Half of our email server is smut

Somewhat amusingly, this isn't the first time I've come across this theory. Greg Lehey, senior developer at MySQL AB and a FreeBSD luminary, has been espousing it for a while now, similarly tongue-in-cheek I believe.

He even gave a presentation on the topic at the BSDCan 2006 conference in Ottawa last year (which is where I first heard it).

http://www.bsdcan.org/2006/activity.php?id=95

See here for a link to the paper he wrote:

http://citeseer.comp.nus.edu.sg/748350.html

(It's cited in academia--it must be right!)

Cheers,
Craig

Subject: Alternative HD format secures backing

Hello Tamlin,

"A NEW DEAL has been signed by two film distribution bigwigs in France to put out movies on a third kind of high-definition disc, called HD VMD - High Definition Versatile Multilayer Disc."

Gee... After VHS and Betamax, now we have Video 2000. A little bit too late and a little bit more expensive...

Would somebody remind me, please, what happened to Video 2000?

Cheers,
Sandor

Subject: XBox 360 may damage your discs

This has been known issue for a while. My friends got their discs scratched pretty badly with the box back when the 360 was released.

ms - knew about it because they were replacing the damaged disc without questions( either sending a new one or paying for the costs ).

You just had to call the support line. Worked like a charm most of the time.

Bug

Subject: "The CIA knows what we Google"

Regarding the comments about Google/CIA.

This is possibly due to link prefetching. When Google algorithms believe with a high level of certainty that the top link they have returned is what the searcher wants, they add a link element that instructs browsers which know how to prefetch (e.g. Firefox) to prefetch the page. That way, when they click on the link, it will load instantly.

Because the CIA site is on a secure https site, either their certificate had errors or the user has his browser set to report when loading secure sites, and so they must have seen this message.

Ian

Subject: Pix Alert

50% of our email server is smut, for sure. No matter how many times you tell a user you're running out of space on the email server, they just don't remember that when they see a smutty memo...

AZCN

Subject: bah

Those assholes are so quick to point fingers, but I'm pretty sure back in the clock tower shooting days, there weren't video games... let alone violent ones. While they're quarantining their children from video games, the kids begin to hate them for being to strict... then kill them in their sleep.

Violent video games are responsible for killing about as much as Pokemon and Mariocart are for making kids gay.

It's all about music and video games.. and their violence. I'm sure the reason they play those games, listen to the music and become delinquent doesn't have anything to do with the shitty economy and both parents not spending time with their kids because they have to work 2 jobs. Now the music and games are babysitters.

Maybe terrorists play GTA as well.

Mataroo

Subject: Video Games Blamed... Again

At first I was trying to figure out how people could be so stupid as to blame video games, and then I realized that they don't really believe it themselves.

Scapegoat all the way.

Regards,
Mark

Subject: Piggybacking Wifi tea-leaves arrested

What happens when I have a very fast connection at home and don't mind sharing it with anyone in the neighborhood? What if I just have it open (but still have secured my PC and my router) and allow any bystander to use it. My assumption is always that if people run their Wi-Fi in open Shared mode then they don't mind others using it. I myself and a bunch of my friends do so and we also use any open WiFi we can find on the road. Finally! we bandwidth doesn't "belong" to anybody..let's all share it when we don't use it.

Mat

Subject: Samsung the culprit?

I'm not really surprised that Samsung is not "disc friendly". Back in 2000 I bought a Dell Dimension 4100 with a Samsung DVD-ROM. It worked properly for like 1 day. Over a few months the drive's performance gradually became worse. About a year later it stopped playing DVDs altogether. Still have the machine. Drive still doesn't work. When you are in the 3rd world (Zimbabwe) there is no Dell customer support. My folks then moved to the UK in 2001 and they got themselves a Dell Dimension (don't remember the model). After a few weeks Dell technicians had to replace the drive. Guess what, it was a Samsung. They replaced it with another Samsung but that one's been working well. 2004 I got a Dell Dimension 4600 to replace the aging 4100 (Besides the monitor had been stolen!). Guess what it came with a Samsung drive. This time my parents sent a Sony Multirecorder separately as well. Good thing too. The Samsung fails to read some discs. Got 2 errors reading disc today and wasted a blank DVD. The multirecorder reads disc just fine. I wont even bother using Samsung anymore. It'll just raise my blood pressure. Then today on the Inquirer I read some Xbox owners are having a spot of hypertension too courtesy of Samsung.

Why I keep buying Dell Dimensions and why Dell keeps putting crappy Samsungs in them well never know.

Microsoft take note.

Robert Moyo

Subject: The vole forces piracy and then condemns

I've just fallen victim to the lovely system that is Windows XP's reactivation system after the addition of a new hard disk to my system. How Microsoft, after however many successful operating systems, can manage to create a system that will deactivate your system if you add two hard disks a new graphics and temporarily swap your RAM for a few days, i don't know. Although I am aware that the vole cares not for half my components since my first installation of XP pro I have maintained use of my original motherboard, CPU, memory, sound card, DVD-RW, and original boot HDD which qualifies as a near complete computer, and come on, even my grandparents upgrade their graphics card every once in a while. Would it take their servers so much binary effort to simply check my current setup against my original setup and not my last few?

When they employ such stupid systems to lock down us system builders or semi-enthusiasts, how do they expect us not to take advantage of BIOS hacks to install Vista minus the hole in the wallet. Their stripping us of what we legally purchased from them and then condemning us when in desperation we install their shit slow Vista without handing them more than the compensation we deserve.

If a small country caused the fury that the vole invokes they would have missiles and standing armies on route from all directions, maybe corporations should learn to handle each other as well as the world's governments do. Someone with power please gas the vole hole until they cough up the changes that we need to be made.

Lew

Subject: YES!

Now, just like the collossal f**k up when America and Europe established separate TV standards (NTSC and PAL), we can each have our own different HDTV standards! Corporate competition benefits the customers, right?!

FP

Subject: This article

LMAO! that article you wrote about the Pixart survey of 12000 PC's is funny as fook, nearly as funny as the squashed-nadgers-more-of-a-risk-than-flaming-testicles-with-a-laptop one a while back,

Thanks for the laughs,

Mark Choularton

Subject: No Snide Remarks?

Only a greedy, idiotic company would come out with a useless THIRD HD format, and you're giving them a pass?

Big fan of the French, eh?

Todd

Subject: Z-5500s

Ive had these speakers hooked up to an X-Fi card for about a year now, And they are simply amazing.

I havent managed to get the sub to distort either. I tried one night when the neighbors downstairs were up banging about at around midnight....

Turned up the volume to max (no boost) and turned the sub up all the way.

I heard dishes rattling in the kitchen. Needless to say they didnt make any more noise.

But as for quality, i would play BF2 and could tell almost exactly where someone was positioned even with me eyes closed.

Bob the Trendy Badger

Subject: Ever heard about Google Prefetch ?

http://www.google.com/help/features.html#prefetch

The browser prefetches the page that google think is the most relevant. It works with gecko-based browsers, not sure about the others.

You can find the directive in the results page source, ie:

(lesser than symbol) link rel="prefetch" href="http://most.relevant.url/"(greater than symbol)

I verified this using some packet capture software: if I look for Apple Firefox automagically sends an HTTP request to the apple site, same with my bank..

The CIA factbook links are https and if you click on them you're presented with a verisign certificate. If is was prefetched it could explain what happened to Mr Gryspolakis.

Regards,
Luc Dumaine.

Subject: Just a "simple" wish

Instead of working on breaking the new DRM infections, maybe those same hackers that make it so easy for people to get free stuff (and thus bring even more DRM down upon us all) could instead work on making Linux better for gaming. Gaming is the only reason why I even have Windows.

Kill off the reason gamers use Windows, and the gamers will quickly start converting their friends/ family to Linux. Example: I just built 3 computers in the past month, all have windows on them, but only because of gaming. All the other software on them was Free such as Open office, AVG etc... They all could have easily been 3 linux machines if it weren't for the games...

Rogers

Subject: INQ Wiki

Isn't the INQ the Wiki of tech news? I mean come on you guys are not always 100% correct in what you report but than again sometimes you are spot on. Therfore your just like the almighty crap wiki. Something are right something shouldn't be posted while others are so off the chart the person writing should be shot.

Mat

Subject: adobe linux

I've been waiting for this you know, if adobe ported their software to linux i would leave windows behind and forget it ever existed. Games? Sure, I could have a computer to play games on, I never play them on my work machine anyway. It has lots of RAM and CPU and memory bandwidth and nine hard-drives and a crap little ATI card for graphics. I've been messing about with linux and it's fine for office stuff and the web and whatnot but I'm into heavy duty video, audio, design, you know. I *need* adobe. I don't need windoze. But I do. Can we start a petition? Show adobe how many of us would buy, yes buy, the linux version. I mean, it's not as if I'm expecting them to put it out as open sauce. That would be so nice. B-)

b