Recently discussed on Bruce Schneier's blog ("Identifying Tor Users Through Insecure Applications"):

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/03/identifying_tor.html

Of course, you can dual-boot Linux on it or run it in VMWare. But you knew that, right?

There was a Perl/Macbook related post to the freebsd-questions mailing list a few months back from someone trying to deal with package management problems for a client. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, a solution was found and rejoicing was heard.

The solution? Installing FreeBSD in VMWare and calling it a day.

The poster was Randal Schwartz.

I remember doing a reverse lookup on my ATT (then SBC) DSL account years ago. When I discovered my name was shown (for all the world to see), I called ATT to complain and they replaced my name with "Private Customer".

A year or so later, I upgraded to a 5 static IP account, had ATT delegate the /29 to me, and started hosting my own DNS, mail, web, etc. services. Now, a simple WHOIS not only listed my name, but my address and telephone number as well!

Somehow, the new setup made more sense, and felt more acceptable.

Didn't the Romans have sunshades over the Coliseum...?

They did, and it was called a velarium. The real question is what, aside from inventing the velarium, have the Romans ever done for us?

Keep a history of all the bullshitty things a company has done to users.

If it helps, on the same site as the article:

"Microsoft Bob, the Program That Didn't Change the World"

>>>Hitting reply-all on old emails destroys threading on pretty much all clients that support it.

(1) Don't care because it saves me typing ~50 emails.
(2) Not if you change the subject. Then it starts a new thread.

First, you may not care, but you're writing for the benefit of the addressee, not yourself.

Second, changing the Subject doesn't do squat, modulo what some email clients do with that change. Threading is based on the References header.

Third, your opinions are being posted to web forum. Is your use of email quote delimiters pulled out of the same bag of silly tricks, or haven't you figured out the HTML options offered by Slashdot?

Personally, I'm annoyed by lazy and inconsiderate people. I'm even more annoyed having to manually re-edit the message (break the thread), and invent a Subject line for the sender so I know WTF the email is really about. Why there's so many of you out there is anyone's guess.

But I guess Apple and Solaris isn't a typical "home" network...

Substitute Solaris with NexentaStore, and it's no more unusual than mine, which includes Free and OpenBSD, Windows, and Linux. ;-)

Still, the article is an interesting one in that it describes in fair detail what the issues are and makes it clear what everyone (ISPs, hardware manufacturers, consumers, etc.) is up against.

Relying on Soekris boxes running FreeBSD, for example, may give me the right to a chuckle, or even be dismissive, but the gnashing and wailing of teeth going on in the real world is interesting to read about, irrespective of whether it penetrates my cloud of smug.

I think the OP is correct.

And as a FYI, rock and roll didn't die in the 70s. Everyone who's anyone (BSD users) knows that rock and roll died in the early 90s when the Pixies broke up.

Procrastination is a lot more enjoyable with an empty bladder.

Depends, I think.

When I was a kid, the winters were cold and the house felt colder. Learning to "procrastinate" (until the morning) was a challenge, but preferable to getting up out of warm bed to stumble my way into a freezing cold bathroom.

To this day I still sleep like a baby through the night. Unless, of course, I'm interrupted by the sounds of somebody else stumbling their way to the bathroom.

If they can do it well and do it cheap, then I'm all for it.

Jeff Bezos was on the Charlie Rose Show (a PBS news/interview program) a year or two ago and mentioned that a large portion of Amazon's sales are from footware. The follow up to his own comment was "Who knew 5 years ago we were going to be selling shoes?"

So, yeah, if they can do videos along with everything else, good for them.

Your comments may be correct, but file paths (in general) have always been a problem in Windows, and the problem still exists today. If a *nix programmer has to do anything on Windows, getting into the habit of escaping the "escape character" is the first step to becoming productive, and pre-requisite for learning the finer points of the voodoo quoting necesary on WIndows. A trivial example I have handy:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mboxfile\shell\open\command]
@="c:\\cygwin\\bin\\run.exe bash --login -c \"rxvt -e mutt -f \\\"`cygpath -u '%1'`\\\"\""

I've seen and written much worse. The fact that in recent years some Windows commands accept a forward slash (in place of a backslash) in certain limited contexts is hardly a consolation for this nonsense.

I'd suggest cutting the *nix programmers some slack.

Students rights? Seventh and eighth graders don't have or need rights.[1]

Instead of asserting that students of that age should be making their own judgments (the consequences of which only an adult could appreciate), I'd suggest we ask why it is that a child isn't doing what they were TOLD TO DO (by either or both their parents and the school).[2]

The problem, as I see it, is a lack of parenting. The excuse (parents are routinely too busy, overworked, and stressed) may have widespread appeal, but it's a lousy excuse. We've all heard that the best indicator of a child's success is a talented and qualified teacher, right? What's missing from that statement is the qualifier "outside the home".

Combine lousy parenting with a convenient excuse, and you've got the present day situation in which the responsibility of parenting has shifted to the school. The school, of course, deserves its own excuse (we're too overworked, too underfunded, etc.), so it should come as no surprise that some schools would seek out a technological solution.

So, yeah, it is (and is supposed to be) about thinking of the children. The problem in this case, however, is that a technological solution cannot possibly solve what's really a social problem. To the extent it can help, I'm all for the idea of electronic monitoring for problem cases, as absurd as it is. A better approach, the best approach, would be for the parents to start being parents and get involved.

------------------
1. At least not the sort you're thinking of.

2. I'll remind any school-aged Slashdot snowflakes reading this that parents do indeed have such rights.

One fifth of the US IT spending may buy a lot more in China.... both in labour and in material...

Agreed, but the problem with that argument is that an hour later you're hungry for ... and you wind spending ... ah, nevermind.

Slashdot is basically a lightweight BBS with graphics and UI as convenience features. It would not lose anything by being translated into a text-only medium.

I'd go farther and suggest that reading Slashdot using something other than a web browser (think usenet/email client with proper threading support) would be an improvement. At least for the reader. For the corporate overlords, it would most likely mean a loss of advertising revenue, so this mutt user isn't holding his breath.

There's probably still an entry in the FAQ that describes the dilemma.

You can't reasonably expect the enemy boats to sail exactly at the focus point of your death ray... or to either come closer or go further away in case they are not at the focus point of your death ray.

What if you taunted the enemy first?