Okay, I see this all the time: people with the best of intentions donate computers to a school and they become abandonware. Truth of the matter is, most districts have an IT department and they are going to want to know what you're putting on their network, you know? Just the same way that you wouldn't want someone donating a few computer to your company without knowing where they came from and what's running on them.
You give a couple of classrooms computers, you get them set up, and then you get too busy to do maintenance (or the teacher doesn't want to ask you about it). They end up with problems, they sit there, the IT dept. doesn't even know they exist, and pretty soon, they are just an eyesore and in the way.
Keep in mind that school districts do asset audits, and if your donations don't get put on the books, they aren't accounted for in case of a disaster or theft (so if you pump 20 donated computers in to a school and they get wrecked / stolen, then said-school is out of luck). Adding to that, I've been associated with districts who are searching out technology grants and have been in danger of not getting them, simply because the ratio of computers to students was too close to 1:1. That's right: some funding sources don't count the age or usefulness of a computer, only the raw numbers.
Also, remember that the school and / or district might actually have some technology curriculum that depends on particular software and GUI uniformity in order to teach a lesson.
SO, at the VERY least, talk to the principal, but a more ideal solution would be to go to the district office, talk to the IT head, figure out what they need and how you can provide them with something that fits in to the curriculum. Best intentions can really rock the boat.
With all of this anger and unfocused rage, is there any doubt that we'll be entering in to a sort of "Ghost Busters II" event very soon? Could The Tubes be used to transport a River of Slime?
The thing is, I don't think that everyone DOES know. I sincerely HOPE that they don't know, because no one is COMPLETELY OUTRAGED about it, and seriously, I think this should be a "people in the streets with torches and pitchforks" kind of issue.
There simply seems to be zero public interest in this (and by "public" I of course mean the non-Slash-reading public) and it boggles the mind that some public figure hasn't jumped on this and made it a platform.
I don't think this is a terribly new practice. My parents live in a 28 year old home and they have a power transformer in a box at the corner of their lot. It's close to the size of a refrigerator, a smallish one on its side, maybe. It's a big, green steel box that sticks out like a sore thumb, except they planted shrubs around it and now you can't see it unless you walk right over there.
Generally, I am very suspicious of the dealings that my city has with outside infrastructure providers, housing contractors, etc., because they have in the past had very low standards. However, I think it's not unreasonable to expect a "wart" like this every few houses on the block. I don't think that "sloppiness" is a factor here.
Here's an idea: find out what you want to do with your life, then go back to school and get the degree that will let you accomplish it. You actually completed a 4 year computer science degree without knowing what you wanted to do when you got out?
No, I don't think you're a bigot. I think you're someone who has turned science in to a belief system because of your passion for the idea that humanity is "advancing".
Humanity, and all organic systems, is changing. We don't get better, we get different. You're out to find the path to true enlightenment, that's cool, everyone is, through spirituality or science, it's all the same passion for finding real happiness. It's all just driven by curiosity and an ingrained inherent motivation to be "better" than what we are. Something that, realistically, just doesn't happen. Better is relative and counts humanity as significantly more important than the natural world around us. That is, of course, a very close-minded, human, non-scientific point of view. The concept of something being better -rather than different- is unfortunately nihilistic but at the same time, serves the concept of evolution much more accurately than does some passion-fueled rant that seems to scream, "If we're ever going to get anywhere, we have to drop organized religion."
I assure you, friend, we ARE getting somewhere. Mankind, all life, doesn't sit around. It may be frustrating that you won't see it in your 85 year lifespan, but rest assured, humanity is indeed changing all the time. It may not be changing in a manner that's positive for YOU, but evolution will always give some biological group a chance in the limelight, so maybe you'll get lucky.
There goes the boat. You have missed it.
There's nothing wrong with waiting 15 years. But a person who is sexually attracted to children is just that. 20 years old isn't really a child. 25 years old, not a child. The gap is not the thing, the wanting sex with children is the thing.
My grandma gave me her Apple//c and little 9" green screen monitor when I was in second grade. There was a store in the local mall that sold shareware, they had bins and bins of 5 1/4" floppies full of Apple ][ software. I had so many cool games for that machine. I had that before I had any game consoles or anything like that, and really, I played computer games way more than my consoles. I got Flight Simulator II for my birthday one year, then I got a joystick for that machine, too. Geez, nostalgia high.
I am inclined to disagree with that analogy. I look at it more like, some people like red cars, some people like blue cars. If for some reason the blue car is more expensive than the red car, but you really really don't like red, and you have to have a car, is it worth it to pay more for the blue car? They are fundamentally the same, but you just can't stand walking out to your driveway every morning and staring at that hideous red car. That's why I pay more for a Mac. I could use Windows, it would get me where I want to go, but man is it ugly.
Yes! Someone mod this up. Asking questions is good, and while there are a large number of successful professionals from many industries on slash, the best advice you're going to get here is probably going to be, "Ask the people you want to be hired by."
It's interesting what a large disconnect there is in the NW. I'm in Corvallis and we really haven't been so much as inconvenienced by the few days of rain and a little excess wind. OSU campus went on "yellow alert" for a couple of days because of the falling tree danger, but nothing ever came of it. I'm originally from the souther part of the state and they are carrying on as usual there, too.
I'm not trivializing anything that has occurred elsewhere in the state or in Washington, but it's just interesting how those of us who don't keep a very great handle on the news all of the time (especially when finals week comes along) don't really get a sense of what is happening in our own back yard.
I think -or rather, I hope- the idea that you're trying to put forth is that quality academic research is harder to spot, critique, and interpret without firm academic background. I am inclined to agree with that, but find your apparent need to be a complete asshole regarding the matter most off-putting. This makes me less inclined to want to hear what you have to say, regardless of how positive the impact could be.
If the MP/RIAA had handled this differently, the whole situation would be different. IF they weren't such obviously scummy, underhanded organizations, the whole situation would be different. If they hadn't escalated what was essentially one P2P network's activity (Napster) to the level of a full-scale war, fought with frivolous lawsuits which rather much made mockery of the American legal system, the situation would be so very different.
YES taking someone's IP without paying when money is demanded is stealing. And I don't condone it. At the same time, I so completely understand why people are able to relax their moral center just a tick when they see how completely prickish and stuck in the stone age that the MPAA and RIAA are. When million of dollars are spent on ads that are hurled in your face from billboards, web ads, TV ads, and radio ads, day-in, and day-out, and at the same time the mouth pieces for the MPAA and RIAA are essentially telling their customers, "Fuck you, you need us, and we'll make consuming our product as painful as we want it to be, you're all fucking criminals." Well that tends to make people feel just a smidgen less guilty about downloading a song or two.
FWIW, I pretty much buy everything from band websites or iTunes.
While it's entirely possible (likely?) that the reviews are a sham, the third one on the page right now is bemoaning that the shortcut on the desktop for Google opens in WebRunner rather than Firefox. Kinda sounds like a Wal Mart customer complaint.
...the clamps start getting put in place. They turn the screws a thread at a time, make lots of fuzzy statements like "Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won." The fight is lost. There is no fight. Submit. Submit.
I think that's an excellent point, and it exposes a lot of the uneducated acceptance of Microsoft FUD that IT managers are still swallowing hook, line, and sinker. People like Steve Ballmer recognize that "innovation" is a scary word in IT. IT managers (not all of them, obviously, not the really smart and hip ones that read Slash:-) dig themselves in to a happy rut (read: long term contract with MS), and Ballmer knows he can keep them there with a lot of very noisy saber rattling.
Steve Ballmer is the epitome of FUD, and while Steve Jobs gets credit for his Reality Distortion Field, Ballmer takes more of a "yelling and firing a shot gun in to the air" approach to the same concept.
Is it possible, or perhaps even likely that the open source community is suffering from an over use and increasing ambiguity of acronyms? I mean, ODF drops ODF for CDF? Hmm.
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You give a couple of classrooms computers, you get them set up, and then you get too busy to do maintenance (or the teacher doesn't want to ask you about it). They end up with problems, they sit there, the IT dept. doesn't even know they exist, and pretty soon, they are just an eyesore and in the way.
Keep in mind that school districts do asset audits, and if your donations don't get put on the books, they aren't accounted for in case of a disaster or theft (so if you pump 20 donated computers in to a school and they get wrecked / stolen, then said-school is out of luck). Adding to that, I've been associated with districts who are searching out technology grants and have been in danger of not getting them, simply because the ratio of computers to students was too close to 1:1. That's right: some funding sources don't count the age or usefulness of a computer, only the raw numbers.
Also, remember that the school and / or district might actually have some technology curriculum that depends on particular software and GUI uniformity in order to teach a lesson.
SO, at the VERY least, talk to the principal, but a more ideal solution would be to go to the district office, talk to the IT head, figure out what they need and how you can provide them with something that fits in to the curriculum. Best intentions can really rock the boat.
What would be the motivation for bias?
With all of this anger and unfocused rage, is there any doubt that we'll be entering in to a sort of "Ghost Busters II" event very soon? Could The Tubes be used to transport a River of Slime?
It's not so much that it's destroyed, it just falls apart. :)
The thing is, I don't think that everyone DOES know. I sincerely HOPE that they don't know, because no one is COMPLETELY OUTRAGED about it, and seriously, I think this should be a "people in the streets with torches and pitchforks" kind of issue. There simply seems to be zero public interest in this (and by "public" I of course mean the non-Slash-reading public) and it boggles the mind that some public figure hasn't jumped on this and made it a platform.
I don't think this is a terribly new practice. My parents live in a 28 year old home and they have a power transformer in a box at the corner of their lot. It's close to the size of a refrigerator, a smallish one on its side, maybe. It's a big, green steel box that sticks out like a sore thumb, except they planted shrubs around it and now you can't see it unless you walk right over there. Generally, I am very suspicious of the dealings that my city has with outside infrastructure providers, housing contractors, etc., because they have in the past had very low standards. However, I think it's not unreasonable to expect a "wart" like this every few houses on the block. I don't think that "sloppiness" is a factor here.
Here's an idea: find out what you want to do with your life, then go back to school and get the degree that will let you accomplish it. You actually completed a 4 year computer science degree without knowing what you wanted to do when you got out?
I transposed better and different in one sentence, it should read "being different -rather than better-".
No, I don't think you're a bigot. I think you're someone who has turned science in to a belief system because of your passion for the idea that humanity is "advancing". Humanity, and all organic systems, is changing. We don't get better, we get different. You're out to find the path to true enlightenment, that's cool, everyone is, through spirituality or science, it's all the same passion for finding real happiness. It's all just driven by curiosity and an ingrained inherent motivation to be "better" than what we are. Something that, realistically, just doesn't happen. Better is relative and counts humanity as significantly more important than the natural world around us. That is, of course, a very close-minded, human, non-scientific point of view. The concept of something being better -rather than different- is unfortunately nihilistic but at the same time, serves the concept of evolution much more accurately than does some passion-fueled rant that seems to scream, "If we're ever going to get anywhere, we have to drop organized religion." I assure you, friend, we ARE getting somewhere. Mankind, all life, doesn't sit around. It may be frustrating that you won't see it in your 85 year lifespan, but rest assured, humanity is indeed changing all the time. It may not be changing in a manner that's positive for YOU, but evolution will always give some biological group a chance in the limelight, so maybe you'll get lucky.
I wish I hadn't pissed away all of my mod points elsewhere. This is the most logical and important post in this entire commentary.
The expensive, feasible house of the present!
There goes the boat. You have missed it. There's nothing wrong with waiting 15 years. But a person who is sexually attracted to children is just that. 20 years old isn't really a child. 25 years old, not a child. The gap is not the thing, the wanting sex with children is the thing.
My grandma gave me her Apple //c and little 9" green screen monitor when I was in second grade. There was a store in the local mall that sold shareware, they had bins and bins of 5 1/4" floppies full of Apple ][ software. I had so many cool games for that machine. I had that before I had any game consoles or anything like that, and really, I played computer games way more than my consoles. I got Flight Simulator II for my birthday one year, then I got a joystick for that machine, too. Geez, nostalgia high.
I am inclined to disagree with that analogy. I look at it more like, some people like red cars, some people like blue cars. If for some reason the blue car is more expensive than the red car, but you really really don't like red, and you have to have a car, is it worth it to pay more for the blue car? They are fundamentally the same, but you just can't stand walking out to your driveway every morning and staring at that hideous red car. That's why I pay more for a Mac. I could use Windows, it would get me where I want to go, but man is it ugly.
Yes! Someone mod this up. Asking questions is good, and while there are a large number of successful professionals from many industries on slash, the best advice you're going to get here is probably going to be, "Ask the people you want to be hired by."
Hey, that's my pickup line...
YOUR KIDDING!
It's interesting what a large disconnect there is in the NW. I'm in Corvallis and we really haven't been so much as inconvenienced by the few days of rain and a little excess wind. OSU campus went on "yellow alert" for a couple of days because of the falling tree danger, but nothing ever came of it. I'm originally from the souther part of the state and they are carrying on as usual there, too. I'm not trivializing anything that has occurred elsewhere in the state or in Washington, but it's just interesting how those of us who don't keep a very great handle on the news all of the time (especially when finals week comes along) don't really get a sense of what is happening in our own back yard.
Yes! We must create an elite, segregated group of people who are deemed intelligent by a test and put them in power without a vote! It CAN'T fail!
I think -or rather, I hope- the idea that you're trying to put forth is that quality academic research is harder to spot, critique, and interpret without firm academic background. I am inclined to agree with that, but find your apparent need to be a complete asshole regarding the matter most off-putting. This makes me less inclined to want to hear what you have to say, regardless of how positive the impact could be.
If the MP/RIAA had handled this differently, the whole situation would be different. IF they weren't such obviously scummy, underhanded organizations, the whole situation would be different. If they hadn't escalated what was essentially one P2P network's activity (Napster) to the level of a full-scale war, fought with frivolous lawsuits which rather much made mockery of the American legal system, the situation would be so very different. YES taking someone's IP without paying when money is demanded is stealing. And I don't condone it. At the same time, I so completely understand why people are able to relax their moral center just a tick when they see how completely prickish and stuck in the stone age that the MPAA and RIAA are. When million of dollars are spent on ads that are hurled in your face from billboards, web ads, TV ads, and radio ads, day-in, and day-out, and at the same time the mouth pieces for the MPAA and RIAA are essentially telling their customers, "Fuck you, you need us, and we'll make consuming our product as painful as we want it to be, you're all fucking criminals." Well that tends to make people feel just a smidgen less guilty about downloading a song or two. FWIW, I pretty much buy everything from band websites or iTunes.
While it's entirely possible (likely?) that the reviews are a sham, the third one on the page right now is bemoaning that the shortcut on the desktop for Google opens in WebRunner rather than Firefox. Kinda sounds like a Wal Mart customer complaint.
...the clamps start getting put in place. They turn the screws a thread at a time, make lots of fuzzy statements like "Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won." The fight is lost. There is no fight. Submit. Submit.
I think that's an excellent point, and it exposes a lot of the uneducated acceptance of Microsoft FUD that IT managers are still swallowing hook, line, and sinker. People like Steve Ballmer recognize that "innovation" is a scary word in IT. IT managers (not all of them, obviously, not the really smart and hip ones that read Slash :-) dig themselves in to a happy rut (read: long term contract with MS), and Ballmer knows he can keep them there with a lot of very noisy saber rattling.
Steve Ballmer is the epitome of FUD, and while Steve Jobs gets credit for his Reality Distortion Field, Ballmer takes more of a "yelling and firing a shot gun in to the air" approach to the same concept.
Is it possible, or perhaps even likely that the open source community is suffering from an over use and increasing ambiguity of acronyms? I mean, ODF drops ODF for CDF? Hmm.