So, they say that it will pass Earth this fall, and that chances of it hitting Earth are incredibly small. Like 1000000:1. So in the summer they'll say that chances are more like 10000:1. By the time it will be week or two till the pass they'll say the odds are 100:1.
Wait, where did I read this? Right, it's about time to refresh this cute Niven piece;)
Only, when you copy several GB of files between partitions, suddenly all your apps are swapped out and you have to wait >10sec to type url into firefox address bar.
I understand the page-cache, sometimes I even find it great, but it is kind of stupid when VM swaps out working httpd in order to read into the cache some large file. Only to clean the cache seconds later and swap-in the deamon back.
Robert
PS I get hit by ``swap all apps out when you copy the couple GB file'' constantly -- I've got 0.5G ram, and reagularly master DVDs.
Don't know about iChat, but MSN Messenger uses completely interoperable SIP. I even used MSN Messenger as a client to access Free World Dial-up (FWD). Or was it Windows Messenger? Anyway, it was the client installed by default in Windows XP.
Robert
Re:Bad Science
on
A New Ice Age?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
...one of the last ice ages was caused...
I just wanted to remind you and everyone else, that we are living in the last Ice Age, it didn't end yet.
The climat we are experiencing for the last 12000 years or so is a moderate warming during an Ice Age, nothing special. And yet all our civilisation was built in and depends on these rather uncommon (for this planet) conditions.
There was an attempt in Poland to tax linux this way. The thinking behind it was that if it is a gift for a commercial entity, than said entity has to pay Donation and Inheritance tax for it. And the base for this tax wouldn't be the price paid (zero). As it is with all donations, the base for the purpose of taxation is normal market price. Polish Revenue Service wanted it to be price of MS Office for OOo and price of Win NT/2k for Linux system.
Now, this news we are writing about is April 1st, but the history with trying to tax Linux, Open Office etc in Poland was true. Luckily it failed, although Finance Ministry didn't issue official statement or act about it in order to not tie hands of some enterprising clerks in revenue service.
Unfortunatelly I cannot find anything about it in English. If you know Polish google for site:linuxnews.pl podatek
Was it just the words "iPod Killer" that prompted the strong opinions, or was it the underlying concept of a multi-purpose device?
It was neither.
It was the idea that overpiced, overblown, heavy as hell device that hardly fits even in oversized pockets could compete with slick, cheap, cute device that does one thing very well, weighs next to nothing and works three times longer on single charge.
Don't get me wrong, I am not ipod owner. I don't even consider buying ipod or ipod mini -- they don't support vorbis, which is large part of my collection.
But I'm sure I won't buy any heavy brick that's even bulkier than my current minidisc and lasts less than 10hrs on single charge.
#/etc/apt/sources.list #mplayer and other video stuff deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ unstable main # misc audio stuff deb http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/xmixahlx/debian /./
and everything I need is there to apt-get. Only hydrogen audio is pinned to not interfere with normal debian packages:
(2) The private-key is kept on the mail servers at example.com
No, and that's the beauty of it.
Domain's private key doesn't have to be stored anywhere on the net. On mailserver of this domain is another cert (private+public) signed with IN CRT for example.com. But the real private key signing all those certs is only on the terminal disconnected from the net entirelly, used for batch-signing of client certificates.
This way you cannot crack into the computer to steal private key because it isn't anywhere on the net.
Well, the better yet news it that you could use it as replacement for both SPF (i.e. sending directly to recipient) and SMTP-AUTH (i.e. sending via smarthost).
In case when mail server finds out that the session is signed with cert ``blessed'' by its own IN CRT, it could allow the messages send in this session to be relayed anywhere sender wants. It would have to have matching domain still, because server wouldn't have the means to deliver it otherwise.
I was trying to post something about this method to Ask Slashdot about a month ago, but editors keep it ``pending'' indefinitelly... The question was ``what am I missing?'' since this method seems so obvious, elegant and simple, that I am surprised that no one came out with this before.
When using certificates, such as X.509 or TLS, some type of certificate authority must be available. Unfortunately, if the certificates are stored in DNS then the private keys must be available for validation. (And if a spammer has access to the private keys, then they can generate valid public keys.)
Someone, either me or the author of the article is on crack. I was under the impression that one does not have to have private key in order to validate the signature.
Lets assume that there are CRT records that store SSL certificate for clients allowed to send mail on the behalf of the domain.
example.com. IN CRT "Certificate goes here"
Client connects via SMTP-TLS session signed with Client Certificate.
Client sends SMTP command:
MAIL From: <example@example.com>
Server checks CRT record for sender domain and looks if Client Certificate that signed the session is signed with this domain's certificate.
If not, than reject the offer with:
550 You don't have valid CERT for sending as @example.com
end everybody's happy.
Now somebody tell me, in which step one needs private key to verify certs?
It certainly isn't point&click dvd creator, everything has to be written in xml files defining dvd structure. But it has support for buttons, multiple menus of all types (i.e. root, title, subpicture etc). It also allows to write programs running on DVD Player virtual machine.
dvdauthor also contains software to multiplex graphical and textual subtitles into mpeg2 stream (spumux) as well as software to extract subtitles from existing mpeg2 stream, such as VOB files (spuunmux).
You will need lots of other programs to create your dvd videos, like mplex from mjpegtools, some mpeg encoder (transcode or mencoder from mplayer), toolame and/or ffmpeg for creation of proper mpeg2 audio tracks, sox for occasional resampling of audio (dvd needs 48kHz sound whereas audio is often available in 44.1kHz).
If you think it looks cryptic, you are right: it is. But after a while one manages to handle this whole mess and with the help of several scripts make his own video dvds with separate audio tracks, chapters, multiple subtitles and much, much more.
I find this whole idea stupid: learn to write better, so the computer can understand my handwriting. In my book, when computer cannot understand my writing, it's something wrong with the computer (or the software in this case), not with me.
That's the main reason I use my Palm less and less these days. Keyboard works ok for me and if some computer doesn't let me use this input method it is inherently broken, period.
More the memory bandwidth issue than anything else. Intel, even with the server processors, is stuck at 533 MHz front side bus
It's not even, it's especially. Intel server processors have worse fsb and throughput than Intel desktop parts. And in case of Intel MP system all processors share single FSB -- the more processor, the more each of them is bandwith-starved. It isn't so bad at 2P, but it's much worse at 4P.
Whole EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and Asia uses 900/1800. There were also talks about using 450, but I don't know if anything came out of this.
Both 900 and 1800 are used concurrently. Because of signal propagation issues, the higher the frequency, the smaller (and more densely packed) are the cells.
Hence 1800 is used in urban areas and on communication lines, while 900 is used elsewhere. This whole deal with 450 was to use it in even less populated areas. Additionally, almost everywhere there is 1800 there is also 900 for people with old handsets, or American triband (1900/850/900). Most European handsets is dualband 900/1800 and European triband handsets are usually 900/1800/1900.
So, 900 isn't on the way out by any means. It's rather the most useful GSM freq in Europe.
Back in the day, when the world was young there was only one standard for joysticks, the Atari joystick. It was one button and four directions (plus four semidirections).
So if you have a joystick from your old C64, Amiga, Spectrum (connected via interface), Amstrad, Atari (XL, XE, ST, or any Atari console), you can use it with this controler on your PC.
There were other joysticks using this same plug, but different wiring (Sega, MSX, afair Nintendo), so if the interface doesn't have switches you can't use them.
Some of them were really cool, and 10 year old Quickshot joysticks are still working fine, in contrary to my overpriced badly designed joysticks bought a year or two ago.
Well, obviously I fell victim of Polish and Ukrainian propaganda (both at the end of nineties/beginning of this century).
There were no volunteers from Russia. Only from Ukraine.
And all people living in Ukraine are/were Ukrainians? There were no Russians or rusified Ukrainians? I was under the impression that huge Russian minorities in all (former) member states were the main obstacle on the way to full independence (or was it majorities in some of them?). Belarus being the example of full reversal of this process.
Do you know that order to celebrate 1st May in Kyiv were received from Moscow? Russians knew about catastrophe but issued that order anyway.
And sadly this is the prime example of dictatorship state... But it doesn't take national disaster and communist dictatorship to endanger people via exposure to radiation at gunpoint. Just read about American soldiers that were used as guinea pigs in nuclear tests.
I guess my point was, that you don't have to point the gun at people to make them save their families and friends, even if the effort may be fatal for them. No matter if the country they live in is independent democratic state or any flavour of dictatorship.
Robert
PS Some misunderstanding may have risen from the fact that I rarely use the term ``Soviet Union''. For me it was just a Russian Empire, no different from before 1918. The only thing that changed was ``royal family''. It was neither soviet, nor union, just Russia and its colonies.
I did welcome independent states on our eastern border and grieved the fall of Belarus independency later on, because I am afraid of the madman state that Russia is. Not that I don't like Russian people -- they are as good or as bad as Germans or Canadians. Or any other nation, for that matter. But the Russia-state seems to be cursed to me. Ruled by madmen for centuries with its citizens paying the bill of blood for their leaders.
and what with the no-soviet union anymore, good luck convincing anyone to go to ground 0 and clean it up (rather than forcing them to do it at gunpoint.)
This may surprise you, but most of people that secured reactor were volunteers. Firemen, soldiers and miners from all over the country were there of their own will despite knowing that they will probably die.
This nicely shows that Russia was not only Evil Empire but also a home, ``matushka rassyia'' for millions of people.
You would not believe what my ex was writing and receiving via email account on the computer that I was one and only root on. Just hours after a break up and lots of stupid accusations against me.
I guess it could be as important for her as those matters are for sco execs.
Robert
PS I refrained from posting this anonymously -- she know about it anyway;)
MS gives away IE to shut down Netscape. [...] So if they should take over the search world, can we really trust it to reflect accurately?
Yeah, like, Microsoft created game console and won 99% of console market.
They'd have to do it better than the competition to grab the market, later they can do whatever they want. That's what they did during the browser wars. Same goes with media player. They couldn't do it with XBox, and there's not many chances that they could do it with search engine.
History of MS is full of failed products they'd like us to forget.
What really bugs me about patents isn't the ``obvious inventions'' like ``internet auctions'' or ``method of combining two numbers in the way that the end result consists of the sum of the numbers''.
I really can't understand patents for engineering methods and devices that cannot be build at the time of patent's granting. IMO working prototype should be a part of patent application. Lack of working prototype means that you don't know how to build it, hence you shouldn't own the patent in the first place.
Otherwise what's to stop me from patenting ``cold fusion'' and sitting on those patents while bribing politicians to extend the patent expiration date ad infinitum and waiting for someone else to actually make it possible?
Robert
PS Mark my words: patents' expiration extension will be the next big thing like the copyrights extension is now. ``Meat and metal'' technologies didn't need it (they usually were obsolete long before patent's expiration), but software and business methods patents are a perfect target for such campaign.
Slashdot Mirror
So, they say that it will pass Earth this fall, and that chances of it hitting Earth are incredibly small. Like 1000000:1. So in the summer they'll say that chances are more like 10000:1. By the time it will be week or two till the pass they'll say the odds are 100:1.
;)
Wait, where did I read this? Right, it's about time to refresh this cute Niven piece
Robert
Only, when you copy several GB of files between partitions, suddenly all your apps are swapped out and you have to wait >10sec to type url into firefox address bar.
I understand the page-cache, sometimes I even find it great, but it is kind of stupid when VM swaps out working httpd in order to read into the cache some large file. Only to clean the cache seconds later and swap-in the deamon back.
Robert
PS I get hit by ``swap all apps out when you copy the couple GB file'' constantly -- I've got 0.5G ram, and reagularly master DVDs.
This is old news.
;)
Atlantis is a lost colony of the Ancients. There will be series about it starting around July, 22 episodes or so.
Robert
PS
Don't know about iChat, but MSN Messenger uses completely interoperable SIP. I even used MSN Messenger as a client to access Free World Dial-up (FWD). Or was it Windows Messenger? Anyway, it was the client installed by default in Windows XP.
Robert
...one of the last ice ages was caused...
I just wanted to remind you and everyone else, that we are living in the last Ice Age, it didn't end yet.
The climat we are experiencing for the last 12000 years or so is a moderate warming during an Ice Age, nothing special. And yet all our civilisation was built in and depends on these rather uncommon (for this planet) conditions.
No, it isn't.
There was an attempt in Poland to tax linux this way. The thinking behind it was that if it is a gift for a commercial entity, than said entity has to pay Donation and Inheritance tax for it. And the base for this tax wouldn't be the price paid (zero). As it is with all donations, the base for the purpose of taxation is normal market price. Polish Revenue Service wanted it to be price of MS Office for OOo and price of Win NT/2k for Linux system.
Now, this news we are writing about is April 1st, but the history with trying to tax Linux, Open Office etc in Poland was true. Luckily it failed, although Finance Ministry didn't issue official statement or act about it in order to not tie hands of some enterprising clerks in revenue service.
Unfortunatelly I cannot find anything about it in English. If you know Polish google for site:linuxnews.pl podatek
Robert
Spotkajmy si 17 (siedemnastego) kwietnia 2004. (Polski)
Robert
PS 17 aprilya 2004 in Russian too, IIRC.
Was it just the words "iPod Killer" that prompted the strong opinions, or was it the underlying concept of a multi-purpose device?
It was neither.
It was the idea that overpiced, overblown, heavy as hell device that hardly fits even in oversized pockets could compete with slick, cheap, cute device that does one thing very well, weighs next to nothing and works three times longer on single charge.
Don't get me wrong, I am not ipod owner. I don't even consider buying ipod or ipod mini -- they don't support vorbis, which is large part of my collection.
But I'm sure I won't buy any heavy brick that's even bulkier than my current minidisc and lasts less than 10hrs on single charge.
Robert
Subject says it all ;)
(2) The private-key is kept on the mail servers at example.com
No, and that's the beauty of it.
Domain's private key doesn't have to be stored anywhere on the net. On mailserver of this domain is another cert (private+public) signed with IN CRT for example.com. But the real private key signing all those certs is only on the terminal disconnected from the net entirelly, used for batch-signing of client certificates.
This way you cannot crack into the computer to steal private key because it isn't anywhere on the net.
Robert
Well, the better yet news it that you could use it as replacement for both SPF (i.e. sending directly to recipient) and SMTP-AUTH (i.e. sending via smarthost).
In case when mail server finds out that the session is signed with cert ``blessed'' by its own IN CRT, it could allow the messages send in this session to be relayed anywhere sender wants. It would have to have matching domain still, because server wouldn't have the means to deliver it otherwise.
I was trying to post something about this method to Ask Slashdot about a month ago, but editors keep it ``pending'' indefinitelly... The question was ``what am I missing?'' since this method seems so obvious, elegant and simple, that I am surprised that no one came out with this before.
Robert
Someone, either me or the author of the article is on crack. I was under the impression that one does not have to have private key in order to validate the signature.
Lets assume that there are CRT records that store SSL certificate for clients allowed to send mail on the behalf of the domain.
Now somebody tell me, in which step one needs private key to verify certs?
Robert
dvdauthor is a very good software.
It certainly isn't point&click dvd creator, everything has to be written in xml files defining dvd structure. But it has support for buttons, multiple menus of all types (i.e. root, title, subpicture etc). It also allows to write programs running on DVD Player virtual machine.
dvdauthor also contains software to multiplex graphical and textual subtitles into mpeg2 stream (spumux) as well as software to extract subtitles from existing mpeg2 stream, such as VOB files (spuunmux).
You will need lots of other programs to create your dvd videos, like mplex from mjpegtools, some mpeg encoder (transcode or mencoder from mplayer), toolame and/or ffmpeg for creation of proper mpeg2 audio tracks, sox for occasional resampling of audio (dvd needs 48kHz sound whereas audio is often available in 44.1kHz).
If you think it looks cryptic, you are right: it is. But after a while one manages to handle this whole mess and with the help of several scripts make his own video dvds with separate audio tracks, chapters, multiple subtitles and much, much more.
Robert
I find this whole idea stupid: learn to write better, so the computer can understand my handwriting. In my book, when computer cannot understand my writing, it's something wrong with the computer (or the software in this case), not with me.
That's the main reason I use my Palm less and less these days. Keyboard works ok for me and if some computer doesn't let me use this input method it is inherently broken, period.
Robert
More the memory bandwidth issue than anything else. Intel, even with the server processors, is stuck at 533 MHz front side bus
It's not even, it's especially. Intel server processors have worse fsb and throughput than Intel desktop parts. And in case of Intel MP system all processors share single FSB -- the more processor, the more each of them is bandwith-starved. It isn't so bad at 2P, but it's much worse at 4P.
Robert
Whole EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and Asia uses 900/1800. There were also talks about using 450, but I don't know if anything came out of this.
Both 900 and 1800 are used concurrently. Because of signal propagation issues, the higher the frequency, the smaller (and more densely packed) are the cells.
Hence 1800 is used in urban areas and on communication lines, while 900 is used elsewhere. This whole deal with 450 was to use it in even less populated areas. Additionally, almost everywhere there is 1800 there is also 900 for people with old handsets, or American triband (1900/850/900). Most European handsets is dualband 900/1800 and European triband handsets are usually 900/1800/1900.
So, 900 isn't on the way out by any means. It's rather the most useful GSM freq in Europe.
Robert
Why do you they are trying to make collection of facts copyrightable? ;)
Robert
Back in the day, when the world was young there was only one standard for joysticks, the Atari joystick. It was one button and four directions (plus four semidirections).
So if you have a joystick from your old C64, Amiga, Spectrum (connected via interface), Amstrad, Atari (XL, XE, ST, or any Atari console), you can use it with this controler on your PC.
There were other joysticks using this same plug, but different wiring (Sega, MSX, afair Nintendo), so if the interface doesn't have switches you can't use them.
Some of them were really cool, and 10 year old Quickshot joysticks are still working fine, in contrary to my overpriced badly designed joysticks bought a year or two ago.
Robert
...looks more like tachikoma to me.
Robert
What are you talking about?
;)
Well, obviously I fell victim of Polish and Ukrainian propaganda (both at the end of nineties/beginning of this century).
There were no volunteers from Russia. Only from Ukraine.
And all people living in Ukraine are/were Ukrainians? There were no Russians or rusified Ukrainians? I was under the impression that huge Russian minorities in all (former) member states were the main obstacle on the way to full independence (or was it majorities in some of them?). Belarus being the example of full reversal of this process.
Do you know that order to celebrate 1st May in Kyiv were received from Moscow? Russians knew about catastrophe but issued that order anyway.
And sadly this is the prime example of dictatorship state... But it doesn't take national disaster and communist dictatorship to endanger people via exposure to radiation at gunpoint. Just read about American soldiers that were used as guinea pigs in nuclear tests.
I guess my point was, that you don't have to point the gun at people to make them save their families and friends, even if the effort may be fatal for them. No matter if the country they live in is independent democratic state or any flavour of dictatorship.
Robert
PS Some misunderstanding may have risen from the fact that I rarely use the term ``Soviet Union''. For me it was just a Russian Empire, no different from before 1918. The only thing that changed was ``royal family''. It was neither soviet, nor union, just Russia and its colonies.
I did welcome independent states on our eastern border and grieved the fall of Belarus independency later on, because I am afraid of the madman state that Russia is. Not that I don't like Russian people -- they are as good or as bad as Germans or Canadians. Or any other nation, for that matter. But the Russia-state seems to be cursed to me. Ruled by madmen for centuries with its citizens paying the bill of blood for their leaders.
PPS I am from Poland. Did it show?
and what with the no-soviet union anymore, good luck convincing anyone to go to ground 0 and clean it up (rather than forcing them to do it at gunpoint.)
This may surprise you, but most of people that secured reactor were volunteers. Firemen, soldiers and miners from all over the country were there of their own will despite knowing that they will probably die.
This nicely shows that Russia was not only Evil Empire but also a home, ``matushka rassyia'' for millions of people.
Robert
Obviously you overestimate people in general.
;)
You would not believe what my ex was writing and receiving via email account on the computer that I was one and only root on. Just hours after a break up and lots of stupid accusations against me.
I guess it could be as important for her as those matters are for sco execs.
Robert
PS I refrained from posting this anonymously -- she know about it anyway
MS gives away IE to shut down Netscape. [...]
So if they should take over the search world, can we really trust it to reflect accurately?
Yeah, like, Microsoft created game console and won 99% of console market.
They'd have to do it better than the competition to grab the market, later they can do whatever they want. That's what they did during the browser wars. Same goes with media player. They couldn't do it with XBox, and there's not many chances that they could do it with search engine.
History of MS is full of failed products they'd like us to forget.
Robert
What really bugs me about patents isn't the ``obvious inventions'' like ``internet auctions'' or ``method of combining two numbers in the way that the end result consists of the sum of the numbers''.
I really can't understand patents for engineering methods and devices that cannot be build at the time of patent's granting. IMO working prototype should be a part of patent application. Lack of working prototype means that you don't know how to build it, hence you shouldn't own the patent in the first place.
Otherwise what's to stop me from patenting ``cold fusion'' and sitting on those patents while bribing politicians to extend the patent expiration date ad infinitum and waiting for someone else to actually make it possible?
Robert
PS Mark my words: patents' expiration extension will be the next big thing like the copyrights extension is now. ``Meat and metal'' technologies didn't need it (they usually were obsolete long before patent's expiration), but software and business methods patents are a perfect target for such campaign.