Ignore me if what I'm suggesting already exists, but could a page be posted containing the existing icons so that if someone does have the motivation to recreate 153 icons they can? If it does exist... perhaps a link?
I own a smart fortwo. I've got a 170km commute each day, about 110 mins of secondary highway driving and 40 mins of city driving.
I can get 60 US MPG with minimal effort. When fuel prices (smart takes diesel) start creeping upward I start driving a bit more cautiously and I've yielded tanks over 70 US MPG.
There's a guy here in Canada who yielded almost 85 US MPG.
Back to emissions, in Canada there was a government funded program called the One Tonne Challenge. Challenging Canadians to reduce their greenhouse emissions by one tonne. There was a calculator where you could calculate your current emissions and your reductions.
In the above calculator I input the information from my last vehicle and my current vehicle and I'm saving almost 16 tonnes of GHG/year in my smart. I'm happier about that than I am about the $300+ I am saving on fuel/month.
The way I see it, if you were to take a kid who lit up his school did so after playing GTA a lot and went back in time and removed GTA from his scenario... something else would take its place.
If someone is mentally weak enough to not be able to draw the line between cartoon/video violence and real-life then *something* at *some point* will set them off. Mentally stable people don't light up their school or place of work. The unstable do and if it's not the video game that sets such things in motion, it'd be something else.
Homosexuality isn't a form of sexual conduct. It's a sexual preference. Anal sex is sexual conduct. Oral sex is sexual conduct. A Dirty Sanchez is sexual (mis)conduct.
Homosexuality is no more a form of sexual conduct than heterosexuality is, the latter of which appears to be missing.
That's purely prejudicial to include one and not the other. A homosexual character in a game makes it illegal to sell to minors? Please.
I've seen more free shows than I can shake a stick at. And not free shows as in a local garage band, but bands that are/were fairly popular (at least here in Canada) and whose music I quite enjoy.
Finger 11 (when they were known as the Rainbow Butt Monkeys), David Wilcox, Kim Mitchell, 54-40, The Tea Party and Big Sugar are among the more well-known names (at least to Canadians:D) that I have seen for free.
I've also seen other great acts for $10-$30 in small(er/ish) clubs -- Primus, Tom Waits, Dream Theater, Thornley and Grady, to name a few.
Jesus Christ himself could fall from the heavens and join Tool and I wouldn't spend $250 to go see the show.
As do I, however as long as people choose to pay someone $80 to install RAM in their systems it's a safe bet that they're not in the market to build their own.
It's those people that such a market for Dell/HP/etc. even exists.
My buddy bought some RAM for his computer not long ago and had the shop install it. When he told me how much it cost him I damn near shit my pants. When I opened up his computer and *showed* him what they did for that money, he followed my lead.
There's this impression that *anything* that involves opening the side of your case requires some uber-costly uber-expertise and people are more than willing to part with that money to not have to undertake the task themselves.
I'm not saying that building your own system from scratch is as easy as plugging in a couple of sticks of RAM, but nor is it requisite that you must know how to split atoms, either.
Plus, there are people who'd rather spend $500 on a new computer with questionable parts so long as it comes with a warranty rather than the inflated costs that can be incurred from buying each individual part on your own and taking the time to assemble them. It's just not worth some people's time to have that much control over their systems.
Me? I prefer that control, but I (as well as many/.ers) am/are among the tiniest of minorities in that regard.
I think the Linux adoption will continue to be slow. I've got Ubuntu running on my laptop that I use at work. I was running it with KDE at work last week. It's got a snazzy desktop, nice icon theme and one of my co-workers strolled into my office to ask me a question, noticed my screen and asked how I got Windows to look like that. I told him it was Linux. And that it was free... as was all of the software that I have on it. I showed him OOo, Firefox and the FirstClass client (uck, I hate FirstClass, but that's what we use) and he was shocked that there was an alternative to Windows. He's interested.
So people will see someone using something other than Windows. It will look nice (especially with Xgl), will be free and someone will see it and be interested in it. They might try it. Then someone else will see their system and be interested... and so on.
It's slow. But I think that that's the way it's going to happen if it happens at all. The smallest fraction of Windows users even have a clue that anything else exists. And I would say that Linux is capable of handling Joe Home-User's computing needs quite well.
My parents are using Ubuntu. I set it up. I got it working. All they do is keep it updated when it prompts them. It browses the internet just fine. It IMs just fine. OOo does everything my dad needs and they've not been happier.
Well I know for a fact that the health unit in the county that I work for has smoking cessation groups already. I've heard recently about the free patches and nicotine supplements just recently, so that could still not happen. But it sounded pretty certain, so who knows.
And I did some looking on that 13% statistic. I believe that figure was for teens. As I found this and it looks like we'll have to meet in the middle. It claims 20% of Ontarians ages 15 and up are smokers as of 2003.
But do keep an eye out for the health units offering the nicotine replacements if you are interested. Or call them to find out if it's in the works.
I know that there are health units in Ontario that offer smoking cessation "classes" where those wishing to quit go for tips and share experiences. Sort of like an AA group without the 12 steps.
There's also a rumour that the health units in Ontario will soon start offering free patches and nicotine replacements to those wishing to quit.
So there is some help there for them and there is more coming.
The good news is that today (at least in Ontario) fewer teens are starting to smoke and more people are successfully quitting. I believe the last percentage I heard was down to something like 13% of Ontarians are smokers. Not too bad. Although it seems like I'm friends with all of that 13% which makes it doubly hard to quit.
Zyban, a fanfrickin'tastic smoking cessation pill, is simply remarketed Welbutrin. Welbutrin is an anti-depressant.
It seems that they discovered many of the smokers taking Welbutrin reported a marked decrease in cigarette cravings. Now you can buy the *exact* same drug with a different colour coating and a different name to help you quit smoking.
I have taken it. I was doing well, until a death in the family (non-cancer or smoking-related) buggered me up. Pathetic excuse, I know.
But while I was on Zyban I would literally go hours (unheard of any other time) without even thinking about a cigarette. It's really something else.
Yes. It's all *very* dead pan. Makes for great satire, that's for sure. And doubly so, especially with the Linux article you linked to, it's pretty truthful, really, combined with the dry wit of it makes it believable.
She has never sent an email, she has never typed an instant message, she has never even been online in her entire life. ...
Since I wasn't sure if grandma Helen planned on getting under the hood of the boot process at all, I decided to install a boot switcher so she could choose between Lilo or Grub each time. ...
I set her up with three user partitions across each of the three disks, one using ReiserFS, one with the venerable Ext3, and one with SGI XFS in case she gets into downloading movies and large warez. ...
I set up X-Chat to connect her to my favorite IRC network for warez, and as a courtesy I installed WineX so she can run Windows games if she wants. ...
She can watch DVDs with Mplayer as long as she remembers to use the ++dvd flag when she compiles it. ...
I'm not sure if System 7.5 can talk to Samba very well, but if she wants to patch the old Macintosh LC into her LAN she can probably h4xx0r something together in the smb.conf file.
...and the list goes on. If that site isn't satire, I'd give up a year salary.
I'm pretty sure that that site is completely satirical in nature.
Check out the other articles.
On the Mac Mini: So is the mini a maxi value? For me, clearly, no. When I consider that a good deal of my time is spent running applications like Disk Defragmenter, Scandisk, Norton AV, Windows Update and Ad-Aware--none of which are available for the Mac platform--it doesn't make sense for me to "switch" to a Mac at this time. But will Apple's famous marketing team be able to sell the the emperor an invisible computer anyway and turn the mini into a maxi hit? That's the question that remains to be answered.
On the threat of small vehicles: Let me start by saying that something has been bothering me on the freeway lately. Actually, it's been bothering me on the city streets, too. And in the parking lot. These things seem to be multiplying like rats, appearing everywhere, getting in the way, making driving difficult. I'm talking specifically about that modern urban blight professional mothers like myself have to deal with every single day -- small cars taking up the road.
On Bush's last budget cuts: Enter President Bush's bold new budget proposal, which will cut the administration's staggering budget deficit from $427 billion for the current fiscal year down to a much more reasonable $390 billion for 2006. "We're asking for Congress to cut and/or reduce 150 different programs," Bush told reporters yesterday. Many of the programs that will face cuts are useless to average Americans, such as grants for vocational education and community development, or obsolete relics of the 1800s, like the subsidies paid to American farmers. Seriously, who farms anymore? Last time I checked, we're in 2005, and people get their food from the grocery store. If there still were such a thing as American farmers, I highly doubt all those heartland states would have voted Republican.
I think it's "so special" because it "just works" better than any other distro that I've tried. And just about every enhancement or add-on that I wanted to implement on my install was found as a HOWTO in the Ubuntu forums. Add to that the fact that whenever I've run into a problem, the folks in said forums are *by far* the most friendly and helpful of any linux help forum I've visisted.
Ubuntu might not be "so special" for Linux veterans who are fine with compiling their own kernels and drivers and whatever else might be old hat for them, but it certainly is for Mom and Dad who can't keep Windows running well for the life of them without a regular "Windows Maintenance Format".
I installed Ubuntu on an old machine before handing it over to them to be able to keep in touch with myself and my sister who moved overseas. They've had it for a couple of months now and have not had to once call me and ask me why such-and-such keeps crashing or why after a couple of hours of being left on their computer grinds to a halt.
For all of those who dream of the Desktop Read Linux... Ubuntu is easily the closest thing that I have seen to it. That is what makes it special. It's not perfect, and it's not there yet, but it's the best effort thus far as far as I'm concerned.
I purchased a Dell about 8 years ago before I was able to build my own.
It's still running with all of the original hardware still functioning. The power supply is certainly weak, but I was never jamming video cards in there that required a 500W PS so that was of little concern.
I have added hard drives to it and beefed up the RAM to as much as that particular machine can handle without problems.
The computer now belongs to my dad and has been serving him well.
Obviously, not everyone is as lucky with their purchases. There will be some with a story similar to yours, some with a story similar to mine and many many more in between.
In university I was getting drunk nightly and adding a cool 23kg (~50 lbs) to my frame through a rigid diet of pizza-shop-across-the-street, taco-bell-on-campus, the-munchies and 20-cent-wing-nights.
It almost makes me feel like I wasted those years of my life. I said almost...
One wonders where the public will draw the line. Reminds me of the recent Boston Legal monologue from the epsidoe "Stick It" where the lawyer (who gives the following monologue) is defending a woman against tax evasion charges. I find it very apt:
When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn't.
Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.
Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.
And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't.
In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial - or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.
There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people seem to notice.
Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential appearance, but we've lost the right to that as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest.
Stop for a second and try to fathom that.
At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.
This, in the United States of America. This in the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed?
That'd be great if there was a significant portion of AT&T customers who know that this is going on. My money is on but a miniscule fraction of their customer base having any idea a) that it's going on or b) why they should give a shit. I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who subscribe to the "If you've got nothing to hide then you've got nothing to worry about" mantra.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks! Much appreciated.
Ignore me if what I'm suggesting already exists, but could a page be posted containing the existing icons so that if someone does have the motivation to recreate 153 icons they can? If it does exist... perhaps a link?
I own a smart fortwo. I've got a 170km commute each day, about 110 mins of secondary highway driving and 40 mins of city driving.
I can get 60 US MPG with minimal effort. When fuel prices (smart takes diesel) start creeping upward I start driving a bit more cautiously and I've yielded tanks over 70 US MPG.
There's a guy here in Canada who yielded almost 85 US MPG.
Back to emissions, in Canada there was a government funded program called the One Tonne Challenge. Challenging Canadians to reduce their greenhouse emissions by one tonne. There was a calculator where you could calculate your current emissions and your reductions.
In the above calculator I input the information from my last vehicle and my current vehicle and I'm saving almost 16 tonnes of GHG/year in my smart. I'm happier about that than I am about the $300+ I am saving on fuel/month.
The way I see it, if you were to take a kid who lit up his school did so after playing GTA a lot and went back in time and removed GTA from his scenario... something else would take its place.
If someone is mentally weak enough to not be able to draw the line between cartoon/video violence and real-life then *something* at *some point* will set them off. Mentally stable people don't light up their school or place of work. The unstable do and if it's not the video game that sets such things in motion, it'd be something else.
Homosexuality isn't a form of sexual conduct. It's a sexual preference. Anal sex is sexual conduct. Oral sex is sexual conduct. A Dirty Sanchez is sexual (mis)conduct.
Homosexuality is no more a form of sexual conduct than heterosexuality is, the latter of which appears to be missing.
That's purely prejudicial to include one and not the other. A homosexual character in a game makes it illegal to sell to minors? Please.
You've got a brighter outlook on current events than I.
I've seen more free shows than I can shake a stick at. And not free shows as in a local garage band, but bands that are/were fairly popular (at least here in Canada) and whose music I quite enjoy.
:D) that I have seen for free.
Finger 11 (when they were known as the Rainbow Butt Monkeys), David Wilcox, Kim Mitchell, 54-40, The Tea Party and Big Sugar are among the more well-known names (at least to Canadians
I've also seen other great acts for $10-$30 in small(er/ish) clubs -- Primus, Tom Waits, Dream Theater, Thornley and Grady, to name a few.
Jesus Christ himself could fall from the heavens and join Tool and I wouldn't spend $250 to go see the show.
In all fairness, if there were 1000 unix workstations in a place of business, I think it's fair to say there'd be more than one admin.
There's ONE Unix admin because there's far fewer servers than workstations.
As do I, however as long as people choose to pay someone $80 to install RAM in their systems it's a safe bet that they're not in the market to build their own.
It's those people that such a market for Dell/HP/etc. even exists.
My buddy bought some RAM for his computer not long ago and had the shop install it. When he told me how much it cost him I damn near shit my pants. When I opened up his computer and *showed* him what they did for that money, he followed my lead.
There's this impression that *anything* that involves opening the side of your case requires some uber-costly uber-expertise and people are more than willing to part with that money to not have to undertake the task themselves.
I'm not saying that building your own system from scratch is as easy as plugging in a couple of sticks of RAM, but nor is it requisite that you must know how to split atoms, either.
Plus, there are people who'd rather spend $500 on a new computer with questionable parts so long as it comes with a warranty rather than the inflated costs that can be incurred from buying each individual part on your own and taking the time to assemble them. It's just not worth some people's time to have that much control over their systems.
Me? I prefer that control, but I (as well as many /.ers) am/are among the tiniest of minorities in that regard.
If that was a multiple choice question, I choose (a).
...and streaming content, and online credit card transactions...
Same here. And I do it for every new system that we install at work as well.
I started doing it when I put XP on an older machine and found it greatly improved performace and now it's just habit.
But Macs are far from free.
I think the Linux adoption will continue to be slow. I've got Ubuntu running on my laptop that I use at work. I was running it with KDE at work last week. It's got a snazzy desktop, nice icon theme and one of my co-workers strolled into my office to ask me a question, noticed my screen and asked how I got Windows to look like that. I told him it was Linux. And that it was free... as was all of the software that I have on it. I showed him OOo, Firefox and the FirstClass client (uck, I hate FirstClass, but that's what we use) and he was shocked that there was an alternative to Windows. He's interested.
So people will see someone using something other than Windows. It will look nice (especially with Xgl), will be free and someone will see it and be interested in it. They might try it. Then someone else will see their system and be interested... and so on.
It's slow. But I think that that's the way it's going to happen if it happens at all. The smallest fraction of Windows users even have a clue that anything else exists. And I would say that Linux is capable of handling Joe Home-User's computing needs quite well.
My parents are using Ubuntu. I set it up. I got it working. All they do is keep it updated when it prompts them. It browses the internet just fine. It IMs just fine. OOo does everything my dad needs and they've not been happier.
Well I know for a fact that the health unit in the county that I work for has smoking cessation groups already. I've heard recently about the free patches and nicotine supplements just recently, so that could still not happen. But it sounded pretty certain, so who knows.
And I did some looking on that 13% statistic. I believe that figure was for teens. As I found this and it looks like we'll have to meet in the middle. It claims 20% of Ontarians ages 15 and up are smokers as of 2003.
But do keep an eye out for the health units offering the nicotine replacements if you are interested. Or call them to find out if it's in the works.
I know that there are health units in Ontario that offer smoking cessation "classes" where those wishing to quit go for tips and share experiences. Sort of like an AA group without the 12 steps.
There's also a rumour that the health units in Ontario will soon start offering free patches and nicotine replacements to those wishing to quit.
So there is some help there for them and there is more coming.
The good news is that today (at least in Ontario) fewer teens are starting to smoke and more people are successfully quitting. I believe the last percentage I heard was down to something like 13% of Ontarians are smokers. Not too bad. Although it seems like I'm friends with all of that 13% which makes it doubly hard to quit.
ADHD medication? No. Depression medication? Yes.
Zyban, a fanfrickin'tastic smoking cessation pill, is simply remarketed Welbutrin. Welbutrin is an anti-depressant.
It seems that they discovered many of the smokers taking Welbutrin reported a marked decrease in cigarette cravings. Now you can buy the *exact* same drug with a different colour coating and a different name to help you quit smoking.
I have taken it. I was doing well, until a death in the family (non-cancer or smoking-related) buggered me up. Pathetic excuse, I know.
But while I was on Zyban I would literally go hours (unheard of any other time) without even thinking about a cigarette. It's really something else.
Yes. It's all *very* dead pan. Makes for great satire, that's for sure. And doubly so, especially with the Linux article you linked to, it's pretty truthful, really, combined with the dry wit of it makes it believable.
I'm pretty sure that's satire.
...and the list goes on. If that site isn't satire, I'd give up a year salary.
I'm pretty sure that that site is completely satirical in nature.
Check out the other articles.
On the Mac Mini: So is the mini a maxi value? For me, clearly, no. When I consider that a good deal of my time is spent running applications like Disk Defragmenter, Scandisk, Norton AV, Windows Update and Ad-Aware--none of which are available for the Mac platform--it doesn't make sense for me to "switch" to a Mac at this time. But will Apple's famous marketing team be able to sell the the emperor an invisible computer anyway and turn the mini into a maxi hit? That's the question that remains to be answered.
On the threat of small vehicles: Let me start by saying that something has been bothering me on the freeway lately. Actually, it's been bothering me on the city streets, too. And in the parking lot. These things seem to be multiplying like rats, appearing everywhere, getting in the way, making driving difficult. I'm talking specifically about that modern urban blight professional mothers like myself have to deal with every single day -- small cars taking up the road.
On Bush's last budget cuts: Enter President Bush's bold new budget proposal, which will cut the administration's staggering budget deficit from $427 billion for the current fiscal year down to a much more reasonable $390 billion for 2006. "We're asking for Congress to cut and/or reduce 150 different programs," Bush told reporters yesterday. Many of the programs that will face cuts are useless to average Americans, such as grants for vocational education and community development, or obsolete relics of the 1800s, like the subsidies paid to American farmers. Seriously, who farms anymore? Last time I checked, we're in 2005, and people get their food from the grocery store. If there still were such a thing as American farmers, I highly doubt all those heartland states would have voted Republican.
I think it's "so special" because it "just works" better than any other distro that I've tried. And just about every enhancement or add-on that I wanted to implement on my install was found as a HOWTO in the Ubuntu forums. Add to that the fact that whenever I've run into a problem, the folks in said forums are *by far* the most friendly and helpful of any linux help forum I've visisted.
Ubuntu might not be "so special" for Linux veterans who are fine with compiling their own kernels and drivers and whatever else might be old hat for them, but it certainly is for Mom and Dad who can't keep Windows running well for the life of them without a regular "Windows Maintenance Format".
I installed Ubuntu on an old machine before handing it over to them to be able to keep in touch with myself and my sister who moved overseas. They've had it for a couple of months now and have not had to once call me and ask me why such-and-such keeps crashing or why after a couple of hours of being left on their computer grinds to a halt.
For all of those who dream of the Desktop Read Linux... Ubuntu is easily the closest thing that I have seen to it. That is what makes it special. It's not perfect, and it's not there yet, but it's the best effort thus far as far as I'm concerned.
I purchased a Dell about 8 years ago before I was able to build my own.
It's still running with all of the original hardware still functioning. The power supply is certainly weak, but I was never jamming video cards in there that required a 500W PS so that was of little concern.
I have added hard drives to it and beefed up the RAM to as much as that particular machine can handle without problems.
The computer now belongs to my dad and has been serving him well.
Obviously, not everyone is as lucky with their purchases. There will be some with a story similar to yours, some with a story similar to mine and many many more in between.
In university I was getting drunk nightly and adding a cool 23kg (~50 lbs) to my frame through a rigid diet of pizza-shop-across-the-street, taco-bell-on-campus, the-munchies and 20-cent-wing-nights.
It almost makes me feel like I wasted those years of my life. I said almost...
One wonders where the public will draw the line. Reminds me of the recent Boston Legal monologue from the epsidoe "Stick It" where the lawyer (who gives the following monologue) is defending a woman against tax evasion charges. I find it very apt:
When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn't.
Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.
Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.
And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't.
In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial - or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.
There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people seem to notice.
Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential appearance, but we've lost the right to that as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest.
Stop for a second and try to fathom that.
At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.
This, in the United States of America. This in the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed?
That'd be great if there was a significant portion of AT&T customers who know that this is going on. My money is on but a miniscule fraction of their customer base having any idea a) that it's going on or b) why they should give a shit. I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who subscribe to the "If you've got nothing to hide then you've got nothing to worry about" mantra.