actually, the other day I saw a case at fries that had USB ports on the front
of course, this requires (I assume) having cable-to-board ports rather than the common port glued on motherboard configuration
and the case cost about three times what the other cases did...so it's not there yet, in terms of a useful solution for this problem (never mind the fact that they probably already have machines, and CD-RWs would probably be cheaper than this solution)
on the other hand, a USB hub would work nicely, and it's cheapish...
actually, according to catholic theology, at least (can't talk for anyone else, as I haven't really studied anyone else) the books were written by people influenced by god -- with god sitting on their shoulder as my religion teacher put it. So, in that sense, they weren't exactly written by the dude, but by the dude's PR
This is true -- but even in very liberal places (i.e. Santa Cruz, where I live) the conservative influence is clear -- even more so than some places that are not considered as liberal (olympia washington comes to mind)
I think perhaps a generation ago Cali was very liberal, but it's fallen behind...at least, that's the only thing I can figure...
It is. And of course you have the standard problem of trusting sources -- but a good web search on Columbine (include slashdot and salon if they don't show up on a regular web search) brings up a heck of a lot of information to trawl through and come up with conclusions on.
His may not be, but amazon did spam me recently. I had never registered at their site, never ordered anything, and did not at the time even *have* a credit card, yet I received a message from them advertising some deal or other, went to their website and got the same 'give me order details or credit card information deal' -- Called them up and asked them to remove me over the phone, got another message and had to call them *again*. The second time worked, haven't heard from them since.
but getting off their advertising list seems to be one of those every six month to a year things...and don't forget, this is the company that spammed when it first opened..they say they are reformed, but I'm not so sure I believe them.
just so you know, some freak dyke you don't know in california is very happy that some straight woman in vermont that she doesn't know is very happy to see that you support civil unions
and besides, california passed proposition 22 (the 'Just in case you didn't already get it, you may absolutely positively not get married to your girlfriend and if you do get married in another state we're just gonna ignore it, so there. nyah' proposition) last year. I don't know how cali got such a liberal rep, but there you go. Tell that to the next person who gives you *that* stupid response.
> Besides, the wave of terrorist attacks that hit the country (including Columbine) recently were mostly prompted by White Supremacist rhetoric
Columbine was not prompted by White Supremacist rhetoric -- this (along with the trenchcoat mafia links and a number of other widely reported 'facts') was debunked..referenced in an article posted on slashdot some time ago, in fact.
I say this not to take weight away from the argument that White Supremacists (and other xenophobic extremists) are dangerous -- they are. However, propagating misinformation just makes it harder to fight the actual problem.
That wasn't the impression I got -- I'm not so much of a math head to remember the new questions, but I do recall that new questions seem to be coming up on a fairly regular basis.
And even if we do figure out all of theoretical mathematics (unlikely, imo, at least in the foreseeable future...) there's always quantum physics
Backpacks with padded sections for laptops are readily available. And my current laptop (which I got for free, but probably is worth $150 -- it's an old K5-133 with 32MB ram and a 2 gig HD) is no heavier than two or three spiral bound notebooks, and is significantly lighter than my three ring binder fully loaded with paper (mostly used for archiving printed stuff)
I suppose, if you retain information better if you write it down (I can't write and listen at the same time. And I write slowly enough that if I try to write one bit, I miss the next four bits of lecture) then writing it down is probably better for you for notetaking (I have an amazing grasp of the obvious, eh?) but there's still advantages of having a laptop.
And just wait until we get real useful handwriting recognition:P
I don't know. Speaking from the viewpoint of someone who used a laptop from high school (and who had to *fight* in several cases to use it -- say what you will about the ADA, without it I might not have graduated from high school at all)
I think this could very well be a good thing. It depends on how they approach it.
Physically carting a laptop is significantly less difficult than physically carting a bunch of notebooks, plus floppies or other storage media. Notes can be taken on the laptop (pico is your friend) and printed out if necessary. It's good to teach people (geeks and non-geeks alike) to be responsible for their own backups and general data protection. You can write papers whilst eating in the cafeteria or out on the lawn on nice days. In general, if you view a laptop as a replacement for handwritten work it's a plus, not a minus, in most respects.
It would definetly be cheaper for the university to have infrastructure support for a bunch of laptop-workstations (network drops, print, mail and other servers for stuff that workstations don't do well) than have (as my college did) a bunch of five-to-ten year old workstations running outdated software riddled with viruses because the IT folks knew nothing..and when I complained, accused me of putting the virii there.
(I won't even start on learning C programming in 1996 on an antiquated alpha running VMS -- my laptop was probably the most advanced computer there, and I wasn't running linux yet!)
Software licensing *is* a valid concern -- one that is partially answered by the various educational licensing options offered by most major software houses, but it's also a place where open source advocates could really put their foot in the door. Hopefully people are in college to learn concepts, and not specific software (if you want to learn architecture, or design, go to college, if you want to learn AutoCAD, go to your local tech school!) and insofar as that goes, for *most* (not all, and I'm aware of that) applications that a college student would need (word processing is the big one) there are open source or otherwise free solutions.
Anyway, if they choose to use those laptops wisely, I see good things here. whether they will remains to be seen.
My sister (who is three years younger than I am) was required to have a graphing calculator (preferably a TI-85 -- but TI-82s were allowed, as I recall) for *algebra* (that would be first year, middle school/high school x + 5 = 6 sort of stuff)
I wasn't required to have such a beast until I took Calc 1 (for which I bought a TI-82)(which was a year after she took algebra) -- and even then, I used my little TI-30 STAT much more often. Heck, even now I rarely turn on the beast -- it's easier to fire up gnuplot than to find 4 AAA batteries that will die in five hours anyway. My TI-30, however -- well, I just sent in five bucks to get a new battery door because the old one broke when I dropped it down 3 flights of stairs. Other than that, it's still my favorite calculator, even if I have to hold the battery door down by hand to keep the thing on right now (oh, please UPS, hurry up with that package!)
Result: She has significantly less deep understanding than I do on mathematics -- this isn't a controlled experiment, but most of the other variables are pretty close (raised in the same household, same gender, same parents, similar IQ scores, same schools, etc)
(just to be fair, and this is supposed to be funny)
that's because the male servers want downtime every sunday afternoon from September through February so that they can sit on the couch and drink beer, scratch themselves and watch a bunch of men in tight pants (ever think about that one) chase, fondle and otherwise play with a non-spherical 'ball'.
And it's easier to get management to believe that the tampaxes are for the server than that the beer is.
Actually, the letter referenced in the parent post specifically says :
1. Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn
quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings--"catching on," "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.
In otherwords, they are claiming that academic learning is not related to IQ, thereby, presumably, negating valuation (or lack thereof) of academics.
I'm arguing that IQ tests test cultural knowledge, academic knowledge and learned pattern matching -- in other words, your argument tends to support me, rather than the letter referenced by swinge.
I don't know. I haven't even noticed that. I don't -- I have known people who chalk up *everything* to genetics. I used to have a boss who was half japanese -- I'm a quarter -- he used to claim that my computer skills came from the japanese quarter of my genes -- I didn't have the heart to tell him that my mother (my maternal grandmother is japanese) didn't at the time know how to turn a computer *on*, much less be a seat-of-my-pants unix admin.
First, I think 'force' is the wrong word -- 'encourages' might be a better word
Second, it's oppression from many sources -- government (laws that force kids to go to school, to go to the school that their parents choose, to not be able to take care of themselves [get a job, place to live, sign contracts], to stay with their parents until 18 [or possibly emancipation] or be a criminal, etc) schools (I could go on for hours -- but forced 'education', teachers and administrators who will protect 'normal' kids, but not geeks, gay kids and other non-normal kids [I'm reminded of a recent letter to the editor I saw from a high school cheerleader who didn't understand why gay kids at her school didn't feel safe -- every time *she* had a problem the vice principal immediately took care of it -- also, a friend of mine received written death threats from a group of boys for several weeks, her VP told her 'well, if you weren't so vocal about it it wouldn't be a problem -- when she was overheard mentioning to a friend that she was taking martial arts to defend herself *she* got suspended for threatening them -- zero tolerance = zero tolerance for difference of any type, not zero tolerance for violence in general), parents (who essentially have every legal right to do nearly anything, and to enforce nearly any rule, on their kids, until age 18...many abuse this) etc etc
At some point, it all adds up.
Yes, other kids are a problem -- but do you really think that those other kids would be a problem if adults weren't enforcing rules of 'cultural normality' -- or even if the adults weren't enforcing contact with those kids (as an adult, if I have a problem with another adult, I generally can avoid that person without becoming a delinquent. This is not the case for most kids)
ditto -- I grew up knowing where the guns were, and my father made it clear that they were *not* to be touched while he wasn't around, but that if at any time I was curious, I could go get him and he would show them to me, explain them, get me to clean them, and eventually (I was older --twelve, I think) teach me to shoot. The latter bit I think is important, as it helps negate the whole 'forbidden fruit' issue -- and I esspecially like your analogy to security by obscurity vs open review
interesting --that letter to the wall street journal says
5. Intelligence tests are not culturally biased against American blacks or other native-born, English-speaking peoples in the U.S. Rather, IQ scores predict equally accurately for
all such Americans, regardless of race and social class. Individuals who do not understand English well can be given either a nonverbal test or one in their native language.
And then goes on to say
8. The bell curve for whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the bell curve for American blacks roughly around 85; and those for different subgroups of Hispanics roughly
midway between those for whites and blacks. The evidence is less definitive for exactly where above IQ 100 the bell curves for Jews and Asians are centered.
And no one thinks this is a cultural thing?
For the record, every IQ test I've taken (as one of those 'gifted' kids, I ended up spending a lot of time as a guinea pig -- I tend to score either 'off the scale' or at around 180 depending on what test it is) has either relied on cultural info (which is *definetly* culturally biased) or on spatial info, which is a learned thing (yes, really -- what do you think your 6 month old is doing when they drop their carrots/toys/whatever off the high chair -- you betcha)
IQ tests measure something -- personally, I think they measure your ability to take IQ tests:)
1. OEM *techs* might (even that's arguable in some cases) -- OEM management likely won't.
Or: Have you ever worked as a tech in a small computer store? Or in a large computer store? I've done both. I doubt anyone outside the tech area at the large store had half a clue about anything (I saw the *store manager* assure a customer a black and white printer would print color once). The smaller stores' management was generally more clued, but I'm not sure they were clued enough to see through this piece of FUD.
2. Perhaps. But if I say 'buy my product because such and such's product will blow up, fsck your mom and take your daughter hostage' I'd be lying and that's wrong (and not legal) -- in this case, MS is lying (though they couch it with enough language that it probably wouldn't hold up in court as such) to folks who may not be savvy enough to realize it. Say what you will about legality, that's also *wrong*.
3. they're willing to lie about it (see point 2) that is..interesting..news.
I recently bought a 'Naked PC' (one without an Operating system) and installed several OSes on it (FreeBSD, two flavors of linux [Vector and
Redhat 6.2 -- Redhat will probably come off as soon as I come up with a better build environment for my customer's binaries], and your own
Windows 95). Three of these OSes are free, and the fourth is legal (I have the orginal CD and certificate of Authenticity to prove it). The
machine it was orginally installed on is long dead, and the hard drive recycled into an incense stick holder (well, what do *you* do with dead
hard drives?). Because of this, and innumerable other possible examples, I feel that your article is unfair and misleading. I understand your
wish that people not pirate your software so that you can receive fair payment for your work, however, to imply that PC sellers should not sell
computers without OSes because the only thing that these computers can be used for is piracy is wrong. It is entirely possible that a customer
already has a legal copy of a Microsoft OS (otherwise why would you sell all of your OSes in boxes, as well as preinstalled?) or a legal copy of a non-Microsoft OS (Linux, SCO, *BSD, BeOS, etc). To imply to PC sellers that 'Naked PCs' are only piracy risks, with no mention of the other
reasons customers might want such a box is irresponsible. I hope you will take these points into consideration and alter your article
appropriately.
Wow -- your packets had to trudge uphill, through the snow at 110 baud *both ways*
*and* your flame wars were bigger
Actually, I kind of have to agree -- though i was *born* in 1978 my first modem was 300 baud (though not brand new at the time, enough to get to connect to the local BBSes without too much snickering) and I seem to recall my first flame wars were much more interesting than the ones now. But maybe that's just revisionary memory
Anyway, Jon's just this dude, you know -- I think anyone who made a life out of putting their opinions up on any major forum is going to get flamed, it's par for course. There is a legitimate issue with flaming causing free speech issues -- I've seen flames used as an effective denial of service attack against email lists (four flamers with way too much time on their hands can generate more cross traffic than the rest of the list can read) and, while I agree that the least destructive answer to the intimidation question is to tell people not to get intimidated, I've also seen cases where that's not immediately possible (an abuse forum I used to mod comes to mind) -- which is why I *like* email lists -- if you don't like the rules on the current one, well make your own, mod it (or don't) the way you like, and if it's better, the people will come.
bah. sales people always lie (well, not *always* but it's much safer to assume they are than to assume they aren't) -- that's not nearly on the same level of 'bad' as slamming
> Adopt a kid - they're plenty available, waiting > for a nice home. But, not, we're selfish. Gotta > have it. And when it doesn't work out, well,
> whine, and try to rig the game.
plenty, as long as you're willing to take an older child, especially if you're willing to take an older child who is disabled, a minority or suffering from the emotional effects of years of abuse and/or neglect.
Don't get me wrong, these kids *need* homes, and I wish more people had the emotional strength required to give them homes, but too many people decide to adopt healthy, usually white infants and then sit there patting themselves on the back about what awesome people they are for giving a kid a chance and that's just ridiculous.
or they whine about how much said babies cost. poor dears.
Slashdot Mirror
actually, the other day I saw a case at fries that had USB ports on the front
of course, this requires (I assume) having cable-to-board ports rather than the common port glued on motherboard configuration
and the case cost about three times what the other cases did...so it's not there yet, in terms of a useful solution for this problem (never mind the fact that they probably already have machines, and CD-RWs would probably be cheaper than this solution)
on the other hand, a USB hub would work nicely, and it's cheapish...
actually, according to catholic theology, at least (can't talk for anyone else, as I haven't really studied anyone else) the books were written by people influenced by god -- with god sitting on their shoulder as my religion teacher put it. So, in that sense, they weren't exactly written by the dude, but by the dude's PR
:P
so an apology might be in order
This is true -- but even in very liberal places (i.e. Santa Cruz, where I live) the conservative influence is clear -- even more so than some places that are not considered as liberal (olympia washington comes to mind)
I think perhaps a generation ago Cali was very liberal, but it's fallen behind...at least, that's the only thing I can figure...
It is. And of course you have the standard problem of trusting sources -- but a good web search on Columbine (include slashdot and salon if they don't show up on a regular web search) brings up a heck of a lot of information to trawl through and come up with conclusions on.
His may not be, but amazon did spam me recently. I had never registered at their site, never ordered anything, and did not at the time even *have* a credit card, yet I received a message from them advertising some deal or other, went to their website and got the same 'give me order details or credit card information deal' -- Called them up and asked them to remove me over the phone, got another message and had to call them *again*. The second time worked, haven't heard from them since.
but getting off their advertising list seems to be one of those every six month to a year things...and don't forget, this is the company that spammed when it first opened..they say they are reformed, but I'm not so sure I believe them.
woohoo!
just so you know, some freak dyke you don't know in california is very happy that some straight woman in vermont that she doesn't know is very happy to see that you support civil unions
and besides, california passed proposition 22 (the 'Just in case you didn't already get it, you may absolutely positively not get married to your girlfriend and if you do get married in another state we're just gonna ignore it, so there. nyah' proposition) last year. I don't know how cali got such a liberal rep, but there you go. Tell that to the next person who gives you *that* stupid response.
> Besides, the wave of terrorist attacks that hit the country (including Columbine) recently were mostly prompted by White Supremacist rhetoric
Columbine was not prompted by White Supremacist rhetoric -- this (along with the trenchcoat mafia links and a number of other widely reported 'facts') was debunked..referenced in an article posted on slashdot some time ago, in fact.
I say this not to take weight away from the argument that White Supremacists (and other xenophobic extremists) are dangerous -- they are. However, propagating misinformation just makes it harder to fight the actual problem.
That wasn't the impression I got -- I'm not so much of a math head to remember the new questions, but I do recall that new questions seem to be coming up on a fairly regular basis.
And even if we do figure out all of theoretical mathematics (unlikely, imo, at least in the foreseeable future...) there's always quantum physics
I don't think we'll be bored too soon.
Backpacks with padded sections for laptops are readily available. And my current laptop (which I got for free, but probably is worth $150 -- it's an old K5-133 with 32MB ram and a 2 gig HD) is no heavier than two or three spiral bound notebooks, and is significantly lighter than my three ring binder fully loaded with paper (mostly used for archiving printed stuff)
:P
I suppose, if you retain information better if you write it down (I can't write and listen at the same time. And I write slowly enough that if I try to write one bit, I miss the next four bits of lecture) then writing it down is probably better for you for notetaking (I have an amazing grasp of the obvious, eh?) but there's still advantages of having a laptop.
And just wait until we get real useful handwriting recognition
I don't know. Speaking from the viewpoint of someone who used a laptop from high school (and who had to *fight* in several cases to use it -- say what you will about the ADA, without it I might not have graduated from high school at all)
I think this could very well be a good thing. It depends on how they approach it.
Physically carting a laptop is significantly less difficult than physically carting a bunch of notebooks, plus floppies or other storage media. Notes can be taken on the laptop (pico is your friend) and printed out if necessary. It's good to teach people (geeks and non-geeks alike) to be responsible for their own backups and general data protection. You can write papers whilst eating in the cafeteria or out on the lawn on nice days. In general, if you view a laptop as a replacement for handwritten work it's a plus, not a minus, in most respects.
It would definetly be cheaper for the university to have infrastructure support for a bunch of laptop-workstations (network drops, print, mail and other servers for stuff that workstations don't do well) than have (as my college did) a bunch of five-to-ten year old workstations running outdated software riddled with viruses because the IT folks knew nothing..and when I complained, accused me of putting the virii there.
(I won't even start on learning C programming in 1996 on an antiquated alpha running VMS -- my laptop was probably the most advanced computer there, and I wasn't running linux yet!)
Software licensing *is* a valid concern -- one that is partially answered by the various educational licensing options offered by most major software houses, but it's also a place where open source advocates could really put their foot in the door. Hopefully people are in college to learn concepts, and not specific software (if you want to learn architecture, or design, go to college, if you want to learn AutoCAD, go to your local tech school!) and insofar as that goes, for *most* (not all, and I'm aware of that) applications that a college student would need (word processing is the big one) there are open source or otherwise free solutions.
Anyway, if they choose to use those laptops wisely, I see good things here. whether they will remains to be seen.
So agreed!
My sister (who is three years younger than I am) was required to have a graphing calculator (preferably a TI-85 -- but TI-82s were allowed, as I recall) for *algebra* (that would be first year, middle school/high school x + 5 = 6 sort of stuff)
I wasn't required to have such a beast until I took Calc 1 (for which I bought a TI-82)(which was a year after she took algebra) -- and even then, I used my little TI-30 STAT much more often. Heck, even now I rarely turn on the beast -- it's easier to fire up gnuplot than to find 4 AAA batteries that will die in five hours anyway. My TI-30, however -- well, I just sent in five bucks to get a new battery door because the old one broke when I dropped it down 3 flights of stairs. Other than that, it's still my favorite calculator, even if I have to hold the battery door down by hand to keep the thing on right now (oh, please UPS, hurry up with that package!)
Result: She has significantly less deep understanding than I do on mathematics -- this isn't a controlled experiment, but most of the other variables are pretty close (raised in the same household, same gender, same parents, similar IQ scores, same schools, etc)
It seriously makes me wonder.
In virginia you *can* get a driver's license without your SSN on it
push 'em hard...they'll lie like dogs
been there, done that, eventually moved to a more reasonable state
(just to be fair, and this is supposed to be funny)
that's because the male servers want downtime every sunday afternoon from September through February so that they can sit on the couch and drink beer, scratch themselves and watch a bunch of men in tight pants (ever think about that one) chase, fondle and otherwise play with a non-spherical 'ball'.
And it's easier to get management to believe that the tampaxes are for the server than that the beer is.
Actually, the letter referenced in the parent post specifically says :
1. Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn
quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings--"catching on," "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.
In otherwords, they are claiming that academic learning is not related to IQ, thereby, presumably, negating valuation (or lack thereof) of academics.
I'm arguing that IQ tests test cultural knowledge, academic knowledge and learned pattern matching -- in other words, your argument tends to support me, rather than the letter referenced by swinge.
I don't know. I haven't even noticed that. I don't -- I have known people who chalk up *everything* to genetics. I used to have a boss who was half japanese -- I'm a quarter -- he used to claim that my computer skills came from the japanese quarter of my genes -- I didn't have the heart to tell him that my mother (my maternal grandmother is japanese) didn't at the time know how to turn a computer *on*, much less be a seat-of-my-pants unix admin.
First, I think 'force' is the wrong word -- 'encourages' might be a better word
Second, it's oppression from many sources -- government (laws that force kids to go to school, to go to the school that their parents choose, to not be able to take care of themselves [get a job, place to live, sign contracts], to stay with their parents until 18 [or possibly emancipation] or be a criminal, etc) schools (I could go on for hours -- but forced 'education', teachers and administrators who will protect 'normal' kids, but not geeks, gay kids and other non-normal kids [I'm reminded of a recent letter to the editor I saw from a high school cheerleader who didn't understand why gay kids at her school didn't feel safe -- every time *she* had a problem the vice principal immediately took care of it -- also, a friend of mine received written death threats from a group of boys for several weeks, her VP told her 'well, if you weren't so vocal about it it wouldn't be a problem -- when she was overheard mentioning to a friend that she was taking martial arts to defend herself *she* got suspended for threatening them -- zero tolerance = zero tolerance for difference of any type, not zero tolerance for violence in general), parents (who essentially have every legal right to do nearly anything, and to enforce nearly any rule, on their kids, until age 18...many abuse this) etc etc
At some point, it all adds up.
Yes, other kids are a problem -- but do you really think that those other kids would be a problem if adults weren't enforcing rules of 'cultural normality' -- or even if the adults weren't enforcing contact with those kids (as an adult, if I have a problem with another adult, I generally can avoid that person without becoming a delinquent. This is not the case for most kids)
ditto -- I grew up knowing where the guns were, and my father made it clear that they were *not* to be touched while he wasn't around, but that if at any time I was curious, I could go get him and he would show them to me, explain them, get me to clean them, and eventually (I was older --twelve, I think) teach me to shoot. The latter bit I think is important, as it helps negate the whole 'forbidden fruit' issue -- and I esspecially like your analogy to security by obscurity vs open review
interesting --that letter to the wall street journal says
:)
m
5. Intelligence tests are not culturally biased against American blacks or other native-born, English-speaking peoples in the U.S. Rather, IQ scores predict equally accurately for
all such Americans, regardless of race and social class. Individuals who do not understand English well can be given either a nonverbal test or one in their native language.
And then goes on to say
8. The bell curve for whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the bell curve for American blacks roughly around 85; and those for different subgroups of Hispanics roughly
midway between those for whites and blacks. The evidence is less definitive for exactly where above IQ 100 the bell curves for Jews and Asians are centered.
And no one thinks this is a cultural thing?
For the record, every IQ test I've taken (as one of those 'gifted' kids, I ended up spending a lot of time as a guinea pig -- I tend to score either 'off the scale' or at around 180 depending on what test it is) has either relied on cultural info (which is *definetly* culturally biased) or on spatial info, which is a learned thing (yes, really -- what do you think your 6 month old is doing when they drop their carrots/toys/whatever off the high chair -- you betcha)
IQ tests measure something -- personally, I think they measure your ability to take IQ tests
And mental stimulation *has* been proven to increase intelligence: http://www.thesmartbaby.com/timemagazinereport.ht
1. OEM *techs* might (even that's arguable in some cases) -- OEM management likely won't.
Or: Have you ever worked as a tech in a small computer store? Or in a large computer store? I've done both. I doubt anyone outside the tech area at the large store had half a clue about anything (I saw the *store manager* assure a customer a black and white printer would print color once). The smaller stores' management was generally more clued, but I'm not sure they were clued enough to see through this piece of FUD.
2. Perhaps. But if I say 'buy my product because such and such's product will blow up, fsck your mom and take your daughter hostage' I'd be lying and that's wrong (and not legal) -- in this case, MS is lying (though they couch it with enough language that it probably wouldn't hold up in court as such) to folks who may not be savvy enough to realize it. Say what you will about legality, that's also *wrong*.
3. they're willing to lie about it (see point 2) that is..interesting..news.
actually, it would seem to me that *windows* users would be at higher risk of OSTDs..I mean, how many linux virii have you seen, recently?
afaik they discontinued support for that
but yes, one of my first sysadmin jobs included taking dog-slow DEC Multia NT boxes and turning them into useful Redhat Linux 4.2 boxes
I recently bought a 'Naked PC' (one without an Operating system) and installed several OSes on it (FreeBSD, two flavors of linux [Vector and
Redhat 6.2 -- Redhat will probably come off as soon as I come up with a better build environment for my customer's binaries], and your own
Windows 95). Three of these OSes are free, and the fourth is legal (I have the orginal CD and certificate of Authenticity to prove it). The
machine it was orginally installed on is long dead, and the hard drive recycled into an incense stick holder (well, what do *you* do with dead
hard drives?). Because of this, and innumerable other possible examples, I feel that your article is unfair and misleading. I understand your
wish that people not pirate your software so that you can receive fair payment for your work, however, to imply that PC sellers should not sell
computers without OSes because the only thing that these computers can be used for is piracy is wrong. It is entirely possible that a customer
already has a legal copy of a Microsoft OS (otherwise why would you sell all of your OSes in boxes, as well as preinstalled?) or a legal copy of a non-Microsoft OS (Linux, SCO, *BSD, BeOS, etc). To imply to PC sellers that 'Naked PCs' are only piracy risks, with no mention of the other
reasons customers might want such a box is irresponsible. I hope you will take these points into consideration and alter your article
appropriately.
Thank you,
(signature deleted)
Yes, I sent it. I'll post the response, if any.
Wow -- your packets had to trudge uphill, through the snow at 110 baud *both ways*
*and* your flame wars were bigger
Actually, I kind of have to agree -- though i was *born* in 1978 my first modem was 300 baud (though not brand new at the time, enough to get to connect to the local BBSes without too much snickering) and I seem to recall my first flame wars were much more interesting than the ones now. But maybe that's just revisionary memory
Anyway, Jon's just this dude, you know -- I think anyone who made a life out of putting their opinions up on any major forum is going to get flamed, it's par for course. There is a legitimate issue with flaming causing free speech issues -- I've seen flames used as an effective denial of service attack against email lists (four flamers with way too much time on their hands can generate more cross traffic than the rest of the list can read) and, while I agree that the least destructive answer to the intimidation question is to tell people not to get intimidated, I've also seen cases where that's not immediately possible (an abuse forum I used to mod comes to mind) -- which is why I *like* email lists -- if you don't like the rules on the current one, well make your own, mod it (or don't) the way you like, and if it's better, the people will come.
bah. sales people always lie (well, not *always* but it's much safer to assume they are than to assume they aren't) -- that's not nearly on the same level of 'bad' as slamming
> Adopt a kid - they're plenty available, waiting > for a nice home. But, not, we're selfish. Gotta > have it. And when it doesn't work out, well,
> whine, and try to rig the game.
plenty, as long as you're willing to take an older child, especially if you're willing to take an older child who is disabled, a minority or suffering from the emotional effects of years of abuse and/or neglect.
Don't get me wrong, these kids *need* homes, and I wish more people had the emotional strength required to give them homes, but too many people decide to adopt healthy, usually white infants and then sit there patting themselves on the back about what awesome people they are for giving a kid a chance and that's just ridiculous.
or they whine about how much said babies cost. poor dears.