hurbledr

I fail to see how political correctness is both a nebulous concept and a dogmatic belief system at the same time.

Along the same lines, the idea that their is some sort of over-arching "liberal elite" belief system that colleges slavishly adhere to is laughable, or it would be, if folks like the author of this piece didn't take it serious. While professors in any given discipline often share a number of "beliefs", colloquially known as "facts", if you get a few of them together in a casual setting, they'll more often than not take to arguing about the finer points of their field. In fact, this sort of behavior is often encouraged, in both casual and professional settings. That's why grad students write and defend a thesis.

I also think that accusing professors and students of using political correctness as a tool to further their own aims and to preserve their entrenched power is assuming quite a lot about the actions and motivations of a huge swath of people.

If the author didn't want to talk about the banh mi thing, why even mention it? It is relevant to the discussion after all, since the portrayal of such instances in the media have had a strong influence on the way political correctness is currently defined and understood.

I'd also like to point out that the definition of political correctness, as it's used colloquially, doesn't change just because you say it does. I also don't think that using the term political correctness in the sense that practically everyone understands it constitutes a deliberate misconstrual. Also, to the authors point, I don't think the majority of commenters on the right (when did this become a discussion of partisan politics again?) are talking about "the expectation of adherence to the norms of basic decency, like refraining from derogatory epithets" when they rail against political correctness. More often it seems they are railing against the perceived suppression of their unwelcome beliefs and ideas. Hence my comment to the effect of "don't dish it out if you can't take it."

As for the second passage you copy/pasted, I don't see how that disagrees with what I said.

Of course many of the policies enacted on campuses are what you might call penny smart, pound foolish, but that doesn't mean that the intention is bad, or that we should not even try. It's unfortunate that many of these policies are seen to have a chilling effect on campuses, but I don't feel that asking college students to think before speaking is unreasonable, especially if the net benefit is reducing bigotry, racism, and prejudice. Perhaps these methods are not the most effective, but I don't exactly see the author offering up any better solutions. He seems content to complain about the dozen or so people he's met that were made to feel uncomfortable by these policies, while ignoring the many generations of people who have suffered far worse.

Also, since you seem to have read the article more thoroughly than I, what do you make of the authors closing statement, where he says,

When we talk about political correctness and its many florid manifestations, so much in the news of late, we are talking not only about racial injustice and other forms of systemic oppression, or about the coddling of privileged youth, though both are certainly at play. We are also talking, or rather not talking, about the pathologies of the American class system. And those are also what we need to deal with.

Seems a bit convoluted to me. Is he arguing that we should ignore addressing racism in favor of some sort of attack on the American class system or what?

When did not wanting to eat shitty banh mi become a case of political correctness gone too far? If I pay for a slice of prosciutto di parma and get ham from some farm in the US, shouldn't I rightfully be pissed off?

It also seems to me that the so called "pc police" feature more prominently in peoples imaginations than they do in their actual lives. Any time I've seen someone called out (in real life) for issues of cultural sensitivity, it has been in a respectful and reasonable fashion, even if the situation has warranted a much harsher response (and occasionally it has).

The situation online or in a college is a bit different, but at the end of the day I would consider it similar to talking to a stranger at a bar; if you talk some shit, expect to get shit talked. If you have a problem with that, you can go crying to the bouncer, but if they are at all good at their job, they will either nod and ignore you, or kick you out if you are out of line.

I realize the analogy is a bit crude, but as other commenters have pointed out, most of these so called "pc police" are just trying to correct centuries of systemic racism, sexism, etc. by having a reasonable discussion. If they are a bit shrill sometimes, just be thankful that they aren't using the same tactics that were once used to keep them from speaking out.

Your source doesn't agree with your statement.

from the wiki page: In addition to the many unresolved arguments about the construction techniques, there have been disagreements as to the kind of workforce used. The Greeks, many years after the event, believed that the pyramids must have been built by slave labor. Archaeologists now believe that the Great Pyramid of Giza (at least) was built by tens of thousands of skilled workers who camped near the pyramids and worked for a salary or as a form of tax payment (levy) until the construction was completed, pointing to workers' cemeteries discovered in 1990 by archaeologists Zahi Hawass and Mark Lehner. For the Middle Kingdom Pyramid of Amenemhat II, there is evidence from the annal stone of the king that foreigners from Palestine were used.[1]

Couple points. You can be both a skilled worker and a slave. Also, if you are working to pay off a tax debt, that pretty much makes you an indentured servant or slave.

I'll second that. The part about Russian PR tactics is especially relevant to Americans today.

Latency is the biggest issue with ipad for me. Laptops and desktops respond almost instantly when you type or scroll, while ipads and other tablets have a lot of latency built into the OS. I know an extra 20-60 milliseconds doesn't seem like much, but it definitely adds up, and it really ruins the feel of things.

When you read a physical book, you can flip through pages instantly and scan the contents with zero wait time. A laptop is much closer to this ideal than a tablet.

Tautology or not, it's actually pretty easy not to eat too much, considering that our bodies are pretty good at telling us when we've had enough.

All you have to do is eat a moderate amount, wait twenty or thirty minutes (for your stomach to start digestion, send signals to your brain, etc), see if you are still hungry, and eat a bit more if you are. If you reach the point where you feel 'full' you've probably overeaten. Not complicated, although many people, myself included, don't always take the time to listen to their bodies or have the self control to stop eating when they are chowing down on something delicious, even though know they've probably had enough.

Thanks, was trying to parse the actual document and not getting very far. Interesting to try and read that stuff, but it's pretty dense with acronyms, and I wasn't getting too far trying to google them.

It would be nice if the article mentioned exactly which agencies would have access.

No real habits to report, but for anyone interested in sit to stand desks, I found a site that sells them for relatively cheap. I can't personally vouch for the quality of these desks, but as far as I can tell, they are the same sort of thing that office furniture companies sell, only 300-400 bucks instead of 1000-1500. Not necessarily high quality, but functional enough.

You do have to assemble it yourself, but anyone with a cordless drill and a bit of sense should be able to manage. There are a couple things that can go wrong, but they are easy to avoid and/or fix. The desk surfaces that come with these are probably a crappy laminate, like sub MDF quality fiberboard. That means that you have to be careful when screwing the legs into the surface, because if your drill's torque/clutch setting is too high, the screw will just spin and blow out the hole instead of fastening tightly. This is easy to avoid though, just set the drill to one of the lowest torque settings, say 1-3, and work your way up if the screw doesn't go in all the way. Also, there are usually plenty of holes on the legs, so if you blow 1 or 2 out, it's not the end of the world.

The only other thing to look out for is bad leg motors and/or bad control boxes, which are surprisingly common. No worries though, these things are easy to troubleshoot, and I'm sure the company will get you a replacement in no time if anything is DOA, as it's pretty common.

Anyways, my point is, if you don't mind spending around 4 hours of your time to read a manual and put one of these things together, you can save a substantial amount of money.

Also, if you don't want a crappy surface, you can just order the legs and add your own surface, although make sure to check that the legs can support the weight.

woops, here's the link https://www.autonomous.ai/smartdesk-sit-to-stand-height-adju...

also, if you're really a cheapskate, you could probably find all this shit on alibaba or something, and save even more money.

>Boston did not have a Jim Crow system – if a black child lived in a white area, he could go to the local mostly white school.

So you are arguing that Boston was so racially tolerant in the 70's that they had no racist policies either explicit or implicit, and that a black kid could go to a white school completely unmolested? That they wouldn't be yelled at or beaten? That they would be welcomed with open arms?

> My point is simply that large-scale, forced integration made race relation problems much worse. It created problems where little existed.

Are you really arguing that desegregation created these problems? Seems a bit backwards to me. I think it's incredibly obvious that race relation issues existed long before the desegregation of schools.

You could argue that desegregation caused problems for white people where there were none before, but even that I find a bit questionable. There are many disadvantages to growing up in a homogeneous society.

I think everyone agrees that correcting racism, or tribalism if you prefer, is a difficult task, and one that we are still grappling with. Of course, there were other methods of desegregation proposed at the time, but very few were proposed in good faith, and none that I know of were as swift or effective as mass desegregation.

IIRC there are also studies that suggest employers are more likely to give you raises, promotions, and increased hours if you have a family.

Actually, several developers have stated as much, most notably Thomas Biskup, who develops Ancient Domains of Mystery.

That's not to say you're wrong on any of your other points, but I think the reasoning for it isn't so much to prevent players from figuring stuff out and publishing guides, but more to encourage players to experiment and figure stuff out for themselves rather than relying on a guide to tell them the 'right' way to do things.

You're not wrong, but the idea is that it has a longer shelf life, and perhaps more consistency in flavor.

Many American staples are throwbacks to the depression era, where buying a flat of Campbell's soup was a safer bet than buying a bunch of tomatoes and cream. Since then, marketers have capitalized on that sense of consistency, as well as feelings of nostalgia, to ingrain that sort of food into the American psyche.

Heh, kinda like kraft singles being so named because they are no longer allowed to call themselves cheese.

My grandmother, who grew up during the depression, occasionally complained about the decline in the quality of sweets and chocolates. I used to think she was exaggerating a bit, but seeing the decline in quality in my time, going from bad to worse, it's easy to see what she was talking about.

I also recall seeing that someone had placed a large bet on cocoa futures a while back, and I turned up this article to that effect. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/business/global/25chocolat...

Anyways, I just wanted to say that it has been a shame to see large companies move away from making proper chocolate bars just to maintain their bottom line, and I can only expect that this latest maneuver is in the same spirit.

These things aren't mutually exclusive, and I think it's pretty clear that they all played a role.

Also, bear in mind that a determined cheater will take any edge they can get, regardless of how small.

This article neglected to mention the apps most often used while driving, map apps.

It can certainly justify being short with people though.

I think that a lot of it comes down to designers needing/wanting to justify their job.

If a designer or typographer does good work, it goes largely unnoticed, since navigating the page and reading the text is easy and fluid. This can lead clients to believe that the designer is not doing much at all, when in fact they are doing their job exceptionally well.

This leads to designers adding unnecessary ornamentation (often at the clients behest), just to make it seem as though they are providing more of a service.

As others have pointed out, no one is sitting in meetings reading the boiler plate text on designs, they are just looking at the overall page to see if it 'pops' or whatever. So really, it's as much the clients fault as the designers, although a good designer should be able to communicate why the flashiest, most cutting edge choices are not always the best.

Also, I'd like to recommend this book, The New Typography. It's an old book, but they do a really great job of explaining the goals of typography, and how one can be creative without sacrificing readability, etc. https://www.amazon.com/New-Typography-Weimar-Now-Criticism/d...

>They complain about the shape of someone's arms in Street Fighter? Who cares about realism, these characters can shoot fireballs from their hands.

Well, the whole point is to make them shoot fireballs out of their hands in a convincing fashion. So having the non-fantastic elements of the animation be convincing is especially important.

Hayoa Miyazaki's writings in this book https://www.amazon.com/Starting-Point-1979-1996-Hayao-Miyaza... explain the need for realism in animation far better than I can.

>These lottery sites are just a product of the opportunity Valve created and its not surprising they are being used in fraudulent and immoral ways.

While I definitely agree that valve is in some way culpable, I do feel that even without the systems they've put in place, you would see this sort of abuse. Look at Diablo 2 and early WoW. It's pretty obvious that many of the gray markets in today's online games were created in direct response to the black/gray markets that sprung up around those games. When these markets emerged, game developers basically had the option to either try and shut these systems down (not an easy task, perhaps impossible) or to reinforce and rebuild them. Clearly, most companies chose the latter. Valve even went as far as hiring the economist Yanis Varoufakis (who went on to become finance minister of Greece for a hot second) to help them manage their online markets. They clearly saw a lot of money being made and said to themselves, "why shouldn't I get a piece of the action?" I can't say I blame them, game devs should be compensated and compensated well. That being said, csgo is not a free to play game.

As a csgo player, I find the whole skin system incredibly frustrating. Not only does it add no real value to the game in terms of gameplay, it also encourages a lot of bad behavior, such as hacking, scamming, spamming, etc. It also seems pretty clear that the decisions valve makes directly influence how easy/profitable it is to engage in these behaviors. While I don't think they are solely culpable for bad behavior on their platform, I do feel that they could do more to discourage it, even if it isn't in their financial interest.

Gotta take a sec to recommend his book Why Engineers Need to Grow a Long Tail. It's an unusual and inspiring book.

Very cool prototype. Like many in this thread, I've been dreaming of a calendar app like this, something that I can pick up and use without having to read a bunch of documentation. It seems like most of the calendar programs I've tried to use succumbed to feature creep and ended up being feature rich but unwieldy, so it's refreshing to see such a simple, easy to use program.

That being said, the one feature I could really use in a calendar app is to have a sort of ledger column that I could use for budgeting. As a person juggling multiple part-time jobs, it would be invaluable for me to be able to plug in my expected shifts for the week, get an estimate of how much my paycheck would be, and calculate that against my bills for the week/month/year.

Good point. One solution I can think of would be to have a button or tab that would turn the longer running events on/off. You could also have the app only display the beginning and ending of an event when you zoom out past a certain point, say 3 days or so. In that situation, you could also use a vertical dotted line to connect the beginning and end, like with message board comments. Another thought would be to have those ongoing events snap to the top and bottom of the screen when you go into the individual day view.

No one is saying that the idea is to immediately and completely dismantle the current welfare system.

It seems to me that the general idea is that current welfare systems, at least in the US, are piecemeal at best. There are many, many people who slip through the cracks because they don't know help is available or are unable to navigate the various bureaucracies well enough to get the help they need. Many others refuse to even ask for help because they don't want to admit how poor their position is or they want to avoid the humiliation of asking for help and being turned down. Basic income eliminates that problem because it is applied equally to everyone. On top of that, it will create enormous social pressure for people to spend their money wisely.

I think the concern about people blowing their money is valid, and it will happen, as it has with our current system. There will always be a few people trying to get over. That being said, I think that our current system does a lot to create these people. Try genuinely asking for help, only to be told that you are an idiot, an incompetent, and a freeloader. It's not hard to see how that sort of humiliation can breed resentment, which can lead to people misusing their welfare benefits out of spite or hopelessness.

That being said, I strongly feel that BI can do a lot to minimize welfare abuse. For most working people it won't be too much of a stretch to build up an emergency fund, and, for many, the extra money would mean the difference between living paycheck to paycheck and being able to actually build a savings. Also, for many working people (i.e. walmart employees), 10k is the difference between self sufficiency and living on food stamps, with all the arcane requirements that entails. By filtering out these good people (for lack of a better term) it will be much easier to assess whether the people asking for further assistance are in genuine need, mentally ill, drug abusers, physically disabled, or just fiscally irresponsible. From there, it will be much easier to provide these people with more comprehensive assistance based on their needs, be it personal finance classes, assisted living, drug treatment, housing placement, etc.

From there, the idea is that we can streamline the current welfare system by eliminating more general programs in favor of more direct and targeted assistance. Obviously that's not going to be all that easy to do, given the quagmire that is our current welfare system, but I don't think it's an insurmountable problem.

It's worth noting that the folks in the article reporting simulator sickness and long term disorientation are pilots, meaning they have been screened and selected for their endurance and resistance to motion sickness. On top of that, the symptoms they are reporting go well beyond seasickness. Have a look at rowanH's comment in this thread for a better idea of the effects we are talking about.

I'd certainly agree that the brain can adjust to using VR, but at what cost? If using VR means losing your depth perception and sense of balance, so that you are walking around bumping into things (or worse driving), then it's probably not going to be worth it for many people, despite how fun it might be.

I think the real issue here isn't if or how often VR headsets cause simulator sickness. The real issue is that VR can fuck up your proprioception. If pilots, who are using it relatively infrequently, are having issues lasting for several hours to several days, what sort of issues are gamers going to have when they're using these things daily over the course of years?

If I recall correctly, this was one of the biggest issues that Sega ran into with Sega VR. They knew that short term exposure to 3d/VR would shut off some of the cues your body uses for depth perception, and they were concerned that prolonged use might have a more permanent effect. Because of this, their lawyers advised them not to release the product for fear of lawsuits if people suffered permanent damage.

Thanks for putting your finger on that.

P.S. On Ugliness might be the most metal book ever published.