The SSH tests in Big Brother fail when testing a commercial SSH server. A patch to fix the problem has been posted on the related patches page. The bug appears to have been caused by data being written to the socket before the intro message from the server had been read.

Amazon Japan is apparently offering a new service for users wishing to check pricing at the web vendor’s site. Shoppers can scan a barcode with their camera-phone and send it via their phone’s web browser to Amazon. They’ll be given a quote with the option to buy from Amazon, as well as comparable products they carry.

This is a cool use for camera-phones, but I have to wonder what it will do to the brick and mortar vendors. This type of service pushes well beyond the threat that Internet vendors first were, since it integrates their sites into real-world shopping excursions. Stores won’t stay in business too long if shoppers simply use them as catalogs; they’ll be forced to change their business model in response to this sort of thing. The first step will probably be some sort of attempt at banning or jamming the phones. Longer term options might include no longer stocking products that people are willing to wait to receive - those items most frequently scanned.

I’ve posted patches to a variety of scripts that are used to integrate MRTG results into Big Brother. The patches have been submitted to the various authors. I’ll post the full scripts shortly as well, and I owe Tobi Oetiker a brief description of the bbmrtg template for his site.

For while we talked about a service economy being the future. Property and assets would be less important as services took over. Instead intellectual property is the commodity. Newsweek has a story about Intellectual Ventures, a relatively new firm with some big names backing it. Their plan is to create a patent exchange by building a large IP portfolio that their investors can tap. Of course others can too, for a fee.

The buzz on the the topic of software and business process patents is building.

Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman at the University of Michigan have created some cartograms that adjust the maps seen recently that show the results by county in the 2004 US presidential elections. The maps make it appear President Bush had overwhelming support:

A cartogram shows the results were closer:

Slashdot has a story about the some of the concerns being expressed about the 9-year sentence handed down to a Virginia spammer. The prosecutor explains that the case was not just about spamming, but had a lot to do with the fraudulent nature of the business. The defendant was sending spam to sell products that didn’t work, in essence selling modern day snake-oil.

Firefox 1.0 has been released, and just in time for yet another flavour of MyDoom to be released, taking advantage of yet another IE hole. CNet reports the spread may not be as bad as it could be; apparently the authors didn’t take full advantage of the flaw.

With its growth in popularity, Firefox is sure to attract more attention from those writing worms. Interesting times are ahead as we see how well the open source community’s theory of “many eyes” reducing bugs survives.

I wondered how long it would take for comments to get entered, and what they would be. Now I know: about 6 months, and full of SPAM for online poker sites. Weasals.

I upgraded to MusicMatch 9.0 last week when I noticed 8.2 seemed to be leaving some stuff hangning around in the process list after exiting. 9.0 seemed to clear the problem up, but rips CDs at aobut half the speed, so I’ve downgraded again. I’m currently in the process of ripping my entire CD collection so we can mix some custom CDs for road trips.