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To best observe the Leonids wear appropriate clothing for the weather. Lie outside in a reclining lawn chair with your feet pointing towards the east (the general direction of the radiant). Do not look directly at the radiant, but at the area above and around it. The Leonids can be observed into morning twilight. Other minor meteor showers will be going on at the time and stray meteors, more commonly called sporadics, will frequently be seen that do not belong to a meteor shower. When you see a meteor mentally trace it backwards and if you arrive at the "sickle" of Leo it is probably a Leonid.

To all of those people - will you please not talk about things you don't understand? It's very easy to talk about freedom of speech whilst being very far away from the real issues, posting comfortably over your DSL link.

I grew up in the (American) South. I have seen racism up close and personal, probably more than you. I've thought a lot about what makes racists tick, and here's what I think:

The racist memeplex depends on co-opting existing feelings of disenfranchisement. They need to identify someone -- the blacks, the Jews, anybody -- who is to blame for the fact that you're living in a trailer park instead of a paradise. The larger and more powerful their enemy, the better (for them).

Because of this, the more official the opposition is, the better (for them). Their claim that group X is to blame for everything that's wrong in your life seems more plausible when the government allows group X to talk but not the racists.

Counterintuitively, therefore, banning their speech strengthens them, because it (seemingly) lends credence to their claims to own a suppressed truth. ("Here's what the liberal Jew-run media doesn't want you to know," and all that.) They will always say what they want to say and their views will always find adherents, but they will attract more adherents if they can truthfully claim that they're being officially held down.

In short, the worst thing you can do to them is let them publicly show themselves for the dribbling idiots they are, and that isn't different in Europe than it is here. This doesn't mean that you can't disagree with them just as publicly -- indeed, you should. It just means you shouldn't have the police do it for you.

Finally, letting these groups operate in the light of day has a practical advantage: it's easier to keep an eye on them. Drive them underground, and who knows what they're up to? At that point, they've already taken the first step towards lawlessness, and that makes the next step that much easier.

ROT13 of course!

I mean, Microsoft have used 'encryption' of that quality in the past, why improve now?

remember that the _purpose_ of copyright is to encourage many people to read the works, and eventually change and incorporate them in new works

If individuals want to incorporate copyrighted works into new works without a lawsuit or royalties bankrupting them, they have to wait for the copyright to expire. Yeah, right. Not in my lifetime nor in yours. Copyrights already last 95 years, and you can bet that by 2020, Di$ney will have contributed another $6 million of soft money to the Republicratic Party in exchange for yet another term extension. How the courts consider 95 years as sufficiently "limited Times" designed "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" escapes me.

Boycott the estate of Sonny Bono, whose widow introduced and sponsored the bill. Boycott Cher, who has been quoted as favoring a term of "forever less a day." Boycott the Walt Disney Company, which bankrolled the bribes that got the bill passed. Boycott all color motion pictures produced by MPAA member studios, as the first commercial color film technology appeared in 1923, and all works created on or after January 1, 1923, are under an effective perpetual copyright in the United States.

May Sonny Bono rot in he11.

Hey,

Bindview, Foundstone, Guardent, @Stake, and Internet Security Systems joined with the software-maker to declare they would immediately begin

Wasn't @stake formed from hacker group l0pht? Yes, I think they were! They used to attend Def Con, and work on Back Orifice and L0phtCrack?? Didn't they get banned from BugTraq because they posted links to thier site in the place of good, solid descriptions?

My, how times change.

-M

I could perfectly live with it if it were not for the phone bill (In Belgium we pay about 1.5$ an hour during night).

I can download anything i want from work (university) and at home I do little but /. and E2. In fact, if I gave my 800 kbps ADSL modem to E2 and used my old modem for myself, I'd probably give myself and other noders a significant speedup.

Not having these glyphs in the Unicode set would be like asking English-speakers to use alphabets reduced by five or six characters (M and N are similar, X, Q, C and Z could be replaced by one character as well)

Spelling reform. China (outside Taiwan) has had it. It's perfectly possible to write English with only 18 letters.

and dictionaries from which three out of four words have been deleted due to redundancy or age

So? Desk dictionaries aren't nearly as comprehensive as Oxford English Dictionary or even the unabridged Webster's Third New International Dictionary.

Copyright is 70 years on books

No, 95 years on all works first published on or after January 31, 1923. See also Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. And it'll get even longer before 2020 as Di$ney frantically bribes Congre$$ to pass yet another corporate-welfare copyright extension.

The case will happen if you ask for the translation

...even into XML.

from the the-mouthpiece-pulls-a-mundie dept. Sarcasmo writes: "Hillary Rosen, CEO of the RIAA ?, spoke at length ( PDF of Speech) yesterday, during the 'O'Reilly Peer to Peer and Web Services conference'. From what I can surmise, the speech dealt both with her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money. "

...but I notice now, that the story seems to have been editorial modified (and without the usual "UPDATED" disclaimer.) I wonder why that was....

Peer-2-Peer pressure perhaps?

Here's the correct Everything2 link for Beowulf.

I have to admit you had me fooled there - I though "Unix soit qui mal y pense" actually made sense and my french skills weren't good enough to decipher it. Then I looked on e2 and found 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' - 'Shame to him who thinks evil of this'. So you are saying that anyone who thinks evil of some unspecified thing ('this', to be replaced by the most likely subject from the context) is or should be Unix.

In this context, it's not as bad - it's only saying that people who think badly of unix should be unix (now if you replaced that with should be converted to unix or something like that it might work) - but you should be careful about using quotes if you don't understand them completely.

Um, a few lines of assembler

You don't say "a few lines of compiler," do you? Say "a few lines of assembly language."

do practically nothing

Four lines of 6502 assembly language can detect whether a program runs on NESticle or on Nintendo hardware:

ppustatus = $2002 ;bit 7 of this register is vblank status

nestc_detect:
bit $2002 ;NES turns on bit 7 at vblank
bpl nestc_detect ;wait until bit 7 is 1
bit $2002 ;NES turns bit 7 off after any $2002 read
bmi is_nesticle ;but NESticle waits until the end of vblank
; things to do on a real NES
is_nesticle:
; things to do on a poorly emulated NES

although I invite you to memorize the 700+ instructions in the PIII instruction set

Everyday asm programming (i.e. not writing the lowest level of kernel VM code) needs only about 50 instructions per problem domain (intmath, fpumath, mmx/sse, etc), and that's on a CISC chip. RISC instruction sets have a much smaller and much more orthogonal instruction set. For a computer architecture class at Rose-Hulman, I once designed and implemented a 16-bit RISC machine with a set of 15 instructions (8 arithmetic, 4 control, 3 data movement) based loosely on the MIPS architecture. But then I learned how ARM7TDMI's Thumb instruction set used many of the tricks I thought I invented.

Most Stupid Death. :)

Given how viciously rich NetHack can be when it comes to getting killed, this ought to be fun. =)

Your choice. I personally find it highly satisfying to loot the corpse of some player who got killed stupidly without me even helping. =)

Which is why they use ternary computing on Eroticon VI.

And what's this about Perl being 'retired'? There are plenty of websites using CGI with perl code out there, not least Everything2 [everything2.com]. If you're going to present an 'argument', at least research your illustrations.

anyone know if there are going to be any copywrite issues with these things?

Copywrite refers to writing and editing text. An example of a "copywrite issue" would be the fact that Sony's MemoryStick.org web site is full of Engrish on the front page.

On the other hand, copyright is a monopoly that the government grants to creators of original works of authorship and that said creators have twisted into a way to screw their customers.

Authoring a creative work automatically generates copyright protection for whatever the hell the current limits are

There are no de facto limits, as nothing in the Constitution prevents Congress from repeatedly retroactively extending the de jure "limited times" (Read More...) except perhaps the "ex post facto" restriction against restoring copyright in already expired works.

F*** the late Sonny Bono because he introduced that bill. F*** Cher because she supported it.

If the developers are the mindless ASP or VB trolls, or something similar, I am sure they can do just fine with the Office Package and Visual Studio and not needing to configure a thing.

However, if those are your developers, you may have other problems....

All that aside, in my work place that would be totally impossible - almost as impossible as it is explaining this to a suit. Heh. We are expected to run the whole show, fix any problems that arise and come up with new and better solutions, fast fixes and generally run the show. This includes, for the first thing, a lot of downloading and evaluating new software, be it IDEs, databases, browsers, languages, whatever to get the job done.

If we needed to wait for permission or some IT administration dude (that knows about 2% of what we do about the machines anyways) we'd simply never produce a thing. Ever.

Also, add in that developers are often hackers, and as such, playful, imaginative, curios and creative - actually, that is why you should pay them at all, because of those qualities. To me, it seems you are trying to kill that very thing that makes them tick. Bad move.

Treat your hacker right. - it pays off.

There's nothing stopping an author from making a modification to the GPL (as documented on the TrollTech site) allowing for linking to non-GPL libraries.

However, if your project contains any code written by other people, it may be difficult to get permission from them to link their code to Qt. For instance, if your program uses both GNU readline and Qt, or some other GPL library and Qt, tough luck.

That is, unless you take advantage of the GPL's OS loophole.

However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include ... the operating system"

I have written more about this operating system loophole in the GNU GPL. Some software publishers might claim, and some courts would believe, that Qt qualifies as an "operating system" under which other applications can run. It certainly is a "platform."

Webalizer's biggest advantage is that it produces prettier pictures.

Systems like this have obvious value: they can be used to fight terrorism. They also have uses that most Slashdot users fear: tapping private communications between users that don't present any real danger to national security, and using that information against those users.

When would they do this? What if myself and several friends were to make a plan to engage in questionable, though not necessarly illegal, behavior, for instance, Critical mass? The FBI could use our plans to stop us even before we begin riding.

David Brin suggests, in The Transparent Society, that surviellence mechanisms such as this are on the rise, and our best hope of retaining our freedom is to "watch the watchers". We need to the ability to monitor what the FBI is monitoring. Granted, in cases like this, that would be difficult to do without making private communications public. But if we are to accept these intrusions (which, hopefully, we won't), we need a way to keep the monitoring agencies in check.

I searched e2, and found Symbionese Liberation Army, Sealed Lead Acid battery.

Still don't know what it is that you are referring to :/

I tried out Mandrake a couple of years ago and it already shipped with BSDgames and several versions of Tetris

Mandrake has never shipped with a Tetris brand product. The Tetris Company has not licensed the TETRIS trademark for software running on any POSIX system. Of course, the Windows 3.1 Entertainment Pack (which contains an outdated version of Tetris) will probably run under Wine, and Mandrake shipped with a lot of independently produced falling tetramino games (i.e. clones of Tetris).

If you really want an innovative tetrisclone, don't spring for Tetris Worlds on GBA. Get TOD: Tetanus On Drugs. Source and Windows binaries are included; DOS and Linux binaries are just a recompile away.

We wish to remind you that this [United States Constitution] is covered by modern copyright law.

Ignoring that works of the U.S. government immediately go to public domain, recent retroactive copyright term extensions may eventually make jokes similar to this a reality by exploiting a loophole in the "for limited Times" language. Yes, the courts consider one billion years and two days to count as a "limited time" under the letter of the Constitution.

In a democracy, everyone is guaranteed equal rights. There are no double standards. But what the RIAA is proposing, that for some reason, they should be given the right to do legally what is illegal for everyone else. If I were to launch a DoS attack on riaa.org, I would most surely be arrested, fined, called a terrorist, or all of the above. Yet, if things go thier way, they will have special dispensation to deny me (and others) service.

This shows that, with enough money, you can essentially buy and modify our government. Last time I checked, this is called a plutocracy. Let's stand up for democracy, and contact our senators!

Condit distracted us while they killed off campaign finance reform, Lewinsky distracted us while they made the initial changes necessary to open up the Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling

If the Kosovo was a "Wag the Dog" for the Lewinsky affair, Lewinsky was a "Wag the Dog" for the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, both passed by a voice vote (which makes all of the representatives and senators guilty for not asking for a full vote). The media covered Lewinsky and Kosovo instead of the Bono Act and the DMCA primarily because the media stood most to gain from the public's not knowing about those laws until after they were passed, so that consumers wouldn't contact their representatives. We can't let this happen again with bad laws such as SSSCA.

Condit distracted us while they killed off campaign finance reform, Lewinsky distracted us while they made the initial changes necessary to open up the Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling

If the Kosovo was a "Wag the Dog" for the Lewinsky affair, Lewinsky was a "Wag the Dog" for the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, both passed by a voice vote (which makes all of the representatives and senators guilty for not asking for a full vote). The media covered Lewinsky and Kosovo instead of the Bono Act and the DMCA primarily because the media stood most to gain from the public's not knowing about those laws until after they were passed, so that consumers wouldn't contact their representatives. We can't let this happen again with bad laws such as SSSCA.

According to the Human Freedom Index, the freest place to live in the world is Sweden. Also very well wired up.

Tom.

Funny:
Befunge's mailing list has [brainfuck] as a popular topic...
This isn't Everything2

Funny:
Befunge's mailing list has [brainfuck] as a popular topic...
This isn't Everything2

Exactly, you are dead on. I'll just say that google has it right, everything2 could make money if they wanted, and slashdot could probably make a lot more, not through more ads (WHICH ISN'T THE ANSWER) but from being smart about it.

There's a way for E2 to make money from obsessive people by selling T-shirts and banner ads? You've gotta be kidding...

-j (former E2 addict...unfortunately, they still have several of my friends, the dastards!)

they don't get zero

Courtney Love did the math and found that, after the recording company recoups the cost of recording and promoting the record, most artists get a pittance. According to some lobbyists, this corporate authorship scenario "would have never happened if Sonny Bono was still alive." (However, the name Sonny Bono brings up other issues.)

It has "happened much sooner", as you say.
See this everything2 node and note the date.

128-but VPU? Don't belive I've heard of one of them before.
Woudn't be related to this would it?

I think that maybe Occam's Razor doesn't mean what you think it means...

Just one thing; generally script kiddies are called that because they use other people's scripts, due to their own lack of programming skills. I know you wanted to make a distinction between good programmers and bad ones, so that's oki, but script kiddies very rarely have any conception of programming structures. If they could write a hello world they'd be doing well. Their concept of being elite is "tell me what to type so it will work", not "tell me why it works and I'll figure out what to type". Check everything2 for more information ;)

There was a nice BBS called the Timewarp BBS in Atlanta back in the day. I've never found an online community which was quite as interesting, though E2 does come close sometimes. BBSes, with the games, like Trade Wars 2002 and various forums, really gave you some interesting things to do. Since modems weren't as popular, and one had to know where to dial any way, there was much more of a regular community, so you got to know people better than is generally true with Internet web boards. I think I liked Timewarp better than I do the Internet today.

There was a nice BBS called the Timewarp BBS in Atlanta back in the day. I've never found an online community which was quite as interesting, though E2 does come close sometimes. BBSes, with the games, like Trade Wars 2002 and various forums, really gave you some interesting things to do. Since modems weren't as popular, and one had to know where to dial any way, there was much more of a regular community, so you got to know people better than is generally true with Internet web boards. I think I liked Timewarp better than I do the Internet today.

Independent invention is not a violation (unlike patent law.)

However, even in patent law, independent invention can potentially constitute evidence that an invention was so obvious that it did not deserve a patent in the first place (see also Pause Technologies' patent on storing video frames in a ring buffer).

I could spend months writing the perfect Apple II sprite blitter. You, being equally intelligent and hard-working, independently create the same 60 line routine.

This would probably be possible, given that the Apple II's 6502 processor has a simple enough instruction set to allow a straightforward proof that a given blitting algorithm takes the absolute minimum number of cycles. Heck, I once wrote a short asm function to interleave scanlines for the Apple II text display; I later looked in the IIe's ROM, and there it was.

Do we win? If he bought a copy of my game, and he is a known disassembler, then I have a good chance of winning. If you published your routine in a magazine he subscribes to, you will probably win.

And this is their trap. They managed to get their "songs" published in Slashdot, one of the most widely read (but not necessarily respected) technology news sources and discussion forums.

It doesn't matter if you independently come up with the idea, or if you use someone elses patent as a source of information. Either way, you are infringing on their patent.

However, a clever attorney could use independent invention as evidence that the invention in question did not deserve a patent because it was so obvious as to make it inevitable that somebody would reinvent it.

Before @ addresses were common we had bang paths where our email would hop from host to host with the UUCP protocol.

mailto:sprintlink!exodus!andover!slashdot!stavr0

Before @ addresses were common we had bang paths where our email would hop from host to host with the UUCP protocol.

mailto:sprintlink!exodus!andover!slashdot!stavr0

It would be nice to leave it unsterilized. We could then do things like amplify the DNA

IANAB (I am not a biologist, but while it is reasonable to assume that et life would use the same (ie only known workable) chemistry of carbon, it is unlikely that exactly the same molecules, ie DNA would be used, in the same way. If Martian life used DNA in the same way as earthly life instead of some other possible encoding mechanism, it would be a very very strong indicator that the two shared a common ancestor. Likely? I don't know.

But anyway, mars is barren So these guys are coutning thier chickens way before they are hatched.

They're nice to look at but is it really useful to represent the internet in this way? Surely there is a more meaningful representation that is of equal or greater esthetic value. Perhaps a rendering similar to the constructs associated with Everything2. This could be achieved through analysis and visualization of the relevence data used by Google and Teoma to generate their results, where significant material is emphesized. Granted this would not produce a network map, but rather a contant map, ilustrating regional housing of particularly meaningful or valuable content. It would however, include content available using any protocol for which there is a URL representation.

Granted content pamming is not what they were going for, but it would have the side effect of displaying network topology with respect to relitive routing and bandwith capacities (utilization anyway).

--CTH

Renowned San Francisco defense attorney John Keker has agreed to represent the Russian programmer pro bono.

Pro Bono? Aren't we supposed to be against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act?

Thinking up broad interpretations of "mere aggregation" shouldn't be too difficult.

Here's how to create a mere aggregation loophole, and here's how to create an operating system loophole.

Thinking up broad interpretations of "mere aggregation" shouldn't be too difficult.

Here's how to create a mere aggregation loophole, and here's how to create an operating system loophole.