Slashdot Mirror
Playboy And...Linux?
The article's been up for only a little bit, but a huge number people have e-mailed that Playboy's Gillan has done a column on Linux. It's a typical media piece, explaining Linux but being featured in Playboy, I think, means that we've conquered the media. And I have, of course, no comment on what the sheer number of submissions must mean about our readers. *grin*
Finally, I can honestly say I read the articles!
---- "A programmer is a person who solves a problem you didn't know you had in a way you don't understand."
So I'm sitting here at work, and I reload Slashdot. Ooh! New article! Playboy article on Linux! I temporarily forget where I am and click through: BLOCKED BY SURFWATCH. I wonder if my supervisor's going to believe me when I say I was just trying to look at an article. :P
So now we just need some penguins in the centerfold, pictured in some skimpy little... hey wait, they're already naked =D
Perhaps Miss January can cuddle with tux for 'warmth'
I personally would like to see the slashdot crew add the playboy bunny icon to the list of news icons, so slashdot readers can be informed more quickly of linux-related playboy news as it breaks.
Man lookit the size of that laptop Torvalds is holding...
What, you mean there's naked wimmin in here too?
Finding God in a Dog
I was quite surprised to see your article posted here. Having never read Playboy (yes, honestly!) I thought it was all pictures and no words. I was even pleasantly surprised to discover that the article was well researched and well written. (I'll leave out my personal bias towards Debian).
;-)
What did get me thinking is why a magazine full of tits'n'ass would want to waste valuable picture space on a nerdy topic like Linux (I maintain it's "Lie-nucks" though - ask Linus;-)). Then I realised it's all tied in with the telecommuting revolution. Many years ago, no self-respecting programmer would contemplate coding before growing an uneven beard, and donning a cardigan and sandals before mumbling incoherently should any annoying coworkers interrupt. As Time has advanced, we have started working from home. As very few people actually code in COBOL anymore, the requirement for uneven beards and sandals has disappeared, but also this has drawn us towards Playboy.
Coding from home isn't like work anymore, all you need is a cold cup of coffee and sit down at your workstation and get on with it. Usually it's not until the first time the doorbell goes that I realise I'm actually sat naked at my desk - by the time I pull some pants on and answer the door the caller has gone. (This is the telecommuting equivilant of all those annoying co-workers) Obviously someone at Playboy has made the perfectly reasonable assumption that there are an army of naked men sitting naked at their desks doing work nobody seems to understand. After further research, Playboy discovered that the vast majority of these naked men were chanting about some kind of god called "Torvalds" Undeterred by the god-like status of our idol, the enterprising magazine decided to book Linus as their centrefold. Imagine the editors horror when a Scandinavian male software engineer turns up for the shoot. Realising that the average reader of Playboy might be somewhat shocked at the site of a full frontal Linus Torvals on the centre pages, they hastily changed their plan and asked the great Open Source Master what alternative article they could possible post.
That, my friends, is the honest truth on how Playboy come to be writing articles on Linux
When a felon's not engaged in his employment, or maturing his felonious little plans, his capacity for innocent enjoyment is just the same as any honest mans - Gilbert and Sullivan
Philosopher (n) - a wise person who is calm and rational; someone who lives a life of reason with equanimity
Who reads playboy? Well.. middle aged males i.e. The Bosses! The people with power! And what are they reading now?* M$-bashing! And combined with naked women. The advertisers dream!
*I assume that they read the articles.
FRA: STFU GTFO
[Make your own joke about Linux in Playboy]
"I know we all go on about only reading the articles, but did you see that [insert unattractive Linux celeb here] centerfold!? Oh my god, check out the [disk array/mouse pad/beowulf cluster] on that one!"
There ya go, now you don't need to read the rest of the posts.
Hotnutz.com
couldn't resist :)
I keep hearing that from everyone who doesn't actually use (GNU/)Linux... blablabla but it lacks software blablabla
If I type in my shell, I get this question: "There are 1852 possibilities. Do you really wish to see them all? (y or n)" That's the number of single _programs_, or ``pieces of software'' that I have installed on a fairly standard desk-top developer machine.
I recently started porting some software to NT, it's been four years since I used that OS last... After installing IE4 (required for VC), Visual C++ 6.0, MS Win32 SDK, (and in order not to lose my mind completely: Cygwin too), I fired up this huge IDE GUI development environment. Especially VC++ is something that Win developers claim Linux lacks. I simply cannot imagine why. Hang on:
In order to do development on NT I depend on the IDE. If the IDE does not offer the combination of commands I wish to apply to my work, I'm shit out of luck. There's just no way to get boring repetitive work done easily, if it happens to not fit exactly into the provided dialog box. The IDE may be very nice, but it is _inherently_ limited because it has no way of executing scripts. It lacks a shell.
On GNU/Linux, I run Emacs. For editing. Then I run bash for CLI. Then I run make to build. I use X with KDE to *integrate* these xterms and editors into one large IDE. In short: NT *has* an IDE, GNU/Linux with the standard tools *IS* an IDE.
X+Emacs+GCC+Make+xterm+bash+... is quite a large program, if you look at all the parts as one. Anyone claiming that GNU/Linux is lacking software is someone who can't see the forest for trees.
Granted, there may be a lack of integrated office suites. They should be just around the corner though. A lot of people won't need them though. Again, they limit you somehow. As an example: Work four people on a report using either Word or LaTeX+CVS. Assuming you actually _know_ a little word or a little LaTeX. LaTeX has no support for workgroups, CVS has no support for typesetting, but they both keep things simple and work on files, there you have your workgroup-aware typesetting tool.
If you have to complain, say something clever. Like lack of huge but clumsy, limited, and hard-to-make-do-repetitive-work-for-you GUI applications.
It is a free anonymous encrypted proxy with the option of URL encryption.
I had to use it to read the playboy article because JANET ( the sort of academic internet backbone of UK ) even soft porn is illegal.
Anyway, considering that Linux was around for some 9 years, I think the author is a tad over excited about this "new" OS.
TO BE RELEASED IMMEDIATELY
HOLLAND, MI - Slashdot (www.slashdot.org), a popular web site focusing on IT-related news, has announced it was awarded a patent on "One-click porn" by the United States Patent Office. The technology, which allows world wide web surfers to access porn with a single mouse click was invented by Slashdot founder Rob Malda. Malda said the innovation was inspired by Amazon's one-click shopping technology. "When I saw how easy it was to patent an obvious technique that everyone uses, and then start suing everyone left and right, I couldn't resist," said Malda. "I am going to start by suing every site that links to porn. Soon I will be the king of the porn industry," he said, "I already rule the nerds, the intellect of the world, so this was the next logical step in my quest for World Domination(tm)."
He continued, "And besides, what better way could there be to make SHITLOADS of money than having banner ads for porn sites on a site that millions of horny, teenaged, sex-starved nerds visit EVERY DAY!" Asked if the pro-open-source Slashdot community would accept the idea of Slashdot owning patents, Malda responded "You don't think I've thought of that already? What people really don't know is that RMS is a recovering porn addict. I will soon own him and then I can tell him to tell everyone patents are good. Everyone will listen to RMS. I also plan to form a porn division within Slashdot called 'GNU/pr0n' which RMS will head. That should keep him happy and ensure I have control over him. I'm no fool."
Officials from Andover.net (Nasdaq: ANDN), which recently acquired Slashdot were mum about the technology. When asked how one-click porn fit into their future plans, the company released a statement only saying "our patented one-click porn technology is Linux-based, and as you can tell from the success Linux has had in the past year, it is clearly the Next Big Thing(tm). Therefore, you should all invest in lots and lots of Andover stock."
Slashdot also has patents pending on the technology in 18 other countries.