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You don't want a "Blu-ray player"; you want a "movie player". Blu-ray is a means, not an end; a step, not a goal. You can always choose to watch independent films instead of major studio films that are exclusive to high-DRM environments.

A guess : when you wrote your partition table and then made file systems on the partitions, you didn't clear the formatted partitions and overwrite everything with zeros. (Who does on the size of hard drives this decade?) So, even after writing your own partition table, and formatting the partitions, much of the Media Centre boot code could have survived. Second guess : the Media Centre hard drive had X sectors, but the partition scheme only covered X-[some] sectors. "some" could well be quite small (display a splash screen ; read some configuration file ; boot Windoze with certain parameters) ; conceivably just a few sectors. Just because writing compact code to the bare metal isn't exactly popular these days, doesn't mean that the Evil Empire couldn't hire Melto do it.

every instruction he wrote could also be considered
a numerical constant.
He could pick up an earlier âoeaddâ instruction, say,
and multiply by it,
if it had the right numeric value.

No, I still don't understand the "separate constants" bit ; at least not while I'm sober. Hail Mel!

Computers got interesting because people hacked on them.

I can understand why a museum wouldn't want that, but without it you've taken the real life out of the machines. "Working" in that case would simply mean "light show"

Not strictly true.

Had a vertical touchscreen on a word processing box back around 1990. It grew wearisome after a few hours' use. Does MS not employ at least a few hackers who might read the Jargon File and hear about gorilla arm?

Interesting reference. Just like MS to ignore lessons the UNIX people have learned decades ago.

Vertical touchscreens are a recipe for RSI like you would not believe. I predict we will see severely damaged wrists and shoulders (at the very least) in people that try the new "interface" of Win8 in a desktop-setting with touchscreen for the majority of their work-day.

Had a vertical touchscreen on a word processing box back around 1990. It grew wearisome after a few hours' use. Does MS not employ at least a few hackers who might read the Jargon File and hear about gorilla arm?

This reminds me of the Breidbart Index, a very longstanding
measure of abuse (cross/multi-posting) to Usenet.

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/B/Breidbart-Index.html

After trying to use the beta, and now release, and after months of fighting Unity in the the prior versions: I got so fed up that I actually started creating my own OS from scratch! Well, from Assembly... Initially anyway.

First I made a Hex editor for RAM (in under 446 bytes) that can call into the edited memory. I wrote that to a USB drive, plugged it into a spare computer which is now Dev Machine Zero. After booting the MBR hex editor I created a "Save RAM Segment to Disk" by manually inputting binary op codes (machine code). Once I could save my work from RAM to disk, I began work on a simple 2 stage chaining boot loader -- It already lets me multi-boot and supports my extensible hash-based encryption, which I use for signing/decrypting the 2nd stage loader and primordial kernel. As soon as I'm done implementing keyed SHA3 I'll use it to support full drive encryption at boot. It been little over a week of evenings and my bootstrap loader now replaces GRUB on all my systems. I'm also about 1/4th of the way through my new assembler language (it's currently a subset of 8086 only); When it's done I'll extend the Assembler using itself to support macros and finally begin bootstrapping myself into a compiler for a higher level language, like C (or maybe a C-ish lang of my own design).

I sometimes do low level work on custom embedded systems programming, so I know a bit about OS development / design. I could use a cross compiler and/or a VM in a host OS, but I where's the fun in that? Besides, I can PROVE my bootstrap and compiler process didn't inject any back doors (as in Ken Thompson's Trusting Trust). There simply was no room for back-doors; I can "trust no one" because every last byte is accounted for.

It's been forever since I wrote any Real Mode code; Ah fond memories: Outputting MOD files to the PC speaker, low res 320x200 256c graphics, direct disk IO, 640K + "High Memory"... I'll almost be sad to make the switch into Protected Mode and write the device drivers & file systems.

Well, Thanks Ubuntu! I've had this idea for an Agent oriented OS kicking around for a while -- If it weren't for your usability failures pushing my frustrations over the edge I would still just be thinking, "Any idiot could do better than this!" instead of actually giving it a shot. Also, to all those "why re-invent the wheel" types: When's the last time you saw a wagon wheel on a sports car, eh?

I'm still a loyal NetBSD & Slackware luser, but screw Ubuntu. I still have to use Ubuntu for testing packaging of my other projects, but instead of fighting the UI or glitches now I just take a deep breath, get a fresh cup of coffee and add a new feature to the only OS developed with my usability in mind.

Related question:

In the foreword to the second edition of The God Delusion you stated that you were addressing a specific kind of religion which quite common, and that "the melancholy truth is that decent, understated religion is numerically negligible", notably without giving any numbers.

Comparison of census data and attendance data strongly suggests that largest, and fastest-growing, religious group in the English-speaking world is those who self-identify as some variety of Christian, but do not regularly attend a place of worship. The title "spiritual but not religious" is also increasingly popular. This strongly suggests that while organised religion is on the decline, disorganised religion is even more popular than ever.

Much like music, art, or sex, however much you try to limit or ban an apparent human "need" (even if no one person strictly speaking "needs" any of it), religion is not going away. So should we be trying to encourage people to do it in a way that's more benign than the political organised religions of old? What is the most appropriate way for mystics, even atheist mystics like Eric S. Raymond, to indulge it? Is Alain de Botton on to something?

BTW, am I the only person here who ever made a User's Guide to yourself for potential dating partners? ;)

No, you're not.
Are you lonely, though? Interested? Pretty? I promise you, I have full Unicode support.....

And yet, Apple has its problems:

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/10/03/0357223/apple-acknowledges-iphone-5-camera-flaw

I don't understand why this is so hard for manufacturers: machines should just work. If they don't, they should be swapped out (same way we'd do it in a corporate IT environment) for a working one.

Of course, there's a downside to that. If a user is incompetent, they're going to become a loss for the company on the second swap or support call. You'd have to use a blacklist to keep out the unable.

I'm not impressed by the world of PC clones, but the saving grace is that they're cheap; you don't pay the overhead for great service. The downside is that they're roll-it-yourself, not quite as extreme as Linux boxes, but in the middle. You have to configure it for four hours to remove crapware, install basics like WinRAR (which is still awaiting registration... alas), and get it set up so a human can use it.

But it's cheap, and in the long-run, that's a bigger driver of the market than luxury gear like Apple sells. In fact, Apple has steadily been reversing its position from being a maker of independent hardware, to being a maker of slightly nicer PC hardware, made in the same Chinese plants that Dell used to use.

The two business models -- cut-rate clones versus custom hardware -- have converged, mainly because neither one could do it all. Clones are chaotic, the bazaar not the cathedral, but they get the job done. The problem is that no one is accountable for making sure their design and software are consistent, and no one is ultimately responsible for getting them working. That is shifted to the user. You can pay more for a Mac, but as the link to their service woes above shows, they're not perfect either, and because there's only one company, you have few options if they don't want to help.

Now I'm outta here before someone makes the obvious Libertarians-are-PCs-Totalitarians-are-Macs argument. Godwin in -1 seconds.

> your programmers don't actually need to wear suits, do they?

Suit in the jargon file:
suit: n.
1. Ugly and uncomfortable ‘business clothing’ often worn by non-hackers. Invariably worn with a ‘tie’, a strangulation device that partially cuts off the blood supply to the brain. It is thought that this explains much about the behavior of suit-wearers. Compare droid.

2. A person who habitually wears suits, as distinct from a techie or hacker. See pointy-haired, burble, management, Stupids, SNAFU principle, PHB, and brain-damaged.

When you got to 'the foot', you should have used on the gripping hand.

The Course resource looks like an amateur listing everything they could think of, and they still got it wrong. Look at "minimumAvailableCredit" and "maximumAvailableCredit". First, this is just bad data design: either lookup the min/max on the data tables, or if these are proscriptive then there's no way to deal with changes in regulations over time. Second, academic credits vary by many factors (like classroom hours, enrollment types like auditing, etc...) and it'll be meaningless to say the minimum is zero for every course. Third, "academic" credits are not the only type of credits that schools deal with (think lab credits, on-the-job credits, etc...).

This looks like they're trying to build a Cathedral

What the fuck does it mean to be "compliant" with a comic strip?

The same thing it means to be compliant with an HTTP error code: it's figurative language. But because I understand that people with certain mental conditions have trouble understanding figurative language, here's a literal version: The developer of the web site's user account system appears to have recognized the way of making passphrases expressed in the comic as a valid way of making passphrases with sufficient entropy.

I have been reporting that problem for a while, but they just assume that I am an idiot who just doesn't know how to use a computer.

I'm guessing that, in their eyes, you didn't ask your question in the proper form.

(I don't necessarily agree with all of ESR's points myself, but his essay is kind of like a creed that the OSS Folks That Matter religiously follow -- so, like it or not, you have to follow it too.)

Lol, behind Linux? Right. Who gets better battery life?
Linux, hands down.
Unless of course you refer to those laptops sporting intentionally obfuscated power management APIs?
There is even an email about ACPI among the halloween docs from the Gates man himself.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/

Personally I achieve more stuff done under linux and less battery life, but if you prefer playing whack-a-mole with popups and nice aero animations for more hours, you can't beat windows.

"Broken" can be applied by objective and self-evident standards of rightness. Hence, the phrase "broken as designed." Which appears to be canonically applicable to Windows 8.

"Broken" can be applied by objective and self-evident standards of rightness. Hence, the phrase "broken as designed." Which appears to be canonically applicable to Windows 8.

The impact of rotational latency could be reduced, depending upon the application and controller hardware, by ordering operations according to the upcoming sector boundary.

Obligatory: The Story of Mel

There are no rational reasons that I'm aware of to believe in God. I'd be pleased if you'd share some.

It partly comes down to how you define "God". If you define "God" in terms of classical theism, then there's no reason to presuppose the existence of such an entity.

However, that's not the only type of deity that's been followed over the milennia. To a Sun worshipper, the Sun is "God". Moreover, by any scientific test that you care to name, the Sun exists. Therefore, a Sun worshipper has every reason to believe in "God".

Or suppose that you define "God" as "that which mystics experience". As there's plenty of indication mystics experience something, it's perfectly rational to believe in "God". For this definition, "God" may be (and, indeed, most likely is) nothing more than an artifact of our psychology, but as ESR famously pointed out, that doesn't mean it's not worth pursuing.

Plus ça change...

I would love to see some sources on this that would confirm M$ helped SCO out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/22/business/technology-investor-s-pullout-stirs-doubts-about-sco-group.html

http://catb.org/esr/halloween/halloween10.html

http://catb.org/esr/halloween/halloween9.html

I would love to see some sources on this that would confirm M$ helped SCO out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/22/business/technology-investor-s-pullout-stirs-doubts-about-sco-group.html

http://catb.org/esr/halloween/halloween10.html

http://catb.org/esr/halloween/halloween9.html

I would have gone the other way with this one. The AL programmers I know like it precisely because they have more control of the machine (e.g., they can name specific registers and memory locations for storage) than if they were using a higher-level language, where they would be at the mercy of the compiler, and its unknown decisions. If "we regard political conservatism as an ideological belief system that is significantly (but not completely) related to motivational concerns having to do with the psychological management of uncertainty and fear," then these guys manage their uncertainty and fear of the compiler by doing everything themselves, and therefore fit the definition of conservative. Yes, they're typically older; I haven't met Mel, but he's of this type -- although because he' uses machine language, he's perhaps even more extreme. One wouldn't call him liberal, correct?

I suppose it's possible that the spectrum line is actually more of a circle, and batshit liberal and batshit conservative are either the same, or next-door neighbors.

I'm pretty sure the average veteran of punch-card computing was more tactilely aware than a young adult of today like you or me. Missing or dropping a card would've been more rare—and there actually were automated sorting machines, some of which had very clever was of mechanically implementing mergesort.

Not all nostalgia is exactly about the same kind of fun, though. Once you got past the nittiness and the grittiness of how the code was written (i.e. generally in a very limited compiled language, or assembler) the machines behind them were much simpler. It was possible in those days for a single person to be knowledgeable in CPU architecture and operating system design, and still be on the cutting edge in artificial intelligence. Because of that comparative simplicity, the opacity of the tools used to program the computers felt less like a chore and more like a game; c.f. the Story of Mel. The rules were different, code and UI style didn't exist, and the sophistication of a good hack reigned supreme.

As a result, every modest and large program for these older systems was like a little shining gem. A programmer felt proud if something they wrote was well-designed, or shared amongst computer users, or accomplished its work in a particularly clever and memory-saving manner. I think wanting to preserve those accomplishments and memories of one's glory days is at the root of all this.

(And they said computer history would never amount to a degree program—foo to them, say I!)

This is only true if you're compiler hasn't been compromised, or the that compiled it, or the one that compiled that one, and on and on.

The reality is that no matter how clever you are, how long you spend reading the source code for your favorite operating system, or how well you understand the results of that reading, you have to trust someone some time.

Even aside from that, the number of people who truly understand the source and design of any given OS completely could probably be counted without resorting to toes. A Debian maintainer neutered their SSL library for years getting rid of a compiler warning. The days of Mel's are long gone and when you get into the deep magic, most folks, myself included, are way out of our depth.

Open Source has a lot of advantages to it, but the idea that someone is going to stick something in a proprietary OS which is simple enough for even most programmers to actually catch without it getting detected is pretty close to nil. Many eyes only helps if the back door is simple enough for the many to recognize.

chicken bones

Master Foo Discourses on the Graphical User Interface One evening, Master Foo and Nubi attended a gathering of programmers who had met to learn from each other. One of the programmers asked Nubi to what school he and his master belonged. Upon being told they were followers of the Great Way of Unix, the programmer grew scornful. “The command-line tools of Unix are crude and backward,” he scoffed. “Modern, properly designed operating systems do everything through a graphical user interface.” Master Foo said nothing, but pointed at the moon. A nearby dog began to bark at the master's hand. “I don't understand you!” said the programmer. Master Foo remained silent, and pointed at an image of the Buddha. Then he pointed at a window. “What are you trying to tell me?” asked the programmer. Master Foo pointed at the programmer's head. Then he pointed at a rock. “Why can't you make yourself clear?” demanded the programmer. Master Foo frowned thoughtfully, tapped the programmer twice on the nose, and dropped him in a nearby trashcan. As the programmer was attempting to extricate himself from the garbage, the dog wandered over and piddled on him. At that moment, the programmer achieved enlightenment.

The point raised by master Foo is clear, text is the only way you REALLY understand what is being said, in this case, to your computer. The GUI guy could not understand what was going on. For more Master Foo wisdom, see http://catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-programmer.html

Oh c'mon mods, you surely can do better than that... GP just answers a scientific question with a correct scientific answer and a helpful link to the relevant Wikipedia article (and points out that 30 seconds with google would have yielded the same answer, which I feel is legitimate). GP gets flamed for it by parent, and the flame gets modded... insightful???

what's that old saying "never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence" or whatever? I mean this is MS we're talking about...

Which makes malice in the guise of incompetence particularly insidious and effective.
In the absence of clear evidence one way or the other, it's best to reserve judgment regarding malice vs incompetence where a recidivist company notorious for its dirty tricks is concerned. The aphorism you quoted (especially the "never" bit) is overridden in this case by Microsoft's track record of cunning malice, mind-boggling incompetence, incompetent malice, and malicious incompetence. It could be any of them.

An USB GPS means no Pulse Per Second

Hrmmm .... good point - looks like it is available in a few devices.

esr says he can get 1ms on USB with the Macx-1 device. What accuracy is required for each stratum? The bufferbloat people are using that device for their latency measuring project.

Serial. USB has variable latency.

What's the cause of the variability of the USB latency? Does it apply on a dedicated bus?

This testing makes it look fairly stable.

It's like complaining that if he wants to listen to it in his car, he needs to buy a car

That's not a good parallel in my opinion. One way to work around a barrier is to take a step back and describe the goal, not the step. If you take a step back from "listening in the car" to "listening during the commute", that can be accomplished just as easily on a bus unless you're specifically talking about a night or Sunday shift. But I don't see how to take a further step back from "listening to streaming audio during a commute" without eliminating the streaming.

As the "Fat Bastard" or "BOFH" of old, I would like to remind you that I and my brethren (sysadmins/sysops) have LART to wreak upon you LUSERS!

TFTFY

TFTBFY!

I first heard it about IBM.

This shouldn't be that hard to do, actually. All you should really need is a battery array of D cells (6 should do), and a hard switch (like a light switch, or something). Connect the batteries to the light switch, the light switch to an unused outlet on your motherboard. Flick the switch and watch your computer fry. It might not release smoke, and may be a potential fire hazard, but there you have it.

See: A story on magic.

Why can't we just answer the asker's question?

Describe the goal, not the step -- ESR

Some people read the question as "How do I do $step?", infer a most likely goal from the described step, explain why that step isn't optimal in one's own opinion, and propose alternate steps to achieve the same goal.

This pathetic attempt to blame Google for the fact that we may never be able to use free or documented APIs ever again is ridiculous. Oracle, Apple, and Microsoft started this war with software-patents. And now Oracle is trying to get APIs ruled as copyrightable. It's really egregious behaviour on the part of these incumbent tech corporations to use these sleazy litigation tactics against any successful open source product. Just spare us the bullshit. Microsoft promised this war way back with their Halloween documents and now they are getting help from Oracle and Apple.

From what I've read (not old enough to have lived through it), the innocent form of the work hacker goes back at least as far as the 60s. The MIT model railroad club dictionary is the most commonly cited documentation of it's usage, but it was more widespread than than). Through the 70's it was used in a neutral sense for someone who makes clever technical hacks, and didn't have any security or legal connotations. So phreakers were hackers, not because they broke into phone system, but because they made clever boxes that could do so. In the late 70's the media started using the term hacker to denote someone who a broke into computer systems. This prompted a Usenet backlash in the mid-eighties, which attempted to popularize the term cracker and ret-con the term hacker to only apply to the "good guys". They never won and never gave up, so hacker now has two definitions; the negative one used in the popular media, and the positive one that can only be used in subcultures. Note that this is a very different state than when it had a single neutral definition that happened to apply to both groups.

small babies and racks of IT equipment don't mix well.

Thus the invention of the Molly guard.

Even so, I have this vision of children feeding round slices of luncheon meat to the big friendly robot by pushing the button and laying them in the circular depression shape on its tongue. Probably still not a good mix.

On the other hand, I remember playing ring-toss with the write-enable rings on some Saturdays at my dad's work. He had no problem letting a five year old larval stage geek play in the company's computer room. But I knew I wasn't allowed to touch the tape drives, or press any buttons. Except for the keypunch machine. I could push buttons and type on all the punch cards I wanted. That was awesomely cool.

Nerd thissers : 2011 :: AOLamer me tooers : 1993

Nerd thissers : 2011 :: AOLamer me tooers : 1993

Agreed. They were off on the details (works for Oracle, not MS), but they were right that something smelled rotten.

The possibility is not ruled out that he has also received money from Microsoft. Microsoft can be devious about how it channels money to its proxies.

Magic indeed!

Inquiring minds wish to know why your pants are so thick, yet so fast. Is it a consequence of network congestion attributable to the transfer of many large files over an Internet link for which your pants serve as a single hop, or rather are your pants so thick that they, by necessity derived from the sheer geographic coverage (estimated as a multiple of the extrapolation of standard dimensions associated with the mean thickness of pants allocated to citizens in G20 nations) required for their mere existence and the improbability that C can be exceeded, are responsible for multiple hops, perhaps even providing service via each pant leg for multiple routes? Also, are your pants very baggy?

Again, inquiring minds are demanding answers. Pants followers everywhere eagerly await your reply, in the fervent hope that the insights you provide may take them 'round the universe.

Eric S Raymond wrote in "How to become a hacker" that Lisp is worth learning for "the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it". It's true (although I'm still a newbie with it).

The selective memory of you 'softie fans is amazing. There's a reason for these things. In 1986 Windows looked like this. Sales of Mac Office kept Microsoft alive in this period. Microsoft Office was moved to reinforce Windows as soon as Windows was a credible environment. Windows wasn't even a credible platform until Windows for Workgroups (Windows 3.11) was released in November 1993, some 7 years later (or 1/3 of the time to present day). Mac Office was so lagging for a long while after WfW launch that it was effectively discontinued, and Office's superior support of the Windows platform was a huge part of Windows assuming dominance over the superior Mac OS which had come to rely on Office, which now offered degraded inferior performance and features on the Mac OS. There were some other shenanigans you can read about in the above links. It was a very successful strategy you can read more about here - enough horrifying content to keep you awake for years. But if that's not enough, you might try these. Microsoft through these lessons evolved a strategy where all their products have to reinforce each other, and that became their core strategy. And then...

Apple got some traction in their TrueType font rendering patent suit against Microsoft and the Justice department was closing in on an antitrust action legendary in its scope and reach. Bill Gates blinked, and they settled, and now there's Mac Office, but you can't say that it's fully supported. The Mac versions lag the Windows versions by some years and are not fully compatible with each other in ways that can't be explained by OS platform differences. The Office platform supports Windows now, as you can see by all the sockpuppets who come out every time somebody mentions some non-Windows operating system to say "you can't get Microsoft Office for that and you never will." And then the rest of us chime in "Application vitualization solves that problem."

Eventually Microsoft discovered political advocacy and contributed in various ways to the installation of a government more supportive of their business activities. Then the enforcement of antitrust protections to limit them and protect us against their abuse of their monopoly became lax, the limits were quashed until those protections expired. But that's another long story for another day.

Traditional compile&run feedback loop is tight enough for most practical applications. That IDE with real-time feedback doesn't give you anything new if you work on something abstract (as opposed to say procedurally generated graphics) and you understand the code very well because seeing the actual problem in the one-size-fits-all printout takes as much effort as actually stepping through the code in your head. So the only effect I can foresee for this thing is encouraging more shotgun debugging among bad programmers and allowing them to stick with it because they'll have even less motivation to learn better practices.

And we all know that if the magic smoke comes out of the electronics, the data is truly lost...

I haven't seen any evidence that he is a Nazi. He puts his views on everything for all to see. So you can read for yourself that he advocates for Open Source and guns while arguing and against monogamous marriage.