21-March-1999 [Artur Marques]
Today: #1) Kipling is risking #2) MS IE5 woke up Mozilla! #3) LINUX Mainstream? #4) INTERNET will RULE the world. Plus, the usual picture of the day.
Kipling a name on sports ware, meaning bags, backpacks, shirts (?) and other accessories, decided to launch a new line of products named "hackers". It is a damn unusual name, for that stuff, but they are already selling it. The problem is that Kipling, by using the name "hacker" had to explain what was their interpretation of it... which is "a computer expert who cracks the security systems of computers in order to steal or destroy information", as they wrote on their website.
Well, this is a very, VERY WRONG way of understanding "hackers", and the hacker community is furious and ready to fight back. I would say that there are only some weeks left, before Kipling has to close their website :-). Should be easy, right? Wrong. Again.
The thing is that Kipling is running a contest where everyone is allowed. The contest consists in BREAKING a simple security measure that consists in a pair of login / password. IF you find the login AND the password, you WIN Kipling stuff (from the "hackers" line of products).
This is going for over one week now, and NO ONE has broke the code!, despite +10.000 attempts, including BRUTE FORCE schemes of generating all possible combinations of logins / passwords, which are still running, the moment I write. The prizes go NOT ONLY for the 1st person to find the code, but to EVERYONE else who finds it, meaning that WHEN (and IF) the security brakes, Kipling might be offering hundreds of bags...
Bah! Enough writing. Go check yourself the www.kipling.com website, for all the details. Be sure to get a vomit bag by your side, for when you read their "hacker definition".
www.Mozilla.org somehow reacted to the launch of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5 and many websites' comments about Netscape being losing it. So, in the last few hours there has been much talking about some M3 Milestone software, still very buggy, but soon to be released, with "basic functionality" that will allow people to use it daily... whatever that means. Buggy code? Basic software? M3? Again, we must wait.
As LINUX becomes mainstream, the question that I've raised last week about "the 5 years window", is becoming more pertinent... IBM just said that "no one runs large MILLION-hits-per-day websites on LINUX"... sure IBM was not talking about OS2 WARP... but the thing is that LINUX should be prepared for people to open their eyes, look around, and make an option on "quit on Windows and today's most popular O.S. choices, now that they are becoming great", or "don't listen to the LINUX hype, and keep supporting what they've been supporting since 199x". People chose.
I have this Internet attitude because I firmly believe in the advantage of interactive media over today's passive media alternatives. Passive media, such as TV, must change a LOT, if they want to survive in 2-3 generations. I've recently exchanged e-mails with the terrible portuguese TV station TVI about this and I've received the most rude answer... basically telling me that I was only one stupid voice in the crowd, deserving to be ignored. TVI is really going down on quality.
Well, some solid proofs about the correctness of my opinions are finally appearing: in the USA, the Children TV Programmers are VERY concerned with kids not watching their shows, in order to go surf the web! Eh ehe he! Way to go kids!
Some years ago, kids arrived from school and went dumb in front of a TV watching cartoons. Now, kids arrive from school and go DO something on the Internet. With the EXCEPTIONS of SIMPSONS, BUFFY and HIGH INCIDENT, there aren't many shows worth our time... The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is damn worried about this, contrary to TVI... (I guess they have a short visions or short life expectancy)
This doesn't mean the end of passive media. The thing is that the next generations will be more multitasking, doing many thing at the same time.
IF there is just a single person interested in my e-mails to / from TVI, just e-mail me, and I will post them on-line (portuguese only).
There is a new picture of the day @ APAA.
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I guess no one watches it in Portugal, but Buffy, the Vampire Slayer is the BEST TV SERIES I've seen for a looooong time!, only second to Simpsons and High Incident. In Portugal it is broadcasted by SIC, every sundays, from... well they have this constant disrespect for timetables... but its ~4 p.m. The gal in the middle is the STAR of the show. It is Sarah Michelle Gellar... rrrrRRRrrrr... |