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A Warrior's Programming Language

BlackNova writes "Var'aq is "a speculative glance at what a programming language on a Klingon computer system would look like." Make sure to read the Preliminary Specification and the Proposed Extensions."

298 comments

  1. finally by K7001 · · Score: 0

    a language that can be unleashed rather than released , leaving a bloody trail of project mangers and sales people in it's wake..

    --
    perl -MIO::Socket -e 'IO::Socket::INET-new(PeerAddr="some.windoze.box:1
    1. Re:finally by skotte · · Score: 1

      fFinally?

      i just hope everyone realizes: this programming language has been around fFor years. in computing terms, MANY years. i think i might have fFirst heard of this before java, fFor example.

      i just mention this so the casual browser doesnt think this is actually some brand spankin new language which was concocted over the weekend. certainly doesnt cheapen the thing, actually kinda legitimises it some. it has lasted longer than some of my fFriend's marriages.

  2. There are many more esoteric programming languages by J.D.+Hogg · · Score: 5, Interesting
    My all-time favorite is Chef, which uses food recipes to create functional programs. Check out the Hello World souffle :-)

    If you're into esoteric languages, the reference page is the Cat's Eyes page.

  3. Real Warriors by Kopretinka · · Score: 5, Funny
    Real warriors code using the command

    cat > prog.tgz

    --
    Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
    1. Re:Real Warriors by dadaist · · Score: 0
      Heh, that really is pretty funny.

      A haiku:
      file system open
      cat to zip
      oops! i missed.

      --

      ~
      MU!
    2. Re:Real Warriors by geggibus · · Score: 5, Funny

      Speak for yourself!.. personally i boot with a ramdisk and begin:
      cat > /dev/hda
      ;)

      /K

    3. Re:Real Warriors by sg_oneill · · Score: 2

      Or for excitable SHOUTING win-gnuts

      copy con: prog.zip

      would be a reasonable winner-dows analogue.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    4. Re:Real Warriors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That won't work, UNIX has no distinction between bin/ascii files, DOS does. You'd need to use a HexEditor :).

    5. Re:Real Warriors by JabberWokky · · Score: 2
      That won't work, UNIX has no distinction between bin/ascii files, DOS does. You'd need to use a HexEditor :).

      *BZZZZZT* One of my DOS days guru abilities was to actually make fairly useful programs via "COPY CON PROGRAM.COM". Then I entered the opcodes via alt-numpad. Most simply loaded a string or two and had one or a few int20h and int21h calls (BIOS and the DOS API). Beyond "Hello, World", I also knew a few useful ones to load and send modem init strings, change video mode, etc... the kind of things that most people had a few photocopied debug scripts from Byte magazine for. The init strings came in handy when I setup or fixed people's BBSes.

      Not real useful, but it could be done... and if I really really trusted my typing (which I didn't), I could have written fairly complex programs with loads of time.

      --
      Evan "All hail Ralf Brown" E.

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    6. Re:Real Warriors by Phroggy · · Score: 3, Funny

      The easy way:

      cat /dev/urandom > a.out

      and home for the best.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    7. Re:Real Warriors by Phroggy · · Score: 1

      and hope for the best, sorry.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    8. Re:Real Warriors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that post wasted both our time, since I originally read "and hope for the best", since it's so idiomtic, despite one character change. You probably didn't notice that idiomatic was missing an a the first time I said it in this post.

    9. Re:Real Warriors by orionpi · · Score: 1

      You know that explains a lot about msdos and windows.

    10. Re:Real Warriors by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      If you do this enough times, you'll eventually produce a working program. Granted, it'll probably be a long time before you produce a working replacement for Emacs, for example. On the other hand, you'll probably produce a working version of WINE before the WINE development team does... :)

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    11. Re:Real Warriors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shut up with the *BZZZT*! Please!

      What happens if you press alt-13? WHAT THEN? In comes an extra 0x0a character to follow it. LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE S.O.L., PAL!

    12. Re:Real Warriors by sg_oneill · · Score: 2

      Unless you are goddam warrior and can program WITHOUT alt-13! Huh? HUH! (SHOUTSHOUTFUN)

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    13. Re:Real Warriors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      :-)

  4. What do humans know about Klingons, anyway? by wormyguy1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    This page is sort of a speculative glance at what a programming language on a Klingon computer system would look like. The language itself is named var'aq, which happens to be meaningless in standard Klingon but sounds like it might be named after some famous Klingon computer scientist or mathematician. How the hell does this guy know that there isn't a famous Klingon computer scientist or mathematician? I'd like to see some credentials here, buddy! "Damnit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a programmer!" Suffice to say, this guy is a bigger geek than I could ever hope to be.

    --
    NerfOnline - Because Nerf Guns aren't just for kids -
    1. Re:What do humans know about Klingons, anyway? by ameoba · · Score: 5, Funny

      What do humans know about Klingons? Well... we -did- invent them.

      --
      my sig's at the bottom of the page.
    2. Re:What do humans know about Klingons, anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Klingons have become more and more unrealistically depicted. Their depiction these days implies that rational calm thought is not a necessity for developing advanced engineering and science. Without some additional facility (e.g. hive minds) I find that hard to believe. It would be like expecting WWF wrestlers or LA gang members to product large numbers of PhD candidates. I think that I preferred the scheming totalitarians from the old star trek.

    3. Re:What do humans know about Klingons, anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Thilaa mem emmen thiulhee kehinehvegen? Fadabovijehtha? Akamaku thi othee varah bodu Kilangoneh fenifaa! Fadafulhi thilaa kihineht vegenthiulneee? Nagookendi.
      --Zaine the Prefect of StarSytem Huvadoo on Goikudha.
    4. Re:What do humans know about Klingons, anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL, if you go around saying that kind of stuff to Klingons, I don't think Huvadoo would last for long. But that's some innovative language. I like it better than Klingon, even though it's based somewhat on Indo-Aryan languages (just as Tolkein's languages).

      Too bad you can count the amount of people who'd understand that comment with just your hand on this site.

      If you remove all the vowels (aeiou) from the various Indo-Aryan languages, you'd end up with something as weird as Kilngon.

      For example. Your Fadabovijehtha (adjective?), Fdbvjhth ( it's garbage then). And probably wouldnt make sence, but you could make a nice artifical language out of it. Works for encryption. Or, how about replacing the vowels, with one time pad generated characters? In that case, 'Fadabovijehtha' might become, Fzdpbqvhjththc, neat huh?. You could do the same with english too.

      And for some lore, and scholastic analysis of the hvhdiei language:

      Thilaa -- You
      Thilaa men emmen -- You all ?
      Thiulnee - are
      kehinehvegen -- (what's wrong with you)

      More like "What's wrong with you all?'.

      Fadabovijehtha, -- Fada, high grace with bodily fluids. 'bovijehtha' -- 'have drunk'. Fada could be piss? (It's graceful in warrior languages to use such terms, also concidered honor). It could mean, have you drunk the piss of your vanquished? A very good threat to species of another warrior culture (ie. in this case Klingons -- but almost respectfully asking the question).

      The rest was a bit too complicated for me. But Nagookendi is a way of saying, "bent tail", which could mean 'dog?!' someone one correct me.

    5. Re:What do humans know about Klingons, anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thou art not alone.

      Mostly correct analysis. Let me point something you missed that might be comical here.

      'Fadafulhi'

      The word Fada actually denotes the piss of a vanquished (as you mentioned), vanquished meaning someone slain upon the sword (or any weapon of Findu). [In modern America, the blood of deer was often drunk after it's been killed by a newbie -- somewhat like that].

      In warrior cultures, the fluids of the slain are supposed to hold immense power. Something like the American-Indian folk lore, [see movie Ravanished], where the blood and flesh of dead folks when consumed carried their energy and power over to those who ate them. The same holds true Kilngon and Hvhdiei cultures.

      In Hvhdiei culture, the urine of the slaine is often consumed after the end of a battle [I have no idea how they extract it].

      In this regard, 'Fulhi' means bottle. So Fadafulhi would mean 'PissBottle', which might denote some sort of commerative oranment that carries the body fluids of the vanquished in Hvhdiei lore.

      'Fenifaa', means seen or have seen. Or it could be a sudden realization. Assuming the contents of the slain has been consumed, the consumer would experience a part of the vanquished life, which might show some flash-backs (Kinda like Highlander -- another warrior consumption movie). Fenifaa also might dentoe something that's going to happen in the future, past or near present.

      We should undestand that this culture is unqiue in that it represents sense as being future, past and near present. Near present being the multi-dimensional presents that can enfold on every roll of a dice (more or less -- include any mathamethical probability formulae here).

      And thus, nice to see people who apperciate warrior cultures here!

      Enjoy.

      Willhim-Gunter

    6. Re:What do humans know about Klingons, anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As you pointed out -- if any article ever epitomized "news for nerds" more than this one, I'd like to see it.

      Sheesh -- "what a Klingon computer programming language would look like".

    7. Re:What do humans know about Klingons, anyway? by jmt(tm) · · Score: 1

      Sure? Wasn't it the other way round? If we invented them, how does it come that
      Klingon was the original language of Shakespeare's writings?

    8. Re:What do humans know about Klingons, anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I routinely wonder how they developed the level of technology they have without destroying themselves. Look how close humanity came to total nuclear war...

    9. Re:What do humans know about Klingons, anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Or, how about replacing the vowels, with one time pad generated characters?"

      No good. You leave way too much information in the ciphertext. Just a trivial brute force attack replacing letters and matching against a dictionary would destroy your encryption scheme very quickly.

      OTPs work only if you have an excellent source on entropy and you apply them over the entire source text.

  5. karma whoring by einstein · · Score: 5, Informative

    google's cache of the site
    you're welcome
    ---

    1. Re:karma whoring by dimator · · Score: 0, Troll

      Nice going, einstein..

      --
      python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
    2. Re:karma whoring by sander123 · · Score: 2, Informative
      And here are some
      code snippets

      (
      http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:y1Zz_tiIDhI C: www.geocities.com/connorbd/varaq/vcode.html+&hl=en
      )


      It doesn't make much sense to me, but neither does klingon, so I gues its ok.

    3. Re:karma whoring by linzeal · · Score: 1

      The way back machine has it as well.

  6. geocities by kiowa · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Bah, and here they go again with their "excess data transferred".

    --
    =-kiOwA-> EOF
  7. Hmm all out already by McLaLa · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Did anyone in the nanosecond that this geocities site actually had free bandwidth actually manage to get a mirror of the page?


    <grumble>
    I suppose it would be possible for editors to realise geocities sites don't go well on the front page
    </grumble>

  8. Stupid. by MisterBlister · · Score: 0, Troll

    Real Stupid.

  9. Should be easy by Kopretinka · · Score: 1
    A true Klingon Warrior must only use the function DWIM() and every feeble computer will serve at once!

    (dwim - do what I mean)

    --
    Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
    1. Re:Should be easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The actual command is BBTMOOTKEADWIC!( ) "Bow Before the Might of the Klingon Empire and Do What I Command!"

    2. Re:Should be easy by SirNAOF · · Score: 1

      One too many O's in your function call there...

      :)

      --
      Jeremy Baumgartner
    3. Re:Should be easy by erc · · Score: 1

      I think they would've implemented EXO (execute operator) first ;)

      --
      -- Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@pobox.com PGP KeyID: 0x0BD32C9B What I'm up to: http://intuitives.mine.nu
    4. Re:Should be easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your syntax checking has insulted my honor as a Klingon master programmer! Prepare to defend yourself!

      (not the same AC :)

  10. Not a real language by DoorFrame · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I saw this two or three weeks ago at first I was kind of excited about it... the last link I followed implied that it was a finished language. I thought that was hysterical, a programming language written in Klingon! How nerdy can you get.

    But it's not. I found it rather dull, it's just a little mini-essay about what such a programming language might be like, and what it might be called. I found the whole thing very thin at the time. Of course, the guy might have done some work on it since I last saw it, I haven't followed the link yet.

    1. Re:Not a real language by JabberWokky · · Score: 2
      When I saw this two or three weeks ago at first I was kind of excited about it...

      Same here... I downloaded it and wrote a few silly things about six months ago. I was considering writing an IRC client in Klingon.

      the last link I followed implied that it was a finished language.

      Which it is. There *is* some experimental work going on involving distributed computing, etc - trying to add some useful and/or language distinctive features to it that have not yet been integrated... but it's a working, logically useful (if in reality novelty) language.

      --
      Evan

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  11. Karma whoring... by wormyguy1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's what part of the page I could get before Geoshitties killed it...

    -------

    I enjoy playing with "what-ifs" and that sort of thing. I've written a few fanfics for Star Trek and Babylon 5, and I've got my own grand scifi plan perking through my head (though it won't see the light of day for a long time to come). I've created a couple of languages a la Tolkien and I've run a few role-playing game campaigns. The idea of creating a culture from scratch is utterly fascinating to me, and that is where Var'aq came from.

    This page is sort of a speculative glance at what a programming language on a Klingon computer system would look like. The language itself is named var'aq, which happens to be meaningless in standard Klingon but sounds like it might be named after some famous Klingon computer scientist or mathematician. It's really something of a Klingon Basic, a simple, loosely-typed programming language designed mostly just to be used for programming things like command displays and high-level control systems. In its eventual final incarnation, we're looking at concurrency, advanced mathematics, and even native support for distributed programs (try finding that in the C++ standard library).

    This page is a bit more than that, though. In it I try to imagine what Klingon hacker culture is like based on what's known about Klingon culture in general. For example, it's a man's world on Qo'noS, Chancellor Azetbur's history-making tenure notwithstanding. Most men are warriors at heart, seemingly taking little heed of home life or those things that do not contribute to honor (why do you think Klingon sex is so rough? Klingon women get so little...). One assumes a rough-and-ready, make-do attitude that assumes that bigger-better-faster is at best a waste of time. A Klingon warrior might love to play Quake once in a while (but wouldn't admit it due to a lack of real blood), but would most likely see the 1GHz Athlon in the box being devoted to realtime, near-photorealistic slamming of texture-mapped polygons to be a dishonorable waste of computer resources. Far better, when you need power, to string a bunch of processors together Beowulf-style, yes?

    Var'aq and its accompanying information aren't quite here yet, but until they are you're welcome to send whatever you think might be of interest to this page.

    -------

    There is a Google cache here:
    http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:62oDEag2flo C: www.geocities.com/connorbd/varaq/+&hl=en

    --
    NerfOnline - Because Nerf Guns aren't just for kids -
  12. Seriously off topic by McLaLa · · Score: 1
    shame on me for biting but this has to be the singularly most annoying comment I have ever seen on slashdot.

    trolling has just taken on a whole new meaning. maybee the lameness filter needs updating

    1. Re:Seriously off topic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know. It's not even pi, or e, or the square root of two, or anything else even remotely interesting. damn page-lengtheners.

    2. Re:Seriously off topic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      qick somebody mod the parrent as Troll!!

  13. Slashdotted already... by arbitrary+nickname · · Score: 1, Insightful


    And after only 18 comments..... linking to a Geocities site from Slashdot is a bit stupid....

    1. Re:Slashdotted already... by Pike65 · · Score: 1

      How about this for a new Slashdot poll . . .

      Favourite DoS tool:
      WinNuke
      trinoo
      smurf
      Slashdot
      IRCBotNeal

      --
      "If being a geek means being passionate about something, then I pity those who aren't geeks." - Pike65
  14. Interesting premise, but... by Kieckerjan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The premise underlying this project is interesting: will different cultures create different programming languages? It's a popular idea that natural language and culture are very much intertwined. (Think 20 eskimo words for snow here.) However, a natural language is used to actually do things that make up culture. One wonders if the same goes for a programming language: the language will probably not as much influence a culture as the other way around.

    Another way to look at a language is as an expression of certain believes. This seems to fit the bill better. Will, for instance, a programmer with anarchistical tendencies prefer a language like Perl?

    --
    Being well balanced is overrated. -- John Carmack
    1. Re:Interesting premise, but... by Ayende+Rahien · · Score: 3, Informative

      They don't *have* 20 (actually 50) words for snow.
      They have specification of snow.
      Soft snow, hard snow, dangerous snow, etc.
      It's like saying that we have 1000's of words for dog, because there is a word for each race.

      --

      --
      Two witches watched two watches.
      Which witch watched which watch?
    2. Re:Interesting premise, but... by arkanes · · Score: 2

      well, I'm not the expert, but I was under the impression that they didn't have (or at least rarely used) one word that just means 'snow'. Much as a super car-buff will hardly ever call something a car, instead referring to it by it's make or model.

    3. Re:Interesting premise, but... by zangdesign · · Score: 2

      The theory (as I remember it) says something about programming languages being based on the spoken/written language of the creators. I don't remember all the details, so chime in with your own bits.

      Niklaus Wirth spoke a language with Germanic roots, which has some pretty strong rules for construction. Thus Pascal has pretty strong rules about how and where the language constructs can be used.

      C was created by Americans, a language with both strong and loose rules for sentence construction. It's a strong rule language with the ability to be very, very flexible.

      If the theory holds, then the Chinese will be the first to invent a language that can adequately manage three states: yes, no, and whatever.

      Discuss amongst yourselves.

      --
      To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
    4. Re:Interesting premise, but... by RetroGeek · · Score: 1

      If the theory holds, then the Chinese will be the first to invent a language that....

      has 40,000 keywords.

      --

      - - - - - - - - - - -
      I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
    5. Re:Interesting premise, but... by Eskimo+Bob · · Score: 1

      Inuit, not Eskimo, Inuit. Language is Inuktitut.

      In Inuktitut, there are a bunch'o words for snow.

      And the Ferengi have no word for "crispy". That should put this on topic.

      --
      I am a big, fluffy, cute, cuddly bunny. fear me.
    6. Re:Interesting premise, but... by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2

      I KNOW this is offtopic, to venture on a tangent, it is similar to to asian languages have no word for "brother" in generic, they have younger brother and older brother. Same with sister. I think some of them have a different word for grandfather/grandmother, depending on whether it is the mothers parent or the father's parent. This is because family and relatives are too important to simply group in one word.

      IIRC, most of them have no unified word for rice either, a different word for whether it's in the field, harvested and cooked. Given that rice is such a big factor in their daily life and food, it's not too surprising.

      A lot of language concepts are inexctricably tied to culture and vice-versa, and I bet that Klingons wouldn't be any different if they did exist.

    7. Re:Interesting premise, but... by coyote-san · · Score: 2

      Given your handle, I'm relunctant to jump on that statement *too* fast, yet everything I've heard has said that this is a gross misstatement.

      What I've seen in linguistics papers is that all of this variability is just conjugations of the same basic words. In English conjugation has been reduced to things like hot/hotter/hottest or smooth/smoothly or even priority/prioritize. But in other languages adjectives take the form of conjugation instead of separate words, so its akin to snowfreshly, snowcrustedly, snowicegrainedly, etc.

      And a small handful of words for "snow" is hardly unreasonable. Fresh snow is very different from the stuff that's been on the ground for a while and is mostly large ice grains, and again that's different from weeks-old stuff which is solid ice. I would be surprised if skiers haven't created words for different type of snows, if they don't already exist.

      --
      For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
    8. Re:Interesting premise, but... by JabberWokky · · Score: 2
      IIRC, most of them have no unified word for rice either, a different word for whether it's in the field, harvested and cooked.

      So does english... for foods that were eaten in the area where english as a language was formed. For instance, bovine, cattle, kine, cow, bull, calf, beef, steak, t-bone, porterhouse, etc. Interestingly enough, at least part of the split occured when the Normans ruled, and the term for the food (beef, poultry, fowl) generally came from them, whereas the peasants terms came to refer to the animals (cattle, bird).

      A lot of language concepts are inexctricably tied to culture and vice-versa

      And it makes sense, not only in terms of global culture, but also professional culture - I'd imagine anybody who spent any amount of time on a farm could blow me away with specific terms for various stages of development, a skilled butcher could tell me more terms for various cuts than I've heard of, and I can probably whup them on terms for computers and components (think of people who refer to the monitor as the "Computer" and the "Box" as the "CPU").

      I bet that Klingons wouldn't be any different if they did exist.

      Part of the fun of making up languages (I've done a few myself) and cultures (done lots of those, for RPGs, stories, and just for the fun of it) is building rationalities based on what human cultures have done in the past, tweaking them for a different point of view. One of my personal favorites is incongruity in historical "fact" - Klingon's claim Shakespeare was originally written in klingon, and various historians or cults in Vampire: the Masquerade differ (sometimes radically) in the history of the various clans and bloodlines (which is interesting because there are kindred who have lived thosands of years and witnessed the events, so they are probably changing the history to suit their long term goals... which is wound up in the whole story).

      Fictional culture creation is a fascinating process, from Middle Earth to the SCA to Known Space, and when well done, reflects upon and explores human concepts - since a human invented it all.

      --
      Evan

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  15. confusing by 0123456789 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Like Perl wasn't confusing enough....

    1. Re:confusing by QuickFox · · Score: 2, Funny

      Like Perl wasn't confusing enough....

      Perl was invented by Klingons to test the spirit of Earthlings.

      Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.

      --
      Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
    2. Re:confusing by thogard · · Score: 2

      See...Perl could get worse.

      De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum
      Of two evils, the lesser must always be chosen

  16. Didn't you know? by Unleaded42 · · Score: 0

    Slashdot is Dying.

  17. Is it just me, but ... by Big+Dogs+Cock · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    The story seems to be about a programming language which doesn't exist, created around a race of aliens who don't exist. The whole thing exists only in the mind of this guy. I would speculate on this person's sexual history (or lack of) but then that would be offtopic or a troll - which this comment is not.

    Somebody had to say it.

    --
    "Under the iron bridge, we fist" - The Smiths, Still Ill
  18. Re:There are many more esoteric programming langua by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I also like Unlambda, but Brainf*** is my language of choice.

    --

    ~shiny
    WILL HACK FOR $$$

  19. klingon. by buckrogers · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is an interesting question. What kind of programming languages will a klingon develop. But I think that I want to examine the character of a klingon programmer (from the internet, original attribution lost):

    Klingon Programmer
    Top 20 things likely to be overheard if you had a Klingon Programmer:

    1. Defensive programming? Never! Klingon programs are always on the offense. Yes, offensive programming is what we do best.
    2. Specifications are for the weak and timid!
    3. This machine is GAGH! I need dual Pentium processors if I am to do battle with this code!
    4. You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the original Klingon.
    5. Indentation?! - I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!
    6. What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.
    7. Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments' -- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
    8. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
    9. I have challenged the entire ISO-9000 quality assurance team to a Bat-Leth contest on the holodeck. They will not concern us again.
    10. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!
    11. By filing this bug report you have challenged the honor of my family. Prepare to die!
    12. You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!
    13. Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
    14. Our competitors are without honor!
    15. Python? That is for children. A Klingon Warrior uses only machine code, keyed in on the front panel switches in raw binary.
    16. Klingon programs don't do accountancy. For that, you need a Ferengi.
    17. Klingon multitasking systems do not support "time-sharing". When a Klingon program wants to run, it challenges the scheduler in hand-to-hand combat and owns the machine.
    18. Perhaps it IS a good day to die! I say we ship it!
    19. My program has just dumped Stova Core!
    20. Behold, the keyboard of Kalis! The greatest Klingon code warrior that ever lived!

    --
    -- Never make a general statement.
    1. Re:klingon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice going you unoriginal bastard. You just copied and pasted from here

      DAMN! I wish I would have thought about it first!

    2. Re:klingon. by Sarcasm_Orgasm · · Score: 0

      Klingon's are not actual being's my sick friend, they are but made up charactors in Star Trek.

      --
      Special people have long socks, ride short buses, & invent witty sigs.
    3. Re:klingon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those 20 reasons sound suspiciously like what might be heard if you ever tried to run an Operating System from a LARGE corperation like say.. erm... *cough* Microsoft .. erm...

      I didnt just say that out loud then did I ?

      #./me

    4. Re:klingon. by buckrogers · · Score: 2

      This has been around _forever_ no one even knows who started it now. I did attribute it as best as I could: anonymous.

      If you look for "Klingon Programmer" on google you can see thousands of pages of the same thing over and over.

      --
      -- Never make a general statement.
    5. Re:klingon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know... that explains a lot about some of the developers in our organisation, it really does.

      And I thought their foreheads were wrinkled becauase they were deep in thought.

    6. Re:klingon. by Ivan+Raikov · · Score: 2

      Are you implying Microsoft is run by Klingon warriors?

    7. Re:klingon. by neomac · · Score: 1

      De'wI' ghun pIn'a' is the closest I got to Klingon Programmer. It means literally, 'computer program-master'

    8. Re:klingon. by Derek+Pomery · · Score: 1

      GOTOs?
      :-)

      --
      -- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"' /. ate my old sig. Bastards.
    9. Re:klingon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course not. Klingon warriors have honour. Microsoft is run by Romulans.

    10. Re:klingon. by Lars+T. · · Score: 2

      With the head of programming being a Ferengi and the official boss a Nausicaan.

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    11. Re:klingon. by osu-neko · · Score: 1
      17. Klingon multitasking systems do not support "time-sharing". When a Klingon program wants to run, it challenges the scheduler in hand-to-hand combat and owns the machine.

      Oh gods... is anyone else thinking of a Redcode-based task scheduler? Now THAT would be an , umm, innovative OS design decision... :)

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
  20. Release. by leuk_he · · Score: 3, Redundant

    you are talking about :
    "What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes,' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake."

    kapla"

  21. Re:JESUS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I get laid && troll regularly on Slashdot.

    Best of both worlds!

  22. This Is Wonderful by Tim+C · · Score: 5, Funny

    Every time I fear I may be in danger of becoming too geeky, someone somewhere demonstrates that I have absolutely nothing to worry about ;-)

    Cheers,

    Tim

    1. Re:This Is Wonderful by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      george carlin comedy. point out the obvious and it is extremely funny.

      I almost choked.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    2. Re:This Is Wonderful by Restil · · Score: 2

      Still worried? Check out my site. You shouldn't be concerned any longer then. :)

      -Restil

      --
      Play with my webcams and lights here
  23. Re:JESUS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can see an example of me getting 'laid' here!

  24. Since they had a tarball of the interpreter up by brion · · Score: 2, Informative

    when I first stumbled on it a year or so ago, I can only assume you didn't actually read very far, and/or were reading in the wrong place.

    --

    Chu vi parolas Vikipedion?

  25. What we've always thought... by __aahlyu4518 · · Score: 0

    "Sorry, this site is temporarily unavailable!
    The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer. Visit our help area for more information."

    Those people at geocities are actually Klingons !!!

  26. Mirroring... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Maybe Slashdot should have a system that automatically mirrors pages before a link is submitted in a story.

    1. Re:Mirroring... by TheCrunch · · Score: 1

      Yeah.. call it CacheDot.

      --
      My life is one big siesta in which I'm dreaming I wished my life was one big siesta.
    2. Re:Mirroring... by Gid1 · · Score: 2

      ...or get Slashdot to honour a META tag at the destination of any remote links submitted:

      <META NAME="PleaseDon'tLinkToMeIfYourDailyHitRateIsAbove " CONTENT="1000000 hits">

      =)

      (incidentally, banning particular referrers at the server isn't enough, as the incoming connections would be enough to slashdot a server. It'd have to be done in the Slashdot submission script)

    3. Re:Mirroring... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Maybe Slashdot should have a system that automatically mirrors pages before a link is submitted in a story.

      Yes. We definitely need to automate the process of copyright infringement.

      If I had a story up on my website, and Slashdot people kindly "mirrored" it, I would be quite pissed. You're stealing my traffic!

    4. Re:Mirroring... by shadowbearer · · Score: 1
      What a marvelous idea.
      Maybe then the 99% of us who don't check out the page before the first 15 reply posts could check it out the same day.

      Or maybe I'm just wishin';-)

      Moderator? Moderator? Earth to moderator...

      "Cachedot". Heheheheheheh

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
  27. Problem's with the language by Nathdot · · Score: 3, Funny

    You can probably find something like this on the page if you bother to go looking:

    "It turns out Klingons have no function to save().

    So in adapting the language we simply used:

    stop(kill())

    which imparts almost the same meaning but remains true to the fundamentals of the beautiful nature of the language which is Klingon. Bj'nrak!!!"


    fuckwits.

  28. Cautionary warning! by Nathdot · · Score: 4, Funny

    Never trust any source of programming information that has a high likelihood of close proximity to badly photoshopped vulcan porn.

    Just a warning...

    ...It'll be hard to explain to your boss.

    :)

  29. On Geekdom by Astral+Jung · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sure, I could make the well-used comment that as if learning Klingon wasn't quite geeky enough...

    But I won't. Instead, I will remind people that those who laugh at, say, a Klingon computer language, and then, go back to work on making Linux work on their Atari 2600, ought to reconsider their opinion.

    --
    "What's so random about flipping a coin? Ever heard of the I Ching?"
    1. Re:On Geekdom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But i'm almost done the port to my 2600! All I need is another week to get X up and working.

  30. What about Klingon computers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm much more interested in knowing what Klingon computer hardware is like. A Klingon programming language that runs only on Terran computers doesn't make much sense to me.

    1. Re:What about Klingon computers? by connorbd · · Score: 2

      I've given that a fair amount of thought, actually. Long story short it sort of comes out to Ethernet with busmastering capability (lots of redundancy, you see).

      /brian

  31. Re:There are many more esoteric programming langua by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 2, Funny
    I was trying to post Brainf*** "hello world" example but unfortunately...

    Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.

    Strange... Maybe I'll send an Unlambda example at least:

    ```s``s``sii`ki
    `k.*``s``s`ks
    ``s`k`s`ks``s``s`ks``s`k`s`kr``s`k`sikk
    `k``s`ksk
    It calculates and prints the Fibonacci numbers as lines of asterisks.

    It's quite challanging to parse that code, once you know the syntax.

    --

    ~shiny
    WILL HACK FOR $$$

  32. Kind of pointless by spacefrog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Isn't it rather pointless for slashdot to post a geocities link?

    They have one of the few "slashdot effect defense systems" that actually works. It goes something like this:

    The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer.

    And puhleeese don't try to tell me a link to the Google cache is an acceptable mirror. It's not. Maybe if it altered all of the links to *also* point to the google cache it would amost be acceptable. I have a feeling the nice google people don't do that for exactly that reason -- they don't wanna be a free mirror whore.

    "News for Nerds"? Any "nerd" who still uses geocities....

    "Stuff that Matters"? If it's hosted on geocities, it probably doesn't matter. If it mattered, it would be hosted somewhere where everybody could see it on a consistent basis!

    1. Re:Kind of pointless by bshuttleworth · · Score: 1

      Hmmm. Does the term "nerd" also include a clause insisting that the person must have enough cash to own/control free online space?

      Looks like I need a new dictionary.

    2. Re:Kind of pointless by benjymous · · Score: 2, Informative

      How about the wayback machine's caches? (as this page has been around since August 2000)

      http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.geocities. com/connorbd/varaq/

      It "fixes" most of the links (a few still sometimes point back to the original site, but often or not a refresh will fix that)

      --
      Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!
    3. Re:Kind of pointless by De+Lemming · · Score: 1

      Thanks. Here's the direct link to the main page, as the Wayback Machine seems to have a little trouble with the load already:

      How do Klingons compute?

  33. Re:JESUS! by Nathdot · · Score: 0, Troll

    And your parents got laid too. I hope it's not a big achievement for you.

  34. Re:ATTN TROLLS AND CRAPFLOODERS!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only to happy to oblige my good fellow.

    Prehaps you could return the favor by posting some more random number stuff?

  35. S/N ratio people! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...and they say *bsd is dead... Just checkout the S/N ratio on this article

  36. OS and Hardware by Bazman · · Score: 5, Funny
    Surely software design is greatly influenced by hardware and operating system design. So what would these be like on the Klingon homeworld?


    Well, the operating system would be called 'Klingux' and would incorporate pre-emptive strike multi-tasking.


    The hardware would obviously be a box with lots of blinking lights on it.

    1. Re:OS and Hardware by Danborg · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, the operating system would be called 'Klingux' and would incorporate pre-emptive strike multi-tasking

      Actually, that's GNU/Klingux.

    2. Re:OS and Hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Klingdows XP, yeah awesom!

    3. Re:OS and Hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Actually, that's GNU/Klingux.

      Klingons don't have Gnus - it'd have to be TARG/Klingux (sp?)

      And if you find a recursive acronym for TARG for the original Klingon spelling, you win the award for biggest Star Trek Geek on Slashdot.

    4. Re:OS and Hardware by ethereal · · Score: 1

      TARG Ain't Romulan Gakh ? Hard to get a recursive abbreviation out of that one :)

      --

      Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and

    5. Re:OS and Hardware by daeley · · Score: 2

      Well, the operating system would be called 'Klingux' and would incorporate pre-emptive strike multi-tasking.

      Ooh ooh ooh ooh! If there is an artist out there, *please* start working on a k'Tux logo! :)

      --
      I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
  37. LoL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please visit the cached copy of the site at:
    http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:62oDEag2flo C: www.geocities.com/connorbd/varaq/+var%27aq&hl=sv

  38. LOL!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    Visit this link. It's a cached copy of the site.

  39. Use this post to line up for downloading. by pacc · · Score: 2, Funny

    Geocities doesn't support multiple downloads,
    therefore I propose that everyone who wants to
    read the links picks a time (GMT) with 5-minute intervals when they want to use the links and puts it in a reply to this post to avoid that multiple slashdot users try to access geocites at once.

    I pick 15.00.

    1. Re:Use this post to line up for downloading. by Fesh · · Score: 2
      Hmm. Maybe Rob et al. ought to consider incorporating something like this? I can see it now... Hundreds of people dropping back to the comments section yelling "F1r5t R3ad!!!!!!!"

      Dealing with the cheaters would be a problem though.

      Slashdot: "Your assigned timeslot is 02:45 GMT, August 22, 2028."
      User: "Aw, screw this..."

      --
      --Fesh
      Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
  40. Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' -- by arodland · · Score: 1

    they have 'arguments'
    -- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.

    from the Knightbrd sigfile fortunefile

  41. The impossibility of Klingons by Scareduck · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The one problem I have always had with the notion of the Klingon Empire as practiced on "Star Trek" is that they couldn't possibly exist in real life. The Klingons are basically at the level of space bikers, or the Taliban, that is, they're mainly interested in what they can squeeze out of situations at this moment using whatever violent methods are at hand now. Research? Pure science? These things make not a great warrior!

    The Federation would have had these guys for lunch in a heartbeat.

    --

    Dog is my co-pilot.

    1. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They managed to evolve to a level on par with the Federation. Combine this technological prowess with their warrior spirit, and the Federation would be in for a very long fight. The question about their "present" capability is moot. One can argue two points though. First, that the Klingons would have never reached their current technological level without self-destructing. This argument can be dismissed if one considers the early political history of thier people. Had they gotten only rudimentary space technology, they would have likely conquered to improve it. The second point is more difficult to argue because we're forced to extrapolate. Consider that the Federation continues developing as per the canon dictated in Voyager's and Enterprise's stories. Furthermore, consider that the Klingons continue to progress as dictated in the finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Which of these would be technologically dominant in the "future?" As the Klingons isolate themselves from the Federation, it is unlikely that they're going to be raiding a lot of Feddie ships. Instead, they'll need to rely on raiding other races for new tech. This leaves the Romulans, whom they've always hated, and a myriad of minor races. Nonetheless, I predict the Federation would inevitably defeat the Klingons were they ever to engage in total war.

    2. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by mofolotopo · · Score: 1

      I don't get where you show that it's impossible. The Roman empire stole most of its technology and culture by the conquest of smarter but weaker nations, and they lasted for quite a while.

    3. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, the writers do mention that they got their ship designs and cloaking devices from the Romulans. What I never understood was why the Romulans could never detect a cloaked Klingon ship - it's pretty much their stuff after all (at least a couple of ST:TNG episodes come to mind).

    4. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by ethereal · · Score: 1

      Well, if you go by the Enterprise story line, the Klingons were a lot farther ahead of the humans at the time of their first few meetings. Although both had warp drives, the Klingons had photon torpedoes, beam weapons already equipped on their ships, sizeable space fleets, etc. The Vulcans already had these too (probably) but this was before the formation of the Federation.

      --

      Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and

    5. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could say the same about the Ferengi. Nothing but a bunch of
      capitalists.

      Funny thing is though, the Klingons (who you liken to the Taleban
      - which I don't agree with incidentally) are seen as honourable
      in the later ST universe where as the Ferengi are seen as the
      shit on someone's shoe.

      Makes you think doesn't it.

    6. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by brainthought · · Score: 1

      It's not that improbable that the Klingon's would have never made it off world or such. The Klingon's are after all, warriors, so all it would take is one off-world visitor to come and cause trouble and the Klingon's would advance quickly so they could compete with such a foe. After all, we human are not warriors, but the computer I type on right now is an off-shoot of WWII weapon research... By a parallel logic it only seems fitting that by the time of Enterprise, the Klingons would be deep-space travellers already.

      On a side note though, anyone else ever notice, there dosen't seem to be a lot of other races in the Klingon 'empire'. I mean, who are they ruling? Isn't that the definition of 'empire'? Conquered lands and all?

    7. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is like saying that carnivores can't exist in real life, because they don't photosynthesize. Of course you can have a predatory empire -- the Klingons largely resemble the Huns; and Roman culture certainly placed more value on military conquest than scientific research and learning.

    8. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You simplify the Romans. They did absorb
      alot of technology from greeks, etruscans etc
      but they also were damn good engineers.
      (aqueducts,arches,plumbing etc)
      They also had a knack for assimilating the
      people that they conquered, who then could
      become Roman citizens. If you increase the
      Roman's level of technology to that of the
      21 century you don't get klingons, you get
      us.(where us is western civilization). You
      are altered by your technology, at least to
      some extent. Do you see japanese CEOs
      executing junior executives in boardrooms
      w/katana?

    9. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Graff · · Score: 2

      they couldn't possibly exist in real life. The Klingons are basically at the level of space bikers, or the Taliban, that is, they're mainly interested in what they can squeeze out of situations at this moment using whatever violent methods are at hand now.
      Yeah, they couldn't possibly have a huge, successful empire similar to what we have on Earth, like say the Mongols. I mean, any empire based on conquest, rape, and pillage couldn't possibly last!

      Oh wait, you mean the Mongols also had that kind of empire and they ruled a good part of Asia and Europe for over 200 years? Hmm, maybe the Klingon empire is not so far-fetched...
    10. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the Mongols eventually collapsed.
      200 years is not exactly a high
      duration empire. The Klingons would
      have also collapsed before getting
      a significant technological base
      going. I mean, come on, are the
      violent people in high school the
      same ones doing the science projects
      and taking Calculus?

    11. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, they couldn't possibly have a huge, successful empire similar to what we have on Earth, like say the Mongols. I mean, any empire based on conquest, rape, and pillage couldn't possibly last!

      Nobody's saying they couldn't exist - we're saying they couldn't exist as they are portrayed

      Using your example, how many medical advances were made by the Mongols? How about inventions related to agriculture?

      What about buildings? I see there were a LOT of majestic works of engineering - oh no, wait - that was OTHER cultures..

    12. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by jonerik · · Score: 1

      Although both had warp drives, the Klingons had photon torpedoes, beam weapons already equipped on their ships, sizeable space fleets, etc.

      Which suggests that either a) the area around the Klingon Empire is a good deal more dangerous than the space around Earth, b) Klingons are totally paranoid, c) Humans are hopelessly naive, or d) some combination of all three. But I'm not sure that it necessarily implies that the Klingons were more advanced at the time of first contact; just that their priorities were different.

    13. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure about A, but B and C are definately true. C especially. The Klingons actually seem more realistic than the humans in Star Trek. Now there's a race that couldn't possibly exist in real life. (For a more realistic view of viable humans in space, see just about any episode of B5.)

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    14. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Scooter · · Score: 1

      I agree - all the Klingons you see from the lowliest axe jockey to the Chancellor are basically fighters - so who solved all the techy problems and developed the science to build starships etc etc? All I can think of is that there is an underclass enslaved back on planet Klingon doing all this. Think of the problems we havn't solved in 21st century Earth - Eg: faster than light travel, matter transportation and so on - I we have geeks/serious dudes who work for dedicated outfits like NASA, CERN, MIT and so on. The Klingons have done all of this (presumably with a big hefty axe type thing) and even found time to invent some stuff the 23rd century humans/vulcans etc haven't - the cloaking device (hehe and why is it the humans are always suprised when they see one? er or don't see one :-/)

      I agree with your analogies too - I think of them as the bad guys from Mad Max II - rudimentary fuedal, might is right type gang.

      The same goes for the Gungans in TPM - they all act a bit retarded but manage to build great underwater cities, and huge shield generators...

    15. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Scooter · · Score: 1

      Thats not the point really - even stolen tech needs someone to manufacture/understand/fix etc. It's not a tech level issue - I mean who makes the spoons on Kronos? No self respecting warrior is going work in a spoon factory!

    16. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Scooter · · Score: 1

      Thats a good point - but how'd they get off the planet in the first place?

    17. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by robhancock · · Score: 1

      If I remember correctly, the Klingons got the cloaking technology from the Romulans..

    18. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by ethereal · · Score: 1

      Here's a good question: if the Klingons were as advanced as they appear, why didn't they conquer Earth right off? They must have been fighting a hella' war with the Romulans at the time, or else the humans got real scary real fast :)

      --

      Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and

    19. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by jonerik · · Score: 1

      I suspect that distance has something to do with it; that for the Klingons to fight a war of conquest in Earth's backyard, they'd be operating at the end of some very long supply lines, whereas Earth wouldn't have that problem. They also couldn't be certain that the Vulcans wouldn't fight for Earth if it came to that.
      Finally, it might simply be that during the time of "Enterprise," the Klingons are fighting other wars closer to home and that conquering Earth just isn't a priority at the moment. Given their psychology, I'd guess that a state of constant war is normal for them, so it's not like they can just drop what they're doing to conquer Earth.

    20. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      My guesses: A. The area around the Klingon Empire IS dangerous, but mostly because the Klingons themselves keep starting trouble. B. Klingons ARE totally paranoid! C. Humans are idealistic, which is often mistaken for naivete. Regarding Klingon advancment, they certainly have bigger/better guns (not surprising), but I've seen no evidence that their warp drive was any faster, and in Kirk's day, a lot of their tech was less reliable than the Federation. I suspect that early Klingon ships had just as many bugs as the first Enterprise, but they weren't as well known cause they killed anyone who found out about them.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    21. Re:The impossibility of Klingons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, the Ferengi could easily have gotten into space. Much of human innovation was, well, capitalized on for profit or credit of some sort...

  42. Re:Fuck i just posted to my journal by The_Fire_Horse · · Score: 0

    you are a fucking wanker
    I hate myself for replying to this pile of shit, but somebody had to say "FUCK YOU"

  43. Geocities's Business Model by daBass · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Let's create a website on which people can create their homepages and when people come to visit those homepages, we put OUR ads on them and make money that way"

    "The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer."

    Anyone else missing something here? Or is it just me?

    1. Re:Geocities's Business Model by DennyK · · Score: 2

      Go to that page again.

      What do you see under "The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer.""The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer."? An ad, of course! ;)

      (At least I presume it's an ad. I don't actually see anything myself except an eDexter placeholder, since I have Yahoo's image server blocked in my hosts file... ;) The only advertising information Yahoo has been able to impart to me in the last six months or so is "I am a [Man|Woman] seeking a..." ;-D)

      DennyK

    2. Re:Geocities's Business Model by refactored · · Score: 1
      I'm truly peeved by this. If I go to the bother of creating a web site worth slashdotting, I wouldn't want cruddy ads served _instead_ of my page.

      I want off of geocities now. Yahoo has stuffed it up beyond all recognition.

      Any recommendations for other free hosting services?

  44. The depressing part is... by jejones · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That thanks to Okuda's refusal to define or use a consistent mapping between Klingon characters and sounds, which makes no sense whatsoever, we're stuck with piqaD for I/O.

  45. Ferengi? by hughk · · Score: 5, Funny
    Actually, I like the idea of point 16:

    16. Klingon programs don't do accountancy. For that, you need a Ferengi. I can only begin to imagine what a Ferengi program would be like:

    1. Builtin transaction orientated database
    2. Data hiding
    3. Ability to maintain several sets of books in parallel
    4. Ability to charge an automatic percentage of any calculation made

    Note that any Ferengi Computer would feature price negotiated scheduling and routing.

    Any other suggestions?

    --
    See my journal, I write things there
    1. Re:Ferengi? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With the right modules, GnuCash already does all of thouse...

    2. Re:Ferengi? by titaniafq · · Score: 1

      ERROR 404.

      Your have not met the required funds to view this page.

      Please consult your finacial advisor.

      stupid lameness filter...

      --
      -- Do not bite the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
    3. Re:Ferengi? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ferengi computers would of course run MULTICS, which had the ability to charge for units of usage (CPU time, memory, disk space etc.)

    4. Re:Ferengi? by Pathetic+Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I can only begin to imagine what a Ferengi program would be like

      Microsoft Office.

    5. Re:Ferengi? by sg_oneill · · Score: 2

      And of course goddamn pop under advertisements in EVERYTHING....

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    6. Re:Ferengi? by gnalre · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ferangi? Sounds more like Enron

      --
      Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
    7. Re:Ferengi? by maunleon · · Score: 1

      At least the female ferengi programmers would be fun to work with.

      Wonder where they'd hang their pagers.

  46. Basic info by Alien54 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    from the FAQ:

    * I heard something about a "Klingon Forth". Is this it? And why isn't it called loSDIch?

    Yes, in a way. It's a stack-based RPN language like Forth or PostScript; the reason for this has nothing to do with an original desire to emulate one of those languages, but simply the unusual object-verb-subject syntax of Klingon. This sort of dictated the required form of the language right up front, ruling out a more traditional ALGOL-like syntax (based on English). Stack-based languages are actually easier to parse anyway, especially in Perl: just chomp and process. It is also an impure functional language in the same vein as Lisp or ML; it supports local variables, but it is really intended to do everything off the stack.

    As for calling it loSDIch (Klingon for fourth), that would be an obvious joke title to anyone who actually spoke Klingon; this being at least a semi-serious exercise in artificial culture development, such a title would be noticeably silly at best. var'aq is actually completely meaningless, though it suggests identification with a famous Klingon mathematician or computer scientist in sort of the same way as Pascal recalls Blaise Pascal or Ada recalls Ada Lovelace. In any case, the name var'aq came before the form of the language. (In any case, var'aq is based more directly on PostScript anyway. But they're all part of the same family.)

    [...]

    In terms of genetics, var'aq is the bastard child of a back-room tryst between PostScript and Lisp after a Star Trek convention.

    [...]

    * Why doesn't this construct translate to its PostScript/Forth equivalent?

    The question is one of verisimilitude. The likelihood of a Klingon concept being an exact translation of its English equivalent isn't always good. Consequently, pure translation of an Earth language might make for a cute joke, but it would sacrifice plausibility. A prime example is the qaw/qawHa' instructions, which perform the same function as PostScript's mark/cleartomark instructions but literally translate to remember/forget; the idea is that the metaphor chosen in Klingon might more reflect the purpose of marking the stack than the actual act. Incidentally, It's quite true that many of the idioms chosen for var'aq are anything but obvious. This is the reason why; though mathematics is considered universal, it's not too likely that everything would be described in the same way. (That said, I did cheat in a few places; for example, the word for logarithm is a direct translation from the Greek logarithmos, meaning roughly "logic-number".)

    For a rather thorough and creative discussion on the issues involved in translation, you might wish to look at Le ton beau de Marot by Douglas Hofstadter (the author of the hacker classic Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid), an intricate and well-written look at the pitfalls of translation between languages.

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
  47. Re:There are many more esoteric programming langua by rar · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now, if there is a recipe doing de-css in the program language 'Chef'...
    ... would cooking and serving a meal based on that recipe be illegal?

    I think it would be hilarious to refer to a meal as "a collection of food carrying an illegal decryption algoritm"...

  48. Re:YEP! - this girl is a moron by The_Fire_Horse · · Score: 0

    consider yourself winner of the complete loser award for 2002 - yes its only Feb. but you still have outdone anyone for the rest of the year.

    1. normal users hate you because you post shit
    2. trolls hate you because you post shit with lots of line feeds [ooohhh - you must be a great coder to manage that], and we cant read the (sometimes) funny crap posted at -1.

    So... please 'go away'.

  49. hahaha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    while (self.hasNoLife()) self.code(languages.USELESS);

  50. Re:OS and Hardware: What OS??? by hughk · · Score: 2
    What operating system? I would have thought Klingons would want to code down to the metal.

    Any OS they would want would be strictly limited in scope like an I/O executive a file system and a simple CLI.

    Any system would run one application only, and extremely well. The GUI would be part of the application and touch screens whould be used for inputs. Mice would be banned due to being thrown across the room and destroyed by bad-tempered users.

    Think of the way that our Military use/abuse computers in the field. I guess that is the way Klingons would want to work.

    --
    See my journal, I write things there
  51. Re:Geocities's Business Model [!OT!] by Arimus · · Score: 1

    Looks like the dreaded curse of /. has struck again. Chalk that site up as another victim.

    --
    --- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
  52. Re:Geocities's Business Model [!OT!] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If only all of geocities could be /.'ed at once...

  53. geocities. by leuk_he · · Score: 1

    before Geoshitties killed it..

    Geocities did not kill it. They cowarldy Retreated when a /. DOS was made. They shut the page down to prevent a succesful attack.

    REAL MEN (tm) would have died defending the site. (as many did before)

    1. Re:geocities. by Amazing+Quantum+Man · · Score: 2

      Geocities has no honor! We should kill them where they stand!

      --
      Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
    2. Re:geocities. by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2

      > Geocities has no honor! We should kill them where they stand!

      They denied the site its honorable death in battle, fighting against overwhelming page-hits! Death is too good for them!

      Chris Mattern

  54. Observation... by weird+mehgny · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It is a bit pointless by Geocities to shut down the page due to "exceeded data transfer quota" since the "temporarily unavailable" page in this case is three times bigger...

    1. Re:Observation... by anti-snot · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure the ads on that page cover double the bandwidth

    2. Re:Observation... by Pituritus+Ani · · Score: 1

      It's just that they know that the only thing anyone would give a darn about that's hosted there must be warez, mp3s, or porn. Therefore, a run on a page is an automatic TOS violation.

      --

      Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag

  55. Ferengi Business plans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. Wake up, massage lobes.
    2. ????
    3. Profit!!!

  56. Warrior Design Patterns by JavaPriest · · Score: 2, Funny

    I didn't look deeply into the language but if Klingons are going to use design patterns when developing code, it must be these. (Detonator, Commando, Visitor from Hell and the like).

  57. Help needed: Finding the legendary "ebonics C++" by jutus · · Score: 2

    When I was in my freshmen year, a colleague emailed me a set of precompiler defines that would turn C++ code into ebonics C.

    I have searched in vain for this on the net... that was in '95. Does anyone have information on ebonics C?

    :)

  58. Not Necessarily by Arker · · Score: 3

    The Klingons actually do have a source of technicians and scientists. This is the female of the species. Smaller and weaker than her male counterpart, she is however often more intelligent, and almost always better educated (by our standards.) Roles without sufficient honour for the men, scientific and technical positions in particular, are reserved for them. The advances of Klingon women, supplemented by the technological gains achieved by conquering more advanced, but less canny and battleworthy races, is responsible for their ability to compete.

    --
    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
  59. Another one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Has anybody thought about what a Klingon version of "Slashdot" would be like?

    "Cmdr Gagh reports that recent discussions between Microsoft and Linux users have left large parts of the city slashdotted. Slashing continues in the suburbs, with intermittent disruptor fire between debugging commandos"

    "Ask Slashdot: Hacking federation starship computer systems: General Chang will answer all your questions"

    "Recent rumors about spam laws meet with fierce resistance in Sysop circles. "We never needed laws, only bat'lets", says chief programmer Korg, "and I don't care for any laws that say you have to fry them spammers with Phasers for sanitary reasons." Got a spammer recently? Share your view!

  60. editors of slashdot. by gimpboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    do you think it would be possible to post links to google cache in the main story? i'm sure the owners of the web sites would prefer it. what would it take to be a little more responsible and try to avoid squashing the little guys that provide your content? it must be nice to have so much bandwith that you loose perspective and forget that the rest of the world does not.

    --
    -- john
    1. Re:editors of slashdot. by Zzootnik · · Score: 1

      Hehehe...It's almost beginning to seem like it's a game!

      "HEY! Let's see how today's patsy stands up to the assault!"

      Now- GIVEN- it'd be a hoot to time my site to see how long it stayed up (If I had a mere hope of a prayer of an inkling that I stood any chance whatsoever...), but these guys are providing us with webspace to do the silly things we all want to do...

      So Maybe we oughta cut a bit o slack...

      Then again, Carpe the Net, for tomorrow, someone else may first (and not give it back!)!

      --
      Sig currently under construction. Mind the gap....
    2. Re:editors of slashdot. by ichimunki · · Score: 2

      Why would the owners of the web site prefer that thousands of people go visit someone else's mirror of their site? They then continue thinking no one has stopped by, and if they depend on click-thru or referrals for even meager compensation, they are practically assured of none if people are going to a cache rather than the real site. That a site would achieve instant popularity or get the kind of publicity that Slashdot brings is truly a blessing and a curse at the same time. As such, the Slashdot approach makes no more or less sense than mirroring.

      A much better criticism, in my mind, would be to ask why Slashdot doesn't spend more energy getting actual stories rather than engaging in essentially mindless link promotion. And then one might ask why the majority of the Slashdot generated stories are the drivel of Jon Katz. There are a couple of editors who write decent stories, and once in a while a submission is actually more than a blurb... but I'm guessing Slashdot sees itself more as a recorder of interesting tidbits and a place to discuss those tidbits than a place where serious journalism occurs.

      --
      I do not have a signature
    3. Re:editors of slashdot. by JabberWokky · · Score: 2
      A much better criticism, in my mind, would be to ask why Slashdot doesn't spend more energy getting actual stories rather than engaging in essentially mindless link promotion.

      Because that's not what Slashdot is. You might as well lambast the authors of a bok of movie reviews for not including copies of all the movies. Slashdot *is* a collection of links, a few original essays, some interviews (which we're due for, guys), and most importantly, a whopping big forum in which to discuss said stuff.

      I'm guessing Slashdot sees itself more as a recorder of interesting tidbits and a place to discuss those tidbits than a place where serious journalism occurs.

      Yup. And it's much more interesting IMO, than ZDNet, CNet, TechTV.com or any other so called "real journalistic technical site". YMMV - go to the site that interests you. For me, it's Slashdot.

      --
      Evan "Did that sound like cheesy team cheering or what?" E.

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    4. Re:editors of slashdot. by namespan · · Score: 2

      do you think it would be possible to post links to google cache in the main story?

      Or perhaps institute a "slashCache"?

      (nice ring to it, eh? :)

      Either way, the cool thing to do would be to have some sort of relay resource that would check to see if the site was up, and if it wasn't, then display the google/slash cache.

      Of course, it will be implemented probably about the time I submit a patch, and I've got too many other things to work on....

      --
      Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
    5. Re:editors of slashdot. by ichimunki · · Score: 2

      I wasn't criticizing Slashdot myself, just offering suggestions to those who are. The only way Slashdot can *not* Slashdot other sites is to have the actual content hosted here-- which means they either deal with the sites to mirror the content here, or they create content specifically for Slashdot. Linking to an off-site cache is a poor solution for everyone involved. The cache is often incomplete, the images are still served from the original server in many cases, the site doesn't get traffic it deserves, and the people hosting the cache shouldn't have to serve Slashdot's traffic either.

      Sudden fame is a risk inherent in making a public web page. Slashdot isn't the only way to get a surge of traffic, after all. The only reason Slashdot should worry about it is that a discussion full of "well, the site is Slashdotted" is pretty unproductive.

      --
      I do not have a signature
    6. Re:editors of slashdot. by TheGreenLantern · · Score: 1

      Nice idea, but keep in mind that in this case we're talking about a Geocities page. A stiff breeze brings down Geocities sites.

      --

      It hurts when I pee.
    7. Re:editors of slashdot. by Lord+Omlette · · Score: 2

      The horrific bandwidth penalties that some people have to pay might be some incentive. A slashdotting is absolutely insane in scope & size. The very the editors could do is provide people with a wee bit of warning about what's going to happen, but that would require them to actually have some journalistic integrity, something they've said time and time again that they don't need since this is just a 'hobby' site.

      --
      [o]_O
    8. Re:editors of slashdot. by hardburn · · Score: 1

      See also: The Slashdot Brigade.



      (Yeah, OK, so it was proposed a year ago. We just really need people to get the job done.)

      --
      Not a typewriter
    9. Re:editors of slashdot. by kimihia · · Score: 1

      Um, no ... because then Google would be using too much bandwidth.

      Their page cache feature is very helpful for searches and it would be a tragedy to lose that if Google received a flood of Slashdotters every time a site was posted. Didn't you read the article posted yesterday? Their top guy was quoted as saying that Google is overloaded at the moment. (See article about using DRAM instead of disk drives. I hope you did read the link.)

      The idea of mirroring - no Google isn't a mirror, it just shifts the problem to someone else - is that the load gets spread to servers nearby. What you need is intelligent mirrors - um, Akamai?

    10. Re:editors of slashdot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not unless Slashdot wants to be sued by rabid Google sysadmins

  61. Re:What the FUCK does that mean? by Kopretinka · · Score: 1
    If you don't understand it, just ask, don't bitch.

    The command meant that the real warriors write directly the compressed package with the program, they don't bother with hi-level programming languages and compilers etc.

    --
    Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
  62. And now, I hope we've learned... by elixx · · Score: 0

    that it is a bad thing to slashdot Geocities addresses...

    --
    No, Beowulf clusters can't imagine in Soviet Russia.
  63. Get off Geocities...I would be happy to host you. by haplo21112 · · Score: 2

    Hi,

    Need place to put you site and get away from eveil geocities...contact me.

    --
    Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
  64. if you really want to program in Klingon... by kurowski · · Score: 1

    ...then get Damian Conway's Lingua::tlhIngan::yIghun. Let's you write perl code in the original Klingon!

  65. Numbers by BelDion · · Score: 1

    I can't check since the site is slashdotted, but can anyone confirm the number system used in Var'aq?

    If memory serves, the Klingons didn't use base10, but instead used base3 to count numbers. On one of the old 'Learn Klingon' audio cds (read by Worf, errr Michael Dorn) he gives an example while teaching some basic numbers along the line of "7 is therefor literally counted as (2 x 3) + 1"

    Well, that's enough of my Star Trek geekness coming through for today thank you.

    --

    I am BelDion's .Sig; Who the hell is Jack?
    1. Re:Numbers by connorbd · · Score: 2

      Modern Klingons don't use base 3; it's mentioned as being old tradition, but base 10 (the higher numbers seem to be derived from musical notes) is the norm in "modern" Klingon society. There is some vestigial base 3 stuff in the spec (there's a log3 function that I designed but never implemented) but for the most part I haven't made much of an effort in the base 3 department, primarily because of notational issues.

      /Brian

  66. Here's a hint for you by Archanagor · · Score: 1

    If you're hosting a website on Geocities. Don't post it to slashdot. Sure, you want the exposure. And a popular page is great, right? Yep. Provided people can see it!

    Chances are, there's gonna be a bunch of poor saps that will click on that link and get a nice message saying, "No webpage for you!"

    Geocities. The webpage nazi of the 21st century. I'm sure someone has already Karam whored and posted the contents to the discussion.

    [/rant]

    1. Re:Here's a hint for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Err Karam = Karma.

    2. Re:Here's a hint for you by connorbd · · Score: 2

      Hey, I didn't post it; the /. crew found it on their own. As for bandwidth, I got what I can afford. It sucks, but...

      /Brian

  67. Re:Help needed: Finding the legendary "ebonics C++ by Ayende+Rahien · · Score: 2

    Are you talking about CFront, by any chance?

    --

    --
    Two witches watched two watches.
    Which witch watched which watch?
  68. Re:OS and Hardware: What OS??? by markmoss · · Score: 2

    Just one question: how do they make the touchscreen out of 3 inch armor steel so as to stand up to enraged Klingons?

  69. "You made up a language based on a TV show..." by dpilot · · Score: 2

    "That's not right. You there... Policeman... Please take me away from this insanity."

    spoken by 'Cave Guy' aka 'Royce '
    from the cartoon 'Freakazoid'
    (quote approximate)

    Not only are we making up a language based on a TV show, we're making up a computer programming language based on that.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  70. To the authors: by Woodblock · · Score: 1
  71. var'aq by willhelm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The guy who made var'aq is this guy I knew in college. He's a fascinating fellow--only he could create something like var'aq.

    Anyhow, the interesting thing about var'aq is that because it runs on Perl, it's pretty ubiquitous meaning that if you really hate your job and feel the need for revenge, just go rewrite the production administration scripts in var'aq and then quit.

    1. Re:var'aq by pne · · Score: 3, Informative

      Anyhow, the interesting thing about var'aq is that because it runs on Perl, it's pretty ubiquitous meaning that if you really hate your job and feel the need for revenge, just go rewrite the production administration scripts in var'aq and then quit.

      You can get a similar effect by translating your scripts to use a source filter such as Lingua::Romana::Perligata or the newer Lingua::Sinica::PerlYuYan. Read Perl in the original Latin or Middle Chinese!

      --
      Esli epei etot cumprenan, shris soa Sfaha.
    2. Re:var'aq by geekoid · · Score: 2

      You forgot the last part of the revenge scenerio:
      Contract back at 250 an hour, take 2 years to fixit and rub your boss nose in your new sportscar.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  72. Google Cache by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  73. Klingon Programs by msheppard · · Score: 2

    Klingon Programs are not released, they escape.

    --
    Krispy Cream is people
  74. Klingon Programmers by msheppard · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Top 12 things likely to be overheard if you had a Klingon programmer in your company.

    12. Specifications are for the weak and timid!

    11. This machine is a piece of GAGH! I need dual Pentium processors if I am to do battle with this code!

    10. You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you've heard it read in the original Klingon.

    9. Indentation?! -- I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!!

    8. What is this talk of "release"? Klingons do not make software "releases." Our software "escapes," leaving a bloody trail of designers and testers in its wake.

    7. Klingon function calls do not have "parameters"- they have "arguments"- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM!

    6. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.

    5. I have challenged the entire testing team to a Bat-Lath contest. They will not concern us again.

    4. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code

    3. By filing this incident report you have challenged the honour of my family. Prepare to die!

    2. You question the worthiness of my code?! I should kill you where you stand!

    1. Our users will know fear and cower before our software. Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!

    --
    Krispy Cream is people
    1. Re:Klingon Programmers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget "Today is a good day to blue screen!"

    2. Re:Klingon Programmers by Shade,+The · · Score: 1

      Sounds like a Microsoft programmer.

    3. Re:Klingon Programmers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I suppose the phrase would' be more likely to be heard from a Klingon end user of a MS app or os.

    4. Re:Klingon Programmers by TheAwfulTruth · · Score: 2

      You haven't looked at much O.S. code have you?

      --
      Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
  75. Rules of Acquisition by Pac · · Score: 2

    1024. Bugs are bad for business
    2048. Bugs are good for business

  76. Re:confusing - Klingon Dialect of Perl by monecky · · Score: 1

    Do a search for Lingua::tlhInganHol::yIghun

    Damian is pretty darn crazy. Not only did he release a Latin dialect, but Klingon is in the works.

    --
    http://jones.ling.indiana.edu/~prrodrig
  77. A Bundle of Klingon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    This story is absolutely gay.


  78. Oh My God... by Amazing+Quantum+Man · · Score: 2

    Oh My God, you killed the site! You Bastards!

    The site has exceeded it's data limit, according to GeoCities!

    --
    Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
  79. Re:OS and Hardware: What OS??? by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

    They don't; they use transparent aluminum to protect the display, and use SAW (standing acoustic wave) technology to sense touch on the aluminum. We could probably do it with current human technology if we wished.

  80. Klingon Response by virg_mattes · · Score: 2

    While the Klingon language is littered with apostrophes, your statement shouldn't be, pitiful pa'taQ.

    Virg

    P.S. Although the Klingon people are a fictitious entity, the Klingon language is not. It was originally assembled into a partial vocabulary by a fellow whose name escapes me, which has since then grown into a moderately usable language, much in the stripe of J.R.R. Tolkein's Elvish tongue.

    1. Re:Klingon Response by Halloween+Jack · · Score: 1

      Marc Okrand. Besides inventing Klingon, I believe he has also done work for the closed-captioning people.

      --
      I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into me--and we both winked.
    2. Re:Klingon Response by cburley · · Score: 1
      Marc Okrand. Besides inventing Klingon, I believe he has also done work for the closed-captioning people.

      Let's teach him a lesson and start an Open Captioning Foundation.

      ;-)

      --
      Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
    3. Re:Klingon Response by gorilla · · Score: 2
      a fellow whose name escapes me,

      Marc Okrand. He's a linguist for the National Captioning Insitutute. His PhD was in Gender and Plurality in Rendille.

  81. Re:There are many more esoteric programming langua by ThaReetLad · · Score: 1

    Has anyone considered the virtues of a Smurf programming language, where all variables shall be named "smurf" and the actual operation depends upon the context?

    --
    You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
  82. HTTP/1.1 402 Payment Required by yerricde · · Score: 2

    ERROR 404. Your have not met the required funds to view this page.

    The HTTP RFC actually specifies such an error code: HTTP/1.1 402 Payment Required

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  83. Re:There are many more esoteric programming langua by GiMP · · Score: 2

    And would eatting the meal be considered illegal as well? Imagine giving it to the judge of the DeCSS case.. having him eat it, and then explain to him what he has just eatten :)

    I think he would become very forgiving :)

  84. If Klingons don't have bathrooms on their ships by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 2

    They probably don't have something marking the end of statements, either, since a real warrior doesn't mind the discomfort of cramming everything on one line.

    There might just be something to those rumors of Guido van Russom's batleff collection...

  85. Var'aq by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Var'aq: Brings new meaning to the program Codewarrior...

  86. reader of slashdot: reality check by melquiades · · Score: 2

    Google doesn't cache images, and they're what choke web servers, since they generally consume both more bandwidth and more hits than the pages themselves. If you look at the Google cache of a page with six images, you still generate six hits on the actual server. So basically, this would generate a lot of no-revenue traffic for Google without helping the small sites survive Slashdotting much at all.

    Charming idea, though.

    1. Re:reader of slashdot: reality check by gimpboy · · Score: 2

      i hadnt thought of that, but there are other options. slashdot could provide a mirror, for a limited time, of the site if the editor thinks the site cannot handle it (mirror, wget, etc). hell this could even be encorporated into slashcode. i personally think the editors should be held a little more responsible for the effect they have on smaller websites. when i think about the /. effect i think of a giant child walking through a popluated village.

      --
      -- john
  87. PUNY HUMAN SITE by geekoid · · Score: 2

    This geocities is weak.
    It has dishonored itself by crashing after just a few puny connections!

    I would like to preface this by saying, yes, I know Klingons are fictional.

    Consider, the only contact Terrans have had with Klingons is confrontational. Naturally are perspective of them is scued. The must be technical side of there culture and it has to have less confrontational means of imparting information. Other wise it would look something like this
    "The compiler would optimize your code if you did this instead"
    "How dare you insult my programming skills, we must battle to the death!"
    Not the best way to get ahead.
    OTOH it must be nice being able to challenge spammer to the death!

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  88. Re:Ferengi? - sounds like MS/NET by Shivetya · · Score: 2

    are you sure that isn't MS.NET?

    --
    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
  89. It's not slashdotted... ; ) by Thag · · Score: 3, Funny

    They just engaged the cloaking device!

    Jon Acheson

    --
    All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
  90. Yeah, it would be called ENRON by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Book keeping and kooking features would automate the book cooking process depending upon the target species and their particular mental abilities and weaknesses.

    Program structure would be functional with a high reliance on exception handling (with would be called AuditFlags and would be handled by diffrent classes of AuditHandlers) For example:

    All programs would have one main function: makemoney() and then would run without further intervention until crashing at which point the global cleanup function hidemoney() would be invoked. If for some reason hidemoney() raised an AuditFlag it would be handled by destoryevidence() which if it raised a further AuditFlag would be handled by runaway().

    ;)

  91. Non-traditional Klingon Dispute Resolution Methods by Kamel+Jockey · · Score: 1

    "How dare you insult my programming skills, we must battle to the death!"

    If memory serves, the Klingons came up with a way of doing "play fights" among warriors to settle disputes so that one or both would not end up dead. The primary reason for this was that in times of war, so many warriors would die in fights such as these that victory would not be possible.

    However, sometimes it is better to have fewer coders working on a major project :)

    --
    In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
  92. Not in a million years by jabber01 · · Score: 2

    I can't believe I'm actually getting into an argument about the feasibility of "Klingons".. *sigh*

    Ok, you say that Klingon women who are weaker and therefore not able to do 'honorable' things much are responsible for Klingon advancement? Who builds the ships?

    Would a great and honorable warrior lift a finger to implement the specs of a designed they do not see as an equal? Really.. If someone you look down upon told you what to do, how would you react?

    Certainly a strong, honorable and enlightenned leader could require warriors to build according to their females design, but this would either:

    a) Elevate the status of females to euqlly honorable to males, or

    b) end with the death of the leader, probably premature, for the continual humiliation of honorable warriors by forcing them to do work they consider dishonorable.

    The only alternative I see to all this, while still maintaining the intellectual role of the Klingon female, is slave labor.

    Males fight and rule.. Females design.. Slaves implement the designs under guard of males. That's the only way it could work.. But, with the exception of prison camps (ST-VI) we've not seen Klingons as keeping slaves.

    If slaves were used to such a degree as to build cities, space ships, power plants and so forth, they would necessarily be an integral part of the Klingon culture. They are not.

    --

    The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
    What you do today will cost you a day of your life

    1. Re:Not in a million years by connorbd · · Score: 2

      Actually, the idea that Klingon hackers are women is something I agree with. The problem with slave labor is that while it might apply in the commercial sector, the risk of a back door in, say, an airlock controller aboard a Klingon battlecruiser from a rebellious slave programmer is too great.

      There's precedent in our own culture too; the long-forgotten ENIAC programmers were all women, and they had a status about on a par with secretaries in those days.

      /Brian

    2. Re:Not in a million years by Banjonardo · · Score: 1
      wait, you didn't just reply to a post discussing the feasibility of Klingons, did you?

      Oh, God, not an a)b) list.

      Dear lord.

      --

      -----

      Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton

    3. Re:Not in a million years by Insanity · · Score: 1

      I too have trouble believing that I actually have something to add to a conversation about the feasability of klingons, but here goes...

      There was a particular episode of DS9 where Worf was on trial for the destruction of a civilian transport, and his prosecutor was a klingon, and yes, a male.

      Basically, he made the prosecution his battle. Anything can be approached with that mentality: a desire to overcome an enemy, even the limitations of one's own mind, can be a strong driving force for development.

      Even for us, engineering started out as the development of machines of war... there would certainly be honor in that... so long as something can be construed as advancing the dominance of the empire, it could be honored and respected.

      Of course, this is me being a pathetic apologist fanboy... your points are perfectly valid: trek is downright sloppy in some areas.

      --
      Nix absolutably seriousness.
    4. Re:Not in a million years by Arker · · Score: 2

      I can't believe I'm actually getting into an argument about the feasibility of "Klingons".. *sigh*

      Why not? Certainly there is a degree of silliness to the subject, but that hardly makes it unworthy of discussion.


      Ok, you say that Klingon women who are weaker and therefore not able to do 'honorable' things much are responsible for Klingon advancement? Who builds the ships?... Males fight and rule.. Females design.. Slaves implement the designs under guard of males. That's the only way it could work.. But, with the exception of prison camps (ST-VI) we've not seen Klingons as keeping slaves.

      The lowest class of males, the civilians (those that have been rejected for military service) do the manual labour and other low level tasks, all the while struggling for a chance to show themselves worthy of being allowed into the military of course. The military females, however, dominate the more technical positions. And yes, that does mean they have more honour than those poor civilian males. And yes, those males don't like that one bit. But the males who did make it into the military would happily slaughter them if they tried to revolt. So they aren't the slaves of your scenario, exactly, but there is certainly a level of coercion involved in getting them to work. The klingon leaders have long known the value of good weapons - and will do what they have to in order to acquire them.


      This system is made fairly explicit in several DS9 episodes, the Klingon General (Martok?) was rejected by the military and served for a time as a civilian contractor, the lowest of the low in Klingon society, before a ship he was on was boarded and he managed to impress the commander in the battle that ensued, earning a battlefield commission.

      --
      =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
      Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
    5. Re:Not in a million years by gorilla · · Score: 2

      Interesting enough, in Victorian times, secretaries were usually male. It's only in the 20C that women started becoming secretaries, and dominating the field. In paraellel, the status & pay of the job decreased.

  93. I hate to get serious about this... by hotsauce · · Score: 1

    ...but Klingons throw things together until they work. The best of the hacker culture. I imagine shell scripts, Perl, REALBasic... whatever works at the time.

    The Klingons are also known for redundancy. I imagine the hardware could be thrown across the room and it would still work. The OS would have to be distributed in such a hacked, complex fashion as to be not understandable.

    1. Re:I hate to get serious about this... by Bazman · · Score: 2

      plus i imagine the keyboard would have to be reinforced for when the frustrated Klingon programmer bashes his or her head against it.

  94. Do we need this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We already have a language designed by Klingons...

    ...It's called Visual Basic

    <rimshot>barrump</rimshot>

  95. How did Klingons develop science at all?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The thing i never understood is how klingons ever reached the stars at all.

    Perhaps their warrior race has a caste system (much like that confusious) in which warriors are
    the only class that is not "untouchable"

    1. Re:How did Klingons develop science at all?? by _Shad0w_ · · Score: 1

      They got warp technology from someone else if I remember correctly (or took it more probably).

      --

      Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.

    2. Re:How did Klingons develop science at all?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I could go out right now and
      steal an F-15 from the local AFB.
      And gee it would like, just maintain
      itself right. For years and years and
      years, no need for me to know nuttin
      about no math or metalurgy or lectronics.
      I could start my 0wn country and klingon
      empire.

      yeah right!!

    3. Re:How did Klingons develop science at all?? by _Shad0w_ · · Score: 1

      Nothing to stop you learning how technology works once you have it, anyway I've checked and they developed it themselves after the Klingon Unifcation.

      Yes I am sad. No, I don't care.

      --

      Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.

    4. Re:How did Klingons develop science at all?? by RobertEdwards · · Score: 1

      Now now, it all starts to make sense when you realize the Klingons on TV are from the Marketing and HR departments.

      The sensible, hard working Klingons stay at home and happily pay taxes to ship those bozos off planet.

  96. Get a Life! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When I read this topic the very first thing it made me think of was that famous Saturday Night Live Skit back in 1987 starring William "Kirk" Shatner. He was at a Star Trek convention being hounded about a safe combinations (by episode number, not title) by people with pointed ears, Bill tells these people to "get a life", citing the need to "move out of your mother's basement" and experience the real world.

    Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of the show(s), own many on VHS and DVD, but ...

    Get a Life!

  97. Re:OS and Hardware: What OS??? by b1t+r0t · · Score: 2
    Ask the people who make data terminals for stock brokers. Apparently they have a tendency to smash their keyboards, then call tech support saying their computer "just stopped working".

    P.S. I am not making this up.

    --

    --
    "Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
    "Open source is evil." - Microsoft
  98. Re:What the FUCK does that mean? by _Shad0w_ · · Score: 1

    <troll>No, it's just we know the only the people worth talking to will understand it.<troll>

    At least we're not affraid to post as ourselves - post and loose karma...hmm, possibly a slight paraphrase of Publish and Be Damned; if so appologies to the (then) Duke of Wellington.

    --

    Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.

  99. Re:OS and Hardware: What OS??? by Lars+T. · · Score: 2

    Actually, they'd use something like the Apple Pro Mouse - incredibly sturdy and offers non confusing one button operation.

    --

    Lars T.

    To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  100. It is a good day to exceed my bandwidth! by Aexia · · Score: 1

    Geocities is truly without honor!

  101. Klingon computing: i18n by Rob+Kaper · · Score: 2
    A few months ago I had the idea of translating KDE into Klingon (and later to reuse those translations for other projects).

    I did not find a lot of useful responses on the tlhIngan-Hol mailinglist of the Klingon Language Institute, but perhaps this is the right place (and time) to ask.

    Please decipher my e-mail address and contact me if you're interested.

  102. Intel C Compiler for Linux, evaluation crack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    #!/bin/sh

    ##
    ## haX0red Intel C/C++ Compiler
    ##
    ## This simple shell script will h4x0r the icc compiler so that
    ## it skips the check for a valid license file. I was inspired
    ## to do this because of the asshole Intel engineer at
    ## LinuxWorld 2002 who did everything he could to dodge
    ## my questions about Intel's compiler and other general rudeness.
    ##
    ## I developed this hack against this version:
    ##
    ## Intel(R) C++ Compiler for 32-bit applications, Version 5.0.1 Build 010730D0
    ## Copyright (C) 1985-2001 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
    ##
    ##
    ## Usage:
    ## Install the Intel C compiler. Don't download a license!
    ##
    ## Make sure to import all of the variables that the compiler
    ## needs to function (it won't work with vanilla include/libraries)
    ##
    ## Enjoy!
    ##

    echo 'break *0x8056451' > /tmp/icc.hack.
    echo "run $*" >> /tmp/icc.hack.
    echo 'jump *0x80567d0' >> /tmp/icc.hack.

    gdb -batch -x /tmp/icc.hack. icc
    rm /tmp/icc.hack.

  103. Groaner by Danborg · · Score: 1

    What does the Starship Enterprise and Charmin bathroom tissue have in common?

    They both orbit URANUS in search of KLINGONS.

  104. Warriors do not submit to anti-trust legislation by PsiPsiStar · · Score: 2

    If the federal government dares to intrude upon my corporation again, then I Mog, son of Gates, will will give them a taste of my bat'le. Glory to the empire!

    --

    ___
    It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
  105. Honor of a kilngon by DEFFENDER · · Score: 1

    think of it this way, no microsoft code monkey or defender of said work of satin would/could use this. it would be like a vampire drinking consicarted water. Kilngons have honor and only attack when dishonored. microsoft has proven itself to be backstabing. i like the idea of some Microsoft can't support. that may just be me.... but i think not. ^_^

    --
    Careful what you say around me.. I will assume you mean it.
  106. And Var'aq Programmers.... by LittleGuy · · Score: 1

    ... drink large quantities of prune juice for all-night sessions.

    --
    Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
  107. Need Help writing the compiler? by dghcasp · · Score: 1
    I'll do the error handling..

    void
    handleParseError(int lineno, char *line)
    {
    printf("Your code has no honour at line %d",lineno);
    teachThemALesson();
    }

    void
    teachThemALesson(void)
    {
    deleteRandomFile();
    screwUpOperatingSystem();
    applyKloGGHbyFourToProgrammer();
    saveHonourByExploding();
    }

    Var'aq: Like Windows With Weapons...

  108. Re:Not in a million yearsd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Klingons have become more and more unrealistically depicted. Their depiction these days implies that rational calm thought is not a necessity for developing advanced engineering and science. Without some additional facility (e.g. hive minds) I find that hard to believe. It would be like expecting WWF wrestlers or LA gang members to product large numbers of PhD candidates. I think that I preferred the scheming totalitarians from the old star trek..

  109. Good only for the worthless - OT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So the site "exceeded it's data transfer limit." Which means to me that if you are doing _anything_ of real interest, don't put it on Geocities. Which also means that anything on Geocities must be crap -- so it ain't worth looking there...

    1. Re:Good only for the worthless - OT by connorbd · · Score: 2

      Just keep in mind the following: you're talking about a geek (me) whose fastest computer is a Pentium II that I bought for less than $200 last year. Believe me, after getting slashdotted I understand why people pay, but I still can't afford any better.

      Sorry folks...

      /Brian

  110. Base 3.... by JMZero · · Score: 2

    ...makes sense really, as 3 is the closest integer base to e. This minimizes the value of (number of different symbols) * (number of symbols required to express n digits).

    We should all use Base 3. Maybe....

    .

    --
    Let's not stir that bag of worms...
  111. What a bunch of fucking trekkie losers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That you think this is cool.

    Now I've confirmed why most of you have trouble getting laid.

  112. Forget Klingon.... by Daniel+Wood · · Score: 1

    How about Elvish? With the release of LotR: FotR a few short weeks ago, everyone wants to know more about Elvish. Then again, I don't know how to say "Hello World!" in Klingon, much less Elvish. :)

  113. MOD THE PARENT UP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nt.

  114. Clean room?? by ocie · · Score: 2

    Is it just me, or does the idea of a Klingon dressed up in one of those 'bunny suits' to go into a clean room just make you giggle.

    --
    JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
  115. Re:There are many more esoteric programming langua by majcher · · Score: 2

    My favorite esoteric language is also on that site, Piet. It's the only language I can think of, aside from Befunge, that uses a 2-D array - an image, actually, that's supposed to look like abstract art - and direction, movement, etc, for instructions and program control. Someone *ahem* also wrote an interpreter for Piet with Perl and ImageMagick - Piet::Interpreter. Look for it on a CPAN near you.

  116. Re:There are many more esoteric programming langua by connorbd · · Score: 2

    The esolang culture is actually what inspired me to create var'aq in the first place. Chris Pressey, creator of Befunge and the person most directly responsible for giving me the idea for Var'aq in the first place; the Klingon angle happened to be the most convenient of its kind. I thought of doing an Elvish programming language as well (i.e. Sindarin-based) but Tolkien somehow left out virtually every mention of Elvish hackers in LotR :-)

    I've also kicked around the idea of a programming language based on Latin based on Chris' thoughts on using inflection in a programming language, but it's not one of those things that seems to come together easily...

    /Brian

  117. Vulcan programming language by bero-rh · · Score: 2

    Guess the Vulcans can do it, as well...

    A small http client written in SPOCK (Simple Programming-Oriented Computer Kode [yes, Vulcans use KDE ;) ]):


    server=mindmeld(127.0.0.1:80);

    if(server.type==Human) // Try harder
    server.send("rm -rf emotions");

    if(server.state==illogical)
    eyebrow->raise(); // fatal error condition

    think("GET / HTTP/1.1\nHost: 127.0.0.1\n\n");

    --
    This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
  118. Re:There are many more esoteric programming langua by slamb · · Score: 2, Funny

    Illegal or not, it would certainly be disgusting. Did you actually read the "Hello World" recipe? No one in their right mind would eat that.

  119. Re:There are many more esoteric programming langua by Repton · · Score: 1

    There already is a Latin variant of Perl, in which the meaning of reserved words is given by the ending, thus allowing you to vary your word order :-)

    The module is Lingua::Romana::Perligata.

    --
    Repton.
    They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
  120. Re:There are many more esoteric programming langua by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 1
    I've also kicked around the idea of a programming language based on Latin based on Chris' thoughts on using inflection in a programming language, but it's not one of those things that seems to come together easily...
    Take a look at Damian Conway's Perl module named Lingua::Romana::Perligata.

    From the README:

    NOMEN

    Lingua::Romana::Perligata -- Perl in Latin

    DESCRIPTIO

    The Lingua::Romana::Perligata makes it possible to write Perl programs in Latin. (If you have to ask "Why?", then the answer probably won't make any sense to you either.)

    The linguistic principles behind Perligata are described in:

    http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/ Perligata.html

    The module is `use'd at the start of the program, and installs a filter which allows the rest of the program to be written in (modified) Latin, as described in the accompanying documentation.

    (...)

    --

    ~shiny
    WILL HACK FOR $$$

  121. Evidence that Geocities ads are not profitable by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    (* do you think it would be possible to post links to google cache in the main story? i'm sure the owners of the web sites would prefer it. *)

    If geocities ads *were* profitable, then they would not care how many hits they got (from different readers). They used to allow a bunch of hits. For example, my anti-OOP website on geocities faired okay under slashdotting before the dot-com budget meltdowns. It was slow during the article's first day of exposure, but still came up.

    Now they have quotas. Thus, ads on free websites must not pull their own weight. (It must be the pay-per sex chat and photo clubs that keep them alive.)

  122. Klingon R&D by No+Such+Agency · · Score: 2

    I think the point people are trying to make is that Mongols, while reliant on technologies like metallurgy, weaving, tanning etc., were not a highly technological civilization which had to use complex, self-contained starships to travel around. Basically, one has to assume that the "warrior class" of Klingons are not entirely representative, but are in fact the only ones who are commonly seen by outsiders. Obviously there must be farmers, technicians, etc. *somewhere* or the warriors starve, and the ships break down, and then where is your precious Empire? And no, they can't just loot everything - you might be able to make a go of waging interstellar war for food, but, as somebody else in this thread says, who would trust slaves to build starships? I would guess that other professions would not be seen as being as "honorable" as warriors, but would have their own place in Klingon society.

    --
    Freedom: "I won't!"
  123. Aiya Ambar by Fjodor42 · · Score: 0

    Just found this

    --
    "The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."
  124. *sigh* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    please people, stop bastardizing the concept of a warrior more than it already has been. Perhaps I have seen way to many gung ho marines that ran very successful engineering firms.

  125. Re:Rob Malda's Wild "Open Sauce" Geek Adventure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that was kinda scary

    no, that was very scary

    I'm still trying to avoid puking about the ending.

  126. Re:OS and Hardware: What OS??? by hughk · · Score: 2
    Actually, I have found it is better to use standard keyboards for traders. I have used some wonderful multi-function keyboards, but they get trashed as fast as the simple ones. It is better to use a standard/cheap keyboard that you can discard as soon as the trader trashes it (either intentionally or by spilling coffee in it).

    Klingons are probably somewhat more rational than some traders that I know! However some traders would love to have a "Launch Photon Torpedoes" button.

    --
    See my journal, I write things there