If you eat less foods with anti-oxidants, eat more junk foods, and stress yourself out to the max... all in turn creating more free-radicals... will you glow brighter?
I've been teaching EclipsePlug-in and RCP development to US Military and Defense organizations and contractors, as well as for the Australian government, for the past 3 years.
As long as the open source product can be proven as a secure technology, I don't see why the government wouldn't adopt it, especially if there are little to no licensing fees for its use.
If you fly frequently and participate in your preferred airlines frequent flier program, once you earn a certain number of mileage credits, you usually get a preferred status which allows you to go through (often-times) shorter lines with first-class and other preferred members. No need to shell out an extra $200. Also now that the majority of the population is aware of what needs to be done when going through airport security, I've found that even the regular lines move along somewhat quickly.
-- Sh!t happens. Then you wipe yourself.
When I pay my electric and gas bills, I pay based on the quantity that I use. But with my water bill on the other hand, I pay a flat fee for the first X gallons and then an additional fee for each y gallons I use over x.
My guess is that if ISPs become utilities they'll charge bandwidth like my water company. Average users get the flat rate, power users get increased rates. If I were a cable or FIOS company that provided media content in addition to internet access, this is how I would want my customers to be billed... especially considering that I'm losing money by having those large bandwidth users drop their content service as they can find the same thing on the internet at my expense.
Based on that I don't think I like the idea of ISPs becoming utility companies.
Somewhere around 1982 I bought the much anticipated Pac Man when it was released for the Atari 2600 for $30 (US). I'm sure I enjoyed the game thoroughly even though it didn't quite compare to the arcade version. But honestly, there wasn't much to the game.... just a few levels of dots. Other games from that era cost about as much and many offered a little bit more bang for the buck.
New games today are priced around $55-$60, and although it seems like a lot of money, it's only about a 100% increase over 25 years. Today's games seem to provide so much more in regards to depth and game play. Granted, the systems can certainly provide for much more depth. But if you compare the features that you get now for $60... life-like cut scenes, 3d game play, levels upon levels, etc... you'll find that the value of the game far exceeds its 1980 equivalents.
I tend to break down the value of a game in dollars per hour. With games like Oblivion where I've spent a documented 120+ hours, $.50 an hour is well worth it. Compare that to just about any other form of entertainment, with maybe the exception of a deck of cards, you'll find that nothing else comes close.
How many hours have you spent playing Infocom games like the "Zork" series and "The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy"? No graphics, just text adventures with great stories and puzzles that required a good imagination.
I wonder how something like that would fare these days if you added something like a more complex language interpretation algorithm?
Or what if there were an "audio book" version of such games where the only way to interact would be to issue commands via microphone?
Titles such as the "Harry Potter" series would probably do quite well by providing a new way to interact with the game.
Regardless of what platform you use, here are two things that you absolutely must do. This is coming from experience with getting my grandmother to use the internet.
1) Write stuff down on paper! Give them step by step instructions on how to open their email client, read an email, print, reply and forward. Especially if they are old! I've found that older people are really good at following directions, but not so great on remembering them. Showing them how to do something once will not stick in long term memory. Be specific in your instructions... Rather than "go to the print dialog" you have to tell them "go to the file menu, then click 'print...'. If you can get all of your instructions on just one or two peices of paper, then laminate them and tape them somewhere where they are highly visible so they don't get lost.
2) Educate them about the do's and dont's of using the internet. Most problems such as spyware and viruses would be handled by using a non-Windows OS as a lot of posters have specified above. But they still need to be aware of things that most of us would consider common sense. Teach them about not replying to emails from people they don't know, and about phishing scams. Let them know that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Show them some examples from your own junk mail folder. Teach them the difference between a web site's content and the ads that the site displays (trust me, they won't know the difference in a lot of cases), and how to look at the URL of a link to help them. Also show them how to use bookmarks and maybe even set up a few for the sites they will be using most often so they don't get suckered by a name-mangling site like hotmial.com.
When I set up my grandmother's computer some years ago, #1 really helped out. But I didn't focus so much on #2, and it literally cost me hours of follow up visits.
If your IT skill sets are in demand and you are good and knowledgeable with your skill sets, or you can pick up and master new skills without too much pain... and you have the capability to be personable and social and you can also get up in front of a small group and speak, then perhaps you might want to look into becoming a contract trainer.
I worked as a trainer in this fashion from '99 to '05 and it was a great experience. Generally it involves traveling to a client's site or training facility to do the work, but if you live in a big city, it will reduce the probability that you have to travel depending on the organization you do work with. The pay is pretty good... you can bring in between $400 to $1000 a day or more depending on various factors such as content complexity, demand, and class size. Most IT classes seem to run for about 3 to 5 days.
It is part time work in the sense that you train only when classes are available to be taught, and when you feel like teaching them. (Though turning down requests for training will move you to the bottom of the 'available trainers' list with most companies) So you could easily work 26 weeks during the year and realistically bring in a $75,000 salary. That gives you the other 26 weeks of the year to learn new skills and brush up on old ones, and to basically do whatever you want to with your free time.
On the downside, unless you are always learning the next new "hot" thing, it can be difficult to find work... Especially now that the economy sucks, as training budgets typically are the first to get slashed.
But if you find the right niche, you have partial control over the times and places you work. Also, you typically don't work during the weeks where there are holidays. And usually, a training day is exactly 8 hours, which includes a 1 hour lunch break and other smaller breaks in between. You typically won't work more than that unless the materials are new to you, where you have to spend an hour or two per night reviewing what's to come the next day.
As a bonus, if you can write your own materials, you can also make an additional income. Course materials sometimes go for anywhere from $10 to $75 per student per day.
Granted, training is not for everyone, and this is probably the worst time to consider starting off in the field... wait for the markets to go up... but it's an awesome part time gig!
IMHO, Obama doesn't need to cheat to win in this election. And McCain on the other has taken to the tactics that worked so well for Bush in the past, which is Lie, lie, lie and eventually people will believe you. So given that he's using Bush tactics, and has voted for the guy 9 times out of 10, it seems to reason that he'll also follow in the footsteps of Bush by fixing the elections.
Many people pirate, that's true. And it does cause the recording companies to loose out on potential revenue.
What's fucked up though is that a pirate who illegally downloads 10 songs has created a potential revenue loss of about $15 bucks to the record companies. But the record companies want to sue that individual for $15,000. The punishment does not fit the crime.
The question is did he spend all that time on one number (and was there actually conversation) or was he calling multiple numbers from multiple services? If it was the latter, then he's just a stupid perv. (A smarter perv would have read book on how to seduce strippers). If it was the latter however, anyone can own a phone sex line (you don't need to own the company, just lease the line) or work out an awesome deal with someone they know who has one and make a whole boat load of money that way. I know a guy who was a heroine addict and this was how he got his money for drugs. (He too, of course, was busted eventually)
My '88 Honda CRX got 43 MPG highway while cruising from Camp Lejuene to my home in NJ for extended weekends, and was the most dependable car I owned.
I sold it after 11 years and 189,000 miles and bought a '99 dodge avenger. While the dodge has been dependable, it's MPG and performance sucks ass. Also, it just wasn't made with the same quality standards as foreign cars. My next car... which I'll probably get in another year or so will not be a dodge, most likely a toyota.
...at a certain point things get to be "too" small, or, putting it another way, too easy to lose...
Now that's just plain silly... the only thing small is the flash chip holding the information. If you don't want it to be lost, simply package it in a larger piece of plastic.
Back in my C-64 days I acquired a copy of a game called "Admach, sick" or something very close to that effect. It was a simple game. About 10 foreigners stood side by side in a line, and you controlled a machine gun with your cursor/joystick. The objective was simple... mow them all down. After you killed them all you got another screen of 10 people. And I hate to say it, but it seemed fun the first time or two... but after about 5 or 6 screens... it became a little disturbing. And it occurred to me that wasting a bunch of people for no reason was insane. I feel I learned something from that game.
The most direct solution to making the planet green is to reduce the human population. No need for a war or genocide, simply create less offspring, and allow that trend to continue. Through attrition we cut down on the number of human beings that need resources. From there, the planet can green itself by letting nature take over.
The best way for him to learn, as mentioned by Swizec, is for him to spend long hours behind the keyboard.
Now... to motivate him to spend those hours behind the keyboard; ask him what interests him and find out what whets his appetite. Use this to present him with a problem in relationship to his interests. Ask him if solving this problem would be a worthwhile effort. And then just be there for him when he needs assistance.
Now if he asks, how to do X, don't tell him how, but ask him the questions that will lead him to find the answers on his own. (I've learned this from my own mistakes!)
Slashdot Mirror
If you eat less foods with anti-oxidants, eat more junk foods, and stress yourself out to the max... all in turn creating more free-radicals... will you glow brighter?
-- Everything is, nothing is as it seems.
I've been teaching Eclipse Plug-in and RCP development to US Military and Defense organizations and contractors, as well as for the Australian government, for the past 3 years.
As long as the open source product can be proven as a secure technology, I don't see why the government wouldn't adopt it, especially if there are little to no licensing fees for its use.
If you fly frequently and participate in your preferred airlines frequent flier program, once you earn a certain number of mileage credits, you usually get a preferred status which allows you to go through (often-times) shorter lines with first-class and other preferred members. No need to shell out an extra $200. Also now that the majority of the population is aware of what needs to be done when going through airport security, I've found that even the regular lines move along somewhat quickly.
--
Sh!t happens. Then you wipe yourself.
When I pay my electric and gas bills, I pay based on the quantity that I use. But with my water bill on the other hand, I pay a flat fee for the first X gallons and then an additional fee for each y gallons I use over x.
My guess is that if ISPs become utilities they'll charge bandwidth like my water company. Average users get the flat rate, power users get increased rates. If I were a cable or FIOS company that provided media content in addition to internet access, this is how I would want my customers to be billed... especially considering that I'm losing money by having those large bandwidth users drop their content service as they can find the same thing on the internet at my expense.
Based on that I don't think I like the idea of ISPs becoming utility companies.
until they know enough to make tornados into thrill rides, it's of no interest to me, IMHO.
Somewhere around 1982 I bought the much anticipated Pac Man when it was released for the Atari 2600 for $30 (US). I'm sure I enjoyed the game thoroughly even though it didn't quite compare to the arcade version. But honestly, there wasn't much to the game.... just a few levels of dots. Other games from that era cost about as much and many offered a little bit more bang for the buck.
New games today are priced around $55-$60, and although it seems like a lot of money, it's only about a 100% increase over 25 years. Today's games seem to provide so much more in regards to depth and game play. Granted, the systems can certainly provide for much more depth. But if you compare the features that you get now for $60... life-like cut scenes, 3d game play, levels upon levels, etc... you'll find that the value of the game far exceeds its 1980 equivalents.
I tend to break down the value of a game in dollars per hour. With games like Oblivion where I've spent a documented 120+ hours, $.50 an hour is well worth it. Compare that to just about any other form of entertainment, with maybe the exception of a deck of cards, you'll find that nothing else comes close.
Which is all fine and dandy until you can't get served at a bar because of it!
How many hours have you spent playing Infocom games like the "Zork" series and "The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy"? No graphics, just text adventures with great stories and puzzles that required a good imagination.
I wonder how something like that would fare these days if you added something like a more complex language interpretation algorithm?
Or what if there were an "audio book" version of such games where the only way to interact would be to issue commands via microphone?
Titles such as the "Harry Potter" series would probably do quite well by providing a new way to interact with the game.
Regardless of what platform you use, here are two things that you absolutely must do. This is coming from experience with getting my grandmother to use the internet.
1) Write stuff down on paper! Give them step by step instructions on how to open their email client, read an email, print, reply and forward. Especially if they are old! I've found that older people are really good at following directions, but not so great on remembering them. Showing them how to do something once will not stick in long term memory. Be specific in your instructions... Rather than "go to the print dialog" you have to tell them "go to the file menu, then click 'print...'. If you can get all of your instructions on just one or two peices of paper, then laminate them and tape them somewhere where they are highly visible so they don't get lost.
2) Educate them about the do's and dont's of using the internet. Most problems such as spyware and viruses would be handled by using a non-Windows OS as a lot of posters have specified above. But they still need to be aware of things that most of us would consider common sense. Teach them about not replying to emails from people they don't know, and about phishing scams. Let them know that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Show them some examples from your own junk mail folder. Teach them the difference between a web site's content and the ads that the site displays (trust me, they won't know the difference in a lot of cases), and how to look at the URL of a link to help them. Also show them how to use bookmarks and maybe even set up a few for the sites they will be using most often so they don't get suckered by a name-mangling site like hotmial.com.
When I set up my grandmother's computer some years ago, #1 really helped out. But I didn't focus so much on #2, and it literally cost me hours of follow up visits.
If your IT skill sets are in demand and you are good and knowledgeable with your skill sets, or you can pick up and master new skills without too much pain... and you have the capability to be personable and social and you can also get up in front of a small group and speak, then perhaps you might want to look into becoming a contract trainer.
I worked as a trainer in this fashion from '99 to '05 and it was a great experience. Generally it involves traveling to a client's site or training facility to do the work, but if you live in a big city, it will reduce the probability that you have to travel depending on the organization you do work with. The pay is pretty good... you can bring in between $400 to $1000 a day or more depending on various factors such as content complexity, demand, and class size. Most IT classes seem to run for about 3 to 5 days.
It is part time work in the sense that you train only when classes are available to be taught, and when you feel like teaching them. (Though turning down requests for training will move you to the bottom of the 'available trainers' list with most companies) So you could easily work 26 weeks during the year and realistically bring in a $75,000 salary. That gives you the other 26 weeks of the year to learn new skills and brush up on old ones, and to basically do whatever you want to with your free time.
On the downside, unless you are always learning the next new "hot" thing, it can be difficult to find work... Especially now that the economy sucks, as training budgets typically are the first to get slashed.
But if you find the right niche, you have partial control over the times and places you work. Also, you typically don't work during the weeks where there are holidays. And usually, a training day is exactly 8 hours, which includes a 1 hour lunch break and other smaller breaks in between. You typically won't work more than that unless the materials are new to you, where you have to spend an hour or two per night reviewing what's to come the next day.
As a bonus, if you can write your own materials, you can also make an additional income. Course materials sometimes go for anywhere from $10 to $75 per student per day.
Granted, training is not for everyone, and this is probably the worst time to consider starting off in the field... wait for the markets to go up... but it's an awesome part time gig!
IMHO, Obama doesn't need to cheat to win in this election. And McCain on the other has taken to the tactics that worked so well for Bush in the past, which is Lie, lie, lie and eventually people will believe you. So given that he's using Bush tactics, and has voted for the guy 9 times out of 10, it seems to reason that he'll also follow in the footsteps of Bush by fixing the elections.
List votes = machine.getVotes();
for (Vote vote : votes) {
vote.setSelection(Candidate.MCCAIN);
}
machine.setPaperTrail(null);
DISH, FIOS, Direct, and all of the cable DVRs BLOW compared to the TIVO. Why is that if this is all so darned easy and obvious?
Maybe they blow because they didn't use TIVO's patented technology?
No... Seems more like "Disclosure"
Java's solution to goto: Make it a reserved word that has no functionality so that it can't even appear in a program.
Many people pirate, that's true. And it does cause the recording companies to loose out on potential revenue.
What's fucked up though is that a pirate who illegally downloads 10 songs has created a potential revenue loss of about $15 bucks to the record companies. But the record companies want to sue that individual for $15,000. The punishment does not fit the crime.
I would imagine though that hacking into a yahoo e-mail account, even if it's a political figure, is not really going to get any serious penalties.
No penalties, just here one day and disappears without a trace the next. Good ole Patriot Act. Knew that thing would come in handy some day
The question is did he spend all that time on one number (and was there actually conversation) or was he calling multiple numbers from multiple services? If it was the latter, then he's just a stupid perv. (A smarter perv would have read book on how to seduce strippers). If it was the latter however, anyone can own a phone sex line (you don't need to own the company, just lease the line) or work out an awesome deal with someone they know who has one and make a whole boat load of money that way. I know a guy who was a heroine addict and this was how he got his money for drugs. (He too, of course, was busted eventually)
My '88 Honda CRX got 43 MPG highway while cruising from Camp Lejuene to my home in NJ for extended weekends, and was the most dependable car I owned.
I sold it after 11 years and 189,000 miles and bought a '99 dodge avenger. While the dodge has been dependable, it's MPG and performance sucks ass. Also, it just wasn't made with the same quality standards as foreign cars. My next car... which I'll probably get in another year or so will not be a dodge, most likely a toyota.
...at a certain point things get to be "too" small, or, putting it another way, too easy to lose...
Now that's just plain silly... the only thing small is the flash chip holding the information. If you don't want it to be lost, simply package it in a larger piece of plastic.
Back in my C-64 days I acquired a copy of a game called "Admach, sick" or something very close to that effect. It was a simple game. About 10 foreigners stood side by side in a line, and you controlled a machine gun with your cursor/joystick. The objective was simple... mow them all down. After you killed them all you got another screen of 10 people. And I hate to say it, but it seemed fun the first time or two... but after about 5 or 6 screens... it became a little disturbing. And it occurred to me that wasting a bunch of people for no reason was insane. I feel I learned something from that game.
Kent police said they had confiscated the game because the balaclava 'could be used to conceal someone's identity
Wonder what they're going to do on Halloween?
The most direct solution to making the planet green is to reduce the human population. No need for a war or genocide, simply create less offspring, and allow that trend to continue. Through attrition we cut down on the number of human beings that need resources. From there, the planet can green itself by letting nature take over.
Are you mad?
...right into the ground.
"Private corporations could run most countries better."
Assuming you are talking about the US, the last time I checked, private corporations are running our country
The best way for him to learn, as mentioned by Swizec, is for him to spend long hours behind the keyboard.
Now... to motivate him to spend those hours behind the keyboard; ask him what interests him and find out what whets his appetite. Use this to present him with a problem in relationship to his interests. Ask him if solving this problem would be a worthwhile effort. And then just be there for him when he needs assistance.
Now if he asks, how to do X, don't tell him how, but ask him the questions that will lead him to find the answers on his own. (I've learned this from my own mistakes!)