I'd been using a BSDish stack for a few years in NextStep. I was connected to the internet via UUCP most of the time
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.mail.maps/5-xMfc8c52g/FxBTw1P2V5UJ (frsvnsvn). I had no interest in the intel architecture at the time, but I was glad to see the progress.

... I dunno about that. Certainly Apple and Google have a lot of experience transacting with customers, taking their money and getting them something in return. Hardware, software, media (songs, movies, etc).

OK - that's not exactly the same thing, but it's a lot of closely related stuff.

In addition to that, Apple has let you buy stuff in their stores by just scanning it with your iphone. So they are acting as their own payment service provider.

Now we can't even get a rocket into space. Perhaps we can pay Russia to do it for us?

Right - because they're batting 1000.

Seriously - space flight is going private; there are going to be failures. There are reasons folks compare things to 'rocket science.'

Uh - claimer, I guess: I used to work in aerospace (nearly 30 years ago), with engineers on the space shuttle main engines.

Fascinating stuff - I had no idea. Thanks for the great article.

Probably a dead horse, but I wanted to mention that SolarCity has just announced a financing program whereby you own the panels and they will [fully] finance 'em. That way you own the panels for as little as $0 down - as much as you own anything with a mortgage.

Mostly this takes care of the transfer issue if you sell your house. I think there are also states that have issues with third parties owning parts of a home.

Again, not a lawyer, rep, etc.

http://www.solarcity.com/residential/mypower-solar-loan

GamerGate is far more interesting than the github thing. But that ain't saying much.

I'd much rather see a distanced article on the subject. Not enough that I'll be writing one, myself. But Gender/sex/psych roles in gaming is certainly an interesting topic.

I just don't think the recent hoohah is very insightful or informative.

...is nowadays almost a political question.

No more than simply being human.

If it weren't for the pipedot coverage of the github thing (which, as far as I'm concerned, is nothing more than drama for drama's sake), I'd have had no idea any of the drama were going on.

I'm betting that 99.9%+ of 'gamers' also have no idea.

To be perfectly honest, the whole gamergate thing seems like a whole lotta drama over very little - and nothing much new.

So... The effect is that one developer is thinking about leaving?

OK, how about 'virtually no effect?'

I'm in discussions with my organization now about moving to either another service or an internal Git server.

... because GitHub removed a non-code related repo that recommended social/political actions not related to coding. I think y'all need a hobby. Or maybe you've found one.

The main admin is looking at it as though it'll be a huge headache.

To move to another git host? I think maybe you need a new admin.

Github isn't going to blog about using ideological reasoning to remove a repository on the basis of of it being a harassment campaign.

Pretty sure they're not going to address it because it's a non-issue.

Anyone that takes this at more than face value is going to see it's not a harassment campaign and Github devs are using personal agendas to make decisions on what stays and goes.

Are they? How do you figure?

Seriously? You gonna do anything about it?

Honestly, it hasn't even registered enough on their radar for them to blog post on the matter.

because some people like drama.

Someone marked you down, but I think that about summarizes the whole thing.

But at about the same time I also set up a UUCP account.

Help me out, then.

In what way, exactly, is this particular case an issue?

The article was about the fact that a large group of people trying to make a difference were using a public service, not violating ToS, and with a single tweet from someone opposing the group had the repository shut down. It has significant impact on software developers who use the service to host code for any number of projects that could be susceptible to a tweet from opposition or competition.

No, it doesn't. It has no effect, whatsoever. I am one of those developers.

So... FUD?

pipdedot is a privately funded public discussion website. It is totally withing the rights of the maintainer to ban the user kwerle, even though he did not [do] anything wrong, did not violate pipedot's TOS in any way. But... the owners here have any right to be biased. If they want you gone, they can ban you on a whim. If this happens.... News at 12?

I guess 'wrong' is in the eyes of the beholder. The notion is that everyone thinks they're in the right.

I think that it is beyond the scope of any TOS to define everything that could be interpreted as 'wrong'. At least I hope so, because I never read 'em, anyway.

But here is my direct response in brief: I hope that pipedot bans users that it feels have done wrong. I don't come here to read ads, hateful crap from assholes, sort through base64 binary encoded warez, or any number of other things. I come here to read geek news. So, yeah, ban 'em. Or me.

Finally - WTF was the original article about?

I am a developer. I use github. So I know that if they were to pull my public repos without warning that I could petition them to get the data back and they would be totally reasonable about it. I know that because I have actually come very close to having that discussion with them for a private repo that was unexpectedly nuked (my fault).

What's more, I know that my local git repo had everything that got nuked, so it was a non issue.

I think that covers it.

Last night (October 3) Github developer Jake Boxer disabled the GamerGate github repository containing documents for "Operation Disrespectful Nod". Which contained documents for a letter writing campaign to advertisers for the publishers of the game media articles declaring gamers dead just over a month ago. Here's a link to an image of the removal request for if/when the original tweet is eventually removed.

What?

OK, there is someone named Jake. There was a github repo. There were documents? There is something called "Operation Disrespectful Nod"?

"Which contained documents for a letter writing campaign to advertisers for the publishers of the game media articles declaring gamers dead just over a month ago." is not a sentence. Or at least is a horrible one. But specifically:

documents for a letter writing campaign (what does that mean?)
to advertisers (so - letters to advertisers?)
for the publishers of game media articles (so... uh... game mags and/or review websites?)
declaring gamers dead (nope - you lost me. are all gamers dead? I'm not dead, so I don't think that's what you mean.)
just over a month ago. (uh... something happened just over a month ago. No link. Did gamers die? Or was the repo deleted? Or was that when the repo was created? Huh?)

After clicking a few links, none of this is much clearer - except there is lots of drama. Most of it sounds mostly imagined.

GitHub was hosting a public repo that they didn't want to host, so they nuked it. So... "free service refuses service to someone." News at 11?

I guess I have a different perspective - since my pickup is about 20 years old.

But seriously, he aggi freshmen that show up every year, driving new F150/250's look a whole lot like my nearly 20 year old pickup. The thing in the article doesn't look much like any of 'em.

That's not a pickup. That's a VW with the back chopped.

I've been a zsh fan since the early 90's. About a year ago I installed http://ohmyz.sh/ (https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh), and after a little adjusting of it and myself, I love it.

The thing I miss most about zsh when I'm in bash is auto-cd. Just typing a directory path to cd to it. I know - it doesn't sound like much, but I do love the feature. Hey, look - it seems that bash has that as of 4.0 (which I guess is very recent). I'll have to set it more aggressively when I'm visiting other hosts...

I guess the very first was the Radio Shack TRS-80 - but that was just 2-3 visits. The first system I spent any real time with was the Apple II's in the school lab. Certainly that's where I did my first coding...

Not that it's hard to figure out, but all 3 of those links point to the first page.

I have a pretty skewed vision of debt. I have virtually none beside the home and the monthly visa that I pay off.

Even so, the debt on the panels is not like the debt on your car.

http://www.solarcity.com/commercial/homebuilders
What happens if the solar panels or inverter need repair?
If we're alerted of a problem through SolarGuard, we will give you call to help diagnose the problem and dispatch a repair team to fix it if needed. SolarCity will perform all equipment repairs at no cost to you.

I don't know what that looks like on financial documents, but part of the reason SolarCity can put panels on your roof for no money down is the fact that it is so low risk. People pay their energy bill, and there isn't much that will go wrong with 'em.

I don't know credit scores, but I know there is such a thing as "healthy debt" and "unhealthy debt". A mortgage generally falls in the former. Credit cards generally the latter. I'm thinking that panels are more like the former than the latter.

Yeah, moving after a year might be harder if you have panels on your roof. I expect/hope that attitude will change over time as more folks get panels and become aware of the benefits. If you have a high energy bill, I think that'd be the biggest factor in deciding whether or not to go solar.

Thank you for a reasonable discussion, too!

I'm a coder, I don't speak for SolarCity, I'm not a lawyer or a construction person.

Point by point.

Nothing is free.

OK, we can quibble about things that are $0 out of pocket. Let's.

You think I, and my creditors, and my credit rating, simply won't notice that I just took on an additional $25,000 in debt to hold someone ELSE's equipment on my aging roof and garage?

If your creditors take umbridge at your investing of $0 in order to reduce your monthly energy bill, and the fact that you continue to pay it off, I'm thinking you might want new creditors.

Equipment that, by the terms of your faux-lease, you will come and remove at the end, doing who-knows-what to my now-20-years-older shingles?

http://www.solarcity.com/commercial/homebuilders
You generally have four options at the end of the Lease:

• Request to renew the agreement in five year increments up to two times
• Have SolarCity remove the system for free
• Purchase the system (varies by state)
• Upgrade to a new system

What about the need to replace the roof in the interim?

Last I heard, minimal fee for SolarCity to remove and then replace the system while you re-roof. Again, I'm not a lawyer, rep, etc - and I can't find a reference to it online.

What ABOUT the home's resale value for all the years that there's complicated equipment, lease, and service deal attached to the house?

Again, not a lawyer, but this is probably the trickiest one:
http://www.solarcity.com/commercial/homebuilders

When you sell your home, you may transfer your Lease to the homebuyer at no charge. SolarCity will provide a Lease Transfer Agreement for both parties to sign and SolarCity to execute. You must provide SolarCity notice of your intent to transfer in accord with the terms of the Lease to ensure that the Lease transfer process is completed in a timely manner. Execution of the Lease transfer document by SolarCity relieves the previous Lease owner of Lease obligations. For additional questions, contact the SolarCity Customer Care Team at:CustomerCare@solarcity.com or (888) 765-2489 x5999.

I've bought 2 homes (and sold one), and one more paper to sign doesn't seem like a big deal to me...

Yes, it's a very appealing deal, but please don't pretend it's a no-brainer. If it were I'd already have the system (as would many more people steadfastly ignoring the salesshills in Home Depot and elsewhere, who represent all sorts of startups).

It's not a no brainer. If you think it's likely you will move in the next 5-10 years, then there is some cause to consider. If you don't consume much electricity, then it might not be financially viable for you at this time. But if you're not moving and you consume a reasonable amount of energy, then it's pretty straightforward.

And, frankly, if you do a lease and you end up moving in a year - no biggie. It's not like you spent money to get the system installed.

There are other concerns (panel degradation, actually declining utility rates in some areas, questionable solar exposure in the northeast, disappearing companies and resold leases, parts supply and repair issues, etc.) that I've read about too.

http://www.solarcity.com/commercial/homebuilders
How does the performance guarantee work?
SolarCity guarantees that your system will produce as much electricity as we promise, or we will pay you back. This takes into account normal weather variation and solar panel performance over time. The amount of electricity we promise to deliver is stated in your contract. We track your system performance through our SolarGuard monitoring service. For additional questions, contact the SolarCity Customer Care Team at CustomerCare@solarcity.com or (888) 765-2489 x5999.

Oh yeah, and the electric companies starting to RAISE rates and/or eliminate discounts for grid-tied users, because they claim the usage pattern of those customers is costing them money and the sold-back power is of little value to them (supposedly).

We can't control grid companies. I have colorful things to say about those kinds of practices, but I'm not a lawyer, rep, etc.

It absolutely is the future, no doubt, but frankly it still costs too much. I would prefer to see it required as part of new building codes. (I have no connection to either solar or power companies.)

For many people, it is the present. Not all. My sister lives in Washington (mid state). Her power is insanely inexpensive (lots of hydro) and they have lots of weather. Solar isn't for her (at this time). But in areas with lots of sun that run AC a lot, solar is a no brainer.

It's not California. It's Hawaii and Germany. Solar in the US is mostly embarrassingly low.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany

On midday of Saturday May 26, 2012, solar energy provided over 40% of total electricity consumption in Germany, and 20% for the 24h-day.

I think they hit 50% this past summer, but I can't find a trivial reference.

And I can't easily find any recent Hawaii records for solar production.

I'm a coder for SolarCity.

1. It is completely unfeasible for a typical home to go completely "off-grid" due to the humongous cost, space, and maintenance required for all the batteries to smooth the day/night load patterns.

And there are rainy days. And rainy weeks. That's what the grid is for.
Batteries will be cheaper when Elon finishes the GigaFactory - but that's no reason to wait for solar - just for the batteries.

2. So the vast majority of installations are "grid-tied", meaning they pull power from the normal grid, and sometimes feed power back into it.

Like a big battery.

3. Even with the generous incentives, pay-back time for an initial investment is at least 4-7 years, during which time that $20,000 might have been better spent in a mutual fund.

.. payback in 4-7, leaving you with more than 20 years of profit. Unless you plan on moving in the next 4-7, in which case things get a bit murky. I think the general population does not yet appropriately value panels on the roof of the house they're buying.

4. I didn't really have $20,000 lying around anyway.

Next point...

There are leasing options that mitigate some of this, but not entirely. Do you really want to be paying Elon Musk (investor in SolarCity) every month in perpetuity instead of your electric company?

So this is the bottom line: you would rather pay your electric company to continue business as usual instead of lowering your energy costs and (if you care) carbon footprint by getting panels installed for free on your roof.

Seriously. WTF?

Yeah, that's the thing - I'm not sure how many of those things the watch is gonna do without the phone in proximity.

• Samsung is making fun of the streaming problems Apple had on a new Youtube video called It Doesn't Take a Genius.

Seriously embarrassing. Heads should roll.

• The Telegraph is predicting that AndroidWear will come to quickly dominate the lackluster Apple Watch.

So... They think there is a market for a watch. Interesting.

• Macworld Magazine, the venerable journal that has covered Apple since 1984, is shutting its doors.

Nobody cares.

• The Apple store crashed during preorders for the iphone 6 (OK, we could construe that as good news)

Yeah, you could.

• The Register has panned the Apple Watch as "nothing more than digital perfume" and concludes gadget-mania is over.

What an apt description. Because perfume is so unpopular.

• Most damning is this post making the rounds on Google Plus, telling iphone 6 users: welcome to 2012! If you need help with your iphone 6 features, just ask an Android user: we've had this stuff for years.

As usual, Apple isn't doing anything new. They're just doing it well. And taking a slice of the pie while they're at it.

Wow. As a long time Obj-C lover, that makes me happy.

I imagine it will be short lived, as Swift eats away at Obj-C. It will be interesting to see how that trends.

I'd love to see IBM ship some hot new tech. Seems like it's been a long time.

Oldest drive I've use: IBM 10Meg hard drive. Used it as an end table. It was short of 3' tall and weighed about 100 pounds.

https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1738.txt
Uniform Resource Locators (URL)

...
Thus, only alphanumerics, the special characters "$-_.+!*'(),", and reserved characters used for their reserved purposes may be used unencoded within a URL.
...

If you miss having a "working" machine in a second, get a programmable calculator. Pretty sure they boot up and do nothing (just like those apple II era machines) in no time at all.

I'm pretty happy with flipping my laptop open and having it *working* - right where I left it - immediately.

Twitter is bad because people are dumb and there are now more dumb people on twitter.

Blah blah blah, used to be hip but now I'm leaving, blah blah blah. Part true, mostly who cares...

http://www.supergenpass.com/ and it's more secure cousin, SuperChromePass https://code.google.com/p/superchromepass/.

URL parsing bug submitted: http://bugs.pipedot.org/view.php?id=27

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law

They're not outliers. But if there's 10x as much writing going on, there's 10x as much shit. But there's also 10x as much good stuff.

But I think that (xkcd author) Randall Munroe's premise is interesting, at least. Today's average young person is communicating with their peers in written form much more than probably any other. And not by just a small ratio. It's not likely we'll like the form any more than our parents like[d] our music -- but it doesn't change the fact that there's a whole lot of writing going on.

Is it? Just this week:
http://xkcd.com/1414/

Maybe it's just changing.

I'm confused - is it still on?

I'd love to get the good tech articles from soy. Then I could finally toss that feed (and its huge noise/volume ratio) off my rss list.

Oh, yeah - I often use pipedot.

This is what google analytics is for.

I bet they simplified stuff, right? :-)

Yeah - that one.

Yeah, this is a crappy article about a crappy story. For the curious, the 8 things - and my comments are:
* SD card support for extra storage - never happen; true
* NFC for mobile payments - can't say I miss it. Whatever.
* An improved texting solution on the keyboard, like Swype. - next release; next month?
* A 128 GB option - yeah, I'm sure they'll never get more storage...
* Non-proprietary dock connection (usb) - maybe with USB-C
* A micro-HDMI port - my guess is the number of people who miss this is small enough it'll never happen
* Replaceable battery - never happen
* While we're at it, better battery life! - I guess they'll do what they can

brownlist.com -> not found.

I have no pressing tech needs that are not fulfilled.

I love distro Fridays. Don't have much to say about the article subject matter, but it is well written.

I picked all of 'em. 'Cause if you're any good at all in whatever you choose, you'll find work.

Last release: June 26.
Download size: 280MB

I think that about 5% of the stories on slash or soy are worth paying attention to.

Steal them.

Give 'em full credit - stolen from /. - here's the link. But I would love a combination of heavily filtered slash and soy.

It's not like any of 'em (with almost no exceptions) are original content. And just drop those on the floor.

Probably not a popular idea, but I think it's practical...