Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Railing, Blocking, Scoffing
Please don't point that thing at me. BoomZilla writes "If you thought that the recent Gauss Gun article on Slashdot was spiffy, check out Jengel & Fatro's Rail Gun Page. Everything you need to know about the physics behind building your very own rail gun. Ever used the Quake rail gun and lusted after the real thing? Here's your opportunity."
Telepathic telegrams work as well as ever, though. markgo2k writes "After the web site experienced 'an unusually high number of visitors,' the White House modified the contact page and added a prominent link to president@whitehouse.gov. Here's the latest NYT story (once again, reprinted here in the non-subscription Seattle PI). Of course, the White House is still confused on the difference between the New York Times effect and the Slashdot effect. It's not mentioned in the story, but there is also now a feedback link to submit comments to the 'White House Web Development Team,' if you want to drop them a line..."
It's half-Greek to me. In response to the recent story on perpendicular data storage in next-generation hard drives, Anonymous Coward writes "Here is a better overview of Perpendicular HDD technology. Here is a real detailed scientific article that seems to be written in Greek."
They're off my Christmas card list, too. Techfocus ran an interview with Fred von Lohmann earlier this year. Now, an anonymous reader points to an update on their site: "Effective immediately, the RIAA and MPAA will need to find another way to get to Techfocus. In response to their legal targeting of individual file-swappers, access from their known networks to this site has now been blocked. While it may still be possible for them to access Techfocus via address ranges which we're not aware of, they'll otherwise have to use non-RIAA and non-MPAA networks to view the site."
Techfocus cites three reasons for the denial, the top one being that the RIAA took advantage of the interview with von Lohmann, "quoting him out of context in a manner which could lead readers of their materials to believe that we supported their efforts. This could not be further from the truth."
The secret is to predict enough things. An anonymous reader points out this article from early 2000 citing Gartner analyst Al Hilwa's prediction that Linux is "probably going to kill SCO UnixWare," writing "As you can read, SCO's end was predicted near perfectly." I think "hinted at" is more accurate, since SCO is still alive and at least making a good show of kicking, but it's interesting to revisit a story about SCO which mentions that "industry observers thought that the company would be Linux's first victim," back when Project Monterey was a going concern.
A victory for discourteous boors everywhere. aeaas writes "The beauty queen Katy Johnson dropped her suit against Tucker Max over the posting of stories from their relationship on his website. This story was first brought up in the context that he was forced to take down stories relating to her without holding a hearing or notifying Max prior to it. This is unusual in American law."
A quarter mil is a lot of suffering, even in Canadian money. Skippy321 writes "Justified or not, Ghyslain Raza--better known as the Star Wars Kid--is suing the four students who posted his homemade video of himself doing acrobatic "sword-fighting stunts" on the Internet for $250,000. He claims that he has suffered harassment and persecution. It's also interesting how the article states that he quit high school due to this video, at only 15 years of age. Although things aren't so bad for him -- here's a petition for him to get a role in Episode III."
Here is the original and remix videos
of the kid. Pretty funny stuff.
I guess this will teach him to leave his tapes laying around. Good lesson to learn in case he actually gets out of puberty and starts taping his girlfriends.
I can feel for that Star Wars kid. Being an outsider in school is hard enough when you are only mocked by those that you see every day. But suddenly being laughed at by a global audience must be hell. I haven't seen the video, so I can't comment on how stupid he looks on it, but that is beside the point. He clearly did not intend it to be seen by anyone. High school bullying is good fun, until one of the victims decides to shoot some classmates. Then it is newsworthy. When they drop out, or even kill themselves then nobody cares. This case can send the right message if you ask me (which you really shouldn't)
Hank! White!
...is if Slashdot has the balls to ban the RIAA.
So, this site's admin has put in place a technical measure to prevent or limit certain persons from accessing his site. Wouldn't attempts by those persons to circumvent that access control technology constitute a violation of the DMCA?
Where's the FBI and a Federal Prosecutor when you need one?
12.150.191.0 - 12.150.191.255 | RECORDIN50-191 | RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOC OF AMERICA | RIAA | 1330 CONNECTICUT AVENUE NW SUITE 300 - WASHINGTON US | 2001-08-11 | reassignment | ARIN
12.29.112.0 - 12.29.112.15 | MPLC-112-0 | Motion Picture Licensing Corp | MPLC | 5455 Centinela Ave. - LA - CA - 90066 - US | US | 1999-07-29 | reassignment | ARIN
208.49.164.0 - 208.49.164.255 | GBX-REQ000000015136 | MPAA/Motion Picture Association | C00282131 | 15503 Venture Blvd - Encino - CA - 91436 - US | US | 2002-03-07 | reassignment | ARIN
198.70.114.0 - 198.70.114.255 | NET-MPA-1 | Motion Picture Association | C00012562 | 15503 Ventura Boulevard - Encino - CA - 91436 - US | US | 1998-03-04 | reassignment | ARIN
63.199.57.120 - 63.199.57.127 | SBCIS68048 | Motion Picture Assoc. | C00048959 | 15503 Ventura Boulevard - Encino - CA - 91436 - US | US | 1999-12-08 | reassignment | ARIN
208.50.66.224 - 208.50.66.255 | GBX-REQ000000012662 | MPAA | C00194717 | 15503 Venture Blvd - Encino - CA - 91436 - US | US | 2001-06-26 | reassignment | ARIN
Second note to self: This is the forge that will make Linux either extremeley hard and brittle or strong and flexible with the ability to stay sharp. As much as I hate hearing SCO stories, I am glad that the threat is a light-weight that spews out so many lies that their story is hardly credible. Hopefully everyone will analyze what they are doing and some preventive measures can be put in place for tougher future challengers when IBM isn't taking up the defense.
I really hate MCBride and SCO, but I think this is a good thing for us in the long run. Please remember that we all have to concentrate on making Linux just right for us. If other people/corporations appreciate Linux, then it will be on merit alone. Corporate backing is great and it makes other corporations look towards supporting hardware for Linux, but we're not selling to corporations, we're selling Linux to ourselves - and I think I'm my own worst customer.
-B
Hey, speaking of which, I know a great place you can test out those railguns: