Now... That's how I remember it. Being fifteen fucking YEARS ago, I might not have the numbers exactly right, and I'm just guessing based on what I remember their relative size/appearance was to me. As in, my gunner was at least six inches wider than me at the shoulders, his friend was taller and broader, etc.
Again, fuck you. Who the fuck are you, anyway, to call me a liar? What do you want, PICTURES?
The smallest guy in my unit was very small. He was about 5'5 and wiry, but he was just a mortar A-gunner. I was 220. My gunner was about 260, although he was a little shorter than me. My A-gunner was about 190, on the light side.
Out of our SMAWs, one of the ones assigned to my bething was at least 250 and an inch or two taller than me. His friend was a few inches shorter but about the same weight as me. Then there were a few other guys in my berthing who were up around 260, 270.
We were in weapons platoon. There were also three infrantry platoons. They ranged about the same, with one guy who particularly didn't like me being about 6'5 and (I'm guessing) 250.
The guys in the next berthing were Force Recon. The lightest one in there was around 220 pounds. The biggest was around 260.
There WERE some SEALS on my ship, but they didn't really associate with us too much. I only saw them once or twice when, as a member of "ship's platoon" (basically a glorified work party) I went in their berthing with some navy crew to help them do something to the beds. We ended up just carrying crap for the navy, as usual... The smallest SEAL in there had to be at least MY size.
And everyone in my unit spent a significant amount of their free time lifting weights and exercising, so you obviously have never been in the Corps, and you can go fuck yourself. Go back to watching the military channel, you fucking retard.
Here's my geek take on the philosophy you describe:
First of all, when something terrible happens, it will only affect you if you allow it to. If on the other hand, you decide consciously NOT to let it affect you, than you gain power over IT instead of the other way around. The stoics recommended not letting anything rile you up too much, and not getting too attached to anything (because otherwise, you'll just end up getting riled up, and so on). The idea was that emotions override your logical, higher self, and this is something you should NEVER permit. Logic, not emotion. Calm and collected, not irate. Sensible, not emotional. Isn't it interesting how similar they were to Buddhists? I always liked that, it gave me a sense of connection.
Second, science teaches us that the universe is fourteen or fifteen billion years old. Our planet is four billion years old. Life on this planet is several hundred million years old. Our civilisation is about 10,000 years old. So in the time our universe has existed, civilizations like ours could have been born, flourished, and died out thousands of times over, over and over and over again, all without leaving any trace any other civilization will ever hear about.
Over the course of time, who will ever know or care about Bob's comments during this morning's meeting? In fact, if the whole software project fails, what long-term effect will it really have? More to the point, what long-term effect will our entire LIVES have? Ultimately, our species will be extinct, our sun will go dark, our planet will be reduced to an invisible rock orbiting a dead star and nobody will ever know that we were even here.
It's liberating, isn't it? Just do what makes you happy, and laugh at all the hamsters in their little wheels, rushing with cell phone and pda from meeting to meeting...
Here's what I think it is: here in America, you've got this huge mainstream that accepts certain things as given: sports, football, music genres, a whole set of "appropriate" ways to dress and look, etc. If you're within this mainstream, you're invisible. One of the gang. And you mostly get along just fine.
But when you're outside the mainstream for any reason (for instance, I was a physics geek, who was no good at sports and only interested in my studies, really) everyone notices. You're "that" guy, the weirdo who's different. And a certain percentage of the people around you are going to decide that simply on that basis, you deserve to be mistreated.
Almost anything can mark you as different. You can be a geek like me, or a jew, or black in a mostly-white school, or white in a mostly-black school, or asian... It could be anything. But something makes you "different". And some percentage of the other people around you decides that it gives them an excuse to be assholes.
It's not about "chemistry", it's about power. They've decided that because YOU are different, THEY deserve power over you. And they'll try to wield it, and they won't feel bad about the terrible effects their brutality will have on you. It's all fun and games for them, and like another slashdotter in this thread, they'll say that it's all YOUR fault for being different in the first place (as if you were somehow wrong for being yourself).
Anyway, that's my theory on this subject, I think it's all herd politics. My life has been a whole lot better since I started avoiding other people, man, let me tell you. It's been nice and quiet.
I understand your point of view, and I've heard it before. But you're dead wrong, and I hope you'll listen to what I'm about to tell you because it's important.
If a bully picks on a kid, and that kid doesn't soundly kick the tar out of that bully, that bully will pick on that kid endlessly until the kid is almost ready to kill himself just to get away. Trust me as one who knows, who suffered something like this personally.
You talk like one of those martial arts teachers who throws kids out of your class as soon as they get in a fight, and this makes you a rotten teacher. You're not considering why people learn martial arts in the FIRST place, which is to PREVENT PEOPLE FROM PICKING ON THEM. Little Joey doesn't want to get all spiritual and foo-foo with you, he wants to prevent little Billy from beating him up and stealing his lunch money! YOUR job is to help little Joey not get his ass kicked all the time -- PERIOD. That's what they're paying you for. You are little Joey's self defense instructor. NOT his priest, NOT his parent, NOT his ballet coach. It is NOT your role to teach little Joey to be a Big Pussy and let the bullies beat him up so they get bored and go away. It IS your role to teach little Joey to kick the bully's ass, so he leaves Joey alone and bothers someone ELSE.
If you do your job WELL, and a dozen kids in your class all end up dealing with the same bully, that bully might give up and leave everybody alone, which would increase the amount of good in the world (and correspondingly reduce the amount of evil). If you REALLY want to have an impact on these kids, why not teach them to defend themselves, and that if they see someone being bullied, they have a moral obligation to try and stop it? Why not show them that bullying is wretched, and that GOOD people try to PREVENT it?
Let me share two experiences with you, each of which was pretty significant to me:
When I was in the sixth grade, this guy named Scott chose me to "build his rep" on. He attacked me over and over, over the course of two years, to show off what a tough guy he was. At the time, I didn't know any martial arts other than sport judo, which wasn't really effective against this kid (he was more into boxing), and I wasn't really able to defend myself against him. For me, middle school was a living hell. He'd tell his friends to attack me to make THEIR rep, and I never knew when someone was going to pounce on me for no good reason. I would have given my eye teeth for the ability to kill the bastard. If I'd had a gun, he'd have been dead ten times over, and so would have half of his friends.
About ten years later, I was in the Marine Corps, and I knew some karate and the weird form of jiu-jitsu they were training us with at the time. I was attacked by a gang-banger from Detroit who thought I'd "dissed" him. He charged me, and I tried to hit him with a front kick to the solar plexus. He came in too fast, and I caught him in the balls, lifting him two feet off the ground. We ended up fighting pretty viciously, and at the end he had fucked up nuts and I had a broken nose. About a week later, he was scheduled for surgery on his bladder (my kick had ruptured something), and he passed the word around that he was going to knife me in the squad bay. I returned word to him that from that moment on, every time I saw him I was going to kick him in the balls until he died. He never bothered me again, and ironically, I didn't feel any ongoing resentment towards him.
Scenario #1 resulted in two years of horror and pain for me, and lasting anger and resentment I STILL feel.
Scenario #2 resulted in about two days worth of sore nose and no additional trouble for me; it's now just a humorous tale I tell in bars.
Which would YOU prefer? I'm betting you'd go for #1, which is sad. #2 is much more effective.
I second this -- this guy's right on the money. When I was in the Marine Corps, they didn't teach us Karate. They taught us some boxing (just so we wouldn't be afraid of getting hit, mostly) and something derived from jiu-Jitsu which basically went from any number of starting positions to a common result: the breaking of a wrist or an elbow, followed by sending the enemy into the ground head first at a respectable speed.
If your kids study something that involves joint locks, they'll be able to stop a bully AND control him AND cause him enough pain to make him never want to bother them again. And that is the only thing a bully understands.
What makes jiu-jitsu better than Karate is, your kids will be able to be as merciful as they want to. Once they get an arm-bar on the other kid, the fight'll be over. He'll be begging them to let go. They won't even have to hurt him particularly.
(I'm the original poster, posting anonymously to keep the thread in its shape):
Yes! Thank you, that's exactly right. In my case, first of all, I was a nerd, more or less. In the U.S. that's more than enough reason to get picked on -- the mainstream views technical, nerdy people as abuse targets, and this view is reinforced by our popular culture and our movies. The "common element" the other slashdotter was trying to blame me for was simply the fact that I was a geek. The more I got picked on, the lower my confidence got, and I ended up throwing away years of my life in a hostile, dangerous environment just to try and counter the situation. In retrospect, I really wish I hadn't enlisted... But hey, what can you do? Too late now.
Now, I wonder: what about other groups who were picked on for something they couldn't/wouldn't change? In the U.S. for example, it's ALSO popular to pick on Jews. Would the other poster want all the jews to convert, would he blame them for their religion? How about people who are picked on because they look different, have freckles, whatever?
I suspect that he's a grown-up bully himself, being an apologist for behavior he engaged in.
Anyway, thank you for pointing that out. At least SOMEONE understands...
At the point where China is stepping on U.S. interests, OUR government steps in, with their OWN scary guys with guns, o I think your argument doesn't really hold water. But as long as China is worried only about operations within China, Google is pretty much on their own. That doesn't give them a whole lot of wiggle room.
Please be reasonable. Put yourself in their shoes. Think through all your possible actions and their possible consequences. And keep in mind that IF you were Google, you would have staff in-country, people whom you probably consider friends, who could be at risk if you're too uncooperative.
Whenever I've played a truly enjoyable first person shooter, I've always hoped that a sequel would be made. If a great game franchise, like Half Life 2 or SiN, successfully pursues an episodic approach it'll be a great thing for everyone involved.
* The game company will be sure of an ongoing revenue stream, so they'll continue to support the storyline, and
* Gamers will be able to continue to enjoy adventures in a world they enjoy. Possibly for YEARS.
I consider this a relationship model, as opposed to current games' "one night stand" model. If you like something, why WOULDN'T you want it to go on for years? Why WOULDN'T you get a subscription to it and keep enjoying it for as long as possible?
This is a natural progression. I think it's great. And I hope they include a persistent multiplayer feature, alongside the storyline episodes. THAT would be almost IDEAL.
Well, what they COULD have done is implement a technical solution. For example, they COULD simply NOT LOG anything. If they aren't tracking what people are looking at, it simply isn't possible for them to give anybody up, which solves the whole problem -- temporarily. China could demand that they implement some tracking technology, they could answer that they will do their best, but that they can't promise anything, and maintain an impasse for some time.
Of course, what China would probably do is start logging things at some intermediate point between the user and Google, and set up some sort of scheme to identify and track all packets touching Google's site (they probably already do this, mind you). And then we'd be right back where we started, with people getting nailed for their internet searches.
At that point, Google could respond by forcing SSL for all visits to their site, so that even if packets are tracked by an ISP, they can't be read. At which point the Chinese government could either shut them down entirely, or imprison all their staffers in-country and "nationalize" all Google's assets in country, turning them into a state-run Google which is much worse than the Google that's already there.
It's a hopeless situation, unless you're willing to simply refuse to offer service to China. I think what Google is saying is, this is a situation we can't do anything about, and having SOME access to internet searches is better than none, even if certain searches may be singled out by the government.
Sometimes, it may not be possible or practical to do what you consider to be the "right" thing. Sometimes, you have to accept the "least awful" thing.
1. Because China is an enormous emerging market, with lots and lots of money tied up in it. If you don't go along to get along, your competitors will. Or the Chinese will build their own solution and they won't need you ANYWAY. Of course, if THAT happens, the Chinese people will probably be even worse off (so going along to get along is actually the lesser of two evils).
2. Because if you don't cooperate, China *could* send scary people with guns to talk to you personally. I'm not saying they *would*, just that they *could*. After all, they might just see it as a "national security" issue. And we all know how governments have traditionally dealt with those.
3. Because it's a foreign country, with laws you must obey, even if they're unlike the ones you're used to. And because if you DON'T obey them, any staff you have in-country might just get arrested and imprisoned (or worse). You're friends with those people, so you're naturally concerned about their welfare.
I've probably missed a bunch of reasons, but these are the ones that seem most obvious to me.
Ok, first of all, I was bullied all the way through school. In public school, the bullying took the shape of beatings and physical attacks. In particular, a mean little shit named Scott D---- used me to "build his rep" (New York public schools work like prisons, socially). After I almost killed one of the bullies in the seventh grade (I got him in a chokehold and turned his face purple, then was attacked by twenty of his friends in, basically, a riot) I got pulled out of school.
I went to a private school in New Jersey, where the bullying wasn't physical, it was mental. I was one of the only poor kids there, and the rich kids would make fun of my clothes, my mannerisms, my lack of money, the fact that I wasn't invited to their parties, etc. I turned inwards, focusing on science and math and became one of the best students in the school; I drew comfort from the fact that I was one of the three smartest kids in the whole place. We geeks hung out together, and for the first time, I actually had some friends. This was very instructive.
When I went to college, I was again picked on off and on, but it was much more subdued. I knew some karate by that point but it wasn't enough. I was getting really tired of being so weak that other people could actually CHOOSE to pick on me and finally, I did something about it. I figured, if I can make myself so tough that the bullies THEMSELVES were afraid of me, maybe everyone would leave me in peace. So I did.
I joined the Marine Corps as a grunt, and found myself in a raid unit. This was essentially an infrantry unit which was almost (but not quite) special forces, whose duty it was to attack and destroy enemy bases at night, taking no prisoners and leaving nothing functional. Blowing up SAM sites, fire bases, things like that. That's what we were taught, anyway. We weren't used in combat, which I was quite happy about. But I did learn how to fight (and kill) on a level much more aggressive than most civilians ever do.
Smack dab in the middle of my enlistment, my unit was on float when Gulf War I happened. Again, we weren't used, we ended up floating offshore for 110 days, in a ship's berthing which had no air conditioning. It was like, 120+ degrees during the day and 70 at night. We were miserable. The tougher marines (keeping in mind that at six feet tall and 220 pounds, I was only mid-size for my unit) started beating on me because I was a "goddamn college kid" and so on. The longer they went without drinking, the more pissed off they got. I won't tell you the rest of that particular story, but eventually when I returned to the civilian world, I was quite a bit meaner and tougher than when I'd left it.
Luckily, for some reason, at 6' and 250 (when I got back) with skull tattoos and all that, people just didn't seem to want to pick on me anymore. Over the course of several years, I gradually relaxed and became more peaceful. I went back to college and studied Mechanical Engineering, but that didn't work out for me (no career prospects) and I switched to something I found more fun, i.e. computer science. I got my degree, had my dot-com experiences, and ended up working for the government.
It took me TEN YEARS to heal over all the mental scars I picked up in the marines (and earlier, in school). It's only been in the past few years that I've really started to feel relaxed, without the sense that ANY MINUTE something terrible is going to happen to me. Only lately have I been comfortable trusting someone who wasn't a blood relative (and then, only if I can determine that our interests are aligned enough that the person won't be tempted to screw me).
To this day, I don't trust people in general. I see the human race as petty, selfish, nasty, and fickle, with a mean-streak a mile wide that only needs an opportunity to show itself. I do my best to avoid crowds, gatherings, any sort of grouping of people... I try to be invisible, someone you wouldn't even look twice at. And I avoid others as best I can.
No plot??? Try something like Psi-Ops or Second Sight. Those were sort of crossover games, somewhere between first person shooters and an adventure game, with a seriously engrossing plot. And Second Sight had a great twist ending.
And what about Deus Ex, a first person shooter which brought in RPG features and had multiple plotlines which were selected based on your choices? In the end, you chose one of three outcomes, A) you were the machine-enhanced god of a new world, taking over mankind in a sort of totalitarian thing, B) you went along with the status quo and helped the illuminati take over, or C) you went with the anarchy approach, letting a group of nihilists start an endless war which caused mankind to evolve into a much tougher race.
What about Half Life 2? Or Killzone? Or Deus Ex's sequel, which had even more weirdness to it than Deus Ex?
If you look, there are plenty of first person shooters with a great plot. Hell, Doom 3 had a decent plot, even if its forebears had "no plot" as a selling point... Give FPS's a break. They've been getting way more interesting lately.
I haven't been sleeping much lately, and I'm currently in a mildly altered state. When I first saw the headline, I saw "Sony bundles WMD's with DVD's" and thought, "what next?"
I used to work for a place with an insane system administrator who was friendly with the company owner. True story: he tried to force me to use VB-style "Hungarian Notation" in my PERL SCRIPTS. We had this conversation before I fled the company:
Him: From now on, you'll have to name your variables according to this paper. It's called "Hungarian Notation".
Me: Beg pardon?
Him: You must use Hungarian Notation in all your Perl programs.
Me: You want me to put a prefix in front of variables so you can tell what the variable is supposed to be?
Him: Yes.
Me: Are you feeling ok?
Him: Just do it.
Me: No way, that's crazy.
Him: DO IT.
Me: Look, in Perl, you can use a variable as a string one minute, as a number the next, process it with a regexp as a string then, and turn it back into a number for the next step. Your prefix scheme won't work, unless you want me to just call everything a "variant" and prefix it with "v".
Him: Nuh, uh. If you're using a variable four ways, use four variables.
Me: On a web server? Everything will end up paging to disk and the server'll melt. You don't even have particularly strong hardware. Are you nuts? It's ridiculous.
Huh. Godwin's incantation bounced right off you. So much for Godwin.
Anyway, No, I'm not trolling; I think you're a putz and I'm disagreeing with you. Now, go ahead and reaffirm your incorrect assumption again. It's all in good fun, here on Slashdot.
That's probably true about small, privately held companies, but I doubt any corporation is still a "fine place to work". I'm not saying it can't happen, but it's unlikely, like, say, encountering a unicorn in the mall.
Back in 2000, when everyone was laying off and outsourcing was just starting to build momentum, I saw the writing on the wall and I got the hell out of Manhattan. I got a civil service job with the government, and it took me a few years to build seniority, but now I get paid about the same as I used to but with half the living expenses, better benefits, excellent job security, and family-friendly hours.
Best of all, I'm still doing Java development. With nice tools, too. And my boss actually RESPECTS me. They even pay for training. And books.
Why would anyone still want to work for an American company in this day and age?
Slashdot Mirror
Now... That's how I remember it. Being fifteen fucking YEARS ago, I might not have the numbers exactly right, and I'm just guessing based on what I remember their relative size/appearance was to me. As in, my gunner was at least six inches wider than me at the shoulders, his friend was taller and broader, etc.
Again, fuck you. Who the fuck are you, anyway, to call me a liar? What do you want, PICTURES?
The smallest guy in my unit was very small. He was about 5'5 and wiry, but he was just a mortar A-gunner. I was 220. My gunner was about 260, although he was a little shorter than me. My A-gunner was about 190, on the light side.
Out of our SMAWs, one of the ones assigned to my bething was at least 250 and an inch or two taller than me. His friend was a few inches shorter but about the same weight as me. Then there were a few other guys in my berthing who were up around 260, 270.
We were in weapons platoon. There were also three infrantry platoons. They ranged about the same, with one guy who particularly didn't like me being about 6'5 and (I'm guessing) 250.
The guys in the next berthing were Force Recon. The lightest one in there was around 220 pounds. The biggest was around 260.
There WERE some SEALS on my ship, but they didn't really associate with us too much. I only saw them once or twice when, as a member of "ship's platoon" (basically a glorified work party) I went in their berthing with some navy crew to help them do something to the beds. We ended up just carrying crap for the navy, as usual... The smallest SEAL in there had to be at least MY size.
And everyone in my unit spent a significant amount of their free time lifting weights and exercising, so you obviously have never been in the Corps, and you can go fuck yourself. Go back to watching the military channel, you fucking retard.
Here's my geek take on the philosophy you describe:
First of all, when something terrible happens, it will only affect you if you allow it to. If on the other hand, you decide consciously NOT to let it affect you, than you gain power over IT instead of the other way around. The stoics recommended not letting anything rile you up too much, and not getting too attached to anything (because otherwise, you'll just end up getting riled up, and so on). The idea was that emotions override your logical, higher self, and this is something you should NEVER permit. Logic, not emotion. Calm and collected, not irate. Sensible, not emotional. Isn't it interesting how similar they were to Buddhists? I always liked that, it gave me a sense of connection.
Second, science teaches us that the universe is fourteen or fifteen billion years old. Our planet is four billion years old. Life on this planet is several hundred million years old. Our civilisation is about 10,000 years old. So in the time our universe has existed, civilizations like ours could have been born, flourished, and died out thousands of times over, over and over and over again, all without leaving any trace any other civilization will ever hear about.
Over the course of time, who will ever know or care about Bob's comments during this morning's meeting? In fact, if the whole software project fails, what long-term effect will it really have? More to the point, what long-term effect will our entire LIVES have? Ultimately, our species will be extinct, our sun will go dark, our planet will be reduced to an invisible rock orbiting a dead star and nobody will ever know that we were even here.
It's liberating, isn't it? Just do what makes you happy, and laugh at all the hamsters in their little wheels, rushing with cell phone and pda from meeting to meeting...
I recommend E) use chemical or electrical weapons constructed in a basement laboratory using the chemistry/electronics set Dad got you for Christmas.
Billy: "Hey, loser, give me your lunch money!"
Jimmy: "Hey, does this hurt?" (jams a cattle prod into Billy's balls)
Billy: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
Jimmy: "Yeah, that looks painful. Hey, Mike, label the 100,000 volt mark on the chart an 8 on the scale."
Mike: "Maybe that was an outlier; I think we should gather some more data."
Jimmy: "Hmm... Yes, that's probably right." (ZORT!)
Billy: "WAAAUUUUUUUUUGH!"
(ZORT! ZORT! ZORT!)
Here's what I think it is: here in America, you've got this huge mainstream that accepts certain things as given: sports, football, music genres, a whole set of "appropriate" ways to dress and look, etc. If you're within this mainstream, you're invisible. One of the gang. And you mostly get along just fine.
But when you're outside the mainstream for any reason (for instance, I was a physics geek, who was no good at sports and only interested in my studies, really) everyone notices. You're "that" guy, the weirdo who's different. And a certain percentage of the people around you are going to decide that simply on that basis, you deserve to be mistreated.
Almost anything can mark you as different. You can be a geek like me, or a jew, or black in a mostly-white school, or white in a mostly-black school, or asian... It could be anything. But something makes you "different". And some percentage of the other people around you decides that it gives them an excuse to be assholes.
It's not about "chemistry", it's about power. They've decided that because YOU are different, THEY deserve power over you. And they'll try to wield it, and they won't feel bad about the terrible effects their brutality will have on you. It's all fun and games for them, and like another slashdotter in this thread, they'll say that it's all YOUR fault for being different in the first place (as if you were somehow wrong for being yourself).
Anyway, that's my theory on this subject, I think it's all herd politics. My life has been a whole lot better since I started avoiding other people, man, let me tell you. It's been nice and quiet.
I understand your point of view, and I've heard it before. But you're dead wrong, and I hope you'll listen to what I'm about to tell you because it's important.
If a bully picks on a kid, and that kid doesn't soundly kick the tar out of that bully, that bully will pick on that kid endlessly until the kid is almost ready to kill himself just to get away. Trust me as one who knows, who suffered something like this personally.
You talk like one of those martial arts teachers who throws kids out of your class as soon as they get in a fight, and this makes you a rotten teacher. You're not considering why people learn martial arts in the FIRST place, which is to PREVENT PEOPLE FROM PICKING ON THEM. Little Joey doesn't want to get all spiritual and foo-foo with you, he wants to prevent little Billy from beating him up and stealing his lunch money! YOUR job is to help little Joey not get his ass kicked all the time -- PERIOD. That's what they're paying you for. You are little Joey's self defense instructor. NOT his priest, NOT his parent, NOT his ballet coach. It is NOT your role to teach little Joey to be a Big Pussy and let the bullies beat him up so they get bored and go away. It IS your role to teach little Joey to kick the bully's ass, so he leaves Joey alone and bothers someone ELSE.
If you do your job WELL, and a dozen kids in your class all end up dealing with the same bully, that bully might give up and leave everybody alone, which would increase the amount of good in the world (and correspondingly reduce the amount of evil). If you REALLY want to have an impact on these kids, why not teach them to defend themselves, and that if they see someone being bullied, they have a moral obligation to try and stop it? Why not show them that bullying is wretched, and that GOOD people try to PREVENT it?
Let me share two experiences with you, each of which was pretty significant to me:
When I was in the sixth grade, this guy named Scott chose me to "build his rep" on. He attacked me over and over, over the course of two years, to show off what a tough guy he was. At the time, I didn't know any martial arts other than sport judo, which wasn't really effective against this kid (he was more into boxing), and I wasn't really able to defend myself against him. For me, middle school was a living hell. He'd tell his friends to attack me to make THEIR rep, and I never knew when someone was going to pounce on me for no good reason. I would have given my eye teeth for the ability to kill the bastard. If I'd had a gun, he'd have been dead ten times over, and so would have half of his friends.
About ten years later, I was in the Marine Corps, and I knew some karate and the weird form of jiu-jitsu they were training us with at the time. I was attacked by a gang-banger from Detroit who thought I'd "dissed" him. He charged me, and I tried to hit him with a front kick to the solar plexus. He came in too fast, and I caught him in the balls, lifting him two feet off the ground. We ended up fighting pretty viciously, and at the end he had fucked up nuts and I had a broken nose. About a week later, he was scheduled for surgery on his bladder (my kick had ruptured something), and he passed the word around that he was going to knife me in the squad bay. I returned word to him that from that moment on, every time I saw him I was going to kick him in the balls until he died. He never bothered me again, and ironically, I didn't feel any ongoing resentment towards him.
Scenario #1 resulted in two years of horror and pain for me, and lasting anger and resentment I STILL feel.
Scenario #2 resulted in about two days worth of sore nose and no additional trouble for me; it's now just a humorous tale I tell in bars.
Which would YOU prefer? I'm betting you'd go for #1, which is sad. #2 is much more effective.
I second this -- this guy's right on the money. When I was in the Marine Corps, they didn't teach us Karate. They taught us some boxing (just so we wouldn't be afraid of getting hit, mostly) and something derived from jiu-Jitsu which basically went from any number of starting positions to a common result: the breaking of a wrist or an elbow, followed by sending the enemy into the ground head first at a respectable speed.
If your kids study something that involves joint locks, they'll be able to stop a bully AND control him AND cause him enough pain to make him never want to bother them again. And that is the only thing a bully understands.
What makes jiu-jitsu better than Karate is, your kids will be able to be as merciful as they want to. Once they get an arm-bar on the other kid, the fight'll be over. He'll be begging them to let go. They won't even have to hurt him particularly.
Who was it who said "Hell is other people"?
(I'm the original poster, posting anonymously to keep the thread in its shape):
Yes! Thank you, that's exactly right. In my case, first of all, I was a nerd, more or less. In the U.S. that's more than enough reason to get picked on -- the mainstream views technical, nerdy people as abuse targets, and this view is reinforced by our popular culture and our movies. The "common element" the other slashdotter was trying to blame me for was simply the fact that I was a geek. The more I got picked on, the lower my confidence got, and I ended up throwing away years of my life in a hostile, dangerous environment just to try and counter the situation. In retrospect, I really wish I hadn't enlisted... But hey, what can you do? Too late now.
Now, I wonder: what about other groups who were picked on for something they couldn't/wouldn't change? In the U.S. for example, it's ALSO popular to pick on Jews. Would the other poster want all the jews to convert, would he blame them for their religion? How about people who are picked on because they look different, have freckles, whatever?
I suspect that he's a grown-up bully himself, being an apologist for behavior he engaged in.
Anyway, thank you for pointing that out. At least SOMEONE understands...
At the point where China is stepping on U.S. interests, OUR government steps in, with their OWN scary guys with guns, o I think your argument doesn't really hold water. But as long as China is worried only about operations within China, Google is pretty much on their own. That doesn't give them a whole lot of wiggle room.
Please be reasonable. Put yourself in their shoes. Think through all your possible actions and their possible consequences. And keep in mind that IF you were Google, you would have staff in-country, people whom you probably consider friends, who could be at risk if you're too uncooperative.
Think it through logically, NOT emotionally.
You're an idiot.
Whenever I've played a truly enjoyable first person shooter, I've always hoped that a sequel would be made. If a great game franchise, like Half Life 2 or SiN, successfully pursues an episodic approach it'll be a great thing for everyone involved.
* The game company will be sure of an ongoing revenue stream, so they'll continue to support the storyline, and
* Gamers will be able to continue to enjoy adventures in a world they enjoy. Possibly for YEARS.
I consider this a relationship model, as opposed to current games' "one night stand" model. If you like something, why WOULDN'T you want it to go on for years? Why WOULDN'T you get a subscription to it and keep enjoying it for as long as possible?
This is a natural progression. I think it's great. And I hope they include a persistent multiplayer feature, alongside the storyline episodes. THAT would be almost IDEAL.
Well, what they COULD have done is implement a technical solution. For example, they COULD simply NOT LOG anything. If they aren't tracking what people are looking at, it simply isn't possible for them to give anybody up, which solves the whole problem -- temporarily. China could demand that they implement some tracking technology, they could answer that they will do their best, but that they can't promise anything, and maintain an impasse for some time.
Of course, what China would probably do is start logging things at some intermediate point between the user and Google, and set up some sort of scheme to identify and track all packets touching Google's site (they probably already do this, mind you). And then we'd be right back where we started, with people getting nailed for their internet searches.
At that point, Google could respond by forcing SSL for all visits to their site, so that even if packets are tracked by an ISP, they can't be read. At which point the Chinese government could either shut them down entirely, or imprison all their staffers in-country and "nationalize" all Google's assets in country, turning them into a state-run Google which is much worse than the Google that's already there.
It's a hopeless situation, unless you're willing to simply refuse to offer service to China. I think what Google is saying is, this is a situation we can't do anything about, and having SOME access to internet searches is better than none, even if certain searches may be singled out by the government.
Sometimes, it may not be possible or practical to do what you consider to be the "right" thing. Sometimes, you have to accept the "least awful" thing.
And, why?
1. Because China is an enormous emerging market, with lots and lots of money tied up in it. If you don't go along to get along, your competitors will. Or the Chinese will build their own solution and they won't need you ANYWAY. Of course, if THAT happens, the Chinese people will probably be even worse off (so going along to get along is actually the lesser of two evils).
2. Because if you don't cooperate, China *could* send scary people with guns to talk to you personally. I'm not saying they *would*, just that they *could*. After all, they might just see it as a "national security" issue. And we all know how governments have traditionally dealt with those.
3. Because it's a foreign country, with laws you must obey, even if they're unlike the ones you're used to. And because if you DON'T obey them, any staff you have in-country might just get arrested and imprisoned (or worse). You're friends with those people, so you're naturally concerned about their welfare.
I've probably missed a bunch of reasons, but these are the ones that seem most obvious to me.
Ok, first of all, I was bullied all the way through school. In public school, the bullying took the shape of beatings and physical attacks. In particular, a mean little shit named Scott D---- used me to "build his rep" (New York public schools work like prisons, socially). After I almost killed one of the bullies in the seventh grade (I got him in a chokehold and turned his face purple, then was attacked by twenty of his friends in, basically, a riot) I got pulled out of school.
I went to a private school in New Jersey, where the bullying wasn't physical, it was mental. I was one of the only poor kids there, and the rich kids would make fun of my clothes, my mannerisms, my lack of money, the fact that I wasn't invited to their parties, etc. I turned inwards, focusing on science and math and became one of the best students in the school; I drew comfort from the fact that I was one of the three smartest kids in the whole place. We geeks hung out together, and for the first time, I actually had some friends. This was very instructive.
When I went to college, I was again picked on off and on, but it was much more subdued. I knew some karate by that point but it wasn't enough. I was getting really tired of being so weak that other people could actually CHOOSE to pick on me and finally, I did something about it. I figured, if I can make myself so tough that the bullies THEMSELVES were afraid of me, maybe everyone would leave me in peace. So I did.
I joined the Marine Corps as a grunt, and found myself in a raid unit. This was essentially an infrantry unit which was almost (but not quite) special forces, whose duty it was to attack and destroy enemy bases at night, taking no prisoners and leaving nothing functional. Blowing up SAM sites, fire bases, things like that. That's what we were taught, anyway. We weren't used in combat, which I was quite happy about. But I did learn how to fight (and kill) on a level much more aggressive than most civilians ever do.
Smack dab in the middle of my enlistment, my unit was on float when Gulf War I happened. Again, we weren't used, we ended up floating offshore for 110 days, in a ship's berthing which had no air conditioning. It was like, 120+ degrees during the day and 70 at night. We were miserable. The tougher marines (keeping in mind that at six feet tall and 220 pounds, I was only mid-size for my unit) started beating on me because I was a "goddamn college kid" and so on. The longer they went without drinking, the more pissed off they got. I won't tell you the rest of that particular story, but eventually when I returned to the civilian world, I was quite a bit meaner and tougher than when I'd left it.
Luckily, for some reason, at 6' and 250 (when I got back) with skull tattoos and all that, people just didn't seem to want to pick on me anymore. Over the course of several years, I gradually relaxed and became more peaceful. I went back to college and studied Mechanical Engineering, but that didn't work out for me (no career prospects) and I switched to something I found more fun, i.e. computer science. I got my degree, had my dot-com experiences, and ended up working for the government.
It took me TEN YEARS to heal over all the mental scars I picked up in the marines (and earlier, in school). It's only been in the past few years that I've really started to feel relaxed, without the sense that ANY MINUTE something terrible is going to happen to me. Only lately have I been comfortable trusting someone who wasn't a blood relative (and then, only if I can determine that our interests are aligned enough that the person won't be tempted to screw me).
To this day, I don't trust people in general. I see the human race as petty, selfish, nasty, and fickle, with a mean-streak a mile wide that only needs an opportunity to show itself. I do my best to avoid crowds, gatherings, any sort of grouping of people... I try to be invisible, someone you wouldn't even look twice at. And I avoid others as best I can.
Sometimes I think a great crime has
No plot??? Try something like Psi-Ops or Second Sight. Those were sort of crossover games, somewhere between first person shooters and an adventure game, with a seriously engrossing plot. And Second Sight had a great twist ending.
And what about Deus Ex, a first person shooter which brought in RPG features and had multiple plotlines which were selected based on your choices? In the end, you chose one of three outcomes, A) you were the machine-enhanced god of a new world, taking over mankind in a sort of totalitarian thing, B) you went along with the status quo and helped the illuminati take over, or C) you went with the anarchy approach, letting a group of nihilists start an endless war which caused mankind to evolve into a much tougher race.
What about Half Life 2? Or Killzone? Or Deus Ex's sequel, which had even more weirdness to it than Deus Ex?
If you look, there are plenty of first person shooters with a great plot. Hell, Doom 3 had a decent plot, even if its forebears had "no plot" as a selling point... Give FPS's a break. They've been getting way more interesting lately.
I haven't been sleeping much lately, and I'm currently in a mildly altered state. When I first saw the headline, I saw "Sony bundles WMD's with DVD's" and thought, "what next?"
Heh heh... Yeah, it's true. But I love telling that story. The guy was really funny looking, too, sort of like a huge overgrown squirrel.
I used to work for a place with an insane system administrator who was friendly with the company owner. True story: he tried to force me to use VB-style "Hungarian Notation" in my PERL SCRIPTS. We had this conversation before I fled the company:
Him: From now on, you'll have to name your variables according to this paper. It's called "Hungarian Notation".
Me: Beg pardon?
Him: You must use Hungarian Notation in all your Perl programs.
Me: You want me to put a prefix in front of variables so you can tell what the variable is supposed to be?
Him: Yes.
Me: Are you feeling ok?
Him: Just do it.
Me: No way, that's crazy.
Him: DO IT.
Me: Look, in Perl, you can use a variable as a string one minute, as a number the next, process it with a regexp as a string then, and turn it back into a number for the next step. Your prefix scheme won't work, unless you want me to just call everything a "variant" and prefix it with "v".
Him: Nuh, uh. If you're using a variable four ways, use four variables.
Me: On a web server? Everything will end up paging to disk and the server'll melt. You don't even have particularly strong hardware. Are you nuts? It's ridiculous.
Him: JUST DO IT.
Yeah... I didn't like working for corporations...
What type of corporation do you work for? I'm curious.
Huh. Godwin's incantation bounced right off you. So much for Godwin.
Anyway, No, I'm not trolling; I think you're a putz and I'm disagreeing with you. Now, go ahead and reaffirm your incorrect assumption again. It's all in good fun, here on Slashdot.
That's probably true about small, privately held companies, but I doubt any corporation is still a "fine place to work". I'm not saying it can't happen, but it's unlikely, like, say, encountering a unicorn in the mall.
Scripting language: Perl, Python, Ruby. How am I doin', perfessor?
No problem! Here's a website with instructions! MUCH more stimulation in fact...
http://www.leisuretown.com/library/qac/2.html
...does that count?
Back in 2000, when everyone was laying off and outsourcing was just starting to build momentum, I saw the writing on the wall and I got the hell out of Manhattan. I got a civil service job with the government, and it took me a few years to build seniority, but now I get paid about the same as I used to but with half the living expenses, better benefits, excellent job security, and family-friendly hours.
Best of all, I'm still doing Java development. With nice tools, too. And my boss actually RESPECTS me. They even pay for training. And books.
Why would anyone still want to work for an American company in this day and age?