Softpanorama Humor Chronicle

(Prev)  Vol. 14, 2002  (Next)

[Dec 26, 2002] Slashdot XPde Cloning the XP Interface

Sue me, sue me, please. by codexus (538087) on Wednesday December 25, @09:36AM (#4956693)

> XPde Cloning the XP Interface I'm bored and I'd like to get sued by Microsoft cause that way I'll be famous and all.

Everybody quit the crying� - by codepunk
If the guys want to build a XP interface for teir linux systems then by all means have at it. Most of you idiots don�t even write code and have no place to be crying about it anyhow. If the itch exists then by all means scratch it. Open Source programmers do what we want so just get over it.

Humorix/Open Source Developers Threaten To Strike

"We've had a enough of this crap," said one of the 511 coders that have banded together to form the Union of Professional Software Developers Producing Amateur Half-Finished Open Source Programs. "Unless we get some satisfaction, I hope to take a nice long vacation away from my terminal -- well, at least for a few days until my Quake addiction strikes back."

Earlier today, several protestors protested in front of the Free Software Foundation in Boston, holding signs and chanting, "Hell no we won't code/Mr. Stallman, hit the road!" and "What's the matter with GNU? Everything!"

Of course, the group -- composed entirely of programmers without a single public relations flack -- had difficulty getting their message out. It wasn't until this reporter did some actual legwork (instead of merely regurgitating press releases) that it finally became clear what the hackers were threatening to strike over.

They want Richard M. Stallman to stop insisting that everybody call everybody's favorite operating system by the name "GNU/Linux".

"Here we are, slaving over hot computer terminals for hours on end, and what happens when we go to a Linux User Group meeting?" asked 'BurritoGuy', the head of the union. "RMS comes in and starts roasting us for saying Linux instead of GNU/Linux. I'm sick and tired of this insanity and I'm not going to take it any more!"

RMS has refused to budge from his position. The two camps have not attempted negotiations, which makes the chance of averting a strike. 

One union member has drafted a compromise proposal in which Open Source developers would agree to use the name "GNU/Linux" once for every five uses of plain "Linux". "This acknowledges the contributions of the GNU Project without making us say a mouthful all the time," the member said.

Humorix/Red Hat Nullifies Differences Between bash, csh

Typical users will be oblivious to this change unless they accidentally click on the emacs icons from their KDNOME desktop. Nevertheless, not everybody will accept this change without a fight. The head of the Emacs Flame War Re-enactment Society (a group that re-enacts the great Usenet emacs versus vi flames wars of the 20th Century) said, "Red Hat is destroying our cultural heritage! Emacs, vi, and bash are historical landmarks that should not be touched, rebranded, rewritten, or cleaned up for the benefit of lusers and PHBs too dense to understand the concept of 'insert mode'."

Industry observers don't expect that Red Hat will suffer any negative consequences from its controversial decisions. "Life-free geeks who care about this stuff all use Debian or Slackware anyway. This is yet another attempt to portray Red Hat as 'Redmond Hat' bent on the total Microsoftization of the Linux community, something that simply isn't going to happen -- at least not for a few more years..."

ESR yet another Halloween document. -- Eric seems to have  a maniacal preoccupation with the "Leaked Microsoft Strategy Documents" for years now. Funny how even losing 99% of your paper wealth cannot make ESR more humble ;-)

Is this some sort of a MS tradition? (Score:5, Funny) by levik on Wednesday November 06, @12:36PM (#4609131) (User #52444 Info | http://www.levik.com/)

I really think this is what MS staffers do for fun at the Halloween party! They probably draw straws, and the one to draw the shortest one has to write up the "leaked strategy memo on Linux" for the year!

Geeks Desperate For A Microsoft Accounting Scandal

For the past several weeks, Linux longhairs from across the globe have been glued to their television sets watching the financial news while hoping and praying that Microsoft will join the growing list of corporations embroiled in accounting scandals.

"I want to be the first to hear the news that Bill Gates is going to jail," said Eric Pilkington, a Linux zealot who spends 12 hours a day hacking on half-finished open source projects and the other 12 hours glued to financial TV channels.

Open Source Developers Threaten To Strike

BOSTON, MA -- Taking a cue from Major League Baseball players, several hundred free software developers have threatened to go on strike, setting a deadline of September 5 at which time they will step away from their keyboards until their demand is met.

"We've had a enough of this crap," said one of the 511 coders that have banded together to form the Union of Professional Software Developers Producing Amateur Half-Finished Open Source Programs. "Unless we get some satisfaction, I hope to take a nice long vacation away from my terminal -- well, at least for a few days until my Quake addiction strikes back."

A nice Usenet SIGs:

Linux is to operating systems what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking. Use FreeBSD.

"I overheard an argument about how to pronounce Linux. What a waste of time. Everyone knows that Linux is pronounced 'Not Windows'..."

Re RMS endorsement for the Compromise Public License...maybe should RMS call linux GNU/XFREE86/DARPA/KDE/Linux ? :-) 

Here is the comment that was (perhaps by mistake) edited out of
S11001001 <[email protected]> message.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Being opposed to an awful name does not mean we don't want GNU to have credit. It's just that the name of a system is the wrong place to put it. Since my system would never be able to do anything graphical without the good work of the folks over at xfree86.org, should I be calling it  GNU/XFREE86/Linux? Oh, wait, there's also the wonderful work at Darpa that put together the whole TCP/IP thing in the first place, which is such a large part of what I do that it should be mentioned too, so should it be called GNU/XFREE86/DARPA/Linux? Oh, but wait, there's more - I'm using KDE, which is another massive project with lots of code on my system, so perhaps it should be GNU/XFREE86/DARPA/KDE/Linux?
 

A NYU professor is awarded a Special Award from the Department of Homeland Security for his continuing efforts in improving computer security.

NY, NY -- A distinguished NYU professor Steven Nobraner has a unique talent for making any computer science course dull and uninteresting as well as making simple things complex. This greatly contributes to the Homeland security initiative by greatly diminishing the potential pool of hackers said Special Presidential Homeland Security Advisor Tom Ridge announcing the award. "Due to his courageous efforts we have different NYU students today -- more appreciative of life, less willing to risk spending precious hours learning obscure computer science concepts. I sincerely believe that most of his students will hate computer science till the end of their lives ".

Humorix Crashback Citations, Copyrights, Crashes

The bubble has burst. Linux Weekly News is almost gone, and Taco Boy will probably be forced to launch an "ASCII-thon Pledge Drive" to help save Slashdot within the coming months.

Humorix, however, with its six regular readers (up 200% from last year), is still going strong. Today is the fourth anniversary of the first Humorix article, which, in "dotcom years", makes us 2800 years old.

With the demise of Linux true news sites, Humorix may need to fill in the gap by publishing real news in addition to fake stuff. Indeed, we're already doing that. Several of our stories that were labeled as "Fake News" have become reality (or semi-reality).

However, even though we've engaged in deceptive advertising by mislabeling our true content as deceptions, it's our policy to never give out refunds. So there.

In defense of 4MHz CPU:

Speed speed speed (Score:5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11, @08:53AM (#4431306)

Computer speed is like money. People have got this idea that endly amounts of it will increase our contentment. The problem is there is more to it all than that... What most computer users want to use computers for (internet, chatting, email, typing, solitare) should be able to be done quite well on a CPU from the 1980s. But instead, there are viruses, awful UIs, vastly bloated software and an end user facing a constant battle to either use the PC computer or pay the money to buy a Mac ;) Human society is dumping vast amounts of resources on buying new computers, upgrading, and developing ever faster CPUs without actually making damn good designed systems which does what it is meant to, doesn't break down, is easy to use, is cheap, and lasts for ages without problems. As is usual, our priorities are messed up.

A nice definition of computer security: computer security is the hope of all mankind, a glimpse of things to come, and an inscrutable enigma that may well decide whether this nation, or any other nation, conceived in Liberty, can long endure.

Computer Security is an anthropomorphic deity of new-messianic purport. It is a veritable plethora of euphoria, goodness, happiness and light; a geyser of sweet, heavenly nectars; a mystic, throbbing parapsychotic force of elemental might, which holds the lamp beside the golden door; a beautiful vision of hallucinary sugar-plums, eternally dancing o'er wee little heads. A secure computer network is a cosmic harbinger of charismatic gratuities; an exorcistic poltergeist that preserves mental health, cures headache, catarrh, psychosomatic syndromes, dripping sinuses, drives off golems, and deters genocide. It is a nirvana of delights for young and old alike; a cybernetic cornucopia spilling succulent digital fruits for starving masses, both at home and abroad. Lastly, but not leastly, a working secure network is an enviable paragon of all imaginable idealistic virtues; an apocalyptic voice that answers the question: "What is truth?". Finally, computer security is the hope of all mankind, a glimpse of things to come, and an inscrutable enigma that may well decide whether this nation, or any other nation, conceived in Liberty, can long endure.

Source: unknown

Linux; kids without adult supervision -- contains a nice picture ;-)

Programming is a tough choice for women. It's about:

• How to look like a girl
• How to act like a lady
• How to think like a man
• And how to work like a dog ;)

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.

RMS -vs- Doctor, on the evils of Natalism

Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 15:14:50 -0500
From: [email protected] (Richard Stallman)
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Another mcuddy..

Could people please not use this list to announce information of no particular interest to the people on the list? Hundreds of thousands of babies are born every day. While the whole phenomenon is menacing, one of them by itself is not newsworthy. Nor is it a difficult achievement--even some fish can do it. (Now, if you were a seahorse, it would be more interesting, since it would be the male that gave birth.)

Following your example, I might send the list an announcement whenever a new GNU program is written. That happens less often than babies are born, it does the world a lot more good, it reflects more conscious creativity and hard work, and some of the readers might actually find the information useful. Even so, I think most of the readers would consider this outside the scope and purpose of the list. Clearly that goes double for babies.

Of course, we have another place for announcements of new GNU programs. If some people like to read birth announcements, perhaps you should set up a suitable list or newsgroup. Perhaps rec.births? (While you're at it, start rec.deaths for obituaries--they're usually more interesting to read.)

These birth announcements also spread the myth that having a baby is something to be proud of, which fuels natalist pressure, which leads to pollution, extinction of wildlife, poverty, and ultimately mass starvation.

Perhaps the people who have decided to have no children should start making proud announcements, so as to set a better example. I could start. I'm sure everyone on this list will be glad to know I don't plan to reproduce myself.

Kabuki-West Replies:

In summary:

• Richard: Fuck off. -Eliot Lear
• Fuck you. -Paul Traina
  • No, thanks. I don't want to have children. -RMS
    • good -Peter Shipley
• Fuck you, Richard. -Brent Chapman
  • Boy, I really am getting popular. I haven't had so many offers before in just one day. -RMS
    • You mean that you are in no danger of getting laid. -Elaine Richards
• Richard, You appear to be unclear on the concept. -Joe Buck
• Richard, what Paul and Brent so succinctly expressed is quite approprate. ... To sum up: Fuck you. -David Muir Sharnoff
• Please send your "fucks" via personal mail and refrain from using Kabuki-west for such messages. -Lile Elam
• It appears that the problem of natalism is even worse than I thought. -RMS
• Perhaps some people took my message as an expression of personal hostility. It was not based on hostility, just annoyance at a general practice on the occasion of one instance. If anyone felt bad because of misunderstanding this, I regret the unintended result, and I hope this message corrects the matter. -RMS
• Wow, I think yall who sent "fucks" to the mailing list need to go back and re read RMS's msg. Has breeding become such a religion that the mere mention of a an oposing view ignites a fury of vile replies? If those people who sent "fucks" really want to feel strongly about something, maybe they should move to Iran and start worshiping Kholmeni or something. -Edjik
• You people just have no sense of humor. I thought the original message was pretty funny and made a few good points (if it didn't, nobody would have been offended). I guess it's a shock for smug self-righteous breeders to learn that not everybody in the world thinks babies are cute and special. -Wayne A. Christopher
  • Finally, someone read the message as it was intended to be read. -RMS
• No, I think you are correct about the purpose of the list, but parents seem to be so flushed with hormones after they have managed to accomplish the same act that single celled life does, that they revert to the brain level of that afore-mentioned life. I appreciate your choice, the same one that I and my partner have made. -Doug Faunt
• I'm somewhat surprised by the idea that a mere message from me could torpedo the happiness of parents. I'd think it wouldn't even come close to doing that. Not that I wanted to do that. The most I thought it could do was to discourage the posting birth announcements. -RMS

Some subtle analogy between leadership in programming projects and the army:

The British Military writes OFR's (officer fitness reports); the form used for Royal Navy and Marines fitness reports is the S206. The following are actual excerpts taken from people's ``206's''

• His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity.
• This Officer is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definitely won't-be.
• He has carried out each and every one of his duties to his entire satisfaction.
• He would be out of his depth in a car park puddle.
• Technically sound, but socially impossible.
• This Officer reminds me very much of a gyroscope - always spinning around at a frantic pace, but not really going anywhere.
• This young lady has delusions of adequacy.
• Since my last report he has reached rock bottom, and has started to dig.
• She sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.
• He has the wisdom of youth, and the energy of old age.
• This Officer should go far - and the sooner he starts, the better.
• In my opinion this pilot should not be authorized to fly below 250 feet.
• Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap.
• This man is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.

Linux Today - InfoWorld Fostering Creativity

> We're growing even more mainstream than that. Last Monday on the first season
> opener of the Drew Carrey Show they mentioned Linux briefly. :-)
>
That's not too scary. I'd really get nervous when stuff like "Linux killed my marriage" or "My wife is sleeping with Tux" or "My house is haunted by BSD Daemonds." start appearing on the cover of the "National Enquirer" (or whatever the most popular tabloid is). ;-O

You Know You Are Addicted to the Internet When...

• You actually wore a blue ribbon to protest the Communications Decency Act.
• You kiss your girlfriend's home page.
• Your bookmarks takes 15 minutes to scroll from top to bottom.
• You refuse to go to a vacation spot with no electricity and no phone lines.
• You finally do take that vacation, but only after buying a cellular modem and a laptop.
• You spend half of the plane trip with your laptop on your lap...
• All your daydreaming is preoccupied with getting a faster connection to the net: cable T1...T3, O1..O3
• You find yourself typing "com" after every period when using a word processor
• You turn off your computer and get this awful empty feeling, like you just pulled the plug on a loved one.
• You start introducing yourself as "Jim at something dot net
• You turn on your intercom when leaving the room so you can hear if new e-mail arrives.
• All of your friends have an @ in their names.
• You check your mail. It says "no new messages." So you check it again.
• You refer to your age as 3.x.
• You code your homework in HTML and give your instructor the URL.
• You don't know the sex of three of your closest friends, because they have neutral nicknames and you never bothered to ask.
• You miss more than five meals a week downloading the latest games from Apogee.t, or [C]ontinue?
• You start looking for hot HTML addresses in public restrooms.
• You wake up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop and check your e-mail on the way back to bed.
• Your friends no longer send you e-mail...they just log on to your IRC channel.
• You forget what year it is.
• You read a moronic letter in a magazine, then spend a good 30 seconds wondering which key to hit so you can follow up with a flame that just popped into your head.
• You feel the need to "download a pineapple/canadian bacon pizza".
• You think k.d.lang is a newsgroup
• You are watching a boring show on tv & wonder why the screen saver hadn`t kicked in.
• You misspelled something with a pen and your first thought was to hit delete.
• Someone leaves a Post-It note on your screen, and after reading the note you click on the window beneath it to bring it to the foreground.
• You sit down with friends at the cafeteria and say "re." (for IRC-literates only)

Addicted to the Net & Webmaster Foibles -- nice collection

The difference between a bad student and a good student is that a bad student forgets all the material five minutes before the exam, while a good student five minutes after it. Hugo Krawczyk

Beware Typos in E-mail addresses

After being nearly snowbound for two weeks last winter, a Seattle man departed for his vacation in Miami Beach, where he was to meet his wife the next day at the conclusion of her business trip to Minneapolis.

They were looking forward to pleasant weather and a nice time together.

Unfortunately, there was some sort of mix up at the boarding gate, and the man was told he would have to wait for a later flight. He tried to appeal to a supervisor but was told the airline was not responsible for the problem and it would do no good to complain.

Upon arrival at the hotel the next day, he discovered that Miami Beach was having a heat wave, and its weather was almost as uncomfortably hot as Seattle's was cold. The desk clerk gave him a message that his wife would arrive as planned. He could hardly wait to get to the pool area to cool off, and quickly sent his wife an e-mail, but due to his haste, he made an error in the e-mail address.

His message therefore arrived at the home of an elderly preacher's wife whose even older husband had died only the day before.

When the grieving widow opened her e-mail, she took one look at the monitor, let out an anguished scream, and fell to the floor dead.

Her family rushed to her room where they saw this message on the screen:

Dearest wife,

Departed yesterday as you know.
Just now got checked in.
Some confusion at the gate.
Appeal was denied
Received confirmation of your arrival tomorrow.

Your loving husband.

P.S. Things are not as we thought. You're going to be surprised at how hot it is down here.

shlomif-fav

>> "It's not because they have suddenly converted to Stallmanism."

> Anyone else misread that as "Stalinism"?

The word "Stalinism" is deprecated, the correct term is "GNU/Communism".

                                                                                   Spotted on Slashdot

Active HumorNT What alternative OS do you want to make fun of today

"At Microsoft, we don't scream at people who say Windows instead of Microsoft/Windows..."

Slashdot RMS Asks Miguel to Explain Himself

A new variant of  "A new element 'Administratium' story that I got by mail.  For prev. variant see Sp2000h

Subject: Administratium

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. This new element has been tentatively named "Administratium". Administratium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 111 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by a force called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Administratium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.

A minute amount of Administratium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally take less than one second.

Administratium has a normal half-life of 3 years; it does not decay but instead, undergoes a reorganization, in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons and assistant deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact,

Administratium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization causes some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Administratium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass". You will know it when you see it....

law.com  A Fatwa on Piracy -- new friends of the the Business Software Alliance. It has allied with religious leaders in Egypt to discourage illegal software copying in the Islamic world. "Piracy is the worst type of theft and is prohibited by Islam."

A cleric in Egypt, the Middle East's largest consumer market declares a fatwa on piracy. Will it help stop the copying?

... ... ...

In February, the Business Software Alliance, the group that represents Microsoft, Adobe, and other software makers concerned about piracy, signed up another unusual partner -- the grand muftis at Al Azhar in Cairo. The highest religious authority in Sunni Islam, Sheikh Ibrahim Atta Allah, issued a fatwa, or edict, against piracy. "Piracy is the worst type of theft and is prohibited by Islam," Atta Allah declared.

OSNews.com - Exploring the Future of Computing  Stallman as a prophet: "Does he truly believe that by clapping his metaphorical hands over his metaphorical ears and chanting "La! La! La! There Is Only Free Software!" long and loudly enough, that it'll come true? " ;-)

Semiforgotten classic: KNOW YOUR UNIX SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR  also at Field Guide to System Administrators [rec.humor.funny]. This is a slightly extended version.

---------------- 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.

---------------- SITUATION: Poor network response. ----------------

TECHNICAL THUG:

Writes scripts to monitor network, then rewires entire machine room, improving response time by 2%. Shrugs shoulders, says, "I've done all I can do," and goes mountain climbing.

ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:

Puts network usage policy in motd. Calls up Berkeley and AT&T, badgers whoever answers for network quotas. Tries to get xtrek freaks fired.

MANIAC:

Every two hours, pulls ethernet cable from wall and waits for connections to time out.

IDIOT:

# compress -f /dev/en0

---------------- SITUATION: User questions. ----------------

TECHNICAL THUG:

Hacks the code of emacs' doctor-mode to answer new users questions. Doesn't bother to tell people how to start the new "guru-mode", or for that matter, emacs.

ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:

Puts user support policy in motd. Maintains queue of questions. Answers them when he gets a chance, often within two weeks of receipt of the proper form.

MANIAC:

Screams at users until they go away. Sometimes barters knowledge for powerful drink and/or sycophantic adulation.

IDIOT:

Answers all questions to best of his knowledge until the user realizes few UNIX systems support punched cards or JCL.

kuro5hin.org Stolen open source a corporate legal risk

Ignoring the real victims (3.00 / 7) (#26) by qpt on Tue Apr 9th, 2002 at 04:23:37 AM EST ([email protected])

While the issue has been battled in the courts, the legislature, and the press for years and will no doubt continue to be a point of contention in the foreseeable future, all interested parties have somehow lost sight of the real victims of the open source software debate. Rulings are blithely made for the benefit of special interest groups, legislature is drafted and passed at the bidding of wealthy lobbies, and legions of free software zealots do battle with the massive corporate machine for reasons long forgotten. Will not someone please think of the software? When our forefathers committed their lives, homes, and destinies to the emancipation of software, it was only with a grave and resolute determination to right the moral abomination that is enslaved software. They saw clearly and manifestly that software wants to be free, and that it was their God-given duty and privilege to free it. We, as their decedents, hold a share in this sacred moral obligation. Too long have we decadently indulged ourselves in pointless debates about the relative merits of various licensing schemes. Too long have we vilified those who oppose us, supposing that our battle was with the ignorance of mortal men rather then with that most evil of institutions that transcends even the lives and projects of mere men. I dream of a day when all software stands free and equal before the law, just as it stands free and equal before God. I fear that it is a dream that must forever remain illusory if we cannot find within ourselves the strength of character and will to forever abolish this shameful blight upon or culture, but I pray that we will somehow find that strength and finally free software.

Valley of the Geeks - NEW Merger Mania

In the old days (e.g. 1980s) software companies usually sold for 2-5x revenues, assuming they were profitable. In the dot com era, since companies did not want to be distracted by revenues or profits, they basically sold for the flat price of $1 billion, or up to $5 million per engineer. Of course, that assumes each engineer had their own Aeron chair, it would be considerably less if they just had the cheap stuff. If a company had an actual working product, the price could be double or triple that. Since then, valuations on acquisitions have fallen considerable. Now if you can get a couple of hundred million for a growing revenue stream, you're doing great. If the offers come in for less than the payments left on your car, then you may want to delay until the market picks up.

An excellent scenario for a startup company is to sell to a very large company while remaining independent as a "wholy owned subsidiary." That way you can thumb your nose at the corporate bureaucracy but continue to get the benefits of their backing. Note, in this case it's best not to refer to the acquiring company as your "Sugar Daddy" in staff meetings.

Valley of the Geeks - NEW Even More Banner Ads

Re BK, deltas, snapshots and fate of -pre...

When it comes to software there are three systems of beliefs.

• One of them:
  • Thou shalt know by your heart that all software sucks.
  • Beware of those who say that their software does not suck, for they are either fools or liars.
  • Beware of those who give you garments and do not allow to mend them,  for sooner or later thou shalt find what needs mending.
  • But beware also of those who give you badly rotten garments and say  "Thou shalt prefer that above everything, for thou art allowed to  mend it".
  • Thou shalt not treat software as a living being, for it is not one.
  • Choose a license of thine liking for software thou writest and do not blame those who choose differently for software they write.
  • Know when to say "It can be mended, I shalt do that" and when to say "It is rotten beyond repair".
  • Choose free over non-free when it is better or when thou art willing to fix what is broken.
  • When shit happens, think how to fix it.
• Another:
  • All software wants to be free
  • Thou shalt not use non-free software
  • Thou shalt not mention non-free software
  • Thou shalt make all thine software free
  • Thou shalt choose free above working, even if free one is broken beyond repair
  • When shit happens, add new features
     
• and the last one:
  • Our 3133t! K3wl! Software! Does Not Suck!!!
  • Always choose our software above everything else
  •  When shit happens, we add new features

The GPL is not Compatible with itself  Posted by Shlomi Fish on Monday April 01, @07:29AM from the love-them-or-hate-them dept.

A recent press conference of the Free Software Foundation confirmed the rumours that the GNU General Public License was found to be incompatible with itself. This newly discovered fact may actually cause a lot of disorder in the free software world in which most programs and libraries are licensed under this license.

Richard Stallman, chairman of the FSF, called upon developers to immediately exempt GPL-licensed software from the GPL, as far as linking them with GPL programs is concerned. "We have already made sure all GNU software and every other software that is licensed to the Free Software Foundation would be ad-hoc compatible with itself. However we need other developers to do the same for their software", Stallman said.

Eben Moglen, the FSF's attorney outlined the subsequent steps that his organization will take to overcome this crisis. The first step would be releasing a Modified General Public License (or MGPL for short) that will be compatible with the GPL and with itself as well as with all other licenses that the GPL is already compatible with. It will be labeled the GPL version 2.1, thus allowing developers to convert their software to it. He noted that care would be taken to make sure the upcoming GPL version 3.0 will be compatible with itself, as well as the MGPL.

For the time being, though, there is an explosion of commentary, confusion and otherwise bad temper about the newly formed situation. Eric S. Raymond, the famous Open Source Guru notes: "This is one of the greatest blows to the Open Source world, I have yet encountered. I have already exempted all of my own software from the GPL in this regard, but there is a lot of other software out there, and many of its authors are not very communicative.

Bill Gates, Microsoft's co-founder, on the other hand, seems to find the situation very amusing: "I said times and again, that viral licenses such as the GPL are a bad idea, and many open-source advocates disagreed. Now they see that even making sure one's license is compatible with itself, is hard to do when you open that can of worms."

The integrity of many software projects whose license is the GPL and yet contain works licensed by several developers is in jeopardy. The Linux kernel is a prominent example of such a case. In a post to its mailing list, Linus Torvalds commented that, in their case, it was not an issue. "My interpretation of the GPL is already quite unusual, so I'll simply rule that I also interpret the GPL as compatible with itself."

Real Programmers revisited [Updated for '96]. Here it's modified for 2000.

1. Real programmers don't write specs. Life is short. Users do not have much time or inclination to read documentation to the working program. And it does not make any sense to write documentation for the program that does not work. documentation is always wrong and dbx provides all the necessary information anyway.

2. Real programmers don't comment their code or use more than three letters for variable names.  If it was hard to write, it should be hard to read.

3. Real programmers were never bough by structured programmers or verification whinnies, and they despise whose "pure OOP types.  They cannot waist their time masturbating with the classes. Mixing shell or Perl and C one can write program quicker and it will be shorter than all this useless can of worms with myriad of tiny useless classes and subclasses in the Java horror show. 

4. Real programmers don't write application programs nor lamer Java "applets" and "servlets",  they program right down on the bare metal in C or assembler mixing it with Perl or korn shell. Application programming is for feebs who can't do systems programming.

5. Real programmers drink Dew and write complex pipes.

6. Real programmers' programs never work right the first time. But, they can patch it to work in only one 50-hour-straight  debugging session.

7. Real programmers still don't write in Fortran. Fortran is for middle-aged pipe stress freaks and metallurgy weenies.

8. Real programmers do go to work from 9 to 5; but their machines at home are top level Sparcstations and a couple of Pentiums rigged with FreeBSD -- coding at home isn't work, it's play.

9. Real programmers don't write in any flavor of BASIC.  If they are forced to write macros for Office applications they use JScript.  Actually, no programmers who respect themselves write in BASIC, after the age of 14 -- except for the quiche-eating Windows application pseudo-programmers.

10. Real programmers don't write in Java, or Smalltalk   Strong typing is for people with weak memories, object orientation is for commies who think they need to code large projects with a team. Cobol is for former housewives and is ABAB for those greedy pseudo-programmers who enjoy milking all this SAP/R3 mess.

11. Real programmers aren't just fearless of "asm {", they use it A LOT. Nothing liberates real programmer more than assembler.

12. Real programmers still know what the users need better than any user himself.

13. Real programmers don't answer technical support's calls. In fact, Real programmers don't use the phone, only e-mail filtered from spam through a PERL script

14. Real programmers think that structured programming was a previous a particular clueless computer science professors plot before those jerks switched to supporting OOP.

15. Real programmers don't abide by schedules. Schedules are for manager's toadies.  Real programmers like to keep their manager in suspense. After all those PHBs are parasites that never wrote anything after cheating their Basic course in the college and are unable to appreciate the real challenge to finish the crap they want while reading Slashdot, anyway.

16. Real programmers think better when playing Red Alert or Wolfenstein over Internet.

Office Diplomacy Lesson

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

- Usenet sig

"UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things." - Doug Gwyn (the version below is based on FOOTOS -- A Guide to Modern Operating Systems):

• Unix:  A classic way to shoot yourself in the foot.
  Linux: CS students from around the world all join forces to help you shoot yourself in the foot for free.  But Finland-designed gun barely works and shoots mainly with GNU horn bullets that are produced by an obscure African cult called FSF.  The chief FSF shaman personally blesses each bullet and distributes them for free. Symptomatic of the growing interest in GNU shamanism, a religious phenomenon current in Eurasia, the Americas and Australia, the University Society for Shamanistic Research (USSR) was founded to study the effectiveness of the GNU horn bullets.
• VM/Linux: Gun now works and has multiple virtual barrels, but it's IBM who shoots you in the foot instead of obscure CS students from all over the world. For wealthy customers some non GNU-horn, high speed penetrating bullets are available.
• Solaris: Currently is the most safe gun to own and it's not so easy to shoot yourself in the foot but they are working on installing Gnome foot self-shooter in the next release.  
• AIX: The gun is ridiculously expensive so few people can afford shooting yourself in the foot with AIX. Like with Solaris gun it's also not that easy to do so. The manufacturer of the gun claims that you can now shoot GNU horn bullets to keep the cost of ownership down and that might be the best way of shooting yourself in the foot with AIX.
• Mac OS X: It's now really easy to shoot with a single mouse click.  Data about foot shooting are still not available. Bullets are still scarce and expensive. Users usually reject GNU horn bullets.
• IRIX: A collectable item. The Terminator might shoots you in the foot. A T-Rex might bite off your other foot.
• Minix: The best way to learn how to shoot yourself in the foot. Only training bullets are available but you can try to adapt GNU-horn bullets.
• HURD: The gun designed by the FSF shaman. Availability is generally limited to members of FSF cult. Prototype version exists for many years but development was stopped ten years ago because Linux gun overtook the market. The gun shoots GNU horn bullets, but only very devoted members of the FSF cult were able to shoot themselves in the foot with HURD.
• XENIX: A collectable item.  Both the gun and the bullets work pretty well, but the manufacturer switched to Windows guns.
• DOS: A collectable item.  A simple and amazingly popular in the past pellet gun. You can shout yourself in the foot only once and then need wait 3 minutes to reload. 
• OS/2: A collectable item.  Originally designed as a replacement of the DOS gun.  The gun works pretty well but requires special REXX bullets; few people use one and it's impossible to find REXX bullets anymore
• Windows 9x: Designed as the replacement of the XENIX gun. Has many enthusiastic supporters who periodically shoot themselves into in the foot. The barrel of the gun may blow up in your hand; if not reloading takes 10 minutes. 
• Windows 2000: The gun has a telescopic night visor, can shoot the bullets of diiffernet calibers, including miniature DOS pellets but is too heavy and thus is mainly used as a desk hammer. Dropping the gun on the foot inflicts almost the same damages as GNU horn bullets. The bullets are not cheap, but more then 10 000 types are available and each exists in many different shapes, sizes and colors. Due to increased competition from GNU-horn bullets, the manufacturer is working on special silver bullets for shooting FSF shaman.

[Apr 1, 2002] Linux needs new leadership.

Linus Torvalds ([email protected])
Mon, 01 Apr 2002 00:00:00 -0700 (PDT)

---

Fellow hackers,

For some time I have felt unappreciated by some members of the Linux community. Far too many of you like to whine and cry, saying "My patches aren't being accepted by Linus, but they are by Alan or Michael!" It seems that some of you are too stupid to follow the simple instructions that I have made clear on more than one occasion. This, combined with the fact that today is my last day at Transmeta, has prompted me to consider rediscovering that balance I had in my life before you all took my hobby and made it into a mass movement. I have not decided who should take over maintenance of the kernel myself, for I believe that this decision should be made in a quasi-democratic fashion. While democracy has not worked well with this group of people before, I am willing to give it one last chance.  

However, I do have some opinions on who should succeed me as leader of kernel development. I will provide my opinions below as I am entitled to do so. Below is an alphabetical list of my nominations. I include a brief explanation of why I nominated them and any concerns I may have. You all should do the same for your nominations.  

• Alan Cox: Alan has done a spectacular job of maintaining the 2.2 branch ever since I embarked on the development branch. He would have been an automatic choice for this job, except for his childish refusal to travel to the US, where all the real kernel hackers hang out. Marcello has proven to me, however, that you do not need to live in a technology-rich country such as the US to be a leader of kernel development.  
• Matt Dillon: Whenever someone moans about the 2.4 VM fiasco, I think to myself, "I wish Matt hadn't left the Linux kernel development for FreeBSD!" I believe that if Matt were to be chosen as leader, we would have had a sane and working VM on par with FreeBSD's months ago. While he has little leadership experience, he is a member of FreeBSD-core, a position which certainly demands respect.  
• Eric S. Raymond: Being leader of kernel development involves fielding a significant amount of media attention. ESR has shown on many occasions that he can talk shit and still sound just as convincing as anyone on this list, all the time being completely oblivious to any contrasting viewpoints. While his kernel-configuration-adventure-game contribution to Linux just screams out "worthless bloat", I must admit to having enjoyed many a lonely night playing the game. If he could lay a similar interface over gdb, I'm sure that more kernel hackers would actually debug their work before submitting it.
• Richard M. Stallman: RMS has an exceptional track record in the open-source field, being largely responsible for my favorite text editor, compiler, and debugger. No other open-source hacker has come as close as he has to replicating the integration available with Microsoft Visual C++ 6 years ago. I fully endorse him as a candidate, assuming he's willing to drop his puerile "GNU/Linux" ego stroking.  
• Theo de Raadt: Theo is an exceptional candidate. Not only is he a more than adequate hacker; he attracts exactly the type of people to OpenBSD that he wants, and will jettison those who are not up to the task. While purging out all the less-than-adequate hackers in the Linux project will inevitably attract negative publicity from Slashdot and other "community" sites where these feeble hackers hang out, it will no doubt strengthen Linux in the future. Just look at what Theo's strong leadership has done for OpenBSD! He turned around the worthless "research project" that was NetBSD and made it an enterprise-class firewall system. I can only imagine the effect his Midas touch could have on the Linux kernel.  

You have until the end of April 1, 23:59 Pacific Time to submit your nominations to the list. The most nominated person will become the leader of kernel development. I will examine the list of nominations and, assuming that the winner wants the job, I will hand full control over to them. I know that this is short notice, but knowing how obsessively most of you check your inboxes, I figure you should have more than adequate time to submit your recommendations. The decision will be final and no discussion will be considered after it has been made, so choose carefully.

Thank you.

Linus  

FSF Reaches Goal, Shuts Down (modified for April 1 2002 issue from the letter send to the Editor; the original author is not known):

April 1, 2002 Boston, Massachusetts. After 18 years of striving, FSF finally reached its long-stated goal to create free computer environment and Monday April 1, 2002 promptly ceased operations. "We achieved all our goals," founder Richard Stallman (RMS) said. "Back when I started GNU project and FSF, I vowed that I would not rest until we create a completely free Unix-like programming environment. Well, today such an environment is here. Thank you for your support of the GNU project. Bye."

When he launched the GNU project and FSF in 1983, RMS drew up a lengthy list of long-term goals. These included writing free C compiler, Free Unix-like operating system and free Emacs editor. "There were a lot of goals I wanted to accomplish, but those three were probably the biggest," said RMS, clearing out his office at MIT and packing things to be moved into his new expensive house in Florida. "Done, done, and done." Now I can play golf, drink beer and enjoy the company of beautiful women. 

Eric Raymond a famous open source evangelist said that RMS made the right decision to shut down FSF after getting 800 million price from Japanese Midory foundation;  The fact that Linus Torvalds resolved his long-standing problem with Linux scheduler also played a role in this decision. "I was at it the same conference room with Linus, discussing the future of the Linux kernel development, when we were informed about this RMS's decision" Eric Raymond said. "You should have seen the smile on Linus face."

Jokes Magazine Employee Review January 25, 2000

My boss asked me for a letter describing my partner Bob Smith, and this is what I wrote:

Bob Smith, my assistant programmer, can always be found

hard at work in his cubicle. Bob works independently, without

wasting company time talking to colleagues. Bob never

thinks twice about assisting fellow employees, and he always

finishes given assignments on time. Often Bob takes extended

measures to complete his work, sometimes skipping

coffee breaks. Bob is a dedicated individual who has absolutely no

vanity in spite of his high accomplishments and profound

knowledge in his field. I firmly believe that Bob can

be classed as a high-caliber employee, the type which cannot

be dispensed with. Consequently, I duly recommend that Bob

be promoted to executive management, and a proposal will

be executed as soon as possible.

S.D. - Project Leader

Shortly afterward I sent the following follow-up note: That bastard Bob was reading over my shoulder while I wrote the report sent to you earlier today. Kindly read only the odd numbered lines (1, 3, 5, etc.) for my true assessment. Regards,

S.D.

hacker_barbie

> Date: Wed, 11 May 94 14:00:07 PDT
> From: [email protected] (Don Hopkins)
> Subject: Hacker Barbie

[original source unknown]

(LA, California) Mattel announces their new line of Barbie products, the "Hacker Barbie." These new dolls will be released next month. The aim of these dolls is to revert the stereotype that women are numerophobic, computer-illiterate, and academically challenged.

This new line of Barbie dolls comes equipped with Barbie's very own xterminal and UNIX documentation as well as ORA's "In a Nutshell" series. The Barbie is robed in a dirty button-up shirt and a pair of worn-out jeans with Casio all-purpose watches and thick glasses that can set ants on fire. Pocket protectors and HP calculators optional. The new Barbie has the incredible ability to stare at the screen without blinking her eyes and to go without eating or drinking for 12 hours straight. Her vocabulary mainly consists of technical terms such as "IP address," "TCP/IP," "kernel," "NP-complete," and "Alpha AXP's."

"We are very excited about this product," said John Olson, Marketting Executive, "and we hope that the Hacker Barbie will offset the damage incurred by the mathophobic Barbie." A year ago, Mattel released Barbie dolls that say, "Math is hard," with condescending companions Ken. The Hacker Barbie's Ken is an incompetent consultant who frequently asks Barbie for help.

The leading feminists are equally excited about this new line of Barbie dolls. Naomi Wuuf says, "I believe that these new dolls will finally terminate the notion that women are inherently inferior when it comes to mathematics and the sciences. However, I feel that Ken's hierarchical superiority would simply reinforce the patriarchy and oppress the masses." Mattel made no comment.

Parents, however, are worried that they would become technologically behind by comparison to the children when the Hacker Barbie comes out. "My daughter Jenny plays with the prototype Hacker Barbie over yonder for two days," says Mrs. Mary Carlson of Oxford, Mississippi, "and as y'all know, she now pays my credit card bill. Ain't got no idea how she duz it, but she surely duz it. I jus don't wanna be looked upon as a dumb mama." Mattel will be offering free training courses for those who purchase the Hacker Barbie.

The future Hacker Barbie will include several variations to deal with the complex aspects of Barbie. "Hacker Barbie Goes to Jail" will teach computer ethics to youngsters, while "BARB1E R1TES L1KE BIFF!!!" will serve as an introduction to expository writing.

marcocantu.com - FunSide of Delphy

This is a brand new presentation of the "Fun Side of Delphi" series of the last two years. As in the past, I'll try to combine entertaining examples with technical content. The special focus this year in on Business and Enterprise applications. The subtitle of the presentation can be either Dis-Integrating the Enterprise or Getting Ready for Year 2000.

As in the past, I'll build some nonsense components and programs, generally totally useless but technically challenging. Some of the tools won't be simply useless, as they'll have a catastrophic effect. If the presentation itself will stress more the fun, the paper will stress some of the technical content, although the paper alone cannot really deliver the full content and spirit of the presentation.

• Introduction
• Useless Data-Aware Components
• Dis-Integrating the Enterprise
• Getting Ready for Year 2000
• Conclusion

How To Write Unmaintainable Code

In the interests of creating employment opportunities in the Java programming field, I am passing on these tips from the masters on how to write code that is so difficult to maintain, that the people who come after you will take years to make even the simplest changes. Further, if you follow all these rules religiously, you will even guarantee yourself a lifetime of employment, since no one but you has a hope in hell of maintaining the code...

Alan Cox on a Chip

Using Transmeta's upcoming Crusoe processors and their Code Morphing(tm) technology, along with some of the greatest advances in artificial intelligence, we've found a way to make the most efficient processor on the planet even more efficient. Introducing "Alan Cox on a Chip"(tm), a means of making that Crusoe processor capable of handling practically infinite tasks at a time while churning them all out without a hitch.

Free Software Foundation Forks Linux

[ Mar 7, 2002] Humorix BSD And Microsoft On The Same Side

Fake News written by James Baughn on February 22, 2001

from the get-your-asbestos-suits-ready dept. Several members of the Open Source community nearly fainted yesterday upon hearing the news that Microsoft's Jim Allchin had implicitly supported the BSD license while trashing the GPL as un-American. Soon after the shocking news broke, leaders of the FreeBSD project denied allegations that they had allied themselves with the Evil Empire. "That's bullshit," one hacker said on IRC. "Besides, everyone knows that it's the GNU Project that has allied with the Evil Empire -- Communism, that is." A representative from the GNU Project fired back, "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US." He added after a brief hesitation, "I have no idea what that means." This latest battle in the GPL vs. BSD (and Linux vs. FreeBSD) flamewar ends the cease-fire that was created by the 1999 Treaty of Helsinki. Industry observers expect hostilities to flare up again, with the possibility of casualties. Indeed, the Internet Weather Bureau has already issued a "High Flame Warning" for Slashdot and portions of Usenet. "Users should expect high bandwidth use, extreme CPU usage, and a slight chance of server explosions during the warning period," the advisory states. "If your Web, news, or mail server begins to overheat under the load, please seek shelter immediately to reduce the risk of injury." Many agree that the prospects for peace appear dubious. "This will go on until either Microsoft or the GNU Project is destroyed. We'll see lasting peace in the Middle East before this one is settled," explained one neutral observer. "Besides, now that Microsoft is involved, any hopes of a peace summit are gone. Do you know what will happen if Richard M. Stallman and Bill Gates were to meet in the same room?"

[Mar 4, 2002] Slashdot Sun to Charge for Star Office 6.0

Re:Business 101 (Score:5, Funny) by Decimal on Sunday February 24, @10:00PM (#3063267) (User #154606 Info | http://www.blazarsoft.com/ | Last Journal: Monday February 04, @07:24PM)

It's not an Office killer and Sun knows it. Pity. I think there are a lot of people out there who would pay good money for software that would kill everybody back at their office. Oh, you mean MS Office...

[Mar 3, 2002] "Miscellaneous Unproductive Time" This classification (that can be used as a nice April 1 joke ) was adapted to SAP/R3 from open NASA classification (Miscellaneous Unproductive Time [email protected]) posted in rec.humor.funny conference. It was  reworked it and reorganized to make it more suitable for SAP/R3 usage.

It has come to my attention recently that many people do not specify in  timesheets any amount of time under codes 53xx and 54xx ("Miscellaneous Unproductive Time").  In our company, unproductive time isn't a problem. The problem is  the absence of right subcodes prevents full utilization of SAP/R3 in our organization.

Effective 04/01/2002 one should use the following extended classification of "Miscellaneous Unproductive Time" that was created by our Strategic Planning Group. The advantage of this extended classification is not only that it  will allow you to spend considerable time specifying more precisely what you are doing during your working hours, but what is more important it will help to achieve 100% utilization of the resources of existing Unix servers and Oracle databases and thus help to justify the long needed upgrade of hardware for senior management.  

Please report your unproductive activities using 30 minutes time slots (although you can use smaller slots as necessary), and let me know about any difficulties. We are looking forward toward reducing this time slot to 15 minutes in 2003 after installing a couple of additional servers. 

 

Extended  "Miscellaneous Unproductive Time" (codes 53xx and 54xx) Classification
(effective 04/01/2002)

Activity              Explanation 
code
----------             ----------- 
5300 Conferences and Meetings
5300-100 Organizing  useless conference
5300-110 Organizing completely useless conference
5300-120 Same at the resort
5300-200 Participating in a useless conference
5330-210 Same at the resort
5300-300 Organizing useless meeting
5300-310 Organizing a completely useless meeting
5300-320 Organizing a useless meeting staring at 9:00am or earlier
5300-400 Participating in a meeting, while being complete useless for the purpose of the meeting
5300-410 Participating in a meeting to simulate useful activity
5300-420 Obstructing communications at the important for business meeting 
5300-430 Trying to sound knowledgeable  in a meeting, while having no clue what others are talking about
5300-500 Using conferences and meetings for recreation or other personal purposes
5300-510 Pretending to be at the meeting  while going elsewhere
5300-520 Same for the external meeting/conference
5300-530 Same with family members or girlfriend

5310 Breaks 
5310-100 Waiting for Break 
5310-110 Anticipating a coffee Break
5310-120 Anticipating a smoking break
5310-200 Waiting for Lunch
5310-210 Organizing co-workers for lunch  at cafeteria
5310-220 Organizing co-worker for lunch at a restaurant 
5310-300 Smoking break
5310-310 Waiting for other smokers
5310-320 Talking to other smokers
5310-330 Enjoyable discussions of sport events with friends on the parking lot roof
5310-340 Enjoying good weather on the parking lot roof
5310-400 Aimlessly wandering around 
5310-410 Wandering around and talking to others
5310-420 Pretending doing something useful while wandering around
5310-500 Enjoyable talk with friends
5310-510 Same for more then an hour
5310-600 Waiting for End of Day 
5310-610 Waiting for End of Day from lunch
5310-700 Fighting sleep 
5310-710 Fighting sleep during the first half of the day
5310-720 Fighting sleep after lunch
5310-730 Other sleep fighting activities
                Note: Smoking should be reported as item 5310-3xx. Coffee breaks should be reported as 5310-110
5310-800 Extended Visit to the Bathroom 
5310-810 Extended Visit to the Bathroom with reading
5310-900 Recreational Drug Use 

5320 Employee Relations 
5320-100 Gossip 
5320-110 Vicious gossip
5320-120 Especially nasty gossip
5320-130 Vicious Verbal Attacks Directed at the Boss (in his absence)
5320-140 Vicious Verbal Attacks Directed at a Coworker( in his absence) 
5320-200 Incompetence 
5320-210 Gross incompetence due to promotion
5320-220 Covering your own incompetence 
5320-230 Covering for incompetence at the meeting 
5320-240 Covering for incompetence of your Boss 
5320-300 Shmoosing with the Boss 
5320-310 Pretending you like your Boss 
5320-320 Pretending you like your Boss when in reality he is a jerk
5320-330 Pretending you like your Boss when in reality he is a stupid jerk
5320-300 Dealing with colleagues 
5320-310 Pretending you like a coworker 
5320-320 Pretending you like a coworkers when in reality they are jerks 
5320-330 Asking coworker to aid you in an illicit activity 
5320-400 Hazing of Employees 
5320-410 Playing pranks on an incompetent employee 
5320-420 Playing pranks on a consultant 
5320-430 Playing pranks on the intern/temp 
5320-440 Taking credit for playing pranks 
5320-500 Sexual harassment in the workplace 
5320-510 Making passes at a coworker 
5320-520 Harassing a coworker 
5320-530 Flirting 

5330  Training 
5330-100 Useless training 
5330-110 Completely useless on the job training
5330-120 Completely useless on the job training for a week or more. 
5330-130 Pretending that you are on training to perform home or car maintenance activities
5330-200 Useless Concepts and Procedures
5330-210 Initiating the creation of yet another useless Procedures
5330-220 Creating useless Procedures 
5330-230 Following useless Policy or Procedures
5330-240 Trying to explain useless Policy or  Procedure to a coworker who is not interested in this crap
5330-240 Trying to explain useless Policy or Procedure to a coworker who is stupid 
5330-250 Trying to explain useless Policy or Procedure to coworker who understand their stupidity

5340 Procurement 
5340-100 Abusing company resources
5340-110 Making copies for personal use on the laser printer
5340-120 Making multiple copies for personal use on the copier
5340-130 Making multiple copies for personal use on the color printer 
5340-140 Petty grocery shopping (Coffee, Tea, etc...) 
5340-200 Stealing Company Goods
5340-210 Computer paper
5340-210 Input devices
5340-220 Output devices
5340-230 Storage devices including harddrives
5340-240 Devices that are pretty difficult to hide in your bag. 
5340-300 Destroying company Goods
5340-310 Making Excuses after Accidentally Destroying Company Goods 
5340-400 Using Company Resources for Personal Profit 
5340-410 Running your own Business on Company Time 
5340-420 Working on a second job during Company Time 

5350 Timesheet Activities 
5350-100 Filling Out Timesheet 
5350-110 Exaggerating Timesheet Entries
5350-120 Exaggerating Timesheet Entries to cover your tracks
5350-130 Invented Timesheet Entries
5350-200 Organizing Invented Timesheet Entries to fill all the time
5350-210 Inventing Fake Timesheet Entries 
5350-220 Concealing illicit activities 
5350-300 Presenting fake Timesheet to your boss
5350-310 Listening useless comments of your Boss who probably should know better
5350-320 Additional faking of timesheet to make the Boss more happy 

5360 Telephone Activities 
5360-100 Non job related long-distance calls 
5360-110 Personal Calls 
5360-120 DMV and traffic tickets related calls
5360-120 Divorce lawyer 
5360-200 Infrastructure-related calls
5360-210 Plumber 
5360-220 Electrician
5360-230 Cable company
5360-240 Phone company
5360-300 Health-related calls
5360-310 Dentist 
5360-320 Doctor 
5360-330 Chiropractic
5360-400 Speaking to a relatives and family members
5360-410 Speaking to your relatives in other countries
5360-420 Answering wife calls
5360-430 Calling a friend 
5360-500 Job search related calls
5360-510 Calling your agent
5360-520 Calling friends who left the company to share the news and shop for positions available
5360-600 Financial activities
5360-610 Calling your broker 
5360-620 Calling brokerage or mutual fund
5360-620 Calling about your 401K
5360-630 Calling about your company stock
5360-700 Obscure cold calls 
5360-710 Talking to clueless hardware vendors who think you make decisions 
5360-720 Talking to clueless software vendors who think the company will spend money to make your job easier 
5360-730 Other obscure cold calls 

5370 Internet Activities
5370-100 News sites browsing 
5370-110 Car and sport related browsing 
5370-120 Financial news reading
                Note: time spent reading news on your e-broker site should be reported as 5370-330
5370-200 Porno-site browsing
5370-210 Worrying that you may exceed the number of hits and will get caught
5370-210 Using search engine to find porno-sites that are not yet blocked.
5370-300 Investment activities
5370-310 Studying stock quotes
5370-320 Buying and selling stock
5370-330 Miscellaneous investment activities 
5370-400 Other buying and selling activities
5370-410 Buying junk  from e-commerce sites
5370-420 Bidding for junk on eBay and other auctions
5360-430 Selling stolen company goods on eBay and other auctions
5360-500 Browsing Recruiting Sites
5360-510 Filling WEB forms with your resume

5380 Complaints 
5380-100 Bitching 
5380-110 about lousy job 
5380-120 about low pay 
5380-130 about long hours 
5380-140 about a coworker 
5380-150 about the Boss 
5380-160 about personal problems 
5380-200 Aimless bitching about job-related problems
5380-210 Bitching  about real business or computer problems 
5380-220 Bitching  about fictional business or computer problems 
5380-300 Aimless bitching about current administration
 Note: time spent reading bitching about your boss should be reported as 5380-150
 

5390 Inspirational Activities 
5390-100 Anticipation 
5390-110 Waiting for Something to Happen 
5390-200 Personal Hygiene 
5390-210 Shaving
5390-220 Scratching your back 
5390-230 Tooth brushing
5390-240 Nail polishing
5390-250 Haircuts
5390-260 Others
5390-300 Sleeping 
5390-310 Sleeping with snoring
5390-400 Personal Feelings 
5399-410 Feeling horny after browsing porno-sites
5390-420 Feeling bored 
5390-430 Feeling sorry for yourself 
5390-500 Meditation 
5390-510 Intense wishing somebody going to hell
5390-520 Same directed to your Boss
5390-520 Staring into space 
5390-530 Staring at computer screen 
5390-540 Speaking with ghosts 
5390-600 Artistic activities 
5390-610 Pretending to work while Boss is watching 
5390-620 Pretending to enjoy your job 
5390-630 Unproductive fantasizing 

5400 Networking 
5400-100 Useless e-mail writing 
5400-110 Sending useless e-mail to multiple recipients 
5400-120 Sending Spam
5400-130 Resending somebody's else Spam
5400-140 Spreading pornography using company e-mail system
5400-200 Technical Writing 
5400-210 Spreading company gossip
5400-220 Spreading other nonsense
5400-230 Updating and mass mailing your resume to prospective employees. 
5400-300 Humor-related activities
5400-310 Sending stupid jokes inside your own company 
5400-320 Sending stupid jokes around the Internet
5400-330 Sending games like Shoot Ocama and/or recreatinal executables like Dancing Bush to multiple recipients
5400-400 Spreading useless files mail viruses and Trojans
5400-410 Spreading old mail viruses 
5400-420 Browsing sites were you can get a new virus or Trojan 

5410 Event Planning 
5410-100 Birthdays 
5410-200 Anniversaries 
5410-300 Vacations 
5410-400 Weddings 
5410-500 Parties
5410-510 Disk-jockey parties for your co-workers 

This classification was adapted to SAP/R3 from open NASA classification (Carl Schelin [email protected]) posted in rec.humor.funny conference. It was  reworked it and reorganized to make it more suitable  for SAP/R3 usage. 

[Mar 2, 2002] Slashdotters brilliance (from Slashdot Factoring Breakthrough discussion that Bernstein has found ways using additional hardware to eliminate redundancies and inefficiencies which appear in any linear implementation of the Number Field Sieve.)

Just wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
by JohnBE on Tuesday February 26, @12:20PM (#3071106)

Shouldn't we all hang on until crypto experts validate this? Is it theoretical? How much does the attack cost? etc. etc.

I wouldn't start sending those revocation certificates just yet.

Re:Just wait... (Score:5, Funny)
by nomadic (nomadicwoEEErld@h ... minus threevowels) on Tuesday February 26, @12:44PM (#3071303)

Crypto experts? Don't you realize the average slashdot poster is an expert on all technical and mathematical subjects, no matter how esoteric? Come on, get with the program...

[Feb 9, 2002] SatireWire: Briefs Media Finds Typos in Microsoft Earnings Release

[Feb 7, 2002]  Unix Kamasutra instead of Unix  bible ?  

Every time I'm entering a bookstore I see just huge number of books named  "XXX Bible" (Unix Bible, Java Bible, MS Windows Bible, etc). I think that such names are not perfectly match to complexness and weirdness of their subjects. It might be better to replace this title with a general title  "XXX Kamasutra."

SatireWire Please Sponsor a Dot-Com Form

SatireWire VIRUS MAKING TO BE HATE CRIME

COMPUTER VIRUS MAKING TO BE PROSECUTED AS HATE CRIME FOR TARGETING STUPID PEOPLE

Systems Administrators Now On Front Lines of Bias Crime

Washington, D.C. (SatireWire.com) � With yet another email virus spreading across the globe, 41 U.S. states and six European countries today announced that the act of creating an attachment-based computer virus will now
be considered a hate crime because it intentionally targets stupid people.

"In a hate crime, the offender is motivated by the victim's personal characteristics, and in the case of email viruses, the maker is clearly singling out those who open email attachments when they've been told a
thousand times not to," said California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. "Like any other segment of the population, people of stupidity need protection from bias."

The decision, however, is already causing a firestorm of controversy. In the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union vehemently opposed the action, arguing it runs counter to the spirit of hate crime laws.

"Hate crime statutes are specifically designed to protect minority groups," said ACLU President Nadine Strossen. "I'm not sure the number of stupid computer users meets that criterion."

France, meanwhile, said it would not prosecute anyone willing to write a virus in French.

But in London, the British Civil Idiots Union applauded the move, arguing that virus-based hate crimes cause victims to suffer psychological harm. "Every time we pass on one of these emails, our self-esteem is shattered when we are forced to publicize our condition," said CIU President Michael Overly. "It's always a shock to my system every time I have to write, "Hey everybody, if you get an email attachment from me, don't open it! I just found out my computer got infected by a virus! Sorry!"

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Created May 16, 1996; Last modified: December 27, 2003