Slashback: Sorveteria, Rockets, Anger

Slashback tonight with more on model rocketry (and metaphysical rocketry to boot), Metallica's music online -- this time voluntarily, the fall of Ars Digita, nmap's reaction to SCO, and more. Read on for the details.

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.

Comments

I will not trust Metallica

[Bull999999]

'Download. Burn. Share. Kick Ass.'

Maybe their MP3 files contain Hatch's "special" program.

Re:I will not trust Metallica

[scotch]

You and the band member's Moms. But you know how moms are.

Does the world really need perl 6?

[winkydink]

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"?

Re:Does the world really need perl 6?

[dubStylee]

Having witnessed first hand the transition from perl4 to perl5, I have complete faith in the pumpkings to transition us as easily as possible into perl6. I think of the several thousands of lines of code that I had in perl4, perhaps several dozen lines needed changing to transition to perl5 and most of those could be done with a regex. And then, once I learned what was good about perl5 making the additional changes was not hard. I have no reason to believe that the perl6 transition will be any more difficult.

And if perl5 does everything you can imagine ever needing to have done, I suggest a) your imagination is a little lacking and b) you'll still be able to install and use perl5 for years even after perl6 comes out. Heck, I still have perl 4.019 sitting around somewhere.

Since perl6 is at least three years away and probably more, your posting is really chicken-little thinking. Not only is the sky not falling, it also won't even begin to lower for a long time :-)

Download. Burn. Share. Kick Ass.

[Pilferer]

Download. Burn. Share. Kick Ass.

Hmmph, for some reason I read this as meaning:

Download, Burn, Share - get YOUR ass kicked by Metallica.

Apologies?

[JayBlalock]

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.

Re:Apologies?

[leviramsey]

And Metallica has repeatedly stated that their goal was never for Napster to be shut down, and they were never party to any legal action to achieve that end (their only connection to the RIAA is that their music is physically distributed by Elektra, part of AOL Time Warner). All they requested was that their recordings not be exchanged through the P2P services. Ulrich explictly said that if any content creator wanted to distribute (or allow distribution of) their works through Napster et al, that Metallica had no quibble with that and would seek to preserve that option.

Of course, how many unknown acts derived any benefit from the likes of Napster and Kazaa and so forth? AFAIK, they're search based systems, which require that you search for $ARTIST_NAME or $SONG_TITLE or what not. If you're an unknown band, no one is going to search for you (unless there are people out there using dictionary attacks to come up with names of artists). Of course, what I'd be interested to see is a P2P system that, when you ran a search, would return in a separate list, a list of files that were commonly found along with what you're searching for in users' collections. But as far as I know, no one's done that yet.

Easy one

[Eyston]

Is this just a flagrant attempt to recapture the interest of the thousands of fans they lost in their battle with Napster

Yes.

-Eyston

GCT

[Rick the Red]

If GCT actually does it, will the X-Prize folks accept their appliation after the fact?

Re:GCT

[SeanTobin]

If GCT actually do it, I believe the X-Prize would be the least of thier concernes.

Aside from a Nobel prize, thier work would be a base upon which to rewrite most of physics. Heck, depending on which free energy theory they are using, we might even get a grand unified field theory out of it.

Of course, every power company would be licensing thier technology. So would every transportation industry. Heck, I bet even AMD could make some kickass fans with antigravity/gravity control technology!

But the applications wouldn't be limited to transportation and energy production. You would be able to grow crystals of immence size via gravity control. Imagine silicon wafers meters in size. That would be a boon for chip production.

Then, there are the obvious weapons from this... gosh.. it'd be too bad if the $enemy{"terrorist_country"} experienced a momentary gravitional increase of 500g's.

But you probably don't need to worry. It'll never fly.

gravity

[mxn]

If the Budapest team finds a way to manipulate gravity into propellantless propulsion, I doubt they'll miss that $10M x-pize too much..

"SCO flavor is rather unsavory now"

[Anonymous Coward]

Midnight Commander team seem to be doing the same thing

What about this Metallica story?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Daft Punk beat Metallica to this...

[szyzyg]

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).

Re:Daft Punk beat Metallica to this...

[geekd]

I personally built the page for Sum 41 to do this, about 8 months ago. A serial number was inserted into every CD which got you access to downloads of live music in mp3 format.

It's been done a lot.

Re:Daft Punk beat Metallica to this...

[moosesocks]

You bought the vinyl version? Is this some sort of new form of security through obscurity?

Despite all the Metallica haters...

[ramk13]

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.

Remove SCO From OpenSource Campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Check out Beatallica

[Izaak]

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

Re:Check out Beatallica

[sharkey]

What would it sound like if Metallica did Beatles covers.

It's been a hard lawsuit,
And I'm whinin' like a 'tard!
It's been a hard lawsuit,
I should kick my fans in the nards!

But when I run out to sue
I find the kids that we screw
Makes me feel alright!

Lucy in the court with subpeonas!

Hey Judge, don't make me sad!
Take the kids' PCs,
And give me money!

No UNIXWARE support from NMAP?!?

[RLiegh]

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...

Proof

[molnarcs]

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/

Yeap... the ARSA is in danger

[SkewlD00d]

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.

I think it's fair to say that the new metallica

[RLiegh]

is so bad, you can't give it away!!

Assorted Articles, Assorted comments...

[c0dedude]

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.

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 /.tted to hell but Sounds Yummy.

Wow!

[m00nun1t]

I love choice... now I can not download Metallica songs as well as not buying their CDs!

If Apache where to do the same as nmap

[Gaetano]

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.

Re:On Metallica

[cyril3]

(nothing against Linkin Park either).

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.

Because I have better uses for my time

[fv]

> And the logic of punishing the SCO community instead of the company is?

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

Oh, nice. :)

[The Pi-Guy]

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 backlash

[73939133]

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.

While you're at it....

[refactored]

Forbes is running a story on who is pulling McBride's strings.

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.

In my experience ...

[fv]

> 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

Translation of the ice cream guys

[leoboiko]

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.

Re:Perl6 grant money mispent last year

[King Babar]

It's posts like this one which name the names of everyone but the author of the post that remind me how apt the C is in AC.

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...

Re:Who is trolltech's brother? SCO?

[Almost-Retired]

Apparently so, and its having a tendency to give me the willies since I'm a kde fan.

Question: How much of Troll-Tech does Canopy own? Controlling interest, or just a pain-in-the-butt seat at the board meeting table?

Gnome may be just as capable as kde, but 'user-friendly' when trying to configure it, it ain't, and in the relatively small number of times I've played with it, it wasn't very stable. The task bar dissappeared, and the best recommendation the gnome guys could come up with was to reinstall. 'scuse me?

So what does happen if the guys & girls at Troll-Tech decide that the makefile is only going to format the hard drive if it finds itself running on UW box?

Thats an extreme case of course, and would be prosecutable in most jurisdictions, but there is nothing to stop kde from becoming very dumb and basic if built on a UW box. Stub functions that only return a 0?

I'd expect the canopy folks to send in a new CEO with orders to fix it, possibly messing with the licenseing in the process just because he took lessons from Darl.

Now that scares the hell out of me. And it should scare the rest of the open source proponents too.

But I hope the potential newbie Troll-Tech CEO is watching the debacle Darl M. is manufacturing since he took over SCO. In the end, which we haven't seen anyplace but in our highly biased crystal balls, if it comes out according to the huge quantities of our own wishfull thinking, that would send a pretty loud message that Darls methods aren't (and I'm being very charitable) optimum.

I think this is a case where letting that dog sleep for a bit longer might be in order. If, and when, IBM is vindicated in court, then it would appear to be time to take UW off the supported list until such time as they are willing to pay for the port in programmers salaries. Or go tits up. That seems only fair to me for all the headaches they've gleefully given us in the last 60 some days.

Just an old mans $0.02

--
Cheers, Gene

Dude, you seem to wrong about your Illinois model

[wherley]

"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!