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This would be LinuxPPC, Inc. you are referring to? I have noticed they have a tendency to go with cool, easy to use, over stable and tested, but that's their choice. Other distros (like YDL, Debian and SuSE) are more stable and reliable.

I pay for my LinuxPPC updates because I know it's a ton of work supporting a platform on their own. (They're the ones who create a lot of the necessary advances that the other distros pick up, and provide hardware to kernel developers trying to support new systems.) But they really need better quality control and bug fix procedures. How could anyone ship a distro where the installer fails to run the X configuration utility, like LinuxPPC 1999? And then there's the bug where if you enable both telnetd and wu-ftpd in inetd.conf, telnetd doesn't work. That's a pretty major bug for a server OS, and not only have they not fixed it after well over a year, they haven't even mentioned it in their support pages.

You left out "What networking protocol does it use for multiplay?" I don't suppose it's compatible with either DirectPlay (Win) or NetSprockets (Mac)?

This conversion has already been done, by Brad Oliver at Westlake Interactive. I realize there would still be technical hassles converting from Mac APIs, not to mention licensing and payment issues. But don't say that it's just too hard to do.

Apparently the fix for the DRAM problem has to do with how the unit refreshes itself while off.

The update from handspring states that "depending on individual usage, the patch may impact battery life. But how much exactly?

There's a thread here on Deja with details that somebody reached by working from the specs on the particular RAM used in the Palms and Visors. His results are a doubling of power drain while the unit is turned off.

Here's to hoping he's wrong.

Not really feasible if you have hundreds of articles, me thinks, but it worked for me. If I had hundreds of posts, I'd process a few of them manually to figure out all the details of how the urls work, and then write a script to send of the remaining requests.

--

... was Jeremy Nixon's Deja power search, especially after the redesign/relaunch. It's basically just a reorganization of the form from Deja's own power search page, but I find the slightly different interface (with no unnecessary graphics and no scrolling) to be simpler and quicker to use.

Unfortunately Jeremy doesn't have his own back archives ...
----

Is it me or is Dogpile's usenet search limited? I can't seem to search by date, language, sort by, etc. like Deja.com's Power Search. :(

I have been using DEjA for a while and in the past year or so, the quality exponentially went down.

So now I am looking for alternatives? A search on google doesn't reveal much.

Can people name any similar services that exists? A poster mentioned dogpile. ANy others?

I would really like to see GOOGLE getting into this.

/LinuxLover

A few months ago, Deja made an announcement about the site move. According to the accouncement, which has not been updated since its original release, the old messages would temporarily be taken down, but we should "have no fear: [Deja is] committed to bringing these messages back online as soon as possible.

In the meantime, Deja has been transformed into a mere free Web-based Usenet server that happens to have unusually long retention, but no binaries access.

It has been a couple of months since then. Last month, Deja announced that the move was "complete"; however, most of the old posts are still nowhere to be found. There was an interesting Usenet discussion on the state of things, which included at least one thoughtful post as well as possibly a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Perhaps not all is lost. When (if) the Deja archive ever comes back in its entirety, it will still be the best Usenet archive around, hands down.

I disagree with the Slashdot article's claim that Deja has a merely "okay search interface". As long as one uses the Deja Classic Power Search, Deja has one of the cleanest interfaces around, with extremely flexible and powerful query options.

One would be hard-pressed to come up with something better at this point. Even if one were able to cook up a better interface with even better query features, where would the content come from? Who has been archiving Usenet all these years other than Deja, Remarq, and perhaps a few other little-known entities?

I daresay that none of the current archive holders would be willing to grant archive access without considerable compensation. Unfortunately, one would have no choice; it's a little too late to start archiving the old stuff now!

All in all, I would probably be in favor of just trying to get Deja back up in its full glory; this would be so much easier than starting from scratch. Perhaps all Deja needs is to hear (from thousands of concerned Slashdot readers) that their "old" archive is their most valuable resource, and should thus be given the attention that it deserves. I personally consider the "old" archive so valuable that I would be willing to pay a subscription fee to access it; I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

So shall we all write Deja now, and let them know what we think?
--

A few months ago, Deja made an announcement about the site move. According to the accouncement, which has not been updated since its original release, the old messages would temporarily be taken down, but we should "have no fear: [Deja is] committed to bringing these messages back online as soon as possible.

In the meantime, Deja has been transformed into a mere free Web-based Usenet server that happens to have unusually long retention, but no binaries access.

It has been a couple of months since then. Last month, Deja announced that the move was "complete"; however, most of the old posts are still nowhere to be found. There was an interesting Usenet discussion on the state of things, which included at least one thoughtful post as well as possibly a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Perhaps not all is lost. When (if) the Deja archive ever comes back in its entirety, it will still be the best Usenet archive around, hands down.

I disagree with the Slashdot article's claim that Deja has a merely "okay search interface". As long as one uses the Deja Classic Power Search, Deja has one of the cleanest interfaces around, with extremely flexible and powerful query options.

One would be hard-pressed to come up with something better at this point. Even if one were able to cook up a better interface with even better query features, where would the content come from? Who has been archiving Usenet all these years other than Deja, Remarq, and perhaps a few other little-known entities?

I daresay that none of the current archive holders would be willing to grant archive access without considerable compensation. Unfortunately, one would have no choice; it's a little too late to start archiving the old stuff now!

All in all, I would probably be in favor of just trying to get Deja back up in its full glory; this would be so much easier than starting from scratch. Perhaps all Deja needs is to hear (from thousands of concerned Slashdot readers) that their "old" archive is their most valuable resource, and should thus be given the attention that it deserves. I personally consider the "old" archive so valuable that I would be willing to pay a subscription fee to access it; I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

So shall we all write Deja now, and let them know what we think?
--

A few months ago, Deja made an announcement about the site move. According to the accouncement, which has not been updated since its original release, the old messages would temporarily be taken down, but we should "have no fear: [Deja is] committed to bringing these messages back online as soon as possible.

In the meantime, Deja has been transformed into a mere free Web-based Usenet server that happens to have unusually long retention, but no binaries access.

It has been a couple of months since then. Last month, Deja announced that the move was "complete"; however, most of the old posts are still nowhere to be found. There was an interesting Usenet discussion on the state of things, which included at least one thoughtful post as well as possibly a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Perhaps not all is lost. When (if) the Deja archive ever comes back in its entirety, it will still be the best Usenet archive around, hands down.

I disagree with the Slashdot article's claim that Deja has a merely "okay search interface". As long as one uses the Deja Classic Power Search, Deja has one of the cleanest interfaces around, with extremely flexible and powerful query options.

One would be hard-pressed to come up with something better at this point. Even if one were able to cook up a better interface with even better query features, where would the content come from? Who has been archiving Usenet all these years other than Deja, Remarq, and perhaps a few other little-known entities?

I daresay that none of the current archive holders would be willing to grant archive access without considerable compensation. Unfortunately, one would have no choice; it's a little too late to start archiving the old stuff now!

All in all, I would probably be in favor of just trying to get Deja back up in its full glory; this would be so much easier than starting from scratch. Perhaps all Deja needs is to hear (from thousands of concerned Slashdot readers) that their "old" archive is their most valuable resource, and should thus be given the attention that it deserves. I personally consider the "old" archive so valuable that I would be willing to pay a subscription fee to access it; I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

So shall we all write Deja now, and let them know what we think?
--

A few months ago, Deja made an announcement about the site move. According to the accouncement, which has not been updated since its original release, the old messages would temporarily be taken down, but we should "have no fear: [Deja is] committed to bringing these messages back online as soon as possible.

In the meantime, Deja has been transformed into a mere free Web-based Usenet server that happens to have unusually long retention, but no binaries access.

It has been a couple of months since then. Last month, Deja announced that the move was "complete"; however, most of the old posts are still nowhere to be found. There was an interesting Usenet discussion on the state of things, which included at least one thoughtful post as well as possibly a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Perhaps not all is lost. When (if) the Deja archive ever comes back in its entirety, it will still be the best Usenet archive around, hands down.

I disagree with the Slashdot article's claim that Deja has a merely "okay search interface". As long as one uses the Deja Classic Power Search, Deja has one of the cleanest interfaces around, with extremely flexible and powerful query options.

One would be hard-pressed to come up with something better at this point. Even if one were able to cook up a better interface with even better query features, where would the content come from? Who has been archiving Usenet all these years other than Deja, Remarq, and perhaps a few other little-known entities?

I daresay that none of the current archive holders would be willing to grant archive access without considerable compensation. Unfortunately, one would have no choice; it's a little too late to start archiving the old stuff now!

All in all, I would probably be in favor of just trying to get Deja back up in its full glory; this would be so much easier than starting from scratch. Perhaps all Deja needs is to hear (from thousands of concerned Slashdot readers) that their "old" archive is their most valuable resource, and should thus be given the attention that it deserves. I personally consider the "old" archive so valuable that I would be willing to pay a subscription fee to access it; I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

So shall we all write Deja now, and let them know what we think?
--

A few months ago, Deja made an announcement about the site move. According to the accouncement, which has not been updated since its original release, the old messages would temporarily be taken down, but we should "have no fear: [Deja is] committed to bringing these messages back online as soon as possible.

In the meantime, Deja has been transformed into a mere free Web-based Usenet server that happens to have unusually long retention, but no binaries access.

It has been a couple of months since then. Last month, Deja announced that the move was "complete"; however, most of the old posts are still nowhere to be found. There was an interesting Usenet discussion on the state of things, which included at least one thoughtful post as well as possibly a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Perhaps not all is lost. When (if) the Deja archive ever comes back in its entirety, it will still be the best Usenet archive around, hands down.

I disagree with the Slashdot article's claim that Deja has a merely "okay search interface". As long as one uses the Deja Classic Power Search, Deja has one of the cleanest interfaces around, with extremely flexible and powerful query options.

One would be hard-pressed to come up with something better at this point. Even if one were able to cook up a better interface with even better query features, where would the content come from? Who has been archiving Usenet all these years other than Deja, Remarq, and perhaps a few other little-known entities?

I daresay that none of the current archive holders would be willing to grant archive access without considerable compensation. Unfortunately, one would have no choice; it's a little too late to start archiving the old stuff now!

All in all, I would probably be in favor of just trying to get Deja back up in its full glory; this would be so much easier than starting from scratch. Perhaps all Deja needs is to hear (from thousands of concerned Slashdot readers) that their "old" archive is their most valuable resource, and should thus be given the attention that it deserves. I personally consider the "old" archive so valuable that I would be willing to pay a subscription fee to access it; I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

So shall we all write Deja now, and let them know what we think?
--

Additionally, check out the eNow Scanbot thread in alt.irc (deja: http://www.deja.com/group.alt.irc). There is a good discussion going on (as well) about the scanbots. Worth a read.

What's hilarious is that they will also link on negative reviews of the product. Here's an interesting example

• Frontpage

I also noticed ICQ buttons on some pages. It seems that their parser apparently looks for the string "ICQ ######" and then if found, places an image inline afterward to indicate their online status. Of course, it accidently picks up the product name "ICQ 2000" as ICQ user #2000.

Quote marks (">") are a long-established marker for quoting Usenet articles; quote someone without using ">" (or one of the other commonly-used quote symbols), and you're all but certain to incur someone's wrath.

Deja's orange triangle, on the other hand, has no precedent. Because no one else uses it, no one knows what it means. Deja should at least make an effort to explain what the orange triangle is the first time it shows one to a user.

Some ideas:

• When a user clicks a Deja triangle link, bring the user to an intermediate explanatory page before bringing him to the actual linked page. On the explanatory page, add an option to "do not show this message again", and use a cookie to remember.
• Add a "no Deja triangle links" option to the Power Search page.
• Add a "command-line option" to the standard Deja search URL that removes all Deja triangle links from all query results, similar to the way "/=dnc" currently switches the user into "Deja Classic" mode.

Quote marks (">") are a long-established marker for quoting Usenet articles; quote someone without using ">" (or one of the other commonly-used quote symbols), and you're all but certain to incur someone's wrath.

Deja's orange triangle, on the other hand, has no precedent. Because no one else uses it, no one knows what it means. Deja should at least make an effort to explain what the orange triangle is the first time it shows one to a user.

Some ideas:

• When a user clicks a Deja triangle link, bring the user to an intermediate explanatory page before bringing him to the actual linked page. On the explanatory page, add an option to "do not show this message again", and use a cookie to remember.
• Add a "no Deja triangle links" option to the Power Search page.
• Add a "command-line option" to the standard Deja search URL that removes all Deja triangle links from all query results, similar to the way "/=dnc" currently switches the user into "Deja Classic" mode.

Quoting myself:
If you wish to follow up flat denials with hard evidence, I'd be interested in seeing it, but your flat denial of wrongdoing simply doesn't cut it in light of all the evidence to the contrary.

Allow me to save you the effort. :-)

As another post pointed out here the situation is clarified and apologies are given and accepted all around. Apparently it was an innocent ISP foul up, or else someone is very good at spin control (I tend to believe the former rather than the latter).

I am delighted to have been 100% wrong about this.

no offense, kuros5hin's been posting "/. censors" posts for quite some time. if i was a /. editor i'd feel an urge to make the comment too.

and why was /. holding the story? to check the facts (something else they get accused of not doing). and look at this and this. so now /., after being egged on by k5 folks and all the submitters managed to look like it both censored a story and jumped too quick.

yeay, /. looks twice as bad! now don't you feel better that rab and company look cool while you folks in the "/. are a bunch of posers and aren't we so hip to notice it" crowd can just feel all extra special and warm.

whatever. i figure i'll just keep reading /. and other news sites to keep informed. i'll actually *do* something if i need to feel cool.

no offense, kuros5hin's been posting "/. censors" posts for quite some time. if i was a /. editor i'd feel an urge to make the comment too.

and why was /. holding the story? to check the facts (something else they get accused of not doing). and look at this and this. so now /., after being egged on by k5 folks and all the submitters managed to look like it both censored a story and jumped too quick.

yeay, /. looks twice as bad! now don't you feel better that rab and company look cool while you folks in the "/. are a bunch of posers and aren't we so hip to notice it" crowd can just feel all extra special and warm.

whatever. i figure i'll just keep reading /. and other news sites to keep informed. i'll actually *do* something if i need to feel cool.

One of these days, I need to figure all this stuff out.

Hal Duston
hald@sound.net
Boring is good.
A conformist in a nonconformist world.

One of these days, I need to figure all this stuff out.

Hal Duston
hald@sound.net
Boring is good.
A conformist in a nonconformist world.

The real issue is less of copyright and more of advertising practices and compensation in general. My analogy:

Jingle writers are paid to create music that encourages people to purchase a product. The marketer associates their tune with an advert and they are happy. The work is for hire, so the copyright belongs to the hiring company, but the jingle writer is still content, because they negotiated their contract this way.

Musicians, on the other hand, write music creatively. The marketer approaches the musician and asks for permission to use their tune in an advert. The musician considers, and either declines (and many do, not wanting their music to be associated with given product) or is paid a grand sum of money.

Why is the musician paid? Not to create the music - that's already done. The musician is paid to associate their music with a product. The marketer makes money, because the consumer sees the advert and thinks 'hey, that's my favorite band playing. wow, they must like and support this product. i'd better go buy some.' The marketer has paid the musician, and still must pay for the venue in which the ad will be run. The musician still owns (or the record company, but that's another issue altogether) the copyright. The advert's use of the tune has not violated the copyright. The music has not been altered in any way. But the musician still must be compensated, for the use and association of the music.

There are two elements in this scenario; the musician gives permission, and the musician gets paid.

Now, how does this apply to Deja?

Your original Usenet post is your creation, just as the musician's original tune belongs to them. Other people can read your post elsewhere, unaffected. IBM, however, is like the marketer in our analogy. IBM pays Deja for the existence of its aid on their platform. To this point, all is good and fine.

At the point where Deja associates your post with IBM's advert, all stops being good and fine. IBM has paid the venue, but theoretically should also be paying you, the creator of the content that is being associated with the advert. IBM pays Deja more for the text association. Is Deja passing on that reimbursement to you?

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, you should have been given the option to decline to have your content associated with the advertiser. Interestingly enough, the adverstiser should have also had the option to decline to have their product associated with your post. I'd bet there are just as many advertisers who would be unhappy that their product was associated with your flame-bait or drivel or contradictary views.

Copyright and violation thereof is a less relevant issue than that of simple licensing for use of created content. Who should be making money off your specific words, with or without your permission? That's the objection, and I think it a valid one.

---

This is a simple ISP fuckup. Telecom New Zealand screwed up.

And here's the start of the apologies. Paul Vixie apologizes, even. They all shake hands. Well, maybe not really, but still:

The story as reported is all lies and misinformation.

This is a simple ISP fuckup. Telecom New Zealand screwed up.

And here's the start of the apologies. Paul Vixie apologizes, even. They all shake hands. Well, maybe not really, but still:

The story as reported is all lies and misinformation.

This is a simple ISP fuckup. Telecom New Zealand screwed up.

And here's the start of the apologies. Paul Vixie apologizes, even. They all shake hands. Well, maybe not really, but still:

The story as reported is all lies and misinformation.

The thread "MAPS/above.net monopoly is damaging SPAM-preventio" can be accessed at http://x70.deja.com/ viewthread.xp?thitnum=20&mhitnum=0&toffset=0&CONTE XT=964021144.53477398&frpage=threadmsg_i f.xp&back=news.admin.net-abuse.email&rok=1, or one can go to news://news.admin.net-abuse.email on your friendly local news server. The thread begins 10 July 2000.

And if they add links to HTML posts, they could potentially screw it up if they don't pay attention - 3Com USR PCI Voice modem link could end up being malformed to 3Com USR PCI Voice modem link.

--
Your friendly neighborhood mIRC scripter.
if (ismoderator(reader)) hidemessage(this);

Slashdot: Why do you post articles whose URLs have been wordwrapped, and are therefore broken?

Corrected link

"ObDisclaimer: I only use deja.com about once every 6 months, so I'm not that familiar with their service... That said, if they passed through extant hyperlinks unmolested, while marking automagically inserted deja.com hyperlinks, maybe with a small image tag at the end of the link, they might avoid some of this confusion."

Whoopeedoo,
that's exactly what they do.

And probably all the people bitching around here never use deja.com or even post something useful to Usenet.

http://deja.com/home_ps.shtml is _the_ single most important source of information on the Web for me, because people on Usenet still know what they do most of the time and finding answers to specific problems is much easier on deja.com than with general Web search engines.
--
"The use of COBOL cripples the mind.
Its teaching, therefore, should be

For what it's worth, a comprehensive list of IPs belonging to yesmail has been posted. I haven't personally verified it.

Linux - 3 / 10 (promoted / actual)

Windows 98 - 10 / 8

For general networking, Linux is amazing.

Having said that, there is one area for ISP support that Linux isn't as good as Windows; free ISPs. Most free services either require Windows or are hostile to non-Windows systems, including Macintosh and BSD.

On top of that, some free ISPs are thwarting attempts to login using anything except for the Windows-only tools they provide. The reason is simple; a Linux system connecting to these services doesn't use the ad-laden login tools, so the free services can't justify allowing these freeloaders on thier systems!

I think getting a free ISP for the cost of some advertising is a fine exchange...but the ISPs are not doing anything to get thier ads on the 'un-supported' systems. Catch-22? You decide.

So, while many free ISPs can be made to work with Linux, fewer support it and a few are actively making it harder to use thier services.

Because of the minimal support by free ISPs for anything that isn't IE under MS Windows 98, I'd can't give Linux a 10 out of 10 in this category.

In a blatent attempt to get people to tell me something I don't know, here's what I do know so far.

First off, this month Juno -- a free ISP that hasn't supported Linux in the past -- has bought both FreeWWW and Worldspy -- two ISPs that have had support for Linux. Some people have complained that Juno's free service can't use Netscape or other browsers and requires IE...though I'd like to know if that's the case or not. Supposedly there's a way around this.

Free ISPs that can be used with Linux;

www.freewwweb.com

Freeweb Linux link; read the notes on Juno's buy out of Freewww

Worldspy - Bought out by Juno

www.freei.net

www.netzero.com- first have to set up in Windows to get encrypted password/ID, then put in login under Linux

www.freedsl.com - I know nothing; some Linux users. See this link to a Usenet post

Notes on how to use different free ISPs; I'd give attribution for the information below but I didn't keep it when I first grabbed it!

[Most of this is from Deja and Google from 2 months ago; I didn't write it, I'm just passing it along.]

1. freei.net - download the software, get your local access number and use something like kppp (or pppd for you people that like to make things hard...). your login name is @.freei.net. your password is the one you entered when you signed up.

   -----

   A very good success story. If you and your friend are looking for a backup to freewwweb, Worldspy does work (with a little effort) but you need to setup and run the process from Windows in order to obtain the DNS info along with the cryptic user name. That means that if your username you signed up with is Ron123 then your Linux name to key into kppp will be something like: nvnet.asdfasdf@microportal.com . Trust me it does work and several others on this NG have made it happen as well. Good luck. blariz

   --------

   Better go to http://autoreg.freewwweb.com/ for a fast registration without downloading those huge browsers.

   -----------

   Well, that sort of depends on the definition of 'is'! :-)

   I had noticed two mentioned, FREEWWWEB and DIAL4LIFE. I went to the web site for freewwweb to get an access number, but they all end with XXXX, which doesn't work. So I then went to dial4life and looked up their access numbers. It turned out to be the same list of towns and numbers except this one had the last 4 digits posted correctly. I followed the link to their instructions, and lo and behold, I was back at freewwweb!

   So, I ended up installing freewwweb using the dial number I found at dial4life. And it WORKED! That little bit of good luck was my payback for putting in two solid weeks of hell trying to get linux installed at all!

   BTW, I wasn't asked for a credit card at all.

   -----------

   I just called worldspy's tech support and asked about Linux and he said "you could try it, but they don't support it". I then asked if they used pap authentication and the support guy had no idea what I was talking about. I had tried it briefly this morning before going to work and got the connect, but immediately pppd died (I'm assuming because of the username/password authentication). I don't know whether that's because they don't use PAP or whether my account that I had just signed up for 30 minutes earlier hadn't been activated yet.

   ------

   Actually I had to do a little hacking but didn't have any problem. I use Win95's dialer when in Win95. After installing worldspy.net and getting frustrated with all the windows that are used just to log on, I decided to find a way around them. Checking the DUN file it created for dialing I found that my user name was relaced with a code that looks like a wierd email address. Then I created a new dialer and copied the code to it and used my normal password. It worked! I logged on without going through all the BS they give you. Next I switched to Linux and set up ppp the same way and it works too. Now I have a FREE ISP with none of the BS, not even their home page. Try it, you'll like it.

   -----

   The ticket is to get a bogus account set up under Win98, then run RASSpy or a logging program to get the user/password strings (which are usually encrypted or modified by their software) required for a straight logon, then just configure a standard call-up profile with this info in whatever program you're using, then throw away all the FISP's software. Works for any platform or O/S.

   Instant raw ISP!

   Naturally, you get rid of all their ads, timeouts, spyware and other crap in the bargain.

   Some FISPs have gotten wise to this hack and have blocked logging in their DUN profiles or made it impossible to run RASSpy, but at least 2/3 are still hackable using this workaround.

   NetZero, which is otherwise pretty high-quality access, has made this impossible in v.3, but if you can get an earlier version of the software you can run the hack and use the info for a clean login.

   Juno, Freei, Bluelight and a whole bunch more are currently easy to do this with. I get faster connects with NetZero and NZ is less congested than the other FISPs I've tried, but this may vary from user to user.

For those interested in possible storyline information for the 3rd Tenchi OAVs, I recommend you take a brief look at the recent Tenchi Muyo Canon and Storyline FAQ. Note that these documents are still in the process of being written by Tenchiken, and contain mostly information from the Tenchi Muyo novels. I've only included links to the 2 out of 7 sections that have been posted so far.

Tenchi FAQ Part 1/7
Tenchi FAQ Part 2/7

BTW, anybody know what happened to What Is Tenchi Muyo? or The Jurai Royal Library? Those were two of the better general Tenchi info sites around, and they've both disappeared. I've also been looking for an old R.A.A.M post that was an lengthy and amazing dissertation/plot overanalysis of the Tenchi OAVs, but I haven't been able to locate it anywhere on Dejanews.

For those interested in possible storyline information for the 3rd Tenchi OAVs, I recommend you take a brief look at the recent Tenchi Muyo Canon and Storyline FAQ. Note that these documents are still in the process of being written by Tenchiken, and contain mostly information from the Tenchi Muyo novels. I've only included links to the 2 out of 7 sections that have been posted so far.

Tenchi FAQ Part 1/7
Tenchi FAQ Part 2/7

BTW, anybody know what happened to What Is Tenchi Muyo? or The Jurai Royal Library? Those were two of the better general Tenchi info sites around, and they've both disappeared. I've also been looking for an old R.A.A.M post that was an lengthy and amazing dissertation/plot overanalysis of the Tenchi OAVs, but I haven't been able to locate it anywhere on Dejanews.

This is similar to a discussion on rec.games.mud.admin late last year -- similar concept. You can take a GPL mud driver, make changes to it, and allow people to use it, but never have to release the code if you don't redistribute it.

I honestly don't see what the big issue is. It doesn't seem to be terribly against the intent of the GPL to me. The "user" of a website/mud etc. has different needs, goals, and desires than the administrator of the same, and have no need or inherent right to the admin's code changes.

If I were to modify lpd, and use it to print out an essay, would I then need to include the source to lpd upon request to anyone I gave the essay to? Absolutely not; that's ridiculous.

This falls into the same category, in my book.

You are VERY wrong.

Try looking through the countless times people have made that very claim on Usenet (such as sci.crypt). I suppose deja.com would be useful for this.

Now, look at how many times those claims have been refuted. (Hint: "All")

Now, before someone says "those are just government lackeys" posting the refutations, look through the posting histories of the persons making the refutations. Well-respected individuals in the cryptographic community, many of whom are rather anti-government in perspective, have been among those to cry "hogwash" when people claim (yet-again) "PGP is cracked."

BTW, claiming that "PGP is cracked" is (for some dumb reason) a VERY common thing, yet no one has been able to give a good answer when any crypto-fluent person has asked "How?" (Show me the weakness in the protocol, show me the weakness in the algorithm, show me the *method* you claim was used to crack PGP ... it's probably anecdotal or a matter of "human engineering" and not PGP-related at all.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm of the opinion that a bit of paranoia is quite wise indeed. But letting paranoia overrule belief in scientific evidence, reproducible at will, well that's just folly.

After months of obscure reports and unreliable sources, two contacts with extremely solid track records have reported sightings of one of Apple's best-kept secrets -- its next-generation Desktop enclosure and the changes to its product line that will come with it.

While one of these new reports claims intently that the machine -- a near-perfect cube about 2/3 the size of a modern-day iMac -- will be a complete replacement for today's iMac line-up, the other is not so sure....and the remaining body of evidence is none too clear on whether this enclosure will be applied to the PowerMac or iMac spaces exclusively, or in both.

Setting that important detail aside for the moment, there is much exciting news about this new Cube that is of much greater reliability:

• [UPDATED] Approximately 14 inches to a side.
• Clear polycarbonate plastics similar to today's Macs offer views of the machine's innards, while opaque colored panels sport a large Apple logo and provide a sleek look.
• Although multiprocessor G4 applications would likely require more powerful cooling, prototypes are fanless. Cooling is provided by numerous large vents on the top and bottom of the enclosure, allowing heat to naturally rise upward and out of the cube.
• All six faces of the cube are featureless, aside from the power cable and an almost-invisible ports panel on the "back," which handles USB, Firewire, Audio I/O, Ethernet, and the built-in Modem's phone jack.
• A small tab on one of the "sides" allows for that side to be opened for access to the machine's internals.
• The entire package, including motherboard and all components, weighs approximately ten pounds.

  There are significant signs that this may be the long-rumored monitorless iMac; for example, the prototype sources have reported on does not appear to have external ports to accept PCI expansion cards. However, there does appear to be enough internal room for them if the external ports were added.

  A related but as yet unconfirmed rumor states that Apple is moving away from including PCI slots by default in PowerMacs, instead wiring the Universal Motherboard Architecture's PCI controller to a small connector which would support an external PCI enclosure with any number of slots. Note that this would be much less expensive than a full-blown PCI Expansion Chassis, which connects a single internal PCI slot to any number of add-on slots via a costly PCI bridge chip and associated hardware. This scheme would merely move PCI expansion outside the default PowerMac enclosure to allow for more innovative small-footprint designs as well as support more than three PCI slots for those who need them.

  For now, all but the details of the Cube enclosure itself are to be considered highly speculative. We will be watching developments in this story very closely -- if you believe you may be able to clarify matters, drop us a line!

As for its use, most of you are forgetting that the average person is willing to pay for convenience. Sure, it's easy to intercept the signal at the soundcard, or record it off your speakers, but the average person isn't going to go to that trouble, provided that the price is reasonable ($20/mo for on-demand access to the majors' catalogs, e.g.).

Most european countries (and england) have strict regulations about immigration. However most countries are less strict about contract work since it's implicitly short term. There are also tax advantages (hefty deductions and per-diem). Check out this post from Deja.com about someone with personal experience.

It certainly fits with Alan Cox's recent comments on linux-kernel.

I've loaded it on a couple systems, but, there's little compelling reason to upgrade if you're at 7.0. Anything <= 4.0, though, go for it.

Couple gotchas that may save people some hair-pulling, is the scsi support. Not, just scsi, but, also ide-scsi appears to be broken in kernel 2.2.15-2.2.17. I tried it on a dual with 3 different Adaptec Ultra-Wide cards (aic7xxx.s) and, none would boot/install correctly. Ended up having to load Slackware 7.0 to get it installed.

I checked Deja and found I wasn't the only one. I would have written it off, but, I upgraded my Athlon over the weekend (with 10 Gbytes drive) and, it was the smoothest upgrade I've ever done. It's very slick. No changes of init scripts, whatsoever. It just worked out of the box (or, off the ISO, whichever way you wanna put it). However, my Goldstart RW wouldn't read the CD, so had to do an NFS install from my Dual Celey, and, turns out this is likely related to the ide-scsi issue. In order to see my CD-RW after the load, I had to revert to kernel 2.2.13, and, all's well.

Bottom line: On a generic ide-based system, it's probably a streamlined way to implement the security fixes of gpm, fdmount, et. al., but, then, if it's just a workstation, these aren't gonna open up any gaping holes, anyway.

That is of course, unless you have some port-forwarding enabled to your workstation through your firewall. But, then, again.... who would do that? >:)


Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

I'm not sure about Juice's security model. It's been a few years since I messed with Juice, and then only because I was doing research on Oberon.

Yeah, they don't have any info on security on their site. They'd really need to address this if they were to try to get some widespread adoption. Personally, I think Java's model is particularly well thought-out, but anything that allows the host application to explicitly allow and disallow certain features would work.

Digital signatures by themselves don't cut it. Trojan horses are too easy to write, and a clever virus writer could easily make his mischief untraceable to even a signed applet. (For more detail, try reading a message I wrote on netscape.public.mozilla.wishlist.

However, everything associated with Juice is open-source, and the API is documented. If you're curious, you can check it out here.

Are you sure? The license doesn't seem to fit the Open Source Definition. I may be wrong though.

As for the language itself, I have lots of criticisms; see comp.lang.c++.moderated.

sometimes the CD-ROM drive would vibrate really bad.

There are ways to slow down the spindle speed of a CD-ROM drive, which reduces the level of noice and vibration considerably.

Take a look at these utilities:

setcd (debian package)
CDBremse for Windows
or compile a piece of code in this usenet discussion
(the article is in Finnish, but code is written in English)

Besides uReach, Yahoo!Mail is the only one I use for "real" mail because I'm hooked by the rest of Yahoo's personalized services, esp. Yahoo!Companion. The rest are just "throwaway's", good for pseudononymous transactions. If you're placing a lot of trust in Hotmail not to lose your data, or keep it secure, or always be available...I think you're being foolish.

I asked a friend about this and he said, "no, but the answer is yes, there are other ways....use other OCR engines, like Omnipage Pro or TextBridge Pro. Adobe Capture 3.0 is really really really nice, but is expensive. The searchability factor is the only reason OCRing is needed in most instances."

Some useful sites:
PDF Research
Planet PDF
AcroBuddies
Codecuts
PDF Zone
Adobe
Deja.com

Looks like it spread pretty much entirely over Usenet. Here's a report on QuickFlix.mpg.exe as it was identified as Spam. Looks like it is probably dead now. Deja News

Maybe Inferno and Limbo are the next to go Open Source? We'll see!

I have to say that I've always thought that Limbo sounded like a much better thought out Java. Read this for some interesting points.

Face it, Java was "designed" for appliances, then, made to work for applets and now, we're to understand it's just perfect for server side programming and practically made for XML. Give me a break.

Inferno/Limbo actually looks like there really was thought and design put into them to make a good networked programming environment. I've always thought that the licensing was a hindrance to the adoption of Inferno in contrast to Java, but maybe that'll be fixed now?

We'll see... Too little, too late? I don't think so. Despite all the feverish development going on with Java, what real impact has it had? How many people really use Java in production systems today?

-Jordan Henderson

Yes.

But IIRC, the wildcards don't work in the Windows version of HOSTS, though. So you can't just add "127.0.0.1 *.doubleclick.net" - you have to have an entry for each offending host. (Any Windoze folks who know otherwise, please enclue me - I don't think wildcards work on Windoze HOSTS files, but can't remember whether I tried it or not.)

On Windows, try the Ultimate HOSTS file.

While proxies are generally a Very Good Idea (and more elegant, since they can strip out the ad altogether or render it as a single-pixel GIF), I'm a fan of the philosophy of using as much stuff that's already built into your system as possible. Every application you add is another potential thing that can break. Using HOSTS on Windoze lets me fix it (and remove the fix) with a single command (and of course, the ever-present reboot). Nothing to "install" or "uninstall".

First I think that few people who didn't already know what closures are could make heads or tails of your description. Certainly the concept of having multiple functions out there returned from the same one, each with independent data takes getting used to. The related idea of having multiple functions, each sharing specified data while not sharing other data is even more complex.

As for OO vs closures - that is really a question of philosophy. An OO philosophy encourages a particular structure on your code where all of your configuration information winds up scattered across your various class definitions. But in real life often you want to have some of that per class configuration information hidden away, but you would like to centralize other parts of it.

For instance when you are dealing with reports, the per field definition of where that field is coming from, what data validity checks you have on it, etc is all stuff that really should be centralized. OTOH per field information about how its display should be formatted, what column headings to use, etc is stuff that you want to centralize, periodically reorganize, etc.

I personally find that a functional approach lends itself more naturally for me to choosing to centralize display information into a single nested data structure. Yes, there are OO patterns to do the same thing. They look very ugly to me. For me having that choice is a win. But explaining that is more than a question about length of code. It is a philosophical comment

I have a friend who migrated from Perl to Python back when Python was able to treat regular expressions as first class objects and Perl did not. (It does now.) He commented to me a while ago that Python people claimed that anything you could do with closures you could do just as well without them in Python. He doesn't quite agree. Here are his thoughts.

Cheers,
Ben

Users of napster clones would not have to worry about this of course.

PS Legally binding (insecure, anyone could have filled it in on my behalf, no signature required, minors welcome) document my ass :)