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Revision: 1.12
Committed: Mon Jun 25 23:53:43 2001 UTC (25 years, 2 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.11: +5 -48 lines
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# User Rev Content
1 root 1.12 [01:53] <JanMan> Gnu.java klingt wie Stallman.Microsoft.
2     %%
3     [inkompetenz vs. inkompetenz]
4     http://www.psychotherapie.de/report/2000/01/00012501.htm
5     %%
6 root 1.11 [long after 2.4.5 was released, somebody wrote]
7     On Wed, Jun 06, 2001 at 08:20:12PM -0400, "Mike A. Harris" <mharris@opensourceadvocate.org> wrote:
8     > The problem IMHO is widely acknowledged by those who matter as an
9     > official BUG, and that is that. It is also acknowledged widely
10     > by those who can fix the problem that it will be fixed in time.
11    
12     you mean, before 2.4 gets released?
13     %%
14     From: Wayne.Brown@altec.com
15    
16     On 05/11/2001 at 04:43:13 PM Hacksaw <hacksaw@hacksaw.org> wrote:
17    
18     >Well, I can't disagree. Unix's biggest turn off was the stupid command names.
19     >It's a big reason why Unixoid systems aren't more commonplace. I only learned
20     >it because I was stuck at a desk with a Wyse terminal. Otherwise I probably
21     >would have played with the Autocad machines more. Once I understood the
22     >basics, I understood the power of the system.
23    
24     My first exposure to Unix came in 1987 when I was assigned to write a datacomm
25     package in C on a Unix (AIX) workstation the company had just bought. I was the
26     only one in our shop who knew C, and no one else there had ever dealt with Unix
27     either. (I had heard of Unix, but didn't know anything about it.) My training
28     consisted of my boss handing me the manuals and saying, "Figure it out." For
29     the first two weeks I absolutely HATED that system; nothing made sense, vi
30     seemed insane, and I was stumbling blindly through the documentation (I'd never
31     seen a permuted index before). Then suddenly something clicked, it all started
32     to make sense, and I fell in love with it. That's why I think it's so important
33     for people to learn the Unix mindset before trying to deal with Unix systems.
34     It's also why I have so little patience with people who don't have the patience
35     to work through the learning curve.
36     %%
37     [http://www.gnu.org/events/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt]
38     Richard Stallman: I do "free software". Open source is a different movement.
39     %%
40     [VERY good movie]
41     Le salaire de la peur - Lohn der Angst (F/I 1952)
42     %%
43     [http://home.t-online.de/home/das_jan/prog.htm]
44     Fast die gesamte Tastatur wurde mit Tasten belegt.
45     %%
46 root 1.10 [http://home.t-online.de/home/das_jan/98warum.htm]
47     Lassen Sie mich zuerst sagen, dass Microsoft meiner Meinung nach einige
48     großartige Produkte an den Markt gebracht hat. Die Windows Betriebssysteme
49     sind ausgezeichnete Oberflächen für eine computerisierte Arbeitsumgebung -
50     erinnern Sie sich an die schwierige Bedienung von DOS!
51     %%
52 root 1.9 [alt.bible]
53     Let's not misuse the terminology. Pastor Dave is not a sock puppet, he
54     is an autonomous entity. A rather mindless entity, but still independent.
55     %%
56     [02:42] <JanMan> Und, ja, ich glaube MS hat echt probleme mit GPL.
57     [02:43] <JanMan> GPL ist wie eine Umweltschutzauflage.
58     %%
59     [this is just here in case i need it for copy&paste]
60     Fuer Benutzer eines "elektronischen Briefkastens" entsteht durch
61     unverlangte Werbesendungen eine Belaestigung und verstoesst gegen
62     die guten Sitten. Das Landgericht Traunstein hat am 14.10.1997
63     festgestellt, dass das Versenden von unverlangtem Werbematerial via
64     E-Mail wettbewerbswidrig und somit unzulaessig ist (Az: 2HK O
65     3755/97). In diesem Gerichtsurteil wurde bei Zuwiderhandlung ein
66     Ordnungsgeld bis zu DM 500.000,- pro Einzelfall festgesetzt.
67    
68     Das Landgericht Berlin (Beschluß vom 14. Mai 1998, Az 16 O 301/98 -
69     "E-Mail-Werbung") befand, dass das unaufgeforderte Zusendung von
70     E-Mails gegen § 823 Abs. 1 BGB verstoesst. Bei Zuwiderhandlung
71     wurde ein Ordnungsgeld von 500.000 DM, ersatzweise Ordnungshaft bis
72     zu sechs Monaten festgesetzt.
73    
74     Nach der staendigen Rechtsprechung des Bundesgerichtshofs
75     verstoesst ein Verhalten im Wettbewerb nicht nur dann gegen die
76     guten Sitten, wenn es dem Anstandsgefuehl der redlichen und
77     verstaendigen Mitbewerber widerspricht, sondern auch dann, wenn die
78     in Frage stehende wettbewerbliche Massnahme von der Allgemeinheit,
79     insbesondere von den durch die Werbemassnahme angesprochenen
80     Verkehrskreisen, missbilligt und als untragbar angesehen wird; denn
81     § 1 UWG soll auch die Allgemeinheit vor Auswuechsen des Wettbewerbs
82     bewahren (BGHZ 59, 317, 319 = NJW 1973, 42 - Telexwerbung;
83     vgl. auch BGHZ 54, 188, 189 = NJW 1970, 1738 - Fernsprechwerbung
84     m. w. N.). (BGH, Urteil vom 03.02.1988 - I ZR 222/85)
85     %%
86     [comment found in the source for gnu-tar]
87     /*---.
88     | ? |
89     `---*/
90     %%
91     Nautilus: Best workout for your VM
92     %%
93 root 1.8 [While talking about how to formulate the gcc-3.0 press release]
94     From: Joe Buck
95     > Can someone say this in a way that doesn't claim precognition?
96     Simply add "we believe" at appropriate points.
97     %%
98     [Linus explaining why the bug isn't a bug]
99     Yes, we'll get a clobbered value, but we'll get a _valid_ clobbered value,
100     %%
101 root 1.7 04:57] <JanMan> schmorp: normale sicherheitsabfrage:
102     Hmm Lukas klingelt. Wirklich abheben Nein/Nein :)
103 root 1.5 %%
104 root 1.4 [ein tag nach arvoreens geburtstagsfeier]
105     [07:35] <JanMan> hehe, schmorp zur flasche betreffend reiserfs: "It's dead Jim" :)
106     %%
107     [about a broken perl module by Larry Wall]
108     [03:02] <schmorp> beschwer dich doch mal bei larry ;)
109     ...
110     [03:03] <JanMan> larry sagt sicher: aber als "awk" replacement ist perl ok, oder ? :)
111     %%
112 root 1.3 [From: Alan Cox]
113     > The executive, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, an I.B.M. vice president, said,
114     > "If we thought this was a trap, we wouldn't be doing it, and as you
115     > know, we have a lot of lawyers."
116    
117     I loved that. It's in my fortune file now ;)
118    
119     Alan
120     %%
121 root 1.2 [JanMan über O'Reilly]
122     [07:41] <JanMan> naja, Win32-Buecher ohne ende.
123     [07:42] <JanMan> Powering a machine on in the Win32 environment.
124     [07:42] <JanMan> nene, scherz am rande. fuer geld ziehen sie sich aus.
125     [07:42] <JanMan> aber die DE-Leute sind ok.
126     %%
127     [JanMan beim suchen eines exploits in OpenSSL]
128     [07:05] <JanMan> das nenne ich russisch:
129     [07:05] <JanMan> EVP_PKEY *key = NULL;
130     [07:05] <JanMan> STACK_OF(PKCS12_SAFEBAG) *bags = NULL;
131     [07:05] <JanMan> STACK_OF(PKCS7) *safes = NULL;
132     [07:05] <JanMan> PKCS12_SAFEBAG *bag = NULL;
133     [07:08] <JanMan> (#define STACK_OF(type) struct stack_st_##type)
134     %%
135     Hlade's Law:
136     If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- they
137     will find an easier way to do it.
138     %%
139     [Über Marco, der immer noch nicht bemerkt hat, das man sein gecos-Feld auf
140 root 1.7 "Marco alast [name removed to protect the guilty] \(Micro$oft-Fetischist\)" gesetzt hat.]
141     Paul wrote:
142     >Marc wrote:
143 root 1.2 >> Der wird es auch nie schnallen ;-)
144     > aber echt argllll. Oh Herr schmeiss Hirn vom Himmel (hoffentlich triffts
145     > den richtigen.
146     %%
147 root 1.1 [from janmans .sig]
148     > " Man gebe jedem Niedersachsen - seinen eigenen Castor-Kasten. "
149     %%
150     [a small perl program]
151     :(); { :: | :: } ;
152     %%
153     [a small fork-bomb for bash]
154     :() { : | : ;} ; :
155     %%
156     [messages I got while trying to get files from a windoze ftp server]
157     New: 464 files, 0 symlinks
158     <--- 501 Access violation at address 004E65B5 in module 'G6FTPSrv.exe'. Read of address 00000000
159     <--- 501 Access violation at address 004E65B5 in module 'G6FTPSrv.exe'. Read of address 00000000
160     <--- 501 Access violation at address 004E65B5 in module 'G6FTPSrv.exe'. Read of address 00000000
161     %%
162     From: Jarkko Hietaniemi
163     [...]
164    
165     >Would gcc exports step forward? How long back does the -traditional-cpp
166    
167     Must. Get. More. Sleep. s/ports/perts/
168     %%
169     > There is a mechanism for this already. It is called overloaded
170     > constants.
171    
172     I have a mechanism that can replace Perl: it's called Turing's machine.
173     Or an abacus, for that matter. More details on your proposed solution
174     would be conducive for further discussion.
175     %%
176     > Is there a kernel development irc room anywhere? If not, does anyone think
177     > it might be useful?
178    
179     I'd just like to point out that it's called a channel, not a
180     room. Room is a term introduced by AOL, and I don't think it has
181     much to do with IRC.
182     %%
183     From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
184     Subject: Re: Linux 2.4.2 fails to merge mmap areas, 700% slowdown.
185    
186     [...]
187     Cool. Somebody actually found a real case.
188    
189     I'll fix the mmap case asap. Its' not hard, I just waited to see if it
190     ever actually triggers. Something like g++ certainly counts as major.
191     %%
192     [sorry, that's internal, folks ;)]
193     [07:17] <marco2> elmex heisst jetzt plagiator...
194     %%
195     [http://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/20010405/t000029080.html]
196    
197     Like all good paranoid fantasies, mine has a villain: the Japanese.
198     Japanese electronics designers have been deliberately building
199     clocks into everything in hopes of weakening our industrial might.
200    
201     Now, you might say, "Dave, that's crazy talk. The Japanese have a
202     lot more of these gadgets than we do. They're gadget freaks,
203     man. They'd be hurt by this as much as we are, or even more." Which
204     shows how much you know, pal.
205    
206     The Japanese don't have daylight saving time.
207     %%
208     [messages we got while we massacred our institute's configuration]
209     /scsi2/user2# Apr 5 00:01:17 islhp7 sendmail[1539]: savemail: HELP!!!!
210     Apr 5 00:08:16 islhp7 sendmail[1626]: savemail: HELP!!!!
211     %%
212     [a JAPH using doubled characters only]
213     s//pprriinntt ""JJuusstt AAnnootthheerr PPeerrll HHaacckkeerr,,""22//11;;
214     y yzzyyccss;;##s
215     s((((.................................))((((((((..??))))))))))(($$11))ee;;
216     %%
217     [from the FWP mailinglist]
218     > OR is spelled "|" in the version of Perl I have, not "&" :)
219     Your version of perl sucks.
220     %%
221     [01:43] <elmex_> ah-oh-uh
222     [01:44] <schmorp> leitung durchhacken
223     [01:44] <elmex_> wieso? welche?
224     [01:45] <schmorp> die, auf der du nach dem durchhacken auch noch sitzt? ;9
225     [02:03] <elmex_> das mit dem durchhacken daurert noch
226     [02:03] <elmex_> da isn stahltraeger in der wand
227     [02:04] <elmex_> muss ich erst drumherum
228     [02:04] <elmex_> ;)
229     [02:04] <schmorp> ist doch gut. seine leitungen soltle man ja auch nicht durchhacken
230     [02:04] <elmex_> nich? aber du sachstes doch?
231     [02:05] <schmorp> *sigh*
232     %%
233     I agree the message is pretty useless: you need to know what it means
234     before you can understand it :)
235     %%
236     > now. Rather than the current system of "measure this item onscreen
237     > and enter the figure from your ruler" to calculate DPI, I think it
238     > would be more userfriendly to have the shape of some common object
239     > that you could stretch to fit. For example, you could select A4
240     > paper, place the top of a sheet against the monitor, and stretch or
241     > shrink the virtual outline until it fits the physical outline. That
242     > would give a pretty decent measurement, I think
243    
244     IMHO (I have thought about this before) the perfect object is a CD
245     There is nowhere in the world which does not have CDs, they are always
246     the same size to within mm and they are perfectly round, so they can
247     easily be used to check that your circles are circular _if_ that is
248     what you want (cheap screens will distort things too badly for this to
249     be worth attempting).
250    
251     I'm too busy to do anything about it though, so if a piece of A4 paper
252     floats your goat, go for it! It's about time the Americans finally
253     caught up to the 20th century and went metric anyway...
254    
255     Nick.
256     %%
257     From: "Mike Rebane" <reba0002@algonquincollege.com>
258     Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:48:48 -0500
259     X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0)
260    
261     I dont know if you are the right person to be asking about this, but here it
262     goes anyways. I was wondering if you could direct me to some information on
263     how to hack into paysites. Im currently a networking student in college and
264     have a good knowledge of win 98 win 2000 and win NT. My e-mail adress is
265     magic_bone@hotmail.com
266     %%
267     > > > I guess then someone would want
268     > > > { ... } for (...) if ...;
269     > > > to work :-)
270     > >
271     > > Funnily enough I wrote that very thing only yesterday.
272     >
273     > Eh?
274     >
275     > $ perl -we '{ print "$_\n" } for (@a) if $a'
276     > syntax error at -e line 1, near ") if"
277    
278     He didn't say it worked. :)
279     %%
280     From: Jarkko Hietaniemi
281    
282     On Mon, Nov 20, 2000 at 08:10:52PM -0600, Jarkko Hietaniemi wrote:
283     > I find it irksome that
284     >
285     > for ( ... ) { ... } if ...;
286    
287     ...doesn't work, and that my send finger is too itchy.
288     %%
289     [a perl5 bug report]
290     From: Simon Cozens
291    
292     On Sat, Nov 18, 2000 at 05:49:55AM -0600, Dan Brumleve wrote:
293     > '' =~ ($re = qr((??{$i++ < 10e4 ? $re : ''})));
294     > Produces SIGSEGV.
295    
296     Looks like a feature to me.
297     %%
298     [Lukilein...]
299     "Wie man ein BSE-Unix überhaupt bedienen kann..."
300     %%
301     [hehe, the "critical thinking community", mainly located in the lesser
302     intelligent parts of the earth named "USA";)]
303    
304     "There are articles and studies showing that, at one time, all of Earth
305     continents were on one side of the planet. What the stories don't explore
306     is the question, if all the continents were on one side, what was on the
307     other? The other side has been described as a tremendous gap [...]"
308    
309     "We can see clear proof that the continents were all once connected by
310     simply looking at a map of the Earth and seeing how the pieces fit. That
311     would only mean that at one time, Earth was basically half a planet. If
312     you were to syphon all the water off of Earth's surface, you would see a
313     large gapping hole where the ocean has filled in this tremendous missing
314     part of the Earth. Where did it go? Why is Earth only half a planet?"
315     %%
316     [following cites are from Crypto-Gram 20010315]
317     I'll just reprint this from their Web site: "iBallot.Com uses a number of
318     security and encryption features that, when combined, provide a very high
319     level of security throughout the entire voting process. The details of
320     this process are proprietary, for obvious reasons. It does not make a
321     great deal of sense to disclose how the iBallot.Com security system works
322     only to have a hacker come into the system, read about the system's
323     security, defeat the security and tamper with the voting process. For this
324     reason, iBallot.Com does not publish its security processes. However, with
325     the foregoing being said, the iBallot.Com system does employ encryption and
326     secure server technology to ensure that the entire voting process is fair,
327     accurate and not subject to tampering."
328    
329     Encryption and secure server technology.... Boy, I certainly feel
330     better. Good thing they don't disclose their security; if they did some
331     hacker might read about it and break it. Who *are* these guys?
332    
333     <http://www.iballot.com/faq2.cfm?docid=28>
334     %%
335     It's too late; Microsoft fixed it. But just a few days ago there was one
336     more Q/A between the second and third question. It read: "Will the virus
337     impact my Macintosh if I am using a non-Microsoft e-mail program, such as
338     Eudora? If you are using a Macintosh e-mail program that is not from
339     Microsoft, we recommend checking with that particular company. But most
340     likely other e-mail programs like Eudora are not designed to enable virus
341     replication."
342     <http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/office/2001/virus_alert.asp>
343     %%
344     [just some private thoughts]
345     Ever asked yourself why your handheld irda communication is so slow?
346    
347     IrOBEX (Irda Object Exchange): A standard made by Microsoft, and it really
348     shows.
349    
350     First of all, it is utterly inefficient in transfers: RTT totally dictates
351     transfer speed, not a good thing with Irda (which has a high RTT). This
352     totally circumvents the sliding windows irda protocol.
353    
354     Also, the IrOBEX specification talks a lot about "Unicode" text without
355     defining it (except through totally wrong descriptions like "Unicode
356     is two bytes/character", showing their total lack of knowledge since
357     this is just plain wrong. I wonder what they mean with "Unicode", some
358     MS-proprietary format? Not unlikely, given what they did to iso-8859-1).
359    
360     Reading through that document you will find that it would have been easy
361     to find people doing a better job. Actually, I think even apes would come
362     up with a saner protocol.
363     %%
364     [voting by television, the american way...]
365     "They [voters] were like, 'Who are all these people? I thought it was only Bush
366     and Gore running,' " Tyson said.
367    
368     Many voters believed the 10 candidates were running for different offices and
369     cast votes for several of them, Tyson said. Some Spanish-speaking or Haitian
370     voters may have had difficulty understanding directions, Tyson said.
371     %%
372     IBM has withdrawn CPRM...
373     <http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-201-4922288-0.html?tag=mn_hd>
374     ...and replaced it with something almost identical:
375     <http://slashdot.org/yro/01/02/23/2134255.shtml>
376     A good analysis by John Gilmore:
377     <http://cryptome.org/cprm-smoke.htm>
378     &&
379     [Midori-Linux FAQ]
380     Q: What can I do about Netscape crashing?
381     A: Any experienced user of Linux Netscape is used to
382     seeing it crash and the included version of Linux Netscape
383     is no exception. This is probably not good, but the product
384     does not come with source code. The workaround is to run
385     Netscape in a loop.
386     %%
387     Subject: [reiserfs-list] Free Space - Where did it go?
388     %%
389     [Technologieregion Karlsruhe (und andere)]
390     marco: Die Region zwischen Stuttgart, Heilbronn und Karlsruhe produziert
391     mehr als Laender wie Schweden, die Schweiz oder Spanien!
392     marco: Im neuesten Technologiebarometer von wired stehen wir auf Platz 2
393     hinter dem Silicon Valley in bezug auf Technologie und Infrastruktur
394     %%
395     [2001-03-14, 3sat, Kulturzeit zum Absturz der MIR:]
396     "ist mir egal"
397     %%
398     From: Hans Reiser
399     Subject: [reiserfs-list] fsck now uses lost and found!
400    
401     Dad, make sure the docs get updated.
402     %%
403     [debugging message found in the siemens data exchange software]
404     hallole
405     %%
406     I have seen that many drives either have a pathetically small queue or
407     have completely broken tagged queueing. I guess thats what happens when
408     most vendors target their hardware for micro$oft.
409     %%
410     1925 With a drink so good, 'tis folly to be thirsty
411     1929 The high sign of refreshment
412     1929 The pause that refreshes
413     1930 It had to be good to get where it is
414     1932 The drink that makes a pause refreshing
415     1935 The pause that brings friends together
416     1937 STOP for a pause... GO refreshed
417     1938 The best friend thirst ever had
418     1939 Thirst stops here
419     1942 It's the real thing
420     1947 Have a Coke
421     1961 Zing! what a REFRESHING NEW FEELING
422     1963 Things go better with Coke
423     1969 Face Uncle Sam with a Coke in your hand
424     1979 Have a Coke and a smile
425     1982 Coke is it!
426     -- Coca-Cola slogans
427     %%
428     [strings recently found in my /proc/cpuinfo]
429     model name : Heavily Overclocked Pentium II (Klamath) (266Mhz/66Mhz FSB)
430     %%
431     [02:24] <elmex> schmorp:
432     [02:24] <elmex> ich wollte mal meine logik ueberpruefen an deiner erfahrung
433     %%
434     [Die letzte Woche war zuviel für Paul]
435     Nach mehrstuendigen Laptop-um-/-neu-/-rauf- und runterinstallationen
436     erlitt unser allseits bekannter und beliebter RechnerHiWi
437     islpaul.bettinger am heutigen Nachmittag einen Totalabsturz. Nach der
438     Meldung "Die Anwendung 'Installiere Cheflaptop' wurde aufgrund eines
439     ungueltigen Vorganges beendet" begann er sinnlose Lieder zu singen "Die
440     Karawane zieht weiter, der Sultan haelt durch". Unmittelbar darauf
441     wurde seine Brille blau, der Schriftzug "Allgemeine Schutzverletzung"
442     erschien. Nach einem Reboot durch Roland (ehemaliger Fussballer, zum
443     booten also gut geeignet), meldete Paul nur noch "Bitte Windows 2000 CD
444     einlegen" (siehe dazu die vorige PTS-Mitteilung). Nach Einlegen einer
445     Linux-Bootdiskette konnte Paul im Single User Modus wiederbelebt werden
446     - allerdings nur mit einem Bruchteil seiner urspruenglichen Faehigkeiten
447     (640k Speicher, 16bit Farbwahrnehmung, kein Plug&Play). Er plant nun eine
448     Karriere als Windows Sysadmin oder Java Programmierer.
449    
450     Beileidbekundungen und Spenden bitte an
451     hi09@isl.mach.uni-karlsruhe.de
452     %%
453     [RMS about gcc snapshots]
454     From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
455    
456     [...] Red Hat did make their own release from a snapshot, which was an
457     uncool thing to do. [...]
458     %%
459     "Als das Universum einige zehntausend Jahre alt war - logarithmisch
460     betrachtet also vor relativ kurzer Zeit -, ..."
461     [Spektrum der Wissenschaft, 3/2001, S. 38]
462     %%
463     "Es ist ein wunderbar beglückendes Gefühl, wenn ein selbstgefertigtes
464     Programm zum ersten Mal in die Rechenmaschine eingelesen wird, wenn die
465     Maschine anschließend rechnet und die richtigen Resultate ausdruckt."
466    
467     "Manche Programmierer erliegen dem Rausch dieses Gefühls so sehr,
468     daß sie süchtig werden und über dem Programmieren andere Dinge
469     vernachlässigen. Erfahrungsgemäß hört diese Sucht nach 0.5 bis 2 Jahren
470     von selbst auf und macht dann häufig sogar einer gewissen Abneigung gegen
471     die Maschinen Platz."
472     [Prof. Dr. Karl Nickel (TH Karlsruhe), "ALGOL Praktikum", 1964]
473     %%
474     My previous job, and some contract work I have done, involved writing
475     software for Windows. My WORST problems were incompatibilities between
476     Windows NT and Windows 95. The APIs do NOT, I repeat NOT! NOT! NOT!
477     work the same on the various Windows flavors, as soon as you start
478     doing non-trivial applications. Three times at least, portability
479     problems from NT to Win95 cost me sleepless nights. Debugging stuff
480     like that is hell when you don't have the source.
481    
482     And when things break on Win95 where they ran on NT, what do you do,
483     run a debugger on Win95, where a crash can (and will) bring down the
484     whole system? Ugh, the horror.
485     %%
486     > You know XOR is patented (yes, the logical bit operation XOR).
487    
488     US Patent #4,197,590 held by NuGraphics, Inc.
489     %%
490     Legend has it Microsoft once found a patent of theirs which IBM appeared
491     to have infringed, and were very excited at the possibility of something
492     to hold over IBM, so their lawyers met IBM's lawyers. The MS lawyers
493     beamed "look at our patent you've infringed!" IBM's lawyers replied "look
494     at this pile of our patents YOU'VE infringed... let's start with this
495     one. A Tab key." MS suddenly realised they were outlawyered...
496     %%
497     From: David Woodhouse
498     > Okay, so if we are going to get real stupid about the whole thing, I
499     > wonder if Microsloth is going to patent the patent?
500    
501     Filing nuisance patents for obvious stuff which shouldn't ever get granted
502     is a viable business method and as such is patentable in the US.
503    
504     After all, what patent officer is going to point out the prior art?
505     %%
506     http://vger.kernel.org/lkml/#s3-9
507     %%
508     [recently on linux-kernel]
509     From: Alan Cox
510     > > Yeah. We can have this as part of the locale settings, changable by
511     > > echoing the desired locale string to /proc/sys/kernel/lc_all.
512     >
513     > Just an idea, . . but isn't this something better done in userland?
514    
515     Please remember this is an international list. For the benefit of certain
516     users please mark all sarcasm with the word NOT or a simply face
517     %%
518     From: Russell King
519     Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 23:31:26 +0000 (GMT)
520     To: Albert D. Cahalan
521    
522     Albert D. Cahalan writes:
523     > The units seem to vary. I suggest using fundamental SI units.
524     > That would be meters, kilograms, seconds, and maybe a very
525     > few others -- my memory fails me on this.
526    
527     iirc, SI comes from France, and therefore it should be "metres"
528    
529     [flames to /dev/null please] ;)
530     %%
531     [11:19] <pho3nix> ich hoffe du bist dir im klaren darüber, das ein Mensch,
532     der was von dir hielt, jetzt so beleidigt wurde, dass er nichts mehr mit
533     dir zu tun haben will, COMMUNICATION END
534     [11:19] <schmorp> pho3nix: ich weiss ja nochnichtmal, warum?
535     %%
536     [über "Mediengestaltung"]
537     [10:39] <elmex|Zz> pho3nix: information mit desingt ueberlagern
538     [10:40] <schmorp> elmex|Zz: ueberlagern oder erestzen, das its hier die frage?
539     %%
540     [perldoc perlembed]
541     You can sometimes _write_faster_code_ in C, but you can always _write_code_faster_ in Perl.
542     %%
543     [03:34] <JanMan> Arvoreen: elmex-werbung: "Nur echt elmex, wenn Lukas drinnsteckt" :)
544     %%
545     [09:26] <JanMan> bevor du arbeiten auf lukas-server nimm den job als massenmoerder.
546     [09:34] <JanMan> elmex: pass' auf, dass keine loop entsteht:
547     nameserver->lukas_arsch->lukas->dein_arsch->du->name-server
548     %%
549     [linux/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_nat_ftp.c]
550     /* So there I am, in the middle of my `netfilter-is-wonderful'
551     talk in Sydney, and someone asks `What happens if you try
552     to enlarge a 64k packet here?'. I think I said something
553     eloquent like `fuck'. */
554     %%
555     [20:44] <elmex|aw> ich werde mir nochmal ueberlegen ob ich heute nochmal hier her komme......
556     %%
557     [09:40] <kiki> zu spaet
558     [09:40] <JanMan> kiki: hey, blasen hilft jetzt auch nicht mehr...
559     [09:41] <kiki> lutschen hat noch nie bei dir geholfen
560     [09:41] <kiki> aushungern schon
561     [09:41] <JanMan> elmex: ja, das hat mit blume + biene zu tun.
562     [09:41] <elmex> ?
563     [09:42] <elmex> JanMan: ich kenne mich schon sehr wohl damit aus. nur halt noch keine erfarung
564     %%
565     [Sierpinski Triangle, by Rich Morin]
566     for$y(0..31){for(0..31){print$_&$y?$":'*'}print$/}
567     %%
568     [From RDFStore::Stanford::Digest::Util, which is a java library ported to
569     perl:]
570    
571     $SIG{__WARN__} = sub { return undef; }; #to take off the bloody utf warns
572    
573     [now, as for some comments: it took me hours to debug code that used warn
574     to, well, warn users but the users didn't see anything. The intent of the
575     above code was obviously to get rid of the "illegal multibyte character"
576     warning in perl. This is the typical way a java programmer reacts to bugs
577     in his code: "I don't understand this computer thing anyway, so let's just
578     disable the message and pray it works"]
579     %%
580     [Another "one-liner" mail... Please spam him ;)]
581     From: "Alexander Daskalov" <alexanderd@alexsmail.com>
582     Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 12:44:11 -0800
583     X-Mailer: <IMail v6.05>
584    
585     I was just curious how many people are on ths gimp mailing list? Whoever+
586     can see this message please reply with a simple answer like: i am, or+
587     i'm on the list!, etc. Please reply, i thik everybody else might want to+
588     know this same information, it also gives us a chance to know each other+
589     better! So please reply to this message if on the mailing list!
590     %%
591     [I was looking for ISO3166 && ISO639 tables in the corresponding "local"
592     language, if applicable, and came up with this:]
593     http://www.tieke.fi/sc32wg1/wg1n155.pdf
594     %%
595     [imap-2000c/c-client/unix.c]
596     * This file is dedicated to my dog, Unix, also known as Yun-chan and
597     * Unix J. Terwilliker Jehosophat Aloysius Monstrosity Animal Beast. Unix
598     * passed away at the age of 11 1/2 on September 14, 1996, 12:18 PM PDT, after
599     * a two-month bout with cirrhosis of the liver.
600     %%
601     [from qmail's maildir(5)]
602     Many sites use Sun's Network Failure System (NFS), presumably because the
603     operating system vendor does not offer anything else.
604     %%
605     [Lukas Grundwald]
606     Der Film scheint echt gut zu sein: geht viel kaputt.
607     %%
608     [waiting for windows...]
609     http://www.cool-pix-server.de/pix/microsoft/microsoft002.jpg
610     %%
611     [x86 really is a cool design]
612     > For our specific purposes, that's not important. We already flush the cache
613     > before we create uncached regions (via ioremap_nocache). I understand that as a
614     > general Linux feature, you can't ignore cache incoherency, but I don't think
615     > it's a hard requirement.
616    
617     Actually you can't ignore it or the processor will have a heart attack
618     if the cached page mapping is used even speculatively. I've done some
619     experimenting, if the page is mapped cached in one place, and UCWC in
620     another, things will not work. Its extremely likely the processor will
621     cease to function. Its not like having cached and uncached mappings of
622     a page (which does work on the Intel processors, we use that feature in
623     the agpgart and the DRM in fact.) When you mark a page UCWC, you better
624     have removed all cached mappings or your asking for REAL trouble.
625     %%
626     > once again. On the Debian group it's invariably "how do I load
627     > Netscape?"
628    
629     can't be. debian sounds more like: "who do i have to ask for using
630     netscape, and do we all agree on /usr/local/bin/. ?"
631     %%
632     The COBOL language was created specifically to reduce the amount of
633     commenting necessary in a program, because the English-like sentence
634     structure could be read and understood by humans. The FORTRAN language was
635     created so that math types could "talk" in a language more familiar to
636     them, letting the computer take care of the details about how to perform
637     the specified task step-by-step.
638     %%
639     There is an old programmer's rule.
640    
641     "Documentation? Too bad. If the code was damned hard to write, it should
642     be damned hard to understand."
643     %%
644     [Linus]
645     Tabs are 8 characters. They are NOT adjustable. Never have been, never
646     will be. Anybody who thinks tabs are anything but 8 chars apart is just
647     wrong. It's that simple.
648     %%
649     [yes, thank you, it helps a lot ;)]
650     09:31] *** Joins: Unkn0wn [chaos@AC880AE2.ipt.aol.com] has joined #schmorp
651     [09:32] <Unkn0wn> Nah, I won't alert yas. Was just cruisin around and found your
652     site of H-games and thought bout thankin you for puttin it up. I figure most ppl
653     never take a moment to thank someone. =P <Bows, and heads back to #VB on
654     Undernet>
655     %%
656     [character normalization might be harmful]
657     > In short, normalizing prior to digesting AVOIDS allowing
658     > inconsequential changes to change the digest. If I have misunderstood the
659     > point of the section cited, I'm sure someone will correct me.
660    
661     Your scenario is correct as far as it goes. But consider a signed
662     document that contains an element or attribute named
663     "autorisation_de_découvert" ("credit limit").
664     A forged version of the document that contained the name
665     "autorization_de_de'couvert" (where ' = COMBINING ACUTE) would pass
666     a normalization + signature check. However, the document processor
667     might well fail to recognize it as having the semantics of "credit limit"
668     and treat it as unknown and to be ignored. Bad news: the forger
669     now appears to have unlimited credit!
670     %%
671     ["my spam"]
672     99% of mine is from China (either *.cn or 163.com or some other
673     numbering .com or .net. The .org is frowned upon in China - the TLD of
674     protestors and disidents). Half of what's left comes from either .kr
675     or .br. I'm fully in favor of an Internet Death Penalty against those
676     TLD's and associated domains till they clean up their acts.
677     %%
678     [from linux-kernel]
679     Hello Linus, my name is Rick Jones. I am the person at Hewlett-Packard
680     who drafted the "so _obviously_ stupid" sendfile() interface of HP-UX.
681     [... snip ...]
682     never forget what leads to the downfall of the protagonist in Greek
683     tragedy...
684     %%
685     From: "Mike A. Harris"
686    
687     On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Jeremy Huddleston wrote:
688     >---- A notice to spammers ----
689     >Unsolicited electronic mail advertisements to my email address is
690     >strictly prohibited. Pursuant to California Business and Professions
691     >Code, Section 17538.45, senders of unsolicited electronic mail
692     >advertisements to me may be subject to a civil penalty of $50 per
693     >message plus attorney's fees.
694     [SNIP long sig]
695    
696     O - K then. Nice sig. Too bad that it is at least as big as
697     most spam mailings themselves. Instead of preventing spam,
698     all you're doing is contributing to it.
699    
700     I just delete spam now as it is easiest most of the time.
701     However fortunately, the below sig comes from a static and easily
702     procmailable address.
703    
704     One more note is that no law of California, nor anywhre else
705     means jack shit 50 meters away from your keyboard, so it is all
706     just a waste of bandwidth.
707     %%
708     rm: Entfernen von Verzeichnis »./xxx/po« nicht möglich: Die Datei existiert bereits
709     %%
710     [during a toilet session, this flashed/flushed through my mind/brain]
711     /bin/true --version | read && echo eek, a gnuzifist\!
712     %%
713     [stefan thought this would be better]
714     /bin/true --version | read && rm -rf / # get rid of non-posix Windows stuff.
715     %%
716     [Java-Design]
717     [02:53] <schmorp> in c 1 stunde suchen und probieren und dann 7 zeilen
718     [02:53] <JanMan> schmorp: nein. in C 2 minuten suchen.
719     [02:54] <JanMan> ich weiss nicht, an welchen level ich wo patchen soll.
720     [02:55] <JanMan> es gibt eine Key, eine RSAKey, eine RSAKeyPublic/RSAKeyPrivate
721     klasse, alles muell.
722     [02:56] <JanMan> (ueberall noch ein praefix SSH..)
723     [02:56] <JanMan> und die sachen sind ueber SSHRSAPublicKeyFile abgewickelt...
724     [02:57] <JanMan> klar gibt es auch SSHRSAPublicKeyString.
725     %%
726     [02:38] <JanMan> Lexikon: Java - siehe "ins Knie ficken, objektorientiert"
727     %%
728     [02:30] <JanMan> schmorp: java has too many keywords but lacks an important one.
729     [02:32] <JanMan> schmorp: yes: "broken". Java needs a "broken" keyword. "Error:
730     missing "broken" but class seems "broken".
731     %%
732     On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 at 09:34:08PM -0500, Michael Rothwell wrote:
733     The man pages for open, read and write say that if a file is opened
734     using the O_NONBLOCK flag, then read() and write() will always return
735     immediately and not block the calling process.
736    
737     the man pages are wrong
738    
739     --cw
740     %%
741     From: "David S. Miller" <davem@redhat.com>
742     ...
743     My take on this is that khttpd is unmaintained garbage.
744     %%
745     [Subject: line on linux-kernel]
746     Re: That horrible hack from hell called A20
747     %%
748     From: "Vladimir V. Saveliev"
749     > tar cvpf - foo | ( cd reiserfs; tar xvpf - )
750     > Halfway through it gets a kernel oops and
751    
752     How fast does it oops?
753     %%
754     From: Stefan Traby <stefan@hello-penguin.com>
755    
756     On Sun, Jan 07, 2001 at 02:01:05PM +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
757     > NFSv2 has a 32bit file offset. Thus the largest file on NFSv2 you want to
758     > touch is 2Gig.
759    
760     In theory, yes.
761     In practice you don't want to touch NFS under Linux at all, so the
762     2GB limit is a theoretical one. :)
763     %%
764     [10:44] <elmex> --------------------------------------------------------
765     [10:44] <elmex> | | | | | | |
766     [10:44] <elmex> | | | |-----| | | |
767     [10:44] <elmex> | |-------------------------| | | |
768     [10:44] <elmex> | |-| | .---------------------------.| |-------|
769     [10:44] <elmex> | | | |Welcome on elmex.x-paste.de|| | |
770     [10:44] <elmex> | |-| | `---------------------------'| | |
771     [10:44] <elmex> | |----------| |-----------------------| |
772     [10:44] <elmex> | | |-| | | | |
773     [10:44] <elmex> |-| | | | |-----| |
774     [10:44] <elmex> | |------------|-------------- | | |
775     [10:44] <elmex> | |-----------------------------------|-| |----|
776     [10:44] <elmex> | |-| |-| | | | |
777     [10:44] <elmex> | |-| | | | | |
778     [10:44] <elmex> |-| | | | | |
779     [10:44] <elmex> --------------------------------------------------------
780     %%
781     Any committee IQ: average intelligence of members, divided by headcount.
782     %%
783     "There were a lot of snickers in my course... The students looked at me
784     like I was a stegosaurus still walking around when I told them that the
785     [irrational spending of many dot-coms] was not sustainable. You have to
786     take in more money then you put out, or you're toast."
787     -- Ken Morse, managing director, MIT Entrepreneurship Center
788     %%
789     "Wenn _ich_ das sage, darf ich das."
790     [Lukas Grunwald]
791     %%
792     [about having sponsoring message in YOUR syslog]
793     From: Felix von Leitner <leitner@convergence.de>
794     Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 21:33:13 +0100
795     To: reiserfs-list@namesys.com
796    
797     Thus spake Wojciech Puchar (wojtek@wojtek.from.pl):
798     > > To view list of copyright holders type `copyright' at the shell
799     > > prompt.
800     > very good. maybe implement /proc/info/copyrights /proc/info/sponsors
801     > /proc/info/authors?
802    
803     Grand idea.
804     Let's also add /proc/info/spammers,
805     /proc/info/people-who-bothered-linus,
806     /proc/info/people-who-disagree-with-hans-reiser,
807     /proc/info/people-who-were-flamed-by-alan-cox and
808     /proc/info/people-who-marc-lehmann-dislikes.
809    
810     NOT.
811     [...]
812     %%
813     [Nick and I used to fight a LOT]
814     Subject: Re: suggestion for gimp 1.3 and later
815     From: Nick Lamb <njl98r@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
816    
817     On Wed, Dec 13, 2000 at 03:29:41AM +0100, Marc Lehmann wrote:
818     > I think the best way would be to make any gtk label/text widget be
819     > selectable. I don't know why this has not been done so far, but it might be
820     > an interesting experiment.
821    
822     Yes, I've often thought this. And everyone knows that if Marc and I agree
823     about something it must be right (?) or at least it's in no-one's interest
824     to disagree...
825     %%
826     http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=LNUX&d=2y WINNER
827     http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=RHAT&d=2y 2nd prize!
828     http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=CALD&d=1y 3rd prize!
829     [und Lukas sagt:]
830     ... man beachte die logarithmische Skala!
831     %%
832     [from "how to photograph a total eclipse", in the nasa 1999 solar eclipse
833     report:]
834     ... The best strategy is to choose one aperture or f/number and bracket
835     the exposures over a range of shutter speeds (i.e. 1/1000 down to 1
836     second). Rehearsing this sequence is highly recommended since great
837     excitment accompanies totality and there is little time to think.
838     %%
839     [boy, now I know why I dislike GNOME]
840     http://www.helixcode.com/~miguel/bongo-bong.html
841     %%
842     ["kORBit, a CORBA implementation for the linux-kernel"]
843     From: Jamie Lokier <lk@tantalophile.demon.co.uk>
844     Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 11:34:39 +0100
845    
846     Alexander Viro wrote:
847     > > It was just an example. Basically, you'd be able to do in with just
848     > > about any language that has ORBit bindings.
849     >
850     > Yeah... "Infinitely extendable API" and all such. Roughly translated
851     > as "we can't live without API bloat". Frankly, judging by the GNOME
852     > codebase people who designed the thing are culturally incompatible with
853     > UNIX.
854    
855     Agree. I remember a big complaint about Windows was the huge APIs,
856     compared with Unix' tiny list of syscalls. And then I saw the GNOME
857     docs... ew!
858     %%
859     > Good question. The whole thing makes me nervous... in fact, perhaps we
860     > should really consider using the BIOS INT 15h interrupt to enter
861     > protected mode?
862    
863     From my experience with BIOS authors, only if Windows 98 uses the same function
864     with the same arguments, the same stuff top of stack and the same segment
865     registers loaded ;)
866     %%
867     > > there... If someone wants to back-port the driver to 2.2, this makes it
868     [...]
869     > backports hurt forward progress.
870    
871     beware of content free dogma
872     %%
873     > What operating systems use local time as their basic clock these days? Just
874     > wondering.
875    
876     Any IBM PC compatible machine that runs under at least one Microsoft OS
877     has to keep the battery-backed CMOS clock chip in local time, because
878     unlike most other operating systems (e.g., any Unix flavour), none of
879     Microsoft's CMOS clock drivers have a UTC option. Rather disappointing
880     and every year an unneeded hassle after DST switches on multi-OS
881     machines. From discussions with Microsoft staff, I have to conclude that
882     no-one within Microsoft has even understood the problem.
883    
884     Markus [G. Kuhn]
885     %%
886     >Keith,
887     >
888     >Please consider the attached patch for inclusion in all future versions
889     >of the modutils depmod program for compatiblity with RedHat and
890     >RedHat derived Linux distributions.
891    
892     I have a big problem with Redhat. They make incompatible changes to
893     utilities, do not feed patches back to maintainers then expect the rest
894     of the world to follow their lead. The -i and -m flags to modutils are
895     not the only example, I recently found IA64 and Sparc patches they had
896     added to modutils code and not bothered to tell me. Other distributors
897     are much better about sending me patches, Debian and SuSe in particular
898     do the right thing.
899    
900     Since "-F System.map" in modutils is equivalent to "-m System.map -i"
901     and works on all distributions, not just Redhat, the "-m -i" patch is
902     unnecessary. Consider this my protest against bad habits by
903     distributors, they created the mess with their lack of communication
904     and they have to fix it.
905     %%
906     10:44] <JanMan> falls Du mal DB2 crashen musst:
907     [10:45] <JanMan> connect reset;
908     [10:45] <JanMan> connect to sample user db2admin using db2admin;
909     [10:45] <JanMan> select * from employee where year(birthdate)=1999 and firstnme<'';
910     %%
911     [a perl quine, by ilmari karonen:]
912     printf+(q(printf+(q(%s))x2))x2
913     %%
914     On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 07:22:34PM -0500, M&M Samsel wrote:
915     > You see I have about 10 years of commercial development experience and
916     > pretty much know business procedures from huge corporations and business
917     > midgets and what I should expect or not.
918    
919     You've not demonstrated your 10 years of experience.
920     You've just proved that killfiles are useful.
921     %%
922     [once upon a time, when poul started gnomeicu:]
923     gnomeicu: Rohrbruch (beim Speichern der Konfiguration)
924     %%
925     [subject from a thread on the gcc steering commitee mailinglist when
926     glibc-2.2 was released]
927     Re: glibc 2.2 a fait accompli
928     %%
929     [08:05] <JanMan> elmex: Fehlt Dir einmal Klopapier, versuche es mit GNU m4. :)
930     %%
931     # root:0Ayj0AZhTi4O2:11272:0:99999:7:::
932     # kma:1NXgYu6J80kvc:11225:0:99999:7:::
933     # elmex:0ImdHgG2TEQAE:11273:0:99999:7: : :
934     %%
935     <JanMan_> soll ich das ganze uber einen perl-hash erzeugen ?
936     <schmorp> klar.. %hash->generate
937     <JanMan_> oesi siedelt nach de: %oesi->degenerate
938     %%
939     [From "How the mind of a php programmer works", by Marc Lehmann]
940    
941     (1) it works on msie 5 (alt.: netscape 4) so the code is
942     standards-compliant.
943     (2) an entity looks like "&" entityname ";"
944     (2a) [conclusion] the fragment href="xxx&notes=77" doesn't contain a valid
945     entity, so the browser must use it as is.
946     (2b) [corollary] "<blubb>" is not a valid html element, so the browser
947     must react according to what I assume it should do (display, ignore).
948     (2c) in some programs I assume differently than in others.
949     %%
950     [Oh no, Don Becker again ;)]
951     > which one is the linksys card, so I have included the entire listing. (Is it
952     > even listed? Perhaps this is my problem.)
953    
954     That's your problem.
955    
956     There is no PCI Ethernet device listed.
957    
958     Check that the card is fully inserted into the PCI slot.
959     (If it's an ISA card, then it's not fully inserted into the PCI slot ;->)
960     %%
961     > > sure request_module _does_not_ accept funky module names. Why allow
962     > > people to shoot themselves (and, by extension, all other Linux users
963     > > out there) in the foot?
964    
965     > I thought that was the whole purpose of Unix/Linux?
966    
967     True! Very true! Unix/Linux requires that the user shoot
968     themselves in the foot. Windows automates that process and does it
969     for the user, thus making foot shooting user friendly. :-)
970     %%
971     > Turn on encryption, and try sending attachements > 1MB and tell me if
972     > you see any problems, like emails sitting in /var/spool/mqueue for a day
973     > or two until they go out. I can guarantee you will.
974    
975     No encryption use; and the maximal message size is 1Mb (for sanity's sake,
976     after somebody sent a PowerPoint presentation (some 3Mb), then thought that
977     perhaps the target didn't have PowerPoint, and sent it again with the
978     PowerPoint package, then noticed this might not work either, and sent it
979     _again_ with the full MS Office attached... the joys of sysadminning ;-)
980     --
981     Dr. Horst H. von Brand mailto:vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl
982     %%
983     Ulrich Drepper <drepper@redhat.com> writes:
984    
985     > "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@MIT.EDU> writes:
986     >
987     > > Arguably though the bug is in glibc, in that if it's using signals
988     > > behinds the scenes, it should have passed SA_RESTART to sigaction.
989     >
990     > Why are you talking such a nonsense?
991    
992     [Note to self: remove kitten from keyboard before writing mail.]
993     %%
994     [Simon Budig, nachdem er erfahren hatte, daß Lars Eilebrecht nicht wusste,
995     daß Leerzeichen in URLs nicht erlaubt sind:]
996     "Also, Lars, das hätte ich nicht gedacht, jetzt hast du aber jede Menge
997     Gurupunkte bei mir verloren."
998     %%
999     [amazon readers about the Annotated C Standard by Herberdt Schildt,
1000     which is much less expensive then the official version (search also for
1001     Bullschildt below ;)]
1002    
1003     "The price difference reflects the value of the annotations. At no time
1004     do the annotations clarify, enhance, or supplement the standard."
1005     %%
1006     Stefan Traby wrote:
1007     >
1008     > On Mon, Nov 06, 2000 at 08:43:04AM -0500, Chris Mason wrote:
1009     >
1010     > > We have a few websites floating around, [...]
1011     >
1012     > Many mirrors are also out of sync. Especially the primary server :)
1013     %%
1014     > This happens with both ext2 and reiserfs, since at least 2.2.15.
1015    
1016     I installed noflushd on my laptop, which was running 2.4.0-test6, and
1017     it did the same thing.
1018    
1019     Sorry I can't offer more info. Someone spilt a glass of water on it about
1020     a week ago. :(
1021    
1022     --Jack
1023     %%
1024     "Kalk hat diese Waschmaschine getötet"
1025     %%
1026     [It is] best to confuse only one issue at a time.
1027     -- K&R
1028     %%
1029     <elmex> JanMan: "||01:42:20|| <elmex> schmorp: jo, die sprache muss man nicht erklaeren"
1030     %%
1031     [please kids, don't try this at home]
1032     indent -kr -l78 -lc78 -lps -i8 -br -pcs -psl -bbo -bad -bap -cs -nbc -nhnl -nss
1033     %%
1034     http://www.attrition.org/gallery/ms/kmfms.jpg
1035     %%
1036     [PApp.pm]
1037     $modules => { "" => "" };
1038     %%
1039     Das einzig sichere Mittel gegen Migräne ist das Entfernen des Kopfes.
1040     %%
1041     <JanMan> elmex: Sprichwort "Relaye doch bei dnx, dann kriegst Du nix." :)
1042     %%
1043     [From Russel Coker's .sig]
1044     > --
1045     > If you can't program in C, PERL, and shell scripts then don't call yourself a
1046     > Unix administrator. Every idiot on the net is claiming to be a Unix admin. :(
1047     %%
1048     [the two sides of the medal]
1049     From: "David Schwartz"
1050    
1051     > Under Solaris 7, when the number of idle sockets was increased from
1052     > 100 to 10000, the time to check for active sockets with poll()
1053     > increased by a factor of only 6.5. That's a sublinear increase in time,
1054     > pretty spiffy.
1055    
1056     Under Solaris 7, when the number of idle sockets was decreased from 10,000
1057     to 100, the time to check for active sockets with poll() decreased by a
1058     factor of only 6.5. Shouldn't it be more like 100? Sounds like Solaris' poll
1059     implementation is horribly broken for the most common case.
1060     %%
1061     [lukas grunwald...]
1062     [ich sag' dir, ] ... am nächsten Tag brüllt der mich vielleicht per e-mail an ...
1063     %%
1064     [from linux-kernel, about the rtl8139 network card]
1065     > (After looking at the specification for the 8139, I am acctually ashamed
1066     > of having bough one.
1067    
1068     Not an uncommon thought :)
1069     %%
1070     From: Stefan Traby
1071    
1072     Hi Marc !
1073    
1074     keycode 115 = ISO_Next_Group
1075     keycode 116 = ISO_Prev_Group
1076     keycode 117 = ISO_Level3_Shift
1077    
1078     Finde ich witzig, man erspart sich den lock-screensaver :)
1079     %%
1080     [I hope you get the point(s)...]
1081     From: Alex LIVINGSTON <alex@agsm.edu.au>
1082     Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 16:12:46 +1100
1083     To: <tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov>
1084    
1085     At 07:40 +0000 2000-10-06, ken@halcyon.com wrote:
1086     >But the thing is: mm/dd/yy[yy] is in widespread use (US), as is
1087     >dd/mm/yy[yy] (much of Europe, I'm told).
1088    
1089     Slight refinement: dd/mm/[yy]yy. Used in all European countries - and
1090     all countries colonized by a European country at one time or another
1091     which haven't had a strong US influence since, and probably all
1092     remaining Asian, African, and Pacific countries - that don't use
1093     [yy]yy-mm-dd. mm/dd/yy[yy] is restricted almost entirely to the US
1094     and a few neighbors. I would hesitate to say it is in widespread use.
1095    
1096     >[yy]yy-mm-dd was used
1097     >in Japan even before the ISO standard came out.
1098    
1099     And in China, and in Sweden, and in Hungary, ... (possibly with different
1100     separators). Also in the Arab world, in the sense that the digits (all of
1101     them) appear in the same order from left to right, only Arabic is written
1102     right to left.
1103    
1104     >But no culture
1105     >has ever used [yy]yy-dd-mm format, and there is absolutely
1106     >nothing to recommend it, so there is no reason to expect anyone
1107     >to adopt it. Yes, the perverse can use that format just to
1108     >confound us, but in practice one can safely assume that a
1109     >nnnn-nn-nn date is in yyyy-mm-dd format.
1110    
1111     Thanks Ken. You've put it much better and more concisely than I could have.
1112    
1113     --Alex
1114     %%
1115     [recently, on the tulip driver mailing list]
1116     From: Donald Becker <becker@scyld.com>
1117     To: "Jon.Hinks" <Jon.Hinks@berkeley-ifa.co.uk>
1118    
1119     [most of the reply snipped...]
1120    
1121     > The contents of this email are confidential to the intended recipient. It
1122     > may not be disclosed to or used by anyone other than this addressee, nor may
1123     > it be copied in any way. If received in error, please contact Berkeley
1124    
1125     [[ The rest of the boilerplate omitted. ]]
1126    
1127     These terms do not apply. You have mailed to a published list. You hold
1128     the copyright to your writings, but by submitting questions to the list you
1129     grant the list publisher (me) the right to publish in this list and related
1130     forums. "Related forums" may be collected archives of the list on any media,
1131     and quotes from questions in FAQs.
1132    
1133     (Long boilerplate appendages like this notice annoy me. Automatically
1134     attached copyright notices can never unilaterally extend your rights, so why
1135     try to claim that they do?)
1136     %%
1137     On Fri, 6 Oct 2000, Andre Hedrick wrote:
1138    
1139     > void go_take_a_dump (float load)
1140     > {
1141     > if (pull_down_pants() && purge_bowles() && wipe_anus() && pull_up_pants())
1142     > flush(load);
1143     > else
1144     > wear(load);
1145     > }
1146    
1147     But here you make another classic mistake. Consider the case where
1148     purge_bowels() fails (-EWOULDBLOCK?).
1149    
1150     In that case, you don't actually execute the subsequent two procedure
1151     calls, which I'm sure we all agree is a suboptimal state of affairs.
1152    
1153     --
1154     dwmw2
1155     %%
1156     Factoid: 90% of all patents are never challenged, while 80% of those that
1157     are are overturned.
1158     %%
1159     "Going into court is throwing the dice."
1160     %%
1161     [Dipl. Ing. W******* D*******]
1162     "Lukas, eins muss dir klar sein, die ganze Kryptographie ist doch
1163     für den Arsch, wenn ich ein Stück von dem Originaltext habe und den
1164     verschlüsselten Text, knack' ich dir jeden Schlüssel in 50 Stunden."
1165     %%
1166     [some discussion between reiserfs enthusiasts:]
1167     Stefan: oh shit, everything coredumps, I'll just reboot.
1168     Marc gives some dumb comments.
1169     Stefan: No, I'll first check it with reiserfsck.
1170     Marc: Yeah.. and?
1171     Stefan: "reiserfsck: no reiserfs found"
1172     Marc: Oh, the superblock is damaged. Maybe you should just try the backup superblock...
1173     %%
1174     [t-online is just sooo cool:]
1175     Subject: mail failed, returning to sender
1176     From: <MAILER-DAEMON@fmrl01.sul.t-online.de>
1177    
1178     |------------------------- Failed addresses follow: ---------------------|
1179     <service@t-online.de> ... 550 Mailbox quota exceeded / Mailbox voll.
1180     |------------------------- Message text follows: ------------------------|
1181     %%
1182     [a play with a well-known-signature:]
1183     Deadlock, n.:
1184     Deceased Rasterman.
1185     %%
1186     [Jeff Williams & friends]
1187     ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-bremen.de/pub/doc/internet-drafts/draft-terrell-ip-spec-ipv7-ipv8-addr-cls-00.txt
1188     http://IPv8.vrx.net/
1189     http://www.gtld-mou.org/gtld-discuss/mail-archive/08030.html
1190     %%
1191     [some .signature]
1192     This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for extra security.
1193     %%
1194     [Andreas Mueller-Maghun for ICANN!]
1195     Allein der Kandidat des Chaos-Computer-Clubs (CCC) Hamburg, der schon
1196     mehr als 1.100 Unterstützungserklärungen erhalten hat, dürfte nach
1197     Einschätzung des arbeitskreises die Bedingung für eine Basiskandidatur
1198     zum ICANN-Direktorium schon jetzt erfüllen. Ausgerechnet er hat es aber
1199     nicht für nötig gehalten, auf die Anfrage der Behindertenvertreter zu
1200     reagieren. Seine Webseiten zeugen zudem von einem "Sicherheitskonzept",
1201     das Usern mit Sehbehinderung vor lauter technischen Barrieren keine
1202     Zugangsmöglichkeiten bietet. Der Arbeitskreis hält einen Vertreter solcher
1203     Positionen für unwählbar.
1204    
1205     Jens Bertrams (Pressesprecher)
1206     %%
1207     From: (Albert Y. C. Lai)
1208     Newsgroups: comp.lang.functional
1209     Subject: Re: what is "functional" (Re: Macros)
1210    
1211     Jerzy Karczmarczuk writes:
1212    
1213     > Their opinion: "well, *everybody* knows that this is not professional,
1214     > nobody uses functional languages, all your colleagues suggest that we
1215     > should learn Lex and Yacc, etc. -
1216     > but *WHAT A PLEASURE AND FUN* was to write these programs in Haskell.
1217     > Almost no run-time errors, ever!"
1218    
1219     A professor at my school got the opposite opinion from her students.
1220     She introduced ML (along with two other languages) as part of a course
1221     on the principles of programming languages in the third year. The
1222     students' opinion: this is such an annoyingly pedantic language, it
1223     refuses to let me run my program and get some partial though wrong
1224     results simply because I make a mistake!
1225    
1226     In other words, given that humans are bound to make mistakes, the
1227     students at my school prefer to see them manifested as run-time
1228     errors.
1229    
1230     So I look at your email address. Ah, you are in Europe and I am in
1231     North America. I guess that's why. Dijkstra is probably right about
1232     European programmers liking to do programming right and American
1233     programmers liking to chase after bugs.
1234     %%
1235     On Thu, Aug 24, 2000 at 11:15:09PM +0200, Werner Almesberger wrote:
1236     > yodaiken@fsmlabs.com wrote:
1237     > > This call shifts delivered signal numbers up so that
1238     > > "special" POSIX signals [.. like KILL] can be delivered to a process.
1239     >
1240     > Kind of a SIGOVERKILL ... yes, that could work.
1241     %%
1242     "The posix programmer knows the availability of everything, but the cost
1243     of nothing."
1244     %%
1245     [after the linux-kernel list was moved to a new machine]
1246     Jeffrey Hundstad wrote:
1247     >
1248     > So tell us about this new machine. OS? Filesystem? Memory?
1249     > CPU?
1250    
1251     Root password? :)
1252    
1253     John.Fulmer
1254     %%
1255     I think there is a world market for about five computers.
1256    
1257     Thomas J. Watson (Chairman, IBM) 1943
1258     %%
1259     > NO. They can/will use RAW_IO *IF* this is available to them. If not, they
1260     > will have to provide a proper kernel driver for their hardware. I know
1261     > which I prefer...
1262    
1263     Sure. And keep that dusty 2.4.3 kernel around just in case you someday need
1264     to upgrade the firmware for your disk, and the (binary!) kernel module only
1265     works with that one. Don't forget the 2.4.15ac12 which is for your USB
1266     scanner, and also the 2.6.7-12 (Red Hat) which is the only one with the
1267     updater for the new SCSI controller.
1268     --
1269     Horst von Brand
1270     %%
1271     [de.comp.lang.iso-c++]
1272    
1273     >Nicht alles was Standard ist, muss auch implementiert werden.
1274    
1275     [...]
1276    
1277     Nicht alles, was hinkt, ist ein Vergleich.
1278     %%
1279     [Drew Sanford about why not to do real-time by throwing faster hardware
1280     at your problem:]
1281    
1282     The F4 Fantom fighter. The plane was essentially a large block of metal, with
1283     a few advantagously aerodynamic surfaces, and big f****** engines. If you
1284     had engine trouble in a Fantom ...you had trouble.
1285     %%
1286     [Hans Reiser, on /bin/cp.. ;)]
1287     cp is inherently inefficient.
1288     %%
1289     >I thought disk drives contained vacuums, thus the extensive concern over
1290     >breaking seals on them.
1291    
1292     Air pressure is 1Kg/cm^2. I have never seen a hard drive case that looked
1293     nearly strong enough to take such pressure. Basically if you can't jump on a
1294     hard drive then it's not strong enough!
1295    
1296     ...
1297    
1298     There's a story that Dave Cutler (VMS and WNT architect) when he was at DEC
1299     did a test on a DEC hard drive by blowing cigar smoke into the drive which
1300     killed it properly. DEC then greatly enhanced their drive air filters. It
1301     could be just an urban myth though.
1302    
1303     Russell Coker
1304     %%
1305     >I've unsubscribed our somewhat less than intelligent friend.
1306     >Ah, Internet for the masses. What a wonderful idea.
1307    
1308     Yeah, let's have an IQ test before you're allowed to buy a modem.
1309     %%
1310     On Sat, Jun 24, 2000 at 02:40:33PM +0200, Marc Lehmann wrote:
1311     > "Yury Yu. Rupasov" wrote:
1312     > > All my current benchmarks show that reiserfs works correctly on
1313     > > deleting.
1314     >
1315     > Just a sidenote: you don't test correctness with benchmarks :(
1316    
1317     Wrong. Yury does.
1318     :(
1319    
1320     --
1321     Stefan
1322     %%
1323     "Jeff V. Merkey" writes:
1324     > I will provide a tool that decodes and repairs NTFS volumes to those
1325     > folks who run into this problem, but our agreements with Microsoft do
1326     > not allow us to distribute it for any purpose other than to assist
1327     > Microsoft customers who have corrupted drives. Also, this tool is
1328     > dependent on the DDK being present to run as it has dependencies on the
1329     > DDK DLL's, so you'll need to install the DDK to use it.
1330    
1331     DDK == "Disk Death Kit"?
1332    
1333     Ian Soboroff ian@cs.umbc.edu
1334     %%
1335     [very instructional movie, if you get what I mean...]
1336     00:30-02:05 (13) ( -35) Kabel 1 Das Mädchen am Ende der Straße The
1337     Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane Psychodrama - KAN/F/USA - 1976 -
1338     Regie: Nicolas Gessner * Die 13-jährige Rynn (Jodie Foster) lebt allein in
1339     einer alten Villa und hütet ein schreckliches Geheimnis.
1340     %%
1341     [Einsichten in die "Kommunikation"]
1342     > > > Ich beschreibe dir, was in dem Moment an Eindruecken durch meinen
1343     > > > Kopf geht - in dem Augenblick bin ich Besucher und sehe was
1344     > > > mir gefaellt oder nicht - das ist wie ein Schmierzettel. Die
1345     > > > Ausarbeitung der Ideen kommt danach im Gespraech. Du packst solche
1346     > > > Sachen anders an - das seh ich ein. Aber ich bin mit dieser
1347     > > > Art chaos bisher immer ans Ziel gekommen. Was ich mach will -
1348     > > > machen muss - ist Feedback generieren. Ich lass Versuchsballons
1349     > > > aufsteigen und schau zu, wie sie entweder fliegen oder abgeschossen
1350     > > > werden. Dann reagier ich auf das Ergebnis.
1351     %%
1352     [Mitch, als Erklärung dafür, weshalb er blindlings ein (kaputtes) ssh-rpm
1353     installiert hat, das er über rpmfind gefunden hat:]
1354     Doch, echt! Der Server war trusted, der sah' ja sowas von vertrauenswürdig
1355     aus!
1356     %%
1357     [IMHO one of the main reasons linux is nicer]
1358     http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent/ix/bsod-story.html
1359     %%
1360     [On the reality of random numbers]
1361     > /dev in a world with dynamic hardware, so why bother? We only need
1362     > to provide random numbers to fill in struct stat. (zero works)
1363     Alan Cox [as usual ;)]
1364     %%
1365     [Flame Warriors]
1366     http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html
1367     %%
1368     A programmer who hasn't been exposed to all four of the imperative,
1369     functional, objective, and logical programming styles has one or
1370     more conceptual blindspots. It's like knowing how to boil but not
1371     fry. Programming is not a skill one develops in five easy lessons.
1372    
1373     --tom
1374     %%
1375     To: bugs@gimp.org
1376     X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Windows sub 105
1377    
1378     Hi there, I recently downloaded your gimp toolkit. At first I was having
1379     problems until I read your download help tip. I understand I have to compile
1380     it so I tried using Borland C++ Compiler but it said the line length exceeds
1381     editor capacity. Is there any other compiler I can use that wouldn't rip a
1382     whole in my wallet. Thank you for your support.
1383     %%
1384     ["General Information About Using VBScript with Outlook"]
1385     VBScript is designed to be a secure programming environment. It
1386     lacks various commands that can be potentially damaging if used in
1387     a malicious manner. This added security is critical in enterprise
1388     solutions.
1389    
1390     http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q167/1/38.ASP
1391    
1392     [Despite this "added security", however, VBscript still can modify,
1393     rename, delete files, modify windows registry entries and send email in
1394     the background]
1395     %%
1396     [Phil Agre on the "ILOVEYOU" virus and Microsoft's reaction]
1397     Scott Culp of Microsoft Public Relations, excuse me, I mean Microsoft
1398     Security Response Center:
1399    
1400     This is a general issue, not a Microsoft issue. You can write a
1401     virus for any platform. (New York Times 5/5/00)
1402    
1403     [and later]
1404     Mr. Culp also says this (CNET 5/5/00):
1405    
1406     This is by-design behavior, not a security vulnerability.
1407    
1408     [Phil closes]
1409     Microsoft shouldn't be broken up. It should be shut down.
1410    
1411     [See also http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html]
1412     [and http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.notes.and.recommenda6.html]
1413     %%
1414     [Bruce Schneier about the "ILOVEYOU" virus]
1415     Expect even worse in the future. Systems running either Microsoft Office
1416     2000 or Internet Explorer 5.0 can be infected with these sorts of viruses
1417     even if the recipient doesn't open the attachment. That's right; if the
1418     system is running Internet Explorer with the default settings, it is
1419     vulnerable. The problem is caused by a programming bug in an Internet
1420     Explorer ActiveX control. Thank you, Microsoft.
1421     %%
1422     >Reaching to Fallingbostel was extremely amusing though, germany is
1423     >splitted into two halfs, one that doesn't know Fallingbostel and one
1424     >that 'heard of this place but have no idea where it is' at some point I
1425     >was almost convinced that there is no such place :)
1426    
1427     [Trashey / Quasars]
1428     %%
1429     Tom Christiansen writes:
1430     > I'm writing perlrtfm. It explains search techniques, not quickfix
1431     > switches plugging bursting dykes by springing more leaks.
1432    
1433     Irony potential in
1434    
1435     man perlrtfm
1436    
1437     is left to the reader.
1438    
1439     Nat
1440     %%
1441     Do you plan to release support for on-the-fly file and directory compression
1442     and encryption as in NTFSv2?
1443    
1444     (Imagine a system that in order to run needs a diskette or CD-ROM disk with
1445     private key - protection never seen except in movies ;-)
1446     %%
1447     [Telekom-Techniker, bei einer ISDN-UK0-Messung!]
1448     Ich: Also, einen Layer-1-Connect bekomme ich...
1449     Telekomiker: Layer-1? Was ist das? Aber ich bekomme ja auch gar kein Freizeichen...
1450     %%
1451     "I love the way Microsoft follows standards. In much the
1452     same manner that fish follow migrating caribou."
1453     Paul Tomblin
1454     %%
1455     [recently on p5p]
1456     >I am morally
1457     >convinced that map() was written based on grep()
1458    
1459     Considering they use the same op function, I'd say that's a distinct
1460     possibility...
1461    
1462     Dan
1463     %%
1464     [after the "Welle Erdball" performance on the Mekka&Symposium 2000:]
1465     <jan> bine: du solltest da nicht hingucken, das ist nicht gut fürn kopf
1466     <Bordeaux> after listening to this crap, and hearing *zugabe zugabe* i finally have the proof that all german c64 sceners are gay :)
1467     <Mr> zugabe
1468     %%
1469     "Why upon hearing his arguments I changed my opinion 360 degrees."
1470     Recent comment on the floor of some state legislature
1471     %%
1472     DIVIDE EMPLOYEE-EARNINGS BY EMPLOYEE-HOURS GIVING EMPLOYEE-PAY-RATE
1473     [cobol, *sigh*]
1474     %%
1475     It is expected that the Multics system will be published when it is
1476     operating substantially and will therefore be available for implementation
1477     on any equipment with suitable characteristics. Such publication is
1478     desirable for two reasons: First, the system should withstand public
1479     scrutiny and criticism volunteered by interested readers; second, in an
1480     age of increasing complexity, it is an obligation to present and future
1481     system designers to make the inner operating system as lucid as possible
1482     so as to reveal the basic system issues.
1483    
1484     Corbat_ & Vyssotsky 1965
1485     %%
1486     "Rule #7: Silence is not acquiescence.
1487    
1488     "Contrary to what you may have heard, silence of those present is
1489     not necessarily consent, even the reluctant variety. They simply
1490     may sit in stunned silence and figure ways of sabotaging the plan
1491     after they regain their composure."
1492    
1493     -- Paul Rinaldo
1494     [see also http://people.qualcomm.com/karn/rinaldo.html]
1495     %%
1496     On Sat, Apr 01, 2000 at 12:09:59AM +1000, Chris wrote:
1497     >
1498     > In case you guys havn't noticed...
1499     >
1500     > http://slashdot.org reports that XFS is now released.
1501    
1502     Yes, and http://www.freshmeat.net reports:
1503    
1504     Error: Unable to connect to MySQL Server ().
1505    
1506     ;-}
1507    
1508     --
1509    
1510     ciao -
1511     Stefan
1512    
1513     %%
1514     > The 'hypervisor' is a new term to me.. Are you refering to the
1515     > Transmeta CPU and it's native mode? If I read you correctly
1516    
1517     No its what the S/390 VM is often called. Its a supervisor for supervisor
1518     mode programs so illogically enough its a hypervisor 8). The IBM mainframe
1519     guys thing this kind of set up is routine. Unix is met with
1520     'You mean you cant run a new kernel on test at the same time as the old
1521     one' type remarks.
1522     [Alan Cox]
1523     %%
1524     Godwin's Law
1525    
1526     As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
1527     involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
1528    
1529     [see also http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/]
1530     %%
1531     ["Stefan im IRC."]
1532    
1533     [01:53:07] <coda> anyone know how to get emacs to stop creating the file.name~ files?
1534     [01:53:24] <JanMan> alias emacs=vi
1535     [01:53:31] <coda> haha
1536     %%
1537     [remaining problems with OpenBIOS]
1538     Our SDRAM sizing and init code is not very good; we could use good code.
1539     The code we've been offered so far requires memory to work (oops!);
1540     requires a stack (oops!); or assumes a totally configured machine (oops!).
1541     %%
1542     [Alan Cox on wether special fs's should have require "//" in their path]
1543     > No :-) It's a feature. Some things are going REAL ugly without such things.
1544    
1545     Given //ipc or freebsd, I think I'd pick freebsd. Thats how ugly the idea
1546     is to me ok.
1547     %%
1548     "The code is self documenting." -- The Programmer.
1549    
1550     "I don't read C." -- The Tech Writer.
1551     %%
1552     [Stefan Sebolth, on the CeBIT, while listening to the original c64 "Giana Sisters" tune:]
1553     Haaach, da war die Welt halt noch in Ordnung!
1554     %%
1555     Remember, never ask a geek "why";
1556     just nod your head and back away slowly...
1557     %%
1558     The thought of implementing something like text and binary modes for
1559     files is a about a frightening for todays kernel developer's as a mouse
1560     to a women in a typical movie of the 50's ;-)
1561    
1562     Ralf
1563     %%
1564     It may be real, but it's icky. It's too traditional Unix ``I don't
1565     care if we lose 90% of our market base to NT if our competitor loses
1566     95% of THEIR market base!'' to be palatable.
1567    
1568     david parsons
1569     %%
1570     ["some time ago on p5p"]
1571     > ($host) = gethostbyname('localhost');
1572    
1573     >Sadly most UNIX boxes don't add a sane alias to their /etc/hosts file
1574     >so that trick is not portable.
1575    
1576     % grep localhost /etc/hosts
1577     127.0.0.1 localhost
1578    
1579     --tom
1580     %%
1581     ["some time ago on p5p"]
1582     On Mon, Feb 07, 2000 at 03:22:05PM -0700, Tom Christiansen wrote:
1583     > >But given that most slip drivers I have seen for OS/2 do not do this,
1584     > >the question is moot.
1585     >
1586     > I'll send you a free Unix system.
1587    
1588     Thanks, the doors in my house are well-balanced. ;-)
1589    
1590     Ilya
1591     %%
1592     [Elliott H Mitchell on the reiserfs list]
1593     > Me thinks if unwillingness to use tar over dump will stop you from
1594     > using a better filesystem there will be lots of other reasons that
1595     > will stop you from trying anything new too. So it is not really worth
1596     > trying.
1597    
1598     Yeah, if a filesystem randomly lost files and the authors had no plans to
1599     fix it, that would kind discourage one from using it...
1600     %%
1601     [Russel Coker on the reiserfs list]
1602     ... my old Thinkpad 380XD (Pentium-233 with 3.2G ide hard drive) running
1603     ReiserFS and exporting the file system over 10baseT Ethernet could
1604     outperform local hard drives on an AIX machine running JFS.
1605     %%
1606     [Peter Mattis, author of GIMP]
1607     I can't say anything about Rasterman because I've never looked at any of
1608     his code. My only comment about Raster is that he should learn to spell.
1609     %%
1610     [David Schwartz on linux-kernel]
1611     > ORBS does not do ANYTHING above try to send few LEGAL
1612     > strings to mailservers with LONG delays. So if you block ORBS you deserve
1613     > blocking :-)
1614    
1615     That's not the point. The point is that ORBS claims to be a list of
1616     validated open mail relays, and it's not. It's not supposed to be a list of
1617     people who deserve anything in particular. I'm sure if you talk to the
1618     people who have chosen to block ORBS, you will find that they have their
1619     reasons.
1620    
1621     DS
1622     %%
1623     [WDR, 19991216 Fernsehen mit Manuel]
1624     Es ist ein Fall bekannt, bei dem sich ein Patient über ein Jahr lang
1625     geweigert hatte, auf die Toilette zu gehen. Dann haben seine Verwandten
1626     und Ärzte ihn dazu überreden können, endlich die Toilette aufzusuchen. Er
1627     hat dabei auf einmal 37 Liter entleert.
1628    
1629     Danach lebte er noch ganz normal einige Jahre, bis er, wie in Amerika
1630     üblich, erschossen wurde.
1631     %%
1632     > - My Maxtor 27G drive ends up in PIO mode (non-SMP system, but likely
1633     [...]
1634     > Last time I reported this, I had a WDC31600, as hda, and the maxtor as
1635     [...]
1636    
1637     You committed a mortal sin in ATA............
1638     You never ever mix WD and Maxtor..........on day I will document why.
1639     Basically these two vendors have timings that are completely incompatable
1640     with each other on the same channel.
1641    
1642     IMHO, WD is crap..........however, you may split the two pieces of
1643     hardware and they will work fine under linux and all other OS's.
1644    
1645     This rule of "never ever mix WD and Maxtor" is OS independent.
1646     %%
1647     [ALF2-Benutzerhandbuch]
1648     "Nur eine tote Festplatte ist eine sichere Festplatte."
1649     %%
1650     Physicists write FORTRAN in any language.
1651     %%
1652     [OpenBOOT 3.10.6 response to pressing "Ctrl-Alt-Del":]
1653     ANY word at all is a candidate.
1654     USE words to see the entire dictionary.
1655     ok
1656     %%
1657     [SDF for POD Users]
1658     ... Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - even Lisp has it's fans. :-)
1659     %%
1660     <Xach> schmorp: i haven't been doing any gimpy things lately
1661     <schmorp> xach: well, who is doing gimpy things lately :(
1662     <Xach> schmorp: Mitch
1663     <schmorp> xach: ok.
1664     <Xach> schmorp: you are not keeping pace with the other germans
1665     <Xach> schmorp: you must work more diligently! FOCUS!! DON'T TALK!!
1666     <Xach> burrito, focus
1667     <Burrito> FOCUS you BABOON!
1668     %%
1669     [Paul Miller]
1670     ... I find Knuth's attitude to be far more logical: "Be careful about
1671     using the following code -- I've only proven that it works, I haven't
1672     tested it." ...
1673     %%
1674     Intel Inside -- Idiot Outside!
1675     %%
1676     Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
1677    
1678     Bart Lateur wrote in message <383a4712.942513@news.skynet.be>...
1679     >Petrus Prawirodidjojo wrote:
1680     >
1681     >>So we must compete with Windows CE.
1682     >
1683     >"Please wait while your Toaster shuts down."
1684     >
1685     >"My microwave oven hangs, I have to reboot."
1686     >
1687     >No thank you. :-) I don't think Microsoft somehow can "automatically" be
1688     >the most obvious choice as a supplier of system software for embedded
1689     >systems.
1690    
1691    
1692     Quite so. Windows CE is rapidly losing what small market share they once
1693     had.
1694    
1695     --
1696     Neal Bridges
1697     %%
1698     On 27 Nov 1999, sanjay Kumar wrote:
1699    
1700     > Hi folks,
1701     > 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?
1702     > please reply to
1703     > sanjay_rect@rediffmail.com
1704     > and sigma_btl@vsnl.com
1705    
1706     Parse error.
1707    
1708     ---
1709     Alex
1710     %%
1711     From: Richard Earnshaw <rearnsha@arm.com>
1712    
1713     > Why do we really need to support compiling with -ansi when
1714     > including a non-ANSI header file in a C program?
1715    
1716     Because some vendors wouldn't recognize a C standard it if hit them. The
1717     amount of code that purports to be ANSI C code, but is in fact nothing of
1718     the sort, has to be seen to be believed.
1719    
1720     That doesn't mean that I don't want *my* program to be clean ANSI C.
1721     %%
1722     [one of the few good us movies]
1723     Talk Radio Mediendrama - USA - 1988 - Regie: Oliver Stone * Sein Zynismus wird dem Radiomoderator Barry zum Verhängnis.
1724     %%
1725     [guess the language AND the language revision ;)]
1726     ii = 44;
1727     p = &ii;
1728     *p = ii/*p;
1729     ii++; /* Don't forget to increment ii. */
1730     printf ( "ii = %d\n", *p );
1731     %%
1732     > But many systems set the RTC while running Win*ooze. That will affect
1733     > Linux time then.
1734    
1735     Here is another microsoft Innovation (TM):
1736    
1737     They now allow you to run your BIOS-clock in UTC! (Just like
1738     Linux. Woops. Just gave it away...)
1739    
1740     Roger.
1741     %%
1742     <Tommer> schmorp, for the next trick, do <frameset> <frame src=dataurl:> <frame src=dataurl:> </frameset> :)
1743     %%
1744     auto accident;
1745     register voters;
1746     static electricity;
1747     struct by_lightning;
1748     void *where_prohibited;
1749     char broiled;
1750     short circuit;
1751     short changed;
1752     long johns;
1753     unsigned long letter;
1754     double entendre;
1755     double trouble;
1756     union organizer;
1757     float valve;
1758     short pants;
1759     union station;
1760     void check; unsigned check;
1761     struct dumb by[sizeof member];
1762     %%
1763     [I like TV Movie's nexTView comments]
1764     22:40-00:05 (21) ( -34) ARD Mord auf hoher See Inflammable Thriller - USA
1765     - 1995 - Regie: Peter Werner * Stephen King
1766     verhunzt als Regisseur sein Buch im großen Stil.
1767     %%
1768     Carmen Lucia Tancredo Borges wrote:
1769    
1770     I have a program written in Fortran that runs on an IBM RS/6000
1771     worstation.
1772     %%
1773     I wrote
1774     > I hope not. chomp() should match the string in $?, no more or less.
1775     $/
1776    
1777     Damn shift key.
1778    
1779    
1780     Mike Guy
1781     %%
1782     [rfc2635]
1783     The term "spam" as it is used to denote mass unsolicited mailings or
1784     netnews postings is derived from a Monty Python sketch set in a
1785     movie/tv studio cafeteria. During that sketch, the word "spam" takes
1786     over each item offered on the menu until the entire dialogue consists
1787     of nothing but "spam spam spam spam spam spam and spam." This so
1788     closely resembles what happens when mass unsolicited mail and posts
1789     take over mailing lists and netnews groups that the term has been
1790     pushed into common usage in the Internet community.
1791     %%
1792     [CRYPTO-GRAM, November 15, 1999]
1793    
1794     The Doghouse: Microsoft Windows CE
1795    
1796     Microsoft encrypts your Windows NT password when stored on a Windows CE
1797     device. But if you look carefully at their encryption algorithm, they
1798     simply XOR the password with "susageP", Pegasus spelled backwards. Pegasus
1799     is the code name of Windows CE. This is so pathetic it's staggering.
1800    
1801     http://www.cegadgets.com/artsusageP.htm
1802     %%
1803     : Isn't the point that (void)'grep EXPR, LIST' is now better written as
1804     : 'EXPR for LIST'? Or am I misunderstanding your point here?
1805    
1806     It really doesn't bother me if people want to use grep or map in a void
1807     context. It didn't bother me before there was a for modifier, and
1808     now that there is one, it still doesn't bother me. I'm just not very
1809     easy to bother.
1810    
1811     The argument against using an operator for other than its primary
1812     purpose strikes me the same as the old argument that you shouldn't have
1813     sex for other than procreational purposes. Sometimes side effects
1814     are more enjoyable than the originally intended effect.
1815    
1816     That being said, I'd never grep someone in a void context myself.
1817    
1818     Larry
1819     %%
1820     [that one's only for insiders...]
1821     > : BASE @ . \ = 10, verified original base was restored
1822     Yeah. :-)
1823     %%
1824     [comp.lang.forth]
1825     > Old Antactic Explorers Penguin Recipe:
1826     [...]
1827     > Start fire under pot, raise seawater to boiling point.
1828    
1829     Since it is very difficult to find wood on Antarctica, typically
1830     penguins are used to light the fire (due to their fat, they burn well).
1831     I also woudln't use any water, the penguins are fried fine in their own
1832     fat (you can use old fat to heat up the pot for another penguin).
1833    
1834     Note that most people in Antarctica have been seal-slayers and
1835     whale-killers, so they were rough people. Usually, they didn't bother
1836     with killing the penguins before setting them on fire. I'm glad this
1837     receipts aren't used anymore.
1838     %%
1839     Sie muessen einen PC nicht einschalten um herauszufinden ob Windows
1840     installiert ist. Sehen Sie einfach nach, ob die Aufschrift auf der
1841     Reset-Taste noch lesbar ist.
1842     %%
1843     > Erinnert mich an den Kerl bei mir in der Videothek. Hab mir DHY ausgeliehen
1844     > und er sagt doch zu mir: "Ist aber mit Untertiteln." Sag ich: "Na prima!"
1845     > Fragt er: "Wieso, was ist denn daran so interessant, wenn man nichts
1846     > versteht?"
1847     %%
1848     [de.alt.anime]
1849     Bei meiner Videothek fliegt ein "Ghost in the Shell" Tape
1850     "Ab18" rum. Das machte mich irgendwie stutzig weil auf
1851     der Schachtel meiner 16er zwei Szenenfotos sind, die im
1852     Film gar nicht vorkommen (ironischer Weise direkt über
1853     dem "Uncut & Unzesored" Schildchen). Andererseits ist
1854     mir völlig schleierhaft, was es bei dem Filmchen zu zensieren
1855     geben soll. Nur die oben beschriebene Feststellung hat diese
1856     Frage erneut aufgeworfen.
1857     ji!
1858     %%
1859     I do worry about syntactic clutter, ever since my daughter came
1860     in, looked over my shoulder, and said, "What is that, swearing?"
1861     [Larry Wall]
1862     %%
1863     Der letzte untergegangene altisraelitische Stamm war der der
1864     Altpreussen.
1865     - Norbert Marzahn am 15.8.98 in
1866     de.soc.politik.deutschland
1867     %%
1868     > > Aber die Theorien, die Norbert aufstellt, ueber zum Beispiel die
1869     > > gegossenen Steinformen, die sich hochdruecken, den fuerchterlichen
1870     > > Kometen, der im vergangenen August die Erde zerstoert hat und solche
1871     > > Sachen find ich wirklich Klasse ;-)
1872     >
1873     > Jau. Und erstmal seine Erklärungsversuche, wenn's mal wieder nichts
1874     > geworden ist (wo bleibt eigentlich der Planet X, der während der
1875     > Syonnenfinsternis auftauchen sollte?)...
1876    
1877     Drei Tage Dunkelheit und viele Trümmerteile sollte er bringen, gell,
1878     Norbert?
1879     %%
1880     Marzahnismen: http://www.snafu.de/~dbrueg/normarz.html
1881     Norbert Marzahn sagt: Ich besitze die Mittel, um
1882     "Rechts"- und "Links"-Radikalismus auszuloeschen.
1883     %%
1884     http://welcome.to/levitenbuero/
1885     %%
1886     <Xach> babelfish.pitney.org: "We may not get it right, but boy are we fast!"
1887     %%
1888     Subject: GNU compiler
1889     From: "Steve"
1890     Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 19:05:03 -0400
1891     To: <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>
1892     X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3155.0
1893    
1894     [the following was a single line, of course]
1895     I downloaded the compiler and am trying to install it and the
1896     instructions seem to be very complicated. Can you help me understand
1897     how to install them? There is no setup file and I have downloaded from
1898     several sites in the thought that I might have the wrong version. Your
1899     assistance would be greatly appreciated
1900    
1901     Thanks,
1902    
1903     Steve
1904     %%
1905     [an "I am doing high end graphic design" type of person:]
1906     > Also, could someone tell me how to calculate DPI of an image? I have not
1907     > managed to figure this DPI system out, for example, if an image is a
1908     > 100?50 pixels, what's the DPI??
1909     %%
1910     <tigert> xachbot, op
1911     <XachBot> tigert: I have an 88 magnum. It shoots through schools.
1912     <tigert> ahem
1913     %%
1914     <tc> xachbot, acro FOOBAR
1915     -XachBot:#gimp- FOOBAR: FTP Operation Over Big Address Records | See FUBAR [Net jargon] (cached)
1916     <tc> just when you thought you had something to baffle xachbot
1917     %%
1918     [the release of perl 5.000]
1919     Date: Mon, 17 Oct 94 16:48:04 -0700
1920     From: Larry Wall <lwall@scalpel.netlabs.com>
1921     Subject: It's soup.
1922    
1923     Okay, it's there.
1924    
1925     ftp://ftp.netlabs.com/pub/outgoing/perl5.0/perl5.000.tar.gz
1926    
1927     The first one who tells me about a bug in it gets shot.
1928    
1929     Larry
1930     %%
1931     l33+ h4X0rz
1932     %%
1933     # A random text generator using Markov chains
1934     perl -e 'while(<>){$f.= $_}@l=split(/\s+/, $f);for($i=0;$i<@l-1;$i++){$W{$l[$i]
1935     }.=" ".$l[$i+1];}sub a{$w=$l[1]}&a;sub b{print "\n"}while($w){if(!($W{$w})){&b;
1936     &b;&a;last if ($q++>3);}print"$w ";@p=split(/ /,$W{$w});$c=@p;until($s=int(rand
1937     ($c))){1}$w=$p[$s]}&b' big_text_file
1938     %%
1939     > && d'oh! i knew that! can she allow her lusers to use deja? here is the url
1940     > && for the post with the whole description of how i used -P
1941     >
1942     > Well, access to deja isn't forbidden, but access to the keyboard is.
1943     > And there's no mouse.
1944     >
1945     > Abigail
1946    
1947     Wow. Someone else who reads usenet by osmosis... cool.
1948    
1949     Matt.
1950     %%
1951     Ok, our threads aren't so bad. Python's have one big
1952     giant global interpreter lock. :-)
1953    
1954     - --tom
1955     %%
1956     From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
1957     Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 11:42:19 -0700 (PDT)
1958    
1959     On Fri, 6 Aug 1999, Hubert Mantel wrote:
1960     >
1961     > So the huge ISDN update in proposed-2.2.11 will be removed from the final
1962     > 2.2.11 release?
1963    
1964     [ Irritated mode: FULL BLAST ]
1965    
1966     Are you being stupid on purpose, or were you born that way?
1967    
1968     Go back and read the thread. Read why I'm irritated. READ. THINK.
1969     %%
1970     Understanding is a three edged sword. Do you *want* to get the point?
1971     %%
1972     ["MVS uses quite heavy algorithms for swapping"]
1973     On Mon, Aug 02, 1999 at 07:55:32PM +0200, Lieven Marchand wrote:
1974     > Last time I looked at it, it got to the point they had moved some
1975     > ASSISTs into microcode. IIRC, some manipulations of the process
1976     > block. I doubt Intel/Sun/MIPS/IBM is going to accomodate Linux quite
1977     > that much ;-)
1978    
1979     IBM is really really good on process technology. They have had to be.
1980     %%
1981     MVS spends a lot of time running OS algorithms to allow full
1982     preemption that Linux wastes on running user applications.
1983     %%
1984     [comments on the gcc-2.95 release]
1985     <QUOTE>
1986     I'm having problems compiling it for HP-UX 10.20. Any ideas?
1987    
1988     (I haven't actually finished downloading it yet, but I just know I'm
1989     gonna have problems with this crappy OS ;-)
1990     </QUOTE>
1991     %%
1992     The Internet interprets Windows as damage,
1993     and routes around it.
1994    
1995     Roger Larsson
1996     Skellefteå
1997     %%
1998     [configuring gcc]
1999     Noone should use --prefix=/usr without --with-local-prefix=/usr/local
2000     %%
2001     'You can solve any programming problem with another level of indirection,
2002     except the problem of too many levels of indirection.'
2003     %%
2004     [http://www.itknowledge.com/tpj/issues/vol4_1/tpj0401-0015.html]
2005    
2006     Z-code interpreters have also been written in Java; unfortunately, when it
2007     comes to cross-platform compatibility, Java's user-interface classes are
2008     finicky and unstable--just ask anyone who's tried to reason with the AWT
2009     on different JVMs.
2010    
2011     [and later]
2012    
2013     Pilfer is a practical implementation of two of the cardinal rules of
2014     adventure gaming:
2015    
2016     1.Anything that is not nailed down is mine.
2017     2.Anything that I can pry loose is not nailed down.
2018     %%
2019     [the ||-operator can be thought of as "or", && can be thought of as
2020     "and", but how would you call the ??-operator?]
2021    
2022     >>>>> "NK" == Nathan Kurz <nate@valleytel.net> writes:
2023    
2024     NK> ?? -> huh?
2025    
2026     That's a great name. The huh? operator.
2027    
2028     <chaim>
2029     %%
2030     `One of the reasons we continue to use Fortran is that it's easier to fix
2031     code written without attention to such details in Fortran than in other
2032     languages. To put it another way, Fortran is the only language where
2033     people who barely get by with their numerical skills can "write useful
2034     numerical code." Many times those people are the only experts in their
2035     specialty available to put a needed procedure into practice.'
2036     %%
2037     [Moderator der Sending "Teatime" auf "Radio Okerwelle", 1999-07-12]
2038     Ich muß schließlich hören was ich sage, damit ich weiß, was ich denke.
2039     %%
2040     [Dr. Dobbs #8, 1999, describing how you can AVOID downloading or executing
2041     Java applets, scripts and ActiveX controls while _parsing_(!) an html
2042     page]
2043     ... you must utilize IOleControl::OnAmbientPropertyChange with the
2044     value DISPID_AMBIENT_DLCONTROL. Before you can do this, however, you
2045     must call IOleObject::SetClientSite so that IOleControl will work
2046     properly. This is the reason you derive from IOleClientSite, even
2047     though you don't extend its functionality in any way. After the call to
2048     OnAmbientPropertyChange, IE4 will call your Invoke method to check the
2049     value of DISPID_AMBIENT_DLCONTROL. Invoke simply sets the correct bits to
2050     disable the behaviour you don't want and returns NOERROR.
2051     [Still interested in knowing how you can disable the "file not found"
2052     dialog box that will pop up when you try to parse a non-accessible file?]
2053     %%
2054     [Linus, whom I quote rarely ;-]
2055     Message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an
2056     excercise in computer science masturbation. It may feel good, but you
2057     don't actually get anything DONE.
2058     %%
2059     Advantages of Windows NT over Linux:
2060     * It's easier to explain the crash was not your fault.
2061     * You've to remember only one solution all to your problems: Reboot.
2062     * You can use your mouse to type an email-message.
2063     %%
2064     > 1) On the PIII, there is the capability to get a system unique serial
2065     > number from the CPU. Does Linux read this data already? Is there plans to
2066     > read the serial number and then disable the capability (maybe so you could
2067     > get the serial number from the OS)?
2068    
2069     Current Linux disables it and doesn't save the value.
2070     %%
2071     [CRYPTO-GRAM 1999-06-15]
2072     "Microsoft set the security state-of-the-art back 25 years with DOS, and
2073     they have continued that legacy to this day."
2074     %%
2075     [From "The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature", by Thomas Scoville]
2076     "In a world increasingly dominated by image culture (TV, movies, .jpg
2077     files), UNIX remains rooted in the culture of the word."
2078     %%
2079     > If it is clearly documented that will not happen.
2080    
2081     Yeah, sure. Unfortunately, if the "correct" treatment of this feature
2082     means to change a dozen source files (and rth's comments make me fear
2083     that that's the case), the chance that someone, somewhere forgets to say
2084     exactly why these changes were necessary (and on what other changes in
2085     other files they depend) is far larger than I want to consider. We've
2086     seen this before. Lucky we are that some long time gcc-hackers are
2087     still among us, who might remark: Oh yes, that's undefined by the C
2088     Standard, but it happens to be an extension gcc supports ... Seen that,
2089     got the T-shirt.
2090     %%
2091     Subject: Re: Linux and aliasing?
2092     From: Joe Buck <jbuck@Synopsys.COM>
2093     Date: Fri, 4 Jun 99 10:00:16 PDT
2094     To: torvalds@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds)
2095     Cc: craig@jcb-sc.com, jbuck@Synopsys.COM, mark@codesourcery.com,
2096     davem@redhat.com, chip@perlsupport.com, egcs@egcs.cygnus.com
2097     X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
2098    
2099     Linus writes, to Craig:
2100    
2101     > I haven't maintained a compiler long-term. I _have_ maintained a larger,
2102     > and arguably mode complex system with many more degrees of freedom and
2103     > thus choices than gcc.
2104    
2105     No, gcc is substantially larger than the Linux kernel (on the order of 10x
2106     larger, as anyone can easily verify). gcc does not need to deal with race
2107     conditions, so in that sense it is simpler, but in other respects it is
2108     far more complex than the kernel.
2109    
2110     [NOTE for the reader: this is not really true, as the device drivers
2111     bomb the comparison away, but the complexity argument still holds]
2112    
2113     [ personal insults deleted, perhaps the author is in need of a vacation ]
2114     %%
2115     Subject: Re: Linux and aliasing?
2116     From: craig@jcb-sc.com
2117     To: torvalds@transmeta.com
2118    
2119     >I want the _user_ to be able to give input.
2120     [...]
2121     >I happen to think that the "explicit cast invalidates the alias
2122     >information" rule is the simplest and best one, and gives the user the
2123     >best control without adding things like new attributes or other ways to
2124     >let the user be in control.
2125    
2126     In other words, you believe you are a better language designer than
2127     the ISO C people as well as the gcc maintainers, despite the fact
2128     that you know, what, *nothing* about language design, and *nothing*
2129     about compiler design and, especially, long-term maintenance of
2130     compilers?
2131     %%
2132     Subject: Re: Linux and aliasing?
2133     From: Joe Buck <jbuck@Synopsys.COM>
2134    
2135     Linus writes:
2136     > Oh, you don't expect me to complain about bad code generation when I know
2137     > gcc could do better?
2138    
2139     Oh, don't worry, we expect you to complain, and in a rude and insulting
2140     matter at that. We're used to it. It seems that you were a nicer guy
2141     before you had so many worshippers.
2142     %%
2143     Subject: Re: Linux and aliasing?
2144     From: Branko Cibej <branko.cibej@hermes.si>
2145     Date: Fri, 04 Jun 1999 10:07:09 +0200
2146     To: egcs@egcs.cygnus.com
2147     X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.6 [en] (WinNT; I)
2148    
2149     Linus Torvalds wrote:
2150    
2151     > I think it's a damn shame that instead of technical arguments _everything_
2152     > revolves around people reading the standard as if it was the bible, and
2153     > trying to make people feel guilty for not really caring. It's not a sin to
2154     > just want to get good code without having to do magic contortions, guys.
2155    
2156     Why, Linus, it's trivial to do! Use MSVC instead of egcs, then you can do
2157    
2158     #pragma optimize("a", on/off)
2159    
2160     around every single statement, if you like. It even supports anonymous unions
2161     _and_ structs, and is only slightly influenced by the ISO C standard.
2162    
2163     They'll even sell you a version that can generate code for the alpha!
2164    
2165     >:->
2166    
2167     Brane
2168    
2169    
2170     P.S.: Just for the record: I, a "real user" and (imnsho) a "clever programmer"
2171     who "know what I'm doing", at least most of the time, and who do not "read the
2172     standard as if it were a bible", vote for having a standard-conforming
2173     compiler that's not bloated by a ton of marginally useful (or even useless)
2174     features. If I want featuritis, I know where I can get it.
2175    
2176    
2177     P.P.S: They can't even spell "optimise" ...
2178     %%
2179     You can have it Soon, Cheap, and Working; choose *two*
2180     %%
2181     "Scientific" studies have found that a 2.2.x Linux router with
2182     fast-switching enabled, using Tulip 100baseT cards, can melt a
2183     high-end Cisco's 100baseT interfaces.
2184     %%
2185     1) Thread switching is faster than process switching by a little bit on Linux
2186     2) Process switching on linux is faster than thread switching on NT
2187     3) Almost anything is faster than process switching on NT
2188     %%
2189     [gimp-developers, on the use of keyboard modifiers for drawing tools]
2190    
2191     > Simple. Powerful. Fast. Choose at most two.
2192    
2193     Perhaps this should be an option in the preferences dialog? :)
2194     %%
2195     [perl is cryptic??]
2196     Subject: @{$${->{{{{~{}~{{{NO CARRIER
2197     From: Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi>
2198     Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 21:55:37 +0300 (EET DST)
2199    
2200     We have still a long way to go-- from the zsh-workers mailing list:
2201    
2202     : Just thought of a trivial way to take a lot of grief out of parameter
2203     : substitution. This patch makes the following valid:
2204     :
2205     : ${${${${(f)"$(typeset)"}:#*local *\=*}%%\=*}##* }
2206     :
2207     : replacing the equivalent but grotesquer
2208     :
2209     : "${(@)${(@)${(@)${(@f)$(typeset)}:#*local *\=*}%%\=*}##* }"
2210     %%
2211     Long noun chains don't automatically imply security. - Bruce Schneier
2212     %%
2213     > |> Spoken as a true C programmer. However you are wrong. Case-preserving, but
2214     > |> insensitive, is the CORRECT way for file systems. Capitalization should not
2215     > |> matter for interpretation of a file name just as it doesn't matter for
2216     > |> interpreting words in any human language.
2217     >
2218     > This is wrong. In German, there is a big difference between "paar" und
2219     > "Paar" (the first meaning "a few", the second "pair").
2220    
2221     The classic example:
2222    
2223     "Ich habe liebe Genossen in Moskau" - I've got dead comreds in Moscow.
2224     "Ich habe Liebe genossen in Moskau" - I enjoyed love in Moscow.
2225     %%
2226     [do we need oo-style IO::File class in perl?]
2227     >_You_ aren't gonna code "use IO::File".
2228    
2229     And there's no reason for anyone else to, either, especially
2230     once Nick finishes the Larry-blessed autovivification of
2231     lvaluabled undefs in open(), socket(), etc.
2232    
2233     What's next, a String class for Perl?
2234    
2235     --tom
2236     %%
2237     [some example of the kind of mail I sometimes receive:]
2238     i was just trying to help u out not hurt you in anyway ok i have the fbi
2239     working on something for me
2240     u havent done anything to me ok and the sherriffs department came by to talk
2241     to me nutting concerning y ok
2242     piece
2243     russ
2244     %%
2245     [From "Basic Information about Unix", common commands:]
2246    
2247     pico (text editor for beginners)
2248     vi (text editor for advanced users)
2249     emacs (text editor for advanced users)
2250     ed (text editor for beginners)
2251     %%
2252     There is no reason in principle that a Perl script shouldn't start with
2253    
2254     use Python;
2255    
2256     and appear to work exactly like Python from there to the end of the file.
2257     Except maybe faster. :-)
2258    
2259     Larry
2260     %%
2261     > Perl6 gives us an opportunity to re-examine every feature at a microscopic level.
2262    
2263     just what I'm afraid of... I thought this was to be Perl6, not Perl
2264     2010.
2265    
2266     (Perl 2010: The Spaced Oddity?)
2267     %%
2268     The X.25 specification is not a particularly easy document to
2269     read. Contrary to expectations, it does not make great use of diagrams
2270     and tables that help to explain the workings of the protocols that
2271     it contains. Instead the document makes use of many ambiguous English
2272     descriptions of the actions that should take place, allied with a complete
2273     lack of fluency in its prose descriptions, make for a very confusing
2274     document. It is a wonder that any correct X.25 implementations have ever
2275     been created.
2276     %%
2277     > Joe: (walking into McDonalds) Hi, I'd like a Big Mac.
2278     >
2279     > Cashier: Okay, here's your Big Mac and here's your Coke. That'll be
2280     > $3.99.
2281     >
2282     > Joe: Uh, I don't want a Coke.
2283     >
2284     > Cashier: Sorry, they're bundled.
2285     >
2286     > Joe: What? I'm not paying for a Coke!
2287     >
2288     > Cashier: You don't; the Coke is free.
2289     >
2290     > Joe: But wasn't a Big Mac $2.49 last week?
2291     >
2292     > Cashier: Sure, but this latest Big Mac is far more innovative. It's
2293     > got integrated Coke!
2294     >
2295     > Joe: I already bought a Snapple across the street... I'm not going
2296     > to drink the Coke.
2297     >
2298     > Cashier: Then you can't have the burger.
2299     >
2300     > Joe: Okay, fine, I will pay the $3.99 and throw the Coke away.
2301     >
2302     > Cashier: Oh, you can't do that. They're seamlessly integrated. Totally
2303     > inseparable.
2304     >
2305     > Joe: How can that be? They're two totally separate things!
2306     >
2307     > Cashier: No, watch. (takes Big Mac, dunks it in a tank of Coke) See?
2308     >
2309     > Joe: Why did you just do that?!
2310     >
2311     > Cashier: It's a benefit to the consumer. Otherwise you'd end up with
2312     > two different, inconsistent tastes. This way you're assured of a
2313     > continuous taste across all your foods.
2314     %%
2315     Threads are like salt. I like salt, you like salt, we all
2316     like salt, but we eat more pasta than salt.
2317     %%
2318     From: Nathan Torkington <gnat@frii.com>
2319    
2320     Don't be bitten by Perl, get crushed by Python.
2321     Python: Perl for the punctuation-phobic.
2322     It takes 4 days for a python to digest a hamster, but only 2 days
2323     for you to digest this book.
2324     Python: it's really better but nobody uses it.
2325     Python: just for the whitespace of it.
2326     Join The Trickle
2327     Python: more popular than Dylan!
2328     Python: not written by crackheads in a gutter!
2329     Are you uptight? Try our new Python Hangups series.
2330     %%
2331     Well Microsoft announced this new language called COOL which I can
2332     honestly say that I have seen NO CRAPPY CODE written in. OTOH it appears
2333     that to achieve this miraculous status by the simple technique of being
2334     complete and utter vapourware.
2335    
2336     Microsoft, taking the Business out of COBOL.
2337     %%
2338     [From "Programming Perl"]
2339    
2340     We will encourage you to develop the three great virtues of a
2341     programmer: laziness, impatience and hubris
2342     %%
2343     [Alexander Stepanov, creator of the STL]:
2344    
2345     Yes. STL is not object oriented. I think that object orientedness is
2346     almost as much of a hoax as Artificial Intelligence. I have yet to
2347     see an interesting piece of code that comes from these OO people. In
2348     a sense, I am unfair to AI: I learned a lot of stuff from the MIT AI
2349     Lab crowd, they have done some really fundamental work: Bill Gosper's
2350     Hakmem is one of the best things for a programmer to read. AI might
2351     not have had a serious foundation, but it produced Gosper and Stallman
2352     (Emacs), Moses (Macsyma) and Sussman (Scheme, together with Guy Steele). I
2353     find OOP technically unsound. It attempts to decompose the world in
2354     terms of interfaces that vary on a single type. To deal with the real
2355     problems you need multisorted algebras - families of interfaces that
2356     span multiple types. I find OOP philosophically unsound. It claims that
2357     everything is an object. Even if it is true it is not very interesting -
2358     saying that everything is an object is saying nothing at all. I find OOP
2359     methodologically wrong. It starts with classes. It is as if mathematicians
2360     would start with axioms. You do not start with axioms - you start with
2361     proofs. Only when you have found a bunch of related proofs, can you
2362     come up with axioms. You end with axioms. The same thing is true in
2363     programming: you have to start with interesting algorithms. Only when you
2364     understand them well, can you come up with an interface that will let them
2365     work.
2366     [...]
2367     You can't write a generic max() in Java that takes two arguments of some
2368     type and has a return value of that same type. Inheritance and interfaces
2369     don't help. And if they cannot implement max or swap or linear search,
2370     what chances do they have to implement really complex stuff? These are my
2371     litmus tests: if a language allows me to implement max and swap and linear
2372     search generically - then it has some potential.
2373     [...] Java is clearly an example of a money oriented programming (MOP).
2374     It might be successful - after all, MS DOS was - and it might be a
2375     profitable thing for all your readers to learn Java, but it has no
2376     intellectual value whatsoever.
2377    
2378     [Later, on OMG protocols like CORBA]
2379     I am old enough to remember all the networking standards that were coming
2380     out in the seventies. Who remembers them now?
2381     %%
2382     [Stiftung Warentest "test", WDR 19990419:]
2383     "Schlechtes muß nicht billig sein..."
2384     %%
2385     [/bin/false on solaris]
2386     #!/usr/bin/sh
2387     # Copyright (c) 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 AT&T
2388     # All Rights Reserved
2389    
2390     # THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF AT&T
2391     # The copyright notice above does not evidence any
2392     # actual or intended publication of such source code.
2393    
2394     #ident "@(#)false.sh 1.6 93/01/11 SMI" /* SVr4.0 1.3 */
2395     [obvious invocation of exit snipped to avoid lawsuit. Yup, *1* line.]
2396     %%
2397     <Aspirin> but ee uses imlib, and imlib is documented to take 4.7 days to start up on a 486 by Alan Cox.
2398     %%
2399     When a tar built for SunOS runs under Solaris, it's incapable of opening
2400     or creating files with "lib/locale" in the path. It replaces that part of
2401     the path with "lib/oldlocale".
2402     %%
2403     [Bruce Schneier in CRYPTO-GRAM, 19990315]
2404    
2405     "Microsoft prefers to treat security holes as a public relations problem,
2406     rather than fixing the actual problem."
2407    
2408     [further down: the official answer from Microsoft about a problem where
2409     just viewing a website would invisibly run unrestricted code on your
2410     machine]
2411    
2412     "Microsoft appreciates your input regarding this issue, however in lieu
2413     of modern technology being what it is, we all need to be personally
2414     responsible for knowing what we are downloading off the internet."
2415    
2416     [see http://www.panix.com/~dfoster/sec/chrono.html]
2417     %%
2418     [Steve Funston wrote to me, after I unsubscribed him from gimp-perl for
2419     spamming:]
2420    
2421     >fuck you ass hole duh you are just a big fucker
2422     >>
2423     >>An error was generated by your request to our servers:
2424     >>------------------------------------------------------
2425     >>
2426     >>Your Email: bfunston@mich.com
2427     >>
2428     >>ERROR: You are not a member of this list.
2429    
2430     [and later, misquoting my name:]
2431     >mark is not only a big fat liar but he is an ass hole.
2432     %%
2433     [How much of the microsoft shares does Bill Gates hold?]
2434     He has 19.8%. Paul Allen has 5.5%. Steve Ballmer has 4.7%.
2435     %%
2436     > And what's wrong with being named Peter?
2437     If linus was peter, Linux would be called penix? (just guessing) ;)
2438     %%
2439     According to Microsoft KnowledgeBase article Q216641, Microsoft Windows
2440     95/98 are limited to an uptime of *exactly* 49.7 days.
2441    
2442     --found by Vincent Janelle (Random)
2443     %%
2444     > Leave that to RMS.
2445    
2446     If you had just sat through the horrific panel with Larry,
2447     RMS, Richard, and Linus, you would want to leave a whole lot
2448     else to RMS -- like a couple of megatons of the manure that
2449     he's full of.
2450    
2451     Support BSD/Linux.
2452    
2453     --tom
2454     %%
2455     "The FSF is a cult -- don't support them." --Rob Pike
2456     %%
2457     We are Linux. Resistance is an indication that you missed the point.
2458     %%
2459     > Perhaps the cracker himself (itself? ;) isn't bright enough to delete shell
2460     > history, but his shrink-wrapped cracking tools might be a lot brighter...
2461    
2462     Some of them are. A surprising number aren't. A personal favorite of
2463     mine was the log from a cracker who couldn't figure out how to untar
2464     and install the trojan package he'd ftped onto the machine. he tried a
2465     few times, and then eventually gave up and logged out.
2466     %%
2467     [on channel #gimp]
2468    
2469     [msg(Xachbot)] insult me
2470     [XachBot(xachbot@home.xach.com)] schmorp: David Miller would never approve of that.
2471     %%
2472     [the creation]
2473     http://www.toodarkpark.org/caffeine-cgi-bin/textfile/net-hx.txt
2474     %%
2475     THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12: LITHP
2476    
2477     This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of
2478     an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH". LITHP is said
2479     to be useful in protheththing lithtth.
2480     %%
2481     Ich zog hier nur einen Pseudoschluss aus dieser sache, den ich nicht
2482     selbst schliesse.
2483     Norbert Harry Marzahn, selbsternannter "Judaaer"
2484     am 13.12.98 in de.alt.ufo
2485     %%
2486     According to Gurusamy Sarathy:
2487     > "Resistance is futile, you will be modularized."
2488    
2489     No:
2490    
2491     use Borg;
2492     make_threat(-type => 'standard', -doom => 'modularized');
2493    
2494     --
2495     Chip Salzenberg - a.k.a. - <chip@perlsupport.com>
2496     %%
2497     "And over here, ladies and gentlemen, may I draw your attention to
2498     the 'posicks box', a mechanism within one of the late 20th century
2499     sub-I hardware gestalt integration agents (then called 'operating
2500     systems', this particular one being referred to as 'windows' by
2501     its commercial-mimetic sustainer), designed so as to provide the
2502     appearance and functionality required to comply with one of the few
2503     agreed-upon integration schemas (sub-I, of course) available at the
2504     time. Unsurprising given the non-integration imperitives used by the
2505     agent's sustainter, this mechanism was demonstrated to be an ingenious
2506     non-integration ploy that, while supporting the integration schema,
2507     failed to support the local interconnect schemas that this agent
2508     specialized in. This produced a classic focus rift in the knowledge
2509     pool, benefiting the sustainer in the short run due to the focus
2510     concentration facilities available to commericial-class mimetic
2511     sustainers. Practically, this wasn't a significant loss, in the long
2512     run, as neither the 'windows' or 'posicks' schemas were relevant to
2513     modern quasi-I agents. These two do live on, however, in a few niches.
2514     'posicks' is used as the integration schema between most nano-scale
2515     logic units (a fact that only a few meta-experts still need to be
2516     aware of), and 'windows' survives, for religious-mimetic reasons, as
2517     the human-communication agent in a few stereotypical toasters and soap
2518     dispensers."
2519    
2520     [Kenneth Albanowski]
2521     %%
2522     Perl ist ein Schmerzmittel.
2523     Wenn Du bei der Speicherverwaltung oder der Stringverarbeitung
2524     unter C Schmerzen hast, nimm Perl.
2525     -- Kristian Koehntopp
2526     %%
2527     > Why Windows NT Server 4.0 continues to exist in the enterprise would be a
2528     > topic appropriate for an investigative report in the field of psychology or
2529     > marketing, not an article on information technology -- John Kirch
2530     %%
2531     [bei einer mündlichen Nachprüfung in BWL, Uni Hamburg]
2532    
2533     Prof: "Was ist Agio?"
2534     Student: "Weiß ich nicht."
2535     Prof: "OK, durchgefallen!
2536     Student: "Ich habe aber Anspruch auf drei Fragen in der mündlichen Prüfung!"
2537     Prof: "Klar, was ist Disagio?"
2538     Student: "..."
2539     Prof: "...und was ist der Unterschied zwischen Agio und Disagio?"
2540     Student: "..."
2541     Prof: "...durchgefallen!"
2542     %%
2543     Chaim Frenkel <chaimf@pobox.com> writes:
2544    
2545     > Just morbid curiosity,
2546     >
2547     > Are there _any_ unix boxes that _can't_ build Perl?
2548    
2549     Yes. Broken ones.
2550    
2551     dgris
2552     %%
2553     "The kerastion is a musical instrument which cannot be heard."
2554     -- A Borges story in ten words.
2555     %%
2556     "C combines the power of assembly language
2557     with the flexibility of assembly language."
2558     %%
2559     ...
2560    
2561     <AOL>
2562    
2563     Me too!
2564    
2565     </AOL>
2566    
2567     Tig
2568     %%
2569     ping -p 2b2b2b415448300d <hostname>
2570     %%
2571     unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;umount;sleep
2572     %%
2573     From: Dick Balaska <dick@buckosoft.com>
2574    
2575     I sit behind an NT dual P2/400 256MB for too many hours each day. It is
2576     "slow". One of my (fun) tasks is CD mastering. When i'm loading a 500MB
2577     wav file into the editor, the machine goes useless for two minutes while
2578     loading the wave file. Basically its just reading the file and writing it
2579     to swap. The CPU is at 5%. No Alt-Tab between apps during that time. No
2580     chance of putting the mouse over a button (too many dropped ticks). The
2581     NT kernel is just sitting waiting for I/O completions.
2582    
2583     Linux would be embarrassed to be that bad.
2584    
2585     I expected M$ to never fix this because its not "broken". However, i
2586     expect billg to start reading the above mentioned literal benchmarks and
2587     get really really pissed.
2588    
2589     Especially since i believe 1999 and 2000 to see Linux *really* start
2590     to cut into M$'s server market share.
2591     %%
2592     > Hello I'm wondering if there's a lower traffic mailing list that exists
2593     > that's strictly important kernel announcements and not general chat. I
2594     > need to stay informed but I can't handle 250 messages in a 24 hour
2595     > period.
2596     >
2597     > Sorry for the insignificant post..
2598     > Nic
2599     >
2600    
2601     Thank you for contributing to the problem.
2602    
2603     -hpa
2604     %%
2605     grep... grep... grep... (frog with unix stuck in his throat)
2606     %%
2607     "If users are made to understand that the system administrator's job is to
2608     make computers run, and not to make them happy, they can, in fact, be made
2609     happy most of the time. If users are allowed to believe that the system
2610     administrator's job is to make them happy, they can, in fact, never be made
2611     happy."
2612     - - -Paul Evans (as quoted by Barb Dijker in "Managing Support Staff", LISA '97)
2613     %%
2614     From: "Daniel P. Stasinski" <dannys@KAREMOR.COM>
2615     Subject: Microsoft Hotmail
2616     To: BUGTRAQ@NETSPACE.ORG
2617    
2618     I contacted Microsoft/Hotmail asking them to close the account
2619     of that was listed in the backdoored tcp wrapper source code.
2620     I also forwarded the offending code.
2621    
2622     The word back from them is that they will not close it. Theft
2623     of passwords and hacking does not violate thier terms of
2624     service.
2625    
2626     Daniel
2627     %%
2628     Any UNIX-killer must also have:
2629     ...
2630     * cool name like Linux (serious, these fail: GNU Hurd FreeBSD 386BSD)
2631     %%
2632     "Not all things worth doing are worth doing well."
2633     It's a phrase I use a lot. :-)
2634     [RJL]
2635     %%
2636     As John Whittaker says: ``It's UNIX. That doesn't necessarily mean it's
2637     right.''
2638     %%
2639     [Richard Stallman on the new _Pragma operator in C9X:]
2640    
2641     Amazing--they actually listened.
2642     %%
2643     That "UNIX" term is very negative. People often associate it with
2644     SCO OpenServer, Wyse terminals, and 60 people on a 386. The UNIX
2645     that people know is just awful. It looks something like this:
2646    
2647     # less foo
2648     sh: command not found
2649     # more foo
2650     sh: command not found
2651     # emacs foo
2652     sh: command not found
2653     # ed foo
2654     0
2655     help
2656     ?
2657     quit
2658     ?
2659     exit
2660     ?
2661     DIE!!!!!!!!!!
2662     ?
2663    
2664     [Albert D. Cahalan]
2665     %%
2666     Subject: Re: Stop blib warning in future releases?
2667     From: andreas.koenig@anima.de (Andreas J. Koenig)
2668     Date: 05 Jan 1999 03:15:37 +0100
2669    
2670     tim> Sure. Strictly speaking
2671    
2672     tim> use blib ':quiet';
2673    
2674     tim> would be most correct in style.
2675    
2676     Only German native speakers are allowed to treat adverbs adjectively.
2677     For the rest I'd recommend [...]
2678     %%
2679     [A new U.S. Law implementing a WIPO treaty]
2680     No person shall circumvent a technological protection measure that
2681     effectively controls access to a work protected under this title
2682     [Or, in other words, applied cryptanalysis will be illegal.
2683     too bad --- ]
2684     %%
2685     Microsoft - Is it going to work today?
2686     %%
2687     Subject: Re: [gimp-devel] GIF plugin legal issues
2688    
2689     > Actually, my understanding is that Unisys doesn't currently enforce the
2690     > licensing cost on free software, but maybe I am mistaken.
2691    
2692     The general wording, spoken by an unnamed GIMP developer, is, if you'll
2693     pardon the language, "Unisys can go fuck itself."
2694     %%
2695     [once on linux-kernel:]
2696     > >who are you why on yahoo when iprint sf16fmi i fond you i need drv
2697     > Does anyone have the secret decoder ring to make sense of this?
2698     he's confused about us showing up in a search match on yahoo, but needs
2699     driver(s) for his sf16fmi thingy.
2700     %%
2701     > Did you try to compile kdeadmin from the CVS tree ?
2702    
2703     No I ran the KDE binaries. Im not interested in broken programs that
2704     include wrong #include files in their source.
2705     %%
2706     [unix-faq]
2707    
2708     Someday, you are going to accidentally type something like
2709     "rm * .foo", and find you just deleted "*" instead of "*.foo".
2710     Consider it a rite of passage.
2711     %%
2712     "There's one word that strikes fear into nuclear scientists..."
2713     "Oops."
2714     -- MST3K
2715     %%
2716     Seems like 80-bit spills would be closer to IEEE, if not close enough to
2717     claim full support. Off-hand I'd say people would be happier with
2718     those numeric properties than with the current situation.
2719    
2720     I'll think about the esoterica (probably break down and ask people here).
2721     It would certainly make gcc the most reliable x86 floating-point compiler
2722     I know. Sun's does something similar to -ffloat-store by default (gee,
2723     look at how fast that ultra is), and Microsoft's runs off the end of the
2724     stack at run-time . I don't know what Intel's does, so I'm not considering
2725     it. ;)
2726     %%
2727     >I was using the localtime function to change time_t into it's various
2728     >human-readable parts. I noticed that $year gets returned as 98 and
2729     >not 1998. I tested a few different unices and got the same result.
2730     >This is expected behavior based on the examples I've seen and my own
2731     >testing. My question is how is this y2k compliant?
2732    
2733     What part of your C library's documentation on localtime(3), the perlfunc
2734     documentation on the Perl localtime function, the perlfaq4 entry on `Does
2735     Perl have a year 2000 problem?', and the Y2K document on www.perl.com
2736     did you find to be unclear on the answer to this question?
2737    
2738     --tom
2739     %%
2740     > * Have you ever wondered how life began ?
2741    
2742     In a laboratory somewhere at Bell Labs.
2743    
2744     >Why does it end ?
2745    
2746     Ask the X3J11 committee.
2747    
2748     > * Can you tell WHY there is life ? What is the purpose of it ?
2749     > * Can YOU do anything to make your life worth living ? WHAT ?
2750    
2751     To promote the the DEATH OF ANSI C! K+R FOREVER! DOWN WITH PORTABILITY!
2752     %%
2753     "Unix *is* Perl's IDE!"
2754     -- Tom Christiansen
2755     %%
2756     [Sputnik]
2757    
2758     Do you honestly think the Americans would mention a Soviet success? :-)
2759     A number of years back I saw an exhibition in the US on the development of
2760     supersonic passenger aircraft. They forgot to mention Concorde. It
2761     wouldn't surprise me in the least if most people at NASA had never heard
2762     of Sputnik.
2763     %%
2764     NTFS by default adds unnecessary serialization to an extent that
2765     even older file systems such as FFS do not, and its performance
2766     characteristics reflect that. In fairness, it should be said that it is
2767     the superior approach for most removable media without software control
2768     of ejection (e.g. IBM PC floppies).
2769     %%
2770     Never attribute to malice what could as well be explained by stupidity.
2771     - Hanlons razor -
2772     %%
2773     Shallit's Razor: Never attribute to conspiracy what may be adequately
2774     explained by stupidity or incompetence.
2775     %%
2776     According to Chris Nandor:
2777     > I thought about creating a web interface to input, edit, delete entries,
2778     > but that would have taken me longer, been more complex and less secure, and
2779     > offered no significant advantages.
2780    
2781     That one's in the quotes file. Thanks.
2782     %%
2783     My friend who had a Compaq called one day when his built-in cdrom drive
2784     stopped responding. Their answer "its a virus. Reinstal Windows". So he did
2785     (?) and it still didn't work. He called them and they said "its a virus,
2786     reinstall." "But I just installed. If there is a virus, it came from YOUR
2787     quick restore disk." "No, no virus there, but you DO have a virus. My paper
2788     in front of me says so."
2789    
2790     He took it back and bought a Gateway.
2791     %%
2792     9. Deinde, ne in posterum a XII kalendas aprilis aequinoctium recedat,
2793     statuimus bissextum quarto quoque anno (uti mos est) continuari debere,
2794     praeterquam in centesimis annis; qui, quamvis bissextiles antea semper
2795     fuerint, qualem etiam esse volumus annum MDC, post eum tamen qui
2796     deinceps consequentur centesimi non omnes bissextiles sint, sed in
2797     quadringentis quibusque annis primi quique tres centesimi sine bissexto
2798     transigantur, quartus vero quisque centesimus bissextilis sit, ita ut
2799     annus MDCC, MDCCC, MDCCCC bissextiles non sint. Anno vero MM, more
2800     consueto dies bissextus intercaletur, februario dies XXIX continente,
2801     idemque ordo intermittendi intercalandique bissextum diem in
2802     quadringentis quibusque annis perpetuo conservetur.
2803     %%
2804     You obviously have not dealt with Microsoft Winnt 4.0
2805     and all the Service Pack then. While one Service Pack
2806     did somewhat correct the Y2K problem was not aware that
2807     2000 was in fact a leap year. There was no way to set
2808     the date to Feb 29, 2000.
2809     %%
2810     "Ernst Lehmann, die Organisationsredundanz beim Cluster-Treffen"
2811     %%
2812     HP Computer NEWS 3/98 about HP 2000/CN printer (page 24): "Darüber
2813     hinaus ... hat der HP 2000C/CN durch den Einsatz von Intel MMX-
2814     Technologie Zugriff auf deren Farbtabellen und kann so Farbbilder
2815     schneller verarbeiten" (A mistake made when translating. It's hard to
2816     get the wrong meaning if translated back to English, sorry.)
2817     %%
2818     From: Robert Lipe
2819     > > I program computers with no screens and no keyboards for a living.
2820     > > Switches and front-panels are a LUXURY! :-)
2821     >
2822     > But I guess you are not _programming_ these computers without a keyboard
2823     > and/or screen.
2824    
2825     Are you familiar with the Vulcan Mind Meld?
2826     %%
2827     Subject: Re: [fwd from comp.lang.python] Re: Python 2 ideas [Re: access
2828     From: Tuomas Lukka <lukka@fas.harvard.edu>
2829    
2830     On Tue, 24 Nov 1998, Ilya Zakharevich wrote:
2831     > use pedantic;
2832     > use strict 'code';
2833     >
2834     > or whatever is the syntax to switch Perl into 'dull'/'pythonish' mode.
2835    
2836     use syntax 'python';
2837    
2838     Let's just embrace&extend'em ;) ;)
2839    
2840     %%
2841     Thus it was written in the epistle of Larry Wall,
2842     >
2843     > Having discussed all this thoroughly at the Hacker's Conference this
2844     > past weekend, I've come to the conclusion that Y2K will be traumatic
2845     > primarily because people *think* it will be traumatic. A panic is a
2846     > panic whether or not it's justified. People get trampled in panics.
2847     >
2848     > It should be illegal to yell "Y2K" in a crowded economy. :-)
2849     %%
2850     [rfc1925]
2851     Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two (you can't have all three).
2852     %%
2853     [Alan Cox, why not port hurd to sgi, instead of linux]
2854     > A possible minus is the message-passing between the servers which might
2855     > be time-consuming.
2856    
2857     "Yesterdays technology, next week" to quote an OSI saying
2858     %%
2859     UNIX versions of ctags handle the C language, and often Pascal and Fortran
2860     77. Sometimes, they even handle assembly language. Almost universally,
2861     however, they do not handle C++...
2862     [from "learning the vi editor"]
2863     %%
2864     > correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a thread about this a few
2865     > months back that resolved the ping -f localhost as a ping bug.
2866    
2867     Indeed, as Alan Cox said:
2868    
2869     So get a non-buggy ping(8) client.
2870    
2871     and as Ecclesiastes said:
2872    
2873     Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been
2874     already of old time, which was before us.
2875     There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any
2876     remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
2877    
2878     Regards,
2879     Tigran.
2880     %%
2881     SNMP stands for Security Not My Problem
2882     %%
2883     [slightly broken, though...]
2884     /* "Hello World" in B for 64-bit hardware! */
2885     hw [0] "Hello World.*n";
2886     main(){
2887     extrn hw;
2888     putchar(0[hw]);
2889     hw=+1;
2890     putchar(0[hw]);
2891     }
2892     %%
2893     > So what comes first the chicken or the egg? :)
2894    
2895     The egg. Always. By definition.
2896     %%
2897     > > PPS: Robert, I just made my first y2k fix to that script ;()
2898     >
2899     > Better check your scsi cables.
2900     %%
2901     Arroganz durch Wissen
2902     [Dirk Jagdmann]
2903     %%
2904     [Re: Pegasus - Gut oder Boese?]
2905     > Weil er sie dabei ja unterstuetzt. Da er aber (abgesehen von den ersten
2906     > ein- oder zweimal) nur auf Anrufen von Rosa-Girl erscheint, koennte man es
2907     > auch anders herum sagen. wenn CU Pfeift, kommt er angaloppiert 8))
2908    
2909     was aber leider bedeutet, daß usa die Rennsemmel ständig mit
2910     sich rumschleppen mu?. ^_-
2911     Nur weil die Kleine die Bimmel hat!
2912    
2913     Und wer weiß, was dieses pädophile Pferd eigentlich noch so
2914     bezwecken will... ^_-
2915     %%
2916     >James :\
2917     >
2918     >I apologize for adding a message to this possibly trivial thread.
2919    
2920     I like your sig. I hope you use it for everything you post.
2921     %%
2922     From: Mason <mason@schwanda.resnet.tamu.edu>
2923     Subject: night of the undead ip stack
2924     Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 13:03:19 -0600 (CST)
2925     %%
2926     > The person who decides to invent UNICODE support for Linux
2927     > is just asking for a black eye.
2928    
2929     But Unicode for NT is such fun!
2930    
2931     For example, the checked DbgPrint() bluescreens above DISPATCH_LEVEL
2932     if you try to print a Unicode string--the Unicode->ASCII
2933     translation tables are marked as pageable.
2934    
2935     Since as far as I know, printk() does not have any format specifiers
2936     that cause obscure kernel panics, Linux is clearly behind in this
2937     area.
2938     %%
2939     Linux: a no problem operating system for no problem people.
2940     [Lukas Grunwald]
2941     %%
2942     http://dd.sh/perlfs/:
2943    
2944     THIS IS AN EXPERIMENTAL (PRE-ALPHA) VERSION OF THE PERL FILESYSTEM.
2945     EVEN WHEN IT LOADS WITHOUT CAUSING A KERNEL PANIC, IT WILL LOCK UP
2946     YOUR MACHINE, DESTROY ALL YOUR DATA, KIDNAP YOUR FAMILY AND
2947     (DEPENDING ON SAID FAMILY'S CONFIGURATION) SHOOT YOUR CAT, DOG, AND/OR
2948     FIRST-BORN CHILD.
2949     %%
2950     [a comment on http://dd.sh/perlfs/]
2951     Forget GNU/Linux. /PerL/inux will conquer all.
2952    
2953     kill 0,1 if -x '/PerL/inux'; # request kernel mode
2954     %%
2955     [Tim Hollebeek on real arithmetic]
2956     On a machine with a sane floating point model, the results make sense.
2957     For example, my SGI workstation prints:
2958    
2959     0.00000000000000011102 1.00000000000000000000 1.00000000000000020000 1.00000000000000040000
2960    
2961     However, a machine with the Intel FPU from hell gives:
2962    
2963     0.00000000000000000005 1.00000000000000000000 1.00000000000000000000 1.00000000000000000000
2964    
2965     due to the fact that whether 1+x and 1 are the same number depends on whether
2966     the numbers are in the FPU or not.
2967     %%
2968     [Grüner Tip/Arte]
2969     Ihre Nachbarn sind zu laut und feiern andauernd Parties? Kein Problem, ihr
2970     Bohrer wird nachts um zwei spielend mit _jedem_ Lärm fertig....
2971     %%
2972     Remember, eating healthy doesn't make you live longer, it just makes it seem
2973     longer...
2974     %%
2975     [M$ about unix development tools like GCC]
2976     By the standards of the novice / intermediate developer accustomed to
2977     VB/VS/VC/VJ, these tools are incredibly primitive.
2978     %%
2979     > > Praha is nice and our university is interesting, since it is according
2980     > > to tests most complex and impractical computer science university on the
2981     > > world :) I just love it...
2982     >
2983     > Oh well, great that I won't be studying there...
2984     >
2985     It is really fun.... just now I have lesson (that reminds me that I really
2986     should go now) about set theory and infinity... it is really fun and very
2987     practical...
2988     for example that you have cinema with infinity chairs and infinity plus one
2989     person wants to see movie... what do yo do?
2990     Just let sit down the first infinity persons and then last person ask first
2991     one to move to second chair, second one to move to third and so on and
2992     everyone fits.. isn't that great to know? :))
2993    
2994     Jan Hubicka
2995     %%
2996     > template< template< template<class> class > class Tmpl> A {};
2997     [...]
2998     > I think that this construction is allowed by the ANSI C++.
2999    
3000     No, it is not. What you meant is
3001    
3002     template< template< template<class> class > class Tmpl> class A {};
3003     %%
3004     Jan Dubois writes:
3005     > A) perl-5.00553
3006     > path = \perl\5.00553\bin\MsWin32-x86\perl.exe
3007     > cc = cl.exe
3008     A performance analysis compiling with M$ compiler? Get real!
3009    
3010     [...]
3011    
3012     Ilya
3013     %%
3014     >Shouldn't the kernel compile with all combinations of options.
3015    
3016     Yes. Feel free to fix it and send a patch.
3017    
3018     p.
3019     %%
3020     [tomc]
3021     Jean-Louis provides four arguments in favor of the overloading of the
3022     logical && and || operators. Here they are:
3023    
3024     +------------------------------------------+
3025     | Other languages, notably C++, permit it. |
3026     +------------------------------------------+
3027    
3028     This one is hardly persuasive. Many languages do innumerable things
3029     that Perl does not do. Just for example, take:
3030    
3031     * Csh reparses and re-evals interpolated strings, allowing something
3032     like C<$cmd $var> to do interesting things.
3033     * The Fortran lexer (as it were), having no need of white space to
3034     infer tokens, allows C<DO I=1.10> and C<DO I=1,10> to coexist in an
3035     interesting way.
3036     * Icon has an entirely different notion of success and failure,
3037     allowing expressions like (X < Y < Z) to do interesting things.
3038     * Scheme has call-with-continuation, allowing co-routines to do
3039     interesting things.
3040     * C++ has template classes with abnormal typing rules even for that
3041     language, allowing parameterized meta-classes to do interesting
3042     things.
3043     %%
3044     Make is like Pascal: everybody likes it, so they go in and change it.
3045     --Dennis Ritchie
3046     %%
3047     perl -wlpe '}{$_=$.' file # Count the number of lines.
3048     %%
3049     [not quite duff's device, but...]
3050    
3051     switch (x)
3052     default:
3053     if (prime(x))
3054     case 2: case 3: case 5: case 7:
3055     process_prime(x);
3056     else
3057     case 4: case 6: case 8: case 9: case 10:
3058     process_composite(x);
3059     %%
3060     Is there any truth to the rumor that the number appearing
3061     after the words "Microsoft Windows" is the minimum amount of memory,
3062     in megabytes, required for execution?
3063    
3064     Craig Milo Rogers
3065     %%
3066     Mark Mielke writes:
3067     > This statement is false. The simple fact that school textbooks teach it
3068     > to be indeterminate should be enough to convince you of that.
3069    
3070     This is just another reference point about the state of education in
3071     US (apparently in Canada too?).
3072    
3073     Ilya
3074     %%
3075     [from p5p]
3076     > Now you know why threading is experimental and all, buddy.
3077    
3078     Experimental schexperimental. Anything that doesn't cause an
3079     immediate coredump is not experimental. :-) (Observant readers will
3080     note that this is a more rigorous standard than Microsoft's.)
3081    
3082     Nat
3083     %%
3084     Needless to say, Linux awk is probably gawk, which has been taking too
3085     much steroids for a while. =)
3086    
3087     --Albert Dvornik
3088     <bert@genscan.com>
3089     %%
3090     Subject: Re: zero width lookbehind considered slow
3091     From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@jhereg.perl.com>
3092     Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:40:37 -0500
3093    
3094     >*You* do not understand? Perl is slow...
3095    
3096     Ilya: You are formerly invited to go play in the python
3097     or tcl crowd instead of here.
3098    
3099     --tom
3100     %%
3101     >What's it? Can linux be improved too? Or has it already been improved?
3102    
3103     Linux has never done anything so stupid in the first place.
3104    
3105     Linus
3106     %%
3107     On the 8th day god created email. And got noted the world was good. Then the
3108     devil added HTML mail...
3109     %%
3110     linux/lib/vsprintf.c: * Wirzenius wrote this portably, Torvalds fucked it up :-)
3111     linux/arch/sparc64/kernel/binfmt_aout32.c: /* Fuck me plenty... */
3112     linux/arch/sparc64/kernel/ptrace.c:/* Fuck me gently with a chainsaw... */
3113     %%
3114     On 1998-10-11T02:37:57,
3115     Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> said:
3116    
3117     > Believe me Microsoft think Linux is a threat now. Its level with things like
3118     > java in their perceived threat list, so you can expect all the usual MS
3119     > techniques to start coming this way and very soon.
3120    
3121     Arm the gnus!
3122     %%
3123     [David Miller after (another) endless discussion with Richard Kenner]
3124    
3125     Anyways, I tired (just like everyone else) of arguing endlessly with
3126     you, you're in the past, you no longer constrain my ability to improve
3127     gcc, so go away.
3128     %%
3129     I received my copy of Visual Studio 6.0 today. I couldn't believe that it
3130     wanted to install the C++ compiler into a directory called:
3131    
3132     "\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98"
3133    
3134     But anyways, I just had to find out if it was finally possible to compile
3135     Perl (without PERL_OBJECT) with optimization (-O2).
3136     %%
3137     [on perl version numbering]
3138     > So it could be 5.006 for the developers, but "ThreadPerl" or "Perl with
3139     > Multithreads" (or some such) for the journalists, if that's what
3140     > journalists need to make them pay attention.
3141    
3142     Down that path lies "Perl version 5.006, codename `Ticklish Uvula',
3143     was released today" madness.
3144     %%
3145     [on perl version numbering]
3146     > elaine> 5.1 would be a good thing(tm) as it would draw attention,
3147     > elaine> etc. in a way that a developers versioning would. The
3148     > elaine> world is not populated by people who think the same
3149     > elaine> way. To that end, this would be a good change. Of course,
3150     > elaine> we could call it Perl99.
3151     >
3152     > To me, Perl seems to be recognized for it's language qualities, not
3153     > for marketing reasons. IMHO, perl may keep this difference with other
3154     > wintel product. More than that : Perl99, would let believe people that
3155     > it is not Y2K proofed, or still in beta (<1.00). So it's not a good
3156     > marketing name, anyway.
3157    
3158     Right. Then, to be Y2K compliant, we'll have to call it Perl1999. Hmmm.
3159     "The year perl left earth's orbit"? Maybe we need to get the NASA guys to
3160     put perl on the next low-cost spaceshot.
3161    
3162     Of course, then c.l.p.m's motto could be "We do not commit *mindless*
3163     violence..." :-)
3164     %%
3165     Rule 1 says that Larry says that Larry has the last say, unless he changes
3166     his mind in which case he still has the last say.
3167     %%
3168     > >I never said it did.. I should have said: Binary only drivers encourage
3169     > >poor drivers
3170     >
3171     > No it doesn't.
3172    
3173     Indeed. Its down to
3174    
3175     Profit = (units * margin) - overhead
3176    
3177     and the folks who decide "overhead" arent the programmers but the management.
3178     The folks who say "you have two weeks allocated to write this driver, then
3179     we ship it" are the folks to take the issue up with, and that goes source
3180     or binaries.
3181     %%
3182     dig txt leap.yp.to
3183     %%
3184     "The fact that I'm paranoid doesn't mean that nobody's after me..."
3185     %%
3186     [linux-kernel on endianess issues with NIPQUAD]
3187    
3188     |> Do I read this correct?!? Is it more acceptable to have a bug[*],
3189     |> than a not optimal fix?!?!?
3190     |>
3191     |> s/optimal/stupid/
3192    
3193     What's stupid is little endian. <g>
3194    
3195     Andreas.
3196     %%
3197     [Paul Eggert on tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov]
3198     ...
3199     A closely related question is `What is 1 minute before 23:59:60?''.
3200    
3201     Here's a good one: `What is 1 month before 1 February 1995 in
3202     Kiritimati?''. There was no 1 January 1995 in Kiritimati; they
3203     skipped a day by moving the clocks ahead 24 hours. Similar issues
3204     arise when asking about times that occur within smaller, more typical
3205     UTC offset changes. A number of obscure questions arise here, and I'm
3206     not sure it's worth standardizing all the answers.
3207     %%
3208     [D.J.Bernstein on tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov]
3209    
3210     Paul Eggert writes:
3211     > which I am calling the `modified TIME_TAI''
3212    
3213     Your time differences break down near leap seconds. Ever watched xntpd
3214     try to handle a leap second? Wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble.
3215     %%
3216     For binary only drivers you can assume most vendors will build x86 only
3217     however.
3218    
3219     "We don't have the tools"
3220     "We can't support a non intel build"
3221     "We don't have that sort of machine"
3222     "Its not worth the time cost"
3223     "Whats an Alpha ?"
3224     %%
3225     On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, Mail Delivery Subsystem wrote:
3226    
3227     > The original message was received at Thu, 1 Oct 1998 18:39:56 -0400
3228     > from mini [10.0.0.3]
3229     >
3230     > ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
3231     > <mailproc@fred>
3232     >
3233     > ----- Transcript of session follows -----
3234     > procmail: can't map '/lib/libc.so.5'
3235     > procmail: can't map '/lib/libc.so.5'
3236     > procmail: can't load library 'libc.so.5'
3237     > 554 <mailproc@fred>... unknown mailer error 16
3238     %%
3239     > Here is the difficulty with this discussion:
3240     > No documented problem
3241     > No reason to believe that the "solution" solves the unspecified "problem"
3242     > No clear understanding of the effects of this change on the system
3243     >
3244     > Why, this could be a discusion among AIX developers!
3245     %%
3246     > This would be a reasonable committee-like compromise that might
3247     > satisfy neither of us (:-).
3248     %%
3249     By default Microsoft has set Explorer to use gz files as VRML, you need to
3250     change the association for .gz / vrml from "start vrml program" to "always ask"
3251    
3252     dave
3253     %%
3254     On 10 Aug 1998, Ben Pfaff wrote:
3255     DG> You're not programming MS-DOS applications are you?
3256    
3257     BP> Hell no. I wouldn't touch MS-DOS with a ten-foot network cable.
3258     %%
3259     [Paul Eggert on tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov]
3260    
3261     Date: 10 Oct 1998 15:35:05 -0000
3262     From: "D. J. Bernstein" <djb@cr.yp.to>
3263    
3264     Paul Eggert writes:
3265     > * 29 February if it's a leap lear, 28 February otherwise.
3266    
3267     If that's 1 month before 31 March, then what's 1 month before 30 March?
3268     1 month before 29 March?
3269    
3270     The same as 1 month before 31 March.
3271    
3272     1 month before 28 March?
3273    
3274     28 February.
3275    
3276     And what's 1 month after 28 February? 1 month after 27 February? 1 month
3277     _before_ 27 February?
3278    
3279     28 March, 27 March, and 27 January.
3280     %%
3281     Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
3282    
3283     >Nils Goesche wrote:
3284     >> So make a security check first:
3285     >>
3286     >> if (status = UNDER_NUCLEAR_ATTACK)
3287     >> launch_full_counterstrike();
3288     >
3289     >Hmmm. The way the worlds been going lately, AI wouldn't trust that code to
3290     >do the job. Here's the revised version:
3291     >
3292     >if(status == UNDER_NULEAR_ATTACK); /* Corrected dangerous
3293     > = instead of == error*/
3294     > launch_full_counterstrike();
3295     >
3296     >Now isn't that much more reliable?
3297     >
3298     >--
3299     >Email: cyrand@hotmail.com
3300    
3301     The following variant is less reliable but much safer:
3302    
3303     if (status == UNDER_NUCLEAR_ATTACK); /* Correct dangerous
3304     launch_full_counterstrike (); = instead == error */
3305     %%
3306     It is even more cheerful than that. Not so long time ago a customers
3307     of ours totally destroyed his NT installation on Alpha.
3308    
3309     He found on a manufacturer page, no money - for a download, "NT driver"
3310     for his particular piece of a hardware. So he followed instructions
3311     to the letter - "Installation Wizzard" and all that crap - and the thing
3312     happily installed clobbering, as it is customary in these circles,
3313     essential system libraries with its own versions. The catch was that
3314     this driver was for NT/Intel and these bozos did not even bother to
3315     check for an architecture or at least mention something in some blurb.
3316     Ooops! No chance even to try to boot anymore.
3317    
3318     The saving grace was that the installation was rather new, so loses
3319     were not big, and he had an opportunity to practice an essential skill
3320     of re-installing Windows NT. Ah, and yes, this was the only NT driver
3321     available for that hardware from any source.
3322     What do you plan on doing? Using a PA system for networking? :)
3323     Whats next? A *Smell* modem? It would bring a new meaning to packet
3324     sniffing!
3325     %%
3326     "I'd rather spend 10 hours reading source code than 10 minutes on a
3327     technical support line that isn't"
3328     %%
3329     [from linux-kernel]
3330     `This code fills 8 million seats, we therefore decide what's standard.''
3331     %%
3332     [...]
3333     And especially with new machines users have a lot of clout. Several UK
3334     suppliers now carry Buslogic cards partly because they got fed up of
3335    
3336     "I'd like to order a dual PII/300, 256Mb of RAM, 17" monitor
3337     4 4Gig IBM disks, and a buslogic scsi controller"
3338     "We dont do buslogic only adaptec"
3339     "Nothing else"
3340     "Sorry"
3341     [Click]
3342    
3343     Alan
3344     %%
3345     Fünfzig Prozent der Amerikaner wurden in ihrer Kindheit sexuell mißbraucht,
3346     während weitere fünfzig Prozent von Außerirdischen entführt wurden.
3347     %%
3348     > Let's not forget that this is just an informal, free
3349     > software project. Unlke the US House of Representatives
3350     > we do not yet posess nuclear capability (certain RTEMS
3351     > users excepted, of course!).
3352    
3353     Hmmm, if some RTEMS users have nuclear facilities attached to their
3354     systems, they might be well advised to be careful using FORTRAN as
3355     their language of choice. The comp.lang.fortran FAQ states (with
3356     concurrence from resident X3J3 members) that "using a non-standard
3357     construct might start WW III, if the necessary (optional) hardware
3358     is installed"
3359    
3360     [Toon Moene in private discussion]
3361     %%
3362     Newsgroups: alt.config
3363    
3364     L. Harris wrote:
3365     >
3366     > Testing
3367    
3368     you failed.
3369     %%
3370     Roswell {Unit 6 of 5 Sam Borg} Coverup [Rev. joWazzoo - well mannered despammer]
3371     <JOWazzoo@WhiteICE.com> at We are Sam Borg Spam Assimilators Ltd. - Area 51 HQ
3372     %%
3373     Perl is really designed more for the guys that will hack Perl at least
3374     20 minutes a day for the rest of their career. TCL/Python is more a
3375     "20 minutes a week", and VB is probably in that "20 minutes a month"
3376     group. :) -- Randal Schwartz
3377     %%
3378     > alternative, when it comes to stability and power...Not to mention the
3379     > fact that bugs and fixes are very quickly available and don't come in
3380     > 18MB+ "Service Packs" :).
3381    
3382     What, you mean you _paid_ for service pack '98?
3383     %%
3384     We got this INTERNET because we whan't more information ( to learn ) now it
3385     seem's people can't handle what they see. You say freedom is a mater of
3386     choice (well it is) you have the freedom to choose to carry your butt some
3387     where else...
3388     %%
3389     Steve Orzel (phloam@vol.com) wrote:
3390     [...]
3391     : The purpose of the newsgroup is to help out other people that have questions
3392     : about a certain topic.
3393     %%
3394     Mark Robinson wrote:
3395     >
3396     > Does any have any source code to games that I can have? Does anybody
3397     > know where I can get game sources(legally)?
3398    
3399     Here's the trial version of the three-room text adventure I'm going to
3400     write. I'm not finished yet, though.
3401    
3402     void main (void)
3403     {
3404     printf ("You are in a dark room.\n");
3405     printf ("\n");
3406     printf ("You feel a sharp pain.\n");
3407     printf ("You have died.\n");
3408     printf ("\n");
3409     printf ("!!! GAME OVER !!!");
3410     }
3411    
3412     (Don't tell, but I took some of the code from Quake.)
3413    
3414     --
3415     John Kugelman. kugelman@mnsinc.com
3416     %%
3417     [mail I got after releasing a zip-password cracker, the second biggest
3418     mistake I ever made]
3419    
3420     From: "Tom Miller"
3421     Subject: Can
3422     X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3
3423    
3424     Hay man can you send me some hacking tips and tricks please
3425     send to kymmiller@bigpond.com
3426     my name is Tom Miller
3427    
3428     From: "Tom Miller"
3429     Subject: Wait
3430     X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3
3431    
3432     Hey man its Tom can you also send me any easy systems to hack and the
3433     passwords also send me any infomation about hacking websites thank you
3434     %%
3435     From: lm@bitmover.com (Larry McVoy)
3436    
3437     [...] then think a little before flaming. Or better yet, produce something
3438     better. Flaming is easy but it is basically masturbation without the orgasm
3439     so why bother? [...]
3440     %%
3441     Günter Höns <guenter.hoens@gmd.de>
3442    
3443     Newsgroups: de.alt.ufo
3444    
3445     Offensichtlich ist noch keinem das Wasser-Wachstum aufgefallen, das sogar
3446     jeden Tag geschieht. Jeden Tag waechst der Wasserberg im Meer um mehrere
3447     Meter, ist dann naeher an der Sonne und verdunstet dann. Sogenannte
3448     Wissenschaftler haben eine abenteuerliche Theorie ueber den Einfluss des
3449     Mondes auf dieses Wachstum aufgestellt, aber inzwischen wissen wir es
3450     besser: Die Wasser-Molekuele werden von Neutrinos getroffen, und verdoppeln
3451     sich dann.
3452     %%
3453     CRASH(8)
3454     no fs
3455     A device has disappeared from the mounted-device table.
3456     Definitely hardware or software error.
3457    
3458     Unix Version 7 Manual
3459     %%
3460     On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Larry Wall wrote:
3461     >
3462     > Maybe Pi looks like this:
3463     >
3464     > =for C
3465     > i++; /* add 1 to i */
3466     > =end
3467     > =for C++
3468     > i.value() += 1; // add 1 to i, probably
3469     > =end
3470     > =for Java
3471     > system().foo().bar().i().value().please().increment(); // ???
3472     > =end
3473     >
3474     > :-)
3475     %%
3476     > > USENET is *not* the non-clickable part of WWW!
3477     %%
3478     [on linux 2.1.111]
3479    
3480     The horrid underlining which was a feature with the monochrome Linux vt's on
3481     the previous two releases of the kernel has gone. Unfortunately, so has the
3482     cursor. A couple of brief experiments didn't result in me finding a way to
3483     turn it on.
3484     %%
3485     [...]
3486     its a true story, it happend this weekend in a nice country
3487     between Belgium (wellknown for its Dutroux-case) and Germany
3488     (wellknown for its Bratwurst), lets call it the Lowlands...
3489     [...]
3490     %%
3491     I get a sense of god-like proportions when I patch /dev/kmem with dd(1).
3492    
3493     Chad C Giffin
3494     %%
3495     [usenet, an anology]
3496     Mary Green's car was smoking. She got worried. "Whatever should I do?"
3497     worried Mary... Well, as she drove along she noticed a florists shop. "Aha!
3498     Thought Mary, "Flour shops are full of thoughtless men who need to apologize to
3499     their wives. These men are the sometimes the same ones I see swearing under
3500     the hoods of their cars in the shade of a tree."
3501    
3502     "Brrring" said the bell of the door to the flower shop as Mary poked her head
3503     through the door.
3504     "HELP!!! MY CAR IS SMOKING!" Screamed Mary.
3505     "There is a garage right next door." Said the shopkeeper.
3506     "That's right," Said Melvin, "And there is a parts store across the street. If
3507     you ask for Fred, he's pretty savvy about that kind of stuff."
3508     Now Joe was also in the flower store. This was his first time in trouble, so
3509     he did not hear the 30 or 40 people per day who came in screaming about their
3510     cars smoking (mostly men, of course -- the ones under the shade trees,
3511     usually.)
3512    
3513     "Why don't you help the stinking lady!!" Screamed Joe. "It might be your
3514     muffler bearings..." he continued. Or maybe it's your deisel glow plugs or
3515     your tire pressure..."
3516     Now Tim, also new to the flower shop felt the courage to chime in, "Or it could
3517     even be your cooling system. Sometimes a hose gets a crack."
3518     "My car smoked once and it was an oil leak, where the head gasket was spraying
3519     oil in the manifold." Hollered Larry
3520     "Hey lady, why don't you get your car the patch if it's smoking" chortled Glen.
3521     Well, the hollering went on into the evening, and the lady finally went to the
3522     gas station and found that the heater core had a tiny split and was repaired in
3523     three days for a cost of $175.23.
3524     %%
3525     > Nun gut, Berliner sollen ja eh etwas heller sein.
3526    
3527     Sicher, das macht der Inzest, und die Isolation!:)
3528     %%
3529     > Nun gut, Berliner sollen ja eh etwas heller sein.
3530    
3531     Stimmt, deswegen waren sie wohl auch die ersten, die Hitler hinterherliefen...
3532     :-(
3533     %%
3534     >Mt 24,34 Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Dieses Geschlecht wird nicht vergehen, bis
3535     >dies alles geschieht.
3536     >Und es verging nicht.
3537    
3538     So what?
3539    
3540     Ich dachte eher an:
3541    
3542     " 'Und sein Wabbel wird an einer Lanze aufgespiesst', wiederholte der
3543     Oberste Groesste Meister grimmig. Im Hintergrund knarrte etwas, als
3544     Bruder Pfoertner versuchte, das klemmende Portal zu oeffnen. 'Sind wir
3545     jetzt alle soweit? Befinden sich vielleicht noch andere Unwissende
3546     unter uns,die sich verirrt haben?' fuegte er mit aetzendem Sarkasmus
3547     hinzu. 'Gut. Wunderbar. Ich bin ja _so_ froh. Vermutlich brauche ich
3548     nicht zu fragen, ob die vier Wachtuerme geschlossen sind, oder? Oh,
3549     ausgezeichnet. Hat sich jemand die Muehe gemacht, der Heiligen Hose
3550     die Beichte abzunehmen? Ach, tatsaechlich? Auf die richtige Art und
3551     Weise? Und wenn ich nachsehe? Na schoen. Sind vor den Fenstern die
3552     roten Kordeln des Intellekts gespannt worden? Gut. Nun, dann koennen
3553     wir jetzt vielleicht beginnen.' ".
3554    
3555     Terry Pratchett, "Wachen! Wachen!", S. 15f
3556    
3557     Antje
3558     %%
3559     [....]
3560    
3561     Da muss ich ja, obwohl ich beinahe meinen Humor verloren haette, leise
3562     grinsen. Ich darf zusammenfassen: Du bringst uns keine Beweise, weil Du 1.
3563     zu arm und 2. zu sehr ausgelastet mit der Rettung der Welt und der Zukunft
3564     und so bist. Ausserdem brauchst Du keine Beweise, weil sich Dein
3565     Gedankengebaeude nach eingehender Nabelschau als selbsttragend erwiesen hat.
3566     Finde ich gut! Akzeptiert!
3567    
3568     Da will ich nicht weiter stoeren,
3569    
3570     Antje
3571     %%
3572     It seems that writing to /dev/vcs0 makes the console singing "Ugh,
3573     lalala, I love you baby..."
3574     --
3575     Pavel.Janik@inet.cz
3576     %%
3577     On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, Linus Torvalds wrote:
3578     >
3579     > Kubys
3580    
3581     Kubys is my evil twin brother. Sorry about that.
3582    
3583     Linus
3584     %%
3585     > eieio stands for "Enforce In-Order Execution of I/O".
3586    
3587     .... and it is definitely my favorite name for an assembly language
3588     instruction (the non-native-English speakers on the list presumably
3589     don't know the childhood song "Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O").
3590     %%
3591     > It is *big* and never uses.
3592    
3593     That's parses like English, but I'll be hornswoggled if I can figure
3594     out what it means.
3595     --
3596     Chip Salzenberg - a.k.a. - <chip@perlsupport.com>
3597     %%
3598     [...] HP's PA-8500, for example, has 1.5 Mbytes of L1 cache on-chip. The
3599     company has described the 8500 as a cache SRAM with an ancillary CPU. [...]
3600     %%
3601     From: Dave Cinege <dcinege@psychosis.com>
3602     Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 06:10:31 -0400
3603    
3604     Terry L Ridder wrote:
3605    
3606     > at some future date end up being released under the BSD License is what
3607     > is being discussed.
3608    
3609     Well my licence is bigger then your licence.
3610     %%
3611     [gtk/testgtk, after dragging & dropping an object:]
3612    
3613     Drop data of type text/plain was:
3614    
3615     Bill Gates demands royalties for your use of his innovation
3616    
3617     [and the button reads]
3618    
3619     Continue with life in spite of this oppression
3620     %%
3621     Joshua Waxman <jwaxman@ymail.yu.edu> writes:
3622    
3623     While DJGPP is indeed a C as well as a C compiler, there are certain
3624    
3625     A terribly succinct, as well as a true, statement. However, it has a
3626     certain amount of redundancy.
3627     %%
3628     Compatibility with oneself is Microsoft's greatest strength. When they hit
3629     the 64 bit transition they will hit a major internal incompatibility problem.
3630    
3631     ...
3632    
3633     Peter da Silva <peter@baileynm.com>
3634     %%
3635     >Hello,
3636     >
3637     >I am new to Perl. Can anyone tell me where I can download a full
3638     >operational Perl version for a Windows 95 system?
3639     >
3640    
3641     Of course it all depends on what you mean by "a full operational Perl
3642     version" Perl on Win32 has limitations that are largely due to the
3643     nature of the underlying OS, Perl on Win95 has further limitations
3644     compared with NT due to its own shortcomings .
3645     %%
3646     An injunction delaying Windows 98 would clearly have a negative impact
3647     on the country as a whole.
3648     Compaq President & CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer,
3649     explaining why Microsoft shouldn't be
3650     prosecuted under anti-monopoly laws.
3651     %%
3652     With a PC, I always felt limited by the software available. On Unix, I am
3653     limited by my knowledge. --Peter J. Schoenster <pschon@baste.magibox.net>
3654     %%
3655     There is a need to keep from being locked into Open Systems. --IBM sales rep
3656     %%
3657     In comp.lang.perl.misc,
3658     Stylin <stylinsty@yahoo.comREMOVE> writes:
3659     :Can anyone point me to the algorithm for creating a unique id?
3660    
3661     $id = `cat /dev/kmem`;
3662    
3663     --tom
3664     --
3665     Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. :-)
3666     --Larry Wall in <8571@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
3667     %%
3668     Newsgroup: comp.lang.perl.misc
3669     Subject: Larry 1 Bill 0
3670     %%
3671     On 3 Jul 1998, Ben Pfaff wrote:
3672    
3673     > The only problem with these AIs is that they don't handle references
3674     > to themselves as AIs very well. In faSegmentation fault (core dumped)
3675     > NO CARRIER
3676     > !@*&#@#%T^@&*(GU*SD*(@!&*(@#R(*FERHGH*(@#(&$&#@Y!&R
3677     %%
3678     > People come here to ask questions, not for intellectual gratification, but
3679     > rather they are seeking solutions. As such, the incorrect answer was
3680     > better.
3681    
3682     There's something... terribly wrong with this statement. I can't quite put
3683     my finger on it. Hmmm.
3684     %%
3685     comp.lang.c does not exist to accomodate the laziness of those who cannot be
3686     bothered to learn netiquette. That's what comp.lang.c++ is for.
3687     %%
3688     |> : > but... a microwave is an example of an embedded system,
3689     |>
3690     |> : Who says? He just said it was a microwave. He didn't say it was
3691     |> : a free-standing implimentation.
3692     |>
3693     |> This is approaching arguing for the sake of argument. Have you
3694     |> ever seen a microwave oven that supports a hosted C environment?
3695    
3696     The Lipton Ritchie Model 8 did. I'm sure that many posters will
3697     point out that Lipton's implementation of the stdio libraries was
3698     horrendously buggy. It was, but it was still a great system. It
3699     remains the only C implementation I know of that could be used to
3700     build Bison, and then cook it.
3701    
3702     Viva la buffalo burgers.
3703     %%
3704     A strategically-placed PDP-11 can be used to heat your entire
3705     home. I've got one in my basement, next to a large box of "She's
3706     The Sheriff" drink coasters. I sold my furnace years ago. The
3707     Digital Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Corporation
3708     can be found online at http://www.dhvacc.com/.
3709     %%
3710     The lbxproxy program has various options, all of which are optional.
3711     -- lbxproxy(1)
3712     %%
3713     Re: Where to learn Windows programming...
3714    
3715     |> I'll take a Schildt book any day, thanks.
3716    
3717     Great. I'm expecting to see the line above as a back-cover blurb
3718     on the next "Bullschildt: The Complete Reference".
3719     %%
3720     Subject: Re: The wrong position of while, if and else?
3721    
3722     that's some ugly piece of code buddy...
3723     %%
3724     In article <1998062718481700.OAA03186@ladder01.news.aol.com>, eyrei@aol.com (EYREI) writes:
3725     |> I have recently started learning the C Language. I have created a simple file
3726     |> to determine whether or not a number is Prime. When I run it, the program
3727     |> crashes with the error message :- Unhandled Exception :- General Protection
3728     |> Exception 0x5FD7:0x379F. Prime(1) Processor Fault.
3729    
3730     |> What does this mean.
3731    
3732     It means you've got a broken operating system, and should immediately
3733     install [free|net|open]BSD[OS] or Linux.
3734     %%
3735     Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
3736    
3737     On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Emulov wrote:
3738     > Hi, i don't know if this is a stupid question..
3739    
3740     Off-topic, too! Imagine that.
3741     %%
3742     "Right now we are the most shit hot piece of PC networking software on the
3743     planet. The only people who can touch us are FreeBSD (who also dont do
3744     streams)."
3745     -- Alan Cox, in "Streams and Linux"
3746     %%
3747     "Perl combines all of the worst aspects of BASIC, C and line noise."
3748     - Keith Packard <keithp@ncd.com>
3749     %%
3750     Lord Fellatio <richter_m@hotmail.com>
3751    
3752     >Wo soll das Loch denn dann sein? Im Meeresboden?
3753    
3754     Klaro.
3755    
3756     >Von oben duerfte man es also ueberhaupt nicht sehen
3757     >koennen, da ueber dem potentiellen Loch im Meeresboden doch
3758     >wahrscheinlich erstmal Wasser und dann viel Eis liegen wuerde. Wie
3759     >verhindern die Ausserirdischen denn, dass Wasser ins Loch einstroemt?
3760    
3761     Na ist doch völlig logo, mit nem rotierenden Traktorstrahl. Die
3762     Energie klauen die ?r***e dem Erdmagnetfeld.
3763    
3764     >Gibt es da einen kosmischen Badewannenstoepsel? Haben sie es mit
3765     >Eisbergen verstopft? Oder benutzen sie das einstroemende Wasser zu
3766     >Kajakfahrten bis hinunter zum Suedpol? (Das waere doch auch endlich
3767     >mal eine einleuchtende Erklaerung fuer die Eismassen, die die
3768     >Antarktis bedecken - man muesste halt nur, der Kontinentaldrift
3769     >folgend, immer wieder neue Schaechte bohren. Oder die Kontinentaldrift
3770     >einfach wegdiskutieren...)
3771    
3772     Die enorme Zentrifugalkraft im Erdinnern schleudert das Wasser wieder
3773     am Nordpolpol raus, falls der Traktorstrahl versagen sollte (Dies
3774     passiert immer dann, wenn das Erdmagnetfeld umkippt). Nun kommt sicher
3775     der Einwand, die Erde würde zu langsam rotieren. Das ist nur bedingt
3776     richtig. Richtig ist hingegen, daß die Rotationsgeschwindigkeit im
3777     Erdinnern um den Faktor 1000 (ca; sehr schwer zu messen: Magma) größer
3778     ist als auf der Erdoberfläche. Dies ist auch die Ursache für die
3779     Kontinentaldrift und die Mondphasen.
3780    
3781     Die Mondphasen wiederum beeinflussen das Erdmagnetfeld und sind daher
3782     die Ursache für die Sonnenflecken. Den Sonnenflecken haben wir auch
3783     die momentane Klimaveränderung zu verdanken. Auf der anderen Seite hat
3784     die Zunahme der Treibhausgase eine Erhöhung des Reflektionsvermögens
3785     der Atmosphäre zur Folge, welches dazu führt, daß ein Teil der
3786     Sonnenenergie zur Sonne zurückreflektiert wird. Dies heizt wiederum
3787     die Sonnenflecken auf und verkürzt deren Zyklus. All dies wird sich in
3788     den nächten Monaten so aufschaukeln, daß vorraussichtlich im Novemner
3789     2002 das Erdmagnetfeld zusammenbrechen wird. Wie damals bei den Dinos.
3790     Nur war dort ein Kometeneinschlag die Ursache.
3791    
3792     cu in hell 2002
3793     %%
3794     "Hiroshima '45, Chernobyl '85, Windows '95"
3795     %%
3796     >In unix, one might say 'man 3 crypt'.
3797    
3798     Of course, on a Solaris system this won't give you what you want. You
3799     get a message that it can't find the man page for 3. It then prints
3800     the man page for crypt(1).
3801    
3802     Of course, all a beginner has to do is figure out that the 3 is the
3803     section number in the Unix manual. He can then use man man to find
3804     that on Solaris one uses -s to specify the section so he'll try
3805    
3806     man -s3 crypt
3807    
3808     Unfortunately, that doesn't work either. He'll get the message "No
3809     entry for crypt in section(s) 3 of the manual."
3810    
3811     If he doesn't give up, he can go back to the manual page for man and
3812     find that the -a switch prints all matching manual pages. Or perhaps
3813     he can figure out to use the command
3814    
3815     man -s3 Intro.3
3816    
3817     to get a list of everything in section 3. He'll then find out that
3818     crypt is in section 3C so he should use
3819    
3820     man -s3c crypt
3821    
3822     Gee. I don't understand why beginners have so much trouble with this
3823     stuff. I've only been programming Unix for 15 years and I don't have
3824     any trouble.
3825     --
3826     Michael M Rubenstein
3827     %%
3828     Take a moment to consider these lines:
3829    
3830     %OVERLOAD=( '""' => sub { join("", @{$_[0]}) } );
3831    
3832     sub html { my($type)=shift; bless ["<$type>", @_, "</$type>"]; }
3833    
3834     :-) I *love* Perl 5! Thankyou Larry and Ilya.
3835    
3836     Regards,
3837     Tim Bunce.
3838    
3839     p.s. If you didn't get it, think about recursive data types: html(html())
3840     p.p.s. I'll turn this into a much more practical example in a day or two.
3841     p.p.p.s. It's a pity that overloads are not inherited. Is this a bug?
3842     %%
3843     From: alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk (Alan Cox)
3844    
3845     ...
3846    
3847     > now is evil". This only shows two things: you never looked at the bad
3848     > experiences of the industry where following a rotten design and
3849     > keeping backward compatibility lead to unusable systems. And second:
3850    
3851     I worked for 3com. I know eveyrhting about following a rotten design until
3852     its unusable, believe me I do.
3853     %%
3854     Ok(slow) -> !NeedComputer
3855    
3856     Semour Cray
3857     %%
3858     Ullrich Jans at University of Karlsruhe, Germany:
3859    
3860     Oh Gott! Es ist voller crons!
3861     %%
3862     From: p00h <p00h@MONMOUTH.COM>
3863     Subject: Re: AOL for Windows DoS/Exploit
3864    
3865     aol supports PARTIAL html, its like win95's implementation of tcp/ip
3866     it only supports parts of it
3867     %%
3868     egcs/gcc/gcse.c:
3869     /* Help stamp out big monolithic functions! */
3870     %%
3871     [...] Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Especially regarding HPPA assembler syntax
3872     as provided by HP, which was designed by someone who should not have been
3873     let near a language-design project like that, too often "little languages",
3874     whether assemblers, tools, or C++, are designed by people who are unaware
3875     of, or give little thought to, the outright readability of code written in
3876     the language, in the sense that the basic semantics should be fairly obvious
3877     *without* the reader having to memorize lots of semantic information.
3878    
3879     (In HPPA assembler's case, one glaring stupidity was the nullified branches,
3880     which have completely different semantics depending on whether the label
3881     being branched to happens to assemble to a negative or positive offset! A
3882     smarter design would have required the programmer to specify whether such a
3883     branch was a "forward" or "backward" branch explicitly, then the assembler
3884     and/or linker would complain if reality didn't match the programmer's
3885     specification. I've never looked into whether GNU's HPPA as fixes this
3886     botch; I gather GNU as fixes many botches, though, so it wouldn't surprise
3887     me if it did, even though that might make for some compatibility problems
3888     with existing HP as code.) [...]
3889    
3890     tq vm, (burley)
3891     %%
3892     libc/posix/regex.h:
3893     /* The following two types have to be signed and unsigned integer type
3894     wide enough to hold a value of a pointer. For most ANSI compilers
3895     ptrdiff_t and size_t should be likely OK. Still size of these two
3896     types is 2 for Microsoft C. Ugh... */
3897     typedef long int s_reg_t;
3898     typedef unsigned long int active_reg_t;
3899     %%
3900     libc/db2/db.h:
3901     /*
3902     * While Microsoft's compiler is ANSI C compliant, it doesn't have _STDC_
3903     * defined by default, you specify a command line flag or #pragma to turn
3904     * it on. Don't do that, however, because some of Microsoft's own header
3905     * files won't compile.
3906     */
3907     %%
3908     > UTC variation and begining and ending dates of DST (if observed) would be
3909     > great.
3910    
3911     I answered only the places I can comment on.
3912    
3913     > BASSAS DA INDIA
3914    
3915     This rock is below water half of the time!
3916     If any inhabitants have been there, I do not think they observe DST
3917     on a regular basis! ;-)
3918     %%
3919     # ./test-plugin.pl
3920     Bizarre copy of CODE in sassign at /root/.gimp/plug-ins/test-plugin.pl line 40.
3921     wire_read: unexpected EOF (plug-in crashed?)
3922     %%
3923     >
3924     > The "where do you want to go today?" generation has taken the
3925     > developer out of the "programmer" by removing the vital, development
3926     > tools from the environment and precanning software.
3927    
3928     No kidding. Point. Click. Point. Click. Point. Click. Brain Atrophy.
3929     %%
3930     Lars Chr Hausmann <36haus@but.auc.dk> writes:
3931    
3932     >Hello!
3933    
3934     >I have to write something about, what Perl is.
3935     >I need some crystal clear info about, what perl is. So if any of you
3936     >would be so kind just to mail. Then I would be grateful!
3937    
3938    
3939     Perl.
3940    
3941     regards
3942     jobst
3943     %%
3944     Subject: Re: Cyrix 6x86MX and Centaur C6 CPUs in 2.1.102
3945     From: alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk (Alan Cox)
3946     Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 22:31:02 +0100 (BST)
3947    
3948     > Well, that depends. They SHOULD be. By Intel 'standards' *laff*, they have
3949     > to be identical stepping, indicating identical features. However, I've
3950    
3951     They don't. Pentiums have fairly strict rules, P6/PII much less. Also Intel
3952     are pretty good at following the MP 1.1/1.4 standard its the motherboard
3953     makers who get it wrong - primarily the BIOS is full of bugs. It appears
3954     nobody tests bios code against specs any more. It looks like they do
3955     compile flash, boot 95, boot NT, ship. The quality of bios code has dived to
3956     the absolute pits.
3957     %%
3958     Unix never says `Please.' -- Rob Pike
3959     %%
3960     > What about: . scriptname
3961     > ------------------^ this is a dot!
3962    
3963     Funny, it looks like a "p" to me.
3964     %%
3965     A computer without Microsoft and IBM is like chocolate cake without
3966     ketchup and mustard
3967     %%
3968     Subject: Re: Challange for perl `GURUS
3969    
3970     vimal gajjar wrote:
3971     >
3972     > Hi there,
3973     > Here is a small challange. Is it possible to have a perl
3974     > code which takes e.g. three parameters as input. time, val1, val2. and
3975     > the name of the prog. is say challange.pl. Now if i execute
3976     > "challange.pl 10 5 2" this perl script wille consume
3977     > 5% of cpu
3978     > 2 Mb of RAM
3979     > for the period of 10 Seconds.
3980     >
3981     > can one of the gurus take this challange?
3982    
3983     Examining the 5 copies of this post has consumed 5% of the
3984     brain power I allocate to reviewing c.l.p.m, about 10 seconds, and
3985     has caused the death of 2 million brain cells.
3986     %%
3987     > >> /A:You can usually write the program faster than you can
3988     > >> dial/dl/hangup/install/read docs/fix it/fix the fix/.
3989     >
3990     > >s/usually/never/
3991     >
3992     > s/sometimes/never/
3993    
3994     Cute. You embarrass yourself by your ignorance of perl.
3995     %%
3996     :That's probably true, but I really can't speak to it. But, if there
3997     :were no *nix around, there'd be no Perl. Nor would there be a need for
3998     :Perl, IMO.
3999    
4000     Gotta love them JCL and ini dot bat dot bad dot doo dah files.
4001    
4002     TC
4003     %%
4004     'cc:Mail is a wonderful application, as long as you don't want to read or send mail.'
4005     %%
4006     shurik@iron.Te.NeT.UA - Alexandr Dubovikov at TeNeT Networking Centre
4007    
4008     Hi guys!
4009    
4010     How check socket, alive it or die ?
4011     %%
4012     --> Questions not to ask on linux-kernel <--
4013    
4014     Miscellaneous flame-wars:
4015     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4016     12) The gnome-kde debate does not belong on linux-kernel.
4017     13) The emacs-vi debate does not belong on linux-kernel.
4018     14) Porting linux to run under windows is not interesting.
4019     15) Whether a given intel CISC chip "is really RISC" is not interesting.
4020     %%
4021     Subject: what a week!
4022     From: "C. Scott Ananian" <cananian@lcs.mit.edu>
4023     Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 03:13:23 -0400 (EDT)
4024    
4025     unicode, boot-logos, GGI, STREAMS, the necessity of a short devel cycle
4026     and the instability of 2.0.x, "ifconfig stopped working", "you really *do*
4027     need to remove 'encaps'", Linus' tarball practices... it seems like we're
4028     running out of things to flame off on. Here's my humble contribution:
4029    
4030     I'VE MADE A KEWL NEW CHARSET THAT I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD USE. IT HAS ALL
4031     THE LETTERS IN MY LOGIN MAPPED TO THE LOWEST 16 CHARACTERS SO WE CAN
4032     COMPRESS THINGS REAL GOOD AND THE LETTERS IN MY BROTHER B1FF'S NAME ARE
4033     ALL IN HIGH ASCII CUZ THAT'S WHERE LOSERS BELONG!!!2!!7
4034    
4035     I ONLY USE EMACS AND I THINK VI SUX!!$231!!
4036    
4037     GNOME RULES AND KDE IS DEMON-SPAWN BECAUSE IT IS NOT FREE.! !
4038    
4039     WE NEED KGI IN THE KERNEL (NOT LIBGGI, NOT THE TERMINAL IMPROVEMENTS
4040     WHATEVER THEY'RE CALLED) IN ORDER TO HAVE WAY KEWL BOOT LOGOS AND RUN MY
4041     BROTHER B1FF'S GAMES!!1!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!11!!!
4042    
4043     I USE A BIG-ENDIAN MACHINE BECAUSE THEY RULE. LITTLE-ENDIAN MACHINES ARE
4044     EVIL. AND A PENTIUM *IS* A RISC PROCESSOR!!!
4045    
4046     WE SHOULD PORT LINUX TO WINDOWS SO WE CAN USE ALL THE KEWL HARDWARE
4047     DRIVERS!!!!!@@#!
4048    
4049     Did I miss any? ;-)
4050    
4051     *Please* don't respond seriously to this email. It's a joke. A joke.
4052     Laugh. Please.
4053    
4054     And then let's kill all the flaming threads, shall we?
4055     --Scott
4056     %%
4057     > Well, /proc/kcore already reports its actual size...
4058    
4059     And it isn't about to change at runtime either. That is the size of
4060     installed memory. I've yet to see a single person successfully insert or
4061     remove a SIMM/DIMM while a machine was running. If they did, and it was
4062     successful, the linux code will update the filesize. ;o)
4063     %%
4064     Toby Heywood (toby@he-net.demon.co.uk) wrote:
4065     : This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
4066    
4067     One of those 'M's stands for Mail.
4068    
4069     This is not mail.
4070    
4071     This is Usenet.
4072    
4073     Please post only plain text like everyone else does.
4074     %%
4075     ------------ etienne.lorrain@ibm.net
4076     --- hdc: irq timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
4077     --- ide1: reset: success
4078     -----------> I like Linux !
4079     %%
4080     > I have experienced people walking up to my console and saying "What
4081     > the hell does that mean" in sheer terror as the machine boots.
4082    
4083     Tell them it's magic, and earn the respect of your colleagues. I always
4084     do.
4085     %%
4086     ++ Actually, I'm not at a loss for words. Here's one that's very appropriate:
4087     ++ PLONK.
4088     %%
4089     ++ > SSI is *not* HTML.
4090     Re: Subraumfunk
4091    
4092     Ja, ein Handy waere da praktisch. Die hoeheren Gebuehren rechnen sich,
4093     wenn man ueber die Grenzen des Sonnensystems hinaus telefonieren will.
4094    
4095     Die Telekom wuerde da wieder mal erbarmungslos abzocken. Ich kann es
4096     mir schon vorstellen: SunSystem-Tarif, vielleicht auch einen
4097     InnerPlanets-Sondertarif, dann einen LocalGroupWeekend-Specialtarif,
4098     eine Supercluster-Zone und so weiter. Und wenn es auf der Venus
4099     schneit, telefonieren alle fuer die Haelfte.
4100     %%
4101     > > Vergiss es. Du wirst nie und nimmer von Armando eine
4102     > > konkrete, verwertbare Antwort bekommen.
4103     >
4104     > Doch, man bekommt von mir sogar sehr viele Antworten.
4105    
4106     Du hast gerade zwei Adjektive weggelassen.
4107     %%
4108     ++ Oh yeah. Show me an example of SSI used outside of HTML.
4109     Show me an HTML DTD mentioning SSI directives.
4110     %%
4111     Namsuk Kim wrote:
4112     > Is there a way to convert a scalar data to Acii data format?
4113    
4114     I am not familar with ACII. If you mean ASCII, then the question I have is
4115     - is the data in EBCDIC now?
4116    
4117     Bill Jones
4118     %%
4119     GNU/getopt.c:
4120    
4121     #if defined (WIN32) && !defined (__CYGWIN32__)
4122     /* It's not Unix, really. See? Capital letters. */
4123     #include <windows.h>
4124     #define getpid() GetCurrentProcessId()
4125     #endif
4126     %%
4127     Subject: IIS 4.0, PW32i316, CGI Programs
4128    
4129     Perlis.dll does not pass command line arguments correctly via the web. That
4130     is, invoking the URL
4131    
4132     http://www.myserver.com/myprogram.pl?Argument1&Argument2...&Argumentn
4133    
4134     causes the myprogram.pl to execute, but @ARGV is empty.
4135     %%
4136     "You need to use CGI."
4137     "I am using CGI, it's a CGI application!"
4138     "No, no, *use* CGI. The directive 'use'."
4139     "OK, so what directive do I use?"
4140     "No, no, you *use* *use*. Use CGI."
4141     "I *am* using CGI!"
4142    
4143     Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
4144     %%
4145     > > Was haltet Ihr von Killfile-mailing-lists, dass sich die Leute mal
4146     > > kennenlernen koennen?
4147     >
4148     > Gute Idee ;-), wäre ich sofort dabei, datrifft man wahrscheinlich ne
4149     > Menge tolle Leute... ;-) und die wahren Freidenker.
4150    
4151     Einige Freidenker sicher, aber auch etliche Denkfreie.
4152     %%
4153     "I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big or
4154     professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." -- Linus Torvalds 1991
4155     %%
4156     If it's a floppy, it might be a copy.
4157     If it's a disk, you're also at risk.
4158     If it's a pirate, the vendors are irate.
4159     To avoid such frustration, try: Free Software Foundation.
4160     %%
4161     From: David Woodhouse <Dave@imladris.demon.co.uk>
4162    
4163     pcg@goof.com said:
4164     > It was much more than I usally get! It was _great_
4165    
4166     Hehe - I know the feeling.
4167    
4168     "It's broken."
4169     "What's wrong with it?."
4170     "I don't know - it just doesn't work."
4171     "Well what do you mean by 'it's broken'?"
4172     "It just doesn't work."
4173     "How can you _tell_ it's broken, for f***'s sake - what are the symptoms!?"
4174     "It gives an error message."
4175     "Would you care to tell me what it says?"
4176     "It says.... something about there being an error."
4177     "That's not very helpful. Tell me it word for word."
4178     "It says 'Unable to handle kernel NULL reference at something or other'"
4179     "That's not word for word. It said 'NULL pointer dereference.' Try again,
4180     letter for letter this time."
4181     %%
4182     From: "Paul B. Henson" <henson@INTRANET.CSUPOMONA.EDU>
4183    
4184     After installing Solaris 2.6 HW3/98, I discovered that /usr/bin/admintool
4185     had been installed mode 0777, world writable. Under the original release of
4186     2.6, the mode was 04555.
4187    
4188     Sun has been notified of the problem. If you're running 2.6 HW3/98, you
4189     might want to verify your admintool hasn't been tampered with and fix the
4190     perms.
4191    
4192     (Personally, I'd set them to 0000 ;). admintool? blech.)
4193     %%
4194     From: verah@netscape.com (Vera Horiuchi)
4195     Subject: Re: Risp: drama (Re: Do It Yourself)
4196    
4197     Americans ignorant of the rest of the world?
4198    
4199     I must tell a favorite story here. A friend and I were purchasing a gift
4200     for another friend who lives in Canada. I was speculating out loud about
4201     how much duty our Canadian friend would have to pay.
4202    
4203     The cashier said, "Oh, I'm sure Canadians don't have to pay any duty. We
4204     ship to Hawaii all the time, and _they_ don't have to pay duty." =:-0
4205     %%
4206     >am besten ist z.Z. das Buch von Michael Neufeld. Wer aber Wissenslücken
4207     >verspürt (was keine Schande ist), sollte diese zu stopfen suchen und nicht
4208     >Zuflucht zu absolut hirnrissigen Theorien suchen.
4209    
4210     Hirnrissig bist Du. Das es einen Zeittransfer aus der Zukunft zu den Nazis
4211     gab deckt sich mit dazu passenden Entschluesselungen bestimmter Bibelstellen
4212     und mit der dann tatsaechlichen notwendigen Geheimhaltung. Es deckt sich
4213     ueberdies damit, dass die Unterhaltung uns den Gedanken zunehmend nahelegt,
4214     also vorbereitet, und dass es bereits ein wissenschaftliches Experiment gab,
4215     bei dem ERST die Wirkung auftrat und DANN die Ursache. Die Zeitreise ist
4216     also Fakt. Und es ist sicher, dass Jemand per Zeitreise den Nazis helfen
4217     wollte. Gelegentliche Theorien, dass auch diese ausserirdische Hilfe gehabt
4218     haetten sollen nur davon ablenken, eine andere Erklaerung liefern. Das ist
4219     logisch, denn die Taeter sitzen ja irgendwo in unserer Zeit und moechten
4220     sicher nicht erkannt werden.
4221    
4222     Du scheinst die simpelsten Grundzuege der Zeitlogik nicht verstehen zu wollen.
4223    
4224     normarz@aol.com
4225     %%
4226     >Oder anders gesagt:
4227     >Glaubst Du, Du könntest mit einem hochmodernen Maschinengewehr eine römische
4228     >Legion
4229     >schlagen?
4230    
4231     Klar. Frage mal Cortez.
4232    
4233     Bye
4234     Andreas
4235     %%
4236     >Article 2B is a threat to anyone who uses a computer. I just wanted to
4237    
4238     It may be a threat to any american using a computer. Fortunately, the U.S.
4239     justice does not yet apply outside the U.S.A.
4240    
4241     I.a.W.: You're currently creating a lot of happy non-U.S. software
4242     companies.
4243    
4244     Kind regards
4245     Henning
4246     %%
4247     From: "Adam J. Richter" <adam@yggdrasil.com>
4248     Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 04:14:11 -0700
4249     Subject: Re: driver for Creative Labs DVD kits
4250    
4251     At least with the IDE DVD drive that I have, plugging it directly
4252     into an IDE port and using the regular Linux ide-cd driver works just fine
4253     for reading [...] CD and the [not] copy protected sections of the DVD's.
4254    
4255     There is a protocol that the hardware decoder boards use to
4256     tell the DVD drive that they are a licensed implementation and should
4257     be allowed to read the copy protected sectors as well. I have been
4258     told that this protocol can be done entirely in software with a
4259     standard IDE port. Hopefully, somebody will reverse engineer this and
4260     make it a demand loaded kernel module. (Seriously, there is a lot
4261     that you are allowed to do with copyrighted material that this sort of
4262     hardware restriction prevents, and there are other important political
4263     issues involved relating to your rights to do as you please with the
4264     computer equipment that you bought and paid for.)
4265     %%
4266     Where do you want to go today?
4267     We might support that sometime next year.
4268     -=- Microsoft
4269     (But I doubt it.)
4270     -=- Me
4271     -=- James Mastros
4272     %%
4273     Hello570 <hello570@aol.com> wrote:
4274     > I tried printing a line to a file using both of the
4275     > following methods, but the output was split into two
4276     >lines.
4277    
4278     If you don't want newlines in the middle of your string, then don't
4279     put newlines in the middle of your string.
4280     %%
4281     http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Dean_Roehrich/subjects.post
4282     %%
4283     Einstein himself said that God doesn't roll dice. But he was wrong. And
4284     in fact, anyone who has played role-playing games knows that God
4285     probably had to roll quite a few dice to come up with a character like
4286     Einstein. -- Larry Wall
4287     %%
4288     From: Ragnar Hojland Espinosa <root@lightside.ddns.org>
4289    
4290     My $0.02 Euros on internationalization? I'm in Spain and my keyboard is
4291     mosty US mapped because the Spanish map is really awkward for programming.
4292     Computers were designed to be funcional, not politically (or locally)
4293     correct (hm, I don't think HAL ever spoke Russian). This "computers are easy
4294     for all" GUI related trend has done a lot of money, and lot of damage; at
4295     least command line OSes forced the user to actually learn something and
4296     absorb information. The user assumed so, so he did. Now he doesn't, and
4297     it's not all his fault.
4298    
4299     The WWW is full of useless (and ugly) graphics, of useless links to links to
4300     pages with links to links which usually end up in a huge links page. Of
4301     course, there are some jewels.. but they should be majority! It's
4302     understandable, when the tools and languages focus more on aspect that in
4303     content.
4304    
4305     Usenet is worse than ever, the interesting places have been ruined by
4306     spammers, c00l hak3rz, and more and more people asking (or demanding) for
4307     others doing their homework.. at least some time ago they were willing to
4308     learn (or pay for it;)
4309    
4310     IRC.. heh. The few times I've been on funet almost all I found is the same
4311     people in the above paragraph. And I do know some of them even run scripts
4312     to try denial of service or other destructive attacks on people they see,
4313     just for fun or to get the op.
4314    
4315     Email. Someone selling an "incredible program that allows you to bypass
4316     your ISP mail server, for only $89" (thats right, a smtp server). No OS
4317     mentioned, I somehow can guess which. And that stupid thing of sending
4318     mail to people in RTF and HTML format.. I'm gonna answer them in LaTeX.
4319    
4320     Internet, your ilimited junk yard.
4321    
4322     Using computers would make me real sad if it wasn't for UNIX and, of
4323     course, Linux and Linux people.
4324     %%
4325     ... WNT == ++VMS . Literally. Dave Cutler created VMS,
4326     then he rewrote it as WNT.
4327    
4328     Ever used VMS? It's a step above DOS. Barely.
4329     --
4330     Clark O. Morgan cmorgan@aracnet.com
4331     %%
4332     >Subject: If "=~" means match what is doesn't match?
4333    
4334     I heard that a friend of a friend might have once been told about a
4335     rumor that this information can be found in perlop, right next to
4336     where =~ is documented. (It's !~)
4337    
4338     I agree with Tom's assessment that the fall of modern man will be
4339     preceded by the de-evolution of communications to the days of oral
4340     tradition.
4341     %%
4342     "Windows 95, the most installed system in the world,
4343     I know, I've done it 5 or 6 times myself"
4344     %%
4345     The statistics programming language S, from AT&T, combines lazy
4346     evaluation with imperative programming. A nightmare.
4347     %%
4348     "In 1965, as part of a research and development project for the
4349     U.S. Army, engineers at TRW Corp developed a software program
4350     called Generalized Information Retrieval Lanaguage and System."
4351     Or GIRLS for short.
4352     %%
4353     Wissen bremst die Meinungsbildung voll aus.
4354     %%
4355     I have an idea: Anybody who posts an URGENT! or EMERGENCY! request should
4356     post the circumstances behind the urgency. "I was having sex with my
4357     mistress in the server room and I knocked the Linux box over and the hard
4358     drive crashed and so I've reinstalled everything but I still can't get
4359     5_004_03 to build!"
4360    
4361     This would inspire me to action far more than the implied subtext of "I
4362     have no patience."
4363    
4364     xoxo,
4365     Andy
4366     %%
4367     > I have Perl5 running on my pc.
4368     > and also front page98 and microsoft personal web server runnig.
4369     We all have our cross to bear.
4370     %%
4371     (THIS IS LONG, YOU MAY WANT TO SKIP)
4372    
4373     From: mjd@plover.com (Mark-Jason Dominus)
4374     Date: 09 Nov 1995 02:57:30 GMT
4375     Subject: Re: system() question
4376    
4377     There are a lot of reasons, many of which get repeated over and
4378     over again, many of which don't. Some of the reasons you hear a lot
4379     are: Questions are incoherently phrased. Questions have the form 'My
4380     code doesn't work' and don't include the code. Questions include the
4381     code, and it's 200 lines long, and comp.lang.perl is not a debugging
4382     service. Nobody knows the answer to the question. The question is so
4383     badly punctuated that nobody can bear to read it. Questions aer
4384     written by a non-native speaker of English and the native speakers who
4385     are trying to understand it can't. (That's a shame, but it does
4386     happen. I often wish that these people would post in their native
4387     languages. I'd love to see more discussion in languages other than
4388     English. Some Dutch guy tried posting all his comp.lang.c articles in
4389     Dutch a few years ago, and all the Americans flamed him. How
4390     humiliating for me!)
4391    
4392     Apart from these oft-mentioned reasons are many others that are
4393     not so often discussed, because anyone who tries to bring them up gets
4394     flamed. But it's the truth: I know the reason I don't answer more
4395     questions is because so many of them questions are so damn stupid.
4396     They're stupid in a lot of different ways, but they're still stupid.
4397     I don't want to suggest that that's why your questions go unanswered.
4398     I don't know what you're asking. No doubt the reason your questions
4399     go unanswered is because they're so deep and interesting that nobody
4400     really knows the answer.
4401    
4402     The most common stupid question is the one from someone who has
4403     some high-level problem that they need solved. They have an idea that
4404     they'd like to do it in perl, and they don't really know perl. So
4405     instead of learning perl, they post to comp.lang.perl.misc.
4406    
4407     Now don't get me wrong. I don't have any problems answering the
4408     questions of someone who's trying to learn perl. I love THOSE
4409     qusetions. But these people don't seem to be asking useful questions
4410     for that.
4411    
4412     Today, for example, I saw a question from a guy who wants to get a
4413     list of hostnames out of nslookup. `How do I do that?' he says. And
4414     it's hard to know what to make of that. What does he mean? Does he
4415     not know how to open a pipe? Is his en' command failing? What's
4416     going on here? I can't give a useful answer without understanding the
4417     problem. Having your en' fail is a problem. Wanting to list
4418     hostnames is not a problem; it's a desire.
4419    
4420     Here are some similar questions that would have made more sense to me:
4421    
4422     1. `I'm a lazy asshole and I can't be bothered to learn to
4423     program myself, but I know if I post here you'll give me
4424     something for free.''
4425    
4426     (OK, fair enough. At least I can send him a rate card.)
4427    
4428     2. `I'm trying to use en' to talk to nslookup, but...
4429     ...here's my code; what's wrong?''
4430    
4431     (Good question.)
4432    
4433     3. `I know perl has a `System' command for running programs,
4434     but I can't see how to get my commands into nslookup
4435     once I have run it.''
4436     (Good question.)
4437    
4438     4. `I'm trying to use `Getprotobynumber' to talk to nslookup...''
4439    
4440     (Good question.)
4441    
4442     See, I'm not just biting people's heads off, here. #4 is a good
4443     question, because it gives me something to work with. OK, he has a
4444     very weird idea about interprocess communication, but that's
4445     ignorance, and that's what we're here to correct. He doesn't know
4446     about en'; I can refer him to the manual.
4447    
4448     Here's another example: Some guy wants to assemble a list of email
4449     addresses . `How do I do that?'' he wants to know. Well, duh. Get a
4450     big pad of paper and read news for a couple days and write down all
4451     the addresses you see. Problem solved. What's it doing in
4452     comp.lang.perl?
4453     Oh, you wanted to do it in perl. Well, I guess I'd open a socket
4454     to the NNTP server and send it some XHDR commands for the `From'
4455     lines. But that's not Perl; you could do that in any language. I
4456     could do it in Bourne Shell for you if I'm allowed to use a little
4457     external thingie to handle the socket parts for me. What's it doing
4458     in comp.lang.perl?
4459    
4460     Oh, you wanted us to write the program for you? Wait, let me send
4461     you my rate card.
4462    
4463     Someone posted yesterday asking how to get the data from a file where
4464     the start and end of the data is marked by keywords. Same thing going on
4465     here. `Well, here's how you solve your problem: First you go take an
4466     introductory class in programming and learn to write programs in some
4467     language. Then you go to the bookstore and buy this book by Wall and
4468     Schwartz, it's really good. Read the book carefully and try out the
4469     examples. Then if you still have general questions like `How do I do this'
4470     instead of thought that this code would do X but instead it does Y' you hire
4471     a professional to write your program for you. Or you could just skip right
4472     to step 3. Want my rate card?''
4473    
4474     The worst stupid questions are the ones that come from people who
4475     have no business asking them. The most perfect example of this that I
4476     could have imagined was in comp.unix.questions a couple of years ago.
4477     Some guy came and asked how you could tell if a file is a hard link.
4478     My jaw flapped open and it's stayed open since then. I couldn't have
4479     been any more stumped if he'd asked why Bodhidharma came from the
4480     West. What do you say to this guy? Do you tell him the truth, that
4481     all files are hard links, that even symbolic links are hard links?
4482     He's not going to understand you; you might as well keep your mouth
4483     shut. Do you tell him the truth, that the answer won't do him any
4484     good because he doesn't know what a hard link is, so why did he bother
4485     asking in the first place? No, that'll just make him mad. I followed
4486     that message for the next couple weeks, and nobody said anything.
4487     What could you say? The guy had no business asking the question and
4488     no use for the answer. Maybe the right answer would have been to cut
4489     off his finger or something. I dunno.
4490    
4491     Some questions get ignored because they're boring. Someone asked
4492     today how to compare two variables (I assumme he means the contents of
4493     those variables) to see if they're exactly the same. You've gotta be
4494     in an awfully good mood to take the time to answer that. Maybe
4495     someone will. Maybe I will.
4496    
4497     If I answer that one today, maybe he'll be back tomorrow asking
4498     how to check to see if two variables contain different values. Maybe
4499     I won't. What I find incredible is that if you tell these people to
4500     go read the manual and come back in two weeks, you sometimes get
4501     jumped on for not being helpful to beginners. Bah. If everyone told
4502     these people to go read the manual, they'd eventually figure out that
4503     that's what you have to do ,and then I wouldn't have to spend so much
4504     of my life dealing with incompetent programmers.
4505    
4506     Some questions are logically nonsensical because the querent
4507     thinks they know more than they do. A lot of these have the form
4508     `How do I use X to accomplish Y?'' There's nothing wrong with this,
4509     except that sometimes X is a chocolate-covered banana and Y is the
4510     integration of European currency systems. I always get stuck on
4511     these, probably because I can't get rid of the idea that the person
4512     really has a good reason for wanting to use X. I know a half-dozen
4513     easy simple ways to accomplish Y, but I can't imagine what X has to do
4514     with it. This is a problem for me in my day job, too. Clients are
4515     always saying to me `We want to use product X to do multimedia
4516     development on the world-wide web,'' and all I can think is `Well,
4517     gee, what would you want to go and do that for?'' Sometimes it turns
4518     out that they want to do it because they want to impress the
4519     manufacturers of X, and I don't work on those jobs.
4520    
4521     The flip side of this is a questions like `I want to accomplish
4522     X, but I don't want to use Y. What can I use instead?'' Which,
4523     again, is sometimes reasonable, and then sometimes X is closing a
4524     filehandle and Y is the `Close' function.
4525    
4526     The questions I like the best are the ones that go like this:
4527    
4528     `I want to accomplish X.
4529    
4530     I thought that the following code fragment would do it:
4531    
4532     ...
4533    
4534     But instead it does Y.
4535    
4536     Why is that?''
4537    
4538     This one is also pretty good:
4539    
4540     `I want to accomplish X.
4541     I thought I might be able to use facility Y.
4542    
4543     But Y doesn't seem like it's quite right,
4544     because of Z.
4545    
4546     What should I use instead of Y, or how can I overcome Z?''
4547    
4548     When I ignore these, it's usually because I don't know the answer.
4549     There were an awful lot of them today. It makes me very happy.
4550    
4551    
4552     There you go; a 160-line dissertation on why questions go unanswered.
4553     Now don't let me hear you saying nobody ever answers your questions.
4554    
4555     --
4556     Consulting Minister for Consultants, DNRC
4557     The Bill of Rights is paid in Responsibilities - Jean McGuire
4558     %%
4559     >> BTW, would it be easier to cope with international text using Python?
4560     >Sigh... you're breaking my heart. Ask Jack Jansen, he probably knows.
4561    
4562     If I were really evel, I would point out that the newest TCL (8.1) has
4563     support for international character sets and Unicode. But then, mentioning
4564     TCL in this newsfroup would be really bad. So, of course, I don't do that.
4565    
4566     Ups. I'm so sorry ... ;-)
4567    
4568     bye, Georg
4569     %%
4570     I personally do not believe in object orientation as a security model
4571     (nor as a general programming paradigm), but feel free to try to
4572     convince me.
4573    
4574     [ Or maybe I confuse you with somebody else and some other posting ]
4575    
4576     Linus
4577     %%
4578     ++ how can i strip new lines out at var.
4579     ++
4580    
4581     Removing new lines is very tricky, as the manual tells you so. Ignore the
4582     complicated things in the manual, and put in this neat little trick:
4583    
4584     $var=join+q,,,grep[[ord$[[qq$\137$]]<10 or+10<ord]]split+q,,,$var;
4585    
4586     If you're old enough not to read the manual, you won't have a problem
4587     understanding the above line.
4588    
4589     Abigail
4590     %%
4591     I fixed the problem by mounting the SCO volume on the SunOS box, and since
4592     1995 the problem has gone away together with the SCO machine.
4593     %%
4594     ++ Hi Does anybody know how to upload many graphic files at the push of a
4595     ++ button?
4596     Yes.
4597    
4598     ++ 100 pictures or so?
4599     Yes.
4600    
4601     ++ Can I do it in Perl?
4602     Yes.
4603    
4604     Your question isn't Perl specific. Please ask in the relevant
4605     newsgroup. alt.button.play
4606    
4607     Abigail
4608     %%
4609     perly gates - The way to perl; Enter hackerdom.
4610    
4611     perly Gates - Contradictio in Terminis.
4612    
4613     Martien
4614     %%
4615     Ren hat weder von Sinnhaftigkeit noch von Kausalität geschrieben, sondern
4616     nur von Logik. Logik und Kausalität sind in unserem (normalen) Denken zwar
4617     eng miteinander verknüpft, sind aber nicht dasselbe. Sinn ist hingegen noch
4618     etwas Drittes und ganz verschiedenes! "Sinn" bedeutet mindestens, daß eine
4619     Sache eine gewisse Richtung hat, wie in "Uhrzeigersinn". Meistens bedeutet
4620     Sinn aber, daß eine Sache einen bestimmten Zweck erfüllt. Auch darf man
4621     nicht "verursachen" mit "begründen" verwechseln, weil die beiden
4622     unterschiedlich sind. Die Existenz muß auch keinen Sinn haben, um eine
4623     Ursache zu haben. Das sind zwei völlig voneinander unabhängige Sachen. Die
4624     Existenz hat einen Sinn, also eine Richtung, wenn wir unserer Existenz eine
4625     Richtung geben. Dieser Sinn kann auf etwas abzielen, was außerhalb unserer
4626     selbst steht, muß aber nicht... Sie kann auch einen Sinn haben, der schon da
4627     war, bevor wir uns danach ausgerichtet haben - von all dem schreibt Ren aber
4628     nicht. ;)
4629    
4630     Worauf Ren wohl hinaus wollte, ist, daß wenn die Logik des begrenzten Raumes
4631     nicht gilt, daß dann die Logik schlechthin hinfällig wird und so jedes Sein
4632     fragwürdig wird. Das ist aber nicht der Fall, da die Logik, die er von den
4633     Grenzen des Raumes aufstellt, gar keine wirkliche Logik ist, sondern nur die
4634     Grenzen des menschlichen Verstandes zeigt. Er kann sich nicht vorstellen,
4635     daß außerhalb der Grenzen des Raumes "Nichts" ist, weil man sich als Mensch
4636     das Nichts nicht vorstellen kann.
4637    
4638     Darüber hinaus meinte er, daß die "Existenz unlogisch" würde. Dieser Satz
4639     ist vollkommen unverständlich. Denn entweder ist etwas, oder es ist nicht.
4640     Das ist auch schon die ganze Logik einer Existenz. (Aristoteles: Satz vom
4641     ausgeschlossenen Dritten) Unlogisch wäre, wenn etwas ist, das nicht ist oder
4642     wenn etwas nicht ist, das ist.
4643    
4644     Von der Unfähigkeit des Menschen, sich einen unbegrenzten aber endlichen
4645     Raum (oder wie auch immer der Weltraum nun aussieht) vorzustellen auf die
4646     "Unlogik der Existenz" zu schließen, ist aber wohl nicht ganz möglich, zumal
4647     eine Existenz nicht unlogisch sein kann. Was sollte das auch heißen? Daher
4648     ist das Problem, das Ren aufwirft, nur ein Scheinproblem. Die Existenz an
4649     sich wird nicht in Frage gestellt dadurch, daß man sich etwas - egal was -
4650     nicht vorstellen kann. Er verwechselt die Begriffe "unlogisch" und
4651     "unvorstellbar".
4652    
4653     Thomas.Decker@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
4654     %%
4655     Marcel Richter wrote:
4656     > Marcel Richter - IQ: 3538327
4657     ^^^
4658     fehlt da nicht irgendwo ein Komma.... =?-)
4659     %%
4660     The X server has to be the biggest program I've ever seen that doesn't
4661     do anything for you. --Ken Thompson
4662     %%
4663     linux-2.1.92/fs/autofs/root.c:
4664     printk("autofs: trying to recover, but prepare for Armageddon\n");
4665     %%
4666     >>Vincent DiPietro, the discoverer of the face on mars, has thrown in
4667     >>the towel, and said that the face on mars is a pile of rocks.
4668     >Was sollte es denn sonst sein?
4669    
4670     An artificial pile of rocks.
4671     %%
4672     > ps: mal nebenbei: eine unbekannte variable beim analysieren des
4673     > marsgesichtes ist es, dass mensch gar nicht weiss, wie die lebende,
4674     > gedachte oder sonstige vorlage eigentlich aussieht. dazu kommt natuerlich
4675     > noch das fehlende wissen um die intention des "kuenstlers", ob er
4676     > beispielsweise nur aspekte bzw. partien eines gesichtes integrieren wollte
4677     > - und natuerlich, ob es ueberhaupt kunst ist:)
4678    
4679     Ganz genau. Und das Matterhorn ist eine palaeoimpressionistische Studie des
4680     Geruchsorgans der Rasse der Ciabattanimalier. Aber das wussten hier
4681     sicherlich schon alle. Das ganze Universum ist ausserdem eigentlich nur ein
4682     grosser Flipperautomat.
4683    
4684     Christoph Schulte Moenting - ubec@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
4685     %%
4686     > Kris Weilemann schrieb
4687     >
4688     > >MIR ging es neulich aehnlich. Ich wurde von Ausserirdischen entfuehrt.
4689     > >Ich wurde eingesperrt in einem dunklem Raum mit langen Sitzreihen und mit
4690     > >einer Popcorn-artigen Substanz gefuettert. Nach 2 Stunden war alles
4691     > >vorbei. Einen Tag spaeter stellte ich fest, dass mir 18 Mark im
4692     > >Geldbeutel fehlten. Ist das nicht krass? -Kris.
4693     %%
4694     ... Jazz ist nicht nur das erfolgreichste, sondern auch das einzige originäre Kunstgenre,
4695     daß die USA jemals hervorgebracht haben.
4696    
4697     "Apropos Musik", HR2 am 16.4.98
4698     %%
4699     http://www.rsw.com/
4700    
4701     The Unix shell as a 4GL
4702    
4703     Unix provides hundreds of programs that can be piped together to easily
4704     perform almost any function imaginable. Nothing comes close to providing the
4705     functions that come standard with Unix. Programs and philosophies carried
4706     over from other systems put walls between the user and Unix, and the power
4707     of Unix is thrown away. The shell, extended with a few relational operators,
4708     is the fourth generation database scripting language most appropriate to the
4709     Unix environment.
4710     %%
4711     Perl is incredibly difficult to parse. For example, what's the difference
4712     between these:
4713    
4714     time /3 ;#/; print "hello";
4715     sin /3 ;#/; print "goodbye";
4716    
4717     Right. The first one is time divided by 3, and the print is in a comment.
4718     The second one is the sin of the result of a regular expression match for "3
4719     ;#", and the print gets executed!
4720    
4721     There's no pure BNF in the world that'll handle that. And remember, with
4722     "use" and prototypes available, whether you parse something like "sin" or
4723     "time" depends on its definition in some other file, somewhere in the galaxy
4724     (or even decided by Perl code in a BEGIN block, that evals a prototype!).
4725    
4726     Which led Larry to say at one point: "the only thing that can parse Perl is
4727     'perl'".
4728    
4729     --
4730     Randal L. Schwartz
4731     %%
4732     Ronald J Kimball <rjk@coos.dartmouth.edu> writes:
4733    
4734     > Pascal AMRAM wrote:
4735     > > Subject: MSEXCHANGE / OUTLOOK
4736     >
4737     > So here I am trying to figure out what an M sex change is....
4738    
4739     It's obviously the opposite of an F sex change. HTH.
4740    
4741     --
4742     Jonathan Feinberg jdf@pobox.com Sunny Brooklyn, NY
4743     %%
4744     The management (my cats) made me say this.
4745     %%
4746     uae-0.6.9/custom.c:800:
4747     write_log ("Program is torturing BPLCON1.\n");
4748     %%
4749     uae-0.6.9/src/memory.c:363
4750     write_log ("Your Amiga program just did something terribly stupid\n");
4751     %%
4752     Closures make sense in any programming language where you
4753     can have the return value of a function be itself a
4754     function, as you can in Perl. Note that some languages
4755     provide anonymous functions but are not capable of
4756     providing proper closures; the Python language, for
4757     example.
4758     %%
4759     When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to
4760     resemble a nail.
4761     %%
4762     > but all I get are 501 errors, method not supported. I am not 100% sure what
4763     > I did wrong.
4764    
4765     What you did wrong was post a microsoft server question to a perl
4766     newsgroup.
4767     %%
4768     I am trying to learn Perl on my Windows 97 system. In particular...
4769     %%
4770     >Es kamen Außerirdische, die Pyramiden bauten und andere Wunder
4771     >vollbrachten. Dafür wurden sie vergöttert. Diese außerirdischen bauten dann
4772     >wahrscheinlich auch die Cydonia Region.
4773    
4774     Etwa zehnmal zu oft 'Stargate' gesehen, was?
4775     %%
4776     >Die Menschheit kämpft seit Millionen von Jahren gegeneinander.
4777    
4778     Welche Hälfte ist denn da die grössere? :o)
4779     %%
4780     ...am still rebuilding after being hit with a clock changing virus it reset
4781     my clock to 2039 unfortunately for me my OS is beta 98 needless to say it
4782     expired instantly!!!
4783     %%
4784     From: Per Bothner <bothner@cygnus.com>
4785     To: Pal Engstad <engstad@hunt.inmet.com>
4786    
4787     > Linus Torvalds requires that all code in the source is using a tab
4788     > length of 8 spaces, and he also states that you are a bad programmer
4789     > if you write code with more than 3 indentation levels.
4790    
4791     I didn't know that Linus Torvalds has done research on programming styles.
4792     He much have, since why else would you have the audacity quote him as
4793     an authority, on a list where there are dozens of people with more
4794     than double Linus's programming experience?
4795    
4796     > This has caused the code to be fairly easy to read and maintainance is
4797     > pretty straight forward.
4798    
4799     Irrelevant - a kernel is a lot simpler than an optimizing compiler,
4800     in terms of complexity of algorithms and data structures.
4801     %%
4802     Nach der Diskussion muss ich akzeptieren, dass die juengst erfolgte
4803     Erdbeschleunigung von - 0,6 auf - 0,4 Millisekunden kein zwingender Beweis
4804     fuer einen Permanentantrieb ist. Aber: In letzter Zeit kommt es bei mir immer
4805     wieder vor, dass ich Dinge einfach weiss. Selbst wenn ich sie nicht begruenden
4806     kann. Ich weiss trotzdem dass sie stimmen muessen und der Antrieb existiert.
4807     Mit der Zeit findet sich dann auch die Begruendung.
4808     %%
4809     Wir suchen neue AussenMitarbeiterInnen... (S.Pernar@Link-Goe)
4810     %%
4811     hyperltext (hy'perl-text), n. double-quotish-interpolated hypertext markup:
4812     Example:
4813     print qq[[<LI><A HREF="$self->[[url]]">@[[[ucfirst $self->[[title]]]]]</A>\n]];
4814     %%
4815     liperlsuction: What happens to any script longer than 10 lines once
4816     Randal gets his hands on it
4817     %%
4818     Uperl Volta - country where perl programmers control the electricity.
4819     %%
4820     > Anybody successfully installed the win32 version of Perl?
4821    
4822     No! Millions of people don't use perl on win32 machines. You may be the
4823     first if you get it working.
4824     %%
4825     > Macintosh.
4826     > Think different.
4827    
4828     Think Again.
4829     %%
4830     Bill.Cilnton@dyselxia.com
4831     %%
4832     tsatan@hotmail.com writes:
4833     > Why does perl have the "push" and "unshift" functions? ...
4834     > push @nums, 4; is the same as @nums = (@nums, 4);
4835    
4836     What do you want, Scheme? ;)
4837     %%
4838     # There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'.
4839     # It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen
4840     %%
4841     | I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because
4842     | someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the
4843     | top.
4844     %%
4845     I had a student ask about the UN9 operating system. I didn't understabd what
4846     he was talking about so he wrote UNIX on the board.
4847     %%
4848     On 1 Apr 98 17:34:23 GMT, Schulung7 wrote:
4849     ^^^^^^^^^
4850     >Was haltet ihr vom UFO-Absturz in Rosswell?
4851    
4852     Nichts. Und jetzt geh woanders spielen.
4853     %%
4854     >Kann man hier irgendwie mal die UFOs reinbringen, um die es in dieser NG
4855     >gehen soll?
4856    
4857     Nein, der Datentyp wäre inkompatibel. UFOs sind per Definitionem
4858     materielle Objekte (obwohl das zur Zeit fraglich ist ;-), die sich in
4859     diesem Medium nicht austauschen lassen.
4860     %%
4861     Wer redet hier denn von der "Hui Hui"? Ich sprach von "Hui! Hui!".
4862     %%
4863     >> nein...ist kein Sender. Eine taiwanesische Sekte hat behauptet, daß am
4864     >> 25.3. auf allen TVs der Welt Gott auf Kanal 18 erscheinen würde.
4865     >> Ist natuerlich nicht eingetreten.
4866     >
4867     >Aber unsere Haus-Sat-Anlage geht seither nicht mehr.
4868    
4869     Ein Zeichen! Er hat uns ein Zeichen gegeben! Zieht alle euren linken
4870     Schuh aus!
4871     %%
4872     >Klingt nach Erdstillstand.
4873    
4874     Ich bin entsetzt. Man hat hoffentlich sofort Wiederbedrehungsmaßnahmen
4875     eingeleitet?
4876     %%
4877     Mars Global Surveyor Imaging Schedule
4878    
4879    
4880     First opportunity
4881     Approximate
4882     Orbit Internet
4883     Date Time (UTC/Pacific) Number Target Posting
4884    
4885     4-3-98 09:58/1:58 a.m. 216 Viking Lander 1 April 6
4886     4-3-98 21:37/1:37 p.m. 217 Viking Lander 2 April 7
4887     4-4-98 09:16/1:16 a.m. 218 Mars Pathfinder April 7
4888     4-5-98 08:33/12:33 a.m. 220 Cydonia April 6 (mid-a.m.)
4889    
4890     Second opportunity
4891     Approximate
4892     Orbit Internet
4893     Date Time (UTC/Pacific) Number Target Posting
4894    
4895     4-12-98 15:23/ 8:23 a.m. 235 Viking Lander 1 April 14
4896     4-13-98 03:01/ 8:01 p.m. 236 Viking Lander 2 April 15
4897     4-13-98 14:40/ 7:40 a.m. 237 Mars Pathfinder April 15
4898     4-14-98 13:57/ 6:57 a.m. 239 Cydonia April 14 (mid-p.m.)
4899    
4900     Third opportunity
4901     Approximate
4902     Orbit Internet
4903     Date Time (UTC/Pacific) Number Target Posting
4904    
4905     4-21-98 20:45/1:45 p.m. 254 Viking Lander 1 April 23
4906     4-22-98 08:23/1:23 a.m. 255 Viking Lander 2 April 24
4907     4-22-98 20:02/1:02 p.m. 256 Mars Pathfinder April 24
4908     4-23-98 19:18/12:18 p.m. 258 Cydonia April 24 (mid-a.m.)
4909    
4910     %%
4911     > >2. Der Menschheit ist durch Inzucht entstanden. Laut biologischem
4912     > >Wissen, unwahrscheinlich, da Mutation und Mißbildungen auftreten
4913     > >würden.
4914     >
4915     > Vermutung: Das ist auch aufgetreten. Siehe levitische "Gesetze" zur
4916     > "Behandlung" von "Aussatz" insb. im 3. "Mose". Die hatten schon Probleme.
4917     Sag mal, bei Dir piepts wohl nicht mehr richtig! Aussatz, heute besser
4918     unter dem Namen Lepra bekannt, ist keine Erbkrankheit. Es ist eine
4919     (heute heilbare) Infektionskrankheit, verursacht durch Bakterien.
4920     Also nichts von Inzucht, wie Du das in Deinem latenten Rassenwahn
4921     implizierst.
4922     %%
4923     > You might please start up with reading more than one sentence - a skill
4924     > quite familiar in Europe, but as it seems not in the USA.
4925     %%
4926     Yup. Instead of crashing Xservers, now you have crashing kernels.
4927     Big improvement.
4928     %%
4929     -- "Hey look, this new card is for windows and only $xx!"
4930     -- "Yes, but it's braindead and will hurt your performance. Take that one
4931     over there. Besides, it's not an ope.."
4932     -- "Why that one?"
4933     -- "Because it's better, sinc.."
4934     -- "But I can do the same with this one, it's cheaper, and its for windows!"
4935     %%
4936     In der Klinik, in der ich mal arbeiten musste, hatten wir einen echten
4937     Koenig Ludwig II und mindestens fuenf Stueck Jesus - sowas gibts halt,
4938     wenn Du verstehst, was ich meine.
4939     %%
4940     > Hast Du mal einen Stein beobachtet, der eine Unzahl komplexer
4941     > Vorgaenge paresentiert, einschliesslich der Hervorbringung
4942     > etlicher Lebensformen?
4943    
4944     Jepp. Ist nur ein Problem mit der Definition von "zahlreich".
4945    
4946     > Hast Du mal einen Steinen beobachtet, der sich mal eben
4947     > "verwandelt", und auf dem dann lauter Wesen rumkrabbeln,
4948     > die aus ihm selbst entsprungen sind?
4949    
4950     Klar doch. Ist nur ein Problem mit der Definition von "lauter".
4951    
4952     > Ueberspitzt: Hast Du mal einen Steinen beobachtet, der
4953     > ploetzlich zum Lebewesen wird und Dich fragt, wer oder was
4954     > er eigentlich ist?
4955    
4956     Tja, da hören die Übereinstimmungen auf. Ich dachte Du meinst
4957     Erwin Stein. Den kenne ich. Der hat zwei Kinder. Die krabbeln
4958     ab und zu auf ihm herum. Der ist aber nicht plötzlich zum Le-
4959     bewesen geworden, sondern den gibt es nun schon ein wenig
4960     länger. Und er hat mich auch noch nie gefragt, wer oder was
4961     er eigentlich ist. Zumindest nicht in einem Zustand, den man
4962     als "normal" bezeichnen könnte. So wird das anscheinend nix.
4963     Ciao
4964     Stefan
4965     %%
4966     "These download files are in Microsoft Word 6.0 format. After
4967     unzipping, these files can be viewed in any text editor, including
4968     all versions of Microsoft Word, WordPad, and Microsoft Word Viewer."
4969     (http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/pc99.htm)
4970     %%
4971     Video cards have write-only registers. (of course that is bad design) Let's
4972     say that register 13 is write-only, as is common. It holds an index that
4973     determines what register 69 (also write-only) actually changes. If you write
4974     to register 13 while the accelerator is active, you lock the PCI bus. You
4975     can't determine if the accelerator is active without reading from register
4976     42, but you can't interpret the contents of that register correctly without
4977     knowing what the last accelerator command was. Reading from register 13 gets
4978     you some useless (unrelated) info and _also_ toggles the accelerator on and
4979     off.
4980     %%
4981     Join the Army,
4982     Meet interesting people,
4983     Kill them.
4984     %%
4985     > Wie entsteht Materie? Ich koennte mir vorstellen, dass Energie in Materie
4986     > umwandelbar ist.
4987    
4988     E=m*c^2 (Schon mal gehoert?) (Schon mal verstanden??)
4989     %%
4990     >nach der die Pygmäen geheime UFO-Basen in ausgehöhlten Baumstämmen
4991     >unterhalten (Vorsicht: das war ein Witz :-) ).
4992     %%
4993     > (Bernhard Nahrgang) wrote:
4994     >
4995     > >> Logische Annahme: Die Erde waechst entweder kontinuierlich, oder periodisch
4996     > >> ruckartig.
4997     > >wie kann jemand mit dem IQ von 130 nur SO SELTEN BLOEDE sein??
4998     >
4999     > Norbert ist nicht selten blöde...
5000    
5001     :-)
5002     %%
5003     SAT 1 Teletext: Ein Asteroid mit einem Durchmesser von fast einem Kilometer
5004     rast mit großer Geschwindigkeit auf die Erde zu. US-Astronomen befürchten:
5005     "XF11" könnte im Jahr 2028 auf der Erde einschlagen. Die Folgen wären
5006     verheerend. "Der rasende Stein aus dem All ist eine Gefahr", warnt Jack G.
5007     Hills vom US-Kernforschungszentrum Los Alamos: "Wenn er die Erde trifft,
5008     wird er die Sprengkraft von 320.000 Megatonnen Dynamit haben." Das
5009     entspricht dem Zweimillionenfachen der Atombombe...
5010    
5011     ARD/ZDF Teletext: ASTEROID MIT KURS AUF ERDE ENTDECKT Amerikanische
5012     Astronomen haben einen Asteroiden ausgemacht, der in 30 Jahren der Erde
5013     gefährlich nahekommen wird. Die Gefahr, daß der Asteroid einschlagen wird,
5014     sei gering, aber auch nicht völlig auszuschließen. Nach derzeitigen
5015     Berechnungen wird der Asteroid mit der Bezeichnung "1997 XF11" am 26.Oktober
5016     2028 unserem Planeten am nächsten kommen. "1997 XF11" hat etwa einen
5017     Durchmesser von 1,6 Kilometern. Erstmals käme ein Objekt dieser Größe der
5018     Erde so nahe, hieß es in dem Bericht der Internationalen Astronomischen
5019     Union.
5020    
5021     RTL Teletext: Himmelskörper rast auf Erde zu Ein Asteroid wird im Jahr 2028
5022     der Erde gefährlich nahe kommen. Amerikanische Wissenschaftler haben die
5023     Chance eines Zusammenpralls auf eins zu tausend berechnet. Sollte der
5024     Asteroid, der einen Durchmesser von 1,8 Kilometern hat, aufprallen, könnte
5025     er eine gigantische Flutwelle auslösen, so die Forscher. Auch ein genaues
5026     Datum haben die Wissenschaftler schon errechnet: Von Europa aus wäre das
5027     Naturschauspiel am 26. Oktober 2028 zu beobachten.
5028     %%
5029     * Linux Viruscan.....
5030     Windows 95 Found Remove it ? (Y/y)
5031     %%
5032     >>Hmm, welche Behauptungen entsprechen denn deiner Meinung nach der
5033     >>Realität?
5034     >>
5035     >>Das es das FBI wirklich gibt?
5036     >>Das Scully frigide ist, und deshalb mit Mulder nichts anfangen möchte?
5037     >>Das Mulder homosexuell ist, und deshalb mit Scully nichts anfangen möchte?
5038     >>Das der CSM einen Vertrag mit Marlb*ro hat?
5039     >
5040     >Hinter diesen "Fragen" erkenne ich z.B. eine gut bekannte Strategie. Die
5041     >FBI-Frage ist bewusst absurd. Das Abgleiten ins Sexuelle hat ebenfalls
5042     %%
5043     "'You're a Cirrus. You're crap. I'm an S3. I rule. Thank you and please drive through.'"
5044     %%
5045     > How could you have perl take a set of numbers (1,2,3,4) and put them
5046     > into a random order???
5047     >
5048    
5049     @array=qw(1 2 3 4);
5050     print "@array[1,3,2,0]\n";
5051    
5052     I've checked this against other possible random orderings
5053     of these numbers, and this ordering is at least as random as
5054     any of the other possible ones. The benefit of this one being
5055     that it begins with the number 2, which is my favorite random
5056     number less than 42.
5057     %%
5058     From what I am reading Win98 and NT5.0 will be getting rid of all that
5059     crap anyway. Seems that Microsoft has invented something called TCP/IP and
5060     another really revolutionary concept called DNS that eliminates the
5061     netbios crap too. All that arping from browsers is going to go away.
5062     I also hear rumors that they are on the verge of breakthrough discoveries
5063     called NFS, and LPD too. Given enough time and money, they might
5064     eventually invent Unix.
5065     %%
5066     In Germany, where typeface design has always been a significant part of
5067     the cultural heritage, and where typefounding has remained an important
5068     business, there are more than one kind of copyright-like protections for
5069     typefaces. Certain long-standing industrial design protection laws have
5070     been used to protect typeface designs in litigation over royalties and
5071     plagiarisms. Further, there is a recent law, the so-called
5072     "Schriftzeichengesetz" enacted in 1981, that specifically protects
5073     typeface designs. New designs are registered, as is done with
5074     copyright in most countries. This law only protects new, original
5075     designs. It is available to non-German designers and firms. Therefore,
5076     some type firms and designers routinely copyright new designs in West
5077     Germany. This gives a degree of protection for products marketed in
5078     Germany. Since multinational corporations may find it cheaper to
5079     license a design for world-wide use rather than deal with a special case
5080     in one country, the German law does encourage licensing on a broader
5081     scale than would initially seem to be the case.
5082     %%
5083     [linux processes vs. nt/solaris threads]
5084     Rob Pike pointed out that the solution to slow process creation is
5085     faster process creation, not another kernel abstraction.
5086     %%
5087     Does anybody know how to communicate between a PC and a modem,
5088     using a Perl CGI script?
5089     %%
5090     >I really don't know crap about PERL. How is it different from JAVA?
5091    
5092     One tiny difference: Java can crash your browser. It happened to me last
5093     week.
5094     %%
5095     Brieweb> I heard Randal Schwartz say he could write an entire httpd server in 90 lines
5096     Brieweb> of PERL.
5097     No, that's an http *proxy* server. A simple web server is much shorter.
5098     From "perldoc HTTP::Daemon"...
5099     [Randal Schwartz]
5100     %%
5101     But the possibility of abuse may be a good reason for leaving
5102     capabilities out of other computer languages, it's not a good reason
5103     for leaving capabilities out of Perl.
5104     [Larry Wall in `Macros'. [[perl5-porters]]]
5105     %%
5106     Yes: Java's main advantage over Perl is that it's hard to use for casual
5107     programmers, so keeps all but the most intrepid programmers away from it.
5108     It has no decent support for string processing, allowing you to spend
5109     hours at useless debugging. It has a very restrictive and static system
5110     to make sure you don't try anything interesting. It makes sure that you
5111     use objects, by golly, because James Gosling said so. It's easy for C++
5112     programmers to use, and hard for shell or BASIC programmers to use. It
5113     also only runs on a few systems, locking its customers into a a closed
5114     system and restricting their options.
5115     [Tom Christiansen in `Java Vs. Perl']
5116     %%
5117     <Bill_Gates> Where do you want to go today?
5118     <Phase_5> Where do go tomorrow?
5119     <BlueFlux> Where were you yesterday?!?!
5120     %%
5121     "It's not to control, but to protect the citizens of Singapore. In our
5122     society, you can state your views, but they have to be correct."
5123     Ernie Hai
5124     Coordinator of Singapore Government Internet Project
5125     %%
5126     : I very much prefer a useful error message than a "it produced the wrong
5127     : results" report from the users.
5128    
5129     if i got even "it produced the wrong results" from our users, i would
5130     be in 7th heaven. ours often mail us with such insightful requests as
5131     "can you tell me my email address?" no, sorry, that should be "CAN U
5132     TEL ME MY E MAIL ADRES DUDE?!!!?? HURRY!!!"
5133     %%
5134     There are many intelligent species in the Universe.
5135     They are all owned by cats.
5136     %%
5137     Why dignify your unsustainable, unjustifiable, unprovable feeble
5138     attempts at character assassination with anything resembling a reply?
5139     You only make yourself look foolish by mouthing off like that.
5140     %%
5141     From: L & K Olson <kolson@mbnet.mb.ca>
5142     Subject: If they wrote error messages in haiku ...
5143    
5144     Yesterday it worked
5145     Today it is not working
5146     Windows is like that
5147     - - -
5148     wind catches lily
5149     scatt'ring petals to the wind:
5150     segmentation fault
5151     - - -
5152     Three things are certain:
5153     Death, taxes, and lost data.
5154     Guess which has occurred.
5155     - - -
5156     A file that big?
5157     It might be very useful.
5158     But now it is gone.
5159     - - -
5160     Windows NT crashed.
5161     I am the Blue Screen of Death.
5162     No one hears your screams.
5163     - - -
5164     Errors have occurred.
5165     We won't tell you where or why.
5166     Lazy programmers.
5167     - - -
5168     Seeing my great fault
5169     Through darkening blue windows
5170     I begin again
5171     - - -
5172     The code was willing,
5173     It considered your request,
5174     But the chips were weak.
5175     - - -
5176     Printer not ready.
5177     Could be a fatal error.
5178     Have a pen handy?
5179     - - -
5180     Server's poor response
5181     Not quick enough for browser.
5182     Timed out, plum blossom.
5183     - - -
5184     Chaos reigns within.
5185     Reflect, repent, and reboot.
5186     Order shall return.
5187     - - -
5188     Login incorrect.
5189     Only perfect spellers may
5190     enter this system.
5191     - - -
5192     This site has been moved.
5193     We'd tell you where, but then we'd
5194     have to delete you.
5195     - - -
5196     ABORTED effort:
5197     Close all that you have.
5198     You ask way too much.
5199     - - -
5200     First snow, then silence.
5201     This thousand dollar screen dies
5202     so beautifully.
5203     - - -
5204     With searching comes loss
5205     and the presence of absence:
5206     "My Novel" not found.
5207     - - -
5208     The Tao that is seen
5209     Is not the true Tao, until
5210     You bring fresh toner.
5211     - - -
5212     The Web site you seek
5213     cannot be located but
5214     endless others exist
5215     - - -
5216     Stay the patient course
5217     Of little worth is your ire
5218     The network is down
5219     - - -
5220     A crash reduces
5221     your expensive computer
5222     to a simple stone.
5223     - - -
5224     There is a chasm
5225     of carbon and silicon
5226     the software can't bridge
5227     - - -
5228     To have no errors
5229     Would be life without meaning
5230     No struggle, no joy
5231     - - -
5232     You step in the stream,
5233     but the water has moved on.
5234     This page is not here.
5235     - - -
5236     No keyboard present
5237     Hit F1 to continue
5238     Zen engineering?
5239     - - -
5240     Hal, open the file
5241     Hal, open the damn file, Hal
5242     open it, please Hal
5243     - - -
5244     Out of memory.
5245     We wish to hold the whole sky,
5246     But we never will.
5247     - - -
5248     Having been erased,
5249     The document you're seeking
5250     Must now be retyped.
5251     - - -
5252     The ten thousand things
5253     How long do any persist?
5254     Netscape, too, has gone.
5255     - - -
5256     Rather than a beep
5257     Or a rude error message,
5258     These words: "File not found."
5259     - - -
5260     Serious error.
5261     All shortcuts have disappeared
5262     Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
5263     %%
5264     "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way
5265     to factor large prime numbers." -- Bill Gates from "The Road Ahead," p. 265.
5266     %%
5267     > What is the Windows equivalent of the first line used for
5268     > UNIX (#!/usr/local/bin/perl) that tells where the Perl interpreter is?
5269    
5270     Windows hasn't gotten quite as far in functionality as, say, BSD Unix in the
5271     early 1980s.
5272     %%
5273     > I have a chat script, that will work fine for a bit then after a while
5274     > the private messages will stop working. It might be because I changed
5275     > something, but chances are that isn't the case. I re-install a fresh
5276     > copy, paths are correct, and they still don't work
5277    
5278     I think you are experiencing GOVERNMENT CONTROL. You see, everyone
5279     with a chat script is being scrutinised by the department of CHAT
5280     control. Whenever they see some message they don't like, they
5281     introduce some little goblin called feature-creep in your program. if
5282     you have lots of these little devils, your program migth acquire so
5283     many new features that it just stops working.
5284    
5285     This also applies to Microsoft products.
5286    
5287     > Does it make sense for certain features to just not work?! If you can
5288     > help, or have suggestions, get back to me, PLEASE:)
5289    
5290     Yes, it makes perfect sense. Especially if they're features which
5291     really are bugs. And especially if they're 'private' messages. You
5292     know perfectly well that the government doesn't like private messages.
5293    
5294     Hope this explains what's going on
5295     Martien Verbruggen
5296     %%
5297     ...code? If you're on a misconfigured NT server (is that redundant?), you...
5298     %%
5299     X11R6.1-based free X server compiles, links and crashes under IRIX(TM).
5300     %%
5301     -------------- please bite here ------------- bitte hier abbeissen ---------
5302     %%
5303     "Frag mal, auf was fuer uptimes man kommt, wenn man Software-Entwicklung
5304     unter NT macht..." "Das koennen bis zu dreissig Minuten werden - in der
5305     Mittagspause." -- Andreas Bogk, Kai Fett, de.alt.sysadmin.recovery
5306     %%
5307     > ++ A lot of posters here have .sigs that include perl one liners.
5308     > ++ Is there a safe way to run them, and be assured that they wont
5309     > ++ damage and/or erase files? (or e-mail off my shadow file)
5310     >
5311     > Just make sure you understand it ;)
5312    
5313     I nominate Abigail for best response of the year with this one. Come to
5314     think of it, I nominate it for best response of next year, too.
5315     %%
5316     Your moderator will be spending the next week on a beach on a small island
5317     where the phones don't work very well, so there won't be any comp.compilers
5318     until the 28th. Any messages you send in will wait here until I get back and
5319     should be posted on March 1st or 2nd.
5320     %%
5321     But now, in comp.lang.perl.misc, you have a bunch of people who aren't
5322     even asking how to make the pieces fit together, but what the
5323     individual pieces are. ("How do I get my lego project to roll accross
5324     the table?" "You use one of those pieces that have the wheels
5325     attached.") Or questions that aren't about building at all. ("The
5326     motor stopped moving. How do I get it to start again?" "The batteries
5327     are probably dead. You can buy new batteries at any department or
5328     convienience store.")
5329     %%
5330     : how do i make my perl script run?
5331     Get up at 91 minutes before dawn, clothe yourself in neon green body
5332     %%
5333     for some reason Windoze users don't seem to expect docs to come with an archive
5334     %%> ToiLeTGoD
5335    
5336     Well, well.. I always wondered who/what made that flush thingy work.
5337     Pretty cool name, dude. (not)
5338     %%
5339     Ummm...create "comp.lang.perl.wizards", make it moderated and all posts,
5340     including xposts, go into /dev/null. Most FAQers won't have the Usenet
5341     background to understand that such groups are either a) a wasteland
5342     populated (briefly) by persons like themselves, or b) point to /dev/null.
5343     %%
5344     Lazy people never bother to actually read the manual. Instead they (like
5345     kids) pick something with big, colorful buttons.
5346     -- Eugene Tyurin <gene@insti.physics.sunysb.edu>
5347     %%
5348     The Average Person's Axioms of First Order Predicate Logic:
5349     (A => B) => (B => A)
5350     (There exists) x A(x) => (For all) x A(x)
5351     (A => C) & (B => C) => (A => B) - Warren Vonroeschlaub
5352     %%
5353     cal 9 1752
5354     %%
5355     Installing unix fixes the [VMS] bug.
5356     -Barry Shein
5357     %%
5358     And this horrible free-for-all will be left to children wondering around
5359     by themselves in the dark because they refuse to turn on the light and
5360     read the manual.
5361     %%
5362     "SPARC" is "CRAPS" backwards --Rob Pike
5363     %%
5364     I increasingly begin to understand why some universities require
5365     that its compsci majors study the Euclid's Prime Number Theorem,
5366     the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, Cantor's Diagonalization Proof,
5367     Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem, and the ramifications of Halting Problem
5368     in everyday life. These may not be involved in daily programming, but
5369     it helps develop a rigorous mind. And it gives those who would progress
5370     from typist to word-processor devotee to HTML documenter to CGI scripter
5371     to distributed multithreaded operating systems design specialist cause
5372     for pause. You just can't do that without proper training.
5373     %%
5374     comp.lang.perl.i'm-from-microsoft-so-won't-read-documentation
5375     %%
5376     I suggest you install a newsserver, and keep a local spool. Anything else
5377     is too much work, and fairly silly. The Internet has catupulted even
5378     the Wintel victims past the days of BBS toys.
5379     %%
5380     > Help help! Pls advise me thru email.
5381    
5382     I advise you to buy a new keyboard; one that has all the keys you
5383     need.
5384     %%
5385     Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely
5386     powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is
5387     deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.
5388     %%
5389     I find the first particularly useful in destroying the miswrapped
5390     lines stemming from brain-damaged "it's just another word processor"
5391     newsreaders. You know,
5392     those postings that always seem to go to the edge of the line and then
5393     back
5394     again to the start, as this paragraph has. These are just too painful
5395     to read. Just kill them. It's not worth your time trying to figure
5396     out what they're saying.
5397     %%
5398     It is most annoying to receive junk mail describing how to purchase 93
5399     million addresses, while knowing that yours is one of them.
5400     %%
5401     I'm surprised Tom, how could it miss the "X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (WinNT;
5402     U)" header line? Personally, I find the attempted use of Netscape as a
5403     newsreader even worse then the attempted use of WinNT as an OS. :-)
5404    
5405     But the combination.... *sutters*
5406     %%
5407     Hm... my new killfile isn't detecting you're posting from Windows.
5408     Darn it.
5409     %%
5410     At least he didn't post in all caps.
5411     %%
5412     http://language.perl.com/CPAN-local/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
5413     %%
5414     I think the biggest problem with M.S.A. is that the scripts work for Matt, but
5415     the majority of people trying to use them are from the
5416     "Wintel/AOL/FrontPage/push-a-button/HTML-is-programming/no-programming-required"
5417     school of non-learning. It isn't a problem with the code, per se, but with those
5418     trying to use it.
5419     %%
5420     "Linux can emulate an C64 on my AMDK6PR200 at full speed. Windows can't."
5421     %%
5422     cdog wrote:
5423     >
5424     > Is this group active?
5425     No.
5426    
5427     If you had spent half a second LOOKING at the group before posting, you
5428     probably could have come to that conclusion yourself.
5429    
5430     On a personal note, I died 3 years, 8 days, 5 minutes, 16 seconds, and
5431     345 milliseconds ago, but who's counting.
5432     %%
5433     "Security through obscurity is no security at all."
5434     -comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup posting
5435     %%
5436     "Windows 95 will now attempt to blow chunks across your primary partition.
5437     Press any key to continue..."
5438     %%
5439     NT 5.0 is the last nail in the Unix coffin. Interestingly, Unix
5440     isn't in the coffin... It's wondering what the heck is sealing
5441     itself into a wooden box 6 feet underground...
5442     %%
5443     The Wall St Journal (1996-01-22, page 1) reported that Cuba is
5444     considering jumping across the International Date Line, just so that
5445     it's the first into the year 2000. So it's possible you'll have to
5446     adjust your travel plans.
5447     %%
5448     "Wo kämen wir hin, wenn alle sagten, wo kämen wir hin, und niemand ginge
5449     hin, um einmal zu schauen, wohin man käme, wenn man ginge." -- Kurt Marti
5450     %%
5451     The Takeuchi function is a popular benchmark of function calling due to its
5452     highly recursive nature. It's defined as:
5453    
5454     tak x y z = z, if y >= x
5455     = tak (tak (x-1) y z) (tak (y - 1) z x) (tak (z - 1) x y), otherwise
5456    
5457     For this benchmark, the function is invoked as:
5458    
5459     tak 18 12 6
5460     %%
5461     "Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!"
5462     -- Bill Gates
5463     "Windows 95 needs at least 8 MB RAM."
5464     -- Bill Gates
5465     "Nobody will ever need Windows 95."
5466     -- logical conclusion
5467     %%
5468     Year Name James Bond Book
5469     - ---- -------------------------------- -------------- ----
5470     50's James Bond TV Series Barry Nelson
5471     1962 Dr. No Sean Connery 1958
5472     1963 From Russia With Love Sean Connery 1957
5473     1964 Goldfinger Sean Connery 1959
5474     1965 Thunderball Sean Connery 1961
5475     1967* Casino Royale David Niven 1954
5476     1967 You Only Live Twice Sean Connery 1964
5477     1969 On Her Majesty's Secret Service George Lazenby 1963
5478     1971 Diamonds Are Forever Sean Connery 1956
5479     1973 Live And Let Die Roger Moore 1955
5480     1974 The Man With The Golden Gun Roger Moore 1965
5481     1977 The Spy Who Loved Me Roger Moore 1962 (novelette)
5482     1979 Moonraker Roger Moore 1955
5483     1981 For Your Eyes Only Roger Moore 1960 (novelette)
5484     1983 Octopussy Roger Moore 1965
5485     1983* Never Say Never Again Sean Connery
5486     1985 A View To A Kill Roger Moore 1960 (novelette)
5487     1987 The Living Daylights Timothy Dalton 1965 (novelette)
5488     * -- Not a Broccoli production.
5489     %%
5490     Windows NT: n.
5491     32-bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16-bit patch to an 8-bit
5492     operating system originally coded for a 4-bit microprocessor, written
5493     by a 2-bit company that can't stand for 1 bit of competition.
5494     %%
5495     Auf der Kiste läuft EHNIX, das ist ZUNIX kompatibel.