Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Pop-Ups, Books, Qmail
What's your idea of feel-good literature? A few weeks ago, an Ask Slashdot question was posed about the greatest dystopic novels, and quite a few people weighed in with their choices for visions of the post-nuclear, post-germ-warfare, post-natural disaster or otherwise blighted future.
Now reader itwerx wants the other side: "That "Dystopic novels?" Ask Slashdot was so darn depressing we need a counter balance! Let's hear what novels of utopia may not be widely known."
It's certainly widely known, but I'll start the bidding with Atlas Shrugged.
The best revenge is living well, and gluing spammers end-to-end. RealDhar writes "Hey, just thought I'd let folks know that, inspired by the recent article about Paul Graham's Bayesian spam filter work, I went and wrote one for qmail. Please check it out!"
What took so long? Pop-up ads are no fun. iVillage cut them out, AOL swears they're cutting back, and even Netscape 7 can be wrangled to block them. An anonymous reader writes "From the Associated Press (via Salon): EarthLink Inc. said Monday it plans to offer its subscribers software to block Internet pop-up advertisements as part of a wider campaign to set itself apart from competitors. The full story is here.."
Penguins and picnics go well together. ArtEnvironment writes "Besides today's 2nd California Linux Anniversary Picnic previously mentioned, there will also be PLUS, the Philadelphia Linux/Unix Symposium which is the 2nd annual East-Coast Linux anniversary picnic and more, including a bar night kicking off Friday the 23rd, a free computer/electronics swap meet and giveaway on Saturday the 24th, and of course the picnic on Sunday the 25th. Also included is one of the well-known PLUG GPG Keysigning parties. PLUS will be an annual grass-roots event, but it 'won't be big and professional like' ALS or LWCE. ;)"
I look forward to the final, triumphant mention of this :) Qbertino writes "The Blender Fund, established a month ago in order to buy the IP of the 3D Pakage Blender and, at last, GPL it, has accumulated 90K Euro (90K$) of the required 100K in less than 4 weeks. As it indicates on the Website, Ton Roosendahl, father of Blender, is preparing to release the sources which should happen within the next week or so. Time for a Blender icon on /."
I vote for "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace -- but that's because I think giant hurds of free-roaming hamsters would rule. --MM
A story about ISPs blocking pop-ups that has a pop-ups? Is Salon.com charging Earthlink for the additional enticement?
Really, is Atlas Shrugged suggested as a utopia or dystopia? What a nightmare, a world full of objectivists.
"The Number of the Beast," by Robert A. Heinlein
Yea, it's got a great a great soundtrack too.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
You've got your cause and effect mixed up there, I'm afraid.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I think you have a good idea that does not go far enough. Let's not just free the fonts, let's free all of Microsoft and buy them out! I wonder what would happen if we (opensource community) all gained a majority control in Microsoft. Couldn't we just force them to become open/free/libre?
My, aren't you a peach. How silly of us to think that we could grow as humanity. I mean, modern life isn't any better, really, than Europe during the inquisition. Why should we even keep living.
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fight global cooling
Chasing! If you look at the eyelids, during REM sleep they're moving like mad. Sometimes you see the legs twitching, I think this is a reaction to seeing something like a "prey" in the dream.
I think that's reasonable, but I have to wonder if he's dreaming about chasing or about being chased. It bothers me to think of my dog having nightmares. Which is kind of strange, because I'm not really a dog person, especially-- the dog is my girlfriend's, and I inherited him when we moved in together. But thinking of my dog lying there alone, in the dark, afraid of something... that bothers me more than I'd care to admit. So when he's dreaming, I always put my hand on him to either comfort him or wake him up a little, and he calms down. Of course, if he was dreaming about chasing pork spare ribs through an endless meadow, then I just royally fouled that up for him, didn't I?
I don't suppose it makes much sense to spend time thinking about dog dreams. But I do, I do.