Bug #1 in Ubuntu

Been playing with Ubuntu (well Kubuntu -- the KDE version) a little over the last few weeks.  Learned a lot, pretty nice stuff there.

I started with Linux in 95 with Yggdrasil (*), very briefly, then a year or so of slackware, then RH till 98.  I switched from RH to Mandrake in 99 for one and only one reason: Mandrake made it much easier to evangelise Linux to the non-geeks.  And now, I think I finally found something to beat Mandrake, so I have been thinking of gradually switching all my desktop systems (as and when time permits).  I still love Mandriva -- 9 years is a long time, so this was not an easy decision.

The decider came when I found "bug #1 in Ubuntu", which, sadly, has STILL not been fixed.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

Now how could I resist that one?

:-)



footnote:

(*) yes, you kids wouldn't have heard of it; it's older than Slackware, I think, and actually when I started it was almost defunct!

(security) Be afraid. Be very afraid...

"Storm has been around for almost a year, and the antivirus companies are pretty much powerless to do anything about it."

But the really scary part?

"Oddly enough, Storm isn't doing much, so far, except gathering strength. Aside from continuing to infect other Windows machines and attacking particular sites that are attacking it, Storm has only been implicated in some pump-and-dump stock scams. There are rumors that Storm is leased out to other criminal groups. Other than that, nothing.

Personally, I'm worried about what Storm's creators are planning for Phase II. "

from "Schneier on Security: The Storm Worm"

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/10/the_storm_worm.html

(geek) The History of the World, as seen through /.

http://meta.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=313513&cid=20812297

This is just as much as geek test as anything else -- if you get even half these jokes, you're a geek!

(security) Adobe gifts internal file permissions to unwashed masses | The Register

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/27/adobe_website_leak/

Amazing... :-) It seems they didn't even set the permissions right on their SSL private key file, and a "directory traversal" bug allowed pretty much anyone to get this key out, as the screenshot shows!

(FOSS) SCO and the Three Stooges | Open Source Initiative

http://www.opensource.org/node/197

Very nice article summarising the role and responsibility that the 3 idiots (Dan Lyons of Forbes, no less, Rob Enderle, and Maureen O'Gara) share in perpetuating the SCO saga, when it was clear to almost everyone familiar with the situation that the whole damn lawsuit was fraudulent!

[Dan Lyons is a little cleaner, if just as stupid. Rob claimed some open source people threatened him. Maureen actually did something so horrible that her own editors abandoned her. That is how misguided these pathetic fools were...]

The article closes with a very apt summary of the situation, and I am proud that -- small and insignificant as I am -- I consider myself part of the "hackers and geeks" community described here:

More importantly, I'm left wondering if the trade press at large has learned its lesson from this mess. Yes, we hackers and geeks are passionate and rude and overzealous and routinely violate the conventions of 'polite' business discourse -- but one good thing we almost unfailingly are is honest, not because we're angels but because we're too pigheadedly idealistic not to be true to our craft.

So, the next time we call bullshit on some polished corporate PR type, you journalists out there can save yourselves the embarrassment and grief now coming down on the Three Stooges by believing us to start with, rather than waiting four years to catch up.

lost my "geek" license yesterday...

...when I plugged a 110-volt adaptor (for a wireless router, if you are wondering) into a 220-volt socket.

And this wasn't even *my* router -- my brother had lent it to me!

(photography) one more "I wish I had taken that" shot...

...saw this on a page about using overexposure. I think it's one of the most gorgeous photographs I have ever seen. Another sample of the "when I can visualise and take that sort of shot, I'll consider myself an expert" category...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/112428919/

(security) Attackers turn Bank of India site into malware bazaar | The Register

Even your online bank can be turned against you...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/01/bank_of_india_website_takeover/

...unless you're using Linux!

(photography) the goal...

When would I say "I've learnt all I want to learn about taking photographs"?

When I can take shots like this:

http://flickr.com/photos/latitudes/263133495/in/set-72157594314154475/

(stupid malware) Vista's performance

To start with, it seems that when you are using GigE (gigabit ethernet) cards, and transferring large files over the network, Vista uses upto 41% of your CPU!!! That is horrible. (Linux barely blinks when doing the same thing).

What's worse is that this affects music playing -- if you're listening to MP3s they start sounding choppy.

So, guess what Microsoft decided was more important among these two? Riiiight -- the music. If you're playing music, your network bandwidth is throttled down to about 15 MB per second! (A GIgE card can theoretically give you about 110 MB per second -- the gig is "bits", not bytes, remember?)

Robert Love: Those Dang DPCs Clogging the MMCSS: http://blog.rlove.org/2007/08/those-dang-dpcs-clogging-mmcss.html