Pawnstars scroogled advert not a laptop

[SteveRiley]

I'm not sure which I'm more concerned about: being spied on by big corps for profit, or being spied on by my own government, without my consent. I hate the former because it's all part of of them trying to subconsciously control people, and I hate the latter because it makes a bit of a mockery of democracy.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and the following generalization, while broad, seems reasonable:

Loathe	Tolerate	Second	First
Tolerate	Loathe	First	Second

With respect to being spied on, the one thing that disturbs me about government spying vs. corporate spying is that the government has the power to kill you. I will further note that our current "Democratic" president seems all too willing to employ this power, which should be a national embarrassment for every American consumer. I mean citizen.

I have not used encryption, but will look into it in case I need to send personal information.

To do this properly requires that your recipients generate public/private key pairs, and you use a recipient's public key to decrypt a message. You can't use encryption with your public/private key pair -- encrypting a message with your private key accomplishes nothing, as the entire world has access, by definition, to your public key.

[SteveRiley]

The more and more I study people, the more and more I'm certain that they aren't as bright as older generations. Sure, we have a far wealthier resource of information thanks to the internet and so many various devices to access it, but how many are doing so instead of looking up porn, checking their facebook status, tweeting, or watching the latest Youtube vids?

This argument has the whiff of a strawman, Charles. By what degree do you measure "brightness"? Does more free time to engage in recreational pursuits somehow equate to less brightness? This is a reasonable reaction to how you've structured your statement.

People used to make their own clothes, build their own houses, harvest their own crops, make their own butter, etc... Sure, none of it was as refined as it is today (which might actually be unhealthier for us, but that's a whole other topic) but they still knew how to do such things.

Because such knowledge was required for survival in that era. Now I see where you're going -- a variant of "idle hands are the devil's playground." Before the advancement of technology, more people had to spend more time in more manual labor. It would seem that you believe this earlier environment to be more virtuous than today.

How many people do you know can even come close to that skill level of survival and thriving on their own sweat and blood? Likely none or just 1 or 2 people. And yet, most people think that we, as a society, are more intelligent than those of yesterday. I see no evidence of that.

Broad knowledge of these skills is no longer required today, and that's a good thing. Technological advancement has allowed a degree of specialization -- and scale -- that's never existed before. We only need one or two (percent) of the population to specialize in textiles, in house construction, and in farming, because technology allows their efforts to reach many, many more people. I hate digging in the dirt -- I'm more than happy to pay someone to farm my food and bring it to a grocery store. That frees up my time to develop advanced computer networks and data protection mechanisms, which the farmer (as just one example) in turn can use to better communicate with other farmers, share ideas, and become better at their skills.

The ways we measure intelligence and competency change from generation to generation. In previous generations, the metric was how much one could do. In this (my) generation, the metric is mostly how much one can know. In future generations, the metric is likely to be how much one can find and synthesize. This pattern seems to be a direct result of the continual increase in total worldwide information production.

[SteveRiley]

You'd think that such a massive company could do better than this, attacking your competitors' products like this just makes you look insecure

That's why the commercial made me cringe. I recognize weak attacks when I see them, and it makes me think, "What an ultra-maroon!" It's perfectly acceptable to attack your competition, but you better do it in ways that are factual and defensible.

[woodsmoke]

Ultramaroon!

Ohjeezelaughmywhateveroffhadnotseenthatinforever!s moke

[charles052]

This argument has the whiff of a strawman, Charles. By what degree do you measure "brightness"? Does more free time to engage in recreational pursuits somehow equate to less brightness? This is a reasonable reaction to how you've structured your statement.

With all due respect, this is kinda out of context since the previous paragraph dealt directly with an example of such dimness regarding Windows 8.

Don't misunderstand my position on Windows, I much prefer Kubuntu and have it on 2 of my machines and perhaps 3 (my laptop) in the future. The post was written in a small fit of frustration from a small disagreement in another forum. A woman was asking for tech support for her old laptop computer which ran XP. She had gotten a virus and it had wiped out a great deal of her computer and she had to do a reinstall which also turned out disastrous. So now she was willing to try Linux. There were several Linux guys on the board and it was nearly unanimous that she try Lubuntu, since she had less than a gig of ram and a single core Pentium 4. Her computing needs were little and Linux would more than fit the bill. But some guy posted that she should install the XP drivers and 2 service packs before doing anything else, which she promptly did and now her computer is now working... slow as ever, but working.

I couldn't help but be a little angered, since 1) XP was about to run out of support, 2) She was obviously prone to viruses, and 3) the woman obviously had some computer skills from what I had gathered from her previous posts but she was broke and her old computers were on their last leg and the Windows guys kept saying "Just buy another computer! Here's one for only $250!!!" and treating her like she was an idiot even though she ran diagnostics on her machine on her own and realized that her motherboard was causing the issues on one of her computers.

One of the Windows guys posted towards me basically saying the woman was clearly not computer literate and that Linux was so far above her that what she needed was a "bandaid" to temporarily fix her problems and that the Windows guys were just trying to save me some grief... except he was referring to her as a "he". It was extremely obvious that the poster was a she because she gave a really good description in a previous post of what she did for a living and flat out said she was a mother! *Schwoosh!!* Right over the Windows guy's head.

This was a clear instance where Linux was clearly, in every way, superior to Windows for the user's needs. But she's now happy with a slow running POS which is about to run out of support instead of a quick, more secure, and functional Linux machine. I told the Windows guys congrats on their support, clearly unhappy with the turn of events. But, overall, it was her choice, so what can you do?

Hence, my post.

Because such knowledge was required for survival in that era. Now I see where you're going -- a variant of "idle hands are the devil's playground." Before the advancement of technology, more people had to spend more time in more manual labor. It would seem that you believe this earlier environment to be more virtuous than today.

Perhaps it was. As an artist, I can appreciate those of old who not only had to learn how to draw, paint, and sculpt without the resources we have today, but also had to make many their own materials, such as paint, from the environment around them.

Broad knowledge of these skills is no longer required today, and that's a good thing. Technological advancement has allowed a degree of specialization -- and scale -- that's never existed before. We only need one or two (percent) of the population to specialize in textiles, in house construction, and in farming, because technology allows their efforts to reach many, many more people. I hate digging in the dirt -- I'm more than happy to pay someone to farm my food and bring it to a grocery store. That frees up my time to develop advanced computer networks and data protection mechanisms, which the farmer (as just one example) in turn can use to better communicate with other farmers, share ideas, and become better at their skills.

The ways we measure intelligence and competency change from generation to generation. In previous generations, the metric was how much one could do. In this (my) generation, the metric is mostly how much one can know. In future generations, the metric is likely to be how much one can find and synthesize. This pattern seems to be a direct result of the continual increase in total worldwide information production.

There's a quote from the classic movie Smokey and the Bandit which sums up my position quite nicely: "When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the country you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are. "

[SteveRiley]

Hence, my post.

Which clearly explains your frustration. I would likely have reacted in a similar manner.

Perhaps it was. As an artist, I can appreciate those of old who not only had to learn how to draw, paint, and sculpt without the resources we have today, but also had to make many their own materials, such as paint, from the environment around them.

If to be an painter also means to be a chemist, the total amount of art produced will be much less than when specialization is possible. How many potential artists never had the chance to express their ideas, 500 years ago, because they lacked the skills to manufacture paint? Fortunately, today, those who aspire to be artists of any kind need concentrate only on perfecting their primary talent, and can rely on an abundance of available tools.

[charles052]

If to be an painter also means to be a chemist, the total amount of art produced will be much less than when specialization is possible. How many potential artists never had the chance to express their ideas, 500 years ago, because they lacked the skills to manufacture paint? Fortunately, today, those who aspire to be artists of any kind need concentrate only on perfecting their primary talent, and can rely on an abundance of available tools.

True enough. But then again, how many of them would have been as revolutionary as the greats of yesteryear? It's been my experience that having it easier doesn't necessarily make for innovation.

On a personal note, not really anything to do with this conversation, I think my failure as an artist, or my financial failure at least, was one of the best things to ever happen to me. Though creative and talented, I am not innovative. I can't say that crushing a dream is a bad thing because it wasn't so much a crushing as it was a releasing or lifting a huge, heavy burden off my shoulders. Some people sacrifice and sacrifice, study and practice for hours and hours, days, weeks on end, and they are all the better for it. Many others, such as myself, who don't sacrifice as much or go that extra mile, and many times they are all the better for it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is a matter of opinion and cannot be truly measured in any scientific way.

Anyways, I'll have to let this discussion be. This topic has much too broad a scope to nail any one point down and it really depends on the person rather than any particular situation as to which one of us is right.

[GreyGeek]

Ultramaroon!

Ohjeezelaughmywhateveroffhadnotseenthatinforever!s moke

My grandsons have had a marvelous time as I introduced them to Loony Tunes characters via YouTube .... Bugs, Daffy, Tom & Jerry, Coyote and Roadrunner ... I saw it all at the Pioneer Theater in Englewood, CO. It was a theater that seated about 100 customers in two banks of 10X10 folding chairs and projected the movies, Pathe News and two cartoons onto a taunt which sheet 15 feet in front of the first row. For 25 cents I got to watch two feature films, a news real and two cartoons. And if I "stayed around" I could watch it again in the evening. It was fun walking home at night, running through the darker areas between the street lamps, whistling to scare away what ever, and getting home at 11PM or later. (No, my mom left my dad when I was seven and my dad didn't care. His only "parenting" toward me was "If you get thrown in jail don't call me.")

[jlittle]

...The more and more I study people, the more and more I'm certain that they aren't as bright as older generations... And yet, most people think that we, as a society, are more intelligent than those of yesterday. I see no evidence of that.

There's plenty, and the increase is very marked. See the Flynn effect, though it may be tailing off... coincident with the rise of MS and Apple.


Regards, John Little