"Spam is 100 years old today! But, surprisingly, the first spam wasn't sent via e-mail."
Many things are old. But, surprisingly, they are older than the Internet. Film at eleven! But seriously...
"In fact, 100 years ago, Cunard sent out telegrams to selected (rich) members of the British social elite, advertising tickets on a new liner, and becoming the first spammer.
Let us all take out a moment to consider how to best 'repay' the spammers who followed for the 100 years of 'joy' they have given us. [immature semicolon-face removed]"
The answer is very simple. If we stop buying from spammers, spam will instantly disappear. Unfortunately this is not going to happen, thanks to all of those cretins who keep buying from spammers. And those very cretins are the ones we should go after (by legal means or otherwise) because there is no other way to stop this madness.
This seems like a great idea. How do you get energy in those dangerous and inhospitable areas with toxic gas concentrations? You find and eat living and healthy creatures, of course.
I don't know about where you're from but here if we don't know what to buy someone we buy them gift vouchers.
That's interesting. When I don't know what to buy, I give cash. Seriously, what is so wrong with cash these days? Is it this great disadvantage that you can use it in any little store you want? I would really like to know.
And sort -u helps avoid unnecessary use of uniq, but is sort -u | grep -c X as fast, as readable and as classy as grep X | sort | uniq | wc -l -- not to even mention perl '-le/X/&&++$_{$_}while<>;print+0+%_' -- is it? Furthermore, one might argue that avoiding Slashdot helps avoid unnecessary waste of time spent on writing garbage and subsequent correcting said garbage, but that didn't stop me, now did it?
And sort -u helps avoid unnecessary use of uniq, but is sort -u | grep -c X as fast, as readable and as classy as grep X | sort | uniq | wc -l -- not to even mention perl '-le/X/&&++$_{$_}while;print+0+%_' -- is it? Furthermore, one might argue that avoiding Slashdot helps avoid unnecessary waste of time, but that didn't stop me, now did it?
I find it very interesting that people are willing to buy those "value cards," compromised or otherwise. Similar cards were used in Soviet Russia, but no one seemed to like them, so one has to ask a question: what's wrong with money in the United States? Is it because people don't want to have cash so they are less attractive targets for criminals? After all, who would want to steal "value cards"? Well, obviously this is not the case, as the story shows. This is a very interesting issue, a one much more important than this incident alone. Why people don't want to pay with USD?
In my particular case, the way I handled it was to initially give the "wrong" maiden name...then the rep said, "that's not what we have on record." At that point I knew she was legit [...]
Note to self: always say "that's not what we have on record" for the first time, if the victim says something different then note that, otherwise if she complains say "oh, I'm sorry, that was the right [password/maiden name/swiss bank account/credit card number] indeed."
"Playing a game puts you into an altered state. It's like a runner's high, where sports athletes are aware they are doing well. They not sure what they are doing, but they know they are functioning at their peak." This seems to be a similar state to that of having sex, or so I've read. Could anyone confirm that?
Personally, I stopped playing and reading about games quite some time ago, when my eyes started to hurt. However, I am still not sure if my eyes are just getting older or this is just the reaction to the Slashdot theme. So for those who don't already know--it has not been posted on the Slashdot frontpage as far as I know--you can still read the games articles using the classic theme. (Yes, I know that the URL seems strange, but I have found it in some AC comment and it appears to work just fine.)
Frankly, I don't really care what actually happens when I play computer games, since games are mostly for children. Real, adult men, especially those of high IQ, seem to be addicted to Wikipedia much more often than to games. What I would really like to know is what actually happens when I keep clicking Special:Randompage all day. Sorry, gotta go now!
"Rose has some great information payload sizes as examples (like the entire information equivalent for our global genome fitting on a 100 pound laptop!)."
It is interesting that we are now counting bits with units of "our global genome per 100 pounds of laptops," but the Library of Congress jokes aside, what does "our global genome" mean in this context? I assume it is some human's genome, right? But only one human? Pair of humans? Male and Female? How much percentage of genome is shared by all of the humans? In other words, how much redundancy would sending every human's genome introduce? How can those variations be described so the reciever of that information could produce not only an army of clones, but a minimum of actual population capable of further reproduction and evolution?
To the person who has moderated the parent post as -1, Troll: I strongly object. It should be moderated as -1, Redundant and even that only because there is no -1, Has Already Fulfilled Its Important Purpose. The original Slashdot story contained a critical yet subtle error, namely a link to http://www.damnsmalllinux/ which was subsequently corrected to http://www.damnsmalllinux.com/ thanks to my humorous remark. The parent post was not Troll and I find moderating it as such at least offending, if not outright outrageous.
WTF is the version of the postgres docs are you looking at?
I'll tell you "what the fuck" version of the PostgreSQL docs I am looking at. It is 7.4. I'll even tell you "how the fuck" can you go there. Go to PostgreSQL official website at www.postgresql.org. Click Docs at the top of the page in the main menu. Select Static Documentation for the current version of PostgreSQL 7.4, right at the top of the page, the very first thing below bold and underlined "Official Documentation." In the Table of Contents skip Preface and go to the Part I of the documentation entitled Tutorial. Find the word "joins" in the Table of Contents for this part. There is only one instance, namely 2.6. Joins Between Tables. Voilà! Now search for the word "Exercise." There are two of them:
Exercise: Attempt to find out the semantics of this query when the WHERE clause is omitted.
Exercise: There are also right outer joins and full outer joins. Try to find out what those do.
Are you "fucking" satisfied? Call me oldfashioned but in the official "tutorial" for the leading RDBMS I would expect a little bit more on outer joins than leaving them as a pathetic exercise for the reader. Next time before you start using vulgar language please do a little research and please at least try to stay calm. PostgreSQL is unquestionably the best free software RDBMS. It is clearly superior to most of proprietary systems as well. It has already singlehandedly beaten MS SQL Server and beating Oracle is only a matter of time. No question about that. But let us not forget about the documentation. Of course for you and me outer joins is something utterly obvious and intuitive, but remember that there are people who are beginners to computing and programming in general and set theory and relational model in particular. We should forget about our infantile "leetism" and doubtful "intellectual superiority" if we ever want PostgreSQL to be ready for the desktop. And most certainly starting our sentences with "what the fuck?!" does not make us look any more competent in the business and scientific community. Let this be an appeal to everyone who often forgets that cursing like a drunken sailor does not help the free software movement, myself included. Because if we continue looking like a bunch of simpletons in the eyes of businessmen and politicians, our products and our agenda will never dominate the market of profanum vulgus, notwithstanding the meritorious superiority thereof.
Unless you have some legacy MySQL applications, I would suggest using PostgreSQL--it's really free with no strings attached, it's ACID-compliant and it's a real RDBMS. In the past it was slow but not any more. When in doubt read: [1][2][3].
To be fair, there is one place where MySQL beats PostgreSQL, and that is the documentation. For example, you will often find unfinished parts of PostgreSQL documentation turned into "Exercises":
"This query is called a left outer join because the table mentioned on the left
of the join operator will have each of its rows in the output at least once, whe
reas the table on the right will only have those rows output that match some row
of the left table. When outputting a left-table row for which there is no right
-table match, empty (null) values are substituted for the right-table columns.
Exercise: There are also right outer joins and full outer joins. Try to find out what those do."
when there really should be:
"TODO: There are also right outer joins and full outer joins. FIXME: We MUST write more."
Not to mention the "RTFS" answers in "TFM" for questions very frequently asked by beginners:
"4.3) How do I get a list of tables or other things I can see in psql?"
"You can read the source code for psql in file pgsql/src/bin/psql/describe.c."
Other than that I would say that PostgreSQL is definitely the way to go today. Once you get used to reading the source code as documentation (it is actually very clean and properly commented, so that's not such a big deal), you will really love it. And you will have the most important thing: ACID features. I hope it helps, I wish you the best luck.
(Please forgive me if I repeat anything which has already been said. I started to write it as a first post but it took some time and I am sure that other
Actually I was talking about one day when I broke my glasses when I was in the cinema and I couldn't watch the damn movie, since I can barely see without glasses, while those jerks who worked there wouldn't give my money back. That was a downer indeed, especially when I almost killed myself while driving home from the cinema...
Actually video's i've lend (this was in ~93) already contained notes that i weren't allowed to lend the movie, spread it, copy it, show it in public places, etc.
You mean the "FBI WARNING" notes, right? They are much older than that, I have also seen them. In fact they were quite common even outside of the FBI jurisdiction. And the stores I've been to in the 60s already contained notes that I was obligated to buy stuff that I broke or the food that I touched. Shocking newsflash: not everything you read is true. Otherwise I would have already written on my car: "By being run over you agree to pay for any damages whatsoever, including, but not limited to, washing your blood from the bumber and windshield. If you do not agree, please stay stay the hell out of my way."
Do you really think that if anyone writes that something is forbidden it automatically means that it is really forbidden by law? A copyright holder has the limited power of controlling the distribution of her work, but somehow when she writes on the CD that you cannot borrow it to your friends, it makes it somehow legally forbidden even if that is completely outside of the scope of the copyright holder's power and FBI will catch you? Sad, very sad.
I have a question for you: If you need a right to watch a movie and to listen to music, how can you watch TV and listen to the radio? And please don't tell me that you are legally obligated to watch the commercials because there is no contract whatsoever between you and public station, and that is because you are not their customer, the advertising companies are their customers, and you are only a product their sell. A very good product, I might add...
This message is intended for the President only. It contains information that is confidential and protected from disclosure. Any review, dissemination or use of this transmission or its contents by persons or unauthorized employees of the intended organisations is strictly prohibited.
The contents of this message do not necessarily represent the views or policies of Central Intelligence Agency.
Brainwashed? Perhaps. But I have bought many dozens of movies and a really embarassing number of cd's plus a small mountain of books and really don't as of now know what I actually own.
It is not really a rocket science. You own what you have bought.
Tangible property is easy. When I buy a t-shirt and it is new it is "fancy party clothes". As it ages it moves down the line to "wearing to work clothes", "working around the house clothes", to "you better not wear that outside the house or when my friends are here clothes" to finally "dusting my desk rags". Beyond that I really don't know what happens to them, they just kind of disappear. But disks and music, they don't follow the rules. They are either functional or not. Take away a few pages of a book and even that is pretty much landfill fodder.
When you buy a DVD you are buying the media AND the right to watch it. [emphasis added]
You have been apparently indoctrinated with a great success, but the fact is that you don't need any special "right to watch" a movie, like you don't need any "right to read" a book, at least not yet. The only thing that the copyright law regulates is the right to publish and distribute, not any magical "right to see" which would somehow make illegal the very act of merely looking at publicly available things, which would be completely ridiculous. Please do not spread the FUD. The scums like Jack Valenti want us to think that way, but it does's make it true. Please try to keep that in mind. This is actually extremely important because if all of people think like yourself, then no one will protest when corporations finally put it into law, because everyone will think it has always been that way, which is simply not true. I wouldn't have even answered to this post but it was moderated as Score:5, Insightful so apparently there are more misinformed people here.
Cognac glasses are physical property. CDs and DVDs are intellectual property (according to the RIAA and MPAA). This analogy does not apply.
That's interesting, because using Cognac glasses certainly gives me a more intellectual look than using beer mugs, though in any case it is rarely free as in beer, even if my speech starts to sound a little-- OK, I lost the analogy...
"Does anyone know Jon's doctor?
"I want to know if he really does have testicles made of brass."
"Not only are they made of brass, but he's got five of them."
"I want to meet Jon's tailor. I hear he makes pants that fit like a glove."
A true hero and inspiration for every Slashdotter.
Slashdot Mirror
WWW has already killed the audio CD, and now it will also die? What next?!
Many things are old. But, surprisingly, they are older than the Internet. Film at eleven! But seriously...
The answer is very simple. If we stop buying from spammers, spam will instantly disappear. Unfortunately this is not going to happen, thanks to all of those cretins who keep buying from spammers. And those very cretins are the ones we should go after (by legal means or otherwise) because there is no other way to stop this madness.
Would it be equally easy with Go?
This seems like a great idea. How do you get energy in those dangerous and inhospitable areas with toxic gas concentrations? You find and eat living and healthy creatures, of course.
That's interesting. When I don't know what to buy, I give cash. Seriously, what is so wrong with cash these days? Is it this great disadvantage that you can use it in any little store you want? I would really like to know.
War on .? You mean, war on /., right?
And sort -u helps avoid unnecessary use of uniq, but is sort -u | grep -c X as fast, as readable and as classy as grep X | sort | uniq | wc -l -- not to even mention perl '-le/X/&&++$_{$_}while<>;print+0+%_' -- is it? Furthermore, one might argue that avoiding Slashdot helps avoid unnecessary waste of time spent on writing garbage and subsequent correcting said garbage, but that didn't stop me, now did it?
And sort -u helps avoid unnecessary use of uniq, but is sort -u | grep -c X as fast, as readable and as classy as grep X | sort | uniq | wc -l -- not to even mention perl '-le/X/&&++$_{$_}while;print+0+%_' -- is it? Furthermore, one might argue that avoiding Slashdot helps avoid unnecessary waste of time, but that didn't stop me, now did it?
I find it very interesting that people are willing to buy those "value cards," compromised or otherwise. Similar cards were used in Soviet Russia, but no one seemed to like them, so one has to ask a question: what's wrong with money in the United States? Is it because people don't want to have cash so they are less attractive targets for criminals? After all, who would want to steal "value cards"? Well, obviously this is not the case, as the story shows. This is a very interesting issue, a one much more important than this incident alone. Why people don't want to pay with USD?
Note to self: always say "that's not what we have on record" for the first time, if the victim says something different then note that, otherwise if she complains say "oh, I'm sorry, that was the right [password/maiden name/swiss bank account/credit card number] indeed."
Sjhhgfbgfbyth? What does it mean? Anyway, I think goatsex is easier to remember.
"Playing a game puts you into an altered state. It's like a runner's high, where sports athletes are aware they are doing well. They not sure what they are doing, but they know they are functioning at their peak." This seems to be a similar state to that of having sex, or so I've read. Could anyone confirm that?
Personally, I stopped playing and reading about games quite some time ago, when my eyes started to hurt. However, I am still not sure if my eyes are just getting older or this is just the reaction to the Slashdot theme. So for those who don't already know--it has not been posted on the Slashdot frontpage as far as I know--you can still read the games articles using the classic theme. (Yes, I know that the URL seems strange, but I have found it in some AC comment and it appears to work just fine.)
Frankly, I don't really care what actually happens when I play computer games, since games are mostly for children. Real, adult men, especially those of high IQ, seem to be addicted to Wikipedia much more often than to games. What I would really like to know is what actually happens when I keep clicking Special:Randompage all day. Sorry, gotta go now!
"Rose has some great information payload sizes as examples (like the entire information equivalent for our global genome fitting on a 100 pound laptop!)."
It is interesting that we are now counting bits with units of "our global genome per 100 pounds of laptops," but the Library of Congress jokes aside, what does "our global genome" mean in this context? I assume it is some human's genome, right? But only one human? Pair of humans? Male and Female? How much percentage of genome is shared by all of the humans? In other words, how much redundancy would sending every human's genome introduce? How can those variations be described so the reciever of that information could produce not only an army of clones, but a minimum of actual population capable of further reproduction and evolution?
To the person who has moderated the parent post as -1, Troll: I strongly object. It should be moderated as -1, Redundant and even that only because there is no -1, Has Already Fulfilled Its Important Purpose. The original Slashdot story contained a critical yet subtle error, namely a link to http://www.damnsmalllinux/ which was subsequently corrected to http://www.damnsmalllinux.com/ thanks to my humorous remark. The parent post was not Troll and I find moderating it as such at least offending, if not outright outrageous.
I'll tell you "what the fuck" version of the PostgreSQL docs I am looking at. It is 7.4. I'll even tell you "how the fuck" can you go there. Go to PostgreSQL official website at www.postgresql.org. Click Docs at the top of the page in the main menu. Select Static Documentation for the current version of PostgreSQL 7.4, right at the top of the page, the very first thing below bold and underlined "Official Documentation." In the Table of Contents skip Preface and go to the Part I of the documentation entitled Tutorial. Find the word "joins" in the Table of Contents for this part. There is only one instance, namely 2.6. Joins Between Tables. Voilà! Now search for the word "Exercise." There are two of them:
Are you "fucking" satisfied? Call me oldfashioned but in the official "tutorial" for the leading RDBMS I would expect a little bit more on outer joins than leaving them as a pathetic exercise for the reader. Next time before you start using vulgar language please do a little research and please at least try to stay calm. PostgreSQL is unquestionably the best free software RDBMS. It is clearly superior to most of proprietary systems as well. It has already singlehandedly beaten MS SQL Server and beating Oracle is only a matter of time. No question about that. But let us not forget about the documentation. Of course for you and me outer joins is something utterly obvious and intuitive, but remember that there are people who are beginners to computing and programming in general and set theory and relational model in particular. We should forget about our infantile "leetism" and doubtful "intellectual superiority" if we ever want PostgreSQL to be ready for the desktop. And most certainly starting our sentences with "what the fuck?!" does not make us look any more competent in the business and scientific community. Let this be an appeal to everyone who often forgets that cursing like a drunken sailor does not help the free software movement, myself included. Because if we continue looking like a bunch of simpletons in the eyes of businessmen and politicians, our products and our agenda will never dominate the market of profanum vulgus, notwithstanding the meritorious superiority thereof.
That's interesting that DSL has its own TLD now: http://www.damnsmalllinux/
when there really should be:
Not to mention the "RTFS" answers in "TFM" for questions very frequently asked by beginners:
Other than that I would say that PostgreSQL is definitely the way to go today. Once you get used to reading the source code as documentation (it is actually very clean and properly commented, so that's not such a big deal), you will really love it. And you will have the most important thing: ACID features. I hope it helps, I wish you the best luck.
See also:
(Please forgive me if I repeat anything which has already been said. I started to write it as a first post but it took some time and I am sure that other
Actually I was talking about one day when I broke my glasses when I was in the cinema and I couldn't watch the damn movie, since I can barely see without glasses, while those jerks who worked there wouldn't give my money back. That was a downer indeed, especially when I almost killed myself while driving home from the cinema...
You mean the "FBI WARNING" notes, right? They are much older than that, I have also seen them. In fact they were quite common even outside of the FBI jurisdiction. And the stores I've been to in the 60s already contained notes that I was obligated to buy stuff that I broke or the food that I touched. Shocking newsflash: not everything you read is true. Otherwise I would have already written on my car: "By being run over you agree to pay for any damages whatsoever, including, but not limited to, washing your blood from the bumber and windshield. If you do not agree, please stay stay the hell out of my way."
Do you really think that if anyone writes that something is forbidden it automatically means that it is really forbidden by law? A copyright holder has the limited power of controlling the distribution of her work, but somehow when she writes on the CD that you cannot borrow it to your friends, it makes it somehow legally forbidden even if that is completely outside of the scope of the copyright holder's power and FBI will catch you? Sad, very sad.
I have a question for you: If you need a right to watch a movie and to listen to music, how can you watch TV and listen to the radio? And please don't tell me that you are legally obligated to watch the commercials because there is no contract whatsoever between you and public station, and that is because you are not their customer, the advertising companies are their customers, and you are only a product their sell. A very good product, I might add...
Copyright © 2004 Pan Tarhei Hosé. All right reserved. If you have read the above text, you are legally obligated to send $5000 USD to the PayPal account of Mr. Pan Tarhei Hosé. Failing to do so within ten business days is a federal offense and will be reported to FBI and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extend of the law.
This message is intended for the President only. It contains information that is confidential and protected from disclosure. Any review, dissemination or use of this transmission or its contents by persons or unauthorized employees of the intended organisations is strictly prohibited. The contents of this message do not necessarily represent the views or policies of Central Intelligence Agency.
Have a nice day.
It is not really a rocket science. You own what you have bought.
And how exactly does it make you own it any less?
You have been apparently indoctrinated with a great success, but the fact is that you don't need any special "right to watch" a movie, like you don't need any "right to read" a book, at least not yet. The only thing that the copyright law regulates is the right to publish and distribute, not any magical "right to see" which would somehow make illegal the very act of merely looking at publicly available things, which would be completely ridiculous. Please do not spread the FUD. The scums like Jack Valenti want us to think that way, but it does's make it true. Please try to keep that in mind. This is actually extremely important because if all of people think like yourself, then no one will protest when corporations finally put it into law, because everyone will think it has always been that way, which is simply not true. I wouldn't have even answered to this post but it was moderated as Score:5, Insightful so apparently there are more misinformed people here.
That's interesting, because using Cognac glasses certainly gives me a more intellectual look than using beer mugs, though in any case it is rarely free as in beer, even if my speech starts to sound a little-- OK, I lost the analogy...
I hope not. I seriously admire this guy.
I remember a recent discussion on Slashdot:
"Does anyone know Jon's doctor?
"I want to know if he really does have testicles made of brass."
"Not only are they made of brass, but he's got five of them."
"I want to meet Jon's tailor. I hear he makes pants that fit like a glove."
A true hero and inspiration for every Slashdotter.