Not sure if you're trolling me or serious and curious. I'll assume serious and curious.
In the end I (and many other Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) I've talked to) feel that Peace Corps is the most wonderful thing I've ever done.
I was able to teach ~120 students a bit of English, set up a scholarship fund for poor students (public school in Thailand is not free like it is here in the US), refurbish the school's water system, build a community computer center... the list of how I was able to help goes on and on.
However, I feel the Thai people gave me far more than I gave them. They gave me friendship and memories I will cherish until the end of my days. They also gave me indigestion because I just could not stop eating their amazing food!:-)
Specifically helping out various people with their computers: Yes, helping them did help me out. The rule of law (contract law, specifically) is not too strong yet in Thailand so relationships, friendships and trust still count for an awful lot. I benefitted both directly and indirectly from helping the people I did.
Directly because I made friendships with some very powerful people who helped me later. Indirectly because many people recognized that I was a person who could be counted on to help and trusted. Just as I 'selflessly' helped some people with their computers, others 'selflessly' helped me out in many ways.
It's like karma... what goes around, comes around. I gave some and got some and everyone benefitted.
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand back in the mid 90's and was often asked to "look" at someone's computer.
With computers so expensive and knowledge about them so rare, these people were usually VIPs - the governor of the province, dean of a local university, important businesspeople... It behooved me to scratch their back so that they'd later help me.
Now remember, this was when Windows '95 was still brand new and a lot of people in Thailand still used DOS. CDROMs weren't in widespread use yet (I think if anything, the CDROM built Panthip Plaza - a bootleggers heaven!)
I found myself carrying around a complete set of MSDOS 6.22 disks, a Win95 CDROM and a couple of custom made boot disks - with things like FDISK, SCANDISK and such on them as well as a few floppies with common drivers on them.
Biggest hardware problem I saw on a regular basis was floppy and CD drives crapping out due to the dust in the air and, of course, moldy floppies (110 degrees F and 100% humidity will grow mold on ANYTHING that doesn't move and a lot of things that do!)
"Driving on the highway while friends taunted the 18 year-old engine ("Wow! It hit 55! You think it can get to sixty?"), packing 7 people into a 2-door hatchback, etc. I'd miss all that had happened in the car, as well as the car itself.
"buy a steering wheel lock, like the Club Those are completely useless. Yeah, they're case-hardened steel, but your steering wheel isn't. Thieves simply cut a chunk out of the wheel and remove the club."
I vigorously disagree with your assertion. As some other posters have noted, the goal is not to make your car steal-proof but merely to make it harder to steal.
Several years back some industrious people tried to steal my car (an '85 Olds Cutlass. Loved that car...) three times in a single year. Although I had to replace a rear window (same one every time, go figure...) three times, they never could get the club off.
Once, after moving to a "better" neighborhood my neighbor, who had the same car as me (Honda Civic) laughed when she saw me putting the club on. She asked why I use it. I laughed and said because she doesn't. Several months later her car, parked right behind mine was stolen. Mine wasn't.
You don't have to be the fastest gazelle to avoid being eaten by the lion, just faster than the slowest gazelle...
I find it very interesting that people would declare Linux on the desktop dead when it seems it is just barely begun life.
Consider, for example, the difference between a person in a developing country (say Thailand for example) and a person in the inner-city in America.
The person in the inner-city has, on the surface, a hugely better life - easy access to clean water, health care, they probably own a TV, eat three meals a day (I won't go into the fat content of those meals...) and they might even own a car.
But, this person sees the wealth all around them. They have always been poorer than their SUV driving suburban neighbors and recognize that their quality of life has not changed much.
The Thai person grew up in a time when no one they knew owned anything more than a few water buffalo. Tap water (if they have a tap in the house) is undrinkable, electricity is still spotty and paved roads are still years away. This person may even have memories of famine when they were children. However, due to the rising economy, this person now lives in a nice house with a tin roof (thatched roofs, although pretty also make a great home for rats which carry the plague) and might even own a motorcycle. Compared to his childhood, he is styling.
Although our Thai friend's life is still much harder than the poor American's, it is much better than in the recent past and improving. He has never known or seen the wealth his American friend has.
Having never had dominance of the desktop and only now beginning to penetrate this market (much like our Thai friend discovering the thrill of racing his shiny new motorcycle), Linux has nowhere to go but up.
If you live in Saratoga Springs, a popular suburb about 40-50 miles north you have an hour's commute.
Yeah, and after you and ten thousand other people who work in Albany decide that Saratoga Springs is a great place to live your "hour commute" will become your "two-and-a-half hour commute on a good day" and begin to resemble that of San Jose.
Obviously you've never been to Fry's. They are a California-based electronics chain but far, far better than CompUSA, Best Buy, Radio Shack....
I have had the pleasure of living near a Fry's for 9 months and, basically, it is a Slashdotter's wet dream. You name it geeky/gadget/electronic/radio/software... they've got it.
I hope you too one day have the chance to visit a Fry's.
Somehow, I think that if the US government forbade the use of any Microsoft applications within federal facilities, pending a code review by a neutral 3rd party to identify and fix potential security holes, you'd see Microsoft scramble to get their shyte in gear pretty damn quickly.
I wish it were true...
The federal government runs on windows, as does most of this country. They would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did such a thing.
Imagine what would happen if the entire federal government shut down for 2 weeks, let alone the months it would take to look over MS's code.
I'm supposed to use electricity generating wave turbines to crack water to generate hydrogen so that I can use the hydrogen to produce electricity?
Sounds like a Rube Goldberg method!
Just skip the electrolysis and fuel cells and store the electricity made from the wave turbines in batteries (for cars and such) and feed it into the grid (like they already do).
Other than the obvious live laboratory for the fuel cells which is great, I fail to see how this system will save energy since there is loss any time you convert energy (waves --> electricity --> hydrogen --> electricity).
Having lived in a developing country for several years, I can appreciate this groups efforts and the technological advances made here but...
Where I lived (a rural part of Thailand) very few if anyone would have used the generator. Why? Because they can rent car batteries from a business down the road for all their electrical needs (which are very few - a few flourescent lightbulbs and occasionally TV).
In my case, the business was hooked up to the power grid for recharging batteries but I also saw even more remote places where they had a generator (gas? Diesel? Never checked) for the same purpose.
Having participated in harvesting rice, I really doubt any farmer would want to hop on their pedal-powered generator at the end of a day of back-breaking field work to charge up their batteries for a night of bad soap operas.
I have read that one advantage we had over the Germans in WWII was that our machine guns were not as accurate as theirs.
Due to this inaccuracy, our machine gunners were able to hit a larger window, didn't need to shoot as accurately and, as a result, killed more people- kind of like comparing a pistol to a shotgun.
So, maybe Saddam is on to something by 'copying' good 'ole Yankee ingenuity.
Slashdot Mirror
Not sure if you're trolling me or serious and curious. I'll assume serious and curious.
:-)
In the end I (and many other Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) I've talked to) feel that Peace Corps is the most wonderful thing I've ever done.
I was able to teach ~120 students a bit of English, set up a scholarship fund for poor students (public school in Thailand is not free like it is here in the US), refurbish the school's water system, build a community computer center... the list of how I was able to help goes on and on.
However, I feel the Thai people gave me far more than I gave them. They gave me friendship and memories I will cherish until the end of my days. They also gave me indigestion because I just could not stop eating their amazing food!
Specifically helping out various people with their computers: Yes, helping them did help me out. The rule of law (contract law, specifically) is not too strong yet in Thailand so relationships, friendships and trust still count for an awful lot. I benefitted both directly and indirectly from helping the people I did.
Directly because I made friendships with some very powerful people who helped me later. Indirectly because many people recognized that I was a person who could be counted on to help and trusted. Just as I 'selflessly' helped some people with their computers, others 'selflessly' helped me out in many ways.
It's like karma... what goes around, comes around. I gave some and got some and everyone benefitted.
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand back in the mid 90's and was often asked to "look" at someone's computer.
With computers so expensive and knowledge about them so rare, these people were usually VIPs - the governor of the province, dean of a local university, important businesspeople... It behooved me to scratch their back so that they'd later help me.
Now remember, this was when Windows '95 was still brand new and a lot of people in Thailand still used DOS. CDROMs weren't in widespread use yet (I think if anything, the CDROM built Panthip Plaza - a bootleggers heaven!)
I found myself carrying around a complete set of MSDOS 6.22 disks, a Win95 CDROM and a couple of custom made boot disks - with things like FDISK, SCANDISK and such on them as well as a few floppies with common drivers on them.
Biggest hardware problem I saw on a regular basis was floppy and CD drives crapping out due to the dust in the air and, of course, moldy floppies (110 degrees F and 100% humidity will grow mold on ANYTHING that doesn't move and a lot of things that do!)
Ah, those were the days...
;-)
H. Beam Piper's books about Fuzzies have to be some of the best novels ever written.
;-)
Fuzzy Wuzzy may have been quite fuzzy but Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't a Fuzzy!
This letter was submitted by an analogue of a LUG; although it would be nice were it otherwise, a LUG has hardly the influence of a Peruvian Senator.
Still, it's nice to see that someone is fighting the good fight in India.
Funny, I just went to the link you posted and I didn't get a pop-up.
Oh, wait... maybe it's because I use Mozilla!
Yeah, cheap shot but someone had to make it...
;-)
"buy a steering wheel lock, like the Club
Those are completely useless. Yeah, they're case-hardened steel, but your steering wheel isn't. Thieves simply cut a chunk out of the wheel and remove the club."
I vigorously disagree with your assertion. As some other posters have noted, the goal is not to make your car steal-proof but merely to make it harder to steal.
Several years back some industrious people tried to steal my car (an '85 Olds Cutlass. Loved that car...) three times in a single year. Although I had to replace a rear window (same one every time, go figure...) three times, they never could get the club off.
Once, after moving to a "better" neighborhood my neighbor, who had the same car as me (Honda Civic) laughed when she saw me putting the club on. She asked why I use it. I laughed and said because she doesn't. Several months later her car, parked right behind mine was stolen. Mine wasn't.
You don't have to be the fastest gazelle to avoid being eaten by the lion, just faster than the slowest gazelle...
First it was manhole covers, now capacitors. Only wish it were politicians...
When there's an earthquake in the deep ocean it is seen as only a ripple on the surface.
But as it approaches shallower waters that little ripple can become hundreds of feet tall, decimating everything that stands against it in its path.
I do believe we have seen the first ripples of a slow moving wave....
*grin*
I find it very interesting that people would declare Linux on the desktop dead when it seems it is just barely begun life.
Consider, for example, the difference between a person in a developing country (say Thailand for example) and a person in the inner-city in America.
The person in the inner-city has, on the surface, a hugely better life - easy access to clean water, health care, they probably own a TV, eat three meals a day (I won't go into the fat content of those meals...) and they might even own a car.
But, this person sees the wealth all around them. They have always been poorer than their SUV driving suburban neighbors and recognize that their quality of life has not changed much.
The Thai person grew up in a time when no one they knew owned anything more than a few water buffalo. Tap water (if they have a tap in the house) is undrinkable, electricity is still spotty and paved roads are still years away. This person may even have memories of famine when they were children. However, due to the rising economy, this person now lives in a nice house with a tin roof (thatched roofs, although pretty also make a great home for rats which carry the plague) and might even own a motorcycle. Compared to his childhood, he is styling .
Although our Thai friend's life is still much harder than the poor American's, it is much better than in the recent past and improving. He has never known or seen the wealth his American friend has.
Having never had dominance of the desktop and only now beginning to penetrate this market (much like our Thai friend discovering the thrill of racing his shiny new motorcycle), Linux has nowhere to go but up.
It is all in your point of view...
No, they're saying we're piddling all over the house.
If you live in Saratoga Springs, a popular suburb about 40-50 miles north you have an hour's commute.
Yeah, and after you and ten thousand other people who work in Albany decide that Saratoga Springs is a great place to live your "hour commute" will become your "two-and-a-half hour commute on a good day" and begin to resemble that of San Jose.
Suburban sprawl is NOT the answer...
Dear Obvious Guy,
Obviously you've never been to Fry's. They are a California-based electronics chain but far, far better than CompUSA, Best Buy, Radio Shack....
I have had the pleasure of living near a Fry's for 9 months and, basically, it is a Slashdotter's wet dream. You name it geeky/gadget/electronic/radio/software... they've got it.
I hope you too one day have the chance to visit a Fry's.
Somehow, I think that if the US government forbade the use of any Microsoft applications within federal facilities, pending a code review by a neutral 3rd party to identify and fix potential security holes, you'd see Microsoft scramble to get their shyte in gear pretty damn quickly.
:)
I wish it were true...
The federal government runs on windows, as does most of this country. They would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did such a thing.
Imagine what would happen if the entire federal government shut down for 2 weeks, let alone the months it would take to look over MS's code.
But we can dream, right?
I'm supposed to use electricity generating wave turbines to crack water to generate hydrogen so that I can use the hydrogen to produce electricity?
Sounds like a Rube Goldberg method!
Just skip the electrolysis and fuel cells and store the electricity made from the wave turbines in batteries (for cars and such) and feed it into the grid (like they already do).
Other than the obvious live laboratory for the fuel cells which is great, I fail to see how this system will save energy since there is loss any time you convert energy (waves --> electricity --> hydrogen --> electricity).
Having lived in a developing country for several years, I can appreciate this groups efforts and the technological advances made here but...
Where I lived (a rural part of Thailand) very few if anyone would have used the generator. Why? Because they can rent car batteries from a business down the road for all their electrical needs (which are very few - a few flourescent lightbulbs and occasionally TV).
In my case, the business was hooked up to the power grid for recharging batteries but I also saw even more remote places where they had a generator (gas? Diesel? Never checked) for the same purpose.
Having participated in harvesting rice, I really doubt any farmer would want to hop on their pedal-powered generator at the end of a day of back-breaking field work to charge up their batteries for a night of bad soap operas.
I have read that one advantage we had over the Germans in WWII was that our machine guns were not as accurate as theirs.
Due to this inaccuracy, our machine gunners were able to hit a larger window, didn't need to shoot as accurately and, as a result, killed more people- kind of like comparing a pistol to a shotgun.
So, maybe Saddam is on to something by 'copying' good 'ole Yankee ingenuity.
It takes MS three tries to get something right (IF they get it right)....
The X-Box is strike #1.