Maybe it's just coincidence, but I've been bombarded with the e-card things for a while now, and the youtube thing for a couple of days or so. Since this story broke on Slashdot, I just checked the spam trap and I haven't had a single one for the last 12 hours or so...
The one I was originally told was POME - Prisoner of Mother England (disclaimer: I'm English). However, 5 seconds with Wikipedia suggests that both are false backronyms and pom/pommy was either an abbreviation of Pomegranate, or rhyming slang for Tommy.
My scheme involves offering a prize to anyone who can invent a system that can remove a billion tons of CO2 from the air each year without any adverse effect on the environment. To encourage the smartest people I'd probably set the prize level pretty high, say at $24,000,000, paid out in installements. Now, where do I go to collect my $25,000,000 (in installments)?
You know, I once started thinking a lot and realized nothing ever means anything. It's all just a bunch of people arguing over unprovable hypotheses in a one-up-man-ship style and eventually spinning whatever facts they have in their disposal to reach a goal determined in advance before any analysis was done.
Why is this modded funny? This is possibly the most insightful Slashdot comment I've ever read!
I'm in the UK, but last time I spoke to some of the other devs, they said that Radio Shack in the US are selling off their stocks of them - in some stores as low as $40. Here in the UK, you can get them for around £25-£40 on eBay or £60 from Amazon.
Hauppage are selling an improved model now which is a little more expensive (hence the wired only model is harder to get hold of), but it has both ethernet and 802.11g interfaces - haven't looked at what the price is in the US, but here you can buy one on Amazon for around £90 ($170 with the US new depressing exchange rate). I'm sure you could get them cheaper on eBay.
MVPMC does require that you have a DHCP server and a TFTP server to send the OS image. You then need SMB or NFS shares to share content to it (and VLC, MythTV and SlimServer depending on what you want to do with your MVP).
If you have a Windows machine and the Hauppage software, I *think* (don't quote me on that - I don't use Windows some I'm not 100% on this) that you can rename the Hauppage dongle.bin file to something else and replace it with the mvpmc one (the Hauppage software has a stripped down DHCP and TFTP server). MVPMC also has an emulation mode so it can use the Hauppage server software as well as standard NFS/SMB, VLC, etc.
You will need to make a config file for mvpmc though - it's basically a shell script that starts the mvpmc binary on the MVP and you give it the IP addresses of your server and mount any shares you'll need. See the site for a guide on doing this.
It is well worth the effort - I'm thrilled with what I can do with my MVP/mvpmc and it'd take something pretty special for me to ever consider changing it.
If you just want a working mvpmc and don't plan on doing any development, you can just download a dongle file - it's a single binary file that you stick in your/tftpboot directory to serve to the MVP via tftp (it's actually a squashfs image).
All releases of mvpmc have one of these binary dongles and a nightly process builds upto date ones if you need new improvements (I and most of the other devs also put up new ones on our project pages if we're working on something we want folks to test, but don't want to commit to the main tree just yet).
Point is, if you just want mvpmc you don't need to compile it.
Admittedly, if you DO want to do some development, the cross compiling stuff (MVP is PPC) can be a bit painful, but the lead dev (Jon) has done a LOT of work in this area recently and now it really is as simple as doing a "cg-clone && make" (and waiting a few hours!).
Not to blow my own trumpet, but I did a fair bit of work on the mvpmc project to get VLC streaming integration working on this device.
The Hauppage MVP can be picked up for around 50 USD, it sits next to your TV and has an ethernet (or wireless if you want to pay a bit more) connection and a remote. It can integrate with slimserver for music playback, MythTV, can play MPEG1/2 video directly from shares (and any kind of video via VLC, which it does by requesting a vod transcoded MPEG2 stream and allowing you to control it transparently via the MVP remote), and is far more flexible than this - AND cheaper!
Found the episode. It was "The Chase" (episode 146 of TNG).
And yeah, yeah, thanks to the proper Star Trek nerds for pointing out that I shouldn't have been so absolute - the seeding wasn't ALL life, just the humanoid stuff... That'll teach me to post after a drink:-)
Not to sound like a complete nerd (I just happen to like and have watched Star Trek), there was a TNG episode where they explained all this. It ran thusly: A long time ago, life started with a bunch of humanoid aliens. They found they were all alone in the universe and seeded all life. Hence, all intelligent life is humanoid.....
Not that I want to debate the merits of whether it's a good plot device (or how that explains the more odd phylums found on earth), but it's an explanation at least!
With the threat of EPLA now hanging over us here in Europe, things are getting worse. Perhaps I should not expect that everyone else should follow these matters as closely as I do and I am sorry if I sound a bit peevish (I am getting very sick of the groundhog day nature of/. discussions on this (and other) subjects;-) but even if you are not familiar with the software patent situation in Europe and latest developments, you really should've read the conclusions of the paper you yourself linked to! As it happens, the EPO Board of Appeal just recently (and infamously) made a very big deal - a "spit in the eye of the enormous opposition to its reckless US-style granting practice" kind of big deal - of its allowance of an appalling Microsoft clipboard patent.
I'm in England and I do follow these matters very closely. I'm well aware of the situation and the efforts of the ffii group. I closed my sites in the last protests, I contacted both my MP and MEP. While many software patents have been granted illegally in Europe and as much as some people would like it to be so, they are still not enforceable - which was my main point.
I agree it's a sad state of affairs, but I don't see software patents in Europe as inevitable and I (and my colleagues, friends and fellow developers) will continue to do all that we can to prevent this from ever happening.
Without being able to use a patent to prevent use and distribution on projects outside of the US, the threat of patent litigation by US corporations is a fairly empty one. And we haven't even discussed the very large US corporates with a vested interest in FOSS who wouldn't like to see this happen.
Aren't these ridiculous software patents only valid in the US? How much OSS development is actually done in the US and would that not mean (were this not complete rubbish) that MS could only go after OSS developers in the US only?
Given that most large OSS projects have copyrights held by developers all over the world, how exactly would it be feasable to stop a project if you couldn't go after all of its developers and codebase?
Wouldn't it just be easier for MS to bluster and threaten, all the while knowing they can't realistically do a damn thing?
I'd really like to use MySQL as a backend storage...
Bit of a plug, but I have a project called Fruity Banking. It's python/cgi and has a web interface that looks and works like GNUcash. It can use sqlite, postgresql or mysql for the backend and it's endlessly scriptable (samples are included for scripting direct debits, etc.). I wrote it for the same reasons as you stated; because I wanted to access my accounts from anywhere and have the backend scriptable and generally muckable about with.
On the downside, it only really does account management (because that was all I needed) and simple account reports. It doesn't integrate with banking services (because I don't need it), but it would be very easy to script and extend to add these facilities.
I know you're joking, but in that particular Simpsons episode, the shield was ground based and covered the town. The point of this is to stop some of the sun's rays hitting the entire planet.
What options are there to edit RAW photo files under Linux?
As with all *nix stuff, the RAW handling is done by a separate component. Investigate UFRaw and DCRaw. UFRaw even has a plugin for the GIMP that works well. As an amateur photographer I use and highly recommend UFRaw.
After that, he injected him with the smallpox virus, "just to see if it would work"
There was a bit more to it than that - he didn't just do it for the hell of it. He'd observed that milkmaids and other people who regularly came into contact with cows and cowpox seemed to be immune to smallpox, even though they should be just as likely to get it as everyone else.
I read TFA and I don't understand why the Slashdot title is "Open Source Business Models". This sounds more like an organisation structure (and a fairly lame one at that) than a business model. Shouldn't a business model outline what they're going to sell, how much they're going to charge, potential revenues, etc. etc.
This just looked like a load of fluff to me. Did I miss the point?
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it's just coincidence, but I've been bombarded with the e-card things for a while now, and the youtube thing for a couple of days or so. Since this story broke on Slashdot, I just checked the spam trap and I haven't had a single one for the last 12 hours or so...
The one I was originally told was POME - Prisoner of Mother England (disclaimer: I'm English). However, 5 seconds with Wikipedia suggests that both are false backronyms and pom/pommy was either an abbreviation of Pomegranate, or rhyming slang for Tommy.
Are you by any chance a job agent?
Why is this modded funny? This is possibly the most insightful Slashdot comment I've ever read!
Look, I also like Ports, but come on - how long would it have taken for you to Google:
apt-cache search
yum search
To search package names and metadata?
I like and use both FreeBSD and Gentoo, but there's no need to disparage the great work done by other distros to justify your choices.
I'm in the UK, but last time I spoke to some of the other devs, they said that Radio Shack in the US are selling off their stocks of them - in some stores as low as $40. Here in the UK, you can get them for around £25-£40 on eBay or £60 from Amazon.
Hauppage are selling an improved model now which is a little more expensive (hence the wired only model is harder to get hold of), but it has both ethernet and 802.11g interfaces - haven't looked at what the price is in the US, but here you can buy one on Amazon for around £90 ($170 with the US new depressing exchange rate). I'm sure you could get them cheaper on eBay.
MVPMC does require that you have a DHCP server and a TFTP server to send the OS image. You then need SMB or NFS shares to share content to it (and VLC, MythTV and SlimServer depending on what you want to do with your MVP).
If you have a Windows machine and the Hauppage software, I *think* (don't quote me on that - I don't use Windows some I'm not 100% on this) that you can rename the Hauppage dongle.bin file to something else and replace it with the mvpmc one (the Hauppage software has a stripped down DHCP and TFTP server). MVPMC also has an emulation mode so it can use the Hauppage server software as well as standard NFS/SMB, VLC, etc.
You will need to make a config file for mvpmc though - it's basically a shell script that starts the mvpmc binary on the MVP and you give it the IP addresses of your server and mount any shares you'll need. See the site for a guide on doing this.
It is well worth the effort - I'm thrilled with what I can do with my MVP/mvpmc and it'd take something pretty special for me to ever consider changing it.
If you just want a working mvpmc and don't plan on doing any development, you can just download a dongle file - it's a single binary file that you stick in your /tftpboot directory to serve to the MVP via tftp (it's actually a squashfs image).
All releases of mvpmc have one of these binary dongles and a nightly process builds upto date ones if you need new improvements (I and most of the other devs also put up new ones on our project pages if we're working on something we want folks to test, but don't want to commit to the main tree just yet).
Point is, if you just want mvpmc you don't need to compile it.
Admittedly, if you DO want to do some development, the cross compiling stuff (MVP is PPC) can be a bit painful, but the lead dev (Jon) has done a LOT of work in this area recently and now it really is as simple as doing a "cg-clone && make" (and waiting a few hours!).
And if I read the article, I'd have noticed the big deal was DRMed crapola from iTunes.... that'll teach me.
How is this better than the Hauppage MVP?
Not to blow my own trumpet, but I did a fair bit of work on the mvpmc project to get VLC streaming integration working on this device.
The Hauppage MVP can be picked up for around 50 USD, it sits next to your TV and has an ethernet (or wireless if you want to pay a bit more) connection and a remote. It can integrate with slimserver for music playback, MythTV, can play MPEG1/2 video directly from shares (and any kind of video via VLC, which it does by requesting a vod transcoded MPEG2 stream and allowing you to control it transparently via the MVP remote), and is far more flexible than this - AND cheaper!
He could have just run web proxy on his remote server instead of being a complete moron and doing this "clever" hack. Sheesh.
They actually toned that down as well - in the book she cut his feet off with the axe and then cauterised his ankles with a blowtorch.
Found the episode. It was "The Chase" (episode 146 of TNG).
And yeah, yeah, thanks to the proper Star Trek nerds for pointing out that I shouldn't have been so absolute - the seeding wasn't ALL life, just the humanoid stuff... That'll teach me to post after a drink :-)
Not to mention all the "beings of pure energy", but hey, who am I to argue the consistency of Star Trek :-)
Not to sound like a complete nerd (I just happen to like and have watched Star Trek), there was a TNG episode where they explained all this. It ran thusly: A long time ago, life started with a bunch of humanoid aliens. They found they were all alone in the universe and seeded all life. Hence, all intelligent life is humanoid.....
Not that I want to debate the merits of whether it's a good plot device (or how that explains the more odd phylums found on earth), but it's an explanation at least!
I'm in England and I do follow these matters very closely. I'm well aware of the situation and the efforts of the ffii group. I closed my sites in the last protests, I contacted both my MP and MEP. While many software patents have been granted illegally in Europe and as much as some people would like it to be so, they are still not enforceable - which was my main point.
I agree it's a sad state of affairs, but I don't see software patents in Europe as inevitable and I (and my colleagues, friends and fellow developers) will continue to do all that we can to prevent this from ever happening.
Do you have any evidence to back that up? The remainder of your comments seemed to be based on this assumption.
To my knowledge, US software patents are only valid in the US, possibly Japan and some Asian countries.
Without being able to use a patent to prevent use and distribution on projects outside of the US, the threat of patent litigation by US corporations is a fairly empty one. And we haven't even discussed the very large US corporates with a vested interest in FOSS who wouldn't like to see this happen.
Aren't these ridiculous software patents only valid in the US? How much OSS development is actually done in the US and would that not mean (were this not complete rubbish) that MS could only go after OSS developers in the US only?
Given that most large OSS projects have copyrights held by developers all over the world, how exactly would it be feasable to stop a project if you couldn't go after all of its developers and codebase?
Wouldn't it just be easier for MS to bluster and threaten, all the while knowing they can't realistically do a damn thing?
Bit of a plug, but I have a project called Fruity Banking. It's python/cgi and has a web interface that looks and works like GNUcash. It can use sqlite, postgresql or mysql for the backend and it's endlessly scriptable (samples are included for scripting direct debits, etc.). I wrote it for the same reasons as you stated; because I wanted to access my accounts from anywhere and have the backend scriptable and generally muckable about with.
On the downside, it only really does account management (because that was all I needed) and simple account reports. It doesn't integrate with banking services (because I don't need it), but it would be very easy to script and extend to add these facilities.
I know you're joking, but in that particular Simpsons episode, the shield was ground based and covered the town. The point of this is to stop some of the sun's rays hitting the entire planet.
What options are there to edit RAW photo files under Linux?
As with all *nix stuff, the RAW handling is done by a separate component. Investigate UFRaw and DCRaw. UFRaw even has a plugin for the GIMP that works well. As an amateur photographer I use and highly recommend UFRaw.
I've always thought of HTML as Extrementally Involved.
After that, he injected him with the smallpox virus, "just to see if it would work"
There was a bit more to it than that - he didn't just do it for the hell of it. He'd observed that milkmaids and other people who regularly came into contact with cows and cowpox seemed to be immune to smallpox, even though they should be just as likely to get it as everyone else.
I read TFA and I don't understand why the Slashdot title is "Open Source Business Models". This sounds more like an organisation structure (and a fairly lame one at that) than a business model. Shouldn't a business model outline what they're going to sell, how much they're going to charge, potential revenues, etc. etc.
This just looked like a load of fluff to me. Did I miss the point?
Grrr.. broke my Link. That'll teach me to preview.