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Corrections and Carrionifications
Blogs, Macs, PGP and Greene phlegm
Letters Roundup Welcome the postbag, the bag that's more irregular than it should be.
Network Associates neglect of PGP has prompted many of you to look for a Plan B, and there's a good selection in PGP dies of neglect - your alternatives
.
You just don't GET IT do you? You just don't GET IT? Apparently I almost GET IT, according to techno-utopian Dave Winer, which I think is far worse than NOT GETTING IT...
We're talking about the Cluetrain vs Dvorak row. Blog writers and blog readers have sent us comments about our perspective on this flame war. Read Blog Almighty! for more details.
And Mac users fly in with their views on our coverage of the G4 SPEC benchmarks. Is Mac performance: up to snuff or up the duff?.
Which brings us to a splendid miscellany. Read on for learned contributions to the IPv6 debate, Dead hippies, and readers promising to turn "red-faced" Washington Register bureau chief Tom Greene with phlegm. Geddit?
From: Robert Clayton
To: Tim Richardson
Subject: "The Lion's Share"
In an article in The Register I read this sentence:
"It is no coincidence, Geist argues, that NAF and WIPO have the lion's share of the market - 34.5 and 59.2 per cent respectively."
Technically, speaking, "the lion's share" is the whole thing - 100% -- not just the largest of several shares. I remember a quote concerning this, though I can't recall all of it. It went like this: "One quarter of the kill is mine owing to my right as the hunter, one quarter for my position as King of Beasts. The third quarter is due to [something I can't remember - I suppose a good web search will turn this up, but I haven't the time for that just now], and as for the remaining quarter, let him dispute it with me whomever will."
If you're not the one to whom I should have sent this, can you see it gets to that person?
Yes, I know it's nit-picky and pedantic, and goes against the popular understanding of the phrase, but if the public isn't told it's wrong, then how shall we ever get an informed public?
When we wrote about Intel's Skamania multihoming network utility we bemoaned the lack of a decent Windows equivalent to the Mac's Location Manager. Symantec abandoned its commercial equivalent, and we never had much success with the freeware Alphaworks IBM equivalent. But a reader writes:-
There is a 'network configuration switcher' available for windows, it's called Netswitcher, and has been around for ages. Works great too.
www.netswitcher.com
Regards
Gordon Lamb
Fullduplex Asia Pacific
Singapore
It looks just the ticket. The website promises " NetSwitcher will only require you to perform a REBOOT if you modify a parameter which needs a reboot to take effect."
Which reminds of the mad scientist gag: "Our experiments are harmless: EXCEPT TO THOSE WE HARM!!". Has anyone tried this? We smugly have Location Manager, here.
Subject: The reg hits the spot!
I was enjoying your "Windows now friendlier than Mac" page when I got to the
+/v8APAAh-DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC +ACI--//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0
Transitional//EN+ACIAPg- +ADw-HTML+AD4APA-HEAD+AD4- +ADw-META
http-equiv+AD0-Content-Type content+AD0AIg-text/html+ADs-
charset+AD0-utf-7+ACIAPg-
[etc etc.]
My first instinct was "That's pretty cheap, to take someone to task for using an email client which doesn't gibe with yours" - being a determined non-Outlook user on my home machine, I get these things too often to get excited about.
However, I have to hand it to you guys. It was a delicious selection from the genre. As you read on down the screed you find yourself quietly rocking
with laughter. What is it about this piece that makes it so wonderful?
Obviously humour is not meant to be analysed, but I thought the "drowning" atmosphere was nicely poignant in :
size+AD0-2+AD4APA-FONT face+AD0-Georgia+AD4APA-FONT
color+AD0AIw-800000+AD4-But I will not abandon my Mac...+ADw-/FONT+AD4APA-/FONT+AD4APA-/FONT+AD4APA-/DIV+AD4- +ADw-DIV
dir+AD0-ltr+AD4APA-
lost somewhere in the middle of it all.
And yes, ASCII is deeply beautiful any day. Register hits the spot!
James Minney
Thank you, James!
Re: Stallman issues Porte Alegre clarification
Thinks RMS comment on "The very existence of GNOME is the direct result of our ideals of freedom, precisely what the open source movement was founded in 1998 to reject. " is very very harsh.
GNOME was started because Qt in KDE, didn't support the licence that RMS and GNU thought was the one they should use.
If they had been more relaxed, perhaps the Linux-side wouldn't be split on KDE vs GNOME; but instead have one single KDE that everyone works for.
I wish RMS more open pushed GNOME and KDE to work together. (Which they in some parts already do, thought its little mentioned)
Orjan Larrsson
Subject: Barlow article
I read your article on John Barlow's thoughts about the future of the Internet and the DMCA.
I find it interesting that Barlow likely made quite a bit of money as a songwriter for the Grateful Dead in the 70s and 80s. He didn't seem to
have a problem collecting royalties on the sale of and airplay of songs he wrote back then, so why does he have a problem with a songwriter
collecting royalties for a song transferred over the Internet??
If he doesn't want to be such a hypocrite, he should return all the money he earned co-writing Grateful Dead songs (probably his chief source of income), something, i suspect, he would NEVER do.
I would also add that the Grateful Dead was a singular unique phenomenon and cant really be used as a blueprint for general use.
Just a thought.
Smashmark
I cannot for the life of me figure out why you guys keep referring the the HP-Compaq merger as the "Sircam Merger". I'm familiar with the email virus from a few months ago of that name, but I'm really at a loss.
Please, please fill me in. It's gotten so annoying that I can't read your articles anymore, for fear that my inflexible brain will explode in frustration.
Thank You,
Ryan Lynch
Once again, the name stems from our discovery of these extraordinary emails. ®
I am curious how the press perceive IPV6. Your recent Computerwire repeat set me to wondering.
Since you published the article, someone at El Reg likely finds the content at least passing of the 30 second laugh test.
I have tracked various measures of Internet size since before I motivated (ahem) Kirk Lougheed and Yakhov Rechter to produce BGP.
If I am the only one who finds the Computerwire IPV6 article bad for the state-of-the-world, I will be still.
The specific claim I have trouble with is that IPV4 will "run out" in 2005. I appreciate various administrative problems in the address space allocation. On the other hand, one measure I like is still small and not rapidly growing. See < A HREF="http://www.telstra.net/ops/bgp/bgp-percent.html" target="_blank">this.
The wide-spread use of NATs (at US$ 100 a go) seems to have both cut the demand intensity and slightly improved security at the same time.
My own pet model of Internet address space use gets to 50% at about 2015. I do know how silly such a claim is; it's just my pet.
My -- perhaps ungenerous -- summary of IPV6 is that it solved problems perceived in 1989 by 1993. It not quite ten years on from there and todays and tomorrows problems now look different than 1989's.
If my model prediction is anywhere close, IPV6 should be put out to pasture. Come 2005 we can start two years of design for IPV7 and still have a five year rollout ending in 2012. Plenty of margin for slip, as well.
Best Regards,
Len Bosack
Subject: Poor excuse for a "reporter."
"This is the same Xybernaut that sued an online
critic, Dan Whatley, in absentia and won a judgment of $450,000. Whatley
made a few disparaging remarks on a BBS, and was blindsided by the company's
legal beagles."
My Question to you:
Did you do any INDEPENDENT research regarding the above?
If you had, you would have found the Mr. Whatley made much more than "a few
disparaging remarks..."
Your face should be red!
My guess..., you will never publish a correction.
Subject: Hey Smart Guy!!
To: thomas.greene@theregister.co.uk
I will keep your article on Xybernaut and will certainly shove it in your
face after the company and the technology prove you to be the imbecile you
are!!!
Jmileolem
Subject: XYBR
If you do not think that wearable computers are the future for most companies,military,schools just to name a few then you did not do your DD.
XYBR owns over 500 patents no company can make a wearable computer without XYBR patents. When the time comes in a few years that wearables are main stream the patents alone will make this company a must own stock.So when you write for your paper try to be fair mention Bell Canada, Fed-X the pantents the progress on the company it would make you less of a chump that only writes negitave print.
Pam Danner
Subject: Wearable Computers
From: Guninpocket@aol.com
To: thomas.greene@theregister.co.uk
The day will soon approach, when you will eat those words. How stupid you made yourself look, wasn't this computer being used in Afgan.? YES, I was a reader of the Register, but no more. Not with the stupid statements that YOU made in the article. Your way of base, and time will bear this out. Maybe, the day will come, when YOU need somebody with one of these wearables, and I hope they spit in your face.
[Dr Janov! They're out of control - Letters Ed.] ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
