Slashback: P2P, OS X, Blinkenlights 251
The difference between theory and practice ... Paul Harrison writes: "I see your theoretical discussion of a scalable gnutella, and raise you a working, open source implementaion! Details in this linux.conf.au talk."
I was in Berkeley at a party, and then things got hazy. In response to the recent story on fixing the UNIX configuration mess, jbloggs writes: "OS X is not on top of NetBSD, but rather is a BSD compatibility layer on top of a Mach kernel. Its closest BSD-lite would be FreeBSD, which is used as a reference platform."
The problem with unstated motivations. Reader app writes "Tim O'Reilly responds to the BountyQuest piece on Salon and featued here. Tim makes some interesting points and clarifications -- especially where he refers to theodp as a crank."
You can't watch, and neither can they. UberOogie writes: "Who didn't see this coming? The MPA shut down Movie 88 today. What should be noted by everyone is that they took no legal action: they just went to the ISP, HiNet, and got them to shut off the pipe. (Movie88 was legal through a loophole in Tiawan copyright law.) So much for process, even in Tiawan. Movie 88 vows to find another provider."
I hope they use the time to reconsider. Cynical_Dude writes: "David Cohen, one of the producers of Futurama, was interviewed on Cinescape. He says that Futurama is not really cancelled, but will run for another year or so ... at least that's how many episodes they've got more or less ready now. FOX hasn't ordered any additional episodes, but Cohen asks fans to "write those letters [...] in physical form, not email" to the FOX executives."
And in other TV News, Glitch Tybalt writes: "Working for Hot Topic has its benefits. We recieved an e-mail saying that Invader Zim will not be cancelled after all. It seems that it was getting no ratings whatsoever, because they kept changing the time slot for it. Once they had decided to cancell it, they left it in one slot to finish playing the remaining episodes out. Then, since everyone could figure out when it was on, it got great reviews. (plus, the Schweet Schwag has started selling like crazy)the Invader Zim petition must have been pretty convincing as well. I guess one of them stopped to read it before wiping his ass. Maybe there's hope for a megaconglomo like Nikelodeon after all..."
Won't someone start making money with unmetered wireless? tabbser writes: "According to Aerie networks, the folks that bought bankrupt Ricochet (www.richochet.com) tests are being conducted in Denver, CO with the support of the City and county of Denver's Office of information technology. Ricochet will test and evaluate the network as part of an initial step to reactivating the service. The full story can be found on Ricochet's web site news room at http://www.ricochet.com. Go Aerie!" Aerie announced this a while ago, but in these uncertain times it's nice to see it actually happening.
Ashes to ashes, little blinking lights likewise. spike666 writes: "Blinkenlights.de is coming to an end! The Blinkenlights project by the Chaos Computer Club will be ending its run February 23, 2002. It was exposed to /. back here They are having a big party, and we're all invited. One last chance for Taco to embarrass Kathleen ..."
Mmmmm... scalable Gnutella. (Score:1)
In Asia, money talks (Score:4, Interesting)
I wouldn't be surprised if the MPAA paid the ISP some "money" to do so...
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:5, Interesting)
You smoking crak or wearing blinder....its rampant EVERYWHERE , here in the states more so than ANYWHERE, we just put, civilized names on it , like 'soft-money' , Lobbying, etc.
You wanna talk about Sheer volumes of money sxchanged in pursuit of a single commercial goal, thats right the good ole' USA will win hands down every time.
I have a hope that the next major war wont be fought between countries with differing ideologies, but rather between the people and the corporations. But alas I am just an old crank....
I hope they do find another ISP soon, I have often wondered what ever happened to the Alternet idea ?
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:5, Insightful)
If they are legit, then they are not criminals.
Saying that crime in first world countries is like that in the rest of the world is a very skewed view. The police beating of a Brit or American is front page news, and the details are dragged through - the cops go to jail. Yes, they do, I worked at the Public Defender's office for years, and they do go to jail. Even if they aren't convicted, they often are pressured out of their job.
However, the police force in China and Russia routinely beat people, even to death - without even having a reason for making an arrest. The stories go by word of mouth, and no public outcry is made - the people who would have spoken up have been killed. Russia is a morbid place to visit now, and friends who have moved to America universally use the term "escaped". China is nasty as well - I had a business partnership be reduced by one member when he didn't return from a visit home.
People like you are often "indy media" fans - consider the fact that just the concept of "media" has not spread to many parts of the world. Travel a bit, spend some time getting to know people, and ask quiet questions to yourself. You'll be surprised how nice your first world country seems with its "corruption for money" and "people going broke from Enron". In many places, people can't *go* broke - sustinence is the daily effort... and "corruption" involves dead bodies in doorways or dumped in a garbage heap.
--
Evan
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
Just because other countries have worse crimes doesn't mean that what many American/Western corporations are doing isn't wrong. Murder is a higher crime than theft, but that does not make theft right, nor does it make it excusable. We should not excuse criminal or unfortunately legal, but highly immoral actions by corporations just because corporations in China and Russia are worse. Should we excuse murderers in America because there are guerrilla soldiers in the Congo and the Middle East that have twenty or thirty civilian kills on their belt? Of course we shouldn't. Stealing from several thousand people and bribing the US government into changing copyright and labor laws may not compare in magnitude to crimes like bribing police into beating people to death, but they're still wrong, and the culprits should still be held accountable.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
I saw this big strong Russian cop grab this guy by the hair at the back of his head, and then smash his face into a wall twice, the man then fell to the ground unconscious and bleeding baddly.
I saw a woman giving birth in a Russian hospital with NO doctor present, just two nurses, one of who was yelling at the mother something to the effect of "hurry up, stupid bitch".
Also in this docco, was footage of a jetliner landing in Russia, off course due to terrorist hijackers. The hijackers demanded a helicopter, to escape once they were off the plane. The heli was provided, the terrorists got into it with some hostages for some protection and what did the Russian "elites" do next?... Fired an AA missile at the heli once it was in the air. The result? All occupants dead, including hostages.
Throughout the cold war, they only announced amazing feats they have acheived once they acheived them. They rarely stated they would attempt something, for fear of failure. How many manned rockets did they loose!?
A polish friend of mine told me that in all published books in Russia, there is a page near the front with propaganda about how superior Russia is and how weak the West is. Pretty hilarious considering.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
And completely innocent hostages, instructed to do what they're told via guns, are "bastards" how?
Do you know what a hostage is? I'm desperately searching for some glimmer of logic in your statement but none has come up yet.
You think killing terrorists along with their hostages is a good thing? I can understand that shooting down a plane that is destined to kill many more people than those on the plane is the logical thing to do, but not if it is just the easiest way out.
When this sort of incident happened in France, some French bad-arse elites stormed the plane resulting in the deaths of only the terrorists as far as I can remember. US and British special forces also have pretty good track records. Russians on the other hard seem to fix everything with a sledge hammer.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:3, Insightful)
You are so ignorant that I am afraid the English language has no words for fools such as you. I shudder even at quoting your foul lie. Owners do not `soak up profit'; they provide the means without which there would be no product, no profit, no jobs and no workers. Here's how it works: you have $1,000; I need $1,000 to finance my idea. You give me the money, and in return I give you a stake in my idea.
You do realise that ownership is within the reach of all, don't you? That's the whole purpose of stock splits: keeping the price low enough that the individual investor can get into the action. If you want to own a share in your company, go out and buy one. It's not that expensive--and a few thousand now, invested wisely, can mean a comfortable retirement later on life.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:4, Insightful)
Why don't you tell us then, how Ken Lay is providing a direct means for a product and profit.
It's nice to see that you have faith in the ideals of a capitalistic society - but reality is not quite so easy.
The people out there that should be able to get in on companies can't really get in on a really meaningful level as easily as you would have us to believe. The fact is that big money, old money and corrupt money are what run the world today. Even though a small percentage of new money is being made so as to help the previously "common folk" become a part of the classes that run the world via finances.
It is sickly apparent in every new scandal that comes about. The Bush and Kennedy families of the world have a strangle-hold on power through money - and these types of people will do anything to maintain that power and wealth.
However - from an outside and naive perspective we can say that the way to the top is through perseverance and hard work, and entreprenerialship (sp?) but the truth is more a factor of who you know - who you can pay, and how lucky you can be at making a killing off the expense of people, countries or corporations without getting caught (or at least not having to give up more than 30% of that profit in bribery etc)
The world of money and power is not ruled by the angles of PC-ness and good ol' pullin' yerself up by yer bootstraps to make an honest buck - rather it is a dark corrupt and sinister world of dog-eat-dog. You kill or be killed.
.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
Ken Lay was an employee whose actions appear to have destroyed the company--thereby causing massive pain to the shareholders. He was also a shareholder--but apparently used his knowledge as an employee to cheat his fellow shareholders.
The people out there that should be able to get in on companies can?t really get in on a really meaningful level as easily as you would have us to believe.
Wrong again. You can buy shares of most companies for under $200. Voila--you're now in on a company, on a meaningful level (e.g. you'll be paid dividends, you'll receive the annual report, and hopefully your investment will appreciate). Granted--it would take decades to build up any sort of significant share. But nowadays it's quite common for there to be no--or very few--significant shareholders.
It does take quite a long time to turn $100 into $1,000,000. TANSTAAFL. But anyone can put his capital to work for him. That is, essentially, what work is: putting your labour capital to work. It is also what investment is: putting your money to work.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
The CEO makes what he makes because the shareholders have decided to give him that much money in return for what he does. The job of CEO is different from that of, say, factory worker or system administrator. And, I believe, it merits quite a bit more pay than most positions.
Re:Workers of the World, Unite! (Score:1)
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh wait, im responding to a complete fucking moron with no grasp in the real world and who lives only in the census statistics !
Spend a day, or an hour if you can stomach it at a world class childrens hospital, Cincinatti , Boston, etc. Talk to the parents of the kids dying in the cancer wards, ask the parents that cant afford the cure for their childs ills, when they are available, ask a parent willing to do anything to save a child that needs an organ transplant, I have experience with my son in both of the above, visit a field hospital in Africa. When youve done those thing and are content that the corporations grace us with a 36,000 average income, you tell me all is roses.......
Idiot.....
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2, Interesting)
Remember when slashdot posted the story about Brazil deciding to ignore American companies patents on AIDS drugs and produce it themselves and pay the patent owners a reduced price? Alot of virulent conservatives were producing justifications for why Brazil's act of humanism was wrong. The United States forced Bayer to produce pills to treat anthrax for a very reduced price. I wonder what those conservative idiots who think money is worth more than Brazilian lives have to say about this. I bet they would rather remain silent.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2, Insightful)
While I certainly feel for you and your son, it is necessary to remember that, even with all its flaws, western society's focus on entrepeneurship and the creation of wealth is what gives your son any chance, at all.
You say that the only cure is a patented drug, that you can (not/barely) afford w/o insurance?
You say that the drugs are completely out of reach for those without insurance?
I say this:
The drug would likely not exist without the patent.
~20 years from now, that patent will not exist.
I say this:
We benefit more than we suffer from corporations and the current structure of our society.
You may not even have been able to afford insurance if it weren't for your employer's help/government regulation.
At least be a lil teeny bit grateful that you don't have to go to the African field hospital you mention.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
It was their singular abhorrence for cadaver donors that lead to his survival, the company I complain about brug patents ? FUJISAWA , a Japanees company.
I sincerley disagree, Cyclosporin, the first major anti rejection drug, was not researched under patent condition, it is a substance found in an artic ergot, by a botanist quite by accident actually some years after the initial samples of permafrost were taken. and is still used to some extent albiet side effects are less than desirable, FK506 was a synthetic replacement So that dosent fly either.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
What I was complaining about, and it goes back to the original thread, is the corruption and payoffs that lead to this situation.
I am a Capatilist, plain and simple, I would sell anything to make a buck, buy sell broker, what have you. I have no problem with free markets, Those markets are fed by COMPETITION , NOT by MONOPLOY, and certainly not state subsidised, and ulitmatley corprateley subsidised constricture of the markets.
Buying and selling the human condition is not capitlisim, NOR is the enforcement of law to keep it as such for only one end, greed. There is a quite different distinction between greed and capatilism, and state ENFORCED markets, the latter is much more aking to communism than capilitalism
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
Property -- be it food, clothing, medicine, luxuries or anything else -- is a determiner of the human condition; buying and selling any of them is the allocation of resources that will determine how (and whether) people live. Trying to envision some ideal market without people in it may be useful -- but in the real world, there's always someone at the other end. That said, I entirely agree with you wrt IP law being coopted from serving the public interest to serving the greed of those for whom it creates new "rights" at the expense of limiting others' actions. When arguments over patent or copyright law are made with only passing -- or without any -- recognition of public interests but rather focus on the income of those "owning" said "property", we can both agree that something is quite wrong.
Btw, allow me apologize over my last post being a bit over-the-top. While I do hold to the sentiments given there, expressing them in that manner was, in hindsight, other than appropriate.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
How about food? Clothing? Shelter? Would you think the same way if you were a farmer? A clothier? A landlord? Or would you have "the government" (meaning, among other people, me) pay in place of those who can't?
In Australia, life saving medicine is subsidised by the goverment. Works very well too. Tax payers are ultimately paying for what tax payers should be able to get the World over. If you're on a high income you pay more tax, low income less and no income none. But everyone gets a fair chance at life.
We have differing values for "fair". In my book, "fair" means everyone gets treated by the same rules. It doesn't mean that we start out in the same place or that we'll be in the same situation, but that the law applies equally to everyone.
While you think the services taxpayers get in Austrailia are those worth paying for, then you're welcome to continue to pay for those services to be publicly provided. If, on the other hand, enough of those involved don't want to pay it (ie. wouldn't pay that same tax if it were voluntary, or wouldn't pay the same amount to a private nonprofit providing the same public service), then that would serve as an effective economic demonstration of the minority you're in.
So... let's try it. Make the tax used to pay for free [SERVICE] voluntary, and see if the money collected is enough to pay for free [SERVICE]. If it isn't, then as much as you may want [SERVICE] to be free, consider yourself overruled by the public in general. (Unfair, you claim, as those who are rich each individually have a larger say in such a system? Naturally -- they're the ones you burden with paying for it! Make the burden more equally spread, and the choice will be too).
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
Income includes govt. payments to the poor, and stock dividends to the rich. If you are concerned about the middle class, then you should measure wages, not income {ASIDE: yes, though 50% own some stock, 1% still own 50% of all stock, and most stocks owned are a replacement for pensions, and so should not be counted as wages for a realistic trendline analysis, since in previous years future pension benefits (for working adults) were not counted as wages either}
Another point in the smoke and mirrors: don't count household income, since over the past four decades women have gone to work increasing #'s, thereby inflating the figures. Certainly we should not be thankful to the corps you admire so much for making it more difficult for single income households to survive.
The reason why statisticians prefer to use median over average is because median income figures are a more measure of how the "average" person is doing. i.e. -- you care about what the "average" american earns as opposed to what the sum of all income of all americans/#of americans is. Bill Gates and a few other outliers tend to skew the distribution.
Median wages have fallen fairly steadily since about 1973 (in fixed dollars), and then began to increase in the second part of the 90's. we are now almost back up to 1973 levels at around 29,000 per year.
That's pretty damn good for the planet as a whole, but rather mediocre for a first world nation. Note that, around 1800, the U.S. was by far the richest nation on earth, in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality, calories per capita, death rates, etc. This was before the age of corporate power, so it may be hard for you to believe. Until around the 1970's we were still at the top of the pack, although europe had wwII to deal with. Since then we;ve slipped to the bottom half of the top 15 or so industrialized nations in terms of the figures cited above (except possibly the calories/person) as well as more modern measures such as literacy, availability of health care, divorce rates, etc.
Are you, uh, satisfied with 30 years of stagnating wages? I'm not. Plot those figures against a chart of the Dow to see how thankful we should be to the corporations for almost keeping up with our parents' standard of living.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
Yes, and in all of those nations that are ahead of us, all THEIR wealth was generated by corporations, as well.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
The countries you speak of , the US included, many were able to accumulate wealth through exploitation of their natural resources, the corporations have nothing to do with it, In the US over 50% of the income generated is from SMALL BUSINESS !, so much for the corporations, you speak of these corporations as living entities, that are all benevolent and responsible for all that is good,
The truth is, PEOPLE do the WORK that MAKE thos corporations what they are, and then , as of late, they turn ever more on the very people that man their factories, manage their business and are the very customers that keep them in existance.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:2)
Small businesses have exploded into the tremendous wealth generators they are today for primarily two reasons:
1) The cheapness of modern office appliances, especially computers, which comes from the economies of scale of the corporations that make them.
2) Doing business servicing big corporations.
The truth is, PEOPLE do the WORK that MAKE thos corporations what they are
Yes; and it's those people you're insulting you say corporations are a bad thing.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:1)
"you can pretty much skirt nearly any sort of law."
Same thing in America. In America OJ Simpson the famous murderer, was lucky to be rich enough to get away with murder. Apparently men cannot skirt paying alimony no matter how rich, but if you kill the harlet you can get off! America sure is a twisted country.
Re:In Asia, money talks (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course IANAL but see the code itself [usdoj.gov] if you're interested in details.
-Renard
Futurama? How about Family Guy?!? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.damnyouall.net/savefamilyguy/ [damnyouall.net]
Re:Futurama? How about Family Guy?!? (Score:2)
Re:Futurama? How about Family Guy?!? (Score:4, Informative)
Looks like I'm going to have to invest in a region-free DVD player.
Re:Futurama? How about Family Guy?!? (Score:2, Informative)
The same reason you can buy Enterprise on VHS and whole seasons of DS9, B5, Voyager, Buffy etc. The UK market is different from the US. For one thing they don't have syndication. In the US it's thought that allowing TV shows to be sold in on VHS or DVD would hurt syndication ratings.
Also in the UK the sale of VHS episodes is high because it usually takes a few months for the TV shows to be shown on regular TV over there. For example I first saw ST:TNG on VHS about a year before I saw it on TV (in the UK).
Re:Futurama? How about Family Guy?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because you have a region-free DVD player doesn't mean you can actually watch the movies you buy. If it's sold in the UK, chances are it's in PAL format. You can't watch that format on your NTSC TV, sorry.
You either have to get a TV that can play both or you get a converter. Take your pick, and neither are cheap.
If I'm wrong about this, feel free to tell me. But from the research I've done, this is true.
I wish it weren't.. then I could get Neverwhere on DVD and be able to watch it...
Try APEX (Score:2)
Re:Try APEX (Score:2)
Re:Try APEX (Score:1)
I would just mail you instead of using
Re:Futurama? How about Family Guy?!? (Score:2)
Re:Futurama? How about Family Guy?!? (Score:2)
Your local monopolies giving your trouble? I suggest you explore alternatives such as Morpheus, Kazaa, Gnutella, and Freenet. Although not as convenient as consuming pre-fabricated materials, the same material is often provided at the cost of bandwidth.
Although they are without the arbitrary and arcane and draconian restrictions found in the essentially naive government sponsored owners, there is no guarantee that you will be able to find the material you need - however keep in mind that supply will rise to meet demand, in spite of the efforts of the draconians.
Re:Futurama? How about Family Guy?!? (Score:1)
Re:Futurama? How about Family Guy?!? (Score:3, Funny)
What I want to see is the excellent Clerks! cartoon continued. I have the 2 dvd set, it's all classic, and another victim of corporate 'policy'. The Tick (live action) can rot in hell, it was a stupid idea to begin with. Some things just aren't meant to be live action. Could you imagine the horror of Speed Racer live action? Or Garfield?
Re:Futurama? How about Family Guy?!? (Score:4, Funny)
MTV's Downtown: Too young to die, dammit! (Score:2)
That show NEVER had a chance. MTV YOU SUCK!!!!
Re:"Planning?!" (Score:3, Insightful)
Always pre-empted. Of course the show never got ratings: it's never on!!!
It kinda makes sense. Seeing as how the 4:00 NFL games are never over until ~7:15, it's easier to let the talking idiots run their collective mouth for another 15 minutes, instead of screwing up the entire evening lineup.
So pull 'that 80's' show garbage, pull the live action Tick, pull Family Guy, but give Futurama a real time slot.
Hate that! (Score:3, Interesting)
In my opinion, this is something only a court should be able to order.
Re:Hate that! (Score:2, Interesting)
We'll talk fondly someday of the time when we had citizens as well as consumers. But face it: at this point, unless you've got money to pass around, your opinion is completely worthless. So just sit back, watch your television, pay your ISP bill, listen to some manufactured pop music (from physical media, of course), and for heaven's sake, don't use too much bandwidth or express an unpopular opinion!
Re:Hate that! (Score:2)
You know, I agree, and I don't like that fact either, but at the end of the day, it was the site's actions that caused them to be shut down.
Some may call it intimidation, but the site WAS in the wrong (or at least a VERY shady area), and it wasn't the ISP's fight. And it speaks volumes that the site didn't pursue it legally, but rather just went looking for another ISP.
In some wierd way, I have a bit of respect for a company that doesn't just sick the lawyers on someone and get an injunction, but calls them up and says "hey, this isn't right, and if it doesn't stop, we'll have to do something about it".
Possible antitrust? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Taiwanese site was run on a video-store model, allowing people to "rent" access to movies for three days in return for a payment of just $1. The movies, which were streamed to a computer in RealNetworks' video format, could not easily be saved to a hard drive or downloaded.
So how is Movie88 a pirate site if it attempts to prevent downloading of the videos? (Yes, I know Real Video can be downloaded with some utilities, but then again, you could copy rental video tapes/DVDs with the right hardware too)
How is it different in concept from any video store for that matter?
And most importantly, how is it different than the movie studios getting into the act, except for where the money goes? (Do video stores like Blockbuster have to pay royalties to movie studios? Curious...)
Re:Possible antitrust? (Score:1)
They pay royaltiesin the form of highly expensive physical media which then gets rented out over and over until it wears out.
Movie88 wouldn't have to worry about the wearing out, and I'm guessing that since this happened they probably didn't pay jack to the movie houses.
Blockbuster *does* pay movie studios... (Score:1, Interesting)
I've become pretty sick of the whole digital media thing and have just abandoned both buying CDs and renting movies froom Blockbuster. I do use my DirecTivo and pay-per-view since between the two I can always find soomething I want to watch. I currently dole out approximately $100 a month for TV/Cable entertainment and hope as little as possible go to the big studios.
Re:Possible antitrust? (Score:3, Interesting)
Movie88 served up movies with Apache, not RealServer. This made downloading/saving almost trivial. I used FlashGet, with Muffin in front of it to rewrite the user-agent string to make FlashGet appear to the server as RealPlayer 8 instead.
Everything they had that was (probably) ripped from DVD had captions, though...stuff like American History X or eXistenZ, not just foreign-language stuff where subtitles would be useful. Given that adding captions back into the video involves extra work when you're transcoding from DVD (the captions are stored as overlay graphics in the MPEG program stream), you have to wonder why they did this.
Re:Possible antitrust? (Score:2)
I assume that most Movie88 customers were in Taiwan, and do not speak English as their native language.
Re:Possible antitrust? (Score:1)
Re:Possible antitrust? (Score:2)
Re:Possible antitrust? (Score:2)
Re:Possible antitrust? (Score:2)
Because they hadn't paid for the videos they were streaming. They weren't a site for pirates to copy videos, but they were using pirate videos as the base of their business. That's the MPA's story anyway.
Depends what you feel about the "loophole in Taiwan copyright law" (presumably related to Taiwan only relatively recently adopting laws acceptable to WTO - http://www.ladas.com/BULLETINS/1999/0399Bulletin/
No "legal" action? (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, it had to be said.
A CRANK? Submitting to Slashdot? And SALON? (Score:3, Funny)
When it's worth more... (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder if we'll start seeing ISPs advertising rates to shut down customers:
- Turn off a Normal Account $2000
- Turn off a Priority Account $4000
- Turn off High Bandwith Account $50000
You will be informed in 10 days whether the account has outbid you to re-enable service...Sounds kind of like something out of a Gibson novel.
Re:When it's worth more... (Score:2)
HBO Should Buy Futurama (Score:3, Interesting)
David Cohen, you out there? Shop that show around.
Re:HBO Should Buy Futurama (Score:1)
Re:HBO Should Buy Futurama (Score:2)
I've always wondered why there aren't more "adult cartoons" on more mainstream stations. Not even pr0nt00ns, just anime or even serious animation aimed at 14-40 year olds on one of the HBO's. There's certainly a market for it.
Re:HBO Should Buy Futurama (Score:2)
You had things like the Critic, and a couple other attempts. Nothing stuck.
Re:HBO Should Buy Futurama (Score:2)
Zim airing regularly? (Score:1)
-Tim Skirvin (tskirvin@killfile.org)
Re:Zim airing regularly? (Score:1)
Re:Zim airing regularly? (Score:2)
If you do a search on google for invader zim episodes you can download all publically existing ones.. inclusing the 2 that never aired in the US.
OS X (Score:5, Informative)
1.CD Disc Recording Peripherals: Expanded support for QPS, EZQuest, LaCie, Yamaha, MCE Technologies and Sony devices
2.Image Capture and iPhoto: Improved support for several digital camera models from Canon, Kodak and Sony
3.DVD Playback on external VGA displays on PowerBook G4
4.PowerBook video mirroring will be on by default when connecting to a new display
5.Improvements for iTunes when the full screen visualizer is used
6.Login authentication support for LDAP and Active Directory services
7.OpenSSH version 3.0.2p1
8.WebDAV support for Digest authentication
9.Mail includes support for SSL encryption
Get it via Software Update. If you're a bit hesistant, might want to wait for what xlr8yourmac.com [xlr8yourmac.com] says. And MacsOnly [macsonly.com] does a variety of speed tests for every version released. I'm sure they'll put up new benchmarks shortly.
Re:OS X (Score:1, Interesting)
8.WebDAV support for Digest authentication
That's interesting, because AFAIK MSIE still doesn't support Digest authentication for WebDAV shares (a.k.a. "Web Folders"). (At least, IE5.5 doesn't, and IIRC neither does IE6). It seems to get confused and try to access the site using FrontPage extensions instead, which of course doesn't work because it's running Apache 2.0 [apache.org]. That makes it hard to interoperate MSIE with other WebDAV products (like Subversion [tigris.org]), at least if you're using Digest auth. I'm glad to see at least someone [apple.com] is actually trying to implement web standards, instead of mixing them together with proprietary stuff. Anyway, just my $0.02.
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Windows 2000/XP stable? safe? secure? 5 lines of simple C code say otherwise! [zappadoodle.com]
google cache of p2p site for "circle" (Score:1, Informative)
Speaking of Open source P2P networks... (Score:1)
yeah (Score:2)
Prior art (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Prior art (Score:3, Funny)
I thought that was from the Windows XP readme files...
Speaking of prior art... (Score:2)
Morgan's Tarot [sleepbot.com], copyright 1970. Lord of the Rings, completed in 1948.
Geez, you'd think he'd know better. Or maybe O'Reilly only deals with Unix wizards? (Who, from my experience may be subtle but are generally nice
Investigating O'Reilly charge of crank - smear? (Score:3, Informative)
And I've learned some great things by being willing to listen to the target.
TheoDP briefly laid out his complaint in his own words in a Usenet Posting [google.com]
At the very least, this makes me dubious about the claim by O'Reilly that TheoDP wouldn't explain the relevance of his material.
Hmm, let's compare, O'Reilly claims, regarding TheoDP:
Now let's look at a news report published at the time [archive.org] : (I've added emphasis below) How interesting. I assume TheoDP is Ted Conway.Pending further evidence. I'm inclined to side with TheoDP. It looks like the power of journalism again. Throw the mud, make the smear, virtually no-one will ever check the evidence, and the target can't fight back. Yes, my experiences [sethf.com] do color my view here.
Re:Investigating O'Reilly charge of crank - smear? (Score:2)
The three selected entries were patents. The other one (#25) was not. So while it might have been closer in a conceptual sense, it arguably wasn't as close in a patent-law sense.
Though the statement on the BountyQuest 1-Click prior art page [bountyquest.com] gives me pause:
That's disturbingly PR-ish for me, as if they are saying in a twisted way that this prior art actually proves that their patent was a valid innovation (i.e., look at all this relevant earlier work, and they didn't actually invent "1-Click", so Amazon must have innovated!).Anyway, I've probably spent more time on this than I should have. Chalk it up to my extreme sympathy for those subject to journalist attack, because of What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]
Re:Investigating O'Reilly charge of crank - smear? (Score:2)
So this is why I feel sorry for him: As you've just shown, O'Reilly's ad-hominem worked. Rather than looking at the evidence, you reacted to how O'Reilly framed the issue. Now, while "having a weblog" does not a journalist make, O'Reilly is a prominent publisher, not some random geek writing a diary. TheoDP will not be able to have his reply to the personal attack heard in a comparable manner, unless it's picked up by someone else in the media. That's a situation which draws my sympathy.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]
Sorry, Paul, no cigar (Score:4, Interesting)
The previous Slashdot article was about n-dimensional cube or torus topologies. Paul Harrison's "Circle" network (slashdotted - Google cache [google.com]) is...wait for it...a simple circle. Sort of like Chord, it seems, but less sophisticated. It's not at all clear why a reasonable person would expect Circle to scale particularly well, especially in an environment with high node turnover (lots of potentially circle-breaking join/leave operations).
There's nothing wrong with Circle. It just doesn't seem to meet the promise of being a fully functional network that scales better than Gnutella.
Re:Sorry, Paul, no cigar (Score:2)
Which, now that I think about it, should become the goal. You could probably use the circle network as the basis for a torus. To get a d-dimensional torus, just hack up the 128-bit keyspace into d sections, and each of the sections serves as a coordinate in that dimension much like the entire key does in the current 1-dimensional implementation...
Heh. Maybe I should email the guy? Or not...
movie88's troubles... (Score:1)
Zim.. sniff.. (Score:3, Interesting)
There are still some episodes left to air that are being finished up, including a possible xmas episode, there will be a total of about 27 episodes when all is said and done, but there are no "new" shows nor a "next season" after this lot. Sorry.
Re:Zim.. sniff.. (Score:2)
27 episodes as in 27 half hour blocks, each consisting of two 12 minute stories or 27 12 minute episodes?
Any word on whether it might be sold to, say, Cartoon Network? It'd look nice during Adult Swim.
Aerie and Lampposts (Score:2)
Now Aerie is going back to these same local authorities and saying, "We can't afford to pay you, but if you help us, we'll give you wireless communication services for free." Not only does this save a lot of money, it creates a local vested interest in making the network work.
Still, $40/month is a lot to pay for something this slow.
Flat search network that scales (Score:4, Interesting)
This means that high peer churn rates, hot spots in popular keywords, spamming keywords, etc, all make this a rather vulnerable and fragile implementation of searching. It probably is better than gnutella, but that isnt saying much, and it certainly does not mean it is 'infinitely scalable'. The real world is a harsh place...
If you want a scalable, distributed search/discovery mechanism for large peer networks here is your recipe:
1. Build on a base of juicy lightweight UDP messaging. This allows you to send messages directly to peers, circumvent NAT's, and handle many thousands of virtual connections.
2. Sending queries to many thousands of peers is still a large task, even if only small packets are sent directly. Must optimize this.
3. Optimize by using a social discovery mechanism to keep track of which peers are good at answering your queries. Query them first and more often than other peers. Call this peer ranking the 'relative quality' of the peer.
4. Optimize further by halting the query once a sufficient number of matches are found. This way you only need to query a handfull of peers (maybe 10, maybe 200) to complete a query.
5. Finally, perform transitive introduction using the high quality peers in your group. This way you use peers with a high quality to find new peers, and it is highly likely that they will be high quality peers as well.
This is how the ALPINE Network [cubicmetercrystal.com] works, and it scales. The number of connections any peer may have is solely up to their discretion, based on bandwidth and memory resources. All communication is direct, and every peer is in direct control over his own resources, which makes for a very robust environment.
There are a number of details, the above simply a 30,000ft description. If you are interested you can read more in the ALPINE Overview [cubicmetercrystal.com] and the ALPINE FAQ
One last comment, this stuff is no longer vaporware [cubicmetercrystal.com]
Re:Flat search network that scales (Score:2)
Yeah, like by using distributed multicast instead of sending to every peer directly. Quite an optimization there. ;-)
Sorry, coder, couldn't resist. You know I love ya, and the rest of what you said was golden. I'm just never gonna buy the bit about sending the same message through the nearest router a thousand times being better than sending it once to a neighbor on the other side.
Re:Flat search network that scales (Score:2)
IPv6 might be the answer. Although perhaps ISP's will cut multicast out of v6 as well.
*sigh*
At any rate, distributed multicast is unappealing to me, if only for the reason that there is trust implied. How do I know that peer X is really going to forward those packets? If I could answer that question, then I would be much more amenable to it. I am working under the assumption that I can trust no peer, which may be one of those bad design goals where you pay a high price for something that is of little or no value in return (i.e. malicious non forwarding peers will be rare/non existant)
And the amount of code to add distributed multicast support is hurting my head just thinking about it... *grin*
HiNet in Taiwan - Not only the largest ISP. (Score:3, Insightful)
Should Chungwa decide that Movie88 has no need for ISP service it should be a relatively simple matter to drag their feet in bringing up a new circuit.
Regarding the overt use of bribery in Asia, yes it's quite rampant and with the exception of only a few countries in Asia, quite a normal modus operandi.
Great for Zim! (Score:2)
Invader zim is great, and you can tell it was never written for children... It was written for demented adults.
Nickelodeon has been the birthplace of the truely innovative cartoons.. Ren and Stimpy is what started their network, Rocko's modern life, and now Samauri Jack and Invader Zim are carrying them on.
Maybe, just maybe Nickelodeon will get a clue and return the heavy innovation and remind everyone that cartoons are not only kids stuff.
Re:Great for Zim! (Score:2)
Duh. This is a series by Jhonen Vasquez, the same Vasquez behind (possibly the best comic book series, ever) Johhny The Homicidal Maniac and Squee. That's probably the show got any word-of-mouth publicity at all: the deranged people such as myself who read JTHM religiously (and perhaps even take a liking to Happy Noodle Boy).
I'm in the process of getting all the episodes on DivX. Once they are done, I shall eat some soul toast (though I have no kiwis) and go on a Vasquez marathon. *BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA* (quiet; you... you...WALL)!
Speaking of Taco and Kathleen... (Score:2)
Stuart.
Talking to the Zim guys (Score:3, Informative)
And BTW, when they say the ratings were poor, keep in mind a few things:
1. People over 11 dont count apparently in Nick ratings
2. It was on at the END of regular nick programming
3. It had no consistant time slot (i STILL managed to find it whenever it was on)
I personally loved it, and if you want to see more, go buy the comics by the guys who created and wrote zim. Off the top of my head:
Johnny the homicidal maniac
Squee
Lenore
Filler Bunny
Characters like Happy noodel boy are priceless =)
GIVE ME MENTOS! I DEMAND TO BE FRESH! DO YOU DENY ME FRESHMAKER???!!
Re:Liar, liar, pants on fire! (Score:2, Informative)
OS X is a descendant of NeXTstep from NeXT computer, which Apple bought a few years ago with the hopes of using their software as a foundation for their new OS. On top of that, Apple only bought NeXT because they couldn't cut a deal with BeOS for their system.
NeXTstep was one of the most advanced operating systems for its time. Unfortunately, like most Steve Jobs products, NeXT computers were overpriced and ahead of their time. Yet, 10 years later, it has resurfaced as OS X.
Hey only another 5 until I can get a Newton!
Re:Liar, liar, pants on fire! (Score:2)
Had to format it because booting up asked for a password and nobody knew what in the world it was. Apparently the password had been written down on a scrap of paper loooong ago (aren't all passwords at some point in time or another?
Ah, told him later that he should have taken out the HD and put it into an IDE adaptor for his PC and plugged it in as a secondary disk and try accessing it with every file system compatiability layer known to mankind.
He was quite upset that he had not thought of doing that.
Re:Liar, liar, pants on fire! (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, they could. BeOS was available for them to buy, and would have been much cheaper than what they paid for NeXT. They had a choice, and chose NeXT.
Bottom line, Apple believed that Be simply was not worth over $200M, but NeXT was worth over $400M. I suspect the reasons for that difference could be summed up in five words: Steve Jobs and Avi Tevanian.
Re:Liar, liar, pants on fire! (Score:1)
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Do you know what that means? "Based on NeXT" doesn't mean anything. NeXT was a company.
Mac OS X is based on OpenStep 4.2, which, itself, was based on NEXTSTEP 3.3. NEXTSTEP is a BSD operating system running on a modified version of the Mach microkernel. OpenStep is a API specification and a set of libraries that conforms to that API. OpenStep 4.2 (the operating system) is an implementation of those libraries on top of NEXTSTEP.
When Apple bought NeXT, they planned to build on top of OpenStep. They first produced Rhapsody for PPC and Rhapsody for Intel. They were the same OS running on two hardware platforms. On top of Rhapsody, Apple put the Blue Box, which was a Macintosh compatibility environment. At no time was there any need for a "BSD compatibility layer." It was all software running on top of BSD. Apple then killed Rhapsody for Intel (and the Yellow Box, but that's tangential.)
What was left was released as Mac OS Server.
Mac OS X 10.0 and Mac OS Server 10.0 (and further versions) are also BSD operating systems. They have the Cocoa (OpenStep) and Carbon libraries available, and the imaging system is called Aqua (replacement for Display PostScript.) At no point in any of this is there a need for any UNIX compatibility layer, as it is all real UNIX. The only compatibility environment necessary is for Mac OS 9 (Classic.) Only certain older applications (Carbon) can run natively on OS X, so for running non-Carbon apps, Mac OS 9 is run in a compatibility environment (similar, but not the same as VMWare.)
I hope that clarifies things.
Re:MacOS X is actually an OS on top ofan OS (Score:2)
First of all, I didn't say that Mac OS X was a windowing environment. I said it was lots of libraries that provided, among other things, a windowing environment. It just isn't an OS. It's a lot of libraries.
Darwin is the underlying OS. That is correct. (The drivers are irrelevant.) If you're actually interested in seeing how it works, go to this page [apple.com] at Apple.
Re:Blinkenlights Boston? (Score:3, Funny)
so there must be some sort of computer control already implemented...
Or three guys with graph paper and roller-blades...
Re:Blinkenlights Boston? (Score:3, Interesting)