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It'd only really be practical if you put together a massive collection of .torrents (like the suprnova database) in a .zip file and then used BT to download that.

Good explanation, but it still wouldn't work. (This is an interesting problem that you'll run into in a lot of areas of computer science, though I don't know whether it has a name.) Basically, each .torrent points to a file. The contents of that file may not be changed without invalidating the .torrent link. Thus, the contents of the file must be known at the time of propagating the .torrent. Thus, the file may only reference older .torrents -- that is, .torrents that were already in existence at the time the file was created. So if the only reference someone has to obtain BitTorrent information is a .torrent file, they may only ever reach .torrents created at or before the creation time of that .torrent.

Your solution would reduce load over the existing system, but from the fact that the parent mentioned chicken/egg, I suspect that they want to use BitTorrent as a complete solution.

There are systems that allow providing forward references -- allowing one to reach newer files. These systems require the use of encryption, not just hashing, however. kast and freenet both use public key cryptography to provide exactly this service.

SGI's FSN - 3d Filesystem Navigator. For IRIX 4.0.1 - 5.3 only. Have fun!

An open-source clone, fsv, is also available on SourceForge.

I've found Easycalc for Palm OS to be a small-yet-powerful package.

QuiteInsane.

Its insanely good. I use it to scan in all my important documents. It useful multipage modes for... well, multipage documents.

Try it. It's actually been considerably revamped since I installed it, I will have to try a more recent version,

Oh, it comes in a nice debian package via apt-get.

Firestarter - One firewall for your workstation, server or LAN. One of features - configures iptables. Small and simple. I'm using it on Mandrake 9.1. Works great.

The other problem with OSS is lack of innovation. How many things does the OSS community go about attempting to clone only after someone like MS or another company introduced it? Was there a FreeMware before VMware? Was there Linux PVR applications before Tivo? etc.

The presence of copying commercial software products doesn't indicate the lack of innovation.

Earlier you mentioned that Linux is missing Tax software. So, which way do you want it? Do you want someone to create something similar to TurboTax, or create something innovative? You can't have it both ways.

Aha, you say - OSS developers should write innovative tax software! Yeah, right. If somebody created software that did everything the average taxpayer needed, everyone would immediately start comparing it to TurboTax (and the other commercial offerings). In many ways the OSS program would have no choice but to "clone" the commercial programs, because there's no other logical way to do things.

There are thousands of innovative OSS programs that are incredibly innovative, that have no parallel in the commercial world. Here are a few off the top of my head:

1. Audacity - shameless plug, this is my audio editor. It's not a rip-off of CoolEdit or Sound Forge. Of course it looks similar in some superficial ways - they're all audio editors. But Audacity has dozens of innovative, unique features, like an integrated envelope editor, automatic real-time resampling when tracks are at different sample rates, three different types of sample-level editing, etc.

2. BitTorrent - robust, P2P way to speed up everyone's download speed simultaneously. And yes, it's primarily used for legitimate downloads, imagine that.

3. GAIM - aha, you say, just another instant messanger! What's innovative here is that it's the only instant messenger to support AIM, ICQ, Yahoo!, MSN, Jabber, IRC, Napster, Gadu-Gadu, Zephyr, and more...which is incredible if you have lots of friends you want to IM and they all use different systems.

4. Gallery - program that runs on your webserver that makes it fun and easy to upload pictures for everyone to see. Right from the web interface, you can categorize, show slideshows, etc.

I'm not even listing the thousands of innovative programs that OSS developers have come up with that are primarily of benefit to other developers.

Why not search the Sourceforge and Freshmeat top 100 lists for new programs? I think you'll discover lots of innovation.

The other problem with OSS is lack of innovation. How many things does the OSS community go about attempting to clone only after someone like MS or another company introduced it? Was there a FreeMware before VMware? Was there Linux PVR applications before Tivo? etc.

The presence of copying commercial software products doesn't indicate the lack of innovation.

Earlier you mentioned that Linux is missing Tax software. So, which way do you want it? Do you want someone to create something similar to TurboTax, or create something innovative? You can't have it both ways.

Aha, you say - OSS developers should write innovative tax software! Yeah, right. If somebody created software that did everything the average taxpayer needed, everyone would immediately start comparing it to TurboTax (and the other commercial offerings). In many ways the OSS program would have no choice but to "clone" the commercial programs, because there's no other logical way to do things.

There are thousands of innovative OSS programs that are incredibly innovative, that have no parallel in the commercial world. Here are a few off the top of my head:

1. Audacity - shameless plug, this is my audio editor. It's not a rip-off of CoolEdit or Sound Forge. Of course it looks similar in some superficial ways - they're all audio editors. But Audacity has dozens of innovative, unique features, like an integrated envelope editor, automatic real-time resampling when tracks are at different sample rates, three different types of sample-level editing, etc.

2. BitTorrent - robust, P2P way to speed up everyone's download speed simultaneously. And yes, it's primarily used for legitimate downloads, imagine that.

3. GAIM - aha, you say, just another instant messanger! What's innovative here is that it's the only instant messenger to support AIM, ICQ, Yahoo!, MSN, Jabber, IRC, Napster, Gadu-Gadu, Zephyr, and more...which is incredible if you have lots of friends you want to IM and they all use different systems.

4. Gallery - program that runs on your webserver that makes it fun and easy to upload pictures for everyone to see. Right from the web interface, you can categorize, show slideshows, etc.

I'm not even listing the thousands of innovative programs that OSS developers have come up with that are primarily of benefit to other developers.

Why not search the Sourceforge and Freshmeat top 100 lists for new programs? I think you'll discover lots of innovation.

I don't think this post is funny. Lisp is still considered the best tool for very complex tasks.

Maxima

Yup folks, I've been trying it out the last few days, and the port of Qt/X11 to Qt/Windows (and is thus GPL'd) is almost done, and has progressed a lot over the past few months. Most of the graphical parts are done (replacing the x11 dependant parts of Qt with win32/GDI equivalents.)

What's not done yet is replacing the non-GUI parts- e.g, moving from the "_unix" files and writing win32 equivalents. Thus it currently requires cygwin (but no X11).

There are some screenshots here. Source is available there too.

This is probably what you're referring to - an attempt to port the GPL version of Qt 3 to Win32.

The Paradroid port Windows and Linux
The making of... Andrew Braybrook's diary

This stuff uses an open source OS, TinyOS which is written in and includes the language nesC, "an extension to the C programming language designed to embody the structuring concepts and execution model of TinyOS. TinyOS is an event-driven operating system designed for sensor network nodes that have very limited resources (e.g., 8K bytes of program memory, 512 bytes of RAM)."

Over the last couple of days I downloaded and installed TinyOS 1.1.0 for windows (146Mb!) which includes nesC, an emulator, a tutorial and cygwin. To my slight surprise it all auto-installed and worked perfectly and can even generate cute graphical self-documentation.

NesC is interesting for at least a couple of reasons - compile-time detection of race conditions, and bi-directional interfaces which specify both the commands which must be implemented by an interface "providers" (ie "servers") and the events (or callbacks) which must be implemented by the interface's "users" (ie "clients").

I'd say that bi-directional interfaces are a significent step in the evolution of object-oriented design, which are being echoed (at a higher level, and in a different technical culture) in the choreography languages of Web Services.

If you enjoy the challenge of learning a new language which is small, different, timely and purposeful, I'd recommend TinyOS and nesC.

ATMega128 7.3 MHz microcontroller
4 KB RAM, 128 KB PROGRAM EEPROM,
512 KB flash memory for measurements
433 MHz wireless radio, CC1000 transciver,
30 messages per second, 29 bytes in each message
radio range is about 100-300 feet
runs on two AA batteries for 3 days continuously
various pluggable sensor boards

The motes run the TinyOS, freely available from sourceforge

The Berkeley guys are working on the dust mote, 1 mm2 target size including the radio chip. The biggest limitation now is the battery power and the radio range. Even if they can get the size down to "dust", the antenna HAS TO BE 1/4 of the radio wave length. For the 433 MHz version this is around 8-10 inches! So these dust motes will have "tails". Eventually, these could painted on the wall, or dumped from the air for millitary applications. Lot's of unsolved problems. For sensor networks, how do you obtain large amount of data through a few base stations? Smart aggregation and routing protocols need to be employed, and the network must process the data by itself.

Just my 2c.

If you write Free software (Open Source software covered by the GPL) you are welcome to download and use the Free Edition of Qt

I'm not saying Trolltech is obligated to make a Qt Free edition for Windows, but perhaps they should word things a bit differently on their website, along the lines of "If you write Free software for X11/Mac..." It's just plain misleading, to my thinking, to state it the way they are.

Doesn't run Linux

Gee, really? How hard is that to check?
1) google "ipod linux"
2) first link is "Linux on iPod" (took a whopping 0.17 seconds)

Damn that was a dilly to figure out.

Next!

PalmApple has been written. My poor Handspring doesn't do it justice, so I really can't speak to performance.

Oregon Trail sold seperately.

It's definately possible. The iPod Linux project showed that the iPod can decode oggs in 80% realtime under Linux with an unoptimized Tremor decoder. The official firmware presumably has less overhead than Linux, and a little bit of decoder optimization would definately make it fast enough.

Not sure if asx100 and acx100 are the same thing, but if so, have you tried this?

I think there's prior art if it attempts to put style in the equation somehow. Whether or not it should be patentable is an entirely different matter... I was wondering first if this was anything I had done personally, but my text-generation stuff has always been rather crude, the most sophisticated thing I've done is based on context-free grammars, and context-free grammars aren't good for preserving structure but not for making stuff that rhymes (unless we narrow the generation accordingly).

And on the topic, the coolest poetry experiment ever has to be the Coy module for Perl =)

http://megahal.sourceforge.net. Check out http://megahal.sourceforge.net/Classic.html for examples. It happens to use markov models (more specifically, 5th order n-grams).

http://megahal.sourceforge.net. Check out http://megahal.sourceforge.net/Classic.html for examples. It happens to use markov models (more specifically, 5th order n-grams).

It's not even really a standard but it is in no way Microsoft specific, anymore at least.

If you want MS-only... look at WMV.

Trackballs and perhaps Neverball (though that's slightly different) might interest marble madness fans presently using Linux.

As you may know, there is a viable alternative to Windows: OS X.

As you may know, there is a viable alternative to Windows: Linux.

Risc OS was imho the best desktop in existence, before Acorn got bought by Pace and it went the way of BeOS. It provided the inspiration for Windows 95, and gave us the best filer for linux.

Phillip.

http://fetchyahoo.sourceforge.net/
http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net/

http://fetchyahoo.sourceforge.net/
http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net/

For Windows users, there's ZMatrix:

http://zmatrix.sourceforge.net

if you want ASCII art goodness on your desktop.

Yes, there is an AOL Client for Linux - though it's not an 'official' client.

Look at This Tutorial to see how to install the PengAOL Linux Dialer.

I have set this up on both SuSE and Mandrake systems from source for a couple of friends who wanted to try Linux, but who didn't want to drop AOL... It can be a bit tricky to get working, but it does work (in the UK at least).

Is this or this something like what you were looking for? It's all open source. Just get a cheap USB flash drive and you should be set.

qtparted is a Partition Magic Clone, it might be what your looking for (and included in Knoppix).
I don't know about a ghost clone for linux though...

DosBox.

Another project from (South) Africa.

But who cares where stuff is from? OSS have lifted social/political and financial boundaries, and suddently there is good software from all over the world.

The tone of this article is patronizing and irrelevant.

Meanwhile, I plan to wash my hands of the whole mess and use Jabber. Remember back when we had standards, and the internet was decentralized? It actually worked - there wasn't a single point of failure. When was the last time the entire email system went down? Jabber can offer the same reliability, and you don't aren't locked into a single server or client.

Besides being decentralized, Jabber tries to offer gateways, and many Jabber clients (such as GAIM) also play the "keep up with the proprietary protocol" game. So have the best of both worlds - get a Jabber account somewhere, and whenever your friends's servers lock out their clients of choice, convince them to get a Jabber account also.

Try Gaim

Its not as polished as Trillian, but its OSS and cross platform, and thats whats important!

Actually, there really isn't a great reason to use Sky OS over Linux or BSD... and that's not the point. Sky OS is one of many smaller projects whose primary purpose is to satisfy the hobby needs of the creator... Kind of like where Linux was when Linus decided his schoolwork was too boring.

There are many other examples out there. Contiki, Triangle Os, and many others.

There are also Open Source, commercial, and potentially useful hobbyist systems out there. However, if you are looking for the most comprehensive, useful desktop suite, look elsewhere. All of these Os's are unique and well-intentioned, but very few are actually practical.

Practicality is not the point. Curiosity is the point. What would a different implementation look like? What if all the graphics subsystems were contained in the kernel? How would a real-time OS feel to the user? These questions can't be answered by just releasing a new X theme, and there aren't very many people curious enough to find out.

These people are true geeks... Software for software's sake. Kudos to you all.

iRATE radio is a collaborative filtering client/server mp3 player/downloader. The iRATE server has a large database of music. You rate the tracks and it uses your ratings and other people's to guess what you'll like. The tracks are downloaded from websites which allow free and legal downloads of their music.

That's a good point. However, I was thinking the opposite: Frank Sorenson's analysis seems to show that SCO believes that SMP, JFS, RCU, and NUMA belong to them. One would imagine that by it's very nature, Google might possibly be making extensive use of SMP, RCU and NUMA, at least.

That's a good point. However, I was thinking the opposite: Frank Sorenson's analysis seems to show that SCO believes that SMP, JFS, RCU, and NUMA belong to them. One would imagine that by it's very nature, Google might possibly be making extensive use of SMP, RCU and NUMA, at least.

Mention of the Turing Award brings back memories of all the fun times we had with MegaHAL (http://megahal.sourceforge.net/). We set up a machine in my local dorm kitchen and our MegaHAL rapidly became a horrible swearing bigot; it provided endless amusement for all.

Why not install php wiki for them? It's easy to get running and super easy to use. It has all sorts of nifty add ons for galleries, blogs, media, rss feeds, and more. It's way past the novice level for installation, but solidly in novice ground for daily use. Plus it comes with a bunch of design themes (lots more available online) and you can design your own. If you want it only for use by your gift recipient, simply secure edit authority appropriately. Good luck!

There is something under the KDE-Cygwin project umbrella :

QT 3 Win32

I haven't tried it yet myself (anyone know of a .torrent?) but there is a Knoppix-based LiveCD version of Plone called LivePlone

There are a *ton* of filemanagers for GNOME, but nothing as IEish as Konq and Nautilus -- i.e. overarching meta-application. Lots of lightweights.

If you search for "file manager" and gtk or gnome on Freshmeat, you'll get a number of hits.

If you want something quite lightweight and fast (i.e. you're running a sub-300 Mhz box), using ROX Filer is a neat choice. On the rare occasions when I prefer a GUI utility to bash for file management (usually when working with a set of files with foreign names), Rox has worked nicely.

WUI or (Web User Interface) is a component based framework for developing complex web user interfaces using a single language: Java. Write web apps with widgets and events, not JSPs. Runs in any servlet 2.3 container. Alternative to Model 2/Struts.

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=89760

unzip, ant -f run.xml, browse port 8080 and you're on your way...

As it happens I discussed Chaum's system just today on the Voting-Project mailing list. I guess I might as well quote myself:

Re: securing electronic ballots

From: David Mertz %lt;voting-project_at_gnosis_dot_cx%gt;
Date: Tue Nov 25 2003 - 12:16:05 CST
|I found [the Chaum paper] here in case anyone wants to read it. |http://www.vreceipt.com/
Thanks Clay, for looking up this paper. It is consistent with what Mercuri described more briefly, but I found reading the white paper to contain additional interesting details. Btw. for other readers: the press release at that URL is fine for a summary, but look at the linked white paper for real information.
Reading the paper, I see that Chaum's system really is flawed in practice. The reason it is flawed is precisely because Chaum is TOO smart--he's great at math, but misses the real world of elections.
One weakness of the system is the one I've raised a couple times. Voters cannot understand how the system works (in any meaningful detail). For example, imagine I were a voter who did not have any graduate-level mathematics training (a large majority of voters, I think... probably a majority of this list, in fact). Now imagine that I was not entirely trustful of "the experts", and worry that someone can puncture the anonymity of my vote by properly analyzing my receipt. Sure it doesn't contain a visually readable vote, but I know in a general way that there are barcode scanners, and clever things that mathematicians and CS people do.
In answer to my concern, all I really get back is the Diebold-style answer: "Trust us, we're very smart, and we wouldn't let any errors exist in our voting system." I don't think this answer inspires general voter confidence. I personally happened to have already known about Chaum before hearing about this system, and basically trust his motives and intelligence... but how many voters can say that; how many LIST MEMBERS can say that, even?
The second weakness is the real world of voting places--typically a hastily arranged room in a church or a community center, staffed by well-meaning, but amateur volunteers. Imagine that prior to the election some guys with brass knuckles stop by my house, and let me know that they would appreciate a vote for their candidate (or equally, for example, a coercive or manipulative spouse or relative). As a gesture of good faith, they suggest, I should keep both layers of the voting receipt so that it remains clear how I voted. According to Chaum's system, the poll workers are SUPPOSED TO shred one layer on my way out. Anyone who has been to a polling place knows that it would not be of great practical difficulty to "forget" to place a layer in the shredder prior to leaving the building. Even should I make such an omission, the electronic vote was already recorded when the receipts were printed.
+++
Btw. With the EVM2003 system, a related forgetfullness is possible. Voters might forget to place the printed ballot in the ballot box. Their electronic ballot is still recorded on the machine, but only a subset of electronic ballots will be matched by corresponding printed ballots in the ballot boxes. Hopefully, this will generally be a large subset (98%+ say), but a certain discrepency rate must be expected.
Placing cryptographic codes on the printed ballots allows us to assure that every such ballot is -legitimate-, hence preventin

My take as a sysadmin/user.

I think the KDE desktop is more easily configurable, but Gnome (GTK-2) apps are nicer.

Certain KDE components-- like Kate, Konqueror (as file manager and browser), Kasbar and Konsole are more elegant and utilitarian than their Gnome counterparts. That said, many utilities written for Gnome, but not necessarily part of Gnome are nicer than the Equivalent KDE third party apps--by this I mean Things like Gaim, Pan, and (this is a stretch) GTKed Firebird. Gimp's superiority goes without saying.

I was a long time KDE user but the need for speed and elegance caught me. Now I use Fluxbox because all is available from the right mouse button, and any app can be "tabbed" with any other. I find myself using the aforementioned Gnome/GTK2 apps, konqueror and quick show for occasional file browsing/image viewing, and aterm.

I just wish some how Exposity would work with Flux... ;-)

It's been open source for over a year now.
Source and binaries available here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/liquidmaya/

Slack and Fluxbox.

Otherwise I agree...

Hmm, there's no GTK+ for Windows? Or for Macintosh? I guess these pages are just jokes then.

Qt may indeed be a more mature development environment than Gnome, but now that there are native GTK+ ports to both Windows and MacOS, it should be relatively trivial to get any gnome app working on either - More so MacOSX than Windows, which is already known to run all that stuff; the only new piece is the native GTK+.

I think the (in)effectiveness of labeling in making it easy to filter spam will depend heavily on the filter you're using. And the language courtesy of spamlaws.com does indicate that the labeling must be:

(i) clear and conspicuous identification that the message is an advertisement or solicitation;

(ii) clear and conspicuous notice of the opportunity under paragraph (3) to decline to receive further commercial electronic mail messages from the sender; and

(iii) a valid physical postal address of the sender.

There are a finite number of "clear and conspicuous" ways of identifying a message as an advertisement or solicitation, so even static filters shouldn't have too much trouble with that. POPFile has been very reliable in grabbing spam that has used quite a few tricks -- it'll snag these things with no problem at all.

This law clearly isn't a panacaea, and I have doubts about the enforceability of it, but it's a start. And it does require review of its effectiveness and whether it will need to be changed, and that's a good thing. I don't expect congresscritters to get this right the first time out of the box. It shouldn't take long for it to prove ineffective if it's going to be, and the popular hatred of spam will continue to provide political pressure to get something more effective (if change of law will do it).