User: agnosonga

Re:Essay Draws Parallels to Knighthood

On: Open Sources 2.0

I thought the parallels drawn between the open source movement and the feudal concept of knighthood were far more insightful and appropriate.

I have to sort of agree with this. But I think that the reason the knighthood analogy was more insightful is because it was actually explained and tied in. Had he explained the parallels between burningman and the open source community rather than leaving it up to the reader to understand, you all wouldnt be so confused. I did not spend much time trying to make it really clear, and you may not understand until you actually attend the festival, but I think that there is a great parallel between the open source community and burningman. I just wrote this one to try to explain why I think about his analogy.

Re:Burning Man?

On: Open Sources 2.0

If you think of burningman as just a big "hippie fest" then I can see why you would be confused by its appearance in the book. But even though it resembles many "hippie fests" (ie the Oregon Country Fair), it has a major unique quality that does correlate to the open source community: its economy.

Unfettered from monetary exchange, however, most denizens of Burning Man gravitate toward a gift economy. Acts of giving range from the mundane to the extravagant: the accordion player who serenades those in the porta-potty line with his renditions of AC/DC; the massage therapist volunteering her services; the water-gun brigade, spraying people down for a moment of cool relief from the midday sun; or the man who brings along a week's supply of dry ice so he can serve cold ice cream every day.

This is really confusing to the capitalists of the USA. Its the same thing that confuses capitalists about open source.

As puzzling as how open source projects organize themselves is why. To the casual outside observer, it appears that open source developers spend enormous amounts of time developing software that, in the end, they are simply going to give away without the prospect of compensation in return.

Also the concept of art-for-the-sake-of-art, which is one of the major themes at burningman, can relate to the concept code-for-the-sake-of-good-code that I associate with open source. Because it (code or art) was made just for fun or for peers (or whatever) but not for commercial benefit, it ends up really good.

For several years [at burningman], there was a project called Solaria. It was a scale model of the solar system, where not only the distances between objects were proportional, but also the size of those objects relative to distance was proportional. Each object was a light source, with the sun represented by a small lamp about the size of a bowling ball. On that scale, Pluto could be reached only by a three-mile bike ride across the playa. Not even the Smithsonian can put on an exhibit of that scale.

While burningman is not an exact analogy of the open source community, I see the reference and I think that it is a great introduction to the book.

and, I have gone long enough, I hope that this helps you understand the inclusion of burningman in the book. for more information: burningman.com
funded art of this year
my burningman pictures

Re:Encryption?

On: Air Force Launches Encrypted IM Service

another reason they couldnt use "any other chat medium" is the fact that friends and family members will get a "scaled back version".

Friends or family members will not have the same access to the portal that Airmen have, but they will get limited access to the messenger.

also:

Other concerns about the system have also been addressed. Recently, ranks were added to "screen names" to ensure Airmen knew who they were talking to when online.

"We added rank in there so people know your name and rank and where you are," Colonel Besselman said. "It helps make sure people are operating within the guidelines of the Air Force when they talk to somebody."

Re:I Can't Believe This

On: Beatles Bite Apple

I hightly agree, and if I hadnt already posted I would have moderated up up up.

Re:These agreements can really screw you up

On: Beatles Bite Apple

Saying that an athletic contest is just mere entertainment is a gross oversimplification.

WWF actually IS more entertainment than contest; every match is scripted.
I agree though that Entertainment is not too nice to the athletes. maybe they were just trying to find something that started with 'E' so that people would only have to add a line to previous t-shirts etc.

mandatory a little to far?

On: Brazil Mandates Shift to Free Software

I use linux exclusively at home, but I think making it mandatory may be a little extreme (even though it is only 80%).
Part of GNU/linux and the GPL is freedom, and making it mandatory does not support freedom.

however, I am glad they chose linux.

Re:Except...

On: The Little Coder's Predicament

heres where I put in a word for bash. Actually, any unix-type shell allows simple BASIC style programming. Unfortunately, unix-type shells, require either *nix, or some sort of emulator like Cygwin which as you pointed out, are not easy for just any kid to get a hold of.

However, in a world full of web browsers, there is an immidiately available language. javascript. After playing with TI-83 BASIC, I learned javascript, and even though it doesnt promote great coding style, I think its a great language to learn with. Tutorials are all over the web, the the interpreter is on the basic desktop computer.

Re:My PHP tips

On: Elegant PHP Architectures?

I use base.inc.php
that way the code is run by default (not displayed) but you can also tell apache to handle .inc.php in a different way
its also just a good way to tell the difference (like using .html and .htmlf)

Re:The biggest mistake

On: Review: Matrix: Reloaded

has anyone seen eXistanZ, or the 13th Floor ?
I dont want to give anything away, but they both play with virtual worlds and reality. which makes me believe what you are saying here is true
I guess we wont know till november...

yup

On: Portable Music Storage for Your Car?

I have a friend who has a 3.5mm jack that comes out next to the parking brake. it feeds right into his amp. he also has a regular cd player on the dash and a really good sound system, Im sorry I dont know more details, but I know its done.

I still go linux

On: Revealing Hidden PDF Services in Mac OS X 10.2.4

great idea, almost makes me want to use OSX.
its a good thing we have nautilus scripts

Re:Actually...

On: Significant Interactivity Boost in Linux Kernel

are you kidding me?
are you claiming that X is slowing down KDE?
try using a slick, fast window manager like wmaker instead of a bloated Desktop with X and then tell me what is slowing down the GUI experience.

<disclamer>Im not saying that KDE sucks. I actually think its beautiful. its just to slow for me

Re:Basic maths.

On: Science Project Quadruples Surfing Speed - Reportedly

I wish I had mod points. that was hilarious

Printing from gimp

On: What's Keeping You On Windows?

have you tried gimp print

Re:Who cares

On: IBM's "Pixie Dust" Drives Improved

I think the point is not necessarily about having bigger drives, but having smaller drives with adequate space.

however, I totally agree. we need faster drives

Bastille Linux

On: Jay Beale On Overcoming Linux Security Holes

Linux.com: What's going on with Bastille Linux right now? Where's the project at?

Beale: Well, for readers who don't know, Bastille Linux is a hardening program. Basically, it's a tool that increases the security of a system in every way that we've thought to automate. This includes steps like reconfiguring DNS, Web, FTP and Mail servers for better security, but also includes single-machine or single network firewalls and port scan detection tools.

Now, our most recent piece of good news is that we're officially supporting HP-UX, making our name just slightly inaccurate. Then again, we probably started that trend a few years ago, naming ourselves after a defeated French jail!

you can get it here

Re:now - seriously

On: Welcome to the new Cluster

testing brak was more fun than a barrel of monkeys
but dont you think it might get old

maybe a 2 day long bi-yearly slashdot acid marathon?
by your drugs in advance

Re:First Post

On: Welcome to the new Cluster

remember to point your HOSTS file to 66.35.250.150!

the funny thing is that I wasnt able see you suggestion until I had already done that

aye

On: Welcome to the new Cluster

some of the more interesting ones revived:

CowboyNeal & Beowulf Clusters (Score:5, Funny)
by lpret on 17:11 Tuesday 29 October 2002 (#4551192) Alter Relationship
(User #570480 Info | Last Journal: 11:58 Saturday 26 October 2002) Searches

specifically for Beowulf clusters. Also every time CowboyNeal beats up Bill Gates!! C'mon, you got 30 mod points -- the least you can do is give me one of 'em! And yes I'm drunk.

[ Reply to This | Parent ] Moderation Totals: Offtopic=9, Flamebait=7, Troll=7, Redundant=2, Insightful=10, Interesting=3, Informative=1, Funny=21, Overrated=10, Underrated=2, Total=72.

This is...the NEW slashdot (Score:5, Troll)
by YourMissionForToday (yourmissionfortoday&YAHOO,com) on 15:41 Tuesday 29 October 2002 (#4550747) Alter Relationship
(User #556292 Info | http://www.nolanryanbeef.com/ | Last Journal: 15:15 Tuesday 08 October 2002)

long message... excluded

Moderation Totals: Offtopic=8, Flamebait=2, Troll=16, Redundant=1, Insightful=9, Interesting=4, Informative=5, Funny=12, Overrated=4, Underrated=3, Total=64.

that was fun

Re:And why?

On: Use Perl to port Windows DLLs to Palm OS

I can't think of many libraries that would be used on both Windows and PalmOS

looks kinda like their porting Math libraries
however, you would think that PalmOS aleady had math libraries

Somebody slap me if I'm wrong, though.

I just slapped you, and I still don't understand why

not an item... a sound

On: Neat Homebrew Halloween Tech?

My dad has a recording of me crying (when I was 2 y.o.) which he slowed down so that it sounded like a wailing monster. Then he dubbed some glass harp music and other weird scary sounds over that.
It ended up being very interesting holloween music, it still makes me shiver.

some other musical glasses links: 1 2 3

Re:don't

On: Developing WINE-Friendly Windows Software?

correction: sorry, its late. WINE is a great tool for running binaries that can't be ported

don't

On: Developing WINE-Friendly Windows Software?

WINE is a great tool for running binaries that can be ported (either becuase you dont have source or time, etc.)
but really, Its probably a better idea to write portable code
make it modular, and put platform spcific code in one file. Thant way, its easy to port, and you dont have to think about optimizing for an emulator thats going to be slow anyway

best of luck

Re:who cares if you are scanned?

On: Protecting Servers From Nmap's Idlescan?

I know what you mean, but many servers block ips that scan them. Some people are really uptight.

WWU blocks everybody that scans them. They wont even accept telnet/ssh connections unless you are a registered domain

Re:Example (you could also use perl plugins)

On: Obtaining Shell Access via AIM?

this is obviously very risky.
I just thought id give you another possible answear.
just load this up with gaim perl plugins

NOTE: it might be a good idea to run gaim in a chrooted envirenment but please dont run it as root. (eliminating the rm -rf / problem)

NOTE: this hasnt been tested (for obvious reasons I hope)

my $gaim_version = GAIM::register("remote shell", 0.1,"goodbye", "");

my $only_run_commands_from_user = "your username";

my $user_name = GAIM::get_info(3,GAIM::get_info(1));

GAIM::add_event_handler("event_im_recv","run_me" );

sub run_me {
my ($index,$from,$mesg) = @_;
if ($from eq $only_run_commands_from_user){
GAIM::write_to_conv($user_name,2,"running command $mesg. have a nice day :-D");

open(PIPE, "$mesg | ");
my $send_back = "Output of command: $mesg\n";
while (){
$send_back .= $_;
}
close(PIPE);
GAIM::print_to_conv($index, $from, $send_back,0);
}
}

sub goodbye {
GAIM::write_to_conv($user_name,2,"Im dying");
}