Ideas do not "cause terrorism". Anger, disillusionment, hopelessness, unemployment, fear... Those enable terrorism. A happy healthy mind is not going to go off the rails when presented with hateful or intolerant ideas.
Both Gimp and Photoshop interfaces leave a great deal to be desired. Once I fought my way through Photoshop, I became just tolerably comfortable with it. Now I am fighting my way through Gimp. Gimp's just as non-intuitive. It feels worse because habits from Photoshop make me look first in the wrong places. I'll learn. I'll curse.
I think it has most to do with what one learns first on.
I don't want to have to "discover" basic functionality. I want a UI that makes it possible to use the device for the basics without consulting instructions or other users, at least as much as possible. I have an ancient iphone 4s and have refused all OS "updates". The more recent UIs don't appeal to me. I really don't care if the icons are flatter looking if I can't figure out what they are. I'm looking at Android for my next phone.
That's the problem (or one of the many problems). After a short while, I gave up on siri. It's OK for slow text to type conversion, but for controlling the phone or doing research? Useless - in my world. You must be better at it.
There was no ad blocker for broadcast TV way back when. Ads were stupid and annoying and became universally hated, and the audience gradually learned to walk away from the TV during the commercials. A few brighter lights among the ad community realized that to cut through the wall of hatred, they would have to create entertaining ads. Those who succeeded actually got people to look forward to their ads.
The internet ad community has been too lazy to notice that they could do better. Their ads need to be worth seeing. That idea has been hidden right in front of them for years. They've earned the payback they are now getting.
A lot of very bright but socially challenged folks in the online and developer world need to do a lot of growing up. It has nothing to do with "radical honesty". It has to do with spewing one's own inability to contain little frustrations out upon others. Letting loose and attacking is not honest communication. It is thoughtless treatment of others. The problem is not that the recipient is weak or can't play the game. The problem is that people think it is fine that they say anything, no matter how abusive, to anyone, and that there are no obligations to the rest of humanity.
I generally try to stay positive when posting in Slashdot, but in this case, I just feel negative. I don't think the government gives a hoot about cybercrime, other than when government worker accounts are compromised. There's a giant empty spot where there should be hundreds or thousands of cyber detectives.
The most civil, on topic, least histrionic meeting I can remember. From the public to library board to the local police, everyone spoke briefly and seemed to be aware there exist a valid argument on both sides. Good decision.
My suspicion - Some less than heroic adult in charge says, "Wow, it's not a bomb. It's just a clock and now I look like an idiot for calling police, whatever, so I'll just lie through my teeth and call it a "fake bomb" and escalate this more and faster so the kid gets to swing in the breeze, and unwanted attention doesn't fall on me.
There are a lot of good reasons not to require the least advantaged kids to use computers, and one is that in a tough neighborhood, that shiny laptop will get stolen and it's owner will get beat up as he/she is toting it to and from school. I don't see the wisdom in requiring computers for poor kids (and thus, not from any of them). I think it is a bad enough idea with kids who have means, but that is a discussion for another day, but for kids who's parents or guardians haven't got two nickles to rub together....
I've got to the point that I just don't care anymore whether some application is not available for Windows. I wouldn't use Windows unless forced to. That sounds way more "hatey" than I want. I just like using Linux more.
"it's the ability to recover relatively painlessly that is lacking in Linux."
Huh? If the OS borks, as I trust all will eventually, from bitrot if not my idiocy, I can just reload Linux and go on from there. No one tells me I can't do so. No one charges me anything. I don't need permission from someone at Apple or MS to fix my computer. As long as I have done real backups, I can recover from darn near anything short of a planet size asteroid collision. I'm far more worried about recovery from problems with commercial software than from things from the Linux universe.
KB maybe works for you, but my experience with it has not been so encouraging. Sometimes KB is right on, but it usually doesn't help. With Linux, once I figured out that somewhere out in the searchable web, someone has written out a detailed and workable answer to every issue I've had, I've never since worried whether an answer exists for Linux issues. I can't offer quite the same confidence for KB (on it's own). KB plus the web is, however, quite workable; mainly the web. As far as losing personal settings etc, with hundreds of flavors of Linux out there, someone's making one that requires little tweaking to feel right for most potential users. So, with a good choice of OS, you'll neither need nor want many settings and tweaks that might need to be replicated. With my favored distribution, it is pleasing and workable from the moment I finish an install, and only a few subsequent tweaks will make it darn near perfect - for me. I essentially live on the road, and sort of commute between machines I have set up. After installing on my machines once, I'm simply not bothered by concerns about ease of recovery.
Win 10 is I am sure much improved upon 8/8.1, but I find I just don't really care. I trust they learned a lot from the 8 debacle. I have 8.1 on one machine, and a couple of weeks ago hardware issues seem to have borked the Win OS. The Linux installs multi-booting on the same machine happen to be OK. It's been weeks, and I just realized I have not missed the Windows for one moment. Nada.
Win7 was the last Windows I used that I cared for, until a complex (to me) set of events rendered some critical files unreachable to me. Windows kept saying I didn't have permission to use those files. No matter that I had all permissions. I tried everything I could. Finally I realized I could use a linux live disc to move and rescue my files. First time I had used Linux productively. After Windows pulled the "you don't have permission" trick on me, I decided to try out Linux for real.
There is one Win program I really miss - MS Access - OK stop laughing at me - for my simple purposes it worked darn near miraculously and allowed me to create a really usable record of every aspect of my business. One user, me, local, simple. It allowed me the chance to gradually modify and improve my database as I learned rudimentary VB. I don't really know anything about programming other than a little VBA. Bless Access. But to get away from Windows I'm willing to walk away from Access.
Other than that, I miss nothing. I'm starting to figure out the rudiments of LibreOffice Base. I don't know enough about it to know if it can or will replace Access for me. If not I'll scale back to a crappy spreadsheet workaround. I'm utterly happy with Linux Mint.
Assuming the above is heartfelt and not trolling, I'd offer the idea that kids need a basic toolkit so they can choose the life that fits them.
I don't want to find that while little Jane may have been born to be a physicist, that she'll never become one because it didn't seem important to teach science and math. Nor do I want to hear that the kid who might have been a real writer wasn't exposed to great literature early on, because literature isn't important.
It IS a good question to ask what are the true basic subjects; what comprises the basic mental software one needs for a successful launch into life. Maybe I see the world too selectively - through the lens of my education - but math, reading, including some of the great literature, writing, history, social studies, earth and natural sciences, a dash of physics, all of those seem indispensable to me.
Education allows us to become the economic creatures we must be, but there's more. We are dealing with human beings, who benefit enormously from having the mental image of the topics we call the humanities. We must offer some form of art, probably both different and beyond exposure to some real literature.
And, both for our economic role, and for our role as a citizen, somehow we must teach critical thinking, the ability to sniff out the phonies, the scammers, the liars, panderers, the too easy answers. Boy do we need that.
And I'd say we need all the above way more than we need to teach coding to everyone. No mistake; coding is important. I have no trouble with coding as an elective. It's just not a core skill.
Were this a 30 or 40 YO, I'd say toss him into some place with high thick walls. For a very long time.
But this is a kid, and kids are pliable enough to learn. Even kids as stupid as this one. Heck, kids who have got sucked into third world warlord conflicts, and who have committed horrendous crimes - in person - have been known to be capable of rehabilitation. This one may be too. I don't buy the throw away the key philosophy when it is a kid.
Regardless, this is not a victimless crime. He should be directly under an adult responsible thumb for a very long time, be responsible for building a worthwhile life as the judge indicated, and as a condition of parole or release, not have access to computer or smart phone or even dumb phone, for a long time. He needs to live an analog life.
Slashdot Mirror
"...we have decided to reverse the software upgrade so that..."
"upgrade", sure.
Ideas do not "cause terrorism".
Anger, disillusionment, hopelessness, unemployment, fear... Those enable terrorism. A happy healthy mind is not going to go off the rails when presented with hateful or intolerant ideas.
Guess I can scratch them off my list.
Guess I shouldn't trust Lenovo or Dell for new machines.
Both Gimp and Photoshop interfaces leave a great deal to be desired. Once I fought my way through Photoshop, I became just tolerably comfortable with it. Now I am fighting my way through Gimp. Gimp's just as non-intuitive. It feels worse because habits from Photoshop make me look first in the wrong places. I'll learn. I'll curse.
I think it has most to do with what one learns first on.
I don't want to have to "discover" basic functionality. I want a UI that makes it possible to use the device for the basics without consulting instructions or other users, at least as much as possible. I have an ancient iphone 4s and have refused all OS "updates". The more recent UIs don't appeal to me. I really don't care if the icons are flatter looking if I can't figure out what they are. I'm looking at Android for my next phone.
That's the problem (or one of the many problems). After a short while, I gave up on siri. It's OK for slow text to type conversion, but for controlling the phone or doing research? Useless - in my world. You must be better at it.
There are no words for this.
Seriously. This is nuts.
Regulations. Security, quality, reliability, good engineering.... All cost something.
There was no ad blocker for broadcast TV way back when. Ads were stupid and annoying and became universally hated, and the audience gradually learned to walk away from the TV during the commercials. A few brighter lights among the ad community realized that to cut through the wall of hatred, they would have to create entertaining ads. Those who succeeded actually got people to look forward to their ads.
The internet ad community has been too lazy to notice that they could do better. Their ads need to be worth seeing. That idea has been hidden right in front of them for years. They've earned the payback they are now getting.
A lot of very bright but socially challenged folks in the online and developer world need to do a lot of growing up. It has nothing to do with "radical honesty". It has to do with spewing one's own inability to contain little frustrations out upon others. Letting loose and attacking is not honest communication. It is thoughtless treatment of others. The problem is not that the recipient is weak or can't play the game. The problem is that people think it is fine that they say anything, no matter how abusive, to anyone, and that there are no obligations to the rest of humanity.
I generally try to stay positive when posting in Slashdot, but in this case, I just feel negative. I don't think the government gives a hoot about cybercrime, other than when government worker accounts are compromised. There's a giant empty spot where there should be hundreds or thousands of cyber detectives.
Not sure TV, cable, or movies are places to learn our history. And sadly, History Channel has fallen apart.
Remember: "If you are not the customer, you're the product."? I don't remember ever seeing "You are the customer AND you are the product."
The most civil, on topic, least histrionic meeting I can remember. From the public to library board to the local police, everyone spoke briefly and seemed to be aware there exist a valid argument on both sides. Good decision.
My suspicion - Some less than heroic adult in charge says, "Wow, it's not a bomb. It's just a clock and now I look like an idiot for calling police, whatever, so I'll just lie through my teeth and call it a "fake bomb" and escalate this more and faster so the kid gets to swing in the breeze, and unwanted attention doesn't fall on me.
I agree with the point.
There are a lot of good reasons not to require the least advantaged kids to use computers, and one is that in a tough neighborhood, that shiny laptop will get stolen and it's owner will get beat up as he/she is toting it to and from school. I don't see the wisdom in requiring computers for poor kids (and thus, not from any of them). I think it is a bad enough idea with kids who have means, but that is a discussion for another day, but for kids who's parents or guardians haven't got two nickles to rub together....
I've got to the point that I just don't care anymore whether some application is not available for Windows. I wouldn't use Windows unless forced to. That sounds way more "hatey" than I want. I just like using Linux more.
"it's the ability to recover relatively painlessly that is lacking in Linux." Huh? If the OS borks, as I trust all will eventually, from bitrot if not my idiocy, I can just reload Linux and go on from there. No one tells me I can't do so. No one charges me anything. I don't need permission from someone at Apple or MS to fix my computer. As long as I have done real backups, I can recover from darn near anything short of a planet size asteroid collision. I'm far more worried about recovery from problems with commercial software than from things from the Linux universe. KB maybe works for you, but my experience with it has not been so encouraging. Sometimes KB is right on, but it usually doesn't help. With Linux, once I figured out that somewhere out in the searchable web, someone has written out a detailed and workable answer to every issue I've had, I've never since worried whether an answer exists for Linux issues. I can't offer quite the same confidence for KB (on it's own). KB plus the web is, however, quite workable; mainly the web. As far as losing personal settings etc, with hundreds of flavors of Linux out there, someone's making one that requires little tweaking to feel right for most potential users. So, with a good choice of OS, you'll neither need nor want many settings and tweaks that might need to be replicated. With my favored distribution, it is pleasing and workable from the moment I finish an install, and only a few subsequent tweaks will make it darn near perfect - for me. I essentially live on the road, and sort of commute between machines I have set up. After installing on my machines once, I'm simply not bothered by concerns about ease of recovery.
Win 10 is I am sure much improved upon 8/8.1, but I find I just don't really care. I trust they learned a lot from the 8 debacle. I have 8.1 on one machine, and a couple of weeks ago hardware issues seem to have borked the Win OS. The Linux installs multi-booting on the same machine happen to be OK. It's been weeks, and I just realized I have not missed the Windows for one moment. Nada. Win7 was the last Windows I used that I cared for, until a complex (to me) set of events rendered some critical files unreachable to me. Windows kept saying I didn't have permission to use those files. No matter that I had all permissions. I tried everything I could. Finally I realized I could use a linux live disc to move and rescue my files. First time I had used Linux productively. After Windows pulled the "you don't have permission" trick on me, I decided to try out Linux for real. There is one Win program I really miss - MS Access - OK stop laughing at me - for my simple purposes it worked darn near miraculously and allowed me to create a really usable record of every aspect of my business. One user, me, local, simple. It allowed me the chance to gradually modify and improve my database as I learned rudimentary VB. I don't really know anything about programming other than a little VBA. Bless Access. But to get away from Windows I'm willing to walk away from Access. Other than that, I miss nothing. I'm starting to figure out the rudiments of LibreOffice Base. I don't know enough about it to know if it can or will replace Access for me. If not I'll scale back to a crappy spreadsheet workaround. I'm utterly happy with Linux Mint.
Most of these over the top postings from anonymous cowards are just sad.
Assuming the above is heartfelt and not trolling, I'd offer the idea that kids need a basic toolkit so they can choose the life that fits them. I don't want to find that while little Jane may have been born to be a physicist, that she'll never become one because it didn't seem important to teach science and math. Nor do I want to hear that the kid who might have been a real writer wasn't exposed to great literature early on, because literature isn't important. It IS a good question to ask what are the true basic subjects; what comprises the basic mental software one needs for a successful launch into life. Maybe I see the world too selectively - through the lens of my education - but math, reading, including some of the great literature, writing, history, social studies, earth and natural sciences, a dash of physics, all of those seem indispensable to me. Education allows us to become the economic creatures we must be, but there's more. We are dealing with human beings, who benefit enormously from having the mental image of the topics we call the humanities. We must offer some form of art, probably both different and beyond exposure to some real literature. And, both for our economic role, and for our role as a citizen, somehow we must teach critical thinking, the ability to sniff out the phonies, the scammers, the liars, panderers, the too easy answers. Boy do we need that. And I'd say we need all the above way more than we need to teach coding to everyone. No mistake; coding is important. I have no trouble with coding as an elective. It's just not a core skill.
Were this a 30 or 40 YO, I'd say toss him into some place with high thick walls. For a very long time. But this is a kid, and kids are pliable enough to learn. Even kids as stupid as this one. Heck, kids who have got sucked into third world warlord conflicts, and who have committed horrendous crimes - in person - have been known to be capable of rehabilitation. This one may be too. I don't buy the throw away the key philosophy when it is a kid. Regardless, this is not a victimless crime. He should be directly under an adult responsible thumb for a very long time, be responsible for building a worthwhile life as the judge indicated, and as a condition of parole or release, not have access to computer or smart phone or even dumb phone, for a long time. He needs to live an analog life.
That police forces are too often becoming quasi military is a real, huge, valid issue, and it concerns me, but it is not the issue here.