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I think the best deeds of human kind aren't the ones recorded by history. The best things done are the moments when a person realizes that other people have worth as well. The worst moments are, then, the moments when we forget that.
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That really depends on how I saved the world.
If there was some sort of natural disaster that would destroy the world and for some reason only my combination of knowledge of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dungeons and Dragons, and post structural theater could save us all, then I'd be pretty proud of it, and wouldn't mind people knowing about it.
If on the other hand I was the one who put the world into peril to begin with. Like I was cooking jiffy pop in the microwave and vacuuming the ceiling at the same time and somehow this opened a wormhole that would suck the world through it unless I unplugged the vacuum in the nick of time, then it would probably be ok with nobody knowing.
There's also the question of the problems of fame. while there would be lots of people who might flock to me right after the world-saving and that could be annoying, but I'm sure the furor would die down after a while. especially since the world not ending is much less exciting for news organisations than the world actually ending. I'd make an interesting footnote in a history book and that would be pretty cool. -
The way I read this question, it seems like you're asking me to defend the ipad, something I really don't like. Challenge Accepted!
First there's your comment about it being a giant ipod touch, and while that is somewhat valid, a bigger screen is nothing to scoff at. A bigger screen is needed to get something like the intricate visual cues in a film like Eraserhead, for example. Films are not meant to be watched on such a tiny screen, and making the screen bigger is a step in the right direction.
No the ipad can't run flash, but that's because flash is proprietary and outdated. Once HTML5 becomes standardized only uncool losers will still be using flash. Plus flash is a closed system, with Adobe controlling the licenses, Apple refuses to buy into their product, preferring to let their users work in an open environment.
Why would you want to run multiple apps at on time? Our world is becoming more and more over saturated and the average attention span is shortening constantly. Apple knows that technology is partially responsible for this and are being socially conscious and doing their part to change things., See, Apple cares about you and they want you to be able to read an entire book in one setting, without having to stop and perform other tasks. They are subtly training you to make absolutely sure that you are finished with whatever it is you are doing before moving on to the next thing you want to do.
This caring nature is further exemplified by Apple's "walled garden" approach to applications on both the ipad and ipod touch/iphone. They know the world can be a scary place and choices can be the scariest part of that world. Apple carefully chooses the best things for you to choose from and presents them to you. Because you know Apple picked them for you and only presents the best, you can be content knowing that every app you purchase will leave you satisfied. In a walled garden, the gardener (Apple) plants the flowers that he knows are the most beautiful and you have the choice to look at any of the flowers that he has planted. Just don't try to look over the wall, because the things out there are dangerous, and the gardener might get mad because you didn't trust him and he might decide to kick you out, even though you are paying for a regular garden visiting membership.
Finally, the iPad makes you look cool, often cooler than you really are. You are sure to draw jealous stares whenever you pull it out in public, and everybody around you will know that you have more disposable income than them and, thus know that you are actually a better person. -
The thing about infamy is that it usually (in my mind) has more of a negative connotation. There's of course, the obvious example of "a day that will live in infamy" but there are others, i'm sure.
Which isn't to day that fame doesn't have its own sare of problems. Fame is fleeting. As Andy Warhol pointed out, everybody gets 15 minutes, which almost makes it seem less valuable.
Fame seems to have the bigger payoff now, but Infamy is longer lasting. I'll take the latter. -
I did major in something other than theatre, actually. My freshman year of college, I was an Engineering Physics major. Of course it turns out that I don't really enjoy engineering or physics with nearly the passion I have for theatre, so the fit wasn't right for me.
However if the person is asking if I would now pick something else, then my interests would probably still be in the creative arts realm. I'm a writer, so a creative writing major would certainly not be out of the question and I've always had a strong interest in film-making, particularly documentaries, but have never really pursued it. So those would probably be my choices. -
I don't follow sports. The most overrated athlete would probably be the winner of the international sitting competition, if such a thing existed.
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You can always put on another pair of pants if you're cold. You can only take off so many pairs of pants if you're hot.
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I prefer Droid because it runs the Android OS, which is much more open than the iPhone and its marketplace. The problem with the iPone market is that you don't actually own what you buy and even the options you have are limited to those apps that Apple decides you can have. With the Android marketplace anybody can put something out there and then the people decide what is good or not. The Droid is a phone that reflects my politics.
When you buy a book, you can do whatever you want with it, and I would like the option to do the same thing with my software and devices. -
Pretty much. I believe in a free (as in speech) internet, but you can't regulate freedom into existence.
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Because I believe that if a demand exists for 'neutral" or unfiltered internet access to exist it will be provided. Sure the big telecoms can block google and force you to use bing, but if you don't like it, get another ISP. And there are already ISPs that exist who have said that they won't restrict internet access to certain sites based on payment plans. Using the government to force "neutrality" onto ISPs is a bad idea because when you regulate something, it decreases the opportunities for competition. Look at who backed the recent flavored cigarette ban, it was phillip-morris. Probably the biggest tobbacco company. The only 'flavor' that wasn't banned was menthol, and that's because it is so popular. there were countless smaller tobacco companies that made these specialty flavored cigarettes who have been put out of business. And don;t tell me it's for the children, because it's already illegal for kids to smoke. The people who were legally buying flavored cigarettes were adults with the right to choice. That was kind of a tangent, but it shows the problems with governmental regulation.
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It really bothers me that so many video games try to give you ethical dilemmas but the choices are always such binary opposites, split between Kill everybody you know and Send a kitten to college(http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/3/27/). That's not an ethical choice, you could just as easily have a game where they say "Good or Evil?" and you go from there. (actually there was the game Black and White that really tried to do that, but wasn't completely successful. And don;t get me started on the post-colonial implications of calling a game about good and evil "Black and White.") Give me a Brain in a Jar on a switch control for a runaway train. THAT would be an ethical choice.
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When Renoir spoke of light and dark
He meant the translucent imagery
Of shape and emotion
Patterning themselves into life
When I speak of light and dark
I mean toast
(copyright Ookla the Mok) -
Firstly, I like the use of "informations."
There is a lot of information available on the web, yes. and if we are going to be able to use it effectively, we need to develop good filters. What I mean by this is not that I want somebody deciding what is the right thing for me to see(I'm still against Net neutrality laws though, ask me why,) but individuals developing the skills to determine what is worthwhile and what is not. This is where those critical thinking skills that your fifth grade teacher tried to teach you will come in really handy. Once information becomes so cheap that obtaining it is a negligible step, putting the information to use will be important.
That being said, information on the internet isn't free for a number of reasons. At the most basic level, someone is paying for the bandwidth at both ends of the connection, it costs money to host servers as well to connect to those servers from your home computer. That cost won't be going away any time soon. And even though we don't always think about it, there are millions (probably billions) of people in the world who can't afford even that cost.
"But I wasn't talking about Free as in Beer, but rather Free as in Speech!" I hear you cry. In that case information is getting free-er, but I don't know if it will ever get there completely. The internet could at one point have been a great example of the libertarian ideal of the Marketplace of Ideas. Meaning, that anybody can make a webpage and put their thoughts on it and let the world decide. That can still happen and does, but since there are so many people who do it the noise to message ratio can get pretty bad. This is why we look to things like Wikipedia and Google and other sources for help in filtering. But when you think about it, how much does google control what you see on the internet? Do you think a website has much of a chance at making it big in the wild world of the internet without being well ranked by Google*? So as there is more information out there and easily accessible, we look for better and better ways of organizing it. But as we do so, we have to be critical of the organizing strategies that are already in place.
*Disclaimer, I don't really know how Google works. -
if by secularization you mean separating science from government, then yes I am in favor of it, but that's partially because I am in favor of separating as much as possible from the government.
Speaking to Feyerabend's argument, I'm a little more conflicted. I've been struggling with the intersection of science and my studies in postmmodern/poststructuralism as well as my faith (for the record, I'm Christian, falling on the far faith side of the faith/works spectrum). Postmodernism breaks apart the ideas of grand narratives, and instead tries to identify multi-faceted truths. Because of this, Science comes under a lot of scrutiny. Who is to say that one method of rationalization is the right one, especially when we are all trapped in our own perception bubbles. I can't completely validate any experiences that are not my own, and I can't always explain those.
one thing science does is try to explain how everything works, (and there've been a lot of problems with that) but it doesn;t get to the why, and as we're thinking animals (grad students especially, with emphasis on the animal) Wondering why is more important (to me anyway.) I have been doing some research and there is a history of certain things being squelched, or left alone because they couldn't be properly explained. I do think there are things that can't be explained out there.
That being said, I still have problems with things like TCM or Acupuncture. I am more willing to believe what someone with an MD is going to tell me to do. Although I am being more exposed to alternatives, because of a certain person in my life and my mind isn't completely made up. I still won't use a neti pot though. -
Wow, that question is so far from anything in my mind right now. First I would have to have a job to retire from. But if I'm going to be a little silly, I'll say Luna from Heinlein's book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
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For many years, I would have called myself non-conformist a word I may have picked up while watching Clarissa Explains it All as a child. One of the earliest episodes of the show has Clarissa's mother bemoaning her "non-conformist child." For a while I even had a t-shirt that said Non-conformist on it. I certainly don't try very hard to have any style at all nowadays, which isn't to say I don't have one. Generally speaking I wear t-shirts and jeans. I have A LOT of t-shirts with pictures or words on them, and my collection continues to grow because of shirt.woot.com. I also stick to pretty much one of jeans as well: lee dungaree painter's pants, also called carpenter style. I like the side pocket and large amount of leg room. I should probably also mention my hats. I have about half a dozen of hats in different styles that I began collecting a few years ago when I decided to start wearing hats. Generally I wear my black fedora, but that could be just because I've had it the longest. For nearly as long as I've been wearing hats, I've grown my hair out and worn a beard as well. if you can picture Jesus (as he is depicted in popular culture, with all that pink skin, not as he probably actually looked 2000 years ago) wearing a fedora, you probably have some idea of what I look like. When It isn't too cold or to warm out I also like to wear a sports coat as I think it gives me a little class. Unfortunately with the hat this leads to comparisons with the Amish and Lincoln. Although the long hair has mitigated some of those comments. All in all, I like the way I look and don't really care if anybody else does.
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I don't know that I can say I have any heroes in the since this question is asking. There are people I respect, or whose work I admire and I understand that these people are human and thus fallible. People who put everything on the line to make their life and people who are always true to themselves are what make up the previously mentioned category. Often there are people who work in entertainment but that's probably because I want to be in entertainment too. (yes, I'm currently working on the scholarship side of that equation, but I have to pay the bills some how - Or do I? Probably.) Someone like Kevin Smith, who managed to make a film because he wanted to and have it turn out fantastically well matches this description, but there are others as well. That being said, I also have a strong fondness for certain ideas that people have put forward, often I have a quote of theirs that stands out in my mind, but I don't necessarily agree with the rest of their philosophies. Abbie Hoffman and "Free speech is the right to yell "theatre!" in a crowded fire" fits this type. Lastly there are people who I envy, but don't really like their work, Tennessee Williams fits in nicely here. He had an awesome life, and I would love to have his fame, but I don't know a single one of his plays that I enjoy.
Or, I misread this entire question and if that is the case, the answer is: Batman, Deadpool and Kyle Rayner as the Green Lantern. -
If I were a schoolmarm I would get run out of town on a rail within a dew weeks of starting, no matter where I started. I am legally certified to teach in Texas, however, which just shows how easy it is to beat the system. You should keep that in mind next time you send someone to a public school. Someone like me could be teaching your children.
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I won't say any actor is overrated because it's such a demanding job. I commend anybody who wants to make it it in that business and succeeds. That said, my favorite actor would probably be William H. Macy. I think he might be an *underrated* actor. He is amazing in anything I have ever seen him in. Which directly leads to an increased chance of me seeing the Marmaduke movie.
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