So they open up with machine gun fire if you head to the car? Please.
I am so sick of hearing this excuse. You come to work or school when you are sick? You are a fucking sociopath. And no, it doesn't make it better to point out that you'll lose money or points if you don't; it makes it worse. It means you are willing to trade my health (and in this case, maybe my life) for a day's wages or a better grade in a course.
Everyone, stop coming to work or school when you are sick. It's not a "day off" that you feel like you don't deserve; it's quarantine.
The USPS is not a monopoly. You can use UPS/FedEx, etc. for sending anything you want, just like with USPS. It's just phenomenally expensive.
The USPS has never, I repeat, never, ever lost anything I've sent. Now, I know that's an N size of 1, but I've never had a problem. Actually, now that I think of it, I don't know anyone else who has, either. It doesn't surprise me that things get pilfered from time to time--that happens with every delivery service, unfortunately. Do we have any solid numbers on it? I would be surprised if USPS fared any differently than the other guys.
The USPS is the only way to ship internationally. You go through the private couriers, and your recipient is going to get taxed out the wazoo. My friends recently had a kid over here in Japan. The mother's friends had a baby shower in her honor in the US, and sent her the presents, mostly baby clothes. They also sent a cute little crepe paper party favor from the party with M&Ms, etc. in it--you know, the little things people sometimes make and put at each person's place at a party. Less than a handful of unwrapped candy and nuts, etc. My friend gets the package from FedEx with an import duty bill of $200, despite the fact that the contents of the package was not much more than that--almost 100% taxation. Why? Because candy carries a heavy tax, and FedEx calculates the value of the entire box based on the most expensive item in it. If it had only been clothes, it was like $10. When I called to find all this out (they don't speak Japanese), I asked, "why do you guys always charge so much import tax?" and they said, "We have to. We're private. If you don't want to pay the import duties, send it via USPS. They have a contract with the Japanese government to not charge each other." See? That's something the private sector can't do.
Also, FWIW, I had Netflix when I was in the states. I had one broken disc ever. And that is the only problem I ever had.
Lay off the USPS. They do a hell of a job for a great price.
It was about 1997 or so. I was trying to buy my first PC (switching from Mac), and Tiger Direct seemed like a pretty together mail-order outfit.
I ordered some "high end" Pentium II computer, and paid for it with my hard-earned part-time job money.
It was to be delivered in 2 weeks.
And then I waited.
And waited.
And then the specs of the model changed, but I didn't have my computer.
And then I started calling for an update and demanding that I get the new specs. I was told that I already had the computer at one point, requiring me to push ever deeper into the Tiger Direct behemoth to find someone who could give me a tracking number for this ethereal computer of theirs.
Specs changed again.
Finally, after SIX MONTHS and a letter from the campus legal services lawyer, someone with some power called me. She was the first actual human I talked to. She apologized profusely, said she couldn't even figure out what happened, but that it was a mess, and sent me a check for the money.
Never again.
All that being said, I'm now on month 3 of waiting for my Dell Mini9, and I think it's fallen in price, but they've already charged my card... It's harder, though, getting really angry about it when you aren't in college and broke.
That may be it. Basically, every FPS I've played since Deus Ex 1 (2 was horrid) has just left me cold. But if I hadn't played games like that, I might think Bioshock was pretty amazing.
Basically, though, it felt like System Shock 2 under water--and I never quite understood all the love for System Shock 2.
Musicians can perform and make a very handsome living if they are worth listening to.
I always hear this from people who aren't musicians, and who don't know any.
Musicians make nothing. Even the ones you've heard of; even ones you may like and listen to a lot. They are lucky if they make it out of their contract with any profit at all. These are people who have produced a lot and whose stuff has been purchased by many. The fact of the matter is that it is very expensive to get your stuff to the ears of interested listeners, and a million musicians making blogs doesn't make that happen. In fact, it makes it harder.
I'll point to a band I know a little about: DeVotchKa. They are now making decent money. They have been around in Denver for a very, very long time, and they were far from making a "handsome living," despite a lot of local popularity. They toured with Dita Von Teese (burlesque) a lot. Then someone scored his quirky little movie with their work, that quirky little movie did very well (Little Miss Sunshine), and now they are finally living a comfortable life. But it could be over any minute.
Performers cannot make a "handsome living" by performing, okay? Until you are huge, you get screwed by every pissant little venue. Seriously. Hang around with some musicians sometime. Places stiff them all the time, and they can't afford lawyers. No, the way you make a "handsome living" is with a paycheck. You know, the kind of monthly income that happens when you, I dunno, get royalty checks? From people buying your stuff?
I am so sick of this nonsense:
We don't owe Hugh Jackman and Tom Clancy a living.
--You do if you are consuming their products, and no crazy, twisted logic is going to change that. When you pirate media, you are stealing. End of story.
Full disclosure: I live in Japan and steal some US TV. I don't, however, when I can get the stuff legitimately. But I don't pretend like it's my right to see this stuff and suggest that these people don't deserve to make a living because they could be traveling minstrels and gypsies, which is exactly what you are advocating.
Thanks for the great post. It always irritates me when we forget that all these people are just... people. That means you can go find out what they're like.
I work at a university with incredibly well-connected, frighteningly smart people. But you know what? All these people are just people. You hand 'em a beer at the beginning-of-term reception and bitch about politics the same as with anyone else--except these people sometimes are the people writing the policies.
People are people. Honestly, I think the pick is a good one.
McCain would have been superior because of his ideology that is actually backed up with a lifetime record of achievement supporting those beliefs.
So, would this be the almost-religious fervor with which he preached deregulation, leading to the meltdown of the entire global economy, or some other achievements I and the other rational voters missed?
I am sick to death of hearing the incessant whining from anti-DRM "copyfighters." Sick sick sick.
Okay, are you happy now? A bunch of people worked really hard on a product that was extremely expensive to make, they trusted people, and people did what people do: Act like miserable, selfish shits. And the people who did the work had to foot the bill, not only in lost sales, but in bandwidth and bad reviews. It's shameful.
Same thing happened when Trent Reznor helped Saul Williams make their first foray into online distribution. No one paid. Piracy doesn't hurt MS (helps it, actually), it doesn't actually hurt NIN (too big--if only a small percentage of NIN fans buy, that's still a lot of money, and most of us are in our 30s and 40s now and have the money), but someone like Saul Williams or this game company I've never heard of? Kills them.
A blowhard like Cory Doctorow can go on all he wants about how he succeeded because everyone got his horrible high-school-level science fiction for free, but the truth is that he got a blogging gig with the most popular English-language blog in the world and hijacked it into an endless stream of self-promotion and vilification of the evil idea that if people aren't paid for what they do, they won't do it. There is a 1-person-sized niche market for writers who advocate robbing content creators blind, and he's filled it. But that doesn't stop him from telling every other creator to join in, regardless of their craft, ignoring entirely the fact that his could be done with a pad of legal paper and a stubby pencil.
DRM sucks. I hate it. But unfortunately, I understand exactly why it exists.
I live in Japan, and enjoy having one of the best high speed passenger rail systems in the world. These trains are amazing. On time every time, fast, and the price is the same no matter where you are in the country.
Now let me point out why this has nothing to do with the situation in my home country of the US:
Japan is smaller than America.
The distance between Tokyo and Osaka, for example, is not really that far, even though these are the two biggest cities in the country. This is like if NYC and LA were 250 miles (400km) apart, instead of almost 10 times that far (2444 miles / 3933km). The distances we're talking about in the US are ungodly huge. It is for this reason that we in the US (and our Aussie friends) have standardized on the automobile, not because we're lazy morons (the fact that we are lazy morons is a side issue).
Japan has a well-established local public transport system.
I'd also like to point out that, even in the case of taking the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka, you actually have to get off at Shin-Osaka, which is basically in Kyoto, not Osaka, and you have another 45min express to take before you're really in Osaka. Without that smaller train network, the bullet train would be utterly useless. Putting in a high-speed network with no light rail at the stops is just a massive waste of money. No one will take it. This is like if Eisenhower had built the interstate highway system (one of the many great ideas we got from the Nazis, BTW) before any roads existed in towns. A system like this is supposed to link existing systems up. If it doesn't, it's useless.
Japan has a much higher population density than America.
This is the biggest difference right here. Contrary to popular opinion, Japan is not packed coast-to-coast with people. Much of Japan is virtually uninhabited. That's because much of Japan is at a 45-degree angle. It's a volcanic archipelago, remember? Basically, there are a few flat areas where you can grow food and live properly, and those regions are where everyone lives. This means that Japan Rail (which operates the bullet trains) can count on getting enough passengers from each stop to pay for the operating costs of the track between. Everyone lives in the same place, so you have money flowing into your system anywhere you decide you want to collect it. This is absolutely not true in America. The distances between cities is vast, and there aren't many people who live along the way. You'd have to pay for more track and more electricity to run the trains on it with fewer customers per kilometer. It's a nightmare.
Even with Japan's higher population density, most of the network is paid for by urban travelers.
Basically, the cost of taking the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka is, per-kilometer, roughly the same as taking it to Echigo-Yuzawa (heading toward the Japan Sea), even though much fewer people take the latter, and that line, with its many, many kilometers of tunnels bored straight through the mountains in between, was much more expensive to construct and much more expensive to maintain. How does this work? Simple, JR makes enough money on the more-often-traveled lines to float the losses on the less-traveled ones. Add to this that JR does not only operate bullet trains, but also most of the country's local lines as well, and they can ensure that prices are affordable no matter where you're going. If you're riding the Yamanote line around metro Tokyo, you are massively over-paying; if you're riding the train from Uozu to Toyama in rural Toyama Prefecture, you're getting a steal. This is why, in the urban areas, it's always cheaper to use one of the local "private" (JR used to be public) lines, who don't have to maintain a bunch of track no one uses. In the case of the US, you'd need a lot of people getting on in LA and San Francisco to cover the vast wasteland between them (no offense if you live in that area of CA--but you would agree it's quite r
I've read up to 10% of children's dna do not match their fathers in many areas, so that's another strategy- happened to at least one friend of mine
Ugh, I can't say anything, but I really suspect this has happened with my brother's youngest. His wife got weird about the time he was born and then left him a little over a year later, out of the blue. The kid doesn't look like anyone on our side of the family, and has personality traits (like athletic ability) that neither side has. She cheated on him a bunch of times while they were dating, and then twice (that we know of) since they got married (they are, of course, divorcing now).
It's rough because, emotionally, he's already a wreck, and he has done most of the raising of the youngest and is a very proud parent. We all love that kid to death. But still... I just don't think he's "one of us."
I've decided to keep my mouth shut. Kid needs a family no matter what, and we like having him around. He shouldn't be punished for his mom being a dumb slut.
FWIW, I've done over a hundred eBay transactions, as seller and buyer, and I've only been ripped off once. And that time, PayPal sided with me and reimbursed me.
I really like eBay. You just have to make sure you're buying from and established vendor.
Seriously, are any languages other than English going to be anything more than a curiosity in 100 years?
Wow... Wow. You are so wrong.
Right now, depending on how you define language users, there are over 1 billion English users in the world. Only around 375 million of those are native speakers. The remaining are non-native speakers.
Do you see what that means?
What that means is that people are adopting English as a second language; not using it at home. In fact, a lot of the "outer circle" English-speaking countries (e.g. India, Malaysia, Nigeria, Singapore) principally use English as a lingua franca due to the linguistic complexity of their geographical area. African countries adopt English because it's better for business, and because picking any of the local languages could fan the flames of aeons-old tribal rivalries. The Indian subcontinent just has too many languages and dialects to bother with, so they use English for business.
Nowhere are these people's first languages dying out.
Furthermore, large countries of lingua franca English users, like India, tend to develop their own variety of English, resulting in there not being a single English in the world, but World Englishes, an important concept introduced by the noted Indian linguist Braj Kachru.
A "World English" is a variety of English that is comprehensible and regular within a certain population For example, in Singapore, the verb "reply" is transitive, i.e. people say "I replied his email," with the noun phrase "his email" functioning as the object of the verb "reply." Inner circle English speakers use it only as an intransitive verb, necessitating a prepositional phrase: "I replied to his email." This usage cannot really be considered a mistake, because every user of this variety of English uses this word this way.
Moreover, this idea of "one billion English speakers" really doesn't sit well with me. Pack up your things and take a long holiday sometime. Travel to a lot of different countries, and see how many people you can find who speak English. You'll find a lot more in Europe than elsewhere, but you might be surprised at how many people don't. I live in Japan, and despite English being a compulsory subject in jr. high and high school, finding anyone who speaks more than a couple horribly-pronounced words is pretty difficult. They just don't have an opportunity or need to use it most of the time, and classes are designed to get them to pass entrance tests, not actually speak or use the language (believe me--I've taught at every level of the Japanese education system--from first grade through university).
Then there is the oft-cited statistic about China becoming the biggest English-speaking country in the world. I really have no idea what that is supposed to mean. They, too, have compulsory English education, but backpack around China for a month or so and you can probably count on one hand how many people you ran into who spoke English. Furthermore, China is never, ever, ever going to let Mandarin lapse for English. Never never never. When your country is named "The Central Nation" (i.e. "the center of the world"), you take your language and culture very seriously. Mao's revolution was largely to kick Western influence out of the country (Japan was considered Western--that was not a mistake by any means). However, after taking power, even he could not convince people to abandon the Chinese character system (hanzi) in favor of the Pinyin romanization system. People saw even this literacy-boosting move as a betrayal of their Chinese cultural identity. So there's another English language myth busted, I hope.
Finally, let's look at that term I've been kicking around in this growing reply: Lingua Franca....The French language. Now, historically, it's a little more complex than that, but basically, a form of French used to be the trad
Oh, that explains why Linux has never worked right for me. I'm not supposed to use it. It's for the people who write it, who do so because they enjoy it.
So it's just as I've always said around here, and have been modded into oblivion:
Yes. I don't have a list of references for you, but there has been tons and tons and tons of research on this in the field of psycholinguistics/cognitive science. That's why I can't give you a single reference. Check out EBSCO or something.
It would seem obvious to me that those with better cognitive and memory skills are more likely as a result to be bilingual
That's like saying "It would seem obvious to me that those with stronger muscles would be weightlifters." Yeah, those with innate abilities might be more drawn to some activities (lifting weights or learning new languages), but there's no denying that some activities--most, in fact--improve your abilities, yes?
Furthermore, learning a second language (as in, actually being able to use it to some degree) is considered normal in most of the world. We in the Anglophone world are just lazy.
Full disclosure: IAAAL (I am an applied linguist--second language acquisition and assessment).
You know what drives me batshit insane? Men who are so ridiculously insecure that any suggestion that they aren't filthy, hair-covered savages breaking trees in half with their teeth sends them into an identity tail spin.
All your concern about the "image" that your laptop presents is an indication that you really are a weak, unmanly wuss. Use conditioner and lotion, pluck the center out of your monobrow (and clean up around the edges if necessary), wear clothes that fit (baggy may be comfortable, but you look like a tool). All of these "feminine" things will draw much more desired female attention than "My laptop is cute??? What do you mean by that???" ever, ever, ever will.
That's before even considering ideas like "rape is more about power than sex"
I wish more people thought more about that. It's a nice little fuzzy idea and all, but c'mon, saying rape isn't about sex is like saying mugging isn't about money. It is.
The problem with a law like this is that it affects everyone in society, regardless of whether parasites have erupted from their groins. Despite the fact that I do not have children, I am very much a part of society, and I don't want to live in a society where fake things are considered real.
Furthermore, just because I haven't had kids myself doesn't mean I don't know anything about them. It may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but I actually spent quite a few years as a kid myself, and I can report that I can't imagine much lewd material even getting to me in the first place (my parents did their job), and what little did did not seem to scar me irrevocably. What's worse about this particular law is that, as children, my friends and I often drew (admittedly poor) renditions of girls in class whom we liked sans clothes. This is pretty normal for heterosexual boys growing up, and such a law would very definitely have hurt me during those times.
Child molestation is so ridiculously rare, that, like terrorism, all the trouble of trying to stop it is far worse than the problem. Kids aren't molested by dirty pictures; they're molested by their family members and the clergy. Don't come around bothering me over dirty pictures while Father O'Malley sodomizes little Timmy.
The FUD, I think, is coming from inside Japan. Whenever I do whip mine out, Japanese friends and acquaintances say "I heard that is really hard to use." So I show them how to use it and the next time I see them they have an iPhone.
I think the FUD is probably from the Japanese cellphone manufacturers, who have been churning out crap for the last 10 years. Yeah, impressive spec sheets, but none of it ever worked. My Sharp had to be replaced 3 times in as many years, and I never once found a web page--aside from the Softbank one--that loaded on it.
Many parents resort to spanking their child to give them a lesson. When was the last time your boss spanked you or grounded you for not meeting the project deadline?
Two responses:
1) He doesn't have to, because I was taught that there are hard boundaries in the world by my parents who spanked me.
2) In truth, what my boss can do when I'm out of line is far worse: He can fire me. He can send me to my room without dinner... and without my room!
I was about 8 or 9 when I figured out that the spankings didn't actually hurt. My parents had a pizza paddle on top of the refrigerator. It was a big, light, flat piece of wood that made a terrific whooshing sound and a slap, but didn't actually hurt at all. But that was not the point. It was the following ritual:
1) Explain what I'd done wrong (spanking was an absolute last resort), and remind me how many times I had been warned against it.
2) One swat to the bum.
3) Go to my room to think about it for awhile (maybe 30 minutes)
4) Mom or Dad coming in to get me, obviously sad about the situation, sitting down on the bed next to me and saying "you can't do that, okay?" and giving me a hug.
At no point was I in any physical danger. At no point was I emotionally abused. There were no angry words spoken. My parents simply presented the image of rational people, which highlighted my own irrationality and the gap between what I was supposed to do and what I had done.
I'm sorry, but these are good lessons. I was only spanked if I did something really dangerous or bad, when I'd been warned repeatedly not to do it. It was a last resort, and I can only remember a couple instances, actually.
The world is not nearly as forgiving or rational as my parents, and consequences for acting out of line are much harsher than a noisy whack on the bottom.
So when I say that I support spanking, this is the kind of spanking I'm talking about. It's not a beating. It doesn't really hurt (maybe a little sting). It most certainly doesn't leave a mark or lingering discomfort. And it isn't "violent," as in it is not Dad, in a fit of rage, beating the tar out of the kid. It is a ritualized disciplinary act to act as an "ultimate" punishment for very small children.
By the end of elementary school, it was over. I was reasoned with like an adult, because I'd learned where the hard boundaries are, and to operate within them.
Children are not adults. They are children. They do not yet understand the social and physical boundaries necessary to live in society. They do, however, understand a stinging bottom while they think about what got them there.
Finally, a lot of this is just cultural. Many of the punishments I see parents use in Japan, I would consider mental/emotional abuse. My (Japanese) wife's father used to slap her across the face. She has a scar on her head from where he threw her into a doorknob when she was three. And she doesn't consider him to have been abusive, just to be outdated (he married very late and is almost old enough to be my parents' parent). As a result, however, if we have children, I will be controlling very strictly his contact with them. Cultural or not, if he ever laid a hand on my child like that, he'd be the one in the emergency room getting stitches.
There is a continuum here that is not well-served by "spanking is good"/"spanking is bad." Without clear delineation between behaviors, it's very hard to have a real discussion. We might be talking about very different things.
If life is about enjoying yourself, then extreme hedonism, while doing unlimited harm to those around you to get it, is the only way to go.
Wow. See, that was kind of what I was talking about. If the only condition on which you abstain from engaging in socially-destructive behavior is that God doesn't like it... That's a major problem. Especially if God forgives all, which, if you are a Christian, he does.
Kind of explains some of the pickles we find ourselves in around the world.
Slashdot Mirror
So they open up with machine gun fire if you head to the car? Please.
I am so sick of hearing this excuse. You come to work or school when you are sick? You are a fucking sociopath. And no, it doesn't make it better to point out that you'll lose money or points if you don't; it makes it worse. It means you are willing to trade my health (and in this case, maybe my life) for a day's wages or a better grade in a course.
Everyone, stop coming to work or school when you are sick. It's not a "day off" that you feel like you don't deserve; it's quarantine.
What are you talking about?
Also, FWIW, I had Netflix when I was in the states. I had one broken disc ever. And that is the only problem I ever had.
Lay off the USPS. They do a hell of a job for a great price.
It was about 1997 or so. I was trying to buy my first PC (switching from Mac), and Tiger Direct seemed like a pretty together mail-order outfit.
I ordered some "high end" Pentium II computer, and paid for it with my hard-earned part-time job money.
It was to be delivered in 2 weeks.
And then I waited.
And waited.
And then the specs of the model changed, but I didn't have my computer.
And then I started calling for an update and demanding that I get the new specs. I was told that I already had the computer at one point, requiring me to push ever deeper into the Tiger Direct behemoth to find someone who could give me a tracking number for this ethereal computer of theirs.
Specs changed again.
Finally, after SIX MONTHS and a letter from the campus legal services lawyer, someone with some power called me. She was the first actual human I talked to. She apologized profusely, said she couldn't even figure out what happened, but that it was a mess, and sent me a check for the money.
Never again.
All that being said, I'm now on month 3 of waiting for my Dell Mini9, and I think it's fallen in price, but they've already charged my card... It's harder, though, getting really angry about it when you aren't in college and broke.
That may be it. Basically, every FPS I've played since Deus Ex 1 (2 was horrid) has just left me cold. But if I hadn't played games like that, I might think Bioshock was pretty amazing.
Basically, though, it felt like System Shock 2 under water--and I never quite understood all the love for System Shock 2.
Musicians can perform and make a very handsome living if they are worth listening to.
I always hear this from people who aren't musicians, and who don't know any.
Musicians make nothing. Even the ones you've heard of; even ones you may like and listen to a lot. They are lucky if they make it out of their contract with any profit at all. These are people who have produced a lot and whose stuff has been purchased by many. The fact of the matter is that it is very expensive to get your stuff to the ears of interested listeners, and a million musicians making blogs doesn't make that happen. In fact, it makes it harder.
I'll point to a band I know a little about: DeVotchKa. They are now making decent money. They have been around in Denver for a very, very long time, and they were far from making a "handsome living," despite a lot of local popularity. They toured with Dita Von Teese (burlesque) a lot. Then someone scored his quirky little movie with their work, that quirky little movie did very well (Little Miss Sunshine), and now they are finally living a comfortable life. But it could be over any minute.
Performers cannot make a "handsome living" by performing, okay? Until you are huge, you get screwed by every pissant little venue. Seriously. Hang around with some musicians sometime. Places stiff them all the time, and they can't afford lawyers. No, the way you make a "handsome living" is with a paycheck. You know, the kind of monthly income that happens when you, I dunno, get royalty checks? From people buying your stuff?
I am so sick of this nonsense:
We don't owe Hugh Jackman and Tom Clancy a living.
--You do if you are consuming their products, and no crazy, twisted logic is going to change that. When you pirate media, you are stealing. End of story.
Full disclosure: I live in Japan and steal some US TV. I don't, however, when I can get the stuff legitimately. But I don't pretend like it's my right to see this stuff and suggest that these people don't deserve to make a living because they could be traveling minstrels and gypsies, which is exactly what you are advocating.
Thanks for the great post. It always irritates me when we forget that all these people are just... people. That means you can go find out what they're like.
I work at a university with incredibly well-connected, frighteningly smart people. But you know what? All these people are just people. You hand 'em a beer at the beginning-of-term reception and bitch about politics the same as with anyone else--except these people sometimes are the people writing the policies.
People are people. Honestly, I think the pick is a good one.
Did you actually just call a black man a "chimpanzee?" Are you a bigot or some other kind of really stupid?
McCain would have been superior because of his ideology that is actually backed up with a lifetime record of achievement supporting those beliefs.
So, would this be the almost-religious fervor with which he preached deregulation, leading to the meltdown of the entire global economy, or some other achievements I and the other rational voters missed?
No mod points right now, so I just have to say this:
Bravo.
Someone tell me why this is different than a police sting operation looking for johns or pedophiles?
Ummm... Because these men were breaking no laws and this asshat isn't a police officer?
I am sick to death of hearing the incessant whining from anti-DRM "copyfighters." Sick sick sick.
Okay, are you happy now? A bunch of people worked really hard on a product that was extremely expensive to make, they trusted people, and people did what people do: Act like miserable, selfish shits. And the people who did the work had to foot the bill, not only in lost sales, but in bandwidth and bad reviews. It's shameful.
Same thing happened when Trent Reznor helped Saul Williams make their first foray into online distribution. No one paid. Piracy doesn't hurt MS (helps it, actually), it doesn't actually hurt NIN (too big--if only a small percentage of NIN fans buy, that's still a lot of money, and most of us are in our 30s and 40s now and have the money), but someone like Saul Williams or this game company I've never heard of? Kills them.
A blowhard like Cory Doctorow can go on all he wants about how he succeeded because everyone got his horrible high-school-level science fiction for free, but the truth is that he got a blogging gig with the most popular English-language blog in the world and hijacked it into an endless stream of self-promotion and vilification of the evil idea that if people aren't paid for what they do, they won't do it. There is a 1-person-sized niche market for writers who advocate robbing content creators blind, and he's filled it. But that doesn't stop him from telling every other creator to join in, regardless of their craft, ignoring entirely the fact that his could be done with a pad of legal paper and a stubby pencil.
DRM sucks. I hate it. But unfortunately, I understand exactly why it exists.
I live in Japan, and enjoy having one of the best high speed passenger rail systems in the world. These trains are amazing. On time every time, fast, and the price is the same no matter where you are in the country.
Now let me point out why this has nothing to do with the situation in my home country of the US:
The distance between Tokyo and Osaka, for example, is not really that far, even though these are the two biggest cities in the country. This is like if NYC and LA were 250 miles (400km) apart, instead of almost 10 times that far (2444 miles / 3933km). The distances we're talking about in the US are ungodly huge. It is for this reason that we in the US (and our Aussie friends) have standardized on the automobile, not because we're lazy morons (the fact that we are lazy morons is a side issue).
I'd also like to point out that, even in the case of taking the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka, you actually have to get off at Shin-Osaka, which is basically in Kyoto, not Osaka, and you have another 45min express to take before you're really in Osaka. Without that smaller train network, the bullet train would be utterly useless. Putting in a high-speed network with no light rail at the stops is just a massive waste of money. No one will take it. This is like if Eisenhower had built the interstate highway system (one of the many great ideas we got from the Nazis, BTW) before any roads existed in towns. A system like this is supposed to link existing systems up. If it doesn't, it's useless.
This is the biggest difference right here. Contrary to popular opinion, Japan is not packed coast-to-coast with people. Much of Japan is virtually uninhabited. That's because much of Japan is at a 45-degree angle. It's a volcanic archipelago, remember? Basically, there are a few flat areas where you can grow food and live properly, and those regions are where everyone lives. This means that Japan Rail (which operates the bullet trains) can count on getting enough passengers from each stop to pay for the operating costs of the track between. Everyone lives in the same place, so you have money flowing into your system anywhere you decide you want to collect it. This is absolutely not true in America. The distances between cities is vast, and there aren't many people who live along the way. You'd have to pay for more track and more electricity to run the trains on it with fewer customers per kilometer. It's a nightmare.
Basically, the cost of taking the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka is, per-kilometer, roughly the same as taking it to Echigo-Yuzawa (heading toward the Japan Sea), even though much fewer people take the latter, and that line, with its many, many kilometers of tunnels bored straight through the mountains in between, was much more expensive to construct and much more expensive to maintain. How does this work? Simple, JR makes enough money on the more-often-traveled lines to float the losses on the less-traveled ones. Add to this that JR does not only operate bullet trains, but also most of the country's local lines as well, and they can ensure that prices are affordable no matter where you're going. If you're riding the Yamanote line around metro Tokyo, you are massively over-paying; if you're riding the train from Uozu to Toyama in rural Toyama Prefecture, you're getting a steal. This is why, in the urban areas, it's always cheaper to use one of the local "private" (JR used to be public) lines, who don't have to maintain a bunch of track no one uses. In the case of the US, you'd need a lot of people getting on in LA and San Francisco to cover the vast wasteland between them (no offense if you live in that area of CA--but you would agree it's quite r
Excel, Visio, Quicken, Outlook and Visual Studio aren't exactly self-explanatory.
They don't need to be; everyone already knows what they are.
And here we are already, back to the problem pointed to in TFA.
I've read up to 10% of children's dna do not match their fathers in many areas, so that's another strategy- happened to at least one friend of mine
Ugh, I can't say anything, but I really suspect this has happened with my brother's youngest. His wife got weird about the time he was born and then left him a little over a year later, out of the blue. The kid doesn't look like anyone on our side of the family, and has personality traits (like athletic ability) that neither side has. She cheated on him a bunch of times while they were dating, and then twice (that we know of) since they got married (they are, of course, divorcing now).
It's rough because, emotionally, he's already a wreck, and he has done most of the raising of the youngest and is a very proud parent. We all love that kid to death. But still... I just don't think he's "one of us."
I've decided to keep my mouth shut. Kid needs a family no matter what, and we like having him around. He shouldn't be punished for his mom being a dumb slut.
FWIW, I've done over a hundred eBay transactions, as seller and buyer, and I've only been ripped off once. And that time, PayPal sided with me and reimbursed me.
I really like eBay. You just have to make sure you're buying from and established vendor.
Seriously, are any languages other than English going to be anything more than a curiosity in 100 years?
Wow... Wow. You are so wrong.
Right now, depending on how you define language users, there are over 1 billion English users in the world. Only around 375 million of those are native speakers. The remaining are non-native speakers.
Do you see what that means?
What that means is that people are adopting English as a second language; not using it at home. In fact, a lot of the "outer circle" English-speaking countries (e.g. India, Malaysia, Nigeria, Singapore) principally use English as a lingua franca due to the linguistic complexity of their geographical area. African countries adopt English because it's better for business, and because picking any of the local languages could fan the flames of aeons-old tribal rivalries. The Indian subcontinent just has too many languages and dialects to bother with, so they use English for business.
Nowhere are these people's first languages dying out.
Furthermore, large countries of lingua franca English users, like India, tend to develop their own variety of English, resulting in there not being a single English in the world, but World Englishes, an important concept introduced by the noted Indian linguist Braj Kachru.
A "World English" is a variety of English that is comprehensible and regular within a certain population For example, in Singapore, the verb "reply" is transitive, i.e. people say "I replied his email," with the noun phrase "his email" functioning as the object of the verb "reply." Inner circle English speakers use it only as an intransitive verb, necessitating a prepositional phrase: "I replied to his email." This usage cannot really be considered a mistake, because every user of this variety of English uses this word this way.
Moreover, this idea of "one billion English speakers" really doesn't sit well with me. Pack up your things and take a long holiday sometime. Travel to a lot of different countries, and see how many people you can find who speak English. You'll find a lot more in Europe than elsewhere, but you might be surprised at how many people don't. I live in Japan, and despite English being a compulsory subject in jr. high and high school, finding anyone who speaks more than a couple horribly-pronounced words is pretty difficult. They just don't have an opportunity or need to use it most of the time, and classes are designed to get them to pass entrance tests, not actually speak or use the language (believe me--I've taught at every level of the Japanese education system--from first grade through university).
Then there is the oft-cited statistic about China becoming the biggest English-speaking country in the world. I really have no idea what that is supposed to mean. They, too, have compulsory English education, but backpack around China for a month or so and you can probably count on one hand how many people you ran into who spoke English. Furthermore, China is never, ever, ever going to let Mandarin lapse for English. Never never never. When your country is named "The Central Nation" (i.e. "the center of the world"), you take your language and culture very seriously. Mao's revolution was largely to kick Western influence out of the country (Japan was considered Western--that was not a mistake by any means). However, after taking power, even he could not convince people to abandon the Chinese character system (hanzi) in favor of the Pinyin romanization system. People saw even this literacy-boosting move as a betrayal of their Chinese cultural identity. So there's another English language myth busted, I hope.
Finally, let's look at that term I've been kicking around in this growing reply: Lingua Franca. ...The French language. Now, historically, it's a little more complex than that, but basically, a form of French used to be the trad
Oh, that explains why Linux has never worked right for me. I'm not supposed to use it. It's for the people who write it, who do so because they enjoy it.
So it's just as I've always said around here, and have been modded into oblivion:
Linux is a toy.
Is this proven at all?
Yes. I don't have a list of references for you, but there has been tons and tons and tons of research on this in the field of psycholinguistics/cognitive science. That's why I can't give you a single reference. Check out EBSCO or something.
It would seem obvious to me that those with better cognitive and memory skills are more likely as a result to be bilingual
That's like saying "It would seem obvious to me that those with stronger muscles would be weightlifters." Yeah, those with innate abilities might be more drawn to some activities (lifting weights or learning new languages), but there's no denying that some activities--most, in fact--improve your abilities, yes?
Furthermore, learning a second language (as in, actually being able to use it to some degree) is considered normal in most of the world. We in the Anglophone world are just lazy.
Full disclosure: IAAAL (I am an applied linguist--second language acquisition and assessment).
You know what drives me batshit insane? Men who are so ridiculously insecure that any suggestion that they aren't filthy, hair-covered savages breaking trees in half with their teeth sends them into an identity tail spin.
All your concern about the "image" that your laptop presents is an indication that you really are a weak, unmanly wuss. Use conditioner and lotion, pluck the center out of your monobrow (and clean up around the edges if necessary), wear clothes that fit (baggy may be comfortable, but you look like a tool). All of these "feminine" things will draw much more desired female attention than "My laptop is cute??? What do you mean by that???" ever, ever, ever will.
Confidence is manly. Get some.
That's before even considering ideas like "rape is more about power than sex"
I wish more people thought more about that. It's a nice little fuzzy idea and all, but c'mon, saying rape isn't about sex is like saying mugging isn't about money. It is.
Get off it.
The problem with a law like this is that it affects everyone in society, regardless of whether parasites have erupted from their groins. Despite the fact that I do not have children, I am very much a part of society, and I don't want to live in a society where fake things are considered real.
Furthermore, just because I haven't had kids myself doesn't mean I don't know anything about them. It may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but I actually spent quite a few years as a kid myself, and I can report that I can't imagine much lewd material even getting to me in the first place (my parents did their job), and what little did did not seem to scar me irrevocably. What's worse about this particular law is that, as children, my friends and I often drew (admittedly poor) renditions of girls in class whom we liked sans clothes. This is pretty normal for heterosexual boys growing up, and such a law would very definitely have hurt me during those times.
Child molestation is so ridiculously rare, that, like terrorism, all the trouble of trying to stop it is far worse than the problem. Kids aren't molested by dirty pictures; they're molested by their family members and the clergy. Don't come around bothering me over dirty pictures while Father O'Malley sodomizes little Timmy.
The FUD, I think, is coming from inside Japan. Whenever I do whip mine out, Japanese friends and acquaintances say "I heard that is really hard to use." So I show them how to use it and the next time I see them they have an iPhone.
I think the FUD is probably from the Japanese cellphone manufacturers, who have been churning out crap for the last 10 years. Yeah, impressive spec sheets, but none of it ever worked. My Sharp had to be replaced 3 times in as many years, and I never once found a web page--aside from the Softbank one--that loaded on it.
I've loved my iPhone so far.
Amen.
If one of my writing students handed me this mess, I'd hand it right back. I don't waste my time reading garbage like this.
Many parents resort to spanking their child to give them a lesson. When was the last time your boss spanked you or grounded you for not meeting the project deadline?
Two responses:
1) He doesn't have to, because I was taught that there are hard boundaries in the world by my parents who spanked me.
2) In truth, what my boss can do when I'm out of line is far worse: He can fire me. He can send me to my room without dinner... and without my room!
I was about 8 or 9 when I figured out that the spankings didn't actually hurt. My parents had a pizza paddle on top of the refrigerator. It was a big, light, flat piece of wood that made a terrific whooshing sound and a slap, but didn't actually hurt at all. But that was not the point. It was the following ritual:
1) Explain what I'd done wrong (spanking was an absolute last resort), and remind me how many times I had been warned against it.
2) One swat to the bum.
3) Go to my room to think about it for awhile (maybe 30 minutes)
4) Mom or Dad coming in to get me, obviously sad about the situation, sitting down on the bed next to me and saying "you can't do that, okay?" and giving me a hug.
At no point was I in any physical danger. At no point was I emotionally abused. There were no angry words spoken. My parents simply presented the image of rational people, which highlighted my own irrationality and the gap between what I was supposed to do and what I had done.
I'm sorry, but these are good lessons. I was only spanked if I did something really dangerous or bad, when I'd been warned repeatedly not to do it. It was a last resort, and I can only remember a couple instances, actually.
The world is not nearly as forgiving or rational as my parents, and consequences for acting out of line are much harsher than a noisy whack on the bottom.
So when I say that I support spanking, this is the kind of spanking I'm talking about. It's not a beating. It doesn't really hurt (maybe a little sting). It most certainly doesn't leave a mark or lingering discomfort. And it isn't "violent," as in it is not Dad, in a fit of rage, beating the tar out of the kid. It is a ritualized disciplinary act to act as an "ultimate" punishment for very small children.
By the end of elementary school, it was over. I was reasoned with like an adult, because I'd learned where the hard boundaries are, and to operate within them.
Children are not adults. They are children. They do not yet understand the social and physical boundaries necessary to live in society. They do, however, understand a stinging bottom while they think about what got them there.
Finally, a lot of this is just cultural. Many of the punishments I see parents use in Japan, I would consider mental/emotional abuse. My (Japanese) wife's father used to slap her across the face. She has a scar on her head from where he threw her into a doorknob when she was three. And she doesn't consider him to have been abusive, just to be outdated (he married very late and is almost old enough to be my parents' parent). As a result, however, if we have children, I will be controlling very strictly his contact with them. Cultural or not, if he ever laid a hand on my child like that, he'd be the one in the emergency room getting stitches.
There is a continuum here that is not well-served by "spanking is good"/"spanking is bad." Without clear delineation between behaviors, it's very hard to have a real discussion. We might be talking about very different things.
If life is about enjoying yourself, then extreme hedonism, while doing unlimited harm to those around you to get it, is the only way to go.
Wow. See, that was kind of what I was talking about. If the only condition on which you abstain from engaging in socially-destructive behavior is that God doesn't like it... That's a major problem. Especially if God forgives all, which, if you are a Christian, he does.
Kind of explains some of the pickles we find ourselves in around the world.