You only needed to use the correct phrases.:P "hutterite colony" or "hutterite colony dakota" returned quite a few. Namely, a little history. I wasn't aware that this people group was so prevailant in Canada, but apparently so.
They're an interesting bunch. They still speak german (although it's an old dialect, and quite disimilar to what is now German) on the colonies, and resort to english out of necessity when talking business with the outside world. They try and avoid doing business with outsiders, being as they're often cheated and the like. They're fairly selective with who they trust. (I know this because my father is an engineer, and has done a fair amount of work for the colonies in the Dakotas.)
It's also interesting to see how much hutterites can vary in such a small geographical region - sometimes you'll see them out shopping or such. Each colony seems to make it's own rules that everyone decides on concerning things like dress, and what is acceptable. They generally stick to colorful dresses for the women and girls w/ a little black cap on their hair, and white shirts with black pants and suspenders (with a fedora) for the men. Men grow a beard once they're married, but not before. As a general rule, they're fairly literate for agricultural types, but don't tend to go much higher than high school.
As I said before, people are allowed to join under certain conditions (I think - this might just be in terms of people that have left previously), and people are allowed to leave if they find the environment does not suit them. They're also allowed to marry between the colonies (which I figure are several hundred people strong, around here). I've known a couple families that have left the colonies and continued in fairly similar cultural traditions. Most of the people in this region of the country are actually descendants of Hutterite settlers - most names here are german names of hutterite settlers.:P Tschetter, Hanzon, Hanson, Wipf, Mendel, etc.
Physiologically, it's also interesting to see how varied they can be between the various communes. Some have fairly good physique and facial structure. Some are hideous and kind of blobbish. Still some others are downright stunning - particularly the women.:P You'll sometimes see a group of their women walking about malls (men don't do that kind of thing:P), or eating in a restraunt (which they tend to do on their routine trips to town). Almost invariably, everyone in each particular group has a similar body structure. I imagine a lot of it has to do with diet, but surely it's breeding as well. The three most common physical features that are shared amongst the hutterites and the descendants of the people that have left the colony are (as I've observed them): plumpness/chubbyness, oddly pigmented skin (somewhat like what a redhaired irishman's, but also somewhat in appearance similar to cold cheeks after coming in from a blizzard), and huge asses (at least on the women). Though, that depends on colony as well. Some are quite slender - it's just not common.
I believe (I'm not completely sure) that they will sometimes send their children to public schools, if their child so requests it. I think that might only be for high school, though. I recall seeing a couple hutterite girls about school at one time or another - possibly just for extra-curricular stuff.
Oh, the contrary. It has been tried: have you not heard of the commercialist commune?
They exist throughout the Midwest. They have a central theology that they share, and they stick to it. These communes have been around for about 150 years, I'd imagine: when they get so large that they're not easily managed in a commune manner, they split.
Just FYI, the people that live in these communes are Hutterites - somewhat like a Menonite, but with more of an Amish bent. They're good people, overall, though some are more crooked than others. Some communes are better than the others, and they each have their own distinct culture. They manage things from an economical standpoint, with their 'preacher-type' (IIRC) being the overall manager of the commune. I'm not sure how they pick this person, but it might be hereditary, and it might be an electorial vote. I don't know the specifics.
At any rate, there's probably about 100 of such communes scattered across the dakotas. So my arguement about the proper management being key still holds.:)
I'll go a step even further and say that I think WP51 was a step above what's out there now, to a large degree, and that we've gone backwards for 'features'.
Most of these features do nothing. Sure, some are nice: pretty formatting, and other things of that ilk. There are even some that are genuinely helpful, such as revision information. However, it seems to me that more time is spent tinkering with fonts and layout interface to make it -look- nice, than to actually make sure that it -is- nice. It's the same basic idea behind a student 'padding' his paper by using 12.3 point font instead of the required 12, and an extra.15 on the margins, because the teacher probably won't notice. It's cutting corners so people think you're doing work.
Such a thing would likely require the nationalization of all resources in the country. That includes private businesses, corporations, etc. Such a thing would likely only occur under a "do or die" kind of scenario, and even then it's doubtful.
It would also require the gov't to not be as power hungry as is human nature. Maybe, if you were to get a bunch of eunuch, buddhist monks to rule the country, it could be done. But otherwise, I doubt it.
Also, as a result of everyone being able to do what they want to do, nothing would get done. Roads don't get paved by themselves. Same goes for buildings - someone has to construct them. Generally, I'd think that the people doing this work would rather be doing something else with their time. Rarely do I hear people say, "you knwo what I'd like to do with my life? road construction. I find it so fulfilling!" As a result, people would have to be told what to do, in order to get the work done. And that simply wouldn't work.
Well, we could start a commune. Seriously. I know that's kind of a linux hippie kind of thing to say, but I don't think there's anything inherrently wrong with communism, or any other form of government, really. It's simply in how it's managed.
Buy some otherwise-useless piece of farm land from a farmer somewhere in the continential US of A. Let everyone know you're starting a contractural commune: you either have to work, or you get kicked out.
You organize on the internet: get a core of people with practical skills in the area of labor/construction, animal and crop maintainance, as well as people with various other levels of experience in various other fields: engineering (a must if you're going to build anything), computer science, or even folks that just work fast food - as long as they're hard workers, it won't be an issue.
At first it starts out small. People come and work - to build the infrastructure - maybe part time at first, while they work a part time job in a nearby town. Maybe you could get a company, or a couple well-to-do people to invest in the commune, with a promised return at a certain percentage rate, leaving the commune in the hands of the people that run it, completely obligation free to anyone outside.
So people start to come. You've got basic housing at first - just the basics. Maybe a communal building with individual living spaces, and a central kitchen/living room. You've got a barn, some cattle, some chickens, and some farm machinery - and you provide a diverse range of crops for the people in the commune to eat. Everyone helps in the daily tasks: at first the things like feeding the cattle, planting grain or some other plant, or maybe collecting eggs.
But then things start to pick up a bit - because people have been resourceful with their time, instead of spending it posting on slashdot or watching television, and used their skills to get income from outside the commune. An engineer gets a couple young strong men, and they start doing engineering work for local companies, farms, and the like. They increase their own quality of life by increasing that of those that are close to them. (As opposed to improving the lives of people on the other side of the world, which does not make your life better, but worse, generally.)
I think that, if you were to create an atmosphere with a strong work ethic and inter-dependence, then you'd potentially see a commune that would last. Run it like a company to the outside world, but on the inside, it's run as a commune - everyone gets an equal share of the material posessions. Keeping individuality in mind, people could leave and join the commune as they wish, provided that they don't abuse the system. They would be allowed to go to college or university on the commune dime, provided they agree to come back to the commune for a set number of years afterwards, to improve the commune with their knoweldge. Hopefully the commune atmosphere would be sufficient to make such an obligation merely token.
Meanwhile, the folks overseas have learned the business - the whole business.
My goodness. This little bit reminded me about a little fact of history: one of the major contributing factors to the fall of the Roman Empire was that Roman citizens stopped serving in the Military. Thus, the government 'outsourced' their military to the barbarians about the borders. Well, the barbarians said, "why take the piddly wages, when we could loot and plunder, and have it all!"
Now, the Roman Empire's source of power was their war machine - without it, they didn't have much to hold things together. I'd argue that the economy is America's source of power - much more so than America's war machine. While the US's war machine is substantial, if there's no economic backing, it won't exist - and it requires quite a substantial economic backing.
It really has nothing to do with knowing about business. It has to do with not knowing how to critically think, how to actually problem solve, or any of those essential traits of a real programmer. People from such schools are churned out like turds; more likely than not, if they couldn't think before going in, they won't be able to think when they come out - such schools don't teach you how to think. They teach you a skillset.
"Higher education" is supposed to be better than that, and it often is in the university setting - but I think large companies are starting to realize that Americans can't think anymore. NSYNC and Britney Spears illustrate this point well - they're mindless, and people worship them. Europe has much better pop stars. (anyway, getting back on topic...) As a result of this unthinking in America, corps realize that -at least- the same level of thought and work should be able to be accomplished overseas. So I'm assuming.
Spot on mate, spot on. Feed this guy some more mod points, someone.
It's amazing how many folks seem to think that these people we're 'helping' would do the same for us - as opposed to rising to the top and stomping us into oblivion. Look around! Examples abound of the opposite: we've got quite a few highly trained, highly paid, highly respected people that are first-generation Americans (and sometimes not even that) from impoverished countries, such as India, China, and those in the Middle East. They send their money back home to their family in their native country. Now, I don't have a problem with this act in and of itself, I'm just using it to illustrate a point: the people you 'help' in other countries by giving them a job aren't going to 'help' us in any way. Unless, of course, "us" is refering to corporations.
The world would be a lot better off if corporations as they exist now were abolished in America. Sure, there'd be less corporate/business profit. But the quality of living (throughout the world, not just the US) would improve, because smaller businesses live and die by reputation. Large ones can walk all over whoever they want, and nobody can stop them (to a degree). Take linux vs. MS as an example, if you need one.
1 fucking gigabyte just for the OS? That's obscene.
On my system:
XFree: 78Mb KDE3 w/ libraries: 45M or so base OS, with all your various GNU tools: 45M or so.
Even if you round up, that's only 180M for a modern operating system. And that's roughly as many things as you'll get for a full install of windows.
Tack on another 110M for OpenOffice. You're still nowhere near 1G. Though you're fairly close to how much space windows took up 5 years ago!
The 650M CD distro you mentioned? Probably knoppix, I'm guessing. Knoppix happens to have a shitload of devel tools, office tools, desktop games, and a bunch of other things. You mean to tell me that in 650M, you could fit half as much functionality (trying to be fair here) in windows applications? Don't waste your time trying, it won't work.
Er, they don't give a damn about staying in business. All they want to do is collect enough cash so that the large investors in SCOX (including the exectutives and current court lawyers) can collect. I suspect that most of them already have homes in Mexico, or somewhere else in the world where their wealth will be substantial enough to make their power equivilant to God's.
I doubt they've got any plans past Q2 or Q3 of next year. I'd think that they'd be overseas before then, anyway.
Bodygaurds? So what. They can't stop the One. And Tux is the One.
He's sure to go in there with herring cannons blazing, dodging their FUD pistols, and having tremendous uptime as he walks on the ceiling and across the walls.
The only time they have to release code is when they distribute binaries or other such things. WHen it's a company, it's not considered distribution, because it's just amongst that company that it's being used.
If I'm Merrill Lynch and have a trading application proprietary to Merrill Lynch and deploy it across all my trading desks, if that deployment occurred where the Linux OS and app are distributed togetherm there are arguments that Merrill would have to provide their proprietary trading application in source form to everyone. That's a problem.
Go read the GPL. Nowhere is that said. This is purely a lie to get people to not invest in linux, or to use it; the only other alternatives, of course, being SCO... and MS. SCO is likely to benefit little - their technology isn't capable of doing what most people use linux for. So MS gets the customers. Combine that with the SCO discount for converting to MS, and everything else...
I'ts pretty damned obvious to those that know even the most basic things about the GPL and IP law that SCO has no case. McBride makes inference after inference, and all of which are lies. Add them up, and to most people, it's a convincing case. Now to get this thing into court and smack him in the mouth.... but what if hte court agrees with SCO? what if money is passed under the table? this is a case of -very- high stakes, for both sides. If SCO is found in contept,or anything like that, SCO loses big time, as does MS, as now most people see them as being in bed with SCO (at least in the tech field). The other way, linux wins, big time. Talk about a stacked deck - now it depends on how it's cut.
everyone I know that has been toying with the idea of switching to linux has wanted at least one of these things before switching:
1) Macromedia creation tools - maybe wine can do the trick, but not likely.
2) DirectX/game support - not going to happen until the userbase is there, and even then, it's iffy - when was the last time you saw a good game for PC? not terribly frequent, are they? nearly everyone's developing for Xbox now.
3) adobe products - some work, but just barely, though wine. not an option. gimp is not an option, because it doesn't compare. neither are all the other tools - they've got nowhere near the feature list (which is invalueable in something like premiere or ps).
4) easy to configure, and then to change their configuration, from the desktop, using gui tools - people don't really care what's underneath. they want to be able to add, remove, etc. their printers and everything else. sure, there's largely hardware support available - but it's difficult for the users t oset up due to lack of cohesive gui tools.
I hate to say it, but I'd blame X for these shortcomings, largely. Sure, it does what it does well, some might say. But it is bloated, buggy, leaky, and inadequately designed for the task at hand. It's trying to do the wrong thing.
If we had a pluggable gui TK framework with a single programming interface, instead of the individualistic layering we have now, then there'd only need to be one network configuraiton tool, one printer tool, one hardware setup tool. there could even be multiple instances of each functional tool set, all approaching it in the same fashion, but: all these tools could then use the same TK, depending on the desktop used, so that there's not a) extra memory overhead, b) extra dependency requirements, and c) an ugly, incongruous desktop. Additionally, TKs wouldn't have to duplicate silly things, like AA fonts, OGL support, and the like.
Likewise, dialog boxes (save document, etc.) should also be pluggable, so that anyone using any application can use the file navigation method that they want (or that the distribution packager decides). This way someone using GIMP would get the same
I'd say that doing this does indeed need an X rewrite, because the above illustrated design is not possible with the current TK-on-X arrangement. the current situation on the desktop is chaos, at least compared to the majority of other major functionality. With X, everything runs on top of X. With apache, the kernel, emacs, and various other mature projects, things are modular. You don't write a userland hardware driver. You don't use CGI to process PHP. It's modular.
People say "but linux is about choice", and i'd agree. However, X currently doesn't provide any choice: if the average user wants to use a graphical interface, it's a fairly safe bet that they'll be using X. In that case, they're stuck with everything: not GTK or QT, but both; that is, if they want any semblance of a desktop that's comparable to windows.
The perspective that most linux users seem to take is one of the old school unix user, even though most of them are not. "X works fine, that's what X is supposed to do". I'd agree, if the competition was Windows 3.1 w/ modern hardware support with OGL and other 'modern' features - because that's what it amounts to, in my mind. I'm not saying, "the GUI should be integral to the OS", but that the GUI is indeed integral to the desktop, and cohesion is necessary in that regard.
Apple recently realized that their OS and GUI infrastructure from the last millenium was inadequate for the future, integrating OGL into the core of the GUI, vector graphics for everything, and the like. MS has apparently realized this as well about their own products, what with Longhorn looming on the horizion, and is transitioning everything to.NET. Could MS and Apple have tacked the new features onto their existing OS codebase? Sure, but the result would h
as much as I enjoyed playing NWN, it's still just a souless video game.
Recently, I picked up playing pen and paper D&D. It's unimagineably more fun. Less repetitive, more focus on throught and problem solving, and more dynamic overall. That, and imagining a world in your mind is many times more addictive and involving than one on a screen - especially if you envision the world differently than the game creators made it.
I can't say I've played many video games at all in the last while. Especially fantasy RPGs.
I was homeschooled for preschool. I then went to public school until grade 6, at which time I was homeschooled for 3 years. I then graduated high school in 3 years. I spent my 4th grade and my sophmore grade year of schooling in a private school and a a private boarding school, respectively. Every year of non-homeschool education I had up until that point was in a different school district (and often in a different state). I'm currently attending my 3rd college in as many years. Habits are hard to break.:P
My personal recommendations for homeschooling: Saxon math, and lots of writing. Make them write creatively, and write about what they've learned in their readings. Oral regurgitation is also good.
Also, don't strictly structure their learning, either - let their personalities shape what they learn, to a degree. Coming from a background of a logical father and an artsy mother myself, I really didn't need too much structure to learn well. The paradigm of set classes for each topic, I believe, is counter-intuitive to how the human brain works, and is thus not good for learning: if you segregate topics, it's more difficult to combine them and use the combined knowledge in an applicable manner. It's the kind of thing that leads to illogical artists and unartistic programmers.
It's good to see you're teaching your kids logic structure at an early age. I wish I'd gotten more of that; it'd make things like mathmatics (which I find fairly difficult, considering) a lot easier.
Anyway... hopefully this isn't too opinionated for you.:P
Yes! I'd have mentioned some of these things myself, but the original poster was mainly talking about university level.
My personal concepts of education is that it should be more as you describe. Personally, I was homeschooled, and I've both appreciated and regretted the fact since then: I'm thankful that I know how to think, but it pisses me off to no end that others haven't the concept of a clue.
Critical thinking skills should be taught at a young age, most certainly. They should be some of the first things taught. Too many lessions are spent on the ABCs and 123's in the younger grades, and not nearly enough on actual problem solving.
The problem only compounds itself, when students aren't required to digest, internalize, and regurgitate the information they're taught: they get multiple choice instead of essay exams. This behavior encourages a very minimal comprehension of the subject, poor learning habits, and (in general) illiteracy.
Exactly. The basic concept you illustrate is what I'm partially griping about. It's rediculous.
I recently had a particularly slow-speaking professor (who requires attendance, possibly because nobody would show otherwise - the course work is tedious, but easy). I was doing some of the assigned work, reading the text book, and the like, while he spoke. I'd occassionally look up and listen for a moment or to, to see if he'd moved onto the next topic (which he'd summarize in one sentence, then go on to talk for eternity without getting anywhere). This professor "told" me several times that I wasn't allowed to do the course work in class (which last 3 hours). It happened the next day of class as well.
Turns out I was reduced 'attendance' points for not paying attention while there - no different than anyone else in the class. I aced the exam for the course, and I'd finished quite a while ahead of everyone else, as well. Just rediculous, how egotistical some of these professors are.
You Sir represent *exactly* the attitude the original poster was decrying.
If that is so, then he did a piss poor job representing it with the english language.
If a teacher is not interested in their topic, and is a listless fish at a podium, the material is not interesting. It's damned difficult to stay awake. Personally, the -only- time I'm bored is when I'm in such a class. I don't watch TV (and have watched precious little in the past) so I am not plagued by this thing called a "short attention span".
Topically, one's own inability to interest one's self is the only setback. Usually, the case is that the material itself is quite riveting, but the prof is so bored that he sucks the energy from the room. There are exceptions, but my experience is that, more times than not, they act as if they'd rather be somewhere else.
I learned how to spell in grade school. Later, I learned that there's no point to spelling provided you come close, and keep general language rules in mind. Unbeknown to you, some of us have difficulty with such things. That, and there's also tyopographical errors.
Is there something that is PREVENTING you from reading the great papers? Preventing you from thinking independent thoughts?
Yes. Pointless asignments from professors that are too lazy to teach. Tests that measure one's guessing ability instead of their ability to pull everything together into a single coherrent idea.
The vast majority of campus faculty are desperately hoping that in each class, there will be one or two students who are not sheep, and who wonder about boundaries, and what is beyond them.
I don't know which schools you speak of, but I've been to three, and have rarely seen such a professor. If they were, they wouldn't teach their classes with passing a certain percentage in mind: they'd teach them with making everyone work for their grade. Last I checked, the reason beind having 12-16 credit hours be a full course is that it's expected that those 16 hours a week are padded out to 30+ by study. My experience is that none but the most fundamentally stupid or obsessively diligent with moderate intelligence tend to study in your average college.
As far as me expecting the world to come to me, no. I do, however, expect supposed towers of learning to live up to that - especially when it's what they advertise. Academics should be above such squable.
Hrm. Interesting. I just ran these searches myself, and got contrary information to the parent.
linux on MSN: 365 linux on google: 65,100,000 windows on msn: 2373 windows on google: 67,900,000
This is contrary to the 95,000,000 search results for linux that are reported in the article. What's the deal? Maybe an ISP cache of google that's outdated?
Also, there's roughly a:
(using the 95 million figure) 260274/1 search ratio on linux for google/msn 28614/1 search ratio on windows for google/msn
You sir, are ignorant to assume that degree == (education || learning). A degree is a piece of paper from an institution that indicates that you are not a complete bafoon, and that you are employable. Nothing more. I've considered the validity of my desire to finish school every semester - and before that, every year of high school. However, do I hold education in low regard? No. Quite the contrary - to the extent that I have been continually lauded by teachers, peers, professors, and others for my knowledge, insight, and whatever else they seem deemable of esteem.
My gripe with the education system - and particularly higher institutions of learning, which should know better - is that they dumb the stuff down for the least common denominator, can't think of an interesting way to teach it for the life of them, and for the most part, hardly know the subject themselves (at least in an applicable manner). The most underlying problem, though, is that most teachers (or professors) are not students themselves: learning, curiosity, and problem solving aren't terribly interesting to them anymore.
I've run into CS professors that couldn't program. I've run into (an almost-tenured) English professor that wouldn't know good writing if it ripped their face off, let alone proper grammar. I've run into people with masters in communication that have no knowledge of the history of various industries, let alone modern methods used. The list goes on, but I need to stop before I get too frustrated.
Who gets the blame? The professors, surely, for not being adept. But the institution that hired them, as well, for hiring retards. The schools that gave these people their degrees and doctorates in the first place, as well. How about their secondary schooling? That's at fault as well, for not teaching them (at least) how to think critically (deductive logic) and learn on their own. I'd partially blame the plethora of students that tend to go to 4-year schools for education nowadays: it's turned your average university into simply a festering wound for these magots to crawl around in, get drunk, etc. - as opposed to an institution of higher learning that has prestigous requirements, schools their students well, and turns out a very high percentage of leaders. The excess of required programs that students are required to take are utter garbage, things that should have been learned in high school (first and second year english spring to mind).
Needless to say, you've stepped on a very sore foot. I don't contest the things you've said about the list of things to go on "the list", as they seem fairly on target to me. It was simply that one statement that set me aflame.
I'm sure I'll get moderated as flamebait for this, but.... I hardly doubt anyone here has any advice that's either informed or from the perspective you're looking for.
By this I mean two simple things: most slashdot folks are likely 16 through 27 or so (I'd imagine, since they're likely to have the most free time), are extremely liberal (most liberal folks I know are of the "don't discipline your child, it might scar him - until he's a teenager, then start", and "let kids do what they want, they're intelligent" persuasion - which is not to say all are), and are more likely to not have a family than to have one.
All these conditions, in my mind, make any advice gotten here something you might not want to consider.
That being said, this 21 y/o father and husband thinks that if, by the time they're 12 or 13, and they're still lying to you, something was done wrong from the beginning. There's evidently a trust issue. Recalling back to the few years to my adolecense, I'd say that this lack of trust is likely due to the fact that they're alienated by you and/or see you as the enemy.
My experience is that if you're the enemy (and I don't just mean your child is upset with you for a couple days, I'm talking about long-term resentment and/or distrust), then it's most likely that you weren't open enough with them when they were younger, aren't open enough with them now, and communication lines need to be cut and re-laid. Tell them that you trust them. Let them know that they've got someone they can talk to if they need to. Be interested in -them-, and care about the things they do. This means spend time with them if they'll allow it. Develop a report with them more sophisticated than the simple "this is how my day was" kind of conversation. You'll thank yourself later.
As for the actual guidelines that I'd suggest (from a fairly liberal-right kind of guy): back off for now, and develop that relationship. If that doesn't seem to be working, let them know that you don't appreciate it. Check their browser caches and/or history, if you're paranoid and/or want to be restrictive of their behavior: if they're bad, let them know about the harms/dangers of whatever they're doing, don't chastize them or punish them. By the time a kid reaches adolecense, they're likely too independent (depending on the kid) to be disciplined effectively, unless the infraction is quite severe. Dolling out punishments like cheap doctor's office candy just causes hatred towards you - they'll see you as being mean.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, I forgot to mention: they're always as stoical as a corpse. Kind of unsettling. :P
And I'm not in high school now; my recollection on those events is 4 or so years dated, in case you wondered.
You only needed to use the correct phrases. :P "hutterite colony" or "hutterite colony dakota" returned quite a few. Namely, a little history. I wasn't aware that this people group was so prevailant in Canada, but apparently so.
:P Tschetter, Hanzon, Hanson, Wipf, Mendel, etc.
:P You'll sometimes see a group of their women walking about malls (men don't do that kind of thing :P), or eating in a restraunt (which they tend to do on their routine trips to town). Almost invariably, everyone in each particular group has a similar body structure. I imagine a lot of it has to do with diet, but surely it's breeding as well. The three most common physical features that are shared amongst the hutterites and the descendants of the people that have left the colony are (as I've observed them): plumpness/chubbyness, oddly pigmented skin (somewhat like what a redhaired irishman's, but also somewhat in appearance similar to cold cheeks after coming in from a blizzard), and huge asses (at least on the women). Though, that depends on colony as well. Some are quite slender - it's just not common.
They're an interesting bunch. They still speak german (although it's an old dialect, and quite disimilar to what is now German) on the colonies, and resort to english out of necessity when talking business with the outside world. They try and avoid doing business with outsiders, being as they're often cheated and the like. They're fairly selective with who they trust. (I know this because my father is an engineer, and has done a fair amount of work for the colonies in the Dakotas.)
It's also interesting to see how much hutterites can vary in such a small geographical region - sometimes you'll see them out shopping or such. Each colony seems to make it's own rules that everyone decides on concerning things like dress, and what is acceptable. They generally stick to colorful dresses for the women and girls w/ a little black cap on their hair, and white shirts with black pants and suspenders (with a fedora) for the men. Men grow a beard once they're married, but not before. As a general rule, they're fairly literate for agricultural types, but don't tend to go much higher than high school.
As I said before, people are allowed to join under certain conditions (I think - this might just be in terms of people that have left previously), and people are allowed to leave if they find the environment does not suit them. They're also allowed to marry between the colonies (which I figure are several hundred people strong, around here). I've known a couple families that have left the colonies and continued in fairly similar cultural traditions. Most of the people in this region of the country are actually descendants of Hutterite settlers - most names here are german names of hutterite settlers.
Physiologically, it's also interesting to see how varied they can be between the various communes. Some have fairly good physique and facial structure. Some are hideous and kind of blobbish. Still some others are downright stunning - particularly the women.
I believe (I'm not completely sure) that they will sometimes send their children to public schools, if their child so requests it. I think that might only be for high school, though. I recall seeing a couple hutterite girls about school at one time or another - possibly just for extra-curricular stuff.
Oh, the contrary. It has been tried: have you not heard of the commercialist commune?
:)
They exist throughout the Midwest. They have a central theology that they share, and they stick to it. These communes have been around for about 150 years, I'd imagine: when they get so large that they're not easily managed in a commune manner, they split.
Just FYI, the people that live in these communes are Hutterites - somewhat like a Menonite, but with more of an Amish bent. They're good people, overall, though some are more crooked than others. Some communes are better than the others, and they each have their own distinct culture. They manage things from an economical standpoint, with their 'preacher-type' (IIRC) being the overall manager of the commune. I'm not sure how they pick this person, but it might be hereditary, and it might be an electorial vote. I don't know the specifics.
At any rate, there's probably about 100 of such communes scattered across the dakotas. So my arguement about the proper management being key still holds.
I'll go a step even further and say that I think WP51 was a step above what's out there now, to a large degree, and that we've gone backwards for 'features'.
.15 on the margins, because the teacher probably won't notice. It's cutting corners so people think you're doing work.
Most of these features do nothing. Sure, some are nice: pretty formatting, and other things of that ilk. There are even some that are genuinely helpful, such as revision information. However, it seems to me that more time is spent tinkering with fonts and layout interface to make it -look- nice, than to actually make sure that it -is- nice. It's the same basic idea behind a student 'padding' his paper by using 12.3 point font instead of the required 12, and an extra
Such a thing would likely require the nationalization of all resources in the country. That includes private businesses, corporations, etc. Such a thing would likely only occur under a "do or die" kind of scenario, and even then it's doubtful.
It would also require the gov't to not be as power hungry as is human nature. Maybe, if you were to get a bunch of eunuch, buddhist monks to rule the country, it could be done. But otherwise, I doubt it.
Also, as a result of everyone being able to do what they want to do, nothing would get done. Roads don't get paved by themselves. Same goes for buildings - someone has to construct them. Generally, I'd think that the people doing this work would rather be doing something else with their time. Rarely do I hear people say, "you knwo what I'd like to do with my life? road construction. I find it so fulfilling!" As a result, people would have to be told what to do, in order to get the work done. And that simply wouldn't work.
Well, we could start a commune. Seriously. I know that's kind of a linux hippie kind of thing to say, but I don't think there's anything inherrently wrong with communism, or any other form of government, really. It's simply in how it's managed.
Buy some otherwise-useless piece of farm land from a farmer somewhere in the continential US of A. Let everyone know you're starting a contractural commune: you either have to work, or you get kicked out.
You organize on the internet: get a core of people with practical skills in the area of labor/construction, animal and crop maintainance, as well as people with various other levels of experience in various other fields: engineering (a must if you're going to build anything), computer science, or even folks that just work fast food - as long as they're hard workers, it won't be an issue.
At first it starts out small. People come and work - to build the infrastructure - maybe part time at first, while they work a part time job in a nearby town. Maybe you could get a company, or a couple well-to-do people to invest in the commune, with a promised return at a certain percentage rate, leaving the commune in the hands of the people that run it, completely obligation free to anyone outside.
So people start to come. You've got basic housing at first - just the basics. Maybe a communal building with individual living spaces, and a central kitchen/living room. You've got a barn, some cattle, some chickens, and some farm machinery - and you provide a diverse range of crops for the people in the commune to eat. Everyone helps in the daily tasks: at first the things like feeding the cattle, planting grain or some other plant, or maybe collecting eggs.
But then things start to pick up a bit - because people have been resourceful with their time, instead of spending it posting on slashdot or watching television, and used their skills to get income from outside the commune. An engineer gets a couple young strong men, and they start doing engineering work for local companies, farms, and the like. They increase their own quality of life by increasing that of those that are close to them. (As opposed to improving the lives of people on the other side of the world, which does not make your life better, but worse, generally.)
I think that, if you were to create an atmosphere with a strong work ethic and inter-dependence, then you'd potentially see a commune that would last. Run it like a company to the outside world, but on the inside, it's run as a commune - everyone gets an equal share of the material posessions. Keeping individuality in mind, people could leave and join the commune as they wish, provided that they don't abuse the system. They would be allowed to go to college or university on the commune dime, provided they agree to come back to the commune for a set number of years afterwards, to improve the commune with their knoweldge. Hopefully the commune atmosphere would be sufficient to make such an obligation merely token.
Meanwhile, the folks overseas have learned the business - the whole business.
My goodness. This little bit reminded me about a little fact of history: one of the major contributing factors to the fall of the Roman Empire was that Roman citizens stopped serving in the Military. Thus, the government 'outsourced' their military to the barbarians about the borders. Well, the barbarians said, "why take the piddly wages, when we could loot and plunder, and have it all!"
Now, the Roman Empire's source of power was their war machine - without it, they didn't have much to hold things together. I'd argue that the economy is America's source of power - much more so than America's war machine. While the US's war machine is substantial, if there's no economic backing, it won't exist - and it requires quite a substantial economic backing.
It really has nothing to do with knowing about business. It has to do with not knowing how to critically think, how to actually problem solve, or any of those essential traits of a real programmer. People from such schools are churned out like turds; more likely than not, if they couldn't think before going in, they won't be able to think when they come out - such schools don't teach you how to think. They teach you a skillset.
"Higher education" is supposed to be better than that, and it often is in the university setting - but I think large companies are starting to realize that Americans can't think anymore. NSYNC and Britney Spears illustrate this point well - they're mindless, and people worship them. Europe has much better pop stars. (anyway, getting back on topic...)
As a result of this unthinking in America, corps realize that -at least- the same level of thought and work should be able to be accomplished overseas. So I'm assuming.
Spot on mate, spot on. Feed this guy some more mod points, someone.
It's amazing how many folks seem to think that these people we're 'helping' would do the same for us - as opposed to rising to the top and stomping us into oblivion. Look around! Examples abound of the opposite: we've got quite a few highly trained, highly paid, highly respected people that are first-generation Americans (and sometimes not even that) from impoverished countries, such as India, China, and those in the Middle East. They send their money back home to their family in their native country. Now, I don't have a problem with this act in and of itself, I'm just using it to illustrate a point: the people you 'help' in other countries by giving them a job aren't going to 'help' us in any way. Unless, of course, "us" is refering to corporations.
The world would be a lot better off if corporations as they exist now were abolished in America. Sure, there'd be less corporate/business profit. But the quality of living (throughout the world, not just the US) would improve, because smaller businesses live and die by reputation. Large ones can walk all over whoever they want, and nobody can stop them (to a degree). Take linux vs. MS as an example, if you need one.
Good lord.
Are you a troll, or are you truely that ignorant?
1 fucking gigabyte just for the OS? That's obscene.
On my system:
XFree: 78Mb
KDE3 w/ libraries: 45M or so
base OS, with all your various GNU tools: 45M or so.
Even if you round up, that's only 180M for a modern operating system. And that's roughly as many things as you'll get for a full install of windows.
Tack on another 110M for OpenOffice. You're still nowhere near 1G. Though you're fairly close to how much space windows took up 5 years ago!
The 650M CD distro you mentioned? Probably knoppix, I'm guessing. Knoppix happens to have a shitload of devel tools, office tools, desktop games, and a bunch of other things. You mean to tell me that in 650M, you could fit half as much functionality (trying to be fair here) in windows applications? Don't waste your time trying, it won't work.
Er, they don't give a damn about staying in business. All they want to do is collect enough cash so that the large investors in SCOX (including the exectutives and current court lawyers) can collect. I suspect that most of them already have homes in Mexico, or somewhere else in the world where their wealth will be substantial enough to make their power equivilant to God's.
I doubt they've got any plans past Q2 or Q3 of next year. I'd think that they'd be overseas before then, anyway.
Bodygaurds? So what. They can't stop the One. And Tux is the One.
He's sure to go in there with herring cannons blazing, dodging their FUD pistols, and having tremendous uptime as he walks on the ceiling and across the walls.
Sounds about right.
The only time they have to release code is when they distribute binaries or other such things. WHen it's a company, it's not considered distribution, because it's just amongst that company that it's being used.
is lies. Damned dirty lies. He says:
... but what if hte court agrees with SCO? what if money is passed under the table? this is a case of -very- high stakes, for both sides. If SCO is found in contept ,or anything like that, SCO loses big time, as does MS, as now most people see them as being in bed with SCO (at least in the tech field). The other way, linux wins, big time. Talk about a stacked deck - now it depends on how it's cut.
If I'm Merrill Lynch and have a trading application proprietary to Merrill Lynch and deploy it across all my trading desks, if that deployment occurred where the Linux OS and app are distributed togetherm there are arguments that Merrill would have to provide their proprietary trading application in source form to everyone. That's a problem.
Go read the GPL. Nowhere is that said. This is purely a lie to get people to not invest in linux, or to use it; the only other alternatives, of course, being SCO... and MS. SCO is likely to benefit little - their technology isn't capable of doing what most people use linux for. So MS gets the customers. Combine that with the SCO discount for converting to MS, and everything else...
I'ts pretty damned obvious to those that know even the most basic things about the GPL and IP law that SCO has no case. McBride makes inference after inference, and all of which are lies. Add them up, and to most people, it's a convincing case. Now to get this thing into court and smack him in the mouth.
Given MS's history of buying politicians....
bzzzt! wrong!
.NET. Could MS and Apple have tacked the new features onto their existing OS codebase? Sure, but the result would h
everyone I know that has been toying with the idea of switching to linux has wanted at least one of these things before switching:
1) Macromedia creation tools - maybe wine can do the trick, but not likely.
2) DirectX/game support - not going to happen until the userbase is there, and even then, it's iffy - when was the last time you saw a good game for PC? not terribly frequent, are they? nearly everyone's developing for Xbox now.
3) adobe products - some work, but just barely, though wine. not an option. gimp is not an option, because it doesn't compare. neither are all the other tools - they've got nowhere near the feature list (which is invalueable in something like premiere or ps).
4) easy to configure, and then to change their configuration, from the desktop, using gui tools - people don't really care what's underneath. they want to be able to add, remove, etc. their printers and everything else. sure, there's largely hardware support available - but it's difficult for the users t oset up due to lack of cohesive gui tools.
I hate to say it, but I'd blame X for these shortcomings, largely. Sure, it does what it does well, some might say. But it is bloated, buggy, leaky, and inadequately designed for the task at hand. It's trying to do the wrong thing.
If we had a pluggable gui TK framework with a single programming interface, instead of the individualistic layering we have now, then there'd only need to be one network configuraiton tool, one printer tool, one hardware setup tool. there could even be multiple instances of each functional tool set, all approaching it in the same fashion, but: all these tools could then use the same TK, depending on the desktop used, so that there's not a) extra memory overhead, b) extra dependency requirements, and c) an ugly, incongruous desktop. Additionally, TKs wouldn't have to duplicate silly things, like AA fonts, OGL support, and the like.
Likewise, dialog boxes (save document, etc.) should also be pluggable, so that anyone using any application can use the file navigation method that they want (or that the distribution packager decides). This way someone using GIMP would get the same
I'd say that doing this does indeed need an X rewrite, because the above illustrated design is not possible with the current TK-on-X arrangement. the current situation on the desktop is chaos, at least compared to the majority of other major functionality. With X, everything runs on top of X. With apache, the kernel, emacs, and various other mature projects, things are modular. You don't write a userland hardware driver. You don't use CGI to process PHP. It's modular.
People say "but linux is about choice", and i'd agree. However, X currently doesn't provide any choice: if the average user wants to use a graphical interface, it's a fairly safe bet that they'll be using X. In that case, they're stuck with everything: not GTK or QT, but both; that is, if they want any semblance of a desktop that's comparable to windows.
The perspective that most linux users seem to take is one of the old school unix user, even though most of them are not. "X works fine, that's what X is supposed to do". I'd agree, if the competition was Windows 3.1 w/ modern hardware support with OGL and other 'modern' features - because that's what it amounts to, in my mind. I'm not saying, "the GUI should be integral to the OS", but that the GUI is indeed integral to the desktop, and cohesion is necessary in that regard.
Apple recently realized that their OS and GUI infrastructure from the last millenium was inadequate for the future, integrating OGL into the core of the GUI, vector graphics for everything, and the like. MS has apparently realized this as well about their own products, what with Longhorn looming on the horizion, and is transitioning everything to
hahahaha! You made me laugh my ass off. :) Someone mod this up.
Princess Bride reference, perchance?
as much as I enjoyed playing NWN, it's still just a souless video game.
Recently, I picked up playing pen and paper D&D. It's unimagineably more fun. Less repetitive, more focus on throught and problem solving, and more dynamic overall. That, and imagining a world in your mind is many times more addictive and involving than one on a screen - especially if you envision the world differently than the game creators made it.
I can't say I've played many video games at all in the last while. Especially fantasy RPGs.
I was homeschooled for preschool. I then went to public school until grade 6, at which time I was homeschooled for 3 years. I then graduated high school in 3 years. I spent my 4th grade and my sophmore grade year of schooling in a private school and a a private boarding school, respectively. Every year of non-homeschool education I had up until that point was in a different school district (and often in a different state). I'm currently attending my 3rd college in as many years. Habits are hard to break. :P
:P
My personal recommendations for homeschooling: Saxon math, and lots of writing. Make them write creatively, and write about what they've learned in their readings. Oral regurgitation is also good.
Also, don't strictly structure their learning, either - let their personalities shape what they learn, to a degree. Coming from a background of a logical father and an artsy mother myself, I really didn't need too much structure to learn well. The paradigm of set classes for each topic, I believe, is counter-intuitive to how the human brain works, and is thus not good for learning: if you segregate topics, it's more difficult to combine them and use the combined knowledge in an applicable manner. It's the kind of thing that leads to illogical artists and unartistic programmers.
It's good to see you're teaching your kids logic structure at an early age. I wish I'd gotten more of that; it'd make things like mathmatics (which I find fairly difficult, considering) a lot easier.
Anyway... hopefully this isn't too opinionated for you.
Yes! I'd have mentioned some of these things myself, but the original poster was mainly talking about university level.
My personal concepts of education is that it should be more as you describe. Personally, I was homeschooled, and I've both appreciated and regretted the fact since then: I'm thankful that I know how to think, but it pisses me off to no end that others haven't the concept of a clue.
Critical thinking skills should be taught at a young age, most certainly. They should be some of the first things taught. Too many lessions are spent on the ABCs and 123's in the younger grades, and not nearly enough on actual problem solving.
The problem only compounds itself, when students aren't required to digest, internalize, and regurgitate the information they're taught: they get multiple choice instead of essay exams. This behavior encourages a very minimal comprehension of the subject, poor learning habits, and (in general) illiteracy.
Exactly. The basic concept you illustrate is what I'm partially griping about. It's rediculous.
I recently had a particularly slow-speaking professor (who requires attendance, possibly because nobody would show otherwise - the course work is tedious, but easy). I was doing some of the assigned work, reading the text book, and the like, while he spoke. I'd occassionally look up and listen for a moment or to, to see if he'd moved onto the next topic (which he'd summarize in one sentence, then go on to talk for eternity without getting anywhere). This professor "told" me several times that I wasn't allowed to do the course work in class (which last 3 hours). It happened the next day of class as well.
Turns out I was reduced 'attendance' points for not paying attention while there - no different than anyone else in the class. I aced the exam for the course, and I'd finished quite a while ahead of everyone else, as well. Just rediculous, how egotistical some of these professors are.
You Sir represent *exactly* the attitude the original poster was decrying.
If that is so, then he did a piss poor job representing it with the english language.
If a teacher is not interested in their topic, and is a listless fish at a podium, the material is not interesting. It's damned difficult to stay awake. Personally, the -only- time I'm bored is when I'm in such a class. I don't watch TV (and have watched precious little in the past) so I am not plagued by this thing called a "short attention span".
Topically, one's own inability to interest one's self is the only setback. Usually, the case is that the material itself is quite riveting, but the prof is so bored that he sucks the energy from the room. There are exceptions, but my experience is that, more times than not, they act as if they'd rather be somewhere else.
First, learn to spell.
I learned how to spell in grade school. Later, I learned that there's no point to spelling provided you come close, and keep general language rules in mind. Unbeknown to you, some of us have difficulty with such things. That, and there's also tyopographical errors.
Is there something that is PREVENTING you from reading the great papers? Preventing you from thinking independent thoughts?
Yes. Pointless asignments from professors that are too lazy to teach. Tests that measure one's guessing ability instead of their ability to pull everything together into a single coherrent idea.
The vast majority of campus faculty are desperately hoping that in each class, there will be one or two students who are not sheep, and who wonder about boundaries, and what is beyond them.
I don't know which schools you speak of, but I've been to three, and have rarely seen such a professor. If they were, they wouldn't teach their classes with passing a certain percentage in mind: they'd teach them with making everyone work for their grade. Last I checked, the reason beind having 12-16 credit hours be a full course is that it's expected that those 16 hours a week are padded out to 30+ by study. My experience is that none but the most fundamentally stupid or obsessively diligent with moderate intelligence tend to study in your average college.
As far as me expecting the world to come to me, no. I do, however, expect supposed towers of learning to live up to that - especially when it's what they advertise. Academics should be above such squable.
Hrm. Interesting. I just ran these searches myself, and got contrary information to the parent.
linux on MSN: 365
linux on google: 65,100,000
windows on msn: 2373
windows on google: 67,900,000
This is contrary to the 95,000,000 search results for linux that are reported in the article. What's the deal? Maybe an ISP cache of google that's outdated?
Also, there's roughly a:
(using the 95 million figure)
260274/1 search ratio on linux for google/msn
28614/1 search ratio on windows for google/msn
You sir, are ignorant to assume that degree == (education || learning). A degree is a piece of paper from an institution that indicates that you are not a complete bafoon, and that you are employable. Nothing more. I've considered the validity of my desire to finish school every semester - and before that, every year of high school. However, do I hold education in low regard? No. Quite the contrary - to the extent that I have been continually lauded by teachers, peers, professors, and others for my knowledge, insight, and whatever else they seem deemable of esteem.
My gripe with the education system - and particularly higher institutions of learning, which should know better - is that they dumb the stuff down for the least common denominator, can't think of an interesting way to teach it for the life of them, and for the most part, hardly know the subject themselves (at least in an applicable manner). The most underlying problem, though, is that most teachers (or professors) are not students themselves: learning, curiosity, and problem solving aren't terribly interesting to them anymore.
I've run into CS professors that couldn't program. I've run into (an almost-tenured) English professor that wouldn't know good writing if it ripped their face off, let alone proper grammar. I've run into people with masters in communication that have no knowledge of the history of various industries, let alone modern methods used. The list goes on, but I need to stop before I get too frustrated.
Who gets the blame? The professors, surely, for not being adept. But the institution that hired them, as well, for hiring retards. The schools that gave these people their degrees and doctorates in the first place, as well. How about their secondary schooling? That's at fault as well, for not teaching them (at least) how to think critically (deductive logic) and learn on their own. I'd partially blame the plethora of students that tend to go to 4-year schools for education nowadays: it's turned your average university into simply a festering wound for these magots to crawl around in, get drunk, etc. - as opposed to an institution of higher learning that has prestigous requirements, schools their students well, and turns out a very high percentage of leaders. The excess of required programs that students are required to take are utter garbage, things that should have been learned in high school (first and second year english spring to mind).
Needless to say, you've stepped on a very sore foot. I don't contest the things you've said about the list of things to go on "the list", as they seem fairly on target to me. It was simply that one statement that set me aflame.
I'm sure I'll get moderated as flamebait for this, but.... I hardly doubt anyone here has any advice that's either informed or from the perspective you're looking for.
By this I mean two simple things: most slashdot folks are likely 16 through 27 or so (I'd imagine, since they're likely to have the most free time), are extremely liberal (most liberal folks I know are of the "don't discipline your child, it might scar him - until he's a teenager, then start", and "let kids do what they want, they're intelligent" persuasion - which is not to say all are), and are more likely to not have a family than to have one.
All these conditions, in my mind, make any advice gotten here something you might not want to consider.
That being said, this 21 y/o father and husband thinks that if, by the time they're 12 or 13, and they're still lying to you, something was done wrong from the beginning. There's evidently a trust issue. Recalling back to the few years to my adolecense, I'd say that this lack of trust is likely due to the fact that they're alienated by you and/or see you as the enemy.
My experience is that if you're the enemy (and I don't just mean your child is upset with you for a couple days, I'm talking about long-term resentment and/or distrust), then it's most likely that you weren't open enough with them when they were younger, aren't open enough with them now, and communication lines need to be cut and re-laid. Tell them that you trust them. Let them know that they've got someone they can talk to if they need to. Be interested in -them-, and care about the things they do. This means spend time with them if they'll allow it. Develop a report with them more sophisticated than the simple "this is how my day was" kind of conversation. You'll thank yourself later.
As for the actual guidelines that I'd suggest (from a fairly liberal-right kind of guy): back off for now, and develop that relationship. If that doesn't seem to be working, let them know that you don't appreciate it. Check their browser caches and/or history, if you're paranoid and/or want to be restrictive of their behavior: if they're bad, let them know about the harms/dangers of whatever they're doing, don't chastize them or punish them. By the time a kid reaches adolecense, they're likely too independent (depending on the kid) to be disciplined effectively, unless the infraction is quite severe. Dolling out punishments like cheap doctor's office candy just causes hatred towards you - they'll see you as being mean.