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See this excellent article at Salon.com

the article is wrong when it says "tyranny of mass market research" caused radio to suck; two things happened A) as always, the soul has been sucked out of a vibrant social institute (Radio) by Profit-Motivated-Corporations. B) Payola facilitated this soul-sucking.

Why? In one word: monopoly. Not that they control everything, just enough to reduce the competition that federal laws about airwave allocation were supposed to provide. Their competitors are now desperate, not inventive. Used to be, not only could you not own 8 radio stations in a city, or 1000 across the country, you couldn't own any if the FCC determined your station was not fulfilling its public service obligation. You actually had to get your license renewed.

Now Clear Channel themselves have claimed that owning more radio stations can allow them to diversify the genres more -- but this hasn't produced any interesting results in FM radio. In fact, almost everyone agrees FM radio has gotten worse over the last 5 years or so. So how is XM going to help things? It's great as another option, for those times there isn't anything good on FM. But forgive me if I don't see this duopoly being so hugely advantageous over a monopoly. They'll give you the music you "want" -- and not a note more. A triumph of marketing, a long-term serious loss for the listener.

XM will never be able to make up for another potential casualty of Clear Channel (and fundi religious broadcasters, who are eligible for bottom-of-the-band licenses and silently eat away at the reception of struggling college stations) - regionalism in radio is good. Part of why travelling is fun in this country is local culture, even in this age of mcdonald's everywhere. XM can't give me the beach-blues station I heard in coastal South Carolina, the bluegrass segment on a (commercial!) country station in rural Virginia, or the variety of ethnic folk music and avant-garde rock on hundreds of college stations across the country. It's worth noting that of XM's 100 channels, the Post writer picked one with good, but very familiar music -- and that may be what XM is good for. The beauty of independent, college, and regional radio is discovery of new music. Not that this means XM is bad -- just that it won't save us from Clear Channel.

You guys have a great debate going, sorry for the interruption. I just wanted to inject one point which might (or might not) be relevant to your debate.

Every so often, I read an editorial or an article about the "dumbing-down of America". These pieces bemoan curriculum changes or testing standards that allow for sub-standard learning environments.

A few examples:
Regarding programming
Regarding entertainment
Regarding academia

I for one think it's high time that we stop dumbing-down people by assuming that all they're capable of using is one or two operating systems and one office suite. The purpose of schools is to educate people so that they can make intelligent choices...not teach them how to use one proprietary operating system or one proprietary office suite.

Stop assuming that people are mindless automatons that don't want a choice and start educating them about the choices they do have and let's see what happens.

--K.

IS A RIDICULOUS LIBERAL MYTH!

All right. I'll take the challenge. Four years ago: 1999... Lets ask google for some 'proof'.

You learn something new every day uh?

... and you're charged every time you buy a blank CD, audio cassette or mini-disc.

21 cents per blank cd, 29 cents per audio cassette, and 77 cents per minidisc.

And the Recording industry wants it increased (a 181% increase for CDs), and wants it added to additional media (flash memory cards and DVDs) as well as to MP3 players.

Ironically, none of the money has been paid out to any artists.

1) It's legal to have an mp3 if you've paid for the music
2) CDs are used for things other than music
3) Flash memory cards are used in dozens of things; I have a digital camera that uses them.

The last time the levy was raised (Jan, 2001 I believe) I wrote letters to various Members of Parliment hoping to get it shut down.

This time, even the retailers are getting involved.

The music industry is a dinosaur. I believe artists should be paid for their work, but the cost of a CD is ridiculous; that money is disappearing into music executives pockets; the artist gets next to nothing. I would pay 30 cents per MP3 to download. No shipping, no retail costs, no packaging. That should be fair.

While this is good, most people will remember him for going after Merrill Lynch for all types of charges related to fraud that the federal goverment wanted to overlook. His state office is doing more then federal offices like SEC and even aspects of DOJ. But what has ge gotten in return?

Except he folded like a lawn chair. Remeber. Saying and doing are two different things. He talks the talk, but when it comes down to it he's not doing anything other than small fines on the "evil doers".

"Also, given the availability of cd-burners, p2p sharing, and large percentage of the fact that teenagers are a significant % of the market, it's not unreasonable to conclude that more teenagers are illegally copying music than in the past."

When I was in high school (late 80's), portable bookshelf stereos (aka "boom boxes") were popular. At the time, many of these stereos had dual cassette decks (for copying, of course!), or CD players that would record directly to cassette. Quite often the CD players would be synchronized with the cassettes, to start playing when record was hit, or (in the 90's) calculate the number of songs per tape.

My point: illegal high-quality copying has been easy for over 15 years. Yet despite copying (to cassette) becoming easier and more automated, sales have been unaffected until recently. Now that the recording industry's nemesis, Napster, is dead, they've found more targets. There are a number of reasons why CD sales are down that don't involve music quality _or_ copying: the price of CDs has risen, the economy is doing poorly, "crippled" CDs are being sold, people aren't "upgrading" from cassette anymore, radio stations are being consolidated, etc.

The bottom line is that the recording industry is acting like they can do no wrong. If things don't change -- the economy picks up, CD prices fall substantially, etc -- the industry is in for a rude awakening.

I stand in a sort of perverse awe, trying to grasp the 'reasoning' of Justice Ginsburg's opinion...utterly perplexed as to how six other justices signed their names to it when they had the exact text of how the ruling should have come down by Justice Breyer's hand.

I want there to be some good that comes out of Eldred, but right now I'm very disillusioned. So, I'm following Lessig's advice and turning to blogging. Let your opinions be known.

-R

This may be obvious, but try the print layout to skip paging and avoid the huge ads in the middle of the text.

Fortunately, fearless leader already has a plan to save us from the moon falling out of orbit and destroying our way of life.

See those tiny little screw heads on top of your hard drive? Undo, disassemble, burn and scatter all the individual components.

Kind of like an incineration of your past logged life.

The Supreme Court is supposed to be insulated from all that money crap

Were you asleep during the last presidential election? I hate to burst your bubble, but this is only gonna get worse.

And of all the people on the bench, RBG certainly wouldn't be my first choice for the label of "idiot."

Tom Tomorrow

"Many of my worst alcoholics tend to be sociopathic (though not necessarily outright sociopaths), noticeably more selfish than average, unable to take/admit responsibility, lack real insight into their own condition, and often have coexistant personality disorders. They often refuse to even consider stopping their drinking."

• Polarized thinking (Bush's "you are either with us or against us" is an example. Another example is his statement, "Look my job isn't to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important... this is evil versus good.")
• Rigid thinking
• Overreaction. Tendency to become imbalanced, to go to extremes (Bush's terms, "crusade", and "infinite justice" are examples. He was forced to retract these words. See the October 11, 2002 CounterPunch article, Addiction, Brain Damage and the President -- "Dry Drunk" Syndrome and George W. Bush )
• Obsessive repetition (On August 7, during his "working vacation" at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, Bush used the word "home" six times in a minute of conversation with reporters: "It's nice to be home ... This is my home ... It's good to be home ... This is where you come home ... This is my home," etc. In a five-minute speech later in the month, Bush mentioned values at least seven times and "neighbor" or "neighborliness" or "neighborly" six times. In a twenty-minute speech the next day he used "character" eleven times. -- Some of the examples here are drawn from a September 6, 2001 article in The Atlantic magazine, The Bumbling Communicator. Not only was Bush repetitive, he was lying. The article says, "Bush lived in the Texas governor's mansion and vacationed in swank resorts and at Kennebunkport before the campaign began.")
• Lying (A June 18, 2002 article in Salon says, Losing the "trifecta" says, "It takes a brazen politician to make up a story that can be proven false and then to keep lying about it after being busted repeatedly." Also see the October 8, 2002 CounterPunch article, Bush's Leaps of Illogic Don't Answer People's Questions About War.
• Anger ("... why is Bush so eager to engage in violence and so incapable of explaining why?" See the Sept. 24, 2002 American Politics Journal article Dry Drunk.)
• Inability to perceive the needs of others, inability to understand someone different from oneself
• Grandiosity, believing that one's own ideas are all-important. (Bush, and the oil and weapons people who support him, say the U.S. has the right to take military action before the adversary even has the capacity to attack.)
• Impatience ("If we wait for threats to fully materialize," President Bush said in a speech he gave at West Point, "we will have waited too long.")
• Incoherence. Things don't make sense in the mind of an alcoholic. An alcoholic's pattern of speech sometimes reflects his or her inner chaos.

Let's look at this.

The networks, forgetting that the Panhandle jutted into the Central timezone, called Florida for Gore fifteen minutes before the polls in the Panhandle closed. (They thought the polls had closed forty-five minutes before, and were desperately trying to make a call quickly.)

For the "30,000" figure to be correct, there had to be that many last-minute Bush voters, on their way to -- or standing in line at -- the polls while watching TV, saw the state called for Gore, and en masse turned around and went home (instead of voting).

Occam's Razor suggests that the "30,000 votes for Bush" theory was just Republican spin to cover their shameless actions in the Florida recount.

But you don't even mention the African-Americans whose voter registrations were wrongly deleted by Katherine Harris before the election, which is well documented.
--

Having rejected DOS, we're paranoid about anything that isn't "user-friendly," that requires some adjustment on our part and a commitment to meet the technology halfway. It's as if Henry Ford rigged a bridle and set of leather reins to his Model T instead of a steering wheel and clutch, and to this day we were still driving our cars the way a 19th century groomsman would handle a horse and buggy.

That man's father is his father's son.

This whole .walk thing is pretty interesting, especially having just re-read: 0wnzored.

Nonetheless, for those who remember the 1970s, the escalation in prices does appear substantial. Figures obtained from R.R. Bowker, the company of record for information about the publishing industry, show that, from 1975 to 2000, the price of the average hardcover book of fiction went up 200 percent to $24.96. Average prices for hardcover poetry and drama books increased 211 percent to $33.57. Nonfiction hardcovers went up 123 percent to $40.29. The largest increase was in the juvenile category, which climbed 227 percent to arrive at the current average of $18.40.

Still, adjust these figures for inflation and you get a different story, says Robert Sahr, an associate professor of political science at Oregon State University who studies media coverage of complex matters such as budgeting and economic policies. He found that the cost of hardcover fiction in real dollars had actually gone down 2 percent, while poetry and drama and juvenile categories had risen only a few percentage points. Nonfiction hardcovers had decreased in real price by 27 percent.

first off, i remember when slashdot posted his short story "0wnz0red", and i really enjoyed reading it...

secondly, not that i'm saying i'm cheap or anything, but why would i go buy the book, when i just downloaded the pdf for free?

So mixing analogies from the original post, the delay is so that the Nobel commitee does not give an award to the physics equivalent of Toto or Milli Vanilli.

The latter, of course, being Jan Hendrik Schön.

How about Virginia?

I saw an essay by Arianna Huffington on Salon regarding this very subject just a few weeks ago (December 17.)

From the essay:

"Things only got worse the next morning when, while reading the New York Times, I came across not one, but two examples of apostrophes being put in the wrong place -- including one in a column by my hero, Paul Krugman."

"Flummoxed, I got ahold of the New York Times' manual of style and, to my horror, discovered that the paper's rash of apostrophe errors had not been the result of sloppy copy-editing but a conscious executive decision to ignore the rules of proper punctuation."

So, if Ms. Huffington is correct, the NYTSG does indeed allow it's authors to debase the language. While the New York Times may be a respected publication, and might even be considered some form of authority, I'd be inclined to stay with the established rules of grammar and punctuation that have served us well for a very long time (e.g. Strunk & White.)

She also covers the pluralization of acronyms, and lays out the (proper and generally accepted) rules quite clearly. And this comes from a person for whom english is not her first language.

From her bio:

Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was sixteen and graduated from Cambridge University with a M.A. in Economics. At twenty-one she became President of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union.

I would say her credentials are quite respectable.

The placement of an apostrophe has been a pet peeve of mine for quite a while with the most egregious offense lately being the title of the movie "Bridget Jones's Diary". Or maybe that just the british way of doing things...

We've got to keep people on their toes, or Mr Twain's vision may indeed come to pass. Of course, it might just be easier to switch to Esperanto.

I believe popup-banners and all the pop-unders etc.. have played a large part in poluting the internet AD industry, and made most all of us bitter and ad-unfriendly.

At one time banner ads thrived, you could sell them on a popular site and make thousands, or you could spend a little and get a lot elsewhere.

Now in 2003, banner ads are looked down at. Most of us either ignore the ads and don't even pay attention to them, or we block them with certain tools.

TextAds are not to shabby tho, providing basic detail in a non-pictorial format just to let us know what it is and a link to learn more about it.

Google, by providing Textads and not huge 468x60 banners, has kept their site clean and no cluttered.

Sites like Slashdot, Yahoo, and many more are slowly realizing banners are not producing enough UNF to pay the bills, and are resorting to subscriber based services like Yahoo Personals, or Slashdot's subscriptions.

Another prime example would be Salon.com.

The dotcom boom is long over, and will never be the same again... Look at how we view TV commercials!

from the maybe-counter-earth-exists dept.

Are you referring to that fictional world where branding irons and whips are generally considered an indispensable part of the dating process? Nasty Hemos.

It's this picture that was a popup at the top of the page.

michael writes:
jjohnston writes "Salon just posted its technology and business predictions for 2003: Total Commercialization Awareness. Includes: Al-Qaida online, Slashdot sells out, and pets: the new white meat. Cute ..." That's so 1999.

The "that's so 1999" Slash article you linked to is about Slash going IPO. The Salon blub reads:

The popular discussion site for fans of open source software will disclose that it's perilously close to bankruptcy and needs to make all Slash code proprietary in order to survive. Slashdot regulars will rebel, and some will attempt to set up alternative discussion sites -- but Slashdot's founder, Rob Malda, will sue under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to prevent any copycat sites. When readers accuse the site of "monopolizing" all the vital discussions of the various ways of cooling your computer with liquid nitrogen, Justice Department officials will threaten prosecution of Sherman antitrust violations. But Slashdot will prevail, after hiring David Boies, litigator to the stars.

Which, while satire, is quite a bit different, don't you think?

REF: Sam Williams at Salon.com

Educational Archive for Irony, where ever she is:

Same job. Different cubicle" With the promise of stock riches now a distant dream, VA Linux's former programmers keep the open-source faith.



By Sam Williams

July 31, 2002 | In 1999, when 22-year-old Linux developer Michael Jennings accepted a job with the promising, albeit slightly obscure, West Coast start-up company VA Linux Systems Inc., he had no idea he would be participating in one of the biggest roller-coaster rides in Silicon Valley history.

"To be perfectly blunt about it, I had no idea what an IPO was or what stock options meant," admits Jennings.

Three years and $1.4 billion in evaporated investors' money later, Jennings can no longer feign ignorance. Like a farmer who has seen a tornado from the inside, Jennings recalls the company's historic first day of public trading with a mixture of bemusement and awe.

"None of us expected it to be nearly as big as it was," he says, drifting back to Dec. 9, 1999, the day NASDAQ investors turned Jennings and many of his co-workers into momentary paper millionaires. "I don't think even the president of the company knew it was going to be such a massive deal."

That was then, of course. VA's soaring stock price -- propelled by almost every major investment fad of the late 1990s: dot-coms, b2b, open-source software -- would soon come hurtling earthward. By the end of 2000, the company was outpacing the NASDAQ collapse. Caught between plummeting market share and an investment community clamoring for profits, VA Linux dumped its core hardware business in the spring of 2001. In October 2001, after posting a quarterly loss of $290 million, VA Linux laid off the bulk of its technical staff, including Jennings.

One could forgive Jennings a moment's bitterness. Since leaving VA, Jennings has returned to his native Louisville, Ky., where he now works as director of engineering at N+1, a Linux services and training firm with no immediate IPO prospects. Asked to dish dirt on the company that pulled him west, however, Jennings, like many of his former co-workers, can only shake his head and wax nostalgic.

"VA was, without a doubt, the most incredible team of people I'd ever worked with," he says. "Laid-back. Fun. Interesting projects. The managers and V.P.s were all very approachable. For the most part, they treated the engineers just like peers.

"We were all a big group of friends."

Three years after leading the Linux charge, the words "VA Linux" elicit a complex mixture of emotions. To investors, they represent the ultimate betrayal: a can't-miss stock that missed big. To the company that changed its name to VA Software Inc. last December, they signify the distant past. To ex-employees like Jennings, however, they symbolize something larger. They symbolize a time when many of the world's best open-source programmers worked under the same roof, a time of promise and, ultimately, of failed opportunity. The epitome of investors' irrational exuberance to some, VA Linux has become the corporate equivalent of paradise lost to the open-source developers who used to work there.

Next page | It cost him $25,000 a year to work there, thanks to taxes on stock options

----

P2:: "Same job. Different cubicle" | 1, 2, 3

"I think, had they concentrated on what they were good at, which was basically creating Linux boxes better than everybody else, they would have done well," says Jeremy Allison, co-leader of the Samba project and a fellow ex-VA employee. "Basically, if they hadn't gone public, they'd be doing fine."

Such comments might qualify as a final twist of the knife to investors who bought into the company during its heyday, but as Allison is quick to note, it was VA Linux employees who bled the most following the company's moonshot IPO. Thanks to the alternative minimum tax -- an obscure tax that kicks in as soon as options are exercised and that can wallop employees who don't sell immediately -- employees who bought VA Linux shares with an intention to hold paid dearly for their loyalty.

"I know people who are going to be paying off the government for the rest of their lives," says Allison.

One such victim was Ted Arden, a former sales engineer who, thanks to VA's knockout opening-day performance and the SEC-mandated six-month "lockup" period, wound up owing more than $100,000 on $180,000 worth of vested stock. Subtracting total taxes from total salary and the money he finally did recoup from stock sales, Arden estimates it cost him $25,000 a year to be a VA Linux employee.

"Don't get me wrong," Arden says. "I had a blast there. It was one of those places where you would come in at 7 a.m. and you wouldn't leave until 1 or 2 in the morning, because you didn't want to miss anything."

Arden, like Jennings and Allison, keeps in touch with his former work mates via an ex-employee mailing list. The list goes out to roughly 100 people, of whom 20 or 30 participate on a regular basis. Arden says the discussions are candid, offering plenty of analysis of what went wrong and which managers should be sharing a bunk with Kenneth Lay at Club Fed. For the most part, however, the list offers a way to keep in touch with some of the best programmers in the business.

"People feel remorse more than anything," says Arden, now working at another Linux company. "At VA, we had more Linux knowledge in our tech support department than most companies had on their entire staff. It's sad that something like this could be brought down through mismanagement."

The term "mismanagement" gets batted about a lot in ex-VA circles. Most industry analysts credit the VA swoon to heavy hitters such as Compaq, Dell and IBM carving up the Linux server marketplace. According to International Data Corp. (IDC), VA Linux's market share in the entry-level server marketplace (IDC's term for servers costing below $100,000) plummeted 78 percent in 2001. That statistic is offset, however, by VA Linux's decision to get out of the hardware server market midway through the year. Nonetheless, says Arden, it glosses over internal mistakes that magnified the impact of lost sales.

"We were pre-building systems for deals that were forecasted but never closed," Arden says. "If you pre-build a million dollars worth of systems and you don't sell them, it's all on the books. That's where the mismanagement occurred."

VA Software representatives declined to comment for this story, but ex-employees like Doug Bone, chief operating officer of California Digital Corp., the Santa Clara company that purchased the bulk of VA Linux's hardware division in the fall of 2001, are still willing to plead the old management team's case.

According to Bone, the investment community itself was the ultimate culprit. Until the April 2000 market correction, Bone says, the bulk of VA Linux's clients were Web start-ups looking for low-cost Linux servers. When the investment tap shut off, demand crashed. With no hardware revenue to support expansion into other, more profitable arenas, company executives had to perform the equivalent of corporate triage.

"It was a simple Econ 101 effect," Bone says. "As soon as they saw contraction, the fixed costs became untenable."

A VA employee from 1994 to 2001, Bone, like Allison, is convinced that if his former employer had somehow missed the IPO window, it would still be a major player in the Linux server market today. He offers his own privately held company as evidence. Although California Digital does not release financial results, Bone says the company has found a sustainable niche and is "on record" as being profitable.

"The market is still strong," Bone says. "It's different than it was during the dot-com frenzy. You don't get as many people calling and demanding 100 servers within a month. What you do get are more biotech companies, more movie production companies and more oil exploration companies calling in and asking for Linux clusters."

Next page | Hopping from job to job, but working on the same software projects 1, 2, 3

---- P3::

As Bone is quick to admit, one major difference between the California Digital business model and the VA Linux model is cost. In 1999 VA Linux aggressively recruited programmers from throughout the open-source community, using the incentive of a big IPO payoff to distinguish itself from market rivals. Today, California Digital relies on a Bangalore-based engineering division to stay competitive. That makes it easy to understand why many open-source developers look back on the pre-IPO VA Linux with nostalgia.

Then again, time hasn't exactly been cruel to the ex-VA workforce. Because many had built up sizable reputations working on community development projects such as Samba, Enlightenment and the Linux kernel, few people contacted for this story seemed overly traumatized by the last 12 months. The same projects that once provided political cushion inside VA have performed equally well as flotation devices in the post-crash employment market.

"I didn't want to just run around and take the first job I could get," says Allison, recalling the few, brief weeks between working for VA Linux and working for rival hardware firm Hewlett-Packard. "There were plenty of companies wanting to fund Samba. It was mainly a matter of waiting until somebody came forward with the right contract."

Indeed, if the VA Linux collapse proves anything, it proves the continuity of open-source software projects and the growing power of the star programmers who run them. Reflecting on his current job, Allison sounds about as emotional as a major league baseball player who just switched uniforms.

"It's like a co-worker at SGI once said: 'Same job. Different cubicle.'"

For those working on less visible projects, the transition has been a little bumpier. Brian Finley is a former VA Linux sales engineer who also leads the development team of SystemImager, a software tool that automates the Linux installation process. During his days at VA Linux, Finley divided his time between providing software support to customers and working on SystemImager.

"During the downtime, I would work on SystemImager," Finley says. "It would make the periods of intense uptime that much more enjoyable."

Although Finley still finds SystemImager enjoyable, the number of companies willing to subsidize the work is small. Since leaving VA Linux, Finley has faced the age-old creator's dilemma.

"You want to be able to do the work you want to do, but you also want to be able to eat," says Finley, who, after a few months of contract work on non-SystemImager projects, has built up a roster of clients willing to fund SystemImager development. Clients include Hewlett-Packard, Compaq and Open Source Developers Network, or OSDN, an online subsidiary of VA Linux's current incarnation, VA Software Inc.

Because SystemImager is backed by the GPL (GNU Public License), Finley doesn't worry too much about companies misappropriating his work. Still, he has noticed a new twist to the creator's dilemma. Call it the creative manager's dilemma: Food, art or compatibility -- choose two.

"If what you're being paid to work on is specific as opposed to general, you're not getting paid to do the general maintenance work," Finley says. "If you don't find a way to fund that work too, then you ultimately end up with a piece of software that is buggy.

"It's a difficult balancing game."

Maybe that's why Finley's view of VA Linux is already sepia-toned. "It was one of the best jobs I ever had," says Finley, recalling the days when performing the usual open-source balancing act wasn't so difficult. "You were basically paid to work with Linux and do whatever you wanted to do."

Like the other veterans, Finley holds especially high regard for the pre-IPO days.

"Prior to the IPO, the company was small enough that each individual felt that their effort truly affected the company's success," Finley says. "After the IPO happened, there was a six-month period that no one could sell [shares]. I would say during that period -- I don't think that I'm alone in this -- I would have checked the stock once every five to 10 minutes. It was an exciting time. We even had a shell script written by [VA Linux CEO] Larry [Augustin] and modified by [Geoff] Mandrake [Harrison] that would go out to Yahoo, pull down the .csv file and parse it. Some people even had it running as a cron job."

Jennings, too, remembers the collective fascination with the VA Linux ticker price.

"There were a lot of people who would check the stock ticker multiple times a day and keep track of the minute ups and downs," he says. "Needless to say, it tended to be extremely counterproductive."

When the ticker price began its yearlong tumble, it didn't take long for stress levels to climb within the company. Through it all, however, Jennings remembers a general feeling of calm in the engineering department. Whether it was because developers were better at tuning out the bad news or simply shielded from market pressures by the nature of their open-source work, Jenning says that calm is one reason so many ex-VA employees remain in contact today.

"The way a lot of people see it is we were doing open-source before [VA Linux] and we've continued doing open source after VA Linux for the exact same reason: because we love to do it," Jennings says. "It was nice to get paid for it, but getting paid was always viewed as kind of a perk."

That many ex-VA Linux employees still get to hack for pay is probably the top reason so few complain when it comes to the former company. As the old high-tech saying goes, it's the pioneers who usually end up with the most arrows in their backs. Rather than lament what could have been, Jennings prefers to hold on to what was.

"I am not really in a position to point fingers," he says. "There are a lot of other people who were a lot closer to management, but I can say with absolute certainty it wasn't for lack of talent. And I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about all the other people they had."

"All I can say is it was an honor to work with those people on a daily basis, and it's an honor to still have them as friends."

salon.com

About the writer Sam Williams is a freelance reporter who covers software and software development culture. He is also the author of "Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade For Free Software."

Sound Off Send us a Letter to the Editor

Related stories Complete list of Salon's coverage of VA Linux

SO what did clinton EXACTLY do for minorities?


You must not have read my first post, and certainly not the links I included.

just put a bunch of token blacks on the cabinet?

Again, you must not have read my first post. My argument had nothing to do with token black/whatever people. It had to do with the fact that we don't see equal proportions of minorities in the presedency. This means that either minorities are not fit for such a position (which is bullshit), or there's something wrong with america. That was my argument, I didn't say one thing about how to solve it, and certainly not by putting token minorities in office. Read posts before you reply, and don't put words in my mouth.

and what they stand for? um...

sorry, but I won't catch bush's bones, I don't really care that some of his cronies are black women. I want minorities, women, etc.. making it to the PRESIDENCY. I don't buy the "look! these people aren't ALWAYS shafted" argument. If there wasn't a problem, we'd see them in equal proportions everywhere, including the presidency.

Besides, to infer Clinton isn't on the side of minorities is ridiculous. He's been touted as our blackest president ever. Just take a look at what the NAACP thinks of him.

I'd heard that a disproportionate number of Ralians come from the exotic-dance community.

Hey, we want these people to clone themselves!

Really? Some might disagree with that:

"As I described in my book "Radical Son," I had my own encounters with a KGB agent in London in the mid-'60s, when I shared the New Left faith. [...] In fact, the number of New Leftists who actively worked with communist regimes and their intelligence agencies probably runs into the thousands. The Venceremos Brigades, composed of New Leftists who went to Cuba ostensibly to harvest sugar cane, were operated by the DGI, the acronym for Cuban intelligence. How many of them came home with more than a piece of cane as a souvenir? The CISPES committees (Committee in Solidarity With the People of El Salvador), which were very active during the Reagan years, were affiliated with the communist guerrilla movement in El Salvador. New Left radicals, like Tom Hayden, met in Eastern Europe and Cuba with communist officials from Hanoi and South Vietnam's National Liberation Front to plot the fall of the "Amerikan" empire. [ ... ]

David Horowitz, Salon article, Spies Like Us

And as long as we're on the subject - while 9/11 could have been stopped by having (with several billion more dollars in extra defence spending, but would those on the Left have supported such flights before 9/11? All that JP4 being turned into noise, all those evil military planes everywhere) 24/7 combat air patrols over all major cities - I'd point out that just as there was a Red Menace in the 50s, there is now an Islamokazi Terrorist Menace (tm).

Perhaps, as with McCarthy, some elements of our response to the ITM(tm) may, 50 years from now, be seen as disproportionate to the threat, but if you dispute that there's an ITM(tm), there are 2800 ghosts in the vicinity of lower Manhattan who will respectfully disagree. (And around the world, several thousand from the preceding 20 years, and a few hundred more since then.)

The IMF is a vehicle for implementing a policy that is designed to make poor nations poorer, and the US based financial world richer.

The IMF has a standard approach of privatization, deregularization, more taxes and less government spending. In practice, state assets are sold off to foreign investors, and capitals markets are deregulated to open the gates for speculation. At some point the price of basic living (cooking, heating, taxes) is raised, causing massive civil unrest, and collapse of the economy. In the ensuing turmoil, foreign corporations can buy the remaining assets of a country at garage-sale prices.

Don't take my word for it. Read about Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel laureate, former IMF economist and former director of the worldbank)

• salon
• The Observer
• The new republic online.

Dry, abrasive vaginas are seen as desirable in sexual intercourse in the vast majority of southern African cultures, notes an article in Tuesday's Village Voice. Aversion to moisture in penetration has inflamed the HIV/AIDS epidemic in this region.

Many men and women regard the smell of vaginal secretions as repulsive, the report says, plus they're embarrassed by the noise of wet sex. Dry vaginas that are swollen with friction are also tighter; this pleases the men because it makes them feel larger. One common belief holds that loose, slippery vaginas are evidence of infidelity.

Dry sex promulgates HIV/AIDS in three ways: The lack of lubricant results in lacerations in the delicate membrane tissue, making it easier for the lethal virus to enter. In addition, the natural antiseptic lactobacilli that vaginal moisture contains aren't available to combat sexually transmitted diseases. Finally, condoms break far more easily due to the increased friction.

Sub-Saharan women attain this dryness in various ways. Herbs from the mugugudhu tree are wrapped in a nylon stocking and inserted into the vagina for 10-15 minutes in a procedure that one woman described as "very painful." Mutendo wegudo (dry soil where a baboon has urinated) is a traditional Zimbabwean recipe. A crushed stone called "wankie" is also utilized, reports the Oct. 23, 1998, World African Network, as are potions called chimhandara ("like a virgin" in Shona) and zvanamina ("taste me only" in Ndebele). Shredded newspapers, cotton, salt and detergents are also used.

Young, educated, urban lovers are slowly slipping away from dry sex, but even in the cities, the practice is retained by 50 percent who regard wet intercourse as a Western import that seeks to emasculate men. Overwhelmingly, dryness retains its deadly lock in rural areas, despite attempts by HIV/AIDS activists to save lives through education.

Something that peopler keep missing is they charge things twice. They talk about royalties, and then about the recording and marketing costs.

What they don't mention is that part of the recording and merketing costs are charged to the band (Source: courtney Love in Salon article)

Secondly, a large chunk of the money paid by the record industry is paid to .... The record industry. They can employ themselves to do the marketing. The record publisher doesn't even need to make a profit if it can cause other parts of the group to make a profit.

Now they have (or are) moving to Intel Linux.

CSE.UNSW has a long Unix tradition, part of which has been publicised by the Salon article about John Lions.

Chilli

If you are called to serve, remember to refuse to take any oath to uphold the law.

I will take that oath to administer justice as appropriate.

Democratically enacted laws? What a load of horse shit! You mean laws passed by senators and congressman only looking out for the welfare of their donors/constituents (Eli Lilly and oil companies come to mind). And what about all the extraneous crap thrown into the latest piece of law coming out of D.C.? Do we really need a federally funded 'Hacker Research Center' at Texas A&M?

Why is it that duly elected officials that goto to D.C. always feel that they are above the law and have to play favorites? Why is it that a majority of them seem to have law degrees or political science majors? I very seriously doubt that our Founding Fathers envisioned having congressmen serve year after self-serving year. They meant it to be more like giving a few years of service to your neighbors and then returning to your regular day job.

When was the last time that Congress gave themselves a raise? Oh, that's right, they really don't have to because they voted themselves a law to give themselves annual payraises! When was the last time that a high-priced lawyer said "You know, I really don't need a salary of $150,000, I can get by on $50,000"? And don't even try to feed me a line of "I have to charge high rates to pay my employees." We're not talking about rates, we're talking about salary. But don't feel that because I'm picking on lawyers that I'm ragging on you personally. I'm ragging on the whole corrupt system.

You're probably one of those prosecuting lawyers in court who say "Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law". Well, guess what? These people said exactly the opposite, and you probably support them in their position. Or do you? You for or against the DMCA? I bet you'd like to convict Jon Johansen, wouldn't you? After all, he broke the DMCA law, NO MATTER HOW FLAWED.

You're supposed to be an educated lawyer, capable of seeng and debating all sides of the issue and you still don't get it. When democratically elected congresspeople screw with their constituents by passing bad laws, and it is impossible to get that law repealed because of backroom deals, jury nullification is the only way to make other people take notice. If jury nullification is performed and the prosecutor and judge were looking for a conviction, this negates their bias by letting your peers judge you, not the prosecutor or judge. Jury nullification allows for changing the rules as society sees fit, not as the prosecutor or judge or the backroom deals dictate!

And where did I call you a butthead? gee, sounds like you really aren't a lawyer to me (or maybe just a very poor one) if you made that simple mistake of mis-quoting me.

Remember that when you are called for jury duty to tell them that you will apply the evidence and the law strictly as it is laid out because you "cannot think for yourself and the people who passed the [stupid] law must be right 'cause that's why they done been 'lected, so they must be smarter than me."

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering together their postings and publishing them en masse to further his twisted and manipulative journalistic agenda.

Sick, disgusting antichristian perverts, the lot of them.

In addition, many of the Linux distributions (a 'distribution' is the most common way to spread the faggots' wares) are run by faggot groups. The Slackware distro is named after the 'Slack-wear' fags wear to allow easy access to the anus for sexual purposes. Furthermore, Slackware is a close anagram of claw arse, a reference to the homosexual practise of anal fisting. The Mandrake product is run by a group of French faggot satanists, and is named after the faggot nickname for the vibrator. It was also chosen because it is an anagram for dark amen and ram naked, which is what they do.

Another 'distro,' (abbrieviated as such because it sounds a bit like 'Disco,' which is where homosexuals preyed on young boys in the 1970s), is Debian, an anagram of in a bed, which could be considered innocent enough (after all, a bed is both where we sleep and pray), until we realise what other names Debian uses to describe their foul wares. 'Woody' is obvious enough, being a term for the erect male penis, glistening with pre-cum. But far sicker is the phrase 'Frozen Potato' that they use. This filthy term, again found in the secret homosexual 'Sauce Code,' refers to the solo homosexual practice of defecating into a clear polythene bag, shaping the turd into a crude approximation of the male phallus, then leaving it in the freezer overnight until it becomes solid. The practitioner then proceeds to push the frozen 'potato' up his own rectum, squeezing it in and out until his tight young balls erupt in a screaming orgasm.

And Red Hat is secret homo slang for the tip of a penis that is soaked in blood from a freshly violated underage ringpiece.

The fags have even invented special tools to aid their faggotry! For example, the 'supermount' tool was devised to allow deeper penetration, which is good for fags because it gives more pressure on the prostate gland. 'Automount' is used, on the other hand, because Linux users are all fat and gay, and need to mount each other automatically.

The depths of their depravity can be seen in their use of 'mount points.' These are, plainly speaking, the different points of penetration. The main one is obviously /anus, but there are others. Militant fags even say 'there is no /opt mount point' because for these dirty perverts faggotry is not optional but a way of life.

More evidence is in the fact that Linux users say how much they love `man`, even going so far as to say that all new Linux users (who are in fact just innocent heterosexuals indoctrinated by the gay propaganda) should try out `man`. In no other system do users boast of their frequent recourse to a man.

Other areas of the system also show Linux's inherit gayness. For example, people are often told of the 'FAQ,' but how many innocent heterosexual Windows users know what this actually means. The answer is shocking: Faggot Anal Quest: the voyage of discovery for newly converted fags!

Even the title 'Slashdot' originally referred to a homosexual practice. Slashdot of course refers to the popular gay practice of blood-letting. The Slashbots, of course are those super-zealous homosexuals who take this perversion to its extreme by ripping open their anuses, as seen on the site most popular with Slashdot users, the depraved work of Satan, http://www.eff.org/.

The editors of Slashdot also have homosexual names: 'Hemos' is obvious in itself, being one vowel away from 'Homos.' But even more sickening is 'Commander Taco' which sounds a bit like 'Commode in Taco,' filthy gay slang for a pair of spreadeagled buttocks that are caked with excrement. (The best form of lubrication, they insist.) Sometimes, these 'Taco Commodes' have special 'Salsa Sauce' (blood from a ruptured rectum) and 'Cheese' (rancid flakes of penis discharge) toppings. And to make it even worse, Slashdot runs on Apache!

The Apache server, whose use among fags is as prevalent as AIDS, is named after homosexual activity -- as everyone knows, popular faggot band, the Village People, featured an Apache Indian, and it is for him that this gay program is named.

And that's not forgetting the use of patches in the Linux fag world -- patches are used to make the anus accessible for repeated anal sex even after its rupture by a session of fisting.

To summarise: Linux is gay. 'Slash -- Dot' is the graphical description of the space between a young boy's scrotum and anus. And BeOS is for hermaphrodites and disabled 'stumpers.'

FEEDBACK

What worries me is how much you know about what gay people do. I'm scared I actually read this whole thing. I think this post is a good example of the negative effects of Internet usage on people. This person obviously has no social life anymore and had to result to writing something as stupid as this. And actually take the time to do it too. Although... I think it was satire.. blah.. it's early. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well, the only reason I know all about this is because I had the misfortune to read the Linux 'Sauce code' once. Although publicised as the computer code needed to get Linux up and running on a computer (and haven't you always been worried about the phrase 'Monolithic Kernel'?), this foul document is actually a detailed and graphic description of every conceivable degrading perversion known to the human race, as well as a few of the major animal species. It has shocked and disturbed me, to the point of needing to shock and disturb the common man to warn them of the impending homo-calypse which threatens to engulf our planet.

You must work for the government. Trying to post the most obscene stuff in hopes that slashdot won't be able to continue or something, due to legal woes. If i ever see your ugly face, i'm going to stick my fireplace poker up your ass, after it's nice and hot, to weld shut that nasty gaping hole of yours. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Doesn't it give you a hard-on to imagine your thick strong poker ramming it's way up my most sacred of sphincters? You're beyond help, my friend, as the only thing you can imagine is the foul penetrative violation of another man. Are you sure you're not Eric Raymond? The government, being populated by limp-wristed liberals, could never stem the sickening tide of homosexual child molesting Linux advocacy. Hell, they've given NAMBLA free reign for years!

you really should post this logged in. i wish i could remember jebus's password, cuz i'd give it to you. -- mighty jebus, Slashdot

Thank you for your kind words of support. However, this document shall only ever be posted anonymously. This is because the 'Open Sauce' movement is a sham, proposing homoerotic cults of hero worshipping in the name of freedom. I speak for the common man. For any man who prefers the warm, enveloping velvet folds of a woman's vagina to the tight puckered ringpiece of a child. These men, being common, decent folk, don't have a say in the political hypocrisy that is Slashdot culture. I am the unknown liberator.

ROLF LAMO i hate linux FAGGOTS -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

We shouldn't hate them, we should pity them for the misguided fools they are... Fanatical Linux zeal-outs need to be herded into camps for re-education and subsequent rehabilitation into normal heterosexual society. This re-education shall be achieved by forcing them to watch repeats of Baywatch until the very mention of Pamela Anderson causes them to fill their pants with healthy heterosexual jism.

Actually, that's not at all how scrotal inflation works. I understand it involves injecting sterile saline solution into the scrotum. I've never tried this, but you can read how to do it safely in case you're interested. (Before you moderate this down, ask yourself honestly -- who are the real crazies -- people who do scrotal inflation, or people who pay $1000+ for a game console?) -- double_h, Slashdot

Well, it just goes to show that even the holy Linux 'sauce code' is riddled with bugs that need fixing. (The irony of Jon Katz not even being able to inflate his scrotum correctly has not been lost on me.) The Linux pervert elite already acknowledge this, with their queer slogan: 'Given enough arms, all rectums are shallow.' And anyway, the PS2 sucks major cock and isn't worth the money. Intellivision forever!

dude did u used to post on msnbc's nt bulletin board now that u are doing anti-gay posts u also need to start in with anti-black stuff too c u in church -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

For one thing, whilst Linux is a cavalcade of queer propaganda masquerading as the future of computing, NT is used by people who think nothing better of encasing their genitals in quick setting plaster then going to see a really dirty porno film, enjoying the restriction enforced onto them. Remember, a wasted arousal is a sin in the eyes of the Catholic church. Clearly, the only god-fearing Christian operating system in existence is CP/M -- The Christian Program Monitor. All computer users should immediately ask their local pastor to install this fine OS onto their systems. It is the only route to salvation.

Secondly, this message is for every man. Computers know no colour. Not only that, but one of the finest websites in the world is maintained by a Black Man . Now fuck off you racist donkey felcher.

And don't forget that slashdot was written in Perl, which is just too close to 'Pearl Necklace' for comfort.... oh wait; that's something all you heterosexuals do.... I can't help but wonder how much faster the trolls could do First-Posts on this site if it were redone in PHP... I could hand-type dynamic HTML pages faster than Perl can do them. -- phee, Slashdot

Although there is nothing unholy about the fine heterosexual act of ejaculating between a woman's breasts, squirting one's load up towards her neck and chin area, it should be noted that Perl (standing for Pansies Entering Rectums Locally) is also close to 'Pearl Monocle,' 'Pearl Nosering,' and the ubiquitous 'Pearl Enema.'

One scary thing about Perl is that it contains hidden homosexual messages. Take the following code: LWP::Simple -- It looks innocuous enough, doesn't it? But look at the line closely: There are two colons next to each other! As Larry 'Balls to the' Wall would openly admit in the Perl Documentation, Perl was designed from the ground up to indoctrinate it's programmers into performing unnatural sexual acts -- having two colons so closely together is clearly a reference to the perverse sickening act of 'colon kissing,' whereby two homosexual queers spread their buttocks wide, pressing their filthy torn sphincters together. They then share small round objects like marbles or golfballs by passing them from one rectum to another using muscle contraction alone. This is also referred to in programming 'circles' as 'Parameter Passing.'

And PHP stands for Perverted Homosexual Penetration. Didn't you know?

Thank you for your valuable input on this. I am sure you will be never forgotten. BTW: Did I mention that this could be useful in terraforming Mars? Mars rulaa. -- Eimernase, Slashdot

Well, I don't know about terraforming Mars, but I do know that homosexual Linux Advocates have been probing Uranus for years.

That's inspiring. Keep up the good work, AC. May God in his wisdom grant you the strength to bring the plain honest truth to this community, and make it pure again. Yours, Cerberus. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

*sniff* That brings a tear to my eye. Thank you once more for your kind support. I have taken faith in the knowledge that I am doing the Good Lord's work, but it is encouraging to know that I am helping out the common man here.

However, I should be cautious about revealing your name 'Cerberus' on such a filthy den of depravity as Slashdot. It is a well known fact that the 'Kerberos' documentation from Microsoft is a detailed manual describing, in intimate, exacting detail, how to sexually penetrate a variety of unwilling canine animals; be they domesticated, wild, or mythical. Slashdot posters have taken great pleasure in illegally spreading this documentation far and wide, treating it as an 'extension' to the Linux 'Sauce Code,' for the sake of 'interoperability.' (The slang term they use for nonconsensual intercourse -- their favourite kind.)

In fact, sick twisted Linux deviants are known to have LAN parties, (Love of Anal Naughtiness, needless to say.), wherein they entice a stray dog, known as the 'Samba Mount,' into their homes. Up to four of these filth-sodden blasphemers against nature take turns to plunge their erect, throbbing, uncircumcised members, conkers-deep, into the rectum, mouth, and other fleshy orifices of the poor animal. Eventually, the 'Samba Mount' collapses due to 'overload,' and needs to be 'rebooted.' (i.e., kicked out into the street, and left to fend for itself.) Many Linux users boast about their 'uptime' in such situations.

Inspiring stuff! If only all trolls were this quality! -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

If only indeed. You can help our brave cause by moderating this message up as often as possible. I recommend '+1, Underrated,' as that will protect your precious Karma in Metamoderation. Only then can we break through the glass ceiling of Homosexual Slashdot Culture. Is it any wonder that the new version of Slashcode has been christened 'Bender'???

If we can get just one of these postings up to at least '+1,' then it will be archived forever! Others will learn of our struggle, and join with us in our battle for freedom!

It's pathetic you've spent so much time writing this. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I am compelled to document the foulness and carnal depravity that is Linux, in order that we may prepare ourselves for the great holy war that is to follow. It is my solemn duty to peel back the foreskin of ignorance and apply the wire brush of enlightenment.

As with any great open-source project, you need someone asking this question, so I'll do it. When the hell is version 2.0 going to be ready?!?! -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I could make an arrogant, childish comment along the lines of 'Every time someone asks for 2.0, I won't release it for another 24 hours,' but the truth of the matter is that I'm quite nervous of releasing a 'number two,' as I can guarantee some filthy shit-slurping Linux pervert would want to suck it straight out of my anus before I've even had chance to wipe.

I desperately want to suck your monolithic kernel, you sexy hunk, you. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I sincerely hope you're Natalie Portman.

Dude, nothing on slashdot larger than 3 paragraphs is worth reading. Try to distill the message, whatever it was, and maybe I'll read it. As it is, I have to much open source software to write to waste even 10 seconds of precious time. 10 seconds is all its gonna take M$ to whoop Linux's ass. Vigilence is the price of Free (as in libre -- from the fine, frou frou French language) Software. Hack on fellow geeks, and remember: Friday is Bouillabaisse day except for heathens who do not believe that Jesus died for their sins. Those godless, oil drench, bearded sexist clowns can pull grits from their pantaloons (another fine, fine French word) and eat that. Anyway, try to keep your message focused and concise. For concision is the soul of derision. Way. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

What the fuck?

I've read your gay conspiracy post version 1.3.0 and I must say I'm impressed. In particular, I appreciate how you have managed to squeeze in a healthy dose of the latent homosexuality you gay-bashing homos tend to be full of. Thank you again. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well bugger me!

ooooh honey. how insecure are you!!! wann a little massage from deare bruci. love you -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Fuck right off!

IMPORTANT: This message needs to be heard (Not HURD, which is an acronym for 'Huge Unclean Rectal Dilator') across the whole community, so it has been released into the Public Domain. You know, that licence that we all had before those homoerotic crypto-fascists came out with the GPL (Gay Penetration License) that is no more than an excuse to see who's got the biggest feces-encrusted cock. I would have put this up on Freshmeat, but that name is known to be a euphemism for the tight rump of a young boy.

Come to think of it, the whole concept of 'Source Control' unnerves me, because it sounds a bit like 'Sauce Control,' which is a description of the homosexual practice of holding the base of the cock shaft tightly upon the point of ejaculation, thus causing a build up of semenal fluid that is only released upon entry into an incision made into the base of the receiver's scrotum. And 'Open Sauce' is the act of ejaculating into another mans face or perhaps a biscuit to be shared later. Obviously, 'Closed Sauce' is the only Christian thing to do, as evidenced by the fact that it is what Cathedrals are all about.

Contributors: (although not to the eternal game of 'soggy biscuit' that open 'sauce' development has become) Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, phee, Anonymous Coward, mighty jebus, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, double_h, Anonymous Coward, Eimernase, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward. Further contributions are welcome.

Current changes: This version sent to FreeWIPO by 'Bring BackATV' as plain text. Reformatted everything, added all links back in (that we could match from the previous version), many new ones (Slashbot bait links). Even more spelling fixed. Who wrote this thing, CmdrTaco himself?

Previous changes: Yet more changes added. Spelling fixed. Feedback added. Explanation of 'distro' system. 'Mount Point' syntax described. More filth regarding `man` and Slashdot. Yet more fucking spelling fixed. 'Fetchmail' uncovered further. More Slashbot baiting. Apache exposed. Distribution licence at foot of document.

ANUX -- A full Linux distribution... Up your ass!

Check out the story on Richard Pearse on Salon.com that was posted back on August 22: Bamboo Dick, first in flight (not sure if that is a premium article of not...) I remember that it was a good read.

"'Geeks make new stuff primarily because it's fun, because it's useful, and because they can [G]. Suits make new stuff primarily because they hope to earn a profit. Yes, that is an oversimplification, and there's overlap between the two types -- there are plenty of profit-seeking geeks and geeky business folks. Still, the distinction is real.'"

Mirrored here (for posterity, not karma): because they can

By Scott Rosenberg

Dec. 13, 2002 | The technology industry has long been shaped by the creative tension between technologists and businesspeople, otherwise known as geeks and suits. Geeks make new stuff primarily because it's fun, because it's useful, and because they can. Suits make new stuff primarily because they hope to earn a profit. Yes, that is an oversimplification, and there's overlap between the two types -- there are plenty of profit-seeking geeks and geeky business folks. Still, the distinction is real.

You'd think that, today, with the tech industry in its worst downturn in memory, jobs scarce and funding scarcer, bottom-line thinking would dominate. Instead, the recent cratering of so many companies seems to have chastened the suits -- and the very absence of get-rich-quick opportunities has cleared a space for geek enthusiasms to flourish.

That was certainly the feeling I got from this week's Supernova conference on decentralization -- a gathering in Palo Alto, Calif., for which the ber-geeks of Silicon Valley and beyond (to use the label suggested by one of the software-industry legends in attendance) turned out in full force.

There was Bob Frankston, who'd coded VisiCalc, the personal computer's first "killer app," and a row behind him sat Mitch Kapor, whose Lotus 1-2-3 replaced VisiCalc as the spreadsheet of choice in the early '80s. There were Marc Canter (creator of Director and other multimedia tools) and Dave Winer (creator of Radio and other blogging and outlining tools), double-teaming a Microsoft exec on the issue of patents.

When I think about you... I TOUCH MY ELF! - ebaynham.com

Prominent bloggers swarmed the place, keeping up a keyboard-click chorus as they logged speakers' comments in real time. (Mitch Ratcliffe offers a good list here.) The blogging was so thorough that, though my Salon duties kept me in the office on the conference's second day, I could keep up with the event pretty well. Thank you, decentralization!

Conference organizer Kevin Werbach admitted that his "decentralization" label was "ugly," but suggested that its very awkwardness was a sign that we were dealing with an underlying trend rather than a "marketing-concocted theme." And he was right: The phenomena this event focused on, a grab bag of new technologies that have bubbled up from the humbled high-tech world in the post-crash era, are mostly geek driven and grassroots spread: Wi-Fi (802.11b), the wireless high-speed Net access method; blogs; and "Web services," a fuzzy term to describe new methods of directly and quickly connecting software applications and data across the Net.

These disparate boomlets share an "end to end" design: They rely on the power of individual users' computers -- there's no big, centrally operated piece of software or hardware mediating. The users connect across an open, "stupid" network -- the Internet itself, today -- that simply moves information without worrying about what it is. The resulting software is ad hoc, impromptu, flexible, "lightweight." Empowered individuals at the ends of the network try out new ideas and build myriad new services. It's geek heaven.

Next page | But, but, but ... where's the business model?1, 2

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What's the difference between star trek and star wars?

In Star Trek, the heros are multiracial genetically typical individuals like you and me who have worked hard to make themselves the best they can be. People work to better themselves and equality of all races, sexes and creeds is stressed. In Star Wars, the heros are white males who have been given incredible genetic gifts that they then use to rule over the lower class. It's hard to tell exactly what they are working towards and they can't even keep large numbers of their ranks from defecting and joining the opposing faction (Sith Lords).

You can read a fuller explanation here

GMD

Well, maybe not depending on how long ago "back then" was. But in today's climate, "protect the children" is nothing but an excuse for sex hysteria. In a world where children are arrested for consentual sex play with other children (man, the things they could have arrested me for in 5th grade...), teenagers are arrested for making kiddy porn after videotaping consentual (and legal!) sex they have with their girlfriends (sorry, couldn't find a link), and parents are being arrested for making kiddy porn after photographing their kids in the bath, you would definitely have been fscked if anyone had caught you with preteen porn.

Well, maybe not depending on how long ago "back then" was. But in today's climate, "protect the children" is nothing but an excuse for sex hysteria. In a world where children are arrested for consentual sex play with other children (man, the things they could have arrested me for in 5th grade...), teenagers are arrested for making kiddy porn after videotaping consentual (and legal!) sex they have with their girlfriends (sorry, couldn't find a link), and parents are being arrested for making kiddy porn after photographing their kids in the bath, you would definitely have been fscked if anyone had caught you with preteen porn.

You might find these other Projects at the Office of Information Awareness worth a look. Satire cartoonist Tom Tomorrow mentions them in two very funny and recent comics, here and here

You might find these other Projects at the Office of Information Awareness worth a look. Satire cartoonist Tom Tomorrow mentions them in two very funny and recent comics, here and here

READ IT HERE! "Har har har! Brigitta? Get my mechanic on the phone and tell him to have the Lamborghini ready for me in Munich. Here's another emerald thong-brooch for your trouble. Do pour us another round of gimlets from the titanium emergency bar. I say, what a hoot!" The Gumball 3000 began in 1999 when young British entrepreneur Maximillian Cooper, inspired by the Burt Reynolds vehicle "Cannonball Run," conceived of an elite six-day car race across Europe as a "private party for 50 of his closest friends." According to the Gumball3000.com Web site, his "private party" just happened to achieve "immediate notoriety and a somewhat 'cool' status," presumably because Cooper leaked to the press that Naomi Campbell would be among the original participants. She wasn't, but it didn't matter -- the belligerent rich and their supercars were enough to attract a gaggle of other demi-celebrities, and a whole host of ultrarich bankers, nightclub owners, entrepreneurs, music moguls, minor sports stars and other car enthusiasts willing to cough up the 6,000-pound ($8,700) entry fee, drive 600 miles each day, then stay up all night drinking and do it again every day for six days. Cooper, who appears on the Web site wearing tinted sunglasses and a red racing jacket, posing self-consciously Steve McQueen-esquely in front of a pair of Ferraris, told the London Times in 2000: "Gumball is about the mix of people we get -- you know, rock stars, racing drivers, models -- it's about the rock 'n' roll attitude." Gumball's already obnoxious social cachet is only swelling now that it has been adopted by ultracool Johnny "Jackass" Knoxville, who devoted a whole MTV special to last year's race from London to Russia and back again, documenting horrible hangovers, contiguous pan-European vomiting and high-speed wrecks expensive enough to finance years of food for entire starving villages of large-eyed children surrounded by flies. ** The Gumball 3000 rally: Yet another reason to hate the rich Depraved rock stars and party-hearty Playmates in overpowered Toadmobiles are our betters, and as they careen across America we must bow before their power. By Cintra Wilson April 27, 2002 | "Between Thurday April 25 - Tuesday April 30th 2002 the Gumball 3000 Rally will take part [sic] across the USA. ... From supermodel to rock star, racing driver to simple car enthusiast, the rally is a test of 3000 miles across the world's greatest Continent, [sic] punctuated by the wildest parties each evening!" -- From the Gumball3000.com Web site I always enjoy hearing tales of the Middle Ages, those glorious centuries when the upper classes had so little regard for the humanity of the peasants and townspeople that groups of elegant, spirited aristocrats would don dark clothing and masks, saddle up their prized Arabian stallions in the middle of the night and ride through town with polo-type mallets, merrily clubbing the brains out of any poor, luckless buggers who happened to be in their way. "Har har har!" they must have cried, swilling aged brandy from jeweled casks as they toweled the blood from their gloves with the flaxen hair of petrified local virgins. Ah, to be a powerful aristocrat, suffering no consequences for any actions, no matter how vile! Feeling no remorse or pangs of conscience whatsoever! Exercising the full extent of one's birthright to be an untouchable menace! What is money, after all, if one can't heartily enjoy buggering and impinging upon the rights of one's inferiors? Such brazen flexings of financial muscle are rare nowadays, but there still remains one glorious event in which the very rich get to treat the rest of mankind like cabbages or skeet. This year, America is the lucky host of the 4th annual cash-ejaculating orgy known as the Gumball 3000 Rally. Since 1999, zillionaire scofflaws have been terrorizing cities across Europe and Russia in a weeklong burn down the roadways in the finest and fastest cars money can buy, speeding outrageously, fucking everything, spinning donuts, laying patches, binge-drinking top-shelf liqueurs, soiling the sheets of venerable Chateaux, crashing frequently and buying their way out of trouble every mile along the way with the haughty devil-may-care insouciance that can only be assumed by gilded dirtbags who regard a flaming Ferrari in a ditch as an amusing tax write-off. When I think about you... I TOUCH MY ELF! - ebaynham.com "Har har har! Brigitta? Get my mechanic on the phone and tell him to have the Lamborghini ready for me in Munich. Here's another emerald thong-brooch for your trouble. Do pour us another round of gimlets from the titanium emergency bar. I say, what a hoot!" The Gumball 3000 began in 1999 when young British entrepreneur Maximillian Cooper, inspired by the Burt Reynolds vehicle "Cannonball Run," conceived of an elite six-day car race across Europe as a "private party for 50 of his closest friends." According to the Gumball3000.com Web site, his "private party" just happened to achieve "immediate notoriety and a somewhat 'cool' status," presumably because Cooper leaked to the press that Naomi Campbell would be among the original participants. She wasn't, but it didn't matter -- the belligerent rich and their supercars were enough to attract a gaggle of other demi-celebrities, and a whole host of ultrarich bankers, nightclub owners, entrepreneurs, music moguls, minor sports stars and other car enthusiasts willing to cough up the 6,000-pound ($8,700) entry fee, drive 600 miles each day, then stay up all night drinking and do it again every day for six days. Cooper, who appears on the Web site wearing tinted sunglasses and a red racing jacket, posing self-consciously Steve McQueen-esquely in front of a pair of Ferraris, told the London Times in 2000: "Gumball is about the mix of people we get -- you know, rock stars, racing drivers, models -- it's about the rock 'n' roll attitude." Gumball's already obnoxious social cachet is only swelling now that it has been adopted by ultracool Johnny "Jackass" Knoxville, who devoted a whole MTV special to last year's race from London to Russia and back again, documenting horrible hangovers, contiguous pan-European vomiting and high-speed wrecks expensive enough to finance years of food for entire starving villages of large-eyed children surrounded by flies. Other glitterati rumored to be participating this year are four former Playboy Playmates of the Year, wilting Hollywood machismo embodiments Nick Cage and Matt Dillon, tarnished waif Kate Moss, Caucasian soul-manufacturers Jamiroquoi and Fatboy Slim, and trend-spigot Spike Jonze, who is filming the whole thing for a feature film to be released next year, that more of the Great Unwashed might view the rarefied majesty of a bunch of superrich speed-worshipping douche bags gluttonously overgratifying their selfish and citizen-endangering urges, for no charitable cause or altruistic aim whatsoever. This year's Gumball began Thursday, April 25, at 7 p.m. Eastern time, as gazillions of dollars' worth of priapic speed machinery roared out of the garage of the posh Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. The grotesquely indulge-o-tronic caravan will avoid as many speeding tickets as possible (and painlessly throw sweaty bricks of cash at the unavoidable ones) while openly flouting traffic laws and cruising their über-priced land jets at speeds exceeding 200 mph on its way to tomorrow's checkpoint in Washington, D.C. (The Web site piously says, "The 'Gumball 3000' rally is not a race, and if you break the speed limits you are likely to end up in jail!!!" "Har har har! Worry not your tiny blond head, Brigitta, everyone knows that only Negroes go to jail. Now part your thighs so I can see the windshield.") They will then careen toward Graceland, threaten roads from there to the Grand Ol' Opry, then press hazardously on to the Santa Fe Desert Hotel, partying heedlessly all the while. From there, they hurtle en masse to a party with the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, then squeal off to a subsequent party in Las Vegas at one of Billy Richardson's hotels, before hopping back in their potentially child-killing machines to burn rubber, now half-blind with alcohol poisoning and sexual exhaustion, to the finish line at the corner of Hollywood and Highland, where they will collapse into a collective pile of cold sores, gout and other afflictions caused by ceaseless excess at the Hollywood Renaissance hotel. The after-party celebration is reportedly being held at the Playboy mansion. We can only guess how many will die en route; how many daughters will be impregnated and hurled out of Bentley windows; how many empty Dom Perignon bottles will be flung with tittering derision at the jaws of befuddled state troopers, and how many Guns N' Roses-style hotel-room befoulings these millionaires will wreak on frightened and exhausted service personnel nationwide, who must clean up their dreadful and unsanitary messes for $6.50 an hour to provide milk and used blankets for their children. I spoke to one of the participants at their launch party last night at the club "Lotus" in Manhattan's hip meat-packing district, while leaning against a Ferrari formula something-or-other that looked very important, with a lot of racing-type stickers on it. Doug Bauer, who holds some unspecified position of importance in the Legg Mason investment firm, is the driver of "the only Ruf R-Turbo One in the nation, probably." Bauer, who at 32 has the kind of glowing, innocent and walleyed child's face-on-a-man's-body that only the vampirically rich seem to have, says his car (which at $160,000 is the equivalent price of 8,000 child slaves on the black market) goes from zero to 60 in three seconds, and can get up to 225 mph. He believes he may be a contender for the "All Out Speed" competition to be held in the desert later in the race. "Got a girl in the car with you?" I asked. "One in every city," he remarked slyly, before excusing himself graciously to slide into a long black stretch limousine. We can only hope that bright, rich young men like Doug and his ilk will have a compassionate awakening toward those less privileged than themselves, and eventually be driven to dedicate the Gumball to fund-raising for the diseased and palsied orphan infants of the world. Until then, I suppose we will have to content ourselves with the knowledge that these intrepid racers will extend every effort to provide temporary transportation for the topless hitchhiking schoolgirls of America.

READ IT HERE!

READ IT HERE! "Har har har! Brigitta? Get my mechanic on the phone and tell him to have the Lamborghini ready for me in Munich. Here's another emerald thong-brooch for your trouble. Do pour us another round of gimlets from the titanium emergency bar. I say, what a hoot!" The Gumball 3000 began in 1999 when young British entrepreneur Maximillian Cooper, inspired by the Burt Reynolds vehicle "Cannonball Run," conceived of an elite six-day car race across Europe as a "private party for 50 of his closest friends." According to the Gumball3000.com Web site, his "private party" just happened to achieve "immediate notoriety and a somewhat 'cool' status," presumably because Cooper leaked to the press that Naomi Campbell would be among the original participants. She wasn't, but it didn't matter -- the belligerent rich and their supercars were enough to attract a gaggle of other demi-celebrities, and a whole host of ultrarich bankers, nightclub owners, entrepreneurs, music moguls, minor sports stars and other car enthusiasts willing to cough up the 6,000-pound ($8,700) entry fee, drive 600 miles each day, then stay up all night drinking and do it again every day for six days. Cooper, who appears on the Web site wearing tinted sunglasses and a red racing jacket, posing self-consciously Steve McQueen-esquely in front of a pair of Ferraris, told the London Times in 2000: "Gumball is about the mix of people we get -- you know, rock stars, racing drivers, models -- it's about the rock 'n' roll attitude." Gumball's already obnoxious social cachet is only swelling now that it has been adopted by ultracool Johnny "Jackass" Knoxville, who devoted a whole MTV special to last year's race from London to Russia and back again, documenting horrible hangovers, contiguous pan-European vomiting and high-speed wrecks expensive enough to finance years of food for entire starving villages of large-eyed children surrounded by flies. ** The Gumball 3000 rally: Yet another reason to hate the rich Depraved rock stars and party-hearty Playmates in overpowered Toadmobiles are our betters, and as they careen across America we must bow before their power. By Cintra Wilson April 27, 2002 | "Between Thurday April 25 - Tuesday April 30th 2002 the Gumball 3000 Rally will take part [sic] across the USA. ... From supermodel to rock star, racing driver to simple car enthusiast, the rally is a test of 3000 miles across the world's greatest Continent, [sic] punctuated by the wildest parties each evening!" -- From the Gumball3000.com Web site I always enjoy hearing tales of the Middle Ages, those glorious centuries when the upper classes had so little regard for the humanity of the peasants and townspeople that groups of elegant, spirited aristocrats would don dark clothing and masks, saddle up their prized Arabian stallions in the middle of the night and ride through town with polo-type mallets, merrily clubbing the brains out of any poor, luckless buggers who happened to be in their way. "Har har har!" they must have cried, swilling aged brandy from jeweled casks as they toweled the blood from their gloves with the flaxen hair of petrified local virgins. Ah, to be a powerful aristocrat, suffering no consequences for any actions, no matter how vile! Feeling no remorse or pangs of conscience whatsoever! Exercising the full extent of one's birthright to be an untouchable menace! What is money, after all, if one can't heartily enjoy buggering and impinging upon the rights of one's inferiors? Such brazen flexings of financial muscle are rare nowadays, but there still remains one glorious event in which the very rich get to treat the rest of mankind like cabbages or skeet. This year, America is the lucky host of the 4th annual cash-ejaculating orgy known as the Gumball 3000 Rally. Since 1999, zillionaire scofflaws have been terrorizing cities across Europe and Russia in a weeklong burn down the roadways in the finest and fastest cars money can buy, speeding outrageously, fucking everything, spinning donuts, laying patches, binge-drinking top-shelf liqueurs, soiling the sheets of venerable Chateaux, crashing frequently and buying their way out of trouble every mile along the way with the haughty devil-may-care insouciance that can only be assumed by gilded dirtbags who regard a flaming Ferrari in a ditch as an amusing tax write-off. When I think about you... I TOUCH MY ELF! - ebaynham.com "Har har har! Brigitta? Get my mechanic on the phone and tell him to have the Lamborghini ready for me in Munich. Here's another emerald thong-brooch for your trouble. Do pour us another round of gimlets from the titanium emergency bar. I say, what a hoot!" The Gumball 3000 began in 1999 when young British entrepreneur Maximillian Cooper, inspired by the Burt Reynolds vehicle "Cannonball Run," conceived of an elite six-day car race across Europe as a "private party for 50 of his closest friends." According to the Gumball3000.com Web site, his "private party" just happened to achieve "immediate notoriety and a somewhat 'cool' status," presumably because Cooper leaked to the press that Naomi Campbell would be among the original participants. She wasn't, but it didn't matter -- the belligerent rich and their supercars were enough to attract a gaggle of other demi-celebrities, and a whole host of ultrarich bankers, nightclub owners, entrepreneurs, music moguls, minor sports stars and other car enthusiasts willing to cough up the 6,000-pound ($8,700) entry fee, drive 600 miles each day, then stay up all night drinking and do it again every day for six days. Cooper, who appears on the Web site wearing tinted sunglasses and a red racing jacket, posing self-consciously Steve McQueen-esquely in front of a pair of Ferraris, told the London Times in 2000: "Gumball is about the mix of people we get -- you know, rock stars, racing drivers, models -- it's about the rock 'n' roll attitude." Gumball's already obnoxious social cachet is only swelling now that it has been adopted by ultracool Johnny "Jackass" Knoxville, who devoted a whole MTV special to last year's race from London to Russia and back again, documenting horrible hangovers, contiguous pan-European vomiting and high-speed wrecks expensive enough to finance years of food for entire starving villages of large-eyed children surrounded by flies. Other glitterati rumored to be participating this year are four former Playboy Playmates of the Year, wilting Hollywood machismo embodiments Nick Cage and Matt Dillon, tarnished waif Kate Moss, Caucasian soul-manufacturers Jamiroquoi and Fatboy Slim, and trend-spigot Spike Jonze, who is filming the whole thing for a feature film to be released next year, that more of the Great Unwashed might view the rarefied majesty of a bunch of superrich speed-worshipping douche bags gluttonously overgratifying their selfish and citizen-endangering urges, for no charitable cause or altruistic aim whatsoever. This year's Gumball began Thursday, April 25, at 7 p.m. Eastern time, as gazillions of dollars' worth of priapic speed machinery roared out of the garage of the posh Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. The grotesquely indulge-o-tronic caravan will avoid as many speeding tickets as possible (and painlessly throw sweaty bricks of cash at the unavoidable ones) while openly flouting traffic laws and cruising their über-priced land jets at speeds exceeding 200 mph on its way to tomorrow's checkpoint in Washington, D.C. (The Web site piously says, "The 'Gumball 3000' rally is not a race, and if you break the speed limits you are likely to end up in jail!!!" "Har har har! Worry not your tiny blond head, Brigitta, everyone knows that only Negroes go to jail. Now part your thighs so I can see the windshield.") They will then careen toward Graceland, threaten roads from there to the Grand Ol' Opry, then press hazardously on to the Santa Fe Desert Hotel, partying heedlessly all the while. From there, they hurtle en masse to a party with the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, then squeal off to a subsequent party in Las Vegas at one of Billy Richardson's hotels, before hopping back in their potentially child-killing machines to burn rubber, now half-blind with alcohol poisoning and sexual exhaustion, to the finish line at the corner of Hollywood and Highland, where they will collapse into a collective pile of cold sores, gout and other afflictions caused by ceaseless excess at the Hollywood Renaissance hotel. The after-party celebration is reportedly being held at the Playboy mansion. We can only guess how many will die en route; how many daughters will be impregnated and hurled out of Bentley windows; how many empty Dom Perignon bottles will be flung with tittering derision at the jaws of befuddled state troopers, and how many Guns N' Roses-style hotel-room befoulings these millionaires will wreak on frightened and exhausted service personnel nationwide, who must clean up their dreadful and unsanitary messes for $6.50 an hour to provide milk and used blankets for their children. I spoke to one of the participants at their launch party last night at the club "Lotus" in Manhattan's hip meat-packing district, while leaning against a Ferrari formula something-or-other that looked very important, with a lot of racing-type stickers on it. Doug Bauer, who holds some unspecified position of importance in the Legg Mason investment firm, is the driver of "the only Ruf R-Turbo One in the nation, probably." Bauer, who at 32 has the kind of glowing, innocent and walleyed child's face-on-a-man's-body that only the vampirically rich seem to have, says his car (which at $160,000 is the equivalent price of 8,000 child slaves on the black market) goes from zero to 60 in three seconds, and can get up to 225 mph. He believes he may be a contender for the "All Out Speed" competition to be held in the desert later in the race. "Got a girl in the car with you?" I asked. "One in every city," he remarked slyly, before excusing himself graciously to slide into a long black stretch limousine. We can only hope that bright, rich young men like Doug and his ilk will have a compassionate awakening toward those less privileged than themselves, and eventually be driven to dedicate the Gumball to fund-raising for the diseased and palsied orphan infants of the world. Until then, I suppose we will have to content ourselves with the knowledge that these intrepid racers will extend every effort to provide temporary transportation for the topless hitchhiking schoolgirls of America.

READ IT HERE!

I oppose Amazon.com's 1-Click Patent
As one of the founding programmers at Amazon.com, I was very dismayed to learn
of the company's legal attempts to enforce its 1-Click (TM) patent. ...
www.op.net/~pbd/amazon-1click.html - 4k - Cached - Similar pages

Amazon, Barnes&Noble settle patent suit - Tech News - CNET.com
... The story behind Amazon's 1-Click patent Mark Grant, author, Law
and the Internet Play clip. Amazon.com said Wednesday that it ...
news.com.com/2100-1017-854105.html - 27k - Cached - Similar pages

Apple - Media & Analyst Information - Press Releases
Apple Licenses Amazon.com 1-Click Patent and Trademark. New Apple Online
Store with 1-Click Shopping Premieres Today CUPERTINO, California ...
www.apple.com/pr/library/2000/sep/18amazon.html - 11k - Dec. 12, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages

Salon Technology | Amazon to world: We control how many times you ...
... The 1-Click patent suits suggest that the company is forsaking this understanding
for a more conventional, bare-knuckles corporate strategy. ...
www.salon.com/tech/log/1999/12/21/bezos/ - 23k - Dec. 12, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages

www.oreilly.com -- Ask Tim! -- Software Patents Issue
... At the same time, I completely agree with RMS that the Amazon 1-Click Patent
is one more example of an intellectual property milieu gone mad. ...
Description: The founder of O'Reilly & Associates (the top computer manual publisher) criticizes Amazon's attempt...
Category: Society>Issues>IntellectualProperty>Paten ts
www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/amazon_patent.html - 20k - Cached - Similar pages

Amazon's 1-Click Patent Survives Bounty Hunt
Amazon's 1-Click Patent Survives Bounty Hunt By Elizabeth Wasserman Issue Date: Mar
15 2001 No one wins the prize for invalidating the e-retailer's patent for ...
www.thestandard.com/article/display/ 0,1151,22862,00.html - 32k - Dec. 12, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages

1 Click Results!
1-Click Patent: No Exact Match But Runners Up Will Split $10,000 Cash Prize. ... Read
Runners Up Profiles>>. History of the 1-Click Patent Conflict. ...
www.bountyquest.com/infocenter/1click.htm - 15k - Dec. 12, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages

allNetDevices: - OpenTV Claims 1-Click Patent
... OpenTV Claims 1-Click Patent. Latest News. ...
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Amazon Loses Round in 1-Click Patent Case
Amazon Loses Round in 1-Click Patent Case ...
www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/7528.html - 10k - Dec. 12, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages

It's an old article, but her math is spot on, based on my experiences and what I've heard from other musicians that have had major label contracts.

Sorry for the anon. coward, can't find me password...

Courtney Love Does the Math

For all of these creative artists, most laboring in obscurity, being well-enough known to be pirated would be a crowning achievement. Piracy is a kind of progressive taxation, which may shave a few percentage points off the sales of well-known artists (and I say "may" because even that point is not proven), in exchange for massive benefits to the far greater number for whom exposure may lead to increased revenues.

A few weeks ago, I wrote Microsoft Mac FUD, Phooey, complaining about Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit head Kevin Browne's comments on the eve of Macworld.

This is such a despicable tactic. Microsoft embraced Apple and gave them funding at the height of the antitrust investigation, as a way of sustaining the idea that there was still competition in the market. Now that Apple's back on their feet, and OS X is giving them a run for the money, they pull out of the market. This decision may end up as badly for Microsoft's Office division as Lotus' decision to skip Windows.

Hackers and "alpha geeks" push the envelope, start to use the new technology, and get more out of their systems long before ordinary users even know what's possible.

A good example that's still a bit far out, but that I'm confident is significant. I held a summit of peer-to-peer networking developers, and when we were sitting around having a beer afterwards, a young FreeNet developer said to Kevin Lenzo (who was there because of his early work on IRC infobots): "You sound familiar."

Kevin mentioned that he was the developer of festvox, an open source speech synthesis package, and that he was the source of one of the voices distributed with the package. "Oh, that's why. I listen to you all the time. I pipe IRC to festival so I can listen to it in the background when I'm coding."

Now I'll guarantee that lots of people will routinely be converting text to speech in a few years, and I know it because the hackers are already doing it. It's been possible for a long time, but now it's ripening toward the mainstream.

" ... I know several who have started using Darwin on Intel hardware as there[sic] Unix underpinnings of choice ... "

Todd Hoff writes:

I'm a Windows-only user and I plan to switch to the Mac on my next purchase because of XP's DRM approach. Using XP would be like voluntarily entering a jail cell and closing the door.

From an interface perspective, I don't find the Mac superior.

Amen to your DRM concerns. Apple has been relatively more enlightened on the subject of DRM, recognizing that most users are fundamentally honest, and unwilling to support the extreme position of fear-mongering media executives.

When industry gets handed lemons on this scale, it has no choice but to turn them into marketing. A common reckoning is that one-third of software is used illegally, but not every theft represents a lost sale. If economic theory has any claim on the real world, Microsoft's pricing should naturally gravitate toward producing an optimum amount of theft. That is, thieves who wouldn't use the product if they had to pay for it, but who might become future customers or who become part of a network of users that makes the software more valuable to legitimate buyers.
...
A sore subject at its antitrust trial, for instance, was Microsoft's practice of awarding large discounts to computer makers who bought a Windows license for every machine they shipped, whether or not Windows was actually loaded. This was supposed to be proof of monopolistic intent, but the only real competitor for Windows is a Windows bootleg. Microsoft's pricing strategy was designed to induce customers not to steal.
...
The entertainment industry is still getting used to the idea that anybody who wants to take the trouble can get its products for free. But as Microsoft has been showing for years, that's no excuse for not making bundles of money.