20070724

iApple Products Never Crash!

The webpage from which the above image has been hotlinked (well, I didnt want to make a poor company like Google pay for the bandwith, specially when the picture quality is so crappy) claims that this is a... crashed ... iPhone!!

Now,we all now that iPhone was designed by iApple and hence will never iCrash. So what is this pictures really shows? well, the good folks at the webpage this picture was stolen from gave the following (prefectly good) explanations:


  • "Jon": It’s not a crash screen. It somehow managed to boot into a single user mode. It might, of course, be a picture displayed on its screen.

  • "John Black": Hmm, yes, booting into single user mode = crashing… maybe they just wanted to run fsck on it?

  • "Jensen": '‘cant’ exec /bin/sh for single user‘'
    Probably doesn’t have the right permissions or the /bin directory isn’t in the user’s path.
    Silly Windows people. Take a deep breath, it really isn’t crashed, no matter how much you might wish otherwise.

  • "Tim": This is a root mode. if you would look closely at the middle of the screen, it says if you wish to boot, exit. its sitting in root mode. one of the modes the iphone is capable of running since its an OPERATING SYSTEM. This is not crashed, just booted into root mode by either a technician showing someone how to boot there or a geek trying to be funny. its not broken or crashed. it will go right to the startup screen if you hit the only button on the bottom of the iphone. I know i have one and did this and it scared the crap out of me so i called apple just in case, but they told me it was a root menu and nothing is wrong. the “error” means that it has no saved data such as recent calls or pictures or voicemails. again i know because i did this on accident.

  • "Degeyer":The iPhone OS does not come with /bin/sh or any reference to it. This was clearly done intentionally by someone who was screwing around with the phone.

  • "Matt":jensen and chris are right. Oh, and one-dead-eye is the idiot.

  • "Skinrock":You are all a bunch of noobs! The iPhone is, along with all other apple-products invincible, and I am god!
    Don’t ever f**king question that!

  • "Will":This is the cutest geek argument I’ve ever seen.
    Do me a favor, and TRY HARDER TO RIDICULE A GOD DAMN PHONE.
    And aren’t there forums where you can wank off about open source?

  • "Dave": People commentating here have: 1) no idea about mobile phone technology and 2) no idea about UNIX and/or UNIX based operating systems.
    I am NOT wasting my time trying to teach pinheads the basics about any of them but let me just say this, the iPhone on the picture is just doing what the user requested it to do, nothing more, nothing less.
    It isn’t an OS crash in any perspective you try to picture it.
    Don’t waste other people’s time with nonsense.
You see? And who said Apple iFans (sometimes called apply fanboys by the MS-wing media) arent well educated, rational beings?

BTW, the image was most likely taken by a Sony products, since it looks like shait.

20070717

Apply fanboy vs the Apple anti-fanboy

I got this from a crazy dude I know. It is about some stupid article written by the Apple fanboy "John Martellaro": http://duggmirror.com/apple/Apple_is_Outsmarting_the_iPhone_s_Competition/

It is always fun to bash someone elses rant, so I decided to publish it here:


[...]Some companies that sell mobile phones are going to fall into hard times as a result over the next five years. That's because they don't know why they're winning now, nor do they have the corporate insight to see how they're going lose in the future as the smartphone evolves. [...]

WTF? they been in the business for so long and they don't know what Apple knows? Because Apple have not been a part of that industry? Is this some kind of inverse logic?


[...] It's the OS, Stupid. In time, it will be found that the development of the user interface on smartphones will be the driving factor in consumer expectations and market success. How fast Apple can innovate compared to the other manufacturers like Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson will drive the adoption of a new breed of hand held, wireless devices. [...]

"It's the OS, Stupid", and at least to me, the big bloated OS X seems to be the wrong OS for cell phones with limited power. Or at least, not as good choice as the OS's that were design with the cell phone limitations in mind.

"How fast Apple can innovate compared to ...". Was that a really a question? Or did you tried to present that as a fact? And while we are at it, do you really consider iPod an innovation? I consider it "the other, less capable, more expensive brand", because I own a Sony Walkman (ok, Sony is evil, but lets just ignore that for a moment) that gave me twice the storage space, 40 hrs play time for about half the price of the iPod (and the battery is replaceable and the hard drive has crash protection, or whatever that goofy IBM technology is called).


[...] In Apple's case, the use of Mac OS X is the extraordinarily shrewd move that will allow that rapid, competitive innovation to happen. When we think about the expertise Apple's competitors have, only Microsoft has experience with a User Interface. But Microsoft doesn't design the wireless hardware that Windows Mobile runs on. That decision is left to Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson. Right out of the gate, Apple has given themselves a key advantage that has been working on the Macintosh side for a long time. Namely, as Steve Jobs likes to quote Alan Kay, "People that love software want to build their own hardware." [...]

This one is just plain stupid. First of all, Apple is not the only one with UI expertise. In fact, in this particular field (limited resources etc.), their expertise is much less than the competitors (such as Sony). Thats why they had to continue doing the only thing they can do good: using the OS X interface. And thats why the iPhone needs about four times faster CPU and considerably more memory than a competitors phone. And thats probably why they cant afford 3G right now, and why the iPhone is much more expensive.


[...] For far too long, largely based on the hardware capabilities and hand-held state-of-the-art, we've been limited to toy OSes like Symbian. Now that the CPUs and memory systems support it, we're going to see much more capable OSes in the palm of our hands: Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. [...]

If you are calling Symbian a toy OS, you should really consider using it once. Consider that the Palm was superior to Newton and that Symbian is an evolution of the old Palm OS. Symbian even has Java support. I run hundreds (!!) of Java application on my cell phone. Some of which I have written myself and also run on my desktop. I even have a very nice 3D game that looks identical on my cell and in Windows XP (except the screen resolution, of course :). The XP version is written in C while the Symbian version is pure Java!


[...] Which of those OSes is both Unix and has the force of the world's greatest company in terms of innovation, user interface, and customer enthusiasm? [...]

I dont know. The PS3s "other OS"?

Now, this is just plain fanboyism. You really gave yourself away there ;)


[...] Apple, over the years, has shown a unique, focused ability to put its corporate will and intelligence behind a single device. The whole company's resources can be devoted to the iPhone, not only in terms of the hardware and integrated OS, but also in terms of marketing, retail sales, and integration with its own technologies, like iTunes. [...]

You are simply "forgetting" all Apple things that did not work, or worked very bad. Or was so much more expensive than competition that it simply died. Apple makes cute but expensive devices. Some are good, some are not.


[...] That should scare the hell out of Apple's competitors. [...]

Apple has been competing with Microsoft for decades now. Is Microsoft out of business yet? Some people prefer Vista to OS X. Some prefer Windows XP to both Vista and OS X. Some prefer a 80x25 shell b/w, so stop the fanboyism and accept that not all people are like you, because this the same attitude that almost killed Apple twice.


[...] The pace of Apple's ability to change the iPhone as the market and technology evolves will be a major challenge to both the business models of the competitors and their technical abilities. If one doubts that, one need only review the articles written as a result of taking an iPhone apart. Rather than exhibiting the careless mistakes of a newbie to the market, there was instead serious engineering fascination and marvel. Apple is a hardware company that's been building fabulous, compact, beautiful PowerBooks and MacBooks for years. [...]

The hardware was not made by Apple. It was a modified Samsung model. Stop praising Apple for things someone else did. Furthermore, the hardware is not that impressive, unless you have not opened a phone the last five years. In fact, most people in business will point out that Nokia and SonyEricsson design much better hardware.

About the quality of PowerBooks and MacBooks. Why lie? We all know that there have been major quality problems. In fact, I dont have a single working Mac laptop as today (yes, I am writting this from a Linux laptop).


[...] Why should we be surprised that the iPhone is also rugged, elegant, and well engineered? Similarly, why should we be surprised when major new iPhone features take the competition by surprise?[...]

First line is plain fanboyism. In second line you are just speculating about things you know nothing about! Maybe the "competition" are sitting in a bar laughing their asses off?


[...] Infrastructure. When Apple first started talking about the desktop computer as our digital hub, they weren't kidding. And the mobile phone companies weren't listening. Instead of seeing the mobile phone as an extension of the desktop computer, they saw it as a stand alone device, precisely because they weren't in the computer business. (It's that well known business issue of knowing what business you're really in.) If anything, Apple has the required expertise in this market as opposed to the fanciful notion that they are new and inexperienced in the monstrous wireless market. The activation of the iPhone is an example of the kind of infrastructure that Apple has developed. We plug our iPods into a dock, sync our music and contacts, and update the software. The iPhone is just an iPod that makes phone calls, so it didn't require a stroke of genius to see that the iPhone activation could be easy and painless with iTunes plus an Apple ID.[...]

I know no one that refers to their iMac as their "digital hub". Some do call their over-expensive PS3s or 360s "digital hubs". Apple is far behind the competition here.

The activation of iPhone was a disaster to some people. And the activation is really a carrier problem. Furthermore, these things are US specific. In other places you just insert the SIM-card and everything just works.


[...] Putting key pieces into place until the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts has been an Apple theme for quite some time. We saw Sound Jam evolve into iTunes for ripping, then the iPod, then the iTunes Store. The rest of the industry has nothing to compare to this. Think about it. Every time you charge your iPhone, iTunes has the opportunity to check the software and install fixes and new features. This elegant, evolving infrastructure should also scare the hell out of Apple's competitors. [...]

So you are basically praising Apple because they couldn't get it right the first time and need a couple of years to get there they wanted? To be fair, probably no one gets it right the first time. But I cant see how you can turn this into something positive for Apple, while it has been a major source for Microsoft-bashing for decades :)


[...] As if that weren't enough, Apple figured out how to make the buying experience cheerful and productive with a nation-wide chain of Apple stores that, oh by the way, also sell some pretty nifty computers, accessories, and the Apple TV. Analysts are seeing this Apple triad, Mac, Music, and iPhone, as a powerful revenue generator, and that's why the stock projections are so positive.[...]

This is, again, plain fanboyism. Did you ever notice that they were taking your money for these "nifty" overpriced things? If Apple had placed a big tattooed biker at the front door to fuck you in your ass, you would have praised them for making the buying the iPhone also a sexual experience...


[...] Right now, the iPhone is not a mature enterprise instrument. If Apple had tried to shoehorn the iPhone into the business sector, it would have added complications and defocused the product from its very large and intended audience. Remember, of those billion cell phones sold each year, only a fraction are used by Fortune 100 companies tied into MS Exchange. So it made perfect sense for Apple to do what it does on the Macintosh side, namely, build a mobile phone for the rest of us, that demonstrates simplicity, technical restraint, and joy.[...]

What you are missing is that almost all of those billion cell phones can be tied into MS Exchange if the owner wants to. Well, unless you have an iPhone. So you are now praising iPhone for its (current) shortcomings??


[...] What they are overlooking, however, is that changes in the world culture and changes in the technology will eventually overcome that fastidious devotion to The Way Things Are. The iPhone creates a new platform. It's Mac OS X basis will propel it into new user experiences that will eventually surface as part of the collective mind of the mobile phone community. That's when the BlackBerry sub-culture will revolt and create problems for RIM. [...]

Well, you could say the same thing about Symbian, PocketPC, Windows Mobile, etc... I mean, you dont know what technology will "win" in future. I belive that no single vendor will "win", but your take seem to be the usual "OMG, apple ftw! cuz tehy have osx, osx so much better than windows, LOL!"....


[...] Apple will do some expected things and some unexpected things that will change the iPhone from first generation newbie to something that Captain Kirk could only dream about. We know that, in time, developers will come up with fabulous add-ons. Once the reputation of the iPhone for reliability and security is insured, some developers may be allowed into the internals. We know that Apple will also be adding features and functionality via updates.[...]

Developers? what developers? you mean HTML-monkies? If you want to see developers, turn your head and look into the Symbian or Windows Mobile camps which already have a huge developer base.


[...] What we can't see right now are those magical building blocks on the whiteboard in Phil Schiller's office. We can only guess at novel content distribution agreements. Hidden features of the iPhone that may be unlocked. Future licensing that will allow the iPhone to better integrate into business systems for those who just must have it. Possible movement to AT&T's 3G network. MacBooks and traditional iPods with multi-touch displays. Video and audio phone calls. Retail purchases, via credit card, simply by waving an iPhone and utilizing a very secure radio link.[...]

I dont consider 3G (if it is ever supported) a "magical building block". I consider it years-old technology that should have been there in the first place. Retail purchases, via credit card have been there for a long time. Maybe you should check your past before you tell the future??


[...] None of these ideas for the future will evolve in a satisfactory way unless the mobile phone develops as a secure, trusted, integral part of our lives and also lives within an understandable, human-focused digital hub and vendor provided infrastructure. The hand held mobile phone is no longer just a telephone with some added features. It's an emerging platform for a new digital culture. The "electronic wallet" that the carriers imagine for the future will have a tough time gaining traction, compared to Apple, amidst the current dysfunctional relationship they have with their manufacturer pseudo-partners.[...]

Again, you really need to check what the other players have been doing for years.


[...] In short, Apple can change and innovate faster with Mac OS X, exploit their in-place infrastructure, and therefore evolve and mature faster than other smartphones in order to create a next generation device.[...]

You could change that line to "In short, Microsoft can change and innovate faster with Windows Mobile , exploit their in-place infrastructure, and bla bla bla bla". Still a stupid line and a very naive guess/wish at best.


[...] That's why the Apple iPhone is not just another smartphone. Most of all, that should have Apple's competitors really worried.[...]

What you have said (when lots of fanboyism, FUD, lies and plain BS is removed) is that the iPhone is not really a phone, its a portable OS X. I cant really see why Apple's competitors would care. After all, iPhones current OS is more blaoted and requires vastly more resources, is a vendor lock-in (how comes this is a bad thing only when Microsoft does it?) and has locked out the huge mobile developer community right from the start.

You are assuming that Apple single handedly can create better software than all their competitors plus all their third parties. You need only to look at Opera Mobile v4 to see that Apple has no monopoly in innovation. And at the end, we all know that the one with the biggest developer base and the most open platform will "win".

20070711

Hack the planet!!

On a second tought, fuck it, that would take too much time. I suggest that you instead

Blend The Planet!



20070627

Kill all the Apple haters!

Some people don't like other people, and I myself fucking HATE THEM!

ehh... ok, back to Apple. This what you should do with people that don't welcome our new cell phone overloards:

What They Say What You Do
Baah! it is as expensive as the PS3!Put a hitman on him. Make sure you pay him with the guys own money!
iBoredForce him into a big washing machine and start the longest program. That would for sure ease his boredom him...
No SDK?Apply super glue to the latest Microsoft Platform SDK and tell him to shove it.
No 3G?Get some explosives, hook the detonator to guys balls
700 megabytes is occupied by the phone's softwarepunch him 7300 times in the face, one for each free MB
No voicecall?Fuck the Geneva Convention! Torture the nimrod with a hot iron
No MMS?Torture him further with a goat tongue
No MP3 ringtones?Make him listen to crazy frog ringtones until his head explodes
AT&T sucks!Ehh...just ignore this guy. Otherwise you would have to kill half of the US population
It can't record videoMake the guy watch cellphone videos on YouTube until he dies of disgust
No Flash??Hook him to a bench in a park where a lot of old people come to "flash"
No A2DP??Take his wireless headset and poke his eyes with it
iDontgiveashit!Lock him up in a room with no water or WC, but give him a lot of Mexican food and a large bottle of Gin
No copy/paste?Copy/Paste the word "GAY" to his shirt and lock him up in a room full of our fine "marines"...
AT&T wont offer their usual "Wireless Phone Insurance" with iPhone Cancel the guys life insurance, then shoot him
Nokia N95 is better and cheaper!*hint* N95 is also quite heavy and can be used as a weapon *hint*
It doesn't run Linux!!Tell him it runs BSD instead, and he will commit suicide...
I'm sorry, but by the time they catch up on the software side I'll be ready to move to another phone. At $600 for a phone that will last maybe two years it should have those basic features on Day one.Help him to move on to his "next" life.

20070619

Safari for Windows!

From the same clueless developers that gave you Quicktime Player for Windows!

Remember that one? If not, let me fresh up your memory:

  1. Mac look and feel on Windows works like a stripper in a warehouse.
  2. The start time was so damn long, you hade to plan your movie viewing weeks in advance.
  3. Eat memory and CPU like nothing else.
  4. Couldn't save its damn configuration in a multi-user environment.
  5. THE GOD DAMN UPDATE FUNCTION WOULD LOCK YOUR PC.
  6. Installed to tray and became memory resident, eating even more CPU/RAM.
  7. That annoying nag screen!
  8. It hijacks all the media associations, no matter what you choose during installation.
  9. Uses a file format no one else gives a stinkin shit about.
  10. UI less responsive than a dead monkey.
  11. "oh, we truly do, we truly HATE Apple Quicktime! For a major computer company to push this maliscious, intrusive software on our systems is, or should be, CRIMINAL!" -Philip Gregory
  12. "everytime quicktime is installed onto a computer, a cute kitten dies" - QTistehSux
  13. Browser integration, anyone? (expect Safari, of course)
  14. http://www.we11er.co.uk/blog/2005/08/i-hate-quicktime.html
  15. People are getting non-iPod mp3-palyers just to avoid the iTune since it includes quicktime.
  16. Linux support???
And the most important reason:
Who needs Quicktime player when you can have VLC?
Which brings us back to the Safari discussion :
Who needs Safari for Windows when you can have Firefox (and Opera)?

20070618

iPhone comparison chart follow up

Well folks, here is the missing data. As you see, iPhone is still superior

Dont thank me, thank Steve!

Truely unbiased iPhone comparision chart!!!

Brought to you by the totally unbiased folks at Apple Inc.

There you have it! This chart proves that... iPhone has a bigger dick than N95!.



BTW, in my next post, I will explain why webservices are superior to Java and C++, why SDKs are evil and why GSM is much better than 3G!

stay tuned!

20070613

Linus 1 - Theo 0

In zealotness that is. Theo, I am really disappointed. You used to be my hero, man!

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/one_plus_one_is_fifty

BTW, Schwartz sounds like a little sissi boy...

20070530

Getting cold out here...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaa455FE10422CA92C4933F96052B792AB2chhhoooooooooo!!!

20070410

Now, where have we heard that before?

At dotslash, zonk posts that segafreak have found on some random location on The Internets (probably on Digg, in a story reported by theguz4l, who himself stole the story from various internet forums) that at ShackNews, some pothead named Chris Remo wrote something about the game "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:Shadow of Chernobyl" containing "unlicensed assets" from other "games" such as "Doom 3" and "Half Life 2".

Some dude that calls himself "Todd Hollshead" (now that's a name George Carlin would love to make fun of!), apparently COE of id Software, has said to some other schmuck that: "I've seen a post on a web forum that claims DOOM3 assets are used in another game, but we've been working hard on Enemy Territory: Quake Wars as well as our own internal project and have not had the time to fully investigate or otherwise verify that the claim is true. Only from what I've seen on the Web, it's concerning. However, it may turn out to be nothing."




My immediate reaction to his babbling was: OMG!! this guy sound exactly like Darl McBride!!


Important note:

The above joke is copyrighted under GPL v3 (of course). You are wellcome to re-dirstibute this joke with your friends, family, or the ugly guy you met at the Wendys, in current or modified form, as long as you provide the complete source code to anyone who bloody asks for it.

20070408

The Clash

“You break when I say break and no punches under the belt!”

20070115

Becky* on the leave!

Now you know why!

* Becky = David Beckham**.
** Vicky = his fucking wife, in case you cared.

Just enabled comments.

but im not fucking going to allow any for a long while.

but you can always try :)

To The D!

The D programming language will save us all!

D is the ultimate programming language. It has associative arrays, design by contract, garbage collection, first class arrays, nested functions (holy cow!),and so on.

I could go on, but let me make it short by just saying that D has a bigger dick than C!

more info here.

20070113

Apple iPhone

Let me just say that iPhone is the new PSP

20061129

Go Haskell!

Functional programming is the new thing!

Why? you may ask...

Well, due to many thing most of which your little brain cant digest. But one thing even you could understand is that functionall languages produce cleaner code in fewer line. See for yourself:

send_to_them :: [DarcsFlag] -> String -> PatchSet -> IO ()
send_to_them opts their_name them =
  let am_verbose = Verbose `elem` opts
      am_quiet = Quiet `elem` opts
      putVerbose s = when am_verbose $ putDocLn s
      putInfo s = when (not am_quiet) $ putStrLn s
  in
  withRepoLock opts $ \repo -> do
  us <- read_repo repo
  case get_common_and_uncommon (us, them) of
    (common, us', _) -> do
     putVerbose $ text "We have the following patches to send:"
               $$ (vcat $ map (human_friendly.fst) $ head us')
     case us' of
         [[]] -> do putInfo "No recorded local changes to send!"
                    exitWith ExitSuccess
         _ -> return ()
     s <- slurp_recorded repo
     let our_ps = map (fromJust.snd) $ reverse $ head us'
     with_selected_changes "send" opts s our_ps (Just $ length our_ps) $
      \ (_,to_be_sent) -> do
      print_dry_run_message_and_exit "send" opts to_be_sent
      when (null to_be_sent) $ do
          putInfo "You don't want to send any patches, and that's fine with me!"
          exitWith ExitSuccess
      bundle <- signString opts $ make_bundle opts
                (fromJust $ apply_to_slurpy
                 (invert $ join_patches $ reverse $
                  map (fromJust.snd) $ head us') s)
                common to_be_sent
      if wants_output opts
         then do fname <- get_output opts
                 case fname of
                    "-"   -> putDoc bundle
                    _     -> writeDocBinFile fname bundle
         else let
           auto_subject [p]  = "darcs patch: " ++ trim (patch_desc p) 57
           auto_subject (p:ps) = "darcs patch: " ++ trim (patch_desc p) 43 ++
                            " (and " ++ show (length ps) ++ " more)"
           auto_subject _ = error "Tried to get a name from empty patch list."
           trim st n = if length st <= n then st
                       else take (n-3) st ++ "..."
           patch_desc p = case patch2patchinfo p of
                          Just pinf -> just_name pinf
                          Nothing -> ""
           in do
           thetargets <- get_targets opts
           from <- get_author opts
           let thesubject = case get_subject opts of
                            Nothing -> auto_subject to_be_sent
                            Just subj -> subj
           (mailcontents, mailfile) <- get_description opts to_be_sent
           let body = make_email their_name mailcontents bundle
                        (patch_filename $ patch_desc $ head to_be_sent)
               contentAndBundle = Just (mailcontents, bundle)
           (sendEmailDoc from (lt thetargets) (thesubject) (get_cc opts)
                          (get_sendmail_cmd opts) contentAndBundle body)
                          `catch` \e -> let
                              msg = "Email body left in " in do
                              when (isJust mailfile) $
                                  putStrLn $ msg ++ (fromJust mailfile) ++ "."
                              fail $ ioeGetErrorString e
           when (isJust mailfile) $
                case get_fileopt opts of
                    Just _  -> when (RmLogFile `elem` opts) $
                                    remove_log mailfile
                    Nothing -> remove_log mailfile
           putInfo $ "Successfully sent patch bundle to: "++lt thetargets++"."
               where lt [t] = t
                     lt [t,""] = t
                     lt (t:ts) = t++" , "++lt ts
                     lt [] = ""
                     where remove_log l = (removeFile $ fromJust l)
                                              `catch` \_ -> return ()
You see? Clean as a heroin addicted prostitute in Brooklyn.

GPL statement: rest of this clean code in found at darcs.net

20060920

switch before its too late!!

The zealot is always on the bleading edge. Actually, he is sometimes past the edge...

The New Shit Old Crap
GitSubversion

20060909

The best thing about OSS...

How to download lots of pr0n without getting cought by RIAA??

SHARE OPENSOURCE SOFTWARE!!

(no, it is not photoshoped. and its one year worth of download :)

20060806

RMS GPLv3 vs Linus

You have probably already heard about the current round of the celebrity deathmatch: GPL2/Linus Torvals vs. GPL3/RMS, ehh... sorry... I mean the third round of that stupid little license upgrade FSF is currently pushing. It would be fun to compare coverage from the major geek sites, to see their views:

Here is a typical comment on dotslash:

Rutulian (171771) on Sunday August 06, @10:09AM (#15855073)
The way Linus sees it is from the "developer" viewpoint. The code is still free from this viewpoint, since all modifications are published. You can modify it and run it on a DRM-free machine.

That's the short-sightedness of Linus' argument (the same short-sightedness that let him get trapped by the Bitkeeper fiasco). There are DRM-free machines now, but that doesn't mean there will be in the future. If the media companies have their way, every desktop computer will have a TPM chip in it, and if you want to view things like HD-content, it has to be enabled and running. So a company can take a project, like say mplayer, make a version that plays their video format, decrypting the stream via the TPM hardware, and then sign the binary and then sell it. Congratulations, a company has just saved themselves a couple of years of development time to make a video player to help sell their video files, and you can't modify it at all. If you modify it, it reverts to just plain old mplayer without the ability to use the code that was added. That defeats the purpose of the GPL. Linus really needs to wake up here. Yes, proprietary software has a right to exist, but pretending a company won't take advantage of free software to reduce their development costs (without giving anything back, if they can) is stupid. The GPL allows commercial use of free software as long as you give a fair share back to the community. It is not some fiendish scheme to force all software to be free as some people would say. The GPL as it is has worked fine for the last decade, but now it needs to change or it will no longer serve its purpose.


Now, here is one from osnews:

er wait
By Cloudy (1.73) on 2006-08-05 22:30:44 UTC
Linus says "this process isn't working", and the "refutation" is the people who are responsible for the process, who won't even go formally on record, saying "of course it is"?

You were expecting, what, the chairs of the committees to all stand up and say "we suck"?

As someone who has followed the evolution of the draft and commented on the document, I think that Linus' observation that the only comments that FSF are entertaining are those meant to clarify the language and not those aimed at the intent of the language is pretty accurate.




Now here is a comment from digg:

...ehh... wtf?? the were no comments on this on digg! and the story itself got burried...

now, digg had another article on pretty much the same subject, which got _one_ comment. Hre e it comes:

by atdigg on 8/01/06
+ 2 diggs
Linus wants his software to remain free (remain open sourced) FSF, with this new GPLv3, want hardware to be free (to allow people to install whatever software they want on it).

I can understand Linus point: if you don't want DRM devices -- don't buy them, even more, develop your own DRM-free devices (just as they did with software) but don't think you can twist manufacturers arm with software provisions that are about what hardware should do or not when it runs that piece of software.

I can see FSF point too, I don't like DRM. People are sheep and will keep buying DRM enabled devices, this will make harder for people to change the software, even if it's "free". It is about freedom, *BUT* it's not about code freedom it's about people freedom to change what runs on the device they bought -- that's a different thing and different fight, I don't think GPL should do the fighting (because it might lose to BSD for example)





So lets see...
- OS-news (where the OS people hang out) puts their bets on Linus.
- dotSlash where fellow zealots used to hang on go with GNU/RMS...
- and Digg, where the new-school zealots are... well, they don't seem to give a flying fuck.

My take? I guess I will follow the camp which has written that famous OS that is currently taking over the world!

That's right, I am switching to GPLv3 because that's what Hurd will use :)

20060713

20060629

More spoons...

Rocks Sucks
NintendoSony
SonyMicrosoft

Here we go again..

Do not try to bend the spoon, that is impossible:

Rocks Sucks
EUMicrosoft
AppleEU (France)

20060619

Microsoft Says Vista Most Secure OS Ever

According to dotslash, MS says Vista is the most secure OS ever.

How you may ask? Or as most of us, you might shout WTF?? instead.

Well, let me explain:

  • Number of Linux zero-days: 534634
  • Number of OpenBSD zero-days: 3
  • Number of Vista zero-days: 0, Vista isn't officially released yet
And in order to finish while on top, Microsoft plans on never releasing Vista.

...of course, MS did a serious miscalculation:

  • Number of RMS/HURD zero-days: 0, HURD never gonna be released.

20060618

For developers...

As the alpha-geek said once, "talk is cheap, show me the code". Which brings us to todays posting:

Fun Boring
thedailywtf.comwww.joelonsoftware.com

20060612

I am a proud American!

And I dont wan't any Chinese SMS4 encryption algorithm running on my wireless acess point!! And above that a closed standard??

I want an American block cipher! God damn it, i want AES!! American Encryption Standard. Invented by god 'ol American cryptographers: Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen.

Oh wait... did you say they were from Belgium?

Those cheezy...

Who is this France-Prime-Minister-dude to refuse a meeting with god himself, Richard Stallman??

Who the fuck does this PM thinks he is? Saying no to RMS... sorry i mean GNU/RMS???

20060611

Clarification about lawsuits

So you say, the proud zealot hates all technology related lawsuits??

Well, it's not that easy. The thumb rule is that the proud zealot should consider how Cool (TM) the plaintiff is. Here is a simple example:

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Robert Byers sues MicrosoftSCO sues IBM

A more complex example would be the following

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EEF sues AT&TDaniel Wallace sues FSF

Again, it's about how we zealots currently feel about the people/companies involved. For example, the following should not come as a sudden shock to you:

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Robert Byers sues MicrosoftPerfect lO sues Google

20060605

On the Fortress programming language

Just wanted to reamin you all that we do not like SUN, mostly because of their bloated Java.

And if anyone mentions high-performance and concurrency, just shout "Eralng" until they go away.

    ...and fear the return of Anti-Zealot!

20060603

How many Swedish police officers does it take to change a lightbulb?

I dont know, but i know that it takes 50 to turn off a computer :)

Apple is saving money

According to this article on dotslash, Apple is closing their development center in India.

Hurray for Apple, everyone knows that the best way to cut costs it to close operation and move development overseas to Bangalore!

Oh, wait...

The Pirate Bay is up!

YESSS!!!

Finally I can download the latest version of Ubuntu!

Who cares if the gang behind TPB hangs out with a bunch of convicted Nazi's and hackers engaged in computer break-ins, carding and modem kidnapping?? Or the finest combination: Nazi virus writers... Do i really care if the ads on their page are from a company who pretened to run a legit dateing service, but forward the users to porn sites, some even containing stolen or illegal stuff?

No, I want my Ubuntu!

on the $100 laptop

Let me just make this very clear:

Important Stuff Who gives a flyin' fuck?
$100 laptopDrinkable Water
Crippled version of GNU/LinuxFood
Tux RacerCure for AIDS

You have to admit, fhe guys at MIT are fucking genius.

20060601

On version control systems

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SubversionCVS
MonotoneClearCase
PerforceSource Safe

A few notes:

  • BitKeeper sucks because it is not GPL:ed. Of course the company that produces BitKepper must open source it (and close their doors)!!
  • Real men use rsync
  • On second thought, real men don't use version control systems in the first place

20060529

9 Things I Hate About Everyone

1. People who point at their wrist while asking for the time.... I know where my watch is pal, where the hell is yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?

2. People who are willing to get off their ass to search the entire room for the T.V. remote because they refuse to walk to the T.V. and change the channel manually.

3. When people say "Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too". Damn right! What good is cake if you can't eat it?

4. When people say "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why the hell would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they? Gonna Kick their asses!

5. When people say while watching a film "did you see that?". No Loser, I paid $12 to come to the cinema and stare at the damn floor.

6. People who ask "Can I ask you a question?".... Didn't really give me a choice there, did ya sunshine?

7. When something is 'new and improved!'. Which is it? If it's new, then there has never been anything before it. If it's an improvement, then there must have been something before it, couldn't be new.

8. When people say "life is short". What the hell?? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does!! What can you do that's longer?

9. When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks "Has the bus come yet?". If the bus came would I be standing here, dumbass?

20060528

I was about to join the NRA...

then i realized they were talking about GUNs and not GNUs

lol, that could have ended up in a huge embarrassment :)

Zealotism 101 - part 2

Welcome to the second part of our Zealotism 101 series.

Without wasting anymore time, lets start by more zealot rules of thumb:

Rule 3

Remember that Zealotism is all about context. While to a normal mortal internet-user this would look odd, it is perfectly fine by the logic of the skilled zealot
Rocks Sucks
GoogleDoJ
AmnestyGoogle

20060527

Sometimes I confuse even myself...

... there is no logic in Zealotism.

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Gun nut teacherGun nuts in general

Check this Digg article if you donw know what im talking about.

This post was totally digged: "Yes, let's be sure to make ALL educational activities as boring as humanly possible so that nobody will ever want to learn anything. That will solve everything."

While this one got completely buried: "Bullets are far from inanimate. There are many other ways to teach a velocity formula which have a lot less potential for disaster."

20060525

Open Movie??

Yeah, by now you all have heard of the "Open Movie" Elephants Dream, which the author claim to have been made with Open Source products only.

Open Movie My Ass!

Only because they used the crappy Blender software it doesn't make it Open Movie. What computer did they to render the movie? An Apple G5 farm?? Buhh, show me the PowerPC G5 source code and they I agree its an open movie!

If these dues knew their stuff, they would use a from of SUN T1 machines instead, which is truly Open Source. Until they re-render the movie on a truly Open Source hardware, I refuse to watch their crappy movie.

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SUN T1 render farm224 dual G5 Xserve nodes

AJAX is better than a girlfriend...

    "AJAX is better than a girlfriend"
    - SuperZealot

Of course it is!

Would your girlfriend provide development techniques for creating interactive web applications?? Does she respond to XMLHttp requests?? Does Firefox include native support for your girlfriend? How about her response time during exchange of asynchronous messages??

Well, there you have it...

Rocks Even better if it Sucks
AJAXGirlfriend

20060524

The best game ever...

"New Super Mario Bros" for DS.

(haven't played it myself, but I am a Nintendo-zealot)

I would like to..

...point out to the fellow zealots that

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Google VideoMySpace
EclipseMicrosoft Visual Studio
Well, you probably knew that already. What i really wanted to say is that
  • Nintendo should use Firefox instead of Opera (for Wii)
  • The only reason XCode is better than Visual Studio is because they use GCC
  • Hard Drives are for old people. Elites only use HDWF (Hard Drive With Flash) nowadays
  • Ninjas are awesome
  • The $100 laptop is the greastest thing since...ehmmm... the sub $1000 laptop??
  • Every respected zealot should create an account on Channel 9 and spam it with Linux news
  • The only things that seperates QBASIC from C# is that C# apps run even slower

and finally

    "DRM is like cancer, it kills you slowly"
    -SuperZealot

20060523

It have been decided!

Sony and Microsoft can fight as much as they want. A third-party has just decided how the next format war will end.

Vivid Entertainment, also known as "girlfriend" to many of us, has decided that they will use Blue-Ray. Given that these guys early on decided that they would support VHS instead of BetaMAX, and we know how that war ended. Hence, it is a safe bet to say that

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Blue-RayHD-DVD
An interesting side effect is that
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PS3XBOX 360
An experienced zealot would have no difficulties justifying this sudden change of opinion
  • XBOX 360 is way too "hot" for my taste :)
  • XBOX 360 destroys your game disks
  • PS3 uses the Cell processor, which some fellow zealots still worship
  • Hey, Microsoft is evil, remember?
  • Have you seen their games? Microsoft games suck. We haven't tested any PS3 games yet so its open for speculation and Zealotism
  • Come on, Sony Entertainment is giving some of their hard-earned cash to EFF. Ok, it was due to court order, but have you seen Microsoft do that?

A timesaver

Time is precious.

You don't waste your time by Reading The Fucking Article (RTFA)! Hey, who has time these days? So many subjects to rant about and so little time.

So kids, this is how the pro (i.e. me) do it:

  • Dont Read The Fucking Article (DRTFA)
  • Wait for the first 10 people to comment the article...
  • ...these are all First Posts (FP). ignore them
  • Wait for the next ten or so comments to show up...
  • Pick three posts at random...
  • Form your own opinion from these three...
  • Or if short of time, simply strongly object to them.
  • Now spread your fine opinion all over the site!

Got it? It's as simple as that!

And dont forget to DRTFA!

Our Guardian Angel

Boring engineers have Saint Patrick as their guardian angel. Bloody doctors have their Raphael the Archangel and stinky fishermen have their Peter dude.

But who protects the Zealots from the eye of evil?

Well, the protector of Zealots is no ordinary man. He is not a dead dude either. He is the guy that...

  • holds a title that is the dream of every foot fetish
  • is the man behind the famous quote: "Women, you can't live with them, period."
  • scored four touchdowns in one game
  • has worked as a calendar model and a security gaurd
  • have teached us that "it's only cheating if you get caught"

Of course, I am talking about this guy.

Zealots and education

Nothing makes people shut up quicker than mentioning which Ivy League university you went to.

Rocks Sucks
Massachusetts Institute of Technology*Ohio State University

Of course, no one gonna check that you dropped out of high-school and worked at McDonalds until the day you discovered internet and became a zealot, so don't hesitate to lie and lie big.

* Yes, I do know that MIT does not belong to the Ivy League. But the name "MIT" seems to have the right kind of effect on people in this business

20060522

Vaporware

A short notice to the new and inexperienced zealots:

The current Vaporware รก jour is Microsoft Vista, with Sony PS3 as the runner-up. Please stop talking about Duke Nukem Forever (and ever). It's so Out (TM), not even CowboyNeal mentions it anymore.

Fuck You!

Being a zealot means a lot of Internet browsing to find that catchy little buzzword that no one has heard yet. While you are doing that, make sure you have your virus definitions are updated. There are a lot of bastards out there!

Rocks Sucks
Norton Antivirus vvv-blogrankings-cum

BTW, if anyone asks you... i dont really use Norton antivirus. As the Super Zealot, I only use open source products ;)

(neh, this wasnt that serious... but i still hate'em)

Talk is cheap...

Here is a quick one for you:

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Encrypted VoIPEncrypted emails
ZfonePGP
So screw emails, they are old news now. When your old uncle has his own email address you know it's time for you to find a more exotic way to call your roleplaying club [well, those are the only people who talk to me].

From now and on I can be reached only at

555-remove-one2three4-nospam-6789

Share your ideas

I am The Super Zealot and I am Always Right (TM).

However, I would still like to hear your (inferior) ideas on the subject of Zealotism. For example if you think there is a subject I should write about or if you have general question about Zealotism.

You can contact me by sending email to my gmail account. You will have larger chance of getting your email answered if you send it from an IPv6 network, or even better, from an Internet2 zone.

Zealotism 101 - part 2

Welcome to the second part of our Zealotism 101 series.

Without wasting anymore time, lets start by more zealot rules of thumb:

Rule 3

Remember that Zealotism is all about context. While to a normal mortal internet-user this would look odd, it is perfectly fine by the logic of the skilled zealot
Rocks Sucks
GoogleDoJ
AmnestyGoogle

Zealotism 101 - part 1

People always ask me, how I became the number one authority in the field of Zealotism. Well, it's too complicated and you are too dumb to get it anyway.

However, in order to turn a few armature trolls into almost-decent zealots, I decided to start a new series on how to became a moderately good zealot.

Rule 1

The first rule of Zealotism is to not agree with the 99% majority. In short Zealots don't go mainstream. For example:
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LinuxMicrosoft Windows
Is good, but not good enough to make you a respected zealot. An enough obscure choice would be better:
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Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Edition for 64-bit architecturesMicrosoft Windows XP/Pro

Rule 2

The second rule is that your choice must be obscure enough that people either
  • Don't agree with you
  • Can't really tell what the hell you are talking about
For example:
Rocks Sucks
DragonFly BSD 6.7-rc2 running on a TiVoMicrosoft Windows 2003 Server Edition for 64-bit architectures

Well, that was all for this time. Stay tuned for the next article in this series.

Those who can, they do.

Those who can't, they sue.

Rocks Sucks
ZilogMicrochip
A fellow zealot who happens to be happens to be a real engineer, recommends using Atmel microcontrollers for those who can't or don't want to use Zilog's products.

Speaking of lawsuits, this has been on my mind since the first day Pamela Jones became my favourite "IANAL":

Rocks Sucks
EngineerLawyer
IANALLawyer
Pretty much anything but lawyersLawyer

On handhelds

If you are a zealot, you have known this a long time:

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DS LitePSP

But only the Super Zealot knows the kind of information provided below before it appears on slashdot:

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GPX2Gizmondo
Believe me, I love a company run by the Swedish mafia as much as the next guy. But to get into my zealotry list, you need more than mafia connections!

Watch Your Language!!

Leet speak is out. When did it happen? The same day Indians discovered World of Warcraft.

As a result, you can find text like this in technical documents produced by expensive offshore companies:

"4 ur atention: plz recompile ALL code width d l8:est version of GCC"
Rocks Sucks
For heavens! That is Abusrd! OMG! lol!

Wireless Zealotry

Can you say vaporware?

Rocks Sucks
good old 802.11g & shiny new 802.16802.11n

20060521

Trolls

Let me make this one very clear: the thing with the troll, it's out! It has been out for many many weeks! Trolls are like dinosaurs now, they are totally being pwned to the level of extinction. You cant even find a living one on Slashdot anymore!

Rocks Sucks
ZealotTroll

The Chinese are evil!

The Chinese are evil, we know it, and they know that we know it. Hence todays list:


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DellLenovo
Dell, is of course a good 'ol All-American Company. And the parts are not manufactured in Taiwan or Ireland. Anyone who tells you that is a Communist-Nazi (the worst type!).

The CPU war...

Well, what can I say...It's new and it's cool. Not to mention that the Niagara CPU is Open Source. Of course, none of us fellow zealots have time to read the Verilog code. But hey, who cares. If it's Open Source, then it gotta be good!


Rocks Sucks
UltraSPARC T1 "Niagara"IBM Cell

/. sucks! yes it does!

The problem with slashdot is that the news are old, hence the buzzwords are useless. Digg is much better on writing articles about The-Latest-Good-Thing (TM). And the best part is that more and more fellow zealots are leaving dotslash and joining Digg!


Rocks Sucks
DiggSlashdot

I advice all fellow zealots to switch to Digg, for practial reasons!! Let me give you an example why this is important. Lets assume you recommend KDE 4.2-rc2 to your friends, based on some old and dupe post you saw on Slashdot this morning. Now if the todays-cool-desktop since last Monday actually is TWM 2.3-beta2, you will look like an idiot in front of your co-workers and friends. Take my advice and switch to Digg. For your own good!

Current Zealotry List

This is the first list, so it is a little longer than usual

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Python/RubyC/C++/Java/C#
IBMSUN
Andrew Stuart Tanenbaum*Linus Benedict Torvalds

* Extra point to Andy for being a fellow Zealot!

Initial checkin

Zealot?? What the hell is a Zealot??

Stolen from Wikitionary:

zealot (plural zealots)

  • one who is zealous, one who is full of zeal for his own specific beliefs or objectives, usually in the negative sense of being too passionate; a fanatic
  • a member of the Zealot movement

Well, thats me allright!

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