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Agreed. More of the endless flood of trollish, completely dishonest reporting which is constantly being pushed on /. these days.

Maybe itwbennet saw Florian Mueller doing it, figured he had to somehow be making a lot of money or else he would have stopped it, and decided to jump on the money train.

(Or blogger Kevin Foggarty, or the president of HTC. Not really sure who came up with it, to find out, I'd have to RTFA, and if it has that FUD in there, I don't want to bother.)

I can't find the thread that I was thinking about, but here are a pair of pages about this:

This one from Techrights contain a lot of links about the matter:
http://techrights.org/2010/06/29/ibm-paranoia/

Here is another one:
http://slushdot.com/article.php?story=20100628001225597

Although his most recent FUD campaign is against Android, clearly it is not his first FUD campaign.

They asked IBM what patents the emulator might be infringing, and IBM gave them a list, as requested. From that, all of a sudden they were screaming "IBM is going to sue us for infringement", showing the response from IBM as if it were something IBM sent them out of the blue, rather than a response to their own question.

IBM only reacted to the attempts to monetize the Hercules emulator by Roger Bowler, and btw, what Bowler wanted to do is both a licensing and a copyright violation. You simply don't have a right to run multiple copies of an OS when you've only paid for one - and the Hercules emulator needs to run on top of a copy of IBMs OS. It's like saying you have the right to run an extra copy of Windows or OSX so you can run a terminal emulator.

Mueller and a few others were making libelous claims against IBM on groklaw and a lot of other sites. On groklaw, the policy is simple - no swearing, no using *** to hide swearing, such as b*tch or sh*t, etc., and outright lies will probably get you the boot.

In the case of the Hercules emulator, which runs on top of IBMs operating system, there is no doubt that what Bowler want to do (and what Mueller is claiming should be allowed) is a copyright violation. You don't have a right to take your copy of the operating system and install a second copy (never mind a whole slew of copies) of it to run on other machines while "in recovery mode" - ie: a term they coined to try to give legitimacy to making extra copies of the OS.

more details.

I don't disagree. I've been saying for a couple days now that Free TV is dying, to be replaced by a pay-to-see model. And now this guy comes out with this:

Free TV is not dead. Get a $20 antenna, and you can get nice 1920x1080 HD TV off the air for *gasp* free.

People who don;t remember history are doomed to repeat it.

Back in the previous century, people were claiming that the Internet would have to go to a paid-content model because there was no way that it could remain free. It's still mostly free, because any time that someone tries to erect a pay-wall, someone else says "here's my chance to take away their customers."

What would happen tomorrow if 99% of all web sites went to a paywall? The 1% that didn't would replace them as THE top sites within a day.

It's the same thing with anything else, including mobile apps. The free ones are often better than the paid ones, and the price is right.

The article is wishful thinking ... just like Kevin McBride, when he says

Software should not be "free." In this new day and age of corporate control of the world, IP rights are an important barrier of protection that help the little guy. Big companies mostly don't need IP rights, because they can get their way through force and market power. Small companies and individual developers need strong IP rights so the fruits of their labor are not commoditized by big companies. ...

ChinAmerica - part 2

Guess who now has the second-most IP addresses in the world? China. And they have more people with cell phones than the entire US population - and that number is increasing. Put up too many pay-walls, and China and India, which together have more than 1/3 the worlds' population, will p0wn your ass!

Don't think it can happen? GM already sells more cars in China than in the US.

I've never done that (replaced a url with another) in my life - nice try. Next time, try to be at least a bit more credible by not posting as a lying A.C.
--
Leaked SCO code comparisons

Even with the specific allegations being invalid, it's a valid point that you could do that.

Would you mind satisfying my curiosity as to why you're using your sig to post the link rather than putting it in comment text?

"In a blog post dated July 10th, 2010, Kevin McBride has leaked almost 50 of the code comparisons that were submitted in evidence in SCO vs Novell. You can download the archive.

Read on to view individual files if you don't want to download the whole thing.

Linux STREAMS

We also learned that the whole STREAMS fuss was not about linux, but about a product distributed by gcom, a provider of legacy solutions.

Their Linux STREAMS (LiS) product provides a couple of loadable drivers that would intercept calls to the old streams api and convert them. In other words, far from the allegations that the linux kernel contained code that infringed streams, it's evident from the need of an add-on loadable module that the linux kernel does not contain any STREAMS code.

Of particular note, and probably a source of much consternation to SCO and their proponents, is that LiS itself doesn't implement streams either, just does protocol translation. So neither linux nor LiS contains infringing code.

The whole end-user $699 license was a scam

In my view, contract violations by IBM would not result in liabilities by other Linux users.

So according to Kevin McBride, one of the lawyers who worked on the case, there was no reason for end users to take out a license. It's logical to conclude that SCOsource was a protection scam. So what happened? To me, it looks like SCO lawyer-shopped until they found attorneys who were willing to go along with the scheme for a price - everyone has their price, and in this case, it was $30,000,000.00.

The Appeal of SCO's loss to Novell - Novell will probably win.

Will Novell win the current SCO appeal? Probably. Will Novell donate the UNIX copyrights to the Linux community if it wins the current appeal? Probably-although Novell's Linux activities have been difficult to predict in recent years.

So it's pretty much as we suspected all along.

"In a blog post dated July 10th, 2010, Kevin McBride has leaked almost 50 of the code comparisons that were submitted in evidence in SCO vs Novell. You can download the archive.

Read on to view individual files if you don't want to download the whole thing.

Linux STREAMS

We also learned that the whole STREAMS fuss was not about linux, but about a product distributed by gcom, a provider of legacy solutions.

Their Linux STREAMS (LiS) product provides a couple of loadable drivers that would intercept calls to the old streams api and convert them. In other words, far from the allegations that the linux kernel contained code that infringed streams, it's evident from the need of an add-on loadable module that the linux kernel does not contain any STREAMS code.

Of particular note, and probably a source of much consternation to SCO and their proponents, is that LiS itself doesn't implement streams either, just does protocol translation. So neither linux nor LiS contains infringing code.

The whole end-user $699 license was a scam

In my view, contract violations by IBM would not result in liabilities by other Linux users.

So according to Kevin McBride, one of the lawyers who worked on the case, there was no reason for end users to take out a license. It's logical to conclude that SCOsource was a protection scam. So what happened? To me, it looks like SCO lawyer-shopped until they found attorneys who were willing to go along with the scheme for a price - everyone has their price, and in this case, it was $30,000,000.00.

The Appeal of SCO's loss to Novell - Novell will probably win.

Will Novell win the current SCO appeal? Probably. Will Novell donate the UNIX copyrights to the Linux community if it wins the current appeal? Probably-although Novell's Linux activities have been difficult to predict in recent years.

So it's pretty much as we suspected all along.

Make no mistake about it folks - Muller/Mueller is a shill.

This is the same lobbyist who helped delay the Oracle rescue of Sun. The delay cost 3,000 additional jobs over and above the 6,000 that were originally slated.

This is the same lobbyist who is trying to pull a Darl McBride on IBM for Turbo Hercules - and who "complained to the establishment" when slashdotters down-modded his bullsh*t.

This is the same lobbyist who is now threatening to "expose" groklaw because astroturfers got the boot.

His latest lie? He's now saying that I've claimed he's a Microsoft shill. I've never said anything one way or another on that topic. His tin-foil hat is too tight - or he can't keep his lies straight.

He's no friend of the community.

This court ruling was a win. To say this:

It clearly favors an expansive patent system, assuming that new technologies must fall within the scope of patentable subject matter unless there's legislation that sets limits

flies against reality.

So why does Mueller continue to lie and spread fud? It's what he does - he's a lobbyist. Not a programmer.

Make no mistake about it folks - Muller/Mueller is a shill.

This is the same lobbyist who helped delay the Oracle rescue of Sun. The delay cost 3,000 additional jobs over and above the 6,000 that were originally slated.

This is the same lobbyist who is trying to pull a Darl McBride on IBM for Turbo Hercules - and who "complained to the establishment" when slashdotters down-modded his bullsh*t.

This is the same lobbyist who is now threatening to "expose" groklaw because astroturfers got the boot.

His latest lie? He's now saying that I've claimed he's a Microsoft shill. I've never said anything one way or another on that topic. His tin-foil hat is too tight - or he can't keep his lies straight.

He's no friend of the community.

This court ruling was a win. To say this:

It clearly favors an expansive patent system, assuming that new technologies must fall within the scope of patentable subject matter unless there's legislation that sets limits

flies against reality.

So why does Mueller continue to lie and spread fud? It's what he does - he's a lobbyist. Not a programmer.

You forgot us normal programmers, free software guys or not. Who wants to come up with a neat design, get himself or his company into trouble for it, and be forced to go back and tear out that neat design again?

That's because Mueller doesn't give 2 shits about normal programmers, or free software, except when it's convenient for him. Remember, he tried to pull a McBride on Oracle to get them to cave into the crybaby former owner of MySql (the money lost in delaying the Oracle rescue of Sun is that much money that won't be available for supporting programmers)

Major database players, including HP and IBM, have already reportedly taken advantage of the delay to win over customers from Sun.

In the meantime, Sun continues its downward spiral. Late Tuesday, the company confirmed that it would lay off another 3,000 employees, about 10 percent of its total workforce, over the next year. This latest round is in addition to 6,000 jobs cuts announced almost a year ago as part of the company's restructuring plan.

That's 3,000 people who lost jobs in part because of assholes like Nueller/Muller.

and he's now trying to pull a McBride on IBM on behalf of his buddies at Turbo Hercules .

And also he wants to "expose" groklaw because they exposed the Turbo Hercules FUD for what it was.

3,000 jobs. This is not someone who cares about programmers. This is someone who cares about being a lobbyist - and you can be sure he's looking out for #1.

You forgot us normal programmers, free software guys or not. Who wants to come up with a neat design, get himself or his company into trouble for it, and be forced to go back and tear out that neat design again?

That's because Mueller doesn't give 2 shits about normal programmers, or free software, except when it's convenient for him. Remember, he tried to pull a McBride on Oracle to get them to cave into the crybaby former owner of MySql (the money lost in delaying the Oracle rescue of Sun is that much money that won't be available for supporting programmers)

Major database players, including HP and IBM, have already reportedly taken advantage of the delay to win over customers from Sun.

In the meantime, Sun continues its downward spiral. Late Tuesday, the company confirmed that it would lay off another 3,000 employees, about 10 percent of its total workforce, over the next year. This latest round is in addition to 6,000 jobs cuts announced almost a year ago as part of the company's restructuring plan.

That's 3,000 people who lost jobs in part because of assholes like Nueller/Muller.

and he's now trying to pull a McBride on IBM on behalf of his buddies at Turbo Hercules .

And also he wants to "expose" groklaw because they exposed the Turbo Hercules FUD for what it was.

3,000 jobs. This is not someone who cares about programmers. This is someone who cares about being a lobbyist - and you can be sure he's looking out for #1.

Here, I'll say it again. Florian Mueller is a liar. He got caught. People moderated him accordingly.

The best part? the more I look, the more I find to debunk. I'm not letting this go, because this guy is toxic to F/LOSS.

Just because a feature is there doesn't mean it's necessarily wise to use it. Most well-run communities and websites avoid this kind of highly disruptive account removal for everything short of one-shot accounts created purely for entirely unrelated commercial spam. In fact, many avoid it even then. What's more, there's plausible suggestions those running Groklaw are aware that other options are available and have used them to quietly disable well-known accounts whose total removal would draw too much community attention.

You're so paranoid it isn't funny. Here's what really happened. Maynard made an ass of himself. He got his account locked. Tough.

To the contrary, its so effective that all sites should adopt it. Since it's so effective that I'm going to write up generic code so that anyone who wants to incorporate that sort of feature in their site can. Screw the spammers.

when he tried to troll slashdot this weekend and got called on it

Two slight issues. Firstly, he made actual, reasonable claims and a consistent argument based on these claims. (You may not agree with them, but they're not exactly spectacularly unusual.) Secondly, none of the comments by you have actually taken on any of these claims.

Florian Mueller lied. He got caught lying. He tried to weasel-word his way out. Nobody was buying it. Unlike politicians or "industry analysts", there are plenty of us on slashdot who know he's lost it. What a n00b.

He couldn't accept that people are just fed up with his attempts to insert himself into issues for all the wrong reasons.

Someone upset that you're spreading bogus FUD about him being part of a Secret Microsoft Conspiracy? How shocking. I've seen Secret Microsoft Conspiracies, and this supposed conspiracy has the small issue that it's not actually in their interests at all. Indeed, Florian appears to be in support of a whole bunch of stuff that's subtly but indirectly harmful to their strategic goals, like stronger anti-trust enforcement and undermining software patents.

Where have I said that? You're such a liar.

The "conspiracy" that I see is two-fold:

1. Mueller spreads FUD and lies as part of his agenda of self-promotion
2. Mueller spreads FUD and lies to try to get an advantage for those he works with/for

As far as I'm concerned, and I know I'm not alone, Mueller's actions wrt Oracle/Sun could best be characterized as a "buy us out" attempt, same as SCO tried with IBM, same as Turbo Hercules with IBM.

As for his claims to be FOSS-friendly, I'll be debunking them. Hang around - you might decide to change sides.

Just because a feature is there doesn't mean it's necessarily wise to use it. Most well-run communities and websites avoid this kind of highly disruptive account removal for everything short of one-shot accounts created purely for entirely unrelated commercial spam. In fact, many avoid it even then. What's more, there's plausible suggestions those running Groklaw are aware that other options are available and have used them to quietly disable well-known accounts whose total removal would draw too much community attention.

You're so paranoid it isn't funny. Here's what really happened. Maynard made an ass of himself. He got his account locked. Tough.

To the contrary, its so effective that all sites should adopt it. Since it's so effective that I'm going to write up generic code so that anyone who wants to incorporate that sort of feature in their site can. Screw the spammers.

when he tried to troll slashdot this weekend and got called on it

Two slight issues. Firstly, he made actual, reasonable claims and a consistent argument based on these claims. (You may not agree with them, but they're not exactly spectacularly unusual.) Secondly, none of the comments by you have actually taken on any of these claims.

Florian Mueller lied. He got caught lying. He tried to weasel-word his way out. Nobody was buying it. Unlike politicians or "industry analysts", there are plenty of us on slashdot who know he's lost it. What a n00b.

He couldn't accept that people are just fed up with his attempts to insert himself into issues for all the wrong reasons.

Someone upset that you're spreading bogus FUD about him being part of a Secret Microsoft Conspiracy? How shocking. I've seen Secret Microsoft Conspiracies, and this supposed conspiracy has the small issue that it's not actually in their interests at all. Indeed, Florian appears to be in support of a whole bunch of stuff that's subtly but indirectly harmful to their strategic goals, like stronger anti-trust enforcement and undermining software patents.

Where have I said that? You're such a liar.

The "conspiracy" that I see is two-fold:

1. Mueller spreads FUD and lies as part of his agenda of self-promotion
2. Mueller spreads FUD and lies to try to get an advantage for those he works with/for

As far as I'm concerned, and I know I'm not alone, Mueller's actions wrt Oracle/Sun could best be characterized as a "buy us out" attempt, same as SCO tried with IBM, same as Turbo Hercules with IBM.

As for his claims to be FOSS-friendly, I'll be debunking them. Hang around - you might decide to change sides.

After all, you were buying into the whole bullshit of "when a user is deleted their comments are assigned to the anonymous user it must be a plot", which indicates someone who is incredibly naive when it comes to managing linked lists (which is what comments are).

Or like your whining about the way people down-modded you.

I have complained to /. management over this organized misuse of mod points and hijacking of a neutral, opinion-forming platform (which is what /. has been for a long time) by another community that certainly has a lot of overlap (hence they have mod points here).

You really are new here. Only a couple of hundred posts, and you expect that people won't don-mod you when you spout FUD. BTW - where does it say that slashdot is a "neutral, opinion-forming platform"? Your misuse of words like neutral and non-discriminatory will be the subject of a future story - just letting you know :-) There is no such thing as neutral, and the slashdot crowd certainly makes no claim to being neutral.

Also, if I were them, I'd block lying pieces of crap and astro-turfers too. This is not "censorship" any more than it would be if the Jewish Defense League refuses to print the KKK's manifesto. In the end, the site editor is the final authority. Don't like it, start your own. That's what freedom of speech is about - the right for you to start your own, not the obligation for anyone else to help you or even listen to you.

If you actually get around to setting up a copy of geeklog, you'll find that there's a cookie variable just for the user IP. Don't take my word for it - try it.

1. log in as the administrator
2. click on "configuration"
3. click on "Geeklog Configuration"
4. See the 8th item - "Cookies embed IP"

You can even read about it in the online documentation

Now scroll down a bit further on the document page - Miscellaneous: IP Lookup. There's a lot more that can be done with that.

For example, to keep trolls and spammers from realizing that their posts are now hidden from regular users, a pseudo-select statement would be "SELECT comments FROM comment_table WHERE story_id=$story_id AND deleted = 0 OR client_ip=$client_ip",

It's the same "mark records for deletion but don't really delete them until the table is packed" as used by dBASE way back in the 80s.

Anyone can implement this with with any cms with a bit of work. It doesn't suddenly make it nefarious - it lowers the amount of repeat spamming and astroturfing, because when astroturfers realize that nobody is getting their message, they go elsewhere.

So, like I said at the beginning, go for it. I'll be watching.

Please get your facts at least a little straight.

Firstly, due to the way they've set up the site, when a user's account is terminated for disagreeing they effectively become an unperson: all their past comments are retroactively attributed to Anonymous.

There's nothing nefarious about that - every geeklog installation works that way. So do many other content management systems. Download a copy and try it.

Secondly, they have been known to block people for disagreement in such a way that they can't tell they've been blocked - as far as they can see, their comments are still there and visible.

Again, nothing nefarious. This is an anti-spam provision. Spammer posts some spam, you delete it, but because it's tied to an IP, when they go to check up on their spam, it's "still there" so they don't re-post over and over and over. Then, because their spam apparently is bringing 0 results, they go elsewhere.

Thirdly, any comment asking about or commenting on a ban is removed, so if you just read Groklaw you never hear about any of this.

Having to explain it would clue in the more clueless spammers ... but since it's not unique, it's no big deal to mention it here.

The real story is Florian Mueller's latest FUD campaign hits a brick wall, when he tried to troll slashdot this weekend and got called on it, then started whining. He couldn't accept that people are just fed up with his attempts to insert himself into issues for all the wrong reasons.

Florian Mueller fails at trolling slashdot yesterday:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/06/25/149228/Open-Source-Complaint-Against-IBM-Gets-Support

Read about how Florian Mueller is a whiny crybaby who can't believe that everyone is against him and that it must be a plot by IBM and groklaw.

Or read this more detailed list of some of the critiques of his current FUD campaign.

Florian Mueller - the "other" Darl McBride. Even the two Steves are more credible when it comes to Open Source.

Do you, to the extent technically feasible, encrypt all PI records and files that are transmitted across public networks, and that are to be transmitted wirelessly?

How are you going to send your email - USPS?

follow the linky at the bottom

In the end it doesn't matter - the law is unconstitutionally vague because its definition of "Financial account" can be made to cover anything, including a laundry stub, your slashdot account, or anything esle.

And $100 is expensive.

But there's more:

Seagate Technology is selling a device that enables movies stored on hard drives to be played on television sets for $130.

I can buy an LG Blu-ray player that plays back movies stored on external hard drives and usb keys for a buck less. Seagate must be stocking up on K-Y jelly.

The actual figure is 92.5% - and not just for $100 bills eithr.

Zuo, who spoke about his research at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society on Sunday, found that $5, $10, $20 and $50 bills were more likely to be positive for cocaine than $1 bills.

"Probably $1 is a little too less to purchase cocaine," Zuo said "I don't know exactly [why]. It's an educated guess."

Cocaine binds to the green dye in money, he said.

In 1998, Negrusz published similar findings after comparing freshly printed dollar bills that were not released to the public and money collected from a suburb near Chicago, Illinois. In the study, 92.8 percent of the bills from the public had traces of cocaine, but the uncirculated bills tested negative.

"Imagine a bank teller who's working with cash-counting machine in the basement of the bank," Negrusz said. "Many of those bills, over 90 percent, are contaminated with cocaine. There is cocaine dust around the machines. These bank tellers breathe in cocaine. Cocaine gets into system, and you can test positive for cocaine. ... That's what's behind this whole thing that triggered testing money for drugs."

So, drug dealers feel good about counting coke-laden bills.

Cops feel good pocket^H^H^H^H^H^Hcounting coke-laden bills.

Bank tellers feel good breathing in the drug dust from coke-laden bills.

Spammers don't hide behind private domains

Your statement isn't true. As an example, yesterdays' spam - that wasn't sent by a botnet.

Second, for the spam that IS sent by a botnet, you'll see that it tries to send people to specific sites. Those sites are the ones you want the whois information for. Often, they're hiding (like yesterdays) behind bogus throw-away email addresses (such as, in yesterday's case, gmail accounts).

Sure, you'll get a few phone calls - that's what call display is for. And with the new Do Not Call list, such calls net the caller an $11,000 fine. Haven't gotten one since I put my number on the list, so even if they harvest the phone number, they can't use it.

Sure, you'll also get a bit more spam - so what? If forcing all registration info to be valid and verifiable, we cut down on the overall amount of spam, you'd be way ahead.

It's all part of the responsibility of hosting a domain legitimately. Instead of complaining, why not take a few minutes a day to track down one spammer and send their upstream providers a complaint, complete with the necessary info to take action, and write about it? Be part of the solution, instead of complaining that nothing can be done to stop it at the source.

Can't see how he could make it illegal

They're the government - give them time. They think that passing laws to make it illegal should be good and sufficient to keep the riff-raff and the great unwashed masses in thrall.

That's why Australia is the New "Hotel California" - you can try to check out any time you like, but you can never leave ...

Barack Obama
Dmitry Medvedev

GNOME is just jealous that they could be more popular if they just made it look and work more like KDE.

Seriously ... look at the difference between the fugliness that is Ubuntu (even with the new "blight" look), and the KDE variant. If they want to fix Ubuntu's visual problems once and for all, they should just do this. Because going from Halloween Orange-and-Black to "Rotting Eggplant" might be a change, but it's not much of an improvement

GNOME is just jealous that they could be more popular if they just made it look and work more like KDE.

Seriously ... look at the difference between the fugliness that is Ubuntu (even with the new "blight" look), and the KDE variant. If they want to fix Ubuntu's visual problems once and for all, they should just do this. Because going from Halloween Orange-and-Black to "Rotting Eggplant" might be a change, but it's not much of an improvement

They came first for the iPhones but I didn't speak up for I was too hip for an iPhone And then they came for the iPads, And I didn't speak up because they are completely different markets. And then . . . they came for Mac OS. . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

Well, now that the Apple iPhone To Get Same Features As Windows 3.0 20 Years Ago, maybe it's time to switch to a system that is truly both free and libre ... just use any Window Manager other than GNOME.

No wonder Apple killed the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads ... nothing left to steal from each other (just JOKING ... kind of ... :-)

They came first for the iPhones but I didn't speak up for I was too hip for an iPhone And then they came for the iPads, And I didn't speak up because they are completely different markets. And then . . . they came for Mac OS. . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

Well, now that the Apple iPhone To Get Same Features As Windows 3.0 20 Years Ago, maybe it's time to switch to a system that is truly both free and libre ... just use any Window Manager other than GNOME.

No wonder Apple killed the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads ... nothing left to steal from each other (just JOKING ... kind of ... :-)

No problem. But first, a demonstration of how useful whois info is for tracking down spammers,

All my info has been on "TeH InnerT00bZ" since I registered my first domain back in 1994.

While I'm a big advocate of privacy rights, I also think that hosting a domain is a public action, and needs to be directly tied to someone who will be physically accountable for their actions.

You have a face that's publicly viewable when you go on the street - and you don't have the right to wear a mask to hide it, What's the problem with that?

Where the heck did you get that idea? Look Comrade, this is still America and I am still free. If I want to wear a costume mask outside of Halloween it is my RIGHT TO DO SO.

Why? Because they're are no laws prohibiting me from doing so.

Do you want to put money on that? Several states say otherwise (and that doesn't count municipal laws to the same effect)

http://www.anapsid.org/cnd/mcs/maskcodes.html

Now, back to fighting spam by using whois information - here's today's spammer exposed. They keep sending out crap claiming to be from Lennar Homes ... hopefully their host - marliness.net - will do something about it.

Spammers need a legit server to receive those clicks. See how I tracked down one spammer half an hour ago to learn more.

Pay particular attention to the section around the "Directory Listing Denied" segment.

You might also want to help ...

Your only hope is to convince the users to give up their habits through education.

I'm still waiting for the "year of the linux desktop", so I don't hold out much hope for end-user education :-)

Or would you like to prove this isn't a big issue by posting your phone number, address, license plate number, and check routing/account numbers here for us?

STRANGELY ENOUGH the people who argue against privacy never seem to want to do that. They aren't terribly committed to their statements after all.

Follow the link to today's spammer tracking report, and see how handy the information can be to track down spam. Also, feel free to do a whois. My contact info is on-line. It's been on-line, under various domain registrations, since I registered my first domain in 1994.

Ratzinger was the man who decided that one of the abusers would go back into the field and be allowed to work with kids again despite being warned against it. There is no way left for him in this scandal except for him to resign before they bump him off like they did John-Paul # 1 to cover up the Banco Ambrosia scandal.

He's no longer taken even semi-seriously any more.

I just assumed the donkey must be gay - I heard the Pope saying he was "going to ride his ass" ...

The US is no longer the largest market for a lot of things, from cell phones (China has more cell phone users than the entire American population) to cars (China is #1 in new car sales worldwide).

They can now pick and choose the markets the enter. It's why they refused to buy the Hummer, and why China/Walmart Refuses To Bid On NASA Contract. They're simply not that desperate for business any more, not with their economy still growing at almost 10% per year.

this time, it's a startup "home and garden" magazine

Return-path: ventes@21esiecle.qc.ca
Received: from smtp3bellnordiq.ca (142.217.217.72)
Received: from 192.168.123.135 (142.217.89.31)

whois 142.217.217.72
Telebec TELEBECNET (NET-142-217-0-0-1)

whois 142.217.0.0
OrgName: Telebec
NetRange: 142.217.0.0 - 142.217.255.255
RAbuseEmail: abuse@lino.com

The detailed example (at the link) shows how to follow the chain of providers. traceroute isn't the best way to do this, because the route can vary, depending on peering arrangements, though it's a good backup when you're trying to find people hiding behind anonymous dns registrations (which should be banned).

This is the first verified example of someone traveling through a time warp Space-Time Warp Verified In Wisconsin

Scott Southworth is living proof that mini-wormholes exists, that they permit time travel, and that, as scientists suspected, you cannot bring information forward in time.

Well, they did say it was *before* the new, just as ugly, look.

They said on their blogs that they had some professional artists. So why didn't they use them?

"A method for developing a patent product includes: evaluating one or more patent claims to determine patent scope or financial remuneration, associating the scope or financial outcome with computer-generated random numbers, and a rewriting action of the patent based on the random numbers, comparing the generated patent with the desired patentable area or financial potential.

It's in the original. The Library of Congress, like all government institutions, is 20 years behind the times.

I prefer Library Of Congress Will Be Archived At Groklaw.

Apple To Introduce iPDA

I don't need to stream scaled-down "used-to-be-hi-definition" video in 1024x576, so I'll get the iPDA instead of the iPad.

It's pretty bad, but don't take my word for it ...Advance Video Of The New Star Wars Animated Sitcom.

The problem was his misplaced priorities - a character flaw from back when he didn't stand up and refuse to join the Hitler Youth.

Besides, the Pope would be getting off easy compared to the "punishment" he believes non-believers merit.

Pope Wants Unborn Children To Have Citizenship, Voting Rights.

This pope is great - he's done more to discredit religion than anyone else in the last 100 years! At this rate, I hope he stays pope a LOOONG time.

In the article, they admit that there are no "hard and fast rules". Gee, talk about dumbing down the game - Scrabble to cater to semi-literates. Like they even know what a proper noun is ...

RMS mis-quotes Gordon Brown.

You're in the wrong thread. We're talking about iPads, not iPhones :-)

And we all know what "design to a specific display" means when the PHBs start having wet dreams in their pants ...

Thank $_DIETY that the iPDA won't have a browser.

I know that the "concept" is used as a CYA excuse for failures by failures. "Oh, but we used industry best practices."

And the iPad is an attempt by Jobs to get more licensing fees for h264 codecs (he and his other buddies in MPAG-LA own patents on it) as the default codec for HTML5 video. This is a direct assault on open standards. ("standard" != "open standard").

Jobs is pitching the iPad at the newspaper industry - an industry that is dying because they can't understand anything except fixed formats.

The iPad is not a tablet computer, despite all the hype. It's just one step removed from the iPDA.

Look at Apple's recent history. Launch the iPod, then route people to iTunes. Launch the iPhone, then route people ONLY to the App Store. Launch the iPad, and then route people ONLY to specific restricted formats.

Each device is more encumbered and restricted than the last.

What next - the iBrick? It does nothing, but it does it really well?

">> "Apple is refined and locked down revolution for the masses."

Their next product - the iPDA will be even more locked-down. But for less than $200 for a "real Apple", people will buy it ...

PostgreWTF, too many breaking news today (not only here), it is becoming difficult to distinguish 'serious' ones..

You mean like Novell To Buy MySQL From Oracle For $1.1B Cash And Stock

Novell today announced that it will pay Oracle Corp $500 million in cash and $550 million in stock to buy MySQL.

This is seen as a defensive tactic to fend off the hostile takeover bid from Elliott Associates LP, their third-largest shareholder.. A news release from the company said "This is the best long-term alternative to enhance stockholder value." Elliot Associates LP had previously offered $2 billion for Novell, an offer that was widely seen as a cash grab.

Maybe they can use it to get a better look at this story from earlier today: Surprise Results From NASA Mars Satellite Public-Picked Photos.

IETF Bows To Environmentalists, Drops Email Carbon Copy

In a measure that will help reduce both SPAM and glbal worming, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) today announced that they will be dropping the "Carbon Copy (CC) field from the email standard.

Spammers will no longer be able to CC: hundreds of people at once, thus shifting more of the load from mail servers to individual zombie computers. This will allow for easier detection by anti-spam software runing on host systems, due to the several orders of magnitude increase in Internet traffic that will be required to send spam.

In Soviet Russia, spam no longer CC's YOU!