You can't boast a 'I'm not part of the system' statement' when you're just a cog in it.
You misunderstand me; I don't worship money like most do. To me it's simply a tool. As long as I have food, shelter, beer, transportation, I'm happy. I don't need a God damned Lexus or a McMansion. But people actually worship money as if it were a religion, and judge a person's worth by how much money they display having. I find the statement "he's worth fifteen million dollars" disgusting.
Alright, you got me. I can make excuses like, I haven't had my morning coffee or what not, but the truth is, I made a spelling mistake.
Lack of coffee excuses much in my mind -- I'm an addict, too. I was curiuous as to how that particular error came about, because I see it constantly. Hell, there are grocery stores with "Grocery's" on the sign; I have to excuse them because the sign painters are Saudis, and English isn't their native language. But where did it start?
P.S. It sounds like you spend a lot of time confirming fancy words you use by websters or likely just googling it. That's like completing an open book test. I wouldn't insult teachers so readily, less you be stricken of internet and your true capacity revealed.
The "open book test is a cheat" is quaint in the 21st century. And yes, I do google when I'm not sure of something or need a citation. As to "fancy words" I try not to use them unless I can't think of a shorter synonym (and coming up with synonyms gets harder the older I get). Maybe I should just use a thesarus... hmmm, what's the synonym for "thesarus"?
If I were without internet, I'd use the library like I did for half a century before I had internet, and still occasionally do, although these days most of my library reading is fiction.
As to the teachers, in my experience American public school teachers (at least in Illinois) are for the most part grossly incompetent. I had three good ones and several abysmal ones, and I don't think my kids fared nearly as well. One high school teacher actually failed a paper I wrote because she thought I made up the word "hierarchy", one science teacher gave ne an A because, as he admitted to me, he couldn't understand any of it!
Part of the problem is administration. They have math majors teaching English, English majors teaching math, and folks getting a jock scholarship teaching science.
College was a completely different matter; my college instructors knew how to teach and they knew their subject matter.
I think the answer is higher pay for teachers. A better salary would attract better candidates.
You are entirely correct that athiesm isn't a religion, although there are an awful lot of evangelical athiests. However, my hobby is indeed not collecting baseball cards, and I will ridicule anyone who dares profess a belief in baseball card collecting as an acceptable hobby!
My guess was typo for "fortune", but how he hit a r instead of an n when they're so far apart on the keyboard is a mystery. Maybe he copied something someone had written by hand?
I'll bet your sister's preacher wears a necktie. Inform her that a Christian told you to tell her that the necktie is the symbol of wealth and power, and her pastor is a wolf in sheep's clothing. She should find a different church, preferably a nondenominational one.
When the 40+ leaders say, "Go fight," the mid-20s would be far more likely to say, "Go F*, yourself" when the 18s say, "yessir!"
I seem to remember the teenagers being clueless rebels, while the older kids were more just after survival - getting a job and things like that. And they drafted us back then. Nowadays they have a choice (of sorts, if they're poor).
But maybe my cognitive abilities have declined since, well, if I had sex with a thirty year old, I'd feel like a child molester. I ain't young.
If you're twenty, think back when you were 7. How much have you learned since then? You're three times as old as a six year old, I'm three times as old as you. Think about that, and think about your own behavior.
When I was an undergrad, I had a professor in his late forties who, when faced with some pimply-faced eighteen year old who thought he knew it all, and talking to someone with a Master's degree in the field of discussion, would say "son, I've forgot more than you ever learned". Dennis, AKA "Professor Ringering" (his real name, no shit) was a great guy I enjoyed partying with. LOLed whenever some snot tried to outdo him.
Indeed; they could easily figure out what a sunset would look like on one of Jupiter's moons by sending a probe. But the picture wouldn't look like what was predicted by computer model; I've never seen two sunsets that were exactly alike. Latitude, temperature, air pressure, etc -- there are too many variables. When I was stationed in Thailand in the Air Force I saw what I would have thought were breathtakingly beautiful sunsets at a certain time of year that contained all the colors there were, including green. You don't get sunsets like that this far north.
Also, once one gets to be older one tends to have a greater tendency not to want to learn new things as we're taught that the only value to being elderly is being experienced and experience is ultimately the enemy of learning anything too novel.
I don't think that's the case; I'm 59 and still love learning new stuff. I'm only experienced at what I have experience with. But I'm more of a creature of habit these days, which I think is a better explanation. My maternal grandfather resisted getting indoor plumbing when I was a kid, and after my uncle built a bathroom onto Grandpa's house, Grandpa still used the outhouse, even in below freezing weather.
I try to drag my dad into the 21st century; It would be nice to be able to email or text him a photo instead of sticking a piece of paper in an envelope like they did three centuries ago, but "I did without a computer and cell phone for eighty years and I don't need one now."
I hope I die before I reach that point. But at any rate, part of being experienced is being experienced at learning to cope with changes to ones tools. Dad was an electrical lineman, and went from climbing poles and using wooden tools to a bucket truck and plastic; I don't think they even use the spike boots for climbing.
When I bitch about MS Outlook I have experience behind me, having been online since 1983. I can say with authority that in thirty years of emailing I've never seen a worse email client, from a user's perspective. Someone fresh out of college would have to have a very solid citation to rebut it (if in fact an opinion can be rebutted).
I just don't care about defending the Internet as a medium of free expression; it was never meant to be and it shall never be.
What? Then what was it meant for? Moving bits from computer to computer is what all networks are meant for. The only difference between my home network and the internet is the internet has a lot more computers on it, including all the ones on my network. The movements of ideas and data are exactly what the internet was meant for.
That should be "used to be". I need weaker springs on my keys, and I miss the old IBM keyboards that went CLACK!!! every time a keystroke was recorded.
The issue is when they say that god created everything from nothing in six days around 6,000 years ago
What I think is hilarious is that I've never, not once, heard anyone actually say that "six days" was exact (and in the original Hebrew "period of time" is translated to "day" in the modern texts) and nothing existed more than 6000 years ago -- except at slashdot.
See - this is the problem with text based communication. I think you're making a joke here, but instead of modding you funny I have to stop to make sure you weren't seriously suggesting...
It isn't a matter of text based communication at all, it's a matter of "some jokes just aren't funny". If it makes you laugh, it's a good joke whether written or spoken (although some jokes just won't work spoken, and some won't work written). If it doesn't at least make you grin, it's a crappy joke that should be modded "overrated" just to keep me from wasting my time reading it ("funny" gains no karma, so if your karma's shaky joking can be dangerous).
The only problem with written communication is that so few are any good at it these days (odd, since we have the internet). As to speech, well, have someone read this list of words to you as fast as they can: eye yam sofa king wee Todd ate
Is your reel real? Did your brake break? Did you brake your car or did you break it?
Would you have understood that if I'd spoken it? SPOKEN communication is the one with problems, which is why many jokes work at all. Written communication only fails with illiteracy or aliteracy; did you loose the dogs of war, or did you lose the dogs of war?
Which leads me to believe that TFA is exactly on spot -- you never use to see idiots at slashdot when it was still young, but these kids don't know the difference between your and you're or there, they're or there. Of course they're going to think spoken communication is superior, because they're only semi-literate.
I used to come here when I thought I was so damned smart, so I'd be with folks so smart I felt like an idiot and wasn't so full of myself. Not any more. The intelligence level of this site as drastically fallen with its age.
Richard Dawkins should be jealous of Robertson, who has converted far more Christians to athiesm than Dawkins ever dreamed of. But what, exactly, does Pat Robertson have to do with researchers working out the process by which evolution added a component to a cellular machine?
No, it isn't. It's philosophy, and it shouldn't be in a science story, but somehow the athiests on this board insist on bringing it up anyway.
Logic won't convince a a religious person that there's no god any more than you can convince me that my computer doesn't exist, but no argument can sway anyone into believing, either. The religious person has percieved his god, so he doesn't need faith to believe any more than I need faith to know that this computer is real (although I could be locked in a rubber room dreaming this nonexixtant computer up). The athiest needs faith.
The only logical position is agnosticism. It's a pointless argument, why do you guys keep insisting on the argument? It['s tedious and tiresome and I wish you'd stop. It's completely offtopic.
Ruining a bad joke is like ruining a turd. It can't be done. A joke that incredibly stupid must be taken seriously, and its spewer stomped on. Not only does pizza have vegetables, but vegetables have calories (how can anyone at/. not know that???)
Anyone know where I can find a good nerd site that keeps out the normtards?
People age at different rates. I turn 60 this year, and although I'm sure there has been some mental decline, it hasn't shown itself yet. I don't look as old as I am, either.
My grandmother was in her late 70s when she started worrying about "losing her mind" -- then I saw all the meds the docs had her taking every day, including some strong narcotics. I told her to ask her dr about it, he cut down on some of her dosages and she recovered. Your comment made me think of that. Last year I had a brain fart like that, my mom said "you just had a senior moment." Odd, it was just like being 25 and stoned on pot.
There are a lot of things that reduce brain function, including lack of oxygen to the brain, obesity, prescription drugs, and many other things.
I'd take this study with a grain of salt; not everyone is in the middle of the bell curve.
Definition of INSURE transitive verb 1: to provide or obtain insurance on or for 2: to make certain especially by taking necessary measures and precautions
...don't care about actually blocking the sites as it still promotes their material.
The RIAA would have embraced free downloads in order to sell hard copies (CDs etc) were it not for the fact that the internet also promotes their competetion, the independent artist. They have radio, independents don't.
If they can have websites promoting people into using things for 'free', get used to it, comfortable with it, know it's worth paying for
Most movies, music, and books aren't worth paying for.
Have some faith in capitalism people.
Sorry, I refuse to bow to your little green god.
You'll probably notice a pattern where they'll be quiet for awhile, let people save their penny's
The pattern I see is grade school teachers not doing their damned jobs well. Why do you guys put an apostrophe for a plural? It's pennies. Your spell checker dodn't catch it because "the penny's color is copper" is correct. I hope you're not a native English speaker, because "Count your penny's" makes you look like an uneducated, aliterate fool that only another aliterate fool would take seriously.
And before someone jumps on "aliterate", look the word up in Webster's first.
If everyone had a wifi router forwarding packets, the only people who would need corporate infrastructure would be those way out in the sticks. The genie is out of the bottle, and he'll be hard to put back in. One presient sci-fi writer saw the internet coming and the "dangers" of uncensored communication and information retrieval. A Logic Named Joe, 1946. Its text is on the internet, but Google seems to only point to where you can buy this public domain work (copyright expired, not renewed).
I don't think you said what you thought you said. You said "If just anybody can distribute their movie online and make a forture, why would they sell their movie to Paramount for a confession
The Movie Industries are worried because more people are switch from Cable to Internet TV, which can lead to more pirating.
How would the switch to internet TV lead to more pirating? Most people have the internet and cable; it's the cable companies that would worry, not Hollywood.
I've been using my TV for a monitor for ten years using an S-Video cable (no, I don't have a hi-def).
I posited to my 83 year old mother that the new TV they got recently had HDMI ports and she could plug her computer into it and ditch cable. There was no way to convince her -- and she's no luddite, she was using spreadsheets 35 years ago when she still worked.
They're more than simply mistakes in most cases. Read up on Project Innocence; ANYONE can wind up in prison unless they have shitloads of money.
Here in Springfield, a detective was fired from the police force after a "drug dealer" proved that the detective had perjured himself, made false statement to obtain a warrant, then planted drugs on the guy. The detective sued the city, and the judge made the city hire him back!
Illinois no longer has a death penalty because DNA evidence exonerated half the men on death row!
It's a nice fiction that only the guilty are in prison and only the innocent are on the street.
It's not being a bit pedantic; the GP's statement was false. People actually believe that you have to commit a crime to be imprisoned, like he said, when it simply isn't true.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't boast a 'I'm not part of the system' statement' when you're just a cog in it.
You misunderstand me; I don't worship money like most do. To me it's simply a tool. As long as I have food, shelter, beer, transportation, I'm happy. I don't need a God damned Lexus or a McMansion. But people actually worship money as if it were a religion, and judge a person's worth by how much money they display having. I find the statement "he's worth fifteen million dollars" disgusting.
Alright, you got me. I can make excuses like, I haven't had my morning coffee or what not, but the truth is, I made a spelling mistake.
Lack of coffee excuses much in my mind -- I'm an addict, too. I was curiuous as to how that particular error came about, because I see it constantly. Hell, there are grocery stores with "Grocery's" on the sign; I have to excuse them because the sign painters are Saudis, and English isn't their native language. But where did it start?
P.S. It sounds like you spend a lot of time confirming fancy words you use by websters or likely just googling it. That's like completing an open book test. I wouldn't insult teachers so readily, less you be stricken of internet and your true capacity revealed.
The "open book test is a cheat" is quaint in the 21st century. And yes, I do google when I'm not sure of something or need a citation. As to "fancy words" I try not to use them unless I can't think of a shorter synonym (and coming up with synonyms gets harder the older I get). Maybe I should just use a thesarus... hmmm, what's the synonym for "thesarus"?
If I were without internet, I'd use the library like I did for half a century before I had internet, and still occasionally do, although these days most of my library reading is fiction.
As to the teachers, in my experience American public school teachers (at least in Illinois) are for the most part grossly incompetent. I had three good ones and several abysmal ones, and I don't think my kids fared nearly as well. One high school teacher actually failed a paper I wrote because she thought I made up the word "hierarchy", one science teacher gave ne an A because, as he admitted to me, he couldn't understand any of it!
Part of the problem is administration. They have math majors teaching English, English majors teaching math, and folks getting a jock scholarship teaching science.
College was a completely different matter; my college instructors knew how to teach and they knew their subject matter.
I think the answer is higher pay for teachers. A better salary would attract better candidates.
You are entirely correct that athiesm isn't a religion, although there are an awful lot of evangelical athiests. However, my hobby is indeed not collecting baseball cards, and I will ridicule anyone who dares profess a belief in baseball card collecting as an acceptable hobby!
My guess was typo for "fortune", but how he hit a r instead of an n when they're so far apart on the keyboard is a mystery. Maybe he copied something someone had written by hand?
I'll bet your sister's preacher wears a necktie. Inform her that a Christian told you to tell her that the necktie is the symbol of wealth and power, and her pastor is a wolf in sheep's clothing. She should find a different church, preferably a nondenominational one.
When the 40+ leaders say, "Go fight," the mid-20s would be far more likely to say, "Go F*, yourself" when the 18s say, "yessir!"
I seem to remember the teenagers being clueless rebels, while the older kids were more just after survival - getting a job and things like that. And they drafted us back then. Nowadays they have a choice (of sorts, if they're poor).
But maybe my cognitive abilities have declined since, well, if I had sex with a thirty year old, I'd feel like a child molester. I ain't young.
If you're twenty, think back when you were 7. How much have you learned since then? You're three times as old as a six year old, I'm three times as old as you. Think about that, and think about your own behavior.
When I was an undergrad, I had a professor in his late forties who, when faced with some pimply-faced eighteen year old who thought he knew it all, and talking to someone with a Master's degree in the field of discussion, would say "son, I've forgot more than you ever learned". Dennis, AKA "Professor Ringering" (his real name, no shit) was a great guy I enjoyed partying with. LOLed whenever some snot tried to outdo him.
Indeed; they could easily figure out what a sunset would look like on one of Jupiter's moons by sending a probe. But the picture wouldn't look like what was predicted by computer model; I've never seen two sunsets that were exactly alike. Latitude, temperature, air pressure, etc -- there are too many variables. When I was stationed in Thailand in the Air Force I saw what I would have thought were breathtakingly beautiful sunsets at a certain time of year that contained all the colors there were, including green. You don't get sunsets like that this far north.
Old != cynical. I'm far less cynical than I was when I was in my twenties, although I'm far more realistic about expectations.
BTW, the obligatory GOML, youngster.
Also, once one gets to be older one tends to have a greater tendency not to want to learn new things as we're taught that the only value to being elderly is being experienced and experience is ultimately the enemy of learning anything too novel.
I don't think that's the case; I'm 59 and still love learning new stuff. I'm only experienced at what I have experience with. But I'm more of a creature of habit these days, which I think is a better explanation. My maternal grandfather resisted getting indoor plumbing when I was a kid, and after my uncle built a bathroom onto Grandpa's house, Grandpa still used the outhouse, even in below freezing weather.
I try to drag my dad into the 21st century; It would be nice to be able to email or text him a photo instead of sticking a piece of paper in an envelope like they did three centuries ago, but "I did without a computer and cell phone for eighty years and I don't need one now."
I hope I die before I reach that point. But at any rate, part of being experienced is being experienced at learning to cope with changes to ones tools. Dad was an electrical lineman, and went from climbing poles and using wooden tools to a bucket truck and plastic; I don't think they even use the spike boots for climbing.
When I bitch about MS Outlook I have experience behind me, having been online since 1983. I can say with authority that in thirty years of emailing I've never seen a worse email client, from a user's perspective. Someone fresh out of college would have to have a very solid citation to rebut it (if in fact an opinion can be rebutted).
I just don't care about defending the Internet as a medium of free expression; it was never meant to be and it shall never be.
What? Then what was it meant for? Moving bits from computer to computer is what all networks are meant for. The only difference between my home network and the internet is the internet has a lot more computers on it, including all the ones on my network. The movements of ideas and data are exactly what the internet was meant for.
That should be "used to be". I need weaker springs on my keys, and I miss the old IBM keyboards that went CLACK!!! every time a keystroke was recorded.
The issue is when they say that god created everything from nothing in six days around 6,000 years ago
What I think is hilarious is that I've never, not once, heard anyone actually say that "six days" was exact (and in the original Hebrew "period of time" is translated to "day" in the modern texts) and nothing existed more than 6000 years ago -- except at slashdot.
See - this is the problem with text based communication. I think you're making a joke here, but instead of modding you funny I have to stop to make sure you weren't seriously suggesting...
It isn't a matter of text based communication at all, it's a matter of "some jokes just aren't funny". If it makes you laugh, it's a good joke whether written or spoken (although some jokes just won't work spoken, and some won't work written). If it doesn't at least make you grin, it's a crappy joke that should be modded "overrated" just to keep me from wasting my time reading it ("funny" gains no karma, so if your karma's shaky joking can be dangerous).
The only problem with written communication is that so few are any good at it these days (odd, since we have the internet). As to speech, well, have someone read this list of words to you as fast as they can:
eye
yam
sofa
king
wee
Todd
ate
Is your reel real? Did your brake break? Did you brake your car or did you break it?
Would you have understood that if I'd spoken it? SPOKEN communication is the one with problems, which is why many jokes work at all. Written communication only fails with illiteracy or aliteracy; did you loose the dogs of war, or did you lose the dogs of war?
Which leads me to believe that TFA is exactly on spot -- you never use to see idiots at slashdot when it was still young, but these kids don't know the difference between your and you're or there, they're or there. Of course they're going to think spoken communication is superior, because they're only semi-literate.
I used to come here when I thought I was so damned smart, so I'd be with folks so smart I felt like an idiot and wasn't so full of myself. Not any more. The intelligence level of this site as drastically fallen with its age.
Richard Dawkins should be jealous of Robertson, who has converted far more Christians to athiesm than Dawkins ever dreamed of. But what, exactly, does Pat Robertson have to do with researchers working out the process by which evolution added a component to a cellular machine?
It isn't science.
No, it isn't. It's philosophy, and it shouldn't be in a science story, but somehow the athiests on this board insist on bringing it up anyway.
Logic won't convince a a religious person that there's no god any more than you can convince me that my computer doesn't exist, but no argument can sway anyone into believing, either. The religious person has percieved his god, so he doesn't need faith to believe any more than I need faith to know that this computer is real (although I could be locked in a rubber room dreaming this nonexixtant computer up). The athiest needs faith.
The only logical position is agnosticism. It's a pointless argument, why do you guys keep insisting on the argument? It['s tedious and tiresome and I wish you'd stop. It's completely offtopic.
Ruining a bad joke is like ruining a turd. It can't be done. A joke that incredibly stupid must be taken seriously, and its spewer stomped on. Not only does pizza have vegetables, but vegetables have calories (how can anyone at /. not know that???)
Anyone know where I can find a good nerd site that keeps out the normtards?
People age at different rates. I turn 60 this year, and although I'm sure there has been some mental decline, it hasn't shown itself yet. I don't look as old as I am, either.
My grandmother was in her late 70s when she started worrying about "losing her mind" -- then I saw all the meds the docs had her taking every day, including some strong narcotics. I told her to ask her dr about it, he cut down on some of her dosages and she recovered. Your comment made me think of that. Last year I had a brain fart like that, my mom said "you just had a senior moment." Odd, it was just like being 25 and stoned on pot.
There are a lot of things that reduce brain function, including lack of oxygen to the brain, obesity, prescription drugs, and many other things.
I'd take this study with a grain of salt; not everyone is in the middle of the bell curve.
Webster's Dictionary disagrees.
Definition of INSURE
transitive verb
1: to provide or obtain insurance on or for
2: to make certain especially by taking necessary measures and precautions
...don't care about actually blocking the sites as it still promotes their material.
The RIAA would have embraced free downloads in order to sell hard copies (CDs etc) were it not for the fact that the internet also promotes their competetion, the independent artist. They have radio, independents don't.
If they can have websites promoting people into using things for 'free', get used to it, comfortable with it, know it's worth paying for
Most movies, music, and books aren't worth paying for.
Have some faith in capitalism people.
Sorry, I refuse to bow to your little green god.
You'll probably notice a pattern where they'll be quiet for awhile, let people save their penny's
The pattern I see is grade school teachers not doing their damned jobs well. Why do you guys put an apostrophe for a plural? It's pennies. Your spell checker dodn't catch it because "the penny's color is copper" is correct. I hope you're not a native English speaker, because "Count your penny's" makes you look like an uneducated, aliterate fool that only another aliterate fool would take seriously.
And before someone jumps on "aliterate", look the word up in Webster's first.
If everyone had a wifi router forwarding packets, the only people who would need corporate infrastructure would be those way out in the sticks. The genie is out of the bottle, and he'll be hard to put back in. One presient sci-fi writer saw the internet coming and the "dangers" of uncensored communication and information retrieval. A Logic Named Joe, 1946. Its text is on the internet, but Google seems to only point to where you can buy this public domain work (copyright expired, not renewed).
I don't think you said what you thought you said. You said "If just anybody can distribute their movie online and make a forture, why would they sell their movie to Paramount for a confession
Did you mean pittance?
Dew knot truss yore spill checker.
The Movie Industries are worried because more people are switch from Cable to Internet TV, which can lead to more pirating.
How would the switch to internet TV lead to more pirating? Most people have the internet and cable; it's the cable companies that would worry, not Hollywood.
I've been using my TV for a monitor for ten years using an S-Video cable (no, I don't have a hi-def).
I posited to my 83 year old mother that the new TV they got recently had HDMI ports and she could plug her computer into it and ditch cable. There was no way to convince her -- and she's no luddite, she was using spreadsheets 35 years ago when she still worked.
They're more than simply mistakes in most cases. Read up on Project Innocence; ANYONE can wind up in prison unless they have shitloads of money.
Here in Springfield, a detective was fired from the police force after a "drug dealer" proved that the detective had perjured himself, made false statement to obtain a warrant, then planted drugs on the guy. The detective sued the city, and the judge made the city hire him back!
Illinois no longer has a death penalty because DNA evidence exonerated half the men on death row!
It's a nice fiction that only the guilty are in prison and only the innocent are on the street.
It's not being a bit pedantic; the GP's statement was false. People actually believe that you have to commit a crime to be imprisoned, like he said, when it simply isn't true.
Oh, yeah? You get thrown in prison for being convicted of a felony whether you committed the crime or not.
Here's the wikipedia article with the famous quote. Nowhere that I saw does it say he had a law degree.