bbanyc

17 ms·

121.
by bbanyc 7y ago
I've heard a story from an MIT staffer that the Morris worm of 1988 was first released from a public workstation logged in as username rms, password rms.
122.
by bbanyc 7y ago
On one hand, nobody should be encouraging RMS to continue in his bizarre offensive lifestyle. It's well past time he stopped treating women like garbage, and stopped treating men like garbage, and learned how to be a decent human being
123.
by bbanyc 7y ago
Agreed. The relatively clear terms of the GPL have been very hard to enforce. Do you really think someone intent on doing evil will be stopped by a couple of lines of text in the header of the source code? Who has ever been okay with ethnic
124.
by bbanyc 7y ago
In this age of software as a service, the FOSS model is obsolete. Consider the proposed backdooring of WhatsApp - even if I had all of WhatsApp's source code and set up an instance on my own server, would anyone use it? Why? How would
125.
by bbanyc 7y ago
The land grant act specified the aims for the funded schools would be "agricultural and mechanical." I believe Massachusetts was the only state to divide the funds between separate agricultural (UMass) and mechanical (MIT) univers
126.
by bbanyc 7y ago
I was there during the '00s. I'll admit my hostile attitude is partly sour grapes on my part, since I deservedly flunked out (otherwise known as getting a master's). But nearly all the bad press the lab has been getting latel
127.
by bbanyc 7y ago
Compare the over-the-top media hype around the announcement of OLPC with the overpriced, underpowered netbooks they ultimately shipped.
128.
by bbanyc 7y ago
Rigged demos are the Media Lab's main output, and have been since the start. Shut it all down.
129.
How to Detect Chef(joeyh.name)
2 points by bbanyc 7y ago|0 comments
130.
by bbanyc 7y ago
From what I can tell, it's Stallman who lacks empathy here. If he had ever thought about the impact of his behavior on the people around him, maybe he wouldn't have driven them all away.
131.
by bbanyc 7y ago
I believe Virginia Giuffre.
132.
by bbanyc 7y ago
1. The deposition that's been made public doesn't allege sex with anyone as it was in a lawsuit against Maxwell for trafficking activities. That's outside its scope. 2. I don't find Benford credible. 3. Minsky kept takin
133.
by bbanyc 7y ago
Minsky was a child molester. There's no way to defend that.
134.
by bbanyc 7y ago
When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
135.
by bbanyc 7y ago
When Ito turns out to have covered for some of Epstein's "customers", or to have been one himself, will you stop defending him?
136.
by bbanyc 7y ago
Weird that of all the institutions of the 2000s tech scene, only BoingBoing.net comes out looking good.
137.
by bbanyc 7y ago
It was lousy by my standards. But I'd rather not discuss myself any further, this thread isn't about me.
138.
by bbanyc 7y ago
https://www.businessinsider.com/mit-media-lab-personal-food-...
139.
by bbanyc 7y ago
I did lousy work there.
140.
by bbanyc 7y ago
I'm a Media Lab alum, sort of. There may be a master's degree with my name on it, but as I see it I basically flunked out. So I used to look back on it with bittersweet feelings of what I wasn't good enough to achieve. Now, t
141.
by bbanyc 7y ago
Even if everything Benford said is true and there were no other incidents, Minsky still knew that Epstein was pimping young girls out at his conferences and kept taking Epstein's money and attending the conferences for years afterward
142.
by bbanyc 7y ago
The world is a much more fucked-up place than any of us can imagine. I believe Xeni Jardin, completely.
143.
by bbanyc 7y ago
Why should we believe Benford? How do we know there weren't other incidents? Given Minsky's well-established long-running ties to Epstein, I don't think we can afford not to believe the allegations against him. I find it espe
144.
by bbanyc 9y ago
I remember reading that TeX uncovered a remarkable number of bugs in Pascal compilers back in the day.
145.
by bbanyc 9y ago
I wonder how true that still is. 10 years ago Wintel was the dominant software platform, now it's Chrome. (Which in my view kinda sucks, I prefer native apps to web apps for many purposes, but the market has spoken.)
146.
by bbanyc 9y ago
Cake had it right almost 15 years ago: https://youtu.be/QT1wOS1v97I
147.
by bbanyc 9y ago
compact != compress The easily confused names don't help with the obscurity.
148.
by bbanyc 9y ago
There's an even more obscure Unix compression tool of the same vintage as pack. While pack originated in USG Unix (System V and its predecessors), the early BSD releases contained a program called "compact" which used adaptiv
149.
by bbanyc 9y ago
It predates the LLC era, but this was how Disney bought up its huge swaths of land just outside Orlando to build Walt Disney World. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-disney-shell-companies...
150.
by bbanyc 10y ago
I wouldn't count Oracle out just yet. They're still much bigger than SCO or its predecessors ever were. They're also under the same management that built the company up from nothing, whereas SCO was a new management team that

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