If this is the society we are helping to build, then perhaps we shouldn't be helping at all.
I was working in Afghanistan last year and it's a very complicated situation. The troops are keeping total talibanization at bay - which is good for a lot of people there, particularly women. And that's an important issue on its own. There is a limit, however, on what sort of values can be pushed on the Afghan government and courts and rural people, and how fast. I don't think this second issue invalidates the the first.
But it's clearly a losing battle - on both fronts. As this case shows, the taliban still has control over many people's minds and it's beginning to look like by the time the Taliban finally regains control of Afghanistan there will be little noticeable difference in most parts of the country.
The.org TLD is an international domain - it doesn't relate to any country. If the domain name was slashdot.org.us then your argument would be reasonable - as it is, it's not. I own several.com domains, but i've never set foot in the US, the domains aren't hosted on servers in the US and i have no connection with the US at all.
Slashdot, as far as i'm aware, makes no claim to being a US-specific site. It certainly publishes lots of material from all over the world - including lots of countries with presidents!
It sounds like you're taking yourself more seriously than i am!
Maybe the environmental issue isn't important to her. Maybe she's done her sums and worked out that using electricity rather than diesel will save enough money in the long run to make the conversion pay.
A truck can cost a phenomenal amount to run, so i'd imagine any savings on fuel costs would add up very quickly.
[......] OLPC has no clue how to distribute laptops. Pretty much they are dropped off by the pallet full with a "here you go". They don't know where they are going. When a country buys them that is fine. The ones that are "donated"...that is another story. Do they end up on ebay or as netbooks for the warehouse persons family? Or do they actually get out to the villiages? There are not really going to be any sort of decent record keeping or accounting to tell us.
The kids and teachers are not properly trained. The goals of the program are scattered and unfocused.[......]
With a few small changes, that could be applied to pretty much every aspect of the work of "Development Inc"! It's all like that, all over the world. Billions of dollars are wasted every year on this sort of nonsense.
The pay can be good for those of us who get sucked into working in it though!;-)
That's true, to a certain extent. But OLPCs running Linux would achieve the same end for less money. And chances are that Windows won't run as well as the version of Linux that this machine was designed to run.
And can poor people really afford to be sucked into the expensive world of Microsoft?
I don't care if they take over the world, just so long as i don't have to scroll through years of microfilmed newspapers ever again - it makes me feel seasick!
These ISPs are SERIOUSLY overselling their network capacity to create an artificial scarcity. I would not be surprised if the number was upwards of 100 (or even 1000) (Customers):1 Unit of Bandwidth. I suspect as much as 10 years ago that the number might have been something more sane like 10 (Customer):1 Unit of Bandwidth.
As far as i remember, you're about right - i think contention ratio was roughly around 10:1 10 years ago. But things were considerably simpler then - it was almost entirely dialup (in the countries i was in, anyway). With dialup you have a fixed number of dialin lines and when they're all busy other users just get the engaged tone. It's much more complicated using shared virtual networks efficiently.
But broadband internet access is ridiculously cheap, really - considering what you get for it. Unfortunately, the pace is set by the cheap and nasty ISPs, who charge low fees and provide crap service. The vast majority of customers wouldn't know a good ISP from a crap one, so the better ISPs have no choice but to compete at the lowest level.
In general, though, there's better services available - but you have to pay for them.
If you email or write to them about this matter, make sure you head your email or letter with "Without Prejudice". That indicates that anything you say in the email is just "chat" and should not be taken to be any form of offer, admission of liability, or agreement with anything they may have said previously, etc. It can't be used as evidence in a court hearing where they're claiming you've admitted or agreed to something that you never intended to.
"Without prejudice" is the correct wording within the UK and Australian legal systems, you may need to word it differently for other jurisdictions - i don't know. It's also just possible there's no such concept in some legal systems.
Really, it's the law that's ruined it all. Legal bickering based on imprecise wording has effectively created an entire industry of lawyers.
Most laws have to be imprecise to a certain extent, because it's impossible to anticipate every possible event that could happen that should be covered by it. If laws were precised there'd have to be vast amounts more of them and, of course, vast amounts more people making them - which is obviously not a good thing.
A lot of the problems, though, come from poor drafting. The concepts are often alright, but they're not written down properly.
Only in the mainstream mediums, although sometimes they get it wrong and have to post a correction in the erratums column.
Language evolves constantly and the word "media" is no longer just the plural of the Latin word "medium". In fact the word "medium" is no longer the same as the Latin word, either. "Media" is an English language word in its own right - and is arguably quite capable of having a plural ending in an "s". The word "medium", of course, is indisputably capable of being pluralised with an "s".
And any self-respecting English language publication that's not written by dead Romans or dinosaurs would call the column "corrections"!
I like the way Gimp's UI works. I reckon it shits all over Photoshop - although i have to admit i haven't used that for about 10 years, so i'm probably talking out of my arse!
The only thing that really matters is what you'll think about it when you're on your deathbed, about to die. Will you look back and think "i'm glad i did that with those years"? Or will you think "what a waste"?
If you've got a compelling reason to keep doing something you're not happy about, then you just have to handle it. If not, then give it the boot and do something you will be happy about.
Life's far too short to waste it doing a crap job that makes you miserable.
And as he's standing there watching her and not telling her she's doing it wrong, it would be reasonable to assume that she's doing it right, but for some reason it's just not working. And if she was nervous (young and first day in the job) she probably wasn't thinking clearly enough to work it out herself.
Hilarious!
(Actually, being prepared to admit to it is even more hilarious!)
Slashdot Mirror
I was working in Afghanistan last year and it's a very complicated situation. The troops are keeping total talibanization at bay - which is good for a lot of people there, particularly women. And that's an important issue on its own. There is a limit, however, on what sort of values can be pushed on the Afghan government and courts and rural people, and how fast. I don't think this second issue invalidates the the first.
But it's clearly a losing battle - on both fronts. As this case shows, the taliban still has control over many people's minds and it's beginning to look like by the time the Taliban finally regains control of Afghanistan there will be little noticeable difference in most parts of the country.
The .org TLD is an international domain - it doesn't relate to any country. If the domain name was slashdot.org.us then your argument would be reasonable - as it is, it's not. I own several .com domains, but i've never set foot in the US, the domains aren't hosted on servers in the US and i have no connection with the US at all.
Slashdot, as far as i'm aware, makes no claim to being a US-specific site. It certainly publishes lots of material from all over the world - including lots of countries with presidents!
It sounds like you're taking yourself more seriously than i am!
The world's full of presidents. And lots of /. readers aren't in the US, believe it or not. So can i suggest an improved title for this post?
How about
"US President Signs Law Creating Copyright Czar"
Strewth! A politician with a brain? Somebody vote for him, please!
Maybe the environmental issue isn't important to her. Maybe she's done her sums and worked out that using electricity rather than diesel will save enough money in the long run to make the conversion pay.
A truck can cost a phenomenal amount to run, so i'd imagine any savings on fuel costs would add up very quickly.
Strewth! It's a long time since i saw one of those. I wonder if there's people around here who've never seen one...
People get paid to work that out???
With a few small changes, that could be applied to pretty much every aspect of the work of "Development Inc"! It's all like that, all over the world. Billions of dollars are wasted every year on this sort of nonsense.
The pay can be good for those of us who get sucked into working in it though! ;-)
That's true, to a certain extent. But OLPCs running Linux would achieve the same end for less money. And chances are that Windows won't run as well as the version of Linux that this machine was designed to run.
And can poor people really afford to be sucked into the expensive world of Microsoft?
Is this Microsoft's shining path into South America?
I don't care if they take over the world, just so long as i don't have to scroll through years of microfilmed newspapers ever again - it makes me feel seasick!
Uncloneable today - cloned tomorrow...
What? Are you saying you do do that still? Not for anything other than testing SMTP servers etc, i hope!
As far as i remember, you're about right - i think contention ratio was roughly around 10:1 10 years ago. But things were considerably simpler then - it was almost entirely dialup (in the countries i was in, anyway). With dialup you have a fixed number of dialin lines and when they're all busy other users just get the engaged tone. It's much more complicated using shared virtual networks efficiently.
But broadband internet access is ridiculously cheap, really - considering what you get for it. Unfortunately, the pace is set by the cheap and nasty ISPs, who charge low fees and provide crap service. The vast majority of customers wouldn't know a good ISP from a crap one, so the better ISPs have no choice but to compete at the lowest level.
In general, though, there's better services available - but you have to pay for them.
If you email or write to them about this matter, make sure you head your email or letter with "Without Prejudice". That indicates that anything you say in the email is just "chat" and should not be taken to be any form of offer, admission of liability, or agreement with anything they may have said previously, etc. It can't be used as evidence in a court hearing where they're claiming you've admitted or agreed to something that you never intended to.
"Without prejudice" is the correct wording within the UK and Australian legal systems, you may need to word it differently for other jurisdictions - i don't know. It's also just possible there's no such concept in some legal systems.
Most laws have to be imprecise to a certain extent, because it's impossible to anticipate every possible event that could happen that should be covered by it. If laws were precised there'd have to be vast amounts more of them and, of course, vast amounts more people making them - which is obviously not a good thing.
A lot of the problems, though, come from poor drafting. The concepts are often alright, but they're not written down properly.
Catholic dinosaurs???
Language evolves constantly and the word "media" is no longer just the plural of the Latin word "medium". In fact the word "medium" is no longer the same as the Latin word, either. "Media" is an English language word in its own right - and is arguably quite capable of having a plural ending in an "s". The word "medium", of course, is indisputably capable of being pluralised with an "s".
And any self-respecting English language publication that's not written by dead Romans or dinosaurs would call the column "corrections"!
The basics haven't changed much in the 30 years since i did my first programming course (as part of maths at tech college).
The hardware's changed a lot - and the languages have evolved a bit. But the fundamentals of understanding the subject are still the same.
Only in Latin! In English, the plural is "s".
I like the way Gimp's UI works. I reckon it shits all over Photoshop - although i have to admit i haven't used that for about 10 years, so i'm probably talking out of my arse!
You mean glolfgts.conf, surely?
The only thing that really matters is what you'll think about it when you're on your deathbed, about to die. Will you look back and think "i'm glad i did that with those years"? Or will you think "what a waste"?
If you've got a compelling reason to keep doing something you're not happy about, then you just have to handle it. If not, then give it the boot and do something you will be happy about.
Life's far too short to waste it doing a crap job that makes you miserable.
and didn't correct her 6 times.
And as he's standing there watching her and not telling her she's doing it wrong, it would be reasonable to assume that she's doing it right, but for some reason it's just not working. And if she was nervous (young and first day in the job) she probably wasn't thinking clearly enough to work it out herself.
Hilarious!
(Actually, being prepared to admit to it is even more hilarious!)
That poor customer never got his sunday just so you could watch the trainee fail six times? Six? Why?
To prove his superiority over her, obviously.
Bizarre!