I use AIM a bit differently, and it's manageable. I always leave myself set as "away", but people can see whether I'm idle or not if they need to get in touch with me ("Hey, Los Amigos are playing at Artscape this weekend; we should go.").
The big drain with IRC is that you sit looking at it, waiting for someone to say something. You can also sit and watch other people have conversations. With AIM, I just iconify the chat window (Enlightenment) if nothing is happening, and it flips up again if they have something else to say. I keep two IRC channels open, and neither are very busy. One is the staff-only channel for freshmeat, since that's our "water cooler" (and the place to solicit second opinions on trouble spots) and there are only a few of us awake at a time. The other is the channel for WMBC, in case someone has a question or something goes wrong.
I firmly believe that if you use commercial software, you should pay the full price for that software (with any discounts you can legitimately get). The cost of Windows is $$, and the cost of Linux is learning. Really, one must also learn Windows, but it is easy to learn much less if you are content to use it poorly. That, I think, is the difference.
You would also have to clarify what "most of [your] favorite software" entails if you want people to explain how to make the transition. For example, if you're a very heavy Usenet user, I would say that in my experience the NNTP apps under Linux blow the Windows ones away.
I would think that in-house programming projects would be less likely to be shipped out to India than retail software. It's a great benefit to have in-house developers physically present, as they need to be able to work with users to assess needs, address problems, train users, etc.
There are certain applications that require far more than just great software skills to develop. One example is tax software; you need accountants to keep up with all of the federal, state, and local taxes, and those change every year.
Also, you have software where the setup/service part of it counts almost as much as the code. The physical plant at my university (where I work) is currently looking at facilities management software, and the process of the company people coming in and assisting in the massive job of populating/configuring the software for each site is probably much of the value; the software itself needs to be properly designed, but won't be Earth-shattering.
Finally, many companies sell hardware which needs its own special software, and while opening the code for inspection may "win points" and actually be beneficial, I think they'll still have their own staff of programmers.
Yes, it's not very civil to call someone you don't know "Valenti's Bitch", and maybe some other time we can have another discussion about the de-personalization effect the Internet has on communication.
However, the fact that it was in quotes leads me to read it as more of a description of the article's narrow _portrayal_ of that person. In that case, it is accurate. The parent poster was, after all, suggesting that these people sounded made up.
[It's a real shame that an indie fan got caught in this mess; that's like a vegetarian getting mad cow disease.]
If you want to hear indie bands, there are a good number of online radio stations which play that sort of music.
Note that this is not entirely a shameless plug, since I recommend you do not listen to WMBC until September. We're currently in summer mode, and have few live DJs. The rest is being covered by the DJ-TRON 3000, which I need to improve (and load with more songs).
[Of course, the playlist being looped IS full of really good songs...but still, live DJs are best.]
Sorry I can't recommend other radio stations but, well, I don't listen to them:)
The RIAA has a history of picking real winners to host their site; the number of times it's been hacked is a testament to this. You'd think that with all that money, they could buy some real hosting.
I'm pretty sure that I've seen contracts where employers attempt to claim that anything you create (which is in a field related to your work) while employed by them is theirs, whether done on "company time" or not. Now, I realize that the best thing to do would be to refuse such a clause, but assuming that didn't happen, is it legally enforceable?
People certainly do listen to WPFW. It's completely supported by listener donations. No government funding, no commercials. They also cover community news and happenings, which no ClearChannel station will ever do. But that is not always enough to keep something from being bought out by mega-corps.
Unless I've misinterpreted your numbers (entirely possible), you're saying that the number of media producers has grown by at least a factor of 5, but the number of channels has grown by a factor of 50. Does that not seem lopsided?
The other problem is cross-media consolidation, which is the real trouble here. It's easy enough to avoid all Fox-owned TV stations, but what if they start to buy up radio and newspapers in your area too? Sure, someone like me can easily seek out different sources online, but what about Joe Citizen? You don't think that's going to have an effect?
The Pacifica network, home of the very good DC jazz station WPFW (much better than Morgan State's jazz radio) is in danger of being bought up by larger entities (including NPR, who while they have some good programming, is against diversity in radio and waged a campaign of mistruths to kill low-power FM).
See http://www.pacifica.org
Most people seem to want it
on
Saving the Net
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
It's very frustrating for me, and hard for me to understand. To me, the best way to live is to learn as much as you can, and try to find the best choices for yourself by gathering as much information as is possible (or feasible; you don't want to spend 2 hours researching where you will eat lunch today). Art and creation are, I believe, some of the most fun you can have without being naked (not that that's excluded...)
But a lot of people seem really, truly content with being told what to eat, wear, listen to, drive, vote for, support, etc. There are people who always vote Democrat/Republican without any consideration for the actual candidate. There are people that prefer McDonald's to real food. Most people just do what their friends do, and how did their friends start doing it? What's the source? I guess there's no way to be sure, but I'm betting it was an advertisement.
Maybe it's because it makes life easy. You listen to music to relax, and thinking about it is too hard. It's easier to watch TV than to read a book. It's easy to enjoy fast food, because it's a collection of chemicals designed to be pleasing to the largest number of people. No dangerous sharp edges for you to beware.
Similarly, most people don't want to create. Artistic effort is difficult, requiring many hours to produce something. TV can be enjoyed now. Learning how to really cook would be hard, and my family needs dinner today. Hamburger Helper is good enough. It was a hard day at work and I have a lot on my mind. I don't have time to be creative.
Now, there's great joy to be had in take-out pizza, beer, and Brotherhood of the Wolf. Some days, it's nice to let someone else take the helm. But Einstein understood that we have to keep our brains moving in new directions in order to keep them alive (he played the violin). If all you do is work and consume, you are a unit. I couldn't stand it.
(Some people take great joy in their work, which is wonderful, and ideal even. But being one-dimensional is still bad. You'll get further if you stretch your mind in new directions as often as possible; you may be surprised at how related two seemingly dissimilar things really are.)
What about Kucinich?
on
Saving the Net
·
· Score: 1, Informative
He didn't sign the PATRIOT act, and he has pledged to repeal it if elected. He's also pledged to scale back our military in favor of education, equal rights for lesbians and gays, accept the Kyoto treaty, and a lot of other things that sound really good to me.
Heh, I'm in Baltimore too. It depends where you live. My friend Jay (of Bastille fame) lived in some bad apartments, and he filtered, boiled, and filtered his water. The water at this place (Colony Hill) and where my parents live (Overlea) is fine.
The worst water I ever had was when I was canoeing near (IIRC) the C&O canal for a week. Very heavy on the iodine, but it needed to be to clean it up. Who says spring water is good? It sure made lousy French onion soup.
Oh, look! A Google search for "YMOYL" turns up the book I was mentioning, first hit. Oh, the agony of my strenuous effort! Would you like me to try a Google search for "AC get stuffed" next?
I feel better when I have more water. I drink more than most people, and I rarely get sick. Are these necessarily related? No, but I don't see any health problems from drinking a good amount of water, so I'll continue to do it. I'm not talking about an uncomfortable amount, just more than most people.
("megadosing" vitamins, OTOH, has measurable detriments, or in the case of water-soluble vitamins, is just useless.)
As for bottled water, you should be able to tell by tasting your tap water whether you really need it or not. Some tap water is just bad; don't drink it. My tap water is good, so more $$ for me. Something has to make up for everything closing at 10pm.
I find it hard to believe that no one has mentioned this yet. I could never get into "purposeless" exercise, or working out for the sake of fitness alone. But with martial arts, I'm improving my mind and my body, and in more ways than just fitness or strength. Awareness, balance, flexibility, toughness, etc.
It's practical. If nothing else, an "impact art" (judo, jujitsu, aikido) will teach you how to not get hurt when you fall down. This should not be underestimated. Everyone falls down, and many people reach for the ground and break a wrist. You won't.
If you're going in for the exercise, keep in mind that I know a brilliant Tai Chi instructor (and a damn good oud player) who weighs about 450. Mainly internal arts are probably not what you want right now. I view the "impact" arts listed above as a good compromise between internal and external (karate, etc. would be external). My favorite is Pentjak Silat, but it can be much harder to find a school for that in your area. The nice thing about Silat is that it has forms (like Tai Chi), so you can practice by yourself.
(I've also found that the stick exercises in Silat are GREAT for wrist problems. It helps when your instructor is a chiropractor. And for those exercises like pushups and situps, it helps when your instructor adds a 15-pound medicine ball:) Then you do less of them before you wear out, so it's faster. Try putting your hands on a ball and doing pushups that way, the difference is amazing...)
Most places in the U.S., you're perfectly fine drinking water from the tap. I heard ("conventional wisdom") that spring water loses any befirts after having been out of the ground for 2 hours. I haven't researched this, but it doesn't taste any different than good tap water to me.
I bring a plastic cup to work and refill it from the water fountain. Much cheaper*, and has the added benefit of making you GET UP every so often.
If you get bored of water all day (understandable), you can try fruit juice. But please, do REAL fruit juice and not colored hummingbird food. Juicy Juice and Ocean Spray 100% are my favorites. Also, don't spend all day drinking it or 1) you'll go broke, and 2) food will seem to pass straight through you without slowing down.
High water intake, OTOH, is a very good idea, and most people don't drink nearly enough. It's something like 2 quarts per day for an adult. May sound strange, but if your urine is clear, you're set.
* For those who haven't read YMOYL, it has the sensible notion of a "real hourly wage". Deduct the money you spend on work clothes, eating lunch out, transportation, everything, from your salary. See what you're really earning.
Also, said government might not trust Microsoft, a large company from a country that is behaving in a rather unfriendly fashion towards the rest of the world at the moment and has a large number of intelligence personnel. Conspiracy theory: did Microsoft cut a deal with the US Government in exchange for helping them spy on foreign governments, and that's why they got off so easy in the recent trial? No, probably not, but how do you know?
OSS, OTOH, is worked on by people from all over the world, and hey, if you're that paranoid, have your IT staff look it over. It's all on the table.
I find it much easier to find answers to my Linux questions than my Windows questions. But then again, I've been largely ignoring Windows for the past few years, so I probably know how to easily get Linux help (just like you know how to customize Windows). Having a great LUG really does help.
Linux can be made extremely easy to use for the non-specialist end-user. Yes, there are accountants that dream in Excel macros. But for most users, Windows is just too complicated. You can really strip Linux down and make it so that they can only do a few things, and there are big easy buttons in plain view for all of them. But you have to have someone good on the admin side, at least initially, because super-easy means custom.
I have observed this to be true. Many of the keyboard shortcuts stay the same, but things change drastically with different versions of Windows; sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
I liked Windows 98. I used it when it was in beta. But it's the last version of Windows that ever went on a home computer. By the time Win2k came out (which is a decent business desktop and probably Microsoft's best OS ever), I had moved on. I will never willingly install XP on anything.
Well, I must admit to having been vastly entertained and informed. In the spirit of pretending that/. is a mailing list or a normal discussion board, thanks!
I don't drink caffeine (except for hot chocolate), so I wouldn't even have to get used to calling it "pop", because I wouldn't care. Cold weather is GREAT*. Privatisation...can we take it back if it doesn't work? Interesting that a nation with national health care is heading this way.
I don't know anything about the PM or potential replacements, or striking of public unions, but I'll try to remember to look into those first. Of course, I still have to fight off my Aussie co-workers (hooray freshmeat) trying to drag me to THEIR country:)
* The only thing that would concern me about the cold weather is the likelihood of getting fresh produce regularly. On the plus side, Canada has some of the highest-protein flour anywhere (mmm, pizza).
Slashdot Mirror
If you believe _Kitchen_Confidential_ by Anthony Bourdain, the life of a "waitron" (or a line cook) IS rather awash in sexual opportunities.
By the way, if you think this book would interest you at all, buy it. It's great.
I use AIM a bit differently, and it's manageable. I always leave myself set as "away", but people can see whether I'm idle or not if they need to get in touch with me ("Hey, Los Amigos are playing at Artscape this weekend; we should go.").
The big drain with IRC is that you sit looking at it, waiting for someone to say something. You can also sit and watch other people have conversations. With AIM, I just iconify the chat window (Enlightenment) if nothing is happening, and it flips up again if they have something else to say. I keep two IRC channels open, and neither are very busy. One is the staff-only channel for freshmeat, since that's our "water cooler" (and the place to solicit second opinions on trouble spots) and there are only a few of us awake at a time. The other is the channel for WMBC, in case someone has a question or something goes wrong.
I firmly believe that if you use commercial software, you should pay the full price for that software (with any discounts you can legitimately get). The cost of Windows is $$, and the cost of Linux is learning. Really, one must also learn Windows, but it is easy to learn much less if you are content to use it poorly. That, I think, is the difference.
You would also have to clarify what "most of [your] favorite software" entails if you want people to explain how to make the transition. For example, if you're a very heavy Usenet user, I would say that in my experience the NNTP apps under Linux blow the Windows ones away.
I would think that in-house programming projects would be less likely to be shipped out to India than retail software. It's a great benefit to have in-house developers physically present, as they need to be able to work with users to assess needs, address problems, train users, etc.
There are certain applications that require far more than just great software skills to develop. One example is tax software; you need accountants to keep up with all of the federal, state, and local taxes, and those change every year.
Also, you have software where the setup/service part of it counts almost as much as the code. The physical plant at my university (where I work) is currently looking at facilities management software, and the process of the company people coming in and assisting in the massive job of populating/configuring the software for each site is probably much of the value; the software itself needs to be properly designed, but won't be Earth-shattering.
Finally, many companies sell hardware which needs its own special software, and while opening the code for inspection may "win points" and actually be beneficial, I think they'll still have their own staff of programmers.
You're not even allowed to make left turns!
Yes, it's not very civil to call someone you don't know "Valenti's Bitch", and maybe some other time we can have another discussion about the de-personalization effect the Internet has on communication.
However, the fact that it was in quotes leads me to read it as more of a description of the article's narrow _portrayal_ of that person. In that case, it is accurate. The parent poster was, after all, suggesting that these people sounded made up.
[It's a real shame that an indie fan got caught in this mess; that's like a vegetarian getting mad cow disease.]
If you want to hear indie bands, there are a good number of online radio stations which play that sort of music.
:)
Note that this is not entirely a shameless plug, since I recommend you do not listen to WMBC until September. We're currently in summer mode, and have few live DJs. The rest is being covered by the DJ-TRON 3000, which I need to improve (and load with more songs).
[Of course, the playlist being looped IS full of really good songs...but still, live DJs are best.]
Sorry I can't recommend other radio stations but, well, I don't listen to them
The RIAA has a history of picking real winners to host their site; the number of times it's been hacked is a testament to this. You'd think that with all that money, they could buy some real hosting.
6 53 .html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/29
I'm pretty sure that I've seen contracts where employers attempt to claim that anything you create (which is in a field related to your work) while employed by them is theirs, whether done on "company time" or not. Now, I realize that the best thing to do would be to refuse such a clause, but assuming that didn't happen, is it legally enforceable?
People certainly do listen to WPFW. It's completely supported by listener donations. No government funding, no commercials. They also cover community news and happenings, which no ClearChannel station will ever do. But that is not always enough to keep something from being bought out by mega-corps.
Unless I've misinterpreted your numbers (entirely possible), you're saying that the number of media producers has grown by at least a factor of 5, but the number of channels has grown by a factor of 50. Does that not seem lopsided?
The other problem is cross-media consolidation, which is the real trouble here. It's easy enough to avoid all Fox-owned TV stations, but what if they start to buy up radio and newspapers in your area too? Sure, someone like me can easily seek out different sources online, but what about Joe Citizen? You don't think that's going to have an effect?
The Pacifica network, home of the very good DC jazz station WPFW (much better than Morgan State's jazz radio) is in danger of being bought up by larger entities (including NPR, who while they have some good programming, is against diversity in radio and waged a campaign of mistruths to kill low-power FM).
See http://www.pacifica.org
It's very frustrating for me, and hard for me to understand. To me, the best way to live is to learn as much as you can, and try to find the best choices for yourself by gathering as much information as is possible (or feasible; you don't want to spend 2 hours researching where you will eat lunch today). Art and creation are, I believe, some of the most fun you can have without being naked (not that that's excluded...)
But a lot of people seem really, truly content with being told what to eat, wear, listen to, drive, vote for, support, etc. There are people who always vote Democrat/Republican without any consideration for the actual candidate. There are people that prefer McDonald's to real food. Most people just do what their friends do, and how did their friends start doing it? What's the source? I guess there's no way to be sure, but I'm betting it was an advertisement.
Maybe it's because it makes life easy. You listen to music to relax, and thinking about it is too hard. It's easier to watch TV than to read a book. It's easy to enjoy fast food, because it's a collection of chemicals designed to be pleasing to the largest number of people. No dangerous sharp edges for you to beware.
Similarly, most people don't want to create. Artistic effort is difficult, requiring many hours to produce something. TV can be enjoyed now. Learning how to really cook would be hard, and my family needs dinner today. Hamburger Helper is good enough. It was a hard day at work and I have a lot on my mind. I don't have time to be creative.
Now, there's great joy to be had in take-out pizza, beer, and Brotherhood of the Wolf. Some days, it's nice to let someone else take the helm. But Einstein understood that we have to keep our brains moving in new directions in order to keep them alive (he played the violin). If all you do is work and consume, you are a unit. I couldn't stand it.
(Some people take great joy in their work, which is wonderful, and ideal even. But being one-dimensional is still bad. You'll get further if you stretch your mind in new directions as often as possible; you may be surprised at how related two seemingly dissimilar things really are.)
He didn't sign the PATRIOT act, and he has pledged to repeal it if elected. He's also pledged to scale back our military in favor of education, equal rights for lesbians and gays, accept the Kyoto treaty, and a lot of other things that sound really good to me.
Check it out:
http://kucinich.us/issues/issue_10key.htm
That's why I qualified "Ocean Spray 100%". That is, amazingly enough, their 100% fruit juice sub-brand.
"benefits", not "befirts". I wasn't going to bother to correct it, but apparently they don't make context clues like they used to.
That said, that was a pretty bad typo.
Heh, I'm in Baltimore too. It depends where you live. My friend Jay (of Bastille fame) lived in some bad apartments, and he filtered, boiled, and filtered his water. The water at this place (Colony Hill) and where my parents live (Overlea) is fine.
The worst water I ever had was when I was canoeing near (IIRC) the C&O canal for a week. Very heavy on the iodine, but it needed to be to clean it up. Who says spring water is good? It sure made lousy French onion soup.
Juicy Juice is 100% fruit juice. Always has been. And that's why I said "Ocean Spray 100%", which is their 100% fruit juice sub-brand. Sheesh.
Oh, look! A Google search for "YMOYL" turns up the book I was mentioning, first hit. Oh, the agony of my strenuous effort! Would you like me to try a Google search for "AC get stuffed" next?
I feel better when I have more water. I drink more than most people, and I rarely get sick. Are these necessarily related? No, but I don't see any health problems from drinking a good amount of water, so I'll continue to do it. I'm not talking about an uncomfortable amount, just more than most people.
("megadosing" vitamins, OTOH, has measurable detriments, or in the case of water-soluble vitamins, is just useless.)
As for bottled water, you should be able to tell by tasting your tap water whether you really need it or not. Some tap water is just bad; don't drink it. My tap water is good, so more $$ for me. Something has to make up for everything closing at 10pm.
I find it hard to believe that no one has mentioned this yet. I could never get into "purposeless" exercise, or working out for the sake of fitness alone. But with martial arts, I'm improving my mind and my body, and in more ways than just fitness or strength. Awareness, balance, flexibility, toughness, etc.
:) Then you do less of them before you wear out, so it's faster. Try putting your hands on a ball and doing pushups that way, the difference is amazing...)
It's practical. If nothing else, an "impact art" (judo, jujitsu, aikido) will teach you how to not get hurt when you fall down. This should not be underestimated. Everyone falls down, and many people reach for the ground and break a wrist. You won't.
If you're going in for the exercise, keep in mind that I know a brilliant Tai Chi instructor (and a damn good oud player) who weighs about 450. Mainly internal arts are probably not what you want right now. I view the "impact" arts listed above as a good compromise between internal and external (karate, etc. would be external). My favorite is Pentjak Silat, but it can be much harder to find a school for that in your area. The nice thing about Silat is that it has forms (like Tai Chi), so you can practice by yourself.
(I've also found that the stick exercises in Silat are GREAT for wrist problems. It helps when your instructor is a chiropractor. And for those exercises like pushups and situps, it helps when your instructor adds a 15-pound medicine ball
Most places in the U.S., you're perfectly fine drinking water from the tap. I heard ("conventional wisdom") that spring water loses any befirts after having been out of the ground for 2 hours. I haven't researched this, but it doesn't taste any different than good tap water to me.
I bring a plastic cup to work and refill it from the water fountain. Much cheaper*, and has the added benefit of making you GET UP every so often.
If you get bored of water all day (understandable), you can try fruit juice. But please, do REAL fruit juice and not colored hummingbird food. Juicy Juice and Ocean Spray 100% are my favorites. Also, don't spend all day drinking it or 1) you'll go broke, and 2) food will seem to pass straight through you without slowing down.
High water intake, OTOH, is a very good idea, and most people don't drink nearly enough. It's something like 2 quarts per day for an adult. May sound strange, but if your urine is clear, you're set.
* For those who haven't read YMOYL, it has the sensible notion of a "real hourly wage". Deduct the money you spend on work clothes, eating lunch out, transportation, everything, from your salary. See what you're really earning.
Also, said government might not trust Microsoft, a large company from a country that is behaving in a rather unfriendly fashion towards the rest of the world at the moment and has a large number of intelligence personnel. Conspiracy theory: did Microsoft cut a deal with the US Government in exchange for helping them spy on foreign governments, and that's why they got off so easy in the recent trial? No, probably not, but how do you know?
OSS, OTOH, is worked on by people from all over the world, and hey, if you're that paranoid, have your IT staff look it over. It's all on the table.
I find it much easier to find answers to my Linux questions than my Windows questions. But then again, I've been largely ignoring Windows for the past few years, so I probably know how to easily get Linux help (just like you know how to customize Windows). Having a great LUG really does help.
Linux can be made extremely easy to use for the non-specialist end-user. Yes, there are accountants that dream in Excel macros. But for most users, Windows is just too complicated. You can really strip Linux down and make it so that they can only do a few things, and there are big easy buttons in plain view for all of them. But you have to have someone good on the admin side, at least initially, because super-easy means custom.
I have observed this to be true. Many of the keyboard shortcuts stay the same, but things change drastically with different versions of Windows; sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
I liked Windows 98. I used it when it was in beta. But it's the last version of Windows that ever went on a home computer. By the time Win2k came out (which is a decent business desktop and probably Microsoft's best OS ever), I had moved on. I will never willingly install XP on anything.
Well, I must admit to having been vastly entertained and informed. In the spirit of pretending that /. is a mailing list or a normal discussion board, thanks!
:)
I don't drink caffeine (except for hot chocolate), so I wouldn't even have to get used to calling it "pop", because I wouldn't care. Cold weather is GREAT*. Privatisation...can we take it back if it doesn't work? Interesting that a nation with national health care is heading this way.
I don't know anything about the PM or potential replacements, or striking of public unions, but I'll try to remember to look into those first. Of course, I still have to fight off my Aussie co-workers (hooray freshmeat) trying to drag me to THEIR country
* The only thing that would concern me about the cold weather is the likelihood of getting fresh produce regularly. On the plus side, Canada has some of the highest-protein flour anywhere (mmm, pizza).