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Grex > Coop11 > #128: Be a part of a website, write columns (This is NOT Spam) | |
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| Author |
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| 25 new of 55 responses total. |
gull
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response 25 of 55:
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Oct 16 04:56 UTC 1999 |
You'd have to, since it's not really reading any items. Otherwise the
response counter doesn't go back to zero.
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devnull
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response 26 of 55:
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Oct 16 17:47 UTC 1999 |
Re #23: I think it would also be possible to write a shell or perl script
which does not actually invoke picospan, and get such a thing to DTRT.
Figuring out the details is left as an excercise for the reader.
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janc
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response 27 of 55:
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Oct 17 18:25 UTC 1999 |
I think such a program would be nice to have.
Picospan has a feature that would help a bit if more fairwitnesses used
it. It lets fairwitnesses configure which items should be new to new
users. In particular, you can say, for example,
first item, last item, item 17 and all items with postings since two
weeks ago.
So if a new person joins a conference and does "read new," they'll see
the named items, and all the items with recent activity, but not any of
the items that have been abandoned for years. So the deadwood can be
there, but mostly won't be seen.
This only works if the user first joins the conference with Backtalk.
Picospan doesn't know about these settings. It also only works if
conference fairwitnesses set them (last time I looked, there were only a
couple conference on Grex that used this feature).
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remmers
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response 28 of 55:
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Oct 18 13:54 UTC 1999 |
Re resp:26 - It would be possible to write a program separate from
Picospan that would do it. But I'd prefer not to, since the program
would have to do the grunt work of detecting new items and responses
that Picospan already does for you. When feasible, I prefer to avoid
re-inventing the wheel. Such a program could be more efficient than the
one I proposed, but since the program would only be run once every few
days, I don't think the extra efficiency is worth the programming
effort.
Disclaimer: I don't have time to write my proposed program right now.
If anybody else wants to give it a try, by all means do.
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dpc
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response 29 of 55:
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Oct 18 17:44 UTC 1999 |
I think this proposed program would be really helpful!
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ryan
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response 30 of 55:
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Oct 18 17:55 UTC 1999 |
This response has been erased.
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gull
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response 31 of 55:
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Oct 18 18:37 UTC 1999 |
It's not ours to tinker with. Notice the copyright and license information
when you run bbs.
It seems to be a common misconception that Grex owns Picospan. Grex
doesn't. Grex just has a license to use it.
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don
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response 32 of 55:
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Oct 18 19:10 UTC 1999 |
However, Marcus has the source, and I doubt that the people who owns picospan
are gonna notice if we tinker with it.
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mta
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response 33 of 55:
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Oct 18 21:03 UTC 1999 |
Not being noticed doesn't make a thing right.
(What's with this attitude that "it's only wrong if I get caught'. My kids
got over that at age 5.)
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spooked
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response 34 of 55:
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Oct 19 00:10 UTC 1999 |
I will write the necessary program(s). I think one will need superuser
privileges to do so, though. I was supposed to probably gain them a while
back, but staff hasn't met in ages to confirm it - this is like 3 or 4 months
ago, when they're supposed to meet monthly.
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i
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response 35 of 55:
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Oct 19 00:47 UTC 1999 |
Why would you need 2BUID0 to write a PicoActivityLevelMeter program?
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mdw
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response 36 of 55:
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Oct 19 00:50 UTC 1999 |
Guido is at dogwood.nonlineardynamics.com .
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lilmo
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response 37 of 55:
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Oct 19 02:21 UTC 1999 |
re 35 & 36: What?
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scg
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response 38 of 55:
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Oct 19 05:39 UTC 1999 |
2BUID0 would presumably be, to be UID 0. UID 0 is root. I think the answer
to that question is that you wouldn't, but you would need to be UID 0 to
install it.
dogwood.nonlineardynamics.com doesn't seem to exist.
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mdw
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response 39 of 55:
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Oct 19 06:06 UTC 1999 |
You're right, it doesn't. It did earlier today though. Something weird
lurks at nonlineardynamics.com.
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janc
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response 40 of 55:
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Oct 19 18:54 UTC 1999 |
While Picospan source isn't publically available, Backtalk source is,
and Backtalk too has code to detect new items and such. One could write
a Backtalk script to do this, if one can deal with Backtalk's weird
script language (pseudo-Postscript). I agree with John that program
that runs picospan might be the simplest way to do this though.
One of the problems is doing a "for all conferences" loop. This is
actually quite hard to do, because there isn't a simple clean list of
conferences anywhere.
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mdw
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response 41 of 55:
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Oct 19 21:36 UTC 1999 |
Actually, there is a single list of conferences -- /bbs/conflist. It
doesn't look "clean", only because it was designed to solve a completely
different problem (how to name a conference), but it is not at all hard
to turn it into a list of conference directories, which is really what
you want anyways. ~mdw/bin/mkcl does just this. Note also that it's
possible to say
join '/bbs/sports2'
in PicoSpan.
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lilmo
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response 42 of 55:
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Oct 19 23:17 UTC 1999 |
Re resp:39 - Perhaps they are engaging in some non-linear dynamics...
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devnull
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response 43 of 55:
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Oct 20 03:09 UTC 1999 |
Re #33: It depends on whether we're discussing morality or legality here.
For issues of morality, yes, something that is wrong is wrong, regardless
of whether you get caught.
For something which is illegal, it really only matters if you get caught.
Many things which are immoral are illegal, and vice versa, but in practice,
sometimes things that are illegal are things that should be perfectly
reasonable to do.
It isn't clear to me that enhancing the capabilities of picospan is morally
wrong.
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cmcgee
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response 44 of 55:
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Oct 20 03:15 UTC 1999 |
If someone will send me _simple_ directions, I'll fix up the small business
conference.
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i
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response 45 of 55:
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Oct 20 03:50 UTC 1999 |
Fix up the small business conference?
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cmcgee
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response 46 of 55:
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Oct 20 16:57 UTC 1999 |
Yah, set those "read this, this and this" for new users when then first try
it, as was suggested in I think response 27? Maybe I'm in the wrong item.
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don
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response 47 of 55:
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Oct 20 20:44 UTC 1999 |
Re the superuser muck, two things:
1) In order to be a superuser, you don't have to be root; you only have to
have an account with superuser equivalency. There's a bunch of adjunct roots
on grex, such as woot, gcoot, noot, hoot, zoot, joot, loot, moot, foot, soot,
coot, scoot, doot, and koot. Staff could do it in the blink of an eye; there's
no need to be UID 0 or use wierd programs.
2) The programmer wouldn't need superuser access to do the program; perhaps
the program may need to be suid root, but that would be it.
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scott
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response 48 of 55:
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Oct 20 21:46 UTC 1999 |
The only thing needed would be to put the results somewhere; root is not
necessarily needed for that.
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spooked
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response 49 of 55:
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Oct 20 23:23 UTC 1999 |
I can start work on this in about 4 weeks. Busy at the moment with
assignments and then I have student assignments and finals to mark also.
Is that cool?
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