Spyware Pack 4? Whilst its nice to fix things that are broken, I don't see if it's worth having to accept that my "service pack" will also happily update things that are not broken, mainly to Microsoft's benefit - or to make them not broken but more intrusive.
10 years from now I expect to actually bother reading a EULA and find on page 139 "and do so commit your firstborn child to the care of..."
I don't know about this. I think IBM would more happily counter with a countersuit which would leave the SCO execs wandering the streets in their skivvies begging for change.
C'mon, if/.'ers can come up with the idea that SCO wants to be bought out, I'm sure IBM realizes.
Personally, I think we may find that they have a third-party that will fund court cases long enough to drag this fiasco around and possibly damage the linux/IBM reputation. Hmmm, who do we know that might want Linux/IBM to go down... nobody with current business dealings with SCO I'm sure.
Anyone remember the simpson's episode that ends with Bart misbehaving and jumping up and down in the background yelling "Hello, I'm Bart pay attention to me, etc etc."
SCO seems to be acting like this, as if for some reason any attention they can get at the moment is good attention... which it's not. That or they're just plain insane, as they can't hope to win this.
I remember way back when I heard of something very similar, except it was a type of "saw" where extreme water pressure was used to cut wood (and possibly other objects) nicely in half. Apparently it can be quite a nice cut, without the friction-burn of metal blades.
However, that is in an environment where the water can be recycled to a good extent as the machine runs... where does this machine get water from, and how many PSI is it dishing out? I'd assume that it requires close proximity to a good source of water, either a fire hydrant or (preferably), a lake/river/etc - as it probably shoots out a lot of water in order to achieve the correct pressure.
I was going to re-read the article and double-check, but the blink tag at the end of the linked tech review just about blinded me.
What I remember hearing on/. at sometime was that (and it may be wrong, it was on slashdot) various discs come with an unmodifyable "header" to identify the media type. That is, something that says, this is a "normal CD", this is a "DVD", and perhaps to differentiate the different capacities of discs.
Would make sense... how does my burner automagically know that a disc is only intended to be written at 48x after just a quick spin+preread? How does it know a CD+RW from a CDR?
Anyhow, if that is the case, why can't a company simply slap on something that identifies a disc as a different format header? That is, if the format doesn't say "this is a DVD", but instead "this is a gamecube DVD"... then it could happily ignore standard recordable DVD-ROM's. This is probably used to some extent already - which is why mod-chips are needed to use non-proprietary discs - but I'm sure if could be modified further to include perhaps an encrypted hash or something required to allow a disc to run.
If they're printing out millions of discs for a Mario game, I'm they could afford a modified header on the production discs.
3Gb is a bit underkill, but I did just build a "demo" laptop with a lit over that that had openoffice, Gimp, CAD software, raytracer, and a bunch of 'nix games, etc etc.
it was getting pretty full-up by the end, but mainly because I saw fit to partition/usr and/var, / seperately. On a user desktop, I probably could have gotten away with partitioning just / and/var, or just/, and the swap/boot space.
IPtables has abilities for packet-mangling... I think that it can do something along this line.
Somebody can come and flame me down if I'm wrong, I've never had much need to mangle packets myself, and all the things that do I don't need to mess with anyways.
This would cover the "right-of-reply" to legitimate users of electronic mediums who wish to rebut inflammatory or negetive comments about themselves/their company/their product, etc - which would be a good thing.
The problem is, that the onlne would is far, far, from ideal. Taking slashdot as an example... everyone has a voice, even the annoying little AC trolls. Now, that's great for those that have something interesting/important to say, and slashdot has a nice moderation system to allow us to filter the good from the bad.
However, a lot of online systems don't have a ratings system, or would find it just too much of a hassle to include/support. I see a few solutions, but I'm not sure if they're workable.
For sites that must offer replies, force a registration system that must be stronly legitimized. Yes, again, added hassle sometimes to add such a system, but at least it gets rid of the drive-by-trollings by making trolling inconvient as well. Couple that with a signup requiring a "I agree to terms" page, and you're set. Really, most sites allowing comments do have a method for user authentication anyways. Still, I can't see all sites out there allowing this.
And personally, I think whomever drafted such a law should be forced to shave with bad razors while swimming in the middle of shark-infested waters. I'd rather have them feed our local marine life than the trolls that would benefit from such idiot rules...
I seems to me that, aside from the oddly commented areas, the code in question mostly resides in the scheduler. Now, this being a core part of the Linux O/S, I must ask a few questions:
a) When was the scheduler last modified/tweaked/updated?
b) How hard would it be to further modify/tweak
If we're prepared to defend our stance, then we should at least start gathering some info.
If SCO does decide to drop the cloak-and-dagger and release some dates (fictive or non), then we can compare and discover if any similar/like code was copied from SCO, or by SCO. Perhaps if there is something a little touchy in the scheduler (which I doubt), it is simply due to similarity of function. Another thing to consider is that $value += $value2; doesn't count to us... but how about a non-programming-savvy judge?
Isn't anyone else just a bit worried about other things that could be built into the walls with these bricks? Maybe some type of motion sensor? A high-sensitivity microphone? A pinhole camera in the fireplace?
Now, I'm not usually paranoid or a conspiracy theorist, but it's been my experience that if the gov't can use something to better monitor/control its citizens... it will. Having one's walls wired to send wireless signals has dangerous potential for invasion of privacy... maybe my future home will have an emp generator attached to the bed to ensure "private moments."
One problem I would have with cellspam is tracking the source of messages. With DSM (like SMS, but standing for Digital Short Messaging) my phone has an email address. Others can email my phone (useful when overseas friends wish to contact me), but it does not seem to have a way to show headers, etc?
Would this put an onus on the cell-provider to cache this messages so I can view them with a POP/IMAP program capable of viewing headers? Because otherwise, tracking SPAM sources could be difficult.
Using Debian 3: 2.4.18 is the newest available kernel from the standard (stable) apt sources. Never needed more though, why upgrade it if there's nothing you actually would need/use?
Apple wasn't committing the equivilent to suicide by attempting to step on the very people who make it work.
In fact, if anything, Apple has continued to survive and/or grow partly by catering strongly to its target audience, and receiving mass-loyaltyin turn.
Basically this is a "not now, maybe later." That is, by the time wireless data communication can reach landline speeds (or near so) as well as maintaining an international reach, then we'll be ready for such a plan. Until then, your best chance at getting anything with decent latency between large distances is still going to be using somebody else's landline/satellite for the uplink, and that costs money.
a) Your submission to slashdot finally gets accepted
b) Your submission lacked intelligence, forethought, and anything else that made a good story
c) Thousands of geeks read your article, and a great multitude reply back to clue you in on (b).
Seriously, a "how can I get XX which happens to cost YY for free" article is just lame. You're one of those people who buys those "you are paying for a site where you can get a PS2 for $20" ebay auctions, aren't you?
Bill Gates, Entertainment God
I've always thought of him as something more like the devil, actually.
Instead of traditional locks, there's an electronic kiosk with a touchscreen, a biometric scanner, and a smartcard reader
While this system in some ways may protect better than conventional key-locks, sometimes you want low-tech. This sounds too easy to break (especially the touchscreen), and frankly it seems easier for me to click a key in the lock than align my eyeballs to a scanner.
A screen on the wall in the foyer reads your email aloud as you hang your coat.
I'm assuming that by some time in the future they plan to have the spam problem solved then? I don't need my wall reading out the "girls with animals" etc stories that make it into the inbox nowadays...
is modeled on Bill Gates' own Seattle mansion.
As with the above, I guess they missed the section of his den with an open portal to the firey realms?
I wonder if you could get this to work with flatbed scanners. It would make a great excuse to give to your boss/parent/professor...
"No, honestly sir, I was scanning myself for colon cancer - see this slashdot article? Umm, no I don't know anything about the emails with odd picture attachments my co-workers have been getting. It must be an unrelated incident."
I'm not sure about you... but I'd wait until I find out how they used the scanner first.
Chances are the ol' rubber glove is a lot more comfortable than having a hand-scanner rammed up there (which was my first mental image when I thought about scanners and cancer tests)
A little question about processors etc. We all know that a system is generally no faster than the sum of its components. So if you have a crappy bus then having a 2.6Ghz Athlon isn't going to get you much better than a 1.8Ghz... but how about things like Video?
I can go out and buy an AGP card, decent on-board RAM, outdated GPU. If current video cards run at, say 500Mhz, and this card is antiquated etc etc...
Why will a 1.4Ghz/w a slick video card (hardware rendering) machine kick ass over a 2.x Ghz machine using software rendering? Is this due to crappy software-renderer coding, or optimization in the graphics chip not inherant to the main processor? I mean, shouldn't I be able to go and sink lots of money into a fast-fast-fast processor, and then skimp on the video card and let the CPU take up the slack? Why doesn't it work this way?
Just a curiousity, because it seems even when I buy that shiney fast CPU it equal nice times compiling kernel, crap games w/o a good Video Card.
What exactly can you get away with then? Calling something Unixy, or Unix-like?
It would be hard to described the behavior/structure of an OS as similar to Unix if you can't use the word Unix. I think that OSX's base is more Unixy than Linuxy... but somehow that term doesn't sound very professional anyhow.
Homeless person A: "Anyone mind if I set myself up under this next bridge here" Homeless person B: "Wouldn't recommend it. That's been the new headquarters for all the RIAA execs who hung on until the end" Homeless person A: "Oh, well I don't want to associate with them. How about in this dumpster instead" Homeless person B: Well, I think somebody from SCO was using it a short while back, but it might be free now.
Ever stuck to an arguement even when you knew you were wrong, because it looked like you might be able to at least prevent people from finding the truth (image).
Ever seen the 8-year-old that told an unbelievable lie, only to compound it with more wild claims in attempts at justification... it's like digging your way out of a hole but piling the dirt on your own head.
The RIAA hasn't grown up. They're still in big-lie syndrome... and as long as some people believe that filesharing is the cause of their woes, they get some form of retribution/compensation/etc despite the shittiness of their own business model.
Slashdot Mirror
Spyware Pack 4? Whilst its nice to fix things that are broken, I don't see if it's worth having to accept that my "service pack" will also happily update things that are not broken, mainly to Microsoft's benefit - or to make them not broken but more intrusive.
10 years from now I expect to actually bother reading a EULA and find on page 139 "and do so commit your firstborn child to the care of..."
I don't know about this. I think IBM would more happily counter with a countersuit which would leave the SCO execs wandering the streets in their skivvies begging for change.
/.'ers can come up with the idea that SCO wants to be bought out, I'm sure IBM realizes.
C'mon, if
Personally, I think we may find that they have a third-party that will fund court cases long enough to drag this fiasco around and possibly damage the linux/IBM reputation. Hmmm, who do we know that might want Linux/IBM to go down... nobody with current business dealings with SCO I'm sure.
Anyone remember the simpson's episode that ends with Bart misbehaving and jumping up and down in the background yelling "Hello, I'm Bart pay attention to me, etc etc."
SCO seems to be acting like this, as if for some reason any attention they can get at the moment is good attention... which it's not. That or they're just plain insane, as they can't hope to win this.
I remember way back when I heard of something very similar, except it was a type of "saw" where extreme water pressure was used to cut wood (and possibly other objects) nicely in half. Apparently it can be quite a nice cut, without the friction-burn of metal blades.
However, that is in an environment where the water can be recycled to a good extent as the machine runs... where does this machine get water from, and how many PSI is it dishing out? I'd assume that it requires close proximity to a good source of water, either a fire hydrant or (preferably), a lake/river/etc - as it probably shoots out a lot of water in order to achieve the correct pressure.
I was going to re-read the article and double-check, but the blink tag at the end of the linked tech review just about blinded me.
What I remember hearing on /. at sometime was that (and it may be wrong, it was on slashdot) various discs come with an unmodifyable "header" to identify the media type. That is, something that says, this is a "normal CD", this is a "DVD", and perhaps to differentiate the different capacities of discs.
Would make sense... how does my burner automagically know that a disc is only intended to be written at 48x after just a quick spin+preread? How does it know a CD+RW from a CDR?
Anyhow, if that is the case, why can't a company simply slap on something that identifies a disc as a different format header? That is, if the format doesn't say "this is a DVD", but instead "this is a gamecube DVD"... then it could happily ignore standard recordable DVD-ROM's. This is probably used to some extent already - which is why mod-chips are needed to use non-proprietary discs - but I'm sure if could be modified further to include perhaps an encrypted hash or something required to allow a disc to run.
If they're printing out millions of discs for a Mario game, I'm they could afford a modified header on the production discs.
3Gb is a bit underkill, but I did just build a "demo" laptop with a lit over that that had openoffice, Gimp, CAD software, raytracer, and a bunch of 'nix games, etc etc. /usr and /var, / seperately. On a user desktop, I probably could have gotten away with partitioning just / and /var, or just /, and the swap/boot space.
it was getting pretty full-up by the end, but mainly because I saw fit to partition
IPtables has abilities for packet-mangling... I think that it can do something along this line.
Somebody can come and flame me down if I'm wrong, I've never had much need to mangle packets myself, and all the things that do I don't need to mess with anyways.
This would cover the "right-of-reply" to legitimate users of electronic mediums who wish to rebut inflammatory or negetive comments about themselves/their company/their product, etc - which would be a good thing.
The problem is, that the onlne would is far, far, from ideal. Taking slashdot as an example... everyone has a voice, even the annoying little AC trolls. Now, that's great for those that have something interesting/important to say, and slashdot has a nice moderation system to allow us to filter the good from the bad.
However, a lot of online systems don't have a ratings system, or would find it just too much of a hassle to include/support. I see a few solutions, but I'm not sure if they're workable.
For sites that must offer replies, force a registration system that must be stronly legitimized. Yes, again, added hassle sometimes to add such a system, but at least it gets rid of the drive-by-trollings by making trolling inconvient as well. Couple that with a signup requiring a "I agree to terms" page, and you're set. Really, most sites allowing comments do have a method for user authentication anyways. Still, I can't see all sites out there allowing this.
And personally, I think whomever drafted such a law should be forced to shave with bad razors while swimming in the middle of shark-infested waters. I'd rather have them feed our local marine life than the trolls that would benefit from such idiot rules...
I seems to me that, aside from the oddly commented areas, the code in question mostly resides in the scheduler. Now, this being a core part of the Linux O/S, I must ask a few questions: a) When was the scheduler last modified/tweaked/updated?
b) How hard would it be to further modify/tweak
If we're prepared to defend our stance, then we should at least start gathering some info.
If SCO does decide to drop the cloak-and-dagger and release some dates (fictive or non), then we can compare and discover if any similar/like code was copied from SCO, or by SCO. Perhaps if there is something a little touchy in the scheduler (which I doubt), it is simply due to similarity of function. Another thing to consider is that $value += $value2; doesn't count to us... but how about a non-programming-savvy judge?
Isn't anyone else just a bit worried about other things that could be built into the walls with these bricks? Maybe some type of motion sensor? A high-sensitivity microphone? A pinhole camera in the fireplace?
Now, I'm not usually paranoid or a conspiracy theorist, but it's been my experience that if the gov't can use something to better monitor/control its citizens... it will. Having one's walls wired to send wireless signals has dangerous potential for invasion of privacy... maybe my future home will have an emp generator attached to the bed to ensure "private moments."
One problem I would have with cellspam is tracking the source of messages. With DSM (like SMS, but standing for Digital Short Messaging) my phone has an email address. Others can email my phone (useful when overseas friends wish to contact me), but it does not seem to have a way to show headers, etc?
Would this put an onus on the cell-provider to cache this messages so I can view them with a POP/IMAP program capable of viewing headers? Because otherwise, tracking SPAM sources could be difficult.
Using Debian 3: 2.4.18 is the newest available kernel from the standard (stable) apt sources. Never needed more though, why upgrade it if there's nothing you actually would need/use?
Apple wasn't committing the equivilent to suicide by attempting to step on the very people who make it work.
In fact, if anything, Apple has continued to survive and/or grow partly by catering strongly to its target audience, and receiving mass-loyaltyin turn.
Basically this is a "not now, maybe later." That is, by the time wireless data communication can reach landline speeds (or near so) as well as maintaining an international reach, then we'll be ready for such a plan. Until then, your best chance at getting anything with decent latency between large distances is still going to be using somebody else's landline/satellite for the uplink, and that costs money.
Well then, thank you for taking the time to piss and moan about my pissing and moaning.
:-)
Try not to make a habit out of sticking your foot in your mouth, it can be dangerous
a) Your submission to slashdot finally gets accepted
b) Your submission lacked intelligence, forethought, and anything else that made a good story
c) Thousands of geeks read your article, and a great multitude reply back to clue you in on (b).
Seriously, a "how can I get XX which happens to cost YY for free" article is just lame. You're one of those people who buys those "you are paying for a site where you can get a PS2 for $20" ebay auctions, aren't you?
Bill Gates, Entertainment God
I've always thought of him as something more like the devil, actually.
Instead of traditional locks, there's an electronic kiosk with a touchscreen, a biometric scanner, and a smartcard reader
While this system in some ways may protect better than conventional key-locks, sometimes you want low-tech. This sounds too easy to break (especially the touchscreen), and frankly it seems easier for me to click a key in the lock than align my eyeballs to a scanner.
A screen on the wall in the foyer reads your email aloud as you hang your coat.
I'm assuming that by some time in the future they plan to have the spam problem solved then? I don't need my wall reading out the "girls with animals" etc stories that make it into the inbox nowadays...
is modeled on Bill Gates' own Seattle mansion.
As with the above, I guess they missed the section of his den with an open portal to the firey realms?
The first link to Square Insider should be non-hyphenated. The article link was correct, however.
I wonder if you could get this to work with flatbed scanners. It would make a great excuse to give to your boss/parent/professor...
"No, honestly sir, I was scanning myself for colon cancer - see this slashdot article? Umm, no I don't know anything about the emails with odd picture attachments my co-workers have been getting. It must be an unrelated incident."
I'm not sure about you... but I'd wait until I find out how they used the scanner first.
Chances are the ol' rubber glove is a lot more comfortable than having a hand-scanner rammed up there (which was my first mental image when I thought about scanners and cancer tests)
A little question about processors etc. We all know that a system is generally no faster than the sum of its components. So if you have a crappy bus then having a 2.6Ghz Athlon isn't going to get you much better than a 1.8Ghz... but how about things like Video?
/w a slick video card (hardware rendering) machine kick ass over a 2.x Ghz machine using software rendering? Is this due to crappy software-renderer coding, or optimization in the graphics chip not inherant to the main processor? I mean, shouldn't I be able to go and sink lots of money into a fast-fast-fast processor, and then skimp on the video card and let the CPU take up the slack? Why doesn't it work this way?
I can go out and buy an AGP card, decent on-board RAM, outdated GPU. If current video cards run at, say 500Mhz, and this card is antiquated etc etc...
Why will a 1.4Ghz
Just a curiousity, because it seems even when I buy that shiney fast CPU it equal nice times compiling kernel, crap games w/o a good Video Card.
How about a JavaScript that opens a hidden window to SCO's site, refreshes a few times, and then finally closes it? That'll teach 'em...
What exactly can you get away with then? Calling something Unixy, or Unix-like?
It would be hard to described the behavior/structure of an OS as similar to Unix if you can't use the word Unix. I think that OSX's base is more Unixy than Linuxy... but somehow that term doesn't sound very professional anyhow.
Homeless person A: "Anyone mind if I set myself up under this next bridge here"
Homeless person B: "Wouldn't recommend it. That's been the new headquarters for all the RIAA execs who hung on until the end"
Homeless person A: "Oh, well I don't want to associate with them. How about in this dumpster instead"
Homeless person B: Well, I think somebody from SCO was using it a short while back, but it might be free now.
Ever stuck to an arguement even when you knew you were wrong, because it looked like you might be able to at least prevent people from finding the truth (image).
Ever seen the 8-year-old that told an unbelievable lie, only to compound it with more wild claims in attempts at justification... it's like digging your way out of a hole but piling the dirt on your own head.
The RIAA hasn't grown up. They're still in big-lie syndrome... and as long as some people believe that filesharing is the cause of their woes, they get some form of retribution/compensation/etc despite the shittiness of their own business model.