Before we get down to business, we'd like to stress that these are the opinions of individual KDE developers. The answers below are not *necessarily* the same as the KDE Official Position on matters. If you wish to know THE official opinion on any of these, contact the KDE Core Team through any of the official representatives.
This type of thing worries me. Part of open source's coolness is that, while we can edit the source, we can also go right to the author of the software and ask questions (and get correct answers). The above makes it sound as if KDE is just another corporation that may or may not think like its employees. I think it's particularly sad that a major center of open source development (the KDE project) is turning into this type of establishment.
Also, aren't these guys the developers of KDE? Doesn't that mean they *are* the official representatives of KDE? Who else is there to be a representative of what KDE stands for except for the people who make it and use it? To me, that just makes it all sound like KDE has a marketing department.
Yes, I know this is kinda OT, but it runs along the lines of giving awards to those who truly deserve it.
I was thinking it would be really cool to have some type of Slashdot User Award. Here's my rationale.
So many of us give so much information about so many topics away for free on this site. And it's not for any other reason but the fact that we pride ourselves on the information we are able to impart on others (and maybe that's why most us agree that the education system in America has gone down the drains - the teachers can't impart very good information). And it's not just information, but also "enlightenment." In no way do I mean a window manager or a religion (although when it comes to GNOME vs. KDE, it might swing either way:) What I mean by that word is when a Slashdot post parodies an article that gets posted (see the Nothing but Net for 5 days thread), there's more than just information imparted there.
What I propose is that the people that really make a difference on Slashdot receive some type of a award. I don't mean everyone that gets a 5 gets an award, and I don't mean someone that doesn't get a lot of 5s doesn't get an award.
I could name a few people on Slashdot that have made a true difference in how I think about every other news story I read out there. Signal 11 is usually pretty funny, and the guy from Dox Para research (am I right? Sorry, I forget the name - i just remember people by the way their.sigs look most of the time) always has some real information to present.
And I don't mean this to say that "As a poster who has given others information, I feel I should be rewarded." I just think it would be nice to recognize those people that make a difference to the Slashdot community. Maybe send them a free T-Shirt. Or maybe some Penguin Mints:)
I think that Carmack and company are actually more of an open source company than we give them credit. No, it may not be directly dealing with source code, but I think it deals more with knowledge with this company.
id Software has always pushed the limits of 3D software and hardware acceleration, and they've also given a *lot* back to the community. Yes, they make money off of licensing their rendering engine, but (from what I hear), the id engineers are always willing to talk to you about how they accomplished certain tasks.
Like a true geek, Carmack is proud to show off his algorithms to the rest of us - and he's not worried that someone's gonna go off and copy it and patent it and make him pay for his own inventions (like some patent-grabbing idiots out there). (BTW - if id patented their rendering algorithms, how much do you think the value would increase in today's market? Two fold?)
id may not be Open Source in terms of giving all their source code away, but they give a lot of *knowledge* back to the community that keeps them swimming in dollar bills:) That's why I'm willing to put the $40 into QIII, because Carmack and company is a software firm I can trust to put something back into the community after they have made their millions.
I guess I was rambling a bit much there, but that's just how I feel...
I'm a geek. You're a geek. Computers are our life. We make it our life. However, computers are more or less tools. Very flexible tools - they can be used for almost anything - but tools they remain.
For the average person, the coming "technology revolution" doesn't mean we're all gonna be hermits. I'll bet that when people first came in contact with the mass use of telephones, people griped that we were all gonna become people who couldn't talk to each other in person any more. WRONG.
It'll be the same thing with the Internet and Computers. Sure, you'll be able to order your groceries on line. Sure, you'll be able to chat with people. Yes, you may be able to video conference with your next door neighbor with a terminal, but that doesn't mean it HAS to be that way. And there are many people out there who will make sure it won't be that way.
How many of you have taken the cover off your computer case and taken out a manufacturer-placed add-on card with a better one (ie better video card, sound card, whatever)? If you have, you have probably voided your warranty on the entire system.
The reason Dell and Gateway can't let you *totally* configure your system (meaning, I want this video card, not any of the ones you guys offer) is because they are required by law to sell you a working product. Otherwise, the corporation is subject to a false-advertising lawsuit.
So, if Dell and Gateway and Compaq are overclocking their CPUs, they had better watch out when the thing starts crashing and the CPU fails much sooner than its MTBF.
On the other hand, if you buy a CPU, and place it on your mobo that you bought from a mobo manufacturer, why should it be illegal to overclock it? Yes, I might void my warranty, but it's my property - I should be able to change it. Is it illegal to hack at my Playstation or something similar to make it faster? I don't think so - I bought the object, I should be able to change it, granted I understand the consequence of losing my warranty.
Follow with my logic for a second. When filing a patent, you have to disclose a lot of information as to how your process works in a new and unique way to do something, right? In this case, it is "topic spotting and labelling of data." Also, patents are freely available to the public to browse at their leisure.
Now, the NSA, being the secretive organization that it is, obviously does not want their own technology being copied so easily by their adversaries (whoever they may be). Filing a patent would be a good step in the direction of making the technology open to the public.
If the NSA is ready to openly discuss technology such as this in the form of patents, one wonders what technologies along these lines the NSA does not feel free to talk about just yet. Maybe the conspiracy theorists are right...
I guess Trey Parker and Matt Stone (creators of South Park) must be running like mad right now. Surely depicting Sadam Hussein as an overly active homosexual playing around with a fake penis is a war crime under this act?
(Note: I did read the article, I'm just joking here)
Does Microsoft really want to tread that water? Look at the past history of Microsoft in the court room.
Judge Jackson has presided over Microsoft in court before - and each time been heavily against them. Also, we should all be reminded of the 1995 consent decree - thou shalt not bundle.
Against the government, Microsoft has had a horrible time in court. (Against other corporations, on the other hand...) Does it really make sense for Microsoft to pursue a ruling which, in all likeliness, will not be awarded to them?
It might show that Microsoft truly stands behind its premise of "innovation" and "providing the customer with the best products," and God knows they have enough money to do it, but what if the Supreme Court doesn't just disagree with them, but places further punishment on the company? (Are they allowed to do that, btw?) It'll just bring Microsoft more into the spotlight and get even more people lined up to bring them to court.
Personally, I think you are an exception to the norm, especially on college campuses. For instance, a substantial part of my collection is, um, not of my own ripping. I would say that 90% of the MP3s found on CMU campus (not just shared, but everyone's collection) are illegal. Also, people share them because they want to share them with their friends - not just to study.
I'm at CMU as an Computer Engineering and Computer Science (dbl) major. Two of my friends were among the 71 students hit for sharing, not only MP3s, but a bunch of other things on the campus network.
To regain their network access, they had to do the following:
Go to some seminar
Speak at said seminar for 15 minutes on why they were wrong in sharing the stuff
Write a 1000 word essay about why what they did was wrong
And only then do they get the network connections back on November 14th
I laughed until I cried. I just have to say "What the heck were you thinking!?" I mean, these guys are smart enough to come to Carnegie Mellon, yet they are stupid enough to share their ENTIRE HARDDRIVE worth of:
MP3s
Anime
Pr0n
Software (it ain't all free..:)
That's just absolutely stupid. And they don't seem to realize that FTP is 1. a faster protocol 2. a safer protocol. I run an FTP site at CMU - it's my own private collection of MP3s. I also run SaMbA on my machine - but I've host.denied everyone except myself and my friends. I've found this solution is an excellent way to circumvent any type of crackdown on illegal activity.
A lot of people out there who hear about this trial are going to say "DR-DOS? WTF is that? And if it's basically a dead product, isn't this Caldera or whatever you call it just trying to milk Microsoft's cash cow?"
In a way, I think this is true - DR-DOS is a dead product. However, I do think that Caldera has the right to sue Microsoft over this because of the development practices Microsoft had with respect to DR-DOS (ie. making applications that would work on MS-DOS, but break on DR-DOS, where the only difference in the code was some assembly that found out which operating system the product was running on).
In any case, what could the trial mean to Caldera if they win? OpenLinux is a good product and hopefully, the money Caldera would win from this trial will be funneled (in part, at least) to the development of more easy-to-use features for Linux.
With one of the last few bastions of end-user Windows software being ported or made available on the Linux Operating System, there are fewer and fewer reasons to remain a faithful user of the Microsoft family of operating systems. However, I was able to come up with the following top 5 reasons to continue to use Microsoft Windows.
The idea of using something primarily controlled by typing revolts you.
Every now and then, I get the urge to ask Taco and Hemos and the others at Slashdot about a particular thing (for instance, what's this thing do? And I don't think this works well...). However, I don't find myself taking the time to do this because I think it needs input from the rest of the community.
One thing that's been on my mind is "Where has Slashdot Radio been?" Considering the amount of e-mail swampage the Slashdot crew is probably under, I just don't take the time to e-mail them.
I was wondering, would it be possible to have a monthly (semi-monthly?) "Slashdot User Forum". All it would be is a regular Slashdot thread where people could post ideas about the site. I remember when someone posted to an Apache thread that the Apache section needed more moderators. That would be a post that would be exemplary of the kind of stuff I see going under this thread.
Just a thought that might make for a better Slashdot.
Microsoft has a distinction called being a "Microsoft Research Fellow" (meant to be a title of distinction - not just joe bloe shmoe). I've attended a couple of lectures by Microsoft Research Fellows in the past and have been amazed at their knowledge - these people are not faking their intelligence.
What I want to know is, if Microsoft has all of these researchers that innovate so well, why can't they get the infrastructure in their own company to funnel this research directly into products? There is no point in letting this research go to waste, which is what I truly believe happens. Or another possibility would be to open up this research - allow other, non-Microsoft intellectuals comment on their research. Yes, this would mean releasing ideas Microsoft could capitalize on in the future, but they don't seem to be doing it anyway, so why not benefit everyone?
Uhhh... just because you go to Carnegie Mellon doesn't mean that you have to know exactly how many keywords a particular language has. I program in C - I couldn't care less about C++.. Shows how much you know as a programmer to say that a school like Carnegie Mellon's SCS teaches programming... they teach Computer Science.
There's no mistaking that hackers love LEGOs. I'll focus on the programming-type hacker here, but I think it applies to anyone in pursuit of knowledge about particular systems. So, what parallels exist?
Well, for one thing, LEGOs are a system with a bunch of rules. Just like programming languages - you can only connect blocks in a limited number of ways. In fact, there are (if I remember correctly), no more than 10 (probably fewer) types of inter-connections that can be made. ANSI C only has 27 keywords (C++ has 29 - class and:: being the new ones). However, both systems, despite their limited set of rules and constructs, allow for great amounts of creativity.
LEGO becomes an easy and very fun way to see what can be done within a very limited scope. And speaking of limited scope, I remember trying to make stuff with as few blocks as possible - if for nothing but to save the stress on my fingers breaking the thing apart afterward.
Also, LEGO is another way for people to learn modularity at a very early stage in life. I liked the fact that I could rip off the wing or the leg of something I built and just stick it on the next thing. Also, "upgrading" my stuff was a lot more fun - I just ripped off what I didn't need and replaced it.
But now I program. Is it more fun? Sometimes... but I definitely think building with LEGO would be much more fun as a full time job... And, it fits the description of programming, doesn't it? We should all become LEGO developers...
So, when was the word "loser" defined in terms of how much I socialize? I propose a new definition: "Loser" is now defined as those that do not not know as much as I do about technical things. There, who's the loser now?
I AM NOT A LOSER. Why should I have to listen to everyone out there that points at me and says "haha - look at the computer geek!" ?
Maybe I have been on fewer dates than I have fingers. Maybe I don't go to frat parties and drink myself stupid every weekend. Maybe I dolaugh at the definition of recursion (n. see recursion).
Don't hate me because I'm not beautiful. Don't hate me because I know stuff. Don't hate me just because I have my own priorities.
As much as I hate the RAGE chipset, I have to applaud ATI on this move. Note that ATI is the absolute market leader for OEM based graphics - and they do very well in the retail market as well.
Some people may say that this is just an ATI ploy to be the market leader for every operating system out there. ATI cards could very well be the Microsoft of video cards - but there isn't too much evidence to support this, yet. They are just releasing their specs at the moment, and supporting the development of drivers.
Well, not that I'm a crypto expert, but let's see how quickly a brute force decipher could take...
Okay, I obviously have to make a few assumptions. First off, I assume each number between dashes is a single alphanumeric. And since I said alphanumeric, you know I mean A-Z and 0-9.
There are 61 alphanumerics in this message. HOWEVER, I believe we can safely assume that each line is a phrase on its own. If so, we can solve each separately. The breakdown is 10, 11, 15, 13, and 12 (yes, that adds to 61).
So, we have 36^n combinations for each line (n being the # of alphanumerics in each line).
Sum(36^n for all n) = approx(2.1249 * 10^23)
Let's say that it takes 1 millisecond to calculate a single permutation. (I have *no* idea whether that is a fair estimate - I'm definitely no expert in cryptography).
This would make worst case time for solving the code would be 7.011 * 10^12 years. Of course, this doesn't rule out the possibility that there are multiple valid solutions (ie. the code interpreted differently still results in a valid English statement) and other such weird phenomena. I would guess the best chance to cracking this thing, at first, would be to find the weights of each of the numbers between the dashes, and compare that to the English alphabet's weight. At least, that might get you an E or something. I'll let someone who knows what he's talking about comment on that.
If any of you have ever read any "How Microsoft and Bill Gates got to where it is" books, you'd find out a lot about Gates' past and exactly what he did to get where he is today. And, just as Microsoft's marketing department spreads its FUD about how NT is better than Linux, so do many Slashdot readers spread FUD about the motivations of Microsoft, and what its leader is really all about. I believe this thread is an excellent chance to bring information about Bill Gates to light. (NOTE: What I say below this sentence is the result of reading books such as Barbarians Lead By Bill Gates, Harddrive and others.)
Where to start? How about his childhood? From the biographical accounts I have had the chance to read, here is a typical situation in which you might find William H. Gates III during his earlier years: Alone in the basement of his house, contemplating. Not reading. Not working. Thinking. About what? I don't quite remember if the books say what. In any case, what does this say about Gates? Not much I suppose, but it does show that Gates wasn't quite "normal" from the beginning: he wasn't outside playing with friends all the live-long-day. Remind you of someone? Perhaps yourself?
It is also well known that Bill Gates was quite an upstart at school. Why? Because he corrected his teachers. Voraciously. I am sure that many of us have corrected our teachers for everything from a wrong equation to wrong terminology, but Gates is known not only to do that, but with great precision pin-point fallacies in his teacher's thinking. His best subjects, just like most of us, were Mathematics and pure sciences. One well-known anecdote is when Gates was taking a high-level course in math (I forget the particular one, but some form of Calculus for sure) and his professor was proving some theorem or another on the board. Gates, like many of us, was in la-la land (sleeping). However, as soon as he woke up, he noticed the professor made the smallest mistake in his proof - and corrected it on the spot.
So Gates is somewhat like us geeks when it comes to learning. What about when it comes to computers?
Fact: Bill Gates wrote a BASIC interpreter in 4K of memory. Reminds you of your own programming feats, doesn't it?
He met Paul Allen way back in middle school - Allen being the elder of the two. The first computer that the school received was one of those tele-type machines where it was all time-share computing. It turns out that Gates and Allen alone used so much time-share time that the school couldn't keep up with the cost! I forget the outcome, but I think Gates and Allen went to work for the company that owned the PDP-11 that was being time-shared. Doesn't that sound a little bit like us in high school? Playing Quake all day? I remember I scheduled my senior year of high school so well that I had 5 periods a day in which I could play Quake non-stop. That was fun. Speaking of scheduling....
Gates and Allen were once chartered to write a program that would schedule students for classes. And guess what? Gates "accidentally" found himself in a class with only one boy - himself. Don't you think you would have done the same?
Fact: Bill Gates asked his dates what their SAT scores were. Did you ever want to ask, but were too afraid to?
Well, I don't want to turn this into an unauthorized biography of Gates, but I did want to shed some light on his past. With all of us Linux users saying "Gates is the devil! Look, the ASCII characters of his name add up to 666 - It's Proof!!" it's just the same as throwing FUD back at Microsoft, only at a more personal level.
I am not defending Gates' actions, or his company. I'm just trying to show you that Gates might be more like you than you would like to believe. He had the same motivations that we had when we were young - play games, ogle girls. I think where he went "wrong" was that he found he had a really good business sense, and he used it to the maximum. When you were last put in the position of power (I mean, for instance, the power to change something - a test grade, a course grade, etc.), did you? Probably not. Bill Gates found himself in the position of power - many times, in fact. And he found he was really good at controlling the situation. The question then becomes, was he immoral to use his power?
Sorry for the long post, and definitely sorry if you felt that I didn't add anything, but my main purpose of this post was to show that Bill Gates had many of the same aspirations we had when we were young, and he may be more like us than we think (or like to believe).
(Before I say what I wanted to, my condolences to Hemos and Nate... may you find shelter with a computer running linux with a relatively fast internet connection soon.)
Nate: I burnt half the geek compound down.
Hemos: Oh my God! All my source code - it's GONE! Burned up with my Harddrive!
Oh wait, all my stuff is Open Source (tm)! It's quite a possibility others have downloaded a recent version of my source code from my computer!
Slashdot Mirror
Before we get down to business, we'd like to stress that these are the opinions of individual KDE developers. The answers below are not *necessarily* the same as the KDE Official Position on matters. If you wish to know THE official opinion on any of these, contact the KDE Core Team through any of the official representatives.
This type of thing worries me. Part of open source's coolness is that, while we can edit the source, we can also go right to the author of the software and ask questions (and get correct answers). The above makes it sound as if KDE is just another corporation that may or may not think like its employees. I think it's particularly sad that a major center of open source development (the KDE project) is turning into this type of establishment.
Also, aren't these guys the developers of KDE? Doesn't that mean they *are* the official representatives of KDE? Who else is there to be a representative of what KDE stands for except for the people who make it and use it? To me, that just makes it all sound like KDE has a marketing department.
Yes, I know this is kinda OT, but it runs along the lines of giving awards to those who truly deserve it.
:) What I mean by that word is when a Slashdot post parodies an article that gets posted (see the Nothing but Net for 5 days thread), there's more than just information imparted there.
.sigs look most of the time) always has some real information to present.
:)
I was thinking it would be really cool to have some type of Slashdot User Award. Here's my rationale.
So many of us give so much information about so many topics away for free on this site. And it's not for any other reason but the fact that we pride ourselves on the information we are able to impart on others (and maybe that's why most us agree that the education system in America has gone down the drains - the teachers can't impart very good information). And it's not just information, but also "enlightenment." In no way do I mean a window manager or a religion (although when it comes to GNOME vs. KDE, it might swing either way
What I propose is that the people that really make a difference on Slashdot receive some type of a award. I don't mean everyone that gets a 5 gets an award, and I don't mean someone that doesn't get a lot of 5s doesn't get an award.
I could name a few people on Slashdot that have made a true difference in how I think about every other news story I read out there. Signal 11 is usually pretty funny, and the guy from Dox Para research (am I right? Sorry, I forget the name - i just remember people by the way their
And I don't mean this to say that "As a poster who has given others information, I feel I should be rewarded." I just think it would be nice to recognize those people that make a difference to the Slashdot community. Maybe send them a free T-Shirt. Or maybe some Penguin Mints
I think that Carmack and company are actually more of an open source company than we give them credit. No, it may not be directly dealing with source code, but I think it deals more with knowledge with this company.
:) That's why I'm willing to put the $40 into QIII, because Carmack and company is a software firm I can trust to put something back into the community after they have made their millions.
id Software has always pushed the limits of 3D software and hardware acceleration, and they've also given a *lot* back to the community. Yes, they make money off of licensing their rendering engine, but (from what I hear), the id engineers are always willing to talk to you about how they accomplished certain tasks.
Like a true geek, Carmack is proud to show off his algorithms to the rest of us - and he's not worried that someone's gonna go off and copy it and patent it and make him pay for his own inventions (like some patent-grabbing idiots out there). (BTW - if id patented their rendering algorithms, how much do you think the value would increase in today's market? Two fold?)
id may not be Open Source in terms of giving all their source code away, but they give a lot of *knowledge* back to the community that keeps them swimming in dollar bills
I guess I was rambling a bit much there, but that's just how I feel...
I'm a geek. You're a geek. Computers are our life. We make it our life. However, computers are more or less tools. Very flexible tools - they can be used for almost anything - but tools they remain.
For the average person, the coming "technology revolution" doesn't mean we're all gonna be hermits. I'll bet that when people first came in contact with the mass use of telephones, people griped that we were all gonna become people who couldn't talk to each other in person any more. WRONG.
It'll be the same thing with the Internet and Computers. Sure, you'll be able to order your groceries on line. Sure, you'll be able to chat with people. Yes, you may be able to video conference with your next door neighbor with a terminal, but that doesn't mean it HAS to be that way. And there are many people out there who will make sure it won't be that way.
How many of you have taken the cover off your computer case and taken out a manufacturer-placed add-on card with a better one (ie better video card, sound card, whatever)? If you have, you have probably voided your warranty on the entire system.
The reason Dell and Gateway can't let you *totally* configure your system (meaning, I want this video card, not any of the ones you guys offer) is because they are required by law to sell you a working product. Otherwise, the corporation is subject to a false-advertising lawsuit.
So, if Dell and Gateway and Compaq are overclocking their CPUs, they had better watch out when the thing starts crashing and the CPU fails much sooner than its MTBF.
On the other hand, if you buy a CPU, and place it on your mobo that you bought from a mobo manufacturer, why should it be illegal to overclock it? Yes, I might void my warranty, but it's my property - I should be able to change it. Is it illegal to hack at my Playstation or something similar to make it faster? I don't think so - I bought the object, I should be able to change it, granted I understand the consequence of losing my warranty.
Follow with my logic for a second. When filing a patent, you have to disclose a lot of information as to how your process works in a new and unique way to do something, right? In this case, it is "topic spotting and labelling of data." Also, patents are freely available to the public to browse at their leisure.
Now, the NSA, being the secretive organization that it is, obviously does not want their own technology being copied so easily by their adversaries (whoever they may be). Filing a patent would be a good step in the direction of making the technology open to the public.
If the NSA is ready to openly discuss technology such as this in the form of patents, one wonders what technologies along these lines the NSA does not feel free to talk about just yet. Maybe the conspiracy theorists are right...
- Shaheen
I guess Trey Parker and Matt Stone (creators of South Park) must be running like mad right now. Surely depicting Sadam Hussein as an overly active homosexual playing around with a fake penis is a war crime under this act?
(Note: I did read the article, I'm just joking here)
- Shaheen
Does Microsoft really want to tread that water? Look at the past history of Microsoft in the court room.
Judge Jackson has presided over Microsoft in court before - and each time been heavily against them. Also, we should all be reminded of the 1995 consent decree - thou shalt not bundle.
Against the government, Microsoft has had a horrible time in court. (Against other corporations, on the other hand...) Does it really make sense for Microsoft to pursue a ruling which, in all likeliness, will not be awarded to them?
It might show that Microsoft truly stands behind its premise of "innovation" and "providing the customer with the best products," and God knows they have enough money to do it, but what if the Supreme Court doesn't just disagree with them, but places further punishment on the company? (Are they allowed to do that, btw?) It'll just bring Microsoft more into the spotlight and get even more people lined up to bring them to court.
Personally, I think you are an exception to the norm, especially on college campuses. For instance, a substantial part of my collection is, um, not of my own ripping. I would say that 90% of the MP3s found on CMU campus (not just shared, but everyone's collection) are illegal. Also, people share them because they want to share them with their friends - not just to study.
To regain their network access, they had to do the following:
I laughed until I cried. I just have to say "What the heck were you thinking!?" I mean, these guys are smart enough to come to Carnegie Mellon, yet they are stupid enough to share their ENTIRE HARDDRIVE worth of:
That's just absolutely stupid. And they don't seem to realize that FTP is 1. a faster protocol 2. a safer protocol. I run an FTP site at CMU - it's my own private collection of MP3s. I also run SaMbA on my machine - but I've host.denied everyone except myself and my friends. I've found this solution is an excellent way to circumvent any type of crackdown on illegal activity.
I'd like to remind the poster of this article that productivity is neither created nor destroyed.
The law of productivity conservation requires the ratio of productive activity to non-productive activity be less than 1.
- Shaheen
A lot of people out there who hear about this trial are going to say "DR-DOS? WTF is that? And if it's basically a dead product, isn't this Caldera or whatever you call it just trying to milk Microsoft's cash cow?"
In a way, I think this is true - DR-DOS is a dead product. However, I do think that Caldera has the right to sue Microsoft over this because of the development practices Microsoft had with respect to DR-DOS (ie. making applications that would work on MS-DOS, but break on DR-DOS, where the only difference in the code was some assembly that found out which operating system the product was running on).
In any case, what could the trial mean to Caldera if they win? OpenLinux is a good product and hopefully, the money Caldera would win from this trial will be funneled (in part, at least) to the development of more easy-to-use features for Linux.
Man, without that topic icon, "Palms in the Classroom and a Contest" doesn't sound like the best title to give a thread.
- Shaheen
Every now and then, I get the urge to ask Taco and Hemos and the others at Slashdot about a particular thing (for instance, what's this thing do? And I don't think this works well...). However, I don't find myself taking the time to do this because I think it needs input from the rest of the community.
One thing that's been on my mind is "Where has Slashdot Radio been?" Considering the amount of e-mail swampage the Slashdot crew is probably under, I just don't take the time to e-mail them.
I was wondering, would it be possible to have a monthly (semi-monthly?) "Slashdot User Forum". All it would be is a regular Slashdot thread where people could post ideas about the site. I remember when someone posted to an Apache thread that the Apache section needed more moderators. That would be a post that would be exemplary of the kind of stuff I see going under this thread.
Just a thought that might make for a better Slashdot.
I'm reading this quote at the bottom of the page right at this moment. Maybe it applies here:
It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
- Shaheen
Another non-functioning site was uncertainty.microsoft.com. The purpose of that site was not known.
More evidence Microsoft consciously spreads Fear Uncertainty and Doubt.
- Shaheen
Microsoft has a distinction called being a "Microsoft Research Fellow" (meant to be a title of distinction - not just joe bloe shmoe). I've attended a couple of lectures by Microsoft Research Fellows in the past and have been amazed at their knowledge - these people are not faking their intelligence.
What I want to know is, if Microsoft has all of these researchers that innovate so well, why can't they get the infrastructure in their own company to funnel this research directly into products? There is no point in letting this research go to waste, which is what I truly believe happens. Or another possibility would be to open up this research - allow other, non-Microsoft intellectuals comment on their research. Yes, this would mean releasing ideas Microsoft could capitalize on in the future, but they don't seem to be doing it anyway, so why not benefit everyone?
- Shaheen
Uhhh... just because you go to Carnegie Mellon doesn't mean that you have to know exactly how many keywords a particular language has. I program in C - I couldn't care less about C++.. Shows how much you know as a programmer to say that a school like Carnegie Mellon's SCS teaches programming... they teach Computer Science.
There's no mistaking that hackers love LEGOs. I'll focus on the programming-type hacker here, but I think it applies to anyone in pursuit of knowledge about particular systems. So, what parallels exist?
:: being the new ones). However, both systems, despite their limited set of rules and constructs, allow for great amounts of creativity.
Well, for one thing, LEGOs are a system with a bunch of rules. Just like programming languages - you can only connect blocks in a limited number of ways. In fact, there are (if I remember correctly), no more than 10 (probably fewer) types of inter-connections that can be made. ANSI C only has 27 keywords (C++ has 29 - class and
LEGO becomes an easy and very fun way to see what can be done within a very limited scope. And speaking of limited scope, I remember trying to make stuff with as few blocks as possible - if for nothing but to save the stress on my fingers breaking the thing apart afterward.
Also, LEGO is another way for people to learn modularity at a very early stage in life. I liked the fact that I could rip off the wing or the leg of something I built and just stick it on the next thing. Also, "upgrading" my stuff was a lot more fun - I just ripped off what I didn't need and replaced it.
But now I program. Is it more fun? Sometimes... but I definitely think building with LEGO would be much more fun as a full time job... And, it fits the description of programming, doesn't it? We should all become LEGO developers...
- Shaheen
So, when was the word "loser" defined in terms of how much I socialize? I propose a new definition: "Loser" is now defined as those that do not not know as much as I do about technical things. There, who's the loser now?
I AM NOT A LOSER. Why should I have to listen to everyone out there that points at me and says "haha - look at the computer geek!" ?
Maybe I have been on fewer dates than I have fingers. Maybe I don't go to frat parties and drink myself stupid every weekend. Maybe I do laugh at the definition of recursion (n. see recursion).
Don't hate me because I'm not beautiful. Don't hate me because I know stuff. Don't hate me just because I have my own priorities.
As much as I hate the RAGE chipset, I have to applaud ATI on this move. Note that ATI is the absolute market leader for OEM based graphics - and they do very well in the retail market as well.
Some people may say that this is just an ATI ploy to be the market leader for every operating system out there. ATI cards could very well be the Microsoft of video cards - but there isn't too much evidence to support this, yet. They are just releasing their specs at the moment, and supporting the development of drivers.
Well, not that I'm a crypto expert, but let's see how quickly a brute force decipher could take...
Okay, I obviously have to make a few assumptions. First off, I assume each number between dashes is a single alphanumeric. And since I said alphanumeric, you know I mean A-Z and 0-9.
There are 61 alphanumerics in this message. HOWEVER, I believe we can safely assume that each line is a phrase on its own. If so, we can solve each separately. The breakdown is 10, 11, 15, 13, and 12 (yes, that adds to 61).
So, we have 36^n combinations for each line (n being the # of alphanumerics in each line).
Sum(36^n for all n) = approx(2.1249 * 10^23)
Let's say that it takes 1 millisecond to calculate a single permutation. (I have *no* idea whether that is a fair estimate - I'm definitely no expert in cryptography).
This would make worst case time for solving the code would be 7.011 * 10^12 years. Of course, this doesn't rule out the possibility that there are multiple valid solutions (ie. the code interpreted differently still results in a valid English statement) and other such weird phenomena. I would guess the best chance to cracking this thing, at first, would be to find the weights of each of the numbers between the dashes, and compare that to the English alphabet's weight. At least, that might get you an E or something. I'll let someone who knows what he's talking about comment on that.
If any of you have ever read any "How Microsoft and Bill Gates got to where it is" books, you'd find out a lot about Gates' past and exactly what he did to get where he is today. And, just as Microsoft's marketing department spreads its FUD about how NT is better than Linux, so do many Slashdot readers spread FUD about the motivations of Microsoft, and what its leader is really all about. I believe this thread is an excellent chance to bring information about Bill Gates to light. (NOTE: What I say below this sentence is the result of reading books such as Barbarians Lead By Bill Gates, Harddrive and others.)
Where to start? How about his childhood? From the biographical accounts I have had the chance to read, here is a typical situation in which you might find William H. Gates III during his earlier years: Alone in the basement of his house, contemplating. Not reading. Not working. Thinking. About what? I don't quite remember if the books say what. In any case, what does this say about Gates? Not much I suppose, but it does show that Gates wasn't quite "normal" from the beginning: he wasn't outside playing with friends all the live-long-day. Remind you of someone? Perhaps yourself?
It is also well known that Bill Gates was quite an upstart at school. Why? Because he corrected his teachers. Voraciously. I am sure that many of us have corrected our teachers for everything from a wrong equation to wrong terminology, but Gates is known not only to do that, but with great precision pin-point fallacies in his teacher's thinking. His best subjects, just like most of us, were Mathematics and pure sciences. One well-known anecdote is when Gates was taking a high-level course in math (I forget the particular one, but some form of Calculus for sure) and his professor was proving some theorem or another on the board. Gates, like many of us, was in la-la land (sleeping). However, as soon as he woke up, he noticed the professor made the smallest mistake in his proof - and corrected it on the spot.
So Gates is somewhat like us geeks when it comes to learning. What about when it comes to computers?
Fact: Bill Gates wrote a BASIC interpreter in 4K of memory. Reminds you of your own programming feats, doesn't it?
He met Paul Allen way back in middle school - Allen being the elder of the two. The first computer that the school received was one of those tele-type machines where it was all time-share computing. It turns out that Gates and Allen alone used so much time-share time that the school couldn't keep up with the cost! I forget the outcome, but I think Gates and Allen went to work for the company that owned the PDP-11 that was being time-shared. Doesn't that sound a little bit like us in high school? Playing Quake all day? I remember I scheduled my senior year of high school so well that I had 5 periods a day in which I could play Quake non-stop. That was fun. Speaking of scheduling....
Gates and Allen were once chartered to write a program that would schedule students for classes. And guess what? Gates "accidentally" found himself in a class with only one boy - himself. Don't you think you would have done the same?
Fact: Bill Gates asked his dates what their SAT scores were. Did you ever want to ask, but were too afraid to?
Well, I don't want to turn this into an unauthorized biography of Gates, but I did want to shed some light on his past. With all of us Linux users saying "Gates is the devil! Look, the ASCII characters of his name add up to 666 - It's Proof!!" it's just the same as throwing FUD back at Microsoft, only at a more personal level.
I am not defending Gates' actions, or his company. I'm just trying to show you that Gates might be more like you than you would like to believe. He had the same motivations that we had when we were young - play games, ogle girls. I think where he went "wrong" was that he found he had a really good business sense, and he used it to the maximum. When you were last put in the position of power (I mean, for instance, the power to change something - a test grade, a course grade, etc.), did you? Probably not. Bill Gates found himself in the position of power - many times, in fact. And he found he was really good at controlling the situation. The question then becomes, was he immoral to use his power?
Sorry for the long post, and definitely sorry if you felt that I didn't add anything, but my main purpose of this post was to show that Bill Gates had many of the same aspirations we had when we were young, and he may be more like us than we think (or like to believe).
(Before I say what I wanted to, my condolences to Hemos and Nate... may you find shelter with a computer running linux with a relatively fast internet connection soon.)
Nate: I burnt half the geek compound down.
Hemos: Oh my God! All my source code - it's GONE! Burned up with my Harddrive!
Oh wait, all my stuff is Open Source (tm)! It's quite a possibility others have downloaded a recent version of my source code from my computer!
Ahhh... thank god for Open Source (tm)!
* Hemos smiles at the screen with a thumbs-up.