is one of the things alledged. Most tech companies make you sign a contract on employment that you won't disclose things like this. doesn't matter whose computer or time you use.
:Red Hat 6 and Suse 6.1 offer smooth installs, as long as your hardware is listed.
I agree to a point, but:
I picture a program asking my sister what video card she has (it's a Rage PRO and yes I know it's lame) she would not have a clue. Until Linux' plug/play support is near perfect your comment won't be true for most users. It's getting pretty good but isn't even as good as M$' and that sucks pretty bad.
exactly. I know I've had to decode stuff written by psycho-looser-poor-ass-excuse-for-a-programmer. What I was saying is that even if they do use terrible names the "line noise" of perl at least gives you a hint. sure, $first_name could be a reference to an array of first names but at least its a hint.
Perl seems to my mind to actually help readability in many ways. the fact that you can tell at a glance that $array is a scalar variable and @variable is an array is (again depite the name) and array is easy.
I do write a lot more Perl than I have to read but I've been told by those who have to maintain my old code that they can tell what is going on and modify it when they need to. It's the only language that I trip across old embarrasing code of mine in on the net that sucks rocks, but it does still work.
The "write only" aspect of Perl can be seductive though. At the moment I'm writing piles of code for the pharmaceutical biz and I try really hard to write in "baby talk" so that if I get hit by a meteor any random hacker with a smattering of perl can pick it up and run with it, but.. jeez. I could compress that 200 line program down to into something that would fit in a.sig block and then all the grrls would think I was k3wl... but that's the Dark Side.
Perl without Larry's morality or oblique biblical references is like Python without a parrot skit or ip framing without reference to carrier pigeons.
Really, I'm the canonical agnostic Secular Humanist but Larry is the best advertisement for Christianity I've ever seen. [no one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition - stop that Guido...] His faith is an intregral part of everything he writes. Maybe this is what he meant when he said that Perl has done more for missionaries than if he had become one. He is a great book review for his Author.
If we've lost the war of calling crackers crackers then we should perhaps figure out ways to define the communitites. It seems to me we have
1) These Christ like people that John talks about. The ones that want to fly out to his house to install Linux on his boxen. Just for fun we could call these Lawful Good. RMS, Larry Wall and maybe a few others may live up to this lofty goal.
2) The people that hack for hack's sake and have their own private definitions of what laws should be ignored and which should be obeyed. They may decide to ignore a law against attacking a FBI web site if the cause of bringing light upon the FBI's misdeeds requires it. We could call these Chaotic Good. Lots of hackers in this group. Lots of arguing among them since they each have their own private morality and, well, all hackers like to argue.
3) People who really don't give a fsck about anything except their own fun. Script kiddies that would gut their grandmother's web site just to count coup. They invariably lack the discipline to accomplish much more than get media attention. Let's call these.. what... Chaotic Neutral? Since the attitude is endemic in teenage boys many of them grow out of this and evolve into one of the other groups.
4) People that really want to do harm. That really want to rip off money from banks, trash their neighbor's credit rating etc. Still mostly clueless kids that get caught and go to jail without causing much harm. The Mitnicks of the world fall in this class. Chaotic Evil. As John points out they are overly hyped and overly punished based on the actual damage they cause.
5) the real Black Hats. If the FBI/CIA/KGB/NSA can't protect themselves against the CEs above, these guys are going to nuke them till they glow. Most of these guys actually *work* for FBI/CIA/KGB/NSA or the Russian Mafia of course. When the above hackers say "we just broke into your system to show how easy it is so that you can learn to better protect yourselves from the Real Bad Guys" - these are the guys they mean. they are disciplined, well trained, properly equipped.
Matrix was in the ballpark, Dune was in a different part of the ballpark. Star Wars is really myth/fantasy - canonical space opera.
Hollywood rarely makes real speculative Fiction movies. They make either Space Opera Star Wars/Trek, Babylon 5). Or they just make standard format action movies and set them in the future to be kewl. The ones I mentioned are *good* space opera as opposed to bad (remember Battlestar Gallactica?) but they don't have the respect for the science/tech that good Science Fiction has.
The Matrix Had a lot of the components. A lot of the plot structure was recycled from stuff we've read before, but it hasn't been put before the mass market that dosen't read books in a sense that can touch on Matrix.
What hollywood notices is that Matrix made a lot of $$. Maybe they will take a clue and fund some other good movies. More likely they will take the wrong clue and we will see lots of films with stop action martial arts and bullet effect CGI.
If they wanted to make the 1st real geek movie I've got the project for them. Take The Diamond Age, get Strazinsky(sp?) to direct and make *2* parallel long running series a la Babylon 5 (pre TNT). The main line story is one project and the other would be segregating out the Illustrated Primer and use it as a series that actually *would* draw in little girls and teach them to think/survive/lead. The world would be a better place with a few million more Geek Grrls in it. Ok, it's not a movie per se, but still.
Babylon 5 was the first to take a Science Fiction ideas and take the time to tell the story properly. A movie can't really do that. A movie can't properly tell a story larger than a novellete. Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep (Bladerunner) is really a *very* short story and nothing has yet done a better job since. The Matrix is close but has the look of something novel length that had too much detail dropped out in order to run in the allotted time. At least,I credit it with that to explain the many seemingly gaping plot holes. Dune and 2001 have equally gaping plot holes that are largely resolved in the books - but get dropped out in the movies or replaced with bizzare contrivances to skip over "the boring stuff"(think of those stupid "wierding modules" in the Dune movie).
In '91 I recall x.org as being an "old and established" domain. It was always used as "the 3 letter ping target" that we used to test that a network could talk to the world.
Based on my old Xlib programming manual that I have on the shelf it was probably registered ~1988. Before I was hacking X.
garyr
your web browser is Ronald Reagan - Neil Stephenson
so what is he actually charged with? The cnn blurb I saw said he was charged with "authoring the melissa virus" - I'm pretty sure there is no law on the books regarding the melissa virus. is he charged with writing it? posting it to alt.sex? Tampering with systems (a la the Randall Schwartz Oregon case)or what exactly?
Slashdot Mirror
is one of the things alledged.
Most tech companies make you sign a
contract on employment that you won't
disclose things like this. doesn't matter
whose computer or time you use.
:Red Hat 6 and Suse 6.1 offer smooth installs, as long as your hardware is listed.
I agree to a point, but:
I picture a program asking my sister
what video card she has (it's a Rage PRO
and yes I know it's lame) she would not
have a clue. Until Linux' plug/play
support is near perfect your comment
won't be true for most users. It's getting
pretty good but isn't even as good as M$'
and that sucks pretty bad.
garyr
exactly. I know I've had to decode stuff written
by psycho-looser-poor-ass-excuse-for-a-programmer.
What I was saying is that even if they do use
terrible names the "line noise" of perl at least
gives you a hint. sure, $first_name could be
a reference to an array of first names but at least its a hint.
garyr
Perl seems to my mind to actually
.sig block and then all the
help readability in many ways. the
fact that you can tell at a glance
that $array is a scalar variable and
@variable is an array
is (again depite the name) and array
is easy.
I do write a lot more Perl than I have
to read but I've been told by those
who have to maintain my old code that
they can tell what is going on and modify
it when they need to. It's
the only language that I trip across
old embarrasing code of mine in on the
net that sucks rocks, but it does still
work.
The "write only" aspect of Perl can be seductive
though. At the moment I'm writing piles
of code for the pharmaceutical biz and I
try really hard to write in "baby talk" so that
if I get hit by a meteor any random hacker
with a smattering of perl can pick it up
and run with it, but.. jeez. I could compress
that 200 line program down to into something
that would fit in a
grrls would think I was k3wl... but that's the
Dark Side.
garyr
Perl without Larry's morality
or oblique biblical references
is like Python without a parrot
skit or ip framing without reference
to carrier pigeons.
Really, I'm the canonical agnostic
Secular Humanist but Larry is the
best advertisement for Christianity
I've ever seen. [no one ever expects
the Spanish Inquisition - stop that
Guido...] His faith is an intregral
part of everything he writes. Maybe
this is what he meant when he said
that Perl has done more for missionaries
than if he had become one. He is a great
book review for his Author.
garyr
If we've lost the war of calling crackers
crackers then we should perhaps figure out
ways to define the communitites. It seems
to me we have
1) These Christ like people that John talks about.
The ones that want to fly out to his house to
install Linux on his boxen. Just for fun we could
call these Lawful Good. RMS, Larry Wall and maybe
a few others may live up to this lofty goal.
2) The people that hack for hack's sake and have
their own private definitions of what laws should
be ignored and which should be obeyed. They may
decide to ignore a law against attacking a FBI
web site if the cause of bringing light upon the
FBI's misdeeds requires it. We could call these
Chaotic Good. Lots of hackers in this group. Lots
of arguing among them since they each have their
own private morality and, well, all hackers like
to argue.
3) People who really don't give a fsck about
anything except their own fun. Script kiddies
that would gut their grandmother's web site
just to count coup. They invariably lack the
discipline to accomplish much more than get
media attention. Let's call these.. what...
Chaotic Neutral? Since the attitude is endemic
in teenage boys many of them grow out of this
and evolve into one of the other groups.
4) People that really want to do harm. That
really want to rip off money from banks, trash
their neighbor's credit rating etc. Still mostly
clueless kids that get caught and go to jail
without causing much harm. The Mitnicks of the
world fall in this class. Chaotic Evil. As John
points out they are overly hyped and overly
punished based on the actual damage they cause.
5) the real Black Hats. If the FBI/CIA/KGB/NSA
can't protect themselves against the CEs above,
these guys are going to nuke them till they glow.
Most of these guys actually *work* for FBI/CIA/KGB/NSA
or the Russian Mafia of course. When the above
hackers say "we just broke into your system
to show how easy it is so that you can learn to better protect yourselves from the Real Bad Guys"
- these are the guys they mean. they are disciplined, well trained, properly equipped.
Garyr(CG)
Everything I needed to know I learned from TSR
There are touches any hardcore gamer will love, like characters that loop their dialogue until somebody says the right thing to them.
You can't beat Groundhog Day for taking this to the extreme
garyrMatrix was in the ballpark, Dune was in a different part of the ballpark. Star Wars is really myth/fantasy - canonical space opera.
Hollywood rarely makes real speculative Fiction movies. They make either Space Opera Star Wars/Trek, Babylon 5). Or they just make standard format action movies and set them in the future to be kewl. The ones I mentioned are *good* space opera as opposed to bad (remember Battlestar Gallactica?) but they don't have the respect for the science/tech that good Science Fiction has.
The Matrix Had a lot of the components. A lot of the plot structure was recycled from stuff we've read before, but it hasn't been put before the mass market that dosen't read books in a sense that can touch on Matrix.
What hollywood notices is that Matrix made a lot of $$. Maybe they will take a clue and fund some other good movies. More likely they will take the wrong clue and we will see lots of films with stop action martial arts and bullet effect CGI.
If they wanted to make the 1st real geek movie I've got the project for them. Take The Diamond Age, get Strazinsky(sp?) to direct and make *2* parallel long running series a la Babylon 5 (pre TNT). The main line story is one project and the other would be segregating out the Illustrated Primer and use it as a series that actually *would* draw in little girls and teach them to think/survive/lead. The world would be a better place with a few million more Geek Grrls in it. Ok, it's not a movie per se, but still.
Babylon 5 was the first to take a Science Fiction ideas and take the time to tell the story properly. A movie can't really do that. A movie can't properly tell a story larger than a novellete. Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep (Bladerunner) is really a *very* short story and nothing has yet done a better job since. The Matrix is close but has the look of something novel length that had too much detail dropped out in order to run in the allotted time. At least,I credit it with that to explain the many seemingly gaping plot holes. Dune and 2001 have equally gaping plot holes that are largely resolved in the books - but get dropped out in the movies or replaced with bizzare contrivances to skip over "the boring stuff"(think of those stupid "wierding modules" in the Dune movie).
garyr
In '91 I recall x.org as being an
"old and established" domain. It
was always used as "the 3 letter ping target"
that we used to test that a network
could talk to the world.
Based on my old Xlib programming manual
that I have on the shelf it was probably
registered ~1988. Before I was hacking X.
garyr
your web browser is Ronald Reagan - Neil Stephenson
is on the list of things you explicitly
can't sell. guns, heroin and otehr less
interesting things as well
so what is he actually charged with? The cnn
blurb I saw said he was charged with "authoring
the melissa virus" - I'm pretty sure there is
no law on the books regarding the melissa virus.
is he charged with writing it? posting it to alt.sex? Tampering with systems (a la the
Randall Schwartz Oregon case)or what exactly?