The more I learn about our economy the more it sounds like really crappy computer code. It's got patches upon patches upon patches and is full of backdoors, rootkits and spyware.
GHWB ignored the War Powers Act in 1991 on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. And it is. Only congress has the power to declare war. (He ignored the constitutional provisions too, FYI.)
I am posting somewhat sarcastically (sad that I have to actually say that) but I *personally* find some truth in my argument and actually do, in fact, prefer movies to books.
I am posting somewhat seriously to suggesting that you consider maybe improving the quality of the books you read.
What's important here isn't really the quality of the shows. Even if TV were the most stupendously awesome thing in the world, an hour spent watching it is an hour of your life wasted. You shouldn't watch TV for the same reason you shouldn't sit around all day getting baked, jerking off, or playing MMORPG's.
(IMO sharpening your dialectic machete and English composition skills on slashdot is a good use of one's time. In moderation of course.)
"Play" is a natural mechanism by which children learn the skills they need to become adults. If you aren't learning anything valuable from your play that you can use later in life, you're wasting your time.
There was enough TV made between 1950 and 2008 to keep anyone watching for the rest of their lives.
Personally, I've replaced my boob-tubing with librivox.org. There are literally millions of books out there, and I'm betting very few of us have read all of them.
You're absolutely right though. Writing on a computer is incredibly distracting, especially if the computer is connected to the internet. I try to put in at least two hours a day, but I find whenever I finish a thought I'm way too tempted to do one of the other million things I'm able to do with a computer. (Like read slashdot.)
As soon as this is available for windows or Linux I'm going to get it. Not because of the lack of features (though that will help) but because it's fullscreen. Other programs out of sight are other programs out of mind.
I always thought MTV had a fundamentally broken business model.
Think about it. Their function is to deliver the young hip viewers (18-25) with lots of disposable income to advertisers. That means every five to seven years they need to discard their viewer base and go after the next batch of kids. I never heard of a business succeeding over the long term by periodically alienating its audience.
What they should have done was retain the audiences they spent so much money and effort to attract and then launched new channels every few years or so with a new format that appeals to the next group of kids. If the MTV I grew up with (Kennedy, 120 Minutes, Headbangers' Ball, etc.) was still around I would probably still be watching it.
Big media was the worst thing brought about by the 20th century. Thank God the internet is finally breaking its stranglehold over politics and culture. While I feel for the people who might lose their jobs, anything that hastens its demise is a Good Thing.
That's not a flaw in the book. Lots of characters "pop in" in both the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Treebeard pops in, as do Tom Bobmadil, that werebear guy, and Aragorn himself.
This is done intentionally, and it is what gives Tolkien's writing its sense of immense scale. Having characters and plotlines and bits of history pop in (and out) of the story unannounced gives the reader the impression that the world of Middle Earth is incredibly big, and he is only seeing a tiny fraction of it.
Going into Arwen and Aragorn's backstory was a flaw of the movie. Because they Hollywoodized it it doesn't have that same sense of scale the book has.
Deconstruction's central concern is a radical critique of the Enlightenment project and of metaphysics, including in particular the founding texts by such philosophers as Plato, Rousseau, and Husserl, but also other sorts of texts, including literature. Deconstruction identifies in the Western philosophical tradition a "logocentrism" or "metaphysics of presence" (sometimes known as phallogocentrism) which holds that speech-thought (the logos) is a privileged, ideal, and self-present entity, through which all discourse and meaning are derived. This logocentrism is the primary target of deconstruction.
The "laws of nature," being phenomenae encoded in words (logos) are also not privileged, and cannot be assumed to preexist.
...because of their stupid pen input thing. I don't believe I've seen this issue mentioned before, so let me lay it out for you.
I'm a graphic artist, and I'm a sucker for pretty desktops which is why I installed Vista in the first place.
As soon as I installed my Wacom Intuos3 though Vista disabled the default driver, installed its own suite of handwriting garbage, and disabled the Wacom driver I installed. Not only did that turn off the tilt and pressure sensitivity on the tablet, it also made the pen very unresponsive making it way way too slow to draw.
And here's the best part. You can't turn Vista's pen tools off! Not without going into the registry or something, and I'm not going to mess with that.
Call me paranoid and mod me down if you like, but I can't help being suspicious that every cool new weapon will be used on us sooner or later.
Can't outrun or dodge a laser, no sir.
Slashdot Mirror
I know a major bank that computes all it's financial data with FoxPro and Access.
The more I learn about our economy the more it sounds like really crappy computer code. It's got patches upon patches upon patches and is full of backdoors, rootkits and spyware.
You'd think they could do them one at a time without blacking out the entire country.
Sure, if you're willing to consider very unlikely possibilities that don't fit the facts.
GHWB ignored the War Powers Act in 1991 on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. And it is. Only congress has the power to declare war. (He ignored the constitutional provisions too, FYI.)
Actually the neocons are a bunch of 60's and 70's ultra-left wingers (Trotskyists) who turned coat in the 80's and 90's.
I think a Clinton victory would be perfectly acceptable to the pro-war camp.
I am posting somewhat sarcastically (sad that I have to actually say that) but I *personally* find some truth in my argument and actually do, in fact, prefer movies to books.
I am posting somewhat seriously to suggesting that you consider maybe improving the quality of the books you read.
What's important here isn't really the quality of the shows. Even if TV were the most stupendously awesome thing in the world, an hour spent watching it is an hour of your life wasted. You shouldn't watch TV for the same reason you shouldn't sit around all day getting baked, jerking off, or playing MMORPG's.
(IMO sharpening your dialectic machete and English composition skills on slashdot is a good use of one's time. In moderation of course.)
"Play" is a natural mechanism by which children learn the skills they need to become adults. If you aren't learning anything valuable from your play that you can use later in life, you're wasting your time.
I think there might be some sort of trickle-down effect at work here.
There was enough TV made between 1950 and 2008 to keep anyone watching for the rest of their lives.
Personally, I've replaced my boob-tubing with librivox.org. There are literally millions of books out there, and I'm betting very few of us have read all of them.
Old is the new new.
I wish I had access to a typewriter :(
You're absolutely right though. Writing on a computer is incredibly distracting, especially if the computer is connected to the internet. I try to put in at least two hours a day, but I find whenever I finish a thought I'm way too tempted to do one of the other million things I'm able to do with a computer. (Like read slashdot.)
As soon as this is available for windows or Linux I'm going to get it. Not because of the lack of features (though that will help) but because it's fullscreen. Other programs out of sight are other programs out of mind.
I thought I recalled reading that IPv6 was easier to throttle and censor than IPv4.
I always thought MTV had a fundamentally broken business model.
Think about it. Their function is to deliver the young hip viewers (18-25) with lots of disposable income to advertisers. That means every five to seven years they need to discard their viewer base and go after the next batch of kids. I never heard of a business succeeding over the long term by periodically alienating its audience.
What they should have done was retain the audiences they spent so much money and effort to attract and then launched new channels every few years or so with a new format that appeals to the next group of kids. If the MTV I grew up with (Kennedy, 120 Minutes, Headbangers' Ball, etc.) was still around I would probably still be watching it.
Big media was the worst thing brought about by the 20th century. Thank God the internet is finally breaking its stranglehold over politics and culture. While I feel for the people who might lose their jobs, anything that hastens its demise is a Good Thing.
And since memory is so cheap these days and everyone has a ton of it, what's the big deal about half a gig dedicated to the browser anyway?
Maybe if you're a web developer. My whole OS doesn't use half a gig of memory!
That's not a flaw in the book. Lots of characters "pop in" in both the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Treebeard pops in, as do Tom Bobmadil, that werebear guy, and Aragorn himself.
This is done intentionally, and it is what gives Tolkien's writing its sense of immense scale. Having characters and plotlines and bits of history pop in (and out) of the story unannounced gives the reader the impression that the world of Middle Earth is incredibly big, and he is only seeing a tiny fraction of it.
Going into Arwen and Aragorn's backstory was a flaw of the movie. Because they Hollywoodized it it doesn't have that same sense of scale the book has.
While he's at it he can do a film adaptation of the King James Bible.
I think Derrida did a pretty bang-up job of deconstructing logocentrism.
From Wikipedia:
Deconstruction's central concern is a radical critique of the Enlightenment project and of metaphysics, including in particular the founding texts by such philosophers as Plato, Rousseau, and Husserl, but also other sorts of texts, including literature. Deconstruction identifies in the Western philosophical tradition a "logocentrism" or "metaphysics of presence" (sometimes known as phallogocentrism) which holds that speech-thought (the logos) is a privileged, ideal, and self-present entity, through which all discourse and meaning are derived. This logocentrism is the primary target of deconstruction.
The "laws of nature," being phenomenae encoded in words (logos) are also not privileged, and cannot be assumed to preexist.
Because Vista sucks, people will stick to XP
Actually they're installing pirate versions of Leopard. Shhh, don't tell!
People who play at a rigged game eventually get sloppy. That much was entirely predictable.
"Why use linux unless you have something to hide?"
...because of their stupid pen input thing. I don't believe I've seen this issue mentioned before, so let me lay it out for you.
I'm a graphic artist, and I'm a sucker for pretty desktops which is why I installed Vista in the first place.
As soon as I installed my Wacom Intuos3 though Vista disabled the default driver, installed its own suite of handwriting garbage, and disabled the Wacom driver I installed. Not only did that turn off the tilt and pressure sensitivity on the tablet, it also made the pen very unresponsive making it way way too slow to draw.
And here's the best part. You can't turn Vista's pen tools off! Not without going into the registry or something, and I'm not going to mess with that.
Call me paranoid and mod me down if you like, but I can't help being suspicious that every cool new weapon will be used on us sooner or later. Can't outrun or dodge a laser, no sir.