"I wonder if she lets anyone into that island of light?"
James Nicoll
http://xkcd.com/304/
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
Dorothy J Heydt
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> This SF-related comic made me laugh out loud:
>
> http://xkcd.com/304/
Well, I just went "hmpf." To each his own, I guess. But I like
the line you've put in the Subject. I wonder what I was
expecting, instead of what was actually there.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Mike Schilling
"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:JoDAz...@kithrup.com...
> In article <fcea3u$t6u$1...@panix1.panix.com>,
> James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>> This SF-related comic made me laugh out loud:
>>
>> http://xkcd.com/304/
>
> Well, I just went "hmpf." To each his own, I guess. But I like
> the line you've put in the Subject. I wonder what I was
> expecting, instead of what was actually there.
At least it wasn't _Children of the Mind_.
Wayne Throop
::
:: http://xkcd.com/304/
: djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
: Well, I just went "hmpf." To each his own, I guess. But I like the
: line you've put in the Subject. I wonder what I was expecting,
: instead of what was actually there.
My reaction was similar. And I don't know what I was expecting either.
I think the "laugh out loud" part is a bit unrelated to the subject
line, so maybe that's what threw me.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
James Nicoll
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>In article <fcea3u$t6u$1...@panix1.panix.com>,
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>> This SF-related comic made me laugh out loud:
>>
>> http://xkcd.com/304/
>
>Well, I just went "hmpf." To each his own, I guess. But I like
>the line you've put in the Subject. I wonder what I was
>expecting, instead of what was actually there.
>
just be a little slicer of lifer. From that point, it would have
been easy to head off in a SHALL WE DANCE direction [1]. Unfortunately,
the narrator made the mistake of going to find out what the answer
to his question was without considering that the odds that the answer
would please him were virtually nil. After all, he's clearly fussy
within the SF genre and even granting that the book that she was
reading is fiction the odds were about 20:1 in favor it being romance
rather than SF and about 10:1 that it would be mystery. Even if she
liked F&SF, the odds are about 2:1 that she was reading fantasy and
not SF. He was almost certain to be disappointed and therefore should
never have got out of his chair.
I don't know why people don't do these kinds of calculations
before giving into romantic urges.
1: I mean the Japanese movie and not the American abomination (I assume).
In it a Japanese salaryman sees the same lovely woman through a window
every night as he commutes home. Infatuated, he decides to leave his
train at her stop and try to meet her. As so often happens, this catapults
him headlong into the seedy world of ball room dancing.
cryptoguy
> In article <JoDAzM....@kithrup.com>,
> Dorothy J Heydt <djhe...@kithrup.com> wrote:>In article <fcea3u$t6...@panix1.panix.com>,
> >James Nicoll <jdnic...@panix.com> wrote:
> >> This SF-related comic made me laugh out loud:
>
> >> http://xkcd.com/304/
>
> >Well, I just went "hmpf." To each his own, I guess. But I like
> >the line you've put in the Subject. I wonder what I was
> >expecting, instead of what was actually there.
>
> If it stopped with at the panel with that line, it would
> just be a little slicer of lifer. From that point, it would have
> been easy to head off in a SHALL WE DANCE direction [1]. Unfortunately,
> the narrator made the mistake of going to find out what the answer
> to his question was without considering that the odds that the answer
> would please him were virtually nil. After all, he's clearly fussy
> within the SF genre and even granting that the book that she was
> reading is fiction the odds were about 20:1 in favor it being romance
> rather than SF and about 10:1 that it would be mystery. Even if she
> liked F&SF, the odds are about 2:1 that she was reading fantasy and
> not SF. He was almost certain to be disappointed and therefore should
> never have got out of his chair.
>
> I don't know why people don't do these kinds of calculations
> before giving into romantic urges.
If you 'do these kinds of calculations', then by definition, they
aren't
'romantic urges'.
Peter Trei
Michael Grosberg
> If it stopped with at the panel with that line, it would
> just be a little slicer of lifer. From that point, it would have
> been easy to head off in a SHALL WE DANCE direction [1]. Unfortunately,
> the narrator made the mistake of going to find out what the answer
> to his question was without considering that the odds that the answer
> would please him were virtually nil. After all, he's clearly fussy
> within the SF genre and even granting that the book that she was
> reading is fiction the odds were about 20:1 in favor it being romance
> rather than SF and about 10:1 that it would be mystery. Even if she
> liked F&SF, the odds are about 2:1 that she was reading fantasy and
> not SF. He was almost certain to be disappointed and therefore should
> never have got out of his chair.
>
> I don't know why people don't do these kinds of calculations
> before giving into romantic urges.
Funny you should say that:
http://xkcd.com/314/
Tim McDaniel
He's a faan. I laughed almost out loud at this SF-media related comic:
*And* he even got the typeface right. Alas that not enough people
will appreciate the punch line. (I hate it when people post only the
URL without a synopsis, but in this case, I can't think of a
non-spoilery synposis.)
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com
Konrad Gaertner
>
> On Sep 14, 2:28 pm, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> > In article <JoDAzM....@kithrup.com>,
> >
> > >> http://xkcd.com/304/
> >
> > I don't know why people don't do these kinds of calculations
> > before giving into romantic urges.
>
> If you 'do these kinds of calculations', then by definition, they
> aren't
> 'romantic urges'.
You obviously haven't been following this webcomic.
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: kgae...@tx.rr.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"If I let myself get hung up on only doing things that had any actual
chance of success, I'd never do *anything*!" Elan, Order of the Stick
Elf M. Sternberg
> I don't know why people don't do these kinds of calculations
> before giving into romantic urges.
Because not everyone is Ivan Vorpatril.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg, Immanentizing the Eschaton since 1988
http://www.pendorwright.com/
"You know how some people treat their body like a temple?
I treat mine like issa amusement park!" - Kei
James Nicoll
urges?
Ken from Chicago
"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:fcea3u$t6u$1...@panix1.panix.com...
Like Orson said, blame his agent--for selling a trilogy not a duology.
-- Ken from Chicago
Dorothy J Heydt
Well, I don't get it, but I don't get quite a few of his strips.
99% of the mathematical ones, for instance, go sailing blithely
over my head, and a fair few of the other ones leave me searching
around for a point.
But a few of them are very good. I even managed to grasp the one
with 70 and the bomb.
No 33 Secretary
news:JoDpL...@kithrup.com:
> Well, I don't get it, but I don't get quite a few of his strips.
> 99% of the mathematical ones, for instance, go sailing blithely
> over my head,
That's a pity. They're generally very, very funny.
--
"You weren't born prematurely, son. You just survived the abortion."
Terry Austin
David DeLaney
>> 99% of the mathematical ones, for instance, go sailing blithely
>> over my head,
>
>That's a pity. They're generally very, very funny.
And the mouseover alt-text usually does a good job of being followup-funny, as
well.
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Dorothy J Heydt
>news:JoDpL...@kithrup.com:
>
>> Well, I don't get it, but I don't get quite a few of his strips.
>> 99% of the mathematical ones, for instance, go sailing blithely
>> over my head,
>
>That's a pity. They're generally very, very funny.
They probably are; but I never got beyond Algebra I and I've now
forgotten most of that. That side of my head always was
underdeveloped (and don't tell me I didn't try: I worked like a
dog to get a B in Algebra I, and that was back when I was
thirteen and really smart). Non omnia possumus omnes.
Mike Schilling
"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:JoDvv...@kithrup.com...
>
> They probably are; but I never got beyond Algebra I and I've now
> forgotten most of that. That side of my head always was
> underdeveloped (and don't tell me I didn't try: I worked like a
> dog to get a B in Algebra I, and that was back when I was
> thirteen and really smart). Non omnia possumus omnes.
Well of course you couldn.t teach your possum algebra.
Walter Bushell
tm...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel) wrote:
For you UNIX heads.
Gene Ward Smith
$eY....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net:
> Well of course you couldn.t teach your possum algebra.
That would be impossumble.
Nobody in particular
It could have been great if only he had made the aliens who created
the descolada the focus of the book instead of a throwaway.
Dorothy J Heydt
Dorothy J Heydt
I don't get that one either and I've been using UNIX in one form
or another since about 1980.
Terry Austin
news:slrnfem8e...@gatekeeper.vic.com:
> No 33 Secretary <terry.nota...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
>>> Well, I don't get it, but I don't get quite a few of his strips.
>>> 99% of the mathematical ones, for instance, go sailing blithely
>>> over my head,
>>
>>That's a pity. They're generally very, very funny.
>
> And the mouseover alt-text usually does a good job of being
> followup-funny, as well.
>
I had never noticed that. I owe you one.
--
Terry Austin
History is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark.
Terry Austin
> In article <Xns99AB9E04E47...@216.168.3.64>,
> No 33 Secretary <terry.nota...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
>>news:JoDpL...@kithrup.com:
>>
>>> Well, I don't get it, but I don't get quite a few of his strips.
>>> 99% of the mathematical ones, for instance, go sailing blithely
>>> over my head,
>>
>>That's a pity. They're generally very, very funny.
>
> They probably are; but I never got beyond Algebra I and I've now
> forgotten most of that.
That's why I say it's a pity. No joke if funny if you don't get it.
> That side of my head always was
> underdeveloped (and don't tell me I didn't try: I worked like a
> dog to get a B in Algebra I, and that was back when I was
> thirteen and really smart). Non omnia possumus omnes.
>
Possums? We have possums around here. They are possibly the stupidest wild
animals I have ever seen.
Joe Pfeiffer
>
> I don't get that one either and I've been using UNIX in one form
> or another since about 1980.
But without ever seeing the sudo command?
Dorothy J Heydt
Nope. I was a secretary, a typist, and an editor, and I used
vi, eqn, tbl, and n/t/ditroff. And I learned to write simple
shell scripts with "foreach" and so on (not that I could do it
today), but sudo never came my way. What is it?
Wayne Throop
::
:: For you UNIX heads.
: djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
: I don't get that one either and I've been using UNIX in one form or
: another since about 1980.
But not as a sysadmin, I'd guess.
(I'm making the perhaps-unsafe assumption that the not-gettedness
is due to not knowing what sudo does; the joke is sort of the equivalent
pointing a tv remote at somebody and hiting "mute". And having it work.)
Ah, if only mind control were that easy.
Shego: <reading from a teen magazone quiz> When I am crushing
hard on someone, I let them know by A) a flirty e-mail,
or B) romantic gifts.
Drakken: I don't know, I'd probably employ some sort of
mind control device on them.
Shego: Charming. I'll check "other".
Kay Shapero
> In article <fcea3u$t6u$1...@panix1.panix.com>,
> James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> > This SF-related comic made me laugh out loud:
> >
> > http://xkcd.com/304/
>
> He's a faan. I laughed almost out loud at this SF-media related comic:
>
> <http://xkcd.com/311/>
I DID laugh out loud. Thanks for the link!
--
Kay Shapero
http://www.kayshapero.net
Address munged - to email use kay at the domain of my website, above.
Dorothy J Heydt
Kay Shapero <k...@see.my.sig.invalid> wrote:
>In article <fcepb3$dkl$1...@reader1.panix.com>, tm...@panix.com says...
>> In article <fcea3u$t6u$1...@panix1.panix.com>,
>> James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>> > This SF-related comic made me laugh out loud:
>> >
>> > http://xkcd.com/304/
>>
>> He's a faan. I laughed almost out loud at this SF-media related comic:
>>
>> <http://xkcd.com/311/>
>
>I DID laugh out loud. Thanks for the link!
Would someone like to explain it to me? I recognized neither the
name nor the typeface.
Dorothy J Heydt
>:: http://xkcd.com/149/
>::
>:: For you UNIX heads.
>
>: djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
>: I don't get that one either and I've been using UNIX in one form or
>: another since about 1980.
>
>But not as a sysadmin, I'd guess.
Nope.
The only thing I'm willing to guess at is that it has nothing to
do with "sudoku."
>(I'm making the perhaps-unsafe assumption that the not-gettedness
>is due to not knowing what sudo does; the joke is sort of the equivalent
>pointing a tv remote at somebody and hiting "mute". And having it work.)
That's the start of it, anyway.
John Schilling
Or rather,
http://xkcd.com/55/
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Michael Grosberg
> In article <MPG.215512621763b040989...@news.west.earthlink.net>,
> Kay Shapero <k...@see.my.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
> >In article <fcepb3$dk...@reader1.panix.com>, t...@panix.com says...
> >> In article <fcea3u$t6...@panix1.panix.com>,
> >> James Nicoll <jdnic...@panix.com> wrote:
> >> > This SF-related comic made me laugh out loud:
>
> >> > http://xkcd.com/304/
>
> >> He's a faan. I laughed almost out loud at this SF-media related comic:
>
> >> <http://xkcd.com/311/>
>
> >I DID laugh out loud. Thanks for the link!
>
> Would someone like to explain it to me? I recognized neither the
> name nor the typeface.
>
> Dorothy J. Heydt
> Albany, California
River tam is a character from Joss Whedon's SF TV show _Firefly_.
She's basically an autistic frail-looking girl with mad kung-fu skills
(and possibly some sort of ESP but that's beside the point)
Kay Shapero
Wayne Throop
:: I DID laugh out loud. Thanks for the link!
: djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
: Would someone like to explain it to me?
: I recognized neither the name nor the typeface.
I don't really recognize the font, but River Tam is the name
of a character from Firefly / Serenity, who is a supreme
martial artist and general extreme bad-ass. Who happens
to look like a teenaged girl. Because she is one, you see.
Hence, for an appropriate selection of audience,
"some character we already know, someone we never get
tired of watching".
The relevant scene from the movie might be
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e186/cra2yw01f/River_tam.png
or, as immortalized in a collectable figure
http://www.alteregocomics.com/store/files/images/large/d_3147.jpg
And FWIW, she didn't have those weapons when the fight started...
So, the font is probably the same used in the trailers for Serenity.
"Do you know that girl?"
"No, I really don't."
--- Malcolm Reynolds commenting on a bar fightmind control
"I think you're beginning to understand
how dangerous River Tam is."
"She is a mite unpredictable. Mood swings of a sort."
"It's worse than you know."
"It usually is."
--- Malcolm bantering with the Operative
"You take care of me, Simon.
You've always taken care of me.
My turn."
--- River Tam
Matthias Warkus
Maybe I'm stupid, but even with this information I don't see why it's
supposed to be funny.
mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de
Mike Schilling
"John Schilling" <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote in message
news:ruume3djc6p8np086...@4ax.com...
>
> Or rather,
> http://xkcd.com/55/
What kind of mathematician doesn't know what happens when you multiply
something by a unit matrix?
Wayne Throop
: Maybe I'm stupid, but even with this information I don't see why it's
: supposed to be funny.
I imagine it's because, in terms of action adventure films, you don't
immediately think "Summer Glau as River Tam". Usually she's just this
shy girl. And yet, if you take her most notable scenes in Serenity and
expand them to the whole movie length, you get exactly what they
describe. The juxtaposition of the unexpectedness of the suggestion,
followed by a "oh yeah... that sort of works". The usual humor bit of
springing a surprise meme that's somehow in retrospect not a surprise.
"I hope I die peacefully in my sleep like my Grandpa,
not screaming in fear like the passengers in his car."
Thomas Lindgren
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
> Nope. I was a secretary, a typist, and an editor, and I used
> vi, eqn, tbl, and n/t/ditroff. And I learned to write simple
> shell scripts with "foreach" and so on (not that I could do it
> today), but sudo never came my way. What is it?
Basically, "do command as superuser/root".
Best,
Thomas
--
Thomas Lindgren "It was all very mechanical -- but
that's the way planetside life is." -- RAW
Mike Van Pelt
>
> http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e186/cra2yw01f/River_tam.png
I burst out laughing at that scene in the movie. What a
perfect Frank Frazetta tableau -- except for the skinny
little girl in the Conan the Barbarian role.
>And FWIW, she didn't have those weapons when the fight started...
Yeah... Took them from some of the very nasty near-unstoppable
bad guys on a pile of whose warm corpses she's standing...
When the gendarmes finally put in an appearance, several
dozen commandos pointing assault rifles at her, I said
"Don't shoot. You'll only make her angry." I suspect if
they hadn't obeyed the order to stand down, it would have
gone very badly for them.
--
Mike Van Pelt | Wikipedia. The roulette wheel of knowledge.
mvp at calweb.com | --Blair P. Houghton
KE6BVH
Walter Bushell
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> >http://xkcd.com/149/
> >
> >For you UNIX heads.
>
> I don't get that one either and I've been using UNIX in one form
> or another since about 1980.
"SUDO" allows you to run a command as someone else.
David DeLaney
>>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
>>>> Well, I don't get it, but I don't get quite a few of his strips.
>>>> 99% of the mathematical ones, for instance, go sailing blithely
>>>> over my head,
>>>
>>>That's a pity. They're generally very, very funny.
>>
>> And the mouseover alt-text usually does a good job of being
>> followup-funny, as well.
>
>I had never noticed that. I owe you one.
It took me a while too, and I think I had to be told about it twice before
it 'stuck'...
Dave "and of course Terry is now going back through the archives, though my
visualization does not extend far enough to say which way" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
David DeLaney
>Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>>>
>>> I don't get that one either and I've been using UNIX in one form
>>> or another since about 1980.
>>
>>But without ever seeing the sudo command?
>
>Nope. I was a secretary, a typist, and an editor, and I used
>vi, eqn, tbl, and n/t/ditroff. And I learned to write simple
>shell scripts with "foreach" and so on (not that I could do it
>today), but sudo never came my way. What is it?
Sudo <blah> makes the computer run <blah> as root/superuser, with root
privileges, if I remember right. So here the joke is that if superuser says
"Make me a sandwich", the answer is "How high?"...
Dave
John M. Gamble
You did read the tooltip that accompanied that cartoon, right?
--
-john
February 28 1997: Last day libraries could order catalogue cards
from the Library of Congress.
Dorothy J Heydt
Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***> wrote:
>
>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>
>> Nope. I was a secretary, a typist, and an editor, and I used
>> vi, eqn, tbl, and n/t/ditroff. And I learned to write simple
>> shell scripts with "foreach" and so on (not that I could do it
>> today), but sudo never came my way. What is it?
>
>Basically, "do command as superuser/root".
Oh. OK. Does the system then respond by demanding root
password before executing the command? I sure hope so.
Mike Schilling
Walter Bushell
d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
> Terry Austin <terry.nota...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote in
> >> No 33 Secretary <terry.nota...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
> >>>> Well, I don't get it, but I don't get quite a few of his strips.
> >>>> 99% of the mathematical ones, for instance, go sailing blithely
> >>>> over my head,
> >>>
> >>>That's a pity. They're generally very, very funny.
> >>
> >> And the mouseover alt-text usually does a good job of being
> >> followup-funny, as well.
> >
> >I had never noticed that. I owe you one.
>
> It took me a while too, and I think I had to be told about it twice before
> it 'stuck'...
>
> Dave "and of course Terry is now going back through the archives, though my
> visualization does not extend far enough to say which way" DeLaney
If you had been properly Mentored, one cartoon should have been enough
to grasp the entire series.
Sea Wasp
Well, THAT'S no fun. Back in MY day we had all sorts of workarounds
for those damn operators who thought that the fact that they owned and
operated the system had anything to do with who should be running things.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Mike Schilling
news:46EC00D4...@sgeObviousinc.com...
"sudo" is the front door; I didn't mean to imply there were no back doors.
Matthias Warkus
Not necessarily all the time, though, as authentifying once usually
entitles you to use sudo for some period of time without retyping the
password. And it does not always ask for the superuser password either,
just your own one, if you're in the right group and it's configured that
way.
mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de
erilar
Matthias Warkus <War...@students.uni-marburg.de> wrote:
You have to be a fan.
--
Mary, biblioholic
bib-li-o-hol-ism : the habitual longing to purchase, read, store,
admire, and consume books in excess.
Mike Schilling
"Matthias Warkus" <War...@students.uni-marburg.de> wrote in message
news:fcgvnq$2b06$2...@news.nnrp.de...
It does require proof that you're entitled to act as superuser, or there'd
effectively be no security at all. (Not that that would be unusual on many
Unix boxes.)
Damien Sullivan
>River tam is a character from Joss Whedon's SF TV show _Firefly_.
>She's basically an autistic frail-looking girl with mad kung-fu skills
>(and possibly some sort of ESP but that's beside the point)
I'd say one of her problems was being the exact opposite of autistic.
-xx- Damien X-)
Joe Pfeiffer
> In article <1by7f83...@snowball.wb.pfeifferfamily.net>,
> Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
> >djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
> >>
> >> I don't get that one either and I've been using UNIX in one form
> >> or another since about 1980.
> >
> >But without ever seeing the sudo command?
>
> Nope. I was a secretary, a typist, and an editor, and I used
> vi, eqn, tbl, and n/t/ditroff. And I learned to write simple
> shell scripts with "foreach" and so on (not that I could do it
> today), but sudo never came my way. What is it?
It lets you run one command as root (if you're authenticated). It
lets the sysadmin give root access to particular commands as needed,
without giving blanket root access to everything.
Sea Wasp
River Tam is basically a brainwashed Mary Sue. She's a supergenius
who can do anything -- read the manual and pilot a starship, learn
surgery by watching, etc. -- and she has telepathy of some level
(that's not "possible", it's pretty explicitly demonstrated several
places). She's young, good-looking (by some standards; I don't find
the actress terribly attractive, but others do), ultra intelligent,
super-skilled, etc., but was kidnapped and brainwashed by Super-Sekrit
Gummint Agents to be a super agent -- think Jason Bourne with psi and
attack trigger signals.
Then her devoted brother managed to rescue her and bring her on board
_Serenity_, a Millennium Falconesque free trading vessel with a rather
oddball crew. (Serenity was just the ship he ended up on, not the one
he planned on, so to speak). They end up being de facto members of
_Serenity_'s crew.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>I don't really recognize the font, but River Tam is the name
>of a character from Firefly / Serenity, who is a supreme
>martial artist and general extreme bad-ass. Who happens
>to look like a teenaged girl. Because she is one, you see.
>
>So, the font is probably the same used in the trailers for Serenity.
It's the font used for the title -- not just in the trailers, but the
posters, the film itself, etc.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
The fifth issue of Helix is at http://www.helixsf.com
The tenth Ethshar novel has been serialized at http://www.ethshar.com/thevondishambassador1.html
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<War...@students.uni-marburg.de> wrote:
>Michael Grosberg schrieb:
>> On Sep 15, 8:53 am, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>> In article <MPG.215512621763b040989...@news.west.earthlink.net>,
>>> Kay Shapero <k...@see.my.sig.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In article <fcepb3$dk...@reader1.panix.com>, t...@panix.com says...
>>>>> In article <fcea3u$t6...@panix1.panix.com>,
>>>>> James Nicoll <jdnic...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>>>> This SF-related comic made me laugh out loud:
>>>>>> http://xkcd.com/304/
>>>>> He's a faan. I laughed almost out loud at this SF-media related comic:
>>>>> <http://xkcd.com/311/>
>>>> I DID laugh out loud. Thanks for the link!
>>> Would someone like to explain it to me? I recognized neither the
>>> name nor the typeface.
>>>
>> River tam is a character from Joss Whedon's SF TV show _Firefly_.
>> She's basically an autistic frail-looking girl with mad kung-fu skills
>> (and possibly some sort of ESP but that's beside the point)
>
>Maybe I'm stupid, but even with this information I don't see why it's
>supposed to be funny.
Because 95% of the time she's a quiet, rather timid, and very
disturbed teenage girl, not at all an action hero. The few scenes
when her fighting skills kick in are generally brief and scary, not at
all traditional action-movie fare -- but at the same time, when you
think about it, she _could_ do all that action-hero stuff...
Joe Pfeiffer
No -- it requires (1) your password, and (2) that you be in the
'sudoers' list. So the sysadmin can give ordinary users access to
particular privileged commands (if you had to give the root password,
then anybody who could sudo would also be able to be root).
David M. Palmer
<djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> In article <1by7f83...@snowball.wb.pfeifferfamily.net>,
> Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
> >djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
> >>
> >> I don't get that one either and I've been using UNIX in one form
> >> or another since about 1980.
> >
> >But without ever seeing the sudo command?
>
> Nope. I was a secretary, a typist, and an editor, and I used
> vi, eqn, tbl, and n/t/ditroff. And I learned to write simple
> shell scripts with "foreach" and so on (not that I could do it
> today), but sudo never came my way. What is it?
It was after your time.
http://www.sudo.ws/sudo/history.html
I still use 'more', even though that command is linked to the binary
for 'less' (on Mac OSX), because I learned Unix in the early 1980s.
The way everybody learned Unix back then. I got the man pages,
probably 750 sheets of triple-hole-punched paper, and read at least the
first few lines of every page.
--
David M. Palmer dmpa...@email.com (formerly @clark.net, @ematic.com)
Wayne Throop
: Oh. OK. Does the system then respond by demanding root
: password before executing the command? I sure hope so.
More complicated than that. There's a table of trusted people, the
commands they are allowed to do, and who they are allowed to do them as.
The whole point is that you can let people do admin chores *without*
giving them the root password, and still have reasonable security; sudo
demands their *own* password instead. And sudo doesn't necessarily allow
arbitrary commands, depending on how trusted you are. The man page sez:
If the invoking user is root or if the target user is the same as
the invoking user, no password is required. Otherwise, sudo requires
that users authenticate themselves with a password by default (NOTE:
in the default configuration this is the user's password, not the
root password). Once a user has been authenticated, a timestamp
is updated and the user may then use sudo without a password for a
short period of time (5 minutes unless overridden in sudoers).
So, as I say, more complicated than that.
The command "su -c" does what you suggest; do a command as supersuer,
(or some other user) but ask for the target user's password first.
Sudo is a later invention, allowing folks to keep the root password
closer to the vest but still allow admin staff to work.
Or look at it this way. It's a response to the criticism that
unix admin was un-nuanced; either you could do nothing, or you could
do everything. Sudo allows levels of trust-ed-ness to be created.
Of course... so does creation of special groups for admin access,
without needing sudo, but hey, there's always more than one way to do it.
Dorothy J Heydt
Well, yes, only by the time I was learning it you could always
type "man [cmd]" and read it online.
For the stuff I used (vi, etcetera, vide supra) I had not only
the manuals but some good tutorials written at the UCB Computer
Center by Bill Joy, Bill Tuthill, et al. By the time I left the
university I had written some of them myself.
But that was long ago and far away.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
Wayne Throop
: Because 95% of the time she's a quiet, rather timid, and very
: disturbed teenage girl, not at all an action hero. The few scenes
: when her fighting skills kick in are generally brief and scary, not at
: all traditional action-movie fare -- but at the same time, when you
: think about it, she _could_ do all that action-hero stuff...
Indeed, you can count the times when she adopted her Aspect
and wielded her Attributes on the fingers of one hand, always
very briefly, with the exception of the end of the movie, which
was a quite extended battle... though much of it offscreen.
Let's see... we've got the brief (*very* brief) gunfight to defend Kaylee
while rescuing Malcolm, the strategic planning to defend Serenity from
the bounty hunter in "Objects in Space", the remote triggering that led
to the barfight, and of course, "my turn". I don't think there are any
others (if there are I can't call them to mind just now), but there are
various hints of her potential for mayhem/whatnot at other places.
Oh, wait, there's the bit where she takes over ship control and pulls a
gun on Malcolm. That's overt, not a hint. OK *now* I can't call any
more to mind, and that's still fingers-of-one-hand. That's not much,
just a few minutes out of twenty-mumble episodes and a movie. So the
"joke" is extending those minutes for an entire film, and thinking it's
actually what fans would want to see. Well, that plus the fact that
her conditioning and remote triggers mean she *could* go berserk
and just keep bashing innocent strangers. Ha, ha.
I wouldn't count her use of ESP to locate the bank vault and warn
of Reaver attacks and similar events, though they are related.
"What in the hell happened back there?"
"Start with the part where Jayne gets knocked
out by a ninety pound girl, 'cause I don't think
that's ever getting old."
--- debiefing after the bar fight
"Yes, she always did like to dance." --- Simon Tam
"I swallowed a bug!" --- River Tam
Gary R. Schmidt
It all depends on how things are set up. F'rex, on my systems, members
of the "wheel" group don't get asked for a password.
Cheers,
Gary B-)
--
______________________________________________________________________________
Armful of chairs: Something some people would not know
whether you were up them with or not
- Barry Humphries
Joy Beeson
<grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> > I don't know why people don't do these kinds of calculations
> > before giving into romantic urges.
>
> Funny you should say that:
> http://xkcd.com/314/
According to that formula, people under fourteen may date only people
who are older than themselves.
[further calculations]
And people over fourteen may not date people under fourteen.
Therefore, people under fourteen may not date.
Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ -- sewing
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
Dorothy J Heydt
Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:05:31 -0700, Michael Grosberg
><grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>> > I don't know why people don't do these kinds of calculations
>> > before giving into romantic urges.
>>
>> Funny you should say that:
>> http://xkcd.com/314/
>
>According to that formula, people under fourteen may date only people
>who are older than themselves.
>
>[further calculations]
>
>And people over fourteen may not date people under fourteen.
>
>Therefore, people under fourteen may not date.
Which is a good idea, really. It would interfere with their
homework something awful.
Brion K. Lienhart
> The command "su -c" does what you suggest; do a command as supersuer,
> (or some other user) but ask for the target user's password first.
> Sudo is a later invention, allowing folks to keep the root password
> closer to the vest but still allow admin staff to work.
>
> Or look at it this way. It's a response to the criticism that
> unix admin was un-nuanced; either you could do nothing, or you could
> do everything. Sudo allows levels of trust-ed-ness to be created.
>
> Of course... so does creation of special groups for admin access,
> without needing sudo, but hey, there's always more than one way to do it.
Yeah, we didn't have none of that there fancy sudo stuff back when I was
installing SCO XENIX 386 (from ~40 5 1/4 floppies). We used su and we
liked it!
$cat 'food in cans'
Matthias Warkus
> On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:05:31 -0700, Michael Grosberg
> <grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>> I don't know why people don't do these kinds of calculations
>>> before giving into romantic urges.
>> Funny you should say that:
>> http://xkcd.com/314/
>
> According to that formula, people under fourteen may date only people
> who are older than themselves.
>
> [further calculations]
>
> And people over fourteen may not date people under fourteen.
>
> Therefore, people under fourteen may not date.
That's about the way it was when I was fourteen, modulo the fact that
formalised dating in the American sense doesn't really exist here.
mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de
Charlton Wilbur
SW> Well, THAT'S no fun. Back in MY day we had all sorts of
SW> workarounds for those damn operators who thought that the fact
SW> that they owned and operated the system had anything to do
SW> with who should be running things.
Heh heh. "Workarounds."
When I was an undergraduate, we had an interesting situation in that
the computer center staff were all VMS heads who were running Ultrix
(and later OSF/1 or Tru64 Unix) because the computer science
department required it and later because it was cheaper and easier
than giving all the students e-mail accounts on a VMS machine. This
meant that there were many students who knew a great deal more about
the system than the computer center staff.
The informal policy was that anyone who found a loophole which could
be used to gain root access was honor-bound to report it to the
computer center staff; two weeks later, it was fair game for anyone
who knew about it to exploit.
Of course, then they got a new director, who adopted a more
adversarial relationship towards students but without any additional
Unix knowledge, and you can imagine how *that* turned out.....
Charlton
--
Charlton Wilbur
cwi...@chromatico.net
Gary R. Schmidt
you'd had to do it on 360K, I'd believe it, but even XENIX-286 came on
1.2M floppies.
Brad Sims
Depends, I have my user name setup in /etc/sudoers... It asks
me for my own password not the root password.
Sudo allows one to let a user excute only certain commands as
root, if desired.
--
School never taught ME anything at all, except that there are even
more morons out there than I would have dreamed, and many of them like
to beat up people smaller than they are. -- SeaWasp in RASFW
@hotmail.com.invalid Eric D. Berge
wrote:
>: Matthias Warkus <War...@students.uni-marburg.de>
>: Maybe I'm stupid, but even with this information I don't see why it's
>: supposed to be funny.
>
>I imagine it's because, in terms of action adventure films, you don't
>immediately think "Summer Glau as River Tam".
Somebody must think that, since she has been cast in the upcoming
"Sarah Connor Chronicles" TV series.
Brion K. Lienhart
> Brion K. Lienhart wrote:
>> Wayne Throop wrote:
>>
>>> The command "su -c" does what you suggest; do a command as supersuer,
>>> (or some other user) but ask for the target user's password first.
>>> Sudo is a later invention, allowing folks to keep the root password
>>> closer to the vest but still allow admin staff to work.
>>>
>>> Or look at it this way. It's a response to the criticism that
>>> unix admin was un-nuanced; either you could do nothing, or you could
>>> do everything. Sudo allows levels of trust-ed-ness to be created.
>>>
>>> Of course... so does creation of special groups for admin access,
>>> without needing sudo, but hey, there's always more than one way to do
>>> it.
>>
>> Yeah, we didn't have none of that there fancy sudo stuff back when I
>> was installing SCO XENIX 386 (from ~40 5 1/4 floppies). We used su and
>> we liked it!
>>
> Nah, it wasn't 40... Maybe it was, we'd gone to 3 1/2" by then, if
> you'd had to do it on 360K, I'd believe it, but even XENIX-286 came on
> 1.2M floppies.
Yah, it was 40. It wasn't for a PC, it was an Intel branded special
Xenix box that only had single density floppies. I had to do several of
them before we got newer ones with QIC tapes that only had 2-3 floppies.
Brion K. Lienhart
> Nah, it wasn't 40... Maybe it was, we'd gone to 3 1/2" by then, if
> you'd had to do it on 360K, I'd believe it, but even XENIX-286 came on
> 1.2M floppies.
And I've installed Win NT 3something from 3 1/2" floppies too.
Wayne Throop
:: "Summer Glau as River Tam".
: Eric D. Berge <eric_berge @ hotmail.com.invalid>
: Somebody must think that, since she has been cast in the upcoming
: "Sarah Connor Chronicles" TV series.
Interesting. But Just becuase somebody eventually thinks it doesn't mean
the proverbial you immediately thinks it.
Wayne Throop
:: Nah, it wasn't 40... Maybe it was, we'd gone to 3 1/2" by then, if
:: you'd had to do it on 360K, I'd believe it, but even XENIX-286 came
:: on 1.2M floppies.
One point two million floppies? Ouch.
: Yah, it was 40. It wasn't for a PC, it was an Intel branded special
: Xenix box that only had single density floppies. I had to do several
: of them before we got newer ones with QIC tapes that only had 2-3
: floppies.
Probably a bit after Xenix, but my first linux install, in a 486 box,
was from approximately 40 1.2 megabyte floppies.
endy9
> In article <fcea3u$t6u$1...@panix1.panix.com>,
> James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>> This SF-related comic made me laugh out loud:
>>
>> http://xkcd.com/304/
>
> the line you've put in the Subject. I wonder what I was
> expecting, instead of what was actually there.
>
Sounds like a good idea for an anthology with every writer having to use
that line as the basis for their story <grin>.
--
Dennis/Endy
http://home.comcast.net/~endymion91/
~I was born to rock the boat. Some will sink but we will float.
Grab your coat. Let's get out of here.
You're my witness. I'm your Mutineer~ - Warren Zevon
- -
Dorothy J Heydt
endy9 <endym...@comcast.net> wrote:
>"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
>news:JoDAz...@kithrup.com...
>> In article <fcea3u$t6u$1...@panix1.panix.com>,
>> James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>> This SF-related comic made me laugh out loud:
>>>
>>> http://xkcd.com/304/
>>
>> Well, I just went "hmpf." To each his own, I guess. But I like
>> the line you've put in the Subject. I wonder what I was
>> expecting, instead of what was actually there.
>>
>
>
>Sounds like a good idea for an anthology with every writer having to use
>that line as the basis for their story <grin>.
Go for it. Find a publisher.
David Goldfarb
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>Would someone like to explain it to me? I recognized neither the
>name nor the typeface.
The typeface is called "Papyrus" and was used in the advertising
for the movie _Serenity_.
--
David Goldfarb | "We need you to distract them."
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu |"Right."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | "What are you going to do?"
|"I'm going to kill them all. That ought to
|distract them." -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Jasper Janssen
<mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
>news:JoF17...@kithrup.com...
>> In article <87r6l09...@dev.null>,
>> Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***> wrote:
>>>
>>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>>>
>>>> Nope. I was a secretary, a typist, and an editor, and I used
>>>> vi, eqn, tbl, and n/t/ditroff. And I learned to write simple
>>>> shell scripts with "foreach" and so on (not that I could do it
>>>> today), but sudo never came my way. What is it?
>>>
>>>Basically, "do command as superuser/root".
>>
>> Oh. OK. Does the system then respond by demanding root
>> password before executing the command? I sure hope so.
>
>Of course.
Actually, it usually demands your user password, and will only allow that
action for users which are specified to be allowed it. The whole point of
sudo is that you don't have to give the root password out to multiple
people.
Jasper
Jasper Janssen
I've installed OS/2 Warp from floppies. They're still in the floppy box
somewhere, all 40-odd of them.
Jasper
Gary R. Schmidt
Gary R. Schmidt
[SNIP]
> Yah, it was 40. It wasn't for a PC, it was an Intel branded special
> Xenix box that only had single density floppies. I had to do several of
> them before we got newer ones with QIC tapes that only had 2-3 floppies.
The worst I recall was Netware-286, 25 floppies, or 26 if you had a SCSI
disk.
Gary R. Schmidt
> ::: back when I was installing SCO XENIX 386 (from ~40 5 1/4 floppies)
>
> :: Nah, it wasn't 40... Maybe it was, we'd gone to 3 1/2" by then, if
> :: you'd had to do it on 360K, I'd believe it, but even XENIX-286 came
> :: on 1.2M floppies.
>
> One point two million floppies? Ouch.
>
> : Yah, it was 40. It wasn't for a PC, it was an Intel branded special
> : Xenix box that only had single density floppies. I had to do several
> : of them before we got newer ones with QIC tapes that only had 2-3
> : floppies.
>
> Probably a bit after Xenix, but my first linux install, in a 486 box,
> was from approximately 40 1.2 megabyte floppies.
Wayne Throop
:: was from approximately 40 1.2 megabyte floppies.
: "Gary R. Schmidt" <grsc...@acm.org>
: You installed the *all* the source, too, didn't you?!?!?
Heh. Actually, no, I refered to the sources (when necessary)
via the network on networked computers... this is back before home
broadband. The 40 floopies were pretty much the smallest binary
install I thought I could stand. It included a pretty full
development environment, with all man pages, but not the sources
(other than those needed for compilation). I didn't even customize
and recompile the kernel, that's how lame I was.
Brion K. Lienhart
> Wayne Throop wrote:
>> ::: back when I was installing SCO XENIX 386 (from ~40 5 1/4 floppies)
>>
>> :: Nah, it wasn't 40... Maybe it was, we'd gone to 3 1/2" by then, if
>> :: you'd had to do it on 360K, I'd believe it, but even XENIX-286 came
>> :: on 1.2M floppies.
>> One point two million floppies? Ouch.
> Okay, it was about 12 1.2M floppies. :->
>>
>> : Yah, it was 40. It wasn't for a PC, it was an Intel branded special
>> : Xenix box that only had single density floppies. I had to do several
>> : of them before we got newer ones with QIC tapes that only had 2-3
>> : floppies.
>> Probably a bit after Xenix, but my first linux install, in a 486 box,
>> was from approximately 40 1.2 megabyte floppies.
> You installed the *all* the source, too, didn't you?!?!?
Silly Rabbit, XENIX didn't come with sources.
Gary R. Schmidt
Cheers,
Gary B-)
1 - I had some source for XENIX on the PDP-11.
claylonnie
> Silly Rabbit, XENIX didn't come with sources.
Maybe *yours* didn't[1] (and he said "linux" up there^!)
Cheers,
Gary B-)
1 - I had some source for XENIX on the PDP-11.
LOL LOL!!!
Lonnie Courtney Clay
--
claylonnie
Lonnie Courtney Clay