The question and the jargon file quote seem to imply that mystical religions are those other than the mainstream religions. If you spend time studying religious history, you'll find they each have a mystical aspect and adherents for which this is the main focus of the religion.
As this is the one thing all mainstream (and all non-mainstream religions that I know of) religions have in common, its not to far a leap to conclude that mysticism is the central or core tenet of religion. I believe this is the defining characteristic of a religion... and that a lack of a mystic expression in the religion means its more appropriately referred to as a pop-psych phenomenom (scientology leaps to mind here).
--
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
a nice easy way to get some graphics done so I would not be limited to text applications. An earlier poster mentioned this as well - that
Check out Alice. Alice uses a slightly modified version of Python to teach people programming by interactively programming a 3D environment. Your programs control the movements and behaviours of objects. Its only for Windows, but it is supposed to be very nice.
--
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
And I remember a descendent of Core Wars which was a birds eye view of little tank creatures, which were programmed in a C like language, so there's a prototype of a simulator... Anybody remember what this was called / got a link?
There's a game for Linux called RealTimeBattle. It allows you to program in any language (communication via stdin/stdout). It just reached 1.0, with simple standard bots and a nice graphical interface. --
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Part of being able to scale, IMO, is to be able to handle a great number of threads. This is very important to the type of research I do (complex systems simulations, where I can have 1000+ threads).
Linux is at a major disadvantage here... it only supports course grained/one-to-one thread mapping (one thread to one process). More scalable systems, like Irix and Solaris, use a many-to-many mapping (groups of userland threads mapped to multiple kernel threads/processes).
Is there any plans to correct this deficiency?
--
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Why programmers don't use the VHL languages (python, tcl, ruby, etc) for application development?
Habit is all I can come up with. Speed certainly isn't the issue... except for a few specific areas (eg. graphics engines). In my experience, the only issue with VHLLs and speed is the interpreter start up time. The answer to this would seem to be the same as it would be for the web... an application server of some sort (kind of like emacs does with gnuserv).
Python (my favorite VHLL) is great for this kind of development. For my apps, I follow this outline in my performance tuning (assuming I've already written the app in python):
profile (using pythons great profiler)
optimize bottlenecks in python
[repeat until happy, or]
port stubborn modules to C (done easily with an outline already done in python)
This is what rapid application development is all about.:)
--
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
The gov. has no right to tax the internet. It is against the constitution to tax interstate.
They've done it before. Ever heard of income tax... it's unconstitutional as well. Didn't stop them before. If they really want to they'll do it, constitution be damned.
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Re:What a tangled web we weave...
on
RMS Responds
·
· Score: 2
Tom, I think you have a naive understanding of the political meaning of the word free (libre).
Free has never been about doing anything you want, quite the contrary, its about responsibilities.. Freedom is about trade offs, about balancing your freedoms against everyone else's. Should you be free to shout "fire" in a movie theatre, or to make it as obvious as possible, to go kill off a few of your neighbors. I doubt you'd say that in order for people to be free they should be able to do anything they damn well please.
Well, the FSF has always claimed to be talking about freedom in this light. It's not just about the freedom, but about the responsibilities that go along with that freedom. The FSF has made an attempt via the GPL and other documents to specify these freedoms and responsibilities. Whether they've been entirely successful or not is anther topic... ---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Actually the tech laws are not my primary reason for leaving. But they are topical and represent a symptom that my fellow programmers can easily relate to.
My primary concern is over a government that is already WAY too powerful and is doing everything it can to become even more so... Though the really sickening thing is that the majority* of the people in the US are more than happy to give up their liberties to the government. I'm looking to get out while the getting's good.
[* please don't take this to necessarily mean you, most slashdot readers seem to have libertarian leanings, while most US citizens don't] ---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
I'm getting sick of the US and their ass-backward tech laws. Is there a country out there which has good network access, reasonable IP laws (ie. no patents and reasonable fair use laws), good encryption laws, etc. Low/No taxes and a healthy respect for personal liberties would be a blessing to. I've looked into Antigua and the Cayman Islands (both have mediocre net access), and am also thinking about a couple small (non-EU), European countries (Andorra, Monaco).
Anyone else been thinking of this?
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
I don't think you really understand the basic idea behind complex systems theory (and thus emergent behaviour). If a system is simple enough it can be understood by analyzing the logs/components/etc. But as the number of variables grow, the compexity of the system grows exponentially, quickly reaching the point where it cannot be analyzed in traditional ways (ie. by examining the components and how they interact).
To understand these systems, new methods and terminologies are needed (eg. quantum mechanics, chaos theory, complex systems theory, etc). An emergent behaviour is just a way of referring to a behaviour that can't be analyzed from, or understood in terms of, the components.
Check out the work being done at the Santa Fe Institute if you want to find a group of people doing real work in this area.
BTW, I also have degrees in pychology, philosophy and AI.:)
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Spiders generally skip this sort of thing (img tags and js), and just focus on the content of the page. Meta tags are used to store keywords relating to the site. So spiders pay close attention to this information. ---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
The best thing you can do for yourself to get into the sys-admin field is to start working at University (and learn linux/*bsd;). Get a computer job at the university asap, get to know people (shoot for those admin assitant jobs) and finally get a sys-admin job (work your way through the ranks). For sys-adminning, there is really no substitute for experience. This is how I got into the field.
My degrees (having been a professional student for awhile:) are in psychology(BA), philosophy(MA), and artificial intelligence(MS). I currently am a programmer, but my previous job was sys-adminning (and I received several job offers in this area).
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
" Who wants to program ten hours a day when you can be out there making things go (rhetorical -- I know there a plenty of you who just want to code all day. I just don't get why). "
I've done both, and like each for different reasons. Sys-admining is cool because of the variety of work and the pragmatic mentality the job engenders.
Programming appeals to my creative/builder side more. I enjoy the process of taking an abstract idea and turning into a concrete, working app.
To use a metaphor... its sort of like the difference between a handy-man and a carpenter. The handy-man is all over the place, doing everything from electrical work to painting. While the carpenter may take a few months to build a table and chairs.
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Many in the Linux community, and Slashdot readers, are programmers. I forget who said it, but someone once pointed out that good programming skills and arrogance go hand-in-hand. I've generally found this to be true, and I take this as a compliment from ZD (a mixed blessing).
In regards to being politically immature, I think they have a point. As a community we tend to be passionate about our cause, and highly value the truth. To be "politically mature" means to give up these qualities and become bullshit artists. I think I'll take this one as a compliment as well.:)
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
John keeps saying this, but what the hell is he talking about. Development tools are the one area where, IMO, free software has excelled. I mean, you have your choice of just about any programming language in existence, a dozen good IDEs, the best text editors, etc.
And when it comes to any particular app, you can't have a development source much better than the source code.
Or is Ousterhout just pimping TCL again.;)
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Apple's announcement was nothing but a PR stunt. The code is not free, and it was very appropriate of Bruce to point this out. I agree that Bruce has had problems controlling his ego in the past, but this is not one of those occasions (or if it is, then he's at least using it towards good ends;).
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Will both the encoder and decoder be freely available? Preferably as source code.
No. In fact they are both proprietary and you must pay for use of either (ie. no free encoder or decoder). ---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Without the Extremes there is no middle
on
Red Hat Backlash?
·
· Score: 1
1.) Add Free Software zealots. I don't mean the average free software, I mean extremists like Richard Stallman, who utterly demand everything be free or shunned. Very few fanatics win their cause. There needs to be a middle ground.
RMS may have an extreme view, but he's basically right (if not pragmatic). What he says, needs to be said. To remind us all that there are things more important than working code (ie. freedom).
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Slashdot Mirror
As this is the one thing all mainstream (and all non-mainstream religions that I know of) religions have in common, its not to far a leap to conclude that mysticism is the central or core tenet of religion. I believe this is the defining characteristic of a religion... and that a lack of a mystic expression in the religion means its more appropriately referred to as a pop-psych phenomenom (scientology leaps to mind here).
--
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Check out Alice. Alice uses a slightly modified version of Python to teach people programming by interactively programming a 3D environment. Your programs control the movements and behaviours of objects. Its only for Windows, but it is supposed to be very nice.
--
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
--
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
There's a game for Linux called RealTimeBattle. It allows you to program in any language (communication via stdin/stdout). It just reached 1.0, with simple standard bots and a nice graphical interface.
--
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Linux is at a major disadvantage here... it only supports course grained/one-to-one thread mapping (one thread to one process). More scalable systems, like Irix and Solaris, use a many-to-many mapping (groups of userland threads mapped to multiple kernel threads/processes).
Is there any plans to correct this deficiency?
--
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Habit is all I can come up with. Speed certainly isn't the issue... except for a few specific areas (eg. graphics engines). In my experience, the only issue with VHLLs and speed is the interpreter start up time. The answer to this would seem to be the same as it would be for the web... an application server of some sort (kind of like emacs does with gnuserv).
Python (my favorite VHLL) is great for this kind of development. For my apps, I follow this outline in my performance tuning (assuming I've already written the app in python):
This is what rapid application development is all about.
--
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
They've done it before. Ever heard of income tax... it's unconstitutional as well. Didn't stop them before. If they really want to they'll do it, constitution be damned.
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Free has never been about doing anything you want, quite the contrary, its about responsibilities.. Freedom is about trade offs, about balancing your freedoms against everyone else's. Should you be free to shout "fire" in a movie theatre, or to make it as obvious as possible, to go kill off a few of your neighbors. I doubt you'd say that in order for people to be free they should be able to do anything they damn well please.
Well, the FSF has always claimed to be talking about freedom in this light. It's not just about the freedom, but about the responsibilities that go along with that freedom. The FSF has made an attempt via the GPL and other documents to specify these freedoms and responsibilities. Whether they've been entirely successful or not is anther topic...
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
One correction, it is ADSL, just starting at 256K up/down... scales to 1M up, 8M down.
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
My primary concern is over a government that is already WAY too powerful and is doing everything it can to become even more so... Though the really sickening thing is that the majority* of the people in the US are more than happy to give up their liberties to the government. I'm looking to get out while the getting's good.
[* please don't take this to necessarily mean you, most slashdot readers seem to have libertarian leanings, while most US citizens don't]
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Anyone else been thinking of this?
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
To understand these systems, new methods and terminologies are needed (eg. quantum mechanics, chaos theory, complex systems theory, etc). An emergent behaviour is just a way of referring to a behaviour that can't be analyzed from, or understood in terms of, the components.
Check out the work being done at the Santa Fe Institute if you want to find a group of people doing real work in this area.
BTW, I also have degrees in pychology, philosophy and AI.
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
My degrees (having been a professional student for awhile
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
I've done both, and like each for different reasons. Sys-admining is cool because of the variety of work and the pragmatic mentality the job engenders.
Programming appeals to my creative/builder side more. I enjoy the process of taking an abstract idea and turning into a concrete, working app.
To use a metaphor... its sort of like the difference between a handy-man and a carpenter. The handy-man is all over the place, doing everything from electrical work to painting. While the carpenter may take a few months to build a table and chairs.
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
In regards to being politically immature, I think they have a point. As a community we tend to be passionate about our cause, and highly value the truth. To be "politically mature" means to give up these qualities and become bullshit artists. I think I'll take this one as a compliment as well.
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
John keeps saying this, but what the hell is he talking about. Development tools are the one area where, IMO, free software has excelled. I mean, you have your choice of just about any programming language in existence, a dozen good IDEs, the best text editors, etc.
And when it comes to any particular app, you can't have a development source much better than the source code.
Or is Ousterhout just pimping TCL again.
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
No. In fact they are both proprietary and you must pay for use of either (ie. no free encoder or decoder).
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
RMS may have an extreme view, but he's basically right (if not pragmatic). What he says, needs to be said. To remind us all that there are things more important than working code (ie. freedom).
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."