a) It just sounds soooo bad in the film.
b) Whilst nowadays (and for a few years now) Unix (and variants such as Linux etc) is much more accessible now, think about how "available" it would have been way back in 1993. Linux was in its relative infancy (v0.1-ish?) and how many kids you know had access to Sun boxes and the like in secondary school?
I agree - today's youth (for want of a better term) will be more skilled than previous (barring the script kiddies...), it's just that in the context of the film back then it was more comedic than factful.
You mean to say that you don't use your l33t mega-cooled (and slightly overclocked) boxen as a fridge, and the 3 tonne adjoining speaker system as a trouser press?
My original comment was pointing to the fact that some girl recognised that it was UNIX and knew how to use it.
Plus the fact that her outburst of "This is UNIX! I know this!" just sounded soooooo ridiculous.
[Disclaimer: I am, in no way, refuting the fact that persons of the female variety know how to use household objects other than the iron;-)]
I'm not an RF expert but I am a physicist...[snip informative discussion]
And this is what we need - good, clear, objectional investigations into the mobile-phone's-gonna-kill-ya phenomenon by people other than those hired to carry out such research who are being "funded" by either the mobile phone companies themselves, or by the "mobile phone haters".
Unfortunately, we're currently in a situation where for each anti-mobile report, there's a pro-mobile report quickly following it up from the mobile companies (and vice-versa). As a result, neither types of reports hold much validity and the general public thus cannot decide which to believe on a truly scientific/honest level
I agree with your sentiments on the cultural problems - I personally find it damn annoying when a phone goes off in a supposedly "off" area (cinema etc). Mind you, I believe that ALL phones should be set to silent/vibrate by default. The problem is that no amount of "education" gets certain people to utilising some degree of courtesy when it comes to silencing their phones - people tend to do what they want despite any requests or rules (take speeding, "do not step on the grass" etc as examples)
Disclaimer: I own and use a mobile phone. I keep it in my shirt pocket and it's on vibrate/silent 95% of the time.
If you don't like cell phones, then go find somewhere that doesn't have them.
Given the current popularity of mobile phones, you'd be hard pushed to find a "phone free zone".
Besides, the argument (and I suppose it's exactly that at the moment until we get solid uniform proof) is that it's damaging to one's health. Using that analogy, would you tell non-smokers to find a smoke-free zone or put up & shut up?
Besides, mobile phones are not limited to RF poisoning: something which hasn't been mentioned is the damage to train users' ear drums when the entire carriage errupts in a shouting match of "ARE YOU STILL THERE? HELLO? HELLO?..." when the train goes through a tunnel...
I've read a lot of comments along the lines of: "Show off X display forwarding and whizzo website updating."
Personally, I'm inclined to say "stay off that for a while".
Start with the basics (ls, cp, mv, grep, find, ps etc) and get them used to using the console (i.e., no X whatsoever: not even an xterm). As others have said: teach them that you don't need a point-and-click interface to do the standard stuff: file management, installation, configuration etc. Obviously editor skills (emacs, vi/vim, ) are going to be essential.
Only after a while should the X factor be introduced. Even then, try to keep a perspective on its uses:
It's all well-and-good showing them how what great things you can do with this wonderful OS, but means nothing if they end up believing that everything's as "flash" (read: GUI orientated) as Windows and are left flandering when given a console.
Now for my no-so-objective suggestions:
1. Teach them the proper use of the power button (I.e., get used to it collecting dust rather than finger prints.) Repeat 3 times: "Power cycling does not solve my browsing problems".
2. Hit home the idea of file protection and user privledges - "No. root isn't the only login."
3. "IE doesn't come installed by default and don't wine [sic] about it."
Hasn't anyone told the Debian team that April Fools jokes are meant to occur on *April* 1st, not May 1st?;-)
No, seriously, this is great news. Been using Woody for 3 weeks now & am *sooooo* pleased that I^Hsomething trashed my Mandrake setup for it. I last used Debian in the 1.3 days and wish I never left it. It says a lot when even the "Testing" branch of a distribution is far more stable than the so-called "Production" versions of others.
"At this point the game resembled bz by Chris Fouts. This is no surprise because both games are based on the old Atari arcade game BattleZone. In fact, BZFlag was called bz back then because no one in the PCG knew of the existence of Chris Fouts' bz. Yes, that's right, BZFlag was written with no knowledge of bz. The two games share no code and were designed and written independently. They owe their similarities to their BattleZone heritage"
Now, I'm not saying that it's a great name, but at least there's a reason for it being what it is...
Re:I saw one of these at the weekend
on
Self-Heating Can
·
· Score: 1
I agree that they're expensive (cost me something like £1.50 at Heathrow), but as with everything, the price should fall.
I bought one at Heathrow in November: I was flying to Australia and had a 2 hour stop off in Singapore. I prefer hot drinks to cold ones and knew that I'd want one during the stop off. So why didn't I just buy a coffee in Singapore airport?
Three reasons: 1. Being a first time flyer (and a bad planner), I didn't know that Singapore airport accepted British Pounds or Aussie dollars, and I forgot to get some Singapore dosh before leaving. 2. I don't actually like "real" coffee, which is what the airport coffee places invariably sell. I actually prefer the bog-standard Nescafe (don't even like the Gold Blend stuff). 3. The geek inside couldn't resist this new-fangled-heat-me-up-in-a-couple-of-minutes can;-)
It was ideal - I knew the sort of taste I would get, and it wouldn't be cold by the time I got to Simgapore.
I tell ya though: I'd recommend looking into the can *after* you've drunk the coffee. The appearance of the created solid substance from the reaction almost put me off it at first!
Even 333hr per month is pushing it
on
IBM 120GXP Revisited
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I'm finding this story rather spooky as my 75GXP failed on me (ironically in the middle of my first real backup) yesterday after 18 months of "average" use (less than 6 hours a day). I use the IBM drive as my main system drive, and keep a 5GB for data backups "now and again".
I bought the drive way back in October 2000 with the confidence that "it's an IBM drive: these things are not only fast, but are meant to be reliable". When I started to see the horror stories of other peoples' drives failing I felt quite lucky (read: smug) that mine was still going strong. Now I realise how stupid I look: that whiz, whir, crunch, grind noise that I heard yesterday from the disk *above* the sound of my rather noisy fans scared the life out of me.
I'm now faced with the nasty task of not only attempting to salvage what data I can before I send it to IBM (yes, as other people have mentioned, at least IBM provide a fairly decent 3 year warranty), but also shudder in anticipation at what IBM decide to do with my drive. I believe there are 3 options: 1. Attempt to "fix" my drive and send it back (although having the "Drive Fitness Test" return "Defective Disk" should quash this option). That means I'm stuck with the same drive which is most likely to fail on me again sometime in the (not-too-distant) future. 2. Replace my drive with the same spec, from the same product line & production factory. Again, this worries me as I'm probably ending up with a new disk which has the same defects and thus is also going to die on me. 3. Replace my drive with a newer product with an equivalent spec. Yesterday I was hoping for this option. However, having read the ViaHardware article, this doesn't hold much hope for me either.
And that's the crux: it's alright having the drive under warranty & returning it, but who's to say that any drive they replace it with is not as faulty?
This whole fiasco with the GXP line has certainly put me off IBM drives, no matter how fast and "great" they may be. Shame.
"...These are the things that are important to a geek. Not "snap on colours" and "colourful wallpapers"."
But those are the things that make you part of the "in" crowd! ...Oh, yeah. Sorry. You're right. Not much use to us geeks (unless they bring out a Penguin cover).
The opportunity to not be tied to endless EULAs, support contracts, pricey upgrades. To create an environment how *you* want it, not how someone else thinks you want it.
I'd rather be incompatible between versions *for free* thank you.
Slashdot Mirror
If it's good enough for NASA, then it should be good enough for the rest of us ;-)
Point taken, and it's valid. However...
My reasoning behind my original comment was:
a) It just sounds soooo bad in the film.
b) Whilst nowadays (and for a few years now) Unix (and variants such as Linux etc) is much more accessible now, think about how "available" it would have been way back in 1993. Linux was in its relative infancy (v0.1-ish?) and how many kids you know had access to Sun boxes and the like in secondary school?
I agree - today's youth (for want of a better term) will be more skilled than previous (barring the script kiddies...), it's just that in the context of the film back then it was more comedic than factful.
You mean to say that you don't use your l33t mega-cooled (and slightly overclocked) boxen as a fridge, and the 3 tonne adjoining speaker system as a trouser press?
Wierd.
I don't to drag this on but...
;-)]
My original comment was pointing to the fact that some girl recognised that it was UNIX and knew how to use it.
Plus the fact that her outburst of "This is UNIX! I know this!" just sounded soooooo ridiculous.
[Disclaimer: I am, in no way, refuting the fact that persons of the female variety know how to use household objects other than the iron
Some 12-13 year old girl knowing how to manipulate a multi-billion dollar Dinosaur complex using UNIX...
I'm not an RF expert but I am a physicist...[snip informative discussion]
And this is what we need - good, clear, objectional investigations into the mobile-phone's-gonna-kill-ya phenomenon by people other than those hired to carry out such research who are being "funded" by either the mobile phone companies themselves, or by the "mobile phone haters".
Unfortunately, we're currently in a situation where for each anti-mobile report, there's a pro-mobile report quickly following it up from the mobile companies (and vice-versa). As a result, neither types of reports hold much validity and the general public thus cannot decide which to believe on a truly scientific/honest level
I agree with your sentiments on the cultural problems - I personally find it damn annoying when a phone goes off in a supposedly "off" area (cinema etc). Mind you, I believe that ALL phones should be set to silent/vibrate by default. The problem is that no amount of "education" gets certain people to utilising some degree of courtesy when it comes to silencing their phones - people tend to do what they want despite any requests or rules (take speeding, "do not step on the grass" etc as examples)
Disclaimer: I own and use a mobile phone. I keep it in my shirt pocket and it's on vibrate/silent 95% of the time.
If you don't like cell phones, then go find somewhere that doesn't have them.
Given the current popularity of mobile phones, you'd be hard pushed to find a "phone free zone".
Besides, the argument (and I suppose it's exactly that at the moment until we get solid uniform proof) is that it's damaging to one's health. Using that analogy, would you tell non-smokers to find a smoke-free zone or put up & shut up?
Besides, mobile phones are not limited to RF poisoning: something which hasn't been mentioned is the damage to train users' ear drums when the entire carriage errupts in a shouting match of "ARE YOU STILL THERE? HELLO? HELLO?..." when the train goes through a tunnel...
"What Windows is loses any meaning," claimed Mr Gates
Is this Microsoft's beta test of their new Word spell/grammar checker?
MS Edits English
I've read a lot of comments along the lines of: "Show off X display forwarding and whizzo website updating."
Personally, I'm inclined to say "stay off that for a while".
Start with the basics (ls, cp, mv, grep, find, ps etc) and get them used to using the console (i.e., no X whatsoever: not even an xterm). As others have said: teach them that you don't need a point-and-click interface to do the standard stuff: file management, installation, configuration etc. Obviously editor skills (emacs, vi/vim, ) are going to be essential.
Only after a while should the X factor be introduced. Even then, try to keep a perspective on its uses:
It's all well-and-good showing them how what great things you can do with this wonderful OS, but means nothing if they end up believing that everything's as "flash" (read: GUI orientated) as Windows and are left flandering when given a console.
Now for my no-so-objective suggestions:
1. Teach them the proper use of the power button (I.e., get used to it collecting dust rather than finger prints.) Repeat 3 times: "Power cycling does not solve my browsing problems".
2. Hit home the idea of file protection and user privledges - "No. root isn't the only login."
3. "IE doesn't come installed by default and don't wine [sic] about it."
Hasn't anyone told the Debian team that April Fools jokes are meant to occur on *April* 1st, not May 1st? ;-)
No, seriously, this is great news. Been using Woody for 3 weeks now & am *sooooo* pleased that I^Hsomething trashed my Mandrake setup for it. I last used Debian in the 1.3 days and wish I never left it.
It says a lot when even the "Testing" branch of a distribution is far more stable than the so-called "Production" versions of others.
From the site:
"At this point the game resembled bz by Chris Fouts. This is no surprise because both games are based on the old Atari arcade game BattleZone. In fact, BZFlag was called bz back then because no one in the PCG knew of the existence of Chris Fouts' bz. Yes, that's right, BZFlag was written with no knowledge of bz. The two games share no code and were designed and written independently. They owe their similarities to their BattleZone heritage"
Now, I'm not saying that it's a great name, but at least there's a reason for it being what it is...
I agree that they're expensive (cost me something like £1.50 at Heathrow), but as with everything, the price should fall.
;-)
I bought one at Heathrow in November: I was flying to Australia and had a 2 hour stop off in Singapore. I prefer hot drinks to cold ones and knew that I'd want one during the stop off. So why didn't I just buy a coffee in Singapore airport?
Three reasons:
1. Being a first time flyer (and a bad planner), I didn't know that Singapore airport accepted British Pounds or Aussie dollars, and I forgot to get some Singapore dosh before leaving.
2. I don't actually like "real" coffee, which is what the airport coffee places invariably sell. I actually prefer the bog-standard Nescafe (don't even like the Gold Blend stuff).
3. The geek inside couldn't resist this new-fangled-heat-me-up-in-a-couple-of-minutes can
It was ideal - I knew the sort of taste I would get, and it wouldn't be cold by the time I got to Simgapore.
I tell ya though: I'd recommend looking into the can *after* you've drunk the coffee. The appearance of the created solid substance from the reaction almost put me off it at first!
I'm finding this story rather spooky as my 75GXP failed on me (ironically in the middle of my first real backup) yesterday after 18 months of "average" use (less than 6 hours a day). I use the IBM drive as my main system drive, and keep a 5GB for data backups "now and again".
I bought the drive way back in October 2000 with the confidence that "it's an IBM drive: these things are not only fast, but are meant to be reliable". When I started to see the horror stories of other peoples' drives failing I felt quite lucky (read: smug) that mine was still going strong. Now I realise how stupid I look: that whiz, whir, crunch, grind noise that I heard yesterday from the disk *above* the sound of my rather noisy fans scared the life out of me.
I'm now faced with the nasty task of not only attempting to salvage what data I can before I send it to IBM (yes, as other people have mentioned, at least IBM provide a fairly decent 3 year warranty), but also shudder in anticipation at what IBM decide to do with my drive. I believe there are 3 options:
1. Attempt to "fix" my drive and send it back (although having the "Drive Fitness Test" return "Defective Disk" should quash this option). That means I'm stuck with the same drive which is most likely to fail on me again sometime in the (not-too-distant) future.
2. Replace my drive with the same spec, from the same product line & production factory. Again, this worries me as I'm probably ending up with a new disk which has the same defects and thus is also going to die on me.
3. Replace my drive with a newer product with an equivalent spec. Yesterday I was hoping for this option. However, having read the ViaHardware article, this doesn't hold much hope for me either.
And that's the crux: it's alright having the drive under warranty & returning it, but who's to say that any drive they replace it with is not as faulty?
This whole fiasco with the GXP line has certainly put me off IBM drives, no matter how fast and "great" they may be. Shame.
"...These are the things that are important to a geek. Not "snap on colours" and "colourful wallpapers"."
But those are the things that make you part of the "in" crowd!
...Oh, yeah. Sorry. You're right. Not much use to us geeks (unless they bring out a Penguin cover).
"But other than that, What is being offered? "
The opportunity to not be tied to endless EULAs, support contracts, pricey upgrades. To create an environment how *you* want it, not how someone else thinks you want it.
I'd rather be incompatible between versions *for free* thank you.