THE US has banned Vegemite, even to the point of searching Australians for jars of the spread when they enter the country. The bizarre crackdown was prompted because Vegemite has been deemed illegal under US food laws.
We were getting along so well, and then suddenly — this!
The great Aussie icon -- faithfully carried around the world by travellers from Down Under -- contains folate, which under a technicality, America only allows to be added to breads and cereals. Australian expatriates in the US said enforcement of the ban had been gradually stepped up and was now ruining lifelong traditions of Vegemite on toast for breakfast. Kraft spokeswoman Joanna Scott said: ``The (US) Food and Drug Administration doesn't allow the import of Vegemite simply because the recipe does have the addition of folic acid.'' The US was "a minor market'' for Vegemite, she said.
This is asinine. Just asinine.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Well, than the big government types - on both sides of the aisle - that crap liek this happens.
#3
Folate is a water-soluble B vitamin that occurs naturally in food. Folic acid is the synthetic form of folate that is found in supplements and added to fortified foods [1].
#4
I love it on toast with butter, i'm going to eat some right now in protest.
But you know, Kraft who make Vegemite are a US company so it is really, really silly as it's not Australian at all anymore. Aussies just like eating it.
#10
This is typical of the FDA bureaucracy, mindlessly enforcing the most trivial of laws while they should worried about dangerous things. One might think, with the current state of the world, that they would have better things to do with their time and resources than rifle though Aussie's bags for Vegemite.
#11
I tried Vegemite and I din't like it, but this whole thing is silly and a slap in the face to our very good friends. U.S. food regulations should allow comity for products from allies like Australia.
If the Australians had banned American peanut butter, we'd think they had gone bonkers.
#13
But you know, Kraft who make Vegemite are a US company so it is really, really silly as it's not Australian at all anymore. Aussies just like eating it.
Yes, Kraft is an American company. Vegemite is not an American product, it is made in Australia. Multi-National Corporations routinely produce products that are local in focus, and that is the case with Vegemite.
I draw your attention to the photo of the jar, notice that it says: "Product of Australia".
#15
This is the same FDA that seems to encourage nut companies to roast their nuts in PEANUT OIL even though millions are ALLERGIC to peanuts (esp Carters). Why deny nuts to millions for PLANTER's and Jimmie C's benefit?
#20
I remember when they banned shipments of haggis just before a Robert Burns observance. The shouting and bagpipe bleating…
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
10/22/2006 17:03 Comments ||
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#21
I remember when they banned shipments of haggis just before a Robert Burns observance. The shouting and bagpipe bleatingย
Yeah, but that was in celebration!
Posted by: Almost Anonymous5839 ||
10/22/2006 18:27 Comments ||
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#22
Vegemite should be banned! I mean, have you ever tasted it? Banned along with Marmite, Haggis, and Broccoli
I'm not sure what marmite might be, but I like haggis, broccoli, spinach, liver, those little green cabbage thingies whose name I can't recall right now, beets (non-stewed, cooked w/butter), and more than a few other things that most of us would never have touched as a kid.
BAKU - A hotbed of political dissent in central Baku has come under pressure from state authorities in a property dispute that could put critics of Azerbaijanยs government out on the street.
Home to an opposition party, four critical publications and a media freedom pressure group, the tenants of the Azadliq newspaper building on 33 Khagani Street face a court battle they fear they can not win. ยThe attempt to kick us out is clearly a political act,ย said Mehman Aliyev, head of the independent Turan news agency, which occupies one of the offices in the building.
Azerbaijanยs state property committee, the buildingยs owner, earlier this week asked a court to evict the tenants for not paying some 35,000 dollars in rent. The Azadliq newspaper, which sublets the premises to the other organizations, claims the authorities granted it unlimited unpaid use of the building in 1992 when a government that the paper supported was in power.
Now the paper fears a court loyal to the government of President Ilham Aliyev will rule in favor of the property committee, leaving the publications and the opposition Popular Front party homeless. ยI doubt we will be able to win this case because it is politically motivated. Everybody knows the courts are not independent and answer to the authorities,ย said Azer Ahmedov, general director of Azadliq.
The case comes amid a general increase in pressure on the media and Azadliq in particular, which saw one of its journalists jailed for three years on a drug charge widely criticized as politically motivated earlier this month. An increasing number of other journalists and newspapers have been ordered to pay hefty fines in libel cases filed by high ranking officials since parliamentary elections gave pro-Aliyev parties a landslide victory in 2005.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/22/2006 00:36 ||
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SIXTEEN neo-Nazis were arrested during a demonstration supporting the jailed lead singer of a banned skinhead rock group, Berlin police said, amid concerns far-right extremists are becoming more active and more violent.
Some 750 neo-Nazis and other far-right supporters turned out yesterday outside of a Berlin prison to call for the release of Michael Regener, who has been jailed since 2003, when a Berlin court found his rock band Landser, or Foot Soldiers, guilty of spreading hate in their songs against Jews and foreigners.
The demonstration was organised by the far-right National Democratic Party, which last month won representation in the state legislature of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
AN earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale hit northwestern Turkey today, Turkey's earthquake monitoring centre said. The quake was felt in Istanbul. The quake's epicentre was in the province of Balikesir, across the Marmara Sea from Istanbul, Turkey's largest city. There were no reports of injuries or damage.
Turkey, which lies on a major fault line, has suffered devastating earthquakes in the past and in August 1999 nearly 18,000 people were killed in a quake, also in the northwest. Some people in Istanbul felt todays' quake. Residents are jumpy as scientists have predicted a major earthquake is likely to hit in the next 30 years.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2006 00:00 ||
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More than half of Americans, 55 percent, would like to see Democrats take control of Congress, according to a poll by Newsweek magazine released on Saturday. The poll of 1,000 likely voters found that 55 percent would choose a Democrat to represent their district if the vote were held now, and 37 percent said they would vote Republican. This includes 31 percent of white evangelical Christians, an increase of 6 points among that strongly Republican group over the 2004 elections.
"Similarly, Democrats now lead among white Catholics, a group that went for President George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election," Newsweek said in a statement. The poll, which had a margin of error of 4 percentage points, found that 44 percent of white Catholics planned to vote Democrat and 42 percent planned to vote Republican.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
I doubt that any of the polls actually know. Most people I know will not speak with poll takers, and the MSM has become an echo chamber. The Pubs haven't been very impressive, but the Dhims are not serious. Ultimately, the "discouraged" Republican base will vote for the lesser of two evils except for the fringe which is never satisfied anyway. We still remember the cost of Perot in '92.
#4
Even if it wasn't so important to keep the most whacked-out inmate gang from running the asylum, the Hue and Cryย and frenzied freakshow of the DhimmiDonks and the MSM "explaining" why they didn't take over either chamber would be worth the price of admission. It would be a fabulously funny two-fer. I hope to see it and will do my part.
Veteran malware researcher Joe Stewart was fairly sure he'd seen it all until he started poking at the SpamThru Trojanยa piece of malware designed to send spam from an infected computer.
The Trojan, which uses peer-to-peer technology to send commands to hijacked computers, has been fitted with its own anti-virus scannerยa level of complexity and sophistication that rivals some commercial software.
"This the first time I've seen this done. [It] gets points for originality," says Stewart, senior security researcher at SecureWorks, in Atlanta, Ga.
"It is simply to keep all the system resources for themselvesยif they have to compete with, say, a mass-mailer virus, it really puts a damper on how much spam they can send," he added.
Most viruses and Trojans already attempt to block anti-virus software from downloading updates by tweaking hosts file to the anti-virus update sites to the localhost address.
Malicious hackers battling for control over an infected system have also removed competing malware by killing processes, removing registry keys, or setting up mutexes that fool the other malware into thinking it is already running and then exiting at start.
But, as Stewart discovered during his analysis, SpamThru takes the game to a new level, actually using an anti-virus engine against potential rivals.
At start-up, the Trojan requests and loads a DLL from the author's command-and-control server.
This then downloads a pirated copy of Kaspersky AntiVirus for WinGate into a concealed directory on the infected system.
It patches the license signature check in-memory in the Kaspersky DLL to avoid having Kaspersky refuse to run due to an invalid or expired license, Stewart said.
Ten minutes after the download of the DLL, it begins to scan the system for malware, skipping files which it detects are part of its own installation.
"Any other malware found on the system is then set up to be deleted by Windows at the next reboot," he added.
At first, Stewart said he was confused about the purpose of the Kaspersky anti-virus scanner.
"I theorized at first that distributed scanning and morphing of the code before sending the updates via P2P would be a clever way to evade detection indefinitely," he said, but it wasn't until he looked closely at the way rival malware files were removed that he realized this was a highly sophisticated operation working hard to make full use of stolen bandwidth for spam runs.
Stewart also found SpamThru using a clever command-and control structure to avoid shutdown.
The Trojan uses a custom P2P protocol to share information with other peersยincluding the IP addresses and ports and software version of the control server.
"Control is still maintained by a central server, but in case the control server is shut down, the spammer can update the rest of the peers with the location of a new control server, as long as he/she controls at least one peer," he said.
Stewart found that the network generally consists of one control server (running multiple peer-nets on different ports), several template servers, and around 500 peers per port.
There appears to be a limit to how many peers each port can effectively control, as the overhead in sharing information between hosts is fairly large, he added.
"The estimated number of infected hosts connected to the one control server we looked at was between one and two thousand across all open ports," Stewart added.
The operation uses template-based spam, setting up a system where each SpamThru client is its own spam engine, downloading a template containing the spam, random phrases to use as hash-busters, random "from" names, and a list of several hundred e-mail addresses to send advertising.
The templates are encrypted and use a challenge-response authentication method to prevent third parties from being able to download the templates from the template server.
Stewart also found that the Trojan was randomizing the GIF filesยchanging the width and height of the imagesยto defeat anti-spam solutions that reject e-mail based on a static image.
"Although we've seen automated spam networks set up by malware before, this is one of the more sophisticated efforts. The complexity and scope of the project rivals some commercial software. Clearly the spammers have made quite an investment in infrastructure in order to maintain their level of income," Stewart said.
During his analysis, Stewart found that SpamThru was being used to operate a spam-based pump-and-dump stock scheme.
#2
No, anon1, we need to implement IPv6 and devise a new email SMTP protocol.
However, this specific case is related to inherent wulnerabilities in windoze MS apps' spagetti code and open raw sockets that enable spam trojans to create armies of zombie machines.
Why? WTF does SMTP have to do with a POS mail reader that executes every damned piece of scripting it comes across? SMTP doesn't just work fine, it works brilliantly. Stop using crap mail readers, or at least stop using them like brainless dinks, and 99.99999% of the trojans go away.
You want to end spam? Yeah, who doesn't. It's not a technology problem, though. SMTP didn't create the problem; human scum created the problem. Get rid of the scum, and the problem goes away.
Prosecute spammers for theft of service. Prosecute them for illegal access to computer systems. Prosecute them for the fraud or obscenity INVARIABLY involved in what they're spamming.
Hell, prosecute people who respond to spam; if you can charge someone for soliciting a prostitute, why not charge someone for responding to a stock fraud, a pyramid scheme, or child pron. If you're stupid enough to believe a Nigerian scammer, you're too stupid to be accorded the full rights of an adult citizen -- we'd all be better off if you were in prison or at least banned from the 'net.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
10/22/2006 9:52 Comments ||
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#5
Prosecute spammers for theft of service. Prosecute them for illegal access to computer systems. Prosecute them for the fraud or obscenity INVARIABLY involved in what they're spamming.
Also need to nail those ISPs that sell service to spammers.
#6
One of my sons worked at a computer repair shop for a couple of years. I'll tell you what we need based on his experience:
We need computer owners to install anti-virus software and keep it updated. There are far too many computers out there that have either (1) never had anti-virus software or (2) have it pre-installed but not actuated or (3) have it actuated but never updated.
The driving analogy would be if there were far too many drivers on the road who never bothered to turn on their headlights -- even at night. They would inconvenience all of us by forcing us to drive slower, causing accidents, forcing detours around accidents, and cloging up our police and legal systems.
If you are reading this and you do not know for a fact that you have operating, up-to-date anti-virus software, then kill your computer power right now, unplug you computer, haul it out to the dumpster, and never access the internet again. You are unworthy.
#7
Veteran malware researcher Joe Stewart was fairly sure he'd seen it all until he started poking at the SpamThru Trojanยa piece of malware designed to send spam from an infected computer.
The Trojan, which uses peer-to-peer technology to send commands to hijacked computers, has been fitted with its own anti-virus scannerยa level of complexity and sophistication that rivals some commercial software.
"This the first time I've seen this done. [It] gets points for originality," says Stewart, senior security researcher at SecureWorks, in Atlanta, Ga.
Think of it as evolution in action.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
10/22/2006 17:09 Comments ||
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#9
My Z-80 CP/M machine in the corner never gets viruses or spam.
Seriously, there is a simply answer to 90% of spam.
Charge $0.01 for each copy of an eMail you send out, and reduce fixed monthly or hourly charges appropriately.
Of course, you would have to get everyone, in every country, to agree to this; any one hold-out would become the spam-haven.
Oh, well, as Winston Churchill said: "They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers." (I see that RR has been credited with this, also.)
I don't really have an opinion on Firefox 2/IE 7. Haven't used either of them. It's interesting to look at the differing treatments the press gives the two releases, though.
Firefox 2.0, the foremost rival to Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser, is set for release Tuesday afternoon, said its producer, the not-for-profit Mozilla Corp. The free 5-megabyte browser, available in 39 languages for Windows, Mac and Linux computers, will be downloadable from getfirefox.com, the Mountain View, Calif., company said.
I program mostly for IE, since that's what my customers use. For Rantburg posting, I use IE or Opera. I'll give Firefox 2 a try, but as of version 1 it's pretty much useless for data entry use.
The new release of the two-year-old product includes new features but strives to retain its simplicity of design and operation, Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, said earlier this week. It incorporates anti-phishing technology to prevent the deceptive disclosure of personal information. It restores windows, tabs, in-progress downloads and text typed into online forms if any of those are interrupted by a system crash. And it corrects the spelling of words entered on Web pages.
Version 2.0 also improves on the tabbed-windows interface that Opera Mozilla innovated and that Microsoft introduced for the first time last week with IE7, its biggest upgrade since 2001. Analysts said IE7 is a significant improvement over its predecessor, but the big question is whether it will stem Firefox's growth at Microsoft's expense. Firefox's share of the browser market has grown to 9.8 percent of the U.S. market this month, from 2.9 percent in October 2004.
Mozilla oversees the creation and maintenance of computer programs by volunteer developers, known as open-source software. In contrast, most software companies, including Microsoft, rely exclusively on in-house programmers. Microsoft long opposed the open-source movement, an attitude that has attracted the company's detractors to Firefox.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
I've tried Firefox and had problems. For now I'll stick with Netscape (7.X). IE, no frigging way
#2
I'm looking forward to this. I've used FireFox happily for over a year now - some occassional formatting glitches but mostly excellent. I used to use Opera, but the last upgrade Ithat I tried) barely ran and kept locking up (I'm on XP), so I punted. IE? that's for my wife and kids.
Microsoft released a major update of its Internet Explorer Web browser this week, but the red-letter occasion was stained by reports of anti-virus miscues, phishing attacks and what turned out to be untrue reports that the new product contains previously documented security flaws.
First came a run of junk e-mail claiming to be from Microsoft that tried to get recipients to click on a link and download the latest version of IE (the link, as you may have already guessed, installs a Trojan horse program that opens a back door for hackers on infected PCs.)
Then came reports of a vulnerability in IE 7 that was somehow carried over from the older IE 5.5 version. Vulnerability watcher Secunia said it developed a proof-of-concept attack using the bug that could allow a maliciously crafted Web site to steal any data a user may enter at a separate Web site. Not exactly, Microsoft responded. In a post to its Security Response Blog Thursday evening, Microsoft said the problem is related to a component of Outlook Express, the default e-mail client installed on Windows PCs. "These reports are technically inaccurate: the issue concerned in these reports is not in Internet Explorer 7 (or any other version) at all. Rather, it is in a different Windows component, specifically a component in Outlook Express. While these reports use Internet Explorer as a vector the vulnerability itself is in Outlook Express," the company said.
Microsoft urged users to temporarily disable anti-virus and anti-spyware software before installing the program, noting that IE 7 makes a large number of changes to the Windows registry, which the table of contents on Windows that determines which programs should be loaded when Windows or certain user accounts are started up. Some security software will block those changes.
Finally, some of the top tech blogs have been less than impressed with IE 7, according to a round-up at USA Today. Computerworld also has a decent compilation of IE 7 coverage. I have traditionally been hard on Microsoft with respect to security in IE, and I don't think undeservedly so, either. I'm afraid it's going to take some time for Microsoft to win back some credibility on browser security (and plain old functionality) in the tech community.
For my part, I was asked several times in today's Security Fix Live Web chat what I thought about IE 7. In retrospect, my response the final time I answered was probably below-the-belt, but it gets to the point I was just trying to make about trust. A reader asked: "Why should I bother upgrading to IE 7 since Firefox is a superior browser? IE6 works fine for the limited amount of usage I need."
My response: "Would you leave a loaded gun sitting on the table in a house with toddlers? Hopefully not. Okay, that's a little harsh, but think of it this way: lots of things on Windows use IE's built in rendering engine, and if you have a more secure version of the browser available, why not switch to it? This advice is especially aimed at households where more than one person uses the PC. "
Final note: If you want to install IE 7, keep in mind that it requires you to validate your copy of Windows.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
whats the big problemo with WiDoes IE 6? It doesn't seem any better or worse than Modzilla Medulla to me.
I went on a Bill Gates Vista junket about 7-8 [?] months ago and it crashed thrice in one day so I shit canned dumped it.
My brother inlaw is a Californium whiz kid & highly recomends Linux??, but then again, he's a komputerized freak and well... you know.
#2
RD, you don't have to be a whiz kid to run linux, nowadays. In some ways, it is actually easier once you digest some conceptual differences. I don't have to worry about security as much as windoze users.
Example: I bought a camera recently, and installed software it came with under windoze. Whenever I plugged it into USB interface, it took almost half an hour to get list a listing of files (images) in the camera. Almost impossible to transfer images. I got frustrated and decided to see how it fares under linux.
Plugged it in, and rebooted with hardware recognition on (did not really have to do that, but wanted to be sure problem is not the camera). Logged on and viola! An icon representing the camera as new removable drive popped up. Opened the directory in file manager and files all listed in that moment. Previewed in file manager, image displays immediately. Transferred files to my working directory, no problem, nada, zipo.
Some time back, I had a problem to make my scanner work under windoze. Same story, plugged it in uder linux and yewbetcha, that made my day.
#3
thanks twobyfour for the explanation, and more confidence building for Linux.
To make Windoz work consistently, I've learned to hunt up patches even before MS releases them on occasion, and ultimately was bludgeoned into windoz defender, Symantec, Ad-Aware, Ghost Surf Premium, yahoo tool bar, googlr tool bar etc.
which is a pain in the a$$.
I haven't tried it but coincidentally my brother in law st gave me a small monitor and a cpu the last week end. It has Linux loaded on it so now I'll try it sooner.
It's purpose is for some 12 volt security IR cams [high def for IR] w/ receivers units here upstairs I'm experimenting with.
Im thinking about moving up from my Dell 8250 to a dual core thingy, or possibly the bro/in/law will insist one of his server units that he builds.
#5
UBCD4Win.com
a CD based windows XP that lets you clean your system properly.
Look at the software list and note that you boot from a CD into XP-PE so nothing from your harddisk will affect the operation of your sick machine.
It contains various anti-virus software, malware/adware disk stuff networking etc..
#8
Another thing .com, open source does not mean it's free, it just means that the software code is transparent upon inspection.
It's like with taxes. Currently, you may call the tax system closed destination. You don't have any say how your taxes are applied. If you had choices how your taxes could be distributed, it would be open destination. ;-)
Open source is a software development model, not a software distribution model.
#10
Oh I understand 2x4, I was a programmer for over 30 years. And I reiterate -- I believe, if you inventoried the machines of those who advocate open source, you'd find they're little socialists, i.e. thieves. It's not like "taxes" - it's like "theft". No apology offered because I know more than a few and my comment is based upon their lack of ethics and honesty.
#15
Oh I understand 2x4, I was a programmer for over 30 years. And I reiterate -- I believe, if you inventoried the machines of those who advocate open source, you'd find they're little socialists, i.e. thieves. It's not like "taxes" - it's like "theft". No apology offered because I know more than a few and my comment is based upon their lack of ethics and honesty.
Gee, .com, what do you want me to do? Confess that I pirated both the copy of Excel for Linux _and_ the copy of MS Word for Linux that I'm running on this computer?
#17
If I'm using an OS for which there aren't that many commercial apps to begin with (and speaking for myself, those I have I have paid for) then what the fuck is out there to even steal?
.com, I hate to break it to you, but I run Linux not just because windows is a piece of shit, but because most of the commercial and free software on it is crappy too.
You goofballs seem to think there's some badge of honor in it. There's not. Common sense says you should first figure out what apps you need / want, then you pick the OS that has those apps. Everything is is simply stupid. Ponytails and pizza-stained t-shirts are optional.
Stealing software, from the POV of a programmer, is the act of a thief. Go figure, huh?
If I pilfered from you, you wouldn't find it particularly endearing either, methinks.
If you wanna fight with me about your choice of Linux, then you're an idiot. I couldn't care less. Your choice. I made my observation regards the open source crowd - and it stands. If you have pirate software on your machine, then you're a thief. Parse that baby and see where I'm wrong.
#20
.com, you are generalizing, based on times gone. I'venture to submit that there are thieves everywhere and proportionally as many people run illegal copies of windoze as with any other OS. You can, of course, download most linux OS distros free, but then when you need support, you're SOL. People buy licenses of linux OSes just for that exact reason. Some buy licenses because it's right. Students usually don't, but you as likely find on their boxes an illegal version of windows as anything else.
I, for instance, have 3 hosting servers, with RH and Plesk, all licenses paid for, and here at home I run Mandriva, also paid for. I often download an upgrade, but always buy a retail pack later on. I have also some apps under linux that are not free as beer, and all paid for.
I am sure that there is a plethora of business people that run linux and you'd find the same.
As for Open Source concept, you are still confusing it with FSF copyleft. It's not the same.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/22/2006 18:19 Comments ||
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#22
,com, no badge of honor or sumthin. I run linux because it does a better job. I did run windoze for a long time, but after constant crashing, I simply got tired of it. If windoze was a better OS, I'd run windoze. That is all to it.
#23
2x4 - I know what open source is. I did not say it is theft - it's software which is distributed, usually, with source code. It is open. It is free. I fucking get it - you're the one who's not "getting it".
My experience is that the open source crowd are commonly software thieves. Once they get X and Y for free, they seem not to want to pay for anything, ever, and steal software regularly.
Pirated software, software which is not meant to be distributed via open source, i.e. free, is theft. It is the right of anyone to ask for payment for their creations. If it's shit, then you don't want it, free or not. If it's not shit, and it's not free, but you steal it, then you're a thief. Jeezus this is boring.
I've picked nits with the open source / slashdot dickheads for years. They're mainly jackoffs who couldn't write commercially viable software if their fucking lives depended upon it. Somehow that makes their derision of commercial software just a tad less convincing to me.
#25
.com, you're assuming that if people are for open source, then they're for stealing from you... you've created this huge strawman argument and you've got all the anecdotes in the world to back it up, like anecdotes are data. And you're ready to unload your personal grievances on anyone who thinks windows is a lousy OS and has instead used an open source alternative?
Let me spell it out to you plainly: I use all three of linux, mac os, and windows on a daily basis for each of them. I have also _spent_ about a thousand dollars on commercial software over the past year. I'll be spending more on it this year.
The specialized CAD software that needs to run on windows... will be running on a windows machine that's disconnected from the internet, because it's a piece of fucking shit that can't handle it.
I have had three of the major commercial antivirus software suites, all of them paid for, either included in the purchase price of the machine, or off-the-shelf in a shrinkwrap package, fail on me at their stated task.
I think I've paid enough, in both money and lost time, that I have the _right_ to say that a great deal of commercial software is shitty in comparison to much open source software.
The major commercial vendors have enough cash (billions in the case of Apple, tens of billions in the case of Microsoft) that IMHO they don't really have an excuse for the low quality of the junk they put out. If you're worried about the health of programming as a profession, or the commercial software industry, then IMHO you have a lot more to be concerned about than some guy with a ponytail and pizza sauce stains on his t-shirt writing an open source application (or maybe even an OS) somewhere. You need to be concerned about your alleged industry leaders instead.
No. It's open source code, it may be free, or it may be not free. There is a plenty of business applications that are open source (you can review and modify the code), but you have to pay the license.
I think your involvement with slashdotters warped your perception.
#27
If you paid good money for shit, is that me - or you?
I'm haven't advocated anything here except honesty. I've observed that the open source crowd I know have the mindset that stealing / pirating is okie-dokie. I've indicated that if it was you the theives were stealing from, then a cavalier attitude about it would be less likely. That's it. Everything else you've derived is of your own manufacture.
You've written this big pile of shit and seem to think you frustrations are my fault for saying the obvious. Who cares? I don't.
Use it, don't use it. Cheat, steal, buy, whatever. You only have yourself to answer to.
If you still feel hinky, well Jeez -- fuck you. There's nothing here except two observations and one fact.
#28
LOL - PD - if it's any comfort, I own roughly 1100 CD's (legitimately purchased) and 200+ DVD's (same) - the music and movie industry has artificially maintained high prices with congressional payola.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/22/2006 18:39 Comments ||
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#29
Holy Cow! They LOVE you!
I have about 10 movies and maybe 20 music CD's - all legal. In Saudi Arabia '92 you couldn't buy legal music (no movies at all were available back then) - so I ended up with ripoff cassettes. They all died within a year in the heat. On my second tour, I took only music CD's with me - and the Customs guys checked them to make sure it was music - not porno movies with fake labels. When I got back to the world again, I bought only a few good 'uns - I have every movie channel cable offers, so I don't really need to buy much, nowadays.
#30
I scavenged Napster in it's pirate days to my delight. I ended up DL'ing stuff I already owned on vinyl (scratched up, but 600-700 albums) and old stuff (40's-50's), old blues like Lightnin Hopkins, Howlin Wolf, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, etc....that were clearly beyond a legit copyright. I have an Ipod 40GB with 4000+/- songs...and it's full :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/22/2006 18:57 Comments ||
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#31
.com, it is like you're saying that because you know your slashdot crowd, ergo ipso, anyone who uses open source stuff is a thief. For instance, Fred here runs the server with GNU Debian. Why? Because he is a thief? No, because of the constant problems he had with windoze.
You did not talk about honesty, you did generalize talk about apriori dishonesty of those that use open source.
#33
Of course stuff that's out of production, but still desirable, is an exception. There's an infinitely safer / better alternative to the file-sharing venue - and that's UseNet. The readers for you machine are free - such as Free Agent from Forte (www.forteinc.com) - a decent news server (with probably 10-20 music groups) will cost - usually depends upon the download quota you want. I could recommend NewsGuy, SuperNews, GigaNews, and a few more, if you're looking for unique stuff that can't be found through other channels anymore. You can request it and be amazed when someone posts it - to your attention. Very friendly user crowd, usually.
#34
"it is like you're saying that because you know your slashdot crowd, ergo ipso, anyone who uses open source stuff is a thief"
2x4 - Jesus Ergo Fucking Ipso Christ. You're as dense as a rock. Can you read and comprehend English? Just leave me out of any further moronic nitpicking, K? Big Thanks.
I've written some GOOD software. And had it pirated. I've written some well-selling technical reference books. And had them uploaded to the Web and downloaded for free.
The royalties from both were targeted to paying my kid's college tuition. So a bunch of jerkoffs hanging around in school on their parents' dime got it for free, and I didn't have that money to pay for her school as a result.
#36
IMHO the RIAA can get f*cked when they ask us to pay for information (book, recording, image) that we've already purchased via some other medium. Congress is bought and paid-for in extending patent and copyright laws past all reason (20 yrs)
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/22/2006 20:48 Comments ||
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#37
Shouting Out to all Super Fly Geeks out there, twobyfour, lotp, Abdominal Snowman, .com....and any other komputerized freaky geek..
Question from a lowly non Geeky person afflicted with cretinism, and pleasa speaka de ENglish slo hand por favor.
my Dell was purchased from Dell and thus WidNoze-XP came with it.
hang on...
On occation I've downloaded programs from C-Net etc. for free.
#38
CNET offers downloads of software that is either free or available on free trial. It depends on the program.
Some of the programs on CNET are free, but you are requested to donate if you like and use them.
Some are free, period.
If it's a free trial (only), the program will usually start with a message to the effect that you only have xxx days to evaluate it, or that some features are disabled. Those programs usually urge you to pay for a copy. If the evaluation period ends and you haven't paid for a license key, you will either not be able to use the software or will be bugged a lot each time you try. ;-)
None of these is theft. The authors of the programs made them available through these channels.
#39
At least that's one thing I don't have to worry about at My job. No one is going to release an open-source AMRAAM software. (Though if you'd seen, you would never complain about the Bourne shell or USER.EXE ever again.)
#41
That graphic in the OP is simply priceless. I have retained it for posterity. The spark gap electrodes above the ancient manual typewriter and cheesy B&W television screen are just icing on the cake!!!!!!!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
THE US has banned Vegemite, even to the point of searching Australians for jars of the spread when they enter the country. The bizarre crackdown was prompted because Vegemite has been deemed illegal under US food laws. 
BAKU - A hotbed of political dissent in central Baku has come under pressure from state authorities in a property dispute that could put critics of Azerbaijanยs government out on the street. 
SIXTEEN neo-Nazis were arrested during a demonstration supporting the jailed lead singer of a banned skinhead rock group, Berlin police said, amid concerns far-right extremists are becoming more active and more violent.
AN earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale hit northwestern Turkey today, Turkey's earthquake monitoring centre said. The quake was felt in Istanbul. The quake's epicentre was in the province of Balikesir, across the Marmara Sea from Istanbul, Turkey's largest city. There were no reports of injuries or damage. 
Microsoft released a major update of its Internet Explorer Web browser this week, but the red-letter occasion was stained by reports of anti-virus miscues, phishing attacks and what turned out to be untrue reports that the new product contains previously documented security flaws. 
