evolution.
But ignoring that, of course evolution is flawed. It's science! Science has to correspond to reality, and the tools we have to observe our world are pretty limited.
That's the difference between science and abstract philosophy theories. It's not enough to invent these grand theories of how everything came to be, we have to do the dirty work and make sure those theories accurately reflect observable reality. A side effect of the scientific process is the theories that make it through are almost always incomplete and severely limited, and sometimes they're a giant hack that's obviously flawed to everybody involved (although certainly not the case with evolution). But until you can prove that theory wrong it's the most likely answer.
There are many questions regarding the process of evolution about which we have a limited understanding, and some of our current concepts are likely to be proven false. So in some ways it can certainly be regarded as flawed. But the various theories and concepts comprising the modern theory of evolution have been proven and refined so many thousands of times that the basic principles must be acknowledged as true by anyone that believes in science.
'm not a big TV watcher, but I can think of a couple: the Cosby show and Fresh Prince. I haven't seen much of either show, but I think the Fresh Prince guy would have to be in very rare company even among lawyers to live like that -- either that or living beyond his means.
Yeah! I was wondering when my old television knowledge would would come in handy. Uncle Phil went to Harvard Law School, was a federal judge, and was also on the board of the NAACP. And on the Cosby Show, Cliff Huxtable was an OBGYN and Clair Huxtable was a partner at a large law firm. So their lifestyles might actually be fairly accurate, at least as far as sitcoms are realistic.
They are made for the sole purpose of being sold and making as much money as possible. It is hard to count something as expression when it is made by hundreds of different people and controlled by a board of directors.
What about movies? Theatre? Magazines? Newspapers? Websites? All of these would fit your definition.
We need to quit propping up these countries and stay the hell out of everybody's business and mind our own, sadly something we haven't done since before WWII.
No, we've been doing that pretty much as long as we've been the major military power in the Western Hemisphere (more or less after the fall of imperialism and the Mexican War of Independence which happened very early in the 19th century). Read up on stuff like the filibusters, specifically William Wallace and the attempt to build a Nicaraguan Canal. This is the type of action that caused Texas and Florida to become American and led to the US-Mexican war, and many attempts were made at doing the same to Northern Mexican states and Cuba. We've been supporting the overthrow of countries and the establishment of friendly governments for a very long time.
You don't have to wait, there are large parts of the SW United States that already have massive Mexican-American majorities and where most people speak Spanish at home. Los Angeles is about 50% Hispanic and growing (although not all are Mexican). And even if your prediction of Spanish-speaking majorities occurs across large parts of the country, they will still be Americans speaking Spanish. Or do you not consider Mexican-Americans to be citizens?
That's funny. I have known two people that thought the original Xbox controllers were really comfortable, but for most people they were horrible. I actually had to slide my right hand up and down a bit to move between the right analog and white/black buttons. I couldn't imagine how it was for kids or people with really small hands.
I guess that you're American, though, in which case your country benefits economically since the rest of the world has to pay you for IP, similar to the situation with Microsoft, BSA, RIAA, and MPAA, companies and organizations your government will do anything to benefit since your trade depends on IP.
The RIAA is an organization that is active in the United States only. Perhaps you meant the big four record companies, in which case only one of them, Warner, is owned by an American corporation. The other three are Sony (Japan), Universal (owned by Vivendi, which is French), and EMI (UK). The MPAA is also an organization that is active in the United States only, and only half of their members (Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros.) are owned by American companies. The other three are Sony, Universal, and 20th Century Fox (Australia).
Multinational corporations are manipulating laws in their favor all across the globe. In fact, a large amount (most?) of the United States' most recent copyright foolishness was enacted in order to meet global treaty requirements. Certainly there are legitimate arguments to make against American companies, but you apparently can't be bothered to do even the bare minimum of research in order to make them.
The idea that the US is alone in spreading copyright "propaganda" (as you choose to call it) is patently ridiculous, so please stop your silly anti-American ranting. You are only showcasing your own ignorance.
There has been a resurgence of breast-feeding for quite some time. But not every baby can be breast fed. Not all mothers can breast-feed their children even if they wanted to.
So what's wrong with having a wet nurse? Other than cultural squeamishness and possible disease transmission (which is easily prevented), there is no reason why wet nursing shouldn't be the first option for mothers who can't or won't breastfeed. I would be extremely hesitant to give my child baby formula. That should be the last option.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's a generic term for the enemy and civilians in Iraq (probably Afghanistan too though I'm not sure). It's very similar to the way soldiers called Viet Cong Charlie or Germans Gerries. I'm not sure how the word originally came into military slang, maybe Hadji from Johnny Quest?
People without $1500+ dollars to drop on a brand new machine, which is pretty much everybody. And most people don't really use their computers for anything that FOSS can't accomplish fairly easily. Not everybody has a good job and plenty of disposable income.
I'll give you a hint: those chattering teens behind you are having a social experience. Maybe if you unclenched your ass cheeks and cracked a couple jokes with your date you would also have a social experience.
Why are there so many people that are annoyed at talking during movies? I've *never* had someone else ruin my movie experience by talking too loudly. Just ignore it.
The University of Utah and BYU are light years apart. Utah is a normal public university. There's less partying than most schools because there are lots of Mormons (although they drink too when they're 18 and away from home for the first time) and most students work full time jobs. Salt Lake City is a normal, progressive city. Our liquor laws are strict but not more so than other states (Pennsylvania, Kansas, South Carolina IIRC have similarly restrictive laws).
BYU is in Provo, which is probably the most conservative city in the country. It's owned by the church so they have strict requirements for dress, behavior, cohabitation, etc. But it's a religious school. What would you expect? You don't have to go there. That's for people that have chosen that specific lifestyle and religion.
Life for an average, non-Mormon Utahn is pretty much the same as everywhere else. In California or Texas the government is still run by corporation-loving religious nutbags. Whether they're Catholic, Muslim, Baptist, Mormon, or any other religion makes little difference to me. And in Utah the predominant religion actually focuses on keeping families together and making sure everybody is working hard and staying honest. So we have little crime and people take care of each other.
I'm not originally from Utah, and I'm as un-Mormon as they come but GP poster is just whining. The type of control the LDS Church exerts on politics in Utah is almost always benign, sometimes beneficial, and in other cases they're pretty much exactly like any other large, powerful religion.
If he doesn't want to live in Utah County and be around those family-first freedom-spouting nutjobs, there's a perfectly nice, normal city 30 miles to the north. He can commute.
Nobody is going to come after you for picking up natural rocks and placing them back down again. Mining companies dig up large amounts of minerals and use chemical and physical processes to refine them to very high concentrations. That's not natural, and if companies leave waste and/or tailings they need to be responsible for their safe disposal. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
FWIW I grew up in NE Nevada and 90% of my friends and family still work in the mining industry. They all think they're overregulated even though OSHA and the EPA barely enforce anything in Nevada. The reason new mines aren't added in the US is because the cost of labor is too high and safety/environmental regulations in other countries are barely existent. The idea that the EPA is some overbearing governmental agency that is always stepping into mining efforts is pure bullshit. They give hand slap fines and never force polluters to stop, even in cases where there are decades of willful disregard for federal regulations. For years the agency has been filled with people who have very high level connections to mining, energy, and manufacturing corporations. The idea that mining companies are somehow afraid of the EPA is nonsense.
Actually most of 1984 was a direct attack on the excesses of the socialist movement, particularly in Russia and of course the UK as Orwell was English. This type of mass manipulation had already been used very effectively in Europe in the early 20th century. Remember that it was Goebbels that said "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." It's still a very prescient novel, but you might be giving Orwell a little too much credit.
This is the creepiest slashdot analogy ever.
Don't forget that even those that claim European ancestry have always done so more from a cultural standpoint than genetic. And with Mexico's revolutions and social change since colonial times the aristocracy has been replaced more than a few times in most areas. If you compare most "white" Mexicans with Iberians you can see the differences pretty clearly.
I probably should've expanded on my point. Desegregation didn't cause a change in racial attitudes in the US, rather a change in racial attitudes in the US forced desegregation. As your point regarding slavery illustrates, changing the law is relatively simple but doesn't necessarily cause society to change. It's usually the other way around.
African Americans have voted overwhelmingly for Democratic presidential candidates in the last few decades (usually 90% or more) regardless of the color of their skin. The difference between historical numbers and the 2008 election is marginal.
You're confusing cause and effect.
You are being too nostalgic. Gimmicky games can be made for any control setup. There were crappy novelty games for the 8-bit generation and before as well.
Advances in technology open up new ways to interact, which can create the opportunity for new types of games and advance current genres. I can't speak for the quality of this particular system, but new ways to interact with video games is a good thing. Your complaint isn't really relevant.
That's not really as constant as you make it seem. In many countries that have cheap booze and very tolerant attitudes toward alcohol people get drunk like crazy (Spain, UK being examples) while others do not. I'm sure if alcohol prices dropped in Scandinavian countries there would be more drinking, but cultural factors are probably more important.
I hate US copyright law as much as anyone, but comparing the DMCA and broadcast flag to the torture and murder of addicts is absurd.
The US doesn't have free trade with China? What planet do you live on? We definitely have our trade disputes and protectionism, but that runs both ways and is in no way specific to China. We have had similar tariff and trade disputes with every other country that is a major trading partner (easy examples being Japanese auto manufacturing and Canadian lumber).
As for the US attempting to make China impoverished, I can't even imagine the version of reality where you think this is happening. The trade relationship the United States and China have built since the cultural revolution is the single largest reason for the growth of the Chinese economy and economic progress of Chinese citizens. (I am not claiming the Americans are responsible for China's progress, just that we have been their most important economic partner for most of the last 30 years.)
You have a completely misinformed view of the Sino-American relationship. I suggest you take a second look at the situation.
And all of this is completely irrelevant. China is not somehow excused from treating their citizens like animals because the US is protectionist or imperialist in its trade policies. They are separate issues. You are only aiding an oppressive government by shifting blame away to the "evil Americans." China's ongoing human rights violations are horrifying, and are rightfully reviled by the rest of the world.
A lot of us actually like literature classes. I think deconstructing a novel and trying to analyze the themes and imagery is pretty interesting, and in fact enhances the experience of reading a good book. I imagine most people that would sign up for a sci-fi/fantasy literature class would know what they're getting into.
Don't let your biases ruin the fun for everybody else!
But back to the original topic, I would stay away from big multi-part epics and stick to short novels and short stories. That way you can cover more ground and give the kids a sampling from a lot of different authors and styles. I would also give out a few handouts that are simply lists of "major" works by a lot of different authors, that way after the class is over anybody interested can dig deeper. One of my English teachers did that often in high school and it opened my eyes to a lot of stuff that I really enjoyed.
First I'll ignore your use of "Darwinism" as representative of some sort of dogmatic ethos, and assume you are talking about the modern scientific theory of evolution.
But ignoring that, of course evolution is flawed. It's science! Science has to correspond to reality, and the tools we have to observe our world are pretty limited.
That's the difference between science and abstract philosophy theories. It's not enough to invent these grand theories of how everything came to be, we have to do the dirty work and make sure those theories accurately reflect observable reality. A side effect of the scientific process is the theories that make it through are almost always incomplete and severely limited, and sometimes they're a giant hack that's obviously flawed to everybody involved (although certainly not the case with evolution). But until you can prove that theory wrong it's the most likely answer.
There are many questions regarding the process of evolution about which we have a limited understanding, and some of our current concepts are likely to be proven false. So in some ways it can certainly be regarded as flawed. But the various theories and concepts comprising the modern theory of evolution have been proven and refined so many thousands of times that the basic principles must be acknowledged as true by anyone that believes in science.
Yeah! I was wondering when my old television knowledge would would come in handy. Uncle Phil went to Harvard Law School, was a federal judge, and was also on the board of the NAACP. And on the Cosby Show, Cliff Huxtable was an OBGYN and Clair Huxtable was a partner at a large law firm. So their lifestyles might actually be fairly accurate, at least as far as sitcoms are realistic.
Yeah good thing all those 4-year comp sci programs require calligraphy and linguistics.
What about movies? Theatre? Magazines? Newspapers? Websites? All of these would fit your definition.
No, we've been doing that pretty much as long as we've been the major military power in the Western Hemisphere (more or less after the fall of imperialism and the Mexican War of Independence which happened very early in the 19th century). Read up on stuff like the filibusters, specifically William Wallace and the attempt to build a Nicaraguan Canal. This is the type of action that caused Texas and Florida to become American and led to the US-Mexican war, and many attempts were made at doing the same to Northern Mexican states and Cuba. We've been supporting the overthrow of countries and the establishment of friendly governments for a very long time.
You don't have to wait, there are large parts of the SW United States that already have massive Mexican-American majorities and where most people speak Spanish at home. Los Angeles is about 50% Hispanic and growing (although not all are Mexican). And even if your prediction of Spanish-speaking majorities occurs across large parts of the country, they will still be Americans speaking Spanish. Or do you not consider Mexican-Americans to be citizens?
That's funny. I have known two people that thought the original Xbox controllers were really comfortable, but for most people they were horrible. I actually had to slide my right hand up and down a bit to move between the right analog and white/black buttons. I couldn't imagine how it was for kids or people with really small hands.
The RIAA is an organization that is active in the United States only. Perhaps you meant the big four record companies, in which case only one of them, Warner, is owned by an American corporation. The other three are Sony (Japan), Universal (owned by Vivendi, which is French), and EMI (UK). The MPAA is also an organization that is active in the United States only, and only half of their members (Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros.) are owned by American companies. The other three are Sony, Universal, and 20th Century Fox (Australia).
Multinational corporations are manipulating laws in their favor all across the globe. In fact, a large amount (most?) of the United States' most recent copyright foolishness was enacted in order to meet global treaty requirements. Certainly there are legitimate arguments to make against American companies, but you apparently can't be bothered to do even the bare minimum of research in order to make them.
The idea that the US is alone in spreading copyright "propaganda" (as you choose to call it) is patently ridiculous, so please stop your silly anti-American ranting. You are only showcasing your own ignorance.
So what's wrong with having a wet nurse? Other than cultural squeamishness and possible disease transmission (which is easily prevented), there is no reason why wet nursing shouldn't be the first option for mothers who can't or won't breastfeed. I would be extremely hesitant to give my child baby formula. That should be the last option.