All I could think of while reading this article was all the times I've heard people say that wired was for people who wanted to be 'hackers' but were too afraid of technology and the real 'scene' (I hate that word) to get in there themselves. One could read wired and still feel 'in' and 'hip', even if such was not the case.
One can see this in the books that wired writers go out and write. It's all net.history glossed over and condensed in an easily digestible lump so those who were not there can still feel like they're with it. I admit, I checked out "Bots: The origin of a new species" and "net.wars" and many of those books from the library, because in most cases I was not there.
Maybe it was just because I missed the whole beginnings of wired (hey, I thought BBSes were the place to be!) that it seems this way, and it doesn't seem like a 'passing of an era' or anything worth noting.
On another tangent, the funniest thing I read was 'hot wired style' a book on webdesign..from the people who made those 'butt ugly graphics' as jon said. I ask, do we *really want* our websites to look like that?
Most of the comments I've read have been along the lines of "oooh, I wanna see a picture!", or "will it go off when she has sex?" but as an actual woman (You mean females read slashdot? duuude) but I can tell you that most bras are uncomfortable enough as it is without gadgets stuffed in the padding, and that most women's clothes are designed not for comfort and practicality, but for tight and thin, and something like that would stick out like a sore thumb. (hard enough trying to keep straps from showing)
Also, it seems nobody has considered the possible privacy issues. A bra that monitors your pulse rate and tells authorities exactly where you are? If authorities can intercept the signals, so can other people (stalkers, rapists, muggers, other undesirables). Would YOU want someone tracking your movement and pulse all the time? I wouldn't
Everyone who doesn't go here seems to forget that few of the articles are actually stored on this server. There will still be plenty of demand for news websites like wired, msnbc, cnn, and so on because even if a billion slashdots sprung up catering to every possible intrest people would still be going through the slashdots to news sites, and the news sites would still get their advertising. We may watch less of the Evening News with Dan Rather, but we're still bringing them revenue.
To: uis-webadmin@harvard.edu, provost@harvard.edu Subject: Ken Williams and PacketStorm Security
I sincerely hope Harvard rescinds its decision to destroy the data that was on Mr. William's website. Please allow him access to the data, if it hasn't been deleted already, so he can move to another site and continue to provide useful and important information to the Internet community.
I think there's too many women in computer science already. Okay, I scratch that, too many regular women. The kind who go into computer are the kind who care more about makeup and the Backstreet boys than actual computers. They go in because they've been told that computers make good jobs. They wouldn't know a mouse from linux if it hit them over the head.
I'm a chick, and I can't get along with these people. I'm not insulting the female CS majors that read slashdot, because they're obviously not the ones I'm used to seeing around at class.
Unfortunatley, it's these ditzes who get the computer science scholarships. (Yeah, no bitterness here), they write some schnazzy essay about how their parents don't speak English and how they get straight A's in all their classes, but when it comes down to picking up a book and learning something new on their own or writing a program they're completely lost.
I had a teacher who gave us a programming assignment. He was careful to make it very vague and not to write the assignment down. Most of the females, and most of the class besides just plain couldn't do it, because it wasn't laid out in the format..."okay, put a for loop here.. and have a subroutine that does that"
Okay. Now I'm ranting.. but if any of you read this, and you make a scholarship for hot chicks going into CS, make sure you include people like *me* and exclude those who care nothing about computers.
Unlike most of the people who have commented, I actually have a copy of Caldera openlinux and have installed it. It *does not* install X before you start, that doesn't happen until the very end. (Which, unfortunatley, still didn't get set up right for my computer). The graphical installation is nice, however, I gave a copy to my little brother to try and install and it didn't work on his monitor, period. (He has only a VGA, not SVGA)
I very much like some aspects of installation, like the mouse setup where it allows you to test the current setting to see if you do indeed have the right mouse settings. I also liked how even as it was asking you questions it was installing in the background, so even if you walk away you don't lose time installing. It simplified even more aspects of setup than say, redhat, which is great for someone who doesn't know what the names of all those configuration programs hidden in odd areas of your HDD. of course, eventually you have to learn all that, but I believe it's far easier to learn linux when everything is set up properly, rather than trying to learn as you're trying to configure, which makes it just plain frustrating.
One thing I really didn't like about the setupwas that it didn't allow you to do a custom setup and select what packages to install individually.
Nonetheless, I've been recommending this install for people who have never used linux before, and only know windows. They don't have to use that distro forever, but it's a great one to start out on.
Slashdot Mirror
All I could think of while reading this article was all the times I've heard people say that wired was for people who wanted to be 'hackers' but were too afraid of technology and the real 'scene' (I hate that word) to get in there themselves. One could read wired and still feel 'in' and 'hip', even if such was not the case.
One can see this in the books that wired writers go out and write. It's all net.history glossed over and condensed in an easily digestible lump so those who were not there can still feel like they're with it. I admit, I checked out "Bots: The origin of a new species" and "net.wars" and many of those books from the library, because in most cases I was not there.
Maybe it was just because I missed the whole beginnings of wired (hey, I thought BBSes were the place to be!) that it seems this way, and it doesn't seem like a 'passing of an era' or anything worth noting.
On another tangent, the funniest thing I read was 'hot wired style' a book on webdesign..from the people who made those 'butt ugly graphics' as jon said. I ask, do we *really want* our websites to look like that?
Also, it seems nobody has considered the possible privacy issues. A bra that monitors your pulse rate and tells authorities exactly where you are? If authorities can intercept the signals, so can other people (stalkers, rapists, muggers, other undesirables). Would YOU want someone tracking your movement and pulse all the time? I wouldn't
Everyone who doesn't go here seems to forget that few of the articles are actually stored on this server. There will still be plenty of demand for news websites like wired, msnbc, cnn, and so on because even if a billion slashdots sprung up catering to every possible intrest people would still be going through the slashdots to news sites, and the news sites would still get their advertising. We may watch less of the Evening News with Dan Rather, but we're still bringing them revenue.
(my own short version)
To: uis-webadmin@harvard.edu, provost@harvard.edu
Subject: Ken Williams and PacketStorm Security
I sincerely hope Harvard rescinds its decision to destroy the data that was on Mr. William's website. Please allow him access to the data, if it hasn't been deleted already, so he can move to another site and continue to provide useful and important information to the Internet community.
Thanks in advance,
H. Sinclair
I have nightmares about these kind of things..
Just because we're in computer science does't mean we're stupid.
I'm a chick, and I can't get along with these people. I'm not insulting the female CS majors that read slashdot, because they're obviously not the ones I'm used to seeing around at class.
Unfortunatley, it's these ditzes who get the computer science scholarships. (Yeah, no bitterness here), they write some schnazzy essay about how their parents don't speak English and how they get straight A's in all their classes, but when it comes down to picking up a book and learning something new on their own or writing a program they're completely lost.
I had a teacher who gave us a programming assignment. He was careful to make it very vague and not to write the assignment down. Most of the females, and most of the class besides just plain couldn't do it, because it wasn't laid out in the format..."okay, put a for loop here.. and have a subroutine that does that"
Okay. Now I'm ranting.. but if any of you read this, and you make a scholarship for hot chicks going into CS, make sure you include people like *me* and exclude those who care nothing about computers.
P.S. Hot Chick Ho!
Unlike most of the people who have commented, I actually have a copy of Caldera openlinux and have installed it. It *does not* install X before you start, that doesn't happen until the very end. (Which, unfortunatley, still didn't get set up right for my computer). The graphical installation is nice, however, I gave a copy to my little brother to try and install and it didn't work on his monitor, period. (He has only a VGA, not SVGA)
I very much like some aspects of installation, like the mouse setup where it allows you to test the current setting to see if you do indeed have the right mouse settings. I also liked how even as it was asking you questions it was installing in the background, so even if you walk away you don't lose time installing. It simplified even more aspects of setup than say, redhat, which is great for someone who doesn't know what the names of all those configuration programs hidden in odd areas of your HDD. of course, eventually you have to learn all that, but I believe it's far easier to learn linux when everything is set up properly, rather than trying to learn as you're trying to configure, which makes it just plain frustrating.
One thing I really didn't like about the setupwas that it didn't allow you to do a custom setup and select what packages to install individually.
Nonetheless, I've been recommending this install for people who have never used linux before, and only know windows. They don't have to use that distro forever, but it's a great one to start out on.