Game Boys are incredibly versatile. I have a vintage 1989 model that's gotta be the IBM Model M of gaming. Many a time I threw it (yes, threw it) in frustration upon being unable to beat something particularly hard.
Remember when you'd pop in a game and the "Nintendo" logo would come to the middle of the screen distorted? I was rather worried the first time this occured, but took out the game, blew across the connectors, popped it back in, and it worked fine.
I'd stick it in my pocket and take it with me as I rode with my dad through unimaginable filth and dust in the fields of South Dakota. Dirt got caked in the etching of the words on the back; the screen got scratched by my grandmother's cat (for some odd reason) and abrasion from my jeans. It was big and hard to fit in my early-90's style jeans, but I adored it. It went beyond a toy. Or a miniature computer. It was my companion; and I was a hardcore gamer. Mario, Kirby, Bonk, and Link were my friends.
After a few years, my parents surrendered to my whimpering about the glitzy sexiness of the Game Gear, the Sega equivalent. 256 colors, I believe, and good audio. But that sucker ate batteries like crazy, and it just wasn't the same. It wasn't hackish, homey, and minimalistic. I love that blue hedgehog thing, but he's just a poser compared to the steadfast, mustachioed Mario.
My gameboy STILL runs. On absolutely no battery life at all. If only my Palm could hold up to such abuse! Old technology is beautiful in that it's built like a tank. Keep it around.
I could go off on a tangent about my fetish for legacy ISA devices, but...
I have a nice, clicky IBM Model M keyboard and a luxurious Logitech scroll mouse on my K6/2-400 Linux box, which I'm utilizing right now. Beside me is a blueberry iMac DV, 400mHz, a gift from a kind aunt.
Yes, the Linux box is far more pleasurable, but the iMac's mouse is not really that bad, in some aspects. True, it's sometimes hard to tell if you have the stupid thing set right, but it keeps the wrist up and fingers slightly curved--a far better position for staving carpal tunnel syndrome than leaning it on the desk or draping the entire hand and wrist over the mouse.
The keyboard is laughable; I'll admit. I hate it. And MacOS9 is just not very stable or supported just yet. At least for me. I might be hallucinating. I see tangerine boxen and flying lime keyboards. Must be.
If MS releases an Office for Linux, corporations will immediately pitch in for it and grab en masse licenses to run on all their Linux boxen. It'll be a piece of crud, but it's Microsoft; it must be standard.
Sooner or later, Microsoft will release its own Linux so people can theoretically run Linux Office without any problems. (Note: theoretically.) They come up with their OWN standards and throw their weight around. Microsoft Linux won't be pretty, but people will swallow it up. After all, these are the people that made Windows--the GUI everybody and his brother grew up with.
Their new standards break anything previously compiled for Linux, making a mockery of what Linux originally was.
MS Linux will have outrageous system requirements that are eaten up by memory leaks and poor optimizations. All the while, the geek/hacker community will be tired of it all. It'll go on, and on, and on, and Linux as we know it, will, of course, fade. After all, you can't argue with an 800-pound gorilla.
Years will pass. Then, one day, an enterprising young geek at some university (it doesn't have to be Helsinki) will come across this cool old OS in an ancient unadulterated form of some artifact cryptically called "Debian". He'll rewrite it to run on his computer and post the source. He becomes a sort of hero to the geek/hacker community, as they finally have a powerful, intricate, free-as-in-beer-and-speech platform to work, to play, to frolic, to grok.
I'm 17, i'm female, I have four computers in my room, and I'm not telling you where I live.
All that aside.
Why AREN'T there more female geeks? Lots of factors go into this... The nature vs. nurture debate is a big one. If it weren't for a good deal of nurture, right now I wouldn't be sitting in my room chugging Diet Coke and hammering out a response on Slashdot on an IBM Modem M keyboard attached to a home-brewed K6-2/400 Linux box sitting beside a blueberry iMac DV beside a headless Performa 6115 underneath a 486 wedged in an XT case. *deep breath* Had my parents not encouraged me to use our PC Jr back in the mid-eighties, I would never have gotten such a tooth for technology. My brother contributed largely to this mindset--I shunned dolls, rather wanting to build fantastical Lego structures with my brother, or playing with Hot Wheels. My mother encouraged me to draw, to read. She let me use her fine art-grade paper and pastels even when I was in 1st or 2nd grade. She let me read medical books even before I was in school. I was pretty isolated, too. My only peer influence was my cousin, who I saw a few times a month. She was into dolls, fashion, boys. I didn't care.
Availability of technology itself is not the determining factor. Sure, a kid who's surrounded by computers as s/he's growing has an advantage over a 21-year-old who suddenly lands an IT job on 6 months of using a Macintosh...but after the PC Jr. died, we didn't get another computer until I was 12. And look at me now. I'm a geek. I think.
How about nature? Let's take a look at this. Men mainly make up the field of computing, but women can be just as competent. Why? Are few women left-brained enough to have interest in the logic and scientific aspects of computing? I dunno. I hated all my algebra courses in school, but excelled in science, social studies, and language courses. Girls DO tend to take an interest in more social, linguistic, and aesthetic aspects at an early age than boys do. It's true, I've seen it. I was a tomboy, but it was just *fun* to play house, write fantasy stories about animals and dinosaurs, sew clothes for Barbie (well, the ones I didn't blow up, anyway) and conduct weddings consisting of stuffed animals. Perhaps when logical and scientific aspects are presented, and a girl at a young age finds it *fun*, she latches onto it. I think that's how it was for me.
What else? The right information at the right time. I was an okay computer user 2 years ago (knew how to run Windows without stumbling around) but didn't really know much. By doing a half-kludged project on computer animation (instead of the weird blacklight-bacteria growth thing I was gonna try)at a local science fair, I made a few friends with Internet access and they got me into "hacking". A few of them downloaded the Windows cracks and such; I started reading the hacking FAQs, and was soon fascinated with how packets and ports and binary worked. Needless to say, I began reading a lot more and decided to forget about downloading winnukers and such when I found this thing called "Slashdot".
Lots of factors go into producing female geeks. I agree with the article--I think the best one can do is let young girls find math and science *FUN*. Fashion magazines suck. Let the girl figure out a computer.
Just my 2 cents. Actually, probably around 33, given the length of this post.
I love science fiction and devour it massively. Being a teenager myself (I'm but a young tyke) I figured I'd toss on my list as well. Most of these books, I'd read before I was 15, so although some material is Not for Kids (TM), smart teens tend to handle stuff better than some would believe.
--Startide Rising by David Brin. Probably my first taste of sci-fi.
--The Hobbit --JRR Tolkien. I HAVE to find time to read the Trilogy of the Rings too.
--Dune --the whole series. I don't recall the author's name, but it's fascinating, intricate reading that goes fast.
--The Man-Kzin Wars --Created by Larry Niven. I found The Children's Hour fascinating. I love felinoid aliens.
--The Pride of Chanur --The entire series by CJ Cherryh. More felinoid aliens.
--Perelandra, Out of the Silent Planet, and That Hideous Strength --C.S. Lewis. It's a little dated, but Lewis is an excellent author, and these books are like candy. Check out The Chronicles of Narnia as well. They're aimed more for kids and are fantasy, but still, excellent, tasty reading.
--The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy --I nearly died. Killer British comedy. Hilarious. All five books of the trilogy.
--The Harry Potter series -- JK Rowling. This is aimed more for kids, and it's a little more at fantasy, but still hilariously British. Think a combination of Hitchhiker's Guide and The Hobbit.
--A Wrinkle in Time --Madeleine L'Engle. Quite possibly one of my favorite books. Very deep.
--Sphere --Michael Crichton. Get ANYTHING Crichton.
This guy was blind since the age of 36. Therefore, he "knew" how to see when he had this device implanted. He also "knew" how to map out new things visually, so although it was probably jarring psychologically, being able to see (albeit limited) wasn't a huge surprise to his underlying brains.
How about someone who was blind since birth? Has anyone here read The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks? (Sacks is a neurologist and a superb writer--if you get a chance, read some of his stuff.) I don't remember all the details exactly, but detailed in this book were his experiences with a patient, a man named Virgil. He'd been blind for decades, lost his sight as a very young child. He had a successful operation to restore his sight, and at first it all seemed quite hopeful.
Virgil was best when he visited his childhood home and saw all the things that he'd already "learned" to map out. In the cities he just got confused and felt better keeping his eyes closed. Eventually this psychological state and other complications overwhelmed him.
Back on topic, now. In Virgil's case, there seems to be a period in very early childhood in which the senses and how the brain learns to use them becomes "hard coded". Virgil went blind when his sight was in the middle of developing. Jerry, the man in the article, already KNOWS how to see. There is some talk in this thread about whether or not a device like this could be "integrated" in with the rest of the senses--but perhaps, if implanted in a very, very, very young blind child who hasn't had the senses "hard-coded" yet...Ethics questions of all kinds arise from this, but it'd be interesting to see if the brain would indeed hard code this into itself.
The Amiga was both before and after my time. When I was a teeny little girl we had an IBM 8088 system...later, we got a Gateway P-133, and now I'm trying to share a room with a K6-2/400 I built, a Mac IIci, and a crackheaded 486. However, I do vaguely seem to recall a cousin talking about one.
Seriously...To be the next big thing, this would have to be a really big thing. There would have to be incredible amounts of innovation going into this to make the old Amiga live on.
I'm but a tyke with a limited sphere of influence, but it seems to me that there are three real "survivors" in the personal computing market.
-Microsoft. Make a PC, bundle it with Windows, and Joe Average buys it. Joe Average doesn't know how to use anything other than Windows, and he heard from his cousin John that Macs suck. Just about anyone can write Visual Basic apps. Joe Average lets them.
-Apple. Closed architecture, but lots of novices love Macs for their simplicity; many experts love them for their complexity and elegance. They're cute. I love them. Apple has always put out innovative products (the screamingly powerful new iMacs have NO cooling fans!?)
-UNIX and Friends. Including our beloved Linux, as well as the proprietary types. Haven of geeks and software revolutionists. They're stable, we love them, and we hack them.
Seems like most things have to be compatible with these three in order for them to fly. We have a few weird ones out there, and then there are the varied and radical palmtops which don't really count...but these three are the names everyone knows, whether that's good or not.
Perhaps we're ready for a drastic change. Perhaps we're ready for the next big OS to come and blow away the suits. But Joe is going to keep buying Microsoft stuff; geeks and techies will keep embracing new forms of UNIX; and Apple will survive, just because it always seems to pull through with really neat, slightly quaint products.
Can Amiga live up to this? A multitasking box, cheap, powerful software, great graphics and sound capabilities, clean, tight, stable code...all for under $2000....Nah, gimme my Linux box anyday...
Let's wish Amino well. I dunno if they can seriously make Amiga big again...
{silly} It's terrible here. Get out while you can. IF anyone in South Dakota is reading this, I commend you for your bravery and fortitude, because there's so much catastrophe. It's terrible. Terrible.
The sun went out entirely and it began to snow violently out here. Then the power went out. I'm posting to Slashdot by candlelight right now, with a magnet to edit the inodes and force the signal through the phone lines.
Also, all the food somehow disintegrated. I guess it wasn't y2k compliant. People are killing each other out here for, as Stef from UF said, the calories in the ink of a ballpoint pen. I nearly got a bite taken out of me myself, but I fended them off with AOL CD's.
Not sure how much longer I can keep up this message. It's so cold. Gget ouT while you ccan. 01001000ear me? oh, no, my mmagn01000101t isn't y2k compliant... *zzzt*
I'm sorry, I just had to comment on this. I'm but a young tyke, still in HS, but Oregon Trail on the Apple][ was one of the first games I ever played.
From kindergarten to 6th grade, my computer classes at my (small, dying, private) school consisted of ancient Sierra games for 16 mint-condition Apple ][e's (they're still used for those poor kids to this very day. Now I get 486's running Win95. Yeckkkch...)
The best part was definitely the hunting. And the dire warnings about who got diptheria and died. And leaving messages on the tombstones. Oh, heck, I miss that game. Someone port it to Linux. Or, is there anything out there to emulate that really old Apple stuff? I have a working 360k 5 1/4" drive...
offtopic as ever and expecting to feel it in karma....
IMHO, it seems like the good things of the "eon/decade/year/millenium" were fairly superficial. I can't even remember the names of some of the people nominated "man of the year" or "whatever of the millenium" or "Wookiee of the Month" or whatever...
But seriously...to label the Challenger, the Hindenburg, world wars, and the like simply "screwups" like WinCE and DIVX just kinda leaves a bad taste in my mouth. These were catastrophes. People died, their loved ones grieved.
Wired--come on. I think we can call the N-rays and cold fusion true flops, and "Wrong-way Corrigan" and Juan Pablo Davila were just kind of funny...but everything else were tragedies, and to call them mere foul-ups is, IMNSHO, a disgrace.
I installed Red Hat 5.2 as a clueless newbie, but was pleased to find that the video probing went quite well, letting me see a rather pretty display of 1024x768 on my 17". Clueless newbie that I was, however, in a few days I was so confused and thought I'd gunked up so much that I formatted the partition and installed Red Hat 6.
6, however, DID NOT support my video. I ended up reinstalling 5.2 and then installing 6 on top of it.
Now I've learned my lesson--just use the XF86Config file from 5.2 instead of a whole new installation--but this puzzles me. Why would an earlier version support something that a later version didn't?
Internet spiritual implications != irrelevant.
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Cybernauts Awake!
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· Score: 1
Some here are saying that there are no more spiritual implications about the Internet than a tool. You use the tool; big deal. No questions asked.
Perhaps one could go farther than that and describe the tool as, say, a wrench. Use it to fasten bolts, it's OK. Use it to beat someone's brains out, it's not.
I am a Christian, and spiritual implications and the Internet go farther than just that. Say you're sitting in a chatroom or IRC. That's like using the wrench to fasten bolts: you're using the tool for its purpose.
Say a newbie enters the channel. Circumstances are right for you to social engineer a credit card number out of the newbie. That's like using the wrench to whack someone over the head: you're using the tool for a destructive, unintended purpose; and whether you believe in Christ or not, you probably think there's SOMETHING morally wrong with walking up to an innocent bystander and forcibly placing their brains on the sidewalk.
Say you forego the social engineering and you find out that the newbie works for a specific division of Microsoft; you then download an illegal copy of software from said division. IMHO, that would be like using the wrench to pry open the guy's safe; he himself doesn't really suffer, but his wallet feels the consequences. There may be people trying to make a living off some of this stuff. OK, Microsoft is a bad example, because they get some pretty posh quarters. But I think you get the idea.
Of course, having one less sale isn't nearly as debilitating as having one's grey matter spread far and wide by a monkey wrench, but it does show that "thou shalt not steal" applies relevantly to both "real life" AND whatever-defines-the-Internet-as-a-culture.
As long as the Internet deals with people, people will try to take advantage of whatever they can. And people have been doing this since Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve decided to listen to a serpent.
Listen, this may be flamebait to some of you, but we all know that legislation and testing and control don't make things better. Just look at Voices from the Hellmouth--A good part of a culture (mostly geeks and loners) decides that everyone's out to get them (and the government may well be...yeeeesh!) and we get flames and Natalie Portman and grits. Disgusting, distasteful, and nobody's happy.
How can anyone expect to enforce order in a world that has thrown away absolutes?
I find it incredibly disgusting, but why don't the trolls just get creative and use the senseless poll options? After all, there must be a crappy of them.
Guys, I'm sorry about this; it's really offtopic, but very few have posted to this thread, and the comment about the brain being USB or firewire piqued my interest.
I read somewhere that nerve signals travel at around 200 mph through the body. Obviously, nerves are more an interrupted electric current; I forget the actual terms, but the signal must travel to one node, be interpreted and carried on, correct?
Well, how fast do electrical signals travel on an ISA bus? Or along IDE ribbon cable, or SCSI, or...well, whatever? How comparable are we to our buses?
Sorry about the offtopicness...Moderate away. I'm just really interested in this stuff.;]
I'm just a young tike (still in high school) so...why is Stevie Wonder blind? I realize he was born that way...but what congenital affliction is this?
Also, hm. I really would like more information on this article. It seems to me that vision would be far too alien a sense for him; I've read cases like this. Hang on, let me find the book...
Okay. It's Oliver Sacks' book "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat". It details probably about 20 cases Dr. Sacks, a noted neurologist, treated, got to know, and gained valuable insight from. (He's a heckuva writer--check out his books if you're interested in the brain and the mind that drives it.)
A man named Virgil (I believe it was--I can't find the book right now) was blind from the time he was a young child; he had an operation when he was 50 or 60 that restored his vision, and at first, he was able to see vibrantly, clearly, like a new window of existence reopened after many years.
He visited his childhood home, and even though he was like 2 or 3 when his vision went, he could see most clearly the things he remembered, such as a fence and a field, I believe. (Again, I can't find the book; please correct me if I'm wrong!;] )
However, when he returned back to his home in a city, it began to be harder and harder for him to use his sight confidently. He'd resort to closing his eyes and acting "blind" because he was the most confident this way--traffic rushing by him made him nervous and indecisive.
Eventually, due to a combination of psychological and physical factors, his vision deteriorated again. I don't know if he's still around or not, but it would be kinda cool to meet someone like that.
I dunno. It'd be interesting to find out how Stevie Wonder turns out. I'd HATE to have a chip in my eye. Contacts bother me enough.
Geez...I don't mean to insult anyone here who says their young child can use GUI programs effectively, but I was using a PCjr when I was three-four years old. MS-DOS 2.0, a text-only word processor, a few 320x200 games. I remember sitting one day and using BASIC to "PRINT" a story. It was even worse than the programming(!?) I do now but it was the coolest thing in the world to me. I also remember my parents asking me questions about it.
The GUI stuff nowadays is great, and pretty, but kind of relating back to Tom Christiansen's article yesterday...Sometimes arcane is fun.
Usually boys of average or above-average intelligence. I'm 17 and not a guy...but they told me my IQ is over 150, so, perhaps I fit somewhat this description...
Often loners, or have small circle of friend who are outsiders.Well, yes, that fits me pretty well. I geek about with a bunch of techies.
Experience unstable self-esteem. Don't you find it ironic that the greatest thinkers of all time question everything and are often in turmoil? Freedom comes with a price; freedom from being a sheep is no exception.
Often fascinated by cults, Satanism, weapons, themes of violence and death. I am a Christian, but that doesn't mean I don't want to learn about what other people are thinking. I did a term report last year on several different worldviews. As for weapons? There's nothing wrong with hosing down a dead monitor with gasoline and trying to ignite something by firing BB's at it. It's geeky and cool, and doesn't hurt anyone. Death? Death is part of life.
Experience a decline in schoolwork and marks. Decline since when? Not that I know of.
Come from dysfunctional homes. Both sides of my family have manic depression. Enough said.
Have experience with chronic bullying and drug use.Again, which end of the bullying are we talking about here? As for drugs, I suppose I do try to get caffeine pills and Mountain Dew from my older friends (who happen to have money...);]
Engage in attention-seeking behavior, and don't accept criticism. I accept criticism from those who have credibility. As for attention-seeking, the trenchcoat, chains, and (formerly, regrettably) purple hair are not blantant attempts at getting attention. As a geek girl I'd say that the cheerleaders who come to school in tight jeans and midriff tanktops get a lot more "attention" than I do. But they are encouraged because it's NORMAL.
There comes a point when one becomes self aware. If no one else around you is self aware, you are faced with no other choice but to break off, to become free from them in any way you can. For me, it happened when I was 10 and my mother had a stroke. None of my classmates at the time thought much more about anything than sleepovers, sports, and hairstyles. While they were talking about their new Jonathan Taylor Thomas posters, I was boiling inside, everything I believed on the brink of shattering.
And I'm told by my principal and teachers that I'm just trying to get attention when I dress differently.
No.
I broke off from the norm years ago because the norm would not listen to me. I did what I had to; being on the "outside" is now a part of me. You can dress me in Tommy Hilfiger or Gap or whatever; you can dye my hair blonde, you can wedge my feet into tiny sandals and take away my computer; but you cannot change who I am.
Who does this hurt and why? It hurts everyone involved. Families, the geeks themselves, and eventually the world might be missing out on some of the greatest minds of all time. And why? Because the government legislates that some things are OK for some, while others aren't.
I'm not trying to promote religious jihad here..there are enough flames on Slashdot as it is. I'm saying that in order for people to function without chaos, there must be a set of absolute rules. Not this pseudo-bureaucracy, not anarchy, not communism--we've been shown already that they don't work.
I simply cannot understand why anyone here would complain about this injustice done to geeks, yet flame anyone citing possible good in posting the Ten Commandments at a school. Absolutes sound mightily good right now to me. I know I'm tired of being at the short end of the administrative stick.
Just my $.02.
Re:VeggieTale corrections and information
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Review:Toy Story 2
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· Score: 1
Oops! That's what I get for not checking my information correctly. Thanks for the clearing up...could anyone please moderate this up?
I just glimpsed at part of Madame Blueberry tonight and saw the names in the credits...my mistake noted.;]
But now I have that dang cheeseburger song in my head...
Hey, has anyone here ever seen VeggieTales? Those things rock...They're Christian 30-minute videos aimed at younger kids (I'm not trying to start a religious war here; I just mean to say they're great animation) but they have lots of jokes aimed at adults...and the animation is absolutely beautiful. Quite witty. There's this cucumber named Larry, a tomato named Bob, an asparagus named Junior. All of them are voiced by the creator, Phil Vischer, or his wife, Amy. More information is probably here...
It's absolutely hilarious and very hip. If you like CG stuff, check out Veggietales--it's what really got me interested in computer generated animation.
Is it just me, or does anyone see any parallels to the Prohibition in the DeCSS situation?
I know it's a bit of a stretch, but bear with me here in the general idea...it's really one of the only examples I can think of.
Now, I'm pretty sketchy on this, but IIRC, liquor was made illegal during the Prohibition. Did it end all drinking? No...instead you had lots of people forming undergrounds, gangs, etc, and crime just escalated because of it. When the bans were lifted, did we become a nation of drunks? No. Sure, there was still drunk driving, etc, but the pros outweighed the cons.
By making all form of copying, decrypting, etc, DVDs illegal, what will we have? Likely a lot of people breaking those laws just because they're pointless. Take the DeCSS situation--the guy took the source down because of all the flak he was getting, but the tarballs and.zip's spread like wildfire anyway. (I mean, who here on/. DOESN'T have one?) And when the price goes down on the Pioneer device and the media, you can bet the movie industry will probably be in somewhat a snit.
Look at VHS. It's easy to record, sometimes insanely easy to copy. Is the movie industry suffering because of them? No. Sure, the FBI flashes a dire warning at the beginning of each movie, but how many of us here don't have a video copied somehow? (Uh, I don't. Not me. No.)
I guess my point is, when people are free to use media as they wish, and the big industries are left to grit their teeth a bit, things work better.
{STUPIDITY} {SARCASM} d00dz! Jam echehl0n day WORKED! s0 L1k3 mayb3 TH1S m3ANS the PRESIDENT will CR4CK D0WN 0N US F0r stuff like BOMBS and ASSASSINATION!!!!!!!!!
..
Well, those of us who sent 50+ emails for Jam Echelon Day can dream, can't we?;]
{/STUPIDITY} {/SARCASM}
Screwdrivers, air, CD's, AA's, and the Mac.
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Geek Christmas Ideas
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· Score: 2
Well, I'd LIKE a nineteen foot monitor, and 700 more meg of RAM, and a supported sound card, and a nice Logitech mouse, but seriously. Friends and family rarely know how to shop for a geek.
However, I would like a nice set of screwdrivers. Nice ones. Non-magnetic, of course. Perhaps a set with one handle and several heads. It'd have to have a nice, big, chunky handle with good leverage and nice, slender, long heads...mmm. That would make taking apart other people's computers even more fun.;]
Those cans of compressed air are a bit expensive for a geek with limited income (like myself) but they are so dang fun...Sneak up on a friend and give 'em a good spray of freezing air. Watch the little patch of skin frost over, turn bright red as the ice melts out of the little hairs...Muahaha, the memories...Oh, yeah, and they're useful for cleaning out the eternal IBM Model M keyboard.
Also, a CD cleaner. I had one, but ran all outta juice for it and part of it broke. Dang handiest thing, given how I treat CD's. I gave up trying to install any more of my Windows applications because 1) I don't use Windows anymore and 2) all the CD's were so dang filthy--and whenever I try to clean them (windex and soft cloth) I end up doing more harm than good.
AA batteries, finally, are a precious commodity to those who like to fool with their Palm Pilot backlights whilst the rest of the class sits in the darkness of a dimmed classroom watching some boring documentary...
I think the best Christmas gift I got came early. It was from my aunt. She lives on the West coast, I in the Midwest, and she UPS'd a PowerPC 8100/80 with a monitor, external Jaz drive, printer, and three O'Reilly perl books. The monitor busted in transit, but she'd insured it, so I now have $400 to blow on MORE geeky toys. Lynn--if you're reading this--you're the best aunt a geek could ask for!;]
I just hope I don't get more socks. Dangit, I dont' need socks.
The geek, the nerd, the poser?
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Geeks vs. Nerds
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Seems to me that the definitions of "geek" and "nerd" that I've adopted reflect the views of most of the Slashdot community--geeks are smart, social, dabble in many things, whereas nerds are focused irretreivably on one thing.
I know some guys who are kinda like the punk posers on the technology scene. They have cool hair. They wear lots of slick black clothing. Geeks? Perhaps, but they run NT and chew out anyone who considers other OSen. They also focus on computers as tools, not playthings.
Then there's my brother. Fairly skilled with hardware--he could choose good components and build a system in very little time--but he's not terribly social. He wears big window-pane Bill Gates style glasses. Could we safely deem him a "nerd"?
I like to consider myself a geek because it doesn't have the slightly egotistical air of "hacker" or "guru". It even seems a bit deprecating. I'm fairly social (though I can count all my close friends on one hand...)computers are both workstations and playthings for me, and I have a good grasp of how several different operating systems think. However, I have no attention span whatsoever and like to dabble in music, writing, art as well.
Geeks tend to be fairly "deep". Nerds can have much insight, but live their lives fairly oblivious to everything except their fixation. I'd consider this new "geek" definition that's arising more of a technocratic poser than the friendly, disarming, jack-of-all-trades feeling of "geek". It's just my opinion. Real geeks don't care about slick black clothing or how good they can make themselves look by keeping an NT box up for a day. They're different and they like it.
What I wonder is, why does Shirey have the right to ban this man? Death threats?
Hm. That kind of thing happens on IRC, Usenet, and the like. Coarse language? Yeah, that's there too. I'm not saying I'm wild about any of it, but has anything been substantiated? Has anyone been hurt?
Before we go on a rampage about how our justice is being undermined, let's take into consideration that some people take death threats seriously. In the midst of a Usenet flame war, I'd call it bluster and bravado, but where does one draw the line of harrassment? An interesting question.
However, one has to take Usenet with a grain of salt at times. Flames happen. People disagree. In such a flexible medium, almost anything is possible.
I think Shirey had no authority to make such a ruling on the newsgroup. Postings are owned by the poster or by the newsgroup owner, constituting it a private publication. I'd say this is a violation of free speech.
What can we really do about this though? More stipulations aren't the answer. The gov't has to realize the Internet is sort of an embodiment of freedom itself...
Slashdot Mirror
Game Boys are incredibly versatile. I have a vintage 1989 model that's gotta be the IBM Model M of gaming. Many a time I threw it (yes, threw it) in frustration upon being unable to beat something particularly hard.
Remember when you'd pop in a game and the "Nintendo" logo would come to the middle of the screen distorted? I was rather worried the first time this occured, but took out the game, blew across the connectors, popped it back in, and it worked fine.
I'd stick it in my pocket and take it with me as I rode with my dad through unimaginable filth and dust in the fields of South Dakota. Dirt got caked in the etching of the words on the back; the screen got scratched by my grandmother's cat (for some odd reason) and abrasion from my jeans. It was big and hard to fit in my early-90's style jeans, but I adored it. It went beyond a toy. Or a miniature computer. It was my companion; and I was a hardcore gamer. Mario, Kirby, Bonk, and Link were my friends.
After a few years, my parents surrendered to my whimpering about the glitzy sexiness of the Game Gear, the Sega equivalent. 256 colors, I believe, and good audio. But that sucker ate batteries like crazy, and it just wasn't the same. It wasn't hackish, homey, and minimalistic. I love that blue hedgehog thing, but he's just a poser compared to the steadfast, mustachioed Mario.
My gameboy STILL runs. On absolutely no battery life at all. If only my Palm could hold up to such abuse! Old technology is beautiful in that it's built like a tank. Keep it around.
I could go off on a tangent about my fetish for legacy ISA devices, but...
I have a nice, clicky IBM Model M keyboard and a luxurious Logitech scroll mouse on my K6/2-400 Linux box, which I'm utilizing right now. Beside me is a blueberry iMac DV, 400mHz, a gift from a kind aunt.
Yes, the Linux box is far more pleasurable, but the iMac's mouse is not really that bad, in some aspects. True, it's sometimes hard to tell if you have the stupid thing set right, but it keeps the wrist up and fingers slightly curved--a far better position for staving carpal tunnel syndrome than leaning it on the desk or draping the entire hand and wrist over the mouse.
The keyboard is laughable; I'll admit. I hate it. And MacOS9 is just not very stable or supported just yet. At least for me. I might be hallucinating. I see tangerine boxen and flying lime keyboards. Must be.
If MS releases an Office for Linux, corporations will immediately pitch in for it and grab en masse licenses to run on all their Linux boxen. It'll be a piece of crud, but it's Microsoft; it must be standard.
Sooner or later, Microsoft will release its own Linux so people can theoretically run Linux Office without any problems. (Note: theoretically.) They come up with their OWN standards and throw their weight around. Microsoft Linux won't be pretty, but people will swallow it up. After all, these are the people that made Windows--the GUI everybody and his brother grew up with.
Their new standards break anything previously compiled for Linux, making a mockery of what Linux originally was.
MS Linux will have outrageous system requirements that are eaten up by memory leaks and poor optimizations. All the while, the geek/hacker community will be tired of it all. It'll go on, and on, and on, and Linux as we know it, will, of course, fade. After all, you can't argue with an 800-pound gorilla.
Years will pass. Then, one day, an enterprising young geek at some university (it doesn't have to be Helsinki) will come across this cool old OS in an ancient unadulterated form of some artifact cryptically called "Debian". He'll rewrite it to run on his computer and post the source. He becomes a sort of hero to the geek/hacker community, as they finally have a powerful, intricate, free-as-in-beer-and-speech platform to work, to play, to frolic, to grok.
Then Microsoft will try to write Office for it.
I'm 17, i'm female, I have four computers in my room, and I'm not telling you where I live.
All that aside.
Why AREN'T there more female geeks? Lots of factors go into this...
The nature vs. nurture debate is a big one. If it weren't for a good deal of nurture, right now I wouldn't be sitting in my room chugging Diet Coke and hammering out a response on Slashdot on an IBM Modem M keyboard attached to a home-brewed K6-2/400 Linux box sitting beside a blueberry iMac DV beside a headless Performa 6115 underneath a 486 wedged in an XT case.
*deep breath*
Had my parents not encouraged me to use our PC Jr back in the mid-eighties, I would never have gotten such a tooth for technology. My brother contributed largely to this mindset--I shunned dolls, rather wanting to build fantastical Lego structures with my brother, or playing with Hot Wheels.
My mother encouraged me to draw, to read. She let me use her fine art-grade paper and pastels even when I was in 1st or 2nd grade. She let me read medical books even before I was in school.
I was pretty isolated, too. My only peer influence was my cousin, who I saw a few times a month. She was into dolls, fashion, boys. I didn't care.
Availability of technology itself is not the determining factor. Sure, a kid who's surrounded by computers as s/he's growing has an advantage over a 21-year-old who suddenly lands an IT job on 6 months of using a Macintosh...but after the PC Jr. died, we didn't get another computer until I was 12. And look at me now. I'm a geek. I think.
How about nature? Let's take a look at this. Men mainly make up the field of computing, but women can be just as competent. Why? Are few women left-brained enough to have interest in the logic and scientific aspects of computing? I dunno. I hated all my algebra courses in school, but excelled in science, social studies, and language courses.
Girls DO tend to take an interest in more social, linguistic, and aesthetic aspects at an early age than boys do. It's true, I've seen it. I was a tomboy, but it was just *fun* to play house, write fantasy stories about animals and dinosaurs, sew clothes for Barbie (well, the ones I didn't blow up, anyway) and conduct weddings consisting of stuffed animals.
Perhaps when logical and scientific aspects are presented, and a girl at a young age finds it *fun*, she latches onto it. I think that's how it was for me.
What else? The right information at the right time. I was an okay computer user 2 years ago (knew how to run Windows without stumbling around) but didn't really know much. By doing a half-kludged project on computer animation (instead of the weird blacklight-bacteria growth thing I was gonna try)at a local science fair, I made a few friends with Internet access and they got me into "hacking". A few of them downloaded the Windows cracks and such; I started reading the hacking FAQs, and was soon fascinated with how packets and ports and binary worked. Needless to say, I began reading a lot more and decided to forget about downloading winnukers and such when I found this thing called "Slashdot".
Lots of factors go into producing female geeks. I agree with the article--I think the best one can do is let young girls find math and science *FUN*. Fashion magazines suck. Let the girl figure out a computer.
Just my 2 cents. Actually, probably around 33, given the length of this post.
I love science fiction and devour it massively. Being a teenager myself (I'm but a young tyke) I figured I'd toss on my list as well. Most of these books, I'd read before I was 15, so although some material is Not for Kids (TM), smart teens tend to handle stuff better than some would believe.
;]
--Startide Rising by David Brin. Probably my first taste of sci-fi.
--The Hobbit --JRR Tolkien. I HAVE to find time to read the Trilogy of the Rings too.
--Dune --the whole series. I don't recall the author's name, but it's fascinating, intricate reading that goes fast.
--The Man-Kzin Wars --Created by Larry Niven. I found The Children's Hour fascinating. I love felinoid aliens.
--The Pride of Chanur --The entire series by CJ Cherryh. More felinoid aliens.
--Perelandra, Out of the Silent Planet, and That Hideous Strength --C.S. Lewis. It's a little dated, but Lewis is an excellent author, and these books are like candy. Check out The Chronicles of Narnia as well. They're aimed more for kids and are fantasy, but still, excellent, tasty reading.
--The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy --I nearly died. Killer British comedy. Hilarious. All five books of the trilogy.
--The Harry Potter series -- JK Rowling. This is aimed more for kids, and it's a little more at fantasy, but still hilariously British. Think a combination of Hitchhiker's Guide and The Hobbit.
--A Wrinkle in Time --Madeleine L'Engle. Quite possibly one of my favorite books. Very deep.
--Sphere --Michael Crichton. Get ANYTHING Crichton.
Happy reading, and good luck.
This guy was blind since the age of 36. Therefore, he "knew" how to see when he had this device implanted. He also "knew" how to map out new things visually, so although it was probably jarring psychologically, being able to see (albeit limited) wasn't a huge surprise to his underlying brains.
How about someone who was blind since birth? Has anyone here read The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks? (Sacks is a neurologist and a superb writer--if you get a chance, read some of his stuff.) I don't remember all the details exactly, but detailed in this book were his experiences with a patient, a man named Virgil. He'd been blind for decades, lost his sight as a very young child. He had a successful operation to restore his sight, and at first it all seemed quite hopeful.
Virgil was best when he visited his childhood home and saw all the things that he'd already "learned" to map out. In the cities he just got confused and felt better keeping his eyes closed. Eventually this psychological state and other complications overwhelmed him.
Back on topic, now.
In Virgil's case, there seems to be a period in very early childhood in which the senses and how the brain learns to use them becomes "hard coded". Virgil went blind when his sight was in the middle of developing.
Jerry, the man in the article, already KNOWS how to see. There is some talk in this thread about whether or not a device like this could be "integrated" in with the rest of the senses--but perhaps, if implanted in a very, very, very young blind child who hasn't had the senses "hard-coded" yet...Ethics questions of all kinds arise from this, but it'd be interesting to see if the brain would indeed hard code this into itself.
I dunno.
The Amiga was both before and after my time. When I was a teeny little girl we had an IBM 8088 system...later, we got a Gateway P-133, and now I'm trying to share a room with a K6-2/400 I built, a Mac IIci, and a crackheaded 486. However, I do vaguely seem to recall a cousin talking about one.
Seriously...To be the next big thing, this would have to be a really big thing. There would have to be incredible amounts of innovation going into this to make the old Amiga live on.
I'm but a tyke with a limited sphere of influence, but it seems to me that there are three real "survivors" in the personal computing market.
-Microsoft. Make a PC, bundle it with Windows, and Joe Average buys it. Joe Average doesn't know how to use anything other than Windows, and he heard from his cousin John that Macs suck. Just about anyone can write Visual Basic apps. Joe Average lets them.
-Apple. Closed architecture, but lots of novices love Macs for their simplicity; many experts love them for their complexity and elegance. They're cute. I love them. Apple has always put out innovative products (the screamingly powerful new iMacs have NO cooling fans!?)
-UNIX and Friends. Including our beloved Linux, as well as the proprietary types. Haven of geeks and software revolutionists. They're stable, we love them, and we hack them.
Seems like most things have to be compatible with these three in order for them to fly. We have a few weird ones out there, and then there are the varied and radical palmtops which don't really count...but these three are the names everyone knows, whether that's good or not.
Perhaps we're ready for a drastic change. Perhaps we're ready for the next big OS to come and blow away the suits. But Joe is going to keep buying Microsoft stuff; geeks and techies will keep embracing new forms of UNIX; and Apple will survive, just because it always seems to pull through with really neat, slightly quaint products.
Can Amiga live up to this? A multitasking box, cheap, powerful software, great graphics and sound capabilities, clean, tight, stable code...all for under $2000....Nah, gimme my Linux box anyday...
Let's wish Amino well. I dunno if they can seriously make Amiga big again...
{silly}
It's terrible here. Get out while you can. IF anyone in South Dakota is reading this, I commend you for your bravery and fortitude, because there's so much catastrophe. It's terrible. Terrible.
The sun went out entirely and it began to snow violently out here. Then the power went out. I'm posting to Slashdot by candlelight right now, with a magnet to edit the inodes and force the signal through the phone lines.
Also, all the food somehow disintegrated. I guess it wasn't y2k compliant. People are killing each other out here for, as Stef from UF said, the calories in the ink of a ballpoint pen. I nearly got a bite taken out of me myself, but I fended them off with AOL CD's.
Not sure how much longer I can keep up this message. It's so cold. Gget ouT while you ccan. 01001000ear me? oh, no, my mmagn01000101t isn't y2k compliant...
*zzzt*
{/silly}
I'm sorry, I just had to comment on this. I'm but a young tyke, still in HS, but Oregon Trail on the Apple][ was one of the first games I ever played.
From kindergarten to 6th grade, my computer classes at my (small, dying, private) school consisted of ancient Sierra games for 16 mint-condition Apple ][e's (they're still used for those poor kids to this very day. Now I get 486's running Win95. Yeckkkch...)
The best part was definitely the hunting. And the dire warnings about who got diptheria and died. And leaving messages on the tombstones. Oh, heck, I miss that game. Someone port it to Linux. Or, is there anything out there to emulate that really old Apple stuff? I have a working 360k 5 1/4" drive...
offtopic as ever and expecting to feel it in karma....
IMHO, it seems like the good things of the "eon/decade/year/millenium" were fairly superficial. I can't even remember the names of some of the people nominated "man of the year" or "whatever of the millenium" or "Wookiee of the Month" or whatever...
But seriously...to label the Challenger, the Hindenburg, world wars, and the like simply "screwups" like WinCE and DIVX just kinda leaves a bad taste in my mouth. These were catastrophes. People died, their loved ones grieved.
Wired--come on. I think we can call the N-rays and cold fusion true flops, and "Wrong-way Corrigan" and Juan Pablo Davila were just kind of funny...but everything else were tragedies, and to call them mere foul-ups is, IMNSHO, a disgrace.
Just my $.02. Fire away.
This might be a little offtopic, but...
I installed Red Hat 5.2 as a clueless newbie, but was pleased to find that the video probing went quite well, letting me see a rather pretty display of 1024x768 on my 17". Clueless newbie that I was, however, in a few days I was so confused and thought I'd gunked up so much that I formatted the partition and installed Red Hat 6.
6, however, DID NOT support my video. I ended up reinstalling 5.2 and then installing 6 on top of it.
Now I've learned my lesson--just use the XF86Config file from 5.2 instead of a whole new installation--but this puzzles me. Why would an earlier version support something that a later version didn't?
Some here are saying that there are no more spiritual implications about the Internet than a tool. You use the tool; big deal. No questions asked.
Perhaps one could go farther than that and describe the tool as, say, a wrench. Use it to fasten bolts, it's OK. Use it to beat someone's brains out, it's not.
I am a Christian, and spiritual implications and the Internet go farther than just that.
Say you're sitting in a chatroom or IRC. That's like using the wrench to fasten bolts: you're using the tool for its purpose.
Say a newbie enters the channel. Circumstances are right for you to social engineer a credit card number out of the newbie. That's like using the wrench to whack someone over the head: you're using the tool for a destructive, unintended purpose; and whether you believe in Christ or not, you probably think there's SOMETHING morally wrong with walking up to an innocent bystander and forcibly placing their brains on the sidewalk.
Say you forego the social engineering and you find out that the newbie works for a specific division of Microsoft; you then download an illegal copy of software from said division. IMHO, that would be like using the wrench to pry open the guy's safe; he himself doesn't really suffer, but his wallet feels the consequences. There may be people trying to make a living off some of this stuff. OK, Microsoft is a bad example, because they get some pretty posh quarters. But I think you get the idea.
Of course, having one less sale isn't nearly as debilitating as having one's grey matter spread far and wide by a monkey wrench, but it does show that "thou shalt not steal" applies relevantly to both "real life" AND whatever-defines-the-Internet-as-a-culture.
As long as the Internet deals with people, people will try to take advantage of whatever they can. And people have been doing this since Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve decided to listen to a serpent.
Listen, this may be flamebait to some of you, but we all know that legislation and testing and control don't make things better. Just look at Voices from the Hellmouth--A good part of a culture (mostly geeks and loners) decides that everyone's out to get them (and the government may well be...yeeeesh!) and we get flames and Natalie Portman and grits. Disgusting, distasteful, and nobody's happy.
How can anyone expect to enforce order in a world that has thrown away absolutes?
Just my $.02.
I find it incredibly disgusting, but why don't the trolls just get creative and use the senseless poll options? After all, there must be a crappy of them.
Guys, I'm sorry about this; it's really offtopic, but very few have posted to this thread, and the comment about the brain being USB or firewire piqued my interest.
;]
I read somewhere that nerve signals travel at around 200 mph through the body. Obviously, nerves are more an interrupted electric current; I forget the actual terms, but the signal must travel to one node, be interpreted and carried on, correct?
Well, how fast do electrical signals travel on an ISA bus? Or along IDE ribbon cable, or SCSI, or...well, whatever? How comparable are we to our buses?
Sorry about the offtopicness...Moderate away. I'm just really interested in this stuff.
I'm just a young tike (still in high school) so...why is Stevie Wonder blind? I realize he was born that way...but what congenital affliction is this?
Also, hm. I really would like more information on this article. It seems to me that vision would be far too alien a sense for him; I've read cases like this. Hang on, let me find the book...
Okay. It's Oliver Sacks' book "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat". It details probably about 20 cases Dr. Sacks, a noted neurologist, treated, got to know, and gained valuable insight from. (He's a heckuva writer--check out his books if you're interested in the brain and the mind that drives it.)
A man named Virgil (I believe it was--I can't find the book right now) was blind from the time he was a young child; he had an operation when he was 50 or 60 that restored his vision, and at first, he was able to see vibrantly, clearly, like a new window of existence reopened after many years.
He visited his childhood home, and even though he was like 2 or 3 when his vision went, he could see most clearly the things he remembered, such as a fence and a field, I believe. (Again, I can't find the book; please correct me if I'm wrong!;] )
However, when he returned back to his home in a city, it began to be harder and harder for him to use his sight confidently. He'd resort to closing his eyes and acting "blind" because he was the most confident this way--traffic rushing by him made him nervous and indecisive.
Eventually, due to a combination of psychological and physical factors, his vision deteriorated again. I don't know if he's still around or not, but it would be kinda cool to meet someone like that.
I dunno. It'd be interesting to find out how Stevie Wonder turns out. I'd HATE to have a chip in my eye. Contacts bother me enough.
Geez...I don't mean to insult anyone here who says their young child can use GUI programs effectively, but I was using a PCjr when I was three-four years old. MS-DOS 2.0, a text-only word processor, a few 320x200 games. I remember sitting one day and using BASIC to "PRINT" a story. It was even worse than the programming(!?) I do now but it was the coolest thing in the world to me. I also remember my parents asking me questions about it.
The GUI stuff nowadays is great, and pretty, but kind of relating back to Tom Christiansen's article yesterday...Sometimes arcane is fun.
Oh well.
Usually boys of average or above-average intelligence. I'm 17 and not a guy...but they told me my IQ is over 150, so, perhaps I fit somewhat this description...
;]
Often loners, or have small circle of friend who are outsiders.Well, yes, that fits me pretty well. I geek about with a bunch of techies.
Experience unstable self-esteem. Don't you find it ironic that the greatest thinkers of all time question everything and are often in turmoil? Freedom comes with a price; freedom from being a sheep is no exception.
Often fascinated by cults, Satanism, weapons, themes of violence and death. I am a Christian, but that doesn't mean I don't want to learn about what other people are thinking. I did a term report last year on several different worldviews. As for weapons? There's nothing wrong with hosing down a dead monitor with gasoline and trying to ignite something by firing BB's at it. It's geeky and cool, and doesn't hurt anyone. Death? Death is part of life.
Experience a decline in schoolwork and marks. Decline since when? Not that I know of.
Come from dysfunctional homes. Both sides of my family have manic depression. Enough said.
Have experience with chronic bullying and drug use.Again, which end of the bullying are we talking about here? As for drugs, I suppose I do try to get caffeine pills and Mountain Dew from my older friends (who happen to have money...)
Engage in attention-seeking behavior, and don't accept criticism. I accept criticism from those who have credibility. As for attention-seeking, the trenchcoat, chains, and (formerly, regrettably) purple hair are not blantant attempts at getting attention. As a geek girl I'd say that the cheerleaders who come to school in tight jeans and midriff tanktops get a lot more "attention" than I do. But they are encouraged because it's NORMAL.
There comes a point when one becomes self aware. If no one else around you is self aware, you are faced with no other choice but to break off, to become free from them in any way you can. For me, it happened when I was 10 and my mother had a stroke. None of my classmates at the time thought much more about anything than sleepovers, sports, and hairstyles. While they were talking about their new Jonathan Taylor Thomas posters, I was boiling inside, everything I believed on the brink of shattering.
And I'm told by my principal and teachers that I'm just trying to get attention when I dress differently.
No.
I broke off from the norm years ago because the norm would not listen to me. I did what I had to; being on the "outside" is now a part of me. You can dress me in Tommy Hilfiger or Gap or whatever; you can dye my hair blonde, you can wedge my feet into tiny sandals and take away my computer; but you cannot change who I am.
Who does this hurt and why? It hurts everyone involved. Families, the geeks themselves, and eventually the world might be missing out on some of the greatest minds of all time. And why? Because the government legislates that some things are OK for some, while others aren't.
I'm not trying to promote religious jihad here..there are enough flames on Slashdot as it is. I'm saying that in order for people to function without chaos, there must be a set of absolute rules. Not this pseudo-bureaucracy, not anarchy, not communism--we've been shown already that they don't work.
I simply cannot understand why anyone here would complain about this injustice done to geeks, yet flame anyone citing possible good in posting the Ten Commandments at a school. Absolutes sound mightily good right now to me. I know I'm tired of being at the short end of the administrative stick.
Just my $.02.
Oops! That's what I get for not checking my information correctly. Thanks for the clearing up...could anyone please moderate this up?
;]
I just glimpsed at part of Madame Blueberry tonight and saw the names in the credits...my mistake noted.
But now I have that dang cheeseburger song in my head...
Hey, has anyone here ever seen VeggieTales? Those things rock...They're Christian 30-minute videos aimed at younger kids (I'm not trying to start a religious war here; I just mean to say they're great animation) but they have lots of jokes aimed at adults...and the animation is absolutely beautiful. Quite witty. There's this cucumber named Larry, a tomato named Bob, an asparagus named Junior. All of them are voiced by the creator, Phil Vischer, or his wife, Amy. More information is probably here...
It's absolutely hilarious and very hip. If you like CG stuff, check out Veggietales--it's what really got me interested in computer generated animation.
Is it just me, or does anyone see any parallels to the Prohibition in the DeCSS situation?
.zip's spread like wildfire anyway. (I mean, who here on /. DOESN'T have one?) And when the price goes down on the Pioneer device and the media, you can bet the movie industry will probably be in somewhat a snit.
I know it's a bit of a stretch, but bear with me here in the general idea...it's really one of the only examples I can think of.
Now, I'm pretty sketchy on this, but IIRC, liquor was made illegal during the Prohibition. Did it end all drinking? No...instead you had lots of people forming undergrounds, gangs, etc, and crime just escalated because of it. When the bans were lifted, did we become a nation of drunks? No. Sure, there was still drunk driving, etc, but the pros outweighed the cons.
By making all form of copying, decrypting, etc, DVDs illegal, what will we have? Likely a lot of people breaking those laws just because they're pointless. Take the DeCSS situation--the guy took the source down because of all the flak he was getting, but the tarballs and
Look at VHS. It's easy to record, sometimes insanely easy to copy. Is the movie industry suffering because of them? No. Sure, the FBI flashes a dire warning at the beginning of each movie, but how many of us here don't have a video copied somehow? (Uh, I don't. Not me. No.)
I guess my point is, when people are free to use media as they wish, and the big industries are left to grit their teeth a bit, things work better.
Just my $.02.
{STUPIDITY}
;]
{SARCASM}
d00dz! Jam echehl0n day WORKED! s0 L1k3 mayb3 TH1S m3ANS the PRESIDENT will CR4CK D0WN 0N US F0r stuff like BOMBS and ASSASSINATION!!!!!!!!!
..
Well, those of us who sent 50+ emails for Jam Echelon Day can dream, can't we?
{/STUPIDITY}
{/SARCASM}
Well, I'd LIKE a nineteen foot monitor, and 700 more meg of RAM, and a supported sound card, and a nice Logitech mouse, but seriously. Friends and family rarely know how to shop for a geek.
;]
;]
However, I would like a nice set of screwdrivers. Nice ones. Non-magnetic, of course. Perhaps a set with one handle and several heads. It'd have to have a nice, big, chunky handle with good leverage and nice, slender, long heads...mmm. That would make taking apart other people's computers even more fun.
Those cans of compressed air are a bit expensive for a geek with limited income (like myself) but they are so dang fun...Sneak up on a friend and give 'em a good spray of freezing air. Watch the little patch of skin frost over, turn bright red as the ice melts out of the little hairs...Muahaha, the memories...Oh, yeah, and they're useful for cleaning out the eternal IBM Model M keyboard.
Also, a CD cleaner. I had one, but ran all outta juice for it and part of it broke. Dang handiest thing, given how I treat CD's. I gave up trying to install any more of my Windows applications because 1) I don't use Windows anymore and 2) all the CD's were so dang filthy--and whenever I try to clean them (windex and soft cloth) I end up doing more harm than good.
AA batteries, finally, are a precious commodity to those who like to fool with their Palm Pilot backlights whilst the rest of the class sits in the darkness of a dimmed classroom watching some boring documentary...
I think the best Christmas gift I got came early. It was from my aunt. She lives on the West coast, I in the Midwest, and she UPS'd a PowerPC 8100/80 with a monitor, external Jaz drive, printer, and three O'Reilly perl books. The monitor busted in transit, but she'd insured it, so I now have $400 to blow on MORE geeky toys. Lynn--if you're reading this--you're the best aunt a geek could ask for!
I just hope I don't get more socks. Dangit, I dont' need socks.
Seems to me that the definitions of "geek" and "nerd" that I've adopted reflect the views of most of the Slashdot community--geeks are smart, social, dabble in many things, whereas nerds are focused irretreivably on one thing.
I know some guys who are kinda like the punk posers on the technology scene. They have cool hair. They wear lots of slick black clothing. Geeks? Perhaps, but they run NT and chew out anyone who considers other OSen. They also focus on computers as tools, not playthings.
Then there's my brother. Fairly skilled with hardware--he could choose good components and build a system in very little time--but he's not terribly social. He wears big window-pane Bill Gates style glasses. Could we safely deem him a "nerd"?
I like to consider myself a geek because it doesn't have the slightly egotistical air of "hacker" or "guru". It even seems a bit deprecating. I'm fairly social (though I can count all my close friends on one hand...)computers are both workstations and playthings for me, and I have a good grasp of how several different operating systems think. However, I have no attention span whatsoever and like to dabble in music, writing, art as well.
Geeks tend to be fairly "deep". Nerds can have much insight, but live their lives fairly oblivious to everything except their fixation.
I'd consider this new "geek" definition that's arising more of a technocratic poser than the friendly, disarming, jack-of-all-trades feeling of "geek". It's just my opinion. Real geeks don't care about slick black clothing or how good they can make themselves look by keeping an NT box up for a day. They're different and they like it.
Just my $.02...
What I wonder is, why does Shirey have the right to ban this man? Death threats?
Hm. That kind of thing happens on IRC, Usenet, and the like. Coarse language? Yeah, that's there too. I'm not saying I'm wild about any of it, but has anything been substantiated? Has anyone been hurt?
Before we go on a rampage about how our justice is being undermined, let's take into consideration that some people take death threats seriously. In the midst of a Usenet flame war, I'd call it bluster and bravado, but where does one draw the line of harrassment? An interesting question.
However, one has to take Usenet with a grain of salt at times. Flames happen. People disagree. In such a flexible medium, almost anything is possible.
I think Shirey had no authority to make such a ruling on the newsgroup. Postings are owned by the poster or by the newsgroup owner, constituting it a private publication. I'd say this is a violation of free speech.
What can we really do about this though? More stipulations aren't the answer. The gov't has to realize the Internet is sort of an embodiment of freedom itself...
I have a strangely sharp memory for retaining strange 3l33t-sp33k jargon. As expletives, my friends and I often use odd made-up geek words...
"Flarn! I forgot my passwd."
"Frig foo fleen!"
"Spootmonkeys!"
"Gtkwidgets, would you get that away from me..."
...and the like. The next step, then, is convert a random geek babble into 31337-hax0rese.
Lame examples:
GtKw1dg3t, sp00tm0nk3y5
But, any idiot can decipher 31337-speak, so separate the word sp00t and m0nk3y5 and intersperse the characters: ms0pn0k03ty5
Now you have a random mess of geek-babble, easy to remember if your brain is a random mess like mine.