Re:I'm in SF but won't go see this (me neither)
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The Art of Failure
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· Score: 2
I'm in SF too. I'll tell ya...
I moved here in August 2000 to take on a sys admin job. It was still pretty bustling then.
Every where I looked I thought I was looking at Armani models and shit. Stupid me, I'm from out of town, my gear was shitty, and everyone thought I was in some low position because I wasn't "director of pig fuck".
8 mos. later, and director of pig fuck has his $500 for 500 business cards pressed on your typical whiny San Francisco "I'm intellectual b/c I'm from San Francisco" pseudo-art exhibit where where the funny hair dyes stand out b/c the pussies are too scared to get tatoos, piercings and look really counter-culture.
8 mos. later, and I have a job. I didn't know sys admins had it so good. We're the first ones hired (me) and the the last ones fired (also will be me). So all you marketing, purchaser, HR, bla bla blas from Berkeley, Stanford, and *worse* you blue blood immigrants from Boston, you'll see me on my beat down motorcycle with messenger bag, a laptop, conspicuous tatoos, piercings and no degree, and I'll be seeing y'all at the unemployment line. Wave when you see me!
*I'm bitter because these cheesy posers wanted to be rock stars by starting an internet version of an ice cream truck, and they really thought they were rock stars*
Dear Mr. Katz,
I'm afraid I don't care to spend too much time critiquing your work any more. I used to get all worked up and interested.
"Nations operate like software"??? Oversimplification. "They should get on IRC"??? Do you even use IRC? If so, which channel? I'd love to come and flame you. "Identity economy"? What's that?
I don't understand you anymore...
-nate
I swear this bastard cuts and pastes this post along with the other "BSD is dead" post. If I ever run into an M$ PR guy; I swear to fucking god; it's the crips and bloods all over again.
I make beats and rhymes. Coming down the pipe to you soon. Here's the distribution model I'm planning; let me know what you think.
I'm producing all my stuff on a Win2000 Pro box with the standard stuff, ReBirth, Cubase, Sound Forge, Acid, bla bla, f'ing bla. All the tunes are saved on a Linux box with 80 gigs, 128MB RAM, and a 633 Celery over SAMBA. I'll be encoding to ogg and mp3. This ass spanking newborn box is connected to my 1mbit dsl line. My hacker gang on-line collaborates to point the desired domain to the desired dymamic IP. I'll serve up the mp3s using Apache from a very simple and basic web page. In other words, I will be my distributor. I'll market myself on-line and in the clubs in the Bay Area where I live.
If this is the dawn of a new era for artists, I'll see soon. Later y'all.
-Natedawg the Frisco Disco Donkey Kong Babeeee!
Re:for those of you who will not read the article:
on
Spidergoats
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· Score: 2
Nobody knows the real truth. But I do. I'm have inside knowledge no one... no one could ever reveal but me.
The baby goats cannabalized the parent. Actually this is a good thing, because killing makes them strong.
I am one of these people you describe, the difference between me and the people you describe is that I understand that work had to get done. I don't write too much code, my job is sys admin. I call my own hours, I may come in after noon, but that's because I stay until midnight. I never leave until at *least* one major weekly project is completed. But that is just me.
As to your characterization of what is a hacker. I think you may very well be in agreement with most people who write code a lot. I.e., if one does not code, then one is not a hacker. Here 'hacker' is used like some kind of title. In that sense, you are being an elitist. However, to the rest of the world if your fingers make unix go, a hacker you be. I say unix because windows is too familiar to the average person to make it seem hackerish. However, with transparent eterms and kernel compiles zooming along, the average person goes "oo you're a hacker, huh?" The distinction is one of elitest jargon vs. everday jargon.
At the Linux conference, I wouldn't say 'me hacker', but everywhere else I would.
So fella, you are a bit cranky aren't you? I can understand your gripes about the people who got no work done. But don't mistake that for all the other quirky idiosyncratic and maddening individuals who get a hell of a lot of work done all the friggin' time.
This brings me to my gripe. I'm totally pissed off by engineers who think that hackers should do what they say. Look code monkeys, just because you sit around all day reciting 'if, then, else' doesn't mean you know how to build a network of 200 puters and make WinBlaBla, Sun, Linux, BSD, HP etc., interopate and stay up all friggin' year, ok? All I have to say to you all is NIS, NFS, autofs, bind, apache, IIS, Exchange Server, Black Orifice, samba, ipfilter, ifconfig opts, mtu, dhcp, bla, bla, fuckin bla. I stay up all night keeping up on trend after trend for this specific purpose, I buy book after book know the finest distinctions between OS'es. That's my job. Don't fuck with that. [ooo meee koong foo on yoooo ya fucka] [--battle-maneuvers --go-here].
If I am a code consumer, then let me tell you... it tastes like crap, but I still have to eat it, humph...
-Nate, the self-taught, muy scripting, mucho bullshit enduring, in order to support myself while in grad school, much essential member of the clan, if 'me', then 'go', else 'fucked', sorry it ain't my fault...
Because Linux user like Linux and *BSD users like BSD.
The differences are greater than.tgz v..rpm or.deb.
Why I use the various *BSDs and not one Linux (except at work where my *new* boss wiped my Open and FreeBSD installs and installed RH Linux 7.0 because he thinks "RH will win in the end", me hacker, him Manager..."
When you download FreeBSD's enormous set of files, you get a huge bunch of tools like tar and gzip, mv, cp, sed, awk, perl, tcsh, etc., and the bsd kernel. When you download Linux you get... a kernel. Or you download a huge set of.deb and.rpm files until you have a complete set of tools.
Here's why this difference matters...
It matters because BSD developers, the one's that put their tag on the release, are the same ones that reviewed the tools to ensure that it all fits. I hear Slackware is like this, but I don't know personally.
RPM and.deb developers are very numerous, a bit too numerous. When RH and others put their sign the release, I'm not so sure the main developers know what's going on with all the rpm's on the cd.
See what I mean?
For me, OpenBSD and FreeBSD are the best. OBSD for firewalls, and FreeBSD for everything else.
I live in a very old and very beautiful third world city. Maybe you've heard of it, San Francisco?
Thanks to our Mayor and District Attorney, drugs and prostitution are de facto legal. The only thing that sells better in this city than Mary J. Wanna is computer stuff. I know what you are thinking... "What a heaven on earth."
We have 40,000 homeless. I saw one man pulling five carts full of junk around strung alone two ropes. I expect to see a camel caravan soon. At sunset, when the light is just right, it actually looks like Tatooine.
Now I will go jump on my electric power scooter, zig zag around people dressed in tarps, covered with tatoos, and adorned facially in steel. I will cruise to the Starbuck's Coffee, Tully's Coffee, Modern Thai, Thai Navy, and Thai Spice. My people will be there.
Incidently, there are far more Thai restaurants in San Francisco than fast food restaurants combined. In reality, there are more Thai restaurants in San Francisco than any other city on the planet. I will bet big money, that Thailand does not have as many Thai resaurants per capita. I think a recent scientific study from the University of California at San Francisco asserted that it's to feed all the Asian sex slaves at the Oriental Massage parlours.
Between you and me. The Thai restaurants are really good. Viva Than Franthithcowoo!
Then you should use MS's products, where there are supposedly supported closed desktop products that the world uses.
As for you gripe about "shareware" Mr. "I just started using Unix and still use the word 'shareware'" things like LyX are awesome, try the GIMP film version to see why the open source world of shareware kicks much ass. Seriously, no one really cares a hell of a lot about using a Unix for the "business productivity apps." If I wanted to be bored out of my mind, I would use my WinME box with Word, what the Hell. If I want to see what's really going on I hack on multimedia apps for making movies, music, etc. and sharing them with friends. Believe me, these apps are coming down the pipe soon.
Applixware may not be your cup of tea, but it is fast stable and very very useful. It's conversion filters are the best in the business, they have to be or no one could use it.
I can't believe you say "public domain shareware 'ports'". You must have just migrated to the open source world. Get a clue, man.
you're missing something...
No really, check the hardware compat page. Not all pcmcia works, cardbus doesn't work at all, for example.
If you are really dying for the performance/stability/security boost you get with freebsd (like I was), then you'll shell out a couple hundred extra sheckles for the cards (like I did).
Introducing a different kind of concept in social and commercial organization. 'Virtual International Conglomerate Organization' ("VICO"), is simply a concept I've been playing with for a while now to free us up. I've modeled it after large conglomerate corporations like ITT or Diagio that seem to have their hands into everything. In contrast, VICO is a way for us all to be independent but connected as legal entities in a highly efficient international marketplace. Below is a bit of a manifesto.
VICO MANIFESTO
We work independently. We are incorporated for ouselves. We work together on the internet. We meet in comfortable club/cafe style workplaces or we work from home. Ninety-five percent of membership is initiated by showing up; the other five percent (the leadership) happens if one's ideas are compelling. Our ideas are our tickets to the party. We build our own internet infrastructure. It enables us simultaneously to possess and publish our literature without possibility of relinquishing control. We build our businesses on it and gain the largest distance from large corporate and governmental controls available on the planet. With portable computers in our briefcases and secure servers locked away in a place of our choice, we can operate our businesses with maximum freedom.
We meet where we want. We collaborate when we want, with whom we want. Our wants are limited but
specific, and our needs are clear. Neither nation nor border can prevent us from working together at any time. We find ways to make our ideas happen, and our ideas ruffle in the bitstream like leaves in a dense rainforest alluring eyes and minds. Every leaf is easy to find and appreciate. We can gather them at will to make newer and lovelier forms. We are engineers, artists, architects, financiers, writers, organizers... the skillful
people. We are the Virtual International Conglomerate Organization.
Outstanding Issues:
Contractual scheme that balances opposing issues of freedom and efficiency
Web infrastructure that maximizes efficient creation, implementation, and joining of ventures that is highly secure to insure utmost confidentiality and privacy
I agree with all your points. I'm running EFM-cvs and it is really cool right now. My point is not that it is the most user friendly. Nor do I think Rasterman is trying to dominate the desktop space. My point is that for the sake of credibility in innovation, E is the only one which fits. The others are trying to act like windows; where E is trying to act like something new.
My other point is that if some smart programmers would use the example of the manner in which E behaves and apply it to other apps, like PDF/Postscript viewers and other common applications and tools, there would be a Linux environment that would even make the OS X people jealous from both a form and function perspective.
My final point (none of my points are clearly stated except for now), is that Linux has a very narrow window of opportunity in which to make a cultural impact like Windows and Mac has. E and EFM could be it. I encourage everyone to give E and EFM as much attention as Mozilla and other popular projects. In terms of achieving critical acclaim for good form and function (i.e., what more apple-like users expect), E will be it. GNOME and KDE will be what the Windows-like users crave, that and office-suites.
Office suites are so goddamn boring for chrissakes. Damn who cares! I work in an office and use them all the friggin time. I don't happy about them. If you work in an office you already use one, and if you use linux, you already bought one, or downloaded one. Sure KOffice will be cool as far as office-suites can become cool. But for the 'ooh-ahh' effect; Give Rasterman a hand!
I just woke up to something very fascinating. It only works well on Linux (I'm a huge FreeBSD nut by the way), and it's arguably the most innovative thing going in computer interfaces at this moment. It's not ready yet, but when it is; people are gonna say "goddamn!"
It's Enlightenment and EFM. It's a very different experience using computers. And it's the most innovative thing going. I'm not exaggerating this enough.
First, Enlightenment itself is very unusual, but it's useful. The snaps of virtual desktops, and running apps minimized in the icon box are very much the kinds of innovations that are going on in the new MacOS.
Second, EFM changes the way we work with our computers. Just begin typing stuff like "http://www.yahoo.com" and watch your characters appear antialiased in the middle of your screen and EFM reads the MIME type and starts Netscape pointing to that URL. Type 'su' pops up Eterm with a prompt for your passwd.
Third, icons in EFM can be snaps of the documents contained in folders. Thumbs of your pr0n, and potentially of your other documents will be there. Judging by the way the system works now, one would mouse over the document to see the full snap, like in an embedded PDF viewer. I'm embellishing here, but the example is given by installing the ee2 app that gives thumbs of pics in an EFM window. Imagine documents and objects with contents fully visible at all times, by mousing over, or [alt][tab]ing over. Opening them in edit mode would be a mere click, or just start typing in it. Add voice and maybe a touchscreen or a stylus, and all my peoples say 'Whoa!'
I'm a mere enthusiast, and am not a programmer. But mark my words. The Enlightenment team is doing the only thing truly original, useful, and exciting that's going on in the Linux/BSD world. GNOME and KDE are like training wheels for Windows and Mac people. Face it folks, the Office suite that most works like Office, is as boring as an office. MacOS X maybe become the ideal, but Enlightenment is very soon going to be the ideal environment for experienced computer fans who want it to look cool, act cool and prove itself to be the most innovative. This is not innovation for the sake of coolness, either. This is a truly 'object oriented' (in the common sense meanings of the words) approach to programming. This is not symbolic iconic representations, this is viewing and working with the documents and objects as they really appear!
Heed. Experienced smart programmers should start chipping in their time and effort to get Enlightenment and EFM off the ground as fast as humanly possible. Big money companies should be using E as a basis to surpass everything else out there and make Linux/BSD the real 'Gold Standard.' I know they already have a team of Enlightened programmers. But if these guys could get their system, with some added utils to do the kinds of things that I just described, i.e, embedded PDF/Postscript viewer, advanced document formatting and PDF publishing; embedded video/audio players, and web publishing tools, etc., the world of Linux would be a new and amazing penguin paradise. We need apps that act like what Enlightenment does.
Separate the view of the document from the document editor. Embedded viewers, autosensing editors that pop up when we start editing, exports from every conceivable format to every conceivable format, gnutella/napster file sharing in a private environment....
Combine that with the internals already in Linux/BSD, Apache-webdav, and we will have a world where we do the ideal with computers. We will be creating and sharing content with each in the way we already know, by passing around documents and objects, the computer/server being our surrogate self.
The current problem is that people don't know what to do with Linux. Once we all understand that we all want to be creating and sharing content and nothing else, we will realise that the pc/server must run something like UNIX (Apple knows this); and it must make calling up and creating documents as easy as pointing and saying 'that,' and sharing as easy as saying 'here.' To make it that easy requires a lot of work on computer internals in terms of speed, stability and clarity of graphical representations. E is doing it; it needs the other tools that work like E does.
The whole concept of full document views at all times is where it's at. Yeah it will take a powerful computer; this is the future were talking folks. XFce or Blackbox are cool for your P100; what are you going to do with that 2Ghz box with 2G of RAM, and 128M of Video RAM? You're gonna do E!
Here I am posting from Konqueror. I'm on a laptop with FreeBSD 4.1, and KDE 1.92(BETA). I just switched from GNOME 1.2 on FreeBSD because it was slow. I hate it when it takes too long for the graphics to draw. KDE2 and GNOME 1.2 both have their goods and bads. This KDE is buggy as hell, but there were quite a few features unimplemented by GNOME 1.2 on FreeBSD so I figured it was a fair trade; KDE2 claims to build well on FreeBSD and it did. Plus KOffice will be a really well implemented as a professional set of tools well before a GNOME office ever is. The FrameMaker like functionality is really needed in my job.
<pThe bottom line GNOME will win because it's leaders have a much larger American presence, particularly the Silicon Valley. KDE is a big deal in Europe, and lesser so here in the US.
<p>However, who cares? I started disliking GNOME when it went from a freesoftware project to a HelixCode company. KDE is built by enthusiasts and not by MS hunters. It has a better browser, a better mail client, and that is a really big deal. GNOME is still way behind. The only thing I liked better on GNOME was the ps viewer ggv and the cool panel applets. The pretty icons display too slowly on my laptop, so I got frustrated with the eye candy and now choose raw number of features--- KDE2.
<p>NOTE: I am an end-user of the quasi-typical kind. I don't code, just play around with new software. KDE is easier and makes more sense to everyone I introduce to UNIX. GNOME is always prettier, but in the end, KDE gets chosen.
I haven't posted in a while; but I'm pissed now. I can't believe this comment was moderated to a 5-informative.
What the hell was I informed about this post? That this amateur thinks that these pre-alpha screenshots that are not really for public consumption are not worthy of GNOME or Linux? Nautilaus will be part of GNOME. Thus the GNOME icon guy will do the finished icons; duh.
I've proven myself right. I knew that when Slashdot was purchased by Andover, which subsequently went public, that the overall quality of the site would deteriorate. It has.
Posts are inferior; as are the stories. Now, total idiots are given moderator status. Moderate me down all you want. The publishers of this site (i.e., Mr. Malda) should crawl out of their hole and emerge into the real world where things move fast and smart people are paying close attention.
I've had a habit of checking this site daily for about three years; but I'm starting to get peeved. This site has begun to smell of fat, slow, sloppy, arrogance. Linuxtoday, is more current.
About two other people and I have worked on Ompages.com for about a year now. It's been slow because we all work full-time. We have software, and when I get around to rebuilding the web-site, plenty of information will be there.
I think these guys at Freenet, Napster, etc., have the right spirit but a completely wrong approach; we have it right.
Our aim at Ompages, is to build a highly scalable VPN that anyone in the public can easily join. It will make the user's host appear has 'host.ompages.com' sort of like dhis.org's client does, but the connections between hosts on ompages' network will be encrypted.
In other words, our goal is proliferate secure communications technology. I view a world where people can plug in their shiny new Linux telephony cards, join Ompages, and start having encrypted phone conversations around the world. Of course file sharing is part of that, but our software is not designed to make that activity easy and anonymous. It's not about anonymity, it's about secrecy...
We need help, the few of us remaining are swamped. We used to play around with shell accounts, etc. That was not a workable model. Now we just want to build a huge public VPN. Our main site has news about stuff related to privacy, government regs, and crypto. Take a look and let me know what you think.
My real, email address is natepuri@office dot ompages dot com...
I totally agree with you. I love LyX, LaTeX, GIMP, XV, ImageMagick, NEdit, etc. I prefer to make my presentations in png and html, I don't use spreadsheets much, if I did, I'd use Gnumeric, and gnome-pim is as good or better as any, the KDE versions are equally excellent.
However, there comes times when one must open, edit and save MS files, like Word and Powerpoint. So one must have something that can do conversions.
Take it from me, as I've tried everything on all platforms. Applixware on FreeBSD is absolutely the fastest, most stable, most excellent office suite available. It amazingly seems to use no memory when you fire it up. Anyone who thinks StarOffice is fast and stable has way more money for hardware than anyone I know, everyone I've talked to who've used WP8 for Linux thinks that the font rendering is so shitty as to render it useless at times.
I personally anticipate the release of KDE2 and KOffice. These are going to rock the office software world for sure. Then, the GNOME guys will just make it all look prettier and that's what I'll use. Until then, it's FreeBSD on my laptop, and Linux on my workstation (paradoxically) because I like to use VMware and run Dreamweaver, and VMware just sucks on FreeBSD.
Don't believe the hype. FreeBSD kicks ass on the desktop. Everything acts and feels much snappier and more stable than linux. And with softupdates to the filesystem, you get the next best thing to journaled filesystems. When you run a lot of desktop software, the occasional X freezes are inevitable, so it's nice to have the security of an uncorruptable filesystem.
My recommendations: 1) if you need a lot of software you used to use on Windows, or you need the best multimedia on Unix/ latest greatest hardware driver, then go with Linux. 2) If you are a vet and know exactly what software you use and can use them well AND these are solid Unix apps, like GIMP, XV, ImageMagic, TeX, LaTeX, xpdf, gv, etc., etc., then try FreeBSD and Applix (for compat w/ the MS world out there). You will not only not be disappointed, you will be amazed, and the 4.0-STABLE is an awesome upgrade.
My system: Dell Inspiron 3000, P200, 144M RAM, 3G HDD. WindowMaker + GNOME; Netscape, XFMail, GnuPG, GIMP, EEyes, NEdit. To the amazement of my Windows friends, I usually have 30 apps open at once and never have a hiccup. Load avg, is 0.15, 0.14, 0.10, uptime 30 days (for my laptop), and of 144M of RAM, I have 644K free. I love this system.
Don't get me wrong, I use Linux daily (debian being my choice as it's the most BSDish) (OpenBSD for firewalls), I run it for VMware and FrameMaker, and because my sound hardware works best in Linux. I like my MP3s. Other than those, I feel I must anticipate the inevitable improvements (i.e., catchups) Linux must make against the BSDs in terms of stability and security. However, FreeBSD could learn a lot from debian's ease in upgradability. No/usr/ports and/usr/src is not comparably simple. Upgrading your whole system, user apps, system apps and all with one command is a Big Plus(TM). Upgrading it with no breaks is even bigger.
Nate's dream world of UNIX: FreeBSD-strength with a dpkg and apt-get --like package management system + a world of the Universal Source Package such that it would be truly trivial to port an app or driver from one *NIX/Linux to another. I actually believe such a day will come. And we will call it Debian GNU/HURD.
A scant few of us at Ompages.com are trying to put together an internet for the rest of us, we're no dot com, we're a real community; we're very close to putting together a virtual private network that anyone can join with a php front end that spits out config files for your platform.
Privacy cannot be guaranteed by a policy site; it must be claimed like property, and on the internet it's first come first served...If you want control over your information you must be active in your efforts to control it... there's no substitute for aggressive activism...
I have high hopes for Ompages.com to use the encrypted IP infrastructure to bring real power to individuals...
Right now there's a news posting site, a la usenet, and it's that easy to post your links, works, projects etc...
We're not whining 'why me?' we're screaming 'mine now...!' We're not brown nosing industry or any single OS, technology or government; on the contrary, we're in their faces drawing lines in the sand... please believe it...
Outta the fryin pan in into the fire... -nate natepuri@office.ompages.com
Great to see a non-profit organization do so well for their bottom line;?.
Seriously folks, Linux is BigBinis(TM) now. This is not your happy home hacker OS anymore. You all may say 'oh but it's open still,' and you would be right, but that's not the issue. The suits are reading Slashdot.ORG reading sites that have some open app development and think 'how can I make money off this?' And they are; and...they...are...
Believe it...
So what are your happy home hacker OSes? GNU/HURD, OpenBSD and a few others in the background. FreeBSD and Linux are now officially suit fodder.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm in SF too. I'll tell ya...
I moved here in August 2000 to take on a sys admin job. It was still pretty bustling then.
Every where I looked I thought I was looking at Armani models and shit. Stupid me, I'm from out of town, my gear was shitty, and everyone thought I was in some low position because I wasn't "director of pig fuck".
8 mos. later, and director of pig fuck has his $500 for 500 business cards pressed on your typical whiny San Francisco "I'm intellectual b/c I'm from San Francisco" pseudo-art exhibit where where the funny hair dyes stand out b/c the pussies are too scared to get tatoos, piercings and look really counter-culture.
8 mos. later, and I have a job. I didn't know sys admins had it so good. We're the first ones hired (me) and the the last ones fired (also will be me). So all you marketing, purchaser, HR, bla bla blas from Berkeley, Stanford, and *worse* you blue blood immigrants from Boston, you'll see me on my beat down motorcycle with messenger bag, a laptop, conspicuous tatoos, piercings and no degree, and I'll be seeing y'all at the unemployment line. Wave when you see me!
*I'm bitter because these cheesy posers wanted to be rock stars by starting an internet version of an ice cream truck, and they really thought they were rock stars*
Dear Mr. Katz, I'm afraid I don't care to spend too much time critiquing your work any more. I used to get all worked up and interested. "Nations operate like software"??? Oversimplification. "They should get on IRC"??? Do you even use IRC? If so, which channel? I'd love to come and flame you. "Identity economy"? What's that? I don't understand you anymore... -nate
This not funny. FreeBSD makes good business sense. *I FLAME RED HAT AND CURSE COMMERCIAL LINUX OFFERINGS*
I swear this bastard cuts and pastes this post along with the other "BSD is dead" post. If I ever run into an M$ PR guy; I swear to fucking god; it's the crips and bloods all over again.
BANG BANG.
Hail the sign of the DEVIL!.
I make beats and rhymes. Coming down the pipe to you soon. Here's the distribution model I'm planning; let me know what you think.
I'm producing all my stuff on a Win2000 Pro box with the standard stuff, ReBirth, Cubase, Sound Forge, Acid, bla bla, f'ing bla. All the tunes are saved on a Linux box with 80 gigs, 128MB RAM, and a 633 Celery over SAMBA. I'll be encoding to ogg and mp3. This ass spanking newborn box is connected to my 1mbit dsl line. My hacker gang on-line collaborates to point the desired domain to the desired dymamic IP. I'll serve up the mp3s using Apache from a very simple and basic web page. In other words, I will be my distributor. I'll market myself on-line and in the clubs in the Bay Area where I live.
If this is the dawn of a new era for artists, I'll see soon. Later y'all.
-Natedawg the Frisco Disco Donkey Kong Babeeee!
Nobody knows the real truth. But I do. I'm have inside knowledge no one... no one could ever reveal but me.
The baby goats cannabalized the parent. Actually this is a good thing, because killing makes them strong.
There's nothing better than strong rope.
Oh yeah. One more thing... and I'm reading this from my business card. My official title reads "Hacker-in-Chief"; NOW WHAT!!!!!?
Regards,
Nate
I am one of these people you describe, the difference between me and the people you describe is that I understand that work had to get done. I don't write too much code, my job is sys admin. I call my own hours, I may come in after noon, but that's because I stay until midnight. I never leave until at *least* one major weekly project is completed. But that is just me.
As to your characterization of what is a hacker. I think you may very well be in agreement with most people who write code a lot. I.e., if one does not code, then one is not a hacker. Here 'hacker' is used like some kind of title. In that sense, you are being an elitist. However, to the rest of the world if your fingers make unix go, a hacker you be. I say unix because windows is too familiar to the average person to make it seem hackerish. However, with transparent eterms and kernel compiles zooming along, the average person goes "oo you're a hacker, huh?" The distinction is one of elitest jargon vs. everday jargon.
At the Linux conference, I wouldn't say 'me hacker', but everywhere else I would.
So fella, you are a bit cranky aren't you? I can understand your gripes about the people who got no work done. But don't mistake that for all the other quirky idiosyncratic and maddening individuals who get a hell of a lot of work done all the friggin' time.
This brings me to my gripe. I'm totally pissed off by engineers who think that hackers should do what they say. Look code monkeys, just because you sit around all day reciting 'if, then, else' doesn't mean you know how to build a network of 200 puters and make WinBlaBla, Sun, Linux, BSD, HP etc., interopate and stay up all friggin' year, ok? All I have to say to you all is NIS, NFS, autofs, bind, apache, IIS, Exchange Server, Black Orifice, samba, ipfilter, ifconfig opts, mtu, dhcp, bla, bla, fuckin bla. I stay up all night keeping up on trend after trend for this specific purpose, I buy book after book know the finest distinctions between OS'es. That's my job. Don't fuck with that. [ooo meee koong foo on yoooo ya fucka] [--battle-maneuvers --go-here].
If I am a code consumer, then let me tell you... it tastes like crap, but I still have to eat it, humph...
-Nate, the self-taught, muy scripting, mucho bullshit enduring, in order to support myself while in grad school, much essential member of the clan, if 'me', then 'go', else 'fucked', sorry it ain't my fault...
Because Linux user like Linux and *BSD users like BSD. The differences are greater than .tgz v. .rpm or .deb.
Why I use the various *BSDs and not one Linux (except at work where my *new* boss wiped my Open and FreeBSD installs and installed RH Linux 7.0 because he thinks "RH will win in the end", me hacker, him Manager..."
When you download FreeBSD's enormous set of files, you get a huge bunch of tools like tar and gzip, mv, cp, sed, awk, perl, tcsh, etc., and the bsd kernel. When you download Linux you get... a kernel. Or you download a huge set of .deb and .rpm files until you have a complete set of tools.
Here's why this difference matters...
It matters because BSD developers, the one's that put their tag on the release, are the same ones that reviewed the tools to ensure that it all fits. I hear Slackware is like this, but I don't know personally.
RPM and .deb developers are very numerous, a bit too numerous. When RH and others put their sign the release, I'm not so sure the main developers know what's going on with all the rpm's on the cd.
See what I mean?
For me, OpenBSD and FreeBSD are the best. OBSD for firewalls, and FreeBSD for everything else.
Stripping is not why SF strippers are famous. Think manually.... -Nate
Fuck yer mover..... in her raas.... (Mr. Wong)
I live in a very old and very beautiful third world city. Maybe you've heard of it, San Francisco?
Thanks to our Mayor and District Attorney, drugs and prostitution are de facto legal. The only thing that sells better in this city than Mary J. Wanna is computer stuff. I know what you are thinking... "What a heaven on earth."
We have 40,000 homeless. I saw one man pulling five carts full of junk around strung alone two ropes. I expect to see a camel caravan soon. At sunset, when the light is just right, it actually looks like Tatooine.
Now I will go jump on my electric power scooter, zig zag around people dressed in tarps, covered with tatoos, and adorned facially in steel. I will cruise to the Starbuck's Coffee, Tully's Coffee, Modern Thai, Thai Navy, and Thai Spice. My people will be there.
Incidently, there are far more Thai restaurants in San Francisco than fast food restaurants combined. In reality, there are more Thai restaurants in San Francisco than any other city on the planet. I will bet big money, that Thailand does not have as many Thai resaurants per capita. I think a recent scientific study from the University of California at San Francisco asserted that it's to feed all the Asian sex slaves at the Oriental Massage parlours.
Between you and me. The Thai restaurants are really good. Viva Than Franthithcowoo!
All I know is,... he better not violate the GPL. Release all your kernel mods! You bastard!
"Nate reaches for his nmap."
"Scan them now!"
As for you gripe about "shareware" Mr. "I just started using Unix and still use the word 'shareware'" things like LyX are awesome, try the GIMP film version to see why the open source world of shareware kicks much ass. Seriously, no one really cares a hell of a lot about using a Unix for the "business productivity apps." If I wanted to be bored out of my mind, I would use my WinME box with Word, what the Hell. If I want to see what's really going on I hack on multimedia apps for making movies, music, etc. and sharing them with friends. Believe me, these apps are coming down the pipe soon.
Applixware may not be your cup of tea, but it is fast stable and very very useful. It's conversion filters are the best in the business, they have to be or no one could use it.
I can't believe you say "public domain shareware 'ports'". You must have just migrated to the open source world. Get a clue, man.
sorry about the bold, wrong tag; I didn't mean to yell folks... my bad...
If you are really dying for the performance/stability/security boost you get with freebsd (like I was), then you'll shell out a couple hundred extra sheckles for the cards (like I did).
Virtual International Conglomerate Organization
Introducing a different kind of concept in social and commercial organization. 'Virtual International Conglomerate Organization' ("VICO"), is simply a concept I've been playing with for a while now to free us up. I've modeled it after large conglomerate corporations like ITT or Diagio that seem to have their hands into everything. In contrast, VICO is a way for us all to be independent but connected as legal entities in a highly efficient international marketplace. Below is a bit of a manifesto.
VICO MANIFESTO
We work independently. We are incorporated for ouselves. We work together on the internet. We meet in comfortable club/cafe style workplaces or we work from home. Ninety-five percent of membership is initiated by showing up; the other five percent (the leadership) happens if one's ideas are compelling. Our ideas are our tickets to the party. We build our own internet infrastructure. It enables us simultaneously to possess and publish our literature without possibility of relinquishing control. We build our businesses on it and gain the largest distance from large corporate and governmental controls available on the planet. With portable computers in our briefcases and secure servers locked away in a place of our choice, we can operate our businesses with maximum freedom.
We meet where we want. We collaborate when we want, with whom we want. Our wants are limited but specific, and our needs are clear. Neither nation nor border can prevent us from working together at any time. We find ways to make our ideas happen, and our ideas ruffle in the bitstream like leaves in a dense rainforest alluring eyes and minds. Every leaf is easy to find and appreciate. We can gather them at will to make newer and lovelier forms. We are engineers, artists, architects, financiers, writers, organizers... the skillful people. We are the Virtual International Conglomerate Organization.
Outstanding Issues:
I agree with all your points. I'm running EFM-cvs and it is really cool right now. My point is not that it is the most user friendly. Nor do I think Rasterman is trying to dominate the desktop space. My point is that for the sake of credibility in innovation, E is the only one which fits. The others are trying to act like windows; where E is trying to act like something new.
My other point is that if some smart programmers would use the example of the manner in which E behaves and apply it to other apps, like PDF/Postscript viewers and other common applications and tools, there would be a Linux environment that would even make the OS X people jealous from both a form and function perspective.
My final point (none of my points are clearly stated except for now), is that Linux has a very narrow window of opportunity in which to make a cultural impact like Windows and Mac has. E and EFM could be it. I encourage everyone to give E and EFM as much attention as Mozilla and other popular projects. In terms of achieving critical acclaim for good form and function (i.e., what more apple-like users expect), E will be it. GNOME and KDE will be what the Windows-like users crave, that and office-suites.
Office suites are so goddamn boring for chrissakes. Damn who cares! I work in an office and use them all the friggin time. I don't happy about them. If you work in an office you already use one, and if you use linux, you already bought one, or downloaded one. Sure KOffice will be cool as far as office-suites can become cool. But for the 'ooh-ahh' effect; Give Rasterman a hand!
I just woke up to something very fascinating. It only works well on Linux (I'm a huge FreeBSD nut by the way), and it's arguably the most innovative thing going in computer interfaces at this moment. It's not ready yet, but when it is; people are gonna say "goddamn!"
It's Enlightenment and EFM. It's a very different experience using computers. And it's the most innovative thing going. I'm not exaggerating this enough.
First, Enlightenment itself is very unusual, but it's useful. The snaps of virtual desktops, and running apps minimized in the icon box are very much the kinds of innovations that are going on in the new MacOS.
Second, EFM changes the way we work with our computers. Just begin typing stuff like "http://www.yahoo.com" and watch your characters appear antialiased in the middle of your screen and EFM reads the MIME type and starts Netscape pointing to that URL. Type 'su' pops up Eterm with a prompt for your passwd.
Third, icons in EFM can be snaps of the documents contained in folders. Thumbs of your pr0n, and potentially of your other documents will be there. Judging by the way the system works now, one would mouse over the document to see the full snap, like in an embedded PDF viewer. I'm embellishing here, but the example is given by installing the ee2 app that gives thumbs of pics in an EFM window. Imagine documents and objects with contents fully visible at all times, by mousing over, or [alt][tab]ing over. Opening them in edit mode would be a mere click, or just start typing in it. Add voice and maybe a touchscreen or a stylus, and all my peoples say 'Whoa!'
I'm a mere enthusiast, and am not a programmer. But mark my words. The Enlightenment team is doing the only thing truly original, useful, and exciting that's going on in the Linux/BSD world. GNOME and KDE are like training wheels for Windows and Mac people. Face it folks, the Office suite that most works like Office, is as boring as an office. MacOS X maybe become the ideal, but Enlightenment is very soon going to be the ideal environment for experienced computer fans who want it to look cool, act cool and prove itself to be the most innovative. This is not innovation for the sake of coolness, either. This is a truly 'object oriented' (in the common sense meanings of the words) approach to programming. This is not symbolic iconic representations, this is viewing and working with the documents and objects as they really appear!
Heed. Experienced smart programmers should start chipping in their time and effort to get Enlightenment and EFM off the ground as fast as humanly possible. Big money companies should be using E as a basis to surpass everything else out there and make Linux/BSD the real 'Gold Standard.' I know they already have a team of Enlightened programmers. But if these guys could get their system, with some added utils to do the kinds of things that I just described, i.e, embedded PDF/Postscript viewer, advanced document formatting and PDF publishing; embedded video/audio players, and web publishing tools, etc., the world of Linux would be a new and amazing penguin paradise. We need apps that act like what Enlightenment does.
Separate the view of the document from the document editor. Embedded viewers, autosensing editors that pop up when we start editing, exports from every conceivable format to every conceivable format, gnutella/napster file sharing in a private environment....
Combine that with the internals already in Linux/BSD, Apache-webdav, and we will have a world where we do the ideal with computers. We will be creating and sharing content with each in the way we already know, by passing around documents and objects, the computer/server being our surrogate self.
The current problem is that people don't know what to do with Linux. Once we all understand that we all want to be creating and sharing content and nothing else, we will realise that the pc/server must run something like UNIX (Apple knows this); and it must make calling up and creating documents as easy as pointing and saying 'that,' and sharing as easy as saying 'here.' To make it that easy requires a lot of work on computer internals in terms of speed, stability and clarity of graphical representations. E is doing it; it needs the other tools that work like E does.
The whole concept of full document views at all times is where it's at. Yeah it will take a powerful computer; this is the future were talking folks. XFce or Blackbox are cool for your P100; what are you going to do with that 2Ghz box with 2G of RAM, and 128M of Video RAM? You're gonna do E!
Here I am posting from Konqueror. I'm on a laptop with FreeBSD 4.1, and KDE 1.92(BETA). I just switched from GNOME 1.2 on FreeBSD because it was slow. I hate it when it takes too long for the graphics to draw. KDE2 and GNOME 1.2 both have their goods and bads. This KDE is buggy as hell, but there were quite a few features unimplemented by GNOME 1.2 on FreeBSD so I figured it was a fair trade; KDE2 claims to build well on FreeBSD and it did. Plus KOffice will be a really well implemented as a professional set of tools well before a GNOME office ever is. The FrameMaker like functionality is really needed in my job.
<pThe bottom line GNOME will win because it's leaders have a much larger American presence, particularly the Silicon Valley. KDE is a big deal in Europe, and lesser so here in the US.
<p>However, who cares? I started disliking GNOME when it went from a freesoftware project to a HelixCode company. KDE is built by enthusiasts and not by MS hunters. It has a better browser, a better mail client, and that is a really big deal. GNOME is still way behind. The only thing I liked better on GNOME was the ps viewer ggv and the cool panel applets. The pretty icons display too slowly on my laptop, so I got frustrated with the eye candy and now choose raw number of features--- KDE2.
<p>NOTE: I am an end-user of the quasi-typical kind. I don't code, just play around with new software. KDE is easier and makes more sense to everyone I introduce to UNIX. GNOME is always prettier, but in the end, KDE gets chosen.
I haven't posted in a while; but I'm pissed now. I can't believe this comment was moderated to a 5-informative.
What the hell was I informed about this post? That this amateur thinks that these pre-alpha screenshots that are not really for public consumption are not worthy of GNOME or Linux? Nautilaus will be part of GNOME. Thus the GNOME icon guy will do the finished icons; duh.
I've proven myself right. I knew that when Slashdot was purchased by Andover, which subsequently went public, that the overall quality of the site would deteriorate. It has.
Posts are inferior; as are the stories. Now, total idiots are given moderator status. Moderate me down all you want. The publishers of this site (i.e., Mr. Malda) should crawl out of their hole and emerge into the real world where things move fast and smart people are paying close attention.
I've had a habit of checking this site daily for about three years; but I'm starting to get peeved. This site has begun to smell of fat, slow, sloppy, arrogance. Linuxtoday, is more current.
No you're right. You've articulated it well. Email me at natepuri@office.ompages.com if you want to know more... Later...
About two other people and I have worked on Ompages.com for about a year now. It's been slow because we all work full-time. We have software, and when I get around to rebuilding the web-site, plenty of information will be there.
I think these guys at Freenet, Napster, etc., have the right spirit but a completely wrong approach; we have it right.
Our aim at Ompages, is to build a highly scalable VPN that anyone in the public can easily join. It will make the user's host appear has 'host.ompages.com' sort of like dhis.org's client does, but the connections between hosts on ompages' network will be encrypted.
In other words, our goal is proliferate secure communications technology. I view a world where people can plug in their shiny new Linux telephony cards, join Ompages, and start having encrypted phone conversations around the world. Of course file sharing is part of that, but our software is not designed to make that activity easy and anonymous. It's not about anonymity, it's about secrecy...
We need help, the few of us remaining are swamped. We used to play around with shell accounts, etc. That was not a workable model. Now we just want to build a huge public VPN. Our main site has news about stuff related to privacy, government regs, and crypto. Take a look and let me know what you think.
My real, email address is natepuri@office dot ompages dot com...
I totally agree with you. I love LyX, LaTeX, GIMP, XV, ImageMagick, NEdit, etc. I prefer to make my presentations in png and html, I don't use spreadsheets much, if I did, I'd use Gnumeric, and gnome-pim is as good or better as any, the KDE versions are equally excellent.
However, there comes times when one must open, edit and save MS files, like Word and Powerpoint. So one must have something that can do conversions.
Take it from me, as I've tried everything on all platforms. Applixware on FreeBSD is absolutely the fastest, most stable, most excellent office suite available. It amazingly seems to use no memory when you fire it up. Anyone who thinks StarOffice is fast and stable has way more money for hardware than anyone I know, everyone I've talked to who've used WP8 for Linux thinks that the font rendering is so shitty as to render it useless at times.
I personally anticipate the release of KDE2 and KOffice. These are going to rock the office software world for sure. Then, the GNOME guys will just make it all look prettier and that's what I'll use. Until then, it's FreeBSD on my laptop, and Linux on my workstation (paradoxically) because I like to use VMware and run Dreamweaver, and VMware just sucks on FreeBSD.
Don't believe the hype. FreeBSD kicks ass on the desktop. Everything acts and feels much snappier and more stable than linux. And with softupdates to the filesystem, you get the next best thing to journaled filesystems. When you run a lot of desktop software, the occasional X freezes are inevitable, so it's nice to have the security of an uncorruptable filesystem.
My recommendations: 1) if you need a lot of software you used to use on Windows, or you need the best multimedia on Unix/ latest greatest hardware driver, then go with Linux. 2) If you are a vet and know exactly what software you use and can use them well AND these are solid Unix apps, like GIMP, XV, ImageMagic, TeX, LaTeX, xpdf, gv, etc., etc., then try FreeBSD and Applix (for compat w/ the MS world out there). You will not only not be disappointed, you will be amazed, and the 4.0-STABLE is an awesome upgrade.
My system: Dell Inspiron 3000, P200, 144M RAM, 3G HDD. WindowMaker + GNOME; Netscape, XFMail, GnuPG, GIMP, EEyes, NEdit. To the amazement of my Windows friends, I usually have 30 apps open at once and never have a hiccup. Load avg, is 0.15, 0.14, 0.10, uptime 30 days (for my laptop), and of 144M of RAM, I have 644K free. I love this system.
Don't get me wrong, I use Linux daily (debian being my choice as it's the most BSDish) (OpenBSD for firewalls), I run it for VMware and FrameMaker, and because my sound hardware works best in Linux. I like my MP3s. Other than those, I feel I must anticipate the inevitable improvements (i.e., catchups) Linux must make against the BSDs in terms of stability and security. However, FreeBSD could learn a lot from debian's ease in upgradability. No /usr/ports and /usr/src is not comparably simple. Upgrading your whole system, user apps, system apps and all with one command is a Big Plus(TM). Upgrading it with no breaks is even bigger.
Nate's dream world of UNIX: FreeBSD-strength with a dpkg and apt-get --like package management system + a world of the Universal Source Package such that it would be truly trivial to port an app or driver from one *NIX/Linux to another. I actually believe such a day will come. And we will call it Debian GNU/HURD.
A scant few of us at Ompages.com are trying to put together an internet for the rest of us, we're no dot com, we're a real community; we're very close to putting together a virtual private network that anyone can join with a php front end that spits out config files for your platform.
Privacy cannot be guaranteed by a policy site; it must be claimed like property, and on the internet it's first come first served...If you want control over your information you must be active in your efforts to control it... there's no substitute for aggressive activism...
I have high hopes for Ompages.com to use the encrypted IP infrastructure to bring real power to individuals...
Right now there's a news posting site, a la usenet, and it's that easy to post your links, works, projects etc...
We're not whining 'why me?' we're screaming 'mine now...!' We're not brown nosing industry or any single OS, technology or government; on the contrary, we're in their faces drawing lines in the sand... please believe it...
Outta the fryin pan in into the fire...
-nate
natepuri@office.ompages.com
Great to see a non-profit organization do so well for their bottom line ;?.
Seriously folks, Linux is BigBinis(TM) now. This is not your happy home hacker OS anymore. You all may say 'oh but it's open still,' and you would be right, but that's not the issue. The suits are reading Slashdot.ORG reading sites that have some open app development and think 'how can I make money off this?' And they are; and...they...are...
Believe it...
So what are your happy home hacker OSes? GNU/HURD, OpenBSD and a few others in the background. FreeBSD and Linux are now officially suit fodder.
What's my point?
Don't be suit groupies...