Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Diebold, Peroxide, Comdex
Diebold Election Systems Round 2 in MD zznate writes "Looks like Diebold is not going to get off the hook so easily in Maryland after all. For anyone local, feel free to contact delegates Hixson or Hollinger to express your support. Perhaps they could even receive a copy or two (or fifty ;-) of the documents listed here."
Diebold is having an easier time at Swarthmore. yoshi_mon writes "Previously reported on /. was the Swarthmore Students Effort to keep the Diebold leaked memo's online. However that effort has been quashed by one Dean Bob Gross. To quote the dean, "We can?t get out in front in this fight against Diebold." BlackBoxVoting.com reports that '[Swarthmore College] is not willing to take a strong stand against Diebold, and is systematically disabling the network access of any student who hosts the files.'"
AT&T says Ha, just kidding! An anonymous reader writes "In an update to an earlier Slashdot article, Telco giant AT&T rushed to withdraw two notices sent to business partners and customers asking for the IP addresses of all outbound SMTP servers because of a 'human error' gaffe."
All this and cheap shrimp cocktail. blackbearnh writes "While the topic has been raised, I thought I'd mention a few other things going on at COMDEX Open-Source wise.
First off, the Open Source and Linux track has been expanded from a half-dozen sessions last year to nearly twenty this year. These will cover everything from the basics of Open Source (taught by folks like Ken Coar of Apache) to an intro to PHP led by Rasmus Lerdorf.
On the show floor, a massive 2500 sq foot Open Source Innovation Center will serve as the site for hourly talks by Open Source evangelists on business-related topics such as case studios proving the benefits of Open Source. There will also be a staffed "clinic" area where attendees can get advice on what Open Source technologies would work well in their business. There will also be install parties held at noon each day, where attendees can bring their laptops to get help installing MySQL or Debian. And lastly, a .ORG village inside the center will host representitives from more than a dozen prominent Open Source organizations, including OpenOffice and Mozilla.
Also, the COMDEX/ApacheCon exchange program continues this year. COMDEX members can get access to the ApacheCon expo floor and BOF sessions, while ApacheCon member can visit the COMDEX show floor and the Open Source keynotes. Shuttle service will link the two conventions.
James Turner
Co-Chair, Open Source, Fall 2003 COMDEX"
It's a crapshoot, eh. Dick Faze writes " Royal Bank of Canada is part of a $50 Million investment in SCO: Has our communist neighbor to the north finally flipped completely?" (We know Mr. Faze is being facetious, here ... don't we?) This is the same $50,000,000 investment deal in which some people suspected Microsoft's involvment.
Patent Office Cancels Swing Patent An anonymous reader writes "Remember the swing patent issued last year covering the method of swinging a swing? Well, the Patent Office must've taken offense at the amount of criticism it received over this patent. It initiated a reexam proceeding and after a year's worth of reexamination, they cancelled the patent on July 1, 2003."
But all the other patents are up to snuff, don't worry.
Carmack's Peroxide Troubles Over? Rob Jellinghaus writes "John Carmack's aerospace company has had problems getting enough concentrated 90% peroxide for their engines. So they have been working on mixed monoprop engines that would need only 50% peroxide, which would pretty much end their fuel troubles for good. They have had many failures, but they may have just succeeded. In his words: 'This is Very Good.'"
Remember, most of the world is still dial-up, at best. Anothermouse Cowered writes "It's a router, it's a firewall, it's a home gateway it's a... In another giant leap for the Open Source community, you can now hack on your own embedded Linux system for under $70. The source code for the ActionTEC Dual modem previously mentioned on Slashdot ('Hacking the Actiontec 56k Modem/Gateway') in September has now been released under the GPL. Downloads available here."
From the growing interest in Open Source at each successive Comdex, it is clear that at some point the interest in Open Source will outweigh the interest in Closed Source. We can already see a replacement of the standard Closed Source presentations (lectures, classes, etc.) by brash, up and coming Open Source presentations. Also, the floor space occupied by Open Source presenters is growing and crowding out Closed Source vendors.
At this rate of growth, it is more than likely that we could see Open Source fully replace Closed Source as THE viable software solution within 10 years. Just 5 years ago Open Source was a joke, but today it is a serious threat to the Closed Source business model. In 10 years time when these Open Source projects and their developers mature, they will be unstoppable.
Yay Open Source!
Is it just me, or are we all so interested to read these documents only because they are "forbidden". I mean clearly, it's a good thing to know about the gross insecurities of an electronic voting system, but the rush to mirror and distribute this information seems to be like doing something just because Mommy said you can't.
Reminds me of, "Ralphie, what is your fascination with Daddy's forbidden closet of mystery?"
oh yeah, American's know the difference:
Socialism: Big Brother controls everything
Communism: Big Brother controls everything at gunpoint.
Either way it's a crap governmental style that surrenders personal freedoms willingly to governmental oversight and control. Is it more efficient? Who cares..?!? A dictatorship is more "efficient" than all of them but you don't see everyone crowing about how great THAT is.
American's like a Republican government because we like the freedom it gives us and as the #1 economic force on the planet, the #1 military force on the planet, the #1 immigration target on the planet and #1 in a whole bunch of other things too numerous to mention - I would tend to think we're doing things pretty well.
Besides - "Americans" are made up of everyone else - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that some innovative thinkers got sick of their country's shitty oppressive crap and decided to go where the freedom was. The result? Well... see above...
an "accelerator" is not built into PHP because after market products were created before zend created there own. to spur creativity and competition in this market, they have decided not to include the zend accelerator into the default php install.
.h files or reference them on every page.
the fact that it isn't persistent is an ATTRIBUTE, not a flaw in my mind. accessing session data and database data is just as good for web design. what if your persistent JSP program dies and loses all of the persistent data... now you have to write your own db engine basically to make that fail safe, or rely on a database in much the same way.
WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO WRITE SAME LANGUAGE EXTENSIONS. you shouldn't have to. if something is so important that it should be a part of the system, write it in c and compile it in as a module. them you don't even have to HAVE
PHP does not have the same goals that JSP does, and it does what it was intended to do much better than JSP does what it was intended to do.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E