Slashdot Mirror

I've seen a lot of systems popping up on the web over the last few years to allow dynamic additions of content to an information system. Things that allow commentary to be added to webpages, which others can then view; sites like Everything or Everything2.

Why not such a system for documenting code? I know that systems for publishing and linking code to itself exists (like LXR). How about such a system that would allow links to be placed in the text to user-contributed documentation? Said documentation could be anything from "this statement is doing such-and-such" to an overview of an entire module.

This documentation would be user-contributed and, of course, user edited. Editing would need to be done based on a voting system... just saying whether a given bit of doc is useful ought to be enough. Attribution is easily done, as well.

The hardest bit would probably be telling the system where you want to place a link. Do you want to doc the line? The function definition? That word? These 3 functions? That bit of code and that one over there in a different file that happen to work together? Where does the link go?

Anyone have an idea on how to do that? I know I'm up for contributing to the development of such a system (playing with Zope has gotten me interested in dynamic web stuff).
---

--

In order to create a good general-knowledge database such as Everything2 or Mindpixel, a ton of common-sense knowledge has to be entered in. Think of antipatents as being a "common sense for engineers" database.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

why not include the ultimate dictionary, everything?

• pretty blisteringly fast. So, here's a thought: They're watching everything closely.

Maybe they just watching Slashdot closely.

Where else does a lazy journalist keep up to date with the latest IT news?

That one particular ownership is relatively well known, but you're right, such a site would be immensely valuable.

Recently I heard a rumor that Starbucks was owned by Philip Morris... turns out they are independent (I think) and just have a distribution agreement with Kraft Foods, but that sort of web site would have really helped me out. Who's going to want to put the time into researching that though? There are thousands of companies that own other companies, and some (like Jeld-Wen) don't publish information on what companies they own/partner with.

Maybe a community-edited effort along the lines of Everything would be effective.
--

There is a product that does about the same thing that has been around for a long time. Actually after you apply it to something, the longer you leave it on the more invisible the object gets. I don't know the trade name for it, but the scientific name is H2SO4.

You need to do the same thing that the TV studios have been doing for years when a popular program runs it's course...

Spinoff Shows! Perhaps one about Nate's new job as a talk-radio psychologist, or one in which Hemos joins the army and annoys the heck out of Sargeant Carter.

Taco and CoyboyNeal can of course, begin production on GIS: TNG

You need to do the same thing that the TV studios have been doing for years when a popular program runs it's course...

Spinoff Shows! Perhaps one about Nate's new job as a talk-radio psychologist, or one in which Hemos joins the army and annoys the heck out of Sargeant Carter.

Taco and CoyboyNeal can of course, begin production on GIS: TNG

You need to do the same thing that the TV studios have been doing for years when a popular program runs it's course...

Spinoff Shows! Perhaps one about Nate's new job as a talk-radio psychologist, or one in which Hemos joins the army and annoys the heck out of Sargeant Carter.

Taco and CoyboyNeal can of course, begin production on GIS: TNG

I have this theory that with nano, EE/CS will become in less demand, and mechanical engineers will be forced to reexamine rod logic if they want the good jobs. However, we're really moving at a snail's pace here, and haven't had any real developments in a while. nano-saxaphones for Pres. Clinton! ;-)

The conversation is something like in this E2 node.

Steve and Company would have no qualms about using software and libraries that are protected by GPL and spoon-feeding it to the Army Of Lamers without releasing the source-code!

And, if AOL does release the source for the AOL-Linux client this will just help spammers circumnavigate the spam filters that are in place.

Basically, Linux needs AOL like Bill Gates needs money.

Steve and Company would have no qualms about using software and libraries that are protected by GPL and spoon-feeding it to the Army Of Lamers without releasing the source-code!

And, if AOL does release the source for the AOL-Linux client this will just help spammers circumnavigate the spam filters that are in place.

Basically, Linux needs AOL like Bill Gates needs money.

Try the wacky question mark link... it doesn't mention any financial stuff, but has lots of John Carmack info.

Oh, and there's some Slashdot info there, too.

-aardvarko
webmaster at aardvarko dot com

Umm... try again. 16-year-olds are legal in 34 states of the Union. Not to mention considerably more liberal laws in much of the world.

here's some details for you

For more information on Lawrence Lessig see his Everything node.
Also see this article on Wired with more ICANN information...

The only gripe I have about TNT is that it doesnt do logfiles - although, its simple enough to save a chat buffer manually. But, I spoke with a developer and he says logfiles are in the works, and I may add that functionality myself if I learn some more lisp.

Ah, isn't it great to never leave your text editor? See vi or vim try to do this! Join the Church of Emacs[?]

See this. While not definative, it's what most people think it is, and, grammar purists aside, what it's used as is what it becomes. (ex: gay) Trying to keep changes in usage out will kill a language.

In the meantime, Plex86 is an x86 virualizer that allows you to run multiple OSen concurrently on a single machine. What this means to you and me is that you can boot Linux, then run a real-live licensed Windows98 under it, without emulation, at near-native speeds. That's the Big Goal, anyway.

One thing it can fer sher handle is booting Linux under Linux, which is a good thing when you want to see if that new kernel boots.

The sites being slashdotted pretty thoroughly right now...

--

yeah, it's true, actually.

Read this it talks about the loophole, and it's kinda what nVida is doing, except, the reviewers seem to be keeping the.. uh.. "merch."

Sounds a bit like payola to me.

Didn't we decide that that was illegal for record companies. Shouldn't those laws carry over?

This has to be a troll, but I'll bite anyway.

Not only is most Sci-fi of much higher quality than the John Grisham/Daneille Steele/Oprah-book-of-the-month mainstream garbage that gets passed off to a guillible public, but it appeals to a much more intellectual and intelligent sector of society. How many hackers do you know who read sci-fi? Compare that to non-hackers. Tells you something, eh?

Robert Heinein was without a doubt the greatest American philosopher of the twentieth century (Ayn Rand is a close second). His ideas have shaped the mindset of educated people for the last half a century. Most other authors can only dream about doing the same.


-- Floyd

I dunno. Take a look at the Everything2 node and see if Rob or Kurt make any legitimate arguments against it.

As a contribution to your argument, I would like to say that Delphi, though quite similar to VB, is neither M$ nor BASIC. Notice the Everything2 writeup for Delphi. Not a bad thing is said about it! Hmmm...

I dunno. Take a look at the Everything2 node and see if Rob or Kurt make any legitimate arguments against it.

As a contribution to your argument, I would like to say that Delphi, though quite similar to VB, is neither M$ nor BASIC. Notice the Everything2 writeup for Delphi. Not a bad thing is said about it! Hmmm...

Whoops, sorry, did i say most? Damn.

> I'm sorry, but the constat beep, beep, beep in Nintendo games is annoying as hell. Give me a modern game anyday.

Yes, of course 90% of everything is crap. The point of my post, which probably didn't get into the post because i'm only barely awake, is that early nintendo and most of SNES had this feel to it which is simply absent these days in video game music, and that some of it was simply amazing. Not all; some. And most of what makes it good, or at least unique, had to do with reasons directly related to the fact the composers were very limited by the format of the music.

> But you're probably one of those people who complains that super mario bros. had the best gameplay of all time. Sad.

Not really, but i am one of those people who can listen to [to give the most "well-known" example] aphex twin and not hear a single one of the notes because i'm listening to the sonic envelopes. Also perhaps sad.

I'm not being nostalgic for Super Mario Brothers 1, i'm being nostalgic for the Roland 303 and crappy vinyl records. 8-bit 11 khz sound can produce some truly amazing feels in the right hands, just because you are forced into applying a certain mode to everything, forced into giving everything a certain stylistic tone that makes it ideal for sampling.

Just because of the limitations of the format, the creators of that music were forced to take wierd sonic shortcuts, do strange things with pure waveforms, produce wierd noises that you just don't _find_ unless you're programming a bad sound api or echoing patterns of numbers to /dev/audio; create music with anything with even slightly higher-level abstractions and those sounds just don't come about. [not to say that everyone who attempted to create low level sound wound up creating something other than crap.] _This_ is why i would want to sample NES music; because it has a feel to it unlike the feel of anything else. What's the music in video games these days like? Just the same old thing that a synthesizer you can buy in a store does, sometimes just recorded music. Why sample that, why not just sample a non-game CD?
The point of sampling something is because it brings some element to your music which you cannot produce on your own. Current videogame music is just _music_, normal music, and contains no elements that cannot be found elsewhere. Old-ass nintendo music _does_ have elements, feels, that cannot be found elseware, and thus it would make sense to sample them, to assimilate that feel..

I think my post took it as a given the listener had both listened carefully to nintendo music and had thought a lot about sampling. Those really are dumb assumptions. Sorry.

[why I love (and understand why most of you hate) minimal techno]

SLEEP NOW!!! NOW!!!!

Good grazy, man! You sound like a low-budget children's action show (Re:Dragonball Z, Power Rangers, etc.): The good guys are good because they kill (not arrest and rehabilitate, not kill by lethal injection, but kill as in murder) the bad guys. That's not the way it works in real life. Killing innocents does not waiver their right to a fair trial. Killing them, rather than arresting them waivers this right, and is therefore, wrong.

If the only way to prevent them from killing an innocent is to kill them immediately, without the trial, then it's okay, IMO, but otherwise it's not.

Good grazy, man! You sound like a low-budget children's action show (Re:Dragonball Z, Power Rangers, etc.): The good guys are good because they kill (not arrest and rehabilitate, not kill by lethal injection, but kill as in murder) the bad guys. That's not the way it works in real life. Killing innocents does not waiver their right to a fair trial. Killing them, rather than arresting them waivers this right, and is therefore, wrong.

If the only way to prevent them from killing an innocent is to kill them immediately, without the trial, then it's okay, IMO, but otherwise it's not.

Before the World Wide Web caught on, I initially browsed through many gopher sites. Do people still run those servers?

No[1], because the Web does everything Gopher did, and more, and better.

It would interesting to see those sites for posterity sake.

That's true, but no one's going to maintain one just for that, unless that IS why they're doing it.

I speak as the person who personally turned off the law.harvard.edu gopher server, as no one had noticed it was still running, and it hadn't logged any usage in two years. (This was in early '98.) On the one hand I was sad to destroy a small piece of history; on the other, I was happy to reclaim some cycles on the primary web server.

Kdt

[1] Well, there are probably some universities in slow-developing countries who had Internet access in circa 1994 or prior, but their national technological infrastructure hasn't advanced to the point where the Web is practical, and they still maintain their Gopher servers instead. I doubt there are very many places like that anymore, though. I would start with a search for a working Veronica server. There are still some Archie [e2][ODP] servers in existence, so I'm sure there's at least one Veronica around.
--

Sorry for not sticking to telescopes, but I couldn't help it. You must be aware of projects like CYC and everything. My question is, does the world really need GAC? How is GAC different, besides the commercial aspects? --willy dog

It's really annoying to have to discover the "real" author underneath those great works. He's not concerned with pleasing his fans anymore - far more with creating new opportunities, making the most of his product's potential, etc etc, to actually care about his long term fans. Ok, so I might be inclined to do that too, if Hollywood was waving six figure amounts at me, but it's still a shame.

Oh, and I think it goes without saying that he's not got the slightest interest in slashdot, except as a vehicle to push all his latest and greatest creations, including (INCLUDING!) h2g2, the commercial ripoff of Everything.

Shame. SHAME, I say.

--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me

Click here for the answer to your question.

(I actually would not have known this if I hadn't seen it on memepool yesterday.)

Weblogs are a cool concept, but ultimately lead to fragmentation -- content, eyeballs, authors, and participants are spread among many distinct islands.

One of the more interesting ideas to emerge from the Advogato / Kuro5hin axis is the concept of syndication. This would cover content, already common -- Slashdot and LinuxToday are essentially content syndication sites, and The Register officially sanctions linking. But syndication could also include a distributed user directory, and potentially (flame on) attributes such as karma or other metrics of merit from various sites.

I see a mix of several models coallescing into the final "product":

• From Slashdot and Blockstackers -- Everything -- a hyperlinked, persistant, discussion/directory. Somewhat like Wiki.
• From Kuro5hin, a well-de signed collaborative moderating system
• From Advogato, the idea of a trust metric is useful, but not sufficient.
• From the IWETHEY EZBoard, active content promotion. Active topics float up in the discussion queue. It's a bit different from a typical weblog, but tends to promote issues of interest and bury (but not kill) those which aren't generating much traffic.
• From LinuxWorld, multiple forum interfaces -- forums can be web, Usenet, or e-mail based.

Still to be worked out are issues of story selection. Various models work -- Slashdot and IWETHEY fall at two extremes, with a dedicated editorial staff on the one hand, and a number of free-form "open forums" in which any topic may be posted and discussed. Kuro5hin's still working out the kinks, though a number of suggestions have been proposed.

The point is that high-quality (and low quality) content are created all over the Net. Mindless Link Propogation (TM) (MLP) is a useful way of aggregating it to key sites. Mindful link propogation might be even better.

What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Scope out Kuro5hin

--

Everything 2 may be weird, but at least it isn't um, a haven of your evil OREOLOGY! (Quote from Rob when I confronted him on this vast conspiracy, "Shit, you're on to me.") Seriously though, can I help it if writeups like The Bondage Perils of Supergirl get voted up to like +10 and get me 20xp? Well, then again, I am pretty much crazy according to my fellow noders.

Either way everything 2 isn't half as insane as slashdot, our flamewars are usually between liberals and conservatives! And the trolling is in voting so you don't have to read any of it because people are afaraid of losing xp! Muahaha.

Concidently this is just one of many Krull Proofing Techniques used by everything2. We prevent Krull invasions thru many, very sophisticated Krull Proofing techniques. For instance, the vast majority of e2's buttons say 'Sumbit' instead of Submit. Also, in the event of lots of krulls invading, they'll get lost in the labrynth of nodes when we shut down the cool nodes, random nodes, soft links, search capability and new writeups. They'll just be trapped, then we pour creamy oreo goodness into the nodes. Unfortunately, a little known fact about krulls is that Oreo goodness [tm] clogs up the pores thru which they breathe the solar rays of the sun, brutally killing them, so if a few noders get caught in their SCUBA gear in a vast sea of Creamy Oreo Goodness, it's no big deal.

As you can see, Everything 2, "Horny Teenagers" (Of which there are very few, I assure you.) and all, is the last line of defense against the evil, evil, evil, krull invasion force.

--Shanoyu, head of "Everything Impossible".


-[ World domination - rains.net ]-

Everything 2 may be weird, but at least it isn't um, a haven of your evil OREOLOGY! (Quote from Rob when I confronted him on this vast conspiracy, "Shit, you're on to me.") Seriously though, can I help it if writeups like The Bondage Perils of Supergirl get voted up to like +10 and get me 20xp? Well, then again, I am pretty much crazy according to my fellow noders.

Either way everything 2 isn't half as insane as slashdot, our flamewars are usually between liberals and conservatives! And the trolling is in voting so you don't have to read any of it because people are afaraid of losing xp! Muahaha.

Concidently this is just one of many Krull Proofing Techniques used by everything2. We prevent Krull invasions thru many, very sophisticated Krull Proofing techniques. For instance, the vast majority of e2's buttons say 'Sumbit' instead of Submit. Also, in the event of lots of krulls invading, they'll get lost in the labrynth of nodes when we shut down the cool nodes, random nodes, soft links, search capability and new writeups. They'll just be trapped, then we pour creamy oreo goodness into the nodes. Unfortunately, a little known fact about krulls is that Oreo goodness [tm] clogs up the pores thru which they breathe the solar rays of the sun, brutally killing them, so if a few noders get caught in their SCUBA gear in a vast sea of Creamy Oreo Goodness, it's no big deal.

As you can see, Everything 2, "Horny Teenagers" (Of which there are very few, I assure you.) and all, is the last line of defense against the evil, evil, evil, krull invasion force.

--Shanoyu, head of "Everything Impossible".


-[ World domination - rains.net ]-

Everything 2 may be weird, but at least it isn't um, a haven of your evil OREOLOGY! (Quote from Rob when I confronted him on this vast conspiracy, "Shit, you're on to me.") Seriously though, can I help it if writeups like The Bondage Perils of Supergirl get voted up to like +10 and get me 20xp? Well, then again, I am pretty much crazy according to my fellow noders.

Either way everything 2 isn't half as insane as slashdot, our flamewars are usually between liberals and conservatives! And the trolling is in voting so you don't have to read any of it because people are afaraid of losing xp! Muahaha.

Concidently this is just one of many Krull Proofing Techniques used by everything2. We prevent Krull invasions thru many, very sophisticated Krull Proofing techniques. For instance, the vast majority of e2's buttons say 'Sumbit' instead of Submit. Also, in the event of lots of krulls invading, they'll get lost in the labrynth of nodes when we shut down the cool nodes, random nodes, soft links, search capability and new writeups. They'll just be trapped, then we pour creamy oreo goodness into the nodes. Unfortunately, a little known fact about krulls is that Oreo goodness [tm] clogs up the pores thru which they breathe the solar rays of the sun, brutally killing them, so if a few noders get caught in their SCUBA gear in a vast sea of Creamy Oreo Goodness, it's no big deal.

As you can see, Everything 2, "Horny Teenagers" (Of which there are very few, I assure you.) and all, is the last line of defense against the evil, evil, evil, krull invasion force.

--Shanoyu, head of "Everything Impossible".


-[ World domination - rains.net ]-

Everything 2 may be weird, but at least it isn't um, a haven of your evil OREOLOGY! (Quote from Rob when I confronted him on this vast conspiracy, "Shit, you're on to me.") Seriously though, can I help it if writeups like The Bondage Perils of Supergirl get voted up to like +10 and get me 20xp? Well, then again, I am pretty much crazy according to my fellow noders.

Either way everything 2 isn't half as insane as slashdot, our flamewars are usually between liberals and conservatives! And the trolling is in voting so you don't have to read any of it because people are afaraid of losing xp! Muahaha.

Concidently this is just one of many Krull Proofing Techniques used by everything2. We prevent Krull invasions thru many, very sophisticated Krull Proofing techniques. For instance, the vast majority of e2's buttons say 'Sumbit' instead of Submit. Also, in the event of lots of krulls invading, they'll get lost in the labrynth of nodes when we shut down the cool nodes, random nodes, soft links, search capability and new writeups. They'll just be trapped, then we pour creamy oreo goodness into the nodes. Unfortunately, a little known fact about krulls is that Oreo goodness [tm] clogs up the pores thru which they breathe the solar rays of the sun, brutally killing them, so if a few noders get caught in their SCUBA gear in a vast sea of Creamy Oreo Goodness, it's no big deal.

As you can see, Everything 2, "Horny Teenagers" (Of which there are very few, I assure you.) and all, is the last line of defense against the evil, evil, evil, krull invasion force.

--Shanoyu, head of "Everything Impossible".


-[ World domination - rains.net ]-

1. The line is "beat their swords into plowshares." Meaning, put an end to war and use the tools of war for peacetime activities.
2. A plowshare is the blade of a plow, the part that cuts into the dirt. The plow was made of wood back when that phrase was used, so it doesn't make sense to beat a plow into a plowshare.
3. Plow = plough, plowshare = ploughshare. The "ough" is just Old English, that's all.

Look at the money going into streaming media. A large segment of the business world still sees the internet as just another medium for TV or radio broadcasting. By it's very nature broadcasting is not interconnected, it's passive and linear.

Tim Berners-Lee wrote in his book, Weaving the Web that the main obstacle to the web being a true information web of shared knowledge is that content is controlled by too few. He was upset that browsers were developed which could not edit web pages like his original browser/editor.

The silver lining to this, IMHO, is the "weblog" phenomenon, including sites like Slashdot, where ordinary users can contribute their ideas, especially in html format so that they can contribute links. I really believe that some day soon the conventional media sites will be forced to give this kind of capability to their readers, or else risk losing all those eyeballs to Slash-like sites.

"What I cannot create, I do not understand."

Bah. It sounded cool, but the server is pegged out with too many users. So my comment will end up being off topic, even though I intended to make the smart-ass remark and then read the article, then add something relevant and interesting to my post.
---
icq:2057699
seumas.com

1. Refuse to do it unless they allow you to remerge the source -- probably a CLM[?]
2. Bite the bullet, do it, and contribute to the violation of the GPL

Finally, I'm wondering -- who is responsible for pursing a law suit if someone violates GPL? You would expect it to be the author, but couldn't it be anyone? After all, aren't there potentially hundreds or thousands of authors? What if they choose to sue your company? That wouldn't be your fault, either.

JoseMonkey

Have you played with Everything or Everything 2; how do you feel they compare to the h2g2.com effort to create a real-world Guide?
--

Something similar is already here: Everything 2. While it's not perfect, it's certainly a good resource, although not a Web-wide one.

Chris Hagar

huh? IIRC positive curvature is synclastic, while negative curvature is anticlastic. You've got it backwards.

huh? IIRC positive curvature is synclastic, while negative curvature is anticlastic. You've got it backwards.

Check out everything. A great online dictionary for things like IIRC, 31337, and all those other fun words you run across online.

Yeah, everything is neat, but the main problem with it is that there is no editing. Do a search for Mr T Ate My Balls and then tell me what you think of Everything as a legitimate cataloging/archival site.

• The ability for all the users to add content makes it easier and faster to get information in there

Yes, this is a definite plus, under certain circumstances. You can avoid the tyranny of The Editor as he prunes away the dross.

darren

Yeah, everything is neat, but the main problem with it is that there is no editing. Do a search for Mr T Ate My Balls and then tell me what you think of Everything as a legitimate cataloging/archival site.

• The ability for all the users to add content makes it easier and faster to get information in there

Yes, this is a definite plus, under certain circumstances. You can avoid the tyranny of The Editor as he prunes away the dross.

darren