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Bah. On my system, cat and fish come preinstalled.

So all I need to do for the specified interval bit is add a line to my crontab that looks something like this:

1 * * * * "cat /usr/local/bin/fish | twofish | blowfish > seuss.fish"

Bah. On my system, cat and fish come preinstalled.

So all I need to do for the specified interval bit is add a line to my crontab that looks something like this:

1 * * * * "cat /usr/local/bin/fish | twofish | blowfish > seuss.fish"

Take advantage of Script-Fu and some of the automatable things in GIMP, the Windows version, too if you need.

Inkscape will give you lightning quick results when making primitive objects. A couple shapes, come gradients for definition, add a quick shadow, et voila.. Sometimes vector art is the right tool for the job, for sure.

Find a few key techniques that work for you, and develop a working style. Lastly, share what you can, so peole aren't dependant on ClipArt any more than they have to be. Also, I will enjoy the day when a Layer Styles palette as in Photoshop is worked into GIMP.. That will make it a fully usable tool for me..

I've coded up NNTP support for Slash. Check out a demo at http://slash.zevils.com/ and news:zevils.com. It has support for limiting it only to subscribers and other neat stuff. Told Rob about it, and he said he was interested but I don't think he's had a chance to check it out yet. Also, I don't know Slashcode that well so it would be good if one of the Slashfolk vetted the code to make sure I was Doing The Right Thing. The code is here and my slashcode.com announcement is here. Is anyone interested in this?

I've coded up NNTP support for Slash. Check out a demo at http://slash.zevils.com/ and news:zevils.com. It has support for limiting it only to subscribers and other neat stuff. Told Rob about it, and he said he was interested but I don't think he's had a chance to check it out yet. Also, I don't know Slashcode that well so it would be good if one of the Slashfolk vetted the code to make sure I was Doing The Right Thing. The code is here and my slashcode.com announcement is here. Is anyone interested in this?

Gods, I knew this day would come.

See, once upon a time, back in the ancient days, before the existance of slashcode.com, there was a group of people who attempted to use the 0.2 and 0.3 releases of Slash.

This was BEFORE the Andover acquisition, before the IPO, before the VAOLinux assimilation.

Someone managed to a) make slash 0.3pre work b) provide a patch to do so, and c) PROVIDE DOCUMENTATION.

A list sprung up for those of us interested.
http://projects.is.asu.edu/mailman/listinfo/slash- help. A FAQ was written: http://www.zevils.com/programs/files/slash-faq2.tx t. Patches were given to Mr. Malda, who promptly either ignored or failed to acknowledge them. Pleas were made for Malda to link the list or FAQ to the slashcode page. They went unheeded. People who had spent months unsucccessfully trying to make Slash work discovered the FAQ, mailing list, and patch, and managed to make slash work. And *they* were unhappy that Malda and /. blew us off and refused to point to us as a help source.

I'm really p*ssed off here. OUR work was blown off by Malda and never ever acknowledged on /. and then we got to be insulted later by the appearance of a 0.9 release without any acknowledgement of our effort, followed by the appearance of slashcode.com, and now finally there's a nice book about it posted on /. itself, which kicks money back to /. not to mention the authors of the book whom are likely largely ignorant of the early history of /.

Yeah, I'm real bitter that all this isn't even a footnote in history. I think though that a) there should be credit given where it is due and b) the truth should be made public about what Malda was up to with slash at the time ("slash was made public as a joke as an entry for obfuscated perl contest and we will never support it" IIRC yet he through Andover/VAOLinux did later).

So come on, let's see if we get some acknowledgement from /. and the book authors etc. about these issues. Or perhaps I ought to buy one share of stock and ask at the stockholder's meeting! Yeah, that's it, they gotta answer to the stockholders...

Email: (slash) [at] (underwaterbasketweaving [dot] (com)

tell aol that you are using their TAC client. see aimirc for more information.

"Central clearinghouse" PKI is what SSL uses. SSL certificates are signed by Certificate Authorities (CAs), such as VeriSign. CAs are trusted entities who verify an applicant's identity before issuing them a certificate. A certificate is the same as a public key except that it has more information about the owner - usually the x.509 Distinguished Name which consists of a "common name" (CN), "organizational unit" (OU), "organization" (O), "locality" (L), "state" (S), "country" (C), and sometimes email. For instance, Microsoft's DN is CN=www.microsoft.com/OU=mscom/O=Microsoft/L=Redmon d/S=Washington/C=US. How do you know which CAs to trust? Web browsers typically have a built-in list. Anyone can act as a CA, but when someone views a website which is using one of that CA's certificates, the user's web browser should (and most do) display a warning. Go to Fortify's SSL test page and my HTTPS website. Fortify's certificate was issued by Thawte (who I believe is now owned by VeriSign), a widely-known CA whose certificate is in most/all browsers. My certificate is signed by the "Zevils CA", which doesn't really exist. Your browser should display a warning when accessing the zevils site but not when accessing the Fortify site.

The other popular method of PKI is known as the "web of trust." This is what PGP and GPG use. If you know someone in real life, you have proof of their identity (such as a driver's license), and you both have GPG/PGP keys, you should sign each other's public keys and upload the signed keys to the keyserver. Here's how the web of trust works (with help from the GNU Privacy Guard Handbook):

Alice knows Bob in real life. They both use GPG. Alice knows with absolute certainty that a certain key is Bob's key, and that Bob is who he says he is, so she signs Bob's key with her key. Alice and Bob discuss PKI every day at lunch and Alice knows that Bob has excellent judgement on when to sign a key, so she tells GPG that she trusts Bob's signature on a key as much as her own (she can also give Bob marginal trust or no trust - see GPG documentation for details.) Bob has signed Charlie's key. Thus, Alice trusts Charlie's key. The web of trust, at least in the GPG implementation, is quite flexible and does extend to a depth of more than one. See the GPG handbook for more information.

Of course, PKI is not a magical security fairy that sprinkles security dust on your keys while you're asleep at night. Bruce Schneier and Carl Ellison have written an excellent paper, Ten Risks of PKI (Computer Security Journal, v 16, n 1, 2000, pp. 1-7)

Well, I've created something similar. AIMIRC, a way to use AOL Instant Messenger via IRC.

I've created an AOL Instant Messenger (TOC) to IRC gateway. It pretends to be an IRC server, links up with your IRC server, and creates the nick AIMServ that you can then send, say PRIVMSG signon screenname password to. It makes IRC nicks for your buddies (AIM-SomeBuddy) so you can PRIVMSG them and it makes channels (#aimchat-1234) for AIM chatrooms. Here's the homepage.

--
matthewg {matthewg@zevils.com} (Matthew Sachs), not at home

--
matthewg {matthewg@zevils.com} (Matthew Sachs), not at home

There is a program available, which I wrote, which adds NNTP support to Slash. The newsd home page has a link.

Is this going to be the new "hot grits down my pants" / "Natalie Portman" troll of the next few months?

Do people really think that replying to every story post on Slashdot with "So when is Rob going to stop being a hypocrite and release the Slash code" or comments to that effect will make him move any faster? I want to play with the Slash code too; I have an idea for a LARP (live action roleplaying) forum and I think a Slashdot-style site would work well for it. I've tried playing with the 0.3 tarball (with what litle time I've had to play with it) and would like to see the changes in 0.4 before I put any more work into it. But even I'm getting tired of people badgering them about it!

If you really think that Hemos and Taco are such huge hypocrites, or that Slashdot is going downhill because of mindless MS bashing and rabid Linux zealotry at the expense of common sense, then go the hell away. Find another tech site that will give you the info you want (or go and start one yourself) and let those of us who like Slashdot the way it is, semi-closed source and all, be. Go and contribute to the OpenSlash or PHPSlash projects if you really want open code that badly.

I understand both sides of the issue. It is Rob's code. No law says he has to release it. But, out of respect for the community in which he has become such an icon, he could at least be honest about it. If the code is heading for a close source, then say so. If it is truely going for open source, give us a target date. We have heard 'soon' since mid-1999 at least.

Odviously, Rob, you are taking a bit of flack for this, and you must see that inflamatory remarks like the '24 delay' comment don't help the situation, though I understand your frustration.

I also understand that you probably won't give us an target, but you may find yourself catching a bit less flack if you give us a bit more than just an undefined 'soon'. Give us a plan with some meat. Will it be released under a standard GNU? A modified GNU? Will we have to link to Andover as well as Slashdot? What features will be included and what won't (moderation, PGP keys, karma, etc.) in the initial 0.4 release? Give us some positive discussion on the topic instead of just voicing you frustration.

Here is some info on slashcode help and alternative code bases:

The slash-help mailing list is here. This list discusses the original slashcode 0.3, as well as non-Malda flavors of slash and the pro's and con's of each.

A forked version of the 0.3 code is availible here.

PHPSlash is being developed independently of the Malda crew. It can be had here.

A Zope version called Squishdot is also availible.

DOINS is also an alternative slashcode base, though I've not worked with it personally.

I've seen some comments about slashsites not giving credit to Rob and Co. Please remember that these other versions of the code exist and are completely seperate. So, just because a site looks like slashdot doesn't mean its using Rob's code. That said, most of the non-0.3/0.2 sites are run by fans of Slashdot and so have links to it. Squishdot for example.

The slash-help mailing list is here. This list discusses the original slashcode 0.3, as well as non-Malda flavors of slash and the pro's and con's of each.

A forked version of the 0.3 code is availible here.

PHPSlash is being developed independently of the Malda crew. It can be had here.

A Zope version called Squishdot is also availible.

I've seen some comments about slashsites not giving credit to Rob and Co. Please remember that these other versions of the code exist and are completely seperate. So, just because a site looks like slashdot doesn't mean its using Rob's code. That said, most of the non-0.3/0.2 sites also have mention and links to slashdot. Squishdot for example.

Here are my questions:

So far slashdot is the only site I know of that IS a self-moderating community. If other code bases begin creating moderation/metamoderation models, are they in danger of a Malda patient on metamoderation/karma or the self-moderating community concept? I think I can guess at the answer, but it would be good to have some official verbage on this from Rob.

Those of us actively working with slashcode 0.3 etc. understand the nature of beta and don't expect a 1.0 release. 0.4 would be fine even it is doesn't work, like 0.3 didn't when it was released. We will gladly fix it. Given the long period of time that 0.4 has been promised (check here for a post by Rob back in June about releasing 0.4 and here is one in August), the fact that the slash community is not likely to forget that promise, and the fact 0.3 has rather silly Y2K problems (see the slash-help list archive for fixes) will you, finally release SOMETHING or admit that the Slashdot code is in reality and practice close sourced beyond 0.3?

Would you please add a link to the slash-help mailing list mentioned above (http://projects.is.asu.edu/mailman/listinfo/slash -help) to the www.slashdot.org/code.shtml page?

If it hasn't exactly shown in this post, Rob does great code. My compliments! You have us hooked and we want more! -Temple

The 0.3 code that code.shtml links to has many known bugs. A lot of those have been fixed in 0.3-3.7, available here. There is a mailing list, slash-help, for help with Slash problems.

There's an effort getting started to bring the current Slash code up to snuff. The homepage is here.

Oh, and you might have better work with Slash 0.3-3.7 than the stock versions that Rob puts out. Those versions are quite buggy. Oh, btw, there's also NNTP support for Slash.

I'm the one who put out newsd and the 0.3-3.7 tarball. I also seem to be making the most noise about adding functionality to Slash on slash-help. In fact, someone just offered to host a Slash CVS repository for me and I'm forking the code (see slash-help - especially the recent YA0.4W thread - for the gory details of why.)

(I've sent a copy of this reply to the original poster via email since I don't know if he's still reading this story or not.)

Oh, and you might have better work with Slash 0.3-3.7 than the stock versions that Rob puts out. Those versions are quite buggy. Oh, btw, there's also NNTP support for Slash.

I'm the one who put out newsd and the 0.3-3.7 tarball. I also seem to be making the most noise about adding functionality to Slash on slash-help. In fact, someone just offered to host a Slash CVS repository for me and I'm forking the code (see slash-help - especially the recent YA0.4W thread - for the gory details of why.)

(I've sent a copy of this reply to the original poster via email since I don't know if he's still reading this story or not.)

You may be able to use trn in the near future. I've had a news server for Slash out there for a while now. Rob knows about it and plans to use it, but that page has said "soon" for a while now.