The entire idea that "we" (whatever that means) "need" an advocate is incomprehensible bollocks.
RMS put on the tin commander-of-open-source epaulets and charged to the front of the bandwagon to wrestle with Bruce Perens. Neither of them have had any meaningful effect whatsoever on any important bits of code. Since it's the code that wins or loses at the end of the day, rather than these guys' self-serving, amateurish and _incredibly_ poor marketing skills, it's just sad that anyone even has to talk about this.
Linux is not a success because some inept low-bulb sysadmin who erroneously thinks he's a writer slapped together an essay. gcc is not a success due to a revulsively tacky picture of Gates as Hitler. perl is not a success due to some halfwit stalking around Microsoft offices dressed up as Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Get this into your heads. Stop worshipping incoherent bullshit artists who claim to be leaders, and write some damn code.
Slashdot doesn't need moderators; it needs an editor.
This isn't a flame against Rob. He's clearly a techie with a high threshold for bullshit. When it comes to putting a site up and dealing with the hassle, this is a good thing; and when it comes to making decisions or meta- decisions about content, it's a bad thing.
One important tip I learned from a few years of perl5-porters was that if you didn't strictly have to read a Tom Christiansen post, it was often easier to ignore it and save yourself the karmic hassle of feeling dirty at the end of a mailreading session. Tom's a moderately smart guy, but he's so full of bile now, for whatever reason, that it's no longer worth the effort.
I want to know the name of the guy that dropped the laser-guided Clue Anvil on esr was. Even if it wasn't so direct as Scoville said, it's been a long time coming.
In fact, it's kinda unclear why a guy who wears jedi outfits, spends time posting pictures of Gates-as-Hitler, writes poor, rambling essays, and reportedly lives off his wife was even at a conference involving business. Anyone have a rational explanation?
Does anyone else find it vaguely staggering to see an article by jon katz, wannabe new media great mind, talking about how monumental a book by bruce perens, wannabe free/open/whatever source great mind, is?
People flame katz for the same reason that we invented sewer systems and digital networks. Digital networks drastically increase the signal-to-noise ratio; and sewer systems cleaned out all the horseshit our ancestors had to step in.
Katz is not just technologically incompetent -- which is forgivable -- and literarily incompetent -- which is also forgivable; he's also claiming to be our philosophical figurehead and purveyor of wise and important words. But the emperor is naked, folks. If there's one lesson that history and especially recent Linux history should have etched into our brains, it's that anyone who elects _themselves_ into the 'leading intellectual light' position is looking for a quick buck, a quote in Time, an appearance on Larry King and an O'Reilly writing credit.
Every self-appointed 'leader' so far -- esr, Bruce Perens, OSI, and of course, katz -- has unerringly turned out to be primarily interested in self-promotion.
So it shouldn't surprise anyone that the net, one of the most advanced self-defensive organisms ever to emerge onto the planet, immediately starts taking action against the clearly false and manipulative bullshit. Think of it as an active sewer system working the way nature intends.
Call me cruel, malicious and malevolent if you have to, but I count it as a positive point that katz's feelings appear finally to have been hurt by the net's self-defense. If, contrary to all previous evidence, he's not some sort of bizarre Eliza-style automaton, then perhaps he's educable. Or, if not, perhaps he can at least be convinced to take his incoherent, poorly- written scrabblings and his tin commander of open source epaulets and sulk home to the company of his fabled motherboard-eating dog.
The net wants clarity and competence. See: Linux, FreeBSD, free compilers, perl, python. The net hates nonsense and incompetence. See: katz, Microsoft,Freedows/Alliance/whatever, spam.
Felix (part of the Felixes Against Morons Initiative)
An anonymous coward writes: >So, dropping one case, seeing a small subset >of power switches, and biting (I assume) a >motherboard allows you to extrapolate your >conclusions to what happened to Katz?
Have you been trepanned, or are you seriously defending Katz and suggesting that he didn't make up most of his implausible story?
By the way, he recently posted saying that he took pictures of the damage for insurance purposes. Wonder if that was before or after his pain-loving dog managed to slobber on the motherboard for over sixty seconds without anyone stopping it.
>Or perhaps your omniscience just let you watch >over his shoulder, and your perfect recall meant >you didn't need to take notes.
Hey, if you want to believe Katz's bullshit, don't let me stop you. I'm just pointing out how entertaining it is to have a technologically incompetent buffoon with the writing talent of a half-poisoned one-fingered monkey try to pull off a lie.
>Shouldn't you be playing Netrek somehwere, >SC-boy?
Your own particularly uninspired writing style reminds me of someone. ugcs, right?
The three obviously fictional parts I like the best:
1. Case screws coming out. I once dropped a PC off a 6 story building, and the case screws didn't unseat at all. Even the cheap sheet metal in a PC is almost impossible to unthread. The case would buckle and deform first. UPS would have had to remove the case from the packaging (note that Katz didn't indicate that the packaging was totally compromised or missing) and drop it over 80 feet to concrete in order to have much of a chance at unseating the case screws.
2. The dog picking up the motherboard in its mouth and walking around for a while. Funny image -- crazy ludicrous made-up bullshit that insults the reader's intelligence, though. You're staring at the innards of a thousand- dollar piece of equipment, and your dog strolls over and picks up an expensive flat board studded with thousands of tiny sharp pins in his mouth without you stopping him, and he likes the sensation of having his tongue pierced enough that he hangs on to it for over sixty seconds (a very long time; try watching a clock for sixty seconds) -- and you let him keep it that long?
3. The power switch breaking. It would be almost impossible to break a piece off a power switch on a modern PC even if you hit it edge-on with a hammer. And you can't get a power switch these days that's not inset into the case, requiring case disassembly before you can get the hammer test going.
The problem with bad writers making up fanciful nonsense in tech stories is that they're bound to be caught in the lie. It's no wonder Jon was fired from Wired.
Slashdot Mirror
The entire idea that "we" (whatever that means)
"need" an advocate is incomprehensible bollocks.
RMS put on the tin commander-of-open-source
epaulets and charged to the front of the
bandwagon to wrestle with Bruce Perens. Neither
of them have had any meaningful effect whatsoever
on any important bits of code. Since it's the
code that wins or loses at the end of the day,
rather than these guys' self-serving, amateurish
and _incredibly_ poor marketing skills, it's
just sad that anyone even has to talk about this.
Linux is not a success because some inept
low-bulb sysadmin who erroneously thinks he's
a writer slapped together an essay. gcc is not
a success due to a revulsively tacky picture of
Gates as Hitler. perl is not a success due to
some halfwit stalking around Microsoft offices
dressed up as Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Get this into your heads. Stop worshipping
incoherent bullshit artists who claim to be
leaders, and write some damn code.
Slashdot doesn't need moderators; it needs
an editor.
This isn't a flame against Rob. He's clearly
a techie with a high threshold for bullshit.
When it comes to putting a site up and dealing
with the hassle, this is a good thing; and
when it comes to making decisions or meta-
decisions about content, it's a bad thing.
Felix
One important tip I learned from a few years
of perl5-porters was that if you didn't
strictly have to read a Tom Christiansen
post, it was often easier to ignore it and
save yourself the karmic hassle of feeling
dirty at the end of a mailreading session.
Tom's a moderately smart guy, but he's so full
of bile now, for whatever reason, that it's
no longer worth the effort.
Rob, you are my hero.
Felix
I want to know the name of the guy that
dropped the laser-guided Clue Anvil on
esr was. Even if it wasn't so direct as
Scoville said, it's been a long time coming.
In fact, it's kinda unclear why a guy who wears
jedi outfits, spends time posting pictures of
Gates-as-Hitler, writes poor, rambling essays,
and reportedly lives off his wife was even at
a conference involving business. Anyone have
a rational explanation?
Felix
You hit the nail on the head, Cassius.
Does anyone else find it vaguely staggering to
see an article by jon katz, wannabe new media
great mind, talking about how monumental a
book by bruce perens, wannabe free/open/whatever
source great mind, is?
People flame katz for the same reason that we
invented sewer systems and digital networks.
Digital networks drastically increase the
signal-to-noise ratio; and sewer systems cleaned
out all the horseshit our ancestors had to step
in.
Katz is not just technologically incompetent --
which is forgivable -- and literarily
incompetent -- which is also forgivable; he's
also claiming to be our philosophical figurehead
and purveyor of wise and important words. But
the emperor is naked, folks. If there's one
lesson that history and especially recent Linux
history should have etched into our brains, it's
that anyone who elects _themselves_ into the
'leading intellectual light' position is looking
for a quick buck, a quote in Time, an appearance
on Larry King and an O'Reilly writing credit.
Every self-appointed 'leader' so far -- esr,
Bruce Perens, OSI, and of course, katz -- has
unerringly turned out to be primarily interested
in self-promotion.
So it shouldn't surprise anyone that the net,
one of the most advanced self-defensive organisms
ever to emerge onto the planet, immediately
starts taking action against the clearly false
and manipulative bullshit. Think of it as an
active sewer system working the way nature
intends.
Call me cruel, malicious and malevolent if you
have to, but I count it as a positive point that
katz's feelings appear finally to have been hurt
by the net's self-defense. If, contrary to all
previous evidence, he's not some sort of bizarre
Eliza-style automaton, then perhaps he's
educable. Or, if not, perhaps he can at least
be convinced to take his incoherent, poorly-
written scrabblings and his tin commander of
open source epaulets and sulk home to the
company of his fabled motherboard-eating dog.
The net wants clarity and competence. See:
Linux, FreeBSD, free compilers, perl, python.
The net hates nonsense and incompetence.
See: katz, Microsoft,Freedows/Alliance/whatever,
spam.
Felix
(part of the Felixes Against Morons Initiative)
An anonymous coward writes:
>So, dropping one case, seeing a small subset
>of power switches, and biting (I assume) a
>motherboard allows you to extrapolate your
>conclusions to what happened to Katz?
Have you been trepanned, or are you seriously
defending Katz and suggesting that he didn't
make up most of his implausible story?
By the way, he recently posted saying that he
took pictures of the damage for insurance
purposes. Wonder if that was before or after
his pain-loving dog managed to slobber on the
motherboard for over sixty seconds without
anyone stopping it.
>Or perhaps your omniscience just let you watch
>over his shoulder, and your perfect recall meant
>you didn't need to take notes.
Hey, if you want to believe Katz's bullshit,
don't let me stop you. I'm just pointing out
how entertaining it is to have a technologically
incompetent buffoon with the writing talent of
a half-poisoned one-fingered monkey try to pull
off a lie.
>Shouldn't you be playing Netrek somehwere,
>SC-boy?
Your own particularly uninspired writing style
reminds me of someone. ugcs, right?
Felix
The three obviously fictional parts I like
the best:
1. Case screws coming out. I once dropped
a PC off a 6 story building, and the case
screws didn't unseat at all. Even the cheap
sheet metal in a PC is almost impossible to
unthread. The case would buckle and deform
first. UPS would have had to remove the case
from the packaging (note that Katz didn't
indicate that the packaging was totally
compromised or missing) and drop it over 80
feet to concrete in order to have much of a
chance at unseating the case screws.
2. The dog picking up the motherboard in its
mouth and walking around for a while. Funny
image -- crazy ludicrous made-up bullshit
that insults the reader's intelligence, though.
You're staring at the innards of a thousand-
dollar piece of equipment, and your dog strolls
over and picks up an expensive flat board studded
with thousands of tiny sharp pins in his mouth
without you stopping him, and he likes the
sensation of having his tongue pierced enough
that he hangs on to it for over sixty seconds
(a very long time; try watching a clock for
sixty seconds) -- and you let him keep it that
long?
3. The power switch breaking. It would be
almost impossible to break a piece off a power
switch on a modern PC even if you hit it
edge-on with a hammer. And you can't get a
power switch these days that's not inset into
the case, requiring case disassembly before you
can get the hammer test going.
The problem with bad writers making up fanciful
nonsense in tech stories is that they're bound
to be caught in the lie. It's no wonder Jon was
fired from Wired.
Felix