I can sort of see this happening. You'll be on the phone to somebody, chatting away, and then all of a sudden the conversation will be interrupted with an advertisement.....
Are you spending more than you're earning? Struggling to make ends meet? Worried about County Court Judgements or arrears? Repo-men knocking at the door right now? A Consolidation Loan from Hammerhead Finance might be just what you need. But don't take our word for it; listen to our customers. This is what Mrs P. from Essex had to say about our services: <accent="essex">Well, I was owin' nearly a faahsand paahnd a week, but them blokes from 'ammer'ead was very nice. 'Elped me out wiv all me debts. Jus' got one payment now, jus' over a couple of grand a fawtnight, for ver rest of me life. An' they definitely didn't use no baseball bats nor nuffink.</accent> You can combine all your outstanding debts into one lower monthly payment. Thank you for listening to this message. <volume="-6db">Repayment period will be extended. Your home is at risk if you default on repayments on a mortgage or other loan secured against it.</volume> You will now be reconnected to your call.
Of course, if you try hanging up in the middle of one of these advertisements, then the advert will simply be repeated next time you pick up the receiver -- you won't even get a dial tone until you have listened to it in full.
You used the word "holiday". Did you know that if you book now you can receive a 20% saving on all Summer family holidays at EuroTours? To be connected to a EuroTours Customer Advisor right now, press hash. If you do not press anything you will be reconnected to your original called party. EuroTours has holidays to suit everyone, whether you're looking for family fun and action by the seaside, quiet relaxation in the mountains or an intimate weekend for two on the outskirts of a bustling city. Thank you for listening to this message. You will now be reconnected.
But this is the one I'm waiting for..... imagine the scene. A young woman in considerable distress is trying to call the Old Bill, when suddenly her faltering voice is interrupted.....
You used the word "rape". Did you know that you can save up to ten percent on ministry-approved quality oil seed products from Global Genetic Technologies?.....
Run some of your.jpg files from your digital camera through `strings` sometime. Try also `convert foo.jpg bar.jpg` and looking at the strings output from the latter.
When I did counterfeiting, it was bus tickets; and I used an Apple LaserWriter Mk I, serial interface, homebrew software {a program called BADWOLF.BAS}. I bet nobody, not even another Brummie, knows why it was called that.
You are forgetting that when the US constitution was drafted, privacy was so readily obtained as not to be worth protecting. All you had to do if you wanted to be sure nobody would overhear a conversation was go out in the woods somewhere. If you were really paranoid, you might prod the undergrowth with a stick to make sure nobody was hiding.
Don't forget, that old dot matrix printer in the back of your wardrobe will quite happily print on a Gestetner stencil, if you take out the ribbon. It used to be done like that back in the days of punk fanzines. That's if you can get hold of such a machine and a supply of stencils, of course.
Debian is 64-bit only. If you want to run 32-bit applications, you have to do so under a chroot. This keeps it pure in two ways: every userland program is 64-bit, and there's a reasonable chance that every userland program is Open Source.
He was only an Oboe, but one more is gone Leaving nobody to sing his sad song Leaving nobody to carry him home He was only an Oboe, but one more One more One more One more is gone
If there was no such thing as GNU/Linux or FreeBSD or any of the alternatives, if using a computer meant Windows to the same extent as it meant using electricity, I know I'd be out there pushing for Manual Methods.
I find the thought of using pencil, paper and six-figure log tables way preferable to sucking Bill gates's knob -- which is exactly what you're doing when you use Windows.
Amen to that, friend. Technically it's a common-law property right {you are automatically privy to any secret embodied in any article you rightfully own} but just try exercising it.
For a long time, I have suspected that Microsoft are persuading manufacturers not to support the popular GNU/Linux operating system.
Any cheap ethernet card you can buy will have a Realtek 8139 chip, which is well supported in Linux {it's hard in the kernel on some installation disks is how popular it is} and BSD. It will also have a Microsoft Windows logo on the packaging..... but no Tux, and no Daemon.
Every modern digital camera behaves like a USB disk drive, again well supported in Linux. No driver software is required: just the usb-storage module {NB, don't compile this hard into the kernel}, ImageMagick and the GIMP which are on almost every distro's installation disks. Again, none of them mention on the packaging that they will work happily with GNU/Linux. Yet it's been my experience that digital cameras behave more stably under Linux than under Windows. This is no mystery; this is exactly as I would have expected, since an open API is by definition better documented than a closed one and therefore software can interact much more reliably in such an environment.
Switches and routers absolutely do not care what OS the host computers are running, as long as it supports TCP/IP {and they all do nowadays}. A moderate-to-high-end one -- the sort of thing you might find in a medium-sized office setup where there is someone who has a clue about IT -- might have a Linux logo on the packaging, but a cheap one almost certainly will be labelled as though it were only suitable for Windows.
{This one isn't hardware; but it's a personal crusade of mine. How often have you seen next to a PDF download "requires Acrobat reader" ? Does it bunnies -- gpdf works fine. I'm e-mailing every website owner I can about this because I believe many people are needlessly polluting their GNU/Linux systems with closed-source software.}
Now, I know what I'm doing. I've been using computers since the Sinclair ZX81 and the BBC Model B, and in those days I used to write all my own software in BASIC and assembler; I have always enjoyed testing the boundary between the possible and the impossible. Does that make me a hacker? It's no big deal to me to patch a kernel module and compile it "after the event" so to speak. But I know I'm the exception.
One thing I would like to see done about this is Mandatory Full Disclosure. That is, you should not be allowed to sell a piece of hardware without supplying full details of how to interact with it at every level, gratis and unencumbered, to every rightful owner on request. Register descriptions, communications protocols, and so forth. No or insufficient documentation should mean no CE / TÜV / FCC / UL accreditation. Never mind giving away secrets to your competitors -- not only do your competitors already buy your products and reverse-engineer them anyway, but you will be able to read your competitors' Mandatory Full Disclosure documentation -- or take them to court for not supplying it. {What you won't be able to do is package a 300DPI printer as 2400DPI, or a 2 megapixel camera as a 6 megapixel camera, or sell a graphics card more expensive than an electronically-identical one because it has one byte different in the driver software and one byte different in the firmware. But that, of course, would be called "deception" or "fraud".} And never mind that in the case of wireless or telephony kit, people might be able to use it in ways that might not meet local regulations -- it's not your business what people do with their own property {never mind that they might conceivably be operating wireless tat out-of-spec inside a Faraday cage, or running phone tat out-of-spec on a PABX isolated from the PSTN, and so beyond the scope of regulations}. Breweries are not responsible for drunk driving. Petrol refineries are not responsible for arson. Fertiliser manufacturers are not responsible for terrorist bombs.
Bee stings are acid, wasp stings are alkaline. So if ever you get stung by a bee or a wasp, just try to get stung in the same place by the other one; and the acid and alkali will annihilate one another.
<script type="text/javascript"> for (i = 0; i < 1000; ++i) { alert("Disable JavaScript for this site!"); }; alert("OK..... Don't say you weren't warned."); </script>
Now you can be sure that {almost*} nobody visiting your site has JavaScript enabled, so there is no chance of this affecting them.
* There probably is _somebody_ _somewhere_ who really is masochistic enough to click the thing 1001 times. Their computer probably is infected with several viruses already, though.
That's the part of the problem with Linux. If you have to go through all that just to get Linux to install, how is "the average computer user" ( ie, your grandma ) going to be able to install Linux?
Try this experiment. Get a complete n00b to install Linux on one PC and Windows on another. See which one they thought was easier. Get another complete n00b to do the same test the other way around, just to make sure it's nothing to do with the order in which the tasks were attempted.
If they both think Windows was easier, I will be very surprised.
Certain packages can only be distributed in source code form for licencing reasons; mplayer is one of them {LAME and PINE also spring to mind}. Though it should be possible to build a deb file so as to include dependencies for the compilation environment itself and everything that mplayer depends upon {so the compilation is certain to proceed cleanly}; put the source code somewhere sane; and perform the actual compilation step from within the post-install script.
This would finally make compiling from source as easy as installing a binary package.
Assuming the Ubuntu installer is anything like the Debian one, this is what you do:
Wait for the installer to ask you a question, but do not answer it. Switch to another screen {ctrl + alt + f2}. Hit return a few times until you get a shell prompt.
You can now run fdisk {unfortunately, it'll be like the Slackware one and not the old Debian one}, nuke the original partitions, and reboot the installer with a clean HDD.
If you find that fdisk shows no disks, you have a problem; you will have to find a distro that does boot on that system, work out what driver is required for the HDD, and compile just that one module against the same kernel as the one on the install CD. Save it to a USB storage device {a digital camera is as good as anything} and just make sure that it's plugged into the target computer next time you boot up.
If, on startup, you get LI and no more, you can also use your Debian or Ubuntu disk. Same procedure, but do fdisk -l to see what partitions are there. Do mkdir/recovery and mount whatever you think is likely to be the root partition on/recovery {nb, it's using devfs, so your paths will be like/dev/scsi/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 as opposed to/dev/sda1}. Next, cat/recovery/etc/fstab and mount anything else necessary under/recovery. Finally chroot/recovery -- and you are now running the kernel off the CD with the userland on your old system. Run/sbin/lilo, let it do its bit about adding images. Press ctrl + D to exit the chroot {this is important}, then type poweroff to shut the system down.
But AIM is "five to open" anyway. There are GPL clients such as Gaim and Kopete.
When there's a true open source client for Skype, I might change my prediction. But until such a time, remember, you are beholden to Skype; they can listen to your calls, interrupt your conversation with advertisements, blackmail you over things you have said, increase the price, or just plain cut off your service, anytime they like.
And if they weren't planning to do so, then why have they retained that option?
Skype relies on security through obscurity. It doesn't matter what kind of encryption they are using; it could be as weak as ASI for all anyone knows. They won't let anybody read the source code in order to prove how secure the system is. So we must assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that Skype -- and anyone they choose, even h4x0rz who get lucky -- have the ability to listen to any calls you make through their network.
If you would not shout it out loud in a bus station, don't say it over Skype.
The problem is that Skype will never really be accepted as a serious telephony protocol as long as it remains proprietary and closed.
The telephonical world relies on openness and interchangeability -- it's the only way I can be sure that any mobile phone I buy will accept my SIM card, connect to my service provider {or one of their preferred affiliates anywhere in the world, if a-roamin' I should go} and make and receive calls and SMS messages to any other telephone anywhere else in the world; and that any tethered phone I buy will similarly work with any service provider's connection -- they all use the same line voltages, signalling tones &c.
In fact, the other public utilities also rely on interoperability. How many electric companies do you know who sell 87.5 volts, 22 cycles a second, will only allow you to connect appliances bought from their showrooms, and will cut off your supply if you so much as dare to look with an AVO or oscilloscope at what comes out of their sockets?
OK, I'll put my hands up and admit that it was a deliberate oversimplification about XML. Strictly speaking, HTML is derived from SGML; XML is derived from SGML {it's a superset of a subset}, and XHTML is a version of HTML expressed in XML rather than SGML. And yes, there are standards. A properly-written application will pick up on what it knows about and ignore what it does not know about, meaning the standard can be extended indefinitely. It all sounds completely common-sense and wonderful. Which it is. If it's done properly, but the point is: I don't trust Microsoft to do it properly.
(It won't have all the possible nuances, but it will have all that appear in my documents. That's good enough for me.)
But these days, an increasing proportion of a document is non-textual. The text alone may not be the valuable bit. Also, there is a fair bit of obfuscation you can do on just text.
As long as that data is in XML anyway, _how_ are they going to prevent me from getting at least my text out of it?
You could use sed -e's/\(<.*>\)//g' to extract the textual parts. But see above. Also, although XML is meant to be human-readable, that does not mean a lot in practice. A chunk of data in a proprietary binary format, encoded base-64, is deemed to be human-readable. Whether a human could make sense of it is another matter. And I don't trust Microsoft not to extend the specification in ways that do not meet the standards. An XML container for raw binary data? I would not put it past them.
Microsoft have already poo-poohed OOo's method of bundling up separate files into an archive, stating that they want to embed graphics, sounds and so forth right into the one XML file. What we probably will see in the long term is XML with human-readable {with immense effort} text, and proprietary goodies embedded in a way that a human being would be able to read without any hope of understanding.
Microsoft appear to have released the schema, but they have also put up a few legal obstacles. First there is -- in the USA -- the patent issue. Although patents {currently} expire after 20 years, we can expect MS to keep incorporating new patented technology into their standard to keep it encumbered {and/or longer-lasting patents}. Whilst most of Europe remains free of software patents, it is unclear what will happen when Europeans seek to take advantage of this situation. The USA is known for attempting to enforce its own laws well beyond its own borders, including arresting non-Americans on non-American soil for acts which were legal where they were performed, at the expense of the non-American taxpayer. Microsoft also have more than enough money to pay any fines that may be imposed upon them for performing acts which are illegal in Europe.
In the final analysis, Microsoft's ever-changing proprietary standards are really the only thing keeping their customer base. The only thing really wrong with Office 97 is its inability to load files created in newer versions. Microsoft are not going to let go of this much power without a fight, and there is no reason given their past form to expect that this fight should be a clean one.
It has to be said, though, that the demise of Microsoft probably would precipitate a global state of emergency, and the rulebook would be well and truly out of the window. It's just a shame that it looks like that is what it will take to convince everyone.
But that would not be applicable within the UK and some other countries, where mathematics is not subject to patent restrictions. You do not need a patent licence in a country where the patent in question is not valid: the Law of the Land already gives you the same permission, if not more.
Is there anything else, beside the inapplicable patents, that would block the creation of Open Source software implementing the Microsoft specification in a "no maths patents" jurisdiction?
Slashdot Mirror
And no doubt the Aussie definition of an optimist is an opening batsman with sunblock on his nose!
Next, they'll introduce voice recognition technology. But this is the one I'm waiting for
Run some of your .jpg files from your digital camera through `strings` sometime. Try also `convert foo.jpg bar.jpg` and looking at the strings output from the latter.
When I did counterfeiting, it was bus tickets; and I used an Apple LaserWriter Mk I, serial interface, homebrew software {a program called BADWOLF.BAS}. I bet nobody, not even another Brummie, knows why it was called that.
You are forgetting that when the US constitution was drafted, privacy was so readily obtained as not to be worth protecting. All you had to do if you wanted to be sure nobody would overhear a conversation was go out in the woods somewhere. If you were really paranoid, you might prod the undergrowth with a stick to make sure nobody was hiding.
Don't forget, that old dot matrix printer in the back of your wardrobe will quite happily print on a Gestetner stencil, if you take out the ribbon. It used to be done like that back in the days of punk fanzines. That's if you can get hold of such a machine and a supply of stencils, of course.
Debian is 64-bit only. If you want to run 32-bit applications, you have to do so under a chroot. This keeps it pure in two ways: every userland program is 64-bit, and there's a reasonable chance that every userland program is Open Source.
He was only an Oboe, but one more is gone
Leaving nobody to sing his sad song
Leaving nobody to carry him home
He was only an Oboe, but one more
One more
One more
One more is gone
No, it was most probably for monitoring the decay of disposable nappies in landfill sites.
If there was no such thing as GNU/Linux or FreeBSD or any of the alternatives, if using a computer meant Windows to the same extent as it meant using electricity, I know I'd be out there pushing for Manual Methods.
I find the thought of using pencil, paper and six-figure log tables way preferable to sucking Bill gates's knob -- which is exactly what you're doing when you use Windows.
Amen to that, friend. Technically it's a common-law property right {you are automatically privy to any secret embodied in any article you rightfully own} but just try exercising it.
Tried Opera once. Wanted to patch it. Didn't have the source. Went back to Konqueror. Happy with Konqueror. Ting! Next, please.
For a long time, I have suspected that Microsoft are persuading manufacturers not to support the popular GNU/Linux operating system.
..... but no Tux, and no Daemon.
Any cheap ethernet card you can buy will have a Realtek 8139 chip, which is well supported in Linux {it's hard in the kernel on some installation disks is how popular it is} and BSD. It will also have a Microsoft Windows logo on the packaging
Every modern digital camera behaves like a USB disk drive, again well supported in Linux. No driver software is required: just the usb-storage module {NB, don't compile this hard into the kernel}, ImageMagick and the GIMP which are on almost every distro's installation disks. Again, none of them mention on the packaging that they will work happily with GNU/Linux. Yet it's been my experience that digital cameras behave more stably under Linux than under Windows. This is no mystery; this is exactly as I would have expected, since an open API is by definition better documented than a closed one and therefore software can interact much more reliably in such an environment.
Switches and routers absolutely do not care what OS the host computers are running, as long as it supports TCP/IP {and they all do nowadays}. A moderate-to-high-end one -- the sort of thing you might find in a medium-sized office setup where there is someone who has a clue about IT -- might have a Linux logo on the packaging, but a cheap one almost certainly will be labelled as though it were only suitable for Windows.
{This one isn't hardware; but it's a personal crusade of mine. How often have you seen next to a PDF download "requires Acrobat reader" ? Does it bunnies -- gpdf works fine. I'm e-mailing every website owner I can about this because I believe many people are needlessly polluting their GNU/Linux systems with closed-source software.}
Now, I know what I'm doing. I've been using computers since the Sinclair ZX81 and the BBC Model B, and in those days I used to write all my own software in BASIC and assembler; I have always enjoyed testing the boundary between the possible and the impossible. Does that make me a hacker? It's no big deal to me to patch a kernel module and compile it "after the event" so to speak. But I know I'm the exception.
One thing I would like to see done about this is Mandatory Full Disclosure. That is, you should not be allowed to sell a piece of hardware without supplying full details of how to interact with it at every level, gratis and unencumbered, to every rightful owner on request. Register descriptions, communications protocols, and so forth. No or insufficient documentation should mean no CE / TÜV / FCC / UL accreditation. Never mind giving away secrets to your competitors -- not only do your competitors already buy your products and reverse-engineer them anyway, but you will be able to read your competitors' Mandatory Full Disclosure documentation -- or take them to court for not supplying it. {What you won't be able to do is package a 300DPI printer as 2400DPI, or a 2 megapixel camera as a 6 megapixel camera, or sell a graphics card more expensive than an electronically-identical one because it has one byte different in the driver software and one byte different in the firmware. But that, of course, would be called "deception" or "fraud".} And never mind that in the case of wireless or telephony kit, people might be able to use it in ways that might not meet local regulations -- it's not your business what people do with their own property {never mind that they might conceivably be operating wireless tat out-of-spec inside a Faraday cage, or running phone tat out-of-spec on a PABX isolated from the PSTN, and so beyond the scope of regulations}. Breweries are not responsible for drunk driving. Petrol refineries are not responsible for arson. Fertiliser manufacturers are not responsible for terrorist bombs.
Bee stings are acid, wasp stings are alkaline. So if ever you get stung by a bee or a wasp, just try to get stung in the same place by the other one; and the acid and alkali will annihilate one another.
My proposed "quick and dirty" solution is this.
..... Don't say you weren't warned.");
<script type="text/javascript">
for (i = 0; i < 1000; ++i) {
alert("Disable JavaScript for this site!");
};
alert("OK
</script>
Now you can be sure that {almost*} nobody visiting your site has JavaScript enabled, so there is no chance of this affecting them.
* There probably is _somebody_ _somewhere_ who really is masochistic enough to click the thing 1001 times. Their computer probably is infected with several viruses already, though.
If they both think Windows was easier, I will be very surprised.
Certain packages can only be distributed in source code form for licencing reasons; mplayer is one of them {LAME and PINE also spring to mind}. Though it should be possible to build a deb file so as to include dependencies for the compilation environment itself and everything that mplayer depends upon {so the compilation is certain to proceed cleanly}; put the source code somewhere sane; and perform the actual compilation step from within the post-install script.
This would finally make compiling from source as easy as installing a binary package.
Assuming the Ubuntu installer is anything like the Debian one, this is what you do:
/recovery and mount whatever you think is likely to be the root partition on /recovery {nb, it's using devfs, so your paths will be like /dev/scsi/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 as opposed to /dev/sda1}. Next, cat /recovery/etc/fstab and mount anything else necessary under /recovery. Finally chroot /recovery -- and you are now running the kernel off the CD with the userland on your old system. Run /sbin/lilo, let it do its bit about adding images. Press ctrl + D to exit the chroot {this is important}, then type poweroff to shut the system down.
Wait for the installer to ask you a question, but do not answer it. Switch to another screen {ctrl + alt + f2}. Hit return a few times until you get a shell prompt.
You can now run fdisk {unfortunately, it'll be like the Slackware one and not the old Debian one}, nuke the original partitions, and reboot the installer with a clean HDD.
If you find that fdisk shows no disks, you have a problem; you will have to find a distro that does boot on that system, work out what driver is required for the HDD, and compile just that one module against the same kernel as the one on the install CD. Save it to a USB storage device {a digital camera is as good as anything} and just make sure that it's plugged into the target computer next time you boot up.
If, on startup, you get LI and no more, you can also use your Debian or Ubuntu disk. Same procedure, but do fdisk -l to see what partitions are there. Do mkdir
But AIM is "five to open" anyway. There are GPL clients such as Gaim and Kopete.
When there's a true open source client for Skype, I might change my prediction. But until such a time, remember, you are beholden to Skype; they can listen to your calls, interrupt your conversation with advertisements, blackmail you over things you have said, increase the price, or just plain cut off your service, anytime they like.
And if they weren't planning to do so, then why have they retained that option?
Skype relies on security through obscurity. It doesn't matter what kind of encryption they are using; it could be as weak as ASI for all anyone knows. They won't let anybody read the source code in order to prove how secure the system is. So we must assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that Skype -- and anyone they choose, even h4x0rz who get lucky -- have the ability to listen to any calls you make through their network.
If you would not shout it out loud in a bus station, don't say it over Skype.
The problem is that Skype will never really be accepted as a serious telephony protocol as long as it remains proprietary and closed.
The telephonical world relies on openness and interchangeability -- it's the only way I can be sure that any mobile phone I buy will accept my SIM card, connect to my service provider {or one of their preferred affiliates anywhere in the world, if a-roamin' I should go} and make and receive calls and SMS messages to any other telephone anywhere else in the world; and that any tethered phone I buy will similarly work with any service provider's connection -- they all use the same line voltages, signalling tones &c.
In fact, the other public utilities also rely on interoperability. How many electric companies do you know who sell 87.5 volts, 22 cycles a second, will only allow you to connect appliances bought from their showrooms, and will cut off your supply if you so much as dare to look with an AVO or oscilloscope at what comes out of their sockets?
Microsoft have already poo-poohed OOo's method of bundling up separate files into an archive, stating that they want to embed graphics, sounds and so forth right into the one XML file. What we probably will see in the long term is XML with human-readable {with immense effort} text, and proprietary goodies embedded in a way that a human being would be able to read without any hope of understanding.
Microsoft appear to have released the schema, but they have also put up a few legal obstacles. First there is -- in the USA -- the patent issue. Although patents {currently} expire after 20 years, we can expect MS to keep incorporating new patented technology into their standard to keep it encumbered {and/or longer-lasting patents}. Whilst most of Europe remains free of software patents, it is unclear what will happen when Europeans seek to take advantage of this situation. The USA is known for attempting to enforce its own laws well beyond its own borders, including arresting non-Americans on non-American soil for acts which were legal where they were performed, at the expense of the non-American taxpayer. Microsoft also have more than enough money to pay any fines that may be imposed upon them for performing acts which are illegal in Europe.
In the final analysis, Microsoft's ever-changing proprietary standards are really the only thing keeping their customer base. The only thing really wrong with Office 97 is its inability to load files created in newer versions. Microsoft are not going to let go of this much power without a fight, and there is no reason given their past form to expect that this fight should be a clean one.
It has to be said, though, that the demise of Microsoft probably would precipitate a global state of emergency, and the rulebook would be well and truly out of the window. It's just a shame that it looks like that is what it will take to convince everyone.
So what the fuck? They still get paid whether or not I see the advertisement.
But that would not be applicable within the UK and some other countries, where mathematics is not subject to patent restrictions. You do not need a patent licence in a country where the patent in question is not valid: the Law of the Land already gives you the same permission, if not more.
Is there anything else, beside the inapplicable patents, that would block the creation of Open Source software implementing the Microsoft specification in a "no maths patents" jurisdiction?