Geeks are those kids who sorta know computer stuff generally, but won't ever get anywhere with it. They enjoy reading freshmeat solely to bring up the newest release of bind in their conversations with other geeks.
The nerd, on the other hand, is less prone to conversing about the various what-came-out-todays. The interest is more professional, more focused on a purpose than a vague interest in the field. These are the guys who WRITE the software the geeks bring up in their little geek conversations.
Doesn't cygnus produce a few high quality unix/windows development tools? I don't know the specifics but I am under the impression that they have always had a few non-open-source software offerings.
Presumably, if they get absorbed into Red Hat, they would follow the Red Hat open source policy and we would all get access to the (GPL?) code.
(One time I learned to spell. Then I forgot it for the previous version of this post. Sigh.) I've always felt very strongly that a human isn't necessariy a person. I've read that full-grown mature dogs operate at the same level of intelligence as a three month old baby. You could get off relatively unharmed for killing the dog, but killing a three month old baby would surely get you a long prison sentence.
People regard the _potential_ for intelligence perhaps a little too highly. I feel that while there can't be drawn a specific line in the sand, once someone shows that they are self-aware they are a person. And no sooner. For example, if a baby was born as a vegetable and was kept alive in that state for 30 years, I wouldn't consider that a person, just a human body.
With that in mind, I really don't feel that harming a non-sentient human is the same thing as harming a mature person. It's more like harming an animal, grounds for a slap on the wrist at best. I also, for the same reasons, believe strongly in the right of a mother to decide to abort a child at any stage of pregnancy.
But that said, I'm very aware that my opinions don't translate well into the real world, and they aren't exactly popular, so I guess we're stuck with what we've already got;)
I've always felt very strongly that a human isn't necessariy a person. I've read that full-grown mature dogs operate at the same level of intelligence as a three month old baby. You could get off relatively unharmed for killing the dog, but killing a three month old baby would surely get you a long prison sentence.
People regard the _potential_ for intelligence with perhaps a little too highly. I feel that while there can't be drawn a specific line in the sane, once someone shows that they are self-aware they are a person. And no sooner. For example, if a baby was born as a vegetable and was kept alive in that state for 30 years, I wouldn't consider that a person, just a human body.
With that in mind, I really don't feel that harming a non-sentient human is the same thing as harming a mature person. I also, for the same reasons, beleive strongly in the right of a mother to decide to abort a child at any stage of pregnancy.
But that said, I'm very aware that my opinions don't translate well into the real world, and they aren't exactly popular, so I guess we're stuck with what we've already got;)
I know people who have gotten their Virginia Tech student ID changed to a random number. Just go to the Visitor's Center or something to that effect. There's a form, and all your teachers in the current semester wonder what the hell happened to your student ID (very annoying to deal with), but after that your SSN is safe.
The key to Virginia Tech and I'm sure any other college is to get someone with authority to tell you what to do. Don't think nobody has thought of this before. People have been bitching to them about SSN rights for a long time, and they've been discreetly been providing resources for those people for some time now. Don't expect them to go around advertising it.
Caveat: I hear that if you get your Student ID changed to something different than your SSN, they won't be able to hire you for any lackey position on campus like the Math Emporium.
Oh yeah? You think your CS classes are so bad? Try placing out of the first semester and taking second semester courses in the fall. The permanent-6-month-offset means you're classes are full of a few bright kids (all guys) and a whole bunch of flunkees (all guys).
Who in their right mind is going to use this sketchy new media for their servers? Stick to something from the big boys who have a track record, not some random startup who has a new gadget.
On that note, has anyone bothered to compare the internal 30 Gig to an Internal DDS-3 drive? It feels WAY, WAY too much like a little bit more storage for a lot less reliability in the media.
My solution, which I bought _2_ years ago:
I have a DDS-2 autoloader which holds 4 DDS-2 tapes. That's 16 gigs uncompressed and 32 compressed. Right around where this thing is. The media costs something like $10/pop, so that's $40 for 4. The transfer rate is right around that thing. The difference? My drive is 3 years old! How can this thing possibly be viewed as a revolution when my old tape drive has nearly the same specs?
I thought Taco's review had the appropriate angle - it felt like (having seen the movie) he said all the right things to get me interested without spoiling the big 'OH NEATO!' part where you find out what the matrix is. That had to be half of the fun of the movie right there. Go a little easier on the spoilers next time, Katz.
Actually, most of the tail end of that on the various news sites was saying it had to have been a mechanical malfunction (perhaps they got a pot shot off on it) - I and most of the experts quoted on CNN and ABC News think their 30 year old SAM technology didn't have a chance of shooting them down.
Good for you! I wholeheartedly despise the "free email!" syndrome. It's a sure way to tell that some marketing idiot has gotten his hands on what the developers are doing with the site.
I'm glad someone prominent decided to speak up on this. I've always felt that the term GNU/Linux was pretty scummy, and its quite obvious from all the argument over it that it's certainly not very catchy. Credit where credit is due is one thing, but credits in the product's name is another.
Slashdot Mirror
It's good to see them come right out and say
./ tries to keep their apologies for
"oops we goofed!"
Maybe I'm not following closely enough, but it seems like
major inaccuracies like that to a minimum.
http://www.yellow5.com/pokey/archive/index35.html
Forget User Friendly, POKEY is the ultimate in
tech support
HOORAY FOR POKEY THE PENGUIN!!!!
"My hovercraft is full of eels" in foreign languages? Now I can find out! :)
Geeks are those kids who sorta know computer stuff generally, but won't ever get anywhere with it. They enjoy reading freshmeat solely to bring up the newest release of bind in their conversations with other geeks.
The nerd, on the other hand, is less prone to conversing about the various what-came-out-todays. The interest is more professional, more focused on a purpose than a vague interest in the field. These are the guys who WRITE the software the geeks bring up in their little geek conversations.
Doesn't cygnus produce a few high quality unix/windows development tools? I don't know the specifics but I am under the impression that they have always had a few non-open-source software offerings.
Presumably, if they get absorbed into Red Hat, they would follow the Red Hat open source policy and we would all get access to the (GPL?) code.
(One time I learned to spell. Then I forgot it for the previous version of this post. Sigh.)
;)
I've always felt very strongly that a human isn't necessariy a person. I've read that full-grown mature dogs operate at the same level of intelligence as a three month old baby. You could get off relatively unharmed for killing the dog, but killing a three month old baby would surely get you a long prison sentence.
People regard the _potential_ for intelligence perhaps a little too highly. I feel that while there can't be drawn a specific line in the sand, once someone shows that they are self-aware
they are a person. And no sooner. For example, if
a baby was born as a vegetable and was kept alive
in that state for 30 years, I wouldn't consider
that a person, just a human body.
With that in mind, I really don't feel that harming a non-sentient human is the same thing as
harming a mature person. It's more like harming an animal, grounds for a slap on the wrist at best. I also, for the same reasons, believe strongly in the right of a mother to decide to abort a child at any stage of pregnancy.
But that said, I'm very aware that my opinions don't translate well into the real world, and they aren't exactly popular, so I guess we're stuck with what we've already got
I've always felt very strongly that a human isn't necessariy a person. I've read that full-grown mature dogs operate at the same level of intelligence as a three month old baby. You could get off relatively unharmed for killing the dog, but killing a three month old baby would surely get you a long prison sentence.
;)
People regard the _potential_ for intelligence with perhaps a little too highly. I feel that while there can't be drawn a specific line in the sane, once someone shows that they are self-aware
they are a person. And no sooner. For example, if
a baby was born as a vegetable and was kept alive
in that state for 30 years, I wouldn't consider
that a person, just a human body.
With that in mind, I really don't feel that harming a non-sentient human is the same thing as
harming a mature person. I also, for the same
reasons, beleive strongly in the right of a mother
to decide to abort a child at any stage of
pregnancy.
But that said, I'm very aware that my opinions don't translate well into the real world, and they aren't exactly popular, so I guess we're stuck with what we've already got
I know people who have gotten their Virginia Tech
student ID changed to a random number. Just go to
the Visitor's Center or something to that effect.
There's a form, and all your teachers in the current semester wonder what the hell happened to
your student ID (very annoying to deal with), but
after that your SSN is safe.
The key to Virginia Tech and I'm sure any other college is to get someone with authority to tell you what to do. Don't think nobody has thought of this before. People have been bitching to them about SSN rights for a long time, and they've been
discreetly been providing resources for those
people for some time now. Don't expect them to go
around advertising it.
Caveat: I hear that if you get your Student ID
changed to something different than your SSN, they
won't be able to hire you for any lackey position
on campus like the Math Emporium.
Do you hear that? It's the sound of a million :)
slashdot readers across the world all going
"pfft" at the same time
Oh yeah? You think your CS classes are so bad? Try
placing out of the first semester and taking
second semester courses in the fall. The
permanent-6-month-offset means you're classes are
full of a few bright kids (all guys) and a whole
bunch of flunkees (all guys).
Who in their right mind is going to use this sketchy new media for their servers? Stick to something from the big boys who have a track record, not some random startup who has a new gadget.
On that note, has anyone bothered to compare the internal 30 Gig to an Internal DDS-3
drive? It feels WAY, WAY too much like a little
bit more storage for a lot less reliability in the
media.
My solution, which I bought _2_ years ago:
I have a DDS-2 autoloader which holds 4 DDS-2
tapes. That's 16 gigs uncompressed and 32 compressed. Right around where this thing is.
The media costs something like $10/pop, so that's
$40 for 4. The transfer rate is right around
that thing. The difference? My drive is 3 years
old! How can this thing possibly be viewed as
a revolution when my old tape drive has nearly
the same specs?
I thought Taco's review had the appropriate angle - it felt like (having seen the movie) he said all
the right things to get me interested without
spoiling the big 'OH NEATO!' part where you find
out what the matrix is. That had to be half of the
fun of the movie right there. Go a little easier
on the spoilers next time, Katz.
Actually, most of the tail end of that on the
various news sites was saying it had to have been
a mechanical malfunction (perhaps they got a pot
shot off on it) - I and most of the experts quoted
on CNN and ABC News think their 30 year old
SAM technology didn't have a chance of shooting
them down.
this thing is _ancient_, I'm surprised to see it
on slashdot suddenly.
YOUR LOSS IS POIGNANT TO MY BRAIN
It's not like I need my bandwidth or anything.. ;)
http://bmetz.campus.vt.edu/tfn_trailerc.mov
On behalf of all that have too much free time..:(
Good for you!
I wholeheartedly despise the "free email!" syndrome. It's a sure way to tell that some
marketing idiot has gotten his hands on what the developers are doing with the site.
I'm glad someone prominent decided to speak up on this. I've always felt that the term
GNU/Linux was pretty scummy, and its quite obvious
from all the argument over it that it's certainly
not very catchy. Credit where credit is due is
one thing, but credits in the product's name is
another.