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Comment: Re:What exactly is the problem? (Score 1) 770

by czth (#45988569) Attached to: Creationism In Texas Public Schools

The majority can't (in theory) order the government to enslave people and then expect the government to have the power to do so

Have you read any history at all? Ever? Not only have majorities had the government enslave and assist with enslaving, they have also had their governments carry out genocides and mass murder. The majority can do these things, and has done these things, both in theory and in fact.

Comment: Amstrad users unite (Score 1) 623

by czth (#43860135) Attached to: How Did You Learn How To Program?

It's good to see another former Amstrad user here. I started with a CPC464 with green screen and cassette - I think my dad traded it for a CD player or something - and eventually he got a CPC6128 with the color monitor and disk drive (360k - x2 - of sheer luxury!). I taught myself to program Basic to start then I got the firmware manual and a book of assembler opcodes and started in on Z80 machine code for sprites and such. Eventually I got an assembler, Maxam (sheer luxury again).

I also got ACU (Amstrad Computer User) with the Hairy Hacker's column in it; and a few years ago I actually contacted him (Vik) to express my appreciation, and he wrote back. His web site doesn't seem to be on the net any more, however.

Comment: Re:The current bubble is a software bubble (Score 1) 419

Would mod up if I had points - good analysis, came to say some of the same, and I hope he appreciates your time. Honestly, if I had a stack of 50 resumes and wasn't hiring for something like a game testing position, I'd be done at the "pro gamer" bit - not because of it per se, but because of its prominence.

I've also had recruiters modify a resume given in Word format, so will only send them PDFs (for now, since they're not usually competent to find it, I still have a Word format resume available on my site). One was a material change that claimed experience I did not have; I only heard about it because an interviewer read it to me over the phone, and I told them that was added by the recruiter.

Comment: Re:Reads like a press release (Score 1) 419

But you probably didn't go to b-school with the government regulator in charge of allocating bailout money, and your fathers don't sit on the same boards nor your mothers on the same charities; so when you put your hat out for bailout money, by the time they get to you there's none left. There's your difference.

Comment: Re:One cause (Score 1) 419

I live in Florida (for about another week) - in the St. Petersburg/Tampa area. Perhaps I haven't driven around the state enough - I've been down to the Everglades and Keys and up through Jacksonville but not much to the interior. Can you tell me more about Florida's infrastructure problems? Perhaps I'm biased by the area I'm in, but it seems reasonable enough. What's missing/substandard?

Comment: No, peaceful people should not be threatened (Score 4, Insightful) 385

by czth (#43322327) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Should Bitcoin Be Regulated?
Translating "Should Bitcoin Be Regulated?" into its plain meaning, that is, "Should peaceful Bitcoin users be threatened with harm, or harmed?" should yield the answer almost immediately: of course not, any more than any other peaceful people should be harmed, whether they want to sell or consume "large" sodas, trade or manufacture "high" (standard) capacity firearm magazines, use drugs, give food to the hungry, or engage in any other pursuit that is not directly harmful to other people or property. How can it ever be right to so threaten and harm peaceful individuals? And is not all regulation such a threat - give us money or we will harm you (take the money by force, cage you, murder you if you resist); conform to our requirements, even though you do no harm, or we will harm you? There is no case where such harm is justified.

Comment: maildir: qmail, courier-imapd, roundcube (Score 2) 282

by czth (#43316051) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Archive and Access Ancient Emails?

I run qmail for sending/receiving mail (on Gentoo; netqmail package), using maildir, of course. On top of that, I run the Courier IMAP server on my internal network (with TLS encryption). Until a few months ago I used Mutt as a client (console-based), but I've moved to using Roundcube (web-based email), which I initially installed for my wife, and have been happy with it. I also have some automatic filtering to folders via Maildrop (another Courier utility; it looks at a ~/.mailfilter file to route mail).

Roundcube/the IMAP server's search is OK most of the time - I keep my inbox small and move older mail to sub-folders - when I want to do advanced searches or search large mailboxes I log in and grep through folders of interest; this works well with the maildir format with one file per message. Maildir was also quite resilient when I had a HD crash and needed to recover some lost mail (block scan for blocks that look like mail headers found most missing items, and I do better backups now - mail is under ~/.maildir and gets backed up automatically).

I would move older messages to maildir (there are plenty of mbox converters, and almost anything non-proprietary should be convertible to mbox or maildir via existing programs or a short perl script) - even if at some point maildir dies off entirely, which seems unlikely, converting it to another format will always be trivial due to its simplicity and it has the advantages mentioned above of being able to search easily with grep etc.


by czth (#43275983) Attached to: Video Game Industry Starting To Feel Heat On Gun Massacres
I still wouldn't be in favor of them (if someone's no longer locked up why continue to infringe their rights? - especially if they weren't violent), but such a bill might do even better if, in addition to guaranteed destruction, the checks were free (the government wants the checks; why should I have to pay for them?) and guaranteed to give a result in a timely manner or automatically passed (so they can't effect a ban on private sale by stalling on implementing the system or implementing it poorly) and, on a failure, they were required to divulge precisely why (without giving any sort of runaround) and allow for an appeals process (same as for dealer sales). The state is fully of tricky evil bastards, and you have to nail their foot to the floor so they don't use such a requirement as an excuse to infringe even further than adding such checks already would.

Comment: Re:Why does 3d printing matter (Score 4, Insightful) 404

by czth (#43234503) Attached to: Digging Into the Legal Status of 3-D Printed Guns
In the US, the lower receiver is considered the firearm for most legal purposes (it is the part that has the serial number and requires a background check if bought new or from a dealer), whereas barrels (part of the upper receiver, or just "upper"), at this time, do not, and can be, for example, bought through the mail or at a store with no infringing background or ID check. One can buy a barrel of barrels and then print lowers (and magazines if standard capacity magazines become banned) for them without getting any sort of permission from the state, and assemble a firearm. (For nitpickers, you do of course need more than just an upper and lower, but those other parts, such as the trigger assembly, can also be ordered without state interference.)

Comment: Re:Shortage is NOT the Problem (Score 1) 224

by czth (#43182159) Attached to: Australian PM Targets Imported IT Workers

What are these "books" of which you speak?

They sound a little like "newspapers"—do you know that some companies actually make money from printing out news websites and selling the copy? Astounding, right?

Books for university cost a bundle because they kind of have you over a barrel, so to speak, by specifying a particular book (and sometimes edition), but you can still buy used. But if you're educating yourself, certainly an admirable thing, it'll take you a long time to exhaust the computer science material available for free online.

Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. -- Mt.