CSoft.com was my previous host, where they a) converted from Linux to BSD without telling us, b) screwed up the upgrade to the new version of berkeley db, c) were supposedly running in "compatibility mode" (and claimed that it was fine, not a violation of their advertised linux servers.) Csoft rendered my blog useless (literally -- I couldn't log in to my own stuff).
Dreamhost was a welcome change. When we signed up we could host up to 15 full domains - now it's unlimited. Yes, they have glitches now and then, but they are always fixed promptly. They have nice mail options, lots of hosting extras, their customer service is good, and their web UI is actually usable, even by command line junkie admins like me.
Is it me, or are kernels just not really ready for production prime time until the "y" level (of a w.x.y.z or w.x.y kernel) is 10 or more? I'm really starting to get gun shy with some of the weirdnesses that have happened in the 2.4 and now 2.6 release cycle. Maybe I'm just conservative...?
There are more women in IT than get invited to speak at conferences. There are more women in IT than get featured at major publisher's *coughoreillycough* blog sites. There are more women in IT than will put up with drooling k1dd33z and h4x0r wannabes.
Then again, I like my booth babes middle aged, trim, tall, ponytailed, and bearded.
In the US it's spelled "tidbit", and has been for many years. Linguistic drift due to American cultural puritanism at its finest, but the term is here to stay. Remember the whole Janet Jackson boob blowup...
LinuxSolve makes rackmount linux boxes for business & ISP/ASP apps. They take security seriously, and I believe they have a customized install. Check out their "configure your box" type interface. (No, I don't work for them.)
Napster facilitates in the transfer of CD quality copyrighted works.
Bzzzt! Wrong!
Napster facilitates sharing of *nearly* CD quality works, with the degree of closeness being a factor of the sampling rate used to do the compression. The bigger the compression ratio (the lower the sampling rate), the farther from "CD Quality" the copy is.
Now, it's true that people who only play their music on $5 speakers (or who blew out their hearing cranking their speakers up too far) can't tell the difference. But most of those people can't afford the $15+ a CD costs anyway, much less several.
MP3s are nice for checking out new tunes with, but if I like it I want it uncompressed.
[I shouldn't grace you crap with a response, but this is just too stupid.]
Look, troll, all you've done is make lame, conspiracy theorist accusations, and spewed senseless abuse when a real, logged in, user called you on your baloney.
Don't whine about the signal to noise ratio when all you've done is post meaningless, insulting, idiotic noise!! You are obviously not part of the solution, either here (s/n) or on Kuro5hin (helping them do a comeback), and definitely part of the problem.
Let me weave a real conspiracy theory around this: One wonders if you are trying to sow dissention between/. and Kuro5hin so that/. won't help K5, or K5 won't accept it. The only person who would have a motive to do such a thing would be script kiddie that DoS'd K5, or a co-conspirator. By your own brand of screwball logic, YOU are conspiring against both K5 and/.!!!
Pot, Kettle, Black, Mr AC. You wouldn't last a day on Usenet. Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of. Even alt.conspiracy would chew you up and spit you out.
I really don't want to see Perl become an OO language. If you want OO, and its attendant overhead, use Java. But for useful text crunching without having to "class"ify everything, plain sequential Perl works fine. There is no reason for me do object crap in order to parse out a chunk of text and stuff it into a database.
Readable Perl is very easy to write if you are a good programmer - it's called comments. Large projects should be planned, anyway, so you will have your major comments/docs before you actually code a line.
Well, actually, I agree. We need more hot chick programmers, because I would like to get one into bed. Why I should stop complaining about something I find undesirable (IE, the lack of hot chick programmers) is beyond me. Of course, whining about it probably won't do any good, but let's face it -- If women never rose up against sexism, they still wouldn't be allowed to vote. If they're not willing to go to bat for themselves, then I don't think they see a problem like we do. I've known a number of woman who would see that as a reason to get into the field and then either never give a geek a glance, or to flirt with them shamelessly and then marry a carpenter.
Hey, how would you feel if geek chicks said "We need more hot stud programmers, these pasty faced wimps suck!"?? I mean really, unless you mean hot as in a codin' fool, able to crank out code with the best, you're just letting your gonads talk.
Other than that, I do agree that it's better to have mates with similar interests. I could never stand to be attached to someone whose idea of entertainment was watching sports on TV and who didn't read as voraciously as I do.
Fortunately, my SO is a geek too, but more along the mad scientist lines. I'm the breadwinner who can play the workaday game well enough to (pretty much) stay employed. Even the brightest don't keep their jobs when they get violent with coworkers. But he cooks, having been a cook in the Coast Gaurd, and does dishes, which I hate.
The book is specifically targeted towards open source development. The first poster's complaint was that the book -- NOT CVS, JUST THE BOOK -- didn't treat proprietary stuff. My point is that the book -- NOT CVS, JUST THE BOOK -- made no claim of treating proprietary topics.
I'm rude?? You're the person who *boogle*d at why the person complained!
Let me parse it for you again: The AC complained that the book didn't address proprietary software. You cased on him for expecting the book to, saying it only covered open source. I'm saying that to him and you: a) that the technical matter in the book applies to both open and closed source, and b) that claiming that it only applies to open source is ridiculous! Which is what your little analogy attempted to do.
The fact is, the book is an invaluable resource for CVS users and administrators, regardless of whether they're working on open or closed source. To claim that it only applies to open source because that's what's in its title is stupid.
wrt your #1, punish those who break the build. Don't check in what does not build, under penalty of ???
RE#1: A-f*cking-men!! If developers have to check it in somewhere, let them check it in to their personal "scrap" repository! They should check out the project code (built & engr released) into their own workspace, and then work on their file(s). When they have done their changes, they need to build it, and troubleshoot as needed. If there is a new engineering build, they should:
change their CVSROOT to the scrap repository, and check their modified code into their scrap repository (if they're being cranky)
change their CVSROOT to the main project repository, and check out the full current code
copy their modified code over the current (main) code, checking the diff first
try a build a keep working
Note: this is a rough idea of what all of our engineers do - I'm not a developer, I'm the release engineer. But it's what I do, especially when working on the build system!!
wrt your #2, we treat branches as transient - everything ends up back on the HEAD, except patches to back releases. Then releases are built from the HEAD.
RE#2: Whereas, we take "stable" (customer shipped) releases and make branches out of them, with continuing development (feeping creaturism) occuring on the HEAD. That way when we need to do a quick and dirty patch, we develop it on the branch, test it & ship it, then incorporate it back into the HEAD as required.
But you are quite correct in saying that CVS is not a build system. It merely enables you to work on and build numerous projects at once.
Also, to learn CVS from bootstrap (and well) on an existing system takes about three months, both Cederqvist and Fogel, and a lot of swearing at sytems, developers, and the clown who did the original repository setup.
So if you are like me and use PostgreSQL quite a bit you will undoubtedly have to settle for at least one book on your bookshelf that isn't from O'Reilly. It's too bad really, I sort of like having all of my books match, and the O'Reilly Animal Series covers are very cool:).
<chortle/> My technical bookshelf is predominantly from 2 publishers/labels: O'Reilly and Coriolis. However, I have been happily impressed by the "New Riders" series. Also, the Ventana "<FITB> Programmer's Reference" series is nice for functional references, especially when you can find them in hardbound!
The reason is because no one has heard of Cyberpunk. It only got reprinted a couple of years ago and is still relatively hard to find. I had the original set in 1988, but you couldn't find any modules for it (maybe that was because I lived in Germany at the time). Shadowrun has had a strong following the entire time. I agree that its name has much to do with this problem as anything else.
Yet I would argue that CyberPunk is the better game. The inclusion of fantasy and magic in Shadowrun is what makes its rules clunky, and the scenario implausible. I've always though of Shadowrun as Cyberpunk meets D&D, myself.
The most recent release of CyberPunk added a gene engineered plague to the mix, but didn't do it well. The game pretty much died out then.
Side note: One way we would test out spreadsheet software was to see how well it handled complex rules for character generation in the Champions, Traveller, and CyberPunk systems. The best characters are designed, not "rolled", but why do it with pencils??
Hehe... well, i'll agree with you - there is no way in hell i'd pay $120.00 for a pair of shoes, unless they were something really amazing. That's why i've owned a wide variety of brands, and I never pay full price (can you say sale/end-of-line?;^) As a matter of fact, I'm wearing non-brand name hiking boots right now, which are great.
Actually, I've paid over $200 for a pair of shoes. OTOH, they were good leather european walking shoes, with the kind of support I needed for my lame leg, and a repair and recondition warranty. I paid $100 for high tops for the support and the fact that they had velcro and didn't need to be tied (they're finally dying four years later). It used to be I bought my shoes at a department store, discount house, or the drugstore, on sale and cheap. Now if I try that I injure myself because I can't walk in the cheap ones. Being a gimp gets expensive.
However, brand tags are ugly. I tend to cut them off if I can. Abstract logos on clothes arent so bad - I can fix them up with embroidery thread.
We need to move back towards Christianity. True Christianity, not the corrupted versions of it floating around.
Why friggin' Christianity?? There are other moral, ethical, and holy religions out there. Few of them have anything to do with eternal life insurance and the veneration of an instrument of torture!
I could concievably support your statement if: (s/Christianity/spirituality/g) and (s/need/should/g)
Seriously, I don't argue with your right to believe as you wish, but your claim that "We need to move back towards Christianity" is really offensive. "WE" don't need any such crap.
Its really sad that I have to post this anonymously to protect my "karma" here. Censorship is alive and well, even in our "free" Slashdot community.
[sarcasm on]Awwwww, poor little Christian. He's sooooo persecuted. [sarcasm off]
When's the last time you got beat up, your property vandalised, fired from your job, refused a job, your children taken away, arrested for "terrorism" or "unnatural acts" because of your religion??
Never?? I thought so. But that's what happens to pagans, muslims, jews, hindi, etc EVERY FUCKING DAY in the supposedly civilised USA.
I do not support censoring the Internet or burning people at the stake, but I know a lot of people will assume I do now.
Yep. A person can be pretty reliably judged by the statements they make. Saying "We need... Christianity" is the same as saying "We need Fascism" in my book. The record of Christianity and it's adherents isn't good when it comes to those who refuse to adopt it. Mind you, it's not the only religion with a bad rep, but it does have one of the worst.
Personally I believe that the rise in corporate power has led to our current McGovernment with little real choice between two very similar Democratic and Republican parties. There seemed to be a lot more difference between the two 10 or 15 years ago.
Whereas I see the causality being the other way around. With McGovernment just being two minor shades of the same color, corporations can spend less money to buy the government they desire. Look at DMCA, UCITA, H1b floods, SSNs on drivers licenses (which is an outrage!!), etc. The majority of legislation that is being passed is bought and paid for by some corporate group that buys the republicrats for cheap.
Second - the all loving, all caring, all disgusting attitude every person over the age of 25 seemed to have towards youngsters - They are kids, treat them with love and care, shield them from all evil in this world. But when they mess up, punish them with all you have, they have to learn responsibility.
This is one of the things that makes me want to puke about our society here. Keep the teenage kids from seing reality, take away their freedom to think, speak, and question, but land on them like a ton of bricks when they do something the establishment doesn't "approve" of. What happened to gradually handing a kid more power and responsibility in their own life so that when they turn 18 they are ready to act as responsible adults?? Instead, we get corporations and governments trying to act in loco parentis over adults - "for their own good"!!
Res-fucking-ponsibility is learned from having the freedom to make mistakes. Also, what teenagers think, is important. For them, their thoughts are most important. And when you look back, I am sure you still remember your emotions from that time as very vivid. When you grow up, you get sort of a buffer zone.
True. No longer just a shadow of the parents, but exploring their relationship to reality on their own. Problem is, our society has gone from trying to protect them only from disastrous mistakes, but from any mistakes at all!! When they reach majority, they haven't got what it takes to survive, and thus they go looking to the government to "protect" them from their own folly.
Instead of covering the walls with pink stickers saying "Kids zone, enter with love", try to listen to them. And take them seriously.
When someone turn 13, I figure that they're ready to start dealing with me as an adult, not as a child. This means I talk with them as an adult, and listen to them as an adult, and criticize or praise them as an adult.
A friend of ours has a newly teenaged foster son (13). He has been diagnosed with all sorts of psychological/behavioral crap, and is on enough pills to make a junkie happy. He has been sexually molested by somebody, and acts it out on other kids - to get attention. His mother can't handle him, he's burned through numerous "babysitters" (Mind you, at 13 I was sitting for little kids, and I'd been watching my sister for 5 years after school.) So my SO says bring him over. The kid plays vulgar, nasty, hyper brat for about the first hour, then, realizing that it doesn't get him attention, settles down. 8 hours with consistant rules, no "rewarding" of unwanted behavior, and real attention for real (constructive) activity and the kid becomes human.
Now my SO will be having him 3 days a week for the summer. With any luck, by the end of summer the kid will be a real person, and have some skills to boot (my SO is a geek too, and may try to teach the kid game design/building, as well as computer repair, yard work, and car work.)
The host family I was living in had three children (+me) - 18 year old girl, 16 year old girl and a few years younger boy. It was New-Years eve or something and the parents wanted to go to a party of some sort. The problem was, that they just COULDN'T leave the children home alone because they might get into trouble...
This is patently stupid. If nothing else, the 18 y.o. is an adult, and either he or the 16 y.o. could watch the youngest. Cripes, at 17 I was in my first year of college, and my dad was dating. That host family had problems.
Yeah, in high school I contemplated a) blowing up the school, or b) killing myself. In the first case, I couldn't figure how to get only the ones that I hated without getting caught, and they'd just be dead - not good enough. In the second, I figured "Why should I die because they are vicious jerks? It won't hurt them a bit! Better to stick around and plot revenge."
It turns out that time brings the best revenge. When I went back for my 20 year reunion, I was one of the few with a nice geek job. One of the other geeks had already retired after starting his own company! The ones that treated me like shit had dull sales jobs. Even better, a lot of them had packed on a lot of weight, whereas I am only 20 pounds more than I weighed in high school. I was always fat, but some of them looked like they doubled their weight. No more room to sneer!
The "what have I done since high school" that was put together for the 15 year had a lot of "was alcoholic, got sober" stuff in it. Seems a lot of the "stars" didn't cut it too well in the real world, and turned boozer.
None of this is an excuse for shitheads to harass the "odd" student, and especially not using the police and the (unconstitutional) seizure laws. Mind you, part of the kid's revenge will be the really negative international publicity and legal expense that this will bring that little backwater town.
Slashdot Mirror
ASCII art, including emoticons, is prior art, regardless of the medium, IMO.
_n_
( | )
I third the (http://www.dreamhost.com/ ) Dreamhost recommendation.
CSoft.com was my previous host, where they a) converted from Linux to BSD without telling us, b) screwed up the upgrade to the new version of berkeley db, c) were supposedly running in "compatibility mode" (and claimed that it was fine, not a violation of their advertised linux servers.) Csoft rendered my blog useless (literally -- I couldn't log in to my own stuff).
Dreamhost was a welcome change. When we signed up we could host up to 15 full domains - now it's unlimited. Yes, they have glitches now and then, but they are always fixed promptly. They have nice mail options, lots of hosting extras, their customer service is good, and their web UI is actually usable, even by command line junkie admins like me.
Is it me, or are kernels just not really ready for production prime time until the "y" level (of a w.x.y.z or w.x.y kernel) is 10 or more? I'm really starting to get gun shy with some of the weirdnesses that have happened in the 2.4 and now 2.6 release cycle. Maybe I'm just conservative...?
Depends on how you define "babe", doesn't it?
There are more women in IT than get invited to speak at conferences. There are more women in IT than get featured at major publisher's *coughoreillycough* blog sites. There are more women in IT than will put up with drooling k1dd33z and h4x0r wannabes.
Then again, I like my booth babes middle aged, trim, tall, ponytailed, and bearded.
In the US it's spelled "tidbit", and has been for many years. Linguistic drift due to American cultural puritanism at its finest, but the term is here to stay. Remember the whole Janet Jackson boob blowup...
"I hope life isn't a big joke...because if it is, I don't get it."
Ya know, it's pretty bad when you have to explain jokes to people.
It's "0wnership", not "ownership". Someone else's box...
The article was amusing, and the comments here are even funnier!
Actually, I haven't bought a single CD since the Napster suit started. I don't have mp3s, but I'll do without rather than give $$$ to shitheads.
LinuxSolve makes rackmount linux boxes for business & ISP/ASP apps. They take security seriously, and I believe they have a customized install. Check out their "configure your box" type interface. (No, I don't work for them.)
Napster facilitates in the transfer of CD quality copyrighted works.
Bzzzt! Wrong!
Napster facilitates sharing of *nearly* CD quality works, with the degree of closeness being a factor of the sampling rate used to do the compression. The bigger the compression ratio (the lower the sampling rate), the farther from "CD Quality" the copy is.
Now, it's true that people who only play their music on $5 speakers (or who blew out their hearing cranking their speakers up too far) can't tell the difference. But most of those people can't afford the $15+ a CD costs anyway, much less several.
MP3s are nice for checking out new tunes with, but if I like it I want it uncompressed.
OK. So what's a LART?
Last I knew:
Luser
Attitude
Readjustment
Tool
Otherwise known as a "Clue-by-Four", or just a big, heavy stick!!
HTH, HAND
[I shouldn't grace you crap with a response, but this is just too stupid.]
Look, troll, all you've done is make lame, conspiracy theorist accusations, and spewed senseless abuse when a real, logged in, user called you on your baloney.
Don't whine about the signal to noise ratio when all you've done is post meaningless, insulting, idiotic noise!! You are obviously not part of the solution, either here (s/n) or on Kuro5hin (helping them do a comeback), and definitely part of the problem.
Let me weave a real conspiracy theory around this: /. and Kuro5hin so that /. won't help K5, or K5 won't accept it. The only person who would have a motive to do such a thing would be script kiddie that DoS'd K5, or a co-conspirator. By your own brand of screwball logic, YOU are conspiring against both K5 and /.!!!
One wonders if you are trying to sow dissention between
Pot, Kettle, Black, Mr AC. You wouldn't last a day on Usenet. Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of. Even alt.conspiracy would chew you up and spit you out.
I really don't want to see Perl become an OO language. If you want OO, and its attendant overhead, use Java. But for useful text crunching without having to "class"ify everything, plain sequential Perl works fine. There is no reason for me do object crap in order to parse out a chunk of text and stuff it into a database.
Readable Perl is very easy to write if you are a good programmer - it's called comments. Large projects should be planned, anyway, so you will have your major comments/docs before you actually code a line.
I would argue that half-clad or unclad men would also be willing to rescue these half-clad women...
How about half-clad men being rescued by fully clothed women?
Seriously, I don't watch much television anymore becase I can't stand "dumb blond bunny/screamer" syndrome. Zzzzzzz.
Well, actually, I agree. We need more hot chick programmers, because I would like to get one into bed. Why I should stop complaining about something I find undesirable (IE, the lack of hot chick programmers) is beyond me. Of course, whining about it probably won't do any good, but let's face it -- If women never rose up against sexism, they still wouldn't be allowed to vote. If they're not willing to go to bat for themselves, then I don't think they see a problem like we do. I've known a number of woman who would see that as a reason to get into the field and then either never give a geek a glance, or to flirt with them shamelessly and then marry a carpenter.
Hey, how would you feel if geek chicks said "We need more hot stud programmers, these pasty faced wimps suck!"?? I mean really, unless you mean hot as in a codin' fool, able to crank out code with the best, you're just letting your gonads talk.
Other than that, I do agree that it's better to have mates with similar interests. I could never stand to be attached to someone whose idea of entertainment was watching sports on TV and who didn't read as voraciously as I do.
Fortunately, my SO is a geek too, but more along the mad scientist lines. I'm the breadwinner who can play the workaday game well enough to (pretty much) stay employed. Even the brightest don't keep their jobs when they get violent with coworkers. But he cooks, having been a cook in the Coast Gaurd, and does dishes, which I hate.
The book is specifically targeted towards open source development. The first poster's complaint was that the book -- NOT CVS, JUST THE BOOK -- didn't treat proprietary stuff. My point is that the book -- NOT CVS, JUST THE BOOK -- made no claim of treating proprietary topics.
I'm rude?? You're the person who *boogle*d at why the person complained!
Let me parse it for you again: The AC complained that the book didn't address proprietary software. You cased on him for expecting the book to, saying it only covered open source. I'm saying that to him and you: a) that the technical matter in the book applies to both open and closed source, and b) that claiming that it only applies to open source is ridiculous! Which is what your little analogy attempted to do.
The fact is, the book is an invaluable resource for CVS users and administrators, regardless of whether they're working on open or closed source. To claim that it only applies to open source because that's what's in its title is stupid.
*boggle*
What part of Open Source Development with CVS did you not understand? Why would anyone expect this book to cover commercial software?
Don't be a dense idiot. CVS is a tool for code and version management. CVS doesn't care whether it's open or proprietary. Both are supported.
"Hey, this book is titled Tips for Baking Chocolate-Chip Cookies, so I'll purchase it because I'm hoping it will also cover meatloaf."
Dolt. It's more like "Hey, this book is titled 'How To Get The Most Out Of Your Oven', so it should cover both cookies and meatloaf!"
wrt your #1, punish those who break the build. Don't check in what does not build, under penalty of ???
RE#1: A-f*cking-men!! If developers have to check it in somewhere, let them check it in to their personal "scrap" repository! They should check out the project code (built & engr released) into their own workspace, and then work on their file(s). When they have done their changes, they need to build it, and troubleshoot as needed. If there is a new engineering build, they should:
Note: this is a rough idea of what all of our engineers do - I'm not a developer, I'm the release engineer. But it's what I do, especially when working on the build system!!
wrt your #2, we treat branches as transient - everything ends up back on the HEAD, except patches to back releases. Then releases are built from the HEAD.
RE#2: Whereas, we take "stable" (customer shipped) releases and make branches out of them, with continuing development (feeping creaturism) occuring on the HEAD. That way when we need to do a quick and dirty patch, we develop it on the branch, test it & ship it, then incorporate it back into the HEAD as required.
But you are quite correct in saying that CVS is not a build system. It merely enables you to work on and build numerous projects at once.
Also, to learn CVS from bootstrap (and well) on an existing system takes about three months, both Cederqvist and Fogel, and a lot of swearing at sytems, developers, and the clown who did the original repository setup.
So if you are like me and use PostgreSQL quite a bit you will undoubtedly have to settle for at least one book on your bookshelf that isn't from O'Reilly. It's too bad really, I sort of like having all of my books match, and the O'Reilly Animal Series covers are very cool :).
<chortle/> My technical bookshelf is predominantly from 2 publishers/labels: O'Reilly and Coriolis. However, I have been happily impressed by the "New Riders" series. Also, the Ventana "<FITB> Programmer's Reference" series is nice for functional references, especially when you can find them in hardbound!
The reason is because no one has heard of Cyberpunk. It only got reprinted a couple of years ago and is still relatively hard to find. I had the original set in 1988, but you couldn't find any modules for it (maybe that was because I lived in Germany at the time). Shadowrun has had a strong following the entire time. I agree that its name has much to do with this problem as anything else.
Yet I would argue that CyberPunk is the better game. The inclusion of fantasy and magic in Shadowrun is what makes its rules clunky, and the scenario implausible. I've always though of Shadowrun as Cyberpunk meets D&D, myself.
The most recent release of CyberPunk added a gene engineered plague to the mix, but didn't do it well. The game pretty much died out then.
Side note: One way we would test out spreadsheet software was to see how well it handled complex rules for character generation in the Champions, Traveller, and CyberPunk systems. The best characters are designed, not "rolled", but why do it with pencils??
Hehe... well, i'll agree with you - there is no way in hell i'd pay $120.00 for a pair of shoes, unless they were something really amazing. That's why i've owned a wide variety of brands, and I never pay full price (can you say sale/end-of-line? ;^) As a matter of fact, I'm wearing non-brand name hiking boots right now, which are great.
Actually, I've paid over $200 for a pair of shoes. OTOH, they were good leather european walking shoes, with the kind of support I needed for my lame leg, and a repair and recondition warranty. I paid $100 for high tops for the support and the fact that they had velcro and didn't need to be tied (they're finally dying four years later). It used to be I bought my shoes at a department store, discount house, or the drugstore, on sale and cheap. Now if I try that I injure myself because I can't walk in the cheap ones. Being a gimp gets expensive.
However, brand tags are ugly. I tend to cut them off if I can. Abstract logos on clothes arent so bad - I can fix them up with embroidery thread.
We need to move back towards Christianity. True Christianity, not the corrupted versions of it floating around.
Why friggin' Christianity?? There are other moral, ethical, and holy religions out there. Few of them have anything to do with eternal life insurance and the veneration of an instrument of torture!
I could concievably support your statement if: (s/Christianity/spirituality/g) and (s/need/should/g)
Seriously, I don't argue with your right to believe as you wish, but your claim that "We need to move back towards Christianity" is really offensive. "WE" don't need any such crap.
Its really sad that I have to post this anonymously to protect my "karma" here. Censorship is alive and well, even in our "free" Slashdot community.
[sarcasm on]Awwwww, poor little Christian. He's sooooo persecuted. [sarcasm off]
When's the last time you got beat up, your property vandalised, fired from your job, refused a job, your children taken away, arrested for "terrorism" or "unnatural acts" because of your religion??
Never?? I thought so. But that's what happens to pagans, muslims, jews, hindi, etc EVERY FUCKING DAY in the supposedly civilised USA.
I do not support censoring the Internet or burning people at the stake, but I know a lot of people will assume I do now.
Yep. A person can be pretty reliably judged by the statements they make. Saying "We need ... Christianity" is the same as saying "We need Fascism" in my book. The record of Christianity and it's adherents isn't good when it comes to those who refuse to adopt it. Mind you, it's not the only religion with a bad rep, but it does have one of the worst.
Personally I believe that the rise in corporate power has led to our current McGovernment with little real choice between two very similar Democratic and Republican parties. There seemed to be a lot more difference between the two 10 or 15 years ago.
Whereas I see the causality being the other way around. With McGovernment just being two minor shades of the same color, corporations can spend less money to buy the government they desire. Look at DMCA, UCITA, H1b floods, SSNs on drivers licenses (which is an outrage!!), etc. The majority of legislation that is being passed is bought and paid for by some corporate group that buys the republicrats for cheap.
Second - the all loving, all caring, all disgusting attitude every person over the age of 25 seemed to have towards youngsters - They are kids, treat them with love and care, shield them from all evil in this world. But when they mess up, punish them with all you have, they have to learn responsibility.
This is one of the things that makes me want to puke about our society here. Keep the teenage kids from seing reality, take away their freedom to think, speak, and question, but land on them like a ton of bricks when they do something the establishment doesn't "approve" of. What happened to gradually handing a kid more power and responsibility in their own life so that when they turn 18 they are ready to act as responsible adults?? Instead, we get corporations and governments trying to act in loco parentis over adults - "for their own good"!!
Res-fucking-ponsibility is learned from having the freedom to make mistakes. Also, what teenagers think, is important. For them, their thoughts are most important. And when you look back, I am sure you still remember your emotions from that time as very vivid. When you grow up, you get sort of a buffer zone.
True. No longer just a shadow of the parents, but exploring their relationship to reality on their own. Problem is, our society has gone from trying to protect them only from disastrous mistakes, but from any mistakes at all!! When they reach majority, they haven't got what it takes to survive, and thus they go looking to the government to "protect" them from their own folly.
Instead of covering the walls with pink stickers saying "Kids zone, enter with love", try to listen to them. And take them seriously.
When someone turn 13, I figure that they're ready to start dealing with me as an adult, not as a child. This means I talk with them as an adult, and listen to them as an adult, and criticize or praise them as an adult.
A friend of ours has a newly teenaged foster son (13). He has been diagnosed with all sorts of psychological/behavioral crap, and is on enough pills to make a junkie happy. He has been sexually molested by somebody, and acts it out on other kids - to get attention. His mother can't handle him, he's burned through numerous "babysitters" (Mind you, at 13 I was sitting for little kids, and I'd been watching my sister for 5 years after school.) So my SO says bring him over. The kid plays vulgar, nasty, hyper brat for about the first hour, then, realizing that it doesn't get him attention, settles down. 8 hours with consistant rules, no "rewarding" of unwanted behavior, and real attention for real (constructive) activity and the kid becomes human.
Now my SO will be having him 3 days a week for the summer. With any luck, by the end of summer the kid will be a real person, and have some skills to boot (my SO is a geek too, and may try to teach the kid game design/building, as well as computer repair, yard work, and car work.)
The host family I was living in had three children (+me) - 18 year old girl, 16 year old girl and a few years younger boy. It was New-Years eve or something and the parents wanted to go to a party of some sort. The problem was, that they just COULDN'T leave the children home alone because they might get into trouble...
This is patently stupid. If nothing else, the 18 y.o. is an adult, and either he or the 16 y.o. could watch the youngest. Cripes, at 17 I was in my first year of college, and my dad was dating. That host family had problems.
Yeah, in high school I contemplated a) blowing up the school, or b) killing myself. In the first case, I couldn't figure how to get only the ones that I hated without getting caught, and they'd just be dead - not good enough. In the second, I figured "Why should I die because they are vicious jerks? It won't hurt them a bit! Better to stick around and plot revenge."
It turns out that time brings the best revenge. When I went back for my 20 year reunion, I was one of the few with a nice geek job. One of the other geeks had already retired after starting his own company! The ones that treated me like shit had dull sales jobs. Even better, a lot of them had packed on a lot of weight, whereas I am only 20 pounds more than I weighed in high school. I was always fat, but some of them looked like they doubled their weight. No more room to sneer!
The "what have I done since high school" that was put together for the 15 year had a lot of "was alcoholic, got sober" stuff in it. Seems a lot of the "stars" didn't cut it too well in the real world, and turned boozer.
None of this is an excuse for shitheads to harass the "odd" student, and especially not using the police and the (unconstitutional) seizure laws. Mind you, part of the kid's revenge will be the really negative international publicity and legal expense that this will bring that little backwater town.