Exactly why would you want to dilute your potential market by targetting a box at only one system?
Why not release a product that supports Windows, AND Linux, AND MacOS all in one freaking package?
Developers that can't write portable code are developers that suck. It's really simple.
If you don't happen to support Linux and MacOS in the initial release, why not just offer the ports via the web? You're not going to ship all new boxes just because you write a bugfix release, why ship more boxes just because you ported it? I'd go out and buy the "Windows" version if the box said "Check http://www.gamepublisher.com/ for ports to other platforms!"
Have you ever noticed that the only people who will sell you targetted versions of the same Operating System do it in order to make money?
Windows NT Server is priced much higher than Workstation, and the only difference is that they were (probably) compiled with different flags. Server would be compiled with flags to allow more than 20 connections, for example.
One of my coworkers (salesman) was blown away when I ran Apache on a Windows 95 box to prove to him that the workstation/server barrier was bullshit. He couldn't believe he was retrieving files via http from a Windows 95 box.
Other than maybe a difference in prepackaged software, a good OS will be able to handle a wide variety of tasks thrown at it.
I think FreeBSD elitists just don't want to believe people use it for things other than mission critical enterprise champion edition servers. (A lot of my coworkers are FreeBSD elitists, I know this first hand.:)
In more detail: The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) includes cost to train staff, cost to maintain the machines, cost of licenses, technical support, etc. The TCO of Windows can vary greatly depending on what the workstation is being used for, as would any system, really.
While Linux obviously has the licensing costs beaten, the larger concern is that Linux takes skilled people to operate and maintain. While this is true, for the same cost as an NT admin, you could probably have an admin that understands Linux and can set up end user workstations to require less maintenance as well as increase productivity.
The numbers are subjective, but in reality, many non-techie workstations are used to perform simple tasks. Many companies also, in their drive to come up to date, have intranets and web interfaces to their information systems. There's no reason to continue running Windows on such systems if all work functions can be performed through a web browser, and additionally, the admin can lock these systems down so that the end user can't screw them up. The fact that they can't be screwed up means that they're lower maintenance, and the fact that they'll probably crash less means that they result in less productivity losses.
There are many cases where Windows can be completely removed. Companies should invest the effort in determining just how much of their infrastructure is really Windows dependent rather than just going "All 500 workstations run Windows, we need to stay with Windows". Companies such as mine would be glad to perform such jobs.:)
Obviously, this won't work in every scenario. Some platforms just require Windows, and it's a necessary and maybe even desired cost. Given the proper conditions, which are not uncommon conditions, Linux can in fact lower the TCO.
(Some people wince at the idea of locking a machine down tightly because it won't allow them to run games, but plenty of games are web oriented nowadays. Yahoo Games make any boring computer task tolerable, for what it's worth)
Here's one charming example sent to my boss after we went through hell trying to set up only to have to cancel it since Verizon said he was too far from the CO (or something).
The Alpha and Beta editions being the exception, really.
For someone who came around 3rd Edition with all of the Alpha/Beta cards being ridiculously priced, every new edition after that had progressively more powerful cards.
At least, that was my experience. I'm still glad I stopped playing. Now if only I could get rid of all of those damned cards.
Wizards of the Coast constantly set high prices on Magic cards. With kids who were addicted and had nothing better to do, they were glad to pay $4/pack for 12 cards.
They had the damned nerve to keep upping the prices while they became more and more popular. Yeah, supply and demand and all that, but we were such damn suckers for it.
Not to mention every new edition had cards more powerful than the last, which meant that if you wanted to keep playing, you had to keep paying. I sure am glad I realized what a waste of money it all was when I started seriously considering paying $180 for a Black Lotus.
Re:Use DJBDNS instead of BIND.
on
New Linux Worm
·
· Score: 2
Well, djbdns isn't really Free. I can't patch it, add some security holes, and redistribute it as the original, like I can with BIND.
That is not 100% correct. See http://cr.yp.to/distributors.html. The only restriction is on redistribution of djbdns. These restrictions are not to make himself rich (if anything, he will lose money on djbdns). The restrictions are so that djbdns stays useful, functional and compatible across all platforms.
Re:BIND is the problem, not Linux
on
New Linux Worm
·
· Score: 2
For me, djbdns has never ever core dumped and updates it's secondaries with no problem. It has also never had a security hole, for what it's worth.
Try the support mailing list.
Unless you don't really care, in that case, niether do I.
BIND is the problem, not Linux
on
New Linux Worm
·
· Score: 5
Tripwire? If you were a real admin you would look at the source for BIND, declare it garbage, and run djbdns instead.
Run BIND on production servers? Not if my life depended on it. djbdns runs chroot()'d, non-root by default and even then the author still puts up a $500 reward for anyone who can find a security hole.
I'm so glad we modern admins have a choice. djbdns is a real, safe, fast, and well documented alternative to BIND and if I were your boss I'd fire you for not switching.
Corporations in the United States enjoy plenty of freedoms. One being the ability to collect and own information about you. They oppose laws that would aim to curb this?! No kidding!
With Dubya in the White House, you can bet that their concerns will be more important than all of what you whiney pro-privacy anarchists have to say.
Realistically, true privacy is a matter of personal devotion/paranoia. You can whine and bitch all you want about insecure tieclip.com is with your credit card, but most people don't think twice when they hand their credit card to a waiter and he leaves the room to charge it.
There are very few people, some you might consider insane, who will drastically inconveniance themselves in the name of privacy. Scott McNealy's ranting isn't all that unfounded.
If you could get the Supreme Court to declare UCITA insane, wouldn't it prevent states from adopting it and also invalidate the adoption of it in other states?
It seems like the most efficient way for free software supporters to kill this.
YOU are probably sitting there wondering "What can I do? I'm just one dude" -- Contribute to the EFF! If you can't justify giving to charity to yourself, maybe you can because of the cool shirt they'll send you.
No way! Someone who has the most to lose from open source proclaiming that it's bad for America! From the makers of "Why Microsoft Is Good For The Industry" and "The Justice Dept. vs. Innovation" comes "Why Open Source Is Bad For America"
Hello, open source is a timely reaction to Microsoft's strangehold over this industry. Of course they're going to denounce it.
The nerve. The government (The Department of Justice, the FCC, 19 State Attorneys General, Janet Reno, President Clinton, Judge Jackson, Senator Orin Hatch, etc) have gone on record to explicitly state just why Microsoft is bad for the industry. What's your proof, Jim?
For anyone truly interested in how Microsoft thinks, there's some entertaining reading available from the transcriptions of the minutes of Microsoft's shareholder meetings. They're conveniantly available from Microsoft's site. Here's one:
And the Bible is filled with very negative messages; anti-gay,
anti-female, anti-other religion, etc.
Not really. It's more just filled with the current beliefs of the time
plus a whole lot of "love-thy-neighbor" messages. All that anti-stuff
stuff came about from the stupid religious groups that interpret the
thing incorrectly.
Exactly! It's a good thing we live in modern times where we're tolerant of minorities, other religions, faggots, pillow-biters, rug-munchers, fudge-packers, etc. Otherwise, something like the Bible would only provoke hatred of these groups.
If they're looking to keep dangerous content away from minors, they have
plenty of other targets before they get to video games. For example:
The Evening News!
History
Art
The Rest of Television
Religion
Abusive Parents
If someone reads "Happy shall he be, he who taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones" (Deuteronomy) and bashes their babies into rocks, they're considered crazy. If someone who plays Doom and listens to Metal shoots up their high school, it's the entertainment industry's fault.
If you want to talk about protecting your children, you put an NC-17 rating on the Bible and prevent children from buying it or you're going to shut up.
New York Connect.Net was actually started by a combination of disgruntled internet lovers who thought they could do better. Most of the rest of the staff is made up of customers who loved the service so much that it was only natural to ask to work here.
We're still alive and kicking, although the outlook is entirely different than it was 18 months ago. At the time,
we couldn't add modem pools fast enough (Verizon (then Bell Atlantic) wasn't very fast at accomodating us).
Suddenly, new dialup customers slowed dramatically and our investment in DSL turned out to be a wise one. I don't think any ISP will survive long without offering DSL. While DSL has it's own problems which every Verizon Sucks web site will tell you about, it should help keep us alive. Time Warner opening up their cable network to independent ISPs is also a good thing (but they're all talk at the moment).
We're not dead. We're far from it. It's sad to see the industry change so quickly so fast, but the bright side is that I have DSL now instead of a 56k. *shrug*
I can't believe no one has taken down the root servers yet.
The attorney general went apeshit just because of Yahoo.com and e-trade. Imagine what would happen if the *.root-servers.net suddenly stopped responding. 99.9% of internet users would be paralyzed and helpless.
Here, instead of releasing poison gas into the subways or toppling the world trade center, this is really easy to do and americans will so get their panties in a bunch:
Amass lots of rooted boxen (given). Use the BIND exploit for the ultimate irony.
Write a perl script and use a resolver module to send bogus random requests to each root server in sequence. The more random the better, as they will be harder to filter. Don't forget to spoof the source address.
Run on each rooted box in background. Cron it to start on boot.
Gloat to world newspapers.
It's ludicrous that none of you extremist terrorists have done this yet. You can do this from the comfort of your own homes and you don't even have to risk capture if you live in a US hating country.
Killing a bus full of passengers is good for horrifying headlines, but in the end no government will really care. Mess with the internet on the other hand and you're a force to be reckoned with.
And for all you jackasses crying Treason, would you rather they poisoned your local water supply or that they just took down.com? I know what my priorities are.
If you're a competent sys admin wishing you had an alternative to Vixie Inside, there's some hope.
Have a gander at djbdns. This is software done right people.
Instead of upgrading to the latest version of bind because of yet another security hole, I decided to switch. And I've been happy ever since.
I've been searching for an alternative forever and I still can't believe I hadn't come across djbdns until someone on Slashdot posted it. There must be others like me.
I can't stand the fuckheads that scream down local streets at night with little regard for say, stop lights.
I can almost understand doing that on uncommon streets, but when they do it on major boulevards, I think to myself how much I'd enjoy crushing their heads in a vice when the victim of their reckless driving could be me or someone I love. So, in that case, take control of their cars and fuck them good.
At the same time, it's just plain scary that you wouldn't have full control of your vehicle. What would happen to people that hacked their cars so that it could not be affected? Would this lead to more anti-reverse engineering laws?
I think we would have a better system of justice without sacrificing personal freedoms if we just allowed citizens to use head-crushing vices on those who endanger lives. Write your congressman.
My favorite teacher ever was a calculus teacher
in HS who ran the computer lab. There were only
two catches here.
I wasn't in calculus
I didn't have any classes in the computer lab
I was an art major, our school was specialized. See, the problem is that none of the teachers charged with educating me actually were any good at it.
So, I'd cut the classes and instead hang out in the computer lab, which the calc teacher running it wouldn't really care about.
The environment in the computer lab was amazing. All of the dorks (me included) hung out there and fucked off all day. It was full of musical instruments and computers and math. The calc teacher loved talking to students. He had an eccentric personality that was very hard to get used to, but you came to love the guy once you got to know him (about a year's time).
He'd let us all cut class if we really wanted to, and he'd even tolerate us sitting in on his regular classes that he had in there. We were allowed to play networked doom on the LAN (or any other game) and could freely use the internet (no censorware). My grand plan was to get a Linux box in there so the entire LAN could use the internet, rather than just a single computer with a modem. The students had full unsupervised access to anything and everything.
Anyway, besides letting us fuck off as much as we wanted, he'd fuck off with us, and the subject matter of the fucking off was actually educational. We'd be dicussing some bullshit philosophy or he'd teach us about 4d space on the whiteboard or show us some cool math, or maybe kicking all of our asses at chess. It had chess boards and they were all being used, and none of these people could be considered nerds. They were artfags!!
The kids who were cutting their classes to be here were actually learning stuff they never would have normally cared about. He was never an assigned teacher of mine and technically the entire experience with him was 'illegal', yet I think I learned more in one hour there than I did the entire day of school.
He totally hated the school system and probably saw how stifling it was. While sitting in on one of the classes, he let students entirely choose their own grades without a comment, other than maybe "You really think you deserve a 95?... ok".
Sure, he let us get away with whatever we wanted, but at the same time, we respected him. We learned a lot from him and many of us probably don't even realize it. It reminds me of a painting called "The School of Athens". It portrayed all time great philosophers and artists and musicians just chilling in a huge room, and hundreds of students chilling with them, doing their own thing, or hearing the masters speak about whatever.
The rest of the school day was just a boring slur of "..2 more hours until I can hit the computer lab.." or "..3 more hours until I can go the fuck home..". I think that makes him the greatest teacher I never had.
Most ISP technicians learn to assume that everyone has no idea what they're talking about unless they have proven otherwise. It's a safety mechanism. Failing to do so could result in hours of wasted time.
Also, if you want to be taken seriously, don't mention that you use Linux if you can help it. 5 years ago it would've meant "hardcore programmer on the line escalate to admin", it now means "Windows dork trying to survive with Linux, much hand holding is about to occur. Shield busy admins from harm!"
Don't just drop techno babble. If the technicians don't understand what you said, they'll assume (for their own safety) that you don't know anything. They will not escalate you.
Flat out asking to speak to an admin will probably just make the technician feel insulted and less inclined to help you.
For best results, if possible, work with the technician, try their suggestions (and tell them that they all failed), make him take out a trouble ticket so the whole spiel is recorded and doesn't have to be repeated. In most cases they'll escalate it when all of their suggestions fail.
These are just my observations from the inside. *shrug*
Just because I sound like a dork doesn't mean that I don't have any social skills. I'm fucking charming, damnit.
If the point of school is to socialize, fine -- just don't wrap it in bullshit that says you're involved in higher learning. When people ask you what your educational background is, are you going to tell them that you spent 4 years socializing? Or are you going to tell them that you were getting an education when that obviously wasn't the point? Why the hell do you even care about a piece of paper, then? It's all a lie.
Yes, human contact is vital to one's development and I'm all for it. It's just that the "standard path of human development" (12 years of basic school, 4 years of college, additional years depending on choice) sounds like such a poor choice compared to what the world can really offer if you just look for it.
Slashdot Mirror
The opening theme goes something like "Save this city.."
I would figure that some crackhead has posted the lyrics somewhere, but I sure can't find them.
Why not release a product that supports Windows, AND Linux, AND MacOS all in one freaking package?
Developers that can't write portable code are developers that suck. It's really simple.
If you don't happen to support Linux and MacOS in the initial release, why not just offer the ports via the web? You're not going to ship all new boxes just because you write a bugfix release, why ship more boxes just because you ported it? I'd go out and buy the "Windows" version if the box said "Check http://www.gamepublisher.com/ for ports to other platforms!"
Those are stupid distinctions to make
Have you ever noticed that the only people who will sell you targetted versions of the same Operating System do it in order to make money?
Windows NT Server is priced much higher than Workstation, and the only difference is that they were (probably) compiled with different flags. Server would be compiled with flags to allow more than 20 connections, for example.
One of my coworkers (salesman) was blown away when I ran Apache on a Windows 95 box to prove to him that the workstation/server barrier was bullshit. He couldn't believe he was retrieving files via http from a Windows 95 box.
Other than maybe a difference in prepackaged software, a good OS will be able to handle a wide variety of tasks thrown at it.
I think FreeBSD elitists just don't want to believe people use it for things other than mission critical enterprise champion edition servers. (A lot of my coworkers are FreeBSD elitists, I know this first hand. :)
The easy answer here is: Consider Linux
r2~In more detail: The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) includes cost to train staff, cost to maintain the machines, cost of licenses, technical support, etc. The TCO of Windows can vary greatly depending on what the workstation is being used for, as would any system, really.
While Linux obviously has the licensing costs beaten, the larger concern is that Linux takes skilled people to operate and maintain. While this is true, for the same cost as an NT admin, you could probably have an admin that understands Linux and can set up end user workstations to require less maintenance as well as increase productivity.
The numbers are subjective, but in reality, many non-techie workstations are used to perform simple tasks. Many companies also, in their drive to come up to date, have intranets and web interfaces to their information systems. There's no reason to continue running Windows on such systems if all work functions can be performed through a web browser, and additionally, the admin can lock these systems down so that the end user can't screw them up. The fact that they can't be screwed up means that they're lower maintenance, and the fact that they'll probably crash less means that they result in less productivity losses.
There are many cases where Windows can be completely removed. Companies should invest the effort in determining just how much of their infrastructure is really Windows dependent rather than just going "All 500 workstations run Windows, we need to stay with Windows". Companies such as mine would be glad to perform such jobs. :)
Obviously, this won't work in every scenario. Some platforms just require Windows, and it's a necessary and maybe even desired cost. Given the proper conditions, which are not uncommon conditions, Linux can in fact lower the TCO.
(Some people wince at the idea of locking a machine down tightly because it won't allow them to run games, but plenty of games are web oriented nowadays. Yahoo Games make any boring computer task tolerable, for what it's worth)
DSL is such a tangled mess.
Here's one charming example sent to my boss after we went through hell trying to set up only to have to cancel it since Verizon said he was too far from the CO (or something).
http://netgraft.com/~mbac/txt/verizon_morons.txtThe Alpha and Beta editions being the exception, really.
For someone who came around 3rd Edition with all of the Alpha/Beta cards being ridiculously priced, every new edition after that had progressively more powerful cards.
At least, that was my experience. I'm still glad I stopped playing. Now if only I could get rid of all of those damned cards.
Wizards of the Coast constantly set high prices on Magic cards. With kids who were addicted and had nothing better to do, they were glad to pay $4/pack for 12 cards.
They had the damned nerve to keep upping the prices while they became more and more popular. Yeah, supply and demand and all that, but we were such damn suckers for it.
Not to mention every new edition had cards more powerful than the last, which meant that if you wanted to keep playing, you had to keep paying. I sure am glad I realized what a waste of money it all was when I started seriously considering paying $180 for a Black Lotus.
Well, djbdns isn't really Free. I can't patch it, add some security holes, and redistribute it as the original, like I can with BIND.
That is not 100% correct. See http://cr.yp.to/distributors.html. The only restriction is on redistribution of djbdns. These restrictions are not to make himself rich (if anything, he will lose money on djbdns). The restrictions are so that djbdns stays useful, functional and compatible across all platforms.
For me, djbdns has never ever core dumped and updates it's secondaries with no problem. It has also never had a security hole, for what it's worth.
Try the support mailing list.
Unless you don't really care, in that case, niether do I.
Tripwire? If you were a real admin you would look at the source for BIND, declare it garbage, and run djbdns instead.
Run BIND on production servers? Not if my life depended on it. djbdns runs chroot()'d, non-root by default and even then the author still puts up a $500 reward for anyone who can find a security hole.
I'm so glad we modern admins have a choice. djbdns is a real, safe, fast, and well documented alternative to BIND and if I were your boss I'd fire you for not switching.
Friends don't let friends run BIND!
Corporations in the United States enjoy plenty of freedoms. One being the ability to collect and own information about you. They oppose laws that would aim to curb this?! No kidding!
With Dubya in the White House, you can bet that their concerns will be more important than all of what you whiney pro-privacy anarchists have to say.
Realistically, true privacy is a matter of personal devotion/paranoia. You can whine and bitch all you want about insecure tieclip.com is with your credit card, but most people don't think twice when they hand their credit card to a waiter and he leaves the room to charge it.
There are very few people, some you might consider insane, who will drastically inconveniance themselves in the name of privacy. Scott McNealy's ranting isn't all that unfounded.
MySQL is small, fast, lightweight, suprisingly stable, is open source, and is extremely well supported.
Even people who have commercial Oracle support contracts claim that MySQL is better supported.
If you don't appreciate the extremely responsive mysql support mailing list, my company will gladly enter dedicated support contracts in NYC.
It seems like the most efficient way for free software supporters to kill this.
YOU are probably sitting there wondering "What can I do? I'm just one dude" -- Contribute to the EFF! If you can't justify giving to charity to yourself, maybe you can because of the cool shirt they'll send you.
No way! Someone who has the most to lose from open source proclaiming that it's bad for America! From the makers of "Why Microsoft Is Good For The Industry" and "The Justice Dept. vs. Innovation" comes "Why Open Source Is Bad For America"
Hello, open source is a timely reaction to Microsoft's strangehold over this industry. Of course they're going to denounce it.
The nerve. The government (The Department of Justice, the FCC, 19 State Attorneys General, Janet Reno, President Clinton, Judge Jackson, Senator Orin Hatch, etc) have gone on record to explicitly state just why Microsoft is bad for the industry. What's your proof, Jim?
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt? You betcha.
Sure, the romance thing is good for some people, but you can always skip the pretense/foreplay and head straight for the hardcore sex.
M4M4Sex is just one site that helps gay men find and fuck each other far more cost-effectively than something like a singles bar ever could.
Just another way that the internet enhances our lives.
The 1999 Shareholder Meeting
See the previous years as well. Their shareholders consistently advise Microsoft to settle with the government, and they're basically shrugged off.
Not really. It's more just filled with the current beliefs of the time plus a whole lot of "love-thy-neighbor" messages. All that anti-stuff stuff came about from the stupid religious groups that interpret the thing incorrectly.
Exactly! It's a good thing we live in modern times where we're tolerant of minorities, other religions, faggots, pillow-biters, rug-munchers, fudge-packers, etc. Otherwise, something like the Bible would only provoke hatred of these groups.
If they're looking to keep dangerous content away from minors, they have plenty of other targets before they get to video games. For example:
If someone reads "Happy shall he be, he who taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones" (Deuteronomy) and bashes their babies into rocks, they're considered crazy. If someone who plays Doom and listens to Metal shoots up their high school, it's the entertainment industry's fault.
If you want to talk about protecting your children, you put an NC-17 rating on the Bible and prevent children from buying it or you're going to shut up.
We're still alive and kicking, although the outlook is entirely different than it was 18 months ago. At the time, we couldn't add modem pools fast enough (Verizon (then Bell Atlantic) wasn't very fast at accomodating us).
Suddenly, new dialup customers slowed dramatically and our investment in DSL turned out to be a wise one. I don't think any ISP will survive long without offering DSL. While DSL has it's own problems which every Verizon Sucks web site will tell you about, it should help keep us alive. Time Warner opening up their cable network to independent ISPs is also a good thing (but they're all talk at the moment).
We're not dead. We're far from it. It's sad to see the industry change so quickly so fast, but the bright side is that I have DSL now instead of a 56k. *shrug*
I can't believe no one has taken down the root servers yet.
The attorney general went apeshit just because of Yahoo.com and e-trade. Imagine what would happen if the *.root-servers.net suddenly stopped responding. 99.9% of internet users would be paralyzed and helpless.
Here, instead of releasing poison gas into the subways or toppling the world trade center, this is really easy to do and americans will so get their panties in a bunch:
- Amass lots of rooted boxen (given). Use the BIND exploit for the ultimate irony.
- Write a perl script and use a resolver module to send bogus random requests to each root server in sequence. The more random the better, as they will be harder to filter. Don't forget to spoof the source address.
- Run on each rooted box in background. Cron it to start on boot.
- Gloat to world newspapers.
It's ludicrous that none of you extremist terrorists have done this yet. You can do this from the comfort of your own homes and you don't even have to risk capture if you live in a US hating country.Killing a bus full of passengers is good for horrifying headlines, but in the end no government will really care. Mess with the internet on the other hand and you're a force to be reckoned with.
And for all you jackasses crying Treason, would you rather they poisoned your local water supply or that they just took down .com? I know what my priorities are.
Have a gander at djbdns. This is software done right people.
Instead of upgrading to the latest version of bind because of yet another security hole, I decided to switch. And I've been happy ever since.
I've been searching for an alternative forever and I still can't believe I hadn't come across djbdns until someone on Slashdot posted it. There must be others like me.
I can almost understand doing that on uncommon streets, but when they do it on major boulevards, I think to myself how much I'd enjoy crushing their heads in a vice when the victim of their reckless driving could be me or someone I love. So, in that case, take control of their cars and fuck them good.
At the same time, it's just plain scary that you wouldn't have full control of your vehicle. What would happen to people that hacked their cars so that it could not be affected? Would this lead to more anti-reverse engineering laws?
I think we would have a better system of justice without sacrificing personal freedoms if we just allowed citizens to use head-crushing vices on those who endanger lives. Write your congressman.
- I wasn't in calculus
- I didn't have any classes in the computer lab
I was an art major, our school was specialized. See, the problem is that none of the teachers charged with educating me actually were any good at it.So, I'd cut the classes and instead hang out in the computer lab, which the calc teacher running it wouldn't really care about.
The environment in the computer lab was amazing. All of the dorks (me included) hung out there and fucked off all day. It was full of musical instruments and computers and math. The calc teacher loved talking to students. He had an eccentric personality that was very hard to get used to, but you came to love the guy once you got to know him (about a year's time).
He'd let us all cut class if we really wanted to, and he'd even tolerate us sitting in on his regular classes that he had in there. We were allowed to play networked doom on the LAN (or any other game) and could freely use the internet (no censorware). My grand plan was to get a Linux box in there so the entire LAN could use the internet, rather than just a single computer with a modem. The students had full unsupervised access to anything and everything.
Anyway, besides letting us fuck off as much as we wanted, he'd fuck off with us, and the subject matter of the fucking off was actually educational. We'd be dicussing some bullshit philosophy or he'd teach us about 4d space on the whiteboard or show us some cool math, or maybe kicking all of our asses at chess. It had chess boards and they were all being used, and none of these people could be considered nerds. They were artfags!!
The kids who were cutting their classes to be here were actually learning stuff they never would have normally cared about. He was never an assigned teacher of mine and technically the entire experience with him was 'illegal', yet I think I learned more in one hour there than I did the entire day of school.
He totally hated the school system and probably saw how stifling it was. While sitting in on one of the classes, he let students entirely choose their own grades without a comment, other than maybe "You really think you deserve a 95? ... ok".
Sure, he let us get away with whatever we wanted, but at the same time, we respected him. We learned a lot from him and many of us probably don't even realize it. It reminds me of a painting called "The School of Athens". It portrayed all time great philosophers and artists and musicians just chilling in a huge room, and hundreds of students chilling with them, doing their own thing, or hearing the masters speak about whatever.
The rest of the school day was just a boring slur of "..2 more hours until I can hit the computer lab.." or "..3 more hours until I can go the fuck home..". I think that makes him the greatest teacher I never had.
Also, if you want to be taken seriously, don't mention that you use Linux if you can help it. 5 years ago it would've meant "hardcore programmer on the line escalate to admin", it now means "Windows dork trying to survive with Linux, much hand holding is about to occur. Shield busy admins from harm!"
Don't just drop techno babble. If the technicians don't understand what you said, they'll assume (for their own safety) that you don't know anything. They will not escalate you.
Flat out asking to speak to an admin will probably just make the technician feel insulted and less inclined to help you.
For best results, if possible, work with the technician, try their suggestions (and tell them that they all failed), make him take out a trouble ticket so the whole spiel is recorded and doesn't have to be repeated. In most cases they'll escalate it when all of their suggestions fail.
These are just my observations from the inside. *shrug*
If the point of school is to socialize, fine -- just don't wrap it in bullshit that says you're involved in higher learning. When people ask you what your educational background is, are you going to tell them that you spent 4 years socializing? Or are you going to tell them that you were getting an education when that obviously wasn't the point? Why the hell do you even care about a piece of paper, then? It's all a lie.
Yes, human contact is vital to one's development and I'm all for it. It's just that the "standard path of human development" (12 years of basic school, 4 years of college, additional years depending on choice) sounds like such a poor choice compared to what the world can really offer if you just look for it.
I am a unique snowflake, etc, etc.