Why doesn't the USA just buy Sukhoi 35B, or PAK-FA or whatever the latest model is, and in the spirit of cooperation make the world a better place: Everyone buying war equipment from each other, what could be better? Surely Christmas would be a fantastic time to announce this deal!

"In its continuing endeavor to serve its 800 million users as quickly as possible, Facebook is once again revamping the way it handles its PHP-based Web pages.

I've had a page made for me by a relative for business purposes and since then I visited a few pages on facebook related to my interests/business and I have to say, that I hate Facebook. Facebook is one of the worst pieces of crap I've ever seen. It's so unbelievably unintuitive, obscure and inconvenient (in all aspects, trying to set things for my own page, or looking at other pages, pictures, tehn going back, whatever), that it drives me nuts ever time I visit it (which is not a lot and I intend to keep it that way!)

Apple doesn't understand that Microsoft won because they were very responsive to what customers wanted. They bent over backwards to give what (the biggest segment of) customers wanted. They were on top of it all throughout the 80s and 90s. Of course, they didn't have a problem playing sharp business games (ie, all their unethical stuff), either.

Apple still doesn't get it. They don't get that enterprise wants backwards compatibility, for example. Who would ever build an enterprise app to run on OSX, when it may be obseleted and ejected from OSX (like Carbon was in Lion, and a bunch of others)?

Apple did see the unethical stuff Microsoft did, and they thought that is why Microsoft must have won. So they decided to follow the unethical stuff.

I think you are crazy!

Microsoft were not 'on top of it all throughout the 80s and 90s'. Microsoft 'won' only because they were the only mainstream choice on PCs. People bought PCs because they were much cheaper than Macs. OS/2 didn't catch on I think because it really needed 8MB and it made PCs a lot more expensive (this was a big deal in 1994-1995). It is true that for some reason people didn't really want OS/2. Not sure why, as it was available before win95 and it was better, but the reason people didn't go with OS/s was definitely not because MS gave people what they wanted. Misleading advertising perhaps in similar vain as some of the error messages in MS software that it might not work correctly (when running on other DOS like OSes). Even in the 1980s it was well known MS put out crappy software. I didn't have a PC then but I knew this from reading mags. People only used MS software because they thought it was 'good enough', certainly not because MS gave them what they wanted. If MS did that they would have made good operating systems that give useful information on booting and hangs less.

As to Apple doing what MS did in unethical tactics: This could be true.

A good thing may come of this crash caused by the Iranians: The 'unknown', 'estimated' etc. in that Wikipedia article can hopefully soon be replaced by facts/measurements!

Hell, Journalists aren't reporters these days. Reporters aren't reporters.

They just regurgitate corporate press releases without any critical analysis.

Yes, that's what I noticed (I think about 10 years ago, but perhaps these things started much sooner?), but they do another very valuable thing: Trying to stir up trouble by helping people who act as annoying little boys sometimes do: Telling boy-A 'the boy-B said xxxxx', whatever xxxxx is doesn't matter, and whether it's true doesn't matter, they try to make it look bad, and twist words so that there might be a fight between the boy A and B.

I saw such things years ago in Dutch newspapers and in one case where someone working in the airtravel industry make manipulative statements, which the newspaper printed without question, without any analysis as to why this guy made these statements (which was of course to get higher limits on aircraft movements in Schiphol). In this case in 2005, I emailed the paper 'Volkskrant' asking them if they did not see throught this guy Verberk's (from airline Martinair) manipulation, or that it was their intention to stir up trouble? (which I said I guessed they wanted to do, as they almost certainly can look through this manipulation, and if the writer could not, then the editor should have been able to!)

Since it no longer pays to report in the public interest, we're left with PR whores chasing $$$, opponents with an axe to grind and obsessed amateur sleuths on the web.

And for that reason I think amateurs should actually be treated more leniently than professionals with regard to slander/libel. The professionals have much more resources at their disposal! They can check, have access to people. If an 'amateur' wants some information he is lucky if het gets a real answer at all.

The SUV is a passive, defensive solution. Yours is an active, offensive solution.

Solution? When there's an accident and the driver of the asshole-mobile (a.k.a. SUV) is to blame, then he is the uneccesary extra cause of harm to the people in the other vehicle, not just from causing the accident but from causing extra harm because of the his 'car'. So this is not a 'passive defensive' solution to keeping himself safe, it is also a 'offensive' part that causes extra harm to others, not just when he is not the cause of the accident.

Saying that every human is unique and special is like saying you're immune to commercials. It's just wishful thinking.

False. My mother told me and my sister when we were very little that advertisements were all lies. So we watched TV looked at commercials and said "No, that washing powder is not the best, they are lying!" Etc. I remember that, and it worked although I presumably would not have been influenced anyway.

I have never bought any product because of advertising. I have only once thought in a supermarket "Hey I remember that froma commercial, perhaps I shoud try it". All other times when I want to try something new I just go for no-name stuff and/or something that seems interesting. Not because of advertising.

You mentioned Derren Brown, well, his stuff doesn't work well on me either, I've seen his programmes and almost all of it is clear to me, how he influences. It is scary how easily it is to influence people, but I will give you an example:

He tried influencing people by asking say someone in a say to show something then at the same time asking directions or something, and he had for example an expensive watch (IIRC) in his hands, then said 'It is ok' (or similar). The seller assumed the situation was ok, Derren Brown walked out of the store with the expensive watch. Later the guy in the store realised something was wrong.

The interesting thing is, I know that this doesn't work because when someone comes round to buy something I always have this feeling to be really careful and not get distracted. And no, I had never seen Brown nor anything like that before. Also, in the same episode he showed a hot dog salesman, whom he could NOT influence, he wouldn't have this "it's ok" as "Payment was made". I think a hotdog salesman will have seen the bullshit people try so much, that it's impossible to fool him.

So I think that when people get more aware of themselves and the way they are being manipulated, the less they can be manipulated.

For myself, any purchases of devices are made by going to websites to compare specs, prices, experiences of others, and of course my own wishlist of features. I am aware of how people are, thus that for example negative experiences are by nature more prominent because people are disappointed, posititive experiences usually contain little information... Advertising certainly does not work on me...

Parents should do as my mother did, and I'm sure advertising would have to change. That would be nice...

I think this is true for all of them. A psychopath just doesn't give a damn about anyone else. This is what you can identify him by.

I have no doubt that the biggest a-holes you can think of are all psychopaths. Possibly more or less by definition even though psychopaths/socipaths can be recognized by brain pattern.

I said it before on slashdot, that a good way to know someone is like this, even when he tries to hide his nature to fit in as psychopaths/sociopaths do, is by looking at reversible arguments.

George W.Bush for example when the elections were not settled and he said that Gore should let him get on with what he needed to do... As the vote count was close, Gore could have given the exact argument to Bush. Of course such reversible arguments are non-arguments, and such a-holes like Bush use them because they can't hide their identity well enough. They have a set of ways of acting and reacting which fools some people, but not those who take note.

A Horizon programme (BBC, UK) recently talked about psychopaths in "Are you good or are you evil" and these people are often in boards of companies, or high level bosses or whatever. A way they said they could identify these psychopaths is by the fact that half the people working for such a person hates him, the other half think he (she?) is great. This already shows the claim they made psychopaths are hard to spot is BS. People who look at the way people speak, the feeling/emotion in it I mean, know immediately when someone is a psychopath.

The US is becoming a nation of damned Pharisees. The entire system is run by lawyers whose interests include making law as incomprehensible and inaccessible to the average person as possible. That's how they make themselves indisposable and advance their diabolical profession. I think most nations have gone down this road. I don't live in Belgium but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they were also this way. So we can laugh at this judge who probably looks pretty stupid right now, making rules for what he so clearly does not understand, but the deeper problems it brings up are neither easy to solve nor limited to Belgium.

I sort of agree, but sometimes it is fun to find workarounds in for example rules that unnecessarily restrict people in what they can do. I've done things like that with the StVZO bicyle lighting rules (from Germany) on my website, because the rules as they are, are very strict and limit getting more power out of the dynamo, but the intent of the law was different: In particular to ensure interoperability of components and make sure oncoming traffic does not get blinded by light above the horizon. So, taking the spirit of the law I wanted to circumvent the letter of the law, and I give some examples on how to do it. This is the exact opposite of this situation. So I would argue that sometimes there are cases where it's useful (Note that it could take many many years before there is a sane rule change which would allow what I proposed in bicycle headlamps)

Now I come the spirit of the law: If the judge wants to block access to the piratebay, why doesn't he in his ruling say: "Providers should where technically possible not allow access to 'The pirate bay', this includes no access to the domains www.thepiratebay.org etc.". In that case it would be much clearer in giving examples, and taking the spirit of the law into it. Going around that would definitely show a breaking of the law (spirit and letter) or rather a ruling on the law, by a provider.

Yeah, you're wrong. Face it, a representative sample of "the elites" made it there through superior intellect and rationality, not luck, inheritance or chance. "The system" is fundamentally just, fair and meritocratic.

Give us all a break. The guy who wrote that seems to fall in love with sociopaths and/or just manipulative bastards who connect the snippets of information here and there to impress others. Or perhaps he's just stupid. He even says:

No, that was just a more comfortable meme, at least when it comes to what people put down in writing and pass around. The story of the horrible boss gets passed around more than the story of the boss who is, not just competent, but more competent than you.

Whatever. All the examples I've seen, or the stories I heard from people I know, are like these:
- Boss doesn't know what to do, gets advice from workfloor guy who knows what's best and how it all runs.
- Manager to do reorganisations for the above boss who left: The same.
- sociopathic boss likes to make herself look good, but doesn't know what's possible. Things go well, she did, badly, the employee is responsible.

The same morons (don't tell me they are smart, they are not, combining stuff, using the right quotes at the right time, is not being smart, that's basic stuff, once someone has identified the way to recognize what's important h can bluff himself into almost anything except when encoutering someone like me, as I look immediately through it all, I can do the same they can, but better and I am not a poser), get appointed to boards of other companies doing nothing to actually review, keeping their friend network intact, mutually appointing all of them to boards of all companies and even universities.

Other people can't deal with the stress? Give me a fooking break...

And if too many people can't handle it, get a board to make decisions instead of the current boards in most companies that are supposedly checking over the company which they in fact don't (they are just those cronies of other a-holes, appointing themselves all over the place), well, no more than coming to some meetings, enough to grab their over the top income for those few meetings they attend.

I've never heard of a high level boss who is reallly good at his job.

And fire them!

There was a recent Horizon programme (BBC) which said that psychopaths are 4 times more likely to be in the boards of businesses etc., than in other jobs.

Not surprising. I knew these people are good at manipulating, on my website I named a bunch since 2003 related to airtravel industry and Schiphol in particular, and that is actually what they are often picked for. To manipulate in the media etc. I'm not sure if this was just a recap of old research or new, if new then these researchers are not too bright (then again, what can you expect in the social sciences).

One of these researchers said it was hard to find the psyochopaths. Oh really? I can pick them out almost instantly. A good tool is reversible arguments. E.g. one such a-hole working for a dutch airport that wanted to expand said of those who were opposed and stopped it multiple times in court that 'a few times is ok, but this is ridiculous'. The same can be said of those a-holes of that airport. There plannes had been blocked by the courts, and yet these a-holes kept going against it and making new plans and/or getting the judgement overturned. So, he did exactly what he accused the opposing party of because it was unacceptable.

Try it! Look at someone you think is the biggest a-hole you ever saw (which are typically psychopaths who care nothing about anyone except themselves), and try looking for a reversible argument. I bet you will find one ore probably multiple.

Once we get rid of these people in boards of companies, perhaps life will improve.

Oh yes, the programme also said that these psychopaths can manipulate, make themselves look good to some people, but their performance is crap... Doesn't surprise me again, reminds me of former Schiphol director Cerfontaine, who has never amounted to anything, never did anything useful for any company even if the guys who hire him think so.

Even worse actually is that such morons (don't call them clever, they are not, as I said, with a few things to look out for you can easily push through their bulllshit-artistry), are even gettign honorary jobs at universities, perverting students...

I'm currently reading The Net Delusion, which pretty much postulates that a lot of the noise in government and the media about the power of the internet for change is pretty much driven by a very outdated set of assumptions that date back to the end of the Cold War.

Repost because of inconsistency between review and posting...

What I'm thinking is this: It's not of much significance that a group can be infiltrated. It is much more significant that it happens from the government side, and especially for organisations that strive for peace. I know of a dutch peace/thinking group in the 1960s (perhaps until early 1970s) that was infiltrated. The group was suspicious of thatone guy immediately btw. and it was later confirmed. What I think is this: Why the hell are these a-holes from teh Dutch secret service bothering to infiltrate peace groups. Are these people insane? Yes, right, they must be bad because they want peace. Absolute morons. Oh they might be infiltrated by KGB or whatever. Who the hell cares! If it's about peace, if they want to change Dutch public opinion against having a hostile opinion towards the then USSR, oh, how awful!

I also want to tell you that military and secret service types are completely bonkers the higher in rank they are. Paranoid and delusional into thinking the USSR did all the wrong in the world, the USA never did anything wrong. Not an opinion of mine, experience of mine...

And finally about outdated opinions: My dad used to work in a department of the ministry of economics in NL, and he was quite annoyed about the stupidity of some things. For example they had as 'secret' discussions about various ways to respond in a war such as in particular this example: The policy of scorched earth.

WTF? This was (in the 1980s!!!) hardly a new or interesting idea.

Colour me unsurprised when anyone talks about outdated set of assumptions. But this is not from a cold war, era, this is from people who are simply stupid and/or paranoid.

I'm currently reading The Net Delusion, which pretty much postulates that a lot of the noise in government and the media about the power of the internet for change is pretty much driven by a very outdated set of assumptions that date back to the end of the Cold War.

What I'm thinking is this: It's not of much significance that a group can be infiltrated. It is much more significant that it happens from the government side, and especially for organisations that strive for peace. I know of a dutch peace/thinking group in the 1960s (perhaps until early 1970s) that was infiltrated. The group was suspicious of thatone guy immediately btw. and it was later confirmed. What I think is this: Why the hell are these a-holes from teh Dutch secret service bothering to infiltrate peace groups. Are these people insane? Yes, right, they must be bad because they want peace. Absolute morons. Oh they might be infiltrated by KGB or whatever. Who the hell cares! If it's about peace, if they want to change Dutch public opinion against having a hostile opinion towards the then USSR, oh, how awful!

I also want to tell you that military and secret service types are completely bonkers the higher in rank they are. Paranoid and delusional into thinking the USSR did all the wrong in the world, the USA never did anything wrong. Not an opinion of mine, experience of mine...


WTF? This was (in the 1980s!!!) hardly a new or interesting idea.

Colour me unsurprised when anyone talks about outdated set of assumptions. But this is not from a cold war, era, this is from people who are simply stupid and/or paranoid.

heh, last time that happened to me I responded "this isn't 1982, I can order it my self, do you know where I can find a decent book store? maybe one that is not half of a coffee shop and carries books?"

So basically what you are saying is that you are an asshole with no manners whatsoever?

Bookstores always gave the opportunity to order books. That there are more options now doesn't mean bookstores should remove that option, that's just ludicrous, no, inane.

If you don't care about bookstores remaining, and thus also give them a little bit of extra money compared to say Amazon, for book orders, well, your choice. But that probably means you don't care at all about browsing for books, and if enough people are like that there's going to be a point when there are no more bookstores, only virtual book stores.

I remember reading about similar analysis long ago. Done in the 1970s IIRC. The programme that analysed also made a song from what I can remember and it was a hit of some sort (not sure which song that was, instrumental probably), but the article I read (1980s) noted that a second attempt didn't produce a hit song. So some variation is always needed beyond mere making a similar song. Does anyone remember/know which was that computer generated hit song?