Slashdot Mirror

They are female, of course! So is Sojourner.

Actually, there is a growing LiveJournal meme regarding spacer journals. Currently over two dozen of them. One of the communications satellites keeps a public friends filter of all of them available here:

HGS1's Spacers List

These journals are a blast to read. Check it out!

Check out Opportunity's LiveJournal. It's good for a chuckle or two :)

Anyone curious about the day-to-day stuff with Opportunity can read her live journal. Err... probably not official NASA. But funny-- and accurate!

live journal, 'opportunitygrrl'

(Her sister has one too)

First of all, running under X11 makes it slower than running natively under linux.

Umm, you do know that Linux uses X11 too right? I guess you also know that the Mac OS X X11 implementation is largly based on the linux one, but has some compositing improvements which actually speed it up compared to linux.



My impression from brad of livejournal, is that on his mac, applications are zippier if run under linux than under os x. I think that's what the parent is refering to. When you run on linux, X11 is the lowest level windowing api. When you run on OS X, the X11 stuff gets translated to another windowing api before it goes to the hardware.

Mac users just aren't used to having menus show up in application windows.

I use linux daily at work, I still cannot stand this setup. It's just not usefull. I keep having to first find the graphic window under all my other apps, then all the toolbar windows. It's just stupid.



Your complaint is valid, but not against what you've quoted. The quote refers to putting menus in application windows, rather than at the top of the screen. Mac OS (by default) has one menu bar to rule them all at the top of the screen. When the current application changes, so does the menu bar at the top of the screen.

You're complaining about the Gimp's tons of windows.

There was a comment left on my weblog, apparently by a manager in the Avalon team, saying that XAML is not XUL.

The interference robustness ( I read it as interface at first too) option is supposed to increese conectivity. It has been said to decreese range a bit however in high interference environments it should help to get a connection or a faster one. Even though it does reduce range this option doesn't reduce range to the extent that people are saying this update does...

RACIST crapflood him blz

Racist livejournal
Please crapflood, just a bit from each of you

- #teens4christ

WTF, mate?

your spelling correction is clearly relevant :D (I'll actually spell check things this time)

I haven't seen too many problems with people out of work in linux (well.. lately anyway). I've seen a lot of consulting and contracting ops and contract-to-hire positions popping up for the last six months, and in the last three months fairly heavily. Good times should be back soon, methinks.

I was even inspired to ramble briefly in my lame blog, and one of the projects I linked to above did incorporate SIP into IMs in somekind of way, though I have not tried it.

I would think it more likely that this would be merged into gnomemeeting in some kind of plugin fashion in the future, but hey. I'll be happy with however it works out.

POTS to VOIP interoperability will likely be sticky for years and years. I anticipate running my own until the market gets to where I want it to be.. likely in several years.

Until then, it's a nice toy. Everyone I've heard about (large office structures possibly accepted) have had huge headaches in their adoption.

see the 10:40 entry

Account of my experiences at:
http://andala.livejournal.com/2003/08/16/

It occurred to me, as I type this with my Microsoft Natural Keyboard (TM) (R) (btw, only 23.95 at Fry's (TM) (R)), that product placement in blogs, such as Blogger (TM) (R), Livejournal (TM) (R), and Diaryland (TM) (R) may be one of the things in store for the future.

I did exactly that in June, and it's linked in the post at the top of this thread. Here it is again: http://www.livejournal.com/users/nugget/42813.html

The Cassini probe has his own blog.
Anthropomorphized space probe's blogs started in January, and got more popular last month when some JPL'ers started ones for the GOES and FUSE satellites.
Here is a list of 14 active space probe's blogs.

My S.O. pulled a stunt like this, though it was just a joke, not real. We've been together for a long time- 6.5 years now- so a lot of folks believed it. A few of our friends wouldn't talk to us for a while, insulted that we didn't tell them in person. heh.

For a full updated list of sites pulling april fools jokes see here

Some of the latest enteries:
livejournal.com - on userinfo pages, "Friend"/"Friend Of" -> "Stalking"/"Stalked By"
www.gpf-comics.com - Comic mirrored.
smh.com.au - Yum-cha trolleys with "L" plates
www.clutchfans.com - Patrick Ewing returning to NBA
www.freeciv.org - Freeciv ANSI client
www.rav4world.com - Closed? Should have announced that TOMORROW!
www.retrocrush.com - Nude pics of Jaclyn Smith
westcoaster.net - Roller coaster site turned into teen girl site
www.meowpawjects.com - Sock people forced webmaster to take website down.
miceage.com - Disney merges with Walmart
www.badgerbadgerbadger.com - Badgers replaces with zombies
skepdic.com - Skeptic's Dictionary closing
fool.com - Buffett buys Krispy Cream
launch.com - Britney Spears & Jason Alexander To Renew Wedding Vows
MetaFilter.com - Turned in to a Wiki for the day
www.ddrkc.com - owner sold site to a user that is unpopular
brownpau.com - March for Web Standards
www.beyondunreal.com - ut2k4 production suspended
globetechnology.com - Microsoft Solitaire
www.modernwiccan.com - Randomized Color Scheme
bbs.fuckedcompany.com - Site shutting down
www.diary-x.com - looks like diaryland!
theprp.com - Music site to "Previously Ridden Ponies"
mpx200.org - Pocket PC with 2Gb system memory/Smart Drunk Pocket PC application
www.macosxhints.com - triple G5 Powermacs
www.slyfx.com - AOL buys slyfx
palminfocenter.com - Palms for toddlers.
www.carniola.org - fake news story
eikenes.alvestrand.no - Considering porn spam to be in a separate dialect to everything else
defunctgames.com - Pimps At Sea fox xbox

For a full updated list of sites pulling april fools jokes see here

Some highlites:
livejournal.com - on userinfo pages, "Friend"/"Friend Of" -> "Stalking"/"Stalked By"
www.gpf-comics.com - Comic mirrored.
smh.com.au - Yum-cha trolleys with "L" plates
www.clutchfans.com - Patrick Ewing returning to NBA
www.freeciv.org - Freeciv ANSI client
www.rav4world.com - Closed? Should have announced that TOMORROW!
www.retrocrush.com - Nude pics of Jaclyn Smith
westcoaster.net - Roller coaster site turned into teen girl site
www.meowpawjects.com - Sock people forced webmaster to take website down.
miceage.com - Disney merges with Walmart
www.badgerbadgerbadger.com - Badgers replaces with zombies
skepdic.com - Skeptic's Dictionary closing
fool.com - Buffett buys Krispy Cream
launch.com - Britney Spears & Jason Alexander To Renew Wedding Vows
MetaFilter.com - Turned in to a Wiki for the day
www.ddrkc.com - owner sold site to a user that is unpopular
brownpau.com - March for Web Standards
www.beyondunreal.com - ut2k4 production suspended
globetechnology.com - Microsoft Solitaire
www.modernwiccan.com - Randomized Color Scheme
bbs.fuckedcompany.com - Site shutting down
www.diary-x.com - looks like diaryland!
theprp.com - Music site to "Previously Ridden Ponies"
mpx200.org - Pocket PC with 2Gb system memory/Smart Drunk Pocket PC application
www.macosxhints.com - triple G5 Powermacs
www.slyfx.com - AOL buys slyfx
palminfocenter.com - Palms for toddlers.
www.carniola.org - fake news story
eikenes.alvestrand.no - Considering porn spam to be in a separate dialect to everything else
defunctgames.com - Pimps At Sea fox xbox

We first note that the application date is January 31, 2001, so any examples of prior art have to predate this date. I can think of several examples of prior art off the top of my head and I'm not even an expert in this field:

1. Top level domain name services, such as register.com or even VeriSign, existed well before 2001 and do exactly what this patent describes. The patent seems to be written as if the term "domain name" means "second level domain name under the COM, NET, or ORG hierarchies," but it never actually specifies this. In reality, COM itself is a "domain name" and the concept of licensing sub-domains of COM via an internet portal is not new.
2. Even if we restrict our prior art search to second level domain names, there are many country-specific second level domain names such as co.uk and ne.jp that have been selling subdomain registrations via internet servers since well before 2001.
3. SimpleNet has offered Free Third Level Domains to hosting customers since at least 1997, via automated internet servers.
4. LiveJournal offers LiveJournal.com subdomains for their paying customers and they have been doing so since well before 2001.

This patent application has no legal merit and should clearly be rejected. If it is accepted, it will be fairly easy to invalidate in court, although the cost of mounting a court battle would be a regrettable loss.

We first note that the application date is January 31, 2001, so any examples of prior art have to predate this date. I can think of several examples of prior art off the top of my head and I'm not even an expert in this field:

1. Top level domain name services, such as register.com or even VeriSign, existed well before 2001 and do exactly what this patent describes. The patent seems to be written as if the term "domain name" means "second level domain name under the COM, NET, or ORG hierarchies," but it never actually specifies this. In reality, COM itself is a "domain name" and the concept of licensing sub-domains of COM via an internet portal is not new.
2. Even if we restrict our prior art search to second level domain names, there are many country-specific second level domain names such as co.uk and ne.jp that have been selling subdomain registrations via internet servers since well before 2001.
3. SimpleNet has offered Free Third Level Domains to hosting customers since at least 1997, via automated internet servers.
4. LiveJournal offers LiveJournal.com subdomains for their paying customers and they have been doing so since well before 2001.

This patent application has no legal merit and should clearly be rejected. If it is accepted, it will be fairly easy to invalidate in court, although the cost of mounting a court battle would be a regrettable loss.

It popped up randomly based on a randomly set cookie. You could also switch it on manually in preferences for maybe about a month now.

Bwa ha ha! It's true!!!

Wow!!! I think I'm having exactly the same experience as you! By any chance, do you go to the University of Arizona?

I wrote a rant in my livejournal about this issue, and I think it's damn good. Read it here.

This was all prompted by a failed English essay... my mother (a *cough* social worker) simply couldn't understand why, and thought I should talk to the teacher, but my Engineer father immediately thought it ludicrous that I was graded largely on my ideas (*cough* completely subjective). just for the record, my arguments were damn solid, if not the most backed-up in the world.

That's what makes me really appreciate Math and CS. In Math there are actually right and wrong answers... in English, there's the teacher's opinion, and yours.

Actually, all she really wants is a cute space probe (and to one-up her sister, Spirit).

Actually, all she really wants is a cute space probe (and to one-up her sister, Spirit).

http://www.livejournal.com/users/opportunitygrrl/

I disagree. I just started a LiveJournal five weeks ago and already it has connected me with others of similar interests. I'm a deaf athiest, a very rare species, yet I discovered two like-minded deaf folks in the last couple of weeks alone, and there are others I haven't gotten to know yet. Contrast with F2F encounters - I've met 4 agnostic/atheist deaf people in 10 years.

You reap what you sow. If you're involved, posting regularly to your journal and actively commenting in others, your network and your choices expand. You just have to get in there and make the most of the tools and the opportunity. If I can find people with very obscure interests in common, you can surely do as well or better.

2. Identity theft. You can register yourself as Bill Gates, with BG's photo, on Friendster. Chances are, you'll get away with it.

Not true ;)

- shadowmatter

Me too! I find the whole testimonial and rating system a great suck-up-to-me thing.

Another thing: Identity crisis. There's no way to prove your identity. Now, it's okay with bloggers, because you don't care who the person is as long as you like reading their blog, but in case of social networking, you want to know who you're talking to.

With Orkut in particular, the UI sucks bad. I prefer LinkedIn, it's more professional. Orkut is a mess. I wonder where it'd be without Google.

Me too! I find the whole testimonial and rating system a great suck-up-to-me thing.

Another thing: Identity crisis. There's no way to prove your identity. Now, it's okay with bloggers, because you don't care who the person is as long as you like reading their blog, but in case of social networking, you want to know who you're talking to.

With Orkut in particular, the UI sucks bad. I prefer LinkedIn, it's more professional. Orkut is a mess. I wonder where it'd be without Google.

Something like that happened to me here in the U.S.

Compiled these from my own dealings with nefarious characters while buying and selling Apple laptops.

An non-official English translation of the trailer can be found here.

In January, Bryan Peebler, market development manager in the emerging platforms lab at Intel, stated in a News.com story entitled, "Intel, Microsoft push portable video":

Some manufacturers are tinkering with machines (PVP) that will include small screens and could cost $199, while others are considering $399 boxes that tout larger screens and hard drives and more memory."

At CES, I conducted video interviews with reps from both Microsoft and Intel. When they were pressed on PVP retail price points the amounts were between $399-$599.
New Digital Reporter
NDR LiveJournal (Jan. 04)

I also recorded several audio interviews with Pacific Rim PVP manufacturers. Reps said that OEM FOB Hong Kong pricing was between $260-$399.

Portable Media Centers are scheduled to be lanuched in the US around May (E3).

We don't have to long a wait before all this "talk becomes a walk".

Wed Mar 17 2004 14:49:40 ET // America in 2050: Whites will be down to half the population /// By 2050 minority groups will make up 49.9 percent of the U.S. population, it will be reported Thursday. Asians and Hispanics will see the most dramatic increases between now and midcentury, cenusus sources explain, ahead of a news release... Filed By Matt Drudge...

I, for one, welcome our new Nigger Chink Wetback overlords!

The Drudge Report: Quality Journalism

PS: CLICK HERE

See JWZ's rant about Java.

Now, here's what Python has that Java doesn't:

• Local functions,
• lambdas,
• "everything is an object",
• automatic invoking of getter-setter methods,
• static methods are really class methods (and not merely global functions),
• two (byte, or otherwise) arrays compare equal if they have equal contents (and therefore they also work fine in hashtables),
• separate types but common interface for ascii and unicode strings,
• multiple inheritance (programmers are not dumb),
• weakly typed (solves 4-5 of his problems),
• methods don't really "belong" to classes (in his terminology),
• printf-like formatting is supported :-)

Actually, J2SE 1.5 already fixes a lot of these things in Java.

About static typing: Bruce Eckel very recently wrote about what he thinks about Python's typing, what he refers to as "latent typing". See my related blog entry.

We've started believing that static typing has a low benefit/hassle ratio.

See also: The Great Computer Language Shootout. (Python comes out way too bad in performance.)

See JWZ's rant about Java.

Now, here's what Python has that Java doesn't:

• Local functions,
• lambdas,
• "everything is an object",
• automatic invoking of getter-setter methods,
• static methods are really class methods (and not merely global functions),
• two (byte, or otherwise) arrays compare equal if they have equal contents (and therefore they also work fine in hashtables),
• separate types but common interface for ascii and unicode strings,
• multiple inheritance (programmers are not dumb),
• weakly typed (solves 4-5 of his problems),
• methods don't really "belong" to classes (in his terminology),
• printf-like formatting is supported :-)

Actually, J2SE 1.5 already fixes a lot of these things in Java.

About static typing: Bruce Eckel very recently wrote about what he thinks about Python's typing, what he refers to as "latent typing". See my related blog entry.

We've started believing that static typing has a low benefit/hassle ratio.

See also: The Great Computer Language Shootout. (Python comes out way too bad in performance.)

AND d20's a hell of a lot more "Universal" than GURPS. With a little bit of looking, you can find every RPG setting as a d20 version--and if you can't find it, you can make your own thanks to the Open Gaming License.
You can do that with gurps, too. Hasbro just suckered a bunch of geeks who don't feel comfy releasing writing without some sort of license attached to it. In other words, they sold you what you already had the right to do. Besides, if it were 'open', you'd be able to republish core content. You couldn't do that the last time I cared about DnD -- which was shortly before they inanely added 'point five' to their revision system. I mean, why the hell does it matter if your Role Playing Game is open source or not?

The sourcebooks for gurps are often history lessons bound up in guise of roleplaying books -- that's what makes them so worthwhile, not the fact that they codify a system of dice rolling.

Judging by some of your appalling and embarrasing opinions, you could use a history lesson, so maybe you should switch from D20 -- mostly crazy fantasy worlds written by intellectually inbred children of Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien -- to GURPS, where things are a little more grounded in fact, when possible.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/jwz/204780.html

...over at livejournal. They would have given you warning, I'm sure! Spirit's is here and little sister Opportunity's is here. They link to the blogs of other space probes and sats as well, including the Voyagers (who don't say much).

Yes, I mean the rovers' blogs, not the rovers' engineers' blogs.

...over at livejournal. They would have given you warning, I'm sure! Spirit's is here and little sister Opportunity's is here. They link to the blogs of other space probes and sats as well, including the Voyagers (who don't say much).

Yes, I mean the rovers' blogs, not the rovers' engineers' blogs.

Originally posted at http://george.hotelling.net/90percent/linkage/pr0n _leads_the_way.php:

I found a pretty insightful rant (safe for work) copied from the business guy at the altporn site Suicide Girls. I wish the RIAA would start tracking how people hear about the albums that they buy, so that they could stop freaking out.

Porn has a long history of figuring out how to use new media to their advantage. Perhaps because porn is driven by our basest instinct we understand it on far deeper levels than widget building, and can apply that understanding to things that we don't fully comprehend intellectually. Maybe it's just because there's such intense competition in the industry that forces companies to innovate. I'm sure there's a "free hand of the market" joke in there, but I'll be damned if I can find it.

The VCR was largely decried by the MPAA because they saw it as cutting into their profits. When the VCR was still new, MPAA president Jack Valenti said the VCR is [to the movie industry]...as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone. (which of course means that he wasn't opposed to the VCR). A driver of early VCR purchases was being able to watch porn movies without having to go to theaters filled with creepier people than you. Fast forward 20 years and that Boston strangler makes up a huge portion of movie studio profits.

While I'm skeptical that porn can drive any technology - who really needs porn on their cellphone at blazing speeds - the porn industry typically ahead of the curve. Let's hope the RIAA realizes this and stops suing 12 year old girls.

evelio (evelio) wrote, @ 2004-01-23 15:24:00

I love MIT

>Geek thing #1
A friend of mine won the Integration Bee at MIT. He got $50 of Certificates to Toscis (Ice cream place) and a baseball cap.

>Geek thing #2:
Another friend wrote him this poem:

I love you;
You are my hero.
My love for you is 1/x
as x approaches 0.

>Geek thing #3:
To which another friend of mine replied: Wait Wait! As x approaches zero from which direction?

Yes we are geeks. And damn proud of it too.

Back when it was last mentioned a few times ago on Slashdot, I also posted a rant about RealPlayer. It was back in 2001 or so, targeting RealPlayer 8.

http://krellan.com/rant/real.html

The version of RealPlayer I ranted about, RealPlayer 8, was probably a low water mark for them. Horrible indeed.

Recently, I installed RP 10 and it is actually a bit better and friendlier! Not 100% ethical yet, but getting closer. Here's an update to my earlier rant:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/krellan/16344.htm l

I look forward to trying the Open Source versions of the player (Helix, etc.)....

Your wish is the LiveJournal's command.

Doesn't anybody remember this hoax which turned out to be pretty much the same thing? Here is a good discussion of the issue

...could the president really allow a (communist) foreign power unlimited access to the moon?

user: ultraexactzz
email: zz@livejournal.com
blog: http://zz.livejournal.com/
website: http://www.geocities.com/ultraexactzz/

..and now... GO!.. and destroy this suckers life!!!

...could the president really allow a (communist) foreign power unlimited access to the moon?

user: ultraexactzz
email: zz@livejournal.com
blog: http://zz.livejournal.com/
website: http://www.geocities.com/ultraexactzz/

..and now... GO!.. and destroy this suckers life!!!

Now, my process isn't finished yet, but supposedly it'll be done in the next 24-36 hours.

My problem wasn't that T-Mobile couldn't port my number from Sprint, but that they wouldn't sell me a subsidized phone if they did. I could pay $200 for the "free" Nokia phone, and prices for other phones went up from there. Because of the way their commissions work, they only got commissions on local phone numbers.

So I bought a SIM chip from T-Mobile, ordered a phone from elsewhere, and we'll see what happens when the phone is delivered on Saturday.