This is what's referred to as the "b-b-but... Clinton!" response. A perceived attack against a "groupist's" in-group generates a retaliatory attack against the groupist's main out-group.
This kind of dog pack, "Us v. Them" mentality, when so deeply ingrained as to be reflexive, undermines discourse (and thought itself) to the point of making progress impractical. It is recommended that you completely disengage from such persons. And don't troll them, either, folks — that's just ornery and it doesn't help. Indulging your emotions by lashing out at idiots is really more of the same mental malfunction that made those idiots idiots in the first place. Topical righteousness is never justification for being an ass. (Not that this is what you, QC, were doing... I'm addressing the general audience.)
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Yes, I currently do my modelling on a 2D screen, but a stereographic display (what folks call a "3D display") would make many things easier, especially object selections in complex, overlapping setups. That would be a nicer setup, and it would be great to have it on the go.
Sure, such displays don't show objects in actual 3 dimensions, but... who thinks the term "3D display" means your monitor manifests physical objects?
A stereographic display system (two views, mind you) doesn't even technically produce merely a "2D representation". Variable focus isn't the only element involved in 3D viewing. There's at least convergence in addition to that, and "3D displays" are overwhelmingly about providing convergence cues.
If you cause someone grief, don't expect them to be nice to you in return.
Look at it this way: If a doctor jabs you with a mortally-needed anti-venom needle, do you have the right to tell him "Fuck off!"?
I suppose... "He caused me grief!" Yeah, okay. It's a bit of a simplistic metric, really, for determining what is a good response. Appropriate for a young child or a retard. Maybe not for a large corporation. Hopefully not for you.
Well since MS saw fit to let their browser development languish for five years, yes. IE6 was their browser from 2001 to 2006. That's half a goddamned decade while the net at large was trying to move on. CSS 2 predates IE6 by three fucking years. Plenty of sophisticated and standards-compliant web development happened during IE6's time, geez.
Trying to rewrite history to say IE6's peculiarities were needed? That the standards weren't adequate? Please knock that the fuck off.
While we're on the topic of how ignorance is not language evolution, let me just point out that Frankenstein was not the monster. Frankenstein's monster was the monster.
I think maybe what I said about standards vs. norms was not clear.
Your argument that language evolves is correct. Your argument that dictionaries did not come before initial language is correct. Your argument that popularity encourages further use is correct.
The conclusion that language is thus "standardized" is not correct. If there were no distinction between different kinds of language we would have no such terms to make the distinctions. "Literary language", "jargon", "vernacular", "standard language". Popularity is not standard.
The point of contest was the idea that "Uneducated dipshits get to set standards". If you want to use the word "standard", you're running into the idea of an organized authority making decrees. "Standard language" is language that's given a legal standing. Otherwise at least you're talking about something more than wanton dialectalism.
Language is complex. Popularity alone does not make for "standards". Language does not belong to everyone to do with as they will. At least popularity is involved, as you say, so that communication possible, but consider that there are other constraints. You have a history of literature that you must also "communicate with". You can't make a complete break with that. Language can only evolve slowly away from it. And then, it's only modern language that can — the original languages are standardized and virtually immutable. For modern language you still have logic as a constraint. You can't take a word whose roots you've already agreed upon and combine them to mean something entirely unrelated. That wouldn't be evolution or creating new standards, that'd be deterioration. You have technical terms or terms originating from technical or scientific communities that retain their usefulness only when precisely defined, regardless of how frequently the more general population misunderstands them. If three quarters of the English-speaking population suddenly decided that "schizophrenia" meant "multiple personality disorder" ("dissociative personality disorder") it wouldn't mean that we had a new standard and that psychologists were now wrong. No, uneducated dipshits do not get to set standards.
Yes, people can decide on new meanings. Yes, they can do this in concert and still have somewhat effective language. But, no, this is not standardization. And if folks aren't following numerous constraints in the process they're most likely devolving the language, not evolving it.
No, they don't set standards, they set norms in the sense of "typical patterns". Just because your usual person thinks "schizophrenia" means "multiple personality disorder" doesn't make it the standard definition. There are a shitload of solecisms in common use. Their commonality doesn't give them authority. Sure, their commonality gives them practical weight in that you have to translate when talking with an ignoramus, but that's not the same thing as setting a "standard". But, sure, that practical weight may ultimately change the accepted meaning. It doesn't always. "Irregardless", despite popular usage for half a century, is still stupid enough a term that it hasn't wedged itself into standard.
Language is a really complex thing. Including how words acquire or change meaning. There aren't easy answers like "usage makes something standard" or even "dictionaries are the authority". Try to argue for either of these simplistic ideas and you're showing that you haven't looked at the matter deeply.
It's conceivable that certain technologies can be harmful to the ability to think, no?
And it's conceivable that such technologies could attain widespread use...
When I put those two things together it spells out in my mind "successive generations could be getting stupider". I don't think this perspective is ignorance of the world.
Let's imagine I had the belief that the youth of today were intellectually less capable. And let's frame this hypothetical in context of your quote.
First, I recommend to you to have enough pride (i.e. comfort in one's personal respectability) such that you don't reflexively bristle at things that aren't necessarily contemptuous, or, even if indeed they are derisive. Antagonism degrades the quality of discourse and impedes progress, and a wounded pride stokes antagonism. It's conceivable that a person could believe today's youth are getting dumber without also holding a feeling of contempt. They might even be on about the topic because rather than disregard for the increasingly stupefied they have concern. Not everyone complaining about the group you identify with sees you as the proverbial "Them" (though, true, many would); the more you create the divide with your retaliatory contempt or the more you allow detractors to create the divide with you by letting them rile you and making you feel oppositional, the worse off everyone is. If you can master the wisdom of "no enemy" you can dramatically raise the quality and usefulness of discourse.
The focus of youth, as your quote's meaning relates to, is not exactly the issue at hand. The thing we're talking about is not exactly youth's decisions of relevance, but rather tendencies of action. In this forum, we're specifically discussing use of a(n expressive) communication medium. (More generally, if I had a concern for humanity's declining intelligence, it wide be with a wider net including broadcast media.) If I were clever enough to "understand your world", I'd recognize the validation of many of the choices you (today's youth) made. And as with the quote's issue of validating the reasonability of philosophical focus, so we could, with an understanding of youth's context, validate choices of communication media. Texting makes sense. Be not ashamed.
But that doesn't mean texting is necessarily good for you. Nor are even any number of modern communication choices. Surfing, arguing in chat forums, having talk radio on in the background, even watching TV — these things are all mixed bags. Sure, we may find ourselves enamored of the benefits. Sure, we may so well enjoy the media and so frequently use them that we go to the length of identifying with them (that is, think of our identities such that these activities are included), but neither of these things means that we should turn a blind eye to the harmful aspects. It's hard to see clearly if we're playing the role of unmitigated defender, defying all detractions and admitting none ourselves.
I would worry that today's youth is subject to some truly dangerous influence. I believe television really started off our decline. It's about undermining focus. TV execs figured that jolts improved their bottom lines so jolts were inflicted on us. The jolts happened to go hand-in-hand with bite-sized flow of story, and so as we sat mesmerized and stewing in our hormonal reactions to these jarring and frenetic streams of tripe and titillation our focus and memory were atrophying. With the comfort of television, and with the newly-acquired discomfort in trying to focus to read books, we fell into the trap of reading less and less and being titillated more and more. And that was over the generation or generation and a half before you.
So your generation is out the gate with a stumbling start. Not only are your elders handicapped and thus your raising by them corrupted, but you were launched with TV jolts working at their fevered pitch finest. From your earlies
The plumage comment was a joke, sorry. I was trying to be ludicrously shallow, but the truth is that beauty actually does count for something.
The value of life is not simple, so it's not easy to put it simply. For example, it's not clear to me what "good for the ecosystem" means. It sounds like maybe it means "tendency to preserve the extent (quantity?) of food/consumer relationships" or maybe "tendency to preserve maximal living mass" or maybe "tendency to promote diversity". This is real philosophical stuff.
My preference for value is "the experience of sentience". To the degree that things are aware and experiencing reality is the degree to which they should have their experience cared for. But it's virtually unpossible to gauge degree of awareness. And what makes for a good experience for any known kind of sentience is a vastly complicated thing.
I was worried about this. Either underspecifying "importance" or using it in a simplistic way (though you may not actually be doing these things).
It measures a kind of importance. Not importance in all respects. Specifically, it measures importance in interdependence. Which only very roughly translates to an idealized general or universal importance.
Remove humans from the web and you won't get much "impact on [the] ecosystem" (in the form of cascading die off). Yet humans are generally regarded as "important".
It should be noted (now and in each subsequent discussion of this topic) that the value of a species needs to be assessed by other measures as well. Like how beautiful its plumage is.
Just recently, a study confirmed that 80 per cent of users surf with a vulnerable version of Adobe's plug-in.
It's an easy/appealing target vector. With the slow revving even the most recent version hangs your ass out in the wind to a substantial degree.
Now just throw in a good website (server/framework/XSS/whatever) exploit and you've got a serious worm.
For the worth of the putative benefits I am not encouraged enough to hang my ass out for Flash. (Except I do have it installed! Just kept dormant until I (rarely) click my NoScript button.)
As I mentioned in another post, if there is any military value in this, it will be in 1) powering remote bases and equipment, and 2) reducing the number of wars being fought by removing oil as a source of conflict.
From the perspective of the vendors item #2 is not "military value".
Re:Elektronorgtechnica Bias -- Any Video Game Real
on
Tetris Improves Your Brain
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
Correct. And, yes, the crowd highly modded the ass-product.
Slashdot Mirror
This is what's referred to as the "b-b-but ... Clinton!" response. A perceived attack against a "groupist's" in-group generates a retaliatory attack against the groupist's main out-group.
(It can happen among so-called "liberals" as well, but tends to happen overwhelmingly more often among "conservatives", thus the "b-b-but ... Clinton!" label. (Actually a bit ironic... A better label is solicited.))
This kind of dog pack, "Us v. Them" mentality, when so deeply ingrained as to be reflexive, undermines discourse (and thought itself) to the point of making progress impractical. It is recommended that you completely disengage from such persons. And don't troll them, either, folks — that's just ornery and it doesn't help. Indulging your emotions by lashing out at idiots is really more of the same mental malfunction that made those idiots idiots in the first place. Topical righteousness is never justification for being an ass. (Not that this is what you, QC, were doing... I'm addressing the general audience.)
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Yes, I currently do my modelling on a 2D screen, but a stereographic display (what folks call a "3D display") would make many things easier, especially object selections in complex, overlapping setups. That would be a nicer setup, and it would be great to have it on the go.
Sure, such displays don't show objects in actual 3 dimensions, but ... who thinks the term "3D display" means your monitor manifests physical objects?
A stereographic display system (two views, mind you) doesn't even technically produce merely a "2D representation". Variable focus isn't the only element involved in 3D viewing. There's at least convergence in addition to that, and "3D displays" are overwhelmingly about providing convergence cues.
Maybe even Wolfenstein 3D was misnamed?
Could you be clearer about what your concern is?
I'm already compensating for shell metacharacters in URLs: ?
mailto : <username>
mailto : 90125
newscheme:8f:df:52:62:58:e5:7b:e1:28:cb:ae:58:01:4c:6f:78
Not every scheme uses or will use <host>:<port>. Assuming those are generally present would break handling of unknown protocols.
I do 3D modelling, and I'd love to do it at the beach.
Otherwise, gaming in 3D would be fun.
Novelty technology? Okay, maybe for most folks at this time.
Well, you have the right general idea, but we're a ways off on the glasses tech.
David Goodsell does excellent illustrations and explanations of various biological molecules. Check out the molecule of the month at the RCSB. Among those is the ribosome
If you cause someone grief, don't expect them to be nice to you in return.
Look at it this way: If a doctor jabs you with a mortally-needed anti-venom needle, do you have the right to tell him "Fuck off!"?
I suppose... "He caused me grief!" Yeah, okay. It's a bit of a simplistic metric, really, for determining what is a good response. Appropriate for a young child or a retard. Maybe not for a large corporation. Hopefully not for you.
It does matter what the person's intentions were.
Um... Yes.
Just a very, very, very small amount.
Well since MS saw fit to let their browser development languish for five years, yes. IE6 was their browser from 2001 to 2006. That's half a goddamned decade while the net at large was trying to move on. CSS 2 predates IE6 by three fucking years. Plenty of sophisticated and standards-compliant web development happened during IE6's time, geez.
Trying to rewrite history to say IE6's peculiarities were needed? That the standards weren't adequate? Please knock that the fuck off.
(That's his burst speed. He can maintain it for at most 8 or 9 characters.)
http://tobias.eyedacor.org/typespeed/
There's something about that story... It has a certain quality to it. What quality exactly? Ah yes, it's disturbingly bizarre.
Though apropos.
While we're on the topic of how ignorance is not language evolution, let me just point out that Frankenstein was not the monster. Frankenstein's monster was the monster.
I think maybe what I said about standards vs. norms was not clear.
Your argument that language evolves is correct. Your argument that dictionaries did not come before initial language is correct. Your argument that popularity encourages further use is correct.
The conclusion that language is thus "standardized" is not correct. If there were no distinction between different kinds of language we would have no such terms to make the distinctions. "Literary language", "jargon", "vernacular", "standard language". Popularity is not standard.
The point of contest was the idea that "Uneducated dipshits get to set standards". If you want to use the word "standard", you're running into the idea of an organized authority making decrees. "Standard language" is language that's given a legal standing. Otherwise at least you're talking about something more than wanton dialectalism.
Language is complex. Popularity alone does not make for "standards". Language does not belong to everyone to do with as they will. At least popularity is involved, as you say, so that communication possible, but consider that there are other constraints. You have a history of literature that you must also "communicate with". You can't make a complete break with that. Language can only evolve slowly away from it. And then, it's only modern language that can — the original languages are standardized and virtually immutable. For modern language you still have logic as a constraint. You can't take a word whose roots you've already agreed upon and combine them to mean something entirely unrelated. That wouldn't be evolution or creating new standards, that'd be deterioration. You have technical terms or terms originating from technical or scientific communities that retain their usefulness only when precisely defined, regardless of how frequently the more general population misunderstands them. If three quarters of the English-speaking population suddenly decided that "schizophrenia" meant "multiple personality disorder" ("dissociative personality disorder") it wouldn't mean that we had a new standard and that psychologists were now wrong. No, uneducated dipshits do not get to set standards.
Yes, people can decide on new meanings. Yes, they can do this in concert and still have somewhat effective language. But, no, this is not standardization. And if folks aren't following numerous constraints in the process they're most likely devolving the language, not evolving it.
Gosh, you'd almost think that it would be impossible to build a website.
People build websites. Websites that work across multiple browsers. It can be done.
And it'll get easier now that no one browser has the lion's share and a vested interest in subverting the platform.
No, they really don't.
Look again:
"Uneducated dipshits get to set standards".
No, they don't set standards, they set norms in the sense of "typical patterns". Just because your usual person thinks "schizophrenia" means "multiple personality disorder" doesn't make it the standard definition. There are a shitload of solecisms in common use. Their commonality doesn't give them authority. Sure, their commonality gives them practical weight in that you have to translate when talking with an ignoramus, but that's not the same thing as setting a "standard". But, sure, that practical weight may ultimately change the accepted meaning. It doesn't always. "Irregardless", despite popular usage for half a century, is still stupid enough a term that it hasn't wedged itself into standard.
Language is a really complex thing. Including how words acquire or change meaning. There aren't easy answers like "usage makes something standard" or even "dictionaries are the authority". Try to argue for either of these simplistic ideas and you're showing that you haven't looked at the matter deeply.
Gosh, I don't know. When I take a sugar pill about the size of a Snickers bar my restless leg tends to act up.
You're kidding, right?
Princess Mariko is a badass in her own right. You should try the game again today, with that in mind.
It's conceivable that certain technologies can be harmful to the ability to think, no?
And it's conceivable that such technologies could attain widespread use...
When I put those two things together it spells out in my mind "successive generations could be getting stupider". I don't think this perspective is ignorance of the world.
Let's imagine I had the belief that the youth of today were intellectually less capable. And let's frame this hypothetical in context of your quote.
First, I recommend to you to have enough pride (i.e. comfort in one's personal respectability) such that you don't reflexively bristle at things that aren't necessarily contemptuous, or, even if indeed they are derisive. Antagonism degrades the quality of discourse and impedes progress, and a wounded pride stokes antagonism. It's conceivable that a person could believe today's youth are getting dumber without also holding a feeling of contempt. They might even be on about the topic because rather than disregard for the increasingly stupefied they have concern. Not everyone complaining about the group you identify with sees you as the proverbial "Them" (though, true, many would); the more you create the divide with your retaliatory contempt or the more you allow detractors to create the divide with you by letting them rile you and making you feel oppositional, the worse off everyone is. If you can master the wisdom of "no enemy" you can dramatically raise the quality and usefulness of discourse.
The focus of youth, as your quote's meaning relates to, is not exactly the issue at hand. The thing we're talking about is not exactly youth's decisions of relevance, but rather tendencies of action. In this forum, we're specifically discussing use of a(n expressive) communication medium. (More generally, if I had a concern for humanity's declining intelligence, it wide be with a wider net including broadcast media.) If I were clever enough to "understand your world", I'd recognize the validation of many of the choices you (today's youth) made. And as with the quote's issue of validating the reasonability of philosophical focus, so we could, with an understanding of youth's context, validate choices of communication media. Texting makes sense. Be not ashamed.
But that doesn't mean texting is necessarily good for you. Nor are even any number of modern communication choices. Surfing, arguing in chat forums, having talk radio on in the background, even watching TV — these things are all mixed bags. Sure, we may find ourselves enamored of the benefits. Sure, we may so well enjoy the media and so frequently use them that we go to the length of identifying with them (that is, think of our identities such that these activities are included), but neither of these things means that we should turn a blind eye to the harmful aspects. It's hard to see clearly if we're playing the role of unmitigated defender, defying all detractions and admitting none ourselves.
I would worry that today's youth is subject to some truly dangerous influence. I believe television really started off our decline. It's about undermining focus. TV execs figured that jolts improved their bottom lines so jolts were inflicted on us. The jolts happened to go hand-in-hand with bite-sized flow of story, and so as we sat mesmerized and stewing in our hormonal reactions to these jarring and frenetic streams of tripe and titillation our focus and memory were atrophying. With the comfort of television, and with the newly-acquired discomfort in trying to focus to read books, we fell into the trap of reading less and less and being titillated more and more. And that was over the generation or generation and a half before you.
So your generation is out the gate with a stumbling start. Not only are your elders handicapped and thus your raising by them corrupted, but you were launched with TV jolts working at their fevered pitch finest. From your earlies
The plumage comment was a joke, sorry. I was trying to be ludicrously shallow, but the truth is that beauty actually does count for something.
The value of life is not simple, so it's not easy to put it simply. For example, it's not clear to me what "good for the ecosystem" means. It sounds like maybe it means "tendency to preserve the extent (quantity?) of food/consumer relationships" or maybe "tendency to preserve maximal living mass" or maybe "tendency to promote diversity". This is real philosophical stuff.
My preference for value is "the experience of sentience". To the degree that things are aware and experiencing reality is the degree to which they should have their experience cared for. But it's virtually unpossible to gauge degree of awareness. And what makes for a good experience for any known kind of sentience is a vastly complicated thing.
Still, gotta try. Be well.
I was worried about this. Either underspecifying "importance" or using it in a simplistic way (though you may not actually be doing these things).
It measures a kind of importance. Not importance in all respects. Specifically, it measures importance in interdependence. Which only very roughly translates to an idealized general or universal importance.
Remove humans from the web and you won't get much "impact on [the] ecosystem" (in the form of cascading die off). Yet humans are generally regarded as "important".
It should be noted (now and in each subsequent discussion of this topic) that the value of a species needs to be assessed by other measures as well. Like how beautiful its plumage is.
Just recently, a study confirmed that 80 per cent of users surf with a vulnerable version of Adobe's plug-in.
It's an easy/appealing target vector. With the slow revving even the most recent version hangs your ass out in the wind to a substantial degree.
Now just throw in a good website (server/framework/XSS/whatever) exploit and you've got a serious worm.
For the worth of the putative benefits I am not encouraged enough to hang my ass out for Flash. (Except I do have it installed! Just kept dormant until I (rarely) click my NoScript button.)
Eventually it'll be findable. In the form of standard HTML.
For a good number of uses that Flash is currently put to HTML is already the answer.
As I mentioned in another post, if there is any military value in this, it will be in 1) powering remote bases and equipment, and 2) reducing the number of wars being fought by removing oil as a source of conflict.
From the perspective of the vendors item #2 is not "military value".
Correct. And, yes, the crowd highly modded the ass-product.
This is where we're at with modern discourse.