Or just look at how many people continue to smoke pot as they throw their lives away.
And the only reason they're "throwing their lives away" is because pot is illegal. Pot is not chemically dangerous. At the very least, it's much less chemically dangerous than caffeine, nicotine or alcohol, all of which are perfectly legal.
The most dangerous thing about Marijuana is the fact that it's illegal, and that there's a vast profit machine waiting to feed on you if you're caught with it. From the corrupt system that allows the police to "seize" your property, to the corrupt court system where you can spend your very last dime on lawyers while trying to stay out of jail... to the for profit jail system that wants to keep you there and keeps buying off our politicians to write more laws to get and keep you as many others behind bars as long as possible (case in point: who wrote Arizona's crazy-pants immigration law? it's probably not who you think).
I was going to vote for Obama. note the past tense.
So we'll be letting any 20-something with a roll of duct tape and an unreasonably high opinion of their "skillz" build our national infrastructure based essentially on ideas gleaned from blog postings and google search results? I guess we'll also be spending billions on smoke, mirrors and fast-talking slick executives in a bid to be acquired by China at all costs?
We are describing him as an innovator, because he created a company where "that guy" could thrive. Steve Jobs was a great manager, who understood technology and gave two shits about great ideas and quality. That's why we miss him, because apparently he was the last one of those in the known universe.
Yeah, uuh... ask Steve Jobs how that "alternative therapy" is working out, man.
I'm paraphrasing someone brilliant who I can't remember the name of when I say "alternative medicine doesn't work, because if it did, it would just be called medicine".
That's not to say science knows everything, or that there is not an incredible amount to learn from traditional folk medicine and herbalists. It's just that the scientists are the the ones doing the learning, and sorting that out. Not salesmen. not spammy bloggers, and for damn sure not aging bombshell actresses.
If you want to tell me I'll live a longer, healthier life if I eat right and take vitamins, I'll buy that. I'll buy that it can prevent a lot of health problems, and that I'll generally get sick less. But DO NOT come at someone with that WEAK-ASS SHIT when LIFE AND DEATH are on the line.
Cancer is serious business. It does NOT fuck around, and neither should you.
If you're dealing with cancer the very best thing you can do is make sure you get a credible second or even third opinion at what is called a "medical center of excellence". It sounds like a BS marketing thing, but it has a specific technical meaning in the medical world, it is essentially second tier support. The people there know what they are doing. Educate yourself, make sure the people you have entrusted your care to, know what they are doing, and are engaged.
I can recommend only one herbal remedy in this respect, the kind put here by Jah. It won't cure your cancer, but it'll help you get through what's coming.
As someone who recently was stuck in our incredibly broken medical system with cancer that was mimicking symptoms of other diseases (which were coincidentally much more profitable to sell "management" drugs for), I actually think this could work.
You guys are on the tip where you're thinking a cold heartless machine will be making the rules, like it's a bad thing. Look, I was stuck in a small town where the biggest industries are defense contracting and medical services. Do the math. As long as my symptoms looked plausibly like something that was going to make everyone a lot of money to sell treatment for, there was no F-ing WAY anyone was going to have any shred of curiosity about what the real problem was.
It's not that people were being dicks. They were being human. Nobody WANTED me to continue to get sicker, but nobody at the levels low enough to notice knew any better, and the people high enough up the chain to know better were too busy counting their money and running the small-business that was their practice to notice.
In the end it was ME who had to hit google, find a research university, verify that they were covered by my insurance, and basically go to my doctor and stage a sit-in until the motherfucker wrote me a referral. That shit SAVED MY LIFE.
And I'll say it again. Googling my symptoms and having the self confidence to question the system because I KNEW something didn't add up SAVED MY LIFE.
My insurance was buying the equivalent of a mid-size sedan on my behalf for medications for a disease that I did not have (that in the end were indeed making me much sicker). I'd bet Watson would have picked that shit up pronto and forwarded me up the diagnostic chain.
It has the potential for abuse, sure. But I actually would rather trust a correlation engine to pick shit like that up than a bunch of self-interested medical professionals cum-entrepreneurs. Believe that.
This was very much my experience with Crohn's disease. Well actually, it turned out not to be Crohn's, but a rare type of cancer called an gastronoma, but that's kind of an aside.
What I found is that the mind-gut connection is a two way street. You know how your gut gets all twisted and you get the shits, nausea, etc when you are *really* stressed out? Well if that shit happens (no pun intended) on the regular... your mind starts to react as if stress were the cause.
I had almost no stress (other than the health stuff, which we didn't know was a big deal until the end -- just in time, actually). I just thought I had Crohn's disease, which I had medicine for and wasn't particularly stressed over, but my gut was twisting and wretching day in and day out, and I had this ill-defined sense of dread and anxiety. Couldn't tell you why, but I was definitely stressed about... something...
In any case, I believe it. Your moods, are very much intimately intertwined with how your digestive tract. More than people usually realize I think.
Today we have big-gulp sized energy drinks, zoloft, and ambien... and nearly everyone I know that works in tech is consuming all three (or similar compounds of varying legal status). So they can be hyped up all damn day and cut it off like a switch when they want to sleep. There is non-obvious collateral damage to that lifestyle, and as my generation hits our mid 30's a lot of us are feeling the consequences (myself included).
The human mind has indeed NOT evolved to deal with our numerous always-on distraction engines. Let this be a warning to the up n' coming "geeklings"... get out side, get some exercise, get some fresh air at least 30 minutes a day. Lay off the stimulants.
It also did something else, the most powerful most capable characters, were white humans. Spock from TOS was gone, replaced why a white android and various white male humans. It lacked the edge. Maybe that was a good thing, maybe a token black woman on the bridge was no longer needed to show a society that had moved beyond racism. Maybe.
Jeordi La Forge?... the thing is, thought that he was far more than a "token black guy". He was a fully developed, very interesting character. I'd have to say, if you really look at the best episodes, they all revolved around Jeordi, Worf & Data.
I always thought that was a really cool thing about the show. It wasn't the "cowboy captain punches aliens and get the girl" show. The captain was usually involved, and important, but it wasn't about him, necessarily (at least all the time). The show was sci-fi for sure, but it had really good characters, by the end.
Wesley... yeah that was an unfortunate misstep. I liked him better toward the end, when he was more of a young adult than a kid straight from an afterschool special, who's only purpose was to ask incredibly contrived leading questions so an adult could speechify about drugs or sex or peer pressure, or what have you. When they finally figured out how to use the Wesley character well, he was off the show, which is really kind of a shame in a way.
Yeah... I still find TNG inspiring in a way, because it does show a better future, but more than anything, it shows a group of competent adults who excel in their respective fields, care about their work, and work effectively together in spite of their differences, and do it without descending into backbiting and politics.
In short, I wish I could work for Captain Picard so bad... lol
I've been full time telecommuting for 5 years now... or "ROWE" if you must call it that... It all boils down to the same thing "get it done, no matter what". That's just FINE if you work in a situation that is NOT fucked up. If, however, you work at a company that is, as 99.999% of companies are... Fucked up beyond all recognition, be prepared for a living hell.
The best analogy I can think of comes from the second season of Lost. Remember Desmond... the dude in the bunker who had to push the button every 108 minutes or the world would end? Welcome to your new telecommuting wonderland.
It's not that it starts out that way... it just inevitably winds up that way. The reason is that people don't *see* you working, and as such they presume that you are *not* working, or that you have infinite capability to take on more work. If you work for a global organization... this means... since you work from home that obviously you won't mind taking calls at 5 in the morning from Europe... then taking 11pm calls from Australia *in the same work day*... day in... and day out.
Telecommuting is a double edged sword. It has some really, truly great advantages. I don't waste 4 hours out of every work day in traffic. I'm here when my kids get home from school, I even know what they look like. I have indeed folded laundry on conference calls and worked in my pajamas.
I also spend almost *every waking moment* (save an hour here and there with my family), working. Because when i moved into a telecommuting position, I made it crystal clear to my company that my job can be done *from anywhere*... and by extention... *by the cheapest competent person they can find in the world to do it, regardless of location*.
3 out of 5 of my co-workers will be replaced by offshore development resources (i.e. cheap mo-fo's who'll do the same thing for 1/8th the cost) by the end of the year. So now I have to *zero* leverage to push back when things get overwhelming.
Yeah, telecommuting (or ROWE or whatever) can be great... but like I said... it's pandora's box.
Maybe this says more about my circle of friends than it does about facebook, but this is how it has become a source of stress for me:
When it started out, it was just me and some friends I'd made over the past say 8 or 9 years. We held similar views on a lot of things, and mostly we were using it to point each other to interesting music (via youtube -- the new streaming napster), and share pictures of our kids.
Some time... I don't know... about 3 years ago... it reached the saturation point where all of the people I went to high school with found it. Also we elected Obama. That, as it turned out, was the perfect storm to turn facebook into a 24-hour flame-a-thon.
I went to school in rural Georgia. I left that area for a lot of reasons (then moved back for some different reasons, but that's another story). The point is, all my great friends from high school who were just cool as shit when I was a kid now seem to be ourtaged, glenn-beck-watchin, gun-totin', end-times-expectin', scared-shitless neo-cons.
And these guys are constantly posting shit that makes my brain hurt. That's not to say all right wing views are uninformed, half-witted snopes fodder. It's just that this seems to be the shit these guys are attracted to, and it's like there... all the damn time.
And so... yeah I don't feel any stress about "being entertaining" or "ettiquette" or any of that crap. But every time I just wanna see what's going on with my friends, there's some guy I went to high school with posting a conspiracy theory about FEMA camps, or secret Muslim infiltration of the armed services... or some "scriptural proof that Obama is the anti-christ".
GAWD.. it's like a troll convention for me. I just... can't... stop... arguing about shit on facebook. Which is why I've blocked most of those donkeys, but still. I wonder... I couldn't be the only person who this has happened to.
BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAHHH OMG dude, don't drink the RNC coolaid.
Look around. We can't even keep the "boomers" employed, presently. The ones who DO have jobs AREN'T retiring because they can't AFFORD to.
Boomers, like everyone else are going to work until they slump over at the keyboard... run up even more debt getting repaired at the hospital... then come back and work some more until they literally get rigor mortis halfway through an email message to an outsourced "co-worker" in India, China or the Philippines.
THAT is the new reality, my man. Much like the British royals... Its not us who are going to inherit our parents jobs... but maybe our children.
But probably not our children either, because corporate America absolutely *detests* paying American wages and benefits. As the boomers expire, and fewer of them are around to "protect their own" at the top, they'll just outsource those jobs too. Believe it. The optimal American company these days, is a single American executive with 100% foreign operations, money hidden in offshore shell accounts, and a single US based post office box to claim "Made in USA" status.
This is why the "we're transitioning to a knowledge economy, only the dumbasses will get hurt" line is just COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT.
So called "knowledge" jobs might have been the shiznit in the 70's but we hung ourselves with our own rope. The internet means that ANY "knowledge job" is only worth as much as the cheapest internet-connected person in the world is willing to do it for. As we see with the "Indian Call Center" phenomenon, even quality doesn't matter THAT MUCH to corporate America. Quantity will do just fine as a stand in.
America is a fading global power. That's natural, nobody is on top forever. But pretending that we can all be "idea people" and only the undereducated will be adversely affected is dumb and short sighted. Extending that notion, by saying "well anyone can get educated, if you're not it's a lack of motivation, etc"... that's just blaming the victim.
We NEED manufacturing jobs here, because if literally every American citizen was Einstein incarnate, we STILL could not make the economy work with everyone "thinking for a living". Someone has to make shit.
Tired-ass people trying to warm-over some tired-ass bullshit from the 90's tech glory days. That's what the hell this is.
You know what makes you "cool"? Providing a lot of value to one group of people, and being idolized by a second, lower status group of people who wish they could do the same. That's all.
Make some soul-less executive motherfuckers (who don't even remotely understand what the fuck you're doing) very rich, inspire n00bs just coming into the workforce to do the same... presto, you're fuckin' cool.
I've had it with this whole "geek" thing really. I kinda bought into it when I was 23, just starting out, and the thought of working 14 hour days every damn day, including the weekends because I was *so dedicated to this awesome thing I was building* seemed romantic; glamorous in a way. All that 90's / early 2000's media sure re-enforced the notion.
Here's the thing. I wasn't "cool" I was just another cog in the system. All that effort and dedication? It didn't mean a damn thing to anyone but me, and in the end, I made other people a lot of money and didn't get too much out of it myself, other than the satisfaction of building some really neat shit that belonged to other people who didn't give a damn after a year or two.
So you know what? "CyberGeeks" don't SEEM cool because they AREN'T cool. They only ever WERE cool via means of self-delusion and propaganda. Being the very best worker in a sweatshop isn't "cool", it just is what it is.
Dedicate yourself to something you love, and don't do it for any other reason than that. If other people think it's "cool"... great. If not... fuck 'em, they're not even part of the equation in the first place.
.. periodically making sure that newtonian mechanics and basic chemistry still remain valid, and that science hasn't all changed over night....
Don't worry... if the basic laws of physics change tonight, we have a crack team of freshmen on the case. That's why they make you do so many borderline idiotic labs in 100 level Physics and Chemistry classes.
This is one meme I am sick and bloody tired of hearing repeated: "fanatical Obama supporters".
Yes... yes, for chrissakes they DID exist... a hand full of them. Not that any objective analysis could be done, but from my experience I'd estimate that there were about as many of them as there were Tea Partiers who showed up to Glenn Beck's shindig on the National Mall.
And of course, just like the Tea Baggin' dickweeds, this crew of drooling nitwits are a convenient caricature into which we can easily cast ALL Obama supporters... because Jesus Christ Almighty, seeing the world at a greater than 1 bit color depth just takes TOO MUCH HORSEPOWER.
Yeah Obama's rhetoric was damn good. Perhaps a little over the top, but all things considered... not terribly so by contemporary political campaign standards.
I could be wrong, but I just have a real hard time believing that Obama's undoing will be hoards of brainwashed masses who thought he was the messiah and are dissapointed.
It'll probably be more like this: the economy still sucks, and by 2012 it'll be blatantly obvious that America really is a fading world power, and that shit is just not popular and the president is an easy target. That being said, Obama is WAY slicker than Willy ever was, and America LOVES slick. If the Repubs wanna win they're gonna have to find someone incredibly good.
It's funny you should mention consumerism in relation to Polar Express. This was on TV last night and my kids watched it, as they typically do every year... so I've seen it a few times.
I never really noticed until this year, how blatantly manipulative this film is. They find that emotional trigger loosely based around the hopeful kid expecting the world for Christmas, whose parents might not be able to provide that... and they just hammer on it relentlessly for 90 minutes.
Listen to the lyrics for the big musical number "When Christmas Comes to Town" and tell me I'm wrong.
One thing's for sure. If you are a parent and you've been hit by the recession this year, this movie is going to make you feel like utter shit.
And it's completely on purpose... more propaganda to make sure you mortgage the farm to buy more overpriced useless plastic crap from China, before the year is out.
What pisses me off is how my kid's elementary school makes a big deal out of it every year. They have a reading, and pass out little christmas bells to the kids and stuff. The book has apparently won some sort of children's literature award. Charlie and the Chocolate factory or Charlotte's Web, it ain't. Gotta wonder what the story behind that "award" was and if it was at all related to the influence of the film's backers.
Oh also, the whole film looks like bad video game graphics from the 90's.
Here's something that pissed me off beyond words last time I flew. I stood in line. My photo id and boarding pass were verified. Both my laptops were pulled out of their bags and scanned. My shoes were scanned. I got in the x-ray machine and got to the "secure area".
What's staring me in the face? A fucking TGI Fridays.
You tellin' me they don't have knives in the kitchen? Or maybe some ammonia and bleach back there?
Yeah it's goddam theater, and backslapping contracts and given that you could just about drive a truck filled with explosives through the holes in this "security system" it's a fucking UNREASONABLE invasion of privacy.
when I was in college, I had an assignment to read "Dispatches" by Micheal Herr... there's a couple things I remember.
A) getting physically ill by the time I finished it (it was graphic and highly depressing)
and
B) a scene describing a situation some military brass absolutely looses his shit because some kids scrawled curse words on their helmets (or a helicopter or something... this was like 15 years ago at least when I read it).
18 and 19 year olds... literal children... sent into the jungle half a world away for the intent of carrying out some of the most brutal and horrific acts imaginable, and they are chastised for using profanity.
That kind of *complete* and utter lack of perspective reminds me of this situation.
Let me get this right. We have been waging two wars for nearly 10 years. The general public has become *so* desensitized to it, that not only can you make a photo-realistic video game *about the real war that is still happening*, and this is not controversial or unpopular, but is instead one of the most anticipated and popular games of all time.
And it's "disrespectful" to sell the instances of the fake war to the people waging the *actual* war. But it's not "disrespectful" to wage the *actual* war.
I've been using Logic 9 daily for almost a whole year and never had a crash except for in the case of one "yar-maytee" type plugin. Also use mainstage to gig out, it's also not that bad (a huge step up from the previous version).
as for the rest... you have some points... maybe except for the widgets. I'm also a win 7 user, and I'll say having the "widgets up front where I can use them" is a serious PITA... I rather like the OS X approach, but to each his own.
What do you expect, man? They're just a company... makin' money... sellin' things... you know? All things considered, they make some pretty nice stuff.
I'll second that. My daughter is in that same boat, and for that matter so was I at her age. Medication is absolutely necessary for her, as it was for me. I do hope she grows out of the need for it as I did, but time will tell.
That being said, oh holy hell yes... there are a *crapload* of kids who are on these meds who shouldn't be. There is a gazillion dollar marketing machine behind them, right underneath of which is built a slightly smaller billion-dollar-a-year framework of "medical consultancy".
Finding a *honest to god* specialist who actually cares about what he or she is doing, and who is willing to *not* diagnose your kid with some condition requiring medication (when appropriate), is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Truthfully, it's on par with "medical marijuana" in terms of shady justifications for prescriptions.
This makes it *really hard* for the few who actually have a condition and really need a specialist to (ironically) PAY ATTENTION to what's going on, long term (beyond just prescribing some medication with a thousand refills and giving you a shiny brochure from the pharmaceutical company).
The backlash is well deserved, but please... don't lump everyone in together. These conditions are real (for a very few, as compared to the vast ocean of people who are "diagnosed").
I agree with you 100%. I often wish someone would make the modern-day equivalent of the C-64.
0 boot time.
When you turn it on, it dumps you into a fairly idiot-proof shell where you can interact with the device at a low level if you so choose, or simply load a game (but you still have to know what to type)
no HD so you can't do permanent damage that resetting the device won't cure.
And lastly... the hook...
the ability to run / "obtain" / make your own awesome games.
I don't know too much about modern game programming, but it seems like even with all the advanced 3D stuff, that there should be some sort of entry level scripting language that one could teach youngsters to poke around in.
I think it'd be awesome. I bet my kids would think it's awesome too.
the fact that you had to preface your statement with "I'm not a pot smoker" speaks volumes to exactly how deep seated the stigma and fear run in our society. Things may not be changing as quickly as you think.
Slashdot Mirror
... for all we know that IS an alien parking garage.
Or just look at how many people continue to smoke pot as they throw their lives away.
And the only reason they're "throwing their lives away" is because pot is illegal. Pot is not chemically dangerous. At the very least, it's much less chemically dangerous than caffeine, nicotine or alcohol, all of which are perfectly legal.
The most dangerous thing about Marijuana is the fact that it's illegal, and that there's a vast profit machine waiting to feed on you if you're caught with it. From the corrupt system that allows the police to "seize" your property, to the corrupt court system where you can spend your very last dime on lawyers while trying to stay out of jail ... to the for profit jail system that wants to keep you there and keeps buying off our politicians to write more laws to get and keep you as many others behind bars as long as possible (case in point: who wrote Arizona's crazy-pants immigration law? it's probably not who you think).
I was going to vote for Obama.
note the past tense.
Like a startup 'eh?
So we'll be letting any 20-something with a roll of duct tape and an unreasonably high opinion of their "skillz" build our national infrastructure based essentially on ideas gleaned from blog postings and google search results? I guess we'll also be spending billions on smoke, mirrors and fast-talking slick executives in a bid to be acquired by China at all costs?
hot damn! sign me up! I'm an expert at this shit!
We are describing him as an innovator, because he created a company where "that guy" could thrive.
Steve Jobs was a great manager, who understood technology and gave two shits about great ideas and quality.
That's why we miss him, because apparently he was the last one of those in the known universe.
> What else are they going to do with all their extra money? Save it at ~0% interest?
create jobs overseas. ... it was from China, not Canada
and that's the other half of the problem.
Ross Perot was right about the "Sucking sound"
puttin' strings into databases, retrieving them,
and html formatting them!
Damn it feels good to be a gangsta
Yeah, uuh ... ask Steve Jobs how that "alternative therapy" is working out, man.
I'm paraphrasing someone brilliant who I can't remember the name of when I say "alternative medicine doesn't work, because if it did, it would just be called medicine".
That's not to say science knows everything, or that there is not an incredible amount to learn from traditional folk medicine and herbalists. It's just that the scientists are the the ones doing the learning, and sorting that out. Not salesmen. not spammy bloggers, and for damn sure not aging bombshell actresses.
If you want to tell me I'll live a longer, healthier life if I eat right and take vitamins, I'll buy that. I'll buy that it can prevent a lot of health problems, and that I'll generally get sick less. But DO NOT come at someone with that WEAK-ASS SHIT when LIFE AND DEATH are on the line.
Cancer is serious business. It does NOT fuck around, and neither should you.
If you're dealing with cancer the very best thing you can do is make sure you get a credible second or even third opinion at what is called a "medical center of excellence". It sounds like a BS marketing thing, but it has a specific technical meaning in the medical world, it is essentially second tier support. The people there know what they are doing. Educate yourself, make sure the people you have entrusted your care to, know what they are doing, and are engaged.
I can recommend only one herbal remedy in this respect, the kind put here by Jah.
It won't cure your cancer, but it'll help you get through what's coming.
As someone who recently was stuck in our incredibly broken medical system with cancer that was mimicking symptoms of other diseases (which were coincidentally much more profitable to sell "management" drugs for), I actually think this could work.
You guys are on the tip where you're thinking a cold heartless machine will be making the rules, like it's a bad thing.
Look, I was stuck in a small town where the biggest industries are defense contracting and medical services. Do the math. As long as my symptoms looked plausibly like something that was going to make everyone a lot of money to sell treatment for, there was no F-ing WAY anyone was going to have any shred of curiosity about what the real problem was.
It's not that people were being dicks. They were being human. Nobody WANTED me to continue to get sicker, but nobody at the levels low enough to notice knew any better, and the people high enough up the chain to know better were too busy counting their money and running the small-business that was their practice to notice.
In the end it was ME who had to hit google, find a research university, verify that they were covered by my insurance, and basically go to my doctor and stage a sit-in until the motherfucker wrote me a referral. That shit SAVED MY LIFE.
And I'll say it again. Googling my symptoms and having the self confidence to question the system because I KNEW something didn't add up SAVED MY LIFE.
My insurance was buying the equivalent of a mid-size sedan on my behalf for medications for a disease that I did not have (that in the end were indeed making me much sicker). I'd bet Watson would have picked that shit up pronto and forwarded me up the diagnostic chain.
It has the potential for abuse, sure. But I actually would rather trust a correlation engine to pick shit like that up than a bunch of self-interested medical professionals cum-entrepreneurs. Believe that.
This was very much my experience with Crohn's disease.
Well actually, it turned out not to be Crohn's, but a rare type of cancer called an gastronoma, but that's kind of an aside.
What I found is that the mind-gut connection is a two way street. ... your mind starts to react as if stress were the cause.
You know how your gut gets all twisted and you get the shits, nausea, etc when you are *really* stressed out?
Well if that shit happens (no pun intended) on the regular
I had almost no stress (other than the health stuff, which we didn't know was a big deal until the end -- just in time, actually). I just thought I had Crohn's disease, which I had medicine for and wasn't particularly stressed over, but my gut was twisting and wretching day in and day out, and I had this ill-defined sense of dread and anxiety. Couldn't tell you why, but I was definitely stressed about ... something ...
In any case, I believe it. Your moods, are very much intimately intertwined with how your digestive tract. More than people usually realize I think.
Hippies called them "uppers" and "downers".
Today we have big-gulp sized energy drinks, zoloft, and ambien ... and nearly everyone I know that works in tech is consuming all three (or similar compounds of varying legal status). So they can be hyped up all damn day and cut it off like a switch when they want to sleep. There is non-obvious collateral damage to that lifestyle, and as my generation hits our mid 30's a lot of us are feeling the consequences (myself included).
The human mind has indeed NOT evolved to deal with our numerous always-on distraction engines. ... get out side, get some exercise, get some fresh air at least 30 minutes a day.
Let this be a warning to the up n' coming "geeklings"
Lay off the stimulants.
Your future self will thank you for it.
It also did something else, the most powerful most capable characters, were white humans. Spock from TOS was gone, replaced why a white android and various white male humans. It lacked the edge. Maybe that was a good thing, maybe a token black woman on the bridge was no longer needed to show a society that had moved beyond racism. Maybe.
Jeordi La Forge? ... the thing is, thought that he was far more than a "token black guy".
He was a fully developed, very interesting character. I'd have to say, if you really look at the best episodes, they all revolved around Jeordi, Worf & Data.
I always thought that was a really cool thing about the show. It wasn't the "cowboy captain punches aliens and get the girl" show.
The captain was usually involved, and important, but it wasn't about him, necessarily (at least all the time).
The show was sci-fi for sure, but it had really good characters, by the end.
Wesley ... yeah that was an unfortunate misstep. I liked him better toward the end, when he was more of a young adult than a kid straight from an afterschool special, who's only purpose was to ask incredibly contrived leading questions so an adult could speechify about drugs or sex or peer pressure, or what have you. When they finally figured out how to use the Wesley character well, he was off the show, which is really kind of a shame in a way.
Yeah ... I still find TNG inspiring in a way, because it does show a better future, but more than anything, it shows a group of competent adults who excel in their respective fields, care about their work, and work effectively together in spite of their differences, and do it without descending into backbiting and politics.
In short, I wish I could work for Captain Picard so bad ... lol
I've been full time telecommuting for 5 years now ... or "ROWE" if you must call it that ... ... Fucked up beyond all recognition, be prepared for a living hell.
It all boils down to the same thing "get it done, no matter what".
That's just FINE if you work in a situation that is NOT fucked up.
If, however, you work at a company that is, as 99.999% of companies are
The best analogy I can think of comes from the second season of Lost. ... the dude in the bunker who had to push the button every 108 minutes or the world would end?
Remember Desmond
Welcome to your new telecommuting wonderland.
It's not that it starts out that way ... it just inevitably winds up that way. ... this means ... since you work from home that obviously you won't mind taking calls at 5 in the morning from Europe ... then taking 11pm calls from Australia *in the same work day* ... day in ... and day out.
The reason is that people don't *see* you working, and as such they presume that you are *not* working, or that you have infinite capability to take on more work. If you work for a global organization
Telecommuting is a double edged sword. It has some really, truly great advantages.
I don't waste 4 hours out of every work day in traffic. I'm here when my kids get home from school, I even know what they look like. I have indeed folded laundry on conference calls and worked in my pajamas.
I also spend almost *every waking moment* (save an hour here and there with my family), working. ... and by extention ... *by the cheapest competent person they can find in the world to do it, regardless of location*.
Because when i moved into a telecommuting position, I made it crystal clear to my company that my job can be done *from anywhere*
3 out of 5 of my co-workers will be replaced by offshore development resources (i.e. cheap mo-fo's who'll do the same thing for 1/8th the cost) by the end of the year. So now I have to *zero* leverage to push back when things get overwhelming.
Yeah, telecommuting (or ROWE or whatever) can be great ... but like I said ... it's pandora's box.
Maybe this says more about my circle of friends than it does about facebook, but this is how it has become a source of stress for me:
When it started out, it was just me and some friends I'd made over the past say 8 or 9 years.
We held similar views on a lot of things, and mostly we were using it to point each other to interesting music (via youtube -- the new streaming napster), and share pictures of our kids.
Some time ... I don't know ... about 3 years ago ... it reached the saturation point where all of the people I went to high school with found it.
Also we elected Obama. That, as it turned out, was the perfect storm to turn facebook into a 24-hour flame-a-thon.
I went to school in rural Georgia. I left that area for a lot of reasons (then moved back for some different reasons, but that's another story).
The point is, all my great friends from high school who were just cool as shit when I was a kid now seem to be ourtaged, glenn-beck-watchin, gun-totin', end-times-expectin', scared-shitless neo-cons.
And these guys are constantly posting shit that makes my brain hurt. That's not to say all right wing views are uninformed, half-witted snopes fodder. It's just that this seems to be the shit these guys are attracted to, and it's like there ... all the damn time.
And so ... yeah I don't feel any stress about "being entertaining" or "ettiquette" or any of that crap. ... or some "scriptural proof that Obama is the anti-christ".
But every time I just wanna see what's going on with my friends, there's some guy I went to high school with posting a conspiracy theory about FEMA camps, or secret Muslim infiltration of the armed services
GAWD .. it's like a troll convention for me. ... can't ... stop ... arguing about shit on facebook. ... I couldn't be the only person who this has happened to.
I just
Which is why I've blocked most of those donkeys, but still.
I wonder
BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAHHH
OMG dude, don't drink the RNC coolaid.
Look around. We can't even keep the "boomers" employed, presently.
The ones who DO have jobs AREN'T retiring because they can't AFFORD to.
Boomers, like everyone else are going to work until they slump over at the keyboard ... run up even more debt getting repaired at the hospital ... then come back and work some more until they literally get rigor mortis halfway through an email message to an outsourced "co-worker" in India, China or the Philippines.
THAT is the new reality, my man. ... Its not us who are going to inherit our parents jobs ... but maybe our children.
Much like the British royals
But probably not our children either, because corporate America absolutely *detests* paying American wages and benefits. As the boomers expire, and fewer of them are around to "protect their own" at the top, they'll just outsource those jobs too. Believe it. The optimal American company these days, is a single American executive with 100% foreign operations, money hidden in offshore shell accounts, and a single US based post office box to claim "Made in USA" status.
This is why the "we're transitioning to a knowledge economy, only the dumbasses will get hurt" line is just COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT.
So called "knowledge" jobs might have been the shiznit in the 70's but we hung ourselves with our own rope. The internet means that ANY "knowledge job" is only worth as much as the cheapest internet-connected person in the world is willing to do it for. As we see with the "Indian Call Center" phenomenon, even quality doesn't matter THAT MUCH to corporate America. Quantity will do just fine as a stand in.
America is a fading global power. That's natural, nobody is on top forever. But pretending that we can all be "idea people" and only the undereducated will be adversely affected is dumb and short sighted. Extending that notion, by saying "well anyone can get educated, if you're not it's a lack of motivation, etc" ... that's just blaming the victim.
We NEED manufacturing jobs here, because if literally every American citizen was Einstein incarnate, we STILL could not make the economy work with everyone "thinking for a living". Someone has to make shit.
Tired-ass people trying to warm-over some tired-ass bullshit from the 90's tech glory days.
That's what the hell this is.
You know what makes you "cool"?
Providing a lot of value to one group of people, and being idolized by a second, lower status group of people who wish they could do the same.
That's all.
Make some soul-less executive motherfuckers (who don't even remotely understand what the fuck you're doing) very rich, inspire n00bs just coming into the workforce to do the same ... presto, you're fuckin' cool.
I've had it with this whole "geek" thing really. I kinda bought into it when I was 23, just starting out, and the thought of working 14 hour days every damn day, including the weekends because I was *so dedicated to this awesome thing I was building* seemed romantic; glamorous in a way. All that 90's / early 2000's media sure re-enforced the notion.
Here's the thing. I wasn't "cool" I was just another cog in the system. All that effort and dedication? It didn't mean a damn thing to anyone but me, and in the end, I made other people a lot of money and didn't get too much out of it myself, other than the satisfaction of building some really neat shit that belonged to other people who didn't give a damn after a year or two.
So you know what? "CyberGeeks" don't SEEM cool because they AREN'T cool. They only ever WERE cool via means of self-delusion and propaganda.
Being the very best worker in a sweatshop isn't "cool", it just is what it is.
Dedicate yourself to something you love, and don't do it for any other reason than that. ... great. If not ... fuck 'em, they're not even part of the equation in the first place.
If other people think it's "cool"
.. periodically making sure that newtonian mechanics and basic chemistry still remain valid, and that science hasn't all changed over night. ...
Don't worry ... if the basic laws of physics change tonight, we have a crack team of freshmen on the case.
That's why they make you do so many borderline idiotic labs in 100 level Physics and Chemistry classes.
This is one meme I am sick and bloody tired of hearing repeated: "fanatical Obama supporters".
Yes ... yes, for chrissakes they DID exist ... a hand full of them. Not that any objective analysis could be done, but from my experience I'd estimate that there were about as many of them as there were Tea Partiers who showed up to Glenn Beck's shindig on the National Mall.
And of course, just like the Tea Baggin' dickweeds, this crew of drooling nitwits are a convenient caricature into which we can easily cast ALL Obama supporters ... because Jesus Christ Almighty, seeing the world at a greater than 1 bit color depth just takes TOO MUCH HORSEPOWER.
Yeah Obama's rhetoric was damn good. Perhaps a little over the top, but all things considered ... not terribly so by contemporary political campaign standards.
I could be wrong, but I just have a real hard time believing that Obama's undoing will be hoards of brainwashed masses who thought he was the messiah and are dissapointed.
It'll probably be more like this: the economy still sucks, and by 2012 it'll be blatantly obvious that America really is a fading world power, and that shit is just not popular and the president is an easy target. That being said, Obama is WAY slicker than Willy ever was, and America LOVES slick. If the Repubs wanna win they're gonna have to find someone incredibly good.
It's funny you should mention consumerism in relation to Polar Express. ... so I've seen it a few times.
This was on TV last night and my kids watched it, as they typically do every year
I never really noticed until this year, how blatantly manipulative this film is. ... and they just hammer on it relentlessly for 90 minutes.
They find that emotional trigger loosely based around the hopeful kid expecting the world for Christmas, whose parents might not be able to provide that
Listen to the lyrics for the big musical number "When Christmas Comes to Town" and tell me I'm wrong.
One thing's for sure. If you are a parent and you've been hit by the recession this year, this movie is going to make you feel like utter shit.
And it's completely on purpose ... more propaganda to make sure you mortgage the farm to buy more overpriced useless plastic crap from China, before the year is out.
What pisses me off is how my kid's elementary school makes a big deal out of it every year. They have a reading, and pass out little christmas bells to the kids and stuff. The book has apparently won some sort of children's literature award. Charlie and the Chocolate factory or Charlotte's Web, it ain't. Gotta wonder what the story behind that "award" was and if it was at all related to the influence of the film's backers.
Oh also, the whole film looks like bad video game graphics from the 90's.
bah humbug!
Here's something that pissed me off beyond words last time I flew.
I stood in line. My photo id and boarding pass were verified. Both my laptops were pulled out of their bags and scanned. My shoes were scanned. I got in the x-ray machine and got to the "secure area".
What's staring me in the face? A fucking TGI Fridays.
You tellin' me they don't have knives in the kitchen?
Or maybe some ammonia and bleach back there?
Yeah it's goddam theater, and backslapping contracts and given that you could just about drive a truck filled with explosives through the holes in this "security system" it's a fucking UNREASONABLE invasion of privacy.
when I was in college, I had an assignment to read "Dispatches" by Micheal Herr ... there's a couple things I remember.
A) getting physically ill by the time I finished it (it was graphic and highly depressing)
and
B) a scene describing a situation some military brass absolutely looses his shit because some kids scrawled curse words on their helmets (or a helicopter or something ... this was like 15 years ago at least when I read it).
18 and 19 year olds ... literal children ... sent into the jungle half a world away for the intent of carrying out some of the most brutal and horrific acts imaginable, and they are chastised for using profanity.
That kind of *complete* and utter lack of perspective reminds me of this situation.
Let me get this right. We have been waging two wars for nearly 10 years. The general public has become *so* desensitized to it, that not only can you make a photo-realistic video game *about the real war that is still happening*, and this is not controversial or unpopular, but is instead one of the most anticipated and popular games of all time.
And it's "disrespectful" to sell the instances of the fake war to the people waging the *actual* war.
But it's not "disrespectful" to wage the *actual* war.
W-to-the-T-F, people?
WOW.
Logic isn't that bad dude.
I've been using Logic 9 daily for almost a whole year and never had a crash except for in the case of one "yar-maytee" type plugin.
Also use mainstage to gig out, it's also not that bad (a huge step up from the previous version).
as for the rest ... you have some points ... maybe except for the widgets. I'm also a win 7 user, and I'll say having the "widgets up front where I can use them" is a serious PITA ... I rather like the OS X approach, but to each his own.
What do you expect, man? ... makin' money ... sellin' things ... you know?
They're just a company
All things considered, they make some pretty nice stuff.
I'll second that.
My daughter is in that same boat, and for that matter so was I at her age. Medication is absolutely necessary for her, as it was for me. I do hope she grows out of the need for it as I did, but time will tell.
That being said, oh holy hell yes ... there are a *crapload* of kids who are on these meds who shouldn't be. There is a gazillion dollar marketing machine behind them, right underneath of which is built a slightly smaller billion-dollar-a-year framework of "medical consultancy".
Finding a *honest to god* specialist who actually cares about what he or she is doing, and who is willing to *not* diagnose your kid with some condition requiring medication (when appropriate), is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Truthfully, it's on par with "medical marijuana" in terms of shady justifications for prescriptions.
This makes it *really hard* for the few who actually have a condition and really need a specialist to (ironically) PAY ATTENTION to what's going on, long term (beyond just prescribing some medication with a thousand refills and giving you a shiny brochure from the pharmaceutical company).
The backlash is well deserved, but please ... don't lump everyone in together. These conditions are real (for a very few, as compared to the vast ocean of people who are "diagnosed").
I agree with you 100%.
I often wish someone would make the modern-day equivalent of the C-64.
0 boot time.
When you turn it on, it dumps you into a fairly idiot-proof shell where you can interact with the device at a low level if you so choose, or simply load a game (but you still have to know what to type)
no HD so you can't do permanent damage that resetting the device won't cure.
And lastly ... the hook ...
the ability to run / "obtain" / make your own awesome games.
I don't know too much about modern game programming, but it seems like even with all the advanced 3D stuff, that there should be some sort of entry level scripting language that one could teach youngsters to poke around in.
I think it'd be awesome. I bet my kids would think it's awesome too.
the fact that you had to preface your statement with "I'm not a pot smoker" speaks volumes to exactly how deep seated the stigma and fear run in our society. Things may not be changing as quickly as you think.
I want my eyePhone, dammit.