I know Apple had gumdrop look-alikes. And there were toaster look-alikes. But squash look-alikes?
Seriously, that's what I thought when I read the title for this article. Squash look-alikes.
I imagined spaghetti-squash shaped Macs, and butternut-squash shaped Macs, and pumpkin-shaped Macs. Then I saw it was an article about intellectual property and all that. Then I decided it was high time to go to sleep.;]
"
The computer was never the problem. The company's strategy was. Apple saw itself as a hardware company; in order to protect our hardware profits, we didn't license our operating system. We had the most beautiful operating system, but to get it you had to buy our hardware at twice the price. That was a mistake.
"
Steve Wozniak, "Woz" of Apple fame, said this in a 1996 Newsweek article. It's true. Apple could have started off on a different foot by licensing their operating system from the beginning, and possibly built a good revenue base off of that, but the idea of everyone-crufting-together-x86-machines-with-all-m anner-of-different-specs-and-hardware was still a new one when the MacOS came out. It leaves Apple in a bit of a bind.
But come on. This is a *hardware* company. Apple makes freakin'-awesome hardware, and support for these machines is built on the premise that they're all going to be very similar. iMacs are all cranked out in a factory, all with similar hardware and peripherals. Same for G4's, PowerBooks, what have you. They're not kludged together in basements by 16-year-olds (like my k6-2/400 was:), so Apple can offer a kind of reliability in support, drivers, and software in general that the x86 world just can't, due to the diversity.
To license OS X would be dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. First off, yes, we know that there's a Darwin port for Intel. But porting everything else, like the Classic layer, and who-knows-what-else, just to make OS X run on x86--it would just not be a good move for Apple right now.
Re:Reminds me of...A BIG mistake by Apple
on
OS X on x86?
·
· Score: 4
My iMac DV (400 MHz G3) will run OS X PB VERY nicely. As for an "iMac power user" being a "contradiction in terms..." nyah!:)~
But seriously, as for your shoe being more upgradeable than an iMac, think about Apple's choice of architecture--the Motorola chips. They don't work the same way the Wintel chips you're familiar with do, in terms of megahertz. My grandma has a 233MHz original Bondi Blue iMac. It has 32MB of RAM, I think. She's not running linuxPPC on it and compiling three kernels a day, so it's not like the little beast has a terribly heavy load--instead, she's doing word processing, surfing the web, email, playing a bit with graphic design--BUT even with OS 9 on it (I love macs, but don't get me started on OS 9) it doesn't feel like a slow box. This was a machine from 1998. My boyfriend's K6-233 has LONG since been retired since then.
Cost is key, concerning the sales of G4's and G4 cubes. iMacs can be had for around $700 (and then you get some rebates--my aunt got a rather good deal on one) while G4 systems are still up there in the $1,700-ish range. (Didn't stop my aunt from getting one of those either, though.:)
Don't be too hard on the iMac--I think things are looking up for the iMac, all around. They're really pretty affordable and the peripherals that ship with them have improved. The Apple Pro mouse and Pro keyboard are a DRASTIC improvement over the child-sized mushy original iMac laptop-like keyboard, and they've started shipping with the Pro mouse instead of that aggravating iPuck.
It was an ideal situation," he said. "It forced me to get off the computer and think and debug my program."
I had a computer science prof who just couldn't seem to emphasize this enough--"don't just sit down at the computer and start coding away. It'll be a nightmare. You need to be away from the machine and think out your code before you start in on it, and sometimes it helps to get a hardcopy and review the code on paper when you're debugging. "
In this age, though, all the up-and-coming programmers, the college kids and such, have had no experience with programming that required a LOT more effort and thought--such as punch cards, time-limited use of a mainframe, etc. They sit down at their $400 eMachines and bang out some Java. Is there anyone here who can comment on this? Is code quality worse now that people are used to just sitting down and hacking it out?
Also--in the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley"--even I know a good deal of that movie was exaggeration and pretty flashy things, but blue boxes WERE shown--what did a blue box look like?
Any URLs?
I'm honestly asking this stuff here. Thanks.
Re:My Generation's "Kennedy was Shot" moment
on
The Challenger
·
· Score: 2
I, too, was born in 1982, but I do remember seeing the TV broadcast. My parents always wanted me to get into things, science and math and nature and art and computers, so they really emphasized watching the shuttle launches--and watch them my brother and I did, voraciously.
I remember sitting on the floor of our living room watching the little Trinitron TV and half-watching, half-playing with some blocks or stuffed animals or something. I looked up to watch the launch. Then I saw the bits of flames, then the space shuttle flaming. My mother became upset. I couldn't grasp the whole gravity of the situation, but that I remember it at all is something I'll always carry with me.
Now I can put that into perspective. I can think about what it would be like if it were my brother or my boyfriend or my mother aboard that shuttle when it exploded. I don't like to think about it.
To remember the Challenger after 15 years and to see serious, intelligent discussion on it is a breath of fresh air, especially on Slashdot. I'm glad that my generation doesn't really have a defining tragedy to relate to, like the Kennedy assasination or the Challenger explosion (No offense to the original poster, but the OJ car chase doesn't really seem to do it for me:) but it's good to see that there are people in this nation who still think; that there are those who aren't that easily swayed by the crap and garbage that's on television to play with the emotions and stifle thought.
It's poor form to reply to one's own post, but I must make a correction. There are 20-odd ops and regulars who are active in channel and on a need-to-know basis on what goes on in channel; but the headcount in channel is usually from 80 to 100. The other channel referred to in the post, the older one, usually has a little bit more than that.
I've seen some amusement on this thread, amusement at the very fact that Undernet has been DoS'd.
Well, don't be. It's not funny. There are people losing money because of this; there are people who are becoming absolutely brainless and deciding "Gosh, it'd be fun, let's go the way of the skript-kiddie and and help the DoS'ing be even worse!"
Then there are dedicated channel ops and owners who are building bots, starting channels, writing mailing-list software to help their members and fellow ops deal with the crap that's going on. I'm a 200-level op on one of the linux channels on Undernet (check my user info for more information) and while there are those here who feel IRC is a waste of time, I believe it's one of the best ways to communicate with people all around the world about a common interest. If you don't like IRC you don't have to use it. I can see how some people think it's a waste; but it's something I enjoy. And so do 20-odd other ops and regulars in this channel.
I met these people because they helped me install Linux over two years ago; there are ops and regulars who are good friends of mine from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, UK, Malaysia, Germany, Greece to name a few. We put faces to the names via webcams; we know who's going out with who, we comfort our friends when they're going through crap, and we came together and cooperated with a mailing list and new bots and new policies once W went on the blink.
Someone tried to compromise our channel yesterday (a takeover, for the unschooled) but order was restored. With W (X for other channels; we happened to have W when he was still around) the oplist, auto-kicks, and bans are very easy to store; without W, the guy managed to get ops by pretending to be one of us. Could have done some damage, but thanks to some IRCops (Thank you seti and saralee!) order was restored, new bots put in place, and new channel policies. I know there are other/.'ers out there who know what a close-knit channel is like and how much it sucks when stuff like this happens.
Right now there's rumors that W and X will never come back. If they don't Undernet is dead...and where is a channel to go? Some IRC networks have strange ident issues; some are dying out; and some have a structure such that it's hard to even keep hold of a channel because of skript kiddies. Right now Undernet splits a lot--too many users and not-so-perfect routing. It's also hard to connect to a server. There's a lot of lag.
And now I get to a point I think bears hearing: Forking doesn't mean animosity. (Are you reading this, RMS?:P) There's another Linux-related channel on Undernet which a few people split off of for one reason or another, and those people started our channel. There was some degree of disdain amongst our channel because of some of the policies of the first channel. (I like the place, though.:) But the two channels are cooperating on some of the DoS issues. We're all about Linux and getting a good place for our users to chat.
To the skript kiddies out there who are continuing to pummel Undernet because you think it's cool: Stop acting lower than dirt and get a life. You can find something better to do than cost people time and money.
Some of my close friends on a linux IRC channel (check my user info) suggested that I send this link via email to folks like Alan Cox & his wife Telsa Gwynne; ESR; and RMS and the like. (For those who are wondering, it's some of my best GIMP artwork--feel free to check the link and give me feedback!:)
Mr. Cox actually replied and said it was neat, in, like, three words. I actually had some degree of correspondence with Telsa (she's AWESOME. She liked it.)
RMS had a problem with it, though. Sheez. He was displeased because, in the picture, a grinning GNU is a "reindeer" for a "Santa Tux". He probably didn't much like the idea of the GNU project tugging Linux along like a dumb pack animal--it could be construed. "Use of the term 'Linux Distro' for referring to the GNU/Linux system suggests you have never heard the real history...Usual confusion," he wrote.
The GNU isn't a PACK animal. (You need to see the picture in order to figure out what I'm talking about.) He's aiding and abetting the penguin, and they're both HAPPY. They're helping EACH OTHER. I thought it was cute. Geez.
I thought of creating a muscle-bound, hugely impressive, and more or less completely spiteful Santa GNU with important Open Source free software for all the world, but my channel made me think better of it. They told me I couldn't talk down Mr. Stallman.
Oh well. This is offtopic.:)
Yes. Let Mr. Torvalds joke about himself. I think it shows he's a perfectly healthy normal geek who likes what he does. Leave him alone.
I rolled a car a few years ago after 8 espresso shots.
Granted, I was coming down a hill with very loose gravel combined with a good deal of ice, but I think my reflexes would have been better if I had been paying a bit more attention and hadn't been so shaky.
Now I never drive when I know I've had a bit much caffeine.
H'lo, Cassandra, and like others have said in this thread, good to see someone with authority.
Two good friends of mine died in a car accident a few years ago because of a drunk driver. It was at night--what time of day did Jason's accident occur? The idiot tried to drive right THROUGH them as well--but there was no way they could have avoided him; the guy DID NOT HAVE his lights on. I'm with you on this one--there are those saying Jason could have avoided the accident, and sure, he could have pulled forward--IF he saw the creep coming, IF there were a place to go out of a busy intersection, IF the guy would have even stopped if he'd pulled forward.
Also, when you're sitting at a red light, you can't always gauge how the person is coming up behind you until it's too late. My brother is an excellent driver, and while he was sitting at a red light some moron sped up behind him and trashed his rear bumper. No one was hurt, thank God. I, myself, have often jumped forward a bit at a red light when I see someone speeding up behind me--and they stop without hitting me. It's hard to gauge when your only eye contact with the vehicle coming behind you is perhaps a glance at a mirror.
Best regards to you and Jason; tell him to keep up the great work.
I've not had much experience with online text-based multiuser games--my boyfriend was an avid MUD-er for a short time, though. I'd like to know exactly what all these things stand for...MUD? MUCK? MOO? MUSH? I see them all here -- I think I've only had experience with MUD's, so I'd like to know what the differences are between them.
I went to go see Cast Away with my boyfriend and some friends a few days ago. Having been at college and away from TV and magazines, and myself not much of an entertainment buff, I didn't even know what the film was ABOUT when I walked into it.
In fact, my boyfriend and Ihad gotten tix for Cast Away a few days before that, and seeing a whole bunch of FedEx stuff and Tom Hanks yelling at people, we were like, "What the heck?" and theatre-hopped over to How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which was what I'd REALLY wanted to see anyway. (BTW, that was cute. Real cute.)
*Caution: This post contains SCADS and HORDES of SPOILERS! Don't read this if you've not seen the movie. It'll ruin it for you.*
Anyway, Cast Away. Immediately I saw that the romantic aspect of Helen Hunt was going to be a huge factor. The whole time Hanks was on the island, I kept thinking, "But what of his girlfriend? What about her?" Big letdown for the audience to see her already married with a daughter when Hanks gets off the island and back into Memphis, but I think the tragedy of that was an excellent theatrical device--the audience wanted to see more. More, what would Mr. Everyday American Hero Hanks do? "Just wait for what the tide brings in", and then some rather vague ending as a redhead in an old pickup in Texas flirtatiously gives Hanks some directions. Okay. That was the ultimate "WHAT the HECK!?" for all of us. The movie ends with a shot of Hanks squinting slightly under the sun, looking into the camera, presumably into the direction that the redhead's truck, bearing the cryptic tri-ringed gold wings of some sort, as she heads back to her ranch. What the HECK? Can anyone give me some sort of analysis on that?
Next off, I missed it, and I'm sure I could come up with answers somewhere but where was this movie filmed?
Last of all...I'd really like to know what they did to Mr. Hanks' diet. I realize actors have to gain and lose weight often at the whims of their directors, but Hanks started off as a pink, slightly pudgy FedEx worker, and by the time the ship picked him up he was lean and tanned. Quite a dramatic change, if you ask me. Anyone know what kind of diet they put the man on? I want it.
I LIKED this movie. Not having any hype beforehand helped a bit, I suppose--I came away from it mostly satisfied. The scene I'll likely be having nightmares over for the rest of my life will be the plane crash--watching the ocean rushing up at you from the cockpit, huge and black and menacing, at a horrifically WRONG angle--that was outright terrifying. I have to FLY to get back to college. *shiver*
Saint Nickolas died in 340AD. I'll be telling my kids that they should call the cops of they see a jolly old fat man in the living room, Christmas Eve.
libgimpwidgets: core-independent widgets used e.g. to build libui widgets (similar to gimp 1.x's libgimpui)
but I really cannot stand it when graphics programs change drastically and add "functionality" (on the level of the user interface) that replaces other things that I'm used to. For instance, I really liked PSP3. I really did. (OLD, old stuff we're talking about here.) But I coulddn't stand PSP4.
I'm reasonably sure the GIMP guys are smart enough not to change things around too drastically, but it's a concern of mine, since I really enjoy working with and playing with The GIMP as it is. I don't want to have to update to a newer form that I really don't like to get the latest neat things.
In my experience, it's only been HFS. I haven't even been able to pin down the behavior of *that*--my iMac DV, 400mHz, which was pure HFS (MacOS 9--it shipped hfs+ but I razed it down and made it HFS to obey my evil schemes) choked quite badly on some Debian PPC that I and my boyfriend tried to install.
I'm not sure. I'd really like to hear that HFS+ is okay for what you're trying to do. It'd make Linux feasible on my laptop and a few other Macs I have sitting around--they're HFS+, and I have apps on them that I no longer have the media for, and AFAIK there's nothing similar to Partition Magic for Macintosh--I'd have to reformat and install in HFS to install anything.
Anyone know of any Partition Magic -- FIPS type things for MacOS? I'd love it.
Also, I read something I vaguely remember on/. before about the ability to make an exact replica of a disk image of a Macintosh over a network, very very easily. Anyone have any pointers?
That's what I had four years ago when I took BASIC in high school. QBASIC, actually. The woman was a librarian and drama coach, not a bloody computer instructor. I ran around helping out people, hardly able to get my own work done, trying to get 15 incompetent 15-year-olds to figure out that
REM this program sucks
and
REM ***This Program Sucks***
are REALLY NOT DIFFERENT. The woman gave me a C in the class because I "didn't put forth enough effort".
Geeze. I like my C++ prof now that I'm in college. The man knows his stuff. He used to work for DEC; he's programmed his way in and out of just about every program that's out there, and he lets people telnet/ssh to linux boxen and use gcc because he really detests the Microsoft Visual C++ that the college has put into standard usage. Dr. Kruse, if you're reading this, cheers!:)
I did heavy basic from the time I was pretty young (we had a PCjr with a BASIC cartridge when I was but a mere geeklette) and learned it a lot deeper when I entered high school. qbasic has the ability to ruin a programmer--I used it. Extensively. Now that I'm in college and trying to learn C++, I'm having a very hard time.
....OTOH, I find it a lot easier to type
g++ -o executable file.cpp implementation.cpp
than do all that crap with MSVC++ in a lab, make a new workspace, new Win32 console app, all that.
But yeah, your mileage may vary with BASIC. When I get older and have kids, I wouldn't want to teach it to them. That might just be me.
This IS indeed supposed to be humorous. The whole Robotnic-Bill Gates parallel struck me just as I was wrapping up and I tossed it in to be silly. I honestly didn't expect, and don't believe I deserve, a score 4 on this.
The bit about the penguins was a little far-fetched to be honest MS-bashing. It's just silly.
Okay, perhaps this is a very obscure reference, but it IS related and not entirely offtopic.
First of all, what real evidence do we have that MS will indeed buy Sega? Gahhh...I should certainly hope not.
If anything, I think Sega should be open-sourced. Here's my take on it; it's rather limited to the comic book scene.
Archie Comics has a Sonic the Hedgehog lineup, almost to their 100th issue, with surprisingly in-depth storylines and a good deal of artistic talent. Sure, it's just Sonic and a bunch of furries fighting evil, but they look GOOD doing it! Archie's got some good writers working on the Sonic scene, but see, Sega has its OWN characters and agendas. Archie has had a hard time dealing with this as they attempt to make their storylines more involved--Sega demands that Sonic retain a cool and spunky attitude, and he's too "cool" to be involved in any emotional issues that are at the core of developing a fictional character. So it's very hard for Archie to develop personalities and "nail down" the characters...because of this issue.
If Micros~1 bought Sega, this would likely get even worse. We all know how Microsoft is about licensing. They'd probably demand death scenes of all characters other than those exclusively designed by Sega and put in the games, and a very decent comic title would die out due to lack of readership. Then Sonic and the remaining four or five characters would begin resembling paperclips. They'd lose what little personality they had entirely. And they'd all zoom around quickly correcting spelling mistakes you don't want corrected. At least once a day you'd get a blue (blur) screen. Robotnik would probably be the only remaining character. They'd change his name to Ro-bill-nik, or Redmondnik, or something like that. And Sega and Microsoft would jointly create a new character, Panic the Penguin, with his leagues of evil penguins, whom Ro-Gates-Nik would have to go around converting to his purposes....
Slashdot Mirror
Mine runs OS X PB just fine. I realize it's still the beta, but it runs much more smoothly, in my opinion, than OS 9 did.
And yes, this IS on a 64MB machine.
Please check your facts.
"Girls...have a higher boredom threshhold."
As a female, I tend to disagree with this.
....
Okay, I'm bored now.
I know Apple had gumdrop look-alikes. And there were toaster look-alikes. But squash look-alikes?
;]
Seriously, that's what I thought when I read the title for this article. Squash look-alikes.
I imagined spaghetti-squash shaped Macs, and butternut-squash shaped Macs, and pumpkin-shaped Macs. Then I saw it was an article about intellectual property and all that. Then I decided it was high time to go to sleep.
Let me quote an article from woz.org:
m anner-of-different-specs-and-hardware was still a new one when the MacOS came out. It leaves Apple in a bit of a bind.
:), so Apple can offer a kind of reliability in support, drivers, and software in general that the x86 world just can't, due to the diversity.
"
The computer was never the problem. The company's strategy was. Apple saw itself as a hardware company; in order to protect our hardware profits, we didn't license our operating system. We had the most beautiful operating system, but to get it you had to buy our hardware at twice the price. That was a mistake.
"
Steve Wozniak, "Woz" of Apple fame, said this in a 1996 Newsweek article. It's true. Apple could have started off on a different foot by licensing their operating system from the beginning, and possibly built a good revenue base off of that, but the idea of everyone-crufting-together-x86-machines-with-all-
But come on. This is a *hardware* company. Apple makes freakin'-awesome hardware, and support for these machines is built on the premise that they're all going to be very similar. iMacs are all cranked out in a factory, all with similar hardware and peripherals. Same for G4's, PowerBooks, what have you. They're not kludged together in basements by 16-year-olds (like my k6-2/400 was
To license OS X would be dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. First off, yes, we know that there's a Darwin port for Intel. But porting everything else, like the Classic layer, and who-knows-what-else, just to make OS X run on x86--it would just not be a good move for Apple right now.
My iMac DV (400 MHz G3) will run OS X PB VERY nicely. As for an "iMac power user" being a "contradiction in terms..." nyah! :)~
:)
But seriously, as for your shoe being more upgradeable than an iMac, think about Apple's choice of architecture--the Motorola chips. They don't work the same way the Wintel chips you're familiar with do, in terms of megahertz. My grandma has a 233MHz original Bondi Blue iMac. It has 32MB of RAM, I think. She's not running linuxPPC on it and compiling three kernels a day, so it's not like the little beast has a terribly heavy load--instead, she's doing word processing, surfing the web, email, playing a bit with graphic design--BUT even with OS 9 on it (I love macs, but don't get me started on OS 9) it doesn't feel like a slow box. This was a machine from 1998. My boyfriend's K6-233 has LONG since been retired since then.
Cost is key, concerning the sales of G4's and G4 cubes. iMacs can be had for around $700 (and then you get some rebates--my aunt got a rather good deal on one) while G4 systems are still up there in the $1,700-ish range. (Didn't stop my aunt from getting one of those either, though.
Don't be too hard on the iMac--I think things are looking up for the iMac, all around. They're really pretty affordable and the peripherals that ship with them have improved. The Apple Pro mouse and Pro keyboard are a DRASTIC improvement over the child-sized mushy original iMac laptop-like keyboard, and they've started shipping with the Pro mouse instead of that aggravating iPuck.
From the article:
It was an ideal situation," he said. "It forced me to get off the computer and think and debug my program."
I had a computer science prof who just couldn't seem to emphasize this enough--"don't just sit down at the computer and start coding away. It'll be a nightmare. You need to be away from the machine and think out your code before you start in on it, and sometimes it helps to get a hardcopy and review the code on paper when you're debugging. "
In this age, though, all the up-and-coming programmers, the college kids and such, have had no experience with programming that required a LOT more effort and thought--such as punch cards, time-limited use of a mainframe, etc. They sit down at their $400 eMachines and bang out some Java. Is there anyone here who can comment on this? Is code quality worse now that people are used to just sitting down and hacking it out?
Also--in the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley"--even I know a good deal of that movie was exaggeration and pretty flashy things, but blue boxes WERE shown--what did a blue box look like?
Any URLs?
I'm honestly asking this stuff here. Thanks.
I, too, was born in 1982, but I do remember seeing the TV broadcast. My parents always wanted me to get into things, science and math and nature and art and computers, so they really emphasized watching the shuttle launches--and watch them my brother and I did, voraciously.
:) but it's good to see that there are people in this nation who still think; that there are those who aren't that easily swayed by the crap and garbage that's on television to play with the emotions and stifle thought.
I remember sitting on the floor of our living room watching the little Trinitron TV and half-watching, half-playing with some blocks or stuffed animals or something. I looked up to watch the launch. Then I saw the bits of flames, then the space shuttle flaming. My mother became upset. I couldn't grasp the whole gravity of the situation, but that I remember it at all is something I'll always carry with me.
Now I can put that into perspective. I can think about what it would be like if it were my brother or my boyfriend or my mother aboard that shuttle when it exploded. I don't like to think about it.
To remember the Challenger after 15 years and to see serious, intelligent discussion on it is a breath of fresh air, especially on Slashdot. I'm glad that my generation doesn't really have a defining tragedy to relate to, like the Kennedy assasination or the Challenger explosion (No offense to the original poster, but the OJ car chase doesn't really seem to do it for me
Someone mod this up, please.
I just about snorted soda all over my keyboard.
IT?
Holy crap, I'm majoring in IT and no one knows what IT even is?
I should REALLY have just gone into primary education. I could learn to make things out of popsicle sticks and learn to teach kindergarten math.
IT. Bah.
It's poor form to reply to one's own post, but I must make a correction. There are 20-odd ops and regulars who are active in channel and on a need-to-know basis on what goes on in channel; but the headcount in channel is usually from 80 to 100. The other channel referred to in the post, the older one, usually has a little bit more than that.
That is all.
"The GIMP Girl"
I've seen some amusement on this thread, amusement at the very fact that Undernet has been DoS'd.
/.'ers out there who know what a close-knit channel is like and how much it sucks when stuff like this happens.
:P) There's another Linux-related channel on Undernet which a few people split off of for one reason or another, and those people started our channel. There was some degree of disdain amongst our channel because of some of the policies of the first channel. (I like the place, though. :) But the two channels are cooperating on some of the DoS issues. We're all about Linux and getting a good place for our users to chat.
Well, don't be. It's not funny. There are people losing money because of this; there are people who are becoming absolutely brainless and deciding "Gosh, it'd be fun, let's go the way of the skript-kiddie and and help the DoS'ing be even worse!"
Then there are dedicated channel ops and owners who are building bots, starting channels, writing mailing-list software to help their members and fellow ops deal with the crap that's going on. I'm a 200-level op on one of the linux channels on Undernet (check my user info for more information) and while there are those here who feel IRC is a waste of time, I believe it's one of the best ways to communicate with people all around the world about a common interest. If you don't like IRC you don't have to use it. I can see how some people think it's a waste; but it's something I enjoy. And so do 20-odd other ops and regulars in this channel.
I met these people because they helped me install Linux over two years ago; there are ops and regulars who are good friends of mine from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, UK, Malaysia, Germany, Greece to name a few. We put faces to the names via webcams; we know who's going out with who, we comfort our friends when they're going through crap, and we came together and cooperated with a mailing list and new bots and new policies once W went on the blink.
Someone tried to compromise our channel yesterday (a takeover, for the unschooled) but order was restored. With W (X for other channels; we happened to have W when he was still around) the oplist, auto-kicks, and bans are very easy to store; without W, the guy managed to get ops by pretending to be one of us. Could have done some damage, but thanks to some IRCops (Thank you seti and saralee!) order was restored, new bots put in place, and new channel policies. I know there are other
Right now there's rumors that W and X will never come back. If they don't Undernet is dead...and where is a channel to go? Some IRC networks have strange ident issues; some are dying out; and some have a structure such that it's hard to even keep hold of a channel because of skript kiddies. Right now Undernet splits a lot--too many users and not-so-perfect routing. It's also hard to connect to a server. There's a lot of lag.
And now I get to a point I think bears hearing: Forking doesn't mean animosity. (Are you reading this, RMS?
To the skript kiddies out there who are continuing to pummel Undernet because you think it's cool: Stop acting lower than dirt and get a life. You can find something better to do than cost people time and money.
"The GIMP Girl"
You know, I was THIS () close to saying that. :)
-"The Gimp Girl"
You're right about this guy, RMS.
:)
:)
Some of my close friends on a linux IRC channel (check my user info) suggested that I send this link via email to folks like Alan Cox & his wife Telsa Gwynne; ESR; and RMS and the like. (For those who are wondering, it's some of my best GIMP artwork--feel free to check the link and give me feedback!
Mr. Cox actually replied and said it was neat, in, like, three words. I actually had some degree of correspondence with Telsa (she's AWESOME. She liked it.)
RMS had a problem with it, though. Sheez. He was displeased because, in the picture, a grinning GNU is a "reindeer" for a "Santa Tux". He probably didn't much like the idea of the GNU project tugging Linux along like a dumb pack animal--it could be construed. "Use of the term 'Linux Distro' for referring to the GNU/Linux system suggests you have never heard the real history...Usual confusion," he wrote.
The GNU isn't a PACK animal. (You need to see the picture in order to figure out what I'm talking about.) He's aiding and abetting the penguin, and they're both HAPPY. They're helping EACH OTHER. I thought it was cute. Geez.
I thought of creating a muscle-bound, hugely impressive, and more or less completely spiteful Santa GNU with important Open Source free software for all the world, but my channel made me think better of it. They told me I couldn't talk down Mr. Stallman.
Oh well. This is offtopic.
Yes. Let Mr. Torvalds joke about himself. I think it shows he's a perfectly healthy normal geek who likes what he does. Leave him alone.
"The Gimp Girl"
A "Mac" Truck?
My, Mr. Haas DOES lead a dangerous life!
;]
I rolled a car a few years ago after 8 espresso shots.
Granted, I was coming down a hill with very loose gravel combined with a good deal of ice, but I think my reflexes would have been better if I had been paying a bit more attention and hadn't been so shaky.
Now I never drive when I know I've had a bit much caffeine.
-"The GIMP Girl"
H'lo, Cassandra, and like others have said in this thread, good to see someone with authority.
Two good friends of mine died in a car accident a few years ago because of a drunk driver. It was at night--what time of day did Jason's accident occur? The idiot tried to drive right THROUGH them as well--but there was no way they could have avoided him; the guy DID NOT HAVE his lights on. I'm with you on this one--there are those saying Jason could have avoided the accident, and sure, he could have pulled forward--IF he saw the creep coming, IF there were a place to go out of a busy intersection, IF the guy would have even stopped if he'd pulled forward.
Also, when you're sitting at a red light, you can't always gauge how the person is coming up behind you until it's too late. My brother is an excellent driver, and while he was sitting at a red light some moron sped up behind him and trashed his rear bumper. No one was hurt, thank God. I, myself, have often jumped forward a bit at a red light when I see someone speeding up behind me--and they stop without hitting me. It's hard to gauge when your only eye contact with the vehicle coming behind you is perhaps a glance at a mirror.
Best regards to you and Jason; tell him to keep up the great work.
-"The Gimp Girl"
I've not had much experience with online text-based multiuser games--my boyfriend was an avid MUD-er for a short time, though. I'd like to know exactly what all these things stand for...MUD? MUCK? MOO? MUSH? I see them all here -- I think I've only had experience with MUD's, so I'd like to know what the differences are between them.
Thanks.
I went to go see Cast Away with my boyfriend and some friends a few days ago. Having been at college and away from TV and magazines, and myself not much of an entertainment buff, I didn't even know what the film was ABOUT when I walked into it.
In fact, my boyfriend and Ihad gotten tix for Cast Away a few days before that, and seeing a whole bunch of FedEx stuff and Tom Hanks yelling at people, we were like, "What the heck?" and theatre-hopped over to How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which was what I'd REALLY wanted to see anyway. (BTW, that was cute. Real cute.)
*Caution: This post contains SCADS and HORDES of SPOILERS! Don't read this if you've not seen the movie. It'll ruin it for you.*
Anyway, Cast Away. Immediately I saw that the romantic aspect of Helen Hunt was going to be a huge factor. The whole time Hanks was on the island, I kept thinking, "But what of his girlfriend? What about her?" Big letdown for the audience to see her already married with a daughter when Hanks gets off the island and back into Memphis, but I think the tragedy of that was an excellent theatrical device--the audience wanted to see more. More, what would Mr. Everyday American Hero Hanks do? "Just wait for what the tide brings in", and then some rather vague ending as a redhead in an old pickup in Texas flirtatiously gives Hanks some directions. Okay. That was the ultimate "WHAT the HECK!?" for all of us. The movie ends with a shot of Hanks squinting slightly under the sun, looking into the camera, presumably into the direction that the redhead's truck, bearing the cryptic tri-ringed gold wings of some sort, as she heads back to her ranch. What the HECK? Can anyone give me some sort of analysis on that?
Next off, I missed it, and I'm sure I could come up with answers somewhere but where was this movie filmed?
Last of all...I'd really like to know what they did to Mr. Hanks' diet. I realize actors have to gain and lose weight often at the whims of their directors, but Hanks started off as a pink, slightly pudgy FedEx worker, and by the time the ship picked him up he was lean and tanned. Quite a dramatic change, if you ask me. Anyone know what kind of diet they put the man on? I want it.
I LIKED this movie. Not having any hype beforehand helped a bit, I suppose--I came away from it mostly satisfied. The scene I'll likely be having nightmares over for the rest of my life will be the plane crash--watching the ocean rushing up at you from the cockpit, huge and black and menacing, at a horrifically WRONG angle--that was outright terrifying. I have to FLY to get back to college. *shiver*
Saint Nickolas died in 340AD. I'll be telling my kids that they should call the cops of they see a jolly old fat man in the living room, Christmas Eve.
Can you elucidate on this "whole new structure"? Or is not enough about it known yet? Taking a look at the information at
http://plugins.gimp.org/gimp2/doc_components.html it says:
libgimpwidgets: core-independent widgets used e.g. to build libui widgets (similar to gimp 1.x's libgimpui)
but I really cannot stand it when graphics programs change drastically and add "functionality" (on the level of the user interface) that replaces other things that I'm used to. For instance, I really liked PSP3. I really did. (OLD, old stuff we're talking about here.) But I coulddn't stand PSP4.
I'm reasonably sure the GIMP guys are smart enough not to change things around too drastically, but it's a concern of mine, since I really enjoy working with and playing with The GIMP as it is. I don't want to have to update to a newer form that I really don't like to get the latest neat things.
Just a concern of mine.
In my experience, it's only been HFS. I haven't even been able to pin down the behavior of *that*--my iMac DV, 400mHz, which was pure HFS (MacOS 9--it shipped hfs+ but I razed it down and made it HFS to obey my evil schemes) choked quite badly on some Debian PPC that I and my boyfriend tried to install.
/. before about the ability to make an exact replica of a disk image of a Macintosh over a network, very very easily. Anyone have any pointers?
I'm not sure. I'd really like to hear that HFS+ is okay for what you're trying to do. It'd make Linux feasible on my laptop and a few other Macs I have sitting around--they're HFS+, and I have apps on them that I no longer have the media for, and AFAIK there's nothing similar to Partition Magic for Macintosh--I'd have to reformat and install in HFS to install anything.
Anyone know of any Partition Magic -- FIPS type things for MacOS? I'd love it.
Also, I read something I vaguely remember on
That's what I had four years ago when I took BASIC in high school. QBASIC, actually. The woman was a librarian and drama coach, not a bloody computer instructor. I ran around helping out people, hardly able to get my own work done, trying to get 15 incompetent 15-year-olds to figure out that
:)
REM this program sucks
and
REM ***This Program Sucks***
are REALLY NOT DIFFERENT. The woman gave me a C in the class because I "didn't put forth enough effort".
Geeze. I like my C++ prof now that I'm in college. The man knows his stuff. He used to work for DEC; he's programmed his way in and out of just about every program that's out there, and he lets people telnet/ssh to linux boxen and use gcc because he really detests the Microsoft Visual C++ that the college has put into standard usage. Dr. Kruse, if you're reading this, cheers!
Anyway, back to reality.
I did heavy basic from the time I was pretty young (we had a PCjr with a BASIC cartridge when I was but a mere geeklette) and learned it a lot deeper when I entered high school. qbasic has the ability to ruin a programmer--I used it. Extensively. Now that I'm in college and trying to learn C++, I'm having a very hard time.
....OTOH, I find it a lot easier to type
g++ -o executable file.cpp implementation.cpp
than do all that crap with MSVC++ in a lab, make a new workspace, new Win32 console app, all that.
But yeah, your mileage may vary with BASIC. When I get older and have kids, I wouldn't want to teach it to them. That might just be me.
This IS indeed supposed to be humorous. The whole Robotnic-Bill Gates parallel struck me just as I was wrapping up and I tossed it in to be silly. I honestly didn't expect, and don't believe I deserve, a score 4 on this.
The bit about the penguins was a little far-fetched to be honest MS-bashing. It's just silly.
Okay, perhaps this is a very obscure reference, but it IS related and not entirely offtopic.
First of all, what real evidence do we have that MS will indeed buy Sega? Gahhh...I should certainly hope not.
If anything, I think Sega should be open-sourced. Here's my take on it; it's rather limited to the comic book scene.
Archie Comics has a Sonic the Hedgehog lineup, almost to their 100th issue, with surprisingly in-depth storylines and a good deal of artistic talent. Sure, it's just Sonic and a bunch of furries fighting evil, but they look GOOD doing it! Archie's got some good writers working on the Sonic scene, but see, Sega has its OWN characters and agendas. Archie has had a hard time dealing with this as they attempt to make their storylines more involved--Sega demands that Sonic retain a cool and spunky attitude, and he's too "cool" to be involved in any emotional issues that are at the core of developing a fictional character. So it's very hard for Archie to develop personalities and "nail down" the characters...because of this issue.
If Micros~1 bought Sega, this would likely get even worse. We all know how Microsoft is about licensing. They'd probably demand death scenes of all characters other than those exclusively designed by Sega and put in the games, and a very decent comic title would die out due to lack of readership. Then Sonic and the remaining four or five characters would begin resembling paperclips. They'd lose what little personality they had entirely. And they'd all zoom around quickly correcting spelling mistakes you don't want corrected. At least once a day you'd get a blue (blur) screen. Robotnik would probably be the only remaining character. They'd change his name to Ro-bill-nik, or Redmondnik, or something like that. And Sega and Microsoft would jointly create a new character, Panic the Penguin, with his leagues of evil penguins, whom Ro-Gates-Nik would have to go around converting to his purposes....
No? Okay. Well, I'm done now.