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Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

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Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#251

Post by bombcar »

fl7305 wrote: post #199
jacquesm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you on that one. I read the whole thing closely and my conclusion is that some of what's there is playing to an invisible audience. And some of the rest of what's there feels like 'the real Hans' shining through because he hasn't really changed, but is actively trying to change how he is perceived. I could try to enumerate those bits but it doesn't matter all that much, it's just the feeling that I get from…

> my conclusion is that some of what's there is playing to an invisible audience My impression was that he got an assignment in class to write a letter where he reflects on bad interactions in the past, apologize, and try to put them behind him. I also got the impression that he really wants people to write/call him and discuss computer stuff, so this might be part of the motivation for writing it. But I don't know h…

I've not done it, so I don't know, but I suspect you can never fully get to "I completely regret what I did because it was wrong" without having somewhat of "I completely regret what I did because I got caught".

I do think we wants to discuss computer stuff; he seemed entirely unaware of SSDs and how that has (and should) change filesystems, and still thinks Slashdot is a place to post things.

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#252

Post by johnchristopher »

wetmore wrote: post #188
jonathankoren wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will always remember the Slashdot comment that said that removing the passenger seat of your car so you could sleep in your car was a reasonable thing to do, and everyone saying it was suspicious was a hater. (Bro. A car floor isn’t even flat.) I think it was my first experience with absolute egregious fanboism.

It is reasonable, although niche enough to be a bad defense. Here is a popular Instagram account where someone does exactly what you are saying is unreasonable: https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic

> Here is a popular Instagram account where someone does exactly what you are saying is unreasonable: https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic

Except they don't. First post shows them asking themselves if there's a more comfortable way, second post shows them installing a flat surface.

https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic/reel/CyGu0vUuXsz/

https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic/reel/CyWqTSSJV7U/

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#253

Post by pdntspa »

starfallg wrote: post #190
pdntspa wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly, I have an issue with this idea that everything a person does gets cancelled because the person gets cancelled. Particularly in this era of intense political polarization.... It is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The world is full of examples of art and science from troubled individuals; much of our foundational understanding of certain areas of science is derived from the learned experiences of i…

ReiserFS and BTRFS are the only 2 Linux filesystems that truly ate my data. Everything else I was able to substantially recover from.

I've had really bad experiences with fat32 and xfat... back in the day it was pretty common to lose data due to hard drive or filesystem bullshit.

In any case, I was a technology journo at the time this happened, and I covered this story, but I don't recall encountering a lot of technical discussion... it seemed to be mostly "ew this guy murdered his wife". Which is entirely deserved. (If a little unfair to the creative work)

I wasn't much of a programmer yet so maybe I wasn't looking at the right discussions.

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#254

Post by kstrauser »

ghaff wrote: post #191
bjourne wrote: post #99

ReiserFS is the only Linux file system that has lost me data. Back in the day it had performance advantages when dealing with small files. But now I'd be very surprised if ext4 isn't superior to it in every conceivable way.

There's an argument for copy-on-write filesystem options but it's pretty hard to argue there needs to be more than 2 or 3 "traditional" journaling filesystems like maybe ext4 and XFS.

His letter contends that ReiserFS was intended to be more than just a filesystem, and that jibes with what he was saying about it at the time. I think that it was meant to be a queryable database that happened to be good at implementing traditional filesystem semantics, but also optimally useful through some other kind of API.

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#255

Post by jacquesm »

blagie wrote: post #240
mardifoufs wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between rehabilitation and giving people access to the internet when serving a sentence for killing your wife and tormenting her family for like, 2 years because you hid the body even though everyone knew you killed her. Also, why shouldn't it be a little bit of both?

I don't have strong feelings about general internet access, but right now, I am probably spending $200k / year in tax dollars to keep him locked up behind bars. I'd be getting my money's worth. I would much rather he be contributing to free software from behind bars. That's true more generally too. A plumber behind bars should be allowed to plumb. A carpenter to carpent. Why shouldn't people in prison contribute back…

> I am probably spending $200k / year in tax dollars to keep him locked up behind bars.

At most you are spending $200K divided by the total amount of tax levied multiplied by your share of that total. Probably less than $1.

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#256

Post by bombcar »

JadeNB wrote: post #175
iaw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider it a Bayesian approach to understanding potential internal drivers. Someone who is not cold and calculating likely has less capacity to completely present the appearance of redemption whereas someone who is calculating has that capacity. So, someone who is demonstrated to be calculating has higher odds of faking a behavior if it is beneficial to them (e.g. leaving prison). It's for him to know, but I don't…

> It's for him to know, but I don't think it's ridiculous for me to question. My reference to ridiculous was to the ridiculousness of my thinking that I have any insight into Reiser's character—a disclaimer at the beginning that I was not presuming to offer any. I was in no way meaning to call you or your statement ridiculous. > I consider it a Bayesian approach to understanding potential internal drivers. Someone wh…

A "higher bar" is basically "evidence against" because you're saying you need more evidence for.

Then again, everything I've read leads me to believe he's impulsive at times (even says so in the letter!) and the calculating part was afterwards not before or during (if it was, he was notoriously bad at it).

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#257

Post by seti0Cha »

shzhdbi09gv8ioi wrote: post #28
themerone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drunk driving is a stupid thing people do. Murder is an act of evil.

Only if you believe in evil. I'm not christian so I don't see the world like that. He killed his s/o, like what 15 years ago now? People change and deserves a second chance.

Christians believe in evil AND believe in redemption. If you are looking for people who believe that positive change is impossible, try genetic determinists.

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#258

Post by bombcar »

bachmeier wrote: post #18
mariusor wrote: post #2

I don't know if ending another human's life leaves any possibility of redemption for a person, but reading this I still empathize with the sense of loss and powerlessness that emanate from this letter.

"Ending another human's life" covers a wide range of cases. My recollection of this event, which is now long in the past, is that he was cold, calculating, did not value human life, and was quite comfortable with his kids moving on without their mother. He didn't just do something to her. He permanently damaged his kids, her family, and all of her friends. He made his decision knowing all of this. Redemption? Possibl…

To be quite frank, redemption isn't really for us to decide. His family, her family, they have a say in it.

We only have a say insofar as we're part of the society that determines the laws that form the judges who will decide when it's appropriate to let him back into society.

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#259

Post by saalweachter »

fl7305 wrote: post #249
bigbillheck wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why's it any worse than being any other kind of person in prison?

It'd suck a lot less if your main hobby was playing poker with roughnecks.

Bad hobbies to have in prison:

  * computers
  * wood working
  * lock-picking
Good hobbies to have in prison:

  * re-inventing mathematics from scratch
  * writing poetry
  * working low-skill jobs without meaningful compensation

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#260

Post by bombcar »

scotty79 wrote: post #239
fl7305 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone who volunteers to be a killer has something wrong in him Consider the native american indian warriors who volunteered to defend their land against the invaders. Or jews in Poland who volunteered to defend against the Germans in WW2. Does your statement apply to them as well?

Of course. Some of them. Not everone who joins the army is a volunteer killer. Some people just want to help. Treat wounds. Recover wounded. Scare the enemy away. Some tentatively accept that some people might die in the process. People tend to accept that in war people die. They are more like armed robbers who'd love to have their goals met without killing anyone but some are accepting that someone might die in the…

Some fraction signing up so they can gun someone down, sure, those people have bad motives and should be found and excluded.

But being willing to say "I'd kill to protect X if there is no other option" is not that.

Someone who becomes a surgeon so that he can kill a patient now and then and get away with it obviously has something wrong. Someone who becomes a surgeon and now and then causes a patient to die unintentionally (even if they intended to do the surgery, knowing it could result in death) is not the same.

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