As a parent of young children, I am concerned about the garbage they are exposed to on TV -- like another person wrote, when they watch TV my wife or I must be "at the ready" to switch channels if the content suddenly becomes inappropriate. But unlike that other person who saw this as a reason the V-Chip is good, I see the V-Chip as worthless for parenting. Indeed, the claim to "protect children" is the grease commonly used to remove liberties, whether it's what we view or what we own.
Why is the V-Chip worthless to me? For the same reason that movie ratings are worthless:
I may (and probably will) disagree with the ratings applied to any given item
I have no control over what content will have the rating applied.
What it comes down to is that, as a parent, I still have to make all the same parenting decisions whether I use the V-Chip or not. If that's the case, then there's clearly no benefit. And if there's no benefit, what is it for?!
Thus, I steer my children to books (and physical activity, what a concept!) and limit their TV and movie watching. Even "kid movies" are often subjected to pre-viewing by my wife or I, or at least a very trusted relative, because a lot of the "kid movies" are full of garbage that we don't want to become part of our kids' world views.
Forgive my late entry into the world of AbiWord, I'd never heard of it until today. After familiarizing myself with it (to the extent possible in the limited time frame), I wonder if it is a good tool built to serve an illogical purpose -- specifically, to provide broad platform support for a vast array of proprietary document formats. Given the "infinite" number of proprietary formats that may appear, isn't this essentially a set-up for failure? All it takes is releasing a new (and modified) version of a currently-supported format, or a new format, to put AbiWord further back on the support meter.
Is it better to continually develop more palliative treatments to hide symptoms of a disease as it mutates rather than seek an actual cure? I think not. While finding the cure may be daunting, the process itself may lead to tangential benefits (even if the cure is never completed), and if the cure is attained then mitigating the symptoms immediately becomes irrelevant.
In this case, the disease is an over-abundance of document formats. It would strike me as wiser to narrow down the format array than to try to match it as it grows. Continued support for archaic formats should be limited to batch translation to newer formats; contemporary but obscure formats should be dealt with at the publisher level to eliminate the proprietary format in favor of an equally-suitable format (preferably a non-proprietary format, as it would be unwise to suggest that any given publisher try to continue playing catch-up with another publisher's format).
This isn't a cold, hard fact of life, it's a cold, hard symptom of mismanagement. Any manager worth his/her position knows how to do the work, but does not do it because his/her knowledge is better applied strategically than tactically. The same can be said of the mentor in this case.
Using your productivity percentages, you have two scenarios: The 100% productive person does or does not mentor the 50% productive person. If the mentoring does not take place, you're guaranteed a continuing productivity of 150%. If the mentoring does take place, you're stuck with a 75% (or less) productivity for the short term but a 200% productivity in the long run.
If you "don't have time" to make strategic investments, you're simply mismanaging the situation. If you think you can bring on someone who needs no mentoring at all, you have one of two problems: a) It's true, because your situation is so bad that any Joe off the street with technical skills and no knowledge of your business can be 100% productive fixing technical flaws in your system, or b) It's not true but you're ignoring the mentoring that will be required to give the new person non-technical knowledge (i.e., the business background so they can understand how to apply their technical skills). The only people who truly need no mentoring (when there are not abundant, glaring flaws in whatever you're working on) are those people already working on the system.
Given that non-technical business background knowledge can take a lot longer to acquire than some technical skills, there are certain positions (e.g., Web development) where I would rather take a non-technical person already in the business with all of the background knowledge in place and mentor them technically, than pull in a "tech-ready" new hire who has no clue about the business, the corporate culture, etc., and lacks internal contacts and such that augment the technical side of things. (This clearly doesn't apply in all areas -- for something like assembly programming for embedded systems I would probably take the opposite approach.)
This assumes, however, that the person is both sitting at their desk doing "regular" work, AND cleaning up the virus.
No, it assumes they're doing it instead of regular work, where regular work is defined as not dealing with the virus. It's a matter of opportunity cost.
So, if you want a more realistic assessment, you must first take out duplicate entries on your balance sheet.
That's a joke, right? There are no duplicate entries when the person is doing Activity A instead of Activity B.
Then there's the cost of replacing data and software. Ummm, if you're doing regular backups (which you should), this'll be the cost of doing a restore from backup. Which is already factored into the system admin's pay, so (again) is a duplicate entry.
That a given activity is included in a person's job description is irrelevant unless that is the only activity in their job description. The only person who could possibly fall into this strange category you describe would be a "Virus Recovery Specialist" who is hired to do nothing but recover from viruses. But alas, that would put a definite, fixed monetary figure on virus treatment regardless of actual virus instances. Wouldn't the anti-virus software publishers love that!
Also, you're grossly simplifying the value of restoring from backup and the resulting lack of damage. How "regular" can your backups be before the backup processes interfere with getting the job done? And assuming you're not continuously backing up every keystroke (or other data input or manipulation) as it occurs, there will be data loss between the most recent backup and the time of restoration. Backups are important, but they're not a perfect, complete solution.
There are, of course, delays caused by all this activity. But if you look at the degree of variability in breaks, time in/out, fire drills, phone calls, meetings, etc, this "delay" is not significant in it's duration. It's a miniscule blip, made slightly larger by being all at once.
I wish that made sense even from a twisted perspective, but it doesn't. I keep hoping this is a joke, but I see it moderated as "Informative" which is a pretty scary thing to consider. Yes, delays in work exist due to phone calls, etc., but to imply that adding more delays has no impact is like saying 1 plus 1 equals 1.
And since these skills (such as system security) apply elsewhere in the business, it's a bad mistake to place the total cost under this one label.
At last, something I can agree with -- the total cost of the Sys Admin's salary shouldn't be attributed to virus recovery. I'm glad you put "total" in your statement, because otherwise we'd be right back to the apparently-facetious claim that adding labor does not add cost.
Generally speaking, I think virus cost estimates are unreliable eye candy for bored newspeople and anti-virus software vendors. Bigger numbers equal bigger revenue for them, whether through audience attention or software sales. They're eye candy to virus authors too, for that sense of "accomplishment." Actual costs are probably impossible to ascertain and are thus a worthless goal of analysis. It's like putting a specific dollar figure on the earthquake in India -- hey, does the exact damage really matter, or should we just do what we can to help the survivors recover?
I think as a community we need to be watching out for sentences that are substantial longer for a crime committed on a computer then a simialar crime without one.
Quite the contrary, we as a community (if we assume said community consists of individuals who are substantially more computer-savvy than the mainstream) should be aware that a crime committed on a computer can deal much more damage than a similar crime without one. Could the spammers have sent as many fraudulent ads by postal mail? Not without spending $10 million (assuming they used 20-cent postcards). The impact of fast, bulk data processing enabled by computers can make a crime worse.
I would not necessarily advocate a harsher sentence solely because a computer was involved; but if the use of the computer made the crime worse, as in this case, then the harsher sentence is a result of the increased scope of the crime itself.
Ignoring the greater scope of damage as a result of automated processing is a common mark of a novice user. For example, I have a family member who cannot fathom my concern over her forwarding of chain letters and hoaxes. "Well, it's not that big of a deal..." No, not from her address book alone it isn't, but exponential forwarding makes it into a big deal.
Seriously, putting two spammers in jail is a good first step...
Actually, I think it's meaningless in terms of spam control. They were jailed for fraud, not for spam, if I understand the article correctly. What is of more concern to me and is entirely unaddressed by this so-called "first step" is the 12,000+ fools who sent money to spammers. That the spammers were fraudulent in this case is beside the point -- the key issue is that so many people are so willing to prove the spammers "correct" (I won't say "right" because that could imply a moral judgement that I certainly wouldn't agree with).
The only "good first step" of relevance will have nothing to do with law, and everything to do with technology. And I don't mean filters or other patchwork currently in use; I mean real developments that make spam impossible to begin with, rather than trying to minimize its impact. A pre-authorization token mail system would be a "good first step."
I'm no fan of Amazon.com. And I agree with the Guild that the prominent promotion of used book sales will cut into publisher/author revenue to some degree. And, given that it's their "bread and butter" I think it's reasonable and excusable for them to ask Amazon.com to not promote the used book market so heavily. (They're not trying to stop used book sales, despite what much of this thread seems to indicate -- they know that's not possible, they just want a change of promotion by Amazon.com.)
Where I lose all respect for the Guild's position is when they imply that authors will quit writing books because of Amazon.com and its decision to prominently promote the used book market. Oh, come on! Of all the reasons I could see stopping my own writing, or that I would consider reasonable for any author to stop writing, the actions of one (albeit large) bookseller in terms of used books would be incredibly low on the list!
Ah, well, I fired off a message to that effect to the Guild already. Not that they'll probably care, if they even notice...
It crashed? It doesn't crash for me -- I'm running O5 on NT 4 Wkstn. It does give me a JavaScript error, but that could be the fault of the page author (even IE, which many people point to as a "more easy to use browser" than Opera) displays scripting errors. IE may be -- and probably is -- more forgiving of errors in code than Opera. And of course it will "forgive errors" if the error is really from the page author optimizing for IE.
In any event, I couldn't get O5 to crash on that page.
...the person who agreed to the TOS is responsible for the acts of any minors who use there account.
What?! Allow parents to make decisions for their children? And hold them responsible for those decisions? Clearly you have been working too hard and have missed the 20th Century in which it was decided that liberty and personal responsibility are out of fashion and we need to have Daddy Government take care of everyone.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
-George Bernard Shaw
I debate the 'friendly' description not based on complexity of programming for a given environment, but on the attitudes of those who would be in a position to 'tutor' those who are just beginning. Maybe my experience is different from what others have seen, but I've seen more of the attitude of "me, help you solve that simple problem? Bah! RTFM!" in the less-commercialized *nix programming community than in the slick, commercial world of Wintel programming.
I can just see my 3rd grade daughter coming to me and saying, "Daddy, I asked on a newsgroup what was wrong with my code and somebody said RTFM. Is that one of those include files I'm supposed to use?" Yeah, friendly... Right.
As soon as I can find a place to put it, I'm going to set up an old box for my kids to start using, with a dual boot for Win95 and Linux (Slackware, if you care about that sort of thing). And for my oldest, the 3rd grader, I'm going to be encouraging her to get her feet wet with programming on the Linux side. But that experience will be "friendly" to her because I'll be there to "hold her hand" through coding problems, not because of anything about Linux itself.
(FWIW, I will probably start her with shell scripting, not compiled C code. IMHO, it's a simpler thing to get accustomed to the idea of giving ordered commands to the computer than trying to understand functions, compiling, etc. In that sense, it's more like the original numbered-line BASIC, where you don't need the complexity of subroutines until you're familiar with just giving sequential instructions.)
I think the *nix environment is the right one for kids to start in for a variety of reasons -- but "friendliness" is not one of them. It has a ways to go before it is truly friendly to the ultimate novice. Just as we don't teach elementary school kids math by plunking down a comprehensive reference book and saying "RTFM" so should we also not expect to plunk them down with a set of HOWTOs and say "RTFM."
They never should have sold off WordPerfect!
on
Is Novell Doomed?
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· Score: 1
(If you find no amusement in the subject line of this post, you won't find any in the body either.)
the unworkable nature of the National Missile Defense (as proven by tests that fail even when they 'cheat' to improve odds of success); and,
the pointlessness of NMD since (even if it could be implemented) it wouldn't defend against the most likely method of attack by the supposed 'rogue' nations that it is supposedly defending against? (A missile attack by a rogue nation is much less likely than a warhead being smuggled in and detonated.)
...do you concede that the NMD program is ultimately 'pork' to support government contractors? If so, do you support funding it anyway? If you answered Yes to both questions, please explain your reasons.
Several years ago, I wrote an article for a regional newspaper for residential rental property owners and managers (OnSite, if anybody really cares). The motivation was to get some attention for a now-defunct company that was intending to market a product to that audience, but the message was that apartment complexes (and similar sites) should consider providing Internet access as a way to draw in a high-tech crowd, which could (arguably) be seen as having good income and thus could afford higher rents and/or would be more rarely delinquent on rent.
To date, I haven't seen much progress. I've only seen one complex that boldly offered high speed Internet as part of the benefits of living there. When I was apartment hunting last Spring, the best I could do was to get (false) assurances that we could get DSL if we moved in -- not as part of the contract, but that the site was presumably ready. (After we moved in to the apartment we selected, we found out we couldn't get DSL after all... but I digress.)
I have also tried to convince my father, who owns a rental property site with lower population density, to consider some high-tech improvements -- to no avail. He barely listens; he's already made up his mind. And from a purely economic perspective, I suppose it makes sense -- he has virtually zero vacancies and regular payments, so he doesn't "need" to offer more. I would even say he doesn't care all that much about the property, so as long as it provides an income and few enough hassles, he's not going to make any changes.
I look forward to the day -- which may never arrive -- when rental property owners/managers do try hard to cater to technology interests. If you want to see it happen, do some "shopping around" and always ask, "Does high-speed Internet come with the apartment as part of the rental price?" As soon as they say it doesn't, respond "Ok, I'm not interested" and hang up or walk out. Note that you don't have to be really looking for a new place to live, the idea is to get them thinking.
If we don't demonstrate the demand -- i.e., if we don't make the demand for this support -- don't expect to see it anytime soon, if ever.
I went looking for a free 14" or 15" VGA monitor recently via a local.forsale newsgroup. (I've received, and given away, such monitors before, so it didn't seem too unlikely. And, as it turned out, I did get a free monitor again.)
Anyway, my post "earned" a flame from some dork who couldn't argue logically. That led to a heated exchange... Well, he was heated (apparently, else why would he indulge in name calling and other childishness rather than presenting a valid argument?), I was rather amused. His main premise was that I was completely unreasonable expecting anybody to give hardware away for free. (As if people don't give other things away for free...)
I'll have to post a link to freeboxen in that newsgroup as a final (for me) follow-up to that thread... {smirk}
I think the house-buying scenario is a poor example. And yes, to answer the question in your subject line, I think we do "need" this (in the same sense that we "need" e-mail as an alternative to, or replacement for, paper mail). I have seen too many paper processes remain on paper for the sole reason of a physical signature -- by allowing an electronic signature, those paper processes can be made incredibly more efficient.
For something such as getting reimbursed for health care expenses, that can make a significant positive impact on the life of Joe Public. Take the example of waiting to get a $100 reimbursement check -- would you rather wait three weeks (or whatever) or have the transaction completed in a day or two?
See what happens when your morning is full of meetings? Sheesh...
Anyway, although now it's looking old and stale, I still consider the following paper of mine, which was published a few years ago, to be relevant to this topic (IOW, things haven't changed enough since then to make it irrelevant):
From their site: The purpose of the X PRIZE is to promote the development and flight of spaceships able to provide low-cost commercial transport of humans into space.
I'd think affording the $1000 computer would be the problem...
Agreed, a $1000 computer would be a problem. So avoid that problem and recognize you don't need to spend $1000 on a computer to run Linux. Sure, a used $200 P200 won't run things as "zippily" as a newer, faster computer, but if you're starting from zero, that used $200 is a damn good first step.
I would bet there is enough excess old hardware (especially from corporations) in the US that a non-profit organization could be kept very busy collecting it and shipping it to those in Africa who want to computerize but can't afford to yet. If Linux was pre-loaded and the computers were going to people who weren't already literate with Micro$oft's products, there would be no conversion issue (except for M$).
If it only costs you $10 to replace a keyboard, why not give it a thorough washing to see if that will solve the problem? You have nothing to lose other than a little time spent opening up some hardware (oh no!), and $10 to spend on beer instead if the operation is a success.
I've washed at least three keyboards, all of which came out working better than when I started -- essentially as good as new. Haven't lost one to washing yet, and that includes speeding up the drying process with a hair dryer. (Remember, you've got nothing to lose if you've already written it off anyway!) Just make sure it's really dry. One time when I was impatient I fired it up without drying it fully, which... well, "didn't work" puts it simplest.
The most-recent incident was a mocha, in fact, and the keyboard was the most complex that I've opened up yet. It was clearly intended to be a "spill resistant" design, but the right half of the keyboard started sending two signals -- the key pressed, and the key to its immediate right. Having washed it, it's back to work. Now if I can just keep my son from repeating that little trick...
Right... {yawn} The tired old argument about how much easier it is for the layman to deal with Mac hardware. Great marketing hype for people like my old man. Now go ask him why he can't use his Mac printer with his Mac.
...but after the initial build, how often do you switch things around?
Umm... constantly?
...aesthetically pleasing...
Yeah, aesthetics are so important in computing. You really like that marketing stuff, huh?
...average beige boxen...
If you look up and to the left of your 'n' key, you'll find an 's' key. I hope it's not broken? Open your eyen and use the right lettern.
...ackowledged (sic) by many as some of the best parts out there.
by many... what? marketing drones? geese? fruit flies?
...a thousand other setup nightmares common to the PC end of things.
You might try a version of reality that isn't so tainted with Mac marketing hype, it might help you provide better input in a technical forum such as this. Or maybe not... As the song says, "There's always a joker, that's the rule, as foolish as he can be..."
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Why is the V-Chip worthless to me? For the same reason that movie ratings are worthless:
- I may (and probably will) disagree with the ratings applied to any given item
- I have no control over what content will have the rating applied.
What it comes down to is that, as a parent, I still have to make all the same parenting decisions whether I use the V-Chip or not. If that's the case, then there's clearly no benefit. And if there's no benefit, what is it for?!Thus, I steer my children to books (and physical activity, what a concept!) and limit their TV and movie watching. Even "kid movies" are often subjected to pre-viewing by my wife or I, or at least a very trusted relative, because a lot of the "kid movies" are full of garbage that we don't want to become part of our kids' world views.
Forgive my late entry into the world of AbiWord, I'd never heard of it until today. After familiarizing myself with it (to the extent possible in the limited time frame), I wonder if it is a good tool built to serve an illogical purpose -- specifically, to provide broad platform support for a vast array of proprietary document formats. Given the "infinite" number of proprietary formats that may appear, isn't this essentially a set-up for failure? All it takes is releasing a new (and modified) version of a currently-supported format, or a new format, to put AbiWord further back on the support meter.
Is it better to continually develop more palliative treatments to hide symptoms of a disease as it mutates rather than seek an actual cure? I think not. While finding the cure may be daunting, the process itself may lead to tangential benefits (even if the cure is never completed), and if the cure is attained then mitigating the symptoms immediately becomes irrelevant.
In this case, the disease is an over-abundance of document formats. It would strike me as wiser to narrow down the format array than to try to match it as it grows. Continued support for archaic formats should be limited to batch translation to newer formats; contemporary but obscure formats should be dealt with at the publisher level to eliminate the proprietary format in favor of an equally-suitable format (preferably a non-proprietary format, as it would be unwise to suggest that any given publisher try to continue playing catch-up with another publisher's format).
Don't get me wrong. I always put complete trust in Microsoft, and VeriSign for that matter. Always.
Sure I do.
Using your productivity percentages, you have two scenarios: The 100% productive person does or does not mentor the 50% productive person. If the mentoring does not take place, you're guaranteed a continuing productivity of 150%. If the mentoring does take place, you're stuck with a 75% (or less) productivity for the short term but a 200% productivity in the long run.
If you "don't have time" to make strategic investments, you're simply mismanaging the situation. If you think you can bring on someone who needs no mentoring at all, you have one of two problems: a) It's true, because your situation is so bad that any Joe off the street with technical skills and no knowledge of your business can be 100% productive fixing technical flaws in your system, or b) It's not true but you're ignoring the mentoring that will be required to give the new person non-technical knowledge (i.e., the business background so they can understand how to apply their technical skills). The only people who truly need no mentoring (when there are not abundant, glaring flaws in whatever you're working on) are those people already working on the system.
Given that non-technical business background knowledge can take a lot longer to acquire than some technical skills, there are certain positions (e.g., Web development) where I would rather take a non-technical person already in the business with all of the background knowledge in place and mentor them technically, than pull in a "tech-ready" new hire who has no clue about the business, the corporate culture, etc., and lacks internal contacts and such that augment the technical side of things. (This clearly doesn't apply in all areas -- for something like assembly programming for embedded systems I would probably take the opposite approach.)
No, it assumes they're doing it instead of regular work, where regular work is defined as not dealing with the virus. It's a matter of opportunity cost.
So, if you want a more realistic assessment, you must first take out duplicate entries on your balance sheet.
That's a joke, right? There are no duplicate entries when the person is doing Activity A instead of Activity B.
Then there's the cost of replacing data and software. Ummm, if you're doing regular backups (which you should), this'll be the cost of doing a restore from backup. Which is already factored into the system admin's pay, so (again) is a duplicate entry.
That a given activity is included in a person's job description is irrelevant unless that is the only activity in their job description. The only person who could possibly fall into this strange category you describe would be a "Virus Recovery Specialist" who is hired to do nothing but recover from viruses. But alas, that would put a definite, fixed monetary figure on virus treatment regardless of actual virus instances. Wouldn't the anti-virus software publishers love that!
Also, you're grossly simplifying the value of restoring from backup and the resulting lack of damage. How "regular" can your backups be before the backup processes interfere with getting the job done? And assuming you're not continuously backing up every keystroke (or other data input or manipulation) as it occurs, there will be data loss between the most recent backup and the time of restoration. Backups are important, but they're not a perfect, complete solution.
There are, of course, delays caused by all this activity. But if you look at the degree of variability in breaks, time in/out, fire drills, phone calls, meetings, etc, this "delay" is not significant in it's duration. It's a miniscule blip, made slightly larger by being all at once.
I wish that made sense even from a twisted perspective, but it doesn't. I keep hoping this is a joke, but I see it moderated as "Informative" which is a pretty scary thing to consider. Yes, delays in work exist due to phone calls, etc., but to imply that adding more delays has no impact is like saying 1 plus 1 equals 1.
And since these skills (such as system security) apply elsewhere in the business, it's a bad mistake to place the total cost under this one label.
At last, something I can agree with -- the total cost of the Sys Admin's salary shouldn't be attributed to virus recovery. I'm glad you put "total" in your statement, because otherwise we'd be right back to the apparently-facetious claim that adding labor does not add cost.
Generally speaking, I think virus cost estimates are unreliable eye candy for bored newspeople and anti-virus software vendors. Bigger numbers equal bigger revenue for them, whether through audience attention or software sales. They're eye candy to virus authors too, for that sense of "accomplishment." Actual costs are probably impossible to ascertain and are thus a worthless goal of analysis. It's like putting a specific dollar figure on the earthquake in India -- hey, does the exact damage really matter, or should we just do what we can to help the survivors recover?
Quite the contrary, we as a community (if we assume said community consists of individuals who are substantially more computer-savvy than the mainstream) should be aware that a crime committed on a computer can deal much more damage than a similar crime without one. Could the spammers have sent as many fraudulent ads by postal mail? Not without spending $10 million (assuming they used 20-cent postcards). The impact of fast, bulk data processing enabled by computers can make a crime worse.
I would not necessarily advocate a harsher sentence solely because a computer was involved; but if the use of the computer made the crime worse, as in this case, then the harsher sentence is a result of the increased scope of the crime itself.
Ignoring the greater scope of damage as a result of automated processing is a common mark of a novice user. For example, I have a family member who cannot fathom my concern over her forwarding of chain letters and hoaxes. "Well, it's not that big of a deal..." No, not from her address book alone it isn't, but exponential forwarding makes it into a big deal.
Actually, I think it's meaningless in terms of spam control. They were jailed for fraud, not for spam, if I understand the article correctly. What is of more concern to me and is entirely unaddressed by this so-called "first step" is the 12,000+ fools who sent money to spammers. That the spammers were fraudulent in this case is beside the point -- the key issue is that so many people are so willing to prove the spammers "correct" (I won't say "right" because that could imply a moral judgement that I certainly wouldn't agree with).
The only "good first step" of relevance will have nothing to do with law, and everything to do with technology. And I don't mean filters or other patchwork currently in use; I mean real developments that make spam impossible to begin with, rather than trying to minimize its impact. A pre-authorization token mail system would be a "good first step."
Where I lose all respect for the Guild's position is when they imply that authors will quit writing books because of Amazon.com and its decision to prominently promote the used book market. Oh, come on! Of all the reasons I could see stopping my own writing, or that I would consider reasonable for any author to stop writing, the actions of one (albeit large) bookseller in terms of used books would be incredibly low on the list!
Ah, well, I fired off a message to that effect to the Guild already. Not that they'll probably care, if they even notice...
In any event, I couldn't get O5 to crash on that page.
What?! Allow parents to make decisions for their children? And hold them responsible for those decisions? Clearly you have been working too hard and have missed the 20th Century in which it was decided that liberty and personal responsibility are out of fashion and we need to have Daddy Government take care of everyone.
I can just see my 3rd grade daughter coming to me and saying, "Daddy, I asked on a newsgroup what was wrong with my code and somebody said RTFM. Is that one of those include files I'm supposed to use?" Yeah, friendly... Right.
As soon as I can find a place to put it, I'm going to set up an old box for my kids to start using, with a dual boot for Win95 and Linux (Slackware, if you care about that sort of thing). And for my oldest, the 3rd grader, I'm going to be encouraging her to get her feet wet with programming on the Linux side. But that experience will be "friendly" to her because I'll be there to "hold her hand" through coding problems, not because of anything about Linux itself.
(FWIW, I will probably start her with shell scripting, not compiled C code. IMHO, it's a simpler thing to get accustomed to the idea of giving ordered commands to the computer than trying to understand functions, compiling, etc. In that sense, it's more like the original numbered-line BASIC, where you don't need the complexity of subroutines until you're familiar with just giving sequential instructions.)
I think the *nix environment is the right one for kids to start in for a variety of reasons -- but "friendliness" is not one of them. It has a ways to go before it is truly friendly to the ultimate novice. Just as we don't teach elementary school kids math by plunking down a comprehensive reference book and saying "RTFM" so should we also not expect to plunk them down with a set of HOWTOs and say "RTFM."
(If you find no amusement in the subject line of this post, you won't find any in the body either.)
To date, I haven't seen much progress. I've only seen one complex that boldly offered high speed Internet as part of the benefits of living there. When I was apartment hunting last Spring, the best I could do was to get (false) assurances that we could get DSL if we moved in -- not as part of the contract, but that the site was presumably ready. (After we moved in to the apartment we selected, we found out we couldn't get DSL after all... but I digress.)
I have also tried to convince my father, who owns a rental property site with lower population density, to consider some high-tech improvements -- to no avail. He barely listens; he's already made up his mind. And from a purely economic perspective, I suppose it makes sense -- he has virtually zero vacancies and regular payments, so he doesn't "need" to offer more. I would even say he doesn't care all that much about the property, so as long as it provides an income and few enough hassles, he's not going to make any changes.
I look forward to the day -- which may never arrive -- when rental property owners/managers do try hard to cater to technology interests. If you want to see it happen, do some "shopping around" and always ask, "Does high-speed Internet come with the apartment as part of the rental price?" As soon as they say it doesn't, respond "Ok, I'm not interested" and hang up or walk out. Note that you don't have to be really looking for a new place to live, the idea is to get them thinking.
If we don't demonstrate the demand -- i.e., if we don't make the demand for this support -- don't expect to see it anytime soon, if ever.
Anyway, my post "earned" a flame from some dork who couldn't argue logically. That led to a heated exchange... Well, he was heated (apparently, else why would he indulge in name calling and other childishness rather than presenting a valid argument?), I was rather amused. His main premise was that I was completely unreasonable expecting anybody to give hardware away for free. (As if people don't give other things away for free...)
I'll have to post a link to freeboxen in that newsgroup as a final (for me) follow-up to that thread... {smirk}
For something such as getting reimbursed for health care expenses, that can make a significant positive impact on the life of Joe Public. Take the example of waiting to get a $100 reimbursement check -- would you rather wait three weeks (or whatever) or have the transaction completed in a day or two?
This would be like the (seafaring) pirate's cry of "Prepare to be boarded!" Or maybe more like a submarine's dive klaxon... "Going down!"
See what happens when your morning is full of meetings? Sheesh...
Anyway, although now it's looking old and stale, I still consider the following paper of mine, which was published a few years ago, to be relevant to this topic (IOW, things haven't changed enough since then to make it irrelevant):
Examining the Validity of World-Wide Web Usage Statistics
Enjoy...
Disregard the AC-monkey...
Just a quick link that seems highly relevant to this story but is missing (last I checked, a few seconds ago)...
The X PrizeFrom their site:
The purpose of the X PRIZE is to promote the development and flight of spaceships able to provide low-cost commercial transport of humans into space.
This story seems a little weak on facts and links, so this might help. Here are the press releases...
Enjoy...
Agreed, a $1000 computer would be a problem. So avoid that problem and recognize you don't need to spend $1000 on a computer to run Linux. Sure, a used $200 P200 won't run things as "zippily" as a newer, faster computer, but if you're starting from zero, that used $200 is a damn good first step.
I would bet there is enough excess old hardware (especially from corporations) in the US that a non-profit organization could be kept very busy collecting it and shipping it to those in Africa who want to computerize but can't afford to yet. If Linux was pre-loaded and the computers were going to people who weren't already literate with Micro$oft's products, there would be no conversion issue (except for M$).
I've washed at least three keyboards, all of which came out working better than when I started -- essentially as good as new. Haven't lost one to washing yet, and that includes speeding up the drying process with a hair dryer. (Remember, you've got nothing to lose if you've already written it off anyway!) Just make sure it's really dry. One time when I was impatient I fired it up without drying it fully, which... well, "didn't work" puts it simplest.
The most-recent incident was a mocha, in fact, and the keyboard was the most complex that I've opened up yet. It was clearly intended to be a "spill resistant" design, but the right half of the keyboard started sending two signals -- the key pressed, and the key to its immediate right. Having washed it, it's back to work. Now if I can just keep my son from repeating that little trick...
Yes, I know -- but idiotic jargon is idiotic jargon, no matter how many monkeys repeat it.
what in the HELL is an IRQ, ANYWAY?!
Right... {yawn} The tired old argument about how much easier it is for the layman to deal with Mac hardware. Great marketing hype for people like my old man. Now go ask him why he can't use his Mac printer with his Mac.
Umm... constantly?
Yeah, aesthetics are so important in computing. You really like that marketing stuff, huh?
If you look up and to the left of your 'n' key, you'll find an 's' key. I hope it's not broken? Open your eyen and use the right lettern.
by many... what? marketing drones? geese? fruit flies?
You might try a version of reality that isn't so tainted with Mac marketing hype, it might help you provide better input in a technical forum such as this. Or maybe not... As the song says, "There's always a joker, that's the rule, as foolish as he can be..."