No, it's hard to make anything in business illegal these days. E.g., insurance policies that pay less than the promised amount, restaurant owners that count customer tips as part of the minimum wage, government contractors that fail to deliver to the low expectations of their buddies in the government, mutual funds that charge premiums for the right to invest your money recklessly, telemarketers, subprime lenders, etc. Even the insider trading, Enron-esque incompetence, LBO disasters, and golden parachutes don't seem to raise eyebrows anymore.
I believe these practices never backfired - because we as a whole become a nation of consumers, with no more brainpower than to select the flavor of the day. Because we are part of the system that expect high stock returns for our retirement. Because we also want to slack off in our work. Because we would rather admire wealthy people who blindsighted us, in the vain wish to emulate or become one of them. So we allow rampant greed and outright lies in business, and we would rather every citizen does well while the society as a whole goes to hell.
I am a geek, and I haven't shopped at Fry's for four years mainly because of the ludicrous rebates. But I'm not their intended customers anyways. Every business thrives by conquering the weakest minds first: the compulsory shoppers, the gadget fanboys, the whining kids, the fear factors, the easy-to-impress, the wannabes. So by thriving, a business invariably alienates the ones who question its practices.
If you value your brain, and I'm sure/. readers do, use your judgment.
Right. Since when has a military base been constructed where there's no critical strategic value? A base on the moon? Are you trying to stop the terrorists with that?
As with most internet regulations, geeks will find five more channels to get their necessities. Torrentspy traffic will be down for a while (or maybe for good), and politicians will take credit and claim that they have succeeded in some small way to fight piracy. They don't lose face before their campaign fund donors, and they care less what geeks do. Torrentspy will either go away or pay lobbyists to remove the regulations. It's a win-win situation.
Geeks and jocks don't coexist. Maybe because geeks don't learn jocks' bag of tricks.
On average, men have shorter lifespan as women. Somehow women never wanted equality on that point. Men also have higher rates of prostate cancer than women have breast cancer. Men suffer from alopecia more than women. Men have higher chances of X-linked recessives like colorblindness, muscular dystrophy, and hemophilia than women.
I'm Chinese, and the pitiful state of public education in US really made me think. When my child is older, I will take him to China for education. Why? Because most Asians have Calculus on college entrance exams. Because a high school education is not for everyone. Because Mandarin is a lucrative skill to have. Because the huge population forces kids to know that they're not entitled to anything - ever! Because the disproportional interest in US schools about feel-good subjects is a sap on the mind. Because most Chinese kids don't grow up dreaming of becoming rap stars or Hollywood sweethearts. Because their little friends are relatively poor too. Because boys are expected to be sole bread winners, and need to understand bank accounts at an early age. Because girls don't worship high school jocks who brag about sex and treat women like dirt. Because failure is a stigma that tags you for life. Because stupidity is not funny, just annoying. Because if you can't cut it, the government is not there to help you. Because teachers want to help the most brilliant student, not the most thick-skulled ones. Because the world is a dangerous place, and trust is often misplaced. Because nobody ever gets anywhere without a plan. Because innocence is a liability after age 13. Because everybody dies, even closest family members. Because you're only tabula rasa once. Because time waits for no one.
It is good that a child bear the yoke. Some environments teach the lessons of life better.
I'd also like to point out that historically China was not always made up of million-strong cities. The famous 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' was actually a gruesome time when the whole population decreased by 70% within 60 years. After the Tang Dynasty China was constantly under the assault of northerners, and the Mongols were known for slaughtering Chinese by most common last names. Almost everyone took it for granted that every new government is ushered in with much bloodshed, and this mentality probably reinforces the need for conformity to reduce social violence. Yet despite this, every revolution in Chinese history still started with farmers (including the Communist Revolution,) and hungry farmers invariably resulted from severe flooding of the Yellow River or Yangtze River, or severe drought in the north or west. The uncontrollable weather was truly the emperor's greatest fear, so the most famous religious symbol in Beijing remains the Altar of Heaven - where the emperor prays for good weather for the people.
Hmm, we got some serious flooding and drought in China this year... Maybe Mr. Hu didn't pray hard enough.
Either people have an easier time to achieve home ownership, or they really want to own the home, or the rental market is non-existent, or the there's no value in buying a second home for investment, or the residents don't face the job security issues as in other large cities. Owner occupation rate tells more about the locals than about the housing prices.
I live in Dallas/Ft Worth, and you can get a house with $150K. Still, plenty of people prefer to rent than to own because it's not top on people's priority.
... is not constant. Most of the news on Vista and iPhone will be obsolete by the time it is read. Most news on gadget benchmarking have a life of about year (if trustworthy.) Most editorials on social/technical trends have five years (if insightful.) Most wikipedia information and technical know-hows have very long lifetime (but details may be revised.)
Guess which of these are produced en masse?
Exactly. The value of information depends on timeliness, accuracy, and relevance. Media lives on ads and marketing, so we see corporate news releases and flash a lot, often duplicated ad nauseam on every site. But to the serious consumers of information, it is probably the least valuable of all. Good tech blogs and forums are usually the ones that thrive on higher value information. WSJ, IEEE, and medical journals are not free, yet people continue to subscribe to them due to the value they still provide (this may change if they cannot offer what the readers really want. By the same token, government-published monthly journals can die quietly without anyone noticing.)
The inherent death trap for tech media is bloat, just like everything else. A magazine increases in page counts slowly over time without actually providing more information to the readers (same with the Camry and Accord growing larger over the years.) Well, everyone knows that not every headline is worth reading, and the bloat means readers have to filter the content themselves - customer as co-producer in MBA-speak. Now the value of the information is not increased, but further decreased by the cost to the reader (so much for the value-added mentality of these publishers.) At some threshold a reader says, "Why am I reading this junk when I can find a better source of information?" Oops, another kitten just died.
This is equally true for web searches. Google, for all its sins, is still a very good provider of value. Yahoo, MSN, even Baidu and Sohu, just don't provide such value for me - I have better things to do than to kill time on fluffy ads and junky flash. If the consumers have to work so hard for worthless morsels, they are either slaves, masochists or lifeless drones.
Flamebait as it is, the idea of users as co-producers can wreck havoc on a system. Think the early days of general democracy, where people change clothes and shave faces in order to vote for their favorite thug again.
Our children used to be able to cut neighbor's grass at the age of 9, or work minimum wage jobs at convenience stores at the age of 13. We protected them from such 'exploitations'. Now they play video games that we consider inappropriate for them when they could be doing themselves (and the world) some good working somewhere. And if not video games, phone bills or shopping bills or whatever activities we parents shudder to think.
I for one think we have a good standard to judge whether children are mature enough to handle video games, and it's called real life. If they can hold an honest job and manage their own expenses, they can play. Don't baby your kids unnecessarily; you'll regret it sooner or later.
In the real world, slanderers will face penalties. In certain countries falsely accusing anyone is punishable by death. In the internet world, people are not bound by such physical punishments. You can kick people off temporarily, but you cannot actually prevent them from returning under a different name - just as you cannot ban a paying player from MMORPGs because of offensive behaviors. The part that needs changing is reception, and most people who read net news are not ready for such.
Unfortunately, there is not much one can do about it.
That's not completely true. Remember the days when pr0n was rampant and carelessly visiting websites at work could be detrimental for your employment? The users as a whole tagged the responsibility on the ISPs to get rid of the obnoxious behavior of such sites. The ISPs either fix it or go bust. Presto, the problem was gone.
The evil solution is to find someone who has the most to lose. Instead of enforcing telemarketing laws, legislatures can always tag phone companies with hefty tax bills proportional to the amount of spam calls received and reported. Unfair? Too bad, the citizens have no right to suffer the flux of annoyance so that phone companies can make a few extra hundreds.
OSHA lead paint investigations saved no children. Used clothes donations saved no poor people in Africa. Ethanol saved no gasoline dependence. 401k saved no declining prospects for retirement. Increased polls saved no political degeneracy. Parent advocacies saved no teenage promiscuity. 24-hour Fitness saved no unrestricted appetite for beer, pizza, and chocolate.
Someone who created the random CS paper generator should make a random generator for profound-sounding articles. Oh wait, Stanislaw Lem thought of that...
C'mon, this is news reporting. The idea is to drive investors (with too much cash on their hands and no clue on where to throw their money at) to a new hot spot, and at least get paid by some marketing and PR departments. If it happens to come true, the reporters can claim their prescience; if not, it's not their money anyways.
Parent is partial right, IMHO. Books are no answers, and neither are video games.
The problem is, I still don't know what learning is for. Are we trying to create a more knowledgeable workforce? Then fire all the incompetents. Are we trying to tell ourselves that we are smarter than people in the Third World countries? Lower the standards and give everyone a B- average. Are we justifying the artificially high wages for Western countries? Politicians are ready to help. Are we seeking personal betterment? Most of it occurs after the prime school years.
Are we trying to cultivate the brain power of the younger generation? If so, not all books are helpful. Children who refuse to touch their textbooks may read Harry Potter with enthusiasm, but that does not equate learning. (I heard arguments from parents saying, "At least Johnny is reading." That makes me shudder.) Likewise, video games may enthrall even adults for hours, but aside from the satisfaction of increased stats and accomplished missions, there is little to show for learning (Educational games are such a small market that it hardly counts. For comparison, try History Channel without war and Discovery Channel without fearful predators.) Smart kids probably learn more by hacking into games or downloading pr0n without their parents knowing. Maybe they're learning computer science too.
As with most things, the brain works through osmosis. You can't tell kids to read books if you hardly touch one (trashy magazines aside.) The US society as a whole has a deep disdain for knowledge, and being smart precludes being popular or being admired. We worship the athletes, so kids at age 4 want to play baseball. We worship the powerful, so kids at age 6 want to be presidents. We worship the wealthy, the glamorous, the celebrities, so kids at age 8 want to look and dress and act like movie stars. Learning itself is not worshipped, so the kids have neither the incentives nor the interest. We're not in better shapes ourselves - we read stock quotes online, check out the Spring Sales, and watch comedian shows, but we hardly learned anything after school except what was required for work, marriage, and family.
I recently got a call from a Google HR person, and after the conversation I still had no idea what he was looking for - since I didn't shove them a resume, I'm not sure either. I didn't major in CS, but I did come from a prestigious school, so he asked for my GPAs, I gave him those (rather low), and he thanked me for my interest (Again, I didn't apply for anything there since I don't do CS.) End of conversation.
Science and technology aside, this will sooner or later find commercial markets.
And why not? Human beings have made themselves to be more unhuman in every passing year. We have professional athletes whose exercise programs would be considered abnormal and pointless, (not including shaving eyebrows to achieve an iota of improvement in swim speed.) We have anti-aging pharmaceutical food and beverage offerings that cater to the Baby Boomers who felt entitled to look like 40-yos instead of 60. We have daily caffeine to boost our brains in the morning, no-dose to boost productivity in the evenings, Prozac to lift us when we're low, and even psychadelic drugs to boost creativity when we're dull. We design ergonomic chairs and keyboards while we sit in front of computers and in our cars for longer hours. We alter hormones and apply suntan lotions. We use AC's and heaters so that our habitats can include the most uncomfortable places on Earth. We give our children Baby Einstein so that they will be superkids and outcompete others when they grow up.
I'm not saying it's pointless for soldiers on the frontline to receive these booster-packs. They have a job to accomplish, and so do we. Maybe we're all trying to become Homo sapiens cyberneticus too. Maybe our environment self-selects.
What separates truth and reality? Peer review can do little in either camp. In terms of truth, it persecuted Copernicus and Galileo. In terms of reality, it created more work for all. Stanislaw Lem's infinite story generator would be proud.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's hard to make anything in business illegal these days. E.g., insurance policies that pay less than the promised amount, restaurant owners that count customer tips as part of the minimum wage, government contractors that fail to deliver to the low expectations of their buddies in the government, mutual funds that charge premiums for the right to invest your money recklessly, telemarketers, subprime lenders, etc. Even the insider trading, Enron-esque incompetence, LBO disasters, and golden parachutes don't seem to raise eyebrows anymore. I believe these practices never backfired - because we as a whole become a nation of consumers, with no more brainpower than to select the flavor of the day. Because we are part of the system that expect high stock returns for our retirement. Because we also want to slack off in our work. Because we would rather admire wealthy people who blindsighted us, in the vain wish to emulate or become one of them. So we allow rampant greed and outright lies in business, and we would rather every citizen does well while the society as a whole goes to hell. I am a geek, and I haven't shopped at Fry's for four years mainly because of the ludicrous rebates. But I'm not their intended customers anyways. Every business thrives by conquering the weakest minds first: the compulsory shoppers, the gadget fanboys, the whining kids, the fear factors, the easy-to-impress, the wannabes. So by thriving, a business invariably alienates the ones who question its practices. If you value your brain, and I'm sure /. readers do, use your judgment.
Right. Since when has a military base been constructed where there's no critical strategic value? A base on the moon? Are you trying to stop the terrorists with that?
As with most internet regulations, geeks will find five more channels to get their necessities. Torrentspy traffic will be down for a while (or maybe for good), and politicians will take credit and claim that they have succeeded in some small way to fight piracy. They don't lose face before their campaign fund donors, and they care less what geeks do. Torrentspy will either go away or pay lobbyists to remove the regulations. It's a win-win situation.
Geeks and jocks don't coexist. Maybe because geeks don't learn jocks' bag of tricks.
On average, men have shorter lifespan as women. Somehow women never wanted equality on that point. Men also have higher rates of prostate cancer than women have breast cancer. Men suffer from alopecia more than women. Men have higher chances of X-linked recessives like colorblindness, muscular dystrophy, and hemophilia than women.
Next time, use different arrows.
Teaching math doesn't make news. Sex ed and religion, on the other hand...
As Niels Bohr said, "Your idea is crazy, but not crazy enough to be true."
I'm Chinese, and the pitiful state of public education in US really made me think. When my child is older, I will take him to China for education. Why? Because most Asians have Calculus on college entrance exams. Because a high school education is not for everyone. Because Mandarin is a lucrative skill to have. Because the huge population forces kids to know that they're not entitled to anything - ever! Because the disproportional interest in US schools about feel-good subjects is a sap on the mind. Because most Chinese kids don't grow up dreaming of becoming rap stars or Hollywood sweethearts. Because their little friends are relatively poor too. Because boys are expected to be sole bread winners, and need to understand bank accounts at an early age. Because girls don't worship high school jocks who brag about sex and treat women like dirt. Because failure is a stigma that tags you for life. Because stupidity is not funny, just annoying. Because if you can't cut it, the government is not there to help you. Because teachers want to help the most brilliant student, not the most thick-skulled ones. Because the world is a dangerous place, and trust is often misplaced. Because nobody ever gets anywhere without a plan. Because innocence is a liability after age 13. Because everybody dies, even closest family members. Because you're only tabula rasa once. Because time waits for no one.
It is good that a child bear the yoke. Some environments teach the lessons of life better.
Bravo! Very well put.
I'd also like to point out that historically China was not always made up of million-strong cities. The famous 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' was actually a gruesome time when the whole population decreased by 70% within 60 years. After the Tang Dynasty China was constantly under the assault of northerners, and the Mongols were known for slaughtering Chinese by most common last names. Almost everyone took it for granted that every new government is ushered in with much bloodshed, and this mentality probably reinforces the need for conformity to reduce social violence. Yet despite this, every revolution in Chinese history still started with farmers (including the Communist Revolution,) and hungry farmers invariably resulted from severe flooding of the Yellow River or Yangtze River, or severe drought in the north or west. The uncontrollable weather was truly the emperor's greatest fear, so the most famous religious symbol in Beijing remains the Altar of Heaven - where the emperor prays for good weather for the people.
Hmm, we got some serious flooding and drought in China this year... Maybe Mr. Hu didn't pray hard enough.
Either people have an easier time to achieve home ownership, or they really want to own the home, or the rental market is non-existent, or the there's no value in buying a second home for investment, or the residents don't face the job security issues as in other large cities. Owner occupation rate tells more about the locals than about the housing prices. I live in Dallas/Ft Worth, and you can get a house with $150K. Still, plenty of people prefer to rent than to own because it's not top on people's priority.
... is not constant. Most of the news on Vista and iPhone will be obsolete by the time it is read. Most news on gadget benchmarking have a life of about year (if trustworthy.) Most editorials on social/technical trends have five years (if insightful.) Most wikipedia information and technical know-hows have very long lifetime (but details may be revised.)
Guess which of these are produced en masse?
Exactly. The value of information depends on timeliness, accuracy, and relevance. Media lives on ads and marketing, so we see corporate news releases and flash a lot, often duplicated ad nauseam on every site. But to the serious consumers of information, it is probably the least valuable of all. Good tech blogs and forums are usually the ones that thrive on higher value information. WSJ, IEEE, and medical journals are not free, yet people continue to subscribe to them due to the value they still provide (this may change if they cannot offer what the readers really want. By the same token, government-published monthly journals can die quietly without anyone noticing.)
The inherent death trap for tech media is bloat, just like everything else. A magazine increases in page counts slowly over time without actually providing more information to the readers (same with the Camry and Accord growing larger over the years.) Well, everyone knows that not every headline is worth reading, and the bloat means readers have to filter the content themselves - customer as co-producer in MBA-speak. Now the value of the information is not increased, but further decreased by the cost to the reader (so much for the value-added mentality of these publishers.) At some threshold a reader says, "Why am I reading this junk when I can find a better source of information?" Oops, another kitten just died.
This is equally true for web searches. Google, for all its sins, is still a very good provider of value. Yahoo, MSN, even Baidu and Sohu, just don't provide such value for me - I have better things to do than to kill time on fluffy ads and junky flash. If the consumers have to work so hard for worthless morsels, they are either slaves, masochists or lifeless drones.
Flamebait as it is, the idea of users as co-producers can wreck havoc on a system. Think the early days of general democracy, where people change clothes and shave faces in order to vote for their favorite thug again.
Our children used to be able to cut neighbor's grass at the age of 9, or work minimum wage jobs at convenience stores at the age of 13. We protected them from such 'exploitations'. Now they play video games that we consider inappropriate for them when they could be doing themselves (and the world) some good working somewhere. And if not video games, phone bills or shopping bills or whatever activities we parents shudder to think.
I for one think we have a good standard to judge whether children are mature enough to handle video games, and it's called real life. If they can hold an honest job and manage their own expenses, they can play. Don't baby your kids unnecessarily; you'll regret it sooner or later.
In the real world, slanderers will face penalties. In certain countries falsely accusing anyone is punishable by death. In the internet world, people are not bound by such physical punishments. You can kick people off temporarily, but you cannot actually prevent them from returning under a different name - just as you cannot ban a paying player from MMORPGs because of offensive behaviors. The part that needs changing is reception, and most people who read net news are not ready for such.
The evil solution is to find someone who has the most to lose. Instead of enforcing telemarketing laws, legislatures can always tag phone companies with hefty tax bills proportional to the amount of spam calls received and reported. Unfair? Too bad, the citizens have no right to suffer the flux of annoyance so that phone companies can make a few extra hundreds.
You have never been lied to, cheated on, and taken advantage of in your life, have you?
Next time, go to a doctor and try a 'surgery capable' service mode.
OSHA lead paint investigations saved no children. Used clothes donations saved no poor people in Africa. Ethanol saved no gasoline dependence. 401k saved no declining prospects for retirement. Increased polls saved no political degeneracy. Parent advocacies saved no teenage promiscuity. 24-hour Fitness saved no unrestricted appetite for beer, pizza, and chocolate.
Don't expect the society to heal individual ills.
Someone who created the random CS paper generator should make a random generator for profound-sounding articles. Oh wait, Stanislaw Lem thought of that...
C'mon, this is news reporting. The idea is to drive investors (with too much cash on their hands and no clue on where to throw their money at) to a new hot spot, and at least get paid by some marketing and PR departments. If it happens to come true, the reporters can claim their prescience; if not, it's not their money anyways.
... there is a five-dollar way to hack it. Huzzah!
Jusdging from the wretched work computer caused by Symantec, sure they must know what they're talking about.
In other news, doctor claims beer is good for you.
Parent is partial right, IMHO. Books are no answers, and neither are video games.
The problem is, I still don't know what learning is for. Are we trying to create a more knowledgeable workforce? Then fire all the incompetents. Are we trying to tell ourselves that we are smarter than people in the Third World countries? Lower the standards and give everyone a B- average. Are we justifying the artificially high wages for Western countries? Politicians are ready to help. Are we seeking personal betterment? Most of it occurs after the prime school years.
Are we trying to cultivate the brain power of the younger generation? If so, not all books are helpful. Children who refuse to touch their textbooks may read Harry Potter with enthusiasm, but that does not equate learning. (I heard arguments from parents saying, "At least Johnny is reading." That makes me shudder.) Likewise, video games may enthrall even adults for hours, but aside from the satisfaction of increased stats and accomplished missions, there is little to show for learning (Educational games are such a small market that it hardly counts. For comparison, try History Channel without war and Discovery Channel without fearful predators.) Smart kids probably learn more by hacking into games or downloading pr0n without their parents knowing. Maybe they're learning computer science too.
As with most things, the brain works through osmosis. You can't tell kids to read books if you hardly touch one (trashy magazines aside.) The US society as a whole has a deep disdain for knowledge, and being smart precludes being popular or being admired. We worship the athletes, so kids at age 4 want to play baseball. We worship the powerful, so kids at age 6 want to be presidents. We worship the wealthy, the glamorous, the celebrities, so kids at age 8 want to look and dress and act like movie stars. Learning itself is not worshipped, so the kids have neither the incentives nor the interest. We're not in better shapes ourselves - we read stock quotes online, check out the Spring Sales, and watch comedian shows, but we hardly learned anything after school except what was required for work, marriage, and family.
Books & Games 1; Brain 0.
I recently got a call from a Google HR person, and after the conversation I still had no idea what he was looking for - since I didn't shove them a resume, I'm not sure either. I didn't major in CS, but I did come from a prestigious school, so he asked for my GPAs, I gave him those (rather low), and he thanked me for my interest (Again, I didn't apply for anything there since I don't do CS.) End of conversation.
Now that's alarm in the back of my head.
Science and technology aside, this will sooner or later find commercial markets.
And why not? Human beings have made themselves to be more unhuman in every passing year. We have professional athletes whose exercise programs would be considered abnormal and pointless, (not including shaving eyebrows to achieve an iota of improvement in swim speed.) We have anti-aging pharmaceutical food and beverage offerings that cater to the Baby Boomers who felt entitled to look like 40-yos instead of 60. We have daily caffeine to boost our brains in the morning, no-dose to boost productivity in the evenings, Prozac to lift us when we're low, and even psychadelic drugs to boost creativity when we're dull. We design ergonomic chairs and keyboards while we sit in front of computers and in our cars for longer hours. We alter hormones and apply suntan lotions. We use AC's and heaters so that our habitats can include the most uncomfortable places on Earth. We give our children Baby Einstein so that they will be superkids and outcompete others when they grow up.
I'm not saying it's pointless for soldiers on the frontline to receive these booster-packs. They have a job to accomplish, and so do we. Maybe we're all trying to become Homo sapiens cyberneticus too. Maybe our environment self-selects.
What separates truth and reality?
Peer review can do little in either camp.
In terms of truth, it persecuted Copernicus and Galileo.
In terms of reality, it created more work for all.
Stanislaw Lem's infinite story generator would be proud.