Slashback: Benchmarks, Sobig, Blob

Slashback is back, with more this time around on NASA's G5 benchmarks, an in-depth look at the Sobig.E virus, an update on the Internet Book List (growing rapidly), the fate of both the Microsoft-purchased Virtual PC and one very unlucky sperm whale, and more. Read on for the details.

A good excuse to file purchase orders, too. Eug writes "Writing in this Ars thread, Craig Hunter of NASA gives details about his much-quoted dual-G5 Power Mac benchmarks listed here. This should answer some of the questions posed around the net about the methodology and potentially the validity of his benchmarks."

The lines between viruses and spam is thin enough already. Joe Stewart writes "There have been a lot of news stories lately about how Sobig and spam are tied together. I actually revealed this in a paper two months ago. Now with the widespread Sobig.e, it seems to have become a topic again. However, the major antivirus companies have once again left out the whole story - most of them currently rate Sobig.e as 'low damage.' This is because they haven't fully understood how the real payload of Sobig.e is delivered. I've written a followup paper describing the entire mechanism that Sobig.e uses to facilitate spam, identity theft and bank fraud. Sobig has evolved, and it is much harder to stop than before."

Is this the beginning of a long goodbye? [e-mail] writes "Microsoft has updated their Mactopia Web Site to include a section on Virtual PC. It's taken them since February 2003 to do this. On the site, they mention, 'In August 2003, Virtual PC for Mac will be available through standard Microsoft channels of distribution.' So it looks like they aren't killing it after all."

Simplicity itself is a nice ideal. webword writes "Building Accessible Websites by Joe Clark is now available online. As you might recall, Joe was interviewed on Slashdot back in December. Good stuff if you care about accessibility."

Not yet billions and billions served, but getting there. nzilla writes "The Internet Book List, which announced its creation earlier this year on /. has now reached 10,000+ entries and is still going strong. The Internet Book List (IBList) strives to be the IMDb of books. IBList is maintained exclusively by volunteers around the world."

Girlfriends drive strange endeavors. ceejayoz writes "This interesting article on MSNBC.com details the Degree Confluence Project - a project to gather a photographic record of the points on Earth where latitude and longitude lines meet. The article has links to some of the more interesting points. The project's website also has an interesting map showing all the completed confluence points."

We mentioned this project quite some time ago, and it's progressed quite a bit since then.

Uh, sir, you have some blubber on your collar there. Scoria writes "Chilean scientists have determined that a 12-meter mass of flesh discovered recently on a Pacific beach is actually a sperm whale, not an obscure 'giant octopus' as many researchers speculated. Scientists performing research at the Museum of Natural History in Santiago were the first to develop this conclusion after observing the presence of dermal glands unique to the species."

Code that pays tribute to the money in television. mondainx writes "Following(?) in the footsteps of Linksys, Tivo has made their source available for versions 2.0 through 4.0. Get the GPL source here. Sweet!"

Don't logitude and latitude meet everywhere?

Not the major ones of course, but tiny ones.

Poor Sperm Whales

First they get hosed when scientist were handing out animal names....now this!

Re:Poor Sperm Whales

Actually, I've heard it was sailors who first gave the sperm whale its interesting name.

The sperm whale has a huge reservoir of liquid in its head, with an oily sheen and a translucent, pale white color. The liquid solidifies under pressure (when the whale dives); current scientific thinking has it that the change in the liquid's density helps the whale adjust its buoyancy.

When early whaling crews first killed one of the beasties and slit it open, they encountered the oily stuff in its head but didn't know what it was....being sex-starved sailors, they jumped to conclusions, called the substance spermaceti, and named the whale after his unique feature: gallons and gallons of sperm in its head!

Re:Poor Sperm Whales

The Japanese call them Bukake Whales.

Re:Poor Sperm Whales

Actually, I'm sure it was natural philosophers who coined the actual term "spermaceti"; the sailors called it jizz or cum or whatever one called the male ejaculate, circa 1600.

From Thomas Beale's "The Natural History of the Sperm Whale," 1840:

"What spermaceti is," (says Sir Thomas Brown, in his work published in 1686, third book, chap. xxv. p.139,) "men might justly doubt, since the learned Hofmannus, in his work of thirty years, saith plainly nescio quid sit, and therefore need not wonder at the variety of opinions, while some conceived it to be flos maries, and many a 'bituminous substance floating upon the sea.' That it was not the spawn of the whale, according to vulger conceit or nominal appellation, philosophers have always doubted, not easily conceiving the seminal humour of animals should be inflammable, or of a floating nature.

So you see, even before sperm were known to people, spermaceti (though probably not known by that name) was considered to be somehow involved with the reproduction of the whale, in much the same way that human semen was known to be involved with the reproduction of humans even though its exact nature was unknown.

Re:Poor Sperm Whales

Hey, at least they didn't blow it up. [hackstadt.com]

And in other news...

...a shattered bowl of petunias was found close by the splattered sperm whale. Police are treating the death of the petunias as suspicious.

Re:And in other news...

"Oh no, not again."

{crash}

Re:And in other news...

I don't get it. What is this a reference to?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book series, by Douglas Adams, of course! Do please purchase or borrow copies and read them, won't you? Alternatively you can listen [szlaga.net] to the BBC radio show version that came out before the books did. When you find yourself sufficiently mesmerised, be sure to visit the BBC's online shrine [bbc.co.uk] to the series, the man behind the series, and generally all things pan-galactic in nature.

VPC

'... Virtual PC for Mac will be available through standard Microsoft channels of distribution.' So it looks like they aren't killing it after all.

No, they're just going to mediocre it to death.

MFLOPS/$

From the article in Ars:

ie, MFLOPS/$ at NASA probably aren't the same as MFLOPS/$ somewhere else

Well, the funniest statement I could about NASA...

IBlist & IMDb

IMDb really shouldn't be called the Internet Movie Database anymore. They cover TV shows as well. Does this mean the IBList will go beyond books (novels, short stories, etc.) in into "literary works"? (comic books, poems, plays) Just a thought.

Zealots! All of you!

Hm. I wonder how long until some /. arm-chair technologist declares NASA a facist-Mac-worshipping-zealot organization. Maybe he/she will top it off by saying, "Well, if they really do use macs, I have trouble believing they could have possibly landed on the moon."

Re:Wonder no longer!

I make a run for the old Russian probe, sacrifice all my fellow explorers in the process, blow up an insane dog robot, climb into a rock sample container with no air and a one-way ticket, get saved by a hot chick that's been sitting in the safety of her spaceship for a week, and bone her for the whole trip back to Earth.

just like last time...

And they said, "what are the odds of *THAT* happening twice?"

Where is everyone?

What I found odd about the confluence points was that almost none of them where in populated areas. It just seems a little strange.

I guess it just goes to show that no matter how overpopulated the world seems, there is still a lot of wide-open space out there.

Re:Where is everyone?

If I calculated it right, given 724 square feet each, the current world's population could fit in California.

Let's see, California covers 163707 square miles.
census.gov reports that the world population clock for 7/1/03 is 6302486693

6302486693 / 163707 = 38498.57 people per square mile (of california).
1 mile = 5280 feet
1 square mile = 27878400 square feet.
27878400 / 38498.57 = 724.14 square feet per person.

Although that doesn't give much space for growing food.

The United States covers 3618770 square miles...

That puts us at 1741.6 people per square mile, or give each person a measly 16007 square feet. Anyone think that they could be entirely self-sustaining inside of a box 400 feet by 400 feet? Including food production and sewer? That isn't much larger than the average city block.

Now, this is assuming that the entire world is stuffed into the area of the united states, and all of the area, including Alaska is used, so much of that area is not very habitable.

Saying that everyone can FIT into a place is much different from saying that we have too large a population for the natural resources to sustain. And the sustainability all depends on how we use those resources....do we buy computers that use 9 square meters of raw materials per ounce of silicon wafer (if I remember right), or do we use products that can be produced with minimal environmental impact?

Re:Where is everyone?

In Mary Pride's book The Way Home, she calculated that you could give every person in the world 2,000 square feet (which is larger than most homes) and everyone would fit into the state of Texas.

Yeah, but you'd really, really have to hate everyone in the world to put them all in Texas.

Well of course ...

However, the major antivirus companies have once again left out the whole story - most of them currently rate Sobig.e as 'low damage.'

Of course they do, they didn't make this one. It's almost obsurd to think that there isn't some tie between anti-virus and virus creators. It may seem a little far fetched, but what better way to keep yourself in business than to make new business. Just like the mob ... some places would call this extortion, here we call it "Virus Protection"... guess if you call it something more than "Protection" it makes it okay.

The motive behind this virus was simple, spam blocking has actually gotten to be a threat to spammers, so what better way than relaying spam through innocent windows boxes on the internet. Though who knows maybe there's an unmarked envelope of cash sitting waiting for them. Or hell, maybe symantec didn't think they weren't making enough money and decided to take a little something from the spam industry to get a bonus for new sales.

Just because you pretend to not to see things in the world doesn't mean this world isn't the most evil cruel place immagineable.

What about Virtual PC for Windows?

Virtual PC for Windows is indispensible. I do so many great things with it...

• running Linux and BSD
  
• testing code on different Windows versions
  
• having Virtual PC create an entire network of machines on my desktop so I can do network development
  
• sandboxing weird code I might get over the Internet
  
• justifying having lots and lots of RAM
  
• etc.
  

If they kill it, or more likely, make it so I can't run non-MS OS's, I will be severely bummed.

OTOH, if they kill it, I will be tempted to pay the big bucks and go with VMWare and host it using Linux.

And then deal with the fact that I don't get to play as many games. Sigh.

Wow.. it took MS as long as they said it would!

"Microsoft has updated their Mactopia Web Site to include a section on Virtual PC. It's taken them since February 2003 to do this.

From the Connectix Aquisition FAQ: [connectix.com]

Q: What is the duration of the transition period after this transaction?
A: The transition period is approximately six months from today (February 20, 2003).

Imagine that. Microsoft said it would take six months and it took *looking at my calendar* six months! So what was there to complain about?

Reading comprehension, gang. It's a good thing! Just think, if JWZ had that ability, he wouldn't have had that nasty little toothbrush problem [jwz.org]!!

That's about as fair as it gets re: G5 speed.

Craig does seem to be about as fair as he can be regarding the G5 benchmarks he posted. If you read the whole thread, you will see that he used several different methodologies (compiler options and various compilers, mostly) to optimize both the P4 and G5 code.

Here are Craig's final numbers, as posted on Ars's website:

dual G4-1GHz Xserve (single CPU only): 105
dual G4-1GHz Xserve (both CPUs): 207
dual G4-1.25GHz PowerMac (single CPU only): 129
dual G4-1.25GHz PowerMac (both CPUs): 256
dual G5-2GHz PowerMac (single CPU only): 254
dual G5-2GHz PowerMac (both CPUs): 498
single P4 2GHz: 192
single P4 2.66GHz: 255
single P4 3.2GHz (extrapolated): 307

These numbers seem entirely reasonable to me. A single G5/2GHz G5 is approximately equivalent to a single P4/2.66GHz. This rings true to me -- Intel has never been known to squeeze every last bit of performance out of every chip, instead opting to continually push for higher and higher raw MHz. Thus, on a purely MHz/performance basis, Apple wins (as has been the case for years.)

However, in the dual-processor arena, things get muddier. Intel should have dual 3.4GHz Xeons by the time Apple's G5s are shipping. In raw performance, based on these numbers, the Xeon will have an edge over the G5. Plus, it will be priced lower... I priced a dual Xeon 2.4GHz with 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive for a company that is buying a game server from us, and even with a 1U form factor (which is more expensive than a standard desktop case), the price came to $1705... a bit more than half the cost of the dual G5/2.0GHz. There is no question that the dual Xeon will outperform the G5 both in terms of raw performance and cost. The P4, however, doesn't have much edge over the G5 except for the cost.

For most of us, who are probably sitting on machines around 1-2GHz, almost all of the machines above, including the P4/2.66 and a single G5, will be a healthy upgrade. Despite Apple's high price point, I for one am happy to see them get back into the game... and I'm happy to see Intel have some real competition. A big thanks to Craig for doing the benchmarks... I'm sure this is just the first of many arguments about which machine is better!

Re:That's about as fair as it gets re: G5 speed.

and I'm happy to see Intel have some real competition

Not to be a fanboy. But you're implying that AMD hasn't been real competition?

Seems like for roughly 3 of the last 4 years AMD was stomping Intel on a regular basis. Now they are in a lull between product lines and people completely write them off....

Re:That's about as fair as it gets re: G5 speed.

Yes, in scalar FP. If you vectorize this same app then the G5 trounces everything by nearly 10x. Of course only scientific applications (and very few of those at that) can really be vectorized in that fashion. :) But if you're doing vector fluid dynamics calculations you can't beat any machine with Altivec!

Whales

I have to ask how did the whale get in that shape in the first place? Attacked by humans or something more sinister

Rus

Re:Whales

They die, they bloat from rotting, they float for a while (the skin is really tough) until they finally rupture. The fatty chunks that washed up are all that's left by that point.

sobig and danger ratings

AV firms are probably giving that virus a low rating because it lacks damage to the actual computer, meaning it doesnt delete/corrupt data. I think AV companies need to add a "Societal Threat:" field to viruses. In which case sobig is "highly dangerous."

Re:sobig and danger ratings

It may not damage the computer itself, but it will seriously damage the reputation of the computer's owner, who will be falsely branded a spammer and get cut off the net. This should be of serious concern to computer owners and, as such, the virus should be rated as highly dangerous.

Schwab

IBList Automation

It seems that for each book they have: Title, Year, Author, Synopsis, Language, ISBN# and Genre. It seems there are already sites out there *cough*Amazon*cough* where a bot could scour this information for millions of titles.

VPC/Entourage

I could care less about VPC for the Mac being updated. What I'm really waiting for is the Entourage update that brings Exchange compatibality.

After that comes out I'd like to EOL OS 9 and Outlook 2001 at my university and move everybody over to OS X (finally). Plus, perhaps I can convince my boss-man to let me use a mac at work instead of a PC! (crosses fingers)

Bad Compilers for Apple G5

Craig Hunter of NASA gives details about his much-quoted dual-G5 Power Mac benchmarks listed here.

When you read his latest comments he notes that several Fortran compilers gave faulty results, some depending on optimizations selected. THIS IS SCARY, to say the least. Even years ago I knew of C code that broke for no known reason when optimizations were selected.

What does it take to start a /. article about faulty compilers. This ought to be a big deal.

Cheap Virtual PC?

I see Connectix don't sell Virtual PC without DOS or Windows. I've got a legal, non-OEM copy of Win2k. If I buy Virtual PC plus DOS, can I install Win2k over it?

The IBlist is kind of poor

I have a few beefs with the book list that I will air here as I do not see a means to on their site. - No button to submit corrections(I saw tons of mistakes) - Peoples real names were listed as pseduonyms rather than having their fake names as nom de plume and then a separate section for real names. - Books were listed by the year of their most recent printing rather than their original publishing. - The above could have easily been acknowledged but they dont even have a section for this - I saw things miscatogorized as novels that were just individual poems. It's a good endeavor but I don't see how it beats going to amazon and just typing in the authors name.

Am I the only one...

that thinks Boot List Order Bug when you see blob?
(Anyone who knows Microware's OS-9 knows about the BLOB)

why *would* they kill VPC?

Virtual PC is just one more reason for too A) buy a windows license (what M$ will probably bundle them, so you can't save money buy using Linux on your VPC) and B) port software to the mac, since people can just use VPC if they want to run it.

ISBN.nu

What about isbn.nu [isbn.nu]? That site's been around for years and does much the same thing as this booklist site.

hmmmm

Hmmm, I recal Douglas Adams saying something about a sperm whale in the middle of nowhere "As they approached the ridge of higher ground they became aware that it seemed to be circular - a crater about a hundred and fifty yards wide. Round the outside of the crater the sloping ground was spattered with black and red lumps. They stopped and looked at a piece. It was wet. It was rubbery. With horror they suddenly realized that it was fresh whalemeat. At the top of the crater's lip they met Zaphod. "Look," he said, pointing into the crater. In the centre lay the exploded carcass of a lonely sperm whale that hadn't lived long enough to be disappointed with its lot. The silence was only disturbed by the slight involuntary spasms of Trillian's throat. "I suppose there's no point in trying to bury it?" murmured Arthur, and then wished he hadn't. Now, the most logical explanation of this, is that in another dimension Earth was actually Magrathea (sp?) and this sperm whale was dropped out of the sky from the Heart of Gold. It then went through time and dimensions to wind up on earth. See, explains it perfectly :p

VPC

Microsoft will not kill off VPC for many reasons. 1. It can sell a licensed copy of Windows with every product. They are a software company, so this is good for them. 2. They can limit VPC to use only windows products. This pushes their software over the competitors. 3. They can discontinue products for the mac and make people use VPC for compatability until they are willing to switch over to their platform. Either way, its Microsoft software they are using. 4.They have a way for people/companies to run older Microsoft OSes inside the new ones ... such as running NT inside of Server 2003.

How about that....

Chilean scientists have determined that a 12-meter mass
of flesh discovered recently on a Pacific beach is actually CmdrTaco.

See [misterhouse.net]
What [studentplanet.com]
I [narod.ru]
Mean? [ispep.cx]

available for a nominal fee

On the tivo site [tivo.com], to get a copy of the source code by mail, it gives a mailing address (no phone) and says: "You will be charged a nominal fee for reproduction, shipping and handling costs, as allowed by the GPL." Anybody wonder what that nominal fee is? How would that work, you mail them asking for it, they mail you back, say what it costs, then you mail them? And who decides what a nominal fee is, even? Why not just say code available for $5 or whatever? I realize that the GPL may not say you have to tell people what the "nominal fee" is, but wouldn't that just make everyone's life easier?

And how would you enforce that part of the GPL in court? This haziness isn't the fault of Tivo, but rather of the FSF. Maybe as far as the company is concerned it takes several hours of labor at $50 an hour to get you that c.d. of code, so would have to pay $300?

Anyhoo, I think that everyone will just download the code off the website as it's there for free.

The IBList

The Internet Book List, which announced its creation earlier this year on /. has now reached 10,000+ entries and is still going strong.

The only problem is that 9,500 of the books are about unicorns or elves.

TiVo following Linksys?

IIRC, TiVo has provided source for their GPL-based software from the beginning, or very near it. In any case, they did long before Linksys fessed up to all its usage.

Sweet...

...more code to play with.

*rummages through the files.*

I shouldn't moan about a rejected story but...

...if this isn't "News for Nerds" or "Stuff that matters" then I don't know what is:

Tarantino's Kill Bill sliced into two movies

BBC News [bbc.co.uk] is carrying a story [bbc.co.uk] that Kill Bill [kill-bill.com], Quentin Tarantino's forthcoming martial arts movie Kill Bill is to be divided into two films. The film, starring Uma Thurman as a female assassin, is being released as two separate 90-minute movies after the early version weighed in at three hours. Miramax decided to divide the film over fears it would lose ticket sales because of its original length. Aren't we all annually queuing up to watch The Lord Of The Rings [lordoftherings.net] movies, running at 178 and 179 minutes? Wasn't in just a few years ago we had Titanic [titanicmovie.com] running at 194 minutes? And weren't all those blockbusters of yesteryear - eg, Ben Hur (212-222 minutes) and The Ten Commandments (220 minutes) - all about 3 hours in length?

So Kill Bill doesn't register on Slashdot's radar? Yeah right. Want to bet that we see a review of the movie on the front page as soon as it's released?

Nasa G5 Benchmarks

dual G4-1GHz Xserve (single CPU only): 105
dual G4-1GHz Xserve (both CPUs): 207
dual G4-1.25GHz PowerMac (single CPU only): 129
dual G4-1.25GHz PowerMac (both CPUs): 256
dual G5-2GHz PowerMac (single CPU only): 254
dual G5-2GHz PowerMac (both CPUs): 498 single P4 2GHz: 192 single P4 2.66GHz: 255 single P4 3.2GHz (extrapolated): 307

Not only did the score of the G5 with both CPUs make me say "Holy shit" out loud in front of my comp (seriously!), but it also kicks the piss out of the P4! So, Apple does have one of the fastest machines around!

Fastest G5 SPEC Scores

Have we seen the fastest SPEC scores that the G5 can produce? Any tests done other than with gcc?

Intel has given us SPEC_INT/SPEC_FP of 1261/1267 using ICC for a P4 @ 3.2GHz, can Apple beat it with any compiler?

In other news...

...the Orbital Space Plane, which was discussed in this article [slashdot.org], might not have the problems we thought.

In This Space.com article on Space Shuttle Weather Scrubs [space.com], there's a selection of an interview from NASA's deputy administrator:

Gregory also dropped a strong hint in Dayton that the so-called Orbital Space Plane, not targeted for 2008, could be a capsule.

The very name of the program, Gregory cautioned, is not meant to imply that the final design will be a winged vehicle. He also said that the chosen design would stress very mature, well-understood technology.

"You will see things that some will call 'retro'," he said. "But when you delve into its capabilities they will be very sophisticated, utilizing all the latest technologies."

When asked at the end of a presentation here why NASA was preparing to spend $20 billion on a "gold-plated Soyuz," Gregory praised the reliability of the Soyuz, but disavowed the questioner's cost estimate.

"I don't think anyone has settled on a number such as that before," Gregory said.

So yeah. Turns out that NASA seems to understand a winged vehicle might not be the optimal way to go for a quick schedule on existing boosters.

Also, considering that Soyuz is about 7150 Kg, a similar (conceptually) spacecraft could easily be launched on an Atlas IIAS or Atlas III rocket, and considering that these vehicles have a 100% success rate thus far...

Lift numbers:
Atlas IIAS: 8610 Kg to LEO
Atlas IIIA: 8640 Kg to LEO
Atlas IIIB: 10,718 Kg to LEO

If they ended up using an Atlas V or Delta 4 EELV, they could get away with significantly more payload as well... but on a very new launch platform. Delta 4's can carry from 8600 to 24000+ Kg per laucnch. Atlas V's can lift from 10300 to 25000 Kg to LEO.

TiVo a leader, not a follower

Both my original Series1 TiVo and my newer Series2 have a section in the manual with the GNU GPL and the URL for their kernel and GNU utilities source. They've been legal from the beginning, unlike Linksys.

TiVo has been a leader in releasing the required source and a little more; they also provide the compiler toolchain used to build the kernel (which is not required, but a nice touch, since it allows users to easily build additional binaries with the same toolchain).

Accessible websites: do as I say...

If the charset says ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) like Joe Clark's page does, is it still legit to use Unicode punctation? Like amp-pound-8217;

I would think accessability means, in part, targeting the lowest common denominator:
- Don't use Unicode for something that can be done with Latin-1
- Don't use Latin-1 for something that can be done with ASCII

And yes, I mean those damn "smart quotes"

Cool Huge Map

Way cool... Click on the humongo map link at the lat/lon site, and report back how much memory it eats.

Right now, I've got Firebird using 40 MB of RAM, 805 MB of swap.

Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match...

From what I can tell, the internet book list didn't have much on Amazon (or powells, or just a simple google search), but I think there is a need they could fill if they tried. Ask amazon to recommend books to you, and they will generally give you a bunch of titles by the same author(s). Thanks, but I know I like this author already. I've seen movie sites which make some pretty good left-field recommendations based on my ratings, but haven't found a good one for books. Is there already one out there, or is this an untapped area?

Internet Book List ownership

hmmm, i'm a bit hesitant to contribute my time and energy to this database without a stronger guarantee of public ownership.

from the Internet Book List site:

Policy and ownership
IBList is not a commercial venture, nor a real legal entity in any sense. All the data on IBList has been entered by its users. We the creators of IBList, while giving it our best effort, do not guarantee the accuracy nor the quality of the information within the website. We do reserve the right to correct any errors we find within and remove or change any material we find abusive or otherwise unsuitable. We do not claim any ownership over the user-submitted data.

didn't the IMdb start out as a public database? then there was the CDDB fiasco. freedb says everything is GPL'd. i didn't think you could GPL data, can you?

i'd also like to know i'll be able to download the database file prior to contributing.

Wrong on Tivo

As a couple of posters have pointed out, Tivo has always (or for a long time, anyway) released code under the GPL. I'd just like to add that Tivo is actually getting more restrictive about what you can do with their boxen. The Series 2 Tivos are more difficult to hack than Series 1's, and they're making them even moreso with each software revision.

Although they give you the source code for the kernel, that doesn't mean that you can change it -- not and still expect your Tivo to work, anyway. The boot PROM (think "BIOS") in the Series 2 checks that the kernel it's booting is signed with Tivo's key. Then, a program in the initrd checks everything on the root partition to see that it's not modified, either. With the initial software that came out with the Series 2, it was possible to get around this by setting BASH_ENV as a kernel option in the drive's boot page, but they "fixed" that in the next revision.

Now, to hack a Series 2, you have to either stick to old software, play two-card monte with the kernel, or reprogram the PROM -- which requires desoldering it from the motherboard, since it can't be done in software from the Tivo.

I've done the kmonte thing, and it works well -- in that context, the kernel source is actually useful, since you can boot anything you like as the second kernel. But you still have to devote a couple partitions to the old software (after first getting a copy of it) that allows the BASH_ENV hack. Doubtless this will not work once there's a Tivo Series 3. :-(

Oh, and it probably goes without saying, but Tivo's GPL'ed software doesn't include the main applications -- the bits that actually handle TV.

TiVo always GPL compliant

TiVo has always posted their code compliant with GPL... it's not something they just did. I recall reading about the GPL and the fact they posted their modifications to the web in the manual of my first TiVo back several years ago.

MS standard distro channel

'... Virtual PC for Mac will be available through standard Microsoft channels of distribution.'

Is it just me or did anybody else reading this immediately think "but I thought Outlook didn't run on the Mac, how will the payload get insta... oh, those distribution channels."

--
No, I am not trolling, it has become standard stereotyped running joke that MS Outlook is a virus distribution machine. I suspect that is why the above thought popped up first; the resulting smirk caused me to post this. Yes I use MS software, among many other types... if the tool fits, use it.

iblist and imdb comparison

There is sadly a long way to go before iblist can even remotely approach something the caliber of imdb.

Several searches such as these would be nice:

• collabarative works
• appearing characters (find which possibly unrelated books a particular character is mentioned)
• various publishers of a particular work over time
• number of editions

In order to get this info, we ought get cracking at fixing those 10000+ records.

Re:Sobig

What, refering to your head?

Sorry, I won't do it again, promise!

Re:Sperm whale or...?

Sounds like a japanese comic.

Those people are fucking sick, I dont care how fast their cablemodems are.