"And how many others from different towns would have marched to protect the students?" Well, from my vantage point, darned few, if any. But that detracts from the point; which is the impact of street protest/riot on the military and specially the grunts.
"Some would actually frag..." Yes, I know that world also and have no illusions that mass demonstration would rip up the green machine; more now than 40 yrs ago, considering that gangs are more prevalent now than the panthers ever were then.
Grunts fragged their CO's not because they didnt want to kill the 'little people', but because they didnt want to be killed for a pointless cause. They didn't see the value-proposition as worth returning as a mind-fucked stump.
"there's no way the government could put into detention or reeducate enough people." Well, i take heart that i can always trust the military to screw things up worse than they began. But don't kid yourself that locking up 20-30K dissidents (the leadership) won't have a chilling effect on the masses. Combine that with snooping, snitching, that 'random' friendly visit/call from your local LEA......
Yea, it would be messy, but don't think for a minute that the wonks that be wont think they could succeed in their plans. With the right mix of propaganda and troop movements, the bloodshed could last a long time before ultimately failing.
Your examples of 'stand up' citizens in the service? Where were they in 1934(?) when our troops shot and killed the WWI vets protesting their missing bonuses in D.C.?
Only 15 years after the worst mass-murdering in history (akin to 1990 in 'nam terms), forgotten in less than one generation. Lesson, put a 18yo grunt on the line and trust their ignorance to carry out your mission.
Although I respect your position and wish it were true, I also believe that there is no difference between Americans any other nation state who's experienced unrest bordering on civil war.
Given sufficient stressors people will turn on, even torture and kill, their neighbors.
Although it runs counter to sensibilities, take this as a 'clinical' observation from someone who attended Kent during that time-frame: During the 1969-1970 school year, it felt like 1/2 the town-folk would have happily marched on the campus and pulled the trigger themselves. The sad thing about Kent is that a political demonstration overlapped with the high frustrations felt by students that they were being ripped off by the town; from bookstores returning pennies on the dollar for used books to the other merchants over-charging for the littlest of items.
The fact that the Main St rampage went on 3May, the smashing of business windows (no mom-pop stores), etc, to the arresting of a drunk under the open-container laws (despite everyone doing it) the night before is just a small indicator of the animosities between the town and the students. Nothing political about that.
The fact that the students looked like/were hippies probably assisted in their de-humanization. Which is the point of my response and central to today's political mood. Given all the right-wing hate/shock talk, there will be no shortages of grunts/buffalo-soldiers willing to join a skirmish line. Worse, if there turned out to be some w/a conscience, the govt will always have BlackWater and S.American mercs to do their dirty work.
Do not think for a minute that the USA is above detention centers and 're-education' camps. It only takes a bit of irrational violence to get that ball rolling; once in motion the fabric of society, the recognition that opposing sides should talk 1st and shoot later, dissolves as part of the de-humanization of those 'not like you'.
Looking back to the 60's, from round-eyes trashing 'gooks' to lynchings in the South to construction workers beating hippies, proves that society holds itself together by the slimmest of threads. Recognizing those w/whom one disagrees as human and not in contempt is the glue that binds; and is quickly melting here.
"...any of the following symptoms occur: itching, vertigo, dizziness, tingling in extremities, loss of balance or coordination, slurred speech, temporary blindness, profuse sweating, or heart palpitations."
Not to mention pedarrhea®
I agree. IT guys, tho often babysitting, but when a system grows, or fails, then IT guys are developers as well. Designing SANS, clusters, proxies,..... may not fall into the 'developer' category from a programming POV, but are developing none the less; and in often more challenging ways
what i do is record EVERYTHING i do, including IM logs, using logger, inline comments and running todo/done list. Not only is it augmenting proper documentation, but it is a point of reference for when i need to explain myself or my reasons for demanding time off. You're right about salary vs long hours; but when you have flex-time and the ability to telework the long hours fit more easily into scheduling and becomes passible.
spot on! pulling 80/week isn't too bad when you run on flextime and telework. If the job is performance driven and the pay commensurate (you can pay someone to do your chores) then hours on the job is at least doing what you like, when you like (most of the time @least).
First, as others may have cited: Jews seem to be the only ones actually standing up for Palestinian rights. Only Jewish scholars, includiing Israeli Jews, are the ones who have done an incredible job exposing Zionazi atrocities against Palestinians. Edward Said, Chomsky, Zinn, Avi Shlaim, Illan Pape', Shlomo Sand, Uri Avnery, Neve Gordon, Amira Hass, the late Israel Shahak, Finklestein, and many other Jewish scholars and journalists are ones that have done the bulk of the work on behalf of Palestinians.
Also, I hold many American Jews in high regard for their standing up for the disenfranchised here in the USA; their work in civil right, unions and labor, etc... go far beyond what many other ethnic groups have dones.
But Jews are NOT really represented by the Israeli government.
Though talking-points posters have some insightful and salient points with regard to the history of the Jews and the making of their nation, I think he misses the mark when he tries to delineate the problem by rooting it to their "relationship to the non-jewish world". The history (and mythology) of their persecution as a culture (racially they are semitic, as are arabs) is little different than other cultures throughout time. To imply that any other separatist group would resort to the same mentality as the Jews in building their homeland is specious. It is when your history or mythology is propagandized by your government to justify actions that take from others because you are told you are "chosen" that you begin to court evil by giving power to a few zealots who feel entitled.
I have never been to Israel, but I know that there are many there who disagree with their leadership. Like other nations, the Israeli government does not seem to reflect the will of the people. That is because the government is a sock-puppet for the USA; even knowing that the USA cares naught for Israel apart from its strategic value in the mid-east.
The talking-points posters speak of their (jewish) feelings prior to and after 1948, but fails to note the land grab that ensued and the bad will it created. Fact is, nobody in the West gave a shit about arabs; they were nazi sympathizers and had no power of their own. Building up a beholden proxy was the order of the day.
I will refrain from delving into the history of the Israeli State and their past actions, but given a bottomless pocket (our tax dollars) and a vision of a nation-state whose future growth demands the taking of land and resources from their neighbors; the reasons they use to justify it are completely moot, but are designed to play into fear and pride.
I am not an historian and can stand corrected, but I feel two decades of this propaganda and the gift of western arms is what led to their neighbors sentiments (and justifiable fears) and the 6 day war.
And its been a clusterfuck ever since. What is telling is how the Israelites, as a persecuted people, are quite capable of persecuting others. How they can rationalize their situation into a myopia that prevents them from seeing the incredible imbalance of percieved threats. A nuclear power, with the best equipped army (our $ has bought them) in the region vs stone throwers. A death toll of 4 being comparable to 400. An 18 month siege that has resulted in the creation of a ghetto (Gaza) equal to, or worse than, any from which they might have fled. (Remember Shabra and Shatilla? - spelling notwithstanding)
It can only lead one to conclude that every Israeli government, since it's inception, has never wanted peace on any terms but their own; the proof of this has been their continued disregard for the treaties they have signed onto in pursuit of their vision for a Greater Israel.
"If you cannot change their minds, you can change their behavior". Well, of course. But being the main antagonizer, the thief of lands, the leveler of towns, the hoarder of water, the builder of walls, etc... is a sure-fire way to change behavior only for the worse.
Since this is apparent for even the most simple-minded to see (including myself) then one can only conclude that, like the destruction of Iraq, it is by design and intention; propaganda notwithstanding.
Agreed. As another rural vermonter, I use wildblue and they did something similar but in reverse. Where previous email accounts were handled by mywildblue..net they cut their costs by subbing their email services to google; such that all email users were required to goto the new wildblue portal (under google) and fill in new account details. This story is mostly a non-starter from my POV. It is not about content filtering as much as about email services that fairpoint provides. This article was caught earlier in the day by a member of our local LUG (vague) and corrected thusly: From: MrKahuna
To: VAGUE@list.uvm.edu
Date: 12/28/08 07:28 am
This got picked up by Slashdot and seriously misinterpreted. The notice I received was very poorly worded but since I have Verizon and was using the "Yahoo email" I was able to parse it. Nothing nefarious is going on.
Here's what's happening.
Verizon had a deal with Yahoo that allowed Verizon users to keep their "@verizon.net" email addresses but use Yahoo's email servers. You could log into Yahoo with "user@verizon.net" and get your verizon.net email through Yahoo's webmail interface. In fact, logging into Verizon's portal just redirects to Yahoo. In addition, your POP server was "incoming.yahoo.verizon.net" instead of the normal Verizon server. Fairpoint is not continuing this deal with Yahoo so now to access your new "@myfairpoint.net" email through a web browser you'll have to go to Fairpoint's web portal instead of Yahoo's and have to use Fairpoint's POP servers. If you have an "@yahoo.com" email address nothing is changing as far as I can tell.
OTOH, if yo mean a KB that is concerned about DocMgmt, then you probably know that many Document Managements Systems, though ofter synonomous with a "Knowledge Base Systems" (KBS), but probably contain better features related to lifecycle management for documents,
publication workflow and access rights management. http://www.alfresco.com/ http://www.knowledgetree.com/ http://www.epiware.com/ http://www.jaspersoft.com/ http://www.jivesoftware.com/clearspace/ is not free for use, but I've deployed it and can say 1st hand its worth mentioning; you can download a free 30-day trial for evaluation.
the URL: http://www.directpointe.com/partners/opensource_list.aspx raises suspicion though - IIS pointing to all that FOSS goodness? Geez, maybe they're running mono on a linux box? Even moonlight? Doubt it, too lazy to find out.
"When I assert that Linux isn't Ford, I'm not making a statement about the quality of either product. I'm asserting that Ford is a much, much more better known product." As did I, only about brand recognition and the absence of any real Linux P.R. that can match either MS or Apple. There is no "Ill served" only under-served; specially insofar as the desktop is concerned. Most attempts to promote G/L FOSS is thru local LUGS and with limited resources. I think you're being harsh in your criticisms in that the last 15 years has been mostly about linux in server-space, not the GUI or I/F.
How the Linux desktop is pitched or whether it can stand up to the other OS's is a matter of debate; but i have already agreed w/you that it is NOT about Free/libre as much as the quality of the OS and the apps it runs weighted against the needs of the enduser. So, we concur again, the virtues are practical ones.
As for the interface: I would put my ubuntu box running gnome/E17 up against any Mac OS/X box anytime. I dont run compiz-fusion any more but it's eyecandy is alluring. Enlightenment suffices and gives me plenty of desktops, transparency and all the drawers/launchers.... that i need. That said, most ppl who load someones machine with linux generally fall back on the default GUI/WM/desktop; and if so, it is pretty lackluster.
As for host dependencies for attached devices: Yes, you are absolutely correct that a borked install sours the view. But I would argue that 'buntu, fedora, and most all other major distros have all the drivers most ppl could ask for. Sure there will be exceptions, but the same is true for windows and mac.
But above is going outside the thread of linux in schools and what it needs to find some measure of acceptance and is more a birds-eye view of the situation in general.
3/4's deep into this thread and finally someone comes up w/making lemonade from a lemon! Abso-fucking-tively should use this event as a way to both correct mis-perceptions and promote a (possibly) better alternative. Glad you put it out there!
I've been following this thread, and your comments and responses, with interest; though linux is not ford, the analogy is a salient one, better than most.
On a personal level:
Regardless of role, most everyone uses computers. Sure, there have been comments regarding the definition of what its use entails; are the results of computing physical or conceptual? Is that information independent of the medium used to convey it? What does possession of information entail? What's the relationship between the information (content) and the
software used to produce it? These are not questions that interest most worker-bees; they simply want to get through the day and go home to their families and loved ones.
Yes, it is about the software, the applications people run that get the job done. Yes, better to have the broader knowledge of "word processing" than just the specifics of knowing "Word". Yes, it is better to have the interest and curiosity to want to learn new things and overcome the adoption barriers of unfamiliarity == mistrust Yes, it is better to put people and collaboration and sharing above money and profits But at the end of the day, its about people with varying skill-levels whose interests lie mostly in finding the right tools to get the job done with as little learning curve overhead, insofar as using the tool(s), as possible.
Getting ordinary people to switch from closed-source to open-source, to consider using OO instead of Ofice, may hinge more on reasons to forgo what they are using more than reasons why they should adopt something new. Like their frustration with Ofice 2007. This post to my local LUG is a notable citation:... From: Dave Tisdell
To: VAGUE@list.uvm.edu
Date: 12/10/08 02:57 pm
Attachments: HTML
Hi Chris,
"It often saddens me to see FUD type comments from FOSS supporters." I am a little baffled by this sentence. Otherwise, I agree whole heartedly with your post.
I advocate frequently for OpenOffice in our school district but the leaders of our IT staff seems unwilling to seriously examine it. Office 2007 was deployed without warning at the opening of school with a significant loss of productivity. A few colleagues had me install OpenOffice on their machines and they were much happier. They easily navigated around normal day to day task when they were strugging with Office 2007. I think it is a fact that Openoffice is a much easier transisiton than moving to office 2007....
So, it could be application-specific. But, as with the automobile analog, it could also be about the "means of conveyance".
"People don't use computers. They use software. It's the software that needs a computer." A computer w/out software is a useless brick. It's as useless as a car w/out a driver. Most people want their computer to be a black-box appliance and their software to be their chauffer to take them "where they want to go...."
They have been given that expectation as a result of over-hyped marketing and the fact that they paid 'good money' in exchange. But even the most lazy or ignorant have come to
realize that it was never the case; from the BSOD, the endless alert dialogs, the spread of virii and malware, ad-nauseum; just hit the re-start button and silently fume as your work goes into the bit-bucket!
So here is where the car analog can work. GNU/Linux is a better means of conveyance than the M$ pinto; both from TCO and from the warm-fuzzies of better security and reliability.
Note: The criteria by which people make their choices is a logically sound process: The 1st point of order should not be cost but whether it gets the job done; whether its an application, the OS it sits on, or the hardware it utilizes.
You are correct in that most people only think in terms of their applications; e.g. what they can do when they've arrived at their d
Geez, as an old geezer, is this an illustration of intractability or what? I've always thought of myself as flexible and not opinionated and here i am pushing my 'hello world' order. Sheesh.
So, here's a tip-o-hat to the poster that points out our faults lying in self-image and another to the posts relating passion to pride. Touch on either and my buttons of opinion get pushed!
Or categorized in the context of End-user, Developer or Sysadmin. Regardless, the only correct answers will be those that but the interests of the company at the top of the list.
Which is how I would create my ordering: Security (lose that and nothing else matters) (Process) Documentation (it's absence implies loss of continuity) Fault Tolerance (if it can be broken it can be brought down) Backup (if it does fail you better be able to restore it) Uptime (improved reliability and maintainability == better continuity) because w/out above accounted for you cannot have below: Customer Service (CRM improvements in response times, tix handled, etc..) User Experience (the UI and usability can always be refined once the rest is in place)
I would respectfully disagree. There are wrong answers to that ad-hoc list of priorities. But the correctness of any specific answer would have to be derived only after asking "why" to the ordering, not in the ordering itself.
Regardless of the project or work@hand certain basic fundamentals should apply. Eg. Customer Service is the top priority because w/out it there would be no business. But in order to maintain adequate customer services other issues have to be in place, which takes CustService to a lower ranking.
FWIW, I would scrap Best Practices from the list entirely because it incorporates too many of the other issues. BP == Documentation AND Security AND Fault Tolerance AND Security... blah
Granted, for each item/issue there are degrees of granularity; how much is enough and what is overkill; But my ordering would be: Security (lose that and nothing else matters) Documentation (it's absence implies loss of continuity) Fault Tolerance (if it can be broken it can be brought down) Backup (if it does fail you better be able to restore it) Uptime (improved reliability and maintainability == better continuity) because w/out above accounted for you cannot have below: Customer Service User Experience
good to read your post! Me, same age, same situation. I was going to post a note saying that it's not about age, but more about a willingness to learn new things and share them with others. That spirit, for me, has always been what has made computing (and art, science, life) fun and worth doing.
I get along great with (young) ppl because I don't make age an issue or let them use it as a barrier.
We work and go out for beers as peers. It's just attitude, really. And it's attitudes of age, of expectations, of efforts, that make or break a work environment.
There has been lots of mention here related to hours on the job. One boss I had made a point of reminding his people to have a life; that we don't create world peace or make so great a difference that we should put our work above our happiness, family, etc... I whole-heartedly agreed, but that attitude also meant his people lacked the drive necessary to compete. The business fell on hard times a few years later and I wondered if everyone leaving promptly at 5PM contributed to it. I often work 50-70 hours OTJ. Some of that time may be research/reading or documenting or catching up on correspondence. But a fair amount of time each week is spent staying abreast of the tech I utilize, homework as it were..
The only thing that makes it passably acceptable for me to do is that my work is performance-based and not on a clock. I telework. I have flex-time. Work is results-oriented.
Whether being old or lazy, it makes no difference. This field demands staying abreast of what's comming down the pipeline and anyone who is incapable of doing their 'homework' will either find a low ceiling, career-wise, or move on.
What I find unfortunate is that the perception of IT is that old people don't get it. IT, the internet and specially the web, has become marketing driven; which is always a youth culture. Sure, there is a measure of truth to believing that old-hands don't get the cutting edges, but we oldsters have a lot to bring to the table if we can all leave our own biases at the door.
Strangely, now that I'm contracting, my only contact with people is online. They have no idea how old I am as our cyber-relations are 'age-neutral'. I think it makes for a more pleasant experience all around.
Despite McCains' myth being waaay larger than the man, the fact that he crashed almost every plane he ever flew, purportedly blocked investigations into MIA's, his involvement in the S-n-L scandals, etc.. I still really have some regard for this man.
I just suspect that, despite being a pol for as long as he has, McCain in 2008 suffered from the perfect storm of a) trusting poor advice and b) his own weaknesses for not standing on his own principals but those of party loyality.
Toward the end, I just don't think his heart was in this and he was just going through the motions. It was most apparent on SNL and I think he will find that his loyalty makes a scape-goat for his party in the end. I just don't think it was un-bridled ambition that drove him to take and flip-flop on all his positions; though i could be wrong.
Forgive the hasty construction of this wordy reply, but you know, I share a lot of your feelings with regard to the importance of constitutional values, which should include domestic spying, posse comitatus, habeous corpus the right to legal counsel before being extraordinarily rended, etc..
I also feel that there were 3rd party candidates who stood on better principals than BObama.
That said, and after seeing him speak tues night, i realized a number of things: =>None of the 3rd party candidates have the stature and gravitas that BObama has; which, among other things, is what it takes to be electable.
=>Though I share your anger and disappointment regarding his position on the telecom immunity vote, the issue did not hold enough mainstream interest to make it a core issue upon which to do battle. BObama probably made the correct decision: which was to leave open future legal recourse and move on to getting elected.
Now that he's actually in office, i can only hope that he'll to do an "LBJ", which is basically thwarting the special interests of those that put you into power. In the case of LBJ, it was his vision of civil rights and the 'great society', which was anathema to the texans that supported and endorsed him. In the case of BObama, it will be the corporations and lobbyists that funded his war-chest. If wishes were fishes...
Also, as i stated in an earlier post related to the dems not persuing criminal charges against those in the executive who believed themselves to be above the law; my hope is that they correctly knew that the house was too-divided and their strategy in not persuing impeachment then will now give them the opportunity to do so.
Impeachment proceedings would have been a major distraction and in all probability have failed. Letting history be the judge, waiting for GWB to leave office (pardons and all), then going after the corrupt was the saner option. I can only hope it's still on the table.
i'm pessimistic that justice will be served; but i'm holding on to the hope that the dems realized that any pursuit of this while GWB is in office would result in massive pardons at the end of his term, providing they failed to impeach him as well due to the abundance of repubs in the house. Post-election, with a majority of dems and with GWB long-gone, they could be more effective in getting the guilty into the dock, including GWB hisself.
not to try and simplify a complex rationale, but the reason GWB decided to invade iraq was that he was told that Al Qaeda could not be defeated (w/DR's slimmed-down army)
in Afghanistan because of the terrain. Which has proven itself to be a fact, just as the Russians experienced.
He was lead to believe that a US presence in iraq would instead draw the enemy to the desert, where they could be defeated more easily. Of course, who could know that it would result in house-to-house urban warfare instead?
after reading the posts to this thread, including yours, a half-step remedy seems obvious:
my email to rep. salazar on the ethics committee:
In light of the conviction of Ted Stevens, do you think it may be possible to get enough votes in the senate to rescind a representatives' seniority if they are convicted of a crime?
My proposition seems only reasonable and is a common-sense approach to the fact that someone can both serve office while at the same time being convicted while still in office; despite not having a 2/3'ds majority to be thrown out.
It would also stem the (remote) possibility of his winning re-election based solely on his ability to bring home the pork to alaskans.
Slashdot Mirror
"And how many others from different towns would have marched to protect the students?"
Well, from my vantage point, darned few, if any.
But that detracts from the point; which is the impact of street protest/riot on the military and specially the grunts.
"Some would actually frag..."
Yes, I know that world also and have no illusions that mass demonstration would rip up the green machine; more now than 40 yrs ago, considering that gangs are more prevalent now than the panthers ever were then.
Grunts fragged their CO's not because they didnt want to kill the 'little people', but because they didnt want to be killed for a pointless cause. They didn't see the value-proposition as worth returning as a mind-fucked stump.
"there's no way the government could put into detention or reeducate enough people."
Well, i take heart that i can always trust the military to screw things up worse than they began.
But don't kid yourself that locking up 20-30K dissidents (the leadership) won't have a chilling effect on the masses. Combine that with snooping, snitching, that 'random' friendly visit/call from your local LEA......
Yea, it would be messy, but don't think for a minute that the wonks that be wont think they could succeed in their plans. With the right mix of propaganda and troop movements, the bloodshed could last a long time before ultimately failing.
Your examples of 'stand up' citizens in the service? Where were they in 1934(?) when our troops shot and killed the WWI vets protesting their missing bonuses in D.C.?
Only 15 years after the worst mass-murdering in history (akin to 1990 in 'nam terms), forgotten in less than one generation. Lesson, put a 18yo grunt on the line and trust their ignorance to carry out your mission.
Although I respect your position and wish it were true, I also believe that there is no difference between Americans any other nation state who's experienced unrest bordering on civil war.
Given sufficient stressors people will turn on, even torture and kill, their neighbors.
Too Sad.
Although it runs counter to sensibilities, take this as a 'clinical' observation from someone who attended Kent during that time-frame:
During the 1969-1970 school year, it felt like 1/2 the town-folk would have happily marched on the campus and
pulled the trigger themselves. The sad thing about Kent is that a political demonstration overlapped with
the high frustrations felt by students that they were being ripped off by the town; from bookstores returning
pennies on the dollar for used books to the other merchants over-charging for the littlest of items.
The fact that the Main St rampage went on 3May, the smashing of business windows (no mom-pop stores), etc,
to the arresting of a drunk under the open-container laws (despite everyone doing it) the night before is
just a small indicator of the animosities between the town and the students. Nothing political about that.
The fact that the students looked like/were hippies probably assisted in their de-humanization.
Which is the point of my response and central to today's political mood. Given all the right-wing hate/shock talk,
there will be no shortages of grunts/buffalo-soldiers willing to join a skirmish line.
Worse, if there turned out to be some w/a conscience, the govt will always have BlackWater and S.American
mercs to do their dirty work.
Do not think for a minute that the USA is above detention centers and 're-education' camps. It only takes a
bit of irrational violence to get that ball rolling; once in motion the fabric of society, the recognition
that opposing sides should talk 1st and shoot later, dissolves as part of the de-humanization of
those 'not like you'.
Looking back to the 60's, from round-eyes trashing 'gooks' to lynchings in the South to construction workers beating hippies, proves that society holds itself together by the slimmest of threads. Recognizing those w/whom
one disagrees as human and not in contempt is the glue that binds; and is quickly melting here.
that
"That's right. The FOSS Project Typo3 is the market leader for portal software in Germany and neighbours."
Praise be to God! Seriously, the religious overtones of this webapp (and the author) makes me shudder.
"...any of the following symptoms occur: itching, vertigo, dizziness, tingling in extremities, loss of balance or coordination, slurred speech, temporary blindness, profuse sweating, or heart palpitations."
Not to mention pedarrhea®
I agree. IT guys, tho often babysitting, but when a system grows, or fails, then IT guys are developers as well. Designing SANS, clusters, proxies, ..... may not fall into the 'developer' category from a programming POV, but are developing none the less; and in often more challenging ways
what i do is record EVERYTHING i do, including IM logs, using logger, inline comments and running todo/done list. Not only is it augmenting proper documentation, but it is a point of reference for when i need to explain myself or my reasons for demanding time off.
You're right about salary vs long hours; but when you have flex-time and the ability to telework the long hours fit more easily into scheduling and becomes passible.
spot on! pulling 80/week isn't too bad when you run on flextime and telework. If the job is performance driven and the pay commensurate (you can pay someone to do your chores) then hours on the job is at least doing what you like, when you like (most of the time @least).
shit, just standing in front of a bulldozer in protest can get you killed by an israeli
First, as others may have cited: Jews seem to be the only ones actually standing up for Palestinian rights.
Only Jewish scholars, includiing Israeli Jews, are the ones who have done an incredible job exposing Zionazi atrocities against Palestinians. Edward Said, Chomsky, Zinn, Avi Shlaim, Illan Pape', Shlomo Sand, Uri Avnery, Neve Gordon, Amira Hass, the late Israel Shahak, Finklestein, and many other Jewish scholars and journalists are ones that have done the bulk of the work on behalf of Palestinians.
Also, I hold many American Jews in high regard for their standing up for the disenfranchised here in the USA;
their work in civil right, unions and labor, etc... go far beyond what many other ethnic groups have dones.
But Jews are NOT really represented by the Israeli government.
Though talking-points posters have some insightful and salient points with regard to the history of the Jews and the making of their nation, I think he misses the mark when he tries to delineate the problem by rooting it to their "relationship to the non-jewish world".
The history (and mythology) of their persecution as a culture (racially they are semitic, as are arabs) is little different than other cultures throughout time.
To imply that any other separatist group would resort to the same mentality as the Jews in building their homeland is specious. It is when your history or mythology is propagandized by your government to justify actions that take from others because you are told you are "chosen" that you begin to court evil by giving power to a few zealots who feel entitled.
I have never been to Israel, but I know that there are many there who disagree with their leadership. Like other nations, the Israeli government does not seem to reflect the will of the people. That is because the government is a sock-puppet for the USA; even knowing that the USA cares naught for Israel apart from its strategic value in the mid-east.
The talking-points posters speak of their (jewish) feelings prior to and after 1948, but fails to note the land grab that ensued and the bad will it created. Fact is, nobody in the West gave a shit about arabs; they were nazi sympathizers and had no power of their own. Building up a beholden proxy was the order of the day.
I will refrain from delving into the history of the Israeli State and their past actions, but given a bottomless pocket (our tax dollars) and a vision of a nation-state whose future growth demands the taking of land and resources from their neighbors; the reasons they use to justify it are completely moot, but are designed to play into fear and pride.
I am not an historian and can stand corrected, but I feel two decades of this propaganda and the gift of western arms is what led to their neighbors sentiments (and justifiable fears) and the 6 day war.
And its been a clusterfuck ever since. What is telling is how the Israelites, as a persecuted people, are quite capable of persecuting others. How they can rationalize their situation into a myopia that prevents them from seeing the incredible imbalance of percieved threats. A nuclear power, with the best equipped army (our $ has bought them) in the region vs stone throwers. A death toll of 4 being comparable to 400. An 18 month siege that has resulted in the creation of a ghetto (Gaza) equal to, or worse than, any from which they might have fled. (Remember Shabra and Shatilla? - spelling notwithstanding)
It can only lead one to conclude that every Israeli government, since it's inception, has never wanted peace on any terms but their own; the proof of this has been their continued disregard for the treaties they have signed onto in pursuit of their vision for a Greater Israel.
"If you cannot change their minds, you can change their behavior". Well, of course. But being the main antagonizer, the thief of lands, the leveler of towns, the hoarder of water, the builder of walls, etc... is a sure-fire way to change behavior only for the worse.
Since this is apparent for even the most simple-minded to see (including myself) then one can only conclude that, like the destruction of Iraq, it is by design and intention; propaganda notwithstanding.
Agreed. As another rural vermonter, I use wildblue and they did something similar but in reverse. Where previous email accounts were handled by mywildblue..net they cut their costs by subbing their email services to google; such that all email users were required to goto the new wildblue portal (under google) and fill in new account details.
This story is mostly a non-starter from my POV. It is not about content filtering as much as about email services that
fairpoint provides.
This article was caught earlier in the day by a member of our local LUG (vague) and corrected thusly:
From: MrKahuna
To: VAGUE@list.uvm.edu
Date: 12/28/08 07:28 am
This got picked up by Slashdot and seriously misinterpreted. The
notice I received was very poorly worded but since I have Verizon and
was using the "Yahoo email" I was able to parse it. Nothing nefarious
is going on.
Here's what's happening.
Verizon had a deal with Yahoo that allowed Verizon users to keep their
"@verizon.net" email addresses but use Yahoo's email servers. You
could log into Yahoo with "user@verizon.net" and get your verizon.net
email through Yahoo's webmail interface. In fact, logging into
Verizon's portal just redirects to Yahoo. In addition, your POP server
was "incoming.yahoo.verizon.net" instead of the normal Verizon server.
Fairpoint is not continuing this deal with Yahoo so now to access your
new "@myfairpoint.net" email through a web browser you'll have to go
to Fairpoint's web portal instead of Yahoo's and have to use
Fairpoint's POP servers. If you have an "@yahoo.com" email address
nothing is changing as far as I can tell.
For me, KB is not really a pure category. More of a hybrid that fits somewhere
between/within a ContentMgmtSys and a DocMgmtSys
You mention mediawiki, which I feel is quite impressive, as a collaborative CMS.
If mediawiki is overly-complex then maybe a different one would work better:
http://twiki.org/
http://www.splitbrain.org/projects/dokuwiki
http://moinmo.in/
http://www.pmwiki.org/
OTOH, if yo mean a KB that is concerned about DocMgmt, then you probably know that
many Document Managements Systems, though ofter synonomous with a "Knowledge Base Systems" (KBS), but probably contain better features related to lifecycle management for documents,
publication workflow and access rights management.
http://www.alfresco.com/
http://www.knowledgetree.com/
http://www.epiware.com/
http://www.jaspersoft.com/
http://www.jivesoftware.com/clearspace/
is not free for use, but I've deployed it and can say 1st hand its worth mentioning;
you can download a free 30-day trial for evaluation.
the URL:
http://www.directpointe.com/partners/opensource_list.aspx
raises suspicion though - IIS pointing to all that FOSS goodness?
Geez, maybe they're running mono on a linux box? Even moonlight?
Doubt it, too lazy to find out.
"When I assert that Linux isn't Ford, I'm not making a statement about the quality of either product. I'm asserting that Ford is a much, much more better known product."
As did I, only about brand recognition and the absence of any real Linux P.R. that can match either
MS or Apple. There is no "Ill served" only under-served; specially insofar as the desktop is concerned.
Most attempts to promote G/L FOSS is thru local LUGS and with limited resources.
I think you're being harsh in your criticisms in that the last 15 years has been mostly about linux
in server-space, not the GUI or I/F.
How the Linux desktop is pitched or whether it can stand up to the other OS's is a matter of debate; but
i have already agreed w/you that it is NOT about Free/libre as much as the quality of the OS and the
apps it runs weighted against the needs of the enduser. So, we concur again, the virtues are practical ones.
As for the interface: I would put my ubuntu box running gnome/E17 up against any Mac OS/X box .... that i need.
anytime. I dont run compiz-fusion any more but it's eyecandy is alluring. Enlightenment suffices
and gives me plenty of desktops, transparency and all the drawers/launchers
That said, most ppl who load someones machine with linux generally fall back on the default
GUI/WM/desktop; and if so, it is pretty lackluster.
As for host dependencies for attached devices: Yes, you are absolutely correct that a borked
install sours the view. But I would argue that 'buntu, fedora, and most all other major distros
have all the drivers most ppl could ask for. Sure there will be exceptions, but the same is true
for windows and mac.
But above is going outside the thread of linux in schools and what it needs to find some measure
of acceptance and is more a birds-eye view of the situation in general.
just my .02
3/4's deep into this thread and finally someone comes up w/making lemonade from a lemon!
Abso-fucking-tively should use this event as a way to both correct mis-perceptions and
promote a (possibly) better alternative.
Glad you put it out there!
I've been following this thread, and your comments and responses, with interest; though
linux is not ford, the analogy is a salient one, better than most.
On a personal level:
Regardless of role, most everyone uses computers. Sure, there have been comments regarding
the definition of what its use entails; are the results of computing physical or conceptual?
Is that information independent of the medium used to convey it? What does possession
of information entail? What's the relationship between the information (content) and the
software used to produce it? These are not questions that interest most worker-bees;
they simply want to get through the day and go home to their families and loved ones.
Yes, it is about the software, the applications people run that get the job done.
Yes, better to have the broader knowledge of "word processing" than just the
specifics of knowing "Word".
Yes, it is better to have the interest and curiosity to want to learn new things
and overcome the adoption barriers of unfamiliarity == mistrust
Yes, it is better to put people and collaboration and sharing above money and profits
But at the end of the day, its about people with varying skill-levels
whose interests lie mostly in finding the right tools to get the job done with as
little learning curve overhead, insofar as using the tool(s), as possible.
Getting ordinary people to switch from closed-source to open-source, to consider ...
using OO instead of Ofice, may hinge more on reasons to forgo what they are using
more than reasons why they should adopt something new. Like their frustration with
Ofice 2007. This post to my local LUG is a notable citation:
From: Dave Tisdell
To: VAGUE@list.uvm.edu
Date: 12/10/08 02:57 pm
Attachments: HTML
Hi Chris,
"It often saddens me to see FUD type comments from FOSS supporters."
I am a little baffled by this sentence. Otherwise, I agree whole heartedly with your post.
I advocate frequently for OpenOffice in our school district but the leaders of our IT staff seems unwilling to seriously examine it. Office 2007 was deployed without warning at the opening of school with a significant loss of productivity. A few colleagues had me install OpenOffice on their machines and they were much happier. They easily navigated around normal day to day task when they were strugging with Office 2007. I think it is a fact that Openoffice is a much easier transisiton than moving to office 2007. ...
So, it could be application-specific.
But, as with the automobile analog, it could also be about the "means of conveyance".
"People don't use computers. They use software. It's the software that needs a computer."
A computer w/out software is a useless brick. It's as useless as a car w/out a driver.
Most people want their computer to be a black-box appliance and their software to
be their chauffer to take them "where they want to go...."
They have been given that expectation as a result of over-hyped marketing and the fact
that they paid 'good money' in exchange. But even the most lazy or ignorant have come to
realize that it was never the case; from the BSOD, the
endless alert dialogs, the spread of virii and malware, ad-nauseum; just hit the re-start button
and silently fume as your work goes into the bit-bucket!
So here is where the car analog can work. GNU/Linux is a better means of conveyance
than the M$ pinto; both from TCO and from the warm-fuzzies of better security and reliability.
Note: The criteria by which people make their choices is a logically sound process:
The 1st point of order should not be cost but whether it gets the job done;
whether its an application, the OS it sits on, or the hardware it utilizes.
You are correct in that most people only think in terms of their applications;
e.g. what they can do when they've arrived at their d
Geez, as an old geezer, is this an illustration of intractability or what? I've always thought of myself as flexible and not opinionated and here i am pushing my 'hello world' order. Sheesh.
So, here's a tip-o-hat to the poster that points out our faults lying in self-image and another to the posts relating passion to pride. Touch on either and my buttons of opinion get pushed!
Or categorized in the context of End-user, Developer or Sysadmin.
Regardless, the only correct answers will be those that but the
interests of the company at the top of the list.
Which is how I would create my ordering:
Security (lose that and nothing else matters)
(Process) Documentation (it's absence implies loss of continuity)
Fault Tolerance (if it can be broken it can be brought down)
Backup (if it does fail you better be able to restore it)
Uptime (improved reliability and maintainability == better continuity)
because w/out above accounted for you cannot have below:
Customer Service (CRM improvements in response times, tix handled, etc..)
User Experience (the UI and usability can always be refined once the rest is in place)
I would respectfully disagree. There are wrong answers to that ad-hoc list of priorities. But the correctness of any
specific answer would have to be derived only after asking "why" to the ordering, not in the ordering itself.
Regardless of the project or work@hand certain basic fundamentals should apply. Eg. Customer Service is the top
priority because w/out it there would be no business. But in order to maintain adequate customer services other
issues have to be in place, which takes CustService to a lower ranking.
FWIW, I would scrap Best Practices from the list entirely because it incorporates too many of the other issues. ... blah
BP == Documentation AND Security AND Fault Tolerance AND Security
Granted, for each item/issue there are degrees of granularity; how much is enough and what is overkill;
But my ordering would be:
Security (lose that and nothing else matters)
Documentation (it's absence implies loss of continuity)
Fault Tolerance (if it can be broken it can be brought down)
Backup (if it does fail you better be able to restore it)
Uptime (improved reliability and maintainability == better continuity)
because w/out above accounted for you cannot have below:
Customer Service
User Experience
Just my .02
good to read your post! Me, same age, same situation. I was going to post a note saying that it's not about age,
but more about a willingness to learn new things and share them with others. That spirit, for me, has always been
what has made computing (and art, science, life) fun and worth doing.
I get along great with (young) ppl because I don't make age an issue or let them use it as a barrier.
We work and go out for beers as peers. It's just attitude, really. And it's attitudes of age, of expectations,
of efforts, that make or break a work environment.
There has been lots of mention here related to hours on the job. One boss I had made a point of reminding his
people to have a life; that we don't create world peace or make so great a difference that we should put our
work above our happiness, family, etc... I whole-heartedly agreed, but that attitude also meant his people lacked the
drive necessary to compete. The business fell on hard times a few years later and I wondered if everyone leaving
promptly at 5PM contributed to it. I often work 50-70 hours OTJ. Some of that time may be research/reading or
documenting or catching up on correspondence. But a fair amount of time each week is spent staying abreast of
the tech I utilize, homework as it were..
The only thing that makes it passably acceptable for me to do is that my work is performance-based and not on a clock.
I telework. I have flex-time. Work is results-oriented.
Whether being old or lazy, it makes no difference. This field demands staying abreast of what's comming down the
pipeline and anyone who is incapable of doing their 'homework' will either find a low ceiling, career-wise, or
move on.
What I find unfortunate is that the perception of IT is that old people don't get it.
IT, the internet and specially the web, has become marketing driven; which is always a youth culture.
Sure, there is a measure of truth to believing that old-hands don't get the cutting edges,
but we oldsters have a lot to bring to the table if we can all leave our own biases at the door.
Strangely, now that I'm contracting, my only contact with people is online. They have no idea how old I am
as our cyber-relations are 'age-neutral'. I think it makes for a more pleasant experience all around.
Anyhow, good luck in your persuits:)
Despite McCains' myth being waaay larger than the man, the fact that he crashed almost every plane he ever
flew, purportedly blocked investigations into MIA's, his involvement in the S-n-L scandals, etc..
I still really have some regard for this man.
I just suspect that, despite being a pol for as long as he has, McCain in 2008 suffered from the perfect
storm of a) trusting poor advice and b) his own weaknesses for not standing on his own principals but those
of party loyality.
Toward the end, I just don't think his heart was in this and he was just going through the motions.
It was most apparent on SNL and I think he will find that his loyalty makes a scape-goat for his party in the end. I just don't think it was un-bridled ambition that drove him to take and flip-flop on all his
positions; though i could be wrong.
That said, I'm really glad he lost.
Forgive the hasty construction of this wordy reply, but
you know, I share a lot of your feelings with regard to the importance of constitutional values,
which should include domestic spying, posse comitatus, habeous corpus the right to legal counsel before being
extraordinarily rended, etc..
I also feel that there were 3rd party candidates who stood on better principals than BObama.
That said, and after seeing him speak tues night, i realized a number of things:
=>None of the 3rd party candidates have the stature and gravitas that BObama has; which, among
other things, is what it takes to be electable.
=>Though I share your anger and disappointment regarding his position on
the telecom immunity vote, the issue did not hold enough mainstream interest to make it a core
issue upon which to do battle. BObama probably made the correct decision:
which was to leave open future legal recourse and move on to getting elected.
Now that he's actually in office, i can only hope that he'll to do an "LBJ",
which is basically thwarting the special interests of those that put you into power.
In the case of LBJ, it was his vision of civil rights and the 'great society', which was anathema
to the texans that supported and endorsed him. In the case of BObama, it will be the
corporations and lobbyists that funded his war-chest. If wishes were fishes...
Also, as i stated in an earlier post related to the dems not persuing criminal charges against
those in the executive who believed themselves to be above the law; my hope is that they correctly
knew that the house was too-divided and their strategy in not persuing impeachment then
will now give them the opportunity to do so.
Impeachment proceedings would have been a major distraction and in all probability have failed.
Letting history be the judge, waiting for GWB to leave office (pardons and all), then
going after the corrupt was the saner option. I can only hope it's still on the table.
I really like your idea, even sofar as using port 443!
Using lynx, or a CLI like wget or curl would eliminate the need for a GUI as well
i'm pessimistic that justice will be served; but i'm holding on to the hope that
the dems realized that any pursuit of this while GWB is in office would
result in massive pardons at the end of his term, providing they failed
to impeach him as well due to the abundance of repubs in the house.
Post-election, with a majority of dems and with GWB long-gone, they could
be more effective in getting the guilty into the dock, including GWB hisself.
Just a hope.
not to try and simplify a complex rationale, but the reason GWB decided to invade iraq
was that he was told that Al Qaeda could not be defeated (w/DR's slimmed-down army)
in Afghanistan because of the terrain. Which has proven itself to be a fact, just as the
Russians experienced.
He was lead to believe that a US presence in iraq would instead draw the enemy to the desert, where
they could be defeated more easily. Of course, who could know that it would result in
house-to-house urban warfare instead?
after reading the posts to this thread, including yours, a half-step
remedy seems obvious:
my email to rep. salazar on the ethics committee:
In light of the conviction of Ted Stevens, do you think it may be possible to get enough votes in the senate to rescind a representatives' seniority if they are convicted of a crime?
My proposition seems only reasonable and is a common-sense approach to the fact that someone
can both serve office while at the same time being convicted while still in office; despite not having
a 2/3'ds majority to be thrown out.
It would also stem the (remote) possibility of his winning re-election
based solely on his ability to bring home the pork to alaskans.