Wow, who can forget the Tandy Color Computer III? That thing was nifty...or it was when I was ten years old and just learning programming. That thing had analog inputs, so you could even do video editing on it. MS Disk- BASIC v1.1 and the 512K of ram. That thing was fast too...of course having the OS/programming language in ROM and almost never having to do disk i/o helped. I won't deny I played a lot of games on that thing...but I wrote most of them:-)
I still remember the last issue of Rainbow mag. It had dwindled from a spacious glossy color magazine to a small newsprint production. What a sinking feeling I got...oh well. After that my CoCo went unused, and I spent all my time learning DOS, C++, and how to use a BBS. The world was bigger then.
My Opa still has programs on his Acer laptop that he copied from the CoCo. How? He spliced together a mutant serial cable and did a straight dump through the port using a terminal program! He had to do some fiddling on the CoCo copy program to keep it from dropping characters, but now the programs are all safely migrated to GW-BASIC (!!) He is amazing...he still writes database programs in GW-BASIC that take up three to five floppies, including data files! Somehow the 640k limitations of DOS are powerless to stop him.
The 80's were quite a decade. I can still remember that bright, flashing cursor against that ugly nuclear green background. Oh well, it's the nineties and the world has moved on...whoops I guess we're in the aughts or the naughties or the 00's or whatever.
Don't you remember CmdrTaco saying in the recnt interview that everytime someone asks about it, he's going to delay the slash release by 24 hrs? We're already up to a couple of weeks' delay judging by the comments in this article.
Agreed, it seems miserly to withhold the code in an ostensibly open source project just because you don't like whiners. And I note that, because of human nature, not only does release time += 24hrs * complaints but complaints[N] += complaints[N-1]*2^delay ! (feedback loop) I.e., complaints increase delay, but delay also increases complaints.
But you guys aren't helping any. Write your own if you're so very impatient, and release it...start your own project.
That's a pretty big "if"...I'll accept for the sake of argument the enormous assumption that, despite the law of entropy, somehow a bunch of proteins got thrown together to create a bunch of bacteria (no evidence), and that somehow, over a billion eons of random mutations, these evolved into other species (no evidence). To suppose however, that life was developed by the same process on Mars of all places, and was picked up by a passing meteor and dropped off here, and that it survived the trip and the landing, is not a reasonable idea by any standard.
Contrary to popular belief, they did not outlaw the teaching of evolution in Kansas. It's just not statewide mandatory material anymore, it's up to each school district.
I nominate "Anonymous Coward" This guy may be rude, but how in the world does he manage to post the sheer number of responses to every article on slashdot???
Nothing happened. Anonymous posts start at zero, whereas logged in users' posts start at +1. So the guy's post was not moderated down, it started down and is being moderated up.
I don't think what we've posted has significantly changed in the last few years... I think that what happens is that each person only remembers the stories that mattered most to them. The brain has a fuzzy compression algorithm... so the thing that you remembered as being the best on Slashdot was microarchitecture and lithography... but I get email from other people complaining that we should post less of that sort of stuff and more about Linux "Like it used to be" when Slashdot never was just about Linux... they apparently are just remembering the Linux stories with more clarity.
Uhhh...getting dizzy...wait... it's becoming clear now...yes, you're right...maybe slashdot hasn't changed...I see it all now...yes, I must have just forgotten all those pro-MS stories, that's all...and only remembered the Linux stories. I see it now..Slashdot never was just about Linux...thank you for clearing that up for us, Mr. Malda.
"In particular, we really needed to have a commercially packaged version of Perl for the Windows folks, because many of them were (and still are) clueless about open source. It's almost like we're doing Windows users a favor by charging them money for something they could get for free, because they get confused otherwise."
This is a common misperception among Windows users; that you get what you pay for. Having to shell out some cash makes us think we're actually getting a better deal somehow. Go take a $40 tie from the Daytons place and put it in a Target for buy it. Not a bulletproof metaphor, I know, but illustrative nonetheless.$4.59: somehow people will be far less likely to
Speaking of bulletproof metaphors, I like Larry's comments about the Cathedral and the Bazaar. The Linux kernel is far more like a Cathedral built in full public view by a small crowd of highly skilled volunteers than a bazaar full of dirty tents and shouting people. Perhaps the users in the Linux community at large act as though they are in a bazaar, but the metaphor just doesn't fit, and LW points this out well.
...I think Geeks take themselves way too seriously when they talk of building their own political platform. Geekdom is hardly broad enough to warrant its own ticket.
One thing I like about the linux developer community is that they don't inflate their version numbers, they just use smaller increments. Some of these programs have been around for years, yet have rev numbers like 0.56.9 rather than VERSION 37 PROFESSIONAL, or worse yet the year-number scheme. They often pack a lot of development into those 0.0.1-value changes.
That way when, *gasp*, version 3.0.0 comes out, it is much cooler because you had to wait for it and you know that big-ol' whole-integer version number really means something.
Cf nethack, linux kernel, gnome, kde, enlightenment, &soforth.
Eh? Why the doubt? As a fellow Christian, I find it almost amusing that you love a game like Quake but quibble about the satanic markings on the walls. Stop wasting your time! There is nothing profitable about 3d killer games, even less so for a Christian! If you must play games on your computer, play something that will expand your intellect while you waste your time, like chess. Seriously. You only have one life you know.
A Microsoft spokeswoman, however, disputes these perspectives, claiming that Microsoft's closed-source software is more secure than ever. "Windows 2000 is the most secure operating system Microsoft has ever shipped," she says. "Among other things, entire development teams were focused solely on searching out security issues within the beta code; Microsoft posted a public Internet beta test site for customers to test the security of the system, and new development processes were put in place to ensure that the system was built from the ground up with security as a key objective."
Yep. Everyone remembers that public test website.
There is no way an OS the size of W2K can not have security issues and still be hidden from peer review.
Also, "among other things, entire development teams were focused solely on searchng out security issues..." How can you be focused "solely" on security, "among other things" ?? "Watcha up to, alan?" "Well, I am focused solely on security, among other things."
Finally, I don't believe they built the system from the ground up, either.
The solution is not to stick with text based, exclusively (keep it available though), but to make a stable graphical installer.
While I have never used a graphical installer for linux (still have Mandrake 6.1) I have installed windows 95 & 98 a gazillion times on a multitude of systems, and never once has their installer had problems as far as graphics/video are concerned. Why not? If they can do it using the same stupid hardware before they've even picked out a specific video driver, it seems to me the Linux people could do it too.
As for making installation easier, that depends on the actual functionality of the installer, not whether it is graphical or text-based. And as long as the functionality and stability are there, graphics will almost always add to the installation experience that us geeks relish.
I am a Mandrake user and have been waiting for a good new version of their distro for a while... but despite my impatience I wish they would wait until after Xfree 4, KDE 2, the new linux kernel, mozilla, and other things are released. This would give them plenty of time to test things like the new partitioners and installer.
I welcome the new ease of setting things like security levels during the install...I don't mind using command line tools and text files for configuration, but those howto files would be wonderful documents if only they worked on my computer:-)
Hey! *THIS* is the guy who's been posting all those stupid natalie portman comments as an anonymous coward! The username, the hatred for moderators, the lowercase "thank you" at the bottom, it all fits. We have you now, fool.
I too was a frequent BBS user. I lived way out in the [conceptual] country, where 28k gravel roads were all that existed. Lots of creative ANSI scenery...only a few neighbors, but we knew each other; if more than one of us bumped into each other online we might actually start up a short chat session just for the sheer novelty of it.
Then I moved down south to the suburbs. (I come from Minnesota, and south == city here.) The sheer amount of people here is desensitizing. And those nice 256k DSL freeways! I haven't used my old '91 Ford modem in a long time. Out in the country people generally can get along with their own kind; you had some things in common. But out here, you really can't identify with anyone. The sheer amount of people desensitizes you. You may have a brief flash of personality every now and then, but in an hour you've forgotten them and they likewise have forgotten you existed.
Commercialism! wheew! Out in the country, you could get together and maybe play a game of LORD. Maybe page through the file sections or look at some familiar stats which fluctuated rythmically as the seasons. Down here, it's INFORMATION and SELLING! Electronic brochures! You want a research paper on the valuation of Brazilian currency together with peer review, legal implications and spiffy graphics? You got it! But try to find a small, local place to hang out. There are a lot of nice big skyscrapers here, but no small resturants like Judy's back home where the electricians would sit for coffee every morning at 8:00.
One final thing: no scenery. I suppose you could call the city skyline scenery, but nothing like the natural scenery of prime ANSI wilderness. I don't know about the other forty thousand people in this stadiun, but the white prompt on a simple black background is very familiar and comforting, even when you have a thousand people on the MUD all jabbering at once.
I'd almost forgotten all this stuff. But, progress, you know. Someday, when all forty thousand of us have gone our seperate ways, we'll see something that reminds us of good ol' SlashDot...
(Warning! Reading this post may make your head hurt!
Not that alone - there are many out there who actually agree with me!)
The question is not how violent are the various games kids play, but why in the world do they waste so much time on them? It would seem like they have nothing to do. Why in the world do parents waste money on games for their kids??
People who live for entertainment and fun end up with empty minds, empty souls and empty pockets.
Do yourself a favor. Spend your every moment doing something productive. You will discover what real achievement is. Your leisure time will be that much sweeter. When you stop wasting time in front of the console and give yourself a mission in RL, you discover what real fun is.
People who play games on their computers are wasting time + resources (storage & cpu cycles) = money. If you aren't interested enough in computers to be doing something useful with them, then get outside, read a book, or earn a buck raking someone's lawn. Make it your point in life to use every ounce of your energy to help people out, and if after five years you hate yourself for it, I'll send you $100.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, who can forget the Tandy Color Computer III? That thing was nifty...or it was when I was ten years old and just learning programming. That thing had analog inputs, so you could even do video editing on it. MS Disk- BASIC v1.1 and the 512K of ram. That thing was fast too...of course having the OS/programming language in ROM and almost never having to do disk i/o helped. I won't deny I played a lot of games on that thing...but I wrote most of them :-)
I still remember the last issue of Rainbow mag. It had dwindled from a spacious glossy color magazine to a small newsprint production. What a sinking feeling I got...oh well. After that my CoCo went unused, and I spent all my time learning DOS, C++, and how to use a BBS. The world was bigger then.
My Opa still has programs on his Acer laptop that he copied from the CoCo. How? He spliced together a mutant serial cable and did a straight dump through the port using a terminal program! He had to do some fiddling on the CoCo copy program to keep it from dropping characters, but now the programs are all safely migrated to GW-BASIC (!!) He is amazing...he still writes database programs in GW-BASIC that take up three to five floppies, including data files! Somehow the 640k limitations of DOS are powerless to stop him.
The 80's were quite a decade. I can still remember that bright, flashing cursor against that ugly nuclear green background. Oh well, it's the nineties and the world has moved on...whoops I guess we're in the aughts or the naughties or the 00's or whatever.
JD
Maybe more besides.
Don't you remember CmdrTaco saying in the recnt interview that everytime someone asks about it, he's going to delay the slash release by 24 hrs? We're already up to a couple of weeks' delay judging by the comments in this article.
Agreed, it seems miserly to withhold the code in an ostensibly open source project just because you don't like whiners. And I note that, because of human nature, not only does release time += 24hrs * complaints but complaints[N] += complaints[N-1]*2^delay ! (feedback loop) I.e., complaints increase delay, but delay also increases complaints.
But you guys aren't helping any. Write your own if you're so very impatient, and release it...start your own project.
...this still doesn't change the fact that we hate you :-)
JD
That's a pretty big "if"...I'll accept for the sake of argument the enormous assumption that, despite the law of entropy, somehow a bunch of proteins got thrown together to create a bunch of bacteria (no evidence), and that somehow, over a billion eons of random mutations, these evolved into other species (no evidence). To suppose however, that life was developed by the same process on Mars of all places, and was picked up by a passing meteor and dropped off here, and that it survived the trip and the landing, is not a reasonable idea by any standard.
Contrary to popular belief, they did not outlaw the teaching of evolution in Kansas. It's just not statewide mandatory material anymore, it's up to each school district.
JD
If you read closely, you'll notice he said "behind every good man...".
I nominate "Anonymous Coward" This guy may be rude, but how in the world does he manage to post the sheer number of responses to every article on slashdot???
:-)
Nothing happened. Anonymous posts start at zero, whereas logged in users' posts start at +1. So the guy's post was not moderated down, it started down and is being moderated up.
I don't think what we've posted has significantly changed in the last few years... I think that what happens is that each person only remembers the stories that mattered most to them. The brain has a fuzzy compression algorithm... so the thing that you remembered as being the best on Slashdot was microarchitecture and lithography... but I get email from other people complaining that we should post less of that sort of stuff and more about Linux "Like it used to be" when Slashdot never was just about Linux... they apparently are just remembering the Linux stories with more clarity.
Uhhh...getting dizzy...wait... it's becoming clear now...yes, you're right...maybe slashdot hasn't changed...I see it all now...yes, I must have just forgotten all those pro-MS stories, that's all...and only remembered the Linux stories. I see it now..Slashdot never was just about Linux...thank you for clearing that up for us, Mr. Malda.
"In particular, we really needed to have a commercially packaged version of Perl for the Windows folks, because many of them were (and still are) clueless about open source. It's almost like we're doing Windows users a favor by charging them money for something they could get for free, because they get confused otherwise."
This is a common misperception among Windows users; that you get what you pay for. Having to shell out some cash makes us think we're actually getting a better deal somehow. Go take a $40 tie from the Daytons place and put it in a Target for buy it. Not a bulletproof metaphor, I know, but illustrative nonetheless.$4.59: somehow people will be far less likely to
Speaking of bulletproof metaphors, I like Larry's comments about the Cathedral and the Bazaar. The Linux kernel is far more like a Cathedral built in full public view by a small crowd of highly skilled volunteers than a bazaar full of dirty tents and shouting people. Perhaps the users in the Linux community at large act as though they are in a bazaar, but the metaphor just doesn't fit, and LW points this out well.
...I think Geeks take themselves way too seriously when they talk of building their own political platform. Geekdom is hardly broad enough to warrant its own ticket.
One thing I like about the linux developer community is that they don't inflate their version numbers, they just use smaller increments. Some of these programs have been around for years, yet have rev numbers like 0.56.9 rather than VERSION 37 PROFESSIONAL, or worse yet the year-number scheme. They often pack a lot of development into those 0.0.1-value changes.
That way when, *gasp*, version 3.0.0 comes out, it is much cooler because you had to wait for it and you know that big-ol' whole-integer version number really means something.
Cf nethack, linux kernel, gnome, kde, enlightenment, &soforth.
Call me a geek...
JD
Eh? Why the doubt? As a fellow Christian, I find it almost amusing that you love a game like Quake but quibble about the satanic markings on the walls. Stop wasting your time! There is nothing profitable about 3d killer games, even less so for a Christian! If you must play games on your computer, play something that will expand your intellect while you waste your time, like chess. Seriously. You only have one life you know.
Merry CHRISTmas!
A Microsoft spokeswoman, however, disputes these perspectives, claiming that Microsoft's closed-source software is more secure than ever. "Windows 2000 is the most secure operating system Microsoft has ever shipped," she says. "Among other things, entire development teams were focused solely on searching out security issues within the beta code; Microsoft posted a public Internet beta test site for customers to test the security of the system, and new development processes were put in place to ensure that the system was built from the ground up with security as a key objective."
Yep. Everyone remembers that public test website.
There is no way an OS the size of W2K can not have security issues and still be hidden from peer review.
Also, "among other things, entire development teams were focused solely on searchng out security issues..." How can you be focused "solely" on security, "among other things" ?? "Watcha up to, alan?" "Well, I am focused solely on security, among other things."
Finally, I don't believe they built the system from the ground up, either.
...that that was in Canadian dollars, which equals approximately $237 american, and 52 pounds sterling.
Har!
JD
Why America Should Conquer Canada
The solution is not to stick with text based, exclusively (keep it available though), but to make a stable graphical installer.
While I have never used a graphical installer for linux (still have Mandrake 6.1) I have installed windows 95 & 98 a gazillion times on a multitude of systems, and never once has their installer had problems as far as graphics/video are concerned. Why not? If they can do it using the same stupid hardware before they've even picked out a specific video driver, it seems to me the Linux people could do it too.
As for making installation easier, that depends on the actual functionality of the installer, not whether it is graphical or text-based. And as long as the functionality and stability are there, graphics will almost always add to the installation experience that us geeks relish.
JD
I am a Mandrake user and have been waiting for a good new version of their distro for a while... but despite my impatience I wish they would wait until after Xfree 4, KDE 2, the new linux kernel, mozilla, and other things are released. This would give them plenty of time to test things like the new partitioners and installer.
:-)
I welcome the new ease of setting things like security levels during the install...I don't mind using command line tools and text files for configuration, but those howto files would be wonderful documents if only they worked on my computer
That version of Opera is for win32/BeOS, not Linux.
Also, don't forget XFree 4.0, GNOME 2.0 and KDE 2.0! Something to look forward to after the holidays.
-JD
After reading comments so far, and digesting their web site, I still have one question.
WHAT DOES IT DO?? Can someone explain???
The web page was filled with meaningless marketspeak.
JD
[OFFTOPIC]
Hey! *THIS* is the guy who's been posting all those stupid natalie portman comments as an anonymous coward! The username, the hatred for moderators, the lowercase "thank you" at the bottom, it all fits. We have you now, fool.
JD
Moderators know to smile a little, just as they do when moderating one of those goofy polls...
JD
I liked that trick best...
--Birds take off at sunrise. On the opposite side of the world, they are landing
at sunset. This causes the earth to spin on its axis.
I too was a frequent BBS user. I lived way out in the [conceptual] country, where 28k gravel roads were all that existed. Lots of creative ANSI scenery...only a few neighbors, but we knew each other; if more than one of us bumped into each other online we might actually start up a short chat session just for the sheer novelty of it.
Then I moved down south to the suburbs. (I come from Minnesota, and south == city here.) The sheer amount of people here is desensitizing. And those nice 256k DSL freeways! I haven't used my old '91 Ford modem in a long time. Out in the country people generally can get along with their own kind; you had some things in common. But out here, you really can't identify with anyone. The sheer amount of people desensitizes you. You may have a brief flash of personality every now and then, but in an hour you've forgotten them and they likewise have forgotten you existed.
Commercialism! wheew! Out in the country, you could get together and maybe play a game of LORD. Maybe page through the file sections or look at some familiar stats which fluctuated rythmically as the seasons. Down here, it's INFORMATION and SELLING! Electronic brochures! You want a research paper on the valuation of Brazilian currency together with peer review, legal implications and spiffy graphics? You got it! But try to find a small, local place to hang out. There are a lot of nice big skyscrapers here, but no small resturants like Judy's back home where the electricians would sit for coffee every morning at 8:00.
One final thing: no scenery. I suppose you could call the city skyline scenery, but nothing like the natural scenery of prime ANSI wilderness. I don't know about the other forty thousand people in this stadiun, but the white prompt on a simple black background is very familiar and comforting, even when you have a thousand people on the MUD all jabbering at once.
I'd almost forgotten all this stuff. But, progress, you know. Someday, when all forty thousand of us have gone our seperate ways, we'll see something that reminds us of good ol' SlashDot...
JD
Not that alone - there are many out there who actually agree with me!)
The question is not how violent are the various games kids play, but why in the world do they waste so much time on them? It would seem like they have nothing to do. Why in the world do parents waste money on games for their kids??
People who live for entertainment and fun end up with empty minds, empty souls and empty pockets.
Do yourself a favor. Spend your every moment doing something productive. You will discover what real achievement is. Your leisure time will be that much sweeter. When you stop wasting time in front of the console and give yourself a mission in RL, you discover what real fun is.
People who play games on their computers are wasting time + resources (storage & cpu cycles) = money. If you aren't interested enough in computers to be doing something useful with them, then get outside, read a book, or earn a buck raking someone's lawn. Make it your point in life to use every ounce of your energy to help people out, and if after five years you hate yourself for it, I'll send you $100.
yuck.