Maybe we could name it Malda. I don't know why. Small green things tend to lend themselves as much to ridicule as CmdrTaco in the poll options.
Or why not Beowulf-- --A reminder of powerful computing --A character in Larry Niven's _Crashlander_
Or, actually, the little guy in the logo is so small and blurry, he (she? it?) sorta looks like a pickle. Why not Picklux? Or Xulkip. Lame. I dunno.
Were the penguin female, perhaps we could name her Vi. Or Perl.
Many of you would find reason for naming it JonKatz, because like the majority of his articles: -It's a flightless bird -It serves no real purpose -It's only useful to us when very, very far away
Does anyone have any idea why they chose a penguin? Any ties to Linux? And does anyone know where one can find a larger logo?
I'm a Christian, and I do happen to do a bit of gaming. Half-life, Quake, etc. But what else do I do on my computer? I play with weak perl scripts. Are all of those of spiritual significance? Not really. They're of very little significance whatsoever, usually, just strange obfuscation. Sometimes I play with graphics. Can we as Christians lead others to Christ by designing a graphics program with all Biblical themes? Not generally. It arises as a cheap marketing trick or a gimmick for parents to get for their kids.
And thus with this. This is not what Christianity is about. This is just another Doom, Half-Life, Quake.
As someone mentioned before, not all Christians are Ned Flanders, but this resultant stereotype makes flamebait fly. Let me take this a step farther. Even though this is "News for Nerds", a supposed haven for those who are different, it doesn't matter who you are or what you believe. As long as you're different from someone, there's gonna be someone who disagrees with you and lets you know it. And there will always be someone different. In a day and age of political correctness and lawsuits for the vaguest offense, perhaps it's time to realize something: Get over it. Christ said it himself: "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you about me."(Matthew 5:11)
Above and beyond all this. Is it wrong to rather code than play violent sports? Heck no. Is it wrong to wear black trench coats and white goth makeup? Nope. Not in my opinion. I do all of 'em. But unlike the "geek", "goth", "nerd" culture, Christianity cannot be confined to such a narrow scope. We live our lives and function as humans. Christians are to be a "new creation" (2 Cor 5:17...granted, it seems fewer and fewer walk the walk) which isn't defined by makeup or coding or clothes. It is an actual change in the heart and mind.
Are we as a nation really this immature? It boggles the mind. I thought this painfully moronic discrimination only went on in my high school.
-Stand up straight and don't slouch--Honestly. If you slouch, you're sure to be revealed as a habitual rocker (I, for one, rock while typing, ala autistic) and a code junkie. Listen up, girls. You DON'T want to have anything to do with these code-writing ninnies. They make money, but so what? They're sensitive and articulate, but so what?
-Nervous giggling? Generally those girls who giggle nervously and incessantly are cheerleaders. And generally the jocks date the cheerleaders, out of common interest and brain mass. (Not all atheletes are stupid; but it DOES seem the stereotype fits here, does it not?)
-Wishy-washy phrases? Again, geeks are NOT attracted to a woman who is inarticulate. If she speaks her mind, uses large words, displays a firm grasp of technology, and knows when to shut up, she's well on her way to finding a good geek guy.
-Don't adjust your clothing too much? Sheez. When you wear baggy jeans and T-shirts like I do, there's not a lot of frilly stuff to adjust. I stomp into the room in my black steel-toed boots, sit, cross my legs, (in some cases make sure the cuffs of my pants are covering the top of my boots--geek girls suffer from high-water pants too) and I'm done with the ordeal. Prep girls, though, you know the ones, the makeup-plastered hair-dyed wispy beings that date the football players, come in half-tripping over ridiculously high-heeled shoes that barely stay on. Then they have to adjust their disgustingly short skirts so when they sit down they don't ride or pull, etc. They then have to make sure their twin sweater sets are sitting correctly, make sure their posture is stiff as a board so that nothing rides up. In some cases, they have to make sure their retro-moronic capri pants are covering their knees, and THEN they have to check the makeup. (I don't wear much, just a lot of black eye makeup that never comes off so I don't worry about it) make sure their fingernail polish isn't flaking (I never wear the stuff--it flakes off when I dig inside computers, and that CANNOT be good for motherboards) check the makeup again, make sure their hair is in place, and continue the entire ritual every five minutes. And THESE are the girls the JOCKS are attracted to.
This makes me sick. Geeks are not pieces of meat to be bandied about as "Steve Urkel garbage"...they're highly intelligent, sensitive individuals and this kind of garbage just turns my stomach.
Perhaps if enough/.'ers are mustered (Wouldn't it rock if the Echelon were slashdotted?)...but could we really have any effect at all? They are Big Brother. They Own Us.
Seriously, the Echelon has powerful computers beyond compare, supposedly. I really wonder if a lot of ragtag geeks could have much effect on such a massive system. Does anyone here know anything about the Echelon's technological capability?
It would be cool, though. I'm going to help.;] http://echelon.wiretapped.net has a lot of information thereof.
What will happen to the size of Palm apps once storage like this is available?
I have always been in a slight degree of awe at the compactness of apps for the Palm. I have a Palm Pro myself, and even in that meager 1MB, I can have a teeny C compiler, a BASIC interpreter, a few games, a text reader, all apps the designers managed to squeeze into a few K.
Not to hinder the cause of progress, but what will this suddenly huge storage capacity do to the Palm's compactness? Bloat is almost inevitable, like inflation, but what of those of us who can't afford a new PDA each year? Are we doomed to the fate of those still scraping for tools to run on 386's? (My school is like this, and it's not pretty.)
As for actual physical compactness. Could you lug that hard drive, modem, battery (you'd HAVE to have some more power than a few AA's to juice all that stuff) headphones, etc, etc, in your pocket comfortably? Or would you have to have a case for it? sub silly { #Eventually, perhaps our Palms will get so full of peripherals and other items that we'll finally have a DeskPalm. Then our written alphabet will slowly be converted to Graffiti, and the #1 cause of death among young people will be carpal tunnel. }
I think I made a post of this effect on a different story...the one about the "MTV: I'm a Hacker" bit.
The reason you don't see real, true-to-life terminal windows, in-depth plots about poring over perl scripts, or the like, is because, well, watching a lot of geeks staring at vi and guzzling Mountain Dew is just not that interesting to the general public.
(I find it hilarious. The later the hour and the more freely the caffeine flows, the more uproarious the wisecracks. It's like one continuous MST3k of life itself.)
Look at it this way...I sometimes watch ER and find it fascinating. I'm sure it's not always completely correct, and some medical professionals probably wince as badly as I did when watching "Hackers", but the way it's dumbed-down for the public makes it interesting eye-candy for me.
The public is just out to be entertained. They want eye-candy. They want something to turn their collective mind to mush in half-hour, hour-long, or two-hour increments. And Hollywood panders to them.
Hemos-- very sorry to hear of the damage to the Geek Complex. Perhaps you can attempt a Beowulf cluster out of all the old stuff people want to give you. It might not be worth it, but it's a heck of a lot better than doing nothing while waiting for rebuilding.;]
Slightly offtopic...What goes into a Geek Complex, exactly? My friends and I have a half-baked idea to make one. We're not sure why. We never are. We can't afford it anyway. What's it like living with three or four geeks? How much do you spend on junk food a week? Do your cars cost less than half what your computers do?;]
If any efforts are organized to help out, I'd be glad to pitch in any way I can.
Taking laws into Cheeto-stained caffeinated hands
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One for the Kids
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· Score: 2
Hm. DOJ. That strikes a decidedly ominous tome...Rules determining hacking/justice? For a bunch of little kids? I am a Christian, but I'm not here to have a theology fight. The age-old question: Is it really wrong to break into a system?
1. First thing here, there is really no such thing as an anarchy. For short periods, yes, but whoever is most powerful gains control eventually.
2. Those who would stay in control establish rules with punishments and rewards for infringement and obedience, accordingly.
Therefore, whether we all want to break into everyone else's system or not, there are rules that, in order to have a strong society (where people aren't dying, starving, going mad, etc) must be kept. Sorry, all you h4x0r 31337 anarchists.
So, now comes the more complicated realm of "good" (nice coders, the true hackers) and "evil" (nasty warez cracker code kiddies). "Good" hackers want to write good software, tinker, geek about, and generally better mankind. "Crackers" are bad and like to take names like BL00D13 T4L0N and things like that, break things, damage things, etc. Hackers are good when they break in. They patch things. Crackers just like to suck down your bandwidth and spread virii. Right?
No. We can't ascertain motive. So where do we draw the line? Can someone break into a system to cause good will to the admin and users? Can it really be legal?
Until we re-establish in this nation that there is absolute truth, we're not going to get anywhere with this...
*takes off red hat for a few minutes and puts on asbestos helmet..*
..As a representative of the teens-early-20's generation (What is that called now? I'm too young to be Generation X...) this IS the kind of thing everyone believes. Say I bring a Linux manual or some Perl pages to school to read in my spare time--which I've done a few times this year. "What are you reading that's so interesting?" Joe Average Student asks. I tell them. "That's boring," they scoff. Then let's say I bring some printouts of 'Guide to (Mostly) Harmless Hacking' or some phrack exploits, stuff like that...(Last year I did this...I admit it. But it IS what brought me to Slashdot..;] ) Instantly I'm the center of negative attention by students AND teachers alike..."That's illegal!" "Hacking is against the law." "You're not going to DO that, are you?" "I can't believe you. Throw those away."
Thing is, we all know that the most the 3l337-haxor AOL kiddies will do is get telnet accounts, ping each other, WinNuke each other, download canned cracks, etc, etc. But they're mostly harmless. Just bandwidth hogs and arrogant adolescents. I believe that a person with actual knowledge of *nix and how programming works is more dangerous than 100 AOL kiddies. The Media just doesn't know it, because, well, watching a bunch of geeks slurping Mountain Dew and poring over man pages is *boring*.;] So MTV slaps the "hacker" label on a bunch of stoned-drunk-whatever 20-somethings who want to break into school/bank computers. And they call it entertainment. This is how the public thinks, I guess. So instead of bemoaning the AOL hax0r 31337's who like to make real geeks look bad, perhaps we should just go on with lives...and make more money than they do...
Cat brains have been, for years, used in experiments because of their similarities to the human brain...If this can be done in cats, I'll bet it can be done in humans in time.
This would be the ultimate wartime "bug"...Kidnap an enemy. Drug him, pop open his head, the works.
Rig an extensive, remote version of this...plug the brain cells that control vision. Voila, he leads you to his plans, allies, everything. And if you mess up, well, dang. You just scrambled a badguy's brain. Could be a lot worse. Like stepping in a hairball first thing in the morning, or cat hair all over your black wool trousers...
That would be really freaking cool, if it weren't so frightening.
IMNSHO, this is another piece meant to inflame the hot-headed, confound the clueless, and merely irritate the informed...but since I'm a bit of all three, here goes.
1."With all the recent attention around Linux as an operating system it's important to step back from the hype and look at the reality." Good, good. They start out OK here. Perhaps slashdot could learn from this: if it doesn't run Linux, that doesn't necessarily mean it is anathema...
2.So. Let's see what they say about scalability: "The Linux operating system is not suitable for mainstream usage...with Windows NT 4.0, customers can be confident in delivering applications that are scalable, secure, and reliable--yet cost effective to deploy and manage." Mm-hmm. Scalability. Let's take a look at this one. What was that scalability announcement awhile back...lemme try to pull up a url... http://slashdot.org/articles/99/08/26/128252.sht ml Turns out NT's not running terribly well on 64-bit systems...not only that, but they discontinued Alpha support? 'S a long time ago. Perhaps they released another service pack...they've had plenty of time, right? So perhaps they're right here. In contrast, you can run Linux on just about anything that POSTs. And then some.
3. Security: "Linux only provides access controls for files and directories. In contrast, every object in Windows NT, from files to operating system data structures, has an access control list and its use can be regulated as appropriate."
All well and good. But this is because the kernel itself in Linux, all its gutty workings, are kept from the user. I'm quite new to Linux, but AFAIK, the only thing the normal user CAN manipulate, really, is files and directories. Isn't it logical, then, to have access controls just for such manipulation? (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)
4."Linux as a desktop operating system makes no sense. A user would end up with a system that has fewer applications, is more complex to use and manage, and is less intuitive." Mmm, the heady taste of sensationalism... Is there anyone else out there who feels "crippled" when using Windows? I do. I stumble around, can't get the mouse speed set right, keep looking for my kpanel when it's not there, and find the system locked solid after leaving it alone for a few hours. Any OS can be non-intuitive when one is unused to it. Get a grip, Redmond. You think your GUI's flatulation don't stink.
*In this post, NT and the Microsoft Way succeeds a whopping 25% of the time!!
{/illogical meandering rant} There, I feel much better.
Not necessarily nature. In fact, this mostly depends on the intellect and environment.
When I was a young child, had my parents bought me the Barbie PC, I'd probably have wanted the Hot Wheels one instead, although the Barbie one is intended for my gender.
Why? I HATED dolls! They bored me to no end. (In fact, in my early teen years, the few Barbies that I did own became target practice...but that's another story for another day...) I would have rather played with Micro Machines with my brother. (The system of my youth was a plain, small beige box with 64k of memory and a BASIC cartridge, so pink or blue wouldn't be an object anyway.)
Anyway, my point is, when a child is allowed to choose whether they want to play with toys labeled "for girls" or "for boys", it doesn't make them homosexual. It develops minds.
Thirty years from now, the girl who plays with Lego Technic sets or the boy who plays with a toy kitchen may just be more suited to doing more tasks of everday life than the children forced into the cookie-cutter mold of pink and blue.
I say get the kid the computer they want. Let 'em look at specs of other computers, help them understand what they mean, and maybe get them something better than Win98 crawling along on 32MB of RAM...
I got a new keyboard when I got the new parts for this system. Fine for awhile, but it was small--I don't have petite hands. The thing also had a softer touch to it, and had a two-inch stub for a spacebar, meaning I had to reach a lot farther. To make matters worse, I started to do a lot of HTML, lots of excessive wordy typing.
Also, I began to practice guitar (electric, meaning I mash my hand all over the place to do weird sliding bar chords) and piano heavily, and that's when my wrists started to hurt.
Do you play any instruments that might do this to you? Sorry, but you'll have to cut down on practicing. At least for a little while.
I also got a wristpad to keep my wrists more level with the keyboard and not resting on the desk. I used to hammer away 100wpm with my wrists 2 inches lower than my fingers. Ow. I recommend getting a nice, gelly, contoured one and not one of those square blocks of foam rubber.
Also, the most comfortable keyboard you'll ever use is one of those old, era 1986?-1989?-type mechanical IBM keyboards. Y'know, the ones you can pop the key caps off. They make you work harder to depress the keys. Great stuff. I got one of them and it's helped immensely. I still use it just because it sounds cool.
Try wearing wrist splints at night. That's been mentioned here--I recommend a FORMfit 8" wrist splint. It's black and blue with 3 velcro straps. Find one at a pharmacy or something, about $20.00 a pop.
Now, if I could just find a way to stop writing everything in Palm Graffiti...;]
Just curious: Anyone else here ever come across CTS from extensive practicing of muscial instruments?
My school's got old beasts...P-100's, 486 dx-2's. There's no network, nothing fancy. No "other" OS's. But however old it is, it's a different environment than this Sun "dumb terminal" situation. The kids know that the computer is complex. They're old beasts and things go wrong with them. And there's enough technical knowledge there to satisfy a growing mind.
In fact, the students fix the computers, not the "teacher" (because she's an underqualified idio...er...ahem.)
I know that if I'd had these dumb terminals in junior high, I'd have no curiosity today to explore the intricacies of technology.
Anyone see any parallels to Red Dwarf's Rimmer? The guy died, but everything about him, memories, personality, self-awareness, stuff like that, was pumped into a hologram--his functionality was kept "alive" via computer...much to the chagrin of everyone else on board.
Sure, it might be cheesy science fiction, but it's just another example of how stuff like this doesn't work.
It also sounds highly disrespectful. I might not mind being "reincarnated" like this(Does it have Linux support? Please? Please?) because I'm a little bit sick and twisted that way... But I know no one else who'd want to have their memories tarnished by this.
I just think it's a little sick. C'mon, people, LIVE your lives.
Some of these hurt. I felt the tech support's pain...but I also know what it's like to be that stupid customer... I put together my computer with a friend's help. Set jumpers, put drives in their mounts, everything from the case up. I got the system home and my monitor instantly died. No matter, just drive 40 miles round trip back to his house to get his spare monitor. Then I got home...
IO Conflict 3f8 Press DEL to enter SETUP
I knew what that meant. I punched DEL angrily to wrestle with the BIOS again. No response. I tromped to Radio Shack and two other computer places in town to get some help--diagnosis of everything from a bad BIOS battery to bad motherboard. I bought a new battery. I jumper-cleared the CMOS. I checked and rechecked connections. I took out cards one at a time and booted to see what the problem was. I racked my brain for days.
Then I decided to put the keyboard connector where I'd had the mouse plugged in, and vice versa.
Well, I'm sorry I didn't carry this post out with more elegance...;]
As for the stereotype of coke-bottle glasses and highwater pants...the community I live in is backward enough to still have that mindset around. I live in South Dakota in a small hickish community, and many people think a Pentium (as in P5) is incredible technology.
As for getting excited about fitting the description? Hey, I don't have a life.;]
And I couldn't care less what the prep snots think. They think perl is a color of nail polish.
I'm a geek chick myself, and I figure the biggest thing keeping girls from being hardcore geeks is their peers...as a teenager, I see it. Some of the girls in my class looked at me paging through a Linux manual and said "Sheez, what are you looking at? That's weird!" They scoffed and moved on.
It's a big peer thing, mainly. At least in my experience. Most chicks don't like to be isolated. They figure if they so much as do more than point-and-click, they'll end up having to date a skinny nerd weirdo with coke-bottle glasses, high-water pants and dental problems. No, they want to hang around with the athletic guys.
I'm still in high school, and I'm a girl, but I can build a computer and install Linux on it (without messing it up TOO badly...heh..)And hanging around with three or four geek guys that would love to see what exactly I'm doing...well, let's just say it's not that bad;]
Btw, I'm considering a major in CS. And it's good to see that my chances of being able to use that are getting better.
old computer art and illiterate parents
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High Tech Junk
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· Score: 1
I had an IBM PCJunior back when I was a young pup. (Learned DOS at the ripe old age of six.) Unfortunately the thing inexplicably up and died one day and was reduced to basement storage. A flood destroyed the little CGA monitor that came with it. So I hung the little board up in my room and used the little case to store books/paper/notebooks in.
I've got several other beasts that died in other ways (and became wall art) and have some stray parts hanging around, with which I'm building a 486-DX2/66 with 8MB RAM, and a 50MB hard disk. This might become my parents' machine for surfing the web and doing a small amount of word processing.
I loathe Windows, and I'm a little scared of unleashing my parents on Linux, but am also very short on cash. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good drool-proof OS?
"/.ers there when the world was formed" My goodness, what's wrong with me. WERE there. It seems I've acheived^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ACHIEVED a lack of grammatial talent and spelling along with my obsessiveness.
I can understand where you're coming from on this. However, I'm a Christian and I certainly consider myself geek as well, so here's my viewpoint...
Even though the theory of evolution is laid out in nearly every scientific textbook you'll come across, it, like Creationism, takes some degree of faith to accept. I'm pretty sure none of us/.'ers there when the world was formed. Any belief in the origin of the universe/life/man requires some degree of faith, no matter which way you slice it.
As a geek and a Christian, I can tell you that yes, I also think too much. I've questioned my faith to the point I thought I was an atheist--for nearly 10 years. Geeks do, indeed, attempt to think through everything, rationalize it.
At any rate, I do now know why I believe what I do. IMO, there are some things that even geeks may never fully grasp. But hey, geeks are also the type that keep trying.
Perhaps geekdom could be characterized by a desire for mental control of concepts, and some degree of obsessiveness in acheiving that end.
Look at it a little more closely. Nowhere is it implied that Creationism will be taught explicitly, nor does it state that science will be abolished completely.
Simply put, people want to keep their religious beliefs strong because it's what gives them meaning in life. I'm a Christian, and sometimes I just can't see how many others can go on living. I have gone to Christian schools all my life (Also, I draw lots and have fooled with computers since I was a little kid--wow, I'm just like CmdrTaco;] ) and definitely wouldn't want to be forced to learn evolution in a public school.
IMO, mandatory evolution curriculum (and in the school format, in order not to fail many science classes, one must acknowledge it as perfect truth) is quite detrimental to religious freedom.
To change the topic a little, what exactly makes the evolution theory any more valid than any other?
1. An intelligent Being created the universe and set it into motion with order and design, and created beings with free will--man. But man disobeyed, and imperfection bred imperfection, setting the 2nd law of thermodynamics into effect...
or
2. Chaos became order, and shortly after everything materialized, the laws of the universe shifted radically--instead of things gradually becoming more orderly, they became subjected to entropy. Except for living beings, which, for some reason, defied this by evolving into better-adjusted beings.
No, I'm not in favor of shoving ANY system of beliefs down anyone's throat. It's just not the way a theory begins to take root into someone's mind to convince them. I think the curriculum should lay out several different worldviews (I'm not talking a course in theology--just a few simple examples).
Then maybe we could choose. After all, we're beings with free will.
Yeah! More programs! Let's use that budget surplus on some more government programs. Taxpayers don't care. We can just raise taxes if we run out. Let's get rid of all those terrible problems by putting some red tape over 'em.
Oh, but hey, if any religious organizations--we call 'em wackos around here-- try to promote values and order, let's shut 'em up. With lawsuits. They're being intolerant. Those wackos violate the first amendment--we can't have that, now.
And the Internet? Pshaw, Al Gore INVENTED the Internet, we can take care of any problems there...Rest assured, America, you're in Big Brother's hands! -- Is it just me, or is legislation looking more and more ridiculous each day?
Since I'm still in high school, I see this as a very helpful attempt to get the voices of many out to the masses. Surely you geeks/programmers/nerds remember what it was like. Perhaps I only commend this because it's all still fresh in my mind...yeah, it's not done up with endless Macromedia and it's not the prettiest site I've ever seen. But it works and gives the outcast a chance to blow off steam and be identified with.
Here's an idea: If you're disillusioned with attempts to let the oppressed have a voice, why not set up your own site like this? Then we can all complain and be miserably happy.;]
"...the spokeswoman said the computer was expected to be off line for some periods of time 'as customer feedback is assessed and integrated into the system...'"
Perhaps I'm ignorant or merely excessively curious, but what the/heck/ does that mean anyway? Customer feedback assessed and integrated? What, they're going to release a service pack for it (in several months) because so many people found it completely ridiculous?
IMHO, Microsoft just shot themselves in the foot again. Let's laugh at them and move on.;]
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe we could name it Malda. I don't know why. Small green things tend to lend themselves as much to ridicule as CmdrTaco in the poll options.
Or why not Beowulf--
--A reminder of powerful computing
--A character in Larry Niven's _Crashlander_
Or, actually, the little guy in the logo is so small and blurry, he (she? it?) sorta looks like a pickle. Why not Picklux? Or Xulkip. Lame. I dunno.
Were the penguin female, perhaps we could name her Vi. Or Perl.
Many of you would find reason for naming it JonKatz, because like the majority of his articles:
-It's a flightless bird
-It serves no real purpose
-It's only useful to us when very, very far away
Does anyone have any idea why they chose a penguin? Any ties to Linux? And does anyone know where one can find a larger logo?
I'm a Christian, and I do happen to do a bit of gaming. Half-life, Quake, etc. But what else do I do on my computer? I play with weak perl scripts. Are all of those of spiritual significance? Not really. They're of very little significance whatsoever, usually, just strange obfuscation.
Sometimes I play with graphics. Can we as Christians lead others to Christ by designing a graphics program with all Biblical themes? Not generally. It arises as a cheap marketing trick or a gimmick for parents to get for their kids.
And thus with this. This is not what Christianity is about. This is just another Doom, Half-Life, Quake.
As someone mentioned before, not all Christians are Ned Flanders, but this resultant stereotype makes flamebait fly. Let me take this a step farther. Even though this is "News for Nerds", a supposed haven for those who are different, it doesn't matter who you are or what you believe. As long as you're different from someone, there's gonna be someone who disagrees with you and lets you know it. And there will always be someone different.
In a day and age of political correctness and lawsuits for the vaguest offense, perhaps it's time to realize something: Get over it. Christ said it himself: "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you about me."(Matthew 5:11)
Above and beyond all this. Is it wrong to rather code than play violent sports? Heck no. Is it wrong to wear black trench coats and white goth makeup? Nope. Not in my opinion. I do all of 'em. But unlike the "geek", "goth", "nerd" culture, Christianity cannot be confined to such a narrow scope. We live our lives and function as humans. Christians are to be a "new creation" (2 Cor 5:17...granted, it seems fewer and fewer walk the walk) which isn't defined by makeup or coding or clothes. It is an actual change in the heart and mind.
Mr. Katz, IMHO, you have missed the mark.
Are we as a nation really this immature? It boggles the mind. I thought this painfully moronic discrimination only went on in my high school.
-Stand up straight and don't slouch--Honestly. If you slouch, you're sure to be revealed as a habitual rocker (I, for one, rock while typing, ala autistic) and a code junkie. Listen up, girls. You DON'T want to have anything to do with these code-writing ninnies. They make money, but so what? They're sensitive and articulate, but so what?
-Nervous giggling? Generally those girls who giggle nervously and incessantly are cheerleaders. And generally the jocks date the cheerleaders, out of common interest and brain mass. (Not all atheletes are stupid; but it DOES seem the stereotype fits here, does it not?)
-Wishy-washy phrases? Again, geeks are NOT attracted to a woman who is inarticulate. If she speaks her mind, uses large words, displays a firm grasp of technology, and knows when to shut up, she's well on her way to finding a good geek guy.
-Don't adjust your clothing too much? Sheez. When you wear baggy jeans and T-shirts like I do, there's not a lot of frilly stuff to adjust. I stomp into the room in my black steel-toed boots, sit, cross my legs, (in some cases make sure the cuffs of my pants are covering the top of my boots--geek girls suffer from high-water pants too) and I'm done with the ordeal.
Prep girls, though, you know the ones, the makeup-plastered hair-dyed wispy beings that date the football players, come in half-tripping over ridiculously high-heeled shoes that barely stay on. Then they have to adjust their disgustingly short skirts so when they sit down they don't ride or pull, etc. They then have to make sure their twin sweater sets are sitting correctly, make sure their posture is stiff as a board so that nothing rides up. In some cases, they have to make sure their retro-moronic capri pants are covering their knees, and THEN they have to check the makeup. (I don't wear much, just a lot of black eye makeup that never comes off so I don't worry about it) make sure their fingernail polish isn't flaking (I never wear the stuff--it flakes off when I dig inside computers, and that CANNOT be good for motherboards) check the makeup again, make sure their hair is in place, and continue the entire ritual every five minutes. And THESE are the girls the JOCKS are attracted to.
This makes me sick. Geeks are not pieces of meat to be bandied about as "Steve Urkel garbage"...they're highly intelligent, sensitive individuals and this kind of garbage just turns my stomach.
Perhaps if enough /.'ers are mustered (Wouldn't it rock if the Echelon were slashdotted?)...but could we really have any effect at all? They are Big Brother. They Own Us.
;]
Seriously, the Echelon has powerful computers beyond compare, supposedly. I really wonder if a lot of ragtag geeks could have much effect on such a massive system. Does anyone here know anything about the Echelon's technological capability?
It would be cool, though. I'm going to help.
http://echelon.wiretapped.net has a lot of information thereof.
What will happen to the size of Palm apps once storage like this is available?
I have always been in a slight degree of awe at the compactness of apps for the Palm. I have a Palm Pro myself, and even in that meager 1MB, I can have a teeny C compiler, a BASIC interpreter, a few games, a text reader, all apps the designers managed to squeeze into a few K.
Not to hinder the cause of progress, but what will this suddenly huge storage capacity do to the Palm's compactness? Bloat is almost inevitable, like inflation, but what of those of us who can't afford a new PDA each year? Are we doomed to the fate of those still scraping for tools to run on 386's? (My school is like this, and it's not pretty.)
As for actual physical compactness. Could you lug that hard drive, modem, battery (you'd HAVE to have some more power than a few AA's to juice all that stuff) headphones, etc, etc, in your pocket comfortably? Or would you have to have a case for it?
sub silly {
#Eventually, perhaps our Palms will get so full of peripherals and other items that we'll finally have a DeskPalm. Then our written alphabet will slowly be converted to Graffiti, and the #1 cause of death among young people will be carpal tunnel.
}
I think I made a post of this effect on a different story...the one about the "MTV: I'm a Hacker" bit.
;]
The reason you don't see real, true-to-life terminal windows, in-depth plots about poring over perl scripts, or the like, is because, well, watching a lot of geeks staring at vi and guzzling Mountain Dew is just not that interesting to the general public.
(I find it hilarious. The later the hour and the more freely the caffeine flows, the more uproarious the wisecracks. It's like one continuous MST3k of life itself.)
Look at it this way...I sometimes watch ER and find it fascinating. I'm sure it's not always completely correct, and some medical professionals probably wince as badly as I did when watching "Hackers", but the way it's dumbed-down for the public makes it interesting eye-candy for me.
The public is just out to be entertained. They want eye-candy. They want something to turn their collective mind to mush in half-hour, hour-long, or two-hour increments. And Hollywood panders to them.
Whatever happened to "Go read a book?"
Hemos-- very sorry to hear of the damage to the Geek Complex. Perhaps you can attempt a Beowulf cluster out of all the old stuff people want to give you. It might not be worth it, but it's a heck of a lot better than doing nothing while waiting for rebuilding. ;]
;]
Slightly offtopic...What goes into a Geek Complex, exactly? My friends and I have a half-baked idea to make one. We're not sure why. We never are. We can't afford it anyway. What's it like living with three or four geeks? How much do you spend on junk food a week? Do your cars cost less than half what your computers do?
If any efforts are organized to help out, I'd be glad to pitch in any way I can.
Hm. DOJ. That strikes a decidedly ominous tome...Rules determining hacking/justice? For a bunch of little kids? I am a Christian, but I'm not here to have a theology fight. The age-old question: Is it really wrong to break into a system?
1. First thing here, there is really no such thing as an anarchy. For short periods, yes, but whoever is most powerful gains control eventually.
2. Those who would stay in control establish rules with punishments and rewards for infringement and obedience, accordingly.
Therefore, whether we all want to break into everyone else's system or not, there are rules that, in order to have a strong society (where people aren't dying, starving, going mad, etc) must be kept. Sorry, all you h4x0r 31337 anarchists.
So, now comes the more complicated realm of "good" (nice coders, the true hackers) and "evil" (nasty warez cracker code kiddies). "Good" hackers want to write good software, tinker, geek about, and generally better mankind. "Crackers" are bad and like to take names like BL00D13 T4L0N and things like that, break things, damage things, etc. Hackers are good when they break in. They patch things. Crackers just like to suck down your bandwidth and spread virii. Right?
No. We can't ascertain motive. So where do we draw the line? Can someone break into a system to cause good will to the admin and users? Can it really be legal?
Until we re-establish in this nation that there is absolute truth, we're not going to get anywhere with this...
*takes off red hat for a few minutes and puts on asbestos helmet..*
;]
..As a representative of the teens-early-20's generation (What is that called now? I'm too young to be Generation X...) this IS the kind of thing everyone believes. Say I bring a Linux manual or some Perl pages to school to read in my spare time--which I've done a few times this year.
"What are you reading that's so interesting?" Joe Average Student asks.
I tell them.
"That's boring," they scoff.
Then let's say I bring some printouts of 'Guide to (Mostly) Harmless Hacking' or some phrack exploits, stuff like that...(Last year I did this...I admit it. But it IS what brought me to Slashdot..;] ) Instantly I'm the center of negative attention by students AND teachers alike..."That's illegal!" "Hacking is against the law." "You're not going to DO that, are you?" "I can't believe you. Throw those away."
Thing is, we all know that the most the 3l337-haxor AOL kiddies will do is get telnet accounts, ping each other, WinNuke each other, download canned cracks, etc, etc. But they're mostly harmless. Just bandwidth hogs and arrogant adolescents.
I believe that a person with actual knowledge of *nix and how programming works is more dangerous than 100 AOL kiddies. The Media just doesn't know it, because, well, watching a bunch of geeks slurping Mountain Dew and poring over man pages is *boring*.
So MTV slaps the "hacker" label on a bunch of stoned-drunk-whatever 20-somethings who want to break into school/bank computers. And they call it entertainment.
This is how the public thinks, I guess. So instead of bemoaning the AOL hax0r 31337's who like to make real geeks look bad, perhaps we should just go on with lives...and make more money than they do...
Just my $.02. Flame away.
Cat brains have been, for years, used in experiments because of their similarities to the human brain...If this can be done in cats, I'll bet it can be done in humans in time.
This would be the ultimate wartime "bug"...Kidnap an enemy. Drug him, pop open his head, the works.
Rig an extensive, remote version of this...plug the brain cells that control vision. Voila, he leads you to his plans, allies, everything. And if you mess up, well, dang. You just scrambled a badguy's brain. Could be a lot worse. Like stepping in a hairball first thing in the morning, or cat hair all over your black wool trousers...
That would be really freaking cool, if it weren't so frightening.
IMNSHO, this is another piece meant to inflame the hot-headed, confound the clueless, and merely irritate the informed...but since I'm a bit of all three, here goes.
t ml
1."With all the recent attention around Linux as an operating system it's important to step back from the hype and look at the reality."
Good, good. They start out OK here. Perhaps slashdot could learn from this: if it doesn't run Linux, that doesn't necessarily mean it is anathema...
2.So. Let's see what they say about scalability:
"The Linux operating system is not suitable for mainstream usage...with Windows NT 4.0, customers can be confident in delivering applications that are scalable, secure, and reliable--yet cost effective to deploy and manage."
Mm-hmm. Scalability. Let's take a look at this one. What was that scalability announcement awhile back...lemme try to pull up a url...
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/08/26/128252.sh
Turns out NT's not running terribly well on 64-bit systems...not only that, but they discontinued Alpha support? 'S a long time ago. Perhaps they released another service pack...they've had plenty of time, right? So perhaps they're right here.
In contrast, you can run Linux on just about anything that POSTs. And then some.
3. Security:
"Linux only provides access controls for files and directories. In contrast, every object in Windows NT, from files to operating system data structures, has an access control list and its use can be regulated as appropriate."
All well and good. But this is because the kernel itself in Linux, all its gutty workings, are kept from the user. I'm quite new to Linux, but AFAIK, the only thing the normal user CAN manipulate, really, is files and directories. Isn't it logical, then, to have access controls just for such manipulation? (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)
4."Linux as a desktop operating system makes no sense. A user would end up with a system that has fewer applications, is more complex to use and manage, and is less intuitive."
Mmm, the heady taste of sensationalism... Is there anyone else out there who feels "crippled" when using Windows? I do. I stumble around, can't get the mouse speed set right, keep looking for my kpanel when it's not there, and find the system locked solid after leaving it alone for a few hours. Any OS can be non-intuitive when one is unused to it. Get a grip, Redmond. You think your GUI's flatulation don't stink.
*In this post, NT and the Microsoft Way
succeeds a whopping 25% of the time!!
{/illogical meandering rant}
There, I feel much better.
Not necessarily nature. In fact, this mostly depends on the intellect and environment.
When I was a young child, had my parents bought me the Barbie PC, I'd probably have wanted the Hot Wheels one instead, although the Barbie one is intended for my gender.
Why? I HATED dolls! They bored me to no end. (In fact, in my early teen years, the few Barbies that I did own became target practice...but that's another story for another day...) I would have rather played with Micro Machines with my brother. (The system of my youth was a plain, small beige box with 64k of memory and a BASIC cartridge, so pink or blue wouldn't be an object anyway.)
Anyway, my point is, when a child is allowed to choose whether they want to play with toys labeled "for girls" or "for boys", it doesn't make them homosexual. It develops minds.
Thirty years from now, the girl who plays with Lego Technic sets or the boy who plays with a toy kitchen may just be more suited to doing more tasks of everday life than the children forced into the cookie-cutter mold of pink and blue.
I say get the kid the computer they want. Let 'em look at specs of other computers, help them understand what they mean, and maybe get them something better than Win98 crawling along on 32MB of RAM...
I got a new keyboard when I got the new parts for this system. Fine for awhile, but it was small--I don't have petite hands. The thing also had a softer touch to it, and had a two-inch stub for a spacebar, meaning I had to reach a lot farther. To make matters worse, I started to do a lot of HTML, lots of excessive wordy typing.
Also, I began to practice guitar (electric, meaning I mash my hand all over the place to do weird sliding bar chords) and piano heavily, and that's when my wrists started to hurt.
Do you play any instruments that might do this to you? Sorry, but you'll have to cut down on practicing. At least for a little while.
I also got a wristpad to keep my wrists more level with the keyboard and not resting on the desk. I used to hammer away 100wpm with my wrists 2 inches lower than my fingers. Ow. I recommend getting a nice, gelly, contoured one and not one of those square blocks of foam rubber.
Also, the most comfortable keyboard you'll ever use is one of those old, era 1986?-1989?-type mechanical IBM keyboards. Y'know, the ones you can pop the key caps off. They make you work harder to depress the keys. Great stuff. I got one of them and it's helped immensely. I still use it just because it sounds cool.
Try wearing wrist splints at night. That's been mentioned here--I recommend a FORMfit 8" wrist splint. It's black and blue with 3 velcro straps. Find one at a pharmacy or something, about $20.00 a pop.
Now, if I could just find a way to stop writing everything in Palm Graffiti...;]
Just curious: Anyone else here ever come across CTS from extensive practicing of muscial instruments?
My school's got old beasts...P-100's, 486 dx-2's. There's no network, nothing fancy. No "other" OS's. But however old it is, it's a different environment than this Sun "dumb terminal" situation. The kids know that the computer is complex. They're old beasts and things go wrong with them. And there's enough technical knowledge there to satisfy a growing mind.
In fact, the students fix the computers, not the "teacher" (because she's an underqualified idio...er...ahem.)
I know that if I'd had these dumb terminals in junior high, I'd have no curiosity today to explore the intricacies of technology.
Give the kids a chance to grok technology, I say.
Anyone see any parallels to Red Dwarf's Rimmer? The guy died, but everything about him, memories, personality, self-awareness, stuff like that, was pumped into a hologram--his functionality was kept "alive" via computer...much to the chagrin of everyone else on board.
Sure, it might be cheesy science fiction, but it's just another example of how stuff like this doesn't work.
It also sounds highly disrespectful. I might not mind being "reincarnated" like this(Does it have Linux support? Please? Please?) because I'm a little bit sick and twisted that way...
But I know no one else who'd want to have their memories tarnished by this.
I just think it's a little sick. C'mon, people, LIVE your lives.
Some of these hurt. I felt the tech support's pain...but I also know what it's like to be that stupid customer...
I put together my computer with a friend's help. Set jumpers, put drives in their mounts, everything from the case up. I got the system home and my monitor instantly died. No matter, just drive 40 miles round trip back to his house to get his spare monitor. Then I got home...
IO Conflict 3f8
Press DEL to enter SETUP
I knew what that meant. I punched DEL angrily to wrestle with the BIOS again.
No response.
I tromped to Radio Shack and two other computer places in town to get some help--diagnosis of everything from a bad BIOS battery to bad motherboard. I bought a new battery. I jumper-cleared the CMOS. I checked and rechecked connections. I took out cards one at a time and booted to see what the problem was. I racked my brain for days.
Then I decided to put the keyboard connector where I'd had the mouse plugged in, and vice versa.
I laughed so hard I hyperventilated.
Well, I'm sorry I didn't carry this post out with more elegance...;]
;]
As for the stereotype of coke-bottle glasses and highwater pants...the community I live in is backward enough to still have that mindset around. I live in South Dakota in a small hickish community, and many people think a Pentium (as in P5) is incredible technology.
As for getting excited about fitting the description? Hey, I don't have a life.
And I couldn't care less what the prep snots think. They think perl is a color of nail polish.
I'm a geek chick myself, and I figure the biggest thing keeping girls from being hardcore geeks is their peers...as a teenager, I see it. Some of the girls in my class looked at me paging through a Linux manual and said "Sheez, what are you looking at? That's weird!" They scoffed and moved on.
;]
It's a big peer thing, mainly. At least in my experience. Most chicks don't like to be isolated. They figure if they so much as do more than point-and-click, they'll end up having to date a skinny nerd weirdo with coke-bottle glasses, high-water pants and dental problems. No, they want to hang around with the athletic guys.
I'm still in high school, and I'm a girl, but I can build a computer and install Linux on it (without messing it up TOO badly...heh..)And hanging around with three or four geek guys that would love to see what exactly I'm doing...well, let's just say it's not that bad
Btw, I'm considering a major in CS. And it's good to see that my chances of being able to use that are getting better.
I had an IBM PCJunior back when I was a young pup. (Learned DOS at the ripe old age of six.) Unfortunately the thing inexplicably up and died one day and was reduced to basement storage. A flood destroyed the little CGA monitor that came with it. So I hung the little board up in my room and used the little case to store books/paper/notebooks in.
I've got several other beasts that died in other ways (and became wall art) and have some stray parts hanging around, with which I'm building a 486-DX2/66 with 8MB RAM, and a 50MB hard disk. This might become my parents' machine for surfing the web and doing a small amount of word processing.
I loathe Windows, and I'm a little scared of unleashing my parents on Linux, but am also very short on cash. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good drool-proof OS?
"/.ers there when the world was formed"
My goodness, what's wrong with me. WERE there. It seems I've acheived^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ACHIEVED a lack of grammatial talent and spelling along with my obsessiveness.
I can understand where you're coming from on this. However, I'm a Christian and I certainly consider myself geek as well, so here's my viewpoint...
/.'ers there when the world was formed. Any belief in the origin of the universe/life/man requires some degree of faith, no matter which way you slice it.
Even though the theory of evolution is laid out in nearly every scientific textbook you'll come across, it, like Creationism, takes some degree of faith to accept. I'm pretty sure none of us
As a geek and a Christian, I can tell you that yes, I also think too much. I've questioned my faith to the point I thought I was an atheist--for nearly 10 years. Geeks do, indeed, attempt to think through everything, rationalize it.
At any rate, I do now know why I believe what I do. IMO, there are some things that even geeks may never fully grasp. But hey, geeks are also the type that keep trying.
Perhaps geekdom could be characterized by a desire for mental control of concepts, and some degree of obsessiveness in acheiving that end.
Look at it a little more closely. Nowhere is it implied that Creationism will be taught explicitly, nor does it state that science will be abolished completely.
;] ) and definitely wouldn't want to be forced to learn evolution in a public school.
Simply put, people want to keep their religious beliefs strong because it's what gives them meaning in life. I'm a Christian, and sometimes I just can't see how many others can go on living. I have gone to Christian schools all my life (Also, I draw lots and have fooled with computers since I was a little kid--wow, I'm just like CmdrTaco
IMO, mandatory evolution curriculum (and in the school format, in order not to fail many science classes, one must acknowledge it as perfect truth) is quite detrimental to religious freedom.
To change the topic a little, what exactly makes the evolution theory any more valid than any other?
1. An intelligent Being created the universe and set it into motion with order and design, and created beings with free will--man. But man disobeyed, and imperfection bred imperfection, setting the 2nd law of thermodynamics into effect...
or
2. Chaos became order, and shortly after everything materialized, the laws of the universe shifted radically--instead of things gradually becoming more orderly, they became subjected to entropy. Except for living beings, which, for some reason, defied this by evolving into better-adjusted beings.
No, I'm not in favor of shoving ANY system of beliefs down anyone's throat. It's just not the way a theory begins to take root into someone's mind to convince them. I think the curriculum should lay out several different worldviews (I'm not talking a course in theology--just a few simple examples).
Then maybe we could choose.
After all, we're beings with free will.
Yeah! More programs! Let's use that budget surplus on some more government programs. Taxpayers don't care. We can just raise taxes if we run out. Let's get rid of all those terrible problems by putting some red tape over 'em.
Oh, but hey, if any religious organizations--we call 'em wackos around here-- try to promote values and order, let's shut 'em up. With lawsuits. They're being intolerant. Those wackos violate the first amendment--we can't have that, now.
And the Internet? Pshaw, Al Gore INVENTED the Internet, we can take care of any problems there...Rest assured, America, you're in Big Brother's hands!
--
Is it just me, or is legislation looking more and more ridiculous each day?
Since I'm still in high school, I see this as a very helpful attempt to get the voices of many out to the masses. Surely you geeks/programmers/nerds remember what it was like. Perhaps I only commend this because it's all still fresh in my mind...yeah, it's not done up with endless Macromedia and it's not the prettiest site I've ever seen. But it works and gives the outcast a chance to blow off steam and be identified with.
;]
Here's an idea: If you're disillusioned with attempts to let the oppressed have a voice, why not set up your own site like this? Then we can all complain and be miserably happy.
Just my $0.02.
"...the spokeswoman said the computer was expected to be off line for some periods of time 'as customer feedback is assessed and integrated into the system...'"
/heck/ does that mean anyway? Customer feedback assessed and integrated? What, they're going to release a service pack for it (in several months) because so many people found it completely ridiculous?
;]
Perhaps I'm ignorant or merely excessively curious, but what the
IMHO, Microsoft just shot themselves in the foot again. Let's laugh at them and move on.