On March 29, 2005, Maui-X released "version 1.2" of CherryOS. It's only been a few days, but there are already some interesting bits floating out which I've added to the original The pits in CherryOS post.
Instead of making you wade through to the end of the evidence section I figured I'd include them here with some extra bits because it's probably the last time I'll write about this for awhile.
posted on March 31, 2005 at 06:52 AM
Your first console is always your best -- it takes your innocence after all, and everything after walks in its shadow. Thank god mine was the NES.
Mike Tyson's Punch Out! was one of my favorite games at the time, so someone passing on a clone of it over at Frusion's website was probably a bad idea. A really, really bad idea as the screenshot above shows. The Cow got his licks in, mostly because his name fit better than mine.
It was pointed out to me that if an eleven-year-old has his computer so locked down with parental controls that he's at the Dannon yogurt site looking for entertainment, the Cow completely monopolizing the top scores probably wouldn't do the kid's sense of self worth any favors. If you've got a few minutes to kill, and flash installed, head over to Frusion's Breakfast Brawl and shake the listings up a bit.
After practically shearing off a pinky toe for the umpteenth time by clipping it on a table leg, I'm more and more curious about whether or not there are any real problems with having them removed. I wish I kidding, but sometimes my brain just goes into these places.
I saw in my feeds earlier that Tim Bray is thinking about switching away from the Mac, and gives some fairly decent reasons for why he's personally thinking about it. Repeat after me: "If I wouldn't flame someone for deciding, for their own reasons, that the Mac is the platform they want to use, then I wouldn't flame them for choosing otherwise."
I think he actually gives a pretty good overview of where the pros and cons are in his personal decision making process. And it is his personal decision making process. What's interesting is I know he's not alone -- but not saying he's the majority (but what wouldn't the majority of the Mac base be not-OK with?).
There are quite a few people in the community -- people you've probably heard of -- who are much less 'enthusiastic' about being a Mac user than they were say, a year ago. It's not generally any one thing, more of a few things converging on a bad taste in ones mouth, compounded by other options starting to open up depending on where your interests lie.
I'll admit I can identify with where he's coming from, as I've also been finding myself contemplating it in a pretty serious way. I've avoided posting about it for a few reasons:
Every developer community has its "Doctor Who's". Faces who show up at all the conferences, always seem to have their hands in the cool stuff, and everyone in the know knows their name but not a whole lot of others do.
Jonathan Rentzsch is one of those people, and is a guy who wrote his own preemptive multitasking engine for the Classic Mac OS that benched in 400% faster than Apple's built-in Thread Manager for copying files. For Mac OS X, he created a solution to allow developers to do things they couldn't otherwise do called mach_inject and mach_override -- similar to Unsanity's APE -- and released it under the BSD license to be incorporated by anyone.
As a special easter treat, Rentz agreed to do the blog and let me pick his brain about a whole range of subjects including, but not limited to: mach_inject/mach_override software, WebObjects, Apple and enterprise, code optimization, programming languages, Core Data and even the rarely-discussed Mac software casting couch...
About 100 posts ago (2 months-ish), I posted about a local iSync vulnerability, and tried to give a reasonable explanation of what was going on as well as how to fix it until Apple released their own fix. I'm getting emailed about it because of a really fun usenet thread in comp.sys.mac.system, among other places (which are more amusing), that is linking to my post on it.
So everyone and their mother is passing on that Apple settled with one of the three Tiger defendants:
"Apple Computer Inc. said on Wednesday it settled its lawsuit with one of three men it sued for distributing test copies of the next version of its Mac OS X operating system on a file-sharing Web site.While Apple will always protect its innovations, it is not our desire to send students to jail," said Apple spokesman Steve Dowling. "We are pleased that Mr. Steigerwald has taken responsibility for his actions and that we can put this lawsuit behind us."
He also said he is the subject of a criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office and he is "working toward a resolution with the federal government.
Here's the rub -- most of you are asking things I can't help with, or rather won't. I can't and won't really say much about Doug, except to say that I'm glad for their sake they're able to put part of it behind them. He has a really fascinating story -- that I promised I wouldn't relate on here and won't -- but that one day I'd hope is able to be told.
I've never been a fan of Dan Rather -- out of the three big anchors, I've always been a Peter Jennings guy. And no, John Stewart doesn't count. It's not like I had it in for the guy, he just creeped me the hell out. Something to do with the eyes.
Amazing how many days can go by while I'm working on things for the site before I realize I haven't taken the time to actually put anything up. Sorry about that -- just pulled in about 20 directions, all of which converge on typing everywhere but the blog even though it's usually about the blog.
Having to grind things out on a few big things, but the above screenshot is a small sample of the next big chat which should be up this week, assuming the interviewee has a safe flight home. I've seriously abused this poor guy -- the chat is about halfway done, and as you can tell from the slide in the screenshot there's already a hell of a lot of content.
For various reasons, there's a coffee can with a small hole cut into the top of the lid sitting besides the front porch of both places I sleep.
Because it's pertinent, I should mention that the coffee cans are also filled with the leftovers of used cigars and cigarettes.
Snow does accumulate inside, as does a bit of rain... Basically, the lid is never taken off those cans -- they're just discarded -- and they're a good distance from the front door for a reason. When I left earlier today, there were some neighbor kids playing around the front lawn, or what's left of it. 30 minutes later when I came back, I noticed the can had disappeared while I was gone.
I thought I was losing it until I put together where it had gone, and even once I figured it out I wasn't exactly reassured. I don't know what they're planning on doing with it, but when I think about the havoc I could have wreaked at that age if armed with a large container of soggy cigarette butts...
Update: Found the can. And the contents. Strewn about the back of 4 adjoining lots, with spray paint thrown in for good measure. Unamused.
I added two more bits of evidence of evidence to The pits in CherryOS, one involving finding GPL'd code from another project (Cygwin), and one involving matching the code paths between CherryOS and PearPC:
'Profiling' the code paths of CherryOS appears to show it does... exactly the same thing that PearPC's code... even if they've changed some of the function names. If you stare at the below screenshots to see how things are connecting, you'll see it:The above is just an example, there's more at the source listed. (Source)
This one could get kind of confusing if you don't know what code paths are, so I wanted to try to break it down so non-geeks could have a better chance of grok'ing what's going on.
If you click to the right, you can see the 'random cat picture' from the Ranchero interview that wasn't used for the chat.
I decided against using it because I realized it was an awful lot of effort for a joke, and it needed more touch up than I wanted to spend.
Also, with the way my luck is lately some nutball would get it into their head that they'd actually taken an iron and an inkjet pattern to the cat and end up calling PETA (or worse yet, the other PETA). Now that it's just my loyal readers, no harm in sharing.
Speaking of nutballs -- to those trying to find the 'hidden code' in the interview (read the comments of the interview if you're lost), there isn't one. If -- hypothetically speaking -- there was one, it'd be there for my own amusement and I would highly doubt anyone would figure it out. (pinky to the mouth)
Every time I run into someone I want to do a chat with, and get an 'OK', I create a folder, with a series of folders within them, to hold various files and links and such that I'm going to need. They then go into a queue based on first-come-first-serve, how much research I'll have to do, and how often they compliment me.
The above screenshot is how disgustingly backed up on the chats I am at the moment, and to make it worse it doesn't cover the other types of things I'm working on, like roundtables or interviews with more than one person -- those are in their own folder.
I made a few changes to the CherryOS post, including adding in another bit of amusing evidence, making a clarification, and changing the direct download link.
Regarding the clarification, it involved the part about MacWorld running a feature on CherryOS that for all intents and purposes was just its marketing bullet points.
Someone at MacWorld rightly pointed it was an article on their website, not their actual magazine, and that 'feature' was probably too strong of a word...
The site wasn't doing very well for awhile there, there's a particularly large boom going on with the Cherry OS post and with it a particularly large wall of traffic that hit.
It's also been updated (and will continue to be) with new evidence and links. It should be fine now in terms of speed, or at least not so slow as to be dead. (do notice the collection plate on your way out, papa needs a new hard drive)
It's worth noting -- because there has been some confusion in my inbox -- that I'm not affiliated with the PearPC project. If you search the blog you'll find some references, including some where I guessed that CherryOS was just PearPC, but there was little real hard data.
I became involved because a developer of PearPC mentioned what was going on to Pieter Van den Abeele of Gentoo Mac OS -- ostensibly about getting Gentoo PPC running on PearPC -- who posted it on his blog, and then contacted me.
...which I'm assuming you already heard while I was sleeping soundly and recovering from the last big post. C-Net has the best coverage of this, so it's worth just reading about it there where you can get links to the papers and such. The comments from the EFF are worth a read. Clip:
The judge said that Apple can go ahead and obtain records from Nfox, the e-mail service provider to Mac enthusiast site PowerPage.In the ruling, the judge largely brushed off the question of whether the publishers were journalists and therefore protected from facing contempt charges for refusing to divulge sources under California's shield law. "Defining what is a 'journalist' has become more complicated as the variety of media has expanded," he said. "But even if the movants are journalists, this is not the equivalent of a free pass."
Recently I had some very, very disturbing news passed onto me regarding what's going on with the product known as CherryOS.
There's been a lot of buzz about Cherry OS lately -- since they started actually selling their product -- but there are some real pits in Cherry OS, and the people behind it (MXS), that aren't getting enough attention.
This isn't about nitpicking marketing claims, we're going to be breaking down some really uncool stuff involving taking GPL-based code from PearPC (among other projects) and completely false performance claims being used to get people to hand over their cash.
For DrunkenBlog's 500th post, I have an extra-special treat for my loyal readers: a chat-to-end-all-chats with Brent and Sheila Simmons of Ranchero Software.
Just about everything you could think of is covered, and just about everything you'd never think of is covered, too...
A year ago, when the blog was even more confused about its identity than it is now, I posted a short entry on a promising new HPV vaccine that was in testing and seemed to be remarkably effective.
About four months ago, Colby Cooper left this comment on the entry...
I just found out today that I have HPV. I need to know more about it, I thought I had the starting stages of cancer but thank God I don't.I'm still in shock that I have HPV and would like to know all there is to know about it. I think it would make it easier on me to come to terms and at peace with myself if I knew more about it. I have been very upset all day and I am also very scared.
The thing that upsets me the most is when the time comes and I meet that right man that I fall in love with and decide I want to spend the rest of my life with, I will have to tell him about the biggest mistake I made at a young age.
I would like to know more about HPV so I can make amends with myself and move on.
Colby doesn't know this, but for a good month he randomly popped into my thoughts almost every day, and his comment was in the back of my mind while I was writing the last section of 'Rumble Young Man, Rumble'.
As the months have gone by his comment keeps floating across my thoughts, although the frequency gap is starting to widen, which is why I'm writing this now.
God, I'm ready to go now.
The news on the Apple subpoenas got a little weird(er) today.
The last post had the New York Times saying that Apple had won -- yet the EFF's press release said no ruling had yet been issued. If you haven't yet read it, I'd check it out as it gives a mini-version of what went on in the court room.
I was a little confused by the conflicting data, so I asked an attorney at the EFF to clarify why so many news outlets were saying a ruling had been issued...
"Our press release correct, rumors of our demise were exaggerated."~ Kurt Opsahl, Staff Attorney for the EFF
Basically, they're still waiting on the decision which should come soon, and some people perhaps jumped the gun.
Update: Yep, the ruling has been delayed. It's looking pretty bad -- Apple's argument basically seems to be that only the websites they happen to give Press Passes to at MacWorld deserve traditional protections.
From the NYT:
Apple Computer Inc. can force three online publishers to disclose where they got confidential information about new Apple products, a judge tentatively ruled. Judge James Kleinberg of state court in San Jose, Calif., refused to shield the publishers from Apple's inquiries.Lawyers for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that seeks to protect civil liberties related to technology, sought the order on behalf of the publishers. "We're disappointed that the tentative ruling was a denial," said Kurt Opsahl, a lawyer for the foundation. He said he would appeal the ruling.
Awhile back I posted on the upcoming Cube CD for Macs (think Quake/Doom/Unreal Tournament), and went into a bunch of info on the history of the game, why I dig it and why I think the CD will be a cool thing for Mac users to have in general.
If you're lost, I'd start there first, but one of the main things I mentioned was that there were some real problems with the 'official' OS X build of the game.
My new main-man, Troy from ZettaServe, chimed in on what was going on and then sent me a build with everything fixed. He was also good enough to file some bugs, so hopefully this kind of thing shouldn't be necessary in the future...
I could have just posted the build and given you some instructions on getting the rest of the files and where things need to go, but it seemed just as easy to wrap it all up and post it as an archive so you can unzip and double click:
- Download Here (23.4 Megs)
While that's downloading, it's worth giving a quick primer so you aren't completely lost after you clicky-clicky... With the caveat that if it works it works, but if it doesn't...
I'm not going to be spending any time on it, but it should be enough to get you up and running. It was tested on Mac OS 10.3.8, and just a few machines.
I've been playing with Airfoil from Rogue Amoeba, which lets you stream any audio source through your Airport Express.
I have to say I'm pretty impressed that they got this out -- it's working really well, and this is very cool.
There's been a push in the BSD world lately to make over the logos. NetBSD is a good example of this -- if you check out their logo page you can see the old logo, and the result of their competition.
You can kind of see the problem -- the old logo had its charm but isn't something that would reduce down well, let alone slapping it on a box somewhere.
I've just come out of a major case of the flu, and it's nice to have a body temperature back near 98.6F. It got pretty high there, and due to everything I was working on sleep was in short supply.
The fever was unusual, but the pushing myself into a vaguely altered state of consciousness via stress and lack of sleep isn't -- I'm one of those children of the .com era that came to view crunch times, and sleeping in your office, as normality (I'm learning).
Unfortunately, every time I come out of one of these cycles the first thing I have to do is figure out who I owe an apology.
I got to hang out with a group of old friends today and compare notes, which was both surreal and cool. I hadn't seen these people for years, and some of the stories came up were things I'd forgotten about.
Headlight-tag was mentioned, which isn't worth going into that great of detail on... suffice to say it involved a group of people in the dead of night, involved you being 'it' when someone flashed their brights in your rear-view mirror, and I wish I could go back in time and slap some sense into us.
One story was brought up which I'd already left in the comments on tomservo ages ago, so I figured I'd throw it up here since I'm interviewing someone and making them tell an embarrassing story for posterity.
I will preface: I know I was a jerk, and it was payback for a joke they'd played on me which I won't give details on because it would just make me look worse. My practical jokes had a habit of being heavily disproportional to the original offense.
The below is from a post on secondfoundation.org, which kinda wigged me out.
I’ve just spent about an hour and a half going through the archives on DrunkenBlog and making PDFs of the posts that interest me. Even though it’s just going to dilute my iTunes library, I’m filling it up with various articles and lengthy pages from the web that would otherwise just sit forgotten on my “Bookmarks” menu.
I'm pleased to see Growl has a changelog for 0.6 and 0.6.1 up now, and it's also included with the .dmg. You can also keep track of what's going in via their ticket system, but hopefully the whole situation will improve -- on VT they at least actually said what was fixed in 0.6.1.
Affairs truffles are not mere chocolates. They are handcrafted chocolate shells filled with the finest real chocolate, fresh heavy cream and luxurious sweet butter. Some are laced with a liqueur, others with nuts, fruit, or fine vanilla.
The one pictured is milk chocolate and peppermint schnapps -- dubbed 'Mint Rainier' -- but there's a whole tasty selection. I'm particularly enamored by the milk chocolate, Kahlua and espresso blend in a dark chocolate shell, even though they're almost $3 apiece.
