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Heh, your signature is misguided. You've gotten Finagle's Law and Murphy's Law confused.

Heh, your signature is misguided. You've gotten Finagle's Law and Murphy's Law confused.

Please report your spam, or at least throw it at me so I can add the source to bl.ursine.ca...

Please report your spam, or at least throw it at me so I can add the source to bl.ursine.ca...

Just because my truck was built by KIA doesn't stop the fact it hasn't been killed in action yet in it's 11 years of existence, and that the only shop time it's seen is for routine stuff like oil changes and when some fucktard Californian fails to comprehend that it's physically impossible proceed past a wall of stopped traffic and rear ended it (twice in Oregon, once in New York, once in Alberta, every time by a Californian driver with Cali plates).

Spending time on making up cute marketing names is a total, 100% waste of time. Good products sell and prove themselves. Bad products can give a good name a bad reputation, anyway. Just look at Californians and what they've done to California's reputation.

Umm, Jabber already did this years ago, and Jabber is also the only open IM network. Really, though, compatability with the now-obsolete closed networks is mostly to help aid transition until your contacts also use Jabber.

You're forgetting massive biggie: RFC-1855 (Netiquette guidelines), why your email and news readers put the cursor before quoted text, and why you should think critically before using Earthlink's anti-spam. God knows September needs to end already.

You're forgetting massive biggie: RFC-1855 (Netiquette guidelines), why your email and news readers put the cursor before quoted text, and why you should think critically before using Earthlink's anti-spam. God knows September needs to end already.

Aunt Tillie speaks English, we speak Geek. When Aunt Tillie says "I want to learn Linux so I can do desktop stuff," I can probably already surmise that this person 1) knows what Linux is in at least some sense, 2) knows it's free but different, and 3) wants to get started on something better. This puts a good advocate with some patience Note this doesn't preclude you from telling someone to RTFM if you're polite about it and point out the right spot in the correct FM: Give a man a fish, he won't go hungry tonight. Teach a man to fish, and he won't go hungry until the fishery dies off. It also doesn't preclude you from asking clarifying questions.

This thread reminds me that everybody interested in the OS discussion should familiarize themselves with the Advocacy HOWTO.

Rubber-hose cryptoanalysis in The Jargon Wiki

Rubber-hose cryptoanalysis in The Jargon Wiki

The Jargon File says you're wrong.

The Jargon File says you're wrong.

As if. Random sampling seems to put the number at around 80% and falling over time.

• One 1995½ Kia Sportage slightly used (and actually off road like it was designed for)
• One Sony Car Discman cassette adapter
• My choice of a buddy's iPod, a laptop, CD player, or even my CB radio

• One 1995½ Kia Sportage slightly used (and actually off road like it was designed for)
• One Sony Car Discman cassette adapter
• My choice of a buddy's iPod, a laptop, CD player, or even my CB radio

Disclaimer: I run the ursine.ca Jabber server.

The yahoo transport sucks donkeyballs. It's unreliable and crashes for no reason, usually while I'm trying to get other work done. As evil as Microsoft typically is, they're doing us a favor: Now Jabber only has to maintain two or three transports and none of them involving some bletcherous hack from jabberd's transports if you're using the otherwise far easier to deal with ejabberd. Microsoft has to have their way, so you can pretty much kiss the YIM protocol good bye and everybody with a YIM ID suddenly having @yahoo.com Passports instead, and good riddance. Now there's only two proprietary protocols left: Oscar (AIM/ICQ) and MSN.

The 80 gajillion Google fanboys are suddenly able to access the rest of the IM landscape that isn't stuck in the last millennium with their Google Talk JID. Google users and the rest of the Jabber network rejoice, AOL shits itself seeing headlights coming from both directions.

Microsoft and Time Warner are going to strike a deal that will be kind of like AOL announcing that October 1993 would effectively follow January 2005 on the Usenet calendar. Except instead of AOL continuing to exist, Time Warner flushes AOL like an unwanted fetus on prom night, selling it out to Microsoft. Microsoft has to have their way, so you can pretty much kiss the Oscar protocol goodbye. Everybody with AIM IDs suddenly get @aim.com passports. Everybody at ICQ gets @icq.com passports.

And then there was one. MSN Messenger fights to the bitter death, losing mindshare bit by bit until 10 years from now, Microsoft's holding an empty bag and wondering how the hell they missed the boat on IM. Everybody loves Google, and many will switch to Google Talk on basis of name recognition alone. Thank God that they don't abuse that power.

(And in other news, the Portland Winterhawks probably won't make the playoffs this year. Again. Dammit.)

Disclaimer: I run the ursine.ca Jabber server.

The yahoo transport sucks donkeyballs. It's unreliable and crashes for no reason, usually while I'm trying to get other work done. As evil as Microsoft typically is, they're doing us a favor: Now Jabber only has to maintain two or three transports and none of them involving some bletcherous hack from jabberd's transports if you're using the otherwise far easier to deal with ejabberd. Microsoft has to have their way, so you can pretty much kiss the YIM protocol good bye and everybody with a YIM ID suddenly having @yahoo.com Passports instead, and good riddance. Now there's only two proprietary protocols left: Oscar (AIM/ICQ) and MSN.

The 80 gajillion Google fanboys are suddenly able to access the rest of the IM landscape that isn't stuck in the last millennium with their Google Talk JID. Google users and the rest of the Jabber network rejoice, AOL shits itself seeing headlights coming from both directions.

Microsoft and Time Warner are going to strike a deal that will be kind of like AOL announcing that October 1993 would effectively follow January 2005 on the Usenet calendar. Except instead of AOL continuing to exist, Time Warner flushes AOL like an unwanted fetus on prom night, selling it out to Microsoft. Microsoft has to have their way, so you can pretty much kiss the Oscar protocol goodbye. Everybody with AIM IDs suddenly get @aim.com passports. Everybody at ICQ gets @icq.com passports.

And then there was one. MSN Messenger fights to the bitter death, losing mindshare bit by bit until 10 years from now, Microsoft's holding an empty bag and wondering how the hell they missed the boat on IM. Everybody loves Google, and many will switch to Google Talk on basis of name recognition alone. Thank God that they don't abuse that power.

(And in other news, the Portland Winterhawks probably won't make the playoffs this year. Again. Dammit.)

Editors: Please take note of the proper definitions of hack and crack.

Editors: Please take note of the proper definitions of hack and crack.

Ah, you must not work in the 3rd millennium yet, where these things DON'T matter. You might want to join us, things are better here in the future. Even the September That Never Ended ended earlier this millennium.

At bat, HD Webdev! Here's the pitch. Ooh, swing and a miss.

I was alluding to the fact that you can kill three birds (switch to the recently standardized XMPP protocol, thus ensuring future compatability; maintain connectivity with obsoleted IM systems and use one single client) simply by joining a Jabber server and registering your legacy IM logins just a single time. Why should anybody sit through organzising their contact list and setting aliases for their entire contact list more than once? Why should anybody use a half-assed client that makes you do just that every time you log in for the first time with it on a new machine?

With Jabber, once you're logged in, everything's been registered and you've sorted your list for the first time, you're done. Your jabber server will log you in to the obsolete networks and remember everybody's name and what group you put them in, no matter what network that contact is on. As far as the client is concerned, they're all Jabber; the server does all the heavy lifting and network translation. And because the client only has to speak a single, simple protocol, a full-featured client comes in around a single megabyte.

Why defend the multi-protocol clients when they're a greater pain in the ass to use?

Once you have that done, convert your friends to Jabber and replace their legacy IM network contacts with a single Jabber ID.

Easier done than said, it really is.

Jabber, on the other hand, *IS IM* because it's based on the XMPP protocol, the only IM protocol to become a standard. (This means that MSN, Yahoo, Gadu Gadu, AIM and ICQ also no longer count).

Only if you hate service discovery, or easy setup. Once you've set up Jabber the first time, the only thing you have to remember when installing Psi on another system is your JID and password. The Jabber server does the rest, from remembering how you have your contacts sorted to signing you on the other IM networks. This jabber tutorial can help you get started.

Somehow, I figure the number of people still using DECnet exactly matches the number of people still reading Datamation.

Ursine Wiki has a whole bunch of stuff including history, detailed descriptions and reviews of most of the Apple Newton line.

Ursine Wiki has a whole bunch of stuff including history, detailed descriptions and reviews of most of the Apple Newton line.

Ursine Wiki has a whole bunch of stuff including history, detailed descriptions and reviews of most of the Apple Newton line.

Huh? Have you actually used KDE or GNOME in the past few years? The only reason Windows could be considered "easier to use" is because everyone is already familiar with Windows.

Duh! It's a WIMP environment! Any idiot capable of operating a crosswalk signal can figure out damn near any GUI you're going to find in production today.

SCO thought ESR would just let it fly to use the FUD entry of the Jargon file to further their claims back in 2003. SCO: See also Bzzt! Wrong.

SCO thought ESR would just let it fly to use the FUD entry of the Jargon file to further their claims back in 2003. SCO: See also Bzzt! Wrong.

...who backs themselves into the VB hole in the first place? You hack like a woman! /austin powers

For the same reasons that many OSS desktop environments also tend to have MacOS 9 or MacOS X themes. It reduces culture shock for new users while still allowing them access to the features of the desktop environment. The Windows UI is of itself a hammed up CDE environment, an early example of MS playing catchup with the Unix world.

Do you feel that they actually impove on the Windows GUI with things like virtual desktops, or are they just a poor copy of the original?

Mu. It's a different approach entirely. I would say it's an improvement over the Windows UI, as KDE is almost countlessly more featureful for the user due to significant design differences of the underlying OS that KDE runs on, down to the countless proglets and options and optional components that can be used (or unused or even uninstalled) to add features or slim down the system to exactly what the user needs and wants.

To put it in terms that the world you're obviously living in can understand: If MacOS's window system is white and Window's is black, OSS gives you not only the gray in the middle but the color your world doesn't have.

Vendor lock-in is a Bad Thing. Did you learn nothing from the Microsoft Dynasty, which is starting to wind down as we speak thanks to vendor lock-in?

Poll by the same title over on ursine.ca.

Poll by the same title over on ursine.ca.

...because it sounds like you're looking for Vonage. If you decide to switch, please let me know, I'd like the referral bonux.

I'm looking forward to support for True Crime now that it's out on PC, as well as Driver 3 when it comes out, though I'm still trying for 100% completion of Vice City between rounds of America's Army, which is a pretty damn good game out on all top three major OS's.

When will people realize that this is so easily fixable with Squid and Adzapper? Why aren't ISPs doing this (as well as virus scanning email the right way) already? Are they afraid they will lose customers by doing the right thing or something?

It's Baloo, give me an email. Been a while since we've talked.

To which he is contributing to the problem he's bitching about with this.

Do you want to keep track of your eBay auctions? Instead of five e-mails per auction, all scattered throughout your inbox, you would have a single flag in the control panel. Discussion groups? The control panel would show when hot topics of interest to you are being discussed and would call attention to discussions with contributions by writers you particularly respect.

It's almost 2004, and this guy still doesn't know about Procmail and what a kill file is?

E-mail? Restricted to truly personal communication. Newsletters, intranet status reports, and other nonletter communications would be summarized and available for perusal on request.

Isn't that why Procmail and SpamAssassin exist?

IM would have a small role, but your personal agent would be very strict at screening incoming requests.

Unless you're a complete moron completely lacking self-control, odds are you set yourself do-not-disturb when you're managing a lot of state.

To which he is contributing to the problem he's bitching about with this.

Do you want to keep track of your eBay auctions? Instead of five e-mails per auction, all scattered throughout your inbox, you would have a single flag in the control panel. Discussion groups? The control panel would show when hot topics of interest to you are being discussed and would call attention to discussions with contributions by writers you particularly respect.

It's almost 2004, and this guy still doesn't know about Procmail and what a kill file is?

E-mail? Restricted to truly personal communication. Newsletters, intranet status reports, and other nonletter communications would be summarized and available for perusal on request.

Isn't that why Procmail and SpamAssassin exist?

IM would have a small role, but your personal agent would be very strict at screening incoming requests.

Unless you're a complete moron completely lacking self-control, odds are you set yourself do-not-disturb when you're managing a lot of state.

My mirror of just 2.6.0.

Procmail is your friend. Use it. In conjunction with SpamAssassin, you can filter it off to a folder to go send to SpamCop at your earliest convienence. While SpamCop officially discourages doing so, setting your mail server to reject based on the RBL bl.spamcop.net will save you some work (and money if you're a SpamCop member) by prohibiting mail from sites already reported by several people.

I use exim in conjunction with sa-exim to reject spam that scores high with Spamassassin, and to teergrube the luser. Since I'm the postmaster, I also have sa-exim give all the sa-exim rejected spam to my spam folder to report as well.

I have roughly 30 users. Almost all of them use my site for mail, since doing so is extremely spam hostile thanks to me, with very little inconvienence, if any, to legitimate mailers, which is the way it should be.

On an aside, I also use abuse.net's forwarding service to report hosts infected with viruses to their ISPs. I've been fairly successful, though it could be better. Roughly one third of the ISPs I contact suspend or terminate the user's account for it. I also maintain a net-lsearchable list of the last relay such infected messages go through before hitting my server. Feel free to use it for yourself, it's on my website.

Procmail is your friend. Use it. In conjunction with SpamAssassin, you can filter it off to a folder to go send to SpamCop at your earliest convienence. While SpamCop officially discourages doing so, setting your mail server to reject based on the RBL bl.spamcop.net will save you some work (and money if you're a SpamCop member) by prohibiting mail from sites already reported by several people.

I use exim in conjunction with sa-exim to reject spam that scores high with Spamassassin, and to teergrube the luser. Since I'm the postmaster, I also have sa-exim give all the sa-exim rejected spam to my spam folder to report as well.

I have roughly 30 users. Almost all of them use my site for mail, since doing so is extremely spam hostile thanks to me, with very little inconvienence, if any, to legitimate mailers, which is the way it should be.

On an aside, I also use abuse.net's forwarding service to report hosts infected with viruses to their ISPs. I've been fairly successful, though it could be better. Roughly one third of the ISPs I contact suspend or terminate the user's account for it. I also maintain a net-lsearchable list of the last relay such infected messages go through before hitting my server. Feel free to use it for yourself, it's on my website.

You mean this? And besides, I think my major malfunction is that I haven't had a decent vacation in three years.

We've gone to red alert, people! Major threat to the entire population of Earth! Someone on Slashdot has predicted the immenent death of the net.