I've been on the receiving end of both- same day and month's notice. I've decided that they both suck, but I found it infinitely harder to be productive when I showed up to find out that I wouldn't be returning the following day. Having the month's notice was nice only from the standpoint that I could prepare for my imminent departure as opposed to having it sprung at the last minute.
"but we need you to stop making parts for the space shuttle, and no we're not going to tell you why."
With the lead time on parts and equipment prior to a mission, it's difficult to try and keep the cancellation of the program hidden. Eventually, someone will notice the fact that there's fewer and fewer external fuel tanks "on the shelf", so to speak, and begin to wonder why.
In the retail or restaurant business it's easy to move inventory to another business that is in the same line of work, but there's not much call for spare Space Shuttle parts. While I'm sure that a lot of the personnel involved in the program will be able to continue working in the field (either in private industry or possibly still within NASA), I think that the just-in-time supply of parts is really the reason that people need to be informed with a significant lead time prior to the suspension of activity.
Like many others that have commented, I remember seeing Star Hustler in the mid-80's as well, as a PBS weekend sign-off. Many a time my dad and I would go outside to check on Jack's observation for the week, and always had fun looking up at the sky. Even though the sign-off would be after midnight, we'd sometimes stare up at the sky pointing at things we could see for hours at a time.
Jack always kept astronomy accessible to everyone, and for that I thank you. You will be missed, Jack. I know I'll be one to keep looking up, and will make sure as many people as possible do the same.
When we go to B&N, we'll usually drop between $200 and $300. The $25 "membership" pays for itself in one purchase, so in my mind, it's a good investment. For others, it may not be so cut and dry- especially if you buy a paperback for $8 and you have to fork over an extra $25 just to save a buck. The membership is very beneficial to the bulk buyers, even if they only purchase once or twice a year.
I've bought books online, usually ones I can't find in the local retailers. The advantage to places like Amazon for me is that they have a wide selection, so when I know exactly what I'm looking for, I can usually find it quick. In general, when I'm book shopping, I don't necessarily have a specific book in mind, and I find it a lot easier to be in "browse mode" in a brick/mortar store than online. You can grab a book off the shelf and flip through it and actually see if it's what you want. With a fiction novel, that may not be as big of a deal, but when I'm buying technical manuals or the like, I'd rather be able to flip through and see what all it has to offer as opposed to the brief blurb that is previewed online, which may or may not be indicative of the quality of the book.
And for every game you mentioned, there's piles of crappy games as well. But that doesn't detract from your enjoyment of the ones that you consider to be "jewels".
StarCraft is probably the only "modern" game that's really held my interest in the same way that some of the older ones did.
Nostalgia plays a part, but I'm hard pressed to find a modern game that can hold my interest for hours on end like the older games.
I've got nothing against the fancy graphics and surround sound audio, but I think that newer games lose some of their playability in lieu of presentation.
There's lots of cool games and game systems out there now, but in my mind nothing beats the old ones.
Compared to today's multi-player, multimedia extravaganza's, the old games and consoles may be low-tech, but they still have a lot of fun and enjoyment for all ages. There's a lot of nostalgia around the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision and Nintendo NES, and I'd love to have a few of them to play around on again.
Choppy graphics and cheesy music may seem pretty awkward in today's gaming arena of digital audio and photo-realistic video, but I'd take the old games anyday.
I operate prety much in the same vain. I've been a linux user since '95, and an exclusive linux user since '03. I've converted a few people, but anytime someone asks me which is better, I always start by asking them what they use their computer for. If it ends up that the have a lot of application dependencies that are better satisfied by using Windows, I'll gladly tell them to just stay with Windows. If they do a lot of work that is OS-independent, I'll extol the virtues (as I see them) of linux. But I also make sure they understand that there could be limitations if they try to augment their application base from what they originally tell me.
I think the biggest problem with moving someone from Windows to Linux is that unless they're at a level of understanding whereby they know what each can and can't do, there will be a point where they either get something from a friend or download something that requires Windows to run. Someone who understands the inner workings of things may be able to get them working under linux, but general users aren't going to be able to figure that out, and to them, the system will just be broken and it will suck.
If Dell really wants to promote linux as an option, then allow systems to ship with a dual-boot configuration, so that the end user can make a choice based their own usage patterns.
Just like the printing press, radio, and television, the Internet has made it possible to disseminate information to more people, faster.
No matter which media we obtain our information from, we are presented with both fact and crap, and it's up to us which we elect to believe as the truth.
The technology used to present information has no bearing on intelligence, in my mind. How we choose to use that information does.
Since one of the participation requirements is that you have to "promise not to reverse engineer the box", I'm guessing that it will do something more than just plain-text pass through "counting" of packets over time.
And since every packet is going to go through this box, that means that every packet can be monitored as it's registered for "bandwidth" purposes.
My vote goes towards the black box approach, otherwise why would the be so adamant about people reverse engineering it?
I skipped 12 as well, but for issues with the Intel video drivers that were in the kernel. It's been a known issue since 2009, but hasn't been fixed, and only affects systems with both the Intel processer and GPU. Supposedly, it's fixed in the F13 kernel, so I guess we'll see.
Which explains why MacOS, Windows, and Linux aren't compatible with each other in the least, but all can infect alien computers with the exact same command:
UPLOAD VIRUS
Also, notice how every movie computer geek that is in trouble always has the exact viral code sequences ready to disable the mainframe at the right moment?? Usually prefaced by "I've been waiting for the right time to use this, and now it's here!"
I can't wait to see what happens when the reactor downloads the latest security updates at 3am, reboots itself, and doesn't come back up because of a bad patch!
Agreed- changing the theme is more akin to "The paint job is faded and ugly so I don't like the car."
The paint job can always be changed to whatever the user wants, even though many users are content to just leave it in its default configuration.
What's ironic is that the look is what creates the first impression, not the functionality. No matter how good or bad something works. people tend to be attracted to things that are pleasing to the eye.
The default color scheme/theme serves more to promote the corporate image as opposed to anything else. Personally, I don't particularly like the earth-tone color scheme that ubuntu uses, but I know I can change it to what I want, so it doesn't really matter to me what it looks like out of the box.
I'm significantly more interested in what works and what doesn't than the color, but this article is about paint jobs- not the cracked piston in cylinder 3 or the busted defroster. I too agree with all of the failings that were listed above, but that's a different thread- and will probably be a really long one too.
OK- lets take this logic and hit against something that is considered a "classic"
William Shakespeare deals with teen suicide in "Romeo and Juliet".
If we do a study that shows that more teens commit suicide after reading R&J than before, should it come with one of the stupid warning labels they place on CD's and in front of every TV show?
I can just see Barnes and Noble with a security guard in front of the Shakespeare aisle with a big sign: "Books in this aisle deal with adult subject matter and cannot be purchased by persons under the age of 17. Purchasing of this material for the purpose of furnishing it to minors is strictly prohibited by law."
From my experience, users tend to ignore what the consider to be "normal" error messages. Unless something strange and abnormal comes up, they generally will ignore the message.
Case in point- while managing a school computer lab, we decided to have some fun after listening to an all night marathon of Monty Python CD's containing, amongst others, the "cheese" sketch. We had located the command codes to send signals to the network attached HP printer, allowing us to change the default display message on the printer. Nobody noticed that the printer was out of paper, when it really was, but 5 people within 10 minutes noticed that the printer was "Out of Cheese" when there was really no problem with it.
Put any of the standard error codes on the panel, and nothing is noticed. Tell a user something unbelievable and weird, and they'll pay attention to it.
Of course the puzzled look that users will give you when you tell them that the printer works much better without cheese is absolutely priceless too.
I know this won't happen because the government likes maintaining it's stranglehold on US space exploration, but why they don't just privatize NASA?
We're far away from the the 60's where the government had a mission to get to the moon. For the last 15 years, NASA's manned missions have all been about international cooperation. The government hasn't been able to do it all on it's own- it's needed help from virtually every technologically advanced country on the planet in order to (A) keep the shuttles flying, and (B) put the ISS in orbit.
The level of cooperation needed in order to allow NASA to go beyond the shuttle program, and beyond the ISS is going to be enormous, and is going to need involvement from everyone to make it happen. Privatize NASA- yes it will take some time, and won't happen overnight, but it can put them into a position to try and become a global space exploration company that can bring in resources from wherever it finds them in order to fulfil a GLOBAL mission of putting a human being on Mars.
If there's anyone out there watching us, let's give them some indication that we can work together as a planet to do something spectacular.
My Google G1 fell out of my pocket when I got into my pickup and I ran the thing over. Scratched it up a bit, but otherwise- none the worse for wear. It's been dropped on concrete, stepped and gotten wet as well with no loss of function.
Ask 10 different people which distro to use, and you're likely to get 10 different answers.
Personally, I've been using RedHat/Fedora since it was pre-1.0, and it works for me. Is it the right choice? Maybe- maybe not- but it's my choice. I've also used Slackware, SuSE, Mandriva, Ubuntu, and Debian, but keep coming back to Fedora.
From the standpoint of the look and feel, you're most likely going to be using either Gnome or KDE as a window manager, and with enough playing around, you can make either one of them look pretty much like Windows if that's your goal.
There's a lot of good distros out there, and personal preference plays a major role in which one gets recommended. I'd recommend trying a few out, and seeing which one gives you the best functionality and ease of use based on your specific needs. There's a lot of good options suggested throughout the comments here, so I'd say try out the ones that have the most mentions, and see which of them works best for you.
You're right on the money with this one. Outside of school grounds, there is absolutely no reason that anyone at the school has any business to question what goes on with my kids. At best, they can maybe have some rules about Internet usage if it's a laptop which the school owns.
Let's face it- for the most part, the kids aren't going to be using these laptops in the kitchen or in the family room- they're going to be using them in their BEDROOM. I'm sorry, but I don't even go into my kids' bedrooms without knocking first. What gives some useless administrator from the school the right to go into any kids bedroom? Whoever came up with this plan has to be missing something in the intelligence area. And can you imagine what effect this will have on the kids when they turn around to find that little light on that indicates the webcam is active? All I can say is there's going to be a lot of therapy for kids who feel victimized if this is actually allowed to go forward.
If I was the parent of one of the kids that got a "school laptop" and found out that this was part of the usage policy, I'd be delivering it back to the school along with a letter from my lawyer.
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I've been on the receiving end of both- same day and month's notice. I've decided that they both suck, but I found it infinitely harder to be productive when I showed up to find out that I wouldn't be returning the following day. Having the month's notice was nice only from the standpoint that I could prepare for my imminent departure as opposed to having it sprung at the last minute.
"but we need you to stop making parts for the space shuttle, and no we're not going to tell you why."
With the lead time on parts and equipment prior to a mission, it's difficult to try and keep the cancellation of the program hidden. Eventually, someone will notice the fact that there's fewer and fewer external fuel tanks "on the shelf", so to speak, and begin to wonder why.
In the retail or restaurant business it's easy to move inventory to another business that is in the same line of work, but there's not much call for spare Space Shuttle parts. While I'm sure that a lot of the personnel involved in the program will be able to continue working in the field (either in private industry or possibly still within NASA), I think that the just-in-time supply of parts is really the reason that people need to be informed with a significant lead time prior to the suspension of activity.
I still lose my breath every time I look up and see the Milky Way. It's such a majestic sight, and seeing it never gets old.
Like many others that have commented, I remember seeing Star Hustler in the mid-80's as well, as a PBS weekend sign-off. Many a time my dad and I would go outside to check on Jack's observation for the week, and always had fun looking up at the sky. Even though the sign-off would be after midnight, we'd sometimes stare up at the sky pointing at things we could see for hours at a time.
Jack always kept astronomy accessible to everyone, and for that I thank you. You will be missed, Jack. I know I'll be one to keep looking up, and will make sure as many people as possible do the same.
as long as it has $80,000 of Bellagio chips you can cash in, who cares what it's called!
When we go to B&N, we'll usually drop between $200 and $300. The $25 "membership" pays for itself in one purchase, so in my mind, it's a good investment. For others, it may not be so cut and dry- especially if you buy a paperback for $8 and you have to fork over an extra $25 just to save a buck. The membership is very beneficial to the bulk buyers, even if they only purchase once or twice a year.
I've bought books online, usually ones I can't find in the local retailers. The advantage to places like Amazon for me is that they have a wide selection, so when I know exactly what I'm looking for, I can usually find it quick. In general, when I'm book shopping, I don't necessarily have a specific book in mind, and I find it a lot easier to be in "browse mode" in a brick/mortar store than online. You can grab a book off the shelf and flip through it and actually see if it's what you want. With a fiction novel, that may not be as big of a deal, but when I'm buying technical manuals or the like, I'd rather be able to flip through and see what all it has to offer as opposed to the brief blurb that is previewed online, which may or may not be indicative of the quality of the book.
And for every game you mentioned, there's piles of crappy games as well. But that doesn't detract from your enjoyment of the ones that you consider to be "jewels".
StarCraft is probably the only "modern" game that's really held my interest in the same way that some of the older ones did.
Nostalgia plays a part, but I'm hard pressed to find a modern game that can hold my interest for hours on end like the older games.
I've got nothing against the fancy graphics and surround sound audio, but I think that newer games lose some of their playability in lieu of presentation.
There's lots of cool games and game systems out there now, but in my mind nothing beats the old ones.
Compared to today's multi-player, multimedia extravaganza's, the old games and consoles may be low-tech, but they still have a lot of fun and enjoyment for all ages. There's a lot of nostalgia around the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision and Nintendo NES, and I'd love to have a few of them to play around on again.
Choppy graphics and cheesy music may seem pretty awkward in today's gaming arena of digital audio and photo-realistic video, but I'd take the old games anyday.
I operate prety much in the same vain. I've been a linux user since '95, and an exclusive linux user since '03. I've converted a few people, but anytime someone asks me which is better, I always start by asking them what they use their computer for. If it ends up that the have a lot of application dependencies that are better satisfied by using Windows, I'll gladly tell them to just stay with Windows. If they do a lot of work that is OS-independent, I'll extol the virtues (as I see them) of linux. But I also make sure they understand that there could be limitations if they try to augment their application base from what they originally tell me.
I think the biggest problem with moving someone from Windows to Linux is that unless they're at a level of understanding whereby they know what each can and can't do, there will be a point where they either get something from a friend or download something that requires Windows to run. Someone who understands the inner workings of things may be able to get them working under linux, but general users aren't going to be able to figure that out, and to them, the system will just be broken and it will suck.
If Dell really wants to promote linux as an option, then allow systems to ship with a dual-boot configuration, so that the end user can make a choice based their own usage patterns.
Just like the printing press, radio, and television, the Internet has made it possible to disseminate information to more people, faster.
No matter which media we obtain our information from, we are presented with both fact and crap, and it's up to us which we elect to believe as the truth.
The technology used to present information has no bearing on intelligence, in my mind. How we choose to use that information does.
Since one of the participation requirements is that you have to "promise not to reverse engineer the box", I'm guessing that it will do something more than just plain-text pass through "counting" of packets over time.
And since every packet is going to go through this box, that means that every packet can be monitored as it's registered for "bandwidth" purposes.
My vote goes towards the black box approach, otherwise why would the be so adamant about people reverse engineering it?
I skipped 12 as well, but for issues with the Intel video drivers that were in the kernel. It's been a known issue since 2009, but hasn't been fixed, and only affects systems with both the Intel processer and GPU. Supposedly, it's fixed in the F13 kernel, so I guess we'll see.
. . . that picture is not a fake . . . Mr. Kim has just "let one rip" . . .
They just photoshopped out the guy behind him- holding his nose and lighting it.....
"Mistr Blank" is obviously appropriate since you fail to understand sarcasm.
Which explains why MacOS, Windows, and Linux aren't compatible with each other in the least, but all can infect alien computers with the exact same command:
UPLOAD VIRUS
Also, notice how every movie computer geek that is in trouble always has the exact viral code sequences ready to disable the mainframe at the right moment?? Usually prefaced by "I've been waiting for the right time to use this, and now it's here!"
I can't wait to see what happens when the reactor downloads the latest security updates at 3am, reboots itself, and doesn't come back up because of a bad patch!
Agreed- changing the theme is more akin to "The paint job is faded and ugly so I don't like the car."
The paint job can always be changed to whatever the user wants, even though many users are content to just leave it in its default configuration.
What's ironic is that the look is what creates the first impression, not the functionality. No matter how good or bad something works. people tend to be attracted to things that are pleasing to the eye.
The default color scheme/theme serves more to promote the corporate image as opposed to anything else. Personally, I don't particularly like the earth-tone color scheme that ubuntu uses, but I know I can change it to what I want, so it doesn't really matter to me what it looks like out of the box.
I'm significantly more interested in what works and what doesn't than the color, but this article is about paint jobs- not the cracked piston in cylinder 3 or the busted defroster. I too agree with all of the failings that were listed above, but that's a different thread- and will probably be a really long one too.
OK- lets take this logic and hit against something that is considered a "classic"
William Shakespeare deals with teen suicide in "Romeo and Juliet".
If we do a study that shows that more teens commit suicide after reading R&J than before, should it come with one of the stupid warning labels they place on CD's and in front of every TV show?
I can just see Barnes and Noble with a security guard in front of the Shakespeare aisle with a big sign: "Books in this aisle deal with adult subject matter and cannot be purchased by persons under the age of 17. Purchasing of this material for the purpose of furnishing it to minors is strictly prohibited by law."
Stupid, huh? Makes just as much sense though.
"Recent studies prove that testing causes cancer in rats"
Make a thesis, and it's possible to find data to support it........ no matter how practical (or impractical) the thesis may be.
From my experience, users tend to ignore what the consider to be "normal" error messages. Unless something strange and abnormal comes up, they generally will ignore the message.
Case in point- while managing a school computer lab, we decided to have some fun after listening to an all night marathon of Monty Python CD's containing, amongst others, the "cheese" sketch. We had located the command codes to send signals to the network attached HP printer, allowing us to change the default display message on the printer. Nobody noticed that the printer was out of paper, when it really was, but 5 people within 10 minutes noticed that the printer was "Out of Cheese" when there was really no problem with it.
Put any of the standard error codes on the panel, and nothing is noticed. Tell a user something unbelievable and weird, and they'll pay attention to it.
Of course the puzzled look that users will give you when you tell them that the printer works much better without cheese is absolutely priceless too.
I know this won't happen because the government likes maintaining it's stranglehold on US space exploration, but why they don't just privatize NASA?
We're far away from the the 60's where the government had a mission to get to the moon. For the last 15 years, NASA's manned missions have all been about international cooperation. The government hasn't been able to do it all on it's own- it's needed help from virtually every technologically advanced country on the planet in order to (A) keep the shuttles flying, and (B) put the ISS in orbit.
The level of cooperation needed in order to allow NASA to go beyond the shuttle program, and beyond the ISS is going to be enormous, and is going to need involvement from everyone to make it happen. Privatize NASA- yes it will take some time, and won't happen overnight, but it can put them into a position to try and become a global space exploration company that can bring in resources from wherever it finds them in order to fulfil a GLOBAL mission of putting a human being on Mars.
If there's anyone out there watching us, let's give them some indication that we can work together as a planet to do something spectacular.
My Google G1 fell out of my pocket when I got into my pickup and I ran the thing over. Scratched it up a bit, but otherwise- none the worse for wear. It's been dropped on concrete, stepped and gotten wet as well with no loss of function.
Ask 10 different people which distro to use, and you're likely to get 10 different answers.
Personally, I've been using RedHat/Fedora since it was pre-1.0, and it works for me. Is it the right choice? Maybe- maybe not- but it's my choice. I've also used Slackware, SuSE, Mandriva, Ubuntu, and Debian, but keep coming back to Fedora.
From the standpoint of the look and feel, you're most likely going to be using either Gnome or KDE as a window manager, and with enough playing around, you can make either one of them look pretty much like Windows if that's your goal.
There's a lot of good distros out there, and personal preference plays a major role in which one gets recommended. I'd recommend trying a few out, and seeing which one gives you the best functionality and ease of use based on your specific needs. There's a lot of good options suggested throughout the comments here, so I'd say try out the ones that have the most mentions, and see which of them works best for you.
Good luck!
You're right on the money with this one. Outside of school grounds, there is absolutely no reason that anyone at the school has any business to question what goes on with my kids. At best, they can maybe have some rules about Internet usage if it's a laptop which the school owns.
Let's face it- for the most part, the kids aren't going to be using these laptops in the kitchen or in the family room- they're going to be using them in their BEDROOM. I'm sorry, but I don't even go into my kids' bedrooms without knocking first. What gives some useless administrator from the school the right to go into any kids bedroom? Whoever came up with this plan has to be missing something in the intelligence area. And can you imagine what effect this will have on the kids when they turn around to find that little light on that indicates the webcam is active? All I can say is there's going to be a lot of therapy for kids who feel victimized if this is actually allowed to go forward.
If I was the parent of one of the kids that got a "school laptop" and found out that this was part of the usage policy, I'd be delivering it back to the school along with a letter from my lawyer.