2. It's nice to see which of your friends are online at a glance (i.e. without having to finger them all, which wouldn't work so well anyway)
3. It's fantastic for file transfers - about the fastest way, in terms of user work
4. Email is a pain for having a realtime conversation on, and the talk command is clunky - you have to open up a new terminal for each person you're talking to, and keep it open during the breaks in conversation, and keep looking to see if they've responded yet
If there was a child concieved on any space station, imagine how hard it would be for her to adjust to actual gravity? A baby born in Zero-G, and spends his first few months, even years in Zero-G is going to have a hell of a time learning how to crawl, walk, and may possibly distort her sense of balance for the rest of her life.
And the frequent sex changes must make things that much more confusing!
Also, a more defining characteristic is that a nerd is a boring, think-inside-the-box person, while a geek is weird and think-differentish.
Nerd = studious ; Geek = weird
on
Geeks vs. Nerds
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· Score: 1
The following commentary is presented in Dolby Surround Stereotyping:
I'd say a nerd is someone who doesn't break the rules, doesn't take chances, is smart and studious, and doesn't have a lot of crazy fun. Even when a nerd is having leisure time with fellow nerds, they tend to do things like play Spriograph or practice their Latin conjugations.
A geek is someone weird, usually obsessive about something (not necc. computers; one can be a Dungeons and Dragons geek, etc). However, geeks are much more likely to break rules or even have wild fun with their fellow geeks (stealing a drum of ethyl alcohol from the chem lab, exploring their university's tunnel system) Geeks don't have to be smart.
Also, nerds tend to be quiet about their social status while geeks tend to shamelessly flaunt it. A nerd would wear a plain white button-down shirt, a geek would wear a 2600 t-shirt.
A nerd would spend their lunch period reading ahead in a textbook. A geek would be out in the parking lot playing with thermite.
Re:all the digits are prefect squares too.
on
Happy Odd Day!
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· Score: 1
IANAL, but i took some classes on it, and i'm pretty sure that when you turned 18 and continued to show up to work, you were demonstrating that you still agree to the terms on the contract: i.e. it was like signing it again when you showed up to work that day.
But in the same way that the Windows GUI is not innovative but rather based on Apple's, isn't Linux based on Unix?
Yes, Linux is based on Unix. But nobody claims that to be the innovation. The supreme innovation embodied by Linux is the GNU GPL. Other smaller innovations (E, Perl, etc) are genuinely new and creative ideas, and only loosely based on existing technology.
"Fixing an obscure bug in the driver code for a network card may be useful, but it's not sexy, and it's certainly not going to get the author noticed the next time someone's handing out prepublic stock."
People don't fix obscure bugs in network drivers for those reasons. They fix them because they want their network driver to work.
Re:Why are they allowed to delay source release?
on
Corel Linux Preview
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· Score: 1
So if i had a big company and we needed to make some customizations to emacs for internal use, and never planned on releasing the customized version in binary format to anyone outside the company, we could keep the source secret?
Why are they allowed to delay source release?
on
Corel Linux Preview
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· Score: 1
Why is Corel allowed to say, "We'll release the source to our changes to KDE and Debian later." Is there something in the GPL that lets you keep your changes secret until you feel like sharing them? (Other than that, i'm very excited about Corel's distro)
Even if/when Linux goes mainstream, there will be plenty of room for bleeding-edgers:
If the general public is using the main distributions, the B.E's will run Debian. Or BSD. Or a development kernel. Or some new system. But as long as things remain open, all the work will remain portable. As long as Microsoft Linux and AOLinux still allow you to open an xterm or modify the source, "power users" will be happy because they will have alternative extensions to mainstream Linux to work on.
Again, this is a Good Thing because the power users' systems and the mainstream users' systems will be compatable and their respective benefits can easily be incorporated in either direction.
While i feel you've got a point there, and i'm not sure where i stand on the issue, no command is inherently evil. (if prockill and lockup have no legitimate uses, why does Unix have the kill and halt commands?)
For example, while this is unlikely, it's certainly possible that the person in the logfile was a good samaritan who found a BO server running on your machine and didn't want any evil samaritans to compromise your system - so he tried to lock your machine up, which would prevent anyone else from using BO to do permanent damage. When the lockup failed, he looked at a process list and tried to kill the BO server directly. When that didn't work, he tried to reboot your machine, hoping that BO wouldn't start back up again the next time.
Unlikely? Sure. But it shows that there ARE valid reasons for such a command to exist.
Having a huge presence in an exploding market is worth a lot. Lets say you have a company that makes a Rio competitor. If you could get MP3.com to officially endorse your player, it could make all the difference for your company. Or let's say Microsoft wants to get people to use its audio format - they would pay zillions to get MP3.com to change their name to online_collection_of_Microsoft_media_format_sound_ files.com and endorse the new format.
It's not all "Click here to get a great price on bicycles!"
At the risk of having this message marked Off-Topic and thereby lowering my average rating, i've got to ask the Australia Slashdot readers how sick they are of hearing Vegemite / kangaroo / dingo / boomerang jokes whenever anything happens in Australia.
I mean, we don't bring up hockey when a Canadian does something, or royal family references for English people...
Disclaimer: No, i'm not Australian, i'm actually from Long Island. And i hate it when people go, "Oh, Lawn Guyland?" and think that they're being clever.
A few months back I saw a show about scientific "illiteracy". They went to the graduation of some Ivy League college, grabbed a couple of new grads and gave 'em a little test: given a battery, a flashlight bulb, an a piece of wire a few inches long, make the bulb light up. Something like 80 or 90 percent couldn't figure it out.
Programming in BASIC, for one thing. But i admit that the Slashdot community is not exactly representative of the general population.
Still, how many people here remember a toy called Capsela? It was a building set consisting of capsules with gears and stuff in them... one of them had a motor, another held batteries; you hooked the battery to a switch and the switch to a motor. It was aimed at young children, according to the pictures on the box.
Any kid who's ever stuck a 9-volt battery on his or her tongue understands that batteries have two contacts, and that they start working when you connect something to both ends. And it's common sense that if there's a loose wire in a device, it's not going to work.
Plus, i'd imagine the battery in the toy car would be replacable, so there's probably some kind of snap-connector, like the battery in an RC car or a cordless phone. I'd be very surprised if any six-year-old couldn't look at the loose connector at the end of the wire and the socket/connector on the battery and plug them together.
The square block goes in the square hole, the round block in the round hole, and the paper clip goes in the electrical socket. All kids know that long before they turn six.
Slashdot Mirror
I have 16 people on my ICQ list, and not one of them would go anywhere near a unix shell, much less finger or ytalk.
What happens when you go to the bathoom?
If you really need details, check out a good physiology textbook.
1. Not everyone is a nerd
2. It's nice to see which of your friends are online at a glance (i.e. without having to finger them all, which wouldn't work so well anyway)
3. It's fantastic for file transfers - about the fastest way, in terms of user work
4. Email is a pain for having a realtime conversation on, and the talk command is clunky - you have to open up a new terminal for each person you're talking to, and keep it open during the breaks in conversation, and keep looking to see if they've responded yet
If there was a child concieved on any space station, imagine how hard it would be for her to adjust to actual gravity? A baby born in Zero-G, and spends his first few months, even years in Zero-G is going to have a hell of a time learning how to crawl, walk, and may possibly distort her sense of balance for the rest of her life.
And the frequent sex changes must make things that much more confusing!
Also, a more defining characteristic is that a nerd is a boring, think-inside-the-box person, while a geek is weird and think-differentish.
The following commentary is presented in Dolby Surround Stereotyping:
I'd say a nerd is someone who doesn't break the rules, doesn't take chances, is smart and studious, and doesn't have a lot of crazy fun. Even when a nerd is having leisure time with fellow nerds, they tend to do things like play Spriograph or practice their Latin conjugations.
A geek is someone weird, usually obsessive about something (not necc. computers; one can be a Dungeons and Dragons geek, etc). However, geeks are much more likely to break rules or even have wild fun with their fellow geeks (stealing a drum of ethyl alcohol from the chem lab, exploring their university's tunnel system) Geeks don't have to be smart.
Also, nerds tend to be quiet about their social status while geeks tend to shamelessly flaunt it. A nerd would wear a plain white button-down shirt, a geek would wear a 2600 t-shirt.
A nerd would spend their lunch period reading ahead in a textbook. A geek would be out in the parking lot playing with thermite.
Why is this funny?
IANAL, but i took some classes on it, and i'm pretty sure that when you turned 18 and continued to show up to work, you were demonstrating that you still agree to the terms on the contract: i.e. it was like signing it again when you showed up to work that day.
A legitimate innovation by Microsoft!? Will wonders never cease?
Or just av/?text
Just go to www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/ query?pg=aq&what=web&text if you don't want to deal with all the portal crap, and just want a quick-loading page so you can get your search done.
IBIWISI - i'll believe it when i see it.
"Metric system? My car gets 12 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way i likes it!"
But in the same way that the Windows GUI is not innovative but rather based on Apple's, isn't Linux based on Unix?
Yes, Linux is based on Unix. But nobody claims that to be the innovation. The supreme innovation embodied by Linux is the GNU GPL. Other smaller innovations (E, Perl, etc) are genuinely new and creative ideas, and only loosely based on existing technology.
Colombia.
:)
Examine my email address to see why i make sure to point this out.
"Fixing an obscure bug in the driver code for a network card may be useful, but it's not sexy, and it's certainly not going to get the author noticed the next time someone's handing out prepublic stock."
People don't fix obscure bugs in network drivers for those reasons. They fix them because they want their network driver to work.
So if i had a big company and we needed to make some customizations to emacs for internal use, and never planned on releasing the customized version in binary format to anyone outside the company, we could keep the source secret?
Why is Corel allowed to say, "We'll release the source to our changes to KDE and Debian later." Is there something in the GPL that lets you keep your changes secret until you feel like sharing them? (Other than that, i'm very excited about Corel's distro)
Even if/when Linux goes mainstream, there will be plenty of room for bleeding-edgers:
If the general public is using the main distributions, the B.E's will run Debian. Or BSD. Or a development kernel. Or some new system. But as long as things remain open, all the work will remain portable. As long as Microsoft Linux and AOLinux still allow you to open an xterm or modify the source, "power users" will be happy because they will have alternative extensions to mainstream Linux to work on.
Again, this is a Good Thing because the power users' systems and the mainstream users' systems will be compatable and their respective benefits can easily be incorporated in either direction.
Is "Thunderstorms" listed on the BOFH excuse calendar?
While i feel you've got a point there, and i'm not sure where i stand on the issue, no command is inherently evil. (if prockill and lockup have no legitimate uses, why does Unix have the kill and halt commands?)
For example, while this is unlikely, it's certainly possible that the person in the logfile was a good samaritan who found a BO server running on your machine and didn't want any evil samaritans to compromise your system - so he tried to lock your machine up, which would prevent anyone else from using BO to do permanent damage. When the lockup failed, he looked at a process list and tried to kill the BO server directly. When that didn't work, he tried to reboot your machine, hoping that BO wouldn't start back up again the next time.
Unlikely? Sure. But it shows that there ARE valid reasons for such a command to exist.
Having a huge presence in an exploding market is worth a lot. Lets say you have a company that makes a Rio competitor. If you could get MP3.com to officially endorse your player, it could make all the difference for your company. Or let's say Microsoft wants to get people to use its audio format - they would pay zillions to get MP3.com to change their name to online_collection_of_Microsoft_media_format_sound_ files.com and endorse the new format.
It's not all "Click here to get a great price on bicycles!"
At the risk of having this message marked Off-Topic and thereby lowering my average rating, i've got to ask the Australia Slashdot readers how sick they are of hearing Vegemite / kangaroo / dingo / boomerang jokes whenever anything happens in Australia.
I mean, we don't bring up hockey when a Canadian does something, or royal family references for English people...
Disclaimer: No, i'm not Australian, i'm actually from Long Island. And i hate it when people go, "Oh, Lawn Guyland?" and think that they're being clever.
A few months back I saw a show about scientific "illiteracy". They went to the graduation of some Ivy League college, grabbed a couple of new grads and gave 'em a little test: given a battery, a flashlight bulb, an a piece of wire a few inches long, make the bulb light up. Something like 80 or 90 percent couldn't figure it out.
:)
Must've been Penn.
What were you doing when you were six?
Programming in BASIC, for one thing. But i admit that the Slashdot community is not exactly representative of the general population.
Still, how many people here remember a toy called Capsela? It was a building set consisting of capsules with gears and stuff in them... one of them had a motor, another held batteries; you hooked the battery to a switch and the switch to a motor. It was aimed at young children, according to the pictures on the box.
Any kid who's ever stuck a 9-volt battery on his or her tongue understands that batteries have two contacts, and that they start working when you connect something to both ends. And it's common sense that if there's a loose wire in a device, it's not going to work.
Plus, i'd imagine the battery in the toy car would be replacable, so there's probably some kind of snap-connector, like the battery in an RC car or a cordless phone. I'd be very surprised if any six-year-old couldn't look at the loose connector at the end of the wire and the socket/connector on the battery and plug them together.
The square block goes in the square hole, the round block in the round hole, and the paper clip goes in the electrical socket. All kids know that long before they turn six.