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check out the Prime Intellect novella-length story

Which is probably why you see more and more activity over at K5

This is why I've long argued for a general discussion board to exist alongside the news commentary, where anyone could start their own topic thread.

There's always kuro5hin, you know. This is a true public forum, since people can post whatever they like (subject to enough other people agreeing that they also want to discuss it).

Its times like this that its good to know about that one obscure clause in the American constituion: Revolution is legal.

That's nice. Too bad revolution, at least in a country with an even moderately capable military, really isn't possible these days.

Until Soft Money policy is banned in the US, and all CORPORATE ENTITY DONATIONS to politics in general is banned, and people actually get off of their Sunday football couch and cozy lives to do something about something they believe in, nothing will change.

You don't understand the real problem, do you? Soft money is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.

The problem is that the primary source of information people have about the candidates they can vote for is tightly controlled by a small group of very large corporations. Those corporations that don't own the media of course make deals with those that do. More profit for the media corporations that way.

And since the media corporations have their own agendas, on top of the agendas that the corporations they make deals with have, the presentation of the candidates to the public is heavily biased. You'd be a fool to believe differently: the corporations that own the media aren't going to give favorable (if any) exposure to candidates that they or their partners feel they can't "work with".

And so, candidates that would heavily support the rights of individuals at the expense of corporations fade into obscurity before they even get a chance to be seen. And as a result, the general public never learns about them and never votes for them en masse (you can't vote for someone you don't know about, and you're unlikely to vote for someone you know little to nothing about).

The two major parties know this, which is why they pick candidates that the corporations can "work with". And the cycle continues, round and round.

Fixing the soft money problem won't do shit to solve the real problem; the soft money problem is a sham, a distraction. Do you really think a Congressman is swayed by a few thousand dollars? That's what you'd have to believe if you believe that soft money is the problem. But with TV spots costing millions, it just doesn't make sense for a few thousand dollars to make the difference in a congressman's position. There must be something more going on behind the scenes: the deals I described above.

This crap isn't going to stop until corporate personhood is thrown out. And I don't think that's ever going to happen: there's no mechanism in the system the way it is right now that could make that possible, no way to get there from here. That's why we in the U.S. are fux0r3d.

Oh, as to the Supreme Court decision, I told you who read Kuro5hin that this was going to happen. You people who still think that not all branches of government have been bought and paid for by the corporations had better start waking up to reality.

I understand getting tired of people here, but you gotta know that's your problem and not theirs. People have a right to post their opinion here. A lot of people know by posting "anti" opinions they get the opportunity to be "modded up" - it's just a game to them, and there's nothing you can do. Upping your threshold doesn't really help because trolls get modded up and a lot of good comments come too late to be modded at all. I read at 0 and just zoom down my scrollwheel until something catches my attention that looks interesting.

I don't think there's really a solution other than to move on. Either put up with it here, or go somewhere else where the conversation is more intelligent. Unfortunately i'm not sure many other sites online have this kind of feel to them. OpenBSD Journal can be nice, but a lot of foul-mouthed children have turned up recently. kuro5hin used to be okay, but in my eyes it's gotten way too clique-y and faux intellectual for me. A friend of mine loves InfoAnarchy but that's very specific to "Your Rights Online" kind of posts. I don't know, i don't have any solutions. For the time being i pop in here every day or two and see what's going on. Whatever, you know? It's just a website.

Although K really isn't a scripting langauge (neither is C), results were done for it, too (being faster and having less code). There is also a shallow introduction to K on Kuro5hin.org.

I even use K as my favorite general purpose language, I like it so much. There is even a simple introduction written about it at Kuro5hin.

Read all the gory details

Basically the guy (Jizzbug) "traded" a wacom tablet down from ~USD475 to ~USD100. His legal counsel tells him it's ok...

Sony, Microsoft, MPAA, RIAA paid good money for the DMCA. If you want it repealed, you need to start contributing to some congressmen. Re-election campaigns don't come cheap, you know.

Re-election campaigns cost as much as the media corporations want them to cost. No more, no less.

Read this and this for a more detailed description of the real problem, and why it's something that can't be solved.

Sony, Microsoft, MPAA, RIAA paid good money for the DMCA. If you want it repealed, you need to start contributing to some congressmen. Re-election campaigns don't come cheap, you know.

Re-election campaigns cost as much as the media corporations want them to cost. No more, no less.

Read this and this for a more detailed description of the real problem, and why it's something that can't be solved.

The Ethics of Linkage

I thought I was on a different website...

Please reconfirm your "facts" on desalination. There is not a lot of info online, but I managed to scrape up a few costs.

• In the Sept 14, 1999 Trinidad Express, they refer to two bids at US$0.536 and US$0.736 per m3 of industrial water (water for drinking is a tiny proportion of what we actually use)
• In Cyprus in 2000, desalination unit costs were 0.997 USD (0.54 Cyprus pound, which is divided into cents, not pence)

FYI, Peter Gleick is the President of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, which "strives to improve policy through science-based research and dialogue with action-oriented groups from the international to local level"They claim to be non-partisan, but he appears to have a radical green bias. Let's look at what else Gleick says about desalination:

But desalination cannot yet be considered a reasonable solution to domestic water shortages in most regions, even wealthy ones. Whether it will eventually become sufficiently cheap for large-scale use remains uncertain.( Gleick, 2000)

kuro5hin had a better article on Lomborg a while ago. The Economist just had another one as well. And of course, you should read Lomborgs response to SciAm , which is posted in it's entirety on Patrick Moore's website. SciAm threatened legal action if Lomborg included their article in his line-by-line response, although they felt free to include Lomborg's response on their website with more SciAm comments - hypocrisy worthy of RIAA or MPAA. So, Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace posted Lomborgs response to SciAm, with the following comment:

"Scientific American did not give Lomborg any opportunity to respond to his critics, even though they gave him a copy of the editorial before it went to press. They said they would give Lomborg one page in a future edition to reply to 11 pages of full-on attack. Lomborg's response was to publish the text of the Scientific American article on his own website and to intersperse it with a detailed response to every point raised by his critics. Scientific American then threatened to sue Lomborg over copyright. In response to my complaint Scientific American wrote "This is an infringement of our copyright and interferes with our business of selling the article." Does Scientific American really think that they will lose readership because Lomborg has posted a response to a publication that is already off the newsstands? I believe they acted out of political motivation and are purposefully stifling Lomborg's efforts to defend himself. And I don't blame Lomborg for giving in to such a huge organization when threatened with legal action. (If you go to Lomborg's website www.lomborg.com and look under Critiques you will find he has removed the offending text, thus gutting the effectiveness of his response.)

" I think we should defy Scientific American's blatant attempt to muzzle Lomborg. Anyone who reads his response to the Scientific American attack will have to agree that it is thoughtful and thorough. Here is a link to the entire response complete with Lomborg's comments."

People like you will eventually make me buy Lomborg's book, just so I can bitchslap you properly.

dschl

If you think hunting is barbaric, you should visit a chicken farm someday

the business model has changed. They can't go for days without posting many stories...even if there isn't much good news on those days. Then they wouldn't get page hits and generate ad revenue...which is why you often see old news, and crap dressed up like news, instead of something actually new and interesting.

This is why I seriously think they'd LIKE to keep a few rediculously biased jerks with political agendas on the editor staff...like it or not - they crank out page hits with the flamewars that follow some of their dumber stories. Junis from Afghanistan took the freaking cake! That one was so rediculous I think they had to get rid of Katz just to save some image. Then there is Michael who posts 80% crap (usually with twisted politics), and has some interesting little exploits himself...and then lies about it on the very project site he basically hijacked...and even the other editors know it. Seriously...the editors need to clean up their freaking acts...it's been said that they don't even read their own site anymore, and I'd believe it, what with all the dupes and typos, etc. They can just keep milking it like the little cash cow it is.

I am not trying to be a troll myself for saying it - it's my humble opinion. Mod me troll if you want...at least I had the balls to say it while logged in.

This is simply not true. See this article for details.

Kuro5hin has a very insightfull article about the ethics of linkage.

Check this out

Kuro5hin has a very insightfull article about the ethics of linkage.

Check this out

It is a sector-level hard drive encryptor that aims to be very easy to use as well as portable. It uses the Advanced Encryption Standard's Rijndael Algorithm.

It is easy to use because the only software the user needs to install is a simple applet that allows entry of the passphrase. There is no complicated operating system-level software to install or configure.

The encryption implementation itself is entirely contained within a FireWire to IDE bridge.

The FireWire connection also makes the product portable, because FireWire is an external hot-pluggable serial bus.

MacCentral covers the FireWire encrypt here. You can read WiebeTech's press release about it in Microsoft Word format here.

I issued a press release (my first ever!) to annouced that I developed the software for WiebeTech. I posted the press release at http://www.wiebetech.com/press/. Sorry I just have Word format available at the moment, but I will post it in HTML in a little while. I'm tired!

I have more technical details on the product in my Kuro5hin diary.

WiebeTech is demonstrating FireWire Encrypt working with Mac OS X at the show, but we plan to support the product on Windows, Linux and classic Mac OS by the time the product is released to the public. (I personally run Slackware on my x86 box and Debian on my PowerPC Macintosh 8500).

Thank you for your attention.

Story I put on kuro5hin, but started as a comment here. *sigh*.

I have a different take on micro-payments that I think will work better than prior attempts. Voluntary micro-payments, or donations.

I've set up a site called the Nickel Exchange to make this work. Our initial focus is on the donate-for-content model, but instead of having a large minimum donation, you can donate as little as a nickel. There is an API available so it is extensible.

I think we've got an innovative approach to clearing these donations, as well, which is explained in greater detail here.

There was also an article posted to kuro5hin with lots of comments/feedback.

You worked at Microsoft for ten years, then left the company two-and-a-half years ago. From your perspective, do you think Microsoft has fundamentally changed as a result of the antitrust lawsuit?
My short answer would be "No".
There were many positive things about the Microsoft work environment. But there were some negatives. People use the term "enabling environment" to mean a situation that encourages someone to act in a negative way, such as drinking alcohol heavily, by mitigating the negative impact of the behavior, and providing tacit approval for it. Well, Microsoft constructed an enabling environment for socially obnoxious behavior: it was welcomed and rationalized into positives. If you were late for meetings it meant you were busy doing important work, if you were extremely confrontational it meant you were passionate about your job, if you required subordinates to work long hours it meant you were committed to the product, if you turned down everyone you interviewed it meant you weren't soft, and so on.
So Microsoft had this system that encouraged and rewarded people who acted a certain way. And some of that behavior trickled out into meetings with customers and partners, where they were correctly seen as negatives and helped foster the anti-Microsoft attitude. But since Microsoft kept hiring and promoting obnoxious people, they kept being obnoxious.

the best comment on that was the first one I saw, here

Search engines look at robots.txt, maybe a similar txt file could be placed that is meant for metanewssites or similar stuff. Let's call it mirror.txt and you put in there something like

temporary=yes
validity=2days

etc. That way smaller sites could indicate that they want to be mirrored to esape being slashdottet.

Here's a comment from the above kuro5hin.org link.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2003/1/4/125411/1 900/74#74.

Here's a comment from the above kuro5hin.org link.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2003/1/4/125411/1 900/74#74.

Sorry about the all caps, but this is really starting to get ridiculous. Sure, it's very funny for all of us reading to know that we can bring a site to its knees. But, this persistent slashdotting has got to come to an end! Would it really be that had for Slashdot to mirror the submitted site in cases where the editors know that it is going to get slaughtered?

Don't say that they would have to ask for permission. They have no qualms with devastating a site, so why should they worry about the repurcussions of mirroring the site?

There is an op-ed over at Kuroshin that deals with this subject.

Come on people, can't we try and be a little bit more responsible?

Fuck slashdot.

It would make things a little easier for them and us.

Just tired of seeing stories that aren't reachable by the time i click them.

K5 Article

And on-topic, I hope that Java/Oracle/Perl/Web/Unix relevant languages are popular. If only I could see the list.

There was a long period in which Microsoft did not suck.

Read the interview with a former microsoft developer on kuro5hin for an insight into maybe why this is so.

Executive summary: Microsoft employees are arrogant assholes. (insert sweeping generalization disclaimer here)

Quote from interview: Microsoft constructed an enabling environment for socially obnoxious behavior: it was welcomed and rationalized into positives. If you were late for meetings it meant you were busy doing important work, if you were extremely confrontational it meant you were passionate about your job, if you required subordinates to work long hours it meant you were committed to the product, if you turned down everyone you interviewed it meant you weren't soft, and so on. ... And some of that behavior trickled out into meetings with customers and partners, where they were correctly seen as negatives and helped foster the anti-Microsoft attitude. But since Microsoft kept hiring and promoting obnoxious people, they kept being obnoxious.

Now this is just one former employee's opinion. But in sales meetings I have had with Microsoft, (I'm an IT manager for a 13,000 user college), I've seen the same attitudes.

If you're gonna start a weblog, do your users a favor and use Scoop.

This also works well.

Damn links...

Check these out:

GNU FAQ

FSF Endorses New GPL+Webservices License

There is a quick and dirty intro to K over at Kuro5hin.

Some more links for more inforation:
Kernigan's benchmark test
more examples
Kx: the people who make K and KDB

No, but you can do that on kuro5hin.org. k5 has an editorial queue, where you can suggest better wording/grammer, etc. or make snide comments like what I just did.

Some day I'd like to do this for Slashcode, but not enough time today...

Ok, so it looked far worse than the original, but personally I was amazed they managed it at all, given the miserable hardware the 2600 had! The machine was designed to display 2 player sprites, 2 missile sprites, a ball and a playfield which was basically a vertical line, unless the video chip was preloaded each X scanlines. Remember, the machine had 128 BYTES of work RAM and NO graphics RAM, so the entire background and sprites had to be redrawn by the program every frame.

It's no wonder the ghosts flickered, it must have been impossible for the little 8 bit CPU to manage to keep everything on screen all the time at 25pfs...

There's an old article about programming the 2600 here which may open a few eyes!

Yes, it would. Go look at kuro5hin sometime.

I'd like to point you at an article I wrote for kuro5hin on the subject of .net here.

Microsoft's introduction is here.

Mono's information is here.

The Slashdot editors are addicted to their own power, and seem to have zero interest in accuracy or professionalism. There are obviously slashdotters who are far more knowledgeable in their fields (including CS and CE) who would love to be editors, but aren't given the opportunity. Rather we get lots of dupes and bogus stories being posted.

But, you can take the sorce, or better yet scoop (the software that runs kuro5hin) and make your own site. In fact, I think some bio/sci people have done so, although I don't know about any off the top of my head.

Well, it works for the chinese:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/7/19/15334/2974

I'm sorry, but you are wrong.

A directive per-se it's a bit more than nothing. The EU works this way: the European Council or the European Parliament dictate a directive and give the EU members a deadline to implement ("transpose") it. Every member must transpose the directive, but there's always a transient period (monthes or even years) until the directive gives shape to a country-specific law. While this transient period, the directive has no effect. The point here is this: a directive is not a law and won't be used by a judge.

Kuro5hin carried an interesting article explaining what's the EU and how it works

I'm sorry, but you are wrong.

A directive per-se it's a bit more than nothing. The EU works this way: the European Council or the European Parliament dictate a directive and give the EU members a deadline to implement ("transpose") it. Every member must transpose the directive, but there's always a transient period (monthes or even years) until the directive gives shape to a country-specific law. While this transient period, the directive has no effect. The point here is this: a directive is not a law and won't be used by a judge.

Kuro5hin carried an interesting article explaining what's the EU and how it works

Cable internet services are designed for downstream data at high rates, as are the cable plants (the RF networks themselves). Upstream is a huge problem, and P2P represents a substantial portion of network traffic... scaling to meet the demand placed on the network by a small segment of users (P2P bandwidth hogs) does not make good business sense. Ask any cable operator, look at specs for cable equipment, do a little research and you'll see that limiting upstream, specifically going after P2P usage, is a coming trend that makes sense. This massive upstream used by a small proportion of users is the same as running a high traffic FTP server on a residential service. It is abuse. Whether it is illegal or not isn't relevant, P2P costs ISPs money and hurts other customers by degrading network performance.

A small text-only non-obtrusive add that -- most importantly -- links to a comment section where potential clients can comment on the advertiser and, glory be, some rep from that company is there to answer questions and address criticisms.

For example, this ad and comment page for Johncompanies helped convince me to get a virtual dedicated host with them.

It also has the added benefit that the advertiser gets a real-life feel for how effective the ad is, and doesn't have to rely on some easily falsifiable clickthrough or impression report from the advertising company.

Now, if you're peddling shit, I'm sure this kind of instant-feedback type ad is not going to be your cup-of-tea. Another reason why I like these ads.

A small text-only non-obtrusive add that -- most importantly -- links to a comment section where potential clients can comment on the advertiser and, glory be, some rep from that company is there to answer questions and address criticisms.

For example, this ad and comment page for Johncompanies helped convince me to get a virtual dedicated host with them.

It also has the added benefit that the advertiser gets a real-life feel for how effective the ad is, and doesn't have to rely on some easily falsifiable clickthrough or impression report from the advertising company.

Now, if you're peddling shit, I'm sure this kind of instant-feedback type ad is not going to be your cup-of-tea. Another reason why I like these ads.

There is choice. You choose what you do. If enough people say "no", the answer is "no".

If enough of the right people say "no", then the answer is "no". Those people aren't you or me, they're the people who run large corporations.

Read this for why things are the way they are and why I believe there's no way out.

You're right about the fact that choice exists, but you're wrong about the notion that the choice is always meaningful. What good have I done if I rock the boat and get myself thrown in jail as a political prisoner, forgotten and alone? Your choices are meaningful only to the degree that they have any real effect on the problem at hand.

You can believe that it's the effort that counts and that the results don't really matter if you wish, but you're living in fantasyland if that's what you think. In the real world, results are the only thing that matter in the end, because they're the only thing that have a real effect on people.

Oh, one other thing: you can't choose freedom for your children if, as a result of your choices, you've become a political prisoner for life (or, perhaps worse, executed as a political dissenter) before you even have children. And furthermore, it does no good to "choose freedom for your children" if in doing so the police state takes your entire family away and either locks them away or executes them. We're not there yet here in the U.S. But we will be, if things continue as they have been.

OT: Here is a funny journal entry about balls.

My quick intro: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/11/14/22741/791

A wiki entry written by David Ness: http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?KayLanguage

Here's a link for the arrest of Iranian men in Socal story.
I submitted it as a story, but I guess Slashdot wasn't interested. You can
find discussion on K5 here

SealBeater

You say this and a lot of other negative stuff about Apple:

A lot of my dislike of QuickTime has to do with their shitty, buggy, windows viewer program

What do you expect? It's windows, right? Try getting Media Player to behave. I'll spare you, it looks something like this. Broken OLE, poorly implemented file system, non implemented portable net graphics rendering, look at my advert, download my crap, ad nauseum (that's latin for party till you puke).

You don't work on libpr0n, do you? Nah, no one running win2k has a real clue, though you do seem to be catching on (if that's you) how painful sounding. Wait, this is you, "But in all seriousness I know my life would be a lot nicer if everyone used truly open, independent file formats and codecs." Bing, bing, bing, Gold Star for you.

Oh well, thanks for crapping on Apple. It's always nice to see a postive post, full of insight on how to make things work right. It's almost as good as a porn meta site that crams banner adverts accross real porn sites. To be fair, the ratings system is value added, but some people might get the impression you are simply pimping pimps. That's much better, however, than pimping M$ especially by simply crapping on everyone else.