Towle_'s comments

Personally, however, 'reverse' anything makes me think of "reverse racism," my least favorite phrase ever. Even in the absence of any political agenda, just taking the term at face value, it doesn't make any damn sense. Racism against white people is still racism. There's nothing 'reverse' about it.

But honestly, one must sympathize with their desire to protect their brand. They don't need "their" photos to be the source material for the entire internet's memes and jokes. Let somebody with less at stake fill that niche.

This seems a tall order, if you plan to base the story around Master Chief. Now that's not a necessity, of course... but this is Halo.

Master Chief is a vessel character, like Neo from The Matrix or, dare I mention it, Bella from Twilight. The idea is for you, the individual audience member, to slip yourself into that hollow vessel and become the character. Master Chief is me. I am Master Chief. We are one in the same. You are also Master Chief. Master Chief is also you. By design, vessel characters have literally no personality. They should say and/or do nothing which would upset the illusion that you are them. Neo never says anything smart, never says anything stupid, never makes a moral choice we couldn't all see ourselves making. Hell, he hardly even talks period. Same goes for Master Chief. Obviously, you can write for/around a vessel character. The Wachowski brothers did it. But can you write for a vessel character whose story has already been told? Try and imagine, say, a prequel story where we watch young Master Chief running around military school or whatever. Did you imagine something boring? I did.

Why Facebook Can't Genuinely Connect People

"But there are specific factors, or accelerators, that trigger such connections -- and there are three that Facebook is seriously lacking: Physical proximity, vulnerability and a clearly defined community."

He goes on to discuss how and why Facebook lacks each of the three.

Mere hours before lamebook was hacked together:

"You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole."

/irony

What? I'm not making value judgments.

This is absurdly simple. If people have reason to believe that their efforts will be in vain, then they make no effort. But it's worse than that with socio-economic groups. Some members come to rely on the group's official explanation for lack of success, in order to maintain self-dignity. Those members hold back the others in their group to the best of their ability, else the official defense of mediocrity be disproven.

A great example is the Irish Catholics in America. "No Irish Need Apply" signs? Never happened (in America). http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/no-irish.htm The myth of The Other keeping them down was necessary for them as a group. Even up through the first half of the 20th century, they insisted they were being held down as the explanation for their much lower income levels relative to white Protestants. Then came 1960. JFK was elected. If one of your group can get elected president, there's no more need for excuses. Since 1960, Irish Catholics have grown more and more like white Protestants. Both have almost the exact same income distribution now. Catholic church attendance has plummeted since 1960, asymptotically approaching Protestant church attendance. The group stopped reaching for excuses, and things got better for them. Fast.

edit 1: A strong, telling corollary is that forced immigrant groups always fare poorer than willful immigrant groups. Always.

edit 2: How many generations removed from communist tyranny are America's Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants? How're they doing?

You mean like people of East Asian descent in Finland? ;)

I joke, but I'm also making a point. That's valuable if that's what they did, but we don't actually know if that's what they did; we don't know where their subjects grew up, not just their nationality but more importantly their immediate environment. We have no idea. The researchers make no attempt to detail those factors.

Why? Wouldn't somebody with a PhD doing a study on racial anything want to a) know those things and b) tell us about them? a) Yes. b) If and only if it supports their already-formed conclusion.

Sifting through sixrevisions.com ... they have some fantastic shit. Good writing, sure, but GREAT topics-- and that's such a rarity.

A big* high-five to abraham for the submission.

*The kind that makes your hand sting. Because I love you, that's why.

I will do no such thing, CNN.

I grew up in the DC metro area. It's a horrible place, don't ever move there. Where SF has an entrepreneurship draw and LA has a fame draw and NY has a money draw, DC has a power draw. People literally move there so they can take their shot at being the best Machiavellian sonofabitch they can be. There aren't any brainiacs around there. Some very smart people, sure, but no brainiacs.

They don't get it.