No, to get something memorable, you write to the timeless elements of human nature, both the good and bad. Tolkien is a classic because he retells what he called the "Great Myth." Stories of sacrifice, loss, redemption, the triumph of good over evil. These stories will be memorable.
Tolkien's "Great Myth"... well, there's a quote from an Amazon review I'd like to find, but (as it's not readily available) I'll need to poorly paraphrase from memory:
Most of the people complaining about this book are talking about the bloodshed, infanticide, incest, rape, etc. within its pages. They're accustomed to fantasy in which the "great evil" consists of some figure standing in a tower and sending out orcs to find some artifact or whatnot. The depiction of this hand-wringing black-clothed figure as being the epitome of evil debases the existance of real evil in the actions of human beings, motivated more often by greed, ambition or some other self-interest than corruption by an artifact in which evil is inherent.
That was written about George R. R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones" -- the beginning of a series that has completely redefined what I consider quality fantasy. The characters are tremendously complex -- there are no archetypical heros here (maybe one, but he dies early), and even the "villains" are entirely human. Undoubitably, it pushes the envelope. Undoubitably, it offends traditional sensibilities -- though either "pop-culture trash" or "faddish idiology" would be a severe misnomer. And memorable?
Yes, it's memorable. Very, very memorable. I actually start to tear when I recall the last stand of Syrio Forell, and very, very little fiction causes anything even remotely akin to that reaction.
Actually, no, I am intellectually opposed to the childish stories and half-assed animation.
There's more good anime out there than Ghost in the Shell -- perhaps you should look into some of Hayao Miyazaki's work. Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service and others.
Just because you have friends who like bad anime doesn't mean that anime is bad.
Why is that low? I found 44 security holes to be a rather alarming amount.
I don't. Your average security hole is exploitable under only very limited circumstances -- say, if a program is being run with privileges that the individual invoking it doesn't have.
Holes of that sort are extremely widespread (and part of the reason why marking programs that haven't been audited setuid is generally understood to be bad practice).
...and I'm not just talking SVN (which is quite successful at its "better CVS" goal, though I prefer Arch with its "better revision system" intent): CVSNT
Why it's so rarely used (with the exception of being packaged with the major CVS client GUIs on Windows), and why so few Linux distributions package it, has always been a mystery to me.
My post was severely tongue-in-cheek, intended to describe the sort of organization that the USA was originally envisioned and established as (and in doing so, suggest that an appropriate fix for ongoing issues would not necessarily be an entirely new governmen so much as a reversion to the original state of the present one).
That said, I don't think that avoiding the kind of situation you suggest as an edge case is one where there's genuine need for a federal government with the power to intervene. Practical concerns (such as NIMBYism on the part of Bloomington's citizens, costs involved in running a nuclear weapons program, etc) should be more than sufficient to head off that sort of scenario.
They actually had guns pointed at the children before turning tail and running off. Thus it wasn't knowing that there was someone in the house that scared them.
Further, they've been caught and charged. It seems likely that the distinction wrt what it was that lead them to run off would have come out by now.
Perhaps democracy isnt suited to large central govts, but smaller , less than one million people areas. So that people can move to their 'prefered' democracy, rather than 'vote' and have 50% of the people unhappy, why not delcare lots of small different regions, and people can 'vote' with their feet by moving to the different regions. In todays passport/immigration controlled world, its a lot harder, but if we divided countries into lots of smaller self controlled mini countries with freedom of movement that would be the ultimate freedom society. Dont like IP laws, move to city-xyz which doesnt have em.
Hmm... so you'd propose having a bunch of small states which have substantially variant laws, perhaps forming a federation so that they can help defend each other, respect others' legal documents and so forth?
Sounds like a great idea, as long as you didn't let that federal government start running the show and passing laws about things that ought to be under the control of the states themselves. Why, if that happened, you'd end up with one big government rather than a bunch of small, loosely affiliated ones -- exactly the kind of situation you're proposing to avoid! Ought to set up a bunch of checks and balances to prevent that, and limit the federal government to a strictly enumerated set of powers...
I'm not saying it should be legal to shoot some teenager who wanders onto your farmland, or climbs the fence and walks across your back yard.
It was interesting, moving from California to Texas and needing to actually take "No Trespassing" signs seriously.
Here on Texas, if you commit theft or criminal mischeif at night, it's legal for the homeowner to shoot you to prevent you from escaping. Lead the homeowner to reasonably believe failure to use deadly force would result in serious bodily injury? Blammo. Trespass alone is pretty serious, too, though not in and of itself grounds for use of lethal force. (If you possess a conceiled-carry permit, trespass becomes even more serious for you -- even if you're not armed at the time).
That said, as long as everyone knows and understands the potential consequences of their actions... well, it's not so bad. Teenagers here generally know better than to commit malicious mischief at night. Speaking in particular as a homeowner who has harbored a friend who was running away from an abusive relationship, I'm very very glad that Texas law provides adequately for defense of self and property.
But that wasn't the assertion in the parent posting. Laptops were alleged to replace all computers, yes, even your machine at home.
Laptops are a niche product. No more, no less. And niche products are expensive. You probably paid a premium for the mobility. And that's just fine... as long as you admit that you DID pay a premium.
Sure, I paid a premium, but it doesn't mean they're that much of a niche. I'm thinking of buying a used laptop for my SO to use at home in place of the current house computer, since their power consumption is so much less -- should bring the electric bill down not to be running my 350watt monster all the time.
Sooner or later, I do expect to see low-power-consumption systems with LCDs become the norm, as soon as the price of LCDs drops some more. And once you've got cheap LCDs... well, you're pretty damn close to having cheap laptops too.
How's that job coming along, pal?
Nicely, since you ask. I'm expecting a raise inside the next month.
Enjoying some job security?
More than I ever have. Hell, for the first time ever, I've got an annual retention bonus.
How's it going being able to afford a house?
Just bought one, since you ask. Paying off the furniture is a bit uncomfortable, but it's otherwise going fine.
Liking the price of gas lately? How about that heating bill, huh?
Dirt cheap, the both of them. That's one of the things I like, having moved from California to Texas.
you work longer hours, or gave up raising a family to pursue jobs
I'm working shorter hours, mostly because I now have (the beginnings of) a family, whereas previously my job was my life. Sure, it's still more than 40 hours a week, but that'll change once my company's a bit less understaffed -- weeks if not months.
...gave up a big car for a fuel-efficient one...
I've never owned a fuel-inefficient vehicle.
P.S. I'm not buying your company's fucking stock, either. It's time for your class of person to learn what's it's like running a real business, day by day, for decades... not just a pump-and-dump scam that runs for 24 months before the collapse.
With you all the way. I'm not in it for the delta between the buy and sell prices, I'm in it for the dividends.
"My class of person" still has it pretty damn good, thank you very much. Now, the yuppies whose parties I go to, they don't have it quite so good -- the expensive cars and big houses they bought on credit during the boom are coming back to bite the ones who didn't cash out early enough. That's their problem, though, not mine.
In your example, you've made some tweaks to software that was largely written by others, so your release of modified code has little impact on competitors who could get most of the functionality without your help. There's a lot of code, however, that doesn't fall in to this class.
Yup, and whether that software should have its source released depends on the circumstances. Go read ESR for a discussion of the economic considerations involved in making said decision.
...don't you have to be ahead before the others need to catch up?
Laptops have always been elite items. I will probably never afford one... considering:
Having one laptop I can take with me between home and work is a helluva lot cheaper than having two machines with similar characteristics (1920x1200 LCD monitor, low enough power consumption that I can afford to leave it on over night at home) at each place I spend my time. Heaven forbid I actually need to travel to a job site or get some work done while on vacation.
As for replacement part cost, I've yet to have a laptop problem that couldn't be solved either via warranty service or for less than $100, and this is my second one.
Another case in point: dialups. Why do they still exist? Answer: Because they are a whole fuck of a lot cheaper than this elitist broadband stuff. $15/mo vs. $50/mo... that's a no brainer for many Americans with their exposure to the real economy
$50/mo? Are you insane?
Low-end broadband service costs $25/mo. Split the cost with your neighbors and you're each paying $12.50 -- less than the $15 you quoted for dialup.
People have to work to produce things, and very little work gets done from a laptop on some tropical beach.
Quite a strawman you've got going there. (I know yuppies. I sometimes go to their parties. But... yuppie class?! I drive a '92 Jetta, and before that a '86 Honda. "Yuppie"?! Jeesh).
It doesn't matter if its spelt correctly in every instance as long as your point comes across.
Writing well shows respect for your audiance (and arguably, there are a reasonable number of people here who are worth at least that minimal level of respect), and makes it obvious that you put some thought into what you wrote (making third parties more likely to take you seriously).
I often help newbies out on some technical mailing lists. Those who write sloppily are less likely to receive assistance, in much the same way that someone who sent a message filled with profanity or where the author obviously made no serious efforts to help him/herself before writing would be shunned. The same applies in goal-oriented (ie. product support) IRC channels and other forums all too frequently believed to be "informal".
You may consider sloppy use of language under the guise of informality acceptable, but those you're writing for may not.
Per subject. I've found SLES9 to be a vastly better product than RHEL3, and Novell's support is excellent (ie. phone# for the home office of an engineer we can call for any problems we have wedding our product to their OS; personal names/numbers/email addresses of other folks we can talk to when we have problems).
Plus they handed out T-shirts and stuffed monkeys. We're in Austin, TX, a good way from the Bay Area, so we don't get trade show schwag very much.
So managers are never going to be required to take the responsibility, are they? They're never going to have to explain why they fire people, are they?
If it's an at-will contract, no. Then again, you don't have to explain why you quit, either. It's a simple matter of parity -- either party can terminate the relationship at any time for any (non-proscribed) reason.
They're never going to have to explain why they are allowed to destroy people's finances and their careers and their income for no reason at all.
"For no reason at all"?! Of course there's a reason. There's always a reason. Whether it's a good reason is an entirely different matter, and I find that people are less frequently fired for bad reasons in small companies with good management than in large companies of any kind.
Being bitter and refusing to accept responsibility are reasons. In a work environment, the latter can be particularly harmful.
We have skills which managers declare worthless and we are NEVER ALLOWED TO COMPLAIN. You can read it right here in this thread. Management is blameless. They never make a mistake. It's always the employee's fault. Always.
Bloody hell, I didn't say that management doesn't make mistakes. I said that choosing to work for a company with management that makes mistakes is a mistake in and of itself. Those are entirely different statements.
So what do we do?
Damned if I know, that's your lookout. But... your skills are useful, you say? There's an actual market for them? You know people with similar skills? Perhaps you even know people in companies that need these skills? Why not take matters into your own hands and start your own company? There's no law that says you're either an employee or a temp.
But stop the complaining. It does nobody any good, least of all yourself. Once you stop putting blame on everyone else and start looking for ways to improve your lot, you might actually get somewhere.
What about grammatical mistakes that don't detract from my final understanding, but do detract from my ability to comfortably (ie. in a single, high-speed pass) read the content?
It's not really a seperate issue. Executive-types generally don't want to hold every email discussion in their head
But they also don't want to have to browse through a huge amount of crap to find out what the topic is. That's why judicious quoting makes as much sense in a business environment as anywhere else.
If they need the full and complete context -- that's what threaded mailers are for.
We, too, buy from a beige box company. They're not local (we're in Austin, TX; they're in Sunnyvale, CA -- Dell is actually local for us), but the price, quality and reliability are impressive. There are cases where we wanted specific components (ie. 3ware controllers) that Dell refused to provide; Colfax hasn't had a problem, so we've got exactly the hardware we specified, and far cheaper.
We've had one system we had to send back because it was getting a consistant fatal machine check exception while our install process (custom; memory, CPU and network-intensive) ran. They've gone to substantial efforts to try to reproduce the issue -- far more effort than I can believe any larger company would have. All in all, I fully agree that buying from a beige box OEM is well worthwhile.
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Most of the people complaining about this book are talking about the bloodshed, infanticide, incest, rape, etc. within its pages. They're accustomed to fantasy in which the "great evil" consists of some figure standing in a tower and sending out orcs to find some artifact or whatnot. The depiction of this hand-wringing black-clothed figure as being the epitome of evil debases the existance of real evil in the actions of human beings, motivated more often by greed, ambition or some other self-interest than corruption by an artifact in which evil is inherent.
That was written about George R. R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones" -- the beginning of a series that has completely redefined what I consider quality fantasy. The characters are tremendously complex -- there are no archetypical heros here (maybe one, but he dies early), and even the "villains" are entirely human. Undoubitably, it pushes the envelope. Undoubitably, it offends traditional sensibilities -- though either "pop-culture trash" or "faddish idiology" would be a severe misnomer. And memorable?
Yes, it's memorable. Very, very memorable. I actually start to tear when I recall the last stand of Syrio Forell, and very, very little fiction causes anything even remotely akin to that reaction.
Yes, there is a linux port, but it has no benefits over stock CVS.
Bullshit. CVSNT has a better security model and more features (BranchPoint, SSL support, etc) than stock CVS, on any platform.
Actually, no, I am intellectually opposed to the childish stories and half-assed animation.
There's more good anime out there than Ghost in the Shell -- perhaps you should look into some of Hayao Miyazaki's work. Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service and others.
Just because you have friends who like bad anime doesn't mean that anime is bad.
Why is that low? I found 44 security holes to be a rather alarming amount.
I don't. Your average security hole is exploitable under only very limited circumstances -- say, if a program is being run with privileges that the individual invoking it doesn't have.
Holes of that sort are extremely widespread (and part of the reason why marking programs that haven't been audited setuid is generally understood to be bad practice).
...and I'm not just talking SVN (which is quite successful at its "better CVS" goal, though I prefer Arch with its "better revision system" intent): CVSNT
Why it's so rarely used (with the exception of being packaged with the major CVS client GUIs on Windows), and why so few Linux distributions package it, has always been a mystery to me.
Mmm.
My post was severely tongue-in-cheek, intended to describe the sort of organization that the USA was originally envisioned and established as (and in doing so, suggest that an appropriate fix for ongoing issues would not necessarily be an entirely new governmen so much as a reversion to the original state of the present one).
That said, I don't think that avoiding the kind of situation you suggest as an edge case is one where there's genuine need for a federal government with the power to intervene. Practical concerns (such as NIMBYism on the part of Bloomington's citizens, costs involved in running a nuclear weapons program, etc) should be more than sufficient to head off that sort of scenario.
They actually had guns pointed at the children before turning tail and running off. Thus it wasn't knowing that there was someone in the house that scared them.
Further, they've been caught and charged. It seems likely that the distinction wrt what it was that lead them to run off would have come out by now.
Hey, they actually arrested and charged the guys, so it's not something that's just being made up by the old lady and/or her sons.
Dammit, where do I know that line from?!
It was in The Punisher (movie, don't know about the comics).
Perhaps democracy isnt suited to large central govts, but smaller , less than one million people areas. So that people can move to their 'prefered' democracy, rather than 'vote' and have 50% of the people unhappy, why not delcare lots of small different regions, and people can 'vote' with their feet by moving to the different regions. In todays passport/immigration controlled world, its a lot harder, but if we divided countries into lots of smaller self controlled mini countries with freedom of movement that would be the ultimate freedom society. Dont like IP laws, move to city-xyz which doesnt have em.
Hmm... so you'd propose having a bunch of small states which have substantially variant laws, perhaps forming a federation so that they can help defend each other, respect others' legal documents and so forth?
Sounds like a great idea, as long as you didn't let that federal government start running the show and passing laws about things that ought to be under the control of the states themselves. Why, if that happened, you'd end up with one big government rather than a bunch of small, loosely affiliated ones -- exactly the kind of situation you're proposing to avoid! Ought to set up a bunch of checks and balances to prevent that, and limit the federal government to a strictly enumerated set of powers...
Here on Texas, if you commit theft or criminal mischeif at night, it's legal for the homeowner to shoot you to prevent you from escaping. Lead the homeowner to reasonably believe failure to use deadly force would result in serious bodily injury? Blammo. Trespass alone is pretty serious, too, though not in and of itself grounds for use of lethal force. (If you possess a conceiled-carry permit, trespass becomes even more serious for you -- even if you're not armed at the time).
That said, as long as everyone knows and understands the potential consequences of their actions... well, it's not so bad. Teenagers here generally know better than to commit malicious mischief at night. Speaking in particular as a homeowner who has harbored a friend who was running away from an abusive relationship, I'm very very glad that Texas law provides adequately for defense of self and property.
Heh -- quite so.
Sooner or later, I do expect to see low-power-consumption systems with LCDs become the norm, as soon as the price of LCDs drops some more. And once you've got cheap LCDs... well, you're pretty damn close to having cheap laptops too.
Nicely, since you ask. I'm expecting a raise inside the next month. More than I ever have. Hell, for the first time ever, I've got an annual retention bonus. Just bought one, since you ask. Paying off the furniture is a bit uncomfortable, but it's otherwise going fine. Dirt cheap, the both of them. That's one of the things I like, having moved from California to Texas. I'm working shorter hours, mostly because I now have (the beginnings of) a family, whereas previously my job was my life. Sure, it's still more than 40 hours a week, but that'll change once my company's a bit less understaffed -- weeks if not months. I've never owned a fuel-inefficient vehicle. With you all the way. I'm not in it for the delta between the buy and sell prices, I'm in it for the dividends. "My class of person" still has it pretty damn good, thank you very much. Now, the yuppies whose parties I go to, they don't have it quite so good -- the expensive cars and big houses they bought on credit during the boom are coming back to bite the ones who didn't cash out early enough. That's their problem, though, not mine.Oh, sorry. Meant "NLD", which is what the parent was referring to, not "NDS". Brainfart.
inexplicable, irrational, vitriolic loathing of each other
You do realize that the actual project participants mostly get along just fine, and it's mostly just the users who do the flamewar thing?
As for replacement part cost, I've yet to have a laptop problem that couldn't be solved either via warranty service or for less than $100, and this is my second one.
$50/mo? Are you insane?Low-end broadband service costs $25/mo. Split the cost with your neighbors and you're each paying $12.50 -- less than the $15 you quoted for dialup.
Quite a strawman you've got going there. (I know yuppies. I sometimes go to their parties. But... yuppie class?! I drive a '92 Jetta, and before that a '86 Honda. "Yuppie"?! Jeesh).It doesn't matter if its spelt correctly in every instance as long as your point comes across.
Writing well shows respect for your audiance (and arguably, there are a reasonable number of people here who are worth at least that minimal level of respect), and makes it obvious that you put some thought into what you wrote (making third parties more likely to take you seriously).
I often help newbies out on some technical mailing lists. Those who write sloppily are less likely to receive assistance, in much the same way that someone who sent a message filled with profanity or where the author obviously made no serious efforts to help him/herself before writing would be shunned. The same applies in goal-oriented (ie. product support) IRC channels and other forums all too frequently believed to be "informal".
You may consider sloppy use of language under the guise of informality acceptable, but those you're writing for may not.
NDS is new, SuSE isn't.
Per subject. I've found SLES9 to be a vastly better product than RHEL3, and Novell's support is excellent (ie. phone# for the home office of an engineer we can call for any problems we have wedding our product to their OS; personal names/numbers/email addresses of other folks we can talk to when we have problems).
Plus they handed out T-shirts and stuffed monkeys. We're in Austin, TX, a good way from the Bay Area, so we don't get trade show schwag very much.
I work for a small company, and we get outstanding support from Novell (we're moving from RHEL to SLES9).
This might in part beecause our management has convinced them (truthfully, I hope!) that we won't be small for long.
Being bitter and refusing to accept responsibility are reasons. In a work environment, the latter can be particularly harmful.
Bloody hell, I didn't say that management doesn't make mistakes. I said that choosing to work for a company with management that makes mistakes is a mistake in and of itself. Those are entirely different statements. Damned if I know, that's your lookout. But... your skills are useful, you say? There's an actual market for them? You know people with similar skills? Perhaps you even know people in companies that need these skills? Why not take matters into your own hands and start your own company? There's no law that says you're either an employee or a temp.But stop the complaining. It does nobody any good, least of all yourself. Once you stop putting blame on everyone else and start looking for ways to improve your lot, you might actually get somewhere.
What about grammatical mistakes that don't detract from my final understanding, but do detract from my ability to comfortably (ie. in a single, high-speed pass) read the content?
That's a very large class.
It's not really a seperate issue. Executive-types generally don't want to hold every email discussion in their head
But they also don't want to have to browse through a huge amount of crap to find out what the topic is. That's why judicious quoting makes as much sense in a business environment as anywhere else.
If they need the full and complete context -- that's what threaded mailers are for.
We, too, buy from a beige box company. They're not local (we're in Austin, TX; they're in Sunnyvale, CA -- Dell is actually local for us), but the price, quality and reliability are impressive. There are cases where we wanted specific components (ie. 3ware controllers) that Dell refused to provide; Colfax hasn't had a problem, so we've got exactly the hardware we specified, and far cheaper.
We've had one system we had to send back because it was getting a consistant fatal machine check exception while our install process (custom; memory, CPU and network-intensive) ran. They've gone to substantial efforts to try to reproduce the issue -- far more effort than I can believe any larger company would have. All in all, I fully agree that buying from a beige box OEM is well worthwhile.