Slashdot Mirror

Johnny Mnemonic writes: "The Washington Post is running an story about a one-day Internet career. The guy quit his previous job, started a new job at 9:00--and was laid off by 5. Not sure whether to laugh or cry, but he probably holds the record for Internet flameouts. Isn't this how "Secret of My Success" started?"

We'll start this off with Ant's submission -- a hilarious story about The Endor Holocaust which no doubt follows the destruction of the 2nd Death Star. After reading something so clear, confuse your mind confuse your mind (thanks to The Musician). Now that you are adequately confused, cardoso sent us a ridiculous flash app where you can control dancers. This will put you in the mood to enjoy the most retro homepage ever, sent in by mvw Got some money to burn? Check out the Spinal Tap Guitar which features among other things, chrome exhaust pipes and a tachometer that (of course) goes to 11. If you're not a musician, maybe you'd be interested in Randy Rathbun's link to personalized action figures: I could send in my mugshot and be immortalized in plastic, standing forever atop my monitors with Darth, Goku, and Trinity! Or maybe you wanna buy a Dalek? If you're on more of a budget, Jay Novak sent us a great t-shirt from copyleft considering all the layoffs around the net companies. With all of these great things to waste cash on, you might need some cash: geekguy sent in a funny list of ways to cash in on Doom without wasting time making a game (like for example, Doom breakfast serial! Free BFG inside!) Just get id to license ya! For you do-it-yourselfers, mr100percent submitted what might be the most impressive automotive MP3 player ever. The Pathintosh is a beautifully integrated Mac complete w/ steering wheel controls, and a custom bezel. And finally, the eycandy. First up is davco9200's link to Daily Astronomy Astropix which is actually pretty sweet: today is Mars Dunes. Second and last of all, the pr0n: Jeff K sent in Unix-Sex which features sysadmins getting it on w/ Sun Hardware. Thats why we don't let them work 3rd shift.

DesignMerc writes: "2003 is the posted release date for the movie version of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. It's being produced by Revelations Entertainment with David Fincher directing (Fight Club, Seven, Alien 3) and Morgan Freeman as part of the cast. There are production sketches at their Web site." Nothing too meaty here yet - mostly concept art.

pipeb0mb asks: "I recently had to get a Verisign Digital ID [Verisign uses X.509 compliant ids] in order to securely communicate with some overseas co-workers, and unfortunately, I am limited to only a few programs in which I can utilize my encrypted e-mail. And all of those, so far as I can tell, are for Windows only. Does anyone know why we don't have a VeriSign compliant secure e-mail program in Linux? And if we do, where the heck is it? Also, how does the Verisign Public Key correspond to a PGP key?"

"I have already checked a previous Ask Slashdot on this, as the title would suggest being close, but it seems to be more about sending anonymous e-mail through a secure POP/SMTP connection for an ISP which is a tad different and a tad more complicated than my needs.

In my particular case, I have this Digital ID that confirms that any mail a recipient gets is actually sent from me. The way it works, every time I send mail, it pops up a dialog and asks for my password. After confirmation, it encrypts the contents and attaches a security certificate that the recipient can view to confirm authenticity. In this way, even someone on my machine can't send mail as me. The certificate allows me to encrypt mail also, so only people that have my specific key can read it. It has several other useful features as well. (Here's a quick FAQ link)

I have to do this because, at work, I deal with about 100 developers that live in an unnamed former Soviet bloc country, and are QUITE security concious. The Verisign DigitalID allows them to be sure that the mail they are getting comes from me. It's quite cool, and I would LOVE to have this capability in Linux. Unfortunately, there seem to be no solutions to this problem, at least none that are obvious."

Johnny Mnemonic asks: "I work for a small company that is considering spending a large chunk of resources on developing/training the team. This training will have the side effect of making us worth two to three times as much as we are paid now--and the honchos are afraid, reasonably, that after they spend the money on dev we will all jump ship. The fact that if we don't receive this training our company will be dead in two years escapes their notice. What do other places do to retain their help after a development/training cycle? Do they require the employees to learn it on their own hook, pay for it and then have the employees sign contracts for a period of time, or bite the bullet and pay for the training and either sweeten the share or expect some loss?"

"For those wanting more detail, we are currently a Mac Reseller and Support shop; admittedly fringe, but in our market there's plenty of work, and we continue to grow. However, we need to prepare for OS X--and although the consumer may never have to get to the CLI, we sure will. Receiving training on the CLI in OS X will make us de facto Unix sysadmins--and there's a lot more want ads for Unix sysadmins than Apple Product Professionals."

Kiel Oleson writes: "According to the Kansas City Star and the Space Environment Center, there is an 80% chance that a series of five geomagnetic storms will disrupt communications and power systems. These storms will hit the earth beginning at 5 PM CST today and ending at 5 PM CST tommorow. There is a 40% chance of there being severe or major disruptions in satellite orbits, electrical grids, and radio. The good side? Some of us may be able to see the Aurora! Get those UPS's charged!" Everyone's cell phone working OK?

Millennium writes: "San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stuart Pollack has ruled that eBay is not liable for bootleg music sold on its site. The interesting thing about this ruling: Judge Pollack based his opinion on the CDA, of all things."

The Alpha noted this, but several others have told us as well that ebay is hosting auctions for several playstation 2's... some of which have broken a grand. Nice little profit margin there ;) Conspiracy theorists propose that many folks (Jon Doe, Retailers, or Sony!) are raking in huge profits on the things. Hope the system is worth it. [Updated 27 Oct. 2:15 GMT by timothy:] the3dmaniac writes: "I was just looking at the auctions for PS 2 systems at ebay and found this very disturbing sight. The craze has gone overboard, time to make some cash while it is still hot." Whoah -- check that price. Errr, so this would be the "premium" gasoline, sir?

Ironfist.cmg asks: "Last Christmas my wife ordered something from Amazon, and at the time we had only one e-mail address, the one supplied by my ISP. Since then, I have received quite a few of those annoying HTML-based e-mails from Amazon, and tonight I had had enough of it. Expecting a fairly easy unsubscription process, I clicked through on the link in the e-mail and was presented with a login/password to my wife's Amazon account. Having no idea what her password might be (and knowing full well that she wouldn't have remembered it), I then clicked on the link for forgotten passwords, and then was presented with a small form asking for information concerning the order, including the last five digits of the credit card used to purchase. I realize that through Amazon's 'patented' one-click process that divulging the past order information was something they had anyway. I was honestly expecting them to simply e-mail me the old password. Actually, I was really expecting to simply click somewhere once and be taken off of their mailing list." Making a long story, shorter: it wasn't that simple. It should have been, but it turned out to be much worse.

"It was at this point that principle kicked in. It's MY e-mail account. I wanted Amazon to stop mailing me information about whatever special they were advertising. Seeing no easy way to contact them electronically, I picked up the phone and gave them a call. Three operators and getting hung up on once later, I was told that Amazon.com would not stop sending me their spam, because I was not the Amazon.com account holder.

This brings up a new twist on spam, privacy, and recourse to be taken. It is in fact my e-mail account, paid for by me, and Amazon tells me I have no control over what I may receive via it. I could in fact notify my ISP to block incoming mail from Amazon, but I know people who work there and may actually wish to receive mail from them. There doesn't seem to be any 'complaints@amazon.com' alias available on their site. What action can be taken in this instance?

As it turned out, I forked over the phone to my wife, who in the process of 'modifying' her account information, wound up hunting through her wallet to find those last five digits on her credit card, which sounds more dubious than entering them into a text field on a website.

There are many other variables which might have factored into this: What if my wife had died since last Christmas? What if she had left me in that time? (more probable ;-) Perhaps she had canceled the credit card in question.

In any case, I find it completely unacceptable that I as owner of an e-mail account could not easily get an e-commerce provider to stop sending me e-mail. What courses of action are available for this problem? Are there any precedents for this?"

And the never-ending problem of spam continues... You would think that after all of the debates, the new laws, and filters that spam would be less of a problem, yet now we have legitimate commercial entities able to fill your electronic in-boxes and in certain situations like the one above, you may not be able to do anything about it. Do any of you out there have ideas on any solutions?

macdaddy asks: "Being a Network Admin in a small university, I have to fight the Napster issue every day. I don't want to ban it but we only have 1 T1 and it maxes out around 10AM when the dormites wake up, and finally teeters off around 4AM when they go to bed. That really hinders legitimate use. My question, how does a Netadmin work with Napster and its users to keep from blocking it while still being able to use out lowly T1 for other purposes? What options are there? Proxies? Firewalls? Traffic shapers?" This problem is not just about Napster. There will be other services that, due to their popularity, will stress your network's bandwidth to the limit. It seems to me that establishing network controls would be more fair than completely filtering out the entire service, so what's the best way to implement them?

Ruddy writes: "ZDNet has screenshots and a preview of Mac OSX beta being released Wednesday at the Apple Expo in Paris, as well as a list of some apps and utils that will ship on the beta CD (apparently no download). Some of the leaking details are a very NeXt-ish file browser, No Airport support yet, only partial USB and only partial Firewire; Full Java 2, Full OpenGL, Full SMP; Choice of Aqua or Graphite eye candies; New Dock choices; installing on G3 & G4s only--requiring the OEM video cards (no Voodoos or 3DFX) and single monitor systems only; installs alongside OS9 with no major speed hits for Classic apps. The screenshots look fab and it all sounds pretty heady except for the connectivity shortage, but will it look and feel? And will it plug and ...play? Highlights from the rollout will be webcast here starting Wednesday."

Ruddy writes: "According to this story at InsideMacGames and an even juicier one at AppleInsider, graphics card company ATi leaked sacred knowledge about Apple's soon to be unveiled products (the new G4 Cubes) in advance of the MacWorld announcements yesterday, effectively stealing some of Steve Jobs' coveted keynote thunder. The leaked info spread quickly over the Web during the peak of rumor-Cube-mania. In retaliation the Fearless leader apparently then pulled the plug on the Radeon's rollout at MacWorld, all but publicly spanking ATi for its indiscretions and replacing the Cube's flashy Radeon card with the more mundane and stale Rage 128 Pro (talk about spite and noses!)." This story just keeps cracking me up.

If you've tossed and turned wondering whether the Plan 9 License is Free or merely free, or tossed back the warm milk and cookies waiting for the first stabilizations for XFree86 4.0 to arrive, or counted sheep as you daydream about a cheap Linux-based terminal without monthly fees, or forced deep breathing exercises to get over the thought that perhaps you could doing something to stamp out discourteous Web page behavior ... relax. Go to sleep right after you read these updates.

How soon is now? Unlike a lot of cool-sounding soon-to-be-released, wouldn't-it-be-cool promiseware, it's interesting to see hardware that actually makes it to market before its underlying idea is doomed by advances sweeping past. Larry Ellison's $199 Linux box mentioned on Slashdot a while back appears to have reached that point. The NIC Web site has changed, and no longer is the only way to order one donating it to an underserved school.

Why don't you find out for yourself? jesser writes "Many slashdotters asked on the lock-in attack story whether/when mozilla would be safe from this type of attack. Here are some links to bugzilla bug entries in case any slashdotters would like to work on making mozilla more secure:

• bug 29346: Prevent repeating pop-up windows
• bug 33448: disable 'new window' when close box clicked
• bug 22049: javascript alert should not put up extermely modal dialog"

You've got everything now. Patrick Mullen writes "I just finished my review of XFree86 4.0.1. I've had a lot of requests to see a feature on this when it hit (apparently they liked the last article), and here it is. There's benchmarks, overview of the bug fixes, and new features. In addition to the review, I've also got the new NVidia 0.9-4 drivers which allow NVidia's line of cards to function correctly on XFree86 4.0.1 available on the website-and these are not available on even NVidia's website at the time."

That joke isn't funny any more. A number of readers wrote in with harsh words about the report that Apple forced the removal of rumors regarding an alleged next-generation translucent-cased machine.

Kaufmann, for instance, wrote: "Remember the whole story about MOSR's article regarding the new generation of Macs getting pulled at the request of Apple Legal? Well, an Alan Smithee is claiming that it's a hoax. To prove it, he's put up the very same article on the Personal Homepage service provided by Apple at Mac.com. Further investigation seems necessary." Note: not that putting an article on Apple's Personal Homepage service proves it's worthiness, but it does beg the question of Apple being quick to pounce on it. "Alan Smithee" doesn't exactly inspire confidence either, though -- that's the pseudonym directors traditionally use to distance themselves from films they consider too bad to bear their real names;)

Similarly, an unnamed correpsondent had this to say: "The Apple cube that has been talked about the past few days is a total hoax. Some guy sent an email with fake specs to MacOSRumors and they posted it. Kind of makes one question the credibility of Ryan Meader saying that Apple forced him to take it down. Anyways you can see the fake email at: [this link]."

Stop me if you think you've heard this one before ... QBasic_Dude writes "Richard Stallman wrote about the Problems of the Plan Nine License. Technocrat has a discussion about this, and so does Advogato."

Richard cites what he considers odious provisions in the putatively "open source" Plan 9 license (like this one: "You agree to provide the Original Contributor, at its request, with a copy of the complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifications created or contributed to by You if used for any purpose.") and responds with typical Stallman pithiness, "This prohibits modifications for private use, denying the users a basic right." There's much more to read there, and worth your time. (As are the discussions at Advogato and Technocrat!)

Stefan MacGeek writes: "Nvidia, the manufacturer for 3D graphics chips has closed an OEM deal with Apple. Future Macs will use Nvidia graphics chips. Nvidia has recently presented the GeForce 2 MX, their first chip suitable for use in Macs. It is not yet known if Nvidia will take over as Apple's main supplier of graphics chips from ATI. Source: The German computer news site Heise " Here's a link to the story itself, und wenn Sie Deutsch nicht können, continue your scavenger hunt at Babelfish. This sounds great for Macs and their users. One thing to keep in mind though: the article cautions that it's unclear whether nVidia chips will be installed as full-fledged video cards, or integrated as in previous Macintosh models. [Updated 8 July 3:00GMT by timothy] An alert Bethor points to this MacCentral story in which Nvidia denies the whole thing, claiming that such news is at least months in the future.

P-Rod asks: "With Apple reportedly about to announce multiprocessor G4s, many have been asking why they'd do so before OS X is released, since OS 9 doesn't have the multithreading that OS X has. What about a multithreading extension? Apple has been really good at allowing newer products to work with older ones and vice versa. Apple's ultra-smooth transition to the PowerPC chip back in 1994 is a great example. So is the CarbonLib extension, which lets you run Carbonized OS X programs on OS 8.1 and up. Is a multithreading extension feasible?"

ptbrown writes: "On Wednesday the House Small Business Committee will be holding a hearing on Internet music technologies. (That is, Napster.) Chuck D, of Public Enemy and Rapstation.com, will be testifying on behalf of the good-side of MP3. For the opposition, the Progressive Policy Institute has written a report that recommends extending the DMCA to explicitly outlaw technologies like Napster." Yeah, we should definitely ban peer-to-peer file sharing over the Internet, and NFS pisses me off, too. And Web pages: Ban Port 80! Does anyone out there understand what they're saying?

Jeffy was one several people this weekend who writes: "According to this article, The U.S. planned on detonating a nuclear bomb on the moon in the fifties to 'one up' the USSR and sway public opinion on the States' military might. An interesting twist to the story is that Carl Sagan was hired to help do the math to make sure the explosion was big enough to see from earth." Well, this isn't really news for nerds, but the whole idea behind nuking the moon strikes me as such a sad commentary on the Cold War that I had to post. The thinking behind this was such a pissing match it astounds me -- but here it is.

Maktoo writes: "Well, this has been a favorite rumour in the Mac world for quite some time, but with the approach of WWDC (next Monday) things are starting to heat up. MacOSRumors, AppleInsider, and Go2Mac are all predicting MP G4s soon ... with Go2Mac actually claiming that CompUSA has SKUs for the systems. The keynote on Monday should be interesting. I don't see why Apple would release MP machines before MacOS X ... but we might get a demo at least. I'm excited enough that I'll be getting a copy of MacOS X Beta when I walk in the door ... but an MP G4 would be nice too."

Joey the Lemur writes "I saw this article over at Yahoo! about the BSDI/Walnut Creek merger that has some good points concerning FreeBSD and Apple. The author talks about Apple's proposal to stay synced with FreeBSD (Darwin), and why they should actually follow through with it. It also has some good commentary on why BSD isn't as prominent as Linux. "

P-Rod writes: "PC World.com News has an article detailing how Japanese researchers have created a low-cost way to send information through FireWire cables 100 meters at 400 Mbps. The current form of the Apple-created high-speed peripheral interface (known as the IEEE 1394 industry standard and dubbed i.Link by Sony) is limited to distances of 4.5 meters at that speed, its present top speed, unless a repeater device is used. This could bring new options to computer networking, especially considering FireWire's superb ease of use over Ethernet. "

Aaron Greenberg asks: "On Macintouch today, they've linked to a page explaining how Mac users not running MacOS 9 can utilize some of Apple's recently announced "iTools". Among iTools more interesting features is 20 MB of free remote storage via AppleShare IP. This service would be available to Linux users with AFPFS - an implementation of an AppleShare client for Linux that is only alpha quality and currently not being developed. While 20 MB of remote storage isn't something to go nuts over, I was wondering if it might inspire someone to continue work on AFPFS? Does Apple's open source release of MacOS X (Darwin) have code which would help further this project? For someone who works with Macs and Linux on the same network, it would be a nice tool to have. To those who might be quick to suggest netatalk - NOTE: netatalk only allows Linux/*nix users to serve files to Macs, but will NOT mount remote Mac servers using either classic AppleShare or AppleShare IP."