Slashdot Mirror

In the latest Printing HOWTO, I have begun to advocate the use of PDQ instead of the lpr command as the primary user interface to printers. This lets users select print quality, duplex mode, paper types, etc, and lets both users and superusers define printers.

I'm struggling to connect all the people working on printing software. There are CUPS, gnome-print, PUP, PDQ, PPR, LPRng, apsfilter, magicfilter, printtool, printool's impending rewrite, rhs-printfilters, gimp's print plugin, something in KDE, and now this "Corel Printin API". The flurry of development is good, but people are developing in all directions, and at least in Corel's case I'm sure that they've just hacked up something like the Windows model so they can get their software out the door.

- Grant Taylor
(Slashdot is awkward and klunky. Demand NNTP!)

Most likely came from http://www-csag.cs.uiuc.edu/ individual/pakin/complaint. And to the original poster:

Having just been exposed to Mr. Anonymous Coward, Esq.'s flippant antihumanist treatises, I ponder how best to express my disgust at Mr. Coward's total lack of sensitivity and reasoning. If you disagree with my claim that Mr. Coward's double standards have reached a depth of degeneracy that was virtually unknown in the past, then read no further. Rest assured, it's time for him to stop his systematic assault on religious freedom. Innocent children have been brainwashed by his grotty undertakings. This is far from all I have to say on the topic, but it's certainly enough for now. Just remember one thing: Mr. Anonymous Coward, Esq. has yet to acknowledge this.

as sung here by RMS....

It's not just for AC's anymore!

From the photos on YoJ's professor's web page it certainly looks that if you poured water in the bottom and turned it wide side down it would hold water. It's not that it has zero volume but a continuous, unbroken surface. That is, the mouth of the bottle is just a tube sticking out its bottom. Why does that sound like a politician?

It's simply an impractical curiosity, not a revolutionary idea.

He says they are Acme Klein bottles, so I think they are the same as on www.kleinbottle.com (I couldn't get through to that link).

-Nathan Whitehead

I can understand your comment . . .

"His comment" was generated automatically by Scott Pakin's Complaint Generator. Get a life. You're arguing with a series of random numbers.

Just imagine him singing thefree software song at his inauguration.....

The First Post Challenge, The Best Game On The Net!

This Anti- Karma HOWTO document explains how to not impress your fellow slashdotters by getting low Karma. Although Anti- Karma HOWTO documents are targeted towards use with the Windows operating system, this one is not dependent on the OS used to access Slashdot.

This Anti- Karma HOWTO is a joke.
__________________________________________________ ____________________

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Tips
2.1 Comment Length
2.2 When to Post
2.3 Where to Post
2.4 What to Post - Avoiding Positive Karma
3. Maintenance Information
__________________________________________________ ____________________
1. Introduction

Your Karma rating on Slashdot lies in the hands of the moderators. This is your target, and as you'll soon find out it's quite easy to manipulate and fool them into moderating you down. By following a few simple guidelines you can soon surpass all the regulars, and eventually get down there with the best of the first post and off-topic whores.

2. Tips

2.1. Comment Length

Perhaps the best tip in getting moderators to moderate you down deals with the length of your posts. It's quite simple, always post very SHORT comments and when possible, MAKE IT IN ALL CAPS. Many moderators equate this with "Troll" and "Off-Topic", regardless of what you say. Furthermore, moderators are MUCH less likely to moderate you up or leave you at 1 if your post is short enough.
Also, use those invalid HTML tags! Nothing makes your post seem like a wanna be karma whore than lack of whitespace. A really stupid signature can also help out here. It is also very important to gain all the credit you can for your trollish behaivor. Please use your account. The mail only needs to be used once
to gain the password and if you only "FIRST POST" as AC, your negative karma will never add up.

2.2. When to Post

Timing is everything. Go for the gusto, spend most of your slashdot time refreshing the main page. If you wait too long to post, almost no moderator is going to have a chance to moderate it down -- no matter how bad your post is! As a general rule of thumb, any comment posted more than 15 minutes after a story is submitted will not be moderated one way or the other (Trolls: this is your chance!) Open a text editor and have your first post, rant or other completely off-topic comments PRE-WRITTEN and copied to the clipboard. This will save valuable seconds while you race for the prize! Be creative! Dont just tag a line that says "First Post Dude!" or something lame like that. Look at the true first post leaders. Mick the First Post Mastah, McDougal the Llama, Trollmastah, Natalie Portman Guy, and the other regulars. They seem to have style and are generally much more likely to be moderated down because of it.

2.3. Where to Post

After no extensive lab research in Slashdot moderation, some key information was made up. Make sure all your posts are not top-level posts! I cannot stress this enough. Anything posted more than all the way down, won't get seen, and you'll waste all your effort. The only exception is replying to the first batch of comments, since they're sometimes moderated more thoroughly. A bottom-level post is 16 times more likely to be moderated down than a reply!
Under current moderation practice, the first two comments are often marked as "Redundant" if they're not first-posters. Yes, I know this defies the very meaning of the word redundant, but many (not all) moderators don't seem to understand what redundant means. Leave this area alone. People will just ignore it and your post will not be noticed. This happens so often that one begins to think it's automated. Thus, strive to post first or second -- all true Anti-Karma whores know that First post is prime real estate.

2.4. What to Post - Avoiding Positive Karma

While the contents of your post aren't quite as important as comment length, it does play a large role in the fate of your post. There are a number of rules to follow when submitting posts to earn that coveted low Karma:

1) Always take sides. Nothing will get you marked as "Flamebait" faster than a controversial comment (ESPECIALLY very short to short length comments, one liner posts are generally OK regardless). Always think you can take the popular side and get moderated down. For example, it used to be possible to take a side against Windows, or take sides against Microsoft. This is no longer the case - there are too many slashdotters now who have moderator access and use Windows. Posting an anti-Windows comment will even get marked as "Flamebait" faster than a anti-Linux post these days! Go for it! Slam both sides! a good link for this is Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator You should keep the drivel down to 2 paragraphs of less though.

2) Never Stay neutral. A good way to get moderated down in almost any thread is to never summarize both sides of the issue in one post. Not only are these posts generally shorter, but they can even be moderated down as "Flamebait"! Similarly, posts with subjects like "it's all about choice!" seem to play well with the moderators, avoid these. Make yours creative. Use subjects like "OH YOU SUCK" or "I THOUGHT SLASHDOT WAS FOR X" These will help you on your ride to the bottom.

3) Never come across as insightful. Nothing will make you appear more insightful than going against the trend of the first 25 posts or so (this doesn't conflict with #1, read on). This does mean you have to take sides. A good subject example of this faked-insight post is "Missing the point", in which you explain all the previous posts are overlooking the big picture. Avoid this at all costs. Also keep you comments as negative as possible. "I agree" should never appear in your posts.

4) Use a Flamebait comment subject. Unless you're Natalie Portman Guy (Anti-Karma God) and can get low Karma using "xxx Natalie" as your subject, you'd better follow some guidelines. Subjects like "This is a crock of shit (TM)" are generally good if your post is fairly short. Others that are moderated down included subjects with some type of quote or cliche (e.g, "Linux Sux", "Bill Gates Rocks!", or anything cheesy like that)

Another tactic that has recently become useful is starting your commentary or subject with "News For Nerds? Stuff that Matters?..". Don't worry - you will not have to post anything controversial, moderators will reward your trollish subject regardless of what you say!

5) Find related sites to the issue at hand and post broken links as soon as possible (remember, if you don't, someone else will!). You don't have to go all out, they can be general links that dont relate to the article. Links to AOL, Pron or to your own company really work well, especially if you make the "Spammish" in their appearance. Things like "Surf the net and make money! Come to my site at HTTP://Site.com". Also only embed your links some of the time. Inconsistancy really gets their panties in a wad. Most moderators will mark it as "Redundant". Remember, always have your comments pre-packaged! without even checking the URLs!

Also, if someone beats you to the first post with a list of URLs, all is not lost. There's still a wonderful opportunity for some Anti-Karma. An excellent strategy is to reply with "you idiot, here are the corrected urls", in which you lie and say the links they gave were wrong, and you have the correct ones.

6) Allways paste a portion of the sniglet of the article with a little commentary such as "You Suck" or "KEWL". This will always show that you didn't even click the real link to the article and shows all that you just copied and pasted from the top of the thread.

3. Maintenance Information
If you have any other ideas or tips for this Anti- Karma HOWTO, feel free to share them and they may be added to this document.

3.1 Contributors

Thanks to the creative first posters and all the trolls for their suggestions to this "Slashdot Anti-Karma HOWTO".

The First Post Challenge, The Best Game On The Net!

This Anti- Karma HOWTO document explains how to not impress your fellow slashdotters
by getting low Karma. Although Anti- Karma HOWTO documents are targeted towards
use with the Windows operating system, this one is not dependent on the
OS used to access Slashdot.

This Anti- Karma HOWTO is a joke.

__________________________________________________ ____________________

Table of Contents


1. Introduction

2. Tips

2.1 Comment Length
2.2 When to Post
2.3 Where to Post
2.4 What to Post - Avoiding Positive Karma

3. Maintenance Information

__________________________________________________ ____________________

1. Introduction

Your Karma rating on Slashdot lies in the hands of the moderators.
This is your target, and as you'll soon find out it's quite easy to
manipulate and fool them into moderating you down. By following a few
simple guidelines you can soon surpass all the regulars, and eventually
get down there with the best of the first post and off-topic whores.







2. Tips

2.1. Comment Length

Perhaps the best tip in getting moderators to moderate you down deals
with the length of your posts. It's quite simple, always post very
SHORT comments and when possible, MAKE IT IN ALL CAPS. Many moderators equate
this with "Troll" and "Off-Topic", regardless of what you say.
Furthermore, moderators are MUCH less likely to moderate you up or leave
you at 1 if your post is short enough.

Also, use those invalid HTML tags! Nothing makes your post seem like a
wanna be karma whore than lack of whitespace. A really stupid signature
can also help out here. It is also very important to gain all
the credit you can for your trollish behaivor. Please use your account.
The mail only needs to be used once
to gain the password
and if you only "FIRST POST" as AC, your negative karma will never add up.




2.2. When to Post

Timing is everything. Go for the gusto, spend most of your slashdot time
refreshing the main page. If you wait too long to post, almost
no moderator is going to have a chance to moderate it down -- no matter
how bad your post is! As a general rule of thumb, any comment posted
more than 15 minutes after a story is submitted will not be moderated
one way or the other (Trolls: this is your chance!) Open a text editor
and have your first post, rant or other completely off-topic comments
PRE-WRITTEN and copied to the clipboard. This will save valuable seconds
while you race for the prize! Be creative! Dont just tag a line that
says "First Post Dude!" or something lame like that. Look at the true
first post leaders. Mick the First Post Mastah, McDougal the Llama,
Trollmastah, Natalie Portman Guy, and the other regulars. They seem
to have style and are generally much more likely to be moderated down because of it.




2.3. Where to Post

After no extensive lab research in Slashdot moderation, some key
information was made up. Make sure all your posts are not top-level
posts! I cannot stress this enough. Anything posted more than
all the way down, won't get seen, and you'll
waste all your effort. The only exception is replying to the first
batch of comments, since they're sometimes moderated more thoroughly.
A bottom-level post is 16 times more likely to be moderated down than
a reply!

Under current moderation practice, the first two comments are often
marked as "Redundant" if they're not first-posters. Yes, I know
this defies the very meaning of the word redundant, but many (not all)
moderators don't seem to understand what redundant means. Leave this
area alone. People will just ignore it and your post will not be noticed. This happens
so often that one begins to think it's automated. Thus, strive to post
first or second -- all true Anti-Karma whores know that First post is prime
real estate.



2.4. What to Post - Avoiding Positive Karma

While the contents of your post aren't quite as important as comment
length, it does play a large role in the fate of your post. There
are a number of rules to follow when submitting posts to earn that coveted low
Karma:

1) Always take sides. Nothing will get you marked as
"Flamebait" faster than a controversial comment
(ESPECIALLY short to medium length comments, short
posts are generally OK regardless).

Always think you can take the popular side and get
moderated down. For example, it used to be
possible to take a side against Windows, or take
sides against Microsoft. This is no longer the
case - there are too many slashdotters now who
have moderator access and use Windows. Posting
an anti-Windows comment will even get marked as
"Flamebait" faster than a anti-Linux post these
days! Go for it! Slam both sides! a good link for this is
Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator
You should keep the drivel down to 2 paragraphs of less though.

2) Never Stay neutral (a follow up to #1). A good way to
get moderated down in almost any thread is to never summarize
both sides of the issue in one post. Not only are
these posts generally long, but they can even be
moderated up as "Informative"! Similarly, posts
with subjects like "it's all about choice!" seem
to play well with the moderators. Make yours creative.
Use subjects like "OH YOU SUCK" or "I THOUGHT SLASHDOT
WAS FOR X" These will help you on your ride to the bottom.

3) Never come across as insightful. Nothing will make you
appear more insightful than going against the trend
of the first 25 posts or so (this doesn't conflict
with #1, read on). This does mean you have to
take sides. A good subject example of this faked-insight
post is "Missing the point", in which you explain
all the previous posts are overlooking the big picture.
Avoid this at all costs. Also keep you comments as
negative as possible. "I agree" should never appear in your posts.

4) Use a Flamebait comment subject. Unless you're Natalie Portman Guy
(Anti-Karma God) and can get low Karma using "xxx Natalie" as your
subject, you'd better follow some guidelines.

Subjects like "This is a crock of shit (TM)" are
generally good if your post is fairly short. Others
that are moderated down included subjects with some
type of quote or cliche (e.g, "Linux Sux",
"Bill Gates Rocks!", or anything cheesy like that)

Another tactic that has recently become useful is
starting your commentary or subject with
"News For Nerds? Stuff that Matters?..". Don't
worry - you will not have to post anything controversial,
moderators will reward your trollish subject regardless of
what you say!


5) Find related sites to the issue at hand and post broken
links as soon as possible (remember, if you don't,
someone else will!). You don't have to go all out,
they can be general links that dont relate to the
article. Links to AOL, Pron or to your own company really
work well, especially if you make the "Spammish" in
their appearance. Things like "Surf the net and make money!
Come to my site at HTTP://Site.com. Also only embed
your links some of the time. Inconsistancy really gets
their panties in a wad. Most moderators will mark it
as "Flamebait". Remember, always have your comments pre-packaged!
without even checking the URLs!

Also, if someone beats you to the first post with a list of
URLs, all is not lost. There's still a wonderful
opportunity for some Karma. An excellent strategy
is to reply with "you idiot, here are the corrected urls", in which you
lie and say the links they gave were wrong, and
you have the correct ones.

6) Allways paste a portion of the sniglet of the article with
a little commentary such as "You Suck" or "KEWL". This will
always show that you didn't even click the real link to the
article and shows all that you just copied and pasted from
the top of the thread.




3. Maintenance Information

If you have any other ideas or tips for this Anti- Karma HOWTO, feel free to
share them and they may be added to this document.

Thanks


3.1 Contributors

Thanks to the creative first posters and all the trolls for their
suggestions to this "Slashdot Anti-Karma HOWTO".

The First Post Challenge, The Best Game On The Net!

This Anti- Karma HOWTO document explains how to not impress your fellow slashdotters
by getting low Karma. Although Anti- Karma HOWTO documents are targeted towards
use with the Windows operating system, this one is not dependent on the
OS used to access Slashdot.

This Anti- Karma HOWTO is a joke.

__________________________________________________ ____________________

Table of Contents


1. Introduction

2. Tips

2.1 Comment Length
2.2 When to Post
2.3 Where to Post
2.4 What to Post - Avoiding Positive Karma

3. Maintenance Information

__________________________________________________ ____________________

1. Introduction

Your Karma rating on Slashdot lies in the hands of the moderators.
This is your target, and as you'll soon find out it's quite easy to
manipulate and fool them into moderating you down. By following a few
simple guidelines you can soon surpass all the regulars, and eventually
get down there with the best of the first post and off-topic whores.







2. Tips

2.1. Comment Length

Perhaps the best tip in getting moderators to moderate you down deals
with the length of your posts. It's quite simple, always post very
SHORT comments and when possible, MAKE IT IN ALL CAPS. Many moderators equate
this with "Troll" and "Off-Topic", regardless of what you say.
Furthermore, moderators are MUCH less likely to moderate you up or leave
you at 1 if your post is short enough.

Also, use those invalid HTML tags! Nothing makes your post seem like a
wanna be karma whore than lack of whitespace. A really stupid signature
can also help out here. It is also very important to gain all
the credit you can for your trollish behaivor. Please use your account.
The mail only needs to be used once
to gain the password
and if you only "FIRST POST" as AC, your negative karma will never add up.




2.2. When to Post

Timing is everything. Go for the gusto, spend most of your slashdot time
refreshing the main page. If you wait too long to post, almost
no moderator is going to have a chance to moderate it down -- no matter
how bad your post is! As a general rule of thumb, any comment posted
more than 15 minutes after a story is submitted will not be moderated
one way or the other (Trolls: this is your chance!) Open a text editor
and have your first post, rant or other completely off-topic comments
PRE-WRITTEN and copied to the clipboard. This will save valuable seconds
while you race for the prize! Be creative! Dont just tag a line that
says "First Post Dude!" or something lame like that. Look at the true
first post leaders. Mick the First Post Mastah, McDougal the Llama,
Trollmastah, Natalie Portman Guy, and the other regulars. They seem
to have style and are generally much more likely to be moderated down because of it.




2.3. Where to Post

After no extensive lab research in Slashdot moderation, some key
information was made up. Make sure all your posts are not top-level
posts! I cannot stress this enough. Anything posted more than
all the way down, won't get seen, and you'll
waste all your effort. The only exception is replying to the first
batch of comments, since they're sometimes moderated more thoroughly.
A bottom-level post is 16 times more likely to be moderated down than
a reply!

Under current moderation practice, the first two comments are often
marked as "Redundant" if they're not first-posters. Yes, I know
this defies the very meaning of the word redundant, but many (not all)
moderators don't seem to understand what redundant means. Leave this
area alone. People will just ignore it and your post will not be noticed. This happens
so often that one begins to think it's automated. Thus, strive to post
first or second -- all true Anti-Karma whores know that First post is prime
real estate.



2.4. What to Post - Avoiding Positive Karma

While the contents of your post aren't quite as important as comment
length, it does play a large role in the fate of your post. There
are a number of rules to follow when submitting posts to earn that coveted low
Karma:

1) Always take sides. Nothing will get you marked as
"Flamebait" faster than a controversial comment
(ESPECIALLY short to medium length comments, short
posts are generally OK regardless).

Always think you can take the popular side and get
moderated down. For example, it used to be
possible to take a side against Windows, or take
sides against Microsoft. This is no longer the
case - there are too many slashdotters now who
have moderator access and use Windows. Posting
an anti-Windows comment will even get marked as
"Flamebait" faster than a anti-Linux post these
days! Go for it! Slam both sides! a good link for this is
Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator
You should keep the drivel down to 2 paragraphs of less though.

2) Never Stay neutral (a follow up to #1). A good way to
get moderated down in almost any thread is to never summarize
both sides of the issue in one post. Not only are
these posts generally long, but they can even be
moderated up as "Informative"! Similarly, posts
with subjects like "it's all about choice!" seem
to play well with the moderators. Make yours creative.
Use subjects like "OH YOU SUCK" or "I THOUGHT SLASHDOT
WAS FOR X" These will help you on your ride to the bottom.

3) Never come across as insightful. Nothing will make you
appear more insightful than going against the trend
of the first 25 posts or so (this doesn't conflict
with #1, read on). This does mean you have to
take sides. A good subject example of this faked-insight
post is "Missing the point", in which you explain
all the previous posts are overlooking the big picture.
Avoid this at all costs. Also keep you comments as
negative as possible. "I agree" should never appear in your posts.

4) Use a Flamebait comment subject. Unless you're Natalie Portman Guy
(Anti-Karma God) and can get low Karma using "xxx Natalie" as your
subject, you'd better follow some guidelines.

Subjects like "This is a crock of shit (TM)" are
generally good if your post is fairly short. Others
that are moderated down included subjects with some
type of quote or cliche (e.g, "Linux Sux",
"Bill Gates Rocks!", or anything cheesy like that)

Another tactic that has recently become useful is
starting your commentary or subject with
"News For Nerds? Stuff that Matters?..". Don't
worry - you will not have to post anything controversial,
moderators will reward your trollish subject regardless of
what you say!


5) Find related sites to the issue at hand and post broken
links as soon as possible (remember, if you don't,
someone else will!). You don't have to go all out,
they can be general links that dont relate to the
article. Links to AOL, Pron or to your own company really
work well, especially if you make the "Spammish" in
their appearance. Things like "Surf the net and make money!
Come to my site at HTTP://Site.com. Also only embed
your links some of the time. Inconsistancy really gets
their panties in a wad. Most moderators will mark it
as "Flamebait". Remember, always have your comments pre-packaged!
without even checking the URLs!

Also, if someone beats you to the first post with a list of
URLs, all is not lost. There's still a wonderful
opportunity for some Karma. An excellent strategy
is to reply with "you idiot, here are the corrected urls", in which you
lie and say the links they gave were wrong, and
you have the correct ones.

6) Allways paste a portion of the sniglet of the article with
a little commentary such as "You Suck" or "KEWL". This will
always show that you didn't even click the real link to the
article and shows all that you just copied and pasted from
the top of the thread.




3. Maintenance Information

If you have any other ideas or tips for this Anti- Karma HOWTO, feel free to
share them and they may be added to this document.

Thanks


3.1 Contributors

Thanks to the creative first posters and all the trolls for their
suggestions to this "Slashdot Anti-Karma HOWTO".

Regards, Ralph.

Regards, Ralph.

If you went to the site and read the information, you would understand that the content is meant to form no opinion, but is meant to be only gramatically correct. You would also be able to surmise this if you read the letter itself. The point is that if he held particular opinions, he has every right to express them himself. How can he agreee with opinions generated from a computer program!?!? He doesn't even know the content of the message until he hits the 'generate complaint letter' button. And even if he were to agree with the material made thereafter (you would have to be drunk or high at this point) he should have to express them himself.

If crap like this is allowed to continue, I'm going to write an 'anti-complaint lettter generator' that scours the internet looking for keywords and responding with equally absurd posts. Does this sound like a productive use of time? Free speech? No, I think not.

Please look into what you are talking about before you make comment next time.

I just reloaded, and it appears to me that the troll trash is gone.

I disagree that ACs shouldn't be available. I haven't registered as a member yet. But when I saw something that I immediately recognized as being from an automatic complaint generator, I was able to let people know the source.

Look at the result now, it appears to me that the troll trash has been removed and the troll has gone back under the bridge. Abandoning ACs is not the answer, unless of course you think that my posts are crap too.

How can a computer have freedom of speech? Refer to my earlier post about how this is compueter generated.

I don't think that they can remove it but we can let everyone know that it was made by a computer. I half wish that this guy would get into a car accident so that we could make automatic complaint letters about him too.

Yes, it is a joke. You too can be flamebait by going to Scot Pakin's automatic complaint letter generator. Now that this fool's little secret is out, maybe he can think of things more constructive to do with his time than making light of someone's death.

Yes, we can all use the automatic complaint generator. It is humorous, but have some respect. A man died.

Yep, that's what I was on about. This link was particularly good: http://www.life.uiuc.edu/jeff/at_ description.html - it's a short description of Alexander Technique. All about posture & stuff, basically..

I am not sure if this is what you were looking for, but a quick search on "Alexander Technique" brings up this link , which appears to be a rather helpful list of links to information about the Alexander Technique.

I think that Dan Ingall's Smalltalk-72 implementation, first for the Nova and then for the Alto, is certainly one of the top hacks of all time.

You can try a Smalltalk 72 emulator that runs in Squeak Smalltalk. But remember that this is a hack, so don't expect it to be either easy to run or to understand.

--Jecel

CAVE Quake2.

It may not solve all the problems, but it is a beginning.

In short, the CAVE is a room-sized projection-based VR system. I am fairly certain it was pioneered at Argonne National Labs. (BTW, they have a *very* interesting Linux supercomputing project going on with IBM and VA Linux Systems).

Check out the CAVE Quake2 site for details (technical info, screenshots, movies!), etc.

Hit Related Sites for more info on the CAVE.

Nothing can possiblai go wrong. Er...possibly go wrong.
Strange, that's the first thing that's ever gone wrong.

Back in '97, Wired did a feature on PG. The original Gutenberg ftp site was hosted on a UIUC machine. I have some friends who were there at the time, and have regaled me with stories of what a pain in the ass the guy was. The FTP site that is alluded in this article by one Mark Zinzow was on a machine, mrcnext (which no longer exists but still has a DNS entry) adminned by a friend of mine at one point. Anyway, the point is, this article has a lot of interesting things to say about the Project and especially Michael Hart. Check it out.

--

Back in '97, Wired did a feature on PG. The original Gutenberg ftp site was hosted on a UIUC machine. I have some friends who were there at the time, and have regaled me with stories of what a pain in the ass the guy was. The FTP site that is alluded in this article by one Mark Zinzow was on a machine, mrcnext (which no longer exists but still has a DNS entry) adminned by a friend of mine at one point. Anyway, the point is, this article has a lot of interesting things to say about the Project and especially Michael Hart. Check it out.

--

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has blocked traffic to/from napster.com since they have been a major drain on our resources. Furthermore, the UIUC NROTC is launching a full scale attack on the Napster.

Also, I think it's worth saying that almost every browser that currently exists is based on (and actually credits, if you'll check those trusty About dialogs) NCSA Mosaic.

Just food for thought.

The wheels keep turning, but the rat in the cage is already dead.

- ice

No but you can use this one.

Aha! An automated complaint!
That crony thing gives it all away- as kickass as that script is the crony makes it reek of itself. That said, the WTO is _evil_ and to that guy that posted earlier about what a bummer day he will have crossing the line of protest to get to work in Seattle- BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!
Peace

We can observe the bending of light around astrophysical objects, and in particular you can find some beautiful images of the "Einstein Cross" that demonstrate this. However, the ultimate test of GR is whether gravitational waves exist. This would not only nail the coffin door shut on the few black hole skeptics around, but it would make some pretty profound statements about the fate of the universe.

For a nice page on relativity see this site .

ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/etext/gutenberg/e text98/anthm10.txt

2048x1532 resolution? You dream too small. Look here.

This sure sounds like Scott Pakin's automatic complaint letter generator to me...

Looks like its from the Automatic complaint generator. Thanks to jwz's links page.

Ask Scott Pakin for his source.

Heh, almost funny but not quite. Did you use Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator?

Facades As Distributed Components
Distributed Facade

My heuristic is that one should design CORBA interfaces thinking of them as network protocols, not as collections of objects in a program.

http://www-csag.cs.uiuc.edu/ individual/pakin/complaint

Thank you also for taking the time to visit Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator and asking it to generate three paragraphs in my honor.

Cute.

(Yes, I've had this nick for a few weeks now. Only because my regular one was already taken.)
--

Who the fuck is this AC?

Probably somebody who picked the "Complain about a company/organization" option for Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator, supplying "NetBSD" as the name of the company/organization, specified that it should generate 5 paragraphs, hit the "Complain" button, and pasted the results into a Slashdot comment.

AC

-Dorsey
www.pobox.com/~dorsey

I always thought people were avoiding Java because of speed/platform issues, but am I wrong? Is there a mass of Java programmers out there with an equally large collection of programs?

I've used Java intensively for many different purposes, and I almost always run into problems when dealing with cross-platform usage of multithreaded programs. thread scheduling, for some reason, is in the Java language specification specified to be left unspecified. This leaves the implementers of the virtual machines free to select whatever model they desire (and that is usually the simplest: non-preemptive fifo-scheduling), complicating development of platform-independant multithreaded applications (where one often expects time-sliced, "fair" scheduling of some sort). One solutions is to do as we've done in the Actor Foundry and implement a dedicated scheduler in Java. That way one can be sure to have threads scheduled in the way one wants....but at the expense of performance.....

Another drawback with Java is the lack of an updated language specification (at least last time I checked there had been no updates for a few versions).

I think Java is being used....but I also think that the language still has a way to go before being "mature" enough - part of that way would be completing the specification such that the virtual machines behave alike (and such that the "write once, run anywhere" can be delivered as promised by Sun...).

Just my $0.02....

I found this wonderful link which I don't know if anyone has mentioned.

This package has some cool features like MouseKeys, Magnification,
and on the fly Video Mode Changing from a control panel. It is aimed at helping people with disabilities to use Linux, but it might be helpful in this situation as well.
I found this at http://cmos-eng.rehab.uiuc.edu/accessx/

A link which I also posted about earlier, but I feel should be mentioned again is the window managers page at http://www.plig.org/xwinman
This page has screenshots and ratings of what different window managers can do.

I think I'd rather help bring it around than just sit and hope.

An excellent area for contribution is design software. Currently there are a number of excellent free molecular modeling packages: MMTK, NAMD, Moldy, NWchem. There are also several excellent display programs: RasMol, VMD, Midas, and my own feeble effort, xyz2rgb. What is still lacking is:

• Software to generate structures painlessly. Two efforts in this area are CavityStuffer by Markus Krummenacker, DiamondCAD by Chris Phoenix and John Michelsen, and some tinkering of mine.
• Some kind of wrapper that makes all this stuff easy to use. There is a commercial package called HyperChem, and the DiamondCAD folks are working on an open-source version called OpenChem.

I think I'd rather help bring it around than just sit and hope.

An excellent area for contribution is design software. Currently there are a number of excellent free molecular modeling packages: MMTK, NAMD, Moldy, NWchem. There are also several excellent display programs: RasMol, VMD, Midas, and my own feeble effort, xyz2rgb. What is still lacking is:

• Software to generate structures painlessly. Two efforts in this area are CavityStuffer by Markus Krummenacker, DiamondCAD by Chris Phoenix and John Michelsen, and some tinkering of mine.
• Some kind of wrapper that makes all this stuff easy to use. There is a commercial package called HyperChem, and the DiamondCAD folks are working on an open-source version called OpenChem.

Don't fuss. Your submission has to be phrased in a way that interests the recipients. It's pseudorandom. And you are told they are trained mammals; they have to be trained by repetition before they respond to the stimulus.

A fair bit of information on the details can be found on the Radiation Safety Mailing list archives at
http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html. Search for "criticality AND Japan" or just "criticality". There are several informative posts there, including news releases that contain some of the details (some still a little sketchy).

imabug

This year from Friday, October 8 to Sunday, October 10, ACM will be holding its fifth annual Midwest student computing conference, Reflections | Projections. Reflections | Projections offers students from all over the Midwest a chance to interact with computer industry professionals and peek into the future of computing. In past years such noteworthy speakers as Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, and Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of C++, have spoken at the conference.

This year conference once again is hosting many great speakers. This year's keynote speaker is Larry Tesler. Tesler is the founder of Stagecast Software, which makes interactive simulation software. Previously, he was the Vice President of Internet Platforms at Apple Computer. At Apple he made significant contributions to the OpenDoc Object Model, Applescript, the Newton, along with a number of other major products. Previous to his time at Apple, Tesler was a researcher at the Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, where he and his fellow researchers set the stage for a large amount of what is now modern computing. In addition to Tesler's keynote address, several other extremely noteworthy speakers will be attending the conference. Included amongst these speakers are Michael Abrash, one of the original authors of Quake, Eric Allman, inventor of Sendmail, Theo de Raadt, head of the OpenBSD project, Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language, Astro Tellar, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning expert and author of the novel "Exegesis", and many, many more. In addition to the talks, there shall be several panels, a programming contest, and a very large job fair to be held on Friday the 8th in the Illini Union.

For complete information about the conference, take a look at http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/conference. Online registration is available there. The registration fee is $15, which includes entrance to all conference events, meals for the weekend, inclusion of your resume in the conference resume book, and a t-shirt.

Sponsored by Trilogy.

One of the first major battles of, what are now called, the clan wars occurred within a small star system located in neutral space between clan territories. Each of the 16 Clans were separated by a highly toxic nebula, and located near the center was a rouge star system. The star of this system was highly unstable and the shield technology of the day could not stop the harmful array of cosmic rays. In such harmful conditions space battles had to be short and few. But within this star system was a lone forest planet?

Immediately each clan staked out territorities on this planet starting a new type of warfare, MechWar. The war continued for several years until a new breed of Mech was introduced. Warriors were adapted with major amounts of cerebral implants, leaving them more machine then human.

After over 50 years of war, all remaining members of the clans were driven out of known space. Most areas of clan space were terraformed and colonized within five years, leaving large amounts of scrap metal piling up in the nebula. One company decided they could make a killing by fitting ships with heavy shielding and collecting the scrap metal for recycling.

Everything was perfectly fine till they uncovered a warehouse buried under the sand on that small war-stricken planet. Still operating on backup power a signal was broadcast on all bands announcing the intrusion into the clan warehouse. None of the salvage team was ever seen again.

For more information see: http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/mechmania/

This year from Friday, October 8 to Sunday, October 10, ACM will be holding its fifth annual Midwest student computing conference, Reflections | Projections. Reflections | Projections offers students from all over the Midwest a chance to interact with computer industry professionals and peek into the future of computing. In past years such noteworthy speakers as Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, and Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of C++, have spoken at the conference.

This year conference once again is hosting many great speakers. This year's keynote speaker is Larry Tesler. Tesler is the founder of Stagecast Software, which makes interactive simulation software. Previously, he was the Vice President of Internet Platforms at Apple Computer. At Apple he made significant contributions to the OpenDoc Object Model, Applescript, the Newton, along with a number of other major products. Previous to his time at Apple, Tesler was a researcher at the Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, where he and his fellow researchers set the stage for a large amount of what is now modern computing. In addition to Tesler's keynote address, several other extremely noteworthy speakers will be attending the conference. Included amongst these speakers are Michael Abrash, one of the original authors of Quake, Eric Allman, inventor of Sendmail, Theo de Raadt, head of the OpenBSD project, Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language, Astro Tellar, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning expert and author of the novel "Exegesis", and many, many more. In addition to the talks, there shall be several panels, a programming contest, and a very large job fair to be held on Friday the 8th in the Illini Union.

For complete information about the conference, take a look at http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/conference. Online registration is available there. The registration fee is $15, which includes entrance to all conference events, meals for the weekend, inclusion of your resume in the conference resume book, and a t-shirt.

Sponsored by Trilogy.

One of the first major battles of, what are now called, the clan wars occurred within a small star system located in neutral space between clan territories. Each of the 16 Clans were separated by a highly toxic nebula, and located near the center was a rouge star system. The star of this system was highly unstable and the shield technology of the day could not stop the harmful array of cosmic rays. In such harmful conditions space battles had to be short and few. But within this star system was a lone forest planet?

Immediately each clan staked out territorities on this planet starting a new type of warfare, MechWar. The war continued for several years until a new breed of Mech was introduced. Warriors were adapted with major amounts of cerebral implants, leaving them more machine then human.

After over 50 years of war, all remaining members of the clans were driven out of known space. Most areas of clan space were terraformed and colonized within five years, leaving large amounts of scrap metal piling up in the nebula. One company decided they could make a killing by fitting ships with heavy shielding and collecting the scrap metal for recycling.

Everything was perfectly fine till they uncovered a warehouse buried under the sand on that small war-stricken planet. Still operating on backup power a signal was broadcast on all bands announcing the intrusion into the clan warehouse. None of the salvage team was ever seen again.

For more information see: http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/mechmania/