Issue 0002

[slartie]

.._________.__                 __  .__                               
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 \_____  \ |  | \__  \\_  __ \   __\  |/ __ \  _/ ___\/  _ \ /     \ 
 /        \|  |__/ __ \|  | \/|  | |  \  ___/  \  \__(  <_> )  Y Y  \
/_______  /|____(____  /__|   |__| |__|\___  > /\___  >____/|__|_|  /
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.___   _  _  _______  _______  _______   ________  
|   |_| || |_\   _  \ \   _  \ \   _  \  \_____  \    http://slartie.com/
|   \   __   /  /_\  \/  /_\  \/  /_\  \  /  ____/ 
|   ||  ||  |\  \_/   \  \_/   \  \_/   \/       \    Giving you the heads up
|___/_  ~~  _\\_____  /\_____  /\_____  /\_______ \   on everything console.
      |_||_|        \/       \/       \/         \/
===============================================================================
26 May 2013 -- slartie -- Final                           NEWSLETTER ISSUE 0002
===============================================================================

===============================================================================
WARNING                                                  IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD
===============================================================================
     If you're easily offended by foul language or views on a particular 
     matter, which might not agree with your own, you should probably get the
     fuck out of this document right now. Seriously.

===============================================================================
INTRO 
===============================================================================
     This is a "When I get to it"-type newsletter with a range of hopefully
     interesting links, guides and so on for you to experience. Consider it a
     blog in an old-style ASCII newsletter format that you used to get on
     mailing lists, USENET groups and your local BBS.

     As this is the second issue, I'm going to keep it short just to get a feel
     for what the final format will look like. It may require some tweaking,
     but the overall look should be kind of set.

     Feedback is more than welcome, as I will try to make the format as useful
     as possible, for as many platforms as possible.

===============================================================================
CONTENTS 
===============================================================================
     WARNING                     (It's for your own good)
     INTRO                       (You just came from there)
     CONTENTS	                 (You are here)
     TOPIC 01: My rant           (Inline replying)
     TOPIC 02: Clean desktop     (More than throwing away cans)
     TOPIC 03: Learn programming (It's useful damn it)
     TOPIC 04: Links             (Places to visit)
     TOPIC 05: Changelog         (Recent updates)
     CLOSING                     (Final thoughts)
     ABOUT                       (About the author)
     LICENSE                     (Because we all need one)

===============================================================================
TOPIC 01: MY RANT                                               INLINE REPLYING
===============================================================================
     E-Mail may be giving way to tweets, facebook messenger, or text messages,
     at least in part, but E-Mail is still widely (ab)used, so before you type
     your next E-Mail at least do it right.

     The main thing about carrying on a conversation through E-Mail, is to
     always have past exchanges available to retain context. Sometimes E-Mail
     conversations can last a long-ass time, and wouldn't it just suck monkey
     balls if you didn't have a proper context with your next reply - and maybe
     going from having a great time to calling each other Nazis. That's right,
     context is important. So how do we do that. Simple!

     1) Quote the previous E-Mail and put your reply directly underneath the
        portion of said E-Mail. STOP THE TOP-POSTING CRAP!

     2) Don't quote the entire E-Mail. That would make you a turd ball. Just
        quote the stuff that is necessary to maintain context.

     3) Don't use HTML formatting. HTML is for websites, dummy!

     So here's a really simple example of quoting and replying using the proper
     prefixing for quoting previous E-Mails. It's a thing of beauty.

     ,-------------------------------------------------------------------.
     | >> Where's the car? --Joe                                         |
     |                                                                   |
     | > It's at the shop --Bill                                         |
     |                                                                   |
     | What did you do to it now? --Joe                                  |
     `-------------------------------------------------------------------'

     OMGWTF that's amazing! Damn right it is. You're probably used to pages of
     text you have to scroll through to brush up on what the hell is going on
     in any given E-Mail conversation. Imagine a world where you can cut those
     14-line smug signatures out as well as a ton of fluff and just stick to
     the fucking business at hand!

     "But how?! Fat chance that I'm going to put those markers in there
     whenever I reply to an E-Mail!", you might say. Well if you're talking to
     the screen, you've probably got way more interesting things to worry about
     than a friggin E-Mail, but I digress. You don't have to do a damn
     thing. Well actually, a little bit.

     The thing is, a proper 'ye olde' E-Mail client will do this out of the
     box, and you just need to learn to stop top-posting (replying at the very
     top of the E-Mail as the Outlook generation has been doing for years now),
     and you're golden. Most (hopefully ALL) other E-Mail clients have an
     option to turn on the prefixed quoting (the lesser/greater than symbols),
     and away you go.

     RTFM to figure out if your E-Mail client is capable. If it isn't, get a
     real E-Mail client!
     
===============================================================================
TOPIC 02: CLEAN DESKTOP                            MORE THAN THROWING AWAY CANS
===============================================================================
     Short and sweet. Get rid of Gnome, KDE or whatever else you're using as
     your handy dandy eye-candy gouge-fest! No really. What do you really need?
     You need windows to have stuff in. Your editor, your browser, E-Mail,
     maybe something to remind you what time it is, and a few other bibs and
     bobs.

     The most important thing on just about any monitor is the screen
     real-estate available to you, to use for whatever you're doing: watching
     porn, browsing lolcats or you know, work you get paid to do.

     Most of the environments I see today, seem dead set on wasting space on
     your desktop for fancy docks, taskbars, this, that and the other
     thing. It's like 1999 all over again where Windows users had 10 different
     toolbars in their browser, left with a letterbox sized area to actually
     view a website from.

     OK it's not that bad, but you get the point. Have you considered giving a
     tiled or dynamic window manager a try? Probably not, because you might not
     even have a clue what the hell that is. Simply. Think of a desktop where
     every single pixel can be used for showing the content you care about, and
     literally nothing else.

     Here's a list of window managers you should try. After you've tried this
     different breed of window manager, you will be ready to shed yourself of
     the ridiculousness that is the eye-candy you have been used to, like some
     neon pant wearing, pimple faced teenager. Now it's time to grow up and get
     a proper beard. The ladies are free to grow one as well, because why the
     hell not.

     - Awesome
     - Ion
     - dwm
     - i3    <--- PICK THIS ONE, BECAUSE IT'S AMAZING! I COMMAND YOU, CRETIN!
     - Xmonad
     - wmii

     There's a shit-tonne more than these, but those will get you
     started. Looking at download stats from the various download sites, it's
     clear that tiling and dynamic window managers are getting more and more
     popular. I'm pretty sure their use is still contained within the 'power
     user' base, whatever the hell that means.

===============================================================================
TOPIC 03: LEARN PROGRAMMING                                 IT'S USEFUL DAMN IT
===============================================================================
     There's a lot going on in a *NIX machine and unless you decided to get a
     bunch of software without the source code, you can change absolutely all
     of it to your liking. Don't like how Newsbeuter redraws the screen after
     updating your sources - change it. Don't like that your taskbar doesn't
     scream 'learn the fucking shortcuts, you cunt!' at you every time you
     right-click on a folder and select 'rename' - change it.

     There's as many languages as pairs of underwear you have ever worn. That
     might actually be true. Anyway. There's a lot of languages to choose from,
     and you'll probably want to have a couple of them (or 10) in your tool
     belt (actual tool belt sold separately).

     I'm not going to tell you which one is easier to learn than the
     other. Every month a new book comes out saying that language X is easier
     than language Y, and every week, some pundit on a website will tell you
     that it's easier to learn Haskell than to shit your pants.

     Here's some languages you should get familiar with (at the very least)

     - Perl
     - C
     - Lua
     - Ruby
     - JavaScript
     - Python

     Someone knowing a language or two who reads this will no doubt have
     trouble breathing right about now because I didn't mention his or her
     favorite language. Take a pill or something.

     Get acquainted with one or more of the languages mentioned above. Go look
     for the tutorials, get the software, start hacking (the act of making
     software do what you want it to do) and get some skills.

     One thing of note. Pay attention to Open Source projects on various source
     code repositories around the net. When you find a language you'd like to
     invest more time in, having a look at what others have done, playing
     around with their source code and see how everything works, can
     potentially be a great way to get a better understanding of the language
     itself. It's worked for me at least. Different strokes.

===============================================================================
TOPIC 04: LINKS                                                 PLACES TO VISIT
===============================================================================
     Stuff I've mentioned in this newsletter deserves some link love, otherwise
     you'd have to step out of your comfort zone and use a search engine. Where
     would we be if that was required?!

     This isn't WikiPedia, so I'm only going to link to stuff I think is worth
     looking at.

     Posting style     [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style ]
     i3                [ http://i3wm.org/ ] <-- THIS IS THE ONE YOU WANT
     Awesome           [ http://awesome.naquadah.org/ ]
     Ion               [ http://tuomov.iki.fi/software/ ]
     dwm               [ http://dwm.suckless.org/ ]
     wmii              [ https://code.google.com/p/wmii/ ]
     xmonad            [ http://xmonad.org/ ]
     i3                [ http://i3wm.org/ ] <-- YES, REALLY, THIS ONE!
     Perl              [ http://www.perl.org/ ]
     ANSI C            [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_C ]
     Lua               [ http://www.lua.org/ ]
     Ruby              [ http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ ]
     JavaScript        [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript ]
     Python            [ http://www.python.org/ ]
     Debian GNU/Hurd   [ http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/ ]
     GNU/Hurd          [ http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/ ]
     GNU Project       [ http://www.gnu.org/ ]
     FSF               [ http://www.fsf.org/ ]
     Richard M. S.     [ http://stallman.org/ ]
     Microkernel       [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel ]
     Monolithic Kernel [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolithic_kernel ]
     Libre             [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libre ]

===============================================================================
TOPIC 05: CHANGELOG                                              RECENT UPDATES
===============================================================================
     Debian GNU/HURD 2013 released ::: That's pretty much all I want to mention
     this time in this section. Hurd is a kernel, just like Linux is a
     kernel. Your window manager, your file manager, your E-Mail client and
     everything else you use daily sits on top of that kernel. It's what makes
     the whole operating system function.

     Linux is a monolithic kernel, and Hurd is a microkernel. The difference
     between the two would largely be a copy-paste job from WikiPedia, so that
     seems a bit redundant.

     Hurd comes from the GNU Project. The very project, spearheaded by Richard
     M. Stallman, that made all the basic tools needed to have an operating
     system. Richard had (and still has) a grand vision for Free/Libre Open
     Source Software. Every part of the operating system needs to be free (as
     in libre - look it up dunce). He and a bunch of friends and volunteers
     made the GNU software that all *NIX systems use today. Without them, the
     world would be a very dull place.

     So Richard decided that the complex microkernel would be the way to go, as
     the icing on the GNU cake to make a complete operating system. The project
     proved so complex, and thus moved forward in development so slowly, that
     it's taken decades to get to the point where it is today. It's still
     nowhere near as complete, as the Linux kernel, but it's coming - slowly
     but surely. Every time there's some news about Hurd, I'll probably be
     linking to it.

     Go try it out!

===============================================================================
CLOSING                                                          FINAL THOUGHTS
===============================================================================
     A lot of stuff happens in the Open Source world all the time, and just as
     much this past week as the one before it. So much in fact, that I spent
     most of my time reading all the news, rather than finishing this
     newsletter, which is why it's out one day later than originally intended.

     Next one should be on schedule.

===============================================================================
ABOUT                                                          ABOUT THE AUTHOR
===============================================================================
        ````...-------------......`````            Slartie has been working
      ``...-----::////////:::----....````          with open source software
     `...---:://+++++oo++++++//::---....``         and the community since the
     `..-:://++ossyyyyysssssssso+//:--...`         early 90s.
    `.-:/+oossyhddmmmmdddddhyoo+//::-----.` `.`   
    `.-/+osyhhhdddmmmmmmmdhyyssoo++++/:---.`.+:`   He's considered a little bit
    `-::/+osssyhdmmmmNNmddddddmmmdhs+///---.:+:    crazy by his peers. Mostly
    `-::+osyyhdmmmmmmNmmNNNNNNNNmyo++oso/::-/s-    because he likes working with
     .:/oydmNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNmhsoyddmmdhys/:+s.    the console so much.
     ./syhmNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNmddms//syooydds/++`   
     `:+ossssssyhmNNNNNNNNNNMmmdyo+os//shds//-     His day job is (sadly one
      :shdhhyoooyhdMNNNNNmdmmmddNmmdhssyhyo/-`     might say) working with MS
      .sdo+oyyhdhhmmdhdmdhyyhdNNNNNNNdhhhyo/.      Windows clients and servers.
    ```/yysymNNNNNmddyyddyydmmNNNNNNNNmdhhs/.```  
`````.`-osyhmNNNNNmmhsymdysydNNNNNNNNNmmdhy/.````` After hours are spent with
`.....--+yhmNNNNNNMmsoymmhssssdMNNNNNNNNmdy/--...- coding, tinkering, IRC and
:-:--://+ydNNNNNNNMy+ohmdyo+oshNNNNNNNNNmds/::--:- generally being a nerd.
::::::///smNNNNNNNMmddNNNNmmNNNNNNNNNNNNNds/:::::: 
///////++oyNNNNNhsso++yNMNNho++sso+sdNNNmho//:::/: 
+++++++++ooymNNs:--...-/++:-...-:::-:omdhs+//::///
ooooo+ooooo+smh/-://-----:::::/+hho/:-/oo//++///++ You can get in touch using:
ssssoooooosooss/-/yNdhhhhhhmmmmmmmy/-...-:/++///++
ysssssssssssso:..:+hdysssss+++oos+/-.````./++//+++ Twitter: @slartie
yyyyssssssssss:.```.-:///:/++/++:.```````:+o++/+o+ IRC: slartie (FreeNode)
yyyyyysssssyys+.`````.-:/oyyo/:-..`````./+ooo+++oo E-Mail: [email protected]

===============================================================================
LICENSE                                                 BECAUSE WE ALL NEED ONE
===============================================================================
     Slartie.com Newsletter (c) by slartie

     Slartie.com Newsletter is licensed under a
     Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

     You should have received a copy of the license along with this
     work.  If not, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.

===============================================================================
26 May 2013 -- slartie -- Final                           NEWSLETTER ISSUE 0002
===============================================================================
Created with Emacs - http://gnu.org/software/emacs/

[Potatohead]

Hi Slartie, I like your newletter & I love your style! Regarding top posting, bottom posting or inline posting - well, here is how I see it!

Bottom posting: the natural order, you receive a question and you put your anwer below. Agreed.

Top posting: can be nice when the question is a large piece of text. As a service to the reader you can put your answer above it. So the reader does not have to scroll down to see your reaction.

By the way, forum software does both styles, in some forums the latest reactions are on top, in others the lastest are down below...... some even let you choose ;-)

Inline posting: when someone asks you 10 questions, you might answer them 1 by 1, so your comments are inline.

Not quoting the entire email: agreed, unless....unless your email might be forwarded to someone else. Say a colleague asks you something, you answer, and he sends that mail to a client/ the boss/ another colleague.... Now the complete orginal email gives context for those new readers. I have learned the hard way :-( that emails - especially on 'sensitive' topics WILL beforwarded......


Regarding the Clean Desktop: I agree 100% !! I always wondered why laptop screens keep getting lower (wide&low actually) but most programs eat your vertical space with menu bars. Look at MS Office (I don't use it, but many people do) - a big fat ' ribbon' menu on top, a smaller bar on the bottom, and most users have a sea of empty space on the left & right side of their screen. Usability guru Jacob Nielsen calls this Chrome Obesity: "When I analyzed a range of website homepages ..... I found that the actual content was allocated a paltry 20% of the user's screen....."

Even a minimalistic browser such as uzbl puts the tabs on top (and not at the side).

[machinebacon]

So actually the Unity idea is not even bad, and I know that ivanov (and myself) put the taskbar to the far left, icon only. Makes sense on anything else than 4:3

[Potatohead]

Yep! On my xfce machine, my bar is at the left side as well. FireFox has an extension which puts the tabs on the left side, haven't found that for other browsers though.. I haven't found a way to put the browsers bars (url, etc.) on the left side though. In theory you could change the source code and then recompile a 'side bars' Chromium or Firefox (iceweasel, whatever).

LibreOffice and Symphony have possibilities of side way menu bars, which is a step in the right direction. Of course it's mainly the screen manufacturers fault. Googles Pixel is an exeption, most of the screens are fine for video watching (left - right emphasis) but bad for reading & writing stuff (vertical emphasis).

flwm does it right (title bars are vertical) but it's the ugliest girl in town - gets the 'job' done however ;-) and of course all minimalistic wms are good. Thanks for the crazy Gangbang WM Fest :-)

@Slartie - pleaze keep the rants alive !!

[machinebacon]

Yes, actually we should have bigger screens and left/right, so that we can have 'upright' orientation for two tasks the same time - the taowm (I think it was you who mentioned it recently) is per se a good idea, and of course any tiler/snapper that is set up this way.
Trollmode: "Or use two screens."

[wuxmedia]

OR, turn your monitor 90° and twist your video display 90° using something like fbterm 8p
not so good for laptops 8)

[machinebacon]

METISSE :D

[Potatohead]

[ivanovnegro]

@Jules: We have a new (refurbished) 4:3 monitor, or better said my BH. Every time when I sit in front of it, it is a delight to work on it. I am so jealous of her and I chose it.

Fuck widescreen.

@Slartie: Great entry.

[GekkoP]

4:3 uber alles.

[DebianJoe]

4:3 Herrenrasse reporting in. ;)

[machinebacon]

<- denying the 16:9-caust

[dkeg]

nice write up slartie. takeaway is that you suggest using i3 :D

tough posting replies on the bottom. Why, b/c no one else does. And when you have a scenario of me replying at the bottom, and everyone else replying at the top, then you have a complete disaster. Maybe place in subject

REPLY AT BOTTOM: subject

with that being said, I agree with you. Just wish everyone else did too.

[wuxmedia]

I used to repy inline all the time. Still do.
I blame gmail, maybe hotmail.
reply - presents you with a blank email. making you pull quotes out of the email
When I used outlook, on a reply, it used to dump you at the bottom.
Previous email already quoted with '>'
then I'd address questions inline.
not that i get much email these days anyway.

[machinebacon]

Manliest solution: don't even reply.

Reference: http://www.dontevenreply.com/

[rhowaldt]

just wanna say: fuck 4:3, i want my fancy widescreen. that means: all the more 4:3 monitors for you guys! :D

[slartie]

top vs. bottom vs. inline. Each one has its use, no doubt about it.

As soon as you don't have any threaded navigation, top or bottom posting (forum style) makes a lot of sense, as you use the scroll to see the continuation of whichever conversation is going on. But it's easy to lose context. People have been using @user, "in reply to post xx", or snippets. to alleviate this. Those who quote quotes in forums end up with boxes in boxes on a forum that's already boxes. Makes for confusing reading, but it's the best we've got for the most part. As soon as you have more than two parts in a discussion, it becomes a mess.

Email started as a 1-on-1 conversation, thus inline replies made sense, and every email client that came out had that as the default. > marking, cursor on the first line of the reply or on the bottom of the mail. cutting/killing lines of text that weren't needed in the reply became second nature for every Eudora, Pegasus, The Bat, Mutt, Gnus, etc. user. The internet got a foothold and email came along with it. Email entered the corporate space, and everybody wants everything for their records, so top posting became a thing to preserve earlier correspondence - not for legal reasons, but for convenience. As long as the original email is there, no worries. IBM worried about diskspace, and made Lotus Notes into the easiest email correspondence tracking system known to man. Everything was and is an object that is linked. Nothing is lost, and getting "up to speed" when someone else takes over the account is a non-issue.

However, Lotus Notes didn't win the email battle in the corporate world in the long run, Microsoft did. Outlook became the first (to my knowledge) email client to make top posting a standard and disabling > characters as reply marking in conjunction with Exchange 5.5 or 6.0 when HDD costs had gone down considerably and the first version of the single-instance email storage technology was introduced (1 mail CC'ed to 10 people was still just 1 mail in the database). Top posting came to stay. Storage wasn't a problem, and it was just easier to top post rather than valuing the time of the email recipient.

Inline posting is, to me, a sign of having respect for the recipient and his or her time. It is for the most part still alive and well on USENET and discussion mailing lists.

... ... ...

4:3 - can't be arsed with it anymore. 16:9/16:10 work fine for me as long as we're talking 1080p or over. 1366x768 or whatever the fuck the resolution is, should die in a fire.

i3wm is very much my favorite wm. I keep trying other tilers and stackers, but i3 just keeps winning my love. It's like that cute blonde. Her ass might not be as round as I'd like and her tata's might not be as perky as a college girls', but those eyes any man could get lost in and her smile will melt anyone.

[bones]

I've been considering giving i3 a try for about a week or so, now. You sold me, slartie, I'm gonna throw it on my Slackbox here at work and give it a go, tomorrow.

[machinebacon]

i3wm is very much my favorite wm. I keep trying other tilers and stackers, but i3 just keeps winning my love. It's like that cute blonde. Her ass might not be as round as I'd like and her tata's might not be as perky as a college girls', but those eyes any man could get lost in and her smile will melt anyone.

Question to the experts: Which one is i3?

[bones]

^AAAHHHHH! MY EYES, MY EYES!

Pretty sure these girls are Gnome3 and KDE4.