Comment Free The Fish (Score 1) 165
I think it was in Gnome (maybe still is), where you could use the ALT+F2 keyboard shortcut to bring up the run dialog, and type in "free the fish". And a swimming fish would appear across your screen. You could click on it and it would swim away, but would return a few moments later (unless you killed gnome-panel).
We used to do it to each other if we left our machines unlocked.
Comment Re:As I recall (Score 1) 242
I don't recall saying that.
Comment What, no comments? (Score 5, Funny) 517
Strangely, there don't seem to be many comments on the subject of "Heartland Institute Threatens To Sue Anyone Who Comments...".
Comment VGrep (Score 2, Informative) 108
Isn't this exactly what VGrep was designed to sort out?
Journal Journal: Not that I'm bitter or anything...
Just submitted my third and final story to Slashdot, which was promptly rejected. I was probably too slow off the mark, and it's already been submitted by about 3,489 other people, but hey - here it is anyway. When the story does get posted by A.N.Other, I'll at least have already RTFAs, so I'll be able to pass myself off as intelligent
Journal Journal: Quote.
From UKNot:
Oh great, just as I get a karma rating of 'Excellent' and mod points thrown at me every few days, slashdot goes out of fashion in the geek community....
Comment Re:We have the technology... (Score 1) 140
I think you are being very loose in your terminology when you say we have the technology. What you have said is that we have a source of fuel which has the potential to get something very heavy an increadibly long distance and that it has gone through a degree of testing. But whether this technology would suffice for propulsion has yet to be determined, it hasn't even been tested out in the correct environment yet.
What we certainly don't have is a background in sending anything living on a long journey and back again in one piece. We don't know whether it would be feasible to send one person or whether multiple people would go. We don't know how much room they would need, how they would cope with the length of the flight, whether there would be any long term issues related to S.A.D. or any number of other physical and psychological health questions. As previously, Mir has scratched the surface, but that is all.
In short, we don't even have the full scope of the problem yet, so how can we possibly have the technology?
I agree with your stand on nuclear power. It does have a stigma associated with it which is perhaps unfair and perhaps borne of ignorance and sensationalism. I would not go as far as to suggest that there would be no danger just because we propose to use it in space though. When playing with fire (and I believe Chenobyl proves that we are playing with fire) a healthy degree of caution is wise whether it is in your own back yard or not.
Journal Journal: Thought of the day...
...if television ads are so effective, why do they advertise TV shows on busses, train stations and newspapers?
Journal Journal: Why a Brit is writing with American spellings.
Okay - the short version first. Slashdot is a US-centric site. It says so in the FAQ, and I understand and respect this. Sometimes I may slip up and write colour instead of color, but hey, I'm making an effort, and I consider that to be the polite thing to do.
Journal Journal: Google Desktop Search - Privacy, Microsoft and The Future
There's been a few people wondering about the privacy implications of having the new Google Desktop Search tool installed on their machines - and this is my reply to one in my hosting provider's forums:
Journal Journal: Blocked all of Brazil and Columbia
My hosting provider has recently decided to block all IPs from Brazil and Columbia, and yet register_globals is turned on, because obviously if somebody wants to access a site from Rio de Janiero, it is more reasonable to ask them to move to a different country, than it is to ask web developers to use $_POST
Journal Journal: Teleworst
So, I'm nearly finished downloading the ISO for CD#3 of Debian (over 56k dial-up), so I'll be free of XP in no time at all. I really wish I'd kept another copy of the RH9 ISOs.
I had a few problems logging in here last week, as it turns out that my ISP is running some open HTTP proxies, which have been used to mount attacks against slashdot. I've told the support people about this, and their solution was for me to stop using the proxy. I sent them
I had a few problems logging in here last week, as it turns out that my ISP is running some open HTTP proxies, which have been used to mount attacks against slashdot. I've told the support people about this, and their solution was for me to stop using the proxy. I sent them
Journal Journal: A 'favour' from a 'friend'.
So, I went away for a little while, and upon returning home, I find that a housemate has done me the favour of upgrading my main machine from Win2k to WinXP. Sounds nice, you might think, except that the Win2k partition was only 4gb of the 40 on the disk. The rest was used up by the main RedHat 9 installation. Which is no longer there. So now, I am downloading Debian ISOs over 56k. Watching the download stats, I am reminded of Donnie Darko. 3 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 sec
