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I'll tell ya why. When I use Netscape and click on my /. bookmark, it takes me right there. Same with my Freefall bookmark, my User Friendly bookmark, my news bookmark, and even my play bookmark. Direct. No redirects.

But now Micro$oft comes along and says, "Hey, we can make money off this too!" and starts doing redirects with their strong-armed browser market. Load balancing? Hit tracking? Bullshit. Let MY ISP deal with load balancing, or the sites that I'm actually going to (notice none of them are M$). Ditto with hit tracking.

Basically, M$ has no NEED to redirect. They just decided to do it and grab MORE information from those who happen to use IE (not me!!) and yet further bend the Internet public over and have their way with us.

I find it funny that the MPAA is actually going this far to swindle what else they can from people. But even if they succeed, and get some kind of protection built into the hardware, someone somewhere at sometime will get bored, and decide to hack it. It won't be the cleanest, most easily reproducable hack, but they'll do it.

Famous Quote I like to go by: "Make something idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot."

So they stop us at the VCR Level. At some point along the path from the cable input to the television, there will be a decrypted video signal, just waiting for someone to snatch up and redirect to a VCR.

If your really that deperate, break out the old camcorder, take a set of headphones and cut the jack off. Wire the jack to the speaker in your television, plug it into the camcorder's "Audio In". Face the camcorder at the TV Screen, press record, and watch as the camcorder captures both video and sound (you can use the microphone if you want...)

In the end, MPAA and RIAA are trying to resist change rather than adapting to it. And this will be the final nail in their coffin. Change is here, and they need to learn to adapt to it rather than trying to twist it to their own devilish schemes.

Had the MPAA/RIAA worked out a business plan that used these new and emerging technologies, they would be leaning back in their chairs, enjoying a nice cuban cigar, while they continued to make money, rather than wasting it on endless lawyer/legal fees to fight it.

I honestly think that in the end, the Consumers will win this. It may take many years, but in the end, we will win.

This link says it all: Explaining the CSS Decryption Source Code to the MPAA

--Kumba

First and foremost every linux distribution caters, or atleast claims to cater to a specific subsection of the linux population. If you want the most recognized linux distribution, with the one of the bigest installed bases out there you run RedHat. If you want a distribution that is as tight as a drum you apply Bastille Linux. If you want productivity suties cleanly integrated into your install process you run Corel Linux (which BTW is based on Debian.) If you feel like supporting User Friendly you run Suse. If you want a distribution that you know all the parts work well together in you run Debian.

The author of this article seems to lack an understanding of the Debian release cycle. Debian was frozen before several of the release he mentions came out. Once Debian has been frozen getting a new package into it becomes substanially more difficult. Now before everyone screams about how now that potato (Debian 2.2) is stable these fixes can't make it in, keep in mind that security fixes are one of the items on the very short list of packages that can be changed once a release goes stable.

Joe Homeuser most likely isn't going to choose Debian as his distribution. Most people who choose Debian do so because the support Open Source ideals to the extreme and as such have problem been around the Open Source block a time or two and atleast have some idea what they are doing.

Are these valid secutiry holes in potato? Yes! Should someone have written an article bringing them to light? Yes! Is this a big enough deal to warrant a Slashdot Story? No! It should be a quickie at best.

http://www.mainsoft.com/press/pr-Med iaAdv.html vs. http://ars.userfriendly.org/carto ons/?id=20000801

Isn't it obvious? Microsoft's competition with Linux has forced them to take the extreme measures of porting Outlook (Express) to Linux. Of course, this was inspired by the recent UF comic. Why else would it be just a few weeks later.

Anm

Yes. He goes by the name of Pitr and sysadmins for an ISP somewhere in BC. Here's his webpage.

Silly question. :-P

...maybe now we'll finally see VBA support for Linux.

User Friendly? It look just like it.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/carto ons/?id=19990328

Oh, wait! We already have that :-)

Its called M$ Outlook.

I understand Pitr is working on a linux port this week :-)

Actually he finished and released it. Poor trusting movie watchers. :-}

You might find this bit off of #userfriendly funny in the context of pop music...

Looking over the FAQ for this King story, I see that it's $1 a pop (a mere few thousand words each time) for the first three installments, and $2.50 an ep after that, up to seven or eight payments total. That's $13-15.50 US for an approximately 350 page novel [...]

This marketting model is no different from what King did with a printed book a few years ago. Remember The Green Mile? Originally published as a six-part serial at $2.99 apiece. So the Loyal Reader winds up paying $18 for what amounts to a thick paperback. (The complete series is now collected in a single 536-page volume for $7.99.)

Now, serialized works are fine, but I'm certainly not going to pay a premium for the privilege of waiting six months to finish the thing! Publish it as a serial in a magazine, or charge something like $1/each, and then I'll consider it.

This is just the electronic equivalent. Again, charge something reasonable and I might consider it.

BTW, I'd love to find a good e-book reader that is approximately the same size as a paperback, with a high-res, high-contrast display. My Palm is nice, but the display positively blows chunks for reading anything longer than Iambe's column each day.

Mozilla.org puts browser to work as word processor

Now that's misleading. Then again, misleading headlines are not uncommon. But if you don't read the article, and if you just read the /. teaser, and if you just read the headlines, then you flame away. One thing that I found to be amusing was one of the comments posted one the cnet msg board. It is from a certain Larry Troll, malda@slashdot.org.

Hot Grits

I like to pour hot grits down my pants while reading Slashdot. Thank you.

Hehehe. Of course, User Friendly also had a /. "theme" today.

Hell, I have plenty of Karma to burn... Check out today's User Friendly. Us trolls will love it!

But userfriendly sites already exist!

The real solution for spam has been around for ages. Userfriendly had the best solution for spam i have ever seen. First Response Second Responce These are the best solutions to spam I have ever seen. If people would only listen to cartoons. *I'll Fix his Little Red Wagon*

The real solution for spam has been around for ages. Userfriendly had the best solution for spam i have ever seen. First Response Second Responce These are the best solutions to spam I have ever seen. If people would only listen to cartoons. *I'll Fix his Little Red Wagon*

As always, I refer people to Otaku No Video, to see how otaku are the geeks of Japanese society and how this relates to anime.

In BC this classification means that it cannot be displayed where minors can view it. Simply put - it's not allowed on the shelves. Iambe at UserFriendly did her column on it this morning. You can see it here

...UF is having a field day with the X-hype. ^_^

See today's UserFriendly for a comic on this very point.

(BTW, the Courtney Love comment shorted out my irony meter. You owe me a new irony meter.)

Yes, that would be me. Accordioning is the new texting. Just ask Emmett.

Some other posters have made mention of the girl who demands acceptance because she knows a little HTML. Whether this is as common as it seems or not, there is a burden on women in IT and other technical fields (physics, math) to be better than average just to justify their presence that does not fall upon the geeky male.
Like Miranda from UF and Ki from GPF,we not only have to fit in , we have to be really damn good just to be acceptable. Or, as Pitr demonstrates, our abilities are ignored.

This is not about "making everything 50%/50%", it is about not losing the potential contributions people have to offer fields because they feel pressured to go into something else. If, given equality to begin with, men and women really did choose to go in different directions, there would be no problem. But to assume that the field is level just because you or your friend Mathilda had no problems, and then chasitize women for not getting off their duffs and interested in technical fields, is extremely pompous and ignores the sexism and misogyny still common in American (Western?) society.

Some other posters have made mention of the girl who demands acceptance because she knows a little HTML. Whether this is as common as it seems or not, there is a burden on women in IT and other technical fields (physics, math) to be better than average just to justify their presence that does not fall upon the geeky male.
Like Miranda from UF and Ki from GPF,we not only have to fit in , we have to be really damn good just to be acceptable. Or, as Pitr demonstrates, our abilities are ignored.

This is not about "making everything 50%/50%", it is about not losing the potential contributions people have to offer fields because they feel pressured to go into something else. If, given equality to begin with, men and women really did choose to go in different directions, there would be no problem. But to assume that the field is level just because you or your friend Mathilda had no problems, and then chasitize women for not getting off their duffs and interested in technical fields, is extremely pompous and ignores the sexism and misogyny still common in American (Western?) society.

THere is Miranda from User Friendly
----------------------------------------------

I've actually heard from guys who have pinups of Miranda (User Friendly) and Ki (GPF Comics) on their walls. In fact, many of us would like nothing more than a girlfriend who could actually code. Sadly, I know of only two females who can write anything more impressive than basic HTML. (Before I get angry responses, I openly acknowledge that I do not know everyone in the world.)

I wonder why it is that girls don't go for guys in IT. Sure, the occasional one of us is a fat slob or turbo-nerd, but I don't think those subsets are in the majority. And, we tend to have more money than the average Joe Six Pack, which is supposed to be attractive (according to the Discovery Channel, because it signals the women that we're more apt to provide for their young).

So, what's up? Why do the women keep flocking to the high-power lawyers (which is just as non-physical, academic a job as programmer), while neglecting us? What the hell is going on?

Anyone else getting a screenshot of this? I mean, I've seen the same story posted twice numerous times, hell they ARE only humans running this site, but not one right after the other an hour apart! Copnsidering that UF wasn't terribly funny this morning (when the hell are AJ and Miranda going to hop on the good foot and do teh bad thing?), it's good to know I can still rely on /. for a nice chuckle to get things started right.

Oh, and to folks who post crap like "this should be moderated down", or "Malda, you f*cking idiot"... get a sense of humor... it's Good Thing.

Probably RedHat, with a copy of X11 and Netscape. I assume that it will cut most of the administrative and office utilities, and keep only the media ones that are used as internet plug ins. If they are smart, they will keep the IRC software in there, and the FTP software, which they probably will leave both the console and gui versions of. RPM will obviously be the package manager, and probably there will be systems to make web upgrading more "userfriendly" as it were. Gone will be gimp and such utilities, it will be stripped to GUI and internet junk, all of which can fit on a fairly small drive, and with identical images, fairly simply administered. The one interesting factor will be the security model that they implement. I am sure that they want to enable the user to install upgrades, but will they circumvent this to increase security?

Now that I got that off my chest, here are a few more amusing, yet not annoying, 404 pages:

• UserFriendly
• Another one that alludes to Poe, and a page that uses it.

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Now that I think about it, I sort of wish I could put a tipjar on some of my Themestream articles, like the one about Jon Katz, but I think that might be a violation of contract or something. But at least they pay me a dime a hit, and they don't seem to have any banner ads so far (I imagine they might add them once they get out of their trial period, though). (That's another way individual authors, at least, could make money off the web, I suppose...)

Another interesting new model built on similar ground to the Street Performers' Protocol is the Storytellers' Bowl, which is going to accept PayPal and publish stories on a supported-by-patron-donation basis. I'm really looking forward to its launch.

And by the way, for whoever wrote the copy quoted in the story blurb--Junkbuster isn't new; it's been around for several years at least.
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iThink that these people should stop with all of these i's. iHope that they do before iWhack one of them upside the head.

Check it out here

--buddy

'an experiment... Can you make a Unix systems administrator into a fictional character who people will find compelling?'

BOFH? Pitr?

-(())

Today I was browsing the archives again, and I found this. Seems on-topic?

Bah, that's an easy experiment.. simply show the the normals how we really work.

Sounds familiar....
follow this for a couple of weeks of strips
http://ars.userfriendly.org/carto ons/?id=19981127

Come to think of it, I think this problem sounds familiar

Check out today's UF about the Metallica/Napster fiasco for a stupendous example of what is wrong with User Friendly. Illiad has absolutely no idea what comedy is about.

"Oh look, the guy smashed the computer and he works for Metallica's PR dept. um, ha?"

I have yet to see a UF that even made me smile. He comes from the school that thinks anytime you bash an unpopular subject (Microsoft, stupid users, Metallica, etc. ad nauseum) it's funny. Not true. It's sad that a strip with such little comedic value is seen as representative of the Linux/geek community's humor.

The only thing I've seen Illiad do that I liked was to put a TradeWars game up on the UFie BBS. Thanks for that.

UF Toon

It is poignant to hear this guy standing up for the rules that every composer/author/producer plays by - and getting smeared over it - but hey, these bad boys are just typecast for it, pay up or go to hell! You want free music? Move to Havana and enjoy the state orchestra. Let's see some garage bands produce records and GPL them, that'd be cool, just don't quit your day job.

BTW - todays UserFriendly is apropos.

Here's a link to today's comic that will still be there tomorrow:
Today's UF

What exactly did you intend to mod him down for? Expressing a valid opinion? I don't remember that one being on the moderation options. What you are admitting is that you were planning on abusing your moderator points to damage someone whose opinion you disagreed with.

What's this about him having to sellout to keep his people paid? I mean, cry me a river. Just look at Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance fame, and he does employ a staff of people to help him run the site and his business. I don't think he's having a problem getting by on banner ads, t-shirts, and book sales. The 30 or so other web cartoonist I read as part of my day don't seem to be having any trouble supporting theirselves economically. When you get as big as Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance, David Simpson of Ozy and Millie, Bill Holbrook of Kevin and Kell, or Scott Kurtz of PVP, book sales and ad banners seem to be more than enough to keep yourself solvent. That doesn't even count the many popular artists who don't have anything beyond banner ads to sponsor themselves, such as Zach Stroum of Etherlife, Gabriel and Tycho Brahe of Penny Arcade, and Maritza Campos of College Roomies from Hell! -- all of whom are either college students or fully employed and do their strips as hobbies.

While I still find User Friendly mostly funny and still read it regularly, I lost a lot of respect for Illiad when I came across UF Media. The image he puts for on the site is one of someone whoring themselves out to corporate sponsorship. Illiad doesn't seem content with just selling t-shirts and books directly. He is actively calling to have his characters used as logos to curry favor with his fans for companies like SuSE. He wants the airline commercial spots, the suction cup animals, and co-branded food that syndicated sell-outs like Garfield have engendered.

I think this strip from Penny Arcade illustrates the opinions that many of us have for his ethics and credibility, in spite of or along with our opinions of his work on its own. It hurts his credibility because corporate sponsorship and co-branding are often the vicious monetary cycle that keeps comics going in newspapers long after they stopped being funny or original and sometimes even long after the creator of the strip has died. It's that we object to.

P.S. Slashdot readers should hopefully get a kick out of this strip. Just a friendly reminder for when talking to people who don't read Slashdot.

Anybody else notice the moon in this strip? :-)
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk

Apparently, you missed my point.

My point is that the quality of the strip has deteriorated into zippy, because he is drawing the strip/developing the characters in a way that he's trying to pimp to companies.

Tell you what. You go watch this, and afterwards, tell me if you don't feel robbed of 10 minutes of your life.

User Friendly has been around for years.. in most online comic strips you can see changes, whether they be artistic (as in, quality of art improving), or development (character development). It is awfully difficult to put together a case for UF showing either.

And I actually used to LIKE UF at one point, so I'm not some random UF-basher-slashdot-troll. I just find it sad that he is pimping his work like this.. ohwell.. hope he enjoys the $ that gets raked in, and when a company starts doing sitcoms based off of UF characters, I'll be busy turning in my grave.

Still highly amused by UF, and I think 'Artur' said it best when he said this.

--
naguia

For the most part, Userfriendly has been getting tedious IMHO, particularly when Illiad feels the need to bash anything not Linux or when he goes on those flights of fancy like the whole Star Wars bit with Dust Puppy. His story line (which he has been dragging on) with Miranda and AJ has been really funny and intelligent though. It would be nice if he'd keep it going!

I have to say though, when he's on, he's ON.

For the most part, Userfriendly has been getting tedious IMHO, particularly when Illiad feels the need to bash anything not Linux or when he goes on those flights of fancy like the whole Star Wars bit with Dust Puppy. His story line (which he has been dragging on) with Miranda and AJ has been really funny and intelligent though. It would be nice if he'd keep it going!

I have to say though, when he's on, he's ON.

For the most part, Userfriendly has been getting tedious IMHO, particularly when Illiad feels the need to bash anything not Linux or when he goes on those flights of fancy like the whole Star Wars bit with Dust Puppy. His story line (which he has been dragging on) with Miranda and AJ has been really funny and intelligent though. It would be nice if he'd keep it going!

I have to say though, when he's on, he's ON.

I don't want to knock the book at all, but have no compunctions about lambasting this review ;-)

My [non-techie] wife found it amusing, which is unusual for geek humour. I liked it, but since I check User Friendly almost daily, I didn't see anything I hadn't seen before.

Correction: there is a new joke in the book, and it is the book. This is an O'Reilly "In a Nutshell" book, right down to the Colophon: "The animal on the cover is a Dust Puppy". I can't help but think that if IDG weren't such assholes about their trademarks, this could just as well have been "Evil Geniuses for Dummies".

Thanks to the reviewer for pointing out the missing text in the Windows refund storyline. I didn't get it, and didn't think to check the website to see if the print version was accurate.

Isn't it Mike who is haunted by the giant cola can? The reviewer says it's AJ, but I'm pretty sure it's not.

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At the time of writing, this is a first post.

Available, of course at the User Friendly site at their store