Slashback: Folding, Cursing, Exporting

Slashback tonight brings updates and clarifications on the odds of Apple Computer buying Universal Music, the Evil Bit RFC, and more, including Niels Provos' reasons for moving his cryptographic research tools off-shore.

The more numerous the laws ... friscolr writes "The Register has an article about security researcher Niels Provos's (creator/collaborator for systrace, honeyd, openssh, various steg tools, and more) struggle to continue his Ph.D. studies amidst an increasingly restrictive set of U.S. and Michigan laws. This isn't the first time a prominent security researcher in Michigan has voiced serious concerns over new laws."

You may remember several earlier stories mentioning Provos' research, such as this article on his honeynet creation tool honeyd.

Apple Records has a certain ring, though, doesn't it? egoff writes "The Apple/Universal Music deal is unlikely, according to the New York Times (reg req), nor would it be a sure hit with investors. However, if the deal did go through, it would be because of Steve Job's vision for the future of digital music. Said one former Apple exec: 'Apple always needs to pull a rabbit out of its hat. Universal is a pretty big rabbit.'"

Swearing in another language doesn't count. Chilliwilli writes with an update to the recent Anger As a Software Design Philosophy: "Anyone that took a look at the foul language feckfeck might be amazed to see that somebody has actually risen to one of the three challenges and written a quine in this more irritating of languages. Congratulations go to 'hoser'."

Upping their meds. Elyjah writes "Steve Bellovin has compiled a short list of emails he got regarding his most recent RFC (3514) which appeared this last April 1st. (I believe you may have seen something on Slashdot about it.) Some people just...don't...get it."

If you go beyond the Enterprise, doesn't that invalidate their theme song? Built enough floppy-disk Enterprises? GaryK writes "With Dell getting rid of 3.5" disk drives, I'm quite sure we'll have to come up with creative uses for the hundreds and hundreds of floppies we have around our offices. This guy should serve as an inspiration to us all.

Comments

Re:apple records

[pro-mpd]

macos : xerox parc :: apple records : [napster|kazaa|gnutella] ?

In Apple's favor, although they might not be first on the scene with digital music (duh), they will probably put out a product that will revolutionize the industry.

Remember, it wasn't just the GUI, but it was rather the personal computer with a GUI that started it all.

"Apple Records"

[PeekabooCaribou]

Actually, didn't apple have some sort of agreement with Apple Corps. (The Beatles' label) about this very thing?

Re:"Apple Records"

[Anonymous Coward]

From Wikipedia article on Apple Records:

At one point, Apple Records sued Apple Computer for trademark infringment because the computer company broke their earlier agreement not to add sound to its computers. The case was settled out of court. Apple computers ever since have included a sound labelled sosumi ("So, sue me").

Dell's Usb keychain offer is pants

[Loosewire]

Apparently from a freind's company who buys lots of dells their Free USB keychain drive offer (Here in the UK at least) was only good for 1 week after they announced the removal of floppy disks. Please someone else tell me this is wrong :-(

Re:Apple Records?

[Nintendork]

When Apple ran into the legal problem of using the name Apple, the record company said they could use it so long as they didn't go into the music business. Hence the system beep, "Sosume".

I just did a google search and found another /. post explaining this in more depth.

-Lucas

AOL Floppy disks...

[saskboy]

Don't use those disks man:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIte m&item =3603092159&category=4291

Sell them on eBay to suckers looking for junk mail that takes their memories way back to the 1990s when AOL was hip.

What's a Quine?

[_xeno_]

I hope I'm not the only one who didn't recognize what a "Quine" was, so here we go:

A quine is a program that, when run, exactly reproduces its source code. Nifty - although not particularly useful, it's still kinda neat.

Anyway, find quines in, uh, many languages at The Quine Page.

Quine

[FosterSJC]

For those not so programming-savvy (i.e. me, 5 minutes ago), a quine is "a program that generates a copy of its own source text as its complete output."

Apparently Douglas Hofstadter (of GEB fame)coined the phrase after logician Willard van Orman Quine.

For more see: http://www.nyx.net/~gthompso/quine.htm

Re:Microsoft Records?

[Anonymous Coward]

[Apple]... more recently support Ogg Vorbis for playback

Apple don't support Ogg Vorbis. There is no Apple quicktime component that supports Ogg Vorbis.

Saying Apple supports Ogg is like saying Microsoft supports Ogg because winamp plays ogg files.

Floppy Disks vs. Hard Disks

[Iffy Bonzoolie]

This is as opposed to hard disks, where the platter is actually hard (if you ever disassemble a HD, you'll notice those platters are pretty heavy duty). Even though the 3.5" disk's case is rigid, the disk itself is floppy, which is what makes them floppy disks.

Does anyone know if Zip disks are floppy or hard?

-If

Re:Floppy Disks vs. Hard Disks

[The Almighty Dave]

Zip disks are floppy, I just checked.

Apple Records

[Niscenus]

Yes, Paul thought it had a ring to it, too. It's been a sub-division of EMI since just before Revolver.

John and I, however, used a later song, and out of that (in dual non-pseudo-semi-indirecty-partnery-sub-divisionism ismism), we created Subafilms for our toonery attempts at an animaty-musi-movie.

--Ringo