Slashback: Documentary, Directory, FUD

Slashback tonight brings some updates and clarifications to previous stories, including news of the successful production of both a BBS documentary and an open-source directory. Read on for more!

I goof, therefore I am sorry. Many readers submitted rebuttals to the claim I repeated that an Israeli web portal was the first to give users 1GB email accounts; Protein Shake, for one, writes that Spymac has them beat. "Forget Google, forget Israel's web portal... 1 GB e-mail is already out there. At least a few weeks ago. From their site '1 GB e-mail account, 350 MB combined storage, personal blog, forum, gallery, auctions and more...'"

"And this was back when phone lines were just strings painted to resemble copper ..." Jason Scott writes "The BBS Documentary, announced on Slashdot nearly three years ago, has wrapped up filming. With over TWO HUNDRED interviews in the can, I've been spending a lot of my spare time (and not-so-spare time) editing, but I decided to put out the first of what will likely be a few trailers for it. Stop by and check out how I've spent the last few years. The Documentary will be released as a 3-DVD set later this year."

It's like Who's Who, only different. Another gargantuan effort completed on a different front: Tony Stanco writes with word that "The 910-page Open Source Reference Book is available for download."

The project was announced just over a year ago; considering the contents that's not a bad turnaround.

It's nearly enough to make one cynical. Alex Wolfe writes "In a move worthy of the Luddites, the New York City Council is quietly trying to ban the Segway . The Council has proposed a law that's technically a ban on motorized scooters, but Harris Siliver, founder of Citystreets, an urban improvement organization, says the NYC Department of Transportation is specifically targeting the electric, non-polluting Segway. Silver is joined in his opposition to the bill by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak."

Get out much? If you just can't get enough random flamebait, here's a small fix to follow the anti-Linux FUD spread earlier this month by Green Hills CEO Dan O'Dowd. InfoSec writes "This morning's Security Focus page had an article about Consumer Grade *nix. The writer of the article slams Linux for not having free automated updates, enabling services in default installations, and not warning users when they are using 'root'. Uhmm, I could be wrong, but hasn't Mandrake been doing that for quite some time?"

apt-get update seems to count as free updates to me (though those folks do take donations), and root-use warnings may not be perfectly applied, but they are found in various forms (depending on distro) at OS, WM, and application levels, including notices that certain tasks can only be run as root or other superuser. (I think it's Xchat that calls me "an idiot" when I've tried to run it as root.)

Comments

Funny.

[Neil Blender]

I read that headline and thought: Michael Moore.

Re:Funny.

[6Yankee]

Funny. (Score:4, Funny)

Ah, this is the secret. I really must stop using Flamebait, Overrated and Troll as subjects!

1GB Email Portal Goof

[Liselle]

Many readers submitted rebuttals to the claim I repeated that an Israeli web portal was the first to give users 1GB email accounts;

...and as mentioned in another article, if the "on-duty" editor would listen to the subscribers occasionally, someone would have known before it went live. Oops! :D

"non-poluting segway"

[Anonymous Coward]

non-poluting segway

Generating electricity still causes pollution, it just causes a lot less polution than a car.

Re:"non-poluting segway"

[JohnTheFisherman]

Depends on how you generate it - you've merely passed the buck.

I doubt the ban on Segways has anything to do with being Luddites. Those things take up at least 2-3x as much ground space as a person. The sidewalks can often be packed in NYC, and the street is full of cars. There's nowhere for Segways to go when it's busy, other than "on everybody else's feet."

I think when Steve Jobs said that it would change the way we build cities, he was right. We HAVE to change the way we buld cities because it won't fit in any current cities. We'd need extra lanes to handle the traffic.

Re:"non-poluting segway"

[bottlebrushtree]

The ban was thanks to the work of Walk San Francisco, San Francisco's Pedestrian Advocacy Group.

WalkSF.org

The sidewalks are no place for a vehicle that goes as fast as a Segway. This means Bikes also.

For more information on why WalkSF helped get this law enacted check out

Walk SF's Segway Page

Re:"non-poluting segway"

[lawpoop]

How many European towns have you been to? A lot of them have been retrofitted to accomodate cars, bikes, trains, buses, trams, trollies, etc.

I think existing bike pathways, which you will find in a lot of European cities, will easily handle segway traffic.

Re:"non-poluting segway"

[crucini]

I agree. What is the connection between being a "geek" and rooting for the Segway? There are things about geekhood I don't understand. Why assume that New York is "luddite" for wanting to ban this nuisance? Of course they should ban it. It's a motor vehicle that wants to run on the crowded sidewalks. The last thing Americans need is a way to avoid walking.

However in more suburban areas it could fill a legitimate niche.

Re:"non-poluting segway"

[Bigman]

As someone who cycles to work (almost) every day, I'd not be too pleased to find the cycle lanes (such as they are) blocked by yuppies on wheels. To cycle long(ish) distances effectively you need to keep a constant speed - it's bad enough dodging potholes and motorists who think that because you have no engine you can stop instantaneously to avoid them.
Having said that, Segways are cool technology, and for those with the brass balls to do so can travel fast enough to cause minimal problems to cyclists, it's just on the rare occasions I've seen them in use here (in the UK) people have been beetling along at snails-pace. It's a shame that they're so expensive. Of course, you could always build your own. That is, until Segway's lawyers get to you and take your house...

Trailers in wma and quicktime??

[deathguppie]

so the trailers for The open source documentary are in a closed format???

Re:Trailers in wma and quicktime??

[Fancia]

I think you've confused yourself a bit. The documentary is about BBSs, not open-source. The open-source thing was the directory.

SUSE

[Anthony Boyd]

The writer of the article slams Linux for not having free automated updates, enabling services in default installations, and not warning users when they are using 'root'.

SUSE gives me free updates via YAST, comes with all services disabled in the "minimal graphical install" default that I use (well, networkable services are not enabled, but things like cron are), and when I log in via root, the desktop is a red graphic with a pattern of large bombs all over it. Sound fairly perfect to me. The only other thing would be a warning at the command line for a non-GUI root login, and in fact I sorta get that, because the default for the root shell prompt is different.

1 Gb is possible right now

[Carlos Silva]

I don't know if everyone around here knows.. but if you create a Blogger account you can be one of the lucky ones to try out Gmail beta, even if you have some kind of problem in using it (tinfoil hat crowd :) it's always a Good Thing to try it out...
Until now.. it has been pretty good.. at least for me..

Re:1 Gb is possible right now

[Carlos Silva]

I think the more active your account is (number of posts?) the more chances you have.
When you're selected they show a pretty invitation when you login :)

Talking Penguin

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe linux should come with a talking penguin that pops up and offers suggestions:

"It looks like you're trying to delete a file. Would you like to free up more disk space?"

"You are running as root. Running as root can be bad for your computer. Would you like to change users?"

Re:Talking Penguin

[ThomaMelas]

Can we keep the BSD promotions to a minamum please? ;)

Re:Talking Penguin

[Mostly a lurker]

#/etc: ls -l

This directory contains files that are essential to system operation (your p0rn should be stored elsewhere).

Select Show Files or Cancel

Shells would be so much better

[Neil Blender]

not warning users when they are using 'root'.

admin@local host #su
Password:

WARNING YOU ARE NOW ROOT!

#adduser fred

WARNING YOU ARE ROOT, ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS? (Y/N) Y

#passwd fred

WARNING YOU ARE ROOT, ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS? (Y/N) Y

Changing password for user fred.
New password:

Re:Shells would be so much better

[petabyte]

Honestly, I've always seen the octothorpe as plenty of warning that you could be breaking everything you're touching. Thats why I don't play tic-tack-toe.

Re:Shells would be so much better

[AndroidCat]

Yeah, they should have very obvious warnings when you are root/administrator just like Windows does. Er, how does Windows do that exactly?

Re:Shells would be so much better

[persaud]

Color coded prompt:

/etc/bashrc:

C_RED="\[\033[0;31m\]"
C_GREEN="\ [\033[0;32m\]"
C_LIGHT_GRAY="\[\033[0;37m\]"
C_R ESET="\[\033[0m\]"
PS1="\n$C_GREEN//\h$C_LIGHT_GR AY.\u $C_RESET\w> "

/root/.bashrc:

PS1="\n$C_GREEN//\h$C_RED.\ u $C_RESET\w> "

If you speak Russian

[prostoalex]

Doesn't matter much for most of the Slashdotters, but if you happen to read Russian (or always wanted to learn that language), Yandex Mail, which is part of Yandex, Russia's largest Web portal and search engine, announced unlimited mail storage space with maximum letter size of 10 MB and unlimited attachments (as long as the message with all the attaches stays below 10 MB).

Basically, they will just keep buying more hard drives as you grow your message store.

Odd mail providers

[Telex4]

I would rather get an e-mail address that I can be sure I'll still have in five years time. When I first migrated from web-based mail to a POP3 service, I went through about three providers until I hit on one (GMX) that was stable, but then they stopped translating the pages into English, and after a year of guessing how to use the spam tools in German, I got fed up.

Now I just have my own egomaniacal domain name, and no matter what happens, short of a change in the domain name system, I'm guaranteed I can keep my e-mail and web addresses.

I could trust Yahoo! or Google, but it's an unfortunate fact of the lovely web that, when it comes to something like e-mail, with someone like Spymac I'd always be waiting for them to close shop, or charge some silly fee, or relocate to Uganda and only run their web site in a few obscure tribal dialects.

Biased wibbles...

[dj245]

...but Harris Siliver, founder of Citystreets, an urban improvement organization, says the NYC Department of Transportation is specifically targeting the electric, non-polluting Segway. Silver is joined in his opposition to the bill by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak."

Maybe that could have read "...but Harris Siliver, founder of Citystreets, an urban improvement organization, says the NYC Department of Transportation is specifically targeting the electric scooter that uses an unconventional method of control and is much faster than pedestrians and frequently piloted by speed demons. Silver is joined in his opposition to the bill by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak."

I'm all for ways to get rid of cars and pollution. But these scooters travel at a good speed, much faster than pedestrians. They have separate lanes for bikes, or they make bikes ride in the street. They do this because biking amongst pedestrians is often dangerous at high speeds. Doesn't it make sense that segwaying at high speeds among pedestrians is dangerous too? I'm not saying ban the segway. But getting it off the sidewalk is probably not a bad thing. Sidewalks are for people. Bike lanes are for bikes. Where does the segway go? The bike lanes? The street? I don't know, but I would be scared every time a scooter bore down on me with a person on it at 12MPH. As Marty McFly Jr. said, "Hey, I'm walking here!"

OSS Reference: add your gov-relevant project

[persaud]

For submitting a new listing (free) for the next edition of the book, go here.

WOW!

[agslashdot]

This is such an awe-inspiring effort. Logging 200 hours of footage over 3 years...I can imagine the amount of dedication, effort, logistics & scheduling that went into making this possible.
Hats off to you!

I'm into my 4th month of filmmaking right now. Logged 20+ hours so far, a dozen interviews under my belt, lots of travel, caffeine, sleepless nights...and I've barely begun. By the time I hope to be finished, I hope to have about 50 hours of footage. Just sifting thru all that, deciding which segment will make the cut & which won't...gigantic effort. I can't even imagine what you're going thru, narrowing down 200 hours into 3 DVDs. I wish you luck & lots & lots of patience.

There was this one documentary I watched recently - "Begging Naked" - that tracked this prostitute thru 7 yeas of her life. 7 years!!! In those 90 minutes of footage, you can practically see the person aging in front of you. The prostitute goes from being a young sexy hooker making pots of money in a Manhattan apartment to an old haggard woman living under a tree in Central Park out of a cardboard box. The person who made this film started filming in her 20s & is now in her 30s & the film still hasn't gotten a theatrical release. And she keeps plugging away. That's motivation for you!

Project Outsourced - the film

Re:WOW!

[telstar]

"This is such an awe-inspiring effort. Logging 200 hours of footage over 3 years...I can imagine the amount of dedication, effort, logistics & scheduling that went into making this possible.
Hats off to you!"

• Actually, the whole thing is just footage of a series of ANSI pictures and MUD sessions being downloaded over a 2400 baud modem while some 13 year old's mom periodically picks up the phone in the other room interrupting the feed.

Turing Test

[timotten]

...it's Xchat that calls me "an idiot" when I've tried to run it as root...

It's nice to see that we finally have chatbots which pass the Turing test.

Free, but not automatic

[peacefinder]

[...] apt-get update seems to count as free updates to me [...]

Sure, they're free, but they're not automatic. This may be spurious, hairsplitting FUD, but what the hell... let's get rid of it:

In the default installation, have the installer create a tool to run the update from a random server chosen from a list of approved servers for the distro. Assign it to run at a random time, then repeat it weekly as a cron job called something obvious like weeklyupdate.

Do this for all free *nix distros. Move on.

"Ship it now, fix it once it's sold"

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it a good business model? No, but Linux has no monopoly on it.

That credo was invented by greedy, proprietary corporations.

I used to post a sign over my desk which said "If you haven't the time to do it right the first time, how will you ever find the time to do it over?"

It always pissed off the powers when they stopped by.

Another anti-fud website

[whoever57]

Grokshill is aimed at false claims made by reporters and analysts

nuts, auto is a bad idea.

[twitter]

Software should not be pushed for practical and philisophical reasons.

The whole point of free software is user control. Free software is big enough for you and I to agree to dissagree about it, you do things your way and I'll do them mine.

Here are some situations where you don't want auto updates:

• Dial up connection
• Unstable distro
• Qualified systems

The above constitutes a majority of installations. Most people still have dial up. Most people prefer the hottest software around. It is difficult to get upgrades over a modem unless you scale back to stable and only take what security.debian.org offers.

How does Microsoft do the same thing, you might ask. Obviously, they don't.

Donald Duck using open source?

[farnerup]

On page 179 of the open source directory is the Swedish company "Kalle Anka AB" of Ankeborg. Or in English: Donald Duck Inc. of Duckburg.

Seems like a reliable source of information ...

Better yet: be portable

[goldfndr]

And what happens if you're using a terminal that doesn't handle escape sequences? Or different ones?

Using the tput command, you can be portable and get great results every time!

Score;5, Funny)_________

[evilviper]

You know something, that's an awful good idea!