While you can still reboot no-X (for example, by passing options to GRUB when booting - not the easy way, but the first that came to mind;-), I do have to agree, the failure to accept Xorg failures is my least favorite decision made in Ubuntu.
Hell, you can't even manually kill KDM anymore.
I've never had your problems with the nv drivers, though - they've been universally solid across several cards, if slow.
Shakespeare is perhaps the worst possible historical example, here. There's a reason his acting company was called The King's Men - it's because he had a royal patent from King James. I could go further, but honestly, don't take my word - look it up.
Even ignoring that Shakespeare was a big-deal playwright, "signed" by the King himself, it's still a bad analogy. Plays in Elizabethan and Jacobean England were nothing remotely like the oral-tradition utopia you're painting here, or stories told by someone's grandpa, or fireside singalongs. Theater was "consumed" in all the senses that you use here; it was covered by copyright, it was performed for monetary consideration, and it actually served much the same purposes as movies and other media do today. Hell, while it did tend to be rowdier than modern theater, it was still primarily a passive entertainment.
Heck, "piracy" in the modern sense was actually a big deal - most London printings would be followed shortly after by a pirate edition from Ireland or Scotland.
Eh; matter of taste, I guess. I do think the Renshai books are better overall, but I thought some of the stuff dealing with the main character's psychology was very interesting in the Bifrost Guardians.
But Asimov WASN'T hard sci-fi - for someone with as much research background as the man had, he didn't tend to attach actual science to his novels, at least not to the Robot stories.
And, frankly, he wasn't, at the close examination, a very good novelist. He never built believable or engaging emotional lives for his characters; while his plots and worlds were solid, he tended to rely on short-story structure to carry through a longer work.
That's not to say that he wasn't incredibly talented at writing. He was, bar none, the utter master of the "short story with a twist at the end." That's why 99% of people with a huge attachment to his work are attached at I, Robot; it's one of the finest short story collections ever written for sci-fi.
The Reichert books aren't going to be Asimov's Robot stories come again - but honestly, if they were, what would be the point? I have faith in Reichert's ability to tell engaging stories, and more to the point, new stories within a preexisting framework; after all, doing that with Norse myth is what she makes her bread and butter with.
Did you encounter it in brief, or is this your opinion of books that you've actually read, as opposed to cover-scanned? I'm genuinely confused as to your meaning, here.
While Reichert isn't well known in Sci-fi, she's written a number of fantasy series, which are (in my opinion) of uniformly high quality. So, it's not exactly like this is someone with no writing experience.
Normally I'd recommend Trillion Year Spree, which is a history of science fiction, but I really think that it's tough putting critical material, even pop history, in a high school environment. It still might be good for handouts. It's the book that justifies Brian Aldiss' existence!
Otherwise, my suggestion would be to focus on exploring various subgenres and themes; one good way might be to pair up classic books with books that are strongly influenced by them. For instance, Starship Troopers or The Forever War, followed by John Scalzi's Old Man's War or something similar.
I think the earlier poster who suggested pointing out how science fiction is a reflection of our world was on the money - I think particularly Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow might be useful there, as they are both strongly engaged in the current technological changes and social climate that our youth culture is growing from.
You might want to step back a little and consider how rude you're being here. You just responded to someone's personal anecdote with "UR A LIAR! LIEZLIEZLIEZ!" Even if he happened to be lying, which I doubt, as there's not really a potential motive there, you still come off as the bad guy here.
It sounds to me like he might have been using either an older Macbook Pro, running a few revisions back, or possibly a second-hand or borrowed one that's been running a while and had weird stuff done on it (as secondhand developer boxes tend to). He's certainly had bad luck with his hardware (possibly getting an early-in-the-production-run unit, which are known to be flaky). Sure, it's unusual for a Mac, but it's not unheard of - I myself am waiting on a screen replacement on my three week-old Macbook Pro.
If he's been a Linux user since 1994, the Mac's focus model might, in fact, seem pretty weird, especially since you can have an application with zero windows that still has focus. And, since he's a developer, and also probably using X11, that means that focus behavior can vary between Aqua windows and X11 windows on the same display at the same time, which, honestly, is pretty bizarre when you're not used to it.
I'll see your mindset and raise you experience with existing medical IT.
In addition to:
being complicated to get right (due to the astounding number of edge cases and exceptions the human body can throw at you)
Being generally very mission-critical and high uptime required (Since, you know, if they can't get the patient's information, somebody might die)
Medical software also has an extremely bad record on account of the ridiculous levels of vendor lock-in that is endemic in the field, and the utterly horrifying levels of your-data-is-my-hostage that can ensue when that data is confidential, complex, and necessary for running a hospital.
Oh goodness, sir! Your implication that all programmers are nerds, and starved for female attention, is most certainly the most original, delightful witticism ever to pass our way. Please, keep delivering to us your priceless bon mots, and raising the quality of internet discourse.
Honestly, expletives tend to be low-meaning and high-nonsense sections of language, and meaning there was perfectly clear, and would have been if he hadn't referenced it. Mildly annoying is the worst this is.
Now, that's not to say that the youngsters AREN'T destroying the English language. Heck, as a teacher, I SAW it. But "ri-goddamn-diculous" isn't a big deal.
Speaking of Windows Me, I once ran it on seriously under-spec hardware. Since it would show the desktop previous to being able to actually run anything, it APPEARED to boot much faster than 98SE had.
Appeared being the key word, since, if I touched anything for the first three minutes it was at the desktop, it would invariably crash. After that, it would crash variably (god, what a piece of crap OS), but during the first three minutes, it was literally "click anywhere on screen to crash to bluescreen."
The workaround, of course, was change my workflow from "Turn on computer->User computer" to "Turn on computer->Make coffee->Use computer." And then upgrade immediately to the Win2k pre-release.
The program Solaris Skunk Werks (A Battletech mech-maker program) currently has this annoying bug (or triggers an annoying bug in Java) that makes Drag and Drop functionality not only crash, but lock up X11, to the extent that I have to magic-Sysreq out if I forget and accidentally drag something.
What's worse is, the button for allocating items to slots stays grayed out if there's only one item. So, essentially, I have to either put two of everything on a Mech, or else reboot in Windows just to use a stupid roleplaying accessory.
If you want to create artificial scarcity that is not manifested, but enforced by goons with guns from the BSA, you use an "Open Source" license. The code is out there, everyone could theoretically draw advantage from it immediately, but we're forced to pay to support the goons who watch us and prevent us from doing so.
What, in which "Open Source" license, makes you pay to support goons? I'm pretty sure Apache doesn't have any gun-thugs, waiting in the wings. Please explain what the heck you mean, here; also, maybe it would be a good idea to enlighten us as to what you consider the difference to be between "Open Source" licenses and "Free Software" licenses, since those are, in general usage, more ideological terms than concrete descriptors applied to licenses.
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While you can still reboot no-X (for example, by passing options to GRUB when booting - not the easy way, but the first that came to mind ;-), I do have to agree, the failure to accept Xorg failures is my least favorite decision made in Ubuntu.
Hell, you can't even manually kill KDM anymore.
I've never had your problems with the nv drivers, though - they've been universally solid across several cards, if slow.
F'reals?
Shakespeare is perhaps the worst possible historical example, here. There's a reason his acting company was called The King's Men - it's because he had a royal patent from King James. I could go further, but honestly, don't take my word - look it up.
Even ignoring that Shakespeare was a big-deal playwright, "signed" by the King himself, it's still a bad analogy. Plays in Elizabethan and Jacobean England were nothing remotely like the oral-tradition utopia you're painting here, or stories told by someone's grandpa, or fireside singalongs. Theater was "consumed" in all the senses that you use here; it was covered by copyright, it was performed for monetary consideration, and it actually served much the same purposes as movies and other media do today. Hell, while it did tend to be rowdier than modern theater, it was still primarily a passive entertainment.
Heck, "piracy" in the modern sense was actually a big deal - most London printings would be followed shortly after by a pirate edition from Ireland or Scotland.
Eh; matter of taste, I guess. I do think the Renshai books are better overall, but I thought some of the stuff dealing with the main character's psychology was very interesting in the Bifrost Guardians.
But Asimov WASN'T hard sci-fi - for someone with as much research background as the man had, he didn't tend to attach actual science to his novels, at least not to the Robot stories.
And, frankly, he wasn't, at the close examination, a very good novelist. He never built believable or engaging emotional lives for his characters; while his plots and worlds were solid, he tended to rely on short-story structure to carry through a longer work.
That's not to say that he wasn't incredibly talented at writing. He was, bar none, the utter master of the "short story with a twist at the end." That's why 99% of people with a huge attachment to his work are attached at I, Robot; it's one of the finest short story collections ever written for sci-fi.
The Reichert books aren't going to be Asimov's Robot stories come again - but honestly, if they were, what would be the point? I have faith in Reichert's ability to tell engaging stories, and more to the point, new stories within a preexisting framework; after all, doing that with Norse myth is what she makes her bread and butter with.
Did you encounter it in brief, or is this your opinion of books that you've actually read, as opposed to cover-scanned? I'm genuinely confused as to your meaning, here.
While Reichert isn't well known in Sci-fi, she's written a number of fantasy series, which are (in my opinion) of uniformly high quality. So, it's not exactly like this is someone with no writing experience.
Man.
I wonder how long it would take on the 486dx100 that my first computer had.
On the subject of Gentoo.... I shudder to contemplate how long it will take to compile even the smallest base system on a 486.
I just realized that I forgot fantasy entirely...
And that Trillion Year Spree is immensely out of print.
Normally I'd recommend Trillion Year Spree, which is a history of science fiction, but I really think that it's tough putting critical material, even pop history, in a high school environment. It still might be good for handouts. It's the book that justifies Brian Aldiss' existence!
Otherwise, my suggestion would be to focus on exploring various subgenres and themes; one good way might be to pair up classic books with books that are strongly influenced by them. For instance, Starship Troopers or The Forever War, followed by John Scalzi's Old Man's War or something similar.
I think the earlier poster who suggested pointing out how science fiction is a reflection of our world was on the money - I think particularly Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow might be useful there, as they are both strongly engaged in the current technological changes and social climate that our youth culture is growing from.
I second you in being shocked and dismayed. If I had mod points, I'd have stayed mute to mod you up, sir.
You might want to step back a little and consider how rude you're being here. You just responded to someone's personal anecdote with "UR A LIAR! LIEZLIEZLIEZ!" Even if he happened to be lying, which I doubt, as there's not really a potential motive there, you still come off as the bad guy here.
It sounds to me like he might have been using either an older Macbook Pro, running a few revisions back, or possibly a second-hand or borrowed one that's been running a while and had weird stuff done on it (as secondhand developer boxes tend to). He's certainly had bad luck with his hardware (possibly getting an early-in-the-production-run unit, which are known to be flaky). Sure, it's unusual for a Mac, but it's not unheard of - I myself am waiting on a screen replacement on my three week-old Macbook Pro.
If he's been a Linux user since 1994, the Mac's focus model might, in fact, seem pretty weird, especially since you can have an application with zero windows that still has focus. And, since he's a developer, and also probably using X11, that means that focus behavior can vary between Aqua windows and X11 windows on the same display at the same time, which, honestly, is pretty bizarre when you're not used to it.
I'm a big Thinkpad fan from olden times, but it IS possible to get a matte screen on the Macbook Pros (except the 13 inch) for about $50 extra.
I was just preparing to burst in on this scene like the Kool-Aid man, spilling delicious grape-flavored knowledge all over the floor.
Then, you beat me to it.
My shame is great, and can be cleansed only in blood. Good bye.
I'll see your mindset and raise you experience with existing medical IT.
In addition to:
Medical software also has an extremely bad record on account of the ridiculous levels of vendor lock-in that is endemic in the field, and the utterly horrifying levels of your-data-is-my-hostage that can ensue when that data is confidential, complex, and necessary for running a hospital.
Oh goodness, sir! Your implication that all programmers are nerds, and starved for female attention, is most certainly the most original, delightful witticism ever to pass our way. Please, keep delivering to us your priceless bon mots, and raising the quality of internet discourse.
Heh. The current state of the U.S. Economy actually offers a pretty strong argument for that.
Melodramatic much?
Honestly, expletives tend to be low-meaning and high-nonsense sections of language, and meaning there was perfectly clear, and would have been if he hadn't referenced it. Mildly annoying is the worst this is.
Now, that's not to say that the youngsters AREN'T destroying the English language. Heck, as a teacher, I SAW it. But "ri-goddamn-diculous" isn't a big deal.
Speaking of Windows Me, I once ran it on seriously under-spec hardware. Since it would show the desktop previous to being able to actually run anything, it APPEARED to boot much faster than 98SE had.
Appeared being the key word, since, if I touched anything for the first three minutes it was at the desktop, it would invariably crash. After that, it would crash variably (god, what a piece of crap OS), but during the first three minutes, it was literally "click anywhere on screen to crash to bluescreen."
The workaround, of course, was change my workflow from "Turn on computer->User computer" to "Turn on computer->Make coffee->Use computer." And then upgrade immediately to the Win2k pre-release.
The program Solaris Skunk Werks (A Battletech mech-maker program) currently has this annoying bug (or triggers an annoying bug in Java) that makes Drag and Drop functionality not only crash, but lock up X11, to the extent that I have to magic-Sysreq out if I forget and accidentally drag something.
What's worse is, the button for allocating items to slots stays grayed out if there's only one item. So, essentially, I have to either put two of everything on a Mech, or else reboot in Windows just to use a stupid roleplaying accessory.
HA!
It's not Slashdot's most annoying meme, but an incredible imitation!
Well done, sir. Well and truly done.
Probably no one cares, but that's the wrong "queues" there. They mean "cues."
Well done! Also, your signature fills me with ineffable joy.
So, vacuous, generalized panic at "the man." Gotcha.
Keeping in mind that the same enforcement mechanisms are part of the GPL (turned towards enforcing different provisions, but still there).
Also, honestly, the Apache license has less provision to bring down any sort of penalty on someone's head.
This all, of course, ignoring that most copyright violations are actually matters of civil law, not criminal.
What, in which "Open Source" license, makes you pay to support goons? I'm pretty sure Apache doesn't have any gun-thugs, waiting in the wings. Please explain what the heck you mean, here; also, maybe it would be a good idea to enlighten us as to what you consider the difference to be between "Open Source" licenses and "Free Software" licenses, since those are, in general usage, more ideological terms than concrete descriptors applied to licenses.