from the HUMANS-NEED-FANTASY-TO-BE-HUMAN dept.
Pratchett’s 33rd Discworld novel, Going Postal, tells of the creation of an internet-like system of communication towers called “the clacks”. When John Dearheart, the son of its inventor, is murdered, a piece of code is written called “GNU John Dearheart” to echo his name up and down the lines. “G” means that the message must be passed on, “N” means “not logged”, and “U” means the message should be turned around at the end of a line. (This was also a realworld tech joke: GNU is an open-source operating system, and its name stands, with recursive geek humour, for “GNU’s not Unix”.) The code causes Dearheart’s name to be repeated indefinitely throughout the system, because “A man is not dead while his name is still spoken."
What better way to remember the beloved inventor of this fictional system, then, than “GNU Terry Pratchett”? Reddit users have designed a code that anyone with basic webcoding knowledge can embed into their own websites (anyone without basic webcoding knowledge can use the plugins for Wordpress and other platforms). The code is called the XClacksOverhead, and it sets a header reading “GNU Terry Pratchett”. “If you had to be dead,” thinks a character in Going Postal, “it seemed a lot better to spend your time flying between the towers than lying underground.” And so Pratchett is, in a way.
Source The Guardian
Reddit link with suggested code mod here.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 18 2015, @09:09PM
Put it in the next Soylent update
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 18 2015, @09:15PM
When you read a book, the author speaks to you.
As long as pterry's books are read, he lives on.
May his voice never be lost.
(Score: 5, Informative) by prospectacle on Wednesday March 18 2015, @10:49PM
Some select quotes:
Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
“I was merely endeavoring to indicate that if we do not grab events by the collar they will have us by the throat.
-Lord Vetinari”
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
(Score: 5, Funny) by Pr. L Muishkin on Wednesday March 18 2015, @11:45PM
Done and done. Added to my own sites and a few at an old employer who really should've taken on board my suggestions for improved site security, honestly, eighteen months later and my access credentials are still valid, and I'm supposed to be the idiot.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday March 19 2015, @01:07PM
added to my own little personal site..
There are browser addons that display when you are on a site with it..
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday March 19 2015, @06:31PM
aye, and a gradely post from a chap that can talk reet proper.
I'm a Lanky lad, myself.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday March 19 2015, @01:46AM
Linux is Open Source; GNU is Free Software. Free Software and Open Source are distinctly different things; were Richard Stallman to hear you claim that GNU is Open Source, he would likely come through the Internet at you then give you a telewedgie.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday March 19 2015, @01:54AM
Not that anyone cares.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2015, @02:18AM
Sums up my feelings for XClacksOverhead
(Score: 5, Informative) by prospectacle on Thursday March 19 2015, @02:43AM
Oh goody, semantics.
Since you wish to be so precise, you might be interested to know that you're wrong.
It's true that open source software isn't always free software.
But free software (adhering to Stallman's four freedoms) is always open source software.
For the proof, see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html [gnu.org]
Specifically, freedom 1 (the second freedom):
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
So being "open source" as described in freedom 1, is a necessary but not sufficient condition, to qualify as "free software".
GNU, being free, is therefore open source.
"...were Richard Stallman to hear you claim that GNU is Open Source..." he would likely point out the problems he sees with the term "Open Source" and how it's used to distract from true software freedom, as is his wont. That's because it encompasses only one of the four distinct freedoms he's interested in.
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic