They're REALLY hungry this year... the posturing is more blustering than usual...

Would Clinton send them some bags of UN Rice so that fat fucker will shut the hell up?

That wasn't a choice when I bought it. Why should it be a choice later on after I've sunk money into the damn thing? As for newer models not having the feature, that's fine... no one is forcing them to include it, but since I bought it with that feature, they took a big fat dump on my PS3 to make it continue being a PS3. It doesn't matter if YOU thought it wasn't really special. You don't get to dismiss a valid point because you think the choice is obvious (you chose PSN, I am guessing.)

I didn't want to make that choice. But I am making this choice. No PS4. They can shove it up their tailpipe. I won't buy one.

Crap... that's one more than I have ascended. :) I have come close (? relatively speaking) once... but that's about it. I'm also a masochist who plays nethack on his google phone too... :)

Indeed. I still play Nethack. One day I'll win... one day....

And I play the terminal version (not the slash'em or other improved versions.) :) I just like the game a bunch... and forget Demon Souls and Dark Souls... you want crushing difficulty, play Nethack. ...and get off my lawn! :)

She could've handled it without the "shaming twitter pics and righteous faux-anger" schtick. If it was offensive, the policy for most companies (and the conference itself) is for you to confront the person who offended you unless you feel that retaliation would be detrimental (like you tell your supervisor that was inappropriate) then you go to their boss, or to HR if it's a high enough official. She could've told the PyCon people about it and let them confront the men, or kick them out.. it's their conference after all.

You don't get on Twitter, after taking a clandestine photo of the "offenders" and then proceed to smear them without giving them opportunity to rectify the situation, explain their position, or to know that they were offending someone. Remember, this was overheard, not directed at her. She could've misinterpreted the conversation she wasn't a part of.

Life's hard, buy a helmet. Humans of all stripes are walking on eggshells... those who don't are jerks anyway. The rest of us have no recourse to defend our speech or actions because half the time the offender gets an anonymous tip that "you said something offensive" (since they won't say what for fear of retaliation), you're left with some head-scratching. Sometimes it's obvious... but sometimes it is NOT.

Courtesy is contagious... but in this climate, we have too many people being busybodies. The world isn't Mr. Rogers Neighborhood....

If they're not talking to you and you can avoid listening to their conversation... yes. If I am in a whispering conversation in a public place and you come up to listen what I'm saying, if you find out there's something you might not like in that conversation... too fucking bad. I wasn't talking to you.

Saying it when everyone can hear, and no one can reasonably avoid eavesdropping... that's another matter. And I'm not talking about in a place where such things are already prohibited. There is some discussion as to what the method for dealing with this at PyCon was... and it wasn't how Richards did it. And I suspect that the first offense (these guys were never given the opportunity to change their behavior, or informed that it offended someone), they wouldn't have been kicked out of future conferences and fired (well one of them, after all.)

It just is this hypersensitive crap... As I've said elsewhere in the thread... (to you, actually)... it's an epidemic of hypersensitivity.

Devil's advocate:

She made an off-color joke in public (twitter isn't private) about body parts, which is the very thing she got these guys on, but two guys whispering to each other in the audience (or talking, who knows?) made a dongle joke that may or may not have been inappropriate, considering they were talking about forking a project too (you can see where these assumptions go) is different? Why, because of the conference? They weren't making a presentation or officially commenting in a Q&A at the conference. And i imagine the joke in question, brought up by one person, would've gotten them a stern talking to by the organizers if Richards had gone to them instead of the "vigilante" crap she pulled.

/ Devil's Advocate

What I see is a double-standard. I know what's appropriate in a workplace. It's policy. Sorry, smells like a publicity stunt on her part. I doubt she was offended at all, just opportunistic. And even if she was offended (judging by her comments on twitter, she's more salty than the two she helped railroad), that was a cunt move taking a pic of them, THEN sending the "oh, they made body part jokes at PyCon" allegations. Yes, I said cunt. Kick me off Slashdot... I am not impressed with Political Correctness.

People are too fucking sensitive. I think it's just the byproduct of being in a society where everyone claims victimhood over anything that makes them upset. Fuck it.

Very true. In the immortal words of Bob Zany (google him, he's funny!)

"If I've offended anyone tonight.... HOW 'BOUT THAT!?!?"

That's not the point. The Big Gulp was exempted from the ban, btw. I don't need the state telling me how much I can drink. I don't need the state telling me that a gun with a collapsible stock is somehow more 'evil' than one without. The government needs its nose out of my bedroom and my house. That's what the Bill of Rights was supposed to enumerate. They were not for us, because we already have those rights... they are for the government to know where not to tread. They're not rights up for "negotiation", or "manipulation" because of someone's distorted idea of what's good for us.

C.S. Lewis said it best:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

That sums up that asshole in New York, that cunt from California, and the morons in the White House.

These same folks who are up in arms about the Nanny State when it comes to large drinks and smoking have no concept of individual liberty, because they're perfectly at home banning a Constitutionally enumerated right 'for the children'. That includes speech and the right to bear arms. The irony is lost on them...

We live in a world where the people in power have two opposing ideas in their heads that they can magically agree are not at odds with each other.... (Witness cunt Feinstein's argument that the Assault Weapons Ban isn't a "ban"... it's a list of "approved" weapons.)

WTF planet did I land on?

At first, I thought I'd go for the blue switches, because most people seemed to gravitate towards them for their springy-ness. But I tried a black switch keyboard from Filco, and I decided black switches were for me.

They aren't hard to get used to, but the first few days, I was smacking the keys like I used to on my cheap-o pack-in keyboard. But after a few days of use, I find myself enjoying the black switches quite a bit. *YMMV* of course.

I did almost buy an RK-9000 blue switch, and maybe I will again for a spare. But for my daily keyboarding, I can't top my Filco.

Funny that... since it's a Superman story... he can't publish it himself.

And no one has the right to tell Card he CAN'T publish his work. (If it changed the Superman-ness).... and I hope he edits out the copyrighted Superman stuff and self-publishes. I'll buy it just to spite the easily offended nitwits who think anyone who doesn't agree with them is a hatemonger. (BTW, in case you missed it... I don't agree with Card. I agree with government being TOTALLY out of the marriage racket.)

They can... but they can't tell ME I can't read or watch it. They can do like we always say on ./ ("turn the channel")... if they want to voice their opinion on the matter by complaining, fine. If they want to boycott it themselves, fine. But pressuring the company to avoid running it (or showing it on TV...) gets into MY rights to decide for myself.

Censorship does exist outside of the government's will... when someone tells ME I can't watch or read something.

Which is why our system has built-in checks and balances to protect us from the "tyranny of the mob" (I forget which Federalist mentioned that)....

But by the same token, why are the people who are against what Card says so willing to censor his work? Isn't that a bit of irony? Why would someone who thinks that everyone deserves the right to get married also think it's perfectly okay to suppress someone else's opinion that doesn't jive with theirs?

I find it mind-boggling that his story was not put into print based on other things he said. Even if the story was rampantly anti-gay, it wouldn't matter (just don't buy the issue, or as the progressives say... "turn the channel"). What matters is if it's any good. We have some of the most vile works about the basest of human evil in both print and other media, but that doesn't mean it's an endorsement of those things.

Publishing Card's story is not an admission that he's right on Gay Marriage. (I for one think the government needs to be OUT of the marriage racket.)

Dude... put the bong down...