* Because geeks (in my case at least) have interests outside computers
There has once been a time, where one was despised as geek for ones intelectual dedication to a special field, instead of been admired as an ego-shooter playing computer "specialist".
But I have to admit, we are certainly on a critical ground here. Sports is involved. But as long as we don't discuss the results, we should be save.
* Because Larry Ellison is involved
Please enlighten me, what is geeky about Larry Ellison. He is a MBA and CEO and surely has many other TLA. Hopefully, it has nothing to do with Oracle. Personally, I find DBs the ungeekiest computer related theme besides Office-Suites, and Barbie Comuter Games. (Although, I'm not entirely sure about the last one... shudder) Is there anything more opposing to a geek than a buisness man, expect perhaps a marketing guy...or the fair sex.
Well, I'd say it depends. For me, the actual race of Formula One is pretty boring. Actually, I find any sport (not to say that I'd consider racing as sports) boring to watch.
But the geek in me finds all hi-tech involved in those competitions very fascinating and the tree-hugger in me likes seeing so much high-tech in a non-combustion vehicle. (Don't stop me raving by reminding me of the construction of those yachts)
When it comes to actually sailing one, I dislike sailing any yacht or boat, where your own body weight has no (noticable) impact on heeling.
But still, there is still a tremendious amount of nautical expertise necessary to judge the winds and judging the other yachtsmen.
where lisa is an arbitrary existing username. Which is of course, as others noted, terribly more complicated than the current chmod command. To achieve a behaviour similar to the "inherit permissions" feature, you have to make the changes on the default acl (since they are inherited by newly created files) (according to man ACL(5) "OBJECT CREATION AND DEFAULT ACLs")
The procedure you were asking for could look this way (as a bash-script)
echo "Enter users in group (seperated by space, terminated by newline):" read for USER in $REPLY; do
setfacl -m d:u:$USER:rwx.; done
The added "d:" is the short form for "default:" option, which doesn't seem to be Posix conformant.
I have to admit that I'm writing this only from theoretical knowledge, since I've no practical experience with ACLs. So any practical insight and corrections would be welcomed.
> Actually I think ACLs are the reason why everybody is running as Administrator in Windows. They are just too damn complicated.
The reason is, that they're accustomed to the DOS based Windows-Series. For some people, the concept of a superuser and a normal user seems to be too complicated.
>The Unix-permissions are simple.
Great... Now how does a small group of students get read write rights on a set of files/directories?
>, there is also sudo.
It's just that you are switching into superuser-mode for every little thing a little out of box. Since you're complaining about people running Windows as Administrator, you certainly are aware of the lack of style in this. Not to mention, that it is out of question for every larger system (practically every system, which exists outside ones home).
> I have no idea how a one line comment with a single fact can be moderated as 'Insightful'. I don't consider you to be a great thinker just because you can transpose a number.
More interesting is, that it is explicitly stated in the article:
Current Athlons come with a 266MHz bus and 256KB of secondary cache.
Correct me, if I'm wrong, but I thought the 1/3 rule has a different reason.
The "dot" in dpi ratings for printer usually stands for a single ink dot, which means one colour. A pixel consists at least of three colours. So one requires at least 3 dots to compose a single coloured pixel.
Maybe you didn't noticed it, but you just enumerated the technological centres of Asia.
It's like saying, here in Silicon Valley, we all have Internet Access and one can reserve ones seat at the restaurant at the corner per Internet. So, the US is certainly most advanced nation in the gastronomical internet.
Most people in China don't live in Hong Kong or Shanghai. And that's a hell lot of people.
The unemployment rate in the EU was 7.4. Canada had an unemployment rate of 7.2, the US had one of 4.8 (2000).
Now, compare the social security system of Canada, various EU states and the US and maybe you know why an unemployment rate of 5.6 is considered "terrible".
Hint: People below poverty line: Canada 10.3%, US 17.0%, Source OECD
Imagine, some people consider poverty as a source of social unrest and criminality.
Sorry to get rude, but that's bullshit. You are currently asserting a stereotype with your stereotypical statement. On behalf of other Non-U.S.ians, I have to intervene.
You are speaking of the Americans and complaining about the missing differentiation between EU and Europe. Congratulations, a wonderful accomplishment.
Usually, one speaks of the U.S. and their people as America and Americans. Same can be applied for the EU. Both are simplifications, which assume that the other person to whom the speech is directed uses ones brain and differentiates between the continent and the major political faction in place.
In Europe (more exactly German television), I've sometimes noticed the same use of language.
Speaking of Europe can be as ambigious as speaking of North America.
When speaking of Europe one can either mean a) The European Union b) the continent Europe c) the political Europe, which may include Russia and Turkey.
On a sidenote: Russia is a neighbour of the US, Japan and China. In your statistic, the total population of Russia is attributed to Europe. (CIA Factbook 2001: 145,470,197
Your source: 146,001,176)
> Compare a measly little 1.25GHz G4 w/2MB DDR cache to a 1.25GHz 21264 Alpha w/16MB DDR cache.
Um, G4 is not the top of the notch PPC. What about the Power4? 2 1.3GHz processors on one chip, 1.5Mb L2 Cache, 32Mb L3 Cache (per chip, not processor)
> (DEC) Alpha Linux Geek Signing off.
Didn't you mean to say HP/Compaq Alpha? I know, I'm rude:)
On the other hand, humans tend to be quite humanistic. Thinking that only something which behaves the same way humans do, qualifies as intelligent or alife.
> In a lot of asimovs works the robots are intelligent but they are not really alive. There are several stories by Asimov which are about the emancipation of the robot, showing that they are in fact alife and intelligent, despite the human judgement around them. Due to Hollywood, the Positronic Man may now the most prominent one.
A dayfly is alive, but a complex cuircuit capable of speaking, learning and deciding is not? Why not?
>> Unlikely time... Middle East and Africa are in chaos. At what time were they not in chaos.
>>rocket launches with the oil shortage.
I've still to see a rocket stopping at a petrol station.
> flood after heavy rainfall >>clouds and taking pictures of people under those clouds is just an adjustment in focus.
And the difference between seeing through a wall and at a wall? Well, a bit more seriously... The satellite is orbiting at an altitude of 35,780km. A bit too high to make a good spy satellite, which orbit at about 1,200km to 2,400km.
>>Remind anyone else of 1984? Yeah, sure provoke the "if you don't have anything to hide..." and "just because I'm paranoid, it doesn't mean that they are not watching" fractions.
>>as threatening as a missile defense system When this doesn't provoke a flame war...
>please ask your president to sign the Kyoto contracts, thanks
AutoCAD might be quite flexible, but you can't do taxes with it:).
> The necessary flexibility could be gained through open source, or by clever software design that supports a great deal of user-definable action.
This are some problems. First, there is a limit to flexibility. You can't think of everything. Second, flexibility means complexity. This complexity results in higher costs and lower performance. A highly indebted goverment elected for 5 years, would not make a wise decision paying tenfold amount of money for a higher flexibity.
Lastly, this reminds me of the "second system syndrome". Makeing highly flexible software most often results in a desaster.
Among the most major reasons causing a project to fail is unclear requirements. Overly amibitous is another.
In case of the tax software, the requirement would change from handling all taxes to handling all possible taxes. I think this could qualify as unclear requirement.
To make a reference to a different country than the US. In Germany, the federal and local police wanted to replace the old software (from the 70s IIRC) with a more flexible system. The resulting software, being overdue and breaking the budget, responded to a simple query in several second.
Mandating flexibility by design could actually mean mandating two of the top reasons of project failure.
What about custom software? Does an open data format suffice? Not all the information lies in data.
Isn't it sensible that the goverment should own all rights to modification on custom software?
Imagine, a new tax is introduced, so the tax software has to be changed. Either that, or it can contract another company to write the whole software from scratch. Which one will be more likely? What will this do to competition?
>I don't buy cars based on what brand I like, or how their business practices are.
I doubt the first, and despise the second.
>I buy the best for the money. The problem is, best is a very vague criterium and often includes preferences for a certain company, especially considering cars.
What car do you drive? A Kia? Toyota?
Concerning business practices: What way do you have to influence companies business practices besides buying or not buying their products. When speaking of buisness practices, you probably thought of MS and their behaviour towards other companies. Ignorance of their behaviour is not a reason of despise. But business practice may include support of suppressive goverments, enviromental issues. So, a general disregard of business practice in buying considerations is.
Shouldn't a government, which should represent the people in its most ideal form, consider the business practices as well?
Should a goverment buy from a convicted offender?
Well, I'm a bit more pragmatic than the above words make me look. In case of MS I'd say... whatever.
>I could find 500 MHz K6 CPUs, but that was about the lowest.
Well, no one forces you to run it at this speed.
I have a K6 400MHz running at 166MHz without a fan. Front side bus reduced from 100MHz to 66MHz and a multiplier of 2.5.
The CPU doesn't get very hot, since it is idleing most of it's time.
IIRC, there is even a patch for the Linux kernel out there, which let's the CPU idle when it gets too hot.
But maybe you'd prefer the VIA C3 processor. Passive cooled, up to 866MHz, combined with VIA Apollo CLE266 chipset with integrated graphics, hardware support for MPEG2 decoding, integrated networking and audio, it might do the trick for your set-top box.
And how much is 64kbit/s when downloading a CD-image, "apt-get upgrade" or "emerge --world upgrade"? At least for me, it's much more than I would telephone in a month.
At a local telco, the ISDN-"router" collapsed because of the number of data connections, not voice. They were introducing a flat-rate in a region, where previously a state-monopol provided the only access.
>not neccessarily on the backbone. Where then? The access point? A dedicated set of 2-4 wires. From the curb to the provider? Still dedicated lines to a dedicated splitter (assuming line-sharing), which splits the voice from data, to the DSLAM of the provider. Now, it's all in the provider's backbone. The provider? Every user must be able to at least use the web marginally and simultaniously with others, without disturbing the other users. On a 12Mbit/s DSL connection, which qualifier would be most appropriate to describe 64kbit/s?
> Isn't this going to choke the internet bandwidth.
Bandwith requirements for VoIP in ISDN quality: 64kbit/s. So it can easily fit into a DSL up and downlink. The backbones for voice can be used for data, too. They are just a little bit too sophisticated for dumb packet switching.
> If everyone fully utilized their dsl connections theoretical I think we would all be paying more and getting crappier service.
This is true for every service, so lets ban everything, except gopher and a mail programs, except SNDMSG.
Why is there a need for a 3G mobile network? (Well, that's a question one shouldn't really think about it, because it could cost some people their job...) At least theoretically, more bandwidth for data services.
See the positive side-effect: All the unused reserves in bandwith for voice and data are then shared.
> a)... So, they changed to another kind of ID verification, and it reduced fraud. Assuming you meant in comparison to other states, this begs the question, why shouldn't other states drop the drivers license as ID, too. > b.) What is when you have a (valid) New Jersey drivers license. Just happen to be in different state.
A little exaggeration: Family Johnson is "travelling" from Camden to Philadelphia. (A hop over a river) "Honey, didn't you forget your passport?"
And what about money?
The dollar hasn't (drastically) changed for quite some time and is in every state the same. There are only two printing facilities in the whole US, to guarantee a great similarity.
Following your argumentation, all this is actually detrimental to its forgery-proofness.
Slashdot Mirror
* Because geeks (in my case at least) have interests outside computers
...or the fair sex.
There has once been a time, where one was despised as geek for ones intelectual dedication to a special field, instead of been admired as an ego-shooter playing computer "specialist".
But I have to admit, we are certainly on a critical ground here. Sports is involved. But as long as we don't discuss the results, we should be save.
* Because Larry Ellison is involved
Please enlighten me, what is geeky about Larry Ellison.
He is a MBA and CEO and surely has many other TLA.
Hopefully, it has nothing to do with Oracle.
Personally, I find DBs the ungeekiest computer related theme besides Office-Suites, and Barbie Comuter Games.
(Although, I'm not entirely sure about the last one... shudder)
Is there anything more opposing to a geek than a buisness man, expect perhaps a marketing guy
Well, I'd say it depends.
For me, the actual race of Formula One is pretty boring. Actually, I find any sport (not to say that I'd consider racing as sports) boring to watch.
But the geek in me finds all hi-tech involved in those competitions very fascinating and the tree-hugger in me likes seeing so much high-tech in a non-combustion vehicle. (Don't stop me raving by reminding me of the construction of those yachts)
When it comes to actually sailing one, I dislike sailing any yacht or boat, where your own body weight has no (noticable) impact on heeling.
But still, there is still a tremendious amount of nautical expertise necessary to judge the winds and judging the other yachtsmen.
where lisa is an arbitrary existing username.
Which is of course, as others noted, terribly more complicated than the current chmod command.
To achieve a behaviour similar to the "inherit permissions" feature, you have to make the changes on the default acl (since they are inherited by newly created files) (according to man ACL(5) "OBJECT CREATION AND DEFAULT ACLs")
The procedure you were asking for could look this way (as a bash-script)The added "d:" is the short form for "default:" option, which doesn't seem to be Posix conformant.
I have to admit that I'm writing this only from theoretical knowledge, since I've no practical experience with ACLs. So any practical insight and corrections would be welcomed.
> Actually I think ACLs are the reason why everybody is running as Administrator in Windows. They are just too damn complicated.
The reason is, that they're accustomed to the DOS based Windows-Series.
For some people, the concept of a superuser and a normal user seems to be too complicated.
>The Unix-permissions are simple.
Great... Now how does a small group of students get read write rights on a set of files/directories?
>, there is also sudo.
It's just that you are switching into superuser-mode for every little thing a little out of box.
Since you're complaining about people running Windows as Administrator, you certainly are aware of the lack of style in this.
Not to mention, that it is out of question for every larger system (practically every system, which exists outside ones home).
I'm a frenchmen. Tea... Earl Grey... Hot. Now let's read some Moby Dick or Shakespeare.
Well, it's not like frenchmen don't drink tea and the like...
Patrick Stewart may be a great actor, but probably Jean Luc Picard wasn't one of his greatest roles. Especially with those script-writers.
More interesting is, that it is explicitly stated in the article:
Correct me, if I'm wrong, but I thought the 1/3 rule has a different reason.
The "dot" in dpi ratings for printer usually stands for a single ink dot, which means one colour. A pixel consists at least of three colours. So one requires at least 3 dots to compose a single coloured pixel.
> Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong
Maybe you didn't noticed it, but you just enumerated the technological centres of Asia.
It's like saying, here in Silicon Valley, we all have Internet Access and one can reserve ones seat at the restaurant at the corner per Internet.
So, the US is certainly most advanced nation in the gastronomical internet.
Most people in China don't live in Hong Kong or Shanghai. And that's a hell lot of people.
The national unemployment rates of different countries aren't comparable at all. Who is considered as unemployed?
Try the standardised unemployment rates from the OECD.
The unemployment rate in the EU was 7.4. Canada had an unemployment rate of 7.2, the US had one of 4.8 (2000).
Now, compare the social security system of Canada, various EU states and the US and maybe you know why an unemployment rate of 5.6 is considered "terrible".
Hint: People below poverty line: Canada 10.3%, US 17.0%, Source OECD
Imagine, some people consider poverty as a source of social unrest and criminality.
The North American continent doesn't end at the poverty line (I'm exaggerating here a bit), but at the edge of the continental plate.
The North American continent ends somewhere in Panama.
Any other line is purely political and therefor arbitrary at best.
For a better visualisation, have a look at this wonderful map.
> Let me guess, you're american?
Sorry to get rude, but that's bullshit.
You are currently asserting a stereotype with your stereotypical statement.
On behalf of other Non-U.S.ians, I have to intervene.
You are speaking of the Americans and complaining about the missing differentiation between EU and Europe. Congratulations, a wonderful accomplishment.
Usually, one speaks of the U.S. and their people as America and Americans.
Same can be applied for the EU.
Both are simplifications, which assume that the other person to whom the speech is directed uses ones brain and differentiates between the continent and the major political faction in place.
In Europe (more exactly German television), I've sometimes noticed the same use of language.
Speaking of Europe can be as ambigious as speaking of North America.
When speaking of Europe one can either mean
a) The European Union
b) the continent Europe
c) the political Europe, which may include Russia and Turkey.
On a sidenote:
Russia is a neighbour of the US, Japan and China.
In your statistic, the total population of Russia is attributed to Europe.
(CIA Factbook 2001: 145,470,197
Your source: 146,001,176)
> Compare a measly little 1.25GHz G4 w/2MB DDR cache to a 1.25GHz 21264 Alpha w/16MB DDR cache.
:)
Um, G4 is not the top of the notch PPC. What about the Power4? 2 1.3GHz processors on one chip, 1.5Mb L2 Cache, 32Mb L3 Cache (per chip, not processor)
> (DEC) Alpha Linux Geek Signing off.
Didn't you mean to say HP/Compaq Alpha?
I know, I'm rude
On the other hand, humans tend to be quite humanistic. Thinking that only something which behaves the same way humans do, qualifies as intelligent or alife.
> In a lot of asimovs works the robots are intelligent but they are not really alive.
There are several stories by Asimov which are about the emancipation of the robot, showing that they are in fact alife and intelligent, despite the human judgement around them.
Due to Hollywood, the Positronic Man may now the most prominent one.
A dayfly is alive, but a complex cuircuit capable of speaking, learning and deciding is not? Why not?
Can you spell "troll"?
...this does.
>> Unlikely time... Middle East and Africa are in chaos.
At what time were they not in chaos.
>>rocket launches with the oil shortage.
I've still to see a rocket stopping at a petrol station.
> flood after heavy rainfall
>>clouds and taking pictures of people under those clouds is just an adjustment in focus.
And the difference between seeing through a wall and at a wall?
Well, a bit more seriously... The satellite is orbiting at an altitude of 35,780km.
A bit too high to make a good spy satellite, which orbit at about 1,200km to 2,400km.
>>Remind anyone else of 1984?
Yeah, sure provoke the "if you don't have anything to hide..." and "just because I'm paranoid, it doesn't mean that they are not watching" fractions.
>>as threatening as a missile defense system
When this doesn't provoke a flame war...
>please ask your president to sign the Kyoto contracts, thanks
(Me, hoping it was water instead of oil)
AutoCAD might be quite flexible, but you can't do taxes with it :).
> The necessary flexibility could be gained through open source, or by clever software design that supports a great deal of user-definable action.
This are some problems.
First, there is a limit to flexibility. You can't think of everything.
Second, flexibility means complexity. This complexity results in higher costs and lower performance.
A highly indebted goverment elected for 5 years, would not make a wise decision paying tenfold amount of money for a higher flexibity.
Lastly, this reminds me of the "second system syndrome". Makeing highly flexible software most often results in a desaster.
Among the most major reasons causing a project to fail is
unclear requirements.
Overly amibitous is another.
In case of the tax software, the requirement would change from handling all taxes to handling all possible taxes.
I think this could qualify as unclear requirement.
To make a reference to a different country than the US.
In Germany, the federal and local police wanted to replace the old software (from the 70s IIRC) with a more flexible system.
The resulting software, being overdue and breaking the budget, responded to a simple query in several second.
Mandating flexibility by design could actually mean mandating two of the top reasons of project failure.
What about custom software?
Does an open data format suffice?
Not all the information lies in data.
Isn't it sensible that the goverment should own all rights to modification on custom software?
Imagine, a new tax is introduced, so the tax software has to be changed.
Either that, or it can contract another company to write the whole software from scratch.
Which one will be more likely? What will this do to competition?
>I don't buy cars based on what brand I like, or how their business practices are.
I doubt the first, and despise the second.
>I buy the best for the money.
The problem is, best is a very vague criterium and often includes preferences for a certain company, especially considering cars.
What car do you drive? A Kia? Toyota?
Concerning business practices:
What way do you have to influence companies business practices besides buying or not buying their products.
When speaking of buisness practices, you probably thought of MS and their behaviour towards other companies. Ignorance of their behaviour is not a reason of despise. But business practice may include support of suppressive goverments, enviromental issues. So, a general disregard of business practice in buying considerations is.
Shouldn't a government, which should represent the people in its most ideal form, consider the business practices as well?
Should a goverment buy from a convicted offender?
Well, I'm a bit more pragmatic than the above words make me look.
In case of MS I'd say... whatever.
>I could find 500 MHz K6 CPUs, but that was about the lowest.
Well, no one forces you to run it at this speed.
I have a K6 400MHz running at 166MHz without a fan.
Front side bus reduced from 100MHz to 66MHz
and a multiplier of 2.5.
The CPU doesn't get very hot, since it is idleing most of it's time.
IIRC, there is even a patch for the Linux kernel out there, which let's the CPU idle when it gets too hot.
But maybe you'd prefer the VIA C3 processor.
Passive cooled, up to 866MHz, combined with VIA Apollo CLE266 chipset with integrated graphics, hardware support for MPEG2 decoding, integrated networking and audio, it might do the trick for your set-top box.
Beer is free as in speech.
Here is the source
To compile beer, you don't even need a computer, only household equipment.
And how much is 64kbit/s when downloading a CD-image,
"apt-get upgrade" or "emerge --world upgrade"?
At least for me, it's much more than I would telephone in a month.
At a local telco, the ISDN-"router" collapsed because of the number of data connections, not voice.
They were introducing a flat-rate in a region, where previously a state-monopol provided the only access.
>not neccessarily on the backbone.
Where then?
The access point? A dedicated set of 2-4 wires.
From the curb to the provider? Still dedicated lines to a dedicated splitter (assuming line-sharing), which splits the voice from data, to the DSLAM of the provider.
Now, it's all in the provider's backbone.
The provider? Every user must be able to at least use the web marginally and simultaniously with others, without disturbing the other users.
On a 12Mbit/s DSL connection, which qualifier would be most appropriate to describe 64kbit/s?
Internet (lags?) lacks
Quality of Service
Doves do return
> Isn't this going to choke the internet bandwidth.
Bandwith requirements for VoIP in ISDN quality: 64kbit/s. So it can easily fit into a DSL up and downlink. The backbones for voice can be used for data, too.
They are just a little bit too sophisticated for dumb packet switching.
> If everyone fully utilized their dsl connections theoretical I think we would all be paying more and getting crappier service.
This is true for every service, so lets ban everything, except gopher and a mail programs, except SNDMSG.
Why is there a need for a 3G mobile network? (Well, that's a question one shouldn't really think about it, because it could cost some people their job...)
At least theoretically, more bandwidth for data services.
See the positive side-effect:
All the unused reserves in bandwith for voice and data are then shared.
> a) ...
So, they changed to another kind of ID verification, and it reduced fraud. Assuming you meant in comparison to other states, this begs the question, why shouldn't other states drop the drivers license as ID, too.
> b.)
What is when you have a (valid) New Jersey drivers license. Just happen to be in different state.
A little exaggeration:
Family Johnson is "travelling" from Camden to Philadelphia. (A hop over a river)
"Honey, didn't you forget your passport?"
And what about money?
The dollar hasn't (drastically) changed for quite some time and is in every state the same.
There are only two printing facilities in the whole US, to guarantee a great similarity.
Following your argumentation, all this is actually detrimental to its forgery-proofness.
> There is actually a very interesting advantage to the scores of different ID cards--it gives counterfeiters 50 different things to counterfeit.
"Weakest link of chain" comes to mind.