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User: Pan+T.+Hose

Pan+T.+Hose's activity in the archive.

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  1. What a stupid question! on How To Avoid Viruses At Windows Install Time? · · Score: 1

    I know, there are no stupid questions but only stupid people, but... How to avoid viruses at Windows install time? By avoiding the Windows install time maybe? Seriously, asking "how to avoid viruses at Windows install time" is equally smart as asking "how to avoid viruses at anal sex without a condom time." Maybe consider some alternatives: Debian, EROS, KeyKOS or maybe even OpenBSD would be a good place to start instead of asking loaded questions.

  2. Nothing to fear?! on Broadband Over Power Lines vs. Radio Relayers · · Score: 1

    If it's just a scam, you have nothing to fear. Sure a few place might have be bad for HF for a year, but that's nothing new. A scam doesn't last, doesn't grow. I've seen no sign this is a real threat.

    Are you sure? What about Herbalife? What about homeopathy? What about Microsoft? What about Scientology? What about Bush? Are you sure that scams don't last and don't grow? Or maybe just because I am paranoid there are no conspiracies in the world whatsoever? I wouldn't be so sure there is really "nothing to fear." Hell, I wouldn't probably even have posted those links if I wasn't sure my arse is covered! I think it is very important to talk about the Broadband Over Power Lines scam, exactly because it is a scam.

  3. Great Article About This Scam on Broadband Over Power Lines vs. Radio Relayers · · Score: 1

    In case anyone is extra curious here, Luke Stewart and his "Media Fusion" idea have gone belly up since then; http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2004/03/ 22/story5.html Company is defunct, and he is under federal indictment for money laundering and wire fraud. Still swears his idea will work though :-P

    This is a great article. (But Score:0? Moderators are obviously on crack again.) Please let me quote few relevant fragments. Media Fusion founders named in suit by Jeff Bounds from the March 19 2004 print edition of the Dallas Business Journal:

    During the height of the technology boom, William Luke Stewart had a vision for what seemed like the ultimate breakthrough for the power industry. And many people believed him.

    The self-proclaimed powerline communications guru claimed to have developed a system for delivering high-speed Internet access over electrical wires, that would circumvent the telecom network. The network is encumbered by the so-called last mile problem of getting data quickly through copper telephone wires built to handle phone calls.

    With consumers and businesses demanding access to high-speed data services, and with the last-mile problem making it difficult for phone companies to deliver, Media Fusion's technology promised a fast and easy solution that could potentially enable utility companies to dominate the Internet-access market.

    With Dallas entrepreneur Edwin Blair, Stewart in 1998 formed what would become Dallas-based Media Fusion L.L.C. to commercialize the idea. Despite rampant skepticism in the scientific community, they landed some $16 million in financing with backers like retired Navy Rear Admiral James Carey, Democratic Party chairman Terence McAuliffe and former Rep. Robert Livingston, R-La.

    Stewart even testified before a House committee on connecting rural America to cyberspace.

    Today, the dream has collapsed. The company has shut down, though some people believe attempts may be made to revive it. And Blair and Stewart are under federal criminal indictment in South Carolina.

    Each is charged with one count of wire fraud and money laundering in the alleged defrauding of a utility there, Scana Corp., to lend $1 million to Media Fusion for research-and-development efforts, according to records and interviews.

    Prosecutors allege the pair made numerous false statements in securing the loan from Scana, including that Stewart had been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

    A group of about eight individuals who invested a total of $80,000 in Media Fusion recently convinced a Texas appeals court to force McAuliffe and Livingston, who both live out of state, to face a civil suit here. The two men, who are among multiple defendants in the suit, have 30 days to appeal the March 3 judgment to the Texas Supreme Court.

    Regardless of what happens on the appeals front, the battle has forced the shareholders to spend time and money on the question of whether McAuliffe and Livingston should face trial here rather than on discovery, or a pre-trial information exchange, on the claims they are making in their suit.

    Bruce W. Bowman Jr., a partner with Dallas-based Godwin Gruber L.L.P., represents the plaintiffs. He says that if the appellate court decision isn't overturned, discovery should be completed in six months and a trial could begin as early as next spring.

    There have been limited settlement discussions, though no deal is pending, he adds.

    Bowman's clients, who formed an organization called Hagerty Partners Partnership to invest in Media Fusion, claim that Blair and Stewart used calculated and deceitful use of publicity to promote the wealth potential of their company and to land investors, most prominently in a December 1999 article in D magazine.

    Records say the article contained a number

  4. Link on Broadband Over Power Lines vs. Radio Relayers · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have found a direct link to the article I was quoting in my previous post, The Electric Kool-Aid Bandwidth Test by Evan Ratliff. It is long but very interesting and enlightening. True eye opener. Enjoy.

  5. Very Important Thing on Broadband Over Power Lines vs. Radio Relayers · · Score: 4, Informative

    A very important yet often overlooked thing to keep in mind while thinking about "broadband over power lines," as I have already written countless times with little effect, is the very fact that it all has started as a scam. The idea has been introduced by Luke Stewart, a scam artist who has promised more than billion gigabits per second (sic) with his "Media Fusion" snake oil.

    The idea of sending information via the electrical grid, rather than over telephone copper or fiber-optic cable, has been around for decades. The field, known as power line communications, or PLC, is pockmarked with wasted investments and technical failures. Only within the past few months have several companies begun to deploy limited PLC ventures.

    [...] Stewart, however, had a much grander vision, based on what he considered to be a dramatic discovery: Data could hitch a ride on the magnetic field created by electric currents running through power line wires. By piggybacking on this magnetic field, instead of on the electricity itself, he could obtain almost limitless speeds of transmission.

    [...] Media Fusion promised to deliver, within two years, bandwidth at speeds thousands of times faster than what's possible with fiber. Stewart was company chair, while the board of directors included government heavyweights such as former Speaker of the House Robert Livingston; Terry McAullife, a leading Democratic fund-raiser and close friend of then-President Clinton; and Admiral James Carey, former chair of the Federal Maritime Commission. The firm's Web site declared that the ASCM technology would "impact every facet of our life," and the computing power of the network would be "exponentially more powerful than any supercomputer to date." [emphasis added]

    This scam and those billions gigabits per second was the only reason why "broadband over power lines" has been ever considered in the first place. See these links for sources and much more informative details and background.

  6. Our duty and responsibility on Terraform Humans First, Then Mars? · · Score: 1

    A post on Slashdot:

    My own personal belief is that it is our duty and responsibility, not just for us but for future generations to explore and spread our seed where ever it can be sown. [...]
    --
    Im just a musical geek girl who cant say no.

    I was thinking about our duty and responsibility and I can honestly say that I couldn't possibly agree more wholeheartedly. We definitely need more people thinking that way about spreading our seed because this is precisely the world I want to live in.

  7. Mars terraforming is unfortunately unavoidable on Terraform Humans First, Then Mars? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The terraforming of Mars seems to be, in my opinion, unfortunately quite unavoidable, to say the very least, and that is because of all of us who are "marsaforming" Earth so well that soon we sadly will be unable to live here any more. That's very sad. It might not be a problem for us, but for our children or grandchildren.

    I am sure one day someone will remember the timeless implications of our today's Slashdot discussion looking at the Mars University and will say: "Very impressive. Back in the 20th century we had no idea there was a university on Mars," to which his professor will answer: "Well in those days Mars was just a dreary uninhabitable wasteland... much like Utah. But unlike Utah, it was eventually made livable, when the university was founded in 2636." That will be a great day in our history.

    I am very excited. I dream of being able to ski on Mars one day. That would be amazing. We definitely have to bring some water there and lower the temperature somehow to freeze it (we could use the process of so caled desublimacion to change the steam--a product of hydrogen and oxygen synthesis--directly into snow). That would be great. I am so excited. I haven't read such an exciting article for a long time.

    The Slashdot headline is misleading, though. We don't need terraforming of humans, but rather marsaforming. I, for on, am already terraformed quite well, thank you. I hope Slashdot editors will correct this mistake as soon as possible. Other than that, the very idea of marsaforming humans instead of terraforming Mars is novel and extremely exciting. Great read.

    Also, I find the ethical implications very interesting. After all, who gave us the right to live on Mars? The answer is sadly: no one. But does that mean we should not live there? Probably yes.

  8. My God! on Microsoft Word 5.1: The Apex of Word Processing · · Score: 1

    Have you actually ever even installed Powerpoint???

    There is an option you can install called pack-and-go. It makes a little executable file which will show your presentation. No Powerpoint installation needed on the machine used for the presentation. It's been in every version of powerpoint I can remember using. [emphasis added]

    This has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my network security career! Probably even dumber than the self-extracting zip archives. "Oh, you don't have a program to read my text? No problem! Let me send you a native binary executable! By the way, I LOVE YOU. I want you to send your advise." Why am I not surprised this Powerpoint is a Microsoft product? My God... "Pack-and-go" indeed... This foolish idea is profanely insulting in its stupidity.

  9. “True civil desobedience” on Copy-protected CD Tops U.S. Charts · · Score: 1

    (Score:5, Insightful?)

    In true civil desobedience fashion, the proper way to make decision makers understand that they are wasting their time is to: [buy a CD, copy it, return for a refund]. [Copying] is optional. The proper and law-abiding way is to not rip that CD. [emphasis added]

    I'm sorry but there is no such a thing as "law-abiding way" of "true civil desobedience," it's an oxymoron. And no, your advise has absolutely nothing to do with civil desobedience, especially not true civil desobedience. Real civil desobedience is a "refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to induce change in governmental policy or legislation, characterized by the use of passive resistance or other nonviolent means." (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Ed.) True civil desobedience is braking the law and going to jail to demonstrate that the law is not fair. Not only it has nothing to do with your proposal but is of course impossible to do in any "law-abiding way," a priori. Returning a CD is hardly civil desobedience. Going to jail and letting people wear "Free HuguesT!" would be. I believe it to be a very important difference.

  10. True on Windows Compatability on the Linux Desktop · · Score: 1

    Couldn't agree more. Im often ammused at people who seem to think vi and grep etc is all they need for programming.

    I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly. That's why I use vim and egrep.

  11. Programming Languages History and Family Tree on The History of Programming Languages · · Score: 1

    You can learn a lot about programming languages history and family tree from this slides from a conference by Larry Wall.

  12. Simple on Theora I Bistream Format Frozen · · Score: 1

    Who honestly cares about or uses Ogg?

    I care. Some media activists care. All artists definitely should care. And, most importantly, some great hackers care as well.

    Seriously, as much as I constantly feel insulted by the bloody ignorance of profanum vulgus, or unwashed masses, if you will--please don't mind if I take offence to you outrageously ignorant remark--I don't really care who cares about the software I use--be it Debian, OpenBSD, EROS, PostgreSQL, Perl 6 or Ogg Vorbis--as long as the developers care. We don't need large user base to break even, now do we?

    Music is very important to me, almost as important as the freedom I have. And it's not about the price, mind you. I write it listening to another version of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23, I couldn't resist to buy today on a new and expensive CD with all the money I had. I don't care about the proce of free software. For me it's all about freedom. I do believe quite a few people think that way.

    Really. I have yet to even contemplate it. Sure I have the codec on my machine, but I haven't used it. Nothing is out there in the format that I am interested in or have even ran across accidently. I like portability of my music so I use MP3. [..] I have no intention of recording anything into the format, so it would be a poor choice for me to use it. How many people is it a good choice for? Why?

    Actually, the reason is quite simple.

  13. My Copyright Stories? on Lessig Legal Team Needs Your Copyright Stories · · Score: 1

    Oh God damn it! I have just released all of my stories as public domain!

  14. Already slashdotted? on Akamai DNS Outage Messes up Net · · Score: 1

    From isc.incidents.org:

    "The ISC site gets slashdotted

    "If you are encountering intermittent problems connecting to our site, it is because we got slashdotted. These connectivity problems are not directly related to the Akamai outage, but are the result of a large number of visitors accessing our site today. Thanks for being patient while waiting for the ISC site to load. [emphasis added]"

    Not directly related to the Akamai outage? And they think why on Earth have we bloody slashdotted them in the first place if not because of the very Akamai outage and their coverage therof?! This is related as directly as it gets:

    1. Akamai goes down
    2. ISC covers it
    3. ???
    4. We slashdot them with our unimaginable beowulf cluster of browsers like there was no tommorow in Soviet Russia et cetera

    Don't they know Slashdot?! Kids...

  15. Centeral point of failure of ONE COMPANY on Akamai DNS Outage Messes up Net · · Score: 2, Informative

    you can still get to all those sites. You just have to REMEMBER the ip instead of depending on the computer to look it up for you ;). TCP/IP was designed to have not centeral point of failure and still does it's job well. DNS was not quite designed in such a way.

    (Score:5, Insightful, right...) Actually, it was. If Google et al were all using a single Akamai backbone TCP/IP routers and they went down, they would be affected as well.

    Google was using some DNS servers as their DNS servers (NSs for their domain zone). Their servers went down and then Google was unreachable because their DNS was down, nothing more. Nothing magical about DNS per se. TCP/IP routing was working but this hardly means DNS is any more "centeral point of failure" than TCP/IP. Google should not rely on a single network of DNS servers and it would be fine, because DNS is designed in such a way and has been for over twenty years.

    The problem here is the bastardization of DNS standard by Akamai. DNS records should be cached on recursive name servers. Google is used everywhere. If Google had sane TTL and expiration times set for their zone, their zone would be cached by every ISP in the world and their DNS servers could be down for a week and no one would even notice.

    This is how DNS should work, can work, and have been working for literally decades. Please read RFC 882: DOMAIN NAMES - CONCEPTS and FACILITIES (P. Mockapetris, November 1983), RFC 883: DOMAIN NAMES - IMPLEMENTATION and SPECIFICATION (P. Mockapetris, November 1983), RFC 1034: DOMAIN NAMES - CONCEPTS AND FACILITIES (P. Mockapetris, November 1987) and RFC 1035: DOMAIN NAMES - IMPLEMENTATION AND SPECIFICATION (November 1987).

  16. My God! on Theora I Bistream Format Frozen · · Score: 3, Funny

    I always thought Theora was kind of cool... But frozen? My God! They must really kick arse!

  17. Universal Automatic Computer? WTF? on Happy Birthday, UNIVAC I · · Score: 1

    Universal Automatic Computer? I believe "UNIVAC" stands for "Universal Anallog Computer," does it not? Also, the "-vac" in "UNIVAC" is a reference to "vac-" in "vacuum tubes," why isn't it stated in the summary? Wouldn't "Automatic Computer" be little bit redundant, anyway?

  18. UNIVAC? WTF? on Happy Birthday, UNIVAC I · · Score: 1

    UNIVAC? UNIVAC I? It is 2004, people! Everyone is using MULTIVAC, get over it!

  19. SATA, RAID HD? WTF? on Chipset Serial ATA RAID Performance Exposed · · Score: 1

    SATA? RAID? We are talking about HD here, mind you. So, RAID with ATA? IDE? Seriously, what's wrong with SCSI?

  20. SATA, USB HD? WTF? on Seagate Rolls Out 400 GB SATA Drives · · Score: 1

    SATA? USB? We are talking about HD here, mind you. So, USB? ATA? IDE? Seriously, what's wrong with SCSI?

  21. Orac^3 is a casemod? on Orac^3 -- Not Your Everyday Casemod · · Score: 1

    I thought it was the default Oracle dierctory on Windows as seen in the 8+3-limited command line "shell." Was the pun intended?

  22. I hope so... But are you sure? on Stanford Learns a Software Lesson · · Score: 1

    The nuclear power plant I used to work for [...] fired their programmers with the bone headed attitude, "we are an electric company not a software company." [...] I'm not there anymore, but I'm sure it's going to be a dissaster.

    Dear God! Could you please tell us where exactly is that power plant in question located? Thanks...

    The company has lots of plants, but the dissaster I refer to is an economic one and not a safety issue. [...] operators may be harmed but there is no public safety risk associated with it. [...] When things break, they can turn it off if it does not shut down on it's own. It's going to cost lots of money and the cost will be passed onto the public but there's not going to be accidents.

    I can honestly say that I hope you are right. Still, I find it very suspicious, to say the very least, that you don't want to disclose the plant location. Very suspicious.

  23. Bashless systems? on Searching for the Best Scripting Language · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's bash code, not sh.

    The examples in the article use bash. They note that the implementation of sh that they use is bash.

    I overlooked that bit. But I didn't notice any bashisms in their code, and it's rather surprising how many bashless systems I've had to deploy existing scripts on (requiring some porting in many cases).

    This is hardly an argument against Bash--now is it? Even despite the obvious lack of omnipresence of Bash, I would bet it is still much more popular than Merd, Lua, OCalm or even Haskell which were also evaluated in the article.

    I have seen more perlless than bashless systems myself. I have seen lots of systems with Perl 4 (there are still new systems shipped with Perl 5.005 (sic!) today which is so 1998) but I would not consider using only Perl 4 syntax in the Scriptometer test because of that.

    Nevertheless, having done it myself too many times, I can perfectly understand your pain in porting shell scripts. As Larry Wall once said, "it's easier to port a shell than a shell script."

    Actually, I don't know of many systems to which Bash has not yet been ported. The systems with Bash I know of are GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, BSD/OS, BeOS, Sun Solaris, IBM's AIX, SGI, HP-UX, Compaq's Tru64 Unix, Jaguar/MacOS X--just from the top of my head. I would consider it a very strong argument pro Bash.

    To be honest, I don't know what would you expect from a Bash script grepping text file in the linked article. Running an external grep is apparently not good enough even though running external programs is essentially what shells are supposed to do... Fair enough, so I have written a pure Bash script, which in turn is still not good enough since it is a Bash script... Well, I rest my case.

  24. [PATCH] to work better with whitespace in input on Searching for the Best Scripting Language · · Score: 1

    --- shgrep Sun Jun 13 15:42:45 2004
    +++ shgrep-r1 Sun Jun 13 15:43:24 2004
    @@ -22,5 +22,5 @@
    # Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

    [ a$1 == a ] && echo "Usage: $0 pattern < file" && exit 1
    -while :; do read a || exit; [ "${a/$1/}" == "$a" ] || echo $a; done
    +while :; do read a || exit; [ "${a/$1/}" == "$a" ] || echo "$a"; done

  25. One Question on Stanford Learns a Software Lesson · · Score: 1

    The nuclear power plant I used to work for had spent $5,000,000 building custom software for itself with Powersoft tools. It worked beautifully. The administration types thought that it cost too much and fired their programmers with the bone headed attitude, "we are an electric company not a software company." Now they are putting in a fifteen million dollar commercial package. I'm not there anymore, but I'm sure it's going to be a dissaster.

    Dear God! Could you please tell us where exactly is that pawer plant in question located? Thanks...