DIY: Slackware on USB Flash (8G)

As mentioned in my previous post, it is possible to use an 8G flash drive, instead of the larger (and pricier) 16G version.

Misc. Notes
This layout still gives the option to boot into one of two modes: either the live mode where changes are written to RAM only, or the persistent mode where changes are written to the flash drive (to partition 5). The user is advised to watch the amount of free space left in the snapshot. For the live mode, the amount of free space depends on the amount of RAM installed on the hardware. For the persistent mode, I have set the size of partition 5 to allow for roughly 4G of changes. I think that should work because 4G of changes plus 4G of static data in the base layer equals 8G total in the root filesystem. However, use this project at your own risk! For example, if you need files from the persistent snapshot, then it is possible to back them up externally. You can save them using a simple backup method, say, login as root and use tar to backup the files in question. If you want to hear about other possible backup methods, then just ask.

Here is my previous graphic, updated to show the new layout, setup on an 8G flash drive.

1.

An 8G file on a 4G partition seems to be impossible at first glance. The trick is to store the base layer on a sparse file. XFS supports sparse files, that means blocks are not allocated until they are actually used. The file is first allocated with the command sequence:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=8g.xfs bs=1024 count=0 seek=8000000

If you want to directly install the base layer into this container, then it is probably a good idea to limit the initial extent to 4G. This will prevent running out of space prematurely, and we can fix it up later.

# losetup /dev/loop0 8g.xfs
# echo 0 8000000 linear /dev/loop0 0 | dmsetup create 4g
# mkfs.xfs /dev/mapper/4g
# mount /dev/mapper/4g /mnt/floppy

Install the packages you want using installpkg (with the specified root.) Then after the base layer contains all the expanded packages, you can resize it.

# umount /mnt/floppy
# dmsetup remove 4g
# mount /dev/loop0 /mnt/floppy
# xfs_growfs /mnt/floppy
# umount /mnt/floppy
# losetup -d /dev/loop0

From now on, make minimal changes to the file holding the image. If you make too many changes, you could really run out of space. Also, if you attempt to backup the file with tar, the OS provides data for the sparse blocks- in effect expanding it on the fly. This may present another problem and may not be what you want. I used a slightly different tactic to avoid that problem. In any case, don't change the file if you have started using the persistent snapshot on partition 5! This is because the base layer must remain constant and changes go to the "top" layer. Restated, if you change the base layer, you must also reinitialize the persistent snapshot! Be careful!

Update: 2010-12-31
Here is some introductory documentation for the set of test devices that I have been working on.

Update: 2011-04-07
I have added this post which discusses my startup environment in more detail.

DIY: Slackware on USB Flash on old PC

I was curious how well the project (booting Slackware-current on a USB flash drive) would work when booted on an old PC- or even if it would work at all. I pulled an old PC out of the closet for the test. I found an old Dell Latitude CPt laptop (service tag: 4AQI6). I found some spare memory for it, topping out both slots for a total of 512MB. That should help a lot, but I know other limitations might still make it unusable or cause the test to fail. The limitations include low CPU power and its v1.1 USB interface. Significantly, the USB v2.0 interface increased top speeds by a factor of 43.6x over the predecessor (480 vs. 11). That could be a serious limitation! I decided to go forward with the test anyway. To my surprise, it booted just fine- albeit a bit slow compared to modern hardware; probably mostly due to the USB speed and its CPU- a Celeron 400Mhz (Mendocino - P6 class).


More Details
I don't think this hardware will boot from USB. I booted from a CD-ROM. Also, I couldn't find any PCMCIA wireless cards, but I did find a Viking 56k modem card. I connected to my ISP and started running Firefox. Here are a couple of screenshots. Notice that the download speed is 5 kB/s, i.e. 56k max speed. Here are the startup logs and some stats while running. Note times referenced in the log are wrong because I didn't set the clock before booting and it had reverted to its default time due to a dead motherboard battery.

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Final Word
People are constantly upgrading hardware and that means there are a lot of spare computers lying around. If you have a spare P4-class computer, or a spare P3/Celeron computer, then consider using it with a secure OS: GNU/Linux. This is especially true because Windows 95/98/Me/NT/W2k are all "expired." Meanwhile, the hardware lives on.

Update: 2010-12-21
For "desktop" use, I think the above hardware may be just a bit too low, especially in "live" mode relying on the USB bus. I left the PC running for the day, and it experienced some serious hiccups and performance degradation over time. I think this hardware would work better with an actual magnetic hard disk instead of the USB flash drive; and perhaps finding a system with a 650MHz P3 processor, instead of a 400MHz Celeron. I noticed some minor hiccups even on more modern hardware, but on hardware of this vintage the hiccups were much more severe. Maybe, I'll run some more tests later on other low-level hardware.

Possible next test bed:

Motherboard	DFI CM33-TL/G
CPU	Single slot: Celeron 1.3GHz
Memory	512M to 1G PC133
Video	onboard ATI 8M
USB	Belkin USB 2.0 on PCI bus

One common problem of P3 vintage hardware is that the builtin USB is v1.1, not v2.0. That means it is usually necessary to find a USB 2.0 add-in card. The P4 generation (and later) motherboards usually do have builtin USB v2.0 slots. The other problem causing "premature" death of hardware is failing motherboard capacitors. That problem seems to be very prevalent on certain brands.

Interesting Computer Security Story

Here is an interesting headline with serious security implications for computer networks.
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Stand up for the Bill of Rights? Anyone? Beuller?

This story is one that slips under the radar, but it has the potential to be as big of story as the warrantless wiretapping cases. This is another case with widespread implications for computer network security. IPSEC is a separate TCP/IP protocol designed for creating encrypted tunnels suitable for VPN traffic. For example, it is widely used to create encrypted tunnels between "home office" and "branch office" networks. The general idea is to create a wide area network with connections via the internet over secure and encrypted tunnels. The potential compromise of OpenBSD's IPSEC implementation raises serious security concerns because OpenBSD's permissive license allowed it to be used on a lot of hardware, especially "dedicated" VPN boxes.

This is a story to watch. A bunch of people are going to be taking a second look at the code. If it turns out there is a backdoor, it will be especially ironic because Theo de Raadt forked OpenBSD from FreeBSD mostly because he insisted on better security code auditing.

Here is Slashdot's headline.

Also,
The Fourth Amendment doesn't really count for much any more. The disposition of the Mark Klein case is discouraging. I heard part of this interview.
Here it is broken into 10 minute segments:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Multipart containers

Recently, I wrote a response to a newsgroup question about spanning data blocks over multiple media**. That post refers to an earlier post with a detailed example in the "appendix" section. The advantage of using a container made from predefined data blocks is that cut/paste operations are not required. This is because the container is defined using a device mapper table. There are a couple of disadvantages. First, the size of the container must be determined in advance*, and there could be some wasted space when the last block is not full, etc. The other main disadvantage is the extra complexity that the technique introduces. Certainly, it is much simpler to work without introducing sub-blocks and work with one big file instead. Sometimes that is not possible- necessity demands a more complex solution. This technique still has a useful place for me, especially when data exceeds the size of one optical disc.

* While writing this, I realized that these containers are actually dynamically expandable if certain conditions are met. The first condition is that the filesystem used for the container must be expandable. I use XFS and it is dynamically expandable. The second condition is that data stored on the container must be compatible with expansion. If these conditions are met, then expanding the container could be as simple as allocating another block and adding another line to the device mapper table configuration.


Update: 2010-12-28
** Once again, Google decided not to archive my response on that thread. Here is the content:

>On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 21:12:03 +0000, Rui Maciel wrote:
>
> Is it possible to create a multipart gzip archive without resorting to
> the split/cat pair of commands?
>
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Rui Maciel
>
Almost anything is possible; whether it is practical is another matter.
If it is a "one of a kind" or rare event, then it may not be practical
to investigate other possibilities. That said, it was practical for me
to figure this out because I need to write in blocks which "span" across
optical media quite often.

I wrote about the technique here:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.misc/msg/6e34937952916a9a

Once you define a "container" you can put whatever you like into it
(simple data, compressed data, loopback filesystems, encrypted data,
etc.)

FYI: Using a device mapper snapshot-origin device.

I created this webpage and posted it for comments to aols here.

No millionaire left behind...

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Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. I swore I wouldn't get fooled again. How different would things be if McCain had been elected? Ok, there would be that "one heartbeat away" fear factor. Beside that, not a dime's worth of difference. No banker has been left behind*. Meanwhile, gold is at over $1400; it doesn't look like the dollar will last much longer as the world reserve currency. It doesn't send a good message to the world credit markets if the richest Americans can't tighten their belts even one notch.

Obama better start appealing to his base- lest he ends up as another Jimmy Carter, or worse. He may only get one chance to make any difference; might as well make the most of it. We want someone who will fight for us, not just "itch" for a fight. The right wing is already calling this decision his Neville Chamberlain moment. The left wing wants him to go back and retake Negotiations 101.

Here is Obama's Dec. 7 news conference:
1.
2.
3. The polls are on our side...
4.

Facebook and tipping points...

This comment on this morning's Slashot story on the latest Facebook infraction got me thinking about how it meshes with Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point." It's been a while since I read it, but I remember the gist of it well enough: The cool kids set trends and move on when its played out. Gladwell's examples were scooters and hush puppies. It used to be that Wayne and Garth would define the new and cool lexicon, cha! That worked until they themselves realized they weren't "worthy." (Oh, yeah! Hangin' with Alice Cooper! We're not worthy...we're not worthy!)

Social media sites are all about tipping points. If not enough people participate, then that amounts to a few empty voices crying into the wilderness. They all strive to reach "critical mass," where "everyone" is online (everyone has a telephone, has a television, has a myspace account, etc.). If you're a straggler, then you're just late to the party. Whatever you have to say must not be that important afterall. I was thinking about this, then the realization hit me: I have the power that William H. Macy's "Berny Lootz" had in the The Cooler. If I were to join Facebook, the whole thing would come crashing down. They'd better consider paying me to stay away! (I hope they don't send Alec Baldwin after me with a baseball bat...)

DIY: Slackware on USB Flash

This post supplements my earlier post on this topic. That tested fairly recent desktop class hardware when using a CF memory module on a SATA bridge adapter as the primary storage/boot media. In this test, I perform a very similar test, but using a common laptop (Dell D610) to boot Slackware on flash memory on a USB 2.0 interface (aka, "jump drive," "thumb drive," etc.) This test confirmed the concept of having a "system in your pocket" is now a reality. Note: This is a full install; the current generation of flash storage gives more than enough space to comfortably hold the full set of standard software, with no cutdowns or compromises required. R/W cycle lifetime of the hardware has also improved, but YMMV. I started this test with a 16G capacity flash drive, but more testing showed that an 8G capacity drive could be substituted in a pinch.

Update: 2010-12-28
I added this post to document a few of the tricks that make this possible using the smaller flash drive.

More later. For now, here are a couple of screenshots.

1.

This mode of operation places the "top" layer of the persistent snapshot on its own partition on the flash drive. An alternate mode uses RAM as the top layer. When the "top" layer is allocated from RAM, the snapshot is not really persistent, but it has the advantage of not incurring R/W delays associated with flash media, and it will not use finite R/W cycles associated with the media itself. Because the snapshot is generalized, there are other modes of operation which can be setup with minimal extra effort. Here are some options off the top of my head:

top layer encrypted

top layer stored on other device on other filesystem (for example, NTFS)

top layer on RAID 1

etc.

Of course, using a device mapper snapshot is completely optional. The current size of flash memory devices allows a "normal" install without too many tricks required. In that mode, an 8G flash device would work fine, allocating about 4G for system software and 4G as free user space. The only tricks are building the initrd with the required modules to get USB functional and setting up the bootloader. I am using my own "startup environment" which is a bit different than the standard Slackware initrd.

2.

Installed software includes:

Slackware-current (2010-11-29) -- post v13.1

Linux kernel 2.6.35.9

XFCE window manager

Firefox

Open Office 3.2.1

Skype

Gimp

grub bootloader

and, of course, it is possible to install more software, per standard tools

The latest X window system should also "just work" and not require tweaking /etc/X11/xorg.conf to enable startup. YMMV.

Update: 2010-12-04
Here is a package of files with some misc. information including statistics when running in live mode on a Dell D620 laptop. There is also a list of installed packages.

Update: 2010-12-14
Some more testing showed that both of the possible startup modes (live or persistent) will work on a single flash drive as small as 8G. One trick is to use a "sparse" file to hold the base install image. Specifically, an 8G XFS filesystem image can be stored on a 4G partition. This works because the 8G image is only about half full. This frees up the other half of the device for changes. This may not be quite as flexible as the 16G device because the amount of changes that can be made to the base device does not perfectly match the underlying base filesystem. However, 8G may provide enough space to make it a viable option; that is, at least until 16G devices are commonplace. Be aware that when using this mode, the user should keep an eye on the remaining space available in the snapshot because it could be exhausted first, i.e. the snapshot is exhausted even though there is extra space on the filesystem. This problem is avoided when using the 16G size.

Update: 2010-12-15
You should keep an eye on the space used in the snapshot image, especially when the snapshot is smaller than the target device. Here is a nice little hack:

#!/bin/bash
[ ! -e /dev/mapper/top ] && exit 1
v=$(echo "scale=4;$(dmsetup status top| cut -f4 -d\ )*100"| bc -l)
printf "Snapshot Used: %04.2f%%\n" $v

Update: 2010-12-16 Startup Notes
Goal: Boot to runlevel 3 in "live" mode
Steps:

(1) Select appropriate choice from boot menu

This will load the kernel and initrd. I have noticed this takes a variable amount of time depending on the hardware, and possibly the mode that the BIOS uses to interface with USB. I have seen this step take between 5 and 20 seconds.

(2) When the above step completes the kernel takes over and the login prompt should appear in less than a minute.

Start time is somewhat dependent on specific hardware. On my hardware I observed a time of 48 seconds. The specific boot details are as follows. First, there will be a slight pause while the kernel unpacks the initrd. There is a prompt asking the user to select which display mode to use. Second, the familiar "penguin" logo will be displayed as other startup facts scroll by as the kernel performs basic initializations. Third, control will transfer to my startup environment. It probably won't be obvious when the switch takes place, but it will include a step to load the kernel USB modules and include a 7 second delay while the USB bus stabilizes. Next, a reference to the license terms is displayed and asks the user to press "enter" to indicate acceptance (or ctl-alt-del to terminate). Upon acceptance, final setup of the snapshot in the desired mode is performed. When complete, control transfers to Slackware's default init program on the target root filesystem. The initialization requires certain keys/certificates to be generated and a "graphic" fingerprint is displayed for each. Finally, the login prompt will appear.

(3) In live mode, login as root and perform final initializations.

The user should set the root password and run "pkgtool" and choose, "Setup: Choose the Slackware installation scripts to run again."

When complete, add your non-root user. There are a few steps to perform here to make the user a "power" user. Add your name(s) to the appropriate groups, and possibly sudoers.

You can install other packages. Skype is included as a Slackware package in the root directory. Install it with the command:

$ installpkg skype-2.1.0.81-i486-1_SBo.tgz

The above steps can be a bit tedious, and can be avoided by using the "persistent" mode.

(4) Login as your non-root user and start a graphic session.

$ startx

From here, you are running GNU/Linux. You can install more software. For example, download and install the latest Adobe flash plugin for Linux.

Update: 2010-12-20
I performed a test where I booted on hardware at the lowest end of the possibly usable spectrum, i.e. when using at least a computer with a P6 class CPU. I documented my test separately here because this post is getting a bit cluttered.

Retro Episode of Science Friday

Friday's Science Friday was a rerun of an episode from 1993. They discussed the nascent and emerging internet. This is the timeframe as it was moving beyond academia and military only users, and beginning to be embraced by the broader public. Definitely, this was an interesting program considering how important and central the internet has become to our entire culture: media, education, government, commerce, etc.

Novell's management dumps company

Yesterday, Novell's management found the buyer they have been looking for. Good luck to Hovespin and the rest of Novell's ex-management team. Now that they've put this computer BS behind them they can get into that really profitable business they've always dreamed of. Look for them to be selling Florida timeshares. Then again, they may be content to take it easy and lay of the beach for the rest of their lives. Afterall, they could be set for life and retire. It's a sure bet that management will get a big slice of the $2.2B sale price and the $450M from Microsoft.

This looks like Novell's final white flag. It looks like they flat out gave up and surrendered because they were unable to compete. Too bad their imagination is so limited. RedHat and IBM continue to see free software/open source software as a vehicle to drive sales of services. Let's see if new management can do something with Suse, or if it withers and dies. It's hard to say, because customer relationships are very important. If it is rough transition, then it could be a windfall for RedHat as Suse's enterprise customers exit in droves. It definitely looks like Attachmate could have overpaid, especially considering the big spoonful of bad will that spiked the deal at the end. Whatever good will was leftover from Novell's benevolent actions in SCO vs. "world" lawsuits has just evaporated.

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Aron Ralston on Radio West

Friday's Radio West was a rebroadcast of an interview with Aron Ralston in advance of the movie release. This is one of the best Radio West's episodes ever, absolutely compelling radio.

Warning: The surgeon general has determined...

Warning: The surgeon general has determined that cigarette smoking is hazardous to your health.

The sequence of events presented in the movie, Thank you for smoking are coming to pass. The congress is considering putting graphic pictures of cancers and tumors on cigarette packages, replacing the written warnings. Actually, this is a notch farther than the "captain hook" skull and cross-bones (for poison) logo which was debated in the movie. Canada already has graphic warnings on their cigarette packages. This was discussed on a recent episode of On Point.

The real question is whether the new warnings (if approved), would be more effective than the written warning. I tend to agree with Denis Leary's routine on No Cure for Cancer. This seems to be more on the mark,

It doesn't matter how big the warnings on the cigarettes are; you could have a black pack, with a skull and crossbones on the front, called TUMORS, and smokers would be around the block going, "I can't wait to get my hands on these fucking things! I bet ya get a tumor as soon as you light up!"

Another terrific TAL with the Planet Money Team

The "Planet Money" team has done some terrific stories on understanding the whole financial mess, going back to their first one where they explained the spaghetti of knots that tied CDOs (collateral debt obligations) together. Their latest story is the summary of their idea to buy a toxic asset and hope for the best. The reporters put down $1000 dollars of their own money to buy "Toxie", the toxic asset, a mortgage backed security. It was pretty much a roulette style bet for them. Actually, they had a better chance on red/black, because that is close to a 50-50 chance of success. The way that they tell their story makes the whole thing a lot more real. They discovered that their toxic asset was a microcosm of the mortgage crisis as a whole.

p.s. This American Life is great radio. The current week's show is available as a free mp3 download directly from their site. Here is the episode about "toxie," the Toxic asset. Also, I am not on iTunes, but it appears you can get back episodes there.

After Tax Vote, Ballmer set to cash out.

Here is my blogpost, hosted on another site.

Michael Caine Interview

Michael Caine discussed his extensive career, including over 100 films, with Dave Davies on today's Fresh Air. The clip from the Cider House Rules is the most poignant line from the film, and perhaps Caine's entire career. I went away wanting to see the other films mentioned, including Sleuth; I might have dismissed it based on its title alone- the clip gives it more context. His impression of director, John Huston was dead on, too.

The rest of the hour was very good, with one exception. Maureen Corrigan's dialog was as disjointed a piece of journalism as has been included on the program. Everyone's a critic, but really, back to the old drawing board.

Interview with Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Rushkoff was interviewed on today's On Point. He was introduced as a "big thinker" about how humans are interacting with new technology, in the school of Marshall McLuhan.* I agree with his main assertion that networked computers (internet) is the biggest revolution since the invention of written text. He was also part of the Frontline documentary, Digital Nation. He reaffirms the assertions from that documentary and amplifies some themes:

Being born into the digital culture (immersion) does not automatically give the person a leg up on technology. It still takes work/desire to learn the things beyond the superficial layer.

Multitasking is not faster, even if the user believes he is very good at it.

Facebook (and other online social networks) do not exist primarily as a way to "make friends." Like any business entity, they exist to make money and otherwise "monetize" their online community. Rushkoff's explanation hit the nail on the head when he said that Facebook is asking users to build and to add to their known "consumer profile."

Update: 2011-01-26
I have been thinking over "Rushkoff's Rules" and I posted the following comment to the On Point discussion:

I found the program interesting, and I agree with many of the author's premises. He hits the mark on many points, especially about commercial entities like Facebook. However, I am not sure that his ninth rule is entirely on target. The digital nature of data with near zero cost of duplication and transmission dramatically changes the playing field. The internet allows anyone to self publish their work and cut out the middleman entirely. Some notable artist are onboard with the change and have given away creative works (Radiohead -> "In Rainbows", BF -> "Memento Mori", etc.)

There is valuable information that can be had for near zero cost. The wikipedia is the most prominent example of in depth world knowledge online and available to anyone with an internet connection.

There is also valueable software that can be obtained for no monetary cost. The free software and opensource software movements provide a working set of tools that can provide a set of baseline tools for accessing the digital world around us. Richard Stallman's GPL software license gives users rights that are unusual, especially in this context, where Rushkoff says that nothing is free. Stallman counters with these rights as part of his software license:

0. the freedom to use the work,
1. the freedom to study the work,
2. the freedom to copy and share the work with others,
3. the freedom to modify the work, and the freedom to distribute modified and therefore derivative works.

Ironically, Rushkoff is advocating studying the work (listed above as Freedom 1.) It seems like Rushkoff and Stallman should be more on the same page with one another, rather than Rushkoff's blanket statement that "nothing is free."

Fast Fourier Transform

Here is a funny pic involving FFT.

DIY: Add kerberos support to Slackware 13.1

I created this webpage to document a project I have been working on. I also posted for comments to aols here.

The Exodus at Microsoft

I saw this link to an interesting blogpost on the front page of Slashdot yesterday.

OK, you say that's just small fry, but you've got to take notice to this story that appeared later in the day.

Ray Ozzie, chief architect of Lotus Notes, hired away from IBM by Microsoft is now "leaving" the post of "Chief Software Architect." As I understand the Microsoft culture, they are very fond of the quote from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, with an alternate predicate. I am sure they are all roaming the campus, "We don't need no stinking Chief Software Architect." It will be interesting to see if he was forced out, or if Ballmer thinks he can pilot the ship himself. Get ready for more Zunes and more Kins.

Update: 2010-10-26Ray Ozzie asks Microsoft to think about life in a "post-PC" era.

Misc. Usenet Post

I wrote this general advice in comp.os.linux.setup

Update: 2010-10-18
This is another separate thread with some more general advice to a potential new GNU/Linux user,
comp.os.linux.misc

BSA to EU : Kill Open Standards

This again is remincient of the "Knife the baby" tactics which Microsoft (now puppet BSA) are so very famous for.

Here is Slashdot's
headline

Here are the fsfe's arguments against BSA

Utah Open Source Conference - 2010

I attended and thoroughly enjoyed this year's conference. I first attended last year, which was also great and informative. I may make some more notes on this page, but I want to "highlight" the presentations I attended for my own reference.

Day One
CTO Breakfast
Nmap
FreeBSD Jails	link
Torque	[3]
ioMemory
Keynote Address by Fedora leader, Jared Smith
Day Two
Write your own domain specific language	[1]
The opensource model applied beyond software	[2]
Extending Puppet
Linux backup strategies	[4]
Keynote Address by Opensource advocate, Karsten Wade
Automated Deployments of Linux	(scales up to datacenter deployment)
Day Three
Keynote by Howard Tayler
Beginning Gimp
Getting started with GNU/Cash
Monitoring with zenoss

Footnotes

[1]
A. Star Trek, TOS
Spock: I am endeavoring, ma'am, to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bear skins.

B. Star Trek, TNG variant
Barclay: Tie both consoles into the Enterprise main computer core, utilizing neural-scan interface.
Enterprise Computer: There is no such device on file.
Barclay: No problem. Here's how you build it.

[2] This included a video presentation about the Open High School of Utah. As far as I can tell, this is a high school with a "virtual campus" only. The faculty are endeavoring to create an online curriculum which will be open sourced as it is developed. They are using open source software tools whenever possible.

[3] This presentation centered around a real time demo of using many machines to solve "embarrassingly" parallel problems. The demo used about 5 networked computers with dual processor cores to queue up and re-encode wav files to ogg files. This tool allows creating "on the fly" compute clusters without going to a more formal solution, such as a Beowulf cluster design. Another tool for managing multiple systems was described, dancer's shell.

[4] Amazon S3 offers "storage in the cloud" at very reasonable rates.

xkcd on Social Networks

I have made a few (mostly negative) comments about social networks on this blog. Maybe, that's because I have never been much of a "joiner." For example, I have never felt the need to "join" Slashdot, even though I have read its postings from near the outset and it continues to be a major source for news for me in the tech field. Now, the genius behind xkcd takes on the state of social networking, circa 2010. I looked hard and found my "communities" centered in a tight "cluster." Note highlighted regions:
here

By the way, I have used IRC somewhat, but not nearly as much as the others, otherwise, the highlighted cluster could've been much larger.

CPU Comparison

Here is a rough bar chart
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showing the relative performance of some of the CPUs in systems that I have built after the introduction of Core 2 architecture. According to the graph, the E8400 outclasses the other systems by a wide margin. In actual experience there isn't that much of a difference between a E6600 and E8400 because the entire system specs must be taken into account. Also, I am not sure I agree with the graph that the E7200 is better than an E6750. The E6750 has a better instruction set. The E8400 still offers a lot at the $160 level. Lately, I have been testing an E2180 CPU which has very good performance and very good "bang for the buck" ($33 on EBay).

Slackware role in mostly Windows environment

Here is an interesting usenet thread that I participated in recently.
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Bye Bye Digg...Slashdot you're next

Here is an interesting story about the decline of news aggregator site, Digg. Digg changed their interface to one which would not load in a reasonable amount of time. That's dangerous, considering there is a plethora of other sites doing the same thing. Like a lot of others, I checked "out of there" in frustration and moved onto Reddit.

Coincidentally, Digg's interface follows in the footsteps of Slashdot which did something almost as bad with their interface. Sometimes their interface still works, but it seems to fail when you really want to read a story and the comments. For example, try loading all comments for this story:
MS holds iPhone funeral event

CUPS: Printing made easy in Slackware

Recent releases of Slackware use CUPS to setup and monitor print jobs. The primary interface to the application is browser based, and the service startup is controlled by /etc/rc.d/rc.cups. With the service running, the tool is accessed from the localhost on port 631 (i.e. http://localhost:631). It can also be used over the network- and in that case it may be better to use https for security. This is the main control window for CUPS, notice several click-able tabs:
.

The latest release of the software has good support for a lot of printers, including the popular HP OfficeJet all-in-one devices.

More about HP all-in-one devices.

In regard to the HP network devices, I have found that you can set the print URL manually using a socket and port 9100. For example, if the printer is located at address 192.168.1.101, then setup CUPS pointing to the URI:
socket://192.168.1.101:9100.

(You can simplify the name if your network is using a local DNS server. On small networks, the address alone is not too big of a hassle.) If you just want to print, the socket URI is a lot easier to enter, rather than HP's own syntax:
hp:/net/Photosmart_C7200_series?ip=192.168.1.101

This is a case where GNU/Linux took a long time to get this right, but now it is working perfectly and is actually easier than comparable setup offered in Windows. I think the latest integrated installer for HP devices is pretty crappy, but YMMV. Earlier Windows drivers refused install under Windows 2000, but that's expired now.

Another nice feature of the all-in-one devices is that the scanning function can be integrated into the Gimp. The only thing necessary is to create a link to the plugin:
$ ln -s /usr/bin/xsane ~/.gimp-2.6/plug-ins
With this linked, there will be new entries on Gimp's "File->Create" menu.

Setup printing to Windows printer...

...when no printer driver exists for GNU/Linux (i.e. the printer is truly "Windows Only."

Here is a comp.os.linux.misc post about printing from GNU/Linux. Unfortunately, there wasn't much "discussion" as the original poster offered no follow up. That is the way it goes on usenet, I guess.

Update: 2010-10-17
The above discussion continued on a new thread, but remained unclosed/ambiguous as far as a real solution. Here is a link to the new thread. For some reason, my response was not included/captured by Google groups. Here it is copied directly from Pan:

On Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:42:56 -0500, Geico Caveman wrote:

> Well, this is really not a server, but this set of groups are
> collectively perhaps the best place to ask this question.
>
> I have a windows only printer that is attached to a windows machine
> (Windows XP Professional SP 3).
>
> I have followed this guide to redirect the port and set up a dummy
> postscript printer to allow unix hosts to print:
>
> http://iharder.sourceforge.net/current/macosx/winmacprinter/
>

>
Caveat: I don't have a Dell MFP 1125

I was not aware of "redirected" ports under Windows (as explained in the
above link). Thanks for that info. That gets around the "kludge" of a two
step process that I explained here:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.misc/msg/188d3a25f727dc19

I think that you should still try what I recommended in the above post.
That way you could test that certain parts of the problem are setup and
working correctly. Then as it is debugged, you can phase in the more
elegent solution incrementally. The link you found definitely results in
a more elegant final solution, but there are more items that must be
setup correctly all at once. BTW, regarding the winmacprinter setup
steps, I would be tempted to just the smb protocol when using cups
because it speaks smb. That way lpr is eliminated at both ends.

--
Douglas Mayne

This American Life...

This week's TAL had a very interesting story of a whistleblower on the Brooklyn beat of the New York police department, Adrian Schoolcraft. Schoolcraft blew the whistle on a defacto quota system which specified how many stops, searches, tickets, and arrests that an officer must make to keep in "good standing" with the department. Schoolcraft has tapes of the quota being announced at "roll call." The quota was reinforced using mildly ambiguous language designed to provide "just enough" wiggle room to provide deniabilty. The underlying message to the cops was clear: go get your quota. Courts have ruled that police quota systems are illegal. They are illegal because they lead to constitutional right violations, including unwarranted searches and detainment on trumped up charges. The story also documents that by focusing on petty crimes which generate ticket revenue to the city, more high profile crimes were being swept under the rug. This helped to meet their yearly statistic for crime reduction and keep the level of violent/serious crime down. Underreporting crimes helps the city's image because high crime is not good for tourism.

This show documents the dilemna the regular-honest-cop on the beat faces. He can meet his quota and hang on to his job long enough to collect his pension, or he can just do honest police work while not worrying about numbers, and then be forced off the job as a "bad cop." One chilling moment caught on tape is when a top NYPD official enters Schoolcraft's apartment with a SWAT team
and orders that Schoolcraft be taken into custody and placed in a psychiatric hospital. This is shades of "Catch 22,"

"We've got your boy."

It is one step away from the "disappeared" people of totalitarian regimes. Schoolcraft got out of the hospital because his father, a retired NYPD cop, knew about his son's whistleblowing and was not psychotic and got him released. The decision to "hospitalize" should be enough to put that official in jail. Don't hold your breath on that happening. The only punishment is likely to be monetary and hopefully a change in policy. Schoolcraft is now part of a $50 million class action. With the volume of evidence on side, he is very likely to succeed in his class action, and receive a big chunk of the $50 million in damages. The change in policy may come about in part because of the new tools that whistleblowers literally have in their pockets. The new tools may force that actual internal policy matches the stated public policy. If it does not, then the new technology makes documenting abuse very easy.

This is another instance of true courage and patriotism. It takes a lot less courage to "not rock the boat" and just go along with the status quo. What effect would Adrian Schoolcraft's complaints have had if they had "stayed in house" when the orders were coming from the very top and the rot goes right to the core?

Literally, a death spiral

I saw this story posted on Slashdot in the general science category
.

The link leads to a a Hubble telescope image of a very rare and hard to find object in the universe. It is hard to find because it is so faint; it is being illuminated by reflected starlight only. Wow! The Hubble used a very long exposure time to capture this image. (The area is glowing in the infrared, though.)

Update : 2010-09-07
I took a second look at the image and noticed two things: (1) the red giant star had generated vast amounts of carbon which have been shed into space (carbon nanosheets, nanoballs, hydrocarbons?) (2) its striking blue color.

Now, it could be that the color blue is present for the same reason that the sky is blue- all other colors are more scattered than blue wavelengths. Consider that all life on earth is carbon based, and must have originated in stars like this one; and consider that the remains of the red giant could re-coalesce into a planetary nebula that contains all of the elements necessary for life, especially if the debris from the star contains hydrogen and oxygen as well. In that case it's the building blocks for comets and planetary oceans. Now we can begin to draw comparisons to the "first world" of the Navajo creation myth. Interestingly, the "color" of the characters in the myth is important, with many characters centered on the color blue for some reason.

Oh, and Mandrake, did you realize that 70% of you is water?

Grass roots or AstroTurf?

An in depth report in the New Yorker shows that a lot of the funding for the tea party movement comes via Charles and David Koch (Koch Industries). The billionaire's money is the backing behind the pep rallies. They've tried hard to stay "under the radar," but this report uncovers their anti-tax libertarian roots, beginning with the fact that their father was a founding member of the John Birch Society. At the time, he thought Dwight D. Eisenhower was a closet communist. Whoa, Nelly!

The little guy gets suckered into following the fat cat agenda, with the bait of a "No Taxes! Period." mantra. I know that the Koch's can live without public institutions; they'll toss bones to private institutions they like. Meanwhile, the public infrastructure will crumble. Will the little guy be happy when his kid's school falls apart? When the roads and bridges are unsafe? Any tax support is "socialism" to this faction. Unfortunately, it has traction.

It's also interesting to note that the Koch's are "free marketers." That's right they want to fight for their right to pollute air and water at everyone else's expense. It'll be okay, though, because they're patrons of the arts.

Terry Gross interviews Jane Mayer here.

Frank Rich picks up the ball here.

Their discrete operations are coming into the light of day.

DIY Project

Here

is my latest PC assembly project. I went the "do it yourself" route and I used parts similar to those that I mentioned here. I can't say that it's the cheapest PC out there, though. I see that Staples has an Acer desktop on their ad for $300. I hope that the adage "you get what you pay for" is true because the Staple's system looks to be a good bargain in comparison.

One thing which I was able to test with this system is running from a flash based live Linux distribution. The flash drive holds an 8G image of Slackware 13.1. The image is used as the basis for a device mapper snapshot. The "top" layer is allocated from RAM (tmpfs). By default the Linux kernel will allocate half of RAM for use by tmpfs, about 2G in this case. I used all of that for the snapshot (with loop0 pointing to the allocated file). From my initrd environment, I used this command sequence:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmpfs/z
# losetup -f /tmpfs/z
# echo 0 $(blockdev --getsize /dev/sda1) snapshot /dev/sda1 /dev/loop0 p 32 | dmsetup create top

Note that by using RAM as the top layer, I avoid writing anything at all to flash. This is by design to prevent failures due to too many R/W cycles. In effect the flash layer is readonly; changes go to the top layer. A major benefit of using flash memory for the readonly layer is that it is orders of magnitude faster than optical disc (because optical disc seek time is so very slow.) The technique is described here.

Update: 2010-08-26
Here is some information about the E8400 CPU as seen by the Linux kernel:

bash-4.1$ cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model  : 23
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E8400  @ 3.00GHz
stepping : 10
cpu MHz  : 3000.068
cache size : 6144 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id  : 0
cpu cores : 2
apicid  : 0
initial apicid : 0
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug  : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu  : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 13
wp  : yes
flags  : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 xsave lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips : 6000.13
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model  : 23
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E8400  @ 3.00GHz
stepping : 10
cpu MHz  : 3000.068
cache size : 6144 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id  : 1
cpu cores : 2
apicid  : 1
initial apicid : 1
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug  : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu  : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 13
wp  : yes
flags  : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 xsave lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips : 5999.07
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

And, some relative scores here.

My next project will most likely be a 64-bit machine for use with VMare ESX or QEMU+KVM. I am looking at a pair of Xeon 5520 CPUs. Or possibly, Xeon 5504 to save some bucks.

Update: 2010-12-01
Check this post for a similar project using flash as a primary storage media.

OpenSolaris on life support...

Here is a misc. AC post to slashdot.

Update: 2010-12-16
It's dead, Jim. Oracle killed it. It is reborn as a codebase fork, illumos

First Look at Snow Leopard

This week I happened to see an install of Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6.4) on a
Dell D620. My first impression was somewhat favorable, but read more below.

From an aesthetic perspective, it looks nice. However, Apple has adapted OS X to conform with the way their desktop interface has always been presented. A big part of this design forces the active Window's menu to be located at the top bar and "untied" from the window itself. This is just wrong, a bad design. Too bad they didn't correct it when they had the chance at the cretaceous/tertiary boundary layer - oops, I mean at the v9 to v10 transition. (Aside: It's funny that MS Vista and Windows 7 have somewhat copied this error and have removed perfectly functional menus in the name of a "cleaner" look. I am definitely in the "minimalist" design school, but removing the menu entirely is wrong, too.) From the Law: Every application that uses a menu should place it below its own title bar.

Continuing on, I downloaded some core and essential applications to make comparisons. I chose Firefox, Skype, and OpenOffice as representative cross platform applications. I found that each of these are truly cross platform and work the same way across all three platforms (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows). Notably, OpenOffice is now a native "Cocoa" application under Mac OS X and no longer requires the X11 layer. In the end all of these are equally "functional" and equally "beautiful" regardless of platform. This category is more or less a tie.

Next, I gave quicktime and iTunes the abiility to play ogg files with the quicktime component. (By the way, I think you need to logout after installing the xiph library thingy; otherwise, it doesn't become active.) When I wasn't sure this was working, I downloaded a more general sound program, sox. Interestingly, this program just segfaults. This is strange and smacks of direct breakage/interfence from Apple. Aye, there's the rub. I am not ready to trade one monopolist's tactics for the other's.

Continuing on, I took a quick glance around the environment to see if there was any thing which is driving the masses to switch in droves to the new and cool platform. The calendar application, iCal looks very nice. The Dashboard thingy is nice but I don't know how to set it into a usable desktop background mode. Its default behaviour "returns" it to the dock- what's the point of that? I had been more or less avoiding it, but finally opened iTunes, Apple's flagship application. I was immediately assaulted by the expletive-ing billboard that appears for Apple's "chosen". It is definitely in the Real Player, Microsoft Media Player school of design which copies the television metaphor for both passive activity, and ad supported content. Really, that's it? That's the greatest thing since sliced bread?

But just for the sake of argument, let's say you can ignore its flaws and its blatant commercialism, and you just want to use it as another "unix" platform and adapt it for your intended purpose. OS X (Darwin at its core) is a FreeBSD derivative, therefore, I assume you should be able to use "ports" to compile new applications from source. To do this, the first thing you'll need is a compiler. I found that you can get the tools necessary from something Apple calls xcode. But to get that, you'll have to register as an Apple developer first. Its's ironic when you jump through that hoop, the payoff is the GPL licensed toolset, with the gcc compiler at heart. (It's not clear to me if FreeBSD has its own compiler, or also relies on the GPL toolset.) Obviously, Apple doesn't have any qualms about taking "free" tools, and not worrying about giving back- either in the spirit or letter of the law.

I've seen enough. There is nothing compelling and I'll be sticking with Slackware.

En guarde...

Do you trust your computer to keep your secrets? Your diary and your recipes are one thing, but your bank account numbers (and passwords) are another. So what if you lose a cake recipe, but what happens if your bank account is accessed without your knowledge? At least, some people are starting to realize their potential for loss and the potential downside of blindly trusting their computers:
.

Even though they've noticed, it's not clear that they're prepared to do anything about it. There is no real change in attitude. First of all, they could look for a safer platform to use that would help to minimize the threat. It's as if Ralph Nader were to write an expose calling Windows the Corvair of software, "unsafe at any speed," but his warning goes unheeded because, hey, I like that car...

Herbert's Commentary in NY Times

In my opinion, we're not out of this severe recession/depression yet. 10% (reported) unemployment is the elephant in the room. We've traded a big sector of our manufacturing economy in return for (initially) cheaper imports. It's a big question where the laid off workers will find new jobs or retraining in industries still in demand. Even in this economic climate, one area which has remained largely intact is our education system. An educated workforce is essential in today's knowledge based economy. Even though our primary education system can vary widely, and may not match the "Brady Bunch" and "Wonder Years" ideal, at least our university system remains the envy of the world. Foreign students have flocked to the US to receive a "world class" upper-level education. The economic impact can be beneficial for everyone. The universities receive tuition to import students. The student becomes an exported quantity back to his origin, where he can use his skills to level the playing field among all countries. But as the recession/depression lingers, our education system may get bigger cuts as state budgets tighten further. It's a nasty downward spiral, and I'm not sure we'll be able to "pull up" in time. Today's editorial by Herbert in the NY Times is on target.

p.s. Modern economic theory says that recessions/depressions are unnecessary. Spending and the money supply can/should be manipulated to keep the economy humming on all cylinders. This theory is showing some signs of breakage as politicians are showing fear of endlessly increasing deficits. The Keyensian model may work only in a vacuum, and under ideal conditions when more goods and services are necessary. What happens when it is not clear what should be produced? The common anecdote questions whether people should be paid for "digging holes, and filling them back in." It keeps people busy, but does it add to the goods and services that people actually want? The obvious flip side is paying for extended unemployment benefits. There is a lot of wasted labor built into the model already. Couldn't the US benefit from some form of "planned economy" where we get the goods and services we need? It's ironic we can pay for unemployment, but can't pay for teachers to improve our schools, or pay for workers to fix our failing infrastructure, etc. etc.

Update: 2010-08-09
Krugman amplifies the same theme.

Update: 2010-08-13
The radio show On Point discusses the potential for deflation and a continuing downward spiral similar to the Japanese scenario of the 1990s. I have read a fair number of Richard Russell's Dow Theory Letters, and he is fond of saying that the Federal Reserve's entire mission statement can be summarized as "inflate or die." Several of the guests on this radio program expressed their fear of deflation in the same way; they'd rather have runaway inflation than deflation. (This is why Richard Russell refers to all paper currencies as "fiat currencies." All national money supplies are subject to arbitrary internal manipulations, and all national currencies are competing against each other to stay in the same relative ballpark, lest trade be disrupted. National currencies are supposed to be traded commodities- allowed to rise and fall according to market conditions- but some nations are not playing the game; they are undervaluing their currency to prop up exports. In any case, the net effect, is still a race to the bottom for all paper currencies.)

GUI setup tools to configure Slackware 13.x's wireless networks

Here are a couple of screenshots which show how to setup wireless networks using the tool, wicd. This tool makes setting network parameters very easy and intuitive; and it does not require using command line tools. The tool/icon offers information about wireless networks in a way that is very similar to the tools available under other operating systems (Windows, Mac OS X, etc.)

.

.

The platform is Slackware 13.x and the window manager is XFCE with very little customization.

Where did I put the recovery disk?

Maybe you never got one in the first place.
.

Here is a misc. AC comment. Slashdot scored value of comment as "0" as usual.

Linux : A new kernel release

.

Linux kernel development continues unabated. I want to check out the btrfs filesystem improvements, because it looks like it is positioned to become the primary filesystem type in the near future. Currently, I use XFS, but may switch depending on the results of some performance tests using snapshots.

FreeBSD 8.1

This sounds interesting...
.

This could be important because FreeBSD has ZFS and OpenSolaris' future is somewhat cloudy after the Oracle takeover of Sun.

Perform OCR on PDF

This sounds interesting...
.

This sounds like a good addition to my fax to email utility.

More evidence that a smart grid is essential

We've already seen that power transmissions between states have low redundancy. Regional power transfers come down to a few critical links which can reach capacity, and can be knocked out when they are needed most. Does Enron and the 2001 California blackouts ring a bell here? Enron's blatant market manipulation took advantage of "deregulation" and a hot spring/summer along the Pacific coast to maximize their bottom line, but at the expense of power consumers. Add forest fires, people's willingness to pay for a utility/necessity and you have a "perfect storm" to gouge consumers to the hilt. Enron effectively set the cost per kilowatt on a daily basis. This worked (for a while) to pad Enron's bottom line, but eventually, the bottom fell out and along with the collapse, the truth came out: the blackouts had been artificially created, essentially a giant hoax perpetrated on the nation.

Almost ten years later, that same power grid is tied together in the same way. It is not up to transmitting power from decentralized sources from green energy. It's ironic that wind/solar farms have to be shutdown when demand is highest because there is insufficient power transmission capacity.

Here is Slashdot's headline.

p.s. This was an interesting broadcast about the aging power grid. Make sure to check the interactive graphic on that page. Note: this was a followup to story which appeared in National Geographic, here.

It's always interesting to watch movies from earlier eras, just to see how well they hold up over time if nothing else. We just watched the Elia Kazan's 1961 movie Splendor in the Grass. The movie is set in time at the height of the first stock market bubble/bust cycle, 1928-1929. The preacher warns early on,

Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust does corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

The audience knows that trouble is ahead for companies that get caught up in the bubble, like "Stamper Oil." Money buys friends and influence- as long as you have it. What looks like a sure thing today, is wiped out tomorrow. It's a good backdrop for the main story about high school sweethearts. The audience knows that 1929 is coming for the Stamper fortune, but will it be the same fate for the young lovers? This film portrays the pressures of this time of life. Their personal choices set the direction for the rest of their lives.

The film is notable because of the personal choices that director Elia Kazan made in his own life. His choice was to name-names during the red scare. That allowed him to continue working in Hollywood, and free to work with "A-list" talent. The flip side choice, to remain silent or to not appear, was not rewarded. A lot of great actors and directors, such as Jules Dassin faced the blacklist and exile. Kazan's choice really casts a pall over his entire body of work. It is especially noticable with the anti-union sentiments that are part of On the Waterfront. That picture suffers a lot more than Splendor in the Grass. Here, the great performances, especially from Natalie Wood, will stand the test of time. It is truly great and overcomes the negative points assigned to Kazan.

.
I don't know how Natalie Wood did not win the best actress oscar for that year. Perhaps, there was a split vote between her and Audrey Hepburn; or perhaps, the audience wasn't ready for a non-happily ever after resolution. Still, this may be the best female performance of the entire 1960's decade. Any other nominations?

Coming Soon: Last Patches for Windows 2000 and XP SP2

Tomorrow marks the effective "end of life" for Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP SP2. I hope you're ready for it. Also, the same fate will come to XP in toto in just four years (SP3 is its final incarnation). This is notable because Windows 2000 is often used at banks and other institutions. Hopefully, they've been on a fast track program to upgrade. However, that isn't all that likely in this economy and state of computer awareness in management. The truth is XP is so entrenched in business, government, and education, it will require major upgrade programs to be ready to pull the plug by 2014. Perhaps the feds can leverage extra support time for XP, maybe by playing a "monopoly" card. It seems fair, considering that Microsoft has enjoyed a monopoly in personal computer operating systems for the last 25 years. Perhaps, W2k's expiration will cause some alarm bells to start ringing. In the age of budget cuts, schools and government especially should look at ways to get off the monopolist's software, especially when a free alternative exists.

By the way, XP's approximate ten year lifespan is short by other software standards. The feds should have argued for twenty years of support in the antitrust case. Instead, they threw in the towel. I have agured that XP only gained enough maturity for general use at the service pack three level. That gives, in reality, about 7 years of useful life. (Of course, that depends a lot on your definition of the word "useful.")

A lot of users are still on W2k or XP because they wanted to avoid the upgrade treadmill, or because Vista had some big issues with compatibility and stability. It offered a new paint job and some new DRM restrictions - par for the course. It also moved the "furniture" around, as Microsoft is fond of doing. It certainly looks like a lot of fun to shuffle the deck chairs about! Of course, mac's got a lot of milage out of the vista upgrade fiasco. Here is the ad showing the "popularity" of downgrading to XP.

Here is slashdot's headline.

Photo Kiosks Spreads Viruses

It seems the proverbial mother's warning about "catching something" at a public restroom isn't that far off. Just substitute "photo kiosk" for "public restroom" and your computer has potentially caught a nasty Windows virus.

Here is Slashdot's
headline.

The summary raises some interesting questions, especially considering the quantity, ubiquity, and potential damage from Windows viruses. It seems reasonable to assume some protection is in place, especially when the sky is the limit (complete rootkit infection) when dealing with the Windows platform. A rootkit infection is within the realm of possibilities because these devices can be used to boot the system- a simple replay of the floppy disc attack of old. Unfortunately, today's viruses aren't as benign as the music bug virus of old.

Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work
It is just astounding to me that people expect to be able to "trust" their computers, but don't practice "safe computing." In my opinion, safe computing may require abandoning the Windows platform entirely.

Deep Water Horizon Disaster: NY Times' Henry Fountain interviewed on Fresh Air by Dave Davies

This is a very interesting background report on the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

According to this report, cost cutting is always an issue. The fact is that delays and their extra costs should just be part of the equation of deep water drilling. Doing it right should be tantamount, especially with potential consequence. "Hurry up!" and "This is our well. Do it our way, afterall we're the one assuming the risk." We now see that it isn't just a single company that must pay the price- everyone is harmed. Entire industries and ecosystems are wiped off the map. All the way along, no one speaks up for the consequences of pollution and long term damage to wildlife and habitat.

Good Planets are Hard to Find
(Steve Forbert)

Good planets are hard to find,
Temp'rate zones and tropic climes,
True currents in thriving seas,
Winds blowin' through breathing trees,
Strong ozone and safe sunshine,
Good planets are hard to find.

Good planets are in demand,
Clean beaches and sparkling sand,
Land masses with room to spare,
Jet streams and perfect air,
High forests and low wetlands,
Good planets are in demand.

And the mind don't know
If the heart can't see;
Let the blind man go
To his destiny...

Good planets are rare indeed,
Rain fallin' on crops and seed,
Big rivers and good topsoil,
Fuel sources from cane to oil,
Green gardens of all we need,
Good planets are rare indeed.

And the mind don't know
If the heart can't see;
Let the blind man go
To his destiny...

Good planets are scarce and few,
Earthworms and caribou,
Strong food chains and tasty meals,
Textiles and plants that heal,
Iron mountains and skies of blue,
Good planets are scarce and few.

Update: I found this acoustic version of the song that Steve Forbert made available at the New York Times.

Microsoft, the new IBM (minus the big iron)

Steven Vaughan-Nichols has an interesting take on the current realities at Microsoft. This echoes what I wrote in my blog here, that Microsoft's current culture may be too slow to adapt to changing market realities. The standard rule at Microsoft, "three tries to get it right" just doesn't cut it anymore. They did get Windows 7 out the door, but it's really a minor paint job over XP- just something to keep the monopolist's cash rolling in. Instead of all that wasted effort, they could have sold annual subscriptions to NT4, allowing "kernel" upgrades to Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc. Instead, they stuck with the sales/development model that they had chosen- the mind numbing choice of versions and the labyrinth at the heart of software assurance. It's hard to argue with success, but the money in technology can be a firehose or a dry creek bed. Where's WordPerfect's revenue stream now? Where's Novell's? The market moves on. Distractions, like marketing a new paint job for the OS every three to five years takes the eye of the ball- and doesn't lead to an overall market strategy. You can argue that monopolists don't need a strategy- that the money will just keep rolling in. That hasn't been the rule of thumb in technology so far. So far the repeating pattern is this: one company invents a killer technology and builds a dynasty around it; they continue to milk their cash cow- raising prices all the way. That leaves to door open for another new technology to come in to disrupt the status quo. Inevitably, the next company follows along the same track. Gates/Ballmer were powerless to prevent becoming the next IBM. Big companies are big, and carry a lot of inertia. It's hard to tell the guys with all of the money that they're just flat out wrong and on the wrong track. The Vaughn-Nichols article places blame at the top, and calls for Ballmer's ouster because that is where considerable mass/inertia is centered.

To be sure, all the tidal forces are going against Microsoft. Consider their slow release cycle, their high prices, their inflexible contracts, their limited platform, their 100,000+ Windows viruses, and (most of all) their stodgy leadership. Customers don't like high prices, especially when they are set arbitrarily high in order to meet the monopolist's agenda. Luckily, Linux was there to step in as a worthy replacement- winning jobs from supercomputers to Rokus, Tivos, and Androids. Microsoft's payroll is large; start counting the days until layoffs.

Windows CE vs. iPhone, Android
I haven't been a big Apple fan, but you have to give it to them for delivering products that people want and will pay for. A big part of Apple's success was that when Job's came back from hiatus, he had the courage to pull the plug on the stalled project to upgrade the Macintosh OS- the Copland project. This was replaced by Rhapsody which leveraged open source development and led to their successes with OSX and the iPhone. Android also leverages open source and doesn't have the monopolist's hardware lock in. Plus, with Android you'll get multitasking because it's Linux at its core. Compare this active development to the stalled "ecosystem" at the heart of Microsoft's handheld OS, Windows CE.

Update: Microsoft pulls the plug on part of their "shotgun" strategy and kills the KIN. Microsoft's successful products continue to fund a bunch of losers. Their philosophy seems to be if you put enough bb's into the air, a few will hit something. Good luck with that. Keep loading the shotgun and firing blindly.

Apple's Walled Garden

Apple is working to make their version of the internet snowy white. Their latest target is James Joyce's often censored work, Ulysses.

Here is Slashdot's
headline.

The "Mother, may I" saga continues. I don't think Apple has thought this through. Apple appointing themselves top censor is an echo to 1984 and "Big Brother is watching." That's a PR nightmare.

More practically, the job of censor is not easy, either. Could Apple be found liable if someone's delicate sensibilities are offended by some "approved" content? It's a slippery slope when someone sets themselves up as the be-all, end-all censor. It looks like excellent fodder for a lawsuit against Apple.

1. Find "approved" content that is "offensive." Shouldn't be hard.
   
2. Find a lawyer to take case on contingency. Shouldn't be hard- Apple has deep pockets.
   
3. Profit!!!
   

A better answer to Apple's walled garden is to warn the user:

• "buyer beware!"
  
• "It's a jungle out there."
  
• etc.
  

I think it's almost impossible not to offend anyone. First of all, some people are easily offended. This leads to a least-common-denominator that all content has to be fit for a preschooler, etc.

p.s. The Atlantic discusses Apple's walled garden view here.

Update 2010-06-16 : Apple reverses its decision.

• Developer: Mother, may I post my Ulysses comic?
  
• Apple: You may not! Wait, yes you may.
  

I'm just waiting for the moral police's knee jerk reaction,

"Look, there's a drawing of a penis! I'm outraged! I was counting on you protecting me from anything offensive. You'll be hearing from our lawyers!

Here is Slashdot's
headline.

This comment definitely earned its "Score:4, Funny" rating.

p.s. By the way, the New York Times discusses Ulysses being used by ATT in the 1950's to broaden the liberal arts education of their top managers. Most of the targeted audience had come to work with ATT via their background in engineering and other technical disciplines. Ulysses was the capstone to the program given at U Penn.

Apple : All things digital, if developers can run their gauntlet

This past week saw the latest gadget release from Apple, including version 4 of the iPhone. I read these related articles about Apple's strategy and how they continue to "support" developers who work on their iPhone platform. If you play by their rules, then there's a pot of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow. But there is not so much gold as heartache if you run afoul of the lords at Apple- read more below.

Molly Wood Neil McAllister

Apple = Microsoft 2.0
Jobs came back to Apple like a prophet from the wilderness. He brought them back from the abyss. I and a lot of other people had written them off, but they rose from the ashes by embracing a unified hardware/software platform, with hardware manufactured only by Apple. Their new software platform, OSX, is a Unix-based technology; Darwin uses FreeBSD at the core. You've really got to give it to Jobs! He saw that the BSD license would allow him to take the best of the technology and never have to give anything back, or only when he felt like it. And if you didn't notice, the days of anything coming back from them are gone. Now, Apple is widely considered to be the leading tech company, leaving Microsoft in their dust. Microsoft is the new IBM, the slow, stodgy company that Gates/Ballmer wanted to avoid at all costs. Too bad the DOJ didn't follow through with the planned breakup of Microsoft. As smaller, more focused entities, they'd be better positioned to compete now. There are very few scenarios where a unified Microsoft makes the most sense, and we're not living in one of them. (Coincidentally, the breakup would have likely meant more money in the long run for Microsoft's "baby bells".) For sure, the path that led us through Vista is not among those that make sense/money. It cemented the fact that Microsoft's software release strategy is much too slow to compete. It also left the software market as something that was "Microsoft's to lose." They've lost it, and handed off to a new incumbent monopolist: Apple is the new Microsoft.

But no matter the different origins, they're now more alike than different. Regardless of the messenger, Gates/Ballmer or Jobs, the message remains the same: Don't get in the way of the 900 lb gorilla! They're now both following a monopolistic business plan. Apple defeated Microsoft because Jobs has two big advantages over Ballmer. First, he blends in better, chameleon-style. Is Jobs part of the establishment, or anti-establishment? It's hard to tell, but either way, it gives him his second advantage, just "looking cool." No one thinks monkey dance boy Ballmer is cool under pressure. But Jobs, in his disguise, the wolf in sheep's clothing, gets to tread in territory that Ballmer can only dream about. Gates/Ballmer ended up in antitrust court over cutting off the air supply of a little upstart company, Netscape. But since Apple is not a monopoly (in terms of absolute market share), it is free to lock out the giant Google, keep Opera at bay, and not worry too much about any of the little guy's toes. Apple developers better be prepared to run their gauntlet- and on Apple's titled table.

One thing is for sure, Ballmer is monstrously jealous of Jobs. First, Apple passes Microsoft in total market cap- and size matters! Second, Apple has the total device lock down which requires the "mother, may I?" approval from Jobs that Ballmer could only dream of. And finally, Jobs gets to stand up there on stage wearing levis with a twelve-foot high backdrop appealing to "Developers" and he never even breaks a sweat.

Luckily one choice remains and is the last hope to avoid the one-vendor lock in and monopolist lockout. Monopolies have a limited playbook. Choose the infinite, open platform instead. Choose GNU/Linux.

NY Times Travel spends weekend in Salt Lake City...

...insert your own joke here. Hey, they spent the weekend and didn't go to Temple Square to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Instead, they mentioned Kilby Court and The Urban Lounge as top local music venues. I remember that Joe went to see Form of Rocket at Kilby Court, and some other now famous musicians like playing the Urban Lounge.

They went to Red Butte for their flower show, but didn't get to Albion Basin for their wild flowers? There really is more to do in SLC than this article implies, though.

In the news: Google outlaws Windows internally

This story came out earlier this week, and I didn't get around to posting it. Google is switching away from the Windows OS on all internal workstations. This isn't that big of shock because their 500,000+ server operations are already running GNU/Linux; the Android platform is based on a Linux kernel; and Google is poised to release the Chrome OS, a new GNU/Linux based OS. The Chrome OS will be optimized to access cloud-based resources and hopes to make the choice of the OS running locally irrelevant. In any case, the Google decision is good news because it shows that GNU/Linux is ready for prime time on the desktop. That may help reduce the Windows hegemony/monopoly. The reason for Google's descision to switch, according to unnamed internal sources, is the Chinese hack of high-level executives computers earlier this year. That attack, as I understand it, targeted specific individuals, and only succeeded due to use of IE6. Here is Slashdot's headline.

Here are some other very good summaries:

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Jason Perlow

Offshore Oil : Relief Well Requirement

Canada requires that a relief well be drilled along side new offshore oil wells. BP recently argued that they are not necessary because of all of the other safety measures in place which make a blowout nearly impossible. We now see that "unlikely" scenario unfolding in the gulf. It may be months until the oil well flow is stopped, not weeks under the more safe procedure where a relief well was in place and could be used to kill the well. Here is an excellent report with some background information as reported by Peter Overby on NPR.

Update: NPR's On Point discussed the spill with a variety of guests, including Robert Reich. Reich argues that this is an emergency which requires nationalizing all of BP's resources, not just the ones which are "economically feasible." For example, their entire fleet of tankers could have been deployed near the spill site "vacuuming" the ocean for oil.

Negative Publicity for Facebook Mushrooming

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Facebook has been delivering non-aggregated user profile data to its advertisers when users click on an ad. The mechanism is the so-called referrer page. Advertisers have been free to collect this information to build a sophisticated consumer profile to target in the future. However, the WSJ's report does not include instances of this behavior, but it is not the kind of thing advertisers would like generally known. This is usually covered as "proprietary methods," that one advertiser uses to gain an advantage over another. The WSJ's report is here. (Read it before Rupert Murdoch takes it down.)


To see the power of Facebook's internal API's that allow direct querying of user information, check this
graphic.
If I remember correctly, this graphic was generated by a single individual who used the documented APIs to query Facebook's database. It generated some discussion at the time because a lot of people thought it was an abuse of privacy, including the lords at Facebook who asked him to destroy his project and data.

Also yesterday, NPR's Science Friday joined the fray in nipping at Facebook's jugular. Science Friday has been an early adopter of every online community- at least, second life, facebook, and twitter. I really like the program and the podcast, but all of that "joining" has never been for me.

...Get a free T-shirt for your avatar in Second Life on Science Friday Island. I'm Ira Flatow in New York.

Note: The above includes some textual revisions from the original.

Big Love...

This week's Doonesbury includes a shout out to Mormon polygamy.

comic

Usenet...dying the death of a thousand cuts

First, the minor ISP dropped the Usenet service due to space limitations, then major the ISPs dropped it due to pressure from the US Justice Department under the banner of eliminating pornography. Don't be confused by that ruse; it's a sure bet that the RIAA and the MPAA are mostly behind that decision. Now, as shown in this Slashdot headline, the universities are beginning to drop servers,
here

It will be too bad if Usenet goes away because no matter the uses for bad, tremendous potential for good remains. It is a bastion of free speech and a vast knowledge store of the world's working knowledge on many subjects. For example, it has helped me many times when learning about GNU/Linux.