i knew what i was walking into, but i'm still constantly amazed by what i'm seeing.
i actually wouldn't want to travel to this place on foot. i need to get a bicycle...it's clear....top priority in the spring...
it's amazing how much of detroit has this "old country road" feel, given that it's a substantial metropolitan center. areas in the center of the city look and feel like isolated, trapped-in-time towns in central ontario.
i haven't spent enough time yet to know if i'm walking into a village mentality.
i'm actually a big city person. i like the egalitarianism that comes with anonymity.
"The team argues that adopting a "moralizing religion" may be a mechanism to help cope with environments where there is little access to food and water."
this is completely backwards. nomadic societies have tended to adopt the opposite of "moralizing religions", precisely because the environment they live in does not allow for egalitarian social constructs. this is the root of the actual problem that we face in a hierarchical society.
moralizing religion, rather, is a product of settled societies that needed to find ways to distribute agriculture.
hence, you had the messianic religions in the settled areas of the middle east and what is essentially the nihilist concept of a "master morality" in the nomadic areas.
the error here is orthogenesis. the researcher wants humans to create fair societies to deal with limited resources. in fact, the evidence is clear that when we have limited resources we abandon morality and revert to might makes right.
what happened afterwards is an evolutionary mismatch that we've yet to work our way out of. communism is basically the way out of it. we've got these hierarchical systems that were created as an adaptation for nomadism enforced into settled societies - not because we adapted to the best solution possible but because, in evolution, shit happens the wrong way more often than not. it's going to drive us to extinction if we don't work it out, because we're *not* doing this right.
what's really frustrating with these idiots is that they'll openly argue that the evidence ought to be altered to fit a social narrative. which is religious thinking.
they don't see any kind of a problem with beginning with a desired social outcome, and then compiling evidence that "proves it".
they're often so blinded by their goals that they fail to see how easily deconstructed their propaganda is. you're not going to get anywhere when your nonsense is this transparent.
the idea that there's a "secular church" is absolutely accurate. it's an idea you often hear thrown around by theists. it's something they're right about, and careful thinking atheists need to be wary of it.
if we find ourselves up against difficult climate realities in the near future, we're going to see our concept of morals move out of a slave morality and into a master morality, because that's how humans react to dwindling resources...
in fact, we're already bombing the world for it's oil.
it's not what people want to believe, but what people want to believe is irrelevant in the face of the data.
the point is this: if you have a limited amount of water it is NOT rational to share it, so that everybody is thirsty. it is rational to cull the herd - to kill the weak.
animals do this all the time.
humans are animals.
therefore....
sharing only makes sense when there's enough to go around.
again, the evidence is pretty clear on this.
people don't want to hear this, but that's too bad.
the idea i'm getting from this is that there are people that want to use religion as a way to lock us down to adjust to upcoming resource issues.
it's not going to work. it's just going to create a set of easy targets.
we're going to have to fight it out. people will die. that's how shit works.
"You mean there's a catch?" "Sure there's a catch", Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy." There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a
concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and
immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be
grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no
longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy
to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had
to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he
didn't want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply
by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a
respectful whistle.
a little reminder that winter in canada starts in november...
apparently, this dip in the gulf stream is easily explained by a giant hurricane barreling through the bering strait. but that's actually the same mechanism i posted a few months back about the sun, just from a different angle.
the sun has come back a little. it might not be so bad. but there's a time lag involved, too.
but you have to understand that it's a really, really big hurricane and this shouldn't be taken as indicative of the weather for the rest of the winter.
it's reasonable to ask questions about factors producing such a strong hurricane. but it's not the same phenomenon that was responsible for the cold weather last year.
(well, it is the same mechanism, but not the same phenomenon)
again, this is the key graph. it's an exceedingly weak sunspot cycle. this doesn't disprove anthropogenic climate change (i'd argue both of these things are happening, and they're currently offsetting each other in the northern hemisphere), and i'm not arguing it's as simple as less sunspots equals lower temperatures, but the reality is there's research going back decades that ties these dips in the jetstream (*specifically*) to the oscillations in sun activity. it's actually well established. the media is ignoring this, and it's probably largely because nobody wants to go anywhere near the idea of presenting the sun as a cause of weather because they're afraid they'll be called quacks and "deniers". but, you don't need to argue against the greenhouse effect to understand that the sun is the dominant cause of weather on this planet. it's been set up as a binary choice, but it's a totally false binary.
there's no contradiction in suggesting that the hurricane strength may be caused by global warming, and arguing that the dips in the jet stream we've been seeing recently are caused by weak solar activity. effects can come from multiple causes.
the key plank in the argument is that this isn't a little bit of a weak cycle. it's not down a little, it's down a whole lot. it's one of the lowest we have on record.
i'm hoping the peak may help. but it's the peak. the truth is we could be in for some cold winters for a while.
i mean, insulating your house will help to keep the heat in.
but if you turn the heat down, the insulation is going to have less heat to trap.
it's kind of a worst case scenario, because it's not actually reversing any of the problems. it's just making it cold in the heart of the empire, and warping people's perceptions.
but, i mean, what's actually going on? are these jet stream dips due to melting ice? i think the science actually leans towards the sun, this time.
age aside, i don't understand what the target demographic for this is in the first place. i was a pretty messed up teenager, but i would have had no use for this, not even as a joke.
it might seem like she's moving backwards with this, but she's actually right. it's true that spotify is broadly what people want, and it's true that digital music is with us until at least the oil crash. but, people are expecting a free lunch.
the basic problem is that the price is a fraction of what it needs to be to compensate the artists. with the price that spotify pays out, you'd have to listen to a record every day for a year to get a dollar to the label on it, which is going to be less than that to the artist.
the idea of access to a giant database of music is a good one, but in order for the revenue stream to get to where it needs to be some combination of the following things are necessary:
1) you need to cut the labels out. spotify is now the label. it's releasing, hosting and distributing. as it is, what spotify is doing is both decreasing the price and adding another middleman. that's economically impossible. in order for it to be sustainable, it needs to replace the existing middleman and work directly with artists.
2) there needs to be different pricing options, connected to how much is actually being listened to. $120/year is simply not enough. $120/month is more like it. plenty of people pay something close to that for cable. there's just as much content being delivered, and many more people that need to get paid. cable-like pricing options are required for this service to succeed.
3) one of the pricing options should be per-stream pricing, and at rate close to $0.10/stream. if you do the math, you'll see the dramatic disconnect between what it needs to be and what it is now.
there's a lot of rhetoric about how artists need to conform or get out, but that's not the way it's going to be. spotify needs content to work. if it doesn't increase it's price, artists are going to slowly start leaving. taylor's high profile and everything but she's not the first one out - and i'd expect people will follow her out. it may take another quarter or two, but this free lunch just isn't sustainable, and it's not going to happen.
the part of the catalogue that is safe is the old stuff that the labels own outright. the boomers don't have much time left, so this is about to explode - floyd, beatles, zeppelin, etc. jazz. classical. elvis. etc.
unless a tactic is developed for consumers to pay more into it, this is the future of spotify - an archive of recordings by dead people.
as it is, they basically did everything wrong. if this model does pick up, and it will if it's done right, it's almost certainly going to be through a different service.
after looking into it a bit more, i'd put my money on google driving spotify to bankruptcy.....
like most advanced mammals, lions need to be taught in order to know how to do things. that doesn't mean it's a good idea to have a pet lion - you're too easy of a meal if you're standing there naively patting it's head, with your gut pressed up against it's face. there's no skill required in munching you. but, young lions that are not taught to hunt will not know how to hunt until they are taught or they figure it out through trial and error.
taking an elephant down, in particular, is something that requires a lot of teamwork. that means it requires a lot of practice, which means it requires a lot of training. it's a task for seasoned, professional lions only.
that's a lot of lions in one place, and it's a little curious as to how they all got there. but it looks to me like the lions are also quite young - a year old, maybe two.
that's the explanation of what you're seeing - it's baby lions v baby elephant.
i'm glad you got the last one on film.
that's the variable that a lot of these "social experiments" completely miss.
deathtokoalas
you know, i don't want to listen to religious music any more than i want to listen to schmaltzy fake-soul quintets do pop covers, but the idea that your opinion on the band's religious views is in any way meaningful is exactly the reason religion won't die. the more you hack it down like this, the stronger it comes back. you really need to adopt an avoidance strategy, and learn to just ignore it.
besides. a couple of dorks singing lame songs in a cave is hardly the dark side of christianity.
PhourQ
lol @ your emotional fear of theism. Face it, religion will never die and thank God for that...since it is our human experience to apprehend that God exists...no matter how much it scares you to believe it.
deathtokoalas
i sure hope that religion has a best before date, but i don't deny that i have an immense fear of what religion is capable of.
that's a circular argument, by the way. you're stating that god must exist because god created us to have a "human experience" to apprehend it. most atheists would toss your whole conception of "human experience" in the trash heap.
i don't think there's any reason we exist at all, except to carry the dna to the next level. i get that it's maybe a bit overwhelming to get your head around it, but i think it's a pre-requisite to building a truly free society.
it's a catch-22. religion is incompatible with freedom, and it consequently must be abolished on the cultural level in order to attain a free society. but, forcing people to drop it creates a backlash which merely stunts the process. don't get me wrong - i'd be in favour of rounding up all the theists and sending them on a one way trip to jupiter if i thought it would work. but, i know it just pushes it underground, where it forms the basis of the next inevitable revolt against state tyranny. it places a flavour on the revolutionary character that is difficult to transcend.
people have to figure this out on their own. a little bit of ridiculing is maybe a step in the right direction, but it needs to be done carefully. censorship or persecution is just out of the question - it's simply counterproductive.
PhourQ
I wasn't trying to argue for the existence of God in saying it is part of our human experience. I am making that statement with God's existence as a given. I am not concerned about atheists tossing my arguments anywhere. My beliefs will never be swayed by what someone else thinks of them. The fact that theists find meaning in life makes atheists uncomfortable, but atheists provide no rational basis for theists to chuck their beliefs. The problems atheists associate with religion completely disregard the fact that those problems arise when the theist is not in accord with his own beliefs...the problems voiced are rarely the teachings of religion themselves. Furthermore, to suggest that religion is incompatible with freedom may be your opinion, but again, disregards the freedom that the religion teaches itself. Mankind naturally will seek to control and destroy regardless...some corrupt theism to accomplish this, others use atheism. Completely removing beliefs in religious ethics or morals in exchange for varied and subjective morality will have obvious results.
deathtokoalas
right. so obviously that statement about "human experience" isn't going to mean anything to me, then. you'd might as well have been speaking to the wall. it's about as useful to me as a discussion about pink unicorns. which is kind of a refutation, but why bother...
the idea that atheists ought to be convincing theists to modify their beliefs is again a circular presentation. atheism argues that we need to look at the world in terms of evidence-based reasoning. it wouldn't argue in favour or against any specific belief, so much as it would demand that evidence is gathered to argue in favour of the belief. it's nothing more complicated than backing up your argument, which is something we teach kids to do in grade school - and place a great emphasis on. for example, i have a belief that extra-terrestrials exist in the universe, and the bible is evidence of their contact with us in the past. that's an evidence-based argument that is consistent with atheism, but it is still a belief. what we get upset about is not over the fact that you believe things but that you use faith-based reasoning to back it up. we then get frustrated over your refusal to accept the superiority of evidence-based reasoning over....magic, basically. let's be sure that this much is clear.
atheists tend to use the same process to deduce morality that the christian fathers did, which is rational discovery. atheism is not the elimination of morals, it is the elimination of magic. now, that necessarily eliminates any kind of authoritarian basis underlying legal systems, but that's the point. "infringing the rights of others is to be discouraged" is a much better statement than "thou shalt not kill" - an improvement, an advance, a step forwards - for the precise reason that it provides for more subtlety in analysis, and stops people from enforcing the rules with a blunt stick. few atheists are going to argue with the general content of religious morality (the few points of contention are largely going to be in the heteropatriarchal nature of the religious systems, but that these exist in religion is reflective of society's influence on religion, rather than the other way around); the point is more that it oversimplifies complex issues, often leading to undesirable outcomes. if the religious texts were thousands of pages long and full of carefully analyzed case notes, there'd be less contention. but, then nobody would read it. it's a tragic flaw in the outcome.
which is where the issues of freedom exist. a group of people that believe a book tells them what is right and wrong and belong to a culture that requires the enforcement of it's contents to reach immortality is....it's insane. whatever the cause, whatever social ill, it's organized madness. and, a free society simply cannot exist in these conditions of coercion and self-righteousness. the proselytism that enforces this self-righteousness into hierarchies and tyrannies is worked into the bulk of the major religions. the idea of free will may be inherent to most religions, but this idea that religion mostly preaches tolerance is absolutely false. every religion seeks to convert the entire world to it's path. this is simply not compatible with a free society.
i think this makes a valid and accurate point. i've been trying to find a way to articulate myself with this and have been largely unsuccessful and consequently haven't. part of the reason might be that the simplicity of the pop form is not able to provide for the subtlety that is required in the discussion. it's one thing to talk of it setting off a discussion rather than getting a concrete message across, but i feel that the song is maybe so blurry in it's messaging that it's not able to even specify what the starting point is. so it's not easy to produce a defined reaction when it's not clear what it is that ought to be reacted to.
i think this is the crux of it: before you get into analyzing or criticizing the original video or the response to it, you have to understand that fat v. skinny is a false binary. it's one thing to point out that there's a lot of unrealistic messaging and it's a cause in continuing the problem of eating disorders (which are substantial). it's another to point out that "body positivity" is just as often used as an excuse for unhealthy people to stay unhealthy, promoting the continuing obesity epidemic (which is statistically a far greater public health issue). putting pressure on overweight people to be more healthy is not the same thing as enforcing an unrealistic beauty standard.
so, is the song a criticism of the enforcement of beauty norms (which would be a good thing), is it a "fat anthem" (which would be a bad thing) or is it in truth too simplistic and vague to be specific and is consequently being interpreted as both, creating confusion as to how to respond to it?
sometimes, when things are complicated it's because they're vague rather than because they're specific.
personally? i get more of a "fat anthem" feel out of it, and i'm not really comfortable with upholding that as a "positive message".
listen: i wouldn't put it past the advertising executives that work for monster to try to tap into this. some of this may really not be a coincidence; satan's been the hippest shit out there for well over two generations, now.
Monday, November 10, 2014
with dogs in the wild, it's probably as simple as not wasting protein.
for domestic dogs? that's probably the only real meal it'll ever have.
this is inri038. which is done. inri036 needs another week. inri037 needs some analysis before i make predictions about...time.
there's no new recordings here. it's not even remixed, it's just finally sequenced correctly.
--
this is
the sum total of the completed rabit is wolf studio experiments, which
wound through a number of paths on their way to the project's eventual
collapse. while there would be further acoustic demos recorded with
sean, i ultimately decided to abandon their folky underpinnings and
finish all further tracks as electronic, instrumental recordings. there was some thought of completing an acoustic tour demo at the time; it will appear shortly as inri040 and contain those final demos.
the recording was initially sequenced as a demo in mid may, 2002 but i
foolishly deleted the files (i was running low on hard drive space) only
to find out that the burn was corrupt and that the result was skipping.
i did eventually recompile an ep of material, but it was in a different
order and made no attempt to mix the tracks together. in reconstructing
the demo, i've decided to recreate the original sequencing. the only
difference between this collection and the initial collection is that
the last track now includes sean's vocals, whereas it was initially an
(eventually rendered incomplete) instrumental recording.
i need to be clear that the decision in sequencing the material this way
is unilateral on my behalf. during this period, sean had made it clear
that he was not satisfied with the more experimental and electronic
tendencies underlying some of the tracks; specifically, he wasn't happy
with the first or last tracks on this disc, as he felt they did not
represent his vision for the project. on the other hand, i was less
interested in purely acoustic music and more interested in electronic
music. i was envisioning the project as having a split personality
between an acoustic live presentation and an electronic studio
presentation. sean argued this would be disorienting; it's less that i
disagreed with him and more that i thought that was a good idea. this
divergence in vision is one of the factors leading to the project's
dissolution.
while i feel this recording stands up on it's own, i've also taken the
time over the second half of 2014 to reclaim some of the tracks as my
own instrumental works. only tracks two and four exist uniquely as rabit
is wolf collaborations; the other four tracks have been resequenced as
completed instrumentals in my main recording sequence. please open the
track pages for more information.
written and recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. resequenced to mimic
the original sequencing on november 8, 2014. except to sequence the
record, these files have not been altered since 2002. as always, please
use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars (electric, acoustic, classical),
effects, bass, synthesizers, digital piano, electric air reed organ,
flute, drum programming, drum manipulations, vocal manipulations, loops,
sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, production, cover art.
sean - vocals, lyrics, harmonica (1), ring modulator (6).
ok, i'm coming to terms with the fact that i'm probably not hearing
back from the psychiatrist and i'm going to have to wait until the 12th
to get somebody to fill out the forms.
i'm expecting
that the forms will not be filled out. if so, i will immediately attempt
suicide in the doctor's office. so, you can pencil in the first suicide
attempt for jan 12, 2015. i expect that this attempt will be stopped,
but it seems as though i'm going to have to actually go through with it.
i'm
also going to have to sit down over the weekend and explore artist
grant options. it's not what i want. what i want is long term odsp. but
if i get the grants, and it lets me live an extra year or two to get the
work i want done done, then it's a better option for future
generations. so i'm obligated to do this.
i mean, if
the point of this is to save money, they may want to recalculate that
because it's going to cost money and resources to pump my stomach and
put me through all this processing. if somebody ends up dying in the
meantime, i'd argue the doctors should be held liable for it. there's no
reason to play out this pointless drama.
but, you know. world. stage. actors. yeah.
i just wish people had more foresight and were able to make decisions more rationally.
i
mean, i don't want to spend the weekend in the hospital any more than
the system wants to expend the resources on me for it....if i can find
even one doctor willing to dislodge head from ass and get a grip on the
reality of the situation, i won't have to.
i'm not expecting this.
so, you can pencil in an acetaminophen overdose on jan 12th at the windsor branch of the canadian association of mental health.
i wouldn't expect obama to get in the way of a republican-controlled congress. rather, i'd expect it will mostly break the gridlock. it's what obama's really wanted the whole time.
he can't introduce the kind of legislation he wants because it'll expose him for who he is, and the republicans are so intent on their absurd framing that they'd have voted it down anyways.
but by simply refusing to veto the onslaught of right-wing legislation that is coming, under arguments about not abusing power (while he's drone striking people), obama can get what he wants done without the problems with the optics from either side.
it's going to open a coalition between the white house and the republican congress against the hopeless congressional opposition.
so, finally, here comes your hope and change....
....but i think you're going to be a bit disappointed by it.
hrmmmmn.
maybe harper's not so bad, after all. maybe i should give him another chance...
google+ really needs to have a way to disable tagging. i'd do it if i could, if the option existed...
ethical oil is a front group for the canadian oil industry, who came to power here by railing against our decision to legalize gay marriage. yes - canada legalized gay marriage roughly ten years ago, and it was the right choice, but it also cost the sitting government it's hold on power. if you give them your oil money, they will continue their anti-gay agenda. this is politicking of such a level of cynicism that it's hard to believe it's even possible.
it's like david duke doing an anti-racism infomercial.
the manufacturer isn't guilty of any sort of negligence here. it's understood that there is some risk. the guardians accept the risk when they make the vaccination choice. suing the vaccine company for this would be like suing the peanut butter manufacturer for setting off an unknown allergy. it's a freak accident. in legal terms, an "act of god". hey, nobody ever said god wasn't an asshole...
personally? i think the flu vaccine is a little overkill. they're useful for older people and very young people, but healthy people between five and 60 don't really need it - we can produce our own antibodies. i agree that the idea of vaccinating everybody yearly is being driven more by the economics underlying it than by public health concerns. more serious vaccinations? well, yeah, the risk is worth the benefits and we should all keep up....
deathtokoalas
this is beyond fucking creepy. turn the fucking camera off and enjoy the meal.
you guys are in a three-way relationship with your video camera.
i've been accused of being in love with my guitar, so i sort of get it. it's weird to be jealous of inanimate objects, but they get in the way. personally? i really do love my guitar more. it's taken me a long time to understand that.
the only thing that's really important to keep in mind about making choices is to be honest with yourself when you're making them. really honest.
honestly. he's sitting in a restaurant enjoying a meal with his girlfriend, and he pulls out a camera and motions for the world to eat with them. this is too ridiculous to be believable. it's the behaviour of a character in a jim carrey film.
there may be some kind of ocd or something setting in, granted, but in the end choosing between your partner and yourself is not always an obvious choice. sometimes, the right choice is yourself.
Jake
Or maybe 'Vlogging' is their job and how they make money, so they try to include as much of what they do as possible so it makes an interesting video for people to watch.
Nah that must be too much of a simple answer as to why they do it, huh? It's got to be an illness and he has to be choosing it over here (Even though they both film things). Yup that sounds right... Not.
deathtokoalas
it's pretty obvious from her body language that she's finding it invasive, and feeling like she's competing with the vlog for attention.
i mean, you could ask her, if she's willing to be that forthright in public, which she probably isn't - and then you'd know, rather than needing to read into it. but sometimes that kind of formality is kind of just that.
i pointed out the dinner section as something that's legitimately whacked. but watch when he takes a u-turn down the alley to talk to the camera. that's an "i thought we were walking" look.
if you take a step back from the "they vlog for a living" thing,
like, realize that work getting in the way is a pretty common point of
relationship failure, and it's usually something you have to accept
rather than something that can be "fixed".
Jake
But you're just guessing on all of this and you can't be sure as you're just seeing things that you think she 'means' with her body language. It's their job to film themselves, they choose to do it, she chooses to do it. If she isn't feeling it then she shouldn't keep doing it.. But when the cheques come in I bet she doesn't mind how 'invasive' it is.
deathtokoalas
well, sure, i'm guessing. that's kind of obvious. but what i'm getting across is that the tensions appear to be stemming from whether she wants to keep doing this or not. it's not such an easy choice to just walk off, either.
Jake
Well no it is a pretty easy choice. She was a nurse before this (I believe, not too sure) so she won't have huge trouble getting another job. But if she isn't happy then she needs to walk away and if not, put in place things where they won't film in certain places. Otherwise she needs to get over it and if the relationship problem is to do with the camera, then it's down to them to decide to take a break or stop to keep the relationship healthy.
deathtokoalas
that is indeed the process that appears to be playing itself out. but what i meant was that walking away from a partner of many years is not reducible to an economic decision the way you're suggesting that it is.
Jake
I wasn't talking about walking away from her partner. I was talking about stopping Vlogging if it's getting in the way. And she can stop him vlogging at dinner by telling him that isn't something she wants. She also does vlogs of her own when they're apart and with friends, so it can't be in the way that much either.
deathtokoalas
it sounds quite simple in the abstract, doesn't it? i do hope they work out what each of them want.
Jake
Could easily be put into place... But she's not asking for it as she doesn't want it or she wouldn't vlog when she's away from him. Simple.
deathtokoalas
i don't think your logic here is very sound. that's kind of like saying that if you really want family dinners then you won't eat lunch at work.
Jake
How is it like that? If she enjoys vlogging then she enjoys it. If she sometimes wants dinners without it then she needs to tell him and sort it out. Either way, it's her problem and lack of communication from HER that's causing it, not his fault.
deathtokoalas
i'm not really trying to assign fault. it's not something where somebody has done something "wrong" and should be "blamed" for it.
but, communicating these sorts of things isn't always easy. sometimes people don't react well. and sometimes that's predictable.
Jake
'honestly. he's sitting in a restaurant enjoying a meal with his girlfriend, and he pulls out a camera and motions for the world to eat with them. this is too ridiculous to be believable. it's the behaviour of a character in a jim carrey film' A quote from your earlier reply to somebody. So you are assigning blame, to him. Like I said though, that's her lack of being able to communicate, if she can't speak to her bf and tell him something they shouldn't be together really if they can't talk.
deathtokoalas
no, i'm not assigning any kind of blame. if that's who he is, it's up to her to accept it or move on. i think it would be invasive to try and change who he is for her benefit.
but, most women would find that exceedingly unattractive.
i'm not sure if it crossed anybody's mind that there may be religious or otherwise cultural reasons underlying her hesitancy to dance on camera.
the only blue screens i've ever seen have been due to buggy drivers or broken hardware. it's the actual truth of it. apple's more integrated approach is maybe better in terms of minimizing points of failure, whereas linux driver support remains largely hopeless. but, you have to consider a trade-off in price and customization. the key thing is this, though: if you get compatible hardware from respectable vendors, the bluescreens really don't happen. when they do, it's because the hardware manufacturers didn't create drivers that work properly in the system, and you can't really blame microsoft for it. you just have to do that research.
Schwarzer
XP of gaming, Linux for working.
deathtokoalas
it depends on your job, though. if you're working in science, that makes sense. if you're working in art, serious software and hardware support for linux is going to require a change in the economic system we live in. and, of course, windows remains the dominant operating system in networked work environments. i've stuck with windows because i don't have linux driver support for my audio hardware (which is my "job"). i could switch to a mac, but i'm not keen to pay 30-50% more for the privilege of losing control over the customization of the machine.
i acknowledge that linux is in some ways a superior system. but, in terms of day-to-day functionality, it's just not there - and will likely never be so long as we organize our technology sector in terms of corporations.
i've stuck with xp because i have a minimal winlite image connected to dozens of scripts. upgrading to seven would cost me several months of rebuilding the image and rewriting the scripts, and i'm not convinced a lot of it is even really possible. this is the same problem businesses are dealing with, but i don't have the resources of a business to deal with it. on top of that, i don't think i'd really gain anything besides higher ram usage. i mean, my final xp sp3 image is only about 100 mb. it's very fast, because i've completely ripped 85% of the os out. and, it's very safe because i've removed essentially all of the networking functionality - including most of the code libraries.
it's mostly stopped, now. i think the companies have reacted to the outcry, or moved to more sophisticated tracking methods (social media). but something that i'd see happen around 2010 was that i'd download software from a respected company (adobe, say) and then get error messages when the spyware kicked in. what was happening was that the spyware was going looking for dialer software in windows, and erroring out when it couldn't find the c libraries. that would tell me where the executable was and what i needed to remove - or if i needed to uninstall the entire program.
xp was created to exist in a safe, corporate networking environment behind a hardware firewall. it's very open and trusting, but it's by design because you're only supposed to be talking to other computers in close proximity that you have serious one-on-one trust with; security is supposed to be dealt with on the way in and out of the network. this is of course inherently meant for "work" use. it's not a home operating system, and trying to use it as one is never going to be safe - unless you set up behind a hardware firewall, recreating the same conditions.
what that means is that the best way to make xp safer is to take all that inherently trusting networking software right out of it.
kanekan
what people forget is that windows (at least started) is a software company and apple is a hardware company but people blame windows for a hardware problem anyway which is stupid but many also buy an apple computer and put windows on it
Schwarzer
That sounds really stupid. Apples and PCs are build from the same parts.
deathtokoalas
most people don't really have the kind of modular understanding of a computer as a collection of parts that defined the early days of the industry, they take it as a single thing - like a car or a phone. this idea that they're dealing with something complicated that needs to work together is sort of beyond them. when the os crashes, they blame the os.
apple computers were really something entirely different until relatively recently. i think they moved to the x86 architecture around 2005. up until that point, they were really very different computers.
regardless, apple still produces it's products as single entities, which means everything is tested over the same hardware, drivers are built for specific purposes, etc. so, this idea of complicated things working together is very much minimized.
microsoft just doesn't deal with this. it throws the operating system down and tells the hardware companies to figure it out on their own - with varying results. i think they introduced a driver testing process around vista, but it's still a step down in terms of rigorous testing.
when you keep that in mind, you would have to expect that apples are going to be more stable with the hardware they ship with. and, this is generally true.
the trade-off is a loss of flexibility. if i want to swap the hard drives out on my pc, i'll do it myself and not expect the stability to move up or down. but if i want to break the warranty in swapping a mac's drive out (if it isn't soldered in), i have no assurances that i'm not going to destabilize the system.
i do agree that i couldn't see any reason to pay 40% more for an apple logo and then put windows on it, given that apples are mostly made in the dell factory nowadays. i experimented with hacking os x for a while around 2007, though. in the end, the software flexibility i thought i could get out of it never really materialized and i just formatted it...
Blue Dragon
In the last 2 years since I use Linux as my main desktop system,I haven't met a device without Linux drivers and I have had 1 kernel panic.
deathtokoalas
you must not be doing anything interesting with it, then.
don't get me wrong: if you work in science, linux is the way to go. and if you just want to browse the internet and other normal "computer stuff", it's as good as the next operating system.
but if you're using virtually any kind of specialized hardware, you're more or less at the whim of the company that's making it. and, if they don't feel like it's a worthwhile investment, you're probably shit out of luck.
well, unless you can write them yourself.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
well, xp comes in 64-bit flavours....
...but, to be honest with you, i'm more concerned about running 16-bit software than running 64-bit software. and i'm not concerned about support or security for the reasons i outlined. it's a recording pc - it needs to launch a version of cubase from 2005, host vst plugins and connect to a few hardware consoles (neither of which have stable 64 bit drivers). now, i admit i've recently run into a few circumstances where i wish i could upgrade my ram past 3 gb. but it hasn't reached the breaking point and probably won't for at least a few more years.
i think the reality is that computing hit a kind of functional flatline around 2005 or so, where increasing specs don't really make any difference unless you're into really high end gaming or something.
i'm simply not going to gain anything of value by upgrading windows, increasing my processor speed or moving to 64 bit. i'm just going to lose an image i spent a lot of time with. what's going to finally break me is when i can't launch a sampler because it has minimum requirements of 8 gb of ram.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
that's what i'm saying - i will probably stick with xp until i feel i need more ram. and that's probably years into the future. even so, i'll probably end up dual booting into 32-bit xp due to the hardware. i mean, even if i end up upgrading the hardware one day i'm not going to discard the old devices...
i built this thing myself in 2007; i dropped quite a bit of cash into it, because i expected it to last at least ten years. it's a 64-bit chip and the board can take 8 gb, but, like i say, there's no 64-bit drivers and i like my image. people actually laughed at me. "you'll upgrade in two years.". but i haven't. and all i've lost in that period is one of the four hard drives.
like i say: it's going to be the ram, eventually. and it could be another ten years...
and...i'll still be running xp, even if i upgrade the music pc, because i've got it running on my old pc that just sends a youtube signal to my tv, which is from the 90s (those quantum fireballs don't die. there's a 20 gb hard drive in it. it still spins. it belongs in a museum.) and can't run anything newer than xp. if that drive goes one day, i have every intention to hit a pawn shop and find another one just so i can put xp back on it...
Thursday, November 6, 2014
deathtokoalas
you're telling me there's zero soy in your meat products?
if so, then why not? sounds like a smart way to reduce costs to me.
McDonald's
Hey. Farmers feed livestock grains like corn & soybeans, and over 90% of the U.S. corn and soybean crops are GMO.
deathtokoalas
yeah. and i'm not really opposed to gmo crops in principle. i understand that roundup is a less toxic approach than the other economically viable options, and i don't see any chemical reason why our bodies would react differently to meat that is raised with gmos vs meat that is not. the cow is not going to digest the corn differently, and we're not going to digest the cow differently. neither the cow's stomach chemistry nor our own is sophisticated enough to differentiate between one strand of dna or another. it's all broken down to it's building blocks the same way.
but, that's not really my question. there are a lot of economic, environmental and even health reasons why filling your burgers with 30-50% soy would be a step forwards. why don't you do this? if i were you, i sure would...
it's not like your customer base really cares.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
you really think the average mcdonalds consumer honestly cares if there's soy in the burgers?
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
but, are the people that post all this stuff actually mcdonalds customers? and, i mean, they're the same people that don't vaccinate their kids because they think it's a government plot to make us compliant. they're crazy people.
i'd think the average mcdonald's consumer would be more like "meh. this pink slime tastes pretty good. ", and isn't going to react much differently to news of soy in the burgers.
and, given all the benefits, i think that produces a strong case for switching.
so, i'm considering starting a petition to put soy in mcdonald's burgers. post your support here if you agree with me.
Marty Mac
No, because we live in America, and America loves MEAT. McD's has been marketing 100% beef for a long time and that has helped to make them numero uno on this planet. To do anything different, to satisfy a few vegetarians, would be tantamount to suicide.
deathtokoalas
again, i don't really think that's true. i think your average mcdonald's customer would eat a moldy sock if it came with special sauce.
Marty Mac
Why do you think that? That may be true of kids because of their Happy Meals and kids just like fun things, but adults? No, I don't eat much at McD's for their hamburgers, but a lot of people do. My wife loves their quarter pounder with cheese and my sister is a McNugget fiend! I know that most people in this country would abandon them in a minute if they weren't using 100% beef in their burgers because we want value for our money and soy is not a good value.
deathtokoalas
the whole argument is that soy is better value than hamburger on virtually any metric.
mcdonalds' success has been largely driven by it's prices and convenience, not the quality or even the nature of it's food. we tend to take the first thing that is available to us, rather than shop around for what we actually want. that is, few of us have any real attachment to this watered down concept of democratic freedom that we've attached to "market choice". we eat what we can, when we can. because we're animals that react on impulse, not gods that behave rationally.
the only way to find out is to try an experiment. but i think the results are obvious...
it's not really that i'm irresponsible.
i mean, i am. i can't really argue.
but
it's really more that i avoid responsibility, so i don't have to be
irresponsible - partly because i know i'm really not overly
irresponsible, when forced to not be.
i mean, have you
thought about all the conditioning that goes into this? if people
actually desired responsibility, we wouldn't need to drill it into kids
as they grow up. it's a type of socially enforced brainwashing, and it's
arguably necessary to uphold the status quo.
but, if
you don't like the status quo, it's collapse is not frightening to you
and these arguments about the breakdown of society sound more like a
goal than a disaster.
so, if you acknowledge that people don't really desire responsibilities, is it not rational to avoid them?
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
now, just wait until you have to take their cocaine away from them.
i'm trying to think how i'd react at that age. it definitely wouldn't be yelling and screaming. i'd probably simply expect it to be replaced. in fact, i'd probably see the positive in getting to pick out the candy i wanted as replacement...
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
it's a general point, and it applies equally as well to microsoft and google and facebook. but, it's also ignoring the effect of patents in the technology world, which have the ability to block off innovation and may be on the cusp of that breaking point. making a new soda is kind of just using basic high school chemistry. making new technology products at this point is a high finance project of intense r&d. i know that if you look into this you find out that most of the technology was public sector military stuff, but it's getting to the point now where only the oligopolies have the resources to innovate and compete. if they're not driven to, there's not going to be much innovation at all.
i've always felt that apple's products are vastly overrated. even the few things they get legitimate credit for are kind of stretching it. i mean, an ipod is just a walkman. and the iphone wasn't revolutionary in ideas or scope so much as it won the race to get there first. the stuff apple and google are pushing in the consumer market nowadays come off mostly as silly toys. they seem to realize that the real profits are in running those military contracts. that, is they're on the path to becoming the next generation of lockheed martins and raytheons....
Monday, November 3, 2014
so, the upstairs neighbour bought a new fridge, and he may have had the ice connected incorrectly.
it's a valid hypothesis, let's hope that's all there was to it. if so, i should be happy that it hit the counter rather than fall in behind it.
again, though, it's not confident-inducing regarding water damage in the structure.
after haggling him a bit to check under the sink, i'm pretty sure he found the connection that was leaking and stopped it. he was trying to convince me the window was leaking from the rain...
it hasn't rained in days. he's a little slow. but, hey, i'm used to living in a kafkaesque world, so i can deal with this...
"it could have been the rain from on friday"
"but it just showed up out of nowhere and then stopped."
"maybe it took a few days to seep down."
"ok, maybe. but can you look under the sink for me?"
we know the plumbing down here is aging; unfortunately, i think something may have blown deep into the wall.
i left around 11:00, was back around 12:30, left again around 1:00 and was back a little after 3:00. between 1:00 and 3:00 a significant amount of water appeared on the counter. there's none on the floor. the counters and cupboards are dry. the counter on the other side is dry. and the sink is dry. so it was initially very confusing as to where that water came from, to the point that i was worried about an unauthorized entry.
however, as i was cleaning it up, i felt a sprinkle come down on me from behind the cupboard. i need to be clear that this is very weird as a source - the cupboards and counters are completely dry, but something has sprung a leak behind them and is squirting out from a small hole in the wall.
here's the thing: with the flow rate i'm seeing, the amount of water that built up would have taken more like two days than two hours. that indicates to me that something likely burst and the sprinkle is just dead pressure. it also indicates that whatever's flowing through there is going to mess behind the wall when it gets turned on.
there was also a little bit of leaking coming out of the wall and the pipes. this seems to be migrating. in terms of the amount of water, is little more than condensation - not concerning. but in terms of the source it maybe is because it's right across the window.
so, i'm guessing that there's an exploded pipe behind the wall that can't be gotten at it without ripping things out. i can't provide any more information until i see more water. but i suspect it could be a messy situation fairly soon.
i've attached two files.
i know it's weird. i just need to reiterate that the inside of the cupboards are dry and under the sink is also dry. there just seems to have been a burst of water out of that crack...
(pause)
just to let you know...
it IS still dripping. it's not a lot, but it's coming down. i'm willing to accept the misinstalled fridge as a hypothesis, but if it's true than there's either still water in between the floors or it's still not set up right.
i'll keep monitoring.
(pause)
now, the paint or plaster is starting to peel and i'm getting concerned it might take the cupboard down or worse. wherever it's coming from, it's coming down beside the plaster and bubbling out of it.
so, we know:
1) something happened this afternoon which left a large amount of water on the counter.
2) it stopped.
3) something happened around 8:00 which led to it leaking again.
4) now it seems to have slowed down, if it not stopped.
i'm leaning towards an action-reaction relationship, which tells me it's plumbing related. it very well may be the fridge, but, whatever it is, i think the source needs to be determined and turned off... the landlord
I found the problem, under my sink the connection was lose, it has been snug up stop dripping, should be ok: stay in touch: Let me know if it stop dripping. It should dry up. Thanks for the info:
jessica
it seems to have stopped for now, hopefully it holds.
gah. the pipes in here are...ugh...
as far as i can tell, something busted when i was out. there was water all over the counter, but no obvious source - except that the space between the cupboard and the wall was wet. the cupboards are dry. it's dry under the sink. so it must be so deep into the wall that there's no answer besides turning it off. what i don't know is if i can turn it off or not.
i tested all the water sources in here and can state with certainty that, whatever the pipe is, it's not connected to my plumbing.
i emailed the landlord(s) and we'll have to see what i get back.
i suspect something upstairs froze and then burst when it unfroze. i wonder if it has to do with the switch to a furnace that happened over the summer, and if it's something i can expect more of this winter.
they've mentioned previously that most of the pipes are plastic, but there's obviously a bunch that aren't right above the counter. the end solution may be to swap them to plastic. but that's going to be expensive and annoying from what i can gather.
the other thing to point out is that moisture behind the walls is terrible news for keeping out bugs, which i feel i've been largely successful with.
it's going to be a piss off if that gives them the damp space they need.
(outside of obvious structural water damage issues, which i feel this place is pretty sketchy with - but i mean you get what you pay for when it comes to that)
there's no pipes anywhere near the gear, that's the most important thing.
this is a property that i'm more or less convinced *will* eventually cave in. the tub will go through the floor or something. it's a matter of time. i just hope i'm able to get what i need to get out of it before it does.
if somebody one day decides to sort out the cause, it's almost certainly going to be a combination of negligence with the pipes and negligence with the structural integrity of the flooring. i'm not thinking about this right now, i just want the pipe issue identified and turned off.
i mean, do i think this place would pass a safety? with much difficulty, and a laundry list of fixes. it's not imminently dangerous, but it's not being upkept, either.
but that's why it's dirt cheap, so i can deal with it...
this is the fourth or fifth time i've seen leakage this year. it always gets dealt with. this will get dealt with. but the sum of this - and all the damage that no doubt occurred before i moved in - adds up. like i say, it's a matter of time...
there's a half dozen places in the ceiling where you can identify the water damage. i initially decided it was probably just cosmetic. i don't think that's true anymore.
she's right, you know.
bart's ass has been remarkably lucky for a remarkable amount of time.
see, this is the problem.
female: i don't like this.
male: actually, you do like this.
female: no...really....i...
male: actually...!
every debate on the topic basically reduces to this. and it's basically pointless to bother further when it gets there.
but, i'll tell you what - maybe he has a point. maybe women gotta pop a few caps in some homies' asses to get 'em to shut the fuck up.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
you hit a specific point, and now i need to rant.
patriarchy exists in degrees, rather than in absolutes. most of the world doesn't sell their daughters off for business alliances anymore, but the general idea hasn't been abolished so much as it's evolved. i'm not really certain people are cognizant of this.
it's a liberal thing. daddy as family dictator is out the window; we're about self-ownership, now. but we never changed the game. we never even really changed the rules of the game. the fundamental relationship of women being sold to men is still dominant (it's changing, but it is), it's just that women are now expected to sell themselves.
what it does is open up a free market, where men are buyers and women are sellers. i believe it was engels that pointed out that all sexual activity in a market society is necessarily and unavoidably prostitution.
and, when you put it into that context i agree - gender egalitarianism is not entirely possible until women start buying in equal proportions. that's what gender equality means in a market society.
the conditions for that to occur are economic freedom and social acceptance. it's getting there. but that's the key part - evening out the market.
maybe, one day, we can abolish the market altogether. that's a different discussion.
listen, i know it sounds extreme for a 29 year-old to make this choice, but i can't help but think that those that are criticizing her decision have mostly not been around people suffering from brain cancer. i recently watched my father die from brain cancer, and i want to make a few things clear about the choices she has in front of her - because they may not be clear to people.
when you have a tumour in your breast or your leg there may be serious consequences in removing it that may affect your lifestyle. a mastectomy is a hard choice. but, it doesn't affect who you are as an individual - cognitively speaking.
the chemo and the radiation therapy are treatment options, but they don't actually remove the tumour. the only way to remove the tumour is surgically. what this means is that you're removing a part of your brain, and depending on where the tumour is, it could leave you in a very altered state. it puts treatment of brain cancer in a different category than treatments of other cancers.
my father's first operation did not seriously affect his individuality. the second seemed to affect his ability to reason, and the third legitimately left him mentally challenged. there was no other solution - it was the operation or certain death. in the end it didn't save him, but if it did he would have been left a fraction of his former self. he made the decision to fight until the end, but nobody would have begrudged him had he decided differently - except for maybe himself.
it's a very traumatic, difficult experience for everybody involved. i realize she's decided to live a little longer, and i hope she enjoys that time with her family. but i'd really plead with people not to think they can understand this choice or that they can second guess it in any meaningful way. if you're lucky, you'll never have to make a choice this hard in your life...
ghomeshi has acknowledged there was violence, the question is whether it was consensual.
the problem i have with decoutere as a witness is that she's a cop. if you accept this sort of framing hypothesis as at the least likely given the lengths the conservatives have gone to to take over the cbc, the fact that she's a cop eliminates any sort of objectivity that should otherwise be there.
there are multiple other accusers, and to my knowledge none of them are cops. but this situation of a cop standing up to take down a liberal cbc host on sexual assault charges is very fishy to me....
i mean, i don't claim to know with any certainty what's going on here or who's being honest and who isn't.
but the perception i'm getting is that there's much more to this situation than is apparent on the surface.
it would be useful if jian could clarify what he means by "consensual" because the stories that have come out take the same form - he tries it, they're in shock, it doesn't continue. see, that's not consent. but, dudes often have weird ideas about consent. that would eliminate the contradiction immediately - he would misunderstand consent and be liable for the consequences.
but, the stories also have other constants that are sort of weird. now, i know they're the kinds of things that are often held up as examples of rape culture. i don't remember because i was in shock. i didn't file charges because i was embarrassed. it's often legitimate. but these are also the kinds of things that our legal system has difficulty with.
the reality is that there's a political context here, and these ambiguities need to be clarified before any kind of conclusion can be reached.
all i'm pointing out is that the situation is fishy.
yeah. flying cars. that's exactly what the world needs to get off oil.
we're doomed.
i'm going to reject being called a liberal (i'd prefer variants of anarchist, communist or socialist), but i happened to see the clip and while i think sam harris badly mischaracterized his opponents, and maher kept quiet on that when he shouldn't have, i don't recall anything racist coming out of anybody.
i do recall that ben affleck had a lot of difficulty in following the discussion, though.
that's right - craycray fundamentalist muslims, with their communist insistence that women go to work. we here in america will stand up against this islamo-communism and prevent our women from reaching their potential! 'MERICA!
if you're tired of arguing with zionists...this is the truth of it.
and while it's beyond surreal and absurd, and exasperatingly sad, it just exposes the absurdity of racism.
i'll explain, because i know most people don't really have the historical background.
about 1500 years ago (not quite, but almost), the area of israel passed from primarily roman (although sometimes persian) control to arab muslim control. there are some destruction events in jewish history before that, but the stories that they led to a "scattering" of the jews have very little archaeological support. we know there was substantial jewish migration to a few areas (ukraine, spain, iran, a few others) but there's never been any evidence to support the idea that the jews literally got up and left the area, or were expelled in any kind of significant numbers.
what recent genetic testing has upheld is really the logical answer - that there never was a substantial migration in or out of israel during the "arabization" of the region, which was roughly 700-1000. what actually happened was merely that the jewish population of the region converted to islam - as the spaniards or the indians or the iranians did.
what that means is that the palestinian people, who have been persecuted so horribly as "invaders on jewish land", are in actual fact the literal - and only true - descendants of the actual hebrew people. they are, in fact, the "real jews".
the amount of arab admixture into this jewish population has been as minimal as it is anywhere else in the islamicized areas. we speak of modern iranians as iranians, not arabs. likewise, we should speak of modern palestinians as jews.
get your head around this. the incredible upheavals, the global conflicts, the incredible suffering....it's all based on a misperception.
Paul Dettmann
You people are fucking morons. His words were intentionally taken out of context in this clip so you braindead losers could use it as another right wing talking point.
Here's what he actually said at 17:10 in the full video: "We need better child care, day care, and and early childhood education policies.You know, in many states sending your child to day care costs more than sending them to a public university. True. And, too often, parents have no choice but to put their kids in cheaper daycare that maybe doesn't have the kinds of programming that makes a big difference in a child's development. And sometimes there may just not be any slots, or the best programs may be too far away. And sometimes, someone, usually mom, leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result. And that's not a choice we want Americans to make."
deathtokoalas
you're half right. the words are badly taken out of context, but this clip was a gift to the propaganda machine. he's gotta be more careful...
Divine Insurrection
Why is it all you people have is insults? Can you not see what these bastards are trying to do? Are you BLIND? Or do you actually dig the idea of living in a Communist/Islamic nation?
deathtokoalas
absolutely. look at the communism they have in saudi arabia, where women are forced to go to work against their will.
the american free market system is all about making sure people don't have to go to work if they don't want to.
chaostic84
you are obviously a left side faggot, jump off a cliff and help America. Stupid queer.
deathtokoalas
if that was directed at me, you're correct in your accusations - but wouldn't it be easier if you carried out a public stoning?
Katherine
If you read the whole transcript (available on whitehouse.gov), he's talking about parents who are FORCED to stay at home because they CAN'T AFFORD childcare. He's not upset that people CHOOSE to stay at home.
Duncan
The puppet masters want everyone in the to broke to have at least one parent stay home with the children camp. The agenda is a hybrid reservation/company town for the world
deathtokoalas
i think that's a paranoid exaggeration.
the reality is that there's a contradiction in liberal economic theory. on the one hand, we have this idea of self-ownership - and there's good arguments for this. one of the things that defines self-ownership in a liberal market society is the ability to generate your own income. there's a lot of freedom attached to this - relatively speaking, anyways. some women may give in to the existential dread and prefer to be taken care of, but the proper conclusion from market theory really ought to be that there should be a choice here between dependence and independence. and, yes, that's what obama meant to say, even if he gave his opponents a gift in the way he said it.
but, the flip side of this is that productive forces are constantly seeking to reduce the workforce, and have been succeeding pretty spectacularly over the last generation or so. this is set to increase. just a purely mathematical argument would demand that we'd need 55% (or whatever the percentage of women is) economic growth since 1960 in order to create enough jobs to accommodate for it. that's a hefty growth curve...
...and we're living through deindustrialization and mechanization. we've been pretty flat since roughly 1970, and likely set to decrease.
so, there's a contradiction, there.
one of the ways to resolve the contradiction is to try and convince women they don't want to work after all. this isn't likely to be successful on a large scale within a market system. there's just too much economic freedom attached to the idea of generating your income, and too much shit involved in tying your existence to somebody else's pay check. some women are lucky enough to find themselves in positive situations with this, but most women are smart enough to realize the possible consequences of getting stuck in that sort of situation. so, it's not going to happen.
but they keep pushing it because there isn't a way out besides making serious changes to the way we order the economy. mechanization isn't going to reverse itself. so, you're looking at things like job sharing. and when you play this out to it's conclusion, you're inevitably left with high levels of progressive taxation to administer it.
there's no other end point. and i don't think the democrats really get that either, i think they're mostly lost in delusions about unending growth curves.
you can't just double the labour market in a stagnant or even shrinking economy and expect it to keep going. but, self-ownership is fundamental to individual freedom in the market order. contradiction....
dswynne
First, family planning arrangements is none of the government's business. Secondly, the reason why women have to make a choice to begin with is due to excessive taxation of the poor and middle-class. Thirdly, there is a school of thought amongst feminists that hate the idea of stay-at-home moms because it a) lowers the earning power of women across the board, and, b) takes prominent "talent" out of corporate America, thus less feminine representation. Finally, by empowering the daycare system, you have a perfect storm to unionize daycare workers. Thus, what Pres. Obama said is disingenuous, even if this clip was "taken out of context", based upon the goals of this man (i.e. increasing the scope of government).
deathtokoalas
it's not a question of whether it's the state's business or not, so long as the state exists it will interfere, it's a question of what the state needs to do to protect it's own interests. there's a disagreement on this point, but the democrats and republicans are really equally delusional about it. the republicans argue that the state needs to foster a family-oriented type model in order to protect the wealth of the upper classes from being taxed to pay for the collapse of that system, whereas the democrats argue that the more workers you have the higher the tax base is. i'm several degrees to the left of the democrats, but i realize that the republicans actually make more sense on this point. they're at least acknowledging the basic arithmetic that comes from transferring wealth out of the nuclear family. the democrats are just projecting growth rates out of thin air and into lalaland.
the basic arithmetic is intuitive. consider two people: mary and mark. mary and mark are neither related nor are they lovers - they don't even know each other. if it were the past, mary would be expected to be taken care of by her husband. but, now mary wants to go to work and, because she's a better candidate than mark, takes mark's job away from him. now, mary had a husband to take care of her when she wasn't working. who takes care of mark when he's not working? the answer is that the government has to do this.
so, the basic arithmetic is a shift in responsibility from the family patriarch to the state.
now, here's the thing: maybe you can let mark starve to death. who cares, right? but, you can't let ten million marks starve to death. rather, ten million marks are going to raise an army and tear the state down. so, the state has no choice but to provide them with something or other. just enough to stop them from revolting.
we know what republicans want: to minimize the tax burden for the upper class. so, this is a problem for them. this is the reason they promote the policies they promote.
now, the democrats take this other crazy position that argues that mary and mark don't need to be competing for jobs. the market will adjust. it will create new jobs, so both mary and mark can be working. as a million maries enter the work force, a million new jobs are created. it's magic. then, there's a million new workers to tax.
there's a lot of smoke and mirrors around this, but these are the basic economic positions that drive the way the parties approach this.
i'm not going to respond to your other points, as they're too dumb to bother with and i think you know it.
what's missing in the spectrum is a realistic analysis of how to deal with the contradictory movements of increasing female economic freedom and degrowth caused be deindustrialization and mechanization. i think we can have both of these things, but only if we re-evaluate our calvinist concepts of labour.
dswynne
I think you are misconstruing my argument. I am very much in support of women making the choice on whether or not they want to stay at home. I am saying that Obama is not being sincere in his speech. He doesn't care about whether or not women chose to stay home; he cares more about increasing government spending, while expanding the role of government (vis-a-vis daycare). I also refuted Obama's argument that women who stay home to raise kids make less money. I countered this by stating that tax policies (i.e. disposable income) is the reason why stay-at-home mothers is the reason why families generate less income. The rest of my arguments were stemmed from what I know of the Democratic agenda, especially where the state of feminism is. That part could be debated, but the rest of what I wrote is not.
And I would ask you to not respond to any of my posts that are not directed towards you, especially since you've decided to take them out of context, as a way of making a snarky retort.
deathtokoalas
both wings of the capitalist party seek to reduce spending as much as possible. historically, the democrats have been considerably more fiscally conservative. obama himself has a record of radical fiscal conservatism. further, as a statist institution, both wings of the capitalist party seek to increase the role of the state in society. it's a preposterous premise.
i think it's the third time now that i've stated that the democratic wing of the capitalist party seeks to maximize labour participation because they (incorrectly) believe that this is the way to get the highest tax return. they honestly think they'll make money off of this. conversely, the republican wing of the capitalist party seeks to minimize labour participation because they believe this is the best way to minimize the need for progressive taxation (which they understand as necessary to prevent revolution).
i don't believe that you don't understand that women seek employment to reduce dependency on men, and there's consequently little reason to discuss the topic further. it neither has anything to do with taxation, nor does it have to do with combined income, it has to do with the innate desire that individuals have to exist independently from coercive relationships. what obama was stating was that you damage your career when you have to take ten-twenty years off to raise your kids and it's not fair to make women choose between a career in law and the well-being of their own kids. it was not a statement that had anything to do with the combined income of families, it was a statement that had to do with the individual freedom of women.
if you don't like my responses, you can go ahead and remove yourself from the thread.
ugh. so, i've been over this before....
the reason the drag community focuses on these absurd displays of sexuality is because they're expressing a dominant form of masculinity through a female costume. it's little more than a gay male fetish.
the archetype is madonna, but it's really diversified over the last few decades. if you're focusing your concept of "femininity" on madonna's ultra-masculine dominatrix shtick through however many levels of abstraction, you're not expressing a condition of gender dysphoria, you're merely playing out your male dominance through a kinky costume.
how many drag queens do you see do alice in wonderland or snow white? you don't. because it's not about gender.
so, if you're interpreting the transgender condition through this filter and then you look at me and say "she's not like that....", then of course you're going to get confused - because you're misinterpreting a dominant gay male fetish for a gender condition that encapsulates the exact opposite of that.
i have about as much in common with the average gay male as i do with the average christian fundamentalist. but i'm pretty sure i'd rather hang out with the latter, because i'm confident he isn't going to take his pants off in front of me. well, actually, on second thought, i shouldn't be so sure about that....
the point i'm getting at is that the idea of compressing mtf spaces into gay male spaces is just negating the concept of transsexuality. it's an oppressive implication - it denies that i don't identify as male, don't share experiences with men, etc. and i very well may snap on the next doctor that suggests it.
i want to hang out with a bunch of gay men about as much as any other woman wants to go to any other sausage party. i'm going to sit in the corner by myself, have no idea what they're talking about (probably video games) and hope somebody i can relate to comes in to save me from them. i know this because i've been through it. i'm old. i've lived a life.
like. fuck. if it was that easy, would i have made it so difficult? ugh.
i'm going to send a duplicate over facebook, as i hope to get a referral out by monday if i need to do it that way. however, i suspect it may be easier to simply book an appointment.
the purpose of contacting you is to get my hormone prescription renewed. i've already been through all of the mtf transgender diagnosis - and a very long time ago at that. i've been on hormones absolutely steadily since 2010.
i was previously dealing with a doctor in ottawa. about a year ago, i moved to windsor. last month, i had my prescription renewal denied due to the doctor no longer practicing. i've had *general* difficulties with the doctors in windsor - they won't take my odsp seriously, and they won't write me hormone prescriptions. i'm really at a loss of understanding.
i couldn't even contemplate how i'd react if i were to stop taking them. i've been on them five years! my entire life exists in a female identity. i simply don't understand why the doctor in windsor is refusing to prescribe, but it's forcing me to look outside the city.
i was able to get an emergency prescription to the end of december from the hospital ER room. that's an extreme step, but i had nowhere else to go to get the extension. what that means is i'm hoping to see somebody before the new year.
i'll have to take the bus down, which shouldn't be a problem so long as i have enough time to plan. again: my records are with the doctor in ottawa. would you be willing to see me?
the main heat is about to finally kick in - meaning it's about to hit 21 in here. meaning it's been above 21 in here without the heat on all fall so far. it's 21.3, so it'll fall within the next few hours. it's a little earlier than last year, but the temperature hasn't been very high. considering this is a basement, and it's been cold for weeks, that's actually sort of remarkable. had we not got these intense drops.....
the small heater in the bathroom has been on since the first week of october.
libby.
libby. libby....
so, if you argue that we should not restrict the flow of people from africa because it would damage the economy, does that mean you think we should not restrict the flow of capital across borders because it would damage growth? well, you're citing the who. are you going to cite the world bank and the imf, too?
it's the same neo-liberal argument, applied to a different context. if the aim is the well-being of the local population, it's equally wrong across both contexts.
now, did the government actually do anything? no. are they playing politics in their reaction? sure. is the american right being laughably hypocritical in capitalizing on public fears? sure. so, is it a meaningless political response directed at harper's base? absolutely.
but it's a really bad argument, libby. it's a scary argument. and, it aligns snugly into the existing perspective on the left that we've lost the ndp, to the extent that we ever had it in the first place.
if you're serious about this, you realize the who is pushing market fundamentalism in it's position. this ought not be an issue where travelers from africa are given the opportunity to make the choice to be dishonest. the quarantine should be total. it's the kind of situation that the clauses in the constitution were inserted for - with an extreme public health crisis, the public safety dominates over individual rights. and if that means that sick people choose to stay in africa instead of come to canada - well, yeah, that's the point. sorry, africa, but you're contagious right now.
when a so-called socialist party can criticize a ruling conservative party for abandoning the principles of neo-liberalism without anybody batting an eye about it, you know you're living in a one party state.
i have to admit that i kind of don't get it. gaming is such a dude thing. i don't see it as comparable to women picking up guitars or going to work or any of these sorts of things. it's more like women showing up outside the boys club and demanding to be let in.
i don't really claim to have a grasp of what's going on. i don't know who any of these people are or any of the forums or anything beyond the broad idea of misogyny in gaming. i just don't understand why women want into this world that doesn't offer them anything except wasted hours and doesn't seem to want them in it.
maybe it's a guy thing. i'm certainly revolted by the androcentric nature of the gaming industry, so i don't play the games. why can't there be guy things? why can't you just let the boys play their stupid games and leave it at that....?
i understand a lot of youngish women were raised with the idea that gaming is gender neutral. but, maybe that perception - wherever it came from - is wrong and, maybe, instead of trying to force yourself into something that doesn't want you in it, you should just get the message and voluntarily walk away from it...
there's no end goal of social advancement or hierarchical positioning inherent within taking part in the gaming industry. there's no victory for equality, here. i don't see any feminist gains to be made from fighting for the "right" to engage in mind-numbing stupidity as equals...
conversely, i think this kind of ultra-authoritarianism and interference in the sovereign lives of others is likely to harm general perceptions of feminism. there's really nothing worthwhile and nothing positive that can come out of fighting this battle.
it's fairly well understood at this point that a desire to be a police officer implies a certain level of mental illness. the idea of a "good cop" is a contradiction in terms - these are people that want to walk around with guns and tell people what to do, and there can never be anything "good" about that kind of a tendency.
i've seen the argument made that politicians should not be allowed to announce their own candidacies, for similar reasons. the argument is that nobody that chooses to run could be anything better than corrupt, so the only way to get a clean system is for the masses to nominate people - and possibly against their will.
i think a similar mindset needs to be adopted with teachers. i've spent a good deal of my life preparing to become one, but in the end decided it would be a horrible job. i'd be the kind of teacher that would make no effort to reach out to struggling students and would happily fail 75% of the class if it didn't hold up to my expectations. then, they'd pull this circular argument on me that i'm not meeting expectations. so, i wouldn't last very long. the core of my disinterest would be a complete inability to discipline the children of strangers. that's a totally foreign - and somewhat frightening - concept to me.
what kind of mental illness does it require to want to stand in the front of a room and enforce this neurotic, hierarchical structure down on kids? so, how can we speak of "good teachers", in the context of the mentality that the profession requires?
