Orion Blastar - Slashdot User

Submission + - Dennis Ritchie: The Shoulders Steve Jobs Stood On (wired.com)

Submitted by

Orion Blastar

on Sunday October 16, 2011 @07:01PM

Orion Blastar writes: "Dennis Ritchie doesn't get the praise Steve Jobs did when he died. But most don't know that Steve Jobs stood on the shoulders of giants like Dennis Ritchie to save Apple and develop Next. NextStep and Mac OS X are Unix based and Objective-C is based on Ritchie's C development."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot how to write FOSS eBooks 1

Submitted by

Orion Blastar

on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @03:28PM

Orion Blastar writes: "I am trying to learn how to write FOSS eBooks, I think I want the creative commons license, or should I pick a different one? I am using OpenOffice.Org and the export to PDF format. Should I export to other formats? ODT, RTF, etc? I think if most eBook readers have the ability to convert PDF files into their own native format I am in good shape. I did a test with two different PDF based FOSS eBooks on a Bit Torrent web site and got about 90+ downloads each but very little feedback on how to improve my writing, or any mistakes I made or anything at all. I am poor and on disability and needed a hobby. I am not going to make money off of this but trying to give back to the FOSS community and while I want to write fiction and humor I also want to write eBooks on programming and other stuff.

Most web sites I went to in order to get feedback have turned into web sites that trolls control and instead of creative critisism and suggestions and tips on how to improve I get trolled instead. A few members of those web sites sent me email that I type too long and also type over the heads of the readers and use words and phrases and ideas and concepts they don't understand so they troll me for it.

I was going to use Legal Torrents but it turned into ClearBytes and allows free downloads but in order to upload I need to pay a subscription for membership. Why is that? If that is the case I got small business publishers that can publish my eBook into a paper back for the same price and then distribute it for me. So I picked a Bit Torrent web site that is mostly pirated stuff, and did get some feedback and am trying to work on a 1.1 version of the eBook following advice from those nice enough to post or send me email on it. But since my eBook had the CC license and is a FOSS eBook it is 100% legal and free to download. I left my email in it to have others contact me.

Is there a better way to learn how to write eBooks? I know I have to write eBooks better than some blog or diary, I have to have an outline first some notes on ideas of what to cover and try to go step by step and give better examples to let those people not used to the terms or words or ideas I know explain them better.

But the eBook wars have begun, I was at Barnes and Nobel a few months ago buying the Stephen King "On Writing" book and the clerk asked me if I wanted to pay $375 for the Nook eBook reader which would be cheaper. I said no thanks and I told him I had a theory that soon it will go down in price as the eBook reader devices compete with each other and a price war happens. He said it wouldn't and I should buy it now. Amazon.com has the Kindle, Apple has a new iTunes with eBook abilities for iPd Touch 4, iPhone 4, and iPad, and maybe other things like Macs and the Trackpad or whatever.

But I do recall Microsoft having the LIT format and the Microsoft Reader for Windows 9X and Windows CE around 1999 or 2000 and it didn't go anywhere.

But I am too poor to afford creative writing classes, and had hoped for a change in my medicare to make things more affordable for me so I can have more money saved to do things like this, but alas one thing after another keeps happenng. When my son is back in school and my wife is working I should have more free time to research this and write some more eBooks. But is Bit Torrent web sites the best place to self publish eBooks for free, or should I pay Clearbits or whatever for membership or forget about FOSS eBooks and try to get some published to earn money to get off disability? I am doing this for love and a passion for writing to help out others and offer alternatives to downloading commercial eBooks and even allow others to join in and help me edit and rewrite parts of the eBooks and give them credit and make it better.

I did contribute to Wiki sites for the past five or six years. One of them was Wikibooks and the C Sharp book they were working on and on page 63 of that book you will see Orion Blastar given credit as a minor contributor. Also Computer World Cited my old technologies and software and programming languages no longer used so apparently while I am not notable enough for Wikipedia I am over the years starting to contribute stuff and at least two of them got noticed even if I didn't do very much. I figured I could write an eBook on old tech people think is dead and no longer used and find out if people still use it in some way.

The problem is my mental illness creates personality conflicts with others who don't even understand it, and stuff like that makes it hard to hold down a job or even try to contribute to others without making them annoyed or upset and claim my panic attacks and other stuff the illness causes is done on purpose, etc. Like personality problems associated with it.

Any advice, any FOSS software to use besides OpenOffice.Org and IBM's Lotus Symphony? Any FOSS software to analyze writing and find mistakes and other things. Any web sites I can get good advice from without getting trolled and trying really hard not to troll back because my illness makes me sick and I write something back."

Submission + - The Amiga circa 2010: Dead and Loving it. (amiga.com) 1

Submitted by

Orion Blastar

on Saturday January 02, 2010 @10:51AM

" rel="nofollow">Orion Blastar writes: "While many Amiga users have moved on to Linux, Mac OS X, and even, gasp shock, Microsoft Windows some of us don't want to give up so easily. There are two open source projects that are keeping the Amiga legacy alive even if Amiga Inc. seems to be deader than a doornail and not really doing much but selling old Classic Amiga games for new platforms.

Like WINE there was a project to run AmigaOS 3.1 software for Linux and other platforms but it was made into an open source operating system named Amiga Research OS or AROS. It is best run inside an emulator and while it is not a modern OS as Linux it can be downloaded and run inside of Linux and the downloads section has more. While it is not ready for prime-time yet it is a promising OS that is being ported to many platforms and uses the user friendly Amiga GUI we Amiga users grew up with.

OK maybe AROS is not modern enough for you, and you like Linux instead. Then you might like Anubis OS as it is a hybrid of AROS and Linux. Much like when Apple took NextOS (based on *BSD Unix and the MACH kernel) and Classic Mac OS to make Mac OS X, this project wants to take Linux and AROS and do the same thing.

For those who want the classic Amiga there is UAE the Universal Amiga Emulator that needs kickstart ROMs and boot disk images to work. You can buy them from the Amiga Forever software and the emulator comes with all the files you need plus other goodies.

For the classic Amiga 68K series it is recreated via the Minimig that uses SD cards instead of floppy disks. A must for retro computer hobbyists. AmigaOS 4.1 exists for PowerPC based SAM 440EP systems like the SAM 440Ep systems and parts sold here. I am not associated with Amiga Kit or Amiga Inc. or any Amiga company. I am just an Amiga user since 1985 and very much into retro computing.

While the Amiga may seem dead, and it has been dead since 1994 when Commodore went out of business, the Amiga still exists in some form. The Amiga is dead and loving it, and the Anubis OS name is named after the Egyptian God of the Underworld, and when the Amiga repaired a floppy disk it renamed it as "Lazarus" the man Jesus raised from the dead. So the Amiga has a history of dying and coming back from the dead. It is the Kenny McCormick of computer systems and technology."

Submission + - Ex-Programmer on Disability trying to get better (mayoclinic.com) 9

Submitted by

Orion Blastar

on Tuesday December 22, 2009 @10:10PM

Orion Blastar writes: "I suffer from schizoaffective disorder and other illnesses that forced me to go on disability. I used to be a programmer who made a good salary until I got too sick to work and my doctors ordered me not to work anymore.

I am so sick I cannot get regular health insurance and had to get medicare instead. Regular health insurance jacked up my rates where I couldn't afford it and very few if any would insure me. Many jobs I think I lost due to health care benefits being too much for my employers and a combination of discrimination for me being sick and disabled.

Disability allows me to work and earn $500 to $800 a month and still stay on disability and medicare, but if I earn more than that I could get kicked off. It would be part-time work and only after I improve enough in my illnesses to get well enough to handle part-time work, which I haven't yet. But I am working on getting healthier and made some improvements in some of my illness, but not enough to return to work yet.

Has anyone else gotten too sick to work a computer job, and ended up on disability? What is the best way to get off disability?

I figured I could start up my own small business and do computer work from home. When I worked jobs, I wore many hats. I also ran two small businesses before, but couldn't make them profitable enough to keep them going. I went back to college and earned a bachelors degree in business management to go with my computer science and information systems degrees. It should be enough to run a small business. I can fix computers, write programs, write and administer databases, administer networks, use HTML to make web pages (ASP and PHP as well as XML), etc. But if I do too much I make myself sick and have to stop, or suffer a "panic attack" and find it hard to work. So it would have to be part-time in a way until I get well enough to handle full-time. I only say that as no company would hire me even after I get well enough to work full-time because of my medical history, and while there is the ADA to protect me in the USA, they can always use a different excuse as "over qualified" or my health benefits will be too expensive, or I haven't worked in a while, or something else they can just make up to get rid of me and avoid a discrimination lawsuit. I really can do the work when I am well enough, but when my illnesses act up, I can't do very much, and no employer would want to tolerate that and accommodate me for it. Had I been blind, or deaf, or in a wheelchair, it would be a different story. Because I am mentally ill and go through good and bad cycles, management would just claim I am not reaching my potential when I am in a bad cycle, and tell me to just "snap out of it" but that isn't possible when I am really sick.

I've even considered developing open source software, but in my current state I cannot do much until I get better. But how does one get better with schizoaffective disorder to do anything to earn money?

I am told unless I get support from my family, friends, and society as well as employers, etc that I won't be able to function and hope to rehabilitate myself. But society doesn't support me, and most people don't understand my mental illness and write me off as a total loss and other insult me, ignore me, or enable my illness so it gets worse. The online society is even worse than the real life one.

So how exactly am I supposed to recover from this, and become functional enough to go back to doing something to earn money doing what I love with computers and technology?"

Submission + - Has climate change data been fudged? (telegraph.co.uk) 2

Submitted by

Orion Blastar

on Tuesday November 24, 2009 @01:27PM

Orion Blastar writes: ""Thousands of emails and documents stolen from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and posted online indicate that researchers massaged figures to mask the fact that world temperatures have been declining in recent years." Now this doesn't necessarily mean that global warming aka climate change is wrong, but there might be a breech of ethics here in which the data may have been fudged or manipulated or cherry picked to show a different result. That is a violation of the scientific method if true.

One of the emails under scrutiny, written by Phil Jones, the centre's director, in 1999, reads: "I've just completed Mike's Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." Prof Jones has insisted that he used the word "trick" to mean a "clever thing to do", rather than to indicate deception. He has denied manipulating data. Another scientist whose name appears in the documents accused the hackers of attempting to undermine the drive for a global consensus at next month's Copenhagen summit. Kevin Trenberth of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research accused climate change sceptics of cherry-picking the documents and taking them out of context.

I suppose a calculation of the margin of error would be needed to verify the data is accurate and not cherry picked."

Submission + - The End of the Email Era?

Submitted by

Orion Blastar

on Friday November 13, 2009 @12:59AM

" rel="nofollow">Orion Blastar writes: "With Social Networking Sites, Instant Messenger, Text Messaging, Live Chat, and other Internet services is email going away or not being used as much as it used to be used? Is this the end of the Email Era?

With Microsoft Sharepoint and Google Wave as well as Wiki sites, etc people are able to share information and work without needing email. As more and more new technology is invented, are people using email less and less and using other means to communicate?

But email has advantages in that it is private and only the sender and receiver should be able to read the message, while most other methods make communications public unless one sets their privacy controls properly. Still the data is saved on a server somewhere and someone might be able to tap into it somehow.

In sending an email, people usually think there is no hurry to reply and the other person will wait until the other person can respond. But most other methods that replace email are usually live and the other person expects a quick response as they are usually waiting on the other side of the screen for a response.

Email is still needed for web verification and activation of online accounts, so it is not going to go away. I am one of few people who use email more than other sources. I only join social networking sites to communicate with friends and family who don't answer email, but answer the social networking messages.

What would it take to improve email, so it can compete with other alternatives of communicating over the Internet?"

Submission + - Conspriacy theory about cars.gov debunked

Submitted by

Orion Blastar

on Saturday August 01, 2009 @08:36PM

Orion Blastar writes: "The DailyKOS debunks Glenn Beck's conspiracy theory about cars.gov taking over your computer.

Claims it is only car dealers that can log into esc.gov that the warning message comes from. Apparently the federal government has an EULA that says something like your computer becoming federal property by accessing the network. It makes sense as car dealers fill out the paperwork for the $3500 or $4500 cash back "Cash for Clunkers" program and not the consumers who are buying the car.

But it opens up possible abuse if this EULA is applied to dealers only. Is this some slip up by a federal contractor or employee, or when a dealer applies for a cash back program from esc.gov does their computer become the property of the federal government? Consumers have nothing to worry about, but dealers might.

It should be noted that Glenn Beck did not graduate from college and is self educated, and apparently didn't seem to notice that the web site in question is for dealers only. That means he is not an expert on the subject, and he jumped to conclusions. The DailyKOS was quick to debunk his story. Can Slashdot readers give us the real story on how this web site effects dealers' computers, or is this the usual logging of IP address and cookie tracking, and nothing as sinister as a malware infection ala Magic Lantern or the software that replaced it after Magic Lantern is supposed is not used anymore and was replaced by a commercial product or something else?

When connecting to a federal system, even as a car dealer, have any security issues to consider for doing so? Are car dealers giving up any rights or freedoms in order to connect to the web page only they can access, or is it complete safe and sane and no loss of freedoms or rights? Even car dealers should be protected by the US Constitution, right?"

Submission + - Yellowcake uranium found in Iraq, Saddam's legacy (go.com)

Submitted by

Orion Blastar

on Sunday July 06, 2008 @11:24AM

Orion Blastar writes: "It appears that when George W. Bush, the CIA, and Tony Blair said that Saddam Hussein had yellowcake uranium, which was a violation of the UN resolution after the Gulf War, and one of the reasons why the USA and UK invaded Iraq to start the war, they were speaking the truth. 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium was found recently in Iraq, that Saddam had hidden for over five years from UN weapons inspectors, and sold to Canada recently. Reported by Brain Murphy of the Associated press at ABC News. Yahoo has a copy of the story at their news site as well."

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