Katz didn't watch "Touched by an Angel" Sunday night. In this episode, Evil uses the internet to almost destroy a family. Dad gets pornspammed and clicks on it. He gets fired for surfing porn on the job. The images he sees stay in his mind and ruin his marriage. Meanwhile, his daughter has a penpal. She goes to meet him and ends up getting kidnapped by a pedophile!!! Good thing the Angels were there to save the day.
"It'll never happen (at least, not until Linux has much more marketshare than it does now.) Even if every single Linux gamer bought the game, it still wouldn't beat the sales of even a mediocre-selling game for both Linux and Windows."
Somebody should. Somebody has to be the pioneer to show the way. You just gotta lose the blockbuster mentality. You can make pretty good money with mediocre sales. Bungie built a company on the sales of 1% of 10 million users. it ain't so bad. joel
"Better yet, there needs to be an episode where the x-files explores the possibility that all this conspiracy mongering and ET hysteria is getting in the way of the plain, simple facts"
They already did that. I think it was the beginning of season 4 when Mulder was going around to the UFO conventions telling people that the ET hysteria was generated by the government in order to hide the fact that the THEY were doing medical experiments on their own citizens. He had to be re-convinced that aliens exist.
"Secondly, Corporations Do not "Control" the government. Corporations Control the TV-Brainwashed Public. But the public Controls the government. And by controling the public Corporations get what they want."
Which leads to fear which leads to anger which leads to hate which leads to suffering....
But if Corporations control TV, don't they control the X-files? That's why you'll never find a corporate conspiracy on tv. It's not part of the regular brainwashing programming.
"No, it is the only true insight we have to the secret workings of the American government and the shadey links between the CIA, FBI and the aliens who have been visiting Earth over the last few thousand years."
Awww, c'mon! Government conspiracies are so '90s. Get with the times!
We all know that it's the corporations that are behind everything.
Maybe there needs to be an outfit that makes Linux-only games. Mac has/had Mac-centric game developers like Bungie and Ambrosia. Maybe a Linux-centric group could put out some kick-ass shit so they can have their big-breasted representative sign autographs at conferences.
"Well, you see, out in the big wide world there are these things called jobs, and they involve a wide variety of tasks, many of which don't involve computers. I know it's hard to grasp when you're a 16 year old computer geek with no social life, but it's true."
I don't know where you've been, in the last 10 years, and more so in the future, all jobs will in some way involve computers.
There will be no such thing as a computer-related job. All jobs will be computer-related.
ps-And if it ain't computer-related, geeks like us will find a way to make it so. We'll replace any menial tasks with robots and add to the growing number of disgruntled proletariat.
"A GUI has to be customisable to fit a persons needs. Good: KDE. Bad: MacOS. I want to be able to choose where everything is shown, in what manner, how windows overlap, where my taskbar is, what's on the start menu, how my file manager works."
The problem is that if you get too used to doing it your way, you won't be able to use a different computer. You'll have to redesign your interface every time you get a new computer.
Neither will you be able to help anybody else. They won't be using the same interface as you.
Too much choice and the user can change everything in the UI. That blows consistancy out the window.
So, when the user calls you up and asks you "How do I do...?", what are you going to say? The user has already remapped the entire keyboard to his own whims.
" A UI should be consistent. A program's UI should not just be internally consistent ( ie menus/mouse behaviour/tab behaviour etc, should be consistent in differnet views of the same program ) but should be consistent with other programs on the same OS. "
Amen to that! All commands should have keyboard shortcuts. Those shortcuts should be the same for all applications. Copy, cut, and paste should always be the same keys. Same for open and save and exit. None of this shift-delete when you mean ctrl-x.
"Why the hell are you trying to put a database on a PDA?"
Databases are great in a pda. Isn't that basically what the addressbook and calendar are? Portable organized information. They're especially great for data collection. I love it.
"claiming that those new-fangled 'automobiles' will never replace the good old horse & buggy...
Of course, printed books *DO* have their charm, but going digital offers so much more - one advantage is that machine readable data is SEARCHABLE, and I love being able to have a computer slog thru tons of data looking for what I want to find. He should be thinking "books on demand". "
Which is funny because there are still horses and buggies and thusly there are still buggy whip manufacturers.
"and how many geeks have been told that reading itself is isolating, lonely, and arrogant? "
Well, it's true. Putting your head in a book can be a form of escapism. It's sometimes good to maybe take a break from reading all the time and try to notice the details of the world around you.
I do it from time to time. It's weird how the reading habit takes a hold of you. During my reading breaks, my eyes will automatically be drawn to any and all objects that have words on them: street signs, advertisements, t-shirts.
There's a whole lot of beauty and ugliness out in the world that you won't notice when your eyeballs are always locked on text.
But, what you see is yours and yours alone and you won't find any of it in a book, newspaper, or webpage. It feels good to take a break from feeding your head on other people's thoughts. I liken it to grapefruit juice. The taste is really bitter and yet refreshing.
Real changes to education...A's for everyone.
on
Laptops In Education
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· Score: 1
I think maybe that portable computers raise the possibility of real changes to the education system. It makes it possible for teachers to taylor curricula to each student in the same way that the net is mass-customized. Maybe all students can get A's if allowed to go at their own pace. Portable computers allow students to take lessons anywhere. They aren't limited to the 45 minutes that they get in class.
I set up a mailandnews account that I never sent the address of to anyone. I never got one piece of spam that I didn't specifically ask for.
If you never give your address out, then what good is it? If you are a sarariman and use your email as a method of contact, naturally the address miners are going to find it and spam you. It is inevitable.
I had a waveamerica.com address I used as a spam receptacle, but I can no longer access it for some reason.
"Last time I checked, US citizens (other than convicts) can quit any time they like. It's called emigration. Of course, if you quit then you usually have to vacate the premises, since it's not your country any more.
Or are you saying you want to quit the government but still get all the benefits of living here? You can do that too, just be a survivalist fuckwad and move to Montana."
Didn't the Mormans try this a couple centuries ago? They tried to escape religious persecution by moving out of the USA. But the USA caught up with them eventually and they had to change their religion. So much for the 1st Amendment.
Slashdot Mirror
Katz didn't watch "Touched by an Angel" Sunday night. In this episode, Evil uses the internet to almost destroy a family. Dad gets pornspammed and clicks on it. He gets fired for surfing porn on the job. The images he sees stay in his mind and ruin his marriage. Meanwhile, his daughter has a penpal. She goes to meet him and ends up getting kidnapped by a pedophile!!! Good thing the Angels were there to save the day.
"The PowerPC will still make a good "beginner's" pc, but I honestly can't imagine anyone who has been computing for more than three years using one."
I manage an small NT network(dozen workstations & 3 printers) at a medium-sized company.
At home, I have an iMac and powerbook sharing a cable modem with a cute 5 port hub. I just put LinuxPPC on the iMac. Joy!
I do so because over the years I have learned to really hate NT and most Microsoft products. And I now resent having to work with it.
Having all Mac at home reminds me how fun it is to use computers and deters me from ever having to take work home.
"It'll never happen (at least, not until Linux has much more marketshare than it does now.) Even if every single Linux gamer bought the game, it still wouldn't beat the sales of even a mediocre-selling game for both Linux and Windows."
Somebody should. Somebody has to be the pioneer to show the way. You just gotta lose the blockbuster mentality. You can make pretty good money with mediocre sales. Bungie built a company on the sales of 1% of 10 million users. it ain't so bad. joel
"Better yet, there needs to be an episode where the x-files explores the possibility that all this conspiracy mongering and ET hysteria is getting in the way of the plain, simple facts"
They already did that. I think it was the beginning of season 4 when Mulder was going around to the UFO conventions telling people that the ET hysteria was generated by the government in order to hide the fact that the THEY were doing medical experiments on their own citizens. He had to be re-convinced that aliens exist.
It's not going to end,it's just the beginning. More and more people are going to end up in jail for copyright infringment.
"Secondly, Corporations Do not "Control" the government. Corporations Control the TV-Brainwashed Public. But the public Controls the government. And by controling the public Corporations get what they want."
Which leads to fear which leads to anger which leads to hate which leads to suffering....
But if Corporations control TV, don't they control the X-files? That's why you'll never find a corporate conspiracy on tv. It's not part of the regular brainwashing programming.
"No, it is the only true insight we have to the secret workings of the American government and the shadey links between the CIA, FBI and the aliens who have been visiting Earth over the last few thousand years."
Awww, c'mon! Government conspiracies are so '90s. Get with the times!
We all know that it's the corporations that are behind everything.
Maybe there needs to be an outfit that makes Linux-only games. Mac has/had Mac-centric game developers like Bungie and Ambrosia. Maybe a Linux-centric group could put out some kick-ass shit so they can have their big-breasted representative sign autographs at conferences.
Naw, its so my AIBO can find his way home. joel
AOL is in VA. Would that mean that Netscape is UCITA software?
"live with it or change it. You Slashheads freak out when someone violates the GPL, but you will gladly flaunt this law. A bunch of phonies."
If the law is unjust, the right thing to do is break the law.
"Well, you see, out in the big wide world there are these things called jobs, and they involve a wide variety of tasks, many of which don't involve computers. I know it's hard to grasp when you're a 16 year old computer geek with no social life, but it's true."
I don't know where you've been, in the last 10 years, and more so in the future, all jobs will in some way involve computers.
There will be no such thing as a computer-related job. All jobs will be computer-related.
ps-And if it ain't computer-related, geeks like us will find a way to make it so. We'll replace any menial tasks with robots and add to the growing number of disgruntled proletariat.
"A GUI has to be customisable to fit a persons needs. Good: KDE. Bad: MacOS. I want to be able to choose where everything is shown, in what manner, how windows overlap, where my taskbar is, what's on the start menu, how my file manager works."
The problem is that if you get too used to doing it your way, you won't be able to use a different computer. You'll have to redesign your interface every time you get a new computer.
Neither will you be able to help anybody else. They won't be using the same interface as you.
Too much choice and the user can change everything in the UI. That blows consistancy out the window.
...?", what are you going to say? The user has already remapped the entire keyboard to his own whims.
So, when the user calls you up and asks you "How do I do
Perhaps sign language like in Johnny Memnonic?
" A UI should be consistent. A program's UI should not just be internally consistent ( ie menus/mouse behaviour/tab behaviour etc, should be consistent in differnet views of the same program ) but should be consistent with other programs on the same OS. "
Amen to that! All commands should have keyboard shortcuts. Those shortcuts should be the same for all applications. Copy, cut, and paste should always be the same keys. Same for open and save and exit. None of this shift-delete when you mean ctrl-x.
"Why the hell are you trying to put a database on a PDA?"
Databases are great in a pda. Isn't that basically what the addressbook and calendar are? Portable organized information. They're especially great for data collection. I love it.
"claiming that those new-fangled 'automobiles' will never replace the good old horse & buggy...
Of course, printed books *DO* have their charm, but going digital offers so much more - one advantage is that machine readable data is SEARCHABLE, and I love being able to have a computer slog thru tons of data looking for what I want to find. He should be thinking "books on demand". "
Which is funny because there are still horses and buggies and thusly there are still buggy whip manufacturers.
"and how many geeks have been told that reading itself is isolating, lonely, and arrogant? "
Well, it's true. Putting your head in a book can be a form of escapism. It's sometimes good to maybe take a break from reading all the time and try to notice the details of the world around you.
I do it from time to time. It's weird how the reading habit takes a hold of you. During my reading breaks, my eyes will automatically be drawn to any and all objects that have words on them: street signs, advertisements, t-shirts.
There's a whole lot of beauty and ugliness out in the world that you won't notice when your eyeballs are always locked on text.
But, what you see is yours and yours alone and you won't find any of it in a book, newspaper, or webpage. It feels good to take a break from feeding your head on other people's thoughts. I liken it to grapefruit juice. The taste is really bitter and yet refreshing.
So, Jenni is really a proto-Angie Mitchell.
Yes.
Unreal Tournament for PSX2
I just hope I can use my mouse.
I think maybe that portable computers raise the possibility of real changes to the education system. It makes it possible for teachers to taylor curricula to each student in the same way that the net is mass-customized. Maybe all students can get A's if allowed to go at their own pace. Portable computers allow students to take lessons anywhere. They aren't limited to the 45 minutes that they get in class.
I don't know if this is on topic. Here's the Apple Recycles webpage.
These are their corporate initiatives.
I set up a mailandnews account that I never sent the address of to anyone. I never got one piece of spam that I didn't specifically ask for.
If you never give your address out, then what good is it? If you are a sarariman and use your email as a method of contact, naturally the address miners are going to find it and spam you. It is inevitable.
I had a waveamerica.com address I used as a spam receptacle, but I can no longer access it for some reason.
"Last time I checked, US citizens (other than convicts) can quit any time they like. It's called emigration. Of course, if you quit then you usually have to vacate the premises, since it's not your country any more.
Or are you saying you want to quit the government but still get all the benefits of living here? You can do that too, just be a survivalist fuckwad and move to Montana."
Didn't the Mormans try this a couple centuries ago? They tried to escape religious persecution by moving out of the USA. But the USA caught up with them eventually and they had to change their religion. So much for the 1st Amendment.