Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Geeks apprehended in Child Poronography Bust", "Geek publicy shamed after holding girl's hand." "Damn, shower-ridden geeks. They're all alike." But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950s technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the geek? Did you ever wonder what made him suck cock, what forces shaped his penis so small, what may have molded him? I am a geek, enter my world. Mine is a world that begins with slashdot. I'm smarter than most of the other moderators, this crap they post bores me. "Damn goatse troll. They're all alike." I'm in by dark, cool basement. I've listened to those people with lives upstairs explain for the fifteenth time how to get some fine pussy. I understand it (not!). "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't take my acne medicine. CowboyNeal ate it." "Damn CowboyNeal. He probably did eat it. They're always gettin eaten by that tub-o-lard." I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me, or feels threatened by me, or thinks I'm a smart ass, or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here. Damn geek. All he does is play games. They're all alike. And then it happened... goatse opened to the world...rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from day-to-day incompetencies is sought...slashdot is found. "This is it...this is where I belong..." I know everyone here...even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again...I know you all...Damn geeks. Stinking up the basement again. They're all alike...You bet your ass we're all alike...we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak (not!)...the bits of meat that you did let slip through were later on stolen by CowboyNeal (true!). We've been dominated by sadists, or eaten by CowboyNeal. The few trolls that have something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert. This is our world now...the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty and the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons (ie, CowboyNeal), and you call us criminals. We explore...and you call us losers. We seek after knowledge...and you call us criminals. We exist without girlfriends, without nationality, without religious bias...and you call us criminals. You have girlfriends, you have suntans, you socialize, fuck, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the losers with friends like CowboyNeal. Yes, I am a geek. My crime is that of a loser. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a geek, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all...after all, we've all got horse cocks (not! perhaps a few).
After posting with my 11'' powerbook...
on
30 Years of Ethernet
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
What's that flying thing in the sky?" I said to myself as I watched a huge howling blob shoot through the sky at what looked like a comfortable cruising alttitude of 10,000 feet. It soon was all over CNN that CowboyNeal had given up his struggle with weight watchers and jumped off the side of a deep dark abyss. However in mid-fall he decided that he would try again. He aimed his belly at the ground and when he touched earth he bounced upward at a very high velocity. Later on I decided to take a peek at the crazy tub-o-lard himself. So I infiltrated Slashdot headquarters and he gave me a strange stare when I peaked my head into his office. Boy, he has one crazy lummox!
Hello. I wish to offer the first ever Slashdot Troll For Hire service. This service is totally free and should provide hours of entertainment for many/. readers. As you can see, I have a +1 bonus with Excellent karma. Truly good trolls are rare, and although I possess considerable skill myself, I am by far no master at trolling. So, I am offering my +1 bonus to the rest of the/. troll community in an effort to increase my exposure to high quality trolls.
If you would like me to post your troll you must only do the following:
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I will post high quality trolls as soon as possible. If and when my karma dips below excellent, I will have to take a recovery period where I will rejuivinate it by posting intelligently. Once excellent karma is reestablished, I will resume posting trolls from the queue.
Thank you for your contributions! I am looking forward to what your creative minds will offer.
Hello. I wish to offer the first ever Slashdot Troll For Hire service. This service is totally free and should provide hours of entertainment for many/. readers. As you can see, I have a +1 bonus with Excellent karma. Truly good trolls are rare, and although I possess considerable skill myself, I am by far no master at trolling. So, I am offering my +1 bonus to the rest of the/. troll community in an effort to increase my exposure to high quality trolls.
If you would like me to post your troll you must only do the following:
- Post your troll in response to this journal entry (I will add more entries as comments become disabled). - Mark your reply as a troll with "(TROLL)" in the subject line, so I do not confuse samples with conversation. - If you troll requires special instructions for getting ASCII art, page widening, etc. please include them in a response.
I will post high quality trolls as soon as possible. If and when my karma dips below excellent, I will have to take a recovery period where I will rejuivinate it by posting intelligently. Once excellent karma is reestablished, I will resume posting trolls from the queue.
Thank you for your contributions! I am looking forward to what your creative minds will offer.
(And before you point your fingers at me, think twice, because I don't use Linux anymore.)
Let me guess, Mr. Proud American... you don't want to be associated with anything that isn't 100%-get-your-rocks-off capitalism.
Secondly, you Slashdotters are all to often part of the crowd who cries and complains but doesn't do anything about the problem itself. So, a particular driver isn't written? Write it. Oh, what's that, a certain program you got off the Mandrake CD doesn't work with the Microsoft app your parents use? Download the code and make it work.
Uh, wait a minute. Most of us are complaining because many companies either fight such effrots or make it illegal to write a driver or interoperating code, thanks to bills such as the DMCA. Reverse engineering hardware to write a driver is also extremely difficult if not impossible in many cases. It often requires the manufacturers to release specifications. In terms of interoperability, we've got all kinds of twisted mechanisms for preventing that (ever hear of CSS?). So, the open source types are trying to fix this crap... we just have to fight the companies tooth and nail.
Laziness is the problem hear -- stop blaming American corporations.
American corporate monopolies with their lobbyists constantly pushing for laws in their favor are the problem here.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
My apologies, I see from one of your other replies that you did understand Yui's role in EoE.
Thank you for noticing and your apologies.:-) I tend to be very pessimistic in my interpretation of open-ended subjects. EoE seemed very negative to me.:-)
The uniting of humanity is not Gendo's aim, but rather his dead wife's (Shinji's mother). Gendo's aim is to be reunited with her; everything else is secondary for him. The reason for her attempt was to ensure that humanity survived effectively forever (at least until the heat-death of the universe).
That's true. It's been a while since I've watched the series, but it can still be said that Gendou wants humanity united, even if only for purposes other than the good of all. Funny how in End of Evangelion, Yui's goal of humanity existing forever was accomplished when Eva01 was sent out of the solar system. A human soul can live forever enthroned in the Eva.
The Third Impact was not really "positive" in the series; some people think that the series ending was just Shinji tripping out. Anno dropped several hints as to what actually happened (in the series, there's a couple of very short cuts showing a certain death scene (don't want to spoil it for others).
Could you give a spoiler for this? I didn't catch that. I've seen 25 & 26 many times and as far as I'd gathered, Gendou's plan went about as intended. Certainly Shinji was tripping out (as any human mind would after experiencing that), but I basically saw it was a relearning/reeducation in a "perfect" world.
A more cynical view is that Anno's lack of funding at the end simply lead him to give a giant 'fuck-you' to the production company by producing the most unsuitable closure possible.
You mean with the "cheap pencil" drawings? I saw this process as being similar to Descartes. Throwing away everything and starting from scratch, building in the details as you go along. First Shinji starts with nothing and pieces are filled in as he searches for meaning.
Akira was great until the weird-ass things started happening... like giant blobs of flesh and stuff.
You don't get it. That was to draw the "amoeba" parallel. "Imagine if an amoeba had the power of a human being. Now imagine if a human being had the power of Akira."
Spriggan was good until the exact same thing happened.
Never saw it, no comment.
Serial Experiments: Lain was absolutely FANTASTIC until all that supernatural stuff started to take over the plot.
Lain is God. It was "supernatural" from the very beginning. In fact, you learn this in the first espisode. Again, you didn't get it.
What's with the freaking out? Do Japanese anime creators resort to drugs to finish off their masterpieces? It's as if they were on to something good and then they just decided to rush the ending... "umm... err... oh screw it, I'll throw in some freaky psychosomatic flesh monsters... that'll do it!"
Well, maybe they do... but the hallmark of Japanese Anime is that it regards much deeper subject matter than is immediately obvious. The joy of watching anime is to try and decipher what is actually going on behind the facade of common everyday this and thats. If you only care for action and superficial drama, watch an Arnold movie and soap operas. If you want to think deeply about extremely non-mainstream topics, watch anime.
I really enjoyed watching the characters interact in the Evangelion. But the last episode was a total letdown, which really ruined the series. So I thought about watching "End of Eva" but several reviews that said "don't bother, it's basically just screwing over the fans."
I'm sorry to say that you're on of those persons who didn't understand the series insofar as the goals of Ikari Gendou. Gendou had exceedingly good intentions, despite his cruel actions. Episodes 25 and 26 demonstrate what would happen if Gendou was successful. Did you happen to notice in 24 how all the voices were echoy? At this point, 3rd Impact was near and Gendou was about to reach his goal of uniting all of humanity and eliminating the fears that created the AT Fields. Shinji is trapped in his own little world of pain and 25 and 26 show the other freed souls helping him out so he can eventually join everyone else in bliss. Notice in the end of 26 where Yui and Gendou are together and happy, Shinji and Asuka get along in a playful way, Rei is goofy and outgoing... none of this was literal. This was to show the removal of pain, hurt, and doubt. Humans living in perfect existence... in harmony.
You should definitely watch Death:Rebirth and End of Evangelion. Death:Rebirth goes back a bit before the series to show how this all started (with the revival of Adam) and a few extra tidbits that could not be shown on broadcast television in Japan. End of Evangelion (which is my preferred ending) shows what happens if Gendou failed in his goal and 3rd Impact turned out destrutive. Shinji basically freezes at the moment of truth and decides to destroy humanity ("Nobody will ever care for me; I wish they were all dead.").
I think you'll see the obvious contrast between the two endings if you review them both.
Most of the angel battles were, in my opinion, just there for fluff. It was action to keep the less philosophically inclined audience glued to the TV sets for the next episode. All the plot development could probably have been condensed down into 4-6 episodes. Except of course for the occassional Ayanami Rei narratives. I for one would not mind seeing a live action movie that was densely packed, had a rapid time line, and showed how grotesque a lot of Evangelion was. For example, a lot of the emotional development of the characters was due to the horrors they witnessed fighting the angels. Cartoon blood does not effectively convey this to the audience. Also, whle EoE was intense -- gives me the chills just thinking about it -- an anime cannot properly portray the deaths of 7 billion human beings. I think a live action film will show quite nicely why so many of the characters lost their marbles.
So they are going to make a movie about some kid who pilots a huge robotic weapon to battle alien invaders.
How can you watch Shinseki Evangelion and not understand:
- They aren't alien invaders (in fact, they're 98% human), they're angels. You know, as in from Heaven? They've come to earth to bring about the 3rd Impact which will (pressumably) destroy humanity. - The fight with the angels is secondary to the plot. The story of Evangelion is about Ikari Shinji who embodies the inante human fear of other humans (hence the existence of the Absolute Terror Field or AT Field). The goal of his father, Ikari Gendou, is to eliminate the AT Fields so that all humanity can be united and thus ascend to the level of God.
Evangelion is intensely deeper than that and I've shaved off most of the details, otherwise this post would be pages long. But those two things are obvious if you've only seen the episodes (in which Gendou is successful and a "positive" 3rd Impact is achieved). The movies turn that around and show what would happen if things went wrong (because of Shinji's own emotional strife).
I could go on and on, but Eva is not just about action. In fact, the action often carries meaningful undercurrents (especially when Shinji first fights Sachiel).
I'd just like to point out the *BSD projects are "managed" with these principles in mind. A lot of the work going into BSD is the result of doctorial theses and other strict academic work. As a result, there's intense peer review, both immediate and those reading whatever journal you are trying to get published in, and a lot more consideration to provably strong design.
And I definitely agree that software is not more complicated than a car. Anyone who thinks software is more complicated has never popped the hood. Hell, cars also embody a lot of software these days. Plus, while most people can crank out a program, I doubt any of them could even draw out a design on paper for a vehicle that works.
Well, isn't it time you ran the software update tool? There are a couple of vulns in Jaguar cured in recent updates that require a reboot so you really should plug to a lan and go for it;-)
I run it on a regular basis as a matter of fact.:-) I just Force Quit the tool when it says I have to reboot. I then log out and log back in, which is sufficient for restarting most user space software. I then HUP any servers I may have running on the machine (SSH). I don't know if that is sufficient, but the machine is always behind a firewall, so it's low priority as far as security goes. What's amazing is that it is still stable!
My OS X box, which I use for web browsing and word processing, crashes about once every three days.
The Ti PowerBook G4 I am writing this post on is running Mac OS X 10.2.x. It goes in an out of sleep on an irregular basis, and not always when it is idle. I swap PCMCIA cards in and out. It hops from network to network. I do a lot more than browsing and word processing.
According to my Konfabulator uptime widget, I have 83 days, 23 hours, 20 minutes. My load average at the moment is 1.7. It has not been rebooted since I installed OS X (I did it myself after buying it just for messing around purposes).
You sir are either lying, have bad hardware, or you've severely corrupted your installation. This operating system (which is BSD) is solid as a rock.
If you want to encounter unexpected values in your data structures, make sure you hide as much as possible from the rest of the code.
Sorry, I meant to write "If you don't want to encounter unexpected values...". Of course, I think it's clear what I meant to say, clarification never hurts.:-)
I develop software at a small shop for a living. We're scraping by; money is extremely tight. As a result, anything we code is coded as quickly as possible. The boss always says "we need this done fast and we need it done right." This sentence is almost always followed up with statements like "don't build it for the ages" or any number of quotes that indicate he doesn't care how, just get it finished as soon as possible.
Welcome to the sorry state of affairs in the software industry today. Developers are too rushed (or don't care themselves) to come up with good designs and write solid implementations. Weaker coders are rewarded for their speed while stronger coders are degraded for software built to last.
Good engineering principles must be applied if software is to not: crash all the time, contain more than a fair share of bugs, contain security vulnerabilities, and not corrupt data. These engineering principles are complicated in practice, but not so numerous. I cannot be exhaustive here, but I am trying to convey a general idea.
- Build tiny, atomic pieces and make sure they work. It amazes me how my peers always come up with blanket solutions to problems. These solutions are remarkably complex and may work for most of the data, but not all of the data. Remember tiny pieces! The immediate question is how to make sure these pieces work. It's more than just testing here. You cannot just evalute a small number of pre and post conditions and assume something works. Prove mathematically that for all possible inputs/pre-states you receive correct outputs/post-states. Remember your discrete math class? Remember doing proofs? Apply it! Computers are fundamentally number crunchers and your input/output are fundamentally numbers and can be represented symbolically and in finite terms. Certainly cases exist where this principle cannot be employed, but those are rare. People working in the encryption field should understand this principle very well.
- Have clearly defined specifications for the software to be written. Strive to work out any questions or ambiguities in the specification before even embarking on the design process. If the specification is unclear or ambiguous, it is simply a matter of time before programmers do the wrong thing or begin to make incorrect or unreasonable assumptions. Another important note on this principle is the partitioning of specifications where appropriate. Do not let specifications for user interface mingle with those for the back-end. While they may be closely related, try to follow the Model Control View (MCV or MVC... it varies). This must be adhered to at the earliest stages of the specification, all the way up to the actual pounding of keyboards.
- Conduct frequent peer review! This is one of the strongest points of open source software development. I argue that it does not occur frequently in the commercial world because everyone is afraid of their peers negatively reviewing their code, placing their jobs at risk. Sadly, this only results in a suboptimal product. The more other people look at your code, the more likely your mistakes (and they do exist) are likely to be found. It's a shame work place environments are not geared to eliminate fear of failure, otherwise I think most software would be a lot better today if people were eager to do reviews.
Once again, this isn't entirely complete, but I think the point is clear. This was written on the fly and mostly off the top of my head, but I think I've got it right. In general, a lot of common sense needs to be applied. For example, if your input is for all intents and purposes random (it's coming from the user) then do extensive checking on it! If you want to encounter unexpected values in your data structures, make sure you hide as much as possible from the rest of the code. It amazes me how little the most basic computer science principles are followed in most software development projects. This is one of the biggest reasons software is so unstable.
as soon as the EFF Action Center writes a report... utilize their service to send your representatives a letter expressing exactly how you will feel and how you will vote. Keep an eye on it!
Remember, as always, strength in numbers. And don't forget to donate to them an the ACLU.
Hello. I wish to offer the first ever Slashdot Troll For Hire service. This service is totally free and should provide hours of entertainment for many/. readers. As you can see, I have a +1 bonus with Excellent karma. Truly good trolls are rare, and although I possess considerable skill myself, I am by far no master at trolling. So, I am offering my +1 bonus to the rest of the/. troll community in an effort to increase my exposure to high quality trolls.
If you would like me to post your troll you must only do the following:
- Post your troll in response to this journal entry (I will add more entries as comments become disabled). - Mark your reply as a troll with "(TROLL)" in the subject line, so I do not confuse samples with conversation. - If you troll requires special instructions for getting ASCII art, page widening, etc. please include them in a response.
I will post high quality trolls as soon as possible. If and when my karma dips below excellent, I will have to take a recovery period where I will rejuivinate it by posting intelligently. Once excellent karma is reestablished, I will resume posting trolls from the queue.
Thank you for your contributions! I am looking forward to what your creative minds will offer.
Hello. I wish to offer the first ever Slashdot Troll For Hire service. As you can see, I have a +1 bonus with Excellent karma. Truly good trolls are rare, and although I possess considerable skill myself, I am by far no master at trolling. So, I am offering my +1 bonus to the rest of the/. troll community in an effort to increase my exposure to high quality trolls.
If you would like me to post your troll you must only do the following:
- Post your troll in response to this journal entry (I will add more entries as comments become disabled). - Mark your reply as a troll with "(TROLL)" in the subject line, so I do not confuse samples with conversation. - If you troll requires special instructions for getting ASCII art, page widening, etc. please include them in a response.
I will post high quality trolls as soon as possible. If and when my karma dips below excellent, I will have to take a recovery period where I will rejuivinate it by posting intelligently. Once excellent karma is reestablished, I will resume posting trolls from the queue.
Thank you for your contributions! I am looking forward to what your creative minds will offer.
Slashdot Mirror
Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Geeks apprehended in Child Poronography Bust", "Geek publicy shamed after holding girl's hand." "Damn, shower-ridden geeks. They're all alike." But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950s technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the geek? Did you ever wonder what made him suck cock, what forces shaped his penis so small, what may have molded him? I am a geek, enter my world. Mine is a world that begins with slashdot. I'm smarter than most of the other moderators, this crap they post bores me. "Damn goatse troll. They're all alike." I'm in by dark, cool basement. I've listened to those people with lives upstairs explain for the fifteenth time how to get some fine pussy. I understand it (not!). "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't take my acne medicine. CowboyNeal ate it." "Damn CowboyNeal. He probably did eat it. They're always gettin eaten by that tub-o-lard." I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me, or feels threatened by me, or thinks I'm a smart ass, or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here. Damn geek. All he does is play games. They're all alike. And then it happened... goatse opened to the world...rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from day-to-day incompetencies is sought...slashdot is found. "This is it...this is where I belong..." I know everyone here...even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again...I know you all...Damn geeks. Stinking up the basement again. They're all alike...You bet your ass we're all alike...we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak (not!)...the bits of meat that you did let slip through were later on stolen by CowboyNeal (true!). We've been dominated by sadists, or eaten by CowboyNeal. The few trolls that have something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert. This is our world now...the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty and the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons (ie, CowboyNeal), and you call us criminals. We explore...and you call us losers. We seek after knowledge...and you call us criminals. We exist without girlfriends, without nationality, without religious bias...and you call us criminals. You have girlfriends, you have suntans, you socialize, fuck, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the losers with friends like CowboyNeal. Yes, I am a geek. My crime is that of a loser. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a geek, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all...after all, we've all got horse cocks (not! perhaps a few).
What's that flying thing in the sky?" I said to myself as I watched a huge howling blob shoot through the sky at what looked like a comfortable cruising alttitude of 10,000 feet. It soon was all over CNN that CowboyNeal had given up his struggle with weight watchers and jumped off the side of a deep dark abyss. However in mid-fall he decided that he would try again. He aimed his belly at the ground and when he touched earth he bounced upward at a very high velocity. Later on I decided to take a peek at the crazy tub-o-lard himself. So I infiltrated Slashdot headquarters and he gave me a strange stare when I peaked my head into his office. Boy, he has one crazy lummox!
Hello. I wish to offer the first ever Slashdot Troll For Hire service. This service is totally free and should provide hours of entertainment for many /. readers. As you can see, I have a +1 bonus with Excellent karma. Truly good trolls are rare, and although I possess considerable skill myself, I am by far no master at trolling. So, I am offering my +1 bonus to the rest of the /. troll community in an effort to increase my exposure to high quality trolls.
If you would like me to post your troll you must only do the following:
- Post your troll in response to this journal entry (I will add more entries as comments become disabled).
- Mark your reply as a troll with "(TROLL)" in the subject line, so I do not confuse samples with conversation.
- If you troll requires special instructions for getting ASCII art, page widening, etc. please include them in a response.
I will post high quality trolls as soon as possible. If and when my karma dips below excellent, I will have to take a recovery period where I will rejuivinate it by posting intelligently. Once excellent karma is reestablished, I will resume posting trolls from the queue.
Thank you for your contributions! I am looking forward to what your creative minds will offer.
Hello. I wish to offer the first ever Slashdot Troll For Hire service. This service is totally free and should provide hours of entertainment for many /. readers. As you can see, I have a +1 bonus with Excellent karma. Truly good trolls are rare, and although I possess considerable skill myself, I am by far no master at trolling. So, I am offering my +1 bonus to the rest of the /. troll community in an effort to increase my exposure to high quality trolls.
If you would like me to post your troll you must only do the following:
- Post your troll in response to this journal entry (I will add more entries as comments become disabled).
- Mark your reply as a troll with "(TROLL)" in the subject line, so I do not confuse samples with conversation.
- If you troll requires special instructions for getting ASCII art, page widening, etc. please include them in a response.
I will post high quality trolls as soon as possible. If and when my karma dips below excellent, I will have to take a recovery period where I will rejuivinate it by posting intelligently. Once excellent karma is reestablished, I will resume posting trolls from the queue.
Thank you for your contributions! I am looking forward to what your creative minds will offer.
(And before you point your fingers at me, think twice, because I don't use Linux anymore.)
Let me guess, Mr. Proud American... you don't want to be associated with anything that isn't 100%-get-your-rocks-off capitalism.
Secondly, you Slashdotters are all to often part of the crowd who cries and complains but doesn't do anything about the problem itself. So, a particular driver isn't written? Write it. Oh, what's that, a certain program you got off the Mandrake CD doesn't work with the Microsoft app your parents use? Download the code and make it work.
Uh, wait a minute. Most of us are complaining because many companies either fight such effrots or make it illegal to write a driver or interoperating code, thanks to bills such as the DMCA. Reverse engineering hardware to write a driver is also extremely difficult if not impossible in many cases. It often requires the manufacturers to release specifications. In terms of interoperability, we've got all kinds of twisted mechanisms for preventing that (ever hear of CSS?). So, the open source types are trying to fix this crap... we just have to fight the companies tooth and nail.
Laziness is the problem hear -- stop blaming American corporations.
American corporate monopolies with their lobbyists constantly pushing for laws in their favor are the problem here.
It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
My apologies, I see from one of your other replies that you did understand Yui's role in EoE.
:-) I tend to be very pessimistic in my interpretation of open-ended subjects. EoE seemed very negative to me. :-)
Thank you for noticing and your apologies.
Then maybe I should watch the whole series, or at least the last 4 or 5 episodes, and see if I "get it" this time. We'll see :)
:)
Sorry for sounding so harsh, but I am a fierce Eva fan... I will defend it with my last breath of LCL!!
Again, my apologies... I just found you so repugnant...
The uniting of humanity is not Gendo's aim, but rather his dead wife's (Shinji's mother). Gendo's aim is to be reunited with her; everything else is secondary for him. The reason for her attempt was to ensure that humanity survived effectively forever (at least until the heat-death of the universe).
That's true. It's been a while since I've watched the series, but it can still be said that Gendou wants humanity united, even if only for purposes other than the good of all. Funny how in End of Evangelion, Yui's goal of humanity existing forever was accomplished when Eva01 was sent out of the solar system. A human soul can live forever enthroned in the Eva.
The Third Impact was not really "positive" in the series; some people think that the series ending was just Shinji tripping out. Anno dropped several hints as to what actually happened (in the series, there's a couple of very short cuts showing a certain death scene (don't want to spoil it for others).
Could you give a spoiler for this? I didn't catch that. I've seen 25 & 26 many times and as far as I'd gathered, Gendou's plan went about as intended. Certainly Shinji was tripping out (as any human mind would after experiencing that), but I basically saw it was a relearning/reeducation in a "perfect" world.
A more cynical view is that Anno's lack of funding at the end simply lead him to give a giant 'fuck-you' to the production company by producing the most unsuitable closure possible.
You mean with the "cheap pencil" drawings? I saw this process as being similar to Descartes. Throwing away everything and starting from scratch, building in the details as you go along. First Shinji starts with nothing and pieces are filled in as he searches for meaning.
Akira was great until the weird-ass things started happening... like giant blobs of flesh and stuff.
You don't get it. That was to draw the "amoeba" parallel. "Imagine if an amoeba had the power of a human being. Now imagine if a human being had the power of Akira."
Spriggan was good until the exact same thing happened.
Never saw it, no comment.
Serial Experiments: Lain was absolutely FANTASTIC until all that supernatural stuff started to take over the plot.
Lain is God. It was "supernatural" from the very beginning. In fact, you learn this in the first espisode. Again, you didn't get it.
What's with the freaking out? Do Japanese anime creators resort to drugs to finish off their masterpieces? It's as if they were on to something good and then they just decided to rush the ending... "umm... err... oh screw it, I'll throw in some freaky psychosomatic flesh monsters... that'll do it!"
Well, maybe they do... but the hallmark of Japanese Anime is that it regards much deeper subject matter than is immediately obvious. The joy of watching anime is to try and decipher what is actually going on behind the facade of common everyday this and thats. If you only care for action and superficial drama, watch an Arnold movie and soap operas. If you want to think deeply about extremely non-mainstream topics, watch anime.
I really enjoyed watching the characters interact in the Evangelion. But the last episode was a total letdown, which really ruined the series. So I thought about watching "End of Eva" but several reviews that said "don't bother, it's basically just screwing over the fans."
I'm sorry to say that you're on of those persons who didn't understand the series insofar as the goals of Ikari Gendou. Gendou had exceedingly good intentions, despite his cruel actions. Episodes 25 and 26 demonstrate what would happen if Gendou was successful. Did you happen to notice in 24 how all the voices were echoy? At this point, 3rd Impact was near and Gendou was about to reach his goal of uniting all of humanity and eliminating the fears that created the AT Fields. Shinji is trapped in his own little world of pain and 25 and 26 show the other freed souls helping him out so he can eventually join everyone else in bliss. Notice in the end of 26 where Yui and Gendou are together and happy, Shinji and Asuka get along in a playful way, Rei is goofy and outgoing... none of this was literal. This was to show the removal of pain, hurt, and doubt. Humans living in perfect existence... in harmony.
You should definitely watch Death:Rebirth and End of Evangelion. Death:Rebirth goes back a bit before the series to show how this all started (with the revival of Adam) and a few extra tidbits that could not be shown on broadcast television in Japan. End of Evangelion (which is my preferred ending) shows what happens if Gendou failed in his goal and 3rd Impact turned out destrutive. Shinji basically freezes at the moment of truth and decides to destroy humanity ("Nobody will ever care for me; I wish they were all dead.").
I think you'll see the obvious contrast between the two endings if you review them both.
Most of the angel battles were, in my opinion, just there for fluff. It was action to keep the less philosophically inclined audience glued to the TV sets for the next episode. All the plot development could probably have been condensed down into 4-6 episodes. Except of course for the occassional Ayanami Rei narratives. I for one would not mind seeing a live action movie that was densely packed, had a rapid time line, and showed how grotesque a lot of Evangelion was. For example, a lot of the emotional development of the characters was due to the horrors they witnessed fighting the angels. Cartoon blood does not effectively convey this to the audience. Also, whle EoE was intense -- gives me the chills just thinking about it -- an anime cannot properly portray the deaths of 7 billion human beings. I think a live action film will show quite nicely why so many of the characters lost their marbles.
So they are going to make a movie about some kid who pilots a huge robotic weapon to battle alien invaders.
How can you watch Shinseki Evangelion and not understand:
- They aren't alien invaders (in fact, they're 98% human), they're angels. You know, as in from Heaven? They've come to earth to bring about the 3rd Impact which will (pressumably) destroy humanity.
- The fight with the angels is secondary to the plot. The story of Evangelion is about Ikari Shinji who embodies the inante human fear of other humans (hence the existence of the Absolute Terror Field or AT Field). The goal of his father, Ikari Gendou, is to eliminate the AT Fields so that all humanity can be united and thus ascend to the level of God.
Evangelion is intensely deeper than that and I've shaved off most of the details, otherwise this post would be pages long. But those two things are obvious if you've only seen the episodes (in which Gendou is successful and a "positive" 3rd Impact is achieved). The movies turn that around and show what would happen if things went wrong (because of Shinji's own emotional strife).
I could go on and on, but Eva is not just about action. In fact, the action often carries meaningful undercurrents (especially when Shinji first fights Sachiel).
*sigh*
Nevermind.
I'd just like to point out the *BSD projects are "managed" with these principles in mind. A lot of the work going into BSD is the result of doctorial theses and other strict academic work. As a result, there's intense peer review, both immediate and those reading whatever journal you are trying to get published in, and a lot more consideration to provably strong design.
And I definitely agree that software is not more complicated than a car. Anyone who thinks software is more complicated has never popped the hood. Hell, cars also embody a lot of software these days. Plus, while most people can crank out a program, I doubt any of them could even draw out a design on paper for a vehicle that works.
that this post got moderated up so high, but this post, which is more on topic and well written did not. Moderators, please pay attention.
Well, isn't it time you ran the software update tool? There are a couple of vulns in Jaguar cured in recent updates that require a reboot so you really should plug to a lan and go for it ;-)
:-) I just Force Quit the tool when it says I have to reboot. I then log out and log back in, which is sufficient for restarting most user space software. I then HUP any servers I may have running on the machine (SSH). I don't know if that is sufficient, but the machine is always behind a firewall, so it's low priority as far as security goes. What's amazing is that it is still stable!
I run it on a regular basis as a matter of fact.
Would everybody stop it with the "you sir" bullshit? It's not funny. It's not witty. It doesn't make you look intelligent. It's just fucking stupid.
You sir need to calm yourself and relax, and come to an understanding of sardonic writing styles.
My OS X box, which I use for web browsing and word processing, crashes about once every three days.
The Ti PowerBook G4 I am writing this post on is running Mac OS X 10.2.x. It goes in an out of sleep on an irregular basis, and not always when it is idle. I swap PCMCIA cards in and out. It hops from network to network. I do a lot more than browsing and word processing.
According to my Konfabulator uptime widget, I have 83 days, 23 hours, 20 minutes. My load average at the moment is 1.7. It has not been rebooted since I installed OS X (I did it myself after buying it just for messing around purposes).
You sir are either lying, have bad hardware, or you've severely corrupted your installation. This operating system (which is BSD) is solid as a rock.
If you want to encounter unexpected values in your data structures, make sure you hide as much as possible from the rest of the code.
:-)
Sorry, I meant to write "If you don't want to encounter unexpected values...". Of course, I think it's clear what I meant to say, clarification never hurts.
I develop software at a small shop for a living. We're scraping by; money is extremely tight. As a result, anything we code is coded as quickly as possible. The boss always says "we need this done fast and we need it done right." This sentence is almost always followed up with statements like "don't build it for the ages" or any number of quotes that indicate he doesn't care how, just get it finished as soon as possible.
Welcome to the sorry state of affairs in the software industry today. Developers are too rushed (or don't care themselves) to come up with good designs and write solid implementations. Weaker coders are rewarded for their speed while stronger coders are degraded for software built to last.
Good engineering principles must be applied if software is to not: crash all the time, contain more than a fair share of bugs, contain security vulnerabilities, and not corrupt data. These engineering principles are complicated in practice, but not so numerous. I cannot be exhaustive here, but I am trying to convey a general idea.
- Build tiny, atomic pieces and make sure they work. It amazes me how my peers always come up with blanket solutions to problems. These solutions are remarkably complex and may work for most of the data, but not all of the data. Remember tiny pieces! The immediate question is how to make sure these pieces work. It's more than just testing here. You cannot just evalute a small number of pre and post conditions and assume something works. Prove mathematically that for all possible inputs/pre-states you receive correct outputs/post-states. Remember your discrete math class? Remember doing proofs? Apply it! Computers are fundamentally number crunchers and your input/output are fundamentally numbers and can be represented symbolically and in finite terms. Certainly cases exist where this principle cannot be employed, but those are rare. People working in the encryption field should understand this principle very well.
- Have clearly defined specifications for the software to be written. Strive to work out any questions or ambiguities in the specification before even embarking on the design process. If the specification is unclear or ambiguous, it is simply a matter of time before programmers do the wrong thing or begin to make incorrect or unreasonable assumptions. Another important note on this principle is the partitioning of specifications where appropriate. Do not let specifications for user interface mingle with those for the back-end. While they may be closely related, try to follow the Model Control View (MCV or MVC... it varies). This must be adhered to at the earliest stages of the specification, all the way up to the actual pounding of keyboards.
- Conduct frequent peer review! This is one of the strongest points of open source software development. I argue that it does not occur frequently in the commercial world because everyone is afraid of their peers negatively reviewing their code, placing their jobs at risk. Sadly, this only results in a suboptimal product. The more other people look at your code, the more likely your mistakes (and they do exist) are likely to be found. It's a shame work place environments are not geared to eliminate fear of failure, otherwise I think most software would be a lot better today if people were eager to do reviews.
Once again, this isn't entirely complete, but I think the point is clear. This was written on the fly and mostly off the top of my head, but I think I've got it right. In general, a lot of common sense needs to be applied. For example, if your input is for all intents and purposes random (it's coming from the user) then do extensive checking on it! If you want to encounter unexpected values in your data structures, make sure you hide as much as possible from the rest of the code. It amazes me how little the most basic computer science principles are followed in most software development projects. This is one of the biggest reasons software is so unstable.
Customer: Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: What do you expect, sir, we bought our soup from the corner shop!
Customer: Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: That's a very diplomatic way of putting it, sir. Shall I ask that Coon opposite you to leave?
Customer: Waiter, there's a coon in my cock!
Waiter: Never mind the coon! Get your cock out of my asshole, sir!
as soon as the EFF Action Center writes a report... utilize their service to send your representatives a letter expressing exactly how you will feel and how you will vote. Keep an eye on it!
Remember, as always, strength in numbers. And don't forget to donate to them an the ACLU.
Hello. I wish to offer the first ever Slashdot Troll For Hire service. This service is totally free and should provide hours of entertainment for many /. readers. As you can see, I have a +1 bonus with Excellent karma. Truly good trolls are rare, and although I possess considerable skill myself, I am by far no master at trolling. So, I am offering my +1 bonus to the rest of the /. troll community in an effort to increase my exposure to high quality trolls.
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Hello. I wish to offer the first ever Slashdot Troll For Hire service. As you can see, I have a +1 bonus with Excellent karma. Truly good trolls are rare, and although I possess considerable skill myself, I am by far no master at trolling. So, I am offering my +1 bonus to the rest of the /. troll community in an effort to increase my exposure to high quality trolls.
If you would like me to post your troll you must only do the following:
- Post your troll in response to this journal entry (I will add more entries as comments become disabled).
- Mark your reply as a troll with "(TROLL)" in the subject line, so I do not confuse samples with conversation.
- If you troll requires special instructions for getting ASCII art, page widening, etc. please include them in a response.
I will post high quality trolls as soon as possible. If and when my karma dips below excellent, I will have to take a recovery period where I will rejuivinate it by posting intelligently. Once excellent karma is reestablished, I will resume posting trolls from the queue.
Thank you for your contributions! I am looking forward to what your creative minds will offer.
KDE sucks, use GNOME