In a lot of the responses to these articles I am seeing people reinforcing the line between "normals" and "geeks", "Them" and "Us" by bitching about their lack of understanding of our culture, or our "ways", of the things that get us through and help us learn and survive in a largely hostile world.
While the sentiments are understandable, given the backlash that we are experiencing, not only in America but all over the world but is is not really constructive. Reinforcing the division between "us" and "them" is just helping them build the wall up against which they will eventually march us.
When Bruce Lee came to America from Hong-Kong, he didn't come to start a martial arts school, he came to build a life but the intolerance and misunderstanding he experienced when he got here pushed him into starting his martial arts school. When he did this not only did he get intolerance and misunderstanding from Americans, but also from the Chineese community at the time who didn't approve of the arts being tought to the "Gwailo". He ended up fighting for his right to teach, but not simply for his right to teach but for his right to educate people who would listen about the beauty of his culture, that the Chinese were not something to be feared, and that they could coexist, that there was beauty on both of their sides of the wall.
This is the kind of situation we find ourselves in today, we can retreat behind our wall and leave the "normals" their McJobs and end up rotting away in front of our terminals, with nothing left except for letters on the screen and voices on the other end of the cellphone. Alternatively we can get up and show them that we are not something to be feared, that there is beauty in what we do, even that there is a kind of beauty to be found in a good gibbing now and then. And maybe then they will start to understand us a little better, but it will never happen unless we make the effort to understand them too.
This is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be written about the Colorado massacres. I just think it's a bit of a shame that we can't get columns like this into all the paper media.
School can be hell. I think most of us know this on some level. I didn't go to school in America, I went to school in New Zealand and every day I experienced the same thing, the nasty comments, the abuse (both verbal and physical). I remember one day when four successive people walked past me and simply spat on me for no other reason than that I wasn't a conformist, I wasn't popular. I wasn't like them and what they don't understand they fear.
The administration of my school, Riccarton High, in Christchurch, New Zealand, did nothing to stop this. What can you do when one of the people who teases you is the pricipals son and one of the people who spits on you as they walk past is the Deans son? Nothing, because you are different and they simply don't care and won't take the time to understand.
The experiences I had a school almost made me leave, there were entire mothns when I didn't show up to shcool because I couldn't bear the thought of what would happen when I got there. I ended up in deep depression and in counselling for a couple of years after that.
My only satisfaction comes from the fact that now I'm 23 years old and earning more than most of my teachers and have a hell of a lot more prospect that most of my fellow pupils, they may have been half-decent atheletes but they'll get old and slow and fat and I'll be sitting behind my terminal making their porn connection work.
To everyone out there who is getting hell at school, bear with it. Let it flow past you and get on with your life. It will be the one of the hardest things you have to do but if you get through it and don't let them break you then you will win.
We are not misfits, we are not dorks, we certainly aren't idiots. We are Morlocks and we will be the ones who make their world work when our time comes around.
What have RedHat themselves got to say about this?
on
Red Hat to ignore LSB?
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· Score: 1
I'm sure that there are at least several Red Hat employees who read/. What chance of an official word direct from them to us, the masses?
The company I work for in New Zealand Ihug has been offering pretty much the same thing for a year or so now. It's called StarNet. 500Kbps incoming link from a small sattelite dish, uplink via modem. It works with Linux and Windows. And can be used to route lans, schools, small ISPs, pretty much anything, depending on the setup you get.
Slashdot Mirror
In a lot of the responses to these articles I am seeing people reinforcing the line between "normals" and "geeks", "Them" and "Us" by bitching about their lack of understanding of our culture, or our "ways", of the things that get us through and help us learn and survive in a largely hostile world.
While the sentiments are understandable, given the backlash that we are experiencing, not only in America but all over the world but is is not really constructive. Reinforcing the division between "us" and "them" is just helping them build the wall up against which they will eventually march us.
When Bruce Lee came to America from Hong-Kong, he didn't come to start a martial arts school, he came to build a life but the intolerance and misunderstanding he experienced when he got here pushed him into starting his martial arts school. When he did this not only did he get intolerance and misunderstanding from Americans, but also from the Chineese community at the time who didn't approve of the arts being tought to the "Gwailo". He ended up fighting for his right to teach, but not simply for his right to teach but for his right to educate people who would listen about the beauty of his culture, that the Chinese were not something to be feared, and that they could coexist, that there was beauty on both of their sides of the wall.
This is the kind of situation we find ourselves in today, we can retreat behind our wall and leave the "normals" their McJobs and end up rotting away in front of our terminals, with nothing left except for letters on the screen and voices on the other end of the cellphone. Alternatively we can get up and show them that we are not something to be feared, that there is beauty in what we do, even that there is a kind of beauty to be found in a good gibbing now and then. And maybe then they will start to understand us a little better, but it will never happen unless we make the effort to understand them too.
This is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be written about the Colorado massacres. I just think it's a bit of a shame that we can't get columns like this into all the paper media.
School can be hell. I think most of us know this on some level. I didn't go to school in America, I went to school in New Zealand and every day I experienced the same thing, the nasty comments, the abuse (both verbal and physical). I remember one day when four successive people walked past me and simply spat on me for no other reason than that I wasn't a conformist, I wasn't popular. I wasn't like them and what they don't understand they fear.
The administration of my school, Riccarton High, in Christchurch, New Zealand, did nothing to stop this. What can you do when one of the people who teases you is the pricipals son and one of the people who spits on you as they walk past is the Deans son? Nothing, because you are different and they simply don't care and won't take the time to understand.
The experiences I had a school almost made me leave, there were entire mothns when I didn't show up to shcool because I couldn't bear the thought of what would happen when I got there. I ended up in deep depression and in counselling for a couple of years after that.
My only satisfaction comes from the fact that now I'm 23 years old and earning more than most of my teachers and have a hell of a lot more prospect that most of my fellow pupils, they may have been half-decent atheletes but they'll get old and slow and fat and I'll be sitting behind my terminal making their porn connection work.
To everyone out there who is getting hell at school, bear with it. Let it flow past you and get on with your life. It will be the one of the hardest things you have to do but if you get through it and don't let them break you then you will win.
We are not misfits, we are not dorks, we certainly aren't idiots. We are Morlocks and we will be the ones who make their world work when our time comes around.
I'm sure that there are at least several Red Hat employees who read /. What chance of an official word direct from them to us, the masses?
The company I work for in New Zealand Ihug has been offering pretty much the same thing for a year or so now. It's called StarNet. 500Kbps incoming link from a small sattelite dish, uplink via modem. It works with Linux and Windows. And can be used to route lans, schools, small ISPs, pretty much anything, depending on the setup you get.
Silver