It was simply listing the other infractions that warrant suspension (for comparison), I'm pretty sure it was not claming that this person was GUILTY of any of these other infractions.
I have taken this one step further. I have now committed to NEVER vote for a republicrat again.
Just one person voting once for an alternative canidate can seem like a wasted vote, but add up all the votes you have remaining, in every race--big and small... THEN you have made a fairly powerful statement--much more so than "I'm not voting".
Then, get three friends to make the same comitment and you've got the start of a revolution.
The only wasted vote is a vote for a canidate that you don't truly want!
If someone wrote this up in a convincing chain email, it might be the first chain letter I'd consider forwarding on the internet in 10 years.
It is exactally this attitude that is destroying America--the attitude that the government is untouchable and therefore can do whatever it wants. (Well, this and our DAMNED idea that a vote for anyone outside the Commercial party--either wing--is a wasted vote.)
The government should not be our enemy, but big business is making it so. It is our only ally against big business. Both are necessary evils, but whereas the poor/not filthy rich have no real control over big business, they theoretically have some influence over government (If they would only insist on it as with this lawsuit).
We need much more of this--creative ways to dig into government. Force as many new/honest people in there as possible (Which is why term limits are a good idea--hell, I would vote for making political choices by random selection--like jury duty!), and we need to stop saying nothing can be done!
Generally with LCD technology the idea is to have a flat screen--perhaps if that wasn't the goal they could build the circuitry behind the module instead of beside it. Wires bend pretty easily.
OTOH If this was possible, it should be available by now, so I assume there MUST be some really compelling reason this won't work.
Everyone knows that the reason LCD screens are expensive is that they have to be made as a single piece, and the larger the piece the more likely that a few pixels are out causing them to have to throw the whole mess away.
What on earth is stopping them from producing a bunch of those little gameboy color screens, or maybe even something cheaper, and placing them side-by side??
You would be able to have a TV the size of your whole living room wall where you could place various channels, perhaps even nature settings. Add a touch sensor and you could even have the worlds coolest (and largest) white board.
And the price should be relativly trivial--probably under $1000/wall for the LCDs, a bit more for the control hardware.
If something like this was available, I would even forgive a little bit of a line or border where two LCDs meet (Hell, putting 4 TVs side-by-side to show one ballgame looks pretty cool, this would be MUCH better than that).
Although I don't think it teaches "techies" what we need on the job (we learn that through our own enthusiasm for the subject material), it does provided us with other things we need. It rounds out our knowledge/background and gives us access to more varied experiences then we will ever see later in life.
More obviously, economies change and you never know when all of a sudden a degree may again become an absolute requirement (and it IS a littler harder to go back once you've gotten used to not taking BS for a few years)
I guess in brief, You don't need college to live your life, but it does help make life worth living.
Although I don't disagree with you about this being a fairly cool business model, I have a BIG problem with all this stuff beign implicit.
Cell Phones and those damn $400 compuserve rebates are in the same vein, they are basically assuming the consumer is too dumb to realize what he is getting into until it is too late.
If they said up front that instead of paying $800 for your new computer, you pay $400 and $20/month for however many years, AND you get free internet service... Well fine. But just saying "This computer costs $400" is--well kinda wrong (although not yet illigal). I mean, if you were financing $400 of the computer, wouldn't it be required to specify the payments in the add? Why do they get away with it here?
If Raido Shack said, as they were handing these pens out, that this business model is supported by sending all the personal information it can gleem to a central server somewhere, and we must insist that you have an internet connection and use our software--fine.
But if they hid that and just say "Free Pen", I feel no guilt taking it apart and using the parts for paperweights & the occasional art piece.
*Companies do not have some god-give right to make money just because they have people to feed, this is communism not capitalism.
*Companies do not have the right to force people to act the way their business plan says they should act (although I admit that's hard to see when you've spent the last year thinking with a certian mindset)
*Companies MUST adapt or perish. You cannot force car buyers to buy a whip simply because you are going out of business.
*Stockholders cannot be counted on to make the best decision for the user of their products. The Stockholders job is to make money for himself, the government's job is to make sure that the companies products are fair & usable and that the company is basically benifiting their clientel as much as benifiting from them.
*The government is not doing its job.
*This is our fault (and espically the fault of every person who says company should stay out of business--hell, getting in the way of business is the only thing government is really needed for!)
Have you looked into x.com? At least it doesn't require a credit card--in fact, the offer to issue one of those bank cards that looks like a credit card. They were also issuing $20 for signups/referals instead of $5 but I think that's over.
It's a full bank system, and nearly everything is free, including micro-payments to another user (athough I'm not sure what happens if that user doesn't want to open an Xbank account.)
There are some interesting solutions available through technology if we think "Outside the box" (I hate that phrase). Let me give you just a few examples...
How about a party where its canidates were bound by contract to place all the information they come across in a day on the web, and to always act as specified by party members on the web. As close as we can get to true democracy. We all know this is technologically difficult (espically security), but not impossible. The dissemenation of information and the voting could take place through a moderation system like/. in order to filter information.
Secondly, how about we adjust how the corperations work. Simply between the readers of/. we must have hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock in 401k programs and stock option programs. If this could be gathered into a single "Voting Block" it would be extremely powerful. (This is espically true if it were possible to sell & buy stock based on who's anual meeting was coming up.) It should be possible to even place insiders in boards and start running some of our own companies.
Simply forming a technologically adept party might have it's advantages. There are places where we can't agree at all (environment, corporate freedom vs taxes,...) but there are a lot of places where we seem to generally have agreement and we seem have a lot more understanding of the "New" issues than any other group.
If nothing else, I'd love to see a forum set up (again, perhaps like/.) to discuss some unique approaches to changing the world and reintegrating ourselves into world politics.
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a network set up through encrypted connections that can run over other networks (The internet).
You seem to be talking about aliasing all your PCs on to a single IP address through a proxy--a completely different matter.
Although I have a meeting NOW, a quick glance at section 6 didn't tell me which they were talking about (I couldn't find it in 30 seconds or less, sorry)
You bring up a great point--the comparison of porn to hate liteature.
I have always thought that when a child is old enough to look *at* porn, it isn't going to do him any harm (Meaning that most young kids will turn away when the titties come on during the HBO movie), the exception is generally the ones with the psycho parents that freak out every time a nipple rears its ugly head, then the kid is F*'d for life.
But your point about the racist site made me think. Kids below a pretty serious age (18? 22?) are still forming opinions about how they relate to others, and being exposed to hate liteature (or Christianity for that matter) has a much more significant effect on them. You will notice that Christians know to prey on younger kids--even up through college.
On the other hand, the kind of mind-bending that can come from reading liteature will never equate to what happens to you when you view a picture, espically the simple, peacful pictures that USUALLY deliver porn.
Oh, about the Chocolate Chip search--I heard about a reference to a senator who had a homesexual encounter and was curious if it was real or made up (turned out to be the latter). When I did a search for related material, the search page actually returned with gay adds (including naked men) on the page. This doesn't bother me a bit, but I could certianly see some people freaking *completely* out about that.
Finally, (This will probably get me a -1) I am getting REALLY tired of the typical assumption that "Parents Know Best". 90% of the time, if a kid is screwed up, it's because of the parents, and I can't remember the last time that a parent spent even a year educating themselves for the most significant task of their lives. The assumption is, aparently, having the ability to pump out children magically makes you an automatic expert.
In the past 10 years (Since I started caring) I have noticed SO MANY subtle abuses of children that it makes my mind spin. Not the major beating stuff, but stuff like smoking with them in the car, letting them watch TV (even Disney videos) as a substute for spending time reading to them or teaching them. Parents fighting in front of them. How about expecting them to be quiet in a restaraunt or on a plane? It's a kids JOB to scream when they are tired or uncomfortable, physically restraining that must be one of the most tramautic things that can happen to you at a very young age.
These little abuses are the things that destroy a kid for life. Maybe deep inside even the poorest parents know that and they are using Porn to misdirect their guilt into some kind of anger? I dunno but the whole thing is getting pretty sick.
I started looking for an oppertunity to do some type of community assistance a few years ago. Last year I found the Housing Authority of Portland.
The HAP has been fairly proactive about creating a computer-literate community. They started a computer lab (converted one house) and had 20 computers networked (to a single dial-up line...)
Anyway, a lot of people found they liked computers but couldn't afford one. The HAP had a bunch of extra donated computers but no resources that could spend the time to put them together.
I came in once a week and taught a small class of users (4-10) how to put their own computer together. It was very "me" intensive because most people don't seem to want to learn, they just want to do, but there were a few that got it enough to understand what cards were needed, how to swap RAM, and how to load an OS, enough so that we could be working on 3 computers at a time or so.
There was another group called STRUT (STudents for the ReUse of Technology). I think that was started by a teacher, but they got a bunch of donations from companies, made the comptuers work, and forwarded them on (To other charities).
Once I'm setteled in my new area, I'm going to find a very small group who wants to really learn to program. That was my goal but it's amazingly difficult to find people with real computer interest these days, at least it was in Portland.. We'll see if California is any better.
I think the whole point was stated in your message: --quote-- The veteran admin is so accustomed to using a text editor via telnet he won't consider any other option. Even in situations where it is faster. --endquote-- So the veteran admin is taken care of, but what about the people that are getting into Linux now. No matter how many times experienced users disagree, it's still a fact that administring Linux is not simple for anyone new. Really. No, the existing tools don't help if you don't understand the underlying structure. I'm sorry but home users do not want to understand all the files involved, they want to click and specify the IP address/mask in a single place, and then the machine should have that IP address/mask, and the whole machine should configure itself for network (or dialup) configuration. I know this is difficult with Linux, that IS my one and only serious complaint about the system--and I'm not sure it's solvable.
When I'm eating lunch, I typically pick up a LOCAL left-wing paper if one is available. If not, I occasionally grab the city paper but I rarely read anything on there that I haven't seen on the web already.
On sundays I read the back page of the Sports section (because that's where the Fry's add is) and I look for COMP USA's weekly add. The sunday sales are hard to beat... even online).
If someone happens to leave the dailies in the bathroom, I'll glance at 'em.
I wonder how many shares of stock/.ers already have stashed away. I've got about $150k worth of communications stock in a 401K program. Every year I get some stupid proxy form that I ignore.
I'd gladly sign the voting rights over to someone who wanted to gather a large "Block" and vote for "Hackers" (Or technologically aware, or...)
Maybe my stock isn't really going to help this problem, but I bet it could come in handy eventually.
Perhaps we could even us a forum like/. to present issues and discuss upcoming votes.
This way you eliminate any chance of "Losing" additional money--you don't lose anything. You don't have to Trust anyone either--Random voting can't be MUCH worse than my usual abstaining.
What do you suppose is the combined value of all the stock "We" have just "Sitting Around". $100m? And what if we add those co-workers that we know well?
Rather than a direct attack on one issue, it would be a slow, steady push in the right direction--something that would do much more good in the long run.
The problem is, Who wants to set it up? I hate paperwork.
As I understand it, the problem with making LCD screens is that they can't be "Fixed". If a single pixel goes out the screen is "broken" and hard (or impossible) to sell. That's why you get really cheap small screens now, but the stand-alone 15" screens are still in the $800 range.
What I'm wondering is, when are they going to take a bunch of little (brick-sized maybe) extremely cheap panel screens and place them together? If you could produce those little ones for, say, less than $3/ea, then nothing is stopping you from wallpapering with them!
How long until whiteboards with LCD screens replace current whiteboards. A drawing program could easily replace chalk.
Why have static pictures on your wall when a live view from a mountain screen is just $50.00?
This stuff all has to be right around the corner, I'd like to know why I haven't heard of it? Am I wrong in guessing that producing very small screens could be extremely cheap? Are there technical issues about putting them side-by side (not quite seamless I would guess, but I'd take a seam or two!)
I'm afraid I have to agree with the article--actually I've always felt that way. The fact that Open Source developers cannot see this is perfect evidence of the problem.
The article did not say all Open Source UI's were horrible, what he said was that the very best are but cheap imitations of UI's developed by--well often Microsoft.
These "Copied" interfaces aren't that bad, Microsoft has put more money into understanding users than imaginable. The problem is in the other software.
First, just to show that it can be done though, I'd like to go the other way. There is one Open Source UI I've encountered that beats anything in it's class. It's the/. system. First of all the "Setup" is basically type in the URL. It's clean and it performs an amazingly large set of functions without being overwhelming.
My guess is that this did not spring into being immideatly. My guess is that the ammount of USER feedback in designing/. was immesurable.
But if you read the rest of the responses to this story I think you'll find a theme. Open Source Developers often target the technological elite and when their software works well enough for them they slide onto the next "interesting" project.
You can keep flaming these ideas, but if you really want OS Software to be accepted, you really need to start thinking from an untalented users point of view.
Why? We don't care about untalented users! As I've gone through these stages, let me tell you that at some point we're ALL untalented users. We can't all be experts at everything, and as you age you find that being an expert in everything interests you less and less. At some point you WILL want Plug and Play!
Here's a few examples of undesireable practices: I KNOW that you don't think they are undesireable, YOU think they are features, but that's really the problem we're addressing isn't it!
Installs: There is a reason that Microsoft made auto-play for CDs. It's not that it's needed, we got along without it! But it's much smoother than scanning for the correct file. Any install where you need separate directions, file editing or entering more than a few OBVIOUS options is just not necessary.
Options: Unix is based on options for everything. Your UI is completly configurable, every key in every editor (well, ALMOST every editor), even your mouse buttons. This is SO wrong. Aside from the obvious, it means more configuration and usually the default configuration is lame (you can always reconfigure it, dummy!). The correct way to do this would be to make a central key/mouse configuration that controlled all the applications--but the inability to do this kind of synchronization is another shortfall of having such a distributed development.
The GUI: Huge topic. Let me 'splain. Hmm, no time to 'splain let me sum up.
EVERYTHING needs to be doable through the GUI. If you WANT to jump to the command line to do something, that means the GUI was NOT done well enough. If there is some function you must do at the command line--another shortfall of the GUI.
The GUI usage must be obvious. If any user can't figure out how to complete his task without a manual, then your GUI is not done. If a user goes in the wrong direction to complete a task, the UI isn't done.
Even the order of your menu items is significant. Don't arange menu items in a way that makes them difficult to use simply to make some technology work (tear-off menus in Frame).
In fact, the underlying technology should not effect the UI at all! Remember, spend the time on the task done few times (building) to save time on tasks that will be done repeatedly (using).
Oh well, I think I've queued up enough flames now, I'll sit back and wait for them to arrive.
There is nothing special about the Napster protocol, actually it's missing a few abilities:
--The ability to uniquely identify files (which would enable split downloads where you get parts of a file from different hosts)
--The ability to deal with other types of files (well, not really a protocol issue but controlled by Napster)
--The ability to continue after a legal attack on the "Server"
--Load balancing of the transfers
--...
The only real advantage is that they use a central server and are willing to take the heat for hosting that server.
Making a reliable transfer protocol is not difficult--look at GetRight. The trick is in communicating and hosting the databases. As long as there is a need of a central repository there is a vulnerability. It's not only that you could take out that one server site and shut down the whole network, but that there are a limited number of subnets that could be "Sniffed" to find out who was serving what.
Is there anyone out there who thinks that the files they "Host" for napster downloads aren't tracked?
What we really need is a more amorphous system where a list of IP's and files is hosted on each system and is synchronized constantly in the background. When you start your computer it would try to contact all the IPs it had before. If you are lucky, one will connect and you'll get a new list. If you're unlucky, you download a text file from any of hundreds of places where the latest lists would be stashed.
It could even be implemented as a BADFS (Big Ass Distributed File System). You would just "Mount" what you wish to share somewhere into the system and load any files you want from other areas.
Having different "Groups" to connect to might solve the problems that will occur because of the size of the directory.
I've never understood quantum mechanics, but now I think it's starting to make sense.
Santa can be in every house at the same time because he is in a quantum state. This also explains why we never get to see him! If I saw him I suppose he'd be stuck in a single state (my house) until he left, then he'd have to start over.
Hmm, either that or a jar of poison gas would open and he'd die, I guess I don't quite understand it yet.
This will happen. I think it's premature to have your heater on the internet, but I wouldn't be supprised to know a few houses already had IP addresses hooked into some serious systems.
How about turning lights on and off 5 times a second until they burn out. Might only take a few days... And this is probably already possible with X-10 systems hooked up to the internet.
Oh, and companies will never do enough security research up-front. A few might, but--well we've all been there.
Legislation against hackers? Good luck, you'll never catch the best ones.
Solution? Get the hackers to work for you.
Someone should act as a go-between, approaching companies with an "Unhackable" seal if they offer a reward. The go-between then posts requirements and rewards from all these companies to hackers. If a hacker proves that he made it in to a system in the list and shows how he did it and that he did no damage he receives the reward.
This would save the companies a fortune! Not only knowing that they have a security force constantly testing their systems, but also that if someone makes it in they will want to pick up the reward more than do damage.
I would, in fact, make a tier structure. A small company might offer, say, 2000 a year. The first certification might say "Challange" and have a reward of $500. After a few months with no hacks, they could change the certification to "Difficult to hack" and offer 1000. A large company might go up to "Unhackable Gold" with a reward of $50,000.
This is along the lines of what Microsoft and PC labs have attempted lately, but it would have much less structure and be much longer term, allowing for real useful testing.
This site has information on changing your keyboard to Dvorak with software. It has information for remaping many different platforms including X mappings & windows Software.
I have seen Dvorak keyboards that you can plug in in the place of a normal PC keyboard. For a tech this would solve all but the most obscure problems since you could take your keyboard with you everywhere.
I personally think the key advantage is probalby comfort more than speed. With the dvorak keyboard, you use your weak fingers much less often.
I wonder how it would effect CTS. My guess is that that it would be a wash with the increase in speed canceling the decreased use of weak fingers.
Slashdot Mirror
It was simply listing the other infractions that warrant suspension (for comparison), I'm pretty sure it was not claming that this person was GUILTY of any of these other infractions.
I have taken this one step further. I have now committed to NEVER vote for a republicrat again.
Just one person voting once for an alternative canidate can seem like a wasted vote, but add up all the votes you have remaining, in every race--big and small... THEN you have made a fairly powerful statement--much more so than "I'm not voting".
Then, get three friends to make the same comitment and you've got the start of a revolution.
The only wasted vote is a vote for a canidate that you don't truly want!
If someone wrote this up in a convincing chain email, it might be the first chain letter I'd consider forwarding on the internet in 10 years.
It is exactally this attitude that is destroying America--the attitude that the government is untouchable and therefore can do whatever it wants. (Well, this and our DAMNED idea that a vote for anyone outside the Commercial party--either wing--is a wasted vote.)
The government should not be our enemy, but big business is making it so. It is our only ally against big business. Both are necessary evils, but whereas the poor/not filthy rich have no real control over big business, they theoretically have some influence over government (If they would only insist on it as with this lawsuit).
We need much more of this--creative ways to dig into government. Force as many new/honest people in there as possible (Which is why term limits are a good idea--hell, I would vote for making political choices by random selection--like jury duty!), and we need to stop saying nothing can be done!
Generally with LCD technology the idea is to have a flat screen--perhaps if that wasn't the goal they could build the circuitry behind the module instead of beside it. Wires bend pretty easily.
OTOH If this was possible, it should be available by now, so I assume there MUST be some really compelling reason this won't work.
This has been bugging me for years now.
Everyone knows that the reason LCD screens are expensive is that they have to be made as a single piece, and the larger the piece the more likely that a few pixels are out causing them to have to throw the whole mess away.
What on earth is stopping them from producing a bunch of those little gameboy color screens, or maybe even something cheaper, and placing them side-by side??
You would be able to have a TV the size of your whole living room wall where you could place various channels, perhaps even nature settings. Add a touch sensor and you could even have the worlds coolest (and largest) white board.
And the price should be relativly trivial--probably under $1000/wall for the LCDs, a bit more for the control hardware.
If something like this was available, I would even forgive a little bit of a line or border where two LCDs meet (Hell, putting 4 TVs side-by-side to show one ballgame looks pretty cool, this would be MUCH better than that).
Anyway, anyone out there know why?
Although I don't think it teaches "techies" what we need on the job (we learn that through our own enthusiasm for the subject material), it does provided us with other things we need. It rounds out our knowledge/background and gives us access to more varied experiences then we will ever see later in life.
More obviously, economies change and you never know when all of a sudden a degree may again become an absolute requirement (and it IS a littler harder to go back once you've gotten used to not taking BS for a few years)
I guess in brief, You don't need college to live your life, but it does help make life worth living.
Although I don't disagree with you about this being a fairly cool business model, I have a BIG problem with all this stuff beign implicit.
Cell Phones and those damn $400 compuserve rebates are in the same vein, they are basically assuming the consumer is too dumb to realize what he is getting into until it is too late.
If they said up front that instead of paying $800 for your new computer, you pay $400 and $20/month for however many years, AND you get free internet service... Well fine. But just saying "This computer costs $400" is--well kinda wrong (although not yet illigal). I mean, if you were financing $400 of the computer, wouldn't it be required to specify the payments in the add? Why do they get away with it here?
If Raido Shack said, as they were handing these pens out, that this business model is supported by sending all the personal information it can gleem to a central server somewhere, and we must insist that you have an internet connection and use our software--fine.
But if they hid that and just say "Free Pen", I feel no guilt taking it apart and using the parts for paperweights & the occasional art piece.
*Companies do not have some god-give right to make money just because they have people to feed, this is communism not capitalism.
*Companies do not have the right to force people to act the way their business plan says they should act (although I admit that's hard to see when you've spent the last year thinking with a certian mindset)
*Companies MUST adapt or perish. You cannot force car buyers to buy a whip simply because you are going out of business.
*Stockholders cannot be counted on to make the best decision for the user of their products. The Stockholders job is to make money for himself, the government's job is to make sure that the companies products are fair & usable and that the company is basically benifiting their clientel as much as benifiting from them.
*The government is not doing its job.
*This is our fault (and espically the fault of every person who says company should stay out of business--hell, getting in the way of business is the only thing government is really needed for!)
Have you looked into x.com? At least it doesn't require a credit card--in fact, the offer to issue one of those bank cards that looks like a credit card. They were also issuing $20 for signups/referals instead of $5 but I think that's over.
It's a full bank system, and nearly everything is free, including micro-payments to another user (athough I'm not sure what happens if that user doesn't want to open an Xbank account.)
Just a thought.
There are some interesting solutions available through technology if we think "Outside the box" (I hate that phrase). Let me give you just a few examples...
/. in order to filter information.
/. we must have hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock in 401k programs and stock option programs. If this could be gathered into a single "Voting Block" it would be extremely powerful. (This is espically true if it were possible to sell & buy stock based on who's anual meeting was coming up.) It should be possible to even place insiders in boards and start running some of our own companies.
...) but there are a lot of places where we seem to generally have agreement and we seem have a lot more understanding of the "New" issues than any other group.
/.) to discuss some unique approaches to changing the world and reintegrating ourselves into world politics.
How about a party where its canidates were bound by contract to place all the information they come across in a day on the web, and to always act as specified by party members on the web. As close as we can get to true democracy. We all know this is technologically difficult (espically security), but not impossible. The dissemenation of information and the voting could take place through a moderation system like
Secondly, how about we adjust how the corperations work. Simply between the readers of
Simply forming a technologically adept party might have it's advantages. There are places where we can't agree at all (environment, corporate freedom vs taxes,
If nothing else, I'd love to see a forum set up (again, perhaps like
bk
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a network set up through encrypted connections that can run over other networks (The internet).
You seem to be talking about aliasing all your PCs on to a single IP address through a proxy--a completely different matter.
Although I have a meeting NOW, a quick glance at section 6 didn't tell me which they were talking about (I couldn't find it in 30 seconds or less, sorry)
You bring up a great point--the comparison of porn to hate liteature.
I have always thought that when a child is old enough to look *at* porn, it isn't going to do him any harm (Meaning that most young kids will turn away when the titties come on during the HBO movie), the exception is generally the ones with the psycho parents that freak out every time a nipple rears its ugly head, then the kid is F*'d for life.
But your point about the racist site made me think. Kids below a pretty serious age (18? 22?) are still forming opinions about how they relate to others, and being exposed to hate liteature (or Christianity for that matter) has a much more significant effect on them. You will notice that Christians know to prey on younger kids--even up through college.
On the other hand, the kind of mind-bending that can come from reading liteature will never equate to what happens to you when you view a picture, espically the simple, peacful pictures that USUALLY deliver porn.
Oh, about the Chocolate Chip search--I heard about a reference to a senator who had a homesexual encounter and was curious if it was real or made up (turned out to be the latter). When I did a search for related material, the search page actually returned with gay adds (including naked men) on the page. This doesn't bother me a bit, but I could certianly see some people freaking *completely* out about that.
Finally, (This will probably get me a -1) I am getting REALLY tired of the typical assumption that "Parents Know Best". 90% of the time, if a kid is screwed up, it's because of the parents, and I can't remember the last time that a parent spent even a year educating themselves for the most significant task of their lives. The assumption is, aparently, having the ability to pump out children magically makes you an automatic expert.
In the past 10 years (Since I started caring) I have noticed SO MANY subtle abuses of children that it makes my mind spin. Not the major beating stuff, but stuff like smoking with them in the car, letting them watch TV (even Disney videos) as a substute for spending time reading to them or teaching them. Parents fighting in front of them. How about expecting them to be quiet in a restaraunt or on a plane? It's a kids JOB to scream when they are tired or uncomfortable, physically restraining that must be one of the most tramautic things that can happen to you at a very young age.
These little abuses are the things that destroy a kid for life. Maybe deep inside even the poorest parents know that and they are using Porn to misdirect their guilt into some kind of anger? I dunno but the whole thing is getting pretty sick.
I started looking for an oppertunity to do some type of community assistance a few years ago. Last year I found the Housing Authority of Portland.
The HAP has been fairly proactive about creating a computer-literate community. They started a computer lab (converted one house) and had 20 computers networked (to a single dial-up line...)
Anyway, a lot of people found they liked computers but couldn't afford one. The HAP had a bunch of extra donated computers but no resources that could spend the time to put them together.
I came in once a week and taught a small class of users (4-10) how to put their own computer together. It was very "me" intensive because most people don't seem to want to learn, they just want to do, but there were a few that got it enough to understand what cards were needed, how to swap RAM, and how to load an OS, enough so that we could be working on 3 computers at a time or so.
There was another group called STRUT (STudents for the ReUse of Technology). I think that was started by a teacher, but they got a bunch of donations from companies, made the comptuers work, and forwarded them on (To other charities).
Once I'm setteled in my new area, I'm going to find a very small group who wants to really learn to program. That was my goal but it's amazingly difficult to find people with real computer interest these days, at least it was in Portland.. We'll see if California is any better.
I think the whole point was stated in your message: --quote-- The veteran admin is so accustomed to using a text editor via telnet he won't consider any other option. Even in situations where it is faster. --endquote-- So the veteran admin is taken care of, but what about the people that are getting into Linux now. No matter how many times experienced users disagree, it's still a fact that administring Linux is not simple for anyone new. Really. No, the existing tools don't help if you don't understand the underlying structure. I'm sorry but home users do not want to understand all the files involved, they want to click and specify the IP address/mask in a single place, and then the machine should have that IP address/mask, and the whole machine should configure itself for network (or dialup) configuration. I know this is difficult with Linux, that IS my one and only serious complaint about the system--and I'm not sure it's solvable.
I still have a couple uses for newspapers.
When I'm eating lunch, I typically pick up a LOCAL left-wing paper if one is available. If not, I occasionally grab the city paper but I rarely read anything on there that I haven't seen on the web already.
On sundays I read the back page of the Sports section (because that's where the Fry's add is) and I look for COMP USA's weekly add. The sunday sales are hard to beat... even online).
If someone happens to leave the dailies in the bathroom, I'll glance at 'em.
Starting fires.
I wonder how many shares of stock /.ers already have stashed away. I've got about $150k worth of communications stock in a 401K program. Every year I get some stupid proxy form that I ignore.
/. to present issues and discuss upcoming votes.
I'd gladly sign the voting rights over to someone who wanted to gather a large "Block" and vote for "Hackers" (Or technologically aware, or...)
Maybe my stock isn't really going to help this problem, but I bet it could come in handy eventually.
Perhaps we could even us a forum like
This way you eliminate any chance of "Losing" additional money--you don't lose anything. You don't have to Trust anyone either--Random voting can't be MUCH worse than my usual abstaining.
What do you suppose is the combined value of all the stock "We" have just "Sitting Around". $100m? And what if we add those co-workers that we know well?
Rather than a direct attack on one issue, it would be a slow, steady push in the right direction--something that would do much more good in the long run.
The problem is, Who wants to set it up? I hate paperwork.
As I understand it, the problem with making LCD screens is that they can't be "Fixed". If a single pixel goes out the screen is "broken" and hard (or impossible) to sell. That's why you get really cheap small screens now, but the stand-alone 15" screens are still in the $800 range.
What I'm wondering is, when are they going to take a bunch of little (brick-sized maybe) extremely cheap panel screens and place them together? If you could produce those little ones for, say, less than $3/ea, then nothing is stopping you from wallpapering with them!
How long until whiteboards with LCD screens replace current whiteboards. A drawing program could easily replace chalk.
Why have static pictures on your wall when a live view from a mountain screen is just $50.00?
This stuff all has to be right around the corner, I'd like to know why I haven't heard of it? Am I wrong in guessing that producing very small screens could be extremely cheap? Are there technical issues about putting them side-by side (not quite seamless I would guess, but I'd take a seam or two!)
I'm afraid I have to agree with the article--actually I've always felt that way. The fact that Open Source developers cannot see this is perfect evidence of the problem.
/. system. First of all the "Setup" is basically type in the URL. It's clean and it performs an amazingly large set of functions without being overwhelming.
/. was immesurable.
The article did not say all Open Source UI's were horrible, what he said was that the very best are but cheap imitations of UI's developed by--well often Microsoft.
These "Copied" interfaces aren't that bad, Microsoft has put more money into understanding users than imaginable. The problem is in the other software.
First, just to show that it can be done though, I'd like to go the other way. There is one Open Source UI I've encountered that beats anything in it's class. It's the
My guess is that this did not spring into being immideatly. My guess is that the ammount of USER feedback in designing
But if you read the rest of the responses to this story I think you'll find a theme. Open Source Developers often target the technological elite and when their software works well enough for them they slide onto the next "interesting" project.
You can keep flaming these ideas, but if you really want OS Software to be accepted, you really need to start thinking from an untalented users point of view.
Why? We don't care about untalented users! As I've gone through these stages, let me tell you that at some point we're ALL untalented users. We can't all be experts at everything, and as you age you find that being an expert in everything interests you less and less. At some point you WILL want Plug and Play!
Here's a few examples of undesireable practices: I KNOW that you don't think they are undesireable, YOU think they are features, but that's really the problem we're addressing isn't it!
Installs: There is a reason that Microsoft made auto-play for CDs. It's not that it's needed, we got along without it! But it's much smoother than scanning for the correct file. Any install where you need separate directions, file editing or entering more than a few OBVIOUS options is just not necessary.
Options: Unix is based on options for everything. Your UI is completly configurable, every key in every editor (well, ALMOST every editor), even your mouse buttons. This is SO wrong. Aside from the obvious, it means more configuration and usually the default configuration is lame (you can always reconfigure it, dummy!). The correct way to do this would be to make a central key/mouse configuration that controlled all the applications--but the inability to do this kind of synchronization is another shortfall of having such a distributed development.
The GUI:
Huge topic. Let me 'splain. Hmm, no time to 'splain let me sum up.
EVERYTHING needs to be doable through the GUI. If you WANT to jump to the command line to do something, that means the GUI was NOT done well enough. If there is some function you must do at the command line--another shortfall of the GUI.
The GUI usage must be obvious. If any user can't figure out how to complete his task without a manual, then your GUI is not done. If a user goes in the wrong direction to complete a task, the UI isn't done.
Even the order of your menu items is significant. Don't arange menu items in a way that makes them difficult to use simply to make some technology work (tear-off menus in Frame).
In fact, the underlying technology should not effect the UI at all! Remember, spend the time on the task done few times (building) to save time on tasks that will be done repeatedly (using).
Oh well, I think I've queued up enough flames now, I'll sit back and wait for them to arrive.
Sigh.
--The ability to uniquely identify files (which would enable split downloads where you get parts of a file from different hosts)
--The ability to deal with other types of files (well, not really a protocol issue but controlled by Napster)
--The ability to continue after a legal attack on the "Server"
--Load balancing of the transfers
--...
The only real advantage is that they use a central server and are willing to take the heat for hosting that server.
Making a reliable transfer protocol is not difficult--look at GetRight. The trick is in communicating and hosting the databases. As long as there is a need of a central repository there is a vulnerability. It's not only that you could take out that one server site and shut down the whole network, but that there are a limited number of subnets that could be "Sniffed" to find out who was serving what.
Is there anyone out there who thinks that the files they "Host" for napster downloads aren't tracked?
What we really need is a more amorphous system where a list of IP's and files is hosted on each system and is synchronized constantly in the background. When you start your computer it would try to contact all the IPs it had before. If you are lucky, one will connect and you'll get a new list. If you're unlucky, you download a text file from any of hundreds of places where the latest lists would be stashed.
It could even be implemented as a BADFS (Big Ass Distributed File System). You would just "Mount" what you wish to share somewhere into the system and load any files you want from other areas.
Having different "Groups" to connect to might solve the problems that will occur because of the size of the directory.
I've never understood quantum mechanics, but now I think it's starting to make sense.
Santa can be in every house at the same time because he is in a quantum state. This also explains why we never get to see him! If I saw him I suppose he'd be stuck in a single state (my house) until he left, then he'd have to start over.
Hmm, either that or a jar of poison gas would open and he'd die, I guess I don't quite understand it yet.
This will happen. I think it's premature to have your heater on the internet, but I wouldn't be supprised to know a few houses already had IP addresses hooked into some serious systems.
How about turning lights on and off 5 times a second until they burn out. Might only take a few days... And this is probably already possible with X-10 systems hooked up to the internet.
Oh, and companies will never do enough security research up-front. A few might, but--well we've all been there.
Legislation against hackers? Good luck, you'll never catch the best ones.
Solution? Get the hackers to work for you.
Someone should act as a go-between, approaching companies with an "Unhackable" seal if they offer a reward. The go-between then posts requirements and rewards from all these companies to hackers. If a hacker proves that he made it in to a system in the list and shows how he did it and that he did no damage he receives the reward.
This would save the companies a fortune! Not only knowing that they have a security force constantly testing their systems, but also that if someone makes it in they will want to pick up the reward more than do damage.
I would, in fact, make a tier structure. A small company might offer, say, 2000 a year. The first certification might say "Challange" and have a reward of $500. After a few months with no hacks, they could change the certification to "Difficult to hack" and offer 1000. A large company might go up to "Unhackable Gold" with a reward of $50,000.
This is along the lines of what Microsoft and PC labs have attempted lately, but it would have much less structure and be much longer term, allowing for real useful testing.
bk
This site has information on changing your keyboard to Dvorak with software. It has information for remaping many different platforms including X mappings & windows Software.
I have seen Dvorak keyboards that you can plug in in the place of a normal PC keyboard. For a tech this would solve all but the most obscure problems since you could take your keyboard with you everywhere.
I personally think the key advantage is probalby comfort more than speed. With the dvorak keyboard, you use your weak fingers much less often.
I wonder how it would effect CTS. My guess is that that it would be a wash with the increase in speed canceling the decreased use of weak fingers.