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John Carmack, Rocket Boy
will_edit_for_food writes "Space Future has an interview with John Carmack (of Doom and Quake fame) about his new company Armadillo Aerospace and their plans to build a passenger-carrying vehicle for space tourism." Carmack's involvement with unconventional rocketry is well-known, but this interview offers a glimpse into the details of Armadillo's approach to the skies.
Promoting John Carmack's venture could really use the help of Art Bell. He has an excellent track record of publicizing unorthodox space ventures. And Art Bell is one of the few venues which will reach a larger audience than Slashdot! For those unfamiliar with Art Bell, he hosts a nightly radio show which is heard worldwide. It is devoted to space exploration and "midnight" engineering.
Pets often make for a delightful addition to any family. After all, what's cuter than waking up to the gentle affectionate licks of a small kitten or the delicate barks of an excited puppy?
However, unfortunate circumstances may sometimes come about and you may have to make the most difficult choice of your life: just how should you go about murdering your pet?
It's happened to the best of us. You and your life partner decide that new carpeting would make a positively delightful addition to your suburban home. But you both know that you can't trust Max to only release waste when outdoors, so it's either the carpet or the puppy that has to go. Being the intelligent person that you are, you wisely decide to end Max's life; after all, the carpet will cost upwards of fifteen hundred dollars, whereas Max was only a few Benjamins.
So, how do you go about killing the sweet innocent puppy without anyone knowing that it was murder and not an accident?
If you didn't already have a normal walking regiment with your dog, start one. Find a park nearby to take your pet, but ensure that it has some body of water.
Most people don't realize that cats will act fairly well on the end of a leash as well! So, don't hesitate to buy a specialized cat leash from the mall pet store just for your cat or kitten. Getting them used to walks will only take a few days or so.
So, at this point, you should be taking your cat or dog on regular walks near a lake or pond of some sort. The next installment will give detailed instructions on the next part of your secret plan, so be sure to visit this site again in a couple of days.
Smile -- you're now 33% closer to having one less "family" member!
-
26 year-old Web developer from Seattle. And yes, chicks do dig *nix
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It's when you get distracted by the politickers that they sideline you. The tireless work that you perform keeping the system clean and building is what provides the platform for the obsessives and the prima donnas to have their moments in the sun. In the end, we need you all; in order to go forwards we must first avoid going backwards.
To the paranoid conspiracy theorists - yes, I work for Apple too. No, my resignation wasn't on Steve's direct orders, or in any way related to work I'm doing, may do, may not do, or indeed what was in the tea I had at lunchtime today. It's about real problems that the project faces, real problems that the project has brought upon itself. You can't escape them by inventing excuses about outside influence, the problem stems from within.
To the politically obsessed - give it a break, if you can. No, the project isn't a lemonade stand anymore, but it's not a world-spanning corporate juggernaut either and some of the more grandiose visions going around are in need of a solid dose of reality. Keep it simple, stupid.
To the grandstanders, the prima donnas, and anyone that thinks that they can hold the project to ransom for their own agenda - give it a break, if you can. When the current core were elected, we took a conscious stand against vigorous sanctions, and some of you have exploited that. A new core is going to have to decide whether to repeat this mistake or get tough. I hope they learn from our errors.
Future
I started work on FreeBSD because it was fun. If I'm going to continue, it has to be fun again. There are things I still feel obligated to do, and with any luck I'll find the time to meet those obligations.
However I don't feel an obligation to get involved in the political mess the project is in right now. I tried, I burnt out. I don't feel that my efforts were worthwhile. So I won't be standing for election, I won't be shouting from the sidelines, and I probably won't vote in the next round of ballots.
You could say I'm packing up my toys. I'm not going home just yet, but I'm not going to play unless you can work out how to make the project somewhere fun to be again.
= Mike
--
errr....not?
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
Know your enemy. Study this list of Jews trying to destroy your freedom:
- Rosen
- Coble
- Berman
- Eisner
- Redstone
The Jews never create anything. They are the parasites who wedge themselves between the producer and the consumer. The Jew takes a slice of every pie that passes by. What the Jew hates is that the Internet is cutting him off from his host. The artists can now distribute directly to their fans. The Internet has made the Jew irrelevant. So the Jew tries to buy the politician to do his bidding. The Jew tries to get bought politicians to pass bogus regulations in order to maintain Jew hegemony over the consumer.Listen and learn about the Jew in this mp3.
Learn the Truth about the Jew
And at the Nuremberg Tribunal, chief U.S. prosecutor Robert Jackson charged that the Germans used a "newly invented" device to instantaneously "vaporize" 20,000 Jews near Auschwitz "in such a way that there was no trace left of them." No reputable historian now accepts either of these fanciful tales. These lies are cooked up so that money can be extracted for the supposed "victims".
.. your 'deep link' to npr is now broken : )
Now no one has ever ascribed rhetorical gifts to Hillary, as boring a speaker as one is ever likely to hear. And yet her disciplined admirers had so worked themselves into an emotionally charged state that they reacted to Hillary's droning as of it were electrifying rhetoric. This spectacle is so alien to American political tradition and so totalitarian in its subtext that I felt an unpleasant tingling sensation, one I had no trouble in associating with a dreadful feeling of foreboding.
The fanatical response of Hillary's disciples made me think that something very special in America was being extinguished. I think I now know how those decent Germans who valued civilized traditions and the best in Western thought must have felt as they saw the malevolent Hitler and his fanatical followers drag Germany into an intellectual dark age.
That something very unAmerican (a terribly reactionary word) was going to happen was presaged by the deliberately disgusting behavior of some of Hillary's admirers before the conference began. Proudly carrying Ol' Glory an Albany Police Honor Guard in full-dress uniform led the Police Department's Pipes and Bags into the Pepsi Arena, only to be spat on by Hillary supporters and abused as "Nazis" and "members of the Third Reich." This vile behavior was no aberration. This is exactly what so-called new Democrats (the intellectual dregs of our humanities and legal departments) really think. To them uniforms and the Stars and Stripes symbolise oppression, racism, sexism, rape (except when Bill Clinton does it) capitalism and probably even child abuse.
Did Hillary apologise for her supporters' behavior? Of course not. Did the New York media rush to report it? No way. Christopher Hitchens, a left-wing writer, observed that the New York media is just an extension of the Clinton political machine; a fact he found especially disturbing. Under the Clintons freedom of the press has now come to mean freedom to apply with impunity the politics of personal destruction to the Democrats' enemies. These Democrats and their media toadies are without integrity or honor. They are people who entertain only contempt for patriotism, the Constitution and those values that made the Republic the envy of the world.
Despite what some may think, I'm not exaggerating when I say a Hillary victory will pose a long-term danger to American liberties. Putting aside her support for the drug-peddling Black Panthers, her White Water shenanigans, her perjury, the vicious role she played in trashing her husband's victims or even her cruel treatment of Billy Dale and the White House Travel Office staff, etc., there is also her support for the administration's assault on the fourth amendment.
It is now indisputable that her husband and Reno violated the fourth in the Elian Gonzalez case. Moreover, this pair are in the process of inserting a secret search measure that would allow any federal agency to not only enter without warning and without a warrant any American home and search it but to also enter any home in the absence of the owner or tenant. In other words, they would have the 'legal' right to break into any home at will and search it in complete defiance of the fourth amendment.
If this latest Clinton outrage is not a threat to American liberties I'm at a complete loss to know what is. But before any American complains let him first recall that this fascist measure is intended to formalise what Clinton and Reno did to Elian Gonzalez and his Miami relatives. Those who supported that attack on the Constitution are in imminent danger of reaping what they helped sow.
The irony has not been lost on those who fully understand that the Constitution was designed by wise men to frustrate the inordinate political ambitions of those like the Clintons who believe they have the right to use power in any way they see fit, even if it means destroying the Constitution and the liberties it was meant to protect.
Niggers and wogs have no right to be here. They belong in their homeland, not ours.
Join with us in restoring Britain - British National Party
I'm updating my journal entry which is almost a copy of this post. Its very early in the morning where I am and this might be just as bad as my first entry, but I believe this is better. If you want to reply you can use the journal entry.
If you really read my journal you know I'm not initially or ever advocating "providing everybody with the same material wealth". Instead I would have the wealthy nations provide more food, birth control, and education to the poorer countries than currently happens.
Why is it that Marxism/Communism can only exist when it is enforced in oppressive authoritarian dictatorships? Because human nature causes most people to think only of themselves, their immediate friends, family, and about two generations of children ahead. Eventual great grandchildren will have to fend for themselves, as will the rest of the state/country/world. Consider the socialist properties of the Canadian health care system and several semi-socialist countries in northern Europe. I admit my ignorance about the details, but in general the haves pay a lot of taxes so the have-not get much more decent health care, and in the N.Euro. countries, education, and housing. These are not authoritarian dictatorships.
Remember when a lot of electronics were made in Japan, but as Japan became a first world country the factories moved to Taiwan and China? Same with clothing and shoes to Mexico, China, and Indonesia? What do you think will happen if eventually every country in the world raises itself to first world status? Where will Americans get cheap Nikes? Prices could double or triple as labor costs increase. How many middle-class Americans will pay for the equivalent of $200 Nikes? What will happen to Nike's bottom line? Just as poor Chinese and Mexicans today can get flip-flops and clothes for a fraction of American prices, so will the majority of the middle class in the future. Instead of brand name clothing, it will be as generic and cheap as possible.
This works for clothing, but what about electronics and other luxury items? I envision a mother-board going for $300 by today's prices because labor costs in Taiwan will cost the same there as in the USA. So there are massive layoffs in entertainment / electronics companies. All the out of work people will not be able to afford services putting others out of work and causing a global recession. Labor prices will drop in response and possibly there is a balance that can be achieved. At what cost though? The middle class as we know it in America is priced out of many luxury items and services, so for the same amount of work, a dollar doesn't go as far.
Here's where I start talking about the environment. The earth has 6,000,000,000 people living on it. Many educated people who make their living studying the effects of humanity on the planet think that is too many for the earth to remain in its present condition. If those six billion people all want to live a lifestyle like that of the average American, it would take eight earths to provide that much and still keep the nature and population balance. So either our planet ends up striped clean of all biodiversity and resources, at which point the six billion people go to war over what has been acquired, or some serious efforts are made to reduce the population and waste being generated. One way to reduce the population is with birth control. Half the people on this earth follow a religion that generally frowns on this. Another option is by education and feeding the people living now. In every nation where the standard of living improved, birthrates went down as families no longer needed huge families to work the fields, or help work in factories to support the family. Parents no longer felt they needed as many children caring for them in old age, and having large families became recognized as a financial burden. This is why if you look at paragraph two you see "I would have the wealthy nations provide more food, birth control, and education to the poorer countries than currently happens."
How to pay for these three things? Not an easy question and I'm no economist. I'm still in college and I wouldn't have posted that journal entry if I didn't want it ripped to shreds so I could learn more. I admit I want to turn some heads and get more people to think how I think about this topic, but I will gladly listen to anyone who can offer different future scenarios. Tell me why capitalism will educate the poor counties and save the planet before humans overrun earth like locusts. I see parts, not all, of socialism as the best solution to this problem. When it comes to reducing waste I am much less certain than I was when I wrote the first journal entry. Capitalism is excellent for finding a balance between supply and demand, but how is it possible to cut out the fat and waste? If companies quit competing against each other and instead worked together, huge marketing costs would be saved and prices could be lower for goods, but the marketing industry would lose jobs, not to mention companies wouldn't put as much into R&D. Innovation slows, and if profit is capped too low people won't work as hard because there won't be the same amount of gain. Like I said earlier, though, six billion people would require eight earths to let them drive SUVs, have 50" wide-screen TVs and bathe in scented oil from The Body Shop. It seems to me if six billion people want equality there are going to be many sacrifices ahead. Capitalism doesn't seem well suited for this job, but representative democratic socialism just might be.