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from the it's-2015-and-things-are-easy dept.
I remember a story on the other site years ago when, following the Mojave Experiment, some guys did their own Folgers Test, asking people what they thought of this new (unidentified) UI and most of those folks thought it (KDE) was just more of Redmond's stuff.
Now, there's this story from OpenSource.com.
- Linux is so easy, anyone can install it--even by accident
One day, [...] a user's Windows install went corrupt on her laptop and she accidentally installed Linux. When her laptop couldn't [load the OS] from the hard drive, it automatically booted [to] the network. When she got the PXE install menu, she just hit Enter, installing a Linux desktop with all of our default network security settings and applications.
She then logged into it with her network account and emailed me to say that her Windows had updated and she wanted to know why her Microsoft Office looked so different now and "Where did Outlook go?" We had a good laugh over how Linux is so easy you can install and configure it by accident now, even on a laptop.
Hat tip to Robert Pogson for spotting this. The comment by IT pro oiaohm is, as always, insightful (once you adjust for his dyslexia).
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday October 25 2015, @03:47AM
I feel my school did an excellent job of encouraging critical thinking skills and to question things that were not right. I even had several professors that would deliberately say wrong things in class, hoping one of us would pick up on it. Extra credit if we did. A classroom-wide admonishment if we did not.
If I were to teach a class, I would do the same thing. I loved trying to catch the professor pulling one of his "fast ones" to see if we were paying attention. For me, it was a game. The professors that were doing this had a lot of lively discussion ignited in the classroom using these antics.
Learning to think that way gave me one helluva leg up on "intelligence" tests. However, I am also extremely prone to give odd answers because I may have an alternate parsing of the test question than the test author has.
Some people call it "thinking outside the box" and "creativity", while others simply call it "wrong" because my reply does not match the answer given in the instructor's guide.
So Microsoft gets their software into schools and gets the kids started on it. Good business plan. Cognitive Dissonance for anything coming later. And be sure to teach the kids not to think... just obey. Do as you are told. Teach to the Test.
Its good for business to provide an incoming stream of obedient drones. Lots of em. Competing for fewer jobs than there are applicants. Economics dictates a wild race to the bottom pay so as not to be the one unemployed. From what I have seen, any spark of independent thinking is dangerous to the management hierarchy, as their authority is apt to be questioned if they can not justify their actions.
A child trained to think for themselves makes a poor blindly obedient corporate drone. They are very apt to be insubordinate when faced with what they interpret as incompetent leadership.
Churches do the same thing. They would really work on parents to get their kids involved in their Sunday Schools and Vacation Bible Schools, where they could get the kids started with the obligations of obedience to the Church. If you can get your thing into people first, anything else coming in then has to displace that which is already there. Look how long America has stayed on this "United States Customary Units" measurement system, while the rest of the world is running a far more elegant Metric system.
I have had a tagline for years that I took straight from the Bible which I use to justify my questioning of what I have been simply told and expected to accept without evidence of proof... The Bible itself is full of admonitions of "Do not be deceived". If I am indeed a created entity, why would it please my creator for me to be so superstitious and gullible as to accept whatever some man ( known full good and well to be very capable of lying - motivated by personal gain ) tells me?
I will offer another line straight out of the Bible...
"Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it." [KJV: Proverbs 22:6]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @06:57AM
Economics dictates a wild race to the bottom pay so as not to be the one unemployed
1 incorrect word there.
What you described is *Capitalism*.
There other economic models.
In a **Socialist** economic system, the workers would vote on whether they wanted a race to the bottom.
Any bets on what they would decide?
My bet: They would decide to NOT try to wring every possible cent out of the system, would NOT overproduce, and would NOT create any bubbles.
If/when their market softened a bit, rather than layoffs, they would choose to shorten the workday for each worker and wait out the market recovery (probably investigating other markets).
N.B. With construction of new housing in the crapper, Mondragon's appliance division actually encountered this situation and the workers of the Mondragon cooperative chose to reassign idled workers to another division, with each worker already at that location working a slightly-reduced schedule.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @11:36PM
You describe capitalism as a wild race to the bottom ... and yet capitalism has the most consistently successful growth and development of all economic systems in the history of mankind, period. Feudalism offers stability, but ossification. Mercantilism offers local growth but not global enrichment. Socialism offers ... well, let's see what you have to say about socialism.
Apparently, socialism is ... any system where the workers get to vote? So you can have a socialist cooperative in a capitalist system? Cool, go forth and start all the cooperatives you want. Socialism in capitalism, the best of both worlds. Of course, you don't exactly detail what happens to the workers who don't belong to a cooperative - do the benevolent cooperatives just let them join in? Let them buy in? What happens to the stakes in the cooperatives?
Please, do offer us detailed and specific outlines of precisely how this system works, it sounds fascinating.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @02:19AM
Capitalism rarely goes more than 7 years without a recession|slump|slowdown.
Every 80 years or so, Capitalism completely flushes the economy down the crapper and at least 20 percent of workers can't find a real job at a living wage.
Those are really shitty metrics for "successful".
I have repeatedly mentioned a place that has NEVER had a worker laid off since it started in 1956.
It's called Mondragon. Look it up.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @03:42AM
So what you're saying is that capitalism, which has actually produced massive growth and measurable elevation in standards of living, sucks compared to some other system ... that is so secret you can't tell us about it? Because sometimes it hits difficulties? I suppose by that measure the car with the best suspension in the world is the one that never drives anywhere - never a bump in its road!
As a matter of fact, I'm familiar with Mondragon, and it turns out that Mondragon thrives (when it thrives - not exactly constant) in a ... wait for it ... capitalist environment. Sure, the workers have a say in how things go down, but they buy and sell under rules similar to everyone else in Spain. So by holding Mondragon up, at best your argument is that a cooperative is a good way of running a company.
Nothing about that supports an assertion that capitalism is unwise, nor that anything else would be an improvement on it.
So, returning to the point at hand: what, precisely (details, please, and lots of them!) are you proposing by way of an alternative? How do you recommend that the world resolve competing claims on resources? How will intermediate products be passed between primary, secondary and tertiary industries? What limits will be placed on individual ownership or control of resources? How will you prevent accumulation of resources which would normally be a normal part of capitalism?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @05:37AM
I'm done with idiots who insist that Socialism is a subset of Capitalism.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @02:15PM
Oooh, me too! Me too!
Uh, does that mean you'll actually answer the questions?