I imagine we probably pretty much agree on copyright laws except this one point. We need copyright for commercial work, but the lengths are far too long and punish people for noncommercial uses. The DMCA is bass-ackwards; any work protected by technological means should LOSE its copyrihght IMO.
Perhaps I'm naieve, but it shouldn't be too hard to throttle connections nased on mac address (let the mac addresses on you own machines have full bandwidth). I'm usre there are lots of good open source programe that will accomplish it.
"2007 Could have been a the year of the Spaceship. Virgin Galactic intends flew White Knight 1 as well as Spaceship 1 during this, at this point planning for January. Burt Rutan, always reticent to comments on progress of any project, says nothing to support or contradict"
How about waiting for something to actually happen before posting it 9on slashdot? I mean yeah, we all like science fiction but come on.
What university can I attend to get my PhD on Futurism?
-mcgrew (who has lived long enough to know that anyone who pretends to predict the future is a fraud, and anyone who asks "will the year [n] be the year of the [x]?" is ob crack.
I found your program and I don't find anything wrong with it, except that it's an endless loop that will eventually use up all the memory and crash the computer.
If I were modding I'd mod you funny, but on the off chance you're really serious (as a couple of child comments suggest), He's bitching about it because he has to maintain it. And GOTO statements? You're programming in BASIC? Now if you'ld said "JMP" statemnents your humorous comment would have been funnier, because uncomment assembly is a real bitch to follow, especially badly written assembly.
I've seen time and time again programmers taking over for other programmers' code and saying that the previous person's code sucks. Its like a right of passage or something
You should realise that programming is an art. In art school what you''re referring to is called a critique. It's a good thing. From an old tome I wrote about ten years ago, Steve's School of Fine Art:
Lesson 1: The Critique
The ultimate in masochism. Your grade depends on the critique. In the critique, everyone in class exhibits their work, and comments on all of it. How good yours looks depends on how bad theirs looks. Each work is scrutinized and ruthlessly shredded by your competitors, whose grades depend on how good their work looks compared to yours. These people are mostly talentless losers, not unlike yourself, who desperately want their work placed somewhere where someone might see it, just like you and Vincent.
To survive this ordeal, keep your work covered until nearly everyone has their work displayed. Place yours prominently next to the worst piece of crap in the room. While everyone is ripping each other to shreds with pompous, empty, multisyllable phrases, translate what they say into plain english, which will demonstrate to the instructor that you, unlike they, actually understand this gobbledygook. Praise everyone's work with backhanded compliments in such a way that the teacher knows that you know it's crap, while the other students think you're complimenting their work.
Beat everyone to the punch by being merciless about your own work, especially if you've outdone yourself and have actually produced something that doesn't suck. The teacher knows what you've done right; show him/her/it that you know what you've done wrong.
Smile smugly when you're ripped. Let your face say "HA! It worked! They HATE it!" (See Insulting an Art Student and Art History, below)
Lastly, be an attractive woman with large breasts. The heterosexual men and the lesbians will all be trying to get in your pants and won't be hard on your work, the homosexual men will be afraid of being thought of as mysogonistic, and the heterosexual women will dismiss you completely as a total, talentless airhead. This is the only place they won't think of you as a threat.
-mcgrew
Condsidering the subject matter, every comment on this story should be modded "flamebait".
An anonymous reader writes "I am downright embarrassed by the quality of my code. It is buggy, slow, fragile, and a nightmare to maintain."
Well look on the bright side, your employer is the largest software manufacurer in the world, whose OSes are installed on nearly every computer made, and they pay well. So what's the problem?
Besides, your sloppy code is doing me a favor. When I'm using your database and something breaks, I can blame you and everyone will agree it's your fault. Don't worry about it, all your fellow employees write bad code too.
-mcgrew
Reserved error (-1517); there is no message for this error.
See, the intarwebs is made of tubes. Like your old radio and TV and record player back in 1958 when I was a kid, see. So since your XP computer is hooked to these tubes, it has to warm up, just like your old record player, TV, and radio. Just unhook it from the intarwebs and it will start up as fast as a new car.
Yeah, it took longer for cars to start back then too, but it was the radio's fault. See, the radios back then used tubes. And not just the radios but the tires had tubes, too. That made them start even slower, 'specially in winter.
I'm not going to beat the horse I killed in the Verizon thread last week (or was it the week before?) but suffice it to say that I won't be using AT&T ever again if I can in any way help it. I'd link to a comment or two there but I can't find the story, let alone comments.
The kings of old considered everything and everybody on their land to be their property to do with what they wanted. If the king wanted to fuck your wife, tough - it was his right. If he wanted to hang you for any or no reason, then it sucked to be you, it was his right and you were a dead man.
You only have such rights as you can enforce. When your government removes your right to free speech, you have no right to free speech.
I don't believe the EULAs are enforceable. For instance, when I have to reinstall Windows on Mike's or Jeff's machines (they're not nerds, they're close redneck friends of mine) do I have them click the EULA? NO, I claick it. Do I have legal authority to enter into a contract on their behalf? No, I do not. Neither one has given me Power of Attorney.
When my children were minors I'd have them install software for me. Good learning experience for them, and guess what? They weren't old enough to enter into a contract.
What would happen if an auto manufacturer left a note on the keyhole saying that by starting the car you agree to only install Delco parts? Do you really believe anyone would do anything buy laugh?
EULAs are a bad joke, and I treat them as such. You can prove I signed a contract. You cannot prove I clicked a EULA. The only way a EULA will ever be enforceable is if they refuse to sell you the software unless you sign a contract in ink (or in blood, considering how evil most software companies are).
As to dual boot, my machine boots Mandriva. XP seems to hate LILO unless the C: drive (HD0 to the bios) is defragmented.
I've never had an MRI. BUt the stats stand; we do not have the best health care. We do have the most expensive.
I love my country, I hate the politicians that the corporations own. Sadly, if we ever do get universal health care it will likely still include the insurance companies, and our standard of care will fall even farther.
I saw it. It was a good flick. Farenheight was better IMO.
Most of the prisoners here are political prisoners, incarcerated for victimless crimes (mostly drugs). Take away the crimes that should not be crimes and our crime rate wouldn't be any worse than anyone else's.
The original "tragedy of the commons" was a myth perpetrated by the landowners in the middle ages. The commons were grazing lands, and most people didn't abuse them. Those few who did abuse them were pretty well policed by the other non-noblemen who used the commons; people aren't as stupid as most people think, and realised that if they ruined the grass, their cows would starve, too.
The noblemen created the myth, and used it to push through laws that enabled THEM to take over the commons and charge the serfs for use of what was now THEIR land.
This is the real tragedy of the commons - those with wealth and powere will privatize the commons, stealing it for their own use. If everyone left their WAP connection open, none of the connections would get saturated.
and we wonder why we have issues with violence in our nation
Yeah, there's all the lynchings, salloon gunfights, everyone walking around with guns strapped on, or swords, there's crucifictions, burning at the stake...
So true. A friend of mine had never used a computer before and bought an eMachines with XP loaded. Well, his nephew and nephew's wife browsed a bunch of porn sites and got it so riddled with viruses and spyware it was unuseable, so I reinstalled from the GHOST CD and put in a better firewall, Firefox, etc.
Two weeks later it was hosed again so I reinstalled XP yet again, and installed Mandriva as dual boot. I disabled networking in Windows, problems solved.
He found Mandriva/KDE easier to use than XP. But then again, he'd never used a computer before and didn't have to unlearn anything.
Now, I'm no fan of microsoft, but they have a not-too-bad embedded OS
Why, I love Microsoft! When it comes to truth in advertising, their product names are the absolutely most truthful. Who but MS would name their media player WiMP? Or an OS WinCE? God these guys are hilarious! Or the bloated eye candy OS "Vista"!!!
God I love those guys! Too bad I have to use their software though...
Yeah, and I want to get laid. Good luck to us both, but I'm pretty sure I'll get laid before Vista runs on an OLPC. In fact, when Vista runs on an OLPC I'm going to get one and play Duke Nukem 4ever on it.
Wasn't Breakout originally on the Commodore 64? The last time I saw it it was on one of those games in a bar where you put a dollar in, and they run Linux!
Wow, you are SO goiing to get flamed by all the Brits, Canadians, and everybody else in the more civilized world!
Check the statistics; we are nowhere near the top in any measure of heath care except cost. Our life expectancy is lower, infant death rate higher, by every measure there is all the countries with universal health care kick our asses.
But don't bother looking anything up, go ahead and listen to the propaganda from the insurance companies.
Slashdot Mirror
I imagine we probably pretty much agree on copyright laws except this one point. We need copyright for commercial work, but the lengths are far too long and punish people for noncommercial uses. The DMCA is bass-ackwards; any work protected by technological means should LOSE its copyrihght IMO.
Perhaps I'm naieve, but it shouldn't be too hard to throttle connections nased on mac address (let the mac addresses on you own machines have full bandwidth). I'm usre there are lots of good open source programe that will accomplish it.
"2007 Could have been a the year of the Spaceship. Virgin Galactic intends flew White Knight 1 as well as Spaceship 1 during this, at this point planning for January. Burt Rutan, always reticent to comments on progress of any project, says nothing to support or contradict"
How about waiting for something to actually happen before posting it 9on slashdot? I mean yeah, we all like science fiction but come on.
What university can I attend to get my PhD on Futurism?
-mcgrew (who has lived long enough to know that anyone who pretends to predict the future is a fraud, and anyone who asks "will the year [n] be the year of the [x]?" is ob crack.
PS: "reticent to comments"? I rest my case!
I found your program and I don't find anything wrong with it, except that it's an endless loop that will eventually use up all the memory and crash the computer.
If I were modding I'd mod you funny, but on the off chance you're really serious (as a couple of child comments suggest), He's bitching about it because he has to maintain it. And GOTO statements? You're programming in BASIC? Now if you'ld said "JMP" statemnents your humorous comment would have been funnier, because uncomment assembly is a real bitch to follow, especially badly written assembly.
You should realise that programming is an art. In art school what you''re referring to is called a critique. It's a good thing. From an old tome I wrote about ten years ago, Steve's School of Fine Art:
-mcgrew
Condsidering the subject matter, every comment on this story should be modded "flamebait".
An anonymous reader writes "I am downright embarrassed by the quality of my code. It is buggy, slow, fragile, and a nightmare to maintain."
Well look on the bright side, your employer is the largest software manufacurer in the world, whose OSes are installed on nearly every computer made, and they pay well. So what's the problem?
Besides, your sloppy code is doing me a favor. When I'm using your database and something breaks, I can blame you and everyone will agree it's your fault. Don't worry about it, all your fellow employees write bad code too.
-mcgrew
Reserved error (-1517); there is no message for this error.
See, the intarwebs is made of tubes. Like your old radio and TV and record player back in 1958 when I was a kid, see. So since your XP computer is hooked to these tubes, it has to warm up, just like your old record player, TV, and radio. Just unhook it from the intarwebs and it will start up as fast as a new car.
Yeah, it took longer for cars to start back then too, but it was the radio's fault. See, the radios back then used tubes. And not just the radios but the tires had tubes, too. That made them start even slower, 'specially in winter.
-mcgrew
Today's journal is NSFW
PS: They called it "XP" for the same reason they call former policemen "ex-cops"
The story I mentioned in the above comment was linked from this story. here is the comment, if you're interested (score:100% overrated)
I'm not going to beat the horse I killed in the Verizon thread last week (or was it the week before?) but suffice it to say that I won't be using AT&T ever again if I can in any way help it. I'd link to a comment or two there but I can't find the story, let alone comments.
I'm looking to US Cellular, any thoughts on that?
-mcgrew
Today's journal is NSFW
As they say, YMMV. You should lean on Brazilian publishers.
-mcgrew
Today's journal is NSFW
The kings of old considered everything and everybody on their land to be their property to do with what they wanted. If the king wanted to fuck your wife, tough - it was his right. If he wanted to hang you for any or no reason, then it sucked to be you, it was his right and you were a dead man.
You only have such rights as you can enforce. When your government removes your right to free speech, you have no right to free speech.
-mcgrew
Today's journal is NSFW
I don't believe the EULAs are enforceable. For instance, when I have to reinstall Windows on Mike's or Jeff's machines (they're not nerds, they're close redneck friends of mine) do I have them click the EULA? NO, I claick it. Do I have legal authority to enter into a contract on their behalf? No, I do not. Neither one has given me Power of Attorney.
When my children were minors I'd have them install software for me. Good learning experience for them, and guess what? They weren't old enough to enter into a contract.
What would happen if an auto manufacturer left a note on the keyhole saying that by starting the car you agree to only install Delco parts? Do you really believe anyone would do anything buy laugh?
EULAs are a bad joke, and I treat them as such. You can prove I signed a contract. You cannot prove I clicked a EULA. The only way a EULA will ever be enforceable is if they refuse to sell you the software unless you sign a contract in ink (or in blood, considering how evil most software companies are).
As to dual boot, my machine boots Mandriva. XP seems to hate LILO unless the C: drive (HD0 to the bios) is defragmented.
-mcgrew
Today's journal is NSFW
I've never had an MRI. BUt the stats stand; we do not have the best health care. We do have the most expensive.
I love my country, I hate the politicians that the corporations own. Sadly, if we ever do get universal health care it will likely still include the insurance companies, and our standard of care will fall even farther.
-mcgrew
Today's journal is NSFW
I saw it. It was a good flick. Farenheight was better IMO.
Most of the prisoners here are political prisoners, incarcerated for victimless crimes (mostly drugs). Take away the crimes that should not be crimes and our crime rate wouldn't be any worse than anyone else's.
We have the best politicians money can buy.
-mcgrew
Today's journal is NSFW
Today's journal is NSFW
The original "tragedy of the commons" was a myth perpetrated by the landowners in the middle ages. The commons were grazing lands, and most people didn't abuse them. Those few who did abuse them were pretty well policed by the other non-noblemen who used the commons; people aren't as stupid as most people think, and realised that if they ruined the grass, their cows would starve, too.
The noblemen created the myth, and used it to push through laws that enabled THEM to take over the commons and charge the serfs for use of what was now THEIR land.
This is the real tragedy of the commons - those with wealth and powere will privatize the commons, stealing it for their own use. If everyone left their WAP connection open, none of the connections would get saturated.
-mcgrew
Today's journal is NSFW
and we wonder why we have issues with violence in our nation
Yeah, there's all the lynchings, salloon gunfights, everyone walking around with guns strapped on, or swords, there's crucifictions, burning at the stake...
Wait a minute, what century am I in again?
-mcgrew
She gets in the car. "Go! Go! Go! before my boyfriend sees me!" I swear, one of these guys is going to put a bullet in my brain.
Is the robot made by Timex? "Takes a kicking and keeps on ticking!"
So true. A friend of mine had never used a computer before and bought an eMachines with XP loaded. Well, his nephew and nephew's wife browsed a bunch of porn sites and got it so riddled with viruses and spyware it was unuseable, so I reinstalled from the GHOST CD and put in a better firewall, Firefox, etc.
Two weeks later it was hosed again so I reinstalled XP yet again, and installed Mandriva as dual boot. I disabled networking in Windows, problems solved.
He found Mandriva/KDE easier to use than XP. But then again, he'd never used a computer before and didn't have to unlearn anything.
-mcgrew
Now, I'm no fan of microsoft, but they have a not-too-bad embedded OS
Why, I love Microsoft! When it comes to truth in advertising, their product names are the absolutely most truthful. Who but MS would name their media player WiMP? Or an OS WinCE? God these guys are hilarious! Or the bloated eye candy OS "Vista"!!!
God I love those guys! Too bad I have to use their software though...
Microsoft Wants OLPC System to Run Windows XP
Yeah, and I want to get laid. Good luck to us both, but I'm pretty sure I'll get laid before Vista runs on an OLPC. In fact, when Vista runs on an OLPC I'm going to get one and play Duke Nukem 4ever on it.
Wasn't Breakout originally on the Commodore 64? The last time I saw it it was on one of those games in a bar where you put a dollar in, and they run Linux!
No, it wouldn't be Dell's problem, it would be MY problem. It would only be Dell's FAULT.
You're pretty offtopically funny yourself, kid. Now get off my lawn.
Wow, you are SO goiing to get flamed by all the Brits, Canadians, and everybody else in the more civilized world!
Check the statistics; we are nowhere near the top in any measure of heath care except cost. Our life expectancy is lower, infant death rate higher, by every measure there is all the countries with universal health care kick our asses.
But don't bother looking anything up, go ahead and listen to the propaganda from the insurance companies.
I used to be into Quake, even had a pretty popular website on it, but that was a long time ago. Kind of got out of computer gaming.