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I only wish someone else other than RMS had spoken up about this. People automatically dismiss RMS because they percieve him as being too rigid, which he is, but he has good points as well.

In fact, a number of people have commented on this.

A couple of examples:

• http://expita.com/nomime.html (Read the first section, titled "What is wrong with sending HTML or MIME messages?")
• ESR also commented on the subject in his FAQ, How to ask questions the smart way (see the section titled "Send questions in formats that are easy to understand")

Still, it is good to see RMS adding his USD$0.02 to the discussion.

When you're looking for information, check out The Jargon File

IMHO // abbrev.

[from SF fandom via Usenet; abbreviation for `In
My Humble Opinion'] "IMHO, mixed-case C names should be avoided, as mistyping something in the wrong case can cause hard-to-detect errors -- and they look too Pascalish anyhow." Also seen in variant forms such as IMNSHO (In My Not-So-Humble Opinion) and IMAO (In My Arrogant Opinion).

Anomaly

PS - God loves you and longs for relationship with you. If you'd like to know more, please email me directly.

Sounds like the vaporware phenomenon has extended to virii.

1. It's 'viruses'. ESR says so.

2. Concept Virus is also the name of the virus commonly known as Nimda.

At first glance, one might attribute that statement to a computer-illiterate senator or to an incompetent journalist. You may be surprised, then, to find that this quote was from Ken Thompson in 1995. Yes, one of our own - a creator of the UNIX system and the command line we use every single day - condemned the antisocial activities of malicious computer users. Which leads me to ask: why aren't we listening, and where is our moral compass?

A few years ago, it was all the media's fault: the media gave much attention to antisocial criminals who happened to use computers. Nowadays, computer crime is rarely front-page news, especially in light of the recent terrorist attacks caused by the usual suspects. So what kind of notoriety, then, are these criminally insane geeks seeking? The fact of the matter is that the open source community here on Slashdot is not only tolerating illicit behavior; it is encouraging it. We are partially responsible for every Brian West, Eric Corley, Dmitri Skylarov, Ted Felten, Randal Schwartz,, and DrinkOrDie member. We are harboring criminals because we are glorifying their acts and lauding them for "civil disobedience." We are not unlike the Arabs who cheered as they watched the Twin Towers collapse on their (banned) TV sets. And like those ungrateful Arabs, we owe our prosperity to the American government and the capitalist society that so many users here seem to despise. We have become our own enemy.

We, as a community, need to stop tolerating this behavior. Instead of encouraging people like Jon Johansen by sending money to the EFF to help them keep these ingrates' lilly white asses out of jail, we need to send a strong message that computer crime is not consistent with our ethical standards. We need to lead by example - log off of Gnutella, start paying for software (even Windows), stop cracking your DVDs and eBooks "for fun," and start acting like an upstanding citizen. It is only then that the powers that be will start taking us seriously and repeal the DMCA/SSSCA/PATRIOT legislation, and start giving us our rights back. It is crystal clear that we will not get our rights back a moment before we get out of the business of producing criminals, and the first step is to stop empathizing with them.

freebsd guy

The Jargon file for some amusing historical perspective. Specifically, Walking Drives, and the 3rd example hack (the Xerox CP-V system) in Appendix A.

The Jargon file for some amusing historical perspective. Specifically, Walking Drives, and the 3rd example hack (the Xerox CP-V system) in Appendix A.

a breakthrough in data compression that allows for 100:1 lossless compression of random data.

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

When I traceroute from my Road Runner Pro connection (which uses statically-assigned routable IP addresses), I see at least one 10/8 network:

eco-fs1:~>traceroute -n slashdot.org
traceroute to slashdot.org (64.28.67.150), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
165.29.199.11.986 ms1.920 ms1.915 ms
210.55.160.111.023 ms11.421 ms10.648 ms
324.29.1.778.931 ms9.818 ms9.734 ms
424.29.1.12910.547 ms10.612 ms9.011 ms
524.29.1.17710.051 ms9.535 ms18.987 ms
...and so forth.

Technically, this is the Wrong Thing. Likewise, your routers should never respond to or generate traffic using RFC 1918 addresses.

Real Programmers aren't afraid of goto statements.

Is it just me, or does anyone expect this thing to jump around the desk trying to find a ball?

Funny, I didn't know ESR was a marxist

Funny, I didn't know ESR was a marxist

Funny, I didn't know ESR was a communist

Funny, I didn't know ESR was a communist

You are right. A bit of info for moderators: troll, flame-bait and flame . It's really a shame that "troll" has become something completely different here on /. In a nitpicking mode I ought to metamod as unfair about 99% of the troll-moderations. However since the mod's are obviously intended to mod comments down that really ought to be modded down, using the troll label is generally accepted.

You are right. A bit of info for moderators: troll, flame-bait and flame . It's really a shame that "troll" has become something completely different here on /. In a nitpicking mode I ought to metamod as unfair about 99% of the troll-moderations. However since the mod's are obviously intended to mod comments down that really ought to be modded down, using the troll label is generally accepted.

You are right. A bit of info for moderators: troll, flame-bait and flame . It's really a shame that "troll" has become something completely different here on /. In a nitpicking mode I ought to metamod as unfair about 99% of the troll-moderations. However since the mod's are obviously intended to mod comments down that really ought to be modded down, using the troll label is generally accepted.

PLONK!

It means the compiler has reached its Break-even-point, which is a very important milestone in compiler/language developement.

from The New Hacker's Dictionary
reality-distortion field n.

An expression used to describe the persuasive ability of managers like Steve Jobs (the term originated at Apple in the 1980s to describe his peculiar charisma). Those close to these managers become passionately committed to possibly insane projects, without regard to the practicality of their implementation or competitive forces in the marketpace.

See for example the massive collection of PDP-10 (the architecture that the Arpanet and early TCP/IP stuff was done on, and certainly the source of much of the hacker culture) software at

The PDP-10 Software Archive

Bob Supnik's SIMH computer history simulation project

That said, these only scratch the surface of vitally interesting stuff that needs to be preserved, so anything to further similar projects is 100% goodness.

Do you know how incredibly easy to fake something like that is? Here you go:

Get a free email account

Anonymously mail it to someone gullible enough to take it seriously

Watch the slander show roll on as Slashdot posts the article!

Frankly, Slashdot needs to have higher editorial standards if they ever want to reach the respectability of ZDnet or The Register. I've been reading this site since 1996, and quite frankly I'm getting a little sick of the complete lack of ethics or research put into articles.

For that matter, the only thing about that letter is that they're still taking Linux seriously. Come on. A market share of 0.24% is a threat?

Finally, it's safe to put all your eggs in one basket.
OVA.

• Ovum: (Ogg Vorbis Unit of Media) An Ogg Vorbis audio file. "I have an ovum of the EFF speech that I can send you."
• Ova: (Ogg Vorbis Audio) Any number of Ogg Vorbis audio files, or a quantity of Ogg Vorbis audio. "Do you have any classical ova with you?"
• Oval: Of or relating to the Ogg Vorbis format. "Does your oval player have a spectrum analyzer?"
• Ovulation: The process of converting audio to Ogg Vorbis format. "Just a few more minutes of ovulation, and I'll be MP3-free!"
• Ovangelism: The process of converting audiophiles to Ogg Vorbis format. "I let him borrow my oval Walkman and a couple gigs of jazz ova, and he traded in his Rio the next day. Big ovangelism win!"

See dogfood.

I don't mean to sound rude or hurtful when I say this, but are you being particularly cocky around the workplace? Allow me to explain:

I'm 22 and I'm currently working a midlevel developer job at a contractor for the NIH. Just about everyone else is older; mainly in their forties. Because I'd worked my way through university in several entry-level developer jobs, I had some experience on my belt, but I made it a point not to appear like some sort of "whiz kid". While many of my coworkers have styles of thought which I, personally, find outdated (they mainly come from a COBOL on IBM mainframe background), I don't belittle their ideas nor do I try to "convert" or "convince" them my way is better. Why? Because even if it's right in a technical sense, politically, it's suicide.

There are many ways of getting things done; sometimes it's worth taking a hit in terms of efficiency if it means sparing the cohesiveness of the team. After all, in the I.T. fields, learning is constant; a 40 year old will be learning new things as will a 20 year old. If you think Java on UNIX is going to last forever, you're mistaken; thus, it's fair that you allow your older coworkers to learn and stumble without pointing out how or why they're wrong (no matter how justified it may seem).

Finally, and on a slightly more personal note, there's something to be said about learning from your elders. Believe it or not, there's often wisdom from the elders. Sometimes it's technical, sometimes it's operational, sometimes it's personal advice. Even if you don't agree with it, smile, nod, thank them, and keep it in the back of your mind. You wouldn't turn down a free computer, if it was crappy, right? You'd keep it in the back room in case you needed a router. You wouldn't turn down a free car, even if it was a beat up old Ford Escort, right? You'd keep it around, or at the very least, donate it and write it off as a tax deduction. Treat advice the same way; it's free, and you never know when you'll use it.

I guess it's obligatory to say YMMV, but I think the advice is sensible enough to apply. And if you feel that you've been following all of the above conditions, and you've double checked and triple checked it, then take heart in the knowledge that you're an agreeable person and they are not, and look elsewhere.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

And get this: Evolution had left five logic cells unconnected to the rest of the circuit, in a position where they should not have been able to influence its workings. Yet if Thompson disconnected them, the circuit failed.

I only have one thing to say:

Magic :: More Magic

For those unfamiliar with the story.

RMS is also the most baggy-pantsed h4X0r who ever lived. Whatta maroon!

Eh, "we"? Who is "we"?

The problem, in the eyes of hackers and general Slashdot visitors

Why should we care about what criminals (i.e. "hackers") consider to be a "problem" (i.e. an impediment to their illegal activities)?

Why do you insist in speaking for the collective body of visitors to this site? Do you have mind-reading powers? Or do you just wish to usurp others' voices for your own ends?

The commercialization of the internet has given rise to free web page services that only give you 2MB of space and 300MB of bandwidth per month

Well, there's a lot that private individuals can do with that. So your objection is that it's not enough for heavy-duty warez trading?

cable modem services that will disconnect you if you run anything even remotely resembling a server

We already know why you want to run servers, right?

Anyway, did you stop to think that the people who pay for these cable modem services don't want an idiot on the same network as them creating a virtual traffic jam with his server? This is the exact online analogue to real estate zoning laws. People deserve to be protected from their neighbor setting up a big retail business right next to them, attracting tons of traffic and general degradation of life for the people who live there.

and a greater feeling among non-tech-heads that any site that isn't run by a multinational corporation that already owns fourteen newspapers and three TV stations "isn't trustworthy".

Yeah. They should trust tiny fly-by-night websites run by w4r3z d00dz in Slovakia, right?

The silencing of the average person for the sake of keeping internet speech under the control of multinational corporations because it is more profitable, however, is a bad thing.

Excuse me. I, contrary to what you seem to attribute to yourself, can't read minds. Would you explain to me which fruit (turd?) of your imagination you are talking about?

Yup, it was Clarke in the Rama books. It is the third of Clarke's Three Laws that makes the Indistinguishable From Magic statement.

Of course, there have been more than a few variations on that theme.

Actually, it does.

Godwin's Law prov.

[Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.

Reality need not get in the way of your ideology. ESR wrote this piece shortly after the plane crashes, and it is still relevant.

definition

Why doesn't someone mod this as flamebait? He's obviously trying to get someone to mention the nazis.

Please don't attempt to speak for "everyone else here". It's annoying.

For those of us here who don't know (such as yourself), look at this.

[...] why aren't more professional publications (I'm talking magazines) using it? Nearly everyone uses Quark Xpress, or similar. Because it's easier and more powerful.

Magazines can get away with shoddy typesetting, and they're packed with "creatives" whose alleged contributions consist of endlessly macdinking the layout in ways that LaTeX doesn't readily support (mostly because they have no effect the meaning of the content). You know, the kind of people who waste their time on Flash and rollovers because they don't have much to say. Who inflict design atrocities like WiReD.

Anyone who starts writing a document by thinking "how should this look" ought to stick with crayon.

Rewrite the code in intercal to really impress people!
You're code base will go from over a meg to at least 10 times that, and as a bonus, no one will ever be able to understand it.

Read The Cathedral and the Bazaar

Release early and release often! How else are those bugs going to get squashed?

While I've got a fair number of qualms with IP laws,and how they're implemented in the US (and soon everywhere else thanks to WIPO). I can't really rationalize what these kids did, and comparing this crackdown to anything the Nazi's did seems bizzare and freekish.

-- Mitch

it's a sad comment on society (especially geek society here on /.,) that you're more likely to find someone fluent in klingon and tengwar than esperanto.

Well, Slashdot types speak English natively or are polyglots so they don't feel the language barrier much.
On the other hand, how many of the Esperanto speakers know at least two languages more? I'd say lots of them.

Anyway, for geeky stuff try ESR's Esperanto mode for tengwar.

This is for those who are sympathetic to the MS responsible reporting policies:

The flaw, discovered five weeks ago threatened to undermine widespread adoption of Microsoft's latest windows software...

The company sold 25 million copies of Windows XP in the two weeks after it hit stores Oct. 25...

The company released a free fix thursday.

So beyond consideration that MS delay releasing XP until this hole is fixed. The best thing to do is keep it secret (responsible reporting) until they get around to writing the patch sometime. In fact, the biggest threat here is that it will "undermine the adoption" of XP -- i.e. they might not sell as many copies if people know there is a huge hole in the OS. No mention of threat to users, etc.

For reference, look at the motorola exploit in the jargon file.

I wonder how many times this has to happen before people are convinced that making bugs available and publicly releasing exploit code is the only way that the big vendors will make security a top priority.

this time not random access though

To creating real Write-only memory.

Let's use the Tengwar rune that means "Gandalf".

Where did you get the idea that the Tengwar of Feanor were runes? They're just letters, and the script has more inherent structure than Latin-1 does. It's good for writing Quenya, Sindarin, English, Lojban, and Esperanto. For runes, look to Cirth or Futhark.

Please see the Jargon File Apendix A which discusses "The meaning of 'Hack'" at http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/The-Meaning -of-Hack.html.

I still like the Harvard/Yale/MIT football game.

Love it for its ability to get stuff done with no messing, hate it for the way it can really bite you in the ass, Perl is hard to ignore.

Happy Birthday, ya adorable scuzball camel-type language.

It's not an experiment module! It's really a spy satellite that will allow Kibo to monitor every reference to him in the entire world! This must be stopped!

Sanbukid, your company already has programmers on staff, right? Then put this home-built package into OpenSource ASAP!

Your in-house guys are already going to be spending time debugging, so it's not like your company has anything to loose. If it's good, you get free testers every time someone decides to implement the system, providing feedback and making your own product better.

Eric S. Raymond mentions in his Homesteading the Noosphere, there is no value lost to your company, only benefit to be gained.

Bob-