I have a crystal ball, and I predict most replies to this story will wax romantic about how much better film is than digital.
You know, this is actually one of the things I like about Slashdot versus some other computer-techy communities. People here really know and understand technology. Folks have their individual specialities, and there are a bunch of dedicated amateurs as well; but people here generally know what technology is good for and what it isn't good for.
For example, we love the internet and using computers to make things more efficient. But, as a group we hate e-Voting. People who work with computers every day know better than trust democracy to them.
Those of us who are in school or teach in schools use computers for learning and instruction. It has changed the way we collaborate and process information (humanities folks would call this "knowledge creation"). But, people here are generally suspicious of overblown programs to put a laptop in every 1st graders PB-J crusted hands. Because computers aren't good for 6 year-olds to learn? Of course not, but spending a million on new iBooks isn't a substitute for education.
Digital cameras are great for what they can (currently) be used for. My wife and I take many more pictures than we used to, and we have visual memories of many things that would have previously slipped away. Does that mean that old-fashioned film cameras are "dinosaurs?" For people who really get into technology and gadgets, it is clear that film cameras still have very important uses that can't be met by the current crop of digital cameras. Nothing against digital cameras! They might have revolutionized the pr0n industry, but I wouldn't use my Nikon Coolpix to take my son's official wedding pictures.
Maybe my ID isn't low enough... I'm not jaded yet.
I wasn't really thinking about Israel, per se, though I know that views of Israel in America is a very political topic.
I was just thinking about companies (or countries) that cry "Open Source" as a means to get MS discounts. It's a good business strategy, perhaps, but it isn't good for F/OSS. Maybe these companies don't intend it as a bargaining strategy in the beginning; but if MS is able to convince people to renew their contracts with speacial deals it means that F/OSS isn't doing a good job of communicating its benefits (cost being only one factor of this).
I don't really think that IBM is toying around, but I am sure there are many smaller companies that would like to play that game.
I would say that "meaning" is discovered in the critical engagement between a text and its reader (who always reads as a part of a community; actually as part of several overlapping communities). It is not a "thing" that can be discovered either in a text or in a reader, but is a dynamic entity that is only made possible in the engaged reading process.
HG Gadamer referred to this using the analogy of "play." Play has rules (even if they are ad-hoc). Players enter into the game fully, and in some senses lose themselves in the playing. And the game is dependent on players, and will change either subtly or dramatically depending on who is playing.
So, you are correct that if someone doesn't "see" anything in a story, finding only there a bunch of stuff that happened, they are not engaging any deeper significance. They in fact may not have truly engaged the game at all, but are only a disinterested spectator. It is the difference between watching TV through a store window for a few seconds versus sitting in a comfortable place and actively participating with the show for an hour.
Even though meaning isn't located in the text (sort of like a hidden nugget that one can excavate and display with certain tools), it is also not exclusively in the reader. It is not "in" anything; rather it can only be experienced (not held).
If someone reads LOTR and finds nothing there, I can't really judge them because they didn't find the same things I did. I can feel sorry for them, however, and encourage them to play the game a bit more.
I have a bunch of shn and flac encoded concert recordings, and am serious about sound quality. I don't mind MP3s when I'm listening to crappy headphones, but as often as I can I listen to music on my Grados, or on one of my "real" stereos. I even have a NAD/PSB bookshelf setup in my office.
This is why I'm inclined to get a Rio Karma. I can use MP3 or OGG encoding at different bitrates to get just the right level of compression. And for the albums and recordings that I know I will be listening to a bunch, I can transfer them as FLAC. It is very customizable for different listening conditions and source recordings.
I only wish that the Karma was at 40GB. Considering that a Phish concert can span 10 CD's, the 18.5 GB of the Karma won't hold too many FLAC's at a time.
Care to quote him what? Or did he just have people searching for "deeper significance" in mind, rather than "deeper significance" itself? If he never spoke as to what his intended "deeper signigicance" was there's no way to (dis)prove his intent, let alone whether it's just a wind-up to appear more literary or artsy.
I wonder what people here mean by "deeper significance?" What about just significance? LOTR is filled with significance and meaning, whether one is working from an allegorical, mythological, literary, postmodern viewpoint or whatever. It is a great book, and like all great books, cannot be confined or fossilized by the interests of its interpreters.
Just because Tolkien disavowed any allegorical intention [and I'm glad he did; imagine what people would have done to the story without any kind of statement from the author] doesn't meant that LOTR, to paraphrase Homer, "doesn't have a moral... it's just a bunch of stuff that happened."
These matters aren't as clear cut as people often want to make them. Absence of authorial-intended allegory doesn't make the story into a significance-free popcorn thriller.
I think businesspeople DO read things like Forbes, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, The Economist, etc.
I don't know any executives either, but I suspect that they read these kinds of things. I read the Wall Street Journal every day, and I can say that the drivel that we see coming from Forbes would never make it into the Journal.
They are very business focused, and are concerned about money and all of that. But they do not play the kind of FUD games we have seen from Lyons and others.
It's a shame that the WSJ doesn't have free access to their articles on the Web. If it did, we could get some serious, well-reasoned economic analysis on Slashdot.
By any reasonable measure of the term competition is served by actually having a competitor.
True.
The non inclusion of KDE as an available choice means that GNOME has no competition in the UserLinux package.
This is technically true, but misses the point. In the world of OSS, there is a hefty amount of competition. UserLinux is supposed to be a subset of that larger world of software, targetted to a specific audience. Companies have a huge range of choices for which software solutions they will implement (thus, competition). By choosing UserLinux they would have indicated that this particular subset of packages, so configured, are the best fit for their IT structure.
So, is anyone being slighted, or locked out of the competition? No. If companies decide that KDE is essential for their desktops and workstations, they will not implement UserLinux. RedHat or somebody else will benefit, or maybe UserLinux will reconsider and switch to KDE. Capitalism and free markets at work.
You unselected the KDE checkbox when doing your install by choice. This decision unselects the KDE checkbox for all who would use UserLinux, and does not give the option to recheck.
By choosing UserLinux, knowing its benefits and liabilities, they have made a choice. They have already "checked the box" for which GUI they want.
This isn't about your personal choice, it is about you _having_ a personal choice, regardless of what it actually is.
They do have a choice. They can choose UserLinux or not. Plus, if they decide after they implement UserLinux that they would rather have KDE (for instance, if the KDE group fulfills their list of objectives in their proposal), then they can easily add it. There is no vendor lock-in, and no restriction of freedom.
Your arguments seem to me to reflect the current MS-dominated, proprietary software world. When we choose to install XP, we make an implicit agreement to work within the bounds and requirements of XP. MS has shown increasing amounts of control over the total desktop experience, since it supports their business model.
UserLinux, and Perens, have no desire for this level of control. The goal is not to achieve dominance on the desktop in order to lock other vendors out. The goal is to set the desktop free, and their strategy regarding GUI is their best effort to make that possible. They might be wrong, and they may need to change their mind later on, but noone should accuse them of trying to take away choice.
What if you replaced the word "disgusting" with something more specific? I originally expected some terribly overdone javascript site with dancing elves and such. I was like, 'well, how bad can it be?' Trust me, it was bad.
How 'bout "This is why you should disable javascript! (tubgirl)" That would have the effect of warning off people who know, but still sucking in a few n00bs.
Anyway, I don't really care. I've seen this link put into fake URLs in several slashdot posts where it was obvious trickery. You aren't misleading anyone; but I would hate for my teenager to click on it unwittingly, or for my wife to walk by just as I did. Just the perils of the net, I suppose.
I'm using Mozilla under Linux, and sad to say, I still have javascript enabled. Mozilla does have the ability to restrict it from doing all kinds of nasty things, but your page slipped through that net. So here's the ontopic part: Linux rocks, but it can't save you from poop-covered psychopaths. Not even the Penguin is that strong. However, Linux gives you the tools you need to fight the raving armies of excrement fashionistas: total control over your browsing experience.
If all else fails... use links. Guaranteed shiat free. (unless you use links -g, but let's not go there.)
it's just that I hate javascript, and people either need to learn, or suffer... Muwawaahahaahaa....
Well, you've got the suffering part down cold. Maybe a NSFW tag? Or NSFA: Not Safe For Anyone!
I see now that you are just a prophet... Isaiah once walked around naked for three years to make his point. The problem is that people remembered the nakedness more than the point.
Let's see... can we keep this on-topic? Because Javascript works in Outlook Express, you could send someone that page and create chaos on their desktop. Still not on topic... somehow self-multiplying pictures of people covered in crap can't quite be "news for nerds, stuff that matters."
Sorry mods... do your worst. My warning still stands, though. Don't click on the link in evilviper's sig. It's hazardous to your health.
The University of Texas at Austin essentially bought a site license for half of what Microsoft makes, and that license is good for students, faculty, and staff.
This is the exact barrier we face at my school for moving from MS products to open source. The site licence covers everything for a comparatively cheap price (versus buying individual copies). So, the fact that I promptly installed Slackware over my fresh copy of XP saves the school NOTHING. A few switchers here or there aren't viewed positively; on the contrary, they are viewed as extra work and expense because IT doesn't desire to "support" anything extra. [I have never needed IT support, beyond simple factual questions about the network. I recognize that most faculty would need more.]
This is an intentional MS strategy to lock schools in across the board, in my opinion. From one angle, the school is saving a bunch of money; but in reality it basically eliminates any motivation to experiment and diversify.
Some of us humanities folks are talking about Academic Computing as part of the educational ethos on campus. This means that the way we use technology should be part of our overall pedagogical strategy. A sense of openness, freedom, experimentation, collaboration, and self-reliance are all part of the liberal arts ideal. Campus-wide MS monoculture flies directly in the face of that fundamental principle.
In the "real world," technology is instrumental, meaning that it is a tool that accomplishes a goal. In our educational world, however, technology is an extension of how we think and interact with others. We know that students will soon leave these ivory towers for that world of instrumentality... we should be planting seeds of humanity now, while they have a chance of flourishing.
I am a teacher at a liberal arts university in South Carolina. Our IT folks are mostly enlightened, but we are constrained by inertia and lack of vision among the administration. That said, a few of us have been pushing for more open source and open standards in Academic Computing. For example, I'm running my own protest against Blackboard by serving up an OSS course management system from my office machine. I only have about 60 students at one time, so it isn't much of a drain.
Anyway, the point of my post is that for a while I have been requiring electronic submission of all written assignments. Sometimes I also get a paper copy, but usually it is e-file only. Given that I haven't run MS products for years, I am insistent that students submit their papers in open formats.
I give them three choices: 1) most preferable is plain text. I do my work in Emacs, so it is very simple to have their paper open in a buffer while I make comments in another. 2) if they have tons of formatting that will not work in text, they should use a pdf file. I stress, however, that their idea of "complex formatting" is too low. Endnotes, tables, and simple ascii drawings can work fine in text. 3) If they need formatting but can't create PDF's (I tell them about OO.o's utility here), I will reluctantly accept an rtf file.
All word documents get sent back with a note asking for resubmission. Our students are a cooperative lot, and I haven't had any negative reaction to my policy. Most of them are pleased to learn something new about their word processor. They are barely aware of what a file format is, so this is a great educational opportunity for them.
They get to stretch their wings a little bit, and it is easier for me. Everybody wins.
it would be nice to know if any of these boards include a built in modem. Some might say who uses a modem any more, but lots of people do, and these boxes may not be used by the big power users.
I also still use a dial-up modem at home. Realistically, however, if they included a built-in modem, it would likely be just like all the other standard modems: Winmodem. It is just too expensive to include a real modem in an integrated package, especially when many of their target audience will not be using it.
You are right that the matrix should be expanded to show such information. As a Linux user, however, I'm happy for the serial ports so that I can use a real, external modem, and not pay for the crappy Winmodem that most likely would come with these kinds of boxes.
I agree with you about the sound-quality issue with lossy codecs. People say that 160 VBR is indistinguishable from the source file. Well, maybe, but like so many things in my life, I can't be bothered by the facts.:-)
Seriously, I listen to a ton of live recordings (from etree.org), and I need a player that has good support for lossless codecs.
Hence, when I buy later this month I am getting the Rio Karma, which supports FLAC. Much of the etree-seeded live music is coming in FLAC format these days, so using such a player will give me my crispy tunes on the go, no muss no fuss.
I haven't seen anything about the iRiver or Neuros supporting FLAC, though that may be in the works.
Were you even around during the 3.x era? If you were, do you honestly believe security was an issue back then? Windows was intended to make an OS easier to use for the individual; which it did. MS only delved into the world of NT because of hack crazy pieces of shit who wanted to make everyone's life miserable by breaking into an already simple piece of software.
You are correct that security wasn't an issue for MS "back in the day." They were not designing the software with networking in mind, which is obvious if you follow their slow march toward the net (martial imagery deliberate). The OP asserted that MS should have put their money into security before now, which is true. The reason why they didn't, however, is that they were trying to make software as easy as possible for the home and small-business user (non networked, non clue-ful). If they had tried from the beginning to make an OS that would be connected to the world in a myriad of ways, they would have HAD to consider security more carefully.
As it is, however, they have only been forced to consider security now because these home users are waking up to the nightmare that is the combination of easy-to-use and open-to-the-world. They backed into a networked architecture, and now they are backing into security issues. It may be too late to put the genie back in the bottle, however, since their users have come to expect such ease of administration (which historically has meant no administration at all). That is why the changes in their update procedures have tended toward the "let me do that for you, sir" variety.
The real problem isn't crackers, really, but in an OS platform that wasn't originally built for today's networked world. UNIX, by contrast, was designed from the start to exist in communication with other computers. Thus, the basic principles of user accounts and file permissions have been the bedrock of UNIX security. MS has tried to institute these things in the NT line, but they have been implemented imperfecty but more importantly the users (and developers) are used to the old game.
There is also a great section in Tolkien's letters where he points out that Frodo's mission actually fails, since he cannot cast the ring into the fire. He says that it became clear to him very early that the mission HAD to fail. Given the power of the ring and the relationship between the ring and its bearer, there is no way that anyone could willingly destroy it.
But the internet might become JUST LIKE radio
on
Who Needs Radio?
·
· Score: 1
The question that we should consider is not when the RIAA will fall under the crushing blow of individual innovation via the internet. Rather, the question is how long until the RIAA, MPAA, Comcast, AOL/Time Warner, etc. shape the internet to fit their business model. They are busy doing it via changes to the internet protocols and other technology, and they are busy doing it via government regulation.
The end result is the one forecast by Lessig in "Code": the internet becomes a glorified cable TV. This is allowed to happen because 1) the government and corporate interests have an incentive to control communication, and 2) most users of the internet are sheep who think that cable TV is pretty cool and are happy if their broadband connection gives them a better, more interactive tit to suck on (so to speak:-).
At the current time, the RIAA and MPAA are trying to kill filesharing and P2P not because they think music and movies shouldn't be online, but because they want to be the gateway for the distribution of movies and music to people via the internet.
Radio will not go away, as many posters above have shown, because it reaches the populace in an effective, cheap way. Broadband, wireless internet might eventually replace radio technology, though I doubt it. Even if it does, however, the change will be insignificant because it will be a different technological delivery of the same basic content.
There are still pockets of originality and innovation on the net, and some really interesting online radio stations. If the government makes some good decisions now, they might be able to protect the level of public access that is traditional to the net, and that was quickly stripped from radio transmissions so long ago.
The only way that this bleak picture of commercialization will be avoided is if we fight to protect the open standards and "dumb" network that connects smart network nodes. The RIAA and company have no interest in seeing such a network architecture continue.
How can someone say that Microsoft hasn't marketed the tablet PC's? PC Magazine has an article about this "fantastic new technology that everyone must have" in every issue!
Clearly the Microsoft employees in the PC Magazine division are doing THEIR job! Something else must be to blame.
The distinct downside is that ultimately you want to write your own documentclass in TeX/LaTeX for the reports (thus alleviating a lot of the hassle of trying to force a basic LaTeX documentclass to do formatting it wasn't intended to do. This can create very simple to generate and very professional looking output - but it is a bitch to write, and you really want to learn your TeX to do it right. It would be a "write once" deal though if you do it right.
I don't think you'd necessarily need to write your own document class, though it would be nice to have. Instead of that, I'd use the Memoir class, developed by the excellent Peter Wilson. At CTAN, check out macros/latex/contrib/memoir/.
I used it to uglify my dissertation, breaking almost every classical rule of typesetting in the process of satisfying our "style" guideline.
Memoir is VERY configurable, and the best documented LaTeX package I've ever worked with.
What you want is swaret, which works with slackware binary packages.
http://freshmeat.net/releases/114935/
It does all of the automatic leeching and installing for you, based on the packages you have installed. Dependencies, though, are your own responsibility. If you have the dependent package installed, and there is an update, swaret will easily get it for you.
This makes it really important when you install from source to use makepkg, so that pkgtool knows that you have that installed, in case you want swaret to get the newer version for you.
I agree, though, that the source compiling/installing scripts for Gentoo are cool. Swaret doesn't quite go that far.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, this is actually one of the things I like about Slashdot versus some other computer-techy communities. People here really know and understand technology. Folks have their individual specialities, and there are a bunch of dedicated amateurs as well; but people here generally know what technology is good for and what it isn't good for.
For example, we love the internet and using computers to make things more efficient. But, as a group we hate e-Voting. People who work with computers every day know better than trust democracy to them.
Those of us who are in school or teach in schools use computers for learning and instruction. It has changed the way we collaborate and process information (humanities folks would call this "knowledge creation"). But, people here are generally suspicious of overblown programs to put a laptop in every 1st graders PB-J crusted hands. Because computers aren't good for 6 year-olds to learn? Of course not, but spending a million on new iBooks isn't a substitute for education.
Digital cameras are great for what they can (currently) be used for. My wife and I take many more pictures than we used to, and we have visual memories of many things that would have previously slipped away. Does that mean that old-fashioned film cameras are "dinosaurs?" For people who really get into technology and gadgets, it is clear that film cameras still have very important uses that can't be met by the current crop of digital cameras. Nothing against digital cameras! They might have revolutionized the pr0n industry, but I wouldn't use my Nikon Coolpix to take my son's official wedding pictures.
Maybe my ID isn't low enough... I'm not jaded yet.
Bryan
Well, Slackware is Twm-centric!
I was just thinking about companies (or countries) that cry "Open Source" as a means to get MS discounts. It's a good business strategy, perhaps, but it isn't good for F/OSS. Maybe these companies don't intend it as a bargaining strategy in the beginning; but if MS is able to convince people to renew their contracts with speacial deals it means that F/OSS isn't doing a good job of communicating its benefits (cost being only one factor of this).
I don't really think that IBM is toying around, but I am sure there are many smaller companies that would like to play that game.
We need a new mod category like this. It would come in handy for so many ./ threads...
HG Gadamer referred to this using the analogy of "play." Play has rules (even if they are ad-hoc). Players enter into the game fully, and in some senses lose themselves in the playing. And the game is dependent on players, and will change either subtly or dramatically depending on who is playing.
So, you are correct that if someone doesn't "see" anything in a story, finding only there a bunch of stuff that happened, they are not engaging any deeper significance. They in fact may not have truly engaged the game at all, but are only a disinterested spectator. It is the difference between watching TV through a store window for a few seconds versus sitting in a comfortable place and actively participating with the show for an hour.
Even though meaning isn't located in the text (sort of like a hidden nugget that one can excavate and display with certain tools), it is also not exclusively in the reader. It is not "in" anything; rather it can only be experienced (not held).
If someone reads LOTR and finds nothing there, I can't really judge them because they didn't find the same things I did. I can feel sorry for them, however, and encourage them to play the game a bit more.
Thanks for your comments.
This is why I'm inclined to get a Rio Karma. I can use MP3 or OGG encoding at different bitrates to get just the right level of compression. And for the albums and recordings that I know I will be listening to a bunch, I can transfer them as FLAC. It is very customizable for different listening conditions and source recordings.
I only wish that the Karma was at 40GB. Considering that a Phish concert can span 10 CD's, the 18.5 GB of the Karma won't hold too many FLAC's at a time.
I wonder what people here mean by "deeper significance?" What about just significance? LOTR is filled with significance and meaning, whether one is working from an allegorical, mythological, literary, postmodern viewpoint or whatever. It is a great book, and like all great books, cannot be confined or fossilized by the interests of its interpreters.
Just because Tolkien disavowed any allegorical intention [and I'm glad he did; imagine what people would have done to the story without any kind of statement from the author] doesn't meant that LOTR, to paraphrase Homer, "doesn't have a moral... it's just a bunch of stuff that happened."
These matters aren't as clear cut as people often want to make them. Absence of authorial-intended allegory doesn't make the story into a significance-free popcorn thriller.
Bryan
ps. Thats H Simpson, of course.
That's what she said last night!
"You can never get too big... sigh..."
Just in time! They are going to need some serious capacity to store HQ images of fingerprints belonging to millions of the world's terrorists.
I don't know any executives either, but I suspect that they read these kinds of things. I read the Wall Street Journal every day, and I can say that the drivel that we see coming from Forbes would never make it into the Journal.
They are very business focused, and are concerned about money and all of that. But they do not play the kind of FUD games we have seen from Lyons and others.
It's a shame that the WSJ doesn't have free access to their articles on the Web. If it did, we could get some serious, well-reasoned economic analysis on Slashdot.
Bryan
True.
The non inclusion of KDE as an available choice means that GNOME has no competition in the UserLinux package.
This is technically true, but misses the point. In the world of OSS, there is a hefty amount of competition. UserLinux is supposed to be a subset of that larger world of software, targetted to a specific audience. Companies have a huge range of choices for which software solutions they will implement (thus, competition). By choosing UserLinux they would have indicated that this particular subset of packages, so configured, are the best fit for their IT structure.
So, is anyone being slighted, or locked out of the competition? No. If companies decide that KDE is essential for their desktops and workstations, they will not implement UserLinux. RedHat or somebody else will benefit, or maybe UserLinux will reconsider and switch to KDE. Capitalism and free markets at work.
You unselected the KDE checkbox when doing your install by choice. This decision unselects the KDE checkbox for all who would use UserLinux, and does not give the option to recheck.
By choosing UserLinux, knowing its benefits and liabilities, they have made a choice. They have already "checked the box" for which GUI they want.
This isn't about your personal choice, it is about you _having_ a personal choice, regardless of what it actually is.
They do have a choice. They can choose UserLinux or not. Plus, if they decide after they implement UserLinux that they would rather have KDE (for instance, if the KDE group fulfills their list of objectives in their proposal), then they can easily add it. There is no vendor lock-in, and no restriction of freedom.
Your arguments seem to me to reflect the current MS-dominated, proprietary software world. When we choose to install XP, we make an implicit agreement to work within the bounds and requirements of XP. MS has shown increasing amounts of control over the total desktop experience, since it supports their business model.
UserLinux, and Perens, have no desire for this level of control. The goal is not to achieve dominance on the desktop in order to lock other vendors out. The goal is to set the desktop free, and their strategy regarding GUI is their best effort to make that possible. They might be wrong, and they may need to change their mind later on, but noone should accuse them of trying to take away choice.
Bryan
How 'bout "This is why you should disable javascript! (tubgirl)" That would have the effect of warning off people who know, but still sucking in a few n00bs.
Anyway, I don't really care. I've seen this link put into fake URLs in several slashdot posts where it was obvious trickery. You aren't misleading anyone; but I would hate for my teenager to click on it unwittingly, or for my wife to walk by just as I did. Just the perils of the net, I suppose.
I'm using Mozilla under Linux, and sad to say, I still have javascript enabled. Mozilla does have the ability to restrict it from doing all kinds of nasty things, but your page slipped through that net. So here's the ontopic part: Linux rocks, but it can't save you from poop-covered psychopaths. Not even the Penguin is that strong. However, Linux gives you the tools you need to fight the raving armies of excrement fashionistas: total control over your browsing experience.
If all else fails... use links. Guaranteed shiat free. (unless you use links -g, but let's not go there.)
Bryan
Well, you've got the suffering part down cold. Maybe a NSFW tag? Or NSFA: Not Safe For Anyone!
I see now that you are just a prophet... Isaiah once walked around naked for three years to make his point. The problem is that people remembered the nakedness more than the point.
Let's see... can we keep this on-topic? Because Javascript works in Outlook Express, you could send someone that page and create chaos on their desktop. Still not on topic... somehow self-multiplying pictures of people covered in crap can't quite be "news for nerds, stuff that matters."
Sorry mods... do your worst. My warning still stands, though. Don't click on the link in evilviper's sig. It's hazardous to your health.
[mods shouldn't mod your stupid sig up along with you insightful comment.]
This is the exact barrier we face at my school for moving from MS products to open source. The site licence covers everything for a comparatively cheap price (versus buying individual copies). So, the fact that I promptly installed Slackware over my fresh copy of XP saves the school NOTHING. A few switchers here or there aren't viewed positively; on the contrary, they are viewed as extra work and expense because IT doesn't desire to "support" anything extra. [I have never needed IT support, beyond simple factual questions about the network. I recognize that most faculty would need more.]
This is an intentional MS strategy to lock schools in across the board, in my opinion. From one angle, the school is saving a bunch of money; but in reality it basically eliminates any motivation to experiment and diversify.
Some of us humanities folks are talking about Academic Computing as part of the educational ethos on campus. This means that the way we use technology should be part of our overall pedagogical strategy. A sense of openness, freedom, experimentation, collaboration, and self-reliance are all part of the liberal arts ideal. Campus-wide MS monoculture flies directly in the face of that fundamental principle.
In the "real world," technology is instrumental, meaning that it is a tool that accomplishes a goal. In our educational world, however, technology is an extension of how we think and interact with others. We know that students will soon leave these ivory towers for that world of instrumentality... we should be planting seeds of humanity now, while they have a chance of flourishing.
Bryan
Anyway, the point of my post is that for a while I have been requiring electronic submission of all written assignments. Sometimes I also get a paper copy, but usually it is e-file only. Given that I haven't run MS products for years, I am insistent that students submit their papers in open formats.
I give them three choices: 1) most preferable is plain text. I do my work in Emacs, so it is very simple to have their paper open in a buffer while I make comments in another. 2) if they have tons of formatting that will not work in text, they should use a pdf file. I stress, however, that their idea of "complex formatting" is too low. Endnotes, tables, and simple ascii drawings can work fine in text. 3) If they need formatting but can't create PDF's (I tell them about OO.o's utility here), I will reluctantly accept an rtf file.
All word documents get sent back with a note asking for resubmission. Our students are a cooperative lot, and I haven't had any negative reaction to my policy. Most of them are pleased to learn something new about their word processor. They are barely aware of what a file format is, so this is a great educational opportunity for them.
They get to stretch their wings a little bit, and it is easier for me. Everybody wins.
Bryan
Oh, sure... but how in Sam Hill am I supposed to know how big that coin is? It might even be a golden-colored manhole.
That thing could be HUGE!
Bryan
I also still use a dial-up modem at home. Realistically, however, if they included a built-in modem, it would likely be just like all the other standard modems: Winmodem. It is just too expensive to include a real modem in an integrated package, especially when many of their target audience will not be using it.
You are right that the matrix should be expanded to show such information. As a Linux user, however, I'm happy for the serial ports so that I can use a real, external modem, and not pay for the crappy Winmodem that most likely would come with these kinds of boxes.
Bryan
Seriously, I listen to a ton of live recordings (from etree.org), and I need a player that has good support for lossless codecs.
Hence, when I buy later this month I am getting the Rio Karma, which supports FLAC. Much of the etree-seeded live music is coming in FLAC format these days, so using such a player will give me my crispy tunes on the go, no muss no fuss.
I haven't seen anything about the iRiver or Neuros supporting FLAC, though that may be in the works.
Bryan
As it is, however, they have only been forced to consider security now because these home users are waking up to the nightmare that is the combination of easy-to-use and open-to-the-world. They backed into a networked architecture, and now they are backing into security issues. It may be too late to put the genie back in the bottle, however, since their users have come to expect such ease of administration (which historically has meant no administration at all). That is why the changes in their update procedures have tended toward the "let me do that for you, sir" variety.
The real problem isn't crackers, really, but in an OS platform that wasn't originally built for today's networked world. UNIX, by contrast, was designed from the start to exist in communication with other computers. Thus, the basic principles of user accounts and file permissions have been the bedrock of UNIX security. MS has tried to institute these things in the NT line, but they have been implemented imperfecty but more importantly the users (and developers) are used to the old game.
There is also a great section in Tolkien's letters where he points out that Frodo's mission actually fails, since he cannot cast the ring into the fire. He says that it became clear to him very early that the mission HAD to fail. Given the power of the ring and the relationship between the ring and its bearer, there is no way that anyone could willingly destroy it.
The end result is the one forecast by Lessig in "Code": the internet becomes a glorified cable TV. This is allowed to happen because 1) the government and corporate interests have an incentive to control communication, and 2) most users of the internet are sheep who think that cable TV is pretty cool and are happy if their broadband connection gives them a better, more interactive tit to suck on (so to speak :-).
At the current time, the RIAA and MPAA are trying to kill filesharing and P2P not because they think music and movies shouldn't be online, but because they want to be the gateway for the distribution of movies and music to people via the internet.
Radio will not go away, as many posters above have shown, because it reaches the populace in an effective, cheap way. Broadband, wireless internet might eventually replace radio technology, though I doubt it. Even if it does, however, the change will be insignificant because it will be a different technological delivery of the same basic content.
There are still pockets of originality and innovation on the net, and some really interesting online radio stations. If the government makes some good decisions now, they might be able to protect the level of public access that is traditional to the net, and that was quickly stripped from radio transmissions so long ago.
The only way that this bleak picture of commercialization will be avoided is if we fight to protect the open standards and "dumb" network that connects smart network nodes. The RIAA and company have no interest in seeing such a network architecture continue.
Clearly the Microsoft employees in the PC Magazine division are doing THEIR job! Something else must be to blame.
I don't think you'd necessarily need to write your own document class, though it would be nice to have. Instead of that, I'd use the Memoir class, developed by the excellent Peter Wilson. At CTAN, check out macros/latex/contrib/memoir/.
I used it to uglify my dissertation, breaking almost every classical rule of typesetting in the process of satisfying our "style" guideline.
Memoir is VERY configurable, and the best documented LaTeX package I've ever worked with.
What you want is swaret, which works with slackware binary packages.
http://freshmeat.net/releases/114935/
It does all of the automatic leeching and installing for you, based on the packages you have installed. Dependencies, though, are your own responsibility. If you have the dependent package installed, and there is an update, swaret will easily get it for you.
This makes it really important when you install from source to use makepkg, so that pkgtool knows that you have that installed, in case you want swaret to get the newer version for you.
I agree, though, that the source compiling/installing scripts for Gentoo are cool. Swaret doesn't quite go that far.