Clearly, it is compulsory education and government literacy programs which are at fault here. Books are well known for putting dangerous ideas into the heads of impressionable children. Bringing these pliable young minds together in the forced confinement of a school is just asking for trouble.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves...
I read this article yesterday and thought, what a crock! Now I've had the opportunity to examine it again in a cold and dispassionate manner, and my option has not changed. This should be printed, run through your horse, and put on your roses. Doesn't anyone remember the paper memo and all the nonsense we had to go through with that (stamping as receiving, filing, writing replies, routing through interoffice mail)? Doesn't anyone remember Telephone Tag?
Look, if workers aren't communicating, there's a problem. E-mail is the least obtrusive, most efficient communications method, bar none. I have enough interruptions in my day without Instant Messaging!
Now, if the Gartner Group were to analyze the amount of time IT workers spend reading Slashdot... Ooops! Gotta run, boss is coming!
I hope that pay phones survive a long, long time. Not everyone has a cell phone, or can afford one. Not everyone can afford telephone service in their home. A pay phone should be thought of as a public service, like the public library, enabling everyone to have access to the network when needed.
I'm sorry, Matt, but I just don't buy it (and didn't). Lists of hardware that works well with free software are all over the place. There's LinuxHardware.net, The Linux Hardware Database on ZDNet, and the hardware databases provided by each major distribution. Here is SuSE's and RedHat's.
There's even a place in the same city as Spindletop where I usually buy my hardware. PCs for Everyone checks out each component for Linux support.
The price I pay over cost is a contribution to what seems like a superfluous project. I just don't see the added value.
All of which is not to say that I would turn the dogs on the UPS driver if he showed up at the door with one...
As long as I'm wishing, I might as well wish for a pony...
I have been to Spindletop's web site several times, and have yet to understand what the big deal is. Building your own PC is child's play. Linux Journal and many other publications often run "Ultimate PC" articles. The only cool thing that your local computer parts emporium might not have is the black cube case, but it's easily available online. (I believe Spindletop gets its cubes from Yeong Yang, or you can patronize your friendly neighborhood ThinkGeek store and check out their cool black case.)
So why does this still qualify as "Stuff that matters?"
OK, I'm a geek. I admit it. My first palm-top was the Atari Portfolio (still have it, still works). I've got a Palm, and for times when it's not in my pocket, an OnHandPC watch. They all are great for storing all kinds of handy dandy data, like appointments and phone numbers and PINs and such. And they all have the same problem: data entry. On the PoFo I type with my thumbs, on the OnHand it's a little joystick pointer that takes forever, and on Palm it's Graffiti.
Show me a PIM that lets me enter notes quickly and I'll beat a path to your door. Until then, it doesn't matter whether the PIM is running PalmOS, DIPOS, or VMS - it's just another geek toy, suitable for impressing fellow geeks and inducing glazed eyes in everyone else.
The remarkable thing about a dancing bear is not how well it dances, but that it dances at all.
The Internet is at once the greatest threat to and the greatest hope for our liberties. The threats: the web is increasingly the turf of a handful of media companies: Time Warner/AOL, for example. The web also contains sites which most people would find repellant, making it easier for the well-meaning and the prudes to demand access restrictions.
At the same time, the web is our greatest protection from tyranny. Look at what has happened with attempts to ban DeCSS code or obfuscate the power companies' complicity in the California crunch.
How did I run across these things in the first place? Simply by reading/. with a low threshhold. The truth is out there, but adults shouldn't expect to be spoon-fed.
If there's one thing we have plenty of on the Internet, it's words. Most, like this posting, are ephemeral and banal. Some are ephemeral and profound. Almost none are worth paying for. There is simply too much competition from the millions of people who offer their words for free.
The Boston Globe website has a survey up on how many would be willing to pay $30 for Salon. So far, it's just over 5% of respondents.
Paper burns at 451 degrees F. E-books are destroyed at less than half that.
Brunner wrote four dystopian near-future novels, all in the same general style:
"Jagged Orbit," the first, is also the least. It's been out of print for some time. I found a copy at an online used bookseller a few years ago. It's about the cynical manipulation of racism by gun manufacturers.
"Stand on Zanzibar" is undoubtedly his best work.
"The Sheep Look Up" also hasn't aged very well - the Silent Spring we feared in the 70's hasn't happened (yet...)
And finally, "Shockwave Rider." The concept I most enjoyed was that of "Paid Avoidance Zones," where a micro-culture could establish itself off the grid.
Brunner was truly one of the great writers of the 20th century.
It's not always possible to send packages to the listed cities. I've a friend in Nizhny Novgorod, and ordered him a copy of a Linux distro from LinuxMall. It was held in Moscow, and he was notified that he'd have to travel to Moscow to pay duty and pick it up! A later copy went through.
We just sent some foodstuffs (nuts, dried fruit) and a few books and crafts for their children. The package was torn open, but at least it arrived.
Russia is no longer communist, but it's not a democracy. It's a kleptocracy.
-- Bill
"A blessing for the Tsar? Of course! May God bless and keep the Tsar... Far away from us!"
Consistency is important, but when using GUI metaphors, a logical consistency with the real world is also vital. Who hasn't wondered, "What were they thinking?" when confronted with an operating system that you had to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to log in, or click on Start to shut down, or save that floppy disk by dragging it to the wastebasket? Too much software looks as though it was designed by mutually hostile committees. -- Bill
Slashdot Mirror
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves...
Look, if workers aren't communicating, there's a problem. E-mail is the least obtrusive, most efficient communications method, bar none. I have enough interruptions in my day without Instant Messaging!
Now, if the Gartner Group were to analyze the amount of time IT workers spend reading Slashdot... Ooops! Gotta run, boss is coming!
Never take a beer to a job interview.
Here it is.
Madness takes its toll. Exact change, please.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike...
"One ringy-dingy..."
There's even a place in the same city as Spindletop where I usually buy my hardware. PCs for Everyone checks out each component for Linux support.
The price I pay over cost is a contribution to what seems like a superfluous project. I just don't see the added value.
All of which is not to say that I would turn the dogs on the UPS driver if he showed up at the door with one...
As long as I'm wishing, I might as well wish for a pony...
So why does this still qualify as "Stuff that matters?"
Peril n.: A sysadmin with a screwdriver.
Show me a PIM that lets me enter notes quickly and I'll beat a path to your door. Until then, it doesn't matter whether the PIM is running PalmOS, DIPOS, or VMS - it's just another geek toy, suitable for impressing fellow geeks and inducing glazed eyes in everyone else.
The remarkable thing about a dancing bear is not how well it dances, but that it dances at all.
The Internet is at once the greatest threat to and the greatest hope for our liberties. The threats: the web is increasingly the turf of a handful of media companies: Time Warner /AOL, for example. The web also contains sites which most people would find repellant, making it easier for the well-meaning and the prudes to demand access restrictions.
At the same time, the web is our greatest protection from tyranny. Look at what has happened with attempts to ban DeCSS code or obfuscate the power companies' complicity in the California crunch.
How did I run across these things in the first place? Simply by reading /. with a low threshhold. The truth is out there, but adults shouldn't expect to be spoon-fed.
If there's one thing we have plenty of on the Internet, it's words. Most, like this posting, are ephemeral and banal. Some are ephemeral and profound. Almost none are worth paying for. There is simply too much competition from the millions of people who offer their words for free.
The Boston Globe website has a survey up on how many would be willing to pay $30 for Salon. So far, it's just over 5% of respondents.
Paper burns at 451 degrees F. E-books are destroyed at less than half that.
Brunner wrote four dystopian near-future novels, all in the same general style: "Jagged Orbit," the first, is also the least. It's been out of print for some time. I found a copy at an online used bookseller a few years ago. It's about the cynical manipulation of racism by gun manufacturers. "Stand on Zanzibar" is undoubtedly his best work. "The Sheep Look Up" also hasn't aged very well - the Silent Spring we feared in the 70's hasn't happened (yet...) And finally, "Shockwave Rider." The concept I most enjoyed was that of "Paid Avoidance Zones," where a micro-culture could establish itself off the grid. Brunner was truly one of the great writers of the 20th century.
It's not always possible to send packages to the listed cities. I've a friend in Nizhny Novgorod, and ordered him a copy of a Linux distro from LinuxMall. It was held in Moscow, and he was notified that he'd have to travel to Moscow to pay duty and pick it up! A later copy went through. We just sent some foodstuffs (nuts, dried fruit) and a few books and crafts for their children. The package was torn open, but at least it arrived. Russia is no longer communist, but it's not a democracy. It's a kleptocracy. -- Bill "A blessing for the Tsar? Of course! May God bless and keep the Tsar... Far away from us!"
Consistency is important, but when using GUI metaphors, a logical consistency with the real world is also vital. Who hasn't wondered, "What were they thinking?" when confronted with an operating system that you had to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to log in, or click on Start to shut down, or save that floppy disk by dragging it to the wastebasket? Too much software looks as though it was designed by mutually hostile committees. -- Bill