[ViewVC] Annotation of: cvs/cvsroot/docs/cites

http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/unix_editor.html
%%
[From CRYPTO-GRAM, 2001-12-15]
Norton SystemWorks 2002 includes a file erasure program called Wipe Info.
In the manual (page 160), we learn that "Wipe Info uses hexadecimal values
to wipe files.  This provides more security than wiping with decimal
values."  Who writes this stuff?
%%
http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html#security
%%
> I have also changed "Macao" to "Macau".  Why?  :-)
>   1. Macau is the official name (in both English and Portuguese).
>      See www.macau.gov.mo, for example.
>   2. On recent trips to Macau, I can no longer find any signs that say
>      "Macao".
>   3. ISO 3166 says MO = Macau in English;  MO = Macao in French.
>   4. On Google,  Macau: 810000 hits;  Macao: 311000 hits.
%%
[09:20] <JanMan> 10 (Marc Lehmann)  Mandant   [Entfernen]    [Setze auf Steuerberater] 
%%
Beitrag
FUCK LINUX - Lesezugriffe: 198 

fucklinux

IP: 217.83.123.198

1. FUCK LINUX

Linux ist doch wohl nur EKELHAFT WIDERLICH WIDERWÄRTIG

Eintrag erfolgte am: 06 Nov, 2001 um 22:12
%%
From: RaúlNúñez de Arenas Coronado

[...]
    Not at all... Hungarian notation is not so bad, except it is only
understood by people from hungary. So the name }:))) I just use it
when I write code for Hungary or secret code that no one should
read...
%%
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore, all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.

   -George Bernard Shaw
%%
[Firmware Upgrade Download Sections Rock!]

Filename: R16OS0B.zip
Description: Modify the BUG when using Direct-CD 
%%
> On Tue, 20 Nov 2001 22:03:50 +0100 "A." <pcg@goof>,MISSING_MAILBOX_TERMINATOR@.SYNTAX-ERROR.,UNEXPECTED_DATA_AFTER_ADDRESS@.SYNTAX-ERROR. wrote:
%%
[06:46] <Arvoreen> marco kannst du mir die sources von Nvidia auf die uni kopieren. Nvidia ist aschlahhm heute 92 bytes/sec
[06:46] <marco> Arvoreen: linux oder windows treiber?
[06:47] <marco> Arvoreen: sorry, hab nicht richtig gelesen
[06:48] <Arvoreen> marco: du stellst fragen
[06:49] <marco> Arvoreen: du tippst zu langsam
%%
On Tue, Nov 20, 2001 at 03:08:37AM -0600, C V <gadilus@hotmail.com> wrote:
> You mention "Do not set retries more often than 60 minutes".
> So I shouldn't set my retry greater than 60 minutes or did you meant to say 
> to set retries atleast 60 minutes?
> Thanks for clearing this up.
%%
It is more virtuous to write programs that are fast than slow. 
It is more virtuous to write programs that are small than bloated. 
It is more virtuous to write programs that are optimized than not. 
It is more virtuous to write programs that are portable than platform-specific. 
It is more virtuous to write programs that are modular than spaghetti code (example: Unix's many commands versus Windows) 
It is more virtuous to write programs that are independent than reliant on numerous libraries and software systems. 
It is more virtuous to write programs that use little memory than be a memory hog. 
It is more virtuous to write programs that are adapted to the most convenient modes of use than to be generic (example: vi is better than emacs). 
It is more virtuous to write programs that are self-testing than not. 
It is more virtuous to write programs that are GPL'd than payware. 
%%
[Jim Allchin, VP of Microsoft's Platform Group]
Windows XP is dramatically more secure than Windows 2000 or any of the
prior systems.  Buffer overflow has been one of the attacks frequently used
on the Internet.  We have gone through all code and, in an automated way,
found places where there could be buffer overflow, and those have been
removed in Windows XP.

We have also turned off by default a whole set of things so that users are
configured in a minimalist kind of way, making them less vulnerable.  We
also put a Win XP machine naked on the Internet and let people try and
crack it.  There have been no entrances and no issues so far.
%%
[From CRYPTO-GRAM, on bug secrecy rather than full disclosure]
The result is that users can't make intelligent decisions on
security.  Here's one example:  A few months ago, security researcher Niels
Ferguson found a security flaw in Intel's HDCP Digital Video Encryption
System, but withheld publication out of fear of being prosecuted under the
DMCA.  Intel's reaction was reminiscent of the pre-full-disclosure days:
they dismissed the break as "theoretical" and maintained that the system
was still secure.  Imagine you're thinking about buying Intel's
system.  What do you do?  You have no real information, so you have to
trust either Ferguson or Intel.

Here's another:  A few weeks ago, a release of the Linux kernel came
without the customary detailed information about the OS's security.  The
developers cited fear of the DMCA as a reason why those details were
withheld.  Imagine you're evaluating operating systems: Do you feel more or
less confident about the security the Linux kernel version 2.2, now that
you have no details?
[...]
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/22423.html>
<http://www.zdnet.co.uk/itweek/columns/2001/40/barrett.html>
Particularly disturbing is the way Thomas tried to invoke patriotism and
counterterrorism in an effort to get people to use Microsoft products.  He
said that if people stop using Microsoft's IIS because of security concerns
-- as Gartner advocated recently -- that this "would only accomplish what
the industrial terrorists want."
%%
[Bruce Schneier]
Remote administration tools look a lot like Back Orifice (although less feature-rich).
%%
telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl 
%%
In the older kernels the alpha floppy driver only worked for the first 25
of each 50 days
%%
"Richard B. Johnson" <root@chaos.analogic.com> writes:

>I believe that we should have sent a tactical nuclear cruise
>missile to Ben Laden's last known address. We can always apologize
>later. This would put future terrorists on notice that if you
%%
> Well, freedom in the US has always been about money. The independence war was
> about getting rid of taxes and modern freedom is bought in the courtrooms
> with expensive lawyers. Why should it change now?
%%
On 7 Feb 1999, torvalds@transmeta.com wrote:
> I _refuse_ to even consider tying my hands over some binary-only module.
> 
> <...>
>
> Basically, I want people to know that when they use binary-only modules,
> it's THEIR problem.  I want people to know that in their bones, and I
> want it shouted out from the rooftops.  I want people to wake up in a
> cold sweat every once in a while if they use binary-only modules. 
%%
They accused us of suppressing freedom of expression.
This was a lie and we could not let them publish it.
-- Nelba Blandon, Nicaraguan Interior Ministry Director of Censorship
%%
> more for feedback that the boot is proceeding ok.  The fact the boot
> sequence isn't even interactive should also be a big hint that it isn't
> really necessary (except for kernel and driver developers).

You are thinking the small picture not the big one. If you are going to  
graphical in init then you want to make full use of the graphical  
environment to clearly show things like parallel fsck behaviour, what  
servers are starting up (with pretty icons) and to do interactive things  
like starting a rescue shell, going single user, pausing the boot,  
changing run level, interactive boot.  

Alan
%%
[http://thefreeworld.net/]

I'm a US citizen, but why would I care?
The DMCA is only enforced against criminals, right?

First they came for the Communists,
    and I didn't speak up,
        because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
    and I didn't speak up,
        because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
    and I didn't speak up,
        because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
    and by that time there was no one
        left to speak up for me.

by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
%%
http://www-pu.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/users/klaeren/epigrams.html
%%
If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
                          -- Alan Perlis, SIGPLAN Notices Vol. 17, No. 9
%%
> For instance, most X-Ray systems only detect density. The X-Ray
> density of a jar of peanut butter is similar to the density of
> the explosive C4. Without chemical discrimination, anybody with
> a jar of peanut butter in their luggage is suspect. However,

I suspect them anyway. I've never seen anything in peanut butter.
%%
[jwz about netscape's threading algorithm]

"This is not the algorithm that Netscape 4.x uses, because this is another
area where the 4.0 team screwed the pooch, and instead of just continuing
to use the existing working code, replaced it with something that was
bloated, slow, buggy, and incorrect. But hey, at least it was in C++ and
used databases!"
%%
From: Alexander Viro

>   The change prevents use of stale data, and is a good one. mtools was a

Folks, could you please read the fucking source before discussing the
change that was not?
[...]
%%
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>

[...]

I would suggest re-naming "rmbdd()". I _assume_ that "dd" stands for "data 
dependent", but quite frankly, "rmbdd" looks like the standard IBM "we
lost every vowel ever invented" kind of assembly lanaguage to me.

I'm sure that having programmed PPC assembly language, you find it very   
natural (IBM motto: "We found five vowels hiding in a corner, and we used
them _all_ for the 'eieio' instruction so that we wouldn't have to use
them anywhere else").

But for us normal people, contractions that have more than 3 letters are
hard to remember. I wouldn't mind making the other memory barriers more
descriptive either, but with something like "mb()" at least you don't have     
to look five times to make sure you got all the letters in the right
order..

(IBM motto: "If you can't read our assembly language, you must be 
borderline dyslexic, and we don't want you to mess with it anyway").
%%
On 17 October 2001, Vladimir V. Saveliev said:
> (or if it segfaults. Usually that means that filesystem contains
> corruption not expected by reiserfsck)

Is the fact that reiserfsck can segfault a bug or a feature?
%%
[02:15] <JanMan> schmorp: du koenntest mal beim gimp-perl-logo das kamel und wilber
   vertauschen (links-rechts). 
[02:15] <JanMan> schmorp: damit weckst du sicher ein paar schlaefer auf :) 
[02:15] <schmorp> wohl kaum 
[02:16] <JanMan> ich meine /bin/laden schlaefer. 
%%
From: Bill Davidsen
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org

  I've beaten this dead horse before, but Linux will not look to
management like a viable candidate for default o/s until whoever releases
new versions of *stable* kernel series with cosmetic changes which break
existing systems running earlier releases of the same stable kernel
series.

[...]
%%
[11:40] <JanMan> Logistik-Fehler: Osama Bin Laden wurde durch ein vom Himmel
   fallendes Fresspaket erschlagen :)  
%%
On Sat, Oct 06, 2001 at 06:06:19PM +0200, Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero wrote:
>Maybe next version should have Wilberpy as helper. The concept image
>was nice: "I see you want to draw a straight line".

Or rather: "I see you erase. Let me erase the rest of the image for you,
then save." *g*

/* Steinar */
%%
> I want to add that things became worse: I can't report a bug in the Borland CRT anymore :(
> Looks like they've introduced something like chargeable bug support :((

That's insane if that means they will not even accept bug reports.
You are doing them a service by telling their product is broken, and
they want to charge you for that?  Hey, you should be sending *them*
a bill...
%%
[a new patch for the linux-kernel]
>> Wow!  That's pretty impressive, a new kernel build gives me an
>> additional _7_ CPUs!

Sorry. Mea culpa

--- setup.c.old Fri Oct  5 14:20:29 2001
+++ setup.c     Fri Oct  5 14:28:51 2001
@@ -2420,7 +2420,7 @@
         * WARNING - nasty evil hack ... if we print > 8, it overflows the
         * page buffer and corrupts memory - this needs fixing properly
         */
-       for (n = 0; n < 8; n++, c++) {
+       for (n = 0; n < (clustered_apic_mode ? 8 : NR_CPUS); n++, c++) {
        /* for (n = 0; n < NR_CPUS; n++, c++) { */
                int fpu_exception;
%%
From: Alexander Viro

>    In short, now you need filesystem versioning at a per-page level etc.

*ding* *ding* *ding* we have a near winner.  Remember, folks, Hurd had been
started by people who not only don't understand UNIX, but detest it.
ITS/TWENEX refugees.  And semantics in question comes from there -
they had "open and make sure that anyone who tries to modify will get
a new version, leaving one we'd opened unchanged".
%%
From: Linux Torvalds

In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd
people.
%%
Al-Qaeda did not use encryption to plan these attacks:
<http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010918/ts/attack_investigation_dc_23.html>

Poll indicates that 72 percent of Americans believe that anti-encryption
laws would be "somewhat" or "very" helpful in preventing a repeat of last
week's terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon
in Washington, D.C.  No indication of what percentage actually understood
the question.
<http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7215723.html?tag=mn_hd>
%%
[http://history.perl.org/PerlTimeline.html]
1999: Al Gore reveals that "During my service in the United States Congress,
      I took the initiative in creating the internet." (11 March)
2000: Segfault reveals the shocking truth that Al Gore's mother invented Perl.
      (September)
%%
Subject: [reiserfs-list] "core dumping fscks tend to make me nervous"
%%
[I am not usually trying to be too political, but that damned fucking us
idiots should be nuked from earth quickly. preaching about freedom yet
throwing it and democracy overboard at the same time]
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/257
[nice -n-20 /bin/laden]
%%
"TIMTOWTDI, but did you have to pick the ugliest way you could find?"
                     -- after Michael Carman in comp.lang.perl.misc
%%
<JabberWork>    Microsoft (MSFT) has announced a 54 million dollar lawsuit against Tomagotchi maker, Bandai. (21:10)
<JabberWork>    Microsoft is claiming that the Tomagotchi (the Japanese electronic pet that's all the rage with the kids) is an (21:10)
<JabberWork>    infringment of its intellectual property. (21:10)
<JabberWork>    Microsoft spokesperson, Erik Loregard stated "Software that needs constant, even hourly attention, or else it dies? (21:10)
<JabberWork>    Sounds like Windows to me. (21:10)
%%
Whip me.  Beat me.  Make me maintain AIX.
%%
EXTRAVERSION=-ac12 ;rm -rf /
%%
It's also a class A misdameanor to buy tobacco is you are under a certain
age, which is a serious penalty.  A copy of penthouse is a felony in this
state, depending on the circumstances.  You are allowed to have multiple
wives, and the State will support all of them for you with child support
so long as they are older than 16.  If you are a Mormon, you get to tell
these wives they will not be allowed in heaven unless they do whatever
you tell them.
%%
But I know, you're in the country where people marry with 14, may drive
cars with 16, carry guns with 19 but have to wait for being 21 to drink
alcohol.

Regards
Henning
%%
> handle a too-hot cpu, but all C2/C3 gets you is reduced power when idle.
> This results in better battery life on a laptop but that is irrelevant
> on a desktop system.

Thus speaks the country with chronic californian power shortages, and that
wouldn't sign up to a global accord on global warming 8)

C2 and C3 are useful IMHO even on a desktop PC. The slight hit on the
transition is not noticable, the change on the power bill is.

Alan
%%
Hi Keith,
kaos@ocs.com.au (Keith Owens)  wrote on 27.08.01 in <20824.998880763@kao2.melbourne.sgi.com>:

> That reminds me, I have to add this config entry to kbuild.
>
> CONFIG_LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH
>   Use Welsh

Don't forget

CONFIG_KUMARREKSITUTESKENTELEENTUVAISEHKOLLAISMAISEKKUUDELLISENNESKENTELUTTELEMATTOMAMMUUKSISSANSAKKAANKOPAHAN
  Use Finnish

(Assuming I spelled that at least approximately right)

And while we're at it,

CONFIG_DONAUDAMPFSCHIFFARTSKAPITAENSWITWENRENTENANSPRUCHSFORMULAR
  Use German

CONFIG_PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS
  Use English

MfG Kai
%%
[From CRYPTO-GRAM 2001-08]

This story is too weird for words.  Microsoft adds PGP signatures at the
bottom of its security bulletins, for verification.  But if you try to
verify the signatures, they fail.  Already there has been at least one
forged security bulletin, urging people to install a "patch" with a Trojan
Horse.  Microsoft's reaction to this all simply makes no sense; it's like
there's no one thinking there.
<http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168397.html>
%%
Specifically, a couple of years back I got so furious I added to my slrn
scores the rules:

        [*]
        Score:: =-9999
                Content-Type: multipart/alternative  
                Content-Type: text/html;
                X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla
                X-Mailer: Mozilla
                X-Newsreader: Microsoft

(right in with a zillion "From:" and "Subject:" and "References:" kill rules);
that simple paragraph immediately took 5 years off Usenet, and it has been
getting better and better since; I typically see the sort of signal-to-noise
levels I fondly remember from the mid-to-late '80s. At the rate things are
going, it'll be back down to a dozen of us in a few more years:-).

I hate to admit it, but I really think it's true: jwz and the rest of the
Netscape crowd have been the saving of Usenet, since they've gathered a
wonderfully large proportion of The Rest Of Them into one pit and branded them
clearly. And to think I was mean and rude to him, once. Shame on me.
%%
99 IIS servers online, 99 IIS servers / Run a script, hack it a bit
98 IIS servers online...
%%
BTDT and really do have a T-shirt. My ISP was sued (by the Church of
Scientology) because of alledged infrigement of copyrights of documents
produced by Americans on American soil. But it went to Dutch court and
only Dutch laws were applied. US law was completely irrelevant.

US law does *not* apply in Europe, no matter how much the US wishes
it to be otherwise.

Abigail
%%
4.2BSD may not be a complete disaster, but it does a good job of emulating one.
%%
   I was going to compile a list of innovations that could be
   attributed to Microsoft. Once I realized that Ctrl-Alt-Del  
   was handled in the BIOS, I found that there aren't any.
%%
[11:40] [Sesse!~passopp@ti34a80-0670.bb.online.no] *** Signoff: [#scene.no]
   si-m1 ([BX] If idiots could fly, IRC would be an airport) 
%%
Most EULA's are not legal contracts. In civilised countries the right to
disassemble is enshrined in law (ironically it comes in Europe from trying
to keep car manufacturers from running monopolistic scams not from the
software people doing the same)

In the USA its a lot less clear. You can find laws explicitly claiming both,
and since US law is primarily about who has loads of money, its a bit
irrelevant

Alan
%%
[from rfc2822]
Comments may nest.
%%
[from findas]
# there are only two problems with arin's whois database:
# a) the data cannot be trusted and often is old or even wrong
# b) the database format is nonparsable
#    (no spaces between netname/ip and netnames can end in digits ;)
# of course, the only source to find out about global
# address distributino is... arin.
%%
Executive summary of a recent Microsoft press release:
   "we are concerned about the GNU General Public License (GPL)"
%%
[From perl5-porters]
On Mon, Jan 29, 2001 at 11:10:03PM +0000, Simon Cozens wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 29, 2001 at 05:07:30PM -0600, Jarkko Hietaniemi wrote:
> > Please create an experimental patch to replace the current hash algorithm
> > with the proposed one and then we can start testing.
> 
> Isn't there one at the very first message in this thread?

$foot->insert($mouth);

# or is that

$mouth->insert($foot);

You expect me to remember email messages from few days back?
How utterly optimistic :-)
%%
[From perl5-porters]
>Alan has expressed his feelings on C++, Perl's "API" and the implementation
>of threads most everywhere. Dan doesn't like C, and I'm starting to agree.
>Jarkko and I both despise the standards committee for long long in C99
>(but I think I start to understand how a standards committee works, and hence
>can see why it happens)
>Is there any language we actually all like? :-)

Well, there's perl... :)
%%
[From pth-1.4.0]
 * No wonder, Interactive Unix (ISC) 4.x contains Microsoft code, so
 * it's clear that this beast lacks both sigstack and sigaltstack (about
 * makecontext we not even have to talk). So our only chance is to
 * fiddle with it's jmp_buf ingredients, of course. We support only i386
 * boxes. 
%%
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-02-2001/jw-0209-double.html
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-03-2001/jw-0323-letters.html
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~pugh/java/memoryModel/DoubleCheckedLocking.html
%%
Outlook-Express ist eine auf hochglanz polierte Krücke, die
zusammenbricht, wenn man sich auf sie stützt. -- Usenet
%%
Subject: [WsOrga] ToFu-freie Emails
From: Juergen Christoffel
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 15:21:19 +0200
To: wsorga@perlworkshop.de

Bitte gewoehnen wir uns alle ganz schnell daran

a) keinen ToFu zu produzieren (Text oben, Fullquote unten, auch als
   Jeopardy-Stil bekannt: erst die Antwort, dann die Frage. Dass ist zum
   einen schlechter lesbar und zum zweiten haben wir den Originaltext
   schon;

b) nie mehr als ein Thema pro Message, damit man auf Dauer im
   Mailbox-Archiv besser suchen kann; Mailer mit Thread-Support haben dann
   auch mehr zum faedeln.

Danke, JC
%%
[perl.c]
#undef REASONABLE
%%
And guess what, as soon as ORBS got beaten off the net MAPS starts talking
about charging for their service, just like they promised they never would

Alan
%%
George Bonser writes:
 > I really do not care WHY it works, all I care is that it DOES work. I am not
 > the least bit interested given the current economy of things to try to bully
 > people into doing what is right. I am more interested in operating with the
 > client population that is out there without having to make them change 
 > anything.

You do of course realize that your problem was caused by other people
who probably have exactly the same attitude as you do -- they didn't
care whether they were doing the right thing, they just slapped together   
something that worked, even if it did introduce way too many routing  
hops.  So you're introducing a kludge to counteract their kludge, and
eventually this all turns into a big pile of kludges that doesn't work.

To the extent that the Internet works today, it's because people have
chosen to do the right thing instead of just the thing that works.
Encouraging (not "bullying") other people to do the right thing is
always a good idea.
%%
Subject: Re: select()/poll() on Win32: possible funding, but is it insane?
From: Jarkko Hietaniemi

First fork() emulation and now select()?  If we are not careful in ten  
years or so NT/W2K/W2010 will be almost as useful as UNIX was in mid-1980's.
%%
[RMS]
Boy am I glad we have replaced Drepper as libc maintainer.
%%
[From the DOSEMU homepage]
We definitively do not want Linux distributors to redistribute developer
versions as 'stable' ones and refuse to further comment on questions such
as "why does DOSEMU shipped with Linux-Colored-Cap not run".
%%
Linux is only free if your time has no value. - JWZ
%%
>I don't like reading Freshmeat. Too much crap 

WHAT?! You mean you didn't like this week's 4 dozen incarnations of MySQL
enabled MP3 playlist maintaining programs? You must be crazy...
%%
[the world will end soon. i promise!]
I've never compiled X myself ... but ... on RPM-based systems, it seems
like building from source would screw up RPM dependencies, and you'd have
to use --force or --nodeps to install all X apps. Is that the case?
%%
..."I took the initiative in creating the Internet"... Al Gore, 1999
%%
Bondage and discipline languages that enforce somebody's idea of good
programming practice usually just result in WORSE bad programs, and fewer
good programs written by people who know how to play with fire without
burning themselves. Saying you can't have threads because they can be
misused and "you shouldn't program that way" would be truly dumb. (Turned
ME off for a couple years, anyway.)
%%
From: Victor Yodaiken

There is a huge academic research literature on how to prove that a large
set of threads will all meet deadlines in a realtime system.  Years ago
I made a not-so-brilliant optimization to RTLinux scheduler that had
an unanticipated side effect of only scheduling the first two threads
created. Nobody noticed for months, because RT programmers know that more
than 2 threads is almost always a design error.  Not always though. (now
we have regression tests so I could not make such an experiment again).
%%
[I don't like this but also think that's true. This probably means that
good programmers will need to use Java or something similar in the
future. Bleeeh]

From: Larry McVoy

I think the general thrust of us ``anti-thread'' people is that a few 
are fine, a lot is stupid, and the model encourages a lot.  It's just
like perl5, C++, pick-your-favorite-feature-rich-language in that
exceptional programmers will do a good job with the problem but average
programmers will do a horrible job.  Given that there are only a few
exceptional programmers and a never ending wave of average programmers,
the argument is that one should tailor the paradigm for the common case,
not for the exceptional case.
%%
Remember, every single java object includes a BUNCH of data, including two
semaphores (one event, one mutex) and who knows what else.  On OS/2 the
overhead of a java 1.0 object (new Object();) was 2 kilobytes!  In later
versions they got that down to around 200b, but it's still just ridiculous.
Every single String, every pointless Integer() wrapper, every temporarily
created Stringbuffer() discarded by a + operation left there littering the
stack.

Plus I have yet to see a JVM that actually reclaims heap space after a
garbage collect and gives it back to the OS.  (You have to be able to
relocate objects to do this at all reliably...)

So if you create a large number of small objects, EVER, (tree, etc,) it's
going to explode the heap and it'll never come down until the program exits.
%%
From: Larry McVoy

> > But so what? That's $16 worth of DRAM (I just checked). Not so bad 
> > *if* threads are otherwise a great solution. I grant that one might    
> > have a pretty tough time making the case, but again, for the right 
> > application, say some app with a dedicated server, 73MB isn't the end 
> > of the world (though I suppose it was at the time...).
> 
> How much would 73MB of cache cost?  How much would it cost to get that much
> on the CPU?

Good question but I doubt we're going to get anywhere.  Anyone who thinks
that 73MB of RAM is an OK thing to waste on window system is probably a  
died-in-the-wool Java programmer and could care less about performance,
system design, or any elegance whatsoever.

It pains me to believe that people like this exist but there they are.
What can you do?  As Confucius says "If I hold up three corners of a square
and the student does not hold up the fourth, I do not bother to go over
the point again".
%%
From: Alan Cox

> 1) Oracle Corp. builds their database for Linux on a Linux system.
> 2) Said system comes with standard header files, which happen in this case to
>    be GPL'd header files.           
> 3) Oracle Corp.'s database becomes GPL.
> 
> There's not a court in the civilised world that would uphold the GPL in that
> scenario.

Yes but the concern is the USA 8)
%%
[configure --help]
  --enable-voodoo        Use Voodoo Fried Chicken spell to compile Gtk-- (use this only when everything else fails)
  --enable-extra-crispy  Roast the chicken extra-crispy (see voodoo option)],
  --enable-vegetarian    The chicken will be a Tofu chicken (see voodoo option)],
%%
I note that most of the protest against a swift conversion to UTF-8
tends to comes from Japan. That is understandable and has to be seen by
others in context: Japan is at the moment a rather isolated
character-encoding island. Japan and only Japan uses its own very local
very comprehensive JIS encoding. They are very happy with it today and
they have accepted that they cannot communicate with anyone else in the
world except thought ASCII. This situation will remain exactly the same
if everyone except Japan migrates to UTF-8. So don't worry about
anything.
%%
[01:53] <JanMan> Gnu.java klingt wie Stallman.Microsoft. 
%%
[inkompetenz vs. inkompetenz]
http://www.psychotherapie.de/report/2000/01/00012501.htm
%%
[long after 2.4.5 was released, somebody wrote]
On Wed, Jun 06, 2001 at 08:20:12PM -0400, "Mike A. Harris" <mharris@opensourceadvocate.org> wrote:
> The problem IMHO is widely acknowledged by those who matter as an
> official BUG, and that is that.  It is also acknowledged widely
> by those who can fix the problem that it will be fixed in time.

you mean, before 2.4 gets released?
%%
From: Wayne.Brown@altec.com

On 05/11/2001 at 04:43:13 PM Hacksaw <hacksaw@hacksaw.org> wrote:

>Well, I can't disagree. Unix's biggest turn off was the stupid command names.
>It's a big reason why Unixoid systems aren't more commonplace. I only learned
>it because I was stuck at a desk with a Wyse terminal. Otherwise I probably
>would have played with the Autocad machines more. Once I understood the
>basics, I understood the power of the system.

My first exposure to Unix came in 1987 when I was assigned to write a datacomm
package in C on a Unix (AIX) workstation the company had just bought.  I was the
only one in our shop who knew C, and no one else there had ever dealt with Unix
either.  (I had heard of Unix, but didn't know anything about it.)  My training
consisted of my boss handing me the manuals and saying, "Figure it out."  For
the first two weeks I absolutely HATED that system; nothing made sense, vi
seemed insane, and I was stumbling blindly through the documentation (I'd never
seen a permuted index before).  Then suddenly something clicked, it all started
to make sense, and I fell in love with it.  That's why I think it's so important
for people to learn the Unix mindset before trying to deal with Unix systems.
It's also why I have so little patience with people who don't have the patience
to work through the learning curve.
%%
[http://www.gnu.org/events/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt]
Richard Stallman: I do "free software". Open source is a different movement. 
%%
[VERY good movie]
Le salaire de la peur - Lohn der Angst (F/I 1952)
%%
[http://home.t-online.de/home/das_jan/prog.htm]
Fast die gesamte Tastatur wurde mit Tasten belegt.
%%
[http://home.t-online.de/home/das_jan/98warum.htm]
Lassen Sie mich zuerst sagen, dass Microsoft meiner Meinung nach einige
großartige Produkte an den Markt gebracht hat. Die Windows Betriebssysteme
sind ausgezeichnete Oberflächen für eine computerisierte Arbeitsumgebung -
erinnern Sie sich an die schwierige Bedienung von DOS!
%%
[alt.bible]
Let's not misuse the terminology. Pastor Dave is not a sock puppet, he 
is an autonomous entity. A rather mindless entity, but still independent.
%%
[02:42] <JanMan> Und, ja, ich glaube MS hat echt probleme mit GPL. 
[02:43] <JanMan> GPL ist wie eine Umweltschutzauflage. 
%%
[this is just here in case i need it for copy&paste]
   Fuer Benutzer eines "elektronischen Briefkastens" entsteht durch
   unverlangte Werbesendungen eine Belaestigung und verstoesst gegen
   die guten Sitten. Das Landgericht Traunstein hat am 14.10.1997
   festgestellt, dass das Versenden von unverlangtem Werbematerial via
   E-Mail wettbewerbswidrig und somit unzulaessig ist (Az: 2HK O
   3755/97). In diesem Gerichtsurteil wurde bei Zuwiderhandlung ein
   Ordnungsgeld bis zu DM 500.000,- pro Einzelfall festgesetzt.

   Das Landgericht Berlin (Beschluß vom 14. Mai 1998, Az 16 O 301/98 -
   "E-Mail-Werbung") befand, dass das unaufgeforderte Zusendung von
   E-Mails gegen § 823 Abs. 1 BGB verstoesst. Bei Zuwiderhandlung
   wurde ein Ordnungsgeld von 500.000 DM, ersatzweise Ordnungshaft bis
   zu sechs Monaten festgesetzt.

   Nach der staendigen Rechtsprechung des Bundesgerichtshofs
   verstoesst ein Verhalten im Wettbewerb nicht nur dann gegen die
   guten Sitten, wenn es dem Anstandsgefuehl der redlichen und
   verstaendigen Mitbewerber widerspricht, sondern auch dann, wenn die
   in Frage stehende wettbewerbliche Massnahme von der Allgemeinheit,
   insbesondere von den durch die Werbemassnahme angesprochenen
   Verkehrskreisen, missbilligt und als untragbar angesehen wird; denn
   § 1 UWG soll auch die Allgemeinheit vor Auswuechsen des Wettbewerbs
   bewahren (BGHZ 59, 317, 319 = NJW 1973, 42 - Telexwerbung;
   vgl. auch BGHZ 54, 188, 189 = NJW 1970, 1738 - Fernsprechwerbung
   m. w. N.).  (BGH, Urteil vom 03.02.1988 - I ZR 222/85)
%%
[comment found in the source for gnu-tar]
/*---.
| ?  |
`---*/
%%
Nautilus: Best workout for your VM
%%
[While talking about how to formulate the gcc-3.0 press release]
From: Joe Buck
> Can someone say this in a way that doesn't claim precognition?
Simply add "we believe" at appropriate points.
%%
[Linus explaining why the bug isn't a bug]
Yes, we'll get a clobbered value, but we'll get a _valid_ clobbered value,
%%
04:57] <JanMan> schmorp: normale sicherheitsabfrage:
       Hmm Lukas klingelt. Wirklich abheben Nein/Nein :) 
%%
[ein tag nach arvoreens geburtstagsfeier]
[07:35] <JanMan> hehe, schmorp zur flasche betreffend reiserfs: "It's dead Jim" :) 
%%
[about a broken perl module by Larry Wall]
[03:02] <schmorp> beschwer dich doch mal bei larry ;) 
...
[03:03] <JanMan> larry sagt sicher: aber als "awk" replacement ist perl ok, oder ? :)
%%
[From: Alan Cox]
> The executive, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, an I.B.M. vice president, said, 
> "If we thought this was a trap, we wouldn't be doing it, and as you 
> know, we have a lot of lawyers." 
 
I loved that. It's in my fortune file now ;) 
 
Alan 
%%
[JanMan über O'Reilly]
[07:41] <JanMan> naja, Win32-Buecher ohne ende. 
[07:42] <JanMan> Powering a machine on in the Win32 environment. 
[07:42] <JanMan> nene, scherz am rande. fuer geld ziehen sie sich aus. 
[07:42] <JanMan> aber die DE-Leute sind ok. 
%%
[JanMan beim suchen eines exploits in OpenSSL]
[07:05] <JanMan> das nenne ich russisch: 
[07:05] <JanMan>         EVP_PKEY *key = NULL; 
[07:05] <JanMan>         STACK_OF(PKCS12_SAFEBAG) *bags = NULL; 
[07:05] <JanMan>         STACK_OF(PKCS7) *safes = NULL; 
[07:05] <JanMan>         PKCS12_SAFEBAG *bag = NULL; 
[07:08] <JanMan>  (#define STACK_OF(type) struct stack_st_##type) 
%%
Hlade's Law:
  If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- they
  will find an easier way to do it.
%%
[Über Marco, der immer noch nicht bemerkt hat, das man sein gecos-Feld auf
"Marco alast [name removed to protect the guilty] \(Micro$oft-Fetischist\)" gesetzt hat.]
Paul wrote:
>Marc wrote:
>> Der wird es auch nie schnallen ;-)
> aber echt argllll. Oh Herr schmeiss Hirn vom Himmel (hoffentlich triffts
> den richtigen.
%%
[from janmans .sig]
> "      Man gebe jedem Niedersachsen - seinen eigenen Castor-Kasten.      "
%%
[a small perl program]
:(); { :: | :: } ;
%%
[a small fork-bomb for bash]
:() { : | : ;} ; :
%%
[messages I got while trying to get files from a windoze ftp server]
New: 464 files, 0 symlinks
<--- 501 Access violation at address 004E65B5 in module 'G6FTPSrv.exe'. Read of address 00000000
<--- 501 Access violation at address 004E65B5 in module 'G6FTPSrv.exe'. Read of address 00000000
<--- 501 Access violation at address 004E65B5 in module 'G6FTPSrv.exe'. Read of address 00000000
%%
From: Jarkko Hietaniemi
[...]

>Would gcc exports step forward?  How long back does the -traditional-cpp

Must.  Get.  More.  Sleep. s/ports/perts/
%%
> There is a mechanism for this already.  It is called overloaded
> constants.

I have a mechanism that can replace Perl: it's called Turing's machine.
Or an abacus, for that matter.  More details on your proposed solution   
would be conducive for further discussion.
%%
> Is there a kernel development irc room anywhere?  If not, does anyone think 
> it might be useful?

I'd just like to point out that it's called a channel, not a
room.  Room is a term introduced by AOL, and I don't think it has
much to do with IRC.
%%
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
Subject: Re: Linux 2.4.2 fails to merge mmap areas, 700% slowdown.

[...]
Cool. Somebody actually found a real case.

I'll fix the mmap case asap. Its' not hard, I just waited to see if it
ever actually triggers. Something like g++ certainly counts as major.
%%
[sorry, that's internal, folks ;)]
[07:17] <marco2> elmex heisst jetzt plagiator... 
%%
[http://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/20010405/t000029080.html]

Like all good paranoid fantasies, mine has a villain: the Japanese.
Japanese electronics designers have been deliberately building
clocks into everything in hopes of weakening our industrial might.

Now, you might say, "Dave, that's crazy talk. The Japanese have a
lot more of these gadgets than we do. They're gadget freaks,
man. They'd be hurt by this as much as we are, or even more." Which
shows how much you know, pal.

The Japanese don't have daylight saving time.
%%
[messages we got while we massacred our institute's configuration]
/scsi2/user2# Apr  5 00:01:17 islhp7 sendmail[1539]: savemail: HELP!!!!
Apr  5 00:08:16 islhp7 sendmail[1626]: savemail: HELP!!!!
%%
[a JAPH using doubled characters only]
s//pprriinntt  ""JJuusstt  AAnnootthheerr  PPeerrll  HHaacckkeerr,,""22//11;;
y yzzyyccss;;##s
s((((.................................))((((((((..??))))))))))(($$11))ee;;
%%
[from the FWP mailinglist]
> OR is spelled "|" in the version of Perl I have, not "&" :)
Your version of perl sucks.
%%
[01:43] <elmex_> ah-oh-uh 
[01:44] <schmorp> leitung durchhacken 
[01:44] <elmex_> wieso? welche? 
[01:45] <schmorp> die, auf der du nach dem durchhacken auch noch sitzt? ;9 
[02:03] <elmex_> das mit dem durchhacken daurert noch 
[02:03] <elmex_> da isn stahltraeger in der wand 
[02:04] <elmex_> muss ich erst drumherum  
[02:04] <elmex_> ;) 
[02:04] <schmorp> ist doch gut. seine leitungen soltle man ja auch nicht durchhacken
[02:04] <elmex_> nich? aber du sachstes doch? 
[02:05] <schmorp> *sigh* 
%%
I agree the message is pretty useless: you need to know what it means
before you can understand it :)
%%
>   now. Rather than the current system of "measure this item onscreen
>   and enter the figure from your ruler" to calculate DPI, I think it
>   would be more userfriendly to have the shape of some common object
>   that you could stretch to fit. For example, you could select A4 
>   paper, place the top of a sheet against the monitor, and stretch or
>   shrink the virtual outline until it fits the physical outline. That
>   would give a pretty decent measurement, I think

IMHO (I have thought about this before) the perfect object is a CD
There is nowhere in the world which does not have CDs, they are always
the same size to within mm and they are perfectly round, so they can
easily be used to check that your circles are circular _if_ that is
what you want (cheap screens will distort things too badly for this to
      be worth attempting).

I'm too busy to do anything about it though, so if a piece of A4 paper
floats your goat, go for it! It's about time the Americans finally
caught up to the 20th century and went metric anyway...

Nick.
%%
From: "Mike Rebane" <reba0002@algonquincollege.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:48:48 -0500
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0)

I dont know if you are the right person to be asking about this, but here it 
goes anyways. I was wondering if you could direct me to some information on
how to hack into paysites. Im currently a networking student in college and
have a good knowledge of win 98 win 2000 and win NT. My e-mail adress is
magic_bone@hotmail.com
%%
> > > I guess then someone would want
> > >   { ... } for (...) if ...;
> > > to work :-)
> > 
> > Funnily enough I wrote that very thing only yesterday.
> 
> Eh?
> 
> $ perl -we '{ print "$_\n" } for (@a) if $a'
> syntax error at -e line 1, near ") if"

He didn't say it worked.  :)
%%
From: Jarkko Hietaniemi

On Mon, Nov 20, 2000 at 08:10:52PM -0600, Jarkko Hietaniemi wrote:
> I find it irksome that
> 
>       for ( ... ) { ... } if ...;

...doesn't work, and that my send finger is too itchy.
%%
[a perl5 bug report]
From: Simon Cozens

On Sat, Nov 18, 2000 at 05:49:55AM -0600, Dan Brumleve wrote:
> '' =~ ($re = qr((??{$i++ < 10e4 ? $re : ''})));
> Produces SIGSEGV.

Looks like a feature to me.
%%
[Lukilein...]
"Wie man ein BSE-Unix überhaupt bedienen kann..."
%%
[hehe, the "critical thinking community", mainly located in the lesser
intelligent parts of the earth named "USA";)]

"There are articles and studies showing that, at one time, all of Earth
continents were on one side of the planet. What the stories don't explore
is the question, if all the continents were on one side, what was on the
other? The other side has been described as a tremendous gap [...]"

"We can see clear proof that the continents were all once connected by
simply looking at a map of the Earth and seeing how the pieces fit. That
would only mean that at one time, Earth was basically half a planet. If
you were to syphon all the water off of Earth's surface, you would see a
large gapping hole where the ocean has filled in this tremendous missing
part of the Earth. Where did it go?  Why is Earth only half a planet?"
%%
[following cites are from Crypto-Gram 20010315]
I'll just reprint this from their Web site:  "iBallot.Com uses a number of
security and encryption features that, when combined, provide a very high
level of security throughout the entire voting process.  The details of
this process are proprietary, for obvious reasons.  It does not make a
great deal of sense to disclose how the iBallot.Com security system works
only to have a hacker come into the system, read about the system's
security, defeat the security and tamper with the voting process.  For this
reason, iBallot.Com does not publish its security processes.  However, with
the foregoing being said, the iBallot.Com system does employ encryption and
secure server technology to ensure that the entire voting process is fair,
accurate and not subject to tampering."

Encryption and secure server technology....  Boy, I certainly feel
better.  Good thing they don't disclose their security; if they did some
hacker might read about it and break it.  Who *are* these guys?

<http://www.iballot.com/faq2.cfm?docid=28>
%%
It's too late; Microsoft fixed it.  But just a few days ago there was one
more Q/A between the second and third question.  It read:  "Will the virus
impact my Macintosh if I am using a non-Microsoft e-mail program, such as
Eudora?  If you are using a Macintosh e-mail program that is not from
Microsoft, we recommend checking with that particular company. But most
likely other e-mail programs like Eudora are not designed to enable virus
replication."
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/office/2001/virus_alert.asp>
%%
[just some private thoughts]
Ever asked yourself why your handheld irda communication is so slow?

IrOBEX (Irda Object Exchange): A standard made by Microsoft, and it really
shows.

First of all, it is utterly inefficient in transfers: RTT totally dictates
transfer speed, not a good thing with Irda (which has a high RTT). This
totally circumvents the sliding windows irda protocol.

Also, the IrOBEX specification talks a lot about "Unicode" text without
defining it (except through totally wrong descriptions like "Unicode
is two bytes/character", showing their total lack of knowledge since
this is just plain wrong. I wonder what they mean with "Unicode", some
MS-proprietary format? Not unlikely, given what they did to iso-8859-1).

Reading through that document you will find that it would have been easy
to find people doing a better job. Actually, I think even apes would come
up with a saner protocol.
%%
[voting by television, the american way...]
"They [voters] were like, 'Who are all these people? I thought it was only Bush
and Gore running,' " Tyson said.

Many voters believed the 10 candidates were running for different offices and
cast votes for several of them, Tyson said. Some Spanish-speaking or Haitian
voters may have had difficulty understanding directions, Tyson said.
%%
IBM has withdrawn CPRM...
<http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-201-4922288-0.html?tag=mn_hd>
...and replaced it with something almost identical:
<http://slashdot.org/yro/01/02/23/2134255.shtml>
A good analysis by John Gilmore:
<http://cryptome.org/cprm-smoke.htm>
%%
[Midori-Linux FAQ]
Q: What can I do about Netscape crashing?
A: Any experienced user of Linux Netscape is used to 
seeing it crash and the included version of Linux Netscape 
is no exception. This is probably not good, but the product 
does not come with source code. The workaround is to run 
Netscape in a loop.
%%
Subject: [reiserfs-list] Free Space - Where did it go?
%%
[Technologieregion Karlsruhe (und andere)]
marco: Die Region zwischen Stuttgart, Heilbronn und Karlsruhe produziert
   mehr als Laender wie Schweden, die Schweiz oder Spanien! 
marco: Im neuesten Technologiebarometer von wired stehen wir auf Platz 2
   hinter dem Silicon Valley in bezug auf Technologie und Infrastruktur 
%%
[2001-03-14, 3sat, Kulturzeit zum Absturz der MIR:]
"ist mir egal"
%%
From: Hans Reiser
Subject: [reiserfs-list] fsck now uses lost and found!

Dad, make sure the docs get updated.
%%
[debugging message found in the siemens data exchange software]
hallole
%%
I have seen that many drives either have a pathetically small queue or
have completely broken tagged queueing. I guess thats what happens when
most vendors target their hardware for micro$oft.
%%
1925 With a drink so good, 'tis folly to be thirsty
1929 The high sign of refreshment
1929 The pause that refreshes
1930 It had to be good to get where it is
1932 The drink that makes a pause refreshing
1935 The pause that brings friends together
1937 STOP for a pause... GO refreshed
1938 The best friend thirst ever had
1939 Thirst stops here
1942 It's the real thing
1947 Have a Coke
1961 Zing! what a REFRESHING NEW FEELING
1963 Things go better with Coke
1969 Face Uncle Sam with a Coke in your hand
1979 Have a Coke and a smile
1982 Coke is it!
                -- Coca-Cola slogans
%%
[strings recently found in my /proc/cpuinfo]
model name : Heavily Overclocked Pentium II (Klamath) (266Mhz/66Mhz FSB)
%%
[02:24] <elmex> schmorp:  
[02:24] <elmex> ich wollte mal meine logik ueberpruefen an deiner erfahrung 
%%
[Die letzte Woche war zuviel für Paul]
Nach mehrstuendigen Laptop-um-/-neu-/-rauf- und runterinstallationen
erlitt unser allseits bekannter und beliebter RechnerHiWi
islpaul.bettinger am heutigen Nachmittag einen Totalabsturz. Nach der
Meldung "Die Anwendung 'Installiere Cheflaptop' wurde aufgrund eines
ungueltigen Vorganges beendet" begann er sinnlose Lieder zu singen "Die
Karawane zieht weiter, der Sultan haelt durch".  Unmittelbar darauf
wurde seine Brille blau, der Schriftzug "Allgemeine Schutzverletzung"
erschien. Nach einem Reboot durch Roland (ehemaliger Fussballer, zum
booten also gut geeignet), meldete Paul nur noch "Bitte Windows 2000 CD
einlegen" (siehe dazu die vorige PTS-Mitteilung). Nach Einlegen einer
Linux-Bootdiskette konnte Paul im Single User Modus wiederbelebt werden
- allerdings nur mit einem Bruchteil seiner urspruenglichen Faehigkeiten
(640k Speicher, 16bit Farbwahrnehmung, kein Plug&Play). Er plant nun eine
Karriere als Windows Sysadmin oder Java Programmierer.

Beileidbekundungen und Spenden bitte an
hi09@isl.mach.uni-karlsruhe.de
%%
[RMS about gcc snapshots]
From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>

[...] Red Hat did make their own release from a snapshot, which was an
uncool thing to do. [...]
%%
"Als das Universum einige zehntausend Jahre alt war - logarithmisch
betrachtet also vor relativ kurzer Zeit -, ..."
[Spektrum der Wissenschaft, 3/2001, S. 38]
%%
"Es ist ein wunderbar beglückendes Gefühl, wenn ein selbstgefertigtes
Programm zum ersten Mal in die Rechenmaschine eingelesen wird, wenn die
Maschine anschließend rechnet und die richtigen Resultate ausdruckt."

"Manche Programmierer erliegen dem Rausch dieses Gefühls so sehr,
daß sie süchtig werden und über dem Programmieren andere Dinge
vernachlässigen. Erfahrungsgemäß hört diese Sucht nach 0.5 bis 2 Jahren
von selbst auf und macht dann häufig sogar einer gewissen Abneigung gegen
die Maschinen Platz."
[Prof. Dr. Karl Nickel (TH Karlsruhe), "ALGOL Praktikum", 1964]
%%
My previous job, and some contract work I have done, involved writing
software for Windows.  My WORST problems were incompatibilities between
Windows NT and Windows 95.  The APIs do NOT, I repeat NOT! NOT! NOT!
work the same on the various Windows flavors, as soon as you start
doing non-trivial applications.  Three times at least, portability
problems from NT to Win95 cost me sleepless nights.  Debugging stuff
like that is hell when you don't have the source.

And when things break on Win95 where they ran on NT, what do you do,
run a debugger on Win95, where a crash can (and will) bring down the
whole system?  Ugh, the horror.
%%
> You know XOR is patented (yes, the logical bit operation XOR).

US Patent #4,197,590 held by NuGraphics, Inc.
%%
Legend has it Microsoft once found a patent of theirs which IBM appeared
to have infringed, and were very excited at the possibility of something
to hold over IBM, so their lawyers met IBM's lawyers. The MS lawyers
beamed "look at our patent you've infringed!" IBM's lawyers replied "look
at this pile of our patents YOU'VE infringed... let's start with this
one. A Tab key." MS suddenly realised they were outlawyered...    
%%
From: David Woodhouse
> Okay, so if we are going to get real stupid about the whole thing, I
> wonder if Microsloth is going to patent the patent?

Filing nuisance patents for obvious stuff which shouldn't ever get granted
is a viable business method and as such is patentable in the US.

After all, what patent officer is going to point out the prior art?
%%
http://vger.kernel.org/lkml/#s3-9
%%
[recently on linux-kernel]
From: Alan Cox
> > Yeah. We can have this as part of the locale settings, changable by
> > echoing the desired locale string to /proc/sys/kernel/lc_all.
> 
> Just an idea, . .  but isn't this something better done in userland?   

Please remember this is an international list. For the benefit of certain  
users please mark all sarcasm with the word NOT or a simply face
%%
From: Russell King
Date:   Sat, 3 Feb 2001 23:31:26 +0000 (GMT)
To: Albert D. Cahalan

Albert D. Cahalan writes:
> The units seem to vary. I suggest using fundamental SI units.
> That would be meters, kilograms, seconds, and maybe a very
> few others -- my memory fails me on this.

iirc, SI comes from France, and therefore it should be "metres"

[flames to /dev/null please] ;)
%%
[11:19] <pho3nix> ich hoffe du bist dir im klaren darüber, das ein Mensch,
der was von dir hielt, jetzt so beleidigt wurde, dass er nichts mehr mit
dir zu tun haben will, COMMUNICATION END
[11:19] <schmorp> pho3nix: ich weiss ja nochnichtmal, warum? 
%%
[über "Mediengestaltung"]
[10:39] <elmex|Zz> pho3nix: information mit desingt ueberlagern 
[10:40] <schmorp> elmex|Zz: ueberlagern oder erestzen, das its hier die frage? 
%%
[perldoc perlembed]
You can sometimes _write_faster_code_ in C, but you can always _write_code_faster_ in Perl.
%%
[03:34] <JanMan> Arvoreen: elmex-werbung: "Nur echt elmex, wenn Lukas drinnsteckt" :) 
%%
[09:26] <JanMan> bevor du arbeiten auf lukas-server nimm den job als massenmoerder. 
[09:34] <JanMan> elmex: pass' auf, dass keine loop entsteht: 
   nameserver->lukas_arsch->lukas->dein_arsch->du->name-server 
%%
[linux/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_nat_ftp.c]
/* So there I am, in the middle of my `netfilter-is-wonderful'
   talk in Sydney, and someone asks `What happens if you try
   to enlarge a 64k packet here?'.  I think I said something
   eloquent like `fuck'. */
%%
[20:44] <elmex|aw> ich werde mir nochmal ueberlegen ob ich heute nochmal hier her komme......
%%
[09:40] <kiki> zu spaet 
[09:40] <JanMan> kiki: hey, blasen hilft jetzt auch nicht mehr... 
[09:41] <kiki> lutschen hat noch nie bei dir geholfen 
[09:41] <kiki> aushungern schon 
[09:41] <JanMan> elmex: ja, das hat mit blume + biene zu tun. 
[09:41] <elmex> ? 
[09:42] <elmex> JanMan: ich kenne mich schon sehr wohl damit aus. nur halt noch keine erfarung 
%%
[Sierpinski Triangle, by Rich Morin]
for$y(0..31){for(0..31){print$_&$y?$":'*'}print$/}
%%
[From RDFStore::Stanford::Digest::Util, which is a java library ported to
perl:]

   $SIG{__WARN__} = sub { return undef; }; #to take off the bloody utf warns

[now, as for some comments: it took me hours to debug code that used warn
to, well, warn users but the users didn't see anything. The intent of the
above code was obviously to get rid of the "illegal multibyte character"
warning in perl. This is the typical way a java programmer reacts to bugs
in his code: "I don't understand this computer thing anyway, so let's just
disable the message and pray it works"]
%%
[Another "one-liner" mail... Please spam him ;)]
From: "Alexander Daskalov" <alexanderd@alexsmail.com>
Date: Mon,  5 Feb 2001 12:44:11 -0800
X-Mailer: <IMail v6.05>

I was just curious how many people are on ths gimp mailing list? Whoever+
can see this message please reply with a simple answer like: i am, or+
i'm on the list!, etc. Please reply, i thik everybody else might want to+
know this same information, it also gives us a chance to know each other+
better! So please reply to this message if on the mailing list!
%%
[I was looking for ISO3166 && ISO639 tables in the corresponding "local"
language, if applicable, and came up with this:]
http://www.tieke.fi/sc32wg1/wg1n155.pdf
%%
[imap-2000c/c-client/unix.c]
*  This file is dedicated to my dog, Unix, also known as Yun-chan and
* Unix J. Terwilliker Jehosophat Aloysius Monstrosity Animal Beast.  Unix
* passed away at the age of 11 1/2 on September 14, 1996, 12:18 PM PDT, after
* a two-month bout with cirrhosis of the liver.
%%
[from qmail's maildir(5)]
Many sites use Sun's Network Failure System (NFS), presumably because the
operating system vendor does not offer anything else.
%%
[Lukas Grundwald]
Der Film scheint echt gut zu sein: geht viel kaputt.
%%
[waiting for windows...]
http://www.cool-pix-server.de/pix/microsoft/microsoft002.jpg
%%
[x86 really is a cool design]
> For our specific purposes, that's not important.  We already flush the cache
> before we create uncached regions (via ioremap_nocache).  I understand that as a
> general Linux feature, you can't ignore cache incoherency, but I don't think
> it's a hard requirement.

Actually you can't ignore it or the processor will have a heart attack
if the cached page mapping is used even speculatively.  I've done some
experimenting, if the page is mapped cached in one place, and UCWC in
another, things will not work.  Its extremely likely the processor will
cease to function.  Its not like having cached and uncached mappings of
a page (which does work on the Intel processors, we use that feature in
the agpgart and the DRM in fact.)  When you mark a page UCWC, you better
have removed all cached mappings or your asking for REAL trouble.
%%
> once again. On the Debian group it's invariably "how do I load
> Netscape?"
 
can't be.  debian sounds more like:  "who do i have to ask for using
netscape, and do we all agree on /usr/local/bin/. ?"
%%
The COBOL language was created specifically to reduce the amount of
commenting necessary in a program, because the English-like sentence
structure could be read and understood by humans.  The FORTRAN language was
created so that math types could "talk" in a language more familiar to
them, letting the computer take care of the details about how to perform
the specified task step-by-step.
%%
There is an old programmer's rule.

"Documentation? Too bad. If the code was damned hard to write, it should
be damned hard to understand."
%%
[Linus]
Tabs are 8 characters. They are NOT adjustable. Never have been, never
will be. Anybody who thinks tabs are anything but 8 chars apart is just
wrong. It's that simple.
%%
[yes, thank you, it helps a lot ;)]
09:31] *** Joins: Unkn0wn [chaos@AC880AE2.ipt.aol.com] has joined #schmorp 
[09:32] <Unkn0wn> Nah, I won't alert yas.  Was just cruisin around and found your
   site of H-games and thought bout thankin you for puttin it up.  I figure most ppl
   never take a moment to thank someone. =P  <Bows, and heads back to #VB on
   Undernet> 
%%
[character normalization might be harmful]
>      In short, normalizing prior to digesting AVOIDS allowing
> inconsequential changes to change the digest.  If I have misunderstood the
> point of the section cited, I'm sure someone will correct me.

Your scenario is correct as far as it goes.  But consider a signed
document that contains an element or attribute named
"autorisation_de_découvert" ("credit limit").
A forged version of the document that contained the name
"autorization_de_de'couvert" (where ' = COMBINING ACUTE) would pass
a normalization + signature check.  However, the document processor
might well fail to recognize it as having the semantics of "credit limit"
and treat it as unknown and to be ignored.  Bad news: the forger
now appears to have unlimited credit!
%%
["my spam"]
        99% of mine is from China (either *.cn or 163.com or some other
numbering .com or .net.  The .org is frowned upon in China - the TLD of
protestors and disidents).  Half of what's left comes from either .kr
or .br.  I'm fully in favor of an Internet Death Penalty against those
TLD's and associated domains till they clean up their acts.
%%
[from linux-kernel]
Hello Linus, my name is Rick Jones. I am the person at Hewlett-Packard
who drafted the "so _obviously_ stupid" sendfile() interface of HP-UX.
[... snip ...]
never forget what leads to the downfall of the protagonist in Greek
tragedy...
%%
From: "Mike A. Harris"
 
On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Jeremy Huddleston wrote:
>---- A notice to spammers ----
>Unsolicited electronic mail advertisements to my email address is
>strictly prohibited. Pursuant to California Business and Professions
>Code, Section 17538.45, senders of unsolicited electronic mail
>advertisements to me may be subject to a civil penalty of $50 per
>message plus attorney's fees.
[SNIP long sig]
 
O - K then.  Nice sig.  Too bad that it is at least as big as
most spam mailings themselves.  Instead of preventing spam,
all you're doing is contributing to it.
 
I just delete spam now as it is easiest most of the time.
However fortunately, the below sig comes from a static and easily
procmailable address.
 
One more note is that no law of California, nor anywhre else
means jack shit 50 meters away from your keyboard, so it is all
just a waste of bandwidth.
%%
rm: Entfernen von Verzeichnis »./xxx/po« nicht möglich: Die Datei existiert bereits
%%
[during a toilet session, this flashed/flushed through my mind/brain]
/bin/true --version | read && echo eek, a gnuzifist\!
%%
[stefan thought this would be better]
/bin/true --version | read && rm -rf /  # get rid of non-posix Windows stuff. 
%%
[Java-Design]
[02:53] <schmorp> in c 1 stunde suchen und probieren und dann 7 zeilen 
[02:53] <JanMan> schmorp: nein. in C 2 minuten suchen. 
[02:54] <JanMan> ich weiss nicht, an welchen level ich wo patchen soll. 
[02:55] <JanMan> es gibt eine Key, eine RSAKey, eine RSAKeyPublic/RSAKeyPrivate
   klasse, alles muell. 
[02:56] <JanMan> (ueberall noch ein praefix SSH..) 
[02:56] <JanMan> und die sachen sind ueber SSHRSAPublicKeyFile abgewickelt... 
[02:57] <JanMan> klar gibt es auch SSHRSAPublicKeyString. 
%%
[02:38] <JanMan> Lexikon: Java - siehe "ins Knie ficken, objektorientiert" 
%%
[02:30] <JanMan> schmorp: java has too many keywords but lacks an important one. 
[02:32] <JanMan> schmorp: yes: "broken". Java needs a "broken" keyword. "Error:
   missing "broken" but class seems "broken". 
%%
On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 at 09:34:08PM -0500, Michael Rothwell wrote:
   The man pages for open, read and write say that if a file is opened
   using the O_NONBLOCK flag, then read() and write() will always return
   immediately and not block the calling process.

the man pages are wrong

--cw
%%
From: "David S. Miller" <davem@redhat.com>
...
My take on this is that khttpd is unmaintained garbage.
%%
[Subject: line on linux-kernel]
Re: That horrible hack from hell called A20
%%
From: "Vladimir V. Saveliev"
> tar cvpf - foo | ( cd reiserfs; tar xvpf - )
> Halfway through it gets a kernel oops and

How fast does it oops?
%%
From: Stefan Traby <stefan@hello-penguin.com>

On Sun, Jan 07, 2001 at 02:01:05PM +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> NFSv2 has a 32bit file offset. Thus the largest file on NFSv2 you want to
> touch is 2Gig.

In theory, yes.
In practice you don't want to touch NFS under Linux at all, so the
2GB limit is a theoretical one. :)
%%
[10:44] <elmex> --------------------------------------------------------  
[10:44] <elmex> |   |        |   |                          |  |       | 
[10:44] <elmex> |   |        |   |-----|                    |  |       | 
[10:44] <elmex> |   |-------------------------|             |  |       | 
[10:44] <elmex> |   |-|      | .---------------------------.|  |-------| 
[10:44] <elmex> |     |      | |Welcome on elmex.x-paste.de||  |       | 
[10:44] <elmex> |     |-|    | `---------------------------'|  |       | 
[10:44] <elmex> | |----------|         |-----------------------|       | 
[10:44] <elmex> | |     |-|            |      |             |          | 
[10:44] <elmex> |-|       |            |      |             |-----|    | 
[10:44] <elmex> |         |------------|--------------      |     |    | 
[10:44] <elmex> |     |-----------------------------------|-|     |----| 
[10:44] <elmex> |   |-|              |-|      |       |   |            | 
[10:44] <elmex> | |-|                |        |       |   |            | 
[10:44] <elmex> |-|                  |        |       |   |            | 
[10:44] <elmex> -------------------------------------------------------- 
%%
Any committee IQ: average intelligence of members, divided by headcount.
%%
"There were a lot of snickers in my course... The students looked at me
like I was a stegosaurus still walking around when I told them that the
[irrational spending of many dot-coms] was not sustainable. You have to
take in more money then you put out, or you're toast."
           -- Ken Morse, managing director, MIT Entrepreneurship Center
%%
"Wenn _ich_ das sage, darf ich das."
[Lukas Grunwald]
%%
[about having sponsoring message in YOUR syslog]
From: Felix von Leitner <leitner@convergence.de>
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 21:33:13 +0100
To: reiserfs-list@namesys.com

Thus spake Wojciech Puchar (wojtek@wojtek.from.pl):
> > To view list of copyright holders type `copyright' at the shell
> > prompt.
> very good. maybe implement /proc/info/copyrights /proc/info/sponsors
> /proc/info/authors?
 
Grand idea.
Let's also add /proc/info/spammers,
/proc/info/people-who-bothered-linus,
/proc/info/people-who-disagree-with-hans-reiser,
/proc/info/people-who-were-flamed-by-alan-cox and
/proc/info/people-who-marc-lehmann-dislikes.
 
NOT.
[...]
%%
[Nick and I used to fight a LOT]
Subject: Re: suggestion for gimp 1.3 and later
From: Nick Lamb <njl98r@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
 
On Wed, Dec 13, 2000 at 03:29:41AM +0100, Marc Lehmann wrote:
> I think the best way would be to make any gtk label/text widget be
> selectable. I don't know why this has not been done so far, but it might be
> an interesting experiment.
 
Yes, I've often thought this. And everyone knows that if Marc and I agree
about something it must be right (?) or at least it's in no-one's interest
to disagree...
%%
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=LNUX&d=2y WINNER
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=RHAT&d=2y 2nd prize!
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=CALD&d=1y 3rd prize!
[und Lukas sagt:]
... man beachte die logarithmische Skala!
%%
[from "how to photograph a total eclipse", in the nasa 1999 solar eclipse
report:]
... The best strategy is to choose one aperture or f/number and bracket
the exposures over a range of shutter speeds (i.e. 1/1000 down to 1
second). Rehearsing this sequence is highly recommended since great
excitment accompanies totality and there is little time to think.
%%
[boy, now I know why I dislike GNOME]
http://www.helixcode.com/~miguel/bongo-bong.html
%%
["kORBit, a CORBA implementation for the linux-kernel"]
From: Jamie Lokier <lk@tantalophile.demon.co.uk>
Date:   Sat, 9 Dec 2000 11:34:39 +0100

Alexander Viro wrote:
> > It was just an example. Basically, you'd be able to do in with just
> > about any language that has ORBit bindings.
>
> Yeah... "Infinitely extendable API" and all such. Roughly translated
> as "we can't live without API bloat". Frankly, judging by the GNOME
> codebase people who designed the thing are culturally incompatible with
> UNIX.

Agree.  I remember a big complaint about Windows was the huge APIs,
compared with Unix' tiny list of syscalls.  And then I saw the GNOME
docs... ew!
%%
> Good question.  The whole thing makes me nervous... in fact, perhaps we
> should really consider using the BIOS INT 15h interrupt to enter
> protected mode?

From my experience with BIOS authors, only if Windows 98 uses the same function
with the same arguments, the same stuff top of stack and the same segment
registers loaded ;)
%%
> > there...  If someone wants to back-port the driver to 2.2, this makes it
[...]
> backports hurt forward progress.

beware of content free dogma
%%
> What operating systems use local time as their basic clock these days?  Just
> wondering.

Any IBM PC compatible machine that runs under at least one Microsoft OS
has to keep the battery-backed CMOS clock chip in local time, because
unlike most other operating systems (e.g., any Unix flavour), none of
Microsoft's CMOS clock drivers have a UTC option. Rather disappointing
and every year an unneeded hassle after DST switches on multi-OS
machines. From discussions with Microsoft staff, I have to conclude that
no-one within Microsoft has even understood the problem.

Markus [G. Kuhn]
%%
>Keith,
> 
>Please consider the attached patch for inclusion in all future versions
>of the modutils depmod program for compatiblity with RedHat and
>RedHat derived Linux distributions.

I have a big problem with Redhat.  They make incompatible changes to
utilities, do not feed patches back to maintainers then expect the rest
of the world to follow their lead.  The -i and -m flags to modutils are
not the only example, I recently found IA64 and Sparc patches they had
added to modutils code and not bothered to tell me.  Other distributors
are much better about sending me patches, Debian and SuSe in particular
do the right thing.

Since "-F System.map" in modutils is equivalent to "-m System.map -i"
and works on all distributions, not just Redhat, the "-m -i" patch is
unnecessary.  Consider this my protest against bad habits by
distributors, they created the mess with their lack of communication
and they have to fix it.
%%
10:44] <JanMan> falls Du mal DB2 crashen musst:
[10:45] <JanMan>     connect reset;
[10:45] <JanMan>     connect to sample user db2admin using db2admin;
[10:45] <JanMan>     select * from employee where year(birthdate)=1999 and firstnme<'';
%%
[a perl quine, by ilmari karonen:]
printf+(q(printf+(q(%s))x2))x2
%%
On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 07:22:34PM -0500, M&M Samsel wrote:
> You see I  have about 10 years of commercial development experience and
> pretty much know business procedures from huge corporations and business
> midgets and what I should expect or not.

You've not demonstrated your 10 years of experience.
You've just proved that killfiles are useful.
%%
[once upon a time, when poul started gnomeicu:]
gnomeicu: Rohrbruch (beim Speichern der Konfiguration)
%%
[subject from a thread on the gcc steering commitee mailinglist when
glibc-2.2 was released]
Re: glibc 2.2 a fait accompli
%%
[08:05] <JanMan> elmex: Fehlt Dir einmal Klopapier, versuche es mit GNU m4. :)
%%
# root:0Ayj0AZhTi4O2:11272:0:99999:7:::
# kma:1NXgYu6J80kvc:11225:0:99999:7:::
# elmex:0ImdHgG2TEQAE:11273:0:99999:7: : :
%%
<JanMan_> soll ich das ganze uber einen perl-hash erzeugen ?
<schmorp> klar.. %hash->generate
<JanMan_> oesi siedelt nach de:  %oesi->degenerate
%%
[From "How the mind of a php programmer works", by Marc Lehmann]

(1) it works on msie 5 (alt.: netscape 4) so the code is
    standards-compliant.
(2) an entity looks like "&" entityname ";"
(2a) [conclusion] the fragment href="xxx&notes=77" doesn't contain a valid
     entity, so the browser must use it as is.
(2b) [corollary] "<blubb>" is not a valid html element, so the browser
     must react according to what I assume it should do (display, ignore).
(2c) in some programs I assume differently than in others.
%%
[Oh no, Don Becker again ;)]
> which one is the linksys card, so I have included the entire listing. (Is it
> even listed? Perhaps this is my problem.)

That's your problem.

There is no PCI Ethernet device listed.

Check that the card is fully inserted into the PCI slot.
  (If it's an ISA card, then it's not fully inserted into the PCI slot ;->)
%%
> > sure request_module _does_not_ accept funky module names. Why allow
> > people to shoot themselves (and, by extension, all other Linux users
> > out there) in the foot?

> I thought that was the whole purpose of Unix/Linux?

True!  Very true!  Unix/Linux requires that the user shoot
themselves in the foot.  Windows automates that process and does it
for the user, thus making foot shooting user friendly.  :-)
%%
> Turn on encryption, and try sending attachements > 1MB and tell me if
> you see any problems, like emails sitting in /var/spool/mqueue for a day
> or two until they go out.  I can guarantee you will.

No encryption use; and the maximal message size is 1Mb (for sanity's sake,
after somebody sent a PowerPoint presentation (some 3Mb), then thought that
perhaps the target didn't have PowerPoint, and sent it again with the
PowerPoint package, then noticed this might not work either, and sent it
_again_ with the full MS Office attached...  the joys of sysadminning ;-)
--
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                       mailto:vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl
%%
Ulrich Drepper <drepper@redhat.com> writes:

> "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@MIT.EDU> writes:
>
> > Arguably though the bug is in glibc, in that if it's using signals
> > behinds the scenes, it should have passed SA_RESTART to sigaction.
>
> Why are you talking  such a nonsense?

[Note to self: remove kitten from keyboard before writing mail.]
%%
[Simon Budig, nachdem er erfahren hatte, daß Lars Eilebrecht nicht wusste,
daß Leerzeichen in URLs nicht erlaubt sind:]
"Also, Lars, das hätte ich nicht gedacht, jetzt hast du aber jede Menge
Gurupunkte bei mir verloren."
%%
[amazon readers about the Annotated C Standard by Herberdt Schildt,
which is much less expensive then the official version (search also for
Bullschildt below ;)]

"The price difference reflects the value of the annotations. At no time
do the annotations clarify, enhance, or supplement the standard."
%%
Stefan Traby wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 06, 2000 at 08:43:04AM -0500, Chris Mason wrote:
>
> > We have a few websites floating around, [...]
>
> Many mirrors are also out of sync. Especially the primary server :)
%%
> This happens with both ext2 and reiserfs, since at least 2.2.15.

I installed noflushd on my laptop, which was running 2.4.0-test6, and
it did the same thing.

Sorry I can't offer more info. Someone spilt a glass of water on it about
a week ago. :(

--Jack
%%
"Kalk hat diese Waschmaschine getötet"
%%
[It is] best to confuse only one issue at a time.
                -- K&R
%%
<elmex> JanMan: "||01:42:20|| <elmex> schmorp: jo, die sprache muss man nicht erklaeren"
%%
[please kids, don't try this at home]
indent -kr -l78 -lc78 -lps -i8 -br -pcs -psl -bbo -bad -bap -cs -nbc -nhnl -nss
%%
http://www.attrition.org/gallery/ms/kmfms.jpg
%%
[PApp.pm]
$modules => { "" => "" };
%%
Das einzig sichere Mittel gegen Migräne ist das Entfernen des Kopfes.
%%
<JanMan> elmex: Sprichwort "Relaye doch bei dnx, dann kriegst Du nix." :)
%%
[From Russel Coker's .sig]
> --
> If you can't program in C, PERL, and shell scripts then don't call yourself a
> Unix administrator. Every idiot on the net is claiming to be a Unix admin. :(
%%
[the two sides of the medal]
From: "David Schwartz"

> Under Solaris 7, when the number of idle sockets was increased from
> 100 to 10000, the time to check for active sockets with poll()
> increased by a factor of only 6.5.  That's a sublinear increase in time,
> pretty spiffy.

Under Solaris 7, when the number of idle sockets was decreased from 10,000
to 100, the time to check for active sockets with poll() decreased by a
factor of only 6.5. Shouldn't it be more like 100? Sounds like Solaris' poll
implementation is horribly broken for the most common case.
%%
[lukas grunwald...]
[ich sag' dir, ] ... am nächsten Tag brüllt der mich vielleicht per e-mail an ...
%%
[from linux-kernel, about the rtl8139 network card]
> (After looking at the specification for the 8139, I am acctually ashamed
> of having bough one.

Not an uncommon thought :)
%%
From: Stefan Traby

Hi Marc !

keycode 115 = ISO_Next_Group
keycode 116 = ISO_Prev_Group
keycode 117 = ISO_Level3_Shift

Finde ich witzig, man erspart sich den lock-screensaver :)
%%
[I hope you get the point(s)...]
From: Alex LIVINGSTON <alex@agsm.edu.au>
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 16:12:46 +1100
To: <tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov>

At 07:40 +0000 2000-10-06, ken@halcyon.com wrote:
>But the thing is: mm/dd/yy[yy] is in widespread use (US), as is
>dd/mm/yy[yy] (much of Europe, I'm told).

Slight refinement: dd/mm/[yy]yy. Used in all European countries - and
all countries colonized by a European country at one time or another
which haven't had a strong US influence since, and probably all
remaining Asian, African, and Pacific countries - that don't use
[yy]yy-mm-dd. mm/dd/yy[yy] is restricted almost entirely to the US
and a few neighbors. I would hesitate to say it is in widespread use.

>[yy]yy-mm-dd was used
>in Japan even before the ISO standard came out.

And in China, and in Sweden, and in Hungary, ... (possibly with different
separators). Also in the Arab world, in the sense that the digits (all of
them) appear in the same order from left to right, only Arabic is written
right to left.

>But no culture
>has ever used [yy]yy-dd-mm format, and there is absolutely
>nothing to recommend it, so there is no reason to expect anyone
>to adopt it.  Yes, the perverse can use that format just to
>confound us, but in practice one can safely assume that a
>nnnn-nn-nn date is in yyyy-mm-dd format.

Thanks Ken. You've put it much better and more concisely than I could have.

--Alex
%%
[recently, on the tulip driver mailing list]
From: Donald Becker <becker@scyld.com>
To: "Jon.Hinks" <Jon.Hinks@berkeley-ifa.co.uk>

[most of the reply snipped...]

> The contents of this email are confidential to the intended recipient. It
> may not be disclosed to or used by anyone other than this addressee, nor may
> it be copied in any way. If received in error, please contact Berkeley

[[ The rest of the boilerplate omitted. ]]

These terms do not apply.  You have mailed to a published list.  You hold
the copyright to your writings, but by submitting questions to the list you
grant the list publisher (me) the right to publish in this list and related
forums.  "Related forums" may be collected archives of the list on any media,
and quotes from questions in FAQs.

(Long boilerplate appendages like this notice annoy me.  Automatically
 attached copyright notices can never unilaterally extend your rights, so why
 try to claim that they do?)
%%
On Fri, 6 Oct 2000, Andre Hedrick wrote:

> void go_take_a_dump (float load)
> {
>   if (pull_down_pants() && purge_bowles() && wipe_anus() && pull_up_pants())
>      flush(load);
>   else
>      wear(load);
> }

But here you make another classic mistake. Consider the case where
purge_bowels() fails (-EWOULDBLOCK?).

In that case, you don't actually execute the subsequent two procedure
calls, which I'm sure we all agree is a suboptimal state of affairs.

--
dwmw2
%%
Factoid: 90% of all patents are never challenged, while 80% of those that
are are overturned.
%%
"Going into court is throwing the dice."
%%
[Dipl. Ing. W******* D*******]
"Lukas, eins muss dir klar sein, die ganze Kryptographie ist doch
für den Arsch, wenn ich ein Stück von dem Originaltext habe und den
verschlüsselten Text, knack' ich dir jeden Schlüssel in 50 Stunden."
%%
[some discussion between reiserfs enthusiasts:]
Stefan: oh shit, everything coredumps, I'll just reboot.
Marc gives some dumb comments.
Stefan: No, I'll first check it with reiserfsck.
Marc: Yeah.. and?
Stefan: "reiserfsck: no reiserfs found"
Marc: Oh, the superblock is damaged. Maybe you should just try the backup superblock...
%%
[t-online is just sooo cool:]
Subject: mail failed, returning to sender
From: <MAILER-DAEMON@fmrl01.sul.t-online.de>

|------------------------- Failed addresses follow: ---------------------|
 <service@t-online.de> ... 550 Mailbox quota exceeded / Mailbox voll.
|------------------------- Message text follows: ------------------------|
%%
[a play with a well-known-signature:]
Deadlock, n.:
        Deceased Rasterman.
%%
[Jeff Williams & friends]
ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-bremen.de/pub/doc/internet-drafts/draft-terrell-ip-spec-ipv7-ipv8-addr-cls-00.txt
http://IPv8.vrx.net/
http://www.gtld-mou.org/gtld-discuss/mail-archive/08030.html
%%
[some .signature]
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for extra security.
%%
[Andreas Mueller-Maghun for ICANN!]
Allein der Kandidat des Chaos-Computer-Clubs (CCC) Hamburg, der schon
mehr als 1.100 Unterstützungserklärungen erhalten hat, dürfte nach
Einschätzung des arbeitskreises die Bedingung für eine Basiskandidatur
zum ICANN-Direktorium schon jetzt erfüllen. Ausgerechnet er hat es aber
nicht für nötig gehalten, auf die Anfrage der Behindertenvertreter zu
reagieren. Seine Webseiten zeugen zudem von einem "Sicherheitskonzept",
das Usern mit Sehbehinderung vor lauter technischen Barrieren keine
Zugangsmöglichkeiten bietet. Der Arbeitskreis hält einen Vertreter solcher
Positionen für unwählbar.

Jens Bertrams (Pressesprecher)
%%
From: (Albert Y. C. Lai)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.functional
Subject: Re: what is "functional" (Re: Macros)

Jerzy Karczmarczuk writes:

> Their opinion: "well, *everybody* knows that this is not professional,
> nobody uses functional languages, all your colleagues suggest that we
> should learn Lex and Yacc, etc. -
> but *WHAT A PLEASURE AND FUN* was to write these programs in Haskell.
> Almost no run-time errors, ever!"

A professor at my school got the opposite opinion from her students.
She introduced ML (along with two other languages) as part of a course
on the principles of programming languages in the third year.  The
students' opinion: this is such an annoyingly pedantic language, it
refuses to let me run my program and get some partial though wrong
results simply because I make a mistake!

In other words, given that humans are bound to make mistakes, the
students at my school prefer to see them manifested as run-time
errors.

So I look at your email address.  Ah, you are in Europe and I am in
North America.  I guess that's why.  Dijkstra is probably right about
European programmers liking to do programming right and American
programmers liking to chase after bugs.
%%
On Thu, Aug 24, 2000 at 11:15:09PM +0200, Werner Almesberger wrote:
> yodaiken@fsmlabs.com wrote:
> >             This call shifts delivered signal numbers up so that
> >    "special" POSIX signals [.. like KILL] can be delivered to a process.
>
> Kind of a SIGOVERKILL ... yes, that could work.
%%
"The posix programmer knows the availability of everything, but the cost
of nothing."
%%
[after the linux-kernel list was moved to a new machine]
Jeffrey Hundstad wrote:
>
> So tell us about this new machine.  OS?  Filesystem? Memory?
> CPU?

Root password? :)

John.Fulmer
%%
I think there is a world market for about five computers.

Thomas J. Watson (Chairman, IBM) 1943
%%
> NO. They can/will use RAW_IO *IF* this is available to them. If not, they
> will have to provide a proper kernel driver for their hardware. I know
> which I prefer...

Sure. And keep that dusty 2.4.3 kernel around just in case you someday need
to upgrade the firmware for your disk, and the (binary!) kernel module only
works with that one. Don't forget the 2.4.15ac12 which is for your USB
scanner, and also the 2.6.7-12 (Red Hat) which is the only one with the
updater for the new SCSI controller.
--
Horst von Brand
%%
[de.comp.lang.iso-c++]

>Nicht alles was Standard ist, muss auch implementiert werden.

[...]

Nicht alles, was hinkt, ist ein Vergleich.
%%
[Drew Sanford about why not to do real-time by throwing faster hardware
at your problem:]

The F4 Fantom fighter. The plane was essentially a large block of metal, with
a few advantagously aerodynamic surfaces, and big f****** engines. If you
had engine trouble in a Fantom ...you had trouble.
%%
[Hans Reiser, on /bin/cp.. ;)]
cp is inherently inefficient.
%%
>I thought disk drives contained vacuums, thus the extensive concern over
>breaking seals on them.

Air pressure is 1Kg/cm^2.  I have never seen a hard drive case that looked
nearly strong enough to take such pressure.  Basically if you can't jump on a
hard drive then it's not strong enough!

...

There's a story that Dave Cutler (VMS and WNT architect) when he was at DEC
did a test on a DEC hard drive by blowing cigar smoke into the drive which
killed it properly.  DEC then greatly enhanced their drive air filters.  It
could be just an urban myth though.

Russell Coker
%%
>I've unsubscribed our somewhat less than intelligent friend.
>Ah, Internet for the masses.  What a wonderful idea.

Yeah, let's have an IQ test before you're allowed to buy a modem.
%%
On Sat, Jun 24, 2000 at 02:40:33PM +0200, Marc Lehmann wrote:
> "Yury Yu. Rupasov" wrote:
> > All my current benchmarks show that reiserfs works correctly on
> > deleting.
>
> Just a sidenote: you don't test correctness with benchmarks :(

Wrong. Yury does.
:(

--
Stefan
%%
"Jeff V. Merkey" writes:
> I will provide a tool that decodes and repairs NTFS volumes to those
> folks who run into this problem, but our agreements with Microsoft do
> not allow us to distribute it for any purpose other than to assist
> Microsoft customers who have corrupted drives.  Also, this tool is
> dependent on the DDK being present to run as it has dependencies on the
> DDK DLL's, so you'll need to install the DDK to use it.

DDK == "Disk Death Kit"?

Ian Soboroff                                       ian@cs.umbc.edu
%%
[very instructional movie, if you get what I mean...]
00:30-02:05 (13) ( -35) Kabel 1 Das Mädchen am Ende der Straße The
Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane Psychodrama - KAN/F/USA - 1976 -
Regie: Nicolas Gessner * Die 13-jährige Rynn (Jodie Foster) lebt allein in
einer alten Villa und hütet ein schreckliches Geheimnis.
%%
[Einsichten in die "Kommunikation"]
> > > Ich beschreibe dir, was in dem Moment an Eindruecken durch meinen
> > > Kopf geht - in dem Augenblick bin ich Besucher und sehe was
> > > mir gefaellt oder nicht - das ist wie ein Schmierzettel. Die
> > > Ausarbeitung der Ideen kommt danach im Gespraech. Du packst solche
> > > Sachen anders an - das seh ich ein.  Aber ich bin mit dieser
> > > Art chaos bisher immer ans Ziel gekommen. Was ich mach will -
> > > machen muss - ist Feedback generieren. Ich lass Versuchsballons
> > > aufsteigen und schau zu, wie sie entweder fliegen oder abgeschossen
> > > werden. Dann reagier ich auf das Ergebnis.
%%
[Mitch, als Erklärung dafür, weshalb er blindlings ein (kaputtes) ssh-rpm
installiert hat, das er über rpmfind gefunden hat:]
Doch, echt! Der Server war trusted, der sah' ja sowas von vertrauenswürdig
aus!
%%
[IMHO one of the main reasons linux is nicer]
http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent/ix/bsod-story.html
%%
[On the reality of random numbers]
> /dev in a world with dynamic hardware, so why bother? We only need
> to provide random numbers to fill in struct stat. (zero works)
Alan Cox [as usual ;)]
%%
[Flame Warriors]
http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html
%%
A programmer who hasn't been exposed to all four of the imperative,
functional, objective, and logical programming styles has one or
more conceptual blindspots.  It's like knowing how to boil but not
fry.  Programming is not a skill one develops in five easy lessons.

--tom
%%
To: bugs@gimp.org
X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Windows sub 105

Hi there, I recently downloaded your gimp toolkit.  At first I was having
problems until I read your download help tip.  I understand I have to compile
it so I tried using Borland C++ Compiler but it said the line length exceeds
editor capacity.  Is there any other compiler I can use that wouldn't rip a
whole in my wallet.  Thank you for your support.
%%
["General Information About Using VBScript with Outlook"]
VBScript is designed to be a secure programming environment.  It
lacks various commands that can be potentially damaging if used in
a malicious manner.  This added security is critical in enterprise
solutions.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q167/1/38.ASP

[Despite this "added security", however, VBscript still can modify,
rename, delete files, modify windows registry entries and send email in
the background]
%%
[Phil Agre on the "ILOVEYOU" virus and Microsoft's reaction]
Scott Culp of Microsoft Public Relations, excuse me, I mean Microsoft
Security Response Center:

      This is a general issue, not a Microsoft issue.  You can write a
      virus for any platform.  (New York Times 5/5/00)

[and later]
Mr. Culp also says this (CNET 5/5/00):

      This is by-design behavior, not a security vulnerability.

[Phil closes]
Microsoft shouldn't be broken up.  It should be shut down.

[See also http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html]
[and http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.notes.and.recommenda6.html]
%%
[Bruce Schneier about the "ILOVEYOU" virus]
Expect even worse in the future.  Systems running either Microsoft Office
2000 or Internet Explorer 5.0 can be infected with these sorts of viruses
even if the recipient doesn't open the attachment.  That's right; if the
system is running Internet Explorer with the default settings, it is
vulnerable.  The problem is caused by a programming bug in an Internet
Explorer ActiveX control.  Thank you, Microsoft.
%%
>Reaching to Fallingbostel was extremely amusing though, germany is
>splitted into two halfs, one that doesn't know Fallingbostel and one
>that 'heard of this place but have no idea where it is' at some point I
>was almost convinced that there is no such place :)

[Trashey / Quasars]
%%
Tom Christiansen writes:
> I'm writing perlrtfm.  It explains search techniques, not quickfix
> switches plugging bursting dykes by springing more leaks.

Irony potential in

  man perlrtfm

is left to the reader.

Nat
%%
Do you plan to release support for on-the-fly file and directory compression
and encryption as in NTFSv2?

(Imagine a system that in order to run needs a diskette or CD-ROM disk with
 private key - protection never seen except in movies ;-)
%%
[Telekom-Techniker, bei einer ISDN-UK0-Messung!]
Ich: Also, einen Layer-1-Connect bekomme ich...
Telekomiker: Layer-1? Was ist das? Aber ich bekomme ja auch gar kein Freizeichen...
%%
"I love the way Microsoft follows standards.  In much the
same manner that fish follow migrating caribou."
                                            Paul Tomblin
%%
[recently on p5p]
>I am morally
>convinced that map() was written based on grep()

Considering they use the same op function, I'd say that's a distinct
possibility...

Dan
%%
[after the "Welle Erdball" performance on the Mekka&Symposium 2000:]
<jan> bine: du solltest da nicht hingucken, das ist nicht gut fürn kopf
<Bordeaux> after listening to this crap, and hearing *zugabe zugabe* i finally have the proof that all german c64 sceners are gay :)
<Mr> zugabe
%%
"Why upon hearing his arguments I changed my opinion 360 degrees."
                        Recent comment on the floor of some state legislature
%%
DIVIDE EMPLOYEE-EARNINGS BY EMPLOYEE-HOURS GIVING EMPLOYEE-PAY-RATE
[cobol, *sigh*]
%%
It is expected that the Multics system will be published when it is
operating substantially and will therefore be available for implementation
on any equipment with suitable characteristics. Such publication is
desirable for two reasons: First, the system should withstand public
scrutiny and criticism volunteered by interested readers; second, in an
age of increasing complexity, it is an obligation to present and future
system designers to make the inner operating system as lucid as possible
so as to reveal the basic system issues.

                                Corbat_ & Vyssotsky 1965
%%
   "Rule #7: Silence is not acquiescence.

   "Contrary to what you may have heard, silence of those present is
   not necessarily consent, even the reluctant variety.  They simply
   may sit in stunned silence and figure ways of sabotaging the plan
   after they regain their composure."

        -- Paul Rinaldo
[see also http://people.qualcomm.com/karn/rinaldo.html]
%%
On Sat, Apr 01, 2000 at 12:09:59AM +1000, Chris wrote:
>
> In case you guys havn't noticed...
>
> http://slashdot.org reports that XFS is now released.

Yes, and http://www.freshmeat.net reports:

Error: Unable to connect to MySQL Server ().

;-}

--

  ciao -
    Stefan

%%
> The 'hypervisor' is a new term to me..  Are you refering to the
> Transmeta CPU and it's native mode?  If I read you correctly

No its what the S/390 VM is often called. Its a supervisor for supervisor
mode programs so illogically enough its a hypervisor 8). The IBM mainframe
guys thing this kind of set up is routine. Unix is met with
'You mean you cant run a new kernel on test at the same time as the old
one' type remarks.
[Alan Cox]
%%
Godwin's Law

   As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
                   involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

[see also http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/]
%%
["Stefan im IRC."]

[01:53:07] <coda> anyone know how to get emacs to stop creating the file.name~ files?
[01:53:24] <JanMan> alias emacs=vi
[01:53:31] <coda> haha
%%
[remaining problems with OpenBIOS]
Our SDRAM sizing and init code is not very good; we could use good code.
The code we've been offered so far requires memory to work (oops!);
requires a stack (oops!); or assumes a totally configured machine (oops!).
%%
[Alan Cox on wether special fs's should have require "//" in their path]
> No :-) It's a feature. Some things are going REAL ugly without such things.

Given //ipc or freebsd, I think I'd pick freebsd. Thats how ugly the idea
is to me ok.
%%
"The code is self documenting." -- The Programmer.

"I don't read C." -- The Tech Writer.
%%
[Stefan Sebolth, on the CeBIT, while listening to the original c64 "Giana Sisters" tune:]
Haaach, da war die Welt halt noch in Ordnung!
%%
Remember, never ask a geek "why";
           just nod your head and back away slowly...
%%
The thought of implementing something like text and binary modes for
files is a about a frightening for todays kernel developer's as a mouse
to a women in a typical movie of the 50's ;-)

  Ralf
%%
    It may be real, but it's icky.  It's too traditional Unix ``I don't
    care if we lose 90% of our market base to NT if our competitor loses
    95% of THEIR market base!'' to be palatable.

david parsons
%%
["some time ago on p5p"]
>  ($host) = gethostbyname('localhost');

>Sadly most UNIX boxes don't add a sane alias to their /etc/hosts file
>so that trick is not portable.

    % grep localhost /etc/hosts
    127.0.0.1   localhost

--tom
%%
["some time ago on p5p"]
On Mon, Feb 07, 2000 at 03:22:05PM -0700, Tom Christiansen wrote:
> >But given that most slip drivers I have seen for OS/2 do not do this,
> >the question is moot.
>
> I'll send you a free Unix system.

Thanks, the doors in my house are well-balanced.  ;-)

Ilya
%%
[Elliott H Mitchell on the reiserfs list]
> Me thinks if unwillingness to use tar over dump will stop you from
> using a better filesystem there will be lots of other reasons that
> will stop you from trying anything new too.  So it is not really worth
> trying.

Yeah, if a filesystem randomly lost files and the authors had no plans to
fix it, that would kind discourage one from using it...
%%
[Russel Coker on the reiserfs list]
... my old Thinkpad 380XD (Pentium-233 with 3.2G ide hard drive) running
ReiserFS and exporting the file system over 10baseT Ethernet could
outperform local hard drives on an AIX machine running JFS.
%%
[Peter Mattis, author of GIMP]
I can't say anything about Rasterman because I've never looked at any of
his code. My only comment about Raster is that he should learn to spell.
%%
[David Schwartz on linux-kernel]
> ORBS does not do ANYTHING above try to send few LEGAL
> strings to mailservers with LONG delays. So if you block ORBS you deserve
> blocking :-)

        That's not the point. The point is that ORBS claims to be a list of
validated open mail relays, and it's not. It's not supposed to be a list of
people who deserve anything in particular. I'm sure if you talk to the
people who have chosen to block ORBS, you will find that they have their
reasons.

        DS
%%
[WDR, 19991216 Fernsehen mit Manuel]
Es ist ein Fall bekannt, bei dem sich ein Patient über ein Jahr lang
geweigert hatte, auf die Toilette zu gehen.  Dann haben seine Verwandten
und Ärzte ihn dazu überreden können, endlich die Toilette aufzusuchen.  Er
hat dabei auf einmal 37 Liter entleert.

Danach lebte er noch ganz normal einige Jahre, bis er, wie in Amerika
üblich, erschossen wurde.
%%
> - My Maxtor 27G drive ends up in PIO mode (non-SMP system, but likely
[...]
> Last time I reported this, I had a WDC31600, as hda, and the maxtor as
[...]

You committed a mortal sin in ATA............
You never ever mix WD and Maxtor..........on day I will document why.
Basically these two vendors have timings that are completely incompatable
with each other on the same channel.

IMHO, WD is crap..........however, you may split the two pieces of
hardware and they will work fine under linux and all other OS's.

This rule of "never ever mix WD and Maxtor" is OS independent.
%%
[ALF2-Benutzerhandbuch]
"Nur eine tote Festplatte ist eine sichere Festplatte."
%%
Physicists write FORTRAN in any language.
%%
[OpenBOOT 3.10.6 response to pressing "Ctrl-Alt-Del":]
ANY word at all is a candidate.
USE words to see the entire dictionary.
ok
%%
[SDF for POD Users]
... Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - even Lisp has it's fans. :-)
%%
<Xach> schmorp: i haven't been doing any gimpy things lately
<schmorp> xach: well, who is doing gimpy things lately :(
<Xach> schmorp: Mitch
<schmorp> xach: ok.
<Xach> schmorp: you are not keeping pace with the other germans
<Xach> schmorp: you must work more diligently! FOCUS!! DON'T TALK!!
<Xach> burrito, focus
<Burrito> FOCUS you BABOON!
%%
[Paul Miller]
... I find Knuth's attitude to be far more logical: "Be careful about
using the following code -- I've only proven that it works, I haven't
tested it." ...
%%
Intel Inside -- Idiot Outside!
%%
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth

Bart Lateur wrote in message <383a4712.942513@news.skynet.be>...
>Petrus Prawirodidjojo wrote:
>
>>So we must compete with Windows CE.
>
>"Please wait while your Toaster shuts down."
>
>"My microwave oven hangs, I have to reboot."
>
>No thank you. :-) I don't think Microsoft somehow can "automatically" be
>the most obvious choice as a supplier of system software for embedded
>systems.


Quite so.  Windows CE is rapidly losing what small market share they once
had.

--
Neal Bridges
%%
On 27 Nov 1999, sanjay Kumar wrote:

> Hi folks,
>  i got some problem in using linux.When segmentation fault happens four five times continously OS is not working properly,insted of I remove the core dump and core dump bug ,Why?
> please reply to
> sanjay_rect@rediffmail.com
> and sigma_btl@vsnl.com

  Parse error.

---
Alex
%%
From: Richard Earnshaw <rearnsha@arm.com>

> Why do we really need to support compiling with -ansi when
> including a non-ANSI header file in a C program?

Because some vendors wouldn't recognize a C standard it if hit them.  The
amount of code that purports to be ANSI C code, but is in fact nothing of
the sort, has to be seen to be believed.

That doesn't mean that I don't want *my* program to be clean ANSI C.
%%
[one of the few good us movies]
Talk Radio  Mediendrama - USA - 1988 - Regie: Oliver Stone * Sein Zynismus wird dem Radiomoderator Barry zum Verhängnis.
%%
[guess the language AND the language revision ;)]
ii = 44;
p = &ii;
*p = ii/*p;
ii++;   /* Don't forget to increment ii. */
printf ( "ii = %d\n", *p );
%%
> But many systems set the RTC while running Win*ooze. That will affect
> Linux time then.

Here is another microsoft Innovation (TM):

They now allow you to run your BIOS-clock in UTC! (Just like
Linux. Woops. Just gave it away...)

                        Roger.
%%
<Tommer> schmorp, for the next trick, do <frameset> <frame src=dataurl:> <frame src=dataurl:> </frameset> :)
%%
auto accident;
register voters;
static electricity;
struct by_lightning;
void *where_prohibited;
char broiled;
short circuit;
short changed;
long johns;
unsigned long letter;
double entendre;
double trouble;
union organizer;
float valve;
short pants;
union station;
void check; unsigned check;
struct dumb by[sizeof member];
%%
[I like TV Movie's nexTView comments]
22:40-00:05 (21) ( -34) ARD        Mord auf hoher See Inflammable Thriller - USA
                                   - 1995 - Regie: Peter Werner * Stephen King
                                   verhunzt als Regisseur sein Buch im großen Stil.
%%
Carmen Lucia Tancredo Borges wrote:

I have a program written in Fortran that runs on an IBM RS/6000
worstation.
%%
I wrote
> I hope not.    chomp() should match the string in $?, no more or less.
                                                    $/

Damn shift key.


Mike Guy
%%
[rfc2635]
   The term "spam" as it is used to denote mass unsolicited mailings or
   netnews postings is derived from a Monty Python sketch set in a
   movie/tv studio cafeteria.  During that sketch, the word "spam" takes
   over each item offered on the menu until the entire dialogue consists
   of nothing but "spam spam spam spam spam spam and spam."  This so
   closely resembles what happens when mass unsolicited mail and posts
   take over mailing lists and netnews groups that the term has been
   pushed into common usage in the Internet community.
%%
[CRYPTO-GRAM, November 15, 1999]

    The Doghouse:  Microsoft Windows CE

Microsoft encrypts your Windows NT password when stored on a Windows CE
device.  But if you look carefully at their encryption algorithm, they
simply XOR the password with "susageP", Pegasus spelled backwards.  Pegasus
is the code name of Windows CE.  This is so pathetic it's staggering.

http://www.cegadgets.com/artsusageP.htm
%%
: Isn't the point that (void)'grep EXPR, LIST' is now better written as
: 'EXPR for LIST'? Or am I misunderstanding your point here?

It really doesn't bother me if people want to use grep or map in a void
context.  It didn't bother me before there was a for modifier, and
now that there is one, it still doesn't bother me.  I'm just not very
easy to bother.

The argument against using an operator for other than its primary
purpose strikes me the same as the old argument that you shouldn't have
sex for other than procreational purposes.  Sometimes side effects
are more enjoyable than the originally intended effect.

That being said, I'd never grep someone in a void context myself.

Larry
%%
[that one's only for insiders...]
> : BASE @ .              \ = 10, verified original base was restored
Yeah.  :-)
%%
[comp.lang.forth]
> Old Antactic Explorers Penguin Recipe:
[...]
> Start fire under pot, raise seawater to boiling point.

Since it is very difficult to find wood on Antarctica, typically
penguins are used to light the fire (due to their fat, they burn well).
I also woudln't use any water, the penguins are fried fine in their own
fat (you can use old fat to heat up the pot for another penguin).

Note that most people in Antarctica have been seal-slayers and
whale-killers, so they were rough people. Usually, they didn't bother
with killing the penguins before setting them on fire. I'm glad this
receipts aren't used anymore.
%%
Sie muessen einen PC nicht einschalten um herauszufinden ob Windows
installiert ist.  Sehen Sie einfach nach, ob die Aufschrift auf der
Reset-Taste noch lesbar ist.
%%
> Erinnert mich an den Kerl bei mir in der Videothek. Hab mir DHY ausgeliehen
> und er sagt doch zu mir: "Ist aber mit Untertiteln." Sag ich: "Na prima!"
> Fragt er: "Wieso, was ist denn daran so interessant, wenn man nichts
> versteht?"
%%
[de.alt.anime]
Bei meiner Videothek fliegt ein "Ghost in the Shell" Tape
"Ab18" rum. Das machte mich irgendwie stutzig weil auf
der Schachtel meiner 16er zwei Szenenfotos sind, die im
Film gar nicht vorkommen (ironischer Weise direkt über
dem "Uncut & Unzesored" Schildchen). Andererseits ist
mir völlig schleierhaft, was es bei dem Filmchen zu zensieren
geben soll. Nur die oben beschriebene Feststellung hat diese
Frage erneut aufgeworfen.
ji!
%%
I do worry about syntactic clutter, ever since my daughter came
in, looked over my shoulder, and said, "What is that, swearing?"
[Larry Wall]
%%
Der letzte untergegangene altisraelitische Stamm war der der
Altpreussen.
             - Norbert Marzahn am 15.8.98 in
de.soc.politik.deutschland
%%
> > Aber die Theorien, die Norbert aufstellt, ueber zum Beispiel die
> > gegossenen Steinformen, die sich hochdruecken, den fuerchterlichen
> > Kometen, der im vergangenen August die Erde zerstoert hat und solche
> > Sachen find ich wirklich Klasse ;-)
>
> Jau. Und erstmal seine Erklärungsversuche, wenn's mal wieder nichts
> geworden ist (wo bleibt eigentlich der Planet X, der während der
> Syonnenfinsternis auftauchen sollte?)...

Drei Tage Dunkelheit und viele Trümmerteile sollte er bringen, gell,
Norbert?
%%
Marzahnismen: http://www.snafu.de/~dbrueg/normarz.html
Norbert Marzahn sagt: Ich besitze die Mittel, um
"Rechts"- und "Links"-Radikalismus auszuloeschen.
%%
http://welcome.to/levitenbuero/
%%
<Xach> babelfish.pitney.org: "We may not get it right, but boy are we fast!"
%%
Subject: GNU compiler
From: "Steve"
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 19:05:03 -0400
To: <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3155.0

[the following was a single line, of course]
I downloaded the compiler and am trying to install it and the
instructions seem to be very complicated.  Can you help me understand
how to install them?  There is no setup file and I have downloaded from
several sites in the thought that I might have the wrong version.  Your
assistance would be greatly appreciated

Thanks,

Steve
%%
[an "I am doing high end graphic design" type of person:]
> Also, could someone tell me how to calculate DPI of an image? I have not
> managed to figure this DPI system out, for example, if an image is a
> 100?50 pixels, what's the DPI??
%%
<tigert> xachbot, op
<XachBot> tigert: I have an 88 magnum. It shoots through schools.
<tigert> ahem
%%
<tc> xachbot, acro FOOBAR
-XachBot:#gimp- FOOBAR: FTP Operation Over Big Address Records | See FUBAR [Net jargon] (cached)
<tc> just when you thought you had something to baffle xachbot
%%
[the release of perl 5.000]
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 94 16:48:04 -0700
From: Larry Wall <lwall@scalpel.netlabs.com>
Subject: It's soup.

Okay, it's there.

   ftp://ftp.netlabs.com/pub/outgoing/perl5.0/perl5.000.tar.gz

The first one who tells me about a bug in it gets shot.

Larry
%%
l33+ h4X0rz
%%
# A random text generator using Markov chains
perl -e 'while(<>){$f.= $_}@l=split(/\s+/, $f);for($i=0;$i<@l-1;$i++){$W{$l[$i]
}.=" ".$l[$i+1];}sub a{$w=$l[1]}&a;sub b{print "\n"}while($w){if(!($W{$w})){&b;
&b;&a;last if ($q++>3);}print"$w ";@p=split(/ /,$W{$w});$c=@p;until($s=int(rand
($c))){1}$w=$p[$s]}&b' big_text_file
%%
> && d'oh! i knew that! can she allow her lusers to use deja? here is the url
> && for the post with the whole description of how i used -P
>
> Well, access to deja isn't forbidden, but access to the keyboard is.
> And there's no mouse.
>
> Abigail

Wow. Someone else who reads usenet by osmosis... cool.

Matt.
%%
Ok, our threads aren't so bad.  Python's have one big
giant global interpreter lock. :-)

- --tom
%%
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 11:42:19 -0700 (PDT)

On Fri, 6 Aug 1999, Hubert Mantel wrote:
>
> So the huge ISDN update in proposed-2.2.11 will be removed from the final
> 2.2.11 release?

[ Irritated mode: FULL BLAST ]

Are you being stupid on purpose, or were you born that way?

Go back and read the thread. Read why I'm irritated. READ. THINK.
%%
Understanding is a three edged sword. Do you *want* to get the point?
%%
["MVS uses quite heavy algorithms for swapping"]
On Mon, Aug 02, 1999 at 07:55:32PM +0200, Lieven Marchand wrote:
> Last time I looked at it, it got to the point they had moved some
> ASSISTs into microcode. IIRC, some manipulations of the process
> block. I doubt Intel/Sun/MIPS/IBM is going to accomodate Linux quite
> that much ;-)

IBM is really really good on process technology. They have had to be.
%%
MVS spends a lot of time running OS algorithms to allow full
preemption that Linux wastes on running user applications.
%%
[comments on the gcc-2.95 release]
<QUOTE>
I'm having problems compiling it for HP-UX 10.20. Any ideas?

(I haven't actually finished downloading it yet, but I just know I'm
 gonna have problems with this crappy OS ;-)
</QUOTE>
%%
The Internet interprets Windows as damage,
             and routes around it.

Roger Larsson
Skellefteå
%%
[configuring gcc]
Noone should use --prefix=/usr without --with-local-prefix=/usr/local
%%
'You can solve any programming problem with another level of indirection,
except the problem of too many levels of indirection.'
%%
[http://www.itknowledge.com/tpj/issues/vol4_1/tpj0401-0015.html]

Z-code interpreters have also been written in Java; unfortunately, when it
comes to cross-platform compatibility, Java's user-interface classes are
finicky and unstable--just ask anyone who's tried to reason with the AWT
on different JVMs.

[and later]

Pilfer is a practical implementation of two of the cardinal rules of
adventure gaming:

1.Anything that is not nailed down is mine.
2.Anything that I can pry loose is not nailed down.
%%
[the ||-operator can be thought of as "or", && can be thought of as
"and", but how would you call the ??-operator?]

>>>>> "NK" == Nathan Kurz <nate@valleytel.net> writes:

NK> ?? -> huh?

That's a great name. The huh? operator.

<chaim>
%%
`One of the reasons we continue to use Fortran is that it's easier to fix
code written without attention to such details in Fortran than in other
languages.  To put it another way, Fortran is the only language where
people who barely get by with their numerical skills can "write useful
numerical code."  Many times those people are the only experts in their
specialty available to put a needed procedure into practice.'
%%
[Moderator der Sending "Teatime" auf "Radio Okerwelle", 1999-07-12]
Ich muß schließlich hören was ich sage, damit ich weiß, was ich denke.
%%
[Dr. Dobbs #8, 1999, describing how you can AVOID downloading or executing
Java applets, scripts and ActiveX controls while _parsing_(!) an html
page]
... you must utilize IOleControl::OnAmbientPropertyChange with the
value DISPID_AMBIENT_DLCONTROL. Before you can do this, however, you
must call IOleObject::SetClientSite so that IOleControl will work
properly. This is the reason you derive from IOleClientSite, even
though you don't extend its functionality in any way. After the call to
OnAmbientPropertyChange, IE4 will call your Invoke method to check the
value of DISPID_AMBIENT_DLCONTROL. Invoke simply sets the correct bits to
disable the behaviour you don't want and returns NOERROR.
[Still interested in knowing how you can disable the "file not found"
dialog box that will pop up when you try to parse a non-accessible file?]
%%
[Linus, whom I quote rarely ;-]
Message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an
excercise in computer science masturbation.  It may feel good, but you
don't actually get anything DONE.
%%
Advantages of Windows NT over Linux:
 * It's easier to explain the crash was not your fault.
 * You've to remember only one solution all to your problems: Reboot.
 * You can use your mouse to type an email-message.
%%
> 1)  On the PIII, there is the capability to get a system unique serial
> number from the CPU.  Does Linux read this data already?  Is there plans to
> read the serial number and then disable the capability (maybe so you could
> get the serial number from the OS)?

Current Linux disables it and doesn't save the value.
%%
[CRYPTO-GRAM 1999-06-15]
"Microsoft set the security state-of-the-art back 25 years with DOS, and
they have continued that legacy to this day."
%%
[From "The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature", by Thomas Scoville]
"In a world increasingly dominated by image culture (TV, movies, .jpg
files), UNIX remains rooted in the culture of the word."
%%
> If it is clearly documented that will not happen.

Yeah, sure.  Unfortunately, if the "correct" treatment of this feature
means to change a dozen source files (and rth's comments make me fear
that that's the case), the chance that someone, somewhere forgets to say
exactly why these changes were necessary (and on what other changes in
other files they depend) is far larger than I want to consider.  We've
seen this before.  Lucky we are that some long time gcc-hackers are
still among us, who might remark:  Oh yes, that's undefined by the C
Standard, but it happens to be an extension gcc supports ...  Seen that,
got the T-shirt.
%%
Subject: Re: Linux and aliasing?
From: Joe Buck <jbuck@Synopsys.COM>
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 99 10:00:16 PDT
To: torvalds@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds)
Cc: craig@jcb-sc.com, jbuck@Synopsys.COM, mark@codesourcery.com,
        davem@redhat.com, chip@perlsupport.com, egcs@egcs.cygnus.com
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]

Linus writes, to Craig:

> I haven't maintained a compiler long-term. I _have_ maintained a larger,
> and arguably mode complex system with many more degrees of freedom and
> thus choices than gcc.

No, gcc is substantially larger than the Linux kernel (on the order of 10x
larger, as anyone can easily verify).  gcc does not need to deal with race
conditions, so in that sense it is simpler, but in other respects it is
far more complex than the kernel.

[NOTE for the reader: this is not really true, as the device drivers
bomb the comparison away, but the complexity argument still holds]

[ personal insults deleted, perhaps the author is in need of a vacation ]
%%
Subject: Re: Linux and aliasing?
From: craig@jcb-sc.com
To: torvalds@transmeta.com

>I want the _user_ to be able to give input.
[...]
>I happen to think that the "explicit cast invalidates the alias
>information" rule is the simplest and best one, and gives the user the
>best control without adding things like new attributes or other ways to
>let the user be in control.

In other words, you believe you are a better language designer than
the ISO C people as well as the gcc maintainers, despite the fact
that you know, what, *nothing* about language design, and *nothing*
about compiler design and, especially, long-term maintenance of
compilers?
%%
Subject: Re: Linux and aliasing?
From: Joe Buck <jbuck@Synopsys.COM>

Linus writes:
> Oh, you don't expect me to complain about bad code generation when I know
> gcc could do better?

Oh, don't worry, we expect you to complain, and in a rude and insulting
matter at that.  We're used to it.  It seems that you were a nicer guy
before you had so many worshippers.
%%
Subject: Re: Linux and aliasing?
From: Branko Cibej <branko.cibej@hermes.si>
Date: Fri, 04 Jun 1999 10:07:09 +0200
To: egcs@egcs.cygnus.com
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.6 [en] (WinNT; I)

Linus Torvalds wrote:

> I think it's a damn shame that instead of technical arguments _everything_
> revolves around people reading the standard as if it was the bible, and
> trying to make people feel guilty for not really caring. It's not a sin to
> just want to get good code without having to do magic contortions, guys.

Why, Linus, it's trivial to do! Use MSVC instead of egcs, then you can do

     #pragma optimize("a", on/off)

around every single statement, if you like. It even supports anonymous unions
_and_ structs, and is only slightly influenced by the ISO C standard.

They'll even sell you a version that can generate code for the alpha!

>:->

    Brane


P.S.: Just for the record: I, a "real user" and (imnsho) a "clever programmer"
who "know what I'm doing", at least most of the time, and who do not "read the
standard as if it were a bible", vote for having a standard-conforming
compiler that's not bloated by a ton of marginally useful (or even useless)
features. If I want featuritis, I know where I can get it.


P.P.S: They can't even spell "optimise" ...
%%
You can have it Soon, Cheap, and Working; choose *two*
%%
"Scientific" studies have found that a 2.2.x Linux router with
fast-switching enabled, using Tulip 100baseT cards, can melt a
high-end Cisco's 100baseT interfaces.
%%
1) Thread switching is faster than process switching by a little bit on Linux
2) Process switching on linux is faster than thread switching on NT
3) Almost anything is faster than process switching on NT
%%
[gimp-developers, on the use of keyboard modifiers for drawing tools]

> Simple.  Powerful.  Fast.  Choose at most two.

Perhaps this should be an option in the preferences dialog? :)
%%
[perl is cryptic??]
Subject: @{$${->{{{{~{}~{{{NO CARRIER
From: Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi>
Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 21:55:37 +0300 (EET DST)

We have still a long way to go-- from the zsh-workers mailing list:

: Just thought of a trivial way to take a lot of grief out of parameter
: substitution.  This patch makes the following valid:
:
:   ${${${${(f)"$(typeset)"}:#*local *\=*}%%\=*}##* }
:
: replacing the equivalent but grotesquer
:
:   "${(@)${(@)${(@)${(@f)$(typeset)}:#*local *\=*}%%\=*}##* }"
%%
Long noun chains don't automatically imply security. - Bruce Schneier
%%
> |> Spoken as a true C programmer.  However you are wrong.  Case-preserving, but
> |> insensitive, is the CORRECT way for file systems.  Capitalization should not
> |> matter for interpretation of a file name just as it doesn't matter for
> |> interpreting words in any human language.
>
> This is wrong.  In German, there is a big difference between "paar" und
> "Paar" (the first meaning "a few", the second "pair").

The classic example:

"Ich habe liebe Genossen in Moskau" - I've got dead comreds in Moscow.
"Ich habe Liebe genossen in Moskau" - I enjoyed love in Moscow.
%%
[do we need oo-style IO::File class in perl?]
>_You_ aren't gonna code "use IO::File".

And there's no reason for anyone else to, either, especially
once Nick finishes the Larry-blessed autovivification of
lvaluabled undefs in open(), socket(), etc.

What's next, a String class for Perl?

--tom
%%
[some example of the kind of mail I sometimes receive:]
i was just trying to help u out not hurt you in anyway ok i have the fbi
working on something for me
u havent done anything to me ok and the sherriffs department came by to talk
to me nutting concerning y ok
piece
russ
%%
[From "Basic Information about Unix", common commands:]

pico (text editor for beginners)
vi (text editor for advanced users)
emacs (text editor for advanced users)
ed (text editor for beginners)
%%
There is no reason in principle that a Perl script shouldn't start with

    use Python;

and appear to work exactly like Python from there to the end of the file.
Except maybe faster.  :-)

Larry
%%
> Perl6 gives us an opportunity to re-examine every feature at a microscopic level.

just what I'm afraid of... I thought this was to be Perl6, not Perl
2010.

(Perl 2010: The Spaced Oddity?)
%%
The X.25 specification is not a particularly easy document to
read. Contrary to expectations, it does not make great use of diagrams
and tables that help to explain the workings of the protocols that
it contains. Instead the document makes use of many ambiguous English
descriptions of the actions that should take place, allied with a complete
lack of fluency in its prose descriptions, make for a very confusing
document. It is a wonder that any correct X.25 implementations have ever
been created.
%%
>  Joe: (walking into McDonalds) Hi, I'd like a Big Mac.
>
>  Cashier: Okay, here's your Big Mac and here's your Coke. That'll be
>  $3.99.
>
>  Joe: Uh, I don't want a Coke.
>
>  Cashier: Sorry, they're bundled.
>
>  Joe: What? I'm not paying for a Coke!
>
>  Cashier: You don't; the Coke is free.
>
>  Joe: But wasn't a Big Mac $2.49 last week?
>
>  Cashier: Sure, but this latest Big Mac is far more innovative. It's
>  got integrated Coke!
>
>  Joe: I already bought a Snapple across the street... I'm not going
>  to drink the Coke.
>
>  Cashier: Then you can't have the burger.
>
>  Joe: Okay, fine, I will pay the $3.99 and throw the Coke away.
>
>  Cashier: Oh, you can't do that. They're seamlessly integrated. Totally
>  inseparable.
>
>  Joe: How can that be? They're two totally separate things!
>
>  Cashier: No, watch. (takes Big Mac, dunks it in a tank of Coke) See?
>
>  Joe: Why did you just do that?!
>
>  Cashier: It's a benefit to the consumer. Otherwise you'd end up with
>  two different, inconsistent tastes. This way you're assured of a
>  continuous taste across all your foods.
%%
        Threads are like salt.  I like salt, you like salt, we all
        like salt, but we eat more pasta than salt.
                                                          Rob Pike
%%
From: Nathan Torkington <gnat@frii.com>

  Don't be bitten by Perl, get crushed by Python.
  Python: Perl for the punctuation-phobic.
  It takes 4 days for a python to digest a hamster, but only 2 days
     for you to digest this book.
  Python: it's really better but nobody uses it.
  Python: just for the whitespace of it.
  Join The Trickle
  Python: more popular than Dylan!
  Python: not written by crackheads in a gutter!
  Are you uptight?  Try our new Python Hangups series.
%%
Well Microsoft announced this new language called COOL which I can
honestly say that I have seen NO CRAPPY CODE written in.  OTOH it appears
that to achieve this miraculous status by the simple technique of being
complete and utter vapourware.

Microsoft, taking the Business out of COBOL.
%%
[From "Programming Perl"]

   We will encourage you to develop the three great virtues of a
   programmer: laziness, impatience and hubris
%%
[Alexander Stepanov, creator of the STL]:

Yes. STL is not object oriented. I think that object orientedness is
almost as much of a hoax as Artificial Intelligence. I have yet to
see an interesting piece of code that comes from these OO people. In
a sense, I am unfair to AI: I learned a lot of stuff from the MIT AI
Lab crowd, they have done some really fundamental work: Bill Gosper's
Hakmem is one of the best things for a programmer to read. AI might
not have had a serious foundation, but it produced Gosper and Stallman
(Emacs), Moses (Macsyma) and Sussman (Scheme, together with Guy Steele). I
find OOP technically unsound. It attempts to decompose the world in
terms of interfaces that vary on a single type. To deal with the real
problems you need multisorted algebras - families of interfaces that
span multiple types. I find OOP philosophically unsound. It claims that
everything is an object. Even if it is true it is not very interesting -
saying that everything is an object is saying nothing at all. I find OOP
methodologically wrong. It starts with classes. It is as if mathematicians
would start with axioms. You do not start with axioms - you start with
proofs. Only when you have found a bunch of related proofs, can you
come up with axioms. You end with axioms. The same thing is true in
programming: you have to start with interesting algorithms. Only when you
understand them well, can you come up with an interface that will let them
work.
[...]
You can't write a generic max() in Java that takes two arguments of some
type and has a return value of that same type. Inheritance and interfaces
don't help. And if they cannot implement max or swap or linear search,
what chances do they have to implement really complex stuff? These are my
litmus tests: if a language allows me to implement max and swap and linear
search generically - then it has some potential.
[...] Java is clearly an example of a money oriented programming (MOP).
It might be successful - after all, MS DOS was - and it might be a
profitable thing for all your readers to learn Java, but it has no
intellectual value whatsoever.

[Later, on OMG protocols like CORBA]
I am old enough to remember all the networking standards that were coming
out in the seventies. Who remembers them now?
%%
[Stiftung Warentest "test", WDR 19990419:]
"Schlechtes muß nicht billig sein..."
%%
[/bin/false on solaris]
#!/usr/bin/sh
#       Copyright (c) 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 AT&T
#         All Rights Reserved

#       THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF AT&T
#       The copyright notice above does not evidence any
#       actual or intended publication of such source code.

#ident  "@(#)false.sh   1.6     93/01/11 SMI"   /* SVr4.0 1.3   */
[obvious invocation of exit snipped to avoid lawsuit. Yup, *1* line.]
%%
<Aspirin> but ee uses imlib, and imlib is documented to take 4.7 days to start up on a 486 by Alan Cox.
%%
When a tar built for SunOS runs under Solaris, it's incapable of opening
or creating files with "lib/locale" in the path.  It replaces that part of
the path with "lib/oldlocale".
%%
[Bruce Schneier in CRYPTO-GRAM, 19990315]

"Microsoft prefers to treat security holes as a public relations problem,
rather than fixing the actual problem."

[further down: the official answer from Microsoft about a problem where
just viewing a website would invisibly run unrestricted code on your
machine]

"Microsoft appreciates your input regarding this issue, however in lieu
of modern technology being what it is, we all need to be personally
responsible for knowing what we are downloading off the internet."

[see http://www.panix.com/~dfoster/sec/chrono.html]
%%
[Steve Funston wrote to me, after I unsubscribed him from gimp-perl for
spamming:]

>fuck you ass hole duh you are just a big fucker
>>
>>An error was generated by your request to our servers:
>>------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Your Email: bfunston@mich.com
>>
>>ERROR:  You are not a member of this list.

[and later, misquoting my name:]
>mark is not only a big fat liar but he is an ass hole.
%%
[How much of the microsoft shares does Bill Gates hold?]
He has 19.8%.  Paul Allen has 5.5%.  Steve Ballmer has 4.7%.
%%
> And what's wrong with being named Peter?
If linus was peter, Linux would be called penix? (just guessing) ;)
%%
According to Microsoft KnowledgeBase article Q216641, Microsoft Windows
95/98 are limited to an uptime of *exactly* 49.7 days.

                                    --found by Vincent Janelle (Random)
%%
> Leave that to RMS.

If you had just sat through the horrific panel with Larry,
RMS, Richard, and Linus, you would want to leave a whole lot
else to RMS -- like  a couple of  megatons of the manure that
he's full of.

Support BSD/Linux.

--tom
%%
    "The FSF is a cult -- don't support them." --Rob Pike
%%
We are Linux. Resistance is an indication that you missed the point.
%%
> Perhaps the cracker himself (itself? ;) isn't bright enough to delete shell
> history, but his shrink-wrapped cracking tools might be a lot brighter...

Some of them are. A surprising number aren't. A personal favorite of
mine was the log from a cracker who couldn't figure out how to untar
and install the trojan package he'd ftped onto the machine. he tried a
few times, and then eventually gave up and logged out.
%%
[on channel #gimp]

[msg(Xachbot)] insult me
[XachBot(xachbot@home.xach.com)] schmorp: David Miller would never approve of that.
%%
[the creation]
http://www.toodarkpark.org/caffeine-cgi-bin/textfile/net-hx.txt
%%
        THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12: LITHP

This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of
an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH".  LITHP is said
to be useful in protheththing lithtth.
%%
Ich zog hier nur einen Pseudoschluss aus dieser sache, den ich nicht
selbst schliesse.
                    Norbert Harry Marzahn, selbsternannter "Judaaer"
                    am 13.12.98 in de.alt.ufo
%%
According to Gurusamy Sarathy:
> "Resistance is futile, you will be modularized."

No:

     use Borg;
     make_threat(-type => 'standard', -doom => 'modularized');

--
Chip Salzenberg      - a.k.a. -      <chip@perlsupport.com>
%%
"And over here, ladies and gentlemen, may I draw your attention to
the 'posicks box', a mechanism within one of the late 20th century
sub-I hardware gestalt integration agents (then called 'operating
systems', this particular one being referred to as 'windows' by
its commercial-mimetic sustainer), designed so as to provide the
appearance and functionality required to comply with one of the few
agreed-upon integration schemas (sub-I, of course) available at the
time. Unsurprising given the non-integration imperitives used by the
agent's sustainter, this mechanism was demonstrated to be an ingenious
non-integration ploy that, while supporting the integration schema,
failed to support the local interconnect schemas that this agent
specialized in. This produced a classic focus rift in the knowledge
pool, benefiting the sustainer in the short run due to the focus
concentration facilities available to commericial-class mimetic
sustainers. Practically, this wasn't a significant loss, in the long
run, as neither the 'windows' or 'posicks' schemas were relevant to
modern quasi-I agents. These two do live on, however, in a few niches.
'posicks' is used as the integration schema between most nano-scale
logic units (a fact that only a few meta-experts still need to be
aware of), and 'windows' survives, for religious-mimetic reasons, as
the human-communication agent in a few stereotypical toasters and soap
dispensers."

[Kenneth Albanowski]
%%
Perl ist ein Schmerzmittel.
Wenn Du bei der Speicherverwaltung oder der Stringverarbeitung
unter C Schmerzen hast, nimm Perl.
-- Kristian Koehntopp
%%
> Why Windows NT Server 4.0 continues to exist in the enterprise would be a
> topic appropriate for an investigative report in the field of psychology or
> marketing, not an article on information technology -- John Kirch
%%
[bei einer mündlichen Nachprüfung in BWL, Uni Hamburg]

Prof: "Was ist Agio?"
Student: "Weiß ich nicht."
Prof: "OK, durchgefallen!
Student: "Ich habe aber Anspruch auf drei Fragen in der mündlichen Prüfung!"
Prof: "Klar, was ist Disagio?"
Student: "..."
Prof: "...und was ist der Unterschied zwischen Agio und Disagio?"
Student: "..."
Prof: "...durchgefallen!"
%%
Chaim Frenkel <chaimf@pobox.com> writes:

> Just morbid curiosity,
>
> Are there _any_ unix boxes that _can't_ build Perl?

Yes.  Broken ones.

dgris
%%
"The kerastion is a musical instrument which cannot be heard."
  -- A Borges story in ten words.
%%
"C combines the power of assembly language
with the flexibility of assembly language."
%%
...

<AOL>

Me too!

</AOL>

Tig
%%
ping -p 2b2b2b415448300d <hostname>
%%
unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;umount;sleep
%%
From: Dick Balaska <dick@buckosoft.com>

I sit behind an NT dual P2/400 256MB for too many hours each day.  It is
"slow".  One of my (fun) tasks is CD mastering.  When i'm loading a 500MB
wav file into the editor, the machine goes useless for two minutes while
loading the wave file.  Basically its just reading the file and writing it
to swap.  The CPU is at 5%.  No Alt-Tab between apps during that time.  No
chance of putting the mouse over a button (too many dropped ticks).  The
NT kernel is just sitting waiting for I/O completions.

Linux would be embarrassed to be that bad.

I expected M$ to never fix this because its not "broken".  However, i
expect billg to start reading the above mentioned literal benchmarks and
get really really pissed.

Especially since i believe 1999 and 2000 to see Linux *really* start
to cut into M$'s server market share.
%%
> Hello I'm wondering if there's a lower traffic mailing list that exists
> that's strictly important kernel announcements and not general chat. I
> need to stay informed but I can't handle 250 messages in a 24 hour
> period.
>
> Sorry for the insignificant post..
> Nic
>

Thank you for contributing to the problem.

        -hpa
%%
grep... grep... grep... (frog with unix stuck in his throat)
%%
"If users are made to understand that the system administrator's job is to
make computers run, and not to make them happy, they can, in fact, be made
happy most of the time. If users are allowed to believe that the system
administrator's job is to make them happy, they can, in fact, never be made
happy."
- - -Paul Evans (as quoted by Barb Dijker in "Managing Support Staff", LISA '97)
%%
From: "Daniel P. Stasinski" <dannys@KAREMOR.COM>
Subject:      Microsoft Hotmail
To: BUGTRAQ@NETSPACE.ORG

I contacted Microsoft/Hotmail asking them to close the account
of that was listed in the backdoored tcp wrapper source code.
I also forwarded the offending code.

The word back from them is that they will not close it.  Theft
of passwords and hacking does not violate thier terms of
service.

Daniel
%%
Any UNIX-killer must also have:
...
* cool name like Linux (serious, these fail: GNU Hurd FreeBSD 386BSD)
%%
"Not all things worth doing are worth doing well."
It's a phrase I use a lot. :-)
[RJL]
%%
As John Whittaker says: ``It's UNIX. That doesn't necessarily mean it's
right.''
%%
[Richard Stallman on the new _Pragma operator in C9X:]

Amazing--they actually listened.
%%
That "UNIX" term is very negative. People often associate it with
SCO OpenServer, Wyse terminals, and 60 people on a 386. The UNIX
that people know is just awful. It looks something like this:

# less foo
sh: command not found
# more foo
sh: command not found
# emacs foo
sh: command not found
# ed foo
0
help
?
quit
?
exit
?
DIE!!!!!!!!!!
?

[Albert D. Cahalan]
%%
Subject: Re: Stop blib warning in future releases?
From: andreas.koenig@anima.de (Andreas J. Koenig)
Date: 05 Jan 1999 03:15:37 +0100

tim> Sure. Strictly speaking

tim>    use blib ':quiet';

tim> would be most correct in style.

Only German native speakers are allowed to treat adverbs adjectively.
For the rest I'd recommend [...]
%%
[A new U.S. Law implementing a WIPO treaty]
No person shall circumvent a technological protection measure that
effectively controls access to a work protected under this title
[Or, in other words, applied cryptanalysis will be illegal.
 too bad --- ]
%%
Microsoft - Is it going to work today?
%%
Subject: Re: [gimp-devel] GIF plugin legal issues

> Actually, my understanding is that Unisys doesn't currently enforce the
> licensing cost on free software, but maybe I am mistaken.

The general wording, spoken by an unnamed GIMP developer, is, if you'll
pardon the language, "Unisys can go fuck itself."
%%
[once on linux-kernel:]
> >who are you why on yahoo when iprint sf16fmi i fond you i need drv
> Does anyone have the secret decoder ring to make sense of this?
he's confused about us showing up in a search match on yahoo, but needs
driver(s) for his sf16fmi thingy.
%%
> Did you try to compile kdeadmin from the CVS tree ?

No I ran the KDE binaries. Im not interested in broken programs that
include wrong #include files in their source.
%%
[unix-faq]

Someday, you are going to accidentally type something like
"rm * .foo", and find you just deleted "*" instead of "*.foo".
Consider it a rite of passage.
%%
"There's one word that strikes fear into nuclear scientists..."
  "Oops."
       -- MST3K
%%
Seems like 80-bit spills would be closer to IEEE, if not close enough to
claim full support.  Off-hand I'd say people would be happier with
those numeric properties than with the current situation.

I'll think about the esoterica (probably break down and ask people here).
It would certainly make gcc the most reliable x86 floating-point compiler
I know.  Sun's does something similar to -ffloat-store by default (gee,
look at how fast that ultra is), and Microsoft's runs off the end of the
stack at run-time .  I don't know what Intel's does, so I'm not considering
it.  ;)
%%
>I was using the localtime function to change time_t into it's various
>human-readable parts.  I noticed that $year gets returned as 98 and
>not 1998.  I tested a few different unices and got the same result.
>This is expected behavior based on the examples I've seen and my own
>testing.  My question is how is this y2k compliant?

What part of your C library's documentation on localtime(3), the perlfunc
documentation on the Perl localtime function, the perlfaq4 entry on `Does
Perl have a year 2000 problem?', and the Y2K document on www.perl.com
did you find to be unclear on the answer to this question?

--tom
%%
>   * Have you ever wondered how life began ?

In a laboratory somewhere at Bell Labs.

>Why does it end ?

Ask the X3J11 committee.

>   * Can you tell WHY there is life ? What is the purpose of it ?
>   * Can YOU do anything to make your life worth living ? WHAT ?

To promote the the DEATH OF ANSI C! K+R FOREVER! DOWN WITH PORTABILITY!
%%
"Unix *is* Perl's IDE!"
        -- Tom Christiansen
%%
[Sputnik]

Do you honestly think the Americans would mention a Soviet success? :-)
A number of years back I saw an exhibition in the US on the development of
supersonic passenger aircraft. They forgot to mention Concorde. It
wouldn't surprise me in the least if most people at NASA had never heard
of Sputnik.
%%
NTFS by default adds unnecessary serialization to an extent that
even older file systems such as FFS do not, and its performance
characteristics reflect that. In fairness, it should be said that it is
the superior approach for most removable media without software control
of ejection (e.g. IBM PC floppies).
%%
Never attribute to malice what could as well be explained by stupidity.
                                                     - Hanlons razor -
%%
Shallit's Razor: Never attribute to conspiracy what may be adequately
explained by stupidity or incompetence.
%%
According to Chris Nandor:
> I thought about creating a web interface to input, edit, delete entries,
> but that would have taken me longer, been more complex and less secure, and
> offered no significant advantages.

That one's in the quotes file.  Thanks.
%%
My friend who had a Compaq called one day when his built-in cdrom drive
stopped responding. Their answer "its a virus. Reinstal Windows". So he did
(?) and it still didn't work. He called them and they said "its a virus,
reinstall." "But I just installed. If there is a virus, it came from YOUR
quick restore disk." "No, no virus there, but you DO have a virus. My paper
in front of me says so."

He took it back and bought a Gateway.
%%
9. Deinde, ne in posterum a XII kalendas aprilis aequinoctium recedat,
statuimus bissextum quarto quoque anno (uti mos est) continuari debere,
praeterquam in centesimis annis; qui, quamvis bissextiles antea semper
fuerint, qualem etiam esse volumus annum MDC, post eum tamen qui
deinceps consequentur centesimi non omnes bissextiles sint, sed in
quadringentis quibusque annis primi quique tres centesimi sine bissexto
transigantur, quartus vero quisque centesimus bissextilis sit, ita ut
annus MDCC, MDCCC, MDCCCC bissextiles non sint. Anno vero MM, more
consueto dies bissextus intercaletur, februario dies XXIX continente,
idemque ordo intermittendi intercalandique bissextum diem in
quadringentis quibusque annis perpetuo conservetur.
%%
You obviously have not dealt with Microsoft Winnt 4.0
and all the Service Pack then. While one Service Pack
did somewhat correct the Y2K problem was not aware that
2000 was in fact a leap year. There was no way to set
the date to Feb 29, 2000.
%%
"Ernst Lehmann, die Organisationsredundanz beim Cluster-Treffen"
%%
HP Computer NEWS 3/98 about HP 2000/CN printer (page 24): "Darüber
hinaus ... hat der HP 2000C/CN durch den Einsatz von Intel MMX-
Technologie Zugriff auf deren Farbtabellen und kann so Farbbilder
schneller verarbeiten" (A mistake made when translating. It's hard to
get the wrong meaning if translated back to English, sorry.)
%%
From: Robert Lipe
> > I program computers with no screens and no keyboards for a living.
> > Switches and front-panels are a LUXURY! :-)
>
> But I guess you are not _programming_ these computers without a keyboard
> and/or screen.

Are you familiar with the Vulcan Mind Meld?
%%
Subject: Re: [fwd from comp.lang.python] Re: Python 2 ideas [Re: access
From: Tuomas Lukka <lukka@fas.harvard.edu>

On Tue, 24 Nov 1998, Ilya Zakharevich wrote:
>      use pedantic;
>      use strict 'code';
>
> or whatever is the syntax to switch Perl into 'dull'/'pythonish' mode.

use syntax 'python';

Let's just embrace&extend'em ;) ;)

%%
Thus it was written in the epistle of Larry Wall,
>
> Having discussed all this thoroughly at the Hacker's Conference this
> past weekend, I've come to the conclusion that Y2K will be traumatic
> primarily because people *think* it will be traumatic.  A panic is a
> panic whether or not it's justified.  People get trampled in panics.
>
> It should be illegal to yell "Y2K" in a crowded economy.  :-)
%%
[rfc1925]
Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two (you can't have all three).
%%
[Alan Cox, why not port hurd to sgi, instead of linux]
> A possible minus is the message-passing between the servers which might
> be time-consuming.

"Yesterdays technology, next week" to quote an OSI saying
%%
UNIX versions of ctags handle the C language, and often Pascal and Fortran
77. Sometimes, they even handle assembly language. Almost universally,
however, they do not handle C++...
[from "learning the vi editor"]
%%
> correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a thread about this a few
> months back that resolved the ping -f localhost as a ping bug.

Indeed, as Alan Cox said:

        So get a non-buggy ping(8) client.

and as Ecclesiastes said:

        Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been
        already of old time, which was before us.
        There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any
        remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

Regards,
Tigran.
%%
SNMP stands for Security Not My Problem
%%
[slightly broken, though...]
/* "Hello World" in B for 64-bit hardware! */
hw [0] "Hello World.*n";
main(){
  extrn hw;
  putchar(0[hw]);
  hw=+1;
  putchar(0[hw]);
}
%%
> So what comes first the chicken or the egg? :)

The egg. Always. By definition.
%%
> > PPS: Robert, I just made my first y2k fix to that script ;()
>
> Better check your scsi cables.
%%
Arroganz durch Wissen
[Dirk Jagdmann]
%%
[Re: Pegasus - Gut oder Boese?]
> Weil er sie dabei ja unterstuetzt. Da er aber (abgesehen von den ersten
> ein- oder zweimal) nur auf Anrufen von Rosa-Girl erscheint, koennte man es
> auch anders herum sagen. wenn CU Pfeift, kommt er angaloppiert 8))

was aber leider bedeutet, daß usa die Rennsemmel ständig mit
sich rumschleppen mu?. ^_-
Nur weil die Kleine die Bimmel hat!

Und wer weiß, was dieses pädophile Pferd eigentlich noch so
bezwecken will...  ^_-
%%
>James :\
>
>I apologize for adding a message to this possibly trivial thread.

I like your sig.  I hope you use it for everything you post.
%%
From: Mason <mason@schwanda.resnet.tamu.edu>
Subject: night of the undead ip stack
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 13:03:19 -0600 (CST)
%%
> The person who decides to invent UNICODE support for Linux
> is just asking for a black eye.

But Unicode for NT is such fun!

For example, the checked DbgPrint() bluescreens above DISPATCH_LEVEL
if you try to print a Unicode string--the Unicode->ASCII
translation tables are marked as pageable.

Since as far as I know, printk() does not have any format specifiers
that cause obscure kernel panics, Linux is clearly behind in this
area.
%%
Linux: a no problem operating system for no problem people.
[Lukas Grunwald]
%%
http://dd.sh/perlfs/:

   THIS IS AN EXPERIMENTAL (PRE-ALPHA) VERSION OF THE PERL FILESYSTEM.
   EVEN WHEN IT LOADS WITHOUT CAUSING A KERNEL PANIC, IT WILL LOCK UP
   YOUR MACHINE, DESTROY ALL YOUR DATA, KIDNAP YOUR FAMILY AND
   (DEPENDING ON SAID FAMILY'S CONFIGURATION) SHOOT YOUR CAT, DOG, AND/OR
   FIRST-BORN CHILD.
%%
[a comment on http://dd.sh/perlfs/]
Forget GNU/Linux.  /PerL/inux will conquer all.

   kill 0,1 if -x '/PerL/inux';         # request kernel mode
%%
[Tim Hollebeek on real arithmetic]
On a machine with a sane floating point model, the results make sense.
For example, my SGI workstation prints:

0.00000000000000011102 1.00000000000000000000 1.00000000000000020000 1.00000000000000040000

However, a machine with the Intel FPU from hell gives:

0.00000000000000000005 1.00000000000000000000 1.00000000000000000000 1.00000000000000000000

due to the fact that whether 1+x and 1 are the same number depends on whether
the numbers are in the FPU or not.
%%
[Grüner Tip/Arte]
Ihre Nachbarn sind zu laut und feiern andauernd Parties? Kein Problem, ihr
Bohrer wird nachts um zwei spielend mit _jedem_ Lärm fertig....
%%
Remember, eating healthy doesn't make you live longer, it just makes it seem
longer...
%%
[M$ about unix development tools like GCC]
By the standards of the novice / intermediate developer accustomed to
VB/VS/VC/VJ, these tools are incredibly primitive.
%%
> > Praha is nice and our university is interesting, since it is according
> > to tests most complex and impractical computer science university on the
> > world :) I just love it...
>
> Oh well, great that I won't be studying there...
>
It is really fun.... just now I have lesson (that reminds me that I really
should go now) about set theory and infinity... it is really fun and very
practical...
for example that you have cinema with infinity chairs and infinity plus one
person wants to see movie... what do yo do?
Just let sit down the first infinity persons and then last person ask first
one to move to second chair, second one to move to third and so on and
everyone fits.. isn't that great to know? :))

Jan Hubicka
%%
>       template< template< template<class> class > class Tmpl> A {};
[...]
> I think that this construction is allowed by the ANSI C++.

No, it is not. What you meant is

template< template< template<class> class > class Tmpl> class A {};
%%
Jan Dubois writes:
> A) perl-5.00553
>       path        = \perl\5.00553\bin\MsWin32-x86\perl.exe
>       cc          = cl.exe
A performance analysis compiling with M$ compiler?  Get real!

[...]

Ilya
%%
>Shouldn't the kernel compile with all combinations of options.

Yes.  Feel free to fix it and send a patch.

p.
%%
[tomc]
Jean-Louis provides four arguments in favor of the overloading of the
logical && and || operators.  Here they are:

+------------------------------------------+
| Other languages, notably C++, permit it. |
+------------------------------------------+

This one is hardly persuasive.  Many languages do innumerable things
that Perl does not do.  Just for example, take:

  * Csh reparses and re-evals interpolated strings, allowing something
    like C<$cmd $var> to do interesting things.
  * The Fortran lexer (as it were), having no need of white space to
    infer tokens, allows C<DO I=1.10> and C<DO I=1,10> to coexist in an
    interesting way.
  * Icon has an entirely different notion of success and failure,
    allowing expressions like (X < Y < Z) to do interesting things.
  * Scheme has call-with-continuation, allowing co-routines to do
    interesting things.
  * C++ has template classes with abnormal typing rules even for that
    language, allowing parameterized meta-classes to do interesting
    things.
%%
    Make is like Pascal: everybody likes it, so they go in and change it.
                                                    --Dennis Ritchie
%%
perl -wlpe '}{$_=$.' file  # Count the number of lines.
%%
[not quite duff's device, but...]

  switch (x)
    default:
      if (prime(x))
        case 2: case 3: case 5: case 7:
          process_prime(x);
      else
        case 4: case 6: case 8: case 9: case 10:
          process_composite(x);
%%
        Is there any truth to the rumor that the number appearing
after the words "Microsoft Windows" is the minimum amount of memory,
in megabytes, required for execution?

                                        Craig Milo Rogers
%%
Mark Mielke writes:
> This statement is false. The simple fact that school textbooks teach it
> to be indeterminate should be enough to convince you of that.

This is just another reference point about the state of education in
US (apparently in Canada too?).

Ilya
%%
[from p5p]
> Now you know why threading is experimental and all, buddy.

Experimental schexperimental.  Anything that doesn't cause an
immediate coredump is not experimental. :-) (Observant readers will
note that this is a more rigorous standard than Microsoft's.)

Nat
%%
Needless to say, Linux awk is probably gawk, which has been taking too
much steroids for a while. =)

--Albert Dvornik
  <bert@genscan.com>
%%
Subject: Re: zero width lookbehind considered slow
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@jhereg.perl.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:40:37 -0500

>*You* do not understand?  Perl is slow...

Ilya: You are formerly invited to go play in the python
or tcl crowd instead of here.

--tom
%%
>What's it? Can linux be improved too? Or has it already been improved?

Linux has never done anything so stupid in the first place.

                Linus
%%
On the 8th day god created email. And got noted the world was good. Then the
devil added HTML mail...
%%
linux/lib/vsprintf.c: * Wirzenius wrote this portably, Torvalds fucked it up :-)
linux/arch/sparc64/kernel/binfmt_aout32.c:         /* Fuck me plenty... */
linux/arch/sparc64/kernel/ptrace.c:/* Fuck me gently with a chainsaw... */
%%
On 1998-10-11T02:37:57,
   Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> said:

> Believe me Microsoft think Linux is a threat now. Its level with things like
> java in their perceived threat list, so you can expect all the usual MS
> techniques to start coming this way and very soon.

Arm the gnus!
%%
[David Miller after (another) endless discussion with Richard Kenner]

Anyways, I tired (just like everyone else) of arguing endlessly with
you, you're in the past, you no longer constrain my ability to improve
gcc, so go away.
%%
I received my copy of Visual Studio 6.0 today. I couldn't believe that it
wanted to install the C++ compiler into a directory called:

        "\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98"

But anyways, I just had to find out if it was finally possible to compile
Perl (without PERL_OBJECT) with optimization (-O2).
%%
[on perl version numbering]
> So it could be 5.006 for the developers, but "ThreadPerl" or "Perl with
> Multithreads" (or some such) for the journalists, if that's what
> journalists need to make them pay attention.

Down that path lies "Perl version 5.006, codename `Ticklish Uvula',
was released today" madness.
%%
[on perl version numbering]
>     elaine> 5.1 would be a good thing(tm) as it would draw attention,
>     elaine> etc. in a way that a developers versioning would. The
>     elaine> world is not populated by people who think the same
>     elaine> way. To that end, this would be a good change. Of course,
>     elaine> we could call it Perl99.
>
> To me, Perl seems to be recognized for it's language qualities, not
> for marketing reasons. IMHO, perl may keep this difference with other
> wintel product. More than that : Perl99, would let believe people that
> it is not Y2K proofed, or still in beta (<1.00). So it's not a good
> marketing name, anyway.

Right. Then, to be Y2K compliant, we'll have to call it Perl1999. Hmmm.
"The year perl left earth's orbit"? Maybe we need to get the NASA guys to
put perl on the next low-cost spaceshot.

Of course, then c.l.p.m's motto could be "We do not commit *mindless*
violence..." :-)
%%
Rule 1 says that Larry says that Larry has the last say, unless he changes
his mind in which case he still has the last say.
%%
> >I never said it did.. I should have said: Binary only drivers encourage
> >poor drivers
>
>      No it doesn't.

Indeed. Its down to

Profit = (units * margin) - overhead

and the folks who decide "overhead" arent the programmers but the management.
The folks who say "you have two weeks allocated to write this driver, then
we ship it" are the folks to take the issue up with, and that goes source
or binaries.
%%
dig txt leap.yp.to
%%
"The fact that I'm paranoid doesn't mean that nobody's after me..."
%%
[linux-kernel on endianess issues with NIPQUAD]

|>    Do I read this correct?!? Is it more acceptable to have a bug[*],
|>    than a not optimal fix?!?!?
|>
|> s/optimal/stupid/

What's stupid is little endian. <g>

Andreas.
%%
[Paul Eggert on tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov]
...
A closely related question is `What is 1 minute before 23:59:60?''.

Here's a good one: `What is 1 month before 1 February 1995 in
Kiritimati?''.  There was no 1 January 1995 in Kiritimati; they
skipped a day by moving the clocks ahead 24 hours.  Similar issues
arise when asking about times that occur within smaller, more typical
UTC offset changes.  A number of obscure questions arise here, and I'm
not sure it's worth standardizing all the answers.
%%
[D.J.Bernstein on tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov]

Paul Eggert writes:
> which I am calling the `modified TIME_TAI''

Your time differences break down near leap seconds. Ever watched xntpd
try to handle a leap second? Wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble.
%%
For binary only drivers you can assume most vendors will build x86 only
however.

        "We don't have the tools"
        "We can't support a non intel build"
        "We don't have that sort of machine"
        "Its not worth the time cost"
        "Whats an Alpha ?"
%%
On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, Mail Delivery Subsystem wrote:

> The original message was received at Thu, 1 Oct 1998 18:39:56 -0400
> from mini [10.0.0.3]
>
>    ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
> <mailproc@fred>
>
>    ----- Transcript of session follows -----
> procmail: can't map '/lib/libc.so.5'
> procmail: can't map '/lib/libc.so.5'
> procmail: can't load library 'libc.so.5'
> 554 <mailproc@fred>... unknown mailer error 16
%%
> Here is the difficulty with this discussion:
>     No documented problem
>     No reason to believe that the "solution" solves the unspecified "problem"
>     No clear understanding of the effects of this change on the system
>
> Why, this could be a discusion among AIX developers!
%%
> This would be a reasonable committee-like compromise that might
> satisfy neither of us (:-).
%%
By default Microsoft has set Explorer to use gz files as VRML, you need to
change the association for .gz / vrml from "start vrml program" to "always ask"

dave
%%
On 10 Aug 1998, Ben Pfaff wrote:
DG> You're not programming MS-DOS applications are you?

BP> Hell no.  I wouldn't touch MS-DOS with a ten-foot network cable.
%%
[Paul Eggert on tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov]

   Date: 10 Oct 1998 15:35:05 -0000
   From: "D. J. Bernstein" <djb@cr.yp.to>

   Paul Eggert writes:
   > * 29 February if it's a leap lear, 28 February otherwise.

   If that's 1 month before 31 March, then what's 1 month before 30 March?
   1 month before 29 March?

The same as 1 month before 31 March.

   1 month before 28 March?

28 February.

   And what's 1 month after 28 February? 1 month after 27 February? 1 month
   _before_ 27 February?

28 March, 27 March, and 27 January.
%%
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c

>Nils Goesche wrote:
>> So make a security check first:
>>
>> if (status = UNDER_NUCLEAR_ATTACK)
>>         launch_full_counterstrike();
>
>Hmmm.  The way the worlds been going lately, AI wouldn't trust that code to
>do the job.  Here's the revised version:
>
>if(status == UNDER_NULEAR_ATTACK);      /* Corrected dangerous
>                                         = instead of == error*/
>        launch_full_counterstrike();
>
>Now isn't that much more reliable?
>
>--
>Email: cyrand@hotmail.com

The following variant is less reliable but much safer:

if (status == UNDER_NUCLEAR_ATTACK);    /* Correct dangerous
        launch_full_counterstrike ();      = instead == error */
%%
It is even more cheerful than that.  Not so long time ago a customers
of ours totally destroyed his NT installation on Alpha.

He found on a manufacturer page, no money - for a download, "NT driver"
for his particular piece of a hardware.  So he followed instructions
to the letter - "Installation Wizzard" and all that crap - and the thing
happily installed clobbering, as it is customary in these circles,
essential system libraries with its own versions.  The catch was that
this driver was for NT/Intel and these bozos did not even bother to
check for an architecture or at least mention something in some blurb.
Ooops!  No chance even to try to boot anymore.

The saving grace was that the installation was rather new, so loses
were not big, and he had an opportunity to practice an essential skill
of re-installing Windows NT.  Ah, and yes, this was the only NT driver
available for that hardware from any source.
What do you plan on doing? Using a PA system for networking? :)
Whats next? A *Smell* modem? It would bring a new meaning to packet
sniffing!
%%
"I'd rather spend 10 hours reading source code than 10 minutes on a
technical support line that isn't"
%%
[from linux-kernel]
`This code fills 8 million seats, we therefore decide what's standard.''
%%
[...]
And especially with new machines users have a lot of clout. Several UK
suppliers now carry Buslogic cards partly because they got fed up of

        "I'd like to order a dual PII/300, 256Mb of RAM, 17" monitor
         4 4Gig IBM disks, and a buslogic scsi controller"
        "We dont do buslogic only adaptec"
        "Nothing else"
        "Sorry"
        [Click]

Alan
%%
Fünfzig Prozent der Amerikaner wurden in ihrer Kindheit sexuell mißbraucht,
während weitere fünfzig Prozent von Außerirdischen entführt wurden.
%%
>  Let's not forget that this is just an informal, free
>  software project.  Unlke the US House of Representatives
>  we do not yet posess nuclear capability (certain RTEMS
>  users excepted, of course!).

Hmmm, if some RTEMS users have nuclear facilities attached to their
systems, they might be well advised to be careful using FORTRAN as
their language of choice.  The comp.lang.fortran FAQ states (with
concurrence from resident X3J3 members) that "using a non-standard
construct might start WW III, if the necessary (optional) hardware
is installed"

[Toon Moene in private discussion]
%%
Newsgroups: alt.config

L. Harris wrote:
>
> Testing

you failed.
%%
Roswell {Unit 6 of 5 Sam Borg} Coverup [Rev. joWazzoo - well mannered despammer]
<JOWazzoo@WhiteICE.com> at We are Sam Borg Spam Assimilators Ltd. - Area 51 HQ
%%
Perl is really designed more for the guys that will hack Perl at least
20 minutes a day for the rest of their career.  TCL/Python is more a
"20 minutes a week", and VB is probably in that "20 minutes a month"
group. :) -- Randal Schwartz
%%
> alternative, when it comes to stability and power...Not to mention the
> fact that bugs and fixes are very quickly available and don't come in
> 18MB+ "Service Packs" :).

What, you mean you _paid_ for service pack '98?
%%
We got this INTERNET because we whan't more information ( to learn ) now it
seem's people can't handle what they see. You say freedom is a mater of
choice (well it is) you have the freedom to choose to carry your butt some
where else...
%%
Steve Orzel (phloam@vol.com) wrote:
[...]
: The purpose of the newsgroup is to help out other people that have questions
: about a certain topic.
%%
Mark Robinson wrote:
>
> Does any have any source code to games that I can have?  Does anybody
> know where I can get game sources(legally)?

Here's the trial version of the three-room text adventure I'm going to
write.  I'm not finished yet, though.

    void main (void)
    {
        printf ("You are in a dark room.\n");
        printf ("\n");
        printf ("You feel a sharp pain.\n");
        printf ("You have died.\n");
        printf ("\n");
        printf ("!!! GAME OVER !!!");
    }

(Don't tell, but I took some of the code from Quake.)

--
John Kugelman.  kugelman@mnsinc.com
%%
[mail I got after releasing a zip-password cracker, the second biggest
 mistake I ever made]

From: "Tom Miller"
Subject: Can
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3

Hay man can you send me some hacking tips and tricks please
send to kymmiller@bigpond.com
my name is Tom Miller

From: "Tom Miller"
Subject: Wait
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3

Hey man its Tom can you also send me any easy systems to hack and the
passwords also send me any infomation about hacking websites thank you
%%
From: lm@bitmover.com (Larry McVoy)

[...] then think a little before flaming. Or better yet, produce something
better. Flaming is easy but it is basically masturbation without the orgasm
so why bother? [...]
%%
Günter Höns <guenter.hoens@gmd.de>

Newsgroups: de.alt.ufo

Offensichtlich ist noch keinem das Wasser-Wachstum aufgefallen, das sogar
jeden Tag geschieht. Jeden Tag waechst der Wasserberg im Meer um mehrere
Meter, ist dann naeher an der Sonne und verdunstet dann. Sogenannte
Wissenschaftler haben eine abenteuerliche Theorie ueber den Einfluss des
Mondes auf dieses Wachstum aufgestellt, aber inzwischen wissen wir es
besser: Die Wasser-Molekuele werden von Neutrinos getroffen, und verdoppeln
sich dann.
%%
CRASH(8)
        no fs
                A device has disappeared from the mounted-device table.
                Definitely hardware or software error.

                                Unix Version 7 Manual
%%
On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Larry Wall wrote:
>
> Maybe Pi looks like this:
>
>     =for C
>       i++;                    /* add 1 to i */
>     =end
>     =for C++
>       i.value() += 1;         // add 1 to i, probably
>     =end
>     =for Java
>       system().foo().bar().i().value().please().increment(); // ???
>     =end
>
> :-)
%%
> > USENET is *not* the non-clickable part of WWW!
%%
[on linux 2.1.111]

The horrid underlining which was a feature with the monochrome Linux vt's on
the previous two releases of the kernel has gone.  Unfortunately, so has the
cursor.  A couple of brief experiments didn't result in me finding a way to
turn it on.
%%
[...]
its a true story, it happend this weekend in a nice country
between Belgium (wellknown for its Dutroux-case) and Germany
(wellknown for its Bratwurst), lets call it the Lowlands...
[...]
%%
I get a sense of god-like proportions when I patch /dev/kmem with dd(1).

Chad C Giffin
%%
[usenet, an anology]
Mary Green's car was smoking.  She got worried.  "Whatever should I do?"
worried Mary...   Well, as she drove along she noticed a florists shop. "Aha!
Thought Mary, "Flour shops are full of thoughtless men who need to apologize to
their wives.  These men are the sometimes the same ones I see swearing under
the hoods of their cars in the shade of a tree."

"Brrring" said the bell of the door to the flower shop as Mary poked her head
through the door.
"HELP!!! MY CAR IS SMOKING!" Screamed Mary.
"There is a garage right next door." Said the shopkeeper.
"That's right," Said Melvin, "And there is a parts store across the street.  If
you ask for Fred, he's pretty savvy about that kind of stuff."
Now Joe was also in the flower store.  This was his first time in trouble, so
he did not hear the 30 or 40 people per day who came in screaming about their
cars smoking (mostly men, of course -- the ones under the shade trees,
usually.)

"Why don't you help the stinking lady!!" Screamed Joe.  "It might be your
muffler bearings..." he continued.  Or maybe it's your deisel glow plugs or
your tire pressure..."
Now Tim, also new to the flower shop felt the courage to chime in, "Or it could
even be your cooling system.  Sometimes a hose gets a crack."
"My car smoked once and it was an oil leak, where the head gasket was spraying
oil in the manifold."  Hollered Larry
"Hey lady, why don't you get your car the patch if it's smoking" chortled Glen.
Well, the hollering went on into the evening, and the lady finally went to the
gas station and found that the heater core had a tiny split and was repaired in
three days for a cost of $175.23.
%%
> Nun gut, Berliner sollen ja eh etwas heller sein.

Sicher, das macht der Inzest, und die Isolation!:)
%%
> Nun gut, Berliner sollen ja eh etwas heller sein.

Stimmt, deswegen waren sie wohl auch die ersten, die Hitler hinterherliefen...
:-(
%%
>Mt 24,34 Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Dieses Geschlecht wird nicht vergehen, bis
>dies alles geschieht.
>Und es verging nicht.

So what?

Ich dachte eher an:

" 'Und sein Wabbel wird an einer Lanze aufgespiesst', wiederholte der
Oberste Groesste Meister grimmig. Im Hintergrund knarrte etwas, als
Bruder Pfoertner versuchte, das klemmende Portal zu oeffnen. 'Sind wir
jetzt alle soweit? Befinden sich vielleicht noch andere Unwissende
unter uns,die sich verirrt haben?' fuegte er mit aetzendem Sarkasmus
hinzu. 'Gut. Wunderbar. Ich bin ja _so_ froh. Vermutlich brauche ich
nicht zu fragen, ob die vier Wachtuerme geschlossen sind, oder? Oh,
ausgezeichnet. Hat sich jemand die Muehe gemacht, der Heiligen Hose
die Beichte abzunehmen? Ach, tatsaechlich? Auf die richtige Art und
Weise? Und wenn ich nachsehe? Na schoen. Sind vor den Fenstern die
roten Kordeln des Intellekts gespannt worden? Gut. Nun, dann koennen
wir jetzt vielleicht beginnen.' ".

Terry Pratchett, "Wachen! Wachen!", S. 15f

Antje
%%
[....]

Da muss ich ja, obwohl ich beinahe meinen Humor verloren haette, leise
grinsen. Ich darf zusammenfassen: Du bringst uns keine Beweise, weil Du 1.
zu arm und 2. zu sehr ausgelastet mit der Rettung der Welt und der Zukunft
und so bist. Ausserdem brauchst Du keine Beweise, weil sich Dein
Gedankengebaeude nach eingehender Nabelschau als selbsttragend erwiesen hat.
Finde ich gut! Akzeptiert!

Da will ich nicht weiter stoeren,

Antje
%%
It seems that writing to /dev/vcs0 makes the console singing "Ugh,
lalala, I love you baby..."
--
Pavel.Janik@inet.cz
%%
On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
>               Kubys

Kubys is my evil twin brother. Sorry about that.

                Linus
%%
> eieio stands for "Enforce In-Order Execution of I/O".

.... and it is definitely my favorite name for an assembly language
instruction (the non-native-English speakers on the list presumably
don't know the childhood song "Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O").
%%
> It is *big* and never uses.

That's parses like English, but I'll be hornswoggled if I can figure
out what it means.
--
Chip Salzenberg               - a.k.a. -              <chip@perlsupport.com>
%%
[...] HP's PA-8500, for example, has 1.5 Mbytes of L1 cache on-chip. The
company has described the 8500 as a cache SRAM with an ancillary CPU. [...]
%%
From: Dave Cinege <dcinege@psychosis.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 06:10:31 -0400

Terry L Ridder wrote:

> at some future date end up being released under the BSD License is what
> is being discussed.

Well my licence is bigger then your licence.
%%
[gtk/testgtk, after dragging & dropping an object:]

Drop data of type text/plain was:

Bill Gates demands royalties for your use of his innovation

[and the button reads]

Continue with life in spite of this oppression
%%
Joshua Waxman <jwaxman@ymail.yu.edu> writes:

   While DJGPP is indeed a C as well as a C compiler, there are certain

A terribly succinct, as well as a true, statement.  However, it has a
certain amount of redundancy.
%%
Compatibility with oneself is Microsoft's greatest strength. When they hit
the 64 bit transition they will hit a major internal incompatibility problem.

...

Peter da Silva <peter@baileynm.com>
%%
>Hello,
>
>I am new to Perl. Can anyone tell me where I can download a full
>operational Perl version for a Windows 95 system?
>

Of course it all depends on what you mean by "a full operational Perl
version"  Perl on Win32 has limitations that are largely due to the
nature of the underlying OS,  Perl on Win95 has further limitations
compared with NT due to its own shortcomings .
%%
An injunction delaying Windows 98 would clearly have a negative impact
on the country as a whole.
                                     Compaq President & CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer,
                                     explaining why Microsoft shouldn't be
                                     prosecuted under anti-monopoly laws.
%%
With a PC, I always felt limited by the software available.  On Unix, I am
limited by my knowledge.  --Peter J. Schoenster <pschon@baste.magibox.net>
%%
There is a need to keep from being locked into Open Systems. --IBM sales rep
%%
In comp.lang.perl.misc,
    Stylin <stylinsty@yahoo.comREMOVE> writes:
:Can anyone point me to the algorithm for creating a unique id?

    $id = `cat /dev/kmem`;

--tom
--
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language.   :-)
                --Larry Wall in  <8571@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
%%
Newsgroup: comp.lang.perl.misc
Subject: Larry 1 Bill 0
%%
On 3 Jul 1998, Ben Pfaff wrote:

> The only problem with these AIs is that they don't handle references
> to themselves as AIs very well.  In faSegmentation fault (core dumped)
> NO CARRIER
> !@*&#@#%T^@&*(GU*SD*(@!&*(@#R(*FERHGH*(@#(&$&#@Y!&R
%%
> People come here to ask questions, not for intellectual gratification, but
> rather they are seeking solutions. As such, the incorrect answer was
> better.

There's something... terribly wrong with this statement. I can't quite put
my finger on it. Hmmm.
%%
comp.lang.c does not exist to accomodate the laziness of those who cannot be
bothered to learn netiquette. That's what comp.lang.c++ is for.
%%
|> : > but... a microwave is an example of an embedded system,
|>
|> : Who says? He just said it was a microwave. He didn't say it was
|> : a free-standing implimentation.
|>
|> This is approaching arguing for the sake of argument.  Have you
|> ever seen a microwave oven that supports a hosted C environment?

The Lipton Ritchie Model 8 did.  I'm sure that many posters will
point out that Lipton's implementation of the stdio libraries was
horrendously buggy.  It was, but it was still a great system.  It
remains the only C implementation I know of that could be used to
build Bison, and then cook it.

Viva la buffalo burgers.
%%
A strategically-placed PDP-11 can be used to heat your entire
home.  I've got one in my basement, next to a large box of "She's
The Sheriff" drink coasters.  I sold my furnace years ago.  The
Digital Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Corporation
can be found online at http://www.dhvacc.com/.
%%
The lbxproxy program has various options, all of which are optional.
                                                      -- lbxproxy(1)
%%
Re: Where to learn Windows programming...

|> I'll take a Schildt book any day, thanks.

Great. I'm expecting to see the line above as a back-cover blurb
on the next "Bullschildt: The Complete Reference".
%%
Subject: Re: The wrong position of while, if and else?

that's some ugly piece of code buddy...
%%
In article <1998062718481700.OAA03186@ladder01.news.aol.com>, eyrei@aol.com (EYREI) writes:
|> I have recently started learning the C Language.  I have created a simple file
|> to determine whether or not a number is Prime.  When I run it, the program
|> crashes with the error message :- Unhandled Exception :- General Protection
|> Exception 0x5FD7:0x379F. Prime(1) Processor Fault.

|> What does this mean.

It means you've got a broken operating system, and should immediately
install [free|net|open]BSD[OS] or Linux.
%%
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c

On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Emulov wrote:
> Hi, i don't know if this is a stupid question..

Off-topic, too! Imagine that.
%%
"Right now we are the most shit hot piece of PC networking software on the
 planet. The only people who can touch us are FreeBSD (who also dont do
 streams)."
         -- Alan Cox, in "Streams and Linux"
%%
   "Perl combines all of the worst aspects of BASIC, C and line noise."
                             - Keith Packard <keithp@ncd.com>
%%
Lord Fellatio <richter_m@hotmail.com>

>Wo soll das Loch denn dann sein? Im Meeresboden?

Klaro.

>Von oben duerfte man es also ueberhaupt nicht sehen
>koennen, da ueber dem potentiellen Loch im Meeresboden doch
>wahrscheinlich erstmal Wasser und dann viel Eis liegen wuerde. Wie
>verhindern die Ausserirdischen denn, dass Wasser ins Loch einstroemt?

Na ist doch völlig logo, mit nem rotierenden Traktorstrahl. Die
Energie klauen die ?r***e dem Erdmagnetfeld.

>Gibt es da einen kosmischen Badewannenstoepsel? Haben sie es mit
>Eisbergen verstopft? Oder benutzen sie das einstroemende Wasser zu
>Kajakfahrten bis hinunter zum Suedpol? (Das waere doch auch endlich
>mal eine einleuchtende Erklaerung fuer die Eismassen, die die
>Antarktis bedecken - man muesste halt nur, der Kontinentaldrift
>folgend, immer wieder neue Schaechte bohren. Oder die Kontinentaldrift
>einfach wegdiskutieren...)

Die enorme Zentrifugalkraft im Erdinnern schleudert das Wasser wieder
am Nordpolpol raus, falls der Traktorstrahl versagen sollte (Dies
passiert immer dann, wenn das Erdmagnetfeld umkippt). Nun kommt sicher
der Einwand, die Erde würde zu langsam rotieren. Das ist nur bedingt
richtig. Richtig ist hingegen, daß die Rotationsgeschwindigkeit im
Erdinnern um den Faktor 1000 (ca; sehr schwer zu messen: Magma) größer
ist als auf der Erdoberfläche. Dies ist auch die Ursache für die
Kontinentaldrift und die Mondphasen.

Die Mondphasen wiederum beeinflussen das Erdmagnetfeld und sind daher
die Ursache für die Sonnenflecken. Den Sonnenflecken haben wir auch
die momentane Klimaveränderung zu verdanken. Auf der anderen Seite hat
die Zunahme der Treibhausgase eine Erhöhung des Reflektionsvermögens
der Atmosphäre zur Folge, welches dazu führt, daß ein Teil der
Sonnenenergie zur Sonne zurückreflektiert wird. Dies heizt wiederum
die Sonnenflecken auf und verkürzt deren Zyklus. All dies wird sich in
den nächten Monaten so aufschaukeln, daß vorraussichtlich im Novemner
2002 das Erdmagnetfeld zusammenbrechen wird. Wie damals bei den Dinos.
Nur war dort ein Kometeneinschlag die Ursache.

cu in hell 2002
%%
      "Hiroshima '45, Chernobyl '85, Windows '95"
%%
>In unix, one might say 'man 3 crypt'.

Of course, on a Solaris system this won't give you what you want.  You
get a message that it can't find the man page for 3.  It then prints
the man page for crypt(1).

Of course, all a beginner has to do is figure out that the 3 is the
section number in the Unix manual.  He can then use man man to find
that on Solaris one uses -s to specify the section so he'll try

        man -s3 crypt

Unfortunately, that doesn't work either.  He'll get the message "No
entry for crypt in section(s) 3 of the manual."

If he doesn't give up, he can go back to the manual page for man and
find that the -a switch prints all matching manual pages.  Or perhaps
he can figure out to use the command

        man -s3 Intro.3

to get a list of everything in section 3.  He'll then find out that
crypt is in section 3C so he should use

        man -s3c crypt

Gee.  I don't understand why beginners have so much trouble with this
stuff.  I've only been programming Unix for 15 years and I don't have
any trouble.
--
Michael M Rubenstein
%%
        Take a moment to consider these lines:

        %OVERLOAD=( '""' => sub { join("", @{$_[0]}) } );

        sub html { my($type)=shift; bless ["<$type>", @_, "</$type>"]; }

        :-)  I *love* Perl 5!  Thankyou Larry and Ilya.

        Regards,
        Tim Bunce.

        p.s. If you didn't get it, think about recursive data types: html(html())
        p.p.s. I'll turn this into a much more practical example in a day or two.
        p.p.p.s. It's a pity that overloads are not inherited. Is this a bug?
%%
From: alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk (Alan Cox)

...

> now is evil".  This only shows two things: you never looked at the bad
> experiences of the industry where following a rotten design and
> keeping backward compatibility lead to unusable systems.  And second:

I worked for 3com. I know eveyrhting about following a rotten design until
its unusable, believe me I do.
%%
Ok(slow) -> !NeedComputer

Semour Cray
%%
Ullrich Jans at University of Karlsruhe, Germany:

Oh Gott! Es ist voller crons!
%%
From: p00h <p00h@MONMOUTH.COM>
Subject: Re: AOL for Windows DoS/Exploit

aol supports PARTIAL html, its like win95's implementation of tcp/ip
it only supports parts of it
%%
egcs/gcc/gcse.c:
 /*  Help stamp out big monolithic functions!  */
%%
[...] Yes, I'm being sarcastic.  Especially regarding HPPA assembler syntax
as provided by HP, which was designed by someone who should not have been
let near a language-design project like that, too often "little languages",
whether assemblers, tools, or C++, are designed by people who are unaware
of, or give little thought to, the outright readability of code written in
the language, in the sense that the basic semantics should be fairly obvious
*without* the reader having to memorize lots of semantic information.

(In HPPA assembler's case, one glaring stupidity was the nullified branches,
which have completely different semantics depending on whether the label
being branched to happens to assemble to a negative or positive offset!  A
smarter design would have required the programmer to specify whether such a
branch was a "forward" or "backward" branch explicitly, then the assembler
and/or linker would complain if reality didn't match the programmer's
specification.  I've never looked into whether GNU's HPPA as fixes this
botch; I gather GNU as fixes many botches, though, so it wouldn't surprise
me if it did, even though that might make for some compatibility problems
with existing HP as code.) [...]

        tq vm, (burley)
%%
libc/posix/regex.h:
/* The following two types have to be signed and unsigned integer type
   wide enough to hold a value of a pointer.  For most ANSI compilers
   ptrdiff_t and size_t should be likely OK.  Still size of these two
   types is 2 for Microsoft C.  Ugh... */
typedef long int s_reg_t;
typedef unsigned long int active_reg_t;
%%
libc/db2/db.h:
/*
 * While Microsoft's compiler is ANSI C compliant, it doesn't have _STDC_
 * defined by default, you specify a command line flag or #pragma to turn
 * it on.  Don't do that, however, because some of Microsoft's own header
 * files won't compile.
 */
%%
> UTC variation and begining and ending dates of DST (if observed) would be
> great.

I answered only the places I can comment on.

> BASSAS DA INDIA

This rock is below water half of the time!
If any inhabitants have been there, I do not think they observe DST
on a regular basis!  ;-)
%%
# ./test-plugin.pl
Bizarre copy of CODE in sassign at /root/.gimp/plug-ins/test-plugin.pl line 40.
wire_read: unexpected EOF (plug-in crashed?)
%%
>
> The "where do you want to go today?" generation has taken the
> developer out of the "programmer" by removing the vital, development
> tools from the environment and precanning software.

No kidding. Point. Click. Point. Click. Point. Click. Brain Atrophy.
%%
Lars Chr Hausmann <36haus@but.auc.dk> writes:

>Hello!

>I have to write something about, what Perl is.
>I need some crystal clear info about, what perl is. So if any of you
>would be so kind just to mail. Then I would be grateful!


Perl.

regards
jobst
%%
Subject: Re: Cyrix 6x86MX and Centaur C6 CPUs in 2.1.102
From: alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk (Alan Cox)
Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 22:31:02 +0100 (BST)

> Well, that depends. They SHOULD be. By Intel 'standards' *laff*, they have
> to be identical stepping, indicating identical features. However, I've

They don't. Pentiums have fairly strict rules, P6/PII much less. Also Intel
are pretty good at following the MP 1.1/1.4 standard its the motherboard
makers who get it wrong - primarily the BIOS is full of bugs. It appears
nobody tests bios code against specs any more. It looks like they do
compile flash, boot 95, boot NT, ship. The quality of bios code has dived to
the absolute pits.
%%
Unix never says `Please.'  -- Rob Pike
%%
> What about: . scriptname
> ------------------^ this is a dot!

Funny, it looks like a "p" to me.
%%
A computer without Microsoft and IBM is like chocolate cake without
ketchup and mustard
%%
Subject: Re: Challange for perl `GURUS

vimal gajjar wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>                 Here is a small challange. Is it possible to have a perl
> code which takes e.g. three parameters as input. time, val1, val2. and
> the name of the prog. is say challange.pl. Now if  i execute
> "challange.pl  10 5 2" this perl script wille  consume
> 5% of cpu
> 2 Mb of RAM
> for the period of 10 Seconds.
>
> can one of the gurus take this challange?

Examining the 5 copies of this post has consumed 5% of the
brain power I allocate to reviewing c.l.p.m, about 10 seconds, and
has caused the death of 2 million brain cells.
%%
> >> /A:You can usually write the program faster than you can
> >>    dial/dl/hangup/install/read docs/fix it/fix the fix/.
>
> >s/usually/never/
>
> s/sometimes/never/

Cute. You embarrass yourself by your ignorance of perl.
%%
:That's probably true, but I really can't speak to it. But, if there
:were no *nix around, there'd be no Perl. Nor would there be a need for
:Perl, IMO.

Gotta love them JCL and ini dot bat dot bad dot doo dah files.

TC
%%
'cc:Mail is a wonderful application, as long as you don't want to read or send mail.'
%%
shurik@iron.Te.NeT.UA - Alexandr Dubovikov at TeNeT Networking Centre

Hi guys!

How check socket, alive it or die ?
%%
--> Questions not to ask on linux-kernel <--

Miscellaneous flame-wars:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
12) The gnome-kde debate does not belong on linux-kernel.
13) The emacs-vi  debate does not belong on linux-kernel.
14) Porting linux to run under windows is not interesting.
15) Whether a given intel CISC chip "is really RISC" is not interesting.
%%
Subject: what a week!
From: "C. Scott Ananian" <cananian@lcs.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 03:13:23 -0400 (EDT)

unicode, boot-logos, GGI, STREAMS, the necessity of a short devel cycle
and the instability of 2.0.x, "ifconfig stopped working", "you really *do*
need to remove 'encaps'", Linus' tarball practices... it seems like we're
running out of things to flame off on.  Here's my humble contribution:

I'VE MADE A KEWL NEW CHARSET THAT I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD USE.  IT HAS ALL
THE LETTERS IN MY LOGIN MAPPED TO THE LOWEST 16 CHARACTERS SO WE CAN
COMPRESS THINGS REAL GOOD AND THE LETTERS IN MY BROTHER B1FF'S NAME ARE
ALL IN HIGH ASCII CUZ THAT'S WHERE LOSERS BELONG!!!2!!7

I ONLY USE EMACS AND I THINK VI SUX!!$231!!

GNOME RULES AND KDE IS DEMON-SPAWN BECAUSE IT IS NOT FREE.!  !

WE NEED KGI IN THE KERNEL (NOT LIBGGI, NOT THE TERMINAL IMPROVEMENTS
WHATEVER THEY'RE CALLED) IN ORDER TO HAVE WAY KEWL BOOT LOGOS AND RUN MY
BROTHER B1FF'S GAMES!!1!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!11!!!

I USE A BIG-ENDIAN MACHINE BECAUSE THEY RULE.  LITTLE-ENDIAN MACHINES ARE
EVIL.  AND A PENTIUM *IS* A RISC PROCESSOR!!!

WE SHOULD PORT LINUX TO WINDOWS SO WE CAN USE ALL THE KEWL HARDWARE
DRIVERS!!!!!@@#!

Did I miss any? ;-)

*Please* don't respond seriously to this email. It's a joke.  A joke.
Laugh.  Please.

And then let's kill all the flaming threads, shall we?
  --Scott
%%
> Well, /proc/kcore already reports its actual size...

And it isn't about to change at runtime either.  That is the size of
installed memory.  I've yet to see a single person successfully insert or
remove a SIMM/DIMM while a machine was running.  If they did, and it was
successful, the linux code will update the filesize.  ;o)
%%
Toby Heywood (toby@he-net.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

One of those 'M's stands for Mail.

This is not mail.

This is Usenet.

Please post only plain text like everyone else does.
%%
------------ etienne.lorrain@ibm.net
--- hdc: irq timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
--- ide1: reset: success
-----------> I like Linux !
%%
> I have experienced people walking up to my console and saying "What
> the hell does that mean" in sheer terror as the machine boots.

Tell them it's magic, and earn the respect of your colleagues.  I always
do.
%%
++ Actually, I'm not at a loss for words. Here's one that's very appropriate:
++ PLONK.
%%
++ > SSI is *not* HTML.
Re: Subraumfunk

Ja, ein Handy waere da praktisch. Die hoeheren Gebuehren rechnen sich,
wenn man ueber die Grenzen des Sonnensystems hinaus telefonieren will.

Die Telekom wuerde da wieder mal erbarmungslos abzocken. Ich kann es
mir schon vorstellen: SunSystem-Tarif, vielleicht auch einen
InnerPlanets-Sondertarif, dann einen LocalGroupWeekend-Specialtarif,
eine Supercluster-Zone und so weiter. Und wenn es auf der Venus
schneit, telefonieren alle fuer die Haelfte.
%%
> > Vergiss es. Du wirst nie und nimmer von Armando eine
> > konkrete, verwertbare Antwort bekommen.
>
> Doch, man bekommt von mir sogar sehr viele Antworten.

Du hast gerade zwei Adjektive weggelassen.
%%
++ Oh yeah. Show me an example of SSI used outside of HTML.
Show me an HTML DTD mentioning SSI directives.
%%
Namsuk Kim wrote:
> Is there a way to convert a scalar data to Acii data format?

I am not familar with ACII.  If you mean ASCII, then the question I have is
- is the data in EBCDIC now?

Bill Jones
%%
GNU/getopt.c:

#if defined (WIN32) && !defined (__CYGWIN32__)
/* It's not Unix, really.  See?  Capital letters.  */
#include <windows.h>
#define getpid() GetCurrentProcessId()
#endif
%%
Subject: IIS 4.0, PW32i316, CGI Programs

Perlis.dll does not pass command line arguments correctly via the web.  That
is, invoking the URL

http://www.myserver.com/myprogram.pl?Argument1&Argument2...&Argumentn

causes the myprogram.pl to execute, but @ARGV is empty.
%%
  "You need to use CGI."
  "I am using CGI, it's a CGI application!"
  "No, no, *use* CGI.  The directive 'use'."
  "OK, so what directive do I use?"
  "No, no, you *use* *use*.  Use CGI."
  "I *am* using CGI!"

Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
%%
> > Was haltet Ihr von Killfile-mailing-lists, dass sich die Leute mal
> > kennenlernen koennen?
>
> Gute Idee ;-), wäre ich sofort dabei, datrifft man wahrscheinlich ne
> Menge tolle Leute... ;-) und die wahren Freidenker.

Einige Freidenker sicher, aber auch etliche Denkfreie.
%%
"I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big or
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." -- Linus Torvalds 1991
%%
If it's a floppy, it might be a copy.
If it's a disk, you're also at risk.
If it's a pirate, the vendors are irate.
To avoid such frustration, try: Free Software Foundation.
%%
From: David Woodhouse <Dave@imladris.demon.co.uk>

pcg@goof.com said:
>  It was much more than I usally get! It was _great_

Hehe - I know the feeling.

    "It's broken."
 "What's wrong with it?."
    "I don't know - it just doesn't work."
 "Well what do you mean by 'it's broken'?"
    "It just doesn't work."
 "How can you _tell_ it's broken, for f***'s sake - what are the symptoms!?"
    "It gives an error message."
 "Would you care to tell me what it says?"
    "It says.... something about there being an error."
 "That's not very helpful. Tell me it word for word."
    "It says 'Unable to handle kernel NULL reference at something or other'"
 "That's not word for word. It said 'NULL pointer dereference.' Try again,
  letter for letter this time."
%%
From: "Paul B. Henson" <henson@INTRANET.CSUPOMONA.EDU>

After installing Solaris 2.6 HW3/98, I discovered that /usr/bin/admintool
had been installed mode 0777, world writable. Under the original release of
2.6, the mode was 04555.

Sun has been notified of the problem. If you're running 2.6 HW3/98, you
might want to verify your admintool hasn't been tampered with and fix the
perms.

(Personally, I'd set them to 0000 ;). admintool? blech.)
%%
From: verah@netscape.com (Vera Horiuchi)
Subject: Re: Risp: drama (Re: Do It Yourself)

Americans ignorant of the rest of the world?

I must tell a favorite story here. A friend and I were purchasing a gift
for another friend who lives in Canada. I was speculating out loud about
how much duty our Canadian friend would have to pay.

The cashier said, "Oh, I'm sure Canadians don't have to pay any duty. We
ship to Hawaii all the time, and _they_ don't have to pay duty."  =:-0
%%
>am besten ist z.Z. das Buch von Michael Neufeld. Wer aber Wissenslücken
>verspürt (was keine Schande ist), sollte diese zu stopfen suchen und nicht
>Zuflucht zu absolut hirnrissigen Theorien suchen.

Hirnrissig bist Du. Das es einen Zeittransfer aus der Zukunft zu den Nazis
gab deckt sich mit dazu passenden Entschluesselungen bestimmter Bibelstellen
und mit der dann tatsaechlichen notwendigen Geheimhaltung. Es deckt sich
ueberdies damit, dass die Unterhaltung uns den Gedanken zunehmend nahelegt,
also vorbereitet, und dass es bereits ein wissenschaftliches Experiment gab,
bei dem ERST die Wirkung auftrat und DANN die Ursache. Die Zeitreise ist
also Fakt. Und es ist sicher, dass Jemand per Zeitreise den Nazis helfen
wollte. Gelegentliche Theorien, dass auch diese ausserirdische Hilfe gehabt
haetten sollen nur davon ablenken, eine andere Erklaerung liefern. Das ist
logisch, denn die Taeter sitzen ja irgendwo in unserer Zeit und moechten
sicher nicht erkannt werden.

Du scheinst die simpelsten Grundzuege der Zeitlogik nicht verstehen zu wollen.

normarz@aol.com
%%
>Oder anders gesagt:
>Glaubst Du, Du könntest mit einem hochmodernen Maschinengewehr eine römische
>Legion
>schlagen?

Klar. Frage mal Cortez.

Bye
Andreas
%%
>Article 2B is a threat to anyone who uses a computer. I just wanted to

It may be a threat to any american using a computer. Fortunately, the U.S.
justice does not yet apply outside the U.S.A.

I.a.W.: You're currently creating a lot of happy non-U.S. software
companies.

        Kind regards
                Henning
%%
From: "Adam J. Richter" <adam@yggdrasil.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 04:14:11 -0700
Subject: Re: driver for Creative Labs DVD kits

        At least with the IDE DVD drive that I have, plugging it directly
into an IDE port and using the regular Linux ide-cd driver works just fine
for reading [...] CD and the [not] copy protected sections of the DVD's.

        There is a protocol that the hardware decoder boards use to
tell the DVD drive that they are a licensed implementation and should
be allowed to read the copy protected sectors as well.  I have been
told that this protocol can be done entirely in software with a
standard IDE port.  Hopefully, somebody will reverse engineer this and
make it a demand loaded kernel module.  (Seriously, there is a lot
that you are allowed to do with copyrighted material that this sort of
hardware restriction prevents, and there are other important political
issues involved relating to your rights to do as you please with the
computer equipment that you bought and paid for.)
%%
Where do you want to go today?
We might support that sometime next year.
        -=- Microsoft
(But I doubt it.)
        -=- Me
        -=- James Mastros
%%
Hello570 <hello570@aol.com> wrote:
>        I tried printing a line to a file using both of the
> following methods, but the output was split into two
>lines.

If you don't want newlines in the middle of your string, then don't
put newlines in the middle of your string.
%%
    http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Dean_Roehrich/subjects.post
%%
Einstein himself said that God doesn't roll dice. But he was wrong. And
in fact, anyone who has played role-playing games knows that God
probably had to roll quite a few dice to come up with a character like
Einstein.  -- Larry Wall
%%
From: Ragnar Hojland Espinosa <root@lightside.ddns.org>

My $0.02 Euros on internationalization? I'm in Spain and my keyboard is
mosty US mapped because the Spanish map is really awkward for programming.
Computers were designed to be funcional, not politically (or locally)
correct (hm, I don't think HAL ever spoke Russian). This "computers are easy
for all" GUI related trend has done a lot of money, and lot of damage; at
least command line OSes forced the user to actually learn something and
absorb information. The user assumed so, so he did.  Now he doesn't, and
it's not all his fault.

The WWW is full of useless (and ugly) graphics, of useless links to links to
pages with links to links which usually end up in a huge links page. Of
course, there are some jewels.. but they should be majority! It's
understandable, when the tools and languages focus more on aspect that in
content.

Usenet is worse than ever, the interesting places have been ruined by
spammers, c00l hak3rz, and more and more people asking (or demanding) for
others doing their homework.. at least some time ago they were willing to
learn (or pay for it;)

IRC.. heh. The few times I've been on funet almost all I found is the same
people in the above paragraph. And I do know some of them even run scripts
to try denial of service or other destructive attacks on people they see,
just for fun or to get the op.

Email. Someone selling an "incredible program that allows you to bypass
your ISP mail server, for only $89" (thats right, a smtp server). No OS
mentioned, I somehow can guess which. And that stupid thing of sending
mail to people in RTF and HTML format.. I'm gonna answer them in LaTeX.

Internet, your ilimited junk yard.

Using computers would make me real sad if it wasn't for UNIX and, of
course, Linux and Linux people.
%%
... WNT == ++VMS .  Literally.  Dave Cutler created VMS,
then he rewrote it as WNT.

Ever used VMS?  It's a step above DOS.  Barely.
--
Clark O. Morgan                 cmorgan@aracnet.com
%%
>Subject: If "=~" means match what is doesn't match?

I heard that a friend of a friend might have once been told about a
rumor that this information can be found in perlop, right next to
where =~ is documented. (It's !~)

I agree with Tom's assessment that the fall of modern man will be
preceded by the de-evolution of communications to the days of oral
tradition.
%%
"Windows 95, the most installed system in the world,
I know, I've done it 5 or 6 times myself"
%%
The statistics programming language S, from AT&T, combines lazy
evaluation with imperative programming.  A nightmare.
%%
"In 1965, as part of a research and development project for the
U.S. Army, engineers at TRW Corp developed a software program
called Generalized Information Retrieval Lanaguage and System."
Or GIRLS for short.
%%
Wissen bremst die Meinungsbildung voll aus.
%%
I have an idea: Anybody who posts an URGENT! or EMERGENCY! request should
post the circumstances behind the urgency.  "I was having sex with my
mistress in the server room and I knocked the Linux box over and the hard
drive crashed and so I've reinstalled everything but I still can't get
5_004_03 to build!"

This would inspire me to action far more than the implied subtext of "I
have no patience."

xoxo,
Andy
%%
> I have Perl5 running on my pc.
> and also front page98 and microsoft personal web server runnig.
We all have our cross to bear.
%%
(THIS IS LONG, YOU MAY WANT TO SKIP)

From:         mjd@plover.com (Mark-Jason Dominus)
Date:         09 Nov 1995 02:57:30 GMT
Subject:      Re: system() question

    There are a lot of reasons, many of which get repeated over and
over again, many of which don't.  Some of the reasons you hear a lot
are: Questions are incoherently phrased.  Questions have the form 'My
code doesn't work' and don't include the code.  Questions include the
code, and it's 200 lines long, and comp.lang.perl is not a debugging
service.  Nobody knows the answer to the question.  The question is so
badly punctuated that nobody can bear to read it.  Questions aer
written by a non-native speaker of English and the native speakers who
are trying to understand it can't.  (That's a shame, but it does
happen.  I often wish that these people would post in their native
languages.  I'd love to see more discussion in languages other than
English.  Some Dutch guy tried posting all his comp.lang.c articles in
Dutch a few years ago, and all the Americans flamed him.  How
humiliating for me!)

    Apart from these oft-mentioned reasons are many others that are
not so often discussed, because anyone who tries to bring them up gets
flamed.  But it's the truth: I know the reason I don't answer more
questions is because so many of them questions are so damn stupid.
They're stupid in a lot of different ways, but they're still stupid.
I don't want to suggest that that's why your questions go unanswered.
I don't know what you're asking.  No doubt the reason your questions
go unanswered is because they're so deep and interesting that nobody
really knows the answer.

    The most common stupid question is the one from someone who has
some high-level problem that they need solved.  They have an idea that
they'd like to do it in perl, and they don't really know perl.  So
instead of learning perl, they post to comp.lang.perl.misc.

    Now don't get me wrong.  I don't have any problems answering the
questions of someone who's trying to learn perl.  I love THOSE
qusetions.  But these people don't seem to be asking useful questions
for that.

    Today, for example, I saw a question from a guy who wants to get a
list of hostnames out of nslookup.  `How do I do that?' he says.  And
it's hard to know what to make of that.  What does he mean?  Does he
not know how to open a pipe?  Is his en' command failing?  What's
going on here?  I can't give a useful answer without understanding the
problem.  Having your en' fail is a problem.  Wanting to list
hostnames is not a problem; it's a desire.

Here are some similar questions that would have made more sense to me:

        1. `I'm a lazy asshole and I can't be bothered to learn to
           program myself, but I know if I post here you'll give me
           something for free.''

           (OK, fair enough.  At least I can send him a rate card.)

        2. `I'm trying to use en' to talk to nslookup, but...
             ...here's my code; what's wrong?''

           (Good question.)

        3. `I know perl has a `System' command for running programs,
           but I can't see how to get my commands into nslookup
           once I have run it.''
           (Good question.)

        4. `I'm trying to use `Getprotobynumber' to talk to nslookup...''

           (Good question.)

    See, I'm not just biting people's heads off, here.  #4 is a good
question, because it gives me something to work with.  OK, he has a
very weird idea about interprocess communication, but that's
ignorance, and that's what we're here to correct.  He doesn't know
about en'; I can refer him to the manual.

    Here's another example: Some guy wants to assemble a list of email
addresses . `How do I do that?'' he wants to know.  Well, duh.  Get a
big pad of paper and read news for a couple days and write down all
the addresses you see.  Problem solved.  What's it doing in
comp.lang.perl?
    Oh, you wanted to do it in perl.  Well, I guess I'd open a socket
to the NNTP server and send it some XHDR commands for the `From'
lines.  But that's not Perl; you could do that in any language.  I
could do it in Bourne Shell for you if I'm allowed to use a little
external thingie to handle the socket parts for me.  What's it doing
in comp.lang.perl?

    Oh, you wanted us to write the program for you?  Wait, let me send
you my rate card.

    Someone posted yesterday asking how to get the data from a file where
the start and end of the data is marked by keywords.  Same thing going on
here.  `Well, here's how you solve your problem: First you go take an
introductory class in programming and learn to write programs in some
language.  Then you go to the bookstore and buy this book by Wall and
Schwartz, it's really good.  Read the book carefully and try out the
examples.  Then if you still have general questions like `How do I do this'
instead of thought that this code would do X but instead it does Y' you hire
a professional to write your program for you.  Or you could just skip right
to step 3.  Want my rate card?''

    The worst stupid questions are the ones that come from people who
have no business asking them.  The most perfect example of this that I
could have imagined was in comp.unix.questions a couple of years ago.
Some guy came and asked how you could tell if a file is a hard link.
My jaw flapped open and it's stayed open since then.  I couldn't have
been any more stumped if he'd asked why Bodhidharma came from the
West.  What do you say to this guy?  Do you tell him the truth, that
all files are hard links, that even symbolic links are hard links?
He's not going to understand you; you might as well keep your mouth
shut.  Do you tell him the truth, that the answer won't do him any
good because he doesn't know what a hard link is, so why did he bother
asking in the first place?  No, that'll just make him mad.  I followed
that message for the next couple weeks, and nobody said anything.
What could you say?  The guy had no business asking the question and
no use for the answer.  Maybe the right answer would have been to cut
off his finger or something.  I dunno.

    Some questions get ignored because they're boring.  Someone asked
today how to compare two variables (I assumme he means the contents of
those variables) to see if they're exactly the same.  You've gotta be
in an awfully good mood to take the time to answer that.  Maybe
someone will.  Maybe I will.

    If I answer that one today, maybe he'll be back tomorrow asking
how to check to see if two variables contain different values.  Maybe
I won't.  What I find incredible is that if you tell these people to
go read the manual and come back in two weeks, you sometimes get
jumped on for not being helpful to beginners.  Bah.  If everyone told
these people to go read the manual, they'd eventually figure out that
that's what you have to do ,and then I wouldn't have to spend so much
of my life dealing with incompetent programmers.

    Some questions are logically nonsensical because the querent
thinks they know more than they do.  A lot of these have the form
`How do I use X to accomplish Y?'' There's nothing wrong with this,
except that sometimes X is a chocolate-covered banana and Y is the
integration of European currency systems.  I always get stuck on
these, probably because I can't get rid of the idea that the person
really has a good reason for wanting to use X.  I know a half-dozen
easy simple ways to accomplish Y, but I can't imagine what X has to do
with it.  This is a problem for me in my day job, too.  Clients are
always saying to me `We want to use product X to do multimedia
development on the world-wide web,'' and all I can think is `Well,
gee, what would you want to go and do that for?''  Sometimes it turns
out that they want to do it because they want to impress the
manufacturers of X, and I don't work on those jobs.

    The flip side of this is a questions like `I want to accomplish
X, but I don't want to use Y.  What can I use instead?''  Which,
again, is sometimes reasonable, and then sometimes X is closing a
filehandle and Y is the `Close' function.

The questions I like the best are the ones that go like this:

        `I want to accomplish X.

          I thought that the following code fragment would do it:

          ...

          But instead it does Y.

          Why is that?''

This one is also pretty good:

        `I want to accomplish X.
          I thought I might be able to use facility Y.

          But Y doesn't seem like it's quite right,
          because of Z.

          What should I use instead of Y, or how can I overcome Z?''

When I ignore these, it's usually because I don't know the answer.
There were an awful lot of them today.  It makes me very happy.


There you go; a 160-line dissertation on why questions go unanswered.
Now don't let me hear you saying nobody ever answers your questions.

--
Consulting Minister for Consultants, DNRC
The Bill of Rights is paid in Responsibilities - Jean McGuire
%%
>> BTW, would it be easier to cope with international text using Python?
>Sigh... you're breaking my heart. Ask Jack Jansen, he probably knows.

If I were really evel, I would point out that the newest TCL (8.1) has
support for international character sets and Unicode. But then, mentioning
TCL in this newsfroup would be really bad. So, of course, I don't do that.

Ups. I'm so sorry ... ;-)

bye, Georg
%%
I personally do not believe in object orientation as a security model
(nor as a general programming paradigm), but feel free to try to
convince me.

[ Or maybe I confuse you with somebody else and some other posting ]

                Linus
%%
++ how can i strip new lines out at var.
++

Removing new lines is very tricky, as the manual tells you so. Ignore the
complicated things in the manual, and put in this neat little trick:

$var=join+q,,,grep[[ord$[[qq$\137$]]<10 or+10<ord]]split+q,,,$var;

If you're old enough not to read the manual, you won't have a problem
understanding the above line.

Abigail
%%
I fixed the problem by mounting the SCO volume on the SunOS box, and since
1995 the problem has gone away together with the SCO machine.
%%
++ Hi Does anybody know how to upload many graphic files at the push of a
++ button?
Yes.

++         100 pictures or so?
Yes.

++                             Can I do it in Perl?
Yes.

Your question isn't Perl specific. Please ask in the relevant
newsgroup. alt.button.play

Abigail
%%
perly gates - The way to perl; Enter hackerdom.

perly Gates - Contradictio in Terminis.

Martien
%%
Ren hat weder von Sinnhaftigkeit noch von Kausalität geschrieben, sondern
nur von Logik. Logik und Kausalität sind in unserem (normalen) Denken zwar
eng miteinander verknüpft, sind aber nicht dasselbe. Sinn ist hingegen noch
etwas Drittes und ganz verschiedenes! "Sinn" bedeutet mindestens, daß eine
Sache eine gewisse Richtung hat, wie in "Uhrzeigersinn". Meistens bedeutet
Sinn aber, daß eine Sache einen bestimmten Zweck erfüllt. Auch darf man
nicht "verursachen" mit "begründen" verwechseln, weil die beiden
unterschiedlich sind. Die Existenz muß auch keinen Sinn haben, um eine
Ursache zu haben. Das sind zwei völlig voneinander unabhängige Sachen. Die
Existenz hat einen Sinn, also eine Richtung, wenn wir unserer Existenz eine
Richtung geben. Dieser Sinn kann auf etwas abzielen, was außerhalb unserer
selbst steht, muß aber nicht... Sie kann auch einen Sinn haben, der schon da
war, bevor wir uns danach ausgerichtet haben - von all dem schreibt Ren aber
nicht. ;)

Worauf Ren wohl hinaus wollte, ist, daß wenn die Logik des begrenzten Raumes
nicht gilt, daß dann die Logik schlechthin hinfällig wird und so jedes Sein
fragwürdig wird. Das ist aber nicht der Fall, da die Logik, die er von den
Grenzen des Raumes aufstellt, gar keine wirkliche Logik ist, sondern nur die
Grenzen des menschlichen Verstandes zeigt. Er kann sich nicht vorstellen,
daß außerhalb der Grenzen des Raumes "Nichts" ist, weil man sich als Mensch
das Nichts nicht vorstellen kann.

Darüber hinaus meinte er, daß die "Existenz unlogisch" würde. Dieser Satz
ist vollkommen unverständlich. Denn entweder ist etwas, oder es ist nicht.
Das ist auch schon die ganze Logik einer Existenz. (Aristoteles: Satz vom
ausgeschlossenen Dritten) Unlogisch wäre, wenn etwas ist, das nicht ist oder
wenn etwas nicht ist, das ist.

Von der Unfähigkeit des Menschen, sich einen unbegrenzten aber endlichen
Raum (oder wie auch immer der Weltraum nun aussieht) vorzustellen auf die
"Unlogik der Existenz" zu schließen, ist aber wohl nicht ganz möglich, zumal
eine Existenz nicht unlogisch sein kann. Was sollte das auch heißen? Daher
ist das Problem, das Ren aufwirft, nur ein Scheinproblem. Die Existenz an
sich wird nicht in Frage gestellt dadurch, daß man sich etwas - egal was -
nicht vorstellen kann. Er verwechselt die Begriffe "unlogisch" und
"unvorstellbar".

Thomas.Decker@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
%%
Marcel Richter wrote:
> Marcel Richter - IQ: 3538327
                      ^^^
fehlt da nicht irgendwo ein Komma.... =?-)
%%
The X server has to be the biggest program I've ever seen that doesn't
do anything for you.  --Ken Thompson
%%
linux-2.1.92/fs/autofs/root.c:
         printk("autofs: trying to recover, but prepare for Armageddon\n");
%%
>>Vincent DiPietro, the discoverer of the face on mars, has thrown in
>>the towel, and said that the face on mars is a pile of rocks.
>Was sollte es denn sonst sein?

An artificial pile of rocks.
%%
> ps: mal nebenbei: eine unbekannte variable beim analysieren des
> marsgesichtes ist es, dass mensch gar nicht weiss, wie die lebende,
> gedachte oder sonstige vorlage eigentlich aussieht. dazu kommt natuerlich
> noch das fehlende wissen um die intention des "kuenstlers", ob er
> beispielsweise nur aspekte bzw. partien eines gesichtes integrieren wollte
> - und natuerlich, ob es ueberhaupt kunst ist:)

Ganz genau. Und das Matterhorn ist eine palaeoimpressionistische Studie des
Geruchsorgans der Rasse der Ciabattanimalier. Aber das wussten hier
sicherlich schon alle. Das ganze Universum ist ausserdem eigentlich nur ein
grosser Flipperautomat.

Christoph Schulte Moenting - ubec@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
%%
> Kris Weilemann schrieb
>
> >MIR ging es neulich aehnlich. Ich wurde von Ausserirdischen entfuehrt.
> >Ich wurde eingesperrt in einem dunklem Raum mit langen Sitzreihen und mit
> >einer Popcorn-artigen Substanz gefuettert. Nach 2 Stunden war alles
> >vorbei. Einen Tag spaeter stellte ich fest, dass mir 18 Mark im
> >Geldbeutel fehlten. Ist das nicht krass?  -Kris.
%%
... Jazz ist nicht nur das erfolgreichste, sondern auch das einzige originäre Kunstgenre,
daß die USA jemals hervorgebracht haben.

"Apropos Musik", HR2 am 16.4.98
%%
http://www.rsw.com/

The Unix shell as a 4GL

Unix provides hundreds of programs that can be piped together to easily
perform almost any function imaginable. Nothing comes close to providing the
functions that come standard with Unix. Programs and philosophies carried
over from other systems put walls between the user and Unix, and the power
of Unix is thrown away. The shell, extended with a few relational operators,
is the fourth generation database scripting language most appropriate to the
Unix environment.
%%
Perl is incredibly difficult to parse.  For example, what's the difference
between these:

        time /3 ;#/; print "hello";
        sin /3 ;#/; print "goodbye";

Right.  The first one is time divided by 3, and the print is in a comment.
The second one is the sin of the result of a regular expression match for "3
;#", and the print gets executed!

There's no pure BNF in the world that'll handle that.  And remember, with
"use" and prototypes available, whether you parse something like "sin" or
"time" depends on its definition in some other file, somewhere in the galaxy
(or even decided by Perl code in a BEGIN block, that evals a prototype!).

Which led Larry to say at one point: "the only thing that can parse Perl is
'perl'".

--
Randal L. Schwartz
%%
Ronald J Kimball <rjk@coos.dartmouth.edu> writes:

> Pascal AMRAM wrote:
> > Subject: MSEXCHANGE / OUTLOOK
>
> So here I am trying to figure out what an M sex change is....

It's obviously the opposite of an F sex change.  HTH.

--
Jonathan Feinberg   jdf@pobox.com   Sunny Brooklyn, NY
%%
The management (my cats) made me say this.
%%
uae-0.6.9/custom.c:800:
   write_log ("Program is torturing BPLCON1.\n");
%%
uae-0.6.9/src/memory.c:363
    write_log ("Your Amiga program just did something terribly stupid\n");
%%
       Closures make sense in any programming language where you
       can have the return value of a function be itself a
       function, as you can in Perl.  Note that some languages
       provide anonymous functions but are not capable of
       providing proper closures; the Python language, for
       example.
%%
When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to
resemble a nail.
%%
> but all I get are 501 errors, method not supported.  I am not 100% sure what
> I did wrong.

What you did wrong was post a microsoft server question to a perl
newsgroup.
%%
I am trying to learn Perl on my  Windows 97 system.  In particular...
%%
>Es kamen Außerirdische, die Pyramiden bauten und andere Wunder
>vollbrachten. Dafür wurden sie vergöttert. Diese außerirdischen bauten dann
>wahrscheinlich auch die Cydonia Region.

Etwa zehnmal zu oft 'Stargate' gesehen, was?
%%
>Die Menschheit kämpft seit Millionen von Jahren gegeneinander.

Welche Hälfte ist denn da die grössere? :o)
%%
...am still rebuilding after being hit with a clock changing virus it reset
my clock to 2039 unfortunately for me my OS is beta 98 needless to say it
expired instantly!!!
%%
From: Per Bothner <bothner@cygnus.com>
To: Pal Engstad <engstad@hunt.inmet.com>

> Linus Torvalds requires that all code in the source is using a tab
> length of 8 spaces, and he also states that you are a bad programmer
> if you write code with more than 3 indentation levels.

I didn't know that Linus Torvalds has done research on programming styles.
He much have, since why else would you have the audacity quote him as
an authority, on a list where there are dozens of people with more
than double Linus's programming experience?

> This has caused the code to be fairly easy to read and maintainance is
> pretty straight forward.

Irrelevant - a kernel is a lot simpler than an optimizing compiler,
in terms of complexity of algorithms and data structures.
%%
Nach der Diskussion muss ich akzeptieren, dass die juengst erfolgte
Erdbeschleunigung von - 0,6 auf  - 0,4 Millisekunden kein zwingender Beweis
fuer einen Permanentantrieb ist. Aber: In letzter Zeit kommt es bei mir immer
wieder vor, dass ich Dinge einfach weiss. Selbst wenn ich sie nicht begruenden
kann. Ich weiss trotzdem dass sie stimmen muessen und der Antrieb existiert.
Mit der Zeit findet sich dann auch die Begruendung.
%%
        Wir suchen neue AussenMitarbeiterInnen... (S.Pernar@Link-Goe)
%%
hyperltext (hy'perl-text), n. double-quotish-interpolated hypertext markup:
  Example:
      print qq[[<LI><A HREF="$self->[[url]]">@[[[ucfirst $self->[[title]]]]]</A>\n]];
%%
liperlsuction:  What happens to any script longer than 10 lines once
                Randal gets his hands on it
%%
Uperl Volta - country where perl programmers control the electricity.
%%
> Anybody successfully installed the win32 version of Perl?

No! Millions of people don't use perl on win32 machines. You may be the
first if you get it working.
%%
>       Macintosh.
>   Think different.

Think Again.
%%
Bill.Cilnton@dyselxia.com
%%
tsatan@hotmail.com writes:
> Why does perl have the "push" and "unshift" functions? ...
> push @nums, 4; is the same as @nums = (@nums, 4);

What do you want, Scheme? ;)
%%
        # There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'.
        # It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen
%%
| I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because
| someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the
| top.
%%
I had a student ask about the UN9 operating system. I didn't understabd what
he was talking about so he wrote UNIX on the board.
%%
On 1 Apr 98 17:34:23 GMT, Schulung7 wrote:
                          ^^^^^^^^^
>Was haltet ihr vom UFO-Absturz in Rosswell?

Nichts. Und jetzt geh woanders spielen.
%%
>Kann man hier irgendwie mal die UFOs reinbringen, um die es in dieser NG
>gehen soll?

Nein, der Datentyp wäre inkompatibel. UFOs sind per Definitionem
materielle Objekte (obwohl das zur Zeit fraglich ist ;-), die sich in
diesem Medium nicht austauschen lassen.
%%
Wer redet hier denn von der "Hui Hui"? Ich sprach von "Hui! Hui!".
%%
>> nein...ist kein Sender. Eine taiwanesische Sekte hat behauptet, daß am
>> 25.3. auf allen TVs der Welt Gott auf Kanal 18 erscheinen würde.
>> Ist natuerlich nicht eingetreten.
>
>Aber unsere Haus-Sat-Anlage geht seither nicht mehr.

Ein Zeichen! Er hat uns ein Zeichen gegeben! Zieht alle euren linken
Schuh aus!
%%
>Klingt nach Erdstillstand.

Ich bin entsetzt. Man hat hoffentlich sofort Wiederbedrehungsmaßnahmen
eingeleitet?
%%
              Mars Global Surveyor Imaging Schedule


First opportunity
                                                    Approximate
                             Orbit                  Internet
Date    Time (UTC/Pacific)   Number  Target         Posting

4-3-98  09:58/1:58 a.m.      216  Viking Lander 1   April 6
4-3-98  21:37/1:37 p.m.      217  Viking Lander 2   April 7
4-4-98  09:16/1:16 a.m.      218  Mars Pathfinder   April 7
4-5-98  08:33/12:33 a.m.     220  Cydonia           April 6 (mid-a.m.)

Second opportunity
                                                    Approximate
                             Orbit                  Internet
Date    Time (UTC/Pacific)   Number  Target         Posting

4-12-98 15:23/ 8:23 a.m.     235  Viking Lander 1   April 14
4-13-98 03:01/ 8:01 p.m.     236  Viking Lander 2   April 15
4-13-98 14:40/ 7:40 a.m.     237  Mars Pathfinder   April 15
4-14-98 13:57/ 6:57 a.m.     239  Cydonia           April 14 (mid-p.m.)

Third opportunity
                                                    Approximate
                             Orbit                  Internet
Date    Time (UTC/Pacific)   Number  Target         Posting

4-21-98 20:45/1:45 p.m.      254  Viking Lander 1   April 23
4-22-98 08:23/1:23 a.m.      255  Viking Lander 2   April 24
4-22-98 20:02/1:02 p.m.      256  Mars Pathfinder   April 24
4-23-98 19:18/12:18 p.m.     258  Cydonia           April 24 (mid-a.m.)

%%
> >2. Der Menschheit ist durch Inzucht entstanden. Laut biologischem
> >Wissen, unwahrscheinlich, da Mutation und Mißbildungen auftreten
> >würden.
>
> Vermutung: Das ist auch aufgetreten. Siehe levitische "Gesetze" zur
> "Behandlung" von "Aussatz" insb. im 3. "Mose". Die hatten schon Probleme.
Sag mal, bei Dir piepts wohl nicht mehr richtig! Aussatz, heute besser
unter dem Namen Lepra bekannt, ist keine Erbkrankheit. Es ist eine
(heute heilbare) Infektionskrankheit, verursacht durch Bakterien.
Also nichts von Inzucht, wie Du das in Deinem latenten Rassenwahn
implizierst.
%%
> You might please start up with reading more than one sentence - a skill
> quite familiar in Europe, but as it seems not in the USA.
%%
Yup. Instead of crashing Xservers, now you have crashing kernels.
Big improvement.
%%
-- "Hey look, this new card is for windows and only $xx!"
-- "Yes, but it's braindead and will hurt your performance. Take that one
    over there. Besides, it's not an ope.."
-- "Why that one?"
-- "Because it's better, sinc.."
-- "But I can do the same with this one, it's cheaper, and its for windows!"
%%
In der Klinik, in der ich mal arbeiten musste, hatten wir einen echten
Koenig Ludwig II und mindestens fuenf Stueck Jesus - sowas gibts halt,
wenn Du verstehst, was ich meine.
%%
> Hast Du mal einen Stein beobachtet, der eine Unzahl komplexer
> Vorgaenge paresentiert, einschliesslich der Hervorbringung
> etlicher Lebensformen?

Jepp. Ist nur ein Problem mit der Definition von "zahlreich".

> Hast Du mal einen Steinen beobachtet, der sich mal eben
> "verwandelt", und auf dem dann lauter Wesen rumkrabbeln,
> die aus ihm selbst entsprungen sind?

Klar doch. Ist nur ein Problem mit der Definition von "lauter".

> Ueberspitzt: Hast Du mal einen Steinen beobachtet, der
> ploetzlich zum Lebewesen wird und Dich fragt, wer oder was
> er eigentlich ist?

Tja, da hören die Übereinstimmungen auf. Ich dachte Du meinst
Erwin Stein. Den kenne ich. Der hat zwei Kinder. Die krabbeln
ab und zu auf ihm herum. Der ist aber nicht plötzlich zum Le-
bewesen geworden, sondern den gibt es nun schon ein wenig
länger. Und er hat mich auch noch nie gefragt, wer oder was
er eigentlich ist. Zumindest nicht in einem Zustand, den man
als "normal" bezeichnen könnte. So wird das anscheinend nix.
Ciao
     Stefan
%%
    "These download files are in Microsoft Word 6.0 format. After
     unzipping, these files can be viewed in any text editor, including
     all versions of Microsoft Word, WordPad, and Microsoft Word Viewer."
                                (http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/pc99.htm)
%%
Video cards have write-only registers. (of course that is bad design) Let's
say that register 13 is write-only, as is common. It holds an index that
determines what register 69 (also write-only) actually changes. If you write
to register 13 while the accelerator is active, you lock the PCI bus. You
can't determine if the accelerator is active without reading from register
42, but you can't interpret the contents of that register correctly without
knowing what the last accelerator command was. Reading from register 13 gets
you some useless (unrelated) info and _also_ toggles the accelerator on and
off.
%%
Join the Army,
Meet interesting people,
Kill them.
%%
> Wie entsteht Materie? Ich koennte mir vorstellen, dass Energie in Materie
> umwandelbar ist.

E=m*c^2 (Schon mal gehoert?) (Schon mal verstanden??)
%%
>nach der die Pygmäen geheime UFO-Basen in ausgehöhlten Baumstämmen
>unterhalten (Vorsicht: das war ein Witz :-) ).
%%
> (Bernhard Nahrgang) wrote:
>
> >> Logische Annahme: Die Erde waechst entweder kontinuierlich, oder periodisch
> >> ruckartig.
> >wie kann jemand mit dem IQ von 130 nur SO SELTEN BLOEDE sein??
>
> Norbert ist nicht selten blöde...

:-)
%%
SAT 1 Teletext: Ein Asteroid mit einem Durchmesser von fast einem Kilometer
rast mit großer Geschwindigkeit auf die Erde zu. US-Astronomen befürchten:
"XF11" könnte im Jahr 2028 auf der Erde einschlagen. Die Folgen wären
verheerend. "Der rasende Stein aus dem All ist eine Gefahr", warnt Jack G.
Hills vom US-Kernforschungszentrum Los Alamos: "Wenn er die Erde trifft,
wird er die Sprengkraft von 320.000 Megatonnen Dynamit haben." Das
entspricht dem Zweimillionenfachen der Atombombe...

ARD/ZDF Teletext: ASTEROID MIT KURS AUF ERDE ENTDECKT Amerikanische
Astronomen haben einen Asteroiden ausgemacht, der in 30 Jahren der Erde
gefährlich nahekommen wird. Die Gefahr, daß der Asteroid einschlagen wird,
sei gering, aber auch nicht völlig auszuschließen. Nach derzeitigen
Berechnungen wird der Asteroid mit der Bezeichnung "1997 XF11" am 26.Oktober
2028 unserem Planeten am nächsten kommen. "1997 XF11" hat etwa einen
Durchmesser von 1,6 Kilometern. Erstmals käme ein Objekt dieser Größe der
Erde so nahe, hieß es in dem Bericht der Internationalen Astronomischen
Union.

RTL Teletext: Himmelskörper rast auf Erde zu Ein Asteroid wird im Jahr 2028
der Erde gefährlich nahe kommen. Amerikanische Wissenschaftler haben die
Chance eines Zusammenpralls auf eins zu tausend berechnet. Sollte der
Asteroid, der einen Durchmesser von 1,8 Kilometern hat, aufprallen, könnte
er eine gigantische Flutwelle auslösen, so die Forscher. Auch ein genaues
Datum haben die Wissenschaftler schon errechnet: Von Europa aus wäre das
Naturschauspiel am 26. Oktober 2028 zu beobachten.
%%
    * Linux Viruscan.....
            Windows 95 Found  Remove it ? (Y/y)
%%
>>Hmm, welche Behauptungen entsprechen denn deiner Meinung nach der
>>Realität?
>>
>>Das es das FBI wirklich gibt?
>>Das Scully frigide ist, und deshalb mit Mulder nichts anfangen möchte?
>>Das Mulder homosexuell ist, und deshalb mit Scully nichts anfangen möchte?
>>Das der CSM einen Vertrag mit Marlb*ro hat?
>
>Hinter diesen "Fragen" erkenne ich z.B. eine gut bekannte Strategie. Die
>FBI-Frage ist bewusst absurd. Das Abgleiten ins Sexuelle hat ebenfalls
%%
"'You're a Cirrus. You're crap. I'm an S3. I rule. Thank you and please drive through.'"
%%
> How could you have perl take a set of numbers (1,2,3,4) and put them
> into a random order???
>

@array=qw(1 2 3 4);
print "@array[1,3,2,0]\n";

I've checked this against other possible random orderings
of these numbers, and this ordering is at least as random as
any of the other possible ones. The benefit of this one being
that it begins with the number 2, which is my favorite random
number less than 42.
%%
From what I am reading Win98 and NT5.0 will be getting rid of all that
crap anyway. Seems that Microsoft has invented something called TCP/IP and
another really revolutionary concept called DNS that eliminates the
netbios crap too. All that arping from browsers is going to go away.
I also hear rumors that they are on the verge of breakthrough discoveries
called NFS, and LPD too.  Given enough time and money, they might
eventually invent Unix.
%%
In Germany, where typeface design has always been a significant part of
the cultural heritage, and where typefounding has remained an important
business, there are more than one kind of copyright-like protections for
typefaces. Certain long-standing industrial design protection laws have
been used to protect typeface designs in litigation over royalties and
plagiarisms. Further, there is a recent law,  the so-called
"Schriftzeichengesetz" enacted in 1981, that specifically protects
typeface designs.  New designs are registered, as is done with
copyright in most countries.  This law only protects new, original
designs. It is available to non-German designers and firms.  Therefore,
some type firms and designers routinely copyright new designs in West
Germany.  This gives a degree of protection for products marketed in
Germany. Since multinational corporations may find it cheaper to
license a design for world-wide use rather than deal with a special case
in one country, the German law does encourage licensing on a broader
scale than would initially seem to be the case.
%%
[linux processes vs. nt/solaris threads]
Rob Pike pointed out that the solution to slow process creation is
faster process creation, not another kernel abstraction.
%%
Does anybody know how to communicate between a PC and a modem,
using a Perl CGI script?
%%
>I really don't know crap about PERL. How is it different from JAVA?

One tiny difference: Java can crash your browser. It happened to me last
week.
%%
Brieweb> I heard Randal Schwartz say he could write an entire httpd server in 90 lines
Brieweb> of PERL.
No, that's an http *proxy* server.  A simple web server is much shorter.
From "perldoc HTTP::Daemon"...
[Randal Schwartz]
%%
But the possibility of abuse may be a good reason for leaving
capabilities out of other computer languages, it's not a good reason
for leaving capabilities out of Perl.
                   [Larry Wall in `Macros'. [[perl5-porters]]]
%%
Yes: Java's main advantage over Perl is that it's hard to use for casual
programmers, so keeps all but the most intrepid programmers away from it.
It has no decent support for string processing, allowing you to spend
hours at useless debugging.   It has a very restrictive and static system
to make sure you don't try anything interesting.  It makes sure that you
use objects, by golly, because James Gosling said so.  It's easy for C++
programmers to use, and hard for shell or BASIC programmers to use.  It
also only runs on a few systems, locking its customers into a a closed
system and restricting their options.
                   [Tom Christiansen in `Java Vs. Perl']
%%
<Bill_Gates> Where do you want to go today?
<Phase_5> Where do go tomorrow?
<BlueFlux> Where were you yesterday?!?!
%%
"It's not to control, but to protect the citizens of Singapore.  In our
society, you can state your views, but they have to be correct."
                       Ernie Hai
                       Coordinator of Singapore Government Internet Project
%%
: I very much prefer a useful error message than a "it produced the wrong
: results" report from the users.

if i got even "it produced the wrong results" from our users, i would
be in 7th heaven.  ours often mail us with such insightful requests as
"can you tell me my email address?"  no, sorry, that should be "CAN U
TEL ME MY E MAIL ADRES DUDE?!!!??  HURRY!!!"
%%
There are many intelligent species in the Universe.
                                             They are all owned by cats.
%%
Why dignify your unsustainable, unjustifiable, unprovable feeble
attempts at character assassination with anything resembling a reply?
You only make yourself look foolish by mouthing off like that.
%%
From: L & K Olson <kolson@mbnet.mb.ca>
Subject: If they wrote error messages in haiku ...

Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that
- - -
wind catches lily
scatt'ring petals to the wind:
segmentation fault
- - -
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
- - -
A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
- - -
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
- - -
Errors have occurred.
We won't tell you where or why.
Lazy programmers.
- - -
Seeing my great fault
Through darkening blue windows
I begin again
- - -
The code was willing,
It considered your request,
But the chips were weak.
- - -
Printer not ready.
Could be a fatal error.
Have a pen handy?
- - -
Server's poor response
Not quick enough for browser.
Timed out, plum blossom.
- - -
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
- - -
Login incorrect.
Only perfect spellers may
enter this system.
- - -
This site has been moved.
We'd tell you where, but then we'd
have to delete you.
- - -
ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have.
You ask way too much.
- - -
First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
so beautifully.
- - -
With searching comes loss
and the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
- - -
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao, until
You bring fresh toner.
- - -
The Web site you seek
cannot be located but
endless others exist
- - -
Stay the patient course
Of little worth is your ire
The network is down
- - -
A crash reduces
your expensive computer
to a simple stone.
- - -
There is a chasm
of carbon and silicon
the software can't bridge
- - -
To have no errors
Would be life without meaning
No struggle, no joy
- - -
You step in the stream,
but the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
- - -
No keyboard present
Hit F1 to continue
Zen engineering?
- - -
Hal, open the file
Hal, open the damn file, Hal
open it, please Hal
- - -
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
- - -
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
- - -
The ten thousand things
How long do any persist?
Netscape, too, has gone.
- - -
Rather than a beep
Or a rude error message,
These words: "File not found."
- - -
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
%%
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way
to factor large prime numbers." -- Bill Gates from "The Road Ahead," p. 265.
%%
> What is the Windows equivalent of the first line used for
> UNIX (#!/usr/local/bin/perl) that tells where the Perl interpreter is?

Windows hasn't gotten quite as far in functionality as, say, BSD Unix in the
early 1980s.
%%
> I have a chat script, that will work fine for a bit then after a while
> the private messages will stop working. It might be because I changed
> something, but chances are that isn't the case. I re-install a fresh
> copy, paths are correct, and they still don't work

I think you are experiencing GOVERNMENT CONTROL. You see, everyone
with a chat script is being scrutinised by the department of CHAT
control. Whenever they see some message they don't like, they
introduce some little goblin  called feature-creep in your program. if
you have lots of these little devils, your program migth acquire so
many new features that it just stops working.

This also applies to Microsoft products.

> Does it make sense for  certain features to just not work?! If you can
> help, or have suggestions, get back to me, PLEASE:)

Yes, it makes perfect sense. Especially if they're features which
really are bugs. And especially if they're 'private' messages. You
know perfectly well that the government doesn't like private messages.

Hope this explains what's going on
Martien Verbruggen
%%
...code?  If you're on a misconfigured NT server (is that redundant?), you...
%%
X11R6.1-based free X server compiles, links and crashes under IRIX(TM).
%%
-------------- please bite here ------------- bitte hier abbeissen ---------
%%
"Frag mal, auf was fuer uptimes man kommt, wenn man Software-Entwicklung
 unter NT macht..." "Das koennen bis zu dreissig Minuten werden - in der
 Mittagspause." -- Andreas Bogk, Kai Fett, de.alt.sysadmin.recovery
%%
> ++ A lot of posters here have .sigs that include perl one liners.
> ++ Is there a safe way to run them, and be assured that they wont
> ++ damage and/or erase files?  (or e-mail off my shadow file)
>
> Just make sure you understand it ;)

I nominate Abigail for best response of the year with this one.  Come to
think of it, I nominate it for best response of next year, too.
%%
Your moderator will be spending the next week on a beach on a small island
where the phones don't work very well, so there won't be any comp.compilers
until the 28th.  Any messages you send in will wait here until I get back and
should be posted on March 1st or 2nd.
%%
But now, in comp.lang.perl.misc, you have a bunch of people who aren't
even asking how to make the pieces fit together, but what the
individual pieces are. ("How do I get my lego project to roll accross
the table?" "You use one of those pieces that have the wheels
attached.") Or questions that aren't about building at all. ("The
motor stopped moving. How do I get it to start again?" "The batteries
are probably dead. You can buy new batteries at any department or
convienience store.")
%%
: how do i make my perl script run?
Get up at 91 minutes before dawn, clothe yourself in neon green body
%%
for some reason Windoze users don't seem to expect docs to come with an archive
%%>         ToiLeTGoD

Well, well.. I always wondered who/what made that flush thingy work.
Pretty cool name, dude. (not)
%%
Ummm...create "comp.lang.perl.wizards", make it moderated and all posts,
including xposts, go into /dev/null. Most FAQers won't have the Usenet
background to understand that such groups are either a) a wasteland
populated (briefly) by persons like themselves, or b) point to /dev/null.
%%
Lazy people never bother to actually read the manual.  Instead they (like
kids) pick something with big, colorful buttons.
        -- Eugene Tyurin <gene@insti.physics.sunysb.edu>
%%
The Average Person's Axioms of First Order Predicate Logic:
     (A => B) => (B => A)
     (There exists) x A(x) => (For all) x A(x)
     (A => C) & (B => C) => (A => B)                     - Warren Vonroeschlaub
%%
cal 9 1752
%%
    Installing unix fixes the [VMS] bug.
        -Barry Shein
%%
And this horrible free-for-all will be left to children wondering around
by themselves in the dark because they refuse to turn on the light and
read the manual.
%%
"SPARC" is "CRAPS" backwards --Rob Pike
%%
I increasingly begin to understand why some universities require
that its compsci majors study the Euclid's Prime Number Theorem,
the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, Cantor's Diagonalization Proof,
Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem, and the ramifications of Halting Problem
in everyday life.  These may not be involved in daily programming, but
it helps develop a rigorous mind.  And it gives those who would progress
from typist to word-processor devotee to HTML documenter to CGI scripter
to distributed multithreaded operating systems design specialist cause
for pause.  You just can't do that without proper training.
%%
    comp.lang.perl.i'm-from-microsoft-so-won't-read-documentation
%%
I suggest you install a newsserver, and keep a local spool.  Anything else
is too much work, and fairly silly.  The Internet has catupulted even
the Wintel victims past the days of BBS toys.
%%
> Help help! Pls advise me thru email.

I advise you to buy a new keyboard; one that has all the keys you
need.
%%
Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely
powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is
deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.
%%
I find the first particularly useful in destroying the miswrapped
lines stemming from brain-damaged "it's just another word processor"
newsreaders.  You know,
those postings that always seem to go to the edge of the line and then
back
again to the start, as this paragraph has.  These are just too painful
to read.  Just kill them.  It's not worth your time trying to figure
out what they're saying.
%%
It is most annoying to receive junk mail describing how to purchase 93
million addresses, while knowing that yours is one of them.
%%
        I'm surprised Tom, how could it miss the "X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (WinNT;
        U)" header line?  Personally, I find the attempted use of Netscape as a
        newsreader even worse then the attempted use of WinNT as an OS. :-)

        But the combination....  *sutters*
%%
Hm... my new killfile isn't detecting you're posting from Windows.
Darn it.
%%
At least he didn't post in all caps.
%%
http://language.perl.com/CPAN-local/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
%%
I think the biggest problem with M.S.A. is that the scripts work for Matt, but
the majority of people trying to use them are  from the
"Wintel/AOL/FrontPage/push-a-button/HTML-is-programming/no-programming-required"
school of non-learning.  It isn't a problem with the code, per se, but with those
trying to use it.
%%
   "Linux can emulate an C64 on my AMDK6PR200 at full speed. Windows can't."
%%
cdog wrote:
>
> Is this group active?
No.

If you had spent half a second LOOKING at the group before posting, you
probably could have come to that conclusion yourself.

On a personal note, I died 3 years, 8 days, 5 minutes, 16 seconds, and
345 milliseconds ago, but who's counting.
%%
"Security through obscurity is no security at all."
                -comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup posting
%%
"Windows 95 will now attempt to blow chunks across your primary partition.
Press any key to continue..."
%%
NT 5.0 is the last nail in the Unix coffin. Interestingly, Unix
isn't in the coffin... It's wondering what the heck is sealing
itself into a wooden box 6 feet underground...
%%
The Wall St Journal (1996-01-22, page 1) reported that Cuba is
considering jumping across the International Date Line, just so that
it's the first into the year 2000.  So it's possible you'll have to
adjust your travel plans.
%%
"Wo kämen wir hin, wenn alle sagten, wo kämen wir hin, und niemand ginge
hin, um einmal zu schauen, wohin man käme, wenn man ginge."  -- Kurt Marti
%%
The Takeuchi function is a popular benchmark of function calling due to its
highly recursive nature. It's defined as:

tak x y z = z, if y >= x
          = tak (tak (x-1) y z) (tak (y - 1) z x) (tak (z - 1) x y), otherwise

For this benchmark, the function is invoked as:

tak 18 12 6
%%
"Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!"
                           -- Bill Gates
"Windows 95 needs at least 8 MB RAM."
                           -- Bill Gates
"Nobody will ever need Windows 95."
                           -- logical conclusion
%%
Year  Name                              James Bond      Book
- ----  --------------------------------        --------------  ----
50's  James Bond TV Series              Barry Nelson
1962  Dr. No                            Sean Connery    1958
1963  From Russia With Love             Sean Connery    1957
1964  Goldfinger                        Sean Connery    1959
1965  Thunderball                       Sean Connery    1961
1967* Casino Royale                     David Niven     1954
1967  You Only Live Twice               Sean Connery    1964
1969  On Her Majesty's Secret Service   George Lazenby  1963
1971  Diamonds Are Forever              Sean Connery    1956
1973  Live And Let Die                  Roger Moore     1955
1974  The Man With The Golden Gun       Roger Moore     1965
1977  The Spy Who Loved Me              Roger Moore     1962 (novelette)
1979  Moonraker                         Roger Moore     1955
1981  For Your Eyes Only                Roger Moore     1960 (novelette)
1983  Octopussy                         Roger Moore     1965
1983* Never Say Never Again             Sean Connery
1985  A View To A Kill                  Roger Moore     1960 (novelette)
1987  The Living Daylights              Timothy Dalton  1965 (novelette)
        * -- Not a Broccoli production.
%%
Windows NT: n.
    32-bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16-bit patch to an 8-bit
    operating system originally coded for a 4-bit microprocessor,  written
    by a 2-bit company that can't stand for 1 bit of competition.
%%
Auf der Kiste läuft EHNIX, das ist ZUNIX kompatibel.
Revision:	1.42
Committed:	Sun Dec 16 07:09:04 2001 UTC (24 years, 9 months ago) by root
Branch:	MAIN
Changes since 1.41:	+10 -0 lines
Log Message:	* empty log message *