Have you tried the BBC's Introducing podcasts? All-new music, a variety of styles. Tom Robbins does a highlights "mixtape" each week, that usually has me wasting hours looking up bands and downloading or purchasing their music.
And reckoning by code contributions leaves out those many who contribute in other ways, such as active forum participants, teachers and evangelists.
I don't know how many times, in my decade as a rural librarian, I have explained that the "big blue e" isn't the internet, or showed how Firefox can be set up to browse safely and securely. Most of the patrons who bring laptops into the library now use Firefox. Many of them use LibreOffice or OpenOffice (from before the fork) instead of the MS Office that came bundled with their systems. I even have patrons who use the (old version of) the GIMP, including local professionals who used to purchase Photoshop.
I am a contributor to the open source movement, and, at least in my small town, a significant one, despite having submitted less than five bugs in my years using F/LOSS.
When one checks a book out from the public library, they are a called a patron, not a freeloader. Maybe we should call those who support open source projects the same thing.
"OSS Patrons." That is a good idea. I wish I had mod points today. Thanks.
The devs have made it clear that they aren't interested in the 70-year-old user, nor even the "average" user; but rather the semi-mythical "professional" GIMP user, to whom this export/save thing is second nature. We've tried explaining about less-savvy end users and we've suggested compromise solutions, but to no avail: we've been either ignored or told off in no uncertain terms.
I'm not a coder, and have trouble getting through the technical aspects of a bug report, but I've placed many a copy of the GIMP into the hands of people looking for a good graphics solution or an alternative to Photoshop. I have been a GIMP user, teacher and evangelist for almost fifteen years, but am treated like a freeloader when I try to participate in the project.
While I, personally still use the GIMP, and like many of its new features, I keep copies of the old version around to distribute to "average" users--and I am now less likely to try to contribute.
Put the permanent status bar back in FireFox so I don't need an extension
Have you tried Pale Moon? - It's a Windows-optimized version of Firefox (no version for Linux, more's the pity). The developer has reverted many of the "features" of Firefox's Australis, including the statusbar, and the community is fairly responsive and active. The developer even seems to hang around the forums occasionally. I expect, as the Firefox developers seem determined to turn Firefox into something that is Not-firefox, it will eventually become a fork when the codebases diverge too much.
Revert the GIMP's atrocious Save As.../Export As... abomination
I agree, though Iwouldn't quite call it an "abomination;" I see what they are trying to do. Unfortunately, it a) feels like an "MS defaulting to DOCX in order to force people to use their new version" stunt; b) turns off the "average user," who may not know the difference between save and export, and don't care; and c) makes it harder for me to recommend it to new users, hand them a copy and expect them to "just use it." It's true, unfortunately, that the GIMP team won't listen to constructive criticism.
As for Gnome, I switched to KDE after Gnome 3 and Unity and haven't gone back.
Looking back, I've jumped ship with Windows Firefox and with Gnome and I've stopped evangelizing the GIMP after unwelcome changes made all of them them harder to use. I love F/LOSS, but sometimes it's hard to participate when you know you're going to be ignored.
Chuck Jones' illustration instructor told his class that "all of you have a hundred thousand bad drawings in you. The sooner you get rid of them, the better..." , While a hundred thousand is a metaphorically high number, if you worked hard and seriously enough, you would eventually develop the fine motor skills and the "ability to replicate real world (or imagined) people, places, or things on paper." In addition, you would in the process, develop a distinct graphic style, and be at an employable level of ability--probably better than most art school students, a good portion of whom are not willing to put real effort into improving their skills.
Similarly, with steady voice work, you can be employable in ensemble, chorus, or supporting work, which, while not at the level of a "named" star, still would allow you to sing for more than enjoyment.
Dogged determination focused on self-improvement may not get you to to the heights of ability, but it will generally get you to a practical level of competence.
Often when a person leaves the educational environment for an extended time, he or she loses the study/memorization/testing skills that once were routine and instinctive. Those skills can be difficult to re-learn. Check to see if your university has a Returning Students or a Students Over Traditional age Program. When my dad returned to school, they were able to help him with study and learning strategies. What they couldn't help with, he got through on sheer cussedness (for instance, it would take him many nights of study and several tries to pass each of his higher maths class, but he made it through them all).
My idea is that we should keep their salaries and retirement at their present levels, but limit them to military take-home pay and benefits while in office; for example, a first time senator would get the pay and benefits of an O-1, or a third-term representative would be able to collect the pay and benefits of an E-3. They wouldn't get to collect the remainder of their pay until they had been out of office and refrained from lobbying for ten years or the length of time they had been in office, whichever was shorter.
You know--I've never actually tried to run IE on a virtual machine on linux. I wonder if it would let me finish a form on that website--there's (IME) a better than 30% chance of one of the forms crashing even on Windows firefox using the IE rendering engine. Thanks! You've given me something to think about.
damn' straight. I've often thought that giving kids the option of listening as well as of reading would increase interest and participation in class. I've only gotten through some classics (as an adult) because of hearing them read aloud.
Part of the problem in this discussion is that we are dealing with almost NO concrete information.
The article on which the NPR "article" is based tells of 49 "incidents" this year with no additional details--we may presume that it has to do with children, based on the project name. They say that they investigated "three times the average number" in November, without revealing the number. They do give concrete numbers for this school year so far (31 compared to 14 last year), but give no context. The ALA reported 464 challenges in 2012 (referenced by turning in circles, above), but we don't know how these organizations relate or how this statistic relates to the KRRP statistics.
We don't know what percentage of challenges were successful, only that there was [a] "notable increase in positive outcomes to book challenges." They indicate clusters of challenges around racial and LGBT subjects, and suggest coordination, but give no corroborating evidence, and no links to the underlying data.
We are left with the vague impression that we should panic and with a link to their websites, where you have to hunt around to find any information related to the articles in question.
Yes, this IS slashdot, but doesn't it strike anyone as odd that we've been discussing/arguing/namecalling based on what is essentially a poorly-written press release?
'Cause not everything is yet available online--and not everything online is accessible.
I'd say that less than a quarter of the books in my (public) library are online, and about half of the materials available for download are crippled by DRM or format locks.
Half the time, the first we hear of the book is when someone tries to challenge it. The story gets into the media, and sales spike. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't authors and publishers out there deliberately trying to court banning for the publicity's sake.
Usually the challenges start with trying to completely ban the book.
Most challenge policies are written to make that difficult, so the challengers then fall back to the position of trying to get them removed from the Required Reading Lists, and finally to requesting exemption and alternate reading materials for students.
Not that you'd know it from the article, or even the article's source article--both exhibit an amazing paucity of information--first time I've seen the summary more informative than the articles
Politics, probably. There's a lot of backlash against political correctness - some people would see reading such a book in schools as 'liberal indoctrination' intended to make white people feel guilty about being white.
I'd give you odds it's the reverse - that someone searched through an eBook library and banned every one with racial epithets regardless of context.
Usually, anymore, it is an organization that specializes in book or curriculum challenges. It will have a list of "objectionable" materials; downloadable complaints; challenges with page numbers and everything included; and all the press releases needed. The parent/teacher/administrator/pastor/insert authority figure does not even have to read the book.
Check out the Parents Action League's Book Alert Page (sorry, can't remember how to insert a link) for an example.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you tried the BBC's Introducing podcasts? All-new music, a variety of styles. Tom Robbins does a highlights "mixtape" each week, that usually has me wasting hours looking up bands and downloading or purchasing their music.
Aren't we calling him Tsar Vladimir yet?
And reckoning by code contributions leaves out those many who contribute in other ways, such as active forum participants, teachers and evangelists.
I don't know how many times, in my decade as a rural librarian, I have explained that the "big blue e" isn't the internet, or showed how Firefox can be set up to browse safely and securely. Most of the patrons who bring laptops into the library now use Firefox. Many of them use LibreOffice or OpenOffice (from before the fork) instead of the MS Office that came bundled with their systems. I even have patrons who use the (old version of) the GIMP, including local professionals who used to purchase Photoshop.
I am a contributor to the open source movement, and, at least in my small town, a significant one, despite having submitted less than five bugs in my years using F/LOSS.
When one checks a book out from the public library, they are a called a patron, not a freeloader. Maybe we should call those who support open source projects the same thing.
"OSS Patrons." That is a good idea. I wish I had mod points today. Thanks.
The devs have made it clear that they aren't interested in the 70-year-old user, nor even the "average" user; but rather the semi-mythical "professional" GIMP user, to whom this export/save thing is second nature. We've tried explaining about less-savvy end users and we've suggested compromise solutions, but to no avail: we've been either ignored or told off in no uncertain terms.
I'm not a coder, and have trouble getting through the technical aspects of a bug report, but I've placed many a copy of the GIMP into the hands of people looking for a good graphics solution or an alternative to Photoshop. I have been a GIMP user, teacher and evangelist for almost fifteen years, but am treated like a freeloader when I try to participate in the project.
While I, personally still use the GIMP, and like many of its new features, I keep copies of the old version around to distribute to "average" users--and I am now less likely to try to contribute.
Put the permanent status bar back in FireFox so I don't need an extension
Have you tried Pale Moon? - It's a Windows-optimized version of Firefox (no version for Linux, more's the pity). The developer has reverted many of the "features" of Firefox's Australis, including the statusbar, and the community is fairly responsive and active. The developer even seems to hang around the forums occasionally. I expect, as the Firefox developers seem determined to turn Firefox into something that is Not-firefox, it will eventually become a fork when the codebases diverge too much.
Revert the GIMP's atrocious Save As.../Export As... abomination
I agree, though Iwouldn't quite call it an "abomination;" I see what they are trying to do. Unfortunately, it
a) feels like an "MS defaulting to DOCX in order to force people to use their new version" stunt;
b) turns off the "average user," who may not know the difference between save and export, and don't care; and
c) makes it harder for me to recommend it to new users, hand them a copy and expect them to "just use it."
It's true, unfortunately, that the GIMP team won't listen to constructive criticism.
As for Gnome, I switched to KDE after Gnome 3 and Unity and haven't gone back.
Looking back, I've jumped ship with Windows Firefox and with Gnome and I've stopped evangelizing the GIMP after unwelcome changes made all of them them harder to use. I love F/LOSS, but sometimes it's hard to participate when you know you're going to be ignored.
You and I both agree that it is "broken as fuck," but it is still being used by many companies under the idea that it "ain't broke."
Chuck Jones' illustration instructor told his class that "all of you have a hundred thousand bad drawings in you. The sooner you get rid of them, the better..." , While a hundred thousand is a metaphorically high number, if you worked hard and seriously enough, you would eventually develop the fine motor skills and the "ability to replicate real world (or imagined) people, places, or things on paper." In addition, you would in the process, develop a distinct graphic style, and be at an employable level of ability--probably better than most art school students, a good portion of whom are not willing to put real effort into improving their skills.
Similarly, with steady voice work, you can be employable in ensemble, chorus, or supporting work, which, while not at the level of a "named" star, still would allow you to sing for more than enjoyment.
Dogged determination focused on self-improvement may not get you to to the heights of ability, but it will generally get you to a practical level of competence.
Often when a person leaves the educational environment for an extended time, he or she loses the study/memorization/testing skills that once were routine and instinctive. Those skills can be difficult to re-learn. Check to see if your university has a Returning Students or a Students Over Traditional age Program. When my dad returned to school, they were able to help him with study and learning strategies. What they couldn't help with, he got through on sheer cussedness (for instance, it would take him many nights of study and several tries to pass each of his higher maths class, but he made it through them all).
Keep slogging through, and best wishes!
Why shouldn't it be used? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
IE6--only 13 years old this August 27.
My idea is that we should keep their salaries and retirement at their present levels, but limit them to military take-home pay and benefits while in office; for example, a first time senator would get the pay and benefits of an O-1, or a third-term representative would be able to collect the pay and benefits of an E-3. They wouldn't get to collect the remainder of their pay until they had been out of office and refrained from lobbying for ten years or the length of time they had been in office, whichever was shorter.
You know--I've never actually tried to run IE on a virtual machine on linux. I wonder if it would let me finish a form on that website--there's (IME) a better than 30% chance of one of the forms crashing even on Windows firefox using the IE rendering engine. Thanks! You've given me something to think about.
damn' straight. I've often thought that giving kids the option of listening as well as of reading would increase interest and participation in class. I've only gotten through some classics (as an adult) because of hearing them read aloud.
I can't even find the information on the KRRP website, aside from the two news articles referenced in TFA.
No?
Okay, Carry on.
Part of the problem in this discussion is that we are dealing with almost NO concrete information.
The article on which the NPR "article" is based tells of 49 "incidents" this year with no additional details--we may presume that it has to do with children, based on the project name. They say that they investigated "three times the average number" in November, without revealing the number. They do give concrete numbers for this school year so far (31 compared to 14 last year), but give no context. The ALA reported 464 challenges in 2012 (referenced by turning in circles, above), but we don't know how these organizations relate or how this statistic relates to the KRRP statistics.
We don't know what percentage of challenges were successful, only that there was [a] "notable increase in positive outcomes to book challenges." They indicate clusters of challenges around racial and LGBT subjects, and suggest coordination, but give no corroborating evidence, and no links to the underlying data.
We are left with the vague impression that we should panic and with a link to their websites, where you have to hunt around to find any information related to the articles in question.
Yes, this IS slashdot, but doesn't it strike anyone as odd that we've been discussing/arguing/namecalling based on what is essentially a poorly-written press release?
Shelves of books falling on people will kill people--which is a good reason for safety standards.
'Cause not everything is yet available online--and not everything online is accessible.
I'd say that less than a quarter of the books in my (public) library are online, and about half of the materials available for download are crippled by DRM or format locks.
Methinks both o' yaz are overgeneralizing.
People will do for each other out of a natural inborn sense of decency
Your post reads a bit differently when, as in my area, "to do for" someone means "to kill" him (or her).
Ah, idiomatic expressions.
That is usually the effect.
Half the time, the first we hear of the book is when someone tries to challenge it. The story gets into the media, and sales spike. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't authors and publishers out there deliberately trying to court banning for the publicity's sake.
True, but, in context, the articles are talking about the number of challenges in schools that are in the US (rather than worldwide).
Usually the challenges start with trying to completely ban the book.
Most challenge policies are written to make that difficult, so the challengers then fall back to the position of trying to get them removed from the Required Reading Lists, and finally to requesting exemption and alternate reading materials for students.
Not that you'd know it from the article, or even the article's source article--both exhibit an amazing paucity of information--first time I've seen the summary more informative than the articles
Politics, probably. There's a lot of backlash against political correctness - some people would see reading such a book in schools as 'liberal indoctrination' intended to make white people feel guilty about being white.
I'd give you odds it's the reverse - that someone searched through an eBook library and banned every one with racial epithets regardless of context.
Usually, anymore, it is an organization that specializes in book or curriculum challenges. It will have a list of "objectionable" materials; downloadable complaints; challenges with page numbers and everything included; and all the press releases needed. The parent/teacher/administrator/pastor/insert authority figure does not even have to read the book.
Check out the Parents Action League's Book Alert Page (sorry, can't remember how to insert a link) for an example.
Have you tried it in audio format? Sometimes a good reader will make all the difference.