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Comment: Media hype (Score 1) 949

by Major Byte (#36368754) Attached to: Is There a New Geek Anti-Intellectualism?
The claim of "a lot of Internet geeks and digerati have sounded many puzzlingly anti-intellectual" does not pass the litmus test. A great deal of learning (self and/or formal education) is needed, and not just intellectual skills but also diligent effort.

On the other hand, those that claim to be a computer expert because they can run a mail merge from Word, or copy an Excel macro from a website, or talk l33t, these people might abase intellectual effort because they make none. Posers, in a word.

This would not be the first time a few flashy shallow loudmouths are embraced by the news media as a trend. After all, no news sells no newspapers (or web site adverts).

Comment: Re:Terrorists? Probably not. Nor unions! (Score 1) 461

by Major Byte (#27680663) Attached to: A Cyber-Attack On an American City

Lets not all go blaming terrorist organizations on this one. ... My money is on unionized workers facing layoffs or payroll cuts.

What about a company that specializes in hardening network infrastructure? They have concerns about payroll cuts AND increasing share holder value!

I won't suggest government agencies interested in expanding the "theater of security" because I don't have my tinfoil hat on.

Comment: Creationism is blasphemy (Score 1) 1306

by Major Byte (#27322051) Attached to: Texas Vote May Challenge Teaching of Evolution
How can supposedly religious people claim to understand how God created them?

Irreducible complexity is an argument made by proponents of intelligent design that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved from simpler, or "less complete" predecessors

So God wouldn't make things complex? Doesn't that imply that creationists believe that God cannot be more intelligent than themselves?

Comment: Re:Sure it would. (Score 2, Informative) 518

by Major Byte (#27307331) Attached to: German Police Union Chief Wants Violent Game Ban After Shooting
Football, chess, and you left out boxing, hockey, and soccer, BAH!

These are mere analogues for killing. I was on the fencing team during my undergraduate years, and fencing is uniquely the ONLY sport in which one pretends to actually KILL OPPONENTS.

If people try to illegalize fencing, must I skewer them? Would I?

Football: a violent contact sport, frequently resulting in personal injury. Chess: A game in which you are encouraged to send blindly loyal soldiers of varying specialties to their untimely deaths all in the name of protecting a single political figure. Horse races: Involves brutally pitting horses against one another, some choose to include whipping. The horses get nothing but a fresh feed bag, while the trainers get millions in prize money, and book keepers rake in billions from the gambling. I'm sure there's something bad about golf, but all I could think of is "known to cause heart attacks in managers who should be behind their desks", but that's no loss for the world.

Anything can be portrayed in a bad light by phrasing it correctly.

In the long run we are all dead. -- John Maynard Keynes