"Are you implying that slackware 7.1 is a secure system? Have you audited the entire distribution yourself? Can you honestly say that you trust your distribution to be 100% secure?"
Have you? And it's true, *in general*, more secure systems are more difficult to use. Try jacking up the kernel security level in any BSD and see how much stuff you would use normally breaks. There are lots of things you can do in most unices that you can't do in OpenBSD, due to them not being the most secure practices in the world - this makes the system more secure, and less usable.
There is a tradeoff, and you need to find the balance that is appropriate for your needs - developers also need to work on making their OSes security features more useable. Argus Pitbull is one of the most usable AND secure TOS add-ons I've seen, but it's still more difficult to use than your average everyday UNIX.
I've had the same experience, working for the government. Managers say "oh, Linux, I've heard of that, let's give it a shot", and when asked about BSD, they're totally reluctant to use it anywhere, because they just don't know enough about it. We're talking people that want to use Caldera for their firewalls. Sigh.
The main thing here is to lay off the kid for a bit, make sure that he develops socially. I've known several of these kids, and they've been universally pretentious, obnoxious, and have had enormous superiority complexes. In some sense I admire kids who are able to pursue things so early (if it's not just their parents pushing them), but I also feel sad for them having lost their childhood, their college life, and any kind of social interaction - the 9-year-olds don't want him, the college students don't want him either.
I'd say, yeah, help him with the technical stuff, but make sure his education is well-rounded, that he learns more cultural and artistic things as well. Make sure he's psychologically well-adjusted - he's not going to have any problems learning what he needs to learn, but he'll have massive problems trying to adjust as he gets older.
What's the pthreads bug? I remember I was having some problems with pth a while back...I assumed it was cause I was dumb. I should probably put a soundcard that works into my BSD box at some point. Nobukazu Takemura is cool.
Sounds cool. I'd definitely use it, if it wasn't dependent on ALSA, which is a Linux-centric product, unless I'm mistaken. I don't run Linux, I run FreeBSD, and have since around 96 or so - tried Linux and was less than impressed. This is kind of what I mean about people tending to forget about anything other than the main OS player in the field...similar to a certain large corporate OS developer and many of the people that write apps for it.
/*Competition in markets usually means an improvement of the products in that market, that would mean that both Be and Linux would have to improve. */
Blah blah blah, standard OSS party line. The problem is, that only happens in situations where there's a monetary incentive. In the OSS community, it means so much duplication of effort tying up so many developers that no one ends up getting all the things they need. 3 different BSDs, god knows how many different slightly incompatible Linux distros, etc etc. It's great to have choices, but OSS is not without its drawbacks in this regard. The other problem being that many people won't develop a full-featured product without being kicked in the ass by a corporation - do you see any decent integrated IDEs for UN*X? Any good multitrack sound studios? People aren't making these things on their own, and they won't because it's too much work to polish the applications like corporate programmers do.
That said, I should point out that I'm not a corporate programmer, and I use quite a bit of OSS myself. But unless people come up with a way to make OSS produce really high-quality apps as the rule, instead of the exception, people are going to keep booting into Windows/BeOS/MacOS etc.
Playing mp3s backwards is no big deal. Install Soundplay on BeOS, and throw in a CD - you can play CDs backwards on the fly. Now *that's* cool.
Personally, I wish Linux folks would venture out of *their* little OS domain - and notice that they're not the only nor the best free UN*X system, and that there are different OSes best suited to different purposes.
Myself, I'm sick to death of crap programs that won't even compile properly under *BSD, because the developers forgot the universe didn't revolve around their OS.
Ok, I was wrong about "effected" not being a word. It is a word, but is *very* rarely used.
Ripped from dictionary.com:
/* Usage Note: Affect1 and effect have no senses in common. As a verb affect1 is most commonly used in the sense of "to influence" (how smoking affects health). Effect means "to bring about or execute": layoffs designed to effect savings. Thus the sentence These measures may affect savings could imply that the measures may reduce savings that have already been realized, whereas These measures may effect savings implies that the measures will cause new savings to come about. */
Now, not that my own grammar is perfect or anything, but I think this indicates that affected is the proper word. Affected implies influence, whereas effected implies creation. In the signature, "affected" was used, because it was referring to PacMan's influence - the word "influenced" could have easily been substituted for "affected".For instance:
Al Gore effected the creation of the the internet.
Well, maybe. Effected is a rather hard word to use at all - normally "effect" is used as a noun, e.g. the slashdot effect, special effects. As a side note, Harvard has eased its grammar rules considerably - split infinitives are now acceptable, for instance. Sheesh.
Although I'm sure it'll be useful for someone, this strikes me as a really bad idea. One of the few things Windows has going for it is (gasp!) a common look and feel, something *NICes have never had. I can't picture any Windows users deciding they want to have a bunch of uglier widgets right next to ones that look totally different, just so they can run...um, gnumeric? Gaim? Gftp? What exactly would be someone's motivation to run this? Certainly Gimp would be ok, but in that situation the program itself should be ported.
I'm no fan of Windows, polluting it with the *NIX world's fragmentation seems counter-productive.
You can see what it might be someday, but at the moment it's not very useful: the installation process is clunky, and there aren't any polished clients.
Hm, reminds me of another open-source protocol in development...ah yes, "Jabber" I believe it was called.:) For that matter, it sounds like a good number of OSS programs/OSes, unfortunately.
Don't know if this has been mentioned, but Intel actually had previously agreed to cut down power consumption when necessary - this is part of their contract with the power co., and by promising this, they get cut-rate prices.
Wander around and you'll find a number of long-forgotten webpages that were originally written in LaTeX and then converted to HTML, as if somehow it was easier that way...
-lx
If you'd actually make any contribution to technology, maybe you could do it in your own language. The reason everything is in English is that Americans are the primary driving force in the high-tech world - we brought you IBM, Microsoft, and the internet. We brought you C. In any event, I think we should all speak Japanese. Or German. English as a last resort.
And for those who don't read Japanese(I can speak it, but my kanji sucks), here's the article run thru Excite Japan's rather amusing translator:
To something wrong it, and the recall NEC
The possibility that something wrong is caused in the product partially of CPU (central operation processor)"Crusoe" made by the US transformer meta company installed by the notebook-sized personal computer turned out, NEC clarified a part of the notebook-sized personal computer of the type equipped with Crusoe on the 29th, and it was clarified that the examination had started in the direction where it was a recall (collection and gratuitous repair). Sony which sold the notebook-sized personal computer which handled same Crusoe also started the investigation of the realities.
It was confirmed not to be able to reinstall basic software (OS) partially of the notebook-sized personal computer for the individual who had put it on the market in October because of Crusoe's defective operation according to NEC. It is said as foresight by which [it] stays in several thousand parts which have already been sold to seem to become the object of the collection.
For Crusoe, [it] is developed in rivalry with CPU of Intel Corp. which boasts of an overwhelming share, and low power consumption is a sales thing.
You expect "half-price hosting" to be a friendly and reliable ISP? As with most things in computer-related fields, you get what you pay for. It's really a shame, though, that companies make it so difficult to read their terms of service, so they can fuck you on it later on. No one has time to read every TOS they come across, or check the license of every program they use.
Hey, mozilla/netscape may not be perfect, but the mozilla project is doing fairly well right now, IMO, and I think there's nowhere to go but up from here. It is, after all, all we've got(with a few minor exceptions). Maybe when MS decides to do officially release their linux port, things will be different.
Now, on another note - let's have moderation for actual stories that are posted. Or perhaps for the commentary the poster tacks on at the end - this way, we could moderate jackass contributors like michael down to the level they post at - flamebait.
Agreed. It's good to see they're upping the pay, but I still wouldn't go back to working for the government. The pay is still nowhere near a normal job - I saw job postings for sysadmins on the west coast offering *35K* a year starting, which is nuts for the area.
I too had some boat-rocking problems, it seems most government workers are pretty resistant to technological change, and a lot of people get upset when you try and take them off of their 10 year old DGUX machines onto something more modern.
Slashdot Mirror
"Are you implying that slackware 7.1 is a secure system? Have you audited the entire distribution yourself? Can you honestly say that you trust your distribution to be 100% secure?"
Have you? And it's true, *in general*, more secure systems are more difficult to use. Try jacking up the kernel security level in any BSD and see how much stuff you would use normally breaks. There are lots of things you can do in most unices that you can't do in OpenBSD, due to them not being the most secure practices in the world - this makes the system more secure, and less usable.
There is a tradeoff, and you need to find the balance that is appropriate for your needs - developers also need to work on making their OSes security features more useable. Argus Pitbull is one of the most usable AND secure TOS add-ons I've seen, but it's still more difficult to use than your average everyday UNIX.
-lx
I've had the same experience, working for the government. Managers say "oh, Linux, I've heard of that, let's give it a shot", and when asked about BSD, they're totally reluctant to use it anywhere, because they just don't know enough about it. We're talking people that want to use Caldera for their firewalls. Sigh.
-lx
Isn't that true of Ruby as well? Seems to me it's a language that might have more practical application, but that's just me.
-lx
Work for IBM do ya? Heard they've implemented such policies for AIX developers.
-lx
The main thing here is to lay off the kid for a bit, make sure that he develops socially. I've known several of these kids, and they've been universally pretentious, obnoxious, and have had enormous superiority complexes. In some sense I admire kids who are able to pursue things so early (if it's not just their parents pushing them), but I also feel sad for them having lost their childhood, their college life, and any kind of social interaction - the 9-year-olds don't want him, the college students don't want him either.
I'd say, yeah, help him with the technical stuff, but make sure his education is well-rounded, that he learns more cultural and artistic things as well. Make sure he's psychologically well-adjusted - he's not going to have any problems learning what he needs to learn, but he'll have massive problems trying to adjust as he gets older.
-lx
Ah. That wasn't immediately obvious :)
What's the pthreads bug? I remember I was having some problems with pth a while back...I assumed it was cause I was dumb. I should probably put a soundcard that works into my BSD box at some point. Nobukazu Takemura is cool.
-lx
Sounds cool. I'd definitely use it, if it wasn't dependent on ALSA, which is a Linux-centric product, unless I'm mistaken. I don't run Linux, I run FreeBSD, and have since around 96 or so - tried Linux and was less than impressed. This is kind of what I mean about people tending to forget about anything other than the main OS player in the field...similar to a certain large corporate OS developer and many of the people that write apps for it.
-lx
/*Competition in markets usually means an improvement of the products in that market, that would mean that both Be and Linux would have to improve. */
Blah blah blah, standard OSS party line. The problem is, that only happens in situations where there's a monetary incentive. In the OSS community, it means so much duplication of effort tying up so many developers that no one ends up getting all the things they need. 3 different BSDs, god knows how many different slightly incompatible Linux distros, etc etc. It's great to have choices, but OSS is not without its drawbacks in this regard. The other problem being that many people won't develop a full-featured product without being kicked in the ass by a corporation - do you see any decent integrated IDEs for UN*X? Any good multitrack sound studios? People aren't making these things on their own, and they won't because it's too much work to polish the applications like corporate programmers do.
That said, I should point out that I'm not a corporate programmer, and I use quite a bit of OSS myself. But unless people come up with a way to make OSS produce really high-quality apps as the rule, instead of the exception, people are going to keep booting into Windows/BeOS/MacOS etc.
-lx
Playing mp3s backwards is no big deal. Install Soundplay on BeOS, and throw in a CD - you can play CDs backwards on the fly. Now *that's* cool.
Personally, I wish Linux folks would venture out of *their* little OS domain - and notice that they're not the only nor the best free UN*X system, and that there are different OSes best suited to different purposes.
Myself, I'm sick to death of crap programs that won't even compile properly under *BSD, because the developers forgot the universe didn't revolve around their OS.
-lx
Ok, I was wrong about "effected" not being a word. It is a word, but is *very* rarely used.
Ripped from dictionary.com:
/* Usage Note: Affect1 and effect have no senses in common. As a verb affect1 is most commonly used in the sense of "to influence" (how smoking affects health). Effect means "to bring about or execute": layoffs designed to effect savings. Thus the sentence These measures may affect savings could imply that the measures may reduce savings that have already been realized, whereas These measures may effect savings implies that the measures will cause new savings to come about. */
Now, not that my own grammar is perfect or anything, but I think this indicates that affected is the proper word. Affected implies influence, whereas effected implies creation. In the signature, "affected" was used, because it was referring to PacMan's influence - the word "influenced" could have easily been substituted for "affected".For instance:
Al Gore effected the creation of the the internet.
Well, maybe. Effected is a rather hard word to use at all - normally "effect" is used as a noun, e.g. the slashdot effect, special effects. As a side note, Harvard has eased its grammar rules considerably - split infinitives are now acceptable, for instance. Sheesh.
-lx
You've got it right, don't worry about it. Effected isn't even a word.
-lx
For the record, Javascript was invented by Netscape, and has no relation to Java(TM).
-lx
Although I'm sure it'll be useful for someone, this strikes me as a really bad idea. One of the few things Windows has going for it is (gasp!) a common look and feel, something *NICes have never had. I can't picture any Windows users deciding they want to have a bunch of uglier widgets right next to ones that look totally different, just so they can run...um, gnumeric? Gaim? Gftp? What exactly would be someone's motivation to run this? Certainly Gimp would be ok, but in that situation the program itself should be ported.
I'm no fan of Windows, polluting it with the *NIX world's fragmentation seems counter-productive.
-lx
You can see what it might be someday, but at the moment it's not very useful: the installation process is clunky, and there aren't any polished clients.
:) For that matter, it sounds like a good number of OSS programs/OSes, unfortunately.
Hm, reminds me of another open-source protocol in development...ah yes, "Jabber" I believe it was called.
-lx
Don't know if this has been mentioned, but Intel actually had previously agreed to cut down power consumption when necessary - this is part of their contract with the power co., and by promising this, they get cut-rate prices.
-lx
Stupid Opera can't seem to deal with the concept of logging in to slashdot. Didn't mean to post AC.
-lx
Wander around and you'll find a number of long-forgotten webpages that were originally written in LaTeX and then converted to HTML, as if somehow it was easier that way... -lx
If you'd actually make any contribution to technology, maybe you could do it in your own language. The reason everything is in English is that Americans are the primary driving force in the high-tech world - we brought you IBM, Microsoft, and the internet. We brought you C. In any event, I think we should all speak Japanese. Or German. English as a last resort.
-lx
And for those who don't read Japanese(I can speak it, but my kanji sucks), here's the article run thru Excite Japan's rather amusing translator:
To something wrong it, and the recall NEC
The possibility that something wrong is caused in the product partially of CPU (central operation processor)"Crusoe" made by the US transformer meta company installed by the notebook-sized personal computer turned out, NEC clarified a part of the notebook-sized personal computer of the type equipped with Crusoe on the 29th, and it was clarified that the examination had started in the direction where it was a recall (collection and gratuitous repair). Sony which sold the notebook-sized personal computer which handled same Crusoe also started the investigation of the realities.
It was confirmed not to be able to reinstall basic software (OS) partially of the notebook-sized personal computer for the individual who had put it on the market in October because of Crusoe's defective operation according to NEC. It is said as foresight by which [it] stays in several thousand parts which have already been sold to seem to become the object of the collection.
For Crusoe, [it] is developed in rivalry with CPU of Intel Corp. which boasts of an overwhelming share, and low power consumption is a sales thing.
(November 30th 01:47)
The net could be pretty effectively knocked out if you just took out the 13 root name servers...all the more reason to use ORSC :)
-lx
You expect "half-price hosting" to be a friendly and reliable ISP? As with most things in computer-related fields, you get what you pay for. It's really a shame, though, that companies make it so difficult to read their terms of service, so they can fuck you on it later on. No one has time to read every TOS they come across, or check the license of every program they use.
-lx
Ah yes, I forgot. I'm suddenly compelled to buy a 7R4N$m374 ch1p!
-lx
A Transmeta PC I mean. It'd perform worse than an Intel or AMD PC, correct?
-lx
Hey, mozilla/netscape may not be perfect, but the mozilla project is doing fairly well right now, IMO, and I think there's nowhere to go but up from here. It is, after all, all we've got(with a few minor exceptions). Maybe when MS decides to do officially release their linux port, things will be different.
Now, on another note - let's have moderation for actual stories that are posted. Or perhaps for the commentary the poster tacks on at the end - this way, we could moderate jackass contributors like michael down to the level they post at - flamebait.
-lx
Agreed. It's good to see they're upping the pay, but I still wouldn't go back to working for the government. The pay is still nowhere near a normal job - I saw job postings for sysadmins on the west coast offering *35K* a year starting, which is nuts for the area.
I too had some boat-rocking problems, it seems most government workers are pretty resistant to technological change, and a lot of people get upset when you try and take them off of their 10 year old DGUX machines onto something more modern.
-lx