> At an annual brewmaster's convention, the brewmasters of Budweiser, Miller, and Guinness get together after-hours at a bar.......... "Well, if you boys aren't drinking, then neither will I."
In't somebody supposed to jump out of an airplane before the joke is over?
> Because it's so much fun not giving him proper credit and then watching him foam at the mouth.
> It should be an Olympic event. Tell him you love using Linux to compile code, or using Linux to surf the web. Bonus points if you can get his eyes to roll back into his head or have him gibber in tongues.
I think you've already done that by calling it "Linux" rather than "GNU/Linux".
> It's no good - these guys are on the do not call list.
The news reported last week that 11 telemarketing execs' names were indeed on the do-not-call list. When asked about it one said she just didn't like to get that kind of calls at home...
> Closed and opened source software provides jobs and services for an ass load of people. The UN should treat them equally and fairly.
For commonly used software this provision of jobs increasingly depends on artificial barriers to the acceptance of free alternatives. Now that millions of people are programmers with supercomputers on their desks and an itch to scratch, and now that the cost of software distribution is approximately zero, the unconstrained market value of a line of code for a commonly used application is rapidly converging to zero.
The anti-FOSS lobbying is merely an example of the artificial barriers that prop of the prices and keep all those people employed. (Though I doubt that there are actually that many people earning their living by programming operating systems, Web browsers, and word processors these days. In the future the way to make money as a programmer will be to implement special-purpose applications that only scratch the itch of some company's shareholders.)
> A Russian scientist did, however, reproduce a blast pattern identical to the one on the ground by building a scale model of the terrain and sliding a small explosive down a wire. Detonating at different heights/speeds/angles made several different patterns, among them the same "butterfly".
Damn if it doesn't sound like fun being a scientist!
> It has been theorized that an asteroid impact was responsible for the "K-T extinction", when the dinosaurs vanished en masse. In that light, cutting funding for asteroid tracking programs is more than a little shortsighted.
This is the real reason for the War on Drugs. They'll spend a few generations confiscating as much dope as they can, and when the end is nigh they'll hand it out to quell the rioting. Problem solved.
> Back in the 1980s, a Japanese worker was killed by a robot on an assembly line due to a software failure. And robot control systems are very throughly tested before a new model of robot is released. Microsoft is trying to muscle their way into the embedded marketplace; do you want software that has plenty of known defects/security issues running your robot?
At least with a MS-controlled robot you can hope it BSODs before it crushes you in a beserk rampage.
> Because nothing says, "Please kick my ass," quite like wearing your computer.
Mithril Robe of *Geekiness* [2,-25]. +1 to intelligence, -5 to charisma. Aggravates nearby jocks and cheerleaders; provides immunity against getting laid. Activates every 50+d50 turns for spellchecking. This item is heavily cursed. If warn while riding a Segway, may polymorph your character into a dork.
> I think it's great how they find this jawbone that has large molars and all of a sudden that means that there was inter-species reproduction and all the current crackpot theories have to be thrown out the window for a new crackpot theory...
More charitably, these guys have offered some new evidence and an agument, and over the next few months or years we'll find out whether the relevant experts find the argument convincing.
> Sometimes scientists infer and speculate way too much based on the data they have. It's kind of getting stretched so far it's starting not to resemble science at all.
Cut the experts a little slack, OK? Think of something you're good at, and consider whether a cloobie's opinion about that something is worth a damn.
One suspects that the experts can see a lot more evidence in a tooth than the rest of us can. Undoubtedly my clean and carefully documented programs look like hocus-pocus to those uninitiated into the geek mysteries too, but it's not for the uninitiated to tell me I don't know what I'm doing.
> Do you want a 30 second song-and-dance involving anthropomorphic anything, or being able to see that Monica is obviously using the newest Swiffer to clean the kitchen floor, and maybe makes a remark to the effect of how well it works?
More likely you'll see her trying to use it to clean the stains off a dress...
> I don't know about television, but there is little question that the only possible response to movie piracy is product placement. With product placement, you might even encourage people to pirate movies.
Better get started inventing that tivo++, which filters placed products out of the video stream...
> Or, more pointedly, you could blame the networks. Same people who bring you corner logos (now opaque, full-color, moving pictures, on all the time) and promos during the end credits (no longer content to talk over them, now they squish them off to an unreadable size and speed and insert a 75%-screen-coverage full-video promo spot) and even during the show (superimposed crawls, anyone?).
Yeah, I think it's a vicious spiral. The networks can introduce something that's "just a little annoying" without losing too many viewers, and then when all the networks are doing it they can ratchet it up just one little notch without losing too many viewers, and then when all the networks are doing that they can ratchet it up another notch...
The future is bleak. Schools have been selling advertising, first semi-subtly on the ball-field scoreboards, but now more broadly. Any organization that needs money will sell adspace. Someday you'll rent an apartment and have to live with interior walls covered with ads.
> The problem in advertising today is that the market is saturated. Every vertical and horizontal surface, every book, every magazine, TV show, radio show, tape, dvd, CD insert, restaurant menu, bathroom, cereal box, and milk jug in America is covered with one form of advertisement or another.
One day this summer I sat in a national-chain burger stand finishing a meal, and idly wondered why they took the trouble to put their distinctive logo and color pattern on their carry-out sacks, burger wrappers, drink cups, and even straws and straw-wrappers... and then a few days later when I was out for a walk and noticed the distinctively logo'd and color-patterned litter alongside the road, it occured to me why they took the trouble. Idiots who chuck their cups/wrappers/straws out the car window are participating in the Great American Advertising Experience.
> Of course. Free markets seek to maximize profits.
More specifically, they seek to maximize individual profits rather than global profits, let alone global utility.
People should give this idea serious thought when considering current attempts to privatize things such as education, social security, etc. You've been hearing a lot of bull about private enterprise being "more efficient", but you should ask yourself what is being optimized.
Slashdot Mirror
> you are still listening to crap...
No, that's the one for radio programming.
> The list isn't even aligned right! What kind of geek are you!
You mistake "anal retentive" (should that have a hyphen?) with "geek".
Anal retainers align the columns; a geek he would have numbered them 0 - 49 instead of 1 - 50.
> Hero of the open source movement, geek made good
You misspelled "god".
> At an annual brewmaster's convention, the brewmasters of Budweiser, Miller, and Guinness get together after-hours at a bar.
In't somebody supposed to jump out of an airplane before the joke is over?
> Because it's so much fun not giving him proper credit and then watching him foam at the mouth.
> It should be an Olympic event. Tell him you love using Linux to compile code, or using Linux to surf the web. Bonus points if you can get his eyes to roll back into his head or have him gibber in tongues.
I think you've already done that by calling it "Linux" rather than "GNU/Linux".
> It's no good - these guys are on the do not call list.
The news reported last week that 11 telemarketing execs' names were indeed on the do-not-call list. When asked about it one said she just didn't like to get that kind of calls at home...
> Closed and opened source software provides jobs and services for an ass load of people. The UN should treat them equally and fairly.
For commonly used software this provision of jobs increasingly depends on artificial barriers to the acceptance of free alternatives. Now that millions of people are programmers with supercomputers on their desks and an itch to scratch, and now that the cost of software distribution is approximately zero, the unconstrained market value of a line of code for a commonly used application is rapidly converging to zero.
The anti-FOSS lobbying is merely an example of the artificial barriers that prop of the prices and keep all those people employed. (Though I doubt that there are actually that many people earning their living by programming operating systems, Web browsers, and word processors these days. In the future the way to make money as a programmer will be to implement special-purpose applications that only scratch the itch of some company's shareholders.)
> A Russian scientist did, however, reproduce a blast pattern identical to the one on the ground by building a scale model of the terrain and sliding a small explosive down a wire. Detonating at different heights/speeds/angles made several different patterns, among them the same "butterfly".
Damn if it doesn't sound like fun being a scientist!
> Look up nemisis and appropriate key words on goolge..
That letter-shuffling thingy is so last week.
> It has been theorized that an asteroid impact was responsible for the "K-T extinction", when the dinosaurs vanished en masse. In that light, cutting funding for asteroid tracking programs is more than a little shortsighted.
This is the real reason for the War on Drugs. They'll spend a few generations confiscating as much dope as they can, and when the end is nigh they'll hand it out to quell the rioting. Problem solved.
> We can't pretend the politicians will do it for us. Their incentive is to develop a cute re-election flyer, not solve the problem.
Fortunately we have this completely spin-free political rag to set us straight on it...
Heh. From "Just do it!" to "Just delete it!" in a mere 35 years...
> Back in the 1980s, a Japanese worker was killed by a robot on an assembly line due to a software failure. And robot control systems are very throughly tested before a new model of robot is released. Microsoft is trying to muscle their way into the embedded marketplace; do you want software that has plenty of known defects/security issues running your robot?
At least with a MS-controlled robot you can hope it BSODs before it crushes you in a beserk rampage.
> I stand corrected.
You have to wonder about the market for Geek Warez that even Slashdotters ridicule.
I wonder if they'll market it with an "As laughed at on Slashdot!" tag line.
> Because nothing says, "Please kick my ass," quite like wearing your computer.
Mithril Robe of *Geekiness* [2,-25]. +1 to intelligence, -5 to charisma. Aggravates nearby jocks and cheerleaders; provides immunity against getting laid. Activates every 50+d50 turns for spellchecking. This item is heavily cursed. If warn while riding a Segway, may polymorph your character into a dork.
> I think it's great how they find this jawbone that has large molars and all of a sudden that means that there was inter-species reproduction and all the current crackpot theories have to be thrown out the window for a new crackpot theory...
More charitably, these guys have offered some new evidence and an agument, and over the next few months or years we'll find out whether the relevant experts find the argument convincing.
> Sometimes scientists infer and speculate way too much based on the data they have. It's kind of getting stretched so far it's starting not to resemble science at all.
Cut the experts a little slack, OK? Think of something you're good at, and consider whether a cloobie's opinion about that something is worth a damn.
One suspects that the experts can see a lot more evidence in a tooth than the rest of us can. Undoubtedly my clean and carefully documented programs look like hocus-pocus to those uninitiated into the geek mysteries too, but it's not for the uninitiated to tell me I don't know what I'm doing.
> Do you want a 30 second song-and-dance involving anthropomorphic anything, or being able to see that Monica is obviously using the newest Swiffer to clean the kitchen floor, and maybe makes a remark to the effect of how well it works?
More likely you'll see her trying to use it to clean the stains off a dress...
> I don't know about television, but there is little question that the only possible response to movie piracy is product placement. With product placement, you might even encourage people to pirate movies.
Better get started inventing that tivo++, which filters placed products out of the video stream...
> Or, more pointedly, you could blame the networks. Same people who bring you corner logos (now opaque, full-color, moving pictures, on all the time) and promos during the end credits (no longer content to talk over them, now they squish them off to an unreadable size and speed and insert a 75%-screen-coverage full-video promo spot) and even during the show (superimposed crawls, anyone?).
Yeah, I think it's a vicious spiral. The networks can introduce something that's "just a little annoying" without losing too many viewers, and then when all the networks are doing it they can ratchet it up just one little notch without losing too many viewers, and then when all the networks are doing that they can ratchet it up another notch...
The future is bleak. Schools have been selling advertising, first semi-subtly on the ball-field scoreboards, but now more broadly. Any organization that needs money will sell adspace. Someday you'll rent an apartment and have to live with interior walls covered with ads.
> The problem in advertising today is that the market is saturated. Every vertical and horizontal surface, every book, every magazine, TV show, radio show, tape, dvd, CD insert, restaurant menu, bathroom, cereal box, and milk jug in America is covered with one form of advertisement or another.
One day this summer I sat in a national-chain burger stand finishing a meal, and idly wondered why they took the trouble to put their distinctive logo and color pattern on their carry-out sacks, burger wrappers, drink cups, and even straws and straw-wrappers... and then a few days later when I was out for a walk and noticed the distinctively logo'd and color-patterned litter alongside the road, it occured to me why they took the trouble. Idiots who chuck their cups/wrappers/straws out the car window are participating in the Great American Advertising Experience.
> I heard howard interview a b-movie actress who said that she gets paid by advertisers to drop a product name on interview shows
That's not all b-movie stars get paid to drop...
> Of course. Free markets seek to maximize profits.
More specifically, they seek to maximize individual profits rather than global profits, let alone global utility.
People should give this idea serious thought when considering current attempts to privatize things such as education, social security, etc. You've been hearing a lot of bull about private enterprise being "more efficient", but you should ask yourself what is being optimized.