There would be a difference between using this on someone who encountered stressful things and had a hard time getting over it, versus someone who has PTSD or PTSD-e and is virtually incapacitated by the affliction.
Having bad days and dealing with depression is one thing. Having recurring nightmares of terror and constantly reliving every bad encounter in your life is another.
Our office leases high-end copiers, and our options are a) Xerox, with an inadequate number of service people and very buggy non-intuitive software that is rarely upgraded, or b) other companies which we have learned are much worse.
Even better yet, if you're not in a metropolis, fewer vendors enter the playing field, and everyone charges more. A Xerox copier will cost you more to lease and use in Western Canada than it does in Toronto.
At least with software you have the opportunity to find more solutions (or create them), but when the product includes hardware, you're really screwed.
To talk about the art of the game and it appealing to a broader base is one thing. I'd agree with you there. But if marriages, parental obligations and relationships with friends are destroyed by those who are known as gamers, a good segment of the population will hold a lot of resentment and hate towards games (even though it's the personal character of the gamer at fault).
We all need a little escapism at the end of the day, but it can go too far. People prefer low-risk immediately-gratifying rewards to dealing with boring or difficult tasks. Games are an excellent facilitator for that.
If you get carried away with it as a kid, the repercussions aren't so big. As an adult, it's a whole other story. When games become mainstream among adults, and adults don't have the self-control and maturity to deal with it, it will create an extremely bad stigma for games.
"Golfers are athletes" is like saying "gamers are geeks". The statement has the potential to be true, but it really isn't likely to be. This misuse of the word belittles the true athletes & geeks out there.
It might be better to say that several large internet entities who employ the top people in tech obviously have a preference for Linux.
And then all you need to do is some large company name-dropping. Pointing out all the ways someone has already used Linux personally (without knowing it) would also be a help.
Exactly... my Dad still has issues from switching to XP (though to be fair, a lot of it is internet popups, missing plugins, and other junk as a result of using Windows). He still insists on using Microsoft Works because this new-fangled Word thing doesn't work for him. Every little thing he isn't used to seeing before is a big deal gives him serious pause.
Am I about to rush to put him on Vista?
I use several machines at work, and one of them is Vista. Even I still find it non-intuitive to navigate in. I'll begrudingly support XP, but at this point, Linux is easier for me.
As someone who switched over to linux four years ago and was still using her machine with 256MB of RAM until a week ago, all I've got to say is "Well... duh."
Depends if you're comparing software or functionality. If you care about basic functionality, what's the point of caring that Windows and Linux might not run the exact same software?
And what's funny is the big thing most folk use their computer for (internet) has well-known software used on both platforms (firefox).
If a company wants to get rid of you, they'll do it any way they can with the least risk. That means avoiding firing someone (and the risk of getting sued). To do that, they either do a layoff, or set you up on a project that is destined to fail (so they have "evidence" of your incompetence).
1) Transfer all loser employees to one department or project. 2) Cut department, or ensure project will fail (by not allocating resources). Perform "layoffs". 3) Profit.
Incidentally, if you find you're put in a no-win situation, get the hell out of there before someone else makes the decision for you.
Acrobat (& Windows) only comes with a certain number of fonts. Anything other than a standard set of fonts is packaged with the pdf when it is created... the pdfs themselves create their own portability. So documents created with a font like Times New Roman will be a lot smaller than something that is designed like a ransom note.
Incidentally, a pdf is made up in a similar way to a web page... the documents contains text as characters, and the markup and style is applied to it. Sometimes you get pdfs where someone's scanned in a image that looks like text... in which case, you still have an image, which is a much larger file than text.
The real fun if you have fancy font which the owner has severe restrictions on. Looks fancy on your screen, looks like a normal font elsewhere. When the pdf is created it may (as it should) or may not warn a user the font may not be displayed properly elsewhere. Usually a user gets all click-happy, ignores the warning, and then gets upset when they take it to print and it looks funny.
You only get 3 months off a year if you're a teacher who doesn't give a damn. If you're a teacher that gives a damn, June is spent cleaning up paperwork and whatnot after classes end, and August is spent prepping for September. July is spent doing all the things you couldn't during the regular school year because you were working during the school day, finishing up paperwork after, and then grading papers and planning lessons in the evenings and weekends.
This is all assuming you're not too hosed from whiskey shots because it's your only coping mechanism of dealing with the ungrateful buggers and their parents all day.
Raising forty other peoples' spoiled children gets old pretty fast.//not a teacher but knows several
Agreed. This is like the naivety that "a workplace's HR is there for its employees". Guess what? They're employed by the company and accountable to them. If the cost to deal with you is more of a risk than the business is willing to take, they *will* find a way to discourage or get rid of you.
Wow, they "re-invented" the software they use for making karaoke tracks... the idea of digitizing that music allows you to transpose and change the key/tempo at will. How many years have those been around?
It also reminds me of the hokey midi files in the early nineties. You know, before mp3's, when people were desperate to get music on their computers "oooo... this is good!" They've come this far in two decades?
I have a high capacity scanner at work and have been on a binge of scanning old course notes to pdf because I want to get rid of physical clutter. I've often wondered about the legalities of:
1) sharing the pdf (anywhere from posting on an online bulletin board to bittorrent) 2) modifying the pdf first and then distributing it 3) copying info to text and editing wikibooks
Notes are typically copies off of things written by a professor with my own notes and interpretations added.
Dates were often written in the upper-right hand corner, so that is something that would demonstrate a specific connection of my university and me. But if those were removed, how could they prove I have ever gotten the notes elsewhere?
Even if I made no modifications and there were obvious references to where the notes came from, do universities have the right to demand their removal?
I've never known a university have a problem with students sharing course notes. Are universities suing or disciplining students who ask for help with their homework outside of a university-sanctioned forum?
Textbooks are written by people who have taken courses, worked and have regurgitated the information themselves (with shiny new examples).
Philosophically, I've always believe the argument that "all learning is plagiarism" is technically true. Even though I am a freedom/learning junkie, I realize my ideals, legalities, and what actually happens can be three different things.
I switched to Xubuntu several months ago in an attempt to salvage my ancient system, so I'm a little fuzzy on KDE in 6.06. I do recall there were some great innovative features that I used a lot (favorite dir paths remembered, simple image operations in the context menu). I recall thinking "programmers would never get the chance to do this corporation-developed OSes". When I finally decided to format and reinstall, I used the newest version of Kubuntu at the time (with kde4) and the system choked. Much slower, and it looked like Vista had barfed all over it... hence the addition and switch to Xfce ("well I guess it's a good time to install that other thing I've been meaning to, then").
Still have a warm fuzzy feeling for KDE 3.whatever_it_was. Not sure what I'll put on my new system when I get it next week, though.
Slashdot Mirror
There would be a difference between using this on someone who encountered stressful things and had a hard time getting over it, versus someone who has PTSD or PTSD-e and is virtually incapacitated by the affliction.
Having bad days and dealing with depression is one thing. Having recurring nightmares of terror and constantly reliving every bad encounter in your life is another.
Our office leases high-end copiers, and our options are a) Xerox, with an inadequate number of service people and very buggy non-intuitive software that is rarely upgraded, or b) other companies which we have learned are much worse.
Even better yet, if you're not in a metropolis, fewer vendors enter the playing field, and everyone charges more. A Xerox copier will cost you more to lease and use in Western Canada than it does in Toronto.
At least with software you have the opportunity to find more solutions (or create them), but when the product includes hardware, you're really screwed.
To talk about the art of the game and it appealing to a broader base is one thing. I'd agree with you there. But if marriages, parental obligations and relationships with friends are destroyed by those who are known as gamers, a good segment of the population will hold a lot of resentment and hate towards games (even though it's the personal character of the gamer at fault).
We all need a little escapism at the end of the day, but it can go too far. People prefer low-risk immediately-gratifying rewards to dealing with boring or difficult tasks. Games are an excellent facilitator for that.
If you get carried away with it as a kid, the repercussions aren't so big. As an adult, it's a whole other story. When games become mainstream among adults, and adults don't have the self-control and maturity to deal with it, it will create an extremely bad stigma for games.
Cultural shift in the perception of people on the outside looking at gamers, or cultural shift in personal character of the gamers?
Seriously, I think the second point requires more attention. Then the first point will change.
"Golfers are athletes" is like saying "gamers are geeks". The statement has the potential to be true, but it really isn't likely to be. This misuse of the word belittles the true athletes & geeks out there.
It might be better to say that several large internet entities who employ the top people in tech obviously have a preference for Linux.
And then all you need to do is some large company name-dropping. Pointing out all the ways someone has already used Linux personally (without knowing it) would also be a help.
Here's one that comes to mind:
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-275155.html
It was funny? Ever?
An acquaintance of mine lives in a basement with WoW and more hentai than real-woman porn. This looks like something he would find "funny".
Google -> "define: FUD" Seems like a paranoid idea, but I think it's bang-on.
Exactly... my Dad still has issues from switching to XP (though to be fair, a lot of it is internet popups, missing plugins, and other junk as a result of using Windows). He still insists on using Microsoft Works because this new-fangled Word thing doesn't work for him. Every little thing he isn't used to seeing before is a big deal gives him serious pause.
Am I about to rush to put him on Vista?
I use several machines at work, and one of them is Vista. Even I still find it non-intuitive to navigate in. I'll begrudingly support XP, but at this point, Linux is easier for me.
As someone who switched over to linux four years ago and was still using her machine with 256MB of RAM until a week ago, all I've got to say is "Well... duh."
(motherboard bug made it stupid-picky with ram)
Depends if you're comparing software or functionality. If you care about basic functionality, what's the point of caring that Windows and Linux might not run the exact same software?
And what's funny is the big thing most folk use their computer for (internet) has well-known software used on both platforms (firefox).
I'm guessing they have a management degree. Wish I could have taken "Buzzwords I" for credit.
If a company wants to get rid of you, they'll do it any way they can with the least risk. That means avoiding firing someone (and the risk of getting sued). To do that, they either do a layoff, or set you up on a project that is destined to fail (so they have "evidence" of your incompetence).
1) Transfer all loser employees to one department or project.
2) Cut department, or ensure project will fail (by not allocating resources). Perform "layoffs".
3) Profit.
Incidentally, if you find you're put in a no-win situation, get the hell out of there before someone else makes the decision for you.
Acrobat (& Windows) only comes with a certain number of fonts. Anything other than a standard set of fonts is packaged with the pdf when it is created... the pdfs themselves create their own portability. So documents created with a font like Times New Roman will be a lot smaller than something that is designed like a ransom note.
Incidentally, a pdf is made up in a similar way to a web page... the documents contains text as characters, and the markup and style is applied to it. Sometimes you get pdfs where someone's scanned in a image that looks like text... in which case, you still have an image, which is a much larger file than text.
The real fun if you have fancy font which the owner has severe restrictions on. Looks fancy on your screen, looks like a normal font elsewhere. When the pdf is created it may (as it should) or may not warn a user the font may not be displayed properly elsewhere. Usually a user gets all click-happy, ignores the warning, and then gets upset when they take it to print and it looks funny.
You only get 3 months off a year if you're a teacher who doesn't give a damn. If you're a teacher that gives a damn, June is spent cleaning up paperwork and whatnot after classes end, and August is spent prepping for September. July is spent doing all the things you couldn't during the regular school year because you were working during the school day, finishing up paperwork after, and then grading papers and planning lessons in the evenings and weekends.
This is all assuming you're not too hosed from whiskey shots because it's your only coping mechanism of dealing with the ungrateful buggers and their parents all day.
Raising forty other peoples' spoiled children gets old pretty fast. //not a teacher but knows several
and many university graduates can not demonstrate that either...
Agreed. This is like the naivety that "a workplace's HR is there for its employees". Guess what? They're employed by the company and accountable to them. If the cost to deal with you is more of a risk than the business is willing to take, they *will* find a way to discourage or get rid of you.
Wow, they "re-invented" the software they use for making karaoke tracks... the idea of digitizing that music allows you to transpose and change the key/tempo at will. How many years have those been around?
It also reminds me of the hokey midi files in the early nineties. You know, before mp3's, when people were desperate to get music on their computers "oooo... this is good!" They've come this far in two decades?
I have a high capacity scanner at work and have been on a binge of scanning old course notes to pdf because I want to get rid of physical clutter. I've often wondered about the legalities of:
1) sharing the pdf (anywhere from posting on an online bulletin board to bittorrent)
2) modifying the pdf first and then distributing it
3) copying info to text and editing wikibooks
Notes are typically copies off of things written by a professor with my own notes and interpretations added.
Dates were often written in the upper-right hand corner, so that is something that would demonstrate a specific connection of my university and me. But if those were removed, how could they prove I have ever gotten the notes elsewhere?
Even if I made no modifications and there were obvious references to where the notes came from, do universities have the right to demand their removal?
I've never known a university have a problem with students sharing course notes. Are universities suing or disciplining students who ask for help with their homework outside of a university-sanctioned forum?
Textbooks are written by people who have taken courses, worked and have regurgitated the information themselves (with shiny new examples).
Philosophically, I've always believe the argument that "all learning is plagiarism" is technically true. Even though I am a freedom/learning junkie, I realize my ideals, legalities, and what actually happens can be three different things.
Use "The dog ate them" and try to keep a straight face. Even better smirk, and look directly at them.
That one belongs on BOFH.
Also wouldn't hurt if more locals saw school as a good thing instead of getting hosed and watching "Backstabber TV" on tv every night.
I switched to Xubuntu several months ago in an attempt to salvage my ancient system, so I'm a little fuzzy on KDE in 6.06. I do recall there were some great innovative features that I used a lot (favorite dir paths remembered, simple image operations in the context menu). I recall thinking "programmers would never get the chance to do this corporation-developed OSes". When I finally decided to format and reinstall, I used the newest version of Kubuntu at the time (with kde4) and the system choked. Much slower, and it looked like Vista had barfed all over it... hence the addition and switch to Xfce ("well I guess it's a good time to install that other thing I've been meaning to, then").
Still have a warm fuzzy feeling for KDE 3.whatever_it_was. Not sure what I'll put on my new system when I get it next week, though.
I thought I finally switched to Kubuntu because of XP?
Granted, my issues with XP mostly weren't related to the UI, but at least Linux gives me other options than "make it look cuter".