Slashback: Deception, Fusion, Membership

Slashback arrives tonight with updates on the lukewarm path to cold fusion, one more update on what Microsoft claims is "the way out" (really, this time), a hopeful look at Mandrake's Club, and more -- read on below for the details.

"Congratulations! You may already own goats.cx!" King Mongo writes: "Well, well. First Verisign sent mail to trick domain owners into switching registrars ( as described earlier on Slashdot ); today I received a similar letter from Verisign asking me to renew cruel-intention.com with them. The problem is, I never bought cruel-intention.com and I've never used Verisign as a registrar. But what's this? Whois says I've owned it since September 2001? And the Technical Contact is Verisign? And it's registered for 10 years? You can bet I'll be contacting my state AG, as well as the USPS Inspectors' office; what if the domain name was offensive, or actionable (it may even be a DMCA violation)? Verisign has taken it upon themselves to hijack my identity and expose me to litigation! At least they let me know!"

Port softly, and carry a big Club. joestar writes: "Just seen in Mandrake Linux news... It seems that the recent call for Mandrake Club subscriptions had a double effect: it was a financial success for MandrakeSoft ($390,000 since the Club was first created on November 28th, 2001), and at the same time it generated lots of questions about this new approach of doing business with Free-Software. In a really interesting message, MandrakeSoft's CEO Jacques Le Marois gives all details about the Club results and why and how they are currently inventing a new business model dedicated to Free-Software oriented companies, since the traditional business models fail for these companies. Actually I'm impressed."

OK, perhaps we only have the way sideways. gh0ul writes "news.com is featuring an article regarding Microsoft and Unisys' joint venture to steer companies/individuals away from Unix and branch in to the corporate servers based on Windows2000. With all the negative impact towards 'wehavethewayout.com', im supprised they kept it going.. guess that $28 million matters.."

We've patented that way to think, sorry. An Anonymous Coward writes: "The Symantec marketing droids are on the rampage again. After patenting their definition update technology, this time they patented heuristic virus scanning. When will this insanity end? :P"

I'll believe it when it's powering my air-car. abburdlen writes: "A month ago an article in the Journal Science appeared hyping the possibility of tabletop fusion. Quick summary: Sonoluminescence in heavy acetone ... temperature of collapsing bubbles reaching temperature hotter than the Sun ... evidence of fusion. There was some excitement. There were also many initial skeptics. Looks like the doubtful win again. From the APS, 'The possibility of a major discovery has been obscured by substandard experimental techniques.' Ouch."

One day we'll all have decent bandwidth, right? Pathway writes "I know this has been looked at by slashdot before, but here's a good update comparing the Zipp Fiber to the Terabyte Triangle in Spokane at thelocalplanet.com. In the article, they compare how one prodject is so successful, while the other is foundering. It's a good read."

Comments

cool! (oh wait)

[phrontist]

Desktop Fusion would be incredible but I doubt this will work. I mean if it reaces temps hotter then the sun how can I keep it on my desk?

The editors are morons

[Anonymous Coward]

All these stories have been posted before. You guys are actually paying for this stuff?

Clarification regarding "the way out"

[Jayde Stargunner]

Last time I checked, the site really wasn't touting IIS for web hosting, but using Windows servers for enterprise solutions. That's a pretty different situation.

It's also quite possible that since this really isn't an "in-house" Microsoft deal, they didn't have their web developers working on it...they probably farmed it out to some starving web-heads from SF for an absurdly low price. That said, most web developers don't develop for MS boxes simply because hosting companies charge twice as much for Windows space as a general rule.

Sure, it may seem like some mass hypocricy or something...but if the website isn't about "Use IIS for hosting two-page, temp web pages!" there really isn't much of an issue.

Also, notice the page has at the bottom:
"©1994-2002 Unisys Corporation. All rights reserved."
NOT
"©1994-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved."

-Jayde

Re:I'm looking for "the way out"

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple years ago, I did a project in JScript/ASP. I ended up creating a library of VBS-like string functions (well, actually String and Date methods .left() .trim() .formatDate() etc). Seemed to help some of the greener guys we had, even though the JS stuff is 'superior' (regexp based).

I'm not defending them but...

[DeadBugs]

Unisys has been in the computer buisness from the beginning long before Microsoft was around. After the fallout between Microsoft and IBM, Unisys became deeply involved with Micorsoft providing servers and direct tech support for Microsoft products. They are not as fortunate as IBM to have jumped off the boat long ago. Their siding with Microsoft because they have so much invested, if everyone went to Linux tommorow Microsoft would not be the only company to suffer.

Re:Support alternate roots

[Anonymous Coward]

Use it anyway. When your friends discover they cannot access your site, they have a good reason to complain to their ISP, or add openDNS to their own computer.

Re:Check out this bullshit

[Toddarooski]

This ain't exactly Microsoft-spin. (I think in this case they were smart enough to keep a low profile.) Note that Microsoft and Unisys refused to comment -- the sentence you're quoting was written by the news.com reporter, and not some Microsoft PR dude.

I think instead, it's a subtle bit of sarcasm on Mr. Kanellos' part. Go back and read it again.

--

OpenNIC will never catch on

[Starship Trooper]

And there are a number of reasons why, but I can tell you the one most glaring and obvious reason: aesthetics. The original TLDs .com, .org, .net, .edu, and .mil are all short, easy to type, one syllable to pronounce (except for .edu), and most importantly look good at the end of a domain name.

From OpenNIC's TLD list, you have chosen the TLDs .glue, .indy, .geek, .null, .oss, .parody, and .bbs. All of these are either horribly narrow-reaching and have no reason to be a TLD (.geek, .oss, .parody), sound stupid (.glue, .indy), look stupid (.geek, .oss, .bbs), or are too long (all of them except .oss and .bbs).

These are the same reasons nobody wants a domain under .biz, .info, .museum or any of the other "official" new TLDs. Geeks seem to be naturally deficient at proper design, so I'm not blaming what is essentially a geek project for having this problem. An alternative to the monstrosity Verisign and ICANN have made of their root servers is severely needed. But, if I may, I would like to suggest you ditch these ugly TLDs and put some more thought into choosing names people actually would want on the end of their site names. Think to yourself, would you seriously consider getting a ".parody" domain? Here are some tips:

• The TLDs must all be short. Extremely short. No more than 3 characters. Preferably monosyllabic.
• Don't use ugly letters like 'y', 'k', or 'z', especially at the beginning or end of the domain.
• Avoid catering to special interests. ".com", ".org" and ".net" all work because they're broad and unspecific. TLDs like ".geek" and ".oss" are just going to make nongeeks roll their eyes and look elsewhere.
• Most importantly, before you approve a new TLD, seriously ask yourself (and preferably a few other regular people), "would I buy a domain under this TLD?" Few people are going to want a ".geek" domain, I can tell you.

I really want to see a project like this succeed, but you have to create domains that appeal to broad ranges of people, are easy to type and remember, and look good.

Re:OpenNIC will never catch on

[dzero]

The reasons you give are interesting but sound an awful lot like the oft-mentioned FUD we hear about on Slashdot from time to time.

You are expressing a shocking (to me) level of doubt in something which is a clearly better alternative to the ridiculous conservatism in the TLD world. The TLDs OpenNIC has chosen aren't good enough for you. Suggest some! Isn't that the point? It's a system that's open enough that everyone can help make it better, instead of something like ICANN. That's the point of OpenNIC. Open. NIC. Not ICANN.

(For the record, I hadn't heard of OpenNIC until today)

Someone in another thread mentioned this, and it's true: what we really want is any TLD at all. Why append three letters to a URL when it's mostly meaningless now?

Most parties purchase .com, .org and .net of their chosen name -- effectively eliminating any meaning the TLDs were meant to have. VeriSign (admittedly, according to something I read on the OpenNIC site) no longer requests any justification for choice of TLD because they realize everybody just wants all of them.

So how is the TLD remotely meaningful?

And FYI there has been acceptance of the new ICANN-endorsed TLD's.

I live in New York City and am a regular user of the MTA's (Metropolitan Transit Authority) services, most obviously and frequently the subway. Everywhere the MTA's old URL used to be on posters and signs, there is a little circle with "new" or something, and their new URL: http://www.mta.info.

".info" used to look stupid to me, too, but now it looks pretty darn normal.

So, general acceptance or not, some people seem to be finding this useful. "Think outside the box" and you'll eventually realize that the TLDs can actually convey useful information about a URL.

All it takes to make the unfamiliar familiar and the awkward comfortable is a little love and clarity. Why wait?

Re:Check out this bullshit

[cpeterso]

Both Microsoft and Unisys have declined to comment on the cause of the outage. It is unknown whether there was a technical problem at the hosting site or whether the site was merely bombarded with requests from IT managers clamoring for copies of the free papers on the site.

Not to be a wet blanket, but that sentence is obviously the article author's tongue-in-cheek comment. If Microsoft and Unisys declined to comment, then how could they say anything about clamoring IT managers?

Re:Patents

[zmooc]

I think the main reason for this bonus-system is to stimulate employees with good innovative ideas to "give" the idea to the company. most employees of most companies are required to do that by their contract anyway. This is probably just meant as an extra bonus for not keeping the idea to yourself (and making money of it yourself). This is pretty standard actually; a lot of good ideas come from education/experience you get by working at the company so they'd like to profit from that. I don't think it was meant to have as many patents as possible.

Re:Check out this bullshit

[MsGeek]

the sentence you're quoting was written by the news.com reporter, and not some Microsoft PR dude.

And news.com reporters *AREN'T* Microsoft PR flacks?

Expensive Experts

[Gurp]

Remember how, according to Microsoft/Unisys, companies shouldn't need "expensive experts"?

So far, their non-experts:

1) Installed a system that has embarrassed the company (by using the competitor's OS)
2) While fixing this, it was down for ages (more embarrassment)
3) Now that it's up, it's a sitting duck (with MySQL bound to the external network interface) for crackers

Now, tell me again about how companies shouldn't use experts?

Re:What DB is wehavethewayout.com?

[brer_rabbit]

Ya, MySQL listens on 3306 by default, open to the whole world on my machine. It also uses root as the default account (not that it's any better than the default of postgres on PostgreSQL).

wait a minute, how can you argue that using root is better than a non-priveleged account? Is the postgres account is compromised, they get postgres data. If root is compromised, they get the keys to your car.

wehavetheway...

[Guido69]

...to Adobe? Anyone else think it's odd that the only format offered for the reports is pdf? Also noticed that there aren't any FrontPage headers in the site source. Hmmm. Perhaps Linux does have a chance on the desktop. I sense a new trend starting in Redmond.

Mail from VeriSign might be correct

[DavidYaw]

Don't forget, mail about your domains might not be spam... VeriSign has been buying up several Domain Registrars, so mail from them might have a valid purpose.

Re:"hacking" see "Whining "

[neo]

The fact that a word you think sounds "cool" does not give you license to go out and try to change the English language. Sheesh.

Actually it does. English is a living language and usage dictates the meanings of words. A dictionary is not the guide to how words are spelled and what they mean, it is rather a reflection of usage.

From Ambrose Bierce:

"DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. "