More From Tanenbaum

BigFire writes "Professor Tanenbaum responds to the slashdot effect and a small critique of Ken Brown's forthcoming book in his followup. A small gem is where he disclosed that Ken Brown can't multiply simple positive integers."

Mirror mirror on the wall ...

[Anonymous Coward]

We already need a mirror ... man the /. effect hit quick and hard these days.

Round Two

[Anonymous Coward]

"This attention resulted in over 150,000 requests to our server in less than a day, which is still standing despite yesterday being a national holiday with no one there to stand next to it saying "You can do it. You can do it." Kudos to Sun Microsystems and the folks who built Apache."

Just when he thought it was over, here we come for another round. . .

Raises some interesting questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of which are easier to answer than others:

Why did Brown fly all the way to Europe to interview me and (and according to an email I got from his seat-mate on the plane) one other person in Scandinavia, at considerable expense, and not at least call Linus?

I think the answer is "because calling Linus wouldn't have allowed Brown to get the Alex de Torqeville Institute to pay for him to take a vacation to Holland".

The Netherlands Connection is the key

[Vengeance]

There is no other way to explain the conclusions we've seen reported for this book, except that Brown spent a good deal of time in Amsterdam coffeehouses, consuming high-grade grass.

Disclosure

[Vihai]

I got an advance copy of Ken Brown's book. I think it is still under embargo, so I won't comment on it

Ok, fair enought

Let's call it The Brown Book

So, why are you disclosing the color of the cover!?!? Baaad guy Andy :)

./ effect

[larry2k]

Professor Tanenbaum responds to the slashdot effect

And he is living the ./ effect hell again

Pure genius!

[SuperBanana]

Professor Tanenbaum responds to the slashdot effect

...by getting slashdotted again!

Re:Round Two

[Doc Ruby]

On Wall Street, we called this technology "BOHICA": Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.

I resent that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ken Brown is some guy who works for something called the "Alex de Torqueville" (sic?) institute and he's writing a book which appears to mostly consist of slander against Linus Tourvalds and/or the Free Software movement.

No it isn't, and I resent that! Slander is spoken. In print it's "Libel".

Sincerely,

Kenneth Brown
President, Alexis de Tocqueville Institution

Re:Disclosure

[grub]

I think "The Brown Book" describes what the book and author are full of. That the author's name is Brown must surely be a coincidence.

2500 hits

[bandicot]

Examining his home-page hit rate:

1600 come from search-engine bots
450 come from kids attempting to compromise his apache server with IIS-specific exploits
350 come from a single female grad student who is all aflutter over AST's [micro-kernel] hacking skills.
75 come from accidentally mis-spelling 'whitehouse.gov'
24 come from /. users
1 comes from his mother.

Re:The Netherlands Connection is the key

[kfg]

Which is no excuse really, as such is commonly available where Linus resides as well, so he could have just as easily produced a wigged out interview with Linus as with Prof. Tannenbaum.

And the weather's better in So Cal.

I can fully understand being willing to do just about anything to get out of D.C. for awhile though.

KFG

Re:Arrogance

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't help it, but whenever I read something from Tanenbaum, I am thinking "oh my, is this guy arrogant".

Funny, I feel the same way when I read Slashdot.

Re:Tanenbaum is being disingenious

[Anonymous Coward]

How many "explosive" books on Diana were published without giving Diana a chance to respond in the book?

Linus isn't dead yet you insensitivite twit.

Linus had nothing to do with it.

[Coram]

Silly geeks. Al Gore wrote linux.

Re:Disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if the Brown Book is anything like the "Brown Noise"

*duck*

Re:His comment on Slashdot:

[ziphnab]

Oh and btw, you bastards slashdotted my uni again and we have finals next week!!! Quit it :)

Fear and Loathing in Amsterdam

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did Brown fly all the way to Europe to interview me and (and according to an email I got from his seat-mate on the plane) one other person in Scandinavia, at considerable expense, and not at least call Linus? Even if he made a really bad choice of phone company, how much could that cost?

Hmmm. Lets see.

• The author of a book of fiction presented in a non-fiction, documentary format...
  
• ...financed by some deep pockets...
  
• ...flies from puritanical Virginia/DC, USA to free-love/drugs (well, not entirely free) Amsterdam on someone else's dime...
  
• ...on the pretense of interviewing a professor...
  
• ...but is seen buttonholing college students in the hall on the way out...
  
• ...claiming to be sponsored by the
  "Alexis de Toqueville" Institute.
  

Did Mssr. Brown, by any chance, bear a striking resemblance to
this man? [gonzo.org]

Re:Changed opinion

[DJCouchyCouch]

So please, /.ers, stop thinking that you have to have an opinion on everything, even the things that you don't really know about.

But... but... that would BREAK Slashdot!

DJCC

Re:Please spend some money on a good dictionary.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please spend some money on a backspace key. Your misplaced apostrophes will really appreciate it.

King?

[SlayerofGods]

I never really applied for the position of King of the Hackers and didn't want the job when it was offered.
The fool.... that would be like the coolest job ever.

Re:Mirror mirror on the wall ...

[Halfbaked Plan]

Do they really forge news items at that site?

Have they applied for work at the New York Times?

*rimshot*

Re:I am confused.

[Halfbaked Plan]

'disingenious' is one of those great words to watch fools try to work with.

Its somewhat similar to watching someone who is drunk try to manouvre around a pole with unbalanced swinging weights on each end.

Re:Please spend some money on a good dictionary.

[Halfbaked Plan]

He was referring to his friend's and family. Don't be insensitive to the plight of and families like that.

His friend, for instance is quite insensitive and brutal to his family of ands. He inflicts dictonaries of dubious quality on them regularly, and with unkind, hurtful results.

Re:A bit different

[36-bitter]

"Why people deify Diana is a mystery of the ages."

Meditate on that sentence until you see why it is so funny. :-)

Re:The Netherlands Connection is the key

[Flyboy Connor]

This get me so irritated. People who immediately start yelling "drugs" when the Netherlands comes up. We have so many interesting other things! There is... uhm... (should not mention hookers here)... uhm... ... I'll get back to you.

Re:I resent that!

[0x0d0a]

No it isn't, and I resent that! Slander is spoken. In print it's "Libel".

Sincerely,

Kenneth Brown
President, Alexis de Tocqueville Institution

I am fairly certain that this person is not the real Kenneth Brown.

Based on his misleading attacks on Linus, I would say that the real Kenneth Brown would have written something like the following:

No it isn't. Three legal experts that I've consulted have agreed that the person is making entirely unsubstantiated claims. Open source advocates have been known to make wildly inaccurate legal claims to suppress people that disagree with them. This economist that I consulted confirmed that suppressing data leads to less efficient markets, which leads to loss of money. Personally, I wouldn't use any OS that causes you to lose money.

Re:I resent that!

[tiger99]

Well Ken, I see that it is obviously beyond your expertise to sign up properly to Slashdot and get a real username, which fits well with the other inabilities you have demonstrated, such as basic comprehension of facts.

If you can't handle signing up for a Slashdot account, I suggest that you ask your boss, Sir Bill, to get one of his few competent people to help you out.