Messages

1666

Entertainment District / [SOLVED] Probability Problem

« on: August 14, 2006, 06:34:37 pm »

So a couple has two children. One of them is a girl. What's the probability that the other one is a girl? Explain your reasoning.

1667

Blizzard, WoW and Bots / Re: I now look like 10x more sex than screenor

« on: August 14, 2006, 05:56:57 pm »

This is what WoW does to people...

It should be made illegal.

1668

Unix / Linux Discussion / Re: dunno much about linux

« on: August 14, 2006, 05:40:19 pm »

And I did not know it could do other languages. Downloading the JDK normally comes with an offer to download Eclipse, so the thought of "Eclipse is for programming in Java" stuck to my head. Ignorance I suppose on my behalf.

Actually Sun doesn't affiliate with Eclipse because they're open-source. They advertise NetBeans and some other crappy IDEs but not Eclipse. And I have to say, Eclipse is definitely awesome but it's not necessarily the best Java IDE. IntelliJ IDEA is pretty sweet but you have to pay for it... I'm basing my opinion off of the free trial. All heavy-hitting IDEs are bulky, so I stick with Vim, Emacs, or Notepad++ when my projects aren't huge.

Hmm... I just exhausted my quote-quota. Back to @'s.

@newby:
Well, of course you don't have Java stuff on your computer. Microsoft doesn't package it with Windows because Sun's a competitor, many linux distros don't automatically package it because it's not open-source, and you don't download any Java apps because you're morally opposed to Java.

@myndfyre, newby
Newby said Java was a crappy language. I said .NET should be shot. All in good gesture.

@java haters
http://www.sun.com/java/everywhere/

1669

Introductions! / Awesome Andy

« on: August 14, 2006, 05:14:05 pm »

Hello! I thought it's about time I do an introduction. I'm called Andrew and Andy and ktm and ktm5124 and Ender so take your pick. People at school usually call me Andy but people at camp and home usually call me Andrew. Strangers usually call me "that sexy stud over there."

So, I'll do a Q&A...

Age? 17 (going to be a h.s. senior)

Location? Massachusetts

Nerd? Of course.

Geek? Yeah, except I don't bite the heads off wild geese.

Good-looking? Absolutely.

Girlfriend? I yearn for one.

Sociable Nerd? Yes

Is the above statement an oxymoron? Hell no!

OS? I dual-boot ubuntu 6.06 and windows xp pro, and I favor linux

Favorite programming language? java or perl, can't decide

Arch? i386

Favorite genre of music: post-rock (sigur ros, amina, mogwai, and more)

Favorite music? Sigur Ros (Victory Rose), an icelandic band (samples)

Favorite song? This changes a lot but currently it's "vidrar [blah]" by Sigur Ros (listen to it)

Play an instrument? I've been playing piano for 2 years but am pretty newb at it.

Do you support the "save the vowels movement?" Don't really care. I do try to use good English on forums most of the time to excercise my writing.

Do you put your periods and question marks inside of sentence-ending quotation marks? Real men do.

Did you like March of the Penguins? It was stupendous.

Pets? Two birds, Sparky and Marshy (short for Marshmellow). They're cockatiels. They can say "pretty bird" and they have a lot of whistles (some that we love, some that annoy us). Sparky loves to be pampered (pet) but Marshy prefers to accept affection from sound (whistling, singing, etc.)

Fetishes? Ear Vacuums

Camp? Went to computer camp for the last three years and slept over for the last two. Last year was awesome; this year was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of awesome.

Least favorite person to argue with on these forums? Tie between newby, myndfyre, and rabbit. Although I think they're all awesome =P.

Anti-Joe? No, I think he's funny.
*prepares for angry mob*

Favorite food? Crispy Buffalo Chicken Sandwich with lettuce, tomates, hot sauce, and no blue cheese

Favorite quote? "Andrew, I love you." Alright, well now it's a quote.

Do you like school? I love it and hate it.

Favorite subject? Math.

School clubs? Math team and chess team.

Average sleep? ~6 hours.

1670

General Discussion / Re: Who here lives in Massachusetts?

« on: August 14, 2006, 04:21:08 pm »

silly eeahgo, misspelling is for kids

1671

Unix / Linux Discussion / Re: dunno much about linux

« on: August 14, 2006, 04:16:48 pm »

I'm too lazy to make mad quotes, because I have three people to answer to and a lot of answers apply to all three ~_~.

@everyone:
"To prevent Linux from running away with Thailand's subsidized "people's PC project," Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) TechNet Security Center: Tools & Guidance to Defend Your Network Latest News about Microsoft has dropped the price of its Windows and Office packages from nearly US$600 to $37" (http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/32110.html).

$600 -> $37
Thailand bought the Windows and Office packages for around the price of a hardcover Harry Potter book. They lowered it to 6% of the original price. That's ggnore.

@everyone:
I don't think Linux will beat Windows. I think that it will earn a lasting place in the corporate software development community for development and server purposes.

@everyone:
Microsoft hasn't come out with a new OS in what, 5 years? After 5 years a lot of shit piles up on an OS (I mean security holes). Microsoft has a chance to fix a lot of this with Vista. That's why I think it will change things.

@Myndfyre:
Evidence for Microsoft being uncomfortable with open-source? Going to the extremes of dropping lowing their prices by 93% to prevent a country from moving towards Linux. Having no open-source software of their own. Sure, they share a lot of their development process in IE with the community, and that's good. I admit that I can't say that Microsoft won't embrace open-source in the future. It may be a very smart marketing move.

@everyone:
.NET should be shot, hit with a golf club, blowtorched, and then buried in Thailand.

@everyone:
If Java is such a sucky language then why is it commonplace in software development? Evidence: look at all the Java work Apache has done. A heavy-hitting software foundation chooses to make a lot of java products...

1672

Unix / Linux Discussion / Re: dunno much about linux

« on: August 14, 2006, 01:58:08 pm »

Do you realize that you are also being condescending? Do you realize that you were the one who started this attitude which has persisted in both of our posts?

I did research. I never said that the open-source software that I mentioned didn't run on Windows. It is, however, a part of the open-source development world. I was arguing more about how the world is becoming more and more open-source and how Microsoft will have a hard time with that.

And you can't argue with that. Two other dominant open-source applications I didn't mention are firefox and eclipse. 26% of the people who visit w3schools use Firefox and less than 60% use IE. That's a tremendous accomplishment, even though it's only on the w3schools site. The reason I mention w3schools' statistics is because it probably is a good representation of the web programming branch of the software development world.

Yeah, so you may be saying, so what all this software runs on Windows. Well my point is that the world is becoming more and more open-source and Microsoft is going to become more and more uncomfortable with that.

And by the way, Windows security will suck if you don't hire a security expert. It takes literally 1 minute to crack an LM hash. The security holes in IE and the viruses for Windows are extraodinarily common and persistent.

Did you read my comment about how Thailand moved towards Linux? Even though (IIRC) they didn't end up using Linux, they OWNED Microsoft! http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/32110.html. More countries will start doing this.

Unfortunately, I think Vista will change things. My whole argument excludes Vista =P.

1673

Entertainment District / Re: Sigur Ros

« on: August 14, 2006, 01:22:11 pm »

Free legal Sigur Ros music on Sigur Ros's website!

Everyone listen to this song! It's absolutely beautiful!!! (If you don't like it at first then give it a chance and listen the whole way through.)
If you want to listen to more, there's a bunch more for free here. I suggest "von" and "staralfur" after listening to the above song.

1674

General Discussion / Re: Who here lives in Massachusetts?

« on: August 14, 2006, 12:57:54 pm »

Go to Otakon in 2007, and I'll see you there.

Actually I believe my stepsiblings are going and they will be cosplaying. I'm not much of an anime fan but I know a lot of people going so I may actually go. If so I'll tell you =p

You know, I think it would be awesome if a bunch of us applied to be counselors at the same computer camp next summer =). I guess it would be both good and bad since we'd then have competition getting accepted!

1675

General Discussion / Who here lives in Massachusetts?

« on: August 14, 2006, 11:34:59 am »

I think it would be cool to meet IRL =p. Of course, there are always the ever-pertaining concerns of pedafiles and the like, but I think it would be fine to meet at some mutually-agreed-upon place in MA and exchange more detailed contact information later.

Feel free to extend this thread to other states as well.

1676

Blizzard, WoW and Bots / Re: I now look like 10x more sex than screenor

« on: August 14, 2006, 01:50:03 am »

My real-life looks are 100x sexier than that.

RL > WOWL

1677

Unix / Linux Discussion / Re: dunno much about linux

« on: August 14, 2006, 01:26:36 am »

Nevertheless, linux is taking the corporate software development world by storm (I'm talking about the $$ guys not just apache and company).

It's taking the corporate software development world by storm? Hahahaha. The only market it is taking is the market from Unix and possibly Solaris. Windows it has yet to steal any marketshare from.

By storm I don't mean it's dominating. I mean that it's breaking through as a reasonable alternative and the executive guys at software companies are realizing the benefits to running linux. It's also growing ~_~.

In linux it's easier to customize things (you're building from the source and can manually do the ./configure and make options) and it's easier to develop -- languages like perl, python, and ruby grew up in the 'nix neighborhood and are naturally are easier to work with in a 'nix environment.

You actually think that they're going to pay someone in a corporation to hack together a source for them?

I don't. Know why? They're going to have to pay that person for support for that product.

They'd rather purchase a product to their specifications, and get the tech support that comes with purchasing the product.

What is the difference, you ask? The difference being that the person who wrote the software from the ground up knows how it works, knows what does what, and can fix 95% of the problems instantly. The person hacking the source has little to no clue of the structure of the program and can't fix it as quickly.

How much more does paying a sysadmin or two cost over buying a license for a whole corporate-network-full of Windows? Corporations and countries have already made the move (e.g., Thailand).

Also, if you're going to run Windows you probably do want to hire a security expert, because Windows security by default S.U.C.K.S (e.g., LM hashes). So I don't know if Windows is really that much cheaper than Linux, even in the very long run.

Linux software is also quicker to advance itself than windows software, as is the case with open-source software.

Wrong. Dead wrong. Open source software is written as a hobby, whereas products written for money are driven to be written by the sound of the dollar. One of the two will last as long as they need it. It isn't the open source software.

No, you're dead wrong. Look at the rate of linux distros and upgrades vs. that of Windows. Look at all the GNU software. Look at all the great open-source software and technologies that are predominant in the software development world. Apache webserver. Putty. Perl, python, and ruby. Do I need to continue? One of the founding philosophies of OSI is that software can evolve faster when it's open source.

Taken from OSI's site:
"The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing."

Proprietary software may be driven by money, but open-source software is driven by the whole world.

linux's proven ability to outperform windows servers

Really? If it's so much more powerful, why isn't it taking marketshare from Windows?

As far as I know, it's not.

You may want to read this:

Stick to facts. If someone says something wrong about Linux, reply with the correct facts. Make sure they're facts, though, not just something you heard about. Don't spread lies or rumors. Check your facts. If you don't know how to do that, then perhaps you shouldn't take part in the discussion, except perhaps by making questions. Even better, give references so that other people can also check the facts.

Also, if Linux were taking the corporate world by storm, SuSE and Red Hat would be doing fantastically. They aren't.

I didn't think I needed to provide facts for this statement. Linux allows you to go GUI-less with servers. Windows doesn't. Kapeesh. (Vista is excluded from this statement.)

1678

General Discussion / Re: New Laptop

« on: August 14, 2006, 01:01:47 am »

The IT department also requires Windows or Mac for their own reasons which they didn't really explain -.-;;

They're commies, duh.

1679

Unix / Linux Discussion / Re: dunno much about linux

« on: August 14, 2006, 12:18:03 am »

The software development corporation I'm interning at right now uses linux for their servers and Windows for most of the computers on the network. One of the reasons they run Windows is because most of their target customers run Windows and they want to develop applications for Windows users on Windows.

Nevertheless, linux is taking the corporate software development world by storm (I'm talking about the $$ guys not just apache and company). In linux it's easier to customize things (you're building from the source and can manually do the ./configure and make options) and it's easier to develop -- languages like perl, python, and ruby grew up in the 'nix neighborhood and are naturally are easier to work with in a 'nix environment. Linux software is also quicker to advance itself than windows software, as is the case with open-source software.

With the growing popularity of open-source, interpreted technologies (perl, python, ruby, java) and linux's proven ability to outperform windows servers, it only makes sense that linux is going to keep on growing in the software development world.

1680

Entertainment District / Re: Lars' Programming Truths

« on: August 13, 2006, 11:31:08 pm »

I love "Error handling can always be done in version 2." lmao

I think even better would be: Bugs can always be fixed in version 2.