NOTE: this is not a flame against any girls/women out there. I actually have a lot of respect for women in general.
Then I complained about emacs LISP, and he actually told me that any secretary could learn it. ROTFL!!!
Yes, any secretary can learn emacs lisp. Most of those girls going under the job description of `secretary' are anything but. They're usually just receptionists (often lousy ones, at that) and do not have anywhere near the abilities of a secretary. These girls can barely operate a computer (ie turn it on, ok a bit harsh, they can type a letter in word) and can't think their way out of a hoola-hoop. Real secretaries actually do quite a lot: take dictation, though probably not as much these days; organise meatings; type letters; organise the company/department (depending on level) in general (eg getting their boss's message out to the workers). Basicly, they take care of all the little details. All this requires intelligence and a form of programming skills. A secretary should have no trouble whatsoever learning any programming language that your slightly better than average programmer can learn easily.
Don't judge secretaries by the trash ther're being replaced with. A good secretary is like a good Unix admin: can do the job of 5-10 `regular' secretaries (NT admins (NOTE: there are good NT admins out there, they're just as rare as hen's teeth)), and is about as expensive. This is probably why you have a low opinion of secretaries: the good ones are hidden by all the mediocre to bad ones.
And you wouldn't even break a sweat (assuming they all cooperated:). You're forgetting about karate and its related unarmed martial art forms (Tai Kwon Do (sp?) etc). I couldn't do it (nor, in most circumstances, would I), but a well trained martial artist can kill a person with a small number (1-5) of `light' taps (for appropriated values of light) to the correct points of the body. I believe they're called pressure points.
Forget it, you will never live in an unarmed society. A frying pan can kill just as easily as a bullet.
By "brain explosion" i mean drooling, twitching, spastic lack of cohesion, followed by overheating and some leakage.
Which can be mistaken for religion, except it's involuntary;)
Umm, since when is most religion voluntary? Usually, your born into it, your parents taking you to church etc as they were. Not a lot of choice there and it takes effort to break the chain. The only voluntary religion I know of right now is free software, and judging by some slashdotters (and others), even that's debatable.
Anyway, I like your description. hmm, out the ears? or noze? (leakage) Is the lack of cohesion physical or mental (or both:). Messy.
Not to many naturally occuring instances of that version of brain explosion, though there's been plenty of induced cases. I beleive heavy club applied to the head induces the above symptoms.
After reading several posts and a novel (The Star Fraction, Ken McCloud) about thoughts being virii and, in Ken's book, computers using humans to bring them to life (not well translated by me), and also remembering that astronomer's (?) comment about life expanding to fill all available niches (NOTE: Unlike said astronomer, I don't beleive that Earth is the sole source of life), I got hit by an interesting thought.(helped along by other posts about reverse engineering the brain): could whatever life-form that makes up the content's of our brains (our soul, I guess), be trying to expand it's niche from the organic world to the inorganic (eg silicon) world?
What I'm thinking is that our [I'll stick with] soul's are using our bodies to both understand themselves and produce more, different (hopefully longer lasting and more efficient) `bodies' (eg a computer or a robot).
More seriously: what about all those cases of insanity (I mean the real (?eh?) ones, not the political dissident ones) throughout history? I'ld think those could be classed as brain explosions.
Pertaining to my first comment, wouldn't many of you agree that (at least fundamentalistic) religion is a form of insanity and thus a case of runaway brain processes?
However, a thought- I'm pretty good on a _bicycle_ because it requires more attention to keep it balanced and in the right place. Does anyone have opinions or experience regarding autistic/aspergers people on _motorcycles_? It only just occurred to me- it's possible that would be safer for all concerned, because a motorcycle would absolutely demand all one's attention, stick you out there in the wind with nothing between you and the road, and consequently travelling on a bike might easily result in total attention to the bike and the road and _no_ priority for interesting computer problems or whatever (my nemesis driving a comfortable automobile)
From my personal experience, I would say you're safer on a bike, but not as safe as you'ld like to think. I often find my mind latching on to other things while riding (could possibly be helped along by the route being so familiar (not many options)).
However, my mind does wander less on my bike that in a car (I also let my licence expire, with no real desire to renew it). Anyway, biking got my blood pressure down from 130/85 (not bad) to 110/75 (pretty darn good:). Probably helped me get over my recent bronchitis as quickly as I did (still a little pleghmy, but no more aches, shakes and fevers). 'Course, the anti-biotics helped too:)
Unfortunatly, bzip2 doesn't always work that well with binaries. I get.bz2's slightly bigger (5-10%) than.gz's often enough that I've given up bzip2ing binaries.
Suspected as much (ie totally unsupported cards). As I said, h/w would be the only thing really slowing down a Linux migration. Pitty. But...by the time I can get a new machine (with a lot of luck, next month (fingers and toes crossed)), the Matrox G200 might be in beta or even released (doubt the latter), and I've already got a sb128 in preparation.
Thanks, but I think I'll stick with the MP3 (size) and get freeamp to either speed up or output waves. The results on my 486 vary from vary skippy to slightly skippy, depending on the MP3. Thanks anyway.
Actually, the library did have it (bad search params, I guess) so I borrowed it. "Ah Um" was not to be found (somebody got it between my search and arrival at the lib). Should be interesting.
Well, I managed to get hold of "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" from the local library (thanks to mrPalomar), so I should have some interesting listenning for tonight.
I grabbed the MP3 (thanks for the link), but my 486 probably won't do the job (motivation to get that freeamp hack done, I guess), so I don't know when I'll get to hear it.
Dange, the local library doesn't have "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady", but they do have "Ah Um", so I'll give that a try. Thanks for the recommendations. As to being into jazz, dunno, but I'll give it a go (I do love the Saxx if that's any help:)
Hmm, do you possibly mean Charles rather than Jeff? I just did an online search of the local library and found a Charles Mingus (1922-) doing jazz CDs (ie listed under jazz in the CD section).
Anyway, thanks for his full name. I'll see what I can find locally. Sounds like he has to be heard to be talked about meaningfully (kinda like Bones asking Spock what death was like:)
You obviously don't have the soul of a programmer (I'm not saying you don't have a soul, just that yours is not suited to programming), otherwise you would have understood the article. Nobody was comparing device drivers to any musical artist (I've never before heard of Mingus, anybody care to clue me in?). Instead, the author was reffering to the fact that hackers have a certain style of music to help them get into vampire mode as such (that spiritual state that causes code to just flow from ones fingers), in Steve's case, Mingus, for me, Sisters of Mercy usually does it.
Cool article. Been there, done that. Both the coding till sun-up, and the mystical, magical, spiritual state of mind you get into during the deep hack. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, watch out world, here comes some crazy, hairy code that just works. It takes a long time to understand the resulting code afterwards:)
Hehe, I've got a 386-33 w 16M acting as my firewall at home (redundant at the moment, as I use work as my ISP and I'm behind their firewall as well). I suppose I could grap q3test and run it on my 386, piping the output to my 486. That ought to slow things down enough:)
Have you tried lynx? It comes with RH and could save you alot of time. It's a textmode browser (ie text only, but I beleive you can set it up to use zgv to view images) that saved me pulling my hair out when I was setting up linux, especially when setting up X.
Hey, cool. No, I have no idea how many questions, but it's good to hear (maybe not for you, my sympathies).
As to the sound cards, which ones? ALSA seems to support several, but I don't know enough about these things (though my sb128pci goes nicely, oh the joys of a tripple bus 486 (asus), 4 isa, 1 vesa, 3 pci).
Well, you stuffed up the alternate ending to the saying (you didn't destroy all evidence of the attempt), but you've actually done quite well. Heck, even a unix guru would have problems getting X running properly on PC h/w, especially using alpha(?) drivers.
I would like to suggest not giving up entirely. ie grab the W32 version for now, but keep trying with Linux. You just might find it worth the effort (I did, but I still can't play Q3: a 486-66 and ET4000 just doesn't cut it).
Hehe, could Q3 cause a mass migration (even if only temporary) to Linux? Even a temp migration would be good as it would whet the appetites of the more adventurous Win users. As in: hey, no bsod, Q3 runs nicely if I have the right hardware(a distinct problem, I admit) and hmm, this Linux ain't so bad.
You never know, Q3 could be a turning point for the general acceptance of Linux.
They make cool hardware, but some of their software leaves a lot to be desired. I know, I have to use it. I'm not going into details as my job may depend on it.
These people already `have a life'. Linux and computers is their life (and mine). Your life of bars, movie theaters and tv just isn't our life (though there is some overlap for many of us). You obviously use (or at least are reasonably familiar with) Linux to know what 2.0.x has to offer, but it seems you don't get any real excitement from purly intellectual pursuits. Downloading, installing and running latest releases gives us a thrill because we get to see if things work for us, and if not why not.
As to movies, we'll go to the ones the interest us (eg TPM, Matrix, ST), but I doubt most geeks go to the movies just to get out and `have a life'. I certainly don't. I prefer reading a good SF book (The Star Fraction by Ken McCloud comes to mind), playing doom (a 486 won't cut it for quake) programming, or playing monopoly or scrabble with my wife (a semi repressed geek).
You sir, have to learn that what thrills you does not necessarily interest anyone else.
Leave other's their otherness. -- Marion Zimmer Bradly, The Survivours
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Yes, any secretary can learn emacs lisp. Most of those girls going under the job description of `secretary' are anything but. They're usually just receptionists (often lousy ones, at that) and do not have anywhere near the abilities of a secretary. These girls can barely operate a computer (ie turn it on, ok a bit harsh, they can type a letter in word) and can't think their way out of a hoola-hoop. Real secretaries actually do quite a lot: take dictation, though probably not as much these days; organise meatings; type letters; organise the company/department (depending on level) in general (eg getting their boss's message out to the workers). Basicly, they take care of all the little details. All this requires intelligence and a form of programming skills. A secretary should have no trouble whatsoever learning any programming language that your slightly better than average programmer can learn easily.
Don't judge secretaries by the trash ther're being replaced with. A good secretary is like a good Unix admin: can do the job of 5-10 `regular' secretaries (NT admins (NOTE: there are good NT admins out there, they're just as rare as hen's teeth)), and is about as expensive. This is probably why you have a low opinion of secretaries: the good ones are hidden by all the mediocre to bad ones.
Forget it, you will never live in an unarmed society. A frying pan can kill just as easily as a bullet.
Anyway, I like your description. hmm, out the ears? or noze? (leakage) Is the lack of cohesion physical or mental (or both:). Messy.
Not to many naturally occuring instances of that version of brain explosion, though there's been plenty of induced cases. I beleive heavy club applied to the head induces the above symptoms.
What I'm thinking is that our [I'll stick with] soul's are using our bodies to both understand themselves and produce more, different (hopefully longer lasting and more efficient) `bodies' (eg a computer or a robot).
I don't know, just a crazy idea that hit me.
More seriously: what about all those cases of insanity (I mean the real (?eh?) ones, not the political dissident ones) throughout history? I'ld think those could be classed as brain explosions.
Pertaining to my first comment, wouldn't many of you agree that (at least fundamentalistic) religion is a form of insanity and thus a case of runaway brain processes?
However, my mind does wander less on my bike that in a car (I also let my licence expire, with no real desire to renew it). Anyway, biking got my blood pressure down from 130/85 (not bad) to 110/75 (pretty darn good:). Probably helped me get over my recent bronchitis as quickly as I did (still a little pleghmy, but no more aches, shakes and fevers). 'Course, the anti-biotics helped too:)
Unfortunatly, bzip2 doesn't always work that well with binaries. I get .bz2's slightly bigger (5-10%) than .gz's often enough that I've given up bzip2ing binaries.
to pipe the display back to the other box.
Suspected as much (ie totally unsupported cards). As I said, h/w would be the only thing really slowing down a Linux migration. Pitty. But...by the time I can get a new machine (with a lot of luck, next month (fingers and toes crossed)), the Matrox G200 might be in beta or even released (doubt the latter), and I've already got a sb128 in preparation.
Thanks, but I think I'll stick with the MP3 (size) and get freeamp to either speed up or output waves. The results on my 486 vary from vary skippy to slightly skippy, depending on the MP3. Thanks anyway.
Actually, the library did have it (bad search params, I guess) so I borrowed it. "Ah Um" was not to be found (somebody got it between my search and arrival at the lib). Should be interesting.
I grabbed the MP3 (thanks for the link), but my 486 probably won't do the job (motivation to get that freeamp hack done, I guess), so I don't know when I'll get to hear it.
Dange, the local library doesn't have "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady", but they do have "Ah Um", so I'll give that a try. Thanks for the recommendations. As to being into jazz, dunno, but I'll give it a go (I do love the Saxx if that's any help:)
Hmm, do you possibly mean Charles rather than Jeff? I just did an online search of the local library and found a Charles Mingus (1922-) doing jazz CDs (ie listed under jazz in the CD section).
Anyway, thanks for his full name. I'll see what I can find locally. Sounds like he has to be heard to be talked about meaningfully (kinda like Bones asking Spock what death was like:)
You obviously don't have the soul of a programmer (I'm not saying you don't have a soul, just that yours is not suited to programming), otherwise you would have understood the article. Nobody was comparing device drivers to any musical artist (I've never before heard of Mingus, anybody care to clue me in?). Instead, the author was reffering to the fact that hackers have a certain style of music to help them get into vampire mode as such (that spiritual state that causes code to just flow from ones fingers), in Steve's case, Mingus, for me, Sisters of Mercy usually does it.
Cool article. Been there, done that. Both the coding till sun-up, and the mystical, magical, spiritual state of mind you get into during the deep hack. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, watch out world, here comes some crazy, hairy code that just works. It takes a long time to understand the resulting code afterwards:)
Hehe, I've got a 386-33 w 16M acting as my firewall at home (redundant at the moment, as I use work as my ISP and I'm behind their firewall as well). I suppose I could grap q3test and run it on my 386, piping the output to my 486. That ought to slow things down enough :)
Have you tried lynx? It comes with RH and could save you alot of time. It's a textmode browser (ie text only, but I beleive you can set it up to use zgv to view images) that saved me pulling my hair out when I was setting up linux, especially when setting up X.
As to the sound cards, which ones? ALSA seems to support several, but I don't know enough about these things (though my sb128pci goes nicely, oh the joys of a tripple bus 486 (asus), 4 isa, 1 vesa, 3 pci).
I would like to suggest not giving up entirely. ie grab the W32 version for now, but keep trying with Linux. You just might find it worth the effort (I did, but I still can't play Q3: a 486-66 and ET4000 just doesn't cut it).
You never know, Q3 could be a turning point for the general acceptance of Linux.
They make cool hardware, but some of their software leaves a lot to be desired. I know, I have to use it. I'm not going into details as my job may depend on it.
We came
We saw
We overflowed their jiffies
As to movies, we'll go to the ones the interest us (eg TPM, Matrix, ST), but I doubt most geeks go to the movies just to get out and `have a life'. I certainly don't. I prefer reading a good SF book (The Star Fraction by Ken McCloud comes to mind), playing doom (a 486 won't cut it for quake) programming, or playing monopoly or scrabble with my wife (a semi repressed geek).
You sir, have to learn that what thrills you does not necessarily interest anyone else.
Leave other's their otherness. -- Marion Zimmer Bradly, The Survivours