] Unfortunately, over the past 20 years, I've noticed
] that cruft has been appearing in computer interfaces. And
] few people are trying to fix it.

A nice article about stupid ways modern UIs work, because of stupid decisions. Makes some good points about using existing subsystems (mainly the file system) to stop doing stupid things.

When good interfaces go crufty

] ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The effort by U.S. officials
] to justify raising the terror alert level last week may
] have shut down an important source of information that
] has already led to a series of al Qaeda arrests,
] Pakistani intelligence sources have said.

Nice to see mainstream media picking this up

U.S. leak 'harms al Qaeda sting'

] "What up cuz? It's tha Snoopy D-O-double Gizzle in da hizzle.
] Enter yo trickass URL below and I'll traaanslate it from tha
] shizzle to da shiznit, know what I'm sayin?"

This is sooo awesome.

.: Snoop Dogg - Tha Shizzolator :.

Ever wonder what data in on the magstripe on your license? What about the vector based compression to store your signature? Or how they encode your fingerprints onto the barcode? For that matter, what the hell is that barcode anyway?

Answers lie within

_The_ Drivers License Standard [pdf]

] By the way, do you remember hearing anything
] about the Boston Tea Party? It may not be as important as
] stealing music digitally, but the event had some significance.

The Boston Tea party didn't deprive other's of the rights the Bostonians were advocating. This guy was preaching the disruption other's right to free speech, because he doesn't agree with what the Republicans are saying. Your allusion to doesn't support your point at all, and shows that you throw historic references without understanding their significance.

As for sitting quietly by, I would counter most of those who want change are smart enough to know that ranting about, claims, and calls for action, with little or no justification causes you to be written off as a dumbass, and your valid points are lost in all your hot air.

If all you want to do is piss off the establishment, and get people's panties in a bunch, then good luck getting anything of substance done. All it seems to do is fill this thread and my Memebox with pointless posts and boring arguments.

RE: CrimeThinc @ Defcon: Cause chaos at the RNC

Here are some of the stuff we talked about on the show:

-Listener Email
-HumanML - WTF?
-Mandrake Linux - Make it stable.
-KVM switches - problems
-Projects overview : Projects Stank and Acidus are working on.
-Hacker zines - more code and more pictures
-Pimping Phreaknic
-review of summer 2004 2600 - Articles that didn't suck
-Socket programming in C
-Writing convincing articles/lectures
-Best article ever
-Stripe Snoop
--Q&A
--Basics
--ISO standards
--How the DB works
--Future features

Binrev topics

] The forthcoming Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) will
] include a remarkable new feature that allows customers to
] run Linux applications unchanged on the Solaris OS.
]
] By enabling this functionality, code-named Project Janus,
] administrators can create an environment for running a
] range of Linux applications at near-native speeds.

This is freaking pointless. Yes it will increase the number of applications that will run on Solaris, making Solaris more appealing. But this apps don't use the full capabilities of Solaris (especially the SPARC architecture), and don't even run at full speed. This is like driving a Ferrari forever stuck in 1st gear!

What Sun needs to do is making developing applications for Solaris/Sparc very easy to do. I'm talking about a few #defines and #includes and suddenly my code written for pthreads can use Solaris' threading imeplementation. Throttling your OS down so it can run Linux apps natively yet poorly is stupid, when someone can run those same apps on a very inexpensive OS and get better performance.

Solaris 10 with run Linux Apps natively: Idoits in Motion

I was just the co-host of Binary Revolution Radio, a weekly hacking show done out of FL, hosted by StankDawg (www.binrev.com).

Its a cool show where we talked about lots of topics, including Stripe Snoop.

The show notes should be posted here (http://www.binrev.com/radio/archive.html) soon.

Acidus on Binrev radio [MP3]

] Ever have a really cool project or program you wanted to share
] with the world? Concerned and worried about how to do it
] right? Or have you already released a project only to
] find no one cared? Ever wonder what went wrong?

A nice article I wrote for MWA #2, about running and marketing a successful Open Source Porject, and the pitfalls that cause most projects to fail.

Running a Successful Open Source Project

] McBride: To quote Mark Twain, the rumors of our death are
] greatly exaggerated. I don't believe Unix is dying, I
] think it's actually going to grow.

He then added: "Hello, my name is Darl McBride, and I live in a cave."

Linux is/has marginalized the Operating System, just as cheap x86 boxes from Intel and AMD marginalized the hardware side of things. Aside from a few areas (threading, job scheduling, memory management, distributed processing), improvments to the Operating System don't matter. Thats why the My OS is better than your OS is completely pointless. Its what the OS lets you do that matters. Its a platform to run applications on. The only Unix giving Linux a run for its money, in terms of core OS functions, is Solaris, with its amazing threading (and most of that is due to the SPARC architure).

But a marginalized OS is a good thing. Tivo could do what it did because it didn't have to spend time and write an OS. The same way cheap x86 platforms have made it easier for 80's software companies to exists because they didn't have to worry about supporting all kinds of crazy chips (x86, z80, 68xxx, etc). Marginalization isn't a lack of choices. Its a gift that allows companies to focus on whats important: making cool products.

So why does this matter? Because the battle for the desktop will be based on applications. Why else do you thnk our Monkey boy danced and screamed "Developers" over and over again?

You don't hear Microsoft talking about their paging system, or scheduler. Instead, WOW! they have virtual desktops! The have pretty wizards and 32 bit icons, they have a cool new file system. None of these things are OS related things! Microsoft is simply packaging alot of applications with the OS, and marketing those as why you should upgrade to XP/2003 from 2K. Microsoft is starting to get hosed, because now their competitors (ie, OSS projects, companies), can't be bought out or sued out of existance or drowned with a lack of an API. There are just to many of them.

This is why Microsoft is losing the server market. Companies don't see a need to pay lots of monkey for a OS with a bunch of flashy bullshit, when they can get an OS that does the same thing for much much less. Because the OS no longer matters, and Microsoft lost its monopoly on software for server tasks.

The Desktop is next.

OSes ain't what they used to be.