Probably at the end of this year, I'll be giving up on doing serious IT stuff for a while.
Going back to uni, and working towards Theology qualifications (3 yrs), then a grad-dip in Linguistics (1 yr). Then going to Papua New Guinea and doing Bible Translation (for people who want it but don't have one yet - as they don't have a written language).
There's plenty of challenges there: Learning a language that is only spoken (and probably by just a few thousand people), devising a written form of their language, writing down the people's stories, showing people how to read their own language, translating educational books, and bibles for them.
Linguistics and Translation now use computers fairly heavily, especially for voice processing and pattern matching in speech. Clear and logical thinking is also a bonus.
I'm sure that it will be an interesting journey - and after 4 years in college my IT current knowledge will not be worth much at all, so it's a major career shift. I'll keep using my brains and applying the skills that have got me this far.
Of course I'll keep up to date with things that are happening in the field, but I won't get the same questions all the time.
I've had fairly good jobs in my 15 years working in IT: Computer tech at a private girl's school. Similar work with my church admin office. Currently working for a superannuation company.
While I enjoy my work, get respect and satisfaction from what I do, it just doesn't campare with the useful work that I have done. I prefer helping people learn and make something of their life, as opposed to just helping people make more money.
When you send documents as attachments to people, send the attachments as OpenOffice.org formats.
Then when people complain that they can't read them, reply back with the document saved as the Word.Doc format, and tell them that there may be information missing as MSWord can't handle the format, and that it's old and outdated now.
I've got congenital cataracts, and have my own fun from them. My vision is 6/12-1 for both eyes. But things are apparently out of focus, but I don't notice as this is how it's always been.
I've worked with monitors up to 17inch and have found the larger ones are far easier to work with. LCD's don't seem any better for me. LCD Projectors are fun to play with but not that good for regular work.
For me CRT 17Inch at 1024*768 works best, sitting just under a foot away from the screen. Gets strange looks from the workmates, but good for me. Never had eye strain problems. Not full brightness but high contrast.
While with my opthalmologist one day, asked about vision problems with computers. He said that computer monitors are tending to highlight problems that people already have but have never been diagnosed.
I don't think that there's any way that they're going to point Hubble towards the Sun at all. Hubble looks at very low levels of light, and looking towards the Sun could well damage the internals beyond repair.
I've never seen pictures of the Earth or the Moon from Hubble for likely the same reasons.
The turtle doesn't have to stand on anything. According to Terry it's just moving through space.
I suspect that it is on the way to the turtle mating place in the sky. When it gets there then the really important question can be answered....What sex is the turtle.
The disc of the world is supported on the back of four elephants which are in turn walking in a big circle on the back of the turtle.
Yes, they created the anti-atoms - but they didn't have to create the regular ones, they are already there.
So the combination of the two could release double the energy that was put into their creation. Though I doubt that the creation process is 100% efficient.
What's the problem with looking and feeling a little better about yourself?
There'll be all those good-looking girls that are always hanging around the 'Jock' crowd. They'll soon gravitate over towards us now. If you believe some of the movies of late, all the good lookers are also the most intelligent ones as well.
The geek girls will have a better selection of fit and healthy geeks chasing them too.
Works for both sides.
There's already a load of people who think they can 'program' in vb or access. I've seen what can happen when they get out of control.
The extra people of lesser intelligence in the computer industry will then increase the motivation of companies to get the best programming talent on team, which should increase the pay packets too.
I can't see any major problems yet (not that I'm looking for any either)
And a benefit for those in isolation
I'm looking at moving up to Papua New Guinea in a few years and would love to live out in the villages. There is often no power out there so a way to power your laptop (or radio) would be a very good thing.
I see that ET is fairly high up in the all-time earners list.
And I was at the cinema on sat morning for my 2nd instalment of LOTR, and noticed that there's a 20th anniversary version of ET coming soon...Surely that'd be enough to move it up the scales a little.
1 Titanic PARAMOUNT $600,788,188 12/19/97
2 Star Wars FOX $460,998,007 5/25/77
3 Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace FOX $431,088,295 5/19/99
4 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial UNIVERSAL $399,804,539 6/11/82 5 Jurassic Park UNIVERSAL $357,067,947 6/11/93
6 Forrest Gump PARAMOUNT $329,694,499 7/6/94
7 The Lion King BUENA VISTA $312,855,561 6/15/94
8 Return of the Jedi FOX $309,153,948 5/25/83
9 Independence Day FOX $306,169,255 7/3/96
10 The Sixth Sense BUENA VISTA $293,506,292 8/6/99
There are some CD's that I've regretted buying, and if Napster and the like had been around back then. I would have been able to listen to some of the music beforehand, realised that I didn't like it - and save myself $30.
Though I have also found music that I did like, then been totally unable to find anyone who can import the music for me...
I've seen a similar problem with some Canon inkjet printers at a school I used to work at.
The teachers would occasionally call me and say that there was a strange printout waiting at the printer. It looked like it could be from one of the students, but never included any header information nor appeared in any of the printer queues.
It only appeared on printers on the Lantastic network, and occasionally on printers that had once been connected to the network.
From memory it was a section of a novel, but still have spelling and grammar errors.
It wasn't on the network at all. (I did a text search of the entire network - XTree).
Even had it appear one day during end-year holidays when I was the only person at the school. Long before internet connection was running.
I've worked as the Computer Techie guy at two high schools in the town that I grew up in.
My best memories of computers and schools were from one school in particular.
The school had 120 computers spread across 4 classrooms and the library for about 440 students. They were available from before school in the mornings, lunch breaks, and until 9pm at night (it was a boarding school).
In the lower years -up to 9 the students learnt keyboard skills, how to use the computers for learning games that were fun, they really enjoyed The Incredable Machine, and e-mail. But from years 10-12 they learnt Basic, Pascal, played with Lego Mindstorm, annoyed their computer tech, built the school web site, conversed with people in France, pulled the computers apart and learnt how they worked...did I mention that some of them annoyed their computer tech?
This was an all-girls school. The computer rooms were packed during lunch breaks, and they all enjoyed themselves.
The teachers usually booked the rooms out months in advance. We had a learning area that was fun, without many restrictions, and gave the students some leeway in what they did with the resources they were given. They repayed us by respecting the equipment, not abusing the internet access, and having fun.
Some schools can get it right.
I'm not giving their name or web site as I know what you crowd would do with their poor web server.
I'm sure that my brother and I had this one back many years ago.
We've not played with our Lego in a long time as mum and dad claimed them for when we supply then with some grandchildren, so there's fun things for us all to play with.
We used to have most of the early space kits, in a huge draw string bag that mum made, that could be spread out as a big play/construction area. Made cleaning up really easy, just pull the string.
We never got into the Technic sets or others much outside of space as they came along when we were older than the recommended ages. Seeing as we're both space sci-fi nuts the space kits were all we really needed.
There were never enough computer terminals, or aerials as it's amazing how complex a weapons system you can make with them, especially the red ones, they were the most powerful ones, good for strafing the planet below.
Do all these wild guesses about the number of pages include such wonders as all of the pages in Yahoo, and Google's Web Directory. No doubt these would boost the page counts a little.
Especially if Google is caching someone elses content pages.
If you buy a Lexus instead of a Toyota you're buying status
And if I was involved in an accident I know which one I'd prefer to have been driving.
Hint: It's not the Toyota.
My current car (a Toyota) I purchased as it was fairly cheap and looked quite nice. My next car, the main factor will be that my future family will still be alive if they are involved in a collision.
The simple solution that we have is that you can install a virus scanner. The one that I have had installed here checks for downloads of new virus signatures each day, and as workstations connect in the morning they get the latest updates.
Works on each desktop, and also on Exchange too.
I also remind the staff here to not blindly execute programs that they weren't expecting.
Yes some people here received the virus in their inboxes, but the thing never got the chance to run.
I think that this would be a good thing to watch occurring. Preferably from a long way away.
Nuclear explosions, while not being all that good for the environment, do make really impressive movies and pictures. Antimatter being annihilated would probably look cool too.
Slashdot Mirror
I've done this evaluation of my life as well.
Probably at the end of this year, I'll be giving up on doing serious IT stuff for a while.
Going back to uni, and working towards Theology qualifications (3 yrs), then a grad-dip in Linguistics (1 yr). Then going to Papua New Guinea and doing Bible Translation (for people who want it but don't have one yet - as they don't have a written language).
There's plenty of challenges there: Learning a language that is only spoken (and probably by just a few thousand people), devising a written form of their language, writing down the people's stories, showing people how to read their own language, translating educational books, and bibles for them.
Linguistics and Translation now use computers fairly heavily, especially for voice processing and pattern matching in speech. Clear and logical thinking is also a bonus.
I'm sure that it will be an interesting journey - and after 4 years in college my IT current knowledge will not be worth much at all, so it's a major career shift. I'll keep using my brains and applying the skills that have got me this far.
Of course I'll keep up to date with things that are happening in the field, but I won't get the same questions all the time.
I've had fairly good jobs in my 15 years working in IT: Computer tech at a private girl's school. Similar work with my church admin office. Currently working for a superannuation company.
While I enjoy my work, get respect and satisfaction from what I do, it just doesn't campare with the useful work that I have done. I prefer helping people learn and make something of their life, as opposed to just helping people make more money.
Ian.
Seeing as you mentioned PI in your post I'll just add that today is PI approximation day 22/7.
Rejoice and memorise another 8 digits.
Ian.
When you send documents as attachments to people, send the attachments as OpenOffice.org formats.
Then when people complain that they can't read them, reply back with the document saved as the Word.Doc format, and tell them that there may be information missing as MSWord can't handle the format, and that it's old and outdated now.
Or something like that anyway.
Ian.
I've got congenital cataracts, and have my own fun from them. My vision is 6/12-1 for both eyes. But things are apparently out of focus, but I don't notice as this is how it's always been.
I've worked with monitors up to 17inch and have found the larger ones are far easier to work with. LCD's don't seem any better for me. LCD Projectors are fun to play with but not that good for regular work.
For me CRT 17Inch at 1024*768 works best, sitting just under a foot away from the screen. Gets strange looks from the workmates, but good for me. Never had eye strain problems. Not full brightness but high contrast.
While with my opthalmologist one day, asked about vision problems with computers. He said that computer monitors are tending to highlight problems that people already have but have never been diagnosed.
You've even tried to do this??
How can you see what you're doing, or is there a special controller available so you don't look at the floor. A mirror might work I suppose.
So can you move and fire at the same time. Must have a pretty good tongue action.
And how does this go with vibrating controllers?
I don't think that there's any way that they're going to point Hubble towards the Sun at all. Hubble looks at very low levels of light, and looking towards the Sun could well damage the internals beyond repair.
I've never seen pictures of the Earth or the Moon from Hubble for likely the same reasons.
The turtle doesn't have to stand on anything. According to Terry it's just moving through space.
I suspect that it is on the way to the turtle mating place in the sky. When it gets there then the really important question can be answered....What sex is the turtle.
The disc of the world is supported on the back of four elephants which are in turn walking in a big circle on the back of the turtle.
The turtle even has a name - A'Tuin.
Remember, they created those anti-atoms
Yes, they created the anti-atoms - but they didn't have to create the regular ones, they are already there.
So the combination of the two could release double the energy that was put into their creation. Though I doubt that the creation process is 100% efficient.
What's the problem with looking and feeling a little better about yourself?
There'll be all those good-looking girls that are always hanging around the 'Jock' crowd. They'll soon gravitate over towards us now. If you believe some of the movies of late, all the good lookers are also the most intelligent ones as well.
The geek girls will have a better selection of fit and healthy geeks chasing them too.
Works for both sides.
There's already a load of people who think they can 'program' in vb or access. I've seen what can happen when they get out of control.
The extra people of lesser intelligence in the computer industry will then increase the motivation of companies to get the best programming talent on team, which should increase the pay packets too.
I can't see any major problems yet (not that I'm looking for any either)
And a benefit for those in isolation
I'm looking at moving up to Papua New Guinea in a few years and would love to live out in the villages. There is often no power out there so a way to power your laptop (or radio) would be a very good thing.
I heard somewhere that MCSE was an abbreviation for Minesweeper Consultant and Solitaire Expert.
There are a few others here as well.
Definitions of MCSE
I see that ET is fairly high up in the all-time earners list.
And I was at the cinema on sat morning for my 2nd instalment of LOTR, and noticed that there's a 20th anniversary version of ET coming soon...Surely that'd be enough to move it up the scales a little.
1 Titanic PARAMOUNT $600,788,188 12/19/97
2 Star Wars FOX $460,998,007 5/25/77
3 Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace FOX $431,088,295 5/19/99
4 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial UNIVERSAL $399,804,539 6/11/82
5 Jurassic Park UNIVERSAL $357,067,947 6/11/93
6 Forrest Gump PARAMOUNT $329,694,499 7/6/94
7 The Lion King BUENA VISTA $312,855,561 6/15/94
8 Return of the Jedi FOX $309,153,948 5/25/83
9 Independence Day FOX $306,169,255 7/3/96
10 The Sixth Sense BUENA VISTA $293,506,292 8/6/99
We could fund the construction by selling advertising space on the surface of the moon, near the observatory.
We don't need to tell the suits that they'll never see their slogans.
The message was not interperated correctly.
It should have read.
ALL YOUR WORLDS ARE BELONG TO US
I don't know where the rest of it came from.
Maybe something was lost in the translation.
Ian.
Just like a lightbulb, hardly ground breaking.
Then there's the other side of the story.
There are some CD's that I've regretted buying, and if Napster and the like had been around back then. I would have been able to listen to some of the music beforehand, realised that I didn't like it - and save myself $30.
Though I have also found music that I did like, then been totally unable to find anyone who can import the music for me...
Ian.
I must be the only person here who actually likes the covers that Josh Kirby draws.
:(
I've bought a few other authors over the years, just on the fact that I recognised Josh's work while browsing, and then enjoyed the books.
Seeing as I'm at work, I can't remember any of their names. Neither can I check the shelves.
Australia must get the UK versions I guess.
I've seen a similar problem with some Canon inkjet printers at a school I used to work at.
The teachers would occasionally call me and say that there was a strange printout waiting at the printer. It looked like it could be from one of the students, but never included any header information nor appeared in any of the printer queues.
It only appeared on printers on the Lantastic network, and occasionally on printers that had once been connected to the network.
From memory it was a section of a novel, but still have spelling and grammar errors.
It wasn't on the network at all. (I did a text search of the entire network - XTree).
Even had it appear one day during end-year holidays when I was the only person at the school. Long before internet connection was running.
Weird.
Ian.
I've worked as the Computer Techie guy at two high schools in the town that I grew up in.
My best memories of computers and schools were from one school in particular.
The school had 120 computers spread across 4 classrooms and the library for about 440 students. They were available from before school in the mornings, lunch breaks, and until 9pm at night (it was a boarding school).
In the lower years -up to 9 the students learnt keyboard skills, how to use the computers for learning games that were fun, they really enjoyed The Incredable Machine, and e-mail. But from years 10-12 they learnt Basic, Pascal, played with Lego Mindstorm, annoyed their computer tech, built the school web site, conversed with people in France, pulled the computers apart and learnt how they worked...did I mention that some of them annoyed their computer tech?
This was an all-girls school. The computer rooms were packed during lunch breaks, and they all enjoyed themselves.
The teachers usually booked the rooms out months in advance. We had a learning area that was fun, without many restrictions, and gave the students some leeway in what they did with the resources they were given. They repayed us by respecting the equipment, not abusing the internet access, and having fun.
Some schools can get it right.
I'm not giving their name or web site as I know what you crowd would do with their poor web server.
Ian.
I'm sure that my brother and I had this one back many years ago.
We've not played with our Lego in a long time as mum and dad claimed them for when we supply then with some grandchildren, so there's fun things for us all to play with.
We used to have most of the early space kits, in a huge draw string bag that mum made, that could be spread out as a big play/construction area. Made cleaning up really easy, just pull the string.
We never got into the Technic sets or others much outside of space as they came along when we were older than the recommended ages. Seeing as we're both space sci-fi nuts the space kits were all we really needed.
There were never enough computer terminals, or aerials as it's amazing how complex a weapons system you can make with them, especially the red ones, they were the most powerful ones, good for strafing the planet below.
Ian.
Counter is 51893 at AUS 4:04pm on Thursday 23.
Also remember that we're a few hours ahead of most of you.
Ian.
That's a new one on me. .txt file?
.txt file.
.txt file out there!!!
How do you embed something into a
The other formats allow embedding and linking to files, but not the humble old
Unless there's a new
Ian.
Do all these wild guesses about the number of pages include such wonders as all of the pages in Yahoo, and Google's Web Directory. No doubt these would boost the page counts a little.
Especially if Google is caching someone elses content pages.
Ian.
If you buy a Lexus instead of a Toyota you're buying status
And if I was involved in an accident I know which one I'd prefer to have been driving.
Hint: It's not the Toyota.
My current car (a Toyota) I purchased as it was fairly cheap and looked quite nice.
My next car, the main factor will be that my future family will still be alive if they are involved in a collision.
Ian.
The simple solution that we have is that you can install a virus scanner. The one that I have had installed here checks for downloads of new virus signatures each day, and as workstations connect in the morning they get the latest updates.
Works on each desktop, and also on Exchange too.
I also remind the staff here to not blindly execute programs that they weren't expecting.
Yes some people here received the virus in their inboxes, but the thing never got the chance to run.
Ian.
I think that this would be a good thing to watch occurring. Preferably from a long way away.
Nuclear explosions, while not being all that good for the environment, do make really impressive movies and pictures. Antimatter being annihilated would probably look cool too.
Does anyone have any ideas here?
Ian.