*chi*mas, per se, was never actually used, so far as I know, literally. The chi alone was often used to mark a meeting place or religious ceremony though ( usually passover seder, easter, not Christmas) and carried the full implication of "Celebration of Christ" in the single letter.
The fish thing eventually became more popular though. Something about persecution and all that.
. . . admitting there is a problem. It's believing there is a problem."
Which is basically what I meant, if not exactly what I said.
I fairly recently lost my teatotaller sweetie of ten years to alcoholism. I found it fascinating the way she could deny her alcoholism and treat it with casual acceptence in *the same sentence* depending on which way her denial was flowing at the precise moment.
I also, of course, found it distressing the way she could dismiss her alcoholism with the statement, " Maybe I'll survive."
She hasn't been anywhere close to bottom yet, although she's seen it in her family members. Seeing doesn't make "believing" though.
I've seen her family members too. At least one of them didn't survive.
As a "hacker" and endurance athlete I'm very familiar with various "altered states" that have a distinct physiological componant. The "runner's high" is real and based on the release of endorphins in the system. When forced to take an extended break by injury or "real life" I actually go through a physical withdrawl similar to that of the heroin addict, although far less severe.
I'm also a coffee addict and likewise experience physical withdrawl when denied coffee for more than several hours.
The "little satori" of the hacker, I still maintain, even though there is a slight physiological componant, is different from these.
I prefer to maintain the classic distinction between addiction and obssesive behaviour because I belive the distinction is real, and important to treatment.
*THAT* said, ignoring the purely psychological componant of the a traditional chemically based addiction is the greatest cause of recidivisim. There's little point to cleaning up the addict without dealing directly with the purely psychological traits that led the addict to consider drug abuse as a viable option in the first place.
If the alcoholic wants to be numbed psychologically that aspect itself must be dealt with.
"I searched for "Mekong Group" (kind of a disturbing name to Americans in light of Vietnam fighting there"
So you can imagine how I feel when every day I have to pass Schenectady Hardware and Electric in light of the Schenectady Massacre.
All the stores in Richmond Va. named "Richmond this or that" make me shudder and how anybody can actually still visit, let alone live in, the Argonne without getting the screaming willies is beyond me.
The fact of the matter is that virtually every bit of soil ever visited by human beings is soaked in the blood of humans spilled by other humans.
If we're going to be sensitive to this fact perhaps it should be to oppose the continuence of this sordid state of affairs.
Other than that such sensitivity would just mean we have to invent new euphemisims for every place on earth so as not to 'offend' anyone.
The early car interface was modeled on the bicycle interface, which, golly gee, ended up being the model for the motorcycle interface. Who woulda thunk it?
The bicycle interface, by the way, was modeled on the *boat* interface, not the horse.
KFG
Yeah, that's why I insisted on having. . .
on
The Humane Environment
·
· Score: 4, Funny
a steering wheel and gas pedal installed on my motorcycle.
Having to learn a new interface was just wasted time.
Next I'm going to have them installed on my VCR so I can set the clock without having to learn another interface. If we'd just standardize on a one interface for everything than life would be a lot easier, everyone would know how to work everything and we wouldn't have to waste time learning new shit all the time.
As a matter of fact I'm still kinda pissed at all that time I spent learning how to read ( and as you can tell I've simply refused to learn how to spell). We should be able to do it by direct neural interface.
isn't so much charging for support per se, or even charging for the documentation ( and one could argue that one could read the source for that), it's the attaching of an NDA to the documentation that irks.
Frankly, I agree.
This is like O'Reilly saying, " You can't divulge any of the information in this book."
I'm sorry, but as my granny used to say, " Fuck that shit!"
Give a man a fish and you feed him for day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. Teach him to fish but make him sign an NDA first and, well, you're a shit head.
As it happens I've taught people to fish, for money. I assume some of those people have taught other people to fish, perhaps for money. Well, I *got* my money for what *I did.* They are getting money for what *they* did. The idea that I could forbid them from doing this is ludicrous.
What if a university did this? "Yeah, we'll teach you Java, but don't you dare think that means you can make money by teaching it yourself afterwards."
and everything else as well. I mean, this guy was a *serious* drug user. If you could swallow it, shoot it up or inhale it, he did it. All the time.
Hell, he's even mentioned in at least one book as a case study.
He's been clean and sober for 25 years now. for the last 20 of those he's been a full time substance abuse counseller. He likes to play a game with people. He asks them their drug of choice. From that he can do a pretty good analysis of the person's personality, even he's never met them before.
I once asked him why people get drunk. I don't get it, I really don't. Everything about being drunk is unpleasant to me. Even being under the influence I find unpleasant. So how can someone be so addicted to this that they'll throw away everything to wake up in a gutter in a pool of their own vomit and immediately go looking for a drink?
He looked at me and said, "Ah, that's because *you're* not an alcoholic."
The point being that by my *personality* alcohol has no positive virtue to me. To the alcoholic it *does.* To an alcoholic *alcohol* is like heaven. Heroin may well be quite detestable to that person because the "high" of heroin isn't the "high" that, ummmm, gets them high. The alcoholic doesn't *want* "high" per se. He wants to be numb, or dance around with a lamp shade on his head and beat his wife and try to avoid repercussion by saying, "Hey, I was drunk."
The pothead, conversely is the *sort* of person who wants to sit quietly in the corner saying, "Oh, wow man."
Your friend was the *sort* of person for whom the heroin high is heaven. There are, in fact, many, many casual users of heroin for whom it's pleasant, but not "heaven."
I find it telling that the writer of the article mentioned casinos. That's what the EQ "junkies" ARE doing. It's the same obsessive compulsive behaviour that a gambling "addict" experiences. Neither gambling nor EQ are drugs. There is no *actual* physiological componant to the behaviour as there is with heroin. Any "withdrawl" is purely psychosomatic.
So why don't these people just up and quit?
Because they have the sort of personality that, even while they are experiencing distress, in some way are getting more positive feedback from playing than negative.
They "want" the experience they are having, whether they realize it or not. It's their "heaven."
Take a page from the "Big Book." The first step to overcoming the problem is admiting there's a problem. What's more, the problem isn't the "game," it's you, and *you* have to take responsibility for it. If you find you are powerless against it then *get help.*
Which is what the article is, really. Not a warning, but a plea for help. Public therapy is never pretty. Find a good specialist in obsessive compulsive behaviour and get help.
KFG
Actually, that's a legitimate question
on
Kevin Free
·
· Score: 2
According to an interview with Kevin on "The Screen Savers" he won't be free as in speach for some time yet.
It appears there's a "gag order" attached to his deal that forbids him from telling his story for a few more years yet.
He'll be back on the internet, but he can't talk about it.
It's a bit of cruel, sick joke, but the more so because of its truth. In some respects you should be greatful if you get several good years in your major field. Most people don't you know. The real crunch is going to come in about 4 years as the univerisities are really just cranking up the "mill" to turn out programers and CS grads.
Odds are these people will never work in the field at any high level capacity. Code grinders maybe, if they're good, and if they're lucky.
An education is still a good thing you know, for its own sake. Really. And just because you end up in the plumber's union by the time you're 30 doesn't mean you can't still code and enjoy everything that the *act* of coding gives you.
If you didn't get into CS because you love it, *that* was your mistake. Coding is one of the few remaining fields in which you can still do top grade work in your "spare" time and with the internet even in cooperation with groups of like minded individuals.
Real hacking is like poetry really, a creative art form. Guess what? The poets have been used to having to be plumbers for thousands of years.
are you ready for it? Xmas. That isn't an X, it's a "chi," the Greek letter, which happens to stand for "Kristo." Xmas predates the use of Christmas by a goodly margin.
Because it isn't the 8GB/s that's the issue. It's that 1/3 to 1 (more realistically) second lag. For most gaming 28k with *zero lag* would be considered lightning fast.
On the other hand for P2P or uploading/downloading massive data the lag is virtually a nonissue and it's the total time of transfer that counts.
One's percetion of what is "fast" is a relative issue, just like damned near everything else.
KFG
Remember when Court TV was all court all the time?
on
Anime Unleashed on TechTV
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
Have you tuned it in lately? An awful lot of crime fiction there now.
The market for such specialized channels simply doesn't exist, even on cable, in a manner that allows them to keep the bills payed. Sad, but true.
I'd rather they tried to save their collective butts by showing cartoons than 4 hour commercials for the Thighmaster.
Notice they're smart enough not to mention. . .
on
Christmas in 2050
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· Score: 2
the flying cars we won't have -- Again.
They've 'predicted' that one so many times that they've finally figured out that we're "lost pidgeons" on that topic.
They're still predicting that machines will read our minds and do everything we want for us before we even know we want it though. Kinda makes me wonder just what it is *we* are expected to be doing.
I guess the future is scarier than we thought. A life of maintaining the machines that maintain us, until the machines take that function over too.
Good thing I'll believe this is even possible when the the machines give me monkeys flying out of my butt for Christmas.
people watching it at the same time. When I wash my car, read a book, eat dinner or just take a leak there are perhaps millions engaging in the same activity at the same time.
Big deal. It isn't some mystical fact. Just a fact. It conveys no information other than the fact that there are billions of people who at any given time are doing one of a fairly limited set of things.
We read greater things into it primarily because we are wired to seek acceptence from the tribal unit by behaving in similar fashions to the group. Geeks are nonconformists, although they tend to be nonconformist in the same sense that hippies and Japanese teens are "nonconformist." i.e., conform the same as me or you are "out."
The idea of someone surfing the same page as you at the same time gives the illusion of "group membership" with that person even though no such "group" actually exists.
It's a literal "feel good" idea of no actual signifigance. Your "group" membership is actually far closer with the guy that stocked the shelves at the supermarket where you buy your food or that damned cop who wouldn't let you off with a warning.
This is not to say that real groups aren't forged over the internet. Just that they aren't any more "golly gee" than any other such tenuous groups, like everyone who watched Friends last night.
That's all a gun is. Medieval technology. Literally. Columbus carried guns on the Santa Maria.They were ancient tech then. Anyone who wishes to make a crude (even multishot) firearm that would be perfectly usable for street crime purposes can find everything he needs at the local Home Depot. With a bit of ingenuity he'll find everything he needs at his local supermarket.
In terms of taking guns out of the hands of criminals laws such as this only serve to drive the market for Saturday Night Specials.
Nor will this technology do *anything* to prevent the legitimate owner of a gun from commiting murder or other crimes with it.
It's only real function is to act as a "safety" on the safety, and in that role it may actually save some lives. It may well cost a few as well. Time will tell, but in terms of being "anticrime" this is really just a "feel good" measure. It provides an illusion of safety that doesn't actually exist.
Kinda like a cheesy firewall riddled with known exploits and workarounds that every script kiddie in the known universe knows how to defeat.
Makes "Joe User" feel all warm and fuzzy inside though knowing that his system is "protected."
Answer that, correctly, and you'll be at least part of the way to understanding China wanting to make its own chips.
Why did Bush the Elder go to Japan to threaten the Japanese government with all being barfed upon if they didn't buy more American cars, even though *Americans* considered the American product inferior?
Answer that and you'll be another part of the way there.
How are you going to feed yourself when you lose you the outside source of income you depend on for your very existence?
Let me ask you this. Why don't we in America simply give up manufacturing everything and simply rely on China to make all our shit for us?
Oh, wait. Nevermind that last one.
Good Lord man. Has the very idea of selfreliance become so foreign to you that you can't even consider its existence, let alone its value, especially to a nation?
Yes, playing to different sets of rules is perfectly legitimate. People do it all the time.
An outfit like Red Hat or Mandrake can be evaluated by standard business models because they accepted that rule set and are playing that game.
Red Hat and Mandrake != Linux.
If I may speak metaphorically ( and I may, because there really isn't anything you can do about it) the business model of success is similar to that of Chess.
Linux is a bit more like Go, where not only the rules but the very concept of "winning" is somewhat different.
Slashdot Mirror
of "work."
KFG
rooting around in my cheek a bit.
*chi*mas, per se, was never actually used, so far as I know, literally. The chi alone was often used to mark a meeting place or religious ceremony though ( usually passover seder, easter, not Christmas) and carried the full implication of "Celebration of Christ" in the single letter.
The fish thing eventually became more popular though. Something about persecution and all that.
KFG
Cambodia or Laos.
KFG
but rather for who he took them with. His "war stories" are a fascinating compendium of a "Who's Who" of the 50's and 60's.
It's by knowing him that I've gotten to wear Bertrand Russel's tweed jacket.
KFG
. . . admitting there is a problem. It's believing there is a problem."
Which is basically what I meant, if not exactly what I said.
I fairly recently lost my teatotaller sweetie of ten years to alcoholism. I found it fascinating the way she could deny her alcoholism and treat it with casual acceptence in *the same sentence* depending on which way her denial was flowing at the precise moment.
I also, of course, found it distressing the way she could dismiss her alcoholism with the statement, " Maybe I'll survive."
She hasn't been anywhere close to bottom yet, although she's seen it in her family members. Seeing doesn't make "believing" though.
I've seen her family members too. At least one of them didn't survive.
KFG
As a "hacker" and endurance athlete I'm very familiar with various "altered states" that have a distinct physiological componant. The "runner's high" is real and based on the release of endorphins in the system. When forced to take an extended break by injury or "real life" I actually go through a physical withdrawl similar to that of the heroin addict, although far less severe.
I'm also a coffee addict and likewise experience physical withdrawl when denied coffee for more than several hours.
The "little satori" of the hacker, I still maintain, even though there is a slight physiological componant, is different from these.
I prefer to maintain the classic distinction between addiction and obssesive behaviour because I belive the distinction is real, and important to treatment.
*THAT* said, ignoring the purely psychological componant of the a traditional chemically based addiction is the greatest cause of recidivisim. There's little point to cleaning up the addict without dealing directly with the purely psychological traits that led the addict to consider drug abuse as a viable option in the first place.
If the alcoholic wants to be numbed psychologically that aspect itself must be dealt with.
KFG
"I searched for "Mekong Group" (kind of a disturbing name to Americans in light of Vietnam fighting there"
So you can imagine how I feel when every day I have to pass Schenectady Hardware and Electric in light of the Schenectady Massacre.
All the stores in Richmond Va. named "Richmond this or that" make me shudder and how anybody can actually still visit, let alone live in, the Argonne without getting the screaming willies is beyond me.
The fact of the matter is that virtually every bit of soil ever visited by human beings is soaked in the blood of humans spilled by other humans.
If we're going to be sensitive to this fact perhaps it should be to oppose the continuence of this sordid state of affairs.
Other than that such sensitivity would just mean we have to invent new euphemisims for every place on earth so as not to 'offend' anyone.
Seems kinda dopey to me.
KFG
The early car interface was modeled on the bicycle interface, which, golly gee, ended up being the model for the motorcycle interface. Who woulda thunk it?
The bicycle interface, by the way, was modeled on the *boat* interface, not the horse.
KFG
a steering wheel and gas pedal installed on my motorcycle.
Having to learn a new interface was just wasted time.
Next I'm going to have them installed on my VCR so I can set the clock without having to learn another interface. If we'd just standardize on a one interface for everything than life would be a lot easier, everyone would know how to work everything and we wouldn't have to waste time learning new shit all the time.
As a matter of fact I'm still kinda pissed at all that time I spent learning how to read ( and as you can tell I've simply refused to learn how to spell). We should be able to do it by direct neural interface.
With a steering wheel and gas pedal.
KFG
isn't so much charging for support per se, or even charging for the documentation ( and one could argue that one could read the source for that), it's the attaching of an NDA to the documentation that irks.
Frankly, I agree.
This is like O'Reilly saying, " You can't divulge any of the information in this book."
I'm sorry, but as my granny used to say, " Fuck that shit!"
Give a man a fish and you feed him for day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. Teach him to fish but make him sign an NDA first and, well, you're a shit head.
As it happens I've taught people to fish, for money. I assume some of those people have taught other people to fish, perhaps for money. Well, I *got* my money for what *I did.* They are getting money for what *they* did. The idea that I could forbid them from doing this is ludicrous.
What if a university did this? "Yeah, we'll teach you Java, but don't you dare think that means you can make money by teaching it yourself afterwards."
KFG
and everything else as well. I mean, this guy was a *serious* drug user. If you could swallow it, shoot it up or inhale it, he did it. All the time.
Hell, he's even mentioned in at least one book as a case study.
He's been clean and sober for 25 years now. for the last 20 of those he's been a full time substance abuse counseller. He likes to play a game with people. He asks them their drug of choice. From that he can do a pretty good analysis of the person's personality, even he's never met them before.
I once asked him why people get drunk. I don't get it, I really don't. Everything about being drunk is unpleasant to me. Even being under the influence I find unpleasant. So how can someone be so addicted to this that they'll throw away everything to wake up in a gutter in a pool of their own vomit and immediately go looking for a drink?
He looked at me and said, "Ah, that's because *you're* not an alcoholic."
The point being that by my *personality* alcohol has no positive virtue to me. To the alcoholic it *does.* To an alcoholic *alcohol* is like heaven. Heroin may well be quite detestable to that person because the "high" of heroin isn't the "high" that, ummmm, gets them high. The alcoholic doesn't *want* "high" per se. He wants to be numb, or dance around with a lamp shade on his head and beat his wife and try to avoid repercussion by saying, "Hey, I was drunk."
The pothead, conversely is the *sort* of person who wants to sit quietly in the corner saying, "Oh, wow man."
Your friend was the *sort* of person for whom the heroin high is heaven. There are, in fact, many, many casual users of heroin for whom it's pleasant, but not "heaven."
I find it telling that the writer of the article mentioned casinos. That's what the EQ "junkies" ARE doing. It's the same obsessive compulsive behaviour that a gambling "addict" experiences. Neither gambling nor EQ are drugs. There is no *actual* physiological componant to the behaviour as there is with heroin. Any "withdrawl" is purely psychosomatic.
So why don't these people just up and quit?
Because they have the sort of personality that, even while they are experiencing distress, in some way are getting more positive feedback from playing than negative.
They "want" the experience they are having, whether they realize it or not. It's their "heaven."
Take a page from the "Big Book." The first step to overcoming the problem is admiting there's a problem. What's more, the problem isn't the "game," it's you, and *you* have to take responsibility for it. If you find you are powerless against it then *get help.*
Which is what the article is, really. Not a warning, but a plea for help. Public therapy is never pretty. Find a good specialist in obsessive compulsive behaviour and get help.
KFG
According to an interview with Kevin on "The Screen Savers" he won't be free as in speach for some time yet.
It appears there's a "gag order" attached to his deal that forbids him from telling his story for a few more years yet.
He'll be back on the internet, but he can't talk about it.
KFG
securing the internet.
A: Godwin's Law says nothing about terminating threads.
B:Godwin's Law is redundant when the subject *is* Nazi's.
C:The same goes for discussing how to secure the internet.
It's the bloody *subject.*
KFG
to the unemployed phyisicist?
"Would you like fries with that?"
It's a bit of cruel, sick joke, but the more so because of its truth. In some respects you should be greatful if you get several good years in your major field. Most people don't you know. The real crunch is going to come in about 4 years as the univerisities are really just cranking up the "mill" to turn out programers and CS grads.
Odds are these people will never work in the field at any high level capacity. Code grinders maybe, if they're good, and if they're lucky.
An education is still a good thing you know, for its own sake. Really. And just because you end up in the plumber's union by the time you're 30 doesn't mean you can't still code and enjoy everything that the *act* of coding gives you.
If you didn't get into CS because you love it, *that* was your mistake. Coding is one of the few remaining fields in which you can still do top grade work in your "spare" time and with the internet even in cooperation with groups of like minded individuals.
Real hacking is like poetry really, a creative art form. Guess what? The poets have been used to having to be plumbers for thousands of years.
KFG
are you ready for it? Xmas. That isn't an X, it's a "chi," the Greek letter, which happens to stand for "Kristo." Xmas predates the use of Christmas by a goodly margin.
KFG
Because it isn't the 8GB/s that's the issue. It's that 1/3 to 1 (more realistically) second lag. For most gaming 28k with *zero lag* would be considered lightning fast.
On the other hand for P2P or uploading/downloading massive data the lag is virtually a nonissue and it's the total time of transfer that counts.
One's percetion of what is "fast" is a relative issue, just like damned near everything else.
KFG
Have you tuned it in lately? An awful lot of crime fiction there now.
The market for such specialized channels simply doesn't exist, even on cable, in a manner that allows them to keep the bills payed. Sad, but true.
I'd rather they tried to save their collective butts by showing cartoons than 4 hour commercials for the Thighmaster.
KFG
I call it, "Just say no."
KFG
the flying cars we won't have -- Again.
They've 'predicted' that one so many times that they've finally figured out that we're "lost pidgeons" on that topic.
They're still predicting that machines will read our minds and do everything we want for us before we even know we want it though. Kinda makes me wonder just what it is *we* are expected to be doing.
I guess the future is scarier than we thought. A life of maintaining the machines that maintain us, until the machines take that function over too.
Good thing I'll believe this is even possible when the the machines give me monkeys flying out of my butt for Christmas.
Or a flying Alfa Romeo.
KFG
people watching it at the same time. When I wash my car, read a book, eat dinner or just take a leak there are perhaps millions engaging in the same activity at the same time.
Big deal. It isn't some mystical fact. Just a fact. It conveys no information other than the fact that there are billions of people who at any given time are doing one of a fairly limited set of things.
We read greater things into it primarily because we are wired to seek acceptence from the tribal unit by behaving in similar fashions to the group. Geeks are nonconformists, although they tend to be nonconformist in the same sense that hippies and Japanese teens are "nonconformist." i.e., conform the same as me or you are "out."
The idea of someone surfing the same page as you at the same time gives the illusion of "group membership" with that person even though no such "group" actually exists.
It's a literal "feel good" idea of no actual signifigance. Your "group" membership is actually far closer with the guy that stocked the shelves at the supermarket where you buy your food or that damned cop who wouldn't let you off with a warning.
This is not to say that real groups aren't forged over the internet. Just that they aren't any more "golly gee" than any other such tenuous groups, like everyone who watched Friends last night.
KFG
That's all a gun is. Medieval technology. Literally. Columbus carried guns on the Santa Maria.They were ancient tech then. Anyone who wishes to make a crude (even multishot) firearm that would be perfectly usable for street crime purposes can find everything he needs at the local Home Depot. With a bit of ingenuity he'll find everything he needs at his local supermarket.
In terms of taking guns out of the hands of criminals laws such as this only serve to drive the market for Saturday Night Specials.
Nor will this technology do *anything* to prevent the legitimate owner of a gun from commiting murder or other crimes with it.
It's only real function is to act as a "safety" on the safety, and in that role it may actually save some lives. It may well cost a few as well. Time will tell, but in terms of being "anticrime" this is really just a "feel good" measure. It provides an illusion of safety that doesn't actually exist.
Kinda like a cheesy firewall riddled with known exploits and workarounds that every script kiddie in the known universe knows how to defeat.
Makes "Joe User" feel all warm and fuzzy inside though knowing that his system is "protected."
KFG
. . . mention of Tonya Harding helps"
Actually, I think if you "apropos" Microsoft you get refered to man Tonya Harding.
Looks like just a factual reference to me.
KFG
didn't we just buy more?
Answer that, correctly, and you'll be at least part of the way to understanding China wanting to make its own chips.
Why did Bush the Elder go to Japan to threaten the Japanese government with all being barfed upon if they didn't buy more American cars, even though *Americans* considered the American product inferior?
Answer that and you'll be another part of the way there.
How are you going to feed yourself when you lose you the outside source of income you depend on for your very existence?
Let me ask you this. Why don't we in America simply give up manufacturing everything and simply rely on China to make all our shit for us?
Oh, wait. Nevermind that last one.
Good Lord man. Has the very idea of selfreliance become so foreign to you that you can't even consider its existence, let alone its value, especially to a nation?
KFG
and cracks open one sleep encrusted eye.
What does it feel like when the whole world changes? Well, how do you feel right now?
The implications of this are simply staggering.
KFG
with a killer tennis serve.
Yes, playing to different sets of rules is perfectly legitimate. People do it all the time.
An outfit like Red Hat or Mandrake can be evaluated by standard business models because they accepted that rule set and are playing that game.
Red Hat and Mandrake != Linux.
If I may speak metaphorically ( and I may, because there really isn't anything you can do about it) the business model of success is similar to that of Chess.
Linux is a bit more like Go, where not only the rules but the very concept of "winning" is somewhat different.
KFG