Randomness

[Distracted]

C'mon guys. India is a huge country. Stop bashing the entire population based on contact with a limited few. All of the people that I have met in my lifetime who were from India have been college students, medical residents, and doctors. I have nothing but respect for them. Without exception they have been intelligent, well-spoken, hard working, and polite. They can't help it that most of the population of their country of origin is so poor that they're willing to work for practically nothing. They also can't help it that they grew up speaking a language other than English or German and so they often have heavy accents. You guys are blaming these people for things that are beyond their control.

[Kotik]

Is treating women as something despicable also beyond their control? Sorry, but that alone is enough for me to despise the lot, because we aren't talking about a few misguided individuals, but a 1 billion people, most of which think it is acceptable to mistreat the female of the species. You're right, though, they are not responsible for the western industry gladly accepting cheap slaves, who go to work on an ox. Doesn't mean that I have to like them. I gladly saw the back of them as they left on friday.

[WarpGirl]

Okay, how about a wonderful cusine, or amazing art and architecture, beautiful poetry. How about the fact that Ghandi was an Indian.

You're basing judgement on an ENTIRE RACE of people just by a bad work experience. That's completely pathetic! That's racist! That's disgusting! How about if I met a really bad group of people from your country and declared that Germans "don't deserve to live!" You'd (rightfully) freak out. Yet that's what you're doing right now! And you tell me that it's justified because of "personal experience" if that isn't bigotry than maybe your dictionary is out-of-date. Or maybe we're speaking a different form of English!

AND NEWSFLASH! NOT ALL INDIAN MEN TREAT WOMEN LIKE TRASH! If they did, that I would have been dead YEARS AGO!

[Alelou]

Really? Must you insult an entire, incredibly diverse country of people on the basis of your limited experience?

Friends in grad school were Indian, my doctor is Indian, my physical therapist is Indian, one of my favorite writing friends is Indian, my favorite neighbors were Indian, and a number of my professional colleagues have been Indian, and I haven't experienced ANY of what you are talking about. Maybe you have somehow met up with the most obnoxious bunch of incompetent, English-illiterate, sexist Indians on the planet, but it's absurd to make such wholesale judgments of a very complex group on that basis.

How'd you like us to generalize about Germans from our experience of you, hmm? I'm sure something about a tendency to think 'lower' ethnic groups don't deserve to live could come into it. (Fortunately I know that would not be fair, even including German history, because I know other Germans who aren't at all like that.)

Really, Kotik, I can only assume that you are in a nasty trolling mood.

[Distracted]

Uh-oh, Kotik. Looks like Warpgirl's favorite doctor might be from India.

Let's drop this discussion, okay? Making generalizations about an entire race of people based on the behavior of a few socially maladjusted computer nerds doesn't make much sense to me. I get it that you've had some unpleasant experiences with fellow programmers who happened to be from India, Kotik. Please accept his opinion as just that, Warpgirl. His opinion. He is entitled to it.

Now let's move on before I have to lock this thread.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Are fan fiction and fan art legal?

[Alelou]

Great article.

Sometimes we let corporations intimidate us too much, really. The same tensions arise about fair use in the academic setting. I remember one of our speakers at the college was using magazine covers to teach about media bias or something like that and when the publisher told her she'd have to pay big permissions fees to use them, she discovered that she really didn't, especially since she was using them for educational purposes.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

R.I.P. Harry Harrison, creator of the Stainless Steel Rat, Bill the Galactic Hero, and Soylent Green

[Distracted]

Well, shoot. All the good ones are dying off.

[Weeble]

nah,

for those of us who watched the closing ceremonies from London. Eric Idle was terrific!!! and that boy's getting old

[Cogito]

R.I.P. Harry Harrison, creator of the Stainless Steel Rat, Bill the Galactic Hero, and Soylent Green

Damn!

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Peanuts, Blackjack and Pee: Strangest Space Mission Superstitions

[Distracted]

Isn't it peculiar how people can be so smart and yet remain so superstitious?

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Connor Trinneer in Vulcan

[Alelou]

I think this must be Connor's cat: http://instagram.com/p/OPKGr2vgpk/

It's a beauty!

Yes, I occasionally lurk around Connor's twitter feed (and his wife's). It makes me feel just slightly creepy, but I do it anyway. Not that I check very often (or they post all that often). I get this sense of a rather hip, interesting, artistic young family that I really have no business having a sense of, except that they DO put this stuff out there so what's to stop me from indulging my curiosity?

Added in edit: See, here's a lovely shot of Connor and his kid taken by the Mrs.: http://instagram.com/p/OX5Vvyug5k/