Whenever I visit my relatives, they regard me as 'hip' and 'with it.' To them, being on the net and writing code is exciting. They wish they could do it... seriously!
My Uncle S. is always asking me what is the newest happening thing going on with technology. I've talked to him about Linux, Amazon.com, and more recently the Red Hat IPO. This is happening shit, man!
I know my life seems pretty typical to me, but to others it is like "whoa... he like knows where to find stuff on the web and a talks to people over the Internet and he writes cool programs... wow..." It is wierd.
It's like saying "If you pay us money, we'll let you know what towns have adult book stores. That way you can avoid those towns alltogether, if you so choose."
It is tough luck for the people who have non-adult book stores in those towsn, but that is the way the cookie crumbles. Deal.
Where I work everybody connects to the SMS server except my group, because we all run Linux. I don't know what SMS does, but corporate IS resents that they can't monitor us. They use it as a tool of control.
I believe SMS also does good stuff like updating software and stuff like that, but like I said, I don't know.
I would love to have a nice collared shirt with a/. logo. That way I could wear it to work on causual days and be the envy of all my peers!
I just got some Copyleft gear the other day and it is awesome, but I only wear it on the weekends. (Darn dress code at work.) I wanna show my geek pride every day of the week!:)
The reason companies release release software supported under Red Hat Linux only is that they want to work with a known environment. No other reason.
If you have worked in a Help Desk/Support environment, you'll know the importance of having a similar environment in which all your users (that you support) are working in. It is much easier to train techs to know what problems might pop up between your applications and one distribution of Linux that between your applications and all/any distribution.
At this point, it is enough of a stretch for many of these vendors to train their techs on one distribution of Linux and we should be happy with it. As Linux becomes more and more mainstream, it will become more cost-effective for these vendors to support their apps on multiple distributions and they will.
I agree. Use of the term 'ethical hacker' just makes it seem more like the term 'hacker' has something unethical associated with it.
I don't think I'd like it if my parents introduced my sister as their 'mentally stable child'... it would be implying that I'm not mentally stable. (Though I wouldn't entirely discount that possibility.)
> 'Geek' is highly pejorative -- it describes a physical and mental disability.
In my experience, 'geek' is understood much better than 'hacker'. Maybe I'd just rather have somebody think of me as inept than as a bad guy. Ah well...
I agree that 'hacker' would be best if mainstream culture used it correctly, but I don't see that hapening.
People ask me what I do/am and I usually just say I'm a computer geek and they get the picture. The term hacker causes confusion in most peoples' minds.
Some people refer to me as a computer guru, but I don't think it fits as well. (Plus I think the term guru implies extremely vast knowledge, which would be inappropriate for me.)
It would also be illegal to send out written notes pretending you're him telling people to go home early. It's called forgery. Why should email be different?
The message you responeded to did not have ANY country specific references in it. He may have intended it to mean American voters, but it can be applied equally well to voters in New Zeland. Quit yer whining and get back to coding.
There are still soft spots for Linux, however. For example, there are no name-brand desktop productivity applications available for it yet, though Lotus is considering a port of SmartSuite.
WordPerfect isn't name-brand? WordPerfect was the word processor for years. IMHO, WP 5.1 was the best word processor ever created.
I'd agree that there are few name-brand desktop apps, but none is incorrect.
KDE has kikbd, the International Keyboard tool. One can use it to switch to alternative keyboard layouts (like Dvorak) with a hotkey. I'm learning Dvorak now and it is quite handy.
KDE 1.1 might not include a Dvorak layout. If you need one, email me and I'll get one to you.
-- After reading your recent article "Computer hackers really are anti-social geeks: psychologist," I conducted a study of my own. The results...
It may be a stereotype to describe psychologists as useless bafoons, but it is an accurate one -- at least for the best-known type of psychologist, says a University of Helsinki psychologist.
The average "psychologist" is a white, middle-class male, aged 36 to 52, who lacks usefull skills and comes from a dysfunctional family, says Pascual Pilato, who is studying psychologists for his graduate thesis.
"They usually have a weak grasp of reality. They tend to be the delusional," the former Seattle beverage distributor says. "They feel a lot more comfortable writing useless papers about topics they don't understand than in face-to-face interaction.
I think you're a bit mistaken, Rob. I know several Linux advocates who were walloped by the Melissa virus. They may run Linux on their servers and on some desktops, but MS dominates the desktop just about everywhere.
I was just on the phone with a friend who was telling me how the Fourtune 500 company he works for had their entire email system go from fully functional to worthless in fourty five minutes. Wow!
My psychology prof was telling us last week how a study of health stories in newspapers found that they were only like 70% factually correct. From my personal observations, I'd say that mainstream newspapers are only like 40-50% factually correct in computer/technology stories.
Unfortunately, ACs can't do filtering. You will (obviously) need an account to customize stuff. Oh well... maybe some of the ACs will just grow up and take 37 seconds to create an account.
Slashdot Mirror
My Uncle S. is always asking me what is the newest happening thing going on with technology. I've talked to him about Linux, Amazon.com, and more recently the Red Hat IPO. This is happening shit, man!
I know my life seems pretty typical to me, but to others it is like "whoa... he like knows where to find stuff on the web and a talks to people over the Internet and he writes cool programs... wow..." It is wierd.
It's like saying "If you pay us money, we'll let you know what towns have adult book stores. That way you can avoid those towns alltogether, if you so choose."
It is tough luck for the people who have non-adult book stores in those towsn, but that is the way the cookie crumbles. Deal.
--
Pasc
Already happened. Check out the April 1999 issue of Windows NT Magazine.
I know it isn't a white paper, but all these Windows _x_ Magazine publications are stools for Microsoft.
I believe SMS also does good stuff like updating software and stuff like that, but like I said, I don't know.
It is based on the number of characters. I don't know if it counts spaces/newlines/html as characters... but I'd be interested to find out....
Company Contact
Toni Goodrich
Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
(408) 570-1000
toni_goodrich@phoenix.com
Public Relations
Kristin Jones
Walt & Company Communications
(408) 496-0900
kjones@walt.com
Be nice, but let 'em know how you feel about this BS.
I just got some Copyleft gear the other day and it is awesome, but I only wear it on the weekends. (Darn dress code at work.) I wanna show my geek pride every day of the week! :)
(A /. tie would rock also.)
If you have worked in a Help Desk/Support environment, you'll know the importance of having a similar environment in which all your users (that you support) are working in. It is much easier to train techs to know what problems might pop up between your applications and one distribution of Linux that between your applications and all/any distribution.
At this point, it is enough of a stretch for many of these vendors to train their techs on one distribution of Linux and we should be happy with it. As Linux becomes more and more mainstream, it will become more cost-effective for these vendors to support their apps on multiple distributions and they will.
For now, be happy with what you can get.
(I speak for myself, and only myself.)
IMHO, this is a Good Thing (TM) for Linux.
I don't think I'd like it if my parents introduced my sister as their 'mentally stable child'... it would be implying that I'm not mentally stable. (Though I wouldn't entirely discount that possibility.)
In my experience, 'geek' is understood much better than 'hacker'. Maybe I'd just rather have somebody think of me as inept than as a bad guy. Ah well...
I agree that 'hacker' would be best if mainstream culture used it correctly, but I don't see that hapening.
People ask me what I do/am and I usually just say I'm a computer geek and they get the picture. The term hacker causes confusion in most peoples' minds.
Some people refer to me as a computer guru, but I don't think it fits as well. (Plus I think the term guru implies extremely vast knowledge, which would be inappropriate for me.)
Thats the first thing I thought of when I heard about this. Ewwww....
Now I will never get any work done!
It would also be illegal to send out written notes pretending you're him telling people to go home early. It's called forgery. Why should email be different?
The message you responeded to did not have ANY country specific references in it. He may have intended it to mean American voters, but it can be applied equally well to voters in New Zeland. Quit yer whining and get back to coding.
Why do people do this?
WordPerfect isn't name-brand? WordPerfect was the word processor for years. IMHO, WP 5.1 was the best word processor ever created.
I'd agree that there are few name-brand desktop apps, but none is incorrect.
KDE 1.1 might not include a Dvorak layout. If you need one, email me and I'll get one to you.
--
After reading your recent article "Computer hackers really are anti-social geeks: psychologist," I conducted a study of my own. The results...
It may be a stereotype to describe psychologists as useless bafoons, but it is an accurate one -- at least for the best-known type of psychologist, says a University of Helsinki psychologist.
The average "psychologist" is a white, middle-class male, aged 36 to 52, who lacks usefull skills and comes from a dysfunctional family, says Pascual Pilato, who is studying psychologists for his graduate thesis.
"They usually have a weak grasp of reality. They tend to be the delusional," the former Seattle beverage distributor says. "They feel a lot more comfortable writing useless papers about topics they don't understand than in face-to-face interaction.
I was just on the phone with a friend who was telling me how the Fourtune 500 company he works for had their entire email system go from fully functional to worthless in fourty five minutes. Wow!
My psychology prof was telling us last week how a study of health stories in newspapers found that they were only like 70% factually correct. From my personal observations, I'd say that mainstream newspapers are only like 40-50% factually correct in computer/technology stories.
It doesn't even surprise me anymore.
Exactly!
These numbers have always been around. I'm 59. Yeah, baby!
Now, was that so difficult?