I'd have to agree with you there. Clarke's later work really doesn't cut it like his early stuff. It's readable, but not briliant. I don't think I've re-read anything he's written post 1985. Whereas something like "The City & the Stars" is just the most fantastic Sci-Fi you could ever hope to read.
Whilst I would tend to agree that the modern world is none-too-perfect, let us not forget that it was Clarke who invented the telecommunication satellite...
it's sad in a way that it's so easy to use the code w/o giving anything to the coders
Why is it sad? And who say's I don't get anything out of writing BSD licenced code?
Let me try to explain using the economic term "utility". The concept of utility is a measure of happiness or satisfaction.
I could go on and on about this. But suffice it to say... I love writing code. I do. It gives me one hell of a buzz. Whether it be a PHP website, a quick Perl script, or mission critical application in C. Once it's written I really don't care. For me it's the journey, not the destination, which is important. If I am able to release my code I simply slap a BSD licence on it and forget about it I really don't care what happens next - I've gained all the utility I care about.
"The British" don't have a cultural blindspot to engineering
Yes, we do. Culturaly speaking, we don't take it seriously.
I mean being an engineer, what kind of job is that - you'll get dirt under your fingernails for a start, and no amount of washing will shift it. And it's not as if you'll actually be doing anything useful. Engineers are little more than jumped-up petrol-pump attentants. It's such a working class occupation.
The Civil Service now that's a nice respectable job. Good pay, and after years of indifferent effort you'll stand a good chance of a gong from the Queen. Now wouldn't that be nice.
it's draining away their best resources from improving their own country
How?
There is a differance between textiles, which has raw materials, and the service sector which just requires people.
In India call centre workers get paid more than fully qualified doctors. Most of this money will find it's way into the local economy. If anything can be said of this outsourcing trend it's that it's going to bring India kicking and screaming into the First World.
About a years ago I did quite a bit of research into the ordering of the Narnia books. As far as I could tell back then this is the order in which the books were written:
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe The Magicians Nephew (abandoned) Prince Caspian The Voyage of the Dawn Treader The Horse and His Boy The Silver Chair The Magicians Nephew The Last Battle
Notice how The Magician's Nephew was the second book Lewis started, but he ababdoned it and wrote Prince Caspian instead.
As for my recomendation... personally I prefer a modified chronological order, starting with The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, following with The Magicians Nephew, then the remainder.
Yes, personal achievement must be remebered. But this does not dilute history. Bullet-point timelines of history emphasising the individual, and the firsts, that's what dilutes history (that and Hollywood making the "movie of"). And I think Orwell's point has more to do with the modern political art of "spin" than it does to do with specifics of a paticular point of history.
As for the accomplishments of individuals defining US national culture. It's true, it does define US culture to some degree. But then from the other side of the pond, and indeed the rest of the world, the perspective is somewhat different, so saying things like: "People like Charles Lindburg and John Glenn should be remembered because they risked their lives so that the rest of us could benefit from it", would likely be taken as an attempt to be funny.
Who invented the TV? Ask someone in America, Britain, and Germany, and you'll get three different answers.
Who invented powered flight? Well, the Wright brothers were probably the first to achieve sucess in this area, but they didn't invent it. There were people all over the world attemting to master powered flight. Ideas circulated, individuals pulled these ideas together in an effort to get their machines to fly. People failed. People died trying. Perhaps people even suceeded. But 100 years ago the Wright brothers did suceed and told the world.
The way I see it, inventions are of their time. No one person can claim all the glory for anything. Sure, let's celebrate the Wright Brothers, but let's also celebrate the human spirit which drives such people whether they suceed or not. If we do that then it really does not matter one bit if the Wright Brothers really were first, or merely one of the first.
Why? I have circuit breakers. If I blow the fuse in the plug, I have to have a replacement. This can be a real annoyance.
Two levels of protection and the annoyance of finding a fuse when one blows versus the convenience of blowing an entire ring main - and the annoyance of resetting all the clocks which are now flashing "00:00... I know which I'd prefer.
Fused plugs are also great for winning arguments with clueless electricians who claim you're pulling more power than the wiring is designed for.... "No... I can't pull more than 2 Amps... See, a 2 Amp fuse.. so if it's a fire risk then your wiring sucks..." (when I was at college my room had a 2Amp ring main, so I would have this argument at least once a month).
Tom Bombadil may have been major, but let's face it the only major happening in the whole sequence is that the hobbits ended up with swords. It contributes little to the rest of the story.
The Tom Bombadil sequence also had a totally different mood to the rest of the book. It's the only bit of the book reminds me of the Hobbit when I read it. I'm of the belief that only way they could have made Tom Bombadil work would have done him and his Mrs as CGI. Which would have lessened the impact of Gollum somewhat. So I sort of expected this to go.
Whereas I seem to remember the Saruman bits that were to come in #3 are rather important. I suppose this explains the whole detor thing Frodo did in #2.
Interestingly Christopher Lee was on the radio the other day. He repeatedly made the point that his scene was one of the most pivotal in the whole film. At the time I got the feeling he was sore, but I put it down to the interviewer not taking his lead. Now I'm starting to wonder...
Pity, Saruman is a great character and Christopher Lee plays him wonderfully. Although (IMHO) one of his best contributions to the first LotR DVD is the bits of the commentary he did.
Traditionally, IP cases tend to start out against the small operations who don't have the resources for a court battle. The small companies either give in without a fight, or can't afford strong legal representation, leading to precedent-setting legal victories for the plaintiff.
I think you might have hit upon something there. Going for the big guys who'll take the cheap LEGAL way out (rather than the easy way out), and sidelining IBM who may have objected, SCO create an awfully big precident when they go after the little guys.
In the end it's not going to come down to whether or not SCO is in the right. It whether or not they can generate a revenue stream.
there are people suggesting that government use of OSS could help solve our documentation problem
I've been thinking....
All over the world people are investigating open source. Looks like quite a bit of money is being spent on such investigations. Yet strangely none of the results ever filter back... nobody makes their result open.
So rather than a paradigm shift going on in the world of software I'm starting to wonder if all this is a bit of a con. Organisations which exist by the power of marketing selling a "product" to companies who think "value of money" involves buying a product. Spending money maked them feel secure, and when it all goes wrong it's somebody elses fault.
I mean how many managers are ranked by how small their departmentmental budget, or how few staff they require?
So I think there is very little chance of anything getting fed back.
a visit from a salesman
- A guy who lies for a living.
product brochures
- Glossy lies are somehow more true.
a demonstration from an expert in the product
- Like you know enough about the product to see through the half-truths.
documentation
- OSS usually has documentation that is useful. Not Doucumentation which is more marketing than useful.
comprehensive on line help
- hehe, they say you comming didn't they?
a road map or new features release plan
- Which has little or no relation to what actually happens in the future.
clarity as to what you do and don't get in the support contract
- Which clearly states "If it's your fault It's not our problem"... Mysteriously everything prooves to be your fault.
I've been on the recieving end of muppets like you. I support the software that you buy thinking it's the dogs bollocks after getting awed by the marketing pitch. Headache after headache. All of which could have been avoided if by employing somebody with half a clue and asking them what they think.... BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY PURCHASING DECISIONS.
My personal perspective is that with OSS you see it all - warts and all - right from the start. Allowing you to make an informed decision. Commercial software relies on half-truths and misdirection, and guys in flash cars who tell you exactly what you want to hear.
I'm not saying OSS is the bee's-knees. But I'm sure as hell saying the quality of marketing has NOTHING to do with the quality of the software. But hey, OSS is free. Setup a test system, have a go, see if it does what you want...
Is it just me, or is the claim: "Land of the Free" becoming more and more ironic as time goes by?
Or am I using the wrong definition of the world "free"?
Or, perhaps it only applies to the FBI:
Free to bend the law... Free to ignore official guidelines... Free to act in a heavy handed manner... Free to trample all over the public... Free to revoke personal freedom on a whim... Free to do whatever we see fit..
Was talking stats, but the companion daemon ipmon grabs details of packets which match rules with a "log" directive, and spews details to syslog... most of what you want is there (all bar TTL).
As for the last rule first feature, yeah it can be odd - but it does make some sort of sense. I usually use the "quick" directive to kill stuff dead the moment it matches a block rule.
And what ELSE might imagemagick have scattered all over my drive? This is one reason the Unix fs hierarchy sucks for the average desktop system... there are many more.
All filesystems suck. I happen to think unix sucks less. Although X is a downright hideous.
Although the filesystem layout is usually designed for the OS, not for the user. Removing anything on any OS (bar MS-DOS) is a pain. Hence the package management tools. BSD has it's ports, making it reall easy to install and delete stuff. Linux has RPM. Unfortunatly package management introduces it's own issues. Like remembering to use them in the first place.
I found that FreeBSD's NAT leave a lot to be desired
but I still haven't found how to get FreeBSD to report detailed packet logs for specific firewall rules.
FreeBSD come with 2 firewall/nat packages.
ipfw/natd is the "standard" one, and sounds like the one you're using.
ipf/ipnat is the other one (and IMHO the better one). Nat runs in kernel space. And `ipfstat -nhio` gives you the stats. Can't comment on latency compared to you're favourite Slackware... but it runs fine as my gateway on a 486SX2-50!
You see this is the problem. It doesnt matter what units get used as long as everyone uses the same units in the same context. However, when people use different units in the same context, and fail to highlight the differences we all get confused. Although getting brought up with mixed units has it's own problems.
I walk kilometers, but drive miles, measure wood in milimeters, buy wood in feet, drink pints, mix liquids in litres, buy food in kilogrammes, bake in pounds, weigh myself in stones, boil water at 100 degrees Celcius, have a body temperature of (about) 98.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
But can I relate a measurement in one context to another? No. I know that running a temperatureof 100 degrees Fahrenheit is not good. Yet I've no idea what 180 degrees Fahrenheit means in relation to the boiling point of water. And I've not a clue how many pounds in a stone, and ounces in a pound always gives me a headache as it depends on where you are and what you're weighing.
The BBC makes millions from tapes, videos, CDs, DVDs of their archive...
The BBC is not a commercial enterprise in the same way as other broadcasters. I think the man himself best puts it:
Television companies are not in the business of delivering television programs to their audience, they're in the business of delivering audiences to their advertisers. This is why the BBC has such a schizophrenic time - it's actually in a different business from all its competitors.
The Beeb really is a strange one.
Indeed I'm of the opinion that it's the BBC who made Douglas Adams famous - well, gave him a chance to become famous. I really don't think the real world would have nurtured the talents of someone like Douglas in the hopes that he'd strike gold.
And look at the way the way the BBC totally failed to capitalise on the sucess of HHGTTG.
So I'm still of the opinion that the archive will be availabe online at some point. Although I'd say the quality is likely to be less than that of the CDs and DVDs.
Yes, in the final analysis it is the ideas. The actual sounscape of the Radio Series just made the experience more real.
But the Radio Series was written by a Douglas under a lot of pressure. So in some respects the ideas were more distilled. The books are like the finest of fine wines. The Radio Series is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.
To my knowlege, he wrote two episodes, "Pirate Planet", and "Shada". Unfortunately filming of Shada was interrupted by a striking technicians and was never made... Douglas later recycled some of the plot in the first Dirk Gently novel.
However, during his time as producer, Douglas had a very hands-on approach, rewriting stuff if he felt it could be better. Indeed, my favourite Doctor Who story of all time, "City of Death" was rewritten by Douglas it almost entirely.
Slashdot Mirror
Welcome to the world... It sucks.
As does 3001.
I'd have to agree with you there. Clarke's later work really doesn't cut it like his early stuff. It's readable, but not briliant. I don't think I've re-read anything he's written post 1985. Whereas something like "The City & the Stars" is just the most fantastic Sci-Fi you could ever hope to read.
Whilst I would tend to agree that the modern world is none-too-perfect, let us not forget that it was Clarke who invented the telecommunication satellite...
it's sad in a way that it's so easy to use the code w/o giving anything to the coders
Why is it sad? And who say's I don't get anything out of writing BSD licenced code?
Let me try to explain using the economic term "utility". The concept of utility is a measure of happiness or satisfaction.
I could go on and on about this. But suffice it to say... I love writing code. I do. It gives me one hell of a buzz. Whether it be a PHP website, a quick Perl script, or mission critical application in C. Once it's written I really don't care. For me it's the journey, not the destination, which is important. If I am able to release my code I simply slap a BSD licence on it and forget about it I really don't care what happens next - I've gained all the utility I care about.
And there is nothing sad about that.
"The British" don't have a cultural blindspot to engineering
Yes, we do. Culturaly speaking, we don't take it seriously.
I mean being an engineer, what kind of job is that - you'll get dirt under your fingernails for a start, and no amount of washing will shift it. And it's not as if you'll actually be doing anything useful. Engineers are little more than jumped-up petrol-pump attentants. It's such a working class occupation.
The Civil Service now that's a nice respectable job. Good pay, and after years of indifferent effort you'll stand a good chance of a gong from the Queen. Now wouldn't that be nice.
it's draining away their best resources from improving their own country
How?
There is a differance between textiles, which has raw materials, and the service sector which just requires people.
In India call centre workers get paid more than fully qualified doctors. Most of this money will find it's way into the local economy. If anything can be said of this outsourcing trend it's that it's going to bring India kicking and screaming into the First World.
About a years ago I did quite a bit of research into the ordering of the Narnia books. As far as I could tell back then this is the order in which the books were written:
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Magicians Nephew (abandoned)
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Horse and His Boy
The Silver Chair
The Magicians Nephew
The Last Battle
Notice how The Magician's Nephew was the second book Lewis started, but he ababdoned it and wrote Prince Caspian instead.
As for my recomendation... personally I prefer a modified chronological order, starting with The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, following with The Magicians Nephew, then the remainder.
Yes, personal achievement must be remebered. But this does not dilute history. Bullet-point timelines of history emphasising the individual, and the firsts, that's what dilutes history (that and Hollywood making the "movie of"). And I think Orwell's point has more to do with the modern political art of "spin" than it does to do with specifics of a paticular point of history.
As for the accomplishments of individuals defining US national culture. It's true, it does define US culture to some degree. But then from the other side of the pond, and indeed the rest of the world, the perspective is somewhat different, so saying things like: "People like Charles Lindburg and John Glenn should be remembered because they risked their lives so that the rest of us could benefit from it", would likely be taken as an attempt to be funny.
Who invented the TV? Ask someone in America, Britain, and Germany, and you'll get three different answers.
Who invented powered flight? Well, the Wright brothers were probably the first to achieve sucess in this area, but they didn't invent it. There were people all over the world attemting to master powered flight. Ideas circulated, individuals pulled these ideas together in an effort to get their machines to fly. People failed. People died trying. Perhaps people even suceeded. But 100 years ago the Wright brothers did suceed and told the world.
The way I see it, inventions are of their time. No one person can claim all the glory for anything. Sure, let's celebrate the Wright Brothers, but let's also celebrate the human spirit which drives such people whether they suceed or not. If we do that then it really does not matter one bit if the Wright Brothers really were first, or merely one of the first.
The real problem, as I see it, is voter apathy
As I see it, voter apathy is not the cause, it's a symtom. But I'm too apathetic to explain right now.
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't both shuttle disasters have more to do with a breakdown in management and communication than a lack of monitoring?
Still shiny new sensors will give everyone a warm fuzzy feeling, which is obviously all that matters.
Why? I have circuit breakers. If I blow the fuse in the plug, I have to have a replacement. This can be a real annoyance.
Two levels of protection and the annoyance of finding a fuse when one blows versus the convenience of blowing an entire ring main - and the annoyance of resetting all the clocks which are now flashing "00:00... I know which I'd prefer.
Fused plugs are also great for winning arguments with clueless electricians who claim you're pulling more power than the wiring is designed for.... "No... I can't pull more than 2 Amps... See, a 2 Amp fuse.. so if it's a fire risk then your wiring sucks..." (when I was at college my room had a 2Amp ring main, so I would have this argument at least once a month).
Not so long ago I found this rather amusing requirement in a job ad:
must be familiar with the 6 editor
But I think this was probably just an overzealous secretary.
2nd major sequence to go after Tom Bombadil
Tom Bombadil may have been major, but let's face it the only major happening in the whole sequence is that the hobbits ended up with swords. It contributes little to the rest of the story.
The Tom Bombadil sequence also had a totally different mood to the rest of the book. It's the only bit of the book reminds me of the Hobbit when I read it. I'm of the belief that only way they could have made Tom Bombadil work would have done him and his Mrs as CGI. Which would have lessened the impact of Gollum somewhat. So I sort of expected this to go.
Whereas I seem to remember the Saruman bits that were to come in #3 are rather important. I suppose this explains the whole detor thing Frodo did in #2.
Interestingly Christopher Lee was on the radio the other day. He repeatedly made the point that his scene was one of the most pivotal in the whole film. At the time I got the feeling he was sore, but I put it down to the interviewer not taking his lead. Now I'm starting to wonder...
Pity, Saruman is a great character and Christopher Lee plays him wonderfully. Although (IMHO) one of his best contributions to the first LotR DVD is the bits of the commentary he did.
Traditionally, IP cases tend to start out against the small operations who don't have the resources for a court battle. The small companies either give in without a fight, or can't afford strong legal representation, leading to precedent-setting legal victories for the plaintiff.
I think you might have hit upon something there. Going for the big guys who'll take the cheap LEGAL way out (rather than the easy way out), and sidelining IBM who may have objected, SCO create an awfully big precident when they go after the little guys.
In the end it's not going to come down to whether or not SCO is in the right. It whether or not they can generate a revenue stream.
it has to exist first
Good point.
there are people suggesting that government use of OSS could help solve our documentation problem
I've been thinking....
All over the world people are investigating open source. Looks like quite a bit of money is being spent on such investigations. Yet strangely none of the results ever filter back... nobody makes their result open.
So rather than a paradigm shift going on in the world of software I'm starting to wonder if all this is a bit of a con. Organisations which exist by the power of marketing selling a "product" to companies who think "value of money" involves buying a product. Spending money maked them feel secure, and when it all goes wrong it's somebody elses fault.
I mean how many managers are ranked by how small their departmentmental budget, or how few staff they require?
So I think there is very little chance of anything getting fed back.
a visit from a salesman
- A guy who lies for a living.
product brochures
- Glossy lies are somehow more true.
a demonstration from an expert in the product
- Like you know enough about the product to see through the half-truths.
documentation
- OSS usually has documentation that is useful. Not Doucumentation which is more marketing than useful.
comprehensive on line help
- hehe, they say you comming didn't they?
a road map or new features release plan
- Which has little or no relation to what actually happens in the future.
clarity as to what you do and don't get in the support contract
- Which clearly states "If it's your fault It's not our problem"... Mysteriously everything prooves to be your fault.
I've been on the recieving end of muppets like you. I support the software that you buy thinking it's the dogs bollocks after getting awed by the marketing pitch. Headache after headache. All of which could have been avoided if by employing somebody with half a clue and asking them what they think.... BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY PURCHASING DECISIONS.
My personal perspective is that with OSS you see it all - warts and all - right from the start. Allowing you to make an informed decision. Commercial software relies on half-truths and misdirection, and guys in flash cars who tell you exactly what you want to hear.
I'm not saying OSS is the bee's-knees. But I'm sure as hell saying the quality of marketing has NOTHING to do with the quality of the software. But hey, OSS is free. Setup a test system, have a go, see if it does what you want...
Is it just me, or is the claim: "Land of the Free" becoming more and more ironic as time goes by?
Or am I using the wrong definition of the world "free"?
Or, perhaps it only applies to the FBI:
Free to bend the law...
Free to ignore official guidelines...
Free to act in a heavy handed manner...
Free to trample all over the public...
Free to revoke personal freedom on a whim...
Free to do whatever we see fit..
Ah yes, that works... Still the land of the free.
Ah yes, sarcasm. Guess you're not American then?
Was talking stats, but the companion daemon ipmon grabs details of packets which match rules with a "log" directive, and spews details to syslog... most of what you want is there (all bar TTL).
As for the last rule first feature, yeah it can be odd - but it does make some sort of sense. I usually use the "quick" directive to kill stuff dead the moment it matches a block rule.
And what ELSE might imagemagick have scattered all over my drive? This is one reason the Unix fs hierarchy sucks for the average desktop system... there are many more.
All filesystems suck. I happen to think unix sucks less. Although X is a downright hideous.
Although the filesystem layout is usually designed for the OS, not for the user. Removing anything on any OS (bar MS-DOS) is a pain. Hence the package management tools. BSD has it's ports, making it reall easy to install and delete stuff. Linux has RPM. Unfortunatly package management introduces it's own issues. Like remembering to use them in the first place.
I found that FreeBSD's NAT leave a lot to be desired
but I still haven't found how to get FreeBSD to report detailed packet logs for specific firewall rules.
FreeBSD come with 2 firewall/nat packages.
ipfw/natd is the "standard" one, and sounds like the one you're using.
ipf/ipnat is the other one (and IMHO the better one). Nat runs in kernel space. And `ipfstat -nhio` gives you the stats. Can't comment on latency compared to you're favourite Slackware... but it runs fine as my gateway on a 486SX2-50!
She sued because the coffee was 180 degrees
180 degrees what?
Celsius? Fahrenheit? Or was the cup upside-down?
You see this is the problem. It doesnt matter what units get used as long as everyone uses the same units in the same context. However, when people use different units in the same context, and fail to highlight the differences we all get confused. Although getting brought up with mixed units has it's own problems.
I walk kilometers, but drive miles, measure wood in milimeters, buy wood in feet, drink pints, mix liquids in litres, buy food in kilogrammes, bake in pounds, weigh myself in stones, boil water at 100 degrees Celcius, have a body temperature of (about) 98.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
But can I relate a measurement in one context to another? No. I know that running a temperatureof 100 degrees Fahrenheit is not good. Yet I've no idea what 180 degrees Fahrenheit means in relation to the boiling point of water. And I've not a clue how many pounds in a stone, and ounces in a pound always gives me a headache as it depends on where you are and what you're weighing.
The BBC makes millions from tapes, videos, CDs, DVDs of their archive...
The BBC is not a commercial enterprise in the same way as other broadcasters. I think the man himself best puts it:
Television companies are not in the business of delivering television programs to their audience, they're in the business of delivering audiences to their advertisers. This is why the BBC has such a schizophrenic time - it's actually in a different business from all its competitors.
The Beeb really is a strange one.
Indeed I'm of the opinion that it's the BBC who made Douglas Adams famous - well, gave him a chance to become famous. I really don't think the real world would have nurtured the talents of someone like Douglas in the hopes that he'd strike gold.
And look at the way the way the BBC totally failed to capitalise on the sucess of HHGTTG.
So I'm still of the opinion that the archive will be availabe online at some point. Although I'd say the quality is likely to be less than that of the CDs and DVDs.
I stand corrected.... :-)
Yes, in the final analysis it is the ideas. The actual sounscape of the Radio Series just made the experience more real.
But the Radio Series was written by a Douglas under a lot of pressure. So in some respects the ideas were more distilled. The books are like the finest of fine wines. The Radio Series is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.
To my knowlege, he wrote two episodes, "Pirate Planet", and "Shada". Unfortunately filming of Shada was interrupted by a striking technicians and was never made... Douglas later recycled some of the plot in the first Dirk Gently novel.
However, during his time as producer, Douglas had a very hands-on approach, rewriting stuff if he felt it could be better. Indeed, my favourite Doctor Who story of all time, "City of Death" was rewritten by Douglas it almost entirely.