The mistake is assuming that Linux needs critics like Windows has, that is to say lots of paid professional writers writing for entities supported by advertising for operating systems and applications that are sold for profit.
I've seen that environment slowly develop -- but not so much, really -- in the Linux magazines (and I used to write for one), so if you want more "critics", you need to have more paid-for commercial software and more magazines that need to break up the advert space with predictable whining from a bunch of bitchy little girls.
Thankfully, we lack that. Don't expect it any time soon.
Sounds good, but the viewers would eventually recognize the "provocative but legal" photos as that pool of photos would 1) probably not be so large as to avoid frequent duplication, and 2) become notorious and publicized and be rendered ineffective for this purpose.
Perhaps a comparison of of written descriptions of the photo content versus written descriptions of "provocative but legal" photos? The description would be written by both the prosecution and defense and the final edit would belong to a judge other than the presiding judge, but not one whose sole job is to review descriptions.
I have used KDE since the pre-1.x days and KDE 4.0 turned me off completely. I've never liked the feel of GNOME, but find it very useable.
I realized that I need the DE to do very little and have been happy with IceWM ever since. About an hour reading the docs and tweaking the UI and I've been very happy ever since. LXFE is about as nice, and both are pretty lean.
I purchased 4 of these at Wal-Mart. Mine got Mandriva Linux; I can run compiz with all the gee-whiz effects with no problems. The system is fast and reliable.
The other family members got WindowsXP "upgrades" using TinyXP after they complained about Vista slowness. Wow, what a difference! Fastest Windows machines I have seen since 98Lite.
RedHat could defend itself against hostile takeover attempts by adopting some form of "Poison Pill". Such a device would render whatever makes Red Hat valuable have no value to a hostile bidder. An example would be what Peoplesoft did to thwart a takeover from Oracle. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_pill
Screw the questions, man. Post the friggin' answers!
There aren't any "correct" answers, it's more about patterns of answers and in what categories they place the test taker.
For example, all schizophrenics tend to answer the same questions the same way and all paranoids answer the same questions the same way, but the pattern of answers is different. Any answer to any single question means nothing.
If you take a written version of the test, the answer bubbles at the top of the columns (IIRC) are scored to represent the truthfulness of the taker. Those questions are about minor bad things we all have all done, but don't want to confess to (like bed-wetting or petty theft); nobody answers them all truthfully and I suspect that if you did, you would be scored as deceitful.
It's not a good test choice for employment screening, but it's popular. Knowing the questions and having time to reflect on the answers and giving false answers to awkward questions just screws up the evaluation of the test results and probably not in a useful way.
I've always wondered what would happen if you refused to take the test for employment or answered all "true" or returned a blank sheet. Any Slashdotters ever do that?
This idea that people have to work for years before moving up the ladder and it's all based on experience and not actual skill is bullshit and it needs to stop.
Uh, guy? I think you're the one they're talking about in the article.
I'm not sure you understood the rant. You're confusing competence with "experience".
More experience does not automatically translate into greater skill. If someone is already competent at a task, doing it over and over doesn't make them more successful at doing it. Requiring people to work for years before advancing is aimed squarely at protecting the staus quo and justify the continued employment of people already mentally retired.
What most people really mean when they talk about "experience" are the social skills and cultural knowledge that come through accumulated years of living. I could argue that WWII vets were way ahead of the curve by virtue of their life experience, so they didn't need the calendar time to achieve the same level of "experience". Many of them were "in charge" and successful at a young age. (I'm not equating the current 20-somethings with war veterans, just saying that a different life experience can produce different results.)
I would also argue that calendar-based "experience" is often not necessary for effectively accomplishing many things (perhaps until you get to upper management, then just for the politics) just as certifications and degrees do not absolutely predict competence or reflect experience. Some people with decades of "experience" just aren't any damn good at all for some jobs.
So if you think about it, the generalized assumption that is at the heart of "people have to work for years before moving up the ladder" is not useful as a basis for determining the value of an employee, a general evaluation of their skills, or their overall competency for a particular job. And it's bullshit. And it needs to stop.
I was a substitute teacher in middle school and found myself "teaching" students how to write a resume for the typical teenager summer job. As required, I presented the required lesson. They were upset because a resume assumes that you have experience to list and they had none. So I told them:
"I have actually hired teenagers for entry-level blue-collar jobs and here's my advice to you: Show up for your interview ready to begin work; wear clean clothes and do the shave/haircut/hairdo thing; bring a pen to fill out the employment form and know the answers to the questions it asks; be enthusiastic and convince me that you will do the best job you can, even if you have no experience. I've never not hired that person."
They seemed shocked. but most got it. Hiring at a higher level is really not that much different. Be prepared and make a professional presentation. Be willing to work and learn the job.
Basically, you're saying there's value to someone having a different perspective. I can't count the number of times I've seen a problem arise (or even a request for suggestions) where the older people throw out solutions that are quite simply moronic. Or they'll cost a ton to implement. Sure, it happens with "newbie" staff, too, but oftentimes their answers tend to be on the more "innovative" side. And it's largely because they're less indoctrinated in the "company way". Or they are not hobbled by obsolete institutional knowledge that is no longer required to competently resolve the situation. Unfortunately, many people never seem to realize this. And they're not often seen as deadwood pulling the group down as a whole. So is it any surprise that "senior staff" are the ones who get laid off first?
On the other hand, my eyes head for the ceiling when the guy who has been there two weeks starts explaining the half dozen major changes we should make to the business.
The shortest employment term for any employee I had was 32 minutes. During that time we all found out what we were doing wrong. I explained to her that the only thing I did wrong was to allow her to last that long.
My default hypothesis about any educational reform movement is that it will have absolutely no effect on anything. I'm only persuaded to the contrary if solid quantitative evidence shows up to the contrary. My default hypothesis is that the self-esteem movement has had absolutely no effect on students' self-esteem, or on their achievement, or on anything else.
I believe the study on self-esteem was done on "at-risk" populations and there was a statistically significant correlation between increases in self-esteem (as measured by a psychological test) and increases in achievement (as measured by standardized test scores) comparing groups over time as they progressed from grades pre-K through 6. So it seems the probably-valid findings have been broadly generalized beyond any real usefulness. Pretty much standard fare in education.
Curiously, nobody ever explains why the group with the lowest self-esteem (young girls) have been among the achievers (based on standardized test scores), probably because that doesn't elevate the self-esteem of the people promoting self-esteem as a cure-all.
I have some notes on my efforts to compile ffmpeg with all available codecs (using PLF repositories) for Mandriva 2009.0 on my blog, MaximumHoyt.com. Comments appreciated.
When did we forget caveat emptor and expect the seller to be fair and do business in our favor all the time?
The idealism of consumer-focused selling always falls prey to reality.
We demand low prices that result in low profits, so a business needs to find some other means to generate profits.
"Selling what we have" will prevail over "Selling what's best for the customer" almost every time.
People lie and cheat to achieve their goals, especially when their goals are at contretemps to the other party and they'll lose their jobs if they aren't successful.
Buyers always have a choice; complain and/or vote with your pocketbook/feet.
I once worked at a bank that set high goals for the "sale" of credit life insurance on consumer loans. Without exception, credit life insurance obtained through the lender is a bad deal for the borrower and a great deal for the bank - DON'T EVER BUY CREDIT LIFE INSURANCE. If the borrower "asks" for it, the premium is not counted in the A.P.R. calculation; if it is required, it must be part of that calculation, vastly inflating the A.P.R. Guess how much credit life was sold as "asked for" and how much was sold as "required"?
We were instructed as to patently illegal and devious means to write it as "asked for" while the bank President stood in the room. The one fellow who questioned the practices was fired within the month. I left shortly thereafter.
It happens everywhere. That's the sad, harsh real world.
This is not news.
"Office Depot Provides Legitimate Extended Warranties At No Extra Cost" would be news.
I am far from an animal-rights activist, but my observations have been that humans generally consider non-human life to be really, really dumb. That's really just a way for us to feel superior regardless of any uncomfortable reality.
Shamefully, we even go so far as to make those distinctions between groups of humans.
It would seem that we are not so smart as we think and others are smarter than we feel comfortable with.
I support their efforts and release to LFX and an all rights I may hold in any contribution I may have made to LFX. (I was an early contributor and some of my work was not done under their standard contract.)
You'll find my name in the contributors for documentation in Mandrake 7.0, and it was an excellent distro in 2000 and remains so today. They would likely be a more significant distro today had they not experienced near-fatal management problems (mostly a re-focus of resources on computer-aided learning). Corporate bankruptcy did not help even though they emerged from it, a rare occurrence in France.
But their biggest failure was to develop admin tools for their Red Hat-clone in Perl rather than what Red Hat used, Python, probably the combination of developer preference and a desire to be "NOT" Red Hat. They also introduced a number of incompatibilities just because they thought their way was better (and it may have been). Their style/icon/theme choices were not the best either (plain and cartoon-ish) and failed to appeal to younger Linux enthusiasts. They had a good concept with "Red Hat done better" and should have stuck with that.
It is still my distro of choice, even with my familiarity of Red Hat (I've been a Red Hat Fedora Unleashed co-author). But it's sad to remember the opportunities squandered at Mandrake/Mandriva. I would suggest that anybody give it a try, especially if you have not yet selected a favorite distro. It now does have a nice feel and polish and "just works".
Congressman Peter T. King (R-NY) should instead introduce a Bill that requires all evil-doers to warn their victims prior to engaging in any evil acts. That would make it simple and what a benefit to the Free World(TM) it would be!
It would be nice to know what event inspired this Bill, but it's probably from an incident involving his family or a friend of the family. Sadly, that is a common impetus for inane Bills which seek to right some wrong without thinking about the sheer implausibility of the idea or the violations of the Constitution that would be involved. But as long as that VIP is happy . ..
A quick look at the list of Bills he's sponsored (http://tinyurl.com/botwpv) is illuminating as to the kinds of things he believes are important uses of taxpayer money. My favorite is the establishment of the Office for Bombing Prevention. Perhaps the camera prohibition he proposes should be handled by the Office of Candid Camera Prevention.
Seriously, when a cop is beating your buddy's ass for no reason, do you want to warn them you are taking a picture? I think not.
This kind of thinking by the political leadership of Kentucky is what's wrong in general with politics and leadership in the USA.
Look at whatever economic or social statistics you want about the Bluegrass State and you'll see that the state has more important problems to address. By diverting attention to this kind of absolute nonsense, the Kentucky political leaders expose themselves as the asshats they really are and reinforce negative stereotypes of the state.
Next thing you know, they'll be legislating values of pi like those boobs in Indiana.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee site, while also touting its "inclusive and accessible" coverage, provides no easily identifiable way to contact them to register a comment about the Silverlight decision. You can make a donation, request and invitation (good luck)or purchase stuff you won't find [yet] on eBay, but provide feedback or make a comment? Nope.
Slashdot Mirror
The mistake is assuming that Linux needs critics like Windows has, that is to say lots of paid professional writers writing for entities supported by advertising for operating systems and applications that are sold for profit.
I've seen that environment slowly develop -- but not so much, really -- in the Linux magazines (and I used to write for one), so if you want more "critics", you need to have more paid-for commercial software and more magazines that need to break up the advert space with predictable whining from a bunch of bitchy little girls.
Thankfully, we lack that. Don't expect it any time soon.
Smiley Already Used as Harbinger of Doom http://www.socuteurl.com/waddlypuppet
A manly image is all in the accessories, so attach these: http://www.bullsballs.com/
But not these: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28527841/
However, you might just consider gluing $100 bills on it: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5537017.ece
Sounds good, but the viewers would eventually recognize the "provocative but legal" photos as that pool of photos would 1) probably not be so large as to avoid frequent duplication, and 2) become notorious and publicized and be rendered ineffective for this purpose.
Perhaps a comparison of of written descriptions of the photo content versus written descriptions of "provocative but legal" photos? The description would be written by both the prosecution and defense and the final edit would belong to a judge other than the presiding judge, but not one whose sole job is to review descriptions.
I realized that I need the DE to do very little and have been happy with IceWM ever since. About an hour reading the docs and tweaking the UI and I've been very happy ever since. LXFE is about as nice, and both are pretty lean.
I purchased 4 of these at Wal-Mart. Mine got Mandriva Linux; I can run compiz with all the gee-whiz effects with no problems. The system is fast and reliable.
The other family members got WindowsXP "upgrades" using TinyXP after they complained about Vista slowness. Wow, what a difference! Fastest Windows machines I have seen since 98Lite.
RedHat could defend itself against hostile takeover attempts by adopting some form of "Poison Pill". Such a device would render whatever makes Red Hat valuable have no value to a hostile bidder. An example would be what Peoplesoft did to thwart a takeover from Oracle. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_pill
Screw the questions, man. Post the friggin' answers!
There aren't any "correct" answers, it's more about patterns of answers and in what categories they place the test taker.
For example, all schizophrenics tend to answer the same questions the same way and all paranoids answer the same questions the same way, but the pattern of answers is different. Any answer to any single question means nothing.
If you take a written version of the test, the answer bubbles at the top of the columns (IIRC) are scored to represent the truthfulness of the taker. Those questions are about minor bad things we all have all done, but don't want to confess to (like bed-wetting or petty theft); nobody answers them all truthfully and I suspect that if you did, you would be scored as deceitful.
It's not a good test choice for employment screening, but it's popular. Knowing the questions and having time to reflect on the answers and giving false answers to awkward questions just screws up the evaluation of the test results and probably not in a useful way.
I've always wondered what would happen if you refused to take the test for employment or answered all "true" or returned a blank sheet. Any Slashdotters ever do that?
This idea that people have to work for years before moving up the ladder and it's all based on experience and not actual skill is bullshit and it needs to stop.
Uh, guy? I think you're the one they're talking about in the article.
I'm not sure you understood the rant. You're confusing competence with "experience".
More experience does not automatically translate into greater skill. If someone is already competent at a task, doing it over and over doesn't make them more successful at doing it. Requiring people to work for years before advancing is aimed squarely at protecting the staus quo and justify the continued employment of people already mentally retired.
What most people really mean when they talk about "experience" are the social skills and cultural knowledge that come through accumulated years of living. I could argue that WWII vets were way ahead of the curve by virtue of their life experience, so they didn't need the calendar time to achieve the same level of "experience". Many of them were "in charge" and successful at a young age. (I'm not equating the current 20-somethings with war veterans, just saying that a different life experience can produce different results.)
I would also argue that calendar-based "experience" is often not necessary for effectively accomplishing many things (perhaps until you get to upper management, then just for the politics) just as certifications and degrees do not absolutely predict competence or reflect experience. Some people with decades of "experience" just aren't any damn good at all for some jobs.
So if you think about it, the generalized assumption that is at the heart of "people have to work for years before moving up the ladder" is not useful as a basis for determining the value of an employee, a general evaluation of their skills, or their overall competency for a particular job. And it's bullshit. And it needs to stop.
I was a substitute teacher in middle school and found myself "teaching" students how to write a resume for the typical teenager summer job. As required, I presented the required lesson. They were upset because a resume assumes that you have experience to list and they had none. So I told them:
"I have actually hired teenagers for entry-level blue-collar jobs and here's my advice to you: Show up for your interview ready to begin work; wear clean clothes and do the shave/haircut/hairdo thing; bring a pen to fill out the employment form and know the answers to the questions it asks; be enthusiastic and convince me that you will do the best job you can, even if you have no experience. I've never not hired that person."
They seemed shocked. but most got it. Hiring at a higher level is really not that much different. Be prepared and make a professional presentation. Be willing to work and learn the job.
Basically, you're saying there's value to someone having a different perspective. I can't count the number of times I've seen a problem arise (or even a request for suggestions) where the older people throw out solutions that are quite simply moronic. Or they'll cost a ton to implement. Sure, it happens with "newbie" staff, too, but oftentimes their answers tend to be on the more "innovative" side. And it's largely because they're less indoctrinated in the "company way". Or they are not hobbled by obsolete institutional knowledge that is no longer required to competently resolve the situation. Unfortunately, many people never seem to realize this. And they're not often seen as deadwood pulling the group down as a whole. So is it any surprise that "senior staff" are the ones who get laid off first?
There. Fixed that for you.
On the other hand, my eyes head for the ceiling when the guy who has been there two weeks starts explaining the half dozen major changes we should make to the business.
The shortest employment term for any employee I had was 32 minutes. During that time we all found out what we were doing wrong. I explained to her that the only thing I did wrong was to allow her to last that long.
My default hypothesis about any educational reform movement is that it will have absolutely no effect on anything. I'm only persuaded to the contrary if solid quantitative evidence shows up to the contrary. My default hypothesis is that the self-esteem movement has had absolutely no effect on students' self-esteem, or on their achievement, or on anything else.
I believe the study on self-esteem was done on "at-risk" populations and there was a statistically significant correlation between increases in self-esteem (as measured by a psychological test) and increases in achievement (as measured by standardized test scores) comparing groups over time as they progressed from grades pre-K through 6. So it seems the probably-valid findings have been broadly generalized beyond any real usefulness. Pretty much standard fare in education.
Curiously, nobody ever explains why the group with the lowest self-esteem (young girls) have been among the achievers (based on standardized test scores), probably because that doesn't elevate the self-esteem of the people promoting self-esteem as a cure-all.
I have some notes on my efforts to compile ffmpeg with all available codecs (using PLF repositories) for Mandriva 2009.0 on my blog, MaximumHoyt.com. Comments appreciated.
I once worked at a bank that set high goals for the "sale" of credit life insurance on consumer loans. Without exception, credit life insurance obtained through the lender is a bad deal for the borrower and a great deal for the bank - DON'T EVER BUY CREDIT LIFE INSURANCE. If the borrower "asks" for it, the premium is not counted in the A.P.R. calculation; if it is required, it must be part of that calculation, vastly inflating the A.P.R. Guess how much credit life was sold as "asked for" and how much was sold as "required"?
We were instructed as to patently illegal and devious means to write it as "asked for" while the bank President stood in the room. The one fellow who questioned the practices was fired within the month. I left shortly thereafter.
It happens everywhere. That's the sad, harsh real world.
This is not news.
"Office Depot Provides Legitimate Extended Warranties At No Extra Cost" would be news.
I am far from an animal-rights activist, but my observations have been that humans generally consider non-human life to be really, really dumb. That's really just a way for us to feel superior regardless of any uncomfortable reality.
Shamefully, we even go so far as to make those distinctions between groups of humans.
It would seem that we are not so smart as we think and others are smarter than we feel comfortable with.
Big surprise . . .
At http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page , they are also attempting to convert the PDF stories into WIKI format. This could be a a valuable repository of technical and historical information.
I support their efforts and release to LFX and an all rights I may hold in any contribution I may have made to LFX. (I was an early contributor and some of my work was not done under their standard contract.)
You'll find my name in the contributors for documentation in Mandrake 7.0, and it was an excellent distro in 2000 and remains so today. They would likely be a more significant distro today had they not experienced near-fatal management problems (mostly a re-focus of resources on computer-aided learning). Corporate bankruptcy did not help even though they emerged from it, a rare occurrence in France. But their biggest failure was to develop admin tools for their Red Hat-clone in Perl rather than what Red Hat used, Python, probably the combination of developer preference and a desire to be "NOT" Red Hat. They also introduced a number of incompatibilities just because they thought their way was better (and it may have been). Their style/icon/theme choices were not the best either (plain and cartoon-ish) and failed to appeal to younger Linux enthusiasts. They had a good concept with "Red Hat done better" and should have stuck with that. It is still my distro of choice, even with my familiarity of Red Hat (I've been a Red Hat Fedora Unleashed co-author). But it's sad to remember the opportunities squandered at Mandrake/Mandriva. I would suggest that anybody give it a try, especially if you have not yet selected a favorite distro. It now does have a nice feel and polish and "just works".
This would be a great tool if it works out. Hopefully it will be GPL and can be adapted to other distros. Very forward thinking on SUSE's part.
If you have valid criticisms of mc, then you now have an opportunity to have them addressed or even participate in the fix.
If you don't use it, what does it matter to you?
I find mc to be at times the best tool to use, sometimes not.
Congressman Peter T. King (R-NY) should instead introduce a Bill that requires all evil-doers to warn their victims prior to engaging in any evil acts. That would make it simple and what a benefit to the Free World(TM) it would be!
It would be nice to know what event inspired this Bill, but it's probably from an incident involving his family or a friend of the family. Sadly, that is a common impetus for inane Bills which seek to right some wrong without thinking about the sheer implausibility of the idea or the violations of the Constitution that would be involved. But as long as that VIP is happy . . .
A quick look at the list of Bills he's sponsored (http://tinyurl.com/botwpv) is illuminating as to the kinds of things he believes are important uses of taxpayer money. My favorite is the establishment of the Office for Bombing Prevention. Perhaps the camera prohibition he proposes should be handled by the Office of Candid Camera Prevention.
Seriously, when a cop is beating your buddy's ass for no reason, do you want to warn them you are taking a picture? I think not.
But not done as well.
Politicians bring back graft.
Hollywood brings back sex.
Video games bring back violence.
Priests bring back little boys.
This kind of thinking by the political leadership of Kentucky is what's wrong in general with politics and leadership in the USA.
Look at whatever economic or social statistics you want about the Bluegrass State and you'll see that the state has more important problems to address. By diverting attention to this kind of absolute nonsense, the Kentucky political leaders expose themselves as the asshats they really are and reinforce negative stereotypes of the state.
Next thing you know, they'll be legislating values of pi like those boobs in Indiana.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee site, while also touting its "inclusive and accessible" coverage, provides no easily identifiable way to contact them to register a comment about the Silverlight decision. You can make a donation, request and invitation (good luck)or purchase stuff you won't find [yet] on eBay, but provide feedback or make a comment? Nope.