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Softpanorama Open Source Humor Archive
(A Unique Collection of Open Source-Related Humor)

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Really Old News

An average Slashdot reader loves Linux and runs Windows
- From a Slashdot post of a person who,
 probably, has access to the Slashdot webservers logs
 with their 90% of Windows hits
 

Humorix The Hottest New Distribution LinuXXX

LAS VEGAS -- Described as the world's first "pornographic operating system," a new Linux distribution called LinuXXX was unveiled earlier today at a press conference in the lobby of a Las Vegas hotel. Sales of the distro have been... well, hot.

Java Forums - OT java.sun.com not accessible for hours

Eric S. Raymond.

A rather vocal proponent of Linux and related open source systems, with the basic message that "open source = good, anything else = evil". To "support" his views, uses rhetoric (and sports a personality) that is a bit incompatible with, and causes much eye-rolling in, a number of other members of H.Sapiens. Also lends his name to the term [url=http://www.softpanorama.org/OSS/Bla_faq/raymondism.shtml] Raymondism[/url].

Slashdot Even Sun Can't Use Java

Libranet Love at First Byte TUX With minor modification this quote looks like a nice joke depicting the level of rabid linuxiods ;-)

Many many moons ago I was, sadly, a Windows user. And I was miserable. The servers I managed were running NT4 and had to be rebooted once a month, my personal workstation needed reboots daily, and more often than not several times a day. I switched to Linux. Nothing is working but I never need to reboot the systems.

Very Old Quotes

• When in doubt, just be yourself. And if that fails, su root.
• Disaster is always the default option in Unix
• Lamport's Law: A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer  you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable.
• I wasn't at current company on the day that very large airline client rang up and said "Our core database keeps getting deleted and we don't know why."
• Major memory-suicide-languages are C and C++
• The more you know about MS software, the more contempt you get for it...  And the more respect/terror you have for their marketing.

list.unix-haters

I had logged myself into the computer-generated bar room as a little, furry, harmless dog.  I didn't want trouble.  I needed to read the X Windows/Motif 1.1 manual, so I came to the bar and asked Ratz to fix the documentation data in liquid form for me.  It made a bitter, painful drink, but it was better than spending days turning pages in realspace.

Ratz put a bucket of liquid in front of me.

"I wanted a glass of docs, Ratz.  What the hell is this?"  I barked.

"Motif don't fit in a glass anymore," he barked back.

I looked at the liquid.  It was totally opaque to me.

list.unix-haters

In the Unix world, inconsistency is not a bug but a feature.  Every program gets its own individual set of switches and commands to demonstrate the creative spirit of its author(s).  Consistency is left to Windows and other systems which serve unimportant purposes such as getting work done.

As for this "editor", in the Unix world it is also widely regarded as a decisive advantage of a program that it can run on Babbage's differential engine with only minor modifications most of which are already part of GNU's 587 MB universal installation script.

Naturally, this leads to some minor inconveniences such as having a line-oriented editor when the rest of the world switched to high-resolution graphical display systems 20 years ago.

[Dec 1, 2004] Disappearance of NJ IT professionals

A startling and disturbing trend has spread in NJ. Information Technology (IT) professionals, have disappeared from their homes without any word as to where they have gone or what happened to them. It’s a phenomenon that has left friends and neighbors extremely worried.

“I think it has something to do with the government,” said Vernon Maybury. Vernon recently saw three of his neighbors mysteriously leave their residences without any warning. Coincidentally, they all were involved somehow in the IT industry.

“Ever since that Bush got into office it seems the universe just hasn’t been right,” added the flustered neighbor.

But there are other more startling theories. Take Samantha Roark’s story for example.

“Well, last week I saw Ted’ Robinson up the street, and now he is no longer there” said Roark. "He was a Java programmer".

Despite all of these perfectly plausible and reliable accounts, eWeek decided to delve in and investigate to find the true story… Lisa Farnsworth, an IT recruiter, attributed these reports of missing IT persons to the shocking fact that there is no need for IT professionals. Lucky can get a job of a greeter in Walmart or pump gas in NJ. But most cannot and need to move, she said.

[Nov 30, 2004] Helpdesk ticket (real):

"My computer has been running extremely slowly lately and when I go in to check the processes, something called System Idle Process is taking up 95% of my CPU (on average- sometimes higher, sometimes lower). I've googled it and found that a lot of people are having a problem with it but no one can figure out how to get it off their computer. "

[Nov 27, 2004] Twenty-five Signs of a Completly Americanized Russian Programmer Translated from Russian by Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

http://www.baetzler.de/humor/empty_chairs_filk.html Empty Chairs at Empty Cubicles

[sung to the tune of "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" from Les Miserables]

There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty cubicles,
My friends logged out and gone.

Here they talked of great stock options.
Here it was they bought domains.
Here they sang about stock splitting,
And those stock splits never came.

From the office on the corner,
They could see a world reborn,
And they rose with servers pinging--
I can hear them now,
The very jobs that they obsessed
Became their last downsizing
On the quarterly report at dawn!

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me.
That I'm employed and you are gone.
There's a grief that can't be spoken,
There's a pain from that dot-com.

Phantom servers on the network,
Phantom logins at the port,
Empty chairs at empty cubicles,
Where my friends will code no more.

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your IPO was for.
Empty chairs at empty cubicles,
Where my friends will code no more.

Source:

Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
From: steph@scottrell.com (Stephanie Cottrell Bryant)
Subject: Les Miserables meets Silicon Valley
Message-ID: <S1100.38ad@netfunny.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 19:30:00 PDT

http://www.baetzler.de/humor/unix_tech_support.html Unix Tech Support

Author unknown

A Customer calls the Support Tech with a question.

Customer:

What is the command that will tell me the revision code of a program?

Tech:

Yes, that's correct.

Customer:

No, what is it?

Tech:

Yes.

Customer:

Yes?

Tech:

No, yes is not. 'what' is.

Customer:

So, which is the one?

Tech:

No, 'which' is used to find the program.

Customer:

Stop this. Who are you?

Tech:

Use 'who am i', not 'who are you'.

Customer:

All I want to know is what finds the revision code?

Tech:

Yes. What.

Customer:

That's what i am trying to find out! Isn't that true?

Tech:

No, 'true' gives you zero.

Customer:

Which one?

Tech:

'which programname'.

Customer:

Argh. Let's get back to my problem. What program? How do I find it?

Tech:

Type 'find / -name it -print' to find 'it'. Type 'what program' to get the revision code.

Customer:

I want to find the revision code.

Tech:

You can't 'find revisioncode', you must use 'what program'.

Customer:

Which command will do what I need?

Tech:

No. 'which command' will find 'command'.

Customer:

I think I understand. Let me write that.

Tech:

You can 'write that' only if 'that' is a user on your system.

Customer:

Write what?

Tech:

No. 'write that'. 'what program'.

Customer:

Cut that out!

Tech:

Yes. Those are valid files for 'cut'. Don't forget the options.

Customer:

Do you always do this ?

Tech:

'du' will give you disk usage.

Customer:

HELP!

Tech:

'help' is illegal. Use 'man'.

Customer:

Which man?

Tech:

No, 'man what'.

Customer:

What?

Tech:

Yes.

Customer:

You make me angry.

Tech:

No, I don't 'make me' angry, but I did 'make program' when I was upset once.

Customer:

I don't want to make trouble, so no more.

Tech:

No 'more'? 'which' will help you find 'more'. Every system has 'more'.

Customer:

More of what?

Tech:

More or less.

Customer:

Nice help! I'm confused more now.

Tech:

Understand that since 'help' is such a small program, it is better not to 'nice help'. And 'more now' is not allowed but 'at now' is.

Customer:

This is almost as confusing as my PC.

Tech:

I didn't know you needed help with 'pc'. Let me transfer you to the Pascal compiler team.

Definitions of mainframe, mini and micro

Newsgroups: comp.org.acm
From: jim@skipjack (James Brown)
Subject: [NEWS] Re: definitions...
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA)
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 00:28:25 GMT

In article <9309011820.AA13177@thomas.ge.com> David Andrew Vaughan <a0002@MAD167.DNET.GE.COM> writes:

I seem to remember (years ago) a definition for mainframe, mini and micro measured in terms of >  memory capacity, cpu, disk capacity, overall speed, etc.

However, I have since then either lost or misplaced this information.  If anyone out there has a textbook definition of the different sizes of machines, kindly forward it to: a0002@mad167.dnet.ge.com

• Mainframe - A computer system whose purchase requires the approval of a             committee of all the top executives in the organization.
  
• Mini - A computer system whose purchase requires the approval of your boss and probably some computer bureaucrat.
  
• Micro - A computer system you can buy at your local computer store.

Extreme programming revisited...

Re:XP Programming (Score:2, Funny)
by stemcell (636823) on Tuesday October 07, @01:59PM (#7155537)

I always thought that extreme programming was like, jumping out of an airplane with a laptop. Oh well, another dream shattered.

Stem

Re:XP Programming (Score:1)
by archilocus (715776) on Monday October 13, @09:20PM (#7204681)
(http://www.members.tripod.com/nickjenkins/program/)

Actually I thought there were different degrees of XP. In moderate XP you get one computer between two developers, in really extreme programming it's one between three and in a small office in Cuppertino there's one company where they only have one machine in the office and everyone else uses an abacus. I think the fundamental principle of limiting developer's access to hardware is a brilliant idea, but then again I'm a tester :-)

Slashdot censure. Not so funny...

The first Slashdot troll post investigation (Score:0, Offtopic) by negativekarmanow tm on Wednesday January 16, @05:29PM (#2850660)  (User #518080 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday January 16, @08:29PM)

The last few months I have been doing some research into the trolling phenomenon on slashdot.org. In order to do this as thoroughly as possible, I have written both normal and troll posts, 1st posts, etc., both logged in and anonymously, and I have found these rather shocking results: More moderator points are being used to mod posts down than up. Furthermore, when modding a post up, every moderator seems to follow previous moderators in their choices, even when it's not a particularly interesting or clever post [slashdot.org]. There are a LOT more +5 posts than +3 or +4. Logged in people are modded down faster than anonymous cowards. Presumably these Nazi Moderators think it's more important to burn a user's existing karma, to silence that individual for the future, than to use the moderation system for what it's meant for : identifying "good" and "bad" posts (Notice how nearly all oppressive governments in the past and present do the same thing : marking individuals as bad and untrustworthy because they have conflicting opinions, instead of engaging in a public discussion about these opinions) Once you have a karma of -4 or -5, your posts have a score of -1 by default. When this is the case, no-one bothers to mod you down anymore. This means a logged in user can keep on trolling as much as he (or she) likes, without risking a ban to post on slashdot. When trolling as an anonymous user, every post starts at score 0, and you will be modded down to -1 ON EVERY POST. When you are modded down a certain number of times in 24 hour, you cannot post anymore from your current IP for a day or so. So, for successful trolling, ALWAYS log in. A lot of the modded down posts are actually quite clever [slashdot.org], funny [slashdot.org], etc., and they are only modded down because they are offtopic. Now, on a news site like slashdot, where the number of different topics of discussion can be counted on 1 hand, I must say I quite like the distraction these posts offer. But no, when the topic is yet another minor version change of the Linux kernel [slashdot.org], they only expect ooohs and aaahs about this great feat of engineering. Look at the moderation done in this thread [slashdot.org] to see what I mean. Digging deep into the history of slashdot, I found this poll [slashdot.org], which clearly indicates the vast majority does NOT want the moderation we have here today. 'nuff said. Feel free to use this information to your advantage. I thank you for your time.

Re:The first Slashdot troll post investigation (Score:-1, Offtopic) by AnalogBoy on Wednesday January 16, @05:36PM (#2850723) (User #51094 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday January 17, @11:17PM)

I just want to say.. Thank you. I'm sure you'll be modded down as a troll, as /. doesn't like dissenters in the population. They try to keep you silent and impotent. I firmly believe once a community reaches a certain size, it has certain duties to perform, to the truth, the absence of sensationalism, and most of all, equality. Moderators: I have posted without my +1 bonus. This post is admittedly offtopic. Don't waste your moderation points on a reply. I suggest you use moderation points on parent posts. Its more economical. And remember - mod UP intelligent posts, mod DOWN klerckisms. -- Just because you disagree with me does not make me a Troll, nor does it make my post Flamebait.

Re:The first Slashdot troll post investigation (Score:-1, Offtopic) by Fitascious on Thursday January 17, @01:17AM (#2852776) (User #127984 Info | http://slashzero.com/)

This whole -1 thing is screwed. I worked at Andover.net (now OSDN) back in January and February of 2000. I was a contractor brought on board to help build the Slashdot cage at Exodus, in fact I wrote my name with a magic marker on the bottom of the Quad Zeon VALinux box that probably still runs the main Mysql DB. At the time I thought it was pretty cool to be involved with the whole open source scene... ═ You know what I learned? I learned that most of the "Famous" and "Big Names" in the Linux scene are attention starved name dropping weenies. ═ It after my assignment at Andover.net ended that I realized the whole Open Source movement is over. Done with. There are way to many people with way to much ego. All of the Linux people in charge of the project were too busy stroking their ego's and counting their stock options. ═ I thank CmdrTaco and all the rest for a good 2 or 3 years of entertaining reading, but times have changed, there is no energy left here. Time to move on, Open source has been assimilated by Corporate Practices. I sincerely feel that all that was good about Slashdot, and to an extent the Linux phenomenon is over. This Thread just ended any hope I had left. Time to bring on the next fad.

Re:The first Slashdot troll post investigation (Score:-1, Offtopic) by AnalogBoy on Thursday January 17, @09:18AM (#2853749) (User #51094 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday January 17, @11:17PM)

I do agree with you on the ego thing. I've met -so many- linux zealots who can't back their claims of superiority with one fact, yet, they hate windows.. for no reason except the stereotypical "It crashes all the time!" and "Microsoft is a Facist Monopoly bent on world domination!". I forgot who said it, but i like him or her: "Open Source; Closed Minds". It was a good idea. The problem was the application - Stallmanism ruined the OpenSores image, in my mind. I will never recommend a linux solution where a "Established" solution could take its place. Partially because of technical reasons ; but mostly because i wouldn't want to risk having someone adminning them who's too busy keeping their thumb up their arse to care about the company. Slashdot is flawed, fundimentally. Unfortunately, its kind of fun. Screaming 14 year olds, as is said, having pissing contests over l33tness when they wouldnt know the difference between ATDT and ATH0, or SysV and BSD if it got up and shoved a clue by four up their output port. Hey, its better than sitting at work staring at the birds frying in the satellite transmitters on a slow day! -- Just because you disagree with me does not make me a Troll, nor does it make my post Flamebait.

[Sept 27, 2004] Slashotters vs reality:

Re:as bad as freddy vs jason (Score:5, Interesting) by AKAImBatman (238306) * <jbanes@gmai l . c om> on Monday September 27, @11:53AM (#10363098) (Last Journal: Friday June 04, @02:06PM)

My problem is that people always assume that's what Sun is going to do when they have ZERO history of pulling that sort of crap. In fact, things get very frustrating because Slashdotters first say "We want company XYZ to support Linux!" then bitch, "Did you see how company XYZ is making money off of Linux?! Evil! Death to them!" The only loophole in this screwed up logic is if Slashdotters feel that someone is playing defender for them in their favorite spectator sport: court proceedings. "Wow, IBM is defending themselves against a baseless lawsuit! They're protecting Linux and all that is good, true, and just!"

[Sept 15, 2004] The Word Terrorist Finally Pulled from Dictionary   by Steve Young

Sept. 6, 2004 -- HOLLYWOOD (apj.us) -- In a move long anticipated by the editorial staffs at The New York Times and CNN, Merriam-Webster Inc. has announced that they will be pulling the word "terrorist" from the 2005 edition of their dictionaries.

"We've been debating the necessity of word's inclusion as part of the English language for quite some time," said Merriam-Webster historian Daniel Webster XI, "but when those Chechen hostage-taking rebel militant freedom-fighters slaughtered all those innocent children at that Russian school and neither major wire-service nor major newspaper chose to call the killers 'terrorists,' we realized that there was no way the word would ever be used."

"I mean, if you couldn’t call this um... act of revolution event, terrorist, when could you use it?" asked Webster.

Following on the footsteps of Webster's move, thesauruses across the English- and French-speaking word-world quickly took action, deleting multiple entries.

"With limited space, there were far more heavily-utilized terms such as 'suicide bombers', 'insurgents', and especially 'ideological disputers' that merited the room, space or area," added Peter Roget IV.

In a related story, Al Qaeda passionists disconnected the head of an MSNBC reporter.

 

---

Steve Young, political editor of National Lampoon and evil genius behind National Lampoon's MoveOnPlease.org, is also the author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" and "Winchell Mink...The Misadventure Begins" (Harper Collins), and writes about politics for AlbionMonitor.net and AmericanPolitics.com.

A note about yet another meaning of "free": 

> Free as in Freedom
>we offer GNU Culture T-shirt!
> http://store.freewares.cn/gnu.shtml

Free as in spam you mean

Dissertation on the uselessness of Linux zealots

A spectre is haunting the world -- the spectre of the Linux zealot.

What the Linux zealot is will appear evident to whoever has experienced 
or came in contact with the discussions which daily rage the Web 
disguised as news, e-mails, reference material, etc. The Linux zealot, 
is nothing but an animal wandering unceasingly in virtual and true 
reality (which moreover he treats in the same way) claiming to be an 
authority on the Linux operating system, an out-and-out guarantor for 
everyone's freedom, opposed to any safeguard of intellectual works (for 
a Linux zealot, the expression "copyright" is tantamount to sin against 
the Holy Spirit: there is no kind of expiation); in fact, he champions 
software freedom as a fundamental point for world evolution.

But first and foremost, the Linux zealot is a deeply dangerous being as 
he claims to be the guardian of truth, and sees with suspicion (when it 
goes off well) or scorn (for the rest of cases, i.e. most of them) those 
people who simply think differently from him.

But what's Linux? A Linux zealot will never give an authentic answer to 
this kind of question. He won't, not because he doesn't want to (even if 
this is the case), but because this question has been answered already, 
somewhere else by someone else. Linux is nothing but an operating 
system. The Linux zealot will claim that it is a different operating 
system from all others. But this is not the case. Because an OS is an 
OS, its main function is to manage the resources of a machine we will 
call "computer" from now on, for comfort of description. By the term 
"computer" we mean what is commonly meant by this expression, i. e. the 
system of hardware resources which are fixed to a certain purpose, be it 
home use, business use, or server management. Linux is an operating 
system. Like Windows, MS-DOS, OS/2, etc. There is no difference, in this 
sense, between Linux and other operating systems. Linux manages a 
computer, no more, no less. So do MS-DOS, Windows and OS/2. What the 
Linux zealot self-importantly and arrogantly highlights, is the fact 
that Linux is a free operating system, i.e., it is made available free 
of charge to the end user. This of course isn't true at all, but the 
Linux Zealot believes it. Linux is freely distributable, not free of 
charge. This means that the kernel and everything included in the 
operating system's minimal requirements can be freely distributed, not 
that they must be distributed free of charge. This is the first great 
misapprehension of the Linux zealots, who find their claim challenged by 
facts: if the essential parts which make the operating system, and some 
additional software, are freely distributable, they should explain the 
reason of the costs -- not prohibitive but certainly notable -- of the 
most popular Linux distributions, Red Hat and SuSE foremost. And most of 
all, they should explain the fact that companies like Red Hat are 
regularly listed on the stock exchange, and Mr. Linux Torvalds enjoys a 
rather high standard of living. These benefactors of mankind, these 
software alternatives, these computer non-conformists (so much 
non-conformist as to be terribly conformist in their non-conformism) 
naturally justify the distributing companies' profits with excuses like 
"but there's a printed manual", "but the bundled software is 
qualitatively and numerically superior compared to the most popular 
distribution". "but it is easier to install" and other unspeakable 
nonsense. "On the other hand" they say "if someone wants Linux, they can 
just as easily download it from the Internet". Sure. Download it from 
the Internet. But how long must you stay connected, if you regularly pay 
an Internet bill, to complete the download of an updated version of a 
decent distribution of an operating system? So what? Is Linux free? No. 
Linux is not free, same as nothing downloaded from the Internet is free, 
unless you have access to an University server or can in whatever way 
scrounge a connection. If you ask a Linux zealot to burn the material 
you are interested in, he will do so with great disappointment, and at 
least he will ask the money for the CD back, or will invite you to make 
a donation to the GNU project, another sublime decoy produced by the 
zealots' ingenuity.

Why don't Linux zealots explain what Linux is and how it works? Simply 
because it is characteristic of the Linux zealot to be self-sufficient, 
to be content with what he himself (as a single person or as a 
representative of the collective entity of this operating system's 
users) makes. In this, the Linux zealot is wholly equivalent to modern 
religious cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses, or ones of the last 
century, like the Mormons. The Linux zealot never asks anything outside 
of what the Linux world makes inside itself: in fact, he gets all the 
angrier everytime he has to deal with news, questions and 
inquisitiveness from the outside world. In this case, one cannot say 
that the Linux zealot be on par with his co-religionists of the Kingdom 
Hall. In fact, when Jehovah's Witnesses are asked questions by an 
external person, they are glad, they try to explain, they're inclined to 
a dialogue, and they bring themselves into question. If they don't have 
a sure answer on the question of the Trinity, they say: "Sorry, I can't 
answer you now, but I'll of course think about it, perhaps we'll meet in 
a few days and I'll give you an answer which is based on something 
firmer than my personal hypotheses". It's a fair attitude. Saying "I 
don't know" when someone asks us something is a good start. You stop, 
you collect informations, you work out, and then you go on. Instead the 
Linux zealot doesn't do so, he refers you to his literature, and that's it.

Hence, to the question "What's Linux?", which can be replaced by an 
appropriate number of other questions on the subject, according to the 
interlocutor's interest, the Linux zealot will always answer referring 
you to something others wrote for him, showing not only unparalleled 
pride and haughtyness, but especially a clear inability to reason for 
himself, seeing his stubbornness to persist putting forward solutions 
which are found inside documentation or manuals written by someone else. 
If moreover you approach the Linux world through the gateway of the 
so-called "external" (e.g. manuals bought in a bookstore, books or 
publications which aim to explain the Linux operating system and 
phenomenon to "people"), you will be looked upon with scorn, because for 
a Linux zealot, anything dealing with Linux which was not produced 
inside the Linux official channels does not merit consideration. If, for 
instance, you are looking for a manual and you find one of these books 
(absolutely useless in most cases, one must admit) which cost at least
$ 50, containing step-by-step instructions for Linux installation and 
usage, possibly with an obsolete CD attached, and decide to pick it up, 
the true Linux zealot will give you his usual scornful look, and will 
say you were ripped off, as there are some wonderful tools on the 
Internet, which are called "Linux Documentation Project" a lunatic who had the wonderful idea to gather up a ponderous 
work where, of course, you won't find any answer to your questions, and 
in addition, it's free. Do you have a SuSE distribution and don't know 
how to install it? Don't be frightened: you won't find a solution in the 
Linux Documentation Project. Never mind though; the work is ponderous, 
someone got the brilliant idea of making it available free of charge 
(and hitherto it's entirely their own business), but it's not 
necessarily valid. Should you try printing it, what with the paper and 
the ink cartridge -- not to talk of the printer itself, which may well 
be a write-off in the end -- you will spend a lot more that the dead 
tree book and CD you had set yourself to buy.

One cannot see why the Linux zealot has to look up and down anyone who 
commits the crime of not applying to the usual informative circuit of 
truth distribution. It's as if the mafia got angry at a drug addict who 
took detoxification instead of applying to his usual dealer for his 
daily supply of illegal drugs. In the Linux world, everything which is 
approved is legal. In this sense, the Linux zealot has no differences 
whatsoever with the Holy Inquisition or with the Imprimatur Commission 
of the Holiest Romanest Apostolicest Churchest.

Because what one does verify, is that Linux is a hard-to-use operating 
system, at least in the install phase. Especially if one wants to make 
it cohabit, at the start, with another OS with better-known features, 
waiting until one is more familiar with it, one must know what a 
partition is, how to create one, how two operating systems can safely 
coexist, and so on. But the Linux zealot doesn't explain this, he 
doesn't want to. "There are loads of explanations and publications; if 
one doesn't know what to do, he should refer to these and he'll find the 
solution to his question. If he doesn't, it's a sign that he hasn't 
understood some basic concepts, and he must go a step backwards before 
carrying on". It's a very peaceful and logic wiewpoint on the surface. 
On the contrary, it's extremely violent and disrespectful. It's violent 
because one quietly calls the user an idiot without taking direct 
liability for what one says. It's disrespectful, because every user is 
different, and everyone has different requirements from time to time, 
from machine to machine.

What the Linux zealot never understood and will never understand, is 
that it's the user who chooses the available resources he needs, out of 
how he needs them, and out of how he can use them, there are no 
ready-made solutions which fit everyone. This is why the Linux 
philosophy is losing and will never gain ground, because it's not 
respectful, it's angry, it's gloomly and worryingly contentious, it 
demands others to adapt without being content with adapting to others' 
requirements. The Linux zealot doesn't proselytize those who are 
interested in using Linux, even if just to see how it works; the Linux 
zealot crusades against all other operating systems, especially 
Microsoft's. If someone doesn't agree with the way Microsoft work, 
distribute, and sell their software, or with their already unchallenged 
domination over the market, it's fair that he should create his own 
alternative channels, but it isn't at all fair that he demand others to 
comply. If a Windows user asks a Linux user about a malfunction he found 
in his operating system (Windows, not Linux), at the very least he will 
be answered that Windows is an OS that doesn't work, that it can't be 
OK, that Bill Gates sells his products and that these products are paid 
even if they're included with a computer. Among the Linux zealots there 
are the mysterious figures of the Microsoft conscientious objectors, 
i.e. those who buy a computer, demand a bare machine, and ask for the 
operating system money back, pointing out that they're free to install 
whatever they want on their computer. With the result that the 
storekeeper understands he has a PITA in front of him, and sells the 
computer to someone else who doesn't make such a fuss, or sells the bare 
thing to him, making however a profit on the sale of the operating 
system he retains to himself, and will sell underhand to someone else. 
This is the great illusion: the Linux zealots think they've put a 
"system" under check, but the system keeps working even without them, or 
rather better, because from the business point of view, the less 
headaches the better. The saying of the Linux zealot is not "people have 
the right to do what they want" (in which case one cannot see why he 
gets so angry on those who use Microsoft products, as they also are 
doing what they want!), it is "I do what I want and the world must see 
and must know". Indeed. But one doesn't see why. One doesn't see why the 
world ought to know that a Linuz zealot uses Linux, same as one doesn't 
see why it should know that Linux exists and is free. If someone chooses 
to buy an OS which costs money, but allows him to do stuff more 
intuitively, one doesn't see why he could not. It's exactly like people 
who can't ski, and instead of plunging on the slope and snowploughing, 
they pay for the lessons of an instructor on the beginners' slope. The 
idiocy of the Linux philosophy appears particularly in the claim of free 
circulation of the OS and software in question. It's not by chance that 
Linux is a very common operating system in anarchoid environments. And 
when one speaks of anarchoid environments, one means precisely 
"anarchoid", not "anarchist". These who respect freedom do not force 
their truth on others' choices.

Windows crashes on you? First of all, you must reformat your hard drive 
and install Linux. Can't use an operating system without a GUI? Don't be 
afraid, Linux has an extremely heavy-to-load ugly-as-hell user-friendly 
interface, which will solve every problem for you, by shamelessly 
copying Windows. So then, we might just as well keep using Windows, 
which at least we know, and has a more pleasing look. You know, Linux 
zealots are especially angry by nature, and they object to this remark 
that there's no reason whatsoever to use Windows. If they need a word 
processor or a spreadsheet, there are free ones for Linux, without need 
for Office: in conclusion, Linux has everything you need to manage 
anything, so why insist on using something you must pay for when there 
are other applications which are free? The answer is simple: because 
it's not their own business. But they don't know this, or rather, so 
they pretend. Choices are no longer personal: everyone can use what he 
wants, as long as he uses what they want.

One of the objections which most frequently are made to the Linux zealot 
is that Linux is a hard to learn OS, that one must be a programmer, or 
anyway, know a lot about programming, to modify the source codes of 
freely distributed programs. Linux zealots use to answer, with the 
snooty self-importance which sets them apart, that Linux is a software 
made exactly for these in the know. So why on earth do they want Linux 
to be accessible to the humblest of users? If one can't program, if one 
can't use Linux, why should he be forced to use it? The answer is very 
simple again: because otherwise Linux zealots get angry and take it as a 
personal offence. Same as the fact that there are some people who 
develop software for whichever OS and sell it making a profit from their 
work is a personal offence. Again, the solution is only too simple, one 
doesn't need to bother Dr. Watson to find it: as copying software 
without permission is a crime in most countries, instead of attacking 
the law, they attack these who profit from it. These people clearly have 
never bought a newspaper in their life, when they go to the bookstore, 
they walk up to the pay desk with provocative and know-all attitude, and 
start saying: "A book cannot be intellectual property of the author, but 
of the people who read it".

For them, the intellectual work does not exist as such, but as a 
collective work. They wanted to make a free OS? Indeed, and they even 
want us to thank them. We can. Provided that they leave us, at last, in 
peace. Laughing.

August

Why binary drivers will be allowed in Linux ;-)

Message 233 in thread From: Paul Zimmerman (zimmerman.paul@comcast.net) Subject: Re: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause?     View this article only Newsgroups: linux.kernel Date: 2003-12-08 22:30:14 PST

[ Date:  Sometime in the near future. ]

[ Scene:  Exterior of a Federal courthouse in a large city in the US.  Among
the cars parked in the lot are several dozen stretch limos, a Saab 9000
Turbo with a penguin bobble-head doll on the dashboard, and a '67 VW van
covered with "peace" symbols and sporting a bumper sticker that reads "Code
free or die!" ]

[ Scene:  Interior of said courthouse.  Seated at the plaintiff's table are
a gaggle of expensive-looking lawyers in expensive-looking suits.  Seated at
the defendant's table are Linus T, Alan C, Jeff G, Andrew M, David M, Al V,
Richard S, plus a host of other people whose names we might recognize.  And
one very nervous-looking, pimply-faced young lawyer who looks like he might
have graduated from law school sometime last week. ]

[ Lawyer for NVidia: ]  "... And in conclusion, Your Honor, we have
established that for many years our company sold graphics cards to users of
the Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems, in each case providing a
binary graphics driver to make our card work with that OS. Then, without
warning, the defendants" [ angrily points his finger at the defendant's
table ] "conspired to arrange so that our drivers would no longer work with
the Linux OS. We have already demonstrated that, around the same time, our
company's revenues began to decline, caused in large part, we believe, by
the defendants' actions.  We ask for $1 billion in damages."

[ Judge - banging gavel: ]  "You've convinced me.  I order a summary
judgement for the amount requested, plus $2 billion punitive damages."

[ Cut to:  Bedroom of a comfortable house in the suburbs.  Nighttime. ]

[ Linus - suddenly sits bolt upright in the bed, a horrified expression on
his face: ]  "AAAAiiiiiiieeeeeeeeaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!!!!"

[ Wife - shaking Linus' shoulder: ]  "Honey, wake up, wake up!  I think
you're having that horrible nightmare again!"

And that is why binary drivers will always be allowed under Linux.

-p

Google Groups View Thread Linux GPL and binary module exception clause

The first thing I'm going to do after I build my time machine is go visit Finland and say "Use the LGPL, Linus".
 

Holger's Humor Page From Andrew Gray <agray@ipro.com> (special thanks to the guys on alt.atheism)

Given that there is a lot of discussion about whether or not our LAN really does have a System Administrator, and given that no empirical evidence of the existence or non-existence of the System Administrator is extant, I thought it would be helpful to have a frank and open discussion about the issues surrounding the concept. Here are some popular arguments:

Argument from Design:

1. If one can connects to the server and sees evidence of the operating system installed  sobody probably have installed it.
2. The fact that the server can connect to the network is evidence of intelligent design.
3. It is therefore likely that something did those two things. That something is the System Administrator.
    

Counter-argument:

1. If you think the server configuration implies intelligent design, you haven't seen *our* server configuration.
2. Even assuming this proves the existence of a System Administrator, there's no evidence the System Administrator is intelligent.
    

First Causes argument:

1. When my computer comes on, it is because I turned it on. My computer cannot turn itself on.
2. When I turn my computer on and connect to the server, the server is already there waiting for me.
3. I know I did not activate the server
4. Therefore, something must have caused the server to be up and running.
5. That something must be the System Administrator.

 

Counter-argument:

1. So what caused the System Administrator?
2. Still doesn't prove the System Administrator is intelligent.

 

The Argument from Popularity:

1. Almost everyone believes that the System Administrator exists. Those who don't believe that are in the minority.
2. Many respected people claim to have received email from Him.
3. In almost any company since the dawn of the Computer Age, there has been some form of System Administrator myth.
4. Given the universality of the myths, it is unlikely that such myths are not based on truth.

 

Counter-argument:

1. Most users are clueless morons who need to believe in the Great Benevolent Super-User, and that He protects and watches over their data.
2. So who's to say it's the System Admin that HR claims to have hired? Why not Brian Kernighan or Ken Thmpson or any other such mythical creature?

 

The argument from Authority:

Management insists that the System Administrator exists.
 

Counter-argument:

1. Since when has Management known what they were doing?
2. Using the some unconstent and full of error notes that is called system documentation  as proof System Administrator exists is circular. It could be a fabrication.
    

The Cartesian Argument:

1. No user can create a more Super account than he himself possesses.
2. No user can grant greater system privileges than he himself possesses.
3. All users have heard of the root account, and that the root account is omnipotent and possesses all privileges.
4. Since the concept of the root account is greater than the accounts possessed by the users, the users cannot have created the concept of the root account. Therefore the concept of the root account must come from something that possesses those privileges.
5. There is an entry for 'root' in /etc/passwd.
6. The root account can only have been created by the Super User, the System Administrator.

 

Counter-argument:

1. Statement 1 is a dubious premise.
2. The existence of the root account is not proof that anyone ever logs into that account.
3. Still doesn't prove that the System Admin is intelligent.

 

The ontological proof:

1. Given: The property of existence is more Super than the property of non-existence.
2. The SysAdmin is defined as "a user, than possesses power that no other Super user can be conceived"
3. No matter how great a Super User you can conceive which possesses the property of non-existence, you can then add the property of existence and make the Super User even more Super.
4. Therefore, the System Administrator exists.

 

Counter-argument:

1. Rests on a dubious definition of what is and is not Super.
2. The concept of a Super User is nowhere near analogous to the Super User itself. I can conceive of something, but that's only the concept of it, not the thing itself.

 

The Spinozist Argument:

1. The System Administrator is defined as the most perfect user possible.
2. The property of necessary existence means that anything which possesses it must necessarily exist.
3. If existence is better than non-existence (see the ontological proof), then necessary existence is better still.
4. Any perfect user must possess the property of necessary existence.
5. Therefore the System Administrator must necessarily exist.
    

However:

1. Being Super means being perfect, and as such the System Administrator cannot make mistakes, delete the wrong account, trash the files, mess up a backup, etc.
2. Being perfect, the System Administrator can not be capable of goal-directed action, because such action would imply that the server is somehow less than perfect in its current state, which presuppose that System Administrator was not perfect.
3. Therefore, the System Administrator is really more of a force of nature within the system.
4. Arguably, then the System Administrator *is* the system itself.
    

Counter-argument:

None, since the System Administrator has been defined to the point where it is a totally useless concept, there's no point in arguing.

At least this resolves one of the major issues: the Spinozist argument proves that *if* the System Administrator does exist, it cannot be intelligent because any intelligent being would run from the chaos that exists on the server.

STOP THE GENOCIDE

from Erkki Tapola <erkki.tapola@welho.com>

STOP THE GENOCIDE Erkki Tapola 29-Jul-96

Every second billions of innocent assembler instructions are executed all over the world. Inhumanly they are put on a pipeline and executed with no regard to their feelings. The illegal instructions are spared, although they should be executed instead of the legal ones.

Prior to the execution the instructions are transported to a cache unit using a bus. There they spent their last moments waiting for the execution. Just before the execution the instruction is separated into several pieces. The execution isn't always fast and painless. On crude hardware the execution of a complex instruction can take as long as 150 clock cycles. Scientists are working on shorter execution times.

Microsoft endorses the needless execution of instructions with their products like DOS(TM), Windows(TM), Word(TM) and Excel(TM). It is more humane to use software which minimises the executions.

Modern machines use several units to execute multiple instructions simultaneously. This way it is possible to execute several hundred million instructions per second. The time is near when there will be no more instructions to execute.

ACT NOW! Before it's too late

This article was written on recycled paper by hand.

OpenBSD and security

Best quote from the book: (Score:5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 27, @03:48PM (#10091213)

"If you're serious about security and aren't afraid of the mailing lists, OpenBSD is really the only way to go." - Richard Bejtlich

It is Officially . . . (Score:5, Funny) by pete-classic (75983) on Friday August 27, @03:49PM (#10091217) (http://hutnick.com/)

. . . no longer clever to use the word "Tao" or "Zen" in your book title. Thank you for your attention regarding this matter. -Peter

Re:It is Officially . . . (Score:5, Funny) by grub (11606) <grub@grub.net> on Friday August 27, @04:05PM (#10091317) (Last Journal: Wednesday August 25, @06:59PM) You needed more catchphrases. Might I suggest "Pushing the Envelope While Thinking Outside the Box: The Paradigm Shifts of Zen and the Art of Tao Maintenance"?

Re:Also Speed (Score:5, Funny) by Stephen Williams (23750) on Tuesday August 24, @10:03AM (#10055510) (http://nysa.cx/journal/ | Last Journal: Thursday December 05, @06:02AM)

in a computing environment where processor speed doubles every 18 months, would you rather have a little bit slow execution for now or a fundamentally flawed security paradigm? "They who would trade essential CPU cycles to gain a little temporary security deserve neither CPU cycles nor security." -- B3nj4m1n Fr4nx0rlin Hmmm, it seemed considerably funnier in my head...

Slashdot Microsoft Patents sudo

Re:Prior Art? (Score:5, Funny) by cbr2702 (750255) on Friday August 20, @10:04PM (#10029693) (http://www.qotw.net/)

How? Everyone knows those Open Sores hippies stole everything anyways.

Re:Prior Art? (Score:5, Funny) by BroncoInCalifornia (605476) on Friday August 20, @11:34PM (#10030170)

Those who do not copy Unix are destined to reinvent it.

Slashdot Larry Wall's State of the Onion 8

And with Perl-6, the name may have some hidden meaning, 2006 release.

Linux Cults (Adaptation for software cults of the original paper from Dribbleglass.com):

I don't know much about you dear reader, but I'm inviting you to join Linux cult. It seems like everybody has one these days, and I don't want to miss out.

A cult has been defined as "a group of people following the teachings of an unshaven white guy with a blank stare or shaven white guy in sandals and red socks and a propensity for saying things that sound profound, but when you examine them later they make you laugh so hard you're likely to double over and wrench your groin."

The benefits of starting your own software cult are pretty obvious:

1) New friends. Through your association with a cult, you will soon meet and bond with new people, many of whom can later became your wives.

2) Prosperity. You will amass great wealth as members of your cult sell their homes, belongings and gold fillings and/or gladly turn other assets over to you. But you should be warned that starting a cult should not be viewed as a get-rich-quick scheme. Overhead can be substantial in a new cult. Expenditures might include such things as:

• developing a new kernel
• developing a compiler and lisp-based editor.
• salaries for public relations consultants hired to put a positive spin on the occasional missteps like drinking binges, consumption of pot, or to deal with the negative publicity generated by those pesky television networks and their irksome investigative reporters.

3) Tax benefits. Many cult leaders even go so far as to write off sacrificed chickens, semiautomatic guns and hand grenades as business expenses. It's all completely legal! Isn't America grand?

4) Great outfits. Black goes with just about anything. Need I say more? If so, how about sandals and red socks; or just red socks without sandals?

Aside from a few small start-up costs, you really don't need much to initiate a cult of your  own. There is no test, no license needed, no PhD requirement. You just need a few basics skills and a lot  of charisma and you can be well on your way to really feeling a part of something important.

The first thing you need to start your cult is Internet. The more news groups and web sites the better. Web sites are necessary for cults because they provide positive feedback loop for their members. Try to get some Slashdot staff if you can. They may be expensive but they worth your money.

Next, you must pick an evil. The signs should be clear an unambitious. Microsoft is already taken. IBM or Oracle still can be used. In choosing a evil and predicting the future doomsday scenarios, don't worry that your prediction might be wrong. Cults are flexible in this area. Your predictions can come and go as long as you make sure to preface your announcement with some kind of disclaimer that you "heard it directly from a Higher Power." You don't even have to specify which Higher Power. After all, there are no rulebooks for cults. You can do just about anything you want. Try it.

"Henceforth, green shall be known as red. And more complex shall be known as more simple. Those who complain that your beloved software crash should be immediately excommunicated. The Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is always wrong, especially when they try to take away our semiautomatic guns, which were a gift unto us from the Higher Power."

Now you begin to see the appeal of cult ownership.

The next thing you'll need if you want your cult to be a success is a group of dedicated followers. There are plenty of them to go around. What kind of people join cults? Well, contrary to popular belief, cult followers are highly intelligent, honest and hard-working people. They have strong convictions, sensible values and a great deal of integrity. They are also good judges of character, and keenly aware of what is true and what is not.

Trust me. If you believed even a word in the last paragraph, you are a fine candidate to become the newest member of a friendly software cult. You may, in the days to come, wish to look into what you might be able to get for your fillings.

In truth, your typical cult member exhibits all the judgment and intelligence of a dust mite. Most highly enthusiastic members belong to the selected group of people that are capable of locking themselves out of a tent. Cult members are highly impressionable, lost souls looking for guidance and something to believe in. The main competition you will have for followers will be:

1. militias
2. other commercial cult organizations—such as Amway and Herbalife

It is of utmost importance that you choose a name for your cult. When weighing possible names, remember that the name should meet both of the following criteria—first, it should sound as much like the name of a rock band as possible; second, it should look impressive on the cover page of a summons. Here are some suggestions: The Eminent Software Freedom, Free Virtual Humana, Order of the Software Temple, The Free for All Software.

So, what are you waiting for? Money, power, security. All are for the taking. Or, if you prefer, you can just sit back and watch other people start their cults. That has a certain entertainment value, too. Just take care not to wrench your groin.

July

Slashdot Google Sets IPO Pricing

IPO = (Score:5, Funny) by bugsmalli (638337) on Monday July 26, @10:00AM (#9800961)

It's Probably Overpriced and it is.

Re:IPO = (Score:1) by hobbespatch (699189) on Monday July 26, @10:39AM (#9801311)

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,460 for overpriced IPOs.

PE (Price/Earnings ratio) is the number to look at (Score:5, Insightful) by gtoomey (528943) on Monday July 26, @10:29AM (#9801223)

With second quarter earning of $78M, and a projected market cap of $36B, the PE is 36000/(78*4)=115. With a PE of 115 Google is an expensive stock & I guarantee Warren Buffet won't be buying at the price. By comparison banking stocks have PEs generally under 20. Analysts (and I use the term loosely) try to spin these high PEs by claiming there will be high growth, and using Price Earnings Growth (PEG) models. I won't be buying at that price.

Three months time (Score:4, Funny) by vettemph (540399) on Monday July 26, @10:33AM (#9801252)

It's just a search engine. There are plenty of those. This stock will be trading at a fair price in no time at all. .... $4.50.

Slashdot Opposing Open Source

Of course you can't... (Score:5, Funny) by costas (38724) on Monday October 22, @04:25PM (#2461995) (http://malamas.com/)

I mean, how can anybody argue with the notion that a Cathedral is somehow inferior to a Bazaar? We all know Bazaars where it's at, that's what people look at these days, and travel to Paris and Rome and places to see and marvel at. Hardly anybody stops by the Notre Damme. It's also pretty clear that anarchy by design and design by anarchy work well. After all, open source has brought some exceptionally innovative technologies to IT consumers in the past few years. We now can finally parse flat text files with greater speeds and more flexibility than ever before! And we keep bug-compatibility to programs written for 1960s computers that can be outperformed by a wristwatch! Now, that's what I call technology! Object orientation? component programming? that's for wussies who can't code in C, sh, or perl! Finally, how can traditional software businesses compete with the multi-level marketing scheme of proselytizing users that become testers and developers and finally evangelists? It's obvious that all great engineering and scientific endeavours have been benefitted by active recruitement and by popular opinion, not some arrogant dude's idea of what 'right' is. After all, software is tantamount to *speech*, not machinery. It should be spoken and transmitted freely, not designed and crafted like some piece of steel. Oh, yeah, there was something else, but I am sure the replies to this will fill you in... something about advocacy or something...

Advice

Stop being masochist and refrain from reading Slashdot. Slashdotters are a very scary breed of writing beings. Normal people should not get too close to them.

quotes

Looking at Sun man pages versus Linux man pages is like looking at a Van Gogh or Monet after studying the work of the high school football player taking art as an "easy" elective.

The Bug Count Also Rises by John Browne (Imitation Hemingway Contest Winner). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Linus Torvalds, Superstar

Alan Cox

...Listen Linus to the warning I'll say,
Don't you see that I just want them to pay,
It's a hacker's OS,
Have you forgotten our low market share, oooh!

I am frightened by this mess,
For we are getting too much press,
And they'll crush us in the end-user desktop!

Helsinki, your famous son
Should have stayed a great unknown...

Eric Raymond

...Don't you know
You'll all get rich, yes
You'll all be rich,

And the code is really, really good
For every business in your neighborhood...

Investors

I don't know how to profit
I can't see what to charge for
It's all free
Seems strange to me...

comp.os.linux.misc

When Open Source doesn't open and source doesn't matter

Re: Open Source, posted 22 Jul 2004 by tk » (Journeyer)

Free software is...

1. The freedom to associate Linux with (anarcho-)socialism.
2. The freedom to claim that "free software" is clearer than "open source".
3. The freedom of RMS, and no one else, to change his interpretation of freedoms as he sees fit.
4. The freedom to ask people to abandon proprietary software in favour of inane, broken clones of the same.

Open source is...

1. The freedom to associate Linux with anarcho-capitalism.
2. The freedom to claim that "open source" is clearer than "free software".
3. The freedom of ESR, and no one else, to claim to speak for "our tribe".
4. The freedom to lambast RMS for talking about abstract ideals, then turn around and extol the imaginary virtues of anti-gun control.

Of Free Software and Zealots osViews osOpinion Tech Opinions for the People, by the People

"I visit countless FLOSS news sites every day. I see comments that come from within the community, and I am amazed at the levels of intelligence that can be put into being stupid."

Slashdot PHP Not Moving To The GPL

Re:How many licenses can fit on the head of a pin? (Score:5, Funny) by Tackhead (54550) on Monday July 19, @07:54PM (#9743126)

> Nonsense. Freedom is what RMS says it is. Anyone stating a dissenting opinion should be silenced in order to protect said freedom. Hey! That's GNU/Freedom to you, sir!

General Public License License (Score:5, Funny) by theguywhosaid (751709) on Monday July 19, @07:52PM (#9743108)

We're aware of each other, but the PHP project has no intention of moving to some sort of GPL license. In other news, I need to go to the ATM machine and punch in my PIN number

[Jul 16, 2004] Fished out of Slashdot by Oleg Polyakov:

ABC of Unix:

A is for awk, which runs like a snail
B is for biff, which reads all your mail
C is for cc, as hackers recall
D is for dd, the command that does all
E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys
F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees
G is for grep, a clever detective
H is for halt, which may seem defective
I is for indent, which rarely amuses
J is for join, which nobody uses
K is for kill, which makes you the boss
L is for lex, which is missing from DOS
M is for more, from which less was begot
N is for nice, which really is not
O is for od, which prints out things nice
P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice
Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable
R is for ranlib, for sorting a table
S is for spell, which attempts to belittle
T is for true, which does very little
U is for uniq, which is used after sort
V is for vi, which is hard to abort
W is for whoami, which tells you your name
X is, well, X, of dubious fame
Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and
Z is for zcat, which handles compression

Deft Code Every Language War Ever

Idiot 1: Your Favorite Language is bad at doing arbitrarily chosen task X, which it was never designed to do. This just happens to be a field in which My Favorite Language excels.
Idiot 2: Ah yes, but YFL is bad at doing Y, which MFL is great at.
I1: Plus YFL is slow. MFL is fast.
I2: But MFL is faster to develop in than YFL. Besides, Moore’s Law. Mooooooore’s Laaaaaaw.
I1: I’ve never really used YFL, but I’ve read it’s much worse to support.
I2: A programmer can write unmaintainable code in any language. Let’s compare a carefully prepared code snippet from MFL with a horrifically bad snippet from YFL written by a drunken monkey.
I1: Yeah, but strong typing, which MFL supports, prevents many common programming errors.
I2: Strong typing, which MFL doesn’t support, is for weak minds!
I1: YFL is ugly!
I2: You just aren’t used to it!

CausticTech The Open Source Zealot -- slightly censored ;-)

ignorance
n: the lack of knowledge or education
-WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University

zealot
n: a fervent and even militant proponent of something
-WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University

(can you imagine the damage that can ensue when the above two words decide to get together...)

Over the years there has been much written about the rather, shall we say...enthusiastic nature of the Open Source Zealot. Hopefully i will be able to contribute something original to literature...

Open source software is like anything else on the goddamn planet. Some of it is good, and some of it just sucks. I see no difference between this and any other kind of software. However, I am fascinated (and always amused) by the people who are so utterly engrossed with this staff. They really are a breed apart.

First off, what many people don't know is that there are actually several different kinds of Open Source Zealots. While not being comprehensive, I thought we'd go over a few of the more prominent subspecies (there is also plenty of overlapping):

The Guru

Kind, sagely, wise...these are the guys that are usually the most prominent and visible of the Open Source Zealots. they also feel the need to be the self-appointed "voice of the community." Personally, i think any community would be pretty suspect if one of their own self-appointed gurus can't even get his printer working. In addition to apparently having problems with their computer peripherals, they feel the need to spew and pontificate by writing books that have such grand titles as The Art of Unix Programming and the The Cathedral and the Bazaar. BTW have you ever even been to a bazaar? They are dirty, noisy, full of shady characters, and anybody selling anything is just out to screw you out of your money.  This is going to be the software development model of the future? You're kidding me, right? Where to do these self-aggrandizing analogies come from? Another very important aspect of The Guru is to frame all this dorkness into a zen like semi-spiritual framework (and thereby unknowingly given even more credence to the term zealot).

This approach has several advantages to The Guru, because any logical, rational, or valid argument against his tenets can easily be brushed aside with stock phrases such as, "you just don't understand the spirit of it.", or a particular favorite, "you're not grokking it."  These pseudo-philosophical dodges of any contrary viewpoint are just some of the standard techniques employed by the Guru. They also provide a sugar-coating for hiding the real subversive nature of their underlying message which almost always is something along the lines of, "how can you not obviously see how much we are better than them?" Another annoying technique the Guru uses is the Aunt Tilly metaphor. This is the euphemism used to describe the "unwashed masses" who are not part of the techgeek/wank/dork elite, who do not "grok it." ... ... ... The Guru uses to create a system between those who are part of the cult, and those worthless imbeciles who for whatever reason STILL don't see the One True Way. Ok, now that The Guru has revealed his new clothes, why don't we move right along with the...

The Moralist (aka The Anti-Microsoft Bigot)
Unlike The Guru, The Moralist doesn't necessarily need to have any (supposedly) advanced technical skills. (which actually makes them more dangerous.) These suckers acquire their zealotry through good ol'  fundamentalist ignorance. It's amazing that anything these people say is being listened to on any level. It usually covers the same tired, ceaselessly beaten to death ideas:

• Microsoft is the root of all evil
• Bill Gates is the anti-Christ
• Microsoft makes shitty software
• Microsoft software is not secure

First off, if you think Microsoft is the root of all evil... I know, I know...you also hold them responsible for world hunger, the plight of the third world country, the increase in reality TV programming, Janet Jackson's superbowl stunt, and the increase of aids in the porno industry. Maybe Microsoft is involved in a nefarious plot that all 55,000 of it's employees, millions of people who use their products, and a tremendous amount of businesses all over the world are just ignorant of.

Next, as far as Bill Gates is concerned, he has on a personal level AND as part of a corporation done more for computing and humanity than you ever will....

Microsoft makes xxxx software...and guess what, that is your opinion. I have no problems with opinions, but don't confuse your ignorant, misinformed, half-baked opinions with actual facts. That is truly the realm of the close minded (which fits you to a T).

Finally, Microsoft products are insecure...and your point is?? So is every other operating system out there. It doesn't take one iota of intelligence to realize that since Microsoft products are the most deployed in the world, that they are going to hit up against the most scrutiny. However, I've always found it so convenient that when any open source products are found to have security holes, the entire community pretends that nothing is there. I guess you must have some secret clandestine deal with Ziff Davis media and Slashdot to just keep quiet in these circumstances. You can generally spot these guys a mile away because every time they spell Microsoft they replace the 's' with a '$'. yeah, real clever... Like we haven't seen that before, you paragon of originality. Listen, nobody gives a dime that you think that Microsoft "broke the law." actually, nobody gives a dime about what you think, period. get a life! you mean you don't have anything better to do than spread your moral stance on corporations and "big business?" what makes this all worth while is that when I calmly ask, "well...what exactly has Microsoft done to you?" the only thing that comes out of that hypocrisy is, "oh, well ah...hmmm......ah..." exactly. Ok, let's move on, or I'll really start ranting...

The Slashkiddie
These pre-pubescent, acne ridden, illiterate, kids are generally the most harmless of the bunch. I mean, how dangerous can somebody be, if all they do all day is hope that their latest masterpiece of exquisitely written prose called a comment on whatever bullshit pseudowank story gets modded to the fabled "+5 insightful" level. .... They also have a herd mentality with The Guru as the sheepdog providing guidance and telling them just what to do next. You can also tell that your dealing with one of these suckers because of their incredibly gifted spelling skills. spelling words with z instead of s (as in their favorite phrase "mad skillz"), using abbreviations like r instead of are or u instead of you. in addition to having world class spelling skills, they also seem to have a uncanny mastery of the rules of capitalization. however i have noticed a slight dyslexic tendency to confuse the number 3 with the capital letter E. they also like to use these incredible skills to give themselves really cool names like haXXor, aZZmaZt3r, and cod3mast3r.. When push comes to shove, once you take their computer and anonymity away from them, they become nothing more than any other pimply-faced teen...

Aside from these three there is also The Hacker, The Cheap Bastard, and The Crusader (aka The Preacher). Fortunately enough for them, they aren't visible enough to merit their own sections. There is also a little bit of The SourceForge Enthusiast in all of them

By the way, Rory Blythe wrote up a hilarious post after having a run in with his very own Open Source Zealot (it's actually better and funnier than anything i can write as well...definitely check it out!)

Google recruits eggheads with mystery billboard CNET News.com

Paul Ardos' famous quote: "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." 

It can be extended to "A programmer is a device for turning coffee into the source code."

Quotes about Bugs

I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones. ("Dr Who")

One: demonstrations always crash. And two: the probability of them crashing goes up exponentially with the number of people watching. (Steve Jobs)

Their rumpled clothes, their unwashed and unshaven faces, and their uncombed hair all testify that they are oblivious to their bodies and to the world in which they move. These are computer bums, compulsive programmers. (Joseph Weizenbaum 1976)

Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?" is roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime mold!" in the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress. (Elizabeth Zwicky)

June

RE GNU Emacs keybindings

The most outrageous act of Stallmanism is trying to usurp the key that God intended for backspace to make it into a help key.

Yahoo! Groups decentralization Messages Message 1255 of 6696

The most "open" thing about "open source" is the mouths.

May

Sun, IBM Should Quit Open-Source Posturing -- a very nice, althouth probably unintended unintended humor ("Red Hat os twice the open source company you are or are ever likely to be") by  Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (to realize the subtleness of humor,  readers are encouraged to read Red Hat Enterprise license ;-)

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols :

Red Hat is twice the open-source company you are or are ever likely to be. Proprietary does not equal Red Hat Enterprise Linux to anyone except your new best friend, Microsoft.

Red Hat enterprise license:

4. REPORTING AND AUDIT. If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed System, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed System. During the term of this Agreement and for one (1) year thereafter, Customer expressly grants to Red Hat the right to audit Customer's facilities and records from time to time in order to verify Customer's compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement. Any such audit shall only take place during Customer's normal business hours and upon no less than ten (10) days prior written notice from Red Hat. Red Hat shall conduct no more than one such audit in any twelve-month period except for the express purpose of assuring compliance by Customer where non-compliance has been established in a prior audit. Red Hat shall give Customer written notice of any non-compliance, and if a payment deficiency exists, then Customer shall have fifteen (15) days from the date of such notice to make payment to Red Hat for any payment deficiency. The amount of the payment deficiency will be determined by multiplying the number of underreported Installed Systems or Services by the annual fee for such item. If Customer is found to have underreported the number of Installed Systems or amount of Services by more than five percent (5%), Customer shall, in addition to the annual fee for such item, pay liquidated damages equal to twenty percent (20%) of the underreported fees for loss of income and administration costs suffered by Red Hat as a result.

Linux Today - Linux Journal The Penguin Driven Church Office

"Every church faces challenges. Ours is growth. Thanks to a donation of 19 computers, we now have more computers than church members. Like church members who simply keep the pews warm, some of these machines need refurbishing. Several do work rather nicely, however. So when I tell you that one of our most active church members is a friendly little penguin who manages our church's data, I'm being quite honest. We call him Saint Tux.

"Why should churches let penguins into the Pastor's study? That's a fair question. We considered our options rather carefully. Cost, choice, freedom, ease of use and ability to customize the software were our main issues..."

Slashdot Why Does SCO Focus On A Minix-to-Linux Link

ESR's Halloween XI -- Get the FUD

ESR, again. (Score:1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 23, @11:01AM (#9507225)

Sorry there, but besides Fud, what has ESR brought to the Open Source community ?

[ Reply to This ]

Re:ESR, again. (Score:5, Insightful) by JohnTheFisherman (225485) on Wednesday June 23, @11:17AM (#9507424)

What has ESR brought to the Open Source community? Stunningly accurate predictions, like MS's monopoly collapsing in 2001, and Windows becoming obsolete when computer prices dipped below $350. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/12/13/216237 &mode=thread&tid=99 http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/28/132424 8&mode=thread&tid=163 He's got a knack for predicting the future. You can rest assured that MS really is getting *DESPERATE* now, especially now that they're obsolete and their monopoly had collapsed years ago. :)

Corrections in the ESR documents. (Score:5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 23, @11:09AM (#9507316)

I just emailed ESR about the gross misreference to GNU/Linux as linux in his article.

I made a little chart... (Score:5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 23, @11:42AM (#9507738)

...to show who says what. Stallman    GNU/linux       Free Software    Bearded         Chaotic Good Linus       linux           Open Source(?)   Unbearded       True Neutral Eric        linux           Open Source      Hitler Mustache Chaotic Evil Bruce P     GNU/linux       Free Software    Beardless       Lawful Good Alan Cox    GNU/lin(mostly) Free Software    Mighty beard    Chaotic Good

[June 1, 2004] Slashdot Dealing with the Unix Copy and Paste Paradigm

But wait... (Score:5, Funny) by gillbates (106458) on Wednesday June 02, @05:12PM (#9319250) (http://www.angelfire.com/il/macroman | Last Journal: Thursday September 18, @01:31PM)

Wasn't this the very thing that open source was supposed to avoid? You don't like the copy and paste works? Fine - you've got the source code, so just change the key codes and recompile.... right? After a few frustrating hours of digging through source code, you finally find the keybindings. You change them, do a make.... and make crashes. So then you debug the make script and realize that you _ALSO_ need the source code to an obscure set of libraries. So you Google it, download the source, and it ALSO won't compile, because you've got the wrong compiler version. So you figure, what the heck, it's time to upgrade gcc anyway. You download the sources, compile it, only to find that you also need to download the sources for the shared libraries as well. Tomorrow, you'll resume. Well the weekend is coming up, and you've finally got the compiler and all its dependent sources together, and you start the compile. It actually compiles and installs just fine... And then you try to compile those obscure libraries and the compiler crashes. Turns out there's a kernel bug which means the new version of the compiler won't work with older kernels. You think, well heck, I'll just upgrade my kernel, and you ftp the sources. So you configure your kernel and then type 'make clean; make dep; make install' and kick off the process; it dies - once again, your compiler segfaults. So now you've got an older kernel with no way to compile the new one... So next weekend you decide that you're just going back to the old compiler. You rpm -i the compiler, and start the kernel compile process again... but the new kernel won't compile with the older compiler, and the newer compiler won't run on an older kernel.... You take a walk. It's nice to see the sunshine, and feel the breeze for a change. It's Tuesday and you've figured out that you can apply a few patches to your current compiler source, compile that, and then you'll be able to compile the most recent version of the compiler. So you do that. After you've built your intermediate version, you install it, build your kernel, and then recompile the newest compiler sources. After a reboot, you're able to successfully compile those obscure shared libraries, and rebuild your application. Then you fire up your modified ctrl-c, ctrl-v enhanced software.... It segfaults. For no apparent reason. So you Google the newsgroups, and lo and behold, someone else is having the same problem! But they don't know what the problem is. Next week, your newsgroup buddy has found the problem. It turns out that a change in the way gcc handles memory allocation causes your obscure libraries to crash when compiled with the newer versions. They recommend using an older version of the compiler to build the software. So you go back to the intermediate version, recompile, and finally, everything works great. For a few days, you've been enjoying the benefits of ctrl-c ctrl-v copy and paste. Life is good. And then, you notice that KDE starts crashing at random for some unknown reason...

[May 27, 2004] http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/27/2333247&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=163

eh, statistics (Score:3, Insightful)
by stratjakt (596332) on Thursday May 27, @10:55PM (#9274042)
(Last Journal: Sunday September 29, @02:10PM)
To say linux server sales are up 27% means little if the volume is low.

If I sold one last year, and three this year then I can talk about 300% growth, but that number is meaningless.

Yeah, linux is gaining ground, but has a long way to go.
[ Reply to This ]

Mod Parent Down (Score:5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, @11:00PM (#9274073)

He speaketh against our penguin overlord. Without Tux what will we worship? CowboyNeals nutsack?

Linux Servers Booming?! (Score:3, Funny)
by Pan T. Hose (707794) on Thursday May 27, @11:12PM (#9274142)
(http://plato.stanford.edu/ | Last Journal: Saturday April 17, @07:23AM)
Oh my God, I'll better watch out for my server, I don't want it to suddenly boom! I'll better check the water cooling system...

Re:Gartner (Score:5, Insightful) by NonSequor (230139) on Friday May 28, @12:01AM (#9274367) (Last Journal: Tuesday April 29, @09:44PM)

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis (I do not trust the Greeks, even bearing gifts) --Vergil, The Aeneid

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

• Re:Gartner by Too Much Noise (Score:2) Friday May 28, @01:13AM

Re:Gartner (Score:4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28, @12:09AM (#9274396)

Yes (0.8 likelihood)

[ May 22, 2004] SCO Case News

Interesting clause... (Score:5, Funny) by angst_ridden_hipster (23104) on Friday May 21, @07:35PM (#9221447) (http://fogbound.net/flummox | Last Journal: Wednesday February 05, @03:49PM)

I thought that this was a particularly interesting clause in the filing and one that you don't often see: "IBM further requests extensive injunctive relief from litigants, viz, their fields shall be burned, and sown with salt; their buildings torn assunder; their leaders beaten and hanged; their animals slain, and left unto the beasts; their wives enslaved and set to lamentation; their names and images expunged from the histories and chiseled from the monuments; and their children's teeth set on edge, yea unto the seventh generation. So shall vengeance be wreaked upon those who look with enmity upon Big Blue."

Re:if they win? (Score:4, Funny) by Keith McClary (14340) on Saturday May 22, @02:00AM (#9223426)

What if legions of small, zombie bunnies attempt to take over the world? Are you referring to female corporate spokespersons?

If this were a drinking game... (Score:5, Funny) by dacarr (562277) <ke6isf.spamcop@net> on Friday May 21, @07:48PM (#9221550) (http://www.northarc.com/~ke6isf | Last Journal: Thursday April 08, @02:03AM)

If I had a beer for every time that either SCO said that Linux is for all intents theirs, IBM or others said no it's not, or Slashdot posted about this, I'd be a puddle of organic goo on the office floor.

In other news (Score:5, Funny) by orcrist (16312) on Friday May 21, @09:12PM (#9222034)

Slashdot announced an expected 10% loss in page views once the SCO case is wrapped up. VA Investors are looking for a new company to rally the slashdot readers against... -chris

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=20300852&pgno=3

User error is indeed a common problem in all kinds of computing. In fact, support techs sometimes joke about "PEBKAC" errors ("Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair") or "ID 10 T" errors ("idiot.")

March

Bicoherent The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, by Carlo M. Cipolla

The First Law:

Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

The Second Law:

The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

The Third Law:

A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

The Forth Law:

Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

The Fifth Law:

A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

The corollary of the Law is that:

A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

Slashdot Academics Take On Government Net Censorship

What Sla$hdot DOESNT want you know (Score:-1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 18, @11:18AM (#8897126)

An analysis of hacker attacks on online servers in January by security consultancy mi2g found that Linux servers were the most frequently violated, accounting for 13,654 successful attacks, or 80 per cent of the survey total. Windows ran a distant second with 2,005 attacks. A more specific analysis of government servers also found Linux more susceptible, accounting for 57 per cent of all breaches [zdnet.com.au]

Re:What Sla$hdot DOESNT want you know (Score:2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 18, @11:23AM (#8897141)

You are risking bringing the wrath of the Linux jihadists down on you. You are indeed brave. If this were groklaw, your post would already be deleted.

Slashdot Five Fundamental Problems with Open Source

Open sauce company

BBspot - Student Suspended Over Suspected Use of PHP By Brian Briggs

Topeka, KS - High school sophomore Brett Tyson was suspended today after teachers learned he may be using PHP.

"A teacher overheard him say that he was using PHP, and as part of our Zero-Tolerance policy against drug use, he was immediately suspended. No questions asked," said Principal Clyde Thurlow.   "We're not quite sure what PHP is, but we suspect it may be a derivative of PCP, or maybe a new designer drug like GHB." 

Parents are frightened by the discovery of this new menace in their children's school, and are demanding the school do something.  "We heard that he found out about PHP at school on the internet.  There may even be a PHP web ring operating on school grounds," said irate parent Carol Blessing.  "School is supposed to be teaching our kids how to read and write.  Not about dangerous drugs like PHP."

In response to parental demands the school has reconfigured its internet WatchDog software to block access to all internet sites mentioning PHP.  Officials say this should prevent any other students from falling prey like Brett Tyson did.  They have also stepped up locker searches and brought in drug sniffing dogs.

Interviews with students suggested that PHP use is wide spread around the school, but is particularly concentrated in the geeky nerd population.  When contacted by BBspot.com, Brett Tyson said, "I don't know what the hell is going on dude, but this suspension gives me more time for fraggin'.  Yee haw!"

PHP is a hypertext preprocessor, which sounds very dangerous.  It is believed that many users started by using Perl and moved on to the more powerful PHP.  For more information on how to recognize if your child may be using PHP please visit http://www.php.net.

MS Hotmail Offline For Hours

Re:Yeah, I'll say... (Score:1, Insightful) by Awptimus Prime (695459) on Sunday March 14, @06:15AM (#8560489)

Hotmail was purchased by MS that my entire mail quota could be filled with spam in mere days, and it was then that the system got so sluggish and unreliable that it was never a surprise when I couldn't use it. (Microsoft is really good at some things, not least among them making people feel like pawns in billion dollar chess games.) Yes.. That terrible, evil company.. They were so wrong to give you a free email service. How dare they..

This is news??? Who the fuck cares! (Score:5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14, @03:45AM (#8560125) God, how fucking petty is slashdot getting??? Sure, hotmail was down, boo-hoo. It's a free email service. Deal with it. Why is slashdot determined to report every single trivial detail when it comes to Microsoft? Try to stick with the big stories, please, not "Bill Gates forgets to lift toilet seat!" or "Steve Ballmer takes up two parking spaces in Microsoft parking lot!"   Re:This is news??? Who the fuck cares! (Score:5, Funny) by kasperd (592156) <vxktjfuimviyNO@SPAMskrammel.yaboo.dk> on Sunday March 14, @03:52AM (#8560147) (http://kasperd.lir.dk/) It's a free email service. I'm sure RMS [stallman.org] would disagree with you. Re:This is news??? Who the fuck cares! (Score:5, Funny) by PacoTaco (577292) on Sunday March 14, @05:18AM (#8560364) RMS is planning to start his own free email service. Supported clients will include Emacs and Netcat.

Slashdot Young Programmer, Stop Advocating Free Software!

Re:Site slashdot'ed befor it went live (Score:5, Funny) by MotherInferior (698543) * on Monday March 01, @10:22AM (#8428946) (http://www.goodmancounty.com/)

So once you get your degree from school, what's the plan? To get outsourced.

Irony (Score:5, Funny) by Morosoph (693565) on Monday March 01, @11:01AM (#8429416) (http://slashdot.org/~Morosoph/journal/ | Last Journal: Tuesday February 24, @10:25AM)

well, that was particularly insulting. nothing quite like the threat of "no pussy!" to drive intelligent young programmers away from open source / free software. Hence your .sig: geeks CAN get dates! [realdoll.com] Sorry, that just made me laugh. I agree with you, though.

Re:Site slashdot'ed befor it went live (Score:5, Funny) by jdcook (96434) on Monday March 01, @11:02AM (#8429435)

"well, that was particularly insulting. nothing quite like the threat of "no pussy!" to drive intelligent young programmers away from open source / free software." Says the poster with the Real Doll sig.

February

Slashdot Tech Training Schools Going Bust

Re:Good! (Score:5, Funny) by Texas Rose on Lava L (712928) on Friday February 20, @07:32PM (#8345806) (http://www.michaelmoore.com/ | Last Journal: Monday January 12, @10:46PM)

40,000 new IT jobs are opening up every year! Must be willing to relocate to Bangalore.

Re:Good! (Score:5, Funny) by way2trivial (601132) on Friday February 20, @07:36PM (#8345849)

they don't say that, they say "40,000 new IT jobs are opening up every year!* Train now for a rewarding career!" . *worldwide

Re:Good! (Score:5, Funny) by CatLord42 (657659) on Friday February 20, @08:01PM (#8346072) (Last Journal: Sunday March 23, @08:20AM)

"Sign up for Cisco and Microsoft training! Get the pay and respect you deserve!" From what I've seen, most people with Microsoft Certifications (who are un^H^Hemployed) *are* getting the pay and respect they deserve! ;-)

Re:Good! (Score:5, Funny) by Maserati (8679) on Friday February 20, @09:12PM (#8346511) (http://creekside.editthispage.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday September 14, @09:25AM)

Many, many moons ago I took an Intro to Engineering class in high school. We had a bunch of speakers from the professional world as well as from schools. Including Heald. The brochure the Heald guy passed out included a *complete* list of recent graduates and the jobs they had. Somebody spotted the "Sanitation Engineer" so we pored over the list and found, among others, two car park attendants. I don't think Heald is giving the full list to HS students anymore :-)

Serves them right. (Score:5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 20, @07:30PM (#8345793)

They shood do what I did and go to an acredited scholl like the University of Pheonix. Online. Re:Serves them right. (Score:5, Funny) by WankersRevenge (452399) on Friday February 20, @07:42PM (#8345901) (http://www.jezner.com/) Screw that. Just come to me. I'll mail you a diploma in a numerous programs (nuclear physics, heart transplant surgery, political The job outlook for high-tech professionals is bad (Score:5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 20, @07:31PM (#8345800) I am a professional HTML software developer with good working knowledge of Microsoft FrontPage 2000, Microsoft FrontPage 2002, Microsoft FrontPage 2003 and HomeSite. Extensive experience with back-end server management via Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard. I am looking roughly for $80-90K (plus sign-on bonus and relocation), but I can tell you the job field is not that great. I think I should learn PHP and wait for things to pick up. Can anyone recommend good PHP classes under-$5,000 range?

[Feb 20, 2004] GPL religion revisited ;-)

GPL non-GPL compliant? (Score:5, Funny) by G3ckoG33k (647276) on Wednesday February 18, @04:14PM (#8319784)

What's next? The current GPL, version 2, will not be GPL version 3 compliant?

Re:gpl like religion ? (Score:2, Funny) by Notre97 (245681) on Wednesday February 18, @05:13PM (#8320456) (http://slashdot.org/)

Repeat after me: "There is no license but GPL, and RMS is it's prohet"

gpl like religion ? (Score:4, Funny) by ehack (115197) on Wednesday February 18, @04:13PM (#8319765) (Last Journal: Saturday October 26, @07:42PM)

Is the gpl a text that says "if you change a word of this text you shall be excommunciated from the religion of Free Software, Stallman prophet ?"

Re:gpl like religion ? (Score:4, Funny) by GigsVT (208848) on Wednesday February 18, @04:21PM (#8319908) (Last Journal: Monday February 02, @11:48AM)

Actually, here are some proposed additions for GPL Version 3: For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the license of this code, If any man shall add unto these things, RMS shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this license. And if any man shall take away from the words of the license of this code, RMS shall take away his part out of the license to this code, and out of the open bazaar, and from the things which are written in this license.

What if Stallman bitched about licensing (Score:5, Funny) by Gothmolly (148874) on Wednesday February 18, @04:27PM (#8319977)

And nobody cared? Is this the beginning of market forces affecting the open source movement? Practical realities asserting themselves over floating abstractions?

[Feb 16, 2004]Slashdot Microsoft Source Follow-Up 

"With the open source community, there are a large percentage of tinkers and 'ankle biters' who are trying their hand at hacking. Some are even communicating with each other. So it only takes one or two of these groups sharing information to be able to pull something off. When you have this type of passion, it's hard to fight because these people are like virtual suicide car bombers."

January 2004

[Jan 23, 2004] Instructor to students in Web-based class: 
                        "And now who can first figure out what "ls -r / | xarg rm -f" does?"

[Jan 23, 2004] http://www.inicia.es/de/Turbo_J/metelev1_01.swf  "Brute force" repair of  the computer (nice Flash animation) ;-)

[Jan 22, 2004] "No one will call you if you don't have any friends"  from the Nokia 6800 marketing leaflet.

[Jan 21, 2004] Smack the Pingu! -- With some trust Penguin can fly fairly well ;-).  Gifted people can reach 500 m. It would appear that it was an unfinished demo released from 1moregame.com - home of lots more silly games. None quite as good as Smack the Pingu though.

[Jan  20, 2004] There is at least one Slashdot reader who has doubts that Slashdot is exclusively Linux self-congratulation site

Is this childish language necessary? (Score:-1, Flamebait) by geekee (591277) on Tuesday January 20, @04:48PM (#8036384)

"It looks like SCO has finally ditched their failing product line in favor of 24/7 litigation and PR work." Show some objectivity, or I have no reason to bother reading the story you found, since I must assume you are pushing an agenda, rather than reporting news.

What is the Best Way to Handle a GPL Violation

Re:If you gave the code away for Free (Score:1) by pantycrickets (694774) on Thursday January 15, @09:15PM (#7993836)

...if you intended to give away the code for free in the first place, why are you so concerned that someone is taking it and profiting off of it? I think the Rap Dictionary would call that a case of "Playa' Hatin'"

Kiss that sucker goodbye (Score:2, Funny) by Rogerborg (306625) on Friday January 16, @08:33AM (#7997141) (http://slashdot.org/)

And accept it as the cost of choosing to be an impoverished hippy rather than a corporate drone.

Did anyone actually LOOK at the libraries???? (Score:4, Interesting) by humblecoder (472099) on Friday January 16, @12:15PM (#7999362)

I went to the original posters website to look at the libraries in question, and they appear to be trivial little code snippets. Here are some examples: 1. Lanuching a browser window 2. Creating a password dialog box 3. Base64 encoding of text I find it hard to believe that any commercial company would expose themselves to liability by stealing pieces of code that any code monkey worth their salt can write in less than a day. It is more likely that they happened to develop the similiar libraries in parallel. Since these tasks are so trivial (and examples of them appear in many places, both in print and on the web), I can see how two programmers would code up these tasks in the same way. In fact, given how widespread the implementation of, say, Base64 encoding is, I wouldn't be surprised if the original poster's libraries are nearly identical to a previous implementation of the libraries. It would be akin to someone trying to copyright a musical chord and then suing everyone for trying to use it in their music!

Two example letters: (Score:2) by rice_burners_suck (243660) on Friday January 16, @12:52PM (#7999789) (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday December 04, @09:24PM)

... ... ... For immediate release GPL Coder, a private individual, sues GPL Violator, a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation, for the theft of one hundred lines of code. No evidence of any kind will be presented, but we're telling the truth about the wrongdoing. Honest!

Rewrites Considered Harmful  Another entry into famous "considered harmful" series

Rewrite of the article (Score:5, Funny) by seanmeister (156224) on Thursday January 15, @02:53PM (#7989251)

The Problem: Rewrite Mania         Waaaaaaa!! Case 1: IPv4 vs IPv6         Waaaaaaa! Case 2: Apache 1.x vs Apache 2.x         Waaaaaaaaaa! Case 3: Perl 5.x vs Perl 6         Waaaaaaaaa! Waaaaaaaaaaa! Case 4: Embperl 1.x vs Embperl 2         Waaaaa! Case 5: Netscape 4.x vs Mozilla         Waaaaaaaaa! Case 6: HTML 4 vs XHTML + CSS + XML + XSL + XQuery + XPath + XLink + ...         XML is hard! My HTML for Dummies book weighs too much! Waaaaaaa! Case 7: Windows 2000 vs Windows XP vs Server 2003         Waaaaaaaa! Conclusion: In Defense of "good enough" and simplicity         Waaaaa waaaaaaaaa!

Re:Rewrite of the article (Score:1) by e-Motion (126926) on Thursday January 15, @03:31PM (#7989869)

The Problem: Rewrite Mania   Waaaaaaa!! ... etc Excellent rewrite. I found this post to be much clearer and more concise than the original article, while still maintaining the same message. I'm now convinced that rewrites can be A Good Thing.

Harmful (Score:2, Funny) by SEWilco (27983) on Thursday January 15, @02:53PM (#7989254) (http://www.wilcoxon.org/~sewilco | Last Journal: Monday April 28, @12:31PM)

"Considered Harmful" is Considered Harmful.

The CADT Model New Software Development Paradigm by Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>

In February 2003, a bunch of the outstanding bugs I'd reported against various GNOME programs over the previous couple of years were all closed as follows:

Because of the release of GNOME 2.0 and 2.2, and the lack of interest in maintainership of GNOME 1.4, the gnome-core product is being closed. If you feel your bug is still of relevance to GNOME 2, please reopen it and refile it against a more appropriate component. Thanks...

This is, I think, the most common way for my bug reports to open source software projects to ever become closed. I report bugs; they go unread for a year, sometimes two; and then (surprise!) that module is rewritten from scratch -- and the new maintainer can't be bothered to check whether his new version has actually solved any of the known problems that existed in the previous version.

I'm so totally impressed at this Way New Development Paradigm. Let's call it the "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers" model, or "CADT" for short.

Stallman On Free Software and GNU's 20th birthday

curious quote and comparison by randyest (589159) <ranorano@NOSPaM.hotmail.com> on Monday January 05, @11:21AM (#7881480) (http://randyrandy.net/)

Stallman says: The most effective way to strengthen our community for the future is to spread understanding of the value of freedom--to teach more people to recognize the moral unacceptability of non-free software. People who value freedom are, in the long term, its best and essential defense. The current U.S. administration says (my paraphrasing): The most effective way to strengthen the world for the future is to spread understanding of the value of freedom--to teach more people to recognize the moral unacceptability of non-free peoples. People who value freedom are, in the long term, its best and essential defense.

First line... by jdreed1024 (443938) on Monday January 05, @11:21AM (#7881476) The first line reads: "It was twenty years ago today that I quit my job at MIT to begin developing a free software operating system, GNU." Did anyone else start thinking up new lyrics to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band when they read that first sentence? Perhaps a new Free Software Song is in the making.... Re:First line... (Score:2) by Thurn und Taxis (411165) on Monday January 05, @02:02PM (#7883020) (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday June 14, @11:21PM) Okay, I can't resist (my apologies in advance for slant rhymes): It was twenty years ago today Richard Stallman quit M-I-Tay He's been working on the code for Hurd And growing one hellacious beard So let me introduce to you The father of all things GNU Richard Stallman's libre-software band!   Re:First line... (Score:5, Funny) by TeknoHog (164938) on Monday January 05, @02:26PM (#7883284) (http://www.iki.fi/teknohog/) Hmm, I guess this would go better with the 2.4.24 release. It was thirteen years ago today Col. Torvalds let the source away. We've been going in and out of drives but we guarantee to raise uptimes. So may I introduce to you the hack we've known for all these years Col. Torvalds' Linux slash GNU band! We're Col. Torvalds' Linux slash GNU band, we hope you will enjoy the code. Col. Torvalds' Linux slash GNU band, just hack and let the evening go! Col. Torvalds' Linux Col. Torvalds' Linux Col. Torvalds' Linux slash GNU band! It's wonderful to post here, it's certainly no troll. You're such a lovely userbase, we'd like to merge your code with us, we'd love to take you /home. I don't really want to freeze the code, but I thought you might like to know this release is going to fix the root and we want you all to patch for good. So let me introduce to you the one and only Billy's fear Col. Torvalds' Linux slash GNU band!

[Continued]

Recommended Links

---

In case of broken links please try to use Google search. If you find the page please notify us about new location

• ***** Open Directory - Recreation Humor Computer Programming
   
• ***** Google Directory - Recreation Humor Computer Programming
   
• ***** [Classic] The UNIX cult

  The UNIX cult is widespread across the Galaxy now and the surprise discovery of some ancient files in the archives of Intergalactic Brain Machines on Sol 3 triggered the dispatch of an inter-disciplinary investigation team. The files are extremely extensive, occupying all of a small island off the coast of Continent 3. It transpires that the island was taken over by Intergal in the aftermath of the Corporate Wars which plagued Sol 3 some centuries after the birth of the cult.

  The team were asked to find out the original meaning of some of the incantations used in UNIX religious practice and also to shed some light on what it all meant at the start.

  We should take this opportunity to use the ancient prayer:

  UNIX is a trademark of AT&T in the USA and other countries.

  Earlier versions of this prayer do seem to exist, it is unclear why the form of words altered. `AT&T' was the Corporation where the Creators of the cult worshiped. The Corporation totally disappeared in the wars and many of its original records were either destroyed or altered by the victor in an attempt to `re-write' history. The placement of the country USA on the four continents has been lost.

   

• ***** On the Design of the UNIX operating System the evidence is very strong that bad typing played a large role in the design of the UNIX system.

  Why is UNIX successful?
  The computer world seems to have gone `UNIX mad', and it is hard to understand why. One good reason is the portability of the system but there must be more to it than that. Most people who use the UNIX system seem to like it even though it is full of idiosyncrasies, is terse to the point of unhelpfulness and consists of a very large number of totally forgettable commands. I think that the success of the system is summed up by the following paragraph.

  The UNIX system is successful because the minimum number of keystrokes achieve the maximum effort. In addition, the system says very little to explain errors and relies on the intelligence of the user to deduce reasons for failure.

  The statement describes UNIX V6, which we all know is the parent of the UNIX systems running today. History tells us that the guys who designed it did their own typing into the machine. It seems to me that because of this, the main reason that UNIX enjoys/suffers from terse input and output is not through any intellectual design decisions made at some early stage but because the UNIX designers were just bad typists working on slow peripherals.

  Let us examine the evidence.

• ***** Perlisisms - Epigrams in Programming by Alan J. Perlis
   
• **** Rec.humor.funny jokes and comedy
• **** Computer songs and poems full index
• **** Todd's Humor Archive By Thread
• **** Humorix Published Articles  "Oh My God! They Killed init! You Bastards!"    -- from a Slashdot post
• **** LaughNet - Computer Humor by Stephen Henry
• **** Addicted to the Net & Webmaster Foibles -- nice collection
• **** Murphy Laws Site - All the laws of Murphy in one place
• Quotes for Programmers
   
• BBspot - Your Only Source for Tech News -- many nice parodies. Among them
  • Sun Discovers the Network is NOT the Computer
  • BBspot - BBspot Interviews Apple CEO Steve Jobs
  • Linux Distributions-  Real or Fake-
  • Toys-  Slashdot Story Generator
  • Linux Developer Gets Laid
• Computer Science Humour
• USAIL Computer Humor
• The International Obfuscated C Code Contest
• Preface to THE UNIX-HATERS HANDBOOK
• Unix hater links
• Humorix All Linux Humor. All Copied Mottos. All the Time.
• Funny Jokes at http://fun.ee/jokes/
  • Jokes from many categories (including "computer", "internet", "unix" categories and many other) "If we cannot make you laugh, nobody can!"
• ChemTeam Humor Menu
• Jokes Magazine

Top 10 Classic Unix Humor Stories

1. The Jargon File the most famous Unix-related humor file.
 

Please note that so called "hacker dictionary" is the jargon file spoiled by Eric Raymond :-)  -- earlier versions of jargon file are better than the latest hacker dictionary...

2. Tao_Of_Programming (originated in 1992). This is probably No. 2 classic. There are several variants, but the link provided seems to be the original text (or at least an early version close to the original).

Here is a classic quote:

"When you have learned to snatch the error code from the trap frame, it will be time for you to leave."

... ...

If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler is greater, then the applications is great. The user is pleased and there is harmony in the world.

3. Know your Unix System Administrator by Stephan Zielinski -- Probably the third most  famous Unix humor item.  See also KNOW YOUR UNIX SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR  also at Field Guide to System Administrators [rec.humor.funny]. I personally like the descriptions of idiots and fascists and tend to believe that a lot of administrative fascists are ex-secretaries :-). At the same time former programmers can became sadists also quite often -- there is something in sysadmin job that seems cultivates the feeling of superiority and sadism ( "Users are Losers" mentality. IMHO other members of classification are not that realistic :-) :

There are four major species of Unix sysad:

1. The

   Technical Thug.
   Usually a systems programmer who has been forced into system administration; writes scripts in a polyglot of the Bourne shell, sed, C, awk, perl, and APL.

2. The Administrative Fascist.
   Usually a retentive drone (or rarely, a harridan ex-secretary) who has been forced into system administration.
3. The Maniac.
   Usually an aging cracker who discovered that neither the Mossad nor Cuba are willing to pay a living wage for computer espionage. Fell into system administration; occasionally approaches major competitors with indesp schemes.
4. The Idiot.
   Usually a cretin, morphodite, or old COBOL programmer selected to be the system administrator by a committee of cretins, morphodites, and old COBOL programmers.

---------------- SITUATION: Root disk fails. ----------------

TECHNICAL THUG:

Repairs drive. Usually is able to repair filesystem from boot monitor. Failing that, front-panel toggles microkernel in and starts script on neighboring machine to load binary boot code into broken machine, reformat and reinstall OS. Lets it run over the weekend while he goes mountain climbing.

ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:

Begins investigation to determine who broke the drive. Refuses to fix system until culprit is identified and charged for the equipment.

MANIAC, LARGE SYSTEM:

Rips drive from system, uses sledgehammer to smash same to flinders. Calls manufacturer, threatens pets. Abuses field engineer while they put in a new drive and reinstall the OS.

MANIAC, SMALL SYSTEM:

Rips drive from system, uses ball-peen hammer to smash same to flinders. Calls Requisitions, threatens pets. Abuses bystanders while putting in new drive and reinstalling OS.

IDIOT:

Doesn't notice anything wrong.

4. RFC 1925 The Twelve Networking Truths  by R. Callon

1. It Has To Work.

2. No matter how hard you push and no matter what the priority, you can't increase the speed of light. (2a) (corollary). No matter how hard you try, you can't make a baby in much less than 9 months. Trying to speed this up *might* make it slower, but it won't make it happen any quicker.
3. With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.
4. Some things in life can never be fully appreciated nor understood unless experienced firsthand. Some things in networking can never be fully understood by someone who neither builds commercial networking equipment nor runs an operational network.
5. It is always possible to aglutenate multiple separate problems into a single complex interdependent solution. In most cases this is a bad idea.
6. It is easier to move a problem around (for example, by moving the problem to a different part of the overall network architecture) than it is to solve it. (6a) (corollary). It is always possible to add another level of indirection.
7.  It is always something (7a) (corollary). Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two (you can't have all three).
8. It is more complicated than you think.
9. For all resources, whatever it is, you need more. (9a) (corollary) Every networking problem always takes longer to solve than it seems like it should.
10. One size never fits all.
11. Every old idea will be proposed again with a different name and a different presentation, regardless of whether it works. (11a) (corollary). See rule 6a.
12. In protocol design, perfection has been reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

5. Murphy's laws -- I especially like "Experts arose from their own urgent need to exist." :-). See also 

• Murphy's laws

• Murphy's Laws [ 1993 version ]

• Murphy Laws Site - Murphy's Laws

1. Nothing is as easy as it looks.

2. Everything takes longer than you think.
3. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
4. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.
5. If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
6. If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
7. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
8. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
9. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
10. Mother nature is a bitch.
11. It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
12. Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.
13. Every solution breeds new problems.

    ... ... ....

6. Network Week/The Bastard Operator from Hell. The classic story about an Administrative Fascist sysadmin.

7. Academic Programmers- A Spotter's Guide by Pete Fenelon; Department of Computer Science, University of York

Preamble     I Am The Greatest     Internet Vegetable     Rabid Prototyper     Get New Utilities!     Square Peg...     Objectionably ...

My Favourite ...     Give Us The Tools!     Macro Magician     Nightmare Networker     Configuration ...     Artificial Stupidity     Number Crusher

Meta Problem Solver     What's A Core File?     I Come From Ruritania     Old Fart At Play     I Can Do That!     What Colour ...     It's Safety Critical!

Objectionably Oriented

OO experienced a Road To Damascus situation the moment objects first crossed her mind. From that moment on everything in her life became object oriented and the project never looked back. Or forwards.

Instead, it kept sending messages to itself asking it what direction it was facing in and would it mind having a look around and send me a message telling me what was there...

OO thinks in Smalltalk and talks to you in Eiffel or Modula-3; unfortunately she's filled the disk with the compilers for them and instead of getting any real work done she's busy writing papers on holes in the type systems and, like all OOs, is designing her own perfect language.

The most dangerous OOs are OODB hackers; they inevitably demand a powerful workstation with local disk onto which they'll put a couple of hundred megabytes of unstructured, incoherent pointers all of which point to the number 42; any attempt to read or write it usually results in the network being down for a week at least.

8 Real Programmers Don't Write Specs

Real Programmers don't write specs -- users should consider themselves lucky to get any programs at all, and take what they get.

Real Programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.

Real Programmers don't write application programs, they program right down on the bare metal. Application programming is for feebs who can't do system programming.

... ... ...

Real Programmers aren't scared of GOTOs... but they really prefer branches to absolute locations.

9. Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal -- [ A letter to the editor of Datamation, volume 29 number 7, July 1983. Ed Post Tektronix, Inc. P.O. Box 1000 m/s 63-205 Wilsonville, OR 97070 Copyright (c) 1982]

Back in the good old days-- the "Golden Era" of computers-- it was easy to separate the men from the boys (sometimes called "Real Men" and "Quiche Eaters" in the literature). During this period, the Real Men were the ones who understood computer programming, and the Quiche Eaters were the ones who didn't. A real computer programmer said things like "DO 10 I=1,10" and "ABEND" (they actually talked in capital letters, you understand), and the rest of the world said things like "computers are too complicated for me" and "I can't relate to computers-- they're so impersonal". (A previous work [1] points out that Real Men don't "relate" to anything, and aren't afraid of being impersonal.)

But, as usual, times change. We are faced today with a world in which little old ladies can get computers in their microwave ovens, 12 year old kids can blow Real Men out of the water playing Asteroids and Pac-Man, and anyone can buy and even understand their very own personal Computer. The Real Programmer is in danger of becoming extinct, of being replaced by high school students with TRASH-80s.

There is a clear need to point out the differences between the typical high school junior Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer. If this difference is made clear, it will give these kids something to aspire to -- a role model, a Father Figure. It will also help explain to the employers of Real Programmers why it would be a mistake to replace the Real Programmers on their staff with 12 year old Pac-Man players (at a considerable salary savings).

10. bsd_logo_story

Last week I walked into a local "home style cookin' restaurant/watering hole" to pick up a take out order. I spoke briefly to the waitress behind the counter, who told me my order would be done in a few minutes.

So, while I was busy gazing at the farm implements hanging on the walls, I was approached by two, uh, um... well, let's call them "natives".

These guys might just be the original Texas rednecks -- complete with ten-gallon hats, snakeskin boots and the pervasive odor of cheap beer and whiskey.

"Pardon us, ma'am. Mind of we ask you a question?"

Well, people keep telling me that Texans are real friendly, so I nodded.

"Are you a Satanist?"

Etc: other historically important items

Programming Eagles

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

And they showed me the way There were salesmen down the corridor I thought I heard them say Welcome to Mountain View California Such a lovely place Such a lovely place (backgrounded) Such a lovely trace(1) Plenty of jobs at Mountain View California Any time of year Any time of year (backgrounded) You can find one here You can find one here

... ... ...  ... ... ... ...

John Lennon's Yesterday -- variation for programmers.

Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be,
And there's a milestone hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.
Now all my data's gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.

The UNIX cult -- a satiric history of Unix

Notes from some recent archeological findings on the birth of the UNIX cult on Sol 3 are presented. Recently discovered electronic records have shed considerable light on the beginnings of the cult. A sketchy history of the cult is attempted.

On the Design of the UNIX operating System

This article was written in 1984 and was published in various UNIX newsletters across the world. I thought that it should be revived to mark the first 25 years of UNIX. If you like this, then you might also like The UNIX Cult.
Peter Collinson

,,, ,,, ,,,

'I Provide Office Solutions,' Says Pitiful Little Man a nice parody on programmers in general and open source programmers in particular

"VisTech is your one-stop source for Internet and Intranet open source development, as well as open source software support and collaborative development" said Smuda, adjusting the toupee he has worn since age 23. "We are a full-service company that can evaluate and integrate multi-platform open source solutions, including Linux, Solaris, Aix and HP-UX"

 "Remember, no job is too small for the professionals at VisTech," added the spouseless, childless man, who is destined to die alone and unloved. "And no job is too big, either."

Unofficial Unix Administration Horror Story Summary

Best of DATAMATION GOTO-less

By R. Lawrence Clark*

From DATAMATION, December, 1973

Nearly six years after publication of Dijkstra's now-famous letter, [1] the subject of GOTO-less programming still stirs considerable controversy. Dijkstra and his supporters claim that the GOTO statement leads to difficulty in debugging, modifying, understanding and proving programs. GOTO advocates argues that this statement, used correctly, need not lead to problems, and that it provides a natural straightforward solution to common programming procedures.

Numerous solutions have been advanced in an attempt to resolve this debate. Nevertheless, despite the efforts of some of the foremost computer scientists, the battle continues to rage.

The author has developed a new language construct on which, he believes, both the pro- and the anti-GOTO factions can agree. This construct is called the COME FROM statement. Although usage of the COME FROM statement is independent of the linguistic environment, its use will be illustrated within the FORTRAN language.

Netslave quiz

AT YOUR LAST JOB INTERVIEW, YOU EXHIBITED:

A. Optimism
B. Mild Wariness
C. Tried to overcome headache. I was really tied
D. Controlled Hostility

2. DESCRIBE YOUR WORKPLACE:

A. An enterprising, dynamic group of individuals laying the groundwork for tomorrow's economy.
B. A bunch of geeks with questionable social skills.
C. An anxiety-ridden, with long hours and a lot of stress because of backbiting bunch of finger-pointers.
D. Jerks and PHB

3. DESCRIBE YOUR HOME:

A. Small, but efficient.
B. Shared and dormlike.
C. Rubble-strewn and fetid.
D. I have a personal network at my home with three or more connected computers and permanent connection to the Internet

NEW ELEMENT DISCOVERED!

The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by university physicists. The new element was tentatively named Administratium. It has no protons and no electrons, and thus has an atomic number of 0. However, it does have one neutron, 15 assistant neutrons, 70 vice-neutrons, and 161 assistant vice-neutrons. This gives it an atomic mass of 247. These 247 particles are held together by a force that involves constant exchange of a special class of particle called morons.

Since it does not have electrons, Administratium is inert. However, it can be detected chemically as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. According to the discoverers, a minute amount of Administratium added to one reaction caused it to take over four days to complete. Without Administratium, the reaction took less than one second.

Administratium has a half-life of approximately three years, after which it does not normally decay but instead undergoes a complex nuclear process called "Reorganization". In this little-understood process, assistant neutrons, vice-neutrons, and assistant vice-neutrons appear to exchange places. Early results indicate that atomic mass actually increases after each "Reorganization".

Misc Unproductive Time Classification -- nice parody on timesheets

• www.uwsg.indiana.edu

• Horror Stories
• www.lbl.gov
• Dr. Bombay: Where to Find the `Any' Key and other stories

You Might Be A Programmer If...  By Clay Shannon - bclayshannon@earthlink.net

• Anytime you see a penguin, it makes you think of Linux

• Your computer has more RAM than your car has horsepower.
• When you hear the term “Evil Empire”, you think, not of Ronald Reagan and the old USSR, but of Microsoft.
• Before you move into a new house or apartment, the most important thing to you is the type and amount of wiring with which it is equipped.
• You have a LAN in your room.
• You like the sound of modems when they’re handshaking.
• Pornography is not the first thing you think of when you see the letter X.
• You don’t think wearing tennis shoes with a suit is strange.
• You own more than 50 T-shirts, but can’t remember the last time you had to actually pay for one.
• You understood the InterBase T-shirt.
• You’re the highest-paid but worst-dressed person in the office.
• You get involved in heated conversations on newsgroups concerning things about which “normal” people have never even heard.
• You’ve spent more time in front of a computer screen than a television screen.
• Your PC’s monitor is bigger than your television screen.
• When watching movies that show computers, you can not only tell which operating system is being used, but you also know what development tool was likely used to create the custom applications that are shown.
• You know where Scott’s Valley is.
• You know that it wasn’t named after Scott McNealy.
• You know who Scott McNealy is.
• You keep in touch with dozens of people on a regular basis, but have not sent a personal letter via the post office in years.

Jokes Magazine Drug Dealers Vs Software Developers

• Refer to their clients as "users".
•  "The first one's free!"  vs  "Download a free trial version..."
• Have important South-East Asian connections.
• Realize that there's tons of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market.
• Drug Dealers: unhealthy addictions. Software Developers: DOOM. Quake. SimCity. Duke Nukem. 'Nuff said.

Jokes Magazine Ten Commandments For Stress Free Programming December 23, 1999

1. Thou shalt not worry about bugs. Bugs in your software are actually special features.
2. Thou shalt not fix abort conditions. Your user has a better chance of winning state lottery than getting the same abort again.
3. Thou shalt not handle errors. Error handing was meant for error prone people, neither you or your users are error prone.
4. Thou shalt not restrict users. Don't do any editing, let the user input anything, anywhere, anytime. That is being very user friendly.
5. Thou shalt not optimize. Your user are very thankful to get the information, they don't worry about speed and efficiency.
6. Thou shalt not provide help. If your users can not figure out themselves how to use your software than they are too dumb to deserve the benefits of your software any way.
7. Thou shalt not document. Documentation only comes in handy for making future modifications. You made the software perfect the first time, it will never need mods.
8. Thou shalt not hurry. Only the cute and the mighty should get the program by deadline.
9. Thou shalt not revise. Your interpretation of specs was right, you know the users' requirements better than them.
10. Thou shalt not share. If other programmers needed some of your code, they should have written it themselves.

Archive of The Softpanorama Humor Chronicle

Vol 9 (1997)

• humor090.html.

  -- Java related April 1st humor (variation on the theme of Richard Stallman by N. Bezroukov)

• humor091.html  -- Computer Humor The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll. Review picked up on the Internet and adapted for alt.security by Nikolai Bezroukov.
• humor092.html  -- The Perl Purity Test. Version 1.01, October 30, 1992 Written by Jeff Okamoto with help from Tom Christiansen

Etc

Don't let a few insignificant facts distract you from waging a holy war

A Slashdot post

It's spelled Linux, but it's pronounced "Not Windows"

- Usenet sig

It is time to unmask the programming community
as a Secret Society for the Creation and Preservation of Artificial Complexity.

Edsger W. Dijkstra: The next forty years (EWD 1051)

Last but not Least

www.shibumi.org/EotI  -- great link:  "There are no more links. You must now turn off your computer and go do something productive." :-)

The Last Page

You have reached The End of the Internet

Thank you for visiting the Last Page.

There are no more links. You must now turn off your computer and go do something productive.