I do not think this word means what you think it means.
Don't feel bad, though. Thanks to popular (if technically incorrect) culture, the uninformed masses just lump everything to do with the extreme ends of computing, both good and bad, under the title "hacking".
cracking/n./
The act of breaking into a computer system; what a cracker does. Contrary to widespread myth, this does not usually involve some mysterious leap of hackerly brilliance, but rather persistence and the dogged repetition of a handful of fairly well-known tricks that exploit common weaknesses in the security of target systems. Accordingly, most crackers are only mediocre hackers.
hacker/n./
[originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating hack value. 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a Unix hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network hacker'. The correct term for this sense is cracker.
The term `hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see network, the and Internet address). It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic (see hacker ethic).
It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labeled bogus). See also wannabee.
The too long, didn't read version: hackers are Good Guys, crackers are (generally) Bad Guys. Calling crackers hackers is giving them unintentional, and often unwarranted, praise. Also, stop watching crappy movies.
Well, there is a problem that is of Microsoft's making. That is that the Vista/7 interface is really really horrible. And the User Account Control thing that duplicates the Program Files folder for security reasons is incredibly misguided and wrong.
I like XP, but there are many features that could have been added to it without destroying it.
That is only partly Microsoft's fault. Poorly written/designed applications that store user settings and often-overwritten data to Program Files are also to blame. Data stored therein should only be read, not written.
I do agree that Microsoft could have made further enhancements to XP (although I am mostly ignorant of the specifics of what changed "under the hood" of Vista and 7, such as what the new driver model entailed). But updating an existing product does not make a profit... releasing something new and shiny does.
Indeed. Quite frustrating, really. I went looking for a song (or the whole album, if it was reasonably priced), and surprisingly found it on Amazon. Unfortunately, they wouldn't (couldn't) let me buy it. I was disappointed to say the least. I'm sure as hell not paying $40 US for a used copy!
Oh well, guess I'll have to enjoy the song via YouTube while it lasts. Since/. loves clicking links in posts, it's Minute to Forever by a feller named Freekbass. Buckethead used to use this tune during his little breaks for dancing and handing out toys and other fun.
exactly right, let the market decide.... shit, they already did, and the market likes the iPhone/pod/pad... oh well... what else ya got?
Absolutely nothing. I was hoping someone else would be a bit more insightful than I. I'm really only good at pointing out the extremely obvious, and providing anecdotal evidence supporting it.:D
Well, that's what you get if your family doesn't use Macs.
My uncle loves his Mac. He also bought my cousin an Apple notebook. But it extends to iPhone, iPod, iPad, and every other i(diot) device.
I bought my father a Sony MP3 player rather than an iPod. He kinda gripes about it, since even Sony themselves sell more iPod accessories than accessories for his device, but once I begin extolling the "evils" of Apple... well, his eyes kinda glaze over and he eventually just walks away.
The best solution to the Apple Problem is simple: do not buy their products.
Perhaps Jobs and co. will realize that many of their end users are not the mindless idiots they seem to think everyone is.
Personally I will never purchase or endorse Apple products. I am, like many Slashdotters, the family computer fixit guy, but I've made it quite clear that I won't touch anything by Apple. My computers are iTunes and Quicktime free for a reason.
This was posted from my Galaxy S Vibrant, easily rooted (I do not envy the people who have to jump through hoops just to make their devices do what they want them to).
Nearly everyone on the mainland in this hemisphere considers themselves Americans. Most of them actually take offense to the uneducated masses on the other side of the world who are incapable of knowing the difference.
This is not correct. I live in North America, but I am Canadian, not American. I have never, ever heard of another Canadian ever refer to themselves as American. Not even our celebrities who move down south go that far.
while desktops have been unable to shake their one glaring deficiency — they're chained to your desk
In other news, boats have been unable to shake their one glaring deficiency of requiring water, nor have airplanes been able to eliminate their dependency on wings.
I don't know if the article is worth reading as the summary was retarded enough to make me shrug my shoulders in apathy at another pointless/. submission.
Slashdot seems to be less "news for nerds" and more "idiotic summaries of shitty articles".
The one time I actually decide to RTFA, and it's this? What a waste. It probably would have been more amusing if he'd dissected some of the spam e-mails waiting in his inbox.
Buy a new and modish watch today, and become recognizable tomorrow. If you are looking for fancy and cheap jewelry, you just found it.
a click away
That's just a sample of the excitement waiting in mine!
They kinda do force you to use Google search - switching search providers (unlike IE or Firefox) in Chrome is a major inconvenience (it involves digging through menus and dialogue boxes). Firefox/IE its a matter of pointing and clicking.
Out of curiosity, have you actually used Chrome?
Changing the search provider seems to be as easy as starting the program, clicking on the little monkey wrench->Options, and selecting a search provider from a drop down menu. Oh, and one more click on the Close button.
I only use Chrome to make accessing a rarely used gmail account easier (I'm lazy), but it didn't seem all that difficult.
Let me describe how it usually goes down for me. You fall asleep. You either wake up in your room, or doing some trivial task you usually do, like laundry. Something slightly odd will happen, and happen either quicker than usual or slower than usual, like a spider scuttling across the floor, or someone walking into the room. This is the first signal, you don't have any real thoughts before this, but now you start remembering everything that happens very clearly. When it comes to a point where you are compelling to do something, perhaps your mother asks you to go to the store, and you leave, something VERY odd will happen. This will trigger the thought process of "This can't be right".
I thought you were going to tell us how it goes down for you.
I've had lucid dreams before, but nothing like what you're trying to describe.
s/is a lot more open than MS is/uses a lot more open software than MS does/
Did you even look at that page you linked to here and above? Apple is only slightly more open than MS, in that they have no shame in using/selling open software. How much of the software on that site has Apple actually written themselves?
RCA was NEVER common on PC sound cards simply because with the fact you need two of them for stereo you'd never get all the connections a typical PC soundcard has on the expansion slot plate.
I had the AWE64 Gold back in the day. It was a nice enough card for a Creative product, although I would have preferred a Gravis card at the time. RCA ports, on a common (or common enough) PC sound card. Granted, it was at the higher end, but I knew more than a few people who had some variant of this card.
And if I remember rightly, even the shitty no-name card my aunt got in her machine (we both got almost identical P200's at the time) had RCA outs. Never say never.
Every custom compile is essentially a fork.....dead-end forks, but forks none-the-less.
Wrong wrong wrong.
In the open-source community, a fork is what occurs when two (or more) versions of a software package's source code are being developed in parallel which once shared a common code base, and these multiple versions of the source code have irreconcilable differences between them. This should not be confused with a development branch, which may later be folded back into the original source code base. Nor should it be confused with what happens when a new distribution of Linux or some other distribution is created, because that largely assembles pieces than can and will be used in other distributions without conflict.
"had strict codes of conduct and rules, as well as a high degree of customized content (such as new currency, methods of earning experience, the ability to construct buildings and hire non-player characters, plus 'permanent' player death) unavailable in the retail version of the game."
Why would anyone want to play on a server that could kill them?
Player - the fat slob (anecdotal evidence to be sure) sitting in front of the computer.
Character - the blob of pixels that represent the aforementioned fat slob within the game.
(I'm shooting for Funny, but Insightful is okay, too).
Wow, your post is of the few times Godwin's Law has been invoked for a valid point rather than a blatant troll...
Godwin's Law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies) is a humorous observation made by Mike Godwin in 1990 which has become an Internet adage. It states: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." The term Godwin's law can also refer to the tradition that whoever makes such a comparison is said to "lose" the debate.
One does not "invoke" Godwin's law, and no comparison to Nazis was made.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like hacking to me.
I do not think this word means what you think it means.
Don't feel bad, though. Thanks to popular (if technically incorrect) culture, the uninformed masses just lump everything to do with the extreme ends of computing, both good and bad, under the title "hacking".
cracking /n./
The act of breaking into a computer system; what a cracker does. Contrary to widespread myth, this does not usually involve some mysterious leap of hackerly brilliance, but rather persistence and the dogged repetition of a handful of fairly well-known tricks that exploit common weaknesses in the security of target systems. Accordingly, most crackers are only mediocre hackers.
hacker /n./
[originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating hack value. 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a Unix hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network hacker'. The correct term for this sense is cracker.
The term `hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see network, the and Internet address). It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic (see hacker ethic).
It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labeled bogus). See also wannabee.
The Jargon File
The New Hacker's Dictionary
The too long, didn't read version: hackers are Good Guys, crackers are (generally) Bad Guys. Calling crackers hackers is giving them unintentional, and often unwarranted, praise. Also, stop watching crappy movies.
Well, there is a problem that is of Microsoft's making. That is that the Vista/7 interface is really really horrible. And the User Account Control thing that duplicates the Program Files folder for security reasons is incredibly misguided and wrong.
I like XP, but there are many features that could have been added to it without destroying it.
That is only partly Microsoft's fault. Poorly written/designed applications that store user settings and often-overwritten data to Program Files are also to blame. Data stored therein should only be read, not written.
I do agree that Microsoft could have made further enhancements to XP (although I am mostly ignorant of the specifics of what changed "under the hood" of Vista and 7, such as what the new driver model entailed). But updating an existing product does not make a profit... releasing something new and shiny does.
Indeed. Quite frustrating, really. I went looking for a song (or the whole album, if it was reasonably priced), and surprisingly found it on Amazon. Unfortunately, they wouldn't (couldn't) let me buy it. I was disappointed to say the least. I'm sure as hell not paying $40 US for a used copy!
Oh well, guess I'll have to enjoy the song via YouTube while it lasts. Since /. loves clicking links in posts, it's Minute to Forever by a feller named Freekbass. Buckethead used to use this tune during his little breaks for dancing and handing out toys and other fun.
exactly right, let the market decide.... shit, they already did, and the market likes the iPhone/pod/pad... oh well... what else ya got?
Absolutely nothing. I was hoping someone else would be a bit more insightful than I. I'm really only good at pointing out the extremely obvious, and providing anecdotal evidence supporting it. :D
Well, that's what you get if your family doesn't use Macs.
My uncle loves his Mac. He also bought my cousin an Apple notebook. But it extends to iPhone, iPod, iPad, and every other i(diot) device.
I bought my father a Sony MP3 player rather than an iPod. He kinda gripes about it, since even Sony themselves sell more iPod accessories than accessories for his device, but once I begin extolling the "evils" of Apple... well, his eyes kinda glaze over and he eventually just walks away.
The best solution to the Apple Problem is simple: do not buy their products.
Perhaps Jobs and co. will realize that many of their end users are not the mindless idiots they seem to think everyone is.
Personally I will never purchase or endorse Apple products. I am, like many Slashdotters, the family computer fixit guy, but I've made it quite clear that I won't touch anything by Apple. My computers are iTunes and Quicktime free for a reason.
This was posted from my Galaxy S Vibrant, easily rooted (I do not envy the people who have to jump through hoops just to make their devices do what they want them to).
as he had the power to choke the oxygen out every teller's throat
I don't think the feller who wrote that up is a real Star Wars fan, or very good with figuring out the proper tense to use.
Nearly everyone on the mainland in this hemisphere considers themselves Americans. Most of them actually take offense to the uneducated masses on the other side of the world who are incapable of knowing the difference.
This is not correct. I live in North America, but I am Canadian, not American. I have never, ever heard of another Canadian ever refer to themselves as American. Not even our celebrities who move down south go that far.
while desktops have been unable to shake their one glaring deficiency — they're chained to your desk
In other news, boats have been unable to shake their one glaring deficiency of requiring water, nor have airplanes been able to eliminate their dependency on wings.
I don't know if the article is worth reading as the summary was retarded enough to make me shrug my shoulders in apathy at another pointless /. submission.
Slashdot seems to be less "news for nerds" and more "idiotic summaries of shitty articles".
The one time I actually decide to RTFA, and it's this? What a waste. It probably would have been more amusing if he'd dissected some of the spam e-mails waiting in his inbox.
Buy a new and modish watch today, and become recognizable tomorrow. If you are looking for fancy and cheap jewelry, you just found it.
a click away
That's just a sample of the excitement waiting in mine!
They kinda do force you to use Google search - switching search providers (unlike IE or Firefox) in Chrome is a major inconvenience (it involves digging through menus and dialogue boxes). Firefox/IE its a matter of pointing and clicking.
Out of curiosity, have you actually used Chrome?
Changing the search provider seems to be as easy as starting the program, clicking on the little monkey wrench->Options, and selecting a search provider from a drop down menu. Oh, and one more click on the Close button.
I only use Chrome to make accessing a rarely used gmail account easier (I'm lazy), but it didn't seem all that difficult.
Bah! Whitesmiths forever!
while(1)
{
printf("FUCK\n");
}
Though I'd use for(;;) rather than while(1).
Actually.. cmd did not ship with every version of windows. Only since Windows 95. Prior to that, you required DOS, and DOS equivalent was command.com.
Actually.. cmd did not ship with Windows 95. Only Windows NT got the native cmd.exe, which was compatible with command.com anyway.
Make sure you're right when you're trying to correct someone else.
Let me describe how it usually goes down for me. You fall asleep. You either wake up in your room, or doing some trivial task you usually do, like laundry. Something slightly odd will happen, and happen either quicker than usual or slower than usual, like a spider scuttling across the floor, or someone walking into the room. This is the first signal, you don't have any real thoughts before this, but now you start remembering everything that happens very clearly. When it comes to a point where you are compelling to do something, perhaps your mother asks you to go to the store, and you leave, something VERY odd will happen. This will trigger the thought process of "This can't be right".
I thought you were going to tell us how it goes down for you.
I've had lucid dreams before, but nothing like what you're trying to describe.
Open like a Mac? What does that mean? Its not like Apple is anymore open than MS is
Actually, Apple is a lot more open than MS is.
s/is a lot more open than MS is/uses a lot more open software than MS does/
Did you even look at that page you linked to here and above? Apple is only slightly more open than MS, in that they have no shame in using/selling open software. How much of the software on that site has Apple actually written themselves?
1. The file system has the power to brick your machine because of a clock setting
I do not think this word means what you think it means.
RCA was NEVER common on PC sound cards simply because with the fact you need two of them for stereo you'd never get all the connections a typical PC soundcard has on the expansion slot plate.
Creative AWE64
I had the AWE64 Gold back in the day. It was a nice enough card for a Creative product, although I would have preferred a Gravis card at the time. RCA ports, on a common (or common enough) PC sound card. Granted, it was at the higher end, but I knew more than a few people who had some variant of this card.
And if I remember rightly, even the shitty no-name card my aunt got in her machine (we both got almost identical P200's at the time) had RCA outs. Never say never.
Every custom compile is essentially a fork.....dead-end forks, but forks none-the-less.
Wrong wrong wrong.
In the open-source community, a fork is what occurs when two (or more) versions of a software package's source code are being developed in parallel which once shared a common code base, and these multiple versions of the source code have irreconcilable differences between them. This should not be confused with a development branch, which may later be folded back into the original source code base. Nor should it be confused with what happens when a new distribution of Linux or some other distribution is created, because that largely assembles pieces than can and will be used in other distributions without conflict.
Try Australia; they'll welcome anyone who passes their entrance exam, which simply consists of subduing a crocodile with your bare hands.
Last I had heard, they added a new requirement - something involving being able to look both cocksure and manly whilst saying "That's not a knife."
From the summary, emphasis mine:
"had strict codes of conduct and rules, as well as a high degree of customized content (such as new currency, methods of earning experience, the ability to construct buildings and hire non-player characters, plus 'permanent' player death) unavailable in the retail version of the game."
Why would anyone want to play on a server that could kill them?
Player - the fat slob (anecdotal evidence to be sure) sitting in front of the computer.
Character - the blob of pixels that represent the aforementioned fat slob within the game.
(I'm shooting for Funny, but Insightful is okay, too).
Wouldn't do him any good, Druids cannot use swords. Or so I've heard.
I got it, and I chuckled a bit. I'd mod you back up, but alas I am unable.
Now I'll just wait for my off topic.
That's crap. You do too take something away - you take away the renumeration you should have paid.
That's crap. Not giving something is not the same as taking something away.
And "renumeration" is not a word.
Go watch Firefly. It was an American show, cancelled after one mangled season, that was quite possibly the finest Sci-Fi show ever made.
I think you're mistaking Firefly for Farscape, which lasted four seasons.
:D
Wow, your post is of the few times Godwin's Law has been invoked for a valid point rather than a blatant troll...
Godwin's Law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies) is a humorous observation made by Mike Godwin in 1990 which has become an Internet adage. It states: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." The term Godwin's law can also refer to the tradition that whoever makes such a comparison is said to "lose" the debate.
One does not "invoke" Godwin's law, and no comparison to Nazis was made.
Yes, I have too much spare time.