One theory expressed in the book was that when we are first starting to draw, say at around age 2, we form mental images as best we can of everyday objects, like trees and people. When we later attempt to draw trees and people, we don't actually try to draw what we see, but our initial (2-year-old) record of what a tree is supposed to look like. That's why drawing an upside-down picture without having seen it rightside-up works, because our brain can't get in the way.
Or you could have a distribution which has modular packages instead:
apt-get install mozilla-browser
I don't have to recompile PHP every time I want to use a different module; I just install whatever modules I want, whenever I want to use them.
That is the strength of Debian. It's not just apt-get; people who have ported apt to work under Red Hat are moving in the right direction, but that is not the whole problem. With Debian, thousands of packages are "official", and so are quite strictly designed so that all dependencies really, really work. The organization of packages is what really makes apt worthwhile.
True, not all of the 28,888 projects on freshmeat run on Mac OS X. But the OS X-specific section continues to grow, and many *nix applications have been ported or simply work already.
In attempting to point out that the original poster didn't get it, the replies have proven that they don't. He was saying that the word "uneven" is unnecessary, because 11 chapters can't possibly be divided into 3 sections evenly. Omit needless words! That's why it was funny. Sheesh.
Do you "get it" now, or do we need to lock you in a room with RMS?
Indesign is hardly an "industry standard", as many publishing houses still won't deal with it. The real industry standard for publishing is, tragically, Quark XPress. If you are the type of person who thinks Windows has gone bad due to a lack of pressure to fix itself because of its monopoly position, Quark will make you feel better about your life (unless you have to use it). Even at version 5, we are told that we cannot open files directly from a fileserver; we are supposed to copy them to the local machine first, and copy them back when we are done, because Quark "was not designed to operate across a network." What year is this again? 1980? Maybe if your software DIDN'T require gobs of memory and CPU, didn't corrupt files all too frequently, and didn't crash randomly, I might put up with your backwards attitude. Ugh.
(oh, and really, XMMS is pretty much an exact clone of WinAMP).
1. I play mostly RPGs, and I have found all I need from console systems. They are designed to play games, and they are better at it. When something along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics or Xenosaga comes out for Windows and not the PS2, then maybe I'll worry. I submit that the "average user" is likely to have a console game system, as keeping up with the hardware/software for PC games can be intimidating and costly.
2. You really picked a bad example for ripping CDs, since nothing under Windows matches the quality of cdparanoia (unless it's been ported), and there are about 8 billion CD ripping/burning/MP3&Ogg encoding programs on freshmeat. Personally, I use abcde; one command contacts CDDB (or a Free clone), rips, tags, and names all of the tracks for me. Very configurable, very easy.
As for packaging systems, when InstallShield can update 99% of the software on your system with two commands, then I'll be impressed. Under Windows, I'd need to keep track myself of when each application releases a new version, then download and install them separately, from different locations.
3. No, the Windows GUI is unfamiliar and uncomfortable to me, as I don't use it regularly. It's harder to get work done. They also change it with every release. Finally, "familiar" does not necessarily mean "easiest to use" or "best".
There ARE still things which require Windows, but they're likely to be large, specific things like AutoCAD.
I guess I never saw the need to directly connect to my bank with GNUcash, because I track every purchase I make as soon as I make it. I don't wait to update things from my bank; maybe I'm just obsessive. But really, I can't see saving a whole operating system just for THAT, since you can do it by exporting/importing files, which must take all of 5 minutes longer, so let's move on.
Never used Streets and Trips, just the free Mapquest online. Guess I can't comment, but does it run in WINE?
Assuming you could connect to your work VPN, several companies have solutions for connecting to Exchange servers. Ximian and Bynari come to mind. One wonders why your work is using a non-standard VPN instead of something like IPSEC, but I guess you probably don't have control over that. Are you completely certain that there's nothing to connect to it? A freshmeat search is sometimes enlightening.
For games, I decided to take the money I might have spent on Windows and associated software and buy a PS2. No crashes, hardware lasts for years without being "obsolete", and has more RPGs than I can reasonably play.
DVDs? I usually watch them on a DVD player, but I don't mind using DeCSS to watch them on my computer, as I don't consider any legislation against it to be constitutional. Maybe you don't feel the same way, but is your PC really your only DVD player? True, the fan noise from my PCs is less than the aquarium/central air noise downstairs, but I can't imagine that's true for most people (who don't have a 125 gallon saltwater tank directly behind their loveseat).
I use Linux for everything, and have for years. The one Windows-only program I wanted to run worked flawlessly with WINE, no setup required. Amusingly, there was a cautionary note that users of 95/98 might need to download some extra libraries.
Re:General topic on Microsoft
on
Special Ops
·
· Score: 2, Informative
That's very impressive. Most *nix books address the topic as if DNS == BIND. Personally, I prefer DJBDNS not only because it's more secure, but also because of the way it is configured (small, modular, partitioned) and, er, the way it is configured (configuration files). I also use daemontools to run liveice (when the program first came out, it refused to go into the background and would not stay up for more than several hours at a time).
While I was in elementary school, I knew someone that was on Ritalin for "hyperactivity." He was boring, didn't really seem interested in being friends with anyone, etc. Over the summer, his parents took him off of the medication (since he didn't have to concentrate on school), and we became good friends. Fortunately, he didn't go back on it (possibly because of this).
I have always had difficulty concentrating, and will frequently "zone out" even when listening to/watching/reading/etc. things that I find very interesting. My brain just likes to wander off in a different direction. I was prescribed some sort of medication in 8th grade, but it just made me sleepy, which certainly didn't help me pay attention, so I stopped. It doesn't stop me from understanding *nix [but I can't play guitar for hours on end].
Then again, you have to look at the individual situation. I have another friend who really does seem to need at least a little medication. Every time he goes off of it, his life gets derailed in some way. He eventually goes back on it, gets another job, starts doing pretty well, maybe tries college again, and then...
Basically, I recommend that you "correct" as little as possible. If it's not possible for you to function in society, you need help in some way, whether it be prescription medicine or something more natural. If you're just "eccentric", "hyper", etc., then I don't see that as bad. Maybe medication would let me sit and do something for hours, but I don't think the result would be as interesting.
The corn-based packing materials certainly seem to be edible. I didn't realize that a network switch I ordered had shipped with non-styrofoam "peanuts" until one of my cats pounced on one and ate it. I was concerned until I realized that they weren't styrofoam.
Many people believe that corn syrup is an inferior sweetener as far as flavor is concerned. It's cheaper, so most US soda companies have switched, but you can still get "the good stuff":
Safari uses khtml (the engine used by Konqueror), and IIRC Apple have made some contributions to it. I believe it doesn't quite support as much as Mozilla, but hopefully since it's an open source project, it will continue to get better, and more people will benefit than just Apple.
I agree, I see this as a very good thing for the WWW in general. If Microsoft's goal is really to control everything, I have absolutely no idea why they did this.
No, the DMCA allows reverse-engineering for the purpose of interoperability. I think it would be pretty easy to claim this for a file sharing protocol. After all, music/movies will be protected by their DRM separately.
I think it sounds interesting. Of course, I am biased, but I think a good way to get developer attention would be to submit this to freshmeat (if you haven't already).
Another interesting idea would be to expand this to work on a NAT gateway, dynamically adding iptables/pf/etc. rules for individual machines or entire subnets. Or maybe even go further and do traffic analysis at higher levels ("disallow all traffic of this type (Kazaa, etc.) from this subnet"). Of course, this is getting way ahead, and I also don't know if software to do any of this already exists (for *nix). I mean, I know such filters exists, but I don't know if dynamic configuration does. Again, bias (they employ me), but you may want to search freshmeat.
The other poster has a good point about traffic being denied while you're not there to observe it, although I wouldn't see that as necessarily a problem (the idea of this application is that you don't want surprise traffic getting through). If the daemon has good logging, and the config file can be edited, then you could take care of this remotely if it became a problem in a specific case.
Some people have been questioning the difference between gaining skill in a video game, and being somewhat obsessive about gardening, or some sport. I realized it the other day, and that's when I stopped playing PSO.
Barring some tragic accident, the instruments that I play, the cooking skills that I learn, and the martial arts that I practice will continue. They have been around for hundreds of years (at least). These skills will also continue to be a part of me for the rest of my life, assuming I keep up with them a little, and again, barring a serious accident.
Games like PSO and UO are different. These games will be around for a few years at most. Since the Dreamcast version of PSO is still limping along, we could maybe even call it 5 years. Yes, some of the skills you get in playing one game transfer to another, but you still have to start out at level 1 with nothing. Your "skills" and "accomplishments" are relevant only as long as the whims of (largely) a bunch of schoolchildren deem them to be so.
Don't misunderstand. I love to play video games...too much. I love a good story, and view a video game as a valid means of getting that story to me, just as much as a good book. But I realized that PSO was not like that; it was breaking my "rules", my reason for playing a game. I had seen all of the plot long ago (save for small updates made only very rarely). It was just repetition now, similar to practicing martial arts (outside of class), but it would all be gone in a few years.
So rather than spend 1600 hours getting to level 200 (actual numbers for one guy on a message board I used to moderate), I stopped. It's easier since the GameCube is in my brother's room (he bought it). I told him to use my characters as he sees fit. I was tired of PSO invading all of my thoughts, keeping me from sleep, and generally making me a less interesting person by absorbing my life.
For those who are deep into such territory, try taking a week off. Totally disconnect; no message boards, no talking about it, nothing. And don't just watch TV instead. Try to remember other things that (used to?) interest you. You might find it's something like waking up.
That program is probably xrits. It locks your screen every [configurable interval] to remind you to take a short break, and locks your screen for a longer period every [other configurable interval] to take a longer break. While your screen is locked, it displays hands doing stretching exercises.
I don't need xwrits; I have ADHD to remind me to take breaks instead:). But some people I know swear by it.
Not only is this the correct hand position for typing, as others have noted, but also the correct hand position for playing piano.
I suspect that involving my hands/wrists in a range of activities (typing, piano, guitar, cooking, and martial arts) and using correct posture for all of them helps significantly.
I'm 25, and I stopped using cursive back in high school. Printing is so much neater, and it can be just as personalized as cursive.
Obviously, some sort of writing-by-hand is still a necessary skill. If you're trying to take notes in class or a presentation which include diagrams, tables, complex equations, etc., I haven't found a computer interface that can match a pen and paper for speed and expressiveness. And post-it notes will always be around (how many times have you seen one stuck to a computer screen?). The teacher's point about handwritten letters being much more meaningful is a good one.
But bad handwriting isn't some new problem that has been introduced by widespread computer use. Worsened, perhaps, but I have ancient joke collection books that have the one about a doctor's prescription note being used for its intended purpose, then as a train pass for a year, and finally played on the violin.
There are plenty of people that just weren't going to have good handwriting anyway, and then there are people like my friend's father, who labels floppies using careful Medieval calligraphy (inkwell and all, IIRC). It will continue to be like that. The sort of people who send handwritten letters because they mean more will continue to do so.
Writing should and doubtless will still be taught, but I don't think it's a problem if it's slightly de-emphasized in favor of keyboarding skills, which are more relevant. When I was in elementary school, no one was typing their papers, but now almost everyone is (in this part of the U.S., anyway). The bulk of communications will probably be done via a keyboard (or some newer device) rather than handwriting. And not without reason; some of the kids' quotes in that article are dead on. Rough drafts in pencil (and rewriting twice in ink) royally sucked.
I've found that most people these days are used to a Webmail-ish interface, as they have their personal email account with Hotmail or Yahoo!. Something like Squirrelmail or IMP is very easy for them to use; I don't have to tell them anything.
Also, as others have pointed out in the past, Microsoft changes the way that Windows, Office, etc. work with each revision, so you have to retrain anyway. Plus, not everyone would be migrating from Windows.
But that is OK, because "passwd" is a very small program, and if it hasn't been thoroughly audited by now, I'd be really surprised.
Software does this all the time; one of the MTAs (qmail?) has small, separate parts of itself that are run as root because they have to be. And, as Stuart Smalley said, that's OK. It's OK because it's just a little, limited piece that can be easily examined, and because all sorts of security experts are free to look at it.
I feel that this should be taken even further; there should be a specialized, unpriveleged user account for your email program. Say my username is "bob", then maybe there would be "bob-email", "bob-browser", etc.. Bob's email client will run, possibly in a chroot jail, as bob-email. It would have small modules that elevated themselves to "bob" priveleges in order to do things like attach files from Bob's home directory. Actually RUNNING attachments would take place as "bob-email", and couldn't hurt Bob's (or anyone else's) files.
Red Hat (which I guess is what you're using, since you mentioned up2date) has to provide updates for many more applications than Microsoft. Debian has to provide updates for even more. By all rights, Debian, who officially include the largest number of programs ("contrib" ran away with the spoon) should have the most security advisories BY FAR. Why don't they?
I don't want to hear any BS about popularity, either. Yes, that does have something to do with it, but I see posts on BUGTRAQ every day about some CMS I've never heard of before. Besides, if more people are using Microsoft's products, they should have a greater degree of responsibility. Last I heard, at least part of the U.S. government (FTC?) agrees with me, as they are considering bringing charges against Microsoft for that big Passport vulnerability.
As for users running dangerous executables, I'm all in favor of having Internet software like Web browsers and email clients operate in a true "sandboxed" environment (say, as another user, maybe even chrooted), and being able to elevate their priveleges slightly when necessary (such as when trying to attach a file from the hard drive). Certain MTAs do this, too. Unfortunately, I don't have the skill to implement this properly at the moment.
alternative_order text/plain text/enriched text application/postscript image/*
auto_view text/html
(Note that the first bit is all one line)
What does this do? If the message has a plain text part and an HTML part, I see the plain text part. If it's just HTML, I see that (rendered right there, no extra work)./etc/mime-types is already set up quite well by Debian, so I didn't have to worry about that part at all (and GPG with Mutt is also set up for me).
You also get cool features like the ability to bind a shortcut to report email to Spamassassin as spam for your Bayes database. And I get to compose my email in Vim (OK, maybe most people will not want this, but you can use any editor). Mutt rocks.
Meat isn't essential so much as complete proteins. Some cultures have discovered that complete proteins can be formed in other ways, such as rice and soy (Asia), corn and black beans (native Americans), and even macaroni and cheese.
Personally, I eat seafood. Most seafood is caught in the wild, not raised/bred for food purposes, and that suits me better. There's also something about lesser intelligence (except for some mollusks, which I do still eat). I try to avoid seafood that is raised in a "bad" way; for example, current salmon farming practices are very harmful, but mussel farming practices are not.
That said, at least half of my protein comes from non-seafood sources (those mentioned above and others).
Savage, at least, is good for entertainment value during the 30 minute drive home, since my FM is broken and I can't be entertained by Loveline. The extent to which he's convinced himself that his extremist views are the absolute truth can be quite hilarious.
(The Savage Nation is carried by a local AM station which is mostly full of extreme right-wing political talk shows, with a few hardware/car/investing shows as well. It's the only thing I get in my car, but since I generally drive very short distances except for twice a week, and then only 30 minutes, I deal with it or listen to tapes.)
Of course, looking at my sig, you'll see I have absolutely no bias when it comes to radio programming. Too bad LP-10 FM has been held hostage (thanks to lies by NPR and others) so that WMBC has no chance of real FM broadcasting. With Powell in charge of the FCC instead of Kennard, I doubt there will be much effort put into LPFM. The recent deregulation makes it clear that Powell is in favor of big media consolidation instead of community programming. At least progress is being made on Internet broadcasting for non-profit entities now.
Slashdot Mirror
One theory expressed in the book was that when we are first starting to draw, say at around age 2, we form mental images as best we can of everyday objects, like trees and people. When we later attempt to draw trees and people, we don't actually try to draw what we see, but our initial (2-year-old) record of what a tree is supposed to look like. That's why drawing an upside-down picture without having seen it rightside-up works, because our brain can't get in the way.
Or you could have a distribution which has modular packages instead:
apt-get install mozilla-browser
I don't have to recompile PHP every time I want to use a different module; I just install whatever modules I want, whenever I want to use them.
That is the strength of Debian. It's not just apt-get; people who have ported apt to work under Red Hat are moving in the right direction, but that is not the whole problem. With Debian, thousands of packages are "official", and so are quite strictly designed so that all dependencies really, really work. The organization of packages is what really makes apt worthwhile.
Oh, you mean this software?
http://osx.freshmeat.net/
True, not all of the 28,888 projects on freshmeat run on Mac OS X. But the OS X-specific section continues to grow, and many *nix applications have been ported or simply work already.
In attempting to point out that the original poster didn't get it, the replies have proven that they don't. He was saying that the word "uneven" is unnecessary, because 11 chapters can't possibly be divided into 3 sections evenly. Omit needless words! That's why it was funny. Sheesh.
Do you "get it" now, or do we need to lock you in a room with RMS?
Indesign is hardly an "industry standard", as many publishing houses still won't deal with it. The real industry standard for publishing is, tragically, Quark XPress. If you are the type of person who thinks Windows has gone bad due to a lack of pressure to fix itself because of its monopoly position, Quark will make you feel better about your life (unless you have to use it). Even at version 5, we are told that we cannot open files directly from a fileserver; we are supposed to copy them to the local machine first, and copy them back when we are done, because Quark "was not designed to operate across a network." What year is this again? 1980? Maybe if your software DIDN'T require gobs of memory and CPU, didn't corrupt files all too frequently, and didn't crash randomly, I might put up with your backwards attitude. Ugh.
(oh, and really, XMMS is pretty much an exact clone of WinAMP).
To add to the other reply:
1. I play mostly RPGs, and I have found all I need from console systems. They are designed to play games, and they are better at it. When something along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics or Xenosaga comes out for Windows and not the PS2, then maybe I'll worry. I submit that the "average user" is likely to have a console game system, as keeping up with the hardware/software for PC games can be intimidating and costly.
2. You really picked a bad example for ripping CDs, since nothing under Windows matches the quality of cdparanoia (unless it's been ported), and there are about 8 billion CD ripping/burning/MP3&Ogg encoding programs on freshmeat. Personally, I use abcde; one command contacts CDDB (or a Free clone), rips, tags, and names all of the tracks for me. Very configurable, very easy.
As for packaging systems, when InstallShield can update 99% of the software on your system with two commands, then I'll be impressed. Under Windows, I'd need to keep track myself of when each application releases a new version, then download and install them separately, from different locations.
3. No, the Windows GUI is unfamiliar and uncomfortable to me, as I don't use it regularly. It's harder to get work done. They also change it with every release. Finally, "familiar" does not necessarily mean "easiest to use" or "best".
There ARE still things which require Windows, but they're likely to be large, specific things like AutoCAD.
I guess I never saw the need to directly connect to my bank with GNUcash, because I track every purchase I make as soon as I make it. I don't wait to update things from my bank; maybe I'm just obsessive. But really, I can't see saving a whole operating system just for THAT, since you can do it by exporting/importing files, which must take all of 5 minutes longer, so let's move on.
Never used Streets and Trips, just the free Mapquest online. Guess I can't comment, but does it run in WINE?
Assuming you could connect to your work VPN, several companies have solutions for connecting to Exchange servers. Ximian and Bynari come to mind. One wonders why your work is using a non-standard VPN instead of something like IPSEC, but I guess you probably don't have control over that. Are you completely certain that there's nothing to connect to it? A freshmeat search is sometimes enlightening.
For games, I decided to take the money I might have spent on Windows and associated software and buy a PS2. No crashes, hardware lasts for years without being "obsolete", and has more RPGs than I can reasonably play.
DVDs? I usually watch them on a DVD player, but I don't mind using DeCSS to watch them on my computer, as I don't consider any legislation against it to be constitutional. Maybe you don't feel the same way, but is your PC really your only DVD player? True, the fan noise from my PCs is less than the aquarium/central air noise downstairs, but I can't imagine that's true for most people (who don't have a 125 gallon saltwater tank directly behind their loveseat).
I use Linux for everything, and have for years. The one Windows-only program I wanted to run worked flawlessly with WINE, no setup required. Amusingly, there was a cautionary note that users of 95/98 might need to download some extra libraries.
That's very impressive. Most *nix books address the topic as if DNS == BIND. Personally, I prefer DJBDNS not only because it's more secure, but also because of the way it is configured (small, modular, partitioned) and, er, the way it is configured (configuration files). I also use daemontools to run liveice (when the program first came out, it refused to go into the background and would not stay up for more than several hours at a time).
While I was in elementary school, I knew someone that was on Ritalin for "hyperactivity." He was boring, didn't really seem interested in being friends with anyone, etc. Over the summer, his parents took him off of the medication (since he didn't have to concentrate on school), and we became good friends. Fortunately, he didn't go back on it (possibly because of this).
I have always had difficulty concentrating, and will frequently "zone out" even when listening to/watching/reading/etc. things that I find very interesting. My brain just likes to wander off in a different direction. I was prescribed some sort of medication in 8th grade, but it just made me sleepy, which certainly didn't help me pay attention, so I stopped. It doesn't stop me from understanding *nix [but I can't play guitar for hours on end].
Then again, you have to look at the individual situation. I have another friend who really does seem to need at least a little medication. Every time he goes off of it, his life gets derailed in some way. He eventually goes back on it, gets another job, starts doing pretty well, maybe tries college again, and then...
Basically, I recommend that you "correct" as little as possible. If it's not possible for you to function in society, you need help in some way, whether it be prescription medicine or something more natural. If you're just "eccentric", "hyper", etc., then I don't see that as bad. Maybe medication would let me sit and do something for hours, but I don't think the result would be as interesting.
The corn-based packing materials certainly seem to be edible. I didn't realize that a network switch I ordered had shipped with non-styrofoam "peanuts" until one of my cats pounced on one and ate it. I was concerned until I realized that they weren't styrofoam.
Many people believe that corn syrup is an inferior sweetener as far as flavor is concerned. It's cheaper, so most US soda companies have switched, but you can still get "the good stuff":
www.dublindrpepper.com
Safari uses khtml (the engine used by Konqueror), and IIRC Apple have made some contributions to it. I believe it doesn't quite support as much as Mozilla, but hopefully since it's an open source project, it will continue to get better, and more people will benefit than just Apple.
I agree, I see this as a very good thing for the WWW in general. If Microsoft's goal is really to control everything, I have absolutely no idea why they did this.
No, the DMCA allows reverse-engineering for the purpose of interoperability. I think it would be pretty easy to claim this for a file sharing protocol. After all, music/movies will be protected by their DRM separately.
I think it sounds interesting. Of course, I am biased, but I think a good way to get developer attention would be to submit this to freshmeat (if you haven't already).
Another interesting idea would be to expand this to work on a NAT gateway, dynamically adding iptables/pf/etc. rules for individual machines or entire subnets. Or maybe even go further and do traffic analysis at higher levels ("disallow all traffic of this type (Kazaa, etc.) from this subnet"). Of course, this is getting way ahead, and I also don't know if software to do any of this already exists (for *nix). I mean, I know such filters exists, but I don't know if dynamic configuration does. Again, bias (they employ me), but you may want to search freshmeat.
The other poster has a good point about traffic being denied while you're not there to observe it, although I wouldn't see that as necessarily a problem (the idea of this application is that you don't want surprise traffic getting through). If the daemon has good logging, and the config file can be edited, then you could take care of this remotely if it became a problem in a specific case.
Some people have been questioning the difference between gaining skill in a video game, and being somewhat obsessive about gardening, or some sport. I realized it the other day, and that's when I stopped playing PSO.
Barring some tragic accident, the instruments that I play, the cooking skills that I learn, and the martial arts that I practice will continue. They have been around for hundreds of years (at least). These skills will also continue to be a part of me for the rest of my life, assuming I keep up with them a little, and again, barring a serious accident.
Games like PSO and UO are different. These games will be around for a few years at most. Since the Dreamcast version of PSO is still limping along, we could maybe even call it 5 years. Yes, some of the skills you get in playing one game transfer to another, but you still have to start out at level 1 with nothing. Your "skills" and "accomplishments" are relevant only as long as the whims of (largely) a bunch of schoolchildren deem them to be so.
Don't misunderstand. I love to play video games...too much. I love a good story, and view a video game as a valid means of getting that story to me, just as much as a good book. But I realized that PSO was not like that; it was breaking my "rules", my reason for playing a game. I had seen all of the plot long ago (save for small updates made only very rarely). It was just repetition now, similar to practicing martial arts (outside of class), but it would all be gone in a few years.
So rather than spend 1600 hours getting to level 200 (actual numbers for one guy on a message board I used to moderate), I stopped. It's easier since the GameCube is in my brother's room (he bought it). I told him to use my characters as he sees fit. I was tired of PSO invading all of my thoughts, keeping me from sleep, and generally making me a less interesting person by absorbing my life.
For those who are deep into such territory, try taking a week off. Totally disconnect; no message boards, no talking about it, nothing. And don't just watch TV instead. Try to remember other things that (used to?) interest you. You might find it's something like waking up.
That program is probably xrits. It locks your screen every [configurable interval] to remind you to take a short break, and locks your screen for a longer period every [other configurable interval] to take a longer break. While your screen is locked, it displays hands doing stretching exercises.
:). But some people I know swear by it.
I don't need xwrits; I have ADHD to remind me to take breaks instead
Not only is this the correct hand position for typing, as others have noted, but also the correct hand position for playing piano.
I suspect that involving my hands/wrists in a range of activities (typing, piano, guitar, cooking, and martial arts) and using correct posture for all of them helps significantly.
I'm 25, and I stopped using cursive back in high school. Printing is so much neater, and it can be just as personalized as cursive.
Obviously, some sort of writing-by-hand is still a necessary skill. If you're trying to take notes in class or a presentation which include diagrams, tables, complex equations, etc., I haven't found a computer interface that can match a pen and paper for speed and expressiveness. And post-it notes will always be around (how many times have you seen one stuck to a computer screen?). The teacher's point about handwritten letters being much more meaningful is a good one.
But bad handwriting isn't some new problem that has been introduced by widespread computer use. Worsened, perhaps, but I have ancient joke collection books that have the one about a doctor's prescription note being used for its intended purpose, then as a train pass for a year, and finally played on the violin.
There are plenty of people that just weren't going to have good handwriting anyway, and then there are people like my friend's father, who labels floppies using careful Medieval calligraphy (inkwell and all, IIRC). It will continue to be like that. The sort of people who send handwritten letters because they mean more will continue to do so.
Writing should and doubtless will still be taught, but I don't think it's a problem if it's slightly de-emphasized in favor of keyboarding skills, which are more relevant. When I was in elementary school, no one was typing their papers, but now almost everyone is (in this part of the U.S., anyway). The bulk of communications will probably be done via a keyboard (or some newer device) rather than handwriting. And not without reason; some of the kids' quotes in that article are dead on. Rough drafts in pencil (and rewriting twice in ink) royally sucked.
I've found that most people these days are used to a Webmail-ish interface, as they have their personal email account with Hotmail or Yahoo!. Something like Squirrelmail or IMP is very easy for them to use; I don't have to tell them anything.
Also, as others have pointed out in the past, Microsoft changes the way that Windows, Office, etc. work with each revision, so you have to retrain anyway. Plus, not everyone would be migrating from Windows.
Hmm, I'm exactly 25. Does that mean I can ignore Anonymous Cowards and continue to be a moderate?
But that is OK, because "passwd" is a very small program, and if it hasn't been thoroughly audited by now, I'd be really surprised.
Software does this all the time; one of the MTAs (qmail?) has small, separate parts of itself that are run as root because they have to be. And, as Stuart Smalley said, that's OK. It's OK because it's just a little, limited piece that can be easily examined, and because all sorts of security experts are free to look at it.
I feel that this should be taken even further; there should be a specialized, unpriveleged user account for your email program. Say my username is "bob", then maybe there would be "bob-email", "bob-browser", etc.. Bob's email client will run, possibly in a chroot jail, as bob-email. It would have small modules that elevated themselves to "bob" priveleges in order to do things like attach files from Bob's home directory. Actually RUNNING attachments would take place as "bob-email", and couldn't hurt Bob's (or anyone else's) files.
Red Hat (which I guess is what you're using, since you mentioned up2date) has to provide updates for many more applications than Microsoft. Debian has to provide updates for even more. By all rights, Debian, who officially include the largest number of programs ("contrib" ran away with the spoon) should have the most security advisories BY FAR. Why don't they?
I don't want to hear any BS about popularity, either. Yes, that does have something to do with it, but I see posts on BUGTRAQ every day about some CMS I've never heard of before. Besides, if more people are using Microsoft's products, they should have a greater degree of responsibility. Last I heard, at least part of the U.S. government (FTC?) agrees with me, as they are considering bringing charges against Microsoft for that big Passport vulnerability.
As for users running dangerous executables, I'm all in favor of having Internet software like Web browsers and email clients operate in a true "sandboxed" environment (say, as another user, maybe even chrooted), and being able to elevate their priveleges slightly when necessary (such as when trying to attach a file from the hard drive). Certain MTAs do this, too. Unfortunately, I don't have the skill to implement this properly at the moment.
alternative_order text/plain text/enriched text application/postscript image/*
/etc/mime-types is already set up quite well by Debian, so I didn't have to worry about that part at all (and GPG with Mutt is also set up for me).
auto_view text/html
(Note that the first bit is all one line)
What does this do? If the message has a plain text part and an HTML part, I see the plain text part. If it's just HTML, I see that (rendered right there, no extra work).
You also get cool features like the ability to bind a shortcut to report email to Spamassassin as spam for your Bayes database. And I get to compose my email in Vim (OK, maybe most people will not want this, but you can use any editor). Mutt rocks.
Meat isn't essential so much as complete proteins. Some cultures have discovered that complete proteins can be formed in other ways, such as rice and soy (Asia), corn and black beans (native Americans), and even macaroni and cheese.
Personally, I eat seafood. Most seafood is caught in the wild, not raised/bred for food purposes, and that suits me better. There's also something about lesser intelligence (except for some mollusks, which I do still eat). I try to avoid seafood that is raised in a "bad" way; for example, current salmon farming practices are very harmful, but mussel farming practices are not.
That said, at least half of my protein comes from non-seafood sources (those mentioned above and others).
You've got to be kidding.
Savage, at least, is good for entertainment value during the 30 minute drive home, since my FM is broken and I can't be entertained by Loveline. The extent to which he's convinced himself that his extremist views are the absolute truth can be quite hilarious.
(The Savage Nation is carried by a local AM station which is mostly full of extreme right-wing political talk shows, with a few hardware/car/investing shows as well. It's the only thing I get in my car, but since I generally drive very short distances except for twice a week, and then only 30 minutes, I deal with it or listen to tapes.)
Of course, looking at my sig, you'll see I have absolutely no bias when it comes to radio programming. Too bad LP-10 FM has been held hostage (thanks to lies by NPR and others) so that WMBC has no chance of real FM broadcasting. With Powell in charge of the FCC instead of Kennard, I doubt there will be much effort put into LPFM. The recent deregulation makes it clear that Powell is in favor of big media consolidation instead of community programming. At least progress is being made on Internet broadcasting for non-profit entities now.