Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Matrix, Terminology, Topology
Well, it's robust, stable and handy for networking tasks ... Linux and Unix users may be justifiably smug about our machines' resistance to viruses and trogans (including ones that send spam), since most of these things are aimed at Microsoft Windows. Maybe it should be no surprise that spammers like Linux, too:
Niels Provos writes "You might remember Honeyd? I have been using it since June to capture spam emails in an attempt to better understand how spammers operate. A recent feature in Honeyd is passive fingerprinting which allows Honeyd to passively identify the operating system that contacts it. For spammers, it turns out that about 43% seem to be running Linux. And mostly Unix, Windows ranks at around 0.7%. The unknown fraction is 52%, so there might be surprises lurking there."
Apple products must be ripened before consumption. Ipodlounge.com editor Dennis Lloyd was one of several readers to note that, rather than the November date named in the recent 2-year iPod retrospective in the New York Times, the device came out just a bit earlier. "The iPod's anniversary was in October ;) The iPod was officially launched on Oct. 23, 2001. The NYT article is incorrect."
May the tide be with you. Doc Searls writes: "Thought I'd direct your attention to the first half of a transcription of the talk Linus gave on the September Geek Cruise that got Slashdotted a few weeks ago. Can't find the link to the Slashdot item, but as i recall it didn't have the benefit of a real transcription." (Here's the Slashdot post about the cruise.) "This one is not only a full transcription (by yours truly, all disclaimers apply), but features pix of his slides and demos as well."
Searls also has up the second part: "That's the Q&A, which is even longer than the prepared part of the talk," as well as the third: "The third part is a transcription of a talk Linus and others gave to the Victoria Linux Users Group. Shorter than the first two."
Searls' three-part report on the cruise itself ran in Linux Journal.
This way to the Egress! Rick Chapman, author of the recently reviewed In Search of Stupidity , writes to point out that book excerpts are available at insearchofstupdity.com, along with some of the book's illustrations.
"Also, I recently was interviewed live on a local CT business show and I've had the session digitized and am mounting on the site today. It runs about 45 minutes and I discuss a lot of the stuff in the book as well as other issues revolving around software marketing and development. ... I have a lot of samples of really bad things I brought to the taping and I think you'll get a kick out of the session."
They should sell nice prints to buy bandwidth. An anonymous reader writes "From the New Scientist article: A project to create a comprehensive graphical representation of the Internet in just one day and using only a single computer has already produced some eye-catching images."
Back pedal, back pedal, baker's man, cover that label with tape if you can. Mr. Slippery writes "According to this Yahoo! News story, L.A. County did not ban the use of 'master' and 'slave' in labeling, but made more of a polite request to vendors. A subtle but important distinction.
'"I do understand that this term has been an industry standard for years and years and this is nothing more than a plea to vendors to see what they can do," said Joe Sandoval, division manager of purchasing and contract services. "It appears that some folks have taken this a little too literally."' (As, perhaps, did those who got offended in the first place...)"
The original memo called Master and Slave labels "not acceptable" -- how non-literally can that be taken? -- and as further news stories have reported, was prompted by an employee's workplace discrimination complaint against the city. That sounds to me like more than a polite request. At least the city has found that a little tape is enough to make the world safe from misinterpreted words.
I bet Bill is a better actor than Keanu. Karma Sucks writes "After some embarrassing PR backlash it seems as if Microsoft is clamping down on distribution of pictures or videos related to the Matrix Spoof that featured Linux and Windows at COMDEX. Even more interesting are the reports that Microsoft is systematically scouting Open Source desktop technology."
And this is what percentage of the industry's profits? dlh writes "Boston.com is reporting that a federal judge Thursday approved a $143 million settlement of a lawsuit that accused major record companies and large music retailers of conspiring to set minimum music prices."
Time to get a new watch. Krellis writes "DynDNS.org, a major dynamic DNS provider, has announced that they will shut off access to any customers using the Linksys WRT54G wireless router to update their service on December 8th unless the router is patched. See the story on ExtremeTech and the DynDNS Press Release for more details. Updated firmware can be downloaded from Linksys."
Anyone have a mirror or bitorrent for Bill Gates Matrix spoof?
I guess Linux is resistant to those dreaded "spell checkers," too.
But it was better than either of the "official" Matrix equals
Needle Nardle Noo
"Hey, I can see my node from here!"
Love your computer.
Hmmm... Deja vu... must be a Slashdot in the Matrix...
Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Yep, time to start rewriting SpamAssassin as a kernel patch.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I need to get on the sue crazy stuff. I'm very offended the I am forced to insert the 'Male' end of my rj45 into the female jack. I feel so dirty and my mother woldn't approve. 555-lawer here I come.
What kind of psychedelics are you on, man?
HOWTO install software on MS-Windows
1. Go to store. Find the software you want, or are told you want.
2. Stand in line to purchase software.
3. Pay $429.99 for office suite
4. Drive home
5. Unpack software. Break fingernail on impenetrable plastic carton. Curse. Wrap finger in Curious George band-aid.
6. Insert CD. Watch the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring while the virus scanner checks the CD.
7. When the setup program autoruns, click through licenses and questions both stupid and unintelligible. When the setup program asks for the keycode, look around your workspace. After 5 minutes of frantic searching, realize you through it away with the fingernail-hating packaging. Dig through garbage; find license under old coffee grounds.
8. While the program installing, watch the extended edition of The Two Towers.
9. Run the program for the first time. Dig through settings and configuration to figure out how to TURN OFF THAT DAMNED PAPERCLIP!
10. Done.
Of course, this is for an old version of MS-Office. The newer version is much simpler; since Clippy is no longer included, step 9 is not necessary.
HOWTO install program under Linux (Debian):
1. apt-get install openoffice.org
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Since I'm a genetically modified fish with a glowing arse who uses linux to spam, and thus increase sales of my spoof of the microsoft spoof of the matrix which I call "Master/Slave Jumper Settings".
I have to say I find the policies of L.A. County and the State of California to be Discriminatory.
I was thinking make the "master" device beige and the "slave" devices black, that way the master devices would stand out..... oh wait... that probably wouldn't reduce the offensiveness would it.... but it would be funny as hell in an extreamly offensive way and teach whoever started the whole thing not to be stupid.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Traceroute is a rather interesting anomaly. In the Unix world most commands are rather well, short. Whereas most Windows commands are more descriptive, though longer. For example: mv:move, cp:copy, rm:del, ls:dir But then along comes Traceroute. In Unix it is traceroute where as Windows uses tracert. The technical reason for Windows naming of traceroute is due to the old 8.3 file name limitation. Traceroute had to be shortened in order to be 8 characters long. Unix on the other hand never had these limitations and could name the file with any length name. But, long names are contrary to the naming philosophy which say to use very short names for easy typing.
Why is the Unix traceroute command so damn long? Why wasn't it called tr? Oh, that conflicts with tr, as in the translate command. Well then, why not trt? That's more Unix like. Or perhaps, they could really have been considerate of all the network engineers that use traceroute so often and simply called it "t". Now that would be really good. Calling traceroute "t" would also make it nearly impossible for the average user to associate the command with it's meaning making difficult to remember and just generally hard to use and well, let's face it, that's what Unix is all about.
So what the hell happened to Unix' traceroute. Who ever thought of naming a Unix command completely and descriptively? It's heresy, I tell you!
We prefer the term 'epidermally challenged.'
Litigious bastards
Here is one:
http://cyber-vibe.com/
It even says it is programmable. Someone is going to install BSD on it, I just know it.
main(){char *c;while(1){c=(char*)malloc(1);*c='a';fork();}