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Comment Re:correlation, causation (Score -1, Flamebait) 387

So you're saying "not ALL feminists are overtly angry." Nice argument. It also begs the question of when/where feminists find it appropriate to side with the more radical elements and when to abandon them. In actuality, there is no feminism without the blaming of men for their problems. What else IS feminism after all? Society has ALWAYS had laws protecting women specifically and particularly and at no time in history have men rendered choices and decisions which support men -- men are not famous for supporting men at all. Women, on the other hand, are, and it gets worse with feminism whether "mild" in practice or extreme. And to have seen the kinds of hate and even violence against "men's groups" because it is felt that men neither need nor deserve support or protection? I'm sorry, but you've got some history and facts to accumulate to displace your beliefs.

And seriously, even if these examples you know would NEVER do the kinds of things the more "famous" feminists are known for, it's time to change the name which describes their alignment. If they continue to use a term as poisoned as "feminist" then you might look to question their actual motive and intent.

Comment Re:correlation, causation (Score 2, Interesting) 387

Nice "wisdom" there. But why did you stop thinking there? There IS definitely a link between excessive testosterone and the lowering of sustained logic, reason and mental stability and order. (Just as there is similar evidence liking excessive estrogen with similar behaviors among women) What happens to people, both men and women when they are on steroids? That's been well established in the medical sciences for decades.

So to say correlation/causation is a problem here conveniently missed the established facts and among these the effect of higher testosterone on mental capacity.

I think the recognition of corre-cause fundamental principle is an important aspect of reasoning. But it is not the whole of debunking anything. (And yes, nothing you say disagrees with that statement.) But to simply state "correlation != causation" and walk away as if you've debunked something is pretty commonly expressed in these parts and I find it disturbing.

We're bio-chemical machines. The efficacy of the machines has everything to do with what's in them, what the balances are and especially what we put into them. But even if that balance is essentially natural or origin and basis, the outcome is still an effect of the factors at play. That is to say, groups of people with higher levels than others show predictable results categorically speaking. (But that's "racist" and we're not allowed to talk about that either)

If anything, this "finding" is just another grain of evidence supporting the obvious where human evolution are concerned. As we continue to value intellectual ability over physical ability, those who have better intellectual ability will do better than those that do not. And for societies to evolve in a direction which favors mind power over physical power literally requires and causes a reduction in that which inhibits it the most. Think in terms of rust causing heat which causes more rust and it's not so much corre-cause as it is factors feeding into one another.

No, I don't favor the "men are obsolete" argument as it's ridiculous on its face. Feminism, like so many other hate-focused idealisms, requires an enemy. And the biggest problem with feminism's enemy is that they are the ones who create and maintain pretty much everything. That's why all of the push for "more women in these fields." The push is because as men continue to become disenfranchised, they know there is a need to replace them. The problem is they don't have anyone who WANTS to replace them because cetegorically speaking, women are interested in what women are interested in while men are interested in what interests men. And there's a certain amount of "nature" driving this fact. Deviations are fine and welcome, but attempting to force idealism over nature has NEVER worked in all of history for any sustainable amount of time and has never resulted in happiness, peace or harmony. So let's not take the observation and the apparent conclusions into political space.

Men cannot be obsolete if only because we are half of that biological basis of sustainable reproduction, development and adaptation. We need to be able to breed and cross-breed as a means of continuation. And that requires men and women... until they can effectively create artificial sperm... which yes, I know they're working on even now.

Comment Re:What? (Score 3, Insightful) 200

What the ISPs are ACTUALLY afraid of is popular businesses like NetFlix doing what many other content providers have done when presented with higher costs of market participation have done. They simply stop providing content and let their consumers influence the carriers. It's the content providers who provide value to the carriers, not the other way around. And that fact becomes exceedingly clear when content providers push back by pulling out and fans/consumers get upset.

Can you imagine what would happen to even the most powerful ISP if NetFlix refused to send packets to endpoints controlled by such an ISP? Where do you think the consumer outrage would be focused? On NetFlix or the carrier? History suggests the outrage goes to the carrier who threatens and charges the content providers for the priviledge of connecting with consumers.

Comment Re:Good point (Score 1) 418

Adblock doesn't block youtube videos. They are the ONE advertising seller that "gets it." All other ad sellers do not trust the content providers to host or to count the hits on the ads. So Adblock is effective. But then again, Youtube is an ad seller AND a content provider, so the trust is within itself. Heaven help us when content providers are trusted by ad sellers.

Comment Re:You dorks (Score 5, Insightful) 418

Ads and marketing in general have evolved from simple, respectful "hey, try this! It's good" into manipulative nonsense. Few people can see through it and the result has been devastating to them. It has shaped and certainly harmed the culture of the US and even results in violence in some extreme cases where people want things so badly they hurt and kill each other to get it. Though most will disagree exactly when things have gone "too far" few will disagree that they have.

Comment Re:Free market economy (Score 1) 529

This is very true as people shop at Walmart, not because of the amazing people that visit there, but because they can get a lot of stuff cheaper. I won't complain about that.

What I will complain about is the outrage expressed by Microsoft sucking at the teat of government because they want to bring said cheap labor into this country while telling lies to the people and that same government. This is NOT a free market while these kinds of things are going on.

But if this senator is really upset, I wonder how much attention he will pay to various appropriations when it comes to alternatives to Microsoft?

This is all just a lot of saying what people want to hear and then doing nothing about it.

Comment Re:If anyone actually cared... (Score 1) 710

Sorry, I forgot the sarcasm tags in my comments.

Actually, I believe we need to scale back on consumerism and get back to some old ideas about life like not using more than you need. Living in excess, showing off, "bling" and "Hummers" (that aren't even real Humvees) and useless crap like that has to go. It's possible to be comfortable and efficient. To me, that's "real performance."

Comment Re:One catch: the starting point (Score 0) 710

That's a fair observation. I don't care about the climate -- it's a lie anyway. What I care about is saving money. Just about all of my bulbs produce less heat now. I do a lot of things like that now and have been for a long time. I don't do it for anyone but myself though. I bought an efficient car so I don't have to spend as much on gasoline. I did it for the money. If some pollster asked me if I care about the environment and what I am doing to help it, I would be disqualified immediately because I would say "No, I don't care about the environment, I care about my money." No one wants to hear that though. What they want is more people to join the armies of brainless "we care" socialists to support more initiatives that harm their own interests. I just love how many black people are still supporting Obama despite the fact that they are worse off under his policies and executive orders and especially now with the flood of UACs he has orchestrated. Morons.

It amazes me what actually works on people. The media says "good people do this. are you a good person?" And they fall for it each and every time. "good people don't own guns. do you own guns?" And no one is a peace-loving, person of the cloth any more... now they are characterized as "bible-thumping haters." How are people not dizzy from all of that spin? No, only Islam is a religion of peace any longer... that one founded by a warlord?

And people don't even have to understand the little details. All they have to see is what's not working and that's pretty plain for all to see.

Comment How obvious does the news have to be? (Score 3, Insightful) 710

People who advocate giving money to "the poor" and "disadvantaged" do not give their own to the poor and disadvantged -- they just get other people to do it. Just like the people who are pushing the UACs all over the US. Are they inviting these children into THEIR gated communities? No. "It's the right thing [for other people] to do."

When will people just open their eyes? Radical socialist nations got that way under the leadership of and influence of famously rich and exploitative people who united people under the promise of equality and utopia and are somehow suprised when their government takes away their freedom and points guns at them all the time. How many nations ended up like this? And we want that here too? Really?

You know what makes people save energy? High energy bills. We don't have "high" energy bills in areas where the government supplements [corporate welfare] energy companies. All these "capitalists" are amazingly non-capitalist.

Look on either side. Nobody does or means what they say.

And I still can't believe that people still don't know what was really behind the Hobby Lobby issue. Maybe you heard it from me first, but it has been out there for quite some time. But it turns out that such exemptions already existed but previously just for non-profits. And in those cases, under Obamacare, those birth control benefits (keeping in mind that birth control means abortive measures, not prevention measures) are STILL covered but are required to be paid for by INSURANCE COMPANIES. This battle was never about whether or not for-profit conpanies can have moral objections to anything. It is about insurance companies not wanting to keep their end of the bargain they wrote for themselves. They are making windfall profits on this and they don't want to give any of it back.

Okay going a bit off-topic but I don't care. Things are getting increasingly stupid and the media is pushing out increasingly obvious and blatant lies. I just wonder at what point the common drones out there will begin to notice.

Comment There are better than Apple's (Score 2) 129

Why do they mention that and fail to mention devices which present even higher density displays? My Nexus 5 has 445ppi display density.

I find it annoying that despite the existence of common devices which are "better" that the "best" is still considered to be Apple's. Nothing like product endorsement which wasn't [likely] even paid for. At the very least, they should have included the trademark sign to indicate they were making a commercial reference in their endorsement. (They did, at least capitalize "retina" in retina display... that's not quite the same thing and kind of makes it worse.)

Comment Started messing with is last night (Score 1) 125

I am very interested in graduating beyond CentOS 6.x. The GNOME2 thing annoys me where compatibility with GIMP is concerned. A few other issues in its lacking up-to-date-edness as well. And I know that's the point of RHEL/CentOS so I have remained somewhat comfortable with it. But Damn that GNOME/GTK/GIMP issue. One or more of those people should work this out because the problem, while presently not applicable under CentOS7, it has the potential to return as their practices and philosophy haven't changed and that's what caused the problems in the first place.

I am reminded as to why I wanted to avoid GNOME3 in the first place. Way too much mouse movement involved there. (Touchpad users especially annoyed) and the GNOME Shell plugins thing? I haven't gotten into that, but early on, the way things worked plugins didn't work well with one another. Cobbling an ideal system for me required a lot of hackery. Plus, it required a lot more manual intervention. I see there is a plugin panel type thing so maybe they have worked that out now.... I hope.

Still, I want MATE. I added EPEL this morning, and got MATE installed. I will also want Compiz going but ran out of time this morning. The "Software" app (I liked Yumex... I want it back... another thing I want) but whatever is missing in the repo data, I see "Mate Desktop" as a category, but there is nothing in it. Going to the repo view, I can select packages. The app resolves dependencies but doesn't warn/advise me as to what it includes when resolving.

That's what I've got for now... I'm liking it basically.

Comment Re:This and more (Score 0) 88

Do you think gun injuries are massive? By that definition, people being struck by lightning and winning lotteries are absolutely out of control and in epidemic rates.

Lumping car related injuries and fatalities in with guns is a wonderful way to create your hyperbole argument, but I would invite you to visit a shooting range some time. I think so far, without fail, once people actually use guns, they get a better impression of them and simply gain a better perspective on things.

We live in a dangerous world. No doubt about it. And we cannot make it un-dangerous no matter how we try. If we rid ourselves of all technology and live as animals live, we would STILL have dangers. It's time we stop denying that technology serves us, but in much the same way that "time-saving kitchen gadgets" don't really save [much] time, other tech has its costs as well.

And seriously, the right to enjoy the fun of shooting as well as the fighting chance to defend one's self? It's written into law. Why do we have to keep having the discussion? My advice to you and all gun-fearing people out there? Get a gun. You're a good person. Learn to use it well and wisely. Your fears will decline and we'll all be safer for it.

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