You have a point, but I think the original intent (of the 'flamebait' rating) was to distinguish between a controversial comment and one that was posted for the sole purpose of drawing flames. In that context, I wonder what exactly is the difference between 'flamebait' and 'troll'.
I don't consider posting a controversial comment as flamebait necessarily. And, yes, heated debate can be a healthy thing. The point is if you're going to post something just to get everybody all riled up, that's flamebait. If you post a viewpoint that is perhaps 'against the grain', but with the intent of sparking a lively, but sincere, discussion, that's not. That's what forums like this are for, as you point out.
He might be 100% right on all points, but it would be nice if he went into a little more detail and explained why he comes to this conclusion. For example, he could state exactly how he feels their definition of open source is different. Or maybe give some examples or something. I'm honestly not RMS-bashing here, but it just sounds like He has delivered His judgement and we're just supposed to accept it without further explanation. R..M..S has spoken...oken...oken...oken....
I can't answer your first question, but seems like 'worm' is as good a handle as we've got right now. Maybe this calls for a new classification.
As to the second question, it creates shared files with names like PamelaAndersonMovie.mov, collegesex.zip, MetallicaMP3crack.zip, etc. In other words it gives them attractive sounding names in the hopes that someone will see them and come download them.
Ok, with the Red Wings out of it, who do you like?
This brings up a question I've always wanted to post on Ask Slashdot...what hockey team is the favorite among geeks? An argument could be made for any of the following:
Pittsburgh - mascot is the Penguin. 'nuff said.
Ottawa - play in the Corel Center. Possibly the only Linux ad you'll see in all of sports.
New Jersey - their logo brings to mind the BSD daemon.
The article sez that the gas is invisible because it has been fully ionized, i.e., it no longer has electrons. Well, wouldn't that just be protons? Why do they call it hydrogen if it's just a bunch of protons?
I think you misunderstood what I was saying, or I didn't make myself clear. Actually I was trying to make the same point you did - that computer languages are more suited to interpretation by a computer because they're more formalized. Not because of any inability on our part to speak the language properly. That's why I say its just a different means of expressing an idea, but not inferior. If computers *could* understand natural languages, we wouldn't go to the trouble to invent and learn computer languages. Sorry for the confusion, and I hope this clears it up.
And, what about the act of coding itself? You certainly can't express the same things in code that you can using English--does that mean it's a lesser form of "communicating"?
The reverse is also true - you can't express the same things in English (or other natural language) that you can in code. If you could, we'd all be using English to write programs. So no, it's not a 'lesser' form of communication, it's just different.
I'd suggest not. How many of us have used works like "beautiful" to describe chunk of code or the algorithm that it represents? Those of us who program know that it's a creative process and that it feels more like writing prose than like balancing your checkbook. I think the non-programmers of the world would be surprised by that, but I think it's true.
Absolutely. It's because writing code is writing (a story, for example) and is therefore an act of creation. You take a blank sheet of paper (virtual in our case) and create something where there was nothing before. Not only that, but the *way* you create it can be an art form if a particularly elegant solution is found. I agree with you that the sense of satisfaction I feel when I code up a nice program must be similar to that of a writer (or most any other artist) when he completes a work he is proud of.
dazedNconfused points out that it can only be appreciated by those who are clued in enough to "get it". That's true of any art form, I think. You will only appreciate "David Copperfield" or "A Midsummer Night's Dream" or "La Boheme" if you understand the medium and the context in which the art was created.
Good idea, but this isn't a sound card. It's a MIDI patchbay. The problem is there probably aren't a lot of coders out there that know what these things do or how you use them. If you find someone willing to work on the project, you'll probably have to describe in a fair amount of detail what the driver is supposed to do. Maybe try posting on some newsgroups or IRC channels frequented by musicians. You may get lucky and run across a geek musician that would be interested. Good luck.
Yup, it's still free. I just got a copy last week and used it to write a little command line utility for automatically sticking checksums into S-record files. Works great as far as I can tell and it also comes with a bash shell and gdb (joy).
I gave up trying to sort out the command line options for VC++ and got gcc instead. Good ol' makefiles! Sometimes you just can't beat 'em.
If Judge Jackson was going to issue any ground-breaking and lasting changes...
Remember that if JJ tries to slap them down too hard (a breakup, eg), they're just gonna appeal like crazy. And one basis for that appeal might be that JJ didn't give them enough of a chance to settle. "Well, yer honor, we were juuuust about ready to settle when Judge Jackson, there, issued his ruling. If [sniff] he'd just waited another day, we would have settled and this whole thing would be history now." I think JJ might also be thinking that some punishment now is better than a possibility of (perhaps more, perhaps less, perhaps no) punishment in the future.
I agree with what you're saying, though. A fine and some attention by a bunch of government watchdogs isn't going to fix the real problem. But that problem may not be fixable any more.
This article is true, but my concern is that as we continue to read how virus-hostile Linux is, we'll begin to feel smug and overconfident. That is the first step to disaster. Let's not forget what got us to this point in the first place: good design mixed with a bit of healthy paranoia. We need to never relax, the virus writers and crackers are out there and are just waiting for an opening. Yes, we've done a good job so far, but don't get complacent.
Yeah, that's how drums were made. The axis of rotation was horizontal and the r/w head moved from side to side to access different tracks. The only picture I can think of to describe it is that the drum spins like the wheels on a slot machine. So when the forklift turned sideways, the drum tried to maintain the axis of rotation and the only way it could do it is by tilting.
As you pointed out, translating that axis is no problem, and so lifting the drive up caused no trouble whatsoever. It was only when they tried to rotate the axis of rotation that difficulty ensued.
Of course, this still doesn't mean that the story isn't apocryphal. I wasn't there to see it, I only heard someone else telling it at the ALS.
I wonder if some of these markers may actually be counterproductive. If future archaeologists are anything like present ones, they'll take one look at them and go "Oooo, wonder what these are for. Let's dig it up and find out."
Maybe that's what the pyramids in Egypt really are, or the symbols on the Nazca plains in Peru. Ya think?
I overheard a funny story at last year's Atlanta Linux Expo. Seems that many years ago this company wanted to rewire the computer room without bringing the system down. So they got to the part of the room where the drums were located and needed to get into the floor panels underneath them. Now, if you've never seen a drum drive, it's similar to a big winchester disk only it uses a large drum spinning at fantastic rpms and the read/write head moves laterally across the face of the drum. We're talking massive amounts of angular momentum. The idea was to pick the whole thing up with a forklift, move it to one side then lift up the floor plates to do whatever they needed do there. (How many of you see this coming?) Now if you've ever done the experiment in physics class with the rotating bike wheel, you'll know that things with lots of rotational intertia don't wanna change axis of rotation very much (think gyroscope). They picked it up just fine, but when the forklift started to wheel around to move the drum off to the side, it promptly started to stand on one leg in order to maintain its rotational axis. Fortunately, the forklift operator saw what was happening just in time and spun back around before the whole thing tipped over and went bouncing around the computer room.
James Gleick is an outstanding non-fiction science author. He wrote Chaos, a very good introduction to Chaos theory and Genius, a biography of Richard Feynman (now don't say who the #$^*@ is Feynman!). I find his writing to be technical enough to be interesting, but not over my head. While not exactly written for the layperson, his books make science more approachable to us non-PhD's.
If anybody knows of other books by him, please let me know. I'll read anything he's written.
I received a free upgrade from Q98 to Q2K. They sent me the CD and told me to install it and I did. So far everything's cool. Since they're giving it away (and it's only an upgrade, not a full install) they should have no problem with someone making you a copy of it. If you'll e-mail me and let me know, I'll burn one for you provided it doesn't violate the license.
Slashdot Mirror
Q. When you say you have spoken to people at those companies, who is it that you have spoken to at each of the companies? For example, Universal.
MR. GOLD: If it was after January of 00, don't answer. If it was before, don't answer.
Gotta luv them lawyers....
You have a point, but I think the original intent (of the 'flamebait' rating) was to distinguish between a controversial comment and one that was posted for the sole purpose of drawing flames. In that context, I wonder what exactly is the difference between 'flamebait' and 'troll'.
I don't consider posting a controversial comment as flamebait necessarily. And, yes, heated debate can be a healthy thing. The point is if you're going to post something just to get everybody all riled up, that's flamebait. If you post a viewpoint that is perhaps 'against the grain', but with the intent of sparking a lively, but sincere, discussion, that's not. That's what forums like this are for, as you point out.
He might be 100% right on all points, but it would be nice if he went into a little more detail and explained why he comes to this conclusion. For example, he could state exactly how he feels their definition of open source is different. Or maybe give some examples or something. I'm honestly not RMS-bashing here, but it just sounds like He has delivered His judgement and we're just supposed to accept it without further explanation. R..M..S has spoken...oken...oken...oken....
Is it just me, or are there more & more viruses/trojans crawling out of the woodwork of late?
Seems that way to me too. I think the real potential of VBS is just now being realized.
I can't answer your first question, but seems like 'worm' is as good a handle as we've got right now. Maybe this calls for a new classification.
As to the second question, it creates shared files with names like PamelaAndersonMovie.mov, collegesex.zip, MetallicaMP3crack.zip, etc. In other words it gives them attractive sounding names in the hopes that someone will see them and come download them.
Ok, with the Red Wings out of it, who do you like?
This brings up a question I've always wanted to post on Ask Slashdot...what hockey team is the favorite among geeks? An argument could be made for any of the following:
Pittsburgh - mascot is the Penguin. 'nuff said.
Ottawa - play in the Corel Center. Possibly the only Linux ad you'll see in all of sports.
New Jersey - their logo brings to mind the BSD daemon.
San Jose - the Mecca of geekdom.
Anybody got any more?
Ooo, maybe he'll use the "Chewbacca Defense". If that won't get /. & Andover out of trouble, nothging will.
The article sez that the gas is invisible because it has been fully ionized, i.e., it no longer has electrons. Well, wouldn't that just be protons? Why do they call it hydrogen if it's just a bunch of protons?
Just a guess, but I'm thinking the birds simply stop transmitting when they fly over a part of the world to which the gov't wants to deny GPS service.
This, though improved over the original, still has some problems. Here's a patch:
1c1
#include
3c3,4
int
> main (int argc, char **argv)
Hey, if we keep this up, in a few days we'll have us a window manager!
I think you misunderstood what I was saying, or I didn't make myself clear. Actually I was trying to make the same point you did - that computer languages are more suited to interpretation by a computer because they're more formalized. Not because of any inability on our part to speak the language properly. That's why I say its just a different means of expressing an idea, but not inferior. If computers *could* understand natural languages, we wouldn't go to the trouble to invent and learn computer languages. Sorry for the confusion, and I hope this clears it up.
And, what about the act of coding itself? You certainly can't express the same things in code that you can using English--does that mean it's a lesser form of "communicating"?
The reverse is also true - you can't express the same things in English (or other natural language) that you can in code. If you could, we'd all be using English to write programs. So no, it's not a 'lesser' form of communication, it's just different.
I'd suggest not. How many of us have used works like "beautiful" to describe chunk of code or the algorithm that it represents? Those of us who program know that it's a creative process and that it feels more like writing prose than like balancing your checkbook. I think the non-programmers of the world would be surprised by that, but I think it's true.
Absolutely. It's because writing code is writing (a story, for example) and is therefore an act of creation. You take a blank sheet of paper (virtual in our case) and create something where there was nothing before. Not only that, but the *way* you create it can be an art form if a particularly elegant solution is found. I agree with you that the sense of satisfaction I feel when I code up a nice program must be similar to that of a writer (or most any other artist) when he completes a work he is proud of.
dazedNconfused points out that it can only be appreciated by those who are clued in enough to "get it". That's true of any art form, I think. You will only appreciate "David Copperfield" or "A Midsummer Night's Dream" or "La Boheme" if you understand the medium and the context in which the art was created.
Good idea, but this isn't a sound card. It's a MIDI patchbay. The problem is there probably aren't a lot of coders out there that know what these things do or how you use them. If you find someone willing to work on the project, you'll probably have to describe in a fair amount of detail what the driver is supposed to do. Maybe try posting on some newsgroups or IRC channels frequented by musicians. You may get lucky and run across a geek musician that would be interested. Good luck.
Yup, it's still free. I just got a copy last week and used it to write a little command line utility for automatically sticking checksums into S-record files. Works great as far as I can tell and it also comes with a bash shell and gdb (joy).
I gave up trying to sort out the command line options for VC++ and got gcc instead. Good ol' makefiles! Sometimes you just can't beat 'em.
If Judge Jackson was going to issue any ground-breaking and lasting changes...
Remember that if JJ tries to slap them down too hard (a breakup, eg), they're just gonna appeal like crazy. And one basis for that appeal might be that JJ didn't give them enough of a chance to settle. "Well, yer honor, we were juuuust about ready to settle when Judge Jackson, there, issued his ruling. If [sniff] he'd just waited another day, we would have settled and this whole thing would be history now." I think JJ might also be thinking that some punishment now is better than a possibility of (perhaps more, perhaps less, perhaps no) punishment in the future.
I agree with what you're saying, though. A fine and some attention by a bunch of government watchdogs isn't going to fix the real problem. But that problem may not be fixable any more.
Hehe, I'm not an AC, that's how. btw, I'd mod yours up too. Funny as shit!
I just burned my last moderator point, or I'd moderate this back up. I think it's pretty funny myself.
Can't wait to see this one in meta-moderation....
This article is true, but my concern is that as we continue to read how virus-hostile Linux is, we'll begin to feel smug and overconfident. That is the first step to disaster. Let's not forget what got us to this point in the first place: good design mixed with a bit of healthy paranoia. We need to never relax, the virus writers and crackers are out there and are just waiting for an opening. Yes, we've done a good job so far, but don't get complacent.
Yeah, that's how drums were made. The axis of rotation was horizontal and the r/w head moved from side to side to access different tracks. The only picture I can think of to describe it is that the drum spins like the wheels on a slot machine. So when the forklift turned sideways, the drum tried to maintain the axis of rotation and the only way it could do it is by tilting.
As you pointed out, translating that axis is no problem, and so lifting the drive up caused no trouble whatsoever. It was only when they tried to rotate the axis of rotation that difficulty ensued.
Of course, this still doesn't mean that the story isn't apocryphal. I wasn't there to see it, I only heard someone else telling it at the ALS.
I wonder if some of these markers may actually be counterproductive. If future archaeologists are anything like present ones, they'll take one look at them and go "Oooo, wonder what these are for. Let's dig it up and find out."
Maybe that's what the pyramids in Egypt really are, or the symbols on the Nazca plains in Peru. Ya think?
I overheard a funny story at last year's Atlanta Linux Expo. Seems that many years ago this company wanted to rewire the computer room without bringing the system down. So they got to the part of the room where the drums were located and needed to get into the floor panels underneath them. Now, if you've never seen a drum drive, it's similar to a big winchester disk only it uses a large drum spinning at fantastic rpms and the read/write head moves laterally across the face of the drum. We're talking massive amounts of angular momentum. The idea was to pick the whole thing up with a forklift, move it to one side then lift up the floor plates to do whatever they needed do there. (How many of you see this coming?) Now if you've ever done the experiment in physics class with the rotating bike wheel, you'll know that things with lots of rotational intertia don't wanna change axis of rotation very much (think gyroscope). They picked it up just fine, but when the forklift started to wheel around to move the drum off to the side, it promptly started to stand on one leg in order to maintain its rotational axis. Fortunately, the forklift operator saw what was happening just in time and spun back around before the whole thing tipped over and went bouncing around the computer room.
http://www.around.com/
James Gleick is an outstanding non-fiction science author. He wrote Chaos, a very good introduction to Chaos theory and Genius, a biography of Richard Feynman (now don't say who the #$^*@ is Feynman!). I find his writing to be technical enough to be interesting, but not over my head. While not exactly written for the layperson, his books make science more approachable to us non-PhD's.
If anybody knows of other books by him, please let me know. I'll read anything he's written.
...instant grits.
I received a free upgrade from Q98 to Q2K. They sent me the CD and told me to install it and I did. So far everything's cool. Since they're giving it away (and it's only an upgrade, not a full install) they should have no problem with someone making you a copy of it. If you'll e-mail me and let me know, I'll burn one for you provided it doesn't violate the license.