Slashdot Mirror


User: Arker

Arker's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
5,173
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 5,173

  1. Re:US military doctrine is simple to understand... on Stanford-NYU Report: Drone Attacks Illegal, Counterproductive · · Score: 2

    The only Jews that are white are the ones whose lineages underwent a long exile in a northern climate. Greek and Roman culture spread more as culture than lineage - the Greek language spread across west asia but Greek DNA did not, at least to any measurable degree. If anything has significantly lightened middle eastern skin, it would be the millions of slaves imported throughout the middle ages, mostly of eastern and northern european extraction, and occuring long after the time in question. So, sorry, you are wrong. Were Jesus a historical figure, he would certainly have been a very brown man. Probably significantly darker than your typical Palestinian "Arab" today and certainly not significantly lighter.

  2. Re:Other opinions on Stanford-NYU Report: Drone Attacks Illegal, Counterproductive · · Score: 1

    Pre-2011 the Pakistanis were co-operating under the radar while still begging the US to stop the strikes.

    You are correct the bin Laden raid was when that went sour, and it sounds like the Pakis have every reason to be upset about it. They provided the intel that led to him, they were told it didnt go anywhere (lied to) and then one day a US team drops into Islamabad and embarrased the hell out of them. Imagine if our foreign 'partners' took intelligence we gave them and it lead to their number one enemy - ensconced in a comfortable house in West Point, NY - and they told us it was a dead end, then dropped out of the sky without warning to raid that house in West Point, without permission, without consultation, unilaterally. How would we feel about the relationship at that point?

    Whether we really want our government to be going around the world corrupting other governments (which is what was going on pre-2011, before our government pushed too hard and too rudely) or not is another question, perhaps, but even forgoing it, it's quite disingenuous to pretend that the decay in relations was all the other guys fault. The Pakis havent been hostile, indeed they have been lap-dogs for years, until insult piled on top of insult to the point where they simply could not continue to take it laying down without being voted out of office. Pakistan is a democracy too, after all.

  3. Re:Illegal on Stanford-NYU Report: Drone Attacks Illegal, Counterproductive · · Score: 2

    Actually you could not have gotten that more backwards. If you are fighting terrorists, and you dont play by the rules, they win. Simple as that.

    Their entire goal is to trigger disproportionate/oppressive responses. Our rules, our Constitution, our tradition of Law, are our greatest assets in this fight, and they are desperate to convince us to surrender those assets. When we do what they want, we lose.

  4. Totally illegal on Stanford-NYU Report: Drone Attacks Illegal, Counterproductive · · Score: 2

    Yes, in the early years the Pakistani government was tacitly (but not expliclity) co-operating, providing intelligence and even a base to operate from. That arrangement ended in early 2011. They have since repeatedly demanded that the attacks cease, and been steadfastly ignored by both the US Government and US media for their trouble.

  5. Re:Complication of making a distribution on XBian's Koenkk Replies To the XBian/RaspBMC Flap · · Score: 1

    You can only use 3c if you received the binaries under 3b and pass them along verbatim, which isnt the case, so it just doesnt apply. It leaves him with choice of 3a or 3b if he wants to distribute legally. Since he's been distributing illegally, he's already in breach of the license, and at this point in time has no legal right to distribute any of it, without first receiving forgiveness from the copyright holders. {include stddsclmr.h IANAL.h}

  6. Re:Complication of making a distribution on XBian's Koenkk Replies To the XBian/RaspBMC Flap · · Score: 1

    I wasnt insulting Debian, the second-oldest and one of the most respected distributions around. I do use it fairly often. I disagree with the underlying philosophy behind much of the system design (making the system reliant on a complicated database in order to track dependencies is creating a potentially massive problem to avoid very minor ones) but that doesnt mean that I see a 'bug' to report - Debian is a great distro. Just not my favourite. That's not a rant, or an attempt to report a bug, just a statement of fact with a little explanation.

    Now, if you want to hear a rant about bugs, let's talk about Firefox. They have show stopper bugs that have been sitting ignored in bugzilla for 10 years now!

  7. Re:Comparing 2 different things... on iOS 6 Adoption Tops 25% After Just 48 Hours · · Score: 2

    I used to feel that way about phones. None of them are reliable anymore. I have learned to live without a phone.

  8. Re:Complication of making a distribution on XBian's Koenkk Replies To the XBian/RaspBMC Flap · · Score: 1

    Agreed, except I started from a Slackware core and still don't really see the point in all that extra unnecessary complexity Debian forces down the throat. Although it can be handy on a remote install I will grant... ;)

    But Koenkk is just sad here, claiming he doesnt have to host source because he hasnt changed them. He lost that dispute at least 20 years ago, he just doesnt know it yet.

  9. It's about the right metric on Apple iPad 2 As Fast As the Cray-2 Supercomputer · · Score: 1

    When you are talking about a battery operated device, performance per watt isnt a bad choice of metric.

  10. Re:Universal Installer on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Fix the Linux Desktop? · · Score: 1

    Simply using a different package format doesnt change that. The method that is used to do that, in fact, works as well or better on slackware with .tgz packages - slapt-get will keep your system up to date just like apt-get does, without the .deb baggage. Source installs can be different, but especially if libraries are handled properly it's not that different. And with gentoo in the picture, if I am not mistaken, your assertions would be simply wrong rather than merely misguided.

    "Only easy as long as you are installing a single packet" - so what? The context was about how to package an application so it can be installed on arbitrary distro $fooOS. The lament was that this was impossible and this discourages programmers from offering apps for linux platforms. So we are talking about a single packet - a single application to be added to a running system, NOT about how to install the system itself.

    My point being you CAN release an application in a single format and thereby enable installation on (virtually) any OS out there, if you release a source tarball with proper scripts. This is what free software is all about! If you do that and your program is useful then it will be used, and there will be binary packages available quickly for major flavors, whether you take the time to make them yourself or not! What could possibly be easier?

    I suspect the subtext to this grumbling is usually 'I want to find a way to make a quick buck selling proprietary binary crapware to FreeOS users and I am frustrated because the system isnt designed to enable me.' That's not broken, that's WAD.

  11. Re:Universal Installer on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Fix the Linux Desktop? · · Score: 1

    First of all there is no check for files overwrite, i.e. if you install 2 version of the same library you do not know what you will get.

    You sound very confused.

    If you install two versions of the same library you do know exactly what you will get. Two versions of the same library. There is no problem here.

    A file overwrite, however, is not what you get when you install two versions of the same library - it's what you get when you overwrite one version. Totally different things. When you install from source it's most commonly from a limited user account, in which case you cannot overwrite a system library, but you should never need to do that anyway. If the system has libfoo.o->libfoo.9.99 and your source requires 9.64 you just install 9.64 and everything works! Why do you think there is a problem here?

    Then there is no uninstall mechanism, unless you keep the configured sources, and even if there is one it is left to the good will of the package make: no automatic way to track the modified files.

    Now THAT is a valid point, I will give you. But note your caveat (unless you keep your configured sources - why wouldnt you?) Anyway, it is nice to have a way to track the changes for uninstall, absolutely. But is that really functionality that needs to be built into the distributable package directly?

    While you are thinking about that question, consider how your second point undermines the first. If you are relying on the information in a .deb or .rpm file for your uninstall information, that is exactly the same situation you find objectionable in the earlier system but apparently acceptable in the new one.

    A better way to get that information is to wrap make install properly and note what actually gets changed. You can do that just as easily installing from a source tarball as a binary .rpm.

    Then you need the development files for all the dependencies of the package you are going to install; which takes a lot of space and scatter further files around your disk.

    Well, if you are trying to compile GNOME or KDE you will have some hassles of that sort, but really, who installs those things aftermarket? If you use them they are part of your OS (or for slackware a well-supported add-on) that you can take for granted. You never install that.

    Disk space is quite cheap these days, though, most people have more than they can use, and most of that will churn quickly to the bitbucket. Are we really going to re-engineer fundamental parts of the ecosystem to minimise disk writes in this day and age? I get called a dinosaur whenever I want to optimise anything.

    And I wasnt suggesting installing add-ons through source exclusively either - binary and source tarballs were mentioned. Source makes sure it's installable for everyone - but binary tarballs are a nice convenience and almost always available.

    Finally, it takes a lot of time, both human and cpu; nowadays it may not be so bad, but with 10 years ago internet and cpus t would take many hours to download and configure the linux kernel or any other 10k-lines package.

    Yet 10 years ago we were happy to get the software, and now we get endless articles asking how to fix linux, because, you know, I cant download everything the moment I want it and have it in the right package format for my distro and the right colours to match my theme... it's broken dammit!

    So, you agree with me that the advances in technology make source distribution more, not less, practical today than 10 years ago... let alone the 20 years ago I was thinking of. It was a great system then, it's a better system now.

    Saying that something is good just because it's old, or more technically complex is just stupid elitism. I do not think it's helping linux desktop at all

    But that's

  12. Re:Universal Installer on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Fix the Linux Desktop? · · Score: 1

    Tarballs were in use long before slackware. The layout of a slackware binary tarball is it's own, but it's all easily human readable, and they're not difficult to install manually if need be. But the older form of tarball is an even better example - the one with software (source) rather than a binary. Source tarballs are the ultimate for compatiblity and ease of use. ./configure, make, make install. It does just what needs to be done, no more and no less.

  13. Re:Universal Installer on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Fix the Linux Desktop? · · Score: 1

    Yes, in fact, the ubiquitous tarball is not only an installer format, it's the original, by far the most widely compatible, and to oversimplify only slightly, the superior choice for installer format.

    Just like your .debs and .rpms, it comes in two forms. Unlike them, it requires (and depends on) no special (unreliable, overly complicated) infrastructure and "just works" regardless of platform. In fact this is one of the handful of real compatibility tests whose results matter. A system that cannot install from tarball is a broken system! No matter what brand of system.

  14. Re:Interesting Algorithm on Poll-Based System Predicts U.S. Election Results For President, Senate · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Several polls showed Dr Paul would do better against Obama than Romney (or any of the other names that were thrown around in the primaries.) He has pretty good appeal with independents and swing voters and Romney, obviously, doesnt..

    Romney was the pick of the RNC and they got worried enough about the convention to show their hand and openly coronate him in Tampa. They went way over anything needed to ensure the nomination and openly wrote the state parties and the activist base out of having any real role in the nominating process from now on, an interesting strategic decision to be sure. It's plainly suicidal for the party in conventional terms. The grass roots are critical to electoral success. But these guys seem to only see the affect of money. Money certainly has an effect, yes, but trying to pay people to do the work that grass roots activists used to do, after running them all out of the party, may not work out as well as these guys think.

    Romney is a candidate that seems to be hand picked for his inelectability - he alienates potential swing voters with one hand and hardcore republican faithful with the other. All in all it's very hard not to think that the RNC must *really* want Obama to win his second term.

  15. Please don't. on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Fix the Linux Desktop? · · Score: 1

    Make a free version of OS X. Use GnuStep. Clone Quartz. Clone Quicktime. Clone AppleScript. Clone iLife and iWork. Make a 99% identical work-alike except for the shiny Apple logo. I'm dead serious.

    Please, don't. I am a huge fan of GnuStep and I would like nothing better than to see a solid GUI OS built around it and become successful. But dont ruin it by copying recent Apple crap, please. We can do much better than that.

    I want a NeXT clone updated to take advantage of modern hardware, not a Mac clone that requires modern hardware just to generate pointless visual effects.

  16. Re:Universal Installer on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Fix the Linux Desktop? · · Score: 2

    We have had that for years, it's called a tarball.

    It's truly amusing watching generation after generation stubbornly insisting on fixing things that arent broken, over and over again.

  17. Re:I see an issue: on Jimmy Wales Threatens To Obstruct UK Government Snooping · · Score: 1

    Sounds more like an incentive to fix an issue to me.

  18. Re:How will this affect the troops? on EA Exec Won't Green Light Any Single Player-Only Games · · Score: 1

    Similar, but different - when I am online I am generally working. When I have time to relax, I get away from it to the cabin. That's where the gaming pc goes, and that's where it'll be played. There is no internet and there will be no internet, that's the entire point. I can copy patches in on a keydrive if need be. If a game wont work under those conditions, then I have absolutely no use for it. And if game companies wont understand that, then I guess I just wont need to upgrade it again.

  19. Re:I'll believe it on Birthplace of Indoeuropean Languages Found · · Score: 1

    "Also indicates that much of phonological theory is bunkum"

    I gotta agree with the poster that called that a non-sequitur. It doesnt follow from the rest of your post at all.

    "Clearly, Modern English are learning fossilized forms, not putting "de-" and "fac" together, calculating the pre-Classical Latin stress and then its phonological effect, then shifting the stress back to the "f*c" syllable to get the Modern English pronunciation."

    Clearly. You say that as if it were somehow... unexpected? Contrary to theory? What theory? No one ever suggested that speakers calculate the sound changes out like that themselves. These are frozen phrases learned by new speakers as irreducible units, and used as such. Linguistic inertia will normally keep those forms in use for long periods of time after the rules which produced them have ceased to be generative. And this can happen both with borrowed words like facere-deficere from latin, or native ones like man-men. It's perfectly normal.

    Eventually they will either be replaced by a newer form or fall victim to hyper-correction, but obviously this can and often does take thousands of years.

  20. Re:So Babel was in Anatolia? on Birthplace of Indoeuropean Languages Found · · Score: 1

    I have found it works best to tackle one error at a time.

    The 6000 year old earth error is relatively easy to correct, as it derives simply from misreading sacred geneologies as if they were a historical record, and it is easy to prove they are not - it's elementary math.

    The pile of misunderstandings laying behind the second assertion, on the other hand... that is a compound error and much more complicated to debug.

  21. Re:So Babel was in Anatolia? on Birthplace of Indoeuropean Languages Found · · Score: 1

    The earth is not 6000 years old. The sacred geneologies are not intended to be read literally. The fact that they dont add up was supposed to be your clue there, if you needed one.

  22. It's all about how you classify Anatolian on Birthplace of Indoeuropean Languages Found · · Score: 1

    The "minority view" was posed by Colin Renfew, and rejected by *everyone* who knew anything about the topic. It just doesn't fit anything we know about the topic. IIRC, even he has abandoned it.

    IIRC he hasnt abandoned it, so much as modified it slightly. Originally he postulated a relatively early PIE in Anatolia, spread wide by migrating farmers. There is a lot of evidence that points this way, but the criticism of course was that words associated with later technology (wheeled chariots) are very widespread through IE languages, yet could not have arisen that early. The critics postulate a significantly later date for PIE as a result.

    However the counter-counter argument is that the Anatolian group which split first lacks those cognates. So what Renfrew has done is really to change his vocabulary, not his theory. He now refers to what he first called PIE as 'pre-proto-indo-european' or PPIE instead, and postulates that PPIE split first into proto-anatolian and PIE, before the wheel, and then the PIE branch splits into more families later on, after the wheel. This is more a change of definition than of substance - if you define Anatolian as a branch of IE (which most do,) then the older date for PIE is required. If you define Anatolian instead as a sister language to PIE, then PIE gets a later date, but the older date goes to PPIE, the common ancestor to both.

  23. Re:Flood legends in Indo-European scriptures. on Birthplace of Indoeuropean Languages Found · · Score: 1

    What evidence would you cite that Genesis was written in the captivity?

    Do you mean only that it was still being editted in Babylon, or are you really saying it was written there in its entirety?

  24. Re:Pretty pretty BS graph on Birthplace of Indoeuropean Languages Found · · Score: 1

    Remember the map is not even attempting to indicate the time the most modern version of a language arose, as you seem to be interpreting it, but rather it attempts to date the first distinct ancestral form. So we arent talking about Modern English, but some form of Auld Ãnglisc, at the point where it ceased to be mutually intelligible with e.g. Frisian, or continental Saxon.

  25. Re:toolkit API diversity on The True Challenges of Desktop Linux · · Score: 1

    Moving software from a toolkit to another and maintaining that fork costs a lot of budget and a lot of time...

    I didnt disagree, in fact I said that already! Writing all the software you want from scratch may well take longer, however, and that is the only fair comparison.

    You have a vast library of software for you available for free, you have the right to leverage that code so you can produce a system that works just as you want it without having to write it all from scratch, and this is all given to you for free, and you complain that it isnt exactly the way you want it to be cosmetically?

    I mean, it's not that I disagree exactly. It would be lovely to have what you want. I just dont see any sense in complaining that something you dont have to pay for, and are free to modify to your hearts content, doesnt come to you already perfectly adapted to your cosmetic preferences.

    Trying to get developers who are mostly volunteers doing what they enjoy to converge on a single toolkit and paradigm is pointless. And that's really a good thing, in perspective, because it's clear that if they were to do this the very worst possible toolkit would inevitably be chosen.

    The way this should work would be that someone like Shuttleworth would come along and produce a unified, consistent commercial product on top of the free infrastructure. Unfortunately Ubuntu seems to be screwing that job up very badly, but fortunately since development is NOT monolithic there are still plenty of other choices, and room for someone else to come in and do what they are not doing. Just needs investment capital and a market.

    And in the end I suspect, for now at least, that market just isnt sufficient, and that's why no one is actually catering to it. Most people would like a consistent system based around their favourite toolkit and metaphors, of course, but we differ on those choices, and most linux users arent excited to pay big money for our system either, so it would be a very difficult market to serve at present. In the end, we'd love to have someone else do it for us, sure, but we arent willing to pay the price, and we know that if we want it done right we have to do it ourselves anyhow.