Tetromino weblog

Saw two movies this weekend, both excellent.

Firs, The Page Turner (La tourneuse de pages). Little pianist girl Mélanie fails her entrance exam to a music school after she is interrupted by one of the judges signing an autograph in the middle of her performance. Mélanie abandons her music career, graduates from high school, applies for an internship at a law firm, ingratiates herself with the firm’s boss, and gradually works her way to become a close friend of his family. And of course, the boss’s wife is the famous concert pianist Ariane Fouchécourt, whose ill-timed autograph made Mélanie fail the exam so many years ago.

You know that Mélanie is out for revenge. You know it will be something quite horrible. But Mélanie’s enigmatic smile tells you nothing; her actions — for a while, at least — are perfectly peaceful. So the anticipation builds and builds and builds. Mélanie measures out her punishment in deliberate, small doses, just enough to totally wreck the lives of her victims. The movie handles the tension and anticipation beautifully.

Plus, excellent acting, excellent music (apparently Catherine Frot, who plays Ariane, really played the music her character is portrayed as playing). Excellent movie on pretty much all levels.

Second, The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen). The movie starts in 1984 East Germany; Gerd Wiesler is an idealistic, experienced, highly skilled Stasi agent who truly believes in communism. Georg Dreyman is a playwright — ostensibly, the only good playwright in East Germany who publicly supports Honecker’s regime. When they meet, Wiesler begins to suspect Dreyman, down inside, might not be as good a communist as he looks; and soon, he is given an order to start spying on Dreyman. So Wiesler wires up Dreyman’s apartment with microphones, and starts listening, 24 hours a day. As the operation progresses, both Dreyman and Wiesler (listening in) become increasingly disillusioned with the East German regime: the government blacklists talented artists, a lecherous government minister goes after Dreyman’s girlfriend, and so forth. Wiesler’s role gradually changes from meticulously recording Dreyman’s life to protecting Dreyman from Stasi suspicion; meanwhile, Dreyman is completely unaware of Wiesler’s existence, and even of the fact that his apartment is bugged.

In all areas, it was a good movie. The one thing that bugged me was the correlation between weight and personality. The fatter the character is in The Lives of Others, the more evil he is. Odd symbolism, but it seemed to work fine.

Иногда жутко надоедает лазить в Таблицу символов и нажимать на Ctrl-C Ctrl-V по два раза на слово, чтобы вставлять типографически правильные и идеологически верные «елочки» и „лапки“. Недавно нашел линк на решение в двач /д/. Выглядит это так:

для винды (решение Ильи Бирмана — исторически первое, от него и схема раскладки)
для богоугодных иксов (решение Сергея Столярова)
для двораколюбителей (решение glee).

On April 27, the US Department of Justice indighted the founders of e-gold for

one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business under federal law and one count of money transmission without a license under D.C. law.

Essentially, e-gold’s crime was failing to invade its customers’ privacy, thereby potentially allowing American criminals to transfer money. Unfortunately, the company’s founders are American citizens, living in Florida and Maryland, so e-gold’s days look numbered. Unless, of course, the company successfully defend itself in court — but even then, the restraining orders and the costs of the legal battle will seriously hurt its operations.

So much for the old geek dream of an internet currency free of government interference…

The new x86-video-intel-2.0.0 driver (known in Gentoo as xf86-video-i810-2.0.0) does automatic modesetting: instead of relying on the video BIOS for a list of resolutions your laptop’s screen supports (which is always the wrong list on modern machines), the new driver reads the information directly from the monitor using DDC over i2c. Which is in theory better - unless, of course, your monitor lists the wrong resolution in its DDC.

My Dell Inspiron 6000’s flat panel’s DDC happens to list the following resolutions: 1920×1200, 1024×768, 800×600, and 640×480. The latter three do not match the screen’s 16:10 aspect ratio, so there is no good reason for them to be in the list. On the other hand, the list doesn’t contain 1680×1050 and 1280×800 (which are 16:10 resolutions that enable one to achieve better framerates on one’s puny Intel 915GM graphics card). With the old non-modesetting driver, one could use 915resolution to hack the video BIOS and write in custom resolutions. Unfortunately, there is, AFAIK, know way to modify a monitor’s DDC. Furthermore, the draditional xfree86 and xorg method of setting resolutions (Section "Screen" -> SubSection "Display" -> Modes "1680x1050" "1280x800" etc) no longer has any effect, probably thanks to the randr-1.2 black magic in xorg-server-1.3. So what is an Inspiron 6000 owner supposed to do?

By reading the past few months of the xorg@fdo mailing list and extrapolating from the information therein, I have arrived at a workable solution. Edit your xorg.conf to look something like:

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "Dell LFP"
        Option       "DPMS"
        HorizSync    31.5-100
        VertRefresh  58-61
        DisplaySize  331 207
        Modeline     "1920x1200" 162.00 1920 2020 2108 2160  1200 1201 1204 1250 -hsync +vsync
        Modeline     "1680x1050" 149.00 1680 1760 1944 2280  1050 1050 1052 1089 -hsync +vsync
        Modeline     "1280x800"  83.46  1280 1344 1480 1680  800 801 804 828 -hsync +vsync
        Modeline     "1024x640"  52.83  1024 1072 1176 1328  640 641 644 663 -hsync +vsync
        Modeline     "800x500"   31.33  800 824 904 1008     500 501 504 518 -hsync +vsync
        Modeline     "1024x768"  65.00  1024 1048 1184 1344  768 771 777 806 -hsync +vsync
        Modeline     "800x600"   40.00  800 840 968 1056     600 601 605 628 -hsync +vsync
        Modeline     "640x480"   25.20  640 656 752 800      480 490 492 525 -hsync +vsync
        Option       "PreferredMode" "1680x1050"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Intel 915GM"
        Driver      "intel"
        BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
        Option      "DRI" "true"
        Option      "XVideo" "true"
        VideoRam    131072
        Option      "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
        Option      "Monitor-LVDS" "Dell LFP"
EndSection

The first key point is Option "Monitor-LVDS" "Dell LFP". Without this option, the Intel driver will override any custom resolution you may have defined. You need to use "Monitor-LVDS" for your laptop’s built-in screen and "Monitor-VGA" for external VGA output. For external DVI output, it’s either "Monitor-DVI" or perhaps "Monitor-TMDS-1". Naturally, the Monitor-* option is not documented anywhere.

The second key point is Option "PreferredMode" "1680x1050". This guarantees that gdm etc. starts at the resolution you want instead of at the highest one.

The third key point is VertRefresh 58-61. The problem is that your LCD screen may report that it only supports 60Hz, and although you generated 60Hz custom modelines, some of them might actually have a vertical refresh of, for example, 59.97Hz or 60.002Hz, which will cause X to complain and fill your Xorg.0.log with messages like

(II) intel(0): Not using default mode "1280x800" (vrefresh out of range)

So you need to override the 60Hz to account for rounding errors.

Oh, and to create all those custom modelines, I used the highly useful cgi script at http://www.sh.nu/nvidia/gtf.php (C version).

Now, the next task is to figure out why the new driver gives me a 30% lower framerate in glxgears…

According to ABC, the CIA and Dick Cheney have been secretly supporting Jundullah (”Soldiers of God”), a Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist organization that claims to have killed hundreds of people in Eastern Iran over the past few years. For example, they blew up an army bus on February 14. According to ABC, America has been providing both money and advice to the terrorists;

money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the US Code.

According to USC Title 18 §2339A: Providing material support to terrorists, providing, attempting to provide, conspiring to provide, or helping to conceal,

any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals who may be or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials
[…] the term “training” means instruction or teaching designed to impart a specific skill, as opposed to general knowledge; and
[…] the term “expert advice or assistance” means advice or assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge.

for a specific terrorist act that resulted in at least one death is to be “imprisoned for any term of years or for life”.
But what if you didn’t help a specific terrorist act? Doesn’t matter, according to USC Title 18 §2339B: Providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations, providing, attempting to provide, conspiring to provide, or helping to conceal, any property, tangible or intangible, or service etc. to a known terrorist organization that has killed at least one person is also to be “imprisoned for any term of years or for life”.
And let’s not forget that according to USC Title 18 §2339C: Prohibitions against the financing of terrorism, anyone who “by any means, directly or indirectly […] provides or collects funds with the intention that such funds be used, or with the knowledge that such funds are to be used, in full or in part” for terrorism, or conspires to do so, is to be imprisoned for up to 20 years. If you only conceal “the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of any material support or resources, or any funds or proceeds of such funds” used for financing terrorism, that’s 10 years.

So why haven’t Dick Cheney, McConnell, or Michael Hayden been charged or arrested? The way I am reading the law, they are facing at least 10 years each, probably much more (given multiple charges and conspiracy). Oh wait, international terrorism is a crime only when it’s not in America’s interests…

I finally watched 300 yesterday. An odd movie. On the one hand — very competent acting, beautiful scenery, beautiful CGI, excellent battle scenes, people you are supposed to care about getting emotional, people you are supposed to care about fighting for justice, people you are supposed to care about dying… Yet somehow, I didn’t care. Walked out of the theater feeling nothing. Maybe they overdid the sepia tone and the slow motion beheadings?

A note about the historical accuracy: 300 is an adaptation of a comic book which was itself an adaptation of some Cold War propaganda. So I hardly expected 300 to be historically accurate. Indeed, it gets a few major points wrong. In reality, the 300 Spartans were accompanied by >1000 Spartan helotsslaves, and >6000 free Greeks from other cities. Most of the Greek army (including the 300 Spartan hoplites) wore heavy armor. The Persian costumes are equally wrong (compare the real Immortals with the film’s ninja-like version). Sparta was less of a marble-and-columns place and more of a thatched-roof village (the Spartans were excellent soldiers, but not architects or scientists). The Spartan culture was thoroughly homosexual (a Spartan man who did not love boys could be fined). The ephors were a town council, not a nest of subhuman ogres. And last but not least, given that the Spartan society consisted of a large population of slaves (helots) working to support a brutal militaristic aristocracy (citizens; in Sparta, citizenship could only be inherited), the portrayal of “freedom-loving Greeks” fighting an army of “Persian slaves” is a bit silly.
However, pretty much everything else is spot-on. Almost every line of dialogue is straight from Herodotus. Earth and water? Yes, that’s what the Persians really asked for. Kicking the Persian emissary down the well? Yes, that’s exactly what happened. “Come back with your shield or on it”? Standard Spartan farewell words. The hunchback? An actual historical figure. The messenger with the eyepatch? Yes, an actual person… I was pleasantly surprised that modulo magical critters, army sizes, costumes, and some major elements of Spartan culture, the movie is a pretty good portrayal of the events.

A note about the audience: the three guys sitting behind me would whoop and holler like drunk football fans whenever another head or arm got chopped off on screen. And they were not alone; I would estimate a large fraction of the audience came just for the deathporn. Now, the thing that surprised me was not so much the fact that all those people enjoyed watching death, but that they bought a ticket for 300 to satisfy their disturbing desires. You see, 300 anaesthesizes violence. You watch the CGI, but you don’t feel anything. Those fratboys ought to have rented something like Battle Royale or Reservoir Dogs… Most people just don’t have a good taste in movies.

upgrade NOW before your blog is cracked.

So, a certain Sergei Lunin decided to demonstrate his Illustrator skills. So he drew some apples. By hand. With pure vector graphics. Proof here.

I am awed, astounded, speechless. The dude is a vector god.

When I had found out about Lisp and started reading Paul Graham’s book, I had a series of bizarre dreams, including a nightmare where my mind was a buggy Lisp program that needed to modify its own syntax tree in order for me to wake up. At the time I thought I was going crazy. Well, looks like I’m not the only one to dream of lists and lambda expressions.

Cartoon Network places LED boards with ATHF characters in various cities around the country, as part of a marketing campaign. Some crazy paranoid Bostonian thinks the blinking ad might be a ter’rist threat and calls the cops. So the bomb squad comes in and defuses the blinking lights, while the internets laugh. At this point, the Boston police have a couple of choices. They could
A. reassess the ridiculous level of paranoia and the useless yet annoying security theater that have stifled American life for the past 5 years; or
B. arrest the Cartoon Network marketing guy for planting a hoax explosive device.
Well, guess which choice they picked?

This country is run by morons with no sense of humor.

Watched two Mexican-directed movies recently.

First, del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (Laberinto del Fauno). Most reviewers seem to be in love the film; it got 96% on rottentomatoes — an incredibly high score. However, I must disagree with the film critics. In my opinion, the movie is definitely overrated. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad film; it’s quite watchable. But it suffers from a number of problems. First, the bad guy, Capitán Vidal, has no redeeming qualities. He kills, tortures, refuses to admit mistakes, mistreats his wife, beats his stepdaughter, and in every single case where he has a choice, he makes a choice that would make the audience hate him. In other words, he is boring. As a general rule of thumb, interesting characters have to be conflicted; they may be evil, but they need to have an aspect that the audience could sympathize with. As it is, Capitán Vidal’s role was wasted. Similarly, the Doctor, Mercedes, and the guerrillas are pure good. Which, if anything, is even more boring. Then there is the needlessly repetitive motif — Faun’s horns, the arch at the entrance to the Labyrinth, the carvings on the wooden bed, the branches of the toad tree… Yes, we get it, magic everywhere, it’s not necessary to rub it in so much. How hard would it have been to come up with more than one visual motif for a 2-hour movie?

Then there is the magic. I am not sure how to characterize this — the magic failed to engage me. Remember Mirrormask? Girl trapped in a magical world, stunning visuals, a 21st century Alice in Wonderland, etc.? Same problem. I could admire the CGI and the costume design, but I didn’t feel anything. There was never any suspense. Never any feeling of danger (don’t tell me you felt the Pale Man had any chance of catching Ofelia). No emotions, from her or from the viewer. Just going from point A to point B. Of course, Faun’s third quest did engage me, but the first two? Meh.

Maybe I’m just desensitized.

Now, as for Cuarón’s Children of Men: that was more to my liking. Compared to Labyrinth, the basic idea is quite primitive: guy escorts vulnerable woman through hostile territory, encountering a host of crazy characters along the way. Yet somehow the pacing is just right, everything comes together nicely, and the movie Just Works. Plus, the movie is full of neat touches. There are constant references to today’s politics (a witch hunt for illegal immigrants, Homeland Security prison buses, detainees in black hoods, angry demonstrators chanting “Allahu akbar”, arguments over legalization of marijuana, tanks in city streets, etc.) There is the absurd humor: a Pink Floyd-style inflatable pig; Theo’s constant problems with shoes; Kee’s crazy names for her baby; today’s luxury car (Vel Satis) turned into a piece of junk; government-issued suicide pills, etc. And it’s nice to see foreign characters played by actors of the correct nationality: the Polish terrorist Tomasz is played by a real Polish actor, the Gypsy is played by a Romanian, and the Russian grandmother sings her lullaby with no hint of an accent. Oh, and people suffer and die. People that the movie makes you care about. This is hardly a happy-end Hollywood flick.

The only real downside of the movie is that several important characters — Kee, the hippie Jasper, the Gypsy Marichka — are pretty much flat stereotypes. And the dialogue is a bit clichéd in a couple of places. Fortunately, the movie moves fast enough, and introduces new characters often enough, that one quickly gets over the less-polished parts. Overall, I must say it’s an excellent film.

Looks like the Sharp Zaurus line has been terminated. From Open Embedded forums:

yes, we have to confirm that Sharp pulled the plug out
of the Zaurus line.
No successor model is planned, and the end of production
will be early February.
For sure we’ll continue with support, service and accessories
for the Zauri. Also there’re interesting other products around,
so the fun with mobile Linux products is definitely not over.

I think I still have my SL-5000D sitting unused in a drawer somewhere. I am sad to see the friendly little Linux handhelds disappear, but to be honest, I’m not surprised. The phone-less PDA simply is a dying niche.

My Inspiron 6000’s 65-watt “PA-12 family” AC adaptor died last week, after only 16 months of service. Its passing was not entirely unexpected; since about mid-December, it had become increasingly unreliable, sometimes requiring me to repeatedly plug and unplug it before beginning to charge. And the fact that it gets only 2 out of 5 stars on Dell’s spare parts page suggests that my problems were not unique. In any case, since my laptop is still under warranty, Dell promptly shipped me a replacement adaptor.

Old, broken (rev A00) adaptor	New (rev A05)

Notice the difference? The PA-12 consists of a universal power brick and a detachable power cord, so as to easily adapt to various countries’ electric plug designs. The power cord on the old adaptor was an actual cord, half a meter long long, and quite convenient to use. The “power cord” on the new adaptor is simply a plug that combines with the adaptor to form a single rigid unit:

As you can imagine, such a design is extremely awkward to use — impossible to get into tight places, takes up a substantial part of a wall socket or power strip, etc.

Fortunately, the power cord connectors on the two adaptors were identical, and I was able to use the old power cord with the new power brick. However, this does lead to a question. Did Dell go insane and switch to the idiotic, unwieldly rigid design for their new AC adaptors? Or does it only ship the unusable cord-less power cord to those who ask for service under warranty?

A bit of background: 2channel is a massive, extremely popular Japanese text-only forum which (like the karehas and imageboards it inspired) encourages anonymous contributors. Naturally, many of those contributors are total fuckwads. Thus, Nishimura Hiroyuki, owner and operator of 2channel, has been targeted by a number of lawsuits. For example, hiroyuki was sued by Debito Arudou back in April 2005. Since hiroyuki never showed up for trial, in January 2006 the court automatically awarded the plaintiff 1,100,000 yen. At that point, hiroyuki “disappeared”, court summons and legal letters went unanswered, attempts to garnish his wages were unsuccessful because apparently the guy has no salary (!), and so Arudou was left with nothing.

Now, today I found an article suggesting that 2channel’s legal problems might force it to close. More specifically: in August 2006, a “45-year-old Tokyo office worker” sued hiroyuki to get to reveal the IP address of some anonymous stalker who had revealed the office worker’s IRL name. Hiroyuki never showed up to court, so the plaintiff won by default. In September, the judge decided to fine hiroyuki for 50,000 yen per day for failing to comply with the court’s decision. 100 days have passed, hiroyuki owes 5 million yen, and now his property — a moped, computer, and the 2ch.net domain name — are in danger of being seized.

Note that I can’t read Japanese, but some kind soul on dvach had translated half of the article into Russian.

The article does not mention “45-year-old Tokyo office worker”’s identity. However, since Arudou is a 41-year-old professor who lives in Hokkaido, this seems to be a totally separate lawsuit.

One’s first reaction obviously is that the sky is falling, 2channel is closing, end of civilization is nigh. However, as you can see by visiting 2channel, the site is still very much operational. And there is now a second article on itmedia on the subject. Google translate and babelfish can’t make much sense of it, but I get the impression that the main message is that news of 2channel’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. This impression was strengthened by a brief browse of 2ch.net with Google translate.

Perhaps someone who can read Japanese could elaborate? There are absolutely nothing in English or Russian written about this topic. Is 2channel in actual danger, or is this all just hysteria? Or even a hoax?

Anyway, here’s the original Russian translation I had found on двач:

Перевод начала статьи.

Домен “2ch.net” будет арестован?

Как сообщает ZAKZAK, истец требует наложить предварительный арест на всё имущество администратора 2ch Хироюки. Сообщается, что арест будет наложен и на домен “2ch.net”.

Обновлено в 12.01.2007, 14:34

Сетевое сообщество потрясено! Как нам стало известно 12 января, на всё имущество администратора самого крупного в Японии интернет-форума, 30-летнего Хироюки Нисимуры, будет наложен предварительный арест за продолжающееся игнорирование требования о компенсации ущерба. Имущество, которое истец просит арестовать, включает банковский счёт Нисимуры, его мопед, компьютер и сетевой адрес его виртуального жилища 2ch, домен “2ch.net”. В случае исполнения судом этого требования, неизбежно прекращение работы форума.

В иске, поданным во первой половине дня 12-го числа, истец, 35-летний токийский офисный служащий, требует взыскать с Нисимуры примерно 5 000 000 иен.

Истец, обнаружив, что на 2ch запощены его настоящее имя и имена членов его семьи, а также домашний адрес, вместе с оскорблениями вида “отбросы общества” и “сетевой сталкер”, в августе прошлого года подал иск в Токийский окружной суд на администратора Нисимуру, с требованием раскрыть информацию о запостившем.

Нисимура в суд так и не явился, и в сентябре было вынесено предварительное решение с требованием раскрытия информации, но так как ответчиком не было предринято никаких действий, было принято решение о наложении пени в размере 50 000 иен за каждый день просрочки выполнения требования. Нисимура по-прежнему продолжал игнорировать судебное решение, и через 100 дней с момента вынесения требования пеня выросла до 5 000 000 иен.

Дальше пока лень переводить

I got the Planetes DVD set for New Year. Major first impression: the only anime — scratch that, the only sci-fi movie or series that I’ve ever seen — that gets spaceflight science more-or-less right. Weightlessness, changing your speed to change your orbit, decompression sickness, radiation poisoning, and effects of low gravity on the human body are all dealt with pretty realistically. The astronauts even wear diapers and urinate into hoses.

The series starts of pretty slow, but sometime around Episode 6, things really pick up and the plot starts drawing you in. What I’ve seen thus far definitely deserves watching.

PS: Russian->Japanese transliteration is weird. Somehow Mihalkov becomes Mihairokoh.

PPS: apparently, in the year 2075, people will finally start using truly open file formats.

Viva la Ogg Vorbis! Viva open standards! Perhaps our fight is not in vain.

Saw two movies in December that I forgot to write about.

First, Apocalypto. The first third of the movie — showing ancient Mayan society, wars fought with stone and wooden weapons, the famous pyramids being built — is pretty interesting. I have heard that it’s full of historical inaccuracies, but one hardly expects anything different from Mel Gibson. Still, it’s entertaining. The problem is the second two thirds of the movie, which entirely consists of a long, fairly boring chase scene through the jungle. A good guy runs, the bad guys chase, and after an hour the audience starts yawning. IMHO, there simply isn’t enough content in the film to justify the ticket price.

I also watched Notes on a Scandal just before New Year. Now, that is an interesting picture. Barbara Covett, an old, experienced schoolteacher, befriends her younger colleague Sheba Hart, with view to turning the friendship into something more. But it seems Sheba isn’t attracted to older women — in fact, her tastes run to 15-year-old boys… The whole thing is narrated from Barbara’s point of view; the movie hinges on the discrepancies between what the audience sees, the way that Barbara interprets the events in her journal, and the way the other characters react. The acting is utterly flawless. The only problem, really, is that Barbara, the main character and narrator, is an utterly despicable human being. Since the acting is good, Barbara’s flaws hit you hard. In any case, the film is excellent. Go watch it.

и наконец сняли старинные ограничения на разрешение спутниковых данных:

Теперь граждане и частные компании смогут приобретать снимки интересующей их территории независимо от их разрешения, а также определять географические координаты с точностью до нескольких метров.

Одним из главных последствий такого шага станет возможность легального пользования встроенными автомобильными навигационными системами, использующими карты высокого разрешения.

Короче говоря, добро пожаловать в 21-й век.

First, an interesting article from the Telegraph, dating from back in May, which I’ve only read recently. Apparently, the United States had ordered some $400 million of weapons and ammunition from Russia (!) to equip Hamid Karzai’s army:

Pentagon chiefs have asked arms suppliers for a quote on a vast amount of ordnance, including more than 78 million rounds of AK47 ammunition, 100,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 12,000 tank shells - equivalent to about 15 times the British Army’s annual requirements.

I suppose that given the choice between refitting the Afghan army to NATO standards, increasing American troop presence to combat increasing Taliban activity, and placing a massive order with Rosoboronexport, the Pentagon decided that the latter was the least painful option. The size of the order, apparently, caused a notable rise in the market price of the 7.62×39 ammunition.

The BBC has a pair of stories about the experiences of two families, Sunni and Shia, displaced by the fighting in Baghdad. I am wondering how the neocons sleep at night…

Jumping to a totally unrelated subject: Firefox 3 alphas are out, and the Mozilla hackers have started working on Gecko 2, which presumably will be the basis for Firefox 4. It looks like they are planning to integrate Adobe’s recently-opensourced JIT javascript engine, reduce unnecessary uses of XPCOM, and finally break some of the more braindead Mozilla APIs.

Beyond3D has a fascinating article about John Carmack’s legendary InvSqrt() function. Apparently Carmack got it from some of the Indy-era SGI hackers. I have always been amazed by the quality of the graphics that the (by all measures horribly slow) Indy hardware was capable of displaying. The answer seems to be that SGI had a team of genius coders.

Finally, for your reading pleasures, two classic examples of interwebs horror: Ted’s Caving Page and the Dionaea House.

McCain introduced a bill that would require sex offenders to register all their email addresses and screen names with the Federal government (or face 10 years in prison). Any social networking site will be forced to scan it userbase for these screen names and emails, and remove any posts by a sex offender. So if you are found guilty of urinating in public (that’s a sex offense in most states), you would basically be banned from the modern internet. Furthermore, McCain wants to force every “Internet social networking site, chat room, message board, or any other similar service using the Internet”, as well as every search engine, email provider, or IM server, to report any user-submitted content that may be classified as “obscene” under Federal guidelines. And if, for instance, your email provider does not censor your mail, it will faces a fine of up to $50 000 - $300 000 per incident (depending on whether the failure to censor is accidental or deliberate). I am sure this legislation sounds familiar. This is because China, the shining beacon of online freedom and democracy, also requires people to register their online identities and employs college students to report any “obscene” forum posts. Of course, the Chinese laws were widely condemned by pretty much every Western government. But that was before US politicians discovered that it’s election season…

Some other parts of the bill are also amusingly idiotic. For instance, using the Internet is now an aggravating factor when committing a sex offense, and will add 10 years to your sentence. That’s right, McCain thinks that molesting someone in real life is better than chatting then up online.

You can read the full text of the bill. It really is as bad as I am making it sound.

So it seems we have the choice between Hillary (who is campaigning for censorship to protect the children) and McCain (who seeks to destroy internet privacy to protect the children). This is rather like choosing which of your legs you want the government to chop off.

Вот никогда не подумал бы, что чекисты-коммунисты станут себя представлять, как демократическая оппозиция. Но сие свершилось. Некий ветеран внешней разведки Павел Басанец выступил на встрече бывших офицеров разведки прямо в Лубянке (!), раскритиковал современную политическую систему России как несправедливую и недемократическую, и предложил ветеранам-чекистам вступать в оппозицию и бороться с Путиным. Зал проапплодировал… Конечно, у самого Басанца идеи о том, как управлять страной абсолютно бредовые (социализм, национализация промышленности и проч. нонсенс) но факт, что бывшие гэбэшники теперь примыкают к демократической оппозиции довольно интересен.

Басанец вышел из здания своим ходом. И даже полонием его пока никто не отравил.

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