Yup, all good points. I can't believe that NPR is saying stuff like this:
However, NPR also recognizes that the majority of the linking on the Web is not infringement. We are working on a solution that we believe will better match the expectations of the Web community with the interests of NPR.
What the hell do they need to "work on"? Just delete the whole stupid linking policy. If you find someone wrapping your content in a frame, or something that tarnishes your NPR name, or confuses people, send a LawyerLetter.
I always like to imagine if books did this: "Don't make bibliographical references to page 34. Only page 1. Because someone might read your article, go to the library, and read our book starting on page 34, and get the wrong impression." What nonsense!
The difference is, of course, you don't get a log entry when someone "links" to your book in an attribution in another book. That's the curse of the internet: all the stuff people were doing before in the offline world (like swapping music) now suddenly can be logged with precision.
My respect for NPR went down several notches, and this reply knocked it down another notch.
Now I could finally have connectivity for my RectumPad (actually the unintended result of a freak accident involving a Palm IIIe, but let's not go there....)
Anyone else remember the far-sighted and insightful (ha) judge in the DeCSS case that said hey, you don't need to make excerpts from DVDs, because the analog format is available?
Not that I'm crying about the loss of VHS tapes, that's for sure. As soon as PVRs have built-in DVD writers, clunky tapes that operate by scraping against a metal disk will be a distant memory.
I'm a firm believer that, in general, ALL SOFTWARE (including Linux, BSD, and Windows) is full of show-stopper bugs, with a probability in proportion to the number of lines of code raised to some power. If one piece of software seems more secure, it's just because the bugs haven't been found yet. And this will get worse as time goes by.
(How the bugs are handled after they are found is another story, perhaps we should be focusing on that instead.)
Microsoft has lots of smart people working for them. Free Software has many smart people looking at the code. Yet, most of this code has bugs. When I write a 10-line Perl script, it has bugs (for instance, what does it do in a full disk situation? What does it do when run by root? What does it do if a Perl library is missing or upgraded?).
Making software writers/distributers liable for bugs is simply impractical. Software is simply not like a bridge or a toaster. Software is incredibly complex, and it runs on machines that are also highly complex, connected to other machines with equal complexity. All the interactions can't possibly be comprehended.
And just what is a bug? If the program malfunctions under certain unforseen circumstances, but when it was written it met all the specs, is that a bug? If you use a formal system to "prove" correctness, are the rules correct? Did anybody make a typo setting it up? Is the program that does the check itself bug-free?
I can understand that if Microsoft promises you a secure webserver, and it's found not secure, you feel Microsoft is to blame. But perhaps a "secure webserver" cannot exist. Even if it did, once installed, it would interact with other software to create a security hole (example: Apache + PHP + anonymous uploads into the web-accessible area + MySQL running as root).
If a law for software liability were passed, it would instantly kill all but a few software companies. Free Software would wither or go underground because no programmer would want to touch it. You would get zero support for your software, unless your setup was 100% EXACTLY the same as the one the corps will support. This would probably be enforced with some draconian DRM. Our lives would get worse.
Of course you say, they could make an exception for Free Software. But what would the criteria be? Exception for no-cost? No, that would mean you can't charge for Free Software beyond the cost of media. No more PayPal buttons on your web site, no corporate sponsorship. And Microsoft would just turn IIS into a free download. Exception for source-code-included? That would be better for little guy (no more binary-only distro though), but Microsoft could just invent a very-high-level language where MS Word is 5 lines, and distribute that along with it. They would find some other way to get around it. Any liability exception would be unfair to someone.
If anybody should be liable, it's the person or company who chose and installed a particular system. This entity put together the components, so this entity is responsible for knowing they all work together without bugs. But like I mentioned before, I don't think this is possible. And even just one small change or upgrade and you don't know any more if your system is still secure.
In 40-50 or more years, the software industry might stabilize to the point where all basic computer tasks are performed using well-known, publically available, stable components and formal systems, and then you could use the term "engineering" and you could conceivably have more predictable software. But I don't really think we're anywhere near that point now. Computer science is still in its infancy.
I agree with the other folks here. This ain't a live performance by any stretch. Besides the obvious limitations of MIDI (127 volume levels), and the fact that the pianos are different (the performer is in a feedback loop with Piano #1, if Piano #1 is a little too bright or too quiet in certain registers, the performer will adjust so the piece sounds right to him/her). Besides all these things, you don't get to watch the performer play.
I recall a story about a piano teacher who played a note with her hand, and with the end of her umbrella, with the student's eyes open and closed. What they found out was that even though notes played with the umbrella and the hand sounded the same to the students with their eyes closed, the notes "seemed" to sound different with their eyes open.
Probably because in their minds, the umbrella note was devoid of emotion, while the hand note wasn't, even though technically, it didn't make a difference how the key was pressed. Also when a person is sitting at the piano, they themselves are giving a performance, through their attitude, their body motions, their facial expressions, even through how much they sweat or what they're wearing.
All of this is gone when you here a MIDI recording. The Disklaviers are damn cool instrument (I play the piano and I've been wanting to buy one for years) but it shouldn't be used like this!
Image if you were buying a bed and you were asked to sign an agreement first.
Or rather, imagine if a tag on the underside of the bed read "You agree to the agreement on our website just by laying on this bed." And courts upheld it because of some obscure twist of logic (the way they say making a copy of the software you bought in RAM is a copyright violation).
As for this ruling, well, is it for the SERVICE or for the SOFTWARE. If it's for the service, the position isn't as clear, because you didn't buy anything, you agreed that if you do such-and-such, the service will be provided to you, and if you don't do such-and-such, it won't.
But if the EULA on the purchased SOFTWARE was found to be binding, we're in DEEP SHIT TROUBLE, you better believe it.
Software End-User: Ha ha! I found a way to use the software in a way that Microsoft doesn't want, but still meets the terms of the EULA!
Microsoft HQ: Ieee! They found a loophole in our EULA! Quick! Mutate the EULA terms every 15 seconds! On my mark... go!!
End-User: Ahhhhhhrg!! They're mutating EULA frequencies! I can't keep up with the changes! I might be violating them and I won't know! *KNOCK KNOCK* Uh oh, it's THE KNOCK! The cops are here! *dragged away at gunpoint*
Microsoft HQ: Whew, that was close! Reduce EULA rotation frequency to the usual once per day.
When or if RMS writes a response to this "paper", I hope he forgoes his usual moral high ground and lengthy expositions and calls it exactly what it is: garbage.
Very of little of that paper makes sense or raises valid points, and what it does is irrelavent to its thesis.
This paper is a comical inverse of Senetor Nuñez's letter to Microsoft: poorly thought out, badly written, and unable to withstand the application of basic logic. "GPL the most restrictive license" indeed... the GPL can be ignored completely, leaving you with basic copyright law, while last I checked, Microsoft's license must be followed to the letter just to USE the software.
I'm sure everyone here can read through that paper and find all kinds of nuggets (not of wisdom, for sure). For instance in one sentence they claim that with Free Software you don't know what you're getting, but in the next deride programmers for using trademarks to protect their reputations (i.e., so they can ensure that you do in fact "know what you're getting").
And the usual "programmers need money so they can write code". Well, this has nothing to do with the government choosing software, unless the government is starting a new "software author welfare program".
The usual "if you combine GPL with another software, it all has to be GPL". Pray tell, what license do I use when I combine Windows XP with my own program and sell the combination? None, the men with guns come by, and I get put in jail. Don't redistribute GPL software if you don't like the terms. At least the GPL gives you a way to redistribute!
And finally the paper concludes with a rosy comment about the BSD license. I suppose when a company releases their software under the BSD license, somehow their secrets are better protected than under the GPL?
Finally, I like the graph on page 18.. apparently Windows XP has 30 million lines of code (30,000,000.00 to be exact, based on the legend), and Linux Kernel (apparently now an entire operating system on its own) only has 2 million or so. I'll take 2 million possible bugs over 30 million any day!
Yes, this is true, and not only books, but other things as well.
I don't know about the rest of you who sell on eBay but I've noticed something over the past year or so.. everytime I buy something, I immediately think of the inevitable eBay resale.
Electronics: I will buy a more expensive digital camera because I know I can resell it later to buy the next model. Instead of collecting junk in my closet I can "upgrade" it by selling it and buying something else. I'm already anal about keeping things nice and clean and like-new, so it's no problem keeping stuff in ready to sell condition.
CDs: I used to buy lots of obscure indie/electronic CDs, but I had to pick and choose. Now, I basically buy everything on the new release lists because I know I can unload the ones I don't like on eBay (sometimes for more than I paid for those limited releases).
Books: I don't hesitate to buy the "intro" computer books (e.g., O'Reilly's Learning XML) because once I outgrow them, I can get $10-$15 back on eBay. And I might be helping some programmer who couldn't afford the full price of the new book.
It's not "the internet", it's eBay! eBay is the only Internet company that has really changed things, if you ask me. With eBay, everything can be "try before you buy".
I consider myself a hard-core Perl regexp user and these changes look pretty cool and very appropriate. They fix a lot of the annoying add-ons in Perl's current regexps (if you've ever written a big fat regexp with lots of (?..) stuff you know what I mean). Being able to easily name captured text is probably the most useful feature. In fact Perl 6 is starting to look pretty nice all around. I'm still going to have a problem with "->" becoming "." and "." becoming "_" but I guess I'll survive.
What would REALLY be cool is if I could use some Unicode characters (for instance from the "General Punctuation Block") as the regexp metacharacters.. I didn't see anything about this in Larry's (very long) document, and I'd imagine it wouldn't be very popular since many of those characters look too much like the ASCII versions, but it would be useful.
One thing that strikes me as interesting: languages like PHP and Ruby have inherited features from Perl (for instance PHP has a "Perl regexps" feature, and it uses "." for string concat).. will these languages change so they can be more like Perl6?? Otherwise I think that would leave PHP as the only language where "." is string concatenation (yeah I'm really hung up on that dot, humor me).
As other/.'ers have pointed out, this MUST be a joke. A single vacuum tube in an amplifier doesn't serve any purpose but as a heater (or maybe just amplifies the center channel??)
I could imagine using a few (maybe fake) vacuum tubes in a case mod, that would be very cool. Or maybe build the power supply with tubes?? Has anyone tried that?
Oh well. I wouldn't mind having a nice tube amp OUTSIDE the computer for listening to MP3s.. it might fend off the digital noise of those 128k encoded MP3s.
What I really need to do is replace the 21-inch vacuum tube I stare into all day with a nice flat-panel model...
I read that article and found it very interesting. It seems there's always a weakness in any security system, and a clever person with time on their hands can find it.
But then it hits me: this "security" is to keep THE OWNER, the PAYING CUSTOMER, out of the product he bought. This "security" doesn't protect my family, me, or my possessions from absolutely anything. It serves no purpose except to make work for somebody at Microsoft and then somebody at MIT. If they left it out, they'd save both parties a lot of effort. I'm sure someone will build on this article and figure out how to easily run arbitrary code on the Xbox, and so the security will be a total waste. So why is it there?
Yeah, those guys have been trawling the web for a while, looking for lord knows what. I have a ModRewrite rule in my httpd.conf that feeds them a bunch of garbage whenever they come by (thanks, Sugarplum). I ought to feed them some Jennifer Lopez files next time, see what happens...actually I should just firewall them away.
The Secure Microwave is actually TWO microwaves in one! One "regular" 200W microwave that can make popcorn and heat coffee, and a "premium" 800W microwave that can cook full meals.
Please note: if there is more than one adult in the kitchen, ONLY the "regular" mode can be used. If your friends and family would like to enjoy food heated by the premium Secure Microwave, they should buy their own!
No, really this new format is crap. First of all, for home users, CD quality, length, and form factor are all just fine. Even if you're an "audiophile" who likes to pretend that your hearing goes past 20kHz, most CDs aren't recorded to their full potential in the studio anyway. No value-add here.
And let me guess, the record labels won't sue you for distributing high-quality rips of the "regular CD" portion? WRONG! Now they'll just have TWO possible excuses to sue you. Copyright law doesn't go away if there are two copies of the music on the CD.
The current CD format (unbroken) is fine for mainstream music. Portable, big enough for good artwork, easily copied, and high quality.
Support for the terminal speeds B57600 and B115200 has been added.
Now I can use my new 56k modem! Pretty soon, every ISP will be using this fast new speed of modem, it will be cool! Gopher's gonna FLY on this baby!
Okay just kidding, glad to see HURD is still alive. I remember first reading about it long ago and thinking, hey, finally a modern OS. But here I am still using a monolithic kernel after all these years, and it works just fine. Good luck to the HURD folks, maybe my kids will use it.:-)
Re:Heard this before somewhere :).
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Heh, think of MP3 defects as an unintended remix. It's mostly noise anyway, so what's the problem with changing it around. There have been artists who distributed their (vinyl) records without sleeves, in the hopes that the inevitable scratches and so forth would add a little "character".
I believe some of these glitchy folks have already played with encoding something over and over again until it becomes unrecognizable. MP3 decay does have a unique and recognizable effect on sounds (kinda like how JPG artifacts are recognizable).
Of course the artists could just distribute PROGRAMS instead of audio files. I've seen a lot of that lately. For instance this CD by Kim Cascone that comes with some of the software used to generate the CD. I played with that shit for hours!
another slashdot article about electronic music!
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Hmm, another/. article about music I've been listening to for years. I hope some of you folks check this stuff and other electronic music out, there's so much cool non-RIAA stuff out there, and so much stuff that will challange pre-conceived notions, etc., etc.
Though I always called this type of music "MINIMAL" (written in all uppercase for irony;-) and it's been around longer than "Macs" (true, most electronic musicians use Macs but that's not important).
Part of the appeal of this minimal electronic music for me is that it takes machine/electronic sounds and "places them with intent". Usually we are surrounded by noise that we have no control over, but what if you could control it. For example your P4 on your desk is making a bunch of noise, mostly fan noise. What if you could take that noise and chop it up and play with rhythms and so forth? Maybe make a short beep into a beat, make the hard drive access noise into another beat, etc.
My favorite stuff is from Taylor Deupree's 12k label and mille plateaux.. I like to play it on the computer while working, just barely mixing with the sounds of the fans and the keyboard, and adding in a little rhythm or unpredictability to take away the monotony of the usual machine sounds. Was that little beep from the OS or the CD? Has my fan speed suddenly changed? Etc.
My CD recommendation at the moment would be Frank Bretschneider & Taylor Deupree: Balance on Mille Pleateaux. It really isn't a pure minimal CD, it has a techno beat, but the sound is very clicky and micro, with static and beeps, etc. It's an awesome CD, very listenable, and comes with a video for one of the pieces consisting of pulsating white square on a blue background that visually represents the music.
Something like Maildir.. if the FS is slow and can't handle that kind of application, then we need to improve our filesystems!
Lots of applications need lightweight databases with indexes, locking, and atomic operations. Why not bake this into the filesystem, and it won't have to be just for email, it will have many uses.
I was thinking about this the other day as I was working on a logging system for a large in-house email filtering system.. similar problem, except instead of storing emails, I'm storing small XML fragments describing the structure of each email and what was done to each. So far the easiest solution was large monolithic XML files, and an external index pointing in the large file (i.e., like mbox + a DB index). As it grows we'll probably have to move it to a "real" database.
There is a need for something like sleepycat DB + ReiserFS on steriods..
Re:I gave m1cr0s0ft.com my credit card number!!!!
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Whew, good thing you caught it in time! Don't worry, the credit card companies can take care of it, no worries, just enter your name,credit card number, social security number, and mother's maiden name at each of the following URLs:
AMERlCANEXPRESS.COM
ClTlBANK.COM
FlRSTUSA.COM
DlSCOVERCARDS.COM
(Those all use "ell" instead of "eye" when possible.. they look exactly the same with my fonts.. Since there already "homographs" in plain ASCII, and plus Javascript mouseovers can be used to change the browser status area, and plus many people don't even fully understand the difference between "microsoft.com" and "microsoft.evil.com", this Unicode trick is nothing to worry (more) about!)
Anybody have good reviews/recommends on Flex/micro ATX cases and P3 motherboards? I want to make a small router/gateway PC and so far I've found el-cheapo cases and Soldam. The Soldams are nice but too nice. I want something like this:
Small and flat, no vents on top if possible.. think of a shrunken-down 2U rack server. No cubes.
space for a floppy, CDROM, one PCI card, one HD.
built in VGA graphics of any quality
built-in 10/100 ethernet and one serial port
quiet would be nice..would like to run it with just the PS fan.. probably I'd underclock it.. it's replacing a 486 so there's no problem with speed
Like Napster, Audiogalaxy seeks to profit from its [music sharing:)] system by building an extensive user base to attract advertisers and investment dollars.
RIAA Exec #1: Bob, how's our new "file-sharing" service coming along, you know, the one that grants users the right to listen to a song on one computer for 30 minutes a day, all for $9.99 a month, and if you violate the terms of service, the FBI is notified directly?
RIAA Exec #2: *clik clik* Hmm, it's coming along okay Sue, three people have signed up in the past month alone. Not bad but we just can't seem to get volume of users we were predicting.
RIAA Exec #1: Actually one of those was me, and the other two were Hillary. We need to figure out what type of file sharing service people really want. If only there was some kind of "model" or "prototype" we could study. If only we could figure out some way to use the internet to profit from a music sharing system by building an extensive user base to attract advertisers and investment dollars. If only there was some way to do that.
RIAA Exec #2: I have no idea. To be honest I'm not even sure what the internet is, isn't it like a modem? I heard that once. Oh well, it's 1pm already, the work day is over, time to go golfing!
Slashdot Mirror
Yup, all good points. I can't believe that NPR is saying stuff like this:
What the hell do they need to "work on"? Just delete the whole stupid linking policy. If you find someone wrapping your content in a frame, or something that tarnishes your NPR name, or confuses people, send a LawyerLetter.
I always like to imagine if books did this: "Don't make bibliographical references to page 34. Only page 1. Because someone might read your article, go to the library, and read our book starting on page 34, and get the wrong impression." What nonsense!
The difference is, of course, you don't get a log entry when someone "links" to your book in an attribution in another book. That's the curse of the internet: all the stuff people were doing before in the offline world (like swapping music) now suddenly can be logged with precision.
My respect for NPR went down several notches, and this reply knocked it down another notch.
Now I could finally have connectivity for my RectumPad (actually the unintended result of a freak accident involving a Palm IIIe, but let's not go there....)
So .... does it have Bluetooth? *rimshot*
Anyone else remember the far-sighted and insightful (ha) judge in the DeCSS case that said hey, you don't need to make excerpts from DVDs, because the analog format is available?
Not that I'm crying about the loss of VHS tapes, that's for sure. As soon as PVRs have built-in DVD writers, clunky tapes that operate by scraping against a metal disk will be a distant memory.
But I'm having a little trouble getting past this URL:
I think if I was on a list hosted at pluglist.mybutt, I would expect it to be about something else besides Linux..
I'm a firm believer that, in general, ALL SOFTWARE (including Linux, BSD, and Windows) is full of show-stopper bugs, with a probability in proportion to the number of lines of code raised to some power. If one piece of software seems more secure, it's just because the bugs haven't been found yet. And this will get worse as time goes by.
(How the bugs are handled after they are found is another story, perhaps we should be focusing on that instead.)
Microsoft has lots of smart people working for them. Free Software has many smart people looking at the code. Yet, most of this code has bugs. When I write a 10-line Perl script, it has bugs (for instance, what does it do in a full disk situation? What does it do when run by root? What does it do if a Perl library is missing or upgraded?).
Making software writers/distributers liable for bugs is simply impractical. Software is simply not like a bridge or a toaster. Software is incredibly complex, and it runs on machines that are also highly complex, connected to other machines with equal complexity. All the interactions can't possibly be comprehended.
And just what is a bug? If the program malfunctions under certain unforseen circumstances, but when it was written it met all the specs, is that a bug? If you use a formal system to "prove" correctness, are the rules correct? Did anybody make a typo setting it up? Is the program that does the check itself bug-free?
I can understand that if Microsoft promises you a secure webserver, and it's found not secure, you feel Microsoft is to blame. But perhaps a "secure webserver" cannot exist. Even if it did, once installed, it would interact with other software to create a security hole (example: Apache + PHP + anonymous uploads into the web-accessible area + MySQL running as root).
If a law for software liability were passed, it would instantly kill all but a few software companies. Free Software would wither or go underground because no programmer would want to touch it. You would get zero support for your software, unless your setup was 100% EXACTLY the same as the one the corps will support. This would probably be enforced with some draconian DRM. Our lives would get worse.
Of course you say, they could make an exception for Free Software. But what would the criteria be? Exception for no-cost? No, that would mean you can't charge for Free Software beyond the cost of media. No more PayPal buttons on your web site, no corporate sponsorship. And Microsoft would just turn IIS into a free download. Exception for source-code-included? That would be better for little guy (no more binary-only distro though), but Microsoft could just invent a very-high-level language where MS Word is 5 lines, and distribute that along with it. They would find some other way to get around it. Any liability exception would be unfair to someone.
If anybody should be liable, it's the person or company who chose and installed a particular system. This entity put together the components, so this entity is responsible for knowing they all work together without bugs. But like I mentioned before, I don't think this is possible. And even just one small change or upgrade and you don't know any more if your system is still secure.
In 40-50 or more years, the software industry might stabilize to the point where all basic computer tasks are performed using well-known, publically available, stable components and formal systems, and then you could use the term "engineering" and you could conceivably have more predictable software. But I don't really think we're anywhere near that point now. Computer science is still in its infancy.
I'm not optimistic!
I agree with the other folks here. This ain't a live performance by any stretch. Besides the obvious limitations of MIDI (127 volume levels), and the fact that the pianos are different (the performer is in a feedback loop with Piano #1, if Piano #1 is a little too bright or too quiet in certain registers, the performer will adjust so the piece sounds right to him/her). Besides all these things, you don't get to watch the performer play.
I recall a story about a piano teacher who played a note with her hand, and with the end of her umbrella, with the student's eyes open and closed. What they found out was that even though notes played with the umbrella and the hand sounded the same to the students with their eyes closed, the notes "seemed" to sound different with their eyes open.
Probably because in their minds, the umbrella note was devoid of emotion, while the hand note wasn't, even though technically, it didn't make a difference how the key was pressed. Also when a person is sitting at the piano, they themselves are giving a performance, through their attitude, their body motions, their facial expressions, even through how much they sweat or what they're wearing.
All of this is gone when you here a MIDI recording. The Disklaviers are damn cool instrument (I play the piano and I've been wanting to buy one for years) but it shouldn't be used like this!
with the train floating 10cm over the tracks
So, all a terrorist needs is an 11cm rock...
Image if you were buying a bed and you were asked to sign an agreement first.
Or rather, imagine if a tag on the underside of the bed read "You agree to the agreement on our website just by laying on this bed." And courts upheld it because of some obscure twist of logic (the way they say making a copy of the software you bought in RAM is a copyright violation).
As for this ruling, well, is it for the SERVICE or for the SOFTWARE. If it's for the service, the position isn't as clear, because you didn't buy anything, you agreed that if you do such-and-such, the service will be provided to you, and if you don't do such-and-such, it won't.
But if the EULA on the purchased SOFTWARE was found to be binding, we're in DEEP SHIT TROUBLE, you better believe it.
Software End-User: Ha ha! I found a way to use the software in a way that Microsoft doesn't want, but still meets the terms of the EULA!
Microsoft HQ: Ieee! They found a loophole in our EULA! Quick! Mutate the EULA terms every 15 seconds! On my mark... go!!
End-User: Ahhhhhhrg!! They're mutating EULA frequencies! I can't keep up with the changes! I might be violating them and I won't know! *KNOCK KNOCK* Uh oh, it's THE KNOCK! The cops are here! *dragged away at gunpoint*
Microsoft HQ: Whew, that was close! Reduce EULA rotation frequency to the usual once per day.
Is it me, or were there an awful lot of pages (and ads) in that article?
Fight Club
How Yoda became
click to continue...(page 2/1345)an action star
click to continue...(page 3/1345)With a little help
click to continue...(page 4/1345)from director George Lucas
click to continue...(page 5/1345)When or if RMS writes a response to this "paper", I hope he forgoes his usual moral high ground and lengthy expositions and calls it exactly what it is: garbage.
Very of little of that paper makes sense or raises valid points, and what it does is irrelavent to its thesis.
This paper is a comical inverse of Senetor Nuñez's letter to Microsoft: poorly thought out, badly written, and unable to withstand the application of basic logic. "GPL the most restrictive license" indeed ... the GPL can be ignored completely, leaving you with basic copyright law, while last I checked, Microsoft's license must be followed to the letter just to USE the software.
I'm sure everyone here can read through that paper and find all kinds of nuggets (not of wisdom, for sure). For instance in one sentence they claim that with Free Software you don't know what you're getting, but in the next deride programmers for using trademarks to protect their reputations (i.e., so they can ensure that you do in fact "know what you're getting").
And the usual "programmers need money so they can write code". Well, this has nothing to do with the government choosing software, unless the government is starting a new "software author welfare program".
The usual "if you combine GPL with another software, it all has to be GPL". Pray tell, what license do I use when I combine Windows XP with my own program and sell the combination? None, the men with guns come by, and I get put in jail. Don't redistribute GPL software if you don't like the terms. At least the GPL gives you a way to redistribute!
And finally the paper concludes with a rosy comment about the BSD license. I suppose when a company releases their software under the BSD license, somehow their secrets are better protected than under the GPL?
Finally, I like the graph on page 18.. apparently Windows XP has 30 million lines of code (30,000,000.00 to be exact, based on the legend), and Linux Kernel (apparently now an entire operating system on its own) only has 2 million or so. I'll take 2 million possible bugs over 30 million any day!
Yes, this is true, and not only books, but other things as well.
I don't know about the rest of you who sell on eBay but I've noticed something over the past year or so .. everytime I buy something, I immediately think of the inevitable eBay resale.
Electronics: I will buy a more expensive digital camera because I know I can resell it later to buy the next model. Instead of collecting junk in my closet I can "upgrade" it by selling it and buying something else. I'm already anal about keeping things nice and clean and like-new, so it's no problem keeping stuff in ready to sell condition.
CDs: I used to buy lots of obscure indie/electronic CDs, but I had to pick and choose. Now, I basically buy everything on the new release lists because I know I can unload the ones I don't like on eBay (sometimes for more than I paid for those limited releases).
Books: I don't hesitate to buy the "intro" computer books (e.g., O'Reilly's Learning XML) because once I outgrow them, I can get $10-$15 back on eBay. And I might be helping some programmer who couldn't afford the full price of the new book.
It's not "the internet", it's eBay! eBay is the only Internet company that has really changed things, if you ask me. With eBay, everything can be "try before you buy".
Open Source software exists. Therefore, it is viable. If it wasn't, it wouldn't exist.
Or is that too simple??
I consider myself a hard-core Perl regexp user and these changes look pretty cool and very appropriate. They fix a lot of the annoying add-ons in Perl's current regexps (if you've ever written a big fat regexp with lots of (?..) stuff you know what I mean). Being able to easily name captured text is probably the most useful feature. In fact Perl 6 is starting to look pretty nice all around. I'm still going to have a problem with "->" becoming "." and "." becoming "_" but I guess I'll survive.
What would REALLY be cool is if I could use some Unicode characters (for instance from the "General Punctuation Block") as the regexp metacharacters.. I didn't see anything about this in Larry's (very long) document, and I'd imagine it wouldn't be very popular since many of those characters look too much like the ASCII versions, but it would be useful.
One thing that strikes me as interesting: languages like PHP and Ruby have inherited features from Perl (for instance PHP has a "Perl regexps" feature, and it uses "." for string concat).. will these languages change so they can be more like Perl6?? Otherwise I think that would leave PHP as the only language where "." is string concatenation (yeah I'm really hung up on that dot, humor me).
Looking forward to Exegesis 5.
As other /.'ers have pointed out, this MUST be a joke. A single vacuum tube in an amplifier doesn't serve any purpose but as a heater (or maybe just amplifies the center channel??)
I could imagine using a few (maybe fake) vacuum tubes in a case mod, that would be very cool. Or maybe build the power supply with tubes?? Has anyone tried that?
Oh well. I wouldn't mind having a nice tube amp OUTSIDE the computer for listening to MP3s .. it might fend off the digital noise of those 128k encoded MP3s.
What I really need to do is replace the 21-inch vacuum tube I stare into all day with a nice flat-panel model...
I read that article and found it very interesting. It seems there's always a weakness in any security system, and a clever person with time on their hands can find it.
But then it hits me: this "security" is to keep THE OWNER, the PAYING CUSTOMER, out of the product he bought. This "security" doesn't protect my family, me, or my possessions from absolutely anything. It serves no purpose except to make work for somebody at Microsoft and then somebody at MIT. If they left it out, they'd save both parties a lot of effort. I'm sure someone will build on this article and figure out how to easily run arbitrary code on the Xbox, and so the security will be a total waste. So why is it there?
Yeah, those guys have been trawling the web for a while, looking for lord knows what. I have a ModRewrite rule in my httpd.conf that feeds them a bunch of garbage whenever they come by (thanks, Sugarplum). I ought to feed them some Jennifer Lopez files next time, see what happens...actually I should just firewall them away.
Cyveillance netblocks:
65.118.41.192 - 65.118.41.223
63.148.99.224 - 63.148.99.255
Anybody know what blocks BayTSP uses for their spiders?
The Secure Microwave is actually TWO microwaves in one! One "regular" 200W microwave that can make popcorn and heat coffee, and a "premium" 800W microwave that can cook full meals.
Please note: if there is more than one adult in the kitchen, ONLY the "regular" mode can be used. If your friends and family would like to enjoy food heated by the premium Secure Microwave, they should buy their own!
No, really this new format is crap. First of all, for home users, CD quality, length, and form factor are all just fine. Even if you're an "audiophile" who likes to pretend that your hearing goes past 20kHz, most CDs aren't recorded to their full potential in the studio anyway. No value-add here.
And let me guess, the record labels won't sue you for distributing high-quality rips of the "regular CD" portion? WRONG! Now they'll just have TWO possible excuses to sue you. Copyright law doesn't go away if there are two copies of the music on the CD.
The current CD format (unbroken) is fine for mainstream music. Portable, big enough for good artwork, easily copied, and high quality.
Support for the terminal speeds B57600 and B115200 has been added.
Now I can use my new 56k modem! Pretty soon, every ISP will be using this fast new speed of modem, it will be cool! Gopher's gonna FLY on this baby!
Okay just kidding, glad to see HURD is still alive. I remember first reading about it long ago and thinking, hey, finally a modern OS. But here I am still using a monolithic kernel after all these years, and it works just fine. Good luck to the HURD folks, maybe my kids will use it. :-)
Heh, think of MP3 defects as an unintended remix. It's mostly noise anyway, so what's the problem with changing it around. There have been artists who distributed their (vinyl) records without sleeves, in the hopes that the inevitable scratches and so forth would add a little "character".
I believe some of these glitchy folks have already played with encoding something over and over again until it becomes unrecognizable. MP3 decay does have a unique and recognizable effect on sounds (kinda like how JPG artifacts are recognizable).
Of course the artists could just distribute PROGRAMS instead of audio files. I've seen a lot of that lately. For instance this CD by Kim Cascone that comes with some of the software used to generate the CD. I played with that shit for hours!
Hmm, another /. article about music I've been listening to for years. I hope some of you folks check this stuff and other electronic music out, there's so much cool non-RIAA stuff out there, and so much stuff that will challange pre-conceived notions, etc., etc.
Though I always called this type of music "MINIMAL" (written in all uppercase for irony ;-) and it's been around longer than "Macs" (true, most electronic musicians use Macs but that's not important).
Part of the appeal of this minimal electronic music for me is that it takes machine/electronic sounds and "places them with intent". Usually we are surrounded by noise that we have no control over, but what if you could control it. For example your P4 on your desk is making a bunch of noise, mostly fan noise. What if you could take that noise and chop it up and play with rhythms and so forth? Maybe make a short beep into a beat, make the hard drive access noise into another beat, etc.
My favorite stuff is from Taylor Deupree's 12k label and mille plateaux.. I like to play it on the computer while working, just barely mixing with the sounds of the fans and the keyboard, and adding in a little rhythm or unpredictability to take away the monotony of the usual machine sounds. Was that little beep from the OS or the CD? Has my fan speed suddenly changed? Etc.
My CD recommendation at the moment would be Frank Bretschneider & Taylor Deupree: Balance on Mille Pleateaux. It really isn't a pure minimal CD, it has a techno beat, but the sound is very clicky and micro, with static and beeps, etc. It's an awesome CD, very listenable, and comes with a video for one of the pieces consisting of pulsating white square on a blue background that visually represents the music.
Something like Maildir .. if the FS is slow and can't handle that kind of application, then we need to improve our filesystems!
Lots of applications need lightweight databases with indexes, locking, and atomic operations. Why not bake this into the filesystem, and it won't have to be just for email, it will have many uses.
I was thinking about this the other day as I was working on a logging system for a large in-house email filtering system.. similar problem, except instead of storing emails, I'm storing small XML fragments describing the structure of each email and what was done to each. So far the easiest solution was large monolithic XML files, and an external index pointing in the large file (i.e., like mbox + a DB index). As it grows we'll probably have to move it to a "real" database.
There is a need for something like sleepycat DB + ReiserFS on steriods..
Whew, good thing you caught it in time! Don't worry, the credit card companies can take care of it, no worries, just enter your name,credit card number, social security number, and mother's maiden name at each of the following URLs:
(Those all use "ell" instead of "eye" when possible.. they look exactly the same with my fonts.. Since there already "homographs" in plain ASCII, and plus Javascript mouseovers can be used to change the browser status area, and plus many people don't even fully understand the difference between "microsoft.com" and "microsoft.evil.com", this Unicode trick is nothing to worry (more) about!)
Wow, depending on which browser I use, it looks either like a screenful of JAVASCRIPT ALERTS or the KDE bomb (Konquerer dying with a segfault).
score: F+
Anybody have good reviews/recommends on Flex/micro ATX cases and P3 motherboards? I want to make a small router/gateway PC and so far I've found el-cheapo cases and Soldam. The Soldams are nice but too nice. I want something like this:
Small and flat, no vents on top if possible.. think of a shrunken-down 2U rack server. No cubes.
space for a floppy, CDROM, one PCI card, one HD.
built in VGA graphics of any quality
built-in 10/100 ethernet and one serial port
quiet would be nice..would like to run it with just the PS fan.. probably I'd underclock it.. it's replacing a 486 so there's no problem with speed
Anybody built something like this?
Like Napster, Audiogalaxy seeks to profit from its [music sharing :)] system by building an extensive user base to attract advertisers and investment dollars.
RIAA Exec #1: Bob, how's our new "file-sharing" service coming along, you know, the one that grants users the right to listen to a song on one computer for 30 minutes a day, all for $9.99 a month, and if you violate the terms of service, the FBI is notified directly?
RIAA Exec #2: *clik clik* Hmm, it's coming along okay Sue, three people have signed up in the past month alone. Not bad but we just can't seem to get volume of users we were predicting.
RIAA Exec #1: Actually one of those was me, and the other two were Hillary. We need to figure out what type of file sharing service people really want. If only there was some kind of "model" or "prototype" we could study. If only we could figure out some way to use the internet to profit from a music sharing system by building an extensive user base to attract advertisers and investment dollars. If only there was some way to do that.
RIAA Exec #2: I have no idea. To be honest I'm not even sure what the internet is, isn't it like a modem? I heard that once. Oh well, it's 1pm already, the work day is over, time to go golfing!
RIAA Exec #1: Good thing, my brain hurts.