Because back when you were a teen, you didn't care as much about "babysitting and gas, plus the cost of 2 tickets".
It's much like loud night clubs: far easier to tolerate the annoying parts when you're young - plus, there's simply less hassle.
Trust me, I'm old too. Without kids of my own, I can still tolerate movie theatres (and the cost therein) far more than my breeding friends. The loud annoying teens are really bad, though.
Children today aren't allowed to "engage in activities without parental or some other form of supervision" until they're "somewhere between 14 and 16 years old"???
Did I grow up in some bizarre parallel universe? I was running around the neighbourhood with other children by the time I was 8 or 9, with no parents around.
Can we please get an automatic -1, Troll/Flamebait mod on any post that uses terms such as "Slashdot position", or "slashbot"? Contrary to what some believe, there are actually differing opinions here. There is no "Slashbot position".
In fact, the rest of the parent post pretty much confirms the subject line: "whine", "whining", "whiny babies", "cheap bastards"...
Grow up.
For the record, charge me money for a product with no restrictions and no ads. I'll pay. I'll pay a lot, as is evidenced by my large CD collection that I purchased during the Napster days, before all this non-standard DRM crap started showing up on CDs. And my large VHS collection. And my large book collection. Guess I'm not a "Slashbot", whatever that's supposed to be.
Advice from one who's been there
on
How Old is Too Old?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
but that would place me in the tech job market at nearly 30
Wow. Your story (other than the art school) just about parallels mine. High school, then post-secondary, then a crappy job for a bunch of years. Been there, did that, got the t-shirt.
A few years back I realized people would actually pay me money to do what I enjoy doing in my spare time (that is, mess with computers), but the big cash was in the degree'd jobs. Like it or not, that's the way in these days. So, I left the job, swallowed my pride and moved back in with the family, lived like a starving student otherwise for 4 years, and graduated with a B.C.Sc. when I was 29.
I got a job right out of school (actually, while I was still in school - internships RULE), and one day I got bored and did the math: it will have taken me only 3 years since graduation before I break even financially. That's including all the income lost over those 4 years, and tuition. I more than doubled my take-home as a result of the career change, and love every minute of the job so far.
Oh, the other nice thing: going to university/college as a mature student is FUN. People are very friendly to you (even though we're only talking 5-8 year age differences they think of you as the "old fogey"). You don't do the stupid things (frat parties every night during finals). It's also FAR easier to study, do homework, whatever - because you know damn well what awaits you if you don't get this degree finished, and with good marks. Personally, I found doing university the second time around to be just about the most fun I've ever had in my life. Only problem is, at an older age it seems to go by FAST.
If I won the lottery and didn't need to work for my rent, I'd do it a third time.
Unless they drill into your connection to find your MAC address
They can't. Your MAC address isn't transmitted beyond your local ethernet. To actually find something like this Google would have to either be VERY close to your network (ie: on it), or compromise your computer, in which case they'll be able to get a hell of a lot more on you anyway:)
You know, there's a lot more to do with a computer than play games. Especially amongst those of us that run Linux, we tend to do a lot less gameplaying than the average bear.
Personally, I'm ecstatic over FINALLY being able to purchase a system that will run Google Earth, that I won't have to fuck with every time a kernel update happens, or ATI breaks their latest blob and I have to spend hours googling for a fix, or nvidia hasn't once again broken something because they don't think anyone but 10 users still use this graphics card.
There's *nothing* but good to be said about open source graphics card drivers that support halfway decent OpenGL. Even if I don't have the privledge of spending $500 upgrading my rig just to play whatever the flavour of the month PC game is out.
If Intel would do this for add-on cards and not just integrated chipsets (which is what I hear is the deal so far), I'd be as happy as I've been ever since discovering Linux.
Saying you support 'Linux' is silly. It's like saying you support 'UNIX.'
Can't agree enough.
I had a consulting gig where I had to support Solaris, HPUX, AIX, and an ancient SCO Unix box. Those 4 Unixes were FAR more different than say, Red Hat, Debian, Suse, and Gentoo. Even the basic command structure often differed.
Different locations for config files? Different desktop environments? Child's play.
Try switching between machines where the most basic things are entirely different. Ifconfig is a notable favourite. The command switches, and the output, are more different between commercial Unixes than they are between say Linux's ifconfig and Windows' ipconfig. Hell, IBM has an entire set of system management tools all wrapped up in good ol' smitty - which no other Unix has.
I won't even get into library support, boot process, or development environments. Knowing the 5 or 6 major Linux distros, and their differences, is trivial compared to a mixed-breed Unix shop.
You do of course realize that if the old guy has installed this device, he probably realizes that it is driving people nuts, as that is its sole intended purpose?
Your advice is the equivalent of GWB trying to talk politely with Osama, and tell him "hey, dude, you know those planes? They really hurt our feelings, man".
No. Shit. Sherlock. That was kinda the idea.
I've dealt with neighbours like this before. They're fully aware of what they're doing. THAT'S THE POINT. This isn't some big misunderstanding and lack of community hugging due to suburbanites locking themselves in their McMansions and not chatting over the clothesline like in the 1940s. The guy is a prick, he knows it, and what he's done is a pretty clear demonstration of that fact.
In terms of solving the problem, city noise ordinances should do. Unfortunately, we don't have laws against being an asshole (yet), so my advice to the submitter is "move". If he isn't kicking off any time soon, you're just going to deal with the next level of his tricks. And so on.
Seconded. For a website full of posts about people not being able to get Java working properly in Linux, to websites going out of their way to block alternative (read: non-IE) browsers, it amazes me the number of people who have no idea that there could have been a problem here.
Java + Firefox + Ubuntu works just tickety-boo on my desktop. The Canadian census site didn't seem to think so, and I had to revert to the spare Windows laptop I had kicking around. Highly annoying.
Canadian government: not everyone runs Windows. And you don't need a Java applet to securely upload my address and ethnicity. Ever heard of SSL?
Shashdot readers: Java is still problematic for some (shocker!). Many websites still try to lock out non-MS platforms (shocker!).
Thankfully my bank (RBC) is smart enough to have figured this out years ago. I've been using their site with Linux for 5+ years now.
Roughly 55,000 kids go missing each year here. Vast majority are runaways. A few hundred get taken by their parents. A few dozen are abducted by "strangers"; note that "A Stranger Abduction is defined as an abduction by individual(s) other than the subject's parent or guardian."
A lot of these "stranger" abductions are actually other family members - uncles, aunts, grandparents. Basically, most kids that actually get abducted are the result of custody cases gone bad. The actual number of honest-to-goodness, being picked up off the street at random cases is in the single digits annually, from what I can find. Maybe a dozen or two if you feel generous.
Children are about as likely to be hit by lightning as be abducted by a stranger. But you wouldn't know that by listening to the media - or from the constant "Amber alerts".
Just this past weekend I had to switch providers, and of course verify the connection without a router or other firewall in between me and the outside world.
Firewall software on the laptop picked up 139 attempts within the first 60 seconds. Within 5 minutes I had well over a dozen common ports being probed: the usual NetBIOS ports, 1433, 1434, 21, 80, 23, 69, and a few others.
Didn't see a single port 22 attempt in the 5 hours I left the laptop "naked". Haven't bothered to check the router's logs since as it drops just about everything.
It isn't Microsoft bashing to point out that the vast majority of computers on the Internet run Windows, and the vast majority of scans aim at common open Windows ports. Hell, there are botnets still running that haven't changed in 5 years or more, still going at the old Win95/98 "single character password" crack.
Enable it by default. This makes some geeks who don't want it a bit annoyed, but makes everyone else happy.
Actually, in the case of Microsoft's products of the past decade, it's led to an amazing number of worms that have made front page headlines, and caused (by some estimates) billions of dollars in lost productivity.
The Microsoft attitude of "enable by default", for *normal users*, is what has turned them into the laughing stock of the industry. Too bad everyone still gives them money:)
SOME things should be turned on by default, no question - automatic updates, etc. MOST things shouldn't - history shows this pretty clearly.
who gives items away in game simply because the character standing before them is female? That's just stupid
Stupid, yes. Which many men online are.
This isn't a new phenomenon at all, and it extends well beyond some valueless free object in a videogame. Some men are so desparate for female attention, or just want to look like the big hero, or just like showing off to women, or whatever their reason is... that they'll actually give away free REAL-WORLD stuff to someone that they think is a woman. Free computer hardware, free books, free CDs full of pirated software because "oh, my internet connection just isn't as fast as yours tee hee".
These men will pay the postage, spend the time mailing things out, often even going to a local store to buy said items - all for nothing in return. And they'll do it again and again, with zero actual proof that said "woman" is so. No picture, no voice chat, just some text on their screen or an avatar in a video game.
Some will even travel halfway across the continent just for a slight chance of meeting said "woman".
I could have written a PhD thesis on this subject if only we had been rigorous with our testing methods.
There was a rash of news stories a few months back up here in the Great White North. Some poor kid got abducted and as it was a slow news day (WWIII hadn't broken out yet), the media was awash with abduction stories.
Apparenly last year in Canada there were something like 30,000 cases of child abduction. Might not be the exact number, but it was in the tens of thousdands. OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!! The news stories focussed on what laws we need, how we can save the children, how the Internet is a bad place, don't let your chilren do anything in public without you, blah blah blah.
In only ONE of the news stories did ANYONE talk about just who was doing the abducting. Of course, it was pretty much always the parents or some other family member. This story had a very short summary of how many kids in Canada last year were abducted by complete strangers:
5.
That's right, FIVE. We're about to re-write our laws, do some stupid reactionary crap, demonize the Internet, lock our kids in protective bubbles, because 5 kids got abducted. Never mind the 29,995 taken by their parents, we don't have to worry about those!
Incidentally, we just had our first Amber Alert(TM) here in Calgary. The city used the Emergency Broadcast System for this. Considering we've had several tornado warnings lately, it scared the hell out of me to hear that blaring from the TV.
Turns out, the kid was abducted by her mother, and as almost always happens in these cases, was returned safely. *sigh* I remember the days when the EBS was used for things like incoming nukes or earthquakes.
I've been seeing those annoying ING commercials for years now. They claim "high interest", but with most banks these days that just means 0.3% instead of 0.2% annually.
You're the first person I've ever seen advocating those accounts - what kind of interest do you actually see? How much work is it to put money in or pull it out when you choose to?
Slashdot Mirror
I fail to see why this is an age issue?
Because back when you were a teen, you didn't care as much about "babysitting and gas, plus the cost of 2 tickets".
It's much like loud night clubs: far easier to tolerate the annoying parts when you're young - plus, there's simply less hassle.
Trust me, I'm old too. Without kids of my own, I can still tolerate movie theatres (and the cost therein) far more than my breeding friends. The loud annoying teens are really bad, though.
Now get off my lawn.
Yeah right, to get a MAC address you'd have to be on the same LAN as her.
:)
Slashdotters will only ever see her IP address.
(And the contents of this post basically mean I'm in that boat, too
Children today aren't allowed to "engage in activities without parental or some other form of supervision" until they're "somewhere between 14 and 16 years old"???
Did I grow up in some bizarre parallel universe? I was running around the neighbourhood with other children by the time I was 8 or 9, with no parents around.
Are we living in *that* much fear these days?
SMS, Duh..... :)
Can we please get an automatic -1, Troll/Flamebait mod on any post that uses terms such as "Slashdot position", or "slashbot"? Contrary to what some believe, there are actually differing opinions here. There is no "Slashbot position".
In fact, the rest of the parent post pretty much confirms the subject line: "whine", "whining", "whiny babies", "cheap bastards"...
Grow up.
For the record, charge me money for a product with no restrictions and no ads. I'll pay. I'll pay a lot, as is evidenced by my large CD collection that I purchased during the Napster days, before all this non-standard DRM crap started showing up on CDs. And my large VHS collection. And my large book collection. Guess I'm not a "Slashbot", whatever that's supposed to be.
but that would place me in the tech job market at nearly 30
Wow. Your story (other than the art school) just about parallels mine. High school, then post-secondary, then a crappy job for a bunch of years. Been there, did that, got the t-shirt.
A few years back I realized people would actually pay me money to do what I enjoy doing in my spare time (that is, mess with computers), but the big cash was in the degree'd jobs. Like it or not, that's the way in these days. So, I left the job, swallowed my pride and moved back in with the family, lived like a starving student otherwise for 4 years, and graduated with a B.C.Sc. when I was 29.
I got a job right out of school (actually, while I was still in school - internships RULE), and one day I got bored and did the math: it will have taken me only 3 years since graduation before I break even financially. That's including all the income lost over those 4 years, and tuition. I more than doubled my take-home as a result of the career change, and love every minute of the job so far.
Oh, the other nice thing: going to university/college as a mature student is FUN. People are very friendly to you (even though we're only talking 5-8 year age differences they think of you as the "old fogey"). You don't do the stupid things (frat parties every night during finals). It's also FAR easier to study, do homework, whatever - because you know damn well what awaits you if you don't get this degree finished, and with good marks. Personally, I found doing university the second time around to be just about the most fun I've ever had in my life. Only problem is, at an older age it seems to go by FAST.
If I won the lottery and didn't need to work for my rent, I'd do it a third time.
Best decision I ever made in my life.
Investors hate them because they keep loosing money on them.
:)
Yeah, but do they ever make any of it back?
Unless they drill into your connection to find your MAC address
:)
They can't. Your MAC address isn't transmitted beyond your local ethernet. To actually find something like this Google would have to either be VERY close to your network (ie: on it), or compromise your computer, in which case they'll be able to get a hell of a lot more on you anyway
You know, there's a lot more to do with a computer than play games. Especially amongst those of us that run Linux, we tend to do a lot less gameplaying than the average bear.
Personally, I'm ecstatic over FINALLY being able to purchase a system that will run Google Earth, that I won't have to fuck with every time a kernel update happens, or ATI breaks their latest blob and I have to spend hours googling for a fix, or nvidia hasn't once again broken something because they don't think anyone but 10 users still use this graphics card.
There's *nothing* but good to be said about open source graphics card drivers that support halfway decent OpenGL. Even if I don't have the privledge of spending $500 upgrading my rig just to play whatever the flavour of the month PC game is out.
If Intel would do this for add-on cards and not just integrated chipsets (which is what I hear is the deal so far), I'd be as happy as I've been ever since discovering Linux.
I heard there was even talk of having one for the SNES
:)
There was. You might know it better as the Sony Playstation. Made a fortune, as all-in-one devices *always* win out in the console world.
I think Sony may be trying to prove that idiom wrong this time around, however...
Saying you support 'Linux' is silly. It's like saying you support 'UNIX.'
Can't agree enough.
I had a consulting gig where I had to support Solaris, HPUX, AIX, and an ancient SCO Unix box. Those 4 Unixes were FAR more different than say, Red Hat, Debian, Suse, and Gentoo. Even the basic command structure often differed.
Different locations for config files? Different desktop environments? Child's play.
Try switching between machines where the most basic things are entirely different. Ifconfig is a notable favourite. The command switches, and the output, are more different between commercial Unixes than they are between say Linux's ifconfig and Windows' ipconfig. Hell, IBM has an entire set of system management tools all wrapped up in good ol' smitty - which no other Unix has.
I won't even get into library support, boot process, or development environments. Knowing the 5 or 6 major Linux distros, and their differences, is trivial compared to a mixed-breed Unix shop.
You do of course realize that if the old guy has installed this device, he probably realizes that it is driving people nuts, as that is its sole intended purpose?
Your advice is the equivalent of GWB trying to talk politely with Osama, and tell him "hey, dude, you know those planes? They really hurt our feelings, man".
No. Shit. Sherlock. That was kinda the idea.
I've dealt with neighbours like this before. They're fully aware of what they're doing. THAT'S THE POINT. This isn't some big misunderstanding and lack of community hugging due to suburbanites locking themselves in their McMansions and not chatting over the clothesline like in the 1940s. The guy is a prick, he knows it, and what he's done is a pretty clear demonstration of that fact.
In terms of solving the problem, city noise ordinances should do. Unfortunately, we don't have laws against being an asshole (yet), so my advice to the submitter is "move". If he isn't kicking off any time soon, you're just going to deal with the next level of his tricks. And so on.
We also had analog sticks in the 80s. Atari made some, plus a plethora of arcade units.
Seconded. For a website full of posts about people not being able to get Java working properly in Linux, to websites going out of their way to block alternative (read: non-IE) browsers, it amazes me the number of people who have no idea that there could have been a problem here.
Java + Firefox + Ubuntu works just tickety-boo on my desktop. The Canadian census site didn't seem to think so, and I had to revert to the spare Windows laptop I had kicking around. Highly annoying.
Canadian government: not everyone runs Windows. And you don't need a Java applet to securely upload my address and ethnicity. Ever heard of SSL?
Shashdot readers: Java is still problematic for some (shocker!). Many websites still try to lock out non-MS platforms (shocker!).
Thankfully my bank (RBC) is smart enough to have figured this out years ago. I've been using their site with Linux for 5+ years now.
Some Canadian numbers for you.
Roughly 55,000 kids go missing each year here. Vast majority are runaways. A few hundred get taken by their parents. A few dozen are abducted by "strangers"; note that "A Stranger Abduction is defined as an abduction by individual(s) other than the subject's parent or guardian."
A lot of these "stranger" abductions are actually other family members - uncles, aunts, grandparents. Basically, most kids that actually get abducted are the result of custody cases gone bad. The actual number of honest-to-goodness, being picked up off the street at random cases is in the single digits annually, from what I can find. Maybe a dozen or two if you feel generous.
Children are about as likely to be hit by lightning as be abducted by a stranger. But you wouldn't know that by listening to the media - or from the constant "Amber alerts".
O <=== joke
/|\ <=== you
:)
O
|
/ \
Don't worry though, I've never actually used an electronic voting machine, I'm just an ignorant fool
There's a reason that Diebold's banking and ATM machines are massively secure and auditable
It's because ATM machines require a PIN number in order to withdraw as little as $20 dollars. Duh.
It isn't a load of crap.
Just this past weekend I had to switch providers, and of course verify the connection without a router or other firewall in between me and the outside world.
Firewall software on the laptop picked up 139 attempts within the first 60 seconds. Within 5 minutes I had well over a dozen common ports being probed: the usual NetBIOS ports, 1433, 1434, 21, 80, 23, 69, and a few others.
Didn't see a single port 22 attempt in the 5 hours I left the laptop "naked". Haven't bothered to check the router's logs since as it drops just about everything.
It isn't Microsoft bashing to point out that the vast majority of computers on the Internet run Windows, and the vast majority of scans aim at common open Windows ports. Hell, there are botnets still running that haven't changed in 5 years or more, still going at the old Win95/98 "single character password" crack.
Enable it by default. This makes some geeks who don't want it a bit annoyed, but makes everyone else happy.
:)
Actually, in the case of Microsoft's products of the past decade, it's led to an amazing number of worms that have made front page headlines, and caused (by some estimates) billions of dollars in lost productivity.
The Microsoft attitude of "enable by default", for *normal users*, is what has turned them into the laughing stock of the industry. Too bad everyone still gives them money
SOME things should be turned on by default, no question - automatic updates, etc. MOST things shouldn't - history shows this pretty clearly.
Sad as it may seem, this is what many in the pro-life camp believe. Also what many in the "embryonic stem cell research is evil" camp believe.
Hey, these people thought dancing to Rock and Roll encouraged devil worship. Don't expect logic here.
who gives items away in game simply because the character standing before them is female? That's just stupid
Stupid, yes. Which many men online are.
This isn't a new phenomenon at all, and it extends well beyond some valueless free object in a videogame. Some men are so desparate for female attention, or just want to look like the big hero, or just like showing off to women, or whatever their reason is... that they'll actually give away free REAL-WORLD stuff to someone that they think is a woman. Free computer hardware, free books, free CDs full of pirated software because "oh, my internet connection just isn't as fast as yours tee hee".
These men will pay the postage, spend the time mailing things out, often even going to a local store to buy said items - all for nothing in return. And they'll do it again and again, with zero actual proof that said "woman" is so. No picture, no voice chat, just some text on their screen or an avatar in a video game.
Some will even travel halfway across the continent just for a slight chance of meeting said "woman".
I could have written a PhD thesis on this subject if only we had been rigorous with our testing methods.
Does Wireless Cause Cancer?
(Score:5, Funny)
Do not mod this funny.
Do not mod this Informative.
There was a rash of news stories a few months back up here in the Great White North. Some poor kid got abducted and as it was a slow news day (WWIII hadn't broken out yet), the media was awash with abduction stories.
Apparenly last year in Canada there were something like 30,000 cases of child abduction. Might not be the exact number, but it was in the tens of thousdands. OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!! The news stories focussed on what laws we need, how we can save the children, how the Internet is a bad place, don't let your chilren do anything in public without you, blah blah blah.
In only ONE of the news stories did ANYONE talk about just who was doing the abducting. Of course, it was pretty much always the parents or some other family member. This story had a very short summary of how many kids in Canada last year were abducted by complete strangers:
5.
That's right, FIVE. We're about to re-write our laws, do some stupid reactionary crap, demonize the Internet, lock our kids in protective bubbles, because 5 kids got abducted. Never mind the 29,995 taken by their parents, we don't have to worry about those!
Incidentally, we just had our first Amber Alert(TM) here in Calgary. The city used the Emergency Broadcast System for this. Considering we've had several tornado warnings lately, it scared the hell out of me to hear that blaring from the TV.
Turns out, the kid was abducted by her mother, and as almost always happens in these cases, was returned safely. *sigh* I remember the days when the EBS was used for things like incoming nukes or earthquakes.
Nope, those are what the government uses to scare the adults.
Question:
I've been seeing those annoying ING commercials for years now. They claim "high interest", but with most banks these days that just means 0.3% instead of 0.2% annually.
You're the first person I've ever seen advocating those accounts - what kind of interest do you actually see? How much work is it to put money in or pull it out when you choose to?