Just to mix things up, a good artist is also considered a craftsman.
Art, in my definition, is when the artist communicates to others the artist's own viewpoint of something. It's a more complete form of communication than just talking. Software is exactly that: it conveys information to the end-user in the way the designers and craftsmen who built it intended to convey it.
That, of course, is a definition that also proves that there should be *no* software patents, since art is copyrighted, not patented. Exch program is a different expression, even if it's of the same data. Come on, can someone patent a mystery stohyperdrive in a starship?
mark "too many lawyers, and managers who
only want to make money off of others'
work"
I'll get my penis and breasts enlarged, cum longer, have a lower mortgage, and all the pr0n I ever wanted, and I'll have US $25M in my bank account for that poor person in Nigeria.
I also won't spend as much time online, since my machine will be so protected by the protection the software that the spam told me about that I won't be able to use it.
And, of course, I won't have all the weight of that excess money, having invested in all those penny stocks whose value went from pennies to mils (thousandth of a dollar).
However, having skimmed the link, it doesn't offer an easy implementation. I would like to offer one: take a standardized, well-known directory, such as/usr/local. When a new user is created, also create/usr/local/george. User george has 777; everyone else has read and execute only. George can than install whatever he wants there, and everyone can use it.
Add a directory/usr/local/bin/, and the only thing in there are links to executables. This, also, is read and execute.
Advantages:
- root can check to see what's been installed on a by-user basis, and if only one user uses some of this, if they leave, their stuff can be wiped.
- quotas
- no major new paths
- many programs already offer a choice of where to install. It would be trivial to modify the others, and good practice, as well.
I remember some idiot a dozen years ago, on a non-computer-oriented newsgroup, who claimed he was working on his master's (in a non-computer field), and defending his disregard of spelling.
No, it's not "geeks and nerds", arrogant (and probably non-computer person) asshole, nor "lack of social skills", it's laziness, pure and simple.
"It's the message, not the details?" Try and compile with typos.
Laziness, and occasional bursts of l33t "cuteness" by kids.
Let's see: the US set up a literal puppet governement in 'Nam in '56; refused to allow free and fair UN-sponsored elections, ran a war that killed 1-2 MILLION Vietnames.
Then, the Vietnamese, *not* the US, went into Cambodia to break the self-proclaimed Communist Pol Pot murdeeers, and the US (under Reagan) supported Pol Pot.
Now the US invaded and conquered Iraq on the baiss of 100% lies, and killed somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 people, and another 1700+ US troops, and destroyed a country.
Meanwhile, at home, 40 years later, we're trying someone for racist murder; blacks and hispanics are under permanent persecution, and down here in the South, I don't *dare* openly reveal my non-Christian beliefs.
Vietnam's got a bad human rights record?
Oh, sorry, I see they're trying to follow our lead, and, as a start, will put M$ on their computers....
I see that people have already responded about hard SF. What I also see, both in the original story, and in a number of posts, is the assumption that SF == Star Wars, Trek, etc.
The answer is, no, assholes, it's not. 99.99% of all SF is *written*. If you don't know names like Haldeman, Varley, Cherryh, Bear, Vinge, or a bunch of others (I could go on for pages), then you don't know SF.
Here's a start: go read all the Hugo and Nebula winners for the last five years... then talk to me about "mundane sf".
One last note: one of the many definitions of SF is "it must obey all known scientific laws. If it breaks one (and only one, per story), then a) that needs to be *necessary* for the plot, and b) it needs to do believable handwaving that *also* does not violate known scientific laws.
That, of course, tosses 90% of so-called sf in movie and tv out the window.
mark "why, yes, I *have* been a *real*
SF&F fan for nearly 40 years..."
How many folks out there have dozens, or hundreds, of tapes? Gonna toss 'em all out, and pay $$ for DVD versions... assuming you can *find* DVD versions?
Talk about no-brainers!
And yes, I have scores of audio tapes, and our vehicles *only* have tape players.
mark "of course, I also have 200-300 vinyl records, too....
Why don't you kiddies talk to your mothers or grandmothers, who were secretaries, and typed their whole lives. I, personally, have been hitting the keyboard in front of the monitor for 25 years, and the only problem I've ever had is from the damn *MOUSE*.
I suggest that a) you complain too easily, or b) you're under such stress that the tension is showing up in your hands and wrists.
But noooo, we don't need no union, we *love* 60-80 hour weeks, with no overtime, and no time with our families, we *live* to work for the boss, we don't work to live....
I see a number of people have called the author on "stringent" dress codes (I, personally, haven't had to wear a tie since 1988, moron.)
BM - earrings are no biggie. Tattoos, which are probably covered by office casual clothes (except maybe on a bicep), yeah.
BM: I agree, this is confrontational. A few years back, at a Worldcon, this one table in the dealers' room had some *beautiful* t-shirts... but I couldn't stand there long enough to buy one - the folks behind the table were too pierced for me to be comfortable with. They can do it to themselves... but they lost a sale. Sort of counterproductive?
Sorry, I, personally, couldn't work with someone like that. Hey, there's a *reason* I didn't go into medicine: my stomach wouldn't take it.
But then, I usually figure that most folks have edges that sharp worn down by the world by the time they're 24. Some people, though, live in protected little worlds; the rest of us have to deal with the mundanes, all 99% of the world of 'em.
... in the culture. One of the reasons I like a good bit of anime, as opposed to most US crap, is that the Japanese do *not* pull punches, on the good stuff. None of this "this supervillian can destroy civilization... but any five-year-old can stop them, though no adults can", and people *die*, and do not come back. No "they fired 20,000 rounds, and but all I got was this artistic scratch on my arm".
Can anyone here see Disney putting out something where (thinking of Nausicaa here) the heroine's father gets murdered, or another main character's sister, or other relatives die, and don't come back?
Fat chance. "Oh, we have to Protect Our Little Dears, God will take the souls of the Departed, They're All OK...."
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I am not a "nerd", nor a "geek"[1]. I am a computer professional, a techie, competant and knowledgable in the technologies that the modern world depends on.
"Nerd" and "geek" were lables applied to us by the "popular" crowd, the willfully ignorant jerks[2] who think they run things these days, yet don't have the faintest clue how anything works, and so go by "gut feelings", not based on any real knowledge.
And you wonder why the world's in the wretched shape it's in?[3]
mark
1. "Geek" comes from the old carnival slang, and referred to the (usually) mentally retarded guy who made his living in the freak show as "the wild man of Borneo", or some such, and bit the heads off live chickens. As such, Newt Gingrich would qualify.... (He served divorce papers on his wife, while she was in the hospital for cancer.)
2. A friend of mine, who teaches in colleges when he's not being an astronomer, describes the food chain when he teaches "science for non-science majors". The next to the bottom are the business majors, who "don't get it, but don't let that worry them". The bottom are communications majors (you know, the folks who go into journalism and advertising), who "not only don't get it, but don't know that they don't get it".
3. This is *not* the Real Twentyfirst Century. I want the *real* one back, NOW, thankyouveddymuch.
As late as the early nineties, many managers were keyboard-phobic. "Besides, that's what we have secretaries for!". IM(never humble)O, they were invented for management, who couldn't find the keys.
... to really get ordinary users to beat down the doors? There's one, and only one place to start, KDE, Gnome, and OpenOffice.org PAY ATTENTION: make sure that the developers, esp. the gatekeepers, test everything on a top of the line machine... that is, one that *was* top of the line at least five years ago.
DO NOT TEST ANYTHING ON A MACHINE YOU CAN EVEN PLAY THE GAME THAT JUST CAME OUT THIS YEAR.
Overwhelmingly - go ask your non-computer-person friends, family, and coworkers - they do *not* buy new systems every two years, and every single one of them is frustrated by "you've got an upgrade, but I need new hardware?"
Don't believe me? Ask around, and see how many people are still running Windows 98.
Hell, I run a K-6 950MHz, 192M RAM, and goddamn OpenOffice.dog runs no faster than it did on a K6 233 - as though I was running an 8088. I run IceWM, because it's not a tenth the size of KDE, no does it start so much garbage.
I challange any of you to be happy with response on a five year old machine. Firefox has it right: smaller and faster, not bigger and slower. Let users do *more* with what they've got, not tell them to get faster systems. That, after all, is what we all hate about Microsoft (tm), right?
I see that they're introducing a mobile phone in Britain that lets you watch tv, ferchrissakes.
They don't mention whether it comes with a Fresnel lens to magnify it so that you can SEE ANYTHING. Hell, mine lets me browse the Web. WHY WOULD I WANT TO? I couldn't *read* anything, on a screen 1.5"x2".
But then, having worked for Ameritech, let me assure that they literally have a department with dozens of people coming up with calling plans, so I don't imagine that part of the marketing department is any different.
Give me a plain voice phone that *works*, without the idiot bells and whistles sold to the teenage kids....
Having just seen it yesterday, the real lead line was "the Sith will again rule the galaxy". So, when did they rule it before, and how did they loose control? Did they have their own civil war, and did the Jedi come in to finish them off?
I can see it now, a young, strong Sith abandons the ways of his peers, having seen, say, the girl he loves used/killed, and turns to the Light Side of the Force....
Why should kids go into it, like, say, my son, when he sees me unemployed for a good part of the four-year-long Bush Depression - and that's with my having a BS CIS and 20 years experience?
What's the current unemployment rate - 12%? 15% more? among IT people?
And then there's HR morons, two-thirds of whom have no idea of what the job they're supposed to be hiring for actually requires, and want a laundry list that is mostly unnecessary.... (Like the people I ran into recently who seem to think that shell scripting under AIX is Different than other Unix shell scripting).
mark, Unix/Linux software development,
systems administration,
configuration/release management
(resume available upon request)
This is the *first* time I've seen what I wanted to know, and what kept me from evey trying 2.0
I've said this before: 10 years ago, reviewers were saying that 90% of the users of word processors used 10% of the "features", and of the 10% that used those features, they only used 'em 10% of the time.
Which means that most of them are *utterly* unnecesary. All I'd like in a new release is one that wasn't a *dog*, and ran like it was running on a rePentium, rather than an 8088.
Now, if it will only open Word Perfect files without Java, so I don't have to run a program to convert 'em to sxw, I'd be happy.
From down here in Jesusland, in the banana republic of Florida, home to the new law....
First, if someone has finished their jail & probation time, haven't they "paid their debt to society"? How are they supposed to "rehabilitate themselves", with this on top of the near-impossibility of getting a job other than flipping burgers with a felony conviction.
Then there's the matter of definition: I'm thinking of an aquaintance here, who spent three years in jail for statutory rape...because he was 18, and his girlfriend was 16 or 17. I'm still trying to find out from our local newsmedia if this applies to people like him.
Remember, Jeezuz's Forgiveness (tm) only applies to other members of your church, and those Republicans who agree with you.
a) This was not quite 50 yr old tech - it was a Titan IV (a *big* sucker). b) Other than the Shuttle, this has been our heavy lifter. c) the launch...(as seen from 17 mi. from the pad): huge flame, and the details from my wife, the former NASA engineer and hypergol expert, says Titans are straight hypergols, no solids or cryogens. Seperation...then, about the time it hit mach 2, it went through a high cloud layer, and it looked as though it had blown up, a white-ish ring suddenly and rapidly expanding around it, but the bright flame of the main engine still burning strongly.
Slashdot Mirror
Just to mix things up, a good artist is also considered a craftsman.
Art, in my definition, is when the artist communicates to others the artist's own viewpoint of something. It's a more complete form of communication than just talking. Software is exactly that: it conveys information to the end-user in the way the designers and craftsmen who built it intended to convey it.
That, of course, is a definition that also proves that there should be *no* software patents, since art is copyrighted, not patented. Exch program is a different expression, even if it's of the same data. Come on, can someone patent a mystery stohyperdrive in a starship?
mark "too many lawyers, and managers who
only want to make money off of others'
work"
I'll get my penis and breasts enlarged, cum longer, have a lower mortgage, and all the pr0n I ever wanted, and I'll have US $25M in my bank account for that poor person in Nigeria.
I also won't spend as much time online, since my machine will be so protected by the protection the software that the spam told me about that I won't be able to use it.
And, of course, I won't have all the weight of that excess money, having invested in all those penny stocks whose value went from pennies to mils (thousandth of a dollar).
See? Way better life.
mark
However, having skimmed the link, it doesn't offer an easy implementation. I would like to offer one: take a standardized, well-known directory, such as /usr/local. When a new user is created, also create /usr/local/george. User george has 777; everyone else has read and execute only. George can than install whatever he wants there, and everyone can use it.
/usr/local/bin/, and the only thing in there are links to executables. This, also, is read and execute.
Add a directory
Advantages:
- root can check to see what's been installed on a by-user basis, and if only one user uses some of this, if they leave, their stuff can be wiped.
- quotas
- no major new paths
- many programs already offer a choice of where to install. It would be trivial to modify the others, and good practice, as well.
Comments? Is this an RFC-to-be?
mark
I remember some idiot a dozen years ago, on a non-computer-oriented newsgroup, who claimed he was working on his master's (in a non-computer field), and defending his disregard of spelling.
No, it's not "geeks and nerds", arrogant (and probably non-computer person) asshole, nor "lack of social skills", it's laziness, pure and simple.
"It's the message, not the details?" Try and compile with typos.
Laziness, and occasional bursts of l33t "cuteness" by kids.
mark
Come *on*, ->neoprene- under the Batsuit? He'd collapse from heat prostration in the first hour.
It would have helped if this turkey that wrote it hadn't learned his pseudo-science from bad comic books, and maybe "Science Made Stupid".
mark
Let's see: the US set up a literal puppet governement in 'Nam in '56; refused to allow free and fair UN-sponsored elections, ran a war that killed 1-2 MILLION Vietnames.
Then, the Vietnamese, *not* the US, went into Cambodia to break the self-proclaimed Communist Pol Pot murdeeers, and the US (under Reagan) supported Pol Pot.
Now the US invaded and conquered Iraq on the baiss of 100% lies, and killed somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 people, and another 1700+ US troops, and destroyed a country.
Meanwhile, at home, 40 years later, we're trying someone for racist murder; blacks and hispanics are under permanent persecution, and down here in the South, I don't *dare* openly reveal my non-Christian beliefs.
Vietnam's got a bad human rights record?
Oh, sorry, I see they're trying to follow our lead, and, as a start, will put M$ on their computers....
mark
I see that people have already responded about hard SF. What I also see, both in the original story, and in a number of posts, is the assumption that SF == Star Wars, Trek, etc.
The answer is, no, assholes, it's not. 99.99% of all SF is *written*. If you don't know names like Haldeman, Varley, Cherryh, Bear, Vinge, or a bunch of others (I could go on for pages), then you don't know SF.
Here's a start: go read all the Hugo and Nebula winners for the last five years... then talk to me about "mundane sf".
One last note: one of the many definitions of SF is "it must obey all known scientific laws. If it breaks one (and only one, per story), then a) that needs to be *necessary* for the plot, and b) it needs to do believable handwaving that *also* does not violate known scientific laws.
That, of course, tosses 90% of so-called sf in movie and tv out the window.
mark "why, yes, I *have* been a *real*
SF&F fan for nearly 40 years..."
Idiot. That's "colonists", or, after naturalization, "Martians".
mark
How many folks out there have dozens, or hundreds, of tapes? Gonna toss 'em all out, and pay $$ for DVD versions... assuming you can *find* DVD versions?
Talk about no-brainers!
And yes, I have scores of audio tapes, and our vehicles *only* have tape players.
mark "of course, I also have 200-300 vinyl records, too....
"garden at 70, or wrist braces at 40"?
Why don't you kiddies talk to your mothers or grandmothers, who were secretaries, and typed their whole lives. I, personally, have been hitting the keyboard in front of the monitor for 25 years, and the only problem I've ever had is from the damn *MOUSE*.
I suggest that a) you complain too easily, or b) you're under such stress that the tension is showing up in your hands and wrists.
But noooo, we don't need no union, we *love* 60-80 hour weeks, with no overtime, and no time with our families, we *live* to work for the boss, we don't work to live....
mark "does not bite nose to spite face"
I see a number of people have called the author on "stringent" dress codes (I, personally, haven't had to wear a tie since 1988, moron.)
BM - earrings are no biggie. Tattoos, which are probably covered by office casual clothes (except maybe on a bicep), yeah.
BM: I agree, this is confrontational. A few years back, at a Worldcon, this one table in the dealers' room had some *beautiful* t-shirts... but I couldn't stand there long enough to buy one - the folks behind the table were too pierced for me to be comfortable with. They can do it to themselves... but they lost a sale. Sort of counterproductive?
Sorry, I, personally, couldn't work with someone like that. Hey, there's a *reason* I didn't go into medicine: my stomach wouldn't take it.
But then, I usually figure that most folks have edges that sharp worn down by the world by the time they're 24. Some people, though, live in protected little worlds; the rest of us have to deal with the mundanes, all 99% of the world of 'em.
mark
... in the culture. One of the reasons I like a good bit of anime, as opposed to most US crap, is that the Japanese do *not* pull punches, on the good stuff. None of this "this supervillian can destroy civilization... but any five-year-old can stop them, though no adults can", and people *die*, and do not come back. No "they fired 20,000 rounds, and but all I got was this artistic scratch on my arm".
Can anyone here see Disney putting out something where (thinking of Nausicaa here) the heroine's father gets murdered, or another main character's sister, or other relatives die, and don't come back?
Fat chance. "Oh, we have to Protect Our Little Dears, God will take the souls of the Departed, They're All OK...."
mark "I know, all of you are immortal, too"
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I am not a "nerd", nor a "geek"[1]. I am a computer professional, a techie, competant and knowledgable in the technologies that the modern world depends on.
"Nerd" and "geek" were lables applied to us by the "popular" crowd, the willfully ignorant jerks[2] who think they run things these days, yet don't have the faintest clue how anything works, and so go by "gut feelings", not based on any real knowledge.
And you wonder why the world's in the wretched shape it's in?[3]
mark
1. "Geek" comes from the old carnival slang, and referred to the (usually) mentally retarded guy who made his living in the freak show as "the wild man of Borneo", or some such, and bit the heads off live chickens. As such, Newt Gingrich would qualify.... (He served divorce papers on his wife, while she was in the hospital for cancer.)
2. A friend of mine, who teaches in colleges when he's not being an astronomer, describes the food chain when he teaches "science for non-science majors". The next to the bottom are the business majors, who "don't get it, but don't let that worry them". The bottom are communications majors (you know, the folks who go into journalism and advertising), who "not only don't get it, but don't know that they don't get it".
3. This is *not* the Real Twentyfirst Century. I want the *real* one back, NOW, thankyouveddymuch.
As late as the early nineties, many managers were keyboard-phobic. "Besides, that's what we have secretaries for!". IM(never humble)O, they were invented for management, who couldn't find the keys.
mark "I hates meeces to pieces!"
... to really get ordinary users to beat down the doors? There's one, and only one place to start, KDE, Gnome, and OpenOffice.org PAY ATTENTION: make sure that the developers, esp. the gatekeepers, test everything on a top of the line machine... that is, one that *was* top of the line at least five years ago.
DO NOT TEST ANYTHING ON A MACHINE YOU CAN EVEN PLAY THE GAME THAT JUST CAME OUT THIS YEAR.
Overwhelmingly - go ask your non-computer-person friends, family, and coworkers - they do *not* buy new systems every two years, and every single one of them is frustrated by "you've got an upgrade, but I need new hardware?"
Don't believe me? Ask around, and see how many people are still running Windows 98.
Hell, I run a K-6 950MHz, 192M RAM, and goddamn OpenOffice.dog runs no faster than it did on a K6 233 - as though I was running an 8088. I run IceWM, because it's not a tenth the size of KDE, no does it start so much garbage.
I challange any of you to be happy with response on a five year old machine. Firefox has it right: smaller and faster, not bigger and slower. Let users do *more* with what they've got, not tell them to get faster systems. That, after all, is what we all hate about Microsoft (tm), right?
mark
I was going to reply to this story, but I had to check my email after I read it....
mark "but it's on the same screen!"
I see that they're introducing a mobile phone in Britain that lets you watch tv, ferchrissakes.
They don't mention whether it comes with a Fresnel lens to magnify it so that you can SEE ANYTHING. Hell, mine lets me browse the Web. WHY WOULD I WANT TO? I couldn't *read* anything, on a screen 1.5"x2".
But then, having worked for Ameritech, let me assure that they literally have a department with dozens of people coming up with calling plans, so I don't imagine that part of the marketing department is any different.
Give me a plain voice phone that *works*, without the idiot bells and whistles sold to the teenage kids....
mark
Having just seen it yesterday, the real lead line was "the Sith will again rule the galaxy". So, when did they rule it before, and how did they loose control? Did they have their own civil war, and did the Jedi come in to finish them off?
I can see it now, a young, strong Sith abandons the ways of his peers, having seen, say, the girl he loves used/killed, and turns to the Light Side of the Force....
mark (c 2005) (Remember, you saw it here, first)
Why should kids go into it, like, say, my son, when he sees me unemployed for a good part of the four-year-long Bush Depression - and that's with my having a BS CIS and 20 years experience?
What's the current unemployment rate - 12%? 15% more? among IT people?
And then there's HR morons, two-thirds of whom have no idea of what the job they're supposed to be hiring for actually requires, and want a laundry list that is mostly unnecessary.... (Like the people I ran into recently who seem to think that shell scripting under AIX is Different than other Unix shell scripting).
mark, Unix/Linux software development,
systems administration,
configuration/release management
(resume available upon request)
THANK YOU!!!
This is the *first* time I've seen what I wanted to know, and what kept me from evey trying 2.0
I've said this before: 10 years ago, reviewers were saying that 90% of the users of word processors used 10% of the "features", and of the 10% that used those features, they only used 'em 10% of the time.
Which means that most of them are *utterly* unnecesary. All I'd like in a new release is one that wasn't a *dog*, and ran like it was running on a rePentium, rather than an 8088.
Now, if it will only open Word Perfect files without Java, so I don't have to run a program to convert 'em to sxw, I'd be happy.
mark
I sincerely hope that you CAN'T watch it with your kids, not until they're old enough.
It's people like you who want only pablum, and want to drag *everyone* down to be only able to see things that you deem suitable for 8 yr olds.
You probably want the FCC to push it's fundamentalist Christian standards on the other 75% of the US.
mark "yes, I *am* hostile to your kind"
From down here in Jesusland, in the banana republic of Florida, home to the new law....
First, if someone has finished their jail & probation time, haven't they "paid their debt to society"? How are they supposed to "rehabilitate themselves", with this on top of the near-impossibility of getting a job other than flipping burgers with a felony conviction.
Then there's the matter of definition: I'm thinking of an aquaintance here, who spent three years in jail for statutory rape...because he was 18, and his girlfriend was 16 or 17. I'm still trying to find out from our local newsmedia if this applies to people like him.
Remember, Jeezuz's Forgiveness (tm) only applies to other members of your church, and those Republicans who agree with you.
mark
Forget Pinky and the Brain. Try a famous SF author from the sixties and seventies, Cordwainer Smith, and the memorable C'Mell.
I want to see fundamentalists discuss whether a human-feline cross that can speak has human civil right, or if they're property.
mark
a) This was not quite 50 yr old tech - it was a Titan IV (a *big* sucker).
b) Other than the Shuttle, this has been our heavy lifter.
c) the launch...(as seen from 17 mi. from the pad): huge flame, and the details from my wife, the former NASA engineer and hypergol expert, says Titans are straight hypergols, no solids or cryogens. Seperation...then, about the time it hit mach 2, it went through a high cloud layer, and it looked as though it had blown up, a white-ish ring suddenly and rapidly expanding around it, but the bright flame of the main engine still burning strongly.
Wow.
mark
So the piece's co-worker/opponent thinks all you need is short, descriptive variable names. Conditions? Functions?
Oh, and when were those short, self-descriptive names chosen - 0337, 18 hours after your first coffee of the day?
mark "i_blertfk"