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  1. Re:Don't need any more interpreted languages on C Styled Script - C-like Scripting Language · · Score: 1

    oh, there was a time... when you could tell the real programmers because they knew what INTERCAL stood for.

    wait a minute. that time is now. ;)

    don't go anyone spoiling this post by posting the answer!

  2. Re:Worst language ever! on C Styled Script - C-like Scripting Language · · Score: 1

    Worst?

    Learn ADA. And RPG. And CO.

    Come back and say that. I haven't looked at the language yet, but I must say, I don't believe this person.

    For one thing, as a Forth programmer, I think Java's a lot like C. You want pointers? We got pointers... ;) (You can't access a variable without using pointers in Forth. Period.)

  3. Re:Moderation??? on C Styled Script - C-like Scripting Language · · Score: 1

    man oh man. doing a full C preprocessor for just-in-time.

    no, I don't think so. where were the bank of crays you wanted to run your app on? :)

  4. Re:I already use a 'C' based Scripting Language on C Styled Script - C-like Scripting Language · · Score: 1

    it's funny actually. I see a lot of posts from people who seem to think Perl isn't C-like.

    these people should learn Forth. heh. then they would know the difference.

    now there's an idea. I wonder if Forth could be adapted for CGI use... or if it already has. hmmm. ;)

  5. Re:CSS on C Styled Script - C-like Scripting Language · · Score: 1
    obviously not a canadian above. :)

    Canada Student Loan. ;)

    I really need to get to work on that TLA database I've been thinking about for many years...

  6. Re:Son of Usenet on Usenet Co-founder Jim Ellis Dies · · Score: 1

    gack! FidoNet... evil, hierarchical setup.

    okay, this is probably both incredibly offtopic and flamebait, but no, Usenet's not like FidoNet. Usenet has always been peer-to-peer networking, no central controls, and in this way much more resembles networks like C86Net.

    Most BBS networks used to have a Central Hub ideology; Usenet was way ahead of its time in distributing the information around peer-to-peer.

    <obmarketdroid> Of course, Napster invented peer-to-peer. :) </obmarketdroid>

  7. Re:Actually... on Usenet Co-founder Jim Ellis Dies · · Score: 1
    It's not just the porn-attracting groups that get hit by spam, at least in the sense of the ludicrously high S/N. (Also, alt.binaries.pictures.* has gotten hit, and hit badly, by spammers. They're pretty indiscriminate.)

    For example, I used to read alt.cyberpunk. This was a really cool group, mostly about literature. Then the script kiddies hit. sigh. For example:

    Come on guys you can at least explain why it is dumb. Help the Newbie. I mean if there were 1000 elites in the world and they taught a newbie all they knew all the trick and every thing in a year, then after five years we would have 32,000!!!! ELITES. Please consider.

    That's from a real post. sigh. okay, at least I flamed him. (That's why I have the post. This is from the before-deja time.) but it wasn't enough. there were too many.

    IMO a bigger problem are the trolls. Because you can easily spamfilter out the spammers, but the trolls tend to provoke responses. Which means you wind up seeing the people you like suddenly make idiotic posts.

    As for the whole spamtrap situation. Maybe we should go back to bangpath email addresses. Heh, let's see 'em decipher that... :)

    Also, for what it's worth, Usenet is not an Internet application. It started using UUCP. *cough, wheeze* NNTP is a latecomer. Although I admit, I've always used NNTP. But I'm a Canadian: most of Canada didn't get access to Usenet until we got IP access around 1990. We were on Bitnet before then. Ah, the good ol' days. :)

  8. What I don't understand... on The Psychology of Passwords · · Score: 1
    ... is why people give a shit about cleartext passwords. I mean, anybody with router access can sniff out your password anyway. It doesn't matter if it's 08.xy.9~1ao or dude. It's still not going to be secure.

    I only use decent passwords for SSL.

    On an unrelated note, back in the '80s when I first started calling BBSes, I used to use colours as passwords. Like, green, orange, yellow. Nobody ever figured them out. Were they cryptics? :) (I picked the colour of something I happened to be looking at at the time I picked the password.)

  9. Re:why FreeBSD? on FreeBSD on DVD · · Score: 1

    FreeBSD's not the only BSD. It's best to consider FreeBSD as being a part of the *BSD tree, which consists of FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD.

    NetBSD is sorta like Linux, in that there are an ungodly number of ports of it. Its kernel was designed for portability, and it probably is running on a toaster somewhere. :)

    OpenBSD is a security fanatic's port of FreeBSD. I'm not sure of the details of the story, but it's mostly used as a firewall.

    FreeBSD has less software specifically designed for it than Linux. However, it's a *BSD kernel, which Linux isn't, so that means that it runs a lot of mainstream Unix applications that require tweaking for Linux. This is particularly significant in the area of networking. However, Quake won't run on FreeBSD. :)

    I don't know too much about the technical insides of Linux, so I can't comment. FreeBSD has an intensely customizable kernel, however. Normally, all devices are directly supported by the kernel, and you recompile the kernel to remove the devices you don't need. This gives you some pretty amazing memory efficiencies.

    I like /stand/sysinstall a lot too. Okay, I learned to hack in the eighties. sue me. :) But I find it an elegant interface.

    However, if you have a broadband connection, get a $100 machine and download the FreeBSD installer. all you need is a machine with ethernet-based FTP access, and a couple floppies. Check it out. OK, or PPP if you don't mind leaving it overnight. :)

  10. Re:Just want to point out on FreeBSD on DVD · · Score: 1

    FreeBSD distributes all of its versions. M$ doesn't. Try going to M$ and saying you want DOS 5.0. Watch them laugh. :)

    I run FreeBSD 3.4 on two machines here. It's not the latest release. So what? I still got it from them, no problem.

  11. Hey, cool! on Senator Says Spammers Have First-Amendment Rights · · Score: 1
    So spammers have a free-speech right to flood my inbox, that means I have a free-speech right to DOS their servers? :)

    Oh, get real. And yes, it's really the same thing. For those of us who have been Usenet posters... without preemptive mail-filters (ones which kill the spam before it gets stored on the server), I wouldn't be able to read my email.

  12. Re:Any device that needs a "club" is already doome on Mac Nostalgia On Two Fronts · · Score: 1

    Apparently, then, all devices are doomed. There are Linux and Win32 user groups, too, you know. ;)

  13. Re:MacOS Webservers FAR more secure than Linux ,*B on Mac Nostalgia On Two Fronts · · Score: 1
    The mac uses Pascal style strings, instead of slow null-terminated strings in most all aspects of the entire operating system and in most users code.

    That's Forth-style strings to you :P

  14. Re:Who is their target audience? on Red Hat Enters The Database Market · · Score: 1
    Yeah, that's why I suggested a server-based system with a decent GUI.

    Access is missing too many important functions, particularly in the area of string manipulation. And while it's true that FoxPro is definitely old tech, it's _well-designed_ old tech, whereas Access... gah.

    FoxPro's still available? Really? I haven't seen it in years. Anywhere. I just assumed they'd dropped it. However, I'm not in MSDN, as you might have guessed. ;)

  15. Re:Ahh, the irony... on National Broadband Access · · Score: 1
    Sometimes. Usually, though, it's the admin's moronic PHB, who insists that The ISP is God, We Must Only Have One Main Connection, For Redundancies Are Security Risks.

    Really. I've never seen a place where security is both so prized and so heavily misunderstood. (Yes, let's "improve" security by turning NAT on on the routers. Geesh.)

  16. Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? on Mac Nostalgia On Two Fronts · · Score: 1
    Specifically, GEOS was a GUI for the Commodore 64. It was marketed in the dying days of the 64, in an attempt to keep the 64 relevant. Far as I know, it's the only 8-bit GUI in existence.

    It sucks. As one might expect. 64 types did not turn out in droves for it. However, everyone who bought a 64C got it bundled (it was actually made by another company, not CBM), and so it was occasionally used. But really, a 1MZ 6510 and 64K of RAM? And then there's the no true bitmap display... well, you can go from there. ;)

  17. Re:CIA on Eyeballing the Future of Retina Scanning Lasers · · Score: 1
    Too many Bond flicks.

    First of all, a megawatt laser does not make dime-sized holes. It makes explosive burns. :)

    Second of all, a megawatt laser is really pretty big. Our Fidel might notice if, all of a sudden, his scanner is now twelve feet long. ;)

    Lasers do have military application. But military lasers (and most of the industrial lasers) are big and they use a lot of power. Ordinary lasers are really, um, safe.

    Ever see a laser pointer? This would probably have even less power than one of those.

  18. Re:Who is their target audience? on Red Hat Enters The Database Market · · Score: 2
    The database market is enormous. While it's true that the big dollars are all in Oracle, it's shocking to note that many mid-level businesses are using Access.

    If RedHat has sense, what they should be going after are the types of people who like databases like FileMaker. Access is an awful database program; it's just extremely limiting. On the other hand, mySQL does require some hair value to set up correctly. And the problem is, since M$ confusingly dropped FoxPro (a vastly superior program to Access), there's nothing out there for the semi-computer-literate guys & girls who need decent databases.

    Also, if they get a good little server-based database with a decent GUI, not a great one (think FileMaker) then they've got a huge lead on the SOHO market, many of who are interested in Linux but are frightened of SQL. FileMaker did really well with these people in the Mac market; I don't see why RedHat can't do well too in the x86 market.

    Anyway, that's what I think they should do. If you're listening, boys, there you go. :)

  19. Re:He says we can have the source to word on Bill Gates Says GPL Is Like Pac-Man · · Score: 1
    The relevant section is:

    Does Microsoft plan to make more of its source code available to customers? You already do that with Windows; do you plan to expand that in any way to the applications?

    We keep making it easier and easier, and anything people want source code for, we'll figure out a way to get it to them. It's kind of a strange thing in a way because most commercial customers don't want to recompile kernels or things like that. But they want to be able to know that things can be supported.

    We have some very cool tools now where we don't have to ship you the source. You can debug online, through the Internet. So it means you don't have to get a bunch of CDs. If you really want it for debugging and patching things, we can do that through the Internet. That's a real breakthrough in terms of simple source access. I don't know that anyone has ever asked for the source code for Word. If they did, we would give it to them. But it's not a typical request.

    I can't believe CNet actually provided a link for defining kernels... dweebs :)

  20. Re:Disingenuous support for openness on Bill Gates Says GPL Is Like Pac-Man · · Score: 1
    Until Bill agrees to open everything MS does and allow their "innovations" to prosper like TCP/IP did, I think I'd rather not see the GPL go away just yet.

    What, you mean NetBEUI isn't the most popular networking protocol in history? Why could that be, I wonder... :)

  21. Re:Ahh, the irony... on National Broadband Access · · Score: 1
    I have worked for the Canadian federal government. it may not be the /. effect. believe me. ;)

    we would sometimes lose the _entire_ connection to the 'net from our upstream/downstream (god, I hate these boating metaphors; which one is it?) ISP. This is an entire government department. It would go off for maybe two or three hours.

    No joke.

    So while I like the idea, and I know there are people especially inside Industry Canada who are all gungho about bandwidth everywhere, I also know that government politics may spice things up a little & I'll wait until I see it working. ;)

  22. Re:Glad I'm not a poor person in Canada on National Broadband Access · · Score: 1
    actually, it does piss me off that my tax dollars go to funding automobiles. I mean, crap, why do we need to give these people _more_ money?

    I'd rather be in a toll-road situation. you can buy a car, you can pay for the damage you do to the road too. the americans have that one right.

  23. Re:Government Funded Internet Access? on National Broadband Access · · Score: 1
    assuming you're referring to M$, then it didn't even really exist in 1975, which if I remember right was the year the Altair came out (which in a way laid the foundation of M$, as it was their BASIC interpreter that was made to run on it).

    The Wintel duopoly is maybe ten years old, really. Lots of people were using non-M$ operating systems in '91.

    Now, if you mean AT&T and Unix (which started out being the O/S associated with the Internet and in many ways still is), you've got a better argument, but there are so many *nixes now that I'm not sure the monopoly thing stands up. ;)

    You can argue that the M$ monopoly dates back to the release of Word. But that's maybe 1985, for the first version on the Mac? Certainly Word is the reason they've done so well; that's why I bring it up. It sure-as-hell ain't the wonder of messydos. ;)

  24. Re:The problem with this. on National Broadband Access · · Score: 1
    oh, puh-leeze...

    I'm a Canadian who knows a little bit about his nation's privacy laws.

    British Columbia has a half-decent privacy law. nowhere else does. the federal privacy commissioner only regulates what the government does.

    For god's sakes: we don't even have laws against shotgun mikes and the like. Want protection from recording in Canada? Get a white-noise box.

    Really.

    for what it's worth, I love Canada. but my god, what private eyes do here... eek.

  25. Re:What's ESR surprised by now? on VA Layoff Rumors · · Score: 1
    To be fair to Eric, he didn't say he wouldn't give any to charity, he just said he didn't have time to listen to them ask him for it. He did say that he would probably give money to charities he already knew about.

    The point of that article, though, was that all that cash was generally nice, but not really important. He just wants to hack. And he figures that he's just like all the other hackers who got rich on IPOs in this respect.

    I think he wrote it because it blew his mind, and he had to get it out. But I'm no telepath :)