Most commented story (Hey Katz)
on
ShutUp Software
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· Score: 1
I don't think he's railing on Rob's new feature that was added not too long ago; Katz seems to be making more of a general stand. I've certainly been ignored, kicked/banned, hell, I've even had Internet accounts turned off because people didn't like me. I've pretty much been there, done that in this vein. My opinion is, obviously, at least somewhat anti-censorship, but I'm also more of the opinion those who use crappy censorware deserve what they get, especially if they don't know it.
The fact that censorware/shutupware/filterware companies frequently do this should tell you something about the faith they have in their product standing on its merits. Which brings me to something else: I remember hearing of a program once that would filter/drop "nasty words" even if they were far apart in the text. i.e. if you had a program with code like: if (u * c you'd wind up with a mangled program that would not compile. Damn if I remember what software it was right off hand though.
Australia to "Shut Up" all citizens
on
ShutUp Software
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· Score: 1
Wow. Surely the Australian government has seen just how badly the CDA went over over here in the US. I'm shocked that any non-Communist, non-dictatorship country would try something like this.
While that's certainly an option for some of us, it would be quite a pain to chase down all the GNU components on every Linux setup I have (currently at four, only one of which is somewhat Debian-based (LRP)). I will admit GNU Emacs and GIMP are great, if nothing else. I consider both to be the first two killer apps of free (open source) software. I will also admit that sometimes RMS is too political for his own damn good. I may use his software but I'll be damned if I'm going to bend over backwards to call my setups "GNU/Linux boxes" instead of just Linux boxes.
After reading the article I think the story was off the mark a bit. ESR's point was probably not to imply that he was retiring. His point (at least it seems this way to me) was really to imply that he likes what he's doing, but he's sick of the backstabbing and wants people to think about what he's doing for the community. In other words, it's the typical "okay, so you don't like my political views, where are *your* credentials" speech. Except it's not really a speech, it's a Web page. (hopefully that was clear enough)
Personally, no 22-year-old kid should be paid more than $25,000 a year if they have no experience, degree or not.
Why must you include an age discriminatory slam in this comment? Too bad, because it discredits your entire message.
My simple reaction is pay them what they are worth. They can be 16, 18, 22, 30, 40, 50, etc. Doesn't matter, as long as they can still perform their job.
(As an aside, what's minimum wage as an annual salary?)
Something to remember as far as bandwidth goes is that it's not always the bandwidth, the latency factors in too. This is part of the reason I want an ISDN link; modems are slow and there's a theoretical limit to how fast a modem can transmit a given piece of information (something like 80 milliseconds), and ISDN already has that beat by a factor of at least two (possibly much more). This incidentally is why an Ethernet link throttled to modem bandwidth still beats the pants off a modem. (Netrek and Quake players should know all about this one.)
Up to a point what you're saying is correct. However, go looking for the beloved (perhaps) System V style init directories on a copy of (at least) Slackware. You won't find them; it uses BSD init. Also you'll find that rpm2targz almost becomes a necessity on a Slackware setup as almost nobody releases Slackware.tgz packages.
If you are willing to throw out the packaging system used to install Linux and even toy with another flavor of init then yes, distribution does not really matter. But usually, it matters at least some.
Lest your cheap comment about "free software hippies" slide by unnoticed, your attention is called to the fact that a lot of people that are in the free software movement aren't even old enough to have been around in the 1960's. I resent your comparison.
Obviously you have no idea that HTML is not a page layout language. What fixed resolution design actually does is reduce the advantages of the World Wide Web to little more than a fancy piece of paper, not bring layout advantages of print to the web. I hate sites that purport to be World Wide Web sites that are actually just Navigator and IE sites. Yes, there is a difference.
At least this particular one on my friend's box seemed to screw up royally when installing either the Red Hat or Slackware distributions of Linux. Funny how it worked perfectly under Windows 98.
I think this one is a 32X, not sure of the brand. It acts like it doesn't like to move data in full 64K chunks; it misses two bytes every 6-7 64K transfers. dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/dev/null bs=32k works well while dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/dev/null bs=64K dies a horrible death.
I think you misunderstand. The open source movement is about preserving user choice as much as it is about anything else. "Linux on every desktop" may be unrealistic taken on its face, but IMHO it's a good goal for people to work towards and it certainly beats the pants off of "Windows on every desktop." (As much as I like Linux I wouldn't mind seeing GNU Hurd or BSD take off too; choice is always good.)
The trademark was registered to keep companies from making false claims of "open source" (at least it seems that way to me). Yes, too much politics will kill the initiative, but I think making it clear what licenses are open source and which aren't is important and not excess politics.
Do you realize what all needs to be upgraded on a stock Slackware install (even 3.5 or 3.6) just to compile the kernel without errors? Being able to install the new kernel out of the box without having to play "musical upgrade chairs" is nice.
That said I'm waiting for Slackware 4.0 at which time I'll reinstall and go 2.2.x only (or not). Right now my modded Slackware 3.1 setup now running 2.0.36 works so I'm not going to try to fix it.:-)
He would have been there for 22 months after his guilty plea. Not sure when this latest round of charges were filed, but 4 years is over twice as long as 22 months.
The fact he's guilty of something else doesn't excuse holding him without a bail hearing and without a trial after that sentence expires.
NEVER buy from eMachines! They ship with Winmodems (actually HSP modems), substandard CD-ROMs, and are generally unexpandable pieces of crap. (I think I may have posted something a while back as AC about them, back when there was a problem with getting passwords via e-mail.)
If I could go back in time knowing what I knew now, I'd tell my friend's mom just how bad the eMachines deal was and offer to put together my friend's Christmas present computer myself for minimal labor charges. I'm certainly never buying one of the damn things myself.
If they shipped with a real modem, a real CD-ROM drive, and let Windows 98 be an option, yeah I might buy one. But they don't.
But we barely had BBS's back then, and the one Internet backbone was NSFnet and it was nowhere near as big as it is now. Having a computer (really what passed as a computer was barely a fancy calculator) was not as necessary or carried the benefit it does now.
CMIIW but don't today's desktop boxes outperform the room-fillers of the era where Atari 800/XL/XE, Commodore 64/128, Apple II series, etc boxes were "the thing?"
Eventually, yes, all DNS host names get translated into IPs. However we are referring to the number of actual domain names possible.
The answer you are looking for, BTW, is 37^22 (since at present domain names can be no longer than 26 characters total, so there's 22 +.com/.net/.org etc), or 3.165E34, times the number of top level domains.
OK Mr. Master Director, what have you produced?
on
Stanley Kubrick Dies
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· Score: 1
How about listing all the movies *you* have written, produced, or directed? Or at least some indication you have an idea what actually goes into a movie.
Yes, I have programmed before, but mostly small bash scripts for my own use, though I do dabble in C from time to time (my current project is figuring out X Window System programming).
I may soon publish (if the original author doesn't fold in my patches) at least my modifications to html-helper-mode for Emacs to more or less bring it up to date with the W3C's HTML 4.0 standard plus add a few things I found convenient. I consider this quite an accomplishment as I only learned what I know of Emacs LISP by example (i.e., only by looking at existing code, without a textbook or formal training).
Blessed are the Peacemakers
on
MacMafia
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· Score: 1
I think with the release of GIMP that Unix (particularly the open source Linux and BSD distributions) gains considerable ground on the MacOS as a possibility for image editing. Hell, GIMP runs decently on my Pentium 90 with a paltry 24M of RAM (unless I swap between it and Navigator too many times). For HTML authoring, Emacs with html-helper-mode performs rather well (especially if you catch on to elisp enough to add simple things).
Unix variants do not have to be hard to use. Being careless with DEL got you in serious trouble under DOS back in the old days too (and still can get you in trouble in the Win98 command prompt; remember DEL there bypasses the cute "click here to undelete your masterpiece" Recycling Bin). There do exist GUI and (n)curses-based file managers for Unix.
At least as of 3.5 Slackware was still libc5 only. I think this is the type of thing that Pat V will probably save for 4.0 (which should not be too far away).
At least I have a fairly decent Pentium box so I don't have to rely on precompiled binaries.
While I'm not going to defend every single thing that ESR does, I think labelling him or implying he is a communist is quite out of line. As a long time fetchmail user, he will have my respect for his programming ability if nothing else.
There's more to it than just writing or using the code. I think raising public awareness can and should also be viewed as contributing to the movement. (I'm saying this mainly because I'm a lousy programmer, but I'm trying to improve.:-) )
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I don't think he's railing on Rob's new feature that was added not too long ago; Katz seems to be making more of a general stand.
I've certainly been ignored, kicked/banned, hell, I've even had Internet accounts turned off because people didn't like me. I've pretty much been there, done that in this vein.
My opinion is, obviously, at least somewhat anti-censorship, but I'm also more of the opinion those who use crappy censorware deserve what they get, especially if they don't know it.
Oops, lemme try that again. The theoretical program line should have been:
if (u * c <= k) { abort(); }
The fact that censorware/shutupware/filterware companies frequently do this should tell you something about the faith they have in their product standing on its merits.
Which brings me to something else: I remember hearing of a program once that would filter/drop "nasty words" even if they were far apart in the text.
i.e. if you had a program with code like:
if (u * c
you'd wind up with a mangled program that would not compile. Damn if I remember what software it was right off hand though.
Wow. Surely the Australian government has seen just how badly the CDA went over over here in the US.
I'm shocked that any non-Communist, non-dictatorship country would try something like this.
While that's certainly an option for some of us, it would be quite a pain to chase down all the GNU components on every Linux setup I have (currently at four, only one of which is somewhat Debian-based (LRP)).
I will admit GNU Emacs and GIMP are great, if nothing else. I consider both to be the first two killer apps of free (open source) software.
I will also admit that sometimes RMS is too political for his own damn good. I may use his software but I'll be damned if I'm going to bend over backwards to call my setups "GNU/Linux boxes" instead of just Linux boxes.
After reading the article I think the story was off the mark a bit. ESR's point was probably not to imply that he was retiring. His point (at least it seems this way to me) was really to imply that he likes what he's doing, but he's sick of the backstabbing and wants people to think about what he's doing for the community. In other words, it's the typical "okay, so you don't like my political views, where are *your* credentials" speech. Except it's not really a speech, it's a Web page. (hopefully that was clear enough)
Why must you include an age discriminatory slam in this comment? Too bad, because it discredits your entire message.
My simple reaction is pay them what they are worth. They can be 16, 18, 22, 30, 40, 50, etc. Doesn't matter, as long as they can still perform their job.
(As an aside, what's minimum wage as an annual salary?)
Something to remember as far as bandwidth goes is that it's not always the bandwidth, the latency factors in too. This is part of the reason I want an ISDN link; modems are slow and there's a theoretical limit to how fast a modem can transmit a given piece of information (something like 80 milliseconds), and ISDN already has that beat by a factor of at least two (possibly much more). This incidentally is why an Ethernet link throttled to modem bandwidth still beats the pants off a modem. (Netrek and Quake players should know all about this one.)
Up to a point what you're saying is correct. However, go looking for the beloved (perhaps) System V style init directories on a copy of (at least) Slackware. You won't find them; it uses BSD init. Also you'll find that rpm2targz almost becomes a necessity on a Slackware setup as almost nobody releases Slackware .tgz packages.
If you are willing to throw out the packaging system used to install Linux and even toy with another flavor of init then yes, distribution does not really matter. But usually, it matters at least some.
Lest your cheap comment about "free software hippies" slide by unnoticed, your attention is called to the fact that a lot of people that are in the free software movement aren't even old enough to have been around in the 1960's. I resent your comparison.
Obviously you have no idea that HTML is not a page layout language. What fixed resolution design actually does is reduce the advantages of the World Wide Web to little more than a fancy piece of paper, not bring layout advantages of print to the web. I hate sites that purport to be World Wide Web sites that are actually just Navigator and IE sites. Yes, there is a difference.
At least this particular one on my friend's box seemed to screw up royally when installing either the Red Hat or Slackware distributions of Linux. Funny how it worked perfectly under Windows 98.
I think this one is a 32X, not sure of the brand. It acts like it doesn't like to move data in full 64K chunks; it misses two bytes every 6-7 64K transfers. dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/dev/null bs=32k works well while dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/dev/null bs=64K dies a horrible death.
I think you misunderstand. The open source movement is about preserving user choice as much as it is about anything else. "Linux on every desktop" may be unrealistic taken on its face, but IMHO it's a good goal for people to work towards and it certainly beats the pants off of "Windows on every desktop." (As much as I like Linux I wouldn't mind seeing GNU Hurd or BSD take off too; choice is always good.)
The trademark was registered to keep companies from making false claims of "open source" (at least it seems that way to me). Yes, too much politics will kill the initiative, but I think making it clear what licenses are open source and which aren't is important and not excess politics.
Do you realize what all needs to be upgraded on a stock Slackware install (even 3.5 or 3.6) just to compile the kernel without errors? Being able to install the new kernel out of the box without having to play "musical upgrade chairs" is nice.
:-)
That said I'm waiting for Slackware 4.0 at which time I'll reinstall and go 2.2.x only (or not). Right now my modded Slackware 3.1 setup now running 2.0.36 works so I'm not going to try to fix it.
He would have been there for 22 months after his guilty plea. Not sure when this latest round of charges were filed, but 4 years is over twice as long as 22 months.
The fact he's guilty of something else doesn't excuse holding him without a bail hearing and without a trial after that sentence expires.
NEVER buy from eMachines! They ship with Winmodems (actually HSP modems), substandard CD-ROMs, and are generally unexpandable pieces of crap. (I think I may have posted something a while back as AC about them, back when there was a problem with getting passwords via e-mail.)
If I could go back in time knowing what I knew now, I'd tell my friend's mom just how bad the eMachines deal was and offer to put together my friend's Christmas present computer myself for minimal labor charges. I'm certainly never buying one of the damn things myself.
If they shipped with a real modem, a real CD-ROM drive, and let Windows 98 be an option, yeah I might buy one. But they don't.
But we barely had BBS's back then, and the one Internet backbone was NSFnet and it was nowhere near as big as it is now. Having a computer (really what passed as a computer was barely a fancy calculator) was not as necessary or carried the benefit it does now.
CMIIW but don't today's desktop boxes outperform the room-fillers of the era where Atari 800/XL/XE, Commodore 64/128, Apple II series, etc boxes were "the thing?"
Eventually, yes, all DNS host names get translated into IPs. However we are referring to the number of actual domain names possible.
.com/.net/.org etc), or 3.165E34, times the number of top level domains.
The answer you are looking for, BTW, is 37^22 (since at present domain names can be no longer than 26 characters total, so there's 22 +
How about listing all the movies *you* have written, produced, or directed? Or at least some indication you have an idea what actually goes into a movie.
Some people truly have no taste.
Yes, I have programmed before, but mostly small bash scripts for my own use, though I do dabble in C from time to time (my current project is figuring out X Window System programming).
I may soon publish (if the original author doesn't fold in my patches) at least my modifications to html-helper-mode for Emacs to more or less bring it up to date with the W3C's HTML 4.0 standard plus add a few things I found convenient. I consider this quite an accomplishment as I only learned what I know of Emacs LISP by example (i.e., only by looking at existing code, without a textbook or formal training).
I think with the release of GIMP that Unix (particularly the open source Linux and BSD distributions) gains considerable ground on the MacOS as a possibility for image editing. Hell, GIMP runs decently on my Pentium 90 with a paltry 24M of RAM (unless I swap between it and Navigator too many times). For HTML authoring, Emacs with html-helper-mode performs rather well (especially if you catch on to elisp enough to add simple things).
Unix variants do not have to be hard to use. Being careless with DEL got you in serious trouble under DOS back in the old days too (and still can get you in trouble in the Win98 command prompt; remember DEL there bypasses the cute "click here to undelete your masterpiece" Recycling Bin). There do exist GUI and (n)curses-based file managers for Unix.
At least as of 3.5 Slackware was still libc5 only. I think this is the type of thing that Pat V will probably save for 4.0 (which should not be too far away).
At least I have a fairly decent Pentium box so I don't have to rely on precompiled binaries.
While I'm not going to defend every single thing that ESR does, I think labelling him or implying he is a communist is quite out of line. As a long time fetchmail user, he will have my respect for his programming ability if nothing else.
There's more to it than just writing or using the code. I think raising public awareness can and should also be viewed as contributing to the movement. (I'm saying this mainly because I'm a lousy programmer, but I'm trying to improve. :-) )