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Spinning Pizza of Death

[OS X; common] The quartered-circle busy indicator on Mac OS X. It is analogous to the Microsoft Windows hourglass, but OS X 10.0's legendary slowness under the Aqua toolkit makes it rather more evocative. See Death X of.

-uso.

Spinning Pizza of Death

[OS X; common] The quartered-circle busy indicator on Mac OS X. It is analogous to the Microsoft Windows hourglass, but OS X 10.0's legendary slowness under the Aqua toolkit makes it rather more evocative. See Death X of.

-uso.

"We know he's a man, and we think he's got a moustache," jokes Jones. "He insisted that we make him an account on the development machines so that he can keep an eye on progress, but other than that, we never hear from him."

ESR, J'accuse!

It seems that nukes really were the inspiration for the tag name: http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/ICBM-ad dress.html

/Bergie

The Jargon file has an entry on BASIC. Quite frankly, I've not completely recovered.

There have been several security holes found in open source software many months or years after entering the code.

I think the key point here is that they have been found, and fixed. Think back to how you heard about those holes. Was the announcement accompanied by a patch or a workaround?

Then ask yourself about the number of holes found and exploited in closed source software projects, and the length of time before their teams got a patch out.

One of the main benefits of open source software is that, in the words of ESR, bugs become transparent with enough pairs of eyes looking at them. If security is a major concern for an OSS project's users, it's likely to get good quickly.

Philips licensed the logo for their use; it's up to Philips to decide if they're in breach of that license agreement.

And Philips has in fact decided to warn the labels about the use of the logo on non-conforming discs.

I dispute the notion that you have the foggiest idea what you're talking about.

The CD-R FAQ, section 2-4, lists the major CD copy protection methods in use. Thus far, I have concentrated on the "static" method, for which I could find the most evidence of potential violation of the Red Book specification.

I also dispute the notion that anything you've said here is even remotely true.

I have presented evidence by linking from my comments to web pages containing evidence. It's your turn to present the flaws in the evidence to which my comments link.

For instance, this web page states: "According to the Red Book standard, the BLER count for a disc must be less than 220. In practice, an average BLER of 50 is more acceptable ... A Burst Error is defined as seven consecutive blocks in which the C1 decoding stage has detected an error [... and] constitutes a Disc Failure." I have presented the evidence; what do you not accept about it?

You are an idiot, therefore nothing you say should be listened to.

"You are a coward, therefore nothing you say should be listened to." See how that sounds?

The onus is then on you to prove that you are not, in fact, an idiot.

What do you think gives me such a burden of proof? I'd guess you don't get along with others well in real life either if you think everybody is an idiot by default.

So far, you've blown it.

id.i.ot n. "A person of profound mental retardation having a mental age below three years and generally being unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers" (American Heritage® Dictionary). Given that I have scored 130 on an IQ test and received a B.S. in computer science from a reputable engineering school, I don't see how I match this precise definition of "idiot". If you claim that this definition is in error and that I match some other precise definition of "idiot", please state such a definition, along with why "idiots" under your definition should not be listened to.

doesn't know how to read Google's help page, maybe?

You claimed that Google would phrase enclosed in quotation marks as an exact phrase. Then why does Google's help page state: "Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks"?

If you continue to argue without providing evidence against what I have mentioned in this thread, then you are a troll, and I can find all sorts of reasons not to listen to trolls.

I'm working, in my copious spare time, on a cheat-resistant comm library. Someone is sure to beat me to it.

My friend, there is this amazing thing called a URL

We don't need? Is it the developer who decide what the end-users needs are?

In the case of many open source projects, yes. Read esr's account of how fetchmail was created in catb, and you'll see that in most open source projects, the intended target end-users are the developers.

We don't need? Is it the developer who decide what the end-users needs are?

In the case of many open source projects, yes. Read esr's account of how fetchmail was created in catb, and you'll see that in most open source projects, the intended target end-users are the developers.

And, before everyone slams me for being an elitist, how many successful open source projects can you name which weren't created by someone with real training in computer science (not some six month seminar)?

Erm... fetchmail, perhaps? ESR has never taken any courses in CS :P

And, before everyone slams me for being an elitist, how many successful open source projects can you name which weren't created by someone with real training in computer science (not some six month seminar)?

Erm... fetchmail, perhaps? ESR has never taken any courses in CS :P

I remember coming across the hacker-howto years ago, when I was a windows-only newbie, and it actually inspired me to start to learn to program, and figure things out. That's what it was intended for; not for a server hack intro. Hence, that's probably why it seemed so out-of-place.

-uso.

One of the clear advantages enjoyed by Open Source development projects is the luxury of time: the developers can take as long as they deem necessary to get it "right."

Seriously, as I discussed in the answer to question #2, I haven't seen a way to provide Reasoning's shareholders with an equivalent (much less superior) return by making our source code Open. I think this is one of the most significant challenges that advocates of Open Source have yet to successfully address.

Really? No open source advocates have addressed this at all?

Seriously, as I discussed in the answer to question #2, I haven't seen a way to provide Reasoning's shareholders with an equivalent (much less superior) return by making our source code Open. I think this is one of the most significant challenges that advocates of Open Source have yet to successfully address.

Really? No open source advocates have addressed this at all?

Eric Raymond has some pointers on the art of making sweet love.

He has an article entitled How to Ask Smart Questions.

Those who love UNIX (and UNIX-inspired operating systems) will surely adore Linux Server Hacks by Rob Flickenger. For decades, a mysterious sect of bearded wizards has dominated the inner sanctums of our network infrastructures, inspiring the awe of onlookers by crafting clever scripts and piping output in ingenious ways most of us never even thought of. This small but marvelous book attempts to steer apprentice wizards in the noble direction of clever system administration, with examples taken from experience in O'Reilly's own LAMP networks.

The book begins with a refreshing introduction (by esr) detailing what it means to be a hacker. No, not the hax0ring w4r3z d00dz of frequent media attention, but the aforementioned bearded variety who spend most of their waking effort forging uncommon techniques for solving otherwise dull problems. Kudos to Mr. Flickenger (and O'Reilly) for not only acknowledging the difference, but celebrating it.

As the title would indicate, the audience of this book is the administrator in charge of a server--that is, a Linux box performing only a couple of dedicated tasks, probably of a network-oriented nature. Although Linux enthusiasts from the desktop realm are not part of the intended audience, they will almost certainly pick up a thing or two from the material anyway.

The book is organized into the following sections:

• Sever Basics is a variety of general purpose tips that don't fit into the other major categories. Some of the more interesting items include:
  • Persistent daemons with init
  • Building complex command lines
  • Using xargs with tricky arguments
  • Effectively using sudo
  • Makefiles for automating administrative tasks

  I think the real magic of this chapter isn't necessarily the tips themselves, but the creative process behind them; the author is demonstrating a methodology for dealing with common problems by introducing clever solutions. This will ideally inspire the reader to deal with other problems in the same creative manner.

• Revision Control. Servers with multiple administrators may benefit from using a revision control system to handle changes to configuration files. This section illustrates using RCS, with examples of checking config files in and out of the system. This provides a segway into using CVS for controlling revision of large software projects.
• Backups becoming a nuisance? Approach them from a new angle by implementing some of the tips from this chapter. Examples including automated incremental backups over tar, rsync, and ssh; archiving with pax; and even some very creative (if not a little scary) ideas like piping your backups over ssh directly into cdrecord. The UNIX philosophy is illustrated well: simple tools working well together as an efficient solution.
• The Networking chapter covers material that is no doubt already familiar to security-conscious Linux users. However, iptables newbies (or those transitioning from ipf or pf) will appreciate the netfilter primer and discussion of masquerading (NAT) and TCP port forwarding. Some tunneling and encapsulation techniques are also detailed here.
• Monitoring details the use of syslog, and a great deal more. Networking aspects are given ample attention, without any redundant information in respect to the previous chapter. Some simple tips are given (like using lsof to track down elusive processes) as well as more advanced ideas (like a short shell script to perform an IP fail-over.)
• SSH tips: are you still tapping out a password every time you hop to a new machine? If you administrate more than a few, this can be distracting and tedious. This chapter illustra

Try telling that to Hoover, who managed bankrupt themselves after a disaterous Free Flight promo, and are now owned by Maytag.

http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/HCF.html for those who are wondering what that is about.

Way offtopic here now, but it was Ken Thompson, not Donald Knuth. Here's the discussion in question: Reflections on Trusting Trust.

Also a summary entry in the Jargon File, for those who don't want to read the paper: http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/back-do or.html

Get a fucking clue.

OK, there would be some details to work out, but with software-designed radio techiques, that would
be a simple matter of programming. :-)

Seriously: of course it's hard, but it might be possible, and what's hard (expensive) today is often easy (cheap) tomorrow.

For some reason, tuxedo.org randomly forwards you to other sites. However, ESR's page is alive and well at http://www.catb.org/~esr/. I can't find any reason for the change on the website, though.

I don't want to be over-corrective, and I certainly don't like getting into language vs. language, but this whole argument is poorly formed.

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/Some-AI-Koans.html :

A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on.

Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong."

Knight turned the machine off and on.

The machine worked.

[[Mods, mods: this is supposed to be _funny_. Its not the first time I've posted something hilarious and it got modded "Insightful"]].

So a person can create a function which will be automatically called whenever some other set of 3 different functions is called, without having to go modify each one

It's the COME FROM statement! Intercal has had this for years!

Go read The art of UNIX programming (online) NOW!. The author is ESR. Its an amazingly useful book. It cuts out all the hype and gives you a higher-level philosphical insight into effective programming.

Quote from the book:

Assemblers, compilers, flowcharting, procedural programming, structured programming, "artificial intelligence", fourth-generation languages, object orientation, and software-development methodologies without number have been touted and sold as a cure for this problem. All have failed, if only because they 'succeeded' by escalating the normal level of program complexity to the point where (once again) human brains could barely cope. As Fred Brooks famously observed [Brooks], there is no silver bullet.

I think the conventional wisdomis, yes it does, very much so.

:-)

bug-of-the-month club n.
[from "book-of-the-month club", a time-honored mail-order-marketing technique in the U.S.] A mythical club which users of `sendmail(8)' (the Unix mail daemon) belong to; this was coined on the Usenet newsgroup comp.security.unix at a time when sendmail security holes, which allowed outside crackers access to the system, were being uncovered at an alarming rate, forcing sysadmins to update very often. Also, more completely, `fatal security bug-of-the-month club'. See also kernel-of-the-week club.

I just found some remarks by Eric S. Raymond on socially responsible programming. Very interesting.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

there isn't anything about BIOS programming that is proprietary or costly

What about talking to the motherboard's chipset? Many chipsets have settings that if accidentally triggered could make the motherboard HCF. Of course, the official BIOS is careful never to trigger those settings, but just randomly poking at the I/O registers could do Bad Things.

Eric S. Raymond has written a few papers on open source design methodologies and the benefits thereof. Check them out at his website. In particular, The Cathedral and the Bazaar is a very enlightening read.

Also, note that all nouns can be verbed. E.g.: "All nouns can be verbed", "I'll mouse it up", "Hang on while I clipboard it over", "I'm grepping the files". English as a whole is already heading in this direction (towards pure-positional grammar like Chinese); hackers are simply a bit ahead of the curve.

...

However, hackers avoid the unimaginative verb-making techniques characteristic of marketroids, bean-counters, and the Pentagon; a hacker would never, for example, `productize', `prioritize', or `securitize' things. Hackers have a strong aversion to bureaucratic bafflegab and regard those who use it with contempt.

QED, geeks are guilty of it too - but it's more of a shorthand in the geek/hacker communities.

While it is certainly true that all nouns can be verbed and vice versa, the bureaucratic bafflegab method that suits and such seem to enjoy using is considered extremely lazy - especially the technique I call "izetizing", which is simply appending the "-ize" suffix as to verb a noun. As demonstrated from a previous post, "monetize" gets some popularity from those who would otherwise mean "liquidate" or "sell", the latter if they just wanted to sound like regular old Joes. (The problem with using regular cut and dry terms like "sell" versus "monetize" is semantics. You "sell" something if you need the money to run the company, but you "monetize" an "asset" if you want to "infuse money" into an "investment". Naturally, both mean the exact same thing. Don't ask how I know this, it's less painful.)

So as such, you can see that suits do this so they sound more important. The Armani isn't enough to make them look important, they have to speak in bullsh*t terms. They're basically very well paid politicians - lotsa hot air and little to show for it other than the ubiquitous MBA, which apparently tells people that they have trained in suitspeak 101 and other courses that show just how to be an idiot while simultaneously making yourself look as wise and sage as the likes of Stephen Hawking.

But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Bet ya can't guess what my name is. Anyway, I decided to go and see who else has my name. I found:

The International Eric Jacobsen Page
Eric.Com
The Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs (member example)

I could care less who has my name. We're each as original as the next one with our name. I don't think it's that much of a big deal, really.

Nope, it all just moved to catb.org. Here's the Sex Tips for Geeks document.

Probably the most unintentionally funny thing ESR has ever written.

Whoop, wrong again. Sex Tips is the most repulsive thing he's ever written (worse, even, than Fetchmail and C-Intercal combined!), but the most unintentionally funny thing has got to be Dancing with the Gods. ESR channels the Sex God Pan. Wheee!

Nope, it all just moved to catb.org. Here's the Sex Tips for Geeks document.

Probably the most unintentionally funny thing ESR has ever written.

Whoop, wrong again. Sex Tips is the most repulsive thing he's ever written (worse, even, than Fetchmail and C-Intercal combined!), but the most unintentionally funny thing has got to be Dancing with the Gods. ESR channels the Sex God Pan. Wheee!

Nope, it all just moved to catb.org. Here's the Sex Tips for Geeks document.

Probably the most unintentionally funny thing ESR has ever written.

Whoop, wrong again. Sex Tips is the most repulsive thing he's ever written (worse, even, than Fetchmail and C-Intercal combined!), but the most unintentionally funny thing has got to be Dancing with the Gods. ESR channels the Sex God Pan. Wheee!

Nope, it all just moved to catb.org. Here's the Sex Tips for Geeks document.

Probably the most unintentionally funny thing ESR has ever written.

Whoop, wrong again. Sex Tips is the most repulsive thing he's ever written (worse, even, than Fetchmail and C-Intercal combined!), but the most unintentionally funny thing has got to be Dancing with the Gods. ESR channels the Sex God Pan. Wheee!

• Some similar stuff at the ODP geek category.

• Also see Sex Tips for Geeks (quite funny) by Eric S Raymond (of hacker fame).

No. The expression is quite common.

UNIX: "A weak pun on Multics"

"Death Star Productions"

No, that'd be AT&T.

This is exactly what I used to say. Sports is something you do, not something you watch.

So while you "hackers" watch the super bowl I'll be surfing!

Wooo!!!

(not saying I _can_ surf, but I'm going to try)