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The name Linux was not coined by Linus himself, strange though that may seem to people familiar with his self-esteem. It was coined by Ari Lemmke, the administrator at ftp.funet.fi who first made Linux available for FTP. Ari had to coin a name since Linus had failed to give a proper one, so Ari invented one and it stuck.

And this is differnt than when some GNU/Linux user scrubbs a BSD copyright off exactly how?

You mean like XFRisk 1.1 and 1.2?

Yeah, Aqsis is there, though they say it's slow and stuff. There's also 3Delight free beta out there.

Okay, so there are Renderman renderers. Wish there were also good modellers - I know there are some semi-decent modellers, but, for example, Ayam is pretty hard to grasp for someone who is not familiar with Renderman on file format level. I really wish Blender folks can come up with a cool Renderman integration some day, as of yet the scripts are quite incomplete.

(For what it's worth, if you want to see how far someone with little clue about 3D and no clue about Renderman can get with Blender, see my renderings =)

And why do we even need X to play music?

Is this the future of Earth?!

http://kato.iki.fi/htraEwolloF.jpg

On MacOSX 10.1.5, Celestia apparently wraps a realtime mirror image around us. Does not apply on any other planets.

...and of course the real link is this.

Stupid stupid stupid...

Wapit was making Mobile Phone Service Stuff. You know, stuff for this "WAP" thing that was such a major success that almost three people bought a cell phone that supported it and one actually tried the services once... one prominent figure employed by them was Lars Wirzenius, friend of Linus Torvalds, a Debian guy and, um, appeared in the newsgroups or something.

Some stuff from Wapit is still alive due to this "open source" idea thingy. People say Kannel beats Nokia's WAP/SMS gateway software easily =)

Rats are probably the most ideal animals for rescuing people from collapsed buildings -- they find you through the smallest cracks and the bonus is that you can eat them while waiting for the rescue crew dig you up.

Only thing you'd need to check is whether the victims are allergic. While I kind of like waking up in middle of night because a rat is sitting on my head (has happened more than once), I and quite many other people would choke to death quite quickly if forced to live with a fat furry rat in a small cavity for a prolonged time.

Cherish your rat.

I got my GB around 1991, and Tetris came with it.

And when I got my GBA in 2001, I used its excellent improved circuitry to... play Tetris. The thing had a processor the size of a solar system, and I used it to play something that required a fraction of original GB's processing capability!

Lodju.

Grab it from here: http://www.alfordot.com/e/p/cdn/orbit3/

It's possible to see hidden images in the second Aphex Twin windowlicker track. Take a look here for instructions, then visit this site for a quality screenshot.

The c64 programmers reference guide (I still
have a dead-tree copy!) does indeed say
"ALWAYS SET THIS BIT TO 0!"

See an online edition for an interesting read.

::drags the offender around the corner and slaps::

Should I fine you for false alarm? =)

(I thought of expanding RGRNCA to Slashdot, but considering Slashdot doesn't post too many stories of Nethack and the reader population is probably well enough educated, I think someone else should do the job. Moderators. Or something. =)

I was under the impression that Blender had, somewhere in the website, a comment that said (basically) "if we go out of business, Blender goes open source; If we sell it, we won't sell it unless they promise to do the same thing". (I remember something vague about BSD lisence, but I could be wrong.)

I certainly hope they won't find anyone to sell it to so we get the thing =)

Anyway, as a long-time Blender user (but not long enough time, that's for sure), I have to say that it's a shame that they had to go. I hope they keep the word now and Blender will once again be visible, either still as freeware or under DFSG-compliant lisence.

I'm in the same boat as you (4000 impressions paid for, 60 or so used up) and I agree completely. I keep hitting subscribe.pl and watching that little counter tick up, and I get annoyed if I "waste" a page view by reloading /.before an interesting story shows up. Yes, I am fully aware that 30 cents for a week's slashdotting isn't much, but with metered access the fun factor is a lot less than it used to be.

And while I'm at it, I'll cast another vote for Kuro5hin's text ad system -- in retrospect, I would rather have spent those same $20 on redirecting random people to my site or my pictures or something. Access to Slashdot stories and comments via NNTP would also be amazingly cool (after all these years I still hate the Slash comment interface!), but that would require a lot of work and it ain't gonna work on a pay-per-view basis.

Cheers,
-j.

If you want a really invisible case, just lay your mobo and parts out on a table. Then, your PC will be +5 cool.

Like this (the pegboard computer) or mine?

is here.

Linux cannot, in principle, simply replace the Windows desktop, because it would no longer be a Windows desktop! However, Linux can be a better tool for many of the jobs that are now done on Windows. Many specialists already know that this is the case.

IMHO the worst brainwashing done by M$ to people is the idea that one OS with one UI would be fit for everything. In the end that system is not very good for anything.

Similar problems do exist even within the unix world. For example, XMMS is excellent for playing music but I don't understand why it needs a GUI. At least in this 'land of the Free' I could scratch my itch :-)

By 1988 you would pretty much get laughed at if you were still running a C-64 machine.

And people in demoscene still make really cool demos for C64! Recently I watched through some of the demos from Assembly parties of recent years... I have one word: wow. =)

Yeah, by early 1990s the games couldn't quite beat the games that appeared on, say, Amiga - but I still use C64 for the games that were produced before those times. Those are classics, dammit.

And sometimes the PC folks can't make better games, even when they have vastly faster graphics and processor and more memory. Shame on them... =)

And they still haven't made a cooler sound synth chip than the good ol' SID...

Of course, it's based on rather "limited" Scheme implementation. I'd recommend Perl-Fu - everything Script-Fu can do and more, in a vastly easier-to-debug environment.

Neither of the languages are too hard, but Perl-Fu will be my favorite from now on.

I have some example scripts in the web, too. In case anyone cares. Not much of Perl yet, but more than enough Scheme to confuse anyone =)

I have chosen the Canon G1. It's really a gem among the hyped up market, with features that are actually useful and not gee whiz candy. Compared to professional cameras, it's only missing SLR and changeable lenses -- but then again it's the size of a 35mm point'n shoot. And the 3x zoom lens has macro and telephoto adapters available.

Linux compatilibity comes via USB (gphoto2), though I prefer a PC Card adapter to read the CF card directly. The camera can also use Microdrives of (currently) 1 GB.

The new G2 version has just come out, but the differences are not very stunning (4Mpix instead of 3.3).

I don't know about hackability (maybe via the binary-only firmware updates), but I'm more interested in 'photo geek' features which let you choose every possible setting when taking photos.

Unfortunately, one interesting feature requires the use of a windoze: creating panorama pictures from multiple shots. This is now the only reason I'm left with a windoze partition :-/

1. PVR - record TV to hard drive, pause live TV etc.
2. basic local programming guide
3. advanced local programming guide (recommendations, sophisticated search etc.)
4. modular component fits well into home AV system

1. monthly fee
2. some tracking of user activity

1. find a way to get TV listings for your locality
2. find some PVR software (if it didn't already come with your video hardware)

Since the article body only referenced the Experian press release, I thought a few people might be interested in the press release from the other side. It reads a little differently, but the gist appears to be the same; opt-in is not required.

That being said, since they went commercial, their value to the community as a whole has been significantly lower. I would recommend people use alternative listings at this point.

Most of my GIMPing, for a range of websites, is done using GIMP for Windows on NT4 or Win98. Despite the warning given on that page that, "The GIMP for Windows is not really targetted at end-users
yet", it works pretty well for me (certainly having no more quirks or crashes than anything else I've used on Windows).

One of the funniest articles I've read is a brief history of Linux, told from the trenches by Lars Wirzenius.

Hey, it is a REALLY good article. DO read the whole thing. And for those who are still lazy to go back and search the link, click here.

Just thought to note that I've done a major update to my Debian Conference page, somebody of course posted it just before I had my report ready. :-)

AJT

Has the general computer using population been brainwashed into thinking they have to buy a new PC to run a new operating system?

Hooray!

=)

But seriously, I think this is the sad state of the world. =( Then again, usually there's no harm of getting a newest OS when you buy a new machine, but it's definitely not necessary.

It's worse than just the font choice. I've been reading it, amused that all those who defend Microsoft are using Microsoft proprietary characters. All of their comments have distracting garbled characters, reminding me about Microsoft's treatment of standards and lack of concern for user's data.

?...Working with Windows 2000 and its successor operating systems ?should reduce lifecycle crewing and maintenance costs, as well as procurement costs,? he said. ?They will be running Windows or ?Son of Windows? by the time this ship deploys.?

• This article about the advantages of MS software was obviously written on MS software, as it has been damaged by MS proprietary characters.
• One of the "advantages" is a reduction in maintenance costs, but they're proud of the need to use a newer version of Windows and the expense of upgrading?

Huh? There are actually people who still have one?

::grin::

I have two C64s (I bought the other last summer - damn, that newish creamy case of C64G is sexy!) and one VIC-20... I still use the C64s a lot, but somehow I only use VIC-20 for playing Jupiter Lander.

Why? Well, Previous Mozilla versions have had SEVERE trouble with bookmark management. For example, for a long time they had none of the luxury of NS4's "File bookmark" thing. I recently noticed Mozilla 0.8.1 had it somewhere, it had just not worked for me. It seems to work in 0.9 now has even better stuff in Manage Bookmarks thing - No need to drag the stuff around gigantic screens, I can now click on a bookmark and choose File Bookmark from the menus to send a bookmark to another folder. Way cool.

If it's 100Mb/s coming to you, the limiting factor will be the server transmitting the packets to you. IP packets are like letters: the sender pays for the stamp. That's why Verizon charges the same amount of money for a 768/128 ADSL and a 384/384 SDSL, but the ISPs charge double for the latter. That's because the latter can send twice as much data out.

If you find a server who is willing and able to send the 100Mb/s to you, you will get the traffic, and the server pays the bill. It seems it costs the server about one dollar per gigabyte transmitted regardless of speed or distance. So the server is likely to charge you, the recipient, about $1 for each minute of 100Mb/s feed.

Similarly, your ISP is going to collect their dollar per gigabyte when you put your popular family web server on a guaranteed 100Mb/s link.

Marko

No, it's due to the effects of the nonstandard "smart quotes" plague.

(Okay, this is more of Uninteresting Whining About Matters of Taste rather than serious OS debate, but...)

Irix is a powerful, beautiful, and slick OS that most of you have never even used before! Get with it! Dont reply to this unless you HAVE used Irix, and know what you are talking about.

I haven't used IRIX much (save ocassional Blender work, ocassional scan - Blender on SGI O2 blows same thing on my PIII-600 way away =), and I have only one thing to whine of.

Motif.

::sigh:: No problems with 4dwm and Magic Desktop, but... MOTIF!

(If anyone has any ideas where I could find clone of Magic Desktop's icon box thing, I'd be grateful... 5dwm.org didn't have one ready yet =)

I've worked with Motif for years, and my main gripe against it is not the ugly looks. I don't know the other GUI toolkits very well, but it doesn't seem to me Swing, TK, GTK or Qt are any better. I'd sure love to be corrected.

To be more specific:

• Try creating a very basic graphical component in accordance with the Motif Style Guide: a labeled text field. Whether I create it as a widget or as an application-level object, I cannot stack up these labeled text fields so that the text fields line up nicely. The reason is that the graphical objects are presumed to be rectangles with the corner points as the only relevant pieces of information. What you need is additional points of attachment. So you're left with two lame choices: don't create such a graphical component but always build your form widgets from the primitive elements, or don't even try to line the text fields up and let it look ugly.
• The dividing line between widgets and the application space is completely arbitrary. What if I create a nice selection dialog and then decide that it would make a nice widget -- I'd have to rewrite the code. You really would want to write everything but the main function as widgets, but the Motif toolkit didn't make that particularly appealing.
• The Motif Toolkit and the Motif Style Guide did not specify the critical measurements of the graphical components (how wide is the shadowing or the engraving; how can I reuse that scrollbar triangle; how much space should I leave between the border and the next widget). You need those measurements if you want to extend the Motif toolkit in accordance with the Style Guide. What you can do is count pixels on your screen and imitate a particular implementation, but there's no guarantee that it will look good on different DPIs and with different toolkit implementations.

Has anybody done it better? TeX for GUI, anyone?

Marko

I don't know about other countries, but the labor unions are so powerful in Finland that the employers have formed their own union: The Confederation of Finnish Industry and Employers. Their opponent is a union of labor unions, The Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions. Every couple of years those two adversaries try to come up with a comprehensive long-term contract. Usually they hold the government hostage by threatening not to agree unless the government chips in with concessions. All in all, I think all parties are pretty happy about the arrangement.

Marko

My employer does not allow the employees to see the ACLU link. The net nanny software displays a message that threatens with termination if I don't stop trying to violate the company policy.

Is this message off topic?

Marko

In my opinion all software and scientific results of employees and students of publicly funded universities should be made public domain by state law. That would settle the dispute, and the universities would concentrate on serving the interests of science and the public.

While I prefer GPL myself, I think it is contradictory for university employees to claim copyright to their work and at the same time deny it to their employers.

Marko

The point: They All Suck. But Linux sucks less, at least based on my experiences. =)

It's not a secret that both have security holes; however, with open source systems, the security-related bugs tend to get fixed in finite time.

What is "dogma", then?

Dogma \Dog"ma\, n.; pl. E. Dogmas, L. Dogmata. [L. dogma, Gr. ?, pl. ?, fr. ? to think, seem, appear; akin to L. decet it is becoming. Cf. Decent. ]

1. That which is held as an opinion; a tenet; a doctrine.

2. A formally stated and authoritatively settled doctrine; a definite, established, and authoritative tenet.

3. A doctrinal notion asserted without regard to evidence or truth; an arbitrary dictum.

Syn: tenet; opinion; proposition; doctrine.

(Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913)

So: Dogma is an opinion handed down from above. Call me paranoid, but using "dogma" in this case smells of FUD-spreading - "The Linux Folks are Believers, and Taco is their Pope". Believe me, I have seen a lot of ugly MS trolls telling us what they think of "Linux Believers"... and I'm bored.

The fact, with or without opinions, is that Windows has showed itself to be less secure, or that security bugs have been fixed later than in case of open source projects (need I remind of OOB?).

Bah, get the hence, AC... =)

The purpose of the bill is not to protect Internet users directly or even indirectly from spam. You can tell from the bill itself plus the justification that they are concerned about the spammer not paying for the service.

So what's going to happen is that big ISPs are going to strike deals with direct marketers for the right to spam their customers. This is going to be just extra revenue for the ISPs and is not going to translate into lowered consumer prices.

On the other hand, I'm sure the same ISPs will be kind enough to set up central opt-out lists that will also really work.

So if this bill passes, everybody will be happy. The direct marketers can continue to spam and reach millions of gullible people, but now they have to pay the ISPs. The few idealists can tell their ISPs to block all legal spam, and it'll be done. The ISPs will send bounty hunters after the illegal spammers who have mentioned an 800 number in their message.

In the end you will only see spam that mentions a Caribbean phone number as a contact point.

Marko

Definitely. I've put up quite a few of my travel stories up on the net. Travel writing is practically impossible to sell and so I haven't even tried, but on the Net, with no advertising other than a few search engine submissions, I've gotten thousands of readers and lots of feedback. Write a really good story, like Philip Greenspun, and you'll get hundreds of thousands.

Philip also explains why he isn't a writer and why the Net is far better medium than dead trees. Excellent reading.

Cheers,
-j.

www.sailmail.com

I'm not so familar with that, I guess you are supposed to be an regular sailor to use it.

Go and find out yourself.

Jii

`Here be dragons' - thread.h

Bhah! =) Threads must be burned (through the computeresque threads do have their uses...)

Of course, every Perl hacker likes Klah. It's a drink for true hackers!

`Here be dragons' - thread.h

Bhah! =) Threads must be burned (through the computeresque threads do have their uses...)

Of course, every Perl hacker likes Klah. It's a drink for true hackers!

"If I don't kill these Jews, somebody else will. I have to make a living somehow, so why not this?"

"If I don't make Godwin's Law apply to this thread, someone else will."

hint: 90% of all germans thought it ok to kill off all the jews.

You lose, now come up with some real arguments.

Most people have that view because it is in their best interest, in this case, listening to music outside the mainstream, and when they want to. Outside the sphere of corporate influence, which is why the sphere of corporate influence is soo pissed.

--

Huh? It is not broken, I just downloaded my own copy from there. Just click "Download Now" and the rest is magic. (The "Developer's Site" link, though, is definitely broken, or at least not showing anything related to Wrapster.)

Just in case though, I've now mirrored it on my own server:

http://jpatokal.iki.fi/tmp/wrapster.exe

...but please slashdot download.com first instead. =)

Cheers,
-j.

That's good, but not very important for me because I don't do cookies.

However, is there a way to prevent the browser from revealing the referring page? Cookies can effectively be implemented in the URL. So even if cookies are turned off, the same information may be disseminated with the URLs.

Marko