If you can get past Card's personal beliefs, and want to catch up - or discover - the storyline, and want to save some cash, I got First Meetings in the Enderverse for a buck + tax last week at our local Dollar Store.
Includes the novellas: The Polish Boy, Teacher's Pest, Ender's Game, and The Investment Counselor.
I appreciate hearing your voice of experience - when theory and data disagree, go with the data.
I'm curious to know your other opinions on this - putting economics aside - I'm wondering if textbooks are less intimidating than a computer in that regime? Our kids have had so much tech for so long, I wonder if this isn't overlooked - and I don't know what it's like to be around non-tech driven kids. I done a LOT of foreign travel, but never to such a technological extreme environment as the one you're describing.
Also - theft / damage / reliability - a single textbook can get munged (I lost or screwed up a few when I was a kid) - and I was out a textbook. If all of one's knowledge resource are on a single device, then isn't that an opportunity for a single-point failure to have multiple consequences?
It's easy to imagine being you in Uganda - but when ImaginationLand is left behind, it's insanely difficult to visualize a place I've never been and experiences I've never had - for me, anyway. Thanks in advance for any further light you may find time to shed on this.
I think that the OLPC folks might say the PC in addition to books - but as Bucky Fuller pointed out, a great many things would change were resources less scarce.
Jesus, ladies and gentlemen - read the grandparent.
I satirized his remark with exact opposites and counterpoint to make the point that the grandparent was possibly drawing bigoted conclusions.
And for those of you who fail to the logic to this remark:
If John McCain should have won the election, John McCain would have won the election.
... then I urge you to really study what Dr. Deming was all about. Failing that - allow me to be pedantic for those that simply must find fault: I am responding to posted word that no, I will not take lying down, that McCain should have won, despite the fact that he lost - all because blacks voted notoriously - as anti-white racists.
Such bullshit is exactly the same thing as trying to get away with this equivalent: "McCain shoulda won, but them darkies didn't do as they was supposed to" - and I'm not fucking having it.
It strains credulity that semantics with the word "should" can become this obtuse.
Correct. If it was classified, I wouldn't be posting it here. And if was or wasn't, it could hit DISCO newsletter updates. But it didn't. And if local news had covered it - and if I knew that - and if I knew the exact date - and if Albuquerque's local news outlets archived everything beginning in the pre-dot com days, well, I would just post that news link.
Have you ever worked for a defense contractor? When's there's a suspected breach, one reports it immediately to one's security officer. This is a civilian employed by the contractor, on site (no running to corporate), who has no other duties. I can assure you that that officer does not call the cops. They call DIS and/or the FBI. They decide the action to take.
Now, TEMPEST techniques were well known well before the time frame I present. But there were a newly identified SIGINT threats at the time, so perhaps what I saw was unique, but perhaps not for its day. Most of the contractors here were working on matters related to our strategic nuclear mission.
I don't know how such matters are handled in the world, back there in Trantor. But I know how they were handled that day next to our nuclear stockpile. I know how they've been handled at a lot of other places, too.
It's one thing to not believe me because it's outside of your experience. It's another to call a brother's words horseshit. Thanks a lot, pal.
If you work in Force Protection - I haven't - then I would assume that you're familiar with DISCO (assuming no name change over these years I've been away) and you should well aware that DISCO carefully chooses what to document for wide area dissemination. (And I don't mean that "if" as in "as if" I mean it as a respectful rhetorical.)
I am not assuming that you are referring to the local ABQ news, and if you are, you're way out of touch with what we had for protocols in the cold war days.
What would you like? A sign that reads, "Hey, that guy fucked up, but try it over here!" ?? C'mon. Really.
And what's with the conspiracy tag? If you've worked anywhere against foreign intel threats, you know well enough that little is ever documented to the public. Protocol, not conspiracy.
So, you've pretty much pegged yourself, hombre - not me.
You might as well join the gang slagging me for not describing the van, as if I'm making hard to find and am therefore full of shit, when I've already stated that DIS training was sufficient so that the secretaries could spot it.
Sad - does everyone on/. insist that unless info is spoon-fed as goggle-able factoids, it doesn't exist? Jeez - I'd hope not!
Second comment, so I'll try to clarify - I didn't use preview and a few extra spaces screwed it up.
"almost real-time-coincident" with... as opposed to... "almost real-time - coincident" meaning these guys were very closely coordinated, in that the base guys got on those streets and right behind them the cops were closing it up.
Or do you mean that by describing the van's suspicious features, you would let enemy spies know what to avoid?
That one. N.B., our training was sufficient that a contractor's secretaries could see it for what it was and report it - so, the opponent team is not protected by this (my) obfuscation.
This may sound corny, but for America's sake. No reason to explain a poker tell when you're winning because of it. That was just part of my training from back then - I'm out of that world, but still respect the training.
Negative on that full of shit, compadre. Happened in Albuquerque, NM. First responders came from Kirtland AFB - home to Sandia National Labs (where ALL of the country's nukes were managed), (at the time) the Air Force Weapons Lab and the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, as well (at the time) of the Air Force's contract management office.
Home to the cradle-to-grave, or inception to deployment to retirement, of our strategic nuke delivery systems. At the time, Albuquerque was a higher priority Soviet nuclear first strike target than Washington, D.C.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are scarier things in this world than the donut eaters you describe working for the purple-suiters. So, no apologies, not full of shit - not even a little.
And the guy in my story was a spy. And I'm not going to elaborate on what made the van different, as I said in my post.
Believe what you want. If you choose not to, it's just another horse-water-drink situation to me.
Not true. While working for the Dept of Defense I saw this scenario played out - it was around 1995.
A van pulled up about a quarter-block away from a BDM building (located on a very public street) but the van was just too suspicious, for reasons I'd rather not elaborate on. Secretaries returning from lunch noticed it and reported it to security. Local police cordoned off the area very, very quickly - almost real-time - coincident with a first-responder team from the local USAF base. Automatic rifles were pointed at the van from three directions, two Ruger AC-556s were layed against the back door, and the solid side of the van was struck with some sort of hammer, and a cry to get the fuck out of the van ensued. Public area, people put rapidly out of harm's way. I recall that from phone report to guy laid out being handcuffed took less than 20 minutes.
And yes, he was a spy, using the latest EM-based eavesdropping equipment. Saw it and heard it. None of this sir, please step out crap.
Maybe a decade later we've learned to coddle suspected spies... no, wait - I saw Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (sorry, couldn't resist) - I rather doubt it, but then, I could be in error.
Slashdot Mirror
In TOS, Kirk was never a warmonger or really prone to violence at all. Not a hothead.
Right on! All of the overt crap in the trailer leaves no room for smirking whatsoever.
I think we all know: Kirk's idea of diplomacy is a phaser and a smirk.
If you can get past Card's personal beliefs, and want to catch up - or discover - the storyline, and want to save some cash, I got First Meetings in the Enderverse for a buck + tax last week at our local Dollar Store.
Includes the novellas: The Polish Boy, Teacher's Pest, Ender's Game, and The Investment Counselor.
I appreciate hearing your voice of experience - when theory and data disagree, go with the data.
I'm curious to know your other opinions on this - putting economics aside - I'm wondering if textbooks are less intimidating than a computer in that regime? Our kids have had so much tech for so long, I wonder if this isn't overlooked - and I don't know what it's like to be around non-tech driven kids. I done a LOT of foreign travel, but never to such a technological extreme environment as the one you're describing.
Also - theft / damage / reliability - a single textbook can get munged (I lost or screwed up a few when I was a kid) - and I was out a textbook. If all of one's knowledge resource are on a single device, then isn't that an opportunity for a single-point failure to have multiple consequences?
It's easy to imagine being you in Uganda - but when ImaginationLand is left behind, it's insanely difficult to visualize a place I've never been and experiences I've never had - for me, anyway. Thanks in advance for any further light you may find time to shed on this.
I think that the OLPC folks might say the PC in addition to books - but as Bucky Fuller pointed out, a great many things would change were resources less scarce.
Thanks, no problem - at the time I'd posted, the post in question was at or 4 or 5 fer cryin' out loud!
Teaches me to maybe quote the parent in entirety sometimes.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1019121&cid=25647027
Jesus, ladies and gentlemen - read the grandparent.
I satirized his remark with exact opposites and counterpoint to make the point that the grandparent was possibly drawing bigoted conclusions.
And for those of you who fail to the logic to this remark:
If John McCain should have won the election, John McCain would have won the election.
... then I urge you to really study what Dr. Deming was all about. Failing that - allow me to be pedantic for those that simply must find fault: I am responding to posted word that no, I will not take lying down, that McCain should have won, despite the fact that he lost - all because blacks voted notoriously - as anti-white racists.
Such bullshit is exactly the same thing as trying to get away with this equivalent: "McCain shoulda won, but them darkies didn't do as they was supposed to" - and I'm not fucking having it.
It strains credulity that semantics with the word "should" can become this obtuse.
Jesus - read the grandparent.
I satirized his remark with opposites to make the point that the grandparent was possibly drawing bigoted conclusions.
Jesus - read the grandparent.
I satirized his remark with opposites to make the point that the grandparent was possibly drawing bigotet conclusions.
John McCain should have won the election.
If John McCain should have won the election, John McCain would have won the election.
My question would be, why didn't 95% of whites vote for Obama?
Anti-black racism in the white American community is ugly.
Correct. If it was classified, I wouldn't be posting it here. And if was or wasn't, it could hit DISCO newsletter updates. But it didn't. And if local news had covered it - and if I knew that - and if I knew the exact date - and if Albuquerque's local news outlets archived everything beginning in the pre-dot com days, well, I would just post that news link.
Have you ever worked for a defense contractor? When's there's a suspected breach, one reports it immediately to one's security officer. This is a civilian employed by the contractor, on site (no running to corporate), who has no other duties. I can assure you that that officer does not call the cops. They call DIS and/or the FBI. They decide the action to take.
Now, TEMPEST techniques were well known well before the time frame I present. But there were a newly identified SIGINT threats at the time, so perhaps what I saw was unique, but perhaps not for its day. Most of the contractors here were working on matters related to our strategic nuclear mission.
I don't know how such matters are handled in the world, back there in Trantor. But I know how they were handled that day next to our nuclear stockpile. I know how they've been handled at a lot of other places, too.
It's one thing to not believe me because it's outside of your experience. It's another to call a brother's words horseshit. Thanks a lot, pal.
If you work in Force Protection - I haven't - then I would assume that you're familiar with DISCO (assuming no name change over these years I've been away) and you should well aware that DISCO carefully chooses what to document for wide area dissemination. (And I don't mean that "if" as in "as if" I mean it as a respectful rhetorical.)
I am not assuming that you are referring to the local ABQ news, and if you are, you're way out of touch with what we had for protocols in the cold war days.
What would you like? A sign that reads, "Hey, that guy fucked up, but try it over here!" ?? C'mon. Really.
And what's with the conspiracy tag? If you've worked anywhere against foreign intel threats, you know well enough that little is ever documented to the public. Protocol, not conspiracy.
So, you've pretty much pegged yourself, hombre - not me.
You might as well join the gang slagging me for not describing the van, as if I'm making hard to find and am therefore full of shit, when I've already stated that DIS training was sufficient so that the secretaries could spot it.
Sad - does everyone on /. insist that unless info is spoon-fed as goggle-able factoids, it doesn't exist? Jeez - I'd hope not!
Yep. But the one thing we did learn was that he wasn't an awareness test - which was what we were really hoping for.
Second comment, so I'll try to clarify - I didn't use preview and a few extra spaces screwed it up.
"almost real-time-coincident" with ... as opposed to ... "almost real-time - coincident" meaning these guys were very closely coordinated, in that the base guys got on those streets and right behind them the cops were closing it up.
Sheesh. So I'm unclear. Tough crowd.
Yes, he was a spy against America.
Or do you mean that by describing the van's suspicious features, you would let enemy spies know what to avoid?
That one. N.B., our training was sufficient that a contractor's secretaries could see it for what it was and report it - so, the opponent team is not protected by this (my) obfuscation.
My office didn't especially like them, so we called them Brain Damaged Monkeys.
Yes, I wanted to tell my story in direct response to the parent of my post. Maybe you lost the thread, sorry.
This may sound corny, but for America's sake. No reason to explain a poker tell when you're winning because of it. That was just part of my training from back then - I'm out of that world, but still respect the training.
Typo on that "At the time" should've been "At one time" - so sue me.
Negative on that full of shit, compadre. Happened in Albuquerque, NM. First responders came from Kirtland AFB - home to Sandia National Labs (where ALL of the country's nukes were managed), (at the time) the Air Force Weapons Lab and the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, as well (at the time) of the Air Force's contract management office.
Home to the cradle-to-grave, or inception to deployment to retirement, of our strategic nuke delivery systems. At the time, Albuquerque was a higher priority Soviet nuclear first strike target than Washington, D.C.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are scarier things in this world than the donut eaters you describe working for the purple-suiters. So, no apologies, not full of shit - not even a little.
And the guy in my story was a spy. And I'm not going to elaborate on what made the van different, as I said in my post.
Believe what you want. If you choose not to, it's just another horse-water-drink situation to me.
My apologies - the result of working in an insular fashion is to rudely expect others to recognize an industry-specific TLA (three letter acronym).
BDM is/was a defense contractor. Here's a quick reference: http://www.business.com/directory/computers_and_software/bdm_international,_inc/profile/
Not true. While working for the Dept of Defense I saw this scenario played out - it was around 1995.
A van pulled up about a quarter-block away from a BDM building (located on a very public street) but the van was just too suspicious, for reasons I'd rather not elaborate on. Secretaries returning from lunch noticed it and reported it to security. Local police cordoned off the area very, very quickly - almost real-time - coincident with a first-responder team from the local USAF base. Automatic rifles were pointed at the van from three directions, two Ruger AC-556s were layed against the back door, and the solid side of the van was struck with some sort of hammer, and a cry to get the fuck out of the van ensued. Public area, people put rapidly out of harm's way. I recall that from phone report to guy laid out being handcuffed took less than 20 minutes.
And yes, he was a spy, using the latest EM-based eavesdropping equipment. Saw it and heard it. None of this sir, please step out crap.
Maybe a decade later we've learned to coddle suspected spies... no, wait - I saw Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (sorry, couldn't resist) - I rather doubt it, but then, I could be in error.
Get with the pogrom?
OK - no problem. You're absolutely right, AC. Microsoft is very much not unlike an outcast religious group, typically Jews.
Poor, poor, downtrodden Microsoft.
Or - wait - you're saying that Microsoft is the chosen people in computing?
Oh, drek - this is too much.
OK, many thanks. I've been following your train of thought in this thread and wanted that clarification.
If one were to be anti-MS, would that make them a sheep, or are anti-MS sheep a subset of anti-MS?
Correct. Rock on, iminplaya.