I'm one of those 'older' (ok, I'm 44 and a woman, I can maybe have kids still) adults that choose, yes choose, not to have children. I'm noticing nothing lacking in my life. No meaning is lost.
I see no merit in marriage either. But then I'm in a long-term heterosexual relationship and quite happy. Maybe I'd feel differently if my partner wanted to marry, but I doubt it.
I would like to get the breaks a married couple with kids gets. And frankly, if the laws remain as restrictive as they do, once my partner and I get older we might be forced to get married. Our relationship is as deep and important as a marriage. We want the right to decide medical/health and financial issues for each other if need be. But that's denied us by current law, just as it's denied to homosexuals. How unfair is that?
Try making a full fat chevre type cheese. I know chevre is goat cheese (I have goats, so that's what I make a lot of the time), but you can make it with cows' milk. Just use the same recipe, and use rennet, not lemon. It'll make that firmer, spreadable curd. Also use some cream instead of milk.
I think all parents have at least some worry for what the future holds for their children. It's just more intense when your child is so radically different than the 'norm'.
You do the best you can, and worry. In the end what will be, will be. When you pass away, if your daughter has to take care of your autistic daughter she'll do the best she can and frankly, being 10 feet under, you won't care at that point. Just do your daughter the favor of making it clear to her that she doesn't have to take care of her sister the same way you do. Let her work that out herself.
My plans are fairly simple. I will build onto my house with a suite for my sister. I will hire part time help for her. My sister will have enough inheritance to allow me to do this. If I can't do those things, then probably I'll put her in a home for part of the week and have her at home for part of it. This is not what my parents have done, but it's what I think will work for me, and it's ok when them and with me. I just wish I could figure out if it were ok with my sister. She's severe, communication is a dire problem.
My sister is autistic too. She's older than yours, almost 40. And we are approaching that point where one of us (well me actually, I took this on years ago) will have to take care of her as my parents age.
I would never have thought of it back when I was in my 20's. It got more acceptable in my early 30's, and now in my early 40's it's just the 'right thing to do'. I love her, she's my sister, and as my parents have aged and I've seen them struggle.. well there you go. My brother, however, has not stepped up to the plate with this, and is unlikely to do so. Siblings differ, he never got on with her well at all.
I guess I'm just trying to say that it'll all come out for the best. Don't put any pressure on yourselves about it. Ohh and, my sister improved greatly once she was out of those teenage years. She's still severely autistic, but she's manageable, friendly most of the time, and even a tad bit flexible. And yea, my parents went through hell to get that little bit of flexibility. Good luck to you and yours.
Actually no, that's not my name:). Nice try anyways!
There were more women than just me there. You might not see us in the pictures because we were doing things like presenting talks and helping to run the event.
I do have some nitpicks about the original Slashdot poster's article. The original poster doesn't seem to have noticed (about Jakob Perry's talk in particular) that there was a newbie track of talks. Perry's talk was in that track. I do agree that tracks should be better marked, although the talk is clearly listed under 'newbie track' on the presentation schedule handout.
I presented two talks (one impromptu when the first one had standing room only) in the newbie track. Last year I presented a hands on tutorial on Glade. My talks this year and last year were very well attended. The new classrooms at BTC worked marvelously for the presentations I saw. I found the projector system to be really well integrated, and it worked with my 5 year old laptop (running Linux), without a problem.
As a presenter, I am working on getting my slides up on the 'net. However, I don't like to just put the slides up, I like to create a bit more content, as the slides for me are just aids for my presentation. I assume other presenters feel the same, and are working on getting their lectures online. So give us some time, if you will.
Getting presenters to post a lecture before it happens will be difficult as well, especially if they are creating new content for the event. As we are not professional speakers, it is a bit unrealistic to expect us to have something ready for publication before we give the lecture.
I think BLUG does a great job putting this event on year after year, and I'm proud to help support it. I've always had a blast when I've attended, and am already planning on attending next year. This is a real grassroots event, without corporate sponsorship and suits, without even an entry fee.
Kudos to BLUG, TACLUG, GSLUG, KPLUG, and all the other Lugs and linux afficionados that make this event so educational, entertaining and fun.
Actually Corel has a WP product for Linux that doesn't run under wine. I use it all the time, WP 8.0. It's the WP office suite 2000 they 'ported' by using wine. Yea, 8.0 isn't their latest and greatest, but it's the reason I finally threw Windows out with the trash and went completely to Linux. I've been using Wordperfect since 1.0, or whatever they called it back then, and I'm not about to change now.
WP 8.0 for Linux has a small band of avid users. It was coded natively for Linux (as far as I know), and it runs quite well. Only problem is you need to use an older glibc library for it, but I just keep an rpm of that handy.
Now that Abiword does wpd files I might be tempted to switch but, only when they get a 'looks and acts like WP' option for the GUI.
Are you sure they are leaving for the cities because they prefer it? The trend to urbanization, which started accelerating in the 1800's and now is quite fullblown, isn't so easily quantified. Many move to cities because they are forced. Remember many peasants do not, and never did, own their land. They work it for hire, giving part of their produce or profit as rent.
Subsistence farming is a hard hard life, I'm sure starving in a city is too. Perhaps it's simply this; once the farmer and his family have left the land, they can't go back for a variety of reasons, whether they would wish to or not.
As I said above, this society denegrates (to a certain extent) the idea of working with one's hands. If I introduced myself as a farmer, what would your image be of me? What if I introduced myself as a PhD (which I will be soon)? Or a programmer in C and Python? The different assumptions each introduction engenders are quite telling, and yet I'm all three. So perhaps the idea that peasants must be choosing to live in a city is less a truism about them, and more a truism about us.
Actually, as I commented somewhere else on this topic, organic farming in the United States is BIG business. Big, like Monsanto gets involved big. It scales quite well to wheat farming, not monocropping though. It's big business because there's a lot of people willing to pay more for the 'organic' label, and because government now owns that label, and can bestow it upon those passing their tests, and paying their fees.
The label protects consumers from businesses passing off their produce as organic when it isn't. It also protects businesses from any sort of challenge by smaller family farmers, by effectively pricing them out of the ability to use the label. It doesn't matter really; my customers know what I can produce, what it tastes like, how it looks, the freshness of it, and they choose it over the big business' organic produce. Is this a model for most of agriculture? I don't know. It's proving ground has just really begun.
Organic farming implies limited pesticide usage. All the pesticides have to be approved as organic; they are usually plant based (rotenone comes from marigolds for example) and have no to very few environmental side effects. You generally can eat produce sprayed with these things right after spraying. You can't use most chemical herbicides, you have to enrich the soil with compost (usually carefully composted manure). You can use high tech methods like row covers, spun bonded polyfiber frost blankets, micro irrigation...
Organic farming has now been defined by the FDA. There's a big list of what you can and cannot do as an organic farmer. If you wish to call your produce 'organic' you must submit to onsite inspections, follow all the FDA guidelines, and get certified every year at a minimum cost of several thousand dollars. In other words, organic is now Big Business.
I was an organic farmer. I now grow 'farm fresh', 'wholesome' and 'traditional' foods, as I have been shoved out of the organic field by the FDA's rulings. I can't afford the certification, so, I can't use the organic term which the FDA decided it owns.
I do this for a living. I really enjoy it too. I also code for a living. The two nicely complement each other, and allow me an enormous amount of freedom.
There are probably quite a few other people who would be willing to do farmwork if our society valued the work. We don't, so they don't. Hard to fault them such as it is.
Slashdot Mirror
Bravo and well said.
I'm one of those 'older' (ok, I'm 44 and a woman, I can maybe have kids still) adults that choose, yes choose, not to have children. I'm noticing nothing lacking in my life. No meaning is lost.
I see no merit in marriage either. But then I'm in a long-term heterosexual relationship and quite happy. Maybe I'd feel differently if my partner wanted to marry, but I doubt it.
I would like to get the breaks a married couple with kids gets. And frankly, if the laws remain as restrictive as they do, once my partner and I get older we might be forced to get married. Our relationship is as deep and important as a marriage. We want the right to decide medical/health and financial issues for each other if need be. But that's denied us by current law, just as it's denied to homosexuals. How unfair is that?
Try making a full fat chevre type cheese. I know chevre is goat cheese (I have goats, so that's what I make a lot of the time), but you can make it with cows' milk. Just use the same recipe, and use rennet, not lemon. It'll make that firmer, spreadable curd. Also use some cream instead of milk.
Mmmmm, now I'm hungry...
I think all parents have at least some worry for what the future holds for their children. It's just more intense when your child is so radically different than the 'norm'.
You do the best you can, and worry. In the end what will be, will be. When you pass away, if your daughter has to take care of your autistic daughter she'll do the best she can and frankly, being 10 feet under, you won't care at that point. Just do your daughter the favor of making it clear to her that she doesn't have to take care of her sister the same way you do. Let her work that out herself.
My plans are fairly simple. I will build onto my house with a suite for my sister. I will hire part time help for her. My sister will have enough inheritance to allow me to do this. If I can't do those things, then probably I'll put her in a home for part of the week and have her at home for part of it. This is not what my parents have done, but it's what I think will work for me, and it's ok when them and with me. I just wish I could figure out if it were ok with my sister. She's severe, communication is a dire problem.
My sister is autistic too. She's older than yours, almost 40. And we are approaching that point where one of us (well me actually, I took this on years ago) will have to take care of her as my parents age.
I would never have thought of it back when I was in my 20's. It got more acceptable in my early 30's, and now in my early 40's it's just the 'right thing to do'. I love her, she's my sister, and as my parents have aged and I've seen them struggle.. well there you go. My brother, however, has not stepped up to the plate with this, and is unlikely to do so. Siblings differ, he never got on with her well at all.
I guess I'm just trying to say that it'll all come out for the best. Don't put any pressure on yourselves about it. Ohh and, my sister improved greatly once she was out of those teenage years. She's still severely autistic, but she's manageable, friendly most of the time, and even a tad bit flexible. And yea, my parents went through hell to get that little bit of flexibility. Good luck to you and yours.
Actually no, that's not my name :). Nice try anyways!
There were more women than just me there. You might not see us in the pictures because we were doing things like presenting talks and helping to run the event.
I had a great time at the Fest, as usual.
I do have some nitpicks about the original Slashdot poster's article. The original poster doesn't seem to have noticed (about Jakob Perry's talk in particular) that there was a newbie track of talks. Perry's talk was in that track. I do agree that tracks should be better marked, although the talk is clearly listed under 'newbie track' on the presentation schedule handout.
I presented two talks (one impromptu when the first one had standing room only) in the newbie track. Last year I presented a hands on tutorial on Glade. My talks this year and last year were very well attended. The new classrooms at BTC worked marvelously for the presentations I saw. I found the projector system to be really well integrated, and it worked with my 5 year old laptop (running Linux), without a problem.
As a presenter, I am working on getting my slides up on the 'net. However, I don't like to just put the slides up, I like to create a bit more content, as the slides for me are just aids for my presentation. I assume other presenters feel the same, and are working on getting their lectures online. So give us some time, if you will.
Getting presenters to post a lecture before it happens will be difficult as well, especially if they are creating new content for the event. As we are not professional speakers, it is a bit unrealistic to expect us to have something ready for publication before we give the lecture.
I think BLUG does a great job putting this event on year after year, and I'm proud to help support it. I've always had a blast when I've attended, and am already planning on attending next year. This is a real grassroots event, without corporate sponsorship and suits, without even an entry fee.
Kudos to BLUG, TACLUG, GSLUG, KPLUG, and all the other Lugs and linux afficionados that make this event so educational, entertaining and fun.
Actually Corel has a WP product for Linux that doesn't run under wine. I use it all the time, WP 8.0. It's the WP office suite 2000 they 'ported' by using wine. Yea, 8.0 isn't their latest and greatest, but it's the reason I finally threw Windows out with the trash and went completely to Linux. I've been using Wordperfect since 1.0, or whatever they called it back then, and I'm not about to change now.
WP 8.0 for Linux has a small band of avid users. It was coded natively for Linux (as far as I know), and it runs quite well. Only problem is you need to use an older glibc library for it, but I just keep an rpm of that handy.
Now that Abiword does wpd files I might be tempted to switch but, only when they get a 'looks and acts like WP' option for the GUI.
Are you sure they are leaving for the cities because they prefer it? The trend to urbanization, which started accelerating in the 1800's and now is quite fullblown, isn't so easily quantified. Many move to cities because they are forced. Remember many peasants do not, and never did, own their land. They work it for hire, giving part of their produce or profit as rent.
Subsistence farming is a hard hard life, I'm sure starving in a city is too. Perhaps it's simply this; once the farmer and his family have left the land, they can't go back for a variety of reasons, whether they would wish to or not.
As I said above, this society denegrates (to a certain extent) the idea of working with one's hands. If I introduced myself as a farmer, what would your image be of me? What if I introduced myself as a PhD (which I will be soon)? Or a programmer in C and Python? The different assumptions each introduction engenders are quite telling, and yet I'm all three. So perhaps the idea that peasants must be choosing to live in a city is less a truism about them, and more a truism about us.
Actually, as I commented somewhere else on this topic, organic farming in the United States is BIG business. Big, like Monsanto gets involved big. It scales quite well to wheat farming, not monocropping though. It's big business because there's a lot of people willing to pay more for the 'organic' label, and because government now owns that label, and can bestow it upon those passing their tests, and paying their fees.
The label protects consumers from businesses passing off their produce as organic when it isn't. It also protects businesses from any sort of challenge by smaller family farmers, by effectively pricing them out of the ability to use the label. It doesn't matter really; my customers know what I can produce, what it tastes like, how it looks, the freshness of it, and they choose it over the big business' organic produce. Is this a model for most of agriculture? I don't know. It's proving ground has just really begun.
Organic farming implies limited pesticide usage. All the pesticides have to be approved as organic; they are usually plant based (rotenone comes from marigolds for example) and have no to very few environmental side effects. You generally can eat produce sprayed with these things right after spraying. You can't use most chemical herbicides, you have to enrich the soil with compost (usually carefully composted manure). You can use high tech methods like row covers, spun bonded polyfiber frost blankets, micro irrigation...
Organic farming has now been defined by the FDA. There's a big list of what you can and cannot do as an organic farmer. If you wish to call your produce 'organic' you must submit to onsite inspections, follow all the FDA guidelines, and get certified every year at a minimum cost of several thousand dollars. In other words, organic is now Big Business.
I was an organic farmer. I now grow 'farm fresh', 'wholesome' and 'traditional' foods, as I have been shoved out of the organic field by the FDA's rulings. I can't afford the certification, so, I can't use the organic term which the FDA decided it owns.
Me.
I do this for a living. I really enjoy it too. I also code for a living. The two nicely complement each other, and allow me an enormous amount of freedom.
There are probably quite a few other people who would be willing to do farmwork if our society valued the work. We don't, so they don't. Hard to fault them such as it is.