Sometimes I wonder the mindset that even goes into creating something like this. I'll admit that when I was a middle-school aged kid, i thought that "computer hackers" were cool. Now, however, I just sort of wonder --
even if information wants to be free, wtf am I supposed to do with it?
"Fone Phreaking" I saw a benefit to, and its something that I took an interest in.
Trying to hijack computers and stuff -- why bother? Unless I'm doing it to be a dick to someone, just why? I can understand if mobster types are trying to do a virtual bank robbery, but this is just sorta gay.
I can see why a 13-14 year old little dipshit might want to use it, but it's pretty clear that they someone that age wouldn't have invented the technique. So, my question really is - what sort of mal-adjusted dickhead would come up with something like this, wrap it in nice little scriptkiddy packaging, and make it available to lazy little vandals that got "dissed" on myspace?
No, Exherbare means "to weed" - Exherbo means I weed or I am weeding -- apparently also "I'm so high right now, i have no idea what making I apparently think that "Distribution" means "hoarding it all to myself, but gloating about it trying to make people jealous, but failing miserably.""
But, this book *IS* the FM... so, you're just accomplishing the goal of the advice from the IRC line, without giving them the pleasure of being the one to tell you...
This whole article wreaks of preemptive RTFM snobbery.
I would venture to guess that an electrical engineer (I am not one) would be able to write more competent code than someone who only knows "how to program," particularly in a super high-level language.
I've only just started messing with C again after a long while. I'll probably want to learn assembler or verilog as well.
My argument, however, is mostly about how we are creating a situation in which future generations are likely to become so dependent on high-level tools that the number of people who are qualified to create those tools are going to dwindle. And its not even really about software development, per se.
Its the old argument, "why remember what I can look up?" extruded to "why do by hand what i can do with the calculator," "why build what i can buy," etc.
The course of human development has largely been in search of answers to two questions: "if i'm down here, how can i get what's up there," and "man - that was hard. how can i automate it so that I don't have to do it anymore."
However, our schools seem to be skipping over teaching the "how do i get whats up there" (say, drawing a graph or working out an equation by hand), skipping "how did i automate that," stipulating "that was hard," and teaching the kids the tool that makes sure they won't have to actually do stuff.
Its making us lazy, fat and bandy. its double-plus ungood. I'm all for using tools to make your life easier once you know how to do something -- its why I started messing with programming in the first place - figure out how to do a math operation, then write a program to do it for me. however, its unacceptable to skip the "figure it out" part.
I always loved Bio more than physics, so I'm not really talking from any previous experience here -- I did intern as a C programmer at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility out of high school, though.
At my first undergrad institution, I could have taken "Calculus with MATLAB" and relied on the CAS to do everything for me if I so chose, and that's the sort of thing which quite frankly, we should all be able to to agree is b.s.
Yes, I have heard of it. However, it's hardly a Quad Xenon workstation, is it? That's still just part of what I'm talking about. Their computers took up rooms (on the small side), and were less powerful than some calculators today.
It's like when Wheeler died and he was called "one of the last great titans of physics." One fellow slashdotter called this an unfair characterization as it is unfairly biased against the people who are doing work today, which he sees as no less important, comparing it to if say, Linus Torvalds were to die and was called one the "last great titans of computing."
The best computers they had available when they were designing the bomb were like UNIVAC. They had to do their math by hand, and much of their calculations were largely based on assumptions. These days the computer does a lot of the work and doing things by hand is for "suckers."
Comparing Wheeler to Linus is absurd. It'd have been more poinignt to compare Wheeler to Grace Hopper or someone, frankly.
That's just my two cents though. Your exchange rate my vary.
In the 7th grade I left my calculator at home one day when I had a math test. I did, however, have a Jepsen Flight Computer (a circular slide rule) that my dad (a commercial airline pilot) had given me, because I was going to a flying lesson after school.
I whipped out my trusty slide rule and commenced to using it. The teacher wanted to confiscate it and thought that I was cheating with some sort of high-tech device... mind you it was just plastic and cardboard. I'm sure you've all seen one before.
I'm only just about to turn 24, so 7th grade was not long ago for me.
The point is, students should be required to know how to do things by hand. a PhD in physics 20 years ago clearly knew how to do calculus by hand. if he wants to use a Ti-92 to do it now, that's his business. Good that those aren't allowed in class (even if they are allowed on the SAT and AP exams, well the ti-89 is).
Intro to comp sci shouldn't be taught with Java any more than elementary school math should be "intro to the calculator." You just cripple people's minds that way.
I ended up getting a BA in English the first time around because of personal reasons I was too messed up to concentrate on maths. I'm now starting to take a 2nd degree in MechE - and I'm making a good faith effort to do as much by hand as possible, because I don't want to fuck something up in the future because I figured the calculator was giving me a right answer and I had no idea of where the proper answer should be.
summary: using a tool to check your answer is one thing. Relying on it to get the answer in the first place is lazy, stupid, and potentially dangerous.
I'll probably get modded to hell for asking but seriously -- all these new trends, tools, etc - are they not just crutches, which in the long run are seriously going to diminish the quality of output by programmers?
For instance, we put men on the moon with a pencil and a slide rule. Now no one would dream of taking a high school math class with anything less than a TI-83+.
Languages like Java and C# are being hailed while languages like C are derided and many posts here on slashdot call it outmoded and say it should be done away with, yet Java and C# are built using C.
It seems to me that there is no substitute for actually knowing how things work at the most basic level and doing them by hand. Can a tool like Lint help? Yes. Will it catch everything? Likely not.
As generations of kids grow up with the automation made by generations who came before, and have less incentive to learn how the basic tools work, an incentive which will diminish, approaching 0, I think we're in for something bad.
As much as people bitch about kids who were spoiled by BASIC, you'd think that they'd also complain about all the other spoilers. Someday all this new, fancy stuff could break and someone who only knows Java, and even then checks all their source with automated tools will likely not be able to fix it.
Of course, this is more of just a general criticism and something I've been thinking about for a few weeks now. Anyway, carry on.
I'll be 24 in a month, but have been using some varient of UNIX since I was 12 or 13. For half my life, my computer has either run FreeBSD or Linux (Slackware, RedHat, and lately LinuxMint because the only computer i have with me here right now is a Dell d830 and I'm absolutely reliant on Wifi and too lazy to cut firmware by hand), often in dual-boot, though I have occasionally been forced to use windows machines of opportunity. I also had a G4 iBook for a while, but I gave it to my sister because it pissed me off.
There has been a MARKED improvement in being able to plop my ass down and just do "windows" things on Linux in the past few years, however quite frankly I find it somewhat less usable than I did when I was in jr. high.
I used to have these incredibly elaborate.Xdefaults,.tcshrc,.bashrc,.dircolors and.vimrc files, which are now pretty much useless.
I haven't been able to get ANSI fonts like Nexus to work in Eterm and display colored BASH prompts properly since Red Hat 6.0.
Everything has some GUI interface to it now that rights configuration files in some way that I never would have had I been doing it by hand and then I'm afraid to do a hand edit, because something usually ends up breaking.
Frankly, it seems like the push in the last 5 years especially has been to try and make a free ripoff of Windows that isn't Windows and then try and get "average computer users" to switch, for some reason which isn't even clear to me -- so why it would be to them, I have not clue.
In 8th grade I was captain of my school's BASIC programing team to the Great Computer Challenge at ODU university (sort of like an ACM competition, only stupid), and I also competed in an engineering competition where I tossed a mousetrap car together the night before in about an hour and ended up coming in 2nd place, ahead of about 30 other people.
I took the money I won from the engineering competition and bought a book on C. I had some exposure to FreeBSD through an ISP shell account that I messed with, so my uncle gave me a copy of RH 4.1 or something so that I could get at the free dev tools and learn C. I was then captain of my high school's C team for 3 years.
I started using UNIX because I wanted to use UNIX, NOT because I wanted a "cheap version of Windows that wasn't Windows." Frankly, I think the dev community, and evangelist community, have gotten far, far away from "The UNIX Way," and in the process haven't even really gained what we sought -- which for some reason was the "can any random old person or idiot use this system without me having to be on call 24/7?"
Why random people would need a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system when all they want to do is chat on IM and watch DVDs is beyond me.
So, in the long and the short -- we barely know what non-geeks want, and apparently forgot why we wanted *nix in the first place. How can we judge if the system is "ready for the desktop, then?" It seemed just fine before...
All I have to say about the plan to put widgets into the KDE screensaver is "why?" -- The purpose of the screensaver is to be there while you are not.
I suppose having passive widgets that merely display information could be useful, but as TFA references using it to post to twitter and crap, I can't say it sounds particularly useful.
The Daily Show is a different beast when compared to say, CNN or Fox, which are pretty much useless.
They have their candidates they fawn over and those they try and bring down on suprious charges. Daily Show just sort of takes the mickey out of everyone, and I like that. It's pretty much the only "fair and balanced" news show out there.
However, relying on one source is always dangerous.
The crux of my argument is that one cannot reliably make an informed decision so long as they are reliant on someone or something to tell them whats going on.
The reason education, and reading in particular, are so important is because people need to be able to do the research, weigh the evidence, and come to their own conclusions.
Voting is not about marking a ballot and selecting a candidate. It is about taking full responsibility for oneself as a citizen and performing ones civic duty in the upkeep of the community, just like military service.
The Republic only stands while the citizens are citizens - free and independent. The reason that slaves weren't allowed to learn reading is because ignorance is the first step towards subjugation.
Everyone should have to learn to read in the common language of the State because only then can the be assured TO THEM SELVES that they are making the choice on the ballot that they really want.
The argument that everyone else seems to be making is like saying that TV news helps people who can't read the news papers or the internet. Is it better than nothing? I'm not sure that many people here would argue that it is.
If people want to think I'm trolling, trying to say people who can't read are stupid, or whatever then fine. But that's not what I'm trying to argue. I'm just arguing that those who can't read are the ones that are most likely to be taken advantage of because their ability to end their ignorance on any subject is severely limited -- like little kids who cannot yet read, they believe whatever adults tell them because they can't check to find out.
Because, you know... rebuilding bridges and roads and stuff like that wouldn't be a better use of the money than on combating some fuzzy crime (17 year old makes a tape with her boyfriend and it gets shared? they just molested each other!!! kiddy pr0n!!!), the definition of which seems to keep shifting constantly.
back in the 80s its like all they talked about was satan worshipers and commies... now its kiddy diddlers and terrorists.
Meanwhile, the people who aren't doing anything wrong get no attention AT ALL, when we could actually use a thing or two to get done around here, but NOOOOOOOOOOOO... they'll just take our money to go fight Russian criminals through the inner-tubes.
If they are reading brail, that is still reading. I'm not talking about people who are not physically able to see the paper, i'm talking about people who can and still don't know how to read.
I'm all for education, its a great thing. We need more of it, desperately. I'm also not saying that they're stupid (though they very well may be) just because they can't read. Everyone has to learn some time.
I'm just saying, how do you know you're being told the truth if you can't read? The document at hand may be false, and reading wouldn't necessarily help then, but you could look at others to see if they support the claim.
If a "helper" is there telling you which box to check for which candidate, how will you know they're really "helping?" Whether that helper is a human, or a computer, either of which may be tampered with to some extent.
The only way anyone can ever really be sure of anything is if they do the research of themselves, and the key to that is reading.
Otherwise people who really DO want to keep people down WILL take advantage of those who are most vulnerable -- those who must always listen because they can't get information any other way.
Frankly, the only reason I can think of someone wanting the illiterate to vote is if they are planning on tricking them into voting as part of their hoard.
having them vote may be democratic, but having the uninformed vote is not good for democracy, and its really hard to be sure you're informed if you can't check sources (ie, read).
the old box-sets of Red Hat used to include that "Applications" CD which had all kinds of great stuff on it. I think it used to come with VariCAD (which is otherwise like $100 for a student license) and other stuff like that.
if he has stuff like that around, then why not? The kids will learn a lot and be able to do more than go "gee whiz, neeto!" especially when there is no way in hell he's going to get compiz to run on those things.
Slashdot Mirror
Sometimes I wonder the mindset that even goes into creating something like this. I'll admit that when I was a middle-school aged kid, i thought that "computer hackers" were cool. Now, however, I just sort of wonder --
even if information wants to be free, wtf am I supposed to do with it?
"Fone Phreaking" I saw a benefit to, and its something that I took an interest in.
Trying to hijack computers and stuff -- why bother? Unless I'm doing it to be a dick to someone, just why? I can understand if mobster types are trying to do a virtual bank robbery, but this is just sorta gay.
I can see why a 13-14 year old little dipshit might want to use it, but it's pretty clear that they someone that age wouldn't have invented the technique. So, my question really is - what sort of mal-adjusted dickhead would come up with something like this, wrap it in nice little scriptkiddy packaging, and make it available to lazy little vandals that got "dissed" on myspace?
No, Exherbare means "to weed" - Exherbo means I weed or I am weeding -- apparently also "I'm so high right now, i have no idea what making I apparently think that "Distribution" means "hoarding it all to myself, but gloating about it trying to make people jealous, but failing miserably.""
But, this book *IS* the FM... so, you're just accomplishing the goal of the advice from the IRC line, without giving them the pleasure of being the one to tell you...
This whole article wreaks of preemptive RTFM snobbery.
I would venture to guess that an electrical engineer (I am not one) would be able to write more competent code than someone who only knows "how to program," particularly in a super high-level language.
I've only just started messing with C again after a long while. I'll probably want to learn assembler or verilog as well.
My argument, however, is mostly about how we are creating a situation in which future generations are likely to become so dependent on high-level tools that the number of people who are qualified to create those tools are going to dwindle. And its not even really about software development, per se.
Its the old argument, "why remember what I can look up?" extruded to "why do by hand what i can do with the calculator," "why build what i can buy," etc.
The course of human development has largely been in search of answers to two questions: "if i'm down here, how can i get what's up there," and "man - that was hard. how can i automate it so that I don't have to do it anymore."
However, our schools seem to be skipping over teaching the "how do i get whats up there" (say, drawing a graph or working out an equation by hand), skipping "how did i automate that," stipulating "that was hard," and teaching the kids the tool that makes sure they won't have to actually do stuff.
Its making us lazy, fat and bandy. its double-plus ungood. I'm all for using tools to make your life easier once you know how to do something -- its why I started messing with programming in the first place - figure out how to do a math operation, then write a program to do it for me. however, its unacceptable to skip the "figure it out" part.
I always loved Bio more than physics, so I'm not really talking from any previous experience here -- I did intern as a C programmer at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility out of high school, though.
At my first undergrad institution, I could have taken "Calculus with MATLAB" and relied on the CAS to do everything for me if I so chose, and that's the sort of thing which quite frankly, we should all be able to to agree is b.s.
Yes, I have heard of it. However, it's hardly a Quad Xenon workstation, is it? That's still just part of what I'm talking about. Their computers took up rooms (on the small side), and were less powerful than some calculators today.
It's like when Wheeler died and he was called "one of the last great titans of physics." One fellow slashdotter called this an unfair characterization as it is unfairly biased against the people who are doing work today, which he sees as no less important, comparing it to if say, Linus Torvalds were to die and was called one the "last great titans of computing."
The best computers they had available when they were designing the bomb were like UNIVAC. They had to do their math by hand, and much of their calculations were largely based on assumptions. These days the computer does a lot of the work and doing things by hand is for "suckers."
Comparing Wheeler to Linus is absurd. It'd have been more poinignt to compare Wheeler to Grace Hopper or someone, frankly.
That's just my two cents though. Your exchange rate my vary.
In the 7th grade I left my calculator at home one day when I had a math test. I did, however, have a Jepsen Flight Computer (a circular slide rule) that my dad (a commercial airline pilot) had given me, because I was going to a flying lesson after school.
I whipped out my trusty slide rule and commenced to using it. The teacher wanted to confiscate it and thought that I was cheating with some sort of high-tech device... mind you it was just plastic and cardboard. I'm sure you've all seen one before.
I'm only just about to turn 24, so 7th grade was not long ago for me.
The point is, students should be required to know how to do things by hand. a PhD in physics 20 years ago clearly knew how to do calculus by hand. if he wants to use a Ti-92 to do it now, that's his business. Good that those aren't allowed in class (even if they are allowed on the SAT and AP exams, well the ti-89 is).
Intro to comp sci shouldn't be taught with Java any more than elementary school math should be "intro to the calculator." You just cripple people's minds that way.
I ended up getting a BA in English the first time around because of personal reasons I was too messed up to concentrate on maths. I'm now starting to take a 2nd degree in MechE - and I'm making a good faith effort to do as much by hand as possible, because I don't want to fuck something up in the future because I figured the calculator was giving me a right answer and I had no idea of where the proper answer should be.
summary: using a tool to check your answer is one thing. Relying on it to get the answer in the first place is lazy, stupid, and potentially dangerous.
I'll probably get modded to hell for asking but seriously -- all these new trends, tools, etc - are they not just crutches, which in the long run are seriously going to diminish the quality of output by programmers?
For instance, we put men on the moon with a pencil and a slide rule. Now no one would dream of taking a high school math class with anything less than a TI-83+.
Languages like Java and C# are being hailed while languages like C are derided and many posts here on slashdot call it outmoded and say it should be done away with, yet Java and C# are built using C.
It seems to me that there is no substitute for actually knowing how things work at the most basic level and doing them by hand. Can a tool like Lint help? Yes. Will it catch everything? Likely not.
As generations of kids grow up with the automation made by generations who came before, and have less incentive to learn how the basic tools work, an incentive which will diminish, approaching 0, I think we're in for something bad.
As much as people bitch about kids who were spoiled by BASIC, you'd think that they'd also complain about all the other spoilers. Someday all this new, fancy stuff could break and someone who only knows Java, and even then checks all their source with automated tools will likely not be able to fix it.
Of course, this is more of just a general criticism and something I've been thinking about for a few weeks now. Anyway, carry on.
I know... I thought they liked to be called Native Americans now.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story... or Slashdot summary.
Yes, the English leaves something to be desired, however I think that the message is relatively straight forward.
maybe its time I start thinking about ditching gmail and stuff...
But then the teachers would actually have to wear tinfoil hats?!
Then again, they may be the biggest part of the problem anyway.
I'll be 24 in a month, but have been using some varient of UNIX since I was 12 or 13. For half my life, my computer has either run FreeBSD or Linux (Slackware, RedHat, and lately LinuxMint because the only computer i have with me here right now is a Dell d830 and I'm absolutely reliant on Wifi and too lazy to cut firmware by hand), often in dual-boot, though I have occasionally been forced to use windows machines of opportunity. I also had a G4 iBook for a while, but I gave it to my sister because it pissed me off.
.Xdefaults, .tcshrc, .bashrc, .dircolors and .vimrc files, which are now pretty much useless.
There has been a MARKED improvement in being able to plop my ass down and just do "windows" things on Linux in the past few years, however quite frankly I find it somewhat less usable than I did when I was in jr. high.
I used to have these incredibly elaborate
I haven't been able to get ANSI fonts like Nexus to work in Eterm and display colored BASH prompts properly since Red Hat 6.0.
Everything has some GUI interface to it now that rights configuration files in some way that I never would have had I been doing it by hand and then I'm afraid to do a hand edit, because something usually ends up breaking.
Frankly, it seems like the push in the last 5 years especially has been to try and make a free ripoff of Windows that isn't Windows and then try and get "average computer users" to switch, for some reason which isn't even clear to me -- so why it would be to them, I have not clue.
In 8th grade I was captain of my school's BASIC programing team to the Great Computer Challenge at ODU university (sort of like an ACM competition, only stupid), and I also competed in an engineering competition where I tossed a mousetrap car together the night before in about an hour and ended up coming in 2nd place, ahead of about 30 other people.
I took the money I won from the engineering competition and bought a book on C. I had some exposure to FreeBSD through an ISP shell account that I messed with, so my uncle gave me a copy of RH 4.1 or something so that I could get at the free dev tools and learn C. I was then captain of my high school's C team for 3 years.
I started using UNIX because I wanted to use UNIX, NOT because I wanted a "cheap version of Windows that wasn't Windows." Frankly, I think the dev community, and evangelist community, have gotten far, far away from "The UNIX Way," and in the process haven't even really gained what we sought -- which for some reason was the "can any random old person or idiot use this system without me having to be on call 24/7?"
Why random people would need a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system when all they want to do is chat on IM and watch DVDs is beyond me.
So, in the long and the short -- we barely know what non-geeks want, and apparently forgot why we wanted *nix in the first place. How can we judge if the system is "ready for the desktop, then?" It seemed just fine before...
Yeah, but people get hella-fat AFTER they have kids generally, so they've doubly screwed the rest of us.
All I have to say about the plan to put widgets into the KDE screensaver is "why?" -- The purpose of the screensaver is to be there while you are not.
I suppose having passive widgets that merely display information could be useful, but as TFA references using it to post to twitter and crap, I can't say it sounds particularly useful.
The Daily Show is a different beast when compared to say, CNN or Fox, which are pretty much useless.
They have their candidates they fawn over and those they try and bring down on suprious charges. Daily Show just sort of takes the mickey out of everyone, and I like that. It's pretty much the only "fair and balanced" news show out there.
However, relying on one source is always dangerous.
The crux of my argument is that one cannot reliably make an informed decision so long as they are reliant on someone or something to tell them whats going on.
The reason education, and reading in particular, are so important is because people need to be able to do the research, weigh the evidence, and come to their own conclusions.
Voting is not about marking a ballot and selecting a candidate. It is about taking full responsibility for oneself as a citizen and performing ones civic duty in the upkeep of the community, just like military service.
The Republic only stands while the citizens are citizens - free and independent. The reason that slaves weren't allowed to learn reading is because ignorance is the first step towards subjugation.
Everyone should have to learn to read in the common language of the State because only then can the be assured TO THEM SELVES that they are making the choice on the ballot that they really want.
The argument that everyone else seems to be making is like saying that TV news helps people who can't read the news papers or the internet. Is it better than nothing? I'm not sure that many people here would argue that it is.
If people want to think I'm trolling, trying to say people who can't read are stupid, or whatever then fine. But that's not what I'm trying to argue. I'm just arguing that those who can't read are the ones that are most likely to be taken advantage of because their ability to end their ignorance on any subject is severely limited -- like little kids who cannot yet read, they believe whatever adults tell them because they can't check to find out.
Because, you know... rebuilding bridges and roads and stuff like that wouldn't be a better use of the money than on combating some fuzzy crime (17 year old makes a tape with her boyfriend and it gets shared? they just molested each other!!! kiddy pr0n!!!), the definition of which seems to keep shifting constantly.
back in the 80s its like all they talked about was satan worshipers and commies... now its kiddy diddlers and terrorists.
Meanwhile, the people who aren't doing anything wrong get no attention AT ALL, when we could actually use a thing or two to get done around here, but NOOOOOOOOOOOO... they'll just take our money to go fight Russian criminals through the inner-tubes.
If they are reading brail, that is still reading. I'm not talking about people who are not physically able to see the paper, i'm talking about people who can and still don't know how to read.
I'm all for education, its a great thing. We need more of it, desperately. I'm also not saying that they're stupid (though they very well may be) just because they can't read. Everyone has to learn some time.
I'm just saying, how do you know you're being told the truth if you can't read? The document at hand may be false, and reading wouldn't necessarily help then, but you could look at others to see if they support the claim.
If a "helper" is there telling you which box to check for which candidate, how will you know they're really "helping?" Whether that helper is a human, or a computer, either of which may be tampered with to some extent.
The only way anyone can ever really be sure of anything is if they do the research of themselves, and the key to that is reading.
Otherwise people who really DO want to keep people down WILL take advantage of those who are most vulnerable -- those who must always listen because they can't get information any other way.
Frankly, the only reason I can think of someone wanting the illiterate to vote is if they are planning on tricking them into voting as part of their hoard.
having them vote may be democratic, but having the uninformed vote is not good for democracy, and its really hard to be sure you're informed if you can't check sources (ie, read).
I'm ok with it being illegal to have your feelings hurt -- just not illegal to hurt someone's feelings.
being a whinging, cry-baby idiot should be a crime... and it should be painful.
Personally, I'm all about solar-powered zeppelins.
Well, an older distro or a smaller modern one.
the old box-sets of Red Hat used to include that "Applications" CD which had all kinds of great stuff on it. I think it used to come with VariCAD (which is otherwise like $100 for a student license) and other stuff like that.
if he has stuff like that around, then why not? The kids will learn a lot and be able to do more than go "gee whiz, neeto!" especially when there is no way in hell he's going to get compiz to run on those things.
Is it printed on recycled toilet paper? the kind used in the sewers, perhaps?