i'm guessing because in jenni's case it's voluntary. i happen to not like the idea of people looking into my window, or listening to my phone conversations, or reading my email, or whathaveyou. but if she doesn't mind, then all power to her. it's the matter of personal choice. we don't want people dictating how much privacy we have (or don't have), so why should we dictate it for someone else? and since she's doing it voluntarily, why not support such a blatant choice to dictate one's own personal amount of privacy? granted, it's not as interesting as someone saying "i don't want anyone to see my life" and having a blank webpage 24/7, but the principle behind it is the same. or at least, that's how i see it:)
from your post: >God is a matter of faith and science is a matter of fact.
from the review: >Either there is no such thing as God, or science - which embodies our ability to reason - must be able to frame the question and provide us with the answers.
i think you're exactly right. to me, it seems incredibly counterintuitive to attempt to use science and reason to explain the supernatural. i feel that, by definition, they are outside of science and reason.
a quote from my favorite movie seems somewhat apt here: "...it's all science and progress now. no place for three-legged cyclops in the south seas. no place for cucumber bushes, and oceans of wine..."
>I've *had* a coworker lose her job over a minorly snide comment on a discussion forum.
>This is really unfortunate, but it is not impossible to forsee. As always - when you are on the record, watch what you say.
except sometimes it is impossible to forsee. i had a friend who got a job programming for a small, local ISP. he goes to work 8am monday, 8am tuesday, but gets sick and pukes in the Company bathroom. he comes in 8am wednesday. wednesday night, he hosts an underground rave. he hosts these about once a month. a co-worker from his new Company is at this one. my friend goes into work thursday morning, 8am. by 10am he's fired; no reason. just, "sorry, you're not working out." it *is* possible that they don't like people getting sick their second day on the job, but i've never heard of anyone getting fired for it.
we don't know how Ford will deal with how their employees use the Company-provided computers. but looking at the NW brouhaha, it seems that corporations are more and more attempting to get a finger in their employees' non-company time. and i think it's scary.
now i shall be flamed for being alarmist. and you're right. i am. but i think it's something we need to look at. i fully support Ford for giving their employees new computers; i think it's an excellent humanitarian and educational measure. but if i were employed by Ford, i'd check the fine print on how the Company feels about what i use my computer for.
i have to agree with you on this one. i'm pretty much a latecomer to the whole x-files thing (and now i don't have a tv so i'm missing this entire season...grrr), but one of the things that originally drew me to the show was the character development. and the humour. it's incredibly hard to find *any* science fiction that's cool *and* can laugh at itself. i used to sit around the tv with my friends, and we always agreed the best episodes were the ones where either mulder or scully had some serious character development, or we cracked up laughing. the show got downright silly at times. along with being interesting and somewhat thought-provoking.
maybe if they keep up that same quality of character development with the lone gunmen the shouw could be really good, but if it's just a bunch of paranoid computer geeks running around and trying to get laid, i'll get bored real quick.
after thinking it over, i've decided to explain my comment and possibly the reason you were moderated down.
it wasn't that you weren't "politically correct." hell, i'm not really "politically correct" myself. but what surprised me was what seemed to be the implicit assumption in your comment that women *should* want to be like that. not that some women do and you like that, and some women don't and you could care less, but that you seemed to imply that all women *should* be fulfilled in the "traditional" role of wife, mother, and homemaker. and that goes beyond political incorrectness to sexism. which i, personally, think is just silly. i may be hanging out with the wrong kind of women, but i've never met one like that.
if i misunderstood you, please feel free to correct me.
i was raised in a household that i consider to be fairly politically and morally conservative. you know, my parents voted republican, we went to church every sunday, in sunday school we heard about the evils of sex, drugs, etc.
my parents, however, did not treat this as dogmatic, unquestionable truth. they taught me about sex and violence and drugs at a relatively young age (7 or 8 years old). they taught me that sex is *supposed* to be enjoyable. which, admittedly, was something i didn't hear in church. my parents were and still are very active in their church. even if i don't go with them anymore, and have changed my mind about a lot of things i was taught as a child, i still respect them for teaching me to closely examine something, even if i agreed with it.
oops. i started to ramble there. my original point was to say that just because someone may ally themselves with the religious right doesn't mean they are unquestioning automatons.
i *think* you mean the Jarre de The in Chiba? where he takes the speed?
now that i come to think of it, that scene really sounds very close to how the author of the first article (Plant) describes Ecstasy and rave music.
from the article: > "There's something about the clean precision of the MDMA experience that seems to fit digital technology, the same technology that enabled the creation of that very precise rhythmic dance music." from Neuromancer: >"Get just wasted enough, find yourself in some desperate but strangely arbitrary kind of trouble, and it was possible to see Ninsei as a field of data...data made flesh in the mazes of hte black market."
they both (to me, i suppose) seem to imply that the effect of drugs on the human system can seems to make life mirror electronics.
i can't personally say for speed, but i can say that Ecstasy really does change how one experiences some kinds of rave music.
>Because we don't sense the passage of time while we didn't exist.
one interesting thing i've heard from the creationist side of the argument is that, according to the Bible, the sun wasn't created until the fourth day (i *think*) so there's no reason to say the first three days were 24 hours. there's just light and dark. they could very well have been some inconceivably huge amount of time. the person said to me in the same conversation, "if God saying 'let there be light' isn't a 'big bang,' you tell me what is."
it was really nice to hear this. i'll risk my incredibly low karma here and say that the first thought that flashed through my mind reading about VA's purchase of Andover was "holy sh*t, this sounds like the AOL-Time Warner merge." ok, so that was a way over-the-top alarmist reaction, and i fully recognize the lack of similarity in it now, but this does, i think, have the potential to represent the consolidation of a lot of power in the open source world. it's nice to hear that it's not going to your heads (so far;)
if i may be, for the moment, permitted to indulge in idealism, i would say that if we could somehow get "some of our own" into the government, the possibility of it turning around and stabbing us in the back would be lessened.
but i don't think that's going to happen. even if we could agree on some sort of "geek party" (or whathaveyou), human nature more or less seems to dictate that once even a geek gets power, they'll be tempted to keep using it until they can't give it up.
it might be nice if we could have something like the political equivalent of the EFF, or maybe an organization that could take politicians and judgs and lawyers and whatnot to task and say "look. this is really what the technical issues are all about." but, indeed, that would require support from the admittedly very indiviualistic "geek community;" some freedom would have to be surrendered. i suppose the question is, is it possible to surrender enough freedom to escape total annihilation from the current regime, but keep enough that it won't happen to whatever we put in place?
witness the french revolution for one of the most outstanding exampes of a government being replaced one with equality as its ideal and turning into something just as bad as its predecessor. or, maybe we should all put on little red hoods and go try to do it right this time?:)
i think that's exactly it. i read (and love) Gibson for his use of language. i read other science fiction authors if i want the "science" part of it. some of his technical ideas are interesting, but they are really secondary to the rest of the plot. yes, the novels can be pretty hard to read. yes, they can be pretty hard to understand the first time through (especially Neuromancer). but i worship the man for his use of language. him, and Ray Bradbury.
i was really hoping someone would suggest this. after such a blatantly one-sided article, you'd hope they'd give the other the right to throw out some defense FUD.
The Hobbit hardcore?? i was read The Hobbit by my father when i was 8 years old. i've been hooked ever since. LOTR is a little more so, and i still have yet to finish the Silmarillion (many years later), but i was reading the trilogy on my own when i was 13 or so...*shrug* OTOH, my mother hates them. ya never know.
i'll be the first to admit i don't fully understand the chemistry involved here, but i agree with you, solar energy was my first thought when they said they needed electrons to complete the reaction. i wonder, would it actually be feasible, though... i don't seem to remember anything ever being said about solar panels being efficient energy converters (or whatever they technically are). would it be possible that to produce enough energy, there would have to be some impractical amount of panels? and solar panels atop a power plant seems a little silly to me...:)
what really disturbs me about this is her comparing using her phone at work to make personal calls to a student using university internet facilities. AFAIK, she is being *paid* by the government of AZ to do her job. the phone in her office is part of the equipment provided for her in order that she can do her job. but a student is *paying* to go to university. this is a state university and, as such, is funded by taxpayers. but isn't also funded by the students' own tuition? so shouldn't the students have some control over the equipment they're paying for? (disclaimer: i don't personally know about AZ, but a PA resident does have to pay tuition to go to Penn State). if students choose to waste their time downloading pr0n, what else are they hurting besides (potentially) their GPA? by virtue of the student paying for their education, i feel that they are in a state wholly uncomparable to that of a Company employee.
and i'm not even going to comment on the blatant attempt to legislate morals here.
from the article: >... have successfully completed one such prototype: the result is a fully functional and potentially virile Linux virus.
i was more or less under the impression that "virile" (from latin "vir" meaning "man," i believe--akin to "puerile" from "puer" = "boy") referred to the sexual capability of a male, and that the correct word to describe a particularily nasty virus was "virulent." anyone want to correct me?
i kinda wondered where Katz got his information on women being scared off. almost all the women i've ever talked to do not feel intimidated by loud male blustering, especially online. granted, i may not be talking to "normal" women.
but i'll certainly echo your call for information on people who feel their gender affects their participation in an online forum, *and* how they feel about it (i.e. whether their gender makes them feel more or less likely to be taken seriously/flamed/ignored/whathaveyou). i would think, especially in a forum like this, a poster would be more likely scared off by his/her lack of knowledge than gender. me, for instance. in my own mind, my gender is irrelevant. but i am *gasp* a newbie (here come the flames). i lurk (usually) becuase i'm still learning, not because of what i have or don't have between my legs.
anyway. back on topic, a study like that would be interesting, i think. but, given how highly people value their anonymity on the web, the information would probably be very hard to gather. especially if the people are lurking in the first place.
you'll notice that "women" were among the groups Katz gave as being excluded by flaming. are we assuming that women are simply not strong enough to stand up under a barrage of testosterone? or are we assuming women are smarter than to take something like that seriously and therefore decide not to take part in the conversation? why are flamers assumed to be male? because women, of course, simply don't have that level of agression?
i have no idea. but i sort of tend to think, given the reactions of several women i have the privelege to know, that women are just as flame-ready as men, and in some cases even more so. i lean more towards the idea that the "tell-tale signs" to which you refer are the darker side of the entire human psyche, gender irrelevant.
OTOH, who knows? maybe the geek culture is the ultimate patriarchy.
i'm at McGill University in Montreal, and we have high-speed access in the dorms too. you have to pay for it, though. it's a little expensive...i think something like $280 for both semesters. although there are miniscule computer labs in each dorm (as in 2 computers) that also have free high speed access. it was, however, the only thing that made me even consider a second year there.
but i moved out and got ADSL instead:) not a bad deal. rent's lower, and i make much better food.
my mum used to claim that she would drink a beer while nursing me. relaxed her, and put me right to sleep. unfortunately, i don't think it was guiness. i guess they were on to something back then:)
oh. my. god. someone else who has seen Baron Munchausen. i was convinced i was the only person who had ever heard of the film. it has to be one of my all-time favorites. i think i've memorized most of the script.
anyway. sorry about the slightly OT rant there, i was just so shocked to read that.
as so many other people have said, Good Omens was a hilarious book. also one of the best books i've ever read. i was actually surprised i liked it so much since i much prefer Gaiman to Pratchett. maybe because of Gaiman's influence; i don't know. and i love every single Gilliam film i've ever seen. i can't wait to see how the movie turns out. i'm just afraid there will be a huge amount of pressure to dumb down the book or make it a Dogma ripoff.
interesting postscript: my religiously conservative parents loved Good Omens and went to see Dogma because they thought it was based on the book. they were not impressed. which is odd, because my mother had seen Clerks, and so knew what a Kevin Smith film was like (i.e. quite a different brand of humor from Good Omens).
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i'm guessing because in jenni's case it's voluntary. i happen to not like the idea of people looking into my window, or listening to my phone conversations, or reading my email, or whathaveyou. but if she doesn't mind, then all power to her. it's the matter of personal choice. we don't want people dictating how much privacy we have (or don't have), so why should we dictate it for someone else? and since she's doing it voluntarily, why not support such a blatant choice to dictate one's own personal amount of privacy? granted, it's not as interesting as someone saying "i don't want anyone to see my life" and having a blank webpage 24/7, but the principle behind it is the same. or at least, that's how i see it :)
from your post:
>God is a matter of faith and science is a matter of fact.
from the review:
>Either there is no such thing as God, or science - which embodies our ability to reason - must be able to frame the question and provide us with the answers.
i think you're exactly right. to me, it seems incredibly counterintuitive to attempt to use science and reason to explain the supernatural. i feel that, by definition, they are outside of science and reason.
a quote from my favorite movie seems somewhat apt here:
"...it's all science and progress now. no place for three-legged cyclops in the south seas. no place for cucumber bushes, and oceans of wine..."
>I've *had* a coworker lose her job over a minorly snide comment on a discussion forum.
>This is really unfortunate, but it is not impossible to forsee. As always - when you are on the record, watch what you say.
except sometimes it is impossible to forsee. i had a friend who got a job programming for a small, local ISP. he goes to work 8am monday, 8am tuesday, but gets sick and pukes in the Company bathroom. he comes in 8am wednesday. wednesday night, he hosts an underground rave. he hosts these about once a month. a co-worker from his new Company is at this one. my friend goes into work thursday morning, 8am. by 10am he's fired; no reason. just, "sorry, you're not working out." it *is* possible that they don't like people getting sick their second day on the job, but i've never heard of anyone getting fired for it.
we don't know how Ford will deal with how their employees use the Company-provided computers. but looking at the NW brouhaha, it seems that corporations are more and more attempting to get a finger in their employees' non-company time. and i think it's scary.
now i shall be flamed for being alarmist. and you're right. i am. but i think it's something we need to look at. i fully support Ford for giving their employees new computers; i think it's an excellent humanitarian and educational measure. but if i were employed by Ford, i'd check the fine print on how the Company feels about what i use my computer for.
i have to agree with you on this one. i'm pretty much a latecomer to the whole x-files thing (and now i don't have a tv so i'm missing this entire season...grrr), but one of the things that originally drew me to the show was the character development. and the humour. it's incredibly hard to find *any* science fiction that's cool *and* can laugh at itself. i used to sit around the tv with my friends, and we always agreed the best episodes were the ones where either mulder or scully had some serious character development, or we cracked up laughing. the show got downright silly at times. along with being interesting and somewhat thought-provoking.
maybe if they keep up that same quality of character development with the lone gunmen the shouw could be really good, but if it's just a bunch of paranoid computer geeks running around and trying to get laid, i'll get bored real quick.
after thinking it over, i've decided to explain my comment and possibly the reason you were moderated down.
it wasn't that you weren't "politically correct." hell, i'm not really "politically correct" myself. but what surprised me was what seemed to be the implicit assumption in your comment that women *should* want to be like that. not that some women do and you like that, and some women don't and you could care less, but that you seemed to imply that all women *should* be fulfilled in the "traditional" role of wife, mother, and homemaker. and that goes beyond political incorrectness to sexism. which i, personally, think is just silly. i may be hanging out with the wrong kind of women, but i've never met one like that.
if i misunderstood you, please feel free to correct me.
remember, this is the same site that ran that wonderful letter from Mr. Valenti of the MPAA. are you really surprised at the mildness?
i was raised in a household that i consider to be fairly politically and morally conservative. you know, my parents voted republican, we went to church every sunday, in sunday school we heard about the evils of sex, drugs, etc.
my parents, however, did not treat this as dogmatic, unquestionable truth. they taught me about sex and violence and drugs at a relatively young age (7 or 8 years old). they taught me that sex is *supposed* to be enjoyable. which, admittedly, was something i didn't hear in church. my parents were and still are very active in their church. even if i don't go with them anymore, and have changed my mind about a lot of things i was taught as a child, i still respect them for teaching me to closely examine something, even if i agreed with it.
oops. i started to ramble there. my original point was to say that just because someone may ally themselves with the religious right doesn't mean they are unquestioning automatons.
*please* tell me you're joking.
i *think* you mean the Jarre de The in Chiba? where he takes the speed?
now that i come to think of it, that scene really sounds very close to how the author of the first article (Plant) describes Ecstasy and rave music.
from the article:
> "There's something about the clean precision of the MDMA experience that seems to fit digital technology, the same technology that enabled the creation of that very precise rhythmic dance music."
from Neuromancer:
>"Get just wasted enough, find yourself in some desperate but strangely arbitrary kind of trouble, and it was possible to see Ninsei as a field of data...data made flesh in the mazes of hte black market."
they both (to me, i suppose) seem to imply that the effect of drugs on the human system can seems to make life mirror electronics.
i can't personally say for speed, but i can say that Ecstasy really does change how one experiences some kinds of rave music.
>Because we don't sense the passage of time while we didn't exist.
one interesting thing i've heard from the creationist side of the argument is that, according to the Bible, the sun wasn't created until the fourth day (i *think*) so there's no reason to say the first three days were 24 hours. there's just light and dark. they could very well have been some inconceivably huge amount of time. the person said to me in the same conversation, "if God saying 'let there be light' isn't a 'big bang,' you tell me what is."
made me think.
that's an interesting quote. thank you for proving my point about the french revolution.
it was really nice to hear this. i'll risk my incredibly low karma here and say that the first thought that flashed through my mind reading about VA's purchase of Andover was "holy sh*t, this sounds like the AOL-Time Warner merge." ok, so that was a way over-the-top alarmist reaction, and i fully recognize the lack of similarity in it now, but this does, i think, have the potential to represent the consolidation of a lot of power in the open source world. it's nice to hear that it's not going to your heads (so far ;)
if i may be, for the moment, permitted to indulge in idealism, i would say that if we could somehow get "some of our own" into the government, the possibility of it turning around and stabbing us in the back would be lessened.
:)
but i don't think that's going to happen. even if we could agree on some sort of "geek party" (or whathaveyou), human nature more or less seems to dictate that once even a geek gets power, they'll be tempted to keep using it until they can't give it up.
it might be nice if we could have something like the political equivalent of the EFF, or maybe an organization that could take politicians and judgs and lawyers and whatnot to task and say "look. this is really what the technical issues are all about." but, indeed, that would require support from the admittedly very indiviualistic "geek community;" some freedom would have to be surrendered. i suppose the question is, is it possible to surrender enough freedom to escape total annihilation from the current regime, but keep enough that it won't happen to whatever we put in place?
witness the french revolution for one of the most outstanding exampes of a government being replaced one with equality as its ideal and turning into something just as bad as its predecessor. or, maybe we should all put on little red hoods and go try to do it right this time?
i think that's exactly it. i read (and love) Gibson for his use of language. i read other science fiction authors if i want the "science" part of it. some of his technical ideas are interesting, but they are really secondary to the rest of the plot. yes, the novels can be pretty hard to read. yes, they can be pretty hard to understand the first time through (especially Neuromancer). but i worship the man for his use of language. him, and Ray Bradbury.
i'll be perfectly honest, i didn't know the superbowl was tonight until i checked the UserFriendly strip this morning when i woke up :)
i was really hoping someone would suggest this. after such a blatantly one-sided article, you'd hope they'd give the other the right to throw out some defense FUD.
The Hobbit hardcore?? i was read The Hobbit by my father when i was 8 years old. i've been hooked ever since. LOTR is a little more so, and i still have yet to finish the Silmarillion (many years later), but i was reading the trilogy on my own when i was 13 or so...*shrug* OTOH, my mother hates them. ya never know.
but The Hobbit should be fine for a 13-yr-old.
i'll be the first to admit i don't fully understand the chemistry involved here, but i agree with you, solar energy was my first thought when they said they needed electrons to complete the reaction. i wonder, would it actually be feasible, though... i don't seem to remember anything ever being said about solar panels being efficient energy converters (or whatever they technically are). would it be possible that to produce enough energy, there would have to be some impractical amount of panels? and solar panels atop a power plant seems a little silly to me... :)
what really disturbs me about this is her comparing using her phone at work to make personal calls to a student using university internet facilities. AFAIK, she is being *paid* by the government of AZ to do her job. the phone in her office is part of the equipment provided for her in order that she can do her job. but a student is *paying* to go to university. this is a state university and, as such, is funded by taxpayers. but isn't also funded by the students' own tuition? so shouldn't the students have some control over the equipment they're paying for? (disclaimer: i don't personally know about AZ, but a PA resident does have to pay tuition to go to Penn State). if students choose to waste their time downloading pr0n, what else are they hurting besides (potentially) their GPA? by virtue of the student paying for their education, i feel that they are in a state wholly uncomparable to that of a Company employee.
and i'm not even going to comment on the blatant attempt to legislate morals here.
from the article:
>... have successfully completed one such prototype: the result is a fully functional and potentially virile Linux virus.
i was more or less under the impression that "virile" (from latin "vir" meaning "man," i believe--akin to "puerile" from "puer" = "boy") referred to the sexual capability of a male, and that the correct word to describe a particularily nasty virus was "virulent." anyone want to correct me?
i kinda wondered where Katz got his information on women being scared off. almost all the women i've ever talked to do not feel intimidated by loud male blustering, especially online. granted, i may not be talking to "normal" women.
but i'll certainly echo your call for information on people who feel their gender affects their participation in an online forum, *and* how they feel about it (i.e. whether their gender makes them feel more or less likely to be taken seriously/flamed/ignored/whathaveyou). i would think, especially in a forum like this, a poster would be more likely scared off by his/her lack of knowledge than gender. me, for instance. in my own mind, my gender is irrelevant. but i am *gasp* a newbie (here come the flames). i lurk (usually) becuase i'm still learning, not because of what i have or don't have between my legs.
anyway. back on topic, a study like that would be interesting, i think. but, given how highly people value their anonymity on the web, the information would probably be very hard to gather. especially if the people are lurking in the first place.
you'll notice that "women" were among the groups Katz gave as being excluded by flaming. are we assuming that women are simply not strong enough to stand up under a barrage of testosterone? or are we assuming women are smarter than to take something like that seriously and therefore decide not to take part in the conversation? why are flamers assumed to be male? because women, of course, simply don't have that level of agression?
i have no idea. but i sort of tend to think, given the reactions of several women i have the privelege to know, that women are just as flame-ready as men, and in some cases even more so. i lean more towards the idea that the "tell-tale signs" to which you refer are the darker side of the entire human psyche, gender irrelevant.
OTOH, who knows? maybe the geek culture is the ultimate patriarchy.
i'm at McGill University in Montreal, and we have high-speed access in the dorms too. you have to pay for it, though. it's a little expensive...i think something like $280 for both semesters. although there are miniscule computer labs in each dorm (as in 2 computers) that also have free high speed access. it was, however, the only thing that made me even consider a second year there.
:) not a bad deal. rent's lower, and i make much better food.
but i moved out and got ADSL instead
my mum used to claim that she would drink a beer while nursing me. relaxed her, and put me right to sleep. unfortunately, i don't think it was guiness. i guess they were on to something back then :)
oh. my. god. someone else who has seen Baron Munchausen. i was convinced i was the only person who had ever heard of the film. it has to be one of my all-time favorites. i think i've memorized most of the script.
anyway. sorry about the slightly OT rant there, i was just so shocked to read that.
as so many other people have said, Good Omens was a hilarious book. also one of the best books i've ever read. i was actually surprised i liked it so much since i much prefer Gaiman to Pratchett. maybe because of Gaiman's influence; i don't know. and i love every single Gilliam film i've ever seen. i can't wait to see how the movie turns out. i'm just afraid there will be a huge amount of pressure to dumb down the book or make it a Dogma ripoff.
interesting postscript: my religiously conservative parents loved Good Omens and went to see Dogma because they thought it was based on the book. they were not impressed. which is odd, because my mother had seen Clerks, and so knew what a Kevin Smith film was like (i.e. quite a different brand of humor from Good Omens).