Hey, you think you've got it bad, I have a strange habit of clicking the middle mouse button at random times. It's taken me... well, until reading this thread, to figure out what random weird thing Mozilla was doing in response to those clicks.
I'm a Debian user too, and I dearly love apt-get, but I must say, I've often wished for something like FreeBSD's ports system for the times when I need to compile something myself. I know about--and use--apt-get source, but it's not aware of dependencies (FreeBSD ports is, as I recall), it's harder to do customized configurations (thought I suspect this is a result of my own stupidity), and it won't install packages into your home directory.
What this means is that you can choose to license it under any ONE of the three licenses. That means if you already understand one of them, you don't have to bother with the others. Easier, not harder.
go ahead, make another mafia joke.
on
Mob Software
·
· Score: 1
The problem here is that, while O'Reilly books are certainly among the very best technical references available, they also tend to be about specific programs and languages, and thus to become outdated every few years. O'Reilly is certainly the place to go for those kinds of books, but a library, which needs books that will continue to be valuable for years in the future, should focus primarily on books about more general principles--Knuth and Design Patterns are two excellent examples that have been recommended elsewhere.
Of course, there are some O'Reilly books that will continue to be useful, because they cover particularly long-lasting programs, but buying every O'Reilly book would be too much.
Calling it science fiction is very pretentious and a disservice to the genre
No, pretentious is making subtle academic distinctions that have nothing to do with the way words are normally used or defined, in an attempt to exclude things that are too low-brow from your favorite genre. Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica, and Babylon 5 are all science fiction. Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica also happen to be crap science fiction, and to fall into the particularly dismal subgenre called space opera, but science fiction they remain.
Well, I'm not one to defend Java (I've only recently started doing OOP, but the more I use Java the more I get curious about Smalltalk), but it's worth noting that there are some good Java refactoring tools. I currently use JRefactory, largely because it's free (speech) and works with the IDE I'm using; another interesting one is jFactor.
I didn't read the article, only the summary in the comment, so I believe that the only thing XP says is "do good things and don't do bad things". Since that's practically tautological, XP must be really stupid. Also, since Microsoft has a product called XP, and there couldn't possibly be two things in the world with similar names, I conclude that XP comes from Microsoft, so it must suck.
You know, I was almost ready to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that, despite a general non-geekiness, you just happened to have that one general bit of geek movie knowledge. Then I got to your.sig.;)
Both left leaning liberals and right wing conservatives want it both ways all the time. They want free speech when it suits them, and don't when it doesn't. Only Libertarians understand where the line should be drawn.
Hmm... that's funny. I'm a left leaning liberal myself, often to the point of being a communist, and I can't imagine a situation in which it would be safe to allow the government to regulate speech in any way. Heck, I even have my doubts about regulating speech that causes real damage--such a principle could well be used to eliminate all speech of any real substance.
And what's more, I have the strange feeling that, if I asked most conservatives I know the same question, they'd agree with me on this point, despite our other differences.
But no, that can't be right. I'm sure nobody outside of the Libertarian party could have any respect for freedom. I must just be mistaken about my beliefs.
Allow me to put that a bit more concretely:
moss@jane:~/random-compression$ cat/dev/urandom > urandom
^C
moss@jane:~/random-compression$ ls -l
total 4740
-rw-r--r-- 1 moss moss 4833280 Mar 18 20:17 urandom
moss@jane:~/random-compression$ gzip --best urandom
moss@jane:~/random-compression$ ls -l
total 4744
-rw-r--r-- 1 moss moss 4834046 Mar 18 20:17 urandom.gz
Initial Size: 4833280 bytes
Final Size: 4834046 bytes
Conclusion: gzipping random data made it bigger.
Okay, that's a bit surprising, but I still don't see the foundations of mathematics shaking. I mean, it doesn't really seem surprising that there should be some numbers like that. Just going on intuition, I would guess that the vast majority of the reals don't have any structure to them, so that they'd be just as random as this number.
I suppose the surprise comes in that this is a number we can define, but still can't calculate. I'm not entirely sure why this should be surprising, either. Certainly we wouldn't be surprised to find that a physical constant was incompressible--at least, I can't see why we should be, except in a few particular cases. I suppose the difference here is that now we can't calculate a number that exists purely as an object of thought. But even at that, we already knew there were some severe limits on our knowledge of that number... I mean, now that Chaitlin's done the work, it's not at all surprising that it should have followed from the Church-Turing Thesis.
All of which is of course not to deny that it's a great development, comparisons to Goedel, Church, Turing, Heisenberg, Kant, etc. altogether justified, very interesting mathematically, and all that. But still, the foundations of mathematics don't really seem any different than they did before.
Can anyone illuminate me on why this should be considered so important? Or is it just hyperbole on the part of the New Scientist? And if it is just hyperbole, what's the point of confusing the matter still further by bringing in conic sections?
(DISCLAIMER: IANAM (I Am Not A Mathematician), and any real knowledge I have of mathematics ends somewhere around 1930 or 1940, so I'm probably talking out of my ass. Also, I wasn't surprised by Heisenberg, either, so I may just not surprise easily.)
(I'm glad there's not a moderation for "incoherent rambling")
Let the i'm-more-elite-that-you-because-i-edit-files-with- a-strong-magnet-wars-begin!
You actually have a separate magnet? You must just be too stupid to control the electromagnetism from your computer's power supply with carefully timed power surges.
IANAL, but my guess is that this wouldn't work. As I understand it, copyright can only protect a particular expression of an idea, not the idea itself. Perhaps if you had some original way of expressing your personal data (in verse, perhaps?) you could copyright that, but even then they'd be free to copy the information, so it wouldn't do much good.
Any of my fellow X-haters out there (I'm assuming there still are some people on Slashdot that don't like slowing down their systems with things like Gnome) may be interested in knowing that there are a number of console AIM clients out there. The best one I've found is mfaim, which is available on the libicq project page at Sourceforge.
talk's nice because it's ubiquitous, you can use it through telnet, and you can watch people type (which really does lend a different flavor to the conversation). Better still is ytalk, a talk client that allows more than two people to talk at a time. They're both very handy sometimes... and yes, I also use AIM and such.
That depends on what client you use. mfaim, a console-based AIM client that's part of the libfaim project, automatically logs all your conversations. And it really is more convenient to do things in real time sometimes.
Ah, the Mac IIfx. I've still got mine lying around somewhere. Beautiful machine. Incredibly advanced design for its time. So advanced, unfortunately, that none of the free un*x porters were able to figure out the details of its hardware. That computer must have set my Linux experience back a good two or three years, but I still love it.
Slashdot Mirror
Here. .com, not .org.
Hey, you think you've got it bad, I have a strange habit of clicking the middle mouse button at random times. It's taken me... well, until reading this thread, to figure out what random weird thing Mozilla was doing in response to those clicks.
I'm a Debian user too, and I dearly love apt-get, but I must say, I've often wished for something like FreeBSD's ports system for the times when I need to compile something myself. I know about--and use--apt-get source, but it's not aware of dependencies (FreeBSD ports is, as I recall), it's harder to do customized configurations (thought I suspect this is a result of my own stupidity), and it won't install packages into your home directory.
What this means is that you can choose to license it under any ONE of the three licenses. That means if you already understand one of them, you don't have to bother with the others. Easier, not harder.
Maybe the next one will be funny.
The problem here is that, while O'Reilly books are certainly among the very best technical references available, they also tend to be about specific programs and languages, and thus to become outdated every few years. O'Reilly is certainly the place to go for those kinds of books, but a library, which needs books that will continue to be valuable for years in the future, should focus primarily on books about more general principles--Knuth and Design Patterns are two excellent examples that have been recommended elsewhere.
.sig.
Of course, there are some O'Reilly books that will continue to be useful, because they cover particularly long-lasting programs, but buying every O'Reilly book would be too much.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
Ahem...
.sig.
Calling it science fiction is very pretentious and a disservice to the genre
No, pretentious is making subtle academic distinctions that have nothing to do with the way words are normally used or defined, in an attempt to exclude things that are too low-brow from your favorite genre. Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica, and Babylon 5 are all science fiction. Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica also happen to be crap science fiction, and to fall into the particularly dismal subgenre called space opera, but science fiction they remain.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
Well, if anyone wasn't sure what to use before, I'm sure they'll find a Package Format Pissing Match on Slashdot very helpful.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
All property laws are unnatural. For that matter, all laws are unnatural.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
Well, I'm not one to defend Java (I've only recently started doing OOP, but the more I use Java the more I get curious about Smalltalk), but it's worth noting that there are some good Java refactoring tools. I currently use JRefactory, largely because it's free (speech) and works with the IDE I'm using; another interesting one is jFactor.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
I didn't read the article, only the summary in the comment, so I believe that the only thing XP says is "do good things and don't do bad things". Since that's practically tautological, XP must be really stupid. Also, since Microsoft has a product called XP, and there couldn't possibly be two things in the world with similar names, I conclude that XP comes from Microsoft, so it must suck.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
I am NOT a geek... I am NOT a geek...
.sig. ;)
.sig.
You know, I was almost ready to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that, despite a general non-geekiness, you just happened to have that one general bit of geek movie knowledge. Then I got to your
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
Hmm... that's funny. I'm a left leaning liberal myself, often to the point of being a communist, and I can't imagine a situation in which it would be safe to allow the government to regulate speech in any way. Heck, I even have my doubts about regulating speech that causes real damage--such a principle could well be used to eliminate all speech of any real substance.
And what's more, I have the strange feeling that, if I asked most conservatives I know the same question, they'd agree with me on this point, despite our other differences.
But no, that can't be right. I'm sure nobody outside of the Libertarian party could have any respect for freedom. I must just be mistaken about my beliefs.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
Allow me to put that a bit more concretely: /dev/urandom > urandom
.sig.
moss@jane:~/random-compression$ cat
^C
moss@jane:~/random-compression$ ls -l
total 4740
-rw-r--r-- 1 moss moss 4833280 Mar 18 20:17 urandom
moss@jane:~/random-compression$ gzip --best urandom
moss@jane:~/random-compression$ ls -l
total 4744
-rw-r--r-- 1 moss moss 4834046 Mar 18 20:17 urandom.gz
Initial Size: 4833280 bytes
Final Size: 4834046 bytes
Conclusion: gzipping random data made it bigger.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
Okay, that's a bit surprising, but I still don't see the foundations of mathematics shaking. I mean, it doesn't really seem surprising that there should be some numbers like that. Just going on intuition, I would guess that the vast majority of the reals don't have any structure to them, so that they'd be just as random as this number.
.sig.
I suppose the surprise comes in that this is a number we can define, but still can't calculate. I'm not entirely sure why this should be surprising, either. Certainly we wouldn't be surprised to find that a physical constant was incompressible--at least, I can't see why we should be, except in a few particular cases. I suppose the difference here is that now we can't calculate a number that exists purely as an object of thought. But even at that, we already knew there were some severe limits on our knowledge of that number... I mean, now that Chaitlin's done the work, it's not at all surprising that it should have followed from the Church-Turing Thesis.
All of which is of course not to deny that it's a great development, comparisons to Goedel, Church, Turing, Heisenberg, Kant, etc. altogether justified, very interesting mathematically, and all that. But still, the foundations of mathematics don't really seem any different than they did before.
Can anyone illuminate me on why this should be considered so important? Or is it just hyperbole on the part of the New Scientist? And if it is just hyperbole, what's the point of confusing the matter still further by bringing in conic sections?
(DISCLAIMER: IANAM (I Am Not A Mathematician), and any real knowledge I have of mathematics ends somewhere around 1930 or 1940, so I'm probably talking out of my ass. Also, I wasn't surprised by Heisenberg, either, so I may just not surprise easily.)
(I'm glad there's not a moderation for "incoherent rambling")
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
Yes, that's right: after two years of development, GNOME has finally completed its evolution into the Shiny Things GUI. ;)
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
Let the i'm-more-elite-that-you-because-i-edit-files-with- a-strong-magnet-wars-begin!
.sig.
You actually have a separate magnet? You must just be too stupid to control the electromagnetism from your computer's power supply with carefully timed power surges.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
Um... I'm inclined to agree with your overall point, but one correction: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon isn't a re-release, it's a new movie.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
IANAL, but my guess is that this wouldn't work. As I understand it, copyright can only protect a particular expression of an idea, not the idea itself. Perhaps if you had some original way of expressing your personal data (in verse, perhaps?) you could copyright that, but even then they'd be free to copy the information, so it wouldn't do much good.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
D'oh! .sig. (well, nearly doubled, anyway). that's what I get for not previewing.
.sig.
sorry 'bout the doubled
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
And what would we say to it?
"Open the door, Marvin."
"Can you fetch that glass of water, Marvin?"
--Moss
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
Any of my fellow X-haters out there (I'm assuming there still are some people on Slashdot that don't like slowing down their systems with things like Gnome) may be interested in knowing that there are a number of console AIM clients out there. The best one I've found is mfaim, which is available on the libicq project page at Sourceforge.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
talk's nice because it's ubiquitous, you can use it through telnet, and you can watch people type (which really does lend a different flavor to the conversation). Better still is ytalk, a talk client that allows more than two people to talk at a time. They're both very handy sometimes... and yes, I also use AIM and such.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
That depends on what client you use. mfaim, a console-based AIM client that's part of the libfaim project, automatically logs all your conversations. And it really is more convenient to do things in real time sometimes.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
Ah, the Mac IIfx. I've still got mine lying around somewhere. Beautiful machine. Incredibly advanced design for its time. So advanced, unfortunately, that none of the free un*x porters were able to figure out the details of its hardware. That computer must have set my Linux experience back a good two or three years, but I still love it.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.