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Pragmatically, the same thing can happen in a proprietary product, but the customer has someone to hold responsible in that situation (the developer of the product) so the economic incentives discourage such illegal contributions

Unless the EULA states that they can't be held responsible. Like Microsoft on the famous Timeline SQL Server Patent infringement.

This point needs to be HAMMERED home, Closed Source is no better actually worse since you can't easyly remove the offending code.

Nigeria has bigger problems than e-mail scam artists

This just in (well, the other day...buried under the licensing story):

SCO brings Active Directory authentication to Unix

By Online Staff
May 20 2003

The SCO Group has announced that it is releasing SCO Authentication for Microsoft Active Directory in partnership with Center 7, a developer and provider of IT infrastructure management and authentication products.

The company said SCO Authentication enabled end users to use a single login in mixed Unix and Windows environments.

It said companies with business-critical Unix applications could benefit from "the enhanced security and reduced management costs" associated with existing Microsoft Active Directory environment.

"This is a great solution for organisations managing networks running Windows, Unix and other operating systems where authentication is typically insecure and difficult to manage," said Kieran O'Shaughnessy, SCO's regional general manager for Australia and New Zealand.

"SCO Authentication for Microsoft Active Directory allows IT teams to seamlessly integrate Unix-based system logins with the secure authentication technology they've already paid for in the form of Microsoft Active Directory."

Although the (sometimes)crappy CGI and that nipple revealing suit would fuel your statement. It is simply not true.

Although the (sometimes)crappy CGI and that nipple revealing suit would fuel your statement. It is simply not true.

Has SCO violated its own copyright? Is that why it stopped selling Linux? Its own people aren't too sure. This
interview indicates that SCO's right hand
doesn't seem to know what its left hand is doing.

It's fun to think about fusion reactors being practical sources of electric power, and it's fun to spend millions of dollars on Really Cool Toys and do fundamental physics research that nobody could do before and build really big computers for mathematical simulations of the physics. But it's really about testing new nuclear weapons designs, and modelling the aging of existing nuclear weapons to know when they need replacing. More detailed discussion on Stockpile Stewardship. After all, that's one of the things that you can do with very precise knowldge of hydrogen fusion behavior.

Furthermore, the Bush Administration recently got the Senate Armed Services Committee to approve $25M for resuming nuclear weapons testing and about $20M for designing new small nuclear bombs (less than 5KT) and big bunker-buster bombs (up to 1MT.) The small ones are presumably fission-based, while the bigger ones are probably fusion. SJMerc article. TheAge Article. (So just in case you thought the recent unpleasantness in the Middle East was designed to stop Weapons of Mass Destruction, well, no...)

Now we are told once more that the best cure against spam should be to reinvent something to replace the tried-and-true eMail system of decade-old reliability, just because some sociopaths apparently cannot learn to behave without getting a spanking (or jail time) and U.S. privacy laws are still too weak to stop the spam.

And after all the years that spam has plagued the networks, that's quite a poor achievement for a nation that managed to outlaw junk faxes, and had confirmation from the courts that regulating advertising does pass constitutional muster perfectly well:

"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or to view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit... We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has the right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another... We repeat, the right of a mailer stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain."
Supreme Court
Rowan v. U.S. Post Office
397 U.S. 728

This is not about "lawmakers never knowing enough about the Internet to regulate any aspect of it in a meaningful way", it's about doing something to prevent imposing compulsory changes to technology that keep fighting the symptoms rather than the cause.
Congress should get over such shameful cowardice and make the simple law that's needed and proven to work.

There is no need to re-engineer the Internet.
There is no justification for widespread surveillance and data retention under the poor excuse of trying to track down spammers.
There is no risk of banning mailing lists or commercial eMail.
There is no doubt what the sociopathic behavior is.

All that is needed is mandatory opt-in for unsolicited bulk eMail (encompassing all kinds of electronic messaging).

And yet some self-proclaimed "experts on electronic advertising" (whose only merit probably is that they know how to spam because they've done it a trillion times at everyone else's expense) keep pretending that opt-in wasn't legal, or feasible, or desirable.

Opt-in works, and it does not hurt anyone but the spammers.

Europe has adopted it, Australia is adopting it (how far behind do you want the U.S. to be, are we to wait for China to outlaw spam before the U.S. will?!), but most importantly the USA have successfully adopted it themselves against junk faxes.

There's probably something wrong in Washington D.C., and the news media in general, when the most insightful newspaper article on the issue comes from USA Today.
Be sure to fax or eMail it to your congress(wo)man though.
Don't spam them, but do attach some selected masterpieces of spam if you think they need an idea of what ends up in the inbox of their constituents, and of their children, 9 billion times, every single day.

does blocking an entire ISP (and a countries LARGEST ISP) count as blocking a large IP block?

Woops, I cut-pasted the wrong link, here's the proper one. It was showing on WIN (aka Nine) at 10:40pm though I think they've axed it now. I've flicked to it once or twice but I must admit it's not my cup of tea.

I'm in Australia, and I watch Six Feet Under which is not available here in Australia.

Yes, it is.

• http://www.vnunet.com/News/1140296
  
• http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/17/10501 72679775.html
  

As screwed up as the U.S. has gotten, it's not even close to China as far as a police state goes.

Open source has and will always be a toy for those of use with too much time on our hands.

take cluestick

/ME picks up a +4 cluestick

weild cluestick

/ME is now weilding a +4 cluestick

If that little piece of crackspeak were true, what are IBM doing supporting it? Why do Google use it exclusively? Why are Linux-based supercomputing clusters filling up the top 500? Why are Fortune 500s like Merryl Lynch contributing to it?

Thank you for playing, here's your gold-plated tie pin, now nick off.

They market and listen to people who BUY stuff.

That's right, and take them out to dinner to woo and weasel and promise (lie to) them whatever they need to promise to get more money out of them and stick more control into instead of spending that money and effort in making the whole computing scene better by letting go of their stranglehold. And funny you should mention Cisco, 'coz one of their products is a PC running Linux. And if FOSS is so useless and dangerous, why do Microsoft ship it? Gotcha gold pin, have you? Here's the door, have a nice life.

I have to deal OpenSource drones all the time. They can not get jobs!

The problem here is that most of them spend so much time working that they have none left for overt advocacy, writing up proposals, answering the queries from pollies etc (and the snowballing interest in FOSS). This in a country (Australia) that Microsoft are grooming as a showcase for their technology (part of why Stevie flew across to jolly Telstra along). We've just today had another meeting with a pollie falling over themselves to learn the best ways of integrating FOSS into government IT.

Microsoft claim to want a level playing field. We claim to not want an 800lb gorilla playing on it with us mere mortals ('coz it'll pound us level with the playing field politically and financially if it does). Regardless of the politics, the Open Source software job market is booming. Kids want to be more than a George Jetson reboot-button jockey, and FOSS is an unbeatable way to escape that dead end.

Sorry, you're still here?

apply cluestick to luser; wield LART

lmao!

but anyways... n2h2 is lame anyways; you can easily bypass it by setting up a proxy server..

thats what we did last year..

btw, this is still the least of our worries

and this war isnt about oil .. is it?

Of course not.

It's not really about the oil, it's about "OPEC momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard".

They tried diplomatic pressure and other means with America alongside. It didn't work.

But it did work, in the end there were results and that's why a lot of countries wanted the weapons inspectors to go on with their work. If there is proof, that the Iraq has a significant number of B- or C-weapons the USA never presented it. In the end the Iraq was complying (though grudgingly) with the demands layed down by the UN. In the meantime north Korea more or less publicly announced their intention to produce nuclear bombs, so shouldn't Bush et al. strike at north Korea before going for the Iraq?

So when Bush couldn't convince the world that Iraq was threatening the world with weapons of mass destruction he switched rhetorics and talked about having to free the Iraq of that evil dictator Saddam. Now Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator, but that's none of the USAs business, as it hasn't been for the past 20 years (like when the USA even supported the current Iraqi regime). The last demand that Saddam now leave the country within 48 hours is not an ultimatum, it's a joke. Everyone can imagine that that'd be suicide for Saddam.

This war isn't about terrorism either, it's easier to construct a link from Osama bin Laden to Bush than to Saddam Hussein, and war isn't a means to get at terrorists who're probably not even in the attacked country. As a result of the war even more terrorist attacks are expected in the US and the threat level is raised.

So the war isn't about chemical weapons or terrorists, neither is it an idealistic mission to free the Iraq people from their evil dictator (or do the USA now intend to attack any country where the government isn't to their liking?). Many people (even inside the US) see it that way and that's how they arrive at the conclusion that the war isn't justified but is just about oil and distracting the american people from their problems at home.

This war is also a very bad precedent, as it shows that the USAs government doesn't care what the UN have to say on the issue, they do what they damn well please anyway. So now whenever any country wants to start a war all they need are some unsupportable and made up reasons and then they can go ahead? Or is that only right for the USA but noone else?

Also the arrogant way the USA dealt with the UN and other nations (and also opposition at home) has weakened the UN and hurt diplomatic relationships worldwide. More and more the USA is percieved

All I'm saying is that all of this rhetoric about saving the peopel of Iraq and freeing them will be just BS if we don't show any real committment about rebuilding their society.

Sujal

So what conditions would you prefer (and why) ? Try to keep it within the realms of financial practicality.

I'd expect conditions where children aren't abused and women aren't raped and lives aren't put at risk by fire-starting vandals.

I'd like to see interested third parties (eg, salvos) onsite to help avoid future reoccurences of detainee abuse. I'd like the media to be invited into the grounds rather than this media blanket we currently have.

You ask me to present my financially practical solution? Why do I need a solution before I can state the flaws I perceive in the current system? Are the only people allowed to speak out against the inhumane treatment - in your world - the same people who can prepare a balance sheet? Under which account do I put "raped child" when I'm creating this financially practical solution?

There's no "esentially" here. I flat outright said this. It's not something you deduced. I've said it twice already and now - in this post - I've said it a third time.

In other words, a completely unworkable solution.

It's only unworkable if you don't want it to work. Australia managed to support immigration on far grander scales just a few decades ago. Now it's "completely unworkable"? I don't think so.

Tell me, are you so free with your own home ?

I'm not inviting them into my home. I'm inviting them into my country. Surely you can spot the difference.

Don't misunderstand me. I support detainment but I'm opposed to the current detainment conditions. I support processing but I'm disappointed that it takes so long to process. I think Ruddock honestly does try to do the right thing and the media has treated him unfairly, but I'm not going to sit back and say "everything's OK, business as usual, no need to change".

I also think illegal immigrants should not be deported. There's no reason why Australia should be closing its doors to people in need. It doesn't matter that they're not refugees; the refugees are obviously first priority but the non-refugees were desperate enough to risk their lives to get here. As far as I'm concerned, that makes them far more deserving of Australia's assistance than many citizens.

Allow me to bring you up to speed:

Nintendo's future

The X-Box's woes, and the price of Microsoft's sacrifices.

Heck, a quick search on Google has yielded this, and that's just scratching the surface.

As for relationships, this is a good article to start.

I'm certain a bit more hunting around Google News will yield what you're looking for.

Did anybody BTW patent the wheel?

Sounds remarkably related to the Tampa spying">Tampa spying debacle Australia had last year.

take the space out of the link and it works fine.

Now ask ourselves. What role can IPv6 play in shaping reputation?

---
Court misses Internet opportunity
----
The death of advertising?

"Whatever Happened to Corporate Ethics?"

Commentary: The American European Gap

Yes, Europe is depending on fossil energy imports - but not only from Middle East...

Please. That's just too easy to conclude that hesitating to start a war against another country it based on economic interests.
Surveys show that a lot of European citizens do not want war (do they all drive cars, do they all heat their homes with oil?).
Have you ever thought that war is *not* a game? This is not Dune or Warcraft or one of the Rambo movies (although some "Rambos" are acting as protagonists here).

Yes, it's a good attitude to worry about wars and trying to find alternatives, please consider adopting it.

Germany is not a good place to live right now, fiscal problems and a government that is just missing the point(s). Waiting for them to resign.

It's great to see all the Linux coverage, especially from media sources that are general interest in nature rather than exclusively technical.

However, there is one interesting side effect that Linux advocates should keep a watchful eye for. With the increase in publicity also comes the increas in misinformation. It isn't always intentional (such as FUD from Microsoft that is so often complained about on Slashdot), but it can be annoying (or worde, damaging) nonetheless.

Take for example, the article from "The Age" mentioned above. This is a minor example, but illustrates my point well:

Rather than copyrighting the Linux code, Torvalds published it on the Internet and invited others to offer improvements.

Sure, Linus freely distribtued the code to his Linux project on the internet, however the code to Linus REMAINS COPYRIGHTED. This mis-statement was not meant to damage the Linux cause--but it doesn't help the general public understand the concept of "Free" software versus free (as in beer), and that Free Software doesn't mean anti-copyright.

In fact, copyright is the very thing that keeps the source to Linux truly Free. Without the power of copyright the owners of Free source code would have no way of defending the GPL. Conversely, developers couldn't choose to distribute their works in traditional closed-source fashion. Although copyright law has been perverted and abused in recent years, copyright in its truest sense is a fundamental right in the protection of "free speech" (not only should citizens enjoy reasonalbe protection to express their thoughts as they wish to--be it the spoken or written word, music, film or even computer programming--they should also have some right to control how that expression is used). It's a tough balancing act of course--the DMCA extends much to far into the realm or IP protection, allowing the owner of copyrighted work so much unchecked power that it stifles freedom of expression.

Such a simple mis-statement and it warrants an entire article on its own. To assist the press in accurate coverage, perhaps the organisers of Linux conferences should put together press kits that place a lot of emphasis on the concept of Free Software and background on Linux that extends beyond pure technical information. Of course one cannot be sure writers would read the material, however ditribution of such information would make it easier to respond to widely published factual errors

Perhaps some letters to the editor praising the positive coverage, and at the same time correcting misinformation would do a lot of good for the Linux community...

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/12/10238 64297100.html

where has the bush administration abused its power (show me reputable news articles, not hair-brained conspiracy theory)?

Well for one...how about today's The Age Editorial , which states that George Bush is pushing his Christian views against abortion through the courts by appointing judges that are pro-life and refusing to sign UN documents that may encourage abortion or the use of condoms to help eradicate the spread of AIDS? Isn't that exactly what the Taliban did to Afghans but Islam not Christianity?

One thing that annoys the hell (oops that's a bad word in the states isn't it?) out of me is when a Liberal govt is in power here in Australia, foreign policy tends to be directed by the American President, however WE cannot decide who the American President is...as we are not American citizens.

Ok that's my ramble for the day

Thank you for your incredibly sensitive and insightful post.

Might I remind you that when parts of America recently went up in flames, Australian and New Zealand firefighters travelled half way across the globe to help.

If your reaction is what we have reaped from that which we sowed, I sure hope we let you burn (instead of helping) should it ever happen again. Of course, we wouldn't do actually do that (refuse to help). Its not the Australian way.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/19/10429 11272068.html

The link to the Age is to a page full of links to news stories. The ABC link, OTOH, has some relevant links, but it's the ABC's main news page, not specific to the fires in itself. Between the pair, you should get most of the current stories.

The loss of Mt. Stromlo Observatory facility is very great loss.

A number of the obvious sites related to Stromlo are down, due to the fire or due to the wide spread power outages in the area. I will make links to indirect and cached pages.

Established in 1924, the Commonwealth Observatory at Mount Stromlo, on the outskirts of Canberra. Commonwealth Observatory was recognized for its important research into the origin and future of the universe.

Astronomers at Mount Stromlo made outstanding contributions to astronomy. It would be difficult to list all of the important contributions to Astronomy made by the people working at Mt. Stromlo. Now, a few come to mind:

• Stromlo research in the 1950s provided the first clue that the Magellanic Clouds had evolved differently from our own galaxy. These results gave us important insights into galactic evolution.
• In the 1990's, astronomers from Stromlo and Sliding Springs (many km away from the fire area) showed that about 90% of disc galaxies (such as our own) are greatly influenced by ''dark matter'', in their galaxies' halos.
• They made important observations in the first hours after Supernova 1987A (the first naked eye supernova in several centuries of years) was discovered.
• Then there is the sort of work such as the Stromlo Abell Cluster Supernova Search
• The Massive Compact Halo Objects (Macho project that was the first to record many microlensing events in our Galaxy as well as in the LMC.
• Then there was all of that tedious, but vital work of spectral classification of southern stars.
• Many of the first parallax distances to Southern stars were first made at Stromlo.
• The list goes on and on ... I am sorry that I must leave out so many other significant contributions!

One of the principal instruments at Stromlo was the 74-inch (188-cm) reflecting telescope. The 74-inch telescope was erected in 1953, and until the completion in 1974 of the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring, this was the largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. In 1982, it was used to discover the fossil star CD-38245: a star so old that it is made almost purely of gases left over from the big bang.

It also was home scopes such as the robotic 50-inch (127-cm). It was an excellent example of how an older telescope could be outfitted with new controls and instruments to perform innovative work. The MACHO project was conducted on the 50 inch.

Two historical scopes come to mind, the Oddie, and the Yale-Columbia telescope:

The Oddie, was a wonderful 9-inch Newtonian telescope. The Victorian MP, James Oddie, presented this telescope to the Commonwealth government for use in the proposed Commonwealth Observatory. It was installed on the site at "Mt Strom" (as Stromlo was originally known) in September 1911. Over the years the Oddie telescope has made valuable contributions to Southern Hemisphere astronomy; it did some of the first measurements of the brightness, color and spectral classification of southern stars.

The Yale-Columbia telescope, 26-inch Grubb long-focus refractor was erected at this site for the determination of parallaxes of southern stars (it was the largest refractor in the southern hemisphere when first installed.

Moreover, there were other scopes as well ... But alas, from what can be seen from the air at this time, most, if not all of those telescopes have been lost. At appears that heat from the burning of the nearby bush /trees was hot enough to melt many of the domes at the observatory.

The Canberra Astronomical Society used the Stromlo lecture hall for their monthly meetings. During public nights, the public had access to a domed C14 scope, the Oddie, and a number of scopes brought to the site by members ... all through the hard work and generous efforts of the Canberra Astronomical Society.

I had the privilege of observing at Mt Stromlo several times and spoke at one of the CAS meetings. I still can recall flying down from the US to a CAS member's home to see SN1987, . I was there only 36 hours after the naked eye supernova was first observed. I still recall seeing the single star, at a distance of over 168,000 light-years, change in color and rightness over the course of an evening. I was one of the most important astronomical events I have had the honor to witness. I recall that every scope up at Mt Stromlo was all pointed at the Large Magellanic Could where SN 1987A was blazing away. The previous observing board schedule was cancelled as people raced to collect as much early critical data as they could in the early hours of the event.

I had the privilege of being with the members of the Canberra Astronomical Society on two of my several total solar eclipses: 1991 in Hawaii, US and most recently the 2001 eclipse in Ceduna, AU.

(Both trips count among my several successful viewings of solar totality. Although the 1991 Hawaii was a close call that was saved because my friend (the one who introduced me to the CAS) broke his arm a very short time before the Eclipse ... which allowed both of us to have a full view of Totality in Hawaii ... but that is another story!)

My best wishes and heart felt sorrow go out to all of those people who worked so hard to make Mt. Stromlo such a wonderful place for the public to visit and who helped the observatory make many important contributions to Astronomy. Much of what was lost cannot be replaced. Still it is my hope that those who are left will be able to rebuild something anew out this tragedy.

Fires destroy Stromlo observatory

Irreplaceable equipment worth millions of dollars was destroyed when the Canberra bushfires ravaged the historic Mount Stromlo Observatory.

You can check the rest of the article out here or here via AAP

You must not have looked very hard:

China builds tai chi-playing robot (same article, different site)

Un robot imitant la boxe chinoise (from google cache)

Article in Chinese with PICTURE

Another Picture

China construye un robot que practica el taichi (Spanish, I think)

Chinese invent martial arts ready robot It can also surf the Internet, maybe

New Robot Developed in China (with Picture)

Google reported this yesterday!

Some lame Australian online journal?

The Age is a creditable Melbourne newspaper. Not just an online journal. That's not to say that everything they publish is brilliant. Neither do I think Rick Moen is anything special, although he does post regularly to our local LUG (Linux Users of Victoria) so it's not surprising that a local journalist (who's also a member of the LUG) decided to interview him.

"Rick Moen: " I come from a long and proud heritage of starving Norwegian peasants.""

Anyone else find that caption hilarious, given that it's under this picture?

Another recent code signing problem from Microsoft was also discussed recently on Slashdot.

The link you provided seems to be about about FedSat ground station software. The FedSat satellite software was written in Ada 95 (compiled with GNAT) and runs on a 10MHz ERC-32 (a radiation hardened SPARC). From this article: "A team of Australian programmers developed FedSat's onboard software, building on work done in Britain. It is written in Ada-95, a programming language designed for embedded systems and safety-critical software. All it has to work with is 16MB of RAM, 2MB of flash memory for storing the program, a 128K boot prompt and 320MB of DRAM in place of a hard disk that would never survive the launch process. All essential data is stored in three physically different locations."

> It will be interesting to see how US businesses feel about it the first time the tables get turned.

Fortunately, we already know how they feel... They feel whiny.

US companies facing legal action abroad act as incredulous as those companies abroad (Elcomsoft) facing legal action in the US. And rightly so. No nation should be able to force its will upon the sovereignty of another whose citizenry have, through democratic process, defined the laws which should govern its populace. An act comitted in a foreign land which is lawful in that land should go unpunised extra-nationally.

Before you reject this statement, re-read it.

An act comitted in a foreign land which is lawful in that land should go unpunised extra-nationally. International hacking, mail fraud, telephone fraud, etc., would not be exempt because those activities take place in another country. If those practices take place in a country that deems those activities unlawful, the perpetrator will become subject to that foreign country's laws. You will note, however, that that is not the case in this situation. The activity in question wholly took place in a country outside the US. A country where this activity is legal (from what I understand. I may be wrong, but the foreign legality is hardly my point.) The only people to truly violate any laws would be those individuals that used the software within the US.

If the US is really keen on pushing its crappy laws on actions committed outside it's borders, it should be prepared to have its citizens arrested en-masse in foreign countries for acts committed at home that are perfectly legal. For example, drinking alcohol; what if every country that banned its consumption arrested every US citizen that landed within its borders for 'acts of indecency' committed overseas?

The actions the US is taking in this case may have greater results than they anticipate. Through its continued lack of forsight, with regards to its actions against foreign nationals, the US government is opening its own citizens up to the possibility of far harsher treatment abroad.

Imagine. All this from a simple copyright case!

Just my $0.02CDN (approximately $0.0128US)

An interesting gun article from an Australian Professor.

From the article:
"The landmark judgment means material published on the internet is deemed to have been published in the place it is viewed online, not the country of origin."

I don't know what the legal system is like in Australia but in the states you can generally sue anyone for anything you damn well like, regardless of its merits.

While I doubt our courts will act in a reciprocal manner just to make a point, the tacit argument the Australian government is making is that they can apply our laws to American entities. If this is taken to its logical conclusion, and Americans are allowed to apply American legal standards to Australians, this might forever be known as the Pandora's Box Judgement.

From meempool
(I can heartily recommend Leisure Town, it's twisted.
I find the comment in the Forbes article about comic books not making a profit, and that the publishers treat them as R&D for ancillerary rights to be quite intriuging...)

Whatever happened to comic books? In the 1940s millions of Americans read comics not only for Superhero stories, but Romance, Cowboys, War, History, Literary Adaptations and more. Readers were lured away whenever another medium provided their "fix" cheaper, easier or better, beginning with television in the '50s. By the early '80s the only genre still dominated by comics was Superheroes, and 1989's hugely profitable Batman signaled the beginning of the superheroic exodus from comics to film. Since then comicbook sales have plummeted, from $850 million in 1993 to $275 million in 2000 and still falling fast. Leading publishers Marvel and DC Comics both now treat comics solely as Research and Development: they lose millions printing the comics, but earn far more selling licenses for movies, cartoons and toys. Comics' core audience, traditionally pre-teens, is now 18-30 and getting older every year. Is this the death of comics? Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics, plays Gandalf to an unofficial fellowship out to save comics by migrating to the Internet! Join the revolution with Justine Shaw's Nowhere Girl, Patrick Farley's Electric Sheep, Tristan Farnon's Leisure Town, Derek Kirk's Small Stories, Jenn Manley Lee's Dicebox, Cat Garza's Magic Inkwell and more!

"In the United States, certification authority VeriSign failed spectacularly in its role when, in early 2001, it accidentally issued a key pair to someone - it doesn't know who, or isn't saying - under the name "Microsoft Corporation". This allowed the mystery hacker to sign software under this name.

Anyone installing this software was assured that the software originated from "Microsoft Corporation", which, of course, it didn't.

The only way Microsoft could fix this blunder was to patch the operating systems of all its customers to deliberately reject anything signed with this key."

According to this article, you're halfway to your Masters Degree in Austrailia if you've got an MCSE. This vendor-specific course work is apparently being considered all over the country. The information you must possess, according to the proponents, is the equivalent of IT expertise.

In-ter-esting.

Granted it only has 512mb of ram,, but this thing (Running 10.2, G4 400, blah blah) is afflicted with the dreaded "Spinning Beach Ball of Death".

Lets check google..

Ahh, here is one:

Sour Apples

Everyone is talking about it. Check google groups for discussions among DV and print people.

I spend more time here at work waiting for typing to catch up to those words being rendered on my screen, patches of my web browser window being blank, only to show up again when my cursor goes over the area. When I right click a file to choose "open with" I wait a a good 15-25 seconds for the highlighted area to get past the "Open" dialogue. It just sticks there. If I try and do something smart like hit a key, I go into "Spinning Beach Ball" mode. Not a very fun place to be.

So all in all, while I like some aspects of OS X, I spend the day at work *craving* getting home to use my redhat machine.

I know I am gonna hear: get more ram. which is true, but still, 512mb is fine on all my intel/amd based machines. I know the Apple demographic is all white, rich and owns 2.5 SUV's (that match their two wonderful white children!!), but dog slow with 512mb is just simply insane.

More importantly, what is a sound business model, and who gets to decide what a sound business model is? It's one thing to say RedHat or Caldera don't have sound business models because they are loosing money, but what about the Linux distribution that's always in the black? How can MS say Slackware has a bad business model, when it's been a successful business for 10 years?

Additionally what effect will MS's right to charge have on OSS? Can MS only charge for developers to see the code or are they entitled to charge royalties for the implementation of the code? (Can you legally reverse engineer a software having seen the code?)

And what are they allowed to charge? Can Microsoft arbitrarily set it's own price, or is that somehow limited? If RedHat, SuSE, et al are unable to meet the requirements as a successful business, what's to stop Microsoft from high balling Slackware or other small companies that might be successful businesses? And what of community businesses like Debian? Debian is developed independently completely by volunteers with no real company behind it. What's to stop the OSS community from taking up a collection for Debian to buy the right to view these APIs? Also, if the community were to buy the APIs in such a way, would it then be public domain (doubtful)?

No foolin'. Search Google for "edible gold leaf" and see.

It's mainly used for decorative garnish, on things like fancy cakes, exotic soups, gilded fruit or candies, etc. It costs about US $0.20 per square inch.

Here's a newspaper article about it:

Let Them Eat Gold

>;K

As we speak, the UK government is attempting to take out a gagging order (on the grounds of "National Security") to surpress the reporting of a trial where evidence that claims to prove that the UK government paid Al Qaeda to attempt to assassinate Gaddafi for them in 1986 will be discussed. Of course you can find some of the details on the internet, but if the goverment could enforce the banning of access to web pages, then I suspect I would not be able to read about it anywhere.

As this recent The Age article explains regarding an on-going High Court case, even the imposition of a D-Notice can be subjected to a D-Notice preventing any UK-based media from reporting one has been applied. Good job we can't read non-UK based media outlets these days, eh?