For the uber-geek, try tnt mode for emacs. M-x tnt-mute and emacs on another desktop or iconified well keep you focused.
memes are another example of evolution
on
Legacy-Free PCs
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
A notable non-living example of evolution is the meme, as coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene.
From the meme entry in the The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (via dict):
Memes can be considered the unit of cultural evolution. Ideas
can evolve in a way analogous to biological evolution. Some
ideas survive better than others; ideas can mutate through,
for example, misunderstandings; and two ideas can recombine to
produce a new idea involving elements of each parent idea.
The easiest would be to look on ebay or other places that sell used books. You want the 2nd edition manual or (if you've got the money) the boxed set. From what I've been told, West End Games screwed up the 5th edition, which can also be found for purchase. Maybe it'll do in a pinch. I've never directly encountered it, but it introduces things I never found interesting, e.g. Alpha Base. First edition is rather needlessly complicated from what I've seen of the conversion rules from 1st to 2nd edition.
At least one paranoia site recommended Dragon's Trove for paranoia supplements. I believe that's where I got my copy, five years ago or so. They don't seem to have the manual in stock currently, but emailing them couldn't hurt.
I've never seen any paranoia stuff in my local shops (around Boston).
If you are in dire need of a fix, or want a taste, there are a few Paranoia novels. I have read and recommend Title Deleted For Security Reasons (heh heh, I love the title) which gives a excellent view of Alpha Complex from an Internal Security agent, James-B-OND-1. I haven't read Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Shot!
Hmm, actually, amazon has this vague book listing that looks like it! All the identifiying data they have for it matches my copy, including ASIN/ISBN. That's much more than what I remember, paying...
Paranoia (2nd edition) is an absolute wonder of a game. I'm running a session Tuesday, after a bunch of otherwise DnD playing friends begged me to bring it back.
What's not to love, especially for a Game Master? You get to act proper and fair as the GM, yet get to screw players over arbitrarily as The Computer who runs the world! Set up all sorts of plots only to have everyone kill each others' clones (you get six) and/or die at the hands of
enemies,
traitors,
commies,
mutant powers (yours or others),
mutant powers that you can't control,
poor experimental equipment,
poor normal equipment,
equipment sabotaged by your fellow players,
death-trap missions,
death-trap missions that your secret society explictly tells you must fail, and
confusing and self-contradicting mission objectives!
In all seriousness, find a copy of the Paranoia manual! It's hilarious reading, and running it is the most fun ever if you have even a few of the right people.
What I like about TurboTax for the Web is that they give me a pdf of both my federal and state returns. These are damn useful to have, e.g. when someone needs a copy of your tax return.
And I would love to see TurboTax ported to Linux -- or at least have their online version work with Linux and Mozilla, which it doesn't now. Grrr. (Perhaps it works with Explorer through Crossover Office. I haven't tried. Have you? What happened?)
I've used TurboTax for the web last year with Netscape 4.x and this year with Galeon, with no problems whatsoever. If it will work with Galeon, I suspect it'll work with Mozilla.
I had just finished reading some Vonnegut and remembered this same book.
Here's choice quote from another Vonnegut book about a similar sort of "family":
... I learned the joke at the core of American self-improvement:
knowledge was so much junk to be processed one way or another at great
universities. The real treasure the great universities offered was a
lifelong membership in a respected artificial extended family.
--Rabo Karabekian, protagonist of Bluebeard
There are a few things that I found were tricky, especially since I don't own the OpenBSD cdroms. (Broke, jobless college graduate that I am.)
The initial installation was quite straightforward. However, there are security fixes every couple of months, and it is appropriate and necessary that any serious administrator will want to keep on top of such things. Generally, this means tracking -stable. Also, with OpenBSD 3.2 there were several errata listed within a week after it was released. Here, tracking -stable becomes part of the installation process.
First, where and how to get the basic system sources. If you don't have the cdroms, you get to download them. The exact cvs checkout incantation would be nice, but slow. You'll want to include where to get the tarballs or snapshots. Ditto for the ports tree.
Second, how to update the now-local source tree. I tend to use cvs for both the system sources and the ports tree, but again having the proper incantation is required, e.g. f you leave out -rOPENBSD_3_2 then you get -current instead of -stable!
The emphasis should be on maintaining -stable, which for me took a bit of hunting around to get all the necessary pieces of information.
Actually, I prefer the joke in this form. Cut out then zen and instead annoy doctors and especially lawyers.
A doctor, a lawyer, and a mathematician were discussing the
relative merits of having a wife or a mistress.
The lawyer says: "For sure a mistress is better. If you have a wife
and want a divorce, it causes all sorts of legal problems."
The doctor says: "It's better to have a wife because the sense of
security lowers your stress and is good for your health."
The mathematician says: "You're both wrong. It's best to have both,
so that when the wife thinks you're with the mistress and the
mistress thinks you're with your wife --- you can do some
mathematics."
Perhaps you should look into Kerberos, a system developed at mit and used in several other places.
After authenticating a user logging in, it inserts a placeholder line in/etc/passwd (with the password field as *); this/etc/passwd gets reset when the machine restarts.
Slashdot Mirror
For the uber-geek, try tnt mode for emacs. M-x tnt-mute and emacs on another desktop or iconified well keep you focused.
From the meme entry in the The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (via dict):
I prefer to keep my meager savings in ceramic pots and grass.
At least one paranoia site recommended Dragon's Trove for paranoia supplements. I believe that's where I got my copy, five years ago or so. They don't seem to have the manual in stock currently, but emailing them couldn't hurt.
I've never seen any paranoia stuff in my local shops (around Boston).
If you are in dire need of a fix, or want a taste, there are a few Paranoia novels. I have read and recommend Title Deleted For Security Reasons (heh heh, I love the title) which gives a excellent view of Alpha Complex from an Internal Security agent, James-B-OND-1. I haven't read Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Shot!
Hmm, actually, amazon has this vague book listing that looks like it! All the identifiying data they have for it matches my copy, including ASIN/ISBN. That's much more than what I remember, paying...
What's not to love, especially for a Game Master? You get to act proper and fair as the GM, yet get to screw players over arbitrarily as The Computer who runs the world! Set up all sorts of plots only to have everyone kill each others' clones (you get six) and/or die at the hands of
- enemies,
- traitors,
- commies,
- mutant powers (yours or others),
- mutant powers that you can't control,
- poor experimental equipment,
- poor normal equipment,
- equipment sabotaged by your fellow players,
- death-trap missions,
- death-trap missions that your secret society explictly tells you must fail, and
- confusing and self-contradicting mission objectives!
In all seriousness, find a copy of the Paranoia manual! It's hilarious reading, and running it is the most fun ever if you have even a few of the right people.What I like about TurboTax for the Web is that they give me a pdf of both my federal and state returns. These are damn useful to have, e.g. when someone needs a copy of your tax return.
I've used TurboTax for the web last year with Netscape 4.x and this year with Galeon, with no problems whatsoever. If it will work with Galeon, I suspect it'll work with Mozilla.
not to mention a conveniently lethal, brand-new form of radiation.
Heh, just for reference, at around book six, he claimed there would be at least ten.
FYI, Jordan's on a book tour right now. Got mine signed. :)
Here's choice quote from another Vonnegut book about a similar sort of "family":
The initial installation was quite straightforward. However, there are security fixes every couple of months, and it is appropriate and necessary that any serious administrator will want to keep on top of such things. Generally, this means tracking -stable. Also, with OpenBSD 3.2 there were several errata listed within a week after it was released. Here, tracking -stable becomes part of the installation process.
First, where and how to get the basic system sources. If you don't have the cdroms, you get to download them. The exact cvs checkout incantation would be nice, but slow. You'll want to include where to get the tarballs or snapshots. Ditto for the ports tree.
Second, how to update the now-local source tree. I tend to use cvs for both the system sources and the ports tree, but again having the proper incantation is required, e.g. f you leave out -rOPENBSD_3_2 then you get -current instead of -stable!
The emphasis should be on maintaining -stable, which for me took a bit of hunting around to get all the necessary pieces of information.
ye gods, is that copper pieces??
A: The owl says three. The owl has never steered me wrong. Sometimes the owl tells me to burn things. Things like people.
As it is, I double what it costs for me to keep my vanity domain, and give half to the EFF.
Paying my telco for net & phone is definitely a necessity while jobhunting for a worthwhile EECS job.
The Onion AV Club just had an interview with Shatner. Besides being rather interesting, it's a list of questions that you can avoid reasking.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd pay big bucks to have the Brothers Wachowski and the Brothers Coen team up for a movie. :)
Well, those who follow jerkcity will recognize this one.
After authenticating a user logging in, it inserts a placeholder line in /etc/passwd (with the password field as *); this /etc/passwd gets reset when the machine restarts.
The real question is how to pass the clue onto the people who are causing the problem.
--lysander