2004-12-31

Slashdot | RIAA/MPAA Contractor Deploys Malicious Adware Trojans

These guys are so low.
I have no respect. At all.

Slashdot | Anti-Santy Worm Patches phpBB Flaw

too late for me....I'm already secure :-)

2004-12-29

The Second Best Page In The Universe.

lol
obvious maddox ripoff
not sure if it's 2nd best, but oh well
funny feeling that this is also maddox, but can't prove it

The Second Best Page In The Universe.

lol
obvious maddox ripoff
not sure if it's 2nd best, but oh well
funny feeling that this is also maddox, but can't prove it

di.fm ad thingie

I think it's mad funny. In the middle of DI they say something like "Digitally Imported Radio-DI.fm-the real reason the internet was created-just ask Al Gore!"
Anyway, yeah, I think it's funny

Slashdot | One-Man Lord of The Rings Comes to Chicago

strange

DI Forums Board - fire and ice-souvenir de chine (original mix)

I swear: this is, by far, one of the best tracks that I have ever heard. It definetely goes right up into my top 25 of all time, maybe even 10 or 5 (I'll know if/when I make a formal list.)
I just turned on DI, and it was there. It had just started right when I switched from a bad mirror to a good one. Blew me away.

OK, so the end isn't that good, and the middle is just above average, but the beginning is life-changing. (I wrote the above immediately after hearing the first 15 seconds, so it's probably not too accurate of the whole track, but it does indicate that the beginning was so good that I didn't even bother to hear the rest to make a judgement.)

Slashdot | The Coming Atlantic Mega-Tsunami

Ummm....I think my house is over 150ft off the ground...I hope....umm...

2004-12-27

New Hard Drive

Newegg.com - WESTERN DIGITAL WD1200JB Hard Drives
I'm getting this once they get some in stock.
I know I'm doing some sort of setup with my other 120GB HD eventually, but I'm not sure whether to use one/some/none/all of the following: RAID 0, RAID 1, LVM, EVMS, hardware RAID, etc.
So yeah, I was initally just going to do RAID 0, but now I'm having second thoughts.
Well whatever, but I'm going to put Gentoo (not sure stable or unstable) on the Krisa compy, and make that a dedicated file server with these disk drives. (and maybe also a DVD burner for local backup)

2004-12-26

Sony PS2 - trademark infringement

IBM copyright and trademark information: "PS/2�"
So if PS/2 is a registered trademark of IBM, why not sue Sony?
Yeah, I'm bored.
My aunt has an IBM Personal System 2 (from long, long ago); I beleive this is where they came up with "PS/2" from. Funny that they don't assert trademark rights over "Personal System 2"

PS: Well I guess the "/" might make a difference, but I don't know.

2004-12-25

Slashdot | Games Knoppix

Mad cool.
I'm going to get the CD image (aka ISO [9660]) via BitTorrent while I'm gone for Christmas. Err wait, I have a minor lack of HD-space problem at the moment. (Will be resolved when I cash in my Christmas checks. :-) I am hoping to build some sort of storage system. If I can get another WD 120GB Special Edition (or at least that's what they called it when I got it for my box), I'll be able to set up RAID 0 or 1 for not too much.

The NitPicker's Guide to the Lord of the Rings

Crazy. I don't know anyone who'd care about all 315 of these. Yeahm there are differences , but most of these don't matter. I'm not the only one who counted like 5 possible endingpoints on RotK (I was DEFINETELY ready to leave when Aragorn was crowned. Enough was resolved for me.). If Jackson had accurately put everything from the books into the movies, you'd be able to have a marathon lasting over 24 hours of the movies. Seriosly.
Some of the differences do seem a bit too much to me, such as those in the Other Nit-Picks section. However, many are necesseary to cover for the left out parts.
Anyway, read the last section, but I'm not reading the other 309.

2004-12-24

Slashdot | Ho, Ho, Ho

Reallly insane.
Christmas lights replacing a console.
"Santa has an ion-shield of charged particles, held together by a magnetic field to solve the heat problem and he probably travels in more than four dimensions."

2004-12-22

Paint.NET

Seems pretty cool.
It's released under the MIT/X11 License, which is OSI-approved and GPL-compatible. No RMS-moral problem in using it, but I'd hesitate to contribute a ton of code since its not copyleft.
Right now the site is a bit slow, possibly because it's just been slashdotted.
Anyway, I find it strange that a project of a state university (Washington) is being mentored by a large corporation (Microsoft). I smell something fishy.
Some have speculated that it is designed to kill the GIMP on Windows.
Obviously, the biggest issue with this is the practical issue of it being MS Windows XP-only.
Anyway, I'm going to probably try this thing out on my laptop sooner or later over vacation. It looks decent, and it's free software, so why not?
PS: One other thing: On the screenshots page they say "Work with layers, a powerful feature usually found only on expensive commercial applications." Anyone who's used the GIMP knows that it does that and is also free software. Perhaps further evidence that it's the anti-GIMP?

2004-12-20

Don't buy this stuff!

Probably not a bad idea to check this list just in case. I don't love PCMag, but if they say, "never buy," it can't be good.
Pretty funny to read how bad some of this stuff is, even if you're not in the market.

2004-12-19

Senior GNU/Linux Systems Administrator and Programmer Position - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)

This would be a mad freaking awesome job. Sucks for me that I don't yet meet the requirements. Namely a college degree (they also take a huge amount of experience), fluency in Python and Perl, and 5 years of GNU/Linux experience (This coming summer is my 4th anniversary). Besides, there have got to be better candidates.
Still, must be a great job. I mean, at what other company would you be paid to do programming GPLed software intended for public release?
Anyway, I'd love working for the FSF. (The 4 week vacation doesn't hurt either!)

ShareLive Forums -> SuprNova Dead!

Wow. I'm suprised I was the first to catch it on SL.
Anyway, there goes the end of an age.
Funny that there was just recently a BT study focusing on SuprNova.
Here is a transcript of my SL post:

QUOTE
Greetings everybody,

As you have probably noticed, we have often had downtimes. This was because it was so hard to keep this site up!
But now we are sorry to inform you all, that SuprNova is closing down for good in the way that we all know it.
We do not know if SuprNova is going to return, but it is certainly not going to be hosting any more torrent links.
We are very sorry for this, but there was no other way, we have tried everything.

Thank you all that helped us, by donating mirrors or something else, by uploading and seeding files, by helping people out on IRC and on forum, by spreading the word about SuprNova.org.
It is a sad day for all of us!

Please visit SuprNova.org every once in a while to get the latest news on what is happening and if there is anything new to report on.

As we wish to maintain the nice comunity that we created, we are keppig forums and irc servers open.

Thank you all and Goodbye!
sloncek & the rest of the SuprNova Team


QUOTE
Numerous people wrote in with similar stories: "Without providing a reason, both of these sites have shut down: SuprNova.org and TorrentBits.org." We mentioned a few days ago that the MPAA was going after Bittorrent sites.


http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/...712258&from=rss
PS: torrentbits too
QUOTE
Good-bye
Thanks to all users, uploaders, mods and donors for helping create the best torrent site on the net, but this is where the road ends for us.

2004-12-18

Slashdot | Philips Says Compact Discs Can't be Copyprotected

No wonder some CD's don't have that logo any more...

Slashdot | Labels Trying New CD Copy Prevention Systems

Good luck tricking MY computer into thinking it's a CD-ROM.

2004-12-17

Slashdot | Canada Quashes Copyright Tax on MP3 Players

Canada's policies beat ours again!
It's dumb to have a tax on MP3 players and CD-Rs and then give all that $$$ to RIAA etc.
I guess if they stop with the lawsuits, then they can claim it's royalty (still it's bad because, for example, I do legal backups on CD-R)
it's crazy!

2004-12-16

Slashdot | ICANN Plans to Charge Fees to .net Domain Owners

Now I feel stupid for picking ctengel.net over a .org or .com domain for the same price.

Broken Toys � THE SCREAMS OF THE DEAD ARE, IN FACT, MY BACKGROUND MUSIC

great way to make fun of gvt
IMO, its a way for that guy to get votes from protective parents
but yeah, this article does a great job of pointing out problems
"So right now the people who made Rumble Roses would be dancing in the streets, assuming the Governor’s office could spell it correctly, since I never actually heard of the game until I read this paragraph."
"I missed the part in HL2 where I killed federal agents. Can someone send me a walkthrough?"
"Note: videogames already HAVE a ratings system."
"Probably the thing that almost offended me the most about this article, in fact, was the way the childish and perverse 'Spike TV Video Game Awards' travesty was actually implied to be 'the industry’s award show' as an offhand background comment, when it was nothing more than an attempt by a third-rate cable network to pander to the worst stereotypes of gaming adolescents."

Slashdot | New Spoofing Vulnerability in IE

I'm going to need to have some fun with this.
It works fine on my laptop (I mean the demo 'sploit works.)
IE users beware!
(seriously, if I was BillyG, I would personally comission and maybe even lead a development team to fix this ASAP)

Slashdot | Firefox New York Times Ad Hits the Presses

I need to look for this when I get home.

2004-12-15

mta.info | Metro-North Railroad Evacuation Video

Similar to the LIRR one, but it seems as if most (if not all) of the footage is different.

Slashdot | P2P In 15 Lines of Code

Awesome!
Meehan would love this.
Seems sort of useful for small networks.
Shane and I have got to try this some time.

2004-12-14

W3C Month in MA

Archive of W3C News in 2004: "Massachusetts Governor Declares December 2004 'W3C Month'"
Umm: yay
nothing better to say

2004-12-12

happy birthday

as of today, my blog is one year old!

Bee Line sucks, part II

(continued from part I written on the day of the events. Please read that first.)
I walked in, and then someone said to me that Pagz was out again. I couldn't even see him, because my glasses were so full of rain. I took them off and then realized there were people taking tests or something in the hall of honor. The one who told me was Jimmy Singleton, as he later confirmed (I wasn't sure then.)
I walked immediately into the attendance office, where the attendance queen said, "Lord have mercy!" I then proceeded to tell an abbreviated version of my story, and when I mentioned I was from way up north, she asked why I wasn't with the rest (I found out later that the Southeast to Chappaqua trian missed the MVW connection, but the Chappaqua to WP train made it.) She wanted an excuse letter, but later said I didn't need it when I told her the bus broke down.

Linkin Park & Jay-Z - One Step Closer & 99 Problems

awesome remix
never heard the jay-z one before, but recently i did (by itself i mean)
sooms like the remix is a big improvement over it (to my ears)

2004-12-10

Lesson Learned from XXXXX

You will teach in the intrest of the greater good of all, just to be nice, or maybe as a demonstration of power.
They will do something remotely useful with what you have done, or perhaps just fill in a small missing part.
They will begin to help other people, but will not mention you.
They will gain money, fame, and power, and give no credit to you.
They will eventually completely forget or disregard the help you gave them.
They will use the knowledge that you gave them against you.
You will be destroyed by the one you helped, while being shown no gratitude.
You have been warned; may you not suffer the same fate as I. (Unless of course, you are XXXXX, who deserves it, and I hope gets it worse than me.

2004-12-09

Slashdot | Laptops May Be Hazardous to Your Fertility

lucky for me i have long legs and usually and up having my laptop all the way to my knees, so my important organs are safe from the heat. also, my lappy has intakes on the bottom, not exaust fans (those are only on the back, relatively very far)
straight male laptop users beware!

2004-12-07

January Exam Schedule Now Available

Here's my schedule then:
thrus PM: global
friday: religion, geometry
tures PM: chemistry
wed PM: english
thurs: FREE!
fri AM: latin

this works out very well.
the first week has only one test that requires studying, and that's at the beginning. so i study global the weekend before, and then quickly review religion and geometry that night.
i then have all long weekend long to study for chem and get a head start on latin. english i review on tuesday. then i have from the moment i walk out of english on wednesday until friday morning to do nothing but study latin. i even get to goto bed early on thurday. I'M GETTING AN "A" IN LATIN!!! HELL YEAH!!!
of course this schedule can change, as past history shows. either the midterm sched or final sched last year had at least 3 editions out.
if i could change one thing, it would be pushing latin into the PM session so i get to sleep late. We'll see what happens.

What corporate America can't build: a sentence | CNET News.com

hehe.
yep that's probably going to be me.

Slashdot | Math Skills Survey Shows U.S. Lags Behind

no comment

Slashdot | China Launches New Search Engine

Interesting, to say the least.
There are already a few places I can se it's good, but overall, Google is still better.

Slashdot | Programmer Built Vote-Rigging Demo for Florida Politician

Those damn things should be open source.
He swears it, so umm, I'd believe it. It doesn't look like BS to me.
Like mike said: "he's not making any claims of actual fraud occurring in the Florida elections."
Still. It's not good.

Slashdot | MD5 To Be Considered Harmful Someday

Well this sucks. Alot.
Remind me to use SHA1 in any future apps I develop....even though it is a hell of a lot slower.
This has so many implications: P2P file hashes, mirror verification, digitally signing e-mails or other stuff, Unix password hashes.
There are some uses of MD5 not affected, such as using MD5 to detect slight transmission errors (note: i said errors, not people intentionally changing transmissions). Most slight differences are still noticeable. The trouble is here with big differences, the scariest being the 2 apps that have the same MD5 hash.

Forums Down

Well this sucks. A huge vulnerability in phpBB.
I could have patched this in an instant on my old server, but it's a bit trickier without SSH.
I still have the entire phpBB tree on the server, in my home directory, just not publically accessible.
I will probably upload the patch and then use my command line thingie, crossing my fingers.
Well I'll do a dry run first; if that works, then I don't need to see the output of the real thing.
With this problem, I have developed a system that allows me to close the forums in about a second by throwing a switch on my cPanel. All requests for the forum area are redirected to that page, then I can post an explanation at my leisure.
Come to think of it, it'll probably be back up tommorrow as long as I don't have much homework AND there are no failed hunks in the patch.

2004-12-05

im back

steve is the man
not much to say

2004-12-01

The Turnpike Prank: Avoiding Tolls On The Massachusetts Turnpike

This is really funny. Make sure to read each page. I can't believe they cashed it!

Leaving

I will be absent until Saturday.
A new awesome song I found is Switchfoot - Meant to Live

Bee Line sucks, part I

They left me in the rain for 45 minutes.
OK, so I go to meet the 6:54 bus this morning. I get there a bit before 6:45.
The first thing I noticed was the 6:40 #10 bus: it was the same sort of bus as the #77 always (every time I've been on it) is, when normally #10 is usually one of the buses closer to city-style (single-piece, and I think no back door). Someone else was getting on at my stop, and I was about to get on it before I realized it said it was going to Croton. I just figured those on that run of the #10 just got lucky.
I went outside to wait right around 6:50 (in case if a miracle occurs which actually causes it to be early). Around 7:00 I saw both a Lakeland bus picking up LHS kids and another #10 (again, a different kind of bus. This started suspicion.), the 6:59. At 7:19, when the next #77 was scheduled to show up, it still wasn't there, so I decided to call home. My mother came to pick me up at 7:30, and neither bus had shown up.
Traffic was heavy, but I still hoped to make an 8:09 train out of NWP. As we went along, I realized it was the first in the month, and I then remembered when there was talk of cancelling the #77. I remembered it was sometime in the winter that the state's guarantee of support ran out. Turns out it was January, I'm pretty sure. (There sure is more excitement to come!) Another thing I realized was that the bus driver yesterday afternoon (I was on the 4:55 out of the TransCenter; since I had stayed late after school for the NYML competition.) seemed in a very bad mood, but that could have been normal, since it wasn't my regular bus. Neither he nor the bus driver yesterday morning said anything. The other thing that haunted me was the #10 busses. Were they awarded the 10's because we had been cancelled?
I arrived in White Plains just a little to late for the 8:09. I'm kind of glad I did, because the next train was scheduled to arrive just before 2nd period. I asked the news stand guy if he knew of major Bee Line changes, but he didn't know. Everything was normal on the train. It was windy and rainy on the way from the station to school, and I ended up getting completely soaked.
Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion...