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 Linux Zealot Takes a Bath

 Author:  Topic:  Posted:
Sep 04, 2002
 Comments:
In this episode, submitted by user eSolutions, a twist on Gulliver is assayed as Linux Zealot Takes A Bath.
zealot

More stories about Linux Zealot
Linux Zealot - The Internet's most controversial cartoon superhero
Linux Zealot is Busted
Linux Zealot learns a valuable lesson.
Linux Zealot sticks to his guns.
Linux Zealot in the Future
Linux Zealot goes to the Movies
Linux Zealot Gets Educated
Linux Zealot and Economics 101
Linux Zealot attempts to get laid.
Linux Zealot (almost) Makes a Friend
Linux Zealot needs a job
Linux Zealot Gets Laid
Linux Zealot contributes to the Open Source Community
Linux Zealot vs the RIAA.

More stories by
RobotSlave

How to Smash Global Industrial Capitalism Without Leaving Your Bar-Stool
Reexamining the Recording Industry
The Genital Offensive
The Incontrovertible Existence of God
Happy Tango-no-Sekku!
Amateur Golf and the Computer Criminal
A Brief Explanation of the Adequacy Comment Ratings System




2 baths in his whole adult life... (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by Anonymous Reader on Wed Sep 4th, 2002 at 03:50:59 AM PST
Is he french?


No... (none / 0) (#3)
by Anonymous Reader on Wed Sep 4th, 2002 at 04:36:48 AM PST
Merely a Brown alumnus.


Alumnus? (none / 0) (#5)
by tkatchev on Wed Sep 4th, 2002 at 12:38:00 PM PST
Isn't there a pill that cures it nowadays?


--
Peace and much love...




 
is this the last adventure of Linux Zealot? (none / 0) (#2)
by Anonymous Reader on Wed Sep 4th, 2002 at 04:00:10 AM PST
I hope it is not, it is a very good series. I think this episode was a bit rushed though. Even though it is very true to life, it was in monochrome. What happened to techni-color? Was that just a one time thing?


Typical (none / 0) (#4)
by dmg on Wed Sep 4th, 2002 at 05:30:36 AM PST
Someone goes to all that trouble to produce a Linux Zealot cartoon, FOR FREE, and all you people can do is piss and moan about it.

May I remind you that Linux Zealot is a "free cartoon" released under the APL (Adequacy Public Licence). Anyone may produce a Linux Zealot cartoon, provided they release it via adequacy.org.

Now that you are aware of this fact, may I suggest that if you want to see Linux Zealot in color, you go do it yourself.

time to give a Newtonian demonstration - of a bullet, its mass and its acceleration.
-- MC Hawking

 
60 years on (none / 0) (#6)
by Lorenzo Torivuleds on Wed Sep 4th, 2002 at 03:11:54 PM PST
I am pleased to see Linux Zealot still has all his hair 60 years on, as Long hair never goes out of fashion. I was interseted that even giving up his open source software he still failed to pull a wife.


 
Why? (none / 0) (#7)
by Anonymous Reader on Wed Sep 4th, 2002 at 05:40:22 PM PST
What's wrong with open source? Human knowledge belongs to all.


There's nothing wrong with open source per se. (none / 0) (#8)
by dmg on Wed Sep 4th, 2002 at 05:45:18 PM PST
The problem is that advocates of Open Source tend to be egotistical over-zealous maniacs. So long as you don't force me to use your stinking viral cancerous GPL on my code, I won't force you to use a Microsoft EULA on yours.

Fair enough ?

time to give a Newtonian demonstration - of a bullet, its mass and its acceleration.
-- MC Hawking

 
Software isn't knowledge (none / 0) (#11)
by T Reginald Gibbons on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 02:04:19 AM PST
Conflating the two is idiotic.


Where's the difference? (none / 0) (#14)
by The Mad Scientist on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 02:41:54 AM PST
I can write down certain kinds of knowledge in English, as a scientific paper, describing an algorithm.

Or I can write the same knowledge in a slightly different form, using ie. C instead, as a source code.

If you think there is more difference than just the form, I'd be delighted to see it.


Duuuuuh (none / 0) (#15)
by T Reginald Gibbons on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 03:04:39 AM PST
Make your written english do something with my computer.


Heh. (none / 0) (#16)
by The Mad Scientist on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 03:19:50 AM PST
Ever seen COBOL?


Now I see the problem (none / 0) (#18)
by T Reginald Gibbons on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 03:29:39 AM PST
You don't appear to appreciate the difference between human languages, computer languages and software. All three are increasingly different things.


What problem? (1.00 / 1) (#19)
by The Mad Scientist on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 03:42:49 AM PST
They are all principially the same, only implementation differs.

If it is English, Spanish, C source, Java bytecode, or 68000 assembler, or even binary code itself, it is an information written in a language.

It is trivial to write assembler in English sentences ("Move word from memory address XXXX to register Y"), so it will be parseable by a regexp-based preprocessor. Then you will have a program written in English and you can be satisfied. Same trick can be with more or less hassle done with every computer language.

The only meaningful difference between human and computer languages is in additional constraints on the computer ones, to keep the information strongly unambiguous and easily parseable.

For more examples of how to express computer code in different ways, see here.


DANGER - don't follow the link! (5.00 / 1) (#24)
by Amitabh Bachan on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 05:59:11 AM PST
The link goes to an illegal hacker site and if you view the criminal content the MPAA will quite rightly be allowed to gouge your eyes out and cut off your tongue to prevent you from commuicating the anti-American terrorist codes to your collaborators.


 
You're a geek (none / 0) (#28)
by T Reginald Gibbons on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 03:21:50 PM PST
And not a native English speaker, so I suppose it is not surprising that you don't see the differences. There are several. To begin with, in order to "program in English", it is necessary to restrict English grammar quite rigidly. What you end up with isn't English, it just shares some of the same words and is somewhat understandable to an English speaker. Since the subject matter is likely to be far outside the domain of normal English conversation, that veneer of similarity is thin, as few English speakers understand the intent of the sentences.

The fundamental difference is that human language is a tool of social discourse, while machine languages are a series of machine instructions. A computer cannot participate in a conversation, no matter how many English words you use in its assembly code.

If you are going to persist in believing computer languages to be functionally identical to human languages, you are going to have to explain how this applies to the software development process, which seems to involve more than having some programmers hold a discussion with some computers.

In any case, none of that explains why software should be considered a form of knowledge. Most human linguistic exchanges do not contain much that we would consider knowledge.


Is it good or bad? If so, in what context? (1.00 / 1) (#29)
by The Mad Scientist on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 03:57:00 PM PST
To begin with, in order to "program in English", it is necessary to restrict English grammar quite rigidly.

Yes, and rightfully so. To remove the ambiguities.

What you end up with isn't English, it just shares some of the same words and is somewhat understandable to an English speaker.

What I end with is English. No Shakespeare, but should be enough.

Since the subject matter is likely to be far outside the domain of normal English conversation, that veneer of similarity is thin, as few English speakers understand the intent of the sentences.

Ever listened to a conversation of doctors? If you don't understand it it doesn't mean it can't be English.

The fundamental difference is that human language is a tool of social discourse, while machine languages are a series of machine instructions.

A language is a tool for mediating informations between sender and recipient. There is no principial difference between a firmware for a display controller and a recipe for brownies; the first one tells a chip what pins to pull high or low at what moment, the second one tells the cook what ingridient to put to the bowl or the oven at what moment.

A computer cannot participate in a conversation, no matter how many English words you use in its assembly code.

Depends on the software. (An obsolete and crude example is ELIZA. Contemporary software can often keep dumb but meaningfully looking conversation for prolonged periods before the human counterpart starts to have doubts. I hadn't the pleasure of playing with an advanced system yet, though...)

If you are going to persist in believing computer languages to be functionally identical to human languages, you are going to have to explain how this applies to the software development process, which seems to involve more than having some programmers hold a discussion with some computers.

The main entities involved are customers, programmers, and the computers. They talk with each other, using means of communication optimized for the given kind of data exchange. Each entity class is processing the external data in its own characteristic way. The differences are not principial, just in the implementation level. The brain can quite easily be nothing more than a quantum computer.

In any case, none of that explains why software should be considered a form of knowledge. Most human linguistic exchanges do not contain much that we would consider knowledge.

Okay. To avoid you manipulating the playing field during the game, what do you consider being "knowledge"?


To begin with, computers can't know anything (none / 0) (#30)
by T Reginald Gibbons on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 04:21:29 PM PST
This often needs to be stressed when I'm involved in conversations with people who use their computer as a friend-surrogate. Knowledge is something that can only exist in the human brain. An exacting definition would be far too rigid, so I'll give you an example:

Prior to the widespread use of computers, the Rand Corporation released a lengthy book of random numbers. Page after page of randomly generated numbers. If a person could memorize all the numbers in the book, they might claim to know what is in the book. As knowledge, this is useless. The purpose of the book was to provide good random numbers through the process of opening the book to a random page and stabbing blindly for a number. A person who has memorized the numbers will be less able to choose a random number from memory than from the book, since the human mind isn't all that random.

In other words, there is a difference between function and information. You can memorize a computer program, and pretend it is knowledge, but this "knowledge" is useless to you, as you are not a machine, and you can't run the code on yourself. You still need a computer for the program to fulfill its purpose.

You might be thinking that if you are able to understand the purpose of the program, then the program has conveyed knowledge to you. This would be a very naive statement to make. An engineer could spend time examining a gearbox, and learn the purposes of all its parts. This does not make a car identical to English as a form of communication.

Your blind certainty that different languages are identical is becoming absurd. English minus most of its semantic complexity isn't English. There's more to a language than the words it contains.


Function vs form (1.00 / 1) (#31)
by The Mad Scientist on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 04:47:57 PM PST
Knowledge is something that can only exist in the human brain.

Why? What function of human brain is so distinctive?

A person who has memorized the numbers will be less able to choose a random number from memory than from the book, since the human mind isn't all that random.

There is a problem with your example; this process wouldn't choose entirely random numbers, as people have tendency to open the book approximately in the middle and to pick numbers around the centers of the pages.

...you can't run the code on yourself.

I remember vividly a problematic program for a microcontroller. I spent a night over the assembler printout, with calculator and a pencil and the chip's spec sheets, stepping through and tracing down the bug. (No, we hadn't the in-circuit simulator.) You can run the code on everything that is capable of handling the given instruction set - including yourself. (It will be slow. But it will run.)

You might be thinking that if you are able to understand the purpose of the program, then the program has conveyed knowledge to you.

Oh? It wouldn't?

This would be a very naive statement to make.

This would be reverse engineering.

An engineer could spend time examining a gearbox, and learn the purposes of all its parts. This does not make a car identical to English as a form of communication.

It's a different form of communication, principially equivalent - telling you the structure of the gearbox and its parts. English description, blueprints, or the gearbox itself - all are just different forms of telling the same. Same meaning, different syntax. Different sides of the same mountain, as a Buddhist monk would say.

Your blind certainty that different languages are identical is becoming absurd.

Your blind insistence that form is more than function is funny.

English minus most of its semantic complexity isn't English.

English minus most of its semantic complexity is stripped-down English.

There's more to a language than the words it contains.

Ie, its purpose.


OK, then (4.00 / 1) (#32)
by T Reginald Gibbons on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 05:29:02 PM PST
So cars and the English language are now the same thing in Mad Scientist land. Fantastic. It would clearly be insane to continue the discussion in the face of such compelling arguments.


Allow me (none / 0) (#34)
by detikon on Sun Sep 8th, 2002 at 09:41:01 PM PST
I'll make it simple enough so that you can wrap your tiny little mind around it.

Source code == Speech. Mathematicians use symbols. The Deaf speak with their hands. Programmers speak in code.

Think about it. And I mean THINK, not just look at the pretty letters then start typing gibberish.




Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script.

 
Open source isn't software. (none / 0) (#26)
by because it isnt on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 02:26:05 PM PST
it's the informative expression of another human being's knowledge. If you're very lucky, it might just compile into software.
adequacy.org -- because it isn't

 
Very good... (none / 0) (#9)
by faustus on Wed Sep 4th, 2002 at 06:00:54 PM PST
For inspiration for your next episode please view this video of Linux Zealots on a camping trip


--You seem to be suffering from a liberal-arts education.

My Word!!! (none / 0) (#33)
by John Wainright on Fri Sep 6th, 2002 at 07:18:39 PM PST
That is probably the most disturbing thing I have ever viewed on the Inter-web.
Surely there is a faith-based program available to help these poor souls deal with their deformities and speech impediments.



 
Graphical Interchange Format (4.50 / 2) (#10)
by Christine Schildt on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 01:56:29 AM PST
It appears that the historically law-abiding editors of this fine web site have been duped by a troll. Obviously they would not intentionally stoop to posting a graphic article in Unisys's patented Graphical Interchange Format (U.S. Patent 4558302). I would not be surprised if these graphics were produced in direct violation of this patent, using a hacker license-dodging tool such as The GIMP.

Mr. eSolutions adds insult to injury by using this pirate format for a medium it is notoriously poorly-suited to. Representations of people appear best in the Joint People Expression Graphic format, as past articles have shown.

This probably slipped through the cracks due to the widespread use of the GIF format. (It has been called a "gateway" piracy format.) I am sure that if this had been attempted with a pirate format that has received more media attention recently, it would have been caught straight away.


The GIMP doesn't infringe Unisys's patents. (5.00 / 1) (#12)
by gordonjcp on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 02:37:19 AM PST
It uses a GIF compresser that does RLE instead of Huffman coding. This is why the GIF images it produces are bloody *huge* compared to, say, Photoshop. Far better to use PNG for pixel-accurate lossless compression, or JPEG if you can live with lossy compression.


Problem with PNG... (none / 0) (#17)
by The Mad Scientist on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 03:23:24 AM PST
...is that it still doesn't have universal support. Even my Nokia can display GIFs.

Isn't it easier to just ignore the patents in question? Unisys will survive, and you can get patched software and libraries from less industry-owned countries, like ie. Australia.


Well, yeah, I suppose... (none / 0) (#20)
by gordonjcp on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 03:54:08 AM PST
Some of us don't like being called "evil criminal hackers" because we know how to implement an unpatentable mathematical system as computer software, though.

The RLE GIF thing is a bit handy, because although the files are very large, they can still be decompressed by any convention GIF decoder.


RLE GIFs (5.00 / 1) (#21)
by The Mad Scientist on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 04:27:25 AM PST
The RLE GIF thing is a bit handy, because although the files are very large, they can still be decompressed by any convention GIF decoder.

The RLE GIF is unusable for narrowband systems. If I can pick between having slow transmissions and higher cellphone bills, and being an "evil criminal hacker", when the difference is only the version of a library I use, guess what I (and everyone who thinks practically instead of ideologically) will select.

The life of a borderline criminal is much more comfortable than of a "straight" citizen.


 
If you care so much... (none / 0) (#13)
by The Mad Scientist on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 02:38:05 AM PST
...move outside of the US jurisdiction. (Yes, USA isn't the world.)

Those Unisys bastards cost me half a night because of figuring out how to get patches to compile GIF-compatible version of libgd, because the cowardly developers got scared instead of doing the logical move - transfering the development (at least de jure) offshore.


it does expire you know (none / 0) (#22)
by Anonymous Reader on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 04:54:03 AM PST
Patent filed : 1983
Patent expires : 2003


Good. (none / 0) (#23)
by The Mad Scientist on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 05:06:23 AM PST
We can ignore it until then.


 
Sorry to burst your bubble, Baby... (5.00 / 1) (#25)
by eSolutions on Thu Sep 5th, 2002 at 09:26:40 AM PST
I didn't install the GIMP scripts. I went to start->programs->accessories->paint, thus staying within the law.

I dig your devotion though, baby, assuming you are as female in reali-tay as your username. Care to continue this conversation over pudding?




------- You wanna play the blind man, go walk with a Shepherd. But me, my eyes are wide fuckin' open.

 

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