* Posts by Mostor Astrakan

173 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Apr 2007

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Cut to the Web Server Core: Windows Server 2008

Mostor Astrakan
Boffin

The problem...

The problem with having a server that even an idiot can install, is that you get servers installed by idiots.

I love well-designed GUIs, but for quick work I just want to copy out a few config files prepared earlier. When something bad happens to my server (disks have not the Life Eternal), or I want to make sure that Web Server 2 does exactly the same as Web Server 1, then a point-and-drool interface is the worst thing to have.

Microsoft swoops into schools to teach P2P morality

Mostor Astrakan
Coat

Sir! Sir! Siiiir!

Given that about two-thirds of Windows was stolen from somewhere else... Who the fsck are you to teach us about ethical behaviour?

Apple cripples Sun's open source jewel

Mostor Astrakan
Boffin

@Evil Graham

"At risk of straining the already-flaky analogy beyond breaking point, *my* point was that the yob didn't have to kick anyone's door in, because Sun left it wide open and hung a big neon sign outside saying 'please come and take my stuff'."

And a lovely point it was, Graham. But perhaps you have misunderstood what Mr. Leventhal was saying.

The problem is not that MacDevelopers took Mr. Leventhal's code, modified it and included it in their offerings. This, they are completely within their rights to do. It's the whole point of Open Source. Mr. Leventhal was perfectly happy for this to happen: "Hookers and balloons" was the phrase I believe.

The problem is that Apple deliberately makes Dtrace produce the wrong figures, without telling the public that some processes are not to be looked at. Now if you are using a performance tool just to see whether your box is CPU or I/O bound, then I suppose it doesn't matter much. But Dtrace is a more refined and complicated tool than that - meant for people who need detailed figures on what their machine is doing, so they can tune it. MacDtrace does not give you the correct figures, so you can't use it for its intended purpose. Mr. Leventhal was justifiably upset about this.

So what's going to happen now is that someone is going to produce a version of Dtrace that does look at all the processes as it should, whereupon Apple modifies its proprietary code to prevent this and then nobody will have accurate performance stats anymore. A pointless battle, lost by all participants.

Mostor Astrakan
Jobs Horns

Majorly annoying for performance analysis

As I see it, one of the program's functions is to measure performance statistics, so you can see what is taking up all those resources. So what our fruity friends have done is to make certain processes not report their performance stats to dtrace.

This, makes the fruity version of dtrace worse than worthless for performance analysis, because one of the performance pigs may well be one of those DRM-encrusted monstrosities, and you get no figures on them. Not only that, but the percentages for the rest of the processes will also be wrong.

I'm sure that the cigar-smoking fat bastards don't want us to know how many of our CPU ticks they are stealing, but dammit! This is *my* computer and I want to know how my money is being spent.

Now if Apple had informed their user base that on the behest of the MAFIAA, they had fscked up the performance statistics, then we could simply have acknowledged that, thrown away the Mac and bought a real computer. But they didn't, and we had to find out when the author found that his numbers weren't adding up.

So saying that they didn't break any license is a bit like saying that some yob at least didn't break your windows when he kicked in your door.

Still, we know enough now never to trust any performance statistics coming out of Apple computers.

Polish scientists quantify perfect legs

Mostor Astrakan
Stop

Stop! Stop!

You're confirming the unfair prejudice that geeks are obsessed with the body of Members Of The Appropriate Sex!

MP accuses BBC chief of illegally championing Microsoft

Mostor Astrakan
Alert

I'm getting slightly annoyed at...

The Gates worshippers who keep reminding us that we Linux users are just a tiny little group. That may well be the case, but Microsoft has a long record of unfairly leveraging their advantages so that this continues to be so. That is why Microsoft is now enjoying the attention of the European Community's antitrust people. I don't see why Auntie Beeb should assist Microsoft in their efforts towards continued world domination by requiring users of advanced operating systems to downgrade to some rancid version of Windows.

As for the content providers who insist on crippling their output with copy protection: They can always opt not to have their programs distributed by iPlayer. I'm sure the BBC can find plenty of material that is not so encumbered.

The folks who insist that there is no working copy protection for Linux should realise that there is no working copy protection for Windows either. Remember the Sony gaffe with copy protection that a) contained more malware than a porn site and b) could be circumvented by blacking out part of the CD with a permanent marker. People who still think that there is such a thing as working copy protection are deluding themselves.

There are many different file formats suitable for streaming video. The BBC would not have to build any software if they would simply use that, because software for viewing MP4, AVI or other video files already exist for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Polish teen derails tram after hacking train network

Mostor Astrakan

Classic hack!

This almost takes me back to the days of hack-tic. I hope there will always be people around that go around looking at things and observing the interesting ways in which they break.

Lord Triesman on P2P, pop-ups and the Klaxons

Mostor Astrakan

As a data point in the "consumer" demography:

I don't download music, and I buy very little. (Yersterday, for the first time in years, I grabbed "Casino Royal" and "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" out of Tesco's bargain bin - for £7 and £3 respectively). When I do buy music, it's usually at my folk club, when the Guest of Honour sells the CDs, often lovingly hand-crafted by themselves, for about £10 a pop. There's something very satisfying about getting a recording of "Fiddler's Green" out of the hands of the guy who wrote it.

I don't buy CDs out of the shop mainly because there isn't anything in the shops that I want. There is no way I will ever spend more than two quid on anything coming out of a major label, because Britney Sugababepussycatdollaloud is rubbish! Meaningless drivel suggesting that at some point I may get to sleep with them if only I'm sufficiently "with it".

Basically, the recording industry is stuffed. They have maybe a year to find a proper job and then they'll all be bankrupt. We'll miss those money-grabbing leeches like the parasites they are.

Beeb censors Fairytale of New York

Mostor Astrakan
Coat

@Nige

Well yes, but there wasn't such an animal as a rainbow sheep, so now the correct version should read:

Rainbow trout Rainbow trout Have you any wool

No, boss, no boss I am a fish.

Wool is for mammals and I am a trout.

Just give my best to the PC crowd

Rainbow trout Rainbow trout Have you any wool

No, boss, no boss I am a fish.

Biometrics won't fix data loss problems

Mostor Astrakan
Thumb Down

Fingerprint scanners? Feh!

As the intrepid Miffbusting team proved, fingerprint scanners can be fooled. They set the lock to accept *only* Mr. Imahara's fingerprints, so his robot collection would be safe.

But then, Kari Byron used her Feminine Wiles on the poor defenseless robo-geek, flashed her big brown eyes at him and asked him: "Oh Grant, would you copy these CDs for me?" Grant, of course, was helpless. They then proceeded to lift his fingerprints off the nice smooth CD case, photo-copied them, cleaned up the thumb print and transferred it to a latex model. They were then able to open the door.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%28season_4%29#Fingerprint_Lock

The main problem when dealing with fingerprints in a criminal context is *not* leaving them all over the place. Obtaining fingerprints that were inadvertently left somewhere incriminating, then identifying the miscreant, is one of the greatest blows against Crime.

DoubleClick caught supplying malware-tainted ads

Mostor Astrakan
Flame

@W.Hower

"Who pays for the websites YOU ENJOY?"

Well let me tell you Mr. Shove-Flash-Shite-Onto-Every-Page, the websites I enjoy are NOT paid for by you bunch of malware-spreading, scum sucking, privacy-violating, key logging, popunder peddling shock-the-monkey fetishists.

Do you know what you have to do to make sure that a piece of web goes completely unnoticed? Shape it like a freaking banner ad! Web users are now so used to editing out these things mentally, that a complete collective blind spot has developed for this crap.

Lose the adverts, lose the frikkin' websites that depend on them for funding, and what's left are the useful sites. Sounds like bliss to me.

Prince sends army of lawyers to take on Pirate Bay

Mostor Astrakan
Coat

Prince Fans United?

Shouldn't that be "The People Formerly Known As Prince Fans"?

Or indeed, "The People Formerly Known as The Artist formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince But Now Once More As Prince Fans"?

Microsoft hopes to patent 'automatic goodbye messages'

Mostor Astrakan

Could be very useful...

For those "brb, gotta reboot!" messages. It could even detect if you've installed a few fixes and say "OK, fixes installed. Rebooting. Pray for me!"

IT managers caught in employees' illicit networks

Mostor Astrakan

Luckily...

We have a tool to counteract people who install unauthorised software on their employer's PCs - the Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool, to be applied as often and as hard as needed. In some cases, the LART may even become an embedded system.

BOFH: The bastard wants to know

Mostor Astrakan

<heck> <spit>

"6. With new languages coming out daily you find it increasingly hard to keep up. In fact, the last thing you remember programming successfully was:

A. A PHP script

B. A Visual C application

C. A VB script

D. A VCR, by waiting up till the program started and pressing record"

What's with all this "Visual" crap? Where is Perl in this list? Definitely a quiz set up by a freakin' Gates-worshipper.

Becta reports Microsoft to OFT

Mostor Astrakan

They're *students*!

"But the students won't be using GPOs on their laptops, so they'll be busy creating documents in 2007 format that the 2003 software can't natively read."

You don't tell them to retry, you fail them so they won't be so stupid next time.

BBC spreads free Wi-Fi Cloud over iPlayer delay

Mostor Astrakan

Could someone please...

... name the programme makers that insist on using Digital Restriction Management to wring more cash out of us? That way I can avoid watching their stuff.

Mars rovers can keep on rovin'

Mostor Astrakan

Actually...

The RAD6000 chips are a modified version of the chips that used to go into the IBM RS/6000s. So a manned mission is now imperative. We need an IBM CE to go there to stick on the e-Server badge, paint it black and (never forget) upgrade the firmware.

Mac, Linux BBC iPlayers in the offing, says PM

Mostor Astrakan

What makes these content providers think...

... that they need DRM?

I'm reminded of a story that went on in Australia, where some record companies were demanding royalties off radio stations for playing their music. Of course with side dishes of legal threats and veiled accusations of thievery. Quoth the radio stations "No worries mate, we'll just stop playing your stuff then".

I believe it took the recording companies until the next end-of-month figures to review their decision.

Ultimately, the makers of radio programmes and music want their things to be heard. By as many people as possible. It's only the suits that are deeply worried that someone, somewhere, may be enjoying their product for free.

If those "content providers" are insisting on hobbling their output using something filthy like DRM, then the proper response from Auntie Beeb would be "Well good luck publishing it yourself then".

Ah... Thank you Mr. Pratchett:

"You will have to look a long way before you find a bunch of scum-suckers more greedy, humourless and deserving of death than the suits in the music business."

-- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)

Vista's Long Goodbye strikes again

Mostor Astrakan

Boggle...

A 286 could saturate a 10base2 coax wire and still have room to do file work. Modern processors can easily keep up with more than one Gigabit adapters at the same time. What the...

Free Software Foundation plans protests at 'corrupt' BBC

Mostor Astrakan

Why do these so-called "Content providers" want DRM anyway?

What are they afraid of? That we might actually watch their junk? Apparently, the things are already transmitted in the clear over the airwaves. So anyone with a VCR can copy them already.

If these "content providers" insist on accusing me of theft every time I watch a movie, then they can bloody well keep their "content" and shove it.

Yes, I also get annoyed by DVD peddlers that insist on making me watch their bloody "You know, copying this is Bad and Wrong. Stop doing it immediately". For five minutes, in twenty different languages! If I get a pirated DVD, then I don't get those messages. Who are they inconveniencing again?

Program Names govern admin rights in Vista

Mostor Astrakan

Erm.

Now I am as impressed with Windows Bargepole[1] as the next guy, but THIS ain't no security problem. If your program is called "install.exe", then it'll request admin privileges. If you don't type in the Admin password[2], then it will fail.

Why a program can't decide for itself whether or not it needs admin privileges and do the Microsoftish variant on su is beyond me, but then again I'm used to *real* multi-user OSes.

This falls in the category "stupid but harmless".

==========

[1] As appropriate a name as any since every Vista discussion seems to include the word.

[2] You *do* need to type in that password don't you? Even Microsoft wouldn't be happy with a simple click on "yes"? Please?!

Dell offers XP again amidst Vista complaints

Mostor Astrakan

A couple of years ago, this wouldn't have happened.

Were MS as powerful as they were a few years ago, you would have had to eat your Fista and like it. Dell would have been brought to heel rather sharply. MS is losing it.

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