You have a very good point. Let's just say that with the type of work we do, those that want to work for us really want to work for us. For example, it's like the time I was invited in to pitch story ideas to a producer for Star Trek: TNG. I knew I was damned lucky to get invited in, and I knew that living in Richmond and working with people in LA would require a HUGE sacrifice on my part. It was such a great potential opportunity, I would have quit my current teaching position just to write one script for them (I have to admit, with what I expected to make on one script with the initial fee and residuals over the next year and a half, I would earn more than I would have teaching for that same time).
While I don't run anything like Trek, due to the type of work we do, if someone wants to work for us, they really want to work with us.
I don't want people working 12 hour days and forsaking their families, but I do want people tht view this firm and what we do as extraordinary.
Oh, and if the ropes course is local (and it is), then it can be done in a 3 hours, including transport -- we don't need to do all the activities.
I used to teach. When I was looking for my first public school contract, I applied to close to 20 school systems. EVERY one required a written essay on the application -- some typed, some handwritten. Later, when I worked in a residential treatment program, they had me sit in a room with my future supervisor and write a few paragraphs on a given topic.
As a teacher, I found that there are MANY people, children and adults who may have good verbal skills, but are completely incapable of using the written word.
Now that I'm running my own business, I would not conceive of hiring ANYONE (except a sanitation engineer) without a written test. They can be offended or not, it's their choice. If they find it demeaning, or offensive that my company requires a written test, they don't have to work for me.
I realize it is the University people, not applicants, who are shocked, but it is necessary to know how someone can express him/herself in writing. I'm sure any college/university administrators are in their own world, where their peers all have a Master's, or Ph.D., so their writing skills have been proven in a thesis. You may want to point out to them that you are not hiring someone in the circles they run in, but someone who will need good writing skills. Without testing an applicant, how will you know if this person can write well?
Another note: at the grad and post grad level, you are in an instutition that deals with a completely different type of education than someone who has had to teach people (from kids to adults) to read and write. I can tell you, from experience, there are MANY people out there who can express themsleves very well verbally, but can't write a coherent paragraph for any reason.
On the far side of this question, my firm is rather unusual, and I will be requiring many creative and technical people, all working together in a strongly interactive and interdependent atmosphere. I've even talked with my laywer about requiring job applicants to go through a ropes course (or other group building exercise) with other applicants as part of the application process. We figure it would be one of the few ways to see if a person REALLY believes in teamwork, or just claims to. It seems (and perhaps is) extreme, but I've worked with too many people that claim to be one thing (and may even believe what they say), but are really something different. We want to see what a person is like when they have to work with a group of other people to sovle a problem and cope with stress.
I think we're looking at the point from 2 different directions. You may trust someone's coding skills more than your own.
But 99% of voters don't know what a coder is. And 99% don't care. It's too technical for them. While you or I may feel exactly as you state in your post, the point will be brought home to MANY more people if they realize that ANYONE can examine the programs and system and, if they don't have the background to understand it, they can easily find someone at will who can explain it to them -- they won't have to rely on only the "intelligensia" or other specific groups of people they may or may not trust.
BTW, the fact that my post was modded to Troll, I think, only proves my original point -- that many tech people think they somehow have a special ranking above others. That's why I think using an open process is only part of the problem. Using a voter education campaign to bring the point home directly to Joe Voter is just as important. All people need to see and trust any voting system.
Let's look at the big picture. OSS advocates talk about wanting to be able to examine software. One person above said people will trust a more open process. I think we forget that this is only a small part of the picture. 99% of all voters won't be able to make heads or tails of the source and 99% won't care one way or the other.
We (or at least the/. crowd) have a tendancy to think we're better than everyone because we're so smart (but not smart enough to learn humility and to remember many of us are writing from democracies that supposedly view all people as equal -- and NOT that some are more equal than others). So the bigger picture includes the question of if Joe Voter will care if s/he is voding on an OSS system.
All Joe/Jane Voter will care about is if the vote is registered correctly and that all the votes are counted ONE time (and only one time and not less than one time).
That's the bigger picture we forget about. So how does OSS fit into that picture?
Even in the big picture, OSS has an advantage. I think it would be necessary to not only use OSS, but to make the install and setup processes open to be viewed. While few voters will decide to watch it, the entire open process can be publicized in adverts as part of an overall voter education campaign. While Joe/Jane Voter won't care if the software is OSS, they will care if a number of people in the public eye (not government officials) appear on ads saying they've seen the process and can testify to it's openness and fairness. The gov't could even make a big deal about how everything is open for inspection. Part of this would be pointing out that if someone didn't trust the system, they could hire an expert of their choice to examine the code and hardward specs.
So in the short run, OSS will only matter to nerds. In the long run, if OSS is part of an overall open system that is highly publicized in a voter education campaign, and it is made clear that those without the technical skills to analyze the system on their own can go down to the local Rent-A-Nerd temp agency, find simeone they feel they can trust, hire that person, and have them analyze the system. That will start to bring the openness and strength of the system home directly to Joe/Jane Voter.
There was an exhibit planned (I never got to see it, so I can't say for sure it was shown) at the Richmond Poe Museum on possible causes of Poe's death. According to the director of the Museum at the time (I can't remember which director it was for sure, just remember talking to him), this exhibit presented at least 10-12 theories other than alcohol that would explain Poe's death. Diabetes was just one. It was the one I found most plausable and the one I used to explain his death in my script.
I had completely forgotten about the suicide attempt or anything connected with it. After reading your post about it, I checked my notes. It was in there, without many details, but I had included it (with a note that it was within in 1-2 years before he died).
Funny, I can't believe I had completely forgotten it. But, then again, that's why I have notes on research...
I don't remember finding anything in my research about suicide, but I won't disagree with that. I'd have to say that using a drug for suicide does not mean he used it at any other time. I do ask, though, what is your source for this? (I hope not a high school English teacher -- there are still teachers who parrot Griswold's libel.
Drugs too, Poe was addicted to laudanum, lets not forget the drugs. Also he drank absinthe, which is a bit more than regular liquor.
Not true. See how lasting a pack of lies can be? Especially when written about a dead man. Rufus Griswold was blasted by some of Poe's criticism, so on Poe's death, faked friendship so he could be Poe's literary executor, then began to slander and libel Poe in his obit. These lies were so effective many people believe them without even thinking about them (including high school lit teachers!). For more info, see my post above -- "Poe Was Not an Alcoholic!"
R. W. Griswold (or was it Griswald -- I forget) -- that was the name of Poe's executor that spread all the slander and libel about his drinking. (I knew it would pop into my head five minutes after I posted.)
And sometimes/. posts come from otherwise intelligent people that think they know about American literature.
Living in Richmond, VA, a city where Poe lived for a large part of his life, I have more than a passing familarity with Poe. I've also done a LOT of research on Poe for a screenplay (a new film production company focusing on digital film production is not only interested in this script, but is seriously negotiating for this script).
One of my former teachers is on the board for the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond and I have had long conversations and interviews with the current and former heads of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum.
In short, Poe was NOT an alcoholic (believe me, after years of working in treatment programs, I KNOW alcoholics), and there is little or no evidence he used opium, in any form.
There is strong evidence he may have been diabetic, in which case he could have what amounts to an allergic reaction to alcohol (I'm not an M.D., so I don't know all the details here.) He was also a critic and could write scathing reviews of other writers. True, he was found in a bar, went into a coma, and died a few days later. What many people don't know is that he was found in a bar on election day! I don't rember the exact law, or if the bar was a polling place, but for legal reasons, no alcohol was being served in the bar due to it being election day.
Diabetes would explain problems Poe had if he drunk and it would also explain his death -- a diabetic coma.
As for being morbid -- some of his writing was morbid. I suggest reading something like "The Poetic Principle" if you want background on this. Poe had quite a sharp sense of humor (and quite a sharp ego, as well) and was totally enticed by beauty. While I would call a number of his works morbid, I have not found enough in research to say he was morbid.
One last point: I mentioned he was a scathing critic. When he died, one of the writers he had severly criticized (I'm sorry -- I should remember his name off the top of my head, but I can't remember it) feigned friendship with Poe and asked to write the obit and handle other similar details. He used the chance to lambast and destroy Poe's reputation with slander and libel. The effectiveness of his slander can still be seen today, 153 years after Poe's death, when we see an intelligent/. reader submit a story and state commonplace assumptions that have no basis in fact and, in truth, came from this slander of a dead man.
I heard a rumor (just that -- I don't have any verification) that M$ was planning to make Longhorn the first OS that wasn't paid for all upfront -- that M$ wanted monthly revenue like AOL. The (questionable) source told me the plans were to make Longhorn work on a monthly fee basis.
Has anyone heard anything about this? I'm not trying to start a rumor -- I'm trying to find out if this one is (as I would expect) ungrounded.
Actually, I was trying to be brief. The points you make are good. You might say I was oversimplifying the situation -- I didn't want to go into everything.
Yes, people switch for a number of reasons, including the ones you mention. I still say a lot has to do with attitude. While Apple and Real Networks are going open source and other companies are looking into it, M$ still insists they are right and the GPL is viral.
True, the reasons most people switch are fiscal. But look at Licensing 6.0 (is it 6.0? I keep losing track of version numbers for everything). On mailing lists and in other places I keep hearing about companies switching to Star Office or OpenOffice.org because of finances. But it is arrogance that has lead to M$ upping the fees so high that people are looking for alternatives. That's a big part of what I think will help alternatives in the long run -- M$'s arrogance leads them to charging more and more for less and less (including poor security). Instead of looking at how they can improve and help the consumer or average business, their attitude leads them to tell everyone why M$ is right and should be listened to and why people should pay so much for them.
In other words, you include a lot of detail I did not, but in many cases, the fiscal reasons people leave M$ products are due to M$ having the arrogant attitude that allows them to be selfish and greedy enough to drive people away.
(I'm not discounting your comments -- I just think what you point out is an outgrowth or result of the M$ attitude in the first place.)
M$ is extremely arrogant. The only time this has been repressed at all is when M$ was trying to say, "See, aren't we a good company?" Even then, they have shown an arrogance that is unbelievable and shows that they truly don't understand that anybody has any rights other M$ and that M$ is always right. Now that they've only been slapped on the hand, we can, of course, expect the arrogant behavior to get worse.
More and more companies are switching to Open Source Software because they're fed up with M$. If M$ were reigned in, that would reduce the frustration other companies have with them. On the other hand, since they have essentially no consequences that hurt them, as their attitude gets worse, so will frustration.
It's like being a kid in school and being beat up by the bully. As the bully's arrogance increases, he thinks he's more and more immune to what anyone can do. Eventually he tries to take on the whole class, everyone sees what he's really like, and suddenly the bully is left standing there, like the Emperor in his new clothes.
M$ attitude is a good reason for people to switch from them. The worse it gets, the more will switch. The Judge has just given them permission to show their worst behavior. Just how much of that will the market bear?
Remember Double Star, by RAH? He wasn't talking about computers recognizing how people walked, but the main character, before he gets involved in impersonating the President, tells one of the President's aids to put a few pebbles in his shoes so people won't recognize the way he walks. And that was when? I think Double Star was written in the 1950s.
Fitting the clothes to the job is a good point. I overlooked it because I tend to work only with coders. If there's servers to move around, it's generally me who has to do it.
I think my biggest frustration is all the IT people that somehow think they're better than everyone else or above others and should get special treatment because they're so fscking intelligent. If they truly were that fscking smart, they'd realize they're providing a service, like everyone else, including the road cleaners and gas pump attendants. True, it takes more training than those jobs, but the bottom line is they are a service provider, even as an employee. If they're that much better than others that they can flaunt rules, then I'm sure they're so smart they don't need a job because they can just go out and start their own company and make millions.
Personally, I've never had trouble finding a new provider for ANY service when I needed to change.
Re:Wow! Communicating with others?!
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Suit Up Or Ship Out?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Stop whiiinnnniiiinng.
I have no sympathy for people that will now have to present a mature appearence and attitude, like most of the rest of the world in the workplace. Asking IT people to wear a tie or to show appropriate communication skills does not bring them in line with a road sweeper. It just makes the ones with an unprofessional attitude adopt a more mature style of behavior and a more professional style of dress.
Personally, in my company, as long as it looks decent, I even allow jeans and sandles (if the jeans are torn or too faded, they're out), but I ALWAYS expect good communication and people skills. I've worked with a few coders who may have been great coders, but their lack of communication skills have made it impossible to get them to listen or produce the product that was necessary. None of them are working for me now. If you want to wear jeans and sandles and listen to Metallica while you code, fine, that's why God invented headphones, but when it comes to interacting with the rest of the staff, I expect these people who claim to be so much more intelligent than the rest of the world to use that intelligence to figure out how to interact. I also expect common courtesy, something I've noticed a significant portion of coders I've dealt with (not a majority, but enough to notice) don't show. There's just no excuse for not knowing how to show common courtesy.
If you aren't good with ties and end up having to wear one, go for a bow tie. You can get clip-on bow ties and nobody notices or cares if it's a clip on. Also many (I think most) bow ties fasten in the back or side under the collar. If you pick the right kinds of patterns, it can look spiffy and give you a personalized appearence in a room full of drones.
All I needed to hear was the credits for the new season ("The universe is a dangerous place."). That said it all. It's going to be BAD. Then there was the line from Dylan about Tyr not hurting their friendship -- as if that were Tyr's first concern, instead of survival. Then there was the nuthouse episode, which I could not believe -- I was so bored, I was about to shut it off. The only reason I watched the last episode was to see John DeLancie. Now it's no more Andromeda for me. It's just gotten too sappy -- all the things that made it different from all the other shows are gone -- Tyr is becoming a nice guy, and the edge is even being taken off Sid (John DeLancie's character) and, with 50 worlds, the Alliance now acts like Star Fleet on idiot pills.
First, I'd have to say I agree STRONGLY with the post by GaryMannDude above about change. Schools are VERY conservative institutions (speaking from experience -- 10 years of teaching before burnout). They do not like change and administrators are often actually feel threatened by teachers -- especially new ones, who konw a lot of things the administrators don't know -- like how to use technology.
Second -- and my main point: What is your goal? Is it to teach the children the objectives for your year that you have them, or is it to teach them all the things you think they should learn? Almost every 1st year teacher I've ever known (myself included) has spent 12 hours a day or more on lesson plans. This is especially true for elementary students. You don't say what grade you'll be teaching (and there's a big range and a BIG difference between kindergarten and 5th grade), but I don't know a single elementary teacher who spent less than 10 hours a day on prep and grading during their first year.
Do you really want to add setting up a group of computers on top of that? Is your goal to teach or to make a new record for quick teacher burn out? If you are not teaching the basic goals, as stated in your state's/county's/city's guides, it won't matter what miracles you're producing or what the kids can do with computers, you'll be on probation and out the door by the ned of the year.
First year teaching, especially in elementary school, is rough. If you want to succeed as a teacher, spend your first year teaching and finding out what it's like being totally, 100% responsibile for a class of children (including dealing with the administrator and the parents) without your teeachers or an experienced teacher helping you through 1/2 a semester of student teaching.
I admire and applaud your goals, but trying to do all this in your first year is asking for burn out and a new career. Spend this year, and likely the next, learning your profession. After you've been teaching for a few years, then make plans for how you're going to integrate the computers into your classroom. You'll do much better if you tie the computers in directly to the required objectives (in Virginia teachers are responsible for teaching the material stated in the Standards of Learning for each grade -- and yep, the Standards of Learning are called S.O.L.s), so when you're setting them up you can show administrators how they tie in directly to what you're expected to teach.
You'll also do much better this way in the long run. You're pacing yourself instead of trying to do everything at once. While your students in the first year won't gain benefits from your computer plans, in the long run, if you pace yourself, you'll reach many more students without burning out.
Nope. I don't. You might consider a more in depth study of how language is used and how it evolves. I have never seen a definition of crash as a technical term that means only 1 thing. I've always heard it from people as referring to a range of problems. Crash, as with many generalized computer terms, is a recent word (at least as far as this particular usage) and you will notice -- if you listen to people and how they use it, instead of trying to make everybody follow your ideas -- that when computer people use this term, they can mean a range of events. 'Nuff said on that topic. In the mean time, why don't you go out and get a life?
As for the rest of your post, it seems you assume you know exactly what I've had. FYI I found NTFS almost as unreliable as FAT. I don't mean just in problems from improper shutdowns.
While I was referring to a range of problems, I have found all versions of Windoze to give me frequent problems in loss of data to improper shutdowns. I have also found Windoze systems to result in a wide range of problems (I won't use the word crash, since you seem fixated on forcing one specific definition for it). I've found I have problems that require re-formatting the drive 3-7 times a year (I checked my logs, the range depends on the system). Granted NTFS drives were down less frequently, but my experience is that in over a year of running Linux, I have yet to see a failure (other than from improper shutdown due to loss of power) on a Linux ext2 drive. I have learned to enjoy not having to re-format and restore or re-install drives every few months since I dropped Windoze.
(And as for improper shutdown -- I can't count the times I've had problems Windoze caused a drive problem because a system WOULD NOT shutdown at all because it couldn't kill a runaway process, which I've never seen happen on a Linux box.)
I've had crashes as in complete drive failure and crashes as in the data is corrupted and has to be reformatted or rebuilt. I've never heard anyone pin it down and say a crash ALWAYS means the drive is destroyed -- I've always heard that highly technical term crash used to refer to complete failure as well as a failure that can be fixed with a re-format.
There's one change I made that has had a HUGE impact on my MTBF for my drives. It's not a hardware change at all.
When I used Windoze (98SE and 2k), I had to deal with crashed drives about once every month or two. Usually these crashes were repairable, but often there was data loss requiring me to restore backups or to re-install the OS and software.
Over a year ago I switched to Linux (Mandrake 8.0 since upgraded as upgrades came out), using ext2 (and I think ext3 on a few drives). Since my change over, the drive crashes just don't happen. It's hard for me to make sure I keep up with backups now, since I don't have crashes to remind me how important they are! (Yes, I still backup, I just don't have the fear prodding me to do it!)
If drives are so good, people don't need a warranty, then why aren't they extending the warranty?
Question: Why do companies offer extended warranties on any item? Answer: They make a profit on it.
Question: How do they make a profit on extended warranties? Answer: They know what kind of failure rate to expect, and they know for the first few years any electrical item will not break.
They're only offering you the warranty because they make money on it. They only make money on it if the item does not break. If drive makers were that sure of their products, and their failure rate for, say, 2 years use, were incredibly low, then a 2 year warranty should hardly cost them anything. The more drives that fail, the higher their cost! So if their drives are so good they don't need a warranty, the drives are so good the company won't have to replace them and a longer warranty won't cost them diddly.
I started reading this FAQ and got to the answer to the 2nd question. That's where they define who they are and basically say the same stupid thing Bush is saying, "This is what we say. If you're not with us, you're against us."
It reminds me of the trials and fracas about teaching evolution in schools. That spawned a Creation Science movement, where fundies tried to create a scientific rationale behind creationism. To bolster their case, they created a religion named Secular Humanism, defined it, and started telling the opposition they were members -- the first time in history a religion was created and defined by those against it, who also determined its membership.
Isn't this the same thing? GNU's saying, "This is our stand. Those who don't agree are the ones being devisive in the community and not us." Notice they point out how wonderful and good and morally right their beliefs are, then basically say, "Those who don't say GNU/Linux are against all that."
I'm fairly new to open source (about 1 year of serious work in my home/office about 1 year piddling w/ it before that), and I always had a lot of respect for GNU.
Until now.
I'm seriously thinking it's time to wipe GNOME or any other GNU software or descendents of such from my system. On the other hand, that's being as much of a philosphical bigot as GNU is in this FAQ.
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You have a very good point. Let's just say that with the type of work we do, those that want to work for us really want to work for us. For example, it's like the time I was invited in to pitch story ideas to a producer for Star Trek: TNG. I knew I was damned lucky to get invited in, and I knew that living in Richmond and working with people in LA would require a HUGE sacrifice on my part. It was such a great potential opportunity, I would have quit my current teaching position just to write one script for them (I have to admit, with what I expected to make on one script with the initial fee and residuals over the next year and a half, I would earn more than I would have teaching for that same time).
While I don't run anything like Trek, due to the type of work we do, if someone wants to work for us, they really want to work with us.
I don't want people working 12 hour days and forsaking their families, but I do want people tht view this firm and what we do as extraordinary.
Oh, and if the ropes course is local (and it is), then it can be done in a 3 hours, including transport -- we don't need to do all the activities.
I used to teach. When I was looking for my first public school contract, I applied to close to 20 school systems. EVERY one required a written essay on the application -- some typed, some handwritten. Later, when I worked in a residential treatment program, they had me sit in a room with my future supervisor and write a few paragraphs on a given topic.
As a teacher, I found that there are MANY people, children and adults who may have good verbal skills, but are completely incapable of using the written word.
Now that I'm running my own business, I would not conceive of hiring ANYONE (except a sanitation engineer) without a written test. They can be offended or not, it's their choice. If they find it demeaning, or offensive that my company requires a written test, they don't have to work for me.
I realize it is the University people, not applicants, who are shocked, but it is necessary to know how someone can express him/herself in writing. I'm sure any college/university administrators are in their own world, where their peers all have a Master's, or Ph.D., so their writing skills have been proven in a thesis. You may want to point out to them that you are not hiring someone in the circles they run in, but someone who will need good writing skills. Without testing an applicant, how will you know if this person can write well?
Another note: at the grad and post grad level, you are in an instutition that deals with a completely different type of education than someone who has had to teach people (from kids to adults) to read and write. I can tell you, from experience, there are MANY people out there who can express themsleves very well verbally, but can't write a coherent paragraph for any reason.
On the far side of this question, my firm is rather unusual, and I will be requiring many creative and technical people, all working together in a strongly interactive and interdependent atmosphere. I've even talked with my laywer about requiring job applicants to go through a ropes course (or other group building exercise) with other applicants as part of the application process. We figure it would be one of the few ways to see if a person REALLY believes in teamwork, or just claims to. It seems (and perhaps is) extreme, but I've worked with too many people that claim to be one thing (and may even believe what they say), but are really something different. We want to see what a person is like when they have to work with a group of other people to sovle a problem and cope with stress.
I think we're looking at the point from 2 different directions. You may trust someone's coding skills more than your own.
But 99% of voters don't know what a coder is. And 99% don't care. It's too technical for them. While you or I may feel exactly as you state in your post, the point will be brought home to MANY more people if they realize that ANYONE can examine the programs and system and, if they don't have the background to understand it, they can easily find someone at will who can explain it to them -- they won't have to rely on only the "intelligensia" or other specific groups of people they may or may not trust.
BTW, the fact that my post was modded to Troll, I think, only proves my original point -- that many tech people think they somehow have a special ranking above others. That's why I think using an open process is only part of the problem. Using a voter education campaign to bring the point home directly to Joe Voter is just as important. All people need to see and trust any voting system.
Let's look at the big picture. OSS advocates talk about wanting to be able to examine software. One person above said people will trust a more open process. I think we forget that this is only a small part of the picture. 99% of all voters won't be able to make heads or tails of the source and 99% won't care one way or the other.
/. crowd) have a tendancy to think we're better than everyone because we're so smart (but not smart enough to learn humility and to remember many of us are writing from democracies that supposedly view all people as equal -- and NOT that some are more equal than others). So the bigger picture includes the question of if Joe Voter will care if s/he is voding on an OSS system.
We (or at least the
All Joe/Jane Voter will care about is if the vote is registered correctly and that all the votes are counted ONE time (and only one time and not less than one time).
That's the bigger picture we forget about. So how does OSS fit into that picture?
Even in the big picture, OSS has an advantage. I think it would be necessary to not only use OSS, but to make the install and setup processes open to be viewed. While few voters will decide to watch it, the entire open process can be publicized in adverts as part of an overall voter education campaign. While Joe/Jane Voter won't care if the software is OSS, they will care if a number of people in the public eye (not government officials) appear on ads saying they've seen the process and can testify to it's openness and fairness. The gov't could even make a big deal about how everything is open for inspection. Part of this would be pointing out that if someone didn't trust the system, they could hire an expert of their choice to examine the code and hardward specs.
So in the short run, OSS will only matter to nerds. In the long run, if OSS is part of an overall open system that is highly publicized in a voter education campaign, and it is made clear that those without the technical skills to analyze the system on their own can go down to the local Rent-A-Nerd temp agency, find simeone they feel they can trust, hire that person, and have them analyze the system. That will start to bring the openness and strength of the system home directly to Joe/Jane Voter.
There was an exhibit planned (I never got to see it, so I can't say for sure it was shown) at the Richmond Poe Museum on possible causes of Poe's death. According to the director of the Museum at the time (I can't remember which director it was for sure, just remember talking to him), this exhibit presented at least 10-12 theories other than alcohol that would explain Poe's death. Diabetes was just one. It was the one I found most plausable and the one I used to explain his death in my script.
Actually, Cyno01, I should thank you.
I had completely forgotten about the suicide attempt or anything connected with it. After reading your post about it, I checked my notes. It was in there, without many details, but I had included it (with a note that it was within in 1-2 years before he died).
Funny, I can't believe I had completely forgotten it. But, then again, that's why I have notes on research...
I don't remember finding anything in my research about suicide, but I won't disagree with that. I'd have to say that using a drug for suicide does not mean he used it at any other time. I do ask, though, what is your source for this? (I hope not a high school English teacher -- there are still teachers who parrot Griswold's libel.
Drugs too, Poe was addicted to laudanum, lets not forget the drugs. Also he drank absinthe, which is a bit more than regular liquor.
Not true. See how lasting a pack of lies can be? Especially when written about a dead man. Rufus Griswold was blasted by some of Poe's criticism, so on Poe's death, faked friendship so he could be Poe's literary executor, then began to slander and libel Poe in his obit. These lies were so effective many people believe them without even thinking about them (including high school lit teachers!). For more info, see my post above -- "Poe Was Not an Alcoholic!"
The plain truth is that he wasn't.
He was known to frequently drink to excess, and died drunk in a gutter -- thus an alcoholic.
And what's the source? See Poe Was Not An Alcoholic, posted above. This is slander from Griswold's obits where he wanted to destroy Poe's reputation.
Find one solid source in ANY Poe biography that states he drank....You can't, because he didn't.
R. W. Griswold (or was it Griswald -- I forget) -- that was the name of Poe's executor that spread all the slander and libel about his drinking. (I knew it would pop into my head five minutes after I posted.)
they come from a morbid, alcoholic, poet
/. posts come from otherwise intelligent people that think they know about American literature.
/. reader submit a story and state commonplace assumptions that have no basis in fact and, in truth, came from this slander of a dead man.
And sometimes
Living in Richmond, VA, a city where Poe lived for a large part of his life, I have more than a passing familarity with Poe. I've also done a LOT of research on Poe for a screenplay (a new film production company focusing on digital film production is not only interested in this script, but is seriously negotiating for this script).
One of my former teachers is on the board for the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond and I have had long conversations and interviews with the current and former heads of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum.
In short, Poe was NOT an alcoholic (believe me, after years of working in treatment programs, I KNOW alcoholics), and there is little or no evidence he used opium, in any form.
There is strong evidence he may have been diabetic, in which case he could have what amounts to an allergic reaction to alcohol (I'm not an M.D., so I don't know all the details here.) He was also a critic and could write scathing reviews of other writers. True, he was found in a bar, went into a coma, and died a few days later. What many people don't know is that he was found in a bar on election day! I don't rember the exact law, or if the bar was a polling place, but for legal reasons, no alcohol was being served in the bar due to it being election day.
Diabetes would explain problems Poe had if he drunk and it would also explain his death -- a diabetic coma.
As for being morbid -- some of his writing was morbid. I suggest reading something like "The Poetic Principle" if you want background on this. Poe had quite a sharp sense of humor (and quite a sharp ego, as well) and was totally enticed by beauty. While I would call a number of his works morbid, I have not found enough in research to say he was morbid.
One last point: I mentioned he was a scathing critic. When he died, one of the writers he had severly criticized (I'm sorry -- I should remember his name off the top of my head, but I can't remember it) feigned friendship with Poe and asked to write the obit and handle other similar details. He used the chance to lambast and destroy Poe's reputation with slander and libel. The effectiveness of his slander can still be seen today, 153 years after Poe's death, when we see an intelligent
I heard a rumor (just that -- I don't have any verification) that M$ was planning to make Longhorn the first OS that wasn't paid for all upfront -- that M$ wanted monthly revenue like AOL. The (questionable) source told me the plans were to make Longhorn work on a monthly fee basis.
Has anyone heard anything about this? I'm not trying to start a rumor -- I'm trying to find out if this one is (as I would expect) ungrounded.
Actually, I was trying to be brief. The points you make are good. You might say I was oversimplifying the situation -- I didn't want to go into everything.
Yes, people switch for a number of reasons, including the ones you mention. I still say a lot has to do with attitude. While Apple and Real Networks are going open source and other companies are looking into it, M$ still insists they are right and the GPL is viral.
True, the reasons most people switch are fiscal. But look at Licensing 6.0 (is it 6.0? I keep losing track of version numbers for everything). On mailing lists and in other places I keep hearing about companies switching to Star Office or OpenOffice.org because of finances. But it is arrogance that has lead to M$ upping the fees so high that people are looking for alternatives. That's a big part of what I think will help alternatives in the long run -- M$'s arrogance leads them to charging more and more for less and less (including poor security). Instead of looking at how they can improve and help the consumer or average business, their attitude leads them to tell everyone why M$ is right and should be listened to and why people should pay so much for them.
In other words, you include a lot of detail I did not, but in many cases, the fiscal reasons people leave M$ products are due to M$ having the arrogant attitude that allows them to be selfish and greedy enough to drive people away.
(I'm not discounting your comments -- I just think what you point out is an outgrowth or result of the M$ attitude in the first place.)
M$ is extremely arrogant. The only time this has been repressed at all is when M$ was trying to say, "See, aren't we a good company?" Even then, they have shown an arrogance that is unbelievable and shows that they truly don't understand that anybody has any rights other M$ and that M$ is always right. Now that they've only been slapped on the hand, we can, of course, expect the arrogant behavior to get worse.
More and more companies are switching to Open Source Software because they're fed up with M$. If M$ were reigned in, that would reduce the frustration other companies have with them. On the other hand, since they have essentially no consequences that hurt them, as their attitude gets worse, so will frustration.
It's like being a kid in school and being beat up by the bully. As the bully's arrogance increases, he thinks he's more and more immune to what anyone can do. Eventually he tries to take on the whole class, everyone sees what he's really like, and suddenly the bully is left standing there, like the Emperor in his new clothes.
M$ attitude is a good reason for people to switch from them. The worse it gets, the more will switch. The Judge has just given them permission to show their worst behavior. Just how much of that will the market bear?
Remember Double Star, by RAH? He wasn't talking about computers recognizing how people walked, but the main character, before he gets involved in impersonating the President, tells one of the President's aids to put a few pebbles in his shoes so people won't recognize the way he walks. And that was when? I think Double Star was written in the 1950s.
Fitting the clothes to the job is a good point. I overlooked it because I tend to work only with coders. If there's servers to move around, it's generally me who has to do it.
I think my biggest frustration is all the IT people that somehow think they're better than everyone else or above others and should get special treatment because they're so fscking intelligent. If they truly were that fscking smart, they'd realize they're providing a service, like everyone else, including the road cleaners and gas pump attendants. True, it takes more training than those jobs, but the bottom line is they are a service provider, even as an employee. If they're that much better than others that they can flaunt rules, then I'm sure they're so smart they don't need a job because they can just go out and start their own company and make millions.
Personally, I've never had trouble finding a new provider for ANY service when I needed to change.
Stop whiiinnnniiiinng.
I have no sympathy for people that will now have to present a mature appearence and attitude, like most of the rest of the world in the workplace. Asking IT people to wear a tie or to show appropriate communication skills does not bring them in line with a road sweeper. It just makes the ones with an unprofessional attitude adopt a more mature style of behavior and a more professional style of dress.
Personally, in my company, as long as it looks decent, I even allow jeans and sandles (if the jeans are torn or too faded, they're out), but I ALWAYS expect good communication and people skills. I've worked with a few coders who may have been great coders, but their lack of communication skills have made it impossible to get them to listen or produce the product that was necessary. None of them are working for me now. If you want to wear jeans and sandles and listen to Metallica while you code, fine, that's why God invented headphones, but when it comes to interacting with the rest of the staff, I expect these people who claim to be so much more intelligent than the rest of the world to use that intelligence to figure out how to interact. I also expect common courtesy, something I've noticed a significant portion of coders I've dealt with (not a majority, but enough to notice) don't show. There's just no excuse for not knowing how to show common courtesy.
If you aren't good with ties and end up having to wear one, go for a bow tie. You can get clip-on bow ties and nobody notices or cares if it's a clip on. Also many (I think most) bow ties fasten in the back or side under the collar. If you pick the right kinds of patterns, it can look spiffy and give you a personalized appearence in a room full of drones.
Just how bad is Andromeda?!?!
All I needed to hear was the credits for the new season ("The universe is a dangerous place."). That said it all. It's going to be BAD. Then there was the line from Dylan about Tyr not hurting their friendship -- as if that were Tyr's first concern, instead of survival. Then there was the nuthouse episode, which I could not believe -- I was so bored, I was about to shut it off. The only reason I watched the last episode was to see John DeLancie. Now it's no more Andromeda for me. It's just gotten too sappy -- all the things that made it different from all the other shows are gone -- Tyr is becoming a nice guy, and the edge is even being taken off Sid (John DeLancie's character) and, with 50 worlds, the Alliance now acts like Star Fleet on idiot pills.
That's how bad Andromeda is!
First, I'd have to say I agree STRONGLY with the post by GaryMannDude above about change. Schools are VERY conservative institutions (speaking from experience -- 10 years of teaching before burnout). They do not like change and administrators are often actually feel threatened by teachers -- especially new ones, who konw a lot of things the administrators don't know -- like how to use technology.
Second -- and my main point: What is your goal? Is it to teach the children the objectives for your year that you have them, or is it to teach them all the things you think they should learn? Almost every 1st year teacher I've ever known (myself included) has spent 12 hours a day or more on lesson plans. This is especially true for elementary students. You don't say what grade you'll be teaching (and there's a big range and a BIG difference between kindergarten and 5th grade), but I don't know a single elementary teacher who spent less than 10 hours a day on prep and grading during their first year.
Do you really want to add setting up a group of computers on top of that? Is your goal to teach or to make a new record for quick teacher burn out? If you are not teaching the basic goals, as stated in your state's/county's/city's guides, it won't matter what miracles you're producing or what the kids can do with computers, you'll be on probation and out the door by the ned of the year.
First year teaching, especially in elementary school, is rough. If you want to succeed as a teacher, spend your first year teaching and finding out what it's like being totally, 100% responsibile for a class of children (including dealing with the administrator and the parents) without your teeachers or an experienced teacher helping you through 1/2 a semester of student teaching.
I admire and applaud your goals, but trying to do all this in your first year is asking for burn out and a new career. Spend this year, and likely the next, learning your profession. After you've been teaching for a few years, then make plans for how you're going to integrate the computers into your classroom. You'll do much better if you tie the computers in directly to the required objectives (in Virginia teachers are responsible for teaching the material stated in the Standards of Learning for each grade -- and yep, the Standards of Learning are called S.O.L.s), so when you're setting them up you can show administrators how they tie in directly to what you're expected to teach.
You'll also do much better this way in the long run. You're pacing yourself instead of trying to do everything at once. While your students in the first year won't gain benefits from your computer plans, in the long run, if you pace yourself, you'll reach many more students without burning out.
Nope. I don't. You might consider a more in depth study of how language is used and how it evolves. I have never seen a definition of crash as a technical term that means only 1 thing. I've always heard it from people as referring to a range of problems. Crash, as with many generalized computer terms, is a recent word (at least as far as this particular usage) and you will notice -- if you listen to people and how they use it, instead of trying to make everybody follow your ideas -- that when computer people use this term, they can mean a range of events. 'Nuff said on that topic. In the mean time, why don't you go out and get a life?
As for the rest of your post, it seems you assume you know exactly what I've had. FYI I found NTFS almost as unreliable as FAT. I don't mean just in problems from improper shutdowns.
While I was referring to a range of problems, I have found all versions of Windoze to give me frequent problems in loss of data to improper shutdowns. I have also found Windoze systems to result in a wide range of problems (I won't use the word crash, since you seem fixated on forcing one specific definition for it). I've found I have problems that require re-formatting the drive 3-7 times a year (I checked my logs, the range depends on the system). Granted NTFS drives were down less frequently, but my experience is that in over a year of running Linux, I have yet to see a failure (other than from improper shutdown due to loss of power) on a Linux ext2 drive. I have learned to enjoy not having to re-format and restore or re-install drives every few months since I dropped Windoze.
(And as for improper shutdown -- I can't count the times I've had problems Windoze caused a drive problem because a system WOULD NOT shutdown at all because it couldn't kill a runaway process, which I've never seen happen on a Linux box.)
I've had crashes as in complete drive failure and crashes as in the data is corrupted and has to be reformatted or rebuilt. I've never heard anyone pin it down and say a crash ALWAYS means the drive is destroyed -- I've always heard that highly technical term crash used to refer to complete failure as well as a failure that can be fixed with a re-format.
There's one change I made that has had a HUGE impact on my MTBF for my drives. It's not a hardware change at all.
When I used Windoze (98SE and 2k), I had to deal with crashed drives about once every month or two. Usually these crashes were repairable, but often there was data loss requiring me to restore backups or to re-install the OS and software.
Over a year ago I switched to Linux (Mandrake 8.0 since upgraded as upgrades came out), using ext2 (and I think ext3 on a few drives). Since my change over, the drive crashes just don't happen. It's hard for me to make sure I keep up with backups now, since I don't have crashes to remind me how important they are! (Yes, I still backup, I just don't have the fear prodding me to do it!)
If drives are so good, people don't need a warranty, then why aren't they extending the warranty?
Question: Why do companies offer extended warranties on any item?
Answer: They make a profit on it.
Question: How do they make a profit on extended warranties?
Answer: They know what kind of failure rate to expect, and they know for the first few years any electrical item will not break.
They're only offering you the warranty because they make money on it. They only make money on it if the item does not break. If drive makers were that sure of their products, and their failure rate for, say, 2 years use, were incredibly low, then a 2 year warranty should hardly cost them anything. The more drives that fail, the higher their cost! So if their drives are so good they don't need a warranty, the drives are so good the company won't have to replace them and a longer warranty won't cost them diddly.
I started reading this FAQ and got to the answer to the 2nd question. That's where they define who they are and basically say the same stupid thing Bush is saying, "This is what we say. If you're not with us, you're against us."
It reminds me of the trials and fracas about teaching evolution in schools. That spawned a Creation Science movement, where fundies tried to create a scientific rationale behind creationism. To bolster their case, they created a religion named Secular Humanism, defined it, and started telling the opposition they were members -- the first time in history a religion was created and defined by those against it, who also determined its membership.
Isn't this the same thing? GNU's saying, "This is our stand. Those who don't agree are the ones being devisive in the community and not us." Notice they point out how wonderful and good and morally right their beliefs are, then basically say, "Those who don't say GNU/Linux are against all that."
I'm fairly new to open source (about 1 year of serious work in my home/office about 1 year piddling w/ it before that), and I always had a lot of respect for GNU.
Until now.
I'm seriously thinking it's time to wipe GNOME or any other GNU software or descendents of such from my system. On the other hand, that's being as much of a philosphical bigot as GNU is in this FAQ.