OK, so it's 23:30 PDT. It's still technically Thursday. Heck, if I didn't have clear memories all the way from Monday to now, I'd swear someone stole a day or two anyway. How can tomorrow possibly be Friday?

Not that I'm not grateful. There were moments this week when I doubted my ability to survive until the weekend, or more accurately, my ability to survive in prison after being locked up for guaranteeing certain... individuals didn't make it to the weekend. Of course, I think it's justifiable homicide, but somehow the judges and juries never do...

Anyway. How was your week? Nah, don't bother, I'm not listening. This is HTML, remember? One way communication. Heck, I'm probably not really here. I'm actually the most successful experiment so far in AI, emphasis on the A and the broadest possible definition of the I. That's right, you're participating in a massively distributed Turing Test. How're we doing so far? Shall we play a game?

David Lightman: Is this a game or is it real?
Joshua: What's the difference?
David Lightman: Oh, wow.

Despite a certain amount of plausable suspicion on all of your parts, I'm neither drunk nor high. At least, not chemically. I do have a slight urge to giggle, although I don't know if that's exuberance or a desire to see Keri's reaction. Probably both. It's one of those nights. Minerva is humming along nicely without a hic-cough; so is Thor; the temperature is comfortable, a light rain is falling, and XMMS is serving up a bunch of high-quality music. All legal, I think. Pretty sure. Have to check... yup. So KML-WA, Mr. Valenti. Did you know a clinical study once proved that the only people who don't like Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell are psychotic? I didn't either, but I heard it recently in an interview... a web search doesn't turn up that study, but it did find a radio transcript that mentions a clinical study using Meatloaf's music. (Do I like Meatloaf? Well, sure, with a bit of ketchup. Oh, the music! Well, yeah. Duh. I'm not going to provide proof of my insanity on my own site.)

I heard that.

Well, no, I didn't. That whole one-way HTML thing again. But I heard you think it.

Ooo. Wait. Next song came up. Classical Gas, by Vanessa Mae (warning; the image on their page is, um, not G-rated. PG-13, minimum. You have been warned.) No comments from the peanut gallery, I like her for her mind. Well, her violin, anyway. Yes, violin. "Classical Gas" is Track 3 on a cd ("The Violin Player") which opens with "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor". With a rock twist.

Anyway. Computer stuff. Right.

Started playing a bit with the Beta of Mandrake 8.1. Not bad, once you get it going - and it'll be nice to have when it's released, since it has KDE 2.2, kernel 2.4.8, and all the latest goodies... but it wasn't easy to install. Four false starts from things that aren't quite right in the installer yet. Still, they've made some nifty improvements in the system itself, particularly with printer support and some of the "control panel" software. Definitely keep your eye on this one.

While I'm on the topic of Linux, go read this. An opinion piece on Linux.com, about the difference between Free Software and Open Source, and what it all means. Excellent article, very well written, and very lucid explanation of just what all of us "anti-RMS people" are mad about anyway. (For the people - you know who you are - who emailed me about my "attitude" concerning RMS, listen closely - PBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBTH!!!! There. I've sunk to your level of debate. Care to come up to mine?)

Something else I read today which I didn't agree with appeared over in Jerry Pournelle's mailbag today. The subject of the email is "Blaming the Victim" by a Scott McCollum of Texas. This email is so full of... untruths, mischaracterizations, and flat-out insults that I'm tempted to write it off as a troll - but somehow, I don't think so. I think a large chunk of people out there actually think that way.

Read the email to see all of what I'm talking about, but the short summary is that Mr. McCollum believes:

The only reason Windows is insecure is that "hackers" are determined to destroy Microsoft

Dimitri Sklyarov and all other hackers "run off of Jolt cola, Cheetos and bragging rights ("I cr4ckd adobez crypto wid my L33t code skIllz WOOT!")"

We should all feel sorry for Adobe; it's tough to make a profit these days, so who cares who they screw over?

Along the same lines as above, hackers are all lazy, adolescent kids mooching off Mom & Dad in the basement

Sklyarov's software and motivations are all about piracy

An eBook isn't a normal book

Not paying for a piece of intellectual property is always theft.

Now, some of this, you might be saying, makes sense. In reality, they're all wrong. One at a time, let's look at why.

1. "The only reason Windows is insecure is that "hackers" are determined to destroy Microsoft"

The reason Windows is insecure is that it is poorly coded. A bank vault which is left open is insecure whether the bank is ever robbed or not, and revealing the fact is not a bad thing. Granted, stupid adolescent script kiddies take it too far; full disclosure is a respectable security policy, but that doesn't give you the right to "root" someone's system in the pursuit of it. Nor is the release of a prolific worm a valid exercise in disclosing vulnerabilities.

The important fact here is that Mr. McCollum - and far too many others - are forgetting the concept of intent. A hacker is defined as someone who enjoys exploring the intricacies of computers, computer languages, sciences, or any other field purely for the joy of it. Not for their job, not for money, not for any sort of personal gain other than the sheer pleasure of doing something well. They do not do damage, they do not seek to do damage, and they would not under any circumstances "hack" anyone else's system other than as a joke, prank or other harmless dodge. That encompasses a wide ground, I know, and includes what some would consider illegal acts; rest assured that nearly all hackers are intelligent enough to prank only in ways that will not create problems for themselves or others; a prank pulled on Slashdot would be amusing, the same prank on Microsoft would be illegal. Hackers recognize this.

Crackers and script kiddies - Crackers, Phreaks, and Lamers - are different; they're out for bragging rights, and they don't care what damage they do in the meantime. In fact, damage itself is worth bragging about, which shows the sort of mindset attracted to Cracking. The movie "Hackers" was a group of kids who were mainly Crackers, not Hackers. In fact, the only movie I've seen which purports to be about "Hackers" and got it right was Sneakers, with Dan Ackroyd and Robert Redford.

2. Dimitri Sklyarov and all other hackers "run off of Jolt cola, Cheetos and bragging rights ("I cr4ckd adobez crypto wid my L33t code skIllz WOOT!")"

Well, we're clearly talking about those Crackers, Phreaks, and Lamers again - they're the ones that seem to enjoy the letter z and using numbers in place of letters, not to mention words like "kewl".

Hackers tend to get lost in their hacking, which leads to late nights, forgotten meals, and in extreme cases, a certain lack of hygiene. Hackers run off of the same thing gold prospector's run off of - a desire to see if the next experiment will be the big payoff. The difference is the miner wants room service, while a hacker wants only to see his (or her) computer do something interesting - not necessarily useful, just interesting. There is no life-long payoff for a hacker, it's like a drug habit - the payoff is the brief rush from completing a hack, not something you can hoard or spend. And we're using hack in it's correct, second definition; 2. n. An incredibly good, and perhaps very time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed. Heinlein described writing a couple of times as a bad habit; writers need their fix to get through the day. Well, hacking is like that - it's the best sort of addiction, because it doesn't leave any physical effects.

Well. Mainly.

3. We should all feel sorry for Adobe; it's tough to make a profit these days, so who cares who they screw over?

Please. I'm not like some of the people I know in the FSF and Open Source world, but let's be serious for a moment - it's OK for a company to screw over their customers? Really? Wow. Can I sell you a bridge in San Francisco, a nice gold one? No, I don't really have the right to sell it, but what the heck - you'd be the one getting screwed, not me, and you just said that's OK.

4. Along the same lines as above, hackers are all lazy, adolescent kids mooching off Mom & Dad in the basement

Actually, most of the hackers I know are older than I am, since it generally takes years to aquire the necessary skills and patience to be a true hacker. The best hackers are all considerably older than I am, although they mostly aren't "old" either. The prime seems to be mid-thirties. Will that continue to increase as the computer revolution ages? I don't know. It'll be interesting to find out. Crackers are young, and foolish, and stupid - but that has nothing to do with the Sklyarov case. Dimitri is a 26-year old father of two and professional software developer, not a punk kid living in his parents' basement.

5. Sklyarov's software and motivations are all about piracy

Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Dimitri's software has never been proven to have been used in a case of piracy, and I don't think it ever will. It's too clumsy for that. Individual copies can be made with it, yes, which is fine for the use of moving it from computer to computer or - maybe - loaning it to a friend. Widespread distribution? C'mon. There are easier ways; bitwise copies using any number of programs, diskcopy in DOS or Windows, dd in linux. No, all Dimitri's software did was allow for fair use of a purchased commodity - something which, just to be clear, is perfectly legal in Russia. Ain't that ironic? Consumers are free to make use of the products they buy in Russia, but not here. I think I can hear the Cold Warriors rolling in their graves.

6. An eBook isn't a normal book

Ah, now this one's interesting. The question is, "what is a book?"

Is it glue, woodpulp, and ink? No, at least not exactly. It can be, certainly, but that's really just the medium; it isn't the book itself. "Footfall" is a collection of words, a story, plot, characters, laid out in a certain order by their very fine authors.

Is it the words, then? No, not really - the words can be changed, as in a translation, for example. The book is still the same, the same author gets the same credit. So it's not the words.

A book is a set of instructions for the human brain, like a batch file is for a computer. When you "run" the "script" - or read the book - your brain follows the instructions, and things happen. Information is transferred. Thoughts are generated, and spin off in ways the author could never imagine, at least in the best books. Emotions are triggered by someone you've never met, and directly by someone or something which may have never really existed.

So, how does the fact that one book is on paper and another is on a screen make a difference? I didn't buy the binding, the glue, and the ink, or the dead trees. I bought the experience, the emotions, the sweep and grandeur of the plot. Equating it to the material it's written on cheapens the work.

And if the book is the same either way, then my rights and privelages either way should not change, either.

7. Not paying for a piece of intellectual property is always theft.

Ah, no. What about out-of-print books? Lost works? Given a bit of luck, copyrights really will continue to expire someday, and when they do, am I still forced to obey the arbitrary restrictions of the company which made the file - and which may no longer exist? Oh, right. I forgot. You like being screwed by companies.

Well, anyway, I should stop ranting now, I suppose. I'll see you later. Well, no, I won't, but... you know what I mean. <G> Good night.

Monday, August 20 - O(ouch)F(ouch)I(ouch)M(ouch)

Yeah, I hurt myself again. Joy. Saturday, I visited Dr. Patrick Chonzena, the chiropractor, and had my back and shoulders adjusted. (Remember the whole carpal tunnel thing? Not a problem since I started going to Dr. Patrick.) Normally, being adjusted leaves me energized for the day, slightly sore the next morning, and then much better for about a week or more - the "baseline" point, where I start thinking about making an appointment, is much higher than it was at the start, so I suspect that even if I stopped going, I'd be much better than I was for several months at least.

Anyway, one of the muscle adjustments involves what Keri calls "the Chicken Taco", using the thumbs to work the muscle fibers. Scar tissue and other damage heals itself any-which-way - which I knew from biology classes long ago in a galaxy far far away - and the most efficient (and therefore healthy) arrangement has those fibers laying all in one direction, along the longitudinal axis of the muscle (or "the long way".) "The Chicken Taco" essentially breaks the fibers that run across the grain, while more-or-less leaving the good fibers alone. The damage then heals, and a certain percentage run the correct way. Repeated treatments, then, steadily decrease the number of fibers running the wrong way. The only problem is that this hurts, especially on the first few treatments.

Well, that was done to my shoulders, specifically the trapezious muscles. When I woke up on Sunday, the right shoulder was stiff and sore - but hey, that's part of the game. It'll feel better later in the day, and much better later in the week. So, let's get some work done on the fish tank stand.

Boy, was that dumb.

I don't know quite what I did, although I suspect it was using a hand-held orbital (read: vibrating) sander on the panels of the stand. Whatever it was, half an hour after stopping my shoulder felt like it was on fire. Ice packs and linament helped, but this morning it's still rather tender and stiff, so I'm not moving very fast. Fortunately, typing doesn't move it enough to hurt, or I'd really be in trouble.

In other news, I released Beta 1 of Fido on Friday. As I said Friday night in my announcement, there be bugs here. I made sure it runs, that's all. I don't guarantee it operates as intended or at all, nor do I guarantee that it won't instantly delete your bank accounts, resign you from your job, email the contents of your web cache to your SO and send an insulting email to your Mom. (I don't think it will, either, but you get the idea.) Please, please, please send me bug reports. I expect to release Beta 2 on Friday, based on the bug reports I get, and provided there aren't any serious problems with that, the final version will be released the week after that.

In other news, there's yet another Free Software war starting. As seen on SlashDot, RMS (the leader and founder of the Free Software Foundation and chief GPL zealot) has attempted to take over control of the glibc project in what the chief developer of said project has described as a "hostile takeover". This has re-ignited an old debate over the "proper" name of Linux; specifically, RMS claims it should always be written "Gnu/Linux" because Linux uses the basic tools and system libraries developed by the FSF. The majority of the Linux community has ignored that, and rightly so.

The FSF is of critical importance to Linux, that's true. Several of the FSF's projects provide system libraries - like glibc - that Linux could not operate without. However, despite all of this, the average Linux distribution contains less than ten percent FSF-owned code. Critical vendors are important, but they don't get to put their name on the product. That's just not how things work.

RMS himself is one of my least favorite people, and actions like this one are the main reason why. He founded the FSF and created the GPL because he was, he says, angry at companies for taking away users' rights; software should be free, users should be free to use it, modify it, copy it, and redistribute it. Well, that may or may not be true; I take a more moderate position personally, but I can at least see the point and understand the logic, I simply don't agree with all of their conclusions. However, the point is that RMS professes to believe that freedom is the most important part of software, that anyone should be free to use the GPL software any way they like - and yet he is insisting on special conditions for the use of FSF software. He's determined to destroy any other software license. You either do it his way, or you're wrong. That, my friends, is not free software, no matter what label you try to give it.

On the one hand, I'd like to just take the positive - the GPL is, more or less, a good thing, and so are many of the programs the FSF has produced, and so are the many causes they support - and forget the negative. Unfortunately, RMS is becoming more and more negative and more and more controlling. Here's a hint, something repeated in the linked announcement - if you're a software developer, and you use the GPL, read it carefully. By licensing software with the GPL, you're giving RMS control over your software; the line to look for states that the end user and developer are bound by the terms and condition os "this or any later" version of the GPL. Which means, that unless you delete that line, RMS could add a line later which reads "all GPL software is copyright the Free Software Foundation, and all users must bow towards Cambridge, Mass. five times per day" - and it would be binding, on the users and the developers.

I've released two programs under the GPL; the first is a cheesy little app that I doubt anyone anywhere (including myself) is using anymore, I did it purely as a CYA measure when a couple of people asked for it. The second is a cheesy little program that I doubt anyone will be using - Fido. <G> In both cases, I used the standard un-modified GPL because, well, because I really don't care about either one that much. If RMS were to ever insert something into the GPL which would be considered detrimental to me, I'd simply take the distribution down and stop providing it. Someone else could, of course, but it wouldn't be me. In future, though, I think I'll use a modified GPL; one removing that damning line.