I hate to say this, but there is a set of people who should not be expected to use a computer. I don't know what we're going to do with them in 10 or 20 years, when absolutely everything is online.
We'll just post the following sign on basement doors:
It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a computer user.
Adoption stories and influences
by eldavojohn (898314)"Every so often I see an adoption story about so-and-so taking up some open source solution and sometimes I think 'Wow, French government? Now it's really going to take off. This is it. It's time.' And then I wait. And wait. Are these stories at all positive for the project? I mean, you would think with states and governments using Ubuntu or Red Hat that it would catch on like wildfire if the savings are there so why isn't that happening? I know Microsoft sends out a lot of Wormtongues to stick in the ears of important people. Do you plan on targeting governments in a similar manner? Does/will Canonical work on making a presence in things like the EU Commissions where we've seen corporations collecting members in their pockets?" Matt: No, we have no plans to turn Wormtongue. We do, however, have aspirations to play Frodo.:-)
In the end, Frodo proved just as corruptible as Gollum, Wormtongue, the Ringwraiths, etc. I would rather have Canonical have aspirations to play Samwise. In today's story, Shuttleworth seems to be closer to Ilsildur.
Well, kind of. Since we were not allowed to automatically reboot these machines (24/7 labs), some of these stayed up for weeks
I was in this situation once, which is why I created a simple vbscript that reboots the machine and set it as a logout script. But it didn't work because the logout state prevents another shutdown state.
So I tried to get sneaky, and made the script a service that via GPO, everyone had rights to start, and made the lab's logout script do a net start rebootscript. But it didn't work because the logoff state prevents new services from starting on logout.
So I got extra sneaky and made it a startup script that runs the rebootscript service that repeatedly checks if anyone is still logged into the console and if not, reboots. That was a lot of work to do something that in Linux/MacOSX is super-easy. Sure, you can disable logout and shutdown etc in the GUI so that someone eventually can only reboot via standard GUI interfaces, but they can still log out by command line "shutdown -l ; psshutdown -o" or other means.
If you treat your users like dishonest children then they are going to act like it.
You will have employees who can get around your policies and if you treat them like shit they will fuck with you.
Yeah, that's been my experience with most secretaries. Oh.. wait. Seriously, it's my experience that the reverse is true. Given absolute computer freedom, most users turn their machines into puss-spewing virus carriers, and then they expect IT to clean it up and get angry with IT for not preventing the infection or in rare cases remain silent because they know they did something wrong and don't want to admit it. Once you start doing some sensible prevention, users start acting sensibly. There are still a few a-holes who decide they'll screw with IT because "I can't play my music!"...
If someone made you use a computer that you had no write access to and couldn't even play a CD how pissed would you be? If you could figure out a way around it wouldn't you? If your friend figured out a way around it and told you wouldn't you use it?
... and it looks like you're one of them. You're the reason that you and everyone else gets BIOS locked, physical locks to prevent BIOS resets on desktops, alerts on reboots/shutdowns, patching that forces reboots at 9:45 AM (when every laptop is finally in the office), etc. Most users happily work within their constraints, knowing it keeps everyone safer.
Seriously, why don't you just replace the computer with an etch a sketch.
Either you read all your spam, or you talk to 12 year olds a lot. In my world, if someone takes the time to add formatting to an email, it's usually for good reason and makes it more readable (e.g. lists, bold/italics, code snippets with syntax hilighting, block quotes that can still re-wrap based on window width and don't screw up when you reply...)
If old curmudgeons would get off their plain-text bandwagon we could standardize encrypted email like S/MIME.
Either you're talking about work email, or you don't get any email from 20-30-something women. About one in twenty will use pink or bright blue, or rainbow colors. I force my email client to plain text.
Which means the result needs to be an inquiry from Information Security and a measured punishment from HR. "Infosec found that you violated charter 4.b of our computer usage policy, 'clicking the monkey'. You have only one more demerit before termination. Please review our computer usage policies again. Here's a pamphlet."
We regularly leave our planet by use of technology and have harnessed the power of the atom?
That's not to say it's enough, but those are at least two things that would probably differentiate us quite a bit.
But if we're not 6-dimensional beings and don't *smell* the *pretty* colors, we might seem like a talking dog or a counting horse. They might be amazed by the dog (but will never consider it an equal), but they'll only be temporarily amused by the horse until they wanted to ride somewhere, make some glue, or eat horse-chops.
Strange magical physics don't even have to be in play; the aliens only have to believe that quality X is more important than intelligence (or that quality X denotes intelligence), and if we don't have it, then we're defacto non-intelligent.
Oh no! It's one of those ultra-gross humans again!
Quick, hide your eye!
AGGH! Look at the pulpy red thing in its mouth
how it wriggles and writhes like a wet blood worm
I think I'm going to be sick.
And I totally agree that they'll know we're sentient
"Sure, the bipeds on the third planet are merely sentient, they're not >äðûæé< . Thus, it's perfectly okay to anal-probe them; we have every right as an >äðûæé< species."
My windows never crash either, but I don't have windows in the office any more, only at home. Of course, I don't put documents on my windows, and they're held in place by sturdy wood screws and caulk.
Just off the top of my head, the main thing keeping me printing out documents is the ability to spread a dozen pages of a document under review out on my table and marking it up by hand.
Sounds like you need twelve or so iPads to digitize your workflow. You could have twelve digital documents open at the same time, and they could move around in 3D space.
Because in theory, the two minutes you're without power every five years is in a six month window of a working UPS. You only die once, but you pay for life insurance once a month? Does your family see a net gain?
Anyone else notice that old HDDs smell strongly of body odor? It's like bacteria love the warmth and go through X generations until there's a constant "eww" smell to them. It seems to happen more with 10-15k RPM SCSI drives in 1U servers where they don't get as much ventilation, but I've noticed it with IDE and SATA in desktops too.
You're missing out on a lot of SSIDs if you're only scanning once a minute. A simple "while true; do iwlist $options >> script1.txt; done" in a few scripts started a second or two apart will help catch more. Maybe set up a cron job to cat and sort -u them together occasionally.
If we, the geeks, don't fight stupid moves in computing they may become the norm. Yes, 80% (or some other made up percentage) of people might be okay with a limited OS, but if lots of other computer companies run with this Computer Feudalism, bad things will result.
These same people said 'I would have bought it if it had a full OS,' but in reality full OS tablets existed before the iPad rumors even started.
Full *nix tablets (with slick UIs and lots of software designed for tablet-use)? Full MacOSX? Oh, no, they were *doze and Linux with tablet as an afterthought. I'm not paying $99 extra to use a sub-laptop tablet with the software I want (not to mention the pain of having to compile it all the time for updates which is what I'd have to do with iPhone OS). iPhone OS is okay for an iPhone, but not for a bigger computer (which is what the iPad is).
The multiple references to "burning" an already "burned" CD clearly shouts that people really forgot how CDs work.
Time to move on with Mp3 and probably in future get a better format, not travel back to CD and Vinyl.
Even worse: those "already burned" CDs are pressed, not burned. Although they might have meant "ripped", I'm sure these people meant "ripped and burned" as a way to store more music per CD (lots of CD players play mp3s off CDs).
My mind is still malleable on this, so convince me one way or the other!
I don't have a dog in this fight, but the Ds are saying that they'll use the "Slaughter Solution" (Louise Slaughter) to make the senate bill pass the house without a vote, or despite the vote. That's despicable enough that I'd rally against them even if the bill they were attempting to pass cut congressmen's salaries to 0 and lowered taxes.
Sure climate change may always be occurring, but the PROBLEM is when it changes too fast for Earth's species to evolve or adapt to that change. Just ask the dinosaurs. Oh, wait, do you not believe in them?
If it happened to the dinosaurs, tens of millions of years before humans existed, then it's an entirely natural phenomenon and not a "PROBLEM" at all.:-P
Not necessarily a human induced problem. I'd call human extinction a problem for humans.
Slashdot Mirror
Germans Love David Hasselhoff
News: Germany Warns Against Using David Hasselhoff to Browse the Web.
Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 24, @08:25AM
I hate to say this, but there is a set of people who should not be expected to use a computer. I don't know what we're going to do with them in 10 or 20 years, when absolutely everything is online.
We'll just post the following sign on basement doors:
It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a computer user.
That should keep them away.
Dramatic much?
Dramatic Every. Freaking. TIME!
From http://interviews.slashdot.org/story/10/03/02/186206/Matt-Asay-Answers-Your-Questions-About-Ubuntu-and-Canonical?from=rss
:-)
Adoption stories and influences
by eldavojohn (898314)"Every so often I see an adoption story about so-and-so taking up some open source solution and sometimes I think 'Wow, French government? Now it's really going to take off. This is it. It's time.' And then I wait. And wait. Are these stories at all positive for the project? I mean, you would think with states and governments using Ubuntu or Red Hat that it would catch on like wildfire if the savings are there so why isn't that happening? I know Microsoft sends out a lot of Wormtongues to stick in the ears of important people. Do you plan on targeting governments in a similar manner? Does/will Canonical work on making a presence in things like the EU Commissions where we've seen corporations collecting members in their pockets?"
Matt: No, we have no plans to turn Wormtongue. We do, however, have aspirations to play Frodo.
In the end, Frodo proved just as corruptible as Gollum, Wormtongue, the Ringwraiths, etc. I would rather have Canonical have aspirations to play Samwise. In today's story, Shuttleworth seems to be closer to Ilsildur.
Well, kind of. Since we were not allowed to automatically reboot these machines (24/7 labs), some of these stayed up for weeks
I was in this situation once, which is why I created a simple vbscript that reboots the machine and set it as a logout script. But it didn't work because the logout state prevents another shutdown state.
So I tried to get sneaky, and made the script a service that via GPO, everyone had rights to start, and made the lab's logout script do a net start rebootscript. But it didn't work because the logoff state prevents new services from starting on logout.
So I got extra sneaky and made it a startup script that runs the rebootscript service that repeatedly checks if anyone is still logged into the console and if not, reboots. That was a lot of work to do something that in Linux/MacOSX is super-easy. Sure, you can disable logout and shutdown etc in the GUI so that someone eventually can only reboot via standard GUI interfaces, but they can still log out by command line "shutdown -l ; psshutdown -o" or other means.
If you treat your users like dishonest children then they are going to act like it.
You will have employees who can get around your policies and if you treat them like shit they will fuck with you.
Yeah, that's been my experience with most secretaries. Oh.. wait. Seriously, it's my experience that the reverse is true. Given absolute computer freedom, most users turn their machines into puss-spewing virus carriers, and then they expect IT to clean it up and get angry with IT for not preventing the infection or in rare cases remain silent because they know they did something wrong and don't want to admit it. Once you start doing some sensible prevention, users start acting sensibly. There are still a few a-holes who decide they'll screw with IT because "I can't play my music!" ...
If someone made you use a computer that you had no write access to and couldn't even play a CD how pissed would you be? If you could figure out a way around it wouldn't you? If your friend figured out a way around it and told you wouldn't you use it?
... and it looks like you're one of them. You're the reason that you and everyone else gets BIOS locked, physical locks to prevent BIOS resets on desktops, alerts on reboots/shutdowns, patching that forces reboots at 9:45 AM (when every laptop is finally in the office), etc. Most users happily work within their constraints, knowing it keeps everyone safer.
Seriously, why don't you just replace the computer with an etch a sketch.
Because I'll forget how to reboot it.
Either you read all your spam, or you talk to 12 year olds a lot. In my world, if someone takes the time to add formatting to an email, it's usually for good reason and makes it more readable (e.g. lists, bold/italics, code snippets with syntax hilighting, block quotes that can still re-wrap based on window width and don't screw up when you reply...) If old curmudgeons would get off their plain-text bandwagon we could standardize encrypted email like S/MIME.
Either you're talking about work email, or you don't get any email from 20-30-something women. About one in twenty will use pink or bright blue, or rainbow colors. I force my email client to plain text.
Which means the result needs to be an inquiry from Information Security and a measured punishment from HR. "Infosec found that you violated charter 4.b of our computer usage policy, 'clicking the monkey'. You have only one more demerit before termination. Please review our computer usage policies again. Here's a pamphlet."
We regularly leave our planet by use of technology and have harnessed the power of the atom?
That's not to say it's enough, but those are at least two things that would probably differentiate us quite a bit.
But if we're not 6-dimensional beings and don't *smell* the *pretty* colors, we might seem like a talking dog or a counting horse. They might be amazed by the dog (but will never consider it an equal), but they'll only be temporarily amused by the horse until they wanted to ride somewhere, make some glue, or eat horse-chops.
Strange magical physics don't even have to be in play; the aliens only have to believe that quality X is more important than intelligence (or that quality X denotes intelligence), and if we don't have it, then we're defacto non-intelligent.
..who speaks for ET?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak_&_Spell_(toy)
Oh no! It's one of those ultra-gross humans again!
Quick, hide your eye!
AGGH! Look at the pulpy red thing in its mouth
how it wriggles and writhes like a wet blood worm
I think I'm going to be sick.
And I totally agree that they'll know we're sentient
"Sure, the bipeds on the third planet are merely sentient, they're not >äðûæé< . Thus, it's perfectly okay to anal-probe them; we have every right as an >äðûæé< species."
No, you're supposed to wear it on your head or suck on it for vitamins. This man knows nothing about aliens.
My windows never crash either, but I don't have windows in the office any more, only at home. Of course, I don't put documents on my windows, and they're held in place by sturdy wood screws and caulk.
It's kinda like wiping or eating with your other hand.
After just reading the paperless toilet comment, this sounds very wrong. Hopefully the "or" is exclusive-or.
Just off the top of my head, the main thing keeping me printing out documents is the ability to spread a dozen pages of a document under review out on my table and marking it up by hand.
Sounds like you need twelve or so iPads to digitize your workflow. You could have twelve digital documents open at the same time, and they could move around in 3D space.
Because in theory, the two minutes you're without power every five years is in a six month window of a working UPS. You only die once, but you pay for life insurance once a month? Does your family see a net gain?
Anyone else notice that old HDDs smell strongly of body odor? It's like bacteria love the warmth and go through X generations until there's a constant "eww" smell to them. It seems to happen more with 10-15k RPM SCSI drives in 1U servers where they don't get as much ventilation, but I've noticed it with IDE and SATA in desktops too.
You're missing out on a lot of SSIDs if you're only scanning once a minute. A simple "while true; do iwlist $options >> script1.txt; done" in a few scripts started a second or two apart will help catch more. Maybe set up a cron job to cat and sort -u them together occasionally.
iPad will pioneer a new generation of office productivity software specifically designed for touch interaction
... that you get to pay $10 for, and $.99 micropayments for fonts, formatting, chart wizards, etc.
Don't buy an iPad!
If we, the geeks, don't fight stupid moves in computing they may become the norm. Yes, 80% (or some other made up percentage) of people might be okay with a limited OS, but if lots of other computer companies run with this Computer Feudalism, bad things will result.
These same people said 'I would have bought it if it had a full OS,' but in reality full OS tablets existed before the iPad rumors even started.
Full *nix tablets (with slick UIs and lots of software designed for tablet-use)? Full MacOSX? Oh, no, they were *doze and Linux with tablet as an afterthought. I'm not paying $99 extra to use a sub-laptop tablet with the software I want (not to mention the pain of having to compile it all the time for updates which is what I'd have to do with iPhone OS). iPhone OS is okay for an iPhone, but not for a bigger computer (which is what the iPad is).
The multiple references to "burning" an already "burned" CD clearly shouts that people really forgot how CDs work. Time to move on with Mp3 and probably in future get a better format, not travel back to CD and Vinyl.
Even worse: those "already burned" CDs are pressed, not burned. Although they might have meant "ripped", I'm sure these people meant "ripped and burned" as a way to store more music per CD (lots of CD players play mp3s off CDs).
My mind is still malleable on this, so convince me one way or the other!
I don't have a dog in this fight, but the Ds are saying that they'll use the "Slaughter Solution" (Louise Slaughter) to make the senate bill pass the house without a vote, or despite the vote. That's despicable enough that I'd rally against them even if the bill they were attempting to pass cut congressmen's salaries to 0 and lowered taxes.
Sure climate change may always be occurring, but the PROBLEM is when it changes too fast for Earth's species to evolve or adapt to that change. Just ask the dinosaurs. Oh, wait, do you not believe in them?
If it happened to the dinosaurs, tens of millions of years before humans existed, then it's an entirely natural phenomenon and not a "PROBLEM" at all. :-P
Not necessarily a human induced problem. I'd call human extinction a problem for humans.