Josef “Jeff” Sipek

Today, after playing Enemy Territory for about an hour, two people I know and I were chatting about quite a number of things. I can’t help but put the whole thing here; I tried taking excerpts, but it didn’t really work…so, either enjoy reading this, or just ignore it.

WARNING: Rather silly things ahead…

The names of same indidviduals and places have been changed to protect the innocent.

Person A entered the room.
Person B entered the room.
Person B: yes?
Person A: I’m guessing you’re done with the game
Person B: yep
Person A: considering I haven’t seen anyone for a while
Person B: it kicked me again
Person A: why?
Person B: punkbuster
Person A: ah
Person A: weird
Person B: complained about modified pak0
Person A: hmmm
Person A: well - anyway, I did reasonably well
Person B: but I have a feeling that it has to do with my parents making me inactive
Person B: yep
Person A: I got a Killing Spree first time out
Person B: oh?
Person B: make
Person B: nice
Person B: :-)
Person B: wrong window
Person A: and I got promoted to Pfc.
Person A: later, I got a pair of binoculars and improved battle sense
Person B: yep, those are fun
Person B: but mostly useless on the sniper server
Person A: Person C was a dog and TKed me
Person B: heh
Person A: I stopped playing because I neither saw nor got seen for some time
Person A: I was at a position where I saw most of the Nazi side, and any self-respecting sniper would have shot me, but nobody did
Person B: well, it is getting late
Person B: the game is usually empty around 2 am
Person A: aha
Person A: how many XP do you have?
Person B: 56-ish
Person A: haha, gotcha beat
Person B: but I wasn’t playing for 15 mins…
Person A: I had 81 at the end
Person B: nice
Person A: so yeah, let me know whenever you’re doing this
Person B: actually..
Person A: or even better, let’s get Person C in the FSL and play together
Person B: do you want to play on normal server (non-sniper)?
Person A: naah, I’m done for today
Person B: ok
Person A: my brain is fried from 95% concentration over a long period
Person B: the paper or ET? ;-)
Person A: ET
Person B: hehe
Person A: the paper, I can get up and get some water
Person A: ET, I cannot
Person B: :)
Person B: evil, isn’t it
Person B: it makes you think
Person B: that’s why I like it a bit more than quake
Person A: no, not really, actually
Person B: well, it is more about strategy
Person A: All I have to do is find a good spot to snipe from
Person B: especially on the normal servers
Person A: then find a spot to approach it from
Person A: then crawl from point A to point B
Person A: then snipe and hope Person C doesn’t get bored
Person C entered the room.
Person C: hi
Person A: hey
Person A: How was it?
Person C: how was what?
Person A: The sniping
Person C: I got a couple of kills
Person A: Cool
Person C: never saw Person B :)
Person A: haha
Person A: I think I shot him twice
Person C: I found another good sniping point on the allied side
Person A: yeah?
Person B: oh?
Person C: on the roof
Person B: which one?
Person B: the one where you exit the window?
Person C: yeah
Person A: I tried that one towards the end
Person A: saw nothing, unfortunately
Person C: so if you go to the left corner there you’ve got vantage on the point there the nazis access the bridfge
Person C: I gout a couple of kills there
Person C: it would rock if people are trying to cross the bridge
Person A: yeah
Person A: the only infiltrators we had to worry about for most of the game were… ahem… ALLIES
Person C: hehe
Person A: “I was bored…” worst excuse ever
Person B: you should then play some of the real games…where the other side _must_ cross a bridge to win the game
Person C: all the DM people were too busy talking
Person C: oh speaking of excuses… “I thought it was suppose to heal you” wins, I think :)
Person A: haha, that was the l4m3st thing ever
Person A: what the fuck am I carrying a needle around for, if not to heal people with?
Person A: I must say, though, I got a good laugh out of that
Person B: :-)
Person C: well the needle is supposed to be fore when you sneak up on people
Person C: it’s good for when you are in disguise
Person A: Oh… it’s like the gauntlet
Person A: “Humiliation!”
Person B: nah..that would be the knife
Person A: oh
Person B: virtually silent
Person C: my favorite activity lately has been playing maps with lots of close combat, finding a quite spot and sniping away
Person B: hehe
Person B: the best thing is…you can’t be called a camper
Person B: since you, as a covert ops, are _supposed_ to snipe
Person C: yeah… people actually don’t seem very hostile to snipers in this game
Person C: I’ve never heard anyone call anyone a sniper :)
Person C: I mean camper
Person B: which is awesome :-)
Person B: the only time they would get angry, is if you were sniping them right after they spawn
Person B: but even then, they would be more pissed of if you just panzerfausted them :-)
Person C: that would be awesome
Person C: especailly given that losts of people tend to spawn simultaneously
Person B: the problem with that is..
Person B: you are invincible for few seconds after you spawn
Person B: to prevent things like that
Person C: crafty bastards
Person B: hehe
Person B: which maps do you prefer?
Person C: there was one I played for the first time today… it’s got a big blue river flowing throught it
Person C: I don’t remember the name of the map though
Person C: one of the teams actualyl starts in the water
Person B: hmm
Person B: I never played that one…
Person B: I like Fuel Dump a lot..
Person C: I don’t recall that one
Person C: I usually prefer outdoors maps with lots of distance
Person B: allies must dinamite fuel depot
Person B: yes, it is very open
Person B: outdoor map
Person C: cool… I’ll look out for that one
Person C: 1944_beach is cool too
Person C: although the mortar guys are a pain there
Person B: true
Person A: Is that supposed to be from the Normandy invasion?
Person C: I believe so
Person C: I can see why so many allied soldiers were cannon fodder at normandy :)
Person B: :-)
Person A: yeah
Person C: I tried being the engineer that builds the invasion ramp
Person C: invariably someone has their mortar aimed right at that point and is raining down shells
Person B: being an engineer is fun
Person B: because everyone is nice to you :-)
Person B: and you can just ask for escort :-)
Person B: on the other hand..
Person B: a covert ops can be lots of fun as well
Person B: for example..
Person B: fuel dump..
Person B: if you have one covert ops and one engineer
Person B: you can win the game (on the allied side)
Person C: they ought to have generals… that way you can ask for escort, tell epople what to do, stay safe in a bunker and then claim credit when it’s all over if your side wins :)
Person B: you need to get the covert ops to steal a uniform
Person B: hahaha
Person C: is Person A still ehere?
Person B: then the covert ops can sneak into the fuel depot
Person A: Yes, I am.
Person B: tell the engineer to come to the main doors
Person B: then the covert ops opens the door and lets the eng. in
Person B: few seconds later
Person B: the eng places the dinamite at the fuel tanks
Person B: and 30 seconds later game over
Person B: if done early in the game, the nazis don’t expect anything, and the nearest one is at least 40 seconds away :-)
Person C: you don’t have anything t ocontribute to this fascinating conversation?
Person A: nope, considering that today was my first time playing ET for any length of time.
Person B: oh
Person A: All I can say is that I pwnt Person B :)
Person B: hey
Person B: I got kicked
Person B: twice
Person A: I don’t think you ever killed me
Person C: haha
Person C: well I killed you
Person A: And I killed you at least once, and I believe twice.
Person A: You bastard, you don’t count.
Person C: lol
Person C: I enjoyed watching you stand up look around lie back down stand up again and realize you were dying
Person B: hahaha
Person A: I was wondering where the hell I was being shot from, considering I was in a really good spot!
Person C: haha
Person A: I found some really sweet spots, and both times I was in one of them I got shot by someone on my side of the river.
Person A: Once by that BurningChicken guy or something like that
Person C: and then you poked someone with the needle?
Person A: They had weird nicknames - they seemed an incestuous bunch: BurningChicken, BurningTurkey, BoundlessTurkey, CharredChicken
Person C: lol
Person A: I thought it was just one guy being an ass
Person A: that was at first
Person A: but then I realized these were all different people
Person A: l4m3rz
Person B: hehe
Person C: yeah… it;s funny hearing these people talking about practice and so on
Person B: haha
Person B: it would be fun to start a clan..
Person C: they take their clans seriously
Person B: =FSL=
Person B: or some such
Person C: =={FS|MN}L==
Person B: yeah
Person B: just like that
Person B: awesome
Person B: and once in a while, just go onto a server en mass
Person C: yeah… all… um.. three of us
Person B: we could get more people
Person B: I htink
Person B: think
Person A: Well, you’ve seen Dave and how seriously he takes his raids
Person A: online gaming is serious business
Person C: true
Person C: but I’ve never seen any kind of teamwork in these games really
Person A: in any case, I still prefer killing people I can go and laugh at afterwards.
Person B: Person A: play on some other servers
Person C: at least not on the level of the raids the WoW people conduct
Person B: WoW is not made to be individual
Person C: neither is the normandy invasion
Person B: but, in say the normandy invasion..
Person B: you are either one of the guys that tries to run up the beach
Person B: or
Person B: you on the “clif” shooting everything you see
Person C: I wonder if the allied engineers really could rapidly build stuff like that with just a pair of pliers
Person B: heh
Person B: of course
Person B: and as they were building, the soon to be built object was a translucent outline
Person C: we’ve lost =={FS|MN}L==Spyffe==== again
Person A: haha
Person A: I’m working on my paper
Person B: ah
Person A: and besides, what am I going to say about Normandy?
Person A: wasn’t there :)
Person B: urgh
Person C: unlike me
Person B: have you ever heard of thought experiments?
Person A: hmmm… Axis or Ally?
Person A: India would have been British at the time
Person B: or purely theoretical research?
Person A: Also, I prefer you to refer to my full nick:
Person A: ={FS|MN}L=SpyffeChicken=
Person B: hehe
Person A: wow, my grammar is going down the tubes
Person C: hehe
Person B: ={FS|MN}L=LastActionHero
Person B: Hastala vista, baby!
Person A: haha
Person A: have you heard the history of that nick, Person C?
Person C: surely you mean

={FS|MN}L=SpyffeChicken=

Person B: hehehe
Person A: ah, yes
Person B: the text is supposed to be colored, not the background
Person A: well, if you can change the background
Person C: our clan is different
Person A: that’s even l337312
Person C: we;re the reverse clan
Person C: nalc if you will
Person A: emal si taht
Person A: dnuora yaw thgir eht sdrow ym referp I
Person A: brb… going to heat up some Vindaloo
Person C: ok
Person B: wtf?!
Person C: ???
Person B: it was few letters
Person B: aaaaaaaaaaaaargh
Person B: clan name color scheme
Person B: :-(
Person B: red =
Person B: black {
Person B: blue FS
Person B: black |
Person B: green MN
Person B: black }
Person B: purple L
Person B: red =
Person B: the nick
Person A: spammer
Person B: red =
Person C: someone kick him!
Person B: blame AOL
Person B: I tried to send a nice color coded message
Person C: I’ve heard this guy’s got a history of being kicked from servers
Person B: one line
Person B: and it refused to send
Person B: aaaaaargh
Person A: Person B’s just getting back at me for 0wning him in the sniper map
Person B: urgh
Person B: no wonder I was getting kicked…
Person B: Person A’s ego was to big
Person A: my ego has a separate nick
Person B: oh boy
Person C: haha
Person A: I’m listening to a weird song
Person A: “Dort tanzt Lulu, ahaha, uhuhu”
Person B: which one?
Person B: ok
Person A: Dort tanzt means “There dances”
Person A: “Und ich guck zu, ahaha, uhuhu”
Person A: “and I watch…“
Person C: omg… this conversation is almost starting to sound like the ==DM== conversation
Person C: one of them was even reciting lyrics
Person A: Jawohl!
Person A: Affirmative!
Person C: Firing for effect!
Person A: mmm, that was some good vindaloo
Person C: I’m rather pleased with how you can just right-click an ISO image and say “burn” and it just works in gnome
Person C: things have come a long way from having a long Linux CD burning HOWTO
Person C: ping
Person B: we still have that!
Person B: and it is awesome!
Person B: pong
Person C: have what?
Person B: linux cd burning howto
Person C: well yeah… but you don’t actually need it anymore
Person B: true
Person B: I just remember the commands :-)
Person A: haha
Person B: cdrecord -vv speed=16 dev=/dev/hdc file.iso
Person A: doesn’t cdrecord just do the right thing?
Person A: yeah - was about to say
Person B: I like the very verbose output
Person A: you would
Person C: installing my new DVD writer was very painless
Person B: I also like to say which device and what speed it should use..even tho it can autodetect at least the max speed
Person B: same here
Person C: even though I had to change the way my IDE drives were connected because of cable constraints
Person A: cool
Person C: it even automatically reconfigured my software RAID array automatically
Person A: damn - that’s nice
Person C: windows, of course won’t boot anymore
Person A: the horror!
Person C: lol
Person B: heh
Person C: because of the way the drive letters magically form, if you were relying on NTLDR to boot you’d be SOL
Person C: fortunately, grub can move device IDs around before it calls NTLDR to fool windows into not being retarded
Person B: heh
Person B: NTLDR is retarded
Person B: Grub just hides the fact from NTLDR
Person C: yeah
Person C: isn;t dave a windoze fan?
Person B: not a fan
Person B: but he tolerates it because of games
Person A: He’s not Rakesh
Person C: aah I knew it was someone in FSL
Person A: and he’s certainly not cut from the same block as many of the other SBCS people
Person B: true
Person C: and Person B was trying to convince me that FSL is cooler :)
Person B: when around the SBCS people, Dave is obviously pro-Linux
Person B: Person C: at least we don’t have cubicles
Person C: we’re getting 30” apple displays
Person A: I was talking to a guy from the ECSL the other day
Person A: he used to play guitar in a band
Person A: I told him to bring his guitar in sometime
Person B: is that, what’s his name…
Person A: he said he couldn’t imagine something like that happening in the ECSL… all they do there is work
Person A: Michael
Person C: yeah
Person B: cool
Person A: Then he said that from what he’s heard, anything goes in the FSL :)
Person A: we have a reputation
Person C: oh god it must have been the snowballs
Person C: did you go on a rampage yesterday given that we had the first snow of the season?
Person A: oh, he meant it in a positive way
Person A: naah, I just walked home trying to catch snowflakes in my mouth
Person A: that actually went pretty well till the wind picked up.
Person C: just stay away from the russians
Person A: I am not going to throw any snowballs at Alexey this winter
Person A: I have decided that if he wants to ignore me, I will return the favor
Person C: I think he’s decided to ignore everyone
Person A: OTOH if I see Michael…
Person C: just make sure he’s Michael not Mikhail first :)
Person A: It would be the crowning experience of my life if we got an FSL vs. ECSL snowball fight going
Person B: hehe
Person B: Person A: if you were to die valiantly in the snowball fight, could I get your desk? ;-)
Person C: at least till he respawns
Person A: hahahahaha
Person B: ~
Person A: lol @ the both of you
Person B: /red_respawntime 36000
Person A: don’t worry, I’d probably jump off the map
Person C: you can’t laugh at fellow clan members
Person A: or into the lava
Person B: umm…there is no lava at stony brook
Person A: haha
Person A: that’s what you think
Person B: and no clifs either
Person A: I’d find some.
Person B: hehe
Person C: im sure if you dig deep enough you could find some lava
Person B: yeah, but do I look like I want to dig ?
Person A: no no
Person A: I’d do it
Person A: :)
Person B: heh
Person C: you’re not the one who wanted to jump into the lava either :-P
Person B: hah
Person B: a
Person B: oh
Person B: did I tell you that I have a cut down version of Doom running on my calculator?
Person A: oh, you got that working?
Person B: yep
Person A: do the monsters move?
Person B: and the new firmware is awesome
Person B: no :-(
Person B: but..
Person B: actually
Person B: it is possible that the latest version has moving monsters
Person B: but I found only source to that
Person B: no binaries
Person C: what calculator?
Person B: HP 49G+
Person A: wow
Person A: I just caught myself navigating a document in vi by searching for the word I wanted to jump to
Person C: huh?
Person A: well, I was on the same line as a word I wanted to edit
Person C: lol
Person A: so instead of jumping forward the required number of words
Person A: I instead searched for the word
Person B: heh
Person C: I do that sometimes
Person B: I do that sometimes
Person B: hehe
Person A: hahahahahaha
Person A: lol @ both of you
Person C: it’s not quite as lame with the way emacs’ search work
Person C: s
Person A: how does emacs’s search work?
Person C: as you type it jumps to the first matching location
Person B: vim can do that
Person A: how?
Person B: no idea
Person B: but dave uses it
Person C: maybe he uses Emacs emulation mode :)
Person B: I doubt it
Person B: no one in the lab uses emacs, except Person D
Person C: ha
Person C: losers
Person A: Person B: set incsearch
Person B: ok
Person C: there’s a better way
Person A: what?
Person C: ln -sf /usr/bin/emacs /usr/bin/vim
Person B: eh?
Person B: replace vim with emacs symlink?
Person A: yeah
Person B: oh
Person A: I actually did put emacs on Galatea
Person B: the search thing
Person A: because it’s fun building it against Motif
Person B: hehe
Person C: you have strange ideas of fun
Person A: Oh I certainly do
Person B: Person C: he’s a solaris user
Person A: yesterday, my idea of fun was building 64-bit Perl, Apache, and mod_perl
Person C: ah good point
Person B: I was just going to say that
Person C: you need to get out more :)
Person A: particularly tricky since I already had a 32-bit libexpat.so
Person B: hmm
Person B: I really tempted to write some program for my calculator
Person C: I used to have an HP 11c
Person C: RPN fun :)
Person B: yep :-)
Person B: that’s one of the reasons why I got it
Person C: I enjoyed watching people when they asked to borrow my calculator and then tried desperately to find the = key
Person B: hehe
Person A: I wish I needed a calculator :/
Person B: this calculator can do both RPN and algebraic
Person B: and it has an enter key
Person B: doesn’t say =
Person B: but it is obvious that it is it
Person C: you kids and your algebraic computers
Person B: it is kind of a shame that HP changed the enter key from a 2 keys wide button above 9 and x to standard TI-like enter
Person C: hmmm
Person A: so tell me
Person C: no
Person B: hahahaha
Person B: I just tested a program
Person B: it is awesome
Person A: actually, nm
Person B: you give it two geographic coordinates
Person A: I tested a program once.
Person B: and it calculates the angle above the horizon, and minimal velocity for a missle to reach the target from the starting point
Person B: it unfortunatelly, ignore friction, and assumes instantenous acceleration
Person A: “minimal velocity?”
Person A: surely “initial velocity”
Person B: minimal initial vel
Person B: it also makes the assumption that earth is a sphere
Person A: if you gave a projectile a higher vel than the minimum, it would not hit the target
Person B: I am tempted to modify the program
Person B: to do things right :-)
Person C: I personally would recommend fixing the earth
Person A: What are you going to do, make the Czech Republic a nuclear power?
Person A: that could be accomplished with nuclear weapons, too.
Person C: it would take a lot of nukes to spherecalize the earth
Person C: spherify?
Person B: not particularly…
Person B: 1) minimize the spin
Person B: 2) whatever you do, make it symmetric
Person A: spherily I say unto ye, sphere my your spheeches
Person C: it takes a lot of nukes to stop the earth from spinning
Person B: you can do that in some other ways…
Person A: I might even go so far as to say that it is not possible to stop the earth from spinning with nukes.
Person C: why not?
Person A: unless you can somehow make their blasts directional.
Person C: dig a hole and plant the nukes in there
Person B: haven’t you seen Armagedon?
Person A: oh, I see
Person A: clever
Person B: that would blow the planet into peices
Person B: and it wouldn’t spin…
Person B: because it wouldn’t exist :-)
Person C: yes it would
Person A: the galaxy is made up of (relative) dust, yet it spins
Person C: unless you counteract the angular momentum somehow, the system of asteroids formerly known as earth would still spin
Person B: but it wouldn’t be Earth!
Person C: but anyway…. the point was the make the earth spherical
Person B: Person A: it is relative spining…
Person C: destroying the earth is not a good way to start
Person B: how about scraping few km of the crust near the equator?
Person C: what would we do with all these nukes then?
Person B: well..
Person A: I disagree
Person A: I think destroying the earth is a great idea
Person A: then, when the cloud of dust collapses, it will pack tightly, into a sphere
Person B: I’m sure there are plenty of third world countries that would love to receive a gift…food, medications, nukes
Person C: no it won’t
Person A: the reason the world isn’t spherical is because of spin and tectonics
Person B: it won’t if it rotates
Person C: there’s also the little matter of the moon
Person A: if it is initially spherical, we can build a sufficiently hard system of girders that will keep the equator at its proper size
Person A: or, if we lack the means to make girders after the Earth has been destroyed
Person A: we can use masking tape
Person B: I like the girders idea
Person C: I could see earth’s production facilities being affected somewhat by being vaporised
Person C: OTOH, the core is mostly made of iron, so there should girders ought to be super-cheap them
Person B: we could give them 2 weeks notice
Person C: then
Person B: along with a map of the moon
Person C: but the moon is also responsible to deforming the earth slightly
Person C: it must be destroyed and assimilated into the Earth v2.0
Person B: oh…
Person B: I know..
Person B: we give them 2 weeks notice, they move to the moon
Person B: then
Person B: we dustify the earth
Person A: that’s a good idea
Person B: then, we adjust the orbit of moon
Person B: to be in approximately the same place as old earths
Person A: here’s an idea
Person C: cant we blow the moon up into a ring?
Person B: then we build gigantic girder ceiling over all the surface of the moon
Person A: we could cut a chunk of the moon into a shape like a cheese grater
Person C: I’ve always been saddened by the fact that we don’t have a ring
Person A: then, when we’ve dustified the Earth
Person A: we shoot that chunk through the blob of molten iron that is the Earth’s core
Person B: and then, we put all the old earth dust onto this ceiling
Person A: out will come grated iron, and we have our girders
Person C: lol
Person B: heh
Person A: so I hate this:
Person A: typedef long word_20
Person C: huh?
Person A: static word_20 jumpmasks[] = { 0xffffffff, … }
Person B: or how about this…
Person B: we take the moon
Person B: dig out the center
Person B: expand the crust to the radius of old earth
Person B: and fill in the center with old earth dust
Person B: the old moon stuff can be turned into a disc
Person B: /ring
Person C: that would never work
Person B: why?
Person C: a crust made of cheese wouldn’t be strong enough
Person B: ah..
Person B: but the crust would be supported by girders
Person C: we’re building planets here, not making giant pizzas
Person A: expose it to some hard radiation, and it too may become hard
Person A: actually, nm
Person A: it has already been exposed to such
Person B: oh..
Person B: I know
Person B: what makes chese go bad == hard
Person B: exposure to air!
Person C: ah ha!
Person B: there is no atmosphere on the moon now..
Person B: so, we just need to release air
Person B: and wait a week or two
Person C: althought what actually makes cheese go hard is the moisture drying out
Person C: so exposure to vacuum would be even more effective
Person B: hmm
Person B: true
Person B: but
Person B: the moisture goes into the air
Person C: so that proves that the moon isn’t actually made of cheese!!!
Person B: now, we’d need to keep the air at room temperature
Person B: it is either too cold or too hot for the moisture to be the way it is in a fridge
Person A: brb
Person B: ok
Person B: oh…
Person C: ok
Person B: maybe the chese (==moon) is already dried up!
Person C: that’s true
Person C: we should ask Neil Armstrong
Person B: yeah
Person B: we could ask Rob Pike (or whatever his name is) in CS to contact Armstrong
Person C: who?
Person B: someone from the CS department
Person C: I don’t get it
Person B: he worked on the ACG
Person B: AGC
Person B: the computer
Person C: aaah
Person A: hate to break it to you
Person B: just to explore all posibilities…say, Neil is too busy…would Lence suffice?
Person A: but Rob Pike isn’t in our CS dept
Person C: no?
Person A: yeah, surprising as that may be
Person C: what about neil armstrong?
Person B: well, say Neil Armstrong is too busy to answer our question
Person A: Not even Lance Armstrong
Person B: hmm
Person C: that’s disturbing
Person C: can you send me a comprehensive list of who isn’t at our department?
Person B: ah.,,
***Person B feels stupid
Person B: no Pike
Person B: but Kelly
Person B: but Pike should know as well…
Person B: afterall…
Person B: O_O
Person B: O_o
Person B: o_O
Person B: o_o
Person B: http://herpolhode.com/rob/
Person A: o.O
Person A: <.<
Person A: >.>
Person B: ok..this is not funny: http://herpolhode.com/rob/utah2000.pdf
Person A: yeah, I read that
Person A: he makes some good points
Person B: hmm, actually, I read it a while back too
Person C: ha
Person B: that paper always makes me want to write a few new OSes just to prove him wrong :-)
Person B: well
Person B: that wouldn’t do it
Person B: but still
Person C: well that would just prove his point
Person A: you’d need to get them into OSDI
Person B: not SOSP?
Person C: I think there’s a fundamental flaw in his thesis
Person C: he seems to confuse maturity with stagnation
Person C: just because new operating systems haven’t been proposed doesn’t mean that things have come to a standstill
Person B: but you don’t see papers saying “this is better” and then you see that the radical new idea sucks a lot
Person C: ??
Person A: yeah, that last sentence didn’t parse for me either
Person B: ignore it then
Person C: ignore Person B. got it.
Person A: I just don’t think the problems are significantly different that we need a different software infrastructure.
Person A: For better or for worse, Kernighan and Pike designed a really forward-looking, kickass OS back in the 70s
Person A: and that has lasted for a long time
Person C: yeah
Person B: yep
Person A: When the applications need a new software layer, one will come.
Person A: But actually, I suspect that UNIX will be sitting under that software layer, because it does a really bang-up job of managing hardware.
Person B: sure?
Person C: I mean the applications we are using today are certainly very different than they were just a few years ago
Person B: yep
Person C: so the fact that the underlying system is the same is unimportant
Person B: my thoughts exactly, it’ll just be a new daemon or library
Person B: but nothing significantly different on the systems level
Person A: I actually think that the trend to Embedded Linux will continue
Person B: linux is growing into a monster….
Person A: that eventually the kernel will be pretty bare-bones, and that most of the functionality users see will be in libraries
Person B: lots of things are now happening in userspace
Person B: kernel detects the presence of a PCI card, but a userspace daemon decides which module to load to get the device online
Person A: yeah, I think IPC and that sort of stuff are de facto moving out of the kernel
Person B: the nice thing however is..
Person A: Not the basic mechanism, but the methods
Person B: you can make a kick ass minimal system
Person B: without any advanced autodetection, etc.
Person A: like Ingres: it sets up a bunch of servers, and sets up kernel shared memory for them to talk to each other
Person B: but who needs that in embedded applications?
Person A: I don’t mean that the applications will be embedded
Person A: just that the kernel will be small
Person C: maybe someone should get around to finishing HURD :)
Person B: hehe
Person A: oh God
Person A: not HURD
Person A: not Mach
Person B: whenever they have something working, they decide to change the whole thing
Person B: btw, HURD has a UNIX interface
Person A: L4 is much preferable as a kernel
Person B: that’s why you can get Debian Linux and Debian Hurd
Person A: I would love to have a VM running L4 and some basic userland
Person B: is it x86?
Person A: L4 is x86/Alpha/MIPS
Person C: well you can really get Debian anything that has a POSIX interface without that much trouble
Person B: well, make one :-)
Person C: you could probably make a Debian Cygwin
Person A: I actually have built and run L4 on a VM
Person C: if you had a lot of time on your hands and nothing useful to do with it
Person A: I just haven’t built a proper userland for it
Person B: POSIX == glorified UNIX standard for late 20th and early 21st century
Person C: what’s your point?
Person B: Cygwin is, in a way, its own distro
Person C: yeah
Person C: but the essential part of cygwin is just a few DLLs that provide the POSIX layer
Person B: but sure, you could take the core/“kernel” and make debian packages with everything
Person A: hmmm - I actually have a bootable L4 floppy
Person B: heh
Person A: I think the kernel is actually not the hard thing
Person A: there are plenty of kernels
Person A: the trick is writing a new userland
Person A: it’s really fricking hard
Person B: yep
Person B: that’s why everyone implements UNIX compat layer of some sort
Person A: I mean, let’s say you were to write your own crt0.o
Person A: how the hell would you even go about doing that?
Person A: I mean, I was working near that group at Apple so I have a little bit of an idea
Person A: but still - it’s insane
Person B: lots of systems work is insane
Person A: yeah
Person A: I love being a systems grad student
Person C: anyway… since we’ve moved away from practical and useful things like spherizing the earth to make Person B’s program run more accurately….
Person A: we do the coolest stuff in the world
Person C: to impractical thigns like desigining new userland code
Person B: anyone running 2.6 kernel on ARM, celebrate, a fix has been commited few seconds ago
Person C: I’m going to bed
Person A: yeah, sorry that I started drawing pies in the sky
Person B: heh
Person B: ok
Person B: night
Person B: hmm
Person A: good night, Person C
Person B: pie
Person C: good night
Person A: don’t make me hungrt
Person A: hungry
***Person B is going to get some to eat
Person B: yummy
Person A: damnit!!!
Person C: you just at my vindaloo!
Person B: Person A: here…have some pie
Person B: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Greek_pi.png
Person A: that was back at 11:50
Person A: you joined this conversation at 11 last night, Person C
Person A: and Person B and I kicked it off at 10:45
Person A: I think I have legitimate cause to be hungry.
Person B: and before that, we played ET
Person B: …ET phone home…
Person A: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~bhm/images/therespie.jpg
Person B: O_o
Person C: haha
Person C: ok… gnite folks
Person B: night
Person C: the next time we speak I’ll probably be on another continent :)
Person B: enjoy
Person A: yup, enjoy your flight
Person C: thanks
Person B: I was saying enjoy India
Person B: but yeah..the flight too
Person C: being squished in an economy class seat for 18 hours… yay
Person B: fun
Person C: how could I not enjoy that
Person A: take a good book
Person B: I prefer train
Person B: takes longer
Person A: hmmm,
Person B: but you can get first class seat
Person B: with electricity
Person B: == lots of fun
Person C: the train… why didn’t I think of that
Person A: NY -> Toronto -> Vancouver -> Juneau -> Vladivostok -> Harbin -> Lahore -> New Delhi -> Bombay
Person B: I did the NY -> Toronto
Person B: it took about 12 hours
Person B: but that’s because of customs
Person C: lol
Person A: actually, not Harbin->Lahore, Harbin->Beijing->Darjeeling
Person A: Lahore’s very much out of the way
Person C: I think I’ll just fly this time around
Person B: well, next time..
Person A: there’s always next time
Person B: think about the alternatives first
Person C: when we’re done blowing up the earth maybe we can have pangea again
Person B: hmm
Person A: nah, we’ll just live on an orbital ring
Person B: sounds good
Person B: oooh
Person B: fun
Person A: we’ll have really really fast trains
Person C: awesome!
Person B: or..
Person A: specifically, a portion of the ring will be stationary
Person A: and you will take a train to “catch up” to it
Person A: get on
Person C: I’m going to invest in Amtrak and short Boeing and Airbus stock
Person B: we could just have these subways cut through the earth’s core
Person A: then hop on a train when you reach your destination, and the train will slow down
Person C: ok…. I’m really going now :)
Person C: gnite
Person A: Good night, Person C.
Person B: night :-)
Person C left the room.
Person B: I’m going to get food
Person B: yummy
Person A: shut up and go
Person A: brb myself, in point of fact
Person A left the room.