I think 2008 already was the year of the Linux desktop. It wasn't as big and flashy as everyone hoped, but for the first time I've seen a non-computer geek running Linux on their laptop-- not for any political or ideological issues, but because it was cheap and easy and did everything they needed. There are distributions that are polished enough that I'm feeling like I could install Linux on my mother's machine and she'd have less trouble than running Windows XP.
This was the year my sister, wife, and dad all converted to Ubuntu (Xubuntu for my dad 'cuz his laptop is ~7 years old)
I've been using Linux for 10 years now, and my sister had a little bit of Linux experience, but my dad is one of the most computer-dumb people I've ever met. His computer was totally virus-ridden and after having his Antivirus software tell me it had located the viruses but couldn't remove them, I told him the only thing I could do is put Linux on it. He asked if it would have a web browser and play DVDs. I said yeah, put Xubuntu on w/ firefox and deCSS, it all worked, and now he tells his co-workers he's a "geek".
My wife didn't know what Linux was two years ago and wasn't impressed when I had Debian on my Gateway, but when I got a new Ubuntu Dell laptop she was so impressed she wanted one too. When the time came to wipe out XP, I suggested setting up a dual-boot instead but she demanded I wipe her whole HD. Her only Linux experience was occasionally using my pc when she didn't feel like turning hers on, but all I had to teach her on Ubuntu was how to use Synaptic. Everything else was self-explanatory. And I had to spend about half an hour figuring out how to get her scanner to work, but every other device just worked, and I remember a time when I had to spend a good couple hours monkeying around with EVERY device.
So yeah, I think this was the year of Linux. The mainstream computing press may never look back on it and say it was the year that Linux went mainstream, but I'll always look back on 2008 as the year when normal, non-nerdy people I know converted.
I live in a small town, and I find that difficult to believe -- but I'll take your word for it.
The one rape victim I know personally has very helpful (and violent) friends to protect her -- I'm not sure I want to know what happened to the attacker. That's probably colored my reaction a bit...
Well, I suppose not all small towns are created equal so I shouldn't generalize, but I grew up in one (without any traffic lights) and the atmosphere was just as sexist and discouraging as I've described. Then I moved to a medium-sized town and it was just as bad. I now live in a city and it's a little bit better, but last year a girl who was raped couldn't stand to leave her apartment for months because she was so humiliated.
One (female) teacher at my high school went so far as to say, when some students were provocatively dressed, "Well if someone gets raped we all know why!"
Any pain caused by this being pointed out, publicly, is less than that caused by the act itself. But being publicly identified as a victim gives you sympathy. Being publicly identified as a perp makes him hated -- in a small enough town, might even drive him out.
Being publicly identified as a rape victim rarely brings sympathy. Talk to some rape victims about it some time and you'll find that for most it brings further embarrassment, questioning glances, people talking behind their backs about whether they "were asking for it" or are "sluts". Especially in a small town. In many cases the first thing the police ask is what she was wearing. As if it's just assumed it was her fault. And "in a small enough town," the perp might get high-fives from his buddies and a slap on the wrist from the law. I say these things not as someone who has been raped, but someone who has talked to many rape victims and listened to their stories.
I'm not saying the post you're responding to is right, just that you need to check your assumptions if you're going to appeal to "logic".
Megan Meier was not trying to get back at Lori Drew. Nor could she possible have been. She died *not knowing* that Drew was her harasser. Indeed, the verdict against Drew hinged on her *falsifying* her identity. If she had really been that boy she pretended to be, that boy would have committed no crime and gotten off scott-free. The simple fact was, Megan killed herself because she thought the boy of her dreams had turned on her, and Lori Drew is guilty of creating the delusion that drove her to it. It has nothing to do with getting back at anybody.
Only in the absurd case that someone is suicidal, being harassed by an imaginary person, KNOWS that their harasser is imaginary, yet simultaneously still believes in the fake person, can this verdict ever provide an incentive to suicide. The only incentive this verdict gives anyone is the incentive NOT to pretend to be someone else in order to push people into killing themselves.
I went to vote this morning in Madison, Wisconsin, only to find that despite having registered I had been removed from the list. Why? Because our corrupt attorney general insisted on purging the voter rolls (http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/304321). Anybody living in Wisconsin should help vote J.B. Van Hollen out of office next time he's up. Not that Lautenschlager was much butter, but this turd wants to control the elections and make sure republicans win. Our right to vote in the future depends on getting him out.
You and the AC mentioned Yoshi and Yoshi's Cookie...I was about to point out he was in "Mario is Missing"...which shows my lameness, as that wasn't even a real game. It took me 2 hours to beat on my very first time playing.
I worked at a relay center (phone calls for deaf people through the internet) for 3.5 years and developed pretty serious RSI, to the extent that the Dr. gave me wrist splints to wear all day and night. I went on a 6-week canoe trip down the Mississippi and, even though I was putting serious pressure on my wrists for about 10-12 hours a day, all my symptoms went away. I came back to go to Uni and within a few months of typing without other physical activity, the problems were back.
I had a marine radio with me when I canoed the Mississippi. I mainly used it to listen to NWS weather reports, but occasionally to talk to lockmasters. When the battery got low, it would interrupt the audio stream to beep loudly three times, as well as displaying that the batteries were low on the screen. The problem was, it repeated this about every 15 seconds. This went on for at least a half an hour, meaning there was plenty of battery to use the thing for that time, but it was completely unusable due to the beeping. It would have been far more useful if it gave NO warning and just shut off when it was dead.
I used to hang out there as a kid, playing Pac-man and Donkey Kong. And later on, Golden Axe. It's very exciting that they're expanding their franchise to UAE, especially since I had thought they had gone out of business. Although the wisdom of building a $265 million video arcade is questionable.
What you don't realize is, His Highness really hates being called that. Just like when Princess Leia got pissed at Han, he keeps going, "will you stop calling me that?" but since nobody's trying to get in his pants the way Han was, they never stop, they just keep it going 'cause they know it eggs him on.
Perhaps someone should tell him that general relativity has already been invented.
from the link: "Here you will find a preview of related 'digital lectures' that have been created to appeal to a wide global audience including topic experts as well as students, amateur astronomers and scientific professionals of all varieties." He's not claiming to have invented or discovered anything. It's just like Stephen Hawking writing A Brief History Of Time, or Feynman putting together Six Easy Pieces and Six Not-So-Easy Pieces. Would you say "Perhaps someone should tell Feynman that quantum physics has already been invented" or "tell Hawking black holes have already been discovered!" No. One of them was writing for students and the other for the layman, not for physicists. And most people who aren't physicists think of time as a single uniform dimension, if they think about it at all. Hence the need for a book to elucidate the difference.
I was pointing out his employement as a patent examiner as an explanation of why he might not know all that much about general relativity, but I just now realized how ironic that is.
So what you're saying is, this guy's the next Einstein?
the Apollo Hoax Believers are the biggest pack of prats walking the Earth.
Personally I think the holocaust deniers are worse. Hundreds of thousands of survivors, camps still there with ovens and gas chambers and all, mass graves, and they want us to believe it all just didn't happen. What do you mean, it didn't happen? Well, something had to kill 2/3 of Europe's Jews. They didn't all just walk into the ocean at the same time.
You could conceivably stage a single trip by a single spacecraft. You can't really make something up involving millions of people.
I suppose its rather sad having such a low opinion of corporations, but I have seen them screw enough people...
That's not sad at all. You're acting like a corporation has feelings. A corporation is an artificial entity created to produce profits for the shareholders. It's unreasonable to expect anything but cold, impersonal, profit-oriented actions from them in most circumstances.
Richard acquired an entire roll of aluminum foil and wore his foil-shielded pass prominently...Stallman also passed around the tinfoil...
So was it aluminum foil or tinfoil? Get it straight people, it's gotta be other one or the other. (or aluminum-tin-alloy foil, but I don't think they make that)
Slashdot Mirror
Disclaimor: IANAL....
Discmaimer: IDKHTSD...
BTW, I can also now troubleshoot my Dad's PC over the phone, something I haven't been able to do with Windows since 3.1.
I think 2008 already was the year of the Linux desktop. It wasn't as big and flashy as everyone hoped, but for the first time I've seen a non-computer geek running Linux on their laptop-- not for any political or ideological issues, but because it was cheap and easy and did everything they needed. There are distributions that are polished enough that I'm feeling like I could install Linux on my mother's machine and she'd have less trouble than running Windows XP.
This was the year my sister, wife, and dad all converted to Ubuntu (Xubuntu for my dad 'cuz his laptop is ~7 years old)
I've been using Linux for 10 years now, and my sister had a little bit of Linux experience, but my dad is one of the most computer-dumb people I've ever met. His computer was totally virus-ridden and after having his Antivirus software tell me it had located the viruses but couldn't remove them, I told him the only thing I could do is put Linux on it. He asked if it would have a web browser and play DVDs. I said yeah, put Xubuntu on w/ firefox and deCSS, it all worked, and now he tells his co-workers he's a "geek".
My wife didn't know what Linux was two years ago and wasn't impressed when I had Debian on my Gateway, but when I got a new Ubuntu Dell laptop she was so impressed she wanted one too. When the time came to wipe out XP, I suggested setting up a dual-boot instead but she demanded I wipe her whole HD. Her only Linux experience was occasionally using my pc when she didn't feel like turning hers on, but all I had to teach her on Ubuntu was how to use Synaptic. Everything else was self-explanatory. And I had to spend about half an hour figuring out how to get her scanner to work, but every other device just worked, and I remember a time when I had to spend a good couple hours monkeying around with EVERY device.
So yeah, I think this was the year of Linux. The mainstream computing press may never look back on it and say it was the year that Linux went mainstream, but I'll always look back on 2008 as the year when normal, non-nerdy people I know converted.
I live in a small town, and I find that difficult to believe -- but I'll take your word for it.
The one rape victim I know personally has very helpful (and violent) friends to protect her -- I'm not sure I want to know what happened to the attacker. That's probably colored my reaction a bit...
Well, I suppose not all small towns are created equal so I shouldn't generalize, but I grew up in one (without any traffic lights) and the atmosphere was just as sexist and discouraging as I've described. Then I moved to a medium-sized town and it was just as bad. I now live in a city and it's a little bit better, but last year a girl who was raped couldn't stand to leave her apartment for months because she was so humiliated.
One (female) teacher at my high school went so far as to say, when some students were provocatively dressed, "Well if someone gets raped we all know why!"
Any pain caused by this being pointed out, publicly, is less than that caused by the act itself. But being publicly identified as a victim gives you sympathy. Being publicly identified as a perp makes him hated -- in a small enough town, might even drive him out.
Being publicly identified as a rape victim rarely brings sympathy. Talk to some rape victims about it some time and you'll find that for most it brings further embarrassment, questioning glances, people talking behind their backs about whether they "were asking for it" or are "sluts". Especially in a small town. In many cases the first thing the police ask is what she was wearing. As if it's just assumed it was her fault. And "in a small enough town," the perp might get high-fives from his buddies and a slap on the wrist from the law. I say these things not as someone who has been raped, but someone who has talked to many rape victims and listened to their stories.
I'm not saying the post you're responding to is right, just that you need to check your assumptions if you're going to appeal to "logic".
Megan Meier was not trying to get back at Lori Drew. Nor could she possible have been. She died *not knowing* that Drew was her harasser. Indeed, the verdict against Drew hinged on her *falsifying* her identity. If she had really been that boy she pretended to be, that boy would have committed no crime and gotten off scott-free. The simple fact was, Megan killed herself because she thought the boy of her dreams had turned on her, and Lori Drew is guilty of creating the delusion that drove her to it. It has nothing to do with getting back at anybody.
Only in the absurd case that someone is suicidal, being harassed by an imaginary person, KNOWS that their harasser is imaginary, yet simultaneously still believes in the fake person, can this verdict ever provide an incentive to suicide. The only incentive this verdict gives anyone is the incentive NOT to pretend to be someone else in order to push people into killing themselves.
I went to vote this morning in Madison, Wisconsin, only to find that despite having registered I had been removed from the list. Why? Because our corrupt attorney general insisted on purging the voter rolls (http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/304321). Anybody living in Wisconsin should help vote J.B. Van Hollen out of office next time he's up. Not that Lautenschlager was much butter, but this turd wants to control the elections and make sure republicans win. Our right to vote in the future depends on getting him out.
...because the dev team thinks of EVERYTHING!
I run a small dev team for a company of 12 people....
Just remember:
Real programmers can write FORTRAN in any language!
...double-...
...sided.
Totally.
I don't necessarily disagree about HRC,
Please don't abbreviate her like that...I actually *like* the Human Rights Campaign.
By a slashdot post-off, with the entire party submitting to the first poster.
You and the AC mentioned Yoshi and Yoshi's Cookie...I was about to point out he was in "Mario is Missing"...which shows my lameness, as that wasn't even a real game. It took me 2 hours to beat on my very first time playing.
I worked at a relay center (phone calls for deaf people through the internet) for 3.5 years and developed pretty serious RSI, to the extent that the Dr. gave me wrist splints to wear all day and night. I went on a 6-week canoe trip down the Mississippi and, even though I was putting serious pressure on my wrists for about 10-12 hours a day, all my symptoms went away. I came back to go to Uni and within a few months of typing without other physical activity, the problems were back.
I had a marine radio with me when I canoed the Mississippi. I mainly used it to listen to NWS weather reports, but occasionally to talk to lockmasters. When the battery got low, it would interrupt the audio stream to beep loudly three times, as well as displaying that the batteries were low on the screen. The problem was, it repeated this about every 15 seconds. This went on for at least a half an hour, meaning there was plenty of battery to use the thing for that time, but it was completely unusable due to the beeping. It would have been far more useful if it gave NO warning and just shut off when it was dead.
I used to hang out there as a kid, playing Pac-man and Donkey Kong. And later on, Golden Axe. It's very exciting that they're expanding their franchise to UAE, especially since I had thought they had gone out of business. Although the wisdom of building a $265 million video arcade is questionable.
What you don't realize is, His Highness really hates being called that. Just like when Princess Leia got pissed at Han, he keeps going, "will you stop calling me that?" but since nobody's trying to get in his pants the way Han was, they never stop, they just keep it going 'cause they know it eggs him on.
Steinbeck? It's all Robert Burns, yo.
The social status affects of...mice and men
Gang aft a-gley.
Perhaps someone should tell him that general relativity has already been invented.
from the link: "Here you will find a preview of related 'digital lectures' that have been created to appeal to a wide global audience including topic experts as well as students, amateur astronomers and scientific professionals of all varieties." He's not claiming to have invented or discovered anything. It's just like Stephen Hawking writing A Brief History Of Time, or Feynman putting together Six Easy Pieces and Six Not-So-Easy Pieces. Would you say "Perhaps someone should tell Feynman that quantum physics has already been invented" or "tell Hawking black holes have already been discovered!" No. One of them was writing for students and the other for the layman, not for physicists. And most people who aren't physicists think of time as a single uniform dimension, if they think about it at all. Hence the need for a book to elucidate the difference.
I was pointing out his employement as a patent examiner as an explanation of why he might not know all that much about general relativity, but I just now realized how ironic that is.
So what you're saying is, this guy's the next Einstein?
the Apollo Hoax Believers are the biggest pack of prats walking the Earth.
Personally I think the holocaust deniers are worse. Hundreds of thousands of survivors, camps still there with ovens and gas chambers and all, mass graves, and they want us to believe it all just didn't happen. What do you mean, it didn't happen? Well, something had to kill 2/3 of Europe's Jews. They didn't all just walk into the ocean at the same time.
You could conceivably stage a single trip by a single spacecraft. You can't really make something up involving millions of people.
Is that the probe that must become the NINJA DRAGON?
I suppose its rather sad having such a low opinion of corporations, but I have seen them screw enough people...
That's not sad at all. You're acting like a corporation has feelings. A corporation is an artificial entity created to produce profits for the shareholders. It's unreasonable to expect anything but cold, impersonal, profit-oriented actions from them in most circumstances.
Richard acquired an entire roll of aluminum foil and wore his foil-shielded pass prominently...Stallman also passed around the tinfoil...
So was it aluminum foil or tinfoil? Get it straight people, it's gotta be other one or the other. (or aluminum-tin-alloy foil, but I don't think they make that)
A study at MIT has found that aluminum foil headwear...actually amplifies certain frequency bands
Seriously, they call it a tinfoil hat for a reason, and the reason is not 'cause it's made out of aluminum.