[24837] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 6988 Volume: 10
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Fri Sep 10 11:11:38 2004
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 08:10:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Fri, 10 Sep 2004 Volume: 10 Number: 6988
Today's topics:
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism jmfbahciv@aol.com
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <spam@nimblegen.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism jmfbahciv@aol.com
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <spam@nimblegen.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <lynn@garlic.com>
Re: YOU ALL SUCK! (Carl Scharenberg)
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 04 12:22:39 GMT
From: jmfbahciv@aol.com
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <4141afae$0$6910$61fed72c@news.rcn.com>
In article <flrphc.tlk1.ln@via.reistad.priv.no>,
Morten Reistad <firstname@lastname.pr1v.n0> wrote:
>In article <4140688e$0$6912$61fed72c@news.rcn.com>, <jmfbahciv@aol.com>
wrote:
>>In article <413F43AC.9D2088AF@yahoo.com>,
>> CBFalconer <cbfalconer@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
>>>> Alan Balmer <albalmer@att.net> wrote:
>>>>> CBFalconer <cbfalconer@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Alan Balmer wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>... snip ...
>
>[snipp Rush Limbaugh's's talks show mentioned]
>
>>>I deplore your tast in radio talk shows.
>>
>>Oh! Taste in talk shows.
>
>Ah, then I have deplorable tastes in your opinion. I find Rush
>greatly entertaining; but wouldn't use him as a data point.
Oh, not just him but the ...I can't think of a good word to
use...I use it as a pulse measurement to find out what that
particular ilk of people are thinking.
>
>I wish the left could dig up someone as entertaining as Rush.
Carvell.
>
>>> .. It doesn't take much to
>>>create a rabble rousing poll to increase ratings.
>>
>>I listen to them for data about how the rabble is thinking
>>and the logic they use to form their opinions. I also
>>watch those religious cable TV shows to gather the same kinds
>>of information; note that I can only manage to listen to these
>>about 10 minutes and not more than once/year. I also listen
>>to Rushie to see what kinds of lies that half of the world is
>>listening to. I watch CSPAN who never cut out for commericals,
>>don't edit too much, and tend to leave the mike on after the
>>meetings break up. '
>
>With most of these you miss the point if you listen for content
>at all.
I generally use the content as a clue to figure out what the
group is trying to not talk about a.k.a. smoke and mirrors.
There are other things one can deduce based on what is getting
talked about and how it's getting described.
> ..The media IS the message. And you are the product, to
>be entertained enough so you can be sold to advertisers.
Sure. The exception is those who don't have normal behaviour
patterns.
<snip>
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 08:56:51 -0500
From: Chuck Dillon <spam@nimblegen.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <chsbod$q0i$1@grandcanyon.binc.net>
John Thingstad wrote:
> On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 15:36:29 -0700, Alan Balmer <albalmer@att.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> BTW, did you mean "extortion"? Distortion is what we see a lot of
>> here, though Hoover may have done some of that too.
>>
>
> I guess what I see are endless possibilities of abuse.
> No government can be trusted with that type of power.
> I feel it is our responsibility as programmers to prevent this type
> of abuse of information.
IMHO, it is unrealistic/naive to expect society to get all of the
benefits of an integrated digital world and at the same time have
significant protection of the information that world thrives upon.
Everybody and their uncle is walking around in public having "private"
conversations on their wireless gadget without realizing that privacy
doesn't apply to what they are doing. The data systems are really no
different, the risk is just less obvious.
> I'd rather take my chances with the terrorists.
And at the same time groups like the 9/11 families are clamoring for
answers as to why the government didn't prevent the attack. If you
believe what you say I suggest you work to wean your fellow citizens
from their government centric lives.
> When you sell out freedom, liberty and justice then what exactly are we
> fighting to protect?
> Bader-Meihof groups philosophy was that in order to protect the public
> from terror
> the government would turn the country into a police state. Then the
> people would rebel and
> support the revolution. From this point of view Bush is letting the
> terrorist's win by
> sacrificing our constitutional rights.
Your argument is shallow if you direct it to the person who happens to
be holding the office of President at the moment. The President can't
introduce or pass law. The Patriot Act is a nearly bipartisan law of
the land passed by the congress. If you have a problem with the
government then address the government realistically. Otherwise it's
just part of the political noise of an election year.
-- ced
--
Chuck Dillon
Senior Software Engineer
NimbleGen Systems Inc.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 04 12:39:57 GMT
From: jmfbahciv@aol.com
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <4141b3bc$0$6910$61fed72c@news.rcn.com>
In article <10k1a13rnpc2p94@corp.supernews.com>,
Jeff Shannon <jeff@ccvcorp.com> wrote:
>jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
>
>>In article <10juvnrt88k4868@corp.supernews.com>,
>> Jeff Shannon <jeff@ccvcorp.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>>Here there's a lot of room to disagree -- it's a tragedy when U.S.
>>>citizens are killed, but it's an even greater tragedy when the entirety
>>>of the U.S. loses its freedoms in the name of "security".
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Okay, that's it! Tell me what freedoms you have lost. Be specific.
>>No sound bytes and no rhetoric parroting allowed.
>>
>>I really want to know. People keep saying this but never say which
>>freedoms have been lost.
>>
>>
>
>I've lost the freedom to read whatever books I want, without the
>government snooping over my shoulder.
You lost that before 9/11; its cause was tranferrring library
catalogs and book tracking online.
>
>I've lost what little was left of the freedom to presume that the
>government isn't listening to my phone calls and scanning my email.
This is not a freedom.
>(This particular freedom has been being eroded for decades, but the
>Patriot Act is pretty much the final nail in the coffin.)
Are you kidding? Did you live through the McCarthy and Hoover
eras? Hoover as in FBI, not president. AFAICT, this Patriot ACt
at least leaves a paper trail.
>
>I've lost the freedom from the assumption that, if I read certain books
>and speak of believing in certain principles, I'm not necessarily going
>to act in a criminal manner to further those principles. (If I loudly
>proclaim that the government is horribly wrong, and I also happen to buy
>a copy of something like, say, The Anarchist's Cookbook... I'm now
>liable to be perceived by the government as a terrorist, and thus be
>subject to arrest and imprisonment with no charges being filed and no
>access to legal recourse.
How did you get this conclusion? Has a US citizen bought the book,
only yakked about it and then was arrested and imprisoned
with no trail or arraignment?
> .. It doesn't matter whether the government can
>*prove* that I planned anything, or even if I can prove that I have no
>such plans -- there's no opportunity for me to offer or dispute evidence.)
>
>I have a good friend who's a (European) immigrant. It is now legal for
>the government to detain her for any length of time they so desire,
>without giving any reason more definite than "suspected involvement in
>terrorism" -- and with *no* need to provide any evidence to back that
>claim. Whether it's been done or not is irrelevant -- she's very much
>aware of the feeling that, despite the fact that she's been living and
>working in the US for most of her adult life, the mere fact that she's
>not "American" makes her immediately suspect, and potentially subject to
>being "disappeared".
People are not being made to disappear. YOu do know what that
term means?
> .. Trusting to the goodwill and honesty of the
>government to *not* use its authority is, to say the least, not exactly
>heartening.
You have been doing it all your life.
>
>Most importantly, I've lost the freedom to live my life *without*
>feeling quite so much like Big Brother is just waiting for me to make a
>mistake, so that the rest of the US can be "saved" from terrorism.
Now I know you didn't live through the Nam war.
>
>(I've said my piece, but I don't expect we're likely to ever reach an
>agreement. So, especially considering that I don't feel that
>comp.lang.* is really an appropriate place for political discussion, I
>won't be commenting further in this subthread.)
This is not a political discussion.
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 09:10:13 -0500
From: Chuck Dillon <spam@nimblegen.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <chschh$q5n$1@grandcanyon.binc.net>
CBFalconer wrote:
> Chuck Dillon wrote:
>
> ... snip ...
>
>>It's easy to say we *don't* need but not so easy to demonstrate.
>>You don't even offer a hand wave attempt at articulating an
>>alternative. In the political world everything is subject to
>>debate. Taking the war to the middle east, increasing policing
>>powers, increasing intelligence capabilities... But in the real
>>world there is a huge threat and action must be taken.
>
>
> Must it? I am not claiming that it must not, but that the matter
> deserves more thought than a panic reaction. The very first thing
> to settle should be the objectives. Then the means and costs of
> achieving such can be considered.
>
Your choice to charactize things in terms like "panic reaction" doesn't
make it so. If their was a rush to act by a pseudo-democratic
government it is because the "loyal opposition" chooses to act in
concert with the majority party. There was virtually no resistance
from the Democrat side when debating the effective declaration of war
on Iraq nor the Patriot Act. If you got the impression of panic it
comes from the bipartisan nature of the actions taken.
-- ced
--
Chuck Dillon
Senior Software Engineer
NimbleGen Systems Inc.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 08:42:43 -0600
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <ullfinq1o.fsf@mail.comcast.net>
Morten Reistad <firstname@lastname.pr1v.n0> writes:
> smD the TLA that represents a washing-machine size disk. Mountable.
> ^ Made impressive head crashes from time to time.
>
> But I won't interfere with this lovely thread drift with lots
> of relevant facts.
the first disks i played with at the univ. were 2311s on 360/30; they
were individual, top-loading, with mountable disk packs; 2311 disk
pack was a little over 7mbytes. didn't find picture of 2311 ... but
this picture of 1311 were similar ... the lid of the unit was released
and raised (something like auto engine hood)
http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_1311.html
the next were 2314s that came with 360/67. it was long single unit
with drive drawers that slid out. top & bottom row with 9 drives.
drives had addressing plugs .... eight plus a spare. a 2314 pack could
be mounted on the spare drive, spun up .... and then the addressing
plug pop'ed from an active unit and put in the spare drive. it reduced
the elapsed time that the system saw unavailable drive (time to power
off a drive, open the drawer, remove a pack, place in new pack, close
drawer, power up the drive). 2314 pack was about 29 mbytes. picture
of 2314 cabinet
http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_2314.html
the next were the 3330s ... long cabinet unit looked similar to 2314
... but with only 8 drawers (instead of 9). 3330-i pack had 100mbytes
... later 3330-ii pack had 200mbytes. picutre of 3330 unit ... the three
cloaded plastic units on top of the unit were used to remove disk pack
and hold it.
http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_PH3330.html
close up of 3330 disk pack in its storage case ... also has picture
of 3850 tape cartridges
http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_PH3850B.html
misc. other storage pictures:
http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_photo.html
next big change was 3380 drives with totally enclosed, non-mountable
cabinet.
old posting on various speeds and feeds
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#8 3330 disk drives
and some more old performance data
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#10 virtual memory
i had written a report that relative disk system performance had
declined by a factor of ten times over a period of 10-15 years. the
disk division assigned their performance group to refute the
claim. they looked at it for a couple of months and concluded that i
had somewhat understated the relative system performance decline
... that it was actually more. the issue was that other system
components had increased in performance by 40-50 times ... while disks
had only increased in performance by 4-5 times ... making relative
disk system performance 1/10th what it had been. misc. past posts
about the gpd performance group looking at the relative system
performance issue:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#40 MVS History (all parts)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#29 Computers in Science Fiction
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#18 AS/400 and MVS - clarification please
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#22 Vnet : Unbelievable
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#63 Help me find pics of a UNIVAC please
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#3 IBM 360 memory
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#16 Paging query - progress
it was possibly one of the things contributing to disk divisionproviding
funding for the group up in berkeley ... misc. references
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#4 Mainframers: Take back the light (spotlight, that is)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#47 Do any architectures use instruction count instead of timer
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#29 cheaper low quality drives
i use to wander around bldgs 14 & 15 and eventually worked on redoing
kernel software for their use. misc. past posts about disk engineering
and product test labs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
------------------------------
Date: 10 Sep 2004 06:05:27 -0700
From: carl.scharenberg@gmail.com (Carl Scharenberg)
Subject: Re: YOU ALL SUCK!
Message-Id: <e930c085.0409100505.37551a78@posting.google.com>
Tris Orendorff <triso@remove-me.cogeco.ca> wrote in message news:<Xns955FCC8E99C10RepublicPicturesLtd@216.221.81.119>...
> carl.scharenberg@gmail.com (Carl Scharenberg) wrote in
> news:e930c085.0409020529.2db830fc@posting.google.com:
>
>
> >> This seems to be of somewhat better quality than the output of the
> >> typical random-text generator. Can anyone suggest something on CPAN
> >> useful for such?
> >
> > You can do this by analyzing a sample text at a higher level. Instead
> > of generating text from the frequency of single letters, you generate
> > using the frequencies of 2, 3, or 4-letter sequences. You analyze a
> > large text so you have a database of frequencies. When generating each
> > new character you look at the frequences of the letters given that the
> > 3 previous letters are 'the'. The possibilities are a space, 'r'
> > (their), 'y' (they), and some others. Overall it will generate words
> > and even phrases that seem to almost make sense. It is neat stuff.
>
> This is known as a Markov Chain and it works even better if you generate using words rather than letters.
> Using letters creates words and non words. The output is written in the same style as the input text.
>
>
> --
> Sincerely,
>
> Tris Orendorff
>
> -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> Version: 3.12
> GCS d++ s+:- a+ C+ UL++++ P+ L+ E- W+ N++ o- K++ w+ O+ M !V PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ !5 X- R- tv--- b++
> DI++ D+ G++ e++ h---- r+++ y+++
> ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Oh yes, now that you mentioned them, I remember studying Markov chains
in linear algebra, I think. I've also heard this called a histogram or
ngram, but I've never looked into the terminology at all. I have never
done this at the word level, because I was simulating randomly-typing
monkeys when I played with this. And for the monkeys I wanted letter
generation. I will have to play with word generation too, because it
just never occurred to me! :-)
------------------------------
Date: 6 Apr 2001 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
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End of Perl-Users Digest V10 Issue 6988
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