What do we need with a space telescope or space exploration program anyway? Our children are being groomed to be the poorly fed, poorly housed, poorly educated drones of the likes of of the Koch Brothers--or worse, cannon fodder in the next forever war undertaken to line the pockets of the defense contractors. Other countries will gladly assume the exploration of frontiers and the advancement of knowledge while our kids get to learn about creation science.
Yah. I think in the vernacular in the U.S., hawks actually go out and hunt for stuff while buzzards chow down on stuff that's already dead. I guess that would mean "hawks" are somehow more noble. But to give the buzzards (or vultures) their due, they certainly play a part in cleaning up the place. I saw an American Black Vulture sitting as nicely as you please on an abutment overlooking the busiest throughway in my city about two years ago. Because of the way the road is cut, I was actually up the hill from him and above him. (Or her, who knows). I thought he would make an excellent PSA for driving safely and fastening seat belts.
I normally don't answer answers, but this time I'll make an exception:
Unless and until you've had day and night responsibility for an old person, especially an old person you love and who (once) loved you, there's really not much you can say on the subject. Elderly people with dementia or alzheimer's can and do wander. They become confused. They may be frail, but they can be out of sight in the blink of an eye--into the traffic, into an area of high crime or other danger, onto the construction site next door, into a water-filled ditch. What's worse is that they often wander away in the evening, just as the sun is going down and the rush hour is picking up. There's even a name for it--"sundowning." They require eternal vigilance, but every once in a while you have to go to the bathroom or turn the heat down under the soup you're trying to cook.
The current system, called Safe Return, is a national registry. You sign up, provide phone numbers and other details, and are given a bracelet or pendant with registration number that says something like, "This person has dementia. Please call 1-800-xxx-xxxx and provide the following number: nnnnn." It works as long as the person cooperates in wearing the bracelet or pendant and as long as they're found by a person of fundamental decency--as opposed to, say, a thug.
No, I don't believe that dementia patients or people with autism or any human should have to be microchipped like a pet dog. I do believe there's a problem. In this case the police perceived the problem, took a look at the available technology, and made an attempt to offer a solution. Their understanding of the situation was faulty in several areas, but at least they took a stab at it.
Yah. Five anxious years with an increasingly demented parent made this sound attractive at first. Then I remembered how her regular "safe return" bracelet bruised and scratched her increasingly fragile skin (despite being properly fitted) until we had to stop using it. I think their hearts are in the right place, but a bracelet just won't do it.
I'm trying to learn more about how soap (the kind you wash with) is made, and I ran a search for Kindle stuff. It returned a huge number of publications. The first twenty or so were standard books published by legitimate publishers and available in various print formats as well. Those were followed by hundreds of 99 cent pieces. I got curious and had a look at the very few reviews--they all said things like, "DON'T BUY THIS" or "SCAM" or "I WANT MY MONEY BACK." There was one plaintive message from some poor soul on the West Coast who writes a blog on the subject--the "book" in question had simply gone into her blog and lifted posts out of it. Oddly enough, all those hundreds of publications shared the same three or four front cover images. I haven't really seen this in the arena of novels. Most of the cheap ones there look like people trying to vanity-publish their own work--so if you buy a novel, you get a novel. It just may not be a very good novel.
If you need a visual editor, don't fool around with anything but Dreamweaver. It hasn't changed substantively since 2002. I have a 2002 version still running on an older Mac, and a brand new CS5 version running on a brand new Mac, and both are essentially the same, with the new version having enough convenient updates to keep up with the times (css versus the old table layouts, for example). Dreamweaver and Photoshop are the two programs that Adobe hasn't managed to screw up over the years. (I have a nine year old Photoshop running on the old machine as well.) You can freely pass up the entire remainder of their Creative Suite. If the last Adobe product you used was GoLive, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
If you don't require a visual editor, TextWrangler for the Mac is a nice text editor, laden with bells, whistles, and conveniences. It is a newer incarnation of the old bbEdit. I am utterly clueless as to what is out there for Windows.
As much as we all find it necessary to pay our due and fitting homage to free and open source software, there is nothing out there that can do what these two applications do without a lot of blood, toil, sweat, and tears. I don't have a lot of time to bleed, perspire, and cry--I'd rather just work comfortably.
Ummm. I have a book of logarithmic tables that was published somewhere around 1890 and used by my grandfather and his three brothers. None of them went to Harvard, but they all went to the University of Virginia. Obviously it was passed down from older brother to younger brother. My grandfather would have been in college somewhere around 1912-1915. I suspect these kinds of tables were considered OK as references, just as the next generation or two would have used slide rules. High school and college math classrooms were decorated with gigantic simple yellow slide rules that hung above the boards so that the instructor could use them for demonstration. My own college math text had similar sets of tables in the back, though we were taught at least the basics of using a slide rule. I received my degree in 1974, though it was in languages, not in math. When I returned to school about twelve years after graduating--because I needed a little more math--calculators had become the order of the day. In one of the corridors I saw two large trash cans, each stuffed with those giant yellow slide rules. They had outlived their usefulness completely.
from what I see its the fringe Protestant cults in the USA that are doing this - condoms and birth control id give you that.
You may be right--as far as who's been approaching me, they've all been Catholics. Either way, there's a fine irony. The illiterate Muslim clerics in places like Sudan have finally decided that polio vaccine isn't really "of the Devil" and have given a green light to immunization. Their position has now been taken up by another set of aggressively "Christian" true believers who probably hate all Muslims. As nearly as I can tell, all Gates ever said was something to the effect that a program like his would be a good way to disseminate birth control if needed.
I am forced to agree with you. If one more devout Catholic informs me solemnly that Bill Gates is poisoning little African babies with his polio vaccine, I may throw up. It hasn't occurred to them that if Bill Gates had it in for little African babies, all he'd have to do would be to take his billions elsewhere. They're doing a far more effective job of demonizing the man than the Linux community was ever able to accomplish.
It doesn't appear to have anything to do with the university at all. It's part of a larger website that also belongs to him. I'm not going to post the whois record, but it's available for all to see.
I fail to see what his university has to do with his personal website or his personal emails. By rights, this should go nowhere. If the Republicans somehow succeed, it will be a miscarriage of justice in terms of freedom of speech. Of course Justice has been miscarrying quite a bit lately...
Well, I believe in God, too. I guess the difference is that my particular God didn't spitefully plant all those dinosaur bones out in Utah to test my faith...
What they're doing with science is of grave concern. What they're doing with U.S. history is also of grave concern. From what I've read, they're damping down their focus on Thomas Jefferson in their American history texts (he wasn't really a Christian!), virtually eliminating slavery as one of the causes of the Civil War, and therefore moving Abraham Lincoln to a subordinate place among the presidents--kind of demoting him. They're also eliminating references to any suffering Africans may have experienced as they were enslaved and brought here.
Whether your interest is in science, history, or both, the need for concern is very real. Texas buys more school textbooks than any other state, and what they want generally creeps into textbooks purchased by school systems elsewhere. Raise up a generation of kids who are dumbed down about history and the 14th Amendment becomes easy pickings. Raise up a generation of kids who are also illiterate about science and its methods, and who aren't capable of questioning authority, and you've got a nice workforce of drones who will do as they're told and vote as they're told.
I, of course, am now officially older than dirt. A couple of years ago, when I finally got my iPhone, I got the Google search app of course. I used it, it worked, I liked it. When I put the damned phone down, I thought, "If somebody had handed me this when I was fourteen I would have thought it was a phony Hollywood prop." That was when I decided that computers should only be addressed by means of picking up the mouse, pressing one of its buttons, and speaking clearly and distinctly into it in a fake Scottish accent.
You must not be a parent. Babies are born knowing how to protest, and they do it very well. Their protests usually center around food, overloaded diapers, and sleep. It's only a short step from there to political demonstrations.
You're right, but only up to a point. Children's immunizations are given on a schedule that depends on a lot of factors such as age and weight. So the DPT shots can begin before the baby is three months old, but they require a series. Polio is started up in the last half of the first year. Measles/Mumps/Rubella isn't given until the child is at least eighteen months old. Ideally, children would be protected by the mother's immunity, but that's not reliable, especially when breast-feeding isn't taking place. Pertussis (whooping cough) in particular is still a death warrant for most infants who contract it.
I immunized my children rigorously throughout their childhoods, and there were still problems. My older son contracted pertussis when he was sixteen years old, and it took at least two weeks to get a diagnosis because most doctors had never seen a case. He and a whole group of teenagers caught it at the same time because they'd received a dose of vaccine from a batch that had something wrong with it. Within six months, I received a letter from the doctor's office urging me to bring the younger boy in to be re-vaccinated against measles/mumps/rubella. Same deal--bad batch of vaccine. (Coincidentally, and around that same time, we got a letter from our veterinarian telling us our dog's immunity to rabies was compromised by--yes--a bad batch of rabies vaccine.) It gives you a lot to think about.
I've encountered whole nests of younger mothers who are violently opposed to immunizing their children. They point to questionable studies by people with questionable credentials. They emotionally cite every case of vaccine allergy they can find. They rant perpetually about Big Pharma and the bazillions they are raking in from these vaccines. They have clearly never lost a childhood friend to polio, had a neighbor give birth to a deformed child who died within hours due to rubella, or encountered anyone whose vision, hearing, or ability to father children has been compromised due to measles or mumps. I'm not sure how, precisely, they intend to protect their children from all these dreadful consequences. And sadly, they're not sure either--or they aren't articulate enough to tell anyone. It's pretty alarming.
I believe Bill Gates is a couple of years younger than I am, but we definitely went through grammar school in the same era. I suspect he has a lot of the same memories I do of childhood epidemics, children who were injured by disease, maybe even a death or two. I support everything he has to say on this subject.
I found the iPhone version to be just faintly disappointing. It's lost some of the old-fashioned "righteousness" of the old games. For example, when you went hunting, there was always a little message that said something like, "If people continue hunting in this area, the buffalo will become extinct." Indians were either helpful or oppressed. I swear, there's a scene on the iPhone app where an Indian says, "HOW!" I guess it's just missing some of that Seventies idealism that carried over through all the other versions. It's still an awful lot of fun to play, even for people who should be old enough to know better.
I'm surprised they didn't mention the technique for unsticking recalcitrant half-height RLL and MFM hard disk drives by slamming them gently, but firmly, down onto a smooth horizontal surface (like your desktop). They would occasionally stick when the heads became goo-ed to the platters due to breakdown (or solidification, I was never sure which) of the lubricating material. When all other hope was abandoned, and you knew the drive was headed for the graveyard, a good, solid (but gentle) whack would often get it spinning again. The idea was to keep the drive as parallel as humanly possible to the horizontal surface. It was one of the few hardware tricks I had to summon male assistance to handle--my hand was not large enough to get the necessary firm one-handed grasp on the drive. Boy, do I feel old. Probably because I am old.
I thought there were all sorts of legal precedents that defined the age at which a child understands the difference between right and wrong--and that the age was normally around six or seven. In this case it was up to the parent to control the child, and that means she shouldn't have been allowed to race her bike on the sidewalk. It's the parent who should be held accountable. The parent should have said, "We have to be careful of other people when we're riding a bike on the sidewalk. No racing."
OK, since you've clearly identified yourself, I'm going to write this with as much civility as I can muster. As I've already stated in this discussion, I'm a "home-business" subscriber. Frankly, I've had excellent support and follow-up from non-technical contacts, while technical support has been truly abysmal (while trying to opt-out of "Domain Helper"). Would you point us to either (a) written documentation or (b) phone information that would provide information on how to use the "business gateway" to configure DNS services of our own choosing. You'll note that I have not posted anonymously, which apparently causes me to run the risk of being modded down. You can follow the story of my last two or three months with Comcast by clicking on my username. Thank you.
If I had mod points, I'd mod up both replies out of gratitude. Two very do-able suggestions. I hadn't realized I could do anything with their business box, and apparently I didn't catch their tech support on one of their better days. (Was told by one guy that they didn't support Macs, while another swore that I had the Mac plugged into the phone box.) Now I know what questions to ask.
I signed up for something they call the "home business triple play" that provides business Internet and phone service with residential TV. The service is basically a hundred bucks a month plus an extra five for a toll-free number and some additional charges for HBO and a second TV hookup. We're still saving a lot over our previous Comcast TV and Internet plus Vonage phone.
The downside is that I've been trying since June to opt out of their Domain Helper, which mysteriously re-appeared along with the new business account. After hours on the phone over a protracted period of about six weeks, the bottom line seems to be that I can't opt out. This has infuriated me, and I would throw them over if I had an alternative. They can't or won't understand that all I want from them is reliable TV reception and a connection to the Internet. I don't need them to be my Internet daddy, and the only time I want to know they're there is when I have a problem or need to pay the bill. I suspect if they could get that through their thick, idiotic heads, they'd probably attract a few more business users.
Exactly! I was going to suggest nesting blocks because at that age they're working out size relationships. A xylophone in bright colors--a nice sturdy one, which he will bang on until his parents hide it, generating a completely satisfactory noise. Something sturdy he can load up with other toys and both push and pull around--like the last generation's Big Yellow Toddler Taxi. Something that allows him to sort shapes--a toddler's puzzle toy that requires him to match up blocks of specific shapes with holes or slots that they go into. A push bike with four low wheels. Cars, trucks, planes, and boats in wood with no sharp edges. Stuff from the kitchen so he can emulate his parents, which he will do with great comedic effect. A book or two wouldn't be a bad idea--the sturdy cloth or cardboard kind. And you are so right--blocks, bears, a tricycle, a pail and shovel (and some sand)--and life would be very sad indeed without that big red ball, and Mom or Dad to toss it around with. How terribly non-technical all these things are. How vitally important to a toddler's understanding of his world and the way it works.
I don't know of any online retailers where you can shop without getting a cookie or two to handle your shopping cart and sundries--what they like to call your "overall shopping experience." I was appalled when Overstock.com began following me--seemingly everywhere. They showed up at local and national news sites, a couple of humor sites--enough to make me feel as though I was being tailed in some kind of poorly done spy movie. And they always showed particular, specific items I'd been looking at. Adblock didn't seem to make a difference. I was ticked enough that when they sent me a "survey," I told them off. That resulted in two e-mails and a phone call to my husband, whose credit card I used in making the small purchase I did make. The gist of the communications was that they really wanted me to think this was "normal" and that "all websites" do it. Cleaning out my cookies helped with the immediate persecution complex, and installing and browsing with Ghostery (ghostery.com) in tandem with Adblock in my Firefox seems to have eliminated the problem for any other sites that are doing it. The solution, of course, is just not to shop at places that offend you and to tell them why you're taking your business elsewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
What do we need with a space telescope or space exploration program anyway? Our children are being groomed to be the poorly fed, poorly housed, poorly educated drones of the likes of of the Koch Brothers--or worse, cannon fodder in the next forever war undertaken to line the pockets of the defense contractors. Other countries will gladly assume the exploration of frontiers and the advancement of knowledge while our kids get to learn about creation science.
Yah. I think in the vernacular in the U.S., hawks actually go out and hunt for stuff while buzzards chow down on stuff that's already dead. I guess that would mean "hawks" are somehow more noble. But to give the buzzards (or vultures) their due, they certainly play a part in cleaning up the place. I saw an American Black Vulture sitting as nicely as you please on an abutment overlooking the busiest throughway in my city about two years ago. Because of the way the road is cut, I was actually up the hill from him and above him. (Or her, who knows). I thought he would make an excellent PSA for driving safely and fastening seat belts.
Ah. I was going to point out that I always called them buzzards until someone told me it was politically incorrect.
I normally don't answer answers, but this time I'll make an exception:
Unless and until you've had day and night responsibility for an old person, especially an old person you love and who (once) loved you, there's really not much you can say on the subject. Elderly people with dementia or alzheimer's can and do wander. They become confused. They may be frail, but they can be out of sight in the blink of an eye--into the traffic, into an area of high crime or other danger, onto the construction site next door, into a water-filled ditch. What's worse is that they often wander away in the evening, just as the sun is going down and the rush hour is picking up. There's even a name for it--"sundowning." They require eternal vigilance, but every once in a while you have to go to the bathroom or turn the heat down under the soup you're trying to cook.
The current system, called Safe Return, is a national registry. You sign up, provide phone numbers and other details, and are given a bracelet or pendant with registration number that says something like, "This person has dementia. Please call 1-800-xxx-xxxx and provide the following number: nnnnn." It works as long as the person cooperates in wearing the bracelet or pendant and as long as they're found by a person of fundamental decency--as opposed to, say, a thug.
No, I don't believe that dementia patients or people with autism or any human should have to be microchipped like a pet dog. I do believe there's a problem. In this case the police perceived the problem, took a look at the available technology, and made an attempt to offer a solution. Their understanding of the situation was faulty in several areas, but at least they took a stab at it.
Yah. Five anxious years with an increasingly demented parent made this sound attractive at first. Then I remembered how her regular "safe return" bracelet bruised and scratched her increasingly fragile skin (despite being properly fitted) until we had to stop using it. I think their hearts are in the right place, but a bracelet just won't do it.
I'm trying to learn more about how soap (the kind you wash with) is made, and I ran a search for Kindle stuff. It returned a huge number of publications. The first twenty or so were standard books published by legitimate publishers and available in various print formats as well. Those were followed by hundreds of 99 cent pieces. I got curious and had a look at the very few reviews--they all said things like, "DON'T BUY THIS" or "SCAM" or "I WANT MY MONEY BACK." There was one plaintive message from some poor soul on the West Coast who writes a blog on the subject--the "book" in question had simply gone into her blog and lifted posts out of it. Oddly enough, all those hundreds of publications shared the same three or four front cover images. I haven't really seen this in the arena of novels. Most of the cheap ones there look like people trying to vanity-publish their own work--so if you buy a novel, you get a novel. It just may not be a very good novel.
If you need a visual editor, don't fool around with anything but Dreamweaver. It hasn't changed substantively since 2002. I have a 2002 version still running on an older Mac, and a brand new CS5 version running on a brand new Mac, and both are essentially the same, with the new version having enough convenient updates to keep up with the times (css versus the old table layouts, for example). Dreamweaver and Photoshop are the two programs that Adobe hasn't managed to screw up over the years. (I have a nine year old Photoshop running on the old machine as well.) You can freely pass up the entire remainder of their Creative Suite. If the last Adobe product you used was GoLive, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
If you don't require a visual editor, TextWrangler for the Mac is a nice text editor, laden with bells, whistles, and conveniences. It is a newer incarnation of the old bbEdit. I am utterly clueless as to what is out there for Windows.
As much as we all find it necessary to pay our due and fitting homage to free and open source software, there is nothing out there that can do what these two applications do without a lot of blood, toil, sweat, and tears. I don't have a lot of time to bleed, perspire, and cry--I'd rather just work comfortably.
Ummm. I have a book of logarithmic tables that was published somewhere around 1890 and used by my grandfather and his three brothers. None of them went to Harvard, but they all went to the University of Virginia. Obviously it was passed down from older brother to younger brother. My grandfather would have been in college somewhere around 1912-1915. I suspect these kinds of tables were considered OK as references, just as the next generation or two would have used slide rules. High school and college math classrooms were decorated with gigantic simple yellow slide rules that hung above the boards so that the instructor could use them for demonstration. My own college math text had similar sets of tables in the back, though we were taught at least the basics of using a slide rule. I received my degree in 1974, though it was in languages, not in math. When I returned to school about twelve years after graduating--because I needed a little more math--calculators had become the order of the day. In one of the corridors I saw two large trash cans, each stuffed with those giant yellow slide rules. They had outlived their usefulness completely.
I can't help thinking how godawful it would be to have to do any maintenance on them.
from what I see its the fringe Protestant cults in the USA that are doing this - condoms and birth control id give you that.
You may be right--as far as who's been approaching me, they've all been Catholics. Either way, there's a fine irony. The illiterate Muslim clerics in places like Sudan have finally decided that polio vaccine isn't really "of the Devil" and have given a green light to immunization. Their position has now been taken up by another set of aggressively "Christian" true believers who probably hate all Muslims. As nearly as I can tell, all Gates ever said was something to the effect that a program like his would be a good way to disseminate birth control if needed.
I am forced to agree with you. If one more devout Catholic informs me solemnly that Bill Gates is poisoning little African babies with his polio vaccine, I may throw up. It hasn't occurred to them that if Bill Gates had it in for little African babies, all he'd have to do would be to take his billions elsewhere. They're doing a far more effective job of demonizing the man than the Linux community was ever able to accomplish.
It's the stupid people who are using the smart phones.
It doesn't appear to have anything to do with the university at all. It's part of a larger website that also belongs to him. I'm not going to post the whois record, but it's available for all to see.
I fail to see what his university has to do with his personal website or his personal emails. By rights, this should go nowhere. If the Republicans somehow succeed, it will be a miscarriage of justice in terms of freedom of speech. Of course Justice has been miscarrying quite a bit lately...
Well, I believe in God, too. I guess the difference is that my particular God didn't spitefully plant all those dinosaur bones out in Utah to test my faith...
What they're doing with science is of grave concern. What they're doing with U.S. history is also of grave concern. From what I've read, they're damping down their focus on Thomas Jefferson in their American history texts (he wasn't really a Christian!), virtually eliminating slavery as one of the causes of the Civil War, and therefore moving Abraham Lincoln to a subordinate place among the presidents--kind of demoting him. They're also eliminating references to any suffering Africans may have experienced as they were enslaved and brought here.
Whether your interest is in science, history, or both, the need for concern is very real. Texas buys more school textbooks than any other state, and what they want generally creeps into textbooks purchased by school systems elsewhere. Raise up a generation of kids who are dumbed down about history and the 14th Amendment becomes easy pickings. Raise up a generation of kids who are also illiterate about science and its methods, and who aren't capable of questioning authority, and you've got a nice workforce of drones who will do as they're told and vote as they're told.
I, of course, am now officially older than dirt. A couple of years ago, when I finally got my iPhone, I got the Google search app of course. I used it, it worked, I liked it. When I put the damned phone down, I thought, "If somebody had handed me this when I was fourteen I would have thought it was a phony Hollywood prop." That was when I decided that computers should only be addressed by means of picking up the mouse, pressing one of its buttons, and speaking clearly and distinctly into it in a fake Scottish accent.
You must not be a parent. Babies are born knowing how to protest, and they do it very well. Their protests usually center around food, overloaded diapers, and sleep. It's only a short step from there to political demonstrations.
You're right, but only up to a point. Children's immunizations are given on a schedule that depends on a lot of factors such as age and weight. So the DPT shots can begin before the baby is three months old, but they require a series. Polio is started up in the last half of the first year. Measles/Mumps/Rubella isn't given until the child is at least eighteen months old. Ideally, children would be protected by the mother's immunity, but that's not reliable, especially when breast-feeding isn't taking place. Pertussis (whooping cough) in particular is still a death warrant for most infants who contract it.
I immunized my children rigorously throughout their childhoods, and there were still problems. My older son contracted pertussis when he was sixteen years old, and it took at least two weeks to get a diagnosis because most doctors had never seen a case. He and a whole group of teenagers caught it at the same time because they'd received a dose of vaccine from a batch that had something wrong with it. Within six months, I received a letter from the doctor's office urging me to bring the younger boy in to be re-vaccinated against measles/mumps/rubella. Same deal--bad batch of vaccine. (Coincidentally, and around that same time, we got a letter from our veterinarian telling us our dog's immunity to rabies was compromised by--yes--a bad batch of rabies vaccine.) It gives you a lot to think about.
I've encountered whole nests of younger mothers who are violently opposed to immunizing their children. They point to questionable studies by people with questionable credentials. They emotionally cite every case of vaccine allergy they can find. They rant perpetually about Big Pharma and the bazillions they are raking in from these vaccines. They have clearly never lost a childhood friend to polio, had a neighbor give birth to a deformed child who died within hours due to rubella, or encountered anyone whose vision, hearing, or ability to father children has been compromised due to measles or mumps. I'm not sure how, precisely, they intend to protect their children from all these dreadful consequences. And sadly, they're not sure either--or they aren't articulate enough to tell anyone. It's pretty alarming.
I believe Bill Gates is a couple of years younger than I am, but we definitely went through grammar school in the same era. I suspect he has a lot of the same memories I do of childhood epidemics, children who were injured by disease, maybe even a death or two. I support everything he has to say on this subject.
I found the iPhone version to be just faintly disappointing. It's lost some of the old-fashioned "righteousness" of the old games. For example, when you went hunting, there was always a little message that said something like, "If people continue hunting in this area, the buffalo will become extinct." Indians were either helpful or oppressed. I swear, there's a scene on the iPhone app where an Indian says, "HOW!" I guess it's just missing some of that Seventies idealism that carried over through all the other versions. It's still an awful lot of fun to play, even for people who should be old enough to know better.
I'm surprised they didn't mention the technique for unsticking recalcitrant half-height RLL and MFM hard disk drives by slamming them gently, but firmly, down onto a smooth horizontal surface (like your desktop). They would occasionally stick when the heads became goo-ed to the platters due to breakdown (or solidification, I was never sure which) of the lubricating material. When all other hope was abandoned, and you knew the drive was headed for the graveyard, a good, solid (but gentle) whack would often get it spinning again. The idea was to keep the drive as parallel as humanly possible to the horizontal surface. It was one of the few hardware tricks I had to summon male assistance to handle--my hand was not large enough to get the necessary firm one-handed grasp on the drive. Boy, do I feel old. Probably because I am old.
I thought there were all sorts of legal precedents that defined the age at which a child understands the difference between right and wrong--and that the age was normally around six or seven. In this case it was up to the parent to control the child, and that means she shouldn't have been allowed to race her bike on the sidewalk. It's the parent who should be held accountable. The parent should have said, "We have to be careful of other people when we're riding a bike on the sidewalk. No racing."
OK, since you've clearly identified yourself, I'm going to write this with as much civility as I can muster. As I've already stated in this discussion, I'm a "home-business" subscriber. Frankly, I've had excellent support and follow-up from non-technical contacts, while technical support has been truly abysmal (while trying to opt-out of "Domain Helper"). Would you point us to either (a) written documentation or (b) phone information that would provide information on how to use the "business gateway" to configure DNS services of our own choosing. You'll note that I have not posted anonymously, which apparently causes me to run the risk of being modded down. You can follow the story of my last two or three months with Comcast by clicking on my username. Thank you.
If I had mod points, I'd mod up both replies out of gratitude. Two very do-able suggestions. I hadn't realized I could do anything with their business box, and apparently I didn't catch their tech support on one of their better days. (Was told by one guy that they didn't support Macs, while another swore that I had the Mac plugged into the phone box.) Now I know what questions to ask.
I signed up for something they call the "home business triple play" that provides business Internet and phone service with residential TV. The service is basically a hundred bucks a month plus an extra five for a toll-free number and some additional charges for HBO and a second TV hookup. We're still saving a lot over our previous Comcast TV and Internet plus Vonage phone.
The downside is that I've been trying since June to opt out of their Domain Helper, which mysteriously re-appeared along with the new business account. After hours on the phone over a protracted period of about six weeks, the bottom line seems to be that I can't opt out. This has infuriated me, and I would throw them over if I had an alternative. They can't or won't understand that all I want from them is reliable TV reception and a connection to the Internet. I don't need them to be my Internet daddy, and the only time I want to know they're there is when I have a problem or need to pay the bill. I suspect if they could get that through their thick, idiotic heads, they'd probably attract a few more business users.
Exactly! I was going to suggest nesting blocks because at that age they're working out size relationships. A xylophone in bright colors--a nice sturdy one, which he will bang on until his parents hide it, generating a completely satisfactory noise. Something sturdy he can load up with other toys and both push and pull around--like the last generation's Big Yellow Toddler Taxi. Something that allows him to sort shapes--a toddler's puzzle toy that requires him to match up blocks of specific shapes with holes or slots that they go into. A push bike with four low wheels. Cars, trucks, planes, and boats in wood with no sharp edges. Stuff from the kitchen so he can emulate his parents, which he will do with great comedic effect. A book or two wouldn't be a bad idea--the sturdy cloth or cardboard kind. And you are so right--blocks, bears, a tricycle, a pail and shovel (and some sand)--and life would be very sad indeed without that big red ball, and Mom or Dad to toss it around with. How terribly non-technical all these things are. How vitally important to a toddler's understanding of his world and the way it works.
I don't know of any online retailers where you can shop without getting a cookie or two to handle your shopping cart and sundries--what they like to call your "overall shopping experience." I was appalled when Overstock.com began following me--seemingly everywhere. They showed up at local and national news sites, a couple of humor sites--enough to make me feel as though I was being tailed in some kind of poorly done spy movie. And they always showed particular, specific items I'd been looking at. Adblock didn't seem to make a difference. I was ticked enough that when they sent me a "survey," I told them off. That resulted in two e-mails and a phone call to my husband, whose credit card I used in making the small purchase I did make. The gist of the communications was that they really wanted me to think this was "normal" and that "all websites" do it. Cleaning out my cookies helped with the immediate persecution complex, and installing and browsing with Ghostery (ghostery.com) in tandem with Adblock in my Firefox seems to have eliminated the problem for any other sites that are doing it. The solution, of course, is just not to shop at places that offend you and to tell them why you're taking your business elsewhere.