Did You Know?

[chrisname]

Batman.

[helios]

You lost your chance to say "it wasn't declared 'integer'".

[chrisname]

Ahhhhh!

[mcleano]

So how do you guys suppose they code free will? For instance, why would a computer decide to make the post I just made? How would it partake in personality? How would a machine decide things for itself that isn't already stored in them or someone else put them in there.

Erm... divine intervention multiple multiple times? Perhaps in an infinite loop?

And before you say it helios i'll say it for you... "Who said God is real?"

[helios]

In this case, a better question than "is God real?" would be "how would you cause divine intervention?"

Computers under normal circumstances are deterministic. Given any input, the output can always be predicted. Under less than normal circumstances, they can behave seemingly chaotically (for example, when reading past the end of an array) and even unpredictably (hardware errors). Unfortunately, these states are highly unstable.
In any case, the notion of free will in a programmed "personality" is oxymoronic. It's also completely absurd. Who would need a machine that could disobey them? We already have enough problems with computers malfunctioning. We don't need software that gives us problems when it works correctly.

[hamsterman]

Who said free will is real?

Rationalism is a theory saying that world obeys the laws of mathematics, or at leasts that's how I understand it. One of such laws is determinism mentioned above. If world is deterministic, we don't make choices == we do not have free will.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism
Of course I cannot oppose you becouse of your beliefs, but for some reason I can't understand how can a programer be irrational.

[mcleano]

how would you cause divine intervention?"

You would write a line of code that would innevitably cause underfined behaviour(like, as you said, reading past the end of an array) and hope that God defines it :D

[Disch]

Of course I cannot oppose you becouse of your beliefs, but for some reason I can't understand how can a programer be irrational.

Irrational?

I don't understand how someone can be a computer programmer and not be deterministic. No other alternative I've ever heard is more logical.

[DrChill]

I still disagree computers are millions of freaking 0's and 1's

[helios]

Please use proper punctuation otherwise the meaning of the text can be ambiguous it's also annoying

[chrisname]

Don't copy him helios oh god this is getting catchy

[BettyBoopTS]

helios that voice recognition you tube was hilarious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyLqUf4cdwc

[chrisname]

On the topic of off topic, http://i50.tinypic.com/24ginmg.png
Lol?

Also, yes I was using windows. Why? I was playing games earlier and I haven't the perseverence to install games on Linux that are intended for windows.

If you look to the lower left corner you will see that Minix 3 is experiencing a kernel panic. In the lower right corner, FreeBSD is trying to get me to partition a virtual hard disk. In the upper right corner is Open Solaris and the upper left corner is Debian. Why I'm doing this I have no idea, but I'm sure it'll be fun... eventually.

@helios,
Is the FreeBSD one similar to how you used to have to install Linux? If so, I would definitely screw up my hard disk :) I got it installing, but who knows how much damage I'd have caused had there been any other partitions on that disc?

It turns out to get to a GUI is actually pretty simple.
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/x11-wm.html

[helios]

Is the FreeBSD one similar to how you used to have to install Linux?

That's just fdisk. It doesn't resize partitions, it only creates and deletes them. What I was talking about was far more dangerous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIPS_%28computer_program%29
I can't believe I actually remember the name.

[chrisname]

And when was it your tried this? My sources tell me you would have been three years old when Linux 0.01 was released. Or are you just that awesome?

When I manage to get FreeBSD on this vm I might try it on a real machine. That is... when I get my own. Shouldn't be long, now; I've figured it out: I need only £420, and that'll be pretty overpowered, too. Just gotta wait 5 months and then I can get a job... >:)
World domination seems ever closer.

[helios]

My sources tell me you would have been three years old when Linux 0.01 was released. Or are you just that awesome?

Of course I am, but that's irrelevant, in this case.

FIPS was used to resize partitions until Gparted came around, which was long after Linux 0.01. The last (and first) time I saw it bundled with a distro was SuSE 7.1, possibly 2003.
I should note that I didn't actually used FIPS. I already had a fair understanding of how partition resizing worked, back then, and the README made me see in how many ways the process could be screwed up.

Try PC-BSD. Its installation method is more Debianesque.

[chrisname]

Of course I am

Ever so modest.

Try PC-BSD. Its installation method is more Debianesque.

And helpful, too. Isn't PCBSD based on FreeBSD? I thought it was relevant to FreeBSD in the same way Ubuntu is relevant to Debian: easier to use.

I'm gonna see which of these I like best. FreeBSD, Debian or OpenSolaris. Then I'll choose which to install instead of Ubuntu. I might also try Slackware and Arch linux because I've heard they're fast.

[helios]

Modesty is overrated.

I guess you could say that. They mostly just touched up the installation method and they tweaked a couple more things. I would definitely compare its installation method to Debian's, rather than Ubuntu's, though.

[chrisname]

I think Ubuntu is a little over simplified...

Edit: I'm building Xorg in FreeBSD at the moment; so when I've finished building that I can configure it and then reboot, and it should start GNOME... then maybe I'll copy it onto my real machine. But with PCBSD because I don't want to use fdisk :)

I'd like to add:
If you have Perl installed, type "perl" in a console/terminal, copy and past the following code and then press ctrl-D. Or save it in a file and type perl somefile.pl and watch.

                                                       #
                                                   sub j(\$){($
                     P,$V)=                      @_;while($$P=~s:^
                 ([()])::x){                    $V+=('('eq$1)?-32:31
           }$V+=ord(  substr(                 $$P,0,1,""))-74} sub a{
          my($I,$K,$  J,$L)=@_               ;$I=int($I*$M/$Z);$K=int(
         $K*$M/$Z);$J=int($J*$M             /$Z);$L=int($L*$M/$Z); $G=$
         J-$I;$F=$L-$K;$E=(abs($          G)>=abs($F))?$G:$F;($E<0) and($
          I,$K)=($J,$L);$E||=.01       ;for($i=0;$i<=abs$E;$i++ ){ $D->{$K
                  +int($i*$F/$E)      }->{$I+int($i*$G/$E)}=1}}sub p{$D={};$
                 Z=$z||.01;map{    $H=$_;$I=$N=j$H;$K=$O=j$H;while($H){$q=ord
                substr($H,0,1,"" );if(42==$q){$J=j$H;$L=j$H}else{$q-=43;$L =$q
              %9;$J=($q-$L)/9;$L=$q-9*$J-4;$J-=4}$J+=$I;$L+=$K;a($I,$K,$J,$ L);
              ($I,$K)=($J,$L)}a($I,$K,$N,$O)}@_;my$T;map{$y=$_;map{ $T.=$D->{$y}
              ->{$_}?$\:' '}(-59..59);$T.="\n"}(-23..23);print"\e[H$T"}$w= eval{
              require Win32::Console::ANSI};$b=$w?'1;7;':"";($j,$u,$s,$t,$a,$n,$o
              ,$h,$c,$k,$p,$e,$r,$l,$C)=split/}/,'Tw*JSK8IAg*PJ[*J@wR}*JR]*QJ[*J'.
               'BA*JQK8I*JC}KUz]BAIJT]*QJ[R?-R[e]\RI'.'}Tn*JQ]wRAI*JDnR8QAU}wT8KT'.
               ']n*JEI*EJR*QJ]*JR*DJ@IQ[}*JSe*JD[n]*JPe*'.'JBI/KI}T8@?PcdnfgVCBRcP'.
                '?ABKV]]}*JWe*JD[n]*JPe*JC?8B*JE};Vq*OJQ/IP['.'wQ}*JWeOe{n*EERk8;'.
                  'J*JC}/U*OJd[OI@*BJ*JXn*J>w]U}CWq*OJc8KJ?O[e]U/T*QJP?}*JSe*JCnTe'.
                   'QIAKJR}*JV]wRAI*J?}T]*RJcJI[\]3;U]Uq*PM[wV]W]WCT*DM*SJ'.  'ZP[Z'.
                      'PZa[\]UKVgogK9K*QJ[\]n[RI@*EH@IddR[Q[]T]T]T3o[dk*JE'.  '[Z\U'.
                        '{T]*JPKTKK]*OJ[QIO[PIQIO[[gUKU\k*JE+J+J5R5AI*EJ00'.  'BCB*'.
                             'DMKKJIR[Q+*EJ0*EK';sub h{$\ = qw(% & @ x)[int    rand
                              4];map{printf  "\e[$b;%dm",int(rand 6)+101-60*   ($w
                               ||0);system(  "cls")if$w ;($A,$S)=    ($_[1],   $
                                _[0]);($M,   @,)= split  '}';for(     $z=256
                                ;$z>0; $z   -=$S){$S*=   $A;p @,}      sleep$_
                                [2];while   ($_[3]&&($    z+=$ S)       <=256){
                                p@,}}("".   "32}7D$j"     ."}AG".       "$u}OG"
                                ."$s}WG"    ."$t",""      ."24}("        ."IJ$a"
                                ."}1G$n"    ."}CO$o"     ."}GG$t"        ."}QC"
                                 ."$h}"      ."^G$e"    ."})IG"          ."$r",
                                 "32}?"       ."H$p}FG$e}QG$r".          "}ZC"
                                 ."$l",          "28}(LC" .""            ."".
                                 "$h}:"           ."J$a}EG".             "$c"
                                 ."}M"             ."C$k}ZG".            "$e"
                                 ."}"             ."dG$r","18"          ."}("
                                ."D;"            ."$C"  )}{h(16         ,1,1,0
                               );h(8,          .98,0,0   );h(16         ,1,1,1)
                               ;h(8.0         ,0.98,0,     1);         redo}###
                             #written                                 060204 by
                           #liverpole                                  @@@@@@@
                        #@@@@@@@@@@@ 

Personally I think it's amazing.

[mcleano]

Ahh I want to see but I don't have perl installed (nor do i want to)...