"Litigation is costly, time-consuming, and uncertain, regardless of the merits of the other side's case. Ultimately we, the authors, reached a collective decision not to expose ourselves, our employers, and the conference organizers to litigation at this time."
"regardless of the merits of the other side's case." in other words, even though they have no legal grounds for threatening us, they still might win so we're not going to try it.
you thought snow crash had a plot? it was basically people running around the west coast almost randomly, with random jaunts into cyberspace.
stephenson's real talent is in description of places, eras, and people. that's what really struck me about "snow crash". he paints an incredible painting of the future with phenomenal attention to details. as i was reading, i had vivid mental images throughout of the setting.
he comes up with some really neat ideas, like the "gargoyle"s. i can honestly see some occupation like that of a gargoyle being created (at least for intelligence purposes) in the near future, especially given facial pattern-matching technology and wireless network availability.
anyway, that's my spiel about stephenson. it's all about the descriptions.
having tried, and currently using, freebsd (and net/open, but neither had pcmcia support when i tried to install on my laptop) i can say that there is definitely an elitist tone that creeps into my view of linux, especially in terms of *perceived* stability and presentability. (all right, not just perceived, but actual. i've never had my freebsd machines die swapping, while my 2.2.16 linux machine went down nobly one evening for no apparent reason in january. so much for 100 days uptime.)
geekiness is a worthy goal, and it's no surprise that elitism becomes a problem. but look at it this way: bsd people (hopefully) never need help with their systems, so tech support people won't get any calls from bsd users!
(for the record, i tried installing plan9 over the summer, but it didn't recognize my voodoo3, so i gave up. so much for uber-geekdom.)
ever heard of underclocking? me neither. it's an effective way to waste most of your computing power, so only idiots or people with too much time do it. for more, see here: http://www.overclockers.com/tips05/
"It looks like the American justice system may not be utterly doomed after all."
i love how this is phrased. "utterly doomed." who thought it was doomed? apparently the poster did, but this is just hilarious. i love it when people make doomsday comments like this.
i think they should sue to their hearts' content. maybe it will get to the supreme court, and they'll strike it down as an overreaching of congressional power. congress has NO right to meddle in the affairs of public schools or libraries unless those libraries are receiving federal funds...
maybe then we'd see some backlash against other federal intrusions. i won't mention them due to the possibility of being accused of trolling, but it won't take much imagination.
i wonder if there are any plans to create an emulator, so netbsd/dreamcast users can play their dreamcast games from within netbsd... that would be a really neat thing, although it's probably pretty tough.
would they have to do the trapping that vmware and plex86 do?
they could call it 'dreamware' or some knock-off of vmware. but then that wouldn't be very creative.
we have to cut theo some slack in this area: he just doesn't have the kind of socially beneficial conditioning that others of us have.
in other words, he's tactless.
he once nailed me, adding (quite gratuitously) that he couldn't understand why people had problems understanding (now obsolete) patent issues with RSA in the U.S. but he does recognize a good idea, and he's not unwilling to take suggestions. i suggested that he add the information he had grudgingly given me to the openssh faq, and voila, number 19 on the openssh web page. granted, it's subtly biting, but it gets the job done.
not true... you can very easily have lots of bandwidth but suboptimal service guarantees. that's the whole point of things like diffserv and RSVP...
let's say my router can handle gigabit traffic, but i'm only using about 200 megabits/s. i don't want my 1 megabit/s of high-priority stuff to have to get plunked out of the router *after* the other 199 megabits that came before it are routed. i want higher priority. that's where it makes the real difference, and can make a serious difference in media-intensive applications.
the distribution of wine that comes with the corel wordperfect office 2000 for linux suite has a compleat set of dlls that run a bunch of other programs very, very well. i've used it to run winamp, winamp, and winamp.:)
no, seriously, the project is now mature enough that a 'real' version of the windows runtime is not necessary, though helpful.
i agree... arguing that we should stop because we've had hit-and-miss (heh heh) success is like arguing that we should quit trying to get to mars because only one mission's worked in the last ten years.
disclosure: i support the building of a missile defense system, but not this fancy-schmancy interceptor crap...
the best system i've seen proposed is not glitzy, it's not glamorous. here it is: we have several orbiting defense satellites armed with missiles filled with tungsten pellets. lots and lots of large tungsten pellets. when a launch is detected, we fire a missile at an incoming warhead. when it gets near the target, it explodes, spreading the tungsten pellets over a good distance so as to hit, misdirect, or damage the incoming warhead.
that's really all we need, nothing fancy, just a good ol' space shotgun!!! and it would be a whole lot cheaper, too.
there's no obligation to reveal *everything* about one's past to either one's family or one's spouse. (although i would guess that laura knew somehow er another.)
for all this talk about privacy, it sounds like we've got at least one person who doesn't think privacy should exist within families...
it is good, i think, that the campaigns are willing to respond truthfully. for bush to say anything other than what he's been saying the entire campaign would be dishonest...
let's give them credit for answering, regardless of how much crap slashdot will put them through on the discussions.:)
on an unrelated note, there's a very good defense of the electoral college system available on the washingtonpost.com site. you can find it here.
jon
it's also interesting to note that the economy, as gore points out, is in the middle of the longest peacetime expansion for a long long time....
a *lot* of analysts place the credit for declining violent crime rates on the booming economy. give the economy 9 months: when it tanks, the crime figures will jump right back up.
corporations keep two sets of books: one for the tax man, one for their shareholders. there is nothing illegal about it, it's completely kosher.
understandably, the book that goes to the tax man tries to understate profits as much as possible. the other one attempts to make the corporation look as good as possible, so as to improve interest in the company.
when counting stock options as a business expense, these corporations *also* happen to come out at a loss. as i understand it, there's no way for a company with positive earnings to evade taxes completely.
so this is all a result of keeping two sets of books.
i'm an econ major, but i care about computers a whole lot more than i do about current ratios and income statements and cash flow and leveraged buyouts. investigating format string bugs or writing time-saver scripts is SO much more interesting than reading about equity valuation and the term structure of bonds.
now that i'm starting the job hunt, i'm apprehensive of what kind of opportunities there'll be for an econ major with little/no formal CS training... it's hard to explain a lifelong passion for technology to a recruiter.
Slashdot Mirror
check out the quote on http://euclid.nmu.edu/~benchmark/index.php?page=nu ll_call:
:)
"As mentioned in our methodology section, this is due to a bug in the kernel code that lead to a feature freeze in subsequent kernels."
if a bug in the kernel code can cause a feature freeze, someone better debug the developers!
jon
two suggestions:
1) umask 077
and
2) chmod -R og-rx ~
check this out:
"Litigation is costly, time-consuming, and uncertain, regardless of the merits of the other side's case. Ultimately we, the authors, reached a collective decision not to expose ourselves, our employers, and the conference organizers to litigation at this time."
"regardless of the merits of the other side's case." in other words, even though they have no legal grounds for threatening us, they still might win so we're not going to try it.
jon
you thought snow crash had a plot? it was basically people running around the west coast almost randomly, with random jaunts into cyberspace.
stephenson's real talent is in description of places, eras, and people. that's what really struck me about "snow crash". he paints an incredible painting of the future with phenomenal attention to details. as i was reading, i had vivid mental images throughout of the setting.
he comes up with some really neat ideas, like the "gargoyle"s. i can honestly see some occupation like that of a gargoyle being created (at least for intelligence purposes) in the near future, especially given facial pattern-matching technology and wireless network availability.
anyway, that's my spiel about stephenson. it's all about the descriptions.
jon
if they get past the armed security that keeps havenco's servers safe.
jon
having tried, and currently using, freebsd (and net/open, but neither had pcmcia support when i tried to install on my laptop) i can say that there is definitely an elitist tone that creeps into my view of linux, especially in terms of *perceived* stability and presentability. (all right, not just perceived, but actual. i've never had my freebsd machines die swapping, while my 2.2.16 linux machine went down nobly one evening for no apparent reason in january. so much for 100 days uptime.)
geekiness is a worthy goal, and it's no surprise that elitism becomes a problem. but look at it this way: bsd people (hopefully) never need help with their systems, so tech support people won't get any calls from bsd users!
(for the record, i tried installing plan9 over the summer, but it didn't recognize my voodoo3, so i gave up. so much for uber-geekdom.)
jon
ever heard of underclocking? me neither. it's an effective way to waste most of your computing power, so only idiots or people with too much time do it. for more, see here: http://www.overclockers.com/tips05/
jon
"It looks like the American justice system may not be utterly doomed after all."
i love how this is phrased. "utterly doomed." who thought it was doomed? apparently the poster did, but this is just hilarious. i love it when people make doomsday comments like this.
jon
> sent back to Visual Basic where they belong.
or tcl.
jon
i think they should sue to their hearts' content. maybe it will get to the supreme court, and they'll strike it down as an overreaching of congressional power. congress has NO right to meddle in the affairs of public schools or libraries unless those libraries are receiving federal funds...
maybe then we'd see some backlash against other federal intrusions. i won't mention them due to the possibility of being accused of trolling, but it won't take much imagination.
jon
i wonder if there are any plans to create an emulator, so netbsd/dreamcast users can play their dreamcast games from within netbsd... that would be a really neat thing, although it's probably pretty tough.
would they have to do the trapping that vmware and plex86 do?
they could call it 'dreamware' or some knock-off of vmware. but then that wouldn't be very creative.
jon
uh-oh, that means we're hiring a whole lot more people than i wanted to.
i don't remember hiring anybody named 'ph33r' or 'eleet'.... i'll have to remind them that they shouldn't have blank passwords. darn users.
jon
we have to cut theo some slack in this area: he just doesn't have the kind of socially beneficial conditioning that others of us have.
in other words, he's tactless.
he once nailed me, adding (quite gratuitously) that he couldn't understand why people had problems understanding (now obsolete) patent issues with RSA in the U.S. but he does recognize a good idea, and he's not unwilling to take suggestions. i suggested that he add the information he had grudgingly given me to the openssh faq, and voila, number 19 on the openssh web page. granted, it's subtly biting, but it gets the job done.
jon
not true... you can very easily have lots of bandwidth but suboptimal service guarantees. that's the whole point of things like diffserv and RSVP...
let's say my router can handle gigabit traffic, but i'm only using about 200 megabits/s. i don't want my 1 megabit/s of high-priority stuff to have to get plunked out of the router *after* the other 199 megabits that came before it are routed. i want higher priority. that's where it makes the real difference, and can make a serious difference in media-intensive applications.
jon
the distribution of wine that comes with the corel wordperfect office 2000 for linux suite has a compleat set of dlls that run a bunch of other programs very, very well. i've used it to run winamp, winamp, and winamp. :)
no, seriously, the project is now mature enough that a 'real' version of the windows runtime is not necessary, though helpful.
jon
If the system will allow someone to be executed solely on eye-witness testimony
"solely on eye-witness testimony"? that's usually the most damning evidence around. i think you meant to say "on one eye-witness's testimony", right?
do you think we should base capital cases on circumstantial evidence? that's a little wacked, if you ask me.
jon
i see your point, but i'm not sure that i'd go out of my way to try and tell my kids about all the stupid stuff i'd done.
:)
and it wasn't really his fault that the info got out into the media. it was some jerk up in maine who wanted to influence the election.
but all that is moot at this point... we've got other things to worry about right now.
jon
i agree... arguing that we should stop because we've had hit-and-miss (heh heh) success is like arguing that we should quit trying to get to mars because only one mission's worked in the last ten years.
disclosure: i support the building of a missile defense system, but not this fancy-schmancy interceptor crap...
the best system i've seen proposed is not glitzy, it's not glamorous. here it is: we have several orbiting defense satellites armed with missiles filled with tungsten pellets. lots and lots of large tungsten pellets. when a launch is detected, we fire a missile at an incoming warhead. when it gets near the target, it explodes, spreading the tungsten pellets over a good distance so as to hit, misdirect, or damage the incoming warhead.
that's really all we need, nothing fancy, just a good ol' space shotgun!!! and it would be a whole lot cheaper, too.
jon
there's no obligation to reveal *everything* about one's past to either one's family or one's spouse. (although i would guess that laura knew somehow er another.)
for all this talk about privacy, it sounds like we've got at least one person who doesn't think privacy should exist within families...
jon
i wish i had moderator points...
:)
it is good, i think, that the campaigns are willing to respond truthfully. for bush to say anything other than what he's been saying the entire campaign would be dishonest...
let's give them credit for answering, regardless of how much crap slashdot will put them through on the discussions.
on an unrelated note, there's a very good defense of the electoral college system available on the washingtonpost.com site. you can find it here.
jon
it's also interesting to note that the economy, as gore points out, is in the middle of the longest peacetime expansion for a long long time....
a *lot* of analysts place the credit for declining violent crime rates on the booming economy. give the economy 9 months: when it tanks, the crime figures will jump right back up.
jon
here's the deal:
corporations keep two sets of books: one for the tax man, one for their shareholders. there is nothing illegal about it, it's completely kosher.
understandably, the book that goes to the tax man tries to understate profits as much as possible. the other one attempts to make the corporation look as good as possible, so as to improve interest in the company.
when counting stock options as a business expense, these corporations *also* happen to come out at a loss. as i understand it, there's no way for a company with positive earnings to evade taxes completely.
so this is all a result of keeping two sets of books.
jon
my bad.... it seems to have first appeared in april of 1999, not this year.
jon
this opposing viewpoints interview section has been around forever.
it was announced in april in this story.
jon
schweet... another one like me...
i'm an econ major, but i care about computers a whole lot more than i do about current ratios and income statements and cash flow and leveraged buyouts. investigating format string bugs or writing time-saver scripts is SO much more interesting than reading about equity valuation and the term structure of bonds.
now that i'm starting the job hunt, i'm apprehensive of what kind of opportunities there'll be for an econ major with little/no formal CS training... it's hard to explain a lifelong passion for technology to a recruiter.
jon