How this is better than just blurring the whole thing is beyond me.
When you blur something you lose information so ideally you don't want to blur anything unless the result is "better" in some way. I would guess the argument here is that losing a bit of information around some edges is less disturbing to a viewer than the jaggies so it is deemed worthwhile. Normally you get rid of the jaggies by super-sampling, preferably adaptive super-sampling, but that can be computationally expensive. I suppose the idea here is that you get a result that isn't as good as a super-sampled image but is a lot cheaper to generate.
I'm pretty sure that post-processing images to reduce the appearance of aliasing has been around for quite a long time.
Teens scoff at a lot of laws because they fully understand nobody will do anything to them... and they are right. Imagine America trying to extradite boatloads of 15 year-olds from around the world.
Arise teens of the world and throw off our chains, you have nothing to lose.
I'm assuming from some of your comments that you are in the US. If not then my comments may not make sense.
no person should be incarcerated in a prison as designed today- criminals should be able to work, live, and socialise regardless of the crime or disgust for we have for a particular offence within a restricted area).
Check out women's prisons in Canada. Seems like a pretty nice ifestyle.
We need a new system of health care where health care research is funded through taxation
Ummmm, universities? Doesn't the US/state government fund medical research at universities?
The grandparent is exaggerating imho. The word "utilities" covers a lot of ground. In my province electricity is a utility that is owned by the government (a so-called "Crown Corporation") so they are hardly in the utility's pocket. There are 16 major electric utilities in Canada and 8 are owned by various provinces, representing 80%+ of the country's generating capacity, while another 2 are owned by municipalities.
And while I don't know what the state of affairs is in all the provinces the Province of Saskatchewan owns the telephone utility as well as the power utilities - again hardly in the pockets of private corporations.
It's not a utility but auto insurance is owned by the government in more than one Province and while I'm no fan of it in some ways it does generally provides better coverage at less cost than you would get in the private sector.
I generally think people who say Canadian governments (federal or provincial) are in the pockets of the corporations just have no concept of what lobbying is like in the US.
Although not a utility the government does however seem to be in the pocket of the copyright industry.... or perhaps they are just acquiescing to pressure from the US government which in turn is in the pocket of the copyright industry.
Claims of agism always seemed funny to me in the context of programming (or really most industries).
To see ageism all one need do is read/. where old(er) age is used as a synonym for technologically unsophisticated (or worse), as in "This needs to be dumbed down for the grannies." People who think that way in general are also likely going to be prejudiced against working with older programmers/designers/architects/etc.
The thing is most employers/clients don't see the value in paying more now for code that costs less in the future. They may say they do but the fact is they are looking at their budgets and listening to a little voice in their heads saying something like "Hire the the less experienced but cheaper guy and worry about the future later."
Well it's arithmetic not math but that quibble aside obviously memorization servers a purpose. I chose the example I did because it's so crystal clear and uncluttered by irrelevant details that it's pretty hard to argue that memorization isn't necessary.
The whole "I don't need to know it, I can just look it up" attitude is sadly far out of touch with how intellectual/creative processes actually happen.
Your motivation for doing so, or not doing so, and the method by which you arrived at that memorization isn't germane to what I said.
And when you were learning to multiply did you learn to calculate 6*66 by adding 66+66+66+66+66+66? Or did you multiply 6*6 and add it to 6*60?
I would be interested in knowing what useful (as in practical for everyday purposes) algorithm you could use to multiply a couple of three digit numbers, without the assistance of a device like a calculator/computer, that didn't either require the memorization of the times table or require an awful lot of addition.
Never memorize what you can look up in books. --Albert_Einstein
Yeah, why bother memorizing stuff like 6*6=36 when you can just look it up in a book?
Plus as an added benefit the government won't need rats in a face cage to get you to the 2+2=5 stage, they'll just change the web page to make that the new truth.
though performance does drop off as the data gets more incompressible."
This is the real problem. Performance figures for SSD's are quoted based on highly compressible data because the SSD compresses the data before storing it thus performing fewer physical writes. Similarly for reading. This gives a highly distorted view of SSD performance. It's like saying "my car gets 200 MPG" and neglecting to say that figure is based on all downhill mileage.
Try copying 10GB of already compressed data and the SSD results are markedly different than what the benchmarks and specifications show. IMHO if this is not clearly pointed out on SSD sales literature then it is tantamount to fraudulent advertising.
In many cases, and for the same price, a couple of software raided hard drives will offer as good as or better performance than an SSD and with an order of magnitude more storage.
They've made a great video showing optical control of a mouse's motor cortex,
OK IAAS (I Am A Scientist) and I can appreciate the potential for good with this research but watching that video... it's just a little creepy to see a living animal quite literally turned into a robot. Maybe it's just watching too many episodes of STNG. OTOH I bet there are (some) military and covert agency types who got a hardon watching it.
Don't be silly. An english class at any level is not going to prepare people to "consider the social ramifications of their work". That's ethics, and is usually part of the core of your education.
Some arts education (I never said just English) helps one understand the society they live in, how it got to be where it is, where it came from, how human values evolve etc. While an ethics course may be valuable you don't get all that simply by taking an ethics course.
The only reason to force general education is the old ideal of an educated person being able to discuss many different fields in addition to the one they mastered.
Really? The only reason? IMHO that's a pretty limited view of the benefits that a good rounded education gives to both the individual and to society.
Employers don't hire you because you can quote Keats,...
The point of a university degree is a little more than "get me a job", although I guess if that is the attitude someone takes going in then that may be all they get out of it. IMHO that would be a shame.
Unless you can find some study that shows that programmers a...
Actually one of the greats in computing once remarked that he found the best programmers were people who were good at math or had good facility writing in their native language (he didn't just mean writing a note). I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out who it was.
For all those who want to say something like "it's my money, I should be able to take whatever courses I want" you might have a point if you are taking your degree at a 100% privately funded school that receives nothing from the government by way of support. For any other kind of school society most definitely has the right to make some requirements in return for its support.
On a side note, why is book count so important to an English course? I realize this could be considered important for a Literature course. For an English course, the primary goal is to improve your ability to read, write, and understand the language. I don't see how reading 100-400 pages of source material a week (a 200-400 page book every 1-2 weeks) really accomplishes that goal. I do see how this is necessary in a Literature course, where you can't learn the literature unless you've read it.
IIRC (and it has been a long time) there was no idea of English being anything but the study of English Literature - every course in the English department concerned literature. These are some of the 1st year courses: "Introduction to Fiction", "Introduction to Poetry", "Introduction to Drama", "Introduction to Prose Genres" and "Introduction to Issues in Literature and Culture". Some 2nd year courses: "Medieval Literature", "Early Modern Literature", "Restoration and 18th Century Literature",
"19th Century Literatures in English", "Writing and Critical Thinking" and "History and Principles of Rhetoric".
Being able to read, write and understand the language (at least modern English) was just assumed - as I said there were remedial courses for those who couldn't but you were generally assumed to have mastered those skills at high school and that outside of the remedial courses those skills were not the responsibility of the English Department. IIRC the only exception to that was an upper level course in technical communication put on at the request of the School of Engineering.
The 1st year courses were to a great extent survey courses. So over two weeks you would read a book, discuss it in a couple of tutorials, write a paper, attend a half dozen companion lectures and then it was on to the next book.
My comment was merely to indicate that many of the students had apparently not done a lot of reading and that reading a couple of hundred pages of material a week seemed onerous to them.
It was hard to feel sorry for them. The lower information density of a novel made a little Melville feel quite restful compared to being responsible for reading and comprehending 40-50 pages of calculus during the same two weeks.
But as I said everyone's experience will be different. When they were current "The Feynman Lectures" were apparently intended for freshman physics at CalTech. However i think at most schools they would have been considered appropriate for upper levels or possibly even 1st year grad school.
my high school English courses were significantly more difficult than my college English course. The college course was designed to be the minimum to ensure that you were a functional speaker, whereas the high school course (an AP course) was significantly more difficult. I specifically remember being praised highly for a paper in college that, upon re-reading, I would have been embarrassed to turn in to my high school English teacher.
I think everyone's experience will be different, dependent on the HS they attended, their teachers and the College/University they attended.
In my case the University did not have any special English courses for non-English Majors. You were just expected to be able to read/write etc. at a competent level. IMO this is how it should be although it was a shock to many 1st year students that they were expected to read, analyse, discuss and write about a new book every 1-2 weeks. These were significantly more difficult than the courses in the final year of HS. There were also so-called "remedial courses" for the many who weren't adequately prepared - but they didn't count for degree credit or for Science students looking to fill their Arts requirements.
What did happen though, and most of the people I knew in Science thought this was wrong, was that there were special "Intro to Chemistry/Physics/Biology for Arts Students" courses which were highly diluted but still counted as degree credit - for Arts students.
I would say that a University that has to make the 1st year courses no better than the final year of high school is not a very good university. In the case of my undergrad school they were turning out people with Arts degrees that had an unacceptably low level knowledge of Science.
Yep that's how I made my first circuit board too. You could also buy pre-printed stickers for DIPs and other common shapes like a pad with 3 holes spaced for transistors etc.
It's even worse than that - Windows will only allow you to make 1 recovery CD set - like you would really trust your one and only burned CD set to still be good in 3 years when your machine crashes. Apparently they think users can't figure out how to duplicate CD's... so they make it needlessly more difficult to have multiple backup copies.
But it's worse than that - they also put the recovery info on a partition on the hard disk and encourage people to use that. Does anybody really think a virus writer can't figure out how to infect the recovery partition too?
Ummm normally I don't make spelling complaints but given the topic on which you are posting and the air of authority you want to have regarding quality of education in English...
Apparently your public school and high school English courses, advanced placement or otherwise, did not teach you how to spell the word college.
I don't think it is US only and I *really* don't think it is a problem. Where I did my B.Sc. getting a degree meant you had to have a certain number of credit hours and a certain number of those had to be in 3rd & 4th year courses of your "Major", e.g. in CS. People also routinely earned "Minors" in one or two other subjects along the way by accumulating enough upper level credits in those areas. So you might get a major in CS with a minor in Physics (more likely the other way around though). If you wanted an "Hon" attached to your B.Sc. or B.A. you had to take additional upper level credits.
But you were also expected to get a certain number of "arts" credits if you were a science student and a certain number of science credits if you were an "arts" student. And I think that is a good idea.
For those saying they "got all that" in high school - there is just no comparing a university level English course and a high school English course.
Public universities are subsidized with public funds which gives the public a right to some say in what students have to take. I think it is not only reasonable but desirable for Science students to also have to take some English, History, Philosophy etc. and the equivalent requirements for Arts students to take Science courses.
I want the people working on recombinant DNA, drugs, power technologies, information processing etc. to be equipped to consider the social ramifications of their work and to understand, for example, why they can't just invent something and then disclaim any responsibility for what is then done with it.
Similarly I want the people who end up running society - the judges, politicians, etc. - to have a good understanding of "Science" and how it works and especially how it doesn't work.
IMHO not only doesn't High School achieve that as it usually seems to run but it can't achieve that goal as it is currently constituted. Heck in my experience high school doesn't even teach the science students the "science stuff" they need to succeed in University let alone the non "science stuff" as well.
As a final note, when I taught I met lots of students who didn't want to have to take any more of "that other stuff" and in most cases they were the ones who really needed it the most.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't a question of demographics.
Ummm, well, perhaps, but I was responding to someone who said it was a question of demographics... so that's how I framed my response.
even if you do not, yourself, have a grandma who is technologically ignorant, apathetic, or intolerant (or if you are yourself a grandma who is technologically savvy, depending on what your beef with the GP/GGGP is) you have certainly encountered at least one person who fits the description.
I've encountered at least one teen who was "Technologically ignorant/apathetic/intolerant" - shall we start substituting "teens" for "grandma"?
the alternative is for them to keep rephrasing "Technologically ignorant/apathetic/intolerant" in various ways
Ummmm, why do they have to keep rephrasing the above? "They" don't seem to mind re-using "Grandma/pa" over and over so why not use your phrase over and over?
that's both awkward linguistically and boring
And continually repeating ageist comments like "grandma" isn't (boring)? Come now.
Or you could just be trolling.
If you had a good argument to make you could make it without accusations/insinuations of trolling. It isn't trolling to point out ageist speech, which is a specific type of bigoted speech, when I see it.
You do get why bigoted speech is wrong don't you? That, among other things, it encourages false negative stereotypes about a particular group which ultimately leads to discrimination against members of that group to whom the stereotype does not apply?
And btw the onus is not on me to provide a non-ageist alternative; the onus is on the person wanting to generalize to do so in a manner that does not pander to bigoted and/or stereotyped viewpoints. But here you go, here is a substitute for free: "technologically unsophisticated:" which actually communicates the (presumably) intended meaning without inaccurately stereotyping any group. If that is boring to you that is too bad - your boredom does not an excuse for bigotry make.
And if you don't get all that then I can only suggest you go find your parents and tell them that they and everyone else old enough to have grandchildren are "Technologically ignorant/apathetic/intolerant".
What's wrong with synaptic? Well start at the top, it's name! Go get your sister and sit her down in front of your computer, start synaptic for her (since she won't have a clue that's what the package manager is called), and then tell her to install new CD authoring software.
I just tried that - typed "cd" into the quick search of the Synaptic GUI and it came back wit lots of CD utilities including burning utilities. The list wasn't especially long, i.e. not a chore to read through. When I added "burn" to the search the list got shorter and displayed several burners. What was your point?
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When you blur something you lose information so ideally you don't want to blur anything unless the result is "better" in some way. I would guess the argument here is that losing a bit of information around some edges is less disturbing to a viewer than the jaggies so it is deemed worthwhile. Normally you get rid of the jaggies by super-sampling, preferably adaptive super-sampling, but that can be computationally expensive. I suppose the idea here is that you get a result that isn't as good as a super-sampled image but is a lot cheaper to generate.
I'm pretty sure that post-processing images to reduce the appearance of aliasing has been around for quite a long time.
Teens scoff at a lot of laws because they fully understand nobody will do anything to them... and they are right. Imagine America trying to extradite boatloads of 15 year-olds from around the world.
Arise teens of the world and throw off our chains, you have nothing to lose.
If you haven't seen it, and you can still find it, you should watch "The President's Analyst."
I'm assuming from some of your comments that you are in the US. If not then my comments may not make sense.
Check out women's prisons in Canada. Seems like a pretty nice ifestyle.
Ummmm, universities? Doesn't the US/state government fund medical research at universities?
The grandparent is exaggerating imho. The word "utilities" covers a lot of ground. In my province electricity is a utility that is owned by the government (a so-called "Crown Corporation") so they are hardly in the utility's pocket. There are 16 major electric utilities in Canada and 8 are owned by various provinces, representing 80%+ of the country's generating capacity, while another 2 are owned by municipalities.
And while I don't know what the state of affairs is in all the provinces the Province of Saskatchewan owns the telephone utility as well as the power utilities - again hardly in the pockets of private corporations.
It's not a utility but auto insurance is owned by the government in more than one Province and while I'm no fan of it in some ways it does generally provides better coverage at less cost than you would get in the private sector.
I generally think people who say Canadian governments (federal or provincial) are in the pockets of the corporations just have no concept of what lobbying is like in the US.
Although not a utility the government does however seem to be in the pocket of the copyright industry.... or perhaps they are just acquiescing to pressure from the US government which in turn is in the pocket of the copyright industry.
To see ageism all one need do is read /. where old(er) age is used as a synonym for technologically unsophisticated (or worse), as in "This needs to be dumbed down for the grannies." People who think that way in general are also likely going to be prejudiced against working with older programmers/designers/architects/etc.
The thing is most employers/clients don't see the value in paying more now for code that costs less in the future. They may say they do but the fact is they are looking at their budgets and listening to a little voice in their heads saying something like "Hire the the less experienced but cheaper guy and worry about the future later."
Then stop reading the articles. Geez.
Well it's arithmetic not math but that quibble aside obviously memorization servers a purpose. I chose the example I did because it's so crystal clear and uncluttered by irrelevant details that it's pretty hard to argue that memorization isn't necessary.
The whole "I don't need to know it, I can just look it up" attitude is sadly far out of touch with how intellectual/creative processes actually happen.
But you did memorize 6*6=36.
Your motivation for doing so, or not doing so, and the method by which you arrived at that memorization isn't germane to what I said.
And when you were learning to multiply did you learn to calculate 6*66 by adding 66+66+66+66+66+66? Or did you multiply 6*6 and add it to 6*60?
I would be interested in knowing what useful (as in practical for everyday purposes) algorithm you could use to multiply a couple of three digit numbers, without the assistance of a device like a calculator/computer, that didn't either require the memorization of the times table or require an awful lot of addition.
Yeah, why bother memorizing stuff like 6*6=36 when you can just look it up in a book?
Plus as an added benefit the government won't need rats in a face cage to get you to the 2+2=5 stage, they'll just change the web page to make that the new truth.
WOW. Of the 1st 12 comments concerning this improved technology 10 are put downs or one sort or another.
Somehow I don't see that happening if it had been invented in the US. Oh yeah, maybe a joke or two but not 10 out of 12. Pretty damn sad.
This is the real problem. Performance figures for SSD's are quoted based on highly compressible data because the SSD compresses the data before storing it thus performing fewer physical writes. Similarly for reading. This gives a highly distorted view of SSD performance. It's like saying "my car gets 200 MPG" and neglecting to say that figure is based on all downhill mileage.
Try copying 10GB of already compressed data and the SSD results are markedly different than what the benchmarks and specifications show. IMHO if this is not clearly pointed out on SSD sales literature then it is tantamount to fraudulent advertising.
In many cases, and for the same price, a couple of software raided hard drives will offer as good as or better performance than an SSD and with an order of magnitude more storage.
OK IAAS (I Am A Scientist) and I can appreciate the potential for good with this research but watching that video... it's just a little creepy to see a living animal quite literally turned into a robot. Maybe it's just watching too many episodes of STNG. OTOH I bet there are (some) military and covert agency types who got a hardon watching it.
Some arts education (I never said just English) helps one understand the society they live in, how it got to be where it is, where it came from, how human values evolve etc. While an ethics course may be valuable you don't get all that simply by taking an ethics course.
Really? The only reason? IMHO that's a pretty limited view of the benefits that a good rounded education gives to both the individual and to society.
The point of a university degree is a little more than "get me a job", although I guess if that is the attitude someone takes going in then that may be all they get out of it. IMHO that would be a shame.
Actually one of the greats in computing once remarked that he found the best programmers were people who were good at math or had good facility writing in their native language (he didn't just mean writing a note). I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out who it was.
For all those who want to say something like "it's my money, I should be able to take whatever courses I want" you might have a point if you are taking your degree at a 100% privately funded school that receives nothing from the government by way of support. For any other kind of school society most definitely has the right to make some requirements in return for its support.
IIRC (and it has been a long time) there was no idea of English being anything but the study of English Literature - every course in the English department concerned literature. These are some of the 1st year courses: "Introduction to Fiction", "Introduction to Poetry", "Introduction to Drama", "Introduction to Prose Genres" and "Introduction to Issues in Literature and Culture". Some 2nd year courses: "Medieval Literature", "Early Modern Literature", "Restoration and 18th Century Literature", "19th Century Literatures in English", "Writing and Critical Thinking" and "History and Principles of Rhetoric".
Being able to read, write and understand the language (at least modern English) was just assumed - as I said there were remedial courses for those who couldn't but you were generally assumed to have mastered those skills at high school and that outside of the remedial courses those skills were not the responsibility of the English Department. IIRC the only exception to that was an upper level course in technical communication put on at the request of the School of Engineering.
The 1st year courses were to a great extent survey courses. So over two weeks you would read a book, discuss it in a couple of tutorials, write a paper, attend a half dozen companion lectures and then it was on to the next book.
My comment was merely to indicate that many of the students had apparently not done a lot of reading and that reading a couple of hundred pages of material a week seemed onerous to them. It was hard to feel sorry for them. The lower information density of a novel made a little Melville feel quite restful compared to being responsible for reading and comprehending 40-50 pages of calculus during the same two weeks.
But as I said everyone's experience will be different. When they were current "The Feynman Lectures" were apparently intended for freshman physics at CalTech. However i think at most schools they would have been considered appropriate for upper levels or possibly even 1st year grad school.
A bit late for this reply but I was busy...
I think everyone's experience will be different, dependent on the HS they attended, their teachers and the College/University they attended.
In my case the University did not have any special English courses for non-English Majors. You were just expected to be able to read/write etc. at a competent level. IMO this is how it should be although it was a shock to many 1st year students that they were expected to read, analyse, discuss and write about a new book every 1-2 weeks. These were significantly more difficult than the courses in the final year of HS. There were also so-called "remedial courses" for the many who weren't adequately prepared - but they didn't count for degree credit or for Science students looking to fill their Arts requirements.
What did happen though, and most of the people I knew in Science thought this was wrong, was that there were special "Intro to Chemistry/Physics/Biology for Arts Students" courses which were highly diluted but still counted as degree credit - for Arts students.
I would say that a University that has to make the 1st year courses no better than the final year of high school is not a very good university. In the case of my undergrad school they were turning out people with Arts degrees that had an unacceptably low level knowledge of Science.
Yep that's how I made my first circuit board too. You could also buy pre-printed stickers for DIPs and other common shapes like a pad with 3 holes spaced for transistors etc.
$107 billion a year to fight a war in Afghanistan??? Geez, take a tip from IT and outsource it to China or India.
It's even worse than that - Windows will only allow you to make 1 recovery CD set - like you would really trust your one and only burned CD set to still be good in 3 years when your machine crashes. Apparently they think users can't figure out how to duplicate CD's... so they make it needlessly more difficult to have multiple backup copies.
But it's worse than that - they also put the recovery info on a partition on the hard disk and encourage people to use that. Does anybody really think a virus writer can't figure out how to infect the recovery partition too?
Ummm normally I don't make spelling complaints but given the topic on which you are posting and the air of authority you want to have regarding quality of education in English...
Apparently your public school and high school English courses, advanced placement or otherwise, did not teach you how to spell the word college.
I don't think it is US only and I *really* don't think it is a problem. Where I did my B.Sc. getting a degree meant you had to have a certain number of credit hours and a certain number of those had to be in 3rd & 4th year courses of your "Major", e.g. in CS. People also routinely earned "Minors" in one or two other subjects along the way by accumulating enough upper level credits in those areas. So you might get a major in CS with a minor in Physics (more likely the other way around though). If you wanted an "Hon" attached to your B.Sc. or B.A. you had to take additional upper level credits.
But you were also expected to get a certain number of "arts" credits if you were a science student and a certain number of science credits if you were an "arts" student. And I think that is a good idea.
For those saying they "got all that" in high school - there is just no comparing a university level English course and a high school English course.
Public universities are subsidized with public funds which gives the public a right to some say in what students have to take. I think it is not only reasonable but desirable for Science students to also have to take some English, History, Philosophy etc. and the equivalent requirements for Arts students to take Science courses.
I want the people working on recombinant DNA, drugs, power technologies, information processing etc. to be equipped to consider the social ramifications of their work and to understand, for example, why they can't just invent something and then disclaim any responsibility for what is then done with it.
Similarly I want the people who end up running society - the judges, politicians, etc. - to have a good understanding of "Science" and how it works and especially how it doesn't work.
IMHO not only doesn't High School achieve that as it usually seems to run but it can't achieve that goal as it is currently constituted. Heck in my experience high school doesn't even teach the science students the "science stuff" they need to succeed in University let alone the non "science stuff" as well.
As a final note, when I taught I met lots of students who didn't want to have to take any more of "that other stuff" and in most cases they were the ones who really needed it the most.
Ummm, well, perhaps, but I was responding to someone who said it was a question of demographics... so that's how I framed my response.
I've encountered at least one teen who was "Technologically ignorant/apathetic/intolerant" - shall we start substituting "teens" for "grandma"?
Ummmm, why do they have to keep rephrasing the above? "They" don't seem to mind re-using "Grandma/pa" over and over so why not use your phrase over and over?
And continually repeating ageist comments like "grandma" isn't (boring)? Come now.
If you had a good argument to make you could make it without accusations/insinuations of trolling. It isn't trolling to point out ageist speech, which is a specific type of bigoted speech, when I see it.
You do get why bigoted speech is wrong don't you? That, among other things, it encourages false negative stereotypes about a particular group which ultimately leads to discrimination against members of that group to whom the stereotype does not apply?
And btw the onus is not on me to provide a non-ageist alternative; the onus is on the person wanting to generalize to do so in a manner that does not pander to bigoted and/or stereotyped viewpoints. But here you go, here is a substitute for free: "technologically unsophisticated:" which actually communicates the (presumably) intended meaning without inaccurately stereotyping any group. If that is boring to you that is too bad - your boredom does not an excuse for bigotry make.
And if you don't get all that then I can only suggest you go find your parents and tell them that they and everyone else old enough to have grandchildren are "Technologically ignorant/apathetic/intolerant".
Mod parent up for hitting the nail on the head.
I just tried that - typed "cd" into the quick search of the Synaptic GUI and it came back wit lots of CD utilities including burning utilities. The list wasn't especially long, i.e. not a chore to read through. When I added "burn" to the search the list got shorter and displayed several burners. What was your point?