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Come on - http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/tech/oreilly/truenut.html needs to be encrypted. Think of the children.
(any more cliches?)

I'm still waiting for "Mastering true" and "Mastering false".

It's funny that you should mention that. I don't remember how I stumbled upon it, but here you go: http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/tech/oreilly/truenut.html

Is a hash values somewhat of a signature value?

Yes.

That is, would it be possible for a jpg of "Little Suzie does the Walrus" possibly have the same hash value as "Aunt Gertude writes us about her knitting"?

Technically possible because there are a limited number of possible hashes (2^128), but so unlikely that you can consider it to be impossible. Here's a website that sort of describes it: http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/tech/law.html

Really good books pay a lot of attention to the traditional techniques of book publishing. This book has the best index and colophon I've seen for its subject.

Of course I'm right. What do you think I am? A condescending unix user?

Further, copyright is a HUMAN right. Companies are legal entities, but they are not human. How a company then can own a copyright confuses me.

Well, yes ... you are confused :-)

On an abstract ethical level, I more or less agree with you. But legally, you are dead wrong. Companies can, and do, take copyright from authors. Not just academic publishers, either. Many, perhaps most, publishers require you to sign an explicit disclaimer that transfers copyright to them. That's why, for example, my little paper of dinosaur taxonomy has a banner saying "© 2005 University of California Museum of Paleontology". So far as the law is concerned, copyright is just another piece of property, which can be bought and sold just like a used car.

That's the way the world is. But there are honourable exceptions. For example, articles published in Zoologica Scripta bear the legend "© 2006 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2006 The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters".

A copy of Knuth is worthless without some practical reference textbooks to go with it. It's one thing to be able to find an algorithm written in MIX, and quite another to create the best possible implementation using the most up-to-date tools.

That's why I'm never without my copy of True

...there's True In A Nutshell. :-)

Remember IEFBR14 ... which didn't have the bug described in any released version of MVS or OS.

It's a lovely story of course :-) but not true.

I just updated wikipedia with the counterclaim ...

http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/tech/oreilly/more-ief br14.html

No discussion of O'Reilly is complete without a link to True in a Nutshell. Enjoy.

Oh, OK, you got me dead to rights! I'm pulling the whole thing out of my ass! That's why:

http://www.debianplanet.org/node.php?id=831 this unbiased review points out many of the same issues I had, and why:

http://eol.init1.nl/content/view/47/2/
this guy seemed to have an issue with it, and why: http://corelands.com/blog/?postid=4
this guy sees a problem, and why:

http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/tech/wxinmfpl/debian. html
This guy hits it on the head with why the whole apt system is screwed, and why:

http://www.debian.org/vote/2004/platforms/branden
this page of politics points to strife and
http://ianmurdock.com/?p=153
YOUR OWN FOUNDER EVEN SAYS THERE'S PROBLEMS COMPARED TO UBUNTU.

I especially like how you keep harping on reporting bugs through the proper channels. What, like you think I haven't tried? Then on that last link, Ian Murdock's weblog, I see: "One major difference between Debian and Ubuntu is that Debian users' imput is mostly ignored, whereas Ubuntu users are heard and respected." -quote, typos and all! So, tell me, "stevey", is that you deleting our input so that the PUBLIC NEVER SEES IT?

I'm hoping to God that this lying weasel I've been arguing with is somebody currently high up in the Debian chain of command. Because, to read Ian Murdock's weblog, this man [Ian] sounds like he originally founded a fantastic, kick-ass distro, which he then trusted to a pack of idiots who fouled it up, and he regrets it.

Until today, I thought somebody just must have been scarfing shrooms - how could a Linux Distro *possibly* be *this* *stinking* *bad*?!?!? But thank you, "stevey" for at last providing me with an explanation that approaches sense: Debian is deliberately being sabotaged from within. And it wouldn't surprise me a bit to find out that that sabotuer(s?) was paid by a commercial software company which views itself to be in competition. This isn't the only possible explanation, but by God it makes the most sense. And I was ready to let it go, before I met you. But I love a good mystery! So, yeah, I think I WILL dig deeper until I get to the bottom of this...lol...pile, whenever I get the free time.

People who really want to know every detail of what's going on when you stick Debian Sarge disk #1 in your machine and boot it can view all the complaints this guy claims I'm covering up, along with my aborted effort to write some kind of install guide for the home user (heck, I *did* get it installed, after all!), can find my report HERE:
http://aimlesslifehobbies.blogspot.com/

Dependency Hell is a thing (almost...) of the past.

Please excuse me while I laugh so hard I rupture several major organs. If you think Debian makes this stuff easy, you've obviously never read Why Debian Is Not My Favourite Operating System.

No doubt about it, you are most definitely a geek if you find this funny:

True in a Nutshell

Very funny, the author of that page,
Mike Taylor seems to have a
good
handle balancing parents and other pursuits

This one went around the internet a thousand times already, but in case you haven't seen it:

True in a Nutshell

My favorite is True in a Nutshell.

Nope, this one is the last on the list, ls has too many options...

Manning Publications Company always seems to have these creepy cover illustrations. I much prefer the O'Reilly animals.

What, even the slug book? :-)