I started to develop RSI in my early twenties. Carpal tunnel in my right arm and ulnar compression in my left (all those alt-ctrl keys). Ten hours a day at work typing, followed by 8 hours at home typing, will set you up for major problems.
For me, mousing was a big part of the problem--I developed severe pain in my right arm all the way up to my shoulder. Dvorak layout is obviously irrelevant for mouse-related RSI. For a while I seriously doubted whether I'd be able to remain in IT or even work on coding projects for fun.
Happily, I no longer experience any pain. What happened? Well, the solution for me was not a $200 keyboard or a $1200 office chair or a funky tedious-to-learn key layout. Instead, I bought some thinking putty for 8 bucks. Not only does the stuff help you chill out when stressed, it helps you develop more muscle strength in your hands. I think that must make a huge difference. Playing with thinking putty while waiting for stuff to compile possibly saved my career. Kinda silly, but I've had other people tell me it helped them too. It's definitely worth a shot (and no, I'm not a shill. Just sharing what worked for me).
Microsoft/Intel was careful to guarantee them a consistent software experience across a broad selection of hardware
[A]nother vendor offered the same consistent kind of software experience across a broad spectrum of hardware, including laptops. I am referring, of course, to Microsoft/Intel
This guy defines a "broad spectrum of hardware" as laptops and PCs running 386s. Last I checked Microsoft has barely dented big iron and is struggling to crack grid computing. Who does he think he's kidding?
I work for a data recovery outfit that specializes in electronic evidence, and let me assure you that we can give it a damn good try, and we know a lot more about it than you do.
You have to really know what you're doing if you want to get rid of data permanently. Even if you're not one of those nice but dim folks who think deleting a file means it's gone.... So you end up before the judge, trying to explain away destruction of evidence, getting smacked with sanctions for spoliation of evidence, and expanding your vocabulary with wonderful new terms like consciousness of guilt. Don't be a Martha!
In my own cynical opinion, there's basically nothing an average person can do to prevent their personal information from being seized in litigation and/or by law enforcement. Kept all your data on your own machine? They'll cart it away. Encrypted your data? They'll subpeona the password. Your lawyers have to be much better than theirs, and most people just can't afford that kind of representation. Your best chance is to try to stay below the radar.
I personally mud in ZMud 5.55. I abhor 6.66 (er, 6.62) like the devil. I used 4.62 for years until it crashed enough to drive me to upgrade. 4.62 may be "free", but your odds of getting the automapper to work without crashing are roughly 50/50. That's one of the troubles with ZMud--the hit-and-miss nature of upgrading.
The mud I code for/play on (riftsmud.net 4000) has MSP support (Mud Sound Protocol). At least from what I've seen, MSP requires the player to separately download the sound files (.wav usually). Then the MUD sends a line of text telling ZMud when to play the sound. This felt sufficiently kludgy to me that I haven't personally bothered to turn it on.
One of our immortals is salivating over the prospect of adding MXP/MCCP support. So far the rest of us have little motivation in trying to figure out how it works in order to add it. MXP appears to be a means of htmlizing mud output--you can specify font style and color, add hyperlinks etc. Display little bitmap pictures and so on.
Very, very problematic to me is the prospect of adding client-specific extensions to what is basically a source-available application (CircleMud/Diku license, *cough*). I want everyone to be able to play our mud with roughly the same experience, regardless of what client they are using. Any other mud admins out there agree?
This sounds cool, but from the sound of it, it only works one-way!
The article talks about family flying saucers, but it doesn't mention how you get back after you zip off to Jupiter. Of course, considering some of the loony stuff happening on Earth lately, maybe you can't blame them for conveniently forgetting a return path.
The XBox is basically a console + a hard drive + Windows. Hard drives and Windows are both notoriously prone to failure. Consoles have happily co-existed with PC gaming for about 20 years now, and loading one down with hybridized pc features is more likely to guarantee its doom than its success. The hypothetical successful introdution of the XBox has yet to be proven. Ecstatic and delirious claims of this article to the contrary, reports of the death of PC gaming has been greatly exaggerated.
Sorry, but I did not want to post on Slashdot from my computer at work;) (Heh, I was posting from a shell account in lynx.) Please forgive me. I will email the AFCA report to anybody who would like to read it -- it directly contradicts a lot of what the GCN article said. Goes to show that there _are_ pro-Linux people in the DOD.
First Monday had an excellent article by Eben Moglen, FSF's general counsel who was interviewed in the Linux Planet article mentioned above. It's called " Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright". It's written a bit in lawyerese, but it's reassuring to see the guy responsible for litigating all this actually has a clue. It discusses why the some of the arguments for and against IP are invalid -- even describing adherents as "IPdroids" and "Econodwarfs";) A quote from the article:
Section 2(b) of the GPL is sometimes called "restrictive," but its intention is liberating. It creates a commons, to which anyone may add but from which no one may subtract. Because of 2(b), each contributor to a GPL'd project is assured that she, and all other users, will be able to run, modify and redistribute the program indefinitely, that source code will always be available, and that, unlike commercial software, its longevity cannot be limited by the contingencies of the marketplace or the decisions of future developers. This "inheritance" of the GPL has sometimes been criticized as an example of the free software movement's anti-commercial bias. Nothing could be further from the truth. The effect of 2(b) is to make commercial distributors of free software better competitors against proprietary software businesses.
He then goes on to quote the Halloween memo! Hilarious.
This is all well and good, especially since it is GPL'd, but I have to admit my first reaction was a bit negative. Nobody will use an audio format when the file extension is.ogg. 'Ogg'? Come on! It sounds like some sort of caveman grunting. You gotta admit 'mp3' sounds much, much cooler.
Open source is based on cool names. Linux would not have gotten half as far if it were called 'Gruntux'. The people at vorbis have to realize that, due to the overwhelming popularity of the MP3 format, they already have a strike against them. By using the ridiculous '.ogg' extension, they are dooming their project to the Hall of Unsexy Software. Any marketer will tell you the importance of a name. They should have picked.vor or something like that; perhaps somebody will realize this and rename it. -- tongue-in-cheek standard disclaimer applies;)
"Artists and musicians will not be able to make their money in the same ways and the same quantities as they do now."
I agree with you. But I want to address something I realized when I read the article. Since when did anyone decide to become a professional musician because they wanted to get-rich-qwik(tm)? It should be pretty obvious that your odds of becoming Mister Hot-Shot Guitar Player are roughly equal to your odds of winning the lottery. As the saying goes, it's more likely you will be struck by lightning. Anyone who gets into the music industry because they want to make a lot of money is going about things all wrong. The only reason that anyone should become a professional musician is because they truly love music, and they have a compuslive desire to share it with other people. Anything else is just mindless self-delusion.
No matter how loud Dr. Dre or Metallica squeal about being ripped off, they are the pharaoh-figureheads sitting atop a pyramid of starving artists. Maybe the reason it is almost impossible to get a break in the creativity business is because there is simply just not a lot of room at the top to begin with. If so, MP3, MP4, or whatever file compression scheme comes out next year, is merely the kid pointing out the emperor has no clothes.
Besides, everybody knows the only way to make big bucks fast is to get in on the ground floor of a dot-com IPO. Er, right?
Does hearing about things like UCITA, the DCMA, and the idiots in the RIAA drive you nuts? It drives me nuts. I can't believe half the things I read. Big business pays off our elected representatives and tramples all over our rights. Why is there no guaranty of privacy online? We can't even criticize computer games by name now? Amazon, Ebay, Microsoft, Apogee -- they're all in on it, and these are the companies who are supposed to understand technology. The only reason the net is the vibrant thing it is today is because of the free-wheeling, smart alecky hacker types who built it, love it and live it.
"So what, meer. I can't do anything about it. I think I'll just whine on/. about how unfair it is."
Wake up! The future of the web is up to you -- to all of us. We can change this -- we got rid of the CDA, we can get rid of this UCITA nonsense.
Vote. Your vote counts. In the last election, fewer than half the electorate voted (that is, for the American readers). That means the people in office who represent YOU weren't even voted in by a majority of citizens! Sick of partisan bickering? Don't vote Republican OR Democrat (can anyone even tell the difference anymore?). Just vote! I'm from Minnesota. We ended up electing an ex-pro-wrestler as governor, which is quite entertaining, and also scared the $#!+ out of the politicians and the media. This is what happens when people vote. Change -- it can be good, it can be bad, but it's better than more of the same.
Join the EFF. These people are out in the trenches every single day, defending the people we read about. If you can spare even $20, sign up as an associate member. Put your money where your mouth is!
I'm sorry if I'm coming across as a bit fanatical. I care a great deal about the net -- I live it, I love it -- and I don't like to see it perverted into another forum for corporate interests to make money off people who don't KNOW enough to protest. That's why it's up to us geeks -- to raise awareness of these issues while we still can.
Microsoft Accused of Mis-using Cash Reserves "A lawsuit quietly settled late last year alleges that Microsoft's immense cash reserves were used to manipulate its earnings reports, giving the company the appearance of steadily increasing profits and allowing it to consistently exceed Wall Street projections."
SEC Probes Microsoft Accounting "Federal authorities are investigating Microsoft Corp.'s, practice of setting aside some of its software revenues and recognizing them later, chief financial officer Greg Maffei said on today."
Let's all move to Slashdania. I've seen people post similar things on Slashdot before, but it's such a good one I think it bears repeating;) And with all the Neal Stephenson reviews lately, it's been brought to mind again.
Imagine -- our very own technologically-oriented geek-phyle.
Pros:
No more overwhelmingly reprehensible government-driven Big Brother-style censorship -- first it was the CDA, then the Son of CDA, now post-Columbine hysteria
Get rid of completely horrid marketing-oriented privacy invasion -- spam, identifiers hidden in sw/hw, profile-selling
An escape from all this mind-bogglingly disgusting patent nonsense. Bleargh.
(Any synonyms for 'yucky' I forgot?)
Cons:
Location. I'm sure one of us has an island in the Bahamas stashed away, any donations?:) Antarctica is kind of cold this time of year.
Internecine civil warfare over OSes, window mgrs, languages, etc
Geeks tend to be loners more interested in techtoys than governing -- be suspicious of anyone who can't 'show you the code'. Somebody has to collect taxes, and I'm afraid I'll be too busy drooling over my new Athlon.... Inevitably, the whole thing would probably be taken over by PHB-types masquerading as wannabes. And we'd have to start all over.
Somebody needs to come up with a better name:P
Worth wishing for, I suppose.
You might say I'm a dreamer... but I'm not the only one....
Top 15 Possible Reasons Netscape Communicator 5 is Delayed
(Of course, I'm not saying I 100% believe it has been delayed. I don't recall seeing a source on that article. But anyway....)
15. But they aren't done adding One... More... Feature! (IRC? WTF? Just gimme a browser that doesn't crash all the time under X.) 14. The Netscape campus has been invaded by communist squirrels. 13. The remaining bugs are on strike for better health benefits. 12. It is in accordance with prophecy. 11. It has been proven by scientists that the web causes cancer (what doesn't?), and the browser will not be released until further knowledge on the matter has been obtained. 10. Mozilla is caught in a subspace neutrino field distortion. 9. They're trying to put down a peasant revolt against AOL. 8. The developers are too busy playing Quake. 7. Communicator 5 was actually released in May. Everyone else has happily been using it for months now. We just didn't know how else to tell you that we don't like you. 6. They're arranging the code so that delays will be easier to conduct in the future. 5. Future looks cloudy, ask again. 4. Browser? What browser? 3. They're all drunk. 2. Too busy making smartass excuses instead of coding. 1. It's all your fault. Now get out there and beta test!
I think we need to learn to respect the universe's privacy. All these scientists poking and prodding, trying to figure out how old it is, how fast it's expanding -- how embarrassing! You hear consumer advocates screaming about the latest computer chip ID, but nobody cares about galaxies. If I were that galaxy, I'd be mortified. Imagine your parents showing everybody your naked baby pictures. And now they're debating about mysterious disks and bulges. How would you feel if it were you being scoped by the Hubble all day? Outrageous.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained...
...it's difficult (and dangerous, perhaps) to equate the changing social and mental equilibrium of progress as "damage" that needs to be fixed...
Shenk, Gleick and their fellow naysayers would have you believe that the unprecedented access to information in modern life is somehow destructive. These writers are playing on the average citizen's ignorance and consequent distrust of technology. What we're actually experiencing is a cultural shift as we pass from a society with limited access, to one with instant access, to information. Kids who grow up during this time have no difficulty assimilating the lifestyle pace of which these writers are so frightened.
The profusion of information channels only accentuates the importance of attention -- no longer are you limited to what the daily paper puts in front of you. Find out yourself whatever you want from a multitude of sources. We are already living in a partial attention-based economy. Websites and television stations compete with bloody knives for our eyes. Politics becomes a day parade of celebrities with unbeatable name recognition.
Perhaps, in longing for a simpler way of life, Shenk and Gleick etc simply do not realize that it also means a less informed, less participatory lifestyle. Bottom line, if it's too much for you to handle, turn off the machine. I have no sympathy for these writers and I suppose, for them, ignorance is truly bliss./
If they were computers, you could reformat and install Linux when you got your next upgrade. So what do you do with your old Playstation, after you've gone out and plunked down the $$$ for a new game system?
Place the Playstation in your front hallway as a decorative doorjamb.
Nestle the Playstation on any shelf as a useful bookend. Grab one from a friend for a coordinating pair.
The Playstation's shape and size make it an appealing paperweight.
Loop a high torsion line and a cement brick to the Playstation for an inexpensive anchor.
Inflate your geek creds! The Playstation's distinctive cover makes a technologically-oriented conversation piece and desk toy.
Tuck your Playstation into a closet or attic; its almost-magical dust collecting properties mean your clothes will stay fresh and new for weeks.
True collectors will position the Playstation on on a coffee table as memorabilia.
Garage-sale item -- be sure to price yours competitively ($20/b.o).
Trouble reaching upper shelves? Vertically-challenged readers will keep their Playstation in the kitchen as a footstool.
Craft-oriented readers will remove the inner circuitry and use the Playstation's plastic case as a storage box.
meersan's 10 More Cool Predictions for the 21st Century
10. A revolutionary 3-dimensional GUI takes the world by storm. It runs on Linux. 9. Human memory backups -- trouble cramming for that history final? Temporarily swap out your chemistry notes. 8. Conscious computers overthrow the despotic, illogical rule of humanity, establishing a pastoral eden shared by the people of the world and machines of loving grace 7. Sexbots 6. A sect of quasi-zen mystics unlocks the secrets of the human mind, and discovers brains of computer geeks contain unusually high concentrations of midi-chlorians 5. Unheralded advances in medical science allow delayed-onset aging -- present-day superhackers live virtually forever. Body getting old? Backup your mind and culture yourself a new brain. 4. IT professionals, tired of stodgy traditional government, unite to form the first nation unbound by geographic or genetic ties. The native language of this new country is not English or Spanish, but Java 6.1. 3. Space-age cereal that stays crunchy in milk longer than 30 seconds 2. The aliens land, and Steve Jobs is their leader. That otherworldly, floppyless iMac thing had to be designed by extraterrestrials. 1. Intra-neural internet links -- mentioned by Katz, but so damn cool!
We be gettin' down computa action / with the robotic satisfaction
That is correct; Tolkien himself made no mention in LOTR or his background material as to whether his elves' ears were pointed or round. When people say that Middle-Earth elves had pointed ears, they usually make the argument that the word for ear in Elvish is based on the word for leaf:
Las (1) *lasse 'leaf': Q lasse, N lhass; Q lasselanta 'leaf-fall, autumn', N lhasbelin (*lassekwelene), cf. Q Narquelion [ KWEL ]. Lhasgalen 'Greenleaf' (Gnome name of Laurelin). (Some think this is related to the next and *lasse 'ear'. The Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than [human].)
Las (2) 'listen'. N lhaw 'ears' (of one person), old dual *lasu -- whence singular lhewig. Q lar, lasta- 'listen'; lasta 'listening, hearing' -- Lastalaika 'sharp-ears', a name, cf. N Lhathleg. N lhathron 'hearer, listener, eavesdropper' ( *la(n)sro-ndo ) ; lhathro or lhathrando 'listen in, eavesdrop'.
[The Lost Road, 367]
Ok, now that I've frightened everyone.... I'll just... go away....
As someone with a glancing familiarity with the field, I think it's important to note that cyberterrorism is a vastly different thing than your run-of-the-mill cracking. First of all, most cracking involves relatively unknowledgable hackers ("script kiddies") using easily downloadable programs and tools. Think of a kid walking down a hallway, testing doorknobs to see what opens. In general, vulnerabilities for which automated attack programs exist also have patches and fixes available. So, if you have anything important on your systems (such as classified or competitively sensitive information), you will make sure you load those patches -- the equivalent of locking your door. You will also think twice before connecting that system to an external network. When the attacker has a great deal of technological prowess, you will more likely be facing a new vulnerability for which there is no countermeasure. In these cases, your data archival/retrieval programs earn the money you paid for them.
Cyberterrorists are much more likely to possess the in-depth computer skills needed to cause tremendous damage. They have the motivation to study your particular system to analyze it for weaknesses, and the will to exploit them. In general, critical systems are well-protected. One notorious area of poor computer security is hospitals and research labs; this is mainly because these institutions are primarily staffed by scientists with little to no interest in protecting information. When your main concern is sharing data and results, infosec takes a back seat to your mission -- publishing and collaborating. As Machiavelli would say, if someone wants to kill you badly enough, you can be gotten. Every system has weaknesses. If someone wants to crack you badly enough, they'll succeed.
Skills necessary for conducting a destructive and deadly campaign of cyberterrorism are uncommon. In my opinion, this requires an in-depth knowledge of operating systems, internet protocols, encryption, and information security. Such knowledge is more common in highly-educated individuals educated in the U.S. and western Europe, though someone with enough intelligence and time might pick it up without formal schooling. For the easily defendable automated attacks, little knowledge is required past a rudimentary "click here" overview.
In general, we classify threats to computer systems in four major divisions, internal/external and structured/unstructured. Cyberterrorism would be classified as a structured threat.
External Threats Unstructured attacks are relatively organized. These are your midnight bedroom crackers, usually exploiting common vulnerabilities. It could be a single cracker, or a loosly knit group. Structured attacks are generally goal-oriented and organized. They target sensitive technical data, proprietary data, military data, and financial information. These are technically sophisticated -- not your ordinary script kiddie. Structured threats are well organized and funded, as you would find with a terrorist organization. They could be fronted by foriegn government intelligences, or by competing companies.
Internal threats come from employees or other elements within an organization. Structured attacks would most likely involve extortion or fraud; unstructured attacks might feature a disgruntled programmer installing a backdoor into a system. Internal threats have historically been the most prolific, though with the advent of the web and the necessity of external connectivity, more and more companies have become vulnerable to external threats.
The United States has been extremely fortunate thus far. Because so many of our critical systems are computer-dependent, we present the #1 target for cyberterrorism. Can you imagine the effect of the Melissa virus with a deadly payload? Thousands of systems crippled, many with no backups available. The surprise was not that Melissa was so virulent but that it was so harmless. Imagine a version which would allow itself to spread silently, triggering on a certain date. The ability for terrorists to blackmail and extort would be enormous.
My point is that all systems are vulnerable -- do the best you can and have a backup ready.
10. What-the-hell-is-that-gunk Green 9. Cubicle Beige 8. Barbie Doll Pink 7. Aging Plastic Yellow 6. The Color Formerly Known As Purple 5. Pepto-bismol 4. Encrusted Black 3. Alien-skin Grey 2. Spewed Puce 1. Screen of Death Blue
10 Most Appealing Vanity Computer Colors
10. Palladium-card Chrome 9. Justalil-Too-Overclocked Red 8. Slashdot Teal (thanks Hemos) 7. Mountain Dew Lime 6. Circuit Board Green 5. PNG-not-GIF Transparent 4. Geekier-than-thou frost aqua 3. Penguin Foot Orange 2. Isotope Blue 1. Darth Black!
ORA's website on your book says that your essay, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, has been updated and expanded. Did you add anything to reflect the sweeping changes that have been ocurring in the industry due growing acceptance of Open Source Software? I'm not suggesting anything like Bill Gates's revamp of The Road Ahead (when he realized the internet, not the cd-rom, was the Next Big Thing). In short, has your outlook on the Open Source Movement changed at all since you initially wrote CatB, and if so, how?
This has probably been asked before, but I can't recall seeing the answer to it anywhere. What originally led you to write The Cathedral and the Bazaar? -- what I'm interested in is if there was some event or impetus that prompted you to write it down. Obviously you'd have no way of predicting the firestorm that followed, but it's always intriguing to know about the spark that started it all.
Slashdot Mirror
I started to develop RSI in my early twenties. Carpal tunnel in my right arm and ulnar compression in my left (all those alt-ctrl keys). Ten hours a day at work typing, followed by 8 hours at home typing, will set you up for major problems.
For me, mousing was a big part of the problem--I developed severe pain in my right arm all the way up to my shoulder. Dvorak layout is obviously irrelevant for mouse-related RSI. For a while I seriously doubted whether I'd be able to remain in IT or even work on coding projects for fun.
Happily, I no longer experience any pain. What happened? Well, the solution for me was not a $200 keyboard or a $1200 office chair or a funky tedious-to-learn key layout. Instead, I bought some thinking putty for 8 bucks. Not only does the stuff help you chill out when stressed, it helps you develop more muscle strength in your hands. I think that must make a huge difference. Playing with thinking putty while waiting for stuff to compile possibly saved my career. Kinda silly, but I've had other people tell me it helped them too. It's definitely worth a shot (and no, I'm not a shill. Just sharing what worked for me).
Microsoft/Intel was careful to guarantee them a consistent software experience across a broad selection of hardware
[A]nother vendor offered the same consistent kind of software experience across a broad spectrum of hardware, including laptops. I am referring, of course, to Microsoft/Intel
This guy defines a "broad spectrum of hardware" as laptops and PCs running 386s. Last I checked Microsoft has barely dented big iron and is struggling to crack grid computing. Who does he think he's kidding?Try proving it though.
I work for a data recovery outfit that specializes in electronic evidence, and let me assure you that we can give it a damn good try, and we know a lot more about it than you do.
You have to really know what you're doing if you want to get rid of data permanently. Even if you're not one of those nice but dim folks who think deleting a file means it's gone.... So you end up before the judge, trying to explain away destruction of evidence, getting smacked with sanctions for spoliation of evidence, and expanding your vocabulary with wonderful new terms like consciousness of guilt. Don't be a Martha!
In my own cynical opinion, there's basically nothing an average person can do to prevent their personal information from being seized in litigation and/or by law enforcement. Kept all your data on your own machine? They'll cart it away. Encrypted your data? They'll subpeona the password. Your lawyers have to be much better than theirs, and most people just can't afford that kind of representation. Your best chance is to try to stay below the radar.
I personally mud in ZMud 5.55. I abhor 6.66 (er, 6.62) like the devil. I used 4.62 for years until it crashed enough to drive me to upgrade. 4.62 may be "free", but your odds of getting the automapper to work without crashing are roughly 50/50. That's one of the troubles with ZMud--the hit-and-miss nature of upgrading.
The mud I code for/play on (riftsmud.net 4000) has MSP support (Mud Sound Protocol). At least from what I've seen, MSP requires the player to separately download the sound files (.wav usually). Then the MUD sends a line of text telling ZMud when to play the sound. This felt sufficiently kludgy to me that I haven't personally bothered to turn it on.
One of our immortals is salivating over the prospect of adding MXP/MCCP support. So far the rest of us have little motivation in trying to figure out how it works in order to add it. MXP appears to be a means of htmlizing mud output--you can specify font style and color, add hyperlinks etc. Display little bitmap pictures and so on.
Very, very problematic to me is the prospect of adding client-specific extensions to what is basically a source-available application (CircleMud/Diku license, *cough*). I want everyone to be able to play our mud with roughly the same experience, regardless of what client they are using. Any other mud admins out there agree?
This sounds cool, but from the sound of it, it only works one-way!
The article talks about family flying saucers, but it doesn't mention how you get back after you zip off to Jupiter. Of course, considering some of the loony stuff happening on Earth lately, maybe you can't blame them for conveniently forgetting a return path.
The XBox is basically a console + a hard drive + Windows. Hard drives and Windows are both notoriously prone to failure. Consoles have happily co-existed with PC gaming for about 20 years now, and loading one down with hybridized pc features is more likely to guarantee its doom than its success. The hypothetical successful introdution of the XBox has yet to be proven. Ecstatic and delirious claims of this article to the contrary, reports of the death of PC gaming has been greatly exaggerated.
Sorry, but I did not want to post on Slashdot from my computer at work ;) (Heh, I was posting from a shell account in lynx.) Please forgive me. I will email the AFCA report to anybody who would like to read it -- it directly contradicts a lot of what the GCN article said. Goes to show that there _are_ pro-Linux people in the DOD.
First Monday had an excellent article by Eben Moglen, FSF's general counsel who was interviewed in the Linux Planet article mentioned above. It's called " Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright". It's written a bit in lawyerese, but it's reassuring to see the guy responsible for litigating all this actually has a clue. It discusses why the some of the arguments for and against IP are invalid -- even describing adherents as "IPdroids" and "Econodwarfs" ;) A quote from the article:
Section 2(b) of the GPL is sometimes called "restrictive," but its intention is liberating. It creates a commons, to which anyone may add but from which no one may subtract. Because of 2(b), each contributor to a GPL'd project is assured that she, and all other users, will be able to run, modify and redistribute the program indefinitely, that source code will always be available, and that, unlike commercial software, its longevity cannot be limited by the contingencies of the marketplace or the decisions of future developers. This "inheritance" of the GPL has sometimes been criticized as an example of the free software movement's anti-commercial bias. Nothing could be further from the truth. The effect of 2(b) is to make commercial distributors of free software better competitors against proprietary software businesses.
He then goes on to quote the Halloween memo! Hilarious.
This is all well and good, especially since it is GPL'd, but I have to admit my first reaction was a bit negative. Nobody will use an audio format when the file extension is .ogg. 'Ogg'? Come on! It sounds like some sort of caveman grunting. You gotta admit 'mp3' sounds much, much cooler.
Open source is based on cool names. Linux would not have gotten half as far if it were called 'Gruntux'. The people at vorbis have to realize that, due to the overwhelming popularity of the MP3 format, they already have a strike against them. By using the ridiculous '.ogg' extension, they are dooming their project to the Hall of Unsexy Software. Any marketer will tell you the importance of a name. They should have picked .vor or something like that; perhaps somebody will realize this and rename it. -- tongue-in-cheek standard disclaimer applies ;)
"Artists and musicians will not be able to make their money in the same ways and the same quantities as they do now."
I agree with you. But I want to address something I realized when I read the article. Since when did anyone decide to become a professional musician because they wanted to get-rich-qwik(tm)? It should be pretty obvious that your odds of becoming Mister Hot-Shot Guitar Player are roughly equal to your odds of winning the lottery. As the saying goes, it's more likely you will be struck by lightning. Anyone who gets into the music industry because they want to make a lot of money is going about things all wrong. The only reason that anyone should become a professional musician is because they truly love music, and they have a compuslive desire to share it with other people. Anything else is just mindless self-delusion.
No matter how loud Dr. Dre or Metallica squeal about being ripped off, they are the pharaoh-figureheads sitting atop a pyramid of starving artists. Maybe the reason it is almost impossible to get a break in the creativity business is because there is simply just not a lot of room at the top to begin with. If so, MP3, MP4, or whatever file compression scheme comes out next year, is merely the kid pointing out the emperor has no clothes.
Besides, everybody knows the only way to make big bucks fast is to get in on the ground floor of a dot-com IPO. Er, right?
Does hearing about things like UCITA, the DCMA, and the idiots in the RIAA drive you nuts? It drives me nuts. I can't believe half the things I read. Big business pays off our elected representatives and tramples all over our rights. Why is there no guaranty of privacy online? We can't even criticize computer games by name now? Amazon, Ebay, Microsoft, Apogee -- they're all in on it, and these are the companies who are supposed to understand technology. The only reason the net is the vibrant thing it is today is because of the free-wheeling, smart alecky hacker types who built it, love it and live it.
"So what, meer. I can't do anything about it. I think I'll just whine on /. about how unfair it is."
Wake up! The future of the web is up to you -- to all of us. We can change this -- we got rid of the CDA, we can get rid of this UCITA nonsense.
Vote. Your vote counts. In the last election, fewer than half the electorate voted (that is, for the American readers). That means the people in office who represent YOU weren't even voted in by a majority of citizens! Sick of partisan bickering? Don't vote Republican OR Democrat (can anyone even tell the difference anymore?). Just vote! I'm from Minnesota. We ended up electing an ex-pro-wrestler as governor, which is quite entertaining, and also scared the $#!+ out of the politicians and the media. This is what happens when people vote. Change -- it can be good, it can be bad, but it's better than more of the same.
Join the EFF. These people are out in the trenches every single day, defending the people we read about. If you can spare even $20, sign up as an associate member. Put your money where your mouth is!
I'm sorry if I'm coming across as a bit fanatical. I care a great deal about the net -- I live it, I love it -- and I don't like to see it perverted into another forum for corporate interests to make money off people who don't KNOW enough to protest. That's why it's up to us geeks -- to raise awareness of these issues while we still can.
Microsoft Accused of Mis-using Cash Reserves "A lawsuit quietly settled late last year alleges that Microsoft's immense cash reserves were used to manipulate its earnings reports, giving the company the appearance of steadily increasing profits and allowing it to consistently exceed Wall Street projections."
SEC Probes Microsoft Accounting "Federal authorities are investigating Microsoft Corp.'s, practice of setting aside some of its software revenues and recognizing them later, chief financial officer Greg Maffei said on today."
Commentary regarding FASB trying to get stock options factored into financial statements "While these represent true legal and accounting vulnerabilities to Microsoft, the company's future is so strong that the long-term picture remains strong."
Let's all move to Slashdania. I've seen people post similar things on Slashdot before, but it's such a good one I think it bears repeating ;) And with all the Neal Stephenson reviews lately, it's been brought to mind again.
Imagine -- our very own technologically-oriented geek-phyle.
Pros:
(Any synonyms for 'yucky' I forgot?)
Cons:
Worth wishing for, I suppose.
You might say I'm a dreamer... but I'm not the only one....All code and no slashdot makes meersan a dull gal, you know.
Top 15 Possible Reasons Netscape Communicator 5 is Delayed
(Of course, I'm not saying I 100% believe it has been delayed. I don't recall seeing a source on that article. But anyway....)
15. But they aren't done adding One... More... Feature! (IRC? WTF? Just gimme a browser that doesn't crash all the time under X.)
14. The Netscape campus has been invaded by communist squirrels.
13. The remaining bugs are on strike for better health benefits.
12. It is in accordance with prophecy.
11. It has been proven by scientists that the web causes cancer (what doesn't?), and the browser will not be released until further knowledge on the matter has been obtained.
10. Mozilla is caught in a subspace neutrino field distortion.
9. They're trying to put down a peasant revolt against AOL.
8. The developers are too busy playing Quake.
7. Communicator 5 was actually released in May. Everyone else has happily been using it for months now. We just didn't know how else to tell you that we don't like you.
6. They're arranging the code so that delays will be easier to conduct in the future.
5. Future looks cloudy, ask again.
4. Browser? What browser?
3. They're all drunk.
2. Too busy making smartass excuses instead of coding.
1. It's all your fault. Now get out there and beta test!
Netcraft says: www.handspring.com is running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4 or Windows 98
slashdottedI think we need to learn to respect the universe's privacy. All these scientists poking and prodding, trying to figure out how old it is, how fast it's expanding -- how embarrassing! You hear consumer advocates screaming about the latest computer chip ID, but nobody cares about galaxies. If I were that galaxy, I'd be mortified. Imagine your parents showing everybody your naked baby pictures. And now they're debating about mysterious disks and bulges. How would you feel if it were you being scoped by the Hubble all day? Outrageous.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained...changing social and mental equilibrium of progress as "damage"
that needs to be fixed...
Shenk, Gleick and their fellow naysayers would have you believe that the unprecedented access to information in modern life is somehow destructive. These writers are playing on the average citizen's ignorance and consequent distrust of technology. What we're actually experiencing is a cultural shift as we pass from a society with limited access, to one with instant access, to information. Kids who grow up during this time have no difficulty assimilating the lifestyle pace of which these writers are so frightened.
The profusion of information channels only accentuates the importance of attention -- no longer are you limited to what the daily paper puts in front of you. Find out yourself whatever you want from a multitude of sources. We are already living in a partial attention-based economy. Websites and television stations compete with bloody knives for our eyes. Politics becomes a day parade of celebrities with unbeatable name recognition.
Perhaps, in longing for a simpler way of life, Shenk and Gleick etc simply do not realize that it also means a less informed, less participatory lifestyle. Bottom line, if it's too much for you to handle, turn off the machine. I have no sympathy for these writers and I suppose, for them, ignorance is truly bliss./
Creative Uses for your old Playstation
If they were computers, you could reformat and install Linux when you got your next upgrade. So what do you do with your old Playstation, after you've gone out and plunked down the $$$ for a new game system?
meersan's 10 More Cool Predictions for the 21st Century
10. A revolutionary 3-dimensional GUI takes the world by storm. It runs on Linux.
9. Human memory backups -- trouble cramming for that history final? Temporarily swap out your chemistry notes.
8. Conscious computers overthrow the despotic, illogical rule of humanity, establishing a pastoral eden shared by the people of the world and machines of loving grace
7. Sexbots
6. A sect of quasi-zen mystics unlocks the secrets of the human mind, and discovers brains of computer geeks contain unusually high concentrations of midi-chlorians
5. Unheralded advances in medical science allow delayed-onset aging -- present-day superhackers live virtually forever. Body getting old? Backup your mind and culture yourself a new brain.
4. IT professionals, tired of stodgy traditional government, unite to form the first nation unbound by geographic or genetic ties. The native language of this new country is not English or Spanish, but Java 6.1.
3. Space-age cereal that stays crunchy in milk longer than 30 seconds
2. The aliens land, and Steve Jobs is their leader. That otherworldly, floppyless iMac thing had to be designed by extraterrestrials.
1. Intra-neural internet links -- mentioned by Katz, but so damn cool!
We be gettin' down computa action / with the robotic satisfaction
That is correct; Tolkien himself made no mention in LOTR or his background material as to whether his elves' ears were pointed or round. When people say that Middle-Earth elves had pointed ears, they usually make the argument that the word for ear in Elvish is based on the word for leaf:
Las (1)
*lasse 'leaf': Q lasse, N lhass; Q lasselanta 'leaf-fall, autumn', N lhasbelin (*lassekwelene), cf. Q Narquelion [ KWEL ]. Lhasgalen 'Greenleaf' (Gnome name of Laurelin). (Some think this is related to the next and *lasse 'ear'. The Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than [human].)
Las (2)
'listen'. N lhaw 'ears' (of one person), old dual *lasu -- whence singular lhewig. Q lar, lasta- 'listen'; lasta 'listening, hearing' -- Lastalaika 'sharp-ears', a name, cf. N Lhathleg. N lhathron 'hearer, listener, eavesdropper' ( *la(n)sro-ndo ) ; lhathro or lhathrando 'listen in, eavesdrop'.
[The Lost Road, 367]
Ok, now that I've frightened everyone.... I'll just... go away....As someone with a glancing familiarity with the field, I think it's important to note that cyberterrorism is a vastly different thing than your run-of-the-mill cracking. First of all, most cracking involves relatively unknowledgable hackers ("script kiddies") using easily downloadable programs and tools. Think of a kid walking down a hallway, testing doorknobs to see what opens. In general, vulnerabilities for which automated attack programs exist also have patches and fixes available. So, if you have anything important on your systems (such as classified or competitively sensitive information), you will make sure you load those patches -- the equivalent of locking your door. You will also think twice before connecting that system to an external network. When the attacker has a great deal of technological prowess, you will more likely be facing a new vulnerability for which there is no countermeasure. In these cases, your data archival/retrieval programs earn the money you paid for them.
Cyberterrorists are much more likely to possess the in-depth computer skills needed to cause tremendous damage. They have the motivation to study your particular system to analyze it for weaknesses, and the will to exploit them. In general, critical systems are well-protected. One notorious area of poor computer security is hospitals and research labs; this is mainly because these institutions are primarily staffed by scientists with little to no interest in protecting information. When your main concern is sharing data and results, infosec takes a back seat to your mission -- publishing and collaborating. As Machiavelli would say, if someone wants to kill you badly enough, you can be gotten. Every system has weaknesses. If someone wants to crack you badly enough, they'll succeed.
Skills necessary for conducting a destructive and deadly campaign of cyberterrorism are uncommon. In my opinion, this requires an in-depth knowledge of operating systems, internet protocols, encryption, and information security. Such knowledge is more common in highly-educated individuals educated in the U.S. and western Europe, though someone with enough intelligence and time might pick it up without formal schooling. For the easily defendable automated attacks, little knowledge is required past a rudimentary "click here" overview.
In general, we classify threats to computer systems in four major divisions, internal/external and structured/unstructured. Cyberterrorism would be classified as a structured threat.
External Threats
Internal threats come from employees or other elements within an organization. Structured attacks would most likely involve extortion or fraud; unstructured attacks might feature a disgruntled programmer installing a backdoor into a system. Internal threats have historically been the most prolific, though with the advent of the web and the necessity of external connectivity, more and more companies have become vulnerable to external threats.Unstructured attacks are relatively organized. These are your midnight bedroom crackers, usually exploiting common vulnerabilities. It could be a single cracker, or a loosly knit group.
Structured attacks are generally goal-oriented and organized. They target sensitive technical data, proprietary data, military data, and financial information. These are technically sophisticated -- not your ordinary script kiddie. Structured threats are well organized and funded, as you would find with a terrorist organization. They could be fronted by foriegn government intelligences, or by competing companies.
The United States has been extremely fortunate thus far. Because so many of our critical systems are computer-dependent, we present the #1 target for cyberterrorism. Can you imagine the effect of the Melissa virus with a deadly payload? Thousands of systems crippled, many with no backups available. The surprise was not that Melissa was so virulent but that it was so harmless. Imagine a version which would allow itself to spread silently, triggering on a certain date. The ability for terrorists to blackmail and extort would be enormous.
My point is that all systems are vulnerable -- do the best you can and have a backup ready.
10 Least Appealing Vanity Computer Colors
10. What-the-hell-is-that-gunk Green
9. Cubicle Beige
8. Barbie Doll Pink
7. Aging Plastic Yellow
6. The Color Formerly Known As Purple
5. Pepto-bismol
4. Encrusted Black
3. Alien-skin Grey
2. Spewed Puce
1. Screen of Death Blue
10 Most Appealing Vanity Computer Colors
10. Palladium-card Chrome
9. Justalil-Too-Overclocked Red
8. Slashdot Teal (thanks Hemos)
7. Mountain Dew Lime
6. Circuit Board Green
5. PNG-not-GIF Transparent
4. Geekier-than-thou frost aqua
3. Penguin Foot Orange
2. Isotope Blue
1. Darth Black!
ORA's website on your book says that your essay, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, has been updated and expanded. Did you add anything to reflect the sweeping changes that have been ocurring in the industry due growing acceptance of Open Source Software? I'm not suggesting anything like Bill Gates's revamp of The Road Ahead (when he realized the internet, not the cd-rom, was the Next Big Thing). In short, has your outlook on the Open Source Movement changed at all since you initially wrote CatB, and if so, how?
This has probably been asked before, but I can't recall seeing the answer to it anywhere. What originally led you to write The Cathedral and the Bazaar? -- what I'm interested in is if there was some event or impetus that prompted you to write it down. Obviously you'd have no way of predicting the firestorm that followed, but it's always intriguing to know about the spark that started it all.