The "many eyes make all bugs shallow" Open Source development creed was refuted with comments (disguised as questions) about how it is better to have professionals with professional-quality debugging tools checking mission-critical code than it is to rely on all those rag-tag Open Source developers.
So basically the MS line was, "You guys in Jordan cannot hope to have the skills and smarts to possibly put together quality software, no matter how much you put your mind to it."
It sounds to me like this *was* a gathering of professionals, or at least, programmers coming together to become professionals in their area. Way to make a sale, dumbasses - alienation *always* makes buyers' pockets just a little deeper, doesn't it?
Did he go so far as to call the Jordanian programmer "ignorant towel-heads" too, or was that saved for later? GMFTatsujin
I can see how, with *great* amounts of extrapolation, this might present a problem after prolonged periods of time in an isolated environment which *only* contained the offending constructions.
On the other hand, you could take your freakin' headphones off every so often, scrappy.
When listening to music, music isn't the only thing you hear. There's plenty of background noise going on. The fact that it gets filtered out so's you can listen to your tunes seems to indicate that the sensitive "circuitry" in your head is actually working just fine.
This article seems to be an idealized application of a half-baked problem.
But then, I'm no high-falootin' science guy. GMFTatsujin
And even the fact the the fate of Men is not know, even to the Wise, proposes evidence of your theme of a wise embracing of the future with an eye to the mistakes of the past, not a fear of it.
This is where Brin's criticism of LOTR breaks down. Frodo might have been well-to-do, but he didn't have any idea that his armor was worth that much. Nor did he, or Bilbo, for that matter, realize that they had the "One Ring" on their mantelpiece. Sure, Frodo was comfortable, but he wasn't some sort of political power, even in the Shire.
It's probably also worth noting that by the time the adventure is over, each of the hobbits has *become* one of the influencial powers of, or representing, the Shire.
One of the integral facets of the book is that Evil, either by direct influence or in taking action against it, influences you whether you like it or not, whether you get involved or not, and whether you take sides or not. Or to boil it down even further: You are a part of the world. Get used to it.
Nice point about Gimli and Legolas by the way. I'd say the same about Gimli's transformation before Galadriel too.
I'm actually surprised at Brin's talk about elitism and kingship and what not. Wasn't the main thrust of The Postman, "who will take responsibility for these people?" Hypocrite! GMFTatsujin
Tolkien *hated* the idea that his stories would be considered analogues for Nazi Germany, Imperial England, or anything else. He just wanted to write something epic that England could call its own.
Brin falls into his own traps more often than not. Perhaps thats dramatic irony (or intentional irony, even), but for my part I think Brin is writing about LOTR not because it's something that he's really got anything to say about, but rather because it opens this week and he needs to sell an article.
The beauty of Tolkien's writing shares a commonality with Shakespeare's -- in simply writing the situation and giving characters human depth to explore, the characters neatly side-step the issue of allegory. Instead, it is the *reader* who gives meaning to the work, and provides analogies based on their own experiences.
That's why both works are timeless. They aren't pointing at any one particular time and saying "THIS is what the world was thinking about THAT." They are rather written in such as way as to force you to pay attention and think about what's going on. Analogue is a tool that the reader brings in to understand with, not one which the writers depend on and beat like a dead horse.
The best books are the ones where you can fill in the blanks and see you staring back at yourself -- and everyone sees something different. LOTR is no exception, and I'd say it's actually at the forefront.
A PC is a machine that that not only game, but also word-process, compose music, burn CDs, sort data in databases, process video (with input from that self-same expensive video card, most likely), balance my checkbook, send email, browse the web...... AND I can change the background picture on my desktop.
And a PC costs less than a Mac. That isn't stopping me from considering a switch though.
Also, games on a PC can run at higher resolution and generally seem to just look nicer. To me, anyway.
At work, I've got WindowsXP. Work has a nice fast gigabit connection, so that's where I do the majority of my browsing. That answers that until I switch jobs.
At home I've got a Windows 98 machine that I do my video editing and burning on. VirtualDub is the most powerful free video processor I've found, and it's a Windows app. That, and all my games are for Windows too. In short, I've got apps that I know how to use on Windows, hateful as that may be.
I've considered upgrading to Win2K (XP, like cops and vampires, will not enter my home unless explicitly invited), but I still stick Win98 for a simple reason: Both products break, but I'm more familiar with *how* Win98 breaks. That beast, I know how to fix in a heartbeat. Other Win versions, I have to learn new tricks. It's not worth the trouble.
My wife put Win2K on her home machine, and now the oldie-but-goodie games (like Dungeon Keeper) that she loves are acting strangely. Win2K only seems to like new things. Bah.
That's the same reason I've avoided putting Linux on my home boxes (though I do have one machine running Freesco for home internet and it ROCKS... anyway...). I know how to fix Win98.
I've experimented with Mandrake and RedHat, but the problem is that I've found them to be *too* flexible. There are so many ways to configure the system to do something (and each version seems to have it's own special method and ignores - or improperly takes into account - the others), that when something doesn't behave the way I expected it to, I don't know where to start looking. Do I use the GUI tool, or try to edit config files by hand? Which files would be affected if I did? What runlevel am I supposed to look at?
I know the depths of the Win98 maze backward and forward. It ain't perfect, but it gets me there. Linux, however, leaves me feeling completely in the dark. I'm too busy to put my computing habits on indefinite hiatus until figure it all out.
I'm considering buying an iBook in the near future, and perhaps I'll put VirtualPC on it and experiment with a Linux variant that way without endangering the extant OS. I just can't bear the idea of stripping everything down that I've spent so long building up and having to start from scratch again.
Literally, our very lives are at stake now. George and I are just praying that we can finish 'Episode III' in time, before it's all over."
Pirates! Hear my plea! George Lucas is down to the wire on his multi-billion dollar empire! If you don't stop pirating, Slashdot itself will fall when all the Anakin and Jar Jar jokes can no longer be propped up with new material!
I really have no sympathy for this media-sponsored whining. You know, just because somebody else is shooting you in the foot doesn't mean that you didn't hand them the gun in the first place.
"If I, as a ameteur filmmaker, wish to create and distribute a homemade DVD of my work, what kind of process would I have to involve myself in to ensure that my work could be displayed on a Palladium-enabled computer? Will I have to purchase new mastering software? Will my current DVD-authoring software create DVDs that can be viewed? Will I have to pay a fee to apply a digital watermark? How will the watermark key be controlled and disseminated? Am I giving up rights to my work?"
We all know the big companies are behind it. But what about people who want to create content for themselves?
Back in the days when I was an AOL tech support rep (shudder) we had this call tracking database that prompted up solutions for various problems encountered by the user base. It was some sort of knowledge base brain-sharing thing, forget what it was called, and everyone hated it anyway. We all had the ability to submit new call types and solutions. So on my last day there I entered a few in....
This is one of them. For all I know it's still there.
. . .
Version: ALL PLATFORMS Problem Type: Connection -- Modem Dialing Topic: Other Symptom: SERVERS DOWN. CALL QUEUE STATUS LIGHT IS SOLID UNWAVERING RED, AS IF 10 MILLION MEMBERS CRIED OUT AT ONCE -- THEN CALLED TECH SUPPORT Resolution: ABANDON ALL HOPE, GIVE IN TO DESPAIR Solution: "Sorry, server's down, thank you for calling. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?"...beep... "Sorry, server's down, thank you for calling. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?"...beep... "Sorry, server's down, thank you for calling. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?"...beep... "No, you can't have your money back. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?"... beep... "Sorry, server's down, thank you for calling. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?"...beep... . . .
My supervisor got a call from the QA team asking if that was supposed to be a joke or not, if you can believe it. GMFTatsujin
... and many of them have already been voiced, so I won't delve into them...
Except this one: The idea of contacting ET is predicated on the idea that, in all the universe, life would happen in both an accessable region of space, and during a time in history when the two species are actually BOTH ALIVE.
Time seems to always be left out of the equation.
The human race, in one form or another, has been on Earth for, what, tens- to hundreds of thousands of years? That's not even a molecule of a drop in the bucket of eternity. The chance that, right NOW (or even in the forseeable future -- let's be generous and suppose that humans will last another, oh, 500,000 years) there is some alien race out there evolved at least to the point that we can contact or that would contact us... well, it's laughable. The chances of historic overlap are worse than astronomical. You'd be better off predicting that a Dilophisaurus will be seen touring around New York City, barring Michael Criton's interference.
I think if we ever have contact with aliens, it will not be through living representatives. From one direction or the other, it will be through artefacts or other long-dead signals in the noise. Theirs or ours.
In short: Overcoming the gulfs of space isn't the only problem. There's just too much time for things to happen in. History on the cosmic scale is a pretty spread-out resource. GMFTatsujin
Slashdot Mirror
Free Kevin with purchase of Kevin of equal or lesser value, while supplies last.
The "many eyes make all bugs shallow" Open Source development creed was refuted with comments (disguised as questions) about how it is better to have professionals with professional-quality debugging tools checking mission-critical code than it is to rely on all those rag-tag Open Source developers.
So basically the MS line was, "You guys in Jordan cannot hope to have the skills and smarts to possibly put together quality software, no matter how much you put your mind to it."
It sounds to me like this *was* a gathering of professionals, or at least, programmers coming together to become professionals in their area. Way to make a sale, dumbasses - alienation *always* makes buyers' pockets just a little deeper, doesn't it?
Did he go so far as to call the Jordanian programmer "ignorant towel-heads" too, or was that saved for later?
GMFTatsujin
I can see how, with *great* amounts of extrapolation, this might present a problem after prolonged periods of time in an isolated environment which *only* contained the offending constructions.
On the other hand, you could take your freakin' headphones off every so often, scrappy.
When listening to music, music isn't the only thing you hear. There's plenty of background noise going on. The fact that it gets filtered out so's you can listen to your tunes seems to indicate that the sensitive "circuitry" in your head is actually working just fine.
This article seems to be an idealized application of a half-baked problem.
But then, I'm no high-falootin' science guy.
GMFTatsujin
Bravo!
And even the fact the the fate of Men is not know, even to the Wise, proposes evidence of your theme of a wise embracing of the future with an eye to the mistakes of the past, not a fear of it.
It's probably also worth noting that by the time the adventure is over, each of the hobbits has *become* one of the influencial powers of, or representing, the Shire.
One of the integral facets of the book is that Evil, either by direct influence or in taking action against it, influences you whether you like it or not, whether you get involved or not, and whether you take sides or not. Or to boil it down even further: You are a part of the world. Get used to it.
Nice point about Gimli and Legolas by the way. I'd say the same about Gimli's transformation before Galadriel too.
I'm actually surprised at Brin's talk about elitism and kingship and what not. Wasn't the main thrust of The Postman, "who will take responsibility for these people?" Hypocrite!
GMFTatsujin
I thought it was shallow and self-congratulating.
Tolkien *hated* the idea that his stories would be considered analogues for Nazi Germany, Imperial England, or anything else. He just wanted to write something epic that England could call its own.
Brin falls into his own traps more often than not. Perhaps thats dramatic irony (or intentional irony, even), but for my part I think Brin is writing about LOTR not because it's something that he's really got anything to say about, but rather because it opens this week and he needs to sell an article.
The beauty of Tolkien's writing shares a commonality with Shakespeare's -- in simply writing the situation and giving characters human depth to explore, the characters neatly side-step the issue of allegory. Instead, it is the *reader* who gives meaning to the work, and provides analogies based on their own experiences.
That's why both works are timeless. They aren't pointing at any one particular time and saying "THIS is what the world was thinking about THAT." They are rather written in such as way as to force you to pay attention and think about what's going on. Analogue is a tool that the reader brings in to understand with, not one which the writers depend on and beat like a dead horse.
The best books are the ones where you can fill in the blanks and see you staring back at yourself -- and everyone sees something different. LOTR is no exception, and I'd say it's actually at the forefront.
GMFTatsujin
Just set all the towers to conform to the HDTV standard by 2006!
Um...
Oh, wait.
GMFTatsujin
Phoenix .4 seems to handle theme switching just fine. Downloads the theme, recognizes it as such, and installs it. Switching did not require a restart.
Phoenix themes: http://texturizer.net/phoenix/themes.html
Flexability is a good reason.
... AND I can change the background picture on my desktop.
A PC is a machine that that not only game, but also word-process, compose music, burn CDs, sort data in databases, process video (with input from that self-same expensive video card, most likely), balance my checkbook, send email, browse the web...
And a PC costs less than a Mac. That isn't stopping me from considering a switch though.
Also, games on a PC can run at higher resolution and generally seem to just look nicer. To me, anyway.
At work, I've got WindowsXP. Work has a nice fast gigabit connection, so that's where I do the majority of my browsing. That answers that until I switch jobs.
At home I've got a Windows 98 machine that I do my video editing and burning on. VirtualDub is the most powerful free video processor I've found, and it's a Windows app. That, and all my games are for Windows too. In short, I've got apps that I know how to use on Windows, hateful as that may be.
I've considered upgrading to Win2K (XP, like cops and vampires, will not enter my home unless explicitly invited), but I still stick Win98 for a simple reason: Both products break, but I'm more familiar with *how* Win98 breaks. That beast, I know how to fix in a heartbeat. Other Win versions, I have to learn new tricks. It's not worth the trouble.
My wife put Win2K on her home machine, and now the oldie-but-goodie games (like Dungeon Keeper) that she loves are acting strangely. Win2K only seems to like new things. Bah.
That's the same reason I've avoided putting Linux on my home boxes (though I do have one machine running Freesco for home internet and it ROCKS... anyway...). I know how to fix Win98.
I've experimented with Mandrake and RedHat, but the problem is that I've found them to be *too* flexible. There are so many ways to configure the system to do something (and each version seems to have it's own special method and ignores - or improperly takes into account - the others), that when something doesn't behave the way I expected it to, I don't know where to start looking. Do I use the GUI tool, or try to edit config files by hand? Which files would be affected if I did? What runlevel am I supposed to look at?
I know the depths of the Win98 maze backward and forward. It ain't perfect, but it gets me there. Linux, however, leaves me feeling completely in the dark. I'm too busy to put my computing habits on indefinite hiatus until figure it all out.
I'm considering buying an iBook in the near future, and perhaps I'll put VirtualPC on it and experiment with a Linux variant that way without endangering the extant OS. I just can't bear the idea of stripping everything down that I've spent so long building up and having to start from scratch again.
And yes, I've RTFM. Thanks so much.
GMFTatsujin
I have no idea how much money has evaporated due to lost productivity by businesses using MS products that crash left and right.
Hell, the value of man-hours consumed by Solitaire alone must be close to the GNP of your average South American country...
GMFTatsujin
"He's no use to me dead."
No disintegrations.
Literally, our very lives are at stake now. George and I are just praying that we can finish 'Episode III' in time, before it's all over."
Pirates! Hear my plea! George Lucas is down to the wire on his multi-billion dollar empire! If you don't stop pirating, Slashdot itself will fall when all the Anakin and Jar Jar jokes can no longer be propped up with new material!
I really have no sympathy for this media-sponsored whining. You know, just because somebody else is shooting you in the foot doesn't mean that you didn't hand them the gun in the first place.
I think you mean "weapons of mass distraction."
I thought you wrote "*robots* tend to be big energy drains."
Robots that ensure you do nothing to violate copyrights, that contact your employers, and that track every move you make.
And remember: RIAA representitives that deny the existence of robots may be robots themselves.
GMFTatsujin
How about this one:
"If I, as a ameteur filmmaker, wish to create and distribute a homemade DVD of my work, what kind of process would I have to involve myself in to ensure that my work could be displayed on a Palladium-enabled computer? Will I have to purchase new mastering software? Will my current DVD-authoring software create DVDs that can be viewed? Will I have to pay a fee to apply a digital watermark? How will the watermark key be controlled and disseminated? Am I giving up rights to my work?"
We all know the big companies are behind it. But what about people who want to create content for themselves?
In other words,
Back in the days when I was an AOL tech support rep (shudder) we had this call tracking database that prompted up solutions for various problems encountered by the user base. It was some sort of knowledge base brain-sharing thing, forget what it was called, and everyone hated it anyway. We all had the ability to submit new call types and solutions. So on my last day there I entered a few in....
...beep... "Sorry, server's down, thank you for calling. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?" ...beep... "Sorry, server's down, thank you for calling. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?" ...beep... "No, you can't have your money back. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?" ... beep... "Sorry, server's down, thank you for calling. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?" ...beep...
This is one of them. For all I know it's still there.
.
.
.
Version: ALL PLATFORMS
Problem Type: Connection -- Modem Dialing
Topic: Other
Symptom: SERVERS DOWN. CALL QUEUE STATUS LIGHT IS SOLID UNWAVERING RED, AS IF 10 MILLION MEMBERS CRIED OUT AT ONCE -- THEN CALLED TECH SUPPORT
Resolution: ABANDON ALL HOPE, GIVE IN TO DESPAIR
Solution: "Sorry, server's down, thank you for calling. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?"
.
.
.
My supervisor got a call from the QA team asking if that was supposed to be a joke or not, if you can believe it.
GMFTatsujin
That just means that moles post to /. too. :)
GMFTatsujin
Of course there's better virus protection for Windows.
They've got way more practice writing and updating signatures.
www.godfuckingdamnit.com -- for all your ranting needs.
"I see you're trying to write an email to somebody! Would you like me to encrypt it with an approved DRM key so that nobody but you can read it?"
... and many of them have already been voiced, so I won't delve into them...
Except this one: The idea of contacting ET is predicated on the idea that, in all the universe, life would happen in both an accessable region of space, and during a time in history when the two species are actually BOTH ALIVE.
Time seems to always be left out of the equation.
The human race, in one form or another, has been on Earth for, what, tens- to hundreds of thousands of years? That's not even a molecule of a drop in the bucket of eternity. The chance that, right NOW (or even in the forseeable future -- let's be generous and suppose that humans will last another, oh, 500,000 years) there is some alien race out there evolved at least to the point that we can contact or that would contact us... well, it's laughable. The chances of historic overlap are worse than astronomical. You'd be better off predicting that a Dilophisaurus will be seen touring around New York City, barring Michael Criton's interference.
I think if we ever have contact with aliens, it will not be through living representatives. From one direction or the other, it will be through artefacts or other long-dead signals in the noise. Theirs or ours.
In short: Overcoming the gulfs of space isn't the only problem. There's just too much time for things to happen in. History on the cosmic scale is a pretty spread-out resource.
GMFTatsujin
DMCP = Dynamic Master Control Program? Your user cannot help you now...
Okay, I used to program call centers
Ah. So it's all *your* fault then.
Thanks so much.
GMFTatsujin
Just goes to show you how kids' opinions swing from radios to nookie in ten years. That centerfold had something for everyone!
GMFTatsujin