TechgnosisWeb Prime

Just came back from seeing Freddy vs Jason, and boy, was that movie a total blast. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but if you go with the right attitude (think MST3K), you’re gonna love this. It has way too many laugh out loud moments, and more blood than all the other movies combined. If you have a sense of humor, a passing acquaintance with the two title characters, and a stomach for truly bad cinema, you have to check it out. Go. Now.

Just put up a link on the BlogRoll to the Zombie Infection Simulation, one of the coolest bits of coding I’ve seen in a while. Control the amount of people and zombies, watch them move about and run and panic and try to escape their inevitable fate.. Absolutely kickass timewaster.

Addition: You might want to check out this version too, in which the humans get to fight back. I mean, they’re still doomed in the end, but they at least have a fighting chance.

Slashdot’s running a story on how several open source/free software sites are shutting down to protest the possible acceptance of a law legalizing software patents in the EU. Read the article here: Slashdot | Sites Shut Down to Protest Software Patents.

I noticed this myself last night when I stopped by the Knoppix homepage to check on the status of my favorite LiveCD linux distro, and found instead that the site was closed down in protest of the EU Software Patents, and a short explanation and links to a petition to stop this law from going through. Now it seems that a bevy of sites for other open source software projects have followed suit, including such OSS heavy hitters as TUTOS, WINE, The Gimp, gPHPEdit, Xine, FreshRPMs, and a slew more.

Why are they doing this? Well, in a nutshell:

In the next few days, the European Parliament will decide about the legalisation and adoption of so-called “software patents” in Europe, which are already used by large companies in other countries to put competitors out of business. This can lead to the termination of many software projects such as TUTOS, at least within Europe, because the holders of the over 30,000 already granted “software patents” (currently without a legal foundation) can claim exclusive rights and collect license fees for trivial things like “progress bars”, “mouseclicks on online order forms”, “scrolling within a window” and similar. That way, software developers will have to pay the “software-patentholders” for using these features, even in their own, completely self-developed applications, which can completely stall the development of innovative software for small and medium companies. Apart from this, the expense for patent inquiries and legal assistence is high, for even trying to find out if the self-developed software is possibly violating “software-patents”, if you want to continue to market your software. Contrary to real patents, “software-patents” are, in the current draft, monopolization of business ideas and methods, even without any tangible technical implementation.

To paraphrase in terms non-programmers might be more familiar with: a software patent is akin to patenting a way of doing things. If someone had patented ‘hitting a nail into a piece of wood with a hammer’, we would have to pay that guy royalties every single time you wanted to build anything out of wood using nails and a hammer. If soeone had patented ‘using a numeric keypad to enter a series of digits as an identification measure’, then, presto, you’d have a patent on putting in PIN numbers in ATM machines, and every bank in the world would have to pay the patent holder royalties on this.

Sound ridiculous? It is, but since it’s happening in the world of software, not real life objects, it’s in real danger of becoming law. This severely threatens the development and viability of open-source, and even many commercial, software projects. Many open source projects and smaller commercial offerings are created by small teams of underfunded workers or unpaid volunteers who code for the love of it, or to make something that will benefit others. If these people find themselves having to pay a royalty for every clickable button or scrollable window in their applications, or for every time they calculate an average or format a number, these projects would quickly be bankrupted out of existence.

Don’t let this happen. Click here to find out more about this and voice your opinion.

Arnold.. bah.. Mary Carey.. pfeh.. that annoying short dude.. you gotta be kidding. There’s only one candidate in the California Governor race that’s worth a shot: Robert Anton Wilson For Governor.

This is just fucking great. I am so pissed off right now I could strangle someone. My creditors, for instance. I got my bill for my old Gateway computer (yes, I’m still paying off that old debt) this month, the one I’ve been paying on time and responsibly for months now. I open up the envelope, and on top of the usual monthly payment, there’s an extra $180 charge for ‘Returned Checks’. Now, let me tell you, every check for this entire year that I’ve sent to these people has gone through just fine, and I can vouch, from the canceled check receipts and my dwindling bank account balance, that they’ve been quite eagerly cashing those checks in. Oh, when it comes to taking in their payments, they’re incredibly efficient. And then this. I mean, thanks to this random charge, my owed balance actually went *up* from last month! And there’s no explanation, and, trust me, I have not seen those $180 magically reappearing in my bank account, since they were ‘returned’. And then they have the gall to add in that money to my minimum payment this month, instead of just tacking it on to my total debt (which would have been bad enough). So now they want me to pay over 3 times as much as what I suaully pay, for absolutely no reason at all. Well, they’re getting nothing but my usual payment, and they can take their bogus charges and shive them up their collective asses. First thing tomorrow I’m calling them and I don’t give a fuck if the receptionist on the other end of the line isn’t personally responsible for this monumental fuck-up, they, their boss, and their bosses’ boss are getting a very loud earful from me.

And speaking of monumental fuck ups related to billing practices (ph34r my l33t segueing skills) my mother just called me to let me know that they’re charging her for my DSL line. No, not the one I installed this month. The one I *fucking cancelled 3 months ago*? The one that I’ve called over 5 times now to cancel over and over. The one they promised was really, really cancelled this time, for real, cross their hearts and hope to die. The one they told me would get refunded for all those months they’d been charing me despite my cancellation… yeah, that one. Guess who else is getting a very loud earful tomorrow. I mean, I’ve been a saint about this, I’ve called, I’ve spoken rationally, and I’ve given them 5. Fucking. Chances. Enough is enough. Each time they assure me that the problem’s one hunred percent fixed, and then it turns out they didn’t do jack shit. Where’s the Better Business Bureau when I need them, goddamit?!

*sigh*. I’m so fucking pissed.

If you’re even at all interested in the whole SCO vs. IBM and Linux thing, you owe it to yourself to read Halloween IX: It Ain’t Necessarily SCO.

In the style of previous ‘Halloween’ memos, which were usually leaked Microsoft documents, Rob Landet and Eric Raymond have taken the amended SCO complaint against IBM filed on June 16 2003, and torn it apart bit by bit, systematically and logically refuting each and every one of SCO’s claims. Using historical information, actual facts, and just plain cold logic, they absolutely demolish SCO’s claims one by one. It’s downright exhilarating.

Because I know my friends and family love me very much, I know they will get together and pool their money so I can have one of these for X-Mas. Finally, somehting with the correct amount of pockets for someone like me!

Just a quick note to let people know that if they’ve emailed me this week and haven’t gotten a response, it’s not that I’m ignoring them, I’m simply having a horrid email week. I’ve received emails *today* that were sent out on Monday.. it’s almost as bad as snail mail around here. I blame all those virii and worms that are going around.

In April 2001, MIT did something revolutionary: They put up the content of hundreds of their classes on the Web, with the intention of placing all of their thousands of courses online over the next few years, and they would make all this material, lectures, class notes, tests, course outlines, available completely for free. Not the degrees, mind you, just the material. The knowledge. And they called it OpenCourseWare. It’s been 2 years since that happened, and Wired has a fascinating article on where the program stands now. From the article:

Lam Vi Quoc negotiates his scooter through Ho Chi Minh City’s relentless stream of pedal traffic and hangs a right down a crowded alley. He climbs the steep wooden stairs of the tiny house he shares with nine family members, passing by his mother, who is stooped on the floor of the second level preparing lunch. He ascends another set of even steeper steps to the third level and settles on a stool at a small desk, pushing aside the rolled-up mat he sleeps on with one of his brothers. To the smell of a chicken roasting on a grill in the alley and the clang of the next-door neighbor’s metalworking operation, Lam turns on his Pentium 4 PC, and soon the screen displays Lecture 2 of Laboratory in Software Engineering, a course taught each semester on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Here,” he says, pointing at the screen. “This is where I got the idea to use decoupling as a way of integrating two programs.”

Goddamn but this sounds s3ksy. Maybe I should take a good look at it, get a head start on the education I plan to get ~ 3 years from now?

eric S. Raymond, leader of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) posted this rant on his blog last friday, an open letter to SCO’s Darl McBride, that’s just brimming with righteous indignation. I gotta tell you, it’s a blast to read, and does a much better point of expresing the outrage that many of us Open Source enthusiasts feel than I ever could.

As seen in this article on The Register, Motorola’s just launched the A760, which: “uses Linux as a core operating system, on top of which Java provides a multimedia application framework. Software that ships with the device includes a PDA-style personal information management suite, a video player, music player, an instant messaging tool and more.
The A760 uses a flip-top design, looking not unlike a Handspring Treo, but minus the micro keyboard. In place of the keypad is a circular navigation button. The handset features an integrated digicam, and Bluetooth, Infra-Red and USB connectivity. “

Techno-lust… increasing.. agh! Pictures!

Isn’t it cute?! /me wants.

Just read about this little program for Mac OSX. In a nutshell, it takes text files, such as webpages, RSS feeds, ebooks, etc., does some text-to-speech magic on them, transcodes them into MP3’s, and then syncs them to your iPod for listening to on the way to/from work or wherever. The sheer geeky coolness factor of being able to fire up an RSS news aggregator, downloading the news that matters to me from the web (from sites like IndyMediaPR, BoingBoing, SlashDot, etc.)and then being able to hear them while I drive instead of the awful local news radio channels is wonderful. However, the software’s Mac-only. Bleagh.

Fear not, though. I’m allready plotting for an equivalent using Linux. Ph34r my l33t 0p3n s0urc3 sk1llz, j0. I need to find the following components: a decent text-to-speech engine for Linux, a good Linux RSS aggregator, and an MP3/OGG encoder. Then, with some creative shell-scripting, I could download my web pages with the Plucker Perl script, have the RSS aggregator download its files as well, run the lot of them through the text-to-speechifier, rip the resulting file into an Ogg Vorbis audio file (or MP3), and then ssh into my Zaurus and upload them automatically. Yeah… geeky.

Now this looks like a good idea. A distributed library that works by fostering open comunication and community among its users, encourages discussion, and brings people closer (well, hopefully). This is limited to the San Francisco area right now, but it’s a fascinating model nonetheless. The idea is that you sign up, post up what books and videos you have that you’re willing to lend out, and then other members of the project can contact you and arrange to borrow or exchange their own books and videos with you. You can search the database for whatever book you may be looking for, and if someone in the group has it, you can see wether it’s available. The system also relies on an eBay-like ratings method for weeding out people who return their books late or don’t return them at all, and you are under no obligation to lend out anything that you don’t feel comfortable lending out.

Some would say that just one or two bad apples is all it takes to bring a project like this down, by making multiple fake registrations and upping their own ratings so people trust them and then stealing books and videos, but I beleive that the open nature of a project lke this would generally discourage this kind of behaviour, and limit it. From the website:

How do you manage trust?

While this is a community site based on good will, we have an ebay-style feedback system for managing trust. Lenders have the opportunity to leave positive or negative feedback for borrowers when an item is returned. These positive or negative points contribute to an overall “score” which lenders can use to gauge the trustworthiness or responsibility of a borrower. Lenders can also leave comments along with the points to be more specific.

Are you an anarchist? A rebel? Anti-establishment? Free thinker? Then why are you still using Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Hotmail, Microsoft Outlook, etc. etc. etc.? Stop showing your implied support for a company that thrives on limiting user rights, monopolistic, predatory business practices, and an open disregard for the world in general. There is an alternative. From the article:

Why Stealing Your Copy Of Windows Isn’t Enough

For example, Microsoft thrives on closed standards. They can successfully obfuscate the Microsoft Word .doc file format and discourage interoperability because Word is considered a de facto standard. Using Microsoft Word contributes to this acceptance.

Well, I’d like to think that my use of ‘Fair and Balanced’ on this site had a little to do with this:

A federal judge handed down his decions on the Al Franken vs. Fox News case, and ruled in favor of Franken, handing Fox news a fairly nasty legal bitchslap while he was at it. From the article:

“There are hard cases and there are easy cases,” the judge said. “This is an easy case. This case is wholly without merit, both factually and legally.”

Brilliant!

RJ Tarpley’s, an online coffee store, has decided to show its support for the excellent Mozilla web browser and email client (with built-in pop up blocking, spam filtering, and immunity to pretty much every self-installing spyware variant out there, and all completely free! Go try it today!) by offering a selection of Mozilla-themed coffees, and donating half the proceeds of all sales made by Mozilla users (not just sales of those blends, but any blend bought by a Mozilla using customer) to the Mozilla Foundation to help in the further development of the browser. From their site:

“Welcome Mozilla users! In an effort to support the worlds best browser and email client, RJ Tarpley’s has agreed to donate half the profit of all orders from Mozilla users directly to The Mozilla Foundation. The foundations goal is to promote the development, distribution and adoption of the award-winning Mozilla standards-based web applications and core technologies, including the Gecko browser layout engine. The Mozilla Foundation will continue and expand on the efforts of mozilla.org, the group managing the daily operations of the Mozilla project since its inception.”

… and I for one vote that we celebrate it with downright religious fervor! Go here to learn more about this wondrous day. Taken directly from their site:

“Why do we need an International Talk Like a Pirate Day?

In other words, silliness is the holiday’s best selling point.”

Arrrrr!

Really interesting article about how things that seem like really rare occurrences are actually pretty common, especially if you look at the whole world and do a little math. Lightning never strikes twice, eh? Tell that to the Bulgarian woman who lost not one, not two, but three husbands to lightning strikes.

Well, I haven’t really had much time this week to update, and there’s a lot of things I’ve been wanting to put up here, so I’m just gonna consolidate a lot of them into this one post, and I’ll see if I can put up the others when I get home this afternoon:

EarthStation 5 P2P Software declares War on RIAA, MPAA
The makers of Earthstation 5, a P2P File Sharing program in the vein of Kazaa and the dearly departed Napster, have just put out a press release, basically stating that they are at all-out war with the RIAA and MPAA. Based in the Gaza strip and in refugee camps in Palestine, they claim that US laws and regulations have absolutely no effect on them, and that they will encourage people to download copyrighted movies, music, and more, using their application. They also claim their application protects user’s IP addresses from being harvested by these organizations, and that it requires no registration, adware, spyware, or anything else. In fact, they go so far as to upload movies and music onto their servers themselves to encourage people to download them. Will they get away with this? Who knows, but at the very least you gotta admire their sheer balls.

Second Life tryout ends, I think I’m staying.
Well, my 7 day free trial for Second Life ends today, and it’s been a blast. I haven’t gotten to try out the scripting tools much yet, but Natalie’s been having a blast building objects and trying out her recently acquired 3D modeling skills. She even built a replica of Inveder Zim’s flying pig (I’ll post up a screenshot later), and flew it around much to everyone’s delight. Overall, I’d reccomend the experience to just about anyone, and I’ll try and post up more details about it soon as well.

Decade of Rad: the 10 Eightiest Movies

In the name of all that’s holy, go, click! It’s absolutely beautiful.