I'm a student PC/Net tech at a small college (1500 students, 400 staff/admin/faculty). We use an AD domain to corral our users, so to speak.
We did some testing with the Blaster patch before we encouraged our users to download it; I always check Bugtraq, personally, before I put anything on a machine I'm responsible for. Once we decided it wasn't breaking anything (at least it didn't break anything for us) we burned it to a whole bunch of CDs (with the Symantec removal tool, the Win2k patch, the WinXP patch, and the WinNT fix). Each RA/helpkid/tech also got a corporate edition of NortonAV on a disk (we have a site license) with instructions for students on how to update their virus definitions.
Each RA got this disk. Each help desk kid (there are about 15 student help desk kids) got one, and the other five PC/net techs (other than me) got one. We marched around campus for about a week wearing very visible "TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS CENTER" T-shirts and essentially infiltrated dorm life with our antivirus software.
Were there huge network slowdowns? Oh yeah. For the first day and a half when students came back there was little, if any, network connectivity. But the RAs were adamant about having the kids run the patches and install NAV. Did we use guerilla tactics, like disabling network ports or confiscating network cable? No, not at all. We just made help extremely visible, and with a horde of student tech workers getting $5/hr, it was not so bad for cheap labor for the college, either.
You might bitch and moan and say that a college kid with a virus will never go talk to his RA, but we had mandatory floor meetings for every floor for every hall across campus, and when you've got 20 kids and one RA, it's pretty easy to reach the end users. Users only understand that "my computer doesnt work", and you can bet that a college kid at a small, tech-oriented campus will go see his RA if he knows his RA can help him. (If the kids think the RAs are totally bogus, then there's problems with administration that have nothing to do with computing and is for another thread entirely.)
Do these tactics make Mac/Linux users feel discriminated against? I saw some whining in the comments about this, but guess what: Even if an RA is minimally intelligent in the realm of computing, he can PROBABLY tell a Mac from a PC. Mac users get left alone (like me.)
Full network connectivity returned at about 9 in the morning on the day after move-in. (you'd be surprised how fast 30 RAs and 21 tech kids can move.)
You might also bitch and moan and say that students shouldn't have L2 domain admins. Okay, I can understand that. One kid got forcibly removed from our staff last year for leeching software off a drive he had permissions to, so no, it's not a completely perfect solution, and a lot of trust is involved. But it worked okay for us and minimized a lot of headaches.
I hear this kind of thing a lot--"Let's do (x) and make Linux more accessible to the desktop user!"
That's all great. Seriously. Years ago, I'd never have been able to get into Linux if X hadn't looked (semi)-pretty on the first try. But the point I got the most out of this article is: the average user DOESN'T CARE.
I do support for about 500 users on a Win2k/XP network at a small college. I can count on one hand the number of "average users" who care how their GUI works, who even really care if they have a choice, who could even tell me much about screen resolution. Here's where I get maligned occasionally by my more Linuxy-zealoty colleagues: Linux is not ready for the end-user Average-Joe-Sixpack user yet.
Bitch and moan all you want; tell me Linux is ready for prime-time. Tell me that Joe User could install OpenOffice and interact completely smoothly--with his limited knowledge--with OfficeXP users. It's not always possible, no matter how much improvement some of these applications have undergone in the past few years. No one in my support radius knows or cares about Office's "smart quotes" or how they can truly uglify a document read in an alternate word processing application. No one here could get Evolution set up to work with our Exchange-only shop. The simple truth of it is, for a large mass of Gallumphing End Users, a Windows shop is just much easier to set up, maintain, and use.
Do I wish it were otherwise? Hell yeah. I love Linux just as much as the next girl does. But I dont see anything fundamental changing about the way the Linux community works. Part of the beauty of it is its LACK of standardization: if I want to put out a really easy-to-use distro and want to slap my very own GUI on it by default, and Jim-I-Wanna-Be-A-Linux-User eats it right up, who's to stop me?
I can't see this changing all that much in the foreseeable future. Linux has definitely made leaps and bounds on the desktop, but let's face reality: it's not ready yet and it won't be for awhile.
My dad is a rancher and we get the BEST beef you could ever ask for because he actually hand-selects what gets sold and what goes on our table, takes the animals to the butcher himself, and specifically gets the cuts we want. It's FABULOUS.
Also, I agree with you 100% on the "USDA factory" thing. My dad's cattle are healthy and happy, they don't eat tons of antibiotics or chemicals (they get vet care when they need it but they sure as hell aren't pumped full of shit to make them bigger) and they spend most of their lives disease-free eating what they would naturally--grasses and alfalfa and what-have-you. It makes a much better cut of meat that's much better for you.
Oh my god, there is NOTHING better than a properly aged, honest-to-goodness tenderloin from a local operation. NOTHING BETTER. It is SO goddamned good.:)
Not sure if this will get read or not, but this interests me and I could use a few suggestions. Right now I call myself "Crazy IT Woman" or "Mac Girl" or "what the hell do you want, I'm still finishing my coffee", but I know I can't do that forever...
My school has a slightly different system of majors and programs of emphasis--you're given considerable freedom to shape your own major as long as it's reasonable and approved of by the department heads. You can call it what you want, too. I started out as a Communication majors with a minor in IT, but that got boring for me. I wanted more computers. So I cut back a bit on the fluffy Communication/Social Psychology stuff and picked up about...oh...fifteen credits more of Comp Sci courses. Throw a REALLY hefty chunk of IT in there and a bit of business/management, and voila, you have my major.
Thing is, I don't know what to call it. I'm sure as hell not a Communication/IT major, because I cut back on the fluffy crap and grabbed some comp sci. But I'm not straight IT, either. Oh, and I've been employed for the last three years doing various computer lab assistant/helpdesk stuff, and most recently, PC technician work with my department. Over the next four months, till school begins again in fall, I will be a full-time technician (which basically means "bitch they give eleven bucks an hour to for anything from running cable to swapping out RAM to doing our OS X rollout to figuring out why the new science center's WLAN is down").
Let's talk about George Herbert Cooley and "the looking-glass self" for a moment. (This stuff always makes me happy.) Look him up on Google. He's a pretty big name in social psychology/communications.
We see ourselves as we see others seeing us. For example, let's say I'm...on a stuffed-plush-toy-animal fencing team. You see me walking down the street in my "2003 Stuffed Animal Plush Toy Fencing Team" T-shirt and I look at you. I like to think you see it. "He sees me as a stuffed-plush-toy-animal fencer," I think. And that reinforces who I think I am, as a stuffed-plush-animal-toy-fencer.
Stupid example, I know, but it's more or less true. We can't really bandy about the term "identity" because we are thoroughly socially constructed beings. Everything around us shapes who and what we are. Even a haircut, for me, does something to my identity, my "who I am." I cut it short and put it in pigtails with a purple streak (i'm a female,) and I feel like a punk. I keep it midlength and run around with a Nike sweatband, and I feel like an athlete. (Again, really stupid examples, but bear with me.)
I am a punk. I am an athlete. I am a geek. I am a woman. I am an academica nut. I am a musician. I am a comic strip artist. I am a girlfriend. I am a daughter. I am a technician. I am a student. I am a slob. Every one of these "attributes" about me has been reinforced not only by me, but by someone else.
Are we really that simple-minded? Yes. Yes, we are. Every single thing about us contributes to our whole social self.
Has anyone ever seen facial prostheses? Some people, suffering facial cancers or other disorders, must have portions of their faces removed and replaced with prosthetics. The face is a complex BITCH to operate on (IANAdoctor, but I play one on Slashdot!:).
The face carries a strong social attachment with it. Ever see a victim of a facial cancer without a prosthesis? Imagine a face without a nose. Without a cheek. Terrifyingly sad realities for some people. How can one socially interact when such a huge part of their very presence is so wrongly missing?
That doctors can actually replace diseased facial parts is an ASTOUNDING new breakthrough for medicine. If this turns out to be successful, some people will have amazing new hope.
I'm a PC tech at my college, and for the last few years we've purchased a site license for Norton Antivirus. Students are EXPLICITLY told their first day here that they need to go to Computer/Network Service's website and download the virus scanner, AND keep it up to date. (We had some problems with the download a little while ago, but it's since been repaired and highly advertised.)
So EVERYONE has access to a program that installs easily, is FREELY downloadable, and requires only minimal maintenance (update your damn definitions once in awhile.) And yet, we still have Nimda and Klez flying around. Probably right now, there are Nimda infections running around on our network.
People can be so incredibly dense when it comes to this stuff. We even have a virus scanner sitting on the mailserver, and STILL this shit abounds.
And Klez still manages to find my email address once in awhile in some poor dope's addressbook, sending it around the world. Fabulous. School networks are a foul, foul microcosm that provide fertile breeding grounds for this shit.
The biggest problem is, you can't MAKE people take basic security precautions. Some poor stupid college freshman who can't download a goddamned virus scanner sends out a fresh batch of Nimda every day. Should there be action taken against him?
I'd love to see this stuff government-mandated. I really would. But I just don't know how possible it is in today's climate. I'd be overjoyed to see some semblance of security restriction imposed upon companies like Microsoft, that wave a patch around saying "Our ass is covered! We didnt' do it!" when 1) they didn't patch their OWN systems 2) the patch breaks everything else.
But will it HAPPEN? Does government have the understanding of technological matters to make this happen without impinging more on our freedoms than they already do? I'm not feeling too reassured right now.
This is cool-Homestar Runner is getting some recognition! It was just a few days ago that I discovered him--glad I got through all his stuff before the/. wave hit.
"I don't know who it is, but it probably is fhqwhgads."
I LOVE strong bad. He's my favorite.
The storylines are not groundshaking, but the characters are so beautifully animated, with such detailed personalities, that I no longer hate Flash. Go HomeStar!
Try playing the "Homestar Talker" game. It's...surprising.:)
Anyone remember the Lynx? 16-bit handheld, IIRC, competed around the time of the Game Gear? I saw one in a catalog a LOOOONG time ago. Was it any good? Was it doomed to fail?
Also, my roommate's talking about Neo Geo, which I recall in name only. Any thoughts on that? I'm FASCINATED.
Oh, and, okay, so. I remember seeing CD-based "interactive TV"? units, in the earlyish nineties. I remember playing them at the electronics stores. You could like paint with them using the remote control. Weird as hell. Supposed to be the next big thing, even bigger than that "Internet" thing that was coming along.
Anyway, just nostalgic ranting. Please feel free to reply with any hints.:)
IANAD (I am sure as hell not a doctor) but you do move around every couple of hours in your sleep.
Your brain is by no means conked out completely while you get your beauty rest. It does all kinds of nutty shit. You probably don't remember it, but while you're unconscious your body actually has a built-in mechanism to regulate your circulation. That's actually WHY you don't die in your sleep.:) You move your legs, you roll over. The same impulses that make us move in our sleep have been tied to sleepwalking, etc.
My mom had a stroke some years ago, and was in a coma for two days. During that time the hospital staff moved her limbs around a bit every few hours or so, because her body couldn't regulate that motion at the time.
Yes, this will be slightly offtopic, but I'm currently working on an IT project at my college that involves a MySQL server running off a Linux box, and we will have to potentially have a port open to trusted hosts only to connect to it through ODBC. I'm trying to find comparisons between security on these databases and failing miserably. Is Postgresql inherently better for this kind of thing? I haven't even found MySQL mentioned in this thread. Someone point me in the right direction!
When I was a little kid I thought about this (when you're a little kid and have to take baths because you're not big enough to use the shower? right.) Why not make a waterproof book, so you can read in the tub?
But seriously. Books are not on their way out, by any means. I know tablet PC's and PDAs are improving so that maybe someday everyone will curl up with a good book electronically, but not everyone wants to do that. The feel of a book, the texture of the paper, its portability and durability is just something that not a lot of people can match with an electronic text source. Argue as you will--portable electronic devices are just not that widespread yet.
I read a fascinating book by Neal Gershenfeld, "When Things Start to Think". It's about not just making cool new technology--it's about making that technology more accessible, less daunting, making computers serve you instead of you serving computers. He proposed an interesting idea--why not make an actual book computer? People are familiar with the book's interface. Those who have problems reading text on a monitor would have no difficulty with the familiar ink-on-paper interface.
Picture this: start with a durable cover of some sort, maybe tough molded plastic (with LEDs. I like LEDs.) Insert inside this cover enough pages of membrane to make it heft and feel like a book. This membrane is textured to look and feel like paper, and is almost as thin, but it's not paper. Think "really thin electronically controlled Magna-doodle."
Particles (like toner particles) can be controlled with electromagnets to form text on the "pages." You could download entire copies of classics and have the "book" display them--just like a normal book. And you wouldn't even need some 1200 pages to read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy--you could have maybe only 50 pages, and have the text "cycle" so that once you're done with the first 50 pages, the next 50 appear on the same pages.
You could even edit the text as you see it with a pen or keyboard interface. For in-the-dark perusal the pages could be backlit or another lighting source could be part of the book.
I think this is a fabulously cool idea. Say what you will about electronic text--the book isn't going anywhere soon, and why not augment it with the power we already have?
This might be very slightly offtopic, given that we're talking about a spam archive here and not about the mechanics of spam itself, but I'm curious.
This story is about someone who tried a little experiment: she wanted to see if the "click here to unsubscribe" link in most spams REALLY worked. So she tried the link and got INUNDATED with MORE spam.
Anyone have experience with this? A friend of mine agrees--she says that hitting the "Unsubscribe" link just verifies that your address is in fact a real and active one.
I always thought that was bullshit, because spammers don't seem to care whether addresses work or not (see The Story of Nadine. Any comments?
I'm just heartened that a lot of the heavy-duty intercontinental communication is done by fiberoptic. Why don't we start looking more seriously at alternate forms of computing? We've known for decades now that magnetic devices can be unreliable, but there doesn't seem to be a push to change gears.
Also, if this is going to be an extremely gradual change, the switchover will be less painful. But has anyone actually tried our standard magnetic-based equipment under an environment equivalent to the one after the pole switch? Or the possible environments *during* the switch? I imagine it'd be like moving a huge magnet over an entire room and seeing if hard drives still work.:P
And how would one make this seem relevant to the general public? The Y2K fix was so behind-the-scenes that ENTIRELY TOO MANY people dismissed it as hype, when in fact programmers, engineers, IT people worked countless hours to make the transition as smooth as it was. How could one convince the general public that they need different forms of computers in EVERYTHING, from their wristwatches to their air traffic control centers?
...and I have found this to be true in my case. Whenever I go to my dentist he's always surprised how much anasthetic I need. I get the dosage. We wait like ten minutes or so, and it's still not numb. We wait longer. Still nothing. Finally he gives me another dose. Two hours after the filling/procedure/whatever NO PAINKILLERS exist any longer anywhere in my body, and my mouth hurts.
Maybe this sensitivity has a correlation to the stereotypical "redhead temper." I know I'm a bit prone to fits of rage myself. (Yeah, okay, I've got a horrible temper and no one should ever be a passenger in a car that I'm driving because a sweet little redheaded girl turns into a demonic monster from hell behind the wheel screeching all kinds of obscenities especially when I'm in New Jersey but that's another stereotype for another day. I digress.) I'm such a wuss about pain, so I might have just started reacting more to negative things. Hence the temper.
lol! while I see the tongue-in-cheek nature of this comment I can see how the parallel can be drawn. When I was a little kid, I would watch my big maine coon cat, Spatter, for any clues as to his "language" (he was a big, smart cat and we were inseparable). It fascinated me that there was a whole different order of communication to be explored. (When I was about four I remember sitting him down amid paper and crayons and trying to show him the alphabet. All he did was lie down on the paper and go to sleep. I miss that cat...)
I'm now a communication major, and have always been fascinated with language and reading minute social clues. In fact I'm working on learning a few other languages, mostly to satisfy my curiosity as to what it would be like to be fluent in other languages and cultures. I also consider myself a geek and can be extremely technically-minded.
So maybe I can make the point here that might bear repeating. Just like being a geek and having autism (or asparger's or dyslexia) do not necessarily go hand in hand (this is PATENTLY obvious, as there are many, many geeks that do not have such conditions) there are also geeks who have very strong, advanced social/linguistic/communication skills.
My modem says "Campbell's Chicken Noodle" on one can and "Spaghettios" on the other! And they're attached with string! Why, in my day we were lucky if we got 1 byte/second!
I didn't have to hit 30 to know my body needed to change...I was about 15 when I really started to cut back in earnest.:)
When I graduated from the 8th grade, about six years ago, I weighed 247 pounds. For a 5'7" female, that's not healthy! A few years before that my mother had gained a good deal of weight as she attempted to LOSE it on 80's fad diets, and as a result was diabetic. In fact, when I was 10 she had a hyperglycemic stroke and had to learn to speak all over again (she's doing great now, btw). It eventually got through my brains that sitting at a computer and playing Nintendo and eating potato chips/little debbies/Coke all day was REALLY increasing my chances of the same thing happenening to me. I wore a women's size 20 (!!) jeans (if you don't know what size this is, go to a Kmart and check out the plus size section. I'm willing to bet most of the skinny geeks on/. could fit two of themselves in those jeans.)
I started out with little things. I recall using the cement steps in our basement as a stepping machine, and I would do 100 reps on it a day. I also began watching my thinner friends eat (by this time I was a freshman in high school) and I saw how much more slowly they were eating than I was. I'd eat my lunch slowly enough that by the time I was done, I couldn't go up for seconds. It didn't seem like much, but the excess weight came off so quickly at first that I lost about 45 pounds my freshman year! It was at this time that I bought a belt, a men's 38" in very cheap leather, with four punched-out holes in it each an inch apart. I remember wearing the belt buckled so it would be at its smallest..but that would still be about 35" or so.
So, I got to buy new clothes *G* and I entered my sophomore year of high school, in which I discovered skateboarding. I was never good at it. Ever. But it made me run pretty fast to try to catch up with my runaway $13 board. Off came another 20 pounds, and I put two new holes in the belt.
My junior year of high school I lost 20 pounds due to a deep depression. No, I do not recommend losing weight in this way. Do not, I repeat, do not starve yourself. I am still feeling the effects to this day of the calcium deficiency I developed (my teeth are horrible). When I got so depressed I could not eat, and I felt so nervously jittery that all I did was exercise. (It was at this point that I discovered my mom's stepping block, a sturdy plastic step with adjustable legs, and exercise videos, which make you feel silly but are WONDERFUL to do in a nice cool basement when it's 90 degrees outside.) The pounds came off and stayed off, but I would rather have done it in a healthier manner. Again, I got new clothing, and put two new holes in the belt.
My senior year and freshman years of college were tumultuous, but I discovered new exercise videos. I also discovered that when I got to college, the shopping center was a mile and a half from campus. Often I would walk three miles a day, then go to the campus rec center and swim for a half hour. Unlike some of my friends, I LOST about 10 pounds my senior year and another 10 my freshman year of college. I put two more holes in the belt (which is about due to be replaced) and I also discovered running, which is surprisingly fun.
I worry about some of my geek friends who sit around, snarf Doritoes and Mountain Dew all day, and play Counterstrike as their most strenuous activity. Sure, their metabolisms can handle it now, but they're not going to be healthy later on. They also scoff when I talk about calorie content and exercise time, and often try to pressure me to eat more tator tots in the cafeteria.
What'd I eat? Normal stuff. I just cut back on fatty things and began to eat more fruits and vegetables. I've never been able to eat much for breakfast (usually a granola bar or a Pop Tart will suffice). At lunch I will have a sandwich with lean meat, a little mayo, and lettuce, with a salad on the side, and a cookie or two. At dinner I'll usually have something a bit more substantial, but I won't eat all that much of it. The key is moderation and exercise.
Let's see. 45 + 20 + 20 + 10 + 10 = 105. I've lost 105 pounds! No gimmicks or shakes or diets...just normal foods and exercise.
This was entirely too long. ENTIRELY. Wow. Maybe I'll help someone though.
Using an ICQ-like UIN would take some getting used to. I am a rather major Undernet junkie (check my bio for details) and my own frequently-visited channels had to make some major adjustments after the big Undernet attacks earlier this year.
For one thing, it's much easier to type a nickname. If we go through a netsplit (big surprise on Undernet:P !) and some op sees the channel with 37 people in it and the channel limit set to 90, they might semi-cluelessly change it to 40. Then people start coming back in from the split, and pretty soon the channel is full. If I were caught in the split and couldn't get into the channel, I want to/msg an op in channel to please raise the limit. I don't want to have to/msg 18 different people on Undernet with the same nick, nor do I want to look up an op's UIN. Something would have to be done to streamline the process, and it would require massive changes in IRC clients.
Previously mentioned on this discussion, however, was mentioned that on ICQ, one can sometimes have one's UIN assailed by harrassants, and all a person can do is get a new UIN for peace. Well, in my experience, the/silence features that Undernet has, at least, are a bit more robust than ICQ's...not only do you not see attackers or irritatants, but they don't even get through the server to you (unlike/ignore--you can still feel the effects of a flood attack.) All you have to know is your harrassant's user@host or even just a pattern in their nick--I used/silence !~??*@* for a while because of floodbots with a broken ident and two-letter semi-random username...
I don't know. I'm just throwing out ideas. It might work, but it would take a lot more getting used to than some people on IRC might like. I wouldn't mind it, personally, but the UIN -- nickname issue would need to go smoothly..
I know it's poor form to reply to one's own post, but I left out something...due to crop rotation, and the fact that different farmers/ranchers grow different things, the odds are not always that volunteer crops in a field will be of the same kind as the ones that are supposed to be there. One will often see sunflowers in a corn field, for example. Were that the case, the canola would have been a good deal easier to spot; but it would still be a volunteer crop. Still be smallish and patchy like I said in my previous post. How Monsanto could even spot it in the first place, or see it as a violation of their license...huh.
Either Monsanto's off their rocker completely or this guy was actually mucking with seed illegally.
I grew up in South Dakota, and my dad is a farmer, so this story really struck me. If a piece of my dad's land was flooded, yes, he'd notice it. If it was overrun by Canadian thistle, yes, he'd notice it. If there were some stray canola plants in the corner of a field, bordering someone else's land, someone else who's planted Monsanto(TM)(R) Canola (TM)(R)(all your canola are belong to us)(etc), no, it wouldn't be noticed.
Volunteer crops (crops that grow from existing seed left over in a field, not deliberately planted, and usually not even known about) are by nature distributed in a patchy fashion. They're smaller, typically, than their cultivated counterparts, because they're usually at the edges of a field where wind and soil erosion are harder on the plants.
If indeed these were seeds blown in from another field, I can't imagine how Monsanto could see them as a deliberate affront to their license because it really doesn't make sense to harvest volunteer crops. They're patchy and small and just get crunched up by the combine.
The article is sketchy and i can't seem to find any details in the rulings...how MUCH canola was found on this guy's land? did he have a history of reusing Monsanto seed?
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I'm a student PC/Net tech at a small college (1500 students, 400 staff/admin/faculty). We use an AD domain to corral our users, so to speak.
We did some testing with the Blaster patch before we encouraged our users to download it; I always check Bugtraq, personally, before I put anything on a machine I'm responsible for. Once we decided it wasn't breaking anything (at least it didn't break anything for us) we burned it to a whole bunch of CDs (with the Symantec removal tool, the Win2k patch, the WinXP patch, and the WinNT fix). Each RA/helpkid/tech also got a corporate edition of NortonAV on a disk (we have a site license) with instructions for students on how to update their virus definitions.
Each RA got this disk. Each help desk kid (there are about 15 student help desk kids) got one, and the other five PC/net techs (other than me) got one. We marched around campus for about a week wearing very visible "TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS CENTER" T-shirts and essentially infiltrated dorm life with our antivirus software.
Were there huge network slowdowns? Oh yeah. For the first day and a half when students came back there was little, if any, network connectivity. But the RAs were adamant about having the kids run the patches and install NAV. Did we use guerilla tactics, like disabling network ports or confiscating network cable? No, not at all. We just made help extremely visible, and with a horde of student tech workers getting $5/hr, it was not so bad for cheap labor for the college, either.
You might bitch and moan and say that a college kid with a virus will never go talk to his RA, but we had mandatory floor meetings for every floor for every hall across campus, and when you've got 20 kids and one RA, it's pretty easy to reach the end users. Users only understand that "my computer doesnt work", and you can bet that a college kid at a small, tech-oriented campus will go see his RA if he knows his RA can help him. (If the kids think the RAs are totally bogus, then there's problems with administration that have nothing to do with computing and is for another thread entirely.)
Do these tactics make Mac/Linux users feel discriminated against? I saw some whining in the comments about this, but guess what: Even if an RA is minimally intelligent in the realm of computing, he can PROBABLY tell a Mac from a PC. Mac users get left alone (like me.)
Full network connectivity returned at about 9 in the morning on the day after move-in. (you'd be surprised how fast 30 RAs and 21 tech kids can move.)
You might also bitch and moan and say that students shouldn't have L2 domain admins. Okay, I can understand that. One kid got forcibly removed from our staff last year for leeching software off a drive he had permissions to, so no, it's not a completely perfect solution, and a lot of trust is involved. But it worked okay for us and minimized a lot of headaches.
I hear this kind of thing a lot--"Let's do (x) and make Linux more accessible to the desktop user!"
That's all great. Seriously. Years ago, I'd never have been able to get into Linux if X hadn't looked (semi)-pretty on the first try. But the point I got the most out of this article is: the average user DOESN'T CARE.
I do support for about 500 users on a Win2k/XP network at a small college. I can count on one hand the number of "average users" who care how their GUI works, who even really care if they have a choice, who could even tell me much about screen resolution. Here's where I get maligned occasionally by my more Linuxy-zealoty colleagues: Linux is not ready for the end-user Average-Joe-Sixpack user yet.
Bitch and moan all you want; tell me Linux is ready for prime-time. Tell me that Joe User could install OpenOffice and interact completely smoothly--with his limited knowledge--with OfficeXP users. It's not always possible, no matter how much improvement some of these applications have undergone in the past few years. No one in my support radius knows or cares about Office's "smart quotes" or how they can truly uglify a document read in an alternate word processing application. No one here could get Evolution set up to work with our Exchange-only shop. The simple truth of it is, for a large mass of Gallumphing End Users, a Windows shop is just much easier to set up, maintain, and use.
Do I wish it were otherwise? Hell yeah. I love Linux just as much as the next girl does. But I dont see anything fundamental changing about the way the Linux community works. Part of the beauty of it is its LACK of standardization: if I want to put out a really easy-to-use distro and want to slap my very own GUI on it by default, and Jim-I-Wanna-Be-A-Linux-User eats it right up, who's to stop me?
I can't see this changing all that much in the foreseeable future. Linux has definitely made leaps and bounds on the desktop, but let's face reality: it's not ready yet and it won't be for awhile.
Wouldn't it be nice if we did currency by the bitwise operations used for subnetting?
Then instead of these damn eight 1's I have in my wallet, I'd have $255.
ABSOLUTELY TRUE.
:)
My dad is a rancher and we get the BEST beef you could ever ask for because he actually hand-selects what gets sold and what goes on our table, takes the animals to the butcher himself, and specifically gets the cuts we want. It's FABULOUS.
Also, I agree with you 100% on the "USDA factory" thing. My dad's cattle are healthy and happy, they don't eat tons of antibiotics or chemicals (they get vet care when they need it but they sure as hell aren't pumped full of shit to make them bigger) and they spend most of their lives disease-free eating what they would naturally--grasses and alfalfa and what-have-you. It makes a much better cut of meat that's much better for you.
Oh my god, there is NOTHING better than a properly aged, honest-to-goodness tenderloin from a local operation. NOTHING BETTER. It is SO goddamned good.
Not sure if this will get read or not, but this interests me and I could use a few suggestions. Right now I call myself "Crazy IT Woman" or "Mac Girl" or "what the hell do you want, I'm still finishing my coffee", but I know I can't do that forever...
:)
My school has a slightly different system of majors and programs of emphasis--you're given considerable freedom to shape your own major as long as it's reasonable and approved of by the department heads. You can call it what you want, too. I started out as a Communication majors with a minor in IT, but that got boring for me. I wanted more computers. So I cut back a bit on the fluffy Communication/Social Psychology stuff and picked up about...oh...fifteen credits more of Comp Sci courses. Throw a REALLY hefty chunk of IT in there and a bit of business/management, and voila, you have my major.
Thing is, I don't know what to call it. I'm sure as hell not a Communication/IT major, because I cut back on the fluffy crap and grabbed some comp sci. But I'm not straight IT, either. Oh, and I've been employed for the last three years doing various computer lab assistant/helpdesk stuff, and most recently, PC technician work with my department. Over the next four months, till school begins again in fall, I will be a full-time technician (which basically means "bitch they give eleven bucks an hour to for anything from running cable to swapping out RAM to doing our OS X rollout to figuring out why the new science center's WLAN is down").
So what do I call it? Help me.
--Theresa
Read my stupid webcomic.
OOOOH! Identity.
Let's talk about George Herbert Cooley and "the looking-glass self" for a moment. (This stuff always makes me happy.) Look him up on Google. He's a pretty big name in social psychology/communications.
We see ourselves as we see others seeing us. For example, let's say I'm...on a stuffed-plush-toy-animal fencing team. You see me walking down the street in my "2003 Stuffed Animal Plush Toy Fencing Team" T-shirt and I look at you. I like to think you see it. "He sees me as a stuffed-plush-toy-animal fencer," I think. And that reinforces who I think I am, as a stuffed-plush-animal-toy-fencer.
Stupid example, I know, but it's more or less true. We can't really bandy about the term "identity" because we are thoroughly socially constructed beings. Everything around us shapes who and what we are. Even a haircut, for me, does something to my identity, my "who I am." I cut it short and put it in pigtails with a purple streak (i'm a female,) and I feel like a punk. I keep it midlength and run around with a Nike sweatband, and I feel like an athlete. (Again, really stupid examples, but bear with me.)
I am a punk. I am an athlete. I am a geek. I am a woman. I am an academica nut. I am a musician. I am a comic strip artist. I am a girlfriend. I am a daughter. I am a technician. I am a student. I am a slob. Every one of these "attributes" about me has been reinforced not only by me, but by someone else.
Are we really that simple-minded? Yes. Yes, we are. Every single thing about us contributes to our whole social self.
Just a ramble.
OS X does support USB floppy drives. One of my favorites is the SuperDisk.
Has anyone ever seen facial prostheses? Some people, suffering facial cancers or other disorders, must have portions of their faces removed and replaced with prosthetics. The face is a complex BITCH to operate on (IANAdoctor, but I play one on Slashdot! :).
The face carries a strong social attachment with it. Ever see a victim of a facial cancer without a prosthesis? Imagine a face without a nose. Without a cheek. Terrifyingly sad realities for some people. How can one socially interact when such a huge part of their very presence is so wrongly missing?
That doctors can actually replace diseased facial parts is an ASTOUNDING new breakthrough for medicine. If this turns out to be successful, some people will have amazing new hope.
I'm a PC tech at my college, and for the last few years we've purchased a site license for Norton Antivirus. Students are EXPLICITLY told their first day here that they need to go to Computer/Network Service's website and download the virus scanner, AND keep it up to date. (We had some problems with the download a little while ago, but it's since been repaired and highly advertised.)
So EVERYONE has access to a program that installs easily, is FREELY downloadable, and requires only minimal maintenance (update your damn definitions once in awhile.) And yet, we still have Nimda and Klez flying around. Probably right now, there are Nimda infections running around on our network.
People can be so incredibly dense when it comes to this stuff. We even have a virus scanner sitting on the mailserver, and STILL this shit abounds.
And Klez still manages to find my email address once in awhile in some poor dope's addressbook, sending it around the world. Fabulous. School networks are a foul, foul microcosm that provide fertile breeding grounds for this shit.
The biggest problem is, you can't MAKE people take basic security precautions. Some poor stupid college freshman who can't download a goddamned virus scanner sends out a fresh batch of Nimda every day. Should there be action taken against him?
I'd love to see this stuff government-mandated. I really would. But I just don't know how possible it is in today's climate. I'd be overjoyed to see some semblance of security restriction imposed upon companies like Microsoft, that wave a patch around saying "Our ass is covered! We didnt' do it!" when 1) they didn't patch their OWN systems 2) the patch breaks everything else.
But will it HAPPEN? Does government have the understanding of technological matters to make this happen without impinging more on our freedoms than they already do? I'm not feeling too reassured right now.
This is cool-Homestar Runner is getting some recognition! It was just a few days ago that I discovered him--glad I got through all his stuff before the /. wave hit.
:)
"I don't know who it is, but it probably is fhqwhgads."
I LOVE strong bad. He's my favorite.
The storylines are not groundshaking, but the characters are so beautifully animated, with such detailed personalities, that I no longer hate Flash. Go HomeStar!
Try playing the "Homestar Talker" game. It's...surprising.
Anyone remember the Lynx? 16-bit handheld, IIRC, competed around the time of the Game Gear? I saw one in a catalog a LOOOONG time ago. Was it any good? Was it doomed to fail?
:)
Also, my roommate's talking about Neo Geo, which I recall in name only. Any thoughts on that? I'm FASCINATED.
Oh, and, okay, so. I remember seeing CD-based "interactive TV"? units, in the earlyish nineties. I remember playing them at the electronics stores. You could like paint with them using the remote control. Weird as hell. Supposed to be the next big thing, even bigger than that "Internet" thing that was coming along.
Anyway, just nostalgic ranting. Please feel free to reply with any hints.
IANAD (I am sure as hell not a doctor) but you do move around every couple of hours in your sleep.
:) You move your legs, you roll over. The same impulses that make us move in our sleep have been tied to sleepwalking, etc.
Your brain is by no means conked out completely while you get your beauty rest. It does all kinds of nutty shit. You probably don't remember it, but while you're unconscious your body actually has a built-in mechanism to regulate your circulation. That's actually WHY you don't die in your sleep.
My mom had a stroke some years ago, and was in a coma for two days. During that time the hospital staff moved her limbs around a bit every few hours or so, because her body couldn't regulate that motion at the time.
Makes sense.
Am i the only one self-absorbed enough to be rifling through every online photo of LWE I can find to see if I'm in a picture?
...i am?
(mumbles) if I find one, I promise I'm posting it here.
--T.
Yes, this will be slightly offtopic, but I'm currently working on an IT project at my college that involves a MySQL server running off a Linux box, and we will have to potentially have a port open to trusted hosts only to connect to it through ODBC. I'm trying to find comparisons between security on these databases and failing miserably. Is Postgresql inherently better for this kind of thing? I haven't even found MySQL mentioned in this thread. Someone point me in the right direction!
--T.
They just need to get better.
When I was a little kid I thought about this (when you're a little kid and have to take baths because you're not big enough to use the shower? right.) Why not make a waterproof book, so you can read in the tub?
But seriously. Books are not on their way out, by any means. I know tablet PC's and PDAs are improving so that maybe someday everyone will curl up with a good book electronically, but not everyone wants to do that. The feel of a book, the texture of the paper, its portability and durability is just something that not a lot of people can match with an electronic text source. Argue as you will--portable electronic devices are just not that widespread yet.
I read a fascinating book by Neal Gershenfeld, "When Things Start to Think". It's about not just making cool new technology--it's about making that technology more accessible, less daunting, making computers serve you instead of you serving computers. He proposed an interesting idea--why not make an actual book computer? People are familiar with the book's interface. Those who have problems reading text on a monitor would have no difficulty with the familiar ink-on-paper interface.
Picture this: start with a durable cover of some sort, maybe tough molded plastic (with LEDs. I like LEDs.) Insert inside this cover enough pages of membrane to make it heft and feel like a book. This membrane is textured to look and feel like paper, and is almost as thin, but it's not paper. Think "really thin electronically controlled Magna-doodle."
Particles (like toner particles) can be controlled with electromagnets to form text on the "pages." You could download entire copies of classics and have the "book" display them--just like a normal book. And you wouldn't even need some 1200 pages to read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy--you could have maybe only 50 pages, and have the text "cycle" so that once you're done with the first 50 pages, the next 50 appear on the same pages.
You could even edit the text as you see it with a pen or keyboard interface. For in-the-dark perusal the pages could be backlit or another lighting source could be part of the book.
I think this is a fabulously cool idea. Say what you will about electronic text--the book isn't going anywhere soon, and why not augment it with the power we already have?
Just my $0.02 USD.
This might be very slightly offtopic, given that we're talking about a spam archive here and not about the mechanics of spam itself, but I'm curious.
This story is about someone who tried a little experiment: she wanted to see if the "click here to unsubscribe" link in most spams REALLY worked. So she tried the link and got INUNDATED with MORE spam.
Anyone have experience with this? A friend of mine agrees--she says that hitting the "Unsubscribe" link just verifies that your address is in fact a real and active one.
I always thought that was bullshit, because spammers don't seem to care whether addresses work or not (see The Story of Nadine. Any comments?
--Theresa
I'm just heartened that a lot of the heavy-duty intercontinental communication is done by fiberoptic. Why don't we start looking more seriously at alternate forms of computing? We've known for decades now that magnetic devices can be unreliable, but there doesn't seem to be a push to change gears.
:P
There are up-and-coming technologies that could be feasible--check out http://www.media.mit.edu/research (MIT Media labs.)
Also, if this is going to be an extremely gradual change, the switchover will be less painful. But has anyone actually tried our standard magnetic-based equipment under an environment equivalent to the one after the pole switch? Or the possible environments *during* the switch? I imagine it'd be like moving a huge magnet over an entire room and seeing if hard drives still work.
And how would one make this seem relevant to the general public? The Y2K fix was so behind-the-scenes that ENTIRELY TOO MANY people dismissed it as hype, when in fact programmers, engineers, IT people worked countless hours to make the transition as smooth as it was. How could one convince the general public that they need different forms of computers in EVERYTHING, from their wristwatches to their air traffic control centers?
I'm just throwing out stuff, here. *shrug*
...and I have found this to be true in my case. Whenever I go to my dentist he's always surprised how much anasthetic I need. I get the dosage. We wait like ten minutes or so, and it's still not numb. We wait longer. Still nothing. Finally he gives me another dose. Two hours after the filling/procedure/whatever NO PAINKILLERS exist any longer anywhere in my body, and my mouth hurts.
Maybe this sensitivity has a correlation to the stereotypical "redhead temper." I know I'm a bit prone to fits of rage myself. (Yeah, okay, I've got a horrible temper and no one should ever be a passenger in a car that I'm driving because a sweet little redheaded girl turns into a demonic monster from hell behind the wheel screeching all kinds of obscenities especially when I'm in New Jersey but that's another stereotype for another day. I digress.) I'm such a wuss about pain, so I might have just started reacting more to negative things. Hence the temper.
I don't know, just my two cents..
lol! while I see the tongue-in-cheek nature of this comment I can see how the parallel can be drawn. When I was a little kid, I would watch my big maine coon cat, Spatter, for any clues as to his "language" (he was a big, smart cat and we were inseparable). It fascinated me that there was a whole different order of communication to be explored. (When I was about four I remember sitting him down amid paper and crayons and trying to show him the alphabet. All he did was lie down on the paper and go to sleep. I miss that cat...)
I'm now a communication major, and have always been fascinated with language and reading minute social clues. In fact I'm working on learning a few other languages, mostly to satisfy my curiosity as to what it would be like to be fluent in other languages and cultures. I also consider myself a geek and can be extremely technically-minded.
So maybe I can make the point here that might bear repeating. Just like being a geek and having autism (or asparger's or dyslexia) do not necessarily go hand in hand (this is PATENTLY obvious, as there are many, many geeks that do not have such conditions) there are also geeks who have very strong, advanced social/linguistic/communication skills.
You think THAT'S old!
My modem says "Campbell's Chicken Noodle" on one can and "Spaghettios" on the other! And they're attached with string! Why, in my day we were lucky if we got 1 byte/second!
Young whippersnappers.
I didn't have to hit 30 to know my body needed to change...I was about 15 when I really started to cut back in earnest. :)
/. could fit two of themselves in those jeans.)
When I graduated from the 8th grade, about six years ago, I weighed 247 pounds. For a 5'7" female, that's not healthy! A few years before that my mother had gained a good deal of weight as she attempted to LOSE it on 80's fad diets, and as a result was diabetic. In fact, when I was 10 she had a hyperglycemic stroke and had to learn to speak all over again (she's doing great now, btw). It eventually got through my brains that sitting at a computer and playing Nintendo and eating potato chips/little debbies/Coke all day was REALLY increasing my chances of the same thing happenening to me. I wore a women's size 20 (!!) jeans (if you don't know what size this is, go to a Kmart and check out the plus size section. I'm willing to bet most of the skinny geeks on
I started out with little things. I recall using the cement steps in our basement as a stepping machine, and I would do 100 reps on it a day. I also began watching my thinner friends eat (by this time I was a freshman in high school) and I saw how much more slowly they were eating than I was. I'd eat my lunch slowly enough that by the time I was done, I couldn't go up for seconds. It didn't seem like much, but the excess weight came off so quickly at first that I lost about 45 pounds my freshman year! It was at this time that I bought a belt, a men's 38" in very cheap leather, with four punched-out holes in it each an inch apart. I remember wearing the belt buckled so it would be at its smallest..but that would still be about 35" or so.
So, I got to buy new clothes *G* and I entered my sophomore year of high school, in which I discovered skateboarding. I was never good at it. Ever. But it made me run pretty fast to try to catch up with my runaway $13 board. Off came another 20 pounds, and I put two new holes in the belt.
My junior year of high school I lost 20 pounds due to a deep depression. No, I do not recommend losing weight in this way. Do not, I repeat, do not starve yourself. I am still feeling the effects to this day of the calcium deficiency I developed (my teeth are horrible). When I got so depressed I could not eat, and I felt so nervously jittery that all I did was exercise. (It was at this point that I discovered my mom's stepping block, a sturdy plastic step with adjustable legs, and exercise videos, which make you feel silly but are WONDERFUL to do in a nice cool basement when it's 90 degrees outside.) The pounds came off and stayed off, but I would rather have done it in a healthier manner. Again, I got new clothing, and put two new holes in the belt.
My senior year and freshman years of college were tumultuous, but I discovered new exercise videos. I also discovered that when I got to college, the shopping center was a mile and a half from campus. Often I would walk three miles a day, then go to the campus rec center and swim for a half hour. Unlike some of my friends, I LOST about 10 pounds my senior year and another 10 my freshman year of college. I put two more holes in the belt (which is about due to be replaced) and I also discovered running, which is surprisingly fun.
I worry about some of my geek friends who sit around, snarf Doritoes and Mountain Dew all day, and play Counterstrike as their most strenuous activity. Sure, their metabolisms can handle it now, but they're not going to be healthy later on. They also scoff when I talk about calorie content and exercise time, and often try to pressure me to eat more tator tots in the cafeteria.
What'd I eat? Normal stuff. I just cut back on fatty things and began to eat more fruits and vegetables. I've never been able to eat much for breakfast (usually a granola bar or a Pop Tart will suffice). At lunch I will have a sandwich with lean meat, a little mayo, and lettuce, with a salad on the side, and a cookie or two. At dinner I'll usually have something a bit more substantial, but I won't eat all that much of it. The key is moderation and exercise.
Let's see. 45 + 20 + 20 + 10 + 10 = 105. I've lost 105 pounds! No gimmicks or shakes or diets...just normal foods and exercise.
This was entirely too long. ENTIRELY. Wow. Maybe I'll help someone though.
Using an ICQ-like UIN would take some getting used to. I am a rather major Undernet junkie (check my bio for details) and my own frequently-visited channels had to make some major adjustments after the big Undernet attacks earlier this year.
:P !) and some op sees the channel with 37 people in it and the channel limit set to 90, they might semi-cluelessly change it to 40. Then people start coming back in from the split, and pretty soon the channel is full. If I were caught in the split and couldn't get into the channel, I want to /msg an op in channel to please raise the limit. I don't want to have to /msg 18 different people on Undernet with the same nick, nor do I want to look up an op's UIN. Something would have to be done to streamline the process, and it would require massive changes in IRC clients.
/silence features that Undernet has, at least, are a bit more robust than ICQ's...not only do you not see attackers or irritatants, but they don't even get through the server to you (unlike /ignore--you can still feel the effects of a flood attack.) All you have to know is your harrassant's user@host or even just a pattern in their nick--I used /silence !~??*@* for a while because of floodbots with a broken ident and two-letter semi-random username...
For one thing, it's much easier to type a nickname. If we go through a netsplit (big surprise on Undernet
Previously mentioned on this discussion, however, was mentioned that on ICQ, one can sometimes have one's UIN assailed by harrassants, and all a person can do is get a new UIN for peace. Well, in my experience, the
I don't know. I'm just throwing out ideas. It might work, but it would take a lot more getting used to than some people on IRC might like. I wouldn't mind it, personally, but the UIN -- nickname issue would need to go smoothly..
Just my two cents.
I know it's poor form to reply to one's own post, but I left out something...due to crop rotation, and the fact that different farmers/ranchers grow different things, the odds are not always that volunteer crops in a field will be of the same kind as the ones that are supposed to be there. One will often see sunflowers in a corn field, for example. Were that the case, the canola would have been a good deal easier to spot; but it would still be a volunteer crop. Still be smallish and patchy like I said in my previous post. How Monsanto could even spot it in the first place, or see it as a violation of their license...huh.
Either Monsanto's off their rocker completely or this guy was actually mucking with seed illegally.
I grew up in South Dakota, and my dad is a farmer, so this story really struck me. If a piece of my dad's land was flooded, yes, he'd notice it. If it was overrun by Canadian thistle, yes, he'd notice it. If there were some stray canola plants in the corner of a field, bordering someone else's land, someone else who's planted Monsanto(TM)(R) Canola (TM)(R)(all your canola are belong to us)(etc), no, it wouldn't be noticed.
Volunteer crops (crops that grow from existing seed left over in a field, not deliberately planted, and usually not even known about) are by nature distributed in a patchy fashion. They're smaller, typically, than their cultivated counterparts, because they're usually at the edges of a field where wind and soil erosion are harder on the plants.
If indeed these were seeds blown in from another field, I can't imagine how Monsanto could see them as a deliberate affront to their license because it really doesn't make sense to harvest volunteer crops. They're patchy and small and just get crunched up by the combine.
The article is sketchy and i can't seem to find any details in the rulings...how MUCH canola was found on this guy's land? did he have a history of reusing Monsanto seed?
Just curious--how much would it cost to get those cylinders? ;]