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Geeks in the Space: The Attack of 5 50

Posted by Hemos from the more-stuff-to-listen-to dept.
Well, we've done it again. Yes, Geeks in Space, Episode 5 has been released. In it, we lament the lack of good news, talk about anti-matter, and the hiring of hacks by companies. You can also become...educated in my long-term plan for the hostile takeover of a certain Redmond-based company.
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Geeks in the Space: The Return of Plan 5 More

Geeks in the Space: The Return of Plan 5

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  • I remember reading that there wouldn't be any more posts about geeks in space on the normal news. Not that I have anything against it; I listened to one, and I was very entertained. And once again, I shall use this opportunity to drop a shameless plug:
    Digital Theatre News [dtheatre.com]
  • This gets funnier and funnier. Keep it up guys! However, a co-worker has pointed out that it sounds as if I am listening to Beavis and Butthead! ;) *rotfl*
  • 2) Lose the third guy. It's way too confusing to listen to.
    3) If you have nothing to say, say nothing. Does the "broadcast" *have* to be 13 minutes?
    4) Take Hemos' head out of the water jug it sounds like he's talking from (seriously, what the $#&^% is wrong with the guy's mike??).
    5) Stick to the news. I don't care what you guys did at the Linux conference, or how many t-shirts you got, or how much pinball you played, or whatever. I DON'T CARE. OK?
    5a) OK, if someone got laid, I wouldn't mind hearing about that. But that's unlikely, considering what you guys sound like.
    6) I also don't care about what imaginary spot you're broadcasting from. Just tell Hemos to stop broadcasting from the water jug.
    7) Stop giggling.



  • So what if you broke C:\WINDOWS\TEMP instead?
    Set the wrong permissions in NT?

    His example wasn't particularly harmful, it just prevents the temporary directory to be used, but the system wouldn't be broken, just as it wouldn't be in Windows, but it could be fixed in Linux, remotely. I'm also aware there are NT remote administration tools, and from what I read (from Slashdot), one side says they're good, the other says they suck.

    P.S. I know I got trolled. Oh well.

  • I don't think you are getting the point. Rob, Jeff, and Nate are your virtual geek friends. Just like geek friends in real life, they spend large amounts of time talking about things that don't interest you, but you are supposed to tolerate them because sometimes they say interesting, or at least amusing, things, and because THEY ARE YOUR FRIENDS. But unlike real life geek friends we don't get to bore them back. Oh, wait, we can, that's what these comments are for.
  • I remember reading that there wouldn't be any more posts about geeks in space on the normal news.
    But, it's not with the "normal news". It has its own section like Ask Slashdot, Book Reviews, Features and Interviews. :) You can disable it right there in your Preferences if you want. But who would want to do a thing like that?
  • Maybe because "dork" means "penis."
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
  • No, *you* don't get it. Friends are allowed to help friends become less nerdy and more interesting. The quality of stories and articles on /. is high; the editorial judgement is good; the comments are often amusing; and therefore Rob and Jeff are clearly capable of high quality effort. We should urge them to apply those same high standards to their broadcasts.
  • Slashdot radio really seems to be hitting its stride (or maybe I'm delerious from sleep deprivation), but could we get a higher bitrate? 24 kbps is nice and all, but how 'bout 64 kbps or 128 kbps?
  • you know there is a guy in japan who claims to have (if i remember correctly) a 3000 year business plan. still an order of magnitude lower, but not unprecedented...
  • D0RKS SUUUUUUUUUUX!%!%!%!%!%!!!!!!!!!!11

    1F U D0N"T WUNT 2 B A D0RK ANYMOR3, TH3N G3T 2
    W0RK 0N TRY1NG 2 CRAK WAREZ FAST3R!!!!! TH3N
    U W1LL B 31337, && P33PL3 W1LL R3SP3CT YOU L1K3
    TH3Y R3SP3KT M3!!!!!1

    U PR0BABLY TH1NK U CAN N3V3R B AZ K3WL AS B1FF,
    BUT 1F U W0RK HARD, MAYB3 S0ME DAY U CAN. R U
    G01NG 2 TRY, 0R JUST WH1NE, D0RK??!?#?#?#????
    :WQ
    :wq
    ------ ------ ------
    ALL HA1L B1FF, TH3 M05T 31337 D00D!!!!!1
    ------ ------ ------
    ALL HA1L B1FF, TH3 M05T 31337 D00D!!!!!1
  • Okay being curious I have listened to most of the episodes and this one was by far the worst.. perhaps you guys could come in to the show with a little bit of a plan.. It can still be adlib but this was really poor.. Something technical must have happened at the conference.. or at least discuss some issues.. Peeing in a cup is NOT funny, It may have been in high school (So I ask myself, prehaps I am just the wrong audience for this 'radio' show, this might be the problem.)

    Try doing something a little more worth while.. The stories posted have substance. Let your radio show follow suit. Would you post a story, Hemos pees in cup! I think not.

    Anyway, I will still listen to the next one.. Who knows you might read this and agree that a bit of planing might not be a bad thing.

    -7021
  • You win the "most in need of a toke" award for the day.

    It's called "Geeks in Space" for chrissake, go watch CNNfnBCMSpan if you can't take the silly.

    O
    0
    o
    @###>----

    Smoke up, brother
  • You don't think he's got his eye on Geeks in Space do you?

    Although if he can keep it in production for 3000 years, maybe he should get involved...

  • Hey, you guys control a media outlet, so whenever you want to work on a 30000 year or whatever plan, insult the company to help lower the stock. (You guys are already doing good insulting microsoft, though)
  • Um, no. 'Geek' means a carnival freak who bites the head off chickens. 'Nerd' means... well, nerd.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
  • Ahhhhhhh, that's better.
  • You don't really need high bitrates for human speech. Plus, those po' folks without broadband can still get in on the fun. I'm still waiting for the 24 hour /. icecast server. Of course I KNOW they don't have the bandwidth to support 100.000 64 kpbs streams.

  • Now that we have the origins of all three words, we can discuss their current meanings.

    Growing up, I realized pretty quickly (almost as soon as people started calling me it) that what "nerd" actually means (as opposed to the way they meant it) is a good thing -- hardly an insult, but rather something that I would proudly claim about myself.

    For a while, I guess I thought of "geek" as the correct word for what they meant by "nerd" (the insult), but after a few years, I realized that "geek" really also refers more to things that I would consider "cool".

    However, there has to be some word that means the "bad" things, so we can say things like "Yes, I'm a nerd and a geek, but not a dork." or "He's not a geek; he's just a dork" (must... not... mention... Bill Gates -- oops). I think "dork" is a perfect candidate: it doesn't have any positive connotations that I am aware of, and it just sounds insulting. I really don't see us "adopting" it like the others.

    Here's how I currently think of each word:

    Nerd: A smart person who is interested in things that go over the heads of others, who respond by mistakenly stereotyping nerds as dorks. Nerds are not necessarily into computers -- there are computer nerds, math nerds, physics nerds, chemistry nerds, and possibly even English Lit. nerds. They tend to turn off non-nerds because they use big words and get good grades in school.

    Geek: The subset of nerds who are specifically into computers. Not restricted to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science majors ("EECS geeks"), but those should give a pretty good idea. Math, physics, or other kinds of nerds can also be geeks if they have enough interest in computers, or even just the "geek culture" mindset. I would almost consider "geek" as a substitute for "hacker" (in light of the hacker/cracker confusion), but that is probably wrong, since geeks don't necessarily have the skill level to qualify as "true" hackers (I myself don't quite claim to be worthy of that title), though they probably share the right mindset.

    Dork: An unattractive, annoying person with bad personal hygeine, a whiny voice, thick-framed glasses held together with masking tape, etc. In short, all the bad stereotypes that are directed against nerds and geeks. A dork is not necessarily a nerd or geek, since "dork" does not imply any particular intelligence. Some nerds and geeks may also be dorks, but this is purely coincidental. The stereotype is invariably obscenely exaggerated: I don't think I've ever met anyone that matched the way they are portrayed in movies and sitcoms. And yet, that image is what non-nerds mean when they call people nerds or geeks.


    David Gould
  • since geeks don't necessarily have the skill level to qualify as "true" hackers (I myself don't quite claim to be worthy of that title)

    Your .sig indicates otherwise. :)

    Aside from that, though, yes, I'd say your connotative definitions are more or less right, though your 'nerd' is a bit flaky; IMO, it can also mean what you mean by 'dork'. I still don't see how 'dork' can be taken as a compliment in any connotation, though, which was what I was originally responding to...


    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • I am so glad that somone in the world has a bit of sense! I can't beleive that people actually have the balls to try and dictate and/complain about the content of geeks in space.It's THEIR show. Pathetic small barins. I personally would rather hear about Hemos pissing on a certian Redmond resident, but there's plenty of shows to come. I'll just wait patiently till I hear what I'm interested in and if i never do OH F@#*ing well. It's not my show.....Keep up the good wok guys...
  • I am so glad that somone in the world has a bit of sense! I can't beleive that people actually have the balls to try and dictate and/or complain about the content of geeks in space.It's THEIR show. Pathetic small barins. I personally would rather hear about Hemos pissing on a certian Redmond resident, but there's plenty of shows to come. I'll just wait patiently till I hear what I'm interested in and if i never do OH F@#*ing well. It's not my show.....Keep up the good wok guys...
  • Your .sig indicates otherwise. :)

    Thanks. Yours, too. Question though: I get the first and last parts, but I'm not sure about the middle -- the first part of the second line, which I assume is a separate item: [quine "quine?"]. Huh?

    Aside from that, though, yes, I'd say your connotative definitions are more or less right, though your 'nerd' is a bit flaky; IMO, it can also mean what you mean by 'dork'. I still don't see how 'dork' can be taken as a compliment in any connotation, though, which was what I was originally responding to...

    Your claim that "nerd" can also mean "dork" is exactly what I consider to be the problem: what's wrong with the way "normal" people think of us is partly the way they exaggerate the dork stereotype, but mainly the fact that they think nerds are dorks. That is, they hear you using big words and talking about stuff that they don't understand, and they just seem to see masking tape on your glasses, whether or not it's really there.

    On the other hand, I guess you have a point, in that I was a bit facetious when I said "Some nerds and geeks may also be dorks, but this is purely coincidental." Maybe not purely coincidental, since being a nerd is a risk factor toward also being a dork. (different interests -> less socializing -> poor social skills, etc.) I still don't think they're the same thing, though.

    I still think "nerd" and "geek" are pretty much the same thing, but with slightly different focus (general intellectualism vs. computers) Look at /.: "News for Nerds", not "News for Geeks".


    David Gould
  • You know there is a guy in japan who claims to have (if i remember correctly) a 3000 year business plan.

    Hey, I have one too...open a savings account...deposit US$1...come back in 3000 years...lotsa interest!

    Yeah, I know Futurama already did that (although Heinlein did it years earlier in The Door into Summer

    Yeah, I know all about inflation and default risk.
  • A 'quine' is a self-similar (and usually true) expression, such as "'is a statement without a subject' is a statement without a subject." Read Douglas Hofstadter's "Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" for more info (or you can look it up in Everything). The "Quine 'quine'?" is a separate statement. Basically, it reads like this:

    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine. The statement "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is, in fact, a quine, being a self-similar repetition.

    Quine "quine?" An attempt at just quining the word "quine," thus making it a self-referential self-similar statement, and also being a challenge for the next statement;

    "'Quined' quined" quines "quined." That is, the statement "'quined' quined" quines the word "quined," though admittedly it's not a very good quine since it's not grammatically-correct.

    As for the topic at-hand, which is itself off-topic (thus its topicality or lack thereof is self-referential - ah, to go in circles, what joy :) I can see your reasoning behind the self-contradictory definition of "nerd." It's all connotation, however; such is the same reason that the word "witch" can mean different things, as can "bitch" and "stud" depending on who's saying it to whom regarding what.

    As for the /. slogan, well, "news for geeks" just doesn't have the same ring to it. :)
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • One criticism I had after the first episode was that you guys seemed to be pretty much just reading through the headlines of that day's /. front page and making comments of about the same depth as the blurbs that you already add to the stories on the front page. Not that there's anything wrong with that, since it is interesting stuff, but it seemed kind of redundant. Aside from hearing your voices (which have also improved a lot), what was there that I hadn't already gotten by reading /. normally that day? Not much.

    There's still some of that, but then what else are you going to talk about, right? Since, almost by definition, anything that you think is interesting to talk about you would have already posted on /., there's really no way to avoid some redundancy. I wouldn't want to see you holding stuff back from the page, just to have something new to talk about on the show. It's not so bad, though, since now you seem to just take a few cues from the page, then go off and discuss the topics in more depth, and add some jokes. I like that. At a couple points I had trouble staying in my chair and not ROTFLMAO, which wouldn't have looked good at work.

    Of course, I don't see how the show could ever be as good as the site: "News for Nerds" is cool, but what makes it really special is the community interaction, and I guess you can't exactly take calls. Maybe you could occasionally select a few comments from /. discussions to read or quote, to add a little bit of interactivity.

    By the way, for a while now, I've been thinking that Silicon Valley needs to have an All-Geek radio station -- KODE. After all, who lives here? It would probably be mostly a regular music station, but with guys like you for a morning show. I think "Mix 106.5" is somewhere close to what I have in mind for KODE, but maybe that's just my musical taste. (The only problem is they play too much Alanis Morisette stuff -- a guaranteed channel-change for me.) I don't suppose you could send your stuff over to one of the stations around here and get them to play it? That would be cool.


    David Gould
  • Read my other response [slashdot.org] regarding my .sig. :)
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • I re-read GEB every two or three years; it's part of my religion. I get quines. I was just wondering if I was missing something in the second one:

    Quine "quine?" An attempt at just quining the word "quine," thus making it a self-referential self-similar statement, and also being a challenge for the next statement;

    Okay, so it's not really a quine itself (though it's sort of quiney), but it sets up the next one: a quine consisting entirely of forms of the word "quine". No, actually just a sentence containing a quine of "quined" and consisting of forms of "quine".

    ((lambda (x) (list (list 'lambda '(x) x) (list 'quote x))) '(list (list 'lambda '(x) x) (list 'quote x)))

    David Gould
  • I re-read GEB every two or three years; it's part of my religion. I get quines.

    You too, huh? :) I was just covering the bases (and some AC also asked about what a quine is, so I'm glad I explained it there anyway).

    Okay, so it's not really a quine itself (though it's sort of quiney), but it sets up the next one: a quine consisting entirely of forms of the word "quine". No, actually just a sentence containing a quine of "quined" and consisting of forms of "quine".

    Yeah, basically.

    (lambda (x) (list (list 'lambda '(x) x) (list 'quote x))) '(list (list 'lambda '(x) x) (list 'quote x)))

    Hehe, yeah, LISP, which, as we all know, stands for (cons 'processor '(list)). Quines made practical. Sorta. :)
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • Hostile takeover of Microsoft.. Gotta love it! (-:

    ---

  • ...that Hemos is actually human. I mean, did you listen to it? That part where he was mumbling in the background, something about vampires and spaceships, I don't know. Man, he's a weird guy. I mean, I'm a weird guy, but he just puts me to shame.

    And, having personally been a moderator several times myself, I can definitely tell you that moderators are not human. I was absolutely not a bipedal, primate-descended, carbon-based life form at any time while moderating. It would be unethical, not to mention disingenuous, hirsute, and other infrequently-used adjectives.

    I need more coffee.

  • That how you pay for a meal at TRATEOTU. deposit $.01 at the beginning of time, come back at the end, quite simple really.
  • also:

    Dork -- the male sexual organ
  • I enjoy it. If people can't handle it, let them, umm... NOT click on the link?

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