Let us pick up freely what we want to learn, and do it at our own pace... We do not need anyone to put a stamp on our foreheads, saying 'this guy knows classical Latin' or 'I understand special relativity'.
During my entire life, I have had to pass exams and more exams, written, oral, practical, whatever; I know where to go if I need qualifications, but, for once, I think this is a wonderful opportunity to learn what we would like to know, unspoilt by grades, notes, or whatever the devil thinks next!
...is the media-fed hysteria going around in some countries, arguing some (never proven) effects in human health. Where I live (Spain), some parents took their children away from school because there were cell masts nearby. Even after the mobile operator disconnected that base station, there were some diehards who did not allow their children go back to school -well, then it must have been antenna aestetics.
Of course, media have never realised that there are much powerful transmitters of electromagnetic signals everywhere... starting with their very own broadcast signals.
Ah, "visual" drag-and-drop programming environments! That's a real horror, my friends. As a veteran who has suffered the immense pains of using that kind of torture, and who has happily come back to the sunny fields of C++ (text editor, then gcc), I know what I say.
By the way, the painful system I am talking about is a development tool for quite specialised telecom applications, running on top of traditional switches. Some idiot named it Intelligent Networks. The system was regarded by my fellow developers as "assembler with funny little drawings"...
In my country (South-Western Europe), you will only find brand PCs in government or big corporation offices. At universities, schools, small businesses , homes, everywhere else you will just see white boxes, apart from the odd Macintosh. Even in the laptop segment unknown brands are quickly gaining marketshare.
The reason is quite clear: big brands use different pricing strategies outside the US, they usually are much more expensive, while 'white box' makers go shop their components directly from Taiwan and pass on the savings to the customers. I am pretty sure big names have given up the home and educational markets here.
So this 45% mentioned in the article seems quite believable from here, the figure seems to me even low!
To get a basic but solid background in data networks, I would recommend Tanenbaum's classic
Computer Networks. A bit out of date, but unbeatable to have a clear set of networking concepts.
I have always thought that "Third World" is a term coined during the Cold War, when a huge lot of countries which did not want to be aligned either with US-led or with USSR-led countries started a real movement, championed by India, if I am not wrong.
This was happening in the sixties, when all these countries were immersed in de-colonisation processes. Sadly, what they have in common today is mainly their poverty (but not all of them!).
In this context, the "First World" were the US allies, while the "Second World" were the Communist countries.
Re:In places where Internet is still expensive
on
XP, Phone Home
·
· Score: 2, Informative
That's a truly good point. I happen to have an ISDN modem by my side, and I am tired of switching it off as soon as the 'connecting' dialog box pops up. Being ISDN, you have to be as fast as lightning, otherwise you are paying another call (first three minutes are always billed, so bad luck if you are connected just for 5 seconds).
In many countries, flat rates are just during off-peak hours; for instance, mine starts at 18:00. Now that every single application or operating system component feels entitled to call home whenever it wants to, having an external modem you can physically switch off in tenths of seconds really pays off.
You are describing exactly my work environment. Most of the time is just a pain in the butt to open e-mail attachments with some kind of viewer, hoping that the document (be it Word, Excel or, even worse, Power Point) is not too complex or weird for it.
But some other times it is almost a humiliation: I recall having to beg the secretary to print the 'super stock-options plan' for me because it was just unreadable.
Typical biography of X, born in a computer illiterate family:
- X goes to primary school, sees computer (Windows, thanks to Microsoft's generosity)
- X goes to high school, learns a bit more (Windows, thanks to court settlement)
- X goes to college, only sees one operating system around (Windows, thanks to some astute bulk licensing policy and a not very bright college administrator)
Now, a question:
Assuming that X has not become a geek (quite probable, given the cruel environment he has been subject to:^), what O.S. will X regard as the Only One in the Galaxy?
I once heard a nice story, I don't know if it's true but I think it is worth telling:
It happens in Germany, at Siemens, the giant electrical engineering and electronics corporation. The über-boss, a member of the von Siemens familiy, an old man at the time, routinely used to test how easy was to enter his company facilities (most of the employees had seen photographs of him). Once, he tried to enter a factory where he meets this old-guard janitor, a typical case of prussian education. Von Siemens is denied entry, even when, having confirmed that the entrance was guarded well enough, he wanted to finally go into the factory. The old janitor kept on saying Yes, you are telling me you are von Siemens and you really look like him, but if you don't produce a valid ID, you are not entering this building
Von Siemens had to wait until the following day and the janitor was promoted.
A friend of mine spent some months working for Dell in Ireland. She told me once about the laptop assembly line: truly a horror history, how workers were hitting parts into place. And quality control was not really demanding...
No wonder the expensive things stopped working some time later...
There is another view regarding legal issues: if you include Open Source code in a commercial product, it can happen that the code you are using violates some patents; the organization holding those patents can be waiting until they have some deep-pocketed company, like yours, to sue.
It was a patent attorney who warned us, and by Zeus, he presented such examples that he was able to completely convince the audience in two hours. Regretfully, that happened like two years ago and I cannot recall any of those examples.
After years of using/cursing Windows, thanks to this article I have just learnt the existence of "shift-right click" to bring the "Open With..." command. Oh my. Who said that reading Slashdot is a waste of time? One can also think that a Salon article had a good consequence (at last!), but that would be going too far.
And yes, changing the default application to open an extension is a complete nightmare in Windows9x. Especially because first you have to guess the name some mischievous mind gave to that file type, and the difficulty level grows exponentially when you are using Windows in another language (not English).
Not anymore, they got rid of their wonderful lab equipment portfolio: Agilent is its new name, I think (the name must be another product of the 'horrible corporate naming machine', that has brought us such marvels as Avaya, Agere, Accenture...)
Slashdot Mirror
Let us pick up freely what we want to learn, and do it at our own pace... We do not need anyone to put a stamp on our foreheads, saying 'this guy knows classical Latin' or 'I understand special relativity'.
During my entire life, I have had to pass exams and more exams, written, oral, practical, whatever; I know where to go if I need qualifications, but, for once, I think this is a wonderful opportunity to learn what we would like to know, unspoilt by grades, notes, or whatever the devil thinks next!
...is the media-fed hysteria going around in some countries, arguing some (never proven) effects in human health. Where I live (Spain), some parents took their children away from school because there were cell masts nearby. Even after the mobile operator disconnected that base station, there were some diehards who did not allow their children go back to school -well, then it must have been antenna aestetics.
Of course, media have never realised that there are much powerful transmitters of electromagnetic signals everywhere... starting with their very own broadcast signals.
Ah, "visual" drag-and-drop programming environments! That's a real horror, my friends. As a veteran who has suffered the immense pains of using that kind of torture, and who has happily come back to the sunny fields of C++ (text editor, then gcc), I know what I say.
By the way, the painful system I am talking about is a development tool for quite specialised telecom applications, running on top of traditional switches. Some idiot named it Intelligent Networks. The system was regarded by my fellow developers as "assembler with funny little drawings"...
The reason is quite clear: big brands use different pricing strategies outside the US, they usually are much more expensive, while 'white box' makers go shop their components directly from Taiwan and pass on the savings to the customers. I am pretty sure big names have given up the home and educational markets here.
So this 45% mentioned in the article seems quite believable from here, the figure seems to me even low!
To get a basic but solid background in data networks, I would recommend Tanenbaum's classic Computer Networks. A bit out of date, but unbeatable to have a clear set of networking concepts.
I have always thought that "Third World" is a term coined during the Cold War, when a huge lot of countries which did not want to be aligned either with US-led or with USSR-led countries started a real movement, championed by India, if I am not wrong.
This was happening in the sixties, when all these countries were immersed in de-colonisation processes. Sadly, what they have in common today is mainly their poverty (but not all of them!).
In this context, the "First World" were the US allies, while the "Second World" were the Communist countries.
That's a truly good point. I happen to have an ISDN modem by my side, and I am tired of switching it off as soon as the 'connecting' dialog box pops up. Being ISDN, you have to be as fast as lightning, otherwise you are paying another call (first three minutes are always billed, so bad luck if you are connected just for 5 seconds).
In many countries, flat rates are just during off-peak hours; for instance, mine starts at 18:00. Now that every single application or operating system component feels entitled to call home whenever it wants to, having an external modem you can physically switch off in tenths of seconds really pays off.
Notice taped inside all lifts in the office building where I work, some weeks ago:
Laptop stolen, floor 12. Reward if given back: $10.000. No questions will be asked
Couple of days later, those notices had been removed. I never knew whether the laptop had been returned...
laudable:
adj. deserving or worthy of praise; admirable; commendable
laughable:
adj. producing scorn; ludicrous: he offered me a laughable sum for the picture
I guess you misunderstood something, dude...
(definitions thanks to wordreference.com)
You are describing exactly my work environment. Most of the time is just a pain in the butt to open e-mail attachments with some kind of viewer, hoping that the document (be it Word, Excel or, even worse, Power Point) is not too complex or weird for it.
But some other times it is almost a humiliation: I recall having to beg the secretary to print the 'super stock-options plan' for me because it was just unreadable.
- X goes to primary school, sees computer (Windows, thanks to Microsoft's generosity)
- X goes to high school, learns a bit more (Windows, thanks to court settlement)
- X goes to college, only sees one operating system around (Windows, thanks to some astute bulk licensing policy and a not very bright college administrator)
Now, a question:
Assuming that X has not become a geek (quite probable, given the cruel environment he has been subject to
It happens in Germany, at Siemens, the giant electrical engineering and electronics corporation. The über-boss, a member of the von Siemens familiy, an old man at the time, routinely used to test how easy was to enter his company facilities (most of the employees had seen photographs of him). Once, he tried to enter a factory where he meets this old-guard janitor, a typical case of prussian education. Von Siemens is denied entry, even when, having confirmed that the entrance was guarded well enough, he wanted to finally go into the factory. The old janitor kept on saying Yes, you are telling me you are von Siemens and you really look like him, but if you don't produce a valid ID, you are not entering this building
Von Siemens had to wait until the following day and the janitor was promoted.
No wonder the expensive things stopped working some time later...
There is another view regarding legal issues: if you include Open Source code in a commercial product, it can happen that the code you are using violates some patents; the organization holding those patents can be waiting until they have some deep-pocketed company, like yours, to sue.
It was a patent attorney who warned us, and by Zeus, he presented such examples that he was able to completely convince the audience in two hours. Regretfully, that happened like two years ago and I cannot recall any of those examples.
I feel really bad today...
After years of using/cursing Windows, thanks to this article I have just learnt the existence of "shift-right click" to bring the "Open With..." command. Oh my. Who said that reading Slashdot is a waste of time? One can also think that a Salon article had a good consequence (at last!), but that would be going too far.
And yes, changing the default application to open an extension is a complete nightmare in Windows9x. Especially because first you have to guess the name some mischievous mind gave to that file type, and the difficulty level grows exponentially when you are using Windows in another language (not English).
Not anymore, they got rid of their wonderful lab equipment portfolio: Agilent is its new name, I think (the name must be another product of the 'horrible corporate naming machine', that has brought us such marvels as Avaya, Agere, Accenture...)