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So, how big did you say that app needed to be? Radsoft Labs knocks a Windows DNS client down from 3.5MB to 7*KB*. [Via RISKS Digest.]
posted on Jun-11-00 at 2:07 PM

Plan 9 from Bell Labs open sourced. [posted up top so the open source people who weren't reading the unrelated other Plan 9 thread don't miss it.]
posted on Jun-11-00 at 12:56 PM

Microsoft fires the final bullet into it's head. As of April 1st, OEMs may no longer ship a CD-ROM containing a full-installable copy of Windows with the machines they build. They can ship a "recovery CD", or just a "recovery partition". So, what did you get for your $90?

You got to rent Windows until you upgraded your machine.
posted on Jun-8-00 at 2:34 PM

Patently Absurd. James Gleick, chaos researcher and all-around smart guy, has written a very nice piece for the New York Times Magazine about the current spate of stupidity at the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Most important, in my view, is that unlike the John Perry Barlow piece we discussed earlier, the Gleick piece got national press... which is far more important than we geeks think...
posted on Jun-5-00 at 6:34 AM

Worried about those horny teenage boys going out with your daughter? [ Courtesy of Flowerhead, though I suppose it really *should* have been courtesy of Charlotte... ]
posted on Jun-4-00 at 4:19 PM

Slow Dancing with Jesus.
posted on Jun-1-00 at 7:54 PM

Hmmm... perhaps I've been wrong. It would appear that the federal courts *have* been being strict about the 'militia' interpretation of the Second Amendment. That may change, however, thanks to a Federal Appeals Court judge from, no surprise, Texas.
posted on May-31-00 at 3:22 PM

And you thought guns were only useful for shooting *people*.
posted on May-30-00 at 9:41 AM

Discussion:
What's a reasonable amount of time, for you, to expect someone to reply to an email?
[More inside...]
posted on May-29-00 at 9:59 AM

So, is it illegal to buy underwear from teenagers?
[ Courtesy of Beth's Bad Hair Days, to whom I owe a link for pointing out The Breast Chronicles to me. ]
posted on May-27-00 at 4:49 PM

Is it me, or are things getting entirely too self-referential around here?
posted on May-26-00 at 6:06 AM

I love this schidt. Courtesy of /usr/bin/girl, "Things You Would Never Know Without The Movies". [Skip this if you've already seen it in your mailbox :-)]
posted on May-25-00 at 10:48 PM

Is nudity art? Or is this USF student just a flake?
posted on May-25-00 at 12:29 PM

National Park Service removes the Lonely Phone. Thousands mourn.
posted on May-25-00 at 6:51 AM

"Would you like a bag of cold, dead fingers to go with that?" (Who says pro-gun people don't have a sense of humor...? :-)
posted on May-24-00 at 9:00 PM

'Murrican 101.
[ via Twernt, who's been even twerntier than usual, lately. ]
posted on May-23-00 at 9:22 PM

Discussion: I'm a blogger, he's a blogger, she's a blogger...
[ more inside... ]
posted on May-23-00 at 3:24 PM

Damn, but this site is pretty. Nice, understated, good writing, not too much fluff, good copyediting (a weak spot on the web -- separates the women from the boys), and a design that fits on my monitor.

If you helped Free Willy, check OceanFutures out.
posted on May-22-00 at 5:23 PM

What a wonderful world we live in. A pair of 34DD breasts that has its own weblog. Where were websites like this when we were growing up and *needed* them?
posted on May-22-00 at 12:51 PM

Camworld points to the [second page of] the Encyclopedia Brown piece (like everyone *else* who didn't actually *read* it; *Busted!* :-) and also to Comma Separated Values Considered Harmful, a treatise that the vertical bar character ("|") is a better field separator in tabular text data files than the comma or even the tab.

Is that really news? It wasn't to *me*...
posted on May-20-00 at 10:20 PM

Even more proof... that your government is as dumb as you think it is. Anyone wanna start on the conspiracy theories concerning LoveBug 2?
posted on May-20-00 at 10:24 AM

Don't Panic! Did anyone else realize that The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy really existed? I don't know that I'd describe that font as "Large, friendly letters", but it is, indubitably, on the front cover.
posted on May-19-00 at 8:45 AM

Why Windows is not my Favorite Operating System. Assuming you give it that much credit at all... [ via Genehack via Flutterby ]
posted on May-18-00 at 1:30 PM

Aw crap. You *know* their Linux initiative is going to take the blame for this, right...?
posted on May-18-00 at 10:09 AM

[ Damn, it's busy this morning... ]
"Outlook is perfectly safe... perfectly safe; that's why we're fixing it."
posted on May-16-00 at 8:11 AM

I'm sorry, Dave; I'm afraid I can't do that.
posted on May-13-00 at 10:55 PM

I am not now, nor have I ever been... a resident of Los Alamos, NM. If you know someone who is, you might want to check out this web site, where the New Mexico Internet Professionals Association demonstrates that they did *so* learn something by watching the hams all those years...
posted on May-13-00 at 4:33 PM

Rant: Why do computers make people stupid? I guess computers are like little babies...
[ From Capitol Hill Blue, via, of all places, rec.humor.funny. ]
posted on May-11-00 at 8:38 PM

So, just what is this Filipino cracker's name, anyway?
posted on May-10-00 at 9:50 AM

(No link, but at least it's on topic :-)
Submitted for your approval: the recording industry has shot themselves in the head, forcing users to switch from Napster, which at least gave them a mechanism to charge people who wanted to pay, to the decentralized approach of Gnutella, et al, which makes that completely impossible. Opinions?
posted on May-9-00 at 12:44 PM

Oh, ghod; here we go again. This is, so far, actually sounding promising: "News from the cross-platform deleting community". Whomever's running it, don't blow your cover. Just add a link to me; 'k? ;-)
posted on May-8-00 at 8:21 PM

In this sendmail.net piece, Greg Knauss (of Winerlog-when-it-was-good fame) asserts, among other things, that if a court subpoenas your email, and it's encrypted, that you can be tossed in jail for contempt if you don't give them the keys. Um, hello? 5th amendment? Does anyone have references either way on this one?
posted on May-8-00 at 3:07 PM

Does MySQL suck? That isn't actually the topic of a thread at the OpenACS project site... but everyone sure *thinks* it is. :-) OpenACS is a project to port the ArsDigita Community System off of Oracle onto PostgreSQL (of which, BTW, v7.0 ships this week). If this is your cuppa, check it out. [via /.]
posted on May-8-00 at 12:54 PM

Do you carry too much crap around with you?
[ via PDABuzz ]
posted on May-7-00 at 8:00 PM

Jackbooted Trademark Enforcement for Dummies. Slashdot is carrying pointers to several incidences of overzealous lawyering by IDG books; there was also a pointer to a reply letter that, basically, tells IDG to go stick it, and why they have no choice.
posted on May-7-00 at 3:54 PM

This guy has *nailed* the Winerlog situation. [ spotted by Brennan at Weblogging Considered Harmful ]
posted on May-7-00 at 2:35 PM

Cybersex addiction? Here's an AP wire story that's a fairly thin re-write of a BBC story on people becoming addicted to cybersex. Some interesting facts -- it's almost 50/50 women (how come *I* can never find them? :-). Fairly balanced, if you read the whole thing, but still a bit inflammatory.
posted on May-6-00 at 8:35 PM

So, who's *really* to blame for the Love Bug costing billions? Phil Agre makes a pretty good argument that the least Microsoft's can get away with is contributory negligence in this RRE piece.
posted on May-6-00 at 7:03 PM

This excellent article on software quality, which is also a review of the Mark Minasi book, is courtesy of Linux Weekly^WDaily News. It has pointers to the anti-UCITA sites, too.
posted on May-5-00 at 9:08 PM

On a lighter note... Joe Pranevich explains why Linux 2.4 isn't *really* "late".
posted on May-5-00 at 8:14 AM

Personal Rant: Nationsbank (now Bank Of America) sucks. More inside.
posted on May-5-00 at 7:44 AM

Winerlog really sucks these days. Don't you agree? I hope that the 'logger who told me he might be taking it over from the original editor, who *was* funny, has not, cause I'd hate to be dissing him. But I don't think it was him. Based on the number of clicks I've gotten from it before, and now, I guess no one *else* thinks it's funny anymore either...?
posted on May-4-00 at 8:28 PM

Metallica and Napster: The Chat. My favorite quote: "For the doubters out there, Metallica will carry on for the next 20 years," Ulrich said. "Whether you're around for the ride or not, that's your problem, not ours." Oh, really?
posted on May-4-00 at 9:20 AM

What a perfect followup... I had just been going to post the NYTimes Magazine story on privacy in the Internet age, when I noted the SDB story I'd be following.
posted on May-3-00 at 10:45 AM

Cruise and Kidman, um, get religion? The story quotes a pair of gossip reporters as saying that the pair are ditching The Religious Technology Center, Inc., er, um, excuse me: The Church of Scientology.
posted on May-2-00 at 7:05 PM

Yeah, I think we'd definitely have to say that the ad campaign was a success. You'll note that MasterCard hasn't sent a cease and desist...
[ sent to me by a friend ]
posted on Apr-29-00 at 5:39 PM

It's Penis Day at Wetlog, apparently. [ If you think only adults have penii, you might want to treat some of those links as adult content... ]
posted on Apr-28-00 at 10:09 PM

I think this deserves the front page: the two Elian_True guys work for Playboy:

http://www.playboy.com/digital/inthenews.html
posted on Apr-28-00 at 3:56 PM

eGroups yanks calendaring app, eats people's data, doesn't appear to care. This Is Bad.
[ From TBTF via Considered Harmful ]
posted on Apr-27-00 at 2:32 PM

You know, we seem to be saying "wow" a *lot*, lately...
posted on Apr-27-00 at 1:44 PM