Journal Captain Splendid's Journal: Unemployment 51
After almost 7 long, painful years, my quest seems to be finally at an end.
In another couple weeks, I will finally be unemployed.
Sadly, that state of affiars won't last long, nor to my liking. I was hoping to find a nice boring regular job type job, or perhaps even consider staying home and be a domestic goddess, but it seems I've become far too valuable for that.
Which is a shame. I always took a certain amount of pride and happiness in being a regular working schlub, and well, I miss not having that, nor the future possibilty of it happening again.
Wait, what?!? (Score:1)
Wait, what?!? You're female? On slashdot?!? Pictures, or it didn't happen.
Just kidding, I couldn't care less (not really true, everyone here wanks over geek girls, we just don't admit it...) Anyway, I have been employed for pretty much every single day ever since I got my computer science degree in 1998. I too, would love to be unemployed for a year or so. I mean, we get 80% of our last pay for a year when we lose our job. I just try t
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Just because someone wants to be a "goddess" doesn't mean they're female.
Haven't you ever played World of Warcraft? Most of the sexy blood elves in thongs and push-up bras are big smelly dudes
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I would put it at more than just "most" but rather "almost all"... most women aren't driven to produce übersexy avatars in video games, especially those geek girls that actually play the games.
Rather, look for the female characters that always have a new outfit, or are more concerned with how their character looks... that's pretty much entirely girls.
Playing APB, I noticed a lot of female avatars running around with huge tits and sexy outfits... then there was me with my low-key breasts and simple yet
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Hey, is APB any good? Or more accurately, can it deliver cheap thrills if I feel like jumping on for 30 minutes after work to relieve stress, or does it require a certain amount of timesinking to get anything out of it?
I would say in general yeah. I haven't played it a whole bunch. There is also some jerk in the coding somewhere that allows extremely well "level"ed characters face-off against piddly little noobs. Fortunately, the difference is relatively minimal and most of the game boils down to individual skill rather than your character's powers (better guns are nice though).
But, yeah, basically, it's a bit like the Grand Theft Auto series, but you occasionally get sent on missions to stop the other side from completin
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YMMV. My GF only made a couple of male toons because she figured she was supposed to.
As for me, I have several female toons because if I'm going to look at a character for several hours, why wouldn't I choose one that was nice to look at?
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I indeed have never played WOW and never will. I am, however, aware of the general usage of female avatars by male computer game nerds in video games.
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Wait, what?!? You're female? On slashdot?!? Pictures, or it didn't happen.
While I know it's a going meme and just for humor... the statement is still pretty damn violently sexist...
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Wait, what?!? You're female? On slashdot?!? Pictures, or it didn't happen.
While I know it's a going meme and just for humor... the statement is still pretty damn violently sexist...
It could be worse, I would have said "tits or gtfo". Blame rule 30.
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Of course it's sexist, that's part of the joke.
Yes, I noted that it was funny. However, "but it's intended to be funny, not serious" still doesn't make it "ok"... it's just the last vestiges of sexism... "we can express sexist/racist ideas as long as we lampshade them for humor!" ... right.
Once we're in a real post-racist, and post-sexism world, these jokes will start to be acceptable... but when I still run into people treating these sexist ideas internally as if they were true, they still hurt, even if they're meant as a joke. (To explain, there are a
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I disagree... I don't do political correctness. I'm also not from over the big pond where these things are somehow "issues".
I'm sorry, I already live in a post-racist, post-sexist world because I care about neither. The fact that you are offended will make sure that this world never comes to you.
In the same vein, I can't get laid because I'm a basement-dwelling-pasty-white geek. Happy? Stereotypes are fun because they're exaggerations (Remember, every joke has a grain of truth). You're on slashdot, a
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I'm sorry, I already live in a post-racist, post-sexist world because I care about neither. The fact that you are offended will make sure that this world never comes to you.
I find that I have to keep explaining this to people. Just because YOU are post-racist and post-sexist, does not mean that the WORLD is. Seriously, the solipsism required in order to state that because you're beyond such things that those things no longer exist is just plain atrocious.
Seriously, I recognize that there are still people beholden to silly 2000 year old mythologies, and that there are sexists, racists, and homophobic bigots out there. I also recognize that there exists a system bias against bla
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Well, look at it from another side: you assumed that I would be sexist. That could be offending to me, as I do not adhere to sexism. Yet, I find this conversation midly amusing.
I pointed out to someone recently, that there is a difference between sexism and being a sexist. As many researchers have found and pointed out, we're all racist, it's just a gradient of how racist we are. Even black people respond slower to positive words and a black face, than negative words and a black face.
There is inherent and systemic bias against race and sex, even if you're "post-racist" or "post-sexist" yourself, you still have these lingering sexist issues. Even the man-hating feminists have sexis
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A fine example of "junk research". They obviously didn't do it in the poorest slums, such as where I grew up, where it would be unthinkable to make any sort of distinction based on skin color, because the shared poverty made it impossible for parents to instill any sort of racism in us, because our friends and neighbors were just that, not "friends of color" or whatever.
In a neighborhood where ev
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Then again, it's probably a US-based study - from the country that still actively practices racism at all levels, ingrained so deeply that they see nothing really wrong with perpetuating a racially-biased judicial system.
Sorry, yes, they are US-based studies.
Also, regardless of income level. They found even poor black people were racist against other poor black people. No, they don't teach racism, and none of it is overt. It's hardly even detectable in some. But there is a millisecond longer delay for people in the USA to respond to positive words paired with black faces, as opposed to positive words paired with white faces.
It's like the same sort of delay that comes with having people try and tell if a color word ("blue" o
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If it's the same delay, then it's not due to racism ... but your quote says it's not. because it makes a comparison to whites and blacks reacting to the same things.
But trying to apply the results of one study - without even a citation, btw
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Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know my rape and subsequent PTSD was hurting you... I'M SO FUCKING SORRY ASSHOLE
You want to get pissy about people being "hyper-alert" to racism and sexism, then make it fucking go away... for real.
Force employers to pay equal wages to women, force sentencing laws to be more precise so that men and women always get the same sentence, and women don't get off easy for being "not as culpable" or "not as responsible". STOP MEN FROM DISPROPORTIONATELY RAPING WOMEN.
So, fuck you that you
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First, as I posted elsewhere, the original remarks by jawtheshark don't fit the accepted definition of sexism.
You're playing the whole PTSD card with the wrong person. When I was assaulted, I spent more than a month in ICU in the hospital (and the hospital went so far as to refuse to acknowledge I even existed to anyone but immediate family, for my own protection), got an interesting scar and the official diagnosis of PTSD to prove it, had to re-learn basics such as how to walk, still have some nerve dama
Some practical advice ... (Score:2)
There are only two ways of dealing with (not curing, but dealing with) PTSD. As you've probably figured out, calling people assholes isn't one of them.
The first is what is known as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. It's the ONLY form of therapy that actually has a success rate greater than random chance, and it's one that many people actually discover or "invent" on their own. When you've gotten to t
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Dont say we are all racist. Racism is frightfully common, but not everyone is racist.
I am not racist. Oh, and I took the test you are talking about. They claimed I was *probably slightly* biased in favour of black. Note the weasel words. And look up confirmation bias.
You say "EVEN the man-hating feminists have sexist notions" and I add the emphasis, to draw attention to your error. It is not even them, but especially them.
The least sexist people may paradoxically be the most likely to offend you, if you are
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Dont say we are all racist. Racism is frightfully common, but not everyone is racist.
I am not racist. Oh, and I took the test you are talking about. They claimed I was *probably slightly* biased in favour of black. Note the weasel words. And look up confirmation bias.
I was using a paraphrase (quote really) of another source. The term is wrongly applied there "racist". We are all generally subject to racism subconsciously. That doesn't really make us racists though, because as I noted, we can only be held accountable for the racism that we intentionally advance.
You say "EVEN the man-hating feminists have sexist notions" and I add the emphasis, to draw attention to your error. It is not even them, but especially them.
I was unfortunately only using sexism in the frame of "against women" here. Man-hating feminists are still often just as sexist against other women as some men can be, even though they're generally more aware of w
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Just, "hey a girl, how quaint!". How does that hurt you? Offend you? I'm basically saying: "Cool a girl in this wasteland of males".
These are both fine. But "Wait, what?!? You're female? On slashdot?!? Pictures, or it didn't happen." is offensive. If you don't understand how "appreciating that a woman is on the internet" is different from "denying that women use the internet", then I think you need a reasoning and logic coprocessor installed... The former is an inclusive acknowledgement of women, while the later is an exclusive rejection of women.
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No, I didn't say it's weird to have "a woman on the Internet", I said it's weird to have "a woman on slashdot". Big difference. On Facebook there are plenty of women and it isn't surprising.
Oh, I see... you're not using sexist exclusive language about the internet as a whole, just about slashdot. Right, I get it now... because there's obviously no way that a woman could have interest in slashdot...
"I didn't say that women couldn't work AT ALL, I just said that they can't be doctors/politicians/any other profession."
Does that seriously look any better to you at all?
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Ok, I give up. The concept of context seems completely alien to you. I am a sexist male chauvinistic pig. You won.
I never said that you were... and this is the problem that feminists get into... post-sexist males can't accept that they can still do sexist shit without being a sexist themselves.
To be clear: you have given me no indication that you are a male chauvinistic pig... you made however a sexist joke, that was exclusionary of women. By suggesting that it wasn't intended to be applied to the whole internet, but rather just to slashdot alone, that does not make the exclusionary language any better.
And this is the
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No, attitudes like yours is exactly why sexism will continue to exist. Freaking out on a harmless joke. Here's a nickel, go buy some humour.
Now that I admitted to being a sexist, I can an will say the most horrible things and have no guilt saying them. Your attitude made me embrace the inner sexist and I will live it out to the fullest. Thank you for liberating me and you should really go see a doctor about that PMS of yours.
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No, attitudes like yours is exactly why sexism will continue to exist. Freaking out on a harmless joke. Here's a nickel, go buy some humour.
Now that I admitted to being a sexist, I can an will say the most horrible things and have no guilt saying them. Your attitude made me embrace the inner sexist and I will live it out to the fullest. Thank you for liberating me and you should really go see a doctor about that PMS of yours.
WTF? And you're above criticism as well? You know, if someone writes down "2+2=5", I don't tell them, "Good job". I tell them, "That's wrong".
Here's a racist joke: "Why do black people keep a bucket of shit at a wedding? To keep the flies off the groom!" Does the fact that it's a joke make it ok? No. It does not. It's still fucking racist.
So, why does it suddenly become ok to make a sexist joke, just because you didn't intend any harm by it?
I'm not the reason why sexism still exists, I'm just pointing to th
Here are the facts. (Score:2)
Unless someone can ci
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You even fail at racist jokes. That is not a racist joke, because it's transferrable. Look:
The joke still works. I know what you're going to say: "But, but... Shit is brown!". See, I actually had to think a bit about this joke to find this out, because in my mind it was the smell that was important. Know why? Because it is the reason that flies will gravitate to the bin with manure and not to the (smelly) g
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To be clear: you have given me no indication that you are a male chauvinistic pig... you made however a sexist joke, that was exclusionary of women.
No, he didn't. If you believe he did, you might want to step back and take a long hard look at what was actually written, not how you chose to interpret it with your kneejerk reaction.
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While I know it's a going meme and just for humor... the statement is still pretty damn violently sexist...
I don't think so, I think it's a self-deprecating joke; that we nerds are so repulsive to women that you won't even log on to the same messageboard.
Anyone that was around in the Quake days knows there are a lot of geek girls out there. I think my favorite team was the PMS Clan; PMS stood for Psycho Man Slayers. They not only were good at the game (a whole lot better than me), they had a decent web site
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http://xkcd.com/322/ [xkcd.com]
congratulations (Score:2)
Unemployment is one of the more advanced states of human development. I quit my very good job on my 50th birthday. I was nowhere near prepared financially. I just decided I had put in enough years working, even though my job as a highly paid academic was not very hard or demanding. I just felt that I had done enough. I remember seeing a statement from Social Security telling me how many years I had worked and how much I had contributed. Not that the money was so much, but looking at those decades tha
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Don't buy into the Calvinist notion that there is some special moral benefit for working your ass off.
No worries. I figured out that particular chestnut as a kid, and my entire working career has always been predicated on putting in the minimum of effort towards the things I had no interest in
Fingers crossed, I'll be a farmer within the next two years and life will be perfect: My favourite way of earning money (after doing absolutely fuck all, of cours
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Farming for a living sucks. Horribly. (First and second hand experience with it.)
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It depends on what you call "farming." What's the difference between a large vegetable garden and a farm? Both sets of my grandparents had huge gardens, one set had hogs and cows and chickens as well, and we always spoke of going to Grandpa's farm.
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Doing it to supplement your food is one thing. Doing it or you eat no food is completely different.
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Excellent distinction. I think my paternal grandparents were self-sufficient except maybe for flour and sugar, but my other grandparents had to buy meat.
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*Sigh* ...I'm jealous. Been working since 1968 (at various jobs until my present one) and I'm not eligible to retire until December, and won't be able to afford it for two more years when the SS kicks in. I'd retire in December if I didn't live by myself.
Don't buy into the Calvinist notion that there is some special moral benefit for working your ass off.
Some people live to work; I work to live. You hear about the guys dying 2 years after they retire, I'm pretty sure they're the ones who live to work. My da
Dear Lucky Bastard (Score:1)
Good luck to you.
The secret police (Score:1)
You know they've visited when you find a fat job offer on your desk. And you'd be smart to take it. Myself, I was a young dissident, prepared to set fire to the world just to watch it burn. But then, a friend of my father's offered me a job with possibility for advancement. I quickly abandoned my silly ideas of changing the world, bring justice to the people. Shouting the truth from the tops of buildings is for chumps.
Without pudge (Score:1)
I'm feeling kinda unemployed myself