I've been on the Internet for almost 15 years, since the days when all the Internet was to me was an email gateway and a hacked-together list processor.
I can truly say that the Internet as a medium has given me some of the most rewarding relationships that a person could want. It is *definitely* a major part of my life, and anyone that says I'm defect for using the Internet as a social medium can kiss my ass and go back to dishing out snake oil as far as I'm concerned.
Which is why I feel that stories that inflame the net-rape cases really are dangerous. It only serves one purpose: to further propagate the rape meme through society.
IRC, E-mail, Newsgroups, ICQ - all of these mediums strip away a *lot* of barriers to social interaction that would not ordinarily allow people to get to know each other. It's so obvious that it feels droll to even bring it up - the Internet is an incredibly powerful social medium. I wouldn't know 3/4's of the people I know if I had to rely on modern social mechanisms to meet people and interact with them.
And no, I don't have sex with any of the people I've met online, but I am *very* close to a lot of them, and I would definitely consider some of my IRC friends to be among my best.
But it goes without saying that all this technology of interaction that is the Internet (with all its formalized and well engineered protocols) simply can't replace the *SAME* degree of protocol in real life social situations.
Yes, there *SHOULD* be a protocol for meeting someone online. Never make the first meeting alone, never put yourself in a situation where you're going to be alone with the other person in a (cause->effect) situation. You should *both* be causative in the meeting - in other words, on fair ground, with equal opportunity to break the connection if needed.
Hmm...
Perhaps, out of this Slashdot story, we engineers could actually *SUBMIT* a protocol? Why couldn't we get an RFC together for 'meeting online friends' and submit it?
A protocol is a protocol, and if *WE*, the *ENGINEERS* of the Internet, don't submit it - well we can hardly complain when the MASS MEDIA come in and define those 'protocols' for us in their terms.
Terms that are carefully calculated to create controversy, and sell ad space...
Anyone remember what it was? I laughed my ass off when Bender used the phrase, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was... "something" tube...
And didn't Agent 1BDI's boss seem to be a descendent of Apu?
I wish I'd taped the show, because I really want to go back through the sweep of the Head Museum and see what other heads were in the pickings... I'm sure Groening added a few subtle ones, just for us retentive nerds...
He mentioned in his Wired magazine interview that he was going to be placing all sorts of weird codes and hidden messages throughout Futurama, so that the geek contingent has something to latch onto for culture-effect.
Sorta like the way Klingon became a developed language, but I'm guess it'll be a lot less droll...
Star Wars LightSabre: Chop off his hand, cauterizing the wound. Deflect laser shots. Leave bad scorch marks.
Futurama LightSabre: Good only for beating someone on the head, and not terribly well either. Subject remains conscious. Very flashy, yet no better than a billy club from the Stupid Ages.
He parodied them a few days ago with the "Windows 98" install strip, and give the lawyers a few days to get off their butts to get the e-mail written (give or take a day for them to get MS Exchange working properly, etc) and the timing is right...
We got paid a good bit more than $8k, and there is more to the results of that project than the end paycheck - there was a great deal of business obtained for our small firm as a result of that deal, well worth the effort, and which we're all reaping the rewards from still years later...
First, just let me say that I'm familiar with the moderator system that's just been put in place because a *friend* of mine is a moderator and I took a look at his browser just now to see what its all about.
So don't flame me for violating the "revealing I'm a moderator" rule, I'm just making comments on behalf of my anonymous moderator friend, who obviously couldn't do this himself.
We've discussed this a bit, and have the following couple of points to contribute:
1. Make the top-level comments display in random order for moderators. This may impose a load on the slashdot server, but it's an important issue.
Moderators often don't get to the very bottom of the list of top-level comments, which basically means that first-post type comments will get the better moderation. If you randomize this, then there's a higher chance of more fair moderation across the boards, rather than those that were at the top of the list getting all the moderator attention.
2. Where does a moderator (or anyone else for that matter) see how many moderation points they've got to use up for that day? My moderator buddy just spent 5 minutes moderating comments in an article, and when we reloaded the main slashdot page the "total articles moderated" figure only went up by four, instead of 15 as he had predicted.
ftp ftp.redhat.com binary hash get/pub/linux/Redhat-5.2/images/boot rawrite boot a: format c: (just to be safe) ctrl-alt-del select network install X-workstation re boot Then try again... (Note: I'm not responsible for the accuracy of these commands, since I'm just kidding...)
Kill gpm, if it's running, then restart X.
on
Blender v1.5 Manual
·
· Score: 1
Read this report about what The TRON Project is in Japan, and do some more searching around for information about the TRON project in the Japanese consumer electronics industry, and then have a good deep thought about what Linux is...
And it will all start to make more sense. No, it's not some 80's movie rip-off... though one has to wonder how TRON the Movie came about in parallel with the initial idea's about TRON the Project, and if there was any connection ever made.
Sakamura started something big in the Japanese consumer electronics industry during the 80's, that not a lot of Western technologists are really aware of... anyone that's worked on any Japanese consumer electronics RT/Embedded systems will at least have had *some* exposure to the Tron project, since a lot of Japanese electronics companies share development resources as part of the Tron initiative.
I've done a fair bit of work for Japanese companies in the embedded systems area, and recently had the odd deja-vu like experience of having access to the source code for two completely disrelated embedded systems projects, and witnessed the *same code* in each... even though these companies have *nothing* to do with each other, market-wise.
So it makes sense to me that one of the biggest Japanese consumer electronics companies is picking up on the shared developer resources concept that Linux and the OSS movement represent.
This could and should be a wakeup call for American (and other) industries that might still be competing against the Japanese consumer electronics giants...
Whenever I see one of those loud-ass pieces of crappy American engineering plowing down the road, all I can think is "Why is this person wearing jewellry in their butt?"
If you don't speculate, how can you plan for contingencies?
What you're basically saying is that you're tired of waiting, and want a Mars colony. I do too.
But since it takes a hell of a lot more than just saying "do it" to get up there, big corporations are ultimately involved.
Not having an understanding for those big corps, and the world banking/economic controls in place, how can you adequately plan the path to get a viable Mars economy set up?
Speculation can result in engineering. And engineering can result in opportunities for further speculation...
What you're referring to is media simplification for the masses...
If the media were going around saying "potential prokaryotes, not necessarily of the bacteria phylum", nobody'd pay attention because they'd be asleep by the 2nd word.
Much easier for Johnny Newsboy to call it 'bacteria' because "it looks like a squiggly bacteria" than get really scientific about it...
Anyway, you can't complain. Just choose your media to match your intellect.
This gesture of using Mars as an escape from the perils of modern American civilization is an interesting one.
There's not much land-mass left in the world for new colonists to establish themselves, so we've had idea's like Oceania and such spring up from various patriotic types over the years, as people attempt to solve the problem of a dwindling democracy in the form of the American system. (Which, by the way, is more of a result of world banking restrictions than *anything* else).
So, we look to Mars as a solution, which it isn't.
A Mars colony won't get there if it isn't for the freedom and new ideas that resulted in the birth of the American space program. The hardcore science involved in establishing a Mars colony will have come as a direct result of Earth science, which by the time we have a Mars colony up and running will consist of very closely guarded commercial secrets (as if they aren't now already) being held onto by multi-national conglomerates born from the ashes of the American democratic system. And those multi-nationals bow to the alter of the World Banking System, as we all know too well...
I find it hard to think that with all of the resources to be plundered on Mars, the world banks would allow a remote colony on Mars to be anything other than an extension of an existing government nation that can be subjected to some form of financial/economic restrictions to prevent instability in world banking economies.
So for the first 20 or 30 years or so of the existence of a Mars colony, it's sure going to be made dependent on Earth science and resources in order to survive... so there's not much hope of revolution there, not if you've got to get your hardcore problems solved back on Earth by science and engineering 'assets' of multi-national no-government organizations.
Any form of colonization is definitely going to result in a trade system, and since its so far away, Earth is going to be providing Mars with a whole lotta tech in exchange for whatever Mars resources have to offer.
So, Earth will definitely have the Mars colony in check, and it's leash will be science information since its going to be a *long* time until Mars would have any form of scientific organization worth even 1% of what the Earth would have.
Unless we start planning for it, and take the science/technology we've got right here and now, and make it available for future Mars colonists in some form or another...
I've given up on the whole tie platform because I never had an open source knot application to run on it - had to perpetually ask to 'borrow' copies of Tie Knot from friends, co-workers, etc., and not only that but the user interface sucked so bad that I had to get their help installing Tie Knot on my (admittedly antiquated and underpowered) green polyester tie *every* day.
My old tie crashed every day, and no matter how hard I tried to baby it's uptime at the end of the workday, pulling it over my head, loosening it a little, etc. after about a week, Tie Knot was just far too much of a resource-hog and my tie system ended up constricted and laggy as hell.
Maybe now that I can download the source to various Tie Knot implementations I can dust off the ol' tie, compile the source, and get it up and running again.
Slashdot Mirror
The GNU way would be, if you don't like Richards attitude, simply fix the bug and release the source, because it's 'open'.
Supplant another GNU spokesman in RMS's stead? Just how feasible is that?
I've been on the Internet for almost 15 years, since the days when all the Internet was to me was an email gateway and a hacked-together list processor.
I can truly say that the Internet as a medium has given me some of the most rewarding relationships that a person could want. It is *definitely* a major part of my life, and anyone that says I'm defect for using the Internet as a social medium can kiss my ass and go back to dishing out snake oil as far as I'm concerned.
Which is why I feel that stories that inflame the net-rape cases really are dangerous. It only serves one purpose: to further propagate the rape meme through society.
IRC, E-mail, Newsgroups, ICQ - all of these mediums strip away a *lot* of barriers to social interaction that would not ordinarily allow people to get to know each other. It's so obvious that it feels droll to even bring it up - the Internet is an incredibly powerful social medium. I wouldn't know 3/4's of the people I know if I had to rely on modern social mechanisms to meet people and interact with them.
And no, I don't have sex with any of the people I've met online, but I am *very* close to a lot of them, and I would definitely consider some of my IRC friends to be among my best.
But it goes without saying that all this technology of interaction that is the Internet (with all its formalized and well engineered protocols) simply can't replace the *SAME* degree of protocol in real life social situations.
Yes, there *SHOULD* be a protocol for meeting someone online. Never make the first meeting alone, never put yourself in a situation where you're going to be alone with the other person in a (cause->effect) situation. You should *both* be causative in the meeting - in other words, on fair ground, with equal opportunity to break the connection if needed.
Hmm...
Perhaps, out of this Slashdot story, we engineers could actually *SUBMIT* a protocol? Why couldn't we get an RFC together for 'meeting online friends' and submit it?
A protocol is a protocol, and if *WE*, the *ENGINEERS* of the Internet, don't submit it - well we can hardly complain when the MASS MEDIA come in and define those 'protocols' for us in their terms.
Terms that are carefully calculated to create controversy, and sell ad space...
Anyone remember what it was? I laughed my ass off when Bender used the phrase, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was... "something" tube...
And didn't Agent 1BDI's boss seem to be a descendent of Apu?
I wish I'd taped the show, because I really want to go back through the sweep of the Head Museum and see what other heads were in the pickings... I'm sure Groening added a few subtle ones, just for us retentive nerds...
:)
He mentioned in his Wired magazine interview that he was going to be placing all sorts of weird codes and hidden messages throughout Futurama, so that the geek contingent has something to latch onto for culture-effect.
Sorta like the way Klingon became a developed language, but I'm guess it'll be a lot less droll...
Star Wars LightSabre: Chop off his hand, cauterizing the wound. Deflect laser shots. Leave bad scorch marks.
Futurama LightSabre: Good only for beating someone on the head, and not terribly well either. Subject remains conscious. Very flashy, yet no better than a billy club from the Stupid Ages.
He parodied them a few days ago with the "Windows 98" install strip, and give the lawyers a few days to get off their butts to get the e-mail written (give or take a day for them to get MS Exchange working properly, etc) and the timing is right...
We got paid a good bit more than $8k, and there is more to the results of that project than the end paycheck - there was a great deal of business obtained for our small firm as a result of that deal, well worth the effort, and which we're all reaping the rewards from still years later ...
Just my two cents worth:
First, just let me say that I'm familiar with the moderator system that's just been put in place because a *friend* of mine is a moderator and I took a look at his browser just now to see what its all about.
So don't flame me for violating the "revealing I'm a moderator" rule, I'm just making comments on behalf of my anonymous moderator friend, who obviously couldn't do this himself.
We've discussed this a bit, and have the following couple of points to contribute:
1. Make the top-level comments display in random order for moderators. This may impose a load on the slashdot server, but it's an important issue.
Moderators often don't get to the very bottom of the list of top-level comments, which basically means that first-post type comments will get the better moderation. If you randomize this, then there's a higher chance of more fair moderation across the boards, rather than those that were at the top of the list getting all the moderator attention.
2. Where does a moderator (or anyone else for that matter) see how many moderation points they've got to use up for that day? My moderator buddy just spent 5 minutes moderating comments in an article, and when we reloaded the main slashdot page the "total articles moderated" figure only went up by four, instead of 15 as he had predicted.
... so any "GPL MSFC" project would get a hell of a lot more skilled developers working day and night to bring it down.
ftp ftp.redhat.com /pub/linux/Redhat-5.2/images/boot
binary
hash
get
rawrite boot a:
format c: (just to be safe)
ctrl-alt-del
select network install
X-workstation
re boot
Then try again...
(Note: I'm not responsible for the accuracy of these commands, since I'm just kidding...)
ftp ftp.redhat.com binary hash get /pub/linux/Redhat-5.2/images/boot rawrite boot a: format c: (just to be safe) ctrl-alt-del select network install X-workstation re boot Then try again... (Note: I'm not responsible for the accuracy of these commands, since I'm just kidding...)
SSIA.
I saw something like that at NAMM, but neglected to find out what it was. What is it?
Read this report about what The TRON Project is in Japan, and do some more searching around for information about the TRON project in the Japanese consumer electronics industry, and then have a good deep thought about what Linux is...
... though one has to wonder how TRON the Movie came about in parallel with the initial idea's about TRON the Project, and if there was any connection ever made.
And it will all start to make more sense. No, it's not some 80's movie rip-off
Sakamura started something big in the Japanese consumer electronics industry during the 80's, that not a lot of Western technologists are really aware of... anyone that's worked on any Japanese consumer electronics RT/Embedded systems will at least have had *some* exposure to the Tron project, since a lot of Japanese electronics companies share development resources as part of the Tron initiative.
I've done a fair bit of work for Japanese companies in the embedded systems area, and recently had the odd deja-vu like experience of having access to the source code for two completely disrelated embedded systems projects, and witnessed the *same code* in each... even though these companies have *nothing* to do with each other, market-wise.
So it makes sense to me that one of the biggest Japanese consumer electronics companies is picking up on the shared developer resources concept that Linux and the OSS movement represent.
This could and should be a wakeup call for American (and other) industries that might still be competing against the Japanese consumer electronics giants...
Which will be an interesting court case to watch ...
Whenever I see one of those loud-ass pieces of crappy American engineering plowing down the road, all I can think is "Why is this person wearing jewellry in their butt?"
Or, is this the "Doh, should have pressed Preview first" meme... hmmm...
You put your whole head up your ass, didn't you?
So as to conserve oxygen.
If you don't speculate, how can you plan for contingencies?
What you're basically saying is that you're tired of waiting, and want a Mars colony. I do too.
But since it takes a hell of a lot more than just saying "do it" to get up there, big corporations are ultimately involved.
Not having an understanding for those big corps, and the world banking/economic controls in place, how can you adequately plan the path to get a viable Mars economy set up?
Speculation can result in engineering. And engineering can result in opportunities for further speculation...
What you're referring to is media simplification for the masses...
If the media were going around saying "potential prokaryotes, not necessarily of the bacteria phylum", nobody'd pay attention because they'd be asleep by the 2nd word.
Much easier for Johnny Newsboy to call it 'bacteria' because "it looks like a squiggly bacteria" than get really scientific about it...
Anyway, you can't complain. Just choose your media to match your intellect.
This gesture of using Mars as an escape from the perils of modern American civilization is an interesting one.
... so there's not much hope of revolution there, not if you've got to get your hardcore problems solved back on Earth by science and engineering 'assets' of multi-national no-government organizations.
There's not much land-mass left in the world for new colonists to establish themselves, so we've had idea's like Oceania and such spring up from various patriotic types over the years, as people attempt to solve the problem of a dwindling democracy in the form of the American system. (Which, by the way, is more of a result of world banking restrictions than *anything* else).
So, we look to Mars as a solution, which it isn't.
A Mars colony won't get there if it isn't for the freedom and new ideas that resulted in the birth of the American space program. The hardcore science involved in establishing a Mars colony will have come as a direct result of Earth science, which by the time we have a Mars colony up and running will consist of very closely guarded commercial secrets (as if they aren't now already) being held onto by multi-national conglomerates born from the ashes of the American democratic system. And those multi-nationals bow to the alter of the World Banking System, as we all know too well...
I find it hard to think that with all of the resources to be plundered on Mars, the world banks would allow a remote colony on Mars to be anything other than an extension of an existing government nation that can be subjected to some form of financial/economic restrictions to prevent instability in world banking economies.
So for the first 20 or 30 years or so of the existence of a Mars colony, it's sure going to be made dependent on Earth science and resources in order to survive
Any form of colonization is definitely going to result in a trade system, and since its so far away, Earth is going to be providing Mars with a whole lotta tech in exchange for whatever Mars resources have to offer.
So, Earth will definitely have the Mars colony in check, and it's leash will be science information since its going to be a *long* time until Mars would have any form of scientific organization worth even 1% of what the Earth would have.
Unless we start planning for it, and take the science/technology we've got right here and now, and make it available for future Mars colonists in some form or another...
I guess Open Source software is a start...
Hmmm... doesn't this magnetite thing qualify as a form of tool making?
... to the "Tie Knot" app.
I've given up on the whole tie platform because I never had an open source knot application to run on it - had to perpetually ask to 'borrow' copies of Tie Knot from friends, co-workers, etc., and not only that but the user interface sucked so bad that I had to get their help installing Tie Knot on my (admittedly antiquated and underpowered) green polyester tie *every* day.
My old tie crashed every day, and no matter how hard I tried to baby it's uptime at the end of the workday, pulling it over my head, loosening it a little, etc. after about a week, Tie Knot was just far too much of a resource-hog and my tie system ended up constricted and laggy as hell.
Maybe now that I can download the source to various Tie Knot implementations I can dust off the ol' tie, compile the source, and get it up and running again.
Thank you OSS community! You Rule!