"Stallman doesn't rant off about guns (creepy) nor say any homophobic remarks publicly"...
Just to make it clear. You're not attributing those remarks to ESR are you?
I certainly am, and I thought that was the implication. It is a perfectly fine stance to be pro-Gun, but I think ESR gets fanatical about it. He comes off dogmatic, again what I was saying about his neglect for "first principles." He seems to argue through authority or emotion. But he's not an accademic type... just some Unix hacker, so why should we expect any more? He certainly cannot express himself as well as Dr. Knuth.
The homophobia comment, I think, is a stereotype pertaining to "right wing nuts".
No, it comes from his web-page. Search for the string "cooler-than-thou art fags" in
one of Eric's pages on HTML coding. If you end up saying "fag" on just a page about HTML that's gotta be some sign he really doesn't care about how he comes off sounding or about others feelings. Your point about him being a "libertarian" is well taken... from his behavior from the VA Linux deal I'd think he's primarily a capitalist.
I would have to say this is all suppositon. I would, however, ask for further evidence regarding these statements if you were attributing these comments to ESR
Well, my comment was that he would rant about guns in a creepy way. Look at the introduction to his "ethics" page:
There is nothing like having your finger on the trigger of a gun to reveal who you really are. Life or death in one twitch -- ultimate decision, with the ultimate price for carelessness or bad choices.
If that, or any one of his other pages, isn't creepy to you, then so be it.
I've never been impressed with ESR's work. Instead of working from first principles he'll say something like "I don't believe that because I'm a libertarian." Reading words from that point of view don't make very convincing arguments. Stallman is far more approachable because he tells you where he's coming from and why. Stallman doesn't rant off about guns (creepy) nor say any homophobic remarks publicly. It is for these reasons I can't say I'm too thrilled to have ESR speaking "for geeks."
"Free software" might have been a poorly chosen (or at least confusing) term, but for ESR to say that it "held the movement back" is nothing more than shameless self-promotion. After he made $38 million overnight he then went on/. essentially saying "Oh boy, remember when we thought getting money would be a problem!" Yet he claims to be an anarchist? An anarchist giddy about the stock market?
I sincerely hope ERS's celebrity is just a fad, he seems to have lost what the whole "movement" was about before it was a movement: hacking. It's not about people trying to defeat major corporations, it's about programmers having fun hobby projects and sharing with each other.
What about animals being contaminated? Have studies been done to see the affects on them? This is very important because many people eat high-up on the food chain thus ingesting all of the pollutants the animal absorbed.
I've only heard about biomagnification in relation to pesticides and animals. It's somewhat counterintuitive: there are pesticides on vegetables; if you eat more vegetables you'll get less pesticides in your diet. If animals are picking up these pollutants it could be hazardous to you even if you don't live in a highly-polluted area. This shows how one person's decision hundreds of miles from you can affect you greatly.
This is an artificial polymer with a low dielectric constant. Not the silk used for cloth.
Thank goodness, a non-vegan processor would set a very bad precedent. Imagine if leather was standard for mouse pads, yuck! (Silk isn't vegan because it's worms boiled alive.)
In your book _The Design and Evolution of C++_ you ocassionaly talk about what would happen if you designed a language that wasn't backwards compatible with C. You mentioned how it would be an expression-oriented language like Algol68, and how it might have things like multi-methods.
You also went on to say it'd be nice clean language that no one would use (perhaps it would have met a fate similar to Dylan's). Just for fun, what else would your dream language have? Would it have the same semantics of C++, just with notational ease?
The only thing that I'm concerned about is the amount of 'chrome effects' (not the chrome look, just anything above and beyond functionality). As long as one can turn them off or design their own, I'd be happy with that interface.
For a long time, I've been concerned about the MacOS looking more and more like Windows. When Windows 95 came out, Apple was pretty much out of date with everything in the OS. With the minor modifications they call OS 8, it only made the MacOS that much grayer and duller.
Sure, you get the nice 3D effect, but you get an interface that looks more like a machine than the original organic look the MacOS had (way back to when we didn't even call it the MacOS).
Well, it looks like Apple has picked itself up by the bootstraps and reinovated everything yet again. Now you have transparent menus, and instead of modal dialogs (such as Save As or Print) you get a transparent panel that hovers over the document. This is a great step in user interface design, because you can switch between document to document modelessly.
Also, the new Finder looks great. Instead of Gnome or KDE themes, how about a team makes one of those! (It's a little like the windows explorer/web page idea, but far more natural.)
I was a Macintosh developer in the past, but since then I've just gotten too fond of Unix: looks like I'll be a Macintosh developer again. As soon as I get funded, I'm gonna sign up! (I prefer the title "developer" to the harsh term "hacker"--sorry, I didn't grow up in the subculture that liked the idea of "hacking.")
It's a shame that Apple had to discountinue OpenDoc, it would have fit in nicely with everything else. Perhaps Apple was right to kill OpenDoc, because OpenDoc was too far ahead of its time (it desperately needed modern tools, like direct-to-SOM C++ compilers, which just weren't on hand, making developers use.idl files--not enough bang for your buck). I hope now we can see some document centric systems (JavaBeans is really the closest we have, which isn't good at all!).
Unix is great for combining multiple programs to get new use, that's exactly what OpenDoc was trying to do, but in the "Gui way." Perhaps now that the MacOS is Unix, something better will come out of it. The goal: the code for the spell checker and text editor should be written only once! Instead of word-processors and layout programs, we should just work with the documents and embed whatever we want in them. Instead of huge office programs we should just have a whole bunch of little programs to fit together (and many of the pieces would already fit together for us, so the functionality of an office program can be achieved automatically). Unix combines programs in ways that only programmers/scriptors could love, OpenDoc combined them in a way for Power Users... if these communities continue to merge, Apple will be in a very nice position!
One of the major points always missed in these interviews: Java needs parameterized types!
To make a good container class in a statically typed language, you just need them. It's as simple as that. The question I would have asked, then, is why don't we have it? The answer is more complicated than how it would initially seem. The main reason I can see Java lacking parameterized types right now is because there is no support for operator overloading in the language.
Suppose I wanted to make a valarray class and wanted a method that would sum up every element. It could be useful to do this with int, double, and BigInteger. The problem is, to add primitives you have to use +, and to add BigIntegers, you have to use add(). We'd still have to write two versions of the valarray class, one for primitives and one for objects.
Why doesn't Java include operator overloading, then? Well, it already does: Sun hacked the language so String could work with + and +=. Geeze, since that was so useful, why not generalize it? "Because it's dangerous." What arrogance on Sun's part, and what shallow thinking it is when it comes to language design. Ironically, if Java had operator overloading, it wouldn't have any of the problems found with C++'s implementation of it.
Luckily, a paper by Gossling was talking about better supporting numerical programming in Java, and he mentioned operator-overloading is being considered. If only as much thought was put into the language and AWT as it was to the virtual machine.
Every time I read a story on this movie that I once had a desire to see, it was produced at a lower and lower cost. First it was produced for around $100,000, then $60,000, now it all got done for $30,000.
That is true, I think the inflated costs are due to distribution or printing costs. It probably cost $30,000 to make the raw movie, and another $30,000 to distribute it and get it ready for showing at Sundance, et cetera... People choose whatever makes the story more interesting, or proves their point better. As for the higher figures, I guess that would include the cost of the site and advertising? They sold the whole thing for a million right off the bat anyway, so in another sense this movie cost a million to get anywhere.
If you ask me, the movie was a good idea that took no creative energy to execute. I never thought they were being clever. Do we have to see someone zooming in and out of a bag full of marshmallows?
Three weeks ago, all I needed was to ask someone about the the movie and they'd say "Oh yeah, I want to see that!" and then I'd ask why and they would just sort of blink and look at me.
Too bad the date was the 4th of July instead of the 1st of April. Then it would be obvious how fake it is. The only thing that makes me hesitate about it being parody is the fact that it isn't that funny.
(Canadian jokes are inherently funny too, so it's hard to make something involving that not be funny.)
Anyway, to play a so called perfect game, you'd have to eat every bonus cherry and t-bird and you'd have to eat every ghost each time you had the power-pill. Sounds pretty hard to do. To get the highest score possible, you wouldn't have to play perfectly, though. There is a difference.
The part where it said all the old machines were looked at was BS. Most of the bodies got replaced with other games (hence many games, like Vs. Super Mario Bros had the Pac-Man maze etched in the screen). The high scores would certainly not be preserved in either case, all it takes is one brown-out, or a reorganization.
Slashdot Mirror
I certainly am, and I thought that was the implication. It is a perfectly fine stance to be pro-Gun, but I think ESR gets fanatical about it. He comes off dogmatic, again what I was saying about his neglect for "first principles." He seems to argue through authority or emotion. But he's not an accademic type... just some Unix hacker, so why should we expect any more? He certainly cannot express himself as well as Dr. Knuth.
No, it comes from his web-page. Search for the string "cooler-than-thou art fags" in one of Eric's pages on HTML coding. If you end up saying "fag" on just a page about HTML that's gotta be some sign he really doesn't care about how he comes off sounding or about others feelings. Your point about him being a "libertarian" is well taken... from his behavior from the VA Linux deal I'd think he's primarily a capitalist.
Well, my comment was that he would rant about guns in a creepy way. Look at the introduction to his "ethics" page:
If that, or any one of his other pages, isn't creepy to you, then so be it.
I've never been impressed with ESR's work. Instead of working from first principles he'll say something like "I don't believe that because I'm a libertarian." Reading words from that point of view don't make very convincing arguments. Stallman is far more approachable because he tells you where he's coming from and why. Stallman doesn't rant off about guns (creepy) nor say any homophobic remarks publicly. It is for these reasons I can't say I'm too thrilled to have ESR speaking "for geeks." "Free software" might have been a poorly chosen (or at least confusing) term, but for ESR to say that it "held the movement back" is nothing more than shameless self-promotion. After he made $38 million overnight he then went on /. essentially saying "Oh boy, remember when we thought getting money would be a problem!" Yet he claims to be an anarchist? An anarchist giddy about the stock market?
I sincerely hope ERS's celebrity is just a fad, he seems to have lost what the whole "movement" was about before it was a movement: hacking. It's not about people trying to defeat major corporations, it's about programmers having fun hobby projects and sharing with each other.
What about animals being contaminated? Have studies been done to see the affects on them? This is very important because many people eat high-up on the food chain thus ingesting all of the pollutants the animal absorbed.
I've only heard about biomagnification in relation to pesticides and animals. It's somewhat counterintuitive: there are pesticides on vegetables; if you eat more vegetables you'll get less pesticides in your diet. If animals are picking up these pollutants it could be hazardous to you even if you don't live in a highly-polluted area. This shows how one person's decision hundreds of miles from you can affect you greatly.
Thank goodness, a non-vegan processor would set a very bad precedent. Imagine if leather was standard for mouse pads, yuck! (Silk isn't vegan because it's worms boiled alive.)
For more on veganism, see http://vegsource.com/.
In your book _The Design and Evolution of C++_ you ocassionaly talk about what would happen if you designed a language that wasn't backwards compatible with C. You mentioned how it would be an expression-oriented language like Algol68, and how it might have things like multi-methods.
You also went on to say it'd be nice clean language that no one would use (perhaps it would have met a fate similar to Dylan's). Just for fun, what else would your dream language have? Would it have the same semantics of C++, just with notational ease?
For a long time, I've been concerned about the MacOS looking more and more like Windows. When Windows 95 came out, Apple was pretty much out of date with everything in the OS. With the minor modifications they call OS 8, it only made the MacOS that much grayer and duller.
Sure, you get the nice 3D effect, but you get an interface that looks more like a machine than the original organic look the MacOS had (way back to when we didn't even call it the MacOS).
Well, it looks like Apple has picked itself up by the bootstraps and reinovated everything yet again. Now you have transparent menus, and instead of modal dialogs (such as Save As or Print) you get a transparent panel that hovers over the document. This is a great step in user interface design, because you can switch between document to document modelessly.
Also, the new Finder looks great. Instead of Gnome or KDE themes, how about a team makes one of those! (It's a little like the windows explorer/web page idea, but far more natural.)
I was a Macintosh developer in the past, but since then I've just gotten too fond of Unix: looks like I'll be a Macintosh developer again. As soon as I get funded, I'm gonna sign up! (I prefer the title "developer" to the harsh term "hacker"--sorry, I didn't grow up in the subculture that liked the idea of "hacking.")
It's a shame that Apple had to discountinue OpenDoc, it would have fit in nicely with everything else. Perhaps Apple was right to kill OpenDoc, because OpenDoc was too far ahead of its time (it desperately needed modern tools, like direct-to-SOM C++ compilers, which just weren't on hand, making developers use
Unix is great for combining multiple programs to get new use, that's exactly what OpenDoc was trying to do, but in the "Gui way." Perhaps now that the MacOS is Unix, something better will come out of it. The goal: the code for the spell checker and text editor should be written only once! Instead of word-processors and layout programs, we should just work with the documents and embed whatever we want in them. Instead of huge office programs we should just have a whole bunch of little programs to fit together (and many of the pieces would already fit together for us, so the functionality of an office program can be achieved automatically). Unix combines programs in ways that only programmers/scriptors could love, OpenDoc combined them in a way for Power Users... if these communities continue to merge, Apple will be in a very nice position!
Thanks,
Macneil
One of the major points always missed in these interviews: Java needs parameterized types!
To make a good container class in a statically typed language, you just need them. It's as simple as that. The question I would have asked, then, is why don't we have it? The answer is more complicated than how it would initially seem. The main reason I can see Java lacking parameterized types right now is because there is no support for operator overloading in the language.
Suppose I wanted to make a valarray class and wanted a method that would sum up every element. It could be useful to do this with int, double, and BigInteger. The problem is, to add primitives you have to use +, and to add BigIntegers, you have to use add(). We'd still have to write two versions of the valarray class, one for primitives and one for objects.
Why doesn't Java include operator overloading, then? Well, it already does: Sun hacked the language so String could work with + and +=. Geeze, since that was so useful, why not generalize it? "Because it's dangerous." What arrogance on Sun's part, and what shallow thinking it is when it comes to language design. Ironically, if Java had operator overloading, it wouldn't have any of the problems found with C++'s implementation of it.
Luckily, a paper by Gossling was talking about better supporting numerical programming in Java, and he mentioned operator-overloading is being considered. If only as much thought was put into the language and AWT as it was to the virtual machine.
-Mac
That is true, I think the inflated costs are due to distribution or printing costs. It probably cost $30,000 to make the raw movie, and another $30,000 to distribute it and get it ready for showing at Sundance, et cetera... People choose whatever makes the story more interesting, or proves their point better. As for the higher figures, I guess that would include the cost of the site and advertising? They sold the whole thing for a million right off the bat anyway, so in another sense this movie cost a million to get anywhere.
If you ask me, the movie was a good idea that took no creative energy to execute. I never thought they were being clever. Do we have to see someone zooming in and out of a bag full of marshmallows?
Three weeks ago, all I needed was to ask someone about the the movie and they'd say "Oh yeah, I want to see that!" and then I'd ask why and they would just sort of blink and look at me.
Too bad the date was the 4th of July instead of the 1st of April. Then it would be obvious how fake it is. The only thing that makes me hesitate about it being parody is the fact that it isn't that funny.
(Canadian jokes are inherently funny too, so it's hard to make something involving that not be funny.)
Anyway, to play a so called perfect game, you'd have to eat every bonus cherry and t-bird and you'd have to eat every ghost each time you had the power-pill. Sounds pretty hard to do. To get the highest score possible, you wouldn't have to play perfectly, though. There is a difference.
The part where it said all the old machines were looked at was BS. Most of the bodies got replaced with other games (hence many games, like Vs. Super Mario Bros had the Pac-Man maze etched in the screen). The high scores would certainly not be preserved in either case, all it takes is one brown-out, or a reorganization.
Waste of news links, if you ask me.
-Macneil