In Windows 3.1, we did the equivalent of pinning by putting the app's launch icon on the desktop or in a folder.
IIRC we had to keep program icons in "program groups" (folders, really) on the desktop, but couldn't put them directly on the desktop itself. We organized icons primarily by choosing which groups they fell into, but that was about it.
I worry that, like fashion, it's just change for the sake of change.
Based on what's been going on in the Linux desktop environment world (which seems to randomly swap ideas with Windows & OS X) that's probably pretty much right, sad to say. It's always a bad sign when the devs/sycophants can only defend the new designs by accusing skeptics of hating change (especially when said skeptics are new to insert_OS_here and thus regard everything as "change" at the moment).
Funny thing is, I remember back when my Mac-using online friends would gloat over how OS 9 was advanced enough to not have a command line -- then several years later when Windows had essentially neutered its commandline and OS X showed up with one, they started trying to gloat over how OS X was advanced enough to have one. I always knew that my old archive of chats/email from the 90s would come in handy someday... >:-)
No wonder I couldn't find the damn thing for my mother when I tried using her computer -- and she seemingly can't handle the "complex" approach of PrntScrn -> image editor. (I wonder how hard it would be to set Win7 up to open the Snipping Tool when the user hits PrintScreen, like I'm used to in KDE/Linux.)
Minitel is to be killed off completely -- I'm not sure about Gopher, but Usenet still has active (if low-participation) discussion groups, and there are still some Telnet services around.
California has some of the most expensive houses in the US, and we don't have storage space unless we have a garage with open rafters (or keep the car outside in order to use the garage), either.
It shouldn't even be an issue -- any ad-blocker worth its salt uses the online blocklists like EasyList and downloads the latest version every day or two. I've only seen ads on YouTube one time, and it was because my mother had disabled Ad-Block Plus for some reason.
I can't speak for others, but I'm in Northern California -- for maybe 2 years, there have been LCD screens playing generic ads at an independent station and TV-show ads at a Shell. They're loud/annoying enough that a lot of people (including me) go out of their way to buy gas at the nice quiet ad-free Exxon across the street from Shell now.
How would you US citizens feel if you were on the receiving end of Predator drones, cyber attacks and Shock and Awe?
As opposed to having our homes invaded by men with assault rifles, who shoot our dogs and kill, injure, and terrorize innocent people? I think you need to take another look at what is happening in the United States.
Exactly. There was a disturbing case in my backwater suburb recently that illustrates it... Police had a warrant for a 20-year-old murder suspect's arrest, knew where he lived (with his parents & teen brother) & worked, and he had been in court a week earlier. So without contacting *our* police, 40-50 heavily armed Homeland Security agents burst into the family's home at 4:20 AM yelling and lobbing flash grenades & tear gas through the windows. When the guy and his 57-year-old father crawled out from the hallway armed because they thought it was armed intruders, the agents reacted with a "hail of gunfire" that penetrated internal & external house walls and evidently shot 3 of their own men. (If anyone was wondering whether they can protect themselves from the government by owning guns, there's your answer.)
The photo gallery in the local paper shows the agents, weapons, military truck brought in on a tractor-trailer, damage to the house, etc.
One of the family's two dogs [Sadie] was shot and killed. The other [Tyson] had bolted and escaped, though an agent chased it with a gun, [the 57-year-old father] said...moved to tears by the memory, said he begged the agents, “Don't kill my dogs!”
From what I've read, it was similar to the incident where agents killed an extremely old arthritic labrador -- the 20-year-old used to exercise Tyson on a leash by riding his bike around the neighborhood after work, and a teen neighbor that talked with him about the dogs a few times implied they were friendly in another interview.
I grew up believing in the US as a beacon for freedom and fairness. Okay, so it was the 60's and 70's and given what was going down in South America it was probably all a lie then.
Those of us growing up in the US in the 80s & 90s were led to believe in the nation's original ideals as well. It was a serious shock when I got to high school and had teachers that worked the reality behind modern-day events into the curriculum when relevant (i.e. government, history, literature).
How would you US citizens feel if you were on the receiving end of Predator drones, cyber attacks and Shock and Awe?
Trouble is, as tends to be the case with corrupt governments, average US citizens aren't the same as the US government that has been taking those actions... We have little-to-no power beyond the local level, since our election system is so fucked that all of California could vote for Nobody for President and still have no real impact on who gets the throne^H^H^H^H^H^Hposition.
To be honest, I'm more concerned that "terrorists" will attack us with military tech than that (actual) terrorists will. We already saw how much fun politicians had with the color-coded terror alert system whenever they wanted folks to bend to their will, and there's only one way to get that effect now that everyone's used to ignoring "orange"...
We say SF, they say howto.:-p Also, Stux/Skynet are only a half-rhyme. (I think. I know it's not a proper rhyme, but I never was good at poetic terms.)
We wouldn't need (or be seeking) a government-run healthcare system if our government would do whatever it is that's necessary to bring prices for medical care & medication back down to something reasonable, and if insurance was no longer able to pick-and-choose only the lucrative patients or charge through the nose for pre-existing conditions. That way, if someone develops cancer, is hit by a drunk driver, or has a kid that turns out to have major birth defects, they can get treatment even if between jobs and not wind up bankrupt or worse.
The reason that our government's role is shifting is because our society has been drastically changing. In past generations, it was a lot harder for someone to fuck up in a major way; if they lost their job they could always find another, if they needed to take night classes they were affordable, and an adult with a basic education (high school at the time) could support a spouse & two kids in a nice home with an average job. Claiming that most people are merely failing through their own judgments/actions now is the equivalent of looking at an island with 5 men to every woman and declaring that it's a guy's own fault if they can't find a mate.
If you do a good workout, you can even eat the normal daily amount of food and get the calorie deficit purely through sports.
That's how it's supposed to work, but my experience so far hasn't matched it. Here's my most recent experience, which parallels when I was last working out regularly: 200-650 cal daily 2-3 nights/week (at a 24/H Fitness center) for 2.5 months thus far ~40 min. intense cardio ~30 min. using weight-training machines
I've gained some nice muscle tone (for a woman) & stamina, but I've still got the bit of fat I put on during the holidays. I could drop my caloric intake further, but I get the feeling it wouldn't help much.
My city had an artist similarly disguise a pair of traffic signal boxes after he'd painted the city's 150-year history on the side of the building the boxes sit next to. He painted the smaller one to look like a crate with (depending on which side is being viewed) a puppy, kitten, or bunch of little chicks, and the big box as a stack of egg crates with a woman in historic (1800s?) clothing dragging her kids away from the animals. He posted the only photos I can find online at the moment: Petaluma signalbox mural.
Only the nicest and richest neighborhoods in the USA have underground utilites.
That may be true where you live, in which case I can only imagine that it kind of sucks... In my Californian county, most of the middle-class & affordable suburban housing built in/after 1970 has underground wiring, at least as far as I've seen.
AOL also started a "hyper-local" news service called Patch.com. I've started noticing that the one for my city is managing to keep up with the county paper on topics specific to my city by summarizing & linking to articles, plus surpass it regarding stuff the paper isn't bothering with -- and the quality is usually fairly good.
AOL also enabled a very entertaining prank I played on a friend... I found a brief event-sound.wav I'd found of the Macarena ("hey, Macarena - ai") and looped the "ai" over-and-over thirty or so times, amplified the "ai" to "AI!" then compressed it into a self-extracting.exe that would overwrite the AOL gotmail.wav with it.
I sent it off to my target, either he opened it or AOL did so for him...and the next time he annoyed me while we were chatting (he could be rather obnoxious) I sent him a one-word email. I intended for it to just startle him, but instead it crashed his copy of AOL; he vanished, then reappeared and was promptly booted again since he couldn't get to the unread email before the Macarena struck. A few mutual friends and I had a good twenty minutes of fun watching him appear and disappear before he figured out how to fix it...
The problem there is that it's typical for those of us with disabilities or major/terminal illnesses to minimize our difficulties and try to seem 'normal' in order to not drive others away or create awkward silences -- and it eventually becomes easy to compartmentalize so that when we're with friends/family, we really are happy. It's very hard to describe without giving the wrong impression, but I'm essentially trying to say that while we're not automatically unhappy or miserable (and most of us aren't, once we've accepted this as our "normal"), the way we behave or seem also isn't a reliable indicator of our internal state.
As for being poor, that really depends on how much it's affecting the person. If their medical needs are being met, they're able to cover their bills and get themselves something pleasant once in a while, then sure, it won't affect their attitude as long as they're primarily around others of approximately the same income bracket. If they're poor enough that it means going without needed dental or medical care (especially if it leaves a visible impact, like missing teeth), can't afford to buy socially appropriate gifts, can barely cover their bills (or have to work out agreements with utility companies) despite cutting everything inessential, and can never indulge themselves -- then it's normal for one's mood to slip.
(Writing as someone with congenital disabilities that developed more problems in adulthood, living on Supplemental Security Income and knows a lot of others in the same position.)
You should be modded troll for the exact same reason you would be if your entire rant said "blacks" -- because it's a load of prejudiced nonsense.
I've known one female (ironically, my mother) that believed in the obnoxious junk about needing to ask guys for help or act stupid in order to boost their ego, or that actually enjoyed being 'taken care of'. While very few females are as far in the opposite direction as I am (after breaking my kneecap on an off-trail hike in the Sierras, I declined assistance & didn't complain on the two miles back to the car), the majority are markedly more like me than like her. A few of them have the ability with computers needed to pursue a career, but met enough bigots like you in classes, user groups, etc. to take another career path.
The plain fact is, it doesn't matter what subgroup of humanity in society you refer to, they're made up of individuals with different abilities, preferences, attitudes, beliefs, temperaments, and so forth -- so any blanket statement that refers to them by that group that isn't a direct reference to the relevant trait (i.e. disabled people have impairments) is automatically going to be out of whack. It's pretty basic-level logic; if you're a fraction as superior as you claim -- or weren't blinded by bigotry -- you'd already realize that.
According to Sonic.net, the ISP that performed the fiber installation for Google in part of San Francisco and now is rolling it out in the North Bay, adding wires underground is costly/difficult enough that they'll only include neighborhoods/homes with existing above-ground wires for the foreseeable future. I wonder whether the same will apply to the Google Gig/sec project as well, and whether they'd then opt to exclude entire universities based on surrounding community wiring, or upgrade connections for students in some neighborhoods/buildings but not others (which could lead to unpleasant disparities if older housing costs a great deal more, as it does here).
Everyone had to deal with this type of stuff growing up in one way or another.
So you're saying that, on a daily basis, you were (select 3 or more per day) tripped, hit, kicked, shoved, threatened with rape if the bullies ever found you alone, shot on bare skin with projectiles from a little handmade paperclip launcher at close range, and more? Your reaction to that being the norm for your kid most of the time she's on campus is merely to hope she can brush it off?
Of course, one kid saying mean things to them could just be viewed as an annoyance, but bullies usually find ways to ensure a bunch of kids are involved, such as by humiliating their target in front of a group, lying to others about humiliating things about the victim (so that the other kids giggle whenever the victim is near), convincing the others that it'd be hysterically funny to have everyone say/ask something deeply embarrassing of the victim. Sooner or later, the victim starts blaming himself/herself and self-confidence goes to hell. The hormones, drive to be accepted, and lack of experience make pre-teens & teenagers irrational about anything involving their peers even if they're otherwise confident -- but very often, the bullying is systematic enough that it would wear down even a reasonable adult.
So you're saying you dealt with this kind of thing routinely, and your main concern if/when it happens to your daughter is that she doesn't react too badly? I ask because the above things are extremely common elements of what bullying is really like -- it's not just a few meaningless comments by an asshat that upsets an overly sensitive kid, as many media outlets prefer to depict it.
Since you mentioned character: as a kid, I was originally a friendly, confident, non-feminine girl with no urge to fit in or stand out and hated seeming weak. All through junior high, a few boys bullied me as described above in the halls between classes & in 2-3 classes each day; I did my best to not react visibly. My parents eventually found out about the bullying in general, but the school had an official policy of "not interfering" in student matters. The bullying ended along with junior high, thankfully.
I've met enough other men & women born from 1960 through 1985 from all over the country that described the same general degree of bullying to know that mine wasn't an anomaly. There's a reason, after all, that aggressive bullying is depicted in so many movies that feature a pre-teen/teenage protagonist -- because it's rarely meaningless words even when a girl is the target.
Could be wrong, but I believe that the Trinity Desktop (it's continued development of KDE 3) relies solely on ALSA regardless of what distro you're running.
I don't know if I'm one of the "smart kids" or not, but I'm a standard non-technical user and have found LuckyBackup or BackInTime run along with an online sync/backup service like DropBox or SpiderOak the most handy options.
Both LuckyBackup & BackInTime are GUI tools that set up rsync rules (even complicated ones) with an easy point-and-click interface, then schedule them in cron. They can do anything rsync can: synchronize the drives so the backup matches the current, or make a backup of everything present plus never delete anything, and they won't waste time/energy by backing up files that haven't changed;
LuckyBackup can be set to keep up to 99 snapshots of anything that changes, and they're structured in the exact same way as the original. BackInTime can have unlimited snapshots, and each backup is in a different nested folder by date/time, with unchanged files within each folder being soft links back to the most recent backup copy. Both programs just create file copies, not compressed archives.
Right now, I'm using LuckyBackup for my regular files, and I have BackInTime handling my writing directory so I can go back to an unlimited extent in case -- as happened once -- I realize that I had made a major change several months ago (more backup dates than LuckyBackup tolerates in snapshots) that turned out to be a horrible mistake, so I don't have to try to reconstruct the original from memory.
I use the web/online backup solution partly to keep my computers in sync without a thumbdrive. It's also because it acts as a free minute-by-minute backup with a few months of snapshots, so if an.odt file becomes corrupt while I'm working on it, I don't lose everything since the previous system backup. I lost about 30 hours of intense revisions a couple of years ago because the thumbdrive I was saving & transporting my files on had a glitch that evidently had messed up everything I'd been saving for a few days -- and as it turns out, it's not possible to extract text from a bad.odt file even with a hex editor.
Slashdot Mirror
In Windows 3.1, we did the equivalent of pinning by putting the app's launch icon on the desktop or in a folder.
IIRC we had to keep program icons in "program groups" (folders, really) on the desktop, but couldn't put them directly on the desktop itself. We organized icons primarily by choosing which groups they fell into, but that was about it.
I worry that, like fashion, it's just change for the sake of change.
Based on what's been going on in the Linux desktop environment world (which seems to randomly swap ideas with Windows & OS X) that's probably pretty much right, sad to say. It's always a bad sign when the devs/sycophants can only defend the new designs by accusing skeptics of hating change (especially when said skeptics are new to insert_OS_here and thus regard everything as "change" at the moment).
Funny thing is, I remember back when my Mac-using online friends would gloat over how OS 9 was advanced enough to not have a command line -- then several years later when Windows had essentially neutered its commandline and OS X showed up with one, they started trying to gloat over how OS X was advanced enough to have one. I always knew that my old archive of chats/email from the 90s would come in handy someday... >:-)
No wonder I couldn't find the damn thing for my mother when I tried using her computer -- and she seemingly can't handle the "complex" approach of PrntScrn -> image editor. (I wonder how hard it would be to set Win7 up to open the Snipping Tool when the user hits PrintScreen, like I'm used to in KDE/Linux.)
Minitel is to be killed off completely -- I'm not sure about Gopher, but Usenet still has active (if low-participation) discussion groups, and there are still some Telnet services around.
California has some of the most expensive houses in the US, and we don't have storage space unless we have a garage with open rafters (or keep the car outside in order to use the garage), either.
It shouldn't even be an issue -- any ad-blocker worth its salt uses the online blocklists like EasyList and downloads the latest version every day or two. I've only seen ads on YouTube one time, and it was because my mother had disabled Ad-Block Plus for some reason.
I can't speak for others, but I'm in Northern California -- for maybe 2 years, there have been LCD screens playing generic ads at an independent station and TV-show ads at a Shell. They're loud/annoying enough that a lot of people (including me) go out of their way to buy gas at the nice quiet ad-free Exxon across the street from Shell now.
How would you US citizens feel if you were on the receiving end of Predator drones, cyber attacks and Shock and Awe?
As opposed to having our homes invaded by men with assault rifles, who shoot our dogs and kill, injure, and terrorize innocent people? I think you need to take another look at what is happening in the United States.
Exactly. There was a disturbing case in my backwater suburb recently that illustrates it... Police had a warrant for a 20-year-old murder suspect's arrest, knew where he lived (with his parents & teen brother) & worked, and he had been in court a week earlier. So without contacting *our* police, 40-50 heavily armed Homeland Security agents burst into the family's home at 4:20 AM yelling and lobbing flash grenades & tear gas through the windows. When the guy and his 57-year-old father crawled out from the hallway armed because they thought it was armed intruders, the agents reacted with a "hail of gunfire" that penetrated internal & external house walls and evidently shot 3 of their own men. (If anyone was wondering whether they can protect themselves from the government by owning guns, there's your answer.)
The photo gallery in the local paper shows the agents, weapons, military truck brought in on a tractor-trailer, damage to the house, etc.
Also unsurprisingly, the agents went after the family's pet boxers:
One of the family's two dogs [Sadie] was shot and killed. The other [Tyson] had bolted and escaped, though an agent chased it with a gun, [the 57-year-old father] said...moved to tears by the memory, said he begged the agents, “Don't kill my dogs!”
From what I've read, it was similar to the incident where agents killed an extremely old arthritic labrador -- the 20-year-old used to exercise Tyson on a leash by riding his bike around the neighborhood after work, and a teen neighbor that talked with him about the dogs a few times implied they were friendly in another interview.
Anyone wondering why we don't rebel: one columnist wrote about the reaction he got to a column/post merely questioning the raid. Given this is a liberal region, non-Americans might see why we're kind of fucked...
I grew up believing in the US as a beacon for freedom and fairness. Okay, so it was the 60's and 70's and given what was going down in South America it was probably all a lie then.
Those of us growing up in the US in the 80s & 90s were led to believe in the nation's original ideals as well. It was a serious shock when I got to high school and had teachers that worked the reality behind modern-day events into the curriculum when relevant (i.e. government, history, literature).
How would you US citizens feel if you were on the receiving end of Predator drones, cyber attacks and Shock and Awe?
Trouble is, as tends to be the case with corrupt governments, average US citizens aren't the same as the US government that has been taking those actions... We have little-to-no power beyond the local level, since our election system is so fucked that all of California could vote for Nobody for President and still have no real impact on who gets the throne^H^H^H^H^H^Hposition.
To be honest, I'm more concerned that "terrorists" will attack us with military tech than that (actual) terrorists will. We already saw how much fun politicians had with the color-coded terror alert system whenever they wanted folks to bend to their will, and there's only one way to get that effect now that everyone's used to ignoring "orange"...
We say SF, they say howto. :-p
Also, Stux/Skynet are only a half-rhyme. (I think. I know it's not a proper rhyme, but I never was good at poetic terms.)
We wouldn't need (or be seeking) a government-run healthcare system if our government would do whatever it is that's necessary to bring prices for medical care & medication back down to something reasonable, and if insurance was no longer able to pick-and-choose only the lucrative patients or charge through the nose for pre-existing conditions. That way, if someone develops cancer, is hit by a drunk driver, or has a kid that turns out to have major birth defects, they can get treatment even if between jobs and not wind up bankrupt or worse.
The reason that our government's role is shifting is because our society has been drastically changing. In past generations, it was a lot harder for someone to fuck up in a major way; if they lost their job they could always find another, if they needed to take night classes they were affordable, and an adult with a basic education (high school at the time) could support a spouse & two kids in a nice home with an average job. Claiming that most people are merely failing through their own judgments/actions now is the equivalent of looking at an island with 5 men to every woman and declaring that it's a guy's own fault if they can't find a mate.
Nah, the smart autistic kids are the ones banging their heads on the wall and in many cases not getting laid.
All it takes is a few jaunts through any major store to see that the loud hypersocial twits are the ones breeding.
If you do a good workout, you can even eat the normal daily amount of food and get the calorie deficit purely through sports.
That's how it's supposed to work, but my experience so far hasn't matched it. Here's my most recent experience, which parallels when I was last working out regularly:
200-650 cal daily
2-3 nights/week (at a 24/H Fitness center) for 2.5 months thus far
~40 min. intense cardio
~30 min. using weight-training machines
I've gained some nice muscle tone (for a woman) & stamina, but I've still got the bit of fat I put on during the holidays. I could drop my caloric intake further, but I get the feeling it wouldn't help much.
My city had an artist similarly disguise a pair of traffic signal boxes after he'd painted the city's 150-year history on the side of the building the boxes sit next to. He painted the smaller one to look like a crate with (depending on which side is being viewed) a puppy, kitten, or bunch of little chicks, and the big box as a stack of egg crates with a woman in historic (1800s?) clothing dragging her kids away from the animals. He posted the only photos I can find online at the moment: Petaluma signalbox mural.
Only the nicest and richest neighborhoods in the USA have underground utilites.
That may be true where you live, in which case I can only imagine that it kind of sucks... In my Californian county, most of the middle-class & affordable suburban housing built in/after 1970 has underground wiring, at least as far as I've seen.
The sad thing is that the investigation report after the Columbia disaster indicated that the complex "informally" hierarchcial infrastructure at NASA ultimately was to blame.
AOL also started a "hyper-local" news service called Patch.com. I've started noticing that the one for my city is managing to keep up with the county paper on topics specific to my city by summarizing & linking to articles, plus surpass it regarding stuff the paper isn't bothering with -- and the quality is usually fairly good.
AOL also enabled a very entertaining prank I played on a friend... I found a brief event-sound .wav I'd found of the Macarena ("hey, Macarena - ai") and looped the "ai" over-and-over thirty or so times, amplified the "ai" to "AI!" then compressed it into a self-extracting .exe that would overwrite the AOL gotmail.wav with it.
I sent it off to my target, either he opened it or AOL did so for him...and the next time he annoyed me while we were chatting (he could be rather obnoxious) I sent him a one-word email. I intended for it to just startle him, but instead it crashed his copy of AOL; he vanished, then reappeared and was promptly booted again since he couldn't get to the unread email before the Macarena struck. A few mutual friends and I had a good twenty minutes of fun watching him appear and disappear before he figured out how to fix it...
The problem there is that it's typical for those of us with disabilities or major/terminal illnesses to minimize our difficulties and try to seem 'normal' in order to not drive others away or create awkward silences -- and it eventually becomes easy to compartmentalize so that when we're with friends/family, we really are happy. It's very hard to describe without giving the wrong impression, but I'm essentially trying to say that while we're not automatically unhappy or miserable (and most of us aren't, once we've accepted this as our "normal"), the way we behave or seem also isn't a reliable indicator of our internal state.
As for being poor, that really depends on how much it's affecting the person. If their medical needs are being met, they're able to cover their bills and get themselves something pleasant once in a while, then sure, it won't affect their attitude as long as they're primarily around others of approximately the same income bracket. If they're poor enough that it means going without needed dental or medical care (especially if it leaves a visible impact, like missing teeth), can't afford to buy socially appropriate gifts, can barely cover their bills (or have to work out agreements with utility companies) despite cutting everything inessential, and can never indulge themselves -- then it's normal for one's mood to slip.
(Writing as someone with congenital disabilities that developed more problems in adulthood, living on Supplemental Security Income and knows a lot of others in the same position.)
But I like being slapped in the face with a wet fish, you insensitive clod!
You should be modded troll for the exact same reason you would be if your entire rant said "blacks" -- because it's a load of prejudiced nonsense.
I've known one female (ironically, my mother) that believed in the obnoxious junk about needing to ask guys for help or act stupid in order to boost their ego, or that actually enjoyed being 'taken care of'. While very few females are as far in the opposite direction as I am (after breaking my kneecap on an off-trail hike in the Sierras, I declined assistance & didn't complain on the two miles back to the car), the majority are markedly more like me than like her. A few of them have the ability with computers needed to pursue a career, but met enough bigots like you in classes, user groups, etc. to take another career path.
The plain fact is, it doesn't matter what subgroup of humanity in society you refer to, they're made up of individuals with different abilities, preferences, attitudes, beliefs, temperaments, and so forth -- so any blanket statement that refers to them by that group that isn't a direct reference to the relevant trait (i.e. disabled people have impairments) is automatically going to be out of whack. It's pretty basic-level logic; if you're a fraction as superior as you claim -- or weren't blinded by bigotry -- you'd already realize that.
According to Sonic.net, the ISP that performed the fiber installation for Google in part of San Francisco and now is rolling it out in the North Bay, adding wires underground is costly/difficult enough that they'll only include neighborhoods/homes with existing above-ground wires for the foreseeable future. I wonder whether the same will apply to the Google Gig/sec project as well, and whether they'd then opt to exclude entire universities based on surrounding community wiring, or upgrade connections for students in some neighborhoods/buildings but not others (which could lead to unpleasant disparities if older housing costs a great deal more, as it does here).
Everyone had to deal with this type of stuff growing up in one way or another.
So you're saying that, on a daily basis, you were (select 3 or more per day) tripped, hit, kicked, shoved, threatened with rape if the bullies ever found you alone, shot on bare skin with projectiles from a little handmade paperclip launcher at close range, and more? Your reaction to that being the norm for your kid most of the time she's on campus is merely to hope she can brush it off?
Of course, one kid saying mean things to them could just be viewed as an annoyance, but bullies usually find ways to ensure a bunch of kids are involved, such as by humiliating their target in front of a group, lying to others about humiliating things about the victim (so that the other kids giggle whenever the victim is near), convincing the others that it'd be hysterically funny to have everyone say/ask something deeply embarrassing of the victim. Sooner or later, the victim starts blaming himself/herself and self-confidence goes to hell. The hormones, drive to be accepted, and lack of experience make pre-teens & teenagers irrational about anything involving their peers even if they're otherwise confident -- but very often, the bullying is systematic enough that it would wear down even a reasonable adult.
So you're saying you dealt with this kind of thing routinely, and your main concern if/when it happens to your daughter is that she doesn't react too badly? I ask because the above things are extremely common elements of what bullying is really like -- it's not just a few meaningless comments by an asshat that upsets an overly sensitive kid, as many media outlets prefer to depict it.
Since you mentioned character: as a kid, I was originally a friendly, confident, non-feminine girl with no urge to fit in or stand out and hated seeming weak. All through junior high, a few boys bullied me as described above in the halls between classes & in 2-3 classes each day; I did my best to not react visibly. My parents eventually found out about the bullying in general, but the school had an official policy of "not interfering" in student matters. The bullying ended along with junior high, thankfully.
I've met enough other men & women born from 1960 through 1985 from all over the country that described the same general degree of bullying to know that mine wasn't an anomaly. There's a reason, after all, that aggressive bullying is depicted in so many movies that feature a pre-teen/teenage protagonist -- because it's rarely meaningless words even when a girl is the target.
Could be wrong, but I believe that the Trinity Desktop (it's continued development of KDE 3) relies solely on ALSA regardless of what distro you're running.
I don't know if I'm one of the "smart kids" or not, but I'm a standard non-technical user and have found LuckyBackup or BackInTime run along with an online sync/backup service like DropBox or SpiderOak the most handy options.
Both LuckyBackup & BackInTime are GUI tools that set up rsync rules (even complicated ones) with an easy point-and-click interface, then schedule them in cron. They can do anything rsync can: synchronize the drives so the backup matches the current, or make a backup of everything present plus never delete anything, and they won't waste time/energy by backing up files that haven't changed;
LuckyBackup can be set to keep up to 99 snapshots of anything that changes, and they're structured in the exact same way as the original. BackInTime can have unlimited snapshots, and each backup is in a different nested folder by date/time, with unchanged files within each folder being soft links back to the most recent backup copy. Both programs just create file copies, not compressed archives.
Right now, I'm using LuckyBackup for my regular files, and I have BackInTime handling my writing directory so I can go back to an unlimited extent in case -- as happened once -- I realize that I had made a major change several months ago (more backup dates than LuckyBackup tolerates in snapshots) that turned out to be a horrible mistake, so I don't have to try to reconstruct the original from memory.
I use the web/online backup solution partly to keep my computers in sync without a thumbdrive. It's also because it acts as a free minute-by-minute backup with a few months of snapshots, so if an .odt file becomes corrupt while I'm working on it, I don't lose everything since the previous system backup. I lost about 30 hours of intense revisions a couple of years ago because the thumbdrive I was saving & transporting my files on had a glitch that evidently had messed up everything I'd been saving for a few days -- and as it turns out, it's not possible to extract text from a bad .odt file even with a hex editor.