Here we go. Please note: None of the
postal addresses have been finally verified
to belong to this spammer! So please
Don't register some innocent guy for
something or send them "presents". Many thanks.
That said:
"Al Ralsky" aka
Alan M. Ralsky
Most probable current postal address: Alan M Ralsky
6747 Minnow Pond Dr
West Bloomfield Township, MI 48322-2663
Probably his last address: Alan Ralsky
5016 Patrick Rd
West Bloomfield, MI 48322-1543
Phone: (248) 661-5166
His lawyer: Robert Harrison & Assoc
2550 S Telegraph Rd # 275
Bloomfield Hills, MI
248-253-1800
Info from phone.people.yahoo.com:
Alan Ralsky
5016 Patrick Rd
West Bloomfield , MI (248) 661-3355
West Bloomfield , MI (248) 661-5166
His company "RX Point" info: Al Ralsky
RX Point National Sales Director <al@rxpoint.com>
RxPoint
5016 Patrick Drive
West Bloomfield, Mi 48322
1-888-531-4793 <info@rxpoint.com>
PO address from a Usenet
posting from January: Alan Ralsky
PO Box 89
Fort Smith, AR 72903
Imagine some alien RIAA-like organization
finds out about this SETI project that distributes
their valuable inter-universal IP-protected
radio signals to thousands of computers
all over a damn whole planet!
Hopefully there's just a flat yearly fee
we're allowed to pay to the broadcasters...
Thanks for the "country mirrors
are round-robin" trick. This was neither
obvious nor documented.
This is against what you'd expect connecting
to an FTP server, though (if you connect to
an FTP server by-name, you shouldn't have to
care about it being different hosts with
different content, IMHO).
However, I fetched my.19-.20 patch
from "ftp.kernel.org" now. I really isn't
worth the hassle with obscured country
mirrors, sorry. And the server seemed
to handle the load today quite nice
(I won't start speculating about
traffic costs.)
("ftp.kernel.org" was FAST, even for those
~4MB.)
It still seems to me that the current
FTP kernel distribution system isn't
well-organized. (Official) announcements
should go out afterallofficial
mirrors got the file (this or "servers got 6 hours
to catch up, now we publish").
This won't help against Slashdot announcing
it, but it's The Right Thing To Do anyway.
And I'd strongly suggest to stay away
from DNS round-robin for country-level
FTP load-balancing. This is prone to cause trouble.
Happily (running a 2.4.19pre) I tried
our local official mirror "ftp.de.kernel.org".
Nope, no 2.4.20 there.:-( So at least
I fetched the.19 patch.
This is just sad. I don't want
to hit the master "ftp.kernel.org" over and over
again and won't do it, but can't they wait
at least with the announcement until
most of the official mirrors
have caught up?
10000 people hitting "ftp.kernel.org" now -
this doesn't have to happen but it is on nearly
every kernel release. This leads the whole
mirror concept ad absurdum on every release.
Disclaimer: I don't need
2.4.20 "within the next days", but as many others
I like to hack around with new stuff, so if
it is announced, I want to fiddle with it.:-)
Microsoft may prohibit self-modifying code and code on the stack. You don't get any performance gain with either technique any more, since processors went superscalar.
Sidenote: It's even worse, since self-modifying
code will cause a huge speed
penalty on many modern CPUs.
That said, as another poster a bit above
said, I'm also curious how EULAs for older
software - like Windows98SE - will look like.
There's no "we allow ourselves to install our
code on your system anytime we want to" policy
on Windows98SE yet (not talking about that
MediaPlayer - it just isn't in any Bugfixes),
but if new bugs are found, I'm pretty sure
MS is going to add that paragraph to any new
bugfix even for 98SE... Silently expanding their
policy to any Win box out there.
And then, if you stuck to 98SE or ME or
whatever because of strange EULAs with XP
(service pack 1, need I say more?), there
will be no way to fix your system
without EULA-ing even your old box.
Sad, that is.
Seems I underestimated the Slashdot crowd
this time.:-) Most of the replies
are quite interesting.
s/flame/candlelight/g # please
I'd like to have another look, but..
on
Is Mac OS X Slow?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Apple doesn't care very much about
European customers. So it's quite hard here
to find any store in your neighborhood
at all you can have a look at MacOS X in.
(Let alone pricing outside the US, which
is just horrible)
Honestly, this story is just screaming
for people to say: "Yes it is" or "No it
ain't".
"Is Mac OS X Slow?" Sorry...
Compared to what? Compared to what hardware?
Compared to what OS? Heck, remember that there
isn't even any other architecture people can
run MacOS X on (thanks to Apple) to compare.
So how do you want to separate if a) MacOS X
is slow b) the hardware it runs on is slow
or c) none of the above?
well, say you have two products. one product costs $500 and is the budget version and another product is $1000 for the "high-end" version. Now both of these products are actually the same, the only thing that separates them is the driver for the device.
That would be a product which is "development-broken-by-design".
If it's really just a difference in drivers,
just copy the high-end product's driver. (I don't
say "do this"; I'm trying to point out that if
it's possible, it will be done.)
It's the difference between -- say --
sell a 1394/Firewire card for EUR 50 and selling
the same card including Adobe Premiere, MPEG
software codec, DVD authoring tools,...
Because you can copy software
easily.
One poster wondered why not everyone gives
out his source code for drivers, because it
wouldn't matter what it does - you'd still
need the hardware to actually use it -
Wrong. For example, many Taiwanese and
Chinese manufacturers would be happy to
adapt somebody other's drivers, since copying
the hardware is the easier
part for them.
As has been stated already, this search is essentially for fun. If you want to get the backdoors on your S2 unit, it's already been stated how to do it. Load up the drive in a computer and change that code to the other one. Voila. This power search is just out of boredoom's sake, and to see if we can do it. I'll be cool to find it, but it's not actually going to give us access to anything new, okay?
So, people: Relax. And: If you want to join
Just For Fun[tm] (like I do), do it.
The first few examples are quite noteworthy,
but when the author starts to put code inside
the ELF header, it gets really ugly..
Saying that these bytes are "only padding
anyway for future extensions" doesn't feel
that good.:-)
This remembers me of early attempts on AmigaOS
to shorten and fasten executables where people
could be sure that all available Amigas would only
use the lower 24 bits of 32 bit address registers
since the machines could only address 24 bits
physically. So they put application data into
the upper 8 bits of registers. Worked fine.
Then came newer machines which really
used the full set of 32 address lines and
all those dirty programs crashed without
obvious reason..
The author says "if we leave compatibility
behind.." but what he's doing is not only
leaving inter-OS compatibility behind - what
he creates isn't even an ELF executable anymore. It's just something that happens to work
with this special Linux version.
So since this isn't even an ELF executable
any more, there's no reason not just to
write "exit 42" in bash
(which would be an amazing 8 bytes in size
*g*).
Don't misunderstand me, I really like those
hacks. But I myself will never, ever
again code something that is prone to break
in the future just because I didn't follow
standards.
One could say that this is
what programming is about.:-)
No offence meant.
Since BBC only seems to support "in-browser"
playback (and needs popup windows to be enabled - buah)... Here are the download links, extracted and reassembled:
Leaving out pirated copies (Windows and
Visual C++ anyone?),
you get more people that learn and program for
an OS if it is free (as in beer). Just because they can
get it for free and give it a try. Even more
people are willing to work with an OS that
is free AND OpenSource.
You're right that Linux is as popular as
it is because it's OpenSource. No doubt
about it. But MANY people I know just don't
care about it being OpenSource. This is maybe
the second thought. They're switching because
it's free as in beer.
AmigaOS cost money but came bundled with the
computer. Windows... let's say the same. BeOS
used to cost money; then it went free for
evaluation/personal use. SunOS/x86 the same.
Linux is free and even comes with a compiler
and development tools.
SunOS/x86 is free (beer), Linux is free/free.
Sure. So most choosing a Unix-like OS
will go straight to Linux because of the
additional free (speech) and coolness
benefit. (Solaris, on the other hand, gets
a boost for free because most programs written
for Linux will run on it as well.)
Apart from the hardware IRIX usually runs on,
the only obvious benefit - compared to Linux -
appears to me to be the nice desktop and
integrated GL support. I'm trying to point out
that only a few people will ever experience
these features because you already have to
own it to try it. Of course it would cost
a bunch of money to make an x86 evaluation
available. But what's wrong with the idea?
My original posting seems to polarize:
"Troll=2, Insightful=2, Interesting=1, Total=5".
Well... this really wasn't in any way supposed
to be trolling and still ain't. IMHO trolling
would have been something like "Ha! Those bastards
will never sell their OS until it is available
for free!!!1".
First: Many thanks for choosing such an
appropriate Subject for your reply. Philosopher, uh?
So you think that SGI should spend huge amounts of money and development time porting IRIX to x86, and then give it away free, simply so that you can "try it out at home"?
Yes. But you don't seem to understand what
"try it out at home" means. It would be quite
a boost for the amount of people that know
about the OS.
One reason that many people know how to
use/program/manage Linux by now is not that
it is Open Source. It's because they can
get it cheap and fiddle
around with it at home. This enlarges the
market for Linux admins, programmers,...
You name it.
Are you aware of the fact that IRIX does not run on x86 hardware?
Sure. And I was also sure that this was a
widely-known fact.
Are you aware of the fact that SGI will be moving to Linux on IA-64 in the future, rather than attempting to port IRIX to the IA-64?
Yes. Although I think that IA-64 will not be
that important at all. There's no need for graphics
workstations to run on 64 bit CPUs at
all. 64bit file I/O can be done nicely
with any 32 bit CPU. I can't think of any other
applications of 64 bit CPUs there.
Do you, in fact, have any idea of how much work it would be to port IRIX to anything other than MIPS?
Seriously, I don't care. I was pointing out
that offering a cheap evaluation copy of IRIX
for cheap hardware could boost sales for IRIX
powered equipment quite a bit. I was not
suggesting that this should be done even if
their departments don't have the money to
do it.
There's a difference between "What would
be a good thing we could do to help our
product?" and "Are we able to fund it?",
as you might as well know. But there's
no reason not to point it out.
If there only was some kind of free
(as in beer, please don't stop reading, this
is not supposed to start a flamewar:-))
IRIX distribution, maybe slimmed-down, so at least
more people could get hands on it and actually
try it out.
I mean: Many of us have read lots about IRIX,
how it works neatly for graphics workstations
etcpp., but how many of you actually were able
to try it out?
IRIX could gain a huge boost
in popularity if people could "try it at home"
on cheap x86 hardware and then - maybe - convince
people at work to buy it if it is ok for the job. Even a 30-day evaluation copy would be great.
IMHO, it was a great idea
of Sun to give away SunOS/x86 for free for
personal use. So I had the possibility of fiddling
around with it at home and improve my work
with Solaris at work.
Anyone out there providing ssh'd remote X
access to an IRIX box so one could have a look?
I'm sleeping on top of my computer (bed over
desk) with the PC sitting on the desk (Bigtower).
Fans, IBM 40 gig, Maxtor 80 gig, acoustics management
turned off. Never experienced
any problems to sleep.
Yes, I'm pretty sure it's economics. By
now. Let me explain:
With the next harddrive series, the warranty
will still be only 1 year. BUT:
since the development departments aren't any longer
required to build drives that last 3 years, there
will be lots of harddrives designed to last maybe 1.5
years (I'm not sure how much cheaper they will be
to produce; but in the harddrive market, every
dollar counts, so it will happen); especially within the low-price sector.
Economically, it is an unnecessary intrusion into the private market.
Wait a second. "Intrusion into the private
market"?! They will pay for
development of this software, no matter if it's
Open Source or not. This is
"private market". There are companies that
are going to be paid by the government to
develop their software.
Who should be blamed if they publish the
source code after? Everyone who orders a
company to write such tools have the right
to do so, if it is in the contracts/licenses.
Same with any company.
It's the duty of any government to spend
its citizens' money thoughtfully.
Slashdot Mirror
Here we go. Please note: None of the postal addresses have been finally verified to belong to this spammer! So please Don't register some innocent guy for something or send them "presents". Many thanks.
That said:
Alan M Ralsky
6747 Minnow Pond Dr
West Bloomfield Township, MI 48322-2663
Alan Ralsky
5016 Patrick Rd
West Bloomfield, MI 48322-1543
Phone: (248) 661-5166
Robert Harrison & Assoc
2550 S Telegraph Rd # 275
Bloomfield Hills, MI
248-253-1800
Alan Ralsky
5016 Patrick Rd
West Bloomfield , MI (248) 661-3355
West Bloomfield , MI (248) 661-5166
Al Ralsky
RX Point National Sales Director
<al@rxpoint.com>
RxPoint
5016 Patrick Drive
West Bloomfield, Mi 48322
1-888-531-4793
<info@rxpoint.com>
Alan Ralsky
PO Box 89
Fort Smith, AR 72903
Birmingham
836 Mohegan St., $740,000 (price of the house)
MI 48009-5667
All of this information was taken from publically available Internet sites.
Imagine some alien RIAA-like organization finds out about this SETI project that distributes their valuable inter-universal IP-protected radio signals to thousands of computers all over a damn whole planet!
Hopefully there's just a flat yearly fee we're allowed to pay to the broadcasters...
Their lawyers will go nuts if they ever find out.
Thanks for the "country mirrors are round-robin" trick. This was neither obvious nor documented.
This is against what you'd expect connecting to an FTP server, though (if you connect to an FTP server by-name, you shouldn't have to care about it being different hosts with different content, IMHO).
However, I fetched my .19-.20 patch
from "ftp.kernel.org" now. I really isn't
worth the hassle with obscured country
mirrors, sorry. And the server seemed
to handle the load today quite nice
(I won't start speculating about
traffic costs.)
("ftp.kernel.org" was FAST, even for those
~4MB.)
It still seems to me that the current FTP kernel distribution system isn't well-organized. (Official) announcements should go out after all official mirrors got the file (this or "servers got 6 hours to catch up, now we publish").
This won't help against Slashdot announcing it, but it's The Right Thing To Do anyway.
And I'd strongly suggest to stay away from DNS round-robin for country-level FTP load-balancing. This is prone to cause trouble.
Happily (running a 2.4.19pre) I tried our local official mirror "ftp.de.kernel.org". Nope, no 2.4.20 there. :-( So at least
I fetched the .19 patch.
This is just sad. I don't want to hit the master "ftp.kernel.org" over and over again and won't do it, but can't they wait at least with the announcement until most of the official mirrors have caught up?
10000 people hitting "ftp.kernel.org" now - this doesn't have to happen but it is on nearly every kernel release. This leads the whole mirror concept ad absurdum on every release.
Disclaimer: I don't need 2.4.20 "within the next days", but as many others I like to hack around with new stuff, so if it is announced, I want to fiddle with it. :-)
See you all in #waitingforftpconnect .
I just thought: Funny thing, people still do this. It's called a webcam.
So I guess people don't think it's that strange, no matter if they know Warhol did something similar.
(And for all those anonymous "live video cam" p0rn fans out there: You don't think all of them are live, do you?)
Isn't the graphic in the story rather meaning "Danger of Opportunity" for "Crisis"?
Sidenote: It's even worse, since self-modifying code will cause a huge speed penalty on many modern CPUs.
That said, as another poster a bit above said, I'm also curious how EULAs for older software - like Windows98SE - will look like. There's no "we allow ourselves to install our code on your system anytime we want to" policy on Windows98SE yet (not talking about that MediaPlayer - it just isn't in any Bugfixes), but if new bugs are found, I'm pretty sure MS is going to add that paragraph to any new bugfix even for 98SE... Silently expanding their policy to any Win box out there.
And then, if you stuck to 98SE or ME or whatever because of strange EULAs with XP (service pack 1, need I say more?), there will be no way to fix your system without EULA-ing even your old box. Sad, that is.
I found it interesting to note that many of these geek rooms seem to be located right in the attic.
With diagonal walls. Is this that common? Just asking, because none of my mates is geeking in a room like this here. :-)
Can't say if they're real or not, but I myself (located in Germany) believe that the original posting is authentic.
Its original author posted the headers from the response in the same forum.
Have a look and come to a decision.
Remembering similar conversations with EMI some months ago, I pretty well can believe it.
Definitely Insightful, thanks.
Seems I underestimated the Slashdot crowd this time. :-) Most of the replies
are quite interesting.
s/flame/candlelight/g # please
Apple doesn't care very much about European customers. So it's quite hard here to find any store in your neighborhood at all you can have a look at MacOS X in.
(Let alone pricing outside the US, which is just horrible)
Mod it "-1, Flamewar".
Honestly, this story is just screaming for people to say: "Yes it is" or "No it ain't".
"Is Mac OS X Slow?" Sorry...
Compared to what? Compared to what hardware? Compared to what OS? Heck, remember that there isn't even any other architecture people can run MacOS X on (thanks to Apple) to compare. So how do you want to separate if a) MacOS X is slow b) the hardware it runs on is slow or c) none of the above?
Just wondering.
Last time I checked (~5 minutes ago), this CommodoreOne link pointed to a Yahoo/GeoCities page that was out of available traffic.
Magically, it seems to work again (has to be located somewhere where a new day starts at something:55 minutes instead of full hour :-)).
If it should be shut again, here's the official mirror for CommodoreOne (taken from the page when it worked).
That would be a product which is "development-broken-by-design".
If it's really just a difference in drivers, just copy the high-end product's driver. (I don't say "do this"; I'm trying to point out that if it's possible, it will be done.)
It's the difference between -- say -- sell a 1394/Firewire card for EUR 50 and selling the same card including Adobe Premiere, MPEG software codec, DVD authoring tools, ...
Because you can copy software easily.
One poster wondered why not everyone gives out his source code for drivers, because it wouldn't matter what it does - you'd still need the hardware to actually use it -
Wrong. For example, many Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturers would be happy to adapt somebody other's drivers, since copying the hardware is the easier part for them.
Not providing a link and just out of curiosity I wanted to have a look at how wide-spread this leaked Doom already is.
Result: eMule found 156(!) sources for it on the 'net in less than 8 minutes.
Seems it's really leaked..
From a post (from "Otto", discussion forum, 10-31-2002 08:14 PM):
So, people: Relax. And: If you want to join Just For Fun[tm] (like I do), do it.
The first few examples are quite noteworthy, but when the author starts to put code inside the ELF header, it gets really ugly..
Saying that these bytes are "only padding anyway for future extensions" doesn't feel that good. :-)
This remembers me of early attempts on AmigaOS to shorten and fasten executables where people could be sure that all available Amigas would only use the lower 24 bits of 32 bit address registers since the machines could only address 24 bits physically. So they put application data into the upper 8 bits of registers. Worked fine.
Then came newer machines which really used the full set of 32 address lines and all those dirty programs crashed without obvious reason..
The author says "if we leave compatibility behind.." but what he's doing is not only leaving inter-OS compatibility behind - what he creates isn't even an ELF executable anymore. It's just something that happens to work with this special Linux version.
So since this isn't even an ELF executable any more, there's no reason not just to write "exit 42" in bash (which would be an amazing 8 bytes in size *g*).
Don't misunderstand me, I really like those hacks. But I myself will never, ever again code something that is prone to break in the future just because I didn't follow standards.
One could say that this is what programming is about. :-)
No offence meant.
Since BBC only seems to support "in-browser" playback (and needs popup windows to be enabled - buah)... Here are the download links, extracted and reassembled:
Have fun.
Leaving out pirated copies (Windows and Visual C++ anyone?), you get more people that learn and program for an OS if it is free (as in beer). Just because they can get it for free and give it a try. Even more people are willing to work with an OS that is free AND OpenSource.
You're right that Linux is as popular as it is because it's OpenSource. No doubt about it. But MANY people I know just don't care about it being OpenSource. This is maybe the second thought. They're switching because it's free as in beer.
AmigaOS cost money but came bundled with the computer. Windows... let's say the same. BeOS used to cost money; then it went free for evaluation/personal use. SunOS/x86 the same. Linux is free and even comes with a compiler and development tools.
SunOS/x86 is free (beer), Linux is free/free. Sure. So most choosing a Unix-like OS will go straight to Linux because of the additional free (speech) and coolness benefit. (Solaris, on the other hand, gets a boost for free because most programs written for Linux will run on it as well.)
Apart from the hardware IRIX usually runs on, the only obvious benefit - compared to Linux - appears to me to be the nice desktop and integrated GL support. I'm trying to point out that only a few people will ever experience these features because you already have to own it to try it. Of course it would cost a bunch of money to make an x86 evaluation available. But what's wrong with the idea?
My original posting seems to polarize: "Troll=2, Insightful=2, Interesting=1, Total=5". Well... this really wasn't in any way supposed to be trolling and still ain't. IMHO trolling would have been something like "Ha! Those bastards will never sell their OS until it is available for free!!!1".
First: Many thanks for choosing such an appropriate Subject for your reply. Philosopher, uh?
Yes. But you don't seem to understand what "try it out at home" means. It would be quite a boost for the amount of people that know about the OS.
One reason that many people know how to use/program/manage Linux by now is not that it is Open Source. It's because they can get it cheap and fiddle around with it at home. This enlarges the market for Linux admins, programmers, ...
You name it.
Sure. And I was also sure that this was a widely-known fact.
Yes. Although I think that IA-64 will not be that important at all. There's no need for graphics workstations to run on 64 bit CPUs at all. 64bit file I/O can be done nicely with any 32 bit CPU. I can't think of any other applications of 64 bit CPUs there.
Seriously, I don't care. I was pointing out that offering a cheap evaluation copy of IRIX for cheap hardware could boost sales for IRIX powered equipment quite a bit. I was not suggesting that this should be done even if their departments don't have the money to do it.
There's a difference between "What would be a good thing we could do to help our product?" and "Are we able to fund it?", as you might as well know. But there's no reason not to point it out.
Please excuse if I won't comment on that.
If there only was some kind of free (as in beer, please don't stop reading, this is not supposed to start a flamewar :-))
IRIX distribution, maybe slimmed-down, so at least
more people could get hands on it and actually
try it out.
I mean: Many of us have read lots about IRIX, how it works neatly for graphics workstations etcpp., but how many of you actually were able to try it out?
IRIX could gain a huge boost in popularity if people could "try it at home" on cheap x86 hardware and then - maybe - convince people at work to buy it if it is ok for the job. Even a 30-day evaluation copy would be great.
IMHO, it was a great idea of Sun to give away SunOS/x86 for free for personal use. So I had the possibility of fiddling around with it at home and improve my work with Solaris at work.
Anyone out there providing ssh'd remote X access to an IRIX box so one could have a look?
I'm sleeping on top of my computer (bed over desk) with the PC sitting on the desk (Bigtower). Fans, IBM 40 gig, Maxtor 80 gig, acoustics management turned off. Never experienced any problems to sleep.
Your mileage may vary, of course. :-)
Yes, I'm pretty sure it's economics. By now. Let me explain:
With the next harddrive series, the warranty will still be only 1 year. BUT: since the development departments aren't any longer required to build drives that last 3 years, there will be lots of harddrives designed to last maybe 1.5 years (I'm not sure how much cheaper they will be to produce; but in the harddrive market, every dollar counts, so it will happen); especially within the low-price sector.
This is no good.
Wait a second. "Intrusion into the private market"?! They will pay for development of this software, no matter if it's Open Source or not. This is "private market". There are companies that are going to be paid by the government to develop their software.
Who should be blamed if they publish the source code after? Everyone who orders a company to write such tools have the right to do so, if it is in the contracts/licenses. Same with any company.
It's the duty of any government to spend its citizens' money thoughtfully.