Anywhere theres a concentration of geeks, there's a concentration of caches to do in your *snicker* lunch break. That GPS receiver you convinced the boss to buy so that you could include accurate geographic location references in your documents comes in handy for other things...:-)
It's not just meteors, the Volkswagen Beetle is a standard unit of measure for all things hurled through the air...
I remember a few years ago, when one American warship or another was visiting Australia to participate in some sort of practice with our guys, the newspapers all carried front page pictures of huge guns on US warships that were capable of hurling shells "the size of a Wolkswgen Beetle" over the horizon.
Of course, it should also be pointed out that the VWB unit of measure isn't universal. The standard unit of measure for items hurled through the air by trebuchet is the 'Metric Cow', as derived from the 'Imperial Cow', used in medievel times before the VW Beetle existed.
Take a checkpoint firewall for instance. Checkpoint has TONS of options for setting up objects, encryption domains, etc. Having a GUI lets me see groups of options that are inter-related, where a command line leave's me wondering.
Checkpoint is probably a bad choice of examples. I've worked in pre and post sales for firewalls and other similar stuff for a long time, often in opposition to Checkpoint.
Checkpoint is not hard to sell against when you're dealing with clued customers, because it is really quite fundamentally insecure in the hands of an unclued, or partially clued end-user.
One of the man keys for Checkpoint's fundamental insecurity is, unfortunately, the very point you bring up. Checkpoint does have an elaborate GUI, yes, but it hides options. There are at least three seperate places that you must check when configuring Checkpoint Firewall-1 for various config options, and many of those options will have non-obvious effects on other bits of your security config. One of the strongest against selling points of Checkpoint's Firewall-1 is that it is hard to configure well, and therefore hard to secure.
There are other gui-based commercial firewall tools that do a better job of this. Checkpoint's one has the ability to be configured secure, but the management interface does nothing to enforce good configuration habits (where a couple of competing products actively do so), and so Checkpoint firewalls, in the hands of un-clued and sub-clued folks are often accidents waiting to happen. The number of accidents that do happen are testament to this.
I'm fairly strongly of the opinion therefore, that firewalling is one place where GUIs are things that offer you enough rope to hang yourself with many times over. Firewall configs should be simple if they are to be secure. I believe that it is far easier to come up with a *secure* firewall config in a script for one of the command-line based filter/firewall tools in Linux and FreeBSD than it is with a large complex GUI.
Of course, the real similarity between the original topic of this discussion and Checkpoint is that it has a strong and fanatical userbase. The maxim that a geek is most fanatical about that which he understands best is demonstrated better in the firewall wars than even the VB -vs- C, Mac -vs- PC, or Windows -vs- Linux wars! This post, despite that it is absolutely not a troll will be modded down to '-100, Troll from Hell', within minutes of my hitting 'send', you watch!:-)
Has that happened yet with inkjets? I must have missed it, I'm still buying expensive HP cartridges.
Yah, Canon have done it. They seemed to have walked away from the gouge business model (whilst the likes of epson are still flogging that dead horse like there's no tomorrow.
Canon have the 'InkTank' thingamy. A little plastic box that is clear, so you can see inside, and doesn't do any of the funny business with chips or vacuums, so you can refill at will.
In practice, I'll likely keep buying Canon ink for my new S9000 (a3 six colour photo jobbie) 'cos I want the lovely results, long life, etc, etc. That aside, I still love the fact that I get to choose.
Canon seem to be doing ok with the ink tank thing. People who sell aftermarket refill kits actually reccomend the Canon printers. So long as they aren't epson-dumb enough to give the printer away and make their money on the gouge later (and the slightly higher price of the Canon models that do have ink tanks suggests they're not), then it's a big win situation for Canon.
Did the phrase "OS X" pop into anyone's head when they read that line?
No, interestingly enough, 'KDE' popped into my mind. I know I'll get modded down to hell by the KDE weenies, but really, what right has a KDE author got to talk about 'simiplicity' and 'efficiency'. It sucks.
then this thing comes out, and we get to *write* everything down again.
Well yeah, but we never actually stopped writing things down. The paperless office never happened, and never was going to happen. At least this technology lets us get the handwritten stuff we were going to do anyway into our computers without any second pass recovery process - scanning, OCR, etc.
Think of it as a natural progression from those stupid whiteboards that were supposed to scan the 'page' and dump it to thermal paper. I say 'supposed', because I've never actually seen one that wasn't broken - why I'll bet there's a broken one in a meeting room near you!:-)
What's so different about FreeBSD that you're willing to trust it?
Fundamentally, because FreeBSD is an Operating System.
As you've guessed by now, I subscribe to the train of thought that Linux is *not* an OS.
Red Hat is an OS, Mandrake is an OS, Caldera is an OS, Debian is an OS. Linux is just a kernel.
Why is this an issue for me from a commercial point of view? Well, with FreeBSD, I get to go back to one group for any issues. The whole thing, kernel, binaries, packages, - the works - is managed and documented as one single entity.
If I go Linux, I've made a kernel decision. FWIW, I believe that the Linux nothing short of a bloody brillian kernel. What lets Linux down in my eyes is the operating systems that use it. I have to choose which one, then I need to be convinced that the vendor is committed, that the vendor manages the system well, that I'm not going to be faced with "we didn't design that part" finger pointing wars when I have issues...
I hasten to add that FreeBSD isn't, IMNSHO, the grand solution either. In fact, FreeBSD is annoying the shit out of me right now. I cut my teeth on BSD boxen way-back-when, I'm a BSD boy at heart. Still, as I intimated earlier, my home runs on Linux. I have Mandrake/Intel and Cobalt Qube/MIPS boxes as servers, and Red Hat for a desktop. There are no up/running BSD boxes of any description here.
Why? 'cos the Qube was a freebie \, Mandrake proved itself be be a good server in lieu of a suitable BSD, and Red Hat seemed like a good thing to play with for a desktop. FreeBSD got the arse because the interrupt code in the PCI stuff is broken, and the PCI-PCMCIA bridge stuff I need to make my wireless gear work, doesn't.
On the other hand, I can't afford to be so fickle at work. I need a whole OS with a strong design and project management behind it. That's why, as I said, Solaris, FreeBSD, HP-UX gets the vote. Two of those are commercial products with the incumbent entity-to-point-lawyers-at that senior management loves so much. The other has proven itself to me.
About the only thing I can think of is the fact that Linux distros generally install the kitchen sink, and FreeBSD prefers to make you add ports/packages yourself.
To be honest, that's something that I think most of the Linux based OS's do better than FreeBSD does. FreeBSD invites you to pick a generic build, and, as you say, installs the kitchen sink. Many of the Linux OS's offer much better control
At, I might add, the cost of speed. Scripting is the solution of course, but I can still have a good working FreeBSD system up and running (including custom kernel config and compile) in less time than Windows 98 can be installed (bad comparison, I know, but I raced a guy once, that's how I know!). On the other hand, I've had way too many two and three hour missions installing some Linuxes. Not good.
Is it some sort of "stability" issue? What kind of stability?
In a way, yes. It's the kernel -vs- whole OS thing, and the business-comfort that comes with it.
Granted, a lot of what you said is subjective, and as you acknowledged, there is no point in arguing over opinion.
Oh good, I had a horrible feeling I was in for a flame-war. Thanks for proving me wrong on that point!
However, if there exists a tool that could provably benefit your company, for example, by increasing profitability or decreasing the costs of operation, would you be biased against it because it runs on the Linux platform?
Yes, I'm sorry to say, I would be biased against it because it runs on Linux. If it was really good, I'd look at getting it to work on, for example, FreeBSD with the Linux Compatibility bits, but I'd have to have a long hard think before I'd put a Linux OS in a business production environment.
In closing, I interpreted your comment on the whole not as "Linux apps are too risky for me because of..., etc.", but as "I do not have enough information about Linux and its tools to implement solutions for that platform". I firmly believe that _with proper procedures_ the appropriate Linux tools can be implemented in a risk-free way, its just a matter of knowing how to do it or knowing someone who does.
Kinda sorta... ish. It's not quite like that. I have issues with Linux because (1) it's not an OS, it's just a kernel, and (2) if you do take the position the Linux is an OS, then there are so many different Linuxes - which one is the right, stable, properly designed, maintained and managed OS for my business?
I think you guys are missing the point. The MAC addresses aren't being used as MAC addresses. They're being used as ID Numbers. This dodgy little bit of software grabs the number, and uses it, out of context, as a component of the authentication process. This isn't a network issue, it's an authentication issue.
So long as you don't change things that break your local segment (ie: duplicate MACs), then you're fine - go for your life.
If everyone uses DEADBEEFBABE that will create another problem...
Well no, it won't. If everyone uses DE:AD:BE:EF:BA:BE at a LAN party, then yes, things will break. If you're the only DE:AD:BE:EF:BA:BE on your segment, who cares. MAC addresses, by design, are only significant on the local LAN.
If someone (Telstra) ignores the RFCs and writes something that changes that, and it breaks their system (GameArena), then that's their own stupid fault.
In a word, no. Will it happen? No. Why not? Because it's Linux
This isn't designed to be a flame, or a troll and this isn't an
attempt to start a my OS is better than your OS flame war.
It's just a fact of life that I've observed.
As a manager responsible for exactly these types of things for a
very large corporate, I wouldn't use Linux in these applications,
or in any business related way in my company. I cannot.
'WHY EVER NOT?' I hear you ask (and yes, I can hear that indignant
tone, and the anger rising in your voice from here).
My Answer to why not (You're not gonna like this): "Because it's Linux".
My business-based perception of Linux is that it's a random
assembly of a large assortment of independant programs. They
probably all work together, but no-one ever checked that to
a level that I, in my position, can rely on to the extent that
I would be prepared to put my butt on the line with.
Linux is a *kernel*. That's it. I can, to some extent, rely on
that - but even that has it's issues.
There are too many operating systems that call themselves 'Linux'. So
tell me, which one is the One True Linux(tm)? And while you're there,
answer me this: Do you answer rhetorical questions?
I don't hate Linux. I *love* the open source movement, and I love
free software almost as much. There's an incredible array of
absolutely brilliant work out there. I use Linux lots, every day.
I run Mandrake and Red Hat at home. The fact that, despite that
I've been a professional unix administrator for over ten years,
but the fact that I still have problems with the most basic 'these should have
been fixed before release' problems on a daily basis with both my
samples of 'Linux' tells me that I absolutely cannot put my nuts
on the line with these OS's in a business critical production
application
Telephony is exactly that: A business critical production application.
Even more so for a company that makes it's money from telemarketing
or customer service. I absolutely *cannot* send the entire staff out
for coffee mid-afternoon because the flurgenhurger didn't work with the
dooverlacky and it took the production box down.
Because Linux is so loose, so uncontrolled, and so 'random', I cannot -
in my capacity as a senior manager responsible for the uptime of
business critical systems - risk using 'Linux' in any of it's incarnations
in this environment.
What I must do is stick with the tried, true, and proven. Those that are
whole operating systems, not just kernels, that are centrally managed
and controlled by one body.
What are those? Which are the OS that I/would/ use in my production
environment? Solaris, FreeBSD, and HP-UX of course, in that order. What else?
Now, one more thing: If you've read this, and you're angry, and you
feel that you need to flame me for this: You didn't understand what
I just said.Regardless of that, I'm expecting a raft of "you're stupid"
and "you like goatse.cx" and "your mother smells of elderberries" and other
well considered counter-arguments. Save it thanks.
I don't rember all the details like exactaly what chemical was but I rember he was not there for grade 5
Given the quality (or lack thereof) of your writing, I'm inclined to think that you weren't there for Grade 5 either.
Australian buyers tread lightly - misleading price
on
PCI Shortwave Receiver
·
· Score: 1
The winradio company has been around for ages now. Nothing new here, except that they've come up with what is possibly their least usefull product ever!
In any case, would-be Australian buyers beware. They list suppliers on the site for all of the world except locals, then say "If you're from Australia or the Pacific Rim, you're welcome to buy direct from us".
But the prices in their online store are all in US dollars. How many Aussies have missed the fine print and been burned by this little bit of misleading? Not happy Jan.[1]
There is a guy here in Sydney, Australia who imports these and sells them online. Posts to aus.ads.forsale and aus.photo as 'DJ!' or 'Derek' from time to time.
His web site is here. He has an excellent reputation, highly recommended.
First IMDB, then CDDB. Is 'grub' the next big steal from the volunteers project? Might not be, but might be too. Come back when the content is open, free and GPL'ed (or under some equivalent license that prevents it from being taken away and locked up). For now, I'll pass thanks.
How long can stuff like this go on before the infinite number of monkeys theory comes into play? I mean, if you literally have inifinite monkeys bashing on infinite typewriters, the odds of getting some Shakespeare aren't that good.
If you take those monkeys, edumacate them a little, limit their subject matter and give them all the same limited range of reference works, then you're going to get your Shakespeare sooner rather than later.
For sure, there is more than one way to skin any given cat, but there's only so many ways.
The Alice in Wonderland quote is attributed to the original author, yes. The idea to use it in that way was copied from Cheswick and Bellovin, and that ain't acknowledged!
Banning technology is a lazy approach in my opinion. Technology is here, new technology is coming. You can't fight it forever, and you're doing your students a disservice by sending them away from your classes without the ability to solve problems using available technology.
When I was beginning high school, calculators were still not allowed. We spent many hours looking up log tables, and approximating trig functions. There was a certain amount of faith required in working that way, because the answers were never particularly accurate.
The next year or so after that, calculators became part of the curriculum. I advanced immediately. Freed from the complications of trig and log tables, I had more time to understand the problems and to learn how to solve them. I was a battler in first year math, once I had a calculator, I actually did pretty well. I was equal top of my high school class. You don't get that by punching buttons alone.
Open-book exams are another classic case-in-point. Students love them, because they think they're easy. Good educators know that the real skill isn't in transcribing from a book, but in knowing what to transcribe. Anyone can copy verbatim, but not everyone can copy the right stuff. A key trap for students at open-book exams is to turn up with every document that ever crossed their study desk during the course of the class. I always turned up with maybe the main textbook and one pad of notes. More often than not, I never opened either of them. Open-book exams are a classic trap for young players.
All this stuff about calculators and internet and all that simply means that educations needs to change to keep pace with the world. A good educator will change the style of his teaching and testing to adapt to the technology and techniques of the day. A bad educator will ignore progress and ban the calculators.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, they exist alright. Not the usb thing, of course, but a battery powered one that looks like that.
'course, I'm in the office, and I can't browse 'tool' sites from here, so you'll have to trust me on this.
Whaddya mean 'for some reason'. It's obvious that you haven't had coffee yet 'cos some clown put salt in the sugarbowl, and you're wise to it. :-)
Here in Sydney, there are concentrations of geeks at North Sydney, St Leonards, Lane Cove West, and North Ryde, just for starters, and there are concentrations of geocaches in those places too :-)
I remember a few years ago, when one American warship or another was visiting Australia to participate in some sort of practice with our guys, the newspapers all carried front page pictures of huge guns on US warships that were capable of hurling shells "the size of a Wolkswgen Beetle" over the horizon.
Of course, it should also be pointed out that the VWB unit of measure isn't universal. The standard unit of measure for items hurled through the air by trebuchet is the 'Metric Cow', as derived from the 'Imperial Cow', used in medievel times before the VW Beetle existed.
Checkpoint is probably a bad choice of examples. I've worked in pre and post sales for firewalls and other similar stuff for a long time, often in opposition to Checkpoint.
Checkpoint is not hard to sell against when you're dealing with clued customers, because it is really quite fundamentally insecure in the hands of an unclued, or partially clued end-user.
One of the man keys for Checkpoint's fundamental insecurity is, unfortunately, the very point you bring up. Checkpoint does have an elaborate GUI, yes, but it hides options. There are at least three seperate places that you must check when configuring Checkpoint Firewall-1 for various config options, and many of those options will have non-obvious effects on other bits of your security config. One of the strongest against selling points of Checkpoint's Firewall-1 is that it is hard to configure well, and therefore hard to secure.
There are other gui-based commercial firewall tools that do a better job of this. Checkpoint's one has the ability to be configured secure, but the management interface does nothing to enforce good configuration habits (where a couple of competing products actively do so), and so Checkpoint firewalls, in the hands of un-clued and sub-clued folks are often accidents waiting to happen. The number of accidents that do happen are testament to this.
I'm fairly strongly of the opinion therefore, that firewalling is one place where GUIs are things that offer you enough rope to hang yourself with many times over. Firewall configs should be simple if they are to be secure. I believe that it is far easier to come up with a *secure* firewall config in a script for one of the command-line based filter/firewall tools in Linux and FreeBSD than it is with a large complex GUI.
Of course, the real similarity between the original topic of this discussion and Checkpoint is that it has a strong and fanatical userbase. The maxim that a geek is most fanatical about that which he understands best is demonstrated better in the firewall wars than even the VB -vs- C, Mac -vs- PC, or Windows -vs- Linux wars! This post, despite that it is absolutely not a troll will be modded down to '-100, Troll from Hell', within minutes of my hitting 'send', you watch! :-)
Yah, Canon have done it. They seemed to have walked away from the gouge business model (whilst the likes of epson are still flogging that dead horse like there's no tomorrow.
Canon have the 'Ink Tank' thingamy. A little plastic box that is clear, so you can see inside, and doesn't do any of the funny business with chips or vacuums, so you can refill at will.
In practice, I'll likely keep buying Canon ink for my new S9000 (a3 six colour photo jobbie) 'cos I want the lovely results, long life, etc, etc. That aside, I still love the fact that I get to choose.
Canon seem to be doing ok with the ink tank thing. People who sell aftermarket refill kits actually reccomend the Canon printers. So long as they aren't epson-dumb enough to give the printer away and make their money on the gouge later (and the slightly higher price of the Canon models that do have ink tanks suggests they're not), then it's a big win situation for Canon.
OK, I give up... what exactly is a fall, and how do you resume one? No, I'm serious!
No, interestingly enough, 'KDE' popped into my mind. I know I'll get modded down to hell by the KDE weenies, but really, what right has a KDE author got to talk about 'simiplicity' and 'efficiency'. It sucks.
I checked. This 'Superbowl' place that you speak of does not seem to exist. Certainly, it isn't in the CIA World Factbook.
Well yeah, but we never actually stopped writing things down. The paperless office never happened, and never was going to happen. At least this technology lets us get the handwritten stuff we were going to do anyway into our computers without any second pass recovery process - scanning, OCR, etc.
Think of it as a natural progression from those stupid whiteboards that were supposed to scan the 'page' and dump it to thermal paper. I say 'supposed', because I've never actually seen one that wasn't broken - why I'll bet there's a broken one in a meeting room near you! :-)
Dude, a tip: If your boss calls you 'Darling' in his emails, run screaming :-)
What gave you the impression that I'd work for you?
Fundamentally, because FreeBSD is an Operating System.
As you've guessed by now, I subscribe to the train of thought that Linux is *not* an OS. Red Hat is an OS, Mandrake is an OS, Caldera is an OS, Debian is an OS. Linux is just a kernel.
Why is this an issue for me from a commercial point of view? Well, with FreeBSD, I get to go back to one group for any issues. The whole thing, kernel, binaries, packages, - the works - is managed and documented as one single entity.
If I go Linux, I've made a kernel decision. FWIW, I believe that the Linux nothing short of a bloody brillian kernel. What lets Linux down in my eyes is the operating systems that use it. I have to choose which one, then I need to be convinced that the vendor is committed, that the vendor manages the system well, that I'm not going to be faced with "we didn't design that part" finger pointing wars when I have issues...
I hasten to add that FreeBSD isn't, IMNSHO, the grand solution either. In fact, FreeBSD is annoying the shit out of me right now. I cut my teeth on BSD boxen way-back-when, I'm a BSD boy at heart. Still, as I intimated earlier, my home runs on Linux. I have Mandrake/Intel and Cobalt Qube/MIPS boxes as servers, and Red Hat for a desktop. There are no up/running BSD boxes of any description here.
Why? 'cos the Qube was a freebie \, Mandrake proved itself be be a good server in lieu of a suitable BSD, and Red Hat seemed like a good thing to play with for a desktop. FreeBSD got the arse because the interrupt code in the PCI stuff is broken, and the PCI-PCMCIA bridge stuff I need to make my wireless gear work, doesn't.
On the other hand, I can't afford to be so fickle at work. I need a whole OS with a strong design and project management behind it. That's why, as I said, Solaris, FreeBSD, HP-UX gets the vote. Two of those are commercial products with the incumbent entity-to-point-lawyers-at that senior management loves so much. The other has proven itself to me.
About the only thing I can think of is the fact that Linux distros generally install the kitchen sink, and FreeBSD prefers to make you add ports/packages yourself.
To be honest, that's something that I think most of the Linux based OS's do better than FreeBSD does. FreeBSD invites you to pick a generic build, and, as you say, installs the kitchen sink. Many of the Linux OS's offer much better control
At, I might add, the cost of speed. Scripting is the solution of course, but I can still have a good working FreeBSD system up and running (including custom kernel config and compile) in less time than Windows 98 can be installed (bad comparison, I know, but I raced a guy once, that's how I know!). On the other hand, I've had way too many two and three hour missions installing some Linuxes. Not good.
Is it some sort of "stability" issue? What kind of stability?
In a way, yes. It's the kernel -vs- whole OS thing, and the business-comfort that comes with it.
Oh good, I had a horrible feeling I was in for a flame-war. Thanks for proving me wrong on that point!
However, if there exists a tool that could provably benefit your company, for example, by increasing profitability or decreasing the costs of operation, would you be biased against it because it runs on the Linux platform?
Yes, I'm sorry to say, I would be biased against it because it runs on Linux. If it was really good, I'd look at getting it to work on, for example, FreeBSD with the Linux Compatibility bits, but I'd have to have a long hard think before I'd put a Linux OS in a business production environment.In closing, I interpreted your comment on the whole not as "Linux apps are too risky for me because of ..., etc.", but as "I do not have enough information about Linux and its tools to implement solutions for that platform". I firmly believe that _with proper procedures_ the appropriate Linux tools can be implemented in a risk-free way, its just a matter of knowing how to do it or knowing someone who does.
Kinda sorta... ish. It's not quite like that. I have issues with Linux because (1) it's not an OS, it's just a kernel, and (2) if you do take the position the Linux is an OS, then there are so many different Linuxes - which one is the right, stable, properly designed, maintained and managed OS for my business?
It is a question without an answer, AFAICS.
So long as you don't change things that break your local segment (ie: duplicate MACs), then you're fine - go for your life.
Well no, it won't. If everyone uses DE:AD:BE:EF:BA:BE at a LAN party, then yes, things will break. If you're the only DE:AD:BE:EF:BA:BE on your segment, who cares. MAC addresses, by design, are only significant on the local LAN.
If someone (Telstra) ignores the RFCs and writes something that changes that, and it breaks their system (GameArena), then that's their own stupid fault.
This isn't designed to be a flame, or a troll and this isn't an attempt to start a my OS is better than your OS flame war. It's just a fact of life that I've observed.
As a manager responsible for exactly these types of things for a very large corporate, I wouldn't use Linux in these applications, or in any business related way in my company. I cannot.
'WHY EVER NOT?' I hear you ask (and yes, I can hear that indignant tone, and the anger rising in your voice from here).
My Answer to why not (You're not gonna like this): "Because it's Linux".
My business-based perception of Linux is that it's a random assembly of a large assortment of independant programs. They probably all work together, but no-one ever checked that to a level that I, in my position, can rely on to the extent that I would be prepared to put my butt on the line with.
Linux is a *kernel*. That's it. I can, to some extent, rely on that - but even that has it's issues.
There are too many operating systems that call themselves 'Linux'. So tell me, which one is the One True Linux(tm)? And while you're there, answer me this: Do you answer rhetorical questions?
I don't hate Linux. I *love* the open source movement, and I love free software almost as much. There's an incredible array of absolutely brilliant work out there. I use Linux lots, every day. I run Mandrake and Red Hat at home. The fact that, despite that I've been a professional unix administrator for over ten years, but the fact that I still have problems with the most basic 'these should have been fixed before release' problems on a daily basis with both my samples of 'Linux' tells me that I absolutely cannot put my nuts on the line with these OS's in a business critical production application
Telephony is exactly that: A business critical production application. Even more so for a company that makes it's money from telemarketing or customer service. I absolutely *cannot* send the entire staff out for coffee mid-afternoon because the flurgenhurger didn't work with the dooverlacky and it took the production box down.
Because Linux is so loose, so uncontrolled, and so 'random', I cannot - in my capacity as a senior manager responsible for the uptime of business critical systems - risk using 'Linux' in any of it's incarnations in this environment.
What I must do is stick with the tried, true, and proven. Those that are whole operating systems, not just kernels, that are centrally managed and controlled by one body.
What are those? Which are the OS that I /would/ use in my production
environment? Solaris, FreeBSD, and HP-UX of course, in that order. What else?
Now, one more thing: If you've read this, and you're angry, and you feel that you need to flame me for this: You didn't understand what I just said.Regardless of that, I'm expecting a raft of "you're stupid" and "you like goatse.cx" and "your mother smells of elderberries" and other well considered counter-arguments. Save it thanks.
Given the quality (or lack thereof) of your writing, I'm inclined to think that you weren't there for Grade 5 either.
In any case, would-be Australian buyers beware. They list suppliers on the site for all of the world except locals, then say "If you're from Australia or the Pacific Rim, you're welcome to buy direct from us".
But the prices in their online store are all in US dollars. How many Aussies have missed the fine print and been burned by this little bit of misleading? Not happy Jan.[1]
[1] Local joke. You had to be here (.au).
His web site is here. He has an excellent reputation, highly recommended.
First IMDB, then CDDB. Is 'grub' the next big steal from the volunteers project? Might not be, but might be too. Come back when the content is open, free and GPL'ed (or under some equivalent license that prevents it from being taken away and locked up). For now, I'll pass thanks.
If you take those monkeys, edumacate them a little, limit their subject matter and give them all the same limited range of reference works, then you're going to get your Shakespeare sooner rather than later.
For sure, there is more than one way to skin any given cat, but there's only so many ways.
The Alice in Wonderland quote is attributed to the original author, yes. The idea to use it in that way was copied from Cheswick and Bellovin, and that ain't acknowledged!
If Yoda is so smart, why proper sentences cannot he make?
When I was beginning high school, calculators were still not allowed. We spent many hours looking up log tables, and approximating trig functions. There was a certain amount of faith required in working that way, because the answers were never particularly accurate.
The next year or so after that, calculators became part of the curriculum. I advanced immediately. Freed from the complications of trig and log tables, I had more time to understand the problems and to learn how to solve them. I was a battler in first year math, once I had a calculator, I actually did pretty well. I was equal top of my high school class. You don't get that by punching buttons alone.
Open-book exams are another classic case-in-point. Students love them, because they think they're easy. Good educators know that the real skill isn't in transcribing from a book, but in knowing what to transcribe. Anyone can copy verbatim, but not everyone can copy the right stuff. A key trap for students at open-book exams is to turn up with every document that ever crossed their study desk during the course of the class. I always turned up with maybe the main textbook and one pad of notes. More often than not, I never opened either of them. Open-book exams are a classic trap for young players.
All this stuff about calculators and internet and all that simply means that educations needs to change to keep pace with the world. A good educator will change the style of his teaching and testing to adapt to the technology and techniques of the day. A bad educator will ignore progress and ban the calculators.