If a friend of mine who has a PhD in Nuclear Physics is having a discussion with someone, and it strays into his subject area, I will tend to assume he's the one who's right, simple because he _has_ spent a lot of year studying the subject.
If he's spent years studying and knows what he's talking about, then he can prove it. That's all a credential means -- that one is capable of proving their point. Not that they don't need to, anymore.
If my workmate who flys a helpdesk tells me that I'm looking a bit funny, and might have cancer, I will give it a fairly minimal amount of credence. If my GP says the same, then I will listen.
You'll take the word of a Physician who diagnosed you based on glancing at you? Or you'll take the word of someone who performed a medical examination and some very careful tests, to read off the results of those examinations and tests?
Again. You're not trusting the opinion, you're granting them the right to analyze a problem and offer reasonable evidence supporting their opinion. In reality, we extend that right to any dipshit off the street at the start, then just use the credentials to weed out the ones who probably can't prove it anyway, and prioritize who we'll hear out.
People want to see intergalactic space flight, time travel, dragons and people with super-human strength.
You've just described "speculative fiction." Speculative fiction is at its best when it is completely plausible, and adheres to the laws of Physics, as it's only then the speculation seems both fantastic and makes the viewer say, "maybe that could happen."
At the very least, stories are things where we watch identifiable characters get into, and out of, bad situations creatively. Is a story interesting when the character whips out "shark repellent spray" or a "magical remote control that makes the badguys go away?" Then why is it interesting when the character escapes by driving across a ditch or shouting instructions across the vacuum?
Each owner tells MINI what to show when they drive by, such as 'Jim, you are one sexy beast.' If the pilot program is successful, MINI plans to put up more billboards in more cities and allow every owner to participate.
I hate to say this, but this place is getting to me.
I think I'm getting The Fear.
You don't get the argument. Those who argue against the ability to prove "free will" would say that something is compelling me to follow those steps: maybe neurological compulsion to provide evidence for my predetermined stance, maybe god makes me do it because it really enjoys watching us argue, or maybe I'm just a jerk who wants to be dissident.
But either way, no one has argued that on a macroscopic level we're incapable of decision or slaves to simple impulse. It's what compels us to decide one way or the other that's suspect.
Finally, how do you decide what your favorite food is? Is it what your mother fed you from an early age? Something traditionally enjoyed in your community? Something marketed down your throat? Or did you awake one morning and say, "on this day, I shall try truly random okra. And it was good."
I consider myself to have a pretty thick skin, but if I ever managed to become the laughing stock of the entire internet I think it might get to me a little bit.
This annoyed me about the article, and most of the posts here.
"He" was NOT the laughing stock of the internet. "Star Wars Kid" was -- and yes, in his little suburb, they had a real person to put to the video, but for the rest of the world, it was some faceless, anonymous dork making an ass of himself. I, like most people, honestly wouldn't know him from any other nondescript, bowl-haired, chubby, white kid dressed as a Jedi at a sci-fi con. And I had, like most people, completely forgotten this video even existed until the article popped up.
I realize in a tiny town it's easy to feel like the freak when something like this happens. But that's why people move the hell out of tiny towns, into cities, where you're given the chance to have no one give a rat's ass you even exist.
If I were to go and try to run a few miles this weekend, I would not be able to easily do so. [...] However, if you take one of the these college basketball athletes, any of them would be able to run miles without even breathing heavy.
So now "geek" is defined as someone whose persona isn't completely defined by athletics.
Who knew something I learned in high school would actually translate to real life? And (judging by their inability to run for miles without being a little winded) that the entire television-addicted western world is composed almost entirely of geeks!? Huzzahs are in order!
Thought experiment: Replace 'God' with 'The King of the Potato People'.... If so, explain how 'God' is different to 'The King of the Potato People', and why belief in one is delusional and psychiatrically treatable while the other is not.
Worshipping "God" alongside millions of other people, at the result of your social conditioning *is* normal -- you're a freak if you don't, and no one wants to be a freak. Being convinced that, at no one else's prompting, the Potato King is master of your destiny means you've recinded control of your life and emmersed yourself in a fantasy world of your creation, making yourself an outcast. That's deviant.
Similiarly, being a totally normal, happy person after a severe tragedy is considered *abnormal*. Being depressed, irritable, psychotic or agoraphobic when you haven't suffered tragedy is *abnormal*.
One last problem with your analogy: Try telling people Jesus of Nazareth came to you this morning and made you breakfast, and told you everything would be OK. That would get you medicated. Telling people you put on your lucky blue socks, or had your lucky breakfast, or sent psychic messages to Arnold J. Rimmer, Alexander the Great's chief eunich, would just make people think you're hopelessly hopeful and grasping at straws.
Because when two are arguing, and one leaves the room, the other may continue their diatribe unrefuted. The longer rhetoric goes unchecked, the more convincing it appears.
So yes, they'll keep coming up with this shit and yes, the cracked end of the bell curve will want to believe it -- but when they add too much flour, we must add more water, and they'll add flour, and so on. They're constantly trying to destroy science and reason, so we must offer reasonable explainations for the "healing power" of prayer.
Think things are scary now? Imagine the outlandish shash they'd come up with once *this* level of nonsense is more widely accepted by default. Oh wait, we don't have to imagine -- just read books about life in the middle ages, when respected clergy would explain disease epidemics as "God must hate you" and prescribe prayer and tithe as the cure.
Stories always say "Manchester" or "Belfast" or "Edinburgh." When was the last time you saw "Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK, Europe?"
Unless it's Rome, NY or Paris, TX, it is considered correct to leave out the details that should be reasonably assumed. It's certainly alright to get to the fsking point in an article, and skip the irrelevant cultural details for the finer points of the article's subject. It's the rule of writing: if the article still has full meaning after X is omitted, omit X.
Minor problem with your simile: the MCSE is an additional credential, not the only one. Having no MCSE, college degree or other established credentials will bar you from getting most jobs.
This "certification" becomes a requirement, much more like a B.A. than an MCSE, but requires nothing more than cash to obtain, more like an MCSE than a B.A. Not a great situation to find ourselves in.
As another NPO worker, I'd have to say all the legitimacy, competence and good-intentions in the world can't buy us a new server, let alone some superfluous AOLTax.
20 years ago the RIAA coerced the government into taxing blank tapes, because that was the most sophisticated copy protection they had at their disposal. No one rioted. There were no "lynchings" to speak of. People bent over and took it. Some even said it was fair (not me.)
2X years later, more sophisticated tech in "experiencing" music leads to a higher bar of tolerance by the average person in accepting these copy-protection methods. DRM gets implemented, most people bend over and take it. Some even say it is fair (not me.)
You're suffering from a misguided delusion that people in the REAGAN ERA were somehow less docile than people today. I'm guessing that 20 years ago, you were in diapers.
It helps no one to argue that we need to revert back to a time that never existed.
I find that although I often read in-depth news about other countries, the sites I get that news from are usually hosted in USA, and I only bother to read in English.
Yeah, thanks for defying that stereotype about Americans...
For the rest of us who show a legitimate interest in other cultures and bother to study other languages, it's nice to be able to access original, foreign content.
Also: Asian porn. I like big, Asian butts, and I cannot lie.
The difference is intent...The suicide bomber intends to kill civilians. The US intends to kill a military target. It's an unfortunate truth that sometimes civilians are killed along with a military target,
This has to be a troll, but it raises a wonderful philosophical argument: Who is worse? The man who kills of rage, or the man who kills of apathy?
It's also true that these "civilians" that are killed aren't all that innocent
Must really fuck up your day when you're having a meal and your friend says, "Hey isn't that Hassane? I haven't seen him since High School! I heard he became a suicide bombe...oh. Oh crap."
Cron? You had cron!? Back in my day, we'd pay a few dollars to that neighbor boy who ain't quite "right" and make him bring back the damned CVS snap on floppies!
Actually, my day was the mid-nineties. In my day, we'd just throw out the old computer and buy one pre-installed with the newest milestone release, twelve offers for dialup providers and a Windows background so hideous that it made 7 out of 10 eyes bleed.
Speak their language. Management types, around half the time, hear "security concern" and think you're some overstuffed loser with delusions of grandeur, afraid of THE HACKERS who care, at all, about your data. The other half are of the same ilk, but think you're suffering from a guilty conscience and are the "hacker" they need to worry about. Instead, warn them the security risks open the way for buzzword storms. Viruses! Worms! SPYWARE! SPAMMERS! Crashing servers! Cats and dogs, living together! Breaking Windows!
"It'll never happen to us!" is a mantra of the generation. It's what keeps sex feeling real, condomless good. It's what keeps us smoking those feel-nice cigarettes. It's what has us drive after that third beer. And, it's what has us open up port 3389 and upchuck admin privs to every dipshit who uses their first name and the number "1" as a password. Speak to their experience, and don't tell them what they want to hear (that you're a self-important geek.)
Geeks must learn to create the Geek image. We need a Geek 2.0, and it's your job as slashdot geeks to create the Geek 2.0 image. Do your research, figure out how women think and what they want, then come up with a set of guidelines and rules that all Geeks should follow, complete with dress code and language.
So, we "geeks" should treat women as some conquerable alien species, the members of which are identical in wants, tastes and needs...and we "geeks" should conform to this model with unbending obedience, thus becoming equally identical?
...we don't try nearly as hard to sell our crap overseas as foreigners do selling their crap to us...
Bollocks. We (not you or I, but "Hollywood", McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Marlboro and their ilk) are almost embarassingly prolific -- as much so as the products of Taiwanese sweatshops.
Likewise, the typical American family farm ships as much overseas as the typical member of the rural, Chinese peasantry.
As has been said before, what Bush's people are saying (between the lines) is that if you can afford to make products at impossibly low cost, and can afford to market them on a global scale, you can participate in a global (or even local, soon enough) economy. Furthermore, marketing to a foreign economy isn't a matter of taking out an ad in the Nepal Pennysaver -- you need someone on the ground who knows enough about the culture to make competition viable.
Actually, in keeping with the analogy, I can look at the syllabus and find an alternate textbook that covers the required material. The nice part about university education is that it's not junior high: maintaining order and instilling a sense of uniformity and discipline isn't a priority.
So, you're asked to buy a particular textbook, but find a comparable one that's cheaper, or just reads better to you -- you may use it. Likewise, if you're asked to purchase Matlab or Maya, you may still choose R or Blender. You risk screwing yourself, but it's your decision. At least, that's always been the idea.
Slashdot Mirror
If a friend of mine who has a PhD in Nuclear Physics is having a discussion with someone, and it strays into his subject area, I will tend to assume he's the one who's right, simple because he _has_ spent a lot of year studying the subject.
If he's spent years studying and knows what he's talking about, then he can prove it. That's all a credential means -- that one is capable of proving their point. Not that they don't need to, anymore.
If my workmate who flys a helpdesk tells me that I'm looking a bit funny, and might have cancer, I will give it a fairly minimal amount of credence. If my GP says the same, then I will listen.
You'll take the word of a Physician who diagnosed you based on glancing at you? Or you'll take the word of someone who performed a medical examination and some very careful tests, to read off the results of those examinations and tests?
Again. You're not trusting the opinion, you're granting them the right to analyze a problem and offer reasonable evidence supporting their opinion. In reality, we extend that right to any dipshit off the street at the start, then just use the credentials to weed out the ones who probably can't prove it anyway, and prioritize who we'll hear out.
People want to see intergalactic space flight, time travel, dragons and people with super-human strength.
You've just described "speculative fiction." Speculative fiction is at its best when it is completely plausible, and adheres to the laws of Physics, as it's only then the speculation seems both fantastic and makes the viewer say, "maybe that could happen."
At the very least, stories are things where we watch identifiable characters get into, and out of, bad situations creatively. Is a story interesting when the character whips out "shark repellent spray" or a "magical remote control that makes the badguys go away?" Then why is it interesting when the character escapes by driving across a ditch or shouting instructions across the vacuum?
Predict dupes on Slashdot? I could do that with one line of Perl.
1. Read post that mentions any animal.
2. Type the word PETA and the name of any progressive city.
3. Get modded 5, Funny!
This New Economy is great, because you don't even need to make any sense. Profit!
Each owner tells MINI what to show when they drive by, such as 'Jim, you are one sexy beast.' If the pilot program is successful, MINI plans to put up more billboards in more cities and allow every owner to participate.
I hate to say this, but this place is getting to me.
I think I'm getting The Fear.
You don't get the argument. Those who argue against the ability to prove "free will" would say that something is compelling me to follow those steps: maybe neurological compulsion to provide evidence for my predetermined stance, maybe god makes me do it because it really enjoys watching us argue, or maybe I'm just a jerk who wants to be dissident.
But either way, no one has argued that on a macroscopic level we're incapable of decision or slaves to simple impulse. It's what compels us to decide one way or the other that's suspect.
Finally, how do you decide what your favorite food is? Is it what your mother fed you from an early age? Something traditionally enjoyed in your community? Something marketed down your throat? Or did you awake one morning and say, "on this day, I shall try truly random okra. And it was good."
I consider myself to have a pretty thick skin, but if I ever managed to become the laughing stock of the entire internet I think it might get to me a little bit.
This annoyed me about the article, and most of the posts here.
"He" was NOT the laughing stock of the internet. "Star Wars Kid" was -- and yes, in his little suburb, they had a real person to put to the video, but for the rest of the world, it was some faceless, anonymous dork making an ass of himself. I, like most people, honestly wouldn't know him from any other nondescript, bowl-haired, chubby, white kid dressed as a Jedi at a sci-fi con. And I had, like most people, completely forgotten this video even existed until the article popped up.
I realize in a tiny town it's easy to feel like the freak when something like this happens. But that's why people move the hell out of tiny towns, into cities, where you're given the chance to have no one give a rat's ass you even exist.
1. Raise geeky overweight son.
2. Leave him to his own devices with video recording device.
Wait, I'm confused: the kid, or Lucas?
If I were to go and try to run a few miles this weekend, I would not be able to easily do so. [...] However, if you take one of the these college basketball athletes, any of them would be able to run miles without even breathing heavy.
So now "geek" is defined as someone whose persona isn't completely defined by athletics.
Who knew something I learned in high school would actually translate to real life? And (judging by their inability to run for miles without being a little winded) that the entire television-addicted western world is composed almost entirely of geeks!? Huzzahs are in order!
Thought experiment: Replace 'God' with 'The King of the Potato People'. ... If so, explain how 'God' is different to 'The King of the Potato People', and why belief in one is delusional and psychiatrically treatable while the other is not.
Worshipping "God" alongside millions of other people, at the result of your social conditioning *is* normal -- you're a freak if you don't, and no one wants to be a freak. Being convinced that, at no one else's prompting, the Potato King is master of your destiny means you've recinded control of your life and emmersed yourself in a fantasy world of your creation, making yourself an outcast. That's deviant.
Similiarly, being a totally normal, happy person after a severe tragedy is considered *abnormal*. Being depressed, irritable, psychotic or agoraphobic when you haven't suffered tragedy is *abnormal*.
One last problem with your analogy: Try telling people Jesus of Nazareth came to you this morning and made you breakfast, and told you everything would be OK. That would get you medicated. Telling people you put on your lucky blue socks, or had your lucky breakfast, or sent psychic messages to Arnold J. Rimmer, Alexander the Great's chief eunich, would just make people think you're hopelessly hopeful and grasping at straws.
What is the point of this study?
Because when two are arguing, and one leaves the room, the other may continue their diatribe unrefuted. The longer rhetoric goes unchecked, the more convincing it appears.
So yes, they'll keep coming up with this shit and yes, the cracked end of the bell curve will want to believe it -- but when they add too much flour, we must add more water, and they'll add flour, and so on. They're constantly trying to destroy science and reason, so we must offer reasonable explainations for the "healing power" of prayer.
Think things are scary now? Imagine the outlandish shash they'd come up with once *this* level of nonsense is more widely accepted by default. Oh wait, we don't have to imagine -- just read books about life in the middle ages, when respected clergy would explain disease epidemics as "God must hate you" and prescribe prayer and tithe as the cure.
Stories always say "Manchester" or "Belfast" or "Edinburgh." When was the last time you saw "Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK, Europe?"
Unless it's Rome, NY or Paris, TX, it is considered correct to leave out the details that should be reasonably assumed. It's certainly alright to get to the fsking point in an article, and skip the irrelevant cultural details for the finer points of the article's subject. It's the rule of writing: if the article still has full meaning after X is omitted, omit X.
Minor problem with your simile: the MCSE is an additional credential, not the only one. Having no MCSE, college degree or other established credentials will bar you from getting most jobs.
This "certification" becomes a requirement, much more like a B.A. than an MCSE, but requires nothing more than cash to obtain, more like an MCSE than a B.A. Not a great situation to find ourselves in.
As another NPO worker, I'd have to say all the legitimacy, competence and good-intentions in the world can't buy us a new server, let alone some superfluous AOLTax.
Lynch mobs? WTF are you smoking?
20 years ago the RIAA coerced the government into taxing blank tapes, because that was the most sophisticated copy protection they had at their disposal. No one rioted. There were no "lynchings" to speak of. People bent over and took it. Some even said it was fair (not me.)
2X years later, more sophisticated tech in "experiencing" music leads to a higher bar of tolerance by the average person in accepting these copy-protection methods. DRM gets implemented, most people bend over and take it. Some even say it is fair (not me.)
You're suffering from a misguided delusion that people in the REAGAN ERA were somehow less docile than people today. I'm guessing that 20 years ago, you were in diapers.
It helps no one to argue that we need to revert back to a time that never existed.
I find that although I often read in-depth news about other countries, the sites I get that news from are usually hosted in USA, and I only bother to read in English.
Yeah, thanks for defying that stereotype about Americans...
For the rest of us who show a legitimate interest in other cultures and bother to study other languages, it's nice to be able to access original, foreign content.
Also: Asian porn. I like big, Asian butts, and I cannot lie.
The difference is intent...The suicide bomber intends to kill civilians. The US intends to kill a military target. It's an unfortunate truth that sometimes civilians are killed along with a military target,
This has to be a troll, but it raises a wonderful philosophical argument: Who is worse? The man who kills of rage, or the man who kills of apathy?
It's also true that these "civilians" that are killed aren't all that innocent
Must really fuck up your day when you're having a meal and your friend says, "Hey isn't that Hassane? I haven't seen him since High School! I heard he became a suicide bombe...oh. Oh crap."
Cron? You had cron!? Back in my day, we'd pay a few dollars to that neighbor boy who ain't quite "right" and make him bring back the damned CVS snap on floppies!
Actually, my day was the mid-nineties. In my day, we'd just throw out the old computer and buy one pre-installed with the newest milestone release, twelve offers for dialup providers and a Windows background so hideous that it made 7 out of 10 eyes bleed.
Speak their language. Management types, around half the time, hear "security concern" and think you're some overstuffed loser with delusions of grandeur, afraid of THE HACKERS who care, at all, about your data. The other half are of the same ilk, but think you're suffering from a guilty conscience and are the "hacker" they need to worry about. Instead, warn them the security risks open the way for buzzword storms. Viruses! Worms! SPYWARE! SPAMMERS! Crashing servers! Cats and dogs, living together! Breaking Windows!
"It'll never happen to us!" is a mantra of the generation. It's what keeps sex feeling real, condomless good. It's what keeps us smoking those feel-nice cigarettes. It's what has us drive after that third beer. And, it's what has us open up port 3389 and upchuck admin privs to every dipshit who uses their first name and the number "1" as a password. Speak to their experience, and don't tell them what they want to hear (that you're a self-important geek.)
Tell them what they're most afraid of hearing.
Geeks must learn to create the Geek image. We need a Geek 2.0, and it's your job as slashdot geeks to create the Geek 2.0 image. Do your research, figure out how women think and what they want, then come up with a set of guidelines and rules that all Geeks should follow, complete with dress code and language.
So, we "geeks" should treat women as some conquerable alien species, the members of which are identical in wants, tastes and needs...and we "geeks" should conform to this model with unbending obedience, thus becoming equally identical?
It's called Theta Chi. You should try pledging.
...we don't try nearly as hard to sell our crap overseas as foreigners do selling their crap to us...
Bollocks. We (not you or I, but "Hollywood", McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Marlboro and their ilk) are almost embarassingly prolific -- as much so as the products of Taiwanese sweatshops.
Likewise, the typical American family farm ships as much overseas as the typical member of the rural, Chinese peasantry.
As has been said before, what Bush's people are saying (between the lines) is that if you can afford to make products at impossibly low cost, and can afford to market them on a global scale, you can participate in a global (or even local, soon enough) economy. Furthermore, marketing to a foreign economy isn't a matter of taking out an ad in the Nepal Pennysaver -- you need someone on the ground who knows enough about the culture to make competition viable.
Right...there are already hackers that can harm us. They're called axe-murderers.
What would enzyme-hackers do that couldn't be done by a sharp, pointy stick?
So, you're saying this article works much better when it isn't read?
Actually, in keeping with the analogy, I can look at the syllabus and find an alternate textbook that covers the required material. The nice part about university education is that it's not junior high: maintaining order and instilling a sense of uniformity and discipline isn't a priority.
So, you're asked to buy a particular textbook, but find a comparable one that's cheaper, or just reads better to you -- you may use it. Likewise, if you're asked to purchase Matlab or Maya, you may still choose R or Blender. You risk screwing yourself, but it's your decision. At least, that's always been the idea.