User: yerricde

...then kill it.

On: Qt Going GPL

Because the flamewar has finally died down to epsilon (BSD vs. Linux; both are Free) levels.
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

They'd just port Speed Doubler.

On: Looking Back at MacOS on x86

Speed Doubler was an enhanced 68K emulator for PowerPC. Not all Mac apps would be open-source; they'd have to run 68K binaries some time (68K Mac binaries were very common back then before the age of PowerPC). This Intel-based Mac OS would require emulation of the 68K CPU in order to run popular Macintosh software.
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

DMCA; EULA; UCITA

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

With enough patience, skill, and a good debugger, it is always possible to reverse engineer a binary.

Yes, but is it legal? DMCA, EULA, and UCITA make reverse-engineering illegal, and the software would probably detect most common debuggers.

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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

(OT)The ultimate question in H2G2

On: You Think Your Current Laptop Runs Hot?

The ultimate question is "What in base 0x0d (base thirteen) is 6 * 9?" or, equivalently, "What is the output of the following C program?"

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(void)
{
char buf[256];
puts(itoa(6 * 9, buf, 13));
return 0;
}

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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

So the Matrix is just a Quake server?

On: You Think Your Current Laptop Runs Hot?

So the Matrix we all live in is just a game of Quake 3?
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

Which leaves a gaping security hole for...

On: Capture The Capture The Flag

...the AIDS virus.

The immune system detects intruders and stops them before they can cause damage. This allows security to be designed once and well, rather than requiring the additional overhead for each component.

Some of the most successful viruses (e.g. AIDS) attack the intrusion detection system directly.

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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

How much power save saves

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

The question then hinges on how well the "power saving idle mode" works on most PCs. Anybody got the numbers?

Cuts power consumption by about 10% considering the RAM, the network card, the video card, the audio card, the rest of the chipset, and peripherals such as the monitor, the speakers, the department's printers, etc.

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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

Paying for solar cell wear, tear, and admin

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

Solar cells don't last forever, right? And somebody has to take the time (time is money) to get up on the roof and inspect the solar cells to make sure they still work, right?
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

The human genome is 1 GB

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

Something like the human genome-mapping seemed very appropriate, wonder why they never started something like SETI@home for that.

Getting all the pieces of the human genome in the right order obviously requires the pieces. There are gigabytes of pieces, and many users have slow (5 KB per second modem) connections. The final data set is estimated to be 1 GB (3 billion base pairs, three base pairs per code word) in size. They're looking into compressibility of certain sequences.

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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

MPAA

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

Who wouldn't go see a film they had helped render on their PC!

People who are boycotting MPAA until it drops the DeCSS suit.

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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

d.net did this

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

At least 10% of the blocks in distributed.net's CSC contest were verification duplicates. Given that each user normally gets at least 100 blocks, 10 invalid results might be enough evidence to detect a tampering problem.
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

#43 refutes this argument.

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

#43 refutes this argument.
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

Using distributed computing with dialup

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

This is on both the d.net and SETI FAQ lists. Such clients transfer small (<300 KB) chunks of data during (say) your wife's e-mail check.
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

It can be done in an OSS way...

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

...but not in a FREE SOFTWARE® way. For example, distributed.net releases the source to its computing cores; asm wizards have optimized the cores to run on AltiVec, 3DNOW!, etc. However, only d.net's trusted binaries connect to the official servers.
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

Get the distributed.net source code here

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

DCTI does release the source for d.net test clients (so that all the hot-shot asm coders can improve the cores), but test clients don't connect to the d.net servers. Only trusted binaries connect to the servers.
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

Re:Distributed projects and ethics

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

...data to be processed on untrusted computers whose owners could, closed source or not, reverse engineer the software and gain access to presumably valuable information.

It's a bit harder to reverse-engineer binaries when they're digitally signed and 1024-bit elliptic-curve PK encrypted.

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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

Semi-closed-source distributed computing

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

DCTI releases the source to its client apps' computing cores; hotshot assembly coders can get their names in lights by submitting a patch against the public-source core-only clients. The official client binaries, OTOH, are considered "trusted binaries" and may in the near future be digitally signed.

IMHO this is a nice compromise between ESR's open-source ideals and obs^H^H^Hsecurity issues. Why doesn't SETI do this?
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

The landlord passes the cost of electricity...

On: More On Paid Distributed Computing

...on to all residents equally.

thick if you think your (landlord, dorm, etc) isn't going to pass the cost to you.

It's averaged out into one rent figure that everyone in the apartment/residence hall pays. Think "local phone service in the US" as opposed to "long distance phone service."

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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

California falling into the ocean? Not likely.

On: California's Internet Tax Bill Slithers Forward

Instead, the East Coast will fall first. Then the Midwest, then everything but California. See also: the video for "Californication" by rhcp://Red Hot Chili Peppers.
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

OSDN == the network formerly known as Andover

On: EU Objects To AOL-Time Warner Merger

Prince, er, O(+>, er, Prince... When will he stop changing his name?

The same thing happened to Andover when VA bought it out. Now Andover is OSDN.

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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

Gray Hat hacker?

On: Convicted Hackers Snubbed by Security Firms?

anyone who has used a handle (Do slashdot IDs count?) must be a gray hat hacker.

That is, unless you're bero-rh. In that case, you're a red hat hacker.

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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

(OT)The movie was...

On: Apocalypse Missed: Asteroid Near Miss

...Deep Impact or Armageddon (exactly the same plot)
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

Assembler etc. were in ROM.

On: Loki Releases Sim City 3000 Demo For Linux

The ROM BIOS of early systems included a simple machine-level debugger with an assembler and disassembler. It also generally included a Microsoft BASIC interpreter (such as Apple II BASIC or something similar).
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

10 years isn't a problem, right?

On: Loki Releases Sim City 3000 Demo For Linux

There are aggressive SimCity Classic players who can build the city fast enough to get 500,000 residents in 5 years; is SC3000 that different?
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

But with a lot of signatures on such a petition...

On: Funding Linux TCP/IP Stack Documentation Project?

...I would hate to see the publisher who would ignore it.
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!