What the fuck? Informative?? Who is so out of touch with reality, and too stupid to check up on his ignorance, to rate that comment as "Informative"? Furrfu!
Stefan, still refraining from pointing fingers. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Score: X (Informative)Stefan, refraining himself from falling into a further rant about stupidity levels and where he expects them. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
As many have said before me in response to other reactions with In other words, it's not a patent on NAT in it: read the claims. They are the things to be patented, with the blurb in front no more than a global summary of the whole. Pay particular attention to cliims 1, 2 and 3, where the words "encryption" and "decryption" are conspicuous by absence. Claim no 1. is a pretty good description of general NAT, unless English has been severely altered in meaning overnight.
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Kevin Reichard posts a number of links to polls on various ZDNet, MSNBC, CNN websites encouraging readers of linuxtoday to go out and stuff the ballot box.
Then on one of the polls their is a movement by some other group of Windows users to go out and stuff the ballot box in return.
As I understood it, LinuxToday encouraged people to vote. Which is quite right, I wouldn't hear of an MSNBC poll either, since I never visit MSNBC. It's not unlike M$ taking this poll on their site: I'm sure you can see how M$ would "win" hands down, as (random figure:) 99% of their readers are M$ users. So, to make the Unix community aware of this poll, you need to alert them that there is a poll.
This is a far cry from using some kind of script to add many votes to your favourite (i.e. ballot stuffing). The changes are too skewed to allow for "correct votes". Or do you think, that in the time frame mentioned, suddenly thousands of M$ users thought: "Hey! Lets visit MSNBC. What's this? A poll? Ok, I'll vote." I's always possible, of course, but extremely unlikely. Early trends in voting usually give a good indication of the end result, with a margin narrowing over time.
All in all, the upshot of this all is, that there are too many ways of screwing up statistics, even when you try to take the fairest of polls, which is why the phrase "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." (Mark Twain) is so popular. See also "How to lie with statistics." by Darrel Huff.
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Also, my name is not "Your Signature". Sorry, try again...
You haven't read the DMCA very well, did you? And you know, that by law you are required to _know_ the law. But obviously you've missed two of the minor points of the DMCA: requiring everybody with a computer to legally change their name to "Your Signature", and replace their keyboard with the new RIAA approved keyboard with the large, friendly greed^Hn "I agree." button. Better fix that right away, because now you're liable to be taken to court pretty damn quickly, since you've admitted to those crimes in public.
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
And this explains the disappearance of the high-quality, relevant medical directories from a commanding place in the top 15 into nothingness how? In itself, the rise of Yahoo! pages could be explained innocently, but combined with the disappearance of the formerly high-ranking alternatives, it does not smell of fish, it reeks of a chemically poisoned lake full of dead fish and a metric shitload of rat.
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
At least, that's the impression one gets reading a Slashdot editorial.
So? What is your point? Do you agree or disagree?
Also, I think you missed the point of the editorial: RMS has long been an Open Source advocate, from conviction, with astounding results. For that reason he has studied the legal issues surrounding licenses in detail, and because of that he has pointed out the difficulties inherent in KDE's use of the GPL in combination with closed source Qt. Now Qt has gone GPL, adn he says: Ok, fine, great, even, and to forestall future silly legal technicalities, I declare on behalf of the FSF, that all past (technical) violations of the GPL on FSF sources are forgiven, and that the KDE folk can proceed as if they never happened. With our blessing.
The hostile KDE reaction to this completely baffled me. Had they not read the article? Don't they see, RMS has a point where he saw legal problems with their licenses? Don't they see the article said: 'Let's put that behind us now'? Have they lost all reason?
And what replies RMS? Another very calm and dignified response, seeking reconciliation rather than a bare-fisted mud-slinging match. He has stepped over the legal difficulties and taken the fight back to the code, where it belongs. And that is, what prompted the editorial, I'd guess.
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
No way. I can't even ride in a galss elevator without looking directly at the ground.
I hate elevators, and I hate heights. This is stressing me out just thinking about it.
You'll be sitting strapped to a seat for at least take-off and arrival, and pretty soon after take-off the distances become meaningless. Like in an airplane. I fear depths as well ("Heights I can cope with."), but I don't get vertigo looking out of an airplane.
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
So, after living without a life, they get to give up their soul as well?
Sort of makes sense, though.
But all this judicial incompetence and technophobia should be battled by teaching the judges to use computers and the internet. Stupidity can only be batlled by teaching. So the future may be better, as kids of today become judges, but of course, by then it will be too late already.
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Of course, one of the first thinfs to do is wire and program the thing to blank the display whenever the wheels are turning. I should know, as I once, when I was still young and foolish, after repairing the odometer on my bike, ran
fully into a parked Volkswagen Beetle. Luckily only my bike and my pride were hurt.
Also, adding an automated radar system might be fun. Pity any software for such a consumer good would be written with the assumption of MicroSoft running the computer, making "Where do you want to go today." a hazardous experience, invariably ending in up in Redmond at the License Control booth.
But imagine the possibilities for traffic control and acciednt prevention, if every vehicle had a little chip, broadcasting it's size, position, velocity, acceleration, direction, and propulsion method. <wavy lines>Why, combining the info with a map, you could warn against lunatic drivers plotting to bury themselves into you. Or look around corners with impeded sight.</wavy lines>
Alas such a system would immediately be deedm classified and solely be used by the police and criminals.*sniff*
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
I had wanted to submit this as a story in "Your Rights Online:", but since Babelfish doesn't do Dutch, and I do not see how my employer would condone, that I spend work time translating Dutch newspaper articles for/., and I somehow have other priorities in my Copious Free Time, I didn't. However, passing by/. just now, seeing this story, I thought I'd mention it: Last tuesday the court in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, rejected an injunction against kranten.com (tr: papers.com, SML.), a Dutch internet site deeplinking the most important stories of the most important Dutch newspapers, using the headlines for describing the links. The injunction was brought by a major publisher, PCM, whose objections were primarily motivated by the fact, that by directly deeplinking to the actual article, kranten.com bypassed the frontpage, where the most advertisements are. The paper maintained to suffer financial damage because of this. It also maintained to have copyright on the headlines.
Judge J. Mendlink (no joke, folks. SML) waived the arguments, stating, that if PCM, doesn't want others to use their information, that they should not put it on internet for free. He also considered it doubtful, that the newspapers in question actually incurred damage.
Funnily enough, normally internet-savvy journalist Francisco van Jole, who has been on the internet about since the start of last September (which was the '93 one, as we all know. SML.), predicted the imminent death of content on the internet.
Anyone with time and language skill is invited to translate the actual article or articles, via kranten.com or directly from for instance de Volkskrant or de NRC, the best two national newspapers as far as I can tell, with preference to the latter. Both are actually published by PCM. Though only de Volkskrant probably has van Jole's actual words.
De Volkskrant also ran another story on "Ever more Merkins in Dutch ICT". Interesting, but I've got no time to tell ya about it.
Stefan (using my initials SML for editorial comments above). It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Can a network take down a flock of birds flying through the lasers?
I can see how this would interfere with RFC 1149and RFC 2549 based networks. "War of the networks"? "Imminent death of the net predicted, film at 11"? It would take care of dinner nicely, though. Pass the cranberry sauce, please?
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
You've read it, O.J. is going to court to ban this movie. And he's likely to win, given your amendments. He's got the right to bare arms, to refuse any soldier seeking a place to eat or sleep, to defile anyone short of slander, and more. And WTF is his relation to Homer and Bart anyway?
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Ah, /. wants to limit readership?
on
ICANN Elections
·
· Score: 1
We are concentrating only on the election for the North American region, since the majority of Slashdot's readership is from this region.
What kind of narrow-minded, egotistical, nationalistic attitude is that? With that kind of reasoning you should also restrict yourself to male, underage, white geeks. Or do you mean slashdot isn't supposed to be a worldwide forum?
I'm sorry, but I had expected better from the slashdot team, not this all-too-standard American reduction of "the world" to itself and at most it's neighbours.
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Modern cellphones have a SILENT feature that works wonders. I guess some people can't be bothered to use such a thing, but I for one would prefer to control my own damn phone than submit to something like this. You know, personal responsibility and all that?
<highhorse>It's not only, that some people can't be bothered to switch their cellphone to vibrate instead of one of those annoying would-be musical-snippets-in-endless-loop, which can be "enjoyed" for minutes while they dig out their phone from the bottom of their heavily filled bag. After which you will be filled in on all kinds of details about their and others' private lives, which you're not interested in, but are unable not to overhear, since they are trying to speak louder than the person next to them on his or her cellphone. And all I want is to read my newspaper in peace, in the train en route to my job.
I like music, as a matter of fact I like most of the original music those phone tunes were taken from. But that only makes them worse. And, besides music, I like silence a lot. A scarce commodity nowadays, if you leave your soundproofed home. It used to be walkmen, and cars with open windows (or not), with the stereo on $KILL_HUMAN_HEARING_SYSTEM_IF_NOT_THE_HUMAN_ITSELF . I think there's a good future in a device, that kills all stereo's and cellhpones in a, let's make is 500 meters or yards cubic, area. I promiss I'll stop smoking then, even if it's allowed, provided I find a cure for my need to.
But at least this/. article and reaction lead to me putting in Rachmaninov's Pino cencerto Nr.2 and Nr4, so this contribution turned out much less heated than it otherwise would have.:-)<highhorse*gt;
Stefan. Good musix might stop wars. So might a well placed silence. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Since I hate doing paperwork and the Dutch IRS has a program (M$ only) to help file your taxes, my first try with wine was to do my taxes with that under wine. This worked except for two things: the font that got delivered with the program (which is a configuration issue, that surpassed solvability in the little attention I gave it), and the delivery by modem, which I also expect is a configuration issue. The things, that really didn't work were: installing windows '95 from an official CD (setup starts and then just hangs there doing nothing), and the online banking program (again no Unix alternative), which fails with some errors I cannot reproduce right now, as I'm not at home.
The one, that really surprised m, was the freeze of de Windows install. I'd have guessed that would be the first thing to test. Oh well, maybe I just didn't find the right reading material to help me on that.
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Well, you're right about the fireworks accidents in Enschede and Spain (I don't know anything about one in Greece, but that might have escaped my notice), but there is something mighty strange happening in/. When I read your post, it mentioned a container without fireworks blowing away, and over 2000 people killed, but after I hit reply, the resulting post above the reply "editor" box showed nothing of that aat all.
I guess I've fallen for some bug troller. Oh well, 'nuff said.
Stefan. Whether the bug is in slashdot or Netscape 4.61, I refuse to comment at this stage. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Well, I agree the whole thread is offtopic, but my reaction was simply rectifying a glaring mistake made by someone claiming to rectify a glaring mistake. And now it seems you can regain the lost karma point by making a somewhat funny reaction to that. But of course, since that example is so close to my parent post, it wouldn't work again. *sigh* Oh well, I'm only a recent slashdot addition, if I compare my single digit karma to the 150 points someone else boasted recently, allthough I now believe my karma would be in the twenties if I didn't care so much for checking on reactions to my posts, so I can do the replyers the courtesy of answering if they question me. The link under my alias at the top of the opening page seems the best place for checking all I have posted, and the replies to those contributions, but I have noticed my karma was one lower each time I couldn't contribute a change to another factor.
Is this so? Is there another way to find your posts or the replies to it? Is there a non damaging way to check your karma? After all, karma is likely supposed to be the total of the appreciation of your contributions to slashdot. And if you're not supposed to know how much your appreciated, why bother with karma at alll?
Stefan, trying to understand the underlying assumptions, reasoning and mechanisms of the karma system. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
"That which we call a nerd, by any other name, would smell as sweet; so geek girl would, were she not geek girl call'd, retain that dear perfection which she owes without that title; - geek girl, doff thy name; and for that name, which is not part of thee, take all myself."
(Free after: Romeo and Juliet, by W. Shakespeare.)
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
And the alternative to "doing it yourself" is pointing out the succes of the open source distributions of Linux and FreeBSD. And that in a M$ friendly environment.
With succes I mean:
Above average security of continuous operation. This is a result of opennes and the feedback by numerous half-clued and clued users of the product, tracing the errors.
Above average security against misuse, mainly though open reporting and disclosing of security risks, which induces rapid and generally available fixes, since more people are looking for a resolution than in a closed source situation, where volunteers simply cannot aid in submitting solutions.
With, for instance, Linux, once you reach $SOME_PERCENTAGE_INSTALLED_BASE, you get the games and other goodies companies to notice and cater to you, so you can finally play those games all your friends have been rambling about for ages between themselves. {Major *growl* here, I'd like to play Discworld 1 & 2, but I refuse to rip off the makers or reinstall Windows '95 for that. If I was certain they'd play from wine... My girotel (bank interface) doesn't.]
Open sourcing things helps you stopping those icky little things that stops your $OS_OF_PREFERENCE_WITHOUT_THE POWER_TO_WIN_NASTILY of gaining enough support, sometimes known as users.
The Open Source filosophy Linus Thorvalds useed got Linux where he and it are today. is there more proof of sense possible?
Stefan. No.sig today, my love has gone astray. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
I don't know what your problem is but all times show up correctly for me (EST zone).
Adding 2 and 2, we get: time representation is supposed to be local zone. EST goes right and CET DST (which I called CST in my previous post) is off by one hour, displaying winter time rather than summer time. Which leads to the possible answer, that for some time zones, the summertime index is broken or absent.
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
From my point of view (the Netherlands), it seems like the things posted are off by one hour, which would mean the time represented is British Summer Time, or whatever it's called. Currently UTC+1, anyway. This post, for instance, which will be submitted around 14:42 CST, will, for me, be time-tagged as 13:42. So part of the answer you seek lies therein.
HTH, HAND, Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Slashdot Mirror
Score:X (Informative)
What the fuck? Informative?? Who is so out of touch with reality, and too stupid to check up on his ignorance, to rate that comment as "Informative"? Furrfu!
Stefan, still refraining from pointing fingers.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Score: X (Informative)Stefan, refraining himself from falling into a further rant about stupidity levels and where he expects them.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Then on one of the polls their is a movement by some other group of Windows users to go out and stuff the ballot box in return.
As I understood it, LinuxToday encouraged people to vote. Which is quite right, I wouldn't hear of an MSNBC poll either, since I never visit MSNBC. It's not unlike M$ taking this poll on their site: I'm sure you can see how M$ would "win" hands down, as (random figure:) 99% of their readers are M$ users. So, to make the Unix community aware of this poll, you need to alert them that there is a poll.
This is a far cry from using some kind of script to add many votes to your favourite (i.e. ballot stuffing). The changes are too skewed to allow for "correct votes". Or do you think, that in the time frame mentioned, suddenly thousands of M$ users thought: "Hey! Lets visit MSNBC. What's this? A poll? Ok, I'll vote." I's always possible, of course, but extremely unlikely. Early trends in voting usually give a good indication of the end result, with a margin narrowing over time.
All in all, the upshot of this all is, that there are too many ways of screwing up statistics, even when you try to take the fairest of polls, which is why the phrase "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." (Mark Twain) is so popular. See also "How to lie with statistics." by Darrel Huff.
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Also, my name is not "Your Signature". Sorry, try again...
You haven't read the DMCA very well, did you? And you know, that by law you are required to _know_ the law. But obviously you've missed two of the minor points of the DMCA: requiring everybody with a computer to legally change their name to "Your Signature", and replace their keyboard with the new RIAA approved keyboard with the large, friendly greed^Hn "I agree." button. Better fix that right away, because now you're liable to be taken to court pretty damn quickly, since you've admitted to those crimes in public.
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
So? What is your point? Do you agree or disagree?
Also, I think you missed the point of the editorial: RMS has long been an Open Source advocate, from conviction, with astounding results. For that reason he has studied the legal issues surrounding licenses in detail, and because of that he has pointed out the difficulties inherent in KDE's use of the GPL in combination with closed source Qt. Now Qt has gone GPL, adn he says: Ok, fine, great, even, and to forestall future silly legal technicalities, I declare on behalf of the FSF, that all past (technical) violations of the GPL on FSF sources are forgiven, and that the KDE folk can proceed as if they never happened. With our blessing.
The hostile KDE reaction to this completely baffled me. Had they not read the article? Don't they see, RMS has a point where he saw legal problems with their licenses? Don't they see the article said: 'Let's put that behind us now'? Have they lost all reason?
And what replies RMS? Another very calm and dignified response, seeking reconciliation rather than a bare-fisted mud-slinging match. He has stepped over the legal difficulties and taken the fight back to the code, where it belongs. And that is, what prompted the editorial, I'd guess.
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
I hate elevators, and I hate heights. This is stressing me out just thinking about it.
You'll be sitting strapped to a seat for at least take-off and arrival, and pretty soon after take-off the distances become meaningless. Like in an airplane. I fear depths as well ("Heights I can cope with."), but I don't get vertigo looking out of an airplane.
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Sort of makes sense, though.
But all this judicial incompetence and technophobia should be battled by teaching the judges to use computers and the internet. Stupidity can only be batlled by teaching. So the future may be better, as kids of today become judges, but of course, by then it will be too late already.
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Also, adding an automated radar system might be fun. Pity any software for such a consumer good would be written with the assumption of MicroSoft running the computer, making "Where do you want to go today." a hazardous experience, invariably ending in up in Redmond at the License Control booth.
But imagine the possibilities for traffic control and acciednt prevention, if every vehicle had a little chip, broadcasting it's size, position, velocity, acceleration, direction, and propulsion method. <wavy lines>Why, combining the info with a map, you could warn against lunatic drivers plotting to bury themselves into you. Or look around corners with impeded sight.</wavy lines>
Alas such a system would immediately be deedm classified and solely be used by the police and criminals.*sniff*
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Judge J. Mendlink (no joke, folks. SML) waived the arguments, stating, that if PCM, doesn't want others to use their information, that they should not put it on internet for free. He also considered it doubtful, that the newspapers in question actually incurred damage.
Funnily enough, normally internet-savvy journalist Francisco van Jole, who has been on the internet about since the start of last September (which was the '93 one, as we all know. SML.), predicted the imminent death of content on the internet.
Anyone with time and language skill is invited to translate the actual article or articles, via kranten.com or directly from for instance de Volkskrant or de NRC, the best two national newspapers as far as I can tell, with preference to the latter. Both are actually published by PCM. Though only de Volkskrant probably has van Jole's actual words.
De Volkskrant also ran another story on "Ever more Merkins in Dutch ICT". Interesting, but I've got no time to tell ya about it.
Stefan (using my initials SML for editorial comments above).
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
I can see how this would interfere with RFC 1149and RFC 2549 based networks. "War of the networks"? "Imminent death of the net predicted, film at 11"? It would take care of dinner nicely, though. Pass the cranberry sauce, please?
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
What kind of narrow-minded, egotistical, nationalistic attitude is that? With that kind of reasoning you should also restrict yourself to male, underage, white geeks. Or do you mean slashdot isn't supposed to be a worldwide forum?
I'm sorry, but I had expected better from the slashdot team, not this all-too-standard American reduction of "the world" to itself and at most it's neighbours.
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
You forgot: and where walkmen stop, and loudmouths shut up. And women said "Yes." when they mean "Yes."
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
<highhorse>It's not only, that some people can't be bothered to switch their cellphone to vibrate instead of one of those annoying would-be musical-snippets-in-endless-loop, which can be "enjoyed" for minutes while they dig out their phone from the bottom of their heavily filled bag. After which you will be filled in on all kinds of details about their and others' private lives, which you're not interested in, but are unable not to overhear, since they are trying to speak louder than the person next to them on his or her cellphone. And all I want is to read my newspaper in peace, in the train en route to my job.
I like music, as a matter of fact I like most of the original music those phone tunes were taken from. But that only makes them worse. And, besides music, I like silence a lot. A scarce commodity nowadays, if you leave your soundproofed home. It used to be walkmen, and cars with open windows (or not), with the stereo on $KILL_HUMAN_HEARING_SYSTEM_IF_NOT_THE_HUMAN_ITSELF . I think there's a good future in a device, that kills all stereo's and cellhpones in a, let's make is 500 meters or yards cubic, area. I promiss I'll stop smoking then, even if it's allowed, provided I find a cure for my need to.
But at least this /. article and reaction lead to me putting in Rachmaninov's Pino cencerto Nr.2 and Nr4, so this contribution turned out much less heated than it otherwise would have. :-)<highhorse*gt;
Stefan. Good musix might stop wars. So might a well placed silence.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
The one, that really surprised m, was the freeze of de Windows install. I'd have guessed that would be the first thing to test. Oh well, maybe I just didn't find the right reading material to help me on that.
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
I guess I've fallen for some bug troller. Oh well, 'nuff said.
Stefan.
Whether the bug is in slashdot or Netscape 4.61, I refuse to comment at this stage.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Is this so? Is there another way to find your posts or the replies to it? Is there a non damaging way to check your karma? After all, karma is likely supposed to be the total of the appreciation of your contributions to slashdot. And if you're not supposed to know how much your appreciated, why bother with karma at alll?
Stefan, trying to understand the underlying assumptions, reasoning and mechanisms of the karma system.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
5 years? And I thought it was meant to be a fast food "restaurant".
Stefan, unable to resist.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
"That which we call a nerd, by any other name, would smell as sweet; so geek girl would, were she not geek girl call'd, retain that dear perfection which she owes without that title; - geek girl, doff thy name; and for that name, which is not part of thee, take all myself."
(Free after: Romeo and Juliet, by W. Shakespeare.)
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Stefan. .sig today, my love has gone astray.
No
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Adding 2 and 2, we get: time representation is supposed to be local zone. EST goes right and CET DST (which I called CST in my previous post) is off by one hour, displaying winter time rather than summer time. Which leads to the possible answer, that for some time zones, the summertime index is broken or absent.
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
HTH, HAND,
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-