Educators do not turn away smart kids if they're reasonably well-behaved.
The year was 1982.
Number of sub-15-year-olds with unix access that I knew personally: Three.
Twenty-one years later:
One has gone on to great success as a venture capitalist after some successful startups.
One has worked on a very popular computer game series and even placed an old pet of mine as a character.
Last but not least, the third has not only had has works exhibited in museums and gone through the world of startups, he is now a PhD candidate at a prestigeous university.
None of them have done time in the federal pen.
Re:Unbelievably depressing?
on
Immortal Code
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· Score: 1
Totally and utterly screwed, left out in the cold by the new "owners".
The local skating rink has these flashy LEDs mounted on rare earth magnets for $2.50 a pop - their use is to turn off the lights and let the rink be a sea of flashy thingies.
The other good cheap but fun one would be to hand out kazoos and hope that a critical mass of people end up inspiring the crowd to play a piece together.
The telcos can't get people to use it if their life depended on it. My carrier [Pacbell] had notifications until they merged with SBC into Cingular, I think. Notifications gone. Bad bad BAD service [delays, drops like mad]. When I complain it's either "you're getting it for free with your rate plan" or "Uh, what's SMS?".
When my hands blew out, I was told by management that I had one shot at buying a keyboard to help me out....
I ended up buying a DataHand keyboard...er...key-thing. Minimal movement of all of my fingers in all directions, I didn't have to learn much of the new layout as it's 85% QWERTY and I can definitely type faster and more accurately than before. I was a very good touch-typist before everything went cattywampus, probably due to the very attractive typing teacher I had to look at when I learned.
I ended up liking the one I had at work so much, I bought another for use at home. Flat keyboards are a pain.
The madness was always there. The Man in the High Castle was published in '62, and seriously twisted in and of itself. No, it's not Valis, but it's still seriously freaky, especially if you're intimately familiar with San Francisco.
It was originally one of PKD's 30-day miracle books, contracted to be delivered within 30 days in reasonable form, printed straight to cheezy paperback with bogus cover art executed by someone who might have read the back cover text. Short, but still a novel and originally published as a stand-alone work - popular in some circles, and likely the most widely-published of PKD's novels even before the whole "Blade Runner" thing happened.
From my memory there was, as usual a pile of ideas and plot concepts tossed in, as usual for one of his books:
Penfield mood organs -- dial-a-mood, and the ramifications of same
Androids and the ethics of how they are treated once they are our equals
Post-nuclear-war environmental impact
Religion and one's relationship to it
So what if it's false, so long as you believe?
Belief is powerful
How can you believe the Police are who they say they are?
If you find yourself in an ethically confusing situation, how should you act?
Man's relationship with his fellow man
Our pets and why we keep them
Should the Government be responsible for classifying people, and granting/revoking privileges based upon a test someone made up?
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep may have been a short novel by today's standards but it was definitely not a "short story".
However, the "detective hunts down renegade androids" subplot from the book was effectively distilled into a short story length screenplay for "Blade Runner".
I finally re-read it after a twenty-year hiatus and got a lot more out of the book than I had previously.
As it has been said, other women will expect your fiancee to have a diamond. However, if your wife-to-be doesn't WANT or isn't EXPECTING a diamond, a CZ will be good enough to fool her girlfriends, provided [a] they don't go under black light and [b] your lady friend doesn't let it slip to anyone that it's a fake. They sparkle, they're hard, they look nice.
Put the money instead into property [a house] or a kick-ass vacation of your dreams.
The guy who proposed a lump of coal in a nice setting clearly has no experience with women. A stunt like that with even the most non-traditional of gals will result in a Bobbitting.
The Seimens 2.5GHz wireless phone system also has voicemail capabilities in the two-line, 8-extension version. You end up with the pbx features [intercom, shared directory] along with the convenience of wireless operation. Just don't try to talk on the fern when you're nuking up a burrito.
Slashdot Mirror
As a corporation they may not sell their user list, but that doesn't stop sleazeball employees from doing so.
Educators do not turn away smart kids if they're reasonably well-behaved.
The year was 1982.
Number of sub-15-year-olds with unix access that I knew personally: Three.
Twenty-one years later:
One has gone on to great success as a venture capitalist after some successful startups.
One has worked on a very popular computer game series and even placed an old pet of mine as a character.
Last but not least, the third has not only had has works exhibited in museums and gone through the world of startups, he is now a PhD candidate at a prestigeous university.
None of them have done time in the federal pen.
Totally and utterly screwed, left out in the cold by the new "owners".
Gnus are old-world herbivores.
Jaguars are new-world critters.
No.
And wouldn't welcome another? Can't have too much disk space; can't have too many Swiss Army Knives.
I count three in the immediate vicinity: pocket, jacket pocket, desk drawer. There's SwissTool out in the bandymobile in the parking lot as well.
The made-in-America equivalent is a Maglite of one stripe or another. Can't have too many flashlights, either.
The local skating rink has these flashy LEDs mounted on rare earth magnets for $2.50 a pop - their use is to turn off the lights and let the rink be a sea of flashy thingies.
The other good cheap but fun one would be to hand out kazoos and hope that a critical mass of people end up inspiring the crowd to play a piece together.
And by buying them, you support spam marketing. No thanks.
The telcos can't get people to use it if their life depended on it. My carrier [Pacbell] had notifications until they merged with SBC into Cingular, I think. Notifications gone. Bad bad BAD service [delays, drops like mad]. When I complain it's either "you're getting it for free with your rate plan" or "Uh, what's SMS?".
Tough choice.
I ended up buying a DataHand keyboard...er...key-thing. Minimal movement of all of my fingers in all directions, I didn't have to learn much of the new layout as it's 85% QWERTY and I can definitely type faster and more accurately than before. I was a very good touch-typist before everything went cattywampus, probably due to the very attractive typing teacher I had to look at when I learned.
I ended up liking the one I had at work so much, I bought another for use at home. Flat keyboards are a pain.
Open standards: HTML, JPEG, MPEG, MP3, etc. Include source code and other documentation on the disks. Voila.
Can't we all just use open standards?
Does the Pope shit in the woods?
The madness was always there. The Man in the High Castle was published in '62, and seriously twisted in and of itself. No, it's not Valis, but it's still seriously freaky, especially if you're intimately familiar with San Francisco.
From my memory there was, as usual a pile of ideas and plot concepts tossed in, as usual for one of his books:
What could it be, what could it be?
Could it be, I dunno, maybe HTML ?
Use open standards, and port your data as better-supported, better-performing storage formats, electronic (gif->jpg) and physical (LD->CDROM) appear.
Is it really that hard?
Yes, a paper copy would be nice, too, assuming it was all static data. But seriously.
However, the "detective hunts down renegade androids" subplot from the book was effectively distilled into a short story length screenplay for "Blade Runner".
I finally re-read it after a twenty-year hiatus and got a lot more out of the book than I had previously.
Back in my day we had to adb the raw filesystem to clear out disk problems. Kids!
The days of "job for life" ended before MTV was introduced. Try again.
Dark Angel: Sucked in Season Two
Witchblade: Sucked in Season Two
Futurama: Awful time-slot, and made fun of The Establishment
"Sci"Fi Channel: Doomed to die a painful death.
>I watch way too much TV
Get a PVR, never watch things live, subscribe to HBO.
I use my diamond for dressing grinding wheels.
As it has been said, other women will expect your fiancee to have a diamond. However, if your wife-to-be doesn't WANT or isn't EXPECTING a diamond, a CZ will be good enough to fool her girlfriends, provided [a] they don't go under black light and [b] your lady friend doesn't let it slip to anyone that it's a fake. They sparkle, they're hard, they look nice.
Put the money instead into property [a house] or a kick-ass vacation of your dreams.
The guy who proposed a lump of coal in a nice setting clearly has no experience with women. A stunt like that with even the most non-traditional of gals will result in a Bobbitting.
Yes, it requires Drivers, and it eats one of your precious serial ports as well. AND it's bloody uncomfortable in the hand.
I ditched my handykey. I think I'll build one of these.
The Seimens 2.5GHz wireless phone system also has voicemail capabilities in the two-line, 8-extension version. You end up with the pbx features [intercom, shared directory] along with the convenience of wireless operation. Just don't try to talk on the fern when you're nuking up a burrito.
The fuss over Galileo was from the worry-warts imagining Pu dust floating over North America should Galileo's launcher pull a Challenger on NASA.
Aside from Bush2.0...