The law doesn't make social responsibility wrong, it makes it irrelevant (so it's better to say that corporates are amoral rather than immoral). If they don't screw somebody over because it's more profitable not to screw them over then it's a fortunate outcome but hardly to the corporate's credit.
Outside of your affluent community. Inner cities. Rural areas. You know, where 75% of the people and 10% of the wealth are (numbers admittedly made up, but the sentiment is there). I'm not trying to say anything bad about your daughter's schooling - I think it's great - but don't think this is normal. Ok, but then the issue isn't that the teaching profession is locked into the past, it's that much of it is under-resourced. I don't disagree with that at all!
My daughter's teachers sit in front of an active whiteboard, hooked up to a laptop, so that, for example, she can see the effect of changing parameters in an equation graphed immediately. She then puts headphones on in the language lab, then uses Google Docs to do he creative writing (so she can easily finish it off at home). Where is it that teaching isn't using technology?
"Unfortunately, the lowest priced hardware tends to be the hardest to get working with Linux."
This is also true of Windows. For those who have tried to get a Toshiba laptop functioning properly using a boxed version of Windows XP, they'll see no difference with Linux.
The particular difference that I saw is that my cheap WiFi card came with a Windows driver in the box, but I have been unable to find a working Linux driver for it and I've been unable to get a wrapper around the Windows driver to work under Linux. When I start seeing cheap hardware shipping with Linux drivers I'll believe that Windows and Linux users see no difference. Can anyone point me to a WiFi card for my desktop that does ship with a Linux driver?
As someone seriously considering buying Asus's eeepc (awful name), I have to agree with the main point of this article with regard to costs. Well, sort of. Unfortunately, the lowest priced hardware tends to be the hardest to get working with Linux. Sure, I know the RA points out that most of the machines can run some sort of Linux, but there's a difference between running Linux and having all peripherals supported. I've spent a few weeks trying to get WiFi working under Feisty Faun on my desktop, with no success: native support doesn't work and I can't get ndiswrapper to recognise it. No, I'm not a Linux guru, nor a networking guru, but nor are 99.9% of the customers for that cheap hardware (the gurus are going to want some serious metal, after all!) so the pain of getting Linux working properly is likely to outweigh the Microsoft tax. To get FF working on my desktop I'd probably have to buy paid support (I've already tried asking in the forums), which would likely cost more than an OEM copy of Vista (which I could now upgrade to XP, it seems). Sorry, I wish it were otherwise, but Linux is still experts only, and I can't see cheap hardware changing that.
I get your point, but modularizing your code is hardly ever a waste.
Technically it's usually a win for complexity alone - two smaller pieces are easier than one large one. I suspect that's true, because I suspect code that hasn't been properly designed in advance is usually insufficiently modular rather than excessively modular. But it isn't always so (you caught that in your hardly ever) because the reduced internal complexity of those two pieces is set against increased boundary (interface) complexity. There comes a point when further modularisation actually starts to complicate things again (that's the real complexity, the difficulty in comprehending the program, rather than artificial measures like cyclometric complexity which aren't usually what you're really worried about).
Only, it seems, if you can provide a US address. I've just tried to get it, and have been refused because I live in the UK.
Somehow, I think that might be a limit to widespread adoption. Yes, the US market is big, but much of it wants to do business with the rest of the world.
And OO.o doesn't really have an equivalent to Visio, either. OO.o Draw is a nice app, but it doesn't do the same job as Visio. The original article's "useopenoffice" tag isn't really a solution.
Come to that, even with compatible functionality, rivals are still up against MS Office's installed user base. As long as my customers require me to use MS Office templates that don't work in OO.o (not least because they use macros), MS Office is staying on my computer. I've yet to have a customer ask me to work to an OO.o template (although I'm ready if they do).
That's what you think. In fact, you've just ordered a 36 volume encyclopaedia, and the first instalment of $199.99 will be debited from your credit card next month.
Come back, kid, when you've actually worked on a few contracts for the EU and you've learned the terminology that the EU obliges you to use when working for them.
I finally made it to High School and then I decided this time, it wasn't going to happen again. Some kid tried it on and I opted to belt him one in the nose. His nose was thoroughly broken and he was out of school for a week. One of the kids in my school year did something like that. Then he was knifed to death on his way home from school.
Is every last one of those 1000 kids a bully ? If it's the law of the jungle, yes.
And to the best of my knowledge, there is no other strategy - you can tell the teachers and you can tell your parents, but the latter can't help you and the former can't be bothered.
That's how it was when I was at school. The school saw bullying as a good things -- character building. When I was bullied, the school would punish me if I even tried to fight back. A lot of good martial arts would have done in that environment; they'd have got me even worse punishment from the school authorities. But, in the UK at least, schools have come on from those days.
So you either fight back or hide somewhere. I chose the latter, not having had access to martial arts, and as a result I still, at 28 years old, feel uncomfortable near people, especially if they're between me and an escape route.
Thanks to lots of good medicine it is mere uncomfort and vague feeling of threat, rather than an outright panic. Yep. Me too. In my case it's not fear, its depression, but I was still damaged by it. The difference is that I was severely asthmatic, so the martial arts route couldn't have been available to me. So everybody saying "make another target more attractive" is essentially setting the bullies onto me. If you don't mind, I don't see that as a good solution. Good for you, perhaps, but crap for me. Sorry, but the solution isn't to shuffle the bullying onto other people, it's to stop the bullying -- which is what the original article was about.
That is the price of not fighting back. No it isn't. That makes it your fault. Blaming the victim is the bullies game. If you had fought back somebody else would have suffered the damage. The price would still have been paid, just not by you. It's not the price of not fighting back, it's the price of bullying being tolerated
Well. Didn't that come out as self-pitying rant about my personal history. Feel free to post some condescending remark about choosing to not live in the jungle. Just dont' expect the beasts there to care. I don't mean to be condescending -- I've been damaged by bullying too. But if your answer to bullying is to crap on me, don't expect me to endorse it.
Another strawman. I have never approved bullying anyone. I have simply responded to a poster who wanted to protect his children from it. Why you take this to mean that I approve of someone else getting bullied I have no idea of. Because the point that was made was that the bullies would go for a softer target. That softer target was me.
So tell me: if some group of thugs decides it's great fun to punch her in the guts and watch her trying to regain breath, and makes a daily habit out of it, just what is the response you've taught her ? If it gets to that then it's a police matter. Seriously. With her build and physique there's nothing she'd be able to do physically beyond setting off an attack alarm. I've taught her not to get into that sort of situation Not guaranteed, of course, but it's worked so far.
And tough luck on the other targets, right? By the time it gets to being beaten up, it's already too late. Bullying needs to be dealt with long before that.
Sure. Then when you leave school and get bullied in the workplace, you solve it by drop-kicking your boss or shooting your commanding officer, because violence is the only strategy you have? Way to a successful life!
"We're in the process of reaching out by phone to these members to, so that if the information is valid somehow -- regardless how this fraudster acquired the information -- these members can take the steps they need to take to protect themselves." "Hello, this is eBay. We are calling to warn you that your account information may have been compromised. But before I go any further, I just need to confirm some security details. Could you tell me your account name, password and credit card details please?"
Sure. Then the only people being bullied will be the weak and disabled.
Only the weak - defined as not being able to kick the ass of whoever tries to bully them - get bullied as is. People who beat up anyone who tries to bully them are rarely choosen as targets, at least more than once. The only way to ensure you won't be bullied is to become strong, defined as capable and willing to use violence to defend yourself.
And if there are 1000 kids in the school, the chances that there's nobody who can kick your ass is 0.1%, so chances are you're going to have to try a different strategy with them. Or get your ass kicked just like you did before you decided that violence is the only answer to everything.
Making snide remarks on Slashdot isn't going to change the law of the jungle.
True. But some of us choose not to live in the jungle.
Oh, and those in a smaller gang than the bullies (who are taking the same martial arts classes, by the way).
Maybe, but even gangs usually go after softer targets.
Yeah, but there's always going to be a softest target. Presumably you think it's ok that the kid in the wheelchair or on crutches gets royally screwed because the last few millennia of civilisation haven't happened in your personal world?
After all, bullying doesn't matter as long as it happens to somebody else, does it?
So, are you going to feed your children, or are you going to refuse as long as there is famine in the world ?
But a nice strawman nonetheless.
Actually, I feed my kids and try to do something about world famine. As my daughter happens to be by far the smallest in her class, if I'd been clueless enough to teach her that the way to respond to bullying was with violence I'd probably have had to collect her in a box at the end of her first week at school.
Sure. Then the only people being bullied will be the weak and disabled. Oh, and those in a smaller gang than the bullies (who are taking the same martial arts classes, by the way). After all, bullying doesn't matter as long as it happens to somebody else, does it?
Slashdot Mirror
The law doesn't make social responsibility wrong, it makes it irrelevant (so it's better to say that corporates are amoral rather than immoral). If they don't screw somebody over because it's more profitable not to screw them over then it's a fortunate outcome but hardly to the corporate's credit.
Because they have a legal obligation to: http://www.medialens.org/articles/the_articles/articles_2002/rh_corporate_responsibility.html. Specifically, they are obliged to try to make money no matter who they shaft, and the directors can face legal sanction if they fail to do so.
I happen to think that's a bad thing, but unless legislation changes, that's the way it is, and it's no good blaming the companies.
My daughter's teachers sit in front of an active whiteboard, hooked up to a laptop, so that, for example, she can see the effect of changing parameters in an equation graphed immediately. She then puts headphones on in the language lab, then uses Google Docs to do he creative writing (so she can easily finish it off at home). Where is it that teaching isn't using technology?
Great. Where can I buy one?
Oh.
"Sorry, all the things you were complaining may at some point in the future become irrelevant."
There. Fixed that for you.
This is also true of Windows. For those who have tried to get a Toshiba laptop functioning properly using a boxed version of Windows XP, they'll see no difference with Linux.
The particular difference that I saw is that my cheap WiFi card came with a Windows driver in the box, but I have been unable to find a working Linux driver for it and I've been unable to get a wrapper around the Windows driver to work under Linux. When I start seeing cheap hardware shipping with Linux drivers I'll believe that Windows and Linux users see no difference. Can anyone point me to a WiFi card for my desktop that does ship with a Linux driver?
Technically it's usually a win for complexity alone - two smaller pieces are easier than one large one. I suspect that's true, because I suspect code that hasn't been properly designed in advance is usually insufficiently modular rather than excessively modular. But it isn't always so (you caught that in your hardly ever) because the reduced internal complexity of those two pieces is set against increased boundary (interface) complexity. There comes a point when further modularisation actually starts to complicate things again (that's the real complexity, the difficulty in comprehending the program, rather than artificial measures like cyclometric complexity which aren't usually what you're really worried about).
While I was posting that, IBM were emailing me to say that it had been fixed for me to get the software, so it seems I can now get it in the UK.
Only, it seems, if you can provide a US address. I've just tried to get it, and have been refused because I live in the UK.
Somehow, I think that might be a limit to widespread adoption. Yes, the US market is big, but much of it wants to do business with the rest of the world.
And OO.o doesn't really have an equivalent to Visio, either. OO.o Draw is a nice app, but it doesn't do the same job as Visio. The original article's "useopenoffice" tag isn't really a solution.
Come to that, even with compatible functionality, rivals are still up against MS Office's installed user base. As long as my customers require me to use MS Office templates that don't work in OO.o (not least because they use macros), MS Office is staying on my computer. I've yet to have a customer ask me to work to an OO.o template (although I'm ready if they do).
That would make it wrong/misguided, not a troll.
Except that Visio is part of Office. It's full name is "Microsoft Office Visio" (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/visio/default.aspx).
Your link leads to nowhere.
That's what you think. In fact, you've just ordered a 36 volume encyclopaedia, and the first instalment of $199.99 will be debited from your credit card next month.
That's what comes of not reviewing your order.
Or, come to think of it, check out the EU's own website, http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/index_en.htm, which lists the UK as a member state of the EU.
Come back, kid, when you've actually worked on a few contracts for the EU and you've learned the terminology that the EU obliges you to use when working for them.
If you're the smallest or disabled then your only chance is somehow to make sure you don't get beat on.
And to the best of my knowledge, there is no other strategy - you can tell the teachers and you can tell your parents, but the latter can't help you and the former can't be bothered.
That's how it was when I was at school. The school saw bullying as a good things -- character building. When I was bullied, the school would punish me if I even tried to fight back. A lot of good martial arts would have done in that environment; they'd have got me even worse punishment from the school authorities. But, in the UK at least, schools have come on from those days. So you either fight back or hide somewhere. I chose the latter, not having had access to martial arts, and as a result I still, at 28 years old, feel uncomfortable near people, especially if they're between me and an escape route. Thanks to lots of good medicine it is mere uncomfort and vague feeling of threat, rather than an outright panic. Yep. Me too. In my case it's not fear, its depression, but I was still damaged by it. The difference is that I was severely asthmatic, so the martial arts route couldn't have been available to me. So everybody saying "make another target more attractive" is essentially setting the bullies onto me. If you don't mind, I don't see that as a good solution. Good for you, perhaps, but crap for me. Sorry, but the solution isn't to shuffle the bullying onto other people, it's to stop the bullying -- which is what the original article was about. That is the price of not fighting back. No it isn't. That makes it your fault. Blaming the victim is the bullies game. If you had fought back somebody else would have suffered the damage. The price would still have been paid, just not by you. It's not the price of not fighting back, it's the price of bullying being tolerated Well. Didn't that come out as self-pitying rant about my personal history. Feel free to post some condescending remark about choosing to not live in the jungle. Just dont' expect the beasts there to care. I don't mean to be condescending -- I've been damaged by bullying too. But if your answer to bullying is to crap on me, don't expect me to endorse it. Another strawman. I have never approved bullying anyone. I have simply responded to a poster who wanted to protect his children from it. Why you take this to mean that I approve of someone else getting bullied I have no idea of. Because the point that was made was that the bullies would go for a softer target. That softer target was me. So tell me: if some group of thugs decides it's great fun to punch her in the guts and watch her trying to regain breath, and makes a daily habit out of it, just what is the response you've taught her ? If it gets to that then it's a police matter. Seriously. With her build and physique there's nothing she'd be able to do physically beyond setting off an attack alarm. I've taught her not to get into that sort of situation Not guaranteed, of course, but it's worked so far.And tough luck on the other targets, right? By the time it gets to being beaten up, it's already too late. Bullying needs to be dealt with long before that.
Sure. Then when you leave school and get bullied in the workplace, you solve it by drop-kicking your boss or shooting your commanding officer, because violence is the only strategy you have? Way to a successful life!
Only the weak - defined as not being able to kick the ass of whoever tries to bully them - get bullied as is. People who beat up anyone who tries to bully them are rarely choosen as targets, at least more than once. The only way to ensure you won't be bullied is to become strong, defined as capable and willing to use violence to defend yourself.
And if there are 1000 kids in the school, the chances that there's nobody who can kick your ass is 0.1%, so chances are you're going to have to try a different strategy with them. Or get your ass kicked just like you did before you decided that violence is the only answer to everything.Making snide remarks on Slashdot isn't going to change the law of the jungle.
True. But some of us choose not to live in the jungle.Maybe, but even gangs usually go after softer targets.
Yeah, but there's always going to be a softest target. Presumably you think it's ok that the kid in the wheelchair or on crutches gets royally screwed because the last few millennia of civilisation haven't happened in your personal world?So, are you going to feed your children, or are you going to refuse as long as there is famine in the world ?
But a nice strawman nonetheless.
Actually, I feed my kids and try to do something about world famine. As my daughter happens to be by far the smallest in her class, if I'd been clueless enough to teach her that the way to respond to bullying was with violence I'd probably have had to collect her in a box at the end of her first week at school.Sure. Then the only people being bullied will be the weak and disabled. Oh, and those in a smaller gang than the bullies (who are taking the same martial arts classes, by the way). After all, bullying doesn't matter as long as it happens to somebody else, does it?