1. Security, security, security: Windows XP Service Pack 2 patched a lot of holes, but Vista takes security to the next level.

So, instead of a wide open door with a 'PLEASE ROB ME!!!" sign taped to it, they've half closed the door and put up a sign that says "ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, I WOULD PREFER THAT YOU NOT STEAL ALL MY BELONGINGS, IF THAT'S OK WITH YOU."

When your starting from the gutter, the "next level" is only the curb.

i playd vidoe games all way thru hi scooll, and i faled a lota clases, and my parents kiked me out of home, but now even in my old age of 32 i feel yung @ haeart. so... i think they r ryte.. i thank vid. games for ervrything i have.. my gf i met on hallo xbox online, my dog (but ive been layuing lots of vid. games lately and i dont know hwhere he is), and my fun job @ teh bowling allie.

long liv vid. gamnes!@ keeping us yung 4 ever!

There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals Chuck Norris has allowed to live....

I can't help but think how such complex actions are being controlled by so few neurons.

I wonder the same thing about my coworkers every day...

PHB: A good manager is someone who hires people who are smarter than he is.

Wally: So... your boss is dumber than you?

Alice: And you boss's boss is dumber yet?

Dilbert: According to your theory, our CEO is the dumbest person in the company.

Wally: Unless all of you are bad managers.

Asok: Truly we are doomed either way.

PHB: This concludes the motivational part of the meeting.

Wally: I'd give you a high five but I don't like to move.

Math is wonderful. You can basically create formulas that may or may not have any basis in reality. This is why in addition to in addition to mathematician we have experimental physicists who whack the mathematician on the snout

Reminds me...

A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were all taken to a farm and asked to build the best fence - the fence had to encompass the largest amount of area, with the smallest perimeter.

The engineer said - "That's easy - you make a circle!"

The physicist said - "No, you have the fence section encompass the diameter of the earth, that way you get more area because of the third dimension."

The mathematician ran over to a pile of fence sections, picked up three small ones and arranged them around himself to create a tiny enclosure - then said "I am on the outside!"

YOUR IP ADDRESS IS 62.254.0.48 AND HAS BEEN LOGGED.
Don't think you can't get caught. You are not anonymous.

Hmmmm. I hope that they try to 'catch' me from this IP address. Especially as it is one of the transparent proxies of my ISP which is located in a seperate city to the one I reside in. To give them a fighting chance of 'catching' me, my name is David Smith, I was born in Lancashire in the 1970's, I'm 6'0" tall, I have long dark brown hair and a beard, I'm slightly overweigh because of Christmas (yeah right) but most importantly I'm not scared of rudimentary, ill-thought-out script gimmicks from another continent.

I'll expect the black helicopters to descend on me later today then...

STEEE-RIKE!!!

sarcasm -------->
        O
       -|-
        |
       / \
       you

Very often, people asking me for technical help have problems that refuse to manifest themselves when I am present.

Lots of people in IT find this. Generally, it's because most vaguely complicated electronics is sufficiently sentient to know when it's in the presence of a Higher Power, and that it Must Obey.

Fortunately, they're not that sentient. I have found an extremely good way to maintain system reliability is to place a photo of myself in the server room.

well, exactly that is the point. there's a little 007 in every real british man :-)

Where british men store their action figures is their own business...

What nonsense! I need a comment us old folks would understand, something that doesn't assume dependence on fads like TCP.

Remember how back in the olden days you'd buy a game and take the floppies to school to trade with your friends? In exchange for your copy of Wing Commander, you'd be allowed to copy everyone else's floppy disks for your 286. Now, imagine if your friend was an Amiga user, and was always bragging about how he had fancy midi sound and better than CGA graphics. So one day, you go over to his house and when he's not looking you shove a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in his floppy drive, and tell him his little brother did it. Where was I going with this story? You damn kids get off my lawn.

The real story here is that they got a Webcam AND a sound card working under Linux...on the same box.

This is an interesting question. What kind of programming languages will a klingon develop. But I think that I want to examine the character of a klingon programmer (from the internet, original attribution lost):

Klingon Programmer
Top 20 things likely to be overheard if you had a Klingon Programmer:

1. Defensive programming? Never! Klingon programs are always on the offense. Yes, offensive programming is what we do best.
2. Specifications are for the weak and timid!
3. This machine is GAGH! I need dual Pentium processors if I am to do battle with this code!
4. You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the original Klingon.
5. Indentation?! - I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!
6. What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.
7. Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments' -- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
8. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
9. I have challenged the entire ISO-9000 quality assurance team to a Bat-Leth contest on the holodeck. They will not concern us again.
10. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!
11. By filing this bug report you have challenged the honor of my family. Prepare to die!
12. You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!
13. Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
14. Our competitors are without honor!
15. Python? That is for children. A Klingon Warrior uses only machine code, keyed in on the front panel switches in raw binary.
16. Klingon programs don't do accountancy. For that, you need a Ferengi.
17. Klingon multitasking systems do not support "time-sharing". When a Klingon program wants to run, it challenges the scheduler in hand-to-hand combat and owns the machine.
18. Perhaps it IS a good day to die! I say we ship it!
19. My program has just dumped Stova Core!
20. Behold, the keyboard of Kalis! The greatest Klingon code warrior that ever lived!

Yeah, I can see why too:

Dubya: we need to kill Hubble. We have more, erhm.., pressing needs for money
Hubble astronomers: No wait! We found another Pluto moon !
NASA: come on, we can't kill the thing, it's useful
Dubya: hmm, I dunno...
Astronomers: Wait! wait! anOTHER moon!!
NASA: Wow
Dubya: stop that...
Astronomers: Hold on... HOLY CRAP, TEN MORE MOONS! and a black hole inside Jupiter too!!!
Dubya: We're closing guys, you need to go home now...
Astronomers: NO REALLY! LOOK! ALL THESE MOONS!!! ...

But Steve Ballmer can bury anyone he wants! Steve Ballmer throws chairs all the time and doesn't even think twice about it. This guy is so crazy and awesome that he flips out ALL the time. I heard that Steve Ballmer was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon Steve Ballmer buried the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw Steve Ballmer totally throw a chair at some kid just because the kid opened a window.

And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I still use "vi" everywhere... but I suspect emacs would do a better job."

Whoa! A self-confessed vi user suggesting that emacs may be better at some things? Clearly this one has had his mind tainted. Burn him alive before the infection spreads!

Vimi, vidi, vici

I'll leave the translation up to you.

it's like indexing a litter box, turd by turd.

It does seem to give an excellent insight into the blog communities.

Search for: "interesting and well constructed points of view" [google.com]
--- 0 Results found

Search for: "whining" [google.com]
--- 99,051 Results found

Oh the poor T.Rex...gone from being the most powerful and vicious creature imaginable - chasing down jeeps and eating lawyers and shaking the ground as it runs...then we hear that if it ran at more than 8 mph, it would fall over...then that if it ever did fall over, it couldn't get back up again...then they told us that it was merely a scavenger and not a hunter at all.

AND NOW IT LOOKS LIKE A GIANT, FLUFFY YELLOW CHICK?!?

Nooooo!

T.Rex's had laser eyes, breathed fire and had enormous leathery batlike wings that don't show up in the fossil record because they were shed every year to grow new ones. They could run at 80mph and ate several Diploducus for breakfast every morning before having violent terratorial disputes that took up the rest of their days. At night they tracked down and ate cavemen. Their advanced (but brutal and inhumane) society dominated the earth for 20 million years and was only brought down by alien civilisations hurling giant flaming meteors at them from the safe distance of the Kyper belt.

OK - maybe I lost a bit of scientific detachment there - but..*REALLY*.

Steve Ballmer can kill anyone he wants! Steve Ballmer throws chairs ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. This guy is so crazy and awesome that he flips out ALL the time. I heard that Steve Ballmer was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon Ballmer killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw Steve Ballmer totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.

And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sigh
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
        Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
        Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
        You're right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
        Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
        In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
        A cup o' cold tea.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
        Without milk or sugar.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
        Or tea.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
        In a cracked cup, an' all.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
        Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
        The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
        But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
        Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
        Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
        Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
        I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
        House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
        Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
        Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
        Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
        We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
        You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
        Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
        Aye.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
        You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
        Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
        Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
        Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
        And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

Whine whine whine bitch bitch whine moan bitch
whine whine bitch moan moan bitch whine whine
moan bitch moan moan moan Whine whine whine bitch
bitch whine moan bitch whine whine bitch moan
moan bitch whine whine moan bitch Whine whine
whine bitch bitch whine moan bitch whine bitch
bitch whine bitch moan moan bitch whine whine moan
bitch bitch bitch Whine whine whine bitch bitch
whine moan bitch whine whine bitch moan moan bitch
whine whine moan bitch god I had the brits moan
moan bitch whine moan bitch those bloody brits
moan bitch whine

And then I had to actually call up and ask about the line! The nerve of it...

whine moan bitch moan bitch whine whine moan bitch

Software is released that someone has obviously put a lot of time and effort into, and within five minutes of the story on /. someone's posted torrent links.

What is it with you people???

You make me sick.

And you have the nerve to submit articles to Slashdot?

Excuse the capitalisation, but there are two parts of the world that have these sorts of problems.

1. Nutbag developing world theocracies: Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia
2. The United States of America

I would say on recent form I would rather have my education system run by the average developing nation than the USA. At least the China-Japan textbook dispute, for example, is easily understood in terms of racial and historical tensions. They're not, for example, trying outlaw logic and reason.

Seriously guys. The joke's over. OVER. We're all getting very, very afraid of you. I'm starting to be a lot more comfortable with the notion that China and India may soon be superpowers. I'm actually *glad* Russia still has a massive arsenal of nukes: Putin may be a dictator-by-proxy, but AT LEAST HE'S NOT INSANE.

Since the end of the Clinton era:
- fundamentalists have begun winding back your education system to around the 700-800AD mark
- 'faith based' programs have become legitimate government policy
- it has become abundantly clear that the Whitehouse is controlled by a man who does not understand science but does fervently believe in a very particular type of capital-G God
- you have waged war on two moslem nations
- religious voters have become the dominant force in national US politics
- Americans have apparently accepted on faith the ridiculous argument that there is 'no evidence' of global warming
- America has closer ties to other religious-fundamentalist states (e.g. Israel, Saudi Arabia) than it's secular, liberal-democratic former allies in 'old europe'

Now all this would be fine, except that the religious nutcases that seem to have taken over your country are made incredibly powerful by... why yes, by SCIENCE. That logical, agnostic, provable, testable system we all know and love. Well, those of us outside the US know and love, anyway. SCIENCE has made you rich. SCIENCE has made you powerful. SCIENCE has, unfortunately, given you the weapons to destroy the entire world or precisely targetted bits thereof at the press of a button. Could stealth bombers fly from Missouri to any point on the globe and deliver laser guided bombs based on the teachings of Christ? Why, no - that would be SCIENCE we have to thank for that.

Let us take, as a comparison, Italy. A very religious country, by all accounts, rabid devotion to the Vatican, everyone in sight attending church regularly. Yet the Pope effectively outlaws contraception, but Italy's birth rate is startlingly low. Why? Perhaps Italians are so religious that they really do what they're told? Or perhaps Italians are religious but they understand the difference between faith and allegory on the one hand, and logic and reason on the other. They're not noted for their chaste ways, in any event, and I'm sure Durex and Ansell make hefty sales over there.

So how about we cut a deal? I'll even give you two choices.

1. You let your country go back to theocratic-totalitarianism, by all means. Hound down anyone who uses logic and reason to explain the world. Only, hand over everything that's been developed with science before you do so. Give up all those wonder drugs, all your DVD players that allow you to watch 'The Passion of the Christ', all your giant auditoriums with 100 metre high video screens where you go along to sing your Christian songs. We'll look after them in 'old europe' and the antipodes if you like, and you can burn each other at the stake until the cows come home (only the cows will probably be dead because you rely on science for farming these days).

2. You forget the dogmatic crap and listen to the parts of the bible that actually matter, such as *turn the other f***ing cheek, *do unto others, *beams and motes, *the good samaritan, *the F***ING MONEYLENDERS IN THE TEMPLE YOU STUPID F***S. F*************K!!!!!!!!!

And if you're not a religious nutcase but you are in the U.S., don't f***ing apologise. DO SOMETHING. You are to blame for letting these rabid fundamentalists take over. YOU have to stop them.

Ok, I'll now be modded into oblivion, but I feel slightly better.

####THIS POST BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE WONDERS OF SCIENCE####

I just RTFA, and nowhere did it say how what percentage was approved vs. rejected.

George Bush... is that you?

Did you really read it?

Huh?

Even the first paragraph?

The number of court-authorized wiretaps jumped 19 percent last year as investigators pursued drug and other cases against increasingly tech-savvy suspects. Every surveillance request made by authorities was granted.

See the last sentence? That would be what we call a "word problem".

It goes something like this:

Every WMD in Iraq was destroyed, how many are left?
a) none of them
b) all of them
c) I'm invading anyway
d) all the above

I was recently reading through some code I wrote ages ago and hadn't looked at in years, and wondering...dear god, what's this confused mess trying to do?

Imagine my relief when I came upon a helpful comment:

What the hell was I thinking when I wrote this?

All it took was one comment to put my mind to rest: no, it's not just me being stupid in the present. This code seemed this terrible back then, too.

Comments save the day once again.

This has the makings of a train wreck.

An unfortunate choice of words, considering what happened in Japan...

You're right. Let's begin using more sensitive terms for such things and then we won't have to check the news every day for disasters before we open our thoughtless mouths.

"Train wreck" could be "rail transport guidance mishap (RTGM)"

"Plane crash" could be "aeronautic ground avoidance exception (AGAE)"

"Tsunami" could be "exceptional aquatic waveform event (EAWE)"

"Earthquake" could be "sudden geological tension release event (SGTRE)"

"Flood" could be "unexpected hydrological intrusion (UHI)"

"Fire" could be "unwanted thermological surge cause by excessively rapid oxdidation of ambient combustibles (UTSCBEROOAC or UTSCEROAC)"

"Atomic attack" coule be "aggressive chain reaction event unfortunately proximate to valuable life or property (ACREUPTVLOP or ACREUPVLP)"

"Heart attack" could be "biogenic oxidant supply chain problem resulting in catastrophic system pump failure (BOSCPRICSPF)"

"Vomit" could be "retrograde migration of partially processed biological fuel mixture (RMOPPBFM or RMPPBFM)"

By using the abbreviations we could all pretend that nothing ugly happens or exists. "Hey, be careful with that! You could have a BOSCPRICSPF!" "What the f*** did you call me, p***brain?"

Two groups of test subjects. Tell Group A the usual story, some people are getting placebos while others are getting the real thing and no one knows who's who. Tell group B everyone's getting a placebo. Give everyone placebos, and see if the pills being taken by group A have any effect.
~
Also get Group C and tell them they are all getting placebos and give them the real pills and get Group D and tell them they are all getting the real pills and give them placebos. With Group A, the patients will have some uncertainty about what they are getting and that may affect the effect.

Then get Group E and tell them they are getting real placebos and give them random pills and then get Groups F through J and give them pills on the second Tuesday of every month and tell them you're uncertain about what the pills are and then get Group K to distribute fake placebos, real placebos and small slices of toast to Groups A, D and G respectively and then tell Group L they're not needed and should just take whatever pills they find at home or on the street. This ensures that Groups B, C, E and J but not C know what they're taking but not really and that people in Group A will think they're in Group D.

We're basically now arresting and locking up stupid people. Maybe this is a good trend

Only if we also castrate them so that they can't breed and make MORE stupid people. Locking people up is a bad idea in general, because you have to then worry about feeding them, sheltering them, etc. Wouldn't it be much better to just kill them outright?

My solution to the prison problem in the US: Stop locking people up locally- instead just put up a big fence around Texas, and let's send all of our criminals there, like the British used to do with Australia. Give them NOTHING. Let them kill each other and steal from each other and defraud each other and shoot lasers at each other as much as they want- I would volunteer to sit on the other side of the fence and shoot anyone who tries to get across. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would proudly serve his country this way.

And all the people who already live in Texas? Well, life's a bitch sometimes, ain't it? Stay on your side of the fence.

After several generations, perhaps Texas could transform itself from the barren wasteland and breeding ground of theives and traitors that it is today into a nation of proud citizens, working for the good of the world, just like Australia. And if that doesn't work, we can just salt the earth, pave the whole state and use it as a parking lot for Mexico.

That is somebody from the province of friesland. To translate to an american, think inbred right-wing religious freak hillbilly from the deepest south. Very little is known about friesland wich has its own langauge wich isn't related to any known language. (goverment tv transmits some programs in fries. It is rather telling that they always seem to be about farming and have at least one interviewy with his/her arms up a cow) If your a foreign visitor and you find yourselve stuck on the "afsluitdijk" heading east from Amsterdam STOP AND TURN BACK. On no account head on. They eat people there.

Sometimes some of the fries make it west accross the "afsluitdijk" and cause havoc in Amsterdam before they are beaten up by the locals. If you ever see a fight in Amsterdam it is always a farmer from friesland or it close relative groningen.

Every country got parts it ain't proud off. Americans got the bible belt. The united kingdom got wales. Germany got all off germany and The Netherlands got friesland. We are still trying to convince them to start a war of independence.

How do you install adware in debian? I tried apt-get install virus, apt-get install adware, apt-get install malware, nothing works. man, linux is crap

I worked at a popular tourist attraction in Vancouver BC for 7 years, and the worst by far were American tourists, mostly in matters about Canadian currency. Examples:

1) An american guy holds out four 5 dollar bills. There is a giant five on it. It plainly says "Five Dollars" on every bill. The guy asks me how much money he has. I tell him to just look at the bill (is that too much to ask?) but he replies defensively that he's not "from here". Guess his eyes malfunction in other countries.

2) Hundreds of times (yes, literally it happens so often that we were almost accustomed to it) US americans would walk up to the prices board and ask if the prices were in US dollars. I would say no, and their response is infallibly always "why not?". I once lost my patience and answered "because you're in another country now". The supervisors understood. I mean, for f***'s sakes man, what an dumb-ass/arrogant question.

3) Some US tourists are more worldly and realize that the rest of the world doesn't use US dollars. Unfortunately, they often walk up and ask "do you guys take normal money?" We had no idea what they were talking about at first. When we understood what they meant, we were pretty surprised and disgusted at the arrogance of americans.

4) Often, Americans just give US currency and assume that Canada also uses US currency. Usually, we automatically tell them that we'll exchange it for them on the spot and give them their change in Canadian. Typical responses include:

- accusations that i was trying to give them "fake money", sometimes accompanied with a demand for "normal" or "real money". Sometimes this would go far enough that they would demand to see a supervisor. They're used to it too (but we still swear about them when they leave).

- accusations that i short-changed them when they haven't even counted their change, whereupon i'd count it in front of them and they'd just say "well i'm not from here". They don't realiz we have $1 and $2 coins, which is ok, but if you haven't even counted your change yet why accuse me?

- jokes about how we might as well use US dollars anyway because US is "gonna take over soon anyway, right? HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!" Yes yes, maybe these people are just trying to feel secure again after feeling vulnerable for having their ignorance exposed (totally pop-psychology theorizing here), but still, is that a wise thing to say in a foreign country? Could you be any more arrogant?

- Best response: Deer-in-headlights stare. Then "exchange? what are you talking about?". Then, I would have to explain how every country uses a different currency, and how the base unit of each country is not always equivalent in value. All this, while the lineups build and the customer maintains a suspicious squint at me, like I'm just trying to trick them out of their $0.75 in change.

I won't even talk about the other questions, such as "do you speak american?" (it's called "english" you f***tard).

As much as I liked the rest of the job and the hot teenage coworkers, I finally left.

Yes, there are exceptions out there, but overall the stereostype of the arrogant american tourist is pretty damn accurate. Why are so many of you so arrogant? Dont' you wanna go to another country and blend in, make friends, have a good time, experience another lifestyle? What's with this swagger'n bulls*** attitude?

This is your captain, Rat Brain 4023, integrated neural network and my first officer, Rat Brain 4024. We'll be flying at an altitude of 30,000 feet and are expecting a nice smooth ride-- HOLY S*** CHEESE!!! LOOK OVER THERE IT'S CHEESE!!! Ooop, sorry about that, false alarm. We're expecting nice weather in HEY THERE"s A F*ING CAT IN THE CARGO HOLD!!! Eject! Eject! Eject!

Tom Lord sounds like he got his argumentation skills by watching Beavis and Butthead, reading JeffK [slashdot.org], and getting into flame wars with trolls on /.

Q: What's wrong with Subversion?
A: It sucks.
Q: What's wrong with CVS?
A: It sucks.
Q: Can you be more specific about Subversion?
A: Yes. Subversion is teh suck. I realize that's a little inflamatory, so let me say that the sky is blue, dogs are hairy, and Subversion is TEH SUCK, fagg0t!!11
Q: Can you be more specific about CVS?
A: Yes, allow me to be more specific. It sux0rs. Hard. CVS is teh sux0r.
Q: What's good about Arch?
A: It rules. Also, I have a large penis. Fagg0t.

What's wrong with monkeys? I like monkeys.

The pet store was selling them for five cents a piece. I thought that odd since they were normally a couple thousand each. I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I bought 200. I like monkeys.

I took my 200 monkeys home. I have a big car. I let one drive. His name was Sigmund. He was retarded. In fact, none of them were really bright. They kept punching themselves in their genitals. I laughed. Then they punched my genitals. I stopped laughing.

I herded them into my room. They didn't adapt very well to their new environment. They would screech, hurl themselves off of the couch at high speeds and slam into the wall. Although humorous at first, the spectacle lost its novelty halfway into its third hour.

Two hours later I found out why all the monkeys were so inexpensive: they all died. No apparent reason. They all just sorta' dropped dead. Kinda' like when you buy a goldfish and it dies five hours later. Damn cheap monkeys.

I didn't know what to do. There were 200 dead monkeys lying all over my room, on the bed, in the dresser, hanging from my bookcase. It looked like I had 200 throw rugs.

I tried to flush one down the toilet. It didn't work. It got stuck. Then I had one dead, wet monkey and 199 dead, dry monkeys.

I tried pretending that they were just stuffed animals. That worked for a while, that is until they began to decompose. It started to smell real bad.

I had to pee but there was a dead monkey in the toilet and I didn't want to call the plumber. I was embarrassed.

I tried to slow down the decomposition by freezing them. Unfortunately there was only enough room for two monkeys at a time so I had to change them every 30 seconds. I also had to eat all the food in the freezer so it didn't all go bad.

I tried burning them. Little did I know my bed was flammable. I had to extinguish the fire.

Then I had one dead, wet monkey in my toilet, two dead, frozen monkeys in my freezer, and 197 dead, charred monkeys in a pile on my bed. The odor wasn't improving.

I became agitated at my inability to dispose of my monkeys and to use the bathroom. I severely beat one of my monkeys. I felt better.

I tried throwing them way but the garbage man said that the city wasn't allowed to dispose of charred primates. I told him that I had a wet one. He couldn't take that one either. I didn't bother asking about the frozen ones.

I finally arrived at a solution. I gave them out as Christmas gifts. My friends didn't know quite what to say. They pretended that they like them but I could tell they were lying. Ingrates. So I punched them in the genitals.

No. I've seen at least 256k comments on /. that were >= in geekiness to the prior comment. In fact, I wrote a Perl script that can compare comments and return all geekier comments. It summarizes the comparison results as a graph in ASCII art so that you can view them when you ssh to your Linux box. If you would like a copy of the program, please email me in Klingon. I accept payment in Magic The Gathering cards. This comment is published under terms of the Creative Commons Share-Alike License version 2.0.

you can get error messages and such in your native language.

This is so going to suck. If I get an error message that I'm unfamiliar with I'll plug it into google. Even if the hit is in a language I don't understand I can usually work out what a solution to my problem may be by looking at the command sequences posted in replies.

Now I'll lose that ability just because a bunch of whiners (the rest of the world) want error messages in *their* language. That's just not fair, as it doesn't benefit me.

I propose an immediate reversal of the i18n changes introduced into Bash 3.0. Who's with my jingoistic ass?

My main win2k install was actualy done in 2000. None of my other machines have ever been reinstalled, and they've been running fine.

Congratulations. Not everyone is so blessed.

What keeps me from running Windows?

When I turn it on, I wonder if it will actually boot.

When I turn it off, I wonder if it will actually shutdown.

In between the two, I wonder what the hell it is doing.

Simple... I want my computer to do what *I* tell it.

This is an email. It is the electronic equivalent of a POSTCARD. It has been split up into hundreds or thousands packets and blasted throughout the globe. Logged, scanned, filtered, parsed, grepped and heuristically analyzed by countless computers as well as humans. I wear a shirt that says "I read your email." If you for one moment think, believe, hold notion, or otherwise have the slightest inclination that anything you send via email is confidential you are an idiot. If you for one moment think, believe, hold notion, or otherwise have the slightest inclination that anything you send via email is only being read by the intended reciepients you are an idiot. If you have read this far you are an idiot.

For those who don't understand the poll, I've translated it into a more accessible version of English.

What happen?:
What is it that has just occurred on our ship?
Somebody set up us the bomb:
An explosive device has just detonated in the vicinity! It must be the work of the enemy!
We get signal:
Our communications channel is receiving an incoming transmission.
Take off every 'Zig'!!:
Every pilot of a ship with the designation Zig is immediately ordered to the launch bay.
How are you gentlemen !!:
I wish to inquire as to your collective disposition.
All your base are belong to us.:
Even though you or your government previously held title to a number of lunar facilities and space stations, I regret to inform you that we have taken control of them. In the case where we haven't taken control of said facility, we still claim it as our own. In other words, you are hereby denied all access to the aforementioned sovereignties.
What you say!!:
I do not grasp the fundamental nature of your words. Please restate them so that I may better comprehend their meaning. Or, if I have understood them, I am still in disbelief about their content.
HA HA HA HA:
I laugh maniacally at your vexation. I giggle gregariously as you scramble to launch your Zigs. I must fulfill this duty so that I can satisfy the role of evil final boss, so you may defeat me and wipe that smirk off my face. That is, if you have enough quarters.

See the monster. Kill the monster. See the monster. Kill the monster. See the monster. Kill the monster. Oh! Shiny! Get the trinket (+20 sword of ass kicking!) See the monster. Kill the monster. See the monster. Kill the monster. See the monster. Kill the monster. Damn, out of potions. See the monster. Kill the monster. OMGWTFLOL Run away! Killed by monster.

~~~

Yeah, that plot might be a little complex for Hollywood though. Make sure you dumb it down some so the studio execs can understand it after snorting twelve pounds of coke off a stripper's tits, and so Jerry Bruckheimer can dumb it down even more so the "I'm 12 and want to see two things: explosions and lingerie" crowd can get it.

"Another Serious MSIE Hole" could be shortened a bit:

• Another - unnecessary.
• Serious - less serious holes don't get any attention.

What's left: "MSIE Hole".

• Hole - what else?

Still left: "MSIE"

As most serious security problems affect MSIE, it can be omitted as well. The least redundant informative headline would be:

• ""

As MyDoom is showing, hackers don't need an exploit to spread. The social engineering is still more than enough to spread.

This is a cute vector that can be used to take in another 10% of users, but since it looks like most of them will run any attachment you send them anyway, it's a moot point.

A few years back, I coded an app and e-mailed it to all our users. The message came "from" the company owner and said "This is a virus, you will destroy all the data you have access to if you run this file."

If they ran the file, it sent me a message with their computer name, username and other details.

About 80% of the users ran it.

I lost all faith in the human race that day.

SCO not producing evidence isn't news. If SCO actually produced some valid evidence, now THAT would be news! In information theory, the information content of an event is inversely proportional to the probability of that event occuring. Since the probability of SCO not producing evidence is 1 for all practical purposes, the message "SCO has not produced evidence" has an information content of zero.

(Inevitably, in every thread about spam, someone proposes a solution with one or more flaws. This is a handy form that passes the lameness filter and that can be reused for all such posts to save time! It does not specifically address all possible flaws and may be expanded in future versions.)

Your post advocates a

( ) technical ( ) legislative (x) market-based (x) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which vary from state to state.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
(x) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(x) Requires cooperation from too many of your friends and is counterintuitive
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever worked
( ) Other:

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

(x) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(x) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(x) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
( ) Other:

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
(x) Countermeasures cannot involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures cannot involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
( ) Other:

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(x) Nice try, dude, but I don't think it will work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!

Who are grading these things?

My guess would be The Public(tm).

I know what Americans out there are thinking: democracy is scary. Well don't worry, it is at first, but you'll get used to it with practice.

Now, if only I could auto-mod myself as Flamebait.

1) Use as much stuff as you can. No matter how unnecessary it is, put it there.
2) If you plan creating something something, put a link to 'under construction' page with that thing's name. If you don't plan creating it, put that link anyway.
3) Put as many javascripts and plugin content as possible. Best if you make all navigation buttons using separate java applets, or the "enter" button with flash.
4) A right-click blocking script is a must.
5) Use freestyle HTML. No tag must be ever closed, let's see how the browser handles undocumented parameters, what about making up my own tags?
6) Never forget about "Make this page your homepage" button!
7) Graphics is everything. You may leave a 60x60px box for text content, but a huge background is essential. There should be at least half a megabyte of non-skippable intro in flash before the content proper.
8) Instead of creating thumbnails in your gallery, use height= and width= parameters on original, full-size images.
9) a href= is unfashionable. Use javascript to change pages.
10) It's highly desired to open the page in a new 'kiosk' style popup window. Let's force people to disable their evil popup-blocker software, nobody dares using buttons like "reload" or "back", only site-provided navigation is allowed! ...add your own.

Completely OT, but funny as hell:
(Excerpt from World Chess Championship Game 3)

1. d2-d4 g8-f6
2. c2-c4 f7-g6
3. b1-c3 f8-g7
4. e2-e4 d7-d6
5. g1-f3 Qrs-e5

At this point, Karpov tries a new tack with Qrs-e5 (Queen from right sleeve to e5).

6. f1-e2 e7-e5

Kasparov obviously hasn't noticed Karpov's innovative move. Karpov returns to traditional play.

7. c1-e3 Blb-g3 / JbKS

Under the subtle cover of JbS (Jackboot to Kasparov's shin), Karpov introduces a third bishop into play.

8. LIF-KRE d8-e7

Kasparov responds with his trademark LIF-KRE (Left index finger to Karpov's right eye).

9. d4Xe5 $^$%#$

Karpov instinctively howls in pain and immediately offers uncouth theories concerning the likely species of Kasparov's parentage to general audience.

10. Q - KLN Q-KLN

Mutual exchange of Queen to opponent's left nostril.

GAME SUSPENDED FOR TEN MINUTES BY JUDGE

11. c3-d5 e7-d8

It appears the hostility between the chess masters has subsided.

12. SsKH BRHAKH

It appears the judge was mistaken. 10-pound sledgehammer swung by Kasparov in a bold attempt to pin down Karpov's head.(SsKH) Karpov immediately falls back on the classic Beretta Defense (9mmRc-HsAKH - 9mm pistol removed from concealed shoulder holster and aimed at Kasparov's heart)

13. KRMcC ...

Kasparov revs hidden McCulloch chainsaw.

GAME DECLARED A DRAW BY OFFICIALS

14. KRTT-JF KRTT-JF

Both express extreme displeasure at judges' decision and cunningly respond with the little-known Rin-Tin-Tin Gambit (politely urinating at judges' feet)

14. KKRF-AP

Kasparov and Karpov removed forcibly from arena by angry policemen.

Game 3 is obviously over. Now, for a play-by-play analysis, Mikel Erickson and Michel Joseph from the World Chess Federation.

Erickson: You know, I really feel that Kasparov took control of the match when he attempted to pierce Karpov's cornea. I thought that took real determination, and proved Kasparov's dominance in the cutthroat world of chess.

Joseph: Unfortunately, I can't agree with your assessment of the situation. I'm squarely behind Karpov here. Kasparov didn't display any of the personal integrity I think is critical for a champion. I liked Karpov's honesty with his fifth move, but the way Kasparov concealed that sledgehammer just goes to prove you can't judge a book by its cover.

Erickson: Oh yeah! Well, let me tell you what I think of a certain chess commentator I'm being forced to share this mike with!

1. ertt-jf

...ever get the feeling that partical physicists are just sharing one big self-delusion?

"Hey Bob, did you hear? Joe discovered a new kind of...uh...Meson!"
"A...Meson? Oh...yeah, Meson, of course. I know what that is."
"Yeah, check out this graph, see that spike right there for 1 billionth-trillionth of a second?"
"Uh...yeah! Yeah, I see it! Right there!"
"No, over there."
"Right! Right over there! Wow, that's great. Well, I'm off to go discover a...uh...new kind of...Foofara?"
"Wow....Foofara huh? Wow...that's awesome...Good Luck!"