Scientific Linux is a Linux release put together by Fermilab, CERN, and various other labs and universities around the world. Its primary purpose is to reduce duplicated effort of the labs, and to have a common install base for the various experimenters.

>>>The base SL distribution is basically Enterprise Linux, recompiled from source. Our main goal for the base distribution is to have everything compatible with Enterprise, with only a few minor additions or changes. Examples of items that were added are Alpine, and OpenAFS.

Our secondary goal is to allow easy customization for a site, without disturbing the Scientific Linux base. The various labs are able to add their own modifications to their own site areas.

By the magic of scripts, and the anaconda installer, each site is to be able to create their own distributions with minimal effort. Or, if a user wishes, they can simply install the base SL release.

Pity nobody told the Persians.

https://www.scientificlinux.org/

If I'd knowed that a Kindle could be used to write stuff on and store stuff and stuff I udda got one by now.

Why make a thing more complex than it need be?

You lose a lot of usefulness by dumbing it down like that.

At 3000 dollars a throw, I'd have converted Sony Walkmans years ago if I knew how.

So much for human ingenuity and free enterprise.

A country like yours would be more likely to vote a chimpanzee into office rather than get a few basic people problems solved.

Oh wait...

You did. That's it then, problem shelved. You will have to wait for the British again.

You are wrong.

When the USA wiped out places like Mai Lai and poisoned the whole of central Vietnam and all the Cambodian border it was for their own good.

Everyone knows that.

When the Chinese commit the sort of thing the Israel USA pact does in Palestine and everywhere, it is just the work of gangsters.

Cooking is chemistry and so is making stuff go up in smoke. Start off by finding what the kid likes and explain the fundamentals of technicolour physics.

How does and engine work?

How do fireworks go off?

What happens when you put iron in water?

Oil?

Dirty water?

Water that has been boiled?

Wrapped in a little aluminium?

Then there is electrolysis and making electricity. More fundamental black & white physics but still good for the kid to grasp elements and the rest of it.

Try turning a pieces of nickel into a piece of copper.

Making a pair of carbon rods light with coins or washers. (A bit above his age group maybe. But how about dissecting a flat battery?

Or making his own carbon rods?

What metals or carbon clay mixes can he write with. What can he make crayons and paint out of?

Take him down to a scrap yard and root around for different metals with him, for him to play with. (While you are at it, take some old hard drives and loudspeakers apart and show him the magnets. Kids love magnets at any age. Show him how to dismantle stuff.)

Showing him how different oils behave in air. Making paint. Dissolving things in other things. Stay away from the maths and crap like that; just open his eyes to the wonder of it all. If he gets the bug, he will want to teach himself more, later. The first thing he needs to learn about chemistry is how dangerous some chemicals are. So start with bleach and whatever you have in the garage.

And make sure he knows about special clothing for messing with stuff and about hygiene and safe storage. And not working alone. That could be VERY dangerous.

Good luck.

Here is a mirror image of the USA:

http://globaltwilight.edublogs.org/2011/03/28/from-mesopotamia-to-persia/

The USA gave the world nuclear weapons, now it has given Persia: Drones, Linux and WW 4.

I'm on my way to my 7th decade. So I am not in the least bit worried. Might even be fun. Take a look in the mirror. Thank you and goodnight.

You would have had fireworks and a bonfire at the best time of year for both. Only you'd have been celebrating the death of Roman Catholics not the death of Wild Injuns and buffalo (and maybe would have had to call those bison.)

OTOH you would have ended up downloading the most paid for digital music.

Plus of course we would have owned Persia still so you wouldn't have invented stuffnex.

Now let's see the bloody code will you bollock brains!

I always remember the look on the teacher's face when plodding through the multiplication tables:

one time three is three etc we got to the system we used for playing Hide and Seek.

We tore through the 5 times table and didn't stop "ready or not" till we reached one hundred. This was fifty years ago I still smile remembering how we all looked around at each other stupidly, realising we had achieved something amazing.

It didn't last.

I am all in favour of pictures rather than lectures. I went to that Khan academt site and found it boring as hell. Poinltess pictures of carbon, lead and gold and a most annoying nasal tenor voice.

Here is an example of what |I am trying to do:

http://my.opera.com/Weatherlawyer/blog/2012/05/30/how-to-forecast-typhoons-from-the-north-atlantic-hurricane

All of which can be accomplished with a dozen or less weather charts in an animation. (Which I haven't yet got around to.)

Here is one on a slightly different topic but in pictures:

http://my.opera.com/Weatherlawyer/blog/2012/06/04/4th-5-9-m

Killing civilians has always been a crime. It's just that if your name is Mr President or Bomber Harris, you get away with it.

Under Roosevelt, the WW2 mission to destroy infrastructure conformed to the Geneva convention. It was only with the ability to bomb Japan and the demise of Roosevelt that things American went to hell and stayed there. I suppose a case could be made for the USA remaining allied to a country that committed war crimes implicated it in war crimes. But not to the same degree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II#Timeline_for_all_the_raids

Is that a fact; do you mean pwn3r5?

After a century of owning the artists, the real pirates are now the good guys?

After all if it works for major supermarkets.

Ah, wait...

But not for producers for supermarkets

Ah, wait...I see your point

Supermarkets sell plastic discs, that cost pennies to produce, for pounds. Whereas they pay farmers pennies for produce that is really useful.

This is far too difficult for me. What I need is a government committee to sort it all out.