You shouldn't assume... but in this case, you're right. How do I know that Jamie is a guy? I heard his voice on Geeks In Space a while back. He was a "special" guest after the whole thing with the web filters in Holland, MI.
Well, it was either a guy, or she has a deep voice. <shrug>
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
I agree that, in principle, we shouldn't try to respond to every piece of FUD out there, as there's just so much of it.
OTOH, an effort should be made to counter some of the more high-profile FUD. Of course, if it gets mentioned on slashdot, it instantly becomes high-profile, so we may be part of the problem... my point is, that when my (hypothetical) boss -- the one that I've been trying to convince to replace that crappy Exchange server, with a more reliable Linux solution -- comes to me after having read the "Linux Myths" page or the Taschek article and says that Linux is a fad, I can either try to counter all of the bullshit myself, or I can say, "Hey Bob Young is more articulate than I am, why don't you check out this article. See? It's on ZDNET, your ever so reliable news source!"
This person could be a boss, a friend or family member that you're trying to convince to give Linux (or *BSD, or whatever) a shot.
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
Here is the slashdot article. There was quite a bit of discussion about the contest. I didn't really help out, but I kept up with it, and I got the username and password off the website in time to get a "Hacker" bag. Yeah, I was a mooch.
They were actually very nice bags, even if they were a little bit cheesy looking. In big plastic letters, the word HACKER was prominently displayed, and, for some reason they thought this was cool, they clipped on a plastic representation of a parallel port connector (easily removed). But, it was waterproof (lined with PVC), very comfortable to walk around with, and just the right size for my laptop. My wife was so impressed with the bag that she went out and bought one (a non-"hacker" model, of course).
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
Re:Geography the American way
on
G3 Solar Storm
·
· Score: 1
Dude, I know you know this, but obviously you've forgotten. The United States of America is made up entirely of immigrants (except for the small fraction of American Indians still around, sorry guys). It would be impossible for the United States to:
"...close our doors and just ignore the rest of the world and take care of our own problems..."
I have relatives in Mexico. I have friends who have relatives in Italy, India, Iran, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, and the list goes on.
Even if we were to ignore the family issue, isolationism never got any country anywhere. If you look at history, whenever anyone tried it, they ended up lagging behind the rest of the world scientifically and technologically, even if they were ahead when they started. China comes to mind.
Another problem that springs to mind, OIL!!! If you think people are bitching about the price of gasoline now, just wait until we have to produce it all ourselves! I don't have any idea how high the price would go, but we would all look fondly on the days when it was $2/gallon.
Whether you like it or not, the US is part of the global economy. We are dependent on it! That's why stability in Europe and the major Asian markets is very important to us, and that's why we get involved in conflicts where it seems we don't belong. It's all about money. The more stable the world is, the more money we can use to buy Japanese electronics, Arabian oil, German cars, and athletic footwear (made in a sweatshop in Malaysia). And, more importantly, we can sell our stuff to them.
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
Where to begin... I'll forgive the multiple misspellings of Spielberg because that's just too obvious.
On the other hand, Kubrick was a master of cinematography, always integrating diogenic and non-diogenic sound in a very compelling way as opposed to the over the top, beat it through the thick skull of the common moviegoer method that Speilburg uses.
I think you are referring to diagetic sound and non-diagetic sound. Please, look up any big words you use before you look foolish. Diogenic is a word I have never heard before, but I found it here. According to that site, it means cynical. I'm not even sure what to make of that sentence. You praise Kubrick for being a master cinematographer, then you talk about sound? Both elements are very important to a particular scene, but they are not related to each other.
Kubrick was a master of the camera who is famous not only for his vision but the way that he did it-if you ever watch a kubrick film notice the ceilings-something few directors ever utilize (mainly because the films are shot in real places instead of sound studios) nad his tracking shots where the camera goes for a long period of time without a cut to a different angle,
Yes, I agree that Kubrick was a master of the camera, but what makes you think that just because you see a ceiling, that it wasn't shot in a sound studio? There's really nothing wrong with using sound studio, it depends on the effect the director is going for.
Also, a tracking shot is when a camera is physically moving. It used to be on a dolly and on tracks (to smooth out the movement), now you can have them on helicopters with digital stabilizers. What you were referring to was a long take. Again, long takes and short takes are used for effect and to convey a particular meaning in the scene. Kubrick used both masterfully, as do many directors.
Another major problem and the one that i feel could tear apart AI once and for all is the way that Speilburg has to make everything epic-he has to impose a greater meaning on every film and proceed to wallop his audience over the head with that idea. Kubrick also takes on epic tasks in his films, but his theme resides below the surface and stays there the whole film, the effective nature of a true artist who conveys his ideals without the audience even realizing they have been indoctrinated.
I think that you don't know what epic means. Here's the definition from my film class textbook (which I only had a semester of, so I'm no expert):
epic - A film genre chracterized by bold and sweeping themes, usually in herioc proportions. The protagonist is an ideal representation of a culture - national, religious, or regional. The tone of most epics is dignified, the treatment larger than life. The western is the most popular epic in the United States.
I got this definition from Undertanding Movies 8th edition, by Louis Gianetti.
I'll not deny that Speilberg makes epics. He's made a lot of epics. I haven't seen many Kubrick films, but he's no stranger to epics, like Spartacus. I'm not sure what you mean by "epic tasks".
I now have to take issue with your entire last paragraph. There are plenty of people who don't fit the following despcription:
generally stupid, consider the USA today their source for news and NASCAR and WWF adequate sources of entertainment.
The segment of society that you have ignored is well read and do understand the concept of art and meaning in film and still enjoy Spielberg's films because, as a great director himself, he has injected his films with passion and poignancy. Have you ever seen Empire of the Sun? The Color Purple? Tell me again, how Speilberg only makes films for mega-bucks and awards to soothe his ego.
Spielberg's not perfect. I mean, for every The Color Purple he has a The Lost World: Jurassic Park, but sice I do enjoy most of Spielberg's work, I felt that I must come to his defense, even to a post as incoherent as this one.
Please learn the jargon that you're using before you post, so you don't look quite so foolish next time.
What an oddly appropriate nick.
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
Wait a minute, are you saying that just because I don't like the MPAA or their policies, I have to stop liking movies? I don't like the RIAA's stance on mp3's, but I still buy CD's. Sure, I don't like that the Reaplayer G2 for linux is old, buggy, and closed, but I love Seeing Ear Theater, so until a good, Free Software, implentation is available, I'm going to use what I've got.
I don't like a lot of OPEC's policies, but I'm not about to give up my car...
You have to strike a balance. If someone somewhere has done something you don't agree with, and they are associated with a particular product or service, it's cool if you protest and stop using that product/service, but if you tried to do that with every single thing, you'd never do anything, and you'd starve to death.
Also, be careful of characterizing Slashdot as a whole. This site is filled individuals that have widely varying points of view. It's possible that there are a lot of people that agree whole-heartedly with the MPAA, and they are the ones posting to this story (not likely, but hey, I don't know). Unless you went back to the MPAA stories and compared user ID's, you don't know if people are really being hypocritical or not.
C (feeling bitter and disgusted tonight)
That's cool, it happens...:)
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
So basically, you've managed to engineer it so cars can run on coal via an intermediate process, but you've done nothing to reduce the net CO2 emissions.
Actually, now you're essentially just burning coal in order to create electricity AND run a car (by capturing the CO2 that would have ended up in the atmosphere anyway) instead of burning both coal and gasoline.
Yeah, you still burn methanol, and the energy to produce that has to come from somewhere (so I guess the above statement is a bit misleading, kind of like saying that electric cars are ZEV's since they don't burn anything), but if the energy required to create the methanol is significantly less than that required to create gasoline, then you have reduced the net CO2 emissions. If I read the article correctly, that is the thing they still need to find out.
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
I have think that this definition may be a bit too broad. Not limiting your definition of life to our existence is a very good idea, and I don't see how you could miss anything (I'm no chemist or biologist).
According to your definition, though, anything that gives off heat is considered alive (right?), so the sun, the Earth, and fire are living things. Certain religious belief systems may agree that the Earth is alive, but I think a biologist would disagree. I guess that since all of the life we are familiar with is cell-based, it's hard to imagine a life form not based on cells. I know I can't...
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
That's right, they aren't in silicone yet. The Itaniums will be available in silicone towards the end of next year... I hear that Pamela Anderson will be using them to power her machine gun jubblies in Barb Wire II.
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
Actually, I believe there was supposed to be a feature freeze next month, not a release.
Alan Cox posted a comment here. At least I hope that was really Alan. It did get a score of 5, so I would tend to believe it.
Anyway, Alan said that 2.4 may come out sometime in March. If it's ready!
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
Re:Surveillance is the key...
on
Smart Dust
·
· Score: 2
Open-sourced Hunter-Killer Nanites... that's a pretty interesting idea. I guess they wouldn't necessarily have to kill, but temporary paralysis would be pretty useful.
If they surrounded your home (maybe stuck to the walls/doors/windows), they could jump onto anyone who approached the house. If you greeted them with a special safe-word or phrase then the nanites would jump off and go back to their positions, but if you spoke the attack command, they could inject a toxin that wouldn't kill, but would paralyze them until the police could come.
Of course, I don't know very much about this stuff, so I don't know how high the probability is that they would turn on you. I guess this would also open up possibility of nanite detectors, and maybe there could be a nanite-repellent spray that a particularly determined intruder (or someone who just doesn't feel comfortable with nanites crawling all over them) could put on.
True, some people are going to miss the show for a few days because they forget to check the radio link, but the dicussion on this article has no trolls, no spammers, and no idiots posting just to see themselves post (maybe that's me...).
I normally have my threshold at a 2, but I lowered it all the way to read these comments, and I was pleasantly surprised to find all comments at a 1.
[nostagic] Kind of reminds me of the days when I could read/. with a threshold of 0... [/nostalgic]. Of course there's always a price to pay, namely, less people means a smaller pool of people from which to gather quality posts. I'm not complaining, though. All of the posts I've read so far have been quite good!
The first thing I thought of when I saw the intro into Katz's article is that there have always been low tech, low budget movies... They're called B movies, and most of them suck.
I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that humans have made important discoveries by accident. Why go to Pluto? I don't know... think back about 500 years. Why sail west from Spain? We already know a good way to get to India, what possible good could it do to try to cross the Atlantic?
As for the surplus, I'm all for beginning payments on the national debt, but how exactly is cutting US$1.3 billion from NASA going to help when the debt is at US$6 thousand billion? NASA has had their budget cut over and over. They were already tightening their belts and were having to cut missions like the Champollion mission to land on the nucleus of a comet. I don't know if that sounds useful or not, but that's what science is all about! Plus, it sounds pretty damn cool.
Well, I've interrupted my letter to my congresspersons, so I'd better get back to it.
You go jogging?;) Seriously, I like my walkman and discman because I can take them to work and listen to music while I'm in front of a computer. I don't need a lot of fancy skip protection, so a little hard drive will work just fine by me. Also, since I tend to sit in front of a computer for hours at a time, I want lots of storage... I'm waiting for the hard drives.
I can't get the latest versions to run. I get a seg fault and a core dump. I'm guessing it's because I have glibc2.0.x, but when I tried to run previous versions, all I got was something like "register frame info", I thought that was because it was compiled on a machine that had a more recent version of gcc than I have... Way back in version 0.42, the i686 version was labelled as glibc2, and that worked great. I wonder why they moved to glibc2.1? Now I'm stuck with the i386-glibc2, which is *slow* (because I was a dumbass and erased version 0.42 before I tried out 0.45).
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it was either a guy, or she has a deep voice. <shrug>
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
OTOH, an effort should be made to counter some of the more high-profile FUD. Of course, if it gets mentioned on slashdot, it instantly becomes high-profile, so we may be part of the problem... my point is, that when my (hypothetical) boss -- the one that I've been trying to convince to replace that crappy Exchange server, with a more reliable Linux solution -- comes to me after having read the "Linux Myths" page or the Taschek article and says that Linux is a fad, I can either try to counter all of the bullshit myself, or I can say, "Hey Bob Young is more articulate than I am, why don't you check out this article. See? It's on ZDNET, your ever so reliable news source!"
This person could be a boss, a friend or family member that you're trying to convince to give Linux (or *BSD, or whatever) a shot.
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
They were actually very nice bags, even if they were a little bit cheesy looking. In big plastic letters, the word HACKER was prominently displayed, and, for some reason they thought this was cool, they clipped on a plastic representation of a parallel port connector (easily removed). But, it was waterproof (lined with PVC), very comfortable to walk around with, and just the right size for my laptop. My wife was so impressed with the bag that she went out and bought one (a non-"hacker" model, of course).
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
"...close our doors and just ignore the rest of the world and take care of our own problems..."
I have relatives in Mexico. I have friends who have relatives in Italy, India, Iran, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, and the list goes on.
Even if we were to ignore the family issue, isolationism never got any country anywhere. If you look at history, whenever anyone tried it, they ended up lagging behind the rest of the world scientifically and technologically, even if they were ahead when they started. China comes to mind.
Another problem that springs to mind, OIL!!! If you think people are bitching about the price of gasoline now, just wait until we have to produce it all ourselves! I don't have any idea how high the price would go, but we would all look fondly on the days when it was $2/gallon.
Whether you like it or not, the US is part of the global economy. We are dependent on it! That's why stability in Europe and the major Asian markets is very important to us, and that's why we get involved in conflicts where it seems we don't belong. It's all about money. The more stable the world is, the more money we can use to buy Japanese electronics, Arabian oil, German cars, and athletic footwear (made in a sweatshop in Malaysia). And, more importantly, we can sell our stuff to them.
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
On the other hand, Kubrick was a master of cinematography, always integrating diogenic and non-diogenic sound in a very compelling way as opposed to the over the top, beat it through the thick skull of the common moviegoer method that Speilburg uses.
I think you are referring to diagetic sound and non-diagetic sound. Please, look up any big words you use before you look foolish. Diogenic is a word I have never heard before, but I found it here. According to that site, it means cynical. I'm not even sure what to make of that sentence. You praise Kubrick for being a master cinematographer, then you talk about sound? Both elements are very important to a particular scene, but they are not related to each other.
Kubrick was a master of the camera who is famous not only for his vision but the way that he did it-if you ever watch a kubrick film notice the ceilings-something few directors ever utilize (mainly because the films are shot in real places instead of sound studios) nad his tracking shots where the camera goes for a long period of time without a cut to a different angle,
Yes, I agree that Kubrick was a master of the camera, but what makes you think that just because you see a ceiling, that it wasn't shot in a sound studio? There's really nothing wrong with using sound studio, it depends on the effect the director is going for.
Also, a tracking shot is when a camera is physically moving. It used to be on a dolly and on tracks (to smooth out the movement), now you can have them on helicopters with digital stabilizers. What you were referring to was a long take. Again, long takes and short takes are used for effect and to convey a particular meaning in the scene. Kubrick used both masterfully, as do many directors.
Another major problem and the one that i feel could tear apart AI once and for all is the way that Speilburg has to make everything epic-he has to impose a greater meaning on every film and proceed to wallop his audience over the head with that idea. Kubrick also takes on epic tasks in his films, but his theme resides below the surface and stays there the whole film, the effective nature of a true artist who conveys his ideals without the audience even realizing they have been indoctrinated.
I think that you don't know what epic means. Here's the definition from my film class textbook (which I only had a semester of, so I'm no expert):
I got this definition from Undertanding Movies 8th edition, by Louis Gianetti.
I'll not deny that Speilberg makes epics. He's made a lot of epics. I haven't seen many Kubrick films, but he's no stranger to epics, like Spartacus. I'm not sure what you mean by "epic tasks".
I now have to take issue with your entire last paragraph. There are plenty of people who don't fit the following despcription:
generally stupid, consider the USA today their source for news and NASCAR and WWF adequate sources of entertainment.
The segment of society that you have ignored is well read and do understand the concept of art and meaning in film and still enjoy Spielberg's films because, as a great director himself, he has injected his films with passion and poignancy. Have you ever seen Empire of the Sun? The Color Purple? Tell me again, how Speilberg only makes films for mega-bucks and awards to soothe his ego.
Spielberg's not perfect. I mean, for every The Color Purple he has a The Lost World: Jurassic Park, but sice I do enjoy most of Spielberg's work, I felt that I must come to his defense, even to a post as incoherent as this one.
Please learn the jargon that you're using before you post, so you don't look quite so foolish next time.
What an oddly appropriate nick.
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
I don't like a lot of OPEC's policies, but I'm not about to give up my car...
You have to strike a balance. If someone somewhere has done something you don't agree with, and they are associated with a particular product or service, it's cool if you protest and stop using that product/service, but if you tried to do that with every single thing, you'd never do anything, and you'd starve to death.
Also, be careful of characterizing Slashdot as a whole. This site is filled individuals that have widely varying points of view. It's possible that there are a lot of people that agree whole-heartedly with the MPAA, and they are the ones posting to this story (not likely, but hey, I don't know). Unless you went back to the MPAA stories and compared user ID's, you don't know if people are really being hypocritical or not.
C
(feeling bitter and disgusted tonight)
That's cool, it happens... :)
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
Actually, now you're essentially just burning coal in order to create electricity AND run a car (by capturing the CO2 that would have ended up in the atmosphere anyway) instead of burning both coal and gasoline.
Yeah, you still burn methanol, and the energy to produce that has to come from somewhere (so I guess the above statement is a bit misleading, kind of like saying that electric cars are ZEV's since they don't burn anything), but if the energy required to create the methanol is significantly less than that required to create gasoline, then you have reduced the net CO2 emissions. If I read the article correctly, that is the thing they still need to find out.
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
Absolve me oh Pope!
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
According to your definition, though, anything that gives off heat is considered alive (right?), so the sun, the Earth, and fire are living things. Certain religious belief systems may agree that the Earth is alive, but I think a biologist would disagree. I guess that since all of the life we are familiar with is cell-based, it's hard to imagine a life form not based on cells. I know I can't...
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
Alan Cox posted a comment here. At least I hope that was really Alan. It did get a score of 5, so I would tend to believe it.
Anyway, Alan said that 2.4 may come out sometime in March. If it's ready!
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
If they surrounded your home (maybe stuck to the walls/doors/windows), they could jump onto anyone who approached the house. If you greeted them with a special safe-word or phrase then the nanites would jump off and go back to their positions, but if you spoke the attack command, they could inject a toxin that wouldn't kill, but would paralyze them until the police could come.
Of course, I don't know very much about this stuff, so I don't know how high the probability is that they would turn on you. I guess this would also open up possibility of nanite detectors, and maybe there could be a nanite-repellent spray that a particularly determined intruder (or someone who just doesn't feel comfortable with nanites crawling all over them) could put on.
Infinite possibilities, infinite possible bugs...
I normally have my threshold at a 2, but I lowered it all the way to read these comments, and I was pleasantly surprised to find all comments at a 1.
[nostagic] Kind of reminds me of the days when I could read /. with a threshold of 0... [/nostalgic]. Of course there's always a price to pay, namely, less people means a smaller pool of people from which to gather quality posts. I'm not complaining, though. All of the posts I've read so far have been quite good!
The first thing I thought of when I saw the intro into Katz's article is that there have always been low tech, low budget movies...
They're called B movies, and most of them suck.
As for the surplus, I'm all for beginning payments on the national debt, but how exactly is cutting US$1.3 billion from NASA going to help when the debt is at US$6 thousand billion? NASA has had their budget cut over and over. They were already tightening their belts and were having to cut missions like the Champollion mission to land on the nucleus of a comet. I don't know if that sounds useful or not, but that's what science is all about! Plus, it sounds pretty damn cool.
Well, I've interrupted my letter to my congresspersons, so I'd better get back to it.
You go jogging? ;)
Seriously, I like my walkman and discman because I can take them to work and listen to music while I'm in front of a computer. I don't need a lot of fancy skip protection, so a little hard drive will work just fine by me. Also, since I tend to sit in front of a computer for hours at a time, I want lots of storage...
I'm waiting for the hard drives.
I can't get the latest versions to run. I get a seg fault and a core dump. I'm guessing it's because I have glibc2.0.x, but when I tried to run previous versions, all I got was something like "register frame info", I thought that was because it was compiled on a machine that had a more recent version of gcc than I have...
Way back in version 0.42, the i686 version was labelled as glibc2, and that worked great. I wonder why they moved to glibc2.1? Now I'm stuck with the i386-glibc2, which is *slow* (because I was a dumbass and erased version 0.42 before I tried out 0.45).