Slashdot Mirror
Domain: earthlink.net
Stories and comments across the archive that link to earthlink.net.
Comments · 991
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Recursive example of copyright censorship
The most dangerous thing about restrictive copyright laws isn't what they do to old works. It's what they do to new ones. Copyright has traditionally been tempered by the doctrine of "fair use," which allows a limited amount of appropriation for the purpose of parody or criticism. [
How ironic, that a link in this story may have been the catalyst for further censorship via copyright and legal thuggary, as it appears that the 15 minute silent film "Star Wars: The Remake" Parody has now vanished from the net, after receiving a rather glowing review in the aforementioned article.
Remind me to give George Lucus another $8 when his next Star Wars film comes out. (NOT) -
Re:SIR -- Why Didn't Amazon Use?
He claims to be acting in a noble fashion. He claims to be patenting to be defensive and stop others from pulling a Unisys. But who IS the noble one in this case? B&N certainly *did* end up copying One Click.. So I suppose they have a right to sue over that.
It's interesting the way people post to Slashdot without reading up or doing research first.Nowhere in Jeff Bezos' open letter on patents does he claim nobility nor say a word about Unisys. He does not and has not talked about Amazon's motivation in obtaining the said patent...from all indications this was just another shot by Amazon in the ongoing war with B&N, which is a rather Microsoft-like (attempts at monopoly to crush competition) company by the way.
PS: How come nobody on Slashdot ever talks about the fact that Jeff Bezos said On a related issue, to further try to help with the prior art problem, I've also agreed to help fund a prior art database. This was Tim's idea, and I'm grateful for it. Tim is poking around to find the right people to run with that project. -
Why sendmail worked for us when qmail didn't.Okay, I wrote a long, detailed article on this topic, but Netscape crashed on me just when I was about ready to post it after an hour of composing it. Sigh. (I'll try to keep it shorter this time.)
We were trying to make a scalable, reliable, efficient and nearly fault-tolerant mail platform based on a strategy of cheap servers clustered around more expensive (but stable) NetApp filers. The inspiration for this architecture came from the following excellent Earthlink papers:- A Scalable News Architecture on a Single Spool
- A Highly Scalable Electronic Mail Service Using Open Systems
Unfortunately, in our attempts to move to the intended server architecture, we ran into a number of assumptions in qmail which are hardcoded and scattered through the "modular" qmail code:- qmail assumes that all users have an entry in
- qmail assumes that each user has a home directory which contains a ".qmail" file to control delivery (we wanted all users to be in Maildir format, and we wanted forwarding information to come from the same database, not from a ".qmail" file)
- qmail assumes each user has a unique UID number (calls getpwuid())
- qmail assumes its queue directory is local and plays games with the inode numbers (we wanted to experiment with an NFS-mounted queue for fault-tolerance, although the performance tradeoff may have proven unacceptable)
- qmail assumes there is only one queue runner, so of course no locking is done on the queue (we wanted to experiment with a shared queue so multiple servers could drain a single queue in parallel and distribute load better)
In my experience, the core qmail code is nearly incomprehensible, totally unmaintainable, and the much tauted "security" seems to be mostly through obscurity. The code is filled with idioms unique to qmail, and riddled with cross-dependencies between the ridiculous number of separate source files (many of which are one line long). While it may be easy to extend in certain ways envisioned by the author, modifying the core code can be a nightmare.
Sendmail, on the other hand, is very clean. The code is well-modularized with clear interfaces. (I added a new map type to the sendmail source easily, in less than a day with very few lines of the original source modified.) The MDA functions are clearly separated from MTA functions, and the MTA doesn't make unwarranted assumptions. (It often doesn't even make warranted assumptions, but that's a different topic of discussion.) Making a Maildir version of "mail.local" was a breeze. Even modifying the arcane "sendmail.cf" file wasn't nearly as as hard as trying to work with the qmail source code!
In summary, qmail has a niche it fills well -- small, simple user communities on a single server. If you have more than about 5,000 users, you may start finding that the single server no longer can handle the load, and that's when you'll start to stumble across qmail's limitations. If you want to run a serious mail platform under heavy load, sendmail is a better choice. -
Why sendmail worked for us when qmail didn't.Okay, I wrote a long, detailed article on this topic, but Netscape crashed on me just when I was about ready to post it after an hour of composing it. Sigh. (I'll try to keep it shorter this time.)
We were trying to make a scalable, reliable, efficient and nearly fault-tolerant mail platform based on a strategy of cheap servers clustered around more expensive (but stable) NetApp filers. The inspiration for this architecture came from the following excellent Earthlink papers:- A Scalable News Architecture on a Single Spool
- A Highly Scalable Electronic Mail Service Using Open Systems
Unfortunately, in our attempts to move to the intended server architecture, we ran into a number of assumptions in qmail which are hardcoded and scattered through the "modular" qmail code:- qmail assumes that all users have an entry in
- qmail assumes that each user has a home directory which contains a ".qmail" file to control delivery (we wanted all users to be in Maildir format, and we wanted forwarding information to come from the same database, not from a ".qmail" file)
- qmail assumes each user has a unique UID number (calls getpwuid())
- qmail assumes its queue directory is local and plays games with the inode numbers (we wanted to experiment with an NFS-mounted queue for fault-tolerance, although the performance tradeoff may have proven unacceptable)
- qmail assumes there is only one queue runner, so of course no locking is done on the queue (we wanted to experiment with a shared queue so multiple servers could drain a single queue in parallel and distribute load better)
In my experience, the core qmail code is nearly incomprehensible, totally unmaintainable, and the much tauted "security" seems to be mostly through obscurity. The code is filled with idioms unique to qmail, and riddled with cross-dependencies between the ridiculous number of separate source files (many of which are one line long). While it may be easy to extend in certain ways envisioned by the author, modifying the core code can be a nightmare.
Sendmail, on the other hand, is very clean. The code is well-modularized with clear interfaces. (I added a new map type to the sendmail source easily, in less than a day with very few lines of the original source modified.) The MDA functions are clearly separated from MTA functions, and the MTA doesn't make unwarranted assumptions. (It often doesn't even make warranted assumptions, but that's a different topic of discussion.) Making a Maildir version of "mail.local" was a breeze. Even modifying the arcane "sendmail.cf" file wasn't nearly as as hard as trying to work with the qmail source code!
In summary, qmail has a niche it fills well -- small, simple user communities on a single server. If you have more than about 5,000 users, you may start finding that the single server no longer can handle the load, and that's when you'll start to stumble across qmail's limitations. If you want to run a serious mail platform under heavy load, sendmail is a better choice. -
That's OK..
That's OK, CmdrTaco, I was recently on vacation in Australia for three weeks on the edge of the rainforest, and I didn't see any roos until the last three days at a distance.
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RE: Pull Your Head From Your Ass!Read "Realities For The 90s" from EarthSave and gain some factual knowledge regarding a vegetarian diet!!!
What you have said is incorrect (so much bullshit if this were RANT mode
Visit my page of vegetarian resources and read Realities if you wish to learn something
that has not been influenced by the Beef, Egg, and Dairy Council as it seems your current information has been.
To address your claims regarding calcium, a diet consisting of animal protien will cause calcium to be extracted from a person's bones to assist in digestion of the highly concentrated protein. Green cruciferous vegetables contain far more calcium than can ever be obtained from cow milk. Do some research for Chrissakes before you come off sounding like an idiot!
Thank you for your time. -
RE: Pull Your Head From Your Ass!Read "Realities For The 90s" from EarthSave and gain some factual knowledge regarding a vegetarian diet!!!
What you have said is incorrect (so much bullshit if this were RANT mode
Visit my page of vegetarian resources and read Realities if you wish to learn something
that has not been influenced by the Beef, Egg, and Dairy Council as it seems your current information has been.
To address your claims regarding calcium, a diet consisting of animal protien will cause calcium to be extracted from a person's bones to assist in digestion of the highly concentrated protein. Green cruciferous vegetables contain far more calcium than can ever be obtained from cow milk. Do some research for Chrissakes before you come off sounding like an idiot!
Thank you for your time. -
Other unique cases (antiques and Legos)
Pretty cool. There are two other cases made of unique materials that I know of, both Macs. One uses the case of an antique radio, the other uses Legos.
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Re:And the answer... (and rest of the questions...
If anyone is interested, I have a capture of this. The URL is: http://home.earthlink.net/~mpd123/baby.j pg.
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Re:More links...
Also, see http://home.earthlink. net/~macshack/robotwars/publicity.html for "The History of Robot Combat- The 'Nutshell' Version". Quite an interesting read, and a good example for any nerd out there with a good idea to be aware of.
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I got yr flying cars right here!
Here's a humorous article on technology predictions.
As for me, I think the big technology trend in the next few years will be application serving over the internet.
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Re:Hollywood Sunday
You've got *3* problems. One, you felt the need to point out that he felt the need to point out that his sarcasm was sarcasm, even tho' such was clear from the start without your chiming in as well. Two, you think 'Buffy' is cutting edge. Three, you have yet to form a meaningful relationship with GWAR.
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Some places to get things:
you can go to:
V2 Labs - The official V2 OS Page
Dash - the first and only shell for v2 os The V2OS Project Manager - By JayTaph
Nerdhero's v2os site - the home for the standard c lib as well as other stuff
tRen's v2os site - extremely out of data (2 weeks!)
V2 Demo Coder's site - if you are a demo coder go here!
#v2os channel site - the page for #v2os on effnet...
most of these places have either downloads of the source, etc. or links to another site with it! -
Re:In defence of Gore, Prescriptivism(standards)
It sounds like we're in violent agreement.
Gosh, I just hate it when that happens.I was attacking McCullagh/Wired for their attack on Gore's saying "rooter".
Whoops, you just blew it again.BTW, I think coming up with unambiguous and obvious ways to convey pronounciation in ascii is a wonderful challenge. ASCII IPA is nice, but fails the obviousness test.
IPA is rough enough, and I agree that ASCII IPA is imperfect, but I don't know how to fix it without bumping into the "rooter" problem you tripped on above. Then again, I've been used to regular IPA for going on twenty years, so it's not a big jump. And it's far better than the pseudo-pronouncing things ("Just say it like you say BLAH") you see most people give on the net. -
Re:In defense of Gore
Please use ASCII IPA to describe the pronunciations you intend. I can't make heads or tails out of what you're saying.
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Last one (ok, getting OT)
But now I see what you're talking about Thanks for the hint, AC.
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Rich Mackin - Consumer Defense Corporate Poet
Rich Mackin of Boston is da Main Man when it comes to thoughtful and side-splittingly humorous harrassment of corporations. Most of his work is in 'zine format, but I did find this tidbit on the web. Hopefully more will be posted soon.
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Rich Mackin - Consumer Defense Corporate Poet
Rich Mackin of Boston is da Main Man when it comes to thoughtful and side-splittingly humorous harrassment of corporations. Most of his work is in 'zine format, but I did find this tidbit on the web. Hopefully more will be posted soon.
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Re:Business only ?Is Australia trying to make net access a business only tool?
That seems to be the attitude of the government and major players. They still don't really get it, so they're busy trying to bend it to become like something they understand.
Funny thing is, Australian business in general is so bad at customer-related business. For instance, mail-order is not big here. Until a few years ago almost nobody used it (except in cases of extreme isolation - the bush, etc - and even they usually dealt with a local store where they knew and trusted the owner, etc). Now, businesses are trying to provide "customer satisfaction" without face-to-face contact - despite the fact that they had trouble doing it with face-to-face contact.
Case: I ordered some CDs from "Australia's Largest On-Line Music Retailer", Chaos Music. My credit card was billed the day after I sent my order. Despite having lots of signage on their website promising speedy delivery, email updates on order status, notifcation of delays, etc, I received nothing for 2 1/2 weeks except junk email promoting their IPO. Finally, I received 3 out of 4 CDs - shipped from the US. After a total of 4 weeks, I'm still waiting on the 4th, supposedly shippped locally, even after email enquiries that assured me it should be shipped early this week. Guess who's not getting my business again?
Sadly, this is not unusual - it is the norm rather than the exception. And business feels they need to rule the internet over here, to prevent people shopping overseas!
The other day I ordered some stuff via snail-mail with a good old-fashioned money order, direct from a band in Los Angeles (Buck). My money is betting that that will arrive before my order from CMM here in Oz...
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Re:When does it stop?
So what's the moral of the story? Find yourself a medium that you control, don't depend on renting space from other companies. How you do that is up to you.
So what do you do when all mediums are controlled by large corporations?
You see, people always think that government is the sole threat to free speech on the Internet, and it is a threat, but it's not the only one. Industry could, conceivably and very possibly, create a barrier-to-entry so high (the reason the internet is so free and inspiring is that the barrier to entry is so low) that the few who can afford to run a website are the ones who control the majority opinion.
You've already seen that happen with television, radio, and newspapers. They're all controlled by conglomerates who create economic barriers to competition. And since it's usually an oligopoly, and not a monopoly, and since it's not technically holding people back (by force of law) from free press, people claim that this is still a free country.
I say, stop bothering to get up and arms when the government claims it can censor or control the internet. They can't, they don't know how. But industry does, because they've been censoring and controlling mediums for years. It's nothing new to them. It's not oppression, they say, it's economics. But whatever they call it, the end result is the same.
So how do we combat this? We need to do all we can to keep the cost of the Internet down. At times like this, Free Beer can equal Free Speech. Linux, and the cooperative in San Francisco which sells T1 lines at cost is a fantastic example, and I wish I could see more situations like this crop up. It would also be nice to see the computer industry unionise but that's a whole different post.
In the end, if you don't want to see the Internet get gobbled up into the stomachs of the bloated plutocrats, it is up to you to make sure it doesn't happen. Keep the internet cheap and open to anybody, and you'll insure that the internet will be cheap and open for your own needs.
Michael Chisari -
Re:Renewing copyrights
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Re:Renewing copyrights
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Alas Horatio, I knew him well...
All I can say about this is that it sounds like another Fox special. Hopefully they'll find somebody better than Johnathan Frakes to host this turkey...
And "Star Child Foundation"?? Is that any relation to Starman?
No, I do not mean the song by David Bowie. I speak of a far more dangerous man....
~Jason "Intelligent life out there" Maggard
P.S. First Post!!
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Hooray! DMP and Slashdot!Finally, two of my favorites together. I wonder how many other Slashdot readers are into Pinkwater?
In any case, read 5 Novels, it's a fantastic introduction to the twisted world of Pinkwater.
Also, here are some links to Pinkwater sites on the web:
DMP's Chinwag Theater radio show
The Hoboken Chicken Emergencyclopedia Disclaimer: I help run this one.
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Names
Once I was doing some work at a company that had a 3-site WAN of NT and Novell. The names were ridiculous: bosntmail2114 bosnovfile121214 roxnt5665645. While it's can be easier to figure out what the names mean if you're reading the list in Explorer, it's a pain to sort through a lost of 100 server names that look alike. Server names that are regular words are easier to remember, but you can't get figure out what the server is for from the name. BTW, my father likes to use names like "jehovah" (home computer) and "goat", "tonsils", "frog" and all sorts of strange names (but it's not surprising considering that he calls himself Father Goat Tonsils!
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Win 9x tray util to avoid taking apart your keybrd
I've written a rough tray util for Win 9x (NT's being stubborn) that toggles layout 'tween Qwerty and Dvorak and also displays a popup window of the layout (complete with cheesy graphics). Helped me learn the Dvorak at work when I couldn't reassemble my keyboard or have a business case for buying a special board.
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Re:Prosperity due to *hackers*, not *crackers*
No. Tailors help fix breeches.
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Re:Don't want a car flamethrower...
Cool toys, but the one I want on my car is a lightning gun. It would be based on the principles used to make lightning shows for theatrical productions (Yes, this is actual electrical lightning, gigawatts of fun.) Instead of using wires, I'd use an ultraviolet laser (nitrogen laser, I think) to ionize the air between the gun and the target to direct the arc. That'll be the last time that luser cuts me off while yakking into a cell-phone.
One problem I see is getting enough power from the engine's alternator to charge the caps fast enough to fire more often than once a month. I'd also find difficulty with driving while wearing an arc-welding mask to protect my eyes from the flash.
Well, I can dream, can't I?
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Other CVS frontends
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re: all life "feels"
Things can only FEEL and LOVE, because they are living... Without an integral GROWTH or FEELING organism, you will never be able to teach machines how to CARE or LOVE. Logic--with all its merits, cannot be the basis for love, only LIFE can be the basis for love.
Relevant point. Multiple and emotional intelligences might be effectively simulated by "yes/no" logic, but by believing it, are we even greater fools?
Then again, if genetic algorhythms thrive less from our "teaching" and more from their own coopetive evolution, are they not alive? Isn't there some chance that some kinda nano-wetware "machine" clusters will somehow converge with our egomaniacally sentient, self-aware and "living" selves?
Re: "feeling" and "self-awareness" as signs of "intelligence", many suspect that any & all life feels love (as desire to thrive), and fear (as aware of threat to survival). How well "life" avoids fear (pain) and realizes love (pleasure) maybe depends on how intelligence evolves.
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Re:Its a conspiracy.I recently received promo material for earthlink. What are they like?
Very, VERY nice. They do have their own dialer, but it's optional. AFAIK, you can configure everything on the web site, and activate your account immediately, provided that you have a major credit card.
The dialup service is very good. For some of the POPs they use UUNet's hardware, but that doesn't bother me - as long as it works. They also provide dialup service in Canada.
The service is $19.95 a month. They may have some discounts for pay-in-advance, but I never checked. There is a registration fee of $25, but it is waived if you sign up online.
6MB of web space, POP3, SMTP, fast dialup, etc.
You get a month free for every person you refer, but I've found it to be a pain in the ass, as they require you to go through a painful confirmation.
Other things include a thin deadtree magazine, an email once in a while,
More info here...
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Lunar Travel GuideYou asked for it.
- Map of Lunar private property.
- Map of Apollo landing sites.
- Moon Handbook, a travel guide.
- Robotic Exploration: LunaCorp, CMU Lunar Rover
- How to get there: The Artemis Project, GSC, Spacetopia
- What to do on the way there: Enjoy Low Earth Orbit
- What to do there:
- Fun: Lunar golf and javelin throwing
- Work: Mine oxygen
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My 2 cents
My $.02 on Cable service, @Home, and other stuff that came to mind when reading the summery:
Around here I hate the cable company. And I have a good reason why. Cable modems around here really stinks since Charter+ Earthlink caps the upload at 56 KBPS *AND* download rate at 256 KBPS unless you pay more. See the cable section on http://www.earthlink.net for more information on this or click here. Suddenly @Home doesn't look as bad. Well, I guess that's what you get when your cable system is owned by the cofounder of Micro$oft AKA Paul Allen. I wonder what the cable system would be like if it was run by the Woz. Well, that's my $.02. Thanks for listening!
-Luther Sloan (Mkennedy3@SPAMTRAP.aol.com)
P.S. Remove the SPAMTRAP from my address to E-Mail. -
My 2 cents
My $.02 on Cable service, @Home, and other stuff that came to mind when reading the summery:
Around here I hate the cable company. And I have a good reason why. Cable modems around here really stinks since Charter+ Earthlink caps the upload at 56 KBPS *AND* download rate at 256 KBPS unless you pay more. See the cable section on http://www.earthlink.net for more information on this or click here. Suddenly @Home doesn't look as bad. Well, I guess that's what you get when your cable system is owned by the cofounder of Micro$oft AKA Paul Allen. I wonder what the cable system would be like if it was run by the Woz. Well, that's my $.02. Thanks for listening!
-Luther Sloan (Mkennedy3@SPAMTRAP.aol.com)
P.S. Remove the SPAMTRAP from my address to E-Mail. -
My 2 cents
My $.02 on Cable service, @Home, and other stuff that came to mind when reading the summery:
Around here I hate the cable company. And I have a good reason why. Cable modems around here really stinks since Charter+ Earthlink caps the upload at 56 KBPS *AND* download rate at 256 KBPS unless you pay more. See the cable section on http://www.earthlink.net for more information on this or click here. Suddenly @Home doesn't look as bad. Well, I guess that's what you get when your cable system is owned by the cofounder of Micro$oft AKA Paul Allen. I wonder what the cable system would be like if it was run by the Woz. Well, that's my $.02. Thanks for listening!
-Luther Sloan (Mkennedy3@SPAMTRAP.aol.com)
P.S. Remove the SPAMTRAP from my address to E-Mail. -
Re: lilo
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Re:Find Hitler's 1939 speech... they'll buy it...
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My Pal's Smei-Pro Review
This is an URL, not just underlining.
When Reviews Attack
I knew this reviewer in college. You would have liked him.
He reviews a lot of stuff and happens to work at Digital Domain. (James Cameron's digiF/X shopola)
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Bad sign or oportunity?
I think this is a bad sign for Netscape/Mozilla. With Jamie Zawinskileaving and the recent layoffs at both Netscape and AOL, I'm beginning to worry about the future of the Mozilla project.
At the same time I think they can rid themselves of all doubt simply by releasing a product as small as iCab, has many more innovative features, and runs faster. There are two things lacking in iCab. First, it crashes on my computer. I expect this to be fixed soon. Second, it is slow in rendering images. I think Netscape/Mozilla can out do this easily, which would restore faith in the project, and enhance Mozilla's standing in the browser wars.
Good luck guys.
-Ben -
Addendum
I discuss this point with another person at http://home.earthlink.net/~mlbakke 1/r_rel63a.htm about 1/3 down the page.
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Furniture Porn mirror now up
I just set up a temporary mirror for Furniture Porn. It'll be up until we move the server, but it's best to bookmark the real site.
