IBM did put OS/2 warp on their computers (at least, at the end). I bought a Aptiva in early 1995 that dual-booted into Win 3.1 and OS/2. I liked OS/2 but we could never get the Enternet card working properly (so I couldn't get it onto the network under OS/2.)
But, as I recall, you could not run OS/2 and Win95 on the same system (or both IBM and Microsoft claimed.) When I was forced to upgrade Windows, I had to totally wipe OS/2 off the system.
AOL users tend to complain to the webmasters. Because AOL is perfect, 'ya know...
My website has been blamed for crashing AOL user's computers (simple html + text, no JS), for being full of broken links (due to a site update combined with the AOL cache) and many other odd things that were pretty obviously the fault of AOL.
We've currently got an AOL cache server out there that apparently hasn't managed to pick up the new version of a page updated on Feb 13th (now that's nuts; usually if a cache server is completely screwed, we can tell the users to wait 24 hours and it should clear up.) The users that hit that server think that we've got mislabeled/mislinked content on our page. And they complain about it. And we blame AOL. And they don't believe us, because AOL is perfect, 'ya know?
I did. And it's a good example of "if you believe everything you read (without researching and without supporting evidence), you're a fucking idiot."
From Google itself:
Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.
Thus, my comment that talking about ranking (I used the term rating by typo) alone is simplistic. The article does this, and bases its complaints upon that simplistic presumption. Google *does* depend on other search methods to help make their results relevent. Having spoken with (a while back, via e-mail, as part of my job) some of the Google engineers, I am personally aware that even the paragraph quoted above is a simplified explanation. Both of these aspects together help me form the opinions that some of the complaints of the article are not reality or correct. They are presumptions drawn from a incomplete "understanding" of what Google does and how Google does it.
I can craft a simple query that'll pull up a website that got into Google a couple of weeks ago, and that there are few (if any) other sites linking to. I can even get it into the first three results if I want, or definitely onto the first page of results. I consider that a success. That success is obviously *not* a result of PageRank alone.
As for my comments on time for Google to archive links, they are based on personal observation, thus they are accurate in my perspective. I don't see how the article is supposed to change things I have observed personally, rather recently.
For certain types of links, Google can take as little as a couple of days. I know that I can find articles (from many different news sites, who allow individual articles to be spidered) usually within 48 hours. Sometimes within 24 hours. That's wonderful for me, if I can remember a news article I've seen recently and wish to reference, but can't remember the site I saw it on.
As for new sites, it's been taking a week or so recently. Usually if I don't see it in a week, I head over to their add URL page and submit it.
Talking about Google only using ratings (via number of links) is simplistic. Their index/search algorithms are obviously much more complex than that, and appear to utilitize a wide range of methods beyond simply rating.
Newer Microsoft products seem to be hell on batteries.
I have a laptop that happily ran Win95 for a while. It got two-three hours of battery life and was very nice when the battery was running low (it started beeping about five minutes prior to the machine shutting off, and suspended to disk if you didn't get to it.)
One hasty day, I upgraded to Win98 (the IT guy was going to configure it so that I could VPN into the office LAN; he refused to configure anything under win95/linux/freebsd and wouldn't give me the information to do it myself.) The battery life immediately dropped to about 30 minutes, and the machine just dies when the battery goes. It sucked.
It sounds like you have a fairly good grasp of the mechnical structure of English, as well as current "spoken/written" structure.
Many US public schools did not teach mechnical English during the 1980s and early 1990s, due to the predominence of the whole languague method. Thus you've got a lot of American 20-somethings who can't name the english tenses, describe what different parts of a sentence are, or parse a sentence. Most of them are actually fairly decent readers and writers, because the "feels right" approach works okay with your native tongue. You know intuitively what structures are "right" and "wrong" and are correct a majority of the time. You can communicate.
But the method breaks down when you attempt to learn a foreign language, since those are usually taught in a mechnical format. How can you understand what a subordinate clause is in Spanish, when you don't consiously know what it is in your native languauge?
Latin is so dependant on its formal rules that if you don't understand (other than intuitively) the formal rules of language/grammar, you're going to find it extremely difficult. You're not only learning the language--you're trying to learn what language/grammar *is*. If you've never formally considered the different cases/tenses English contains, even the basics of Latin are difficult. Those which are mainly obsolete in English are almost nonsensical. If you're not trained to think about any language formally, trying to learn another one through formal methods is going to get you nowhere fast.
For instance, one part that came out in the original series: Why are Vulcans so logical? Because they are extremely emotional, and tend to kill each other in their 'natural' state.
Perhaps at least that tidbit came out on tonight's episode;
It did--despite having enjoyed the show up until this point, I was mentally cringing after the previews for this episode. The story hinted at by the previews had little relation to the story that actually occured.
The outcome of the story was that there is a reason for T'Pol (and by extension, Vulcans) to be as they are; that if you think the veiled arrogance they've been getting from the Vulcans is bad, what is possible could be worse. Perhaps some Vulcans (as possibly protrayed in the substory of the engineer with the dying father) can integrate their logic and emotions, but the point of the story was that it doesn't seem desirable/attainable for most other Vulcans (the male that ended up abusing T'Pol and tossing Archer across the room.) The risk of such exploration of emotion is very high, and the question is whether it is too high. The answer I believe the episode gave was a tentative yes.
And we saw more of the dark side of Vulcans--perhaps the results of the barely under control Vulcan xenophobia hinted at in the original series, and more directly addressed in the novel Spock's World. The bizarre rumours about human behaviors which are detailed and enforced by Vulcan scientists, the way that these rumours have found a place in Vulcan society. They were dealt with in a light-hearted manner, by a character intelligent enough and curious enough to grasp that the stories might be a load of bullshit, but despite using discussion of these rumours to add some humour to the episode, what they point to is disturbing. Logic does not equal common sense. Vulcan logic does not prevent the development of stereotypes, nor the utterly illogical beliefs based upon them.
Now, if you want a Black or Asian child, homegrown or imported, there are plenty to be had.
But people don't seem to want those kind...
Not exactly. In several states (that I know of/have experience with) a white family can not easily adopt a black child. The state would prefer the child stay in foster care until an adoptive parent "of their own culture" is located.
Never mind that the majority of these children don't come out of foster care until they reach age 18...
Finances and legality do stand in the way for Asian and Eastern European adoptions, too. I know several people who have participated in Asian adoptions (from China) which took upwards of a year, and between $50K-$100K. Supposedly there are NFP groups that will help with finances at now (these adoptions are all several years in the past now), but you're still talking about a large financial commitment.
In many cases, medical insurance *will* pay for infertility treatments (and pregnancy), but little will help you pay for adoption.
If you look at the About Us page, it reveals that the site is funded by the EFF, the Stanford Center for Internet & Society (an organization run by Stanford Law, AFAIK) as well as a couple similar organizations connected with other law schools.
I've had contact with some of the above, and have knowledge of the legal work/defense that they have helped with (esp. from Stanford.) You're talking some semi-big guns here, not pie-in-the-sky idealists. They know what they're up against.
And you can have a perfectly useable, powerful *nix system without a GUI. Why waste the overhead of X when it's not needed (on many servers, for example).
That's one thing I really don't get about Windows servers. Why the overhead of a GUI for a box that you want to sit in the corner, happily running its services?
It depends on what you mean by an nonprofit. I work for a nonprofit trade organization (45 employees) and it's worse than working corporate. Especially for IT people. The management politics are worse than anything I encountered at a public company (where there's at least a *reason* for the politics) and nepotism/favoritism deeply affects everything that goes on in the office.
I am as strongly opposed to far left liberalism as I am to far right conservatism. The fact is that media currently leans towards the liberal, and reports on the "sins" of the right more than the left, thus giving rise to an easily [mentally] accessible example. Both sides are guilty of the exact same methods, which I tried to express in a later message. Both sides would "work together" to ruin a forum like what was suggested.
As long as that vocal minority is only making suggestions, it doesn't seem like such a bad thing.
But, AC, in the long run, it's a problem of preception. If a vocal minority can come to be 'seen' as representative of the majority (by sitting there, screaming their heads off to their own ends, while the moderate majority goes on with their lives, believing it's only "suggestions") that preception can foster changes or prejudices that are not in the interest of the majority.
For example, the "ugly American." I love other cultures, and I love to travel. Most people I know are similar (they at least respect other cultures/understand that things may be different.) But when I travel, I do have to overcome the preception of the ugly American. Ugly Americans are probably not the majority of Americans. But they can be so irritating, so insulting that it becomes a problem of stereotype. The stereotype represents the minority, but it is preceived as an example of the majority.
It's an ongoing, and frustrating problem--those who are generally satisfied with the status quo are not going to have much of an incentive to participate in politics. Most of those who are active in politics are active because they are unsatisfied with the status quo. In the US, right now, the religious right is politically active because the status quo tends to the liberal (abortion is legal) and the non-religious (although studies still say that a majority of Americans still believe in God, we tend not to be very religious in our everyday lives/involve religion in "public") The status quo distresses the religious right, and I can understand why. That doesn't mean that the policies they loudly push are in the interests of the majority of Americans. Or, for that matter, that the policies that extreme liberals (considering the other side) are in the interests of the majority either. In most cases, the policies of either extreme are *not* in the interests of the majority, because they seek to alter the status quo. Of course, we can always offer examples of politics being forwarded by any side (given that there are far more sides in US politics than simply right v. left) that are in the interest of the majority (I believe the MS antitrust suit to be one of them), but many of them are not.
I could talk in circles for hours on this. I think I should stop now...
And the fact that the cost moves to zero will be an encouragement to those groups who already have established lobbying methods. It would be a very typical online community--the radicals from both extremes are vocal and attemptng to be preceived as the "majority," while the large moderate middle is unrepresented and their needs unconsidered. The extremes have the most invested in making their voices heard. It's just like the condundrum of government--those drawn to government, in most cases, are those least fit to govern for the majority.
Unfortunately, something like that would result in the same types of problems that arise from special interest groups and lobbyists--a vocal minority "seeming" like a majority. The loudmouths would strongly encourage the direction of government. In real life, right-wing conservatives already have this type of influence down cold.
Also a major problem in all online communities I've participated in... (vocal minorities, not right-wing conservatives;)
They do have access to an electronic copy, fortunately. Our writers/researchers like the hard copy to pass onto bosses, collegues; and to put into their portfolio. Or just to throw onto a table in the lobby...
In November, I sent five copies (each) of a technical journal to two authors in Toronto via USPS. Usually, they take a week or so to arrive. They still have yet to receive the package sent in November, or the new package from January.
I gave up trying to figure this out years ago, and now content myself to just reading whatever
interesting stuff happens to make it through the filter, and posting an occasional diatribe or two.
The reasoning (or lack there of) behind what stories get accepted or rejected from Slashdot is not actually all that hard to understand. Like anything in PR, it's a crapshoot.
Here are my views (I always submit as AC, due to some particular personal reasons, but have a fairly decent acceptance rate.)
Submitting a story to Slashdot involves creating a mini press release. You are promoting your "version" of the story, so that it gets chosen over all other "versions." Creating an effective press release is frickin' hard. I've seen cases in which a 2-page, double-spaced press release took two-three weeks to produce.
As with any press release, you increase your chances by focusing on certain aspects.
1. Engaging language. You are selling your summary to the editor who reviews it. They probably go through dozens of submissions a day, and yours has to catch their eye and engage their attention.
2. Interesting topic, which could give rise to a ongoing discussion. When looking back on most of my failed submissions, they did not meet #2. If it is interesting, but probably won't create much of a discussion, it is worthless for Slashdot's purposes. This is not a news site, it is a discussion site. Even if you believe it would generate a discussion, posing a jumping off point for that discussion increases your chances.
But still, things will be rejected, as thousands of press releases around the world are thrown into thousands of trash cans every day. Other versions of the same thing may be accepted because the language/discussion points appeal more to the editor who reviews it. This can be a problem at times, because an incorrect and more controversial version which provides a jumping off point for argument will probably be accepted over a summary which is technically correct and dry. But this is not a problem with this site alone--it is a problem throughout the news world. Where do you think that the news sites get some of their incorrect yet controversial information about technical issues? Badly written press releases whose information may be incorrect, but has the "gotcha" factor.
And there's always the editor factor. Maybe editor A couldn't give a damn about the subject and rejected submission A because it didn't interest him. Then submission B comes around a day later and is reviewed by editor B, who loves the information provided. Therefore, B is accepted over A. This too, is not a problem limited to this news site. Once more than one person is involved consistancy goes straight out the window, no matter how hard you strive for it.
Submitting to Slashdot is a crapshoot. There are ways that you can improve your odds, but if your summary is reviewed by an editor who believes it is uninteresting, or believes it will not stimulate discussion, it gets rejected.
Given that it's been reported on sites like CNN as well, pulling in rubberneckers who are techy and not, SEC is probably not counting on much beyond the curiosity factor with this particular site. Searchs by slashdotters may through off stats on other sites today, but that's probably an expected outlier as well--we are not the only ones to like challenges, and announcing that you've got sites like this out there is tantamount to declaring a challenge.
Immediate "news-worthy" benefits had already been generated by this site prior to its mentions on news sites. Hopefully ongoing benefits (people who are little more clued in about internet scams) will be generated by other of their fake sites. SEC did throw this one away--at least for now--by using it as the basis for a press release.
Shipping has been a problem, tho, with one book taking 3+ weeks to get from Fernley NV to Santa Cruz CA, not the first time they blundered, either, less than impressed with ability to track, tho much of this rests on USPS shoulders as well (it's possible the first was in the wreck of a USPS semi on I-80 about the time the book would have shipped.)
Currently working in a job where I deal with a lot of shipping, shipping issues are usually a problem on the part of FedEx/UPS/USPS rather than the supplier.
Everything we get via UPS must go through a regional distribution center in downtown Chicago, 30 miles away. If something gets put on the wrong truck (to a local distribution center) there, you're screwed. And it happens pretty often. I've had more than one package go through Chicago and get put on a truck out to Kansas or Nebraska. It spends a week circling back to Chicago, then goes out to our local distribution center. And I get to watch it all through online tracking!
For the Web pundits who lurch zombie-like towards the wonderfully Webby tomorrow, could their real dilema be that they cannot function in today's world?
There is a saying about "getting ahead of the Smiths." I think it is relevent in this situation.
Many people are working for that mythical tomorrow. That time when circumstances will unite and put them so far ahead of the Smiths that the Smiths will be left forever in the dust. When they will have everything they desire, and others will *know* it.
Some of those people want a magic pill that'll take them there. Something that will provide them limitless opportunity at little cost. Some saw the web as this magic pill. Even as those hopes are crashing back to earth, people will still hope.
The irony is that computers have been a magic pill for some--for those who were in the right place at the right time. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are two names that come to mind. And oddly enough, they're a perfect pairing in this type of contradiction--based on what I've read of them and their relationship, each views himself as having "gotten ahead" of the other. That is because they have different views of what it all means. For Gates, it's about having a powerful computer monopoly and controlling the mindless masses. For Jobs, it's about having a dedicated following and the "cool" factor.
But magic pills won't work for the majority, because getting ahead is really a contradiction. Getting ahead of what? Your neighbor? Get ahead, move to a bigger house... oops, there's an even bigger house down the street. I work at a small organization, without many paths of advancement. Nobody's going much of anywhere unless they leave. Yet the political struggles are extreme, and senseless. We would get much more done and probably have our organization in a much better market position if there were not so many conflicts at the upper levels. But these people are struggle for the psychological advance over another--to feel that they are better. Yet once they've gotten that feeling, it gets them nothing, and they are probably going to be the ones "belittled" the next time around. Since they know that, they can't sit back and "enjoy" their laurels. It goes on and on without end. There is no everlasting king of the hill.
The web is going to change society at some of its deepest levels. It has already begun. But it's going to be like other innovations of the 20th century. Give us a decade, or two, and we're not going to be able to imagine life without it. Life will have adapted to it, and it will have adapted to life. I find it hard to picture a life without jet planes--a life in which it would have taken me much longer to travel to Europe or Australia. Yet that was a reality that our grandparents can probably remember. And those who thought air travel was a magic bullet have been getting hit on the head with reality for far longer than just the past couple of months.
In 200 years, we can look back and trace the culture evolution brought on by the Internet. Right now, we're too close. And it ain't no magic bullet to anywhere, so those who are out there feeling betrayed ("I knew the secret! Why can't I reach tomorrow?") can either go on searching for their next magic bullet, or realize that there's plenty in today that can be enjoyed.
The computer and television whine are on the high end of the sound range. You can have loss in some areas of the range, and/or be overly sensitive in other areas of the range.
The TV/Comp whine is about on the order of a dog whistle--on the very outside "upper" range of human hearing, but not inaudible for all humans. Children tend to be more sensitive than adults, and women more sensitive then men.
Firstenberg... graduated from Cornell University with a degree in mathematics and a minor in physics.
Now, I'm not about to say that he can't be a 'whackjob' because he is a university graduate, but it does seem to throw water on the 'he's just some random nutcase' angle I was expecting to hear.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense to me. There are a lot of people in theorical fields who have quirks or odd obsessions. In some ways, I suspect that those quirks help them to achieve what they do. Luckily, most of them don't have them to the degree which would impact normal functioning.
Many nutcases are highly intelligent. Intelligence does not equal common sense--however you would define common sense.
Slashdot Mirror
IBM did put OS/2 warp on their computers (at least, at the end). I bought a Aptiva in early 1995 that dual-booted into Win 3.1 and OS/2. I liked OS/2 but we could never get the Enternet card working properly (so I couldn't get it onto the network under OS/2.)
But, as I recall, you could not run OS/2 and Win95 on the same system (or both IBM and Microsoft claimed.) When I was forced to upgrade Windows, I had to totally wipe OS/2 off the system.
AOL users tend to complain to the webmasters. Because AOL is perfect, 'ya know ...
My website has been blamed for crashing AOL user's computers (simple html + text, no JS), for being full of broken links (due to a site update combined with the AOL cache) and many other odd things that were pretty obviously the fault of AOL.
We've currently got an AOL cache server out there that apparently hasn't managed to pick up the new version of a page updated on Feb 13th (now that's nuts; usually if a cache server is completely screwed, we can tell the users to wait 24 hours and it should clear up.) The users that hit that server think that we've got mislabeled/mislinked content on our page. And they complain about it. And we blame AOL. And they don't believe us, because AOL is perfect, 'ya know?
Read the fucking article first.
I did. And it's a good example of "if you believe everything you read (without researching and without supporting evidence), you're a fucking idiot."
From Google itself:
Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.
Thus, my comment that talking about ranking (I used the term rating by typo) alone is simplistic. The article does this, and bases its complaints upon that simplistic presumption. Google *does* depend on other search methods to help make their results relevent. Having spoken with (a while back, via e-mail, as part of my job) some of the Google engineers, I am personally aware that even the paragraph quoted above is a simplified explanation. Both of these aspects together help me form the opinions that some of the complaints of the article are not reality or correct. They are presumptions drawn from a incomplete "understanding" of what Google does and how Google does it.
I can craft a simple query that'll pull up a website that got into Google a couple of weeks ago, and that there are few (if any) other sites linking to. I can even get it into the first three results if I want, or definitely onto the first page of results. I consider that a success. That success is obviously *not* a result of PageRank alone.
As for my comments on time for Google to archive links, they are based on personal observation, thus they are accurate in my perspective. I don't see how the article is supposed to change things I have observed personally, rather recently.
For certain types of links, Google can take as little as a couple of days. I know that I can find articles (from many different news sites, who allow individual articles to be spidered) usually within 48 hours. Sometimes within 24 hours. That's wonderful for me, if I can remember a news article I've seen recently and wish to reference, but can't remember the site I saw it on.
As for new sites, it's been taking a week or so recently. Usually if I don't see it in a week, I head over to their add URL page and submit it.
Talking about Google only using ratings (via number of links) is simplistic. Their index/search algorithms are obviously much more complex than that, and appear to utilitize a wide range of methods beyond simply rating.
Newer Microsoft products seem to be hell on batteries.
I have a laptop that happily ran Win95 for a while. It got two-three hours of battery life and was very nice when the battery was running low (it started beeping about five minutes prior to the machine shutting off, and suspended to disk if you didn't get to it.)
One hasty day, I upgraded to Win98 (the IT guy was going to configure it so that I could VPN into the office LAN; he refused to configure anything under win95/linux/freebsd and wouldn't give me the information to do it myself.) The battery life immediately dropped to about 30 minutes, and the machine just dies when the battery goes. It sucked.
It sounds like you have a fairly good grasp of the mechnical structure of English, as well as current "spoken/written" structure.
Many US public schools did not teach mechnical English during the 1980s and early 1990s, due to the predominence of the whole languague method. Thus you've got a lot of American 20-somethings who can't name the english tenses, describe what different parts of a sentence are, or parse a sentence. Most of them are actually fairly decent readers and writers, because the "feels right" approach works okay with your native tongue. You know intuitively what structures are "right" and "wrong" and are correct a majority of the time. You can communicate.
But the method breaks down when you attempt to learn a foreign language, since those are usually taught in a mechnical format. How can you understand what a subordinate clause is in Spanish, when you don't consiously know what it is in your native languauge?
Latin is so dependant on its formal rules that if you don't understand (other than intuitively) the formal rules of language/grammar, you're going to find it extremely difficult. You're not only learning the language--you're trying to learn what language/grammar *is*. If you've never formally considered the different cases/tenses English contains, even the basics of Latin are difficult. Those which are mainly obsolete in English are almost nonsensical. If you're not trained to think about any language formally, trying to learn another one through formal methods is going to get you nowhere fast.
For instance, one part that came out in the original series: Why are Vulcans so logical? Because they are extremely emotional, and tend to kill each other in their 'natural' state.
Perhaps at least that tidbit came out on tonight's episode;
It did--despite having enjoyed the show up until this point, I was mentally cringing after the previews for this episode. The story hinted at by the previews had little relation to the story that actually occured.
The outcome of the story was that there is a reason for T'Pol (and by extension, Vulcans) to be as they are; that if you think the veiled arrogance they've been getting from the Vulcans is bad, what is possible could be worse. Perhaps some Vulcans (as possibly protrayed in the substory of the engineer with the dying father) can integrate their logic and emotions, but the point of the story was that it doesn't seem desirable/attainable for most other Vulcans (the male that ended up abusing T'Pol and tossing Archer across the room.) The risk of such exploration of emotion is very high, and the question is whether it is too high. The answer I believe the episode gave was a tentative yes.
And we saw more of the dark side of Vulcans--perhaps the results of the barely under control Vulcan xenophobia hinted at in the original series, and more directly addressed in the novel Spock's World. The bizarre rumours about human behaviors which are detailed and enforced by Vulcan scientists, the way that these rumours have found a place in Vulcan society. They were dealt with in a light-hearted manner, by a character intelligent enough and curious enough to grasp that the stories might be a load of bullshit, but despite using discussion of these rumours to add some humour to the episode, what they point to is disturbing. Logic does not equal common sense. Vulcan logic does not prevent the development of stereotypes, nor the utterly illogical beliefs based upon them.
Now, if you want a Black or Asian child, homegrown or imported, there are plenty to be had.
...
But people don't seem to want those kind...
Not exactly. In several states (that I know of/have experience with) a white family can not easily adopt a black child. The state would prefer the child stay in foster care until an adoptive parent "of their own culture" is located.
Never mind that the majority of these children don't come out of foster care until they reach age 18
Finances and legality do stand in the way for Asian and Eastern European adoptions, too. I know several people who have participated in Asian adoptions (from China) which took upwards of a year, and between $50K-$100K. Supposedly there are NFP groups that will help with finances at now (these adoptions are all several years in the past now), but you're still talking about a large financial commitment.
In many cases, medical insurance *will* pay for infertility treatments (and pregnancy), but little will help you pay for adoption.
If you look at the About Us page, it reveals that the site is funded by the EFF, the Stanford Center for Internet & Society (an organization run by Stanford Law, AFAIK) as well as a couple similar organizations connected with other law schools.
I've had contact with some of the above, and have knowledge of the legal work/defense that they have helped with (esp. from Stanford.) You're talking some semi-big guns here, not pie-in-the-sky idealists. They know what they're up against.
And you can have a perfectly useable, powerful *nix system without a GUI. Why waste the overhead of X when it's not needed (on many servers, for example).
That's one thing I really don't get about Windows servers. Why the overhead of a GUI for a box that you want to sit in the corner, happily running its services?
It depends on what you mean by an nonprofit. I work for a nonprofit trade organization (45 employees) and it's worse than working corporate. Especially for IT people. The management politics are worse than anything I encountered at a public company (where there's at least a *reason* for the politics) and nepotism/favoritism deeply affects everything that goes on in the office.
I am as strongly opposed to far left liberalism as I am to far right conservatism. The fact is that media currently leans towards the liberal, and reports on the "sins" of the right more than the left, thus giving rise to an easily [mentally] accessible example. Both sides are guilty of the exact same methods, which I tried to express in a later message. Both sides would "work together" to ruin a forum like what was suggested.
The same small Pacific island? That would be so cool ...
As long as that vocal minority is only making suggestions, it doesn't seem like such a bad thing.
...
But, AC, in the long run, it's a problem of preception. If a vocal minority can come to be 'seen' as representative of the majority (by sitting there, screaming their heads off to their own ends, while the moderate majority goes on with their lives, believing it's only "suggestions") that preception can foster changes or prejudices that are not in the interest of the majority.
For example, the "ugly American." I love other cultures, and I love to travel. Most people I know are similar (they at least respect other cultures/understand that things may be different.) But when I travel, I do have to overcome the preception of the ugly American. Ugly Americans are probably not the majority of Americans. But they can be so irritating, so insulting that it becomes a problem of stereotype. The stereotype represents the minority, but it is preceived as an example of the majority.
It's an ongoing, and frustrating problem--those who are generally satisfied with the status quo are not going to have much of an incentive to participate in politics. Most of those who are active in politics are active because they are unsatisfied with the status quo. In the US, right now, the religious right is politically active because the status quo tends to the liberal (abortion is legal) and the non-religious (although studies still say that a majority of Americans still believe in God, we tend not to be very religious in our everyday lives/involve religion in "public") The status quo distresses the religious right, and I can understand why. That doesn't mean that the policies they loudly push are in the interests of the majority of Americans. Or, for that matter, that the policies that extreme liberals (considering the other side) are in the interests of the majority either. In most cases, the policies of either extreme are *not* in the interests of the majority, because they seek to alter the status quo. Of course, we can always offer examples of politics being forwarded by any side (given that there are far more sides in US politics than simply right v. left) that are in the interest of the majority (I believe the MS antitrust suit to be one of them), but many of them are not.
I could talk in circles for hours on this. I think I should stop now
And the fact that the cost moves to zero will be an encouragement to those groups who already have established lobbying methods. It would be a very typical online community--the radicals from both extremes are vocal and attemptng to be preceived as the "majority," while the large moderate middle is unrepresented and their needs unconsidered. The extremes have the most invested in making their voices heard. It's just like the condundrum of government--those drawn to government, in most cases, are those least fit to govern for the majority.
Unfortunately, something like that would result in the same types of problems that arise from special interest groups and lobbyists--a vocal minority "seeming" like a majority. The loudmouths would strongly encourage the direction of government. In real life, right-wing conservatives already have this type of influence down cold.
... (vocal minorities, not right-wing conservatives ;)
Also a major problem in all online communities I've participated in
They do have access to an electronic copy, fortunately. Our writers/researchers like the hard copy to pass onto bosses, collegues; and to put into their portfolio. Or just to throw onto a table in the lobby ...
Even technical literature.
In November, I sent five copies (each) of a technical journal to two authors in Toronto via USPS. Usually, they take a week or so to arrive. They still have yet to receive the package sent in November, or the new package from January.
I gave up trying to figure this out years ago, and now content myself to just reading whatever
interesting stuff happens to make it through the filter, and posting an occasional diatribe or two.
The reasoning (or lack there of) behind what stories get accepted or rejected from Slashdot is not actually all that hard to understand. Like anything in PR, it's a crapshoot.
Here are my views (I always submit as AC, due to some particular personal reasons, but have a fairly decent acceptance rate.)
Submitting a story to Slashdot involves creating a mini press release. You are promoting your "version" of the story, so that it gets chosen over all other "versions." Creating an effective press release is frickin' hard. I've seen cases in which a 2-page, double-spaced press release took two-three weeks to produce.
As with any press release, you increase your chances by focusing on certain aspects.
1. Engaging language. You are selling your summary to the editor who reviews it. They probably go through dozens of submissions a day, and yours has to catch their eye and engage their attention.
2. Interesting topic, which could give rise to a ongoing discussion. When looking back on most of my failed submissions, they did not meet #2. If it is interesting, but probably won't create much of a discussion, it is worthless for Slashdot's purposes. This is not a news site, it is a discussion site. Even if you believe it would generate a discussion, posing a jumping off point for that discussion increases your chances.
But still, things will be rejected, as thousands of press releases around the world are thrown into thousands of trash cans every day. Other versions of the same thing may be accepted because the language/discussion points appeal more to the editor who reviews it. This can be a problem at times, because an incorrect and more controversial version which provides a jumping off point for argument will probably be accepted over a summary which is technically correct and dry. But this is not a problem with this site alone--it is a problem throughout the news world. Where do you think that the news sites get some of their incorrect yet controversial information about technical issues? Badly written press releases whose information may be incorrect, but has the "gotcha" factor.
And there's always the editor factor. Maybe editor A couldn't give a damn about the subject and rejected submission A because it didn't interest him. Then submission B comes around a day later and is reviewed by editor B, who loves the information provided. Therefore, B is accepted over A. This too, is not a problem limited to this news site. Once more than one person is involved consistancy goes straight out the window, no matter how hard you strive for it.
Submitting to Slashdot is a crapshoot. There are ways that you can improve your odds, but if your summary is reviewed by an editor who believes it is uninteresting, or believes it will not stimulate discussion, it gets rejected.
Given that it's been reported on sites like CNN as well, pulling in rubberneckers who are techy and not, SEC is probably not counting on much beyond the curiosity factor with this particular site. Searchs by slashdotters may through off stats on other sites today, but that's probably an expected outlier as well--we are not the only ones to like challenges, and announcing that you've got sites like this out there is tantamount to declaring a challenge.
Immediate "news-worthy" benefits had already been generated by this site prior to its mentions on news sites. Hopefully ongoing benefits (people who are little more clued in about internet scams) will be generated by other of their fake sites. SEC did throw this one away--at least for now--by using it as the basis for a press release.
Shipping has been a problem, tho, with one book taking 3+ weeks to get from Fernley NV to Santa Cruz CA, not the first time they blundered, either, less than impressed with ability to track, tho much of this rests on USPS shoulders as well (it's possible the first was in the wreck of a USPS semi on I-80 about the time the book would have shipped.)
Currently working in a job where I deal with a lot of shipping, shipping issues are usually a problem on the part of FedEx/UPS/USPS rather than the supplier.
Everything we get via UPS must go through a regional distribution center in downtown Chicago, 30 miles away. If something gets put on the wrong truck (to a local distribution center) there, you're screwed. And it happens pretty often. I've had more than one package go through Chicago and get put on a truck out to Kansas or Nebraska. It spends a week circling back to Chicago, then goes out to our local distribution center. And I get to watch it all through online tracking!
I was going to say that Outlook is okay for business uses (pine is my home preference.)
But as I was preparing to say so, something (MyParty?) took out the Exchange server and crashed Outlook for me.
Piece of %#$@ing $#&%!
For the Web pundits who lurch zombie-like towards the wonderfully Webby tomorrow, could their real dilema be that they cannot function in today's world?
... oops, there's an even bigger house down the street. I work at a small organization, without many paths of advancement. Nobody's going much of anywhere unless they leave. Yet the political struggles are extreme, and senseless. We would get much more done and probably have our organization in a much better market position if there were not so many conflicts at the upper levels. But these people are struggle for the psychological advance over another--to feel that they are better. Yet once they've gotten that feeling, it gets them nothing, and they are probably going to be the ones "belittled" the next time around. Since they know that, they can't sit back and "enjoy" their laurels. It goes on and on without end. There is no everlasting king of the hill.
There is a saying about "getting ahead of the Smiths." I think it is relevent in this situation.
Many people are working for that mythical tomorrow. That time when circumstances will unite and put them so far ahead of the Smiths that the Smiths will be left forever in the dust. When they will have everything they desire, and others will *know* it.
Some of those people want a magic pill that'll take them there. Something that will provide them limitless opportunity at little cost. Some saw the web as this magic pill. Even as those hopes are crashing back to earth, people will still hope.
The irony is that computers have been a magic pill for some--for those who were in the right place at the right time. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are two names that come to mind. And oddly enough, they're a perfect pairing in this type of contradiction--based on what I've read of them and their relationship, each views himself as having "gotten ahead" of the other. That is because they have different views of what it all means. For Gates, it's about having a powerful computer monopoly and controlling the mindless masses. For Jobs, it's about having a dedicated following and the "cool" factor.
But magic pills won't work for the majority, because getting ahead is really a contradiction. Getting ahead of what? Your neighbor? Get ahead, move to a bigger house
The web is going to change society at some of its deepest levels. It has already begun. But it's going to be like other innovations of the 20th century. Give us a decade, or two, and we're not going to be able to imagine life without it. Life will have adapted to it, and it will have adapted to life. I find it hard to picture a life without jet planes--a life in which it would have taken me much longer to travel to Europe or Australia. Yet that was a reality that our grandparents can probably remember. And those who thought air travel was a magic bullet have been getting hit on the head with reality for far longer than just the past couple of months.
In 200 years, we can look back and trace the culture evolution brought on by the Internet. Right now, we're too close. And it ain't no magic bullet to anywhere, so those who are out there feeling betrayed ("I knew the secret! Why can't I reach tomorrow?") can either go on searching for their next magic bullet, or realize that there's plenty in today that can be enjoyed.
The computer and television whine are on the high end of the sound range. You can have loss in some areas of the range, and/or be overly sensitive in other areas of the range.
The TV/Comp whine is about on the order of a dog whistle--on the very outside "upper" range of human hearing, but not inaudible for all humans. Children tend to be more sensitive than adults, and women more sensitive then men.
Firstenberg ... graduated from Cornell University with a degree in mathematics and a minor in physics.
Now, I'm not about to say that he can't be a 'whackjob' because he is a university graduate, but it does seem to throw water on the 'he's just some random nutcase' angle I was expecting to hear.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense to me. There are a lot of people in theorical fields who have quirks or odd obsessions. In some ways, I suspect that those quirks help them to achieve what they do. Luckily, most of them don't have them to the degree which would impact normal functioning.
Many nutcases are highly intelligent. Intelligence does not equal common sense--however you would define common sense.