Slashback: Membership, Quarkiness, Audioggogy

Slashback this fine tax-day evening (you did remember, right?) brings you updates on Gentoo Linux, Mike Myer's brush with the Humor Police, Microsoft's spin on the waning Hailstorm, and more. Read on for the details.

A tornado's worth of spin control. telstar writes "The Code Report is reporting that last week's story from the New York Times concerning the death of Hailstorm was not entirely accurate. A Microsoft spokesperson has stated that Microsoft is shifting from a model in which MSN was the sole operator to a model where the operation of these services is available to multiple operators."

Onan Meets Midas. daoine writes: "Reversing the outcome of an earlier argument, boston.com is reporting that MGM and New Line Cinema have reached an agreement that permits New Line to continue with the Goldmember name. It also stipulates that further satirical names must be approved by MGM."

Does dishes, saves gas, freshens your breath, cleans your pets ... Apparently, Gentoo Linux is contagious. JigSaw writes: "OSNews features an interesting review of Gentoo Linux 1.0 and they call it 'the fastest loading, fastest-operating Linux distribution to date.' Gentoo may be the fastest Linux for a workstation today, but according to the review, it still has some problems, most notably, annoying bugs. However, it still manages to score a glowing 8.2 out of 10 overall."

Reader sckevyn also points to the Gentoo PowerPC page for those equipped different.

First steps always seem small. camusflage writes "Yahoo has a story from ZDNet about TheKompany's recent release of tkcPlayer for the Zaurus, which is being billed as the first portable Ogg Vorbis player. A player for a format not many people are using on a platform even fewer people are using. Admirable, but not likely to be a commercial success."

Honey, your quark is showing. ngrier writes "As a quick follow-up to the story posted here a few days ago regarding the potential quark star, the NASA APOD today is a picture of the aforementioned star."

Comments

Membership?

[chrysrobyn]

Yes, that's right, a Slashback featuring the title of "membership" says nothing about using a non-paypal method of subscribing to Slashdot.

Love it or leave it, subscribership seems to me to be a way of supporting the site to which so many of us devote our time.

Yet, they're not rushing to pacify their most zealous "PayPal Hating Credit Card Wielding" fans. Maybe it's difficult to set up a relationship with the local bank that allows a computer to accept a credit card number, spew out a hard copy receipt and then /dev/null the number. Or have one of the editors take some of his "Grammar Is Irrelevant" time and sit down with his e-mail reader of choice and one of those merchant credit card readers.

I don't expect Slashdot will ever favor the most vocal Slashdot minority, the "Tin Foil Wearing Small Unmarked Bills" wielding folk.

Re:check this out....

[ebyrob]

Npghnyyl, urer'f bar fvgr jvgu n wninfpevcg irefvba:

uggc://jjj.cynarg-fbhepr-pbqr.pbz/io/fpevcgf/Fub jP bqr.nfc?gkgPbqrVq=246&yatJVq=2

Vg'f gura nf fvzcyr nf cnfgvat vagb n jro-cntr. Gb zr n jro cntr fhccbegvat phg naq cnfgr frrzf zhpu rnfvre guna hfvat n pbzznaq yvar crey fpevcg be fbzr fhpu...

Rot-13, Its the future!

[emkman]

This message brought to you by the we're-too-lazy-write-good-encryption-but-it-doesn' t-matter-because-the-DMCA-will-protect-us department.

Misc. Dept.: Finally, an honest Spam Subject!

[ackthpt]

Got two spams, with the following subject:

ATTENTION: I WANT YOUR MONEY!!!

It then goes on with some stupid con about huge potentials, etc., all written with less thought and care than the average slashtroll post (You'd think someone who was going to engender the ire of thousands would at least put some effort into it, see sample below)

All you guys out there in Internet land get your fingers in gear and go directly to this website and do this
simple...YES I SAID SIMPLE (AND CHEAP!) program right NOW!

Click Here:
http://LearnTo.at/CollectCash


WE ARE ALL HERE TO MAKE MONEY (yes, I want your money - I'm not gonna lie) and this is one of the easiest
routes WE ALL can take to build some revenue without interupting any other ventures you are undergoing.
>>>>SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?????

DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE!
THE POTENTIAL IS INSANE!!! IF YOU DON'T SEE IT YOUR BLIND!
YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE AND EVERYTHING TO GAIN! TAKE ACTION! ...DO IT! ...JUMP!
DON'T JUST SIT THERE LIKE A BUMP ON A LOG! GIVE YOURSELF WHAT YOU DESERVE! YOU ARE WORTH IT!!! YOU WILL BE REWARDED BEYOND YOUR HIGHEST EXPECTATIONS!
( VERY IMPORTANT...Don't forget to give at least 10% to a good charity after you collect!)

Pathetic.

V jebgr zl bja

[yerricde]

/* ROT.C by Damian Yerrick

Rotates the ASCII letters in foo.txt forward by n letters.
Copyright (C) 2000 Damian Yerrick

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You can find a copy of the GNU General Public License at
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

You can reach Damian Yerrick at d_yerrick@hotmail.com
Visit his web site at http://come.to/yerrick

Use examples:
rot 13 < foo.txt
echo HAL | rot 1

*/

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int chrrotate(int letter, int rot)
{
if(letter >= 'A' && letter <= 'Z')
{
letter += rot;
if(letter > 'Z')
letter -= 26;
}
else if(letter >= 'a' && letter <= 'z')
{
letter += rot;
if(letter > 'z')
letter -= 26;
}

return letter;
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
int rotn = 13;

if(argc >= 2)
rotn = atoi(argv[1]);

/* get rotn above 0 but under 26 */
rotn = (rotn + 26 * (rotn / 26 + 1)) % 26;
/*
printf("rot%d\n", rotn);
*/

while(!feof(stdin))
putchar(chrrotate(getchar(), rotn));

return 0;
}

/*
<O Rabhtu cravf oveqf
( \ Urer'f n abezny oveq
X
*/