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Actually linux hackers are mostly neo-conservative... try reading the jargon file some time, buddy!

Don't look in the dictionary for definitions of computer terms.

Woot was invented by pencil-and-paper gamers, it wasn't originally oline speak. It's first use was a pleased exlamtion of "what?!?" through a mouthfull of Cheetos, and sort of caught on.

Eh? The Jargon File would disagree - see the entry for w00t :

"An interjection similar to "Yay!", as in: "w00t!!! I just got a raise!" Often used for small victories the speaker dies not expect to be of special interest to anyone else. Some claim this is a bastardization of "root", the highest level of access to a system (particularly UNIX), originated by script kiddies as a 133tspeak equivalent of "root", and said as an exclamation upon gaining root access. Others claim it originated in the Everquest multiplayer game as an abbreviation of "wonderful loot". Still other claim it on originated on IRC as the "Ewok victory cheer"] Adj. w00table has the sense of "cool" or "nifty". This is one of the few leet-speak coinages to have crossed over into non-ironic use among hackers."

Woot was invented by pencil-and-paper gamers, it wasn't originally oline speak. It's first use was a pleased exlamtion of "what?!?" through a mouthfull of Cheetos, and sort of caught on.

Eh? The Jargon File would disagree - see the entry for w00t :

"An interjection similar to "Yay!", as in: "w00t!!! I just got a raise!" Often used for small victories the speaker dies not expect to be of special interest to anyone else. Some claim this is a bastardization of "root", the highest level of access to a system (particularly UNIX), originated by script kiddies as a 133tspeak equivalent of "root", and said as an exclamation upon gaining root access. Others claim it originated in the Everquest multiplayer game as an abbreviation of "wonderful loot". Still other claim it on originated on IRC as the "Ewok victory cheer"] Adj. w00table has the sense of "cool" or "nifty". This is one of the few leet-speak coinages to have crossed over into non-ironic use among hackers."

Nah, Usenet. afu and talk.bizarre popularised it but it was first seen in 1989. According to google.

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/C/cow-orker.h tml

Sorry people, Linux is not "safe."

Depends on which Linux your talking about. Maybe if you were talking about a Linux that is geared towards military use, and that underwent formal methods of software verification (which is a standard practice in that industry), you wouldn't say that. Or, to keep it at a more prosaic level, if only Linux hackers looked thouroughly at their source code and adopted counter-measures to buffer overflows, maybe you would have a resonably safe Os at your home.
However, at the current state of: 1) hacker sloppiness (99% couldn't give a shit about proving and algorithm correct - let alone construct software with formal specification and verification); 2) languages used (C/C++ used everywhere is a disease we must cure ourselves of - we're all in trouble.
And what fucks the software industry is this attitude that there's nothing you can do about. Or, as is the philosophy in the Linux Kernel community: ship fast, fix later, because "there are many eyes looking at the source code and somebody will fix it. Bullshit. May 2005 - Linux already has 9 kernel exploits from this year.

"Open source software is like handing you a doctor's bag and the architectural plans for a hospital and saying, 'Hey dude, if you have a heart attack, here are all the tools you need--and it's free,'" McVoy says. "I'd rather pay someone to take care of me."

That's precisely why there's very little significant OSS coming out of India. Read The Cathedral and the Bazaar and Homesteading the Noosphere and then read The Magic Cauldron. Take particular note of the bits about 'massive independant peer review', the ownership, tenure, customs and in particular the discussion of the quality of the programmers that make it in open source.

When you're done there, pick any forum on any web site anywhere in the world and look at the discussions of outsourcing to the third world and the devastating quality, communication and reputational problems that companies that make the mistake of outsourcing to India and similar third world countries suffer. Look at the standing joke that IBM, Dell, and Telstra technical support have become as a direct and specific result of their corporate decision to outsource to India.

Then come back here again and explain to us how exactly OSDN opening an office in darkest India would be a good thing.

this oughta be good.

That's precisely why there's very little significant OSS coming out of India. Read The Cathedral and the Bazaar and Homesteading the Noosphere and then read The Magic Cauldron. Take particular note of the bits about 'massive independant peer review', the ownership, tenure, customs and in particular the discussion of the quality of the programmers that make it in open source.

When you're done there, pick any forum on any web site anywhere in the world and look at the discussions of outsourcing to the third world and the devastating quality, communication and reputational problems that companies that make the mistake of outsourcing to India and similar third world countries suffer. Look at the standing joke that IBM, Dell, and Telstra technical support have become as a direct and specific result of their corporate decision to outsource to India.

Then come back here again and explain to us how exactly OSDN opening an office in darkest India would be a good thing.

this oughta be good.

That's precisely why there's very little significant OSS coming out of India. Read The Cathedral and the Bazaar and Homesteading the Noosphere and then read The Magic Cauldron. Take particular note of the bits about 'massive independant peer review', the ownership, tenure, customs and in particular the discussion of the quality of the programmers that make it in open source.

When you're done there, pick any forum on any web site anywhere in the world and look at the discussions of outsourcing to the third world and the devastating quality, communication and reputational problems that companies that make the mistake of outsourcing to India and similar third world countries suffer. Look at the standing joke that IBM, Dell, and Telstra technical support have become as a direct and specific result of their corporate decision to outsource to India.

Then come back here again and explain to us how exactly OSDN opening an office in darkest India would be a good thing.

this oughta be good.

See sibling post for java=cobol.

I worked on System/370-style mainframes. There are still a bunch of machines giving 370 cycles around (most of them through hardware-level emulation) because there's a selection of business and financial software that has proven itself over decades, and all the bugs are known. This was before 2000, and while there is probably less of this today, as the Y2K thing made people a little less complacent with their "proven" software, you'd be surprised how common it is in "turnkey" business environments (some cash registers and some terminals for inventory management on a system that won't crash short of hardware failure, all on the cheap).

Neither the computers nor the applications in this environment were from the 60s, but the OS was. At one point in time, IBM licensed DOS/VM and DOS/VMS, with source, quite cheaply, and quite a few shops who wanted their own OS took it and made it their own. Today anyone sane would just use Linux, but this was the first time in history the source for an OS that "suits" would accept was available, and there was a lot of pent-up demand at the time.

The OS was mostly written in assembler (some was written in PL/S, but we didn't have a PL/S compiler so that was fun), and programming everything up to the application level in assembler was quite normal. Even today, if you maintain legacy maiframe apps for a living, you probably work in 370 or 390 assembler, keep as a handy reference a yellow booklet you call a green card, and call your most-thumbed OS reference the "POO".

I'm not sure why you take issue with most business programming problems being solved in the 60s. Realistically, the algorithms for payroll, accounting, inventory management, and the like were well-solved 100 years ago (implemented using humans called "clerks"), and automated long before the general-purpose computer. IBM had a large business selling card machines to do just this when its CEO mde the famous "world market for maybe 4 computers" statement. Most of the foundations in computer science necessary for "technical programming" were complete in the early 70s - it's remarkable how little of what you get from a CS degree is less than 30 years old.

Business programming isn't "simple", but the nature of the challenges are clearly more about understanding the customer's specific environment, and less about the contents of a CS degree than writing the infrastructure used for business programming would be. Do you really want to argue that writing a program in Java is more technical than writing Java? That writing a networked application is more technical than writing the NIC firmware or IOS?

It's not that business programming is easy, but learning how to write an OS, a compiler, or a networking stack in school is narrowly useful, and you can learn how to program or how to be a DBA from a wide array of degree programs these days, many of them offered by the business or finance departments. For maintaining system-level code, a good CS degree means your new hire can avoid a multi-year apprenticeship (something small shops can't support at all), and a lack of CS students could become far more painful. For business programming, it could well be that people ahve decided to get the same training in programming from a degree that you can just as easily pretend is a business degree, in case the whole programming thing goes south. The lack of new CS majors wouldn't hurt as much in that case.

Examples:

• Star Wars
• Tron
• Renaissance Faire
• Lord of the Rings

The moral of the story - everyone can "geek out" about something, but it takes a true nerd to do it in public.

Bonus Link - ESR's Sex Tips for Geeks

Specifically, September 1993: The September That Never Ended

Well, the Jargon File says "from Monty Python's Flying Circus". The American Heritage Dictionary says "probably inspired by a comedy routine on the British television series Monty Python's Flying Circus, in which the word is repeated incessantly."

So this seems pretty accepted; perhaps not legally proven though.

"Digital Versatile Disk" is actually a backronym.

Depression, bipolar disorder, mania, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Asperger's syndrome (we can read about them in Weaknesses of the Hacker Personality by Eric S. Raymond) are very common among intelligent people in general, not only IT workers. Somewhat less common are dyslexia, schizophrenia and various types of psychosis. This seems to be rather widely known but at the same time many people tend to forget about autism. Some of you may remember that back in 2003 I made some research to find a correlation between IQ (the intelligence quotient) and AQ (the autism-spectrum quotient). The results pretty much speak for themselves. Needless to say it seems that while some of the symptoms may result from caffeinism, sleep deprivation and other drugs abuse, at least some of them seem to be directly correlated with other personality characteristics and sexual habits or the lack thereof. But we have to keep in mind that it is very easy to fall into post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. We have to ask ourselves whether these are intelligence and technical skills that cause personality weaknesses or the other way around when a weak psyche and antisocial attitude result in the concentration on abstract concepts and thinking in general. In short: those who are more intelligent do not necessarily have to be psychopaths but any sociopaths most certainly have a lot of time to think and tinker with their hardware. That may in turn result in the perception that intelligence makes people crazy which does not have to be true at all.

Depression, bipolar disorder, mania, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Asperger's syndrome (we can read about them in Weaknesses of the Hacker Personality by Eric S. Raymond) are very common among intelligent people in general, not only IT workers. Somewhat less common are dyslexia, schizophrenia and various types of psychosis. This seems to be rather widely known but at the same time many people tend to forget about autism. Some of you may remember that back in 2003 I made some research to find a correlation between IQ (the intelligence quotient) and AQ (the autism-spectrum quotient). The results pretty much speak for themselves. Needless to say it seems that while some of the symptoms may result from caffeinism, sleep deprivation and other drugs abuse, at least some of them seem to be directly correlated with other personality characteristics and sexual habits or the lack thereof. But we have to keep in mind that it is very easy to fall into post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. We have to ask ourselves whether these are intelligence and technical skills that cause personality weaknesses or the other way around when a weak psyche and antisocial attitude result in the concentration on abstract concepts and thinking in general. In short: those who are more intelligent do not necessarily have to be psychopaths but any sociopaths most certainly have a lot of time to think and tinker with their hardware. That may in turn result in the perception that intelligence makes people crazy which does not have to be true at all.

I would be pissed off as a parent if my child was brainwashed by such Nazi propaganda. Yes, I said Nazi and I meant it

1. v. To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames;

2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1

* snort *

What color is the sky on your planet?

How about Synaptic line noise? Or maybe INTERCAL?

That would be a cool name for an idm style electronic musician, eh?

This is a classical definition of a Baggy Pantsing.

http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/baggy-pantsing. html

However, when it came down to actually doing it, and learning to code, they all, except for one, said "We're just more interested in playing games."

Hrm, sorta like those goof-offs at MIT who developed Space War, huh?

Of course, we all know that nothing good ever resulted from that effort...RIGHT?

Why? Hack value.

...a lot of open source advocates have set an unreasonable level of expectations by proclaiming the amazing magic of open source: A fantasy world where every line is thoroughly vetted by thousands of super-experts...

Please, name these magical advocates and provide some links or at least one quote from a well known advocate who preaches that.

Here. If you argue for a position, it's a good idea to read the defining literature. Will save you from looking uninformed or worse. And, to avoid a waste of time with technicalities, I know ESR doesn't mention superexperts, but that's not necessary at all for the argument in the grandparent post.

I prefer the Atari ST 'Bomb' errors myself...

Already happened.

The jargon file entry is mildly interesting:
http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/I/I-for-one-welco me-our-new-X-overlords.html

Sure, the smarmy comment that set these guys off and launched the tirades ("Show us the code or quit mentioning it") was probably un-called for. That's not the point. The point is someone, either the submitter, or the Sun guys in thier blogs don't know what Vaporware means.

Source: The Jargon File
vaporware: /vayprweir/, n.
Products announced far in advance of any release (which may or may not actually take place).

OpenSolaris IS vaporware at this point, and nothing is going to change that accept a release.

The problem is that it is hard as fuck to interoperate with them as they are closed, messy formats...

And of course Microsoft works hard to keep them messy; they don't want other programs interoperating. They keep imagining that if they can devise messy enough formats and protocols, that only their Mongloian hordes will be able to successfully implement them, and that competitors will be left out in the cold. (Fortunately, the intrepid F/OSS programmers keep proving them wrong...)

not that it's bloated - only an (minimalistic) irc client doesn't make an app bloated

Personally, I much prefer Bif to B1FF

Analysts have been speculating about MS and Nintendo joining forces (or working in a joint project) for years

If true, it'll bring a new meaning to the term Wintendo.

UUOC

... "plain vanilla system" that works for me would help without "graphics".

In rememberance of DWIM, which never made it.

CC.

The Planet's Most Moronic Hacker

No, darn it all to heck, this person is not the planet's most moronic hacker He is the planet's most moronic cracker.

The Planet's Most Moronic Hacker

No, darn it all to heck, this person is not the planet's most moronic hacker He is the planet's most moronic cracker.

Nothing says "Fix people spamming from your service" like thousands of angry customers...

By adding AOL to the blacklist, you might persuade AOL to clean up their act, maybe, but you also will find a lot of people dropping your blacklist because _their_ customers got angry ...

Fair or not, you really can't add AOL's main mail servers to any sort of mail blacklist without serious repercussions. Mostly bad.

well, the law - as is - only states that over time, the probability that any discussion involves a comparison with hitler or nazis approaches 1.

any conclusions (as in, that the discussion can be stopped afterwards) is a later addition (and imho a faulty one)

Jargon entry

It might be bad, but it's still not at the same level as COME FROM.

Crikey, is http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html too hard? The shortcut's even listed below the post a comment box.

Part 1 and Part II.

Part 1 and Part II.

And if you hate copy and pasting, here's a clicky for you:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html

If you're a retarded forum junkie who can't distinguish between slashdot and the dumbass forums you spend your pathetic life in, here's your link:

[url=http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horr or .html]http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horro r.html[/url]

I agree.

Then silently nod your head and move on to the next post.

And be thankfull that there isn't a -1 "Me, Too!" mod.

whereas the black hat Skylarov could break the encryption, did so, and released it (illegally according to US law),

The only way one could really consider Skylarov to be a `black hat' for the AEBPR software would be if they considered the DMCA to be a `just' law. I don't know about you, but I don't consider reverse engineering to be morally suspect, even if the DMCA does make it illegal. I guess you're equating `breaking the law' with `black hat', which I don't agree with.

As for morally suspect, the US going after people in other countries for breaking our laws, when the people aren't even in our country? THAT is morally suspect for you.

At the same time let's get rid of such concepts as sea and land, simply have 2 different colours to distinguish between different types of square. Any why have named units? After all, the important thing about a unit is its stats. Hills, Mountains, Forests? Let us not think we are actually talking about real features, replace them with abstract concepts such as squares of type A, B and C.

Heh, you just described VMS Empire. No shiny things to distract you!

Blinkenlights

Amen.

Gorilla Arm, according to Jargon

It's not the same the situation in the Jargon entry, but the net effort would be similar. Human arms aren't meant to be waved around unsupported, making precise movements for long periods of time. Consider also that if it's held above your heart, it has to do more to pump your blood against gravity.

Oook