1-5) Which "extreme minority" was that? The one that uses Windows? The one that wants software that works without having to figure out how to compile it? Or was it the one that simply chooses to use whatever is most convenient, without worrying about ideology? Personally, I'm of the extreme minority that believes people should use linux wherever it's practical, such as in servers, and stick to what they're used to otherwise unless there's a good reason to switch. Oh, and the minority that consists of IT folks who are slowly moving their old windows-only servers over to linux or BSD, unless there's a good reason to stick with MS.
"6) Maybe you'd rather a system where you can't even write your politician of choice without fearing death incarnate?"
Huh? I'm not quite sure where to go with this one, since it doesn't seem to make any sense at all. I assume you're saying that when I say "Let's keep working on the long term" I mean "anyone who uses free software should be shot on sight," but that doesn't make much sense. Care to clarify?
Dude... take your sedatives, and get over yourself.
Since when is it an "insult to all parents everywhere" to point out that most free software doesn't have the overall acceptance levels of commercial alternatives?
I'm going to condense my responses to a lot of your arguments into a single response, here.
"I'm sorry we weren't able to provide you with a free copy of...."
I didn't ask for one. In fact, I would have thought I was pushing for paying software where it's needed.
My point wasn't that free software was no good, or useless to everyone, it was that there's a time and place for it's use. Yes, GIMP/Dia/OpenOffice.org/whatever is good enough for a lot of, even most, users, but it's not good enough for all of them. My point wasn't that everyone should be able to get everything for free. My point wasn't even that any particular package isn't good enough.
What, then, was my point? My point was this: There are uses for non-free software. In places where it does the job better or is more convenient, why not use it? And if you're going to use it, you probably ought to pay for it. After all, that is how the creators make their living. (We can debate whether they're making too much some other time...)
I will, however, respond to this one seperately:
"Yes, there is no sense in trying to gain back the freedom that was taken away from you. It's much more important to be able to watch that movie where jennifer lopez falls in love with that ben affleck, that was so CUTE!. How can I possibly write my congressman when I have a jennifer lopez DVD to watch.
Oh one more thing.
PEOPLE LIKE YOU MAKE ME SICK!"
Did you read my original post? "Let's keep working on the long term, but I'd like to watch my movies legally now, thanks very much." By all means, we should all be writing to congress, voting for intelligent candidates, and working for IP reform. But... I still want to be able to watch my movies today, without breaking the law. Saying people shouldn't use what's available now is like refusing to eat a sandwich because you really wanted a steak dinner. Sure, the steak dinner would be nicer, and planning to go get steak next week is worthwhile, but why starve in the meantime?
So I can only assume that "POEPLE LIKE [ME]" are those who are willing to work with what they have until they can get something better, rather than simply ranting and screaming because OMG WTF SOMEBODY ISN'T USING OPEN SOURCE FOR EVERYTHING.
Work for something better, but use what you have in the meantime. And try not yelling at people... it very rarely helps.
In some cases, I do expect Photoshop to be installed.
If I walk into a computer lab in an art department, that's one of the things I sort of expect to see. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it was last time I did. I grant you, though, it's been a few years.
I don't expect to see it on every computer, but I do expect to see it in places where software like that is needed. Similarly, I don't expect to see apache installed on every computer, but I do expect to see it on linux or bsd webservers. On the other hand, I really DON'T expect to see GIMP installed on any computer not running linux: sure, it's available, and in fact it's installed on my windows computer at home, but it's not a standard yet. I hope it will be eventually, and I try to recommend looking into it whenever I hear someone complain about the cost of photoshop, but it's not the standard now.
I wrestled with this problem for a while myself, and came to two conclusions:
1) No software currently on the market did exactly what I wanted, and I should write my own.
2) Having a master list doesn't help in the slightest unless you can organize things without a database.
I suggest the following order of work:
1) Work out a category list. Do you want sci-fi and fantasy together? Where are you going to store cookbooks? How about technical manuals, encyclopedias, biographies, or textbooks? You can't make a good start at getting organized until you know what you're trying to organize.
2) Think about where you want to store things. Cookbooks should be near the kitchen, programming books should be near the computer, coffee-table books should be on the coffee-table, and so on. This will help more than anything else. Also consider shelf size: I built my own shelves, with some sized purely for paperbacks and some for hardcover, oversized, and trade paper. It's a lot more efficient than trying to fit everything together, which matters a lot with the volume of books you're talking about.
3) Find some software. Figure out what you want, what information is important to you. Personally, I mostly care about genre, binding, title, series title, number within series, authors, how much I liked it, and who I loaned it to (and when). I know someone else with something like 75 fields, including cover artist, publisher, who recommended it, number of pages, and so on. What you want to know about your books is pretty personalized, so you may not find anything perfect. That's why I wrote my own.
3.5) If you're going to write your own, set up at least the database and an entry system. If you're going to buy/download one, do so, and get it working. I hear a lot of good things about Koha, but I wanted to write my own.
4) OK, you've got your databasing system set up, right? You're sure it works, you have a place to keep off-site backups, and you're ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU CAN USE IT WITHOUT LOSING DATA? Re-entering more than a thousand books sucks, a lot. Yes, I've had to do it.
Well, this is the part that sucks. Take absolutely every book in your house off the shelf and pile it up in fairly empty room. Every book. Set up a computer near the door, and start scanning. If you can manage it, stack things in the room by category before starting ("OK, sci-fi/fantasy gets that wall, cookbooks can go in the corner, and we'll glue the romance novels to the ceiling"), and go by category. Once you've entered a managable number of books, go put them on the shelf they're going to stay on. Don't worry too much about where you put them: you're going to be shifting them around a lot. As you put each book on the shelf, make sure it's in the right spot relative to other books, but don't worry about which shelf it's on.
5) NEVER, EVER, I mean absolutely never, put books on the shelf without entering them. If you do, your carefully built database, built with your blood, sweat, and tears is totally worthless. If you must put them on the shelf, stack them sideways on top of the other books, in roughly the area where they ought to go. It makes it easy to tell which books need to be entered.
Anyway, that got a little longer than I intended, but I hope it helps. Sadly, the version I've been writing really isn't ready for an audience bigger than me, or I'd offer to give you a copy.
There's another good reason: I lend out my books a lot, and I frequently can't remember who borrowed what, or tell by a quick glance at my shelves what I actually own.
Also, if you make it accessible over the web, you can tell people "I want any book by this author that I don't already have," and they'll be able to look up what you have.
Yes, but you can have a guest room in a 2000 square foot house. You just have to give something else up... I've been playing with floor plans, and you can build a 2 bedroom, 2 bath house with a study that doubles as a guest room, a large dining room, a living room, and a good-sized kitchen in about 1400 square feet. An extra 12x12 bedroom, plus closet space and allowance for walls, brings it up to something like 1600 square feet.
2000 square feet is BIG. Not that big is a bad thing, mind you, but let's get our definitions straight.
It's definitely small, and it'd be nice if they'd put some thought into the layout, but it's not actually too terrible. If I had a basement for storage, I'd actually be OK with the size it is. Sounds like you have a lot more big things than I do, though... my main hobby is reading, and books just take up wall space (I love having a complete wall -- about 12'x8' -- of bookshelf space in one room), they aren't very bulky.
And don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a much bigger house: say, 3000 square feet or so. It's just that 800 is small, but 1500 is not.
1) GIMP does not equal Photoshop. Yes, it has most of the functionality. Yes, it's plenty powerful for almost everyone. However, it is NOT Photoshop. The commands are different, and if you've just spent a year learning Photoshop, you probably won't want to spend another year learning a completely different system, which won't be installed on most computers.
2) Pagemaker is a LOT better than Draw for, say, laying out a newsletter. Yes, yes, LaTeX... but why learn a complicated system when there's an easy one available?
3) Dia may do for planning your network, but Visio is good for a lot of other things. Just because you only want it for one thing doesn't mean that's all it can be used for...
4) OK, can't argue with this one. The only advantage to Access is that it's more universally available on the Windows platform, and I don't see that as much of an advantage.
5) Wouldn't know about PDF Converters, since I mostly don't bother with PDF.
6) Writing my congressman doesn't help me play a movie tonight, tomorrow, next week, or probably even this year. People want immediate solutions. Let's keep working on the long term, but I'd like to watch my movies legally now, thanks very much. Of course, I have a DVD player, and a decent TV, so I don't really care whether my computer can play them.
The simple fact is that using Windows or MacOS X is EASIER if you don't already know linux. I use linux as my primary daily OS, but there are still things I end up going to Windows for, because they just work better. I prefer Visio to anything I've found in linux, and I'd rather be able to play my games without having to hope WINE is up to the task.
I've spent quite a lot of time thinking about this recently, as I'm getting ready to move out of a condo, into a house.
I'd like a house which is relatively self-sufficent: grid connected is fine, but I want solar/wind/hydro backup power, and a good battery bank so when the power lines go out, I can keep reading without having to dig out the candles. Something that's cheap to heat would be a plus, too: either high insulation values, or good passive-solar heating, or, more ideally, both. Sustainable heating would be a tremendous plus: either wood, or a multi-fuel furnace.
Built in conduit for running whatever the networking preference of the week is would be nice, as well as an electrical system that can handle a few additions to the house.
Oh, and one other thing: it needs to look like a HOUSE. Not a flying saucer. Not a pile of concrete. Not a space-ship, a dinosaur, or a giant fuzzy pumpkin. A house.
1,500 - 2,000 square feet is NOT a small home. 750 - 1,100 square feet is a small home. My girlfiend and I are currently living in a condo that's nominally about 950 square feet, but a lot of that is taken up by stairs, walls, and poor planning. Call it maybe 800 square feet of usable living area, total. The only thing we really need more space for is long-term storage; winter storage for the bicycles, christmas ornaments, things like that. So... if you have a family, yes, you'll need at least 1,500 square feet. But if you don't have kids, why get such a big house? I'm looking at new places at the moment, and I'm finding that 1,200 or so is as much space as I need, as long as it has a basement or a barn for storing all the Stuff I'm not using at the moment.
On the history of the internet: it was NOT created to withstand nuclear attack. I've heard professors, co-workers, and journalists say that it was, but it wasn't. Go ask the folks who built it, or read "Where Wizards Stay Up Late," by Katie Haffner and Matt Lyons, who already asked. (Actually, that may be the best resource I've found for early internet history)
Other than that -- people should know the difference between *bytes and *hertz, hertz and hurts, hard-drive capacity and RAM (which one is memory? In what context?), how optical drives work, how hard drives work, how magnetic drives work, and a basic history of operating systems. It would be good if more people understood the client/server concept as it existed before people had desktop PCs, and how it led to the concept of a desktop PC.
I could go on for about 20 pages, just listing what I think is important.
Good luck!
(disclaimer -- I'm biased, because my father is referenced in the book as part of the ARPANet project. No, I'm not telling you who he is, but he claims the book is accurate.)
What it really comes down to is, what is important to you?
You don't mention whether the Higher Ed. position is state or not. If it's not, you're basically still working for a corporation: a private university is a factory for making students. Some factories work better than others, but they're all still factories.
(Disclaimer: I started working at a state university about a year ago.)
A state job, though, is different. In general, the pay is a lot lower. I'm making somewhere between 50% and 75% of what I could probably make in the corporate world. But... do consider the non-monetary benefits. My dentist's office claims I have the best dental insurance money can buy, and it costs me nothing. I get cheap health care. Getting auto and home-owners insurance through the state dropped those bills by something like 15% each. I can take classes for free, and I have excellent job security. (Working a state job as part of a union... sadly, people here are nearly impossible to fire.) On the down side, our department has no money, and IT is always the last group to get funding. We're supporting a couple of research labs with 20-year old macs, and at least one group with a 486 running who-knows-what. (there are, of course, other labs we support that have more money than they know what to do with... one of them just bought a 40U rack, completely stuffed with high-end machines, to do some serious number crunching.)
In my case, I decided that having a relatively low-stress job was more important than having a lot of cash. Sure, I can't buy myself a lot of new toys, but I'm making enough to live on and still have a few luxuries. And if you've managed to save up a fair amount while working prior jobs, and you invest it well, you shouldn't have to worry much.
On the other hand, there are substantial benefits to working in the corporate world: better toys at work, higher paychecks, and the possibility of getting your name on a major product come to mind. If the company is well run, it still might be fairly low stress, and most big companies seem to have fairly good health insurance. The downside? Probably less benefits, most likely higher stress, and a lot less job security.
So, despite all the advice we slashdot geeks can give you, you'll end up having to decide which is better for you. I can only tell you that I'd much rather be here in academia then out in the real world.
Personally, I think a mortgage and a house is a good thing, but I live in an area where property values are going up, and I'm (fairly) good about paying my bills on time.
I know some people who have bought houses in places where the crime rate was going up, or where a major local employer shut down, and now they're stuck: the house has basically no value, and they're still paying a high mortgage on it. I also know people who simply can't get the hang of paying bills on time (it took me a long time to learn, but having a mortgage did it). For them, ANY long term loan is a Bad Idea, because they'll end up losing the house without any return anyway.
Basically, it depends on who you are, and where you are.
" Some of us don't buy closed-source software because we consider it immoral to so do, barring some overriding need..."
Ah, situational ethics.
Sorry, folks; if it's immoral, it's always immoral. You may decide to do something immoral when you think it's justified, but it's still immoral. Killing is immoral. Killing someone who is trying to blow up a busload of children is immoral, but (in my worldview, anyway) justified. If you find closed-source software immoral, fine. That's your right, and I respect your belief even if I don't agree. But either it's immoral or it's not -- you don't get to say "Buying closed-source software is immoral. Except for the newest Doom. Or GTA. 'Cause those are really cool games."
"At the same time you want us to play by your rules of "civility" and do your reading for you."
Once again, ignoring the "Do not feed" sign on the troll cage, I'll respond.
These aren't "my" rules of civility. They're the ones most human societies have agreed on. Don't insult people. Say please and thank you. Generally avoid being unnecessarily rude.
And... "want [you] to do [our] reading for us"? What on earth are you talking about? If someone writes in, saying "I've read the manuals, the FAQs, and every page I can find in Google, and I'm stuck," how is that being unwilling to do the work themselves?
I'm not sure -- a co-worker was dealing with the problem, and just showed me his ticket when he originally posted it, then showed me Theo's response when it came back.
I'm actually not sure what number it was -- my co-worker was the one who filed it. Personally, I'm not surprised we never got an answer: we couldn't find nearly enough information to come up with a solution, as it didn't leave tracks in the logs, dmesg, or anything else. It just locked up, and stopped accepting packets.
However: My point was not that we didn't get a response. We did. My problem was with the SORT of response we got. It was rude, condescending, and useless. Theo could have responded by saying "Sorry, this isn't enough information. Here are a few more places you could look for error messages, but we really can't do anything unless you get more details." Instead, he chose to be rude and insulting.
Well, that's his choice. He can be rude and insulting if he wants. But he should realize that he, and by extension the OpenBSD project, will lose support by it.
While I probably shouldn't feed this particular troll...
Requesting that someone clarify, or provide more information, or read a manual is fine. I almost always end up needing more information than I was originally given when someone asks a question.
Courtesy, however, is always appreciated. Rather than "Read the fucking manual, 'tard," how about "Try chapter 3 of the manual at http://whereever.it.is.org./" Or "I think that's in the manual. Try a search for $term."
As to my needing to learn how to ask smart questions; I've never had a problem with a professor, co-worker, or newsgroup understanding what I wanted to know. If they needed more information, they asked for it, and I went and found it for them.
The key was that they accepted that I wasn't an expert in the field, and was asking because I wanted to learn. The impression I got of the misc list was that the people on it assumed that anyone asking questions was a lazy slacker who couldn't be bothered to do anything on their own. Maybe I caught the list at a bad time, but it certainly didn't look like it was worth my time.
Before you can figure out what to do, you should decide whether it's worth your job. If you report them, and they find out, they'll certainly start looking for an excuse to fire you. If you simply refuse, they'll probably HAVE an excuse to fire you.
Personally, I would report them, and hope like hell that they never found out it was me. I'd also start looking for a new job.
Before going that route, though, there are a few things you could try.
- Put it in writing. Filing a formal protest with your supervisor is a good first step. If you can give them dollar amounts for the fines for each piece of software, they might respect it.
- Offer alternatives. Look around for the best price on each piece of software, look for free/cheap alternatives, find ways to get licenses that let you do what you need to but won't cost as much. This will (hopefully) show the boss that you're not just saying "This can't be done," but trying to work to find a better alternative.
- If your supervisor has a boss, you could try discussing it with them. My experience has been that, in most companies, there's someone somewhere along the chain of command who understands that legal trouble is a Bad Thing, and can order their underlings to obey the law, or at least be less obvious in breaking it.
- If all else fails, I suggest leaving the company. If they're willing to break one set of laws, they're liable to be willing to break others. Once you know they're unreliable, you should start looking for ways to get out. Yes, I've done this. Yes, being unemployed sucks. The fact is, you can usually find SOME other job, and it's better than getting caught up in the wreck when the copyright holders catch up to your current company. And once you're gone? Report the suckers.
Am I simply misunderstanding what he's asking for?
Yes.
I've run into this a few times, and while it doesn't piss me off the way it used to, I still find it frustrating.
While I agree that HTML isn't hard to learn, especially for what the poster was asking for (maybe 3 tags, total), it's not what he wants. He wants something like a notebook, where he can scribble down his thoughts as they come to mind, or jot down what he just did in case he needs to know later.
I tend to write my term papers in HTML, usually using vim, because my profs can't seem to agree on a format, and at least they can all read that. But, even now that I'm used to it, it breaks the flow of my thoughts to have to add a paragraph tag, or figure out how to make the thing insert a tab. Those few extra characters force you to switch your frame of reference from "written english" to "HTML code," which can slow you down and make a quick note kind of a hassle.
Interesting. The OpenBSD community was basically the only reason I considered NOT using OpenBSD. When I watch 7 posts in 3 days, on the official "misc" mailing list, get flamed for being newbies, I kind of lose interest in being part of the community.
I work in IT, and my group has also had problems with bug reports. We were getting intermittent crashing, which seemed to be related to the version of dhcpd that shipped with OpenBSD 3.6. When we submitted the bug-report, with logs, version numbers, exact details on system setup and what was running, and everything else listed on the "how to file a bug-report" list, we got a response from Theo: "Come on! That's not nearly enough information!" He then closed the post, with no mention of what further information he wanted or needed, and no suggestion as to where else to try.
We removed OpenBSD's DHCP server, and replaced with the the official release, and now it works fine. Again, not an experience that encourages me to be "part of the community." They want to be elitist snobs? Not interested in being helpful? Fuck 'em. I'll go back to an OS where there are friendly, helpful local User Groups. It may not be as good a server OS, but at least the users don't ALL make me hate them.
The paper is considered "politically incorrect" because it implies that one ethnic group may be inherently different from another. These days, you can get slapped with a racism or sexism suit for just about anything -- I know someone who was told they weren't allowed to comment on the fact that blacks (sorry, "Persons of African Descent") are less likely to suffer sunburn.
It's the same as not being allowed to state that most women have less upper body strength than average men, or that men aren't very good at breast-feeding kids. Anything that implies an inherent difference between groups of people is taboo in the US.
Go read some articles by Fred Reed -- he has some interesting, though sometimes biased, articles about race and sex.
Slashdot Mirror
1-5) Which "extreme minority" was that? The one that uses Windows? The one that wants software that works without having to figure out how to compile it? Or was it the one that simply chooses to use whatever is most convenient, without worrying about ideology? Personally, I'm of the extreme minority that believes people should use linux wherever it's practical, such as in servers, and stick to what they're used to otherwise unless there's a good reason to switch. Oh, and the minority that consists of IT folks who are slowly moving their old windows-only servers over to linux or BSD, unless there's a good reason to stick with MS.
"6) Maybe you'd rather a system where you can't even write your politician of choice without fearing death incarnate?"
Huh? I'm not quite sure where to go with this one, since it doesn't seem to make any sense at all.
I assume you're saying that when I say "Let's keep working on the long term" I mean "anyone who uses free software should be shot on sight," but that doesn't make much sense. Care to clarify?
I'd give it a try, but it seems to be Mac OS X only? Given I can't really afford a Mac, I'm stuck with Windows or Linux....
Still, it does look like it's probably a lot better than Visio.
Dude... take your sedatives, and get over yourself.
Since when is it an "insult to all parents everywhere" to point out that most free software doesn't have the overall acceptance levels of commercial alternatives?
Why do I keep feeding trolls? I don't know....
I'm going to condense my responses to a lot of your arguments into a single response, here.
"I'm sorry we weren't able to provide you with a free copy of...."
I didn't ask for one. In fact, I would have thought I was pushing for paying software where it's needed.
My point wasn't that free software was no good, or useless to everyone, it was that there's a time and place for it's use. Yes, GIMP/Dia/OpenOffice.org/whatever is good enough for a lot of, even most, users, but it's not good enough for all of them. My point wasn't that everyone should be able to get everything for free. My point wasn't even that any particular package isn't good enough.
What, then, was my point? My point was this: There are uses for non-free software. In places where it does the job better or is more convenient, why not use it? And if you're going to use it, you probably ought to pay for it. After all, that is how the creators make their living. (We can debate whether they're making too much some other time...)
I will, however, respond to this one seperately:
"Yes, there is no sense in trying to gain back the freedom that was taken away from you. It's much more important to be able to watch that movie where jennifer lopez falls in love with that ben affleck, that was so CUTE!. How can I possibly write my congressman when I have a jennifer lopez DVD to watch.
Oh one more thing.
PEOPLE LIKE YOU MAKE ME SICK!"
Did you read my original post? "Let's keep working on the long term, but I'd like to watch my movies legally now, thanks very much." By all means, we should all be writing to congress, voting for intelligent candidates, and working for IP reform. But... I still want to be able to watch my movies today, without breaking the law. Saying people shouldn't use what's available now is like refusing to eat a sandwich because you really wanted a steak dinner. Sure, the steak dinner would be nicer, and planning to go get steak next week is worthwhile, but why starve in the meantime?
So I can only assume that "POEPLE LIKE [ME]" are those who are willing to work with what they have until they can get something better, rather than simply ranting and screaming because OMG WTF SOMEBODY ISN'T USING OPEN SOURCE FOR EVERYTHING.
Work for something better, but use what you have in the meantime. And try not yelling at people... it very rarely helps.
In some cases, I do expect Photoshop to be installed.
If I walk into a computer lab in an art department, that's one of the things I sort of expect to see. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it was last time I did. I grant you, though, it's been a few years.
I don't expect to see it on every computer, but I do expect to see it in places where software like that is needed. Similarly, I don't expect to see apache installed on every computer, but I do expect to see it on linux or bsd webservers. On the other hand, I really DON'T expect to see GIMP installed on any computer not running linux: sure, it's available, and in fact it's installed on my windows computer at home, but it's not a standard yet. I hope it will be eventually, and I try to recommend looking into it whenever I hear someone complain about the cost of photoshop, but it's not the standard now.
I wrestled with this problem for a while myself, and came to two conclusions:
1) No software currently on the market did exactly what I wanted, and I should write my own.
2) Having a master list doesn't help in the slightest unless you can organize things without a database.
I suggest the following order of work:
1) Work out a category list. Do you want sci-fi and fantasy together? Where are you going to store cookbooks? How about technical manuals, encyclopedias, biographies, or textbooks? You can't make a good start at getting organized until you know what you're trying to organize.
2) Think about where you want to store things. Cookbooks should be near the kitchen, programming books should be near the computer, coffee-table books should be on the coffee-table, and so on. This will help more than anything else. Also consider shelf size: I built my own shelves, with some sized purely for paperbacks and some for hardcover, oversized, and trade paper. It's a lot more efficient than trying to fit everything together, which matters a lot with the volume of books you're talking about.
3) Find some software. Figure out what you want, what information is important to you. Personally, I mostly care about genre, binding, title, series title, number within series, authors, how much I liked it, and who I loaned it to (and when). I know someone else with something like 75 fields, including cover artist, publisher, who recommended it, number of pages, and so on. What you want to know about your books is pretty personalized, so you may not find anything perfect. That's why I wrote my own.
3.5) If you're going to write your own, set up at least the database and an entry system. If you're going to buy/download one, do so, and get it working. I hear a lot of good things about Koha, but I wanted to write my own.
4) OK, you've got your databasing system set up, right? You're sure it works, you have a place to keep off-site backups, and you're ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU CAN USE IT WITHOUT LOSING DATA? Re-entering more than a thousand books sucks, a lot. Yes, I've had to do it.
Well, this is the part that sucks. Take absolutely every book in your house off the shelf and pile it up in fairly empty room. Every book. Set up a computer near the door, and start scanning. If you can manage it, stack things in the room by category before starting ("OK, sci-fi/fantasy gets that wall, cookbooks can go in the corner, and we'll glue the romance novels to the ceiling"), and go by category. Once you've entered a managable number of books, go put them on the shelf they're going to stay on. Don't worry too much about where you put them: you're going to be shifting them around a lot. As you put each book on the shelf, make sure it's in the right spot relative to other books, but don't worry about which shelf it's on.
5) NEVER, EVER, I mean absolutely never, put books on the shelf without entering them. If you do, your carefully built database, built with your blood, sweat, and tears is totally worthless. If you must put them on the shelf, stack them sideways on top of the other books, in roughly the area where they ought to go. It makes it easy to tell which books need to be entered.
Anyway, that got a little longer than I intended, but I hope it helps. Sadly, the version I've been writing really isn't ready for an audience bigger than me, or I'd offer to give you a copy.
There's another good reason: I lend out my books a lot, and I frequently can't remember who borrowed what, or tell by a quick glance at my shelves what I actually own.
Also, if you make it accessible over the web, you can tell people "I want any book by this author that I don't already have," and they'll be able to look up what you have.
Yes, but you can have a guest room in a 2000 square foot house. You just have to give something else up... I've been playing with floor plans, and you can build a 2 bedroom, 2 bath house with a study that doubles as a guest room, a large dining room, a living room, and a good-sized kitchen in about 1400 square feet. An extra 12x12 bedroom, plus closet space and allowance for walls, brings it up to something like 1600 square feet.
2000 square feet is BIG. Not that big is a bad thing, mind you, but let's get our definitions straight.
It's definitely small, and it'd be nice if they'd put some thought into the layout, but it's not actually too terrible. If I had a basement for storage, I'd actually be OK with the size it is. Sounds like you have a lot more big things than I do, though... my main hobby is reading, and books just take up wall space (I love having a complete wall -- about 12'x8' -- of bookshelf space in one room), they aren't very bulky.
And don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a much bigger house: say, 3000 square feet or so. It's just that 800 is small, but 1500 is not.
1) GIMP does not equal Photoshop. Yes, it has most of the functionality. Yes, it's plenty powerful for almost everyone. However, it is NOT Photoshop. The commands are different, and if you've just spent a year learning Photoshop, you probably won't want to spend another year learning a completely different system, which won't be installed on most computers.
2) Pagemaker is a LOT better than Draw for, say, laying out a newsletter. Yes, yes, LaTeX... but why learn a complicated system when there's an easy one available?
3) Dia may do for planning your network, but Visio is good for a lot of other things. Just because you only want it for one thing doesn't mean that's all it can be used for...
4) OK, can't argue with this one. The only advantage to Access is that it's more universally available on the Windows platform, and I don't see that as much of an advantage.
5) Wouldn't know about PDF Converters, since I mostly don't bother with PDF.
6) Writing my congressman doesn't help me play a movie tonight, tomorrow, next week, or probably even this year. People want immediate solutions. Let's keep working on the long term, but I'd like to watch my movies legally now, thanks very much. Of course, I have a DVD player, and a decent TV, so I don't really care whether my computer can play them.
The simple fact is that using Windows or MacOS X is EASIER if you don't already know linux. I use linux as my primary daily OS, but there are still things I end up going to Windows for, because they just work better. I prefer Visio to anything I've found in linux, and I'd rather be able to play my games without having to hope WINE is up to the task.
I've spent quite a lot of time thinking about this recently, as I'm getting ready to move out of a condo, into a house.
I'd like a house which is relatively self-sufficent: grid connected is fine, but I want solar/wind/hydro backup power, and a good battery bank so when the power lines go out, I can keep reading without having to dig out the candles. Something that's cheap to heat would be a plus, too: either high insulation values, or good passive-solar heating, or, more ideally, both. Sustainable heating would be a tremendous plus: either wood, or a multi-fuel furnace.
Built in conduit for running whatever the networking preference of the week is would be nice, as well as an electrical system that can handle a few additions to the house.
Oh, and one other thing: it needs to look like a HOUSE. Not a flying saucer. Not a pile of concrete. Not a space-ship, a dinosaur, or a giant fuzzy pumpkin. A house.
1,500 - 2,000 square feet is NOT a small home. 750 - 1,100 square feet is a small home. My girlfiend and I are currently living in a condo that's nominally about 950 square feet, but a lot of that is taken up by stairs, walls, and poor planning. Call it maybe 800 square feet of usable living area, total. The only thing we really need more space for is long-term storage; winter storage for the bicycles, christmas ornaments, things like that. So... if you have a family, yes, you'll need at least 1,500 square feet. But if you don't have kids, why get such a big house? I'm looking at new places at the moment, and I'm finding that 1,200 or so is as much space as I need, as long as it has a basement or a barn for storing all the Stuff I'm not using at the moment.
From the Fine Synopsis, they zig-zag through, obviously... ;-)
So... if you can get through the curtain by zig-zagging, would it be more accurately called an "Iron Venetian Blind"?
On the history of the internet: it was NOT created to withstand nuclear attack. I've heard professors, co-workers, and journalists say that it was, but it wasn't. Go ask the folks who built it, or read "Where Wizards Stay Up Late," by Katie Haffner and Matt Lyons, who already asked. (Actually, that may be the best resource I've found for early internet history)
Other than that -- people should know the difference between *bytes and *hertz, hertz and hurts, hard-drive capacity and RAM (which one is memory? In what context?), how optical drives work, how hard drives work, how magnetic drives work, and a basic history of operating systems. It would be good if more people understood the client/server concept as it existed before people had desktop PCs, and how it led to the concept of a desktop PC.
I could go on for about 20 pages, just listing what I think is important.
Good luck!
(disclaimer -- I'm biased, because my father is referenced in the book as part of the ARPANet project. No, I'm not telling you who he is, but he claims the book is accurate.)
What it really comes down to is, what is important to you?
You don't mention whether the Higher Ed. position is state or not. If it's not, you're basically still working for a corporation: a private university is a factory for making students. Some factories work better than others, but they're all still factories.
(Disclaimer: I started working at a state university about a year ago.)
A state job, though, is different. In general, the pay is a lot lower. I'm making somewhere between 50% and 75% of what I could probably make in the corporate world. But... do consider the non-monetary benefits. My dentist's office claims I have the best dental insurance money can buy, and it costs me nothing. I get cheap health care. Getting auto and home-owners insurance through the state dropped those bills by something like 15% each. I can take classes for free, and I have excellent job security. (Working a state job as part of a union... sadly, people here are nearly impossible to fire.) On the down side, our department has no money, and IT is always the last group to get funding. We're supporting a couple of research labs with 20-year old macs, and at least one group with a 486 running who-knows-what. (there are, of course, other labs we support that have more money than they know what to do with... one of them just bought a 40U rack, completely stuffed with high-end machines, to do some serious number crunching.)
In my case, I decided that having a relatively low-stress job was more important than having a lot of cash. Sure, I can't buy myself a lot of new toys, but I'm making enough to live on and still have a few luxuries. And if you've managed to save up a fair amount while working prior jobs, and you invest it well, you shouldn't have to worry much.
On the other hand, there are substantial benefits to working in the corporate world: better toys at work, higher paychecks, and the possibility of getting your name on a major product come to mind. If the company is well run, it still might be fairly low stress, and most big companies seem to have fairly good health insurance. The downside? Probably less benefits, most likely higher stress, and a lot less job security.
So, despite all the advice we slashdot geeks can give you, you'll end up having to decide which is better for you. I can only tell you that I'd much rather be here in academia then out in the real world.
Personally, I think a mortgage and a house is a good thing, but I live in an area where property values are going up, and I'm (fairly) good about paying my bills on time.
I know some people who have bought houses in places where the crime rate was going up, or where a major local employer shut down, and now they're stuck: the house has basically no value, and they're still paying a high mortgage on it. I also know people who simply can't get the hang of paying bills on time (it took me a long time to learn, but having a mortgage did it). For them, ANY long term loan is a Bad Idea, because they'll end up losing the house without any return anyway.
Basically, it depends on who you are, and where you are.
" Some of us don't buy closed-source software because we consider it immoral to so do, barring some overriding need..."
Ah, situational ethics.
Sorry, folks; if it's immoral, it's always immoral. You may decide to do something immoral when you think it's justified, but it's still immoral. Killing is immoral. Killing someone who is trying to blow up a busload of children is immoral, but (in my worldview, anyway) justified. If you find closed-source software immoral, fine. That's your right, and I respect your belief even if I don't agree. But either it's immoral or it's not -- you don't get to say "Buying closed-source software is immoral. Except for the newest Doom. Or GTA. 'Cause those are really cool games."
"At the same time you want us to play by your rules of "civility" and do your reading for you."
Once again, ignoring the "Do not feed" sign on the troll cage, I'll respond.
These aren't "my" rules of civility. They're the ones most human societies have agreed on. Don't insult people. Say please and thank you. Generally avoid being unnecessarily rude.
And... "want [you] to do [our] reading for us"? What on earth are you talking about? If someone writes in, saying "I've read the manuals, the FAQs, and every page I can find in Google, and I'm stuck," how is that being unwilling to do the work themselves?
I'm not sure -- a co-worker was dealing with the problem, and just showed me his ticket when he originally posted it, then showed me Theo's response when it came back.
I'm actually not sure what number it was -- my co-worker was the one who filed it. Personally, I'm not surprised we never got an answer: we couldn't find nearly enough information to come up with a solution, as it didn't leave tracks in the logs, dmesg, or anything else. It just locked up, and stopped accepting packets.
However: My point was not that we didn't get a response. We did. My problem was with the SORT of response we got. It was rude, condescending, and useless. Theo could have responded by saying "Sorry, this isn't enough information. Here are a few more places you could look for error messages, but we really can't do anything unless you get more details." Instead, he chose to be rude and insulting.
Well, that's his choice. He can be rude and insulting if he wants. But he should realize that he, and by extension the OpenBSD project, will lose support by it.
While I probably shouldn't feed this particular troll...
Requesting that someone clarify, or provide more information, or read a manual is fine. I almost always end up needing more information than I was originally given when someone asks a question.
Courtesy, however, is always appreciated. Rather than "Read the fucking manual, 'tard," how about "Try chapter 3 of the manual at http://whereever.it.is.org./" Or "I think that's in the manual. Try a search for $term."
As to my needing to learn how to ask smart questions; I've never had a problem with a professor, co-worker, or newsgroup understanding what I wanted to know. If they needed more information, they asked for it, and I went and found it for them.
The key was that they accepted that I wasn't an expert in the field, and was asking because I wanted to learn. The impression I got of the misc list was that the people on it assumed that anyone asking questions was a lazy slacker who couldn't be bothered to do anything on their own. Maybe I caught the list at a bad time, but it certainly didn't look like it was worth my time.
Before you can figure out what to do, you should decide whether it's worth your job. If you report them, and they find out, they'll certainly start looking for an excuse to fire you. If you simply refuse, they'll probably HAVE an excuse to fire you.
Personally, I would report them, and hope like hell that they never found out it was me. I'd also start looking for a new job.
Before going that route, though, there are a few things you could try.
- Put it in writing. Filing a formal protest with your supervisor is a good first step. If you can give them dollar amounts for the fines for each piece of software, they might respect it.
- Offer alternatives. Look around for the best price on each piece of software, look for free/cheap alternatives, find ways to get licenses that let you do what you need to but won't cost as much. This will (hopefully) show the boss that you're not just saying "This can't be done," but trying to work to find a better alternative.
- If your supervisor has a boss, you could try discussing it with them. My experience has been that, in most companies, there's someone somewhere along the chain of command who understands that legal trouble is a Bad Thing, and can order their underlings to obey the law, or at least be less obvious in breaking it.
- If all else fails, I suggest leaving the company. If they're willing to break one set of laws, they're liable to be willing to break others. Once you know they're unreliable, you should start looking for ways to get out. Yes, I've done this. Yes, being unemployed sucks. The fact is, you can usually find SOME other job, and it's better than getting caught up in the wreck when the copyright holders catch up to your current company. And once you're gone? Report the suckers.
Am I simply misunderstanding what he's asking for?
Yes.
I've run into this a few times, and while it doesn't piss me off the way it used to, I still find it frustrating.
While I agree that HTML isn't hard to learn, especially for what the poster was asking for (maybe 3 tags, total), it's not what he wants. He wants something like a notebook, where he can scribble down his thoughts as they come to mind, or jot down what he just did in case he needs to know later.
I tend to write my term papers in HTML, usually using vim, because my profs can't seem to agree on a format, and at least they can all read that. But, even now that I'm used to it, it breaks the flow of my thoughts to have to add a paragraph tag, or figure out how to make the thing insert a tab. Those few extra characters force you to switch your frame of reference from "written english" to "HTML code," which can slow you down and make a quick note kind of a hassle.
Interesting. The OpenBSD community was basically the only reason I considered NOT using OpenBSD. When I watch 7 posts in 3 days, on the official "misc" mailing list, get flamed for being newbies, I kind of lose interest in being part of the community.
I work in IT, and my group has also had problems with bug reports. We were getting intermittent crashing, which seemed to be related to the version of dhcpd that shipped with OpenBSD 3.6. When we submitted the bug-report, with logs, version numbers, exact details on system setup and what was running, and everything else listed on the "how to file a bug-report" list, we got a response from Theo: "Come on! That's not nearly enough information!" He then closed the post, with no mention of what further information he wanted or needed, and no suggestion as to where else to try.
We removed OpenBSD's DHCP server, and replaced with the the official release, and now it works fine. Again, not an experience that encourages me to be "part of the community." They want to be elitist snobs? Not interested in being helpful? Fuck 'em. I'll go back to an OS where there are friendly, helpful local User Groups. It may not be as good a server OS, but at least the users don't ALL make me hate them.
The paper is considered "politically incorrect" because it implies that one ethnic group may be inherently different from another. These days, you can get slapped with a racism or sexism suit for just about anything -- I know someone who was told they weren't allowed to comment on the fact that blacks (sorry, "Persons of African Descent") are less likely to suffer sunburn.
It's the same as not being allowed to state that most women have less upper body strength than average men, or that men aren't very good at breast-feeding kids. Anything that implies an inherent difference between groups of people is taboo in the US.
Go read some articles by Fred Reed -- he has some interesting, though sometimes biased, articles about race and sex.