With a spare 5 minutes, I decided to try and run some X programmes on my G4 over our network from our Fedora box. All i had to do is run a simple command:

ssh -X username@domain.com

fron inside an xterm and when I started, forexample, Gedit, from the command line, a full GUI instance of Gedit popped up in my OSX session.

Oh My Word….

and I am writing this post in an instance of Mozilla, started from that same command line.

Everyone is quacking about Dvorak and his article about how Apple will dump OSX and start to sell windows becacuse it is a hardware company and it wants to sell more hardware. There has even been talk of them selling a skinned version of windows that looks and acts like OSX, but which will run all windoze apps because its ….windoze.

I can think of no worse nightmare. The end of the best operating system ever written, dumped for the worst operating system written by the worst company ever. Apple, relinquishing control of the platform upon which it delivers its apps, meaning giving up complete access to APIs so that they can make things work perfectly.

That will (should) NEVER happen.

Even if M$ promises to allow them full access to all the Vista APIs, Apple cannot trust them to allow this forever. It will mean the end of Apple as a maker of computers worth buying – for any reason. We will be left with building our own boxen and running some future version of Gnome, whicih would be nice, but now that we have OSX, why on earth should we want go back to un-slick Linux as our sole environment? I run Fedora Core 4 to do all my heavy lifting, and run OSX for ‘UNIX with finesse’. Should this happy situation end, I would be a very unhappy person indeed.

This idea is so offensive, so wrong, so dumb it beggars belief that someone would even come up with it….unless …. its possible.

If it came with the gift of the open sourcing of OSX, the display layer and everything else…that might make it more tolerable. This would mean that OSX could continue to exist separate from Apple, and it would probably spread like wildfire, with millions of people dual booting. Sadly, it might mean that all the big players would stop all new development for OSX, and pour all of their effort into this abomnible skinned Vista. The whole thing does’nt bear thinking about.

I am personally responsible for the sale of 8 OSX running macs. All these people, who have switched to Mac are over the moon with it. Clearly they couldnt give a fuck wether its a frankenstinian version of Vista skinned to look and act like OSX, but that doesnt make it right; Apple can increase its market share without thnking about doing this. And also it needs to be said; why do they want to increase their market share at all costs?.

All this from one speculative article….

And back to what made me start this, UNIX, X, OSX are just so cool, so perfect, look at what you can DO with it, especially now that Apple are in the mix. To give this up, to relinquish control to M$, and break the UNIX bonds…

That would be a sin. 

S t a t e m e n t   o f   P u r p o s e

BRING THEM HOME NOW! is a campaign of military families, veterans, active duty personnel, reservists and others opposed to the ongoing war in Iraq and galvanized to action by George W. Bush’s inane and reckless challenge to armed Iraqis resisting occupation to “Bring ’em on.”

Our mission is to mobilize military families, veterans, and GIs themselves to demand: an end to the occupation of Iraq and other misguided military adventures; and an immediate return of all US troops to their home duty stations.

The truth is coming out. The American public was deceived by the Bush administration about the motivation for and intent of the invasion of Iraq. It is equally apparent that the administration is stubbornly and incompetently adhering to a destructive course. Many Americans do not want our troops there. Many military families do not want our troops there. Many troops themselves do not want to be there. The overwhelming majority of Iraqis do not want US troops there.

Our troops are embroiled in a regional quagmire largely of our own government’s making. These military actions are not perceived as liberations, but as occupations, and our troops are now subject to daily attacks. Meanwhile, without a clear mission, they are living in conditions of relentless austerity and hardship. At home, their families are forced to endure extended separations and ongoing uncertainty.

As military veterans and families, we understand that hardship is sometimes part of the job. But there has to be an honest and compelling reason to impose these hardships and risks on our troops, our families, and our communities. The reasons given for the occupation of Iraq do not rise to this standard.

Without just cause for war, we say bring the troops home now!

Not one more troop killed in action. Not one more troop wounded in action. Not one more troop psychologically damaged by the act of terrifying, humiliating, injuring or killing innocent people. Not one more troop spending one more day inhaling depleted uranium. Not one more troop separated from spouse and children. This is the only way to truly support these troops, and the families who are just as much part of the military as they are.

Bush says “Bring ’em on.” We say “BRING THEM HOME NOW!” […]

http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

And….

23 February 2006
Stipe, Wainwright for anti-war gigREM singer Michael Stipe, Rufus Wainwright, Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Bright Eyes are among the artists who will take part in ‘Bring ‘Em Home Now’, a concert in New York next month to mark the third anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Billboard reports the concert will take place at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom on 20 March, with Devendra Banhart, Fischerspooner and Peaches also on the bill.
Proceeds from the concert will go to Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace. […]

Someone clever said:

It’s NOT stealing you fascist brainwashed cocktards! Stealing is me coming and nicking your car. To make a real world comparison, ED2k, BT etc… Is the equivalent of me making an exact duplicate of your car, without depriving you the use of it. So keep your real world bullshit comparisons to yourself.

Up the end of the 1970’s, the BBC used to regular pillage their archives for tapes and wipe whole chunks of shows. To fill the gaps in the archives, especially for their radio, they’ve used off-air recordings of shows. Copyright violation, clearly, that ultimately has proven beneficial.

What I find hilarious is the amount of stuff I’ve downloaded, that I’ve ultimately wound up buying. Had I not had the opportunity to do so, I would never have bought it. I own 200 DVD’s. A clear third were bought after downloading them first.

Reminds me of an old episode of a show called “Tales of the Unexpected”. It was from when i was quite young. This guy resurfaces his basement while his wife is away. His friends spend the whole episode saying “You buried your wife down there didn’t you? You killed her and you buried her.” For the whole episode, they’re on and on and on at him. Very much like the **AA constantly calling P2P users thieves… So at the end of the episode, what does he do? His wife returns, he digs a hole in his new floor, kills his wife, and buries her. He was brainwashed into it by his friends constantly badgering him. Eventually the lie became the reality.

You think that with the fucking industries saying we’re all pirates, that they aren’t basically causing people to say.”Well fuck it then” and fulfilling the lie?

And all you butter-wouldnt-melt-in-their-mouths types… You’re all fucking hypocrites. You ever taped a song off the radio? Photocopied anything?

Plus, all you hypocrites, care to explain how me taping a show off TV and giving it to a friend is ignored, but me capturing the show and letting the friend download it makes me akin to Satan?

From Digg

MPA press release provided to Slyck.com:

“Razorback2 was not just an enormous index for Internet users engaged in illegal file swapping, it was a menace to society,” said Executive Vice President and Worldwide Anti-Piracy Director John G. Malcolm. “I applaud the Swiss and Belgian authorities for their actions which are helping thwart Internet piracy around the world.”

“ The MPA and its member companies, working with the local film industries, have a multi-pronged approach to fighting piracy, which includes educating people about the consequences of piracy, taking action against Internet thieves, working with law enforcement authorities around the world to root out pirate operations and working to ensure movies are available legally using advanced technology. “

Somehow, it appears to me that they have totally lost the propaganda battle. Everyone that matters understands that copying files is not in any way stealing, and each time the MPA, MPAA, RIAA take down a part of a service, it acts as a vaccination to the services, causing them to become stronger and more resistant to attack.

These attacks. and the infantile press releases that accompany them are the death rattle of these dinosaurs.

There is a very good write up of this in the Evening Standard whcih I will copy here; in the mean time, take this from The Independent:

The new laws were largely justified by the UK Government as a necessary response to the terrorist attacks of September 2001. Commentators have remarked on the irony that the first challenge involves the City and has nothing to do with terrorism. […]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article346840.ece 

and this is a surprise to who exactly?