One of my favorite series has released its third movie, "Bender's Game." Wired has an interview with some staff from Rough Draft Studios (The Simpson's Movie, Ren & Stimpy) that was entertaining. Get out and buy Futurama to support the show!

Obama was brutally attacked by MPAA lobbyists mere hours after his acceptance speech today. Who else is already pandering to the president elect?

I came across an interesting article by D. J. Bernstein about the IPv6 Mess. In the article, Bernstein raises several interoperability challenges for organizations who would be interested in migrating to IPv6, which potentially make it expensive and difficult to begin deploying IPv6 on the Internet alongside of IPv4.

Read More for a discussion of how I think some of these problems might be resolved.

The basic problem is that hosts configured with only IPv4 cannot talk to other hosts using only IPv6, and hosts running only IPv6 cannot talk to hosts running only IPv4. Because of this, all servers continue to need to use IPv4 in addition to IPv6, and so do all end-users. If you are using IPv4 anyhow, there never comes a point where you can transition to IPv6-only. In order for a transition to be possible at all, we need the ability for interoperability between the two protocols.

I have been wondering, is there any reason why a router/gateway device at the 'border' between an end-user, corporate, or ISP network could not act as a bi-directional 'bridge' between IPv4 and IPv6? That is, a device which accomplishes 2 basic functions: it maps IPv6 public addresses to IPv4 addresses (either public or private addresses, as appropriate), and it supports DNS queries which treat IPv6 numeric addresses as DNS domain names (maybe something where you replace colons with periods, replace the double-colon shorthand-notation with a special placeholder, like .xx., and perhaps put a special tld at the end, e.g. 2002:abcd:efgh:0001::1 becomes 2002.abcd.ef01.0001.xx.1.ip6 [are there currently any RFCs for a representation of an IPv6 address as a DNS name?]).

This system would be based on a sort of NAT, and a cooperating IPv4 DNS and DHCP server.

In typical usage, currently, NAT devices have a one-to-many relationship with the hosts inside the NAT. That is, typically, the NAT router has 1 public IP address, and multiple internal addresses. Is there any reason why a NAT server couldn't do many-to-many mapping?

When an IPv4 device connects to the network and makes a DHCP request, it would be given a version 4 address, IPv4 default gateway address, and IPv4 DNS Server address(es) as in normal DHCP usage currently. The DHCP server would register the newly leased IPv4 address with the NAT gateway, which would create an IPv6 corresponding address. The IPv6 address would serve as the main address for the IPv4 device behind the NAT, for any hosts on the Internet which use IPv6. So, now, the IPv4 'legacy' device can receive in-bound IPv6 connections, with the necessary translation between IPv6 and IPv4 being done by the gateway, so that the IPv4 device doesn't even know it's talking to an IPv6 peer, and vice-versa.

The cool trick here, for outbound connections, is that the NAT device could, I think, create mappings in the other direction too:

Consider some scenarios:

1) You have legacy devices (like a Tivo, Cell phone w/ Wifi, XBox/Playstation/Wii, etc) or applications (and so you need to configure your PC with IPv4 for the legacy app) which are not IPv6 compatible, but your network/ISP and the Internet at large has migrated to IPv6. The device or application uses DNS to resolve a name to an IP address (that is, in this scenario, no literal IPv4 address is trying to be resolved, but just a 'normal' dns entry like slashdot.org, or possibly one of the .ip6 entries as described above). Is there a way to allow the legacy devices or applications to still function?

      In this situation, my idea is that the following would occur: The IPv4 request is made to the DNS Server, but the DNS Server only is able to get an AAAA record for the server (which is for IPv6 addresses), but no A record (for IPv4 address). The DNS Server then makes a request to the the NAT to map the IPv6 external address to an IPv4 address internally. The NAT that sets up such a mapping using private network addresses which are not reserved by local policy for internal hosts (that is, maybe for your internal hosts, you are using 192.168.*.*, which leaves 10.*.*.* unused, and so available for this 'mapping'), so for example, the NAT adds an entry in the NAT tables that 10.0.1.14 maps to the IPv6 address 1234:abcd:ef01:1111::5 (NOTE that the IPv6 address might be for an external host *or* an internal host which is using IPv6 inside the LAN).

      The NAT then replies back to the DNS Server to use 10.0.1.14 for that IPv6 entry, which replies back to the legacy device with the mapped internal address of 10.0.1.14, and the DNS Server caches the IPv4 address for future lookups (temporarily; such caching should expire after some time if that DNS entry has not been referenced, and the NAT should also expire the mapping after the same amount of time, so that a different IPv6 host can be mapped to that private IP address).

      So, now the legacy device(s) attempts to open a connection to the server using the IP address it got back from DNS, which is the 10.0.1.14 address. The gateway device sees that the connection is for one of the 'mapped' addresses, and does the necessary NAT and routing to move the traffic back-and-forth between the IPv4 device, and the IPv6 device. This all happens *completely transparently* to the IPv6 host and the internal IPv4 host.

2) Similar to the above scenario, except no DNS query is performed; the app or device instead tries to connect to a hard-coded IPv4 address:

      In this scenario, if the hard-coded IPv4 address is for another IPv4 device which isn't on the local network, then perhaps the gateway could map the IPv4 address (as long as it isn't one of the non-routable address blocks) to an IPv6 address which embeds the IPv4 address.

      I've heard of something called 6to4 which is a way of carrying IPv6 traffic over the IPv4 Internet without using an explicit tunnel, which used a similar concept of embedding an IPv4 address into an IPv6 address. I don't see why a similar approach couldn't be used for allowing IPv6 hosts and gateways to connect to IPv4 hosts across the backbone. The packets would be carried as far as necessary as IPv6 packets, then translated back into IPv4 packets by a gateway server somewhere, when it transitions from the 6Bone to an IPv4 network.

3) You have legacy devices inside your network (maybe servers), which need to receive in-bound connections from an external IPv6 host.

      Since the legacy device's internal IPv4 address was mapped to a public IPv6 address when it received a DHCP lease, external hosts can make a connection to the public IPv6 address, and the gateway does the necessary NAT to pass the traffic to the internal IPv4 address, transparently to both the external and internal host.

      In conclusion, it seems to me that a strategy like what I've described should, I think, make it possible to allow the 'core' of the Internet (backbones and ISPs) to begin upgrading to IPv6 without breaking IPv4 devices. Then, you can begin upgrading 'edge' networks. Is there any reason why this wouldn't work, or wouldn't work well? Are people already doing this, and I'm just not aware of it (I tried googling information for IPv4 to IPv6 transition, and didn't see anything like this, though my research was only brief, and definitely not exhaustive)?

        Note: This all might sound pretty complicated, but I think that something like this could be included in 'home broadband' gateway devices from companies like linksys/cicso, d-link, netgear, etc, already configured for users so that it 'just works'. I think such routers could take care of this automatically. It might not even be necessary for users to install such a device at home - this 'bridging', it seems to me, could probably be done by ISPs.

    The only limitation I can think of at the moment, is that the ISPs would need to make sure they didn't try to service too many users with one gateway - because of the fact that you would be mapping IPv6 addresses to private addresses like 10.x.x.x, you are limited to how many mappings can be maintained by any given gateway at any given time, but I think that as long as you don't have a large number of users, there's enough normally unused addresses in 10.x.x.x and 192.168.*.* to allow for mapping a large number of IPv6 to IPv4 addresses. Even though the Internet needs Billions of addresses, I think it likely that a small set of users will only ever be connecting to a few thousand or tens of thousands of those hosts at any given time, so the approx 16.7 million private addresses in the 10.*.*.* network should, in most cases, be sufficient, I think.

From the mouth of John Cleese, it's official: Sarah Palin is funnier than Michael Palin!

I hate to sound like an Amazon fanboy ... what with their 1-click patent crap and all ... but if you've read my comments related to anti-DRM you know I love their MP3 service. It's completely DRM-less (unlike Apple's) and has quite the selection. Well, today I discovered that the yet to be released David Byrne & Brian Eno album has a free MP3 listed for download on Amazon.

This excites me as I hope to see all music distributors (labels, retailers, sites, etc) move towards a model similar to that of Afternoon Records site where the artists pick one or two songs from each album to be distributed for free. Although this doesn't satisfy the N'Syncs and Britney Spears of the music world (where one pop single should sell an entire album of 95% filler), it completely draws me into purchasing more and more music from artists that write their own music.

These selections still seem few and far between on Amazon (Brian Setzer, Ted Nugent & The Apples in Stereo are the only others I can find at the moment) but let's hope this spreads.

I can't tell if this is legit or not but Torvalds may be blogging. It's just inane enough that it might be him though it doesn't have the same feel as his posts that I've read at the KernelTrap.

For example, he seems to use _exclamation_ on kernel threads instead of exclamation like the blog has.

If you're a coder who uses .NET, I recently came across some new neat tools by ItJustWorks. The four tools are:

• IJW Profiler for .NET & Java
• Corfu Text Editor
• IJW Framework
• IL to Native Compiler

There's a worthwhile This American Life episode about 419 scammers (Act I just past the intro).

Quite interesting (and I must admit it's a more than a little amusing). It begs the question: Do 419 scammer scammers take their anti-scamming too far?

A developer posted a brief blog outlining the libraries that Google Chrome uses. Since it's open source, you can see how many (and which) libraries they chose to use. Interesting stuff if you want to get an idea of what is needed to start an open source browser like Chrome. Another blog talks about the security implications of this.

Artists like the eloquent poet Kid Rock are taking a stand against iTunes as they continue to see album sales fall while their hit singles skyrocket in sales on the popular music distribution application. He will be joining Jay-Z in not putting his latest album up for sale on iTunes. I guess Kid's fans were either sending him a message he didn't want to hear or it's just not fair to give consumers a choice. Either way, the world will mourn the loss of Kid's music on iTunes. </sarcasm>

How robust is your religion? Have all the boundary cases been tested and thought out or does it have more holes and contradictions than the USSR's Penal System? Well, the Vatican is shoring up some questionable parts of Catholicism in regards to those pesky extraterrestrials that may or may not exist. In fact, some major theologians are speculating that each sentient creature would need its own Jesus Christ to save them from certain doom while others claim that it was a one shot deal for everybody. Still others speculate that there could be an alien race that never committed sin. Guess the movies have it wrong. A recent Vatican Newsletter proclaims: "The extraterrestrial is my brother."

Alright, on an early Friday morning, this live performance brought a genuine smile to my lips.

From the lyrics:

Kill Dash Nine!

There's a tiny graphic depicting the time line of Unix. I found it interesting as I've never realized the sheer volume of incarnations of Unix until now.

Half a week ago I was lucky enough to have a friend who works at Best Buy hook me up with a Wii. I've been playing Smash Bros fairly obsessively but it's not like Warcraft or Star Wars Galaxies obsessive. Why is this?

I found an interesting article about Sega claiming the Wii has been inappropriately written off as being not for 'hardcore' gamers. So I would like to ask Slashdot if they, as members of a gaming community, feel that the Wii is inaccessible because it doesn't offer the time consuming grind of achievements (like the XBox 360) or even the endless single player RPG (like the PS3)? Is it seen as a system purely for the 'casual gamer' and not someone who wants to dump a whole Saturday into progress? Is it's popularity based on this image? I remember the backbreaking days I put into Gauntlet & Bionic Commando, has Nintendo forgotten the games that require hours and hours of practice and finesse? Is this a side effect of the occasionally glitchy and not too precise wiimote?

As a regular reader of Slashdot, I am often amazed at the litigation that artists--especially musicians--have to deal with. The lawyer profession is almost almost a pox upon their kind. When it should not be, lawyers should be working with musicians to protect what is theirs. And the abuses, mistreatment, scamming & lying they face from their managers, labels, publishers & contracts makes it a wonder to me that any artist makes a living at all!

A friend in college introduced me to the works of Mikhail Bulgakov after which I immediately read and fell in love with his most famous work, The Master and Margarita . Spurred by that I read Heart of a Dog yet could find no other novels at any of the used bookstores. Bulgakov was a Ukrainian born Russian novelist and playwright who suffered suppression and torment by the Soviets. Oddly enough, he found favor from Stalin which was possibly the only thing that kept him from a much worse fate. So he is a rare gem that was allowed to write novels & plays which he wrote with furious satire against those manipulating his life and existence.

Recently in 2007 Andrew Bromfield translated A Dead Man's Memoir (A Theatrical Novel) for Penguing Classics and I found it at a Border's Books of all places! I have found that I can order translations of several other of his works but for now I would like to discuss A Dead Man's Memoir as I feel it pertains more and more to present day America than it does the historical Soviet Union.

The books main character, Sergei Maksudov, is a failed novelist. This is Bulgakov's satire of himself. Maksudov is not a great legal expert and meets a man through a friend who will publish one of his manuscripts in a literary magazine. But after he sells the rights (for very meager sums) to publish it to this man, nothing is ever published. What really happened in Bulgakov's life when he did this was a man named Zakhar Kagansky traveled to Europe with the ill conceived contract and posed as Bulgakov's legal advisor! He spent fifteen years collecting royalties on Bulgakov's plays & novels!

So instead, Maksudov turns to writing plays. He makes the mistake of signing a contract with a theater interested in producing his play. But he at once realizes that they are not so interested in producing it as they are turning it into something ... more acceptable or merely just more to their likings. His author friend--a man trained and broken already by these types--explains to him that he should have agreed to everything and then simply never done it. This is what it takes to progress as an artist.

One of my favorite parts of the book is when he faces the entire board (including their leader and the very manipulative Ivan Vasilievich) of that theater and comes to a very harsh realization:

So used and manipulated leaves Maksudov a mental wreck and wretchedly jaded. Bulgakov opens chapter 14 talking about Moscow and a stain he has on his clothing, perhaps drawing parallels to the people he deals with daily there:

So true of the tricks and contracts that artists find themselves in. Ever wonder why The Artist Formerly Known as Prince is once again Prince? Contract dispute! And I'm sure he had some of the best lawyers working for him and reading over that document before he signed it! How much longer before that stain is back?!

Fortunately, his play is eventually produced as the theater is under criticism for not being contemporary or independent (which is in its name). From that point on, every horror story ever told of a book or play being produced into a movie or stage is realized by our hero. Aside from massive ego complexes, critics mad with jealousy & bad acting instructions, he has to deal with his contemporary play being directed by an older, more esteemed man who wants to censor and edit the play. Bulgakov's real life hardships were no different as directors and theater managers tried desperately to cleanse his plays of any political satire or criticisms--especially of the current government!

This drives him to nearly complete sanity. At night he practices lying to Vasilievich and dealing with him so that his play will be produced without censorship. He comes to this harsh realization:

A harsh realization that you are dealing with these kind of people, an even harsher realization when you realize that you've become one of them. Now a nearly a raving lunatic who has taken to talking to himself, he depends entirely on living at the theater where his play is being produced. It is the only thing that keeps him going--to know that his story might be told to people to provide them enjoyment and to hear it and recognize with the characters.

However, the production goes very slowly and the director (Vasilievich) is taking entire days to force the actors and actresses to perform strange acting rituals that are supposed to make them better actors. While the play does not progress at all! By this time, Maksudov & Bulgakov have become cut down and unsure of themselves, the lunatic says to himself near the end of the book:

How many times do you think that a musician, actor, writer, painter or graphics artist has been instructed not to do something? How many albums do you think come out these days with the intensity of the sound on the CD mastered so that it is all the way up all the time? How many artists are allowed to keep the sound that made them famous in their small towns? How many movies are made that lack a formulaic sure fire success model for today's theaters? Are we not living in a society where what is 'art' is defined by those with the funds to publish it?

If you don't read A Dead Man's Memoir, at least recognize that to be an artist of any kind today doesn't mean starvation necessarily but instead torment, manipulation and in the worse cases being stripped of your dignity & sanity.