A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software - regardless of how insignificant," said the master.
"Is the Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.
"It is," came the reply.
"Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.
"It is even in a video game," said the master.
"And is the Tao also in Windows 8.1?"
The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is over for today," he said.
A student said to Master Foo: "We are told that the firm called SCO holds true dominion over Unix."
Master Foo nodded.
The student continued, "Yet we are also told that the firm called OpenGroup also holds true dominion over Unix."
Master Foo nodded.
"How can this be?" asked the student.
Master Foo replied:
"SCO indeed has dominion over the code of Unix, but the code of Unix is not Unix. OpenGroup indeed has dominion over the name of Unix, but the name of Unix is not Unix."
"What, then, is the Unix-nature?" asked the student.
Master Foo replied:
"Not code. Not name. Not mind. Not things. Always changing, yet never changing."
"The Unix-nature is simple and empty. Because it is simple and empty, it is more powerful than a typhoon."
"Moving in accordance with the law of nature, it unfolds inexorably in the minds of programmers, assimilating designs to its own nature. All software that would compete with it must become like to it; empty, empty, profoundly empty, perfectly void, hail!"
Master Foo Discourses on the Graphical User Interface
One evening, Master Foo and Nubi attended a gathering of programmers who had met to learn from each other. One of the programmers asked Nubi to what school he and his master belonged. Upon being told they were followers of the Great Way of Unix, the programmer grew scornful.
WThe command-line tools of Unix are crude and backward," he scoffed. "Modern, properly designed operating systems do everything through a graphical user interface."
Master Foo said nothing, but pointed at the moon. A nearby dog began to bark at the master's hand.
"I don't understand you!" said the programmer.
Master Foo remained silent, and pointed at an image of the Buddha. Then he pointed at a window.
"What are you trying to tell me?" asked the programmer.
Master Foo pointed at the programmer's head. Then he pointed at a rock.
"Why can't you make yourself clear?" demanded the programmer.
Master Foo frowned thoughtfully, tapped the programmer twice on the nose, and dropped him in a nearby trashcan.
As the programmer was attempting to extricate himself from the garbage, the dog wandered over and piddled on him.
At that moment, the programmer achieved enlightenment.
I always thought that scientists are the ones looking for unanswered questions and christians are the ones who pretend that their god has all the answers.
As an engineer, how can you conclude that god is anything other than a witless buffoon? Vestigial organs; the human appendix; the backwards human eye; termites not being able to digest lignin; bilateral design even where it makes no sense (e.g. snakes).
The list of god's mistakes is embarrassingly huge, but each of those mistakes is obviously a product of evolution. I suspect that you're not much of an engineer if you can't spot the obvious.
Hey, as a jaded atheist, I'm still filled with wonder when looking at the universe or it's contents. A deeper understanding of the universe (rather than "god did it, now shut up and stop thinking") only adds to the beauty. I don't understand how it subtracts.
I don't see how evolution is untestable. It's easy to set up a test where you have a few petri dishes full of your favourite bacteria and then you apply a selective pressure to some of the samples. The theory would then predict the outcome of the experiment (most likely that the groups subjected to the environmental pressure would evolve to be better adapted for that environment) and you can then see whether the resuts match the theory.
You're right, I forgot about NT and versions derived from that.
With XP, it was almost the default to run everything as Administrator, so the multi-user aspect was made useless. Also, a surprising amount of software relied on having administrator level permissions. The whole idea of storing data in the same directory as the programs made sure that a lot of software wouldn't run unless the user had full write permissions to the "Program Files" directory.
I think some early bad design decisions hog-tied later versions of Windows as Microsoft wanted to keep compatibility with as much third party software as possible.
It might now be the case that Windows isn't as insecure as it once was, but it certainly used to be true about Windows being insecure by design.
For example, there was the whole automatically running software from any removable disk/usb stick thing; hiding file extensions so that users didn't know what was executable; running everything as administrator by default.
The problem was that Windows wasn't designed as a multi-user system and thus didn't have the necessary privilege separation systems that other OS had.
Slashdot Mirror
ERROR: Undefined use of operator
A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software - regardless of how insignificant," said the master.
"Is the Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.
"It is," came the reply.
"Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.
"It is even in a video game," said the master.
"And is the Tao also in Windows 8.1?"
The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is over for today," he said.
Sacrilege! Burn the witch!
Master Foo Discourses on the Unix-Nature
A student said to Master Foo: "We are told that the firm called SCO holds true dominion over Unix."
Master Foo nodded.
The student continued, "Yet we are also told that the firm called OpenGroup also holds true dominion over Unix."
Master Foo nodded.
"How can this be?" asked the student.
Master Foo replied:
"SCO indeed has dominion over the code of Unix, but the code of Unix is not Unix. OpenGroup indeed has dominion over the name of Unix, but the name of Unix is not Unix."
"What, then, is the Unix-nature?" asked the student.
Master Foo replied:
"Not code. Not name. Not mind. Not things. Always changing, yet never changing."
"The Unix-nature is simple and empty. Because it is simple and empty, it is more powerful than a typhoon."
"Moving in accordance with the law of nature, it unfolds inexorably in the minds of programmers, assimilating designs to its own nature. All software that would compete with it must become like to it; empty, empty, profoundly empty, perfectly void, hail!"
Upon hearing this, the student was enlightened.
Master Foo Discourses on the Graphical User Interface
One evening, Master Foo and Nubi attended a gathering of programmers who had met to learn from each other. One of the programmers asked Nubi to what school he and his master belonged. Upon being told they were followers of the Great Way of Unix, the programmer grew scornful.
WThe command-line tools of Unix are crude and backward," he scoffed. "Modern, properly designed operating systems do everything through a graphical user interface."
Master Foo said nothing, but pointed at the moon. A nearby dog began to bark at the master's hand.
"I don't understand you!" said the programmer.
Master Foo remained silent, and pointed at an image of the Buddha. Then he pointed at a window.
"What are you trying to tell me?" asked the programmer.
Master Foo pointed at the programmer's head. Then he pointed at a rock.
"Why can't you make yourself clear?" demanded the programmer.
Master Foo frowned thoughtfully, tapped the programmer twice on the nose, and dropped him in a nearby trashcan.
As the programmer was attempting to extricate himself from the garbage, the dog wandered over and piddled on him.
At that moment, the programmer achieved enlightenment.
Who asks?
http://catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/
Okay, so why are you stating that evolution is a largely untestable phenomenon?
Emacs?
Sounds about right.
I want to know which OS would be considered to be buddhism?
I always thought that scientists are the ones looking for unanswered questions and christians are the ones who pretend that their god has all the answers.
As an engineer, how can you conclude that god is anything other than a witless buffoon? Vestigial organs; the human appendix; the backwards human eye; termites not being able to digest lignin; bilateral design even where it makes no sense (e.g. snakes).
The list of god's mistakes is embarrassingly huge, but each of those mistakes is obviously a product of evolution. I suspect that you're not much of an engineer if you can't spot the obvious.
Hey, as a jaded atheist, I'm still filled with wonder when looking at the universe or it's contents. A deeper understanding of the universe (rather than "god did it, now shut up and stop thinking") only adds to the beauty. I don't understand how it subtracts.
Which way do you vote if you don't support democracy?
I don't see how evolution is untestable. It's easy to set up a test where you have a few petri dishes full of your favourite bacteria and then you apply a selective pressure to some of the samples. The theory would then predict the outcome of the experiment (most likely that the groups subjected to the environmental pressure would evolve to be better adapted for that environment) and you can then see whether the resuts match the theory.
Well that would seem to imply that the US must be one of the safest places in the world with such a tight grip on crime.
Are you saying that Slashdot has content?
Do you mean the first link given in the post or the link to the "See the survey details and full results here" link which goes to http://today.yougov.co.uk/pdfarchives/filtering-pornography/?
I get a zero-sized reply from that link which doesn't look like it's been blocked (although you were probably joking).
Are ninjas the next line of defense?
You're right, I forgot about NT and versions derived from that.
With XP, it was almost the default to run everything as Administrator, so the multi-user aspect was made useless. Also, a surprising amount of software relied on having administrator level permissions. The whole idea of storing data in the same directory as the programs made sure that a lot of software wouldn't run unless the user had full write permissions to the "Program Files" directory.
I think some early bad design decisions hog-tied later versions of Windows as Microsoft wanted to keep compatibility with as much third party software as possible.
It might now be the case that Windows isn't as insecure as it once was, but it certainly used to be true about Windows being insecure by design.
For example, there was the whole automatically running software from any removable disk/usb stick thing; hiding file extensions so that users didn't know what was executable; running everything as administrator by default.
The problem was that Windows wasn't designed as a multi-user system and thus didn't have the necessary privilege separation systems that other OS had.
Wish I could mod this up.
How about Primer?
Actually I had to look it up as I thought it was a misspelling and I'd never seen that word before.
Look, I'm not willing to read all these shenanigans about aliterates (although the lose/loose confusion really bugs me whenever I see it ;)
That comment is currently marked at +5 funny, but I'm confused: isn't Vista the most hated Microsoft "OS"?
Okay mister, guess I had a good run with that one. I'll be more careful in future - gotta keep good karma.
**waits for McGrew to leave the room and go berate some other young'un, checks the coast is clear and starts looking for another first post to troll**