I mean, there's a whooole lot of good sci-fi and fantasy worth a first read as a pre-teen and a later revisiting. Ray Bradbury, Ben Bova, Spider Robinson (not really hard scifi, but a good read), Alfred Bester (who got a Babylon 5 character named after him)...
Bonus with a lot of the classic sci-fi is that it deals with social and political issues in a subtle but engaging way. These authors and the ones mentioned in my earlier list deal with immigration/genocide, resource scarcity, government censorship and oppression, police and nanny states, the importance of resistance, and the value of creativity.
The Foundation Trilogy is less dry than you might recall. You could always start with the detective-esque robot noir prequel series?
Arthur C Clarke is a great path into scifi; I also fondly recall Ann McCaffrey's dragonriders series as scifi/fantasy crossover (and fantasy in general isn't a bad thing - Tolkien, for example).
The Dune series is good for a first reading around then.
Yeah AVG8 really torqued me; the whole "pay us money or spend half an hour hunting and jumping through loops to find the free version" really did not put me in my best of moods. There's a trick further down to getting rid of the alert problem.
what are other free AV systems (other than Clam)?
P.S. Yes, I'm moving to a Linux and Mac only household, but until I can afford a system powerful enough to do decent virtualization I'll be keeping my XP box alive. Telling me to dump microsoft is preaching to the choir here.
We should start a social networking site that is tragically and intentionally UNhip, outdated, and technologically in the dark ages, and is rude, and full of google ads. It'd become an overnight antihero sensation.
You're probably the type who randomly steals songs by listening to them on the radio, and steals TV from the airwaves. Hell, you probably even steal light from the SUN. It's unrepentant a-holes like you who are ruining it for the honest, hardworking people at RIAA/MPAA and the like. If I set up a sprinkler system and it is watering your yard, you damned well better come over, knock on my door and ask permission for your plants to thrive off of my watering. I would absolutely be in my right to rip them up for stealing my water.
This seems entirely clear and cut-and-dry to me, I don't understand why you people don't get it that stealing is stealing, even if you're not stealing anything!/sarcasm
A lot of this though is in interpretation and role-playing. Are you the (l)Awful good paladin forcing your religious views on the party, making them do things behind your back? Or a monk-style lawful good who dedicates their life to their personal tenets, but isn't hurt/shamed/goes-running-to-the-constable if you don't follow those?
chaotic vs neutral evil is similarly one of style. Are you a fsking nuts psycho killer doing horrible demented things, or a detached, but pure-evil SOB?
It all depends on the local gaming rules and how you're playing the part. I always played chaotic good myself;)
It's perfect for the user who doesn't know anything 'cause they'll never even know what they're missing
As an Ubuntu user; I find that vaguely insulting. Linux in general is missing an easy entry into its world for outsiders. Ubuntu helps with this by bring friendly on the outside; having good support forums and services, but being a full distro under the hood.
True, but you have to go pretty damned far south to escape Texas/and/ fire ants. There are actually even parts of far-north texas were they haven't been able to spread very well due to cold winter temperatures; though with slowly warming winters, the seems to be changing.
Uh... send them to OLPC? They have their own laptop hardware that they're promoting, now with Windows installed -- they're not refurbing old laptops. For that, you might look at http://www.worldcomputerexchange.org/donate_equipment
Oh I wouldn't worry about software upgrades -- it's running XP, which MS will EOL as soon as they can, so you'll have millions of unsupported Windows boxes without security updates.
Not that I disagree with you, actually -- I think free and open software are the best paths for education as well as for developing countries for a multitude of reasons, but:
--neither open, free, or closed software has had any "success" in education; and your phrasing "...not the only place non free software has bombed in education" would seem to indicate that F/LOSS somehow solves that problem; it doesn't, it's just a potentially better tool to do so.
--All the "best theories" in what works in development are hogwash. We've been trying prescriptive, top-down, "do this because it's what's best for you" development for 50 years now, often trying the same failed solutions over and over again -- that's not scientific, ethical, or even sane. Even though we may be convinced that free and open software will be the key to their development, allow them to "leapfrog" or some other miracle, our role should be promoting and enabling it, not forcing it down their throats.
Naturally we have to balance that with the fact that MS/is/ forcing it down their throats in many subtle and less-subtle ways, so there's some need to combat that, but being equally fanatical's not going to cut it.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, Windows could not find drivers for the following items:
*Ethernet
*Modem
Would you like to connect to the Internet to download drivers? ...I HATE that message.
Admittedly, that places US policy as the problem...
I'd post a witty, biting remark about US policies, but there's that whole warrantless wiretapping thing, and I don't want to up my profile.
Now there's a merger I can agree with.
Fortunately for us, that patent expired in 1996.
I think you might have actually filled in 3. there. You broke Step Three Jokes!
I mean, there's a whooole lot of good sci-fi and fantasy worth a first read as a pre-teen and a later revisiting. Ray Bradbury, Ben Bova, Spider Robinson (not really hard scifi, but a good read), Alfred Bester (who got a Babylon 5 character named after him)...
Bonus with a lot of the classic sci-fi is that it deals with social and political issues in a subtle but engaging way. These authors and the ones mentioned in my earlier list deal with immigration/genocide, resource scarcity, government censorship and oppression, police and nanny states, the importance of resistance, and the value of creativity.
Good things to instill in a teen :)
The Foundation Trilogy is less dry than you might recall. You could always start with the detective-esque robot noir prequel series?
Arthur C Clarke is a great path into scifi; I also fondly recall Ann McCaffrey's dragonriders series as scifi/fantasy crossover (and fantasy in general isn't a bad thing - Tolkien, for example).
The Dune series is good for a first reading around then.
Ender's Game goes without saying I'd hope?
Yeah AVG8 really torqued me; the whole "pay us money or spend half an hour hunting and jumping through loops to find the free version" really did not put me in my best of moods. There's a trick further down to getting rid of the alert problem.
what are other free AV systems (other than Clam)?
P.S. Yes, I'm moving to a Linux and Mac only household, but until I can afford a system powerful enough to do decent virtualization I'll be keeping my XP box alive. Telling me to dump microsoft is preaching to the choir here.
Yeah I turned that off; I only wish I could get AVG to stop complaining that I turned it off.
... I'm sorry, your post was too logical and evenheaded. Could you repost it with a less well thought-out and explained point? Thanks.
We should start a social networking site that is tragically and intentionally UNhip, outdated, and technologically in the dark ages, and is rude, and full of google ads. It'd become an overnight antihero sensation.
It's like trying to commercialize peer groups.
It IS trying to commercialize peer groups.
Fixed that for you.
You're probably the type who randomly steals songs by listening to them on the radio, and steals TV from the airwaves. Hell, you probably even steal light from the SUN. It's unrepentant a-holes like you who are ruining it for the honest, hardworking people at RIAA/MPAA and the like. If I set up a sprinkler system and it is watering your yard, you damned well better come over, knock on my door and ask permission for your plants to thrive off of my watering. I would absolutely be in my right to rip them up for stealing my water.
/sarcasm
This seems entirely clear and cut-and-dry to me, I don't understand why you people don't get it that stealing is stealing, even if you're not stealing anything!
to quote Tom Lehrer on Von Braun;
"'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department' Says Werner Von Brown" http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/vonbraun.htm
You, sir, might not remember the 1st edition rulesets and DM tables. There's always room for another table to roll against!
A lot of this though is in interpretation and role-playing. Are you the (l)Awful good paladin forcing your religious views on the party, making them do things behind your back? Or a monk-style lawful good who dedicates their life to their personal tenets, but isn't hurt/shamed/goes-running-to-the-constable if you don't follow those?
;)
chaotic vs neutral evil is similarly one of style. Are you a fsking nuts psycho killer doing horrible demented things, or a detached, but pure-evil SOB?
It all depends on the local gaming rules and how you're playing the part. I always played chaotic good myself
It's perfect for the user who doesn't know anything 'cause they'll never even know what they're missing
As an Ubuntu user; I find that vaguely insulting. Linux in general is missing an easy entry into its world for outsiders. Ubuntu helps with this by bring friendly on the outside; having good support forums and services, but being a full distro under the hood.
I was merely pointing out the redundant tautology in that sentence.
:)
Hah! Prove it!
How is that redundant? The parent is spreading false and useless information.
True, but you have to go pretty damned far south to escape Texas /and/ fire ants. There are actually even parts of far-north texas were they haven't been able to spread very well due to cold winter temperatures; though with slowly warming winters, the seems to be changing.
Uh... send them to OLPC? They have their own laptop hardware that they're promoting, now with Windows installed -- they're not refurbing old laptops. For that, you might look at http://www.worldcomputerexchange.org/donate_equipment
(But they only accept P3 systems)
Oh I wouldn't worry about software upgrades -- it's running XP, which MS will EOL as soon as they can, so you'll have millions of unsupported Windows boxes without security updates.
Well, at least Dolphins haven't yet evolved opposable thumbs...
Meh, they eat fire ants; so they're not all bad. If you're lucky enough to live far enough north not to know what a fire ant is, well... good.
Not that I disagree with you, actually -- I think free and open software are the best paths for education as well as for developing countries for a multitude of reasons, but:
/is/ forcing it down their throats in many subtle and less-subtle ways, so there's some need to combat that, but being equally fanatical's not going to cut it.
--neither open, free, or closed software has had any "success" in education; and your phrasing "...not the only place non free software has bombed in education" would seem to indicate that F/LOSS somehow solves that problem; it doesn't, it's just a potentially better tool to do so.
--All the "best theories" in what works in development are hogwash. We've been trying prescriptive, top-down, "do this because it's what's best for you" development for 50 years now, often trying the same failed solutions over and over again -- that's not scientific, ethical, or even sane. Even though we may be convinced that free and open software will be the key to their development, allow them to "leapfrog" or some other miracle, our role should be promoting and enabling it, not forcing it down their throats.
Naturally we have to balance that with the fact that MS