Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Sorveteria, Rockets, Anger
How is this sanguine? peterb writes "Slashdot has previously reported on Eve Andersson's whitewash of Ars Digita. Her screed placed responsibility for all the problems fully on the shoulders of the Venture Capitalists, while ignoring the role of those that asked the VCs for money. Ars Digita's Michael Yoon has a somewhat more sanguine and less hysterical version of the same story."
I wonder if shoulder chips can be recycled as fuel ...
All them perls don't come cheap. dogma01 writes "It's been almost a year since I submitted this story on Slashdot about the Perl Foundation Fund Drive. With a new year there has been a new round of grants. Every dime helps improve the community and bring us one step closer to Perl6. Please donate here."
The largest model is actually the one that's currently in use. joshamania writes "I knew when I saw the first post about the 'largest scale model of the solar system' I should have piped up. The second post has driven me over the edge. I call shenanigans! The Maine model is not the largest, and Peoria, IL, my hometown, has had the largest model for many years now, the Pluto model (in Kewanee, IL) being over 60 miles away from the sun model. In fact, a bicycle tour of the model is organized every summer and reoccurs in August."
Still at maximum. Danta writes "As the QNX site seems to have received an indirect slashdotting, here is a BitTorrent link to the free version of the QNX OS."
And what's in your makefile? JediTrainer writes "Community backlash begins! The author of Nmap has decided to remove all support of the SCO operating system as of version 3.28. Quoting the changelog, 'SCO operating systems are no longer supported due to their recent (and absurd) attacks against Linux and IBM. Bug reports relating to UnixWare will be ignored, or possibly even laughed at derisively. Note that I have no reason to believe anyone has ever used Nmap on SCO systems. Unixware sucks.'"
Speaking of backlash ... Ransak writes "Speak out! Space-Rockets.com has started a letter/fax campaign to sway political opinion, but needs your help! This hobby enjoyed by thousands of future scientists and astronaunts has been put in serious jeopardy by bad legislation. Senator Herb Kohl was one of the coauthors of the Safe Explosives Act, who not surprisingly, is blocking an amendment to ease restrictions on model rocketry. Wisconson geeks, take note of your Senators actions!"
... and speaking of rockets: BuR4N writes "The x-prize foundation has decided not to accept an application from a Budapest based team called GCT (Gravity Control Technologies) due to their highly questionable proposal. GCT pitched a "propellantless propulsion technology" that quote "is capable of controlling gravity for flight". Here is the full story. It would be very interesting to hear from the scientific community if this is just silliness or something that eventually could lead anywhere.."
I hope these guys don't take up making ham sandwiches. acidblood writes "Following up on yesterday's story concerning ice cream and liquid nitrogen, it appears someone was keen to try it out, and this is the result."
I can't tell from the page when exactly this was made. Whether it was truly in response to Gray's recipe or not, this site certainly provides more amusing visual aids.
The medium is the message, or something like that. LineNoiz writes "There is an interesting article over at MSNBC outlining Metallica's attempt to take advantage of the internet as a music distribution medium. It seems their newest album 'St. Anger' has a code on it which can be used to access their "Audio Vault" where users can download MP3 recordings of live concerts. The site's motto? 'Download. Burn. Share. Kick Ass.' Is this just a flagrant attempt to recapture the interest of the thousands of fans they lost in their battle with Napster, or a genuine good idea?"
Readers may recall this interview with Metallica's Lars Ulrich.
'Download. Burn. Share. Kick Ass.'
Maybe their MP3 files contain Hatch's "special" program.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
perl 5 does just about everything I need. From everything I've read, perl 6 will have enough changes to make it almost like learning a new language. Yes, I know there will be a "backwards compatibility" mode, but why do I get the feeeling that if one has problems with the backwards compatibiltiy mode, the answer that will be offered will be "rewrite it as perl 6 code"?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Download. Burn. Share. Kick Ass.
Hmmph, for some reason I read this as meaning:
Download, Burn, Share - get YOUR ass kicked by Metallica.
I might actually check out St. Anger to get at the concert recordings, IF Metallica first apologizes for all the crap they pulled over Napster a few years ago. Otherwise, this is pure hypocracy, and a rather sad attempt at pulling back in fans who are deservedly quite angry with them. Of course, this is far from the first time a band has tried something like this. David Bowie has a huge load of rare material available on his website through subscription.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Is this just a flagrant attempt to recapture the interest of the thousands of fans they lost in their battle with Napster
Yes.
-Eyston
If GCT actually does it, will the X-Prize folks accept their appliation after the fact?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
If the Budapest team finds a way to manipulate gravity into propellantless propulsion, I doubt they'll miss that $10M x-pize too much..
Midnight Commander team seem to be doing the same thing
Metallica Tricks The Tricksters. They're planning to flood file sharing networks with Metallica "named" John Denver tunes to trick users. I hope they have Denver's estate's permission to use his works.
If you bought their last album (I got the vinyl version) - you got a card which let you go to their web page and download exclusive tracks. Personally I think it's a great idea, I mean most live concert recordings will only be bought by dedicated fans and those people won't be abandoning hte album in favour of these extras (remember the Perl Jam concert series).
Despite all the people who hate Metallica for various reasons ('selling out' on their musical style, becoming mainstream, fighting Napster), aren't they taking steps in the right direction?
Isn't this what all the discussion has been about? They are actually changing their business model to deal with the times. Anyone who wants to pirate the album can go and find it, but they'll miss out on the value added stuff. Granted this isn't an earthshaking change, but I think it's a positive step.
The cynics and haters will gripe no matter what they do anyway.
I call upon all slashdotters who maintain opensource products to remove support for UNIXWARE in all future version. Explicitly disable the generation of your Makefiles for SCO machines, in protest and solidarity of SCO's actions.
Speaking of Metallica and downloadable music, I
have to recommend you check out the spoof band
Beatallica. It is insanely funny. Beatallica
is a part time parody project by two good friends
of mine. It answers the questions: What would it
sound like if Metallica did Beatles covers. You
can download their MP3s at www.beatallica.org
The Bolachek Journals
Then how am I going to use my OpenServer Boxen to crack open the computers of those pesky boys who make fun of my using SCO?
Wanker, indeed...
GCT: proof that Hungarians are crazy. I know. I live here. :) I think it was Edward Teller (??) who in a conference, when someone asked for proof of extraterrestials, jumped up and said: there is proof! They are called Hungarians.
Anyhow, their homepage is quite interesting. See the prototype plans!!:)
http://www.gctspace.com/
2) So that's what happened to Ars Digita. I walked by there the other day and wondered why it was now a community college. I still have warm feelings from the time I walked by, looked in the mirror and saw someone using a KDE app I'd written - first time that had happened.
3) What's with the nmap guy? He h4x0r's some kid's computer and publically posts screenshots after hitting on him over a Slashdot post (yeah, models post here all the time) but all SCO rates is a Makefile change?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The amateur rocketry scene is in danger because of idiots like Ashcroft and Sen Hatch. read this They think somehow that amateur rocketry clubs are breeding grounds for terrorists to make homemade SAMs and man-pads. The only problem w/ that ass-umption is that amateur rocketry societies and rules *exists* to make rocketry safer. If you want terrorist training in making rockets from metal, etc... you're probably going to go to Hamas, Al-qaida, etc.: you're not going to go to an amateur rocketry club meeting in podunk, ohio. Our nimrods at the doj, atf, etc. just want to outlaw a hobby because of the remote possibility that some lonely crazy is going to build rockets for some artillery strike or something. Let's outlaw guns, gasoline and matches while we're at it then. Shit, you can't even get rocket motors via UPS anymore, and you need a license to do anything. It sounds like raising the bar in an erosive way like 2nd ammendment, prohibition, abortion rights, etc. I wonder if any of the X-Prize peeps had the ATFE breathing down their necks.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
is so bad, you can't give it away!!
On the Metallica issue, I recall a very funny series of cartoons mocking Metallica while they were driving napster into the ground. They're still funny today, and can be found here. I mean, with this new site, could they be any more hypocritical? You can find Ulrich's testimony before congress about shutting down napster here. As I recall, he came off as whiny.
/.tted to hell but Sounds Yummy.
On SCO, this is a neat new idea. If enough major OSS developers start a divestment strategy against SCO, if nothing else they'll be ostracized and dead sure to fall when their lawsuits start going downhill. These sort of tactics could make the OSS community a force to be reconed with in buisness as well as technical circles, and maintaining the goodwill of the OSS community more important.
On ice cream and liquid nitrogen, i have no idea what to say because the site is
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
"And the logic of punishing the SCO community instead of the company is?"
3 users hardly count as a community.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
I love choice... now I can not download Metallica songs as well as not buying their CDs!
Read reviews of shopping cart software
Then that would say something. Its not like UnixWare or OpenServer is really part of SCO's buisness plan for the future, but still, loosing support from the apache group would make it harder for them to pretend to care about their products.
And that's where you lost all credibility.
Calling someone a lame ripoff of Linkin Park is a paradox and a tautology at the same time. It creates its own black hole as you think about it and all sensible thought disappears as you consider the vacuum that exists their heads.
God, I hate Linkin Park. And don't start me on Limp Biskit.
I am not "punishing" SCO users, just refraining from spending my free time supporting a platform whose vendor has taken Linux hostage as part of their scorched-earth greenmail campaign. Why should I? Also note that I have not (as of now) intentionally broken Nmap on that platform. I just won't spend my time providing free support. Nmap is Open Source, so SCO users can support/maintain it themselves if they care enough.
Like many Slashdot readers, I have been following the SCO updates, their press releases, SEC filings such as their latest 10Q, etc. The more I read, the more absurd their case seems. Yet despite the utter lack of evidence from SCO and their increasing signs of desperation, Wall Street is still believes in them(!). Why? Now I realize the market isn't always rational, and certainly has no conscience. But the disconnect is still surprising. Many people obviously still believe SCO has a case. For this reason, I believe continued publicity and research is called for. Removing Nmap support for SCO systems is just one of my tiny efforts in this area.
-Fyodor
Concerned about your network security? Try the free Nmap Security Scanner
Yesterday I was torrenting away trying to get QNX for a few hours straight, at unbelievably slow rates. But NOW you slashdot it so I can get faster. Oh, THANKS. Generally it's a good thing to download something before it gets /.'ed, but in this case it's better after... *sigh* :)
~pi
SCO operating systems are no longer supported due to their recent (and absurd) attacks against Linux and IBM
Well, that is predicated on the idea that SCO actually has a UNIX business to hurt. It seems to me that they don't really have much of a product anymore.
But assuming they do actually still ship their own version of UNIX enough to make them money, nmap may not make such a big difference. But if projects like Apache, gcc, and others remove SCO support, that might start hurting SCO. Of course, they'd be free to maintain their own ports and incorporate their own bug fixes, but that is going to cost.
I don't think that claims that the Canopy Group is not behind this one will not hold up now.
Now my fellow "crunchies", (the insulting name M$ friendly Forbes gives us), for the million dollar question, where does this money trail lead? I'll bet it doesn't stop at the Canopy.
That this album is not in any way copy protected (at least as far as I can tell... cdparanoia had no problems ripping it). They seem to have decided to fight the file trading networks by putting out the Vault and also including a DVD of them rehearsing the songs (and the DVD's mix seems to be better quality than the CD...), for the price of a standard CD. I've talked to some people who say that they bough the CD for the DVD and the Vault.
In it's second week (first full) and has now sold approximately 800,000 copies (350,000 of which were in the second week). Hopefully the record industry gets the message that the way to survive in the post-Napster world is not by suing the bejeezus out of people but by simply offering more value than can easily be duplicated by the P2P services. I mean, St. Anger has about 7 hours of content (75 minute CD, 75 minute DVD, over 3 hours (soon to grow) of concert MP3s) for (if you bought at Target or Best Buy) $10.
Some have posted that other artists have done this, but none of them are of the stature in the industry of a band like Metallica. By demonstrating that you can do this and succeed with an album that was certified platinum before a single CD (apart from Amazon pre-orders) was sold, the RIAA has to be taking notice; Metallica has proven that if you deliver more bang for the buck, people will buy it regardless of how much free downloading there is.
I never have been a big Metalica fan, but I did enjoy their music. Their liberal policy on music was a selling point for me back in the 20th century. Atleast, a band that says it's ok to make a copy for a friend. Good for my friend, who wants to know if it's worth buying a real copy, good for Metalica, cause their name gets spread out.
But because Metalica said quite specificly in the year 2000 that they didn't want their music propigated via MP3, I complied FULLY. I will never make a copy for a friend, will never share one of their mp3 files, and in fact got rid of the two CDs of them I owned.
My moderate like for their music doesn't compair for my distaste of their politics. I respect that they are peformers who's material they have a say in how it's distributed, and that's just peachy. Everything else I own with a few exceptions are by artists who are more tolerant of music trading, basicly operating under the assumption that while it is piracy, the gain in word of mouth advertising is far too valuable to interfear with.
Bands like Metalica clearly disagreed with that, which is their right. As a direct result, and through no fault of my own, there is a generation of kids who do say, "Metali-who?". Those kids who know the name respond with, "Oh yea, those are the guys who killed Napster".
Metalica made a choice, they took a stand for what they believe in. I can respect that. But they have to live with it too. A band's success or failure at one time depended wether or not it got airplay, today netplay is a deciding factor. Metalica didn't want net play, no diffrent if they said they didn't want their material played on the radio in the 20th century. This is exactly what they fought for and they sure got it.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
(page title: Ice Cream Parlor -196C LLC)
Do not try to do this at home, ok?
How to make ice cream in 5 minutes.
"Marco, I want some ice cream"
Lucas going to buy the ingredients.
The X ingredient (hahaha, nitrogen)
Fill it up, mister!
Safety gear
Making the ice cream.
Now, it only needs to be frozen... hahaha
hehehe...
More nitrogen.
"Keep stirring, Dili."
There's smoke coming out. It's cold.
Done. One minute later it is ready.
Let's taste it...
Hummmm....
Done. It's good. You can eat it now!
Repeat: do not try to do this at home.
Gee, I *really* need to find something better to do when idle....
> I call upon all slashdotters who maintain opensource products to remove support for UNIXWARE in all future version.?
For what it is worth, I thought refusing Nmap support for SCO
products might generate a firestorm of flames from angry users. In
fact, the opposite has happened! Obviously Linux/AIX users praised
the move, but even the occasional SCO users seemed pleased. The one
or two complaints were more than offset by pleasant emails like this
one that just came in (name removed for his privacy):
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 17:41:07 -0700
To: <fyodor@insecure.org>
Subject: I'm the one user affected by a lack of SCO support and i'm happy
I'll be sure to report with great delight of your choice to no longer
support UnixWare to the one company I do contract work. The choice to use
SCO isn't mine, it's simply what Mas90 runs on, and in the past has been
adquate for the job. It's my hope others follow your example so I can
report to management that useful applications will no longer be supported
for this overpriced platform.
I appricate your lack of support for the SCO platform and look forward to
future unsupported products.
With great respect...
-- End email paste
Anyway, I thought this datapoint might be useful to people considering
such a move.
-Fyodor
Concerned about your network security? Try the free Nmap Security Scanner
I always preferred this interview
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Did anybody notice that in this article provided by a reader in a comment it mentions that the parent company that owns SCO also owns trolltech! What gives!? Qt's parent is brothers with SCO?
A translation of the "sorveteria" guys. I guess when I finish it their server will have melted down with /. .
Title: Sorveteria -196C LTDA
Ice Cream Shop -320F Inc
(Actually, LTDA is "limitada", a limited liability company).
0 - Nao tente isso em casa ok? Como fazer um sorvete em 5 minutos.
Don't try this at home, ok? How to make ice cream in 5 minutes.
1 - "Marco, quero sorvete".
"Marco, I want ice cream".
2 - Lucas indo comprar ingredientes.
Lucas going to buy ingredients.
3 - O ingrediente X (hohohoh, nitrogenio)
The ingredient X (hohohoh, nitrogen)
4 - "Completa ai, tio!"
"Fill it up, man!"
5 - Equipamento de seguranca.
Safety gear.
6 - Fazendo a massa...
Making the mass.
I'm not sure if English "mass" have the same meaning as Portuguese "massa", but you can look at the picture and guess what it is.
7 - Pronto, agora sà falta congelar hohoho..
Done, now we only have to freeze it hohoho...
8 - "heheheh"
9 - Mais nitrogenio...
More nitrogen...
10 - "Vai mechendo, Dili."
"Keep moving it, Dili."
(btw, it should be "mexendo" not "mechendo")
11 - Sai fumaÃa. Ã gelado.
Smoke goes out. It's cold.
12 - Pronto. 1 minuto depois ta pronto.
Done. 1 minute later it's done.
(This is a pun with a famous Brazilian lamen jingle).
13 - Vamos provar...
Let's try it...
14 - "Hummmm"
"Hmmmmm"
15 - "Pronto, tà bom, podem comer!"
"It's done, it's good, you may eat!"
16 - Repito: nao tente isso em casa.
I repeat: don't try this at home.
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
> Many people obviously still believe SCO has a case.
It's not that investors necessarily believe SCO has a case, it's that they believe SCO's share price will continue to go up. Its share price will most certainly go back down (a lot). The name of the game is dumping it before that happens.Their price has risen up to 1200% in the last year (that's *twelve hundred* percent). Case or no case, that's a nice return.
did anyone even look at that ice cream page? it's freakin' hilarious! The shit they ended up with looks nasty as hell, but the best part is the quote from one of the captions: "hohohoh, nitrogenio!"
:-)
I found my new sig today
I agree with you. I was not the author of the AC comments above, and I do not completely agree with them. However...
I was at the (excellent) YAPC::NA in St. Louis in 2002, and it was pretty clear to me then that the grant-funded work had not turned out as well as it might have. I am a long-time fan of Damian Conway's, and I was worshipfully grateful that Larry Wall signed my *old* 1st edition Camel Book. But it was at this conference that I first had the very uneasy feeling that Perl6 would never really "happen". Either it would not be released, or, if it were released, it might not be as relevant as expected. It's now a year later, and therefore even more likely that Perl6 won't "happen". I'm pretty sad about this.
I was very happy to donate money to the grant fund (not a lot of money, but more than millions of others), and I was hoping that it would become a viable model for free software development in general. Unfortunately, since the Perl grants were not viewed as a big success, I think people will be more cautious next time. That can't be the right result, however well or poorly you think the money was spent. And I do wish that the results of the grant program had done more to advance the cause of Perl6, since it might have been an interesting language. Sigh...
Babar
The Sorveteria [ice cream maker] Slashdot story is an example of Brazilians being Brazilian. If it looks like fun, Brazilians will try it.
Here is a translation:
Don't try this at home, okay?
How to make ice cream in 5 minutes.
"Marco, I want ice cream."
Lucas going to buy ingredients.
The ingredient X. Ho ho ho, nitrogen. [In Portuguese, it rhymes.]
"Fill it up, uncle!" [They don't know the name of the man selling liquid nitrogen, so they call him uncle.]
Security Equipment. [The Brazilians obviously work in a laboratory, because they have all the necessary gear.]
Making the mixture...
Ready, now we only lack the freezing, ho ho ho.
"heh heh heh"
More nitrogen... [In this frame we see that they are at home, and several people are watching and waiting.]
"Mix it, Dili."
Smoke comes out. It is frozen.
Ready. 1 minute after, it is ready.
We will try...
"Hmmmmmmm"
"Ready, it is good, we are able to eat!"
Repeated: Don't try this at home. [Unless you work in a laboratory, and have a lot of experience with liquid nitrogen.]
"The Maine model is not the largest, and Peoria, IL, my hometown, has had the largest model for many years now, the Pluto model (in Kewanee, IL) being over 60 miles away from the sun model."
***
Maybe 60 **km**, but *not* 60 miles.
***
Both the Lakeview IL model and the Maine model have SunPluto distances of about 40 miles. (64km).
Lakeview Jupiter: 45" diameter
Maine Jupiter: 61.4" diameter
Lakeview Scale: 1:140,000,000
Maine Scale: 1:93,000,000
Lakeview Earth: 4" diameter
Maine Earth: 5.5" diameter
Go Maine!
Go Illinois!
Go Sweden!
These guys attacked an open source newsreader project. A couple of years ago, the PAN developers incorporated an mp3 decoder into their NNTP client. For some reason, Metallica felt compelled to sue them over this. Clueless f****. The most priceless courtroom moment came when the plaintiff attorney asked "I wonder how the defendants would like it if someone was giving away their work?" The court seemed a little baffled at the laughter that ensued.
/. crowd, who wants to yell and scream about how those bastards tried to protect that last little fraction of their own creation. ("How unfair! Only giving away most of their music! We'd better boycott 'em!")
I could almost understand their attacking Napster. But a newsreader? Sorry but:
Of course, the fact that this band was already giving away 99.9% of the music they created doesn't matter to the
does not suffice to rehabilitate these bungholes. A newsreader? An f****n' newsreader? BTW, the judge was clueless too. The PAN guys had to remove the inline mp3 feature. It still downloads mp3s just fine. Idiots. Lars still needs to be soundly beaten with a clueclub.