[gentoo-amd64] Re: Re: Re: x86_64 optimization patches for glibc.

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

Karol Krizka posted <ac342b0a0508011003686becfc@mail.gmail.com>, excerpted
below,  on Mon, 01 Aug 2005 10:03:13 -0700:

>> Never-the-less, I added the strings patch here, and have the new KDE 3.4.2
>> stuff at least, compiled against it...  Computing is my hobby; if I
>> wanted something that would predictably "just work", I'd be doing TiVos or
>> the like!  Much of the fun is the occasional breakage in mysterious ways,
>> never knowing quite when it'll happen, and the challenge of figuring out
>> how to get back to a working system, again!
>> 
> So if you wanted something to just work you would be running Linux on
> TiVo? I think a intel computer would be better for that...
> Never-the-less, I added the strings patch here, and have the new KDE 3.4.2
> stuff at least, compiled against it...  Computing is my hobby; if I
> wanted something that would predictably "just work", I'd be doing TiVos or
> the like!  Much of the fun is the occasional breakage in mysterious ways,
> never knowing quite when it'll happen, and the challenge of figuring out
> how to get back to a working system, again!
> 
So if you wanted something to just work you would be running Linux on
TiVo? I think a intel computer would be better for that...

No... perhaps I didn't choose a far out enough example.  I usually choose
a refrigerator or TV instead...  The point is, if I wanted something that
predictably "just worked", computing wouldn't be my hobby in the /first/
place, I'd have chosen something better known for its "just working"
qualities.

In point of fact, before I got my first PC (in fact, the /only/ whole PC I
ever got, a 486sx25 w/ the CPU soldered to the mobo, 4 meg RAM, and a 130
meg hard drive -- I just counted myself lucky to get a 486 over a 386), I
had two VCRs hooked up to my TV, such that I could watch previous shows
while recording the current nite's shows, allowing me to FF over the
commercials.   That, and I could rent movies and record them to the second
VCR while playing them from the first.  Interactivity was pretty much
limited to that FF button -- and hitting back when I overshot a bit.  Now,
I don't even own a TV (other than a tiny 2.5" TFT version, bought back in
the day..., that I have around somewhere, don't even know where...), as
I've grown to despise the lack of control one has over a TV program, and
the fact that the programmers must cater to their paying customers, the
advertisers, which in turn are happiest with the zombies easiest
programmed to buy their warez even when they are twice the cost or more of
the generic brand and even when they don't need them and can't really
afford them.  Thus, there's actually a DIS-incentive to program for the
discerning intellect -- those that actually /like/ to think, and can't be
so easily programmed to buy expensive stuff they don't need.

So... I've switched to a more interactive and intellectually rewarding
hobby, computers, and enjoy the challenges they sometimes present.  I
simply chose TiVos as the example above, because that'd be the modern
equivalent of the VCRs I was using before I got into computers.  While
personally significant, that choice of example was obviously less than
clear to those who have no way of knowing my history and who have a
different one of their own, and the usual TV or refrigerator example would
have been rather more effective at making my point.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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