(Jealousy that they did not, perhaps?) However... the silver lining is that such a response *will* help prepare you for the real world, which is unfortunately much like this at times. Don't let it discourage you; keep going anyway, and with just a little luck, you WILL succeed. Taking moronic insults and banter like this personally is pointless and a waste of time. File it away in the "This person is unreasonable and will waste my time" folder, and keep moving.
More than likely you'll file them under "co-worker", "superior", "love interest", "employer", "friend", "mentor",...
It's unwise to disregard what a person says just because it's negative. It's a good healthy dose of real life. Rejection is a part of it.
Furthermore; it's a horrible folley to scoff "jealousy" at others who don't share your life's goals or naivette.
Good post, I'm not entirely disagreeing with you, and it's good to see some positive feedback but I hope the submitter realizes that the world is a harsh place that does judge its inhabitants based on arbitrary factors rather than pure skills and abilities.
I'm glad you saw the light. I agree flipping burgers is a waste of your time. The life lessons learned through hard work and interacting with others can be learned anywhere real work is being done. Might as well do the kind of work you want to be doing, or at least heading in that direction.
I thought the same thing myself while I was working exclusively in IT surrounded by geeks. Then I took a part-time customer service job to help pay the bills (and finance my education) and I discovered something that so many geeks have difficulty accepting; my inter-personal skills sucked. I tended to over-intellectualize, ramble on about topics most around me didn't understand (or care to), lecture people and harp on technical inaccuracies in things they said, and in general couldn't identify with groups of people who weren't all focused on the same subject.
To understand the common man, you have to walk in their shoes for several miles. (Or something wise and profound to that effect...)
You can gain other important skills by other ordinary high-school jobs. You don't have to work at a burger joint, there's libraries, and even good entry level jobs at factories. Working third shift at a factory can be loads of fun (kinda dark and mysterious).
I hate having mod points; I can never shut up long enough to use them.;)
Another important facet of getting an "ordinary high-school job" - PERSPECTIVE. Too many people in IT nowadays (and too many people entering IT) have never experienced a non-tech job. Some skills you can learn at your local burger joint, library, mall kiosk, record (CD) shop, factory;
People skills
Customer service
People skills
Mechanical aptitude
People skills
Humility
People skills
Respect for chain of command
Oh, and by the way, people skills.
Another good thing to keep in mind; the tech sector dried up not so long ago. When I was in college, there was promise of endless jobs for countless graduates. Schools couldn't bring enough people in! Co-op positions were available by the tree-load and we all had dollar signs in our eyes.
Now that the "bubble has burst" and everybody's graduated we have ten applicants for every available position. This, of course, compounds this young gentleman's problem; it's an employer's market. The first set of resumees to hit the cutting room floor are those that lack a high school education. Next round - post secondary? Industry certifications? Experience? When certified college/university graduates are applying for internships (at internship rates) there's not much hope for someone without grade 12.
Personally, I'd like to echo the suggestion to 'pound the pavement'; hit the phone book, job bank, dress nice and start visiting local businesses. If they're not specifically an IT shop but have need for some help with their systems so be it. You're probably not going to get a job with Compaq, AT&T, IBM, Microsoft et al. right out of the gate. You may find your happy niche designing in-house software for Joe's Falafal House, Inc.
Good luck to you, son; but never hold yourself too high that you can't work like those other regular schlepps. BTW - it can actually help in the near future to show a prospective employer that you have some range of experience. It may set you far enough apart to land that dream job.
No matter what you say these days, you're bound to offend somebody. People are getting politically correct to such a degree that you can't say anything anymore without fear of having someone call you on it
I have to agree with other sentiments; there are some expressions that are legitimately offensive. Lame, gay, gyp, jew are offensive to large groups of people; they're just so commonplace it starts to seem like they're acceptable.
What about more direct expressions like "chink eyed" or "nigger lips"? Highly offensive slurs passed off in normal conversation. Is that offensive yet, or are Asians and blacks just too sensitive?
I'll agree that political correctness can go too far (sanitation engineer vs. garbage man) but in some cases there are actual people being legitimately offended by phrases that are just irrational.
The word "gay" in that sense means something akin to "Weak; passing itself off as something stronger than it is; unlikely to be well-received by anyone with traditionally masculine values and/or attitudes."
The expression "{$item} is gay" doesn't have a clear-cut meaning amongst today's youth. It boils down to "it's bad", basically. As a colleague of mine (high school english teacher) discovered; even a belt can be gay. She stopped them and inquired as to how a belt could posess homosexual characteristics; they were stumped, of course.
A belt, a movie, a person who does something stupid/wrong - anything can be termed "gay" because "gay" is, atleast subconsciously, associated with "wrong" or "bad".
It's one of those expressions that's become gutteral amongst kids. They instinctually blurt it out when they need a word to describe something in a negative fashion. The problem is rather self-evident - kids today lack the mental capacity to come up with different words, hence everything is a combination of "fuck" and "gay". If gay becomes more versatile (we already have "gayer" and "gayest", now we need "gaying", perhaps "gaywit") it could become the next "fuck"!
n.b. The most pointless conversation I ever witnessed was between two teens waiting in line for lunch. To summarize;
I f' went to f'in {name}'s f'in house, we f'in drank so muck f'in beer and f'in played f'in {video game} for like 4 f'in hours. f', man, we f'in saw f'in {name}! She's so f'in hot, y'f'in'know?
I was mortified by the first couple of sencences, so I couldn't bear to listen any longer.
There's just no other description for it - and certainly not one as succinct, direct, clear, to the point, and universally understood.
I think you'll find that it's not nearly as universal as you think. Outside of "Gen @" it sounds really silly.
It was the staff who converted -- and (to their surprise) found that it was way better than they expected. Learning curve for the staff is quite relevant, since they all probably knew MS Office before hand.
The learning curve is always brought up when referring to non-MS software. This is, of course, a non sequiter of the greatest magnitude. Remember the learning curve from Works to Word? What about from Windows 3.1 to 95? From 98 through ME to XP?
The basic elements of the GUI remain constant; click menus, double click icons, drop-down menus, right-click context menus, etc. These constants, however, also exist between proprietary and closed-source PC implementations. (Throwing that in there to safeguard against the Apple-centric "One mouse button to rule them all!" responses... )
Strictly speaking, if you know how to use a GUI "Word Processor", you know how to use them all. The real curve comes in to play when you enter the more advanced world of macros, complex spreadsheets and presentations. However, once you're in that realm you're a different class of user who should be able to climb that curve more readily (opposed to the "I just want to print a resumee with my name in bold and my skills in bullets" type).
Probably the best idea I've seen so far (apart from Multiple Redundancy).
There should be a standard addendum tagged on to stories like this;
Back up everything onto five different servers running a variety of RAID-5 configurations, including SCSI, ATA, and SATA. Burn everything on to six different varieties of CD-R and DVD-R media, storing each in a separate climate controlled off-site location. Store multiple copies scattered through your house and re-burn the entire collection every six months with new media to ensure freshness. Take photocopies of all original media to demonstrate ownership and store digital copies of the pictures on an additional set of media. Open a swiss bank account and store copies in their vaults. Send backup copies of your data to the Mars Rover project to insulate you against Earth Failure. Bury copies of all backup media in a sealed time capsule in an undisclosed but GPS tagged location in a remote area of the Navajo desert. Every five years, remove, replace, and hermetically seal your RAID discs and store them in sealed, magnetic resistant container and send copies to all major continents. Of course, you will always have your local MP3 collection to listen to while you spend the rest of your life re-storing your p1r8 music collection.
Naturally, you could have saved time and money by purchasing and safely storing the original CDs after taking a loss(y|less) copy on your local HDD and backing that up on the current media flavour of choice. Of course, much like all your other data, you should transfer to a newer HDD every generation.
Personally I think it's disgusting that the manufacturer of the fluorescent tubes didn't provide explicit warnings that filling their tubes with fuel was likely to cause injury.
Should that be a blanket warning on anything with a fillable orifice?
NB : Before you make any cheap cracks, the people involved are seriously injured.
You're absolutely right. We should set up a foundation for them - donate money to help the victims of this horrible travesty. We should do all in our power to coddle them, make them feel better and be understanding of their plight. In doing so, we should strive to send a message to people everywhere that while there may be consequences to their actions, they will gain sympathy, attention and financial support for their ordeal.
In all seriousness; this is one of those rare opportunities where stupid behaviour affected only those responsible rather than harming innocent by-standers. I'm not sure how we became so left-leaning and bleeding hearted that we can't hold people responsible for their own actions, but the condition of society at large today tells me we're going too far in the wrong direction.
The lesson here? Set something on fire, burn yourself, learn lesson. These people are themselves in a unique position to positively affect others' lives - they can talk to others, perhaps in a school setting, about the consequences of immitating art. Their pain and scars should be enough to scare most kids straight.
i don't think any other cartoon can bring me back to a specific point in my life as much as ren & stimpy. I watched it and nothing else for about a week. Every episode, one after another after another, over and over.
So what you mean to say is that now you have a life?
Re:it's simple, but...
on
Just a Phone?
·
· Score: 1
Read: "What about all us obese americans who end up mashing the keypad"
Read: "I'm a fat headed lout who thinks everybody has the same body."
Re:Speed up the interface a bit!
on
Just a Phone?
·
· Score: 1
You wouldn't decide not to buy a car simply because it had too many gadgets, would you?
Are features free? Power/heated side mirrors, power adjustable eight-way driver and passenger heated/cooled leather bucket seats, advanced all speed traction control, duplicate steering-wheel mounted audio controls, power open/close liftgate and/or side sliding doors, power moon-roof, speed adjustable volume controls, 6-disc in-dash MP3 CD player, dual/quad sub-woofers, reverse sensing system, perimiter alarm, sonic interior cabin alarm, integrated garage door opener, GPS navigation system, memory seats+mirrors, auto dimming rear-view mirror, electronic step bars, dual zone with rear climate controls, automatic climate controls, full-size spare tire with alloy rim,...
I could make a list as long as your arm for car accessories. How much of that $40k list of options are you willing to pay for if you only need a grogery getter? The list of features for cell phones is becomming astronomically large as well. If I want to be able to communicate quickly and easily with friends and family, do I really need a camera, PDA, Bluetooth, appointment scheduler, or any of the other thousand or so features that can baloon the price upwards of $1000?
Would you reccomend a Dual-Xeon 3.0GHz, 2GB dual-channel DDR400 RAM with 1TB of SATA-RAID space and a $999 ATI video card to your parents to enable them to check their e-mail?
We get what we pay for, and we pay for what we get. Cell phones, unlike cars, unfortunately don't list the accessories and their relative costs. $295 with the requirement to sign a 3-year contract is unacceptable for many consumers.
Your analogy would hold true if all cars cost $10,000 and all phones cost $50.
Re:I applaud Vodafone.
on
Just a Phone?
·
· Score: 1
I, for one, am heartily sick and tired of the technology industry catering to the ill-informed desires of children rather than to the real needs of the adults who actually pay the bills.
You may want to re-think that. The youth of (North) America commanded some $1.5B last year or before. "Children" are working part- or even full-time jobs, living on their own, paying bills and purchasing their own luxury items.
Everything else is unecessary and unwanted. I'm a business person, and I want a tool that helps me do my job and stays out of my way.
So correspond with major phone manufacturers and indicate what you're looking for. Do you really think Sony, Motorolla, Samsung et al. reps are reading Slashdot looking for ideas?
Re:single button for emergencies.....
on
Just a Phone?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The guy riding with me was going to town... talking all kinds of crap about other person..
When we got back said friend was waiting prompty outside the guy's house wanting to fight him... haha i had to get them to cool down
Perhaps the moral of the story is not to talk about others behind their backs. The cell phone was just a more direct example of how such talk can "get back to" the victim.
Yeah, but not when they need that car the next morning to get to work. They usualy just get a piece of junk to toy with.
To steer back towards the topic; how many home computers are vital to a person's livelyhood? How many of us learned much of our IT skills by breaking and subsequently fixing our own (read: our parents') home PCs?
Come on, the user willfully runs a program from an untrusted source.
Correction; the user willfully runs a program from a trusted source. Microsoft sent them the e-mail. If it wasn't them - why are their logos in the message? It looks just like their home page, therefore it is valid.
Users can't comprehend software update procedures. Some companies send e-mail alerts with convenient URLs linking to their homepage indicating it's time for an update. Some send out binary update attachments. Windows does not. This is a distinction that we take for granted, but that many users do not comprehend.
Think about your own family and circle of friends (presuming the existance of non IT friends); are they all versed enough to delete these upon arrival? How many of them forward chain letters and pyramid schemes? How many wilfully fill out form data in e-mail messages, or download cool screensavers, wallpapers, or gag programs from e-mail?
These malicious messages are labelled as being from big-name corporations. Microsoft, Intel, AOL, etc. They're also coming from their friends, family, co-workers and other aquaintances. It would be great if they were all addressed from "Evil Spammer" but they're not.
How many people do things to their body every day that would make any physician cringe? How many people, consciously or otherwise, damage their cars on a regular basis out of ignorance?
As a member of the IT community, there are two ways you can look at such a situation;
An opportunity to instruct. Teach the ignorant masses the err of their ways (gently. Nobody wants their own ignorance thrown in their face)
An opportunity to make money. When their computers become corrupted beyond all hope, you can charge them a small fortune to get it back in working order.
Meanwhile, this is really a non-issue on Slashdot - we're going to continue to raise the same points that have been raised a thousand times before and will be raised a thousand times again.
... that the best software in the world couldn't protect you from the stupidity of the guy in front of the monitor. Makes you wonder who is worse: Microsoft or their users?
As the saying goes, make something idiot-proof and along will come a better idiot. Microsoft's interface changes so drastically towards disabling the need for users to think that they become more complacent with each release. It used to be that even my non-computer-literate friends, family and colleagues used to talk about the need to periodically defragment their hard drives. Some even managed to schedule an automated weekly occurance. Now it's termed "Re-arrange data to make programs load faster" or some such. So we've traversed from using the correct technical term to a spoonful of drivel overnight with the release of XP. If you ask users today if when they last defragmented their drive they'll likely go cross-eyed.
Remember the dawn of the Windows 95 era? How many millions were spent to train users in the modern "User Friendly" interface that nobody could figure out without a video, manual and training session?
The simple rule is to know what you're doing, or, if you don't know what you're doing, have it done by someone you trust. People don't start working on their cars unless they know what they're doing.
Conversely, many people start working on cars to learn how to do it.
What actually strikes me as interesting about this is the battle for control of reality and truth. As you noted, many companies want to delete email quickly, but you ignore the question of why. If they are only doing good and honest things, then (you would think) they should be delighted to be able to conclusively prove their innocence. Yet they want to delete the email?
It really comes down to a question of neccesity. Perhaps the company didn't find it practical to store every e-mail since the inception of the technology. The signal:noise in the store database would be staggaring, and it costs money to store that much data indefinitely. It may have been a policy that came about for perfectly reasonable sounding reasons. "Why would we need data from 5 years ago, or even last year?"
If companies are forced to store that much information, we then get into the nasty world of potential negligence. What type of backup media is in use? What is its shelf life? Does the storage space have amicable environmental controls in place? If said space is closed down, how/where will they transfer the documents? Is the space properly secured? How much sensitive materials are contained in the stored messages? Who has access? How many employees will come through the ranks, and who takes control? Must the data be stored forver, or is there a reasonable time period? (Statute of limitations in the local state? Other states/countries with whom business is conducted?) Who determines what is in fact a "reasonable" period of time? Local legislature? Could this be a prohibitive cost undertaking for small(er) companies? (Surely not all e-mail storage incidents have the potential loss factor of $1.45 billion)
With the scope and magnitude of corporate e-mails, especially with attachments becomming ever larger (Check out this new movie!!) and with the propensity for SPAM to outnumber legitimate messages (containing images, flash/java/activex other controls/applets) the size requirements quickly mount. When they refer to "1000 tapes"; these could be 20, 40, 80 or even larger in size! That's a lot of archival data to search through! That's a lot of information overload to contend with.
Imagine if civil engineers started doing the same with buildings and bridges.
"Started"? Where do you live? I get an opportunity to see our local civil engineers filling (patching) the same potholes once a week! These aren't small bumps in the road, either. Some of them are big enough to fit a 1/4 tonne pickup (sometimes I wonder if one actually fell in and they paved over it).
What time is it? Has another kernel 1.2.3.x update been released yet?
Yes, it's very cute that to update most software on a Linux system you don't require a reboot. But c'mon people, let's be honest; lately our kernel developers can't make up their mind on a stable kernel release. I get more kernel announcements in my inbox (between all the various flavours and patchsets) than I do most any other at this point.
We're never going to get better or gain significant ground if we don't demand the best from ourselves.
America's middle classes have never had it so good. Two decades of economic success have brought wealth and happiness to anybody who was prepared to work hard.
I wish you'd posted under your user ID so that I could befriend you (since I'm currently bereft of mod points). What you say is absolutely true; I couldn't agree more. I, myself have been diagnosed with ADD and depression - both of which resulted in prescription medication. That medication was flushed down the toilet and all adults involved at the time began to congratulate themselves on a job well done. The medications, as it turned out, were a placebo for those around me.
My case is/was not unique. I can't sit still and take in lots of read materials unless I'm fascinated/engrossed by the subject. In school, of course, they expect students to sit attentively through 4-8 classes of varying length from 30-65 minutes and ingest materials read from an overhead projector. Gym class? 30 minutes/day for half the year. Shop classes? The first year is book-learning before you're allowed to touch mechanical devices or tools. Is it any wonder students are found more often than not pie-eyed and delerious?
Depression, of course, is the failure of society to admit that with our 'up' moods must come 'down' stages. If we're never down how can we truly enjoy being upbeat and happy?
Much as I hate to seem like I'm karma-whoring, I highly reccomend Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World to anyone who hasn't yet read it. It shows the opposite extreme of 1984 where we don't require a tyrannical oppressor to keep us in line; our penchant towards passive, euphoric means of entertainment will keep us apathetic and lazy.
Education and quality time (excersizing WITH THEM) is the key.. not Pavlovian training.
A suggestion that might do some good for overweight, out of shape parents as well. Sometimes it's nice to take your children, nieces and nephews out for a bike ride. Or, if you have enough of them, organize a team game in a park - baseball, soccer, football,...
Now that the summer is upon us it wouldn't be a crime to take children swimming, either. Remember beaches? Public pools?
Slashdot Mirror
More than likely you'll file them under "co-worker", "superior", "love interest", "employer", "friend", "mentor", ...
It's unwise to disregard what a person says just because it's negative. It's a good healthy dose of real life. Rejection is a part of it.
Furthermore; it's a horrible folley to scoff "jealousy" at others who don't share your life's goals or naivette.
Good post, I'm not entirely disagreeing with you, and it's good to see some positive feedback but I hope the submitter realizes that the world is a harsh place that does judge its inhabitants based on arbitrary factors rather than pure skills and abilities.
I thought the same thing myself while I was working exclusively in IT surrounded by geeks. Then I took a part-time customer service job to help pay the bills (and finance my education) and I discovered something that so many geeks have difficulty accepting; my inter-personal skills sucked. I tended to over-intellectualize, ramble on about topics most around me didn't understand (or care to), lecture people and harp on technical inaccuracies in things they said, and in general couldn't identify with groups of people who weren't all focused on the same subject.
To understand the common man, you have to walk in their shoes for several miles. (Or something wise and profound to that effect...)
I hate having mod points; I can never shut up long enough to use them. ;)
Another important facet of getting an "ordinary high-school job" - PERSPECTIVE. Too many people in IT nowadays (and too many people entering IT) have never experienced a non-tech job. Some skills you can learn at your local burger joint, library, mall kiosk, record (CD) shop, factory;
Oh, and by the way, people skills.
Another good thing to keep in mind; the tech sector dried up not so long ago. When I was in college, there was promise of endless jobs for countless graduates. Schools couldn't bring enough people in! Co-op positions were available by the tree-load and we all had dollar signs in our eyes.
Now that the "bubble has burst" and everybody's graduated we have ten applicants for every available position. This, of course, compounds this young gentleman's problem; it's an employer's market. The first set of resumees to hit the cutting room floor are those that lack a high school education. Next round - post secondary? Industry certifications? Experience? When certified college/university graduates are applying for internships (at internship rates) there's not much hope for someone without grade 12.
Personally, I'd like to echo the suggestion to 'pound the pavement'; hit the phone book, job bank, dress nice and start visiting local businesses. If they're not specifically an IT shop but have need for some help with their systems so be it. You're probably not going to get a job with Compaq, AT&T, IBM, Microsoft et al. right out of the gate. You may find your happy niche designing in-house software for Joe's Falafal House, Inc.
Good luck to you, son; but never hold yourself too high that you can't work like those other regular schlepps. BTW - it can actually help in the near future to show a prospective employer that you have some range of experience. It may set you far enough apart to land that dream job.
I have to agree with other sentiments; there are some expressions that are legitimately offensive. Lame, gay, gyp, jew are offensive to large groups of people; they're just so commonplace it starts to seem like they're acceptable.
What about more direct expressions like "chink eyed" or "nigger lips"? Highly offensive slurs passed off in normal conversation. Is that offensive yet, or are Asians and blacks just too sensitive?
I'll agree that political correctness can go too far (sanitation engineer vs. garbage man) but in some cases there are actual people being legitimately offended by phrases that are just irrational.
The expression "{$item} is gay" doesn't have a clear-cut meaning amongst today's youth. It boils down to "it's bad", basically. As a colleague of mine (high school english teacher) discovered; even a belt can be gay. She stopped them and inquired as to how a belt could posess homosexual characteristics; they were stumped, of course.
A belt, a movie, a person who does something stupid/wrong - anything can be termed "gay" because "gay" is, atleast subconsciously, associated with "wrong" or "bad".
It's one of those expressions that's become gutteral amongst kids. They instinctually blurt it out when they need a word to describe something in a negative fashion. The problem is rather self-evident - kids today lack the mental capacity to come up with different words, hence everything is a combination of "fuck" and "gay". If gay becomes more versatile (we already have "gayer" and "gayest", now we need "gaying", perhaps "gaywit") it could become the next "fuck"!
n.b. The most pointless conversation I ever witnessed was between two teens waiting in line for lunch. To summarize;
I was mortified by the first couple of sencences, so I couldn't bear to listen any longer.
I think you'll find that it's not nearly as universal as you think. Outside of "Gen @" it sounds really silly.
Then I shall avoid XV and XX like the plague.
The learning curve is always brought up when referring to non-MS software. This is, of course, a non sequiter of the greatest magnitude. Remember the learning curve from Works to Word? What about from Windows 3.1 to 95? From 98 through ME to XP?
The basic elements of the GUI remain constant; click menus, double click icons, drop-down menus, right-click context menus, etc. These constants, however, also exist between proprietary and closed-source PC implementations. (Throwing that in there to safeguard against the Apple-centric "One mouse button to rule them all!" responses ... )
Strictly speaking, if you know how to use a GUI "Word Processor", you know how to use them all. The real curve comes in to play when you enter the more advanced world of macros, complex spreadsheets and presentations. However, once you're in that realm you're a different class of user who should be able to climb that curve more readily (opposed to the "I just want to print a resumee with my name in bold and my skills in bullets" type).
There should be a standard addendum tagged on to stories like this;
Back up everything onto five different servers running a variety of RAID-5 configurations, including SCSI, ATA, and SATA. Burn everything on to six different varieties of CD-R and DVD-R media, storing each in a separate climate controlled off-site location. Store multiple copies scattered through your house and re-burn the entire collection every six months with new media to ensure freshness. Take photocopies of all original media to demonstrate ownership and store digital copies of the pictures on an additional set of media. Open a swiss bank account and store copies in their vaults. Send backup copies of your data to the Mars Rover project to insulate you against Earth Failure. Bury copies of all backup media in a sealed time capsule in an undisclosed but GPS tagged location in a remote area of the Navajo desert. Every five years, remove, replace, and hermetically seal your RAID discs and store them in sealed, magnetic resistant container and send copies to all major continents. Of course, you will always have your local MP3 collection to listen to while you spend the rest of your life re-storing your p1r8 music collection.
Naturally, you could have saved time and money by purchasing and safely storing the original CDs after taking a loss(y|less) copy on your local HDD and backing that up on the current media flavour of choice. Of course, much like all your other data, you should transfer to a newer HDD every generation.
No, sarcasm. Blatant, obnoxious sarcasm.
If their families are responsible for their lack of sense, it might do some good. Then again, it might fall on deaf ears.
Should that be a blanket warning on anything with a fillable orifice?
You're absolutely right. We should set up a foundation for them - donate money to help the victims of this horrible travesty. We should do all in our power to coddle them, make them feel better and be understanding of their plight. In doing so, we should strive to send a message to people everywhere that while there may be consequences to their actions, they will gain sympathy, attention and financial support for their ordeal.
In all seriousness; this is one of those rare opportunities where stupid behaviour affected only those responsible rather than harming innocent by-standers. I'm not sure how we became so left-leaning and bleeding hearted that we can't hold people responsible for their own actions, but the condition of society at large today tells me we're going too far in the wrong direction.
The lesson here? Set something on fire, burn yourself, learn lesson. These people are themselves in a unique position to positively affect others' lives - they can talk to others, perhaps in a school setting, about the consequences of immitating art. Their pain and scars should be enough to scare most kids straight.
So what you mean to say is that now you have a life?
Read: "I'm a fat headed lout who thinks everybody has the same body."
Are features free? Power/heated side mirrors, power adjustable eight-way driver and passenger heated/cooled leather bucket seats, advanced all speed traction control, duplicate steering-wheel mounted audio controls, power open/close liftgate and/or side sliding doors, power moon-roof, speed adjustable volume controls, 6-disc in-dash MP3 CD player, dual/quad sub-woofers, reverse sensing system, perimiter alarm, sonic interior cabin alarm, integrated garage door opener, GPS navigation system, memory seats+mirrors, auto dimming rear-view mirror, electronic step bars, dual zone with rear climate controls, automatic climate controls, full-size spare tire with alloy rim, ...
I could make a list as long as your arm for car accessories. How much of that $40k list of options are you willing to pay for if you only need a grogery getter? The list of features for cell phones is becomming astronomically large as well. If I want to be able to communicate quickly and easily with friends and family, do I really need a camera, PDA, Bluetooth, appointment scheduler, or any of the other thousand or so features that can baloon the price upwards of $1000?
Would you reccomend a Dual-Xeon 3.0GHz, 2GB dual-channel DDR400 RAM with 1TB of SATA-RAID space and a $999 ATI video card to your parents to enable them to check their e-mail?
We get what we pay for, and we pay for what we get. Cell phones, unlike cars, unfortunately don't list the accessories and their relative costs. $295 with the requirement to sign a 3-year contract is unacceptable for many consumers.
Your analogy would hold true if all cars cost $10,000 and all phones cost $50.
You may want to re-think that. The youth of (North) America commanded some $1.5B last year or before. "Children" are working part- or even full-time jobs, living on their own, paying bills and purchasing their own luxury items.
So correspond with major phone manufacturers and indicate what you're looking for. Do you really think Sony, Motorolla, Samsung et al. reps are reading Slashdot looking for ideas?
Perhaps the moral of the story is not to talk about others behind their backs. The cell phone was just a more direct example of how such talk can "get back to" the victim.
To steer back towards the topic; how many home computers are vital to a person's livelyhood? How many of us learned much of our IT skills by breaking and subsequently fixing our own (read: our parents') home PCs?
Correction; the user willfully runs a program from a trusted source. Microsoft sent them the e-mail. If it wasn't them - why are their logos in the message? It looks just like their home page, therefore it is valid.
Users can't comprehend software update procedures. Some companies send e-mail alerts with convenient URLs linking to their homepage indicating it's time for an update. Some send out binary update attachments. Windows does not. This is a distinction that we take for granted, but that many users do not comprehend.
Think about your own family and circle of friends (presuming the existance of non IT friends); are they all versed enough to delete these upon arrival? How many of them forward chain letters and pyramid schemes? How many wilfully fill out form data in e-mail messages, or download cool screensavers, wallpapers, or gag programs from e-mail?
These malicious messages are labelled as being from big-name corporations. Microsoft, Intel, AOL, etc. They're also coming from their friends, family, co-workers and other aquaintances. It would be great if they were all addressed from "Evil Spammer" but they're not.
How many people do things to their body every day that would make any physician cringe? How many people, consciously or otherwise, damage their cars on a regular basis out of ignorance?
As a member of the IT community, there are two ways you can look at such a situation;
Meanwhile, this is really a non-issue on Slashdot - we're going to continue to raise the same points that have been raised a thousand times before and will be raised a thousand times again.
Fin.
As the saying goes, make something idiot-proof and along will come a better idiot. Microsoft's interface changes so drastically towards disabling the need for users to think that they become more complacent with each release. It used to be that even my non-computer-literate friends, family and colleagues used to talk about the need to periodically defragment their hard drives. Some even managed to schedule an automated weekly occurance. Now it's termed "Re-arrange data to make programs load faster" or some such. So we've traversed from using the correct technical term to a spoonful of drivel overnight with the release of XP. If you ask users today if when they last defragmented their drive they'll likely go cross-eyed.
Remember the dawn of the Windows 95 era? How many millions were spent to train users in the modern "User Friendly" interface that nobody could figure out without a video, manual and training session?
Conversely, many people start working on cars to learn how to do it.
It really comes down to a question of neccesity. Perhaps the company didn't find it practical to store every e-mail since the inception of the technology. The signal:noise in the store database would be staggaring, and it costs money to store that much data indefinitely. It may have been a policy that came about for perfectly reasonable sounding reasons. "Why would we need data from 5 years ago, or even last year?"
If companies are forced to store that much information, we then get into the nasty world of potential negligence. What type of backup media is in use? What is its shelf life? Does the storage space have amicable environmental controls in place? If said space is closed down, how/where will they transfer the documents? Is the space properly secured? How much sensitive materials are contained in the stored messages? Who has access? How many employees will come through the ranks, and who takes control? Must the data be stored forver, or is there a reasonable time period? (Statute of limitations in the local state? Other states/countries with whom business is conducted?) Who determines what is in fact a "reasonable" period of time? Local legislature? Could this be a prohibitive cost undertaking for small(er) companies? (Surely not all e-mail storage incidents have the potential loss factor of $1.45 billion)
With the scope and magnitude of corporate e-mails, especially with attachments becomming ever larger (Check out this new movie!!) and with the propensity for SPAM to outnumber legitimate messages (containing images, flash/java/activex other controls/applets) the size requirements quickly mount. When they refer to "1000 tapes"; these could be 20, 40, 80 or even larger in size! That's a lot of archival data to search through! That's a lot of information overload to contend with.
"Started"? Where do you live? I get an opportunity to see our local civil engineers filling (patching) the same potholes once a week! These aren't small bumps in the road, either. Some of them are big enough to fit a 1/4 tonne pickup (sometimes I wonder if one actually fell in and they paved over it).
What time is it? Has another kernel 1.2.3.x update been released yet?
Yes, it's very cute that to update most software on a Linux system you don't require a reboot. But c'mon people, let's be honest; lately our kernel developers can't make up their mind on a stable kernel release. I get more kernel announcements in my inbox (between all the various flavours and patchsets) than I do most any other at this point.
We're never going to get better or gain significant ground if we don't demand the best from ourselves.
I wish you'd posted under your user ID so that I could befriend you (since I'm currently bereft of mod points). What you say is absolutely true; I couldn't agree more. I, myself have been diagnosed with ADD and depression - both of which resulted in prescription medication. That medication was flushed down the toilet and all adults involved at the time began to congratulate themselves on a job well done. The medications, as it turned out, were a placebo for those around me.
My case is/was not unique. I can't sit still and take in lots of read materials unless I'm fascinated/engrossed by the subject. In school, of course, they expect students to sit attentively through 4-8 classes of varying length from 30-65 minutes and ingest materials read from an overhead projector. Gym class? 30 minutes/day for half the year. Shop classes? The first year is book-learning before you're allowed to touch mechanical devices or tools. Is it any wonder students are found more often than not pie-eyed and delerious?
Depression, of course, is the failure of society to admit that with our 'up' moods must come 'down' stages. If we're never down how can we truly enjoy being upbeat and happy?
Much as I hate to seem like I'm karma-whoring, I highly reccomend Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World to anyone who hasn't yet read it. It shows the opposite extreme of 1984 where we don't require a tyrannical oppressor to keep us in line; our penchant towards passive, euphoric means of entertainment will keep us apathetic and lazy.
A suggestion that might do some good for overweight, out of shape parents as well. Sometimes it's nice to take your children, nieces and nephews out for a bike ride. Or, if you have enough of them, organize a team game in a park - baseball, soccer, football, ...
Now that the summer is upon us it wouldn't be a crime to take children swimming, either. Remember beaches? Public pools?