Slashback: Regionalism, Rivalry, Zensur

Slashback with more (below) on: censorship in germany, Xbox gushing, *nix-ish Window managers on That Darn Operating System, and more. Enjoy!

Even the Gates family probably hates being ripped off by region coding. jmcmurry writes: "I just tried out my daughters Winnie The Pooh from Poland, which can only be played (until today) on my Mac Cube running OS X (I did the region free crack when running OS 9). I own an Xbox with DVD player and thought, hey wouldnt hurt to try it out, since I was in the market to buy a Region Free DVD player (which can cost $400 an up) I plugged everything in, put the DVD in, and lo and behold, it plays the DVD from Poland (region code 2) This makes up for the cost of the Xbox ..."

Nein! Nein! Speaking of things that do (or don't) work by region, several readers submitted information which indicates the pooh-poohing of alleged censorship-by-DNS manipulation in Germany's state of Nordrhein-Westfalen was premature. It turns out that some interesting redirects which seemed to be a technical error or a misguided proof-of-concept, and which were quickly turned off, were reinstated shortly thereafter.

Thorsten Hornung was among the several to write on this topic. "Meanwhile ISIS has reblocked the sites, as Heise online reported (German!) due to pressure from the president of the local Government Mr. Büssow.

The local government of Düsseldorf which is responible for media services in North Rhine-Westphalia has posted a statement on its site (German) about the initial lift of the blockade saying that it believes the censoring meassures have been lifted due to complaints by users. Much worse is that furthermore public accuse people complaining about the censorship to be Right Extremists: 'The local government believes, due to the content of many emails it received today, that they [People Complaining] are users of Right Extremist Internet Content.'

The German Constitution (Grundgesetz) does not allow censorship however there are some restrictions on free speech especially regarding Nazi propaganda."

Winners sometimes use Gnomes. Prashant writes: "Cygwin is turning out to be a breeze of fresh air for people stuck on windows for one reason or another. I can use the familiar bash shell on any platform(win, *nix) I am on, and don't have to deal with the DOS prompt. I use all the gnu tools from cygwin distro. rcs, cvs, vim, perl, python, ruby, apache the list goes on. Not only that, I successfully ran postgresql on Cygwin. The XFree86 port of Cygwin itself can be huge cost saving over commercial X-servers for Windows. I have tried KDE on Cygwin version 1.1.2. I was impressed with it. Here is something new: GNOME ported to Cygwin as well. Let the rivalry ontinue on Windows.

It's all about having options. I would love be 100% Linux user but again sometimes it's not you who decides what os runs on your machine. So till Windows gets replaced by Linux by the authorities, happy cygwining."

This addition brought to you by ... Solar Power! basfromasd writes "The winner of the 3000 km World Solar Challenge race from Darwin to Adelaide has reached the finish in a record breaking time. The winning car, Nuna, was built by the Alpha Centauri team, consisting of 10 university students of TU Delft and University of Amsterdam. Some technical details can be found at their site and at ESA. Results and pictures of the race are at the Centre for Photovoltaic Engineering of UNSW website. Well done for a first time contestant, showing that skill and intelligence can match the resources of factory sponsored teams. They found some good sponsors though: GaAs solar cells are not cheap. Neither are Li-Ion batteries. Some of the solar cells were used in the Hubble Space Telescope before and brought back to earth in 1993. The other cars did not make it before today's curfew. The runner up, Aurora, stopped just outside of Adelaide for the night and is expected to finish tomorrow morning."

Comments

Linux on Xbox

[Hoonis]

So how long now until some intrepid soul gets
linux working on the xbox?

Re:Linux on Xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got it working already :-) (It's all x86, so it wasn't any big hassle)

I'm taking screenshots this evening with my brand-spanking-new digital camera. After I upload the pics I'll submit an article to /.

Vive le Resistance!

Re:Linux on Xbox

[42forty-two42]

I heard somewhere that Bill himself visits /., so I can understand your decision to post anonymously...

Re:Linux on Xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh heh heh... Has anyone outside of the hive learned how to download images?

Re:Linux on Xbox

[tella]

Dude... that was Bill.....
Lol

Re:Linux on Xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

find / -name ".sig" | xargs rm -rf
that's the bitchass way to do it.
do it like a man. stick with linux, UN*X is for men, linux is for bitches.
http://www.linuxisforbitches.com

find / -type f -name ".sig" -exec rm -rf {} \;

suckah

Re:Linux on Xbox

[mselmeci]

If Micro$oft writes an OS for the Xbox, will it be called X Windows?

Re:Linux on Xbox

[shymog]

The X-box already runs the modified Win2K Kernel. Since it's modified, I guess you can call it X-Windows, since they just modified Win2K for PCs and changed the name to Windows XP.

Re:Linux on Xbox

[Jaysyn]

Make sure your site can take the /. effect.

Jaysyn

Re:Linux on Xbox

[Matador]

I don't know about getting Linux running on the Xbox -- but I certainly wouldn't put it out of the reach of the NetBSD "people"

Cheers,

--Matador

Re:Linux on Xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... free karma for making things up. Why didn't I think of this?

Re:Linux on Xbox

[BiggyP]

and windows is for trolls and idiots, your point?
i use my linux machine to run games very nicely, TNT2 with the XFree GLX Modules gives better performance than windows.

Re:Linux on Xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

How does Return to Castle Wolfenstein run on linux?

How does Counter-Strike run on Linux?

How does any new game run on linux?

stfu bitch.

Re:Linux on Xbox

[BiggyP]

Companies like Loki and Hyperion port the Game Engines.

Love that Deutschland

[Anonymous Coward]

Thought Nazis unleashed to quash real Nazis. Sounds like a scheme that'll work into perpetuity.

Re:Love that Deutschland

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, way to go, Germany.

Complain about internet censorship, and be accused of being a Nazi for your troubles.

Are they going to turn over lists of people who complain about censorship to the government so they can have their doors kicked in in the middle of the night, and be dragged of to jail to face various criminal charges for "thought crimes"?

These kinds of police state tactics are already happening in Germany and elsewhere; putting people on the government's hit list because they write emails against censorship is the next logical step.

Re:Love that Deutschland

[Anonymous Coward]

if you had any idea of the kind of hate groups that exist around the world, you would understand the laws that give police the right to break them up. Not all police action is intended to curtail our freedoms of thought and communication. But deliberate acts of inciting violence against individuals based on race or ideology are insidious forces in our culture which I believe are worth persecution as I imagine most /.'rs would agree. Don't get so caught up in the anti police bandwagon that you can't see the difference between truly vicious and insidious elements and free speech elements. IMO as always of course, I welcome any argument on this of course.
It's just that when you say that these kind of Police tactics are already happening in Germany, it sounds like you're implying they aren't happening everywhere. It is, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not. In the case of persecuting and breaking up Nazi hate groups intent on murdering and vandalizing property of immigrants I personally have no issue with the police cracking down on that.
boeuf, like I said, I might be wrong and I'm open to argument.

Re:Love that Deutschland

[Anonymous Coward]

Tool is a good band. Way to go... troll.

Re:Love that Deutschland

[wossName]

No kidding, the german Bundesgrenzschutz (translates pretty much to "border police", but that's probably not the same) likes to arrest and sue people for libel. Their definition of libel includes asking them whether they're checking that person because of skin color.
So yes, you are encouraged to stand up against racism, but not if practiced by the police.

Re:Love that Deutschland

[kwench]

Being a German and reading this bullshit about the Bundesgrenzschutz and censorship I feel like I need to say something about this.

First of all, censorship is happening everywhere. And I think it's worse if the U.S. government manages to supress information in the Linux kernel changelog for all people (U.S.American or not!), for instance. You might argue that this is a special case, but on the other hand Nazi-propaganda is a special case in Germany as well.
The Linux kernel changelog doesn't harm anybody. Nazi-propaganda can destroy a whole nation (and I'm not just talking about the German nation, think of all those anti-black-sites and the likes on AMERICAN servers that are polluting and twisting YOUR children's brains).

The German "constitution" (as Grundgesetz could be translated) has a very strict set of laws regarding anti-constitutional organisations and opinions. But just imagine, we wouldn't have this: There would be no legal (!!!) possibility to stop Nazi-propaganda and soon other countries (and I guess on first place the USA) would be raving about Nazi-Germany. So they are left raving about Censorship-Germany.

This censorship is and will always be a complicated process. The discussion about a censorship of the NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschland = Nationaldemocratic Party of Germany) became very difficult: Apart from discussions whether it's good or bad to ban a right-wing party and its impact on all people associated with this party, there was also the issue whether the NPD was truly anti-constitutional and whether banning a whole party is anti-democratic.

I've been told from Swedish people that young German people have a very bad conscience. That's true.
Hitler destroyed the German nation not only with his Nazi-ideology-venom but he also rendered all non-Nazis inable to discuss a right-wing-idea neutrally and non-emotionally.
When Günther Grass hinted that he has the opinion that the Holocaust should not be revived in every new generation, he was called a "Nazi".
This is not only because non-nazistic Germans themselves are against Nazismn, but also because of all the other countries in the world which tend to look very careful on Germany and whether a new Hitler is popping up.

Regarding this Bundesgrenzschutz-issue: Bundesgrenzschutz is officially translated with "Protection of Borders". Those people tend to be picky in all nations.
It is true that the Bundesgrenzschutz focuses on non-western-people (like Russians and all those USA-hating people from the Near East).
I wonder whether the U.S. american customs police isn't doing the same? Or are they never suspicious if somebody from Cuba wants to enter the USA? (My father was being investigated upon entering the USA, I guess because of his style of clothing.)

And last not least: I don't believe that you can "sue people for libel".
All governments have their dark sides (just think of the atomic bomb experiments on american soldiers in the 1940s) and I wouldn't be too suprised to learn something new evil about the German government but for now I don't believe you. Please prove your accusations!

Re:Love that Deutschland

[wossName]

Most search engines are available to the public, oh well, here are some examples (all in german):

One
Two
Three

Four instances of people being hit with lawsuits for libel after criticising racist Bundesgrenzschutz actions. Although they shot themselves in the foot with the last one, since they apparently got a public grilling in court. :)
You won't find much about this in the mainstream news of course, too edgy.
So, should the BGS be able to single out persons based on race criteria ? Not in my opinion, since it is racist after all.
Is it legitimate because the U.S. customs police does the same ? Of course not.

My comment was only about the ever-emerging police state in Germany, but since you touched censorship as well:

Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better to have freedom of speech similar to the U.S., because then people wouldn't waste their time with petty things like censoring websites. Instead they would have to deal directly with the people who are trying to spread fascism, going after the cause, not the symptoms. Given the current bunch of politicians though, it could also horribly fail.

The Günther Grass incident is something that happens a lot, unfortunately. In the Third Reich you had to prove you're an Aryan. Today it can happen very quickly that you have to prove you're not a Nazi. Doesn't seem like much progress.

Re:Love that Deutschland

[kwench]

Thank you for those links.
And I must excuse for not really understanding "libel" but now I have looked it up in my dictionary. :-)

Yes, it very sad that mostly people who look not western european are controlled. But as I said in my first post that's the case with all border patrols in all countries and thus doesn't make Germany any special in this matter.
It is especially molesting for the people who were sued for libel, but I still believe (and I truly hope you won't prove me wrong) in the German jurisdiction and that judges will come to an adequate judgement, that means pay some kind of reparation, for instance.

Being suspicious about people with another colour of their skin is a trait we can find in everybody (I even do not exclude myself). Let's hope that our new global world will sometime overcome this biases.

Concerning freedom of speech: Yes, it's an interesting thought. But I don't know whether all people are grown up enough not to believe everything.

The government is elected for and has its duty to protect a nation from harm.
That's why drugs are forbidden in most countries. The government claims that there is no right way to use drugs. You could argue in the same way that there is no right way to use Nazi ideology.

So we face two different ways of handling "harmful material":
- Allow it and hope that people are grown-up.
- Disallow it.

Thinking about the large amount of people who fail to use drugs, religion and ideology in the right way, you can get scared about giving still more rights to them.

RMS will be ecstatic...

[Jon Chatow]

GNOME ported to cygwin as well

As stated earlier (search is down right now...), RMS would probably think this is a subvertion of the GNOME project - perhaps, that if it works, GNOME is failing (?). Something to consider... :-).

Re:RMS will be ecstatic...

[Jon Chatow]

Oh dear. Evidently some people couldn't see that I was joking; for the record, I find the idea of Open Source laudable, and thoroughly approve of RMS' overall stance, though I think at times his hard-line views are somewhat, unfortunately, unworkable in the world arround us (a failing of the world, not RMS' views, indeed). Sorry for any confusion.

Can I have my karma back now? ;-)

GNOME On AT&T's POSIX.DLL

[serial frame]

I remember almost a year ago when GNOME was ported to Windows, running on top of AT&T's POSIX.DLL.

Enough about that. Imagine an entire kernel running as a process in Windows--Imagine an X server that interfaced with the Windows kernel to gain hardware access. Wouldn't life be great?

Re:GNOME On AT&T's POSIX.DLL

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember the when Windows 3.1 ran on top of DOS

Re:GNOME On AT&T's POSIX.DLL

[Computer suck!]

Any Emulater or virtualization tool?

Re:GNOME On AT&T's POSIX.DLL

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine an entire kernel running as a process in Windows Isn't that called VMWare? ( http://www.vmware.com)

Re:GNOME On AT&T's POSIX.DLL

[LionMan]

This is a very classic story I heard ...

A brand new programmer, fresh out of certification (MCSE's and the like) comes to look at a company he's interested in working for. The gurus at the company show him where they work, and show him a terminal on one of their *nix boxen. A guru logs in on the command line and starts up X, shows the new programmer some tools they use. The new programmer is impressed by what he sees and asks about the *nix system: "Does this run as a thread on NT?"

(Apparently NT is the only server platform, right? ;)

Re:GNOME On AT&T's POSIX.DLL

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just use windows?

Oh, that's right. You'd miss out on all those great apps that run only under GNOME. Great apps like...um...like...um....like all those apps that try to look like the ones that already exist for windows!

All the sudden?

[moosesocks]

It certainly seems strange that cygwin is getting so much publicity recently. Anyhow. It certainly seems like a great way for running linux software on win32...

Microsoft includes a similar (but far inferior) package with Windows 2000 that (hypocrtically) uses GPLed software...

Cygwin is basically the same concept as WINE (windows on unix) and Executor (macos 7ish(68k) on win32 and unix). Isn't it much easier to write this sort of thing for an open source operating system :).

An intresting concept would be if I could play my Loki ports on win32.... i get the best of both worlds, and don't have to deal with WINE...

Re:All the sudden?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd probably run Linux in VMWare, and then install VMWare in your Linux VM, and install Windows in that. Lame...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

Re:All the sudden?

[DeadMeat (TM)]

Cygwin is basically the same concept as WINE (windows on unix) and Executor (macos 7ish(68k) on win32 and unix). Isn't it much easier to write this sort of thing for an open source operating system :).

Err, no. Cygwin does not make Windows binary-compatible with *NIX software the same way Wine makes *NIX binary-compatible with Win32 software. It still requires a recompilation into native Win32 executables.

Cygwin is a little more akin to WineLib -- it's a reimplimentation of the *NIX API. (Plus they throw in a lot of precompiled libs and helper programs like bash, which is nice.) For this, yes, having open-source software makes it a hell of a lot easier, since you know exactly what the hell the API you're trying to target is.

Re:All the sudden?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere buried deep on the MS site is the GPL. I once found it. Anyone know the url? Very amusing.

Re:All the sudden?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.maconlinux.org/sshots/pic10.jpg Yeah, baby. That's how I play games that only have windows versions, and how I run NES emulators.

Ich hab es nicht...

[Hertog]

OK, this may be flamebait since it is all but subtile, but..

When the government of Germany is blocking sites so that Germans cannot view the oppinions of others, then, in the end, when things go all bad, they can say, with right, "Ich hab es nicht gewuBt" (OK, spelling is completely off, I had only one year of german education, but you'll get my drift).

Deny-ing access to site's that propagate things you don't like, doen't make them go away. Better to know that they are there, and be able to take actions against them, then to suffer in ignorance.

Re:Ich hab es nicht...

[jezreel]

I think that's over for now. But publicly accepted ignorance and intentional false-education by media is now a MAJOR problem.

Re:Ich hab es nicht...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is by far the most cynic post I read about it
so far.

Just as cynic as all the ExNazis put back into Govt. in Germany after WW II.

This phrase is so far beyond being worn out. A whole Generation said just this until finally their children stood up in protest (1968).

To all those unfamiliar with babel fish: Ich habe es nicht gewusst! means I didnt know about it.

It was all so ridicolous, cause they could smell the burning of corpses.

After all the parent post has deserved to be modded +5 Insightful/Interesting.

Meanwhile I'll create an account

Re:Ich hab es nicht...

[bergeron76]

It's kind of like my belief that before I was born nothing existed. Because before I was born [in my mind] nothing _did_ exist. It's a very egocentric way of looking at the world around you...

...but hell, it works for me.
(grin)

Re:Ich hab es nicht...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nha, you're mistaken. You don't exist, past, future or present. You're a figment of your own imagination.

Re:Ich hab es nicht...

[Jeff Kelly]

When the government of Germany is blocking sites so that Germans cannot view the oppinions of others, then, in the end, when things go all bad, they can say, with right, "Ich hab es nicht gewuBt"

It was not the German Government who blocked those sites, it was the Government of the State of Nordrhein-Westfahlen which is only one state of 16 in the Federal Republic of Germany. (It would be similar if, maybe, Iowa started to block websites, which is only 1/51th of the whole US).

Also those censoring requests were only limited to two local ISPs which are resident in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Apart from the apparent impracticality of such a request (It would suffice to use another ISP based in one of the other states to still access those sites) from a legal standpoint it is forbidden to publish certain Material related to National Socialism in germany.

This includes but is not restricted to: Adolf Hitlers "Mein Kampf", certain Nazi Symbols like the swastika or the regalia of the SS or the Gestapo (but only when they are not used for educational purposes), Promotion of the Nazi Ideology (the legal term is "Volksverhetzung" which is a federal offesne) and the denial of the Holocaust. (Which is also a federal offense).

It might seem quite strange to American people to actually restrict something like that, especially since "Freedom of speech" is one of their prime directives (which leaves room to discussion) but especially when it comes to anything concerned with National Socialism, german politicians get extremely cautious and PC.

One cause for this policy is that we fear that something like WW2 or the Holocaust might actually happen again if we are not very careful. (Which is to some extend simply paranoia).

But we do have a Nazi Problem in Germany. Those right wing groups are very well organized. (Quite similar to those in the US) Some studies say that there are about 500.000 People in Germany who actually support this Ideology. (But the radicals are still only a minority)

Almost the only way to actually arrest the leaders of this movement is to outlaw the Use of National socialistic Symbols and propaganda. Would we handle it like the US then we could never get hold of them and actually could only watch impassively as the would gather more followers.

Something which no right thinking German could easily allow.

It is not a policy of "looking the other way" quite the contrary. I leave it to you to evaluate if this is the right way (tm), but actually suggesting that germany does this so it can calm its conscience is not only wrong but also very offensive to me.

Jeff

Re:Ich hab es nicht...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, in the US, right-wing wackos usually do an excellent job of making themselves look like rabid, inbred idiots. (Every KKK rally I've ever seen on TV looks like a convention for 'Children of Siblings and First-Cousins.')

Without freedom of speech, they'd probably have some kind of mystique operating in their favor and could complain how the gov't is trying to silence them, etc...

Wow, Cygwin!

[Otter]

Here is something new: GNOME ported to cygwin as well. Let the rivalry ontinue on windows.

You mean KDE? That's run on Cygwin for a while (as has Gnome) and 2.2.1 was ported a few days ago. It was mentioned here by the way, although I can't link to it as Search is down.

The tone of this submission struck me as funny -- Timothy, and certainly the writer, seem to be under the impression Cygwin isn't ages old. It reminds me of the NewsRadio episode where Matthew discovers Dilbert and insists on doing a story on it.

Region Free?

[moosesocks]

I find this feature particularly strange... Perhaps this was a "forgotten feature" in the DVD pack. After all, based upon reputation, Microsoft should be close allies with the MPAA and RIAA. But, i'm not complaining. Only if the xbox supported progressive scan dvd playing, I would be a happy man... (seems strange that it doesnt. It's more then capable of such a feat).

Of course, i havent owned a console since the Sega Genesis... That system was technically impressive, but alas, not many good games were made for it, and i've never brought a console since. I'm highly considering buying the dreamcast... what a steal for $50!!!!! Of course, that's 50 bucks i could be spending on a geforce3, an xbox, a gamecube, a dual processor motherboard, a car, the ability to press the 'submit comment' button... Wait i can press the............

Re:Region Free?

[Debillitatus]

That system was technically impressive, but alas, not many good games were made for it,

Are you insane? Eco was the shit. And EA hockey around '94,'95? De focken bomb, mang!

Re:Region Free?

[geekoid]

can you think of a better way for MS to get on the "good side" of this community? Plus they want to be THE home entertainment box.
This is a vry good move for MS.
they can always "fix" it later.

Re:Region Free?

[czardonic]

Holy shit you are a lamer!

Re:Region Free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there are three kinds of DVD players:

Region-free, which is from pre-region days... Doesn't play some of the newer DVD's, though.

Single-Region, which plays any DVD with one region code (1, 2, 3, etc.)

Multi-region, or all-region, which is the most expensive because you're paying for the rights to watch all the regions. (Sometimes marketed as Region-free, though) This should play almost all DVD's, regardless of age and region.

Re:Region Free?

[Cheetah86]

Maybe MS would make a service pack installing progressive scan?

Re:Region Free?

[evilrunner]

So who is going to sue Microsoft for DMCA infringement? I could do the same thing on my PC but some people out there seem to think that's illegal. Anyway, its a nice feature but its still not going to get me to buy a MS product (IMHO).

Re:Region Free?

[evilrunner]

Nevermind, I'm an idiot. The fact thats region free just means they can't legally put the DVD logo on the machine 'cause it dont meet the "DVD standard". I seem to remember a slashdot article on this before somewhere but cant find it.

Re:Region Free?

[sunhou]

I'm highly considering buying the dreamcast... what a steal for $50!!!!!

I finally picked up a Dreamcast at Best Buy a few days ago. It was only $40! (Well, it's $50, but they include a game; and the way they do it is mark down the machine to $40, and then charge you $8 for the game.) I'd say that's a pretty good deal. I'm glad I didn't buy one when the price came down to $100 a while ago, since I had been thinking about it.

Re:Region Free?

[Tofuhead]

I find this feature particularly strange... Perhaps this was a "forgotten feature" in the DVD pack. After all, based upon reputation, Microsoft should be close allies with the MPAA and RIAA. [snip]

<conspiracytheory>For such a feature to have gone "unnoticed" proves either the incompetence of MS' designers, or their savvy marketing practices. Just ask Sony how gravely this same leaked "feature" on first-generation Japanese PS2s affected their sales...I'm sure it did nothing but boost initial sales. Just watch, sometime in the next year, all of Microsoft's own released games will install a service pack on the HD which will also permanently and completely fix this "recently-discovered bug." Won't happen till after the holiday season though. ^_-</conspiracytheory>

Of course, i havent owned a console since the Sega Genesis... That system was technically impressive, but alas, not many good games were made for it, and i've never brought a console since.

May I recommend Sonic 1, Sonic CD Japanese version, Gunstar Heroes, Phantasy Star 2-4, Herzog Zwei, Shining Force (1, 2, and Sega CD version), Landstalker, and Thunder Force 2 & 3, just off the top of my head? They were all at least pretty good games. Installments of Street Fighter, Castlevania, Dragon Ball Z, and other X-plat game series also graced this system.

I'm highly considering buying the dreamcast... what a steal for $50!!!!! Of course, that's 50 bucks i could be spending on a geforce3, an xbox, a gamecube, a dual processor motherboard, a car, the ability to press the 'submit comment' button... Wait i can press the............

Well, now's a pretty good time to be in the market for consoles, especially if you're mainly a gaming enthusiast, and not just some convergence maniac who also plays games. As of today in the U.S., approximately $300 plus tax will nab you a Nintendo Gamecube, a Sega Dreamcast, AND either 1-3 good games for the DC, or one game for the 'Cube (plus the bundled DC game demo disc). Or, for that price, you can get one PS2 (with no bundled games, HD, or modem/ethernet), or one xbox that won't play DVDs right out of the box and no games. $330 plus tax should get you a PS2 with Gran Turismo 3, or an xbox w/DVD pack (but still no games).

I don't mean to advocate my admiration of both Nintendo and Sega, but GC+DC+games is a killer combo for this holiday season IMO, especially if you already have a DVD player (even a reliable old cheapie). A $300 xbox that requires an additional DVD pack to play movies isn't in my short- or long-term budget, and a PS2 will only start to make sense to me at $250 in its current state, or $300 with a bundled hard drive, modem, and/or DVD remote control...and even then only after a reliable import mod has been implemented on such systems (for Guilty Gear X Plus and Metal Gear Solid 2 Japanese version). PSOnes will look fairly-priced at $200, when bundled with Sony-branded 5" LCD screens early next year, but are overpriced right now considering its limited capabilties vs. Dreamcast, and the current $129 price tag on the official Sony LCD (which is expected to drop).

< tofuhead >

Re:Region Free?

[Anonymous Coward]

There _are_ reliable mods for playing imports on the PS2 they cost $90 though (that includes a Gameshark type device that is needed for playing discs) This is also a 1 wire hack with the modchip plugging in via the rear USB port (making modchip upgrades easy, as Sony finds ways to 'detect' the current generation of modchip)
The upside of this modchip is that it plays games backed up on DVD-r too Although at $10 a pop and $450 a drive and only being able to copy DVD games that fall within the 4.7 GB capacity...

Re:Region Free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, in Australia the ACCC were able to express pretty simply why here it couldn't be classed as an illegal activity (though not DMCA here of course). Some people asked whether chipping DVDs would be the same as chipping Playstations, and their response was that Playstations are chipped to allow them to play illegal copies, whereas DVDs are chipped to allow them to play legal copies implementing a technology that is damn close to being illegal itself, for various reasons.

Whereas Playstations implement a copy protection technology, the ACCC is one group to realise that region coding is a separate matter from other encryption schemes on a DVD, and in itself has little to do with copyright protection.

It'd be fun to see them take on Microsoft though. With highly paid lawyers on both sides, you might actually get a fair consideration of some of the matters; and Microsoft would have a pretty good chance of winning that one.

Argument 1: Region Coding is not in itself an Encryption Method, but an implementation of other methods (goodbye DMCA).

Argument 2: Ah, there's plenty more, but they may not be needed...

Re:Region Free?

[Anonymous Coward]

you obviously haven't played an xbox. As much contempt as I have for Microsoft, (I actually see it more as an NvidiaBox) the xbox is so far superior to the other consoles, and the quality of games is astounding. Having played all systems IMO it would be a tragic waste of money to buy anything else than the xbox this season. That is if you're into awe-inspiring technology and gameplay.

Re:Region Free?

[LaundroMat]

Don't forget about Datel's Region X (to be slotted in the memory card slot, and hey presto: region free DVD play and the "green-screen" fixed as well).

D�sseldorf

[jezreel]

So what is the best thing for us Germans to do now??? We could write complains and be marked as nazis... naahh. What else can we do?

This is such a great example of how easy the gov't can turn protestants againt censorship into a raging nazi crowd. And guess what 99% will read in their newspaper? Yes: Sites blocked, nazis angry, thus censorship is great....

So tell me what to do!

Re:D�sseldorf

[Frag-a-Gates]

Well, really, you're in a really shitty situation right now, and I bet you really don't trust the judgement of the government about "what's best for you". So, my bet is to circumvent these blockings, in any way possible. If any one would bother mirroring these sites, it would probably be great.

Re:D�sseldorf

[imrdkl]

We could write complains and be marked as nazis

I suggest to you that it would require even more effort than that. To achieve such your goal, imho, would require that you, as a ordinary citizen who is not a nazi, publish information that a nazi would publish, for example. Then, you must be willing to fight, publically for your right to do this, as long as you are not harming anyone else.

This liberty, which still exists in the US, but is under attack, is the most delicate and fragile that we have. It was not easily won. We mock and point when it does not extend to the internet, but we forget sometimes how precious it really is.

Your fight will probably mean nothing, if you do decide to fight. You've got to believe in, and want, the liberty to have the information, AND the right of the nazi organization to display it, more than your reputation, your job, and possibly even your life.

Consider the cost, but dont forget the children.

Re:D�sseldorf

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't complain to the government. Complain to the press. Write letters to the editor of papers in your local congressman's home town (do you have congress/parlaiment?) talking about what is being done and cite reliable sources to back your arguments. This way lots or people read it and the politicians who did it look bad.

Re:D�sseldorf

[Taliban Lecher]

Can you spell Reichstagsbrand? Shout it, if shouting doesn't work, make one (cyber version) of your own, by accusing Buessow of i-dont-know-what, saying he is intentionally attracting the public to these blocked sites. Should be legally possible....

Re:D�sseldorf

[DCowern]

This just smacks of irony seeing how the third reich routinely used censorship and "information manipulation" to maintain popular support.

Re:D�sseldorf

[Afrosheen]

Name one government today that does not achieve this goal through conventional media outlets. I doubt you can.

Re:D�sseldorf

[Anonymous Coward]

uh... San Marino!

Re:D�sseldorf

[ConsumedByTV]

And what difference does that make? Because something is done, it does not make that right.

Re:D�sseldorf

[broody]

So tell me what to do!

Quote someone like Beatrice Hall who was really the one who said 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it...'.

Or just be crude about it and says Nazis are assholes but even assholes have the right to make fools of themselves via the spoken or written word.

Re:D�sseldorf

[hughk]

The word of course is Bundesverfassungsamt, the depatment for the protection of the Federal constitution. They are supposed to tread on the toes of the Lander when they get out of line.

Nazis are not nice people, but then neither are censors.

Re:D�sseldorf

[Anonymous Coward]

This is such a great example of how easy the gov't can turn protestants againt censorship into a raging nazi crowd. And guess what 99% will read in their newspaper? Yes: Sites blocked, nazis angry, thus censorship is great....

Precisely what's happening in the United States. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently ran a full-page propaganda piece depicting neo-Nazis and radical militia groups as representative of citizens who fear Big Brother more than they do terrorism. That kind of "journalism" silences dissent by cultivating a hostile atmosphere of public opinion. Would-be protesters are intimidated by a feeling of isolation, and any with the courage to speak are immediately labeled traitors in league with the enemy.

It's far more powerful than censorship.

You Are Not Alone.

Re:D�sseldorf

[Jeff Kelly]

To achieve such your goal, imho, would require that you, as a ordinary citizen who is not a nazi, publish information that a nazi would publish, for example. Then, you must be willing to fight, publically for your right to do this, as long as you are not harming anyone else.

sadly it is not a just a matter of free speech over here in germany. Publishing Nazi Propaganda is actually a federal offense. So as long as it is a historical study I am allowed to publisch but not if it used to promote National socialism.

MfG

Jeff

Re:D�sseldorf

[imrdkl]

It is understandable. Especially in your country. The right to speak the "n word" must be the most excruciatingly difficult to defend, anywhere in the world. I admit that I dont think I could do it, even in my own country. But I am thankful, and mindful, of the patriots who did, and still do.

Re:D�sseldorf

[Anonymous Coward]

So tell me what to do!

Well, for one thing, you could stop voting for the Reds and Greens.

Re:D�sseldorf

[Taliban Lecher]

> The word of course is Bundesverfassungsamt,

No, I wrote Reichstagsbrand and I meant it for sure. With all implications by history and literature which you might associate.

Great...

[snake_dad]

I was looking for an X server on windows platform to connect to several lower grade machines that run linux and openbsd. Until now I've only found commercial X-servers, didn't know about the cygwin Xfree86 port.
Why do I want to do this? My fastest machine, with the best monitor runs windows, for gaming mainly. And running X on your oldest VGA monitor is not something I would recommend :)

[karma saving statement:] I promise I'll switch to linux on the main machine Real Soon Now. I am running mozilla already :)

Re:Great...

[V.P.]

If you need a Windows X server, get WeirdX. It's fast,stable and free (GPL).

Still, if you have to use Windows, get the Cygwin command line tools too; they make your life much easier.

Re:Great...

[damiam]

A Java X Server? Cygwin may be slow, but I doubt it's that slow.

Re:Great...

[yomegaman]

I was using this for awhile on my Mac back before I upgraded to OS X. It's actually quite usable, although it doesn't support all of X so some things didn't work quite right. It's worth a try anyway, the price is right. :-)

Re:Great...

[snake_dad]

Thanks, I'll take a look. The names WiredX and WeirdX confused me for a few seconds though. WiredX seems to be a commercial version while WeirdX (derived from WiredX-lite) is GPL. It looks great, if the installation proves easier then cygwin then maybe this is the way to go.

Re:Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want performance out of the Xserver, you just made up a false hope for yourself... Xfree86 for ouinedose has poor performance and many more bugs than exceed. You ll had to spit cash if you want to keep running ouinedose outside bochs|wine. IMNSHO You d better reboot under linux and get the latest and greatest DGA, directPostscript, GLX, et coetera et coetera ...

European DNS?

[Exmet Paff Daxx]

Germany's preoccupation with masking some sites via DNS manipulation is diverting Germany and the rest of its' Reich (the European Union) from its' true issue and its' true destiny.

What Europe needs is a speedy socialist search engine supported as a public service by taxing capital. A search engine devoid of advertising will always be faster than any commercial rival, giving the EU a competitive edge over Israel and its American colony (the so-called "United States of America") that can't be beat. The European Union should take all necessary steps to establish a socialized operating system (Linux is already well on its' way) and communications network as well, and subsidize the distribution of nifty new Eurocomputers to all its citizens every year or two. These measures, in combination with the superiority in public health, sanity and morale that already exists, should guarantee European dominance of the global economy and the eventual triumph of benign welfare state rationalism over all the rival crackpot capitalistic supernaturalist militaristic monstrosities which now infest less civilized areas of the world

I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you keep your right-wing extremist stuff in your own country, the U.S.? We have enough of it already and your lame "freedom of speech" arguments to promote racially motivated hate inciting U.S.-based web sites in Germany, so that some dude can buy and sell his Nazi paraphernalias and propaganda material, is thoroughly unfashionable with the majority of the German population. May be some /. U.S. pseudogeeks can get it one day and respect what Germans want for their own country. We don't need no pimply U.S. geek tell us about freedom of speech on /. every other week or so.

A German AC who fears U.S.-style freedoms more than anything else.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes... The warmth of a mother suckling you until the grave. The soft silence of universal agreement and no dissenting voices. The trust in a father that protects you from any harm.

The lure is certainly strong, I'll grant you that.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

A German AC who fears U.S.-style freedoms more than anything else.

Sounds like history books in Germany are about on a par with those in the US.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[easter1916]

DOn't knock it if you haven't tried it. When your country is overrun by international terrorism and rampant corporations and your dicta- sorry, president, succeeds in eroding all of your civil liberties, until you all eventually revolt, you might find yourself instituting some controls too, to ensure that it never happens again.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Taliban Lecher]

> A German AC who fears U.S.-style freedoms more
> than anything else.

I fear two things:

1) not knowing the state of the Nazi movement

2) blocking of non-Nazi sites without public discussion.

The latter is dangerous and might nurture stereotypes on lots of groups.

Apparently 2) just happened.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[mami]

Well, you better look at your own presidential executive orders, after your country has been hit by international terrorism...Me thinks so far Germans have dealt with their own terrorists quite well without resorting to overwriting judicial procedures. Here they are a "done deal" within the stroke of the president's pen.

Just be a little bit more humble and less "smart" and less prejudiced against your perceived German's lack of understanding of civil liberties.

Take a closer look at your own backyard's judicial dealings first, before lecturing Germans and other Europeans about "freedoms".

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody know the German word for "sarcasm?"

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[TMLink]

You're right in that we don't have the right to say what German's can and can not do. It's just that we're afraid of the same thing you are: having some other country's values slowly pushed upon us. We don't want that kind of censorship pushed upon us in the US.

Yeah, so we have to tolerate a bunch of weird groups in our country. I don't like anything Nazi as much as you. But give an inch and they'll take a mile. What happens when the people in charge don't like what the EFF is saying? Well, if they can censor the Nazis (as an example), why not the EFF? What stops them? The general public won't care, because they won't know the EFF's message.

So we have to let the Nazis talk. We don't have to listen to them. And that allows us to make sure that other minority groups that should be heard, are heard.

(Man, did I ever bite the flamebait from that AC...hehhe)

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[mami]

So, which country do you think knows more about its own Nazi movement ? The U.S. or Germany ?

I am pretty sure the U.S. doesn't know much about its right-wing potential Nazi movement. Here it runs under other names and is nicely embedded and hidden in other political movements, which don't have an equivalent in Germany and don't exist.

Because everybody in the U.S. believes it's an open and free society (as if Germany isn't since over forty years), they can't believe that there might be underground Nazi movements in the U.S, right ?

And the U.S. believes, because Nazi propaganda is forbidden in Germany, the whole Nazi movement in Germany must be underground and therefore is not known in its size, right? You must be kidding. Germany has its Neo-Nazis and then it has a lot of Anti-Neo-Nazis.

The U.S. has Neo-Nazis and then it has a lot of apolitical ignorants, who think ignoring political movements, they don't like, is a solution to everything. Your pathetic usage of freedom of speech to justify any shit is NOT the cure for everything imaginable on earth, you know.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd disagree that stifling freedom of speech for some is a good solution to anything.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

you might not believe it, it's Sarkasmus..

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[mami]

It's in fact not stiffling of speech, it's stiffling of broadcasting your speech worldwide. There is a difference. You can still go on the street and shout out loud and write whatever you want. The distribution of it is another issue.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds quite like 'stifling' if I'm not allowed to spread my message.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Why?

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

It drives underground those that are criminalized and doesn't illuminate those elements that are actually dangerous.

Preserving freedom of speech doesn't illuminate criminal elements either so either choice is a wash as far as results. However in choosing between greater or less freedom, I'll always choose the former.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Taliban Lecher]

> So, which country do you think knows more about
> its own Nazi movement ? The U.S. or Germany ?

I meant I wanted to know about the state of the art in Nazi-threat.

What the one or the other Gov. does know I can only guess at. I guess by recognizing that they did indeed block at least one non nazi site.

And now, what?

No reasoning no nothin. Just blocked. No control.

And in case you forgot that guy (Buessow) is not elected (not as in Beer but as in W.Bush)

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

So because of my beliefs I'm not allowed to enjoy the full freedoms bestowed by citizenship?

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[easter1916]

I was referring to the United States, not Germany.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[easter1916]

That's because English is a Germanic language.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. If you try spreading your message on a street corner in Germany, you will be arrested. If you try publishing a pamphlet, you will be arrested. If you go to an overseas website, they will try to block you, and if possible find out who you are and arrest you.

And it won't protect you to not be a German citizen either: Americans and Australians have been thrown in jail for trying to exercise their rights of free speech and press in Germany.

Sorry, pal, but "distribution" is speech. You sound like one of King George's officials in colonial America, saying "but of course you have the right to believe anything you want, but you can't print a newspaper without one of tax stamps, and we won't give you one because we don't like the kind of articles you print!"

If we don't have the means of free speech, we don't have free speech. Period.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, recent legislation and executive orders puts the USA closer to German practices, and further away from American traditions of limited government.

We should not be emulating Germany, or most other countries. It's a very bad idea. The very people who decide what a "nazi" is have a strong self-interest to tar anyone they don't like with this label, and to effectively ruin and condemn people who happen to be inconvenient to those in power.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[Lars T.]

Bullshit. It is totaly legal for Nazis to march through the streets of Germany. Hell, when they do, people try to take that as proof that Germany is still Nazi.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[mami]

Well, I am just wondering then, why many a people in the U.S. these days CAN are very well see the link between al-Qaeda anit-U.S.hate propaganda and anti-U.S. terrorist acts, but CAN'T accept a link between supremacist hate propaganda (what Nazi web-sites promote) and racially based hate crimes. The U.S. has no problem asking to limit the width of broadcast for al-Qaeda material, but not for supremacist's material in the U.S. Why ?

If it's conceivable that ten year old Arab boys are incited to join anti-U.S. "freedom fighter" movements, influenced by online video distribution from al-Qaeda, why is it NOT conceivable that young white caucasian boys world wide are incited to join whatever "Nazi-like" supremacy fighters, all heated up by "cool" supremacist web sites ?

If advertisements on the web incite you to buy something and those pictures and slogans have a subversive effect on your thought process, why should similar propaganda and pictures, when it comes to hate inciting act should automagically have NO effect ?

May be you need to let anybody talk freely, that doesn't mean that you have to allow anybody to shove their talk into anybody else's mouth and help them to broadcast their ideas into your livingroom unasked, just because technology allows them to intrude, impose and proletize their ideas via the web worldwide right now.

You have to realize that many people deliberately agree on giving up certain freedoms (mostly when those freedoms are used to abuse other people's dignity, security and civil liberties) to protect themselves from being harmed. So, get it, your absolute freedom of speech fetischist lovers, your absolutism or "fundamentalism when it comes to freedom of speech" it's not at all "all fashionable" all the times.

And your last argument is not logic at all. Just because you limit the distribution rights of hate propaganda on public media for very specific and known groups, who want to recruit people for hate crimes, doesn't mean you limit automatically the distribution rights of any minority group's speech. And considering that it's almost impossible to censor anything on the web using human brains, it's even not much of a question that 99.9 percent of all minority groups CAN publish and broadcast whatever they want.

It takes usually a looooonng time til a group is identified as being so dangerous in their hate inciting capabilities (remember the Germans needed a holocaust to come up with their restrictions on Nazi hate propaganda in their laws and the U.S. needed a WTC to accept restricitions against al-Qaeda propaganda material) that people think about such restrictive measures at all.

Re:I am all for censorship of US-Nazi propaganda

[mami]

Well, that's what it is all about. It's so easy for sleeper cells of U.S. right-wingers to point to bad German Nazis and the German's "inate proneness to surpress freedom of speech rights" whenever in the U.S. media talks about new German legislation. They hide nicely behind their "freedom of speech" absolutism to obfuscate a bit from their own true political agenda here in the U.S. Dreck is dreck, no matter how carefully you shove it under the carpet of freedom rights.

linux tools & desktop on windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this strike nobody else as:

- overly complicated?

- useless?

- ass-backward?

I mean, even by the standard of "a good hack" this one is just too crazy. If you want Linux, run it. If you want Windows, run it.

Re:linux tools & desktop on windows

[snake_dad]

I mean, even by the standard of "a good hack" this one is just too crazy. If you want Linux, run it. If you want Windows, run it. [ Reply to This | Parent ]

Great if you have the option of choice. At work my desktop OS is NT, because work demands it. One of our gateways to a client's network is a linux server. I would prefer to connect to it with a X server instead of VNC. It looks like cygwin might do this for me, I'll try it anyway.

Re:linux tools & desktop on windows

[Computer suck!]

or use Exceed?
or the many other Xes for Windows ;-)

Re:linux tools & desktop on windows

[snake_dad]

Maybe I should have added 'free as in beer' :-) I'm aware of several commercial solutions, and have tried some of them. Over the years I have also seen some free versions, but those did not seem to have the necessary quality.
And I suppose you know how managers are: "Why pay for an X-server when you can do the same things with VNC?" ...

speaking of NBC shows...

[ism]

It's just like their "If you haven't seen it before, it's new to you" ad campaign during rerun season.

Region-lock is a requirement?

[interiot]

http://www.xboxusersgroup.com/forum/printthread.ph p?threadid=24

Laws made by Software companies and Hollywood demand that a software company formats there dvd products with an region code.

So I can't really answer your question, you should go for this to MS, but I'm almost certain that MS and other game developers will put region codes on there software...

Re:Region-lock is a requirement?

[sulli]

It's not the law per se, IIRC it's the DVD Forum's license that requires region coding. Of course you can buy a region-free player (modified by hand?), but it costs more, so you pay one way or another.

I still don't understand why region coding isn't ruled illegal as a per se violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Oh yeah, Hollywood owns both parties, lock stock and barrel - I forgot.

Re:Region-lock is a requirement?

[Anonymous Coward]

It shouldn't cost any more than $50 over the normal player price unless someone is ripping you off. Pretty much all of the Apex players can be made region free for less than $30 (if you need a replacement ROM; $.50 if it has flashrom).
My Apex player was made region-free by ordering a replacement ROM for $20. You don't need to know anything, either - unscrew the case, pull old chip out, stick new one back in.

Re:Region-lock is a requirement?

[jproudfo]

I could be wrong but I believe that in some parts of the world they only sell region free players. You can buy region-free players, from most major brands, in both Hong Kong and Japan.

Does anyone else know anything about this?

Re:Region-lock is a requirement?

[mliu]

Both Japan and Hong Kong are region 2. I live in Japan, and aside from those shady stores in the electronics district, I don't see any region free DVD players for sale in the major retailers here.

Re:Region-lock is a requirement?

[mliu]

Whoops, my mistake, Hong Kong is actually in a different region than Japan, it's in region 3. Seems like they didn't consider Japan a piracy threat when they designed the regions or something, so they lumped Japan in with Europe in region 2, while they put bad-boy Hong Kong in region 3 with all the other trouble maker Asian countries (besides China) that pirate movies.....

Re:Region-lock is a requirement?

[sulli]

I think it's required in NZ

Re:Region-lock is a requirement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is exactly why I've refused to buy any DVD hardware or discs. And I plan on keeping that up for a long while.

The region-free thing isn't even the worst aspect of it. The worst is that all the stuff that's written to DVD now will no longer be available for sale when those DVD's start failing, and unlike CD's you can't make backup copies. Well, you can, but then you're breaking the DMCA, so ... This means that in a decade the stuff out now will either be gone, or be sold to use again, and again, and ...

Wasn't copyrighted material supposed to revert back to the public? I remember something about that. Ofcourse, thanks to disney, it now takes over a century for some stuff to revert back. Mickey mouse is STILL copyrighted to this day, even though the children of the children of the original artist who conceived him are dead already.

Re:Region-lock is a requirement?

[prentis]

Well in Denmark you can get region free dvd players everywere including major brands like Panasonic, pioneer and even sony.
I went with the 200$ microvision/region code free Nintanus 9901.

sad comment

[kbroom]

I would love be 100% Linux user but again sometimes it's not you who decides what os runs on your machine.

Comments like that make me really sad. If you don't make the decision to make a change yourself, then no one will do it for you. Come on... take the initiative and do something new.

Re:sad comment

[scorcherer]

Agreed. I never understand people who whine about 'having to use' Windoze, yet don't make the change for better. Even if it's at work. You can either quit and look for a nicer employer, or shut up and deal with it.

In general, nobody should complain about things they can potentially change themselves. And once you're out of Windoze hell, there's no reason to whine. So, sensible people should never whine about anything! Of course if it's not your fault, do complain to the appropriate person.

I don't have to keep bashing M$ because I don't user their products.

Re:sad comment

[Hiro Antagonist]

Comments like that make me really sad. If you don't make the decision to make a change yourself, then no one will do it for you. Come on... take the initiative and do something new.

Let's play a game of "Hello, Obvious!" I'll give you three clues:

One: The original poster could have been referring to a work machine; he never said that this was his own, personal computer.

Two: Perhaps he telecommutes, and his work requires the use of an application which will only run on Windows.

Three: There are likely many other reasons that he needs a Windows machine; just because he doesn't care to ennumerate them here doesn't mean that he's a clueless and/or spineless moron who is incapable of running a Unix-like operating system.

I'm lucky. I'm a sysadmin. I can run Linux, BSD, and Solaris on my home boxen because I run them at work. Not everyone is so fortunate.

Re:sad comment

[Lemmy Caution]

Let me guess: you're in college, aren't you?

Re:sad comment

[Hiro Antagonist]

Agreed. I never understand people who whine about 'having to use' Windoze, yet don't make the change for better. Even if it's at work. You can either quit and look for a nicer employer, or shut up and deal with it.

Leaving a position you are otherwise happy with simply because they want you to use a very common tool (in this case, Windows) is a very stupid thing to do; and because of the prevalence of Windows in the computer industry, this would be like an auto mechanic refusing to work at a shop that forced him to use the (admittedly buggy-as-hell) electronic diagnostic systems.

In general, nobody should complain about things they can potentially change themselves. And once you're out of Windoze hell, there's no reason to whine. So, sensible people should never whine about anything! Of course if it's not your fault, do complain to the appropriate person.

Sometimes complaint is the most effective form of change. If you feel that strongly about Linux, you should work on promoting it in your organization. Demonstrate its features to those in charge, and provide a comparison between the current solution and your perceived-ideal solution.

I think it's the un-sensible people who don't whine; if you never complain, nobody will ever know that you have a problem.

I don't have to keep bashing M$ because I don't user their products.

You aren't really living up to the first part of that .sig, are you? I like Microsoft about as much as RMS, and don't use their products; but they do hold a very strong position in the business market, and attempting to attack them head-on is like jousting windmills.

Re:sad comment

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a nice employer that generally treats me very fairly. My employer is not as enlightened as myself though, since he doesn't buy his employees the brands of desks, chairs, stationary, and other office products that I believe are superior.

So I think I will quit. People think I'm crazy for wanting to quit, but I think I am fighting the good fight and everyone that I respect will understand me.

Re:sad comment

[scorcherer]

I think it's the un-sensible people who don't whine; if you never complain, nobody will ever know that you have a problem.

I was trying to make a point about the difference between whining and complaining. If you can change things by complaining, then please do. Whining is what some people do over here at /. when they feel they don't have the power to change things.

Re:sad comment

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I come here to read interesting articles and interesting comments. Why do I have to put up with this kind of idiotic comment?

;-)

Re:sad comment

[thesolo]

Comments like that make me really sad. If you don't make the decision to make a change yourself, then no one will do it for you. Come on... take the initiative and do something new.

I think you might be missing the point of that comment. The fact of the matter is that a lot of developers, etc., are stuck with whatever OS their company demands of them. I can't just format my work machine and put on Solaris or RedHat, since my office is a MS shop. The same would be true in reverse, too.

I would love to be idealistic and put Linux on my work machine and have IT change every machine in the company, but if you work in a large environment, its a pipe dream. Large companies only care about the bottom line, not about their developers favorite OS. This type of software IS needed. Sad but true.

Sure MS will 'fix' the Region code.

[A Commentor]

Didn't the original Japanese PS2 also ignore the region code? (The Japanese PS2 required a special memory card to play DVDs) Then Sony recalled all those memory cards and replaced it with ones that honored the region code (at least the people that would bring the memory cards back).

I'm sure MS will attempt to fix this 'problem' too.

Re:Sure MS will 'fix' the Region code.

[repvik]

There is a CD available to write some stuff to your memorycard and make your PS2 able to select zone. It takes up a fair bit of the memorycard, and it is cumbersome to change zones.

Cygwin/Bash/XFree86

[Satai]

In my experience, Postgre was really easy to get running, as (IIRC) it comes in the Cygwin package - you can choose to install it from the get-go.

As far as Bash goes, I definitely agree - it was wonderful to finally get it running, but even more so was using rxvt right in the Windows environment. Now on my Win95 box (at work we shunned the auto-upgrade policy) I could get a scrolling command prompt! I could finally collect all those wxPython tracebacks... ;-)

...but as for XFree86, I definitely don't think it's as easy as the other two. Cygwin runs under an internet "stub" installer, whereas with XF you download about eighty packages, then navigate through the directory structure... blah blah. It runs very well - that's not in question - it's just the installation that isn't quite so easy.

Re:Cygwin/Bash/XFree86

[envelope]

Actually, the installation was pretty easy. There's only about 10 required packages to get.

In fact, I had an easier time ftp'ing manually than I did with the Cygwin installer.

I suppose that could be because the first 6 mirrors I tried with the cygwin installer were unavailable.

'Nix kernel under Windows?

[itwerx]

That would be like putting a brick on top of a house of cards.
Cute, but don't trust it any longer than you can hold your breath...

XBox does seem to be region-free!

[Radnor]

I was able to play a region "PAL 2-6" DVD I purchased from an eBay seller from the UK.

However, the DVD skipped a frame every second or so, making the video look a bit jerky. The DVD does not do this on my PC DVD drive or my standalone region-free DVD player. Region 1 DVDs look fine.

Re:XBox does seem to be region-free!

[Vegeta99]

Probably the different framerate. IIRC, PAL DVDs are 30fps, and NTSC DVDs are 29.97fps. I don't have my info right here, but it has something to do with the way PAL DVDs are encoded.

Re:XBox does seem to be region-free!

[Osty]

Actually, PAL is 25 "frames per second", or more precisely running at 50Hz interlaced (50 half-frames per second, where three half frames make up two complete frames). NTSC runs at roughly 60Hz interlaced (roughly, because as you pointed out it's just slightly less than 30 "frames per second", and so it would be just slightly less than 60 Hz interlaced), meaning 50 half-frames per second. Now munge those numbers around, and I'm sure you can find some reason why a video in PAL format is dropping frames on an NTSC machine (and since the XBox has not had a European release yet, and the rest of the world uses various forms of NTSC, it's not so surprising the US XBoxes don't have correction for 50Hz->60Hz conversion).

Re:XBox does seem to be region-free!

[yuri benjamin]

and the rest of the world uses various forms of NTSC

Here in New Zealand we use PAL. IFAIK the Aussies use PAL too.

Re:XBox does seem to be region-free!

[Selur_Natas]

PAL is 25 fps, NTSC is 30 fps.
However, PAL is higher resolution.
(you can tell if the newsreader has shaved today)

Re:XBox does seem to be region-free!

[Osty]

<flamebait>Of course, Australia and the surrounding area is nothing more than an extension of the United Kingdom, and so of course you all use PAL</flamebait>

More seriously, though, I was under the impression that Australia at least used NTSC. I could be wrong. I know NTSC (or a form thereof) is used in Asian countries.

Re:XBox does seem to be region-free!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was under the impression that Australia at least used NTSC.

Nope. Australia uses PAL.

And for my chance to generalise and be wrong, I thought PAL was far more common worldwide than NTSC. In fact, NTSC is pretty much a USian thing.

So, how's my generalisation?

Re:XBox does seem to be region-free!

[rodgerd]

Most of the world uses PAL. NTSC is a small minority of countries.

Re:XBox does seem to be region-free!

[Kris_J]

I was under the impression that Australia at least used NTSC. I could be wrong. I know NTSC (or a form thereof) is used in Asian countries.

Nope, Australia uses PAL. Japan uses NTSC, but I have a feeling that Hong Kong and Singapore use PAL (lots of PAL stuff at lik-sang). There's a list here that claimes to have all NTSC countries. Vietnam, Korea and China are all listed, but some as dual-system.

Re:XBox does seem to be region-free!

[Random Hamster]

If you look at this you will see how many countries use NTSC. (Hint - not 'the rest of the world')

Re:XBox does seem to be region-free!

[MrResistor]

Right you are, but I would say it's the TV that's at fault rather than the XBox. TV's aren't designed with flexible refresh rates in mind, whereas I would be pretty shocked if NVidia locked the XBox to NTSC's 60Hz.

I bet MS "fixes" that...

[spagthorpe]

It has a hard drive for exactly that purpose, patches, etc. I'm willing to bet that the next "upgrade" that people get for their XBoxen will fix that oversight.

We all go for region free over here

[forgoil]

You can get a region free DVD players in most stores here in Sweden. The quality if region 2 DVDs is low, and they have quite annoying "features" and lack what I usually want, i.e. the region 1 with the goodies, no translations (since I translate better myself and knows English better than the translators) and sometimes even DTS sound.

The zones were a terrible misstake according to me. I was happy, at last a cheap (well, kinda) medium which can hold movies at a resonable quality. All of a sudden I wanted to buy movies, but the whole region thing really made me feel screwed over. I even have my computer DVD set to region 1 and I refuse to buy region 2 DVDs now. When I think about it, why did I actually get a region free DVD player (it's an american player, cost me roughly $350 here in Sweden) to begin with?

When they stop trying to screw us over, we'll think about not screwing them over. But until then, happy hacking everyone.

Re:We all go for region free over here

[Mantorp]

"I...knows English better than the translators"

Funny

Re:We all go for region free over here

[Anonymous Coward]

What asshole modded this down? Maybe the same asshole who knows English better than the translators!

Re:We all go for region free over here

[raynet]

Same goes in Finland, except you usually have to ask the dealer to mod the player (costs from 50-100$). I don't actually have anything against regions if the DVDs were same here in R2 as in R1 (but in PAL please :).

Typical R2 DVD has English, German, French, Italian soundtrack (5.1 sound on English, rest is Dolby Surround), 10+ subtitles (Hebrew, Hungary, Danish etc), and the extras are INTERACTIVE MENU and maybe a trailer. This is so unfair!!

There are some good R2 DVDs like Matrix, Aliens collectors boxset etc.

Re:We all go for region free over here

[Stenpas]

Do your research before you start making fun of someone. "knows" is a word and he used it correctly.

Re:We all go for region free over here

[cheese_wallet]

Do your research before you start making fun of someone. "knows" [dictionary.com] is a word and he used it correctly.

You won't find grammar rules in most dictionaries. Apparently your English is not any better.

Re:We all go for region free over here

[forgoil]

*laughs* I have to admit myself that the irony is very amusing in this case;) But shit happens and what can you say, it was almost two in the morning and I didn't compile it, ehm, spell check it before I posted it.

Now I want you to spot all the spelling misstakes native English speakers make ^_~

Till alla mina landsmän, hur fan kan de vara så kaxiga när de bara kan ett språk, jag skulle vilja se dem behöva använda sitt andra språk;)

Re:We all go for region free over here

[Amanset]

Till alla mina landsmän, hur fan kan de vara så kaxiga när de bara kan ett språk, jag skulle vilja se dem behöva använda sitt andra språk;)

Det finns folk som kommer från länder när de tala engelska som tala dålig svenska. Vi är inte alla idioter!

Re:We all go for region free over here

[Amanset]

Det finns folk som kommer från länder när de tala engelska som tala dålig svenska. Vi är inte alla idioter!

Arse. "När" bör vara "var". Jag är en idiot! :o)

Re:We all go for region free over here

[spinwards]

if you acually read the page the definition is for know (no s). Dictionary.com finds the correct word, not always what you typed in (i use it to check my spelling from time to time, hehe).

here is the definition that can be found for "knows". read the page carefully.

any native english speaker would be able to pick this mistake up with out having to check it by the way...

Re:We all go for region free over here

[JanneM]

har man engelska som förstaspråk har man inte samma behov av att lära sig andra språk heller. Vi har tur som _måste_ lära oss fler språk för att kunna göra oss förstådda.

Sen har översättningens kvalitet ingenting med att göra med att jag inte vill ha textat; förstår man engelska obehindrat är det bara störigt med textremsan.

/Janne

Re:We all go for region free over here

[prentis]

any native english speaker would be able to pick this mistake up with out having to check it by the way...
Well if you look at the original post it stated that he/she is from sweden so i doubt that his/her native language is english.

Re:We all go for region free over here

[prentis]

I dont think the point was that people from english speaking countrys are stupid but that some people may understand a movie better without the subs, I think that is something most scandinaviens can relate to.

Re:We all go for region free over here

[Mantorp]

Instämmer. English is hard enough for many native speakers. E.g. there and their, your and you're etc.

So who finished where?

[Basset]

In case you were curious about the final rankings, you can find them here

Not Really Region Free?

[Ted Cabeen]

Watch out. Most computer DVD drives (which the X-Box uses) come without the region set. It's possible that the X-Box comes this way, and if the first dvd you put into a X-Box is region 2, then you could get a region 2 X-Box forever. Alternately, you could get 4-5 changes of the DVD Region before it locks. It's possible that the X-Box coders let the DVD drive handle the region settings and you'll be locked out after 4-5 region changes.

Re:Not Really Region Free?

[frantzdb]

On the other hand, if that were to happen, you should return the X-Box and get a replacement that isn't “faulty.” It would be very poor of a manufacturer to have a device make a perminant change to itself, limiting functionality, without even warning the user.
--Ben

Re:Not Really Region Free?

[sharkey]

It would be very poor of a manufacturer to have a device make a perminant change to itself, limiting functionality, without even warning the user.

Yeah, that wouldn't be at all like Microsoft, would it? They would no more sell a DVD drive that locked itself into a region without user input that they would make email client after email client that would run attachments or scripts with full access to system-level files without user input.

Re:Not Really Region Free?

[Anonymous Coward]

So true, that it ain't even funny...

Re:Not Really Region Free?

[yugami]

there are a number of regular DVD players that run the 5 strikes rule, after 5 region changes it locks its self.

so if you play US, poland, UK, iranian, russian, then poland again your stuck using poland

Region Free?

[halo8]

i thought ALL dvd players had to have regions in them? are there some that dont? are the legal? are they blackmarket? can i buy them online? i never heard of this before??? can some one post a store they know or somthing of this?

gnome on windows... Hmmm...

[motherhead]

I use windows to boot my windows games. thats pretty much it. Why would i want to run gnome on a windows box? Other then having to do some cross-platform testing and tweaking, Arcanum and Empire Earth, that is why i have a high-end windows game system, if that stuff came out on the Mac (yes i know, or Linux) at the same time, I wouldn't even need it to be high end.

someone mentioned earlier, if you work for a company that insists you run a Windows OS, then they are sure as shit not going to be pleased with you installing cygwin-gnome. I mean really, i laud the efforts of cyg, god bless those guys. But really now. why should i bother to jack gnome onto windows when i have five *nix boxes all around me that can do it better?

i went through this with OS10.1 on the Mac. Loved interleaving X-Darwin and OSX and running gimp next to photoshop... but once i stopped showing off to friends i had to ask myself this question, "what exactly is this doing to make me more productive or happy?" Yes i realize the difference is that OSX is far more natively *nix friendly since well, it's pretty much FreeBSD, which is why i stopped messing with XFree-Darwin and can launch gimp from a nice terminal shortcut. But my desire to do the same on a 2K box is well... non-existant.

Linux/FreeBSD is my preferred work environment, Macintosh is my preferred design/client support environment... Windows 2000 Professional is one hell of a robust game launcher.

If Halo and Metropol, etc.. etc.. are ported to PC in a timely fashion then I will have vindicated myself by preordering the Game Cube instead of the X-Box. It will sit nicely next to the PS2 and the Dreamcast (which also does not run linux since... well... i have linux boxes). If i am in error, well Microsoft says it's goal is to drive the price of the X-Box down to about $100US, so if I pick one up in a couple of months for twice that, i will have still saved about 55% off what i see it going for now.

I do not see the great functionality replacing my microwave's interface with a ba$h prompt. i don't want to logon to my car audio system.

Re:gnome on windows... Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly. gnome on anything isn't worth it
kde on the other hand, sure is

Re:gnome on windows... Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

great, well reasoned, rant.

Windows Desktop

[kaoshin]

If your interested in a real good Windows desktop thats like FVWM for Windows then check out EVWM.Not only is it simple like FVWM, and have graphical configuration, but it is written in ANSI C/WinAPI so it is fast. I've been using it at work for a couple of years now and like it a lot.

EU: How many continents can I fit in my recycle bin? ME: All seven.

Re:Windows Desktop

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

8-3-99.

1999 is the newest build (according to the site. Is there anything newer anywhere?

Re:Windows Desktop

[kaoshin]

Nope, thats the newest build.

Achtung Juden!

[Anonymous Coward]

Those krauts should have been more forthwith. They should have continued the "Achtung Juden!" chant. That is just bad form trying to pretend they did not know. The Turks should fess up to killing, forced deportations, and assimilations of all the Christian peoples in Anatolia as well.

Re:Achtung Juden!

[Anonymous Coward]

Aufmerksamkeit Juden, die Sie werden aller Würfel!

heh.

[autopr0n]

since I translate better myself and knows English better than the translators

Clearly! :P

The winning team

[jesser]

The winning car, Nuna, was built by the Alpha Centauri team

They can't be from centauri. Everyone knows the game ends the first time humans reach it!

Re:The winning team

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, no... The game only truly begins once the humans crash land on Alpha Centauri and the various factions start the race for world dominance once again. ;)

Well, at least for me it does, mainly as I'm much better at Alpha Centarui than at Civ III.

Re:The winning team

[DarkbladePDX]

Actually, a really interesting bit of information is that one of the sucessful finishers was an unmodified human-powered stock tandem tricycle made by Greenspeed of Australia. Check them out.
www.greenspeed.com.au

Note- I am not affiliated with them, just a trike enthusiast hoping to get some geek attention for trikes in general. :)

Atone for your sin or the sins of your fathers

[Anonymous Coward]

Serves you right

Re:Atone for your sin or the sins of your fathers

[Anonymous Coward]

Serves you right, then, whenever bad things happen to you. Are you saying none of your "fathers" ever sinned?

Harping on the crimes of the Nazis is a deliberate tool used by those who do not want anyone to examine too closely what they are doing in the here and now.

What can you do about crimes 50+ years past? Look at what is happening right now! Look at what your government is doing today, in your name, with your tax money.

You think it is an accident that we hear nothing but "nazi nazi nazi nazi" all day every day, in the media?

Don't be fooled.

an example of "cognative dissonance"

[Dr. Awktagon]

The German Constitution (Grundgesetz) does not allow censorship however there are some restrictions on free speech..

Hmm... "does not allow censorship" ... "there are some restrictions on free speech"

Glad to see that America isn't the only country where people sometimes have difficulty reading the constitution! :-)

(I know, I know, the constitution isn't black and white like that.. save your flames.)

Re:an example of "cognative dissonance"

[Anonymous Coward]

At least the US Constitution is not blatantly contradictory, unlike most other constitutions. The US Constitution places restrictions on the powers of government; it does not grant it powers.

It has taken 200 years of artful misinterpretation (mostly in the past 50 years) to convince enough people that the Constitution says things it does not say, and does not say things it does say.

There are no qualifications or contradictions to the Bill of Rights within the Constitution; do not confuse the murky reasoning of various Supreme Courts with what the Constitution and Bill of Rights actually says in no uncertain terms.

and the point to those were.../XBox ques...

[chibihentai]

Do we really need penis comments? _____________________________ On the X-Box, I had some questions: 1. can you yank out the 8gig and put in, say, an IBM 40? 2. anyone stuck *nix on one yet? 3. Microsoft is selling the games in their company store for $10, are those the full retail box version? 4. The games are on DVD, and when DVDs first came out some of the authors stuck stuff on the discs just to fill them up (because they could)- anyone know if something like that has happened on one of the game discs? -CH

Re:Unser gro�er Verb�ndeter die T�rkei

[Anonymous Coward]

Setzen Sie jenes Kurds in einen Gasraum ein!

RTFP, STFU

[czardonic]

He didn't say his English was perfect, he just said it was better than the translator's.

Re:RTFP, STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

Sie sind ein fucking Hilfsmittel. Mögen Sie auf einem Hahn erdrosseln. Ich hoffe, daß Sie einen schnellen Tod sterben und nicht Kinder
haben.

gnome*cygwin binary packages?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is something new: GNOME ported to Cygwin as well: http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley/1596/en/c ygwin.html

Anyone have any precompiled binary packages for Gnome on Cygwin?

Solipsism

[Anonymous Coward]

Its called Solipsism Posted as AC as its way off topic

Most gnu tools are already native to win32

[Billly Gates]

"Cygwin is turning out to be a breeze of fresh air for people stuck on windows for one reason or another. I can use the familiar bash shell on any platform(win, *nix) I am on, and don't have to deal with the DOS prompt. I use all the gnu tools from cygwin distro. rcs, cvs, vim, perl, python, ruby, apache the list goes on.

As I am typing this on WindowsXP, I have vim6.0 in the background as well as Apache 1.3.2. I also have perl 5.6, python, php4, and Mysql installed. There is also a port of Xemacs for Windows for VI haters.

I would not recommend running native unix apps with cygwin on win32 if there is a native version for the platform. The native win32 port of vim for example can integrate with visual studio so you can replace the visual c++ editor with VIM. Very cool stuff! Also according to the documentation of VIM 6, you an also integrate it with Visual Basic applications! I haven't tried this though. Also I have com+ and ole support with the win32 port of perl and python. The win32 version of apache can run ASP. Not optimized yet but its diffenitely possible and will be there soon.

Running the compilied unix versions of these apps with cygwin can introduce compadibility problems as well as integration limitations. E.g. I can't integrate VIM with Visual Studio. I heard strange things happening on postgresSql with cygwin. Also according to the apache documentation, the threading model of Windows is a problem because its optimized for Unix style threads. The win32 version has its own more windows friendly threading which would not be there under cygwin. Remember that cygwin is close to Unix but tts not a %100 unix environment. PostgresSQL may be fixed but you need a particular source just for cygwin so it won't crash or exhibit bugs. This is the problem since most opensource apps will either not compile at all under cygwin or will compile but be buggy. I prefer a native win32 port of gnu apps on Windows and I will run Linux for the Unix ports.

Re:Most gnu tools are already native to win32

[rbeattie]

It's all about weaning yourself away from Microsoft by using cross-platform apps. First you get your job so you don't need Microsoft tools (Java), then you go for taking out the browser (Mozilla) then the Office apps (StarOffice) then you start going for some of the low level stuff that you miss on Unix (Cygwin)...

Before you know it, you're not using anything on your Windows box that you can't find for Mac or Linux. Then poof. A backup, reinstall and you're MS Free. (I'll still miss Macromedia Fireworks, but maybe it works with WINE...)

All hail the cross-platform developers (Mozdev, CygWin, more...)

-Russ

Do Germans have to use a DNS server in Germany?

[TimFreeman]

I don't see how censorship-by-DNS could actually work. The user could point their machine at any DNS server in the world that will take them. Surely there is at least one such server, and it will have accurate DNS records for the banned sites. Why aren't Germans doing this if they want access to the banned sites?

Re:Do Germans have to use a DNS server in Germany?

[Taliban Lecher]

If you set a transparent proxy on the dial-in lines, you can redirect any tcp port (read 53) to 127.0.0.1:53 or evil-dns.local.net:53 et voila.

You have to use a DNS server listening on a different port. But how do you make you OS use it then (O.K. by proxying yourself). But that is not a Joe User solution.

And they can still block everyting except port 53,21,80,443 propably IMAP/POP.

Re:Do Germans have to use a DNS server in Germany?

[Armin Herbert]

Of course you're right, and of course users _will_ use other DNS servers to access these sites.
This is why an employee of the ISP said that "this will only hurt 'Fritzchen stupid'".

As long as they do it to Nazis, and as long as they censor by using false dns entries, I don't care much.

The problem with this is - they won't. This is just the beginning, and don't think that Germany is far away enough from the US. This will someday happen to you, too, and it will happen to any content which contradicts the prevailing opinion, as long as YOU won't do anything against.

Re:Do Germans have to use a DNS server in Germany?

[lanclos]

Why aren't Germans doing this if they want access to the banned sites?

Come on now. Can you imagine trying to explain how to change your computer's DNS server to an entire country, which is inevitably comprised of a large percentage of Joe Users? These are people that don't know what a DNS server is, much less why their favorite "unsavory" website isn't working, or how changing some technical-sounding "DNS server" widget would help.

The truly motivated people will always find a way around such trivial blockades, but Joe User is another story... raw technical information will never save Joe User. Hence, the political battle.

Re:Do Germans have to use a DNS server in Germany?

[dangermouse]

You're right! I have to take action! I'm going to call my Abgeordnete right now!

Oh, wait...

Fountain City? Shoot Fourth and Gill is hipper

[The Ape With No Name]

Be sure to go to Sam and Andy's for a Vol burger after you pick up some lawn ornaments at the Big Lots, Tim.

Windowmaker on Cygwin

[juju2112]

I managed to get Windowmaker up and running on Cygwin, under Window 98.

Check it out.

I just had to comment out one line of code and change my username so that it didn't have any spaces in it. It might not have all the bells and whistles of KDE or Gnome, but at least it takes up less memory. Probably faster, too.

-- juju

What to do�

[Selur_Natas]

Scheiße!

Great Idea!

[sterno]

WOW! That would be .... SLOOOOOOOW

And as others have pointed out, VMWare essentially accomplishes this task. It is also an amazing resource hog.

Now what would be really cool is a way to do rapid dual boot. Something where you could have both OS's resident in some sort of temporary memory. So I can hit a key stroke, and like 10 seconds later be in to the other operating system ready to roll. Basically I'm thinking something like souped up version of laptop hibernation where it stores state.

Re:Great Idea!

[scanman857]

Actually, it's not slow, for the same reason Wine isn't slow. It's not an emulator, it's an API translation layer. Cygwin just copied the APIs from Unix, then modified them so instead of actually doing things, they call the relevant Windows APIs. The non-API parts of the program run unmodified, therefore, programs (at least the majority of them that don't spend much time in API calls) run very close to native speed. Your idea about the laptop hibernation is a good one, I have thought about something like that too.

Re:Great Idea!

[Saucepan]

cygwin can be pretty slow depending on what you are doing. The biggest problem areas seem to be POSIX operations that don't map well onto Win32 (like fork(), which must be emulated with file mappings), and operations like process creation that Unix software assumes to be cheap but that actually are quite expensive on windows.

It's true that for things like tooling around in bash you won't notice any speed difference most of time.

Re:Great Idea!

[biglig2]

Hmmm... How about 2 PCs and a KVM switch?

Doesn't work

[frohike]

We've got a US X-Box here and we just tried playing the MGS2 trailer DVD from Japan. It came up with the message "Invalid DVD region" and wouldn't play it. (Me and my roomates == We) We are hypothesizing that perhaps the DVD dongle they make you buy actually has a region encoded into it? That way they can offload the cost of region coding onto you, the consumer. Would be a typical MS move. Anyone have multiple region dongles and want to try it?

The Secret Genius Of Slashdot...

[istartedi]

...is to always include a grammatical error, mistake, flawed reasoning, or some other foible in the article. They always include at least one.

Why? Because somebody will always say something about it, and it will generate more page views and hits and stuff, and sometimes they might even get modded up, generating yet more page views and hits and stuff.

Now, you might just think that the editors have no English skills. This might very well be true. I always picture this meeting taking place, where somebody mentions that they need to improve their skills. Then somebody mentions all the page views and hits and stuff.

The real genius here is that not only do they get to be lazy, they actually benefit from the laziness. It's actually a cool hack, and I almost hate to point this out because I might spoil it.

“S” Key Next To “W” Key

[Anonymous Coward]

Breaking News: S Key Next To W Key, Humans Make Typos.

In a startiling announcement today, it has been discovered that humans (homo sapians) are known to make mistakes when typing, commonly called typos. Such typos may cause a word, such as know to accidently be written as knows should the finger slip.

Scientists predict the end of the world due to typos.

Re:“S” Key Next To “W” Key

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming up next, we take an inside look at a man who has never heard of humor in his life...

Let's hear it for Recycling!

[farrellj]

Nice job using recycled Hubble parts!

ttyl
Farrell

PS2 can sorta be region-free

[Anonymous Coward]

In the parental controls section, you can change what region the dvd player uses.
Its not true-region free, but it tricks region-free-not-working dvds, u just set it to whatever region the disc is. Used it fine on Euro Discs.

Try playing final fantasy on an xbox.

[t]

When I tried it in my region free apex it told me that it could only be played on a box keyed to the US region. I had to set the damn thing back to region 1 to play the dvd.

It's the only disc that I know of that has that annoyance.

t.

For those wanting region free DVD (RPC-1)

[alexandre]

quite interesting site: ;-)

http://www.firmware.fr.st/

Note that i think DVD should die, this standard is
way to bigbrotherish...

Not exactly the same

[SuperKendall]

In the case of the PS2, you could allow region 1 viewing (and perhaps other regions) via a special sequence of button presses - so it didn't allow region free viewing without a little work!

If the XBox drivers are really region free (and not just using up one of five region changes like others have guessed) then it would be quite a bit more impressive.

Solar Race (Please read)

[Anonymous Coward]

You have incorrectly said that the runner up teams didn't finish the race and had to camp overnight outside Adelaide. This is both correct and incorrect.

The finish line for the event is when the cars cross into Adelaide city. But the ceremonial finish line (where the media are) is much closer to the centre of Adelaide. So what happened is both Nuna and Aurora finished the race just before dark (they crossed into Adelaide). I think Nuna was about 5 mins ahead of Aurora. Then they both camped overnight on the outskirts of Adelaide, then in the morning they both crossed the ceremonial finish line within minutes of each other.

The way you have written the story implies that the Nuna won by a very long way, but this is not true. In fact it is quite the opposte, this has been the closest solar race ever. The two tops teams finished with in minutes of each other and in a race lasting over 30 hours and 3000km it couldn't get any closer.

Cygwin & Evolution anyone?

[Cef]

Anyone got Evolution working on Cygwin/Win32? Even just Win32 on it's own?

I'd really like to be able to get rid of all these Outlook users, by giving them something decent to use like Evolution. Unfortunately we need to use Windows here at the office (well regularly at least, we develop software for Windows - makes sense really).

Of course, this makes a great case for migrating to Linux too, as once they've used it, gotten hooked, and we switch them to Linux, they can keep using the apps with less re-training. Also great for those dual-boot machines if the data resides in a common directory shared between Linux/Windows. No matter what OS you're in, you can access mail without any issues.

Re:Cygwin & Evolution anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

the symlinks do not work on a ext2fs mounted under windose, then mapped to a dos-drive-letter, and then mounted under cygwin.
Meaning that you ll have to keep the mail on a FAT filesystem. It s funny how the worst technology wins when you try to be nice to both worlds and let your users have a smooth transition.
Sometimes a decision has to be made. It hurts but doesn t last, just like when you remove a plaster...try to do it in a "smooth transition" :-]

XFree's quite easy to install these days

[Nailer]

...but as for XFree86, I definitely don't think it's as easy as the other two. Cygwin runs under an internet "stub" installer, whereas ith XF you download about eighty packages, then navigate through the directory structure...... blah blah.

I think Xfree has changed since you last looked at it. I installed 4.1 the other day and it was about fifteen or so binary packages, many of which were unecessary. Installation involved launching Cygwin's shell and running ./Xinstall.sh. This was extremely easy to do, and the defaults were all fine, albeit nongraphical.

If you're interested, check out the
screenshot of my Linux box accessing my Windows box via RDP, accessing my Linux box via Xfree86.

Yes it's true - now you can have all the power of Linux, on Linux!
:)

German gov. response regarding "Zensur"

[vandijk]

Actually this is old news (11/21/01), but I haven't seen this being mentioned before in this discussion about the German site banning. A member of the German government (SPD) responsible for new media has released a statement regarding the matter at his website, here (German)

In short, he calls that local politican in NRW a "Schaumschlaeger", which is basically saying "that guy has no clue, acts like he has no clue and just wants to get some attention for the next election". He also says, that banning sites is very dubious in the eyes of the law, whereas DNS banning is not just dubious but technically impossible. Such action would only increase the popularity of the targeted sites, and would also create mirrors, which in turn would ridicule the action. He also states, that DNS banning can be circumvented by the easiest of methods by every user.

He concludes, that instead more concern should be focused on teaching young kids how to cope with the medium in a responsible way, and that the state should focus on "fighting" the creators of such Nazi, child porn etc. sites - instead of fighting the internet as such.

He also mentiones, that banning is generally unrealistic, as there is no way to decide in consent which sites should get banned and he mentiones something like a filter, which could be used by parents not by the state.. etc.. (Sorry, for my humble English, it's not my primary language and it's rather late over here. :P)

(Flamebait!) US-Nazi propaganda

[david.johns]

Hee! I just wanted to point out that our government knows a lot about our Nationalist/Fascist movement! I mean, John Ashcroft is Attorney General!

Use Proxy Servers and creative protests

[billstewart]

Accessing the data is easy - there are lots of web proxy servers, operated for different reasons, that make effective censorship difficult.

• The Google Search Engine
• The Wayback Machine www.archive.org historical archive
• Anonymizer.com and similar privacy services (some free, some paid)
• thousands of web proxies around the world
• more web caching sites and software

The hard part is to find creative ways to get the public, and maybe the politicans, to understand what evil things the politicians are doing. I don't understand the local attitudes in your areas well enough to say what are the best ways to present your case. Some ideas I can think of:

• You are trying to research the evils that the Nazis did during the War, and you are trying to research the evils that remaining Nazis are doing today, and these internet censors are making it hard to locate the evildoers. Or you help organizations that watch Nazis to find them on the web, but the censorship makes it difficult.
• The censorship tools are forcing the current Nazis to use higher technology - bad enough that those partially-literate thugs are using the Internet, but now the censors are giving them a reason to learn more technology which they will use to organize their evil groups in secrecy, instead of more public locations where they can be found.
• Perhaps you have Internet services that you want to prevent Nazis from using, but it is difficult to identify the Nazis because of the censorship.
• Perhaps the censorship is hiding other things, not just Nazis - Former Stasi? Corruption? Lazy Police? The only way to know is to permit transparency.

Some of these approaches require you to be actively working on Nazi-hunting to be credible; some of them only require you to care about censorship or about making it easy for other people to fight Nazis. You will have to find your own path here.

Interix?

[IntlHarvester]

Microsoft Interix - a UNIX-compatible subsystem and tools for NT/2000. $99. (Bonus: Includes Microsoft GCC!)

While it doesn't solve the integration problems (com, VS), it might solve the threading issues (as well as the security issues) because it operates on kernel level (native?) instead of in user space as with cygwin and other solutions.

I'm curious if anyone has any firsthand experience porting/using the typical OSS software with Interix. There's not much 3rd party information on the web (that I can find), and MS seems to sell it as a migration solution only.

(There was a /. interview with the Interix developer, but it unfortunately turned into a flamewar and Interix wasn't discussed much.)

Re:Interix?

[hawk]

This was proposed to me by a windows-centric administrator last year, rather than real unix. I looked over what he provided, thought, and several components were *way* out of date--including X, iirc (I think it was R5, not 6)

hawk

Re:Interix?

[IntlHarvester]

Well, I just dropped the change, so we'll see what it comes with...

My hope is that it's a sorta-BSDish system and most 'modern' packages will compile. If not, I'm screwed unless I want to learn unix systems programming.

It actually appeared to not include X11, but http://www.estoredirect.com will bundle Exceed.

Re:Interix?

[Mr. Jackson]

Interix looks to be a dead product. It does not show up in Microsoft's product list and does not turn up in a search of their support knowledge base.(!) The email address for support is no longer in service.

I tried Interix, not for porting, but as a unix utility, particularly for manipulating AIT2 tape drives. Cygwin has a few issues with AIT2, and so did Interix. But the cygwin mailing list is alive and well. With Interix, there is nowhere to turn for help.

Users' vs. Developers' needs for Windows

[billstewart]

Obviously if you're a developer you have to be supporting the development environment your company uses, and if that's Windows, it's Windows, and Cygwin/X/GNOME on top of that is a major architectural decision - so run Unix on separate boxes, or at least use those removable disk drive drawers.

But many of us aren't PC developers - we're network hackers, or consultants, or router developers, and that PC on our desk is a communication tool maintained by some IT department that wants to make sure we can word-process, print, email, surf, dial up from the road, and fill out forms in a compatible fashion, so to them we're just Users. In that environment, most of them don't care what extra tools you use as long as you don't ask them for support and don't mess up the tools they do support in confusing ways. So sure, if you've got the disk space, install Cygwin and X and GNOME and EMACS, and just make sure that when you send the HR folks the Excel spreadsheet that says what projects you worked on this month and which customers to charge for it, you're using their favorite macros and column headings. And use that other removable disk drive tray to run Linux with WINE on top :-)

PAL, NTSC, SECAM, oh my!

[jasonzzz]

PAL - Phase Alternation by Line, 1967
625 vertical lines, 50 half frames (sets of odd or even lines) displayed per second
Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina (PAL-N), Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brunei, Cameroon, Canary Islands, China, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Gibralter, Greece (also SECAM), Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, North Korea, Kuwait, Liberia, Luxembourg (also SECAM), Madeira, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay (PAL-N), Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia (also SECAM), Siera Leone, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay (PAL-N), Yeman (the former Yeman Arab Republic was PAL, and the former People's Democratic Republic of Yeman was NTSC ), Yugoslavia, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

PAL-M -
525 lines, 60 half frames per second.
Brazil only

NTSC - National Television System Committee, 1953
525 vertical lines, 59.94 half frames displayed per second.
USA, Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Burma, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Greenland, Guam, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, St. Kitts, Saipan, Samoa, Surinam, Taiwan, Tobago, Trinidad, Venezuela, Virgin Islands.

SECAM - Systeme Electronique Couleur Avec Memoire, 1967
625 lines, 50 half frames per second.
Albania, Benin, Bulgaria, Congo, former Czechosolvakia, Djibouti, Egypt, France, French Guiana, Gabon, Greece (also PAL), Guadeloupe, Haiti, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Lebanon, Libya, Luxembourg (also PAL), Madagascar, Martinique, Mauritius, Monaco (also PAL), Mongolia, Morocco, New Caledonia, Niger, Poland, Reunion, Romania, Saudi Arabia (also PAL), Senegal, Syria, Tahiti, Togo, Tunisia, former USSR, Viet Nam, Zaire.

Re:extra extra read all about it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh now thank you so much! Now I have a smudge from pressing my penis against my monitor. Whos going to wipe up this icky mess? Did I mean icky? Yes. I jacked off to the picutre.

Region free player costs are less than $200.00

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very easy to spend $200.00 or less (not $400, which means the Xbvox price is no bargain) for a region free player in the US.

Many of them have loop-hole menus, or simply don't advertise this capability. It's called being a smart consumer...and not trying to rationalize the purchase of an Xbox by quoting inaccurate numbers.

- Tredex
- Apex

etc.

Cheap region-free players

[Dominic]

From the comments here it looks like people have a problem getting cheap region free players. May I recommend the Logix 3300D from bigsave.com? It only costs 125 quid. I've got one and its great.

I don't work for or have any interest in them.. just wanted to help people out.

Re:Great Idea! [vmware]

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been experimenting with a dual athlon 1200 (tyan tiger MP, 2gb ram) and VMWare 3.0 is NOT slow... you can hit 'pause' on the VM's and save their state as per hibernation; you can run multiples fullscreen and switch with ctrl-alt-F1, etc... pretty damn amazing, and it all goes to show that anything will work if you throw enough hardware at it.

Strangely

[Anonymous Coward]

Japan is NTSC like USA/Canada but Western Europe is PAL (France/Russia are SECAM, Hong Kong is PAL, Brazil is M-PAL).

So it doesn't sound like the region codes match up very well with the local broadcast standards...

re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how stable the X-Box is. Microsoft products are not exactly known for their stability.

As far censorship goes - I am against it regardless of how outragous or offensive the idea is.

I think that an open source alternative to DVDs would be a very good thing.

If Cygwin is too heavy for you ...

[Stavr0]

I'd like to plug UnxUtils, which are native Win32 GNU utilities.
Personally, I extract all the exes directly to my \WINNT directory.

Fundamentally unfair

[hawk]

to let folks from a civilization that has mastered space flight, just to get here and enter, to compete in a atmospheric competition . . .

hawk

will slashdot *ever*

[hawk]

> Arse. "När" bör vara "var". Jag är en idiot! :o)

. . . have a Jar-Jar free discussion? Isn't "Jag-ar an idiot" well settled by now???

hawk