You can provide a balanced view of both sides to you children.
A "balanced" view? On one side, you have a scientific theory that can be (and has been) tested rigorously. It's a theory that not only explains existing things, but also makes certain predictions, said predictions having been observed multiple times.
On the other side, you have belief in a supernatural being that cannot possibly be tested scientifically because for any test you devise, the retort is simply "Well, $SUPERNATURAL_BEING has arranged an illusory universe to make it appear that way." Essentially, theists would have us living in The Matrix rather than admit to an objective testable reality.
I believe this is what was referred to as Mutually Assured Destruction. That doctrine probably prevented nuclear war during the Cold War, but alas... Apple's not as rational as the Russians or Americans, so it lobbed the nuclear bomb of patent litigation anyway.
As an analogy, normal banning is like an SMTP server rejecting spam with a 5xx failure code, while your scheme would have the server accept the spam with a 2xx code but throw the message in/dev/null
Each method has the usual pros and cons: Pretending to accept mail reduces (but does not completely eliminate) feedback to the spammer as to whether or not the message made it through. However, it plays hell with legitimate users; false-positives become much more problematic if there's not feedback.
These aren't a coordinated effort, obviously, but it does seem that much of our culture has adopted two ideas very hostile to religion and Christiantiy. The first is that religion should only be practiced in private. The second is that religious acts are ok so long as you don't really believe it - that we'll respect your right to do purely symbolic rituals but we won't respect your right to believe..
And what is wrong with those two ideas? Absolutely, religion should only be practiced in private. It has no place in the public sphere.
And secondly, although I agree that religious people have the right to believe whatever silliness they wish, nothing on earth would compel me to respect those beliefs.
Furthermore, where religious beliefs come into conflict with human rights, religious beliefs have to yield.
Just because all religions are bad, doesn't mean that all religions are equally bad. And it also doesn't mean that the rankings don't change over time.
I live in Canada and like it a lot. My family emigrated here from South Africa when I was 11, and Canada has been very good to me. It's sort of like the USA, only with slightly less polarized politics and slightly more sane social policies.
I live in Ottawa and it does get rather cold in the winter. But hey, global warming's fixing that... the last few winters have been mild.:)
I have a Prius and while I generally like the car, I hate the touchscreen interface that controls the radio, the air conditioning, etc. When we first bought the car, I found the display incredibly distracting... my eyes would keep wondering over to the fuel consumption graph. Now it's not that bad, but it's still jarring to change radio stations.
The one saving grace is that there's a cluster of buttons on the steering wheel that also control most aspects of the climate control and radio, so you only occasionally are forced to use the touchscreen.
Totally agree with the move-out-of-Las-Vegas sentiment. The United States has no shortage of wonderful, interesting cities: San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle... probably many more, but I've been to those four so I know about them.
So why the heck do so many organizations hold conferences in Las Vegas, a hick town in the middle of the desert with an unbearable climate, filled with pasty-faced overweight losers listlessly playing slot machines to pass the time, containing totally cheesy over-the-top-stupid theme hotels where you can buy overpriced food that all tastes like cardboard?
So, OSS is a nice idea, but realistically, you cannot run a true business on it, period.
Hmm. I guess my 13-year-old small software company is not a true business, then.
We run entirely on OSS. Asterisk for our phones, SugarCRM for CRM and Ledger-SMB for accounting. Linux on the desktop for everyone, including non-technical staff.
That being said: Accounting is the weak point. We outsource payroll, and when it comes time to file taxes, I give a couple of boxes of paper to my accountant and he does his magic with whatever proprietary software he likes.
I have a slide deck about our software infrastructure, mostly concentrating on Asterisk but also mentioning the other software we use.
Three jobs ago, I worked on electronic design automation that required knowledge of mixed integer/linear programming and graph theory.
Two jobs ago, I needed calculus and vectors for a different EDA tool. Also needed quite a bit of hairy computational geometry.
One job ago, didn't need that much math... just a bit of vectors and computational geometry.
Current job, don't need calculus, but do need statistics.
I would say that most interesting programming jobs require a fair amount of mathematics. The boring, crap, grunt-work IT programming tasks probably don't.
They don't have any freedom of speech rights specified in their constitution.
Bullshit. About twenty seconds of Googling would have uncovered this section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.
Yes, XFCE initially looked very CDE-like. In fact, that's why I started using it: I was using CDE on Solaris at work and wanted a similar desktop at home so I wouldn't have to make the mental switch between desktops.
XFCE evolved and (as you say) kept getting better, so I kept it as my desktop.
I put my parents on Debian running XFCE. It looks a bit different from Windows, but the basic concepts are the same. "X" to close the window, box to maximize it, task bar to launch programs, etc.
I should add, though, that my parents never used Windows. I took them straight from MS-DOS to Linux. Going from DOS to XFCE isn't any more disruptive than DOS to Windows, I guess.
I wrote a program called Remind and I use it to track vacation days, who has the support pager, etc.
It's very old-school UNIX. You enter all your data in a text file and it renders the calendar. I use git for revision control so it's easy to see who booked time off and when.
I'm guessing Remind will appeal to about 0.001% of the target audience.:)
Slashdot Mirror
My Prius in Canada was spec'd at 4.2L/100km which is 56mpg. Our actual consumption is closer to 5.5L/100km, though.
You can provide a balanced view of both sides to you children.
A "balanced" view? On one side, you have a scientific theory that can be (and has been) tested rigorously. It's a theory that not only explains existing things, but also makes certain predictions, said predictions having been observed multiple times.
On the other side, you have belief in a supernatural being that cannot possibly be tested scientifically because for any test you devise, the retort is simply "Well, $SUPERNATURAL_BEING has arranged an illusory universe to make it appear that way." Essentially, theists would have us living in The Matrix rather than admit to an objective testable reality.
I believe this is what was referred to as Mutually Assured Destruction. That doctrine probably prevented nuclear war during the Cold War, but alas... Apple's not as rational as the Russians or Americans, so it lobbed the nuclear bomb of patent litigation anyway.
... because nothing says I love you to the environment like chucking out some hazardous chemicals. Mmmm.... arsenic....
As an analogy, normal banning is like an SMTP server rejecting spam with a 5xx failure code, while your scheme would have the server accept the spam with a 2xx code but throw the message in /dev/null
Each method has the usual pros and cons: Pretending to accept mail reduces (but does not completely eliminate) feedback to the spammer as to whether or not the message made it through. However, it plays hell with legitimate users; false-positives become much more problematic if there's not feedback.
These aren't a coordinated effort, obviously, but it does seem that much of our culture has adopted two ideas very hostile to religion and Christiantiy. The first is that religion should only be practiced in private. The second is that religious acts are ok so long as you don't really believe it - that we'll respect your right to do purely symbolic rituals but we won't respect your right to believe..
And what is wrong with those two ideas? Absolutely, religion should only be practiced in private. It has no place in the public sphere.
And secondly, although I agree that religious people have the right to believe whatever silliness they wish, nothing on earth would compel me to respect those beliefs.
Furthermore, where religious beliefs come into conflict with human rights, religious beliefs have to yield.
Just because all religions are bad, doesn't mean that all religions are equally bad. And it also doesn't mean that the rankings don't change over time.
RIght now, to my eyes, Islam looks the worst.
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There seems a lot of Islamophobia on the site today!
Given what Islam espouses and the actions of Islamic extremists, opposition to Islam is a perfectly rational point of view.
I live in Canada and like it a lot. My family emigrated here from South Africa when I was 11, and Canada has been very good to me. It's sort of like the USA, only with slightly less polarized politics and slightly more sane social policies.
I live in Ottawa and it does get rather cold in the winter. But hey, global warming's fixing that... the last few winters have been mild. :)
I bought two... one for home and one for work (my beloved original Model M keyboard finally died.)
Those keyboards are the best computer peripherals I've bought in a long time.
I have a Prius and while I generally like the car, I hate the touchscreen interface that controls the radio, the air conditioning, etc. When we first bought the car, I found the display incredibly distracting... my eyes would keep wondering over to the fuel consumption graph. Now it's not that bad, but it's still jarring to change radio stations.
The one saving grace is that there's a cluster of buttons on the steering wheel that also control most aspects of the climate control and radio, so you only occasionally are forced to use the touchscreen.
Totally agree with the move-out-of-Las-Vegas sentiment. The United States has no shortage of wonderful, interesting cities: San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle... probably many more, but I've been to those four so I know about them.
So why the heck do so many organizations hold conferences in Las Vegas, a hick town in the middle of the desert with an unbearable climate, filled with pasty-faced overweight losers listlessly playing slot machines to pass the time, containing totally cheesy over-the-top-stupid theme hotels where you can buy overpriced food that all tastes like cardboard?
I mean seriously? What's the attraction?
So, OSS is a nice idea, but realistically, you cannot run a true business on it, period.
Hmm. I guess my 13-year-old small software company is not a true business, then.
We run entirely on OSS. Asterisk for our phones, SugarCRM for CRM and Ledger-SMB for accounting. Linux on the desktop for everyone, including non-technical staff.
That being said: Accounting is the weak point. We outsource payroll, and when it comes time to file taxes, I give a couple of boxes of paper to my accountant and he does his magic with whatever proprietary software he likes.
I have a slide deck about our software infrastructure, mostly concentrating on Asterisk but also mentioning the other software we use.
Three jobs ago, I worked on electronic design automation that required knowledge of mixed integer/linear programming and graph theory.
Two jobs ago, I needed calculus and vectors for a different EDA tool. Also needed quite a bit of hairy computational geometry.
One job ago, didn't need that much math... just a bit of vectors and computational geometry.
Current job, don't need calculus, but do need statistics.
I would say that most interesting programming jobs require a fair amount of mathematics. The boring, crap, grunt-work IT programming tasks probably don't.
They don't have any freedom of speech rights specified in their constitution.
Bullshit. About twenty seconds of Googling would have uncovered this section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.
Rogers and Bell are the Evil Duopoly in Canada. I'm not surprised Rogers is fighting for the right to lie to potential customers.
Eh? Debian's offering of a choice is holding back the Year of the Linux Desktop?
I think it's the one you get if you choose "Desktop Environment" in the newbie software selection dialog.
Yes, XFCE initially looked very CDE-like. In fact, that's why I started using it: I was using CDE on Solaris at work and wanted a similar desktop at home so I wouldn't have to make the mental switch between desktops.
XFCE evolved and (as you say) kept getting better, so I kept it as my desktop.
Ah, it's not all roses. A lot of the IPv6 hits are things like this:
2403:1400:1:2:8185:895b:7f27:4318 - - [01/Aug/2012:14:00:30 -0400] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 9763 "-" "OpenNMS PageSequenceMonitor (Service name: HTTP-v6)"
2001:8a0:2106:ff:213:13:29:205 - - [31/Jul/2012:15:20:37 -0400] "HEAD / HTTP/1.1" 200 - "-" "curl/7.18.2 (i486-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.18.2 OpenSSL/0.9.8g zlib/1.2.3.3 libidn/1.8 libssh2/0.18"
The number of "real" IPv6 hits seems depressingly low.
We (http://www.roaringpenguin.com/) turned on IPv6 for World IPv6 Day and I'm quite surprised by how much IPv6 traffic we see:
awk '{print $1}' access-2012-08-01 | grep -c ':'
1298
awk '{print $1}' access-2012-08-01 | grep -v -c ':'
16192
That's about 8% of the hits on our site, which is about eight times what I expected.
"What goes around comes around"
"Karma's a bitch"
I put my parents on Debian running XFCE. It looks a bit different from Windows, but the basic concepts are the same. "X" to close the window, box to maximize it, task bar to launch programs, etc.
I should add, though, that my parents never used Windows. I took them straight from MS-DOS to Linux. Going from DOS to XFCE isn't any more disruptive than DOS to Windows, I guess.
I wrote a program called Remind and I use it to track vacation days, who has the support pager, etc.
It's very old-school UNIX. You enter all your data in a text file and it renders the calendar. I use git for revision control so it's easy to see who booked time off and when.
I'm guessing Remind will appeal to about 0.001% of the target audience. :)