Well, although I agree with your comment I still don't see how the comment in question is insightful. I also agree with you that too many slashdotters will mark any comment they agree with as insightful.
Any behavior comes with a risk of psychological addiction
It's too bad that politics trumps science and bends language so badly that the very meanings of things are changed beyond recognition. What did Orwell call this in "1984"?
What you call "psychological addiction" has a simple one word five sylable synonnym. It's called habituation.
If you smoke pot every day for a year, you're going to miss it when it's gone, and even crave it. The antidrug nannys say this proves addiction, and under the new meanings maybe it does. But if you have a glass of orange juice with your breakfast every morning for a year you're going to miss it when it's gone.
If you drink a half ping of whiskey every day for a year you're not only going to miss it when it's gone, you're going to get the shakes, see snakes, feel bugs on your skin. You can actually DIE from withdrawal from alcohol or heroin. That's addiction.
Coffee is addictive, but its withdrawal is trivial; without their coffee, a caffiene addict gets headaches.
Addiction is physical. Habituation is psychological. You cannot become addicted to a gizmo (unless of course your "gizmo" is a hypodermic needle full of morphine)
The summary says scientists have found the link, but the reality is more like they have proven the link. As TFS itself says, Illusionists have been alive to this phenomenon for years.
The most important thing one learns in art school is how to see. By this I mean that non-artists see like non-mathemeticians calculate.
I agree with what you say, an.XXX domain would in fact make it easier to find porn. But the people touting the.xxx domain aren't using that as a reason, they're saying that it would keep kids away from porn.
A.kid domain might keep kids away from stuff you wouldn't want them to see, but the lack of a world government would hinder that. Who would police it? Who would get to decide what could and could not be put there?
I still think the best answer is educate the parents, letting them know what an unsavory, un-kid-friendly place the wild wooley internet truly is, so that they can guide the child. That is, after all their primary job.
And once the radioactive cloud drifts over your midwest and destroyes the agriculture there, you'll feel really stupid for doing so.
I'm 55. I've lived through radioactive clouds drifting over the midwest before. I particularly remember one winter when we had a thundersnowstorm and we got about two feet of snow in St Louis, and the government told everyone to keep the kids inside as the snow was radioactive.
Good luck keeping the kids inside when there's two feet of snow.
I also remember them asking us to send in our baby teeth to test them for strontuim-90. And that they blame all cancers on cigarettes and second hand smoke (hmmmm....)
Appeasing Europe is the dumbest thing any American President can do. Europeans are not American allies, or they would be fighting with Americans in Iraq. -- I apologize for the shortness of digital temper, I just quit smoking. Score 0, Flamebait
The primary power of the presidency is the establishment and implementation of foreign policy
I was going to rebut this and say that as Chief Executive his primary duty is enforcement of Federal Law, but the Constitution says I'm wrong. From Article II (the first section of this article says who can be President and How, etc)
Section 2. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.
He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.
The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.
Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.
Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
I rather like Section 4. Gasoline costs three times what it did when Bush took office. Why is the Traitor In Chief oil man still President after he obviously started a needless war to destabilise the middle east so that he can enrich himself at the expense of the American people and the lives of the brave servicepeople he is commander in chief of? He should be impeached, tried, convicted, and put in front of a firing squad.
More onntopic and less trollishly flamebaiting, the discussion the other day about Lessig had some comments in response to a comment I made that changed my mind almost completely; I had blamed Lessig for what he himself called his greatest failure, the loss of the copyright case where the definition of "limited" means "whatever the turds in Congress say it means."
Today's changed it for me completely. I rather think Lessig would not only make a better Congressman than he is a lawyer, but far, far better than any of the Congresscriitters there today.
Unfortunately, unlike a Bill Gates or a corporation, I have no say whatever whether or not Lessig becomes a Congressman. I only have a vote, and I can only cast my vote for politicians who are on the ballot in Illinois. That is in stark contrast to Sony, BP, Shell, and the other fine "American" corporations who can bribe... er, excuse me, "contribute to" both major party candidates so that no matter which American candidate loses, the foreign corporation wins.
And you guys wonder why we're having balance of trade problems?
I would hope if Lessig or Paul or other non-corrupt people get in Congress and teh Senate they would try to both make it illegal to contribute to more than one candidate in any given race (call it the "No Bribery Allowed Act") and make it illegal to contribute to the campaign of any candidate one is not eligible to vote for.
I mean, Bill gates' monor children in Washington State can have more influence in Illinois politics than I can. If I were a billionaire I could influence whether or not Lessig became Representative of whatever the hell state he's running in even though I don't live there. Shouldn't John Shimkis be representing ME and not some Japanese corporation?
I went to the "Lessig 08" site and the first thing I would suggest is that he fire his web designers. Running IE6 the first thing that happened was that the damned thing asked me if I wanted to debug it. The second thing that happened was that it was more content-free than Uncyclopedia, not even telling me what state he's running in!
Guys, get a clue. If that site is representative of the campaign itself, Lessig has less chance of getting elected than he did getting Bono overturned.
-mcgrew
(sorry if I'm a bit ascerbic today, I went blind in my good eye Monday night. I should get my vision back but I'm still a bit shaken by it.)
The other side of the coin is a couple of articles I wrote a couple of years ago, Useful Dead Technologies and Good Riddance to Bad Tech. Both were written in a humorous vein, but I tried to be interesting and informative as well. It can be done, but I don't think Obsolete Technical Skills suceeds. Here are excerpts from my old obsolete articles mentioned above, starting with Useful Dead Technologies:
Volume control knobs You're driving down the road and that song comes on. You know the one, it really rocks and you must crank that sucker up.
But there's no crank any more. You have to take your eyes off of the road to find the one button on the fifty buttons to turn the damned thing up or down. Thank God they invented cell phones so you can call an ambulance after you wreck your car trying to turn the volume down to answer your cell phone!
And if you want to adjust the tone, balance, or rear fade, forget it. You're either going to have to stop the car, or get a passenger to do it for you. If, that is, he or she can find the owner's manual to figure out how to.
The automobile distributor and points Unless you are a classic car collector, or a geezer, you have no idea how much of a pain in the butt these things were. About every oil change or two, your car's performance and gas mileage would go down, and you would need a tuneup.
To tune your car, you could simply hire someone. That is, if you were a sissy.
A real man changed his own oil and tuned his own car up. You could tell a real man by the scars and scabs on his knuckles from working on his car.
First you had to change all eight of your spark plugs. What? You only have six? Pussy! Make sure you don't get the wires on wrong, or if your car will start at all, it will lurch and backfire and run like crap.
Then you had to take off the distributor cap, usually held on by two clips that would cut your fingers and were harder than a rubic cube solution to get clipped back on.
Under the distributor cap was the contact points. These had to be replaced. Then you had to adjust the gap on the points. Oh shit, I forgot to adjust the gaps on the spark plugs... do that all over again...
Now that the plugs are gapped and the points are replaced and gapped, you put the new distributor cap on... Come on... SHIT... GOD DAMNED PIECE OF SHI... ok, there it goes. Good. Gimme a bandaid, would ya?
Now you have to set the points' dwell. What's "dwell?" Beats the hell out of me, maybe it's the amount of time the points are closed. But you have to set it with a dwell meter or your car will run like it's powered by gerbils and will suck gas like Bush sucks at being President.
Then you have to get out your strobe and set the timing. You loosen the distributor, point your strobe at the mark on the... wait a minute... I can't see the damned mark. Stop the engine, would you?
Damn, it's all rusty and... to hell with it, start it back up and I'll time the God damned thing by ear, piece of shit...
Thank God and modern electronics for electronic ignition!
That's easy for someone who was never addicted to the filthy things to say. I was a nicotine addict for 30 years, having smoked my last cigaterre eight years ago I have to tell you that quitting was the hardest thing I've ever done. The damned things should be outlawed, or all other drugs should be legalized.
If you want to know how damned addictive this drug is, I was stationed in Thailand in 1974, where they had 99% pure heroin. 99% of the lifers drank like fish, 99% of the white first termers smoked Thailand's killer bud, and the 99% of the black first termers smoked heroin.
They would let half the tobacco out of a Kool cigarette, tear the filter in half lengthwise and reinsert it, dip the end in the heroin and smoke it. I understand it was to American heroin what crack is to powder cocaine.
Some of these guys had never smoked anything before going to Thailand. I met some of them later in the US, and not a single one of them was still doing heroin but every single one was still smoking those Kools.
When I was a kid they sold candy cigaretes in boxes branded by the cigarette companies. They advertised them on TV. You could smoke anywhere, even in a college classroom, and 3/4 of adults did.
I was probably an addict before I ever put a cigarette in my mouth. Unlike a needle junkie, cigarette's toxins and drugs go to other people, not just the drug addict.
The idiot in the SUV is simply an idiot and can't help himself, (s)he doesn't know how to drive and doesn't know (s)he doesn't know how to drive. The tobacco executives KNOW what they're doing, but they put their own profits ahead of anyone else's lives.
Although I agree with your point that US relations with Cuba isn't exactly news for nerds, news about Brad and Angelina isn't news for ANYBODY. They're just actors. Nothing thay doe will affect the world, let alone MY world. Castro resigning does, in fact, affect me.
Sometimes a band aid is better than a hastily planned and thus ill-conceived surgery.
Yeah, but while the cut finger (banks) get the band aid, the heart attack (broken patent system) is killing the patient. Maybe they'd best forget the finger and treat the life-threatening illness?
Slashdot Mirror
Is that grammar or spulling? But at any rate he needs to meet Bob. Sadly, so do a lot of other slashdotters.
Well, I don't know. The guy who designed this bridge is/was an engineer, even though I'd not want to drive my car across any of his bridges.
I'm sure of it, but that still doesn't make them news.
Well, although I agree with your comment I still don't see how the comment in question is insightful. I also agree with you that too many slashdotters will mark any comment they agree with as insightful.
And here I thought it was because Yahoo's pages are as fugly and user-hostile as Microsoft's. Shows how dumb I am.
My head just asploded. But then it unploded when I realised your last name isn't "Dent".
Any behavior comes with a risk of psychological addiction
It's too bad that politics trumps science and bends language so badly that the very meanings of things are changed beyond recognition. What did Orwell call this in "1984"?
What you call "psychological addiction" has a simple one word five sylable synonnym. It's called habituation.
If you smoke pot every day for a year, you're going to miss it when it's gone, and even crave it. The antidrug nannys say this proves addiction, and under the new meanings maybe it does. But if you have a glass of orange juice with your breakfast every morning for a year you're going to miss it when it's gone.
If you drink a half ping of whiskey every day for a year you're not only going to miss it when it's gone, you're going to get the shakes, see snakes, feel bugs on your skin. You can actually DIE from withdrawal from alcohol or heroin. That's addiction.
Coffee is addictive, but its withdrawal is trivial; without their coffee, a caffiene addict gets headaches.
Addiction is physical. Habituation is psychological. You cannot become addicted to a gizmo (unless of course your "gizmo" is a hypodermic needle full of morphine)
Nah, they only look pasty like that.
Yeah, like we nerds have room to talk.
Because, you know, terrorists always watch pirated movies and download pop albums, and they're constantly Torrenting weapons of mass destruction
I think Microsoft would agree with that. So would the RIAA (well of course the MAFIAA would, that's what TFA is about).
The summary says scientists have found the link, but the reality is more like they have proven the link. As TFS itself says, Illusionists have been alive to this phenomenon for years.
The most important thing one learns in art school is how to see. By this I mean that non-artists see like non-mathemeticians calculate.
Now I have to go and read the research paper.
Who says we're civilized? You realise that we have no social safety net for the poor, and no universal health care, right?
There are likely third world countries without electricity or running water that are more civilized than us.
No offense Mr. Coward, but your anonymous flamebait makes you look seedy and pathetic.
I would guess that a lot of slashdotters click on the ads just to help make money for slashdot. It's not like they have to pay anything to do it.
I agree with what you say, an .XXX domain would in fact make it easier to find porn. But the people touting the .xxx domain aren't using that as a reason, they're saying that it would keep kids away from porn.
.kid domain might keep kids away from stuff you wouldn't want them to see, but the lack of a world government would hinder that. Who would police it? Who would get to decide what could and could not be put there?
A
I still think the best answer is educate the parents, letting them know what an unsavory, un-kid-friendly place the wild wooley internet truly is, so that they can guide the child. That is, after all their primary job.
And once the radioactive cloud drifts over your midwest and destroyes the agriculture there, you'll feel really stupid for doing so.
I'm 55. I've lived through radioactive clouds drifting over the midwest before. I particularly remember one winter when we had a thundersnowstorm and we got about two feet of snow in St Louis, and the government told everyone to keep the kids inside as the snow was radioactive.
Good luck keeping the kids inside when there's two feet of snow.
I also remember them asking us to send in our baby teeth to test them for strontuim-90. And that they blame all cancers on cigarettes and second hand smoke (hmmmm....)
If Mexico or Canada invaded[1] the USA
Canada has a navy! and Mexico has an army!
I got a laugh out of that, thank you!
Appeasing Europe is the dumbest thing any American President can do. Europeans are not American allies, or they would be fighting with Americans in Iraq.
--
I apologize for the shortness of digital temper, I just quit smoking. Score 0, Flamebait
"Hey bud, got a light?"
I was going to rebut this and say that as Chief Executive his primary duty is enforcement of Federal Law, but the Constitution says I'm wrong. From Article II (the first section of this article says who can be President and How, etc)I rather like Section 4. Gasoline costs three times what it did when Bush took office. Why is the Traitor In Chief oil man still President after he obviously started a needless war to destabilise the middle east so that he can enrich himself at the expense of the American people and the lives of the brave servicepeople he is commander in chief of? He should be impeached, tried, convicted, and put in front of a firing squad.
(yeah yeah... boo hiss!! I must be a troll!!)
;)
Here in Springfield we do our trolling offline
More onntopic and less trollishly flamebaiting, the discussion the other day about Lessig had some comments in response to a comment I made that changed my mind almost completely; I had blamed Lessig for what he himself called his greatest failure, the loss of the copyright case where the definition of "limited" means "whatever the turds in Congress say it means."
Today's changed it for me completely. I rather think Lessig would not only make a better Congressman than he is a lawyer, but far, far better than any of the Congresscriitters there today.
Unfortunately, unlike a Bill Gates or a corporation, I have no say whatever whether or not Lessig becomes a Congressman. I only have a vote, and I can only cast my vote for politicians who are on the ballot in Illinois. That is in stark contrast to Sony, BP, Shell, and the other fine "American" corporations who can bribe... er, excuse me, "contribute to" both major party candidates so that no matter which American candidate loses, the foreign corporation wins.
And you guys wonder why we're having balance of trade problems?
I would hope if Lessig or Paul or other non-corrupt people get in Congress and teh Senate they would try to both make it illegal to contribute to more than one candidate in any given race (call it the "No Bribery Allowed Act") and make it illegal to contribute to the campaign of any candidate one is not eligible to vote for.
I mean, Bill gates' monor children in Washington State can have more influence in Illinois politics than I can. If I were a billionaire I could influence whether or not Lessig became Representative of whatever the hell state he's running in even though I don't live there. Shouldn't John Shimkis be representing ME and not some Japanese corporation?
I went to the "Lessig 08" site and the first thing I would suggest is that he fire his web designers. Running IE6 the first thing that happened was that the damned thing asked me if I wanted to debug it. The second thing that happened was that it was more content-free than Uncyclopedia, not even telling me what state he's running in!
Guys, get a clue. If that site is representative of the campaign itself, Lessig has less chance of getting elected than he did getting Bono overturned.
-mcgrew
(sorry if I'm a bit ascerbic today, I went blind in my good eye Monday night. I should get my vision back but I'm still a bit shaken by it.)
Smokers can choose to not smoke
That's easy for someone who was never addicted to the filthy things to say. I was a nicotine addict for 30 years, having smoked my last cigaterre eight years ago I have to tell you that quitting was the hardest thing I've ever done. The damned things should be outlawed, or all other drugs should be legalized.
If you want to know how damned addictive this drug is, I was stationed in Thailand in 1974, where they had 99% pure heroin. 99% of the lifers drank like fish, 99% of the white first termers smoked Thailand's killer bud, and the 99% of the black first termers smoked heroin.
They would let half the tobacco out of a Kool cigarette, tear the filter in half lengthwise and reinsert it, dip the end in the heroin and smoke it. I understand it was to American heroin what crack is to powder cocaine.
Some of these guys had never smoked anything before going to Thailand. I met some of them later in the US, and not a single one of them was still doing heroin but every single one was still smoking those Kools.
When I was a kid they sold candy cigaretes in boxes branded by the cigarette companies. They advertised them on TV. You could smoke anywhere, even in a college classroom, and 3/4 of adults did.
I was probably an addict before I ever put a cigarette in my mouth. Unlike a needle junkie, cigarette's toxins and drugs go to other people, not just the drug addict.
The idiot in the SUV is simply an idiot and can't help himself, (s)he doesn't know how to drive and doesn't know (s)he doesn't know how to drive. The tobacco executives KNOW what they're doing, but they put their own profits ahead of anyone else's lives.
Dude, you know wikipedia isn't accurate. If you want and article about zombies, go here.
Does this mean the expat's in Miami will finally shut up
The expat's what? And which expat are you referring to?
Or do you simply not know when and wnen not to use an apostrophe? Go see Bob, he'll fix you up.
-mcgrew
(Eye muss bee knew hear?)
Although I agree with your point that US relations with Cuba isn't exactly news for nerds, news about Brad and Angelina isn't news for ANYBODY. They're just actors. Nothing thay doe will affect the world, let alone MY world. Castro resigning does, in fact, affect me.
Sometimes a band aid is better than a hastily planned and thus ill-conceived surgery.
Yeah, but while the cut finger (banks) get the band aid, the heart attack (broken patent system) is killing the patient. Maybe they'd best forget the finger and treat the life-threatening illness?