Profile for Najosz Thjsza Kjras

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Protesting (In General) in General
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Profile #59
quote:
Originally written by Thralni:

Hitler didn't have to become germany's leader. If the masses wouldn't have followed him and believe what he said, nothign would have happened. I guess, though, that in retrospect it is very easy to say it. But I'm still of th opinion that the masses are quite dumb.
Which is usually the first step towards the kind of pseudo-populist demagoguery Hitler engaged in. The people are too dumb and easily led to merit a democratic government; plebiscites (where the ruling party nearly always wins) are more than enough to justify the government's policies from on high.

[ Monday, November 12, 2007 11:34: Message edited by: Najosz Thjsza Kjras ]
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Babelfish Contest in General
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quote:
Originally written by Taliesin:


"This one with the Spiderweb flexibility of the program is good with the book with accomodated middles. When this stroboscope which it is decreased clearly you are Mister."

Truer words have never been spoken.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
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WO?

If you're talking about the World Wars, I hardly think that either Imperial or Nazi Germany could have 'power to the people' applied to it without being set on fire.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Babelfish Contest #2 in General
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Eng -> Fra -> Hel
(-> En:
This novel should not be thrown few cttj, but be thrown in air with the big force.)
-> Fra -> Ned -> Eng
(The this novel does not have become little of cttj thrown, but to the air to large strength to be thrown.)
-> Po-r -> Eng
(This novel not was few cttj of that be casten, but to air to the large strength, it was which necessary to throw.)

-> (Ned-)Fra
(This novel not a été few cttj ou that be casten, but to airs to the large strength, it ont été which necessary to throw.)
-> Eng
(This novel not was few cttj or that Be casten, broad goal to airs to the strength, it were which necessary to throw.)
-> Nip -> (Zh(trad)-)Eng
(こ の small □は few □の cttj で な い か ま た は strong さ, そ れ に casten, □い the goal 乾燥 す る throws げ る の に か ど の is essential だ っ た あ る.)
-> (Nip-)Eng
(It is dense, as for the small □it is with cttj of the few □and the ま is strong, casten and the □it is in the そ れ and the goal the っ which is essential of the ど it is to る throws げ る drying the あ る.)

-> Nip -> Eng
(That is small? In regard to it small amount? There is with cttj of and, it is dense? Strong it to be, casten? Is there it? ? And object? Either one is necessary? Is there that range? Pitch? ? Drying? ?)
-> Ned -> (Eng-)Cho -> Eng
(The Dat is the klein? WatbetreftXXkleinbedrag? By the Daar 10001 Un inside the cttj v will be the dicht and it will snap off and? Sterk XXomtezijn casten? ZijnceeXX? ? Envoorwerp? 3E3env Inside b U the d U man is the noodzakelijk? Does the ceedat happen gamma? Hoogte? ? Hetdrogen? ?)

-> (Deu-)Eng
(The Dat is the small? WatbetreftXXkleinbedrag? By the Daar 10001 Un inside the cttj v wants the closely and it wants snap off and? Sterk XXomtezijn casten? ZijnceeXX? ? Envoorwerp? 3E3env Inside b U the D U one is the noodzakelijk? Does the ceedat happen gamma? Hoogte? ? Hetdrogen? ?)

-> (Ned-)Eng

The that are the small? WatbetreftXXkleinbedrag? By the 10001 Un inside the cttj v wants the closely and it wants get off and there? Strong XXomtezijn casten? ZijnceeXX? ? Envoorwerp? 3E3env Inside b you the d you one are the necessary? Does the ceedat bite range? Altitude? ? Hetdrogen? ?

--Parker ド ロ シ □
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
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If it makes any difference, my original post had some rude things in it directed at you, but I decided not to do that this time. We're all reasonable people here and I'm perfectly willing to assume the differences in our opinions are largely because of differing expertise.

Which makes mine better, of course. :P But it still doesn't call for an insult match, and I'm sorry if the tenor remains somewhat hostile.
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quote:
Originally written by Lenar:

With enough research, you can determine and predict behavior of any number of social groups in reaction to any combination of social phenomena. People make a lot of money by demonstrating this fact, particularly in ratings periods and before elections.
Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
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Reposted from Axis of Evil Knievel:

On this date in 1942, the RMS Laconia took a pair of German torpedoes off the coast of West Africa. Within hours, the ship -- which had been carrying civilians, British sailors and Italian war prisoners -- drifted to the bottom of the sea along with hundreds of passengers who were either already dead or who soon would be. Meantime, roughly two thousand survivors struggled to reach the lifeboats that had not been destroyed by the torpedo blasts; others swam helplessly or clung to floating debris, hoping not to be gobbled by the sharks that lived nearby.

As it turns out, the German U-boat that scuttled the Laconia soon picked up most of the survivors, assisted by several other submarines that were ordered to join the effort by Kreigsmarine commander Karl Donitz. After a two-day rescue operation, the Germans had managed to pack hundreds of survivors into the ships -- above deck as well as below -- while roping lifeboats behind them to tow hundreds more. The German submarines then headed slowly toward the African coast, draped in flags of the International Red Cross. Although the U-boat commanders alerted other forces in the region that they were carrying survivors from the Laconia, the fleet was struck by bombs and depth charges from an American B-24 several days later on September 16. Hundreds of survivors perished as the U-boats submerged and US bombs obliterated several lifeboats. None of the U-boats was destroyed, and roughly 1500 passengers of the doomed Laconia survived the ordeal.

Although it could be -- and has been -- argued that the US attack on the German boats constituted a war crime, there is little legal ambiguity about the German response. In the wake of the attacks, Commander Donitz issued a notorious order that would later help to secure his conviction during the Nuremberg trials. The Laconia Order, as it became known, insisted that German U-boats -- which were already carrying out unrestricted naval warfare -- were no longer to assist survivors of their attacks:

All efforts to save survivors of sunken ships, such as the fishing out of swimming men and putting them on board lifeboats, the righting of overturned lifeboats, or the handing over of food and water, must stop. Rescue contradicts the most basic demands of the war: the destruction of hostile ships and their crews.

. . . . Stay firm. Remember that the enemy has no regard for women and children when bombing German cities!

The Laconia Order -- like so many other aspects of the Second World War -- openly violated the protocols of international law.

Nearly three years after the Laconia episode, Karl Donitz succeeded Adolf Hitler as the German head of state. It was his government, which lasted all of three weeks during May 1945, that ultimately surrendered to the Allies. Following the war, Donitz served a decade in Spandau Prison, the infamous West Berlin facility that also house Albert Speer and neo-nazi icon Rudolph Hess. Donitz’ prosecution was made all the easier because he refused to order that his naval archives be destroyed. As he explained to Guther Hessler -- a U-boat commander who also happened to be his son-in-law -- “we have a clear conscience.”
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Chinese Products Fail Again in General
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quote:
Originally written by Excalibur:

The point of quoting Jewish law was to show that the death penalty isn't evil. We don't sacrifice animals anymore, or label a woman clean because she's menstruating, but we do enforce the ten commandments.
I think 'enforcing the Ten Commandments' would obligate you as a Christian to attempt to kill any Hindus you ran across, if this argument holds water.

quote:

And by the by, I don't recall it calling 'homosexuals' evil anywhere.
Leviticus 20:13
quote:
If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.
The word translated to 'detestable' here connotes 'ritually unclean', and is never used in any other context. And considering what ritual uncleanliness involves - filth, emissions, self-restraint - well, you do the math here. It's something that suits homosexual sex perfectly. Making 'detestable' in a ritual sense into a death-worthy sin is ridiculous.

quote:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters no adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor slanderers will inherit the kingdom of God
'Homosexual offenders' is a really weird translation. Every other one I've read, including the KJV - which was written before the social odium on homosexuality the modern Protestants forced into the Gospel - translated it as 'effeminate', with the concept generally revolving around 'feckless' or 'effete' - weak-willed, unwilling to behave as a man.

quote:
Yeah, presuming to speak for God is pretty awful, I'll give you that.
You missed my point, Excalibur. The modern evangelical practice of digging for random quotes to justify existing positions is deeply at odds with the historical use of Scripture and Scripture's basic consistency; there's a reason that in the Jewish community scriptural interpretation and theology are almost exclusively the province of highly trained divinity scholars. In mainline Protestant and Catholic denominations, most pastors have at least a bachelor's, often in divinity - and they seldom even think to take it on themselves to form on-the-fly religious jurisprudence. On the other hand, most of your evangelicals and hard-line protestants tend to have pastors hovering, on average, somewhere around a 10th-grade education. What you're doing is the province of people with a lot more learning than you, and pretending otherwise makes you a fool or a charlatan. I don't happen to believe in your holy book, but it makes itself very clear on the subject: Biblical jurisprudence is the province of experts.

In short, Excalibur, to spell out the point that I missed - it's ironic you have such horrible things to say about Joseph Smith, because at least he could read parts of the Bible in the original Hebrew. I'm not vouching for the man; I'm just gently telling you you don't know a damn thing about what you're maundering on about. I'm going to give a little example of that later on.

quote:
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
First: 'this book' in that context is so self-evidently the apocalypse of John that, had you actually read it, you wouldn't have posted it as 'evidence'. And few people choose to add to Revelations, because it has little appeal to people not fixated on schizophrenic pseudo-Kabbalist numerology and to people who are it provides more than enough grist for the mill on its own.
Second, 'the tree of Life' and 'the Holy City' are references that sailed past your head - we're talking Kabbalah, not the Gospel. I wouldn't feel too bad about it if I were you - most Christians don't tend to know that either. I'm seriously beginning to wonder if you've even read these things, Excalibur, because if you had - with the attention to detail they normally encourage in the fifth grade - they wouldn't work as arguments for you.

quote:
Mark 3:29
quote:
But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.

Judges 1:19
Yahweh was with the men of Judah as they took possession of the highlands; but they could not conquer the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots.
quote:

Matthew 5:20
quote:
For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Pharisees were excessively legalistic, banal, angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin sorts, and that's most of what gets railed against about them in the Bible. The problem with explaining that to you, obviously, is that you're not gonna listen to anything that isn't wrapped around violent hatred of various minorities. Ah well; what can you do.
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quote:
Originally written by Excalibur:

They still do that? Must be Catholics.
And you rag on the Mormons.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Chinese Products Fail Again in General
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quote:
Illicit drugs: drug trafficking and illegally importing controlled substances are serious offenses in Brunei and carry a mandatory death penalty
quote:
who gives a **** about Brunei
Why, because their system shows the benefits of the death penalty. Oh, and watch your language please.[/QB][/QUOTE]
You'll note that the CIA doesn't actually note whether or not the policy works, which you did. I'd say with near-complete certainty that it doesn't, because that kind of brutal nonsense usually results in people getting violent. For instance, fairly few people got killed over the sale of alcohol in 1918, and the careers of several horrible people you might have heard of - including, say, Al Capone - were pretty much made by Prohibition.

My experience with punitive drug laws is that they almost always result in inappropriately heavy sentencing for users, make it almost impossible to capture dealers and producers outside of military sting ops (which require resources most countries don't have), and generally claim a lot more success than they can actually be verified to have. None of this is controversial, you know - any serious historian that refuted any of that about Prohibition would be considered a crank, it's just that we like to pretend alcohol isn't a dangerous drug.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
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quote:
Originally written by Om, Lum, Yum:

Clearly, what Alec needs from us isn't exactly a hug. Wink wink, dearie. Now, where did Dareva go just when I needed her help...
Bizarrely, I'm still spoken for. But we can always just get you and Dareva together and film the deeply awkward results.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
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quote:
Originally written by Excalibur:

By Goldenking
quote:
Without leaders, humanity would be in chaotic anarchy
John Lennon's dreamworld, another reason not to like the song Imagine.

I think anarchy is pretty much the second-best thing to a technocratic socialist leisure state. I don't like being told what to do and I especially don't like when people usurp the right to issue orders and command respect.

I'm something of a natural elitist - that is, I'm fine with people with relevant skills and knowledge having a mien of authority and expecting obedience. Engineers, doctors, teachers - all of those are, in a basically functional society, figures who should be given a good amount of credit (if kept in check by skeptical members of the same elite class and inquiry from outside of it) by default.

If you can't have that - if the ONLY people running the show aren't doing it by virtue of being the best woman or man for the job - then no point having a government. Otherwise, you're just gonna be taking orders from a succession of jumped-up wealthy cokeheads. I think, if that's the only government we're being offered, I'll be fine governing myself, thanks.

At least I probably won't turn a major Middle Eastern country into a terrorist freehold.

(This doesn't extend to economics - I find the same arguments I use for aspects of society actively repugnant for aspects of the economy, largely because the economy is predicated around issues we'd find horrifying in society. Casual things like gouging consumers at the pump during a natural disaster are more or less akin to using that disaster as an excuse to vent frustration by shooting at them. If you can't engineer a good society, leave society alone - but beyond all, make sure that capital is not left to its own devices, or it will create an evil society to fill the vacuum you leave.)

[ Sunday, November 11, 2007 00:52: Message edited by: Najosz Thjsza Kjras ]
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Monkey See, Monkey Do in General
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quote:
Originally written by Reyes:

Those who claim to stay away from mainstream activities just go with the unpopular mainstream.
I find both silly, to be fair. I'm not a wanker or a banker.

quote:
What would humanity be without their leaders?
Less hungry.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Protesting (In General) in General
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I do think it's worthy of note, and it's not something I had thought of until you brought it up, that 'deadbeat' has actually sort of shifted definitions; I've almost never heard it used to describe someone who simply up and abandons their family, but rather a sort of special cretin who wants to have the privileges and rights without the associated duties.

While more stuff might show up if society is less restrictive, I have to note that in my personal experience the people who have the most oppressive upbringings tend to be the most ready to jump into trouble once the oppression lays off a bit, and also the least capable of handling it. Generalizing that is problematic, and I'm certain there are studies to support both conclusions.

But to be fair, my conclusion is buoyed by the glue bit - drug-mixing is an atrocious, dangerous, and unreliable high. As Dolan said of James Frey while tearing him and A Million Little Pieces a new hole - when he included 'glue' cavalierly in a list of drugs he had ostensibly used, ripped from another, better book written by an actual addict who OD'd in a motel after a brief, rough life - certain drugs are vile poison which nobody with a whit of sense and/or access to anything even vaguely better would mess with. Hell, if they gave kids the privacy necessary to play the damn Choking Game chances are good they wouldn't be at risk for pill-mixing.

It is sort of a moot point, though - while I wouldn't support it in and of itself, I'd say centralized drug access would be far more effective and far less intrusive than just forcing people to get the school's say-so to take medication. As someone with chronic health problems, I can only imagine how degrading the latter would be. There are a lot of cretins out there who feel entitled to treat you like a drug addict because you have to carry around antibiotics and an inhaler - let alone anything even vaguely druggish like benadryl or sudafed - and for some reason, they seem to gravitate towards pedagogy.

And doubtless pederasty, but that's neither here nor there. I hope.
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quote:
Originally written by Excalibur:


The country of Brunei carries a mandatory death penalty for drug dealing, and because of it, Brunei enjoys the absence of illicit drugs.

Or so Brunei claims. It's not a claim anyone bothers to refute or qualify because of a well-established diplomatic principle I like to refer to in situations like this: 'who gives a **** about Brunei?'

quote:

Like drug dealers, rapists are often repeat offenders, and eliminating them is better for humanity.

Most rapists are actually first-time offenders and the recidivism rate is lower in countries with a more efficient penal system (e.g. less focused on throwing people into prison, letting them sodomize and assault each other, and then dumping them unceremoniously on the streets).

I think you've got an extremely simplistic view of crime that boils down to 'people who commit crimes are evil'. That's usually not how it works, and a lot of the time you're killing someone for no particularly good reason. Making a corpse out of someone isn't gonna change what they've done, and refusing to offer them a way to change is sort of on the evil side.
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Well, I guess it just generally makes you a prick.

In the strictest sense of the word, yeah, you're right. But in general I've usually heard 'deadbeat' used to describe parents who insist they're Parents and have Rights but don't actually care about the associated duties. Like, you know, child support.

re. mix'n'match medication: I have to think that if they were less ruthless about forbidding things there'd be less compulsion to do that crap. I mean, I've never been compelled to huff glue.

[ Saturday, November 10, 2007 16:39: Message edited by: Najosz Thjsza Kjras ]
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quote:
Originally written by Zeviz:

I am not going to snip quotes out of that monstrosity, so just a few comments:

- The complaint about being punished for skipping class to protest.
This reminds me of some "professional protesters" from Berkeley, who disrupted classes, fought with police, and then held huge protest rallies after some of them got arrested. (What's even worse is that the campus and police authorities gave in and dropped almost all charges.) The whole point of "civil disobedience" is that you take the punishment for breaking unjust laws to show people your determination and the power of your cause. If you are just going to cut class to hang out with your friends shouting some slogans, that's not "civil disobedience". It's "slacking off". If those Berkeley students dusrupted classes and fought with police, and expected not to get arrested, that's not civil disobedience. It's huliganism.

I think protest is an admirable activity - probably the cornerstone of a functional democracy, and you see a lot more protest happen much more peaceably in democratic societies than authoritarian ones - and trying to clamp down on it and call doing it for a 'bad reason' 'hooliganism' is about the most fundamental move you could make towards fascism.

As a political scientist, I find suggesting that protesting is basically illegitimate and that participation (through protest or whatever) needs to be well-informed - otherwise, 'hooliganism' - to be harrowing, precisely because the simultaneous glory and squalor of democracy is the fact that any idiot can and should vote. You take that away, and you may or may not (usually not, if history is any judge) produce a more efficient system, but you will produce a more tyrannous one. It's usually a fairly short time between protest, disobedience and other 'illegitimate' outlets being deligitimized and stigmatized and 'legitimate' outlets getting thrown out as well. Yeah, I know some of these kids are protesting for no good reason, but then again, most school elections are popularity contests. It's a good thing for people to be used to the prerequisites of a republic, and one of those is protest.

quote:
- The complaint about internet filter.
As their complaint says, the filter is in whitelist-only mode only during "academic hours". What are they doing online at that time anyway?

Filling out college applications, according to the complaint. And chances are good 'academic hours' are the time in which everyone might or might not have class; you're looking at a situation in which for half of the average student's time off they've got access to a small list of mostly useless websites.

I think the complaint about the whitelist is perfectly legitimate, because whitelists are time-consuming and inefficient in large systems and oppressive and foul in small systems. Considering the size of this school, chances are pretty good that information vectors that clash with the personal politics of the filter manager are gonna get filed away in 'we'll look into it' forever. (And myself, as much as I loathe cretins like the antigastarbite brigade, the Freepers, and what-not, I think denying someone the right to peruse their heinous shrieking bigotry would be close to criminal.) I personally wouldn't want a filter at all, but if you've got to have one it's really better to have one that targets known negatives.

There are so many ways a whitelist can be used inappropriately, and the only benefit of it hinges on the assumption that students of a college-prep school are shrinking violets who will be destroyed for life at the sight of a swear word, ethnic slur, or bare nipple.

quote:

- The complaint about vitamins.
They say that everybody had their medications and vitamins approved already, so what's the problem? The school probably just doesn't want to get sued if somebody eats something they shouldn't have. If anything, blame our litigious society.

I think 'litigious society' is based on a basically incorrect impression of what constitutes litigiousness and how far raw greed goes in the courts (hint: there are few states in this country where someone can sue the school district without a good reason and not face the county's legal chages), but I'll let that go for now. The thing is, there's a small list of over-the-counter drugs that can be used recreationally. Restricting those to nurse permission I can see. But forcing people to get say-so from the nurse for vitamins and prescription medication? I'm sorry, that's just oppressive. It's as oppressive and vicious as would be forcing the students to ask permission to eat. The only purpose it serves, alongside a lot of the other items here, is to incuclate obedience to authority. This is a college prep school, not a military academy; no matter how frustrating the disobedience of teenagers might be, that's the nature of the beast; unruly teenagers become decent adults, capable of obeying authority where necessary, disobeying it where necessary, and figuring out for themselves which is which (and that's one of those fundamental skills for democracy). Orderly, obedient teenagers tend to become obsessively submissive adults - because teenagers are abnormally disobedient as a rule, and responding to 'jump!' with 'which way?' as a teenager pretty much guarantees you won't be able to disobey a solitary command from someone with a loud voice as an adult. And unless one happens to be a career carrier of arms or fighter of fires, that's a horribly bad thing and needs to be avoided.

In short, this is basically metonymic for the whole issue here. The students are being jerked around by an administration that seeks to usurp any and all personal freedom they have; they're not just being regulated on reasonable things, like obviously unacceptable websites or abusable drugs, but on things so banal that the only reasonable conclusion is that it's a case of obedience for obedience's sake. This is, again, a college prep school. I can't think of a single thing worse for higher education than a mindset in which instinctive kowtowing to authority is necessary.

quote:
- Maintanance problems.
As everybody else said, "welcome to the real world".

Man, I've heard California's gone downhill under the Governator, but I had no idea that the police make you register vitamins you use with them or haul you into prison for peaceable assembly if it's not for a good reason.

In other words, either this argument works or your other ones don't; you can either leave the students to their own devices, within the normal constraints of law, or you can take an obessive, paternalistic interest in their day-to-day affairs and actually take care of their everyday needs as well.

We have a phrase for fathers who expect to be treated as absolute and unquestionable authority figures and yet who refuse to take care of their children's basic needs: 'deadbeat dad'. You can either be an oppressive, invasive disciplinarian or you can be a disinterested slacker, but you can't pick and choose from one or the other, and giving people all the negatives of both is just abusive. If the school cares enough about student welfare to force them to register vitamins, you'd think that an active rat problem would merit their attention.

quote:
- Complaint about Internet cut off time.
Perhaps they should learn to budget their time better and not put off projects until the night before they are due. That would be a useful lesson to learn for life in general.

Oh, Zeviz. Like you've never had a project big enough that it took you past midnight to do - or had more than one regular-sized project requiring you spend most of the night doing it.

There's already a lot of incentive not to put off projects to the last minute. For instance, there's the fact that generally doing that results in a better grade and is easier on you. The cutoff time is another arbitrary, paternalistic effort to force a certain lifestyle on the students - one, I will add, that is utterly inappropriate for college prep students (the only people I've ever known with 11:00 PM bedtimes are English grad students, and that's because their classes are in the early morning - and more often than not they go to sleep at 6PM and wake up at midnight.) - and it's not particularly defensible. If there's concerns about ability to manage student web use after the admin goes home, maybe then'd be an appropriate time for a whitelist. The long and short of it is that cutting off the Internet at 11:00 out of sheer cussedness is pointless, and you seem to like the idea for no better reason than that it's being used to oppress those stupid hooligans who grow up to protest things you don't mind at Berkeley. In reality, Zeviz, the hooligans aren't gonna be up past 11 doing homework - they're gonna crib from Wikipedia at 10:00, bang out something just sufficient to make a D, and then mess around. It's the good students who happen to (a) be night people, (b) have a different lifestyle or sense of time management than most of the campus, or (c) be prone to slacking - those are the ones who suffer here. Cutting their legs out from under 'em isn't going to help the slackers any more than would summarily kicking them out of school because they didn't turn in an assignment on time. And any which way, that's how you're expected to do things in college! Yeah, if this were a vocational school, that might make a sort of sense. But college isn't an office job; it doesn't have hours and priorities set in stone by all-powerful higher-ups. I don't know where on Earth you got the impression it was.

quote:
So overall, looks like one of those "we protest because that's what all the cool kids do" kinds of protests to me.
I think for some people, you're right. But come on; at least one of these is not only valid but hauntingly so, and the fact that it took protest to get it out in the open is horrific. The rat and vitamin things alone are just stupefying; the administration honestly feels it is entitled to screw around with students' day-to-day lives, and yet doesn't feel it incumbent to fix people's toilets or keep rats out of their dormitories? What on Earth is the huge concern about their finding a way to get high on multivitamins for when the risk of them getting the Goddamn hantavirus is above 0?

The only way that's anything less than shameful is if your basic attitude is 'Well, some people are in charge and some people aren't, and the people who aren't just need to get used to that'. That's not how society works; it's not how the college the students are being prepared for works. A society that worked that way would be fascist and a college that worked that way would be useless.

I don't understand why you're so ready to hurl contempt on students for peaceable protest (or, as you sweepingly refer to one of America's oldest legal institutions, 'civil disobedience') that you're utterly unconcerned about the students being restricted to dorms with a rat problem unless they make the Dean's List. I don't know what part of the 'real world' that is - Burma, maybe - but it certainly ain't here.
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Linux - Good match for me? in General
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quote:
Originally written by The Almighty Do-er of Stuff:

Eventually my XP machines will die, and I'll be forced to get a different OS. I don't really like the idea of "upgrading" to Vista though. I might try Linux instead.

A few questions about Linux though:

1) What are the drawbacks of Wine? I want to be able to run my programs (Audacity, Anvil Studio, Creative MP3 player programs, some AIM-compatible IM program) and especially my games (ranging from DOS programs like Museum Madness and Windows 3.0-compatible games to things like Doom 3). Would I be able to use those with reasonable ease? Wikipedia is kind of vague on this issue.

WinE has the same drawbacks as any other emulator. It's persnickety, sometimes it doesn't emulate things quite right, and it'll only emulate things for which its basic files (which you have to provide - so no throwing out your Windows CD just yet) are suited. You'd still need the Linux equivalent of DosBox to run stuff like Museum Madness. And Doom 3 might just be out of the question - WinE isn't a great game emulator and most people with an interest in high-level gaming typically run a partition with the relevant OS installed for the rainy day on which a game they like doesn't work with their emulator of choice.
quote:

2) Are there any good Linux distributions that feature a decent GUI? It doesn't have to be anything really flashy, but I'd prefer to be able to access things without remembering where everything is and clicking five million times (i.e. something like Windows's Start menu, where I can put shortcuts)

Your distro can be two of free, convenient, and functional. A free, functional distro will necessitate you spending most of your time making sweet love to the command line; a free, convenient distro will likely be only slightly more (and quite probably significantly less) stable than Windows; and a convenient, functional distro will set you back money just like Windows or any other real OS.
quote:

3)Are there any free media players that will play WAV, MP3, and (preferably, but I'm assuming not) WMA?

More than you'd have any idea what to do with, although the drawback is that none of them are very good. This is equally true of Windows and Mac, so no real biggie here.

quote:
I might even poke around Linux before my current computers die, using my old 40GB hard drive that isn't hooked up right now, if I think it would be worthwhile.
If you're gonna use it at all, find a distro that works for you before you make the plunge all the way. Otherwise, you'll have a crippled computer for however long it takes you to format and start over.
quote:
It would be nice not to have to pay ridiculous prices for everything and deal with Microsoft spying on me all the time.
And it's evidently great for manufacturing and publishing long-winded, incomprehensible rants about "neurotypicals", too. Perhaps you should create a Wiki and see what the marketplace of ideas has to tell you!!!!**

**In all likelihood, Pikachu with three penises
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
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quote:
Originally written by Archmage Alex:

quote:
Originally written by Drew:

They seem to be observations to me. How are Alec's observations wrong?
His percentages were pulled out of thin air. It's not really the sort of thing you could easily or accurately gather statistics on, and I personally would place the percentage of so-called "jack-mormons" as significantly lower.

Other than that, it is not so much that he is wrong as that, for no apparent reason, he decided to vent his personal dislike by making wild generalizations and exaggerating extreme cases about Mormon culture in a very negative way that dramatically misrepresents the actual doctrine and teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I did pull the percentages out of you know where, but really, so does anyone else - 'jack mormon' is a complete generality. Depending on how much give you want to have, either Hitler is a good Mormon (being retroactively converted and all, and hey - nobody's perfect) or nobody except Jesus and Joseph Smith are. Same goes for any other religion.

I'd say a majority of people who consider themselves any religion, especially a religion like American Christianity which doesn't invite severe social stigma, are largely unfamiliar with the rules and regulations they're ostensibly living by, and usually allow their conscience to guide them. The two seldom line up as well as they like to think.

In other words, if there were such a term, the same thing I had to say about 'jack Mormons' would be true about jack Catholics and jack Evangelicals.

I'd call the difference a spiritual one - between those willing to proselytize and those simply Mormon by default. It's present in every faith.

I'm not attempting to be inflammatory. If it makes you feel better, I'll make a point of saying that you're just as bad as every other kind of Christian - you're no wonkier than the Copts or the Presbyterians as far as belief goes.

I'm not touching the issue of documentary authenticity with a ten-foot pole as long as you don't. By belief alone, there's a few good things and many bad things to be said of LDS, the same as any other religion or social philosophy.

And ease up on the oppression narrative, Utah boys. Someone taking what you believe to the cleaners isn't worth getting your panties in a bunch about unless they drag you along for the ride - and no one, but no one, elected to sit in office in Salt Lake City is going to bring a legal cudgel to bear against you for being LDS.

[ Thursday, June 21, 2007 01:33: Message edited by: Najosz Thjsza Kjras ]
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There's essentially three groups of Mormons - the 'fundamentalists', the conservatives, and jack mormons.

'Fundamentalist' Mormons have the same relationship to LDS as 'fundamentalist' Christians do to Christianity: they have an intensely reactionary interpretation based on absurd leaps of logic and an extremely specific and illiterate reading of their source text. They're also extremely overrepresented among Mormons in popular culture, just like fundies are among the general Christian population; self-described fundamentalists aside, maybe 10-15% of a population that almost unanimously describes itself as at least religious actually believes in the absurd swiss-cheese logic behind super-evangelical Christianity - and yet when they apply the label 'literal reading of the Bible' to what they believe, nobody calls them on this.

(For the record, their 'literal reading of the Bible' regards psalms, which are devotional poetry, as literally true - and yet denies that the Sermon on the Mount counts until Armageddon for some reason. Sounds literal to me!)

But I'm digressing. The fundies are less than 10% of the LDS population, and certainly they're the evil 10%, but they're not the 10% that has the problems one might associate with too many Mormons running around. Polygamists typically secede from society in an extreme way, dressing as they apparently believe was 'traditional' in the mid-19th century and having a relationship with a large number of women that many would call abusive. Within polygamist communities, religious leadership is typically a type of dictatorial authority; the children that don't escape are more or less slaves, and the children that do usually wind up destitute and addicted to horrible drugs, considering all they have to escape to is rural Arizona (read: hell).

After that you have about a quarter of the population, the conservative Mormons, the ones who claim to be obedient moral Mormons, which is a special way of claiming to be perfect. The conventional LDS morality is extremely clannish and stultifying - which is why so few people actually live up to it. The difference between the orthodox LDS and the 'jack Mormons' is that the latter group doesn't usually presume to push a code they can't keep themselves onto others.

Draw a rough oval with its western border being Reno, its eastern border being Denver, its northern border being Boise, and its southern border being Phoenix, and you've got what amounts to greater Utah. Within that area, the Republican Party is usually the secular arm of the conservative-Mormon hierarchy, the conservative-Mormons are the most vocal, visible, and influential religious group even where Mormons are not a majority. These areas also look a lot more like each other, and like Utah, than they do like their own state - even parts of it fairly close to them. (Northern Nevada looks more like western Colorado socially than it does like Las Vegas.)

The majority of the Mormon population is probably the jack-mormons; they neither obey the stultifying conservative Mormon social code nor pretend to in public. But 'Jack Mormon' is only really a badge of pride on the fringe of Mormon country - where the LDS church is viewed as a hostile interloper. Most Mormons outside of 'greater Utah' are basically jack Mormons; I'd say most Mormons within that area are too, it's just that in that part of the US acknowledging 'moral failure' is a bad plan. In the American west, people prefer a good-sounding lie to an embarassing truth, and will continue doing so even if everyone knows it's a lie; we call that bull****. The only difference between drinking fornicators pretending to be good Mormons at pro-life political meetings and George Bush pretending to be Texan in large crowds is what kind of bull**** pays off.

...

In short, even though the only people you hear about among Mormons are the polygamist crazies, they're a tiny minority, just like the Chick-esque lunatics who think Rome is the Whore of Babylon. (They're not quite as influential among 'mainstream' Mormon discourse.) But the conservatives among the Mormon population are a dozen times worse.

The polygamists do horrible things - but they do them to a small number of people. Thanks to conservative Mormons, millions of children are told that the Smithsonian uses the Book of Mormon for archaeological digs - where in reality, every single claim the BoM makes is facially ridiculous to any archaeologist worth his salt. Sure, the polygamists hurt kids too - but only a few thousand. The nutters who teach their children that fiat money is Rome's tool to introduce Judeo-Bolshevism are far less numerous than the nutters who teach their children to treat evolution and global warming as lies perpetrated in the name of a culture war that exists in their heads alone.

Why did we make this about religion? I have no idea. Let's bring this full circle: don't vote for Mitt Romney or he'll marry all of your daughters - and if you listen to the Republican loonies, your sons, too!

[ Monday, June 18, 2007 02:31: Message edited by: Najosz Thjsza Kjras ]
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
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One thing I've learned from being with Sam is that what you'd think makes for a good relationship and what actually does are two similar but extremely different things.

We've got very similar values and personalities, but our interests are a hell of a lot different. I can't even think of a band we both like, her interest in history stops where mine begins, I'm in PSC and she's in English... the usual idea in finding people to go out with, which is to find someone who likes what you like, is a really poor idea. What really matters is that they believe what you believe - you're never gonna have a fight over anything moral, that's for sure. That was true for #2 and my relationship with her went a lot better than any other, and that's definitely true for me and Sam.

The weird thing is that we've been engaged for almost a year, we've been living together continuously for half a year, and we've been going through every kind of personal hell you could imagine - and we've never actually had a fight. It's lovely.
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1: First date at 17
2: First relationship at same time
3: First kiss at same time
4: Depending on what you mean by 'intimate', either two weeks later at 17 or a little under a year later at 18
5: Sam and I are as married as we're gonna be until gay marriage is legal; it's a moral issue for both of us.
6. Full disclosure, more or less:
1) Serious relationship with a girl who didn't care about me too much; I was infatuated on account of I thought nobody else could love me. (Don't do this.) Lasted three months, wound up semi-sexual (she was getting more than I was out of it, though) and broke up after getting stale. Got depressed, leading to
2) 'Serious' relationship with a sweet girl with whom I never really did much physically. While it lasted longer, was happier, and ended better than my first relationship, being unable to get past first base put paid to it for both of us. It happened on the rebound for me and was a first for her.
3) Weird entanglement with a girl somewhat younger than me who I had liked in high school. She turned out to have serious ego issues and I was just desperate to be loved. One awkward physical encounter and things fell apart.
4) Decided to abandon the idea of serious relationships; wound up in one of those things that only really happen in college where you wind up making out when you're sharing the same public lounge couch. She and I stopped seeing each other after I got together with Sam for the first time.
5) Sam, first time around. Lost virginity. Things were going too quickly for both of us and we were both very afraid, and we wound up breaking it off. We still saw each other occasionally, but didn't have a long-term relationship.
6) A fairly pretty girl took me sitting at a nearby table for some kind of flirtation. She turned out to be a tedious emo girl whose interests were mainly Disney, Kevin Smith, Star Trek, and pot. I didn't want a serious relationship (largely because of my feelings for Sam), and she did. We broke up, and almost immediately I ran into Sam and we started seeing each other again. (#6 freaked out on me about this - which baffled both me and Sam - and she's been weird about it in what little we hear from her ever since.)
7) Sam and I got back together last September after being willing to admit we actually love each other; she proposed to me a week after we made it official we were together again. We cohabitate, share expenses and income, and spend nearly all of our time within earshot of each other; we've both gone through an unbelievable amount of crap together (especially her - she's had to leave her insane, abusive mother and try to keep her life intact in spite of profound psychological, financial, and physical duress), but there's something about her that makes me happy no matter what else happens to be going on.

I suppose if I had to treat this as instructive, as if any of you are gonna be like me in any of this:

1) Emotional intimacy is less worth it than physical intimacy. You can break off physical intimacy without getting too upset; on the other hand, where my relationships ended badly it was because I invested emotional effort into them. Good relationships take work, but it doesn't seem like work at all.
Don't bother with monogamy until you've found someone who you're certain will make it work for you. Get to know them inside out before you commit to being with them; otherwise you're holding the both of you down on the condition that, by some insane coincidence, you just happen to be perfect for each other.

2) On that note, it's perfectly okay to have 'relationships' limited in some way. I'd say my two best 'failed' relationships were entirely within certain parameters - #2 and #4 and I still talk and get along just fine. I like #2 as a person an awful lot, and it was nice to be able to be as close to her as I was. #4 was passably pretty and interesting - and making out with her was a damn sight more interesting than dealing with morons at college. If I had tried to make what I had with #2 into a more physical relationship, I'd probably wind up feeling like an awful slimy rapist for the rest of my life; on the other hand, all #4 and I really had in common was a mutual interest in one another's mouths, and treating that like it's not worth anything is unfair.

3) To cap the last two up: the kind of relationship we're taught to view as ideal is absolute hell if it is anything but ideal! Sam and I are on top of each other almost 24 hours a day, we can't even escape each other in our sleep, we have next to no privacy and there's certain things each of us can't do because the other can't deal with them (mostly dietary). If we weren't content to sit on the other side of the room doing our own thing, weren't completely in love with each other, and weren't so secure in our relationship that invading one another's privacy didn't pose any kind of temptation - that'd be a living hell. Instead, it's been wonderful. Think about this and think about it hard before you decide to try and make what you have 'permanent' or even 'exclusive'. Any doubts you or your partner have are potentially ruinous flaws; better to have a good, happy relationship that cuts around the flaws than a doomed relationship that insists on forcing them.

4) You will be surprised how much macking you missed out on in high school, if you are at all like me. It is okay; high schoolers are awful kissers anyway.

Question 7: I'm very happy - now. But it's taken years of learning to get that way.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Being Errorized! in General
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quote:
Originally written by Dikiyoba:

Ideas are not the limiting factor in episode production. Time and motivation are. And you can't give me more time or give me more motivation, so please stop talking about it. I know you and Nalyd really want to see Episode 4, but I'm afraid that's just not going to happen.

Oh, and Nikki, what's the point of changing your PDN if you never post for people to see it, you sorry excuse for a cucumber? :P

Dikiyoba.

Please make it clearer you're not angling for beefcake, Diki. :(
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quote:
Originally written by Synergy:

Welcome back, Alec. Can't you come up with some new material?

-S-

I'd hate to disrupt your busy schedule of casting the glad eye on women a third your age over the Internet, Synergy. Call this one a mulligan.
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quote:
Originally written by Thoughts in Chaos:

Well, Nalyd, who has never seen a Foamy the Squirrel cartoon
Milady doth protest too much.

quote:
You can still hate him for it if you want.
Well, didn't someone become incredibly important in a huge hurry.
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