I'm going to wager than given the planet's A) significantly larger surface area and B) the greater gravity there wouldn't be much need or want for stairs.
Fundamentalism knows no boundaries. The collapse of religion would not make the world any better. Sutpid people will always find an excuse to do stupid things.
I've seen people do things with computers that would roughly be equivalent to driving with the engine on fire.
The mental images this invoked required a forceful exertion of my will to prevent me from cracking up at work.
Image #1: Person attempting to drive down highway while car is on fire, confused as to why they're having trouble seeing out the front until a cop pulls them over and throws them out of the car before it explodes.
Image #2: Person calls tech support.
TS: "Tech support, how may I help you?" P: "I can't get my e-mail." TS: "Your computer is turned on, correct?" P: "I pushed the power button." TS: "Did the loading screen appear?" P: "No." TS: "Alright, check your computer. Is everything plugged in?" P: "Yes." TS: "Including the power cord." P: "One second." *Faint hissing sound in the background, minor 'ow' noises as the person checks* P: "Yes." TS: "Are you alright sir? I thought I heard you say 'ouch' a few times." P: "Oh it's nothing, I just nearly burned myself." TS: "Burned yourself? Is your computer running hot?" P: "Well, it's on fire." TS: "It's on fire?" P: "Yes." TS: "Literally?" P: "Yes." TS: "Did you consider that this might be why your computer isn't working?" P: "Don't patronize me! I want to speak to your manager!"
I understand the concept of delaying software until its ready. It's standard practice in many different industries. Anyone who followed Blizzard before WoW would be used to the delays. That's nothing new.
What I have trouble with is how long it all took for so little. Maybe I'm deaf/blind, but I don't have a good understanding of what Vista does.
There's the new GUI, but apparently that slows down system performance significantly compared to XP. That doesn't really seem weird to me, the same was true when I installed OS X on my blueberry iMac (from the generation when they first introduced the other colors). Except, that was back 2001, and the very next version sped things up. WarCraft III actually ran better in 10.1 than in 9 for me.
There's the security that's been ridiculed. I'm not really sure what to think about that. I'm annoyed enough that whenever I clear my cookies I have to "Deny" lots of ad sites.
There's the Xbox Live integration. That's the only feature that interests me at all, and I have an Xbox 360. I don't need Vista to play games on Live.
So I'm left baffled. Vista took 5 years from announcement to release, and I'm left scratching my head. I don't know what they did with that time, what notable features were added or if it makes any sense that it took so long. At face value, which I am loath to judge anything by, it simply looks like Vista is what OS X would have been had it been horribly mismanaged (not to mention 5 years late).
Maybe I'm unenlightened. If so, what am I missing?
I was raised on Macs, when I was 2 I remember my dad had an Apple 512k when I was very, very little. Ah, the good old days of B&W.
Oooh, and then when they brought out the Apple IIx. The idea of having colors, that was exciting. I remember the first time my siblings and I booted that sucker up. We all went "WoW" at the pretty colors. It was amazing.
I'd keep going, but my brain would fry from nostalgia.
There were some Quadras in there, a Centris, a Performa, a straight up Powermac or two, and eventually some iMacs of various generations. I still have a mac, in fact there's never been a period of time since the 512k was handed down to me that I haven't been the proud owner of a Mac. There isn't a memory of mine that predates that 512k.
I agree with you, except a lot of players (at least in WoW) don't understand LoS very well. I've been yelled at enough times as a healer because the idiot decided it would intelligent to run around a corner or out of range halfway through my healing spell.
Anyway, I feel socially inadequate just by understanding you.
For many people, it isn't "sometimes people are going to treat you unfairly". Every day they walk into school they know what's coming, and it's exactly the same thing that came yesterday. Their school days are rife with endless ridicule, abuse, isolation and antagonism. This isn't one person, or even twelve people. This is at least half the school actively humiliating you or laughing when it happens. The other half doesn't want to have anything to do with you, it'd either make their life difficult or be too much work.
By the VA Tech shootings he was a complete psycho nutcase that held the world in contempt and had no regard for life, even his own. The blame lies squarely on his own shoulders for the actions he took, but the blame lies squarely on everyone elses shoulders for what they did and didn't do. We can blame him for becoming a psycho and killing people, but we also can blame everyone who helped him become what he became.
Bottom line, he didn't go nuts because he was picked on...... he went nuts cause he was FUCKING NUTS!!!
I have to disagree.
I've seen enough people who weren't nuts to begin with spiral downwards into states of manic depression, insecurity, and unsustainable lifestyles to know that it isn't so simply as "The people who are nuts now always were".
Some people can drag themselves out of situations like that, but some people need others to give them the aid required to help themselves.
It's hard to take personal responsibility for what other people are doing to you.
I'm going to argue that it isn't Apathy but a semi-concious, active desire to stay within a habit, a routine and a comfort zone.
Most people are not apathetic but desperately want to be. They want their cozy home, their spouse, their children, their dog, their nice cars and television etc. Anything that might disrupt that has to be ignored, hidden or otherwise nullified.
The biggest threat to that existence is not apathy, but the inherent knowledge that apathy is bad. People want to feel good about themselves, and actively knowing you're not a Good Person(TM) because you ignore world hunger or other social problems undermines that feeling.
The irony is that instead of helping people and thus removing them from the "things that remind me I'm a horrible person" category, they marginalize and isolate them. In short, people want to be a Good Person(TM) without doing the work to actually be one and end up actually doing things that put them squarely in the Bad Person(TM) category.
It's a self feeding mechanism which gets more difficult to correct the further along it goes.
Lets choose an arbitrary point in time t0 where someone first is ridiculed. They're hurt for it, but they can survive it alone. The number of concerned people required to restore the person to a pre-t0 state is very small. However, it requires a sufficient awareness that there has been a change in state, something that is very hard for anyone to notice at this point.
As we move onwards from t0 and additional ridicule and related events continue, the amount of hurt increases. The afflicted is still "surviving" but in a similar fashion to a starving person, it isn't a sustainable mode. The number of concerned people required to rectify the situation has increased, and the required awareness to know there's a problem has decreased. Many cases of this are caught here and a battle begins for the afflicted's sanity.
From there progress may or may not be made. However, if the number and influence of concerned people is less than required, the situation is only slowed rather than rectified and we continue down the spiral. The number of people needed still increases, as does the ease of awareness, but something else also increases. The amount of work and patience required to deal with the afflicted has been increasing steadily this whole time. The larger this is, the less likely anyone is going to want to step out of thier comfort zone to help and the more likely people already helping will give up.
As we reach the end we find any number of conclusions. There are dramatic turn arounds, incredible people who save them, crashes followed by rebirthing, or tragedies. In all the worst cases everyone gives up on the afflicted and no one else steps in. The number of people required to help is practically the whole community, and the emotional, spiritual and intellectual costs of dealing with the afflicted are too high for everyone. The person becomes completely isolated from everyone and everything, and all awareness ceases. From here any number of tragic endings occur.
This analysis doesn't attempt to shift blame from people like Cho, but simply note that along the entire road things could have been done and weren't. He's still to blame for what he did.
There was one time at the bus stop, 3rd grade I believe, where I had enough of the stupid kids making fun of me and lost my temper. I angrily chased the kids and punched one of them in the stomach.
Almost immediately I found out that the kid I'd punched had nothing to do with the teasing. Worst part was the kids who had teased me now had the moral highground, and got to deride me for hitting an innocent girl. I hated myself, mostly because I'd just proven I wasn't any better than those I'd sought retribution against.
Since then I've always assumed the best in people, and just dealt with it when I'm burned for my assumption. It sucks to be me, but not as much as it would if I hurt people just because I'm angry or untrusting.
I'm just going to be nitpicky, I like everything else, but "had" might be more appropriate. To date the PS2 has done what you say, but it's unclear whether Nintendo's current aim will surpass it. As such, it might be a little more precise with "had" and maybe a short aside about current trends.
You underestimate the tenaciousness of determined/. posters!
Your statement implicitly asserts that to buy this book is to undermine your position as a "thinker". The more proper statement might be as follows:
Reading this book is not likely to stimulate the mind of a self-proclaimed thinker in any manner, let alone a pleasing one.
Or, if that is too long for you.
The worth of this book to someone who enjoys thinking is probably nil.
Those statements combine exception handling and a clear indication the book is not mentally stimulating without potentially insulting "thinkers" who have already read the book.
1) WoW players pay Blizzard for service and access to data on their servers. The ownership of said data never leaves Blizzard.
2) There is no clear market value for any individual item or character in WoW until such time as it is "cashed out" or sold.
Taxation will come to virtual worlds, but it would be supremely idiotic to think that it would be worth anyone's time or effort to tax anything but money making transactions.
Any other scenario would see incredible resistance from companies like Blizzard. It's a programming hassle to keep track of everything as is, and now they have to maintain financial records on every denizen of Azeroth?
Majordomo: Behold Ragnaros, March has come! Perhaps we should do our taxes? Ragnaros: TOOOOOO SOOOOOOOON!!!!!
If I were to criticize everyone who isn't offering thoughts and prayers to the victims, I'd have 300+ posts here alone.
I have responded a number of times here stating my opinion that certain posts are in ill-taste. I am well aware that people react to events in different ways.
However, I don't believe that all reactions are created equally. If someone's reaction to this shooting was to shoot people, we'd comdemn them rightly for it. While making jokes is not remotely that bad a reaction, I still find some of the jokes here reprehensible.
I do realize that people cope with such events in different ways. What I object to is coping at the expense of other people. Just because you do something to cope doesn't make it right.
e.g., someone who copes with such events by holding up a convenience store. He might feel better, but it only causes and compounds problems.
There was one time my internet was down. Being the generous person I was, I watched a movie assuming it would come back up on its own. When it didn't, I called my ISP.
They told me there weren't any outages in my area, and then we began the "20 questions" system of solving the problem
1. Can you bring up X webpage on your browser. A. No.
2. Are you receiving an IP address via DHCP from the DSL modem/router? A. No.
3. Can you bring up your DSL modem/router's admin page in your browser. A. No.
4. Is your ethernet cable properly connected from your computer to the modem? A....
5. Is your internet now working? A....Yes...
Technologically inclined people like myself sometimes forget we can make the same stupid "cupholder" mistakes we like to laugh at.
On the other hand, there was one time I called a computer parts store concerning my computer. I had just replaced the power supply as it had fried the night before. My computer still did not boot, and I suspected (rightly) that the voltage controller on the motherboard had been shot, hence why it would immediately kill the computer when I tried to boot. Nevertheless, I figured I'd call someone who should know something.
I got some BS about how the BIOS needed to be refreshed so that it would recognize the new power supply. I never went back to that store. I got a replacement (identical) motherboard somewhere else and everything worked fine.
That's like saying Iraq is only unfixable because Bush keeps trying to put more troops in there.
It certainly isn't helpful, but it is by far not the only factor. In the case of schools, the far more important and problematic factor is that the system teaches you to stop thinking.
Slashdot Mirror
You go first.
I'm going to wager than given the planet's A) significantly larger surface area and B) the greater gravity there wouldn't be much need or want for stairs.
I spent more time looking for this comic than I should have, but I think it applies.
AKA Dwarves?
"Nobody tosses a dwarf!"
Hah! You assume too much!
Simply put, that was an awesome read.
Singing meat. Hilarious.
Fundamentalism knows no boundaries. The collapse of religion would not make the world any better. Sutpid people will always find an excuse to do stupid things.
Personally, I support the "It's taking so damn long for Jesus to return because of all the other crazy schmucks he's dying for" theory.
The mental images this invoked required a forceful exertion of my will to prevent me from cracking up at work.
Image #1: Person attempting to drive down highway while car is on fire, confused as to why they're having trouble seeing out the front until a cop pulls them over and throws them out of the car before it explodes.
Image #2: Person calls tech support.
TS: "Tech support, how may I help you?"
P: "I can't get my e-mail."
TS: "Your computer is turned on, correct?"
P: "I pushed the power button."
TS: "Did the loading screen appear?"
P: "No."
TS: "Alright, check your computer. Is everything plugged in?"
P: "Yes."
TS: "Including the power cord."
P: "One second."
*Faint hissing sound in the background, minor 'ow' noises as the person checks*
P: "Yes."
TS: "Are you alright sir? I thought I heard you say 'ouch' a few times."
P: "Oh it's nothing, I just nearly burned myself."
TS: "Burned yourself? Is your computer running hot?"
P: "Well, it's on fire."
TS: "It's on fire?"
P: "Yes."
TS: "Literally?"
P: "Yes."
TS: "Did you consider that this might be why your computer isn't working?"
P: "Don't patronize me! I want to speak to your manager!"
Tooooooo funny.
I understand the concept of delaying software until its ready. It's standard practice in many different industries. Anyone who followed Blizzard before WoW would be used to the delays. That's nothing new.
What I have trouble with is how long it all took for so little. Maybe I'm deaf/blind, but I don't have a good understanding of what Vista does.
There's the new GUI, but apparently that slows down system performance significantly compared to XP. That doesn't really seem weird to me, the same was true when I installed OS X on my blueberry iMac (from the generation when they first introduced the other colors). Except, that was back 2001, and the very next version sped things up. WarCraft III actually ran better in 10.1 than in 9 for me.
There's the security that's been ridiculed. I'm not really sure what to think about that. I'm annoyed enough that whenever I clear my cookies I have to "Deny" lots of ad sites.
There's the Xbox Live integration. That's the only feature that interests me at all, and I have an Xbox 360. I don't need Vista to play games on Live.
So I'm left baffled. Vista took 5 years from announcement to release, and I'm left scratching my head. I don't know what they did with that time, what notable features were added or if it makes any sense that it took so long. At face value, which I am loath to judge anything by, it simply looks like Vista is what OS X would have been had it been horribly mismanaged (not to mention 5 years late).
Maybe I'm unenlightened. If so, what am I missing?
I was raised on Macs, when I was 2 I remember my dad had an Apple 512k when I was very, very little. Ah, the good old days of B&W.
Oooh, and then when they brought out the Apple IIx. The idea of having colors, that was exciting. I remember the first time my siblings and I booted that sucker up. We all went "WoW" at the pretty colors. It was amazing.
I'd keep going, but my brain would fry from nostalgia.
There were some Quadras in there, a Centris, a Performa, a straight up Powermac or two, and eventually some iMacs of various generations. I still have a mac, in fact there's never been a period of time since the 512k was handed down to me that I haven't been the proud owner of a Mac. There isn't a memory of mine that predates that 512k.
But wait...
What do Cmd-Shift 1 and 2 do?
What's Clarus?
I agree with you, except a lot of players (at least in WoW) don't understand LoS very well. I've been yelled at enough times as a healer because the idiot decided it would intelligent to run around a corner or out of range halfway through my healing spell.
Anyway, I feel socially inadequate just by understanding you.
I think your viewpoint is overly callous.
For many people, it isn't "sometimes people are going to treat you unfairly". Every day they walk into school they know what's coming, and it's exactly the same thing that came yesterday. Their school days are rife with endless ridicule, abuse, isolation and antagonism. This isn't one person, or even twelve people. This is at least half the school actively humiliating you or laughing when it happens. The other half doesn't want to have anything to do with you, it'd either make their life difficult or be too much work.
By the VA Tech shootings he was a complete psycho nutcase that held the world in contempt and had no regard for life, even his own. The blame lies squarely on his own shoulders for the actions he took, but the blame lies squarely on everyone elses shoulders for what they did and didn't do. We can blame him for becoming a psycho and killing people, but we also can blame everyone who helped him become what he became.
I have to disagree.
I've seen enough people who weren't nuts to begin with spiral downwards into states of manic depression, insecurity, and unsustainable lifestyles to know that it isn't so simply as "The people who are nuts now always were".
Some people can drag themselves out of situations like that, but some people need others to give them the aid required to help themselves.
It's hard to take personal responsibility for what other people are doing to you.
I'm going to argue that it isn't Apathy but a semi-concious, active desire to stay within a habit, a routine and a comfort zone.
Most people are not apathetic but desperately want to be. They want their cozy home, their spouse, their children, their dog, their nice cars and television etc. Anything that might disrupt that has to be ignored, hidden or otherwise nullified.
The biggest threat to that existence is not apathy, but the inherent knowledge that apathy is bad. People want to feel good about themselves, and actively knowing you're not a Good Person(TM) because you ignore world hunger or other social problems undermines that feeling.
The irony is that instead of helping people and thus removing them from the "things that remind me I'm a horrible person" category, they marginalize and isolate them. In short, people want to be a Good Person(TM) without doing the work to actually be one and end up actually doing things that put them squarely in the Bad Person(TM) category.
It's a self feeding mechanism which gets more difficult to correct the further along it goes.
Lets choose an arbitrary point in time t0 where someone first is ridiculed. They're hurt for it, but they can survive it alone. The number of concerned people required to restore the person to a pre-t0 state is very small. However, it requires a sufficient awareness that there has been a change in state, something that is very hard for anyone to notice at this point.
As we move onwards from t0 and additional ridicule and related events continue, the amount of hurt increases. The afflicted is still "surviving" but in a similar fashion to a starving person, it isn't a sustainable mode. The number of concerned people required to rectify the situation has increased, and the required awareness to know there's a problem has decreased. Many cases of this are caught here and a battle begins for the afflicted's sanity.
From there progress may or may not be made. However, if the number and influence of concerned people is less than required, the situation is only slowed rather than rectified and we continue down the spiral. The number of people needed still increases, as does the ease of awareness, but something else also increases. The amount of work and patience required to deal with the afflicted has been increasing steadily this whole time. The larger this is, the less likely anyone is going to want to step out of thier comfort zone to help and the more likely people already helping will give up.
As we reach the end we find any number of conclusions. There are dramatic turn arounds, incredible people who save them, crashes followed by rebirthing, or tragedies. In all the worst cases everyone gives up on the afflicted and no one else steps in. The number of people required to help is practically the whole community, and the emotional, spiritual and intellectual costs of dealing with the afflicted are too high for everyone. The person becomes completely isolated from everyone and everything, and all awareness ceases. From here any number of tragic endings occur.
This analysis doesn't attempt to shift blame from people like Cho, but simply note that along the entire road things could have been done and weren't. He's still to blame for what he did.
There was one time at the bus stop, 3rd grade I believe, where I had enough of the stupid kids making fun of me and lost my temper. I angrily chased the kids and punched one of them in the stomach.
Almost immediately I found out that the kid I'd punched had nothing to do with the teasing. Worst part was the kids who had teased me now had the moral highground, and got to deride me for hitting an innocent girl. I hated myself, mostly because I'd just proven I wasn't any better than those I'd sought retribution against.
Since then I've always assumed the best in people, and just dealt with it when I'm burned for my assumption. It sucks to be me, but not as much as it would if I hurt people just because I'm angry or untrusting.
I'm just going to be nitpicky, I like everything else, but "had" might be more appropriate. To date the PS2 has done what you say, but it's unclear whether Nintendo's current aim will surpass it. As such, it might be a little more precise with "had" and maybe a short aside about current trends.
Aside from that, quite insightful.
Given that God of War II for the PS2 sold 800k+ units in March according to the NPD, the software claim does seem tenuous.
It's likely that overall they're near even, but there certainly isn't a clear software sales monster at the moment.
You underestimate the tenaciousness of determined /. posters!
Your statement implicitly asserts that to buy this book is to undermine your position as a "thinker". The more proper statement might be as follows:
Reading this book is not likely to stimulate the mind of a self-proclaimed thinker in any manner, let alone a pleasing one.
Or, if that is too long for you.
The worth of this book to someone who enjoys thinking is probably nil.
Those statements combine exception handling and a clear indication the book is not mentally stimulating without potentially insulting "thinkers" who have already read the book.
1) WoW players pay Blizzard for service and access to data on their servers. The ownership of said data never leaves Blizzard.
2) There is no clear market value for any individual item or character in WoW until such time as it is "cashed out" or sold.
Taxation will come to virtual worlds, but it would be supremely idiotic to think that it would be worth anyone's time or effort to tax anything but money making transactions.
Any other scenario would see incredible resistance from companies like Blizzard. It's a programming hassle to keep track of everything as is, and now they have to maintain financial records on every denizen of Azeroth?
Majordomo: Behold Ragnaros, March has come! Perhaps we should do our taxes?
Ragnaros: TOOOOOO SOOOOOOOON!!!!!
If I were to criticize everyone who isn't offering thoughts and prayers to the victims, I'd have 300+ posts here alone.
I have responded a number of times here stating my opinion that certain posts are in ill-taste. I am well aware that people react to events in different ways.
However, I don't believe that all reactions are created equally. If someone's reaction to this shooting was to shoot people, we'd comdemn them rightly for it. While making jokes is not remotely that bad a reaction, I still find some of the jokes here reprehensible.
I do realize that people cope with such events in different ways. What I object to is coping at the expense of other people. Just because you do something to cope doesn't make it right.
e.g., someone who copes with such events by holding up a convenience store. He might feel better, but it only causes and compounds problems.
There was one time my internet was down. Being the generous person I was, I watched a movie assuming it would come back up on its own. When it didn't, I called my ISP.
...
...Yes...
They told me there weren't any outages in my area, and then we began the "20 questions" system of solving the problem
1. Can you bring up X webpage on your browser.
A. No.
2. Are you receiving an IP address via DHCP from the DSL modem/router?
A. No.
3. Can you bring up your DSL modem/router's admin page in your browser.
A. No.
4. Is your ethernet cable properly connected from your computer to the modem?
A.
5. Is your internet now working?
A.
Technologically inclined people like myself sometimes forget we can make the same stupid "cupholder" mistakes we like to laugh at.
On the other hand, there was one time I called a computer parts store concerning my computer. I had just replaced the power supply as it had fried the night before. My computer still did not boot, and I suspected (rightly) that the voltage controller on the motherboard had been shot, hence why it would immediately kill the computer when I tried to boot. Nevertheless, I figured I'd call someone who should know something.
I got some BS about how the BIOS needed to be refreshed so that it would recognize the new power supply. I never went back to that store. I got a replacement (identical) motherboard somewhere else and everything worked fine.
That's like saying Iraq is only unfixable because Bush keeps trying to put more troops in there.
It certainly isn't helpful, but it is by far not the only factor. In the case of schools, the far more important and problematic factor is that the system teaches you to stop thinking.