Of course if you want to use this OS you will have to shell out $100 to upgrade.1 of a version number. Sheesh!
I actually think Apple's switched to a new version numbering sceme: 10.x.x. The 10 is constant (a marketing number basically), and the x.x is the 'real' version number.
So basically the current version is 2.5, and Panther is version 3.0.
And where, pray tell, would they get a plastic cup? Mind you, were talking mostly about people who live in mud huts in a country most likely torn by civil war, dictatorships and former colonization. The internet isn't worthless, it's a great place for exchanging ideas and opinions (like what I'm doing right now) but a person whose dying of hunger, thirst and an unknown disease couldn't care less about another person's opinions, even if he could read them.
That's the most complicated item, and can be substituted. There's at least one link that needs nothing more than a hole in the ground...
As for dying of hunger, thirst and an unknown disease: most villagers (who this is aimed at) have a stable (if poor) supply of food and water. The resources better food and water supply is mostly knowhow: better planting/harvesting techniques, the above mentioned water filters, better knowledge of nutrition. I'll agree it would be better to send someone over to each village and teach them hands on.
But this is cheaper and almost as effective.
It is a place to start, and they can scratch more than one itch. One person may want to know how to plant their crops. One may want to stop having to carry their water supply everywhere. One may look for a better way to cook their food. One may look up the disease their child has, or learn first aid.
They may even come up with solutions, and share them around. Who better than the next village over to see how to solve a common problem? And this way the solution gets shared. Worldwide even.
This is starting to sound like a software movement I know of. Open Source Development, Real Development! Give the people access to the ability to understand their own problems and share their own solutions.
Their solutions will probably be better then ours.
Give them both, preferably. I'm just saying the Internet isn't as worthless as you seem to think it is. Sheesh, follow my advice and most of the links you will find will need nothing more complicated than a plastic cup to contain the filter in.
As for learing to read on a written medium: most villiages will probably have at least one person who is mildly literate. Give them access, and they can (and will, since it will be something they can sell to the rest) improve their reading. They may even teach others (if only as apprentances).
As I said, you may be surprized at how useful and practical they would find it. If nothing else, they can exchange gripes, solutions, and problems with the next village over.
So, what we need is to educate the populace while we feed them. Give them a chance to learn either a trade skill, or to go to university. Then, the educated can help rebuild the country. Admittedly, computers aren't the sole answer to this, but it would be a part. Those who have the intelligence and literacy would be able to teach themselves, and as other posters have said, Google is a better textbook than nothing for schools that lack resources.
I grew up with my dad in USAID. He still works for them. That is what the US does, feed and teach, try to build the infrastructure. Or at least, what we try to do. It doesn't always work of course, but usually it does. At least until the next civil war. It is hard to get critical mass on these types of projects. At least, with the funds we give our forgein aid projects.
And what better way to help them read but to give them the Internet?
Seriously. Do a google search for home-made water filters, see if there is anything they could use. Or on learning to read.
Info can help anyone. They may not use it the way you expect them to. How about using it to work around the corruption in the local school system? Or to just decrese its cost? (A good high school may not even be avalible in some villages.) Let them decide if it is worth using.
Anyone else notice that Autofill now not only works, it gets info from the (system wide) AddressBook? Change your address in one place for envelopes, Palm Business Cards, and now your browser!
I keep hearing about AutoCAD? I have a cousin that is an Engineer for a large company, he graduated from a well known engineering school. Consensus from him and people he went to school/works with? AutoCAD is crap.
Can we get a -1 Irony? We are discussing why people can't switch from MS (a crap OS), and he wonders why they can't swich from AutoCAD (a crap program).
It's the crap everyone uses! Therefore you must too, to be crap-compatible!
Or AppleWorks (Ok, there I'm half-joking) and Keynote? Nissus Writer is almost out too...
Apple does not seem to like the idea of working w/ Microsoft especially... They recently announced two replacements for MS strongholds on Mac (Safari and Keynote for IE and PowerPoint respectively.) Now all they need is a better word processor and spreadsheet. And there are rumors...
Oh, and really, for most business users I've met, AppleWorks would do what they need.
Well, the first few days/weeks you can get away with just 'reviewing' the code. Use that time to learn enough about programming to know more than your manager (usually easy), or to fool your manager's boss into thinking you know more than your manager.
See if you can get your manager started on the idea of 'team programming'. If you can, then you may never need to work again.
Also, go rent and watch Office Space. That will give you all the instruction you will need past the first hump.
No. That sounds like a stupid programmer that wrote two incompatible programs working at the same time on the same data without proper locking or arbitration.
An illogical program or system will behave illogically, no surprise there.
And that's a definition of madness/insanity in humans.
The real arguement here is how far we can extend the metaphore of computers as idiot-humans. We have two different terminologies for the same concepts: one seems to presupose the self-awareness of the object, one does not. This despite the fact they are describing the same results. The metaphore is useful, but can confuse non-techies into thinking computers actually think.
Re:What about Terrasoft? Can't their machines run
on
Beige Box Apple Clone?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I've always wondered why they don't use the same technique that the original BIOS cloners used to make a working IBM clone BIOS that was 100% legal.
I don't remember the specifics on the technique, but it involved two completely seperate groups of engineers within the same company who had strictly limited contact with eachother governing how one group reverse-engineered the BIOS, and how the other group created a new BIOS based solely on descriptions of how it operated, without having any specific copyright information that the first group had access to.
It wasn't done with Apple because it would cost too much: Apple's BIOS was much larger than IBM's was. It contained basic code for keyboard, mouse, and windowing systems (including code to draw basic windows and icons, which were copyrighted). An original Mac with no disk could still boot to a graphical error mesage and working cursor, and there was cost/speed savings for Apple as well.
Newer Macs don't have as extensive a BIOS (and I'm not sure what is in it), but Apple now protects itself in other ways.
Slashdot Mirror
Try the Kinesis keyboards. Enter is next to the space, under the right thumb. Control is just above it.
Informative!!! I thought that was a joke! (In the ha-ha-only-serious vein.)
I actually think Apple's switched to a new version numbering sceme: 10.x.x. The 10 is constant (a marketing number basically), and the x.x is the 'real' version number.
So basically the current version is 2.5, and Panther is version 3.0.
That's the most complicated item, and can be substituted. There's at least one link that needs nothing more than a hole in the ground...
As for dying of hunger, thirst and an unknown disease: most villagers (who this is aimed at) have a stable (if poor) supply of food and water. The resources better food and water supply is mostly knowhow: better planting/harvesting techniques, the above mentioned water filters, better knowledge of nutrition. I'll agree it would be better to send someone over to each village and teach them hands on.
But this is cheaper and almost as effective.
It is a place to start, and they can scratch more than one itch. One person may want to know how to plant their crops. One may want to stop having to carry their water supply everywhere. One may look for a better way to cook their food. One may look up the disease their child has, or learn first aid.
They may even come up with solutions, and share them around. Who better than the next village over to see how to solve a common problem? And this way the solution gets shared. Worldwide even.
This is starting to sound like a software movement I know of. Open Source Development, Real Development! Give the people access to the ability to understand their own problems and share their own solutions.
Their solutions will probably be better then ours.
Give them both, preferably. I'm just saying the Internet isn't as worthless as you seem to think it is. Sheesh, follow my advice and most of the links you will find will need nothing more complicated than a plastic cup to contain the filter in.
As for learing to read on a written medium: most villiages will probably have at least one person who is mildly literate. Give them access, and they can (and will, since it will be something they can sell to the rest) improve their reading. They may even teach others (if only as apprentances).
As I said, you may be surprized at how useful and practical they would find it. If nothing else, they can exchange gripes, solutions, and problems with the next village over.
I grew up with my dad in USAID. He still works for them. That is what the US does, feed and teach, try to build the infrastructure. Or at least, what we try to do. It doesn't always work of course, but usually it does. At least until the next civil war. It is hard to get critical mass on these types of projects. At least, with the funds we give our forgein aid projects.
And what better way to help them read but to give them the Internet?
Seriously. Do a google search for home-made water filters, see if there is anything they could use. Or on learning to read.
Info can help anyone. They may not use it the way you expect them to. How about using it to work around the corruption in the local school system? Or to just decrese its cost? (A good high school may not even be avalible in some villages.) Let them decide if it is worth using.
Anyone else notice that Autofill now not only works, it gets info from the (system wide) AddressBook? Change your address in one place for envelopes, Palm Business Cards, and now your browser!
Ok, so it is minor. Still cool.
True... If we knew how the file formats worked. And could predict or handle when they change.
Since we don't in these cases you need the program to read the data...
Can we get a -1 Irony? We are discussing why people can't switch from MS (a crap OS), and he wonders why they can't swich from AutoCAD (a crap program).
It's the crap everyone uses! Therefore you must too, to be crap-compatible!
How about OpenOffice?
Or AppleWorks (Ok, there I'm half-joking) and Keynote? Nissus Writer is almost out too...
Apple does not seem to like the idea of working w/ Microsoft especially... They recently announced two replacements for MS strongholds on Mac (Safari and Keynote for IE and PowerPoint respectively.) Now all they need is a better word processor and spreadsheet. And there are rumors...
Oh, and really, for most business users I've met, AppleWorks would do what they need.
No, he's appealing to a community that supports people who write free software.
No. An attacker can already find out, (It is not hard usually.) and this way people can directly contribute to those projects in use in their area.
And they can also check to see if it would be making errors that would affect them. And fix them. This is an advantage.
Well, the first few days/weeks you can get away with just 'reviewing' the code. Use that time to learn enough about programming to know more than your manager (usually easy), or to fool your manager's boss into thinking you know more than your manager.
See if you can get your manager started on the idea of 'team programming'. If you can, then you may never need to work again.
Also, go rent and watch Office Space. That will give you all the instruction you will need past the first hump.
And that's a definition of madness/insanity in humans.
The real arguement here is how far we can extend the metaphore of computers as idiot-humans. We have two different terminologies for the same concepts: one seems to presupose the self-awareness of the object, one does not. This despite the fact they are describing the same results. The metaphore is useful, but can confuse non-techies into thinking computers actually think.
It wasn't done with Apple because it would cost too much: Apple's BIOS was much larger than IBM's was. It contained basic code for keyboard, mouse, and windowing systems (including code to draw basic windows and icons, which were copyrighted). An original Mac with no disk could still boot to a graphical error mesage and working cursor, and there was cost/speed savings for Apple as well.
Newer Macs don't have as extensive a BIOS (and I'm not sure what is in it), but Apple now protects itself in other ways.
You know, by some definitions that is a secure system.
I mean, you allow everything, so the fact that everything is possible is just standard. You are as hardened as you have set out to be.
Good. So instead of just /.ing her, we do it on a day when the site's address has just been emailed out to thousands of link-starved people too.
Script Kiddies wish they had that much power.
An all-consuming computer fetish is not cheaper than a girlfriend.
At least, not in my experiance.
How about Mac? (Would check the page, but it is still trying to load...)
I use PocketQuicken on Palm, but am not hooked to it if there is a better choice.
Hm? Moneydance is a personal finance manager. One of its features is online banking, but that's not all it does.
Now if you wanted to say you could just use StarOffice's spreadsheet app, then at least you would be on topic...
Does it have Palm (third party app fine, just make sure I can enter transactions on the Palm.) support? If so, I am totally in agreement.
If not, what would it take to add Palm support?
It's the 'War On Terror'. That ones a few years old.
By the way, are we winning or losing that one? I haven't heard anything about it for several months...
Someone mod parent Funny, please!
Solve user stupitity with computers! I've haven't heard as good a joke in a long time.
Well, what is the content of a PowerPoint file? If all the formatting and presentation info are removed, what exactly is the point?
Sometimes the format is the content.